Start of the opening of states…

Start of the opening of states 

With the new vaccine seeming to be working.. and the numbers seem to be going down….  So states are starting to loosen up.. some.

Restaurants are opening up to ¼  occupation…  still a long way. Our restaurants here in Idaho are allowing full for the most part.. Some are having spaced.. some are not…  Washington state just open up ¼.. before it had to be outside eating, only.. Then if the building had a large open door… So here people are in their coats and hats and gloves, eating their food, with a heater in the middle and all the windows and doors open… This week they finally can close the doors..  They are talking about comedy clubs opening soon.   There are theaters starting to open.  We have those open with spacing. 

 

With all the talk, there is one thing I never see mentioned. Never talk of opening it up more.  Luckily in Idaho ours is open a little more.  That is hospitals.. and spouses..  Ok, I get why kids and grandkids can’t come in.. even parents for an adult child.. But for spouse to be not only not allowed in the room, they are not even allowed in the waiting rooms.  I find that the cruelest of all.   People married 30, 40 even 50 years.. and not be able to be bed side. Disgusting to me.   Why can’t the spouse have gloves, foot covers, mask, caps on, gowns..  so they can sit and hold the hand of their love one.. their life time mate.. I don’t know who made up that rule.. but it is the WRONG rule..

 

the Weekend....

No not the singer...

Well, I got mine… did you get yours? Or are you already on

your second one?  Some still haven’t, not by choice.. of their own that is…  The King is still 2 weeks out.

 

Yep, I am talking about vaccine.  It was so easy peasy.. the visit.. it was a building.. and children’s dr. office combo… The crew was good, they had us going thru the line like wild fire…UNTIL you waited in the room.. but that was only 10 minutes.. then the shot it self.. was sooooooooooooooo easy… and out into the hall I was. Wait 15 minutes to make sure you aren’t going to faint or any other reaction.. and then I was out of there…  See you next month.. same date, same place and same time, here is your card.. bring it with you…..   Hope the King’s goes as easy..   

 

And then Sunday… gloomy, cloudy, off and on snow flakes and then rain  wind off and on..…  so what do you do on a day like that?  Well the King watch several shows he had been following.. I did some crosswords puzzles… and scrolled thru the computer pages..

AND… 

 

Saw the birds… coming to our new window feeder… one first then several others..and then others ganging in there, and all got scared and flew back to the bush and again coming back to the feeder. 

Ah, what entertains one… on such a day…  lol

I don't see social distancing practiced in the first picture.. lol

 

 

NEVER HAVE I WANTED TO BE A TEACHER…

NEVER HAVE I WANTED TO BE A TEACHER…

I endured having children in a small space with me. In a station wagon. 

So there is no way I would ever be a teacher in a room with 25 to 30 some odd kids…  And to cement that into my mind was a time, when the King and I stopped by the middle school by request of a teacher, to drop off pictures of my husband’s horses, as she was going to do a painting of them.  

We tapped on the door, and she came to the door. She turn to the students and told them, she would be just a minute.  As she started to talk to the King of what he had in mind, my face must have mirrored what I was looking at.. The shock look.  She turn around to address the kids..  See when she first started to talk to the King, I saw on boy jump up on his desk and proceed across the room , deck by desk.  Another fit himself in a shelf area, and four girls gathered at one desk.  Upon looking at them and in a calm voice saying that they were to sit at their desk or else..  They return to their desk. And once again she was talking to the King, again my face told what I saw… and she again.. calmly told them, she thought she needed to give them a test to keep their minds busy.  The kids flew back to their desk…..And then we left. 

It reminded me of me with my children of 4 to 8 of them at a time in our station wagon.  Many times, telling them, like other mothers, … IF  I HAVE TO PULL THIS CAR OVER ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD… THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY… Now really, if you are a mom, those were similar words…  You know the yelling at each other, the he pinched me… she looked at me.. I was looking out that window…and etc. 

