Some things that make me happy

Some things I love - in no particular order.

The guy I married; a garden in bloom; stars; a lazy afternoon spent in my hammock; reading a great book; Chocolate; a baby’s soft head and skin; holding a little one in my arms; pictures of family; travel, especially England; going for walks; Mom’s pies; spending time with our children, their spouses and grand children; buying plants; riding my bike where it is not too hilly; the smell of saw dust makes me happy my Dad built our home when I was a young girl; Genealogy ; our home; home magazines; Friends; a clean house; Saturday at the book store; making things with the grand kids; learning something new; gardening; puzzles and games; shells; sayings; blue and more.

I found a picture of our kids and their kids but it is small in size.

More Books

Meg Ryan has a line in “You’ve Got Mail” when she’s talking to Joe Fox before she realizes he’s JOE FOX of the BIG BAD FOX BOOKS: “Because when you read a book as a child, it becomes part of your identity like nothing else does…”

Gosh, can I identify with that line. My collection of children’s books is always expanding. When I pursue the Newberry and Caldecott award books at the local book store I want one of each. This is definitely one of my down falls. It is great the most books written for kids are small in size. I think my two favorite ones are Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey and Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag. I am almost certain that my kindergarten teacher, Miss Emmons, introduced me to both. The top three would include The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by DuBose Heyward. When I came across that book a few years ago I immediately bought it to share with the two oldest granddaughters. It was a surprise to see it contained class and female issues. Not only is the bunny hero a female with children but she is an ordinary country bunny, not a fancy city rabbit. My young ears may not have picked up on all the lessons but my adult ones certainly did. I was all the more amazed when I realized that this book was written in 1939. At the time I was introduced to it in the mid 50’s it had already been around for a while.

While at the book store Saturday afternoon I picked up the book Sarah’s Key, found a big overstuffed chair and began to read. By the time we were ready to leave I was into the book. No choice but to purchased it and continued reading on the way home. I finished reading the novel about six thirty. Mr. Husband then said to me we should have bought me another drink and stayed until I finished the book as it would have cost us less. Yea, but now I can share the story. It is a novel about a historical event in WWII.

Genealogy Cleaning

A post card from Grandma Lucy's post card album. They cost a penny to send.

This one may have been put in an envelope as it is

written on the back but it seem to have never been stamped.

The Lucy is in glitter.

On Sunday I spent some time working on cleaning up some genealogy files. I did some little things to some older entries in the computer program I use. When I began my files I did not put in any sources. After a bit I put in sources, made notes about census records and began record keeping. Over time I have developed my preferred way of doing this task. Many names are misspelled or misinterpreted in the census records and transcription. I now put in the information obtained then add the way a name is spelled in the record. My maiden name is sometimes found correctly spelled as Hultman. I have also located records where it is spelled Haltman, Holtman and Huttman.

I have always been a bit intrigued by genealogy but it was not until my Aunt Betty wanted some help figuring out a computer genealogy program that I started doing my own work. She has now lost interest in doing more work as Betty is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s. Much of her work was done in the eight years they lived in Washington DC. She did all her work unaided by the explosion of Internet information. I enjoy doing courthouse work, visiting cemeteries, historical libraries, and historical societies but the Internet adds a dimension of research that was unavailable in the pass.

Growing up I recall my family talking about trying to find my great grandfather’s sister. If it had not been for some obscure birth information I would never have located records on her. The Internet community of persons working on genealogy is often friendly and helpful. One gentleman found this sister’s adoption record and without that information I would never have known who adopted her. It is only with this information that I was fairly certain I had found the right person when I located her in the state of Washington. She had not moved out east as our family stories had indicated. My best guess is that the state of Washington and Washington DC were confused by someone, and the Washington DC became the east. Finding this person and her family members has been my big “brick wall came tumbling down” experience. It was such an exciting happening. It took at least five years of on and off looking. As more sites and more information are available over the Internet the odds of this happening increase.

As I have told others what I would really like to know is what their lives were like, what kind of a person they were and what they believed. I am certain I would not have liked many of them. My guess is that some I would have found fun to be with, I suspect I would find some of their lives depressing and others awful individuals..... It is certainly a movie worth renting.

Books - Week Three

Often we give a book for a baby gift. Sometimes a copy ends up in my library shelf. I have a small collection of children's books. Some are ones I recall from my youth. I love to read them to our grandchildren. The great books of my youth are still great.

When Sam and Sage come we pick out one or more to read each night. I have such a fun time sharing the books I love with them. With the older grand girls we had our favorites that we would read over and over. Lars is a polar bear with adventures that we all enjoyed. Hannah would most often pick The Great Pig Escape because she found it so very funny. Kelsey would set on my lap and let me read to her a stack of books she had chosen. Most of the time before we were done she would have me read every book I had bought for her two year old mind.





