Kim Wolterman

So, where did you go to school?

2012-02-18T15:02:00.000-06:00

While on Facebook a couple of weeks ago I came across a posting by a college professor who is conducting a study on the impact of the high school question on non-St. Louisans. She is looking for St. Louis residents who were not born and raised here to answer some questions. I immediately posted a response on her Facebook status as I have many things I would love to tell her about my experiences. When we moved to St. Louis Jim and I were starting a whole new life - newly married, new jobs, new home, new city...all the major stress points in life except a death in the family. At a party we were asked where we went to school, and we replied, "Iowa State". After getting a blank stare, the guy said, "No, where did you go to high school?" When I answered, "Hoover High", the guy literally turned around and walked away. That was just our first experience with the St. Louis obsession about where you went to high school. Unfortunately it was not our last.

A few days after I posted I received a phone call from a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter, wanting to know if I would talk to her about my experiences. We had quite a chat, and I was candid about how it made us feel being new professionals to the St. Louis area. I never really thought that we would stay here more than a few years. But here we are 33 years later. The article by the reporter made the front page of the Post-Dispatch on February 7th. I made the first line of the article. It was a pretty interesting piece, and it has generated a LOT of conversation both on the stltoday.com website and on Facebook. People have very strong feelings about the question, both positive and negative. As I said, I don't object to anyone asking me the question - I object to the way I am treated after I answer it. If you decide after talking to me for a bit that I am not interesting and not worth your time, fine. But to dismiss me simply because I did not graduate from high school here? To me that is pretty shallow and narrow-minded. But perhaps that tells me that I don't want to waste my time getting to know you either. At any rate, the study should be interesting. I have already answered the first set of questions and have volunteered to be interviewed further. If you live here but are not from here and want to participate, let me know. I'll forward the survey to you.

I'll leave my best quotable quote with you - the one that did not end up in the newspaper. When the reporter asked me when things changed for my husband and me here, I told her after we started our family. Then people were more interested in where my kids were going to preschool than where I went to high school.

Heart Day

2012-02-14T21:20:00.000-06:00

Jim and I usually do not do anything special for Valentine's Day, but I decided I was going to make the triple chocolate cupcakes that my cousin brought to the family reunion in Cincinnati this summer. She recently sent me the recipe, and it seemed fitting to make them today. You can never have too much chocolate in my opinion. The recipe was easy to follow, and I topped the cupcakes with the buttercream frosting recipe that she included. Oh my! The cupcakes are pretty amazing! I didn't even think about the fact that I would have 24 cupcakes - well, 22 now. I think I will send some of them to the office with Jim tomorrow. It probably would be nice to take a few to my hair stylist as well since he doesn't have a woman to bake for him. I want to save one for Katie, but I am not sure how good it will be by Saturday when she gets home from LA.

On another note, we just learned that the party hearty neighbors now have the idea to put a driveway in front of their house. Since our group of 9 houses is on a private alley, most of us do not have driveways. The garages are in the back, and that is part of the charm of the area. Consequently the front yards are very pretty with no concrete or asphalt blemishing the landscape. Apparently he intends to add two bays to his garage in the back, and then put on a new front porch with rooms above it. I guess the drive would come up to the new porch. It sounds like he is planning on putting it on the south side of their yard, which is good for us since we are to the north of him. He told the neighbor on the other side that city hall has already given him approval for the drive. I find this very hard to believe. First of all, we are in a national historic district, so pretty much anything you want to do has to go before a public hearing. Since a sign goes in your front yard announcing said hearing, I know we didn't miss it. Second, our city is very reluctant to give out new curb cuts, which he would need since there is no existing driveway. What is really sad is that one specimen tree (at least) would have to come down for him to do the driveway. Since Webster Groves is a designated Tree City USA, it is hard to get permission to remove living trees. So I am trying not to get too worked up about any of this yet. Things usually don't move too quickly at city hall. I just wish these people who want to live in houses that look like Chesterfield would just move to Chesterfield. Quit trying to make Webster Groves into something it is not - and doesn't wish to become.

