Collections.....

Debbie, over at All About Purple, blogged about her massive collection of Sea Glass.  I had asked her about it a week ago, so I was tickled to pieces to see her post.  I have 3 pieces of sea glass--that's it.

Living in Michigan, we are surrounded by the 5 fresh water Great Lakes.  We occasionally find a piece of sea...or lake glass I suppose it would be called, but mostly, on our lake shores we find rocks!  Interesting rocks.  I have collections of different kinds of rocks, gathered here in Michigan, and from every State I have visited.  My favorites are the heart-shaped rocks I have found.

all kinds of stones 

I found this while looking for info on our State rock--the Petoskey Stone.  I had no idea that at one time Michigan was located near the equator!  Apparently I have forgotten everything I ever learned in college Geology I and II, about Continental Drift.

"Well before dinosaurs roamed the earth, over 350 million years ago during the Devonian period, the land we know as Michigan was located near the equator. Covered by a warm, shallow, saltwater sea, the colonial coral hexagonaria percarinata thrived with other marine life in tropical reefs. The earth’s plates moved and pushed Michigan north to the 45th parallel and above sea level, which created dry land formations. More recently, about two million years ago, glacial action scraped the earth and spread the fossils across the northern Lower Peninsula, depositing major concentrations in the Petoskey area. The prehistoric fossil, unique to the Traverse Group rock strata, is called the Petoskey Stone and is Michigan’s official state stone."

I have Petoskey stones--many, many, collected by the Lake Michigan (west) side of the State.  

One week, in 1985, I was having a very difficult time in my life.  Newly divorced 10 months before, and dumped by my first "rebound" boyfriend, I packed up my station wagon and headed to Lake Huron (east) side of the State.  As I drove along the shore-line, I saw some little cabins, built on the sand, about 100 feet from the Lake.  I stopped and rented one for four days.

Let me tell you--it was tiny.  Probably 200 sq. ft, bed, two kitchen chairs, small table and a bathroom.  It was perfect.  I unloaded my stuff and then walked along that shore-line for a mile or so--looking down, always looking down for any interesting rocks or the occasional shell I might find.

There was a full moon that night and around midnight, I walked out to the shore-line.  I was crying and so distraught.  I looked up and the light from the moon shimmered on the water.  It looked like I could walk on the path of that light right up into Heaven.

I took one step into the water, then another.  Following that path of light across that big Lake.

I do not remember anything after that.   I woke up the next morning, naked in the cottage bed, with a pile of my wet clothes on the floor.  

What had happened?  Had I tried to drown myself?  I can't swim and yet, there lay the evidence that I had been in water up to my neck.  I felt shaky.

I jumped into some dry clothes and walked out to the spot where I had been that night.  The sun was shining so brightly and a nice warm breeze.  I tried to remember the night before.  I remember starting to walk into the big Lake, but...............nothing else.

I looked down at the rocks along the water's edge and saw what I thought was a Petoskey Stone.  Couldn't be--they are found on the other side of the State, many water miles away.  I reached down and picked it up.  Oh My God!  It was!

 It is only as big as my thumb nail.  I carry it in my coin purse, these last 32 years, because that little stone showed me that if it could somehow travel from Lake Michigan, up the shore-line, under the Mackinaw Bridge and down the Lake Huron shore-line to exactly where I was standing?  All things are possible!!

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February--or, dark and dreary in the North.

While January always has felt like a new time, a time to get inside chores done and clean up the house, February has always felt like drab, dark and dreary to me.  "The longest month of the year," my Mother used to proclaim.  Usually not enough clean, white snow to cover the dead gardens/lawns and not enough sun to brighten up the dark spaces.

February used to be a much dreaded month for me.  Not so anymore.  I don't know why.  My sister is still affected by it.  Is it my Ott Daylight lamp I sit under while I stitch?  Or is it, that at this age, time goes by so fast that by the time I realize it's February, March is knocking at the door?
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I finally got all the ham sliced and packaged and frozen from the half ham Karen gave me for Christmas.  Sunday, I put that bone in the Crock Pot.  Monday, I added the cabbage, onions, carrots and potatoes.  I enjoyed a nice dish of boiled dinner for supper.  I have frozen the rest.  8 plastic snap-tight containers.

