Katherine the Great

As Promised

2009-03-04T21:49:00.001-05:00

It was my doing, setting the girls up with their own blog. Mostly because I’m a selfish person who wants to know what her family is doing, leaving me behind and going on vacation to warmness. It was during my selfish moment that Becca helped me remember my own password and in so doing made me “swear” to keep them in the informed of my social life, everyday life, spiritual life, love life, and barn life…the list could go on I suppose. I have done a very poor job of keeping anyone up-to-date and I’m afraid I may not do a very good job of it now; we shall see.
One thing I have learned since the departure is that I live in a very large house. I very large, quiet house. One that if I sit perfectly still on the coach and close my eyes I can hardly imagine that I remember screaming voices of smaller brothers. At this moment Bagatelles (10) For Piano Op. 34 by Sibelius is all I can really hear, as well as the plunk, plunk of the corn stove as the kernels drop into the flames. It is a nice quiet, for now.
I visited the barn with Natalia today. I visit it very often just to reassure you Klara, sometimes I visit it more then I would like. Such as this evening when Natalia and I went out for a second time when I noticed I had left the loft light on, and then a third time when I remembered I needed to check the tire pressure in my car, and then a fourth time, when I had to get a new air pressure gage. Natalia was a trooper, however, and only complained three times.
It is in the times of visiting the barn that I discover things about myself that I never knew, or if I once knew I have shut them out of the everyday part of my brain that I choose to remember. It is also where I discover that being five foot eight is not the right height for a five foot ceiling. Bernadean (Ruth, how on earth do you spell her name?) followed me to the hay rack this morning snorting forcefully all the way, demanding that I feed her right then. Being the nice person I try to be I turned abruptly to reassure her that she was not forgotten. I reassured the ceiling beam instead. As I stood there holding onto the hay rack wondering what had hit me, Bernadean looked at me with her beady eyes and honked. Honking is what I’ve come to call her oinks, because they aren’t really oinks anymore…that’s the term I’d use for a piglet…these are mature oinks. Anyway, her faithful honking stayed with me once again when tonight I walked into another beam. One of these days I’m going to lay myself out flat and she’ll probably bury me by the time I come to. She’s thoughtful like that.
This evening over spaghetti with no sauce, Natalia and I had a discussion on Aristotle. It is very interesting watching the turning of an eight-year-olds mind. The discussion began when I told her that I was going to the cellar to get something from the freezer. She decided that she should come to. This happened quite a few times during the night with me finally asking her what she thought would happen to her if I went down stairs and she stayed upstairs. She didn’t really know but then came up with, “I just get so bored with being by myself, and sometimes I frighten myself.” I saw her point. It was then that I told her that according to Aristotle there is nothing you cannot do (realistically) if you train yourself to do it. I gave her the example of being good and how we are not born good but we work at. And so I thought that if she worked on not being afraid all the time, she would eventually become less frightened. She wasn’t so sure and then added that she was already very good. I wasn’t convinced. Upon asking her for an explanation of her goodness, she told me that she is not bad anymore, only naughty. And she was never naughty unless she was with her sisters and they provoked her. I thought about this for awhile but decided not to comment. Perhaps being bad and naughty are two different things, I just don’t know it.
I just glanced at the clock and noticed that I was supposed to be done with some homework by now. It is sitting next to me if that counts. Perhaps another free moment will lend itself to me...they seem to be precious few these days.

Breaking News: Alzheimer's defeated at 21

2009-02-19T21:56:00.004-05:00

After two whole years I have remembered my password. We'll see how long I can remember it this time.

It is Becca's suggestion that I write my username and password in this post for the days to come when my memory fails me again. Or maybe I did but it's all in code.

Signed,
Katherine Holscher (code for password for later years when alzheimer's sets in)

Random is a nice word. It means lot's of things.

2007-01-01T23:48:00.000-05:00

Be prepared for Randomness

It's interesting how different people welcome in the new year. Usually I find myself on my knee's in a watch night service, but not this year. I was huddled in my bed as Jack Bauer put a bullet through Christopher Henderson. Ugh. Why did Ben have to get me hooked on "24"?

---------------------subject differs below----------------------------------------------------

It's strange how when you buy something to be used during a certain season, that season seams to promptly disapear. I think fate is against my family when it comes to things that like.
Such as acquiring a sun fish only to go to the ocean when the wind doesn't rustle so much as a blade of sea grass. Or last year some of my siblings got snow shoes for Christmas; I think they used them once. And now this year there is still no snow, so I look out the window at a beautiful, sleek, Artic Cat snow mobile sitting on green grass. Its enough to make you want to move to Denver, Colorodo for the winter. Forget Bible School.

Change of subject num. 2

Recently I discovered the voice of Jimmy Durante. He was a comedian/singer back in the umm 60s I'm guessing. I like him because he sounds human, actually he sounds more like a man that just drank a pint of whipping cream, but I like it. Its a nice raspy sound.
I find it refreshing to listen to someone who sounds old.

