At 91 My Mother Shouldn't Be Climbing Up On Chairs....

NaBloPoMo Post #10

Should She?

Yes, my mother will be 92 next month. She was 42 when I was born; the seventh of seven children, I was a surprise. She actually didn't even think she was pregnant; she thought she was starting to go through menopause early. 

When the doctor told her she was pregnant, she asked, "Are you sure?!?" 

I can't imagine having a baby at 42, with six older children ranging in age from 18 down to 6. The eldest, Dennice, got married one month after I was born. I was an aunt twice at the age of three! I was closer in age to five of my nieces and nephews than I was to the sibling closest to me in age. In the picture above, Mom smiles at something my son's girlfriend is saying.

Mom says her kids keep her young, but I think she just has really, really good genes. She's a little too spry sometimes, though.  A few years ago my sister Barbara walked over to Mom's house just in time to catch Mom climbing up on a chair on the back porch, getting ready to clean some spots off the wall. Barbara scolded her and then did it herself.  Two weeks ago she -- Barbara -- was washing Mom's windows for her, left the house for something, came back and caught Mom, again, climbing onto a chair to wash the kitchen window over the sink. When asked why she was doing that she blandly remarked that it was the only way she could reach the window. We still aren't sure if she really didn't understand the question or if she was deliberately making a joke! 

I called Mom today to check in with her to see if she was feeling better. Last week she was complaining of a head cold. She said that had passed. She really does take pretty good care of herself -- and my sisters who live there and nearby take good care of her too. She goes to the doctor for her regular check ups, but she also goes if she starts feeling bad at all. At her age she doesn't need to let anything go. 

She told me today not to worry about her. "I rest whenever I feel like I need to. There's nothing I just have to do; the girls do everything. If I feel like doing something, I do it."  I reminded her of the two "chair" incidents.  She chuckled and said a bit sheepishly, "Yeah, I guess I really shouldn't do anything like that anymore even if I do feel like it."   

In the picture on the left she is snapping beans to can.

In the picture on the right she is making
no-bake cookies.

We're happy to have her with us just as long as she wants to stick around. I plan to write quite a bit more about Mom and about my Dad too, this month -- as well as my siblings, especially my sister Barbara who writes me a snail-mail letter every week. 

Bye for now.  Happy blogging!

~ ~ Lori 

It May Not Seem Like I'm Doing Anything....

 

NaBloPoMo Post #9 

But I'm Very Busy Inside My Head! 

 

I may have to give up on NaNoWriMo this year. I can't write with Thomas home every day, bless his heart!

I love him to death, but I'm used to having a certain amount of time during the day when I can, at my leisure, sit down to write as the spirit moves me. If Eler Beth isn't at work, she knows I'm writing, either because I tell her I'm going to write, or she sees me at my computer and from my expression or something, she just knows. Unless it's something very important, she doesn't interrupt me.

But Thomas doesn't know the signs, and if I tell him ahead of time, then he forgets -- bless his heart. Even if I'm in our bedroom or on the front porch using the laptop, there's a good chance that he'll pop in (or out, as the case may be) to ask me something or tell me something.

And if he realizes what he's doing, he'll say something like, "Oh! You should have told me you were writing. Want me to go see what Bob is into?"  And then, perversely, I say, "No! I like having you here."  Because I really do, you know. I'll miss him once his thumb is healed, and he goes back to work. 

 And you know, sometimes when you're writing, you just sit and stare at the computer screen for minutes at a time. It doesn't look like you're doing anything, but in your head there is a LOT that is going on. Thomas is the type of person who is almost always moving. There is always some project for him to get into. He has his wine making. Gun season starts this weekend, so he's prepping for that. He surfs the web and watches funny YouTube videos. He works with wood. He bakes squash pies. He is interested in what the kids are into and how they're doing. He'll pull his guitar out and strum on it for awhile -- well, not so much that with a broken thumb, but you get the point. He is never bored, and he never looks like he is doing nothing. The only indication I might ever get that he is even a little close to being bored is if he turns on the TV and starts flipping channels. And even that isn't a true indicator because he might very well be pretty relaxed and just looking to see if there's anything interesting on. 

