Laundry

You know it's a good day when you go to the beauty shop in the morning and get a hot fudge sundae in the afternoon. Ah, yes. The only thing that could make it better is......yes, I'm going to say it....warm weather! With all this switching back and forth, I'm now flirting with my first cold in a couple of years. My sinuses are all stuffy and my throat is scratchy. I don't feel bad during the day, but in the late afternoon it settles in for the night. Poor hubby didn't get a lot of sleep last night – I kept waking us both up! I'll dig in my pharmaceutical stash and see if I can find something to keep the sinuses more clear tonight.

It was a perfect day for a steamy pot of ham and beans for lunch. The house smelled so good all morning. When I was growing up, I can't imagine how many pots of beans we had. Like a lot of moms, mine put on a pot of beans every Monday so it could cook while we did the laundry. Laundry could take all morning, and it was nice to have lunch ready when we finished up.

Mom had a wringer washer until she moved into her retirement apartment in 1992. They were pretty durable and rarely needed work. On the farm, the washer stayed in what we called the Pantry, a small ante-room off the kitchen. Since we didn't have running water in the house, wash day always started with carrying bucket after bucket of water from the well to the washing machine. Once it was filled, an electric water heater would be put in to heat the water up. The rinse tub would be set up and more water hauled from the well to fill it.

Once that was all done, the laundry would be sorted – for us, it was making piles on the floor in the pantry of the different loads. Bluing was added to the rinse water, and more water was heated to make liquid starch for the ironing items. When the water in the washer was sufficiently heated, the heating element was removed and laundry was started, beginning with socks and underwear (white, of course), then sheets, towels, and working our way down to finish with the jeans or throw rugs.

Each item had to be removed from the washer and run through the wringer individually, being very careful to run them through the wringer smoothly – the wringer could be murder on buttons or zippers. Sometimes the water was so hot you'd need to use something to fish out the items of clothing so you didn't burn your hands. Once the washer was emptied, the next load of clothes was put in and the agitator started. The washed clothes were sloshed around in the rinse tub, then run one at a time through the wringer into the clothes basket. Anything that needed to be ironed would be pulled out and dipped in liquid starch, then wrung out by hand.

Even hanging the laundry was a fine science. Mom's clothesline was strung around trees in the back yard. Where you started hanging clothes and the direction they were hung on the clothesline depended on how the breeze was blowing. After that was checked out, the clothes could be anchored to the clothesline with pins. By the time the first load was hung, the second load was washed and ready to be rinsed – and so it would go, all morning.

When the last thing was hung on the line, it was time to clean up. The water would be drained out of the rinse tub and then the washer one bucketful at a time. Some water would be used to water the flowers in the front yard. Other water was used to scrub the floor in the kitchen and in the pantry. Any water left after that was sloshed across the front porch to clean it off. By the time everything was wiped down and put back in its place, we were more than ready to sit down and have lunch.

Mid to late afternoon, we would check the clothes and started taking everything off the line and bringing it in, folding everything as we brought it in the house. The ironing would be set aside in a clothes basket, to be sprinkled with water and rolled into tight rolls so the dampness would cling to the fabric until the ironing was done the next morning. Hubby mentions some days that I've worked reallly hard doing laundry.......I know it's a piece of cake compared to growing up on the farm.

Cooking

We did our pre-snow run to the grocery store this morning. It was very quiet. I imagine tomorrow and Friday will be a bit busier as we get closer to the predicted snowfall. At any rate, it gave me a chance to grab some navy beans. I have a beautiful ham bone in the freezer that needs to be used.

I've gone on overload with cooking shows the past week. I have one show that's on at noon Monday through Friday that I love watching. There are a couple of others that I catch occasionally in the afternoons. But I found myself watching Food Network over the weekend and then again on Monday night.

Monday night, after finding nothing else on TV we wanted to watch, I caught back-to-back episodes of Worst Cook in America. Hubby was reading, but he was catching a lot of the TV action as it was on and was laughing as much as I was. This show takes people who truly have no clue about cooking and try to move them to have more than a passing acquaintance with the kitchen.

They do this show in a format similar to Celebrity Apprentice, or Survivor. They divide into two teams, one professional chef leading each team. Then they have to perform tasks individually or as a team, and the worst performers each week are eliminated from the show. You can imagine the laughs as they try to figure out how to use the different kitchen utensils or find the necessary ingredients to finish their dishes.

During the first episode, the chefs tried to convince the contestants of some of their misinformation – including one man who thought if you just cooked expired food long enough, it would be safe. I haven't figure out which is more amusing – watching the inexperienced cooks trying to figure out the kitchen, or watching the professional chefs as they taste the contestants' final products.

In the second episode, they started by taking the would-be cooks to a dairy farm where they had to milk cows. When that escapade was over, they went back to the studios. The contestants then came face-to-face with fresh fish that each one had to filet and cook, along with specific side dishes.

Now, the contestants are supposed to take notes as the chefs talk to them about the foods, what goes together, how to prepare it, and so on. And there was the know-it-all who knew he could take in and remember everything his chef said without notes. I think they were given 90 minutes to prepare and cook their food – this fellow had his fresh fish cooking with 64 minutes left on the clock. It was, not surprisingly, very overcooked and dry when it was served. And he got an early trip home.

