Thanks for the Memories

My parents gave my sister and me a treasure of a gift this past Christmas, one of those gifts that make true the statement, “good things come in small packages.” It was a tiny camera memory card–one for each of us–that held a photographic record of our entire lives. My dad had spent hours and hours going through boxes and boxes of slides. I can remember many happy hours huddled on the couch in my parents’ living room, in the dark, watching slide shows. “Which decade shall we watch tonight?” dad would say as he wrestled the screen into the living room. He’d plug in the projector and let the lamp heat up while he dug into the upstairs closet, scanning the boxes for the chosen dates.

We’d watch the many many (many–ha! love ya dad) photos of airplanes. My dad, an Air Force pilot, always had his camera with him above the deserts of Arizona, often in the back seat as he trained the pilot in the front seat. I have to say, I have always been astounded and impressed by the power in those planes and the fact that my dad knew how to tame them.

We’d watch the old slides of mom and dad before my sister and I came along. Young people laughing, planning, wondering where life would take them.

My dad’s Air Force career took our family from Arizona, to New York, to Pennsylvania (to be with my parents’ families during my dad’s tour in Viet Nam), to Maryland (where my sister joined us), to Germany, to Massachusetts. Every decade held some new adventure.

So my dad went painstakingly through hundreds of slides and copied the ones that included me. The pictures take me from being a tiny baby up through my toddler years with my favorite red hobby horse, my elementary years, my awkward (trust me) junior high years, my high school years at the American School on the Rhine, my college years at Houghton, and the day I wed my soulmate.

As we’d sit in the dark often laughing at the old slides, someone would inevitably say, “Where did the time go?”

Where indeed . . .

As we anticipate the birth of our first grandchild and the marriage of our oldest son, I find myself asking the same question. My daughter in her little dress with the red apple on it going around the room asking every person if they were “happy?” My oldest son in his Thomas the Tank Engine pajamas asking me to read another book. My youngest son dashing down the hallway, giggling all the way.

Where does the time go?

As I look forward to these joyous occasions, I can’t help but feel a bit melancholy. I want to recapture every moment of all those busy years. The early days of marriage in that first tiny upstairs apartment. Our first home, remodeled from the bottom up and the inside out. The three tiny babies we brought home one right after the other. The massive sandbox and playhouse my husband built for the kids. The birthday parties. The many many quiet moments reading stories, one child on each side and one on my lap. I want all those moments back. So in quiet moments I try to recapture sparkling times from the corners of my memory or the yellowing pages of photo albums.

And I think I have a feeling how my dad and mom felt as they went through those boxes of slides and created these memory cards for me and my sister. Recapturing the blessed family moments.

I pray for my children as they do what we raised them to do–go out and make their way into the world. I pray for my daughter and her husband as they prepare for their first child and start to make those blessed family memories. I pray for my son and the young woman who will soon be his wife as they prepare to create a new family of their own. I pray for my youngest son as he seeks God’s plan for his life.

Family. That’s what it’s all about.

Thanks mom and dad for the memories. Thanks for what you did for me, letting me find my way. My husband and I did our best to do the same for our kids. They’ve given me joyous memories. The time went fast but I’m grateful for every moment.

Life, family, and memories. What a wonderful gift.

The Great Oil Spill of 2012

We have cleaned up our share of things in the basement—from the leftovers of previous owners to “water, water everywhere” (see my blog post from March 2010). This last week, however, we had a massive oil spill, maybe not the Exxon Valdez, but it seemed close.

Let me back up and explain something, especially for my non-country friends. In order to have heat out here in the country, many homes have those submarine-like containers in their yards that hold heating oil. This oil gets pumped into the house and, voilà, heat. I had seen those but never thought to wonder what they were until we were looking for homes here in the country.

Our home is equipped with a similar tank, smaller, and . . . in our basement. The big oil tanker truck pulls up to the side of the house, sticks the hose into a pipe on the outside, and sends the oil into the tank. Several hundred dollars later, we have a tank full of oil and heat for a few months, if not for the whole winter.