I also attended a Memorial Service for my cousin's husband on Monday.  It was lovely.  I have never been to a Memorial service and it seemed different than a regular funeral.  Better, more relaxed than a funeral.  Perhaps because the deceased person is not reclining in a casket at the back/front of the room?

Each of his children got up and talked about memories of their Dad, and a lot of the grandchildren did also.  It lasted a long time--over two hours--with lots of songs too.  But, I was so engaged that I didn't even get fidgety.  Which is unusual for me.

I want lots of music at my funeral too.  I have a song picked out for a duet to sing, and 3 songs for the people to sing.

The first song we sang at the Memorial service was, "Jesus Loves Me."  I just might add that to my funeral.  
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Not too much else going on.  Creating pedigrees for genealogy.  Making copies of a book for other family members.  Running up to town to get new inkjet cartridges, the usual household chores and...
I am really having fun with this cross stitch.  It is going to be just the right size for over the back door.

January 27th. Already?

I found it!!!  It was less expensive than the ones on other sites, but still with shipping and taxes, it came to $30.00  Isn't it cute?  It's going to be so much fun to do.  I love the little turtle!!

Sorry I didn't post yesterday.  I was foggy headed in the morning and then I had a wondrous phone call with a blog buddy, going over genealogy books for her siblings, and then I spent the rest of the day working on that--before I forgot what we discussed.

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This morning, got up late again--9:20--it is so dismal outside.  We haven't seen the sun for days and days!!!  Worked some more on the genealogies--editing and re-doing pedigree charts.

I watched my Soap, which was rudely interrupted by the President, and some old lady from England.  It's a fact, there is nothing on TV at 2:00 EST, so why don't they wait until then and not 1:30 to have a President press conference?  ARGGH.  It's Friday.  There always is a cliff hanger on my Soap on Fridays.

At 2:00, I ran up to Walmart--to get my prescriptions, which I was supposed to pick up yesterday.  I was paying $2.50 for my generic meds and $6.50 for my blood thinner.  The prices today?  $3.30 for the generics and $8.25 for the blood thinner.  I haven't purchased any in 3 months and the pharmacist told me the prices rose January 1st--along with most of our health insurance.  My health insurance tripled!!!  Luckily, because I am low income, I did get a subsidy that pays for part of it, but it still doubled.  ARGGH!!

  I didn't need to get too much in the grocery department. I cashed in my coins from the coin jug at the CoinStar machine.  They keep 10.9% for using the machine.  I should have rolled them and taken them to the bank, or Meijer where they only take 5%.  

I just looked at my Walmart receipt.   I spent $22.00 on wild bird seed!!  Some with peanuts and berries in, some with nuts and sunflower seeds for the Woodpeckers, Cardinals and Nut Hatches.  A suet cake for the Woodpeckers.  I spent $4.00 on cat food.  I got myself a pencil sharpener--47 cents and a pouch of Tuna--$2.42.  It's a fact that the animals around here eat better than I do.  LOL

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My daughter Karen, gave me half a ham for Christmas.  That thing was big as a cow!!!  I finally have all the ham sliced off and frozen in packages for sandwiches and today, I crock-potted the bone and the meat on it all day.  I have a nice broth, I also have 2 potatoes, carrots, 2 onions and a small cabbage to add and crock-pot those tomorrow.

I did this a couple weeks ago with just the ham and it tasted so good.  It seems I must have been craving ham for a long time because I've been eating on that hog since Christmas and I'm still not sick of it. :-)

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Went to a funeral Tuesday and have another one on Monday.  My cousin's husband died last night.  "Death comes in Three's?"  I wonder who will be next.  YIKES!!!

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Have a great weekend.  

It was a fine day---yesterday

This is the Noah's Ark stamped cross stitch kit I want.  So if you see it anywhere, please let me know.
Right now, it's $38.50 on jet.com and I would rather pay in the 20-25 dollar range.

Remember me telling you about the genealogy I did for the young lady named Sam?  A freebie because I knew she couldn't afford any of it.

