Conversations

Overheard at the lunch table today:

V: "If we had a pet turtle, would it love pizza?"

A: "No, real turtles eat lettuce. Only Ninja Turtles love pizza."

Worthwhile weeding

I love the fruit of the garden, but weeding has never been one of my favorite things to do. There are a lot more interesting things in the this world than spending a couple of hours ripping plants out of the earth. Sure, it is good exercise. Yes, weeding leaves the nutrients and the garden space for plants that we eat.

It is still a pretty boring task.

Earlier this morning, I tackled the Queen Anne's Lace that invades our garden ever year. It comes up through the fences to the north and the east. We have always had a big problem with it around our grapevines because the property behind that is a rental, and none of the tenants have ever cared enough to get out there and weed the fence line. I rip it out a couple of times a year, and, slowly, it is making a difference.

Today, I discovered an extremely unexpected benefit to weeding. As I ripped out a clump of the Queen Anne's Lace, something in the roots caught my eye. Small, round, gold. It was a little ring, tangled up in the roots of the weeds, buried underground for the last four or five years.

How do I know it was buried for only four or five years?

This is not just any ring. It is a ring that my godmother gave me when I was a young child, one I wore for years until I outgrew it as a young teen. I gave it to the girls when they became old enough that it fit. One of them lost it a number of years back.

I cannot believe that I dug this ring up with the weeds. I have been convinced for years that it was long gone and would never be seen again. I guess there are some benefits to doing a hated task like weeding, eh? My little sapphire ring is now tucked away in my jewelry box to await a future granddaughter.

I do hope that she will be more careful with it.


*This photo is not of the ring in situ, obviously. Had I realized what it was while it was still all tangled in the roots, I would have run in for the camera to photograph it there. Instead, I stuck it on another plant to photograph it.

Disappearing Magic

Luis is a fan of those "Weird Places in Wisconsin" books and websites. He likes finding out about the odd little spots that most of us simply drive by and never realize are there.

Every once in a while, when he gets on a kick of looking for odd spots near us, I remember one that my father took us to as children. It was a miniature village located on a hillside. This was just down the road a little bit from the driveway to a farm that my parents owned in Vermont Township. If someone was driving along, all that would be seen is set of wooden stair built into a hillside, Civilian Conservation Corp style.

I remember walking from the Vermont farm down to this hillside with my dad a few times. Walk up the stairs, and it was like entering a world of gnomes. There was a little village up there: church, farm, homes, buildings. It was truly magical to me as a child.

Once, when Luis was looking at a book or website on oddball sites in Wisconsin, we even found a reference to this hidden village. It was listed as a spot that used to exist, but that had likely fallen into disrepair or had disappeared.

This weekend, we were on a family outing that took us up to Mount Horeb, and we took the back way to The Shoe Box in Black Earth. I thought of the little village as we went past Tyrol Basin, and I directed Luis to take a small mystery trip.

As we parked on the curve just past Peculiar (if you know the story of that name, you an old-time local), it did not look good. The stairs were long gone, and the path was completely overgrown with small trees and underbrush. I couldn't even say for certain where the stairs had been until after I had already climbed up the side of the hill and looked down.

The older three kids and I scaled the side of the hill and fought our way through the brush until we found it. The village was no more, but surprisingly, there was still a clearing there, an open spot on a hillside that is now full of small trees and bushes. There were a few old relics of the village in the clearing, enough to let me know that I had not misremembered things: a church, a barn, the old silo, a "brick" foundation of another building balanced upon a flat rock. The two buildings had been moved next to one another, and both were missing their roofs. There was small saplings growing up through both buildings.

It was a little heartbreaking to see something so magical simply falling apart, but that is what happens when the person who envisioned the magic is gone. I am sure that the creator of the village was an older man, and that he has long since left this world.

As we were up on the hillside, someone who lives in the farm below and across the road come out and got his lawnmower out of the barn. We were not stealthy at all, parking blatantly on his property on a curve and trespassing on the hillside rather noisily. Vincent said something to Luis about the man mowing his lawn not knowing what we were doing. Luis replied that the man probably did know.

That statement has been sticking with me. I hope that that man did know what we were looking for. I hope he knew of the village before it fell into disrepair. I hope that he remembers the magic and that he is happy that someone else in the world remembers it too, remembers it enough to bring her family to come look for it.

As long as there are a few people who can remember, magic lives on.

Logic

I started working out regularly again last month. Yes, time to get moving on that once more. The last year was not a good one for fitness for me.

So, tonight I was lamenting the fact that we no longer have a YMCA membership. I would like to use the elliptical or stair stepper and use some of the muscles that the Nordic Track and walking do not work quite as well.

Luis helpfully pointed out to me that we own multiple staircases.

I spent twenty minutes going up and down two steps in the basement. Whooooo, can I ever feel it in my calves. So much for using that as a great reason to get the Y membership back.

Why must my husband be so bloody logical?

Vincent just walked inside and told me this:

"Mama, I'm getting creative in the back yard. I just need two big nails."

Should I be worried?