The first time we had oil delivered, the delivery guy came into our house to assess our drum-inside-the-house situation and give us our first lesson in how to have heat in the country in the winter. He confidently told us that the tank was so old that “they don’t make ’em like that anymore” and the gauge on the top that would tell us when we’re running low was broken (of course) and could not be replaced because “they don’t make ’em like that anymore.”

“How will we know when we’re out of oil?” my husband asked.

“When you get cold, I guess.”

And of course we did manage to run out of oil deep into that next December as the wind whipped across the fields and the vents only gave us cold air.

So we called the oil supplier who trundled up in his huge tanker truck, backed into our driveway, and began to fill the tank with oil. Actually, our first oil spill occurred then, albeit much smaller. The guy in the oil truck apologized profusely that he had let the tank overflow—he had seen it through the basement window but the gauges on his truck read differently. It was fine, really. The overflow was easily cleaned up with a couple bags of cat litter and a cold couple hours of airing out the house.

Now on to Exxon Valdez. Last week, our newly-filled oil tank sprang a leak. Just a little teeny leak in the piping that goes from the tank to the furnace. A little teeny leak that we didn’t notice until the smell of gas began to waft into the upstairs. A little teeny leak that managed to spread a sea of red liquid across half the basement.

Definitely a bit more of a mess than water. And more slippery, which I discovered when I stepped into a puddle to rescue a box, only to have both feet go right out from under me, landing with a plop on the corner of another box and into the oil. (I have the lovely black-blue-yellow-green-purple mark to prove it. Oil “slick” is not a misnomer.)

My husband turned off the valve to keep any more of our precious (and expensive) oil from draining all over the floor and we began the nasty cleanup process. We sent our son to buy out all of the cat litter at Wal-Mart (he got 30 bags—sorry to any of you who might have shopped for cat litter later that day) and the next day we got bags of the stuff auto repair garages use for soaking up oil from their floors (it’s called “Oil Dri”—imagine that!). We spread the bags over all of the oil. Today, we were able to begin the dusty process of sweeping it up, but it worked! All traces of the oil are gone.

And I’m so thankful for a husband who can manage to create a fix—even for things that “aren’t made like that anymore.”

We’re warm and dry once again.

A little sore, a little tired, but warm and dry.

Enjoy the Blessings

It’s a new year—well, thirty days into a new year. I purposely avoided writing earlier this month because I didn’t want to think about new year’s resolutions or dieting or what I will do better this year.

But darned if I can’t get away from it.

I have to admit that 2011 wasn’t necessarily a banner year. It had its ups and definitely its downs. Some amazing highlights, but also some deep darkness. Self-doubt. Frustration. Fear. Depression. Sorrow. Days and days of barely coping.

Surely you understand.

So many people in my world faced difficult things in 2011—friends and family suffered through trauma, sorrow, fear, loss of friendships, betrayal, and big questions for God about how their past and their present can possibly come together and make any kind of sense in the future.

And I had many of those same questions. Suffice it to say, I want this year to have a little more brightness.

Alas, no amount of resolutions can keep bad things from happening. I can resolve to have a better year, but I don’t know what the next eleven months will bring.

So I don’t make new year’s resolutions. But I’ve certainly thought about a few things that might help this year be better—or at least help me react correctly to whatever God sends my way. I thought about this after reading my sister’s recent blog. She’s decided to purge from her life things that shouldn’t be there. (Go to my blogroll to the right and click on “Carol Fielding Blog.” Then subscribe!). She challenges us to “define necessity.”

So that’s what my husband and I are working to do. There are things we need to clean out of our lives, things we need to let go of, things we need to do better—for ourselves, for each other, for our family.

Sometimes we let things into our lives that shouldn’t be there. Sometimes we are, as my sister describes it, “drowning in stuff.” It could be physical stuff sitting around our homes crowding our focus; it could be negative attitudes crowding out our joy; it could be wrong actions taking our lives in wrong directions. We need to get rid of that “stuff” and get ourselves back on track so we can move forward with our focus on what’s most important. We need to “define necessity.”

