Husband has decided that it is very important that the next time we travel overseas, we should go to Emden, in northwest Germany to see where my father’s people come from, and then go to Debden, UK to see the village where my dad was stationed during the Second World War. He also wants to go to Edinburgh and other parts of the Scottish lowlands to see where his mother’s people come from. He has no dates chosen for when we will do this, just some time after we move back to Minnesota when I retire.
When we visited my maternal grandfather’s village south of Bremen several years ago I felt a real connection because I still have family who live there. My father’s people left Ostfriesland in the 1850’s, and any connections there are long lost. Still, I think it will be pretty interesting, although it is my understanding that the people who live in Ostfriesland are frequently the butt of jokes in Germany and are stereotyped as backward and somewhat hapless. It will be fun to see for myself. All I know about the place is that it is low, flat, there is water everywhere, and the inhabitants drink more tea per capita than in any other country.
Where do your people come from? Where would you like to travel next, time, money, and health permitting?
This weekend Husband and I are going to have a shred fest, disposing of lots of unneeded documents that we sorted through and discarded last Saturday. For some reason probably having to do with all the renovation in the basement, our housekeeping has really gone south over the past 18 months.
What with Covid and our busy schedules we have had very few guests over to the house in the past couple of years. Last Sunday that changed when Husband gave a cello lesson to one of our church choir members. The aspiring cellist brought his wife along, also a choir member, and we had to do a lot of house cleaning before they came. The dust was awful, and there were countless dog nose prints on the bay window that needed to be cleaned. We even cleaned out closets and brought lots of stuff to the thrift store. We also gave the basement a good cleaning now that the renovations are completely done. We were exhausted by the time we were finished.
We really don’t have a schedule for cleaning. We just do what needs to be done when we see it. I think that when we are both fully retired it will be easier to be more intentional housekeepers. Cleaning closets is pretty low on the list, but it sure feels good when I open the closets and see the organization and fewer things. I have the same approach to cleaning and organizing my desk at work. I have a far too grand, u-shaped desk at work that allows me to have stacks of papers that get bigger and bigger and still leave me room to do my work. You can see how ridiculously big this desk is.
I also have some odd figures that I have acquired over the years that hold pride of place in one corner of the desk. You can see them in the header photo. When the paper piles start encroaching on Moishe and Sigmund, then I know it is time to file things and straighten things up.
What did or does your desk look like at work? What is your decorative style?
I subscribe to my hometown paper The Rock County Star Herald, and was tickled to see the recent news that English students at the Luverne High School recently were named State Champions in the Minnesota Fall 2023 Vocabulary Bowl.
This competition was new to me. It is done on-line. Every two months, students are given access to 15,000 vocabulary words from various subjects, and study the words and take tests through definition, context, spelling, etc., also learning the words in specific pieces of literature they read in their English classes. After a certain number of correct answers, they are considered to have mastered the words. 100 Junior and Senior students at Luverne mastered 11,000 words from Oct. 1 through Nov. 30. They are on their way to another championship for Feb.1 through March 31.
I would have loved such a challenge. I was in every musical competition and speech tournament there was, but this would have been extremely fun! I would love to know if this expands their working vocabulary and if they use the words they are learning in their everyday conversations!
What extracurricular activities were you involved in during high school? What new or interesting words have you heard lately?Got any favorite words?
This week has been about theater. It’s one of those periods where I have to get a show ready, plus class, plus the real job, plus the everyday household stuff and chickens and kids and dogs and, you know… “Any Idiot can handle a crisis, it’s the day to day living that wears you out”.
I’m lighting Hamlet this week. “A Reimagined Classic” is the marketing tagline. I don’t know my Shakespeare, so I don’t know which parts have been “reimagined”. I know the script jumps over scenes, and it ends with Act 7 and it’s still 2.5 hours long. I recognize many well-known lines. And there’s some funny stuff in the first half. It’s probably not a spoiler to say everyone dies at the end. Being reimagined, I can use some non-traditional lighting and some color washes on the backwall, as well as color on the actors. Here’s a picture from my tech table, just to give you an idea, with work lights still on.
Scenic design by Erica Zaffarano, directed by Merritt Olson.
Paper tech will be on Saturday evening, meaning the director and tech people go through the script and coordinate sound and lighting cues so the Stage Manager, who runs it all, has everything they need. Sunday evening will be a full run through with costumes, sound, and lights. Generally, Monday will be make up, wigs, plus all the other stuff. It’s really interesting, the show can be really humming along, and then you throw all the tech stuff in, and the show takes about 4 steps back. As an actor, it’s just a lot of stuff your brain is dealing with besides lines and blocking (movement).
We had our first meeting at our new Haverhill Township townhall on Wednesday. Bathrooms! Running water! HEAT! And AC!
