Opening day of deer season in MI was yesterday, which meant that the family was together for the weekend. We ladies had a wonderful day crafting yesterday, working on Christmas cards and Christmas crafts. I was quite productive considering that I ate milk-laden bread on Thursday. I was able to give Jeff his R2D2 hat, which was fun. I forgot to take any pictures of it on his head. He seemed to like it, a lot. He grinned for several minutes after receiving it.
Tags: family
We have no set traditions for celebrating Independence Day yet, so we invited people to play on the water with us. Mom and Dad P. were busy with cooking for a catering job and running to the farm. Josh and Julie joined us on the water. Julie and I in our kayaks floated merrily down the river while the boys in a canoe fished. Julie and I found the creek near Granny’s house and explored as far up as we dared. There was plenty of treefall to navigate. After playing in the inlet, I made it my mission to pass under as many trees hanging in the water as I could. Pictures were taken by me with my Canon and Julie with a couple of disposable cameras left over from the wedding. A map of our adventure on the river. You can see the river to the east of 131.
After playing in the water, we hurried home to make dinner for the family, only to find Granny waiting in the driveway. Mental note, don’t plan dinner until I know for a fact when I will get off the river. After dinner we went cleaned up and went to town with Julie and Josh to watch the fireworks. We met up with another Josh and were entertained quite nicely.
Our family Memorial Day celebration involves heading south to Burley Park for a largish flea market. While I did not come back with any fleas, thank goodness, I found a few things. I wasn’t on a huge mission for anything I had to have, just small things if I happened upon them. I think this year was one of the smallest vendor turnouts I’ve seen in a while. I managed to purchase four books I didn’t need, one of them was an accidental purchase. It was in my hands when I was finished, so home it came. I’m sure it will be a lovely read either way, I have read that author before and non-fiction is good for me. One vendor had an assortment of knitting needles, yes, I had a sizer in my backpack so I could have checked the sizes for the needles, but it was unnecessary. I wasn’t looking for size, just type. I was looking for dpns (double pointed needles) or circulars. I managed 3 dpns for a dollar, which seems like a good deal, but one really needs four or five needles to make circles/tubes. I will keep an eye out for more in future trips.
My most interesting purchase was a Monopoly/Sorry wood box game set plus six other games-chess, checkers, cribbage, dominoes, playing cards, and poker dice. It is not a complete game by any stretch: several chess pieces missing, most of the cribbage pegs are gone, no playing cards, missing Sorry and Monopoly pieces. I may spend some time hunting extra replacement pieces, but I am afraid it will cease to be a good deal if I invest money to purchase more. The Monopoly game appears to be missing its dice, chance cards and hotels at the least. The board is a miniature size, but still playable if I find enough pieces. Anything can be a hotel 
Jason and I also purchased some spoons. I’m not sure if I could have gotten a better deal at a box store, but we needed more spoons. I was also looking for random serving spoons. I only found them at one booth, but the woman was too busy to tell me how much she wanted for them, so I went on hoping to find others. When I tried to find her again, I couldn’t remember what row she was in and I was too tired to hunt too long. I will draw a map next time or exhibit patience and purchase them when I find them. I also found a tea pot for Mom P, she seemed to need another and this one called my name when I saw it. The last thing I came home with was a small sunburn, hopefully it will tan.
My friend Ruth met up with us at the park after a while, just about the time I purchased the game, so off to the Jeep we went to put the game away and retrieve a water bottle. Jeff and Jeanne were off on vacation, so it was Mom P, Dad P, Jason and I. Ruth arrived about the same time that Josh, Julie and Julie’s mom arrived.
We all headed home, minus Julie and her mom. Jason and I had the bright idea of putting on crockpot food before we left. At the end of flea market days, we are always tired and try to figure out what to make. We tried to plan ahead this year. We made venison stew/soup with fresh baked bread, salad and strawberries. I didn’t realize we were having strawberries, nor did I realize Ruth was coming home, neither of which is horrible, just inconvenient. Ruth is rather allergic, so I spent time washing up a lot. We played a game of hearts and the family departed. Ruth, Jason and I had a game of Quiddler then Ruth headed home
All in all, a fun day.
