The View from Here

Here we go again...

Where has the time gone? I just knew I was going to be rich and famous and thin and a dozen other things by the time 2007 rolled around. In January, at the beginning of a new year, anything seems possible! Yet, here we are on the eve of another one and I can’t really think of a single resolution I want to make. I’ve been making a few changes here and there. I’m a little healthier, a little wiser. Most of all, I’m just a whole lot more grateful! I think 2006 has been a year for me to really appreciate my blessings.

I have been blessed by the steadfastness of God.

I have been blessed by friendships, both old and new.

I have been blessed by reasonably good health, especially considering the haphazard way I take care of this body!

I have been blessed by a good marriage, mostly because I’m married to my best friend.

I have been blessed by the children in my life.

I have been blessed by my family.

I have been blessed by writing this blog. It’s such a little thing in the whole scheme of life, but it brings me joy. I hope it has entertained and enriched your life in some way. I hope you will continue to journey with me through 2007. I leave you this New Year’s Eve with a Christmas photo of me with two of my brothers. Go party, but be careful!

Germs

           Here is the latest warning about dangerous bacteria, straight from AARP: “Only 5 percent of Americans now regularly wash their underwear and towels in water that’s hot enough-at least 160F-to kill bacteria, according to University of Arizona environmental microbiologist Charles Gerba, Ph.D. That means live bacteria can spread from one garment to another: when you remove your wet laundry, those live germs can get on your hands. Touch your mouth or rub your eyes and you might get a cold, an infection, or even E.coli.” Their recommendation is to “head to the sink for a soapy hand wash immediately after putting laundry into the dryer”.

Wait just a minute! That means that I should have washed my hands after I put the clothes into the washer. I mean, if they are dangerous after washing, think how dangerous they are before they were washed. I think I may start keeping rubber gloves near the hamper! (Oh, and ladies, AARP also recommends using sanitizer to wipe the bottom of your handbag. You might not remember all the places it’s been sitting around.)

Okay, add these two warnings to the list, and believe me, there is a LIST. My students recently came back from one of their health resource classes with this information for me: “You have to wash your hands after you touch the cat or the dog or your shoes. You have to wash after you go to the bathroom. You have to wash before you touch food. And you have to wash until you finish singing Happy Birthday.” I can add that I don’t feel completely safe touching shopping carts, door knobs, waiting room magazines, or library books. And let’s not even talk about public restrooms! Do you think this is how Howard Hughes got his start as the “masked man”?

Of course the school and most parents now buy antibacterial soap, hand sanitizers, antibacterial wipes, and antibacterial sprays. I admit to having a couple of products myself. Now comes this report: antibacterial products may actually make us sicker!

(From KidSource, OnLine) “In a paper published in the April 16 Journal of Biological Chemistry, Charles O. Rock, Ph.D., and Richard J. Heath, Ph.D., researchers in the biochemistry department at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, find that the use of antibacterial products may actually make drug-resistant strains of bacteria more prevalent.

Here's the problem: the use of popular antibacterial products such as soaps and body washes introduces an antibacterial compound called triclosan into the environment. Triclosan interacts with bacteria -- and, as is their nature, the bacteria develop resistance to the compound. The accumulation of triclosan in the environment could lead to the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria, Rock said. As a result, the very antibacterial products designed to kill the bacteria would become ineffective.

‘We consider this to be a serious public health concern,’ Rock said.”

What’s a normal person to do? Wear a mask and gloves? Refrain from touching anyone or anything?

I’m doomed of course. I’m not normal. I teach kindergarten. Do you think my students do all the things they told me about? Of course not. They touch their shoes and the floor and dirt and anything else their little hands can reach. They seldom use a tissue for their runny noses unless I remind them. They wash for three seconds, if they remember to wash at all. They hold hands with anyone and everyone, including me. I’ve seen students lick their shoe laces, eat crackers off the floor, share lip gloss, and tear open packages with their teeth. In fact, some of my grungy, grimy children have perfect attendance while their “antiseptic” classmates are always sick! And by the way, I’m very seldom sick!

There is a lesson here. I’m not a biology student and I don’t do research, but I seem to remember from my classroom days that there are “good bacteria” (think yogurt) and “bad bacteria” and for some reason we are trying to wipe them all out with one fell spray. I’m of the opinion that everything on earth serves a purpose or it wouldn’t be here. Maybe what we need to do is lighten up: be reasonably clean and cautious, use a little moderation in our crusade against bacteria.

