Source: everydayminimalist.com via Cecelia on Pinterest

just saying I better read this soon. may make the coming trip easier. more later.

mother's day

Mom's day is next week and i have a mission. I always give the daughters a small gift as without them this holiday as no meaning. Last year it was here and gone for some reason and no gift. This year I am at least thinking about what to do. With a week to go it had best be quick. Ok, if they read this it will be no surprise but am thinking quickly knit dishcloths. These rather mundane gifts can also be face cloths, and they wear forever.

The holiday always brings my mother to the front of the memory log. She was such a powerhouse packed into five feet of woman.The seventh child of immigrant parents she knew how to survive. She could can,sew.crochet and manage money like no other. She knew how to hold a job and how to give love. I was the recipient of that love, and it was not of the sugar sweet gooey variety. Love was a short spelling of discipline. She had expectations but no lectures. If I goofed, I knew it but not once did I feel that my mistake lessened her love. Her sense of humor must have been born out of her family's adventures as she grew up.She loved life and lived it well.

Oh, she did things that bothered me. What mother doesn't. If she made up her mind,it was made up. At times we clashed and for some it made loving her hard. Still I can only hope my girls can have gifts of the spirit from me like those she left for me.

Being a mother made me understand her.From the moment they were put in my arms, I became protective of them. Yet because she knew when to let go and let me make my mistakes, I tried to do the same for them. It is not easy to do this,but we have children for the future and if they are to succeed, we cannot tie them to our past.

So on this Sunday I have one of her meals in the crock pot(green beans,potatoes and ham hock) ,and I am drinking strong coffee in her honor. As i begin the dishcloths, memories of her love and laughter will fill my mind.

Dogs are sacked out under the fan in the air cooled house. 92 degrees in May before the 10th is just crazy. Makes one wonder what summer will be like.

I would lay down but like my children in days of yore they know when I am trying to rest.Still they give me companionship and some focused goals. I find that if they need food I often check my cupboards for needs also. They need walked and even if it it just to the end of the fenced yard and back it, it is several times a day with three of them. Exercise is done though the chihuahuas walk together. Doctors say a pet lowers blood pressure and for the most part I agree but during housebreaking, it is sometimes not a lowering of the reading but an elevated one. But good and bad moments, they are my four footed family.

My two footed family is doing well.Sara's fourth graduates on the twentieth and this is a proud thing. Dana is doing work on an executive level in Nebraska for srs and KK is busy in sports and music. Becky is graduating with an AA Saturday and Andy made it home. Paige is in music and Emma is one of the best readers. I am so proud of all of them that at times I do not know how to contain it. So this is a bit of bragging and the times they irritate me are forgotten due to the pride and love I feel.

Friends give my life dimension also. Some are far,some are near, and one is moving soon. Whether they are work friends, knitting friends. ex-students or just people I have met, they enrich my life, and I hope I do the same for them.

These are blessings of my life and it is good to count them every so often.Count yours. Now the four footeds of my house need attention.

Today is May 3 and school is out May 24. 15 actual class days and 2 of those are finals in block sessions. The end is near and for some it is already here. The usual frustrations are all manifesting themselves. Students who have realized they can not pass are checked out mentally, others are getting lazy and one or two want makeup work to replace work they have not done.
All of these are hard for a teacher to deal with. Motivation can not be taught and while sometimes responsibility can be established, it is difficult.
do the assigned work to the best of your ability and any teacher who is a teacher will work with you, but make up work to replace what should have been done is a no go in my classes. Why? because extra credit and "make -up" work that is not real make-up due to absence is unfair to students who do do the work. Athletes,, debaters, ffa judges etc all miss school and most of them have the work caught up. Not doing it just to sit there does not merit the chance. Do not do the work at a job and the job will be gone, and right now school should be your job.
Okay time to climb off the broom but let me say that these habits will follow these students to the workplace and to college. No one there is going let them have breaks or keep giving a paycheck for unfinished tasks. Teaching college has really brought the habits thing to full fruition in my thinking. Students sign for a class and attend one or two classes and disappear or they come when they have nothing better to do and wonder why they are behind. Money lost. it boggles my mind to put it tritely. somewhere somehow these students and thank God it is not a majority have not been taught that you get out of a task what you put into it.

No more soap boxing. It has all been said before probably since Socrates began teaching from his stoa. but it feels good to vent. Next post will be more positive.

The Japanese iris are in bloom as well as Paul Scarlet roses but their colors are misted in the rain. All the flowers are a month or more early due to the warm winter, and while they as always in the spring signal renewal of life and hope, this year they call forth memories of Aunt Mary. It is as if she dressed in cut off jeans and a t-shirt walks in the mist checking and delighting in each bloom.

