The corners of my mind

While I consider this blog as much a diary as a public forum. That being said, I still tend to skip over some of the hardest realities of my universe. I posted recently about our grand trip to Minnesota, including our 'Minnesota Bound' get together. The invitation for this gathering was posted up on the Facebook events section about three weeks ahead of time. One of the people accepting our invitation was my best friend from high school, Margaret. (I wrote a long post years ago about how Thomas was going to be named Margaret if he were a girl)

Through the years, we lost touch. 😥 This photo was taken in my high school bedroom when I came home from college for the summer. I don't have a photo of us together. Sighhhh...

Then, Facebook happened. Yay! I can read about the lives of so many friends from back in the day. Facebook has its problems, but that connection is invaluable. 

Heartbreakingly, in the time between her responding 'yes' to our Minnesota Bound' event and the actual event, Margaret passed away. Margaret "Cheech" K. Weisbrod. Margaret had been living with Lupus for the majority of her adult life. I am so sad for her and her brothers and other loved ones. I am also heartbroken that the opportunity to see one another again was lost.  

My memories flow out freely. 

I never called her Cheech, not ever. She was always, always Margaret to me. 

Margaret taught me to eat mushroom pizza on Fridays during lent. As a Catholic, I had spent the majority of those Fridays eating tuna casserole. 😑 We shared long road trips on the team bus for basketball! During which the conversation was definitely R or so rated. Ahhhh...high school. I spent many a night sleeping over at her house and her at mine. There were also those warm summer days swimming at Manke's Resort across the water from where they lived on Spec Lake. Because they were neighbors of the resort, she got in free, thus so did I when I was with her.

We would always go to Princeton for movie nights. Mainly horror! Driving home late at night alone was terrifying! I saw Halloween for the first time in that theater with Margaret. It was the most horrifying movie of my life forever! 👿I have told my children many times about Margaret screaming "GET. OUT. Of the water!!!" at a different movie during a  particularly gruesome scene. I wish I could remember what movie that was so I could watch it again.

 We stopped at her family bakery...the Weisbrod Bakery for snacks when we were out and about.

The last time I 'talked' to Margaret on Facebook, she wished me a happy birthday. Not odd for Facebook, except I don't have my birthday listed on there. 40+ years and she still remembered my birthday.

We shared the last moments of our childhoods together. My heart hurts.

Back in 2019, just moments before the Covid pandemic roared to life, my high school boyfriend Brian died.  Brian James McClellan. Though he passed away just days after Halloween, I am still in shock. Again, we had not spoken in years, but the memories are still vibrant in my mind. His birthday was Christmas Eve. We spent New Year's Eve together at our cabin up on Snaptail Lake. Winter in Minnesota!!! He also spent time with me up at the Osakis house before it was sold.

He lived in the same house as my best friend since kindergarten, Also my college roommate, Lori. She moved into our neighborhood when we in the second grade. He took me to my very first rock concert, the Doobie Brothers. https://www.last.fm/music/The+Doobie+Brothers We went to Star Wars together down at Northtown Mall at a time when A movies did not show in Cambridge, Minnesota. For instance, I went to the local theater with my friends and saw the Ma and Pa Kettle movies in the mid-70s.

The typical he's a senior, I'm a sophomore relationship, we had a summer of marching band trips before he left our high school. This included a swimming party over in Wisconsin at band director, Richard Hardy's lake cabin. During my junior year, he helped me build a cardboard box train for my high school child development class. Five child size boxes all hand painted in delightful playfulness. He asked me to marry him that night. At the time, I said I was too young to answer that question.

Somewhere in a storage box, I still have an electronic counter he made for me in his basement workshop. I would watch the tiny red digital numbers counting up in my dark room at night.

So much time spent together during the twilight of my childhood. 💔

When you add in that Molly, the sister I shared a room with, a childhood with, a lifelong bond with, has been gone these past twenty-six years, the three people who shared the vast majority of my young, almost adult life with me are now gone. These memories I have are now mine alone. 

Written by me in 1996.

My heart aches for those sweet, innocent moments of life.

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8mm memories

Snaptail Lake, MN (early 70s) 13 minutes

This past spring, we used our tax return to purchase an 8mm to digital converter to make the stack of old films sitting in my closet for years could be viewable once again. We purchased the Wolverine MovieMaker Pro from Amazon. It took several calls to the company to figure out why we could not get the recorder working...AT ALL. But, after the initial frustrations, we were able to transfer all of the films I have in less than a week. We still have a few flickering flops, that will need to be redone, but we have viewable family memories for the first time in decades. Yay!

There were incredibly large amounts of hunting footage on the film reels. Not surprising considering the many vivid memories I have of carcasses hanging in the rafters of our garage every autumn. What was missing, sadly, was the plastic 5 quart bucket of 8mm films we watched many Christmases, Thanksgivings and many other gatherings. The majority of the footage of my own childhood were not in my collection. 😥

I do, however, have the film of my parent's wedding back in 1948. Many reels of the older siblings. And by many, there were only a dozen reels to begin with in the box. When finished, I ended up with 61 clips. Some are a few minutes long. The longest reel held about 14 minutes of footage. Some just a few seconds. I had begun to cut to the clips into smaller pieces. Then, my daughter ended up in the hospital two months early, delivering our newest granddaughter. Born at four pounds, she spent a few weeks in the NICU. 

