William and Jake and All the Others

I need to leave the house inside the hour. We're headed to Omaha for my next session of "chemo". My "real" chemo (carbo/taxel) is completed. But I'm on a clinical trial and receive an infusion via my power port of a third drug (or a placebo) every three weeks until June 2010. So we need to leave soon for the clinic.

But today is Veteran's Day. Every year I think I have a greater appreciation for our Veterans than I did the year before. Maybe it's because I'm getting older. Maybe it's because I fear the younger generation doesn't always understand or appreciate the lives (and deaths) of so many of our loved ones in WWI and WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the wars of the Middle East, and other times and other places where they were asked to go into harm's way.

I don't have time to write a long post and so I will refer you to the following.

You can read about my husband's great-uncle here. In October 1917 William Henry Kuckku left Emmett, Idaho for army camp where he spent four weeks (that's 4 WEEKS) training before being shipped overseas. He died in March 1918 in France at the Battle of Cantigny during WWI.

My Uncle Jake served in Europe during WWII. He came home after the war but was recalled into the service during the Korean War where he was wounded by a rifle bullet to the chest. You can read a tiny bit about his life here. His wound paralyzed him from the chest down and the only memories I have of him are of him in a wheelchair. He was the sweetest man, kind, gentle, laughing. A couple times he drove non-stop from California to our farm in Iowa to visit. This gave him sores on his hip bones and he spent the time flat on his back on the sofa so the skin could heal before heading back to California. Uncle Jake died young because of the complications of the paralysis.

My brother served as part of a helicopter crew aboard the USS Kearsarge during the Vietnam War, coming home after completing his 4-year enlistment. He still buddies around with his friend, Sam, a classmate who enlisted with him. The two are a couple of clowns.

Another brother spent four years in the Air Force, serving stateside. My hubby put in time in the Air Force in Korea.

Currently I have a niece (and her husband) and a nephew in the service, all having served overseas in Iraq and Korea.

This post is not witty, nor wise, nor anything of great literary value (perhaps none of my posts are any of that!). But I just wanted to recognize our servicemen today. Those who have gone before, those who did not come home, those who Did come home, those who still serve.

God bless you all. And the Moms that love you.

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Of Which We Admire Maru the Cat

I have become enamored of Maru the Cat who has his own blog here. Maru is Japanese and speaks English only haltingly. I wish he would come visit at my house.

Sunlight at the Curb

Yesterday I stood in the sunlight at the curb, saying a last few words to a friend after a pleasant hour's visit at her dining room table in the City (the nearby City). When I call her "friend", I almost feel as if I should capitalize the word. Friend. She's my Friend.

Each one of us has numerous friends around us...people whose circle of life overlaps with our own personal circle. People with whom we may work, play, volunteer, worship, or even email. People we see daily and people we have never seen (the email buddies). Some friends are "friends". Some are "Friends".

Let's go back nearly 25 years when this Friend and I went through some hard times together. She lived two houses down from me and her daughter and my daughter were two skinny little kids who spent every possible moment together, building blanket tents in the backyard, riding their bikes around town, and once, wading through floodwater downtown after an unexpected 10-inch rain. Her daughter still lives nearby. My daughter has moved on to the City, the Big City, which means a five-hour drive when she visits us or we visit her. I'm thankful it's not a ten-hour drive.

My Friend's husband was a louse. Worse than a louse. A scruvy, cruddy, rotten shell of a man who later spent some time in prison and returned, unreformed and unchanged. He's still scurvy and rotten. In my own marriage I had suddenly discovered that my then-husband was no better. Worse. Rottenly worse. He, too, should have spent time in prison. A long time in prison. He's dead now. 'Nuff said.

So my Friend and I both left, taking our respective kids, moving into new lodgings. She found a small house across town, which in our little town wasn't very far, a matter of a few blocks. My daughter and I moved into an upper floor apartment a few blocks in the other direction. Regardless of our shared lack-of-wisdom, we both loved our kids more than anything. We loved our kids. Neither one of us was very old, not as wise as we should have been, but doing the best we knew how under the circumstances.

