Dot`sThoughts

Come on head, think!!!

Ever lose something that you put away so you wouldn`t lose it?

Well, That`s what I did. I decided to clean out my purse before the Wedding.
I had a $100 gift certificate for Sears, a $50 one for Staples and a mother`s day lottery
ticket worh only $5- all from my twins. They were all together in a business size envelope
in my Purse. Knowing we would be gone a couple days. I wanted to put them where they
would be safe. Well, last week I decided to head to Sears for more craftman`s tools for my
router and to Staples for whatever looked interesting. So, I changed my clothes and got all
ready to go and headed for my bedroom to get the envelope, and wouldn`t you know it,
I couldn`t locate it anyplace. I have spent this whole week tearing everything apart with no luck.
Spent more time today hunting. I have started hunting many of the same places for the third and fourth time hoping I just missed seeing them the other times. My biggest fear is that I had
sorted out a lot of things in my bedroom before and had tossed out a lot of things.
I Pray I didn`t toss them also. I am one who does a second check before tossing anything, so I still believe they are in my house somewhere, but being so sick, anything is possible..

Now if that wasn`t driving me crazy enough, Saturday, one of my sons and his daughter asked
me if I would like to ride to the BJ Wholesale Club on Sunday with them. Of course I said yes.
Normally one of my brothers used to take me, but he was the brother who had a leg removed ,
so he isn`t able now. Well, more bad news. I went to get the folder that holds some of my cards
and also couldn`t find that either. Now I am wracking my lazy brain trying to find where I put it.
I am sure they are all together in the same envelope. I could kick myself for removing them from my purse in the first place. I was lucky as far as Bj`s goes because during my house hunting I did come across a couple BJ store slips with my ID# on them. So, when I asked the girl if she would look up my card and tell me when it runs out, she did, then she asked me if I would like another card. So, I have a new card for that place. Thankgoodness none of my important cards were removed when cleaning the purse, but I`m not sure what else might be in the folder. I know there was some referral letters for other Dr`s, but those I can easily check on.

Every day I wonder if there is anything else I have forgotten that I might have put away in that envelope that I might need later on. This is something new for me. I can`t remember ever losing something this important before. But, I was up all night before the wedding with such pain that if my daughter hadn`t been getting Married the next day, I would have asked her to run me to the Hospital as the pain was that great. The tests the following week on had the Dr telling me he thought it was my gallbladder causing that pain. All seems to be ok now as far as the pain, but still can`t remember where I might have put that envelope.

Wish me Luck as I am beginning to think I will need a lot of luck to know where else to look.
Yesterday I did work off some of the frustration by going to the Innovation exercise place with my oldest daughter. More hunting today and back to more exercises tomorrow.
I have even asked God and also Walt to help me find them. Of course God has much more important things to do than help me hunt because of my own carelessness.

Tomorrow is another day. Who knows, maybe it will suddenly all come back to me. I can dream, can`t I? :):) Smile, the world hasn`t come to an end yet. That line was for myself.

Today marks 5 years since Walt passed away. Many things keep coming to mind. Like how he used to tell me " I love the smell of your hair". At the time I was just washing it with Prell shampoo. Remembering this reminded me of how he was when we first started going together. You all probably remember the movies where it was said " Cookie, cookie, lend me your comb, or some actors who never allowed anyone to touch their hair in the TV program. Well, Walt was like that. Don`t touch his hair- he hated having his hair messed up. If the wind should blow and mess it up, out came his comb to smooth it back down. Reminded me of Henry Winkler and his actions towards his hair in the weekly program. He was always combing it. Walt wasn`t quite that bad, but close.
We were married for a few years before he stopped complaining if I should touch his hair. I used to love the feeling of his soft hair when I would run my fingers thru it. Always soft, never felt rough or course, or oily or dirty-- just as soft as silk. He was a blond when I met him and he kept his blond hair till he was older. He got his blond hair from his Mom, while I had gotten my blond hair from my Dad. Main difference was my hair started darkening while I was in grade school. It`s no wonder our kids have blond hair.

Walt was always so worried about me. He was like a mother hen. Whenever I was working hard to accomplish something he would say " Why don`t you sit down and rest before you get hurt". If he was here to see all the items I have made and the house repairs I have done in the past 5 years, he would have insisted I stop so I wouldn`t get hurt. Yet, he never minded me running the Bike Shop, building bikes from scratch, right down to making the wheels from a rim, spokes, hub, band, tire and tube, etc.. I learned to do every type repair except for the speed adjustments. Oh, I knew how, but I never let him know just to keep him working along with me . Actually the sign out front said "Walt`s Bike Shop", so why shouldn`t he have to do some of the work. Actually I ran the shop days while Walt worked in the Mill, and he ran it evenings and week-ends. He never knew all the times I did the three speed adjustments while he was working. If someone dropped off a bike needing speed adjustments, I usually left that part for him to do. But if the customer was hoping to get the bike fixed while they waited and Walt was working, then I did also did the speed adjustment for them. Walt used to tell everyone I was better at truing up a wheel. I wonder if he just wanted me to do the work of straightening the wheel, but his voice sure sounded like he truly meant it.