The Diamond Anniversary

2012-02-12T20:36:00.000-06:00

This weekend we celebrated my mother and father-in-law's 60th wedding anniversary up in Charles City, Iowa. The actual anniversary is the 18th of this month, but there were conflicts next weekend. We attended 4:30 Mass at their church, and their priest was to offer a special blessing for them. This was the weekend that the Catholic Church celebrated all marriages, so that was a happy coincidence. As it turned out, their priest had a pacemaker put in so he was unable to officiate. A visiting priest stepped in to cover Mass. Before the service began, he approached a couple in the front pew and asked if they were the Woltermans. He must have wondered how they had lasted 60 years because there was a four foot space in between the two of them! We motioned to Father that the couple he was looking for was in the third pew. He explained that he would offer a blessing after communion.

It was really great when all the parishioners broke into applause as he asked them to step forward. What an accomplishment! After we finished with Mass we went to a restaurant in New Hampton for supper. Unfortunately they were understaffed both in number of employees as well as employee capabilities. The service was slow, only two meals came out and the rest followed probably 15 minutes later. My father-in-law didn't get what he ordered and several side dishes were incorrect. On top of that the food was only so-so. Very disappointing for such a special occasion. But it was nice to have all of us together for the weekend, even though our children were not able to attend. It takes a lot of living and loving to get to 60 years.

Cookie Redeux

2012-02-08T14:56:00.000-06:00

As you can see, my experiment is not going very well. And this isn't even the worst example. I ate that one! The individual tube of gel frosting that I had purchased and used on the first cookie left me with a big blob of green icing in the center of the cookie. Digging through my cabinets I came up with a four pack of gel tubes. On this cookie I tried using the green out of this package. Even when pressing hard onto the cookie I was not getting the full logo design. I read some more on the Internet about this process, and subsequently learned that you should not use rubber stamps on food products. Apparently something leaches out of the rubber. Great!

For my last shot at this endeavor I mixed the gel with regular food coloring to thin it down a bit. Then I took a cue tip and spread the icing on the stamp. You can see that I got a little better results with this method. Jim said that people would get the general idea. Well, the general idea is not good enough. Why bother if you can't get a nice, clean image?

This is the back of the stamp, showing what the design should look like. Hey, maybe I should turn it over and use this side instead! Nah - I think my stamp is destined to be used on stationery in the future.

Designer Cookies

2012-02-06T16:49:00.000-06:00

In December I went to a cookie decorating demonstration at Puddn'head Books. As you might guess, the author was on a tour promoting her new cookie decorating book. It was fun to watch her make such fabulously decorated cookies, but as I looked at all the supplies she had I had a flash back to my scrap-booking days. Having attended several scrap-booking parties, I came home with all kinds of tools, papers, stamps - you name it. I did make some really great scrapbooks with the materials, but when I discovered shutterfly.com and realized I could have beautiful photo books in a fraction of the time and expense, I put my scrap-booking items away in a drawer. Somehow I could see cookie decorating going the same route.

But one idea did intrigue me. She took a sugar cookie that she had pre-frosted with royal icing and stamped it using a rubber stamp. You purchase a non-inked stamp pad and ink it up with gel icing. Then you dip in your stamp and you have a cute design on the cookie. You can then proceed to add decorations to the cookie if you want. For example, she had a little ice skater stamp and she just added a colored ball to the stocking cap and put a simple border around the perimeter of the cookie. Anyway, it got me thinking about how fun it would be to make cookies like that for SWT Design. So I sent off their logo to a rubber stamp making company, and I got it last month. I also picked up a non-inked stamp pad.

