"I know . . "

We’ve been away from home a week.

Up till now it has gone pretty well. Today the trance was broken. It was shower day, but she refused to shower, then she agreed but did not.

Short of starting a ruckus I backed off and let it go.

We had planned on going to church this morning, but I think we will stay here and watch church on TV. That will take some persuading but I think I can pull it off.

All of this reminds me that change is not good for her.

Arline (daughter) and I were gone the other day, when we came back, Miriam was sitting in a lawn chair, purposely not looking at us.

I went over to talk to her and she was genuinely unhappy. “I figured out what you are going to do with me!” She exclaimed.

“Really.” I said, knowing that we had not even talked about any change.

“What are we going to do with you?”

“You are going to move me up here.” We did think of that a few years ago, but it is not an on table discussion point now. 


So, when I assured her that we would live a long while in our own home, she was so grateful, she smiled her sad puppy smile and hugged me like I had saved her life.

It ain’t always fun.

candy store

Today I was the kid in the candy store.

Daughter 1 has been a serious fiber artists for years, beginning in high school, and before, when she learned to sew her own clothes.

Any way for a lot of years she has been very serious about quilting. I don’t know a lot of quilters, but from what I gather, she is more typical than not. Her fabric shelves groan under the weight of her "palette."

She showed me her cache. Boxes of neatly ironed and folded fabric pieces, mostly cottons, separated by colors. She gave me instructions to go through and when I found one I thought would make a good book cover, to cut off enough for a book or two.

So I did, and did and did.

I was intoxicated by all of these choices of wonderful fabrics. One series I was especially fond of, and she told me I should be, because they were the most expensive in her collection!

Then I mentioned that I planned to go to 2nd hand stores and find some worn leather clothing to use for book covers.

Her eyes lit up. She sent me on an errand to find a plastic tote. It was full of leather pieces. Pieces from coats and pants she found here and there. She had made a series of stick horses years ago and had used this leather for those horses.

Now she has moved on and I became the owner of that box of leather. She even had a skirt and coat made of Ultra-suede. Ahh the queen of imitation leathers. That piece will cover a LOT of books.

And she taught me how to dye leather with Kool Aid to get a larger variety of colors.

But she had one request: she wants a book made a half page size (5 ½ by 8 ½) with leather spine cover and a beautiful embossed paper on the cover. With pleasure I will make that book!

There are a lot of things that get an artist to thinking and creating but having a supply of new materials is high on the list.

I think I might come down with “fiber diabetes.”

fall camping

My family have always been campers.

Sometimes it was recreation, but it the old times, it was a necessity. My mom and her family (mom was about 12 at the time) spent the winter in the idaho mountains in a pair of tents. Imagine the amount of firewood they went through.

We lived in a tent while we built our house some years ago. The girls were teens!

But now we camp for recreation.

Last weekend was our final camp trip of the year, though we will sleep in our tear for another week. (We area daughter visiting, and the tear is our bedroom!)

Fall in the mountain west has warm days and cold nights. Temps often dip close to freezing.

Last weekend we camped with our 2nd daughter's family. We were not at great elevation, but it was cold at night. The campground was in a narrow box canyon. The sun came up at 10:30 and went down about 4. Without the sun it was cool to cold.

Miriam used to take care of so many of the details of any adventure, and now that I do, I forget some things some times. I make lists and try to remember, but there is a lot she used to do that I did not fully appreciate.

So we took our tear drop, with the big comforter on the bed, but no extra blankets. (I try to always have two extras). It was just cold enough at night that I always was on the edge of being fairly uncomfortable.

The 3rd night, granddaughter Brianna (who is a dear soul) found us an extra blanket and it was so wonderful.

It is amazing how important some of the little things can be.

campfire cake

Sunday was our son-in-law’s birthday.

Cliff is 45. Wow. Anyway his older daughter Brianna and I conspired to make him one of my upside down cakes.