For some time after the "Leaving", we were often together. We were both going through the same fire and we often sat at the kitchen table (hers or mine) sharing what was happening in our lives, chattering on and on. Sometimes crying. Sometimes laughing. Sometimes quiet.

Life went on. Our children grew up. I retired. She moved to the City and continues to work. We seldom see each other anymore.

But yesterday, while in the City on another errand, I called my Friend and asked if she had any coffee. She responded with, "I'll make a fresh pot." It doesn't make any difference if I haven't seen my Friend for years ...we start up our conversation as easily as if we saw each other only yesterday. We talk about our lives, past and present, and we laugh. We laugh a lot. And we are grateful that we are where we are today, and not where we were way back then. We still love our kids and we talk about them.

Not many people know my Friend as well as I do. She is awkward in her speech and mannerisms. While she is good at her job, working in a large office, her relational skills are somewhat stilted. I know her co-workers do not see the Friend that I see. I know that they think she is "different". And they don't appreciate her good qualities. They see only her deficiencies and lacks. They don't see "Friend".

My Friend believes in God. She understands the Gospel. But she doesn't go to church. She's afraid to go to church. When she left her scurvy, cruddy, rotten husband the "church" counseled her to reconcile with him. She couldn't see how they could do that, to require her to stay with this man who destroyed everything he touched. But we talked about that. And I mentioned a local church that I feel is doctrinally sound, telling her that if she ever decides to go, to call me. And I'll walk in with her. My Friend needs people who will love her.

Before I get up to leave, she showed me around her little house in the City where she lives by herself. It's a nice little house with a nice little backyard. Room enough for her, two dogs, and a cat. An open attic where her youngest son stayed before he was arrested for drugs and went to prison. (My friend's life has lots of sad stories.) A small basement. Plenty of room. Then she walked me to the curb where my car was parked and we stood in the autumn sunshine filtering through the leaves of the tree across the street. We stood there and talked some more. It was a good moment.

My Friend is a good friend. She likes me no matter what. In spite of my flaws and sins and stupidity at times. And I like her, in spite of the same.

Proverbs 18:24 A man of too many friends comes to ruin, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
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FACES AS THEY WILL APPEAR

A Musing from an old Journal entry:

Sometimes our eyes are focused too close to the "here and now". We forget about the "will be".

God sees us as we will be. In other words, He sees us as already having attained that which we will attain when we leave this earth. Be patient with me as I ramble on.

There are always people that rub us the wrong way. We struggle constantly in our dealings with other people...imperfect people (as are we). Our own personality flaws cause us to dislike (or at least feel uncomfortable with) certain people. They're imperfect. We're imperfect. It's natural that we occasionally clash. Sometimes we simply have a difficult time understanding others who are in the midst of dealing with the pains that life has dealt them. I don't think I'm unique in relational difficulties. I think we all experience this. Daily.

Several years ago I was sitting in church. I looked around at the faces of those who had come to church that morning. I realized that their faces were etched with the experience of their years, all those losses, all those struggles, all those times when life's promises fell short.

None of us gets through life without being buffeted, punched, brought low by illness or death of a loved one, by some tragic circumstance, or even by the steady grind of daily life. It is our human lot. And that morning, as I looked around, the faces of my friends reflected the blows that life had dealt them. Their faces had become what they had experienced.

And then the Lord showed me their faces as they will appear in heaven, faces that will be clear and clean. Clear of anger, sorrow, frustration, loss. Clear of tears and disease and abuse. Clean faces. Full of joy. In my mind's eye they looked so beautiful!

I realized that's how God sees us and that's how we will be.

So that brings me to today's Scripture:
Revelation 21:4 "...and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away."

It's About Time! or Thankfully, It's Finally Done!

It took me two years to make this quilt...not that I worked on it full-time. Quilting has evolved from a "passion" with me to "handwork to pick up now and then".