Then there was the kids. He hated being the mean parent, so most of the discipline was tossed onto my shoulders. But, when I see how the kids turned out, we must have done something right as they are all hard workers and like helping anyone who needs help. All good kids that I can be very proud of. I taught them somethings and he taught them other things. Helping with school work was one of my chores. Teaching them camping was one he enjoyed. That`s what made the neighborhood boys also enjoy being in his Boy Scout Troop. I remember how hard it was to talk him into becoming the Scout Leader. I was running the Cub scouts when the Scout Master quit, leaving no Troop for me to turn my cubs into. I helped Walt start the troop, I did Badge counseling and things like that. But after the first year, Walt was enjoying it so much that he remained for over 10 years. He even earned the Eagle award. I had over 15 years in Scouting and when we retired, no one else was willing to take over and there has never been either a Cub Den or Boy Scout troop again to this day in our area. It`s a shame that parents can drop off their sons, but can`t spend any of their own time for them.

Getting tired and thinking of heading off to bed brings even more memories. OH, How I loved falling asleep with my head on his arm and his other arm around me. I would fall asleep feeling so protected.

Then there was the time when I was practicing to get my drivers license. I had taken and passed driver`s training in high school. But I never had a car to take the actual Drivers test on. The year Walt decided to let me use his car, I was 8 months pregnant and could hardly fit behind the wheel . My sister went out with me to practice driving and every time we got back, Walt would walk around the entire car to be sure there wasn`t the slightest scratch or dent on the car. This went on until one time as soon as we got home, Walt hopped in the car and headed for work at the Mill. He wasn`t gone very long when the phone rang. I answered to to hear Walt tell me he had dented in the whole back of the car. He had parked the car outside the main building and went in to sign his card in. Then he came out and backed the car up around the end of the building like he always did. Only this time the train had pulled in and was sitting just out of sight and he backed the car right into that stopped train. $100 damage- at the time he was only earning $104. a week, so that took care of that weeks pay. But, as you probably already guessed, he never again checked the car after I was driving it. At that time he was working second shift- he worked 10 days straight then had 4 days off. There was a time when he was working as the night Watchman, which he did for about 6 years. I hated that shift because he slept days and how do you keep 5 small kids quiet on rainy or snowy days when they had to stay indoors. It was awful. I felt like I was raising the kids alone- including his daughter from a former marriage. Walt would get up long enough to eat supper with us, and then back to bed till it was time to get ready for work. I remember one time he told me that he laid down on the stairs and took a nap and the boss almost caught him when he showed up early one morning. Don`t think he tried that again. I was glad when years later he got tired of the night job and transferred to days. He spent about 36-37 years at that same mill. First it was a wallpaper plant, then another co. bought them out and turned it into a paint making plant. Years later the mill was again sold and the new owners started making just car paint. Who knew years ago that working with all those chemicals would result in many of the workers having lung problems. They wore masks and uniforms, but there was still a lot in the air to breath. It really was a health hazard, but we weren`t educated on it back then like workers are today.
Walt was one of those workers who went to work even when he was sick. I could never get him to stay home when he was sick. He never felt he could afford to lose time and still make all the bills. That`s why i went to work to lighten his load once the kids were a little older.
There is so much more running thru my head tonight, but I am getting so tired i am making too many mistakes, so guess I`ll stop and take my precious memories of him to bed with me. Gone, but never forgotten. Five years is an awful long time alone without my true love. He would have said "without my one and only" as that was how he used to sigh every card he gave me over the years. Well, there was one card that just said "All my Love, Walt" and later it must have dawned on him because he said- Hope you aren`t mad because I didn`t say my one and only like I usually did- but you should know that by now. I can still see that smile creeping onto his face that day. He had such a loving smile that even lit up his eyes so they sparkled.
Well, I`m off to try and get some rest. I sleep with a C-PAP machine at night. Should have had it before so Walt wouldn`t have had to worry so much. You see he once told me that i keep stopping breathing when I am sleeping and he would shake me till i gasped and again started breathing. I never knew I had sleep apnea till almost a year after he passed away- if i had, he might have also slept better without worry about me. He never told me any of this till that last year when one morning I awoke to find him slapping me on the back. He was never the kind to hit, so I lost it till he explained why he was hitting me on the back. This time shaking me hadn`t worked and he remembered that Dr`s often slap newborn babies on the back to help them start breathing. Well, it worked.
Well, Good Night Walt, till we meet again.