I dated her Dad when I first moved here.  I don't know why.  He and I had polar opposite lifestyles.   He went to bed at 4:00am and got up at 2:00pm.  He sat at his computer 10 hours a day.

When I went to spend weekends, I sat and cross stitched or crocheted and watched TV, while he sat, with his back to me and computed.  He had two bulletin boards he ran on the computer, so he was involved in conversations.

At midnight, he'd get ready to go to the bar for his nightly drink and then have breakfast afterwards.  I went with him--why?  I didn't drink, but they had Karoke and I loved listening to Karoke.  Some of those singers were waaaaaaaay good.

Every other weekend, his 10 year old daughter Samantha, came to visit him.  The poor kid sat in her room all day and watched TV--waiting for Dad to wake up at 2:00 and take her out for lunch.

That became my role.  I'd take her to breakfast and shopping, or to the park--sometimes I even brought her home with me for the weekend and we'd go to Karen or Jennifer's where she could play with the babies.

That little girl was rather strange.  She had no table manners, laying her head on her arm, while she scooped the food off the plate into her mouth--with her fingers.

No matter what, she never, ever said Please or Thank You.

I tried my best, not in a nagging way, but by example and having her visit my grandkids, to learn to act properly.  I got her Dad, who never had been to the Mackinaw Bridge to take us up for a weekend.  We spent 4 days in the Upper Peninsula and had a great time.  Then I made a memory book of the photos for Sam.  Once, while shopping, she saw a book about manners for young kids.  She wanted it, so I got it for her.

That Sunday afternoon, when we took Sam home and toted her stuff inside, she showed her mother the book.  Some of her mother's friends were there and I felt uncomfortable as it was.

Her mother looked at the book and threw it at me.  "My girl don't need no book 'bout manners!"  I picked it up off the floor and retreated to the truck.  Sam would just have the book at her Dad's to read, I guess.

Her Mother hated me!  She was 36 when Sam was born, Sam's Dad was 50.  They never married or even lived together.  He really was never sure Sam was his, but he sent child support and had her in his Will.


The only thing I missed about that relationship when he ended it, was not seeing Sam.
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Okay, so here we are 12 years later.  Sam's mother died January 7th.  They couldn't afford a funeral and they had to have the money up front, so it took that long to have a visitation.  2 hours at the funeral home, no funeral, private family burial, dark brown wooden casket.

I decided to drive in to the funeral home.  It was only a 20 minute drive.  I walked in and stood kind of at the back and she must have seen me and she came right over and walked right into my arms!  This amazed me because the 2 years I knew her, she hated to be hugged.

Then she pulled back a little bit and said, "Chris, Judy's here." and a handsome young came hurrying over and grabbed me in a bear hug.  Apparently she had mentioned something about me to him, her husband, over the years.  I got to meet her two little girls, the 4 year-old, reached out to shake my hand.  "I heered 'bout you from my Momma."  Hm-mm.  Then I heard someone squeal, "Judy!" and Sam's BFF since kindergarten came rushing over and we were in a huge three-way hug.  She had spent some of those weekends with us.  Now they are 24 with babies of their own, instead of the dolls we used to play with.

Sam had to greet other people so I went to sit down and then---in the back corner, I spotted people I knew.  Sam's Dad's siblings!  His sister came running up to me and led me back to the group.  These are some of the nicest people I have ever known and thought of them as part of my family for those 2 years he and I dated.  I got to meet a new sister-in-law, as one of the brother's had been a widower.

"Judy, I've heard so much about you!  Annie showed me that beautiful Dream Fairy picture you cross stitched for her.  It is beautiful.  You are just awesome!"

Okay, so I could have spent all afternoon with that group. LOL
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As I started to leave I wanted to say good-bye to Sam and give her some money, so I asked if she could step out in the hall for a moment.  I hugged her long and hard and she sort of melted into my arms.  I said, "Give me your paw, Little One."  and I tucked a hundred dollar into her palm..."Just in case," I said.  "Just in case."

She didn't say Thank You--I didn't expect it, but she did say, "Would you make one of those family things for Chris?  I want to give it to his mother for her birthday."  That was the first she even mentioned the genealogy I had done.  I hadn't heard if she had received it not.