Today I decided to give this a whirl. At this point I am not concerned about the taste of the cookie or the look of the royal icing on the top of the cookie. I am more worried about how the logo is going to turn out because it has a lot of detail on it. So I just used a boxed cookie mix for my first go at this, and I prepared a small amount of royal icing. The icing was really no problem to make, surprisingly. It is recommended that you outline the cookie with a line of thicker royal icing to prevent the thinner version from running off the side of the cookie. But as I said, I am not concerned about that just yet. So my cookies are baked and I have put on the royal icing. The icing should ideally sit overnight to enable it to get hard. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see how the stamping goes.

Another Death in the Family

2012-02-05T15:14:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday my mother-in-law's sister died up in Minnesota. This was her last living sibling, and I can't begin to imagine how it would feel to be the only person left in your family. The private family wake was on Friday and the public wake and funeral were on Saturday. Jim was asked to be a pallbearer, and he was honored to take part. I did not travel with him for two reasons. First, the lady who stays with our dog has broken her foot and can't take care of any pets right now, and second we are traveling up to Iowa next weekend for my in-law's 60th wedding anniversary. I just couldn't see making two trips in a row, especially since I had to go to Cincinnati recently for my uncle's funeral.

This trip was a brutal one. Thursday he drove to Iowa, then Friday they drove to Minnesota, Saturday back to Iowa and today back to St. Louis. We did that same trip a couple summers ago for a family reunion and it was not pretty. I feel somewhat guilty that I didn't make the trip, but my body thanks me.

So that is two deaths quite close together. They say death comes in threes. Hopefully that does not end up to be the case.

Taking My Boobs Out to be Pressed

2012-02-01T22:29:00.000-06:00

Today was that time of year again - time for the annual mammogram. For the past 10 years or so I have gone to Missouri Baptist for my fun and excitement. At that time I had found a lump in one of my breasts, and my friend's husband is a radiologist there. Fortunately it ended up that I just had cysts, but I feel better knowing that two radiologists read every single film there. (Guess it is probably not even called film anymore since the screening goes directly to a computer.) They used to give every woman a rose on her way out the door, and then it became a carnation. Today I got nothing. I guess the budget cut the flowers. Har, har.

My appointment was for 9:40 but I arrived at 9:20 since I never can be sure what the traffic will be doing. I had barely sat down from updating my paperwork when they called me to the back to change into a pink gown. After I changed clothes I was just tweeting that I was at Mo Bap for a mammogram and "I'm too sexy for my shirt..." and they called my name again. The boob bashing was done in record time, and I was back at my car by 9:43. Unbelievable!

Walking in the Past

2012-01-31T20:50:00.000-06:00

Saturday my friend Linda and I drove down to Ste. Genevieve to see some artwork that was on special display, and to look at the old buildings. While it was a little cool and windy, at least the sun was out to make the day more inviting. We decided to go on a tour of three of the buildings in addition to going through the museum where the art was displayed. Our tour guide could have been better (she admitted that it had been a long time since she had conducted a tour), but seeing the old buildings on the inside made up for it.

We had lunch at the Cafe Genevieve. It is located in an old hotel, and while the decor was cool the food and service were just so-so. Following lunch we headed off to the Catholic Church, which was amazing! The outside of the church is not all that remarkable, so when you walk inside you are not expecting to be blown away. I'd love to attend mass there some Sunday.

Our last stop was the cemetery in town, which is proclaimed to be the oldest cemetery in Missouri. I guess since St. Genevieve is the oldest town in Missouri, that makes sense. I was disappointed that I did not see any headstones older than 1812. Since the town was founded in 1735, I expected to see some older stones. Perhaps the early settlers were buried elsewhere? The town relocated in the late 1700s due to flooding. All in all, it was a fun day and great to be with someone who likes to take as many pictures as I do.

College Tuition? Check!