One time I pulled over… I got out of the car, and told them I would beat them bloody, if they got out of the car… (fear of God parenting)  I sat against the hood of the car for a few minutes.. and the noise level was the same… But then a state police man came by and stopped.. The noise level went to quiet.  He came up and asked me if things were ok… I told him.. that I needed a time out while my children got rid of their vocal views.  He looked at the car and kind of laughed..  He said he had to go down the road a bit.. but coming by in about an hour.  And if I was still there, he would stop and have a conversation with the kids.   I told him, I thought just the sight of him, has taken care of a lot of it.. He said ok, but he would check any way…  He left and I got in the car. The kids were quiet… finally one of them said.. So what did he say to you?  I told him, that the officer said, he would be back and if we were still there… he would stop and talk to them.  They were quiet the rest of the way.. 

Another time I pulled over…but sat behind the wheel, with my arms folded. Staring straight ahead… with a mad face…. After about 5 minutes, the car got quiet… my oldest said.. well, Mom, are we going to town or not.  I turn and glared the MOM LOOK…and she turn to the rest and said.. I think we all better be quiet, this is not a good look. 

The only other times I would veer to the road side as fast as I could, was when one of my daughters would say… MY TUMMY FEELS HOT…. That meant that I had a total of a minute and half …if that before she started upchucking.. 

Nope, children in a station wagon was enough for me.. No way did I want 30 in a class room.. .

 

A tip of the hat to all teachers…

 

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW…

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW… 

If my family heard me say that, they would probably bury me under a snow bank.  As a good share of my family lives near the coast in Washington… and they are getting snow.. 17 inches as of yesterday and it was still snowing..  to understand this, you have to know that they are use to 3 maybe 4 inches of snow.. every other year or so…  So for it to snow for 3 days straight…Most of them don’t have snow blowers…..one son made a path with his riding lawn mower.  Well, you get the picture….   Especially when I tell them.. well, we have bare ground here..   BUT we are freezing.. our average temp each day as been 11… and over night about 5 but below 0 with the wind chill factor.   But this morning we woke to snow.. but only about ¼ of an inch… then it started up again..  and now it has stopped again. We have maybe an inch in total.. But there are accidents everywhere… Roads and streets closed due to accidents.

We have a lot of out of staters who move here and they aren’t use to snow driving. A LOT of California’s and other non snow states. I see that even Texas is getting snow.. they too are not use to so much snow.  Hard to get on the warming climate wagon at times like this.

So all of my friends and family who are getting the snow storms.. all I can say is …. Stay warm… take lots of pictures.. (after all you don’t get this all the time.. lol)  And hopefully this isn’t going to be a sight to be seen next year. 

Weather man is saying 39 for us by Thursday.. we will look forward to that..  But can’t really complain too much as, we have had a lot colder weather in the past..  real temp of -10 is  real for us…I remember some years back having a wind chill of 40 below.. and we had our cars running every hour, for 15 minutes at a time.. at work.. so we could get them started to get home.  I got home and turn off my car… it refused to start again for 3 days.. even though I plugged it in. Luckily I had those days off.

So stay warm every one…THINK SPRING…. Only a month away.

 

The Bobbsey Twins……

The Bobbsey Twins…… 

That is what their mother called them… Gary and the King.

They are 15 months apart.   And as you can see from the pictures.. they were quite a team..  always laughing..  Well, that wouldn’t be quite true, as there was a stretch of time.. where things were not good as sometimes happens to brother/siblings…  But time heal the wounds and once again … 23 years ago.. they were back at it again..  driving all of us, in the circle, crazy. What one wouldn’t do the other would.. the teasing and etc. 

And then last year.. Gary decided to move back up to Idaho after being gone for about 30 years.  He and his wife Sandee, found a house they loved in Bonner’s Ferry.. just 40 minutes away.. which was a heck of a lot better than 4 hours.  4 hours was maybe 2 trips and rare 4 trips a year to see each other.  The move to Bonner’s Ferry meant 2 at least if not more trips a week for the King to go see his brother… to help him in the moving.. Moving truck load, after truck loads, after trucks and  of many trailer full as well.  Those 4 hours one way trips..  taking about 2 months worth. And that wasn’t counting the moving van guys truck.