The thing is that while he's baking pies, surfing the web or working with his wine, etc., he's talking to me. He loves to talk, to socialize, whereas I live inside my head most of the time. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. He keeps me from living in my head too much, and he has learned over the years that he can appreciate sitting back and being quiet sometimes. But these few weeks are giving me some insight into our retirement years. I know that when that time comes, if I have any deadlines to meet, personal or work imposed, I'm going to have to lay down rules, lock doors, and hang "Writing in Progress" signs. 

I guess I'll enjoy his company while I can, because when he is released to go back to work, between that and deer season, I won't see a lot of him. I'll just have to do my writing then. In the meantime, if I don't succeed with NaNoWriMo, then I don't. 

(Ha Ha!! While I was composing this post, he was in and out of the room talking about one thing and another, and he just now said, "I'm going to leave you alone, now, mom." I love that man!!)

Happy blogging everyone!

~ ~ Lori


 

Something Prompted Me To Write This....

NaBloPoMo Post #8

It was a Daily Writing Prompt

I'm still feeling pretty rotten today, like my head is trying to roll off my shoulders. I don't have enough brain power to write what I had planned to write, so I'm cheating and using a writing prompt. (Also, my desktop is running very, very slowly, and Andrew borrowed my laptop.)

Hey, it was either that or a cute kitten video!

Actually since I started looking at the writing prompts for November on Blogher, I feel like I might use some of them again through the month and not feel like I'm cheating. Some of them are really interesting questions upon which to build a blog post. 

The prompt I chose was this: What did you think was the coolest job in the world when you were younger? Do you still feel that way?

I honestly can't remember ever thinking that one job was the "coolest." I know I became interested in writing in one form or another when I was about 14. By the time I was a Junior in high school I knew I wanted to work for a newspaper at least for a part of my life -- and I did.

But when I was really young, there were two things that I can remember being interested in enough that I read about them or used them in my pretend play. One of them was police officer.  When I was a first-grader I checked a book out of the library about police officers. It wasn't very big, and the binding was blue. The text was simple enough, and it was probably written for a higher grade-level, but thanks to my sister Barbara I was already reading at a third- or fourth-grade level.

All I really remember about the book was that it was blue and there were simple drawings accompanying the text. It explained how police officers went to police academies, and it told what they're duties were. And some of the drawings were of female police officers. I think that might be what attracted me; I don't know. For a year maybe, I wanted to be a policewoman.

In the second grade I announced that I was going to be a scientist. I wore a white lab coat (probably someone's dress shirt) and I carried a notebook and pencil with me everywhere. In my pretend play I was a "scientist" working on experiments and making notes about them. That's all I remember about that except that my sister Barbara asked me why I wanted to be a scientist, and I said because I liked to write things down and keep records of things. I can remember that like it was yesterday. She laughed at me (she was 6 years older), and said there was more to being a scientist than that. I wonder if I had read a book about a scientist or if in school we'd done some elementary experiments and had to write down our observations or something. Or maybe we had a text book that showed a scientist with a white lab coat, making notes or something. I don't know, but it was very appealing to me.

Of course, in real life, I was not that great at math or science but excelled in English and literature. But I do still like to keep neat, complete records of just about everything, and I do write down my observations. :) 

Other things I liked to pretend to be in play were forest ranger, detective, and newspaper reporter. And all three of those required taking notes and keeping records, didn't they? Hmm.

Anyway, I'm off to bed now. I'm going to baby this cold and hope it doesn't get worse, and I'm going to baby this computer and hope it doesn't require getting wiped -- but it looks like it's heading in that direction. It keeps freezing up on me! Oh well! Maybe we'll both be feeling better tomorrow.

In the meantime, happy blogging!

~ ~ Lori

A Quick Post About Nothing....

NaBloPoMo #7

Because I'm Getting Sick

 

I think I've caught Thomas' cold. He had to go to the doctor Thursday. I hope I can keep this from turning into an infection like his did.

I don't feel like writing anything really; getting ready to go to bed. I have taken juice, Nasacort, hot tea, aspirin, and I just had a small glass of wine (some of Thomas' home made grape). 

I've had a head cold for a couple of weeks now, and today my throat suddenly felt scratchy and the back of my sinuses feel raw, if you know what I mean. And I feel it creeping down into my chest. Yuck! I really don't have time to be sick right now.