2012-01-25T20:08:00.000-06:00

I wrote the final tuition check for Katie last week. Well, if I am being totally accurate, I authorized our MOST 529 plan to write a check to the college for her last semester tuition. It is another one of those parent moments that marks the passage of time and transitions in our children's lives. In some ways it seems like only last year that we wrote our first check to Columbia College, then packed up all her stuff and delivered her to the dorm in Chicago. Since that time she spent nine months in a wonderful condo-like apartment in the city, five weeks in Prague, two weeks in Seoul and nearly four months in Shanghai. She wraps up her final semester in Los Angeles, with semester being defined as a five week time period of attending classes all day, five days a week. (The school knows that no college student - or their parents - could afford to live in LA for more than five weeks.) When she returns the latter part of February it will be time for her to begin the job hunt. She seems to feel that she will not have any problem getting a job. I admire her confidence and pray that she is right. It is still such a tough market out there right now.

Due to the fact that Katie is graduating in less than three years, we have money left over in the 529 plan. That is a great position to be in, but we don't want to withdraw the money and be penalized. So, what to do with it? Do I hear a PhD calling my name?

The Ice Man Cometh

2012-01-22T19:32:00.000-06:00

Friday morning we packed up the car and Kathy and I drove to Cincinnati for Uncle Mick's funeral. Kathy did well on the drive despite her aching broken shoulder. We arrived at our hotel by 3:30 and unloaded the suitcases in our room. Quite a few people were at the funeral home by the time we arrived. I spoke to many cousins I knew (and several I don't know), and enjoyed looking at the slide show and photo boards Mick's kids had put together. His casket was closed because he hit his face when he fell. I was surprised that the funeral home wasn't able to work around that by putting the injured side away from the opening of the casket, and working their make-up magic. I found it really hard to say good-bye when I couldn't see his sweet face.

There was no autopsy done, which also surprised me. I thought that they always did one when the cause of death was unknown. Did he simply fall and hit his head just so on the window sill? Did he have a heart attack, which caused the fall? Did he have a stroke first? I would want to know. What they do know is that he was out on his screened in porch in his winter coat (it was cold last Saturday night) listening to an Italian opera and smoking a cigar. His son and daughter-in-law found him at 3:00 Sunday afternoon. They could hear the opera playing as they walked down the hall of the condominium complex. I'm surprised no neighbors complained if the music played all night.

We stayed at the wake until the funeral home kicked us out around 6:15. Ten of us then went to the Price Hill Chili Parlor for supper. I spied chocolate covered baklava on the menu, so I had a bowl of soup so I could indulge in dessert. Awesome! Kathy and I got back to our hotel room around 9:15. It was beginning to mist as we drove back to the hotel, and that was just the beginning. The forecast was for an inch of ice to develop. Great...It brought back really bad memories of my dad's funeral in Cincinnati in 2004. We had rain, ice, sleet and inches of snow all within a 24 hour period. Hardly anyone could get to the funeral, and fewer still headed to the cemetery for the military burial service.

The funeral director had advised that we arrive early Saturday morning for the funeral because a) the church is in a really bad neighborhood and b) parking is a problem. Kathy and I took him at his word. I went out to scrape the ice off my car at 8:10. Twenty minutes later I was finally able to see out of the windows. I picked Kathy up under the overhang of the hotel and we crept across one of the bridges over the Ohio River to downtown Cincinnati. We arrived at the church at 9:00. The funeral was to begin at 10:00. We were the first ones there. We even beat the immediate family. This is why we were so close to the beginning of the funeral procession, which becomes important later in the story.

The Old St. Mary's Church is absolutely amazing inside. It was built in 1841 and is reminiscent of the churches in Europe. Apparently Uncle Mick had done some of the painting on the ceiling (just like Michelangelo, he would joke) during the restoration of the church, as well as behind the altar. He also helped author a book on the history of the church. (You can begin to see why he and I had so much in common.)

