Life's Surprises

Whenever I have a long or short pause between posts it's because I'm having computer problems (not this time as my ISP is working for now), I'm just way too busy and too tired to think and write.  Other times I'm having a foray into a large or small struggle with depression which I don't like to talk about.

When I'm too busy to write I think about all kinds of creative ways I could write about living and dealing with chronic pain, diabetes, and the depression and/or anxiety that accompanies these physical manifestations.  That is until I do have the time to write.  Anyone who has experienced depression or the blues knows what a block it can be to writing creatively.  Anyway, who wants to hear it?  Maybe on a different blog.

Another reason for a pause in writing on my blog is receiving a surprise or shock to my sensibilities that throws me off-balance and, being the obsessive thinker that I am, I have to take some time to recover my equilibrium.  This is not the way I used to be before the chronic pain and diabetes came into my life, when I was plenty busy with work and other enjoyable activities.  I used to utter an, "Oh, well, that's life," and go on. 

The point I'm getting to is, our daughter and family were at our house a couple of weeks ago and dropped a big surprise on us.  Well, it was and it wasn't. If you know what I mean?  You'll know as soon as I get to the point.  Without further ado here it is--our daughter handed us this picture:

I started asking my daughter why she was holding the #4.  And then it dawned on me!  Now some people are probably a lot quicker than I am.  Also, I should have known something was up when her hubby made an out-of-the-blue comment about us not having a recent family picture of them around the house. They're good when it comes to catching us by surprise.

Why should I have been surprised after having suspicions a couple weeks earlier, when I noticed our daughters mid-section pooching and thinking, "I'd bet all my money (which isn't much) on it, that she's pregnant.  I quickly put it on the back burner 'cause even then I was having a difficult time wrapping my mind around the idea they would have another child soon.  I thought, "Their life as farmers and parents to three is very busy now."  "What would it be like with another baby," I wondered.  Chaotic, that's what!  But blessed, I'm sure.

What tickles me is that the 3-yr. old son has the same expression as his daddy.  The oldest one has a kind of oh-well-it's-just-another-brother-or-sister look on her face, and the baby hasn't a clue of what will be hitting her in about eight months.  I usually feel somewhat sad for the baby having to adjust to a new sibling.  They've hardly had the time to capture their mommy's and daddy's hearts when they must move over to share their needs with another.  Is two years long enough to solidify in a child's mind that they are still the twinkle in their mom's and dad's eyes, or have they gotten enough of mom and dad to think, "oh, what a relief.  Now mom and dad will concentrate on someone else while get a break from their smothering so I can grow up?"  But what-if this baby turns out to be April's birthday gift on April 27, 2011??

Well, there you have it.  How my mind does go on in life's situations. I probably create most of my own troubles, hardly giving God a chance to calm me down to empower me with gratitude for all that life has to offer.  Yet, nothing's going to stop me from loving baby April in the next 8 months and thereafter to teach her she has a solid place in our world, being loved and loveable.  That's the way I've felt with each one, but as you know when a new baby comes into our lives he or she takes command of the whole family in a way we've hardly anticipated even though we've been through it several times before.  Oh dear, there I go again, borrowing trouble from the future.

I ask your prayers for Amy as she sludges through the fatigue and hormonal complexities of these first months of pregnancy.  I can only help her out a couple afternoons a week.  Pray for me to calm down and trust God to meet her needs through others.  Her mom-in-law lives much closer than me and is a big help.  Her hubby is like most at this time, wondering when this phase is going to be over.  He helps as much as he can.

They're into Fall harvest which is more involved than wheat harvest in the Spring.  It keeps the women busy preparing and taking lunch and supper out to the field and cleaning up afterwards.  It's hard work lugging all that stuff to and from the van, including buckling and unbuckling several children into the car seats.  Harvest demands long hours of the farmer when the farmer's wife is a harvest widow.  Our son-in-law is good to his family.  He takes at least one or both of the oldest out in the tractor or combine with him (air-conditioned cabs are a God-send), and takes time to tuck them into bed when he can.  The expectant father tends to have his stresses too, especially when there are one or more of the children restless at night and sleep is an illusive dream.  He needs prayer too.

