Me, Myself and Memories

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  Noreen 5:21 pm on November 12, 2018 Permalink
  Tags: Dad, Mom ( 5 )   

  It’s Going Well 

  I had a text message that Dennis and his grandson had left Silver Bay at 8:20 this morning.  I moved forward with my fall cleaning.  Mom had that as a part of my growing up each and every spring and fall. 

  Quite a few years ago, it must have been ten or more years ago, as I was still working, Michael and JoAnn and Mom spent the weekend at Finnland to visit Mom’s brother Melvin.  Michael and I had it worked out that they would leave Mom’s house key in a certain spot.  They planned on leaving early Friday morning.  I had planned on taking a vacation day from work.  I would swoop in shortly there after and do a bit of elfing.  Mom had mentioned so often she was weary of the green on her living room walls.  With paint, brushes and whatever I thought I would need I would get the living room painted while Mom was taking a weekend up north.

  What I learned about my Mom did not surprise me.  Mom and Dad lived on a gravel township road.  The house did not have air conditioning . . . they used windows and breezes to stay comfortable.  As I went from wall to wall I taped up the mop board as I went to keep paint off of it.  There was no dust on the ledge of the board.  There was no dust on anything in the living room.  Mom ran a tidy home . . . and not just when she knew company was coming.

  I don’t mind doing the total house thing in the fall and spring.  It’s satisfying to touch and feel what I have in my home.  I can decide if it will remain where I picked it up from, decide if it is worthy of remaining, or it may be moved to a new spot.  I do not have a lot of knickknacks sitting around.  What there is, I most likely have an emotional attachment to it.  Not to worry, I still miss a thing or two that wasn’t done as it should have been.

  That last little bit of information was driven home just this last spring.  Carrie, Megan and Nicholas came to spend a Sunday.  Nicholas doesn’t miss a single thing.  He asked me what the password was for the tablet.  As I looked it up for him . . . “Grammie, that pillow that is in the old rocking chair is really dusty.  I pounded on it and dust flew.” What a little fart!  He was right of course.  I did look to see if he also had white gloves in his back pocket.  I had totally forgotten about it until today when I was cleaning in the west porch.  I looked at that pillow . . . really looked at it.  It was a needlepoint pillow I had done when . . . Nicholas’ mom was about five.  The pillow went into the clothes dryer with a very damp towel and a clean pair of my tennis shoes.  Non the worse for ware of the wool yarn used for the design, it is ready for Nicholas to have at it again when he comes the next time.  It did bring to mind when for some reason he had crawled under one of our beds and came out looking like a wooly little lamb.  His hair had brushed across the box springs of the bed.  Gotta keep that kid around for the quality control inspections.  As I mentioned, I think I am doing the cleaning up to snuff, until a squirrely little kid comes along and lets the air out of my tires.

   
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  Noreen 5:36 pm on November 6, 2018 Permalink
  Tags: Dad, Elvera ( 3 ), Michael ( 11 ), Mom ( 5 )   

  What a blustery day. You know the wind is strong, steady and howling when the stubborn Lilacs let go of their leaves. We have a wind chime in the Evergreen on the northwest corner of the house. It dinged and clanged to the point I was sure it would end up on the ground by daylight.

  Yesterday was a frenzy of phone messages, text messages and emails wanting to be informed and supportive of Michael’s family. Today was a quiet day. Not even a single phone call with a political agenda. I did speak with Michael’s wife, JoAnn, this morning. Her three daughters, their husbands and five grandchildren are keeping her quite busy. In time to come the quiet will close in, reflections as she looks at aspects of their home. How could it not.

  I admit I have had a nagging headache since Friday. Our bodies do not lie to us. We get busy and shove things to the back of our brains. We can exhaust ourselves cleaning house and washing laundry. We can throw ourselves into mind challenging stitch patterns. You think you are fooling yourself . . . Not! You can’t fool your body and brain. I have tomorrows yet to come to let reality sink in of the loss of Michael. Within time, that nagging headache will become a soft feeling in my heart when I think of him. I know that I will heal.

