Apr 12

Mourning Dove

I went out to take out some trash the other day, and heard a Mourning Dove.  Sure enough, it was secure on the wire above my drive.  We’re actually overrun with the darn things, but as far as I can see, they haven’t caused any trouble.

Each time I hear one I think of my Dad.  Long ago, I remember hearing the dove’s call.  I was outside, and Dad was with me.  I believe I was between 6 and 11, based on where we were living at the time.  Anyway, I mentioned the bird’s call, and Dad said, “That’s a Mourning dove.”  I remember replying that it is afternoon, why was it singing.  I got a story of a different kind of morning.  Funny that I remember that to this day.

Apr 11

Time

Crazy.  it’s 9:50 and I have accomplished 2 baths, 1 shower, 4 breakfasts and some entertainment.  Guess who hasn’t had a shower?

We didn’t get home until midnight from the Circus, so everyone slept in.  GS3 has a whopper of a cold, so he’s sniffling and blowing and coughing.  The GD’s must be mostly immune to  his cold germs,  I hope I am.

I’ll be finishing the dresses today.  Photos soon!

 

Apr 10

Dress fitting

Our “little” grandchildren arrived yesterday morning.  They hauled all their stuff in, and got on the discovering and rediscovering Grandma’s space.  I kept sewing.

D2 had found shoes, very cute Mary Janes with bows, and they match the dresses perfectly.  GD1’s petticoat was done first, she tried it, and said, “I won’t be able to fit through the door.” I put the dress on over it, and it looked fine. I stood her on the table, took a photo, and marked the hem.  GD2 looked and said, “You look like a beautiful princess!”, then looked at me and said, “Are their crowns for those dresses?”  I swear, I didn’t laugh,  I just said that they got flowers, not crowns.

GD2 looked equally stunning in hers, but she gives better poses.  She must watch a new channel called “Model TV”.  I can’t believe the gestures and poses she comes up with.  I didn’t mark her hem, since I had the petticoat put together wrong.  I ripped it out, and this morning I’ll do that, and the ties and overlays for the dresses.  With any luck  I’ll have the whole works done Friday.

In spite of all the sewing, we did manage some yard work.  They wanted the bikes, but I don’t think there is air in the tires.  I’ll probably have to check that today.

Apr 08

But, it was Going so Well…

I got up, put out the garbage and recycleing and sat down to the sewing machine.  I had quite a bit done on the petticoats for the flower girl dresses when I realized I was just a little short of fabric.  Oh well.  I had an appointment at the recycling center, can you believe I needed an appointment to take in some burned out florscent light bulbs?    Don’t put those things in your regular garbage, they are hazardous.

The van wouldn’t start.  It is filled with large recyclables not suitable for the curb container.  I took the car, the bulbs and my bad humor and started out.  Dropped off the bulbs.  Four stores, then the fabric store.  Back home, put away groceries.

I just put the battery charger on the van.  If it charges up, I’ll get that stuff out of here today.  I need to come back after that and finish the dresses.  The GD’s and their brother will be here tomorrow, for a visit.  I need to fit the dresses when they are here, just saving the hassle of another trip and the gas and all. 

I need one of those eighteen hour days to finish everything today.

Apr 07

Yellow Flowers All Over

Last spring was D2’s families first in Kalamazoo, they had moved in the fall just before school began.  GD1 was just 4 years old when they moved, and didn’t have a firm concept of places and their names.  She knew the name of her old town and school, and learned the names of her new ones.  She has always been familiar with car rides and how long they take.  Several times on visits she has commented how long it takes to drive to my house.

At spring break time, I drove over to pick up some combination of the three grandchildren for a visit.  I remember how GD1 had something very important to tell me, “There are yellow flowers all over the Kalamazoo!”  And, indeed, she was correct.  I remember when we helped Aunt Jane moved to a retirement residence in Kalamazoo, in the early 1990’s and she mentioned the same flowers.  They were planted on the sides of the freeway, and all over other places.

I replied to GD2 that I had those flowers, too, and told her they were daffodils. She frowned, looked like she was trying to think very carefully, then told me, “No you don’t have them”.  I explained that they only came out in the spring, just after the snow, and she had probably never been to my house just after the snow melted.  She was unconvinced.  When we drove up my street, she took a look and said, “I guess you do have them!”

Late last fall, D2’s family bought a house in Kalamazoo, and gladly and gratefully left the apartment that had served as their home for months.  I would have given anything for some daffodil bulbs to plant at the new place, but there really weren’t flower beds, and we were moving, not planting.

Yesterday, when my first daffodil bloomed on the south side of our house yesterday, I thought of GD2 and her observations last spring.  All three of of the kids will be here later this week, I wonder if she will remember the name of the yellow flowers?  Will she still think they are so pretty?  We’ll see.

Apr 06

What’s your answer

If your work area looked like this, what would you do?

pam\'s mess

What I did was go outside and work on the yard. We finally had a nice weather day. The ditches by the road got raked, the weed and feed got spread. And I was rewarded with this:

spring has sprung

Apr 04

Yard Work

It was almost pleasant out last night, so I stacked the dishes in the sink and joined Papa and D3 in the yard.  D3 and I trimmed the bushes to make mowing easier.  I raked one of the two ditches, getting rid of the worst of the leaves out front.  We put the leaves on the garden if we must rake.  Most of the time we can get rid of all our yard waste on the garden or under the bushes.

Papa mowed off some of the bush roses.  There are more to do, perhaps this weekend.  The garden and part of the yard is muddy, D3 was pointing to the wettest spot on the lawn when she sank to her shoe tops in the garden.  In the words of a wise farmer, “It’s too wet to plow”.

