Odds and Ends

I love those who yearn for the impossible. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Today, I weeded part of the garden. It feels so good to finally be able to get my fingers in the dirt and to clean the unwanted weeds away from the peppers, tomatoes, garlic, corn and onions. And I didn't even get to the potatoes or lettuce yet. I had been wanting to get into the garden for a few weeks now but the rain kept coming down. A day would begin with the sun but by noon, the clouds were rolling in. Finally, after a few days of heat, the ground was dry enough for me to get out there.

Last weekend was The Boogie Fest in Carlyle. At one point, there were over 50 motorcycles on Main Street... all painted in different colors and designs. Such fun! Also, all of the Pharmasave Chicks were supposed to dress up as bikers, so Lydia and I obliged them. It was a lot of fun and rather nice not to have to worry about looking nice for a couple days. Lol.

The one who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The one who walks alone, is likely to find himself in the places no one has ever been before. -- Albert Einstein

Saturday evening, I called to ask about a couple things and Zeke answered the phone. I can't believe how old he is: this February, he turned 13. It seems like just yesterday he was in diapers, spitting up milk.We talked for about an hour about a lot of stuff. He has a keen mind that never stops. I hope he will never be satisfied with what he thinks. He is very skilled in several areas... music has always been a gift to him.

I was always fascinated by people who are considered completely normal, because I find them the weirdest of all. -- Johnny Depp

Jesse and I are getting ready to leave on our belated honeymoon. Actually, this might be considered our 3rd honeymoon. (The first two were spent in Regina.) We're excited about the trip as a whole, of course... but there are a couple things I am really pumped about: seeing my relatives and having them meet Jesse for the first time. Especially my uncles and aunts and cousins. I'm also excited about San Franscisco: I want to eat the famous sourdough and clam chowder. While we were living in Melville, Dad was against eating yeast for a few months. So, we made sour dough bread. In the books, they would say stuff like, "This is similar to the famous San Francisco Sour Dough, etc., etc." Allow me to assure you that our sour dough was nothing like San Francisco sour dough. In fact, I'm not even sure our attempts deserve the title of sour dough. More like "sour rocks" or "break-your-teeth-sour-dough". Lol. Those months of no yeast diet were veryyyy long. However, even with that experience under my belt, I am still very happy to finally have a chance to eat real San Francisco Sour Dough. :-)

Pictures will be posted periodically as I take them and get internet access. It's going to be a really intense trip, with many sights to see. When I discovered that Jesse's family were overseas travelers, I was overjoyed because I have always wanted to travel. This trip is going to be a beginning; a simply marvelous beginning! And California is always a good place to begin anything!

Enemies are so stimulating. -- Katherine Hepburn

Why yes, they are, Miz Katherine. Did you have anyone in particular in mind? ;-) 

For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone. -- Audrey Hepburn 

Lydia has been sick the past couple of days. When I first began work at Pharmasave, I got really sick a couple weeks into it. Lydia is probably having a similar experience. We`re around sick people 5 days a week and one's immune system must build up to resisting everything you're in contact with. So we're taking good care of her and making her rest and drink lots of fluids. She's pretty pleasant for being sick so I can't complain! I do wish she would feel better soon. She is simply feeling awful.

Well, cheers. I'll try to write more later. Apologies for the very boring blog post. But I do love sharing my little odds and ends... I hope you'll derive some joy from them. :-)

P.S. I do adore Audrey Hepburn.

Pictures of Adorable Siblings

We went to see them. Oh yes, we did.

It was a good visit.

I know ya'll wanted to know what Uriah's tongue looks like.

Jesse enchanted them with his music. 

He always does.

Sara and Ruth thought it was good enough to dance to.

Little girls should always dance....

Cilla was leery of my camera but I won her over.

She has a beautiful smile!

Because there was company, the kids got all rowdy.

Here is The Horse (Zeke) and the three Lone Rangers (Ruth, Sara and Uriah).