I've had my share of kitchen catastrophes, so I can identify with these show contestants. I've had under cooked, over cooked, grabbing and using the wrong ingredient. I remember one time when I ate at a friend's house, and she had this wonderful baked chicken with celery, orange, and I'm not sure what else. I tried to replicate it. This was long enough ago that I hadn't started experimenting with herbs, and I'm sure that's what the difference was. There was quite a bit left over since the taste was nothing like my friend's. For reasons I never quite figured out, I stuck the casserole dish back in the oven instead of in the fridge. Four days later, after cleaning the fridge, the garbage disposal, the trash can, and everything else I could think of, the oven door got opened. It was quite a jolt!

It took quite awhile and a lot of work to get the smell out of the kitchen, and I washed the casserole dish a few times before I thought it could be used again. I've learned a lot in the years since, and I would imagine Food Network is creating some budding chefs with their show.

Books

Winter is rearing its ugly head again and reminding us that we haven't yet reached spring. Hubby commented that if we needed anything from the grocery store, we needed to go before the weekend. I'd really enjoyed these past few days without snow or frigid temps. I guess it'll warm up to stay one of these days. But, at any rate, it was a perfect day to fix a nice pot of corn chowder for lunch.

We've been enjoying using the local library lately. I can't believe I only just got my library card after being back in the community for 20 years. I have a pretty hefty library of books that I own, and I enjoy reading them over and over. Now that I have a tablet, I have books I've downloaded there as well.

But there's just something special about walking into the library, with all those shelves and shelves of books – the look, the smell. Computers are used in place of library cards, and the Dewey Decimal System no longer exists. But so far I've been finding my way around fairly well – the 8-year-old granddaughter gave me a tutorial on the new library system last fall when we went to Grandparents' Day.

I'm looking forward to reading more books by a couple of my favorite authors. I want to do some research before I start checking those out, because I want to read them in chronological order. Both authors have recurring characters, so I want to go on both those literary journeys. It's been quite some time since I met both these authors, and I've amassed a partial collection for both of them.

If you enjoy mysteries and history and you've never made the literary acquaintance of the late Margaret Truman, I would highly recommend you check out her books. She wrote very compelling murder mysteries, each one set at some prominent Washington, D.C., location. You good a gripping mystery, as well as learning about our historical locations. Most of my knowledge about the Pentagon comes from the first book of hers that I read, Murder At The Pentagon.

The other mystery series where I need to “fill in the gaps” is the Kay Scarpetta series, written by Patricia Cornwell. Anyone who enjoys the current crop of forensic-based TV shows would enjoy these. The central character, Kay Scarpetta, is a Medical Examiner who has both a medical degree and a law degree. I wouldn't even want to guess at how many of those books I have on my personal shelves – and I also wouldn't want to start randomly reading the ones on the library shelves until I doublecheck which ones I have and the chronological order.

I've always enjoyed series books. The earliest one I remember, of course, is the Little House books. I wasn't far along in elementary school when I started reading them....probably second or third grade. The problem was that I went quickly through the ones in our room's library, then had to wait until I got into the next grade level to get to the later ones in the series! I realize now that those later books would've been a little difficult for such a young reader. I always enjoyed going back and reading those, even after I was grown and bought the set for my kids.

As I got a little older and was in adolescence, I discovered another series about a teenage girl nicknamed Tippy and her military family and friends. The public library had many more of that series, so I devoured them during the summer. I can't remember Tippy's last name, or any of the other characters other than her older sister Penny and her eventual husband Peter. But I learned something about life in and around West Point in those books.

I appreciate authors who have continuing characters – I don't know why I'm so attached to them, but I'll always choose a series over an individual book. I guess I just enjoy getting to know someone and make a long-term friend!

Meandering

I've had a bit of a blah day......I didn't sleep well last night, and my brain has felt foggy all day. And I've been staring at this blank computer screen for almost half an hour, totally uninspired by anything. I'm quite certain no one is interested in the three loads of laundry I did this morning, and cleaning the leftovers out of the fridge for lunch isn't exactly a bright spot. I know none of that really inspired me.

We did a lot of creative writing when we were in 7^th grade English class. That was a huge focus of that year's curriculum. On the vast majority of the assignments, they gave us a topic for our writing – and some days we had a variety of topics we could use. That was so helpful. Sadly, I usually don't have a list of topics to choose from for the blog.

I can still remember a couple of those creative writing assignments. I remember one essay was on the topic of pets. I enthusiastically wrote about the dog of that era. He was a cute little beagle/terrier mix. Where I evidently tripped up was including the fact that this dog loved chicken bones. The teacher, who was not a farm gal, thought it was terrible that I would risk the dog's life by letting it eat chicken bones. It was normal on the farm for the animals to get bones from the meal......unless, of course, you had ham. In that case, the bone was saved to make yummy beans. After the beans, the dog could have the ham bone.

I wasn't aware of any of the neighbors from my childhood buying dog food or cat food. Maybe once in awhile, or for special hunting dogs. But the pets and even the barn cats ate scraps from the table. The neighbors up the hill had several barn cats, and there were many times I saw the wife fix a bowl of gravy to be taken to the barn to feed those cats. They had a dog who was partial to hard-boiled eggs. They had chickens who produced plenty of eggs, so that dog was able to enjoy his eggs on a regular basis.

On a few occasions those neighbors went to visit relatives and we watched the animals. I don't remember that they worried much about the barn cats, but Mom and I went up the hill a couple of times a day to let the dog out for a bit and feed him. Feeding him wasn't a chore – he never would eat while his people were gone.

