Well, it's not really a vacation, but I am going to be away for a week or ten days, or so. So, don't rexpect to see any new blogs during that time. I will try to have some new ones lined up for when I get back.
Talk to you in a few days.
Beth
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
First Storm
Wow!! I didn't relize how long it has been since I have visited with you. I'm surprised. I was sitting here this morning thinking that I should write something again, but what? Then within a few minutes, I got hit with several ideas. I am going to mention them, just so I can have my own reminders to come back to. I thought about our Stotm ( the westher); Family history; = = = =
So, I guess I'll start off with the most current - the Storm. Sorry, already I forgot what the others were.
We have had several years of below normal rainfall, and it shows it. Crops are struggling, lawns are suffering, and just all over lack of rainfall. The fields, and natural areas are not as grassy and green as they usually are. This month we have had some unseasomably high temperatures - not really hot, but just higher than usual. Then this week, and yesterday in particular, the westher tried to make up for lost time. I had not turned my TV on for a week (this is my way of fasting) so I had missed the weather reports building up to this. But Sunday night when I turned it on. they were showing the forecast for this week, with the storm hitting Tuesday. We were supposed to have at least 2 inches of rain, with winds in the 30 - 40 mile level, with gusts up to 60 or 70 miles. We were warned to be prepared for power failures, and all kinds of unseasonable things happening. I don't think it turned out quite as bad as forecast, but it was quite a storm. This morning's paper said almost two inches of rain, and winds in excess of 30 miles an hour. We had lots of power outages in the area, mostly due to fallen branches, or trees, or limbs getting caught up in the power lines. Here at the facility where I live, we were without power from ll:35 am until 10.45 pm. The way my room is arranged, my back is to the window, so unless there is a lot of noise with the storm, I don't really realize what is going on outside. I know everytime I looked outside, the water was pouring off the roof of the building next door, and I could see that the treees were blowing quite a bit. Storms of this kind do not usually hit here this early in the season, so the trees are still full of leaves, making the winds much more damaging. The leaf covered branches hold back the wind more, causing more force on the trees, hence more broken limbs and touching of the power lines to branches. I'm not sure what caused our outage, but it could have been a number of things. Very annoying, to say the least. Even our emergeny lights, which are battery powered and go on automatically when the power goes off, were off because their batteries went dead. Because we had no power, our electric dishwasher did not work, and the dishes had to be washed by hand. Every meal is served in two siittings here, so the first sitting for lunch had already been served when the power failed. So, the second sitting got their lunch on plastic plates. Second sitting for dinner is usually 5 pm. but because there was no auxiliary lighting in the dining room, they fed us at 4:15 pm. We had tuna/noodle cassarole and peas, with pineapple for desert. Our beverages were served in styro-foam cups, dinner on plastic (throw away) plates, plastic forks & spoons. Surprising how much the cloudy skies cut down the light in the dining room. They have gas stoves, so at least they were able to serve hot food.
I fell asleep about 8 pm for a little while, and when I woke up, I could not go back to sleep, so I got up and went down to the dining room where the staff were gathered around a table, with a battery operated lantern. I was trying to read. It's amazing when I think that until I was in college, all we had to read by in our house was small kerosene lights. Mom, my brother and I would all sit around the dining room table so we kids could do our homework while Mom sewed or read. Dad always had his own table, chair and lamp. My, how times have changed!!
Well, I think that about covers the storm, so I'm going to call it quits. I'll write more later, and maybe by that time I will have thought of what the other things were I wanted to remember.
Bye for now,
So, I guess I'll start off with the most current - the Storm. Sorry, already I forgot what the others were.