While trying to come up with a catchy title for my post, I was attempting to browse an online dictionary. I have finally discovered a flaw in online the dictionary, thesaurus, reference type site; you can’t open to a letter and browse the section. I desired an alliterated title, so I wanted to flip through the F section. I will keep looking for an online tool that will let me do this.
I spent some time last night mourning the loss of my father. I am sad that we are unable to reach a place where we can have a relationship of some kind. It’s not for lack of other wonderful male influences, I have many older father-figures in my life, but there is a part of a girl that desperately needs a daddy. I acknowledged a long time ago that while God designed me for that, I would not have that this side of eternity. I still have the desire, the wish, hope, dream. This topic came up because a friend of Jason & Jeanne lost her father in a motorcycle accident earlier this week. I had never met her father, but I had met her and my heart went out to her. I can’t imaging the pain of losing a loving father, but the emotion of losing my grandmother was raw enough to bring tears.
Today we attended the funeral. Her father was a retired firefighter, I have never attended a funeral for someone in that career. Beyond the countless men and women in many public service roles, the service ended with one last call and Amazing Grace a-al bagpipe. I’m one of the ones that appreciates the bagpipe and the talent behind it. The last call brought many tears to many eyes across the church. Central dispatch beeps the men, then they all turn the volume up and we hear the dispatcher call the deceased’s name several times. After the dispatcher is unable to reach the individual, she announced that he had gone home and sent him off with well wishes or thanks. I’m afraid I was crying by the end and don’t remember her exact words. The service leading up to that was beautiful, very Christ-centered. His wife read her testimony, which was really her husband’s and her testimony. Jason’s Dad went with us, we decided to attend the graveside service and return to the church for lunch with the family.
Upon returning home, Jason and I set to work on the raised beds in the garden. If I had to guess, I would say it was around 5 or so. I’ll post pictures later on Saturday or Sunday. I have onions and garlic pushing up through the earth. All of my beds are down with black dirt sitting in them and I nearly knelt on a snake. We put down some screen in the hopes of keeping out the moles and I didn’t trim it. I was kneeling down to work in a bed and Jason said in a serious tone, don’t move snake. The snake had gotten tangled in the mesh, so Jason carefully cut it out and set it free. It had lost some color, it may have been in the sun too long. When we finished work today, I made sure to tear off the extra mesh, I would hate for that to happen again, we came in the house around 8.
I need to spend a few more minutes on the last box. By the time I stopped, I was saying good enough with the amount of rocks still in it. I know I encountered more stones than I would have liked to when I planted the onions and garlic. I have determined that I am going to have too many tomatoes and not enough broccolis. My broccolis are refusing to stand up straight, too spindly. My sweet peppers are just starting to come up after weeks and weeks and weeks, I planted the sweet peppers and broccoli on April 21. My tomatoes are growing fast, planted those April 30th, along with the hot peppers and bell peppers, I think.
To wrap up the online reference discussion, I did discover that thefreecitionary.com site has a way to search for words that begin with or end with. I also found a rhyming dictionary and a few other tools that I book marked. I also subsribed to a word-a-day rss fee, maybe I will learn some new words.
The furries figured out how to get along. For the most part, our three cats and one dog have established a peaceful coexistence. Daisy hangs out where ever she wants to, but gives extremely wide berth to either of the boys when she crosses their path. Duke, the antisocial cat, is on my lap or racing around the living room jumping in a basket or beating the tar out of a paperbag she has flattened.
Well, I take that back. Duke just jumped on Daisy, who was sleeping on the couch and Daisy growled at Duke, which caused Duke to hiss and the boys came running to Duke’s defense. Now everyone is on high alert.
LG has become Mr. Friendly Cat, which is quite funny. I’m afraid there is a direct correlation to his friendliness and Cucumber moving in with John.
Except for isolated incidents, everyone seems to have adjusted quite well. Thus ends part two in my March Monday post.
