Category Archives: Family

animals, education, Family, gardening, Kids, Nature, Uncategorized, Weather

I Know What I Know

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Yesterday I added my eggshells to my bales.  I use a high nitrogen fertilizer on the bales and somewhere in the past I must have seen something (probably on the internet) that suggested added calcium in the form of eggshells to counteract that.  While I was setting the crushed eggshells around each plant, some of them were blowing away in the stiff wind.  This made me think about my friend, LeAnne.  I’ve known LeAnne for over 30 years and from the beginning I’ve known that she believes that if you get wind in your ears, you’ll get sick. I’ve never even tried to talk her out of this belief, because you can tell that she’s not willing to believe anything else.  In fact, just last week, she mentioned how she had felt bad all day because the day before she had been gardening and it had been quite windy.

As I stood there in the wind, watching some of the eggshells blow away, I realized that I am the same as LeAnne.  I know what I know and it’s not just about adding eggshells to my bales.   Snakes.  I didn’t want YA to have an irrational fear so whenever we were around snakes (zoo, children’s museum, etc.) I made it a point to “pet the snake” in her presence.  So my brain KNOWS that snakes are dry, but my brain also knows that they are slimy.  Airplanes.  I travel for a living; I’ve been on plenty of planes.  I have even researched lift and airplane engineering.  But I still know in my heart of hearts that on every single take-off, when the plane tilts for lift off, the tail of the plane is going to scrap the runway.  The fact that this has never happened, not even once, makes no difference. I know what I know.

Do you “know” something, despite evidence to the contrary?

Family, Gatherings, Health, The Future, Uncategorized

Darla Buys a Funeral Plot

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My next door office mate, Darla, is just a joy. I have written about her  several times, and she never ceases to amaze and delight. She  monitors the services and care that Developmentally and Intellectually disabled individuals on her case load receive, and makes sure they are being treated appropriately. She has some fairly serious health complications of her own, yet is a fireball of energy with an infectious giggle and a wicked sense of humor.  Her latest quest, started, I suppose by the COVID-19 pandemic, is to have all her own end of life decisions and plans completed, and that means buying a funeral plot. Morbid, I admit, but the way she goes about these things is so refreshing and life-affirming.

Darla decided that she wanted to be cremated, and then buried in a plot near New Hradek, the small Czech community where her husband’s family has a farm, 5 miles north of our town.  She is from a German-Russian/German-Hungarian community 10 miles to the East, and has no intention of being buried in the Gladstone Cemetery.  Her parents are buried there, and she initially  thought she could save a lot of money if she and her husband were buried in the same plot, as all of them would be cremated. “How many urns can you fit in a plot?” she asked a local funeral director.  “They don’t take up that much space”.  He just rolled his eyes at her.  (They are old friends). She  got somewhat fanciful, and suggested that she and all of her seven brothers and their spouses could also be cremated and buried with their parents in the same plot, stacked like eggs in a double layer crate with the same sort of packaging between the urns.   None of her siblings thought that was a very good idea, so she returned to the New Hradek plan, and is waiting for the very elderly manager of the cemetery there to get back to her.  It is taking him a while.  “I just hope he didn’t wake up dead !” she said to me the other day.

Darla has a very specific directive for her husband if she goes first. He is to rent a coffin long enough so that all her DD clients can view her body and see and understand that she is really gone.  Then they can cremate her. I can hardly wait to hear how this all turns out.

What are your plans for eternity?  Got any good funeral stories?

Art, Family, home, Kids, pets, Stories

Sewing in Place

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Last month I informed YA that she couldn’t go with me to Cub if she didn’t wear a mask.  At that point I had been making due with bandanas and hair binders, but that apparently offended her sense of style.  She eventually decided that my Hawaiian-designed bandana would be OK.