We have had several years of below normal rainfall, and it shows it. Crops are struggling, lawns are suffering, and just all over lack of rainfall. The fields, and natural areas are not as grassy and green as they usually are. This month we have had some unseasomably high temperatures - not really hot, but just higher than usual. Then this week, and yesterday in particular, the westher tried to make up for lost time. I had not turned my TV on for a week (this is my way of fasting) so I had missed the weather reports building up to this. But Sunday night when I turned it on. they were showing the forecast for this week, with the storm hitting Tuesday. We were supposed to have at least 2 inches of rain, with winds in the 30 - 40 mile level, with gusts up to 60 or 70 miles. We were warned to be prepared for power failures, and all kinds of unseasonable things happening. I don't think it turned out quite as bad as forecast, but it was quite a storm. This morning's paper said almost two inches of rain, and winds in excess of 30 miles an hour. We had lots of power outages in the area, mostly due to fallen branches, or trees, or limbs getting caught up in the power lines. Here at the facility where I live, we were without power from ll:35 am until 10.45 pm. The way my room is arranged, my back is to the window, so unless there is a lot of noise with the storm, I don't really realize what is going on outside. I know everytime I looked outside, the water was pouring off the roof of the building next door, and I could see that the treees were blowing quite a bit. Storms of this kind do not usually hit here this early in the season, so the trees are still full of leaves, making the winds much more damaging. The leaf covered branches hold back the wind more, causing more force on the trees, hence more broken limbs and touching of the power lines to branches. I'm not sure what caused our outage, but it could have been a number of things. Very annoying, to say the least. Even our emergeny lights, which are battery powered and go on automatically when the power goes off, were off because their batteries went dead. Because we had no power, our electric dishwasher did not work, and the dishes had to be washed by hand. Every meal is served in two siittings here, so the first sitting for lunch had already been served when the power failed. So, the second sitting got their lunch on plastic plates. Second sitting for dinner is usually 5 pm. but because there was no auxiliary lighting in the dining room, they fed us at 4:15 pm. We had tuna/noodle cassarole and peas, with pineapple for desert. Our beverages were served in styro-foam cups, dinner on plastic (throw away) plates, plastic forks & spoons. Surprising how much the cloudy skies cut down the light in the dining room. They have gas stoves, so at least they were able to serve hot food.
I fell asleep about 8 pm for a little while, and when I woke up, I could not go back to sleep, so I got up and went down to the dining room where the staff were gathered around a table, with a battery operated lantern. I was trying to read. It's amazing when I think that until I was in college, all we had to read by in our house was small kerosene lights. Mom, my brother and I would all sit around the dining room table so we kids could do our homework while Mom sewed or read. Dad always had his own table, chair and lamp. My, how times have changed!!
Well, I think that about covers the storm, so I'm going to call it quits. I'll write more later, and maybe by that time I will have thought of what the other things were I wanted to remember.
Bye for now,
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Lemonade
I just came back from having my dinner, and while I was eating, I don't know why, but I thought about my aunt & uncle's house, and decided to write a little about it. I don't think I have told too many of my family about this, and I know I have never written anything about it, but I think it is worth noting. And I know, now, what made me think about it. That's almost a story in itself, but I'm going to take time to tell it. When we have seafood of any kind for dinner, we usually get a slice of two or fresh lemon. And one of the ladies who used to sit at my table would make lemonade out of her slice, so I started doing it too. Works great. We always have a four ounce glass of ice water at our setting, so I take the slice of lemon, squeeze it into the water, add a package of artificial sweetner, and Voila! Lemonade. It's good, too. But it made me remember when my aunt & uncle first built their house in 1945. I'm not sure, but I think they put electricity in the house as it was built. Their old house did not have electricity, it was built before the turn of the century. Anyway, Aunt Mable would make up a bunch of lemonade syrup - maybe a quart or more. This was just lemon juice and sugar. She would boil them together and have a nice thick lemon syrup. Just pour about 1/4 Cup of this in a large glass, add some ice and fill with water, and you had lemonade. The rest of the syrup was kept in the refrigerator for future use. So, thinking about this made me think about the rest of their house. I don't know just who designed the house, but I don't think they had an architect, a surveyor, or anything else like that, for reasons you will know as I go along. It was a three bedroom house, but it had only one bathroom. A second bath was unheard of in those days. But, the bathroom was distictive in that it was actually two rooms. The first room had the toilet and wash basin. Go through another door, and there was the bathtub. There was no shower, just the tub. But by having it in a seperate room, while one person was taking a leisurely bath, another could be using the toilet or washing their hands. It was a real neat idea. The house had a basement under the dining room and kitchen and back porch. In one corner of the kitchen, there was a "cooler" cupboard. It looked just like an ordinary cupboard, except it had no bottom to it , or any top. It just had a screen or slat floor. And all the shelves were made of slats. This allowed the cool air from the basement (cellar) to rise through this cupboard on into the attic, and this is where the butter, shortening, jams & jellies and anything else that really needed to be cooler, but did not actually need to be kept in the refrigerator stayed. Neat! In the dining room, which was designed to seat about 12 people because they always fed their harvest crews, there was a door directly to the outside. Also, on the West end, next to the kitchen, there was a built in china cabinet. Well, I guess actually you might not call it "built in" because Dad built it apart from the house, and then moved it into place, and guess what? The house was not square! See what I mean about no architect, designer, etc. Someone had screwed up and the whole house was just a little off square, so anything prebuilt would not fit. But it all worked out. In the East end of the dining room, there was a large window, and across the top of the window was a half moon shaped window which had come out of the main entrance to the old Pierce Christian College (High School) in College City. This house was built in 1945, and a lot of the lumber used in the house, and I guess some of the other things, like windows , came from this old school. I don't know if Dad tore the whole college down, but I can remember, and I would have been about 13-14 years, going with him and sitting there, knocking the square nails out of the boards as he took them off the school. I wish I had some of those nails now. You don't see square nails very often any more. Anysay, in the back porch of the house, one of the windows was a pane from a window in the science lab of the old college. There were about 7 or 8 names etched into this glass with acid. I think they were the names of the students from one of the classes. I keep speaking in the past tense, but I hope these are still there. I haven't been by the house in several years, and I have not actually been to the house since my Aunt passed away in 1971. I have no idea who is living there now, maybe one of the great grandchildren ( I hope).