The priest who conducted the funeral was of Spanish descent, and to be honest I only understood about half of what he was saying. At one point I thought he said something about "release the cocktails". I puzzled on that for a moment until I realized he said "release the captives." Then I thought I heard him say a "hologram to heaven" - never did figure that one out. Irreverently the Saturday Night Live skit with Father Guido Sarducci (wrong country, I know) popped into my head during the service. Find the pope in the pizza contest... I was disappointed that the there wasn't a little more personalization to the Mass considering all that Uncle Mick had done for the church. The man who did the second reading - a cousin to Uncle Mick's deceased wife - tried to make that happen. When he approached the microphone he said, "I'd like to make an observation..." and then he stopped. Apparently the second priest, who was seated behind where he was speaking said, "No! No observations!" It was an awkward moment. One thing that was interesting about the Mass is that for communion we all came up and knelt at the communion rail, and you took the host on your tongue not in your hands. (Okay, that kind of sounds like an M & M commercial.)

Following Mass we went in procession to Spring Grove Cemetery. This is the same cemetery that my cousin Gina and I had photographed when I was in Cincinnati in August. It is similar to the Fort Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis in that it is beautiful, hilly and filled with the who's who of city founding fathers. The first thing we saw when we drove through the gates was a sign that said something about hazardous driving conditions, and enter at your own risk. Not good. We were the fourth car in the procession following the hearse. Things were going okay until we came to a steep hill and the vehicles ahead of me came to a stop. My first thought was no! Don't stop going up the hill; I'll never get started again. My second was that this is where they expected us to park for the graveside funeral, and that we would have to walk up an icy hill. Not happening! Then I noticed that the hearse was sliding sideways. The driver got out of the vehicle and waved the car behind him around. He got back in the hearse and tried again. This time he slid off the side of the road. You can see in the picture where the other cars are in relation to where the hearse ended up. As the funeral director and his assistant were contemplating what to do, I noticed that the car behind me was right on my back bumper. Really? There was no way for me to even try to turn around with him so close.

After consulting on their phones, they decided we all would have to back down the hill and they would conduct the service at the chapel. I don't do backup well. Even on a straight, dry area. Now they want me to back down a steep, curving, icy hill? I gave the bumper parker plenty of time to get down the hill before I began my descent to a flat area where I could turn around on the side street. By now there were only two vehicles ahead of me and one behind me from our procession. The blind leading the blind through this huge cemetery. Which chapel? There are at least six in the cemetery. You've heard of the wedding crashers? We were the funeral crashers, as we weren't the only ones trying to bury a loved one on an icy, miserable January day.

We finally located cars with our particular funeral flags on their roofs and hurried in to hear the priest speak his last words over the casket. (I later learned that they were going to start without us until one of my cousins informed the funeral director that Mick's two sisters and her out of town cousins were not present yet.) Here was the personalized eulogy I had been hoping to hear. This priest obviously knew my uncle well, and shed tears with the rest of us. The marines came in as Taps was played, and the military burial service was conducted. Not a dry eye in the house.

Following this final service we all headed over to the club house of Mick's condominium complex for a reception. It was very nice, and you couldn't help but think how much Mick would have enjoyed seeing everyone. It broke up around 5 and Kathy & I along with Aunt Margie and her son Pat, daughter Mary Ann, and Mary Ann's daughter Gina decided to go out to supper. We told stories and had some laughs, and I think it helped take Margie's mind off of her brother's death for a bit. I had told Mary Ann that we would give Margie a ride home because it was out of her way to take her mom home and she had to pack for a business trip. Anyway Kathy and I had not had any time alone with Margie and normally we get to spend a lot of time with her when we are in town. Aunt Margie will turn 90 this summer, but she still lives at home and drives herself everywhere. Except when the iceman cometh.

After we ate I went to move my car as close to the restaurant as I could. Gina got her grandma settled in the front seat and Kathy got into the back. Because of her broken shoulder she cannot fasten the seat belt by herself. Mary Ann tried to help her and she couldn't get it to work. Then Gina opened the other back door and tried to approach it from that direction. She slipped on some ice and barely was able to catch herself. By now we were all laughing so hard we couldn't see straight. I asked the question, "How many Crushams does it take to fasten a seat belt?" They finally got her buckled in and we headed over to Margie's.