  

Eight months later, she is a healthy, always smiling little girl. The early delivery distracted me from editing most of the 8mm digital files. A very happy distraction.💟 It has become another 'someday' project. At least, I have the files and can view them whenever I want. 

Green Lake family reunion (1962?) just under 5 minutes

This final video I will post is from my parents wedding, filmed 74 years ago.

Greg and Shirlee wedding then 4th of July (1948) 3 minutes

The recorder/converter was more than I would have liked to spend. Looking at the prices today, it has decreased in price, naturally. After years and years of planning to send the films off to be converted, the memories are indeed priceless! I definitely do not regret finally leaping in and creating these new OLD memories for my family to share. 

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Minnesota Bound

It took 8 years to make it back to the great state of Minnesota for a visit. 8 years! That did included a trip to Wisconsin in 2018 for Kevin and Rachel's wedding. It also included a 4 year stretch  of Bay Area life, AND, of course, Covid!!! The world has changed a lot since 2014. So many beautiful souls lost since we last visited. 😥

After literal years of not being able to visit with our family, 2022 has been filled with an abundance of family time. In addition of our trip back to Minnesota, each of our children have made at least one trip out to California to visit, as well. So much joy fills this mother's heart. 

The following photos were taken just a couple of days apart. 

The first photo was taken in California on our own personal holiday, Laborgiving. A holiday I started years and years ago. What was at the time, the weekend before school started, we would cook up an entire Thanksgiving type dinner. Then, as we prepared clothes, backpacks and snacks for the coming months of school, we had a delicious meal, PLUS nummy leftovers to munch on. 

Tessa, Adam and grandbabies, along with Thomas, a surprise visitor from NYC, and Natalie all joined us for this year's edition of Laborgiving.🦃 

Then, we got on a plane and headed off to Minnesota. This photo below shows us after dinner at Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis with the rest of the kids, Three grandbabies(not so babylike, anymore). Kevin and Rachel, Hilary and David, Katy, Natalie and us. Seeing the entire family 'together' within in hours of of each event almost makes up for the long, lonely years apart.

In the years we have been away, each of our Minnesota residing children have purchased their own homes. Thus, we got the pleasure of see each of their homes personally for the first time. First, we stayed at Kevin and Rachel's place in Minneapolis, just a few blocks away from Lake Nokomis. Being that close to the airport, they kindly picked us up at 2:00am on Wednesday morning. 

After a homemade breakfast buffet and a walk around the neighborhood, we took a ride up to Rush City to spend the day and night at Katy and Katrina's house. A quick trip over to Cambridge to place flowers on Molly, Doc and Shirlee's gravesites, we headed back down to Minneapolis. We did return back up to Katy's place on Monday with Hilary to help move some things out to the dump and build a fairly garden. 

 

Back in the cities, we met up with our three grandbabies (11, 5 and 3 yrs old) for the first time. The entire gang shared a  meal at the seasonal restaurant, Sea Salt Eatery yards away from Minnehaha Falls. 

While waiting for the girls to get out of school, we spent the day with Hilary. No trip to the Twin Cities would be complete without a visit to the world famous Mall of  America.  

After a couple hours at the country's largest mall at 5.6 million square feet, we head over to Plymouth to see Hilary and David's house for the first time. 

We spent time building puzzles with the littles before baking monster cookies and mixing up some ooey gooey chocolatey puppy chow with them, as well. 

 

The plan to help get Hilary's house ready for the Minnesota Bound get together on Saturday went awry as we spent the evening relaxing with the family while David prepared us grill steak salad for our meal. Natalie read to the girls while Rachel played games with them. Hilary taught me how to crochet stuffed pumpkins to help decorate for the season. The mellow chaos reminded me of many holidays from days gone by.

 

Hilary and David rented us a room at the Marriot hotel a block away. This allowed us all to have a swimming adventure before a day filled with mowing and raking and preparing for friends and relative to visit us. Will little spare time, it was great to have everyone come to join us for a great evening. A bonfire was built early and burned all day long. Oh my goodness, do I miss the scent of wood fires burning on cool autumn day.  

 

A small frog mistook the fire as a toasty spa and leapt in to warm himself. The girls were very sad for the poor little guy. While I had time to bake up a batch of gramma gibbons beans, David did the majority of the barbequing for the while group. As the night wore down, and many headed on home, a screen was setup in the darkened backyard to watch Pinocchio. With the bonfire still burning, and the grandbabies snuggled up in blankets on the wicker sofa, we closed out another delightful evening in Minnesota.

Our busy Saturday rolled over into Sunday in the park with family. Como Park and Zoo, that is. With a wagon full of kids, we watched the seals, visited with the primates and saw timber wolves walking through the woods. 

