Older....still waiting for that wisdom thing!

Yes well, as each birthday comes and goes I wait with bated breath to see if this is the year I will get the wisdom that is supposed to come with age and each year I am left disappointed, and, quite frankly wondering if I have been left off the list permanently!  This year I was certain that with turning 60 and all - now the wisdom would come and take over and ....you know!  I have recently entertained thoughts that there is no wisdom with age and this may have been a hoax perpetrated on me by my grandparents and parents!!  My hopes of achieving that "wise old woman" stage are dwindling, I think it is a good thing I'm doing so well on the "eccentric old woman" which had always sounded like the most fun anyway!  Sigh....wise just sounded nobler somehow....oh well!

On the bright side I had a lovely birthday and my biggest surprise was my son coming along to see me for a week.  My daughter-in-law had been planning on being here and driving home with Mom - I knew about that - seems every one but me knew that Son number one was coming along, a truly lovely surprise!! 

Mom's visit began on the 21st of September.  We did a couple of day trips.  This one was to an old silver mining town, now catering to mostly tourists, ranch hands and hunters.  Population 12 in the summer, 2 in the winter!  The road is narrow and rutted and dirt for 20 miles or so.  but the scenery is splendid!

When we got there we ate lunch in the hotel which was getting ready to close for the season.  I was glad we had eaten our very good meal, with excellent coffee before I saw this side of the building.  I might have hesitated to go inside and it really was a good meal and very cozy on a chilly day!

On another day we went to see the Idaho State Capitol building, the Boise Art Museum (BAM), and drove around downtown Boise some.  As cities go I have always thought Boise is a very pretty one!

For moms birthday (our birthdays are a week apart) I got tickets to see the Gaither Vocal Band at the Morrison Center.  They are renowned gospel artists and when I was a teen our family used to sing a lot of their songs in church.  Here she is with the guitar player Kevin Williams!  She looks pretty good for turning 82 doesn't she!?

We hit the thrift stores, went to some of our favorite restaurants, and we visited and shared some labors.  (Visiting being the most important!!)  The Strawberry jam we made out of a seasons worth of the leftover strawberries, turned out just a little less firm than we hoped but the flavor is awesome!  You just have to hold the peanut butter and jelly sandwich flat while you eat it or put it on vanilla ice cream - yum!!

We picked some of the apples off the tree and put up 6 quarts of "chunky" applesauce.  (On a side note, we have since thrown away 60 gallons of apples that were wormy or too bruised and picked another 10 gallons that are in the process of being canned, it will be awhile before I like apples again I fear!)  That tree has outdone itself this year, we hope it lives through the winter with all of the broken branches.





When Davy and Laura got here we went to Baker City Oregon and the 'National Oregon Trail Interpretive Center'.  This is an awesome place and Baker City is a fun town to explore.  We ate lunch at the Geyser Grand Hotel, where Theodore Roosevelt stayed (a few years earlier!), and we drove out to the 'ruts'.

 I have become something of a 'rut-nut' in recent years which is local jargon for those who become very interested in the Oregon Trail.  The center in Baker City is one of the places you can still see the ruts from 150 years ago!  Imagine how deep they were then.  In grade school These kids played a video game called "the Oregon Trail" and you planned flour and water etc. and you might die of dysentery!  They remembered and it made it more fun to take them.

Inside the center are dioramas and story areas, the stories are based on diaries from a couple of families that survived the trip.  It is a very fun place to visit.

All good things must come to an end and they all headed for home the 8th of October.  I hope these visits become an annual event!



Since that time I have worked nearly full time as the young agent I am working with currently and his wife have welcomed baby number 3 into their family and I gave him a few days off for the arrival!  Don't really like the full time thing any more!  Ah well, I will be happier about all the hours when I get that check!
Hmmm....after 2 months of silence there is more to share but I will save it for the next post!

I'm sure you were wondering how Miss Lily was doing, here is my newest favorite photo of her!...Oh  and her folks as well!

