Monday, March 30, 2009

Time for the Little Things

Today I took the time to untangle my daughter's necklace (her souvenir of our trip to South Dakota last summer). This is why I chose to become a stay-home mom. Oh, there are lots of other reasons too, but I think this pretty much sums it up. When I was working, there never seemed to be time to get to those types of things. They got put aside to do "when I have time." Today, there was time. I can't wait to see her face when she comes home from school.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Call it Fate - Call it Synchronicity

My mother calls it synchronicity - you know, when things happen that just seem like they are supposed to go together yet are totally random. Some people call it coincidence, some call it fate.

I have been reading a book Broken Open. I found it by chance while I was shopping in Sam's Club. I wasn't even really looking at the books, just taking a short cut to the checkout line when the title seemed to jump off the shelf at me. I read the back of the book and thought - I am supposed to read this book.

The chapters start with quotes - often from the author's favorite poets. One she quotes quite often - Rumi. I never heard of this person prior to reading this book but found myself drawn to his poetry. Last week, I was in the book store with my family - getting ready to check out and I dropped a piece of paper. When I bent to pick it up I realized it had landed on one of those bargain books - and it was by Rumi Hidden Music. Call it fate, call it coincidence, call it synchronicity . . . I bought the book. I love the poetry and it is sure to be the subject of future posts.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Preserving the Past


One of the projects on my "Everything To Do" list (that's the list I made of all the projects, big and small, that I intend to do now that I am not working outside the home) is to scan, restore and preserve the photos in my parents albums. Today's photo is one that was taken of the barn when it was new - only then it wasn't the Ray Farm - it was the Cooper Farm. The photo was given to my mother by my older sister's father-in-law whose mother was a Cooper. That's small town for you. Everyone is connected. So, Talan's Great Great Grandmother was a Cooper and she was raised on the same farm where his Great Grandfather was born and raised - only they weren't related until Talan's Grandfather married his Grandmother . . . . or something like that. Anyway, it's a cool picture of the barn and if you look to the right you can see the hill that goes down to my backyard.


Tuesday, March 17, 2009

New Family Members





Introducing Talan Patrick Kille - my great nephew, born January 20th.






Introducing Kaitlyn Marie Ray - my niece, born March 11th

Monday, March 16, 2009

Spring Clean-Up

I can see a correlation between the weather and my blog posts - the nicer the weather gets, the fewer posts I make. I am spending more and more time in my backyard. Yesterday I made the rounds - checking on my spring bulbs and trees. For the most part I am very pleased with what I see. It's such a miracle to see the daffodils poking up through the snow and the buds ready to burst into life on the trees. However, there is always the disappointment of the things that didn't make it through the winter. It seems that something (probably moles) ate the bark off one of my new apple trees. And something (probably deer) ate the tender shoots and buds off my mock orange tree. They also decimated my shurbs in the front of the house. Removing them (the shurbs, not the deer) will be one of my bigger summer projects. We've been in the house for 14 years and the shurbs are one of the first things I planted - I remember the day very clearly. My brother Dan dug the holes and we tried hard to keep from planting them too close to the hosue. Over the years I have learned a lot and I'm ready to try my hand at a more artistic arrangement in the front of the house. With temperatures in the low 60's and lots of sun the kids and I spent much of yesterday cleaning up the debris of winter. It's amazing what surfaces as the snow melts.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Seeds & Spring

One wouldn't know it by looking at the thermometer today (temps in the teens with windchill hovering around zero) but Spring is coming. There are signs everywhere - it smells different outside, it sounds different as the bird songs change, the sun feels different and the days are so noticeably longer. As I shared breakfast this morning with my soon-to-be nine year-old (cheerios and bananas) I flipped through a seed catalog. And wanted it ALL. Please, someone curb me from my impulsive desire to have some of everything in my garden this year! This will be my first attempt at growing vegetables. In my saner moments I counsel myself to "keep it simple; don't overwhelm yourself or make it a project too big to handle." But . . . then I look at the catalog and I have this vision in my head of my garden overflowing with the bounty produced by my diligent green thumb. Ah, fantasy.

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