So maybe I'll be back to write something a bit more interesting tomorrow. And hopefully I'll be feeling a lot better by morning. 

Happy Blogging, and I hope everyone is healthy!

~ ~ Lori

How Did You Carry Your Books To School?

NaBloPoMo #6

I Carried Mine in My Arms....

 

This article on NPR caught my eye. It's about how students have carried their books to school over the past several decades, beginning with the old leather strap.

I started school in 1972, graduating in 1984. No one carried a backpack or rucksack or any kind of book bag to school. We piled our books and folders and binders in our arms, largest on the bottom, smallest on the top. We stood at the ends of our driveways or at our bus stops holding them against our chests in front of us or resting them on a hip, the way you would hold a baby. 

We hated days when there was something to take home from each and every class. It could get pretty heavy. And we loved the days when we could leave everything in our lockers.

I was a reader, so I always, always had a book to read, and sometimes I carried two. If I was close to the end of a book and thought it possible that I might finish it while at school, I'd take the next book I was planning to read so that there would be absolutely no chance of being caught out with nothing to read. 

If you were a girl and you carried a large handbag, you could sometimes fit some smaller books or papers in there. But other than purses, no one carried a bag unless it was a gym bag. 

Our son started school in 1995, well into the days of the backpack. By the time he was in middle school he was so loaded down with books and supplies that he bent over when he walked. I've been away from school systems since I started homeschooling our daughter in 2006, so I don't know what types of backpacks the kids use in our area now or if they are still burdened with 30 or more pounds on their backs. 
 
How do your kids carry their books? How did you carry yours when you were in school?

Happy Blogging!

~ ~ Lori

Chicken Hawks and Podcasts....

NaBloPoMo #5

And Getting That Look From the Daughter

I talk to myself a lot. And I sing to myself. And sometimes I make up words about what I'm doing or thinking and put them to well-known tunes. (Doesn't everyone?!?) My family is used to it. I think it is therapeutic. I try not to talk to myself when people are around, but sometimes I forget. I try not to talk to myself when just my husband is around because he thinks I'm talking to him and will say, "What?" And then I have to interrupt my one-way conversation with myself to say, "Nothing, I was just talking to myself." Talking to myself is a stress reliever, I believe. When I'm puttering around the house, cleaning, putting away laundry, cooking, doing dishes, I talk to myself, and I feel relaxed. I wonder if a study has ever been done on the benefits of talking to oneself. 

Anyway, this evening Thomas had gone to bed, and Eler Beth had just gone to her room to do pet things before getting herself ready for bed. I was puttering around and thinking to myself (not talking) about what I needed to do before I sat down to do my blog post and then go to bed. Thomas had brought Eler Beth some pretty guineafowl feathers he'd picked up at a friends' house today (they happen to raise guineas) and what looked like a hawk feather and had given them to Eler Beth right before he went to bed. She likes things like that, and we like to use them in decorations. So anyway, their conversation about the feathers from earlier that evening was going through my mind too.

Eler Beth came out of her room and handed me a big 4-cup scoop that we use to measure out the dogs' food and that she'd forgotten to put away earlier. I thanked her, took it, and she turned to go back to her room. At least I thought she had turned to go back to her room. I turned to go to put it away and I thought of the little chicken hawk (Henery Hawk) in the old Foghorn Leghorn cartoons.

In a high-pitched voice I started to say what he said in the cartoon. "I'm a rootin' tootin', lasso-loopin', shotgun shootin'....(changing to my own conversational voice) no, wait, that's not right. (changing back to the Chicken Hawk's voice) I'm a rootin' tootin', lasso-loopin', six-gun shootin'....(changing to my own voice) No! That's not right either. Haha. What was it now? Oh yeah! (Changing back to the chicken hawk's voice) I'm a rootin' tootin', lasso-loopin', popgun shootin' Chicken Hawk! (back to my own voice) Ha! That's it!!"

And turning I saw my daughter standing just a few feet away, eyeing me a bit sideways, a small tentative smile on her lips, expression clearly saying, "Has Mom lost her mind?" What she actually said was, "What...what are you doing?"

Well, I lost it, and so did she!

I told her I was trying to remember what the chicken hawk said. And then I told her how I'd messed up the last part twice and remembered it correctly the third time. She said she hadn't been able to make out what I had said the first two times I tried to say it. She just heard me start it, stop myself, mutter something to myself, and then try it again. Then at the end I said the whole thing and laughed a bit scarily! 