What about you? What is taking your focus away from what’s most important? What is distracting you from your path? What do you need to purge from your life to keep you moving forward?

Sometimes that’s what it takes. I can’t control what happens in 2012, but I can do my best to stay where I need to be—close to my heavenly Father.

We’ve got some exciting and wonderful things happening this year and we intend to enjoy every moment. Actually, I would say that is what’s most important. There are only 365 days in this year (well, now there are 334) and it is absolutely a necessity that I enjoy every blessing God has given me.

That’s what I want for you, too.

The Tradition Continues

Some traditions are just worth continuing. As far back as I can remember, my family has decorated cut-out Christmas cookies. Mom would spend a day mixing up the dough and letting it chill. The next day I helped her (and later my sister joined us) as she patiently cut out the shapes in the dough, lifting them carefully with a spatula onto a cookie sheet, setting it into the oven, wiping her hands on her apron and starting again–mashing the dough together, adding more fresh from the refrigerator, and rolling it out. She has always been a master with a rolling pin. The recipe says, “Roll the dough to 1/8 inch thick” and I have no doubt that her dough, spread across the counter, was 1/8 of an inch thick all the way across, without a wave to be seen. Soon the counter was covered with piles of white cookies–trees and little men and little women and Santas and reindeer and stars and holly leaves.

Finally came the evening of decorating. Mom would once again don her apron, gather the bags of confectioners sugar, some milk, some vanilla, her biggest mixing bowl, and her beaters. She divided the mound of white frosting into several small bowls. Food coloring created red, blue, yellow, and green, along with the requisite white. Each bowl had a spoon (for stirring) and a knife for decorating (“Careful! Don’t mix the colors!”).

Out of the cupboard came sprinkles and red hots and little silver ball decorations and coconut (of course, makes great snow!) and chocolate chips. Those and the bowls of frosting went into the center of the kitchen table. Each person got a dinner plate that served as the palette and working surface.

And a glass of milk. The rule was, of course, you break it, you eat it. And one needs milk to wash down one’s creation.

My dad would meticulously create his little cookie men–working hard first with the white frosting and then, with a toothpick, putting on the trademark blue stripes of a New York Yankees uniform. I loved to make the Christmas trees “jawbreaker” style with as many of those little silver balls as I could make stick into the green frosting–or make the “hot tamale” style covered with red hots. My sister–ever the artist–made creations we always oohed and ahhed over. Mom was in charge of keeping the supply of cookies and frosting coming, and dutifully moving the decorated cookies to another surface to harden.

She usually made her trademark fudge and some popcorn balls as well, and those, along with carefully chosen decorated cookies, ended up in baskets wrapped in plastic wrap and ribbon that my sister and I delivered to all the neighbors.

Across the years as men entered our lives, my sister and I got to christen them into the family cookie decorating tradition. My husband tried to create cookies with deformities (don’t ask); my sister’s husband, a diehard Red Sox fan, created a Red Sox cookie to give the Yankee a run for his money. As children were born, they too joined in the process as soon as their little hands could sprinkle the sprinkles or hold a short knife and spread the frosting.

And so, last week, the day after Thanksgiving, I donned my apron and stirred up a batch of sugar cookies, duly dividing the dough and putting it into the refrigerator to chill. The boys were home (with their girls) and after they did the Black Friday thing and slept in, they pulled the boxes from the basement and Christmas proceeded to throw up all over our house (sorry, I couldn’t help using the analogy–it’s so appropriate). As they decided to find a place for every Christmas item my husband and I have gathered over the last 28 years, put up the tree, and wrap the porch in lights, I started cutting, scooping, and baking. And baking. And baking.

Maybe quadrupling the recipe wasn’t such a good idea . . .

And baking. And baking . . . placing the carefully baked white cookies on a line of foil on the table, preparing for the next phase. I was so thankful that the kids were excited to decorate. I recounted to them a time (probably when they were all in junior high) when all three of my kids got too cool for such traditions and my husband and I had sat at the kitchen table by ourselves splatting frosting on a hundred cookies, leaving the creativity for another Christmas. This time would be different–and it was.