Saturday, July 7th, we held our Large Family yearly picnic at the farmhouse which once belonged to my Father`s parents. This old farmhouse has been an important place all thru our childhood. Both my grandparents passed away long before I was born, My father had married my mother and was given some land a short distance from the farmhouse. This land was where I grew up. I`m not sure which of my Aunts and Uncles first moved in, but think it was my Uncle Art and his wife. His wife died in childbirth and one of my father`s sister`s had lost her husband, so this sister moved back to the farmhouse to help care for her brother`s newborn baby. Another brother also lost his wife and moved back into the huge farmhouse with his brother and sister and niece. This brother had lost a son from a car accident when he was young and his daughter had married, so he was now alone. This all happened before i was old enough to remember. So, I had two Uncles and one Aunt living in the homeplace while I was growing up. we all spent a lot of time at that farmhouse. My first ride on a horse was there as onbe of my Uncles owned horses an d a cow, the other uncle raised pigs and the Aunt raised chickens and grew her vegitable garden and her berry places. The uncle with the horses raised other garden items such as potatoes, watermellon, muskmellons, and cared for his apple trees. So, between the three of them they provided a lot of their own fooed and meat.
This baby was years before I was born and she later bacame my third grade school teacher and also my piano Music teacher as I grew older. My parents never had the money to pay for piano lessons, so my older cousin made an agreement with me that for free lessons I would help clean her home. She told me she would like to give me the free lessons for nothing, but then every family member would have the right to ask the same favor for their kids and soon she wouldn`t have time left for doing her teaching business with her paying pupils. I certainly could understand that. So, every Saturday I would ride my sister`s bike to their home and clean while she was teaching her pupils and when they were thru, she would spend at least an hour teaching me to play. So, today when I play on my organ, I actually have this cousin to thank. Years later this cousin also died like her mother- in childbirth having her third child.

This same farmhouse is where I was living when my twins were born and also where my oldest daughter ( age 2 at the time) and my step daughter ( age7) were badly burnt from the older one finding a hidden bottle that was missed when we cleaned out the stantial house where all the harnesses, saddles and other horse equipment had been kept. This bottle contained mercuric acid and battery acid combined that was used to de-horn bulls years before. When we moved into the farmhouse the two Uncles had already passed away and the Aunt had temporarily moved into the nieces home to care for her three children. so, first she gave up her life to care for her brother`s baby, and later to care for the children of this same niece. She was the closest any of them had for a mother until their father finally re-married a wonderful woman who was so much like our cousin ( his wife). After we moved out of the farm house and into the home we built, my younger brother moved into the farmhouse for a couple years, next , one of my younger sisters spent a short time living there. Today it is owned by my oldest brother. So, we have always kept the farm property in the family. We have held the large family reunion at this farm every since my Father passed away back in 1975. My Mother once mentioned to me that she wished they had continued to hold the re-union at her home, but the oldest brother and his wife actually thought they were helping my mother by moving the picnic to their larger area. My mother never once told them what she had told me and she wouldn`t have wanted me to say anything, so I kept her wishes to myself to please her. To this day i often wonder if she would realy have minded that much if I had told them she wanted to move the picnic back into her yard. Of course the family got a lot larger over those years and the larger property did come in handy. Lost our mother in 1995, 20 years after my Dad and the picnics have continued at the farmhouse every since.

For years the family just kept getting larger until we must have had close to 200 attending, the we started losing the older members faster than we were adding on newer children and as the years went by we had less and less attending. This year a lot of the younger ones had to work and so them and their children couldn`t make it, plus many now live in other states and couldn`t make it. But we still had an awful lot of people there.
It was great seeing cousins , and nieces and nephews that I hadn`t seen in years.