Well, I probably won't post again for another few months...I just felt like typing tonight.

2006-09-16T11:50:00.000-04:00

Just a quick up-date on what I have been doing:
-Finished week number 1 of Bible School
-Cooked more in my life in one week than I ever want to again
-Decided that I would much rather lead total strangers to Salvation than Mr. Sandford
-Thanked God over and over that Vanlora is coming back soon
-Paddled 10 miles down the CT. river in a canoe
-Dreamed that I was crying, then waking up and realizing that I wanted to b/c my muscles hurt so bad
-Laughing
-Crying
-LIVING
......ect

Encounters with Animals

2006-08-04T23:13:00.000-04:00

Have you ever wondered how many animals you have killed in your driving career? When I first got my permit I thought it would be interesting to keep track, but that ended when I hit a deer a few days later. Lately though, I have been having the strangest encounters with animals while driving.

Last week I was driving home from work when a mourning dove hit the windshield of the car in front of mine and came rushing towards me. The mangled bird didn't hit my car but went flying by my open window. Except not all of it went by, bits and pieces of feather and flesh were sucked through my window to blow around me. That was pretty gross. Afterwards I started thinking how terrible it would have been if the whole bird had been sucked in, and what if it had been alive still; imagine trying to drive, while a dying bird is bleeding and flopping around you.

At the end of the day I am usually pretty tired. So on my drive home I tend to think odd things. Like the other day I saw a rabbit run across the street and thought, "hmm a monkey." It's times like that, that I start to wonder if the people I take care of are rubbing off on me. Perhaps I'm loosing my mind.

good night kitty

2006-07-16T22:10:00.000-04:00

Caleb's random conversation with the cat through the screen door.

“Hello honey, hello sweetie...
See, I lost my tooth...
You have a fat face... Mom, Ketch has a fat face... Mom is Ketch the tooth fairy?
You would make a fat tooth fairy...I hope you’re not the tooth fairy.
Good night kitty.”

Quote of the Day

2006-06-26T21:49:00.000-04:00

"I bet they all wish they were shot."

Floyd- thinking wild animals would prefer to be dead then to be out in the rain and have "nothing" to eat.

Tales from the Mountainside and "Current symptoms of a fallen world."

2006-06-22T22:06:00.000-04:00

Yesterday began my summer career of Unit Assistant in the Mountainside Residential Center. (You will note at this time that they are no longer called “nursing homes.” That is a term gone with the times, or so my Grandpa says.)
Working with the elderly is to put it in a few words: stressfully hilarious. One of my jobs as U.A. is to do what they call “one on one” with some of the residents that are more active and need attention. In certain cases it turns out to be more like baby sitting except you can’t punish and you can’t pick them up.
Floyd needs the most attention of anyone else on the second floor and it has fallen to me to make sure he stays “out of trouble.” The first time I met Floyd I offered to go on a walk with him before dinner. He heartily agreed (thinking I was his long lost girlfriend) and grabbed me around the waist as he proclaimed, “I knew we were meant for each other!” Needless to say he took a little getting used to.
Clifford is another interesting person. He and I hit it off right away because we both laugh a lot. Today he said he liked me so much that “there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for me.” And during dinner he thought I could use some fattening up so he continually offered me some part of his meal. Of course I couldn’t take it so I spent the better part of 30 minutes thinking up different ways to say “no.” That was exhausting.
The floor that I work on has 40 residents. I have tried to meet most of them and one thing I’ve noticed so far is that no one has the same name. It’s kind of strange actually. Walking down the halls there are name plates by each door; some of the names are pretty umm different. Like Hedgwig (called Heddie for short, thank goodness), or Lester, Iris, Harvey and Wanda. Wanda is really funny. She kind of reminds me of Fezzik from The Princess Bride because she loves to rhyme her words. Her favorite little rhyme that she says over and over is: “such is life without a wife, and here I am without a man.” Then she lets out a big sigh and sits quietly, meditating on who knows what.
So, I’ve only been there for 2 days and am finding that there is never a dull moment. And then I come home and find there aren’t any dull moments around here either, so I umm think at the end of the summer I will take a sabbatical.
On an entirely different note, I have also been occupied with saving trees from the current symptoms of a fallen world (also known as the plague of the caterpillars.) Those of you who have been out here before would be amazed if you came now. Usually in the summer the trees are green and brown; like normal trees. But this year everything is brown, brown, brown. And it’s all because of the caterpillars- they have eaten and are still eating the leaves. So today after dinner I armed myself with two containers of Vaseline and set about making slimy rings around the trees in the yard. It was very satisfying watching the creature’s clime up the trunk and then touch the slime and promptly go back down again. I decided that caterpillars are dumb after witnessing the same one go up and down about 4 times.
Anyway, I shall sign off now and wish you all “goodnight!”

