Tenacity

A Little Bragging

How am I going to catch up on two weeks of activity? I do have the most beautiful grandchildren, you know, and so many pictures. Sorry, you'll just have to bear with me. My daughter and family were here first for a week. Little 10 month old Mariell sporting her first tooth..



(sorry, again, I just couldn't choose between the two pictures)



also experienced her first adventure into the tupperware cabinet, where her mommy spent many happy hours- probably with the same dishes....



and her first professional haircut by Great Aunt Karen.



Mommy was covered up to repel hair while holding the little wiggling doll.

My son-in-law was generous enough to help me out with a few chores. He trimmed some trees that were hanging too low for me to mow under, hung some towel bars in the the downstairs bath and mowed. Yippee! I'm going to start a list for next time he visits. The weeds over by the railroad got too tall for my little riding mower, so he used the rotary mower and tractor to tidy that up. Unfortunately we've had 3 inches of rain while I was in eastern Kansas.

Doesn't Riley look like a carbon copy of his daddy?



Oh, and this was just a cruise ride for Riley's sake. We wouldn't let him on the tractor with the mower running. He likes to wear my cotton gloves, so his mom found a pair close to his size. He had them on when he and I went to church, but his mom said they were only for work. What's the deal with that?



The kids stacked all their luggage by the front door before they packed the van. I think Riley decided he would just wait right there, so they wouldn't forget him.




Then on to Northeast Kansas.

I already showed video of Princess Verity in her car seat. The wailing is as much about wanting to be held by Mom as it is about riding in the car. Here's a more attractive picture of her. Full blown smiles, though, are mostly reserved for those who live in her castle!



She's learning to crawl and apparently has an appetite for grass (the stuff you mow). You can tell by the background conversation, that her parents have their hands full.



We found a futon for their basement at a garage sale. Matt, my son, managed to fit it and an armchair in my car. Mcclellan was a pretty good helper for his dad when they reassembled it. He seemed to enjoy it when I called him "Sweetie Pie", which he is.




My son and daughter-in-law had a yard party on Memorial Day. The sky was overcast, but the colors sure looked nice in the pictures. This was one of the guests. I admired her accessorizing.



Mcclellan has learned to ride his little Skuut (pronounced scoot). He will go for blocks if you let him. He just needs better brakes.






I hope your weekend was a good one, too.

The Reason They Don't Travel

My daughter and family have been visiting for the last week, so I've had more important things to do than hang out on the net. I have some good pictures to post later. When they left, I stripped the beds, ran the sweeper, called the dog sitter and headed 400 miles across the the state to spend the weekend with my son and family. I wanted to show you the reason that I'm the one who travels to see them.

Another Time

I spent Mother's Day with my mom. She lives about 100 miles from me. My intention was to go to church with her and then take her out to lunch. She was having some back and hip pain, so we didn't go to church. Then my brother was coming over, so she fixed lunch for him. We'll have to go out for lunch next time. Anyway we looked at some old photo albums and she talked about the pictures. She has couple of antique ones of her grandparent's generation but most of the pictures aren't marked. I'd seen this one before and thought it was suitable for framing. The lady in the middle is her grandfather's sister, Stella Northway. Mom said she always recognized her pictures by the eyebrows! The others we assume are friends of hers. Doesn't it look like they were having a fun girls day out? Did ladies have more than one hat, or were these very special? Look at those collars. I'd love to have a close look at the necklace the one on the left is wearing. Maybe only "fast" women wore earrings?

Mystery Tree? a few days later.

Now it seems that the blossoms are being replaced by leaves.



I need to research wild plums. My mom was alway hiking creeks and ditches looking for sand plums and choke cherries. These are still my favorite jellies. She said the birds usually find the choke cherries as soon as they ripen so they are hard to find.



I did spy this wild beast while my friend and I were out walking. Pretty scary!



My friend jumped right up to protect me.



We managed to make friends with it, and he now seems as tame as a kitten.

Naughty Words

When Mcclellan was visiting, we were playing together and he said, "Dang-it." I was so surprised to hear THAT from the little cherub, I just laughed and asked, "Who says that?" He told me who, but I won't tell you. Then he proceeded to say it over and over as a toddler will when you react. I asked his mother if that was a word he normally used. She said NO! I was to tell him that wasn't a good word (or something like that).

It's not my intent to offend anyone. I can usually do that unintentionally, but it made me think. Does dang-it qualify as profanity? According to Dictionary.com it might. What euphemisms do we use to keep from saying the REAL word?