Another memorable essay that school year was on the topic of “breakfast”. It was cold weather then and I truthfully wrote that I ate a bowl of Campbell's soup for breakfast. This was some time before their “soup for breakfast” campaign. The teacher, who also taught Home Ec, had trouble processing the fact that I was eating soup for breakfast. She thought I should be eating something more traditional.

The fact was that Mom would cook either oatmeal or Malt-O-Meal for breakfast. She would have it hot and ready for Dad when he came in from morning milking. By the time I got up, it was pretty much a congealed lump in the pan. It wasn't very appetizing, and I soon decided I didn't like either cereal. Mom thought I should have a hot breakfast, but to get me on the bus and her to work by 8 am, there wasn't a lot of time left. We hit on the soup idea, and it didn't take very long to heat it up. And, voila!, I had a hot breakfast.

When Campbell's finally caught up with our ingenuity, I would watch those commercials and really hope that teacher was realizing what an innovator I was! Truly ahead of my time, regardless of the reason! Now, I really appreciate my microwave that makes hot oatmeal in 1:45.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a better focus for my daily blog topic.

Trains

For the third straight weekend, younger daughter is globe trotting, attending meetings for a professional business fraternity she and her hubby belong to. Two weekends ago she dodged snowstorms as she flew to Rochester, New York. Last weekend was a driving trip to Little Rock with her hubby. This weekend they're in Chicago.

To shake up their modes of travel, this weekend's trip was on the train. We have two train tracks going through town, but I never asked her their route - I figured they would head more northeast out of KC's Union Station. But shortly before nine this morning, I got a text message that they would be coming through town in about 20 minutes. They were coming through on the track closest to our house – and with the leaves off the trees, I was able to step out on the back porch and watch the top of their train as it rolled through. It was kind of fun.......maybe a little dorky, but fun.

Trains never quite held the fascination for me that planes did, but they were still exciting. Really, any mode of transportation was exciting. I always had a bit of a travel bug. My grandmother on Dad's side of the family lived in Independence until I was 13. When she came down, either for holidays or just to visit, she usually came on the train. Occasionally it would be on the bus, but that's a story for another day.

I always enjoyed the trips to the train station. My folks were of the “give yourself enough time for a crisis” school, so we always arrived well ahead of the scheduled arrival time. That means we could sit in the car or in the train station and watch the trains rumble through, the ground shaking as they passed by. Finally we would see the passenger train slowly rolling into the station. It wasn't unusual for several people to get off the train here. It was a major mode of transportation.

Even though my paternal grandparents were divorced, they got along with one another (mostly because my grandfather was a very patient, tolerant man). When I was 8 or 9, Grandpa took me on a train trip to Independence for a weekend. Mom and Dad brought us to the train station, and it was very exciting to climb on board that train. Of course, Grandpa let me sit by the window. It was so different to see the neighboring towns from that vantage point.

We arrived at Kansas City's Union Station and took a city bus to Grandma's neighborhood, then walked the rest of the way to her house. All too soon our time there was over, and we reversed our trip. Union Station, compared to the tiny train station here, was pretty amazing. We climbed on and headed back home. I always appreciated Grandpa for giving me that opportunity.

As an adult, I had one other opportunity for a train trip, coming home for a week from Wichita, Kansas. Wichita's train station was pretty busy as well, and we had a late start from there. It was an interesting trip in that it was overnight – the train left Wichita around 9:30 pm, and it pulled in here about 4:30 am. I finally slept a bit, but I was afraid that since my hometown was no longer a regular stop that I might be left on the train! I reminded the train officials that I was on and to please wake me up before we got here. I think they thought I was a bit annoying. The one positive thing I can say about that trip is that I had a good view of the Kansas State Capitol in the night floodlights as we went through Topeka.

Even with two sets of train tracks, trains no longer stop here. It was the end of an era when they quit. But they still fly through town, and I enjoy living where I can hear the train whistles. And today, it was fun knowing that my young'un was on that train headed to Chicago.

Spring

Hubby and I just did a drive-through at McDonald's.....fun trip, but good grief it's windy out there! There's a large area with high wind advisory today. I checked the weather service, and our gusts have been clocked as high as 37 mph. No wonder we thought we felt the car shudder a bit.

I realized this morning that we're almost down to the last week of February. While January seemed like it would never end, it seems like February has flown by. I'm good with that – it just means we're that much closer to spring. And we're that much closer to Daylight Savings Time kicking in for this year. It seems like I just got adjusted to being on Standard Time for the winter.

Spring was always fun at school. After what seemed like a long season of being cooped up in the gym, it would finally warm up enough to go outside for recess. Often we needed to stay on the asphalt section of the playground until the ground dried up. But at least we were outside.

Once basketball season was over, a volleyball net would be put up in the gym. That would be our before-school entertainment, as well as P.E. Class activity. I always really enjoyed playing volleyball – it was the one sport at school I felt comfortable with. Sadly, the time of the volleyball net being up was always short.

As everything dried up and the days got longer and warmer, people would start meandering outside for impromptu softball before school instead of basketball. I didn't have anything to compare with, but I always thought it was neat how all ages hung out together before school. Especially in the winter, there was always a large group in the gym shooting baskets or playing volleyball.

When the mornings got warmer, the elementary kids would migrate to the playground and use the playground equipment. When the bell rang, we could enter the regular school building and go to classrooms. Once I hit junior high, it was so much easier on the days we had band class first period. The music room was in the same building as the gym, so we didn't get caught in the rush of running over to the classroom building when the bell rang.