Our old townhall was basically a one room school. A wonderful place with a lot of character, but it was 100 years old. With no running water, and an outhouse… The only State Insured Outhouse in Minnesota!
I went to 4H there, I did one act plays on that stage, and my mom and dad met as infants when their bassinettes were put behind the furnace by their respective moms during Mothers and Daughters Club. A lot of history in this building.
At the college, I’m working on the set model for The Curious Savage, by John Patrick, our spring play. I also got the genie lift out and tie a rope up at the ceiling for the physics demonstration show Saturday and, since I had the genie out, I changed some burned out fluorescent lamps. I keep a log of when I change lamps so I can change several at the same time if they’re all on the same timeline. Some of these 8’ fluorescents have been going since March 2, 2015! It isn’t unusual to get 6 or 7 years out of them. I’ve got one set in the shop that’s been going since January 25th of 2012!!
When I walk back from class on the other end of the campus on the first floor, I walk up 5 floors, to a roof access door, just to get steps in, then back to my office on the 2nd floor. Written on the wall by the roof access is some pretty wise graffiti: “you bleed just to know you’re alive” and next to it, “Don’t forget you can live without bleeding “ And these: “The quality of life is determined by the questions you ask” – WB 2017 “If you don’t ask the questions, you’re never going to know the answers” – SF 2018
WHERE OR HOW DID YOUR PARENTS MEET? OR YOU AND YOUR SPOUSE? ❤️
I have two coworkers who plan to retire about the same time I do next year. We have worked together for 25 years, and have experienced the highs and lows and ridiculous moments that one experiences in a government agency.
Over the years we developed a motto to keep us going in our continued State employment until the time we reached the ages to get our pensions- “Just Soak Em!” Why, we ask each other, do we keep doing this? Because we’re going to soak em! We are going to extract every penny we are due from the State for all the hard work we did at wages much lower than in the private sector.
I suppose I will need a new motto for a new life that doesn’t involve my work. I will have to think hard on that. Luverne, the town we plan to move to after I retire, has the motto Luverne, Love the Life to encourage people and businesses to move there. Better, I suppose than “If you ain’t Dutch you ain’t much“, another popular motto from back home.
What is your personal motto right now? Think of new mottos or slogans for yourself, your family, state, or your community.
My children love to characterize me as being really rigid and fussy. I’m really not that fussy and particular, but they exaggerate as a way of gentle teasing. My post last week about Saying “No” gave us some some fun discussion about my parenting. I didn’t realize that they both read the blog on a regular basis. Son sent me the following You Tube video, which I find hilarious. He likes to refer to me as “Meine lieblings Mutti”.
I like their teasing, as it is gentle and done in good humor. My father was a terrible tease but he wasn’t malicious. There is a fine line between good teasing and bullying, though. We don’t have bullies in our family.
I have been teased at work by my coworkers the past few weeks for my smudging of our building and the sheer amount of smoke that I filled the building with. That has been fun teasing, too. I imagine it got tiresome for a former coworker to have it brought up on a regular basis that she had been caught speeding in a State vehicle by the governor. She always accepted it with grace and humor.
What do people tease you about? Know any mothers like the one in the video?
I don’t think there are many Baboons who work full-time any longer for an agency or some other entity. As a State employee I sure appreciated having yesterday off. I really needed a three day weekend. I didn’t get as much done as I wanted, but it was very nice to sleep in on Saturday and Monday. Sunday was an early day ringing bells in church for three hours, but it was nice to take a nap when we got home.
North Dakota still gives State employees Good Friday off. I don’t know if there are many other states that do. That means that I have another three day weekend in March. I imagined what other days in April, June, and August I could suggest to the powers that be to consider for three day weekends. May and July are covered already with July 4th and Memorial Day.
For April we could have the 23rd off in honor of Shakespeare’s Birthday. June 16th could be a day off for Bloomsday, as long as State employees read Ulysses aloud. August 23 would be a great day to celebrate the opening of the first one-way streets in London in 1617. The Transportation Department would support that one!
What Monday or Friday holidays would you like to see?
At the back of my grandson’s elementary school is a good sized hill that the children can play on. I suppose in the fall and spring they roll down it. Now that they have enough snow, our son went to Lowe’s and bought a sled, and they had a great time on Saturday sledding down the school hill.
The sled is blue and green and made of PET plastic. It is long and narrow. Son had a similar sled when he was growing up. We called it the Black Blaster. Husband loved taking the kids to the butte two blocks from our house that had perfect slopes for sledding. It was a great way to wear out active kids.
I had a wooden sled with metal runners that you were supposed to be able to steer, but I was never very successful at it. Luverne didn’t have may hills at all, and the opportunities for sledding were pretty limited. The best places for sledding were the piles of snow at the elementary school that were from clearing the play ground. When I was in Grade 6 that wasn’t even an option as the school administration banned all snow pile play after someone broke their arm in a vigorous game of King of Mountain.