I pieced this quilt on my trusty Singer 403, circa 1960, about a year and a half ago. In the closet, high on a shelf, sat several batts. One of those was a Hobbs wool batt that I had been yearning for years to try. I'd heard so many comments that for hand quilting it "quilts like butter". I'd previously used Hobb's Heirloom 80/20 as well as Dream Cotton's "Request", both of which hand quilt very nicely. But I had a yen to try the wool. So I purchased the wool batt...about ten years ago and there it sat. On the shelf. Unused for ten years. (call me a procrastinator)

Well! Over a year ago I layered my latest shirt quilt using the wool batt. For a backing I used a name brand cotton sheet that I found at Younkers for 75 percent off. Ralph Lauren brand??? Can't remember. But it was 100 percent cotton (which I desired) and it was large enough that I would not have to stitch together smaller fabrics to make a piece large enough for a backing. And I began hand quilting using a saucer, a cereal bowl and a cup from my dinnerware for the "templates".

This poor quilt has had numerous hiccups along the way. Last January I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Talk about a roller coast of an adventure...not as exciting, of course, but certainly a lot of ups and downs. Needless to say, I had no motivation to quilt. Hah! My preferred activity was lying on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, thinking I really should get up and do SomeThing! Then rolling over to the other end of the sofa, and staring some more. It's easy to look back on it now and think, "It wasn't so bad!" But it was. Not as bad as some have it, but bad. And before I (and you) get maudlin, I want to add that all went well, I finished chemo in July, and I feel better now than I did a year ago before my diagnosis. God grant me that this continues.

Another hiccup was that, forgetting that my dishes were my templates, I gave away that particular set of dishes and put my old set back in the cupboard. The next day I went to trace the quilting design on another area of the quilt and remembered that my templates now resided next door! Probably on Joyce's breakfast table. Do you think I went next door and asked for a plate, a soup bowl and a cup? No, I couldn't bear to confess and instead dug around in the cupboard until I found dishes that were "close" in size. Betcha can't tell by looking at the quilt. (big smile)

Aw, got to wandering there. I started to say that during those months of chemo I picked up this quilt a couple times and forced myself to quilt a block or two. But progress was slow. Then in August, after treatment was done, I began quilting in earnest again and I finished the binding just yesterday! It's a largish sofa size nap quilt.

I told a friend yesterday I have no inclination to make another quilt. Instead of quilt pox I now have quilt lethargy (even though I myself am not lethargic). But that's not quite true. I'd love to recreate my Y2K quilt in smaller form. (You can see my Y2K quilt here.) My DD loves that quilt and would like to hang it in her home. But the thing is huge! About 86x96 inches! And she doesn't have a wall large enough for an appropriate display! (Well, she Does have a wall large enough but we haven't figured out how to climb high enough to hang the thing!) So I'd like to recreate it using 2-inch squares instead of 2.5 inch pieces. I have a rubbermaid box full of 2.5 inch fabs, cut from my stash long ago. I'd have to trim them down and I'd like to sew them on my treadle which was fondly named Elizabeth Redeye by its previous owner.

I've had my coffee this morning, but not yet my oatmeal. Coffee makes me jabber. Whether in your ear or on this blog. The oatmeal is in the microwave...time to eat. And if you want to check out my WhiteStone blog (separate from the WWQP-BB, click here. Love to see you there.

P.S. Yes, the wool batt was a pleasure to handquilt. Even though the shirt fabrics have a very high thread count in comparison to shop fabrics, I was still able to needle fairly easily. With Q shop fabric, I know it would have stitched smoother still. Now I need to make a label with care instructions.

To Be Curly or Not To Be Curly, That Is The Question

Dear blog friends: Yiddle's comment to this post is so funny that I have to post them here for ease of read. With answers like hers, I'm thinking I should be asking her a lot more questions!!

Things I've wondered this week.

1. Why is that little yellow butterfly still hanging around my front yard on the 1st of November? Shouldn't this critter be on its way to someplace warm? He missed the senior bus tour to Orlando.

2.If Halloween candy is on sale at Wallymart, does that mean it is half-calorie as well? Only if you share half with me.

3. Is it true, as my granddaughter says, that candy eaten on Fridays has NO calories? Only if you give it ALL to me.

4. Why has my hair suddenly gone curly (after my bout with chemo), and will it eventually straighten out again? family curse, and only if you don't want it to.

5. Can I safely wash a jacket that is 100 percent polyester if its label says "dry clean only"? Depends upon how much the jacket means to you. Also see #6.