Last hour of the day in high school was either music class or P.E. - girls had music on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with P.E. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The boys' schedule was the opposite of that. I could never quite decide whether warm weather or cold was the worst for that bus trip home on P.E. days. When it was warm, we would be out on the softball diamond in the required long, hot jeans. When the last bell rang, it was a dash inside, through the gym, and grab our books off the bleachers. I never knew of a bus leaving anyone behind, but there was always a rush to get to the bus and not hold up the trip home.

During cold weather, we would be in the gym practicing basketball. The required uniform for that was shorts and a t-shirt. And when the bell rang – we grabbed our books off the bleachers and headed to the bus. Some of those trips home in January and February were pretty chilly, and I hated having to get off the bus to walk across the road and through the yard to the house. We only had canvas tennis shoes – so not only were we cold because we were wearing shorts, but if there was snow on the ground our shoes would be wet. No wonder I sneezed all winter.

Like everyone else, I'm ready for spring and warm weather. Hopefully some of these wind gusts will blow spring our way.

City By The Bay

Let's just blame it on the winter weather – but I'm suffering from a travel bug the past week or so. Even though there's nowhere in particular I want or need to go, I just have the itch to go somewhere!

I've seen a lot of the country over the years. I've been to places I never thought I'd see when I was growing up. My field of reference was pretty narrow when I graduated from high school. Up until then, my only experience with vacations were the times Mom and I spent one summer week with my grandparents in Jefferson City – which was only from the time I was 3 or 4 until I was 12.

We had fun on those vacations. My grandfather was a security guard at the Missouri Governor's Mansion, and being around that center of the state government was just a normal thing for me. On one day each summer we would ride to work with Grandad. We would enjoy the Governor's Mansions grounds, walk down the street to the State Capitol and explore the flower gardens there. We would go through the fantastic museum they had on the ground floor of the Capitol and then we would walk back to their house. It was special.

I still remember so many details from my senior class trip. We spent a day and a night in St. Louis, including being the second class to go to the top of the Gateway Arch. We toured Meramec Caverns and then spent two nights at Lake of the Ozarks. It was quite an adventure, and Mr. Newman took the bus across the Mississippi River at the Arch so we could all say we'd been out of the state when we graduated.

Over the next 20 years there was a lot of traveling (and moving!) around the country. Younger daughter and I were talking earlier this week. She's taking a trip to Chicago this weekend and was hoping to see Lake Michigan for the first time. Somewhere during the conversation, I had a light bulb go off in my mind and told her she had already seen Lake Michigan.......when she was eight, from Traverse City, Michigan. Being the youngest, she has the least memory of some of our adventures.

Hubby is the one who introduced me to my favorite spot away from home. He was born in San Francisco and raised in Palo Alto, California. I fell in love with the area the first time we visited. His folks were so sweet and took me on a tour of San Francisco on my first trip there. I don't think they missed anything, though my former CPA father-in-law didn't stop anywhere around Fisherman's Wharf, which he proclaimed was nothing but a tourist trap. Hubby made sure we had supper that night on the waterfront, and it was fantastic.

Over the visits there hubby and I enjoyed early morning walks from his folks' condo to downtown Palo Alto. We had numerous trips on the Stanford University campus. We visited Napa and saw some of the wine country between Sonoma and Napa, and rode the ferry across the bay to downtown San Francisco. And there's always the ocean.

Our last visit to the Bay area was three summers ago, for father-in-law's 90^th birthday celebration. My mother-in-law took us with her to the Museum of Modern Art, because the Stein collection was showing at the time and she wanted to see it. Hubby and I made it through about half the tour and then bailed to look around the rest of the museum. I found I enjoyed the sculpture much more.

Hubby's folks live in Medford, Oregon now, and his sister and brother-in-law have moved there from the Bay area. We all gatheredthere  five years ago for the folks' 60^th wedding anniversary. Never ones to just sit and visit, they took the entire extended family – everyone who wanted to go – on a jet boat ride on the Rogue River. It's not necessarily for the faint of heart.

We are probably headed to Medford again this summer for mother-in-law's 90^th birthday celebration. They have, though, said there will be no jet boat ride this time....but I'm sure they'll come up with something fun! I dearly love my in-laws.

Chemistry

Ah, yes, I just looked at the outdoor thermometer and it says 60 degrees. Sixty warm, wonderful, glorious, sunny degrees. The snow is melting fast enough that we've heard our sump pump kick in several times. The weather is a wonderful gift this week.

I'm relaxing with a cup of lemon herbal tea after spending a little over an hour listening to online class lectures. That first online class in the fall just made me want to stretch my brain a little more. Right now I'm listening to lectures from two different classes. I'm enjoying the Intro to Philosophy class – it's taught through the University of Edinburgh, and the professors have these wonderful lilting accents. Well, except for this week. Ten minutes into an 11-minute lecture yesterday, I realized I wasn't hearing an accent. I'm not sure why it took me so long to come to that realization......I really was paying attention. Hopefully the next couple of weeks will take me back to the British Isles.

My other class has been somewhat of a disappointment. This was a class that would have worked better in a classroom. I got lost the first week and have been meandering since....and from the scores I'm getting on my quizzes, I'm definitely not meandering in the proper direction. I think I know where we're headed with the mechanics of dissecting arguments to determine whether or not they are valid, but we need to actually get somewhere! Six weeks into the course, I'm still not sure where I am.

