I was deep cleaning our bedroom closet recently and dusted off “a special box” on the top shelf. I wrote a poem about this box eight years ago. A few details have changed since then…the old Gateway Computer box has been placed inside a slightly larger fabric box for additional room, because now this fabric box contains 41 years of calendars and recorded history. I have shared this poem before, but I’ll share it again.
The original Gateway computer box, inside a larger fabric box.
One Little Box
In the bedroom closet upstairs, tucked away on the top shelf, is a box.
It’s an old Gateway computer box with the Holstein cow pattern, and it’s only about 14” X 18” and 6” deep.
It doesn’t take up much space, this one little box, but, if you open it up, out pops one great, big surprise! Thirty-three years of calendars, thirty-three years of life, thirty-three years of recorded history from one small family. It contains years of appointments, church activities, school and sports activities, vacation schedules, birthdays, anniversaries, deaths, dinners, all kinds of celebrations….
It reminds me of a Jack-In-The-Box. Each year it springs open, I add another calendar, force close the lid as it bursts with memories, and I put it away for safe keeping.
This one little box holds one big treasure.
And it’s amazing how little space this box takes, upstairs, tucked away on the top shelf of the bedroom closet.
The new fabric box that holds the original Gateway box and additional calendars.
It’s been awhile since I’ve colored eggs for Easter, but with our grandchildren here of course we had to do it. I hard boiled 11 eggs and ate one so that left us with 10 eggs. 😉
I plopped the tablets from the egg decorating kit into cups of vinegar and made several bold, color dyes to chose from.
A fun activity for all ages.
The kids (of all ages) had fun drawing on the egg with a clear wax pencil or crayon, deciding which color to dip the egg into, then watching and waiting, with anticipation, to see how their egg would turn out.
The Easter Egg with Christmas Tree.
The most unique egg is one our grandson envisioned and had help with the drawing. He has talked about Christmas trees since Christmas…he was so enthralled with our tree…so he wanted a Christmas tree on his Easter egg. O well, we couldn’t have Easter without Christmas.
Happy Easter in Portuguese.
An egg with Happy Easter written in Portuguese, the other language we hear in our house these days, is another special egg for our basket.
Adding mini-stickers to the dry eggs the next day.
Ukraine is known for their beautiful Easter eggs. I have a bowl full of Ukrainian Easter Eggs. I brought a few home with me from my visits there. These eggs are wood, not the typical, fragile “real” eggs. Ukrainian Easter Eggs are amazing… detailed, intricate, artistic. I took a class on how to paint Ukrainian eggs but I never caught on to the technique. It is an art, and like all art, it usually takes much practice, and some talent.
My Carnival Glass bowl full of Ukrainian Easter Eggs.
I enjoyed watching my grandchildren having fun decorating their Easter eggs in their own creative way, and their eggs are just as special.
Last week I went to the movie theater to see the 2018 Disney release “Mary Poppins Returns”. I wanted to see it on the big screen. It was well done – it had to be, to compete with the original movie “Mary Poppins” with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. The sequel had a lot to live up to, but Emily Blunt, the actress who played Mary Poppins, did a good job, along with all the other actors and actresses. It was magical.
The first “Mary Poppins” was released in 1964. I would have turned 11 years old that year. I remember I had a birthday party and three friends went with me to see “Mary Poppins”. Of course we saw it on the big screen, at the Hollywood Theater in NE Minneapolis. All movies were on the big screen at that time. The idea of watching a movie at home was unheard of.
What I remember most about the party is a gift I received. After the movie we went back at my house to eat cake and ice cream and open presents. One of the girls gave me an umbrella – which was clever of her, and memorable for me. For Mary Poppins, her umbrella was magical…and now I had a magical umbrella too.
Interestingly, this is the only birthday party I remember having as a child.
…The children in each different place will see the baby Jesus’ face
Like theirs, but bright with heavenly grace
And filled with holy light. O lay aside each earthly thing
And with thy heart as offering, Come worship now the infant King
‘Tis love that’s born tonight….
Some Children See Him – Traditional – A. Burt, W. Hudson
This nativity set was a gift from my mother. She brought it back for me from her trip to Israel, years ago. It is made of Olive wood. The grand-kids wanted to add felt characters from a play nativity set I gave them.
