The 8118 Project

Or maybe that's the 1881 project. Anyway, we're going to watch it with interest. My brother G is in Ethiopia for a year with his wife and youngest daughter. His oldest daughter was married this May. His son graduated High School this May. Son is now going to college here in town, and living with . . . my 81-year-old Mother! What a great story this shall be! Eighteen and Eighty-one.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Just popping in to wish all of you who celebrate a Happy Thanksgiving, and those who don't have a great day! I've got two birds in the oven, gotta finish cleaning and then start peeling spuds. Thirteen adults and two babies coming. Yay!!!

Introducing our new CJ

Great-niece Charli JoAnn joins great-nephew Caleb Jeffrey.

Happy Labor Day

It's Labor Day here in the states, and so, I labored! Saturday I went to Lake Michigan . . . perfect day. Yesterday family picnic . . . perfect day. This morning I painted the two back porch steps I hadn't painted, finished painting the south garage door, and painted the north garage door . . . perfect day.

Now I'm reporting in, and then I'll get left-overs from yesterday's picnic. This afternoon I'll visit Aunt N, who lives at the senior center about six miles up the road. She's progressing quite well. Most of the time she knows me. Then I'll visit Mom. She couldn't come to the picnic yesterday. She's recovering from pneumonia, and she doesn't have a lot of gumption yet. Plus, she has allergies, and while I've removed most of the ragweed from the near backyard, I've got way too much of it out here for her to be comfortable.

And how is your day going?

Sunday Dinner

My nieces are staying with me tomorrow night, for a craft night. Sunday one of them wants to earn some money, one of them wants to read, and the youngest, Maddie, is going to cook a 4:00 o'clock dinner for her parents and us. She just IM'd me the menu:

Spo** [9:15 P.M.]: good ur on
Spo** [9:16 P.M.]: okay... drinks watermelon and strawberry lemonade and shirley temple 2... a different recipies than a shirley temple
Spo** [9:17 P.M.]: the for the appatizers fruit salsa and cinnamon chips... made out of tortilla chips
Spo** [9:18 P.M.]: then mini weenies and tarragon chicken salad
Spo** [9:19 P.M.]: and for dessert summer cherry jubilee sauce over nonfat frozen yougert
Spo**[9:19 P.M.]: yogurt**

Going to be interesting!

Good Sunday Evening!

Busy Weekend! Mom turned 79 yesterday! We took her to dinner last night, and today we had cake and ice cream out here at the farm. We were getting around for the cake, when we saw a truck drive in the second drive and disappear between the garage and the horse barn. Whoa. "I need some guys," I said, as I headed toward the door. Boo beat me, followed by his daughter, and Crits was right behind me. We were ready to check this vehicle out! Boo rounded the corner first, and started laughing. It was our brother from upNorth! He had a new truck.

Mom must have been watching from the office window, because next thing I know, here she comes running (well, okay, hobbling) out the door.

A good time was had by all!

There are seasons and changes of generations. I don't have children, but I do have ten nieces and nephews that I kinda like **big grin**. The youngest is 13, the oldest is 28. We had lots of years of babies in the family, and then the end of that period came.

Now the new generations have started. One of the activities this weekend was a baby shower for niece #2. She's expecting her first in November. This young fellow is Caleb Jeffrey. He's niece #1's 7-month-old son.

We're passing those babies around again, and it sure feels good!

Ack! My Comments won't let me post today.

That happens sometimes, sorry about that. To add to the comments below:

I'm a dinosaur too, 'cause I remember the "do blondes have more fun"! Em likes it blonde . . . she adores Tinkerbell and now, she looks just like her! Oh those 15-year-olds.

The internet is such a fun way to keep track of relatives and friends and perhaps bridge the generation gap a bit.

Family History

I've always had it in the back of my head that when I retire I would write a generations novel set in mid-Michigan. One of my reasons for wanting to move to the farm was to soak up atmosphere. That has worked out well, as living daily in a homestead set up 99-years-ago raises questions and provokes thoughts about the past. I can never tell what the trigger might be. For example, my mom checks out my flickr pictures. She really likes this lily one. I explained where I had taken the shot: down the road near the big old oak tree, as I was walking back from the woods.

I could hear her smiling over the telephone. "Those have been there for the longest time," she said. "My folks used to let me walk down there and pick some when we visited Grandma and Grandpa."

When I write that novel, I'm sure there will be a scene with a lonely child walking down to a halfway point between her grandparents and great-grandparents, picking a bouquet of lilies.

True Foodie

My youngest niece is 13. She invited all of us (her dad's and her mom's families) to a 4th of July party yesterday. She's a real foodie: she organized not only the standard cook-out of burgers, brats, and dogs, but also had shrimp skewers, champagne salad, baked beans, and a flag cake.

