Building Projects

Last Saturday we had a "special day". That's become the name of days we spend with our grandchildren. Sometimes we have one or two or three or four or five kids. Last Saturday we had all five. Part of the day was spent using the living room as a tool shop. Bing's brother, Paul , works part time at Lowes in his winter home of Fort Myers, Fla. Lowes has workshops for kids sometimes and Paul nicely collected a lot of the extra kits and sent them up to us for the kids. We brought the big box out last week and let the kids pick whatever they wanted to make. Eli, 3 picked a sailboat and Uncle Bernie helped him make it. Jamie, 10, and Alexa, 6, picked race cars, Michaela, 13, picked a squirrel feeder and Courtney chose a bird house. It was fun to see them work hard to put them together and hammer the nails. etc. Bing and I helped a little and Jamie helped Alexa a lot. They were pleased with their results and the three girls painted theirs. It is so neat to see these five cousins growing and learning and establishing family memories.

Two Deaths This Week

Two friends died this week and death always sets me to pondering. I wonder when it is that you know more dead people than you do living. I wonder if the dead can read your mind after death and see what you thought of them. I wonder if they have some sort of soul device that lets them tune back into the earthly world and see how things are going. I really believe that our souls live on after death. But the greatest of all mystery writers, God, keeps the suspense of what comes next, pretty close to the vest...........One of the recently departed was our dentist and a neighbor on our lake. He was 67 and still in practice, eagerly awaiting the graduation of his daughter from Marquette Dental School. She was going to join his practice and now will take it over - a sad surprise indeed. He died at his home after cross country skiing. He was always kind to us and did great dental work - may he rest in peace. ...........The other friend was a widower and 72. He worked at Bing's office for over 25 years. I remember clearly, not too long ago, thinking, wow, 72, that's a good long life and he got to be an old man. But now, 67 myself, that seems so young,

that there is so much more to learn and so much more to do, why so young? Death is definitely a memo to the living: Take each day as the gift it is and seize it!

Our January Grandchild

I'm a little late with this because it isn't January anymore, but I'd like to introduce our January grandchild. The pictures are of Alexa. She turned six on January 7th. You've probably heard people sometimes try to identify what kind of an animal they would be if they were an animal. Well, I think Alexa would be a soft cuddly little lamb. She is sweet and kind and giggly. But just as little lambs kick up their heels and sprong from place to place, Alexa loves to run and jump and swing and play. Her imagination and creativity easily fill her hours and she has taken to kindergarten just like Mary's Little Lamb of old. Six years ago there was a brilliant sunset on the day of her birth and it heralded the illumination that she has brought into this world of ours.

Thank you God, for Alexa!

Let Us Rejoice and Be Glad

This is the day that the Lord has made. Wow! I've been watching the inaugural activities today and this evening and it's so great to see such happy hopeful people and a leader that appears to really want to better our country and the world. Throughout the day, with more than a million people gathered together in one place, there was no violence, no nasty protesting - just excited people interested in witnessing history. I did a lot of crying whenever the folks talked about how proud they were to see our country come so far as to elect an African American as our president.

They spoke of coming there to honor their folks who had passed and suffered so much with the segregation and discrimination of the past. I remember when I was a little girl in Chicago that so many people spoke with such hatred and disgust about the N------s. It made me very sad and puzzled. I now understand that those people were speaking out of fear and ignorance. Now with such an excellent First Family to follow, many more people will catch on to the fact that America can really be a beautiful patchwork quilt of people and cultures and we can be stronger as each piece is added to the whole. God bless President Obama and America.

Sweet Sweet Winter

I skiied over sparkling fields of sugar today.

The sweetest of snows carried my cross country boards.

The warm warm sun deposited Vitamin D upon my aged face

And love of life splashed my ageless soul.

Happy 2009

Hello. It's been a while. It's that time of year for new beginnings and resolves to change. I've decided to add something to these blogs that I've been a little afraid to do. I'm going to tell about one of the nicest parts of Bing and my lives........... Our son, Tony, gave us a three volume book by Neale Donald Walsh called "Conversations with God." I loved reading it. It is full of glorious and novel thoughts about God and religion. When I try to tell people about the books, the only thing I can remember from them is that God wants us to always act out of love and not out of fear. So, in trying to follow that precept, I thought about why I haven't included blogs about all the excellent time we spend with our five grandchildren. I've been afraid to do that because I thought maybe by identifying them with pictures or descriptions of them, I might set off some cyber creep lurking in the shadows ready to pounce on them and hurt them. But, that now seems a bit far fetched and I will act out of love and share one of the greatest blessings bestowed upon us, ie, the gift of getting to know and be known by the offspring of our children.............We love all five of these unique personalitys but the true very best part of being a grandparent is to see your own children loving to the highest degree and wanting to do the very best job they can do to guide these little gifts entrusted to them. You see your sons with the fiercest of love, trying to attain that balance of joy and discipline that is so necessary to bring forth healthy well formed characters. ...................You know that even though you as parent didn't do everything right, you must have been able to pass on the ability to love and that is monumental. ....................I love being a Grandma but my nature is not to spoil kids. It always annoys me when I hear grandparents say, oh, we love to spoil the grandkids and then send them home, ha, ha, ha. I think of grandparenting as helping the parents raise the children and providing a little respite for the parents when needed. In retirement comes the gift of time and it is so wonderful to fill some of that time with the joyful, imaginative, happy little creatures that are eager for fun in all forms.

Slip Sliding Away

In October this year we acknowledged the 20th anniversary of moving into our home after seven months of living in Rhinelander while waiting for this home to be built. The house has been wonderful for these two swiftly moving and incredibly happenstancical decades. But we were contemplating a new roof for the house because we had heard such nice things about metal roofs - ie - 1. The snow slides off them instead of piling up and forming ice dams under the shingles. Each winter Bing has had to shovel heavy snow off the roof to avoid the dreaded ice dams that cause leaks in the ceilings of homes. Since we're already midway through our sixties, we're thinking it might be good to eliminate that yearly chore. 2. They last for over fifty years instead of the twenty or thirty that shingles last.

3. Bing goes up on the roof a couple of times per winter to clean the chimney of our woodburner and we thought it might be safer for him to walk on a snow free roof. 4. We have a couple of sons who goodheartedly agreed to help put the new roof on the house and Tony has a brother-in-law, Rick, who happens to have owned and operated his own roofing company for the last several years and he also agreed to work with Bing and the sons. So, in October, it all came together. For about four twelve hour days, the four strong and brave workers worked like the devil under Rick's able supervision. Rick and Tony did the "up on the roof " work and Bing and Bernie did the ground work. The weather coooperated beautifully. I helped watch Eli so that Carmen wouldn't have too many kids at the day care and I fed the workers. Everything went really well and they came out with exactly the right amount of metal ordered and a price for the completed job that was only half of what it would have cost for a hired company to do it. We've had quite a bit of snow and cold already this winter and Bing and I have been waiting for the snow to slide off. It just seemed to be staying up there and accumulating. Then today the temperature got up to 38 and the avalanches began. The temp is supposed to go down to -11 tonight so I hope all the snow comes down and we can begin again with a clean slate, that really isn't slate. The pictures show the snow free roof and the roof today as part of the snow has descended. Maybe Santa's preliminary workers are in charge of cleaning roofs before the old guy gets going and they'll just keep enough snow up there for the landing of the sleigh.