When I go help our daughter I usually go mid-afternoon through bath and bedtime for the kids.  Pray for a divine strength to carry me through those strenuous hours.  As I always say, this too shall pass--maybe not having babies, but these early years requiring all the energy two parents, and two sets of grandparents, can handle. I don't know how families with ten or more kids do it!  It proves hard work doesn't kill us and that we keep going by the Grace of God, I'm sure.

That's my wish and prayer for all of you today, the Grace of God be with you.

The Pets We Keep or That Keep Us

Our calico, Bunny, in a pensive mood.

I love all kinds of animals but will tolerate only three kinds to live in our home: cats, fish, and birds.  I love cats because I grew up on a farm with many cats and kittens.  As a child, I played with them everyday.  However, our mother didn't allow animals inside our home--except in winter when dad had to warm up a newborn calf. 

It was fun to play with kittens in the sweet-smelling hay in the barn loft, or among the hay bales.  The kittens would play hide and seek through tunnels between the stacks of hay bales.  In Spring or Summer we would sit on the swing or in the soft green grass holding one cat or several soft cuddly kittens, watching cloud pictures in the sky, or dropping cracker crumbs near an anthill.  Watching the ants scramble to move pieces of cracker five times their size into their underground home gave me more pleasure than playing a game on the cell phone or computer.  That was the real deal.

We knew it was time to let the cows into the barn for milking, when the cats all gathered in or around the barn door where several old bowls or small discarded cooking pans would soon be filled with warm, frothy milk.  My brothers practiced hitting cat's mouths with a stream of milk straight from the cow's udder.  Then the cats would sit for awhile and, using their front paws, groom the last drops of milk from their face and whiskers.  That was, and still is, the ultimate picture of contentment.

Bunny is about to eat this flower--not if I see it!  I believe it's the nature of a calico to stay ornery all of their lives.  At least that's true of many of the ones I've known.  Bunny is a teen in cat years.  Maybe that explains her erratic behavior, like trying to take a bite of this beautiful red geranium bloom.  Because the screened-in back porch is the closest our cats will ever get to experiencing the outdoors, we have a pet-door which Bunny uses everyday.  KoKo doesn't know, or isn't humble enough, to push her way out, but she'll wait for me to prop it open when all she needs to do is hop out or in.

Another of Bunny's tricks is to attack my feet by trying to wrap her paws around my ankles, or nipping at my heals.  She's sneaky about it and surprises me when I least expect it.  When my feet are particularly painful I'd better wear my shoes or slippers around Bunny!   

KoKo is about 19 years old and retired, although on occasion she will keep newspapers from flying away.  When our daughter adopted her as a half-grown kitten she hid under the bed for several days.  She's never tolerated other cats very well, rejecting any attempts other cats have made to play with her, fixing a haughty stare on them.  Then when they get frustrated and start bullying her she becomes the hurt victim.  Her eyes look gold in this picture, but are actually a beautiful deep blue.  I've not been able to capture their real color on camera.

Because of her martyr complex Koko's health began to fail when another kitten (Bunny) came to join our home where we also had a mature neutered male tabby.  The kitten and tabby got along famously and joined forces to taunt KoKo for being too uppity to play with them.  By the time our daughter moved to an apartment I encouraged her to take KoKo with her.  Once KoKo was by herself and queen of the house she gained weight and thrived, exhibiting a gentle and loving personality.  When I took her back the tabby had died and she and Bunny have worked out an uneasy truce between them.  Ongoing tension is created when they vie for their mistress's  (that would be me) attention.

KoKo (named after one of the cat's in Lillian Brown's books) always had the typical Siamese or Himalayan meow, but last winter she began yowling--loudly--anytime of the day or night.  We took her to the vet because we thought she might be in pain--which was how she sounded.  But the vet couldn't pick up on anything immediate and wanted $150 or more to do some tests.  She seemed to settle down, or maybe I was unaware that she was losing her voice.  Now, she can only whisper except when she purrs.  I'm hoping I'll know when it's time to put her to sleep.  It's unusual, I understand, for a Himalayan to live beyond 15 years. 

My sister's cat, Candi, lives near K.C.  She's sassy and it takes her awhile to warm up to me 'cause she doesn't see me often enough.  When my other sister, our sister-in-law, and I went to visit, I slept in this bed which was her usual spot.  I was hoping she would sleep with me overnight, but no, she slept on the other bed with my sis.  I felt miffed.  She was rather aloof towards me that whole visit.  That's the way of a cat.  I saw a behavior in her that I've never seen before.  Before lapping a drink she dips her paw into the water and licks it off her paw several times.  I wonder what my sister gave her to drink one time to earn that kind of distrust from Candi?   