In my last post I mentioned we would be attending the memorial service for a member of the family who had met a tragic death. Oh, please, if there is any way possible, keep in touch with the members of your family. I mentioned in my post that this young man was in his 30's and left small children. Shoot, he was 40, and his children are at least in their teens now. How times do pass. I think that I mentioned that I have lost most of my contact with the family, especially since I established my relationship with another mate. But it was good to see them again, I just didn't relize how people can change in 15 or 20 years. One of the "kids" I still think of as a teen-ager, is soon to be a grandfather. Wow!! There are plans in the wind now for a huge family reunion next fall, and I sure hope it materialzes.
Guess this is a good place to stop - when I get wound up, I could go on and on, but I'll keep some for next time.
See ya -
In my last post I mentioned we would be attending the memorial service for a member of the family who had met a tragic death. Oh, please, if there is any way possible, keep in touch with the members of your family. I mentioned in my post that this young man was in his 30's and left small children. Shoot, he was 40, and his children are at least in their teens now. How times do pass. I think that I mentioned that I have lost most of my contact with the family, especially since I established my relationship with another mate. But it was good to see them again, I just didn't relize how people can change in 15 or 20 years. One of the "kids" I still think of as a teen-ager, is soon to be a grandfather. Wow!! There are plans in the wind now for a huge family reunion next fall, and I sure hope it materialzes.
Guess this is a good place to stop - when I get wound up, I could go on and on, but I'll keep some for next time.
See ya -
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Good Day!!
Well, hello! Have you missed me? Sorry I've been away from my blog, but I was all geared up to write a blog about something special that was supposed to happen, and then when it did'nt happen, I kinda went flat. But, that's behind me now. Have you ever had one of those days when nothing, absolutely nothing, went right all day? Of course you have. Haven't we all? Well, how about a day when EVERYTHING went RIGHT? Have you had many of those days? I think today was about as close to that as I have had in a very long time. Isn't it good to hear me say that? I have so many "I feel sorry for me" days, that to have as good a day as I've had today, makes me feel blessed.
What am I so up about? Well, several things. One, I am considering a major change in my life (details not available yet) and I got some supporting information along that line. Two, I have been trying for several months to get in touch with some of my late husband's family, and I finally did, and three, I went to the LDS church for some help in trying to get onto a message board like I used to, to contact someone who is tracing my family history. And low and behold, with their help, I found the contacts I had made several years ago - I think it was 2005. So, now, I hope that person is still following the board, and will see my new infomation.
I referred to my "late husband" - of course, that is my ex-husband. If you didn't already know, we were seperated twenty years before his death this spring. In the future, he will be referred to simply as HRR. Sorry, girls, I hope you don't mind my doing this, but it is something I have done in my letters, etc., for several years. Anyway, most of his family live(d) in Whitman County (near Spokane, WN) and we had lost contact with most of them since HRR's mother passed away in the late 1970's and we seperated. So, I decided to try to find some of them. I know that one cousin is still farming the old home place near Rosalia, WN, so he was the one I first tried to locate. That was at least six months ago. Then when HRR passed, I wrote him again, and still had not received any return. When I got home from town today, there was a nice letter from him. I was as excited as a kid with a new toy. I have been trying to locate the sons of another of the family, and have not heard from them. Now, I have hope that they will still write.
While I was in town, I stopped in at the Family Research Center at the LDS (Mormon) church. They have about half dozen or more, computers, and they will help you locate your family history. They charge you a whole 5 cents per sheet to print out whatever you wish. The lady was so nice, and she helped me find some of HRRs family (on his Mother's side) - for instance we found the l920 census, which listed all the kids living at home - I think that is 7. Of course, the four older brothers were not listed, because they were all living out of the house. But that was exciting. And, she helped me find a message board for my father. On it I found the contacts I had made four or five years ago with a man in Quebec, Canada. I sent him another message, and asked him to contact me directly. We'll see what happens with that.