I was a pretty decent student in high school. I had my favorite subjects (history, english, and business, as well as music), and I had my dreaded subjects (any form of science). And yet, as I raised my kids and lived life, I surprised myself by remembering so much of what was discussed in my freshman year biology class. As the kids worked through their science studies, I quoted Mr. Newman's favorite “remembering phrase" to them to remember the biological divisions: “Kindly please consider our fine geological specimens”........translated in order to stand for “Kingdom, phyllum, class, order, family, genus, species”

.

Senior year was a year I merely endured. I had so wished I could graduate a year early, but that wasn't destined to happen. I wanted so bad to get to college and start the next phase of my life. And academically, that year was a bit of a disappointment. We did have a wonderful English class with Mrs. Graham. I still remember reading MacBeth and other English Literature.

I also remember a dreaded half year of chemistry. Mr. Sugg was a wonderful superintendent. However. I remember clearly his calling me and one other senior to his office the first day of school and telling us that we needed to be sure to take chemistry or we wouldn't get into college. Neither of us was very excited about that. And I will honestly say that I was lost from the first day of class. It was a miserable semester. Normally in our small school, classes lasted for an entire school year. There was no semester change of classes. But both my classmate and I did some independent research and found out that neither prospective college required chemistry in high school.

In what may have been an unprecedented event, my classmate and I presented a united front to Mr. Sugg. Even though I don't think he wanted to let us drop chemistry mid-year, we had our facts straight and presented a strong case. Neither of us was in danger of not graduating if we dropped the class, we both had plenty of credits and all the state requirements. So he allowed us to drop chemistry.

I often wondered if part of his decision was based on the fact that in the fall he had to tell the two of us that we would not be offered our anticipated senior level history class – Current Events. We had both pored over the Time and Newsweek magazines in the school library all through high school, anticipating this class being offered our senior year. But they simply had run out of teacher hours – up until that year, they had combined both English and history classes to include two years of students in each class. But that year all the core classes were divided into individual grade levels, and no one was available to teach Current Events. Mr. Sugg knew how disappointed we were – to me, it was worth it to be able to get out of chemistry!

Sunday Visits

Well, we're off and running on another week, as they say. I thought about using “another day, another dollar”.....then I realized that doesn't exactly apply when you're unemployed!

I'm so grateful for this break in the weather. I just feel so much more relaxed when I can go outside and not brace myself against the cold. We're losing quite a bit of our snow in the yard today. The streets melted off the end of last week.

We had a really quiet weekend We were both fine with that. It's amazing how complacent I've become with age. As a kid, a quiet weekend would have made me really antsy.

By the time I was ten, both of my older cousins on Dad's side of the family were married. It wasn't unusual for one or both of them and their families to stop by our house on Sunday afternoons. I enjoyed their visits, it was fun for me to finally have other females in the family. And when their babies came along, that was great entertainment.

The older cousin moved his family to Excelsior Springs, but they came home every weekend. And on Sunday evening, they always stopped by our house on their way back. Those were good visits. The winter their older daughter was two, Dad kept water in the stock tank all winter as an ice supply. When we had our Sunday evening company, Dad would take the ax and chop some of that ice, and we would make a freezer of ice cream. Their little girl was very disappointed when spring came and there was no more ice. She liked her ice cream.

When I was 12, Mom's parents moved back to Norborne from Jefferson City. Grandad had surgery and would no longer be able to work. So they knew it was time for them to get back among family. Once they got back, we fell into the routine of going to their house every other Sunday. That routine continued until Grandma had to move into the nursing home in 1991.

It was a balancing act of sorts for us. We went to a little country church that only had church services two Sundays a month – the other Sundays there was just Sunday School. So it was on those days we didn't have church that we would leave from Sunday School and head straight to Grandma's. It wasn't a very long drive through the country. Grandma always had lunch started by the time we got there, and it always smelled yummy.

Mom would take food as well, and if my aunt and uncle showed up, there was just that much more food. There are a lot of memorable visits during those Sunday afternoons, a lot of love and laughter. Grandma always washed her hair when we visited so Mom could set her hair in pin curls. Grandma always had a tube of VO5 for her hair. One Sunday it was missing. No one could figure out what could have happened to it.

I don't know how long it took Grandma to find that VO5......but when she found it, it was laying in a metal ice tray in her oven. That was when we all finally remembered that the previous time Mom was doing Grandma's hair, my cousin's little girl (who was just 3 or 4 at the time) had been playing in the kitchen while the rest of us talked. Obviously, we were so caught up in conversation that no one was watching her very well.

Those spontaneous Sunday visits were such fun. But I think they're a thing of the past for a lot of people. I wouldn't dream of just dropping in on someone without calling first. And that includes my Mom – not so much to make sure it's convenient for her as to make sure she's home. Finding her isn't always easy.

Hearts & Flowers

It's a “wow” kind of day – after the frigid temps we've been enduring, today has bright sunshine and lower-40's temps. The street is almost clear, the icicles have let go of the guttering, and the snow has melted off the vehicle. It's a welcome change, indeed.

So far it's been a quiet day. We got out this morning to pick up our income tax papers, and that's been about it. I woke up with a headache behind my eyes, so I haven't found the energy to do anything else. Maybe before the day is over I'll get something done.

Two Valentine cards arrived in today's mail. I feel a little bit bad that I didn't buy any. But, that's just one of the things we decided to cut out of our lives for the moment. Hubby knows I love him, and we will have a wonderful home-cooked meal for lunch tomorrow.

And speaking of Valentine's Day, I don't think I'm alone in the belief that guys are hard to buy gifts for. The first Valentine's Day hubby and I spent together, I was able to use a comment he made one day and scored big by buying him a Red Ryder BB gun. It didn't matter that he was in his mid 50's at the time. He'd wanted one, and that's what he got. I've never been able to come up with as perfect a gift since.