I had the stuff with me. Brown sugar, walnuts, butter, cake mix with oil and eggs, the whole thing. So I put it together with a bit of help from Bri.

This time daughter had a big bed of coals in the fire pit so we decided to use that, besides I had put the charcoal briquettes some where and did not find them until later.

So we put the dutch oven in the coals. I took a little shovel I had and put some coals on the top. It looked good.

Every 5 minutes I would rotate the lid one direction ⅓ turn and the oven the other way to keep the heat even. The box said to bake it 30 minutes I thought, so had one of the boys set his wrist watch for a timer.

I remembered being told to be careful opening the oven door while a cake is baking, so I skipped that and stayed with the timer.

At the 25 minute mark I peeked inside.

It was an awesome sight. It was uniformly baked on all sides.

It was as black as soot, and stayed black for the first ⅜ of an inch every direction.

We cut it in 8 pieces and picked out the good parts in the center.

Later we did it again and this time used those briquettes and did a lot of peeking, and it turned out wonderful.

I am learning and I am living. I hope the former is on a shorter curve than the latter!

travel day

Today we are driving a couple hundred miles west to go camping with daughter 2 and her family. There are 6 of them, so it will be a good group.

We are taking the teardrop trailer, it sleeps well and it is warmer than sleeping in a tent, and it is getting towards fall, and the night temps in the mountains can get pretty nippy.

I will make my upside down cake, and maybe something else in my dutch oven, but there are plenty of good cooks! We will eat well.

Then early next week we will drive the 45 miles north to visit daughter 1 and her family. Her oldest is married and living out of state with his bride, but the remaining family will be there. It is always good to spend time with them.

So, we will be gone from home about a week. We haven’t done that much this year. The cost of travel somehow limits the number of trips! I had hoped to go for a week long camp trip, just Miriam and I but not this year.

We are planning a run to Death Valley in late winter. It should be warm there, when it is still cold in Idaho. That trip will be a tent trip. The hot springs where we go is at the end of a long rough road. We will meet an old friend there. There are no services available, so we could stay until we ran out of food!

So, I will hook up the teardrop trailer to Miriam’s Cavalier, which qualifies as a little car. Leo, the dog will go with us, and we will have a good time.

I want to enjoy these trips and visits with our kids and grandkids. I know that the time is coming when that will not be possible.

My neighbors across the street are a wonderful hispanic family, Juan feeds our fish while we are gone and brings in the mail. He tells me that his father in law has been diagnosed with AD. He is dropping very fast. He is just a few years older than us. That makes me sad.

And, we will take a lunch. Freeway food is bad and spendy both.

the piano

Yesterday we were working at the church -- again.

When some one asks if I am retired, I say yes, that is I work but I don’t get paid for what I do. In fact I figured that if I got paid as a contractor for the work I had done on various church projects, I could buy a new Caddy with the cash.

But I digress.

I was grouting tile yesterday on the stage of the church. Miriam was with me and she sat down at the grand piano and began picking out a song.

Miriam is not really a piano player, but she enjoys sitting and playing a few hymns. This time I encouraged her to play more. I liked to hear it.

It reminded me of the old days when she would do just that. Sit at the piano and play a hymn that was buzzing in her head.

We don’t have a piano in the house anymore. I bought her a decent keyboard some years back, and she will play it on a rare occasion.

So, as I spread grout, I listened to my sweetheart, and old memories flooded my mind.

Did I say that grouting is quite physical, but has very low intellectual demands, and that my mind wanders?

early hand made books

The top one holds my iPod shuffle!

journaling -- again

I have been a journal keeper for most of my adult life.

That started in my midlife. I think I was about 40 and my head was swimming. I had one of those midlife events and it brought me low.

So I started writing. Not just about that, though I surely did, but about the minutia of life.

It has been a good exercise. Helps organize thoughts. Keeps me from plowing the same ground over and over.

A while back I discovered Moleskines and I thought they were wonderful. I go through 4 or 5 a year.

