I worked in the State 4-H Office while I was in college; part-time during the school year and full-time in the summer. It was a great job – I loved it! I worked for the Animal Science extension agent. The build-up to the State Fair was exciting as we received fair entries from all 92 counties. One time my boss asked me to call an entrant who had left off the form the number of male and female pigs he was going to bring. This was a step up from my usual role of making copies and filing things and I was a little nervous. I called and a man answered.

Continue reading “Tuesday, October 19, 2021 Barrows and Gilts” →

When my dad was in his 60’s (like I am now), he took the time to write a series of short memoirs about certain parts of his life: “Camp Miller” (where he was a camp counselor in 1943), “Canoeing Adventures” (trips to the BWCA), “The U.S. Army Parts One and Two,” and “The Band Man” (various bands he was a part of in his youth and his experiences as a band teacher in the public schools). Dementia started robbing him of his memories as he grew older, so I’m awfully thankful he got going on those when he did.

After he died, I found all sorts of notes he’d written, clearly intending to write a memoir about his childhood. He’d even given it a title: “Duluth Days” and had written a dedication: “A Memoir for Mary,” (my mother). I cobbled them all together, typed it up and gave copies to my mom and siblings for Christmas in 2015. It felt good to finish a project that he’d started, but became unable to complete.

A few years ago I started writing down some of my memories of growing up, inspired by my dad’s example. There’s something about the process of getting older that gives me a sense of urgency about recording those things before they start drifting away. I got as far as the beginning of my college years and dropped it, mostly because at that point I really needed to rely less on my memory and delve into my many journals for details. As soon as it started to look like work, it lost its appeal, sadly.

It’s not like I think anyone but our children would be interested in these things. Frankly, I’m not even sure our children would be interested. Maybe it’s just for me. But now I’ve started thinking about what my dad did, choosing certain themes and experiences to write about. What sorts of mini memoirs would I write? Here are a few possible titles:
“Education: Trials and Triumphs of a Timid Child”
“A Musical Life: How Can I Keep From Singing?”
“The Holy Suitor: God Found Me and Took Me In”
“He Said, She Said: How We Met, Courted and Married”
“And Then There Were Six: Adventures of Sinners Raising Sinners.”
”Going Places: Over Land and Sea”
“Homeschooling: Trying to Teach Logic Was My Undoing”
Getting Older: What’s That You Say?”

I spent a pleasant 20 minutes just thinking up those titles and I hope it was just as pleasant (though not as long) for you to read them. And now that I’ve gone to the trouble of coming up with the titles, shouldn’t I write them?

I’ll probably delete this in the morning. Hey, that could be the title of my memoir about blogging! Wait – that would just be me writing about writing. I guess not…I got carried away. Never mind.

I am enamored of the waves,
Rolling, churning over,
Keeping time
With thunderous rhythm,
Beating the sand like a drum,
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!

I silently applaud the Composer
Of this captivating,
Invigorating
Shoreside music.

“The LORD on high is mightier
Than the noise of many waters,
Than the mighty waves of the sea.”
Psalm 93:4

Yes indeedy, that was my blog post from yesterday, but unfortunately, I was unable to post for “technical reasons.” This is a delightful catch-all phrase that I like to use to describe things that go wrong in the glorious and enigmatic world of computers and the way they mysteriously communicate in the invisible world around us. Who can understand it?

And now, since I’ve posted my Thursday post on Friday, it seems inevitable that my Friday post will emerge on Saturday, a state of affairs that is decidedly cattywampus. But I draw the line there. Things must return to their rightful places on Monday after our day of rest.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, but since it was supposed to be posted yesterday, I should have deleted it already this morning. That’s a nice little time conundrum for you.

I’ve been following some artsy Instagram accounts, as well as looking for ideas on Pinterest for a few years now. Every once in a while I see someone showing off their artsy travel journals and they are always beautiful and charming. Enter one of my moments of inspiration: I could do that when we go out west!

Continue reading “Wednesday, October 13, 2021 Artistic Delusions” →

I didn’t join our high school choir until I was a senior. Early on in the year, I was approached by fellow choir member Karen, who asked me to be part of a barbershop quarter with her and two others. Although the school’s regular choir director did NOT approve of women singing barbershop material (she may have thought the bass part was too low and not suitable for a woman), she was on sabbatical that year and couldn’t object.

Our quartet, The Honey Blondes, was conceived of and coordinated by Karen, who was just about the most musically talented person I knew at the time. In fact, she invited me once to her organ recital. Imagine my surprise when I got there and she told me she didn’t have a page turner and could I please do it for her? She played the most magnificent and complex pieces, but I was so stressed out over the whole page-turning thing that I couldn’t enjoy it.

Back to the HB’s, though. By the time Karen recruited me, she already had the other two girls lined up: Elin (low alto/bass) and Sue (soprano/tenor). Karen sang alto/baritone and I was being asked to sing the lead. To say I was flattered hardly covers it. I was THRILLED. It turned out my grandfather had also sung barbershop, so my mom had a few of his old barbershop songbooks handy. We were off and running.