Farm dog, Earl, wraps his leg around those he loves or nails them down with his paw.  He's very protective of his family, threatening strangers (to him) with a bared-teeth growl and a stance that says, "Don't cross that line."  He wandered onto the road when he was a youngster and got sideswiped by a car which has left him with a back-leg disability.  Earl used to follow the farmer's implements with his unique limping run for many miles.  He wouldn't ride in the truckbed when it was offered to him.  He's given going to the fields to hunt game, and looks longingly and sadly after the tractor as it disappears from sight.  The family may have to think about getting a puppy soon. 

Above is one of the 15, or plus, cats our daughter has on the farm.  They are all named, just as mine were, but I have to ask our 5-year old granddaughter to remind me who they are.  Farm cats live a naturally short life except for a few hardy ones that survive the hot summers, cold winters and stalking habits of larger wild animals such as coyotes and hawks.  Most of the kittens that survive are the ones the mothers keep hidden until they're too old to be tamed.  Farm life certainly isn't kind to pets, a lesson I learned as a child, and which our grandchildren are learning; the lessons of life and death are real in the school of farm-life. 

My daughter's favorite cat??  No, this is not a favored cat.  Shadow was a kitten who was found as a stray in another small town.  She may also have been a pampered housecat.  How was this spoiled kitten supposed to associate with a gang of hardened farm cats?  First, she ignored them and kept herself busy trying to squirm her way into the house through the back door everytime it opened.  But her suppressed anger at the trials life has handed her, doesn't surface until she gets pregnant.  Then she initiates an attack by swatting and hissing at whatever unaware cat ventures too close to her and her space.  She has also attacked some of us, biting me on the ankle and going after our daughter a couple of times.  Thankfully, she's left the children alone.

I believe Shadow may have been abandoned at too young of an age by her mother, because she was a lousy mother with her first couple of litters, leaving them to fend for themselves before they were ready.  Her mothering has improved but her kittens seem to have short lives.  Perhaps her neglect keeps them from developing a survival instinct. 

I took pity several years ago on one of Shadow's abandoned kittens, which was a tiny black, orange, and white calico that ran around the farmyard with the bravado of a little lioness.  Something in her spirit cried out to be rescued and given a chance to grow up.  I told my sis (who had just lost her husband) that if she didn't take this kitten home with her it would never survive.  The rest is history.  Tiera, that scrawny little kitten, is a beautiful calico with a playful and charming personality.  She has satisfied my expectations about her potential to fufill a purpose with her indominitable spirit.  She is a perfect fit as a companion to my widowed sister.

I grew up with pet birds.  Our mother usually had a canary in a cage that hung in the south living room window above her indoor garden of house plants.  The canary's lilting songs chased away any gloom that might try to reside in the house.  But canaries are delicate and short-lived. 

When our mother discovered from a sister that parakeets are hardier and playful, she had to have one.  We had several parakeets that we tamed. They would ride around the house on our shoulders, or heads (less tolerated), as well as sit on the table by the warm toaster to tuck their little head under their wing and take a nap.  Sometimes we would let them nibble on some food between our lips, including gum, of all things.  We lost a couple of parakeets when someone forgot they had it on their shoulder and walked out the door.  One of them was rescued by our brother who spotted it high up in an old elm tree.  He, along with our sister who followed with the cage, climbed up and coaxed it onto his finger and into the cage.  What we don't do for our beloved pets.

Those two little characters in the above picture are B.C., on the left, and Buddy.  They are kept by our son's girlfriend.  I kept B.C., Precious, and Sweetie for three years because Tammy couldn't have them where she lived.  I had to keep their cage safe from predators in the house, our cats.  That safe place was on top of the refrigerator.  Precious died of a broken heart when B.C. rejected his love for that of Sweetie.   Sweetie eventually died and was replaced by Buddy.   When we go visit our son and Tammy, B.C. remembers me and reaches for my finger between the cage bars to give me a love bite.  Nobody knows for sure how old B.C. is, but we're guessing around eight or nine years.  That's a pretty ripe old age for a domesticated parakeet!