The day we went up, a book came in about Saskatchewan. It was for kids and I knew my little sisters would like it. Sara finally got it away from Ruth and is being all studious. :-)

The Things That Go On In The Holter House.. and other interesting stuff

Last time I was able to get a connection, I posted three blog posts. I had gone for over a week without getting on the internet so I had been given time and inspiration for that much material. Lol! This time, I have at least two, maybe more. We shall see. I trust it's not overwhelming when I post more than one at a time. :-)

Our music went well the night of the 5th. The first song was the best. No mishaps with timing or anything like that. :-) Plus, with kids of all ages singing, it was pretty cute. Ruth (4) and Uriah (6) were big hits and people told me they could really hear their voices. I was quite pleased.

The second song, however, is a different story. We learned several very important lessons: Firstly, it's best if the musicians can hear each other. If you are playing back up for the fiddler and you can't hear the fiddler, it's called 'bad news'. Secondly, don't set loose sheet music on a playing piano. The vibrations of the instrument will make the music first fall onto your hands, then onto the floor, leaving the poor pianist moaning to herself, “Why didn't I memorize it?!” Indeed! Lol! But since I had played it a million times before and I was only accompanying, I was able to pull it off with only a few mistakes. ::sigh:: :-)

[Uriah (6) was making a huge fuss about his math. He kept insisting that he couldn't do it, no matter how much Mom and I tried to explain to him. Finally, Mom said if he didn't get it done in 15 minutes, there would be consequences. He was done in five. And (get this!) the answers were correct. :-P Kids. :-D]

Zeke celebrated his 11th birthday on the 9th and we had our nice ice-cream and pizza. My portion was eaten with you all in mind, so ::kisses::. :-D Happy birthday, Zeke.

I've been reading lots lately and watching some movies. Here are some titles:

Hunt for Red October (Tom Clancy) [definitely going to watch this movie someday. This book was excellent. I love it. Minus the language. :-) Great story, style, etc. I love Ryan and Jonesy best. President was fun, too. Not written from a Christian perspective.]

The Stone Maiden (Velda Johnson)

The Underground Stream (Velda Johnson) [both books were written in a timeless style that I love. I must say that I appreciated the former more than the other but I liked the mystery and storylines of both. Not written from a Christian perspective.]

And some of the movies I've been watching have been:

Amazing Grace (Ioan Gruffudd, Romola Garai, Ciaran Hinds, Rufus Sewell)

[I love this movie. It's like a documentary about William Wilberforce that's a movie. Very interesting, intense, moving, sweet. Great acting.]

Night At The Museum (Ben Stiller, Carla Gugino, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Robin Williams)

[One of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Made me get tears of laughter in my eyes. :-) It's a satire but it's sweet and has a moral at the same time. Really funny. Some minor language and references to evolution... but I must say, I thought they were making fun of belief in evolution.]

Riders of the Purple Sage (Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Henry Thomas)

[I've seen Henry Thomas act in three westerns and in each, he was my favorite character. Lol! This movie is based on Zane Grey's book. Very nicely acted with a great story and mystery. Love the horse stuff. :-)]

The Nativity Story (Keisha Castle-Hughes, Oscar Isaac, Hiam Abbass, Shaun Toub)

[I thought this movie well done. Well acted certainly and they stuck fairly close to the Bible. There were a couple things that made me go “Yeah, right.” (sarcasm helps some things go down easier ;-)) But I thought for a biblical movie, they did fairly well. :-) I do advise you to go see it.]

Does anyone have any good biblical films they could recommend? Usually they seem to take liberties with the story, therefore missing important things. :-P That being said I haven't watched many biblical films.

Hannah and I are on a committee from church that's organizing an evening called, “Ladies Time Out”. Each year's theme is different and this year, it's The 50's. It's basically going to be an evening for all the ladies in the community to come and hear about God while having a fun and enlightening evening. I'm quite excited about it. :-) We're trying to stay away from buying anything more than we have to so we're trying to keep our eyes open for costumes, magazines, cookbooks, decorations, etc that we borrow (or be given) from that era. Anybody have old Reminisce magazines they would be willing to send to me? We need ideas for costumes, etc.

Do you remember that post I wrote about the Jehovah's Witnesses that came to our door? The old gentleman who came from Hungary, who was telling me about the horrors of WW1? He had a stroke not long ago and isn't looking too good. There might be just a chance that he can think and reason and be convicted... please pray for him as you are led.