I chose too big of a project. As explained in other posts, for Christmas, Jason’s family exchanges one name, we make or purchase a gift and may donate the balance of the budget to a charity of our choice. We drew names (were assigned names) in October of 2006 for Christmas 2006, which was eventually celebrated on New Year’s Eve. I searched and contemplated and hunted and stewed to find just the right gift for my person-Granny. There was not doubt in my mind that it would be handmade, I fancy myself a crafter. I don’t usually craft large gifts because of the time involved, but I found a wonderful cross stitch stocking that was solid stitching in a normal sized stocking shape. Granny likes cardinals, so I was on the look-out for birdies. While at a local chain craft store, I happened upon this stocking with a light gray-blue background fabric and two beautiful birds, one male & one female. It reminded me how unfair life seems for the girly birds, so plain. Since discovering a male and female cardinal at my own feeder this winter, I have changed my mind a bit. The female is absolutely gorgeous in her own interesting manner.
Of course I purchased the stocking kit, thinking it would involve a few hours of work, but it would stitch up in now time. The last major stitching project I did took me two years to finish, but I was a kid when I stitched it. I finished most of that project while working in an office at a family camp in northern NY. Needless to say, after putting several months of effort in, it was clear to me that I was not going to finish on time. I had already purchased several small trinkets and treats to put in the stocking and realized I was going to need a new thing to use instead. While visiting my family for Thanksgiving, my mother turned me on to loom knitting. She was hoping to craft with her granddaughter, my niece. After venturing to a local chain craft store the day after Thanksgiving, aka black Friday, we triumphantly returned to my parent’s house with yarn and looms. I was so intrigued by how fast we knit up hats, that I purchased a set of looms when I returned home. After conferring with Jason, I decided to purchase some thick acrylic yarn, I didn’t know if she was allergic to anything, safe than sorry side. I knit up a cute little hat and put all the trinkets, treats and treasures in the hat.
I brought the cross stitch to Family Christmas and showed it to Granny, nearly everyone else had seen me stitching. I put it away every time Granny was around, so that put a slight damper on pace. She graciously allowed me more time to finished and asked for me to make it into a wall hanging instead of a stocking, which was not a problem. I put it down for a few months, my arm was tired to stitching. When I was ready to pick it up again, Jason had proposed, I had a wedding to plan, I had been invited to visit MCF in Africa, and my world was spinning. I stitched occasionally, but not as often as I should have. I even took it to Africa in case I wanted to stitch on the plane or in my free time. I was too tired on most of the planes to do anything more than ready mindless books and sleep. Free time at MCF was spent doing other things, like playing with children, taking walks, and enjoying Africa.
It returned with me untouched, but I had renewed determination to fit it in around finalizing wedding details. My plans never seem to work out exactly the way I hope. I didn’t end up doing the big push to finish until Christmas this year. I told myself I had until New Year’s Eve to finish it, so I took it to NY and stitched in the car when I wasn’t driving. The steering wheel prohibited efficient stitching. I am happy to say that while I haven’t maintained proper verb tense while writing, the end is in sight. My new end date is tomorrow, GR Family Fun Day. I just may make it. The frame and hanger won’t be finished, but the bird stitching is finished, with only the made up border in my head to finish.
On the subject of the border, I am a Photoshop/Illustrator girl. Not because I love it or detest anything else, because it is what I learned. They are the tools I had at my disposal while working as a graphic editor. I have since switched to GIMP for Linux & Windows. The Gfig filter is giving me fits. How does this fit into Granny’s present you ask? Thank you for asking, let me tell you, I decided on a rectangle border around the edges, but since it is a stocking shape, I would have empty space in the top left and bottom right corners and what better to put there than a coolie swirl. I grabbed a compass, printed some cross stitch graph paper and drew and erased and drew and erased and drew and erased. Then I remembered that Jason was playing with a spiral tool on the computer the other week. I popped open GIMP and tried to add the spiral filter to my existing graph paper, no such luck. Because my brain is constantly troubleshooting and comparing, I decided to eliminate variables. The only was to get the spiral tool to work correctly was to draw it in the filter with the graph paper underneath, save it all, close it all, open a new, blank image, open the filter and magically, it appeared. I have stitched one of the spirals and am enthralled with it. I did have a little consultation with Jason, so I may owe him a fee or credit or something.
Stay tuned for pictures . . .
Tags: Christmas, cross-stitch, family, overdue, stocking
Jason and I returned yesterday from visiting my family in northern NY and Long Island. I was a bit concerned about leaving the three cats home alone for 5 days. It turns out that worry was completely unfounded, as I type I have Zorro in part of my lap and Duke in the other part and a dog on the other side of me. Should Little Guy decide to join us, I shall be overwhelmed by furries.