Our daughter-in-law keeps a book list. Actually she has two; one is a list of the books she has read and the other of books she wants to read. Well if it is never too late, my list is now a work in progress. There is no way to ever recall all the books I have read but I can start a list. So just for fun and for my own enjoyment I have begun to make my lists. The books I want to read my never get any farther than random slips of paper but the list of books I have read is becoming a computer reality. I just do not know what to do with the half read books lying around the house. I can count at least half a dozen books that either may or may not ever get finished. These are not books that I have no interest in finishing. They are left incompletely read for a variety of reason but I have hopes of finishing them sometime.
Yesterday while doing one of our favorite things to do on a Saturday afternoon, also known as spending time at the local Barns and Nobel Bookstore, I wondered the store with a paper in hand writing down some book titles and authors of books that go on my list of book read. I get my books from three main sources. Our local library, book stores, and my sister Cindi are the three ways I come by the majority of books. Running behind my top three sources is my daughter-in-law. She almost always gives me a book for Christmas. As she is an avid reader of books, a college journalism major and former editor she has her senses in tuned to looking for good literature.
I do admit to being a wee bit taken back by her gift book this Christmas. It was the title that hit me a bit by surprise. Not everyone can give their mother-in-law a book with the title The Household Guide to Dying. The book is by an Australian writer Debra Adelaide. This book is a definite good read and I hope it jumps the pond. Debra writes well, has a good tale to tell, made me think about life and death, and I enjoyed catching some of the little things that make Australian life a bit different from our American ways.

I bought The Hundred Dresses last week. Last night I read it and now need to find more Eleanor Estes books. I think I read The Moffats.

One of my favorite college classes was a Children's Literature class. Our instructor read out load most class periods. She introduced me to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Sometimes we would beg her to read another chapter.

Week Two

So you think you want to garden. You have looked at other yards and you like the beauty of what you see. Or this year you want to try your hand at growing your own tomatoes or green beans or whatever it is that you like to eat fresh. Farmer's Markets are great. Yet nothing beats going out in your own yard and picking something fresh. Now what? Where should one begin?

Back in 1979 I had my first real garden. With my husband in the tractor with the plow hooked behind it we started our first garden. Under my direction my he plowed up a spot in our side yard. Later I found out, years before the spot had been the farm dumping ground. That first year the vegetable part of the garden turned out surprisingly well. The spot I planted to wild flowers became an unrecognizable tangle of weeds and perhaps a wild flower or two. By midsummer I found myself crying over the mess I had created. I had followed the package direction of sowing the seeds randomly over the ground. Now maybe that method works for some but for this new comer to the world of gardening it was an unqualified failure. The next year I had success in starting a wild flower bed by planting the seeds in rows. With rows clearly defined, I was able to pull the weeds even if I could not differentiate between weeds and flower plants. That first year the garden was a bit structured. By the next year it was the wild flower bed I pictured in my mind. Three years to lovely.

I wrote this yesterday - I took me a whole day to get brave.

Nothing much exciting ever happens in our lives. Yea, there are little things like riding the Bart with several of the key actors and actresses from The Jersey Boys, or having my purse stolen from a locked car in Adelaide, Australia. But in reality we live pretty unexciting lives and as neither of us are good story tellers, what does happen to us that would make a good story is told in a straight forward sort of way. I know the story telling gene is recessive in my case because I grew up listing to my Great Grandma Cox and her daughter, my Grandma Hultman telling splendid stories to me. How I wish I had just one on tape.

I would spend Sunday afternoons listing to my Great Grandma regale me with tales of her life. She rode in a covered wagon, when first cooking used salt instead of sugar in a cake and someone she knew looked just like Festus in the TV show Gun Smoke. Or was it Doc? Now this all sounds rather ordinary but to my young ears her stories were like reading a good book.

There is nothing out of the ordinary when the most exciting thing in your day is, perhaps, the lack of underwear in the underwear drawer. To be honest that is not exactly the truth. There will be just nothing that one wants to wear in the drawer. All the favorites are either in the wash or on the dryer waiting to be folded. That makes for the decision either to wear the items that are kept for an emergency or to wander downstairs to fetch a favorite.

So it is with a bit of trepidation that I have made a resolution to journal at least once a month, with the goal being to do a bit of writing once a week. My anxiety of writing and sharing is real and long lived. To open one’s self to others, in my case, is a leap of faith. The faith part is my concern that I will not be understood, that I will be liked less and that I will not be the least bit interesting. So it is with misgivings, apprehension and unease that I write.

Today will be a bit easier because I want to share a quote from Abraham Lincoln. It is Presidents Day and George Washington’s Birthday observed. Perhaps next year on Lincoln’s birthday or on Washington’s real birthday I will use a quote from him but for today I will use one from Lincoln. That man said some profound things.

Here goes Lincoln:

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong." - -- A. Lincoln

To be able to put words together like that man would be a wonderful talent. With this the 200th anniversary of his birth we will be reading a lot about him.

I was the first of my Grandparent Hultman’s thirteen grand kids. I got to go camping with them by myself on a couple of trips before the rest of the gang would go along. The group trips to camp at an Iowa camp ground are stories for another day. What I remember about the trips the three of us took, is doing a Lincoln trip. We went to his cabin in Salem, Illinois and his home in Springfield. One time we also took in Mark Twain’s Hannibal boyhood home. As I said my story telling gene is recessive. So is my recall gene. I just do not recall all the detail.

I do however remember on one of our trips my Grandmother telling me, while sitting on an outdoor privy, that one should never touch a toilet set with one’s bottom, as there are diseases that one can get that way. She taught me the art of hovering while using the bathroom. What those diseases were or why my Mother had not informed me, where questions I thought but was too timid to ask. I was told that bad girls sometimes had these mysterious diseases. Fifty years later when using a public bathroom I am still left with the question “Do I hover or sit?”

Valentine iPods

This idea was fun and easy.

For Kelsey and Hannah I got creative with an idea taken from another blog. The hard part was finding wrapping paper. Hannah has a shuffle that is green so when I spied the green paper I knew we had a winner. The blog even included a template for the iPod features. Warren helped by eating the left over candy from the sack we had to buy for the ear plugs.

Sorry girls they do not work!