It is a very quiet day, here on Stauffer Avenue. All the “fixings” that were used and needed for Megan’s visit are tucked away . . . until the next time. Sweet!
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Noreen
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Noreen
Just a Great Visit
Megan always has an agenda in my sewing and craft area. This weekend it was time for a sleeping bag, complete with a pillow and making it personal for one of Nicholas’s
new stuffed toys.
Megan will be 11 on December 2, but we love the fact that she still has the true child alive in her to enjoy playing in the pretend world. Priceless.
The tree is decorated! We turned it totally over to Megan and there will not be a single ornament that will be changed. It’s just perfect the way she did it.
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Noreen
A Wonderful Warm Saturday
Thirty-seven degrees and what a great day for playing in the snow. Megan loved it!
Looking through the ice of the Koi pond and envisioning fossils.
Bread pans make for just the right size of blocks for an igloo.
Yup, the swing works . . .
even in the snow. -
Noreen
A very busy day getting Megan settled in. An array of activities are being decided upon. More info to come.
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Noreen
My Life As I Had Known It – Interrupted
Oh, by the way, Happy Thanksgiving! Perhaps more so, on this day than others, I am thankful for the life I have enjoyed since retirement, almost six years ago. I need to go back a bite, almost 45 years back.
I had thought the absolute most wonderful life for my family was on the 160 acre farm where Carrie had been brought to before her first birthday, and where new born Kevin was brought to from the hospital. Wide open spaces with every type of farm animal imaginable that needed tending. Orlin was all about making use of everything the garden could produce. Carrie and Kevin helped stomp the sauerkraut and turning the wheel on the apple press for great apple juice to be canned. I had a tricked out sewing room in the basement, complete with a rug loom off to one side. We liked the idea of being self sustaining as much as possible.
Farming does not allow for fast rewards. It’s all about timing and planning to stretch the resources that the land and animals produce. There was no measure for dollars earned in relationship to hours invested. I did take on our township’s real estate assessment to earn $200 a year for the seasonal work. The first year I purchased a clothes dryer. Fantastic, no more hanging clothes outside to freeze dry. The second year I purchased a Sears electric sewing machine. Let’s hear it for the Model 1820, as I am still using it, albeit it is on its third motor. My family was just a few sections away in various directions, so there was no shortage of extra man power to trade off when needed.
One day, when Orlin came home and said he had passed the entrance interview for 3M in Hutchinson, it totally caught me off guard. In 1970, our world began to rotate on a different axle. 3M meant rotating shifts. Rotating shifts meant I would be doing the dairy milking and animal chores alone, once a day of the two time slots. In time, the dairy herd went by the way side. We farrowed pigs and took care of a flock of chickens. In 1973 our 160-acre farm was divided. Three different owners now enjoyed what had been the wonderful life I had envisioned for my family for years to come. There was no way that moving to an acre site could compare to the wide open spaces of the farm life. It is amazing what one can adapt to.
My Dad was a townboard official and he brought news that there were two more townships that were looking for an assessor during seasonal work. Times had changed and now there was a license needed to continue the work. Who else, but a Dad, would offer to attend multiple days and multiple locations of classes for me to achieve a license for what he saw as writing on the wall. I achieved the license and as we moved to three more additional locations, I found work using the license issued by the State of Minnesota.
Fast forward to 2009. I was able to hang up the tape measure and put the multiple math equations to rest. As it were, I had stayed at that third location that we had moved to. Orlin went on to seek what was on the end of his rainbow. The license that I had obtained to add dollars to a family budget sustained me through my entire working career.
The interruption to that quiet life that I loved on the f’arm, I have found right here on Stauffer Avenue. I know in my heart there are choices that I make in today’s world that are more reminiscent of the times on that wonderful farm. No big bells or whistles for me. I like making do with what is at hand. I don’t find myself needing to update the home that Dennis and I have made together. My earlier years; Dennis’ earlier years, this is our fantastic home.