When we finally came in, there was a brush pile the size of a small car on the driveway.  I just finished tending to that this morning afternoon.  Around here, branches have to be cut to 2 feet and tied with twine.  The smaller brush has to be in paper bags for composting.  It took most of the morning to do, but it’s done.  I sat on a milk crate, to keep from leaning over the whole morning, cut everything up with the, raked it into a pile, and deposited into bags.  It worked fine, and I have 6 bags of brush in the garage.

I have a little lot of sewing to do, and I have to fold my wash, and I have to take GS2 to pick up his car from the shop, and I have to think about dinner.  Darn, no rest.  I’m going to a genealogy seminar Saturday, so I have to make the most of today.

Apr 03

Helen is Found!

A couple of days ago, I noticed that a check I’d written to the Social Security Administration for the original application of one Helen Potwine, born August 28, 1891 and died in September, 1966. This was the only Helen on the SSDI at Rootsweb.com that matched the birthday of my grandmother, Helen L. Palmer, and appeared to have connections to New York and Vermont where she lived. I had also found a burial for Helen Potwine with her husband Roy, a veteran, at the Long Island National Cemetery. He was a Vermont native who died in April, 1966.

Yesterday I found the highly anticipated envelope, marked Social Security Administration, Official Business, in my mail box. I didn’t yell, I quietly carried the mail in and set it down, went downstairs and changed my load of wash, came up and divided the mail up, Papa’s on his chair, D1’s on the stairs, D3’s on the dining room table. Finally I opened it, and then I did a little dance.

It’s definitely her. Helen Lois Potwine, with Palmer written in above Lois and an arrow indicating it is her maiden name. Parents Orlando W. Palmer and Libbie Winn, born Aug 28, 1891, Hoosick Falls N.Y. Hurrah! Although I’ll never have any relationship with this grandmother, or understand her life, times, motives or actions; I am satisfied to find she had some stability in her life, and a marriage of some duration after two short ones. I hope she found happiness, and touched some other people in a positive way. But I can never know.

I do know that my Mom would be happy her mother Helen is buried in a marked grave, with a stone that memorializes her passing through this world. Mom searched for her parents on and off for years, and had purchased a stone to mark her father’s grave, when she finally found his burial place. Now the fun begins. I need to find a obituary (a kind volunteer is looking one place for me). I need to check city directories in the areas she may have lived. I need a cheap flight to New York to put flowers on that grave, if only once.

Are there any Potwine relatives out there who knew of Roy and Helen? Any friends or acquaintances of the family? I need to talk to you!

Apr 02

Catty

I remember Aunt Jane used to say, “meow”, if she or I, or anyone in earshot said something a little catty about someone who wasn’t present. Nice, Huh? I’m not sure why I thought about that, but it may have been the cats.

I don’t own a cat, but two seem to own me.

Choe and Squeeky

These cats arrived here courtesy of D1, who rescued them from the animal shelter. The cat on the left of your screen is Squeaky. Her name at the shelter was the same as one of our granddaughters, D1 changed the cat’s name to Lucy. After 2 weeks of hearing the little thing meow in a tiny squeak, I started calling her Squeaky, and have ever since. D1 calls Squeaky Lucifer. After all, I’m told, she knocks things over, especially water glasses, stirs up a lot of trouble; and doesn’t always play nice. She is the cat that wakes me up at night. She sits near my left shoulder and tries to get under the covers. I lift them up to let her in, and then she comes back out. She also steals cough drops, she seems to like them a lot. She has strange markings, including some areas that look like patches of an orange tiger cat. But most of her short dark hair is visible on white and light things, like the couch, my chair, sheets and so on. This is the cat that likes water. We had a very hard time with the water dishes when we got these cats. Squeeky actually puts her paw into the water and “dog paddles” it out onto the floor, splashing happily. She likes to sit on the edge of the bathtub, assuming there is a bather with nice warm water in there, and dog paddle in there. After wiping the floor up millions of times, trying a towel under the dish, a cookie sheet, and other methods I realized that wherever the water dish was, there would be water all around it. We now keep the cat’s water dish in the bathtub. The cats go there for drinks, and splashes are never noticed.

The cat on the right of your screen is Chloe. She was Chloe and the shelter, and I call her Chloe here. D1 calls her something else, but I can’t remember exactly what it is. Chloe is very afraid of being stepped on, afraid of noises, afraid of quick motions, generally afraid of everything and everybody. She has fluffy medium length hair, and the white portion is always on my jeans, my dark blankets, everywhere. You really can’t find her skin, she has underfur that is thick. Her fur balls up in the vacuum with the dust and gives it real volume and body. This cat really likes the plastic bobbins my sewing machine uses, they make a nice noise on the wood floor, and roll around nicely. She often can be found on my sewing machine trying to steal one.

The cats are mine, even though they aren’t mine. They look to me for food, fun, and cuddling. They can be jealous if one is on my lap, since there really isn’t room for both. But they are cute, and fun.

Apr 01

Wow!

Papa takes a lot of pictures.  I don’t always look at them, the sometimes I do.  Today I did look at every picture he took at the Southern Ohio Indoor Music Festival last weekend.  The lighting and background gods were smiling.  The camera settings were right.  The whole bunch is great.  Check em out here. 

 The show, held twice a year in Wilmington, Ohio, is worth the trip.  The talent is always excellent, the venue is comfortable, the price is reasonable, and the sound and sight-lines are good.  Joe Mullins, the force behind the show has made it the “place to be” for good entertainment.  You can find out about the show on Joe’s site.