 There was the garden to put in, the fruit trees to trim, and the mowing of the lawn when Gary wasn’t feeling good.  Anything to help his big brother. It was like old times…. Talks and laughs and talk of adventures to look forward to. Fishing holes, hunting to do.

 All came to a screeching halt last fall. Gary was found to have cancer in his throat.  Involving his voice box.  There were 7 weeks of radiation and chemo.  And the King going up to BF to change the tires on one of the rigs, so they could have good tractions when they had to make those long trips to the Cda. for the treatments all week long.  There was fixing things around the house. Picking the fruit and bring them home here, so we made apple sauce, drunken cherries, and pears put up in jars… while they were away.. Anything the King could do. And more talks of fishing trips.

In January 2021.. the treatments were over.. and Gary was getting stronger.  But come February 1^st. things changed drastically.  And a week that flew by.. with roller coaster days.. great highs on Thursday and hitting lows on Friday. Slapped on Saturday. And Sunday .. a mere week later…… 

A young man who died way too soon, bent down and put his hand thru the clouds, reaching his father’s hand, and help him up into the clouds and they hugged.  In the background was a husky voice.. HELLO … BROTHER FROM ANOTHER MOTHER..Vince,  Gary’s buddy who left last fall… and another hug of greetings…   …….. as we all had tears running down our faces. 

We, three, the wife, the brother and the sister in law (me) leaving the hospital … stunned, not grasping the fullness, numbness from the week, still not quite believing the truth of it all. Blood clots they said.. brain strokes… still all a blur…. 

And now there is only two left. See the King’s sister died 5 years ago.. two years ago a younger brother passed… And now the eldest. 

We promised we do our best to help Gary’s widow. And we will. Luckily she has good family support coming too from Spokane. 

Now come the hard part for the King… we have been thru a lot the last several years..  a while back, we endure the lost of his mother, my mother, my father, my brother, one of our daughters,  his sister, his brother, and a son in law…  We are still hanging on.  But Lord, he is tired… so help give him the strength to endure.

Life pulling the rug out from us

Life pulling the rug out from us

 I sit here, wondering what to say…  how to explain the unexplainable?

 Life was laughs and giggles a little over a week ago. 

But Today… almost a week from when it started..  we feel the rug

being jerked from under us. And we are saying to each other…

WHAT THE HELL HAPPEN… THIS CAN’T BE TRUE.

LIFE.. just jerked us to the floor.. to our knees in prayer…and what ever else there is.

 

The King’s brother, one minute all is well, the next not. We are on day 6 and slowly going down the slope of hell.  A roller coaster.

What was thought to be a small thing…. Only to have it enlarge beyond us.  He went to the hospital because he fainted? Passed out? For no reason. 7 hours later shipped to the next biggest town hospital .

Then a ray of sun shine.. He is awake.. while not talking.. he nods that he understand… answering yes and no questions with nods. Squeezing hands to let his wife and brother know, he knows they are there. After 3 days of questions.. there is hope…they leave with HOPE.

Then a call in the night...... relapse.  MRI…. Words of stroke in the brain, not the first one.. 12 in the past week…  they figure….  Then more test.. and then the worse fear.  NO MORE HOPE… laying on their backs next the rug that just got ripped away…  they have to make a decision…. NO ONE EVER WANTS TO HAVE TO MAKE.  And now we wait.  As we get ready to say good bye… God be kind..

Funny stuff you find when you don’t expect it.

Funny stuff you find when you don’t expect it.

 

King and I have been going thru our stuff and downsizing.  So I decided to attack my file cabinet.. I have put it off for at least 20 years… I dabble in it once or twice. And this time turn out the same.  As I picked out one folder and turn it into a 4 days project.

 

It was a folder named 53 BEACON STREET.  A folder that I figured had about 4 pages in it.. turns out it has 44 pages in it.  Beacon Street is where I was raised. Dad was building it when I was born.  We moved in from April to Nov after.