I admit that I said cr?p when he was here. He didn't repeat it, but his dad told me he would know where it came from, if he did. Now how about son-of-a-gun , darn, heck or shoot? When I was growing up, my dad wouldn't allow us to use the word butt in any connotation. It was outrageous to use it. Am I just desensitised to these words or are they profanity? There is one that I cannot get comfortable with and it is frickin'. I hear it all the time and I still cringe at if they had said the original word. Will I eventually accept it for common usage, too?

So, as you can tell, I'm not an expert in English usage or grammar but that's what's on my mind.

Well that went well.

I really thought I was on to something with my last post. I was truly looking forward to comments from Spain, Thailand, Russia and Timbuktu. Well, I don't know about the last one. Anyway, my theory must have been all wrong. Then again, maybe California is getting all the attention. I didn't get any unusual visitors or any comments. I promise never to try that again. Trust me, I'll do my best to not use that f-word with out good cause. See, I didn't use it!

Fire, Fire, Fire!

A few weeks ago I posted about the Chicken House Fire. For that post, I noticed on the little widget at the bottom of the page that I had visitors from all over the world. I'm wondering why. Do you like to look at pictures of fire, fire trucks or firefighters? Are you interested in preventing fires? Last week I posted about my grandson's visit to the local fire station and the same thing happened. Do you use fire as a search word? If you are reading this from outside the USA or found it with a search word, please leave a comment and tell us what brought you here.

Name that car.

There's a salvage yard not far from my home. The wrecks are lined out in rows for acres on both sides of the highway. I see these old classics and imagine how beautiful they once were. Think how proud the first owners of these were when they were brand spankin' new. When we first moved out here, I even wondered about ghosts. The first time I heard what I later found out was a screech owl over there, I was almost convinced they were haunted. Undoubtedly, someone died in some of these wrecks. Colby Wrecking Yard owners are in their second generation. They used to bring in a crusher and thin out the cars, but they must be saving these for something. Actually, they moved their office across the highway 30+ years ago and appear to have abandoned this side.







Chevrolet El Camino, Cadillac Sedan de Ville, Ford Mustang, Ford Thunderbird,

Possibly a Pear

Well the consensus seems to be that it might be a wild pear. I hiked back down to look at it after perusing pictures on the net. I wanted to see what shape the leaves are and if the branches end in a thorn. Guess what! It doesn't have any leaves and the thorns are perpendicular to the branch. I played with some automatic settings on my camera to get these pictures. Looks like the blossoms are almost gone. I'm going to keep a watch on it this year to see if any fruit appears.

What is this?

These trees/shrubs grow wild near a railroad culvert close to my house. I just noticed the blossoms a few years ago. They are very fragrant and the branches have thorns. I've never seen any fruit, but I have startled deer and birds in the thicket when I approached. Click on the picture to get a closeup view. Do you recognized it? The terrain's too rough to get my mother-in-law with the green thumb down there to identify it.

Michael Bear

My grandson, Mcclellan, brought a stuffed bear with him when he came to visit. I asked him what the bear's name was. He said, "Michael." His daddy said that the bear really didn't have a name. Mcclellan replied, "Michael Matthew (his daddy), Michael Mcclellan (his name), Michael Bear." I can't find a thing wrong with his logic. Pretty smart toddler, if I do say so myself.

There was an unamed bear in my toybox. He was playing with the two bears together. I asked if no-name bear had a name. He said, "Mary, Beary, Bear." So now my bear has a name, too. Thank you, Mcclellan.

Maybe we should have a christening?

How Dare They!

You know how you think of what you should have said when it's too late? I have to blog this incident to get it out of my mind or I'll keep stewing about it. Silly, I know. A census worker came to my door last evening to verify my address. She told me they had a hard time finding me and I should think about displaying my address in case someone wanted to find me. Like the spineless worm that I am, I just nodded. After she left, I thought,"Who are you, the address police?" Why didn't I say, "I've lived here for 30 years and the people I want to see know where I live or they'll call and ask for directions." It's really the truth. I can't think of any good reason to display my address. The fire, ambulance and sheriff know where I live. I'm the only house on the road. Are rural homes in your area marked with addresses?

Empty House

Well, little Mcclellan has gone home. He was here Sunday through Friday morning. His daddy finished his project Wednesday evening, but he generously gave me a day of his time on Thursday. We got some sorting and disgarding done. There's alot more to do but you can only do so much with a two year old in tow. I haven't spent any lengthy one-on-one time with my son since I helped him move out of his apartment after college graduation. I really enjoyed it. Maybe I will start expecting that for Mother's Day. Probably not. I know how I would have reacted had my husband left me home alone with the kids on one of his few days off. I was really selfish about our family time when the kids were small, or maybe I just didn't want to share my husband. Probably both.

Water under the bridge.

It sure is quiet around here.