Aunt Mary loved a garden. Her rangy body walked the rows from the first warm planting day until frost stole her passion from her for a season. I can see her now making furrows with a hand pushed harrow and sowing her seeds carefully by hand. Bending down and standing up to sight down the rows, she was in her element. Not for her fancy seed tapes or whirligig sowers, the labor made the harvest sweeter.

That harvest was shared with neighbors and family. Given fresh when possible it was also canned, dried and frozen for the cold season. It served to remind her of the summer to come and to grace the winter meals with hints of summer’s warmth.

Winters were not plantless as she had house plants. Their greenery and blooms gave”life” to her house during Ohio’s dull grey winter skies. One special plant graced her kitchen, a Christmas cactus . “Not one of those puny Thanksgiving things at Krogers” she would announce. This plant was nearly eighty olds and had been handed down the generations of the Kistler family. It was a family treasure as she herself was.

The passion with growing things touched other areas of her Ohio farm life. Every night she would record the weather statistics of the day as well as few personal thoughts on the condition of her garden and the harvest. That done she would take out her hoop and trace flowers with dainty stitches on quilt squares. She hunted for years for a Sunflower pattern as it was her favored flower. She never found one and she regretted it in her later years when her sight failed.


So while my flowers fill my yard with color they also fill my soul.

yarn

Cool morning and have been out in it twice with the pups. The 3:30 walk is once again new thanks to Winston who still has a tiny puppy bladder but he is doing well when I take him out. Still when it can be over I will be glad that I can sleep to my usual 5:30. Going back to sleep is not always is easy and so I have early A.M.s to enjoy and at times to endure. Weekends are easier as I can sneak a nap if if my vim and vinegar starts to fizzle.

Today is a knitting class. This time it is a top down sweater. Yes, I probably could figure it out on my own but the class makes it quicker and keeps me knitting. Like most knitters I often have several projects on needles. At present I have a shawl, an afghan of dishcloth squares and a fair isle cardigan in various states of completion in addition to the class sweater. Knitting engages my mind,makes me think and as the saying goes use it or lose it. My mind is safe due to needles round and straight.lol. But the class is more than that, it is a time spent with pals who have similar interests with the clatter of chatter and needles.

Yarn the store is a favorite hangout for myself and others.It is a retail store but it is more for those of us who go there.We walk in to a happy hello , a cup of coffee and conversation. The topics can be serious or funny or more important if needed silence is given. It is a place to create with needles and with caring for fellow knitters. It is a refuge from the buffets of life outside its doors though if you need to share that is done also.

These places are where you are known somewhat like the tv bar Cheers. Known and accepted with all your warts and scars showing,these places let you in and let you decide how far to let them in. You can just be and that is a gift not many places in life allow you to do. Nothing is required of you.Everyone needs one or two of these refuges in life. They allow us to regroup and to attain balance in our lives.

Walking Winston in the backyard this afternoon, a flash of read caught my eye.I stood still and for once so did Winston.Yep it was a cardinal and there all once the female was joined by her brilliant mate.Cardinals ,wow! They return every year if they nest here. Tomorrow a feeder is on my to do list. Enticement to stay here.

What memories they recalled. Grandma loved them and in her later years several pairs made their home in the pine trees outside her favorite window. The sight of this pair brought her tome and I could see her sitting by that kitchen window , filing her nails,writing letters, or knitting as she watched those birds. She told me once that their color brightened her day and her mood. So I am hoping this pair stays in my yard as a reminder of the love she so freely gave to the three granddaughters.

Now I wonder what about me will my grandchildren and others will recall about me in the future. My love of books,of travel or dogs will these define me? Or will it be some small thing I said or did that is insignificant to me that makes them remember me? I would like to be remembered and I hope positively.

No one can know what small thing that impacts a life. Dorothy Thompson Knew I was hopeless at Math but her encouragement made it geometry bearable and her do it the best you can motto is still with me. I teach and will often ease up for a student giving his all in my class with little progress as she did for me. Father Ritz with his starched cassocks without realizing and in truth I just realized it myself share his gift of faith with me the little protestant in his catechism class and my senior English teacher at Longfellow High let me know it was ok to read as i loved to in the one semester I had her before I graduated in January. Nothing big was done or said but small kindnesses made big impressions. I try to pay it forward.

Therefore those cardianls better remain to bring grandma to me and to help remember that kindness costs nothing.