I am really glad our grandson has a good place to sled. Son said there were lots of happy yells as he descended the hill. I will have to find out if the sled has a name.
What are your sledding and winter play memories? Ever ride on a toboggan?
It’s winter again for a few days in Minnesota in February. In Rochester we have a dusting of snow and we had 13 degrees one morning. Good thing I plugged in the chickens’ water bucket. I had to keep moving in my sleeveless shirt or it was almost chilly.
And at least we don’t have mud for a day or two. But now I have frozen ruts. Boy, I’m just never happy with the weather.
I am making satisfactory progress on the farm bookwork and even getting some minor stuff done in the shed. I replaced the dust collector chute on the miter saw (after a minor woodworking mishap broke the old one.) The new one is 3D printed!
That whole concept is really neat! I don’t want to get my own yet, but I’ve got a buddy who had made me several parts with his 3D printer.
I’m a hack carpenter and even with the best of intentions, things don’t always work out the best or like I thought it would work out. The worst part is feeling like I’ll be judged by better builders than me. That’s the part that hurts the most. I got some tin on a door frame and was able to finish the lower part of the steel on the north wall of the shed.
I still need to frame the window and add the upper steel on the North wall and there’s a lot to do on the East wall yet.
Spring will be coming. I’ve ordered 50 baby chicks due to arrive the first part of April. And I’ve got seed ordered, so I’m gonna need a place to put that seed. Usually, it goes on this wagon.
Anyone see a problem with this? I don’t know, last summer when I started this shop project, I guess I didn’t see this coming. As we get closer and I can get machinery back outside, I guess I’ll just have to put pallets down and pile stuff on them so I have a place on the wagon. (I don’t put the seed on the ground on pallets so I don’t get mice in it.) Maybe if I was a harder worker. But I’m also trying to decide HOW I want to put things back. Where should the bolts go? What am I doing with tools? I don’t like pegboard, and I don’t have the same wall space I had before. Maybe I need a rolling toolbox? Maybe I need the slatwall display stuff? I’m almost paralyzed with indecision!
Speaking of design choices, we’re going to have our main bathroom remodeled later this fall. We have a builder lined up and Kelly has been perusing the bathroom remodeling sites for months. This bathroom and the adjoining laundry room are mostly original to the house built in 1968. We’ve painted and done wallpaper and added a wall in the laundry room when we put on an addition in 1995. But the tile floor, and the woodwork are dated, and it is finally time. Kelly has been very patient. The plan is to take some of the square footage from the laundry room, move the washer and dryer to the opposite wall, and gain a little room in the bathroom. It’s all pretty exciting to think about. Before photo:
This is mainly Kelly’s bathroom. I have the mudroom bathroom and that was remodeled a few years ago as part of the entryway remodeling.
Years ago, I had a jacket I wore all the time. I wore it for years (it came with a free tractor!); it was comfortable and I liked it. Once day I misplaced it and a friend of mine said “oh, you mean that ratty jacket?”…and that was it; it was tainted, and I got rid of it. As I told him about the bathroom project he said, ‘When are you remodeling YOUR bathroom?’ I was kinda flummoxed. I just did my bathroom. I mean, it could use a cleaning… but… What’s wrong with my bathroom?? Maybe he meant the basement bathroom with the 1960 pink retro look. But I hear that’s coming back.
YOU CAN 3-D PRINT ANYTHING WITH ANY MATERIAL. WHAT ARE YOU MAKING?
Over the past month I have had to move from one suite of offices to another suite of offices three computers we use for psychological testing at work. Our tech guy has been instructed by his superiors that he can’t assist me with the move. He is only responsible for making sure the electrical outlets in the new rooms are working. He is allowed to help if we have trouble getting the computers to work if they don’t work after I move them and reconnect all the cords.
Well, it is the reconnecting the cords that is the challenge. I am proud that I was able to keep the computers and monitors connected while I moved them so the set up wasn’t too hard. It was somewhat of a challenge to make sure the speakers were set up correctly, since I had to unplug them for the move. I used a cart to make the move.
Now that the gas stove is set up and working again in the family room, I face the task of reconnecting the TV, cable box, DVD player, and ancient VHS player to one another and get them working. When we disconnected them to move them so that the carpet installers could do their work, I tried to keep the cords plugged in to the players as much as I could. We couldn’t keep all the things connected like I did at work. I fear I may need to phone the cable company, who is also our internet and land line provider to come and help with the set up, which they will do, but I hope I can figure it out on my own. I just hope all the cords are there and not somewhere odd in the furnace room where everything was stored and where we still have too much clutter. I also have to figure out how to clean the lens on the cd player in the living room. Uffda!
What has been your greatest technological set up challenge? Is it hard or easy for you to ask for help?
Trail Baboon 