I sat there and read the whole thing.  And then decided that the kids would probably like to read it. So I printed out 6 copies. One for each of the kids I thought would like and  one niece.  She lost her day her dad 7 years ago.. and being this had a lot of my childhood in it with my brother mention, I thought she like it.. we talked and she said YES please.

As I was going thru it and putting it together, there were pages with pictures that I had copied over the years, and gave to my kids the orginials.

Also I went to a folder I had on my computer, as I had started last Nov. something similar, forgetting about 53 Beacon St.   So read that to see if there was any repeats. While there was a couple small ones, I left them in.

 

I had done the file cabinet one over 7 years ago, as I mention my brother in it.. for those who read it could ask my brother about some of it.  The second on, on the computer I had started  because one of the slights of ancestry.com, is you have not family stories.  Only names, and dates and some census papers. They at least give who was still alive and how many where in the house hold and occupation. But no stories. So I thought I would do one on mine for my kids.

So the two of these tales, blend pretty well, and back up of faded pictures.

 

It took me 3 days to get them together, copy on the computer the pages that were in the file cabinet and then print them out times 6.   And then printed out the folder name WHO AM I? that I had on the computer times 6. Many pages, lots of ink later, there is the finished product. And I will be mailing them in the next day or two.

 

It has been kind of fun, visiting old memories of my childhood. Going thru the pictures.  Hope the kids like it. It gives them the stories… about their common mother, who didn’t do anything great…but had a nice childhood.

 

Have you ever thought about doing one for your kids? You might be surprised, they, I bet would love it. Especially if you had not told them about your childhood.

 

funny addition...  after I got this ready to post for today....  I looked up and found out that I actually did the WHO AM I?  wrote it  a YEAR AGO.... Feb. 4th, as I used it for a my blog. 

 

 

Women of War…..

Women of War…..

 

While working at the health care center (otherwise known as a nursing home)  I took care of a French woman.  She still had some of her accent even though she had been in the USA for over 30 years.  One time while waiting for her to go to the bathroom we got into a discussion about her life in France.  What she told me, kind of surprise me, yet it didn’t.  She talked about how at the age of 14 she work in a hotel as a laundry person.  And how when the Germans came in to town and took it over, that the adult French workers all disappeared and ran for it.  She was left alone. Her parents had died years before.   And she lived in the hotel basement.  Being she was the only native there, the Germans put her in charge as she was the only one who knew where everything was.   Because she was living there, she had helped out in many other dept.  Restaurant and etc. And she also knew the local shops and etc.   She worked there until the war was over which was when she was 18.  She told how the Germans were good to her, with the exception of being raped from time to time from some of the cruder officers.  She explained, that you do what you have to do to survive.  She also told how the locals after the Germans left, had shun her because she worked for them.  She later saved up just enough money to come to the USA… she had met some one in Europe who sponsored her with a job.  In a hotel.  She saved everything she could and moved to Seattle. Took secretarial classes and got a job, ending up being the head of a business office.

 

Another person I know, was born in Czechoslovakia. And she too was there during the take over of the Russians and the German at different times.  After some time of trying to get along, she ended up buying a way out over the mountains.  As she got ready to ride the bus to the spot where she was to walk and meet up with the guide she was robbed of her suitcase.  She only had the money left to pay the guide.  There was an old couple who she stayed with in hiding… who felt sorry for her, and gave her extra clothes and some food.  It took 8 days to get over the mountain. It was snowing and she only had small shoes.  Long and short of it, she made it across went to France and then England to get a ship to the USA. She made it to New York. But the place she was suppose to go to, to get help, was locked for the night. She slept in the door way with just a small jacket.  And it was snowing. She finally got in and got a job for a short time. Then got a ride to California with a friend. She worked many different jobs and saved money enough to buy a house. Later sold it and bought an apartment building.

She was never a rich woman.. and pinched pennies to make due. Even getting scammed by a country man she trusted to sell one of her properties.  She worked many different jobs over the years, always saving money.

 

These woman went thru hell and back, yet was able to survive. And made it to the USA, with little to no money, yet worked jobs where they better themselves. 

 

Amazing women.. and there were many more out there. We  have no idea of the sacrifice some gave to have what we take for granted. :