2006-05-21T23:04:00.000-04:00

Wow, I haven't done this in so long. Life has gone by very quickly and very slowly since the last time I wrote. It is rather strange to be on the other side of a Bible School year, especially since I never thought beyond it, because I was always so absorbed in it. Now that I am home though, life almost seems to have placed me back in time. Perhaps that is partly because the Catskills are about 7 years behind everyone else in the United States.

The day after I got home I spent the night in the barn which was interesting. New York has not escaped the rain, and so when our goats got out into the soaked green grass it caused problems. The name of the problem is "bloat". It doesn't sound very dangerous but it can result in death if not treated. So I spent the night in the barn keeping our pregnant does walking to make sure they didn't keel over and die. Thankfully they all survived and this morning one gave birth to triplets. So it was worth a sleepless night to save 4 goats.

Job hunting is something that I've never had to do before and I don't think I like it. I've never had to, because my dad always has tons of work for us to do in the summer. He has tons of work for me to do this summer too, but I've decided to move on in life and take up a more suitable career. (Actually I'll most likely be doing both.) So this past week was spent calling and applying to various nursing homes to see if they want to hire such a wonderful person as I. :-) We shall see what happens.

Well, I'm not sure if blogging will be a regular part of my summer this year or not, so I don't promise anything. But it's good to be back home!!

24 minutes is all I have

2005-11-03T20:58:00.000-05:00

I have 24 minutes before Study hour is over, so I shall see if I can write this post before I have to leave to do other things.

It's not very often that I have thought of something through this Bible school year that has popped into my mind as blog material. Of course there have been many hilarious moments and wonderful experiences but I've gotten out of the blogging groove, so I don't remember them for that specific reason. Anyway, this evening something did strike deep into my wee brain to make sure that I would remember to blog about it. It is not a story, but a post of, oh never mind, I'll just get to the point.

So, this afternoon arriving back from Keene after an afternoon of outreach(perhaps I'll get to that later) we all tramped into the kitchen on the point of near starvation(its Thursday if you remember, which means we fast) to behold a most wonderful, glorious, stomach leaping, happing sighing sight. The table in the corner was filled with food!!!!!! Not just regular food, but FRUIT and yogurt and juice and .......yummy stuff. The sight brought squeals of delight from the girls and grunts of (I assume) happiness from the guys. All this lovely food, we found out, was from the Alumni Fruit and Extra's Fund. While we were munching away on food, we thought that someday we should thank all the wonderful people who contribute to the fund as well as making us happy. So this entire drawn out post only had one purpose, to thank you all (I think you know who you are) on the AFEF for all that you do. Thank You sooo much, one and all, you are greatly apprciated!

There.

Now I don't feel like writing any more. I'll just say this, for outreach I put together a crib and cleaned two strollers and car seats. The End.

2005-09-20T20:39:00.000-04:00

This is a rare occasion. I am actually writing a post while in Bible School! I'm sure it won't happen very often at all; and the only reason I'm doing it now is because everyone is up in the gym which leaves the Main house beauteously quiet and the computer free.

What have I been doing for the last week or so? Well all of you that have attended B.S before me will no doubt know, but for those of you who don't I shall tell my little stories of interest.

Practical jokes were something everyone was wondering about when we first arrived, and we were all a bit nervous whether or not we'd get in major trouble if we tried something. Of course it was the girls' who had the nerve to see and so a couple of nights ago, while sitting in the kitchen we innocently stuffed the guys' night lunch box with various trinkets such as shower caps, toast pinchers and garlic.

The next morning the box came back with hardly any food taken from it and rather angry men accompanying it(the garlic had made everything smell bad, so they didn't eat it). Of course when something happens like that retaliation is the first thought that comes to everyone, and so we (the girls) were all on our toes.

That night Kimberly and I were on dinner so we weren't in the dining room to see what actually took place. But from very reliable sources I found out that one of the boys had taped a snake to Bria's plate, so when she turned it over -in the midst of nearly hyperventalating- her face turned gray and the rest of the girls broke into a chorus of screams.

Of course Mr. Murray was not happy about this at all, and the guys got a good talking to. The sad end of the story though, is that all practical jokes have to first be approved by the duty couple. I have this strange feeling that there won't be many that will be approved of.

Must go...

I left him stranded

2005-08-31T14:20:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Elizabeth, Megan and I went to Kingston to do some pre-Bible School shopping. It was there that I was reminded of an incident that I was going to blog about the last time I went to Kingston.

In late July, Elizabeth, Klara, Kimberly and I went shopping for stuff to decorate Ben's room with, as a birthday surprise. While we were there Mama also had us pick up some groceries from Hannaford.