As usual, I don’t have any definitive answers. If you really want to dwell on germs and the possibilities of contamination you can drive yourself crazy. We live in a world that is mostly out of our control.  Sure you can wash your hands twenty or thirty times a day. But what about eating? Opening a package of prepared food is an exercise in faith. Who prepared it, and how?  Dining out requires trust in our fellow man. What are they doing back there in the kitchen? Did they wash? Are they sick? I think that really is how Howard Hughes got started on his weird odyssey- too many questions.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the time or energy to worry too much about germs. I’ve been taking my clothes out of the dryer, without washing my hands, for about thirty years. (I hung them on the line for ten years before that!) I figure I’ll risk it for another thirty years before I move that particular worry to a higher place on my priority list. 

 

1966

I know some of you read my blog in the morning, and you've been wondering "what is she doing?" I know I'm on vacation and the first thing I should do is post a blog about something profound so you can start your day with "food for thought". Sorry- not today. Today I'm scanning photos from my past.

I had lunch with my Aunt Betty yesterday and we discussed the photo shown here. It's a picture of my grandmother, Della Springer, with some of her grandchildren, Easter 1966. I had sent the photo to my aunt a few months ago. Yesterday I commented that I have the negatives from that roll and I hadn't scanned all of them. Well, you know what I had to do this morning! Discovered the cute photo of me with my little cousins. And the one of Mom and two of her sisters. That's mom behind Aunt Betty.

Later a profound blog...promise.

Lone Pine...day two

Okay, one more trip down the Lone Pine memory lane and then I promise to change topics. These are shots from our house (big window was the kitchen), church (the view behind it was incredible!), and a prayer retreat to the desert. That cave is actually someone's home and there were several others. They had furniture inside and everything. Reminded me of the sod houses of the prairie.

 

Mountain Memories

          I think I’ve mentioned before that we once lived in Lone Pine, at the foot of Mt. Whitney, tallest peak in the contiguous United States. Our “mountain days” were different from any other living experience, before or since. I was reminded of those days this week because I’ve been scanning some Polaroid pictures from that time.

We began our life in Lone Pine with a classified ad. We were living in Fresno at the time and Gary was working as a respiratory therapist. The ad said, “Live and work in the shadow of Mt. Whitney”. That was enough to prompt a search for the atlas. Where in the world was Mt. Whitney?

As far as we were concerned it turned out to be on the other side of the world. Mt. Whitney is one of those places you “can’t get to from here”. It took several hours for us to drive south and then north again to reach our destination. And we also found out that Mt. Whitney is above a desert valley, not the lush forest we had imagined. The high desert is a beautiful, but unforgiving place that is hot in the summer and freezing in the winter. Hardly a drop of rain fell from April to September. 

Because most of the land around Lone Pine belongs to the state, privately owned property is scarce. Once Gary accepted the job, we were unsure of where we could actually live. We ended up in a trailer behind a gas station, only to be rudely informed a week later that the person we thought was the owner had sub-let the place without permission. We finally settled into a converted garage behind another house. It was cramped- I could touch both walls of the kitchen at the same time- but it had a small yard and it wasn’t that different from a dozen tiny homes and trailers surrounding it. There were as many as three homes on some lots!

Lone Pine is also rather isolated from other towns. We had to drive for an hour to do any major shopping. There was a grocery store in town, but the prices were geared to the tourist trade. So was everything else. Lone Pine had a small population, but on the weekends you couldn’t even cross the street for the out-of-town traffic. And someone will probably call me a liar, but we always bought gas before Friday, when the price went up by at least three cents a gallon.

We belonged to a little church that had only about twenty members. That meant we often felt and acted like a family. We spent a lot of time together and had some real adventures in the desert.

I could talk for hours about Lone Pine. We learned so much there, and had so many experiences. When I write down my memories for a book, the Lone Pine chapter will be a lengthy one. But for today, I will leave you with the photos that prompted this little trip down memory lane. Gary and I used to be quite active in the outdoors. He started out that way and dragged me along until I began to enjoy it! Anyway, these are some photos of one of our climbs. We only made it to 11,000 feet that day,  because despite the fact that it was July, the ice beyond that required equipment we didn’t have with us. Anyway, the next time Gary tells you one of his “tall tales” about mountain climbing, you’d better believe him. I have more photos of other adventures. We really did those things even though my older, painful body has trouble remembering why!