Ah well. Someday she'll be old. :)

So then, a few minutes later I sat down at the computer and decided I'd load my iPod before I did my blog post. I listen to a lot of podcasts on my little iPod Shuffle. I have books and magazines on there, newscasts, and lots of radio shows. I pulled up my iTunes library, plugged in my iPod and began to delete the podcasts I'd listened to and to load new ones.

While I was doing this Eler Beth came into the living room again and sat down and started talking to me about something. I continued moving podcasts from my library to my iPod while we talked. At some point neither of us was talking, and this is what I said, aloud, to myself -- and this is what she heard me say, aloud, to myself, without the benefit of knowing the context.

Said quickly and in an excited voice: "Oh wow! Williwaw! That's a completely new one to me. I almost always know the word and what it means, but I like to learn the origin. But williwaw! They threw a new one at me today! Cool! Williwaw! Wonder what that is?" 

And then I stopped babbling and looked at my daughter. She was looking at me askance again. 

"What are you talking about?!?" she said.

I was laughing so hard it took a few seconds before I could tell her. I pointed at my computer screen. " 'Merriam Webster's Word of the Day' podcast," I said. "Today's word is 'williwaw,' and I don't think I know that word. It's new to me, see?"

She saw.

And we laughed. And then I scrapped my other idea for tonight's blog post and shared this one instead. :)  And in case you were wondering, a "williwaw" is "a sudden, violent storm blowing offshore from a mountainous coast." 

Happy Blogging!

~ ~ Lori

Bottle Feeding Kittens, Soren and Illyana....

 

NaBloPoMo Post #4

All The Nyans, Part Two

 

Back in April, as we were preparing for the arrival of Eler Beth's Fennec Fox, we got a surprise handed to us -- two orphaned new-born kittens.  A friend of ours called to say that a friend of hers had found them on the side of the road. Their eyes were not open, but began opening within a couple of days, so we estimated their birth date as April 15. 

This wasn't the first time Eler Beth had bottle-raised a small animal (and I knew it wouldn't be the last!), and she was thrilled. We quickly stocked up on kitten formula, bottles, nipples, bottle brush, pee pads, and second-hand baby blankets. The little girl, the buff colored one, she named Illyana, and the gray male she named Soren. 

We had no intention of keeping them. After all, she already had Bryant in her room, and soon the Fennec fox would be here. We didn't think it would be any problem to find a home for them when the time came.  

Bryant quickly showed that he was going to be really, really good with a little fox, because he went right into "dad" mode with the kittens. He LOVED the babies. They were HIS babies. He would go check on them in their carrier periodically. He cleaned their little bums. If you asked him, "Where are your babies?" he would go right over to them and look at them. And if I came into the room and took them out with me, to feed in another room or to bathe them, he would get a little agitated until I brought them back.

Now the only thing we ever worried about regarding getting the fox was how Bryant would be with him. He'd always been good with small dogs and puppies, but we weren't totally sure how careful he'd be with the fox. Our fears were put to rest when these kittens came.

They thrived under Eler Beth's care, with a bit of help from me, and of course we became attached. We never dared voice our attachment because Thomas, we knew, would not want a cat in the house. He has an allergy, although in recent years it doesn't seem to be as bad as it used to be. But after our last cat died, he said he didn't want any more because he didn't want to have to deal with it if it died. But with these two every time I'd say something about Eler Beth finding them homes, he'd say, "You don't hear me rushing you." Or I'd say, "You know she's going to be very picky about who she gives them to." And he'd say, "Of course she is. I'm not rushing to get rid of them."  We knew there was hope!! :)

As you will see if you read future posts, circumstances occurred that caused Thomas to become VERY attached to the kittens, and they are now part of our family. I'll go into that more as I continue the story of the Nyans which extends into the stories of getting the Fennec fox, another surprise rescue kitten, and....  But I'll just leave that for now. 
 
Illy used to love to sleep under the desk on the keyboard tray. She's too big to fit there now!  The last picture here is of them last month when they turned six months old. More on the little ones of the family soon! Happy blogging all!

~ ~ Lori 

Remiel, The Fennec Fox