We rented a car to avoid adding mileage and wear and tear to our vehicles. This trip we had a bright red Ford Focus, have to say not very impressive-no cruise control, no accommodations for shorter individuals. By the time I was ready to change drivers, my driving leg was so cramped it had to learn to walk again.
We had family dinner on Thursday, two of my step-sisters and family, as well as my parents. More Christmas presents were exchanged. My niece was also there, she’s a big fan of the high school musical nonsense. She received a DVD game of it for Christmas and conned Jason and Mom into playing. I decided to help them out with the only category I could-dance sequences. The game would show a 30 second clip from a dance in the movie then ask about the moves, no prior knowledge required. I didn’t really let her play it again while I was there. It’s ok for her to learn that she can’t have everything she wants and games are supposed to be fun for everyone playing. After she opened the rest of her presents, she had a new board game to play-Life. We all played a game of Life after my step-sisters went home. David showed up just about the time we took our fourth turn. We caught him up quickly and went on to lose spectacularly to David.
On Friday we headed to Long Island to visit with my grandparents, who were hospitalized. Jason did most of the driving during our trip, so he has now done what I haven’t-driven in The City. We chose to stay on the NYS Thruway, also called route 90 from PA to Albany, NY then 87 from Albany to NYC. We made several stops and obtained a few more pennies for our collection. We added the Statue of Liberty and the NY Yankees from our first stop in Ramapo. We decided to stop just before entering The City. You never know how long it will take to get through it. We did have to run back out to the car for pennies and quarters.
I’ll not go into too many details about the illnesses, only will say that Grandpa is keeping his spirits up, he sang Jason and I some of the songs he has written over his life. By Saturday morning he told us he had a total of 54. Grandma was in better spirits on Saturday morning. I took Grandpa to her room so they could visit. She seemed very tired. I think being alone all day with nothing of substance to do is taking its toll. Grandpa has a plan to talk with everyone he can about God. He talked and prayed with his first roommate and has plans to chat with the current one about it. My mother said they may be out by Jan 5, if the test results stay positive.
My uncle and aunt graciously opened their home to us, so we stayed Friday evening with them. After eating some wonderful take-out Chinese, we watched Amazing Grace. It was fantastic, even though it was slightly depressing. It was a biography of William Wilberforce and his fight to end slavery in Britain and its territories in the late 1700s and early 1800s. I was able to share about the college in southern Ohio that bears his name. I called them after we left the hospital on Sat. to let them know what I had learned from the doctor, who promptly called them after I hung up. We were invited back for lunch, I voted for left over Chinese.
On the way out of The City I tried to follow the directions in reverse. It worked to get us off the Island, but somehow we missed the first turn we should have taken. We were not worried, I had my laptop. I used my handy-dandy map program to plot a route out, even though we had directions. I found a different route that got us off the Island, we just detoured a little further into the Bronx. Luckily, we crossed the same bridge going in and out of the Bronx. I know this may sound crass, but I don’t intend it to, the sign struck me as odd and I wanted a picture. I didn’t have my camera out fast enough the first time, so I took it the second, before I saw the signs about not taking pictures or video of the area. When men in black show up, I’ll know what happened. I’m not going to say where or which bridge is which. I would have taken a picture of the phone had I found it.
After spending extra time in The City, we stopped at the first rest area after joining 87N, more pennies-The Empire State Building, The World Trade Centers and a different Statue of Liberty. Driving down one day and back the next made for a tiring trip.
Upon returning to my parent’s house, we explained our dilemma when following the directions and misplacement of parkways. They had the same problem, so Jason set out to find the solution, which we left with them. We all now understand how to get out of The City following the directions in reverse without meandering through the Bronx. However, should one want to the zoo, please meander through the Bronx.
Sunday night, the NY weatherpeople predicted 1-4 inches of snow where my parents live. I’ll let you judge for yourself their accuracy rating.
Here is my favorite picture that I asked Jason to take while I was driving back home:
And here is a coolie power company office building in Cleveland. To find it, take 90 across Cleveland.