For her 13th birthday both sides got her food items. She's sort of a baby Rachel Ray. Tuesday night, at the fireworks, I realized just how much of a foodie she is. We were watching someone get arrested as we waited for the traffic jam to ease up. "I wonder what they feed people in jails on holidays," she said.

A true foodie

In Praise of Boo

My kid brother is a guy's guy type guy, at least on the surface. He was a football center in high school and college; he was in the Air Force, he has a couple of tattoos (of which my mother still asks, are you sure they won't wash off), he's balding and it troubles him not a whit as he merrily shaves it all off. That is the exterior Boo. (Boo is short for boo-boo, for what else can you call the kid who is so much the baby in the family??)

As often happens, Boo has no sons. He has three daughters. His daughters dance at the same dance school their mother attended as a child. Boo and his wife are very involved parents at the studio, helping with repairs and recitals. The last two years, Boo has been drawn into the actual recital, adding some comic relief, and this year doing the lifts (with his middle daughter, which is a REAL trust-building issue.)

Because Boo is such a guy, a couple of the other fathers broke down and joined the company. Boo was especially close to Larry. Together they were going to be Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Doo in last week's recital.

Boo got a call from Larry's wife the Sunday before the recital. Larry had been involved in an automobile accident. He was gone.

Big men don't cry? Nope. Big men cry, and then they carry on. Larry's daughter had a large part in the recital, and felt that the show should go on. So the remaining Tweedle donned Larry's shirt, donned these cute shoes (okay, how many of you thought those were MY legs?) and did his part.

Sorry I Missed Posting Yesterday

I got on-line late last night to post, but my nephew was on, and wanted some feedback on his essay due today. So I spent my internet studying the rubric for MLA expository essays. Yikes!

Good-bye Grandma D.

Family birthday parties have found us meeting a lot of the other-sides of the families. We go to my baby brother Boo's childrens' parties, and meet his wife Ruby's sisters and mother and grandmother. Grandma D. was a hoot. We saw her most recently on April 14th. Boo always escorted her to her class reunions, and she had it all planned out. She had a new purple outfit, and one of her daughters had helped her find just the right jewelry to go with it. She had talked to her good friend who also went to the reunions, and had told her to save her a place. The reason for having to save places: Grandma D planned to be fashionably late, so she could make an entrance. She regaled us with how she would rule the festivities.

The next Monday was a dance recital that two of Boo's girls were in. Grandma D had been expected, but was a no-show. That was unusual. One of Ruby's sisters also didn't show, and we found out later why. She had gone to Grandma D's to pick her up. There was no answer to her knock, and she couldn't gain entrance to the building. She called her husband and he broke down the door. Grandma D was there, but she had had a massive stroke. She lingered for awhile, but last Wednesday she passed on.

Today we went to the visitation. Hard to keep a dry eye when she was laid out in, yes, the purple outfit.

Development???

Susan has a good post about preservation in her town, and the problems that build up as property gets into developers hands. I so hear this discussion. I've followed the provenance of a couple of farms in this county pretty closely. I live in a house that has only family historic value, but it is approaching a hundred-years-old, and is situated on 160 acres that is still used for agricultural purposes. It is the house my Grandma Bea grew up in, and as she was an only, and my Mom is an only, it has stayed intact through the years. However, the bulldozers are working overtime four miles down the road, as the road is widened and given turn lanes. Mom's half-mile stretches of just farm are rare: most frontages have been transformed into homes. I'm just grateful for the time I do have here. The uncertainty of the future makes now sweeter.

Now Grandma Bea's husband, Chris, also grew up on a farm, over in the next township (closer to Lansing). He was the youngest of six. His father bought him eighteen acres when he married Grandma. The farm he grew up on passed to his oldest brother, who helped take care of the parents. Uncle Wills and Aunt Tommee had a dairy farm. Development hit their township a lot earlier. Uncle Wills passed in the early 60's, and in the early 70's Aunt Tommee sold the land to mall developers, with the proviso that part of the acreage would be a township park. There is nothing left of the original farm.

Development. Progress. Or is it?

Day Off

Yesterday I took a personal day. I think the past two weeks had gotten to me. It seemed I couldn't move. It was storming outside. I stayed in bed, sleeping and reading until 3:00 p.m., when my brother called.

Aunt N. had surgery last Friday, and it appeared that she wasn't recovering the way the surgeon had told us she would. I had seen her on Tuesday night, up in intensive care, and she was really out of it, so much that I got scared: what if she died while I was there? I started humming hymns, which tends to comfort me and I thought would comfort her. After the third one, she made a raspberry sound. See, even my humming wasn't helping!!!! (Actually, it was dry mouth, but . . . )

When I saw my brother's name on the caller ID I thought, utoh. Here it is. But it wasn't. Aunt N. is out of ICU, is in a regular room, recognized him, and was getting cranky. And today she is 83 years old. Two weeks ago she told her brother she wouldn't see her next birthday. Ha!