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?
Today is a tough day for devout Roman Catholics and Lutherans in love. How do you celebrate Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday on the same day?
I suppose you could go out for a romantic dinner with the ashes still visible on your foreheads. It might also work to try to limit the number of chocolates you consume, or buy your loved one a bouquet of dead flowers. After all, it is the thought that counts!
Husband is in Bismarck today and won’t be home until late. The only flames ignited in our home will be the ones in the gas stove that is finally to be re-installed some time today. We decided to not attend the Ash Wednesday service this evening because we are heartily sick of church, having sung in the choir at both service’s two Sundays in a row, and having to play bells at both services this Sunday. I have consumed more than enough chocolate at work this week. Having Husband home safe tomorrow evening is a good enough Valentine for me.
What are some memorable Valentine’s Days in the past for you? How did your Elementary SchoolobserveValentine’s Day?
I have never really had trouble saying “No” to people. I was a pretty strict parent, and I don’t often find myself doing things with or for people that I don’t want to. Husband is pretty different, as he is the oldest child in his family and since he has been small has catered to others. When his younger sister was still in a play pen, he took it as his job to retrieve all the toys she threw out of her play pen. It became quite a game for her, I understand. He just kept retrieving the toys, though.
When our children were young and were home and bored, Husband couldn’t stand it if they looked unhappy, and was always rescuing them from their boredom and devising things for them to do. This used to drive me crazy, as I was worried they would never learn to entertain themselves. I guess that is due to my experiences as an only child, since I always had to entertain myself.
Our Cesky Terrier, Kyrill, is a lovely and affectionate boy who is really spoiled. He has pegged Husband as an easy mark for constant play and cossetting. Kyrill goes up to Husband and sits at his feet and whines. Husband can’t standi it, and finds things for the dog to do, or else gets him a snack of ice cubes. The dog loves ice cubes. The dog knows better than to try it with me. I have to admit, though, that no matter how often I tell Kyrill that I am done tugging with him, I invariably end up tugging with him again. After that I say “Go to Daddy”, and the dog takes his tug over to Husband and they tug. It is nice to have a partner who takes care of me, too, although I think I am taking advantage of Husband’s weaknesses!
What creature(s) do have trouble setting limits with? How do you and your siblings get along these days?
Somehow and rather mysteriously over the past couple of ayears at my work I ceased to be called Renee and now I am referred to as Dr. B It is not something I particularly like, and in some ways I find it sort of dehumanizing, but it is what it is and I just respond when I am addressed. It isn’t the worst sort of nickname to have I guess.
Growing up in Luverne there were several guys my dad knew who had nicknames. Clarence Thone, the junkman, was called Abie, which was meant to be a slight since junkmen in literature and popular culture were often Jewish. One of the local mail carriers was called Ippy Olson. Ippy wasn’t his real name. I never knew what his real name was. I asked my mom whey he was called that and she just said “Oh, he is a real Ippy”. I never figured that one out. Then there was Skinny Kiebach. He was pretty thin. Soft Water Frakes was called that to distinguish him from his cousin, Marion. He owned a water softening business. Marion was a building contractor.
Husband has the nicknames of Kiffey or Dazzle. A good friend of mine is know to the world as Toots, when her real name is Denelle. I don’t know why we just can’t leave people with the names they were given to start out with.
Did you ever have a nickname? What are some of the best nicknames you have heard?
Last April when our 5 year old grandson was stranded at our house for three weeks due to the weather, I took it upon myself to teach him some very important life skills, namely, how to make funny noises.
I don’t know why I think these are important skills, but he has really enjoyed trying to perfect them. When we visited him and his parents after Christmas this year, he proudly showed me how he could snap his fingers. He also learned how to make the loud popping noise you can make with your little finger on the inside of your mouth and lips. He is starting to whistle. He has yet to figure out how to make the trilling/purring noise that sounds like a motor by vibrating your tongue against your front teeth.
My father loved making funny noises, especially bird noises to confuse small children and pets, making them think there was a small bird in the vicinity. I don’t know if noise making is encouraged in other families, but it sure is important in my family.
What important things did you learn from grandparents or other older relatives? What funny noises are you proficient making?
The last time I said “I think I’m the only person left in America who hasn’t had covid” I should have knocked on wood.
Went to a party on a Saturday night 10 days ago and had a great time, met up with some current and former neighbors for a 70th birthday celebration for a friend. Good food, drink, company. Had a wonderful time.