6. What kind of crafty project can I make with a piece of lime-green suede leather? gnome shoes. if you leave them out with a nice note the gnome will take care of #5 for you.

7. Did I tell Roger the Handyman to make the cupboard doors on our new bathroom vanity flat? Or did I request a framed surface? the gnome was probably eavesdropping on your conversation. if you leave out some half price halloween candy and a chalkboard he may answer that question too.


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Before Things Got Dangerous

In the early 1950s things weren't exactly hopping in our part of western Iowa in regards to prosperity. But things were getting better. We had just moved from one farm to another. The house was larger and this time we had electricity. We'd been living with kerosene lamps for lighting, but now we had real light bulbs in the ceilings. And electrical outlets (at least one per room). A year or so later, we got indoor plumbing, a real bathtub, toilet and sink. And a double-wide kitchen sink in a metal cabinet. Things were looking up but money was scarce as hens' teeth. We had the essentials but we didn't have a lot of extras.

Soda pop and candy were luxuries. So we were quite interested when the "town kids" at our new school explained to us "Trick or Treating". People just gave you candy! All you had to do was dress up in a costume and knock on doors, yelling quite loudly "Trick or Treat". Candy! Lots of Candy! And so we joined the hordes.

Our costumes were pretty simple. One year my mother purchased a pattern and made a nifty clown costume for me. My brothers mostly dressed up as either a ghost or a hobo. The "ghost" wore a pillowcase or part of an old sheet with holes cut for eyes. The hobos sewed a couple of red patches onto their jeans and slung a stick and hobo bag over the shoulder. What appeared to be a scraggly gray beard on my young brothers' hobo faces was actually burnt cork rubbed into the skin. A corn cob dragging from the corner of the mouth served as a 'seegar'. We were an admirable bunch on Halloween!

You need to know that we lived in a time when the Mars candy company had just introduced a large 3-Musketeers Candy Bar. And sold it for a nickel. Five cents! The novelty of this most recent version of the 3-Musketeers bar was that it had two indentations in the chocolate-covered nougat which allowed the buyer to divide the candy bar into THREE pieces - one for self, and one for each of two friends. Imagine that! Three kids sharing one candy bar and calling it fun!

So costumes aside, the REAL purpose of Trick-or-Treating was CANDY. We didn't get a lot of candy. So on Halloween our real INTENT was to bring home CANDY. And Lots Of It!

Rain, sleet, or snow, darkness of night - nothing stopped us. My oldest brother, barely a teenager, thought he was "too old" to be knocking on doors so he stood down the sidewalk, behind a tree, out of the street light, out of sight. In his hands he carried a large grocery sack. We, on the other hand, carried small "lunch-bag" size paper bags which we held out to each resident, yelling "Trick or Treat!". When our small bags looked too full to induce sympathy on the part of the adult at the door, we ran to Brother and dumped them in his larger sack. Once again we were pitiless kids bearing empty bags begging for a healthy dose of sugar.

We made certain to visit the home of every doctor in town...they gave out Real Candy Bars. No single sticks of gum from them! No, sirree, they were generous to beggars on Halloween.

The street lights barely lit up the streets. Any leaves remaining on the trees rustled in the wind, blocking the light, and adding to the dusky darkness. It was difficult to see anyone more than a house away but we knew there were kids everywhere. We could hear their voices, their footsteps, their laughter. There were no parents tagging along. No adults carrying babies in costume. No cars pulling up to first one house, then another, watching their kids carefully for fear they might come to harm. No, it was just kids, and the town was overrun with little heathens, running door to door, begging for sugar. They were running fast for the evening ended all too soon. You got what you got while you could get it and then headed home to check the loot.

When we returned home the candy was dumped out on the dining table and equally divided. The coveted items were the candy bars. Then smaller pieces of wrapped candy. Sticks of gum (seldom a full package) were okay and acceptable. Popcorn balls were yummy...if the little housewife had used enough sugar. Apples? Eeeah! We each had one drawer in a dresser as our own (imagine that...one drawer!) and it was there that we stashed our own horde (right alongside our piggy bank) that would last us for weeks.

I bet you think I'm older than dirt.

Not yet. Maybe next year.


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