I got out the confectioners sugar, stirred up the green and red and blue (no yellow–where is that yellow? Darn, I’m reminded that yellow is a primary color and we can’t make it by mixing). One person tried to make purple and sort of got a brown color–which worked great for the bottoms of the Christmas trees. We got beautiful creations–Van Gogh-inspired decorated Christmas trees and some with three-dimensional lights (thanks to artfully dipped and placed marshmallows), along with a zombie and Frankenstein.

And they stayed with me till the bitter end, licking fingers, munching broken arms and heads, and, like my mom before me, I moved the decorated cookies to another flat surface to dry.

The cookies are already on their way to two colleges and their sets of friends. I have no doubt that by tonight, the cookies will all be gone. Eaten, no doubt, with plenty of milk.

Some traditions are worth continuing. Thanks mom and dad.

And so, the Christmas season has begun!

October Skies

The summer has passed and fall is upon us. Today marks two years since we trundled our way from the city to our little spot in the world we call “green acres.” My writing classmates would say it’s a cliche for me to mention that I can’t believe where the time has gone, but . . . well, I can’t. Time has flown. Changes have occurred. Many things remain the same. And all of it by God’s grace.

We came here as a married couple plus one dog. The count is now: one married couple, one dog, one part-time dog, two housecats, four barn cats, two chickens, and one rooster. I haven’t counted how many fish are in our pond, but they all slip up to the surface every morning when they see me coming to feed them–they’re my private fan club, and there are at least twenty of them.

Oh, and people-wise, we have been fortunate enough to add a son-in-law in the last year and will add a daughter-in-law next year. We are empty-nesters enjoying the benefits of an ever-expanding family.

We have lived through the four Indiana seasons twice. We have planted flowers, and borne the winds that buffeted us from across the cornfields, and shoveled snow, and mopped up water in the basement after torrential rains.

And we have enjoyed the beauty of countless sunsets. Almost every night one or the other of us will stand at the front door and say, “Come ‘ere! You gotta see this! It’s amazing!”

We’ve gotten used to traveling on tight two-lane roads without edges or curbs, often riddled with potholes. Sort of like the journey of life. Sometimes we sail along smooth roads; we’ve also managed to hit a few potholes. We get our bearings and continue on. We have places to go, people to see, things to do.

We get older. We get wiser. We appreciate what we have. We are blessed.

Under these beautiful Indiana October skies, we stand constantly amazed. We do not know what our path will look like in the coming years. But we have faith in a great God. And that makes every day an adventure.

We look around at our growing family and our many creatures and our green acres, and we can only say “Come ‘ere! You gotta see this! It’s amazing!”

How About a Nice Cup of Tea?

In my current grad school class that focuses on fiction writing, our assignment is to write a “diptych” or “triptych,” two or three stories that are linked the way stories would be linked in a composite novel. These linked stories are able to stand alone but are related in such a way that, when read together, they give the reader that much deeper an understanding of each individual story.

I have a visual diptych right here on my porch, two diverse stories that have very little to link them until today, because today my husband and I hung up the shelf and washed my teacup collection.

Now let me tell you my “diptych.”

The shelf is not just any old shelf, you see. This shelf means so much to me because it came from my Grandpa Chaffee. And it isn’t even a shelf; it’s a mail sorter that came from a post office in a tiny town many many years ago. My grandfather was a rural mail carrier all his life. He exemplified the old saying, “Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail” would keep the mail from getting through. He drove his big old car all over those country roads. If he couldn’t get through due to western Pennsylvania snowfalls, he would strap on his cross country skis, grab the poles, and get the mail up to the house. My dad recalls riding with him at times and getting to be the one to cross all manner of difficult terrain to make sure the mail got through.