Somedays we get tired of cleaning up after the cats, removing their fur from furniture and clothes, and taking care of the litter boxes.  Yet, we're grateful for the companionship and the comic relief that our cats provide when life gets tense.  God knows we need them.  Thank God for pets whatever and however, they are.  I pray that all of us will respect the pets and animals God has entrusted into our care. 

Genesis 1:31  "Then God saw everything that He had made and indeed it was very good."

About Being Offline

It's so great to be back online. I've spent the last couple of days catching up on my blogger friends. If I didn't have time to comment on each one I visited I'll try to do that the next time I stop by. You all are my online community and I've missed you.

What did I do the last three months I was offline? Luckily it was Spring and Summer which are always busy since our daughter married a farmer and is Mom to three lovely, active, children. I'll share some pictures below so you can get an idea of just how beautiful they are. Of course, I could be prejudiced since I'm their Nana!

Being offline was not as ugly as I had always imagined it might be. I wish I could say I started that book I've always threatened everyone I would write someday, telling our family secrets through imaginary characters or some other disguise. However, everyone is safe as not one sentence has been uttered on paper.

With all that time on my hands I wanted to get rid of the clutter and unnecessary stuff around our home to reach my goal of living the simple life of a minimalist. But, alas, much of it is still staring me in the face when I wake up in the morning and go to bed at night. I keep wondering where I found the time to write a blog, check on friends and family in Facebook, and do research on the internet.

I could have made a dent in some of the books I've been intending to read, but I kept checking more out from the library and buying one or two from the thrift shops. Now I have to decide if I'm ever really going to read my collection and, if not, whether they're just clutter too. How dare I call my books clutter! Every book feels like a close friend whether I've read it or not. I fall in love with the cover or the subject, or the artwork and pictures inside. I find it excruciatingly hard to part with these dear friends. I guess that makes me a hopeless bibliophile. There, maybe I've finally accepted it, even though I may get teased and upbraided for all my books--I won't name any one of my loved ones who might do that; or who, when I'm in a shopping mall with them will vigorously steer me away from the bookstore. If I have to choose, I'd rather buy a book than eat.

Quite a bit of the time I was offline, I enjoyed studying the Bible. Our church pastoral team has been giving a sermon series on Romans 8, my favorite chapter in the whole Bible. When I'm having a difficult time in my life Paul's message of Christ loving me and redeeming me from sin, and then giving me His Spirit to be my comforter is what I cling to for keeping my faith intact. "Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." (v. 26) And then that joyful 28th verse: "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." God doesn't make junk (I borrowed that from somewhere), which is good to remember when I'm in the dumps. No matter how dirty and difficult life gets, I am right where God wants me to be. Looking back through the years, I can now see that He has made something good out of what happened. I'm so thankful to be reminded of God's incomparable love!

Enough dialogue for now. Here are those pictures I promised.

A couple of days in July, our daughter with her three came over to visit us and a friend of hers in Newton while husband and father went to St. Louis for a farm conference. It was hot enough to enjoy lots of water play.

Our oldest granddaughter, who will be in Kindergarten this year, came to spend a night with us. She came on Wednesday night and right away she said she was going to stay till Saturday. Those two and one-half days were some of the best Papa and I have had this summer. The first morning we ate breakfast at McDonalds. We stopped and bought fresh roasting ears from the Gaeddert Farm stand. But first we had to clean up our "messy driveway." Then we shucked the corn. I let her watch a movie she likes, "The Girl and the Fox." We went to the library and checked out several books to read and a triple rocker to share with brother and sis when she went home.

The next afternoon we went to the water park where our social butterfly had lots of fun with other children who also came to cool off. I know I need to write down more of the clever things she says, but they all come so fast and by then we've moved on to other things. We had to go back to the water park "one more time" on Saturday morning before I took her home.

The baby is trying to fill Daddy's shoes because she loves her daddy. Everytime the back door opens, no matter where she is, she yells, "Dada?"

Father's day we went to see our son and his girlfriend. Our son grilled the most delicious hamburgers and hotdogs. We brought the ice cream freezer and froze vanilla ice cream. Yum! They had just moved from their apartment to a roomy house.

Little brother has to wait his turn while Papa swings big sissy and little sis. It's hard being in the middle

Here is Little Miss Fancy Fanny chattering to whatever is out there.