Shopping is always very time consuming, especially when there are millions of different stores to choose from and you have to go it each one to make sure you're getting the best deal. So, by the time we arrived at Hannaford it was rather late in the evening and we were all tired and slightly unaware of the world around us- at least I was. After getting all the items on the list we wheeled our heavily laden cart out to the car and proceeded to pack it in. The girls climbed in and I was hunting around for my keys when this middle aged cart dude (you know the ones that push the carts from the stales into the store...except for Wal-mart where they cheat and have this little motorized contraption the does it for them...but that's beside the point) walked across the parking lot then stopped near us because he thought we were about to pull out. I'm still not sure why he decided to wait for us to go because I still had my door open and I'm sure he could tell that I was not about to drive away; the car wasn't even on. So there he was standing in the parking lot waiting, while I frantically searched for my keys and the girls muttered strange things like, "why is he chanting to himself?", and "look, he's dancing!" I didn't see all these strange things they did because I still hadn't found my keys, but he was a rather strange fellow. Finally after about 5 minutes I found my keys and I looked up. He was still there, kind of tapping his foot and humming. I turned on the car, shut my door and drove out. That's when the girls started yelling and laughing at me. The guy had been standing there waiting for me to pull out and go left, but I knew I didn't have to go left, I had to go right, so without a thought about the fellow I went the other way. I left the strange fellow behind me wearing a look of disbelief on his face.

I've convinced myself that it wasn't my fault though. The guy had stopped to wait about 5 minutes before we drove away, and I'm sure he noticed that I wasn't about to go when he did stop.

Yesterday I was reminded of it all when we again went to Hannaford and low and behold there he was again pushing carts around and humming to himself. I don't know if he recognized me at all, but I sure recognized him!

2005-08-05T14:34:00.000-04:00

He looks a bit weird here...he's not really that fat.:-)

2005-08-05T14:30:00.000-04:00

Summer!!!

20,000 leagues above the ground

2005-07-27T22:28:00.000-04:00

On Sunday, Ben and Dave(Hansen) were kind enough to set up staging for Elizabeth and me before they left the next morning. They thought they were kind that is. Well I suppose they couldn't help being "kind" because my dad had told them to set it up, but that's beside the point. Boy's, I've noticed, often seem to think that "higher is better." And higher is better in certain areas, but not when it comes to having to clime 4 stories up on staging that feels like a toothpick.

Elizabeth and I didn't really know how high up they had put the plank until this morning. When the boy's had set it up, I had nonchalantly leaned out my window and yelled something like "don't you dare put it too high, or I won't ever go up on it," so I thought I was all set. Until this morning. This morning began the scariest episode in my paint-the-barn career. One look up at the staging and we both let out a "holy smokes" type exclamation. Then we proceeded to hold our breath as we inched our way up the ladders. Once we got up there, it was just as bad as on the ground, but we gathered our tiny dust particles of courage and got on with it. God must have been feeling bad for us because two hours later the rumblings of thunder was heard and we scurried down the ladders to find shelter in the barn. Tomorrow will bring more terror though, since we didn't finish it all.

So that is what my life consists of right now...taking the dust particles that come off the walls and turning it into courage.

And he will mount up with Ings like Weagles

2005-07-26T23:54:00.000-04:00

See what happens when you're really tired? That's(the title) what I told Elizabeth when I came home from shopping after I'd seen a cool picture with that Bible verse on it.
So here I am again to give excuses for not posting. I'm tired. The end.

The part of summer not worth posting about

2005-07-21T13:00:00.000-04:00

The summer is a time to relax, read a book, go fishing, or lie on your back and stare up at the great blue sky. Summer is also the time that people fix things. That's what I'm doing this summer. Actually right now my summer consists of taking paint off of a building but that's only to prepare it for the fixing of new paint. So, if you are all wondering why on earth I never post its because I don't have time to spare. Disk sanding is taking up 8 hours of my day and the rest is spent recuperating. With 8 hours of time to think you might wonder why I haven't come up with any wonderful posts. I'm afraid, unless some bad accident occurs (so far nothing but almost falling off a roof), disk sanding is not worth posting about.

Of dogs and mice

2005-06-20T22:45:00.000-04:00

After writing all about how Emma seems to have lost her bird dog talent she chose, today, to set me straight.

I walked out the door onto the porch this morning preparing myself for a full day of planting the remainder of the garden and flower pots but instead I was met by Ruth, Rebecca, and Caleb in a state of panic. Ruth stood by the rail sobbing and trying to tell me something about a dead something and how I must rescue the other something’s and baby something’s and blood. I was very confused. Caleb and Rebecca came to my aid. In a very concerned and sad voice Caleb told be that: “She killed the mommy and now the babies are gonna starve and it will be all our fault.” Rebecca further filled me in, in that the “mommy” Caleb referred to was a starling that had a nest up in our porch. Emma had somehow caught and killed the bird as it sat on the porch. I tried my best to console Ruth (withholding the information that Grandpa Jon Aldrich used to drown baby starlings in turpentine) and finally she calmed down when we discovered that there weren’t any babies in the nest at all. That was Emma’s surprise number one.