This great old farmhouse has changed a lot since my brother bought it. He has modernised it so much that it lost most of the happy memory areas that I miss so much. There was this wooden hanging swing that used to hang on the front porch -with it`s weaved seat and round wooden arms where my Aunt taught me how to crochet, the floor to ceiling huge cupboard in the dining room where I could brouse thru the stack of crocher books that filled the bottom shelf, the old stove in the kitchen where my Aunt taught me how to do some of her recipes, the long gone beautiful flower garden across the driveway from the back porch where I often helped her pull the weeds when I was younger, the rasberry bushes a ways from the house, the strawberry patch, the blueberry bushes in the field where you headed down the road into the woods, the small white birch grove where my Aunt often made us drink s and small sandwiches to hold a small picnic there with our other small friend (including an old plastic tablecloth so we could sit on the ground and not get out clothes dirty or damp if it had rained the night before). All the berries and flower and veggie gardens are gone today. I remember the year one of the sows died after giving birth to a lot of tiny pigs and all us kids would line up on that old long open back porch, holding a baby pig and a baby bottle to feed them. I was probably about 6 or 7 at the time, or maybe even younger, but had to be at least 5 as I had already started school. I remember changing my school clothes before heading to the farmhouse. Today both the open front porch and the even larger back porch are gone. There are no porches there to sit on today. I also remember the other floor to ceiling cupboard that stood in the kitchen where I kept the new white gold diamond ring that my father had bought for my mother that year as a wedding Anniversary gift. She had always wanted a white gold diamond ring, but raising 7 kids Dad never found enough money for it. Once all us kids were grown, he silently saved a little each week and surprised my mother with the ring of her dreams to replace the smaller diamond gold ring she was wearing. . That cupboard was removed and replaced with a small picture window. Oh where Oh where did all my memories of the origional farmhouse disappear to with so much remodeling. I sure do miss the old place I remember so well. My kids can remember the days before the farmhouse was altered and up-dated to a more expensive looking place- even with an elevator in it today. But the younger generation will never see or experience any of the wonderful memories we hold so precious.
But the picnic was a great success with more food than anyone could ever eat in one day. This year my kids and I were in charge of handling things and my youngest son handled all the hamburg and hotdog cooking on the BBQ. Everyone had a good time and those we seldomn see thanked us for getting in touch with them- they said they had a wonderful time and looked forward to next years get together. This was my youngest son`s first time working the grill and he did an excelent job. This son had brought his tiny new puppy with him and I never saw people fall so in love with a cute puppy as they did with this one. Seemed like every time I looked around someone else was holding it. This went on all day. It sure was tiny yet. I forgot the make of dog. Of course therre was volley ball games and horseshoes being played, plus there is all kinds of playground items for the kids to enjoy, and two horses for them to enjoy petting plus other things going on. Seems like someone`s camera was forever flasjhing with so many bringing their cameras with them. .

It started to rain at one point, but ended up just being a sun-shower and only lasted about 10 minutes at the most and was so light noone actually got very wet from the fime rain. Glad we didn`t have a thunderstorm like we had the day before. It was a bad one and some places had huge hail stones with it. My lights flickered off, but came back on in just a couple minutes, where last week I was without power for about 3 hours when that thunderstorm blew the transfoemer on the road behind my house. Boy, was that a loud blast- sounded like something huge had blown up. But having heard it many times over the years, I knew it was the transformer blowing again.

Another large change to the farmhouse is the large two car garage added to the end of the farmhouse where we set up tables to hold all the food in case of rain. We covered all the tables, both in the garage and out in the yard with 4th of July table cloths, plus had napkins and plates and cups to match, plus a few decorations to brighten up the area.
As you can probably see, I also had a good time. Now I am wondering which part of the family will be put in charge next year. Younger sister and her kids handled it last year and my youngest brother`s wife and kids did the year before last. This brother, plus my sister`s husband both passed away, so the past three years has been done by just the mother`s and their kids. My other younger sister and her husband are the only other ones who lives in this area, so who knows, maybe they will be asked next year. Will just have to wait and see.

So great seeing some relations I haven`t seen in years. That is the best part of the family re-unions- bringing family closer to share a wonderful day together. .

Hope you all have a wonderful 4th celebrating what all our Military keeps fighting for- freedom under God for all of us.
I am not celebrating today, but my Family and all relatives will be getting together on Saturday for our yearly Family picnic.

On Mother`s day one of my daughters asked me what I would like for mother`s day. She said she wanted to buy me something that I would like. This year I surprised her when I actually gave her an answer. I told her " a larger American Flag to hang off my front porch.That`s exactly what she bought for me- flag pole and standard holder included. Then today all it has done is rain all day and I always take the flag down in stormy weather so it won`t get ruined. So, here it is, the 4th of July, and my flag is in the living room leaning on the wall next to the front door.

I still own a small flag with only 48 stars on it which hangs in a window in my dining part of my kitchen where the sun won`t fade it. Years ago another daughter bought me a twined wooden wreath with flowers all around it. Sitting on the wreath is a stuffed rabbit- almost a foot tall. I added the flag so that the rabbit is holding it. I have had that in my window for years now. To change the spring looking outfit and the straw hat that the rabbit is wearing-- in the winter I add the red crocheted hat, scarf and boots to make it look more winter like. So, it keeps up with the changing of the weather. I have had this older flag for many years. You don`t find them around much today, it is the only one I have seen in years. I used to own two of them, but after my brother died in 1994 I used the second one to add to flowers on Memorial Day for my brother in memory of those years when he was in the Navy when he was younger. Today i wonder if his wife still has that flag.

"Happy Independance Day to all!!"

to all my Canadian friends !!!