[At the children's group we help with at church, the teacher was asking the kids what things we could do to obey our parents. Then she asked them to tell, without names, some things people have done that were disobedient. Right away, a little boy named Dylan (5) piped up, “My Dad--” and was promptly cut off with, “No names!” He sat silently for several minutes as other children said their pieces, then he began, obviously thinking really hard, “My mother's husband...”]

I hope you all have had a great week so far and that the next will be full of joy! God bless and stay warm. :-) :-)

P.S. I recently learned that green was Napoleon Bonaparte's favorite color. I knew there was a reason I liked that color. :-P :-D

Dudley and other things...

Can ya'll believe it's February already?! I'm having a hard time getting over how time flies. I just can't seem to catch up. :-P Zeke is turning 11 on the 9th and we're having homemade pizza and homemade ice-cream. I'm sitting here feeling sorry for you poor mortals who haven't tasted our pizza and ice-cream...

I have been keeping quite busy here lately. It has been so nice getting back into the flow of things. I'm on helping with breakfast dishes again an I'm also working the kitchen more. The other day I made a pie crust for a meat pie (Ellie made the filling) and it turned out very well. I love it when pie crust turns out nice! We make ours with all butter so it can get a little frustrating sometimes. If you get it right, seriously, it's almost to die for. Hehe. Very flaky and tasty.

Has anyone watched the movie “Hidalgo”? A friend just gave it to us and we watched it last night. My sisters have been talking a lot about doing endurance races before watching it! You should see their eyes shine.

And I can't decide whether I like Viggo Mortensen best as a cowboy or as a King in Middle-earth. :-)

We're singing on the 5th (Lord willing) at the Musher's Rendezvous Talent Show. We were going to do our old staple “I've Got the Joy” but it turned out there there were several problems with doing that song this time... So I suggested “I Saw the Light” and no one had a problem with it. Five days ago, I started teaching the kids the words to it. Cilla and Zeke will be singing verse two and Uriah and Ruth and I will be singing verse three. It's so cute watching them sing. Lol! They really get into it. Since we're going to be using microphones at the show, they decided to make some out of Legos to practice. Very cute. I have been trying to keep it fun and keep in mind that it doesn't matter if they are perfect or not. :-) Sometimes I forget. :-P But I think we're actually not doing too bad.

A couple weeks ago, we got 18 inches of snow in 36 hours. It basically stranded us all of the cold north. Since it fell, it has basically just stuck around and looked like it's beautiful self. I was talking to a lady from church and she said that we actually have it better out on the farm with the snow since we have machinery to deal with it. Those poor folks in the city have had quite a time with it. To be honest, I really don't mind the snow that much. It insulates my perennials... and keeps life interesting. :-) :-)

I still feel as though I'm on the mend. PTL!

What have you all been up to? Has God been teaching you anything specific lately?

February 5th, 2010

We had our first calf two days ago. It was a really hard labor and Dad and the girls ended up pulling it. Afterwards, they brought the calf into the house in a box with sawdust in it. As the calf became more and more energetic, the box was in danger of tipping over, so they cut one side of it down. But that led to even more spectacular events. Thank goodness they had taken up the carpet in the living room! Lol! Finally the dear boy was dry enough to be taken outside to be put under a heat lamp in the barn. But not before he managed to make a mess of sawdust and slobber and bunt Sara over in search milk. (She wasn't impressed!) :-) :-) Oh! And part of his stay inside had us tip-toeing around, whispering, “Shhhh! He's almost asleep!” Lol! :-D

His name is Dudley.

Pictures and other odds and ends...

Following my sister Lydia's lead (www.thepanhandlroughriders.blogspot.com), I decided to post some pictures. :-)



This is Zeke on board an ornery but very wise pony that belongs to some friends of ours. This picture is photoshopped... But I like it. ;-)




Lauren H. and myself. The former is a very talented musician and a good friend. We were having a ton of fun!



Typical Cilla. I love it when she hauls a cat around.



And this... is my Dad and a couple of my brothers shoveling our driveway. The snow is rather relentless here. If it's not coming down in big, fluffy flakes, it's melting and making ice. If I didn't know better, I'd say Kevin from Home Alone has figured out a way to mess with the weather. LOL!

And on a more personal note: my lungs are better than they were. I'm not well yet, of course (it's going to take up to 6 weeks at least to get this cleared out of my system), but I'm on my way. Thanks to all who have been praying for me. :-)