I had the interesting experience of chaperoning Abigail's girl scout troop the to Dell's last weekend. Ten tween girls, two hotel rooms, two adults, no soy lattes to be found anywhere in the resort complex.

Good times.

Anyways, soy lattes aside, it was rather fun. I always enjoy watching the kids interact with the friends. Isabella was invited to join Abigail's troop, and I liked having some time with just the girls. It seems like too often these days, I end up going places with just the boys since the girls are old enough to stay home alone together.

I spent a lot of time people watching since going to an indoor waterpark is pretty much a Geneva Convention forbidden form of torture in my opinion. Bizarre tattoos and swimwear aside, I really like people watching. I enjoy observing how people interact with one another. One of my favorite things was watching fathers with their young children by the water. Protective and fun at the same time would sum up most of the fathers. I particularly liked watching them around the lazy river. The way that the fathers would cradle their toddlers in their arm as they floated around the river in the tubes was heart melting. A professional photographer could get some wonderful photos there.

Truly, it made me long for Luis and my boys as I watched other fathers.

I had an epiphany while shopping with the children today.

We took the kids to Madison because the girls needed swimwear for some trips they will be doing in April, and Isabella really wanted a dress for the Easter holiday dinner. While looking at things for her, I realized that I am no longer a nursing mother nor will I ever be one again.

I can wear dresses again.

Real dresses, not nursing dresses with weird necklines or access slits. Dresses one can find on the rack in any store at reasonable sale prices.

Look what came home with me:


Pretty, is it not?

Help Luis help the MDA

Every year, Luis is a happy volunteer for the Muscular Dystrophy Association's "Lockup" fundraiser. This promotion puts Luis "in jail" for a day until he raises enough money to post bail. His goal this year, his bail, is to raise enough to send two children to summer camp this year.

Can you help? Visit his MDA page to make a secure pledge online or give us a call at 608-214-5797 and we can arrange to pick up your pledge.

Thank you so much!

Some of my favorite memories of my childhood involve sitting on my grandma's bed, the sounds of the Lawrence Welk Show playing in the background while watching grandma and grandpa got ready to go out to dinner or Saturday evening mass. Grandma in her girdle, doing her hair and makeup. The scents of White Rain and Aqua Net mingled with her perfume as she dabbed on her rouge and slashed on that bright pink fuchsia lipstick.

During my childhood, moms still did their hair up in curlers to get ready for an evening out. A big Saturday night date always involved mom walking around in curlers all afternoon or sitting under the mint green polyester bonnet of her portable hood dryer as she folded laundry in the family room. Mom was never big on makeup, just a little lipstick and maybe a touch of eyeshadow, but her hair was always done up just right for Saturday night.

This all came back to me the other night as I was getting ready for my Saturday night mystery date.* I decided to put my hair up in hot rollers. There I was in the bathroom, doing my hair, putting on my makeup, spraying hairspray and dabbing on my heavenly Lancôme Hypnôse. Isabella walked by, came in and sat down to watch her mom get ready for Saturday night. She took it all in, and as the perfume and hairspray mingled, I saw her take a deep breath.

For the first time in my life, I truly felt like a grown up.



*Oh, we saw Sha-na-na in concert in Freeport. It was an absolute blast! If you like music from Grease, go see them with your friends who love to sing, dance and have fun. We had tons of fun doing the hand jive, dancing like fools in as we watched the show.

One set of tickets to an event.

One set of friends invited to share an evening.

Dinner at a nice Italian restaurant.

Luis has planned a surprise evening for us in early February. I have no idea what we are doing, just that it involves tickets, dinner and friends and that my husband thinks I will love it. The anticipation is killing me, but I promised that I won't try to find out what we are doing.

What I love most of all is the idea of a surprise date planned by and spent with the man I have loved for nearly two decades.

True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked.
~Erich Segal

I have never been a believer in astrology. I don't know why, as I embrace enough other woo-woo stuff and find relief in things that ought not to work like homeopathics. Astrology has never done it for me, for whatever reason.

That said, I am starting to wonder if there might be something to it.

A couple of times a year, things go haywire with the kids. We lose the ability as a family to talk, listen and understand. After a week or so of going nuts with this, I end up reading a comment from one friend or another online about Mercury being in retrograde. Every. Time.

Apparently Mercury rules communications, and when it goes retrograde (what on earth does that even mean??), it all gets messed up.

Sure enough, happened again last week and not only with the kids. What a mess all around on the communication front last few weeks. Oiy.

This quote has been making the rounds with my friends on Facebook lately:

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

It is so true, so powerful that I overwhelm with emotion whenever I read it. When we stay silent in the face of hatred, bigotry or injustice, we are doing harm.

Depending on who you ask, the English language has something like half a million to a million words in it. Yet, the average English speakers knows maybe ten or twenty thousand from what I have read. Given the richness of what we have available to use, this is rather pitiful.

Now, I don't pretend to be a wordsmith. I come across words I don't know rather often. But there are times when I am thankful for the variety of words that I do know.

Very late yesterday afternoon, the snow was falling thickly as the children played outside. The dim bit of light that remained in the day was not afternoon, evening or dusk. There was a word that fit the feel of the moment, one I see in books, but no one ever actually uses it.