Guys have it so easy when it comes to buying gifts. Most of the females I know are so happy to get a gift, especially if a little thought has been put into it. Some of us are flower gals, others are happy with a nice piece of jewelry. Still others are contented with a gift card to their favorite store or, better yet, the spa. About the only way a guy can bomb out is with a toaster or toilet brush.

Guys, though, are so likely to just go get anything they want. And that makes it tough when it comes to the gift-giving holidays. If they want a new tool for the garage, they go get it. If we tell them they need a new shirt, they'll usually get it so we're not picking out their clothes. And if they offer any gift ideas, it's usually something like an expensive new gaming system or a monster truck.

When I was little, I enjoyed Valentine's Day. Dad always went to the dime store and bought two heart-shaped boxes of the Brach's chocolates – one for Mom and one for me. From year to year I tried to remember what shape my favorite candies were. It was harder, though, to figure out the ones I didn't like. That usually led to a tiny bite out of the bottom of each candy, to see what was in the on the inside without completing committing my taste buds.

I loved the candies with chocolate crème centers, and I could always recognize them. The caramels were good too. I didn't mind most of the fruit-flavored crème centers, though I didn't really care for the orange ones. What I absolutely despised, though, were the ones that were vanilla crème with a layer of jelly on top. Yuck! I would spit those out if I accidentally bit into one and got a mouthful of that jelly.

Mom and Dad, of course, caught onto what I was doing. They weren't always appreciative of my offering to share my candy with them since I'd already taken a test bite! In my defense, it was always a tiny bite, and out of the bottom edge of the candy. It wasn't like I'd already devoured half the piece or anything!

Once I graduated high school and left home, I missed that annual box of chocolates from Dad. And he probably missed my “sharing” with him.

DNA

It's one of the best presents ever – our temp is above freezing today! There's a gentle breeze actually coming from the south, the sun has been out most of the day, and the icicles are dripping. It was a wonderful day to get out of town and do some shopping. We enjoyed ourselves, we didn't feel like we had to hurry to get out of the cold, and we scored some good buys.

The house smells wonderful now, because I stumbled on a ham sale. I almost didn't notice the bright yellow stickers on a few of the hams in the display case, but that yellow did catch my eye. I read the label, blinked my eyes, and read again – those few hams had been marked down to 94 cents per pound. Three of them came home with us, and one is in the oven now.

You know, there comes a point in life where you start realizing all the oddities that go with natural human aging. One day you look in the mirror and start seeing laugh lines around your eyes. Before you know it, you have “granny flab” under your arms. Upper eyelids start to sag. Hair starts to thin and changes color. And alternatively, other hairs start to appear in places they really don't belong.

Some things bag, other things sag. And when you get out of bed in the morning, everything does truly go snap, crackle, and pop. Trifocals make going down steps and things as simple as sweeping the floor a big challenge. “Huh” is the most often word uttered, and you wear out the carpet going back and forth trying to remember what it was you set out to do.

A couple of weeks ago Mom and I went to a local funeral. My aunt and uncle were also there. There were so many people I saw there who looked familiar, but I couldn't place who they were. My aunt leaned over at one point and asked me who a particular fellow was – someone I had been trying to figure out as well. He was rather portly looking, gray hair and beard. I leaned over so only she could hear me and told her that I didn't know, but I was realizing all the people who USED to be my age have gotten old! My aunt had a good chuckle from that.

I've always considered myself fortunate because I'm one of those people who hasn't changed much over the years. Hopefully I'm still at the point I don't look my age as well, but I'm not as sure of that as I used to be. It's awkward sometimes when people from my past recognize me so easily, especially if I don't recognize them!

In a bit of whimsy, hubby and I have our high school graduation photos hanging together in the living room. I haven't changed all that much – except for the wrinkles, of course. Hubby, on the other hand, has changed a lot. I can look from that photo to his face and see the similarities in his smile, the shape of his face. But I seriously doubt that anyone he went to high school with would recognize him on the street.

We all age so differently, even those of us who share DNA. A while after my maternal grandmother passed away in 1993, both Mom and her older brother were at a public event. Someone saw Mom across the room and made a public comment that Margaret really looked good for her age. The comment got back to my uncle rather quickly - and as the oldest child he couldn't wait to share that comment with Mom...........since Margaret was my departed grandmother's name, Mom didn't find that comment nearly as humorous as my uncle! He still laughs when he tells that story.

Traditions

Oh, tomorrow, I'm so looking forward to you and a temperature above 30 degrees. And then we're actually getting above freezing. In reality it hasn't been too long since we were above freezing. But the temps have been so frigid that it makes it feel like forever! I usually like cooler temps for sleeping – but when I crawled into bed last night, I pulled the covers all the way up and kept them there all night. There's “cool” and then there's “you've got to be kidding!”

I'm at that unfortunate point in my life that I find myself going to the funeral home more and more often. That's one of the real negatives of getting older. I was there this morning for the second time in less than two weeks. I'm old enough that I can remember when instead of everyone going to the funeral home for visitation following someone's passing, the casket was taken to the home and everyone went there for visitation. Some would always stay, because it was traditional to sit up with the departed all night.