Number two happened not long after as I was proceeding to dirty my finger nails in the garden. Elizabeth was mowing the lawn down by the pond but all of sudden started yelling at Emma and leapt off of the mower. I yelled (we do a lot of yelling around here, because our yard is so large) down to her wondering if everything was all right. “She has a bird in her mouth,” she yelled back, “and she’s eating it alive!” When I looked closer I could tell that she did indeed have a bird in her mouth and it was disappearing at a rapid rate. Poor Elizabeth was trying in vain to get it out of the dogs mouth all the while yelling things like “ahh I can hear the bones crunching” ect. Emma of course ate the bird ( it was a Red Winged Blackbird in case you’re wondering) and Elizabeth and I went back to our work.

All this death reminds me of a little mouse named French Fry. French Fry was Megan and my mouse when we were about 10 or so. We found it in its nest in the hay field after the hay had been cut and bailed. We were thrilled to find such an adorable little creature to take care of.

Megan had gerbils at that point so we both thought we knew exactly how to care for a tiny mouse. We fed it with a medicine dropper and kept it in a tiny box…kind of like Thumbelina. Everything was fine until we decided that the baby was too cold, since it didn’t have much fur on it yet. That’s when we had the ingenious idea of putting it under the piano light. It was a good idea, since we saw our dad’s do kind of the same thing with baby chicks. Except we put the light too close to the mouse and since the mouse couldn’t move it….ah….fried. We were horrified with what we had done and in somber state we named him French Fry and buried him in the pet cemetery (which was pretty large).

The End.

This and that

2005-06-14T22:34:00.000-04:00

I returned yesterday from a week of bliss on the sea shore to a oven: 90 degrees and 100% humidity could very well be Hell come to Hobart. As I proceeded to cut the jungle by our house, also known as the lawn, I could feel myself melting. It is a very unnerving feeling for those of you who live in Alaska and beyond. What was worse was that a glance at the pond- which usually brings instant relief with the knowledge that you can swim in it even if you die from swallowing germ infested water-brought no relief at all. Instead the sight of yellowish pollen encrusted water was too much for even the dog to bear. Never-the-less, I survived as you see, since I said this all happened yesterday.

Speaking of dogs I had an enlightening thought come to me today. Actually it wasn't really enlightening, it just sounds better to say that it was. As I was weeding the garden AKA "the jungle"(huh, I just had an Amelia Bedilia moment. Why do we say weeding, when it is actually deweeding? I shall look it up in the dictionary.) I heard a funny sound come from Emma, our dog. It was kind of a strangled, muted bark of triumph(I like to think it was at least). I was puzzled; what was she doing? Eating a bumble bee. That is when the "enlightening thought that really wasn't enlightening" came to me. "What have we done!" I thought. "Here is our lovely English Setter, a bird dog and she's killing and eating bumble bees. Have be degraded her so much so that she is now a bumble bee dog?" It was a sobering moment. (hehe sort of) Poor Emma was never trained to be bird dog, so her entire existence has been full of using her talents in other areas. She is the worlds best "chase after the birds shadow" dog, as well as an excellent frog dog, and of course, the killer of the bumble bee.

Before I close this post I will tell you a funny story.
It was lunch time and Ruth, Rebecca and I were happily eating when Ruth all of a sudden doubled over and started choking. She was fine of course, she said she had choked on a piece of hair.:-) Becca was rather shaken though and so she started railing Ruth on why you should always let people know if you aren't choking. One of her options was: " You could at least say something like: I'm choking on a piece of hair, nobody panic."

Looking up weeding in the dictionary doesn't really tell you why the word is so. It just says " A plant considered undesirable, unattractive, or troublesome"...and "
To eliminate as unsuitable or unwanted. Often used with out: weed out unqualified applicants. " Oh well.

PS Please pray for Joel. He has come down with a cold of some sort and he keeps gagging and choking... it sounds horrible. Mom's taking him to the Doctor tomorrrow.

Relighting flames

2005-05-28T01:13:00.000-04:00

In past years I talked myself into despising writing. When I was younger I had the quote “writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead” attached to my mirror. But then I decided to change my mind…until I started a new writing course last September. The course is one of the best out there actually, and after I write, I send each paper to the man that wrote the course and he corrects it. The only problem is that he has this thing about making you write multiple papers on the same book. The first book I had to write on was The Call of the Wild. I wrote four papers on different aspects of it, and the last one I wrote, I was so sick of reviewing the book that he asked if I had even written an outline (hehehe). That amuses me to this day, because it was one of those papers that I felt really good about, but I had written it in only 2 hours because I was so sick of the topic. I guess it showed.
Today I finished my last essay on Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. Writing essays on his works are entirely different than Jack London’s. Thankfully Tennyson’s passion has relit the flame to write again.