  It took me an awfully long time before I could speak or think of the loss of my Dad and Mom without tears seeping down my checks. My sister Elvera was taken suddenly. No one to call and say “Do you have the recipe of Mom’s for such and such recipe?” “When are we going to check out that new quilt shop that they call The Old Alley Quilt Shop?” I am so fortunate. Many people do not have those treasures that have touched them to their core. I have had, I do have . . . my life is rich beyond measure.

   
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  Noreen 4:36 am on November 6, 2015 Permalink
  Tags: Calvin ( 4 ), Dad, Elvera ( 3 ), Michael ( 11 ), Mom ( 5 )   

  The Workforce 

  This is the time of the year when memories come flooding to me.  The leaves are just about off of the trees, the garden produce has been harvested and stored or canned and the acres of corn and soybeans have been harvested.  So what does go on at a farmyard after harvest and before the snow flies?  No twiddling of thumbs I can assure you.

  

  Raymond and Lena’s Workforce: Elvera, Noreen, Calvin and Michael. In the photo: Elvera’s dress was pink taffeta with rhinestone buttons. My dress was aqua with a white eyelet bodice front made by my mom. The boys had on tan plaid zip front coveralls. The memories bring a smile sliding down my cheeks.

  The first order of business was getting the Workforce outfitted with proper attire:  hats, everyday clothes and gloves . . . that fit well.  After school, we would join Dad at the site where logs had been collected since last year at the same time.  We could hear the tractor long before we saw the setup: a huge saw blade setup, run by a rubber belt getting its power from the flywheel on the Allis Chalmers tractor.

  Dad had been cutting logs all the day long into chunks of various sizes.  A wooden flair box wagon hooked to a second tractor was a bit of a distance away, with the amount of cut wood making a huge heap that rose over the sides.  A second flair box wagon was close to the saw and Dad was cutting and chucking chunks of wood into the second wagon with energy as fresh with his rhythm as if he had just started the project and not having been at it for most of the day.

  Elvera’s job was to pull the filled wagon box as close as possible to the west basement window of the house. Myself, Calvin and Michael were in the basement waiting for Elvera to begin tossing the chunks of wood through the window.  Much like a chain gang, Michael and Calvin then threw the cut wood to me where I would begin stacking it, beginning at a point farthermost from either side of the window.  The stacking was an art in itself.  The first row pointing out with the second row lying across, followed by a row pointing out.  So it went.  Two loads a day after school, with the big finale coming over the MEA weekend.  Over a period of time the wood room that was as wide as the house by eight feet deep was filled to the top with neatly stacked wood to tide the family over the winter.  There were a fair amount of crushed fingers or sore toes as the tossing of the wood did get a bit out of hand.  A chunk of wood is heavy, but coming at an appendage via a toss made the impact more severe.  Oh, don’t worry, just to make sure, we also stacked quite a few wagons of wood in the machine shed – just in case the winter was longer and more severe than we had anticipated.  Surprisingly, quarrels were rare.  We just wanted to finish this yearly task.

  Once the sore bodies, fingers and toes were healed over, the Workforce mustered together for their reward.  Those very same wooden flair box wagons were pulled out to the harvested corn fields with Elvera at the helm and the three of us hanging on while being in the wagon.  Elvera would park the wagons in good strategic places.  All four of us began walking the corn rows, each carrying a five gallon pail, seeking and searching for ears of corn that the corn picker had missed.  It was now our turn to chuck ears of corn into the wagon.  With each five gallon pail emptied into the wagon we could see dollar signs. The deal with Dad was, that after the fields had been walked with the wagons holding OUR harvest, Dad would pull the wagons to the elevator in town.  The money from the loads of ear corn was ours to split four ways.  Hooray!

  I can tell you that we counted our stash, we fingered our stash, we planned and schemed.  This was our money to spend on Christmas presents in Hutchinson, most likely at the Ben Franklin or Woolworth stores.  We were rolling in dough.  I have no doubt that Mom and Dad may have added to the pot.  We never were given allowances per say, for being our parent’s social security, aka: workers when work needed to be done, equals a steady benefit.  We all worked together and we generally worked very well together.

  As I said earlier on: the fall season is steeped in memories for me.