Food, Friends, and Football

Well, the Christmas holiday is almost over. We’ve talked and eaten, and talked and eaten some more. Now the football games have begun.

It’s been a good holiday. We managed to see several friends. Went to a couple of church programs. Shopped at Craighead's. Watched “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Had a good time at the staff Christmas party. Visited with the neighbors. Had a wonderful Christmas Eve visit with my dad and brothers. It seems that even when things change, Christmas is still a time to be grateful and feel blessed.

Gary and I woke up at 7:30 am today. A far cry from the pre-dawn awakenings of many previous Christmases. We ate a leisurely breakfast and opened presents. Watched the news. Put the ham in the oven. Did some chores. Watched a movie. Ate our ham and traditional sweet potatoes. Talked to friends and family on the phone. Quiet. Nice. I remember when I was younger, all the men gathered in the living room after the big meal and  watched whatever game was on, while the women stayed in the kitchen to pack away the leftovers and clean up. The children ran outside to play with their new toys. Things change, but it’s all good.

Got this photo from our son. He is very involved in politics, so we weren’t a bit surprised to see him posing with Karl Rove, "Assistant to the President, Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor". Way to go Robert!

We took some photos during the holidays, so I’m sure I’ll be posting them soon. I want to thank everyone who has sent us cards and wishes and emails. I want to thank everyone who reads my blog. Only a few more days until the new year begins. I hope it is a great year for all of us. I’m already making plans for some changes in my life…

Makes me smile...

           I completed a little project yesterday and now I find myself looking at it each time I walk into the kitchen. I’ve collected coffee cups for years and I’ve had them stored on top of my kitchen cabinets. I can sort of see most of them, especially if I stand on my tip toes at the edge of the dining room. However, that isn’t very satisfying, so during Thanksgiving break I bought an unfinished wooden shelf. It’s a rather interesting little contraption with a removable panel for decoration or photos and it has four knobs for hanging stuff. I’ve slowly painted it blue with a green panel. Then I put a panoramic photo of the garden on the panel.

Now I have it hanging on the wall, along with four of my favorite garden photos. It’s the new home for eight of my favorite cups, and it just makes me smile! Three of the cups belonged to Mom, one was a gift from a friend, another was an “unfinished” ceramic that I painted, another was collected on a trip with Gary. There is a cup I just bought at Big Lots because I liked it and there is one that is a mystery. I love it, but I can’t for the life of me remember where it came from!

My home is filled with things that make me smile. Some people would call it clutter. Others would say I need some serious therapy! I have a pitcher in my office that is incredibly ugly. I know it’s ugly. I’ve always thought it was ugly. But it belonged to my mother and she liked it. I don’t know where it came from or why she had it in her kitchen, but it makes me smile when I see it because I can “see” it in her kitchen. It’s the memory that it holds that gives it value.

My daughter has a scrapbook layout in the January/February issue of Simple Scrapbooks. It’s about my paternal grandmother’s perfume bottle collection, and specifically a little rocking horse bottle. Funny, but I don’t even remember the horse! I do, however, remember a little pyramid bottle that separated into three parts: top was perfume, middle was cologne, and bottom was crème. I loved that bottle and I thought the idea was fascinating. I  remember taking it apart at least a dozen times. I never used the perfume, I just wanted to play with the bottle! I hadn’t thought about the bottle in years, but when I saw Kat’s layout I remembered so many details of Gran’s dresser. I guess that’s part of the appeal of scrapbooking or scrapping (I never can remember the terms).

The same magazine page shows an old Underwood typewriter belonging to someone’s grandfather. That made me smile, too, because I have a very similar one sitting in my closet that belonged first to my maternal grandmother, and then to Mom. It’s a heavy, awkward thing that I seldom look at, but it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Someday I may have a place to display it along with some of their writing.

I love those decorating shows where the team comes in and makes a big “Oh, good grief look at this mess!” face and then completely changes everything. But that’s television. In reality I like my mess. I like the clutter around me. I like my sentimental collections and obsessions. They make me smile…J

Christmas in Iowa

           Since we won't have snow for Christmas this year, I thought I would dig out our photos from the year we lived in Iowa. We were so, SO unprepared for cold and snow and ice. We knew nothing about survival in a cold climate! But we still have some fond memories. And if you wonder why we are so happy in Caddo, take a close look at Wilton, Iowa, the town founded by Gary's family.