Once upon a time there was a cute, furry bunny named Oreo. And then there wasn't. It's a sad story we won't go into right now.  Perhaps Old Earl, the farm dog, could offer a clue.  That's life on the farm.

Our lovely, sweet (most of the time) grandchildren.

If you get all three to sit still and smile at the same time, it's something of a miracle. It only happened with two-thirds of them this time. But you can see how they're all members of the same family. I wonder where they all got those blue eyes and blonde hair?

Abandoned Farms and Homes

Here are pictures of the abandoned farms and houses I promised you all a couple of weeks ago. Most were taken in Republic County and, maybe one or two, in Jewel County, Kansas. These two homes, the one above and below, were left to nature's ravages more recently than the others. The one below has curtains still hanging in the windows. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see a lone chair still sitting under the collapsed porch roof.
I love this house (below). It looks like it was a grand farm house for a large family. The land around all these abandoned places is still being farmed. I kept the combine, and large truck that were waiting to begin wheat harvest out of this picture.
There was no house on this abandoned place. Maybe someone bought and moved it, as was the case when my parents sold their farm. I like the way the colors lined up in this picture: the blue sky, the green of a shelter belt, the wheat field ripe for harvest, and the mixed grasses of fallow-land in the foreground. A typical Kansas country scene at harvest time.
I didn't realize I had lined up the V-shaped cloud formation so perfectly with the center of the picture. I think it looks like the wings of a large angel coming in for a landing or flying away from this abandoned farm a couple miles east of Republic, Kansas where my friend lives.
This old house below looks really small compared to the spacious farm houses of today. I don't think the smaller building is attached to the house. My farm home had a little building like this a few yards from the house and it housed our Maytag wringer washing machine with two rinsing tubs, and the milk separator that somehow strained out the cream from the whole milk, or so I thought. We called that little building the "wash-house." I'm still mystified about how the separator worked. Maybe all it did was separate the dust and flies from the milk to make it more salable to Tip Top Dairies who made cheese, ice cream, etc. with it. By the time I would have been old enough to learn to use it, we got rid of all our milk cows except one as our family shrunk down to just my parents and me. My mother painted the separator black and planting flowers in and around it. I've repeatedly heard about the time my sister got her arm in the wringer to almost above her elbow before my mother got the wringer in reverse. Luckily sis didn't have any broken bones.
This isn't a house, of course. But in that spread-out agricultural area in North Central Kansas, I saw these old threshing machines decorating the top of a hill looking like pre-historic dinosaurs. This was the rattling, growling machine that we could hear coming down the road behind a popping John Deer followed by neighbors with their teams of horses and hayracks to help our dad do wheat harvest. I talked about that in a previous post. It was quite scary when I was just a little girl, but also pretty exciting.
The pastoral scene below reminds me of the farm I grew up on. It looks too quiet and serene now. It revived memories in me of waking up to the crowing of the rooster and his entourage of cackling hens, the lowing of the cows as they heard the farmer clanging his way to the barn with clean metal milk buckets. Add to that the clamor of waking birds, cats, and a family of five children, with mother making pancakes and sizzling home-grown bacon in a cast-iron frying pan, and you have the perfect scenario for a 1950's working farm. The memories bring with them the smells of farm life, some of them wonderful, like warm milk, sweet clover, and new-mown hay, and the not-s0-pleasant odors of cow and chicken manure, and the lingering scent of a skunk who paid an overnight visit in hopes of finding a stray egg somewhere. We prayed it had left long before we arrived in the yard.
I particularly like the picture with the windmill next to the barn. We had one that the wind would set to whirling and creaking, but the water it drew up from the well nearby, though refreshingly cold, was fit only for the chickens and livestock to drink. On a hot summer day we would carry water from the stock tank in buckets, up the hill (it wasn't difficult for me to picture the Jack and Jill story) and throw water under the shade trees in hopes that the chickens would stay cool enough not to stop laying eggs, or worse, giving up and dying from the heat.
I hope you've enjoyed the pictures, though they're sad. We've lost a wonderful era to progress and perhaps a lot of greed. I miss the small farm and wish it would still be there to go home to. But, as they say, "you can't go home again." It seems like a dream after all these years.