"Sure," I said.  "Just e-mail me his parent's name and grand parents, if you know the information."

"Okay.  I will."  We hugged again.

"Bye, bye Sam,  I love you.

"Bye", she said.

When I got in my car and started home, I realized---I hadn't even gone up to look into the casket.  Oh well--that wasn't why I had gone there yesterday anyway.
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10:30 Wednesday night--I just received this e-mail from Pammie:
"Just got the greatest call from Cindy regarding Marks  test results. PSA is at 5...which is good. All scans came back good. Cancer is-in docs words "at bay"

Praise be to God!!!"

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Indeed!  Praise be to God.

Projects

I don't know if I mentioned it before.  I have 9 grandchildren.  I decided 5 years ago to cross stitch a baby quilt for each one of them to have for their 1st child.  When finished, I wash them, iron them, let them hang for a day to completely dry and then pack them in tissue paper, put in a large zippered bag, (like drapes or curtains come in) and into a large plastic storage box.  I figure I'll be long gone by the time the last grandchild marries and births, but at least there will be a gift for their baby from the Great Grandma.  They can choose whichever one they want.

 #1

#2--this one is for my grandson Marcus, if he keeps

dating and marries that cute little farm girl, Morgan.

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7--this is the one I gave to grand daughter Helene,

for Della.

#8

I need to do one more.  I know the one I want to do.  It is another Noah's Ark one, but it is expensive.  I search E-Bay every now and then and also check the Salvation Army store.  When Dar worked at the SA, one like I wanted came in and she grabbed it.  She showed it to me and I asked her if I could buy it from her.

She said, "Oh. No.  I'm going to make this one."

"I didn't know you cross stitched."

"I haven't in years, but one day, I will again.  I do lovely work."

That was 4 years ago.  She doesn't have the patience to sit and cross stitch.  I doubt she will ever make that quilt.  She has no expected grand babies or great grand babies.  

So I just keep looking.  These are stamped cross stitch, so I kind of "sew" them rather than do the "punch" method.  I don't want any stitches to show on the back of the quilt, so I move the needle between the layers.

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Della is 3 months old today.

Why Is Monday Always Wash-Day?

Welcome Jane from Naples, Florida.  

Thanks you for the lovely comment.

Glad you found me from Ernestine's woods.  

She is a love, isn't she.

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I know there is some kind of history on why Monday is wash day.  Tuesday was/is ironing day.  Wednesday was baking day.

I am a structured person, so I always do laundry on Monday.  Although when I had my nine-room house to care for, I did "certain" laundry on certain days.

Monday I did the whites and the bedding, and cleaned bedrooms.
Tuesday, I did bath towels, kitchen towels and cleaned the bathrooms.
Wednesday, I did colored clothes, which were folded and put in baskets set on the stairs for the kids to take up and put away and I mopped and cleaned the kitchen and entryway.
Thursday, I baked bread and cookies and pies and cake and laundered the dark colored clothes.
Friday was the day to vacuum and dust the living room and dining room--as the other rooms had been done on their special days.
Saturday, I washed the car, mowed the lawn and weeded the gardens.
Sunday, I went to church and crocheted or cross stitched the rest of the day while watching whatever the hubs wanted to watch on TV.

That schedule worked perfectly for me.  At least part of the house was neatened up and clean.  This schedule was posted so the kids knew what clothes to have in the hamper.  If you forgot to get your white blouse in the hamper by Monday morning, you either had to launder it yourself or wait until the next Monday. 

Yes--with 3 teenagers and a baby, I had to have a schedule and it worked great.

Now, with this wee house and maybe 4 loads of laundry a week--no need for that schedule, but I still do laundry on Monday and change the bedding and tidy up the bedroom and bathroom.
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One of my blog buddies mentioned a new TV program on her post the other day.  Since Downton Abbey has been canceled and there is absolutely nothing on Sunday night viewing, I clicked on PBS and lo and behold, a Masterpiece show all about Queen Victoria.  It was lovely!!  The show that came on after wards is all about Henry the VIII's wives--in order of their marriage's to the nasty man.