Zoey, our 4-year-old granddaughter, is moving from Africa to the USA soon, with her family. Her mom says she is excited to see snow in Minnesota. Here are a few photos from our recent snowstorm…for Zoey… and Ezra, her 2 1/2-year-old brother. We cannot wait to see you!
Gary and I went outside after church and built a snowman for Zoey and Ezra. It will melt before they arrive in ten days, but hopefully we can build another snowman soon, with Zoey and Ezra.
I’m always taking pictures of the cardinals in our yard.
The red cardinal on a fresh layer of snow.
The snow covered trees in our front yard.
Snow-covered evergreen boughs out on our deck.
Grandpa’s snowplow.
Evergreen branches with white snow.
Looking out at the snow from our kitchen window, through a green-glass star.
We drove by this grove of trees.
I have a fun story about an African snowman. Our daughter-in-love is a native of Mozambique, and we knew she had never experienced snow but was curious about snow. Before we left Minnesota, on one visit to Mozambique, I dug through my Christmas boxes and found a packet of “Real Fake Snow” (when water is added to this white powder an instant reaction is a white-snow like mixture). I tucked the packet into my suitcase. One evening, after a very hot day in Mozambique, we opened the packet and mixed up the “real fake snow”. It was fun to watch a snowman being built, in Africa!
Our son looking on with joy as his wife makes her first snowman.
Two words…turtle and Lego… captured my attention last week when scanning through the newspaper. Two words for two different, but interesting, entities…together in one title. It may have caught my attention because we encountered two large turtles on Northfield’s bike trail this past summer, and because of my fondness for Legos.
The article reported of a turtle fitted for wheelchair made of Legos. Now that’s creative!
Article in newspaper that caught my attention.
The article states: “A wild turtle with a broken shell is rolling around on a wheelchair made of Legos while he’s on the mend at the Maryland Zoo.”
The eastern box turtle had fractures to the underside of his shell, and according to the article, keeping the shell bottom off the ground is important for healing after surgery. The zoo’s veterinarian asked a friend, who is a Lego enthusiast, if he would create a custom, turtle-sized, Lego wheelchair to help the turtle mend.
A photo of one Lego town (not on the bed downstairs) made by my boys. Of course I thought I had many pictures of the creations they made, but it turns out, I don’t.
My two boys played with Legos for hours when they were young…it was a favorite play time of theirs and I do believe they have good memories of building cities together, and all the vehicles and buildings that go along with that. We set a piece of plywood on top of a bed we had in our finished basement as a platform for Lego towns and Lego creations. I used to joke that at one time our Lego collection was the most valuable item in our house. We still have Legos, sorted by color, in plastic boxes, ready for the grandchildren to play with someday.
Recently we were at the Mall of America and walked past the Lego store. It’s always fun to stop and look at their displays of oversized figures and vehicles and space ships.
Huge action figure at the LEGO store in MOA.
Legos have always made me smile…to see the many different creations, and also, to remember the special memories of my two little boys playing together with their Legos.
I hope the turtle heals quickly…it has no idea of the wonders of Legos.
A friend and I went into a Christmas Store a few days ago, curious to see if they sold any fishing ornaments. She wanted one for her grandson. While looking around I saw a jet ski ornament. This friend has a cozy cabin up north, complete with two jet skis, and we vacation there together once a year. When I saw the ornament, memories of her and I on jet skis flashed through my mind…
My friend’s cozy cabin, with a beautiful porch.
The first memory is of the two of us, 60+ year old women, standing on the dock in our bathing suits and life jackets while she used her cell phone to call her son to ask a question about starting the jet skis. It was comical. We managed to get them started, back them out of the boat lift, tooled around the smaller lake before heading to a bigger lake and really taking off. We had a great time speeding across the water – up to 40 miles per hour. I always thought jet skis were loud, and they are, but now I understood their attraction.
The two jet skis in the boat lift.
My next memory was the year we were cruising around the lake and I ended up with thick weeds tangled in the motor, so my jet ski stopped in the middle of the lake. I drifted awhile until my friend noticed I was in trouble. She rode over and she decided we’d burn out the engine if we tried driving it back to the cabin, so the only alternative was for her to go get a towrope and tow me back. It took awhile but it worked. I was nervous that maybe the motor was ruined. When we got back to the dock I got into the water and pulled lots and lots of weeds from the propellers. When it was clear we started up the jet ski and it worked. I breathed a sigh of relief.