Harvesting

I don't know if I have any readers left after how long It's been since I posted. I may not be able to post pictures till next week. I'm using my daughter's computer because I'm at their house helping with harvest in Kansas. Wow, how harvest does wait until the first hottest week of the summer. Sunday, the 21st, was the first day of summer, and just like that the weather responds! It hasn't reached 100 yet today, but with the humidity being high till this afternoon, it felt like more than 100 degrees.

Between my daughter, her mother-in-law (who is a seasoned farmer's daughter and wife and been through many harvests), and myself we manage two preschoolers and an infant, making and serving lunch and supper to 3 men mostly out in whatever field they happen to be. I stayed overnight a couple of nights last week, and came here Tuesday noon and staying till Thursday evening.

I grew up on a Kansas farm when harvesting was done with horses and hayracks, big John Deere tractors that popped and had the large flywheels and belts. The threshing machine, as that era's combine was called, was a huge contraption that, along with the popping John Deere, we could hear coming from several miles away. The wheat had been cut and shocked (bundles of wheat set up together like a teepee) and the horses and drivers pitch-forked them onto the hayracks (wagons) piling the shocks so high on the hayrack it looked like it would topple over.

Since there was only one threshing machine around, harvesting wheat was a community project. Neighbors would follow the machine to each farm with their horses and hayracks, making quite a large crew of 8-12 men that the farmwife would have to prepare a noon meal for. As I remember it, the food was the hostess's responsibility, and some of the neighbor women would come and help serve. My mother would fry lots of chicken, open several jars of home canned vegetables, use several pounds of new potatoes cut in quarters and fried in butter and parsley or mashed and served with gravy, bake several loaves of bread or dozens of rolls, and several pies or cakes to satisfy the hungry crew. We children enjoyed taking cinnamon rolls out for morning break, sandwiches, chips, pickles, and lemonade (except hot coffee for the machine owner who said if he heated up the inside of his body he felt cooler on the outside) for mid-afternoon lunch.

I guess I could go on, but am really tired after a long day on the farm. Having concentrated time with the grandchildren has been a real blessing. Proverbs 17:6 says, "Children's children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children." Seems like I may have written this on another blog I wrote, maybe even the last one. I pray that our children and grandchildren will look back on our lives and have a good heritage to pass on to their children.

Where Am I?

Oh, yeah, right here. It's just been one of those weeks. Yesterday (Friday) I spent most of the day with my daughter and her two babies. Well, the 3 1/2 yr. old doesn't want to be called a baby anymore. And if the two-year old could talk, he would mimic his sister, which he tries to do anyway. Here's a picture daughter sent Halloween evening: Strawberry Shortcake and the Little Farmer. I just love them bunches of baskets and buckets!

Thursday night I slow-cooked an arm roast with potatoes and carrots and took that over for Friday's noon meal. We put the food in divided plates and took them out to the field for hubby and his dad who were cutting milo or planting wheat-- can't keep up what they're up to. When I was growing up on the farm all those seasonal things were so much a part of my life I hardly gave them a second thought and didn't realize how much they had become a part of me till I left and never went back. Have I mentioned I miss the rhythm of those seasons, the routine? I loved being closer to nature.

I wish I had more time to reminisce but hubby called and said he's taking me out for supper in Wichita tonight and I'd better get ready to dine in the city. Hope to be back soon. Y'all take care.

Long Time Passing

It's been two years since I added anything to my blog spot. I can't believe it's been that long! So much has happened I hardly know where to begin to catch up. I've changed the look of the blog and like it much better. I've added some of my favorite bloggers and other interesting links. I highly recommend them.

When I last wrote we had one grandchild, a precious girl who is now 3 1/2 years old and just started going to preschool. She's an intelligent and a happy, precocious, presence in our lives. I'm often reminded how carefree childhood can be, and I'm relearning how to have more of a sense of humor, how to be spontaneous, how to have fun in everything we do, and how to live each day at a time. I know some of these very things I love about her are likely frustrating to her parents...she gets too enthusiastic in hugging her little brother, she babbles on to anyone who will listen and we never have to guess what she's thinking because she thinks out loud, and she has spurts of energy where she runs wildly around the house neighing like a horse. She likes to help set the table, cut up watermelon or honeydew with a plastic knife, but she doesn't always like to pick up and put toys away anymore. She's perfect company for anyone who may be feeling a bit lonely.