When I pulled into her driveway, it was a sheet of ice. She opened her garage door and I pulled as close as I could to the back of her car. I still had to slowly walk around my car holding on for dear life to get to her car door. After getting her safely into the garage I then had to get Kathy from my back seat into the front for a slip-slidey trip back across the river to our hotel. I was never so happy to get to a hotel room as I was last night. The drive home today was accomplished not with ice but with fog instead. Ei, yi, yi! But we made it, so that is all that matters at this point.

Road Trip

2012-01-19T20:41:00.000-06:00

Early tomorrow morning my sister and I will head over to Cincinnati for Uncle Mick's funeral. I got the car all cleaned and gassed up today so we can hit the road as soon as she gets to my house. The wake is from 4-6 p.m. tomorrow, and with the hour time change we need to roll early. I have built in extra time due to Kathy's broken shoulder. Because it still pains her quite a bit, I want to be able to stop frequently for her to get out and move around if need be. I also want to check into our hotel first if we have time. I have learned the hard way that even with a guaranteed room you will get the crappy location if you check in late.

The funeral itself is Saturday morning at the Old St. Mary's Church. As mentioned in my last post, Uncle Mick was a long-time volunteer there. I expect that the church will be full between our large family, the Cincinnati Museum folks and the parishioners of St. Mary's. I always think at these things how much the deceased person would have enjoyed having everyone together.

We will come home on Sunday. Normally we spend an extra day in Cincinnati, but since we will see everyone we want to see on Friday or Saturday, there doesn't seem to be much point in hanging around. Especially since we are paying for a hotel this trip. Now I will just pray for good weather so that no one has to worry about traveling.

And Then There Were Two

2012-01-15T22:07:00.000-06:00

Today my uncle Mick died. He was the youngest of eight children in my mom's family. His twin brother Jim died in 2008. Now only Betty and Margie remain. We have not yet heard how Mick died, only that his son and daughter-in-law found him in his screened-in porch. It was cold in Cincinnati today, so it is strange that he was even out there. Mick was a very young nearly 82 year-old. He was active as a docent with the historical museum downtown, conducted tours of Cincinnati, and was instrumental (pardon the pun) in the restoration of the organ at historic (1842) Old St. Mary's Church. He also liked to travel, and was scheduled to go to Cancun next week with another widowed friend.

It is ironic because I have been scanning old photos and documents and putting them into my online family tree. But I have also been posting pictures up on Facebook for my family to enjoy. Last night I added photos from the 2008 and 2011 family reunions. Uncle Jim is in a couple of the ones from 2008, and Uncle Mick in some from 2011. One of my cousins commented that there were only the three siblings left. Now there are only two.

I don't know if I will be able to attend the funeral. We don't know the arrangements yet. But I know that Kathy cannot go with me due to her shoulder injury. She simply cannot ride in a car that long. Or miss physical therapy for that matter. I'll have to decide if I want to make the six hour drive by myself. But I would like the opportunity to see my aunts and my cousins. Because it is all too sad that it seems to take a funeral to get us all together. Even the family reunions don't see to do it anymore. RIP, Uncle Mick!

Aunt Betty, Uncle Mick & Aunt Margie

The Da Vinci Machines Exhibition

2012-01-09T22:12:00.000-06:00

Sunday afternoon we headed downtown to the Da Vinci exhibit. The Da Vinci Machines Exhibition, on loan from the Museum of Leonardo da Vinci in Florence, Italy, contains over sixty hand-crafted inventions built from Leonardo's 500 year old designs and is the life work of three generations of Florentine artisans, who have painstakingly brought to life the creations and concepts devised by the brilliant scientist, inventor and artist Leonardo Da Vinci. The exhibit has been extended to February 28th, which was helpful since I purchased two tickets through groupon last fall and we had not used them yet.