Now, I love historical stuff.  I will watch any biography, any documentary of famous people.  I watched one this afternoon on Tiger Woods.  A lot of the truth comes out, which normally wouldn't from a News source.  There is a another documentary coming up--can't remember when, called "After Camelot" and explores the lives of not just Jackie and JFK, but the entire Kennedy family.

Anyway, Sunday night at 9:00 on PBS, it's a good as Downton Abbey and supposedly, true.
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I finished up the cross stitch baby quilt on Saturday night.

and had promised myself to get started on the Nativity cross stitch.

but, as it often does, something got in the way.

I used to have a silk flower sway above my back door.  Karen made it for me in 1992.  This fall, I had to toss it out.

I have been wanting a cross stitch picture up there ever since, but it is a narrow space--6".  I created and made this one of my childhood "spaces", but I got carried way and it got too wide.

Well, New Year's Day, I just happened to be browsing through the Stitchery magazine and.....

The total design height is 3".

Silly people!!!Of course I ordered it.  

Started it yesterday afternoon.

If I get the narrowest of frames, it should be 4 1/2 inches in height.  Just perfect to fit above the back door.

Also, remember that crocheted all in one piece cardigan that I couldn't understand the pattern?

I contacted the place where I had purchased the pattern and, they gave me some help and yes--I had it right--it is supposed to look like this at Row 27:

It's a mystery, isn't it?

Apparently (hopefully) when I get up to the top of the sleeve, there is going to be a change.

Those strips are supposed to be the left front and back.  I can tell you this, the back part better increase, because this is an XL size and my back is way wider that that one strip.  HAH!

This Woman's Movement

I don't quite get it--another double standard.  

Who were the women talked about and recognized by the speeches, at the Women's March in DC?

Susan B. Anthony.  Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug?  Was Kellyanne Conway recognized as a woman who had achieved something no other woman had achieved?  She is the very first woman in history to organize and run a winning Presidential campaign.  Was she praised and recognized on Saturday, for her accomplishment?  Probably not.

Back in the day, while I was reading "The Total Woman", those early feminists were reading "The Second Sex".  Then they started telling me, on the TV programs, that I was "unfulfilled."  After all, I was just a housewife and mother.  I needed a career, outside the home, to really find all my potential and be fulfilled.

Then the whole premise of "choice" came up.   A woman has a choice to do whatever she wants with her body.  Well, yes, I agree.  When it comes to what she wears, or piercings, or tattoos, or hair style.  I can't begin to tell you how thankful I am that abortion was not legal in Michigan when I was having children!

I got pregnant 2 months before I graduated from high school.  My Dad was pushing me to get an abortion.  My Aunt, a nurse, knew a doctor that would do it.  I was told that foregoing college and having the child would, "ruin your life."  I stood fast and did not kill my son--the only son I would ever have.   Then, when I found out I was pregnant again, so soon, I tried everything I knew to have a miscarriage.  I jogged, I jumped off the porch, I took hot baths and laxatives.  I so did not want to be pregnant.

If, in those first few weeks, there was a way to have an abortion in Michigan, in those first few weeks, I just might have killed my first daughter.  Because, in those first few weeks, it really isn't a baby--there is no heart beating, right?  It's just a mass of cells that could be swept away by a simple D&C.

I had no such thoughts with my third child, but 10 years later, when I was pregnant again, thankfully abortion wasn't legal in Michigan, because I was pressured by my husband and step-mother--"There are easy ways to get rid of it."  

Abortion was then legal in New York.  My husband had it all figured out.  We would travel to New York, I would have "it" done and we would spend the weekend there.  A fun time.  I refused.

This was the only baby I had planned.  Wanted more than anything.  Had prayed for.

Two weeks later, he brought up the subject again.  If I didn't go along with his choice, he would leave me.  I refused and he did.  

The funny thing is, I knew I was pregnant, but the pregnancy tests the doctor ran said, I wasn't.  So I told my husband about the tests, and 5 weeks later he came back home.  Every month, I had a pregnancy test and it came back negative.  It was only at the four and a half month stage that I felt "life".  I went back, told the doctor, he said, "Either you are pregnant or you have the fastest growing tumor I have ever seen."  AHA!   Thankfully, the doctor didn't suggest we "remove" the tumor.