  In life, please remember to give and have no memory of it, or take and remember it always.

   
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  Noreen 2:15 am on July 28, 2015 Permalink
  Tags: Carrie ( 12 ), Dad, Kevin ( 8 ), Mom ( 5 ), quilt   

  Due Diligence 

  Seeing projects through to their ends is, indeed, due diligence.  Off and on during the heat of the summer, I have been working on my scrappy quilt project.  Quilt projects are always a challenge when working with fabric and threads.  Having the vision of the final hurdle needs patience until the due diligence has been done.

  

  I did not need to use the little silver tool to thread the finer sewing needles until I reached my 70th birthday. I never fully appreciated how much easier life could be with these little freebies.

  This week, the hemming of the scrappy quilt is that last hurdle.  Hand hemming is still the most desirable option.  High loft batting, fluffy flannel, scrappy quilt top and the binding makes too many layers under the Model 1802 Sears sewing machine for a quality looking hurdle.  My Mom preferred the blind stitch for hemming.  Double quilt thread in a very sharp needle fills the bill.  Think about it: you are in the bed and tug the quilt up tight to your chin, the hem edge often times feels that tight tug.  The double threaded needle of tough quilt thread sure can’t hurt to keep the binding in place. As it is the blind stitch, I am able to use the white quilt thread I had on hand as it wouldn’t be visible.

  I don’t mind the time it takes for hand hemming.  A project such a this deserves that quality of time.  One of my Dad’s favorite sayings: “You don’t have time to do it right, but you always have time to do it over.”  Wow, what pops into my mind immediately after typing that line is the amount of farrowing crates the kids’ dad built, each time thinking the latest was the greatest.  Both Kevin and I do not mind taking the time in doing projects right the first time.  I can’t speak for Carrie, as her hubby Jeremy drives that engine.  I like due diligence.

  Regardless of how warm and humid it is outside, driving me into the sewing room to begin with, I don’t like sitting at the sewing table for long periods of time.  A tender back makes for moving often.  There is junk mail to check out, putting a new blurb onto my blog, or checking the refrigerator for what is available for suppertime fixings.  Time frames are workable when those of Stauffer Avenue are retired.  Checking the weather forecast, I think Wednesday will be a day for outside work: a lower dew point and temps in the low eighties.

   
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  Noreen 4:59 am on July 24, 2015 Permalink
  Tags: Dad, Dennis ( 40 ), Kevin ( 8 ), Onduline   

  The Lull of Great Days 

  This afternoon it was not hard to miss that the lull we had of no humidity and mild temperatures are over for a spell.  Those wonderful four days that we did have is what makes summer sweet.

  

  Lazy mornings on the west patio. It is our own hideaway.

  As our usual morning traditions, we had coffee on the west patio enjoying the morning doves serenade us.  Both Dennis and I recalled that in times past as we, each at our own locations, would have the morning doves coo to us as we headed to the livestock barns to start the day.  Enjoying the morning, lost in our thoughts, we were taken up sharp when we heard the sounds of construction.  Our handyman had driven up to the back garage from the east without us noticing and he was hard at work putting on the metal ridge roll on its roof.  Do you think that someone could run off with our property and us not notice?

  What is amazing for small town people is that on Sunday, Dennis mentioned to Kevin that we needed to have the ridge roll replaced.  Monday Dennis looked Kenny up and ask about him working for us and by noon today the project was done. Had not the heat ramped up, Kenny would have started sealing the garage roof with the black latex paint.  By the way, in regard to that Onduline roof we put on in 1991, it was the total rage.  Most did not read the fine print of the product in that it needed to be sealed on a regular schedule. Thus, in the short years to come, there were numerous barns that looked like their roofs were made of cardboard – and lasted about as long as cardboard.  It was marketing hype from a company based in Africa.  Many lumberyards bought into it as well as Dennis and I did.  At the time, my Dad shook his head.  He must have known more than the average.  This will be the fourth time since we put the product on in 1991 that we have resealed it.  At this rate, we are confident the roof will be fine for more years to come.

  If the weathermen are correct, we should have a lull of more beautiful days next week and then wham . . . it will be August.  Where does the time go when you are having fun?