Somehow my grandfather ended up with this mail sorter and it ended up in the barn on his property (the barn my cousins and I spent many a happy afternoon exploring as our parents yelled at us to “stay off the second floor” because they were certain we’d fall through). The post office probably remodeled and updated, and gramps asked to keep the sorter. Maybe grandma thought she could do something with it. Maybe gramps just couldn’t bear to see it tossed away.

I’m glad he did that. My husband immediately saw the potential in it when we cousins were asked to take what we wanted from grandpa’s home after his death. We decided on the mail sorter.

Now for part two.

The teacups are a collection I began years ago when someone told me I should collect something and I couldn’t figure out what. Collections seemed odd to me–why have lots of something that just sits around? I decided if I was going to collect something, those things might as well be useful. Teacups seemed to fit the bill–beautiful yet usable. These teacups have special meaning to me because I began the collection when my family lived in Europe during my high school years. Every time we visited a country, I purchased a teacup. So these cups represent much of Europe. (Of course, my high school mind thought I would remember where I bought each one, and my 50-plus-year-old mind hasn’t a clue. I recall the one I bought in Paris, but that’s it. That’s kind of sad, really.) Many other cups are gifts from family and friends wanting to add to my collection. I have full-size cups and several demitasse cups. They are beautiful works of art. Just looking at them makes me happy.

Quite by accident, I discovered that the teacup saucers fit exactly in the spaces between the slats of the mail sorter. Voila. My own personal diptych–two stories now fit together. A mail sorter from a time past when folks stopped by and visited one another and shared conversation and a pot of tea.

Would you like to stop by? Tea’s brewing . . . and you can choose from a fine collection of teacups!

A Foul Fowl

So much for my care for our dear survivor chickens (referenced in my previous blog) . . . This past week I turned my back on our rooster and learned the hard way not to do that. The next thing I knew, I felt claws at my back that were tangled in my hair.

My Facebook update, referencing this event, led to all manner of snarky comments from “You never know what a cock-a-doodle-do” (thanks Dave), to the help from my cousin who gave me the title to this post (thanks Rhea), to Randy wondering if I’ve been eating too much at Chick-fil-A thus provoking the attack, to Maggie warning me that PETAR (People for the Ethical Treatment of Attacking Roosters) had caught wind of what happened and are now watching me.

He is a foul fowl indeed.

I admit, we don’t know much about chickens. We have to go to Google every time we have a question about what to do next. We naively let 12 of the original 15 get eaten by the local wildlife, but so far have been able to keep these last three safe. We recently visited Menards to look at paint swatches for a decorating project we’ll start next month to make this place look more “us,” and in the process, wandered into the gardening section. The helpful guy in that department listened to our dilemma and suggested that we get both chicken wire to build a pen and a set-up with low-voltage electrified wire to run around the pen that would gently zap our marauding fox should he venture too near.

We put up the chicken wire fence, creating a large area beside the barn for the chickens to wander and be safe. We never got around to installing the low-voltage wire because it didn’t take more than a couple of days for the chickens to realize that they could simply fly out of their protective area and continue to wander the yard. The three of them stay together, cawing and clucking, and, yes, cock-a-doodle dooing. Then, when they want to, they all fly back inside their penned-in area.

And apparently Mr. Rooster has decided to let us know that he is in charge here. I didn’t know that roosters crowed ALL DAY LONG. Call me stupid, but I thought they just crowed at dawn. But no, they merely START at dawn. We can tell where the three amigos are in our yard at any particular moment by listening for Mr. Rooster.

It’s funny to watch him. While most other farm animals make their noises with half-sleepy nonchalance (mooo, baaa, cawww), Mr. Rooster works hard to make his presence known. When he gets ready to cock-a-doodle-do, his neck stretches up as high as it can go, his eyes bulge out, and the piercing call comes from the very depth of his being. He is here, he is large (at least, he thinks he is), and he is in charge (ditto). The two hens will follow him in and out of the protective area. “OK lady, bring food, bring water, open and close the chicken coop door, but don’t forget who I am. Cock-a-doodle-doooo!”

Just don’t turn your back on him.