April is the best...

I

Sparky is whole again thanks to Palmdale resident LC Boyer's 

handiwork

I realized that I skipped the month of April in my blog posts. Here are pictures to show that it really was a special month.

Tables....

10/1/2019 - Yesterday we bought a house. Well, more specifically, a town house in Coon Rapids, MN…just north of the twin cities. We are moving in one trailerful at a time. Compared to what we have become used to, this place is spacious and we shouldn’t have any trouble finding a place for all our stuff. We will close out our storage unit over in Wisconsin by the end of this week and that will be that. We will be settled here in Minnesota and there in Texas, depending on the weather. Our next door neighbors here also go to the Rio Grande Valley for the winter. It feels really good to me. Today is Greg’s day off and he is coming over this morning to help with moving some of the heavy stuff.

The woman from whom we bought this house is 92 years old and in a wheel chair. She and her husband bought this place in 1992 when it was brand new. They have 8 children and for the last 27 years enjoyed hosting their large family for holidays and weekends. She is sad to have to give this place up. Her son has been handling the sale and he brought her to the closing. If we are really, really lucky, one of our children will have be there helping us sell this place sometime in our nineties and we will be able to feel sad about that.

This has been the summer of tables. Not only have we built the lovely mesquite table for our Texas room, we found the perfect drop leaf table for the mobile home at Goodwill for $1.99. We are

 refinishing that. Then we found 3 tables for this place. A beautiful formal dining room table for the dining room. A nice wooden table for the kitchen and another big table to put downstairs where we can also host large family gatherings. That included 20 chairs + 4 bar stools. We have places to sit. We still need to get some chairs for our Texas tables but there are more estate sales.

This summer I reached some new milestones. I went to get new glasses in July, but the optometrist thought I might be ready for cataract surgery so I got that done in August and September. Now I am without glasses except for reading. Am still adjusting to that and have not ruled out getting some bifocals just for that. I also finally got that sleep study done that I have put off for too long. I picked up my CPAP on September 6 and have no regrets. Don said that first night I didn’t move much at all and he was concerned. A good night’s sleep is a treasure I will not take for granted again. So now my vision is good, I’m well rested and no longer homeless. Life is good.

In September after the Edge of the Wilderness Jug Band Boogie in Effie, we headed out to Philadelphia to deliver the Pikler Triangle to Jett. There, we spent 5 days immersed in the life of an almost-2-year-old. The Pikler Triangle was a hit among the toddler set. Jett and her friend Tegan seemed to know exactly what to do with it as soon as we set it up, as seen in these pictures. Jason’s folks came to visit while we were there so we got to spend some time with them and get to know them better. One afternoon, after Jett’s nap, we went with Kelly and Jett to pick some apples and enjoy a beautiful September day. It was a good visit. And then, on our way home we made a stop at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. While we were driving through Wisconsin, we got a call from Kelly and she informed us that they are expecting another child in April next year. We are truly blessed.

It is now a month later and I will get this posted before we leave. Yesterday, 10/26/2019, we hosted our first family party in our house. Since we moved in we found some furniture and kitchen supplies so we are pretty comfortable. Ten of my brothers and sisters were here along with several of our children and our children’s children. We had a total of 35 people. Our purpose was to celebrate the centennial of our mother’s birth. We selected menu choices that would have commonly been on our table back in the day. Pot roast with potatoes, carrots, onions and rutabagas, home made dill pickles, an authentic salad (ice berg lettuce with tomatoes and cucumbers with a selection of Western, Thousand Island and Blue Cheese dressing), home made bread, no-bake cookies, Gran’s Best Ever raisin cookies, Angel Food Cake with 7-minute frosting, hot milk cake, baked yams and brussel sprouts, apple crisp and probably other things that I can’t remember. We ate most of the food. So you see, we ate well. And we used all of those tables and then some. There was a lot of talk going on and the house heated up. Memories were shared and stories told. I did not get any pictures but hopefully someone else got pictures and I will be able to share them. Much of my time was spent in the logistics of serving all that food in 2 different food lines. But it worked. We have a family of good cooks. That helps so I didn’t do most of the cooking but I did have to find equipment and ingredients to facilitate the food preparation and service. If someone in the family wants to comment, correct or improve on this description I welcome it because you see… I was pretty busy.

Today Greg and Edie came over to help move the Mesquite table and drop-leaf table into the trailer. Edie and I finished up our sewing project that we started last week when she had some days off from school. Then we rested and tomorrow we will begin getting ready to close up this place and head to Texas where it is warm.