I will confess that I had only thought of Leonardo Da Vinci as a great painter. I had no idea that he had come up with thousands of inventions in his lifetime. It is hard to conceive that many of his ideas are utilized in things we take for granted today. The exhibit is very well done, and we were lucky to be there around the time that a guided tour was being offered. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and so enthusiastic about the exhibit. I later found out that he is the brother of one of my friends in the St. Louis Publishers Association. Small world! At any rate, I highly recommend seeing the exhibit.

New Year's Eve

2011-12-31T19:28:00.000-06:00

We do not do anything for New Year's Eve typically. We're just not that interested in putting our lives on the line due to drunk drivers. So we made a nice steak dinner (awesome to be able to grill out on December 31st!) and I am having a nice glass of wine as I sit at my computer. Today has been pretty introspective as I have spent the last two days scanning documents and photos of my ancestors and current family members. I had asked for a Flip-Pal Scanner as a present since I had seen one in action at the Federation of Genealogical Societies annual conference in Springfield earlier this year. It is amazingly light-weight, runs on batteries and scans 4" x 6" pictures like a champ. For larger documents or photos, you simply remove the cover, flip it over and scan the item in pieces. As long as you have properly overlapped the scans, the stitching software provided puts it all back together with no seams. Amazing!

Anyway, as you can gather I received one for Christmas so I have been putting it through its paces. It does a wonderful job, and I have been uploading the scans to my ancestry.com family tree. I have been thinking a lot about the people in the photos. What was their day like? How in the world did they manage to raise 8 (or 10 or 12) children? How did they feel when their children moved away to another state? All the strangers in the box and the stories that will remain untold. While our lives today may not seem all that important, down the road our descendants may be very interested in how we spent our time. What stories will you preserve in 2012?

Christmas Unwrapped

2011-12-28T16:56:00.000-06:00

Andy and Megan left for home at 8:00 this morning. They are anticipating a 13 hour drive. Ugh! Hopefully they will not run into any of the crummy weather that passed through here the other day. We had a really nice time with them. On Monday Megan's parents and two brothers drove over from Indiana to spend the afternoon and evening with us. We ordered in pizzas so that I would be able to enjoy myself and not spend the whole time in the kitchen.

Yesterday we went to the botanical garden to see the Gardenland Express Holiday Flower and Train exhibit. This is something we try to go to every year. I have to say that I was pretty disappointed this year, as were Andy and Megan. Playing off of the year long "Treemendous" theme at the garden, it was really an exhibit about trees with the trains playing a small supporting role. Jim thought it was the best ever, but then he is a landscape architect. We didn't spend much time at the garden, instead heading over to Gringo Jones and the Bug Store to do some browsing. On the plus side we did find some ceramic house numbers that we want to glue to the concrete steps down by the street in front of our house. Since our house sits so far back from the street it is hard for people to see our address. We had a nice brass sign down in the front planting bed for a few years, but after some kids stole it we decided we would go this route instead.

Katie is at a movie with a friend, so it is just the dog and me here at the house. It seems so quiet after the hustle and bustle of the past few days. I guess this is just the warm up for mid-January when Katie takes off again for the last part of her college program.

On the Eve of Christmas Eve

2011-12-23T20:36:00.000-06:00

For some reason this year I had all my shopping and wrapping done early. I need to make one last stop at the grocery store tomorrow morning to pick up the meat for Christmas Eve dinner. I am going to go early so that I don't turn into a grouch. In fact, I think hubby and I are going to go workout at 7 a.m. and then hit the store right after. Andy and Megan are due to arrive around 12:30, and I still have to tidy up the guest bedroom and bath. But that shouldn't take me too long.

We picked Katie up at the airport Sunday night. The place was fairly quiet at 9:00 at night. Since we had arrived a little early we walked through the airport looking at the improvements. Nearly all the glass has been replaced from the tornado, though we were surprised to still see a few windows boarded up. What's up with that? The new waiting area for those picking up passengers from the D concourse is quite nice, as are the two new luggage carousels. I think all of those are being replaced eventually.