          Note: I also learned a lesson I want to pass on: check the condition of your old photos once in a while. I found that these are terribly faded, even though some older photos are in much better shape. The processing or storage must have been made a difference. I'm going to try to find the negatives and scan them while I can.

Starting Over

           For several weeks now Gary and I have been attending another church. We were invited by a friend and we know a few other people in the congregation. My aunt, uncle, and second cousin also attend there.

It was awkward at first. Everything is different and I was afraid to say or do too much. It’s also a much bigger church. However, as we’ve become more familiar with the people and the order of service, and even the building, I’ve begun to  feel a little better. We’ve decided to go to Sunday school and try to meet a few more people. I’m not sure I will ever feel entirely “safe” again. Perhaps I was naïve to have felt that way in our old church. I keep waiting for someone to yell or say something ugly. Honestly, at this point if something like that did happen I’d probably run out the door and never look back. Sad to still feel so “gun shy”.   

This experience has certainly given me a renewed understanding of the plight of visitors. After fifteen years in the same church, I had forgotten what it feels like to be “new” and anxious. I had forgotten how nice it is to be greeted and welcomed. I had forgotten how important even the tiniest things can seem- like when someone remembers your name! I’ll try to keep that in mind when I’m settled again and someone else is visiting.

It feels strange to be starting over with a new church family, but it feels good, too. I worship God each day, and thank Him for my blessings, but it is so sweet to feel a bond with others and to gather together in one place. I still feel that bond with some of the people from my old church and I know they are struggling with their own pain and problems. I hope we all begin the new year with a renewed sense of commitment to follow the path God has chosen for us.

I hope that during this wonderful time of celebration you have a church family you can worship with and a place where you feel comfortable and accepted. If you do, cherish it. If you don’t, keep the faith. God has a place for you, too.

Pigs and Promises

           My youngest granddaughter collects pigs. Naturally, after a few years of pigs, pigs, and more pigs, her mom is getting a little tired of the things. So she dropped the hint that maybe Nana didn’t need to send any Christmas pigs this year. And Nana, being the crazy elephant collector that she is, completely understood. So…she sent a box of “just because” pigs. Hey, they weren’t even wrapped! None of them was wearing anything red. And they were all small. Besides, is it my fault that “Charlotte’s Web” is THE movie of the year and there are adorable stuffed Wilbur clones everywhere you turn?? ‘Course now I have the suggestion that Nana should not send “any more pigs to this house!”. I had to promise. Anyone know if UPS will deliver to a kid’s school? :)

            I loved Charlotte’s Web when I was a child- still do actually. What’s not to love? I’m looking forward to seeing the movie. And yes, I’m a Dakota Fanning fan. Some people say she’s too “sweet”, but our movies could stand a little more sweetening if you ask me. (I also promise I will NOT be seeing the big “A…” movie. No thanks. Blood and sacrifice…yuk.)

            Talk about SWEET! Our kindergarteners performed their little Christmas play Friday. I was so proud of them. They worked so hard to memorize their lines and remember where to stand. Lots of proud parents in the audience. ‘Course there were also a few tears over parents who couldn’t attend. I know it broke their hearts to have to work.

            I still have my program from a Christmas play called “At the Court of Santa Claus”. I think I was in the fifth grade. One of my brothers was in the chorus and another was in the “Bunny Band”. I was a “reader”, which meant I got to read the Christmas story- directly from my mother’s Bible. Different times. I don’t think anyone gets to do that at school anymore.

            A friend’s church had a “birthday party for Jesus” this week. What a wonderful idea! They served hot dogs for dinner, then cupcakes with candles, then did a craft with each child and sang some songs. I heard about it at school from several excited children.

            I told you that we would do our “what makes Rudolph’s nose glow?” project. Well, I want you to know that I called each child up to my desk and asked them the question quietly and individually while the others were busy coloring. So when I tell you the best answer of the day, you will know it is an original, straight from the heart of an adorable child. And I’ll make you a real promise: if you take the time to quietly listen to a child this week, you’ll have a much better holiday. So here is why Rudolph’s nose glows:

            “He closes his eyes and an angel comes.”