We had neighbors who lived just up the hill from us who were surrogate grandparents for me growing up. In my early years the wife's mother lived with them. I wasn't very old when she passed away, but I have some distinct memories of it - and some not as distinct . To be honest, some of the memories are fuzzy due to my age at the time – I don't remember if Dad and I went up to the house for the neighborhood visitation or not. But what I do remember is that Mom stayed at the house with them. I remember sitting on the front porch, looking at their house and wishing my Mommy was home.

Mom and Dad never really believed in babysitters. That meant either we all went, or we all stayed home. I have very early memories of going to funerals. When I was three or four, I had a pastel blue nylon dress. It must have been my best dress, because I remember it being worn to several funerals. I never particularly liked being there, but there really wasn't an alternative.

By the time my grandfathers passed away when I was 13, visitation was being held at the funeral home. I'm sure that helped people actually get some rest during the time before the funeral services. But even then there wasn't the designated visitation time there is now. The family and neighbors would be at the funeral home every evening until the funeral. Often the close neighbors would be there almost as much as the families, as a show of love and support.

To be honest, I like how funeral visitation has evolved. I think it's nice to have a designated time for friends to come to the funeral home and pay their respects to the family. It's so much easier on the family than the time of being at the funeral home every evening. I remember how tired it made me that summer I was 13. People don't often have that much loss in such a short time – but two funerals just three months apart really started wearing on us.

Like many other traditions, the way funerals are done is regional to geographic areas. I was in my mid 20's when I first attended a funeral in another area of the country. I was surprised to learn how different the routine was there. But after spending the first 20 years of my adulthood living around the country, I learned to ask questions and go with whatever was that particular norm.

I was 17 or 18 when one of my grandmother's older sisters passed away. That was my first full Catholic Funeral mass. Mom had to work, so only Dad and I attended. I ended up sitting next to my cousin, who is just nine months older. So many of the Catholic nuances were strange to us. Then, for the first time, the priest came down from the altar and sprinkled the casket with incense and holy water. That's a very sacred part of the ceremony and occurs multiple times during the Funeral Mass. And with the first shake over the casket, my cousin and I both started sneezing at the incense. I think we may have held our giggles until the second time the priest came down, but the giggles did come. Dad wasn't very pleased with me. But it's one of my favorite memories of my cousin and I being together!

Figure Skating

Like a lot of people, we've been watching some of the Olympics. So far I haven't watched it for hours and hours, even though I've been known to do that in the past. We watched some of the Opening Ceremony Friday night, and we had it on for a bit early yesterday evening.

Hubby made a comment about last night's broadcast being the frou-frou part of the competition. I told him that I liked the frou-frou stuff, that figure skating is my favorite part of the Winter Games. I hope to catch more of it as they do the final competitions. I no longer feel it necessary to watch every moment.

I've always enjoyed the figure skating. My earliest Olympic TV memories are of watching Scott Ethan Allen compete in the 1964 Olympics and then seeing Peggy Fleming in 1968. She was so graceful and elegant – and the commentators kept mentioning that her mother made her skating costumes.

I always figured I had a more active “make believe” life than other kids my age. After all, they all had siblings to keep them company. I had more of a tendency to live in a world of my own making when I was at home. So when the Winter Olympics came around, I could always become a figure skater whenever I chose to. And I always won a medal, whether I was a single skater or part of a figure skating pair.

Pretty lofty imagination for someone who was never able to stand up on roller skates with four wheels. No matter how hard I tried, I never could get the hang of it. We had an annual skating party through high school. After my freshman year, I gave up on it. I did go my senior year, but that was only to take photos for the yearbook.

Not only could I never have stood up on ice skates, I've never in my life been referred to as “graceful” or “elegant”. As a kid, I constantly had scraped elbows and skinned knees. I can trip walking across a smooth floor. I bump into furniture and door jambs as I walk through the house. At District Music Contest one spring, I tripped and fell up the stairs at Chillicothe High School and absolutely shredded my hose. I looked fantastic during the rest of my competition.

I was always such a tomboy, it's kind of amazing that something as girlie as figure skating would catch my attention so much and turn into a lifetime love. Maybe it has something to do with the perfection – the tiny little bodies that are at the same time so incredibly athletic – the perfect hair, the costumes, the perfect makeup, the ability to combine music and athletic movements to tell a story.

Both of our granddaughters take dance lessons. The younger one isn't old enough to be into it a lot, but the older one is in a competition troupe and competes in several different styles of dance. I enjoy watching them, seeing what they are learning and seeing them in all their different costumes. They both love it.

I mentioned to hubby earlier this afternoon that he could do the Biathlon events. He made the point to me that first he would need to learn to cross-country ski. I figured why not – being retired, we have plenty of time for him to use for that! Do you think maybe I've gone back into that make-believe world?

Valentine Parties

One week until Valentine's Day – and it's still cold. Grandkids are still out of school, much to their parents' chagrin. Older daughter is probably starting to count up how many days will be added to her teaching days at the end of school. Younger daughter, on the other hand, is flying into the face of winter – she's headed to a meeting in Rochester, New York, this weekend. As for me, I actually got out of the house for the first time in over a week. Hubby wanted to take the vehicle out for a drive this afternoon, so I went with him and dropped our tax papers off.

Valentine's Day was always a time of both fun and anxiety during elementary school. We were all supposed to decorate a box at home and bring it in for Valentine's Day. That always presented such a dilemma for me, because it wasn't always easy for me to find a box to decorate. Hopefully I could come up with a shoe box or an empty oatmeal box. The next dilemma would be not having stuff to decorate with. We didn't usually have construction paper or tissue paper on hand to decorate with. So I had to be creative – and sadly, I didn't have an artistically creative bone in my body!