After we got home from the store she informed me that she was going to MAKE her own mask.  When she came into my studio to get the sewing machine, I was a little surprised, since I knew full well that she didn’t know how to use it.  As she got the machine onto her desk, I realized exactly how much she didn’t know when she called me to show her how to turn it on.  I was expecting to spend the next hour explaining everything to her, but she preferred YouTube to my homeschooling.   There were only a couple of times that she needed me to fix the bobbins and then the tension.  She used an old t-shirt for the mask material and then scavenged the elastic from a pair of old gym shorts.  Here is the result (which she did actually wear once):

But it turns out that she likes knowing how to use the sewing machine.  Since then she has repaired a pair of pants and she made a “doughnut” for Nimue so the kitty wouldn’t have to have a stiff plastic cone after the surgery.  Although the doughnut looks good, Nimue figured out how to get her head loose in about 15 seconds. Now there is talk about other sewing projects this summer!

Have you ever sewn anything for yourself?

books, Family, Food, gardening, home, Uncategorized

Garlic Bonanza

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Well, if there is no job to go to, no socializing to get on with, weather too cold for comfortable gardening, what’s left?  Reading and cooking.  Cooking it is!

My next-door neighbor, Rita, texted me last week to know if I needed any garlic.  When I said I could always find a use for garlic, she said that was a good thing.  She’d ordered garlic as part of her online grocery shopping and instead of one head of garlic, she got one POUND of garlic.  I was thinking she would bring me one head, but she brought me THREE!  Here’s the first thing I did:

Garlic & Cheese Roll Up Bread

1 container/portion of pre-made pizza dough
6 big cloves of garlic
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 slices provolone cheese (or any cheese you have on hand)
2 Tbsp grated parmesan (optional)

  • Chop or mince the garlic
  • Sauté in butter and olive oil until golden brown
  • Roll out the pizza dough – I rolled mine to about 12” x 8”
  • Brush the garlic/butter/oil all over the dough
  • Layout the cheese on top of the garlic
  • Sprinkle with parmesan

Roll up! (I made little slits in mine and rubbed a bit of olive oil on it)

  • Bake in 400 F degree oven for about 20 minutes (watch the bottom so it doesn’t burn).

Enjoy!  (But take the photo before you and YA eat most of it!!!)

What would YOU do with extra garlic (or what is your favorite garlic dish?

Business, Family, gardening, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Mulch Madness

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My mother did some gardening, but not a lot – the occasional rose bush but it was never a grand passion.  She never asked me to help with anything in the yard, not even raking in the fall.  None of my grandparents had the gardening bug either, so I’m not sure where I got the flower fever.

My plan of more flowers/less grass has pretty much come to fruition – there is hardly any grass left in the front.  Although the more flowers/less grass situation does come with an unforeseen circumstance – mulch!  We use a lot.

And in the more interesting turn of events, YA has made it clear that SHE is in charge of the mulch.  She has opinions about what kind is best (cypress), how many bags at a time I should get (definitely 6), where it goes in the yard and who should be putting it down where (I get the boulevard, she gets everywhere else).  This year she put down some of that black tarp on the northern side of the front yard and covered it with mulch as well.

Now we’re waiting for mulch to be re-stocked at the nursery – they were out yesterday morning – the latest repercussion of shelter-in-place – lots more folks are gardening!

Any gardening surprises for you this year?

education, Family, Fantasy, Nature, Stories, Uncategorized

What If?

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Photo credit:  Manfred Richter

One of the lawns along my walking route got an aerated overnight.  As we walked by, I was struck how all the little sod pellets looked like goose droppings, although more brown than greenish.

There aren’t all that many geese where I grew up (suburbs of St. Louis) so I could not have made this comparison until after I moved here.   If I hadn’t come to Minnesota, I probably wouldn’t know be a single parent.  I don’t know if I would have finished my college degree.  And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t know what hot dish is.

Imagine you are still living in the city of your birth.  Tell me how your life would be different.

 

Family, Food, gardening, Kids, Nature, pets, Uncategorized

If It’s Tuesday….

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I had to remind myself repeatedly yesterday that it was Tuesday.

  • Slept in – a Saturday/Sunday thing.
  • Took a nice walk with Guinevere – a Saturday/Sunday thing.
  • Leisurely breakfast on the sofa while watching Martha Stewart – a never happens thing.
  • Mid-morning trip to Bachman’s – definitely a Saturday/Sunday thing
  • Two hours of gardening with YA – yep, Saturday/Sunday
  • Grilled a late lunch with YA (Tofurky brats and corn) – wanna guess?
  • Had a fire in the fire pit… with s’mores – need I say more?