Continue reading “Tuesday, October 12, 2021 Bye Bye Blues” →

For those of you who wondered why I dropped off the blogosphere, as Mark Twain once said: ‘Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” We took a two-week trip out west and although I had thought I would keep up my M-F daily blog, it did not come to pass. Fortunately for all of my faithful subscribers, this also resulted in a vacation for you from getting a daily email notification of a blog post. All in all, everyone got a vacation.

We stayed at the home of some old friends our first night on the road, had some nice conversation and went to bed feeling rather like we’d gotten off to a good start.

At 5:45 a.m., Mr. Friend came downstairs and woke Kris up. I sleepily overheard bits of a hushed conversation that made me think that Mr. Friend had accidentally backed into our car on his way out of the garage. Then I heard the ominous words, “So, you’ll want to go out and see if anything was stolen.” I shot out of bed on pure adrenaline at that point and we both rushed outside. Sure enough, some hooligans (is it okay if I assume they were young?) had broken out one of our car windows and had helped themselves to some of our belongings. This was a rude awakening on many levels.

Continue reading “Monday, October 11, 2021 —— A Rude Awakening” →

When I was growing up, we didn’t put all our trash into landfills – we separated out the paper trash and burned it in our back yards. I’m not making that up! It seems like a much more efficient way to dispose of things than landfills, but I digress.

When I was in 4th or 5th grade, my neighbor Denise and I discovered the joys of this activity. My family (like most) had a burn barrel and my dad would regularly burn its contents. Denise and I decided that we ought to be able to partake in this particular ritual, but knew instinctively that this would not receive the parental blessing, so we started burning trash secretly behind our garage.

Continue reading “Tuesday, September 28, 2021 I Was a Firebug” →

Random thoughts:

Why does anyone need a king-sized pillow? It seems a little excessive to me.

Is it possible to have too many books? Asking for a friend.

When you say you’re sorry for something, you are just sharing an emotion. When you ask forgiveness for something, you are acknowledging that you’ve sinned against that person, that what you did (or said) was wrong, and you are initiating a dialogue that requires a response. When someone says to you, “I’m sorry,” your immediate response to say something like “That’s okay.” But if someone says to you, “It was wrong of me to yell at you, will you please forgive me?” it’s an entirely different transaction.

Have you ever heard of “goof jobs?” That was a technique my parents sometimes employed when we needed disciplining. If you transgressed, you might just get a goof job – an extra chore of menial labor. If you were prone to drama (as I was), you might do your chore thinking of yourself as having been switched at birth with a princess and that any day now, the king and queen would come to your door to rescue you. Ha ha!

Well, that’s enough random musings for one day.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning? I don’t know – it’s always a thought.

The sun went ‘round and ‘round and never thought about what she was wearing or what her hair looked like. But one day she looked down and saw herself reflected in the ocean and said, “How terribly plain and dull I am!” And thus began her quest to get a make-over.

Continue reading “Friday, September 24, 2021 The Sun Tries to Get a Makeover” →

We’re going to have to pretend that today is indeed Tuesday, since on actual Tuesday I was too busy (sort of) to fire off a blog post. But I do have a truly true story to share with you that started with a simple desire but escalated into rebellion, the keeping of dark secrets, betrayal and ending in bloodshed. Now that I have effectively hooked you in, here we go!

Continue reading “Tuesday, September 21, 2021 The White Mice Caper” →

Random thoughts:

I continue to listen to a podcast that features speeches over the years given by Elisabeth Elliot. It’s one of my favorite podcasts and I never tire of her plain-speaking wisdom and whole-hearted reliance on the Word of God. She occasionally throws out some really great pithy statements. Here are a couple:

Of those who indulge in self pity because of difficulties in their lives:
“Far worse things have happened to far better people.”

Of the need to cultivate contentment in our work:
“If you cannot do what you like, then you must learn to like what you do.”

Ah, contentment. Easier said than done. A few years ago I read a book by the Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs called The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. It’s very dense and written in outline form with lots of points and sub-points – not the kind of book you curl up in your chair with on a rainy day with a cup of hot chocolate. It was slow going, but worth the effort. I decided to memorize his definition of Christian contentment thinking it would be a profitable thing to have tucked away in my mind. Now comes the test – do I still remember it? Drum roll please…

“Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.”

Simple and very thorough. Then he spent the whole book in explanation of that. I’ve read the book twice now and I’ll probably return to it again. That Christian contentment is a jewel is beyond dispute. But why is it so rare? We are ever prone to complain. At least I am. It’s easy to criticize the Israelites when they fell into murmuring and complainting again and again while being rescued from slavery and being fed in the wilderness. But you know what? After 2 or 3 days of nothing but manna, I think I would have started complaining, too. True, enduring and persevering contentment is rare, indeed. I give you permission to remind me about that definition of contentment the next time you hear me complaining.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, but definitely without complaining about it.