After going none stop for days, we finished our Sunday watching the sunset over Lake Nokomis. And then ice cream! Another beautiful peaceful evening the family.

As mentioned before, we spent Monday morning helping Katy out in Rush City. A quick trip back to Minneapolis for lunch at Punch Pizza and a walk across the Stone Arch Bridge. My favorite touristy spot in the cities.

 

If Monday wasn't already full of fun and family, we were treated to Brazilian Barbeque to finish off the day. So tasty. The wait staff walked around the dining room cutting seared meats from long metal skewers. 

On our last full Minnesota day, we chilled out at the Lake. Lake Nokomis, again. We stopped at a craft cheese shop for sandwiches and...cheese. By bringing our own picnic out to the lake, we were able to spent time just watching the ducks swim and the leaves change. 

What could be better than another Minnesota bonfire? Nothing, of course. This time, we built a fire in Kevin's backyard. With the flames of the fire snapping away, we warmed up in their backyard hot tub. All three girls spent times cuddling with the family ferrets, and of course Leko, Kevin and Rachel's new pupperdo. 

The last night in Minnesota before our early, early morning flight was the perfect evening to complete our amazingly grand family filled trip to the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Truly hope to be back again before another 8 years passes us by.

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Pupperdoo

 

Meet Gideon Wolverine -- our newest adventure. A maltipoo puppy, born February 11th. After years and years and years of not being able to have a dog due to severe allergies, we discovered that there are hypoallergenic puppies! 

What does it mean if something is hypoallergenic?  If you have allergies, you likely look for products marked “hypoallergenic” to avoid triggering an allergic reaction. Hypoallergenic means a product contains few allergy-producing substances known as allergens. link

Having spent many nights and days in the emergency room, including celebrating New Year's 

Eve 1999-2000 listening to the nurses and doctors celebrate the turn of the century, I have learned to avoid dogs completely. Suddenly, a whole new pupper world has opened up.

While searching for a puppy to start our adventure, we started with a google search. This is the point at which a remind people to beware of puppy SCAMS! We were very close to being a victim of this ruse. So excited to becoming puppy owners, we bit on a scam site offer. https: //ihearts family .com/

Beware of this site, they are STILL selling the same 'nine week old' puppies as we looked at a month ago. Photos on this site were taken before these puppies could have even been born. 

Tips to avoiding puppy scams.

1.  If they are asking for money with no personal contact. STOP and think about that. Are you really willing to send hundreds or thousands of $$$ off site unseen? 

2. Puppies are too available. Real puppy breeders have waiting lists! 

3. Meet in person...don't bring money with the first day. 

4. True breeders should be as concerned about your ability to take good care of the puppy as you are concerned about getting a good dog. 

When we first brought Gideon home, we searched for information on raising dogs. First we looked on Audible, mainly because I have available credits. I picked out the Audible book, Maltipoo Bible and Maltipoos.  Sadly, I was not very happy with this choice. There is too much emphasis on what can go wrong, including illness and puppies impending death.  

After that disappointment, I searched for the best dog book. What came up was 

Zak George’s Dog Training Revolution  link. 

Both a book and series of youtube videos, this audio book is currently free on Audible. It is being sold on Amazon in physical book form for $19.99. So very much a better read than our first attempt.

In amongst learning about our new furry family member, leases, potty pads, treats! and poop bags, we set up an appointment at our chosen Vet. In our case it is Euclid Veterinary Hospital  in Ontario. Being concerned about the incredibly infectious Parvo, we are required to wait for over to 2 weeks after the puppy arrives before we can have him in for his first visit.  

Parvo is the canine parvovirus (CPV) infection, and it is a highly contagious viral disease in dogs. There are two different forms that this disease can take. The most common type is the intestinal form. This has symptoms such as diarrhea, vomiting, lack of appetite, and weight loss.

Vaccination card in hand, his first visit is successful! Be sure to get vaccination information when purchasing your puppy!  Gideon's next appointment is already set for three weeks from now. More vaccinations to keep him healthy. 

We have serious puppy training to do! SIT is going well! Everything else, including potty train has had its ups and downs. He has been very picky about his puppy treats, preferring cat treats over dog ones. Keeping this in mind, we ordered the puppy treats Zak George speaks of in salmon flavor. A nod to his cat siblings. After a few days, he is finally responding to these little nuggets. 

One of the most important things we have discovered is YES, he is hypoallergenic enough to be a pleasant addition to our little family.

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Making Quilts for Baby

Starting up in Livermore and finishing down here, I made this quilt similar to the one I made for Thomas thirty years ago.

Yup, my ironing board is a board. 

Making a baby quilt for her sister, Natalie learning to sew, cut squares and quilt all at the same time. #adulting Starting with picking out the fabric, she created the entire 'Trip Around the World' quilt by herself. Just a few hints and helps from me along the way.

Even though I have a nice craft area, with husband working from home these days, sometimes the bedroom has to suffice.

I purchased the forest animals paper piecing quilt pattern from Annie's Catalog. It has a lot of really cute animals, but I needed to have a bear, so I created the design to match with the ones I purchased.

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