Yesterday, I saw the gloaming.

I have read a few articles over the last few months on the Facebook Status Update. The gist of the articles is the the status update has become the new holiday letter - a place for bragging and "how good my life is" news.

I disagree.

For me, the status update is a window into a moment in a friend's life. The kinds of things that people chose to enter in that box tell me a lot about who they are. Personally, I like to try to find something positive in every day. If I reach the end of a day and cannot look back to find one thing that makes me smile, then my day has been pretty wretched indeed. My status updates try to glean out these gems from my day. The taste of a latte and chocolate scone when I really needed them. The joy of children and bubble wrap. The steamy good feeling of cooking up food for an evening with friends. The absurdity of walking in a lead mine in heels.

Writing about the good in our lives or the funny little quirky things is not false or a form of one-upmanship. It is about finding joy and humor in the million little things that make up every day of our lives.

Yesterday morning, Vincent came bouncing in searching for his baseball mitt and a ball, only to come back inside a few minutes later moping along about as low as possible. His friend changed his mind about playing catch, and Vincent was very sad. He went out to the backyard, where Luis was cleaning out his car.

A few minutes later, I glanced out the back window, and I saw Vincent glowing again. Luis was playing catch with him, hurt thumb and all.

We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today. ~Stacia Tauscher

I am a little freaked out right now. I was reading some news articles online with Simon on my lap, when he pointed to a photo of a woman on the screen and said "She die. Mama, no die, no die." The woman in the photo was killed Saturday evening when she was hit by a train. I asked him if the woman died, and he replied "She die, she die. That scary."

Creepy strange.

Last year I was lamenting the fact that our holiday meals are sometimes so steeped in tradition that I am afraid to mess with the menus too much lest I get a lot of flack from our families. I played around with a couple side dishes at last year's Thanksgiving menu. Imagine my surprise when, a couple of days ago, my mother asked if I was going to make one of those experiments again this year, a squash with coconut milk dish. This dish had a few raised eyebrows last year. I mean really, a dish with coconut milk at my extended family's German table? It was funny.

So, the coconut milk and squash dish is here to stay for a year or two. This year, I am taking out the apple pie and putting in a gingerbread-pumpkin trifle that I found in the latest issue of Gourmet. I am going to switch up the green vegetable too, but I have not figured that one out yet. I might even play around with the turkey, using a different glaze.

I still think that I had better stick with trying different stuffing recipes on other days though. Mom just would not understand if I replaced Grandma's recipe with another on a holiday.

So the kids were outside today, and Vincent was being a bit grumpy. Abigail decided to send him into the house because of his behaviour. He did not want to go. She walked him back to the door, when all of a sudden he ran ahead. The little stinker got to the door before her, opened it up, flipped the lock and closed the door again.

He locked them all outside so that he would not be able to be sent inside.

He is so not allowed to play outside for the rest of the day, but honestly, I am secretly laughing so hard over his ingenuity.

I sit here holding a sleeping Simon in my arms. He has been napping for about an hour now, snuggled up here.

There are a million things I need to do. My computer work is long finished. Yet here I sit because I know that this is my last baby to snuggle as he sleeps. Too soon he will be too big for this.

Sometimes it is the simplest things that make people feel special.

I know how important time is. This year, Luis finally gave me a Mother's Day that was special. We did nothing more than walk around in downtown Madison, get lattes at the Union, sit on library mall and listen to the drumming circle. What made it special was it was spending time doing what I wanted.

Abigail loves when her one uncle takes her on a date, and last year was radiant after her her other uncle finally took her shopping. Vincent was glowing after Luis took him to the car wash recently. They painted the camper, went to Farm & Fleet, ate dinner at Burger King. Nothing too special, but it was special because it was focused time for Vincent. He wore that Burger King crown for three days. Isabella especially craves time. If she is having a difficult week, simply taking her to the office with one of us makes a world of difference. She sits quietly and does her school, yet she soaks up energy of being alone with me or with Luis.

I used to sit and play cards for hours with my grandma. As a child, she gave me the time and quiet attention I needed, and later in her elderly years, playing crazy eights with her gave her what she needed. Sitting with my grandpa in the last years of his life was special. We didn't talk much, but what mattered was the fact that we were there side by side on the sofa and I was focused on him as much as he was on me.

Time and attention are the most precious gifts we have to give. I have been thinking of that because of the elderly man we met while at a park this weekend. We were camping, and we stopped at the Lion's Park in Lena for the kids to play for a while. We weren't there five minutes when I noticed a very elderly man watching the kids play. He edged closer and closer, until he was within talking distance. We talked with him, truly listened to what he was saying. We had no clue who he was, but I now know all about his youngest grandson's struggles with cancer, his red-headed great grandchild, his upcoming trip to visit his sister, and that his wife suffered from Alzheimer's. I will likely never see him again, but the time I spent listening to him and talking with him made a difference in his day and mine.

I thought I was only being kind to him at the time, but the peaceful feeling I gained from listening has lasted for days. It was a gift that went both ways.