Mom and Dad had Daisy in her pen when we arrived home, so we were one big happy family again.
Jason’s parents traditionally host a breakfast of pancakes and bacon for anyone who shows up Christmas morning. For the last 25 or so years, Dan, Sue and their daughter attend, as well as Josh, Jason, Granny, and anyone they invite. We had quite a few over for breakfast, including a few extra furry feet. After devouring too many pieces of bacon and two pancakes, I called it good. We exchanged a few more gifts, Sue made us a beautiful snowman table runner. I gave her a handmade scarf.
We spent the rest of the day with the parents, Dan and Sue left after breakfast. I took some pictures of the pileated [pahy-lee-ey-tid, pil-ee-] woodpeckers that feed at Mom and Dad’s house. It can be seen on the feeder in the center of the picture on the left.
I have a pair of hairy woodpeckers at my feeders. They showed up three weeks ago and seem to like the suet feeder.
Shaun Shawn (I swear I asked Jason and he said, “Yup, not Sean”) and Char with kids came over just after lunch. Granny and Josh played a game of cribbage, while the rest of of sat in the new laundry room chatting away. I now have more pictures in the wedding directory. Char had her camera with her and apologized for not getting the pics to us yet. She offered them if I had a way to get the off the camera. So wah-la, pics from set-up, the rehearsal, and the wedding. She also brought us a lovely plant, supposedly I don’t be able to kill it. I wonder if the furry maos can do it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to harm a perfectly lovely, harmless plant, I just know my track record with plants since the cats joined my life.
We left shortly after dinner in the early evening. Daisy just about went nuts when we left her with Mom and Dad. We had a nice quiet evening at home and finished packing for our trip to NY.
Tags: Christmas Day, family, friends
We enjoyed family Christmas at Granny’s today. Plenty of food, as evidenced by the spread on the table. We exchange names and each make or purchase a gift for one person and donate the rest of our Christmas budget to charity. Gifts were opened in alphabetical, not order of the presents order of names.
Granny opened her gift first. Jeff made her a coolie photo frame for Granny out of an old laptop and a shadow box from a local craft store. She also received a gift card for a local grocery super-store.
I opened my gifts next. I received a bunch of wonderful little things from Mom Proefrock with custom poems written just for me with many of the gifts. She made me a wonderful bag to take into the garden to hold my tools, but I like it so much that I’m toying with using it as a knitting bag.
Jason’s dad bought him a gun vise to hold rifles and whatnot while he cleans, disassembles, assembles and modifies them. He had his Christmas toy out on the living room floor within 10 minutes of being home.
Jeanne received a beautiful wall hanging made by Julie. Jeff and Jeanne purchased a new house a few months ago and needed something to hang on a particular wall. Julie took note when she was last there. Last year, Julie made all of the girls centerpieces as well, she’s quite talented with flowers, leaves, branches and things.
From Josh, Jeff received several books of of a wishlist and a Yoda bobblehead. Josh is quite talented with wrapping paper, you’ll have to see the pictures.
Josh juggles among many other talents. Fall of ‘06 I purchased a book of patterns for puzzleballs, which in my opinion, make wonderful juggling apparatus. I hoped I would receive Josh’s name for Christmas, but since I didn’t, I shared my book with Jason. We used some of the fabric we decorate our tables with at the wedding. Josh is the proud owner of three new juggling balls, a loom-knit felted hat and a Bible (which hadn’t arrived as of family Christmas).
Among her above listed talents, Julie also scrapbooks. Granny found an adorable tote for scrapbook supplies (which I originally thought was a gardening bag because I received a gardening bag) and 12×12 set of three drawers for holding paper. She was also given some beautiful white slippers to keep her feet warm.
Mom was the next to open her gifts. Jeanne put together many photos in a really coolie frame as well as loading up an electronic tree ornament full of pictures. I think Jeff and Jeanne had a theme to their gifts memories in photo, very cool.
My Christmas person was Dad, I knit him a pair of tall socks that were red and cream and reloaded 200 rounds of 38 special. Jason had to teach me how to make them, so really, I only made 198 or 199.
Jeff and Jeane wrote a wonderful account of Christmas and posted many pictures.
Tags: Christmas, family, secret elf