Not too long ago, I spent time with Doreen and Judy and all three of us have or have had the same career. We have known each other long enough that both knew and had worked with Orlin when he was in the assessing field. We have shared a lot of life as it has effected each one of us. We each rambled about family, homes and life in general. I expressed the feeling that the life I had known had been interrupted by a need to earn a livelihood, via the State of Minnesota. My dream had been to be a farmer’s wife to the end. Doreen piped up and shared that her dream had been to get the heck off the farm and find someone with a job who was no way related to farming.
Life on Stauffer: pretty darn sweet.
The welcome mat is always out for those that choose to drop by. Recently we visited someone who had just purchased a newer, larger home for themselves. In reflecting on it: it’s a five bedroom home, their living room seats four in comfort and their dining area also seats four. Anyone who has visited our home knows that the furniture is pushed to the side and we can have six to eight people enjoy a meal with us. After the meal, the dishes are done, and the sit-down comfortable chairs are put back in place for conversation. Our home is small, our hearts are huge. No one goes home wanting. I have said it often: life on Stauffer is wonderful.
In life, please remember to give and have no memory of it, or take and remember it always.
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Noreen
Modest Gift Giving
In decades past, home-made gifts at Christmas time were often. 1980 saw me having to stretch resources. I found unused cabinet doors in a junk shop were the perfect canvas for a gift I painted for my Mom. Modest investment, but fun to do and fun to give.
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Noreen
Stauffer Avenue is Prepared
Time has a way of slipping away. We are prepared to “click and ship.” The hardest part is getting the stubborn cardboard to cooperate and conform to the intended shape.
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Noreen
Easy Supper
Brisk winds and snow flurries call for a supper of soup. The Bear Creek soup mixes can be used as purchased, or they can be enhanced. I purchase 1 lb. of stew meat and cut it to bite size and brown the meat in a frying pan. To the heated 8 cups of water and seasoned package mix, prepared as per directions, I add the browned beef and a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. It makes for a very hardy soup without needing to have on hand all the seasoning and spices for that wonderful flavor. All of the Bear Creek mixes sell for $3.99 or $4.99, and by adding a bit here and adding a bit there, it becomes several very satisfying meals for Dennis and me.
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Noreen
A gray day that we decided was not going to get the best of us. We went to North Mankato and made the most of our gas mileage. We got to meet great granddaughter, Lux Jane, and visit with Sadie and Mike. What a tiny, two-week-old peanut. We traveled on and looked up the new home of great grandson, Oliver, aka: Ollie. Parents, Amy and Brandon, did a wonderful job of picking out a home for the family to grow in to. Dennis and I stopped in at Perkins for the meal of the day. I really enjoy their $4.00 to $8.00 menus. Just the right amount of goodness. A safe trip home and it’s time to settle in for the evening.
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Noreen
So Easy
We are so liking the Priority Mail boxes. With just a few minutes to print out the address mailers, the prepared box can be dropped off at the Post Office to do their thing within seconds. It would be great to jump in the car and deliver it in person, but five hours one way is just too much for us right now. I don’t think Dennis’ great granddaughters will mind having a box to open.
Years back, when Orlin and I lived in Riesel, Texas, receiving mail from Minnesota families and friends was a great treat. Riesel being a small friendly town, everyone knew everyone else as strangers were not easily drawn to settle in Riesel. When we moved into town we were as popular as buttered toast. Everyone greeted us as long lost cousins and they knew as much about us in short order, much like a family member. With all that being known, it stilled surprised us when on Christmas morning there was a knock on the door. The postmaster hand delivered Christmas packages that had been mailed a bit too late back in Minnesota to make it to Riesel on an ordinary delivery day. Small town service to the max. There is no way that would happen today.
In the early 1960s there was no Priority Mail – only snail mail. It still astounds me today how fast mail can travel, right down to getting an email as to when it was delivered. Excitement over what the mail can deliver will never be diminished. The kids in Silver Bay will be surprised with the unexpected delivery.