It has been great to have Katie home. Being able to connect with her via phone and Skype was great, but nothing beats being able to talk to your kids face to face. She is still a bit jet-lagged, but we managed to get some things accomplished this week. Most notably today we dealt with US Cellular. We had just purchased Katie a new phone that would work in China right before she left in August. Unfortunately it was stolen while she was there. US Cellular gave me the bad news that there was an issue with the $100 rebate, and also the insurance on the phone. They told me they would not replace this (expensive) phone. We had Katie buy a cheap phone in China so she could keep in touch with the other students, her teachers and her internship supervisor. I decided to wait until she came home to deal with US Cellular again. We worked with the store manager today and she immediately took care of both of the issues. She gave me the $100 credit, which has been applied to my bill, and gave Katie a replacement phone. Woo, hoo! I did not anticipate such a great outcome. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

2011-12-17T10:00:00.000-06:00

Last night was the office party. We went to the Moolah Bowl on Lindell for eating, drinking and bowling - not necessarily a winning combination, at least for my bowling game. The building is beautiful and contains a standard size (if there is such a thing any more) movie theater on the upper level, as well as a tiny theater that has couches and lounging chairs to sit on while you watch the show. In the lower level is the bowling alley, which was closed until 10:30 p.m. for our party. We had a really good time at the party, but I feel like I didn't get a chance to talk to everyone since you kind of had to stick around your bowling lane for when your turn came up. But it was fun nonetheless.

At 10:30 the doors opened and the local crowd came in to drink and/or bowl. It was definitely time for us to leave. I'm sure they were looking at Jim and me, wondering who let the old people in! We got out of there around 11:00 and came back to our car to find a nasty surprise. We had gotten a parking ticket! And so had all the other employees parked at the angled parking directly in front of the Moolah. I looked around for any kind of signage that would indicate we should not park there, and I didn't see any. One of the other employees noted that it was down about 10 cars or so from where I had parked. Not nice, St. Louis City police! If you are going to make the parking spaces in front of businesses permit parking only, then have the courtesy to post signage so we stand a chance of knowing this fact. It amazes me that with the city being in decline (not to mention the #1 murder capital in the US) they would do something like this. I can guarantee that we will have our next event in the county where employees can park by the venue for free.

Are you listening, Mayor Slay?

Oh Christmas Tree

2011-12-11T17:35:00.000-06:00

By last weekend I had all the decorations up, including the tree. We normally don't get our tree too early because we purchase a real one and the needles always seem to drop so soon. But we did get one slightly early this year since our weekends are super busy this year. During the week I got the Christmas cards and letters in the mail. I wish I could say I was done shopping, but that simply is not the case. I do have some gifts purchased and have ideas for a few more. Katie is really the stumper this year as she is not here to give me ideas. Since she is in finals this week, I won't bother her with prompting until later in the week. She gets home Sunday night, and I cannot wait to see her!

Friday night we went to see "The Rat Pack" at the Fox Theatre. It was really good - similar to "Jersey Boys" in that it was the music of the particular group, but without the background story of the guys in the group. I think I actually enjoyed it more than "Jersey Boys" due to that fact. It was like an old Las Vegas Show. However I did not enjoy the behavior of the woman sitting next to me. She was fairly quiet during the first half, but then I don't know what she was drinking (and perhaps smoking?) at intermission. During every song and some of the dialogue in the second act she would shout out "woo hoo!" (particularly during Dean Martin segments when he was discussing his drinks) I'm looking at her like "We are not at a Justin Bieber concert here!" It was truly annoying. I had to angle myself towards Jim so I didn't get drunk on her fumes. I might have anticipated something like that at the Pageant, but it was pretty ridiculous at the Fox.

Last night we attended a Christmas party for one of Jim's business groups. I had a really interesting time discussing traveling and genealogy with one of the couples there. It is nice to find some common ground with people you only see once a year. The food was amazing as always, and I simply loved the Oreo Truffles they had there. Oh my! I think Katie and I will need to make some of them when she gets home.

Sicker Than a Dog?

2011-12-02T10:29:00.000-06:00

Yