Random does it and high need children

 I went back to my hometown to pick up a bike for Leon from my brother and see a couple of my sisters.  I attended my brother's weekly breakfast with the guys and felt like a princess.  sort of.  Around 18-20 men around the makeshift huge table.  It was the waitress's birthday so someone brought cake.  And the guy sitting next to me was a grad of my college too so we compared lots of notes. He had graduated probably 15 years before me.

My baby sister got a Cricut recently and made me a gift while I was there!

It holds 40 oz and suits me to a T.

Aggie watching cat videos.

This machine bit the dust, locking up severely after the 4 rag quilts and 1.8 January birthday gifts. So I researched, cleaned it up, bought some sewing machine oil and it stitches like a dream again!  Whew!

Don't be fooled.  Her solo playing was short lived.  She's a high need girl.

Again, don't be fooled.  She may have been "reading" to herself but it only lasted around one minute until she needed me to read them ALL to her on repeat.  She empties her book box (around 40 board books) onto my lap and then climbs up settling in.

And doesn't this look delish?!!!  I think I've found something to make for St Patrick's Day besides all the other stuff that I've got planned.

Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled play list.

All in five minutes

 

My grandkids playing happily together on Wednesday evening.

  I'm sure the day will come when she's all up in his business and they can't stand each other, but for now, we're cherishing it!

Weekend Catch Ups - WCU

 I am a solid 30 pounds down now!  Finally!!!  So I'm close!

On Saturday, I went to a niece's baby shower back in my home town.  This is one of my sisters along with her daughter.

I beat 3 or 4 of the stuffed animal diaper changing contests but would have had to beat 15 people to get the grand prize.  sigh.  Lost to a niece, not this one.

Loads of games!  And I have this little baby perched on top of my microwave for the week.

Another sister that I rarely get to see!

Here is the mom to be with her sisters and a couple sisters-in-law. The one on the far right is expecting about a month before Grace.

It was a beautiful morning and she got lots of nice things for the baby.  Got some visiting in with two of my sisters and had lunch with my bro!  

I stopped by a nephew and his wife's new organic food shop and brought home a pound of frozen ground buffalo!  I'm planning on trying it out in meatballs next weekend.  My quarter of cow is done and I'm picking that up today too.  There is no shortage of meat around THIS house!  Whew!  And I can only eat between 5-7 ounces a day while on plan.  It'll last a while.  Meri is taking half of it so my part of it should all fit in my deep freezer.

I got home and took Aggie for a walk and then watched an episode of a show with Leon.  

Wasn't this wagon a SUPER deal for $10 at a garage sale?  It just made me nervous because the straps were broken.  I kept thinking she'd jump out.  Mental note: find new straps for the wagon.

On Sunday, Leon and I picked up the cake for the boy being confirmed.  While I was worried about the cake saying "Congratulations on your Consirmation!" I really didn't need to.  They had written Confirmalion instead.  The confirmand got a kick out it and everyone wished him a happy confirmalion the rest of the morning.  They served walking tacos with the cake and everything was yummy!  I passed on the misspelled cake and had a taco salad instead. 

Then we went shoe shopping and I spent a lot on two pairs for the boy.  Ryan reimbursed me later. Maddy was looking for shoes for an upcoming wedding also.  No luck.

Leon had a good time with Aggie and Jen, blowing bubbles.

Got home and after visiting with all the kids, the girls and their loves came with me out to the cemetery and put some fresh fake flowers out on Robb's stone and his dad's.  They look lovely!  I wish I'd gotten a pic!

I tried to help Leon with some technical stuff on a homework assignment and Maddy was very helpful!  But then we hit a roadblock and hopefully Leon is talking to his teacher about it today.  He's only got 7 days left of school!

Then he and I relaxed a little and we watched another episode before his dad took him back to his mom's.

I pulled out all the rest of my vases for Maddy to peruse virtually this morning. She's doing the centerpieces for one of her sister-in-law's weddings this summer.  and have I got LOADS for her to choose from!  The square vases got sent home with her last weekend.

As usual, I have some drama in my life, which I won't air here.  Suffice it to say, I either may give up my sewing room again OR my schedule for the next couple months is going to be up in the air and a lot more busy.  I sit with bated breath awaiting the outcome.

What is one of your favorite trips and what made it so great?

 The great California trip with Mom, Dad and siblings when I was 8ish.

We drove out to California in a 4 door Impala that was Tammy’s car. Dad chose to take this car because it had air conditioning but it wasn’t working well enough to keep the windows closed. Kids in every little bit of the car. In between Mom and Dad in the front, laying out getting a sun tan (heat rash) in the back window, in the feet sections of the back seat. The older kids who GOT a seat in the back seat had to put their feet over the front seat or out the windows. There were seven of us kids, plus Mom and Dad.

Mom made us bologna sandwiches on her lap as we drove. We ate out occasionally and my dad gave each of us a $2 limit. He had every meal budgeted in.

We explored abandoned towns and buildings out on the desert. We were basically where the Brady Bunch got their show content.

The desert was so hot that Dad would pull through a fast food place and get us ice waters. When we were done drinking them, we’d dump the rest into our laps and cool off as it melted.

We practiced singing as a group, so that when we got to California we would definitely be able to win a spot on the Gong Show. Because that’s what people did. Ruth Ann sang along but her heart wasn’t in it.

We practiced the theme song to Laverne and Shirley. We would have been “gonged” for sure… When we got to California, we found that the Gong Show was booked MONTHS in advance so that dream died.

In the mountains we drove past ski resorts where the skiers wore bikinis. I guess the weather was warm enough but there was snow… weird…

We stopped in Provo, Utah for gas and we asked the attendant where Donnie and Marie lived. It was JUST around the corner and down the block!!! So we found their house. A secretary came to the door and we met two of the less famous brothers, Jay and Merlin, and then also the baby brother, Jimmy, who wanted to see all the girls. The boys signed all of our autograph books. Marie was in the kitchen cooking and chopping onions and didn’t want to see anyone. But we all got our autograph books written in and were so excited to brag to our friends. One sister has a photo of Donnie’s car. The one on the far right is Marie’s.

We also swam in the Great Salt Lake. It felt divine to just float so easily. Having the salt in the water helped immensely with buoyancy. What an experience! I’m the one 2nd from the right with the belted swim suit. My oldest sister, Tammy, is just ahead of me and Mom is to the left of her. We’re waiting for a shower after swimming.

There were barrels of fresh water to take showers with on the beach and Dad insisted before we got back into the car. The tall boy looking down is my brother, Mark.

Mom also brought along zucchini for snacks. She would give each of us slices of it and thankfully the windows were open because out it went when she wasn’t looking. I would have loved it nowadays!

Dad always did the driving and was always on a schedule, loath to stop the car for anyone if they had to go. You held it and peed on his schedule. One time, Kristin, the baby peed into a cup in the front seat for Mom. Mom pitched it out the window and it splashed into the back seat onto Mark. Another Salt Lake swim would have been great…

On the Continental Divide pic, I’m the one on the far right, I think… holding my baby sister, Kristin. Melanie is on the left.

Sometimes we camped in really weird campgrounds. Some KOA wannabes. If you’ve seen the movie Vacation, it’s like the pool with the ducks in it. There would be movies in the evenings about nature and voiced over bears with narrator. “Mama bear is getting grumpy! Better take a step or two back from the bear cubs…”

When we finally got to California, we stayed at my Dad’s brother’s brand new place and slept on their floor. According to my siblings, they had to sleep out on the back patio and woke up with a sunburn and a close snake. Yikes! Every cousin, distant or closely related, is a potential motel.

The main attraction was Disneyland!!!! Tammy, Mark and Teresa were old enough to go off by themselves, mostly the toboggan mountain ride where you get splashed. The rest of us rode on the “It’s a Small World Ride” as well as others. What a great day! I think Mom, Dad, Ruth Ann, me, Melanie and Kristin were in this group.

In reminiscing about this trip with my siblings, they each have additional memories to add to it. Like the snake story and then jumping on a pile of sand and being told by police to leave immediately, a wild 13 year girl cousin, skateboarding on crazy twisty California roads… So many memories that I was probably too young to have participated in. Oh well. They have their memories and I’ve got mine! :)

Dad took two weeks off every summer and something was always planned to keep us close as a family.

Those are memories I’ll always treasure.

When Robb and I started a family, we always hoped we’d do memorable family vacations that our kids would cherish and I hope that they do. The two trips to Ireland were fantastic, spring break in Arizona, camping trip to Backbone state park, Branson, the Dells, zoo trips.

Even though you spend a fortune on a trip, it’s the littlest things that you do with your kids that make the memories. Spend the time with your littles! Because one day that’s what they’re going to remember.

Zooming thru the week

Leon had school this morning and got to see ALL his friends!!!

It was a ZOOM call with his teacher and classmates. 

YIKES!  What chaos!  But every kid got to tell what they've been up to and they were so happy to see each other, even from a distance.

And only at the END of the call while everyone was calling out goodbyes to everyone else, did Leon remember what he wanted to tell his teacher.  No one could hear him...

His baby sister and brother had been born yesterday!

Yep - Leon's mom had twins yesterday!

Aren't they cute?  

What relationship are they to me?  Absolutely nothing.

But they are Leon's half-brother and half-sister, so I'm not sure what his family tree will look like.  Probably pretty wide.

Anyway, everyone is working from home today so I'm cloistered out in my office now and trying to get some work done.

Over the last week, I've made a bunch of face masks and sent some off to a sister and now making some for a neighbor and us.  Whatever is left over, I'm sure will get used up somewhere.  I wonder if the food pantry would want them..?...  don't know.

The yard was cleaned up on the warm day this week and is ready for Easter eggs to be hidden.  The lilacs are starting to bud so too late to trim them down.  I guess I COULD but they'd look really ugly this year...  

Maddy and Matthew pulled out some bricks in some landscaping work they've done and relaid them more evenly.  They inspired me and this summer, I plan to do that too with some of the bricks from our front patio.  If you lay a bowling ball on it, the ball would roll around like a drunken sailor, every which way, until it hit the driveway, then roll into the gutter.

Long story short, there is no level spot in my patio anymore.  I blame the prolific sage.

Meri put the polyurethane on her dining room floor a couple days ago and hopefully it's ready to start moving furniture in again soon.  

Isn't it pretty? She said it went on like honey...  

The only thing I can think of with a description like that is, "lick those fingers baby!  It'll be delish!"

She can't wait to get her house back in order!  AND she misses everyone.  We'll have her over for lunch on Easter and everyone will wear masks and gloves and NOT touch their faces! or hug.

Robb and I went to "small" church last night and Robb recorded two sermons by our pastor.  One for Maundy Thursday and one for the Tennebrae service for Good Friday.

In the past, my girls were told by their dad that if they could play for an entire church service successfully, then they could quit taking piano lessons.  One heard that Good Friday was no liturgy and only one hymn with about 24 verses.  Usually 3 verses after each section of the sermon and a light going out somewhere in the church, but for an abbreviated service, it was just one verse per section, but still lights going out too.

So that was the service of choice to get out of piano lessons.  They both mastered the song and quit sometime during their sophomore or junior year of high school.

Last night, with no organist, I offered to play it.  I practiced for 5 minutes solid and got it down with two hands, but only with the notes on the top staff, soprano(right hand) and alto(left hand).  No cords with one hand at all...  It would have sounded too choppy.  

and I would have screwed up more.

I'm sure a piano teacher would frown on my style, but it did the trick.  I had tiny lights stuck on the piano so I could still see the notes as the lights went down and as the tiny congregation sang, not daring to sing along myself or I'd lose my place and make horrible mistakes.  

As it stands I made a few mistakes anyway but Robb didn't notice and said it sounded good.

Whew!

I can quit piano lessons now!  Actually I haven't taken lessons since college.  and even then, it wasn't really lessons, but accompaniment for some singing lessons.  

But my mom would have been proud.

Ok, it's Thursday.  Off to do some creative programming and creative sewing during my breaks from the computer.  Have a good one and don't breathe on anyone!

For local people. maybe

I tried to think of foods that you only get in the mid-west and southerners would think were silly, but can't really unless you talk about fair food...  But then, most fair food is just over the top and silly.  I mean...  Deep fried butter on a stick?  The lines were always too long for me to get one.  I've heard it tastes a bit like french toast.

So, Iowa food... 

There is the pork tenderloin sandwich, which just got out of hand in Iowa...  Each place trying to make the biggest sandwich.  While they ARE delicious, yikes.  Any ma and pa type restaurant will serve them and there are plenty around. yay!

Iowa chops, which are super thick cut pork chops from corn fed hogs.  Fresh grilled.  Yummm...

And that brings me to sweet corn sold on the street corners.  I grew up on a hobby farm.  My parents purchased 14 acres just before I was in 2nd grade because my older brother wanted to be a farmer and Dad jumped at the chance to help Mark fulfill that dream.  Dad had grown up on a dairy farm and loved being back on a farm and able to tinker with tractors in his free time.  Home was just a few miles from the nearest Shopko, so all was good.  

During the summers, Dad planted corn or alfalfa in the two small fields the farm provided.  My sisters and I would sit on the back ledge of the tractor when Dad plowed and we'd jump off and yank out milk weeds whenever we saw one.  I can still feel the soft warm dirt as my feet were dragged through it. mmmm....

I learned how to drive a tractor before I could drive a car.  Stick shift?  No PROBLEM!!!  Well, after the first several hops of the car, no problem...  I figured it out.  Cars ARE a little different than tractors.  

But Dad would need someone to drive the tractor while he picked up the bales of hay after the baler had been there and we all fought for the chance to do the driving instead of picking up bales.

And the worse part of baling hay is finding half a snake.  yuck.  Actually the very worse part would be to find a whole live snake...  and there were several of those on the farm.  

When I was a little older, my sisters and I would camp out on top of the hay bale stack.  Spread out some sleeping bags and talk under the stars.  It never lasted very long into the night though.  

Oh back to the corn.  My mom was a school teacher so she had the summers off.  EARLY on a weekday morning, she would wake us up and head us out to the corn field to pick the corn.  I remember walking through the wet corn leaves and filling a five gallon bucket with ears of corn and then emptying it in either the back end of the station wagon or the trunk of sedan.  Once it was full, we would pick up paper sacks at a local grocery store, then sit at a corner somewhere in my home city, sort the corn, pull off smut and sell the sweetcorn during the rest of the world's lunch hour and into the afternoon until it was all gone.

If it wasn't gone by supper time, I remember us filling a dozen per bag and selling it discounted door to door, asking people if they would like some sweet corn to go with their dinner.

Then we'd go home and eat sweet corn for supper ourselves.

If our field was just doing alfalfa, then my uncle would hire us to help him with his corn field and sell his sweetcorn.  Never a dull summer!

Another thing that you just don't do outside of the midwest.  Detassel.  Every summer, a crew foreman would get together a group of young kids, roughly the age of 14 when they don't know any better and hire them for, usually, a three week stint of detasseling or walking beans.

Detasseling - is where you walk through a certain number of rows of field corn (not to be confused with sweet corn!!  Because field corn is mainly feed for cattle or made into corn oil, and other corn based products) but you pull off the top tassels.  

Then skip two rows and then the next set of rows get detasseled.  If you've seen fields of corn, one row can go on for a mile.  It's a hike and you WILL wreck whatever shoes you're wearing.  As well as the shirt, so wear an old long sleeved shirt because the corn whip will make your arms sting for days.  Your parents will drop you off at the break of dawn by a Piggly Wiggly where the foreman will pick you up in his borrowed school bus.  Bring a small cooler for your lunch and drink!  Then he'd bring you back by a certain time and your folks would pick you up.  I was only able to hack it as a 14 year old for a few days, if that.  SO miserable!!!  BUT it paid well!  Each of my kids did it and could make around 800 for three weeks of work if you don't skip days.

The purpose of detasseling is not just to give young people haunting dreams of their youth, but mostly for making hybrid corn.  You're basically helping the corn with reproduction.  ewwww...  There are a lot of seed companies in Iowa and other midwestern states.  It's big money.

Walking beans - is basically what it says.  A crew is hired to walk the thousands of rows of beans and cut down any weeds you see.  

Some kids get machetes, so THAT'S cool!  That's actually how Robb got a scar above one of his knees.  He was pretending it was a lightsaber and a friend was throwing dirt clods at him.  *thunk*

Some farms have money and will have a trailer where kids with umbrellas over them sit and spray the weeds.  SOME farms skip the kids entirely and use machines to zap any weed that is taller than the bean plants.  But back in the day, 35 years ago, those machines didn't exist or you didn't see them often.

So.  Those are some items that you might never have heard of if you didn't live in the midwest.  

YOUR turn!  Tell about something that is in your part of the country that no one outside of that region would have any idea of what you're talking about.

Alopecia Aloschmeesha!

Ryan's hair... When Ryan was one, we started taking him to get his hair cut at my beautician, Joni, who had a shop in her home. His first cut with her consisted of me holding him on the floor while she cut one side of his hair, then I flipped him over for the other side... Little did we realize what a struggle his hair would become.... The below picture is nothing. His hair is much longer than mine now and his father and I don't mind too much anymore. It's better than what it HAS been...
When Ryan was three, Joni noticed a bald patch on the top of his head and asked if he'd gotten a hold of scissors or a razor. Nope... We discovered that he had Alopecia Areata, which means loss of hair in areas of the body. The clinical reason for this was that he had some stress in his life and it was coming out thru his hair... Or at least that's what it said in Joni's hair manual. We disagreed. The only stress was that his sister had just been born...

He eventually lost all hair on his arms, back and legs and at one time only had a half of an eyebrow. He kept most of his hair on his head, but at times it was pretty obvious. Sometimes it would grow mostly in, then one morning a bunch of loose hair would be on his pillowcase and it would start all over again on a different side of his head.
As time went on, Joni moved and we had to take him to a cheap hair cutting place and they spouted off the entire paragraph that they had learned in beauty school. "What kind of trauma has he been through?" We explained his sisters birth... But I'm pretty sure that's not it...

We took him to specialists and dermatologists who prescribed or "practiced" on him. Apparently we hit every specialist who had never had a patient so young with this condition. They prescribed meds that made the bald patches red and irritated, so much so , that Ryan called his bald spots holes. He hated those meds! This had nothing to do with nutrition. Not too many hotdogs or mountain dew...

We got a hold of some Rogaine thru a prescription (at that time) and started applying it daily. We were not going to let him lose his hair until he was 18 and wanted to just shave it off. The insurance company gave us some flack saying that they couldn't cover the cost of Rogaine since it was for cosmetic purposes. I believe I started crying on the phone at that time and stated that my son was 3 years old... This wasn't a cosmetic thing in our eyes. We didn't want him made fun of at preschool... They changed their minds.
As he grew, he discovered various ways to deal with strangers curiosities. Not the right way at first. At first whenever anyone commented on his hair, he took it wrong and ended up in several playground fights. Threw a glue bottle and broke the glasses of a boy in 5th grade that is now one of his roommates...

We talked with him and gave him some new ideas on how to explain his condition. He then started telling people in a joking manner that a bird had pecked off his hair, or his little sister shaved him while he slept, etc. But when he told a new teacher that he had cancer, we had to talk with him again... His sense of humor was developing, that's for sure!
He grew to hate swimming and didn't want to go with us to the pool anymore. It exposed his scalp too much and he didn't like looking "uncool" with girls around.

Since the cheap cuts places every single time asked what type of trauma he'd had, we switched to a local barber with a shaky hand... He must be 90, but wow, he could cut Ryan's hair so it fell over the spots and looked really natural, unless of course it was windy or rainy.

At one bagpiping event (my husband plays), they gave out bagpipe temporary tattoos. Ryan put one on his bald patch. People thought he shaved that spot on purpose for the tattoo. He used about 10 for a couple weeks. My crazy brother thought that Ryan should have his whole scalp tattooed with wires and crazy exposed things like that, so when hair fell out, it would look like he was a cyborg... Ryan wanted to do it, but we put a stop to that. No tattoos!!! Especially on your head!
Ryan hasn't seen any barber since the summer of 2008... He had really been fighting us on hair cuts. We held it over his "head" for everything... If he failed a test, if his grades dropped, if he didn't stop hanging out with certain people... He was destined (in his mind) that he would look awesome in dreadlocks. Not sure on that... We won a couple times, but when he went thru the really rough time that fall & winter of 2007-08 and we pulled him out of public school to homeschool, we let him do what he wanted with his hair.

We figured a girl would someday ask him to cut it for her. He'd do anything for a girl. Throw himself into a wall, act like a monkey, whatever it took to get her attention...
Above is Ryan and Maddy. They seem so happy together and wow, did she idolize her big brother.
In this picture... not so much... Maybe younger sisters DO cause stress...