Too late now to spend a weekend in New York.  No ultra sounds back then to see what was going on inside.  Four and a half months later, a beautiful 9# 4 oz. baby girl was born.   Her Dad loved her immediately. 

So when the feminists talk about choice, Yes--we have a choice and I made mine.  I, like many of my friends, choose to get an education, married and have our children.  THEN--when the children were in school all day, if we chose--we went to work and had our "fulfilling" careers.  Or, if we chose, we waited until the last one graduated and still very young, in our early 40's, we had careers.

I did get far more praise and recognition when I went to "work", than I ever did being a housewife and Mother.  What is more important?  The money you make for the company you work for, or raising loving, confident, well adjusted children?

I can honestly tell you, I NEVER felt unfulfilled by choosing to stay home and be a housewife and mother, in fact, it was far more fulfilling than the years I spent out there in the work force.

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Then the feminists campaigned that women must be equal to men.  Well, that's just baloney!  Women are far superior to men and always have been!  My mantra to my girls, "Don't ever lower yourself to be equal to a man.  Our bodies, our way of thinking and doing things, our way of speaking and living are far above what any man is capable of doing."

I also told them, "When it comes to your education and career, you can be and do anything you choose to do."  and they did.  

One choose to marry young and be a housewife and mother.  After 5 miscarriages, she chose to help her Grandfather on the farm and found great joy in that.  She knew how to plow the straightest furrow, birth a calf, milk the cows and even took a class with her Grandfather, on artificial insemination.  So she can plant the "seeds" for that calf and then help birth it.

The next one, chose to get a college education, marry young, have 5 children, home school them, and then, when they started high school, get her Master's and teach full-time.

The next one, took my words to heart.  She chose to get her college education, then spend a year in Spain, then move to Boston where she knew no one, and get her PhD in Juris Prudence.  Then marry, have children and work as an attorney.  She always said, "I'll work for a few years, then stay home with the kids."  She didn't.  She missed out on a lot of their firsts. Her Nanny got to experience all of that.  Now the kids are going to be graduating in the next few years and she may be realizing what she missed.  She didn't really have much of a choice because her job basically maintained her family. 
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To my way of thinking, I am the lucky one.  Thank you so much Gloria for stirring up my life by telling me I wasn't fulfilled as a woman.  If I had a career, early on in my adult life, would I now have more money to live on--a nice pension.  Probably.  But you know what, I don't have any lingering regrets and thoughts about, "I wonder what that mass of cells might have been."   

I saw every "first" my children did.  I was a Room Mother I made more dang cupcakes for the class parties then I care to remember.  I was a PTO member.  I was on the Curriculum Committee at the high school, when the men on that committee thought it was ridiculous to equip the school library with two computers--the school principal and I won that fight!  I worked with the Little League Baseball and 4-H softball programs.  

When the school didn't have a bus they could use to take the girls to their Cross Country tracks meets, I loaded those kids in my 7 passenger station-wagon and drove them wherever their meets were.  The same with the Freshmen boys baseball team.

I chaperoned high school dances and set up the school's annual carnival.  I worked Friday night fish fry's for the band--although the smell of frying fish made me gag. My barn was where the kids made their Homecoming floats and I sat with them and made big flower decorations out of tissue paper.  I sewed uniforms for the newly organized Flag Girls for the marching band because there wasn't enough money in the band's budget.   

Would I have had time to sit in a protest or march with a placard?  Oh hell no!  I was way too busy living my unfulfilled life!!! 

Do women have a choice?  Sure--we always have!  What I don't like is trying to force "their" choice onto me, by telling me I am not quite as intelligent or as important as they are.  (I have actually been called "stupid" on Face Book by a few of my Liberal female friends, because I may have disagreed with their political views.)  

Hey--you do your thing, okay?  I'm not going to tell you that your choice is wrong--for you.  Just give me some respect for the choices I made and remember, it was your Mother who gave you the choices you now have.