Weddings, Birthdays and Hot Water!

WOW what a month this has been! Middle of September Handy Hubby and I drove to My moms house to be close to the festivities as our youngest son got married. She is adorable and a nice Christian girl and we are very pleased for them. The wedding was a 'themed' wedding – everyone was supposed to dress up in period dress from the 20's through the 60's. It was lots of fun and don't let anyone tell you that hamburgers, hotdogs and soda's aren't a pleasant change from standard wedding fare! Handy Hubby drove home by himself pickup loaded down with the last of the stuff in Mom's backyard shed that was ours. I can't believe he got all the way home without me to help him drive!! (smile, I call it navigating, he has another less pleasant word, nag or something like that!)

My Mom and I got on a plane and headed to Missouri by way of Dallas/Fort Worth (don't ask me how they figure out flight paths), to spend some time with my Grandma (Maternal) who was turning 100 years old! Quite a milestone birthday! Did you know they actually make birthday cards that say happy 100^th birthday on them? I didn't either! We got to spend about a week and a half with her before the birthday celebration with family was planned and had a wonderful time, even spent a whole day going from cemetery to cemetery with cousins. (Those of you who are into genealogy know this is not as creepy as it sounds!) Mom, Grandma and I all have birthdays in a two week time frame so we celebrated quite a bit!  Grandma still lives in her own house, drives (they renewed her license for two years now, she only missed one on the test), cans and freezes, and rides an exercise bike. She is slowing down and her mind is still there it just works a little slower than it used to! I do not know what her secret is and neither does she, when asked she will comment that she has never not eaten whatever she wanted to because someone told her she shouldn't. She was a farm wife of a man who expected her to work like a man, and she did. She had a creative talent that came out in her sewing (never a pattern), crafts (quilting and so many other things) and then she started to oil paint when she was 75 and she was prolific, fine art canvases, saws, candles – she just painted on anything she could get her hands on. She puts sugar on nearly everything, salts all her food (and her coffee) and eats a sweet pickle (home canned) with almost all her meals. I have a theory. She is a Godly woman(and has been for nearly 100 years!)  Someone once said of her “it doesn't do any good to tell her any gossip it just stops there!” I have never heard her say a bad thing about anyone, and neither have her daughters or anyone else who knows her. She is the most easy going person I've ever known. I think she just doesn't worry, she seems to have the ability to give it all to God and then let him keep it and not try to help him. (Ahem, apparently there are people who think God needs their input! So I hear anyway!)

There were almost 200 people at her party, and a good time was had by all. I also was getting in some much needed Mommy time myself, hadn't seen my Mom for about 8 months! Shortly after the party Mom and I got on the plane again in Kansas City and flew to Denver CO, where we visit my Dads family, my Aunt and cousins. It was the beginning of sugar beet harvest so it was very busy but still got to go to the mountains and see the aspens, go to the art collection showing at the Loveland museum, used book stores and an awesome quilt shop in Berthoud, CO! By now I had been gone from home for almost a month and while I was having a lovely time, it really was time to go home! Handy Hubby was missing me I think too!

I made my tearful farewells to Mom and headed for home, flew out of a snow shower into sunshine in southwestern Idaho. I have been home for a week and a half and am finally done putting the things away that came home before me in the truck, getting out my winter clothes, rearranging my studio to fit the rest of my 'stuff', and putting up the last of the apples. To top off my exciting month, yesterday, the plumber came out and INSTALLED THE WATER HEATER!!! Handy Hubby had been very busy and gotten all of the things done that he could do while I was gone and it was ready for the stuff that Hubby just really didn't feel comfortable doing. I HAVE HOT RUNNING WATER!!! I am very excited! We both took hot showers last night, I let him go first - he had earned it! I washed the dishes today without boiling any water, things are so much faster when the water comes out of the tap hot! We will not soon take this for granted. We are thankful for simple pleasures!

Life is good!!!!!