Memorial Day

In Flander's Field by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Arlington National Cemetery

Between my junior and senior year of high school I was selected to go to Hawkeye Girl’s State.   Several of the girls in my class were chosen to interview for the chance to attend.  We were asked that day to write a short speech to present to the American Legion committee.  Mine must have been decently put together as I got the honor.  As part of my duties I sold poppies before Memorial Day on the main street of town.  This was definitely out of my comfort zone.  There were lots of nice people who bought from me and for that I was grateful.   Since then I always buy a poppy when I see them for sale.  I attach it to my purse for a few days.  Some years I end up with several of them.

My scrap book is full of clippings of Girl's State from the Cedar Falls/Waterloo Courier.  Alas my picture never once made the paper as I was not nominated for any of the positions of high government.   I recall having a good time but I suspect I spent more time socializing than politicking.  There is a group photo of my ward.  It is interesting to see that my hair style is much the same today.   My hairdresser calls it a classic style- I call it what works

Spring means Tulips and Gardening

Summer is just around the corner.  Actually I thought it had arrived last week.  After a, mostly, very cool spring it warmed up.  So much so, that we put a few screens on some not too clean windows. In a perfect world windows would not need cleaning.  In this imperfect world I clean my windows
the least possible. I have already done the downstairs windows once this spring.  The plan is to do them again before the screens go on but after the corn comes up.  This way the dirt does not blow as much and they stay a bit cleaner.  The corn in front of our home has just popped out of the ground.  It was planted a few days later than the corn that is up behind our homestead.  This puts windowing washing a couple of weeks away. The Iowa saying that "If you do not like the weather, just wait a day and it will change" adage proved true.   By the end of the week it was cold and windy.  The last two nights I have covered plants and brought some into the garage. The frost forecast have not materialized but it was better to be safe than sorry. I planted my tomatoes and egg plants this morning.  Our garden has five variates of tomatoes.  Among the ones I am growing is a yellow tomato.  A few years ago we grew one that we found was lacking in flavor.  But since it looks to pretty mixed with the red ones I am trying a different yellow plant variety.

Tulips are such lovely sign of spring.

Easter Bonnet

Growing up I always had a new Easter hat and wore white gloves to church. 

Mom had a green satin glove box that contained her good dresss gloves and our assorted white ones too.

My hat is this picture has little flowers on the ribbon. 

The picture was taken when I was around seven years of age.

I put together this arrangement over two weeks ago for a meeting and dessert I was having here.

It has held up very well and has been well received. This week when I hosted a special pot luck meeting of my book club the flowers were still looking great.   



Hannah is 14

This morning Hannah got to pick her breakfast.  We presented her with bacon and rainbow sherbet. 

She also got another gift as her Grandpa has been joking with her that she needs spenders.   

I had a rather nice write up about this lovely young lady but by accident I deleted some files today and it is gone along with spending too much time trying to find where it went.  I think it is time to call in an expert.

Samantha turns Nine

Our Samantha has two middle names.  Her initials form the word sass.  She is seldom a sassy girl unless you want to refer to her style of dressing.  In a day when girls outgrow putting on dresses at an early age she still enjoys dressing up.  Her closet is filled with party dresses.  Kelsey and Hannah have handed down their out grown dresses.  And with two grandmothers and one great grandmother who like to buy pretty things Samantha has a closet filled with lovely frocks.  She is a gal who when issued an invitation to a restaurant will pick out a dress to wear when the rest of the family wears slacks or jeans. 

 

Before Samantha was born, while everyone was wondering what date the babe would arrive, Hannah announced that she would give up her April 18th birth date to the new born.  In exchange Hannah would just take a different date. It still makes me chuckle that she would give up the date but she did not want to share the date. This all made for perfect logic in the mind of a soon to be five year old.

Samantha’s birthday this year will be her last in the single digits.    When Stacey and Rhett announced they were going to have a baby we were happy to know that we would have another grandkid to spoil and love.  I recall making a vague promise to not do too much spoiling.  The truth be told I do not think we have done too badly………...   I confess I think that spoiling is in the job description of grand parenting.

April

Today we had an early celebration of Hannah's and my birthday.  We went out to brunch and then opened gifts. 

 I have to wait until the 11th to celebrate the real date but as next Sunday is busy we thought today would be a nice time to get together. 

First I opened my gifts.

Then Hannah got her presents.  Her 14th birthday is not until the 18th but we treated her special and she got to open her gift too.

Samantha has her birthday on the 14th.  I have our package all ready to send off on Monday to Australia.  We will have to wait until she visits to do something special together.

EAGLES

I like so many others have been watching the eagle cam of the nest in Decorah, Iowa.  Last night we saw the small hole in the egg and a bit of movement.  It was also the first time we saw both eagles.  Today I can not see a baby chick.  Is the chick not hatched?  How long with it take for the first of three chicks to emerge from its egg?? 

http://raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/index.html

Join me and right now over 13,000 others at the above site to see this interesting happening.