And then this year…we rode the jet skis fast then slowed into idle mode to follow the shoreline and look at cabins. We decided to go through the channel to the next lake to do the same, so we revved up and sped to Little Pine Lake. I was trailing behind when all of a sudden an alarm went off…”O no, not again”. The indicator sign was flashing “Fuel, Fuel”, the gas tank indicator went from three bars to a half bar, and the alarm kept going off. So I turned off the engine and waited once again for my friend to notice I had stopped – all the while the alarm kept sounding. She soon turned around and we decided to head back to the boat lift. We did so without incident, and with out running out of gas, but the alarm persisted until we pulled the key out. We got the skis safely tucked away and found out later the jet ski was OK, just low on fuel. I sighed another sigh of relief.
So when I saw that jet ski ornament in the Christmas store I just had to show my friend. As I picked it up it fell to the floor and broke. The store policy is if you break it you pay half price for it. So I did, and left with the broken ornament. (It was a clean break so I was able to glue it together and will add it to my Christmas ornaments.)
My new, but repaired, jet ski Christmas ornament.
On the way home from our outing I started to laugh and called my friend to tell her how fitting it was that the ornament broke… given my history with jet skis!
I’m glad she just bought a pontoon at the end of the summer.
Sunset over Daggett Lake in northern Minnesota (July 2017).
Hand-crafted broom and broom corn on my front porch.
While helping a friend clean up from the tornadoes that went through our area a few weeks ago I decided I’d like to sweep off the long driveway. Although it was cleared of trees, there was a lot of debris that made the driveway look messy and unwelcoming. I wanted the driveway to look tidy and welcoming once again (as it always had been in the past).
As I was sweeping (using broom first, then a blower) I thought back to our first trip to Africa in 2009, to visit our son who was living in a small village in northern Mozambique.
Tim met us at the airport in Malawi and we traveled a few days in that country before heading to Mozambique. We were excited to see his house, his work place and the village where he lived.
From my photo album…we drove from Malawi to Mozambique. It was a beautiful drive. We first spent a few days in Malawi, at a National Park, and at a resort along Lake Malawi.
Tim was living in a rented, small four-room house. He chose to live among the people of the village instead of at the compound that his work provided. His yard was dirt, and in his front there was a well (no running water in the house) and a banana tree.
Tim sitting in front of his house. His neighbor told us how much he and his family enjoyed having Tim as a neighbor.
Towards evening, as we approached Tim’s house, the front light was on and the yard had been swept…not raked… swept.
A young man, a native and friend of Tim’s from the village, knew the day we were arriving so he swept Tim’s yard and turned on the front light – he wanted Tim’s house to look welcoming for us. It brings tears to my eyes when I think of it (and as I write this), this small act of kindness seared in my mind. Maybe it’s a mother’s heart that makes me get emotional about that seemingly small act of kindness towards one of her children, but it is one I will not forget. It indeed made us feel welcomed.
Lucas
So as I swept my friend’s driveway maybe I was paying it forward…subconsciously I knew how it made me feel that day when Lucas made his friend’s house look welcoming for his family and I wanted to pass it on.
Obviously it’s not always sunny on the north shore. We love it when the sun shines and the sky is autumn blue and the lake shimmers, but there are cloudy days too. We enjoy all kinds of weather on the north shore. We try not to let the weather stop us from doing what we like to do.
It’s really hard to “catch” the hugeness of the waves on my iPhone.
On this particular day the skies were gray, the lake full of whitecaps, and the waves were huge. The waves were so loud as they crashed over the rocky shore right outside our cabin windows. It’s exciting to witness the rough seas of Gitchi-Gami (Ojibwe for “the big lake”).
Rough seas.
It’s fun to sit back and watch the tumultuous weather from inside the cozy, pine-sided cabin with the gas fireplace lit, looking out through large windows so close to the water’s edge, watching the drama of the waves unfold. The gulls are nowhere to be seen and the trees sway in the wind and the waves tumble to shore.
The waves look so small here…
We’ve experienced a storm on Lake Superior only a couple of times and we’re happy to see it, but we’re glad to have the safety and comforts of the cabin.
A corner of the cozy cabin.
Isaiah 25: 4 God, “You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in their distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat.”