Today at gym class there was a field day with games and contests you could do as well. One of them was a pudding eating contest. Caleb decided that he would like to try that one, so he lined up with the other kids and when they said “go” he started. Now you have to understand that Caleb is not a neat person by nature, but when it comes to being polite, he is very good at that. So as everyone else is gulping down their pudding, as soon as Caleb gets a dot of it on his nose he asks: “may I have a napkin please?” and once clean goes right on slowly licking his dishful. He fully enjoyed his pudding, while I think the others ended up with stomach aches. He finished last to say the least. :)

2005-05-25T12:57:00.000-04:00

I never did get goat pictures on here. But this little kid is a lot better.

2005-05-25T12:55:00.000-04:00

The newest addition to our family...Joel David

2005-05-05T22:18:00.000-04:00

This is a test...to see if it goes to Aaron's blog or mine.

2005-05-05T21:53:00.000-04:00

I really was going to post goat pictures but alas its not happening. The last person to use the picture program was Aaron and his password and username is still there, and mine is no where to be found. Maybe I'll just post them on his.:-)

chug chug

2005-05-04T20:06:00.000-04:00

I mowed the lawn today! Driving lawn mowers were a great invention. I love the feeling of driving along be able to do nothing at all except make sure I don't fall off some random stone wall that appears. And that's not even the best part...people think you're working just by sitting on the mower! It's very nice. Of course the push mowing is another story, but we won't go there right now.

I just finished a great book called The Path between the Seas written by David MacCullough. It's the story of the Panama canal. It was very good and I highly recommend it, actually I recommend anything by MacCullough.

Here's a couple funny things that my brothers have said in the last few days...
Ruth was feeling sad because she didn't think she was very pretty and Caleb came to her rescue with: "Don't worry Ruthie, I think you're as pretty as a vulture!" Neither of them knew what a vulture was, so it turned out alright. :-)

And Ben's decided he's going to go to college to get a Master's in hunting. hehe Of course he's only joking so don't you dare go poking fun at him, cause I'll get blamed for telling.

The First of May

2005-05-01T13:10:00.000-04:00

Happy May Day!

I have many happy memories of past May days in the years when the Adams were our neighbors. We used to plan ahead, figuring out who we would surprise with flower bouquets. It usually came down to the elderly lady that lived down the road(since she was the only one we felt comfortable going and handing flowers to). We would run down the road, up her driveway and stop. Look around to make sure nobody had spotted us and then quietly sneak to her front door, place the flowers on the steps, ring the door bell and shriek as we scattered. She would then come to the door and find the flowers. Every single time we did this she would say something like, "hello girls, thank you for the flowers!". We never did figure out how to trick her. But of course, that was when we were very young.

Baby goats are one of the cutest creatures on earth. We have 7 of them so far and the difference in each ones personality is amazing! There are a couple that are total spazzes and one that is a loafer. They are very amusing to watch as they walk all over each other and try to act grown up. They are not very different from Caleb at times. Or is Caleb not very different from them? (help us) If I have time I'll post some pictures of them for you enjoyment (the goats, not Caleb).

The death of Lord Mazzing, the rebirth of Ben

2005-04-24T17:53:00.000-04:00

This has been a rather strange weekend. On Friday it was my (18) birthday, but we didn't really celebrate it then because life was hectic and my dad wasn't home. On Saturday I hosted a mystery dinner kind of in honor of my birthday, but not really...it was something that would have happened anyway. And so now it is Sunday night and I still haven't had a birthday cake(not that I mind, I stuffed myself with TONS of really yummy things yesterday). It has also been a little different having people randomly handing you gifts over a period of 4 days. But hey, I like things different.:)

You want to hear about the mystery dinner don't you? Yes I thought you might. Now don't go and start rolling your eye balls just because it was called "The Love Letter" OK? It was the only mystery that suited our group and so we used it and had lots of fun. It all began with me as the Hostess (Lady Mazzing) inviting 9 young ladies for tea, with the purpose of getting their opinion on the next ball I would be hosting. Unbeknownst to them however, I was also trying to decide who might be a suitable wife for my only son. That was the first act. In act two the son (played by Ben) is found dead in his room (with foam around his mouth and the smell of poison in the air!!!). And the rest of the play was where everyone tried to figure out who killed him. Oh, and on the son's dead body they found a love letter, that wasn't addressed to anyone, so we also had to figure out who it was for. In the end it was rather strange because only about 3 of the girls didn't want to kill him, the rest would have done him in eventually. Ben felt very unloved.

We were supposed to experience a "monsoon" the other day, but all I saw was little drops of rain plinking into the pond. Oh well, all of life can't be excitement.

The Return of the Queen

2005-04-20T20:57:00.000-04:00

That was a very long absence on my part. Forgive me if you were deeply disappointed in my failure of blogging. BUT this evening I had a sudden urge to write something other than an essay analyzing tons of characters in Idylls of the King. Even though I love the work, it can wear on you after long intervals of study.