Her little brother joined the family in January, 2007. He has the same blue eyes, but blonder hair than his sister (he's what you call a real towhead), is quieter, and keeps most of his thoughts to himself. But his face is a dead giveaway as to what he's feeling or thinking. He lights up my day with the sunniest smile, a smaller imitation of his sister. His pout almost breaks my heart, and he seems to know it. I often find him in a pensive mood but he won't tell me what he's thinking. Of course, he hasn't learned all the words he needs to talk to us, but I have a feeling even when he has a good handle on language he will still keep a lot of things to himself. He takes more risks than his big sister, a lot of times because he's trying to keep up with her, but isn't old enough to do what she's doing. He raises quite a fuss when we won't let him do what could be quite harmful to him. He sits quietly reading a book or building a tower with Legos, that is if his sister doesn't interrupt him. Then it's time for Nana to read a book with one or both to help diffuse over-enthusiastic sibling rivalry.

Being a Nana is more wonderful than I ever imagined it would be. Even on days when my chronic pain is at it's worst, just getting a call from my daughter which often includes a hello from Alana or Derek helps me forget what's bothering me. Hours of pain are erased when I spend time playing with, and caring for, our grandchildren. It's afterwards that I groan, moan, and limp around like an injured horse (who's lost its neigh), and complain to my hubby, Papa, that I can't budge another inch. But it's all worth it. Yes, and yes, grandchildren are real gifts from God, and also our children, who are the first blessing. But sometimes I've wished it could be lived backwards...if we would have our grandchildren first (I know, it's impossible), then we could hopefully enjoy our children as much as we now do our grandchildren. I remember it was the sense of responsibility, perfectionism, and constant vigilance to protect them that hindered me from just letting go and enjoying the moments each day, week, month, and year.

I'm not saying I didn't enjoy our son and daughter. There was real joy in those times of spontaneous connection in the moment. There was a feeling of great reward when they responded to our love which included times of discipline and consequences not to their liking. We all survived those times and we had fun in spite of them. I just hope that our children mostly forget the struggles and remember the good times. Going to the pizza place in Spring to celebrate the beginning of Summer. Going back to the pizza place and shopping for school needs and clothes in Fall. Having popcorn and watching a rented movie on a stormy winter's night. I especially want them to know we have always loved, and always will love them. I think our relationships have evolved more to a friendship level now. At least that is my hope. Is it possible to stop being a parent, or a child of parents? Hopefully, we can reach a level of maturity where we put those roles in perspective and let go to experience and enjoy each other as the individuals we are.

On the lighter side: Kansas has had a mild and wet summer. Having grown up on the farm and having a farmer for a son-in-law I find that the growing seasons still influence my life. I love Spring and Fall, especially Spring since I was born in April, and Spring is a life-enriching time. Everything is reborn in Spring. As a child I loved summer. School was out, and I could bask in the long sunny days as I read a book or helped my mom freeze or can garden produce. Any hot weekend was an occasion for home-made ice cream served with angel food cake, lemonade and iced tea. Chewing on ice cubes while reading or working was a pleasant way to cool down. It still is a pleasant way to cool down, but better than ice cubes are the low-cal, low-sugar fruit smoothies I make to subdue a hot day. Mmm-Mmm!

I like Fall because it's a time to slow down and think. Cool, rainy afternoons are just right for catching up on journal writing, setting goals and planning, considering what I can do on those cold winter days when snow keeps me housebound. Will I attempt to get out my scrapbooking materials and finally finish the album I began soon after Alana was born and is still only half done? Maybe I'll write that short story or start a novel. Saturdays might be spent baking some bread or cinnamon rolls to warm up the kitchen and enjoy the scents that remind me of pleasant memories from the past. It's time to get out the full-spectrum lamp that I can sit under while I read or work on the computer to drive away the gloom of SAD. That's the main thing I dread about winter--the short and cloudy days that keep away the sunshine which I absolutely need to feel happy.

I guess I can always come to my blog here and surf the links and favorite other blog spots to drive away the gloom. I'm feeling better already because I have something to look forward to. I wonder if anyone will read this blog and find something that speaks to their heart and will inspire them to share or comment so we can carry on a conversation about life? I can only hope and pray that will happen.