See what I mean - things just seemed to be going my way today. It's about time!!
Tomorrow will not be as exciting. About 1 1/2 weeks ago, one of HRR's cousin's sons died a very tragic death. His memorial will be tomorrow morning. When someone in their 30's dies, for whatever reason, it is never a happy occasion, especially when they leave a spouse, parents, and small children. But, unfortunately, those things do happen, and the rest of us must go on with our lives.
Even though my plans for the weekend did not materialize, I can give you some of the highlights of what was supposed to have happened. At our church, we have two teams of Pastors, both husband and wife teams. Our senior pastor is Pastor Fred, and his wife is Pastor Cindy. Well, Cindy is very talented. I always thought I was a pretty good pianist, but I don't hold a candle to her. She is something very special. And she sings. Saturday night was a special program at which she was to release her new CD. I think this is either four or five CD's she has made. I haven't asked, and I can't figure out if they are available on the market. There are no names on the label to give any hint, but she does have her own website, and she gave a "sneak" preview of this new CD on MySpace. Her address on MySpace (in case you are interested) is myspace.com/cindibenzel. I think her web address is on there. Just thought you might be interested.
Not much else to talk about right now, but keep checking - I plan on getting into the history of some of my family in the not too distant future. But for now, I think that's it.
What am I so up about? Well, several things. One, I am considering a major change in my life (details not available yet) and I got some supporting information along that line. Two, I have been trying for several months to get in touch with some of my late husband's family, and I finally did, and three, I went to the LDS church for some help in trying to get onto a message board like I used to, to contact someone who is tracing my family history. And low and behold, with their help, I found the contacts I had made several years ago - I think it was 2005. So, now, I hope that person is still following the board, and will see my new infomation.
I referred to my "late husband" - of course, that is my ex-husband. If you didn't already know, we were seperated twenty years before his death this spring. In the future, he will be referred to simply as HRR. Sorry, girls, I hope you don't mind my doing this, but it is something I have done in my letters, etc., for several years. Anyway, most of his family live(d) in Whitman County (near Spokane, WN) and we had lost contact with most of them since HRR's mother passed away in the late 1970's and we seperated. So, I decided to try to find some of them. I know that one cousin is still farming the old home place near Rosalia, WN, so he was the one I first tried to locate. That was at least six months ago. Then when HRR passed, I wrote him again, and still had not received any return. When I got home from town today, there was a nice letter from him. I was as excited as a kid with a new toy. I have been trying to locate the sons of another of the family, and have not heard from them. Now, I have hope that they will still write.
While I was in town, I stopped in at the Family Research Center at the LDS (Mormon) church. They have about half dozen or more, computers, and they will help you locate your family history. They charge you a whole 5 cents per sheet to print out whatever you wish. The lady was so nice, and she helped me find some of HRRs family (on his Mother's side) - for instance we found the l920 census, which listed all the kids living at home - I think that is 7. Of course, the four older brothers were not listed, because they were all living out of the house. But that was exciting. And, she helped me find a message board for my father. On it I found the contacts I had made four or five years ago with a man in Quebec, Canada. I sent him another message, and asked him to contact me directly. We'll see what happens with that.
See what I mean - things just seemed to be going my way today. It's about time!!
Tomorrow will not be as exciting. About 1 1/2 weeks ago, one of HRR's cousin's sons died a very tragic death. His memorial will be tomorrow morning. When someone in their 30's dies, for whatever reason, it is never a happy occasion, especially when they leave a spouse, parents, and small children. But, unfortunately, those things do happen, and the rest of us must go on with our lives.
Even though my plans for the weekend did not materialize, I can give you some of the highlights of what was supposed to have happened. At our church, we have two teams of Pastors, both husband and wife teams. Our senior pastor is Pastor Fred, and his wife is Pastor Cindy. Well, Cindy is very talented. I always thought I was a pretty good pianist, but I don't hold a candle to her. She is something very special. And she sings. Saturday night was a special program at which she was to release her new CD. I think this is either four or five CD's she has made. I haven't asked, and I can't figure out if they are available on the market. There are no names on the label to give any hint, but she does have her own website, and she gave a "sneak" preview of this new CD on MySpace. Her address on MySpace (in case you are interested) is myspace.com/cindibenzel. I think her web address is on there. Just thought you might be interested.
Not much else to talk about right now, but keep checking - I plan on getting into the history of some of my family in the not too distant future. But for now, I think that's it.
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