On my retirement budget and with my art/craft back ground I decided to take up a hobby I that had been tempting me for a long long time: hand made books.

So far I have made a couple dozen. Most are fairly small, 3 ½ by 5 ½ or so. The advantage of making you own is that you ca make them any size you wish. The one I am writing in now is not too much wider, I think it is 4”, but is quite long I can carry it in my hip pocket, and yet each page holds a lot of words.

Making your own books is not necessary, but I encourage every one to write a journal. The advantages cannot be over stated I think.

And to be a total snob about it. I use a fountain pen to write in my hand made book.

What do I do with them? They make wonderful gifts!

i am confused

I was in the shop a couple days ago, working on wood work for the church.

It was time to get ready for dinner (we are really confused, we eat at 9 and 4). Miriam came out and asked me if she could start dinner.

Of course, get some potatoes on to boil and I gave her a few other instructions.

She came back in a few minutes with a note pad in her hand. “What did you ask me to do?” “I am confused.”

I told her I’d come in and help her.

Later she said that same thing: “I am confused.”

I know it is true. I don’t like it, but it is the first time I have heard her admit it.

The knife cuts a bit deeper.

peanut butter jars

For a number of years we have been buying the same brand of peanut butter that came and comes in the same size jar. It is a bit over a quart with a wide mouth lid and sealing rubber on the inside of the lid.

We have carefully saved them until we have a lot of them.

The peanut butter is the non hydrogenated kind will separate, but is good flavored and free of additional “stuff”, and I love those jars.

And they have become the basis of our food storage system. Miriam used to use Cocoa cans, the paper kind with the plastic lid, maybe with a quart and a half capacity. She would cover them with sticky paper and put fancy labels on them.

They worked pretty well, but you could never see what was really in the can, nor guess how much was there, and they seemed to be a lot more vulnerable to deterioration and infestation. At least I thought that.

So I have converted almost everything to these peanut butter jars. Sometimes when I come back from the bulk section of the super store, I have more than will fit into one jar. I either put the rest in another jar, or put the bag in the freezer for use later.

For table use Miriam stirs the big jar and then fills a pint jar, and keeps it pretty full most of the time. With just the two of us that works out fine.

Our peanut butter was a regional company, based in Portland Oregon. Alas they were bought out by one of the big companies from the midwest. So now they are a division of someone else.

So far the peanut butter has not changed, an equally important to me, the jars have not either.

Did I mention that we eat a fair amount of the stuff?

Holly

A few minutes ago my phone rang.

It was Holly, a young woman I have great admiration for. She and her husband are parents to two very lively young boys, and they are all super people.

Holly told me about Mrs. K, a teacher at the school she attended (the same school my family has attended for several generations). Mrs. K had been very important to Holly, and a few years ago Holly had the chance to sit down with Mrs. K and tell her what an inspiration she had been.

This week Mrs. K had a stroke, a big one and is not expected to live through the weekend. Her husband, the music teacher at the same school, died of Parkinson's a few years ago. She had been living with a son and his family up in Washington State.

But the real reason Holly called, she told me, was that she suddenly realized that she needed to call several people and tell them how important they had been in her life. She told me that I had been that inspiration to her and how much she appreciated our friendship.

I am not always as happy as I look. My life and my family are not always doing the best, or my friends either. I grieve for them and I grieve for me as well. Life is not an easy road. Holly can see all of that. And she is full of empathy.

Holly says she loves to see me smile, even when she knows it is an act, that inside she knows I am crying. She is very perceptive.

Thank you Holly.

The men that I apprenticed to years ago are long gone. I was very close to one of them and visited him often until he died, way too young. The other one I never did get to say good bye to, and now he is gone.

My list is full of people that I should have talked to and did not and now I cannot. They needed to know they were appreciated.

But right now I can tell Holly and Stef and David and Bill and Pastor John and David W what a inspiration they are to me. Arline and Lora and Dea and Lia my daughters and Jessica and Emily and Brianna and Amy my granddaughters. Sid and Cliff and Curtis my sons in law. I love each of you.