What is new at my house? Spring! Ahh joy. Today I spent a lovely hafl hour arranging flowers which I had bought the night before. And yesterday I decorated a very stunning (if I do say so my self) grape-vine wreath that is right now adorning the wall of our front porch where everyone who walks by may admire it. Working with all this beauty the thought has come to me-why on earth would I want to work in a hospital where it is so stark and sometimes smelly, when I could arrange flowers and drink in their aroma for a living! I’ll have to think on that one.

As I sat down to finish Chemistry this afternoon, Klara came running in to inform me that one of our goats was in labor. I’ll confess that I was not very pleased with the prospect of having to post pone my school again (I had just gone running with Ben) to deliver a goat. But out I went anyway to see if I could be of service to the little lady. She did very well despite being only 11 months old. I had to remind her to lick off the little guy and a few other things, but now they are both happily situated in a pen in the barn. That makes 3 kids born so far and 3 more does are due.

Well I will conclude with that I guess. I shall now go and sleep.
Till next time…

The blessing of sanity

2005-03-14T21:51:00.000-05:00

Today was day number two working in the patient care unit of the hospital. The CNA had me check on all the patients (there is only room for 12...very small hospital) to make sure they didn't need anything. One guy asked for 3 razors, which I found out he wasn't supposed to have so he never got them. Another lady wanted me to help her pull her IV's out so she could go home, and after I explained that I couldn't do that for her she didn't say anything more. Later on when I went in to check on her she bluntly told me: "I have nothing more to say to you." It was really rather comical.

There wasn't much for me to do besides visiting with the folks, so I spent the better part of an hour putting together a 500 piece puzzle with a Mrs. Anna Leonard, a very nice (and sane I might add) lady.

Upon arriving home I was put to making spaghetti sauce because the stuff from the can tasted weird. I found out later though, that the weirdness was actually a certain herb that tasted like mold. :-) I've got to remember not to use that regularly.

Loverly sunshine

2005-03-10T22:12:00.000-05:00

The sun came out today! It made me so happy to feel it on my face. I love sunshine.

I got my school done in record time today because I thought I had to leave with my dad at 1:45pm to pick up a car and then go on to my oboe lesson. But my poor teacher Mrs. Haehnel called around one and wheezed out that she couldn't teach today because she was having an asma attack. I feel so bad for her, she has a lot of ailments. She plays the oboe beautifully though. Perhaps someday I will too...after I get my braces off.

Since I didn't have to go to her house, we didn't leave until later to go pick up the car at the garage. Alas it was not to be. We got there and the battery was dead as a door nail. So I went to the store bought stuff for Mama then drove back discussing with my dad how the news lies about everything. A new one I hadn't heard before was from some guy who was all upset at how young men and women of our day are forced to join the military because they can't pay for their own college education. The things they think up these days!

To all my nervous fans

2005-03-09T16:19:00.000-05:00

At 12:35pm I set out for Delhi. Slipping and sliding down the road, I finally got the end where I pulled out in front of a lady who was a good distance away but she didn't think it was enough which ended in me feeling very depressed as she laid into her horn for about 10 seconds.

Driving along route 10 there wasn't any snow, but a nice big truck drove past and splattered my windshield with muddy snow. Thinking logically, I pressed the button to clean the windshield, but something was wrong and the fluid wouldn't come out. Instead all it did was smear the stuff all over and make my visibility go down to about 40%. Finally I got to a gas station and cleaned it off, then drove 3 more minutes up the road to the hospital. Arriving at the nurses office I found that she wasn't there, so I ask very nicely (adding a charming smile) for a grumpy little lady to page her for me and being charming must have worked, because she turned into all smiles. 2 minutes later Chris the RN came down the hall. We went into her office where she pushed up my sleeve and pronouced me negative to TB. I wasn't one bit relieved, because she had told me when she first did the test what she would be looking for today; and over the last couple of days I hadn't seen anything that looked suspicious so I knew just as much as her. I could have saved all that time. :-)

Anyway, I better go and finish this tiresome SAT test and then on to din din.

Winter doldrums

2005-03-08T17:43:00.000-05:00

Today I understand what it means to be "bored to tears." When I get stuck in the house because I can't go outside for fear of freezing and none of my books are good and I finished all my school, Mom doesn't need help and I don't feel like cleaning my room....I start running out of things to do. So I find myself staring out the window at the snowy whiteness of winter and dreaming of sunny beaches and yellow flowers, darkly tanned people, and lemonade. Sigh. I think I will move to Burmuda.

You want to know something that has been making me mad lately? I live in a state where the majority of the time it is cold and white and icy, and there is not one Ice skating rink in the radius of an hour! You would think that people would open business' where they could make money for most of the year. But no. Maybe I'm the only one who ever thinks about these things.