I usually felt a little embarrassed about my Valentine box, but it was what it was. Because Mom always preached to me treating everyone equally, I was careful to make sure I had a Valentine for every person in my classroom, including the teacher. Everyone used that same theory – but for some reason, I was afraid every year that I wouldn't get many Valentines. I always breathed a sign of relief when I opened my box and found Valentines from everyone in the room.

I would look through my Valentines over and over at home. I got a lot of mileage and a lot of enjoyment out of those few pennies' worth of cards! They would hang around for a long time after February. The one that hung around the longest was my first “real” Valentine that I got my junior year of high school. It was a beautiful old-fashioned Victorian style and I hung onto it for several years.

I didn't enjoy Valentine's Day as much when the kids were little. They always wanted the Barbie cards, the Star Wars cards, My Little Ponies, or Ninjas – whatever was popular for the elementary set. I don't know why those always had to be so expensive. The kids usually ended up with run-of-the mill Valentine cards instead of the fancy ones.

One very memorable year when they were all in grade school, I missed noticing that I had been put on as Room Mom for the Valentine's party for all three grades. The lists were put out at the beginning of school, and I should have traded with someone. But somewhere around the beginning of February, it was brought to my attention that I needed to get on the ball – especially since I was somehow the Room Mom in Charge for the kindergarten party!

I lucked out by having some really good parents on the kindergarten committee with me – including one couple who hadn't had their only daughter until they were in their mid 40's and who also had plenty of money. Yay! By the time they figured out everything they wanted to do for the party, there wasn't much left for me. Those lucky kindergarteners had fresh hot pizza delivered for their party, we did part of the party in their gym because there was a huge pinata that was stuffed full of all sorts of goodies for everyone. I think they even made up party bags for each kid to take home.

As I worked up to those parties, I tried to figure out what I could make as treats that would spread over three classrooms and not be too time consuming for me. I finally had an inspiration and made what they called “finger Jello” - jello that was made with extra unflavored gelatin so that it set up to a thick consistency that could be finger food. I made red jello and then cut shapes out with heart-shaped cookie cutters. It was so much quicker than cookies or cupcakes for three classes!!

The day of the parties there was a snowstorm – but school went on and I slid the car out of the garage and almost got stuck in the alley, but made it to the schools with the kids and their party treats. A good time was had by all!

Memories

Another really frigid day, and we're not done with it yet. Things are slowly returning to normal – the grandkids are all still on snow days, but younger daughter was able to make it to work today after working from home for the past two days. Her fourteen-mile drive from Parkville to Downtown KC, which usually takes 20-25 minutes, took about an hour and a half.

Something earlier today triggered some thoughts of my Dad, who's been gone for nearly 22 years. He'll never, though, be forgotten. Dad was born in Carroll County in 1918 and spent most of his lfie here.

It wasn't traditional back in the 1920's for people to divorce, but my paternal grandparents did that. My grandmother decided after a few years of marriage and three babies that she just wasn't cut out for farm life. Times were different back then. Grandpa moved close to Grandma, because Dad was only 5 then and his brothers were 4 and 2. That living situation lasted for four years, until Grandpa found out that Grandma had signed the three boys up to be put into an orphanage and adopted out. Grandpa rescued them and moved back to Carroll County. Two of Grandpa's sisters, both of whom lived in Coloma, helped Grandpa raise the boys. This led to a gaggle of first cousins who remained very close throughout their lives.

Like a lot of teens back then, Dad dropped out of high school his freshman year and went to work. Dad spent a long time in the Army during World War II, with some time spent in Europe and the majority of his time spent helping build the Al-Can Highway. He had wonderful stories of his time in northern Canada. He came home and took some University of Missouri Extension courses on farming. He bought the farm where I grew up, and he and his brother lived there until Dad and Mom got married in 1950. Mom moved in and Uncle Jack moved out!

Dad and I had a lot of quality time together, more than a lot of families, because Mom would work away from the farm. Except for one six-week period when I was three or four, Dad would take care of me while Mom worked. That fall, they overlapped when Dad was doing some temporary work with Missouri Dept. of Transportation and Mom was doing fall work at the toy factory in Braymer. I was always tagging around after him. I even remember a funeral or two back then when Mom was working and Dad and I attended services for a neighbor.

Dad taught me to cook and to milk a cow. We worked in the garden together, chased after the cows, I helped him rebuild the barn a couple of times after storms blew it down. But as well as we got along, there were inevitable times when we locked horns. When I was an obnoxious adolescent, I realized that when we locked horns I could get the upper hand by taking my frustrations out – loudly – on the piano. Dad would always put on his jacket and head to the timber to get away from the noise. I feel bad about that now.

When I finally was asked out on a date just after I turned 17, Dad waited until an hour before I was to be picked up to decided maybe I shouldn't go because he didn't know the boys' parents. I did win that round after I pointed out that there had been a week leading up to the date when he could have changed his mind, and I thought an hour before was a little late for that decision to be made. It was a fun date, by the way, seeing a movie at the local theater – we dated for three months. It should come as no surprise that I didn't get my driver's license until I was an adult. Dad was always afraid something bad would happen to me.

Dad enjoyed his family and adored his grandkids – they still miss him. One time when he and Mom were babysitting, older daughter picked up a doll house and was about to deck her brother with it. Dad caught it mid swing and told her that even though her brother might deserve what she was about to do, she shouldn't do it. I don't know how he managed to say it without laughing!