And I need to remind some others of how important they are to my life.

Again, thank you Holly.

I am sad

My sister is a one woman book publisher.

Every once in a while she gives me a book to read and give an evaluation. I am not an english major (she was), but I can tell if the story makes sense, whether it is too wordy and if everything goes the right direction.

Usually I can do that in an hour or two of reading and writing.

She is working on a book now on sexual abuse of children, and asked me to review the manuscript

The author, a clinical psychologist, has the perspective that there are books about girl victims but not much about their male counter parts, so this book is mainly about the boy victims.

First of all the numbers are staggering. I have lived a sheltered life. I just was aware that this kind of thing even happened -- so carefully is the secret hidden from view. Somewhere around a fifth of our girls have been molested in some ways, the experts say, and maybe half that many boys.

I raised 4 beautiful daughters and have an equal number of granddaughters. I would never allow a thought into my head about them sexually. Most people are equal in their devotion to their daughters and sons.

But there are those exceptions. Fathers, uncles, grandfathers, cousins, even mothers and aunts.

I am glad I was naive enough to not suspect that kind of thing, but now that my mind has been opened a bit, I grieve for all of those wonderful girls and women, boys and men who were so wounded by this evil.

The author, of course, says that all should seek a good counselor. And he is right I am sure. But with the numbers we are given, there are not enough good counselors to deal effectively with the problem, not enough money to buy the time of these good people, to help the walking wounded.

So I suggested that the book be made more useful for those who are not able, for one reason or another, to see that wonderful counselor / psychologist that he speaks of.

It is a huge challenge.

And as I read the stories, my heart breaks.

mr tuper's legacy

Our kitchen bulges.

We went shopping for the month a couple days ago, but that is not how it bulges.

If Tuper made it we have one of them. Well, ok, we don't have everything, no kitchen is that large.

So when Miriam goes on her walk in the morning with Leo, I do a bit of rearranging.

Our youngest daughter is a single mom living in a small house with her our granddaughter. When I go to her kitchen I open the door and there are 4 pans, each of the same manufacturer, graduated sizes, stacked neatly. Her dishes are adequate, but not over stocked.

I look in her kitchen hardware drawer and she has just what she needs and uses, with out any duplicates.

And I am envious.

So I have been working on slimming our inventory of kitchen stuff. I found a glass punch bowl with a liter of cute little cups to go with it. We have never had a party where that would be useful, and for sure we aren’t at this age. I'll sneak it away soon.

Old Henry* said it well: Simplify, Simplify, Simplify.

hmm

*Henry David Thoreau

a dollar a day

In my last post I talked about a photo contest my grandson Alan was entering.

The interesting thing about the contest was the premise.

Can you feed yourself for a dollar a day? In many places in the world, that would be an unheard of luxury, but even those of us who are pretty careful would find it a huge challenge.

Still it is worth a bit of consideration, at least for us.

We live on a very modest, very fixed income. Almost everything we consider necessities (insurance, gas, food, property taxes) are going up pretty seriously.

The only way I can hope to keep up and survive is to cut costs, and that ain’t easy!

So far this year our grocery bill has been about $2 a day for each of us. Pretty tight, but it could be tighter if necessary, I am sure. As I think about though, that price includes paper products, cleaning supplies and a few other things that are not really food items.

We come from a long line of scratch cooks. Our kitchen and pantry is veritable small scale grocery store, with stocks of almost everything we eat. Still I like ice cream once in a while, and miriam makes wonderful chocolate chip cookies (still) that go through a fair amount of spendy chips (we buy them in bulk which is cheeper). 


If we really had to, and we may at some point, we could cut out a lot, but for now it is an interesting intellectual exercise.

Cut our grocery bill in half? Hmm.

better color

Thanks to Dea and photoshop this is closer to what it looked like.