I realize it’s only the first week of my furlough, but I’m wondering how long every day will seem like a weekend day?  And when will I get used to it?

Do you have specific days for specific tasks?

Family, Fitness, home, sports, Uncategorized

Pedal to the Metal

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I live next door to a five-year old.  It’s fun to see her growing up; she has a different temperament than YA had as a child.  On Thursday, she was sporting a brand new pink helmet and then her dad took the training wheels off her bike.

They started in the backyard, on the grass – doesn’t every parent do this, hoping for a softer landing than on concrete?  On Saturday, they went up to the high school, where there is a lot more flat grass.  Then on Sunday afternoon, as she was working on it in the driveway, her dad let go of the seat and she was biking!  She practiced for about another 30 minutes; she still needs a little shove to get going but other than that, she’s got it!

It made me think about YA learning to ride a bike.  We didn’t even try in our yard, since it’s very bumpy, but we did practice at the high school.  YA was not a natural rider and for a couple of weeks she was incapable of seeing an obstacle and then being able to avoid it.  I remember thinking that learning to ride a bike is way more complicated than it appears on the surface.

I was five when I learned, starting in the grass like my little neighbor did and eventually graduating to the elementary school parking lot.  I still remember the thrill of realizing that my dad wasn’t holding me up any longer and I was flying along on my own.  According to Nonny, I fell and scraped my knee rather badly but I don’t remember that part at all, just the wind on my face and my legs pumping the pedals!

Do you remember learning to ride a bike?

 

 

Business, Family, home, Technology, Uncategorized

It’s Ringing

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This past Solstice, one of YA’s gifts to me was a Ring doorbell – you know, one of those doorbells that has a camera in it.  This gift falls into the category of a gift for herself rather than a gift for me.  YA does a lot of her shopping online, so she worries about packages left on our front porch.  Installing this thing required drilling holes into the stucco, so it was very easy to put off at first.  Then it ended up in a box in Nonny’s room and I was hoping a little bit that it would be forgotten.

But thanks to shelter-in-place, YA is stuck in the house and looking for projects.  I resisted a bit by not being helpful but YA was persistent.  She went to the basement and got the drill, looked up directions on YouTube, got out an extension cord.  Then she realized that we should really move the mailbox over a few inches, so she had to collect up the tools to get this done as well.  But eventually I couldn’t put it off any longer, so I drilled the holes for the Ring and then drilled new holes for the mailbox’s new location.  YA has done the rest, including putting the app on my phone.  I guess I still get to pick my own ring tone.

What technology have YOU succumbed to?

Family, gardening, Gatherings, home, Uncategorized

Fire!

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Years ago YA announced that her life would be considerably happier if we had a fire pit.  Having bonfires was a big deal in her peer group when she was in high school; if we had a fire pit, she could have friends over and life would be good.

I wasn’t particularly in favor of this, but we looked around.  Luckily this search got mentioned at my BFF’s house one night and she (my BFF) got all excited.  THEY had a fire pit that they didn’t use and had been thinking of getting rid of.  Did we want it?  YA wasn’t enthusiastic (as it wasn’t brand-spanking new) but she realized quickly that there was no way I was going to go out and spend a bunch of cash when something free was sitting right there.  So we hauled it home and she cleaned it up – voila!

Of course, the number of times it got used for her friends coming over amounted to just once.  I was pretty clear about no alcohol at our house and this was enough of a dis-incentive to her friends.  YA has never been a drinker but the crowd she ran with in high school apparently imbibed frequently (at least this is what she told me).  Our house was never a big hang-out house because of this and the backyard was just a continuation of that.

But now that we’re stuck at home, she has made it her mission to burn all the little sticks and old straw and small logs that have cluttered up the back of our yard for a while.  We’ve had a succession of fires now, always in the afternoon after we’ve done yardwork.  She does all the work – paper, kindling.  lighter.  Then she does all the fire maintenance as well, adding more sticks, blowing on it, poking it.  All I have to do is sit and enjoy.  I figure it’s going to take quite a few more bonfires to get everything cleared up and I’m looking forward to every one!

Anything you’ve started doing again in quarantine?