Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Our Current Snowstorm

We now have 14 inches of new snow. I guess we won't be having a picnic for a day or two. The benches and the fireplace table are both quite snowed under. The table looks like a giant marshmallow.




















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Monday, February 27, 2012

Sugar on Snow Snowstorm

Here's Lake Superior in one of its many moods.










We had a snowstorm that kept some of us at home all day Sunday instead of going to church while others of our church group fled home to Wiscsonsin. Still others were stranded at the rec center where we were to meet for church and fellowship all day. It was frustrating. It almost ruined the enjoyment of a lovely snowstorm, to be honest, to be all divvied out in separate family groups for the day while the snow piled up and the wind filled the roadways with drifts.


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Monday, February 20, 2012

Sunday in February

Sunny Sunday Morning


Familiar sight at our house. Benny actually sits for a story these days.

Playing with the blues.


Elv with his brothers for the afternoon. Very nice birthday gift.
    No time to really write anything this week.  Just posting these pictures for Lisl and Jenny quick. More later, about Elv's birthday and his brother's visit.

Monday, February 13, 2012

February, The Busy Month

    People used to eschew something they called the February blahs.  I simply don't understand. Our February calendar is always full. It's the month we realize that school has been half over for a couple of weeks already; but our books aren't quite to the middle, yet.
    It's the month for Elv's birthday.  This year he turns 50. So along with wishing I could go all out and buy him a four-wheeler like he suggests, or that gun, two wild ideas neither of us can afford; we're having a party for him. We are working on inviting Lewi's and Steve's and his mom. We'll see.
   It's the month for Valentine's Day. Elv brings flowers and chocolates home for me.  And I'll see to it that he gets his sparkling grape or apple juice. It is pretty neat to be able to celebrate our marriage right smack in the middle of the winter logging rush, before spring-breakup.  It's a great time to take a deep breath and grab some "perspective" on what really counts in the long run: not the work or the bills, but that we have each other, our family, our faith, and our love, to boot.
    It's the month of Sugar On Snow on the north shore.  All the hoopla of prep, people, food making, costuming, deadlines, overnighting away from home, packing, hauling, and working with the public is hard work. On the other hand, I look forward to the complete break from the normal routines of our winter and school to visit with the annual host of friends and workers and interpreters for three solid days.  I enjoy swishing about in a full skirted costume that I wouldn't be caught dead in anywhere else, and seeing everyone in theirs. It's fun to walk back into history and imagine lighting my house with those precious, home-made candles, to visualize the hard work and inconveniences of colonial life and to be thankful for our rich heritage and the modernization of our day more than ever. I love watching the miller and the carpenter helping the children to learn the trades.  There is nothing quite as good as warm, baked cornbread from the quern-ground corn, spread thickly with freshly churned, sweet butter.
   It's the month of taxes for us.  Its a good time to go back over the year and give account for how we handled the income of the year! There really are no surprises, but always reconsiderations of whether or not we did the right thing in that purchase or this expenditure.  It's good to know that for one more year the Lord has provided for our family and brought us through these times when fuel and food costs have gone up and up, yet we eat plenty and drive to where we need to go. It's a time to ask Him to please go with us in the year to come, as well, and to show us how to prioritize as we go.
    It's the month before spring breakup.  If winter is going to give us any more storms or snow then it had better get at it, because time is running out for interesting weather. Loggers are getting in their last good licks. Log trucks roll constantly because road bans will be upon us in a few short weeks.
   It's the month for garden planning and lists, and freezer and canning shelves inventory.
   For us this year, its the month before Dru's get home for their 10 week visit. If anyone has a car seat to loan us for Jube(2), please let us know.  Happy Valentine's Day and Happy February Busyness, Everyone!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

If I Had A Camera

      I have a camera; but it is very old and many of the settings don't work anymore. Oh, I can get wonderful outdoor pictures with it, but indoor pictures are blurry and "disturbing", quote Geneva, and maddening. So last week went by in a blur and that's exactly what the resulting pictures show.
      There are pictures in my mind, though, that I am treasuring.
       Every morning Gwen would come downstairs barely awake and already commenting on life. I have a picture of her, in my mind, standing on the landing in her nighty, hugging her pink-dressed doll.  She never says "Good Morning" back to me.  She says, "Hi!"  This is typical of Gwen: unconventional, real, and always herself.
       On Sunday morning sitting among our adult children and a niece, I wished I could have gotten a picture of us filling our three benches at church. It is amazing what 10 or 15 years can do to sitting in church with your children. Just look at your row of children next Sunday. All those swinging feet will soon reach the floor. Before you know it the boys and some of your girls will sit higher at the shoulder than you do.  You'll be looking up to them.  Grown up children behave nicely in church, too.
      Then there was the day that Elv took us girls shopping in Rice Lake.  He and his daughters enjoy used shops. "Hey Dad, look at this." I look on and wonder what can be the attraction to that old piece of junk. I want a picture of Elv carefully placing glass mugs in the cart... the same glasses that I see and pass up every other time I am in the used shops.
      I want a picture of that moment when Jenny and I were holding/minding her two babies at the wedding when Gabe, the camera man, walked by. Both of them leaned out and wanted him at the same time with outstretched arms.  "They like him." I commented, and Jenny proudly smiled, "Yes, they do."  
     It would be hard to capture with a camera the living room times, I suppose. We discussed "church stuff", politics, news, and opinions together at different times all week. There were numerous Rook games and child training sessions. We sang once together and had family devotions a couple of times.  I wonder how many times we cleared dishes and coffee mugs out of the living room.  After everyone left we found a pacifier and part of a medicine dispenser that we had been looking for earlier and old popcorn under the couches and cushions. Upstairs, the girls found the well-wrapped, glass coffee carafe that Jenny had bought at the used shop that day.
     They don't make a camera that catches and keeps the memories we treasure today.

                                                                                                        

Monday, February 6, 2012

A Few Toddler and Other Pictures


They played on this landing and these stairs almost constantly. 




Playing more Rook.
This will have to do till later. Besides being frustrated with my camera; I am otherwise occupied with tax work, laundry, and chasing dust bunnies. The rest of February will go flying by in a whirl of Valentine's Day stuff, our colonial living history event, school, and preparing for Dru's to come home for a few weeks.
I will update here as I can or if something HAS to be written here.

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