On Tuesday morning as I was starting to get ready to go to the art museum, one of my Saturday night friends texted a group of us saying that she had covid and was pretty sick. Even though I felt fine I thought it would be the responsible thing to do to test before I went on a tour at the museum. And there it was… a big pink “T” line. I’ve taken a lot of tests since the beginning of pandemic and I’ve never gotten the “T” line before. Shocking. The good news is that I am still asymptomatic so all those jabs did pay off.
The bad news is that I’m feeling sorry for myself – although I’m not sure why. Except for cancelling my museum tour with my friend at the last minute, I haven’t really done anything differently the last week. Thank goodness for the Target pick-up, the Aldis pick-up, the post office drive through and the library drop box. I did send YA to the library to pick up a book for me on Friday so I wouldn’t have to go in. YA is avoiding me like… dare I say “the plague” and seems fine so far. I’ve done stuff around the house, read a lot, worked in my studio, labored on a 1000-piece jigsaw of a dragon in a “dragon forge cave” (it’s a doozy) and binge-watched the Colombo marathon on Sunday. I’m not sure why I’m feeling weird about this… but it does feel like the first couple of weeks of pandemic when I remember feeling trapped in the house.
As of yesterday, still positive but the “T” line was very faint so I expect in the next 48 hours I’ll be clear and free to break out and roam the neighborhood again. I’ll have to shut the pity party down.
I love crossword puzzles. I subscribe to the New York Times online, and get their crossword puzzles all week as well as the one in the New Yorker each edition.
I hope none of you think of me as a cheater, but I feel it entirely within my rights to look up crossword clues on line. Given the number of sites I see for just this purpose, there must be many like me. I view these puzzles as research projects, not as measures of my intellectual acumen. It is so satisfying when they are completed and correct!
Today would be my mother’s 100th birthday. She didn’t mind bending the rules at all! She got secretly married at 19 against the 1942 rules of Mankato State that students couldn’t be married. Ha! She showed them!
What are your favorite puzzles to solve?When do you bend the rules?
I am not a really neat and organized person when it comes to putting away books, recipes, and media such as LP’s and CD’s. I will eventually get around to to when the volume of clutter starts to bother me. Husband, on the other hand has taken it upon himself to be the archivist, reveling in putting things way alphabetically and with similar content. It has got to the point that he doesn’t want me to search for recipes in the binders he has created, insisting that he get them and put them back. He has them organized just so, with the categories just the way he wants them.
It has been quite hard to have all our books in boxes in the furnace room while we wait for the mitigation company to send the guys to put the basement furniture back where it belongs. They said they would be at the house on Monday, but didn’t show up. I plan to send a pitiable text to the foreman pleading with him to speed things up. The bookshelves are behind a bunch of other heavy furniture so we couldn’t get to them and move them if we wanted. We are going to dust off every book before it goes back on she shelf. There are a lot of preliminaries before the archivist can get to work and arrange the books to his liking. I don’ t know what his plan is for organizing them on the shelves, but I am sure that whatever he comes up with will make sense to him, at least, but not necessarily to me.
What job would you want if you worked in a library? Tell about the best library you ever visited.
Yesterday YA had to leave her car at the dealership for a recall of some sort so I picked her up there and delivered her to the office. When we pulled up, the front parking area was blocked off on both sides. This, in and of itself, isn’t too extraordinary. The building in which the travel division resides is also the “client building” and occasionally the front will be blocked off for a client arrival (which is usually accompanied by the cheering throngs). But it soon became clear that something else was up as there were just a few parked cars on the side of the building and a couple of people were lounging about their parked vehicles.
Turns out the company internet was down. There were a handful of times that the internet was done in the past twenty years, the most notorious being when a squirrel committed suicide on a power line on top to Building 3. A few times the power went with the internet which always led to flocks of folks at Caribou down the street, colloquially known as Building 7. Most of the time though we just muddled on, working on documents, jumping into quick meetings or making phone calls until cyberspace was clear.
But these days it’s a different story. EVERYTHING is tied to “the cloud”. The phone is through the internet, document storage is on the cloud, the meeting platforms are online. If the internet is down, there is no point in even going into the building. So YA and I headed back home, with a quick stop at the Dunkin drive-through, and she quickly got her laptop fired up on the dining room table. Luckily her using our home wifi for work doesn’t increase the cost. And it was a shorter drive to take her to the dealership later in the day than to pick her up at the office. Win-win!
If the internet were a real person, would they be a friend of yours?
Trail Baboon 