I don't think I want to be called a candy striper

2005-03-07T15:26:00.000-05:00

The O'Connor hospital is amazingly unorganized. But I suppose they have good reasons. They are renovating a bunch and every time I go in, I get mixed up, because its different than the time before.

Today was my first day working as a volunteer there. It was interestingly boring. After getting my own lovely little name card that has my name, picture and stuff on it, I went to the nurses desk where they put me to work. Work being following a little lady by the name of Fay around. Getting people water, marking down stuff on charts, telling a lady how to spell things, visiting, and bringing a lady up from the emergency room.

Before all that I had a TB test taken! I'll let you all know whether I have it or not when the results come in. Maybe I will have to go to a remote little island somewhere and leave you all behind.

Passwords, Rex, and Calories

2005-03-06T18:55:00.000-05:00

Phewsh, that was a little scary. I forgot my username/password for 3 days. Doesn't make me feel like I have a very good memory...I should do the same password for everything. The only problem with that though, if someone found it, tadda, no more password.

I watched a Rex Harrison movie last night. At the end of it there was a biography about his life. Did you know that he was married SIX times!!!!!!!!! And none of them died before him. By the end when they mentioned his last wife Ben and I were like, "oh phewsh, he got divorced again," just because it was getting so awful. Poor man.

I burned 685 calories in one hour yesterday. Or so Elizabeth said when you snow shoe for that long. It sure felt like that many, what a work out. :P

To be a weatherman...

2005-03-02T16:15:00.000-05:00

It must be nice to be a weather person. It's probably the only job that you get things wrong over and over again and you keep your job! What bliss. Some crazy weather person said we should expect 6 inches of snow. That was about 18 inches ago. Ah well, woe is me.

My mommy is gone; for 3 whole days! And its amazing that the world is still going. It's a good thing she's here most of the time, or else I wouldn't get any school done.

Caleb is so funny. He didn't want to go out in the snow with the other girls because its freezing out so he and I played pin the tail on the donkey...which I won both times. But just to make himself feel good, on his last turn he opens his eyes and says: "hooray, I won! Almost." What a sweet kid.

dum de dum

2005-02-22T13:49:00.000-05:00

Today I went to th dentist. You know you live in a rural place when you drive 20 miles and pass one truck. You also know that you live around people who are used to the cold when you see everyone walking outside with no coats when its 35 degrees.

After eating my lunch I discovered that I had broken my right thumb nail. It wasn't just cracked though, it really had slit. I knew that if I cut it off it would really hurt...so I set my mind to thinkin' and what did I come up with? The healing power of Super glue!!!!!! Now its all nice and perfect again...until the glue wears off.

Lead astray

2005-02-21T21:07:00.000-05:00

As I sit in my chair diligently studying, I hear a noise. "What is that?" I think. It is a loud noise, and it doesn't come from inside the house. I listen closer. It fades in and out, up and down. "OH" I think. It's a chain saw of course. I resettle in my chair thinking how hard our neighbor Kris O'Brien must be working, and wondering where he found a tree to cut up, since the trees on his property aren't really his until he buys the land. After 20 minutes or so I rise from my chair to go look out the window to see if I can tell where he is chainsawing. And low and behold there is Kris and his brother Kasey skimming atop the snow on their snow mobiles! I stare with my mouth open for quite a few seconds. After that I will never think the best of people until I look out the window. ;-)

Mixed up widdle kids

2005-02-20T14:32:00.000-05:00

Little kids are so amusing! Here are a few things Caleb and Ruth have said that were really funny...

Caleb comes into the kitchen wearing his cow boy outfit, his gun and whatever else a cow boy wears- " ahhh don't I just look so agonized?" (he meant organized)

In response Ruth says- "HAHAHAHAHA, I got such a hit out of that!"

Watching a movie...it comes to a part Caleb doesn't like, i.e. something scary, kissing, ect.-
" ewwwewwww, stop, rewind it!!!!"

The rest of the story

2005-02-19T23:14:00.000-05:00

Ok I figured it all out and now I feel good. So I shall proceed...

My Uncle Jim and Aunt Roxy are here with their three boys. They don't often come up so its extra nice to have them. The boys spent almost half the day playing Risk...I can't understand how people can do that, to me it seems like such a waste of time...and they usually end up finishing the game in an argument. :-)

We watched Jane Austen's Persuasion after dinner. I was amazed the boys actually made it through most of it. That is a v e r y s l o w moving video. I liked it though, nice and relaxing listening to other people drone on.

the beginning of it all

2005-02-19T20:38:00.000-05:00

There is nothing like a boring Saturday afternoon to get you to do something you never thought you would...such as blogging.

It's taking me a bit to figure this thing out, and it seems that there happens to be another person by the same address as me, which is not working. But I shall prevail!

Enough of this for now...I need to explore, and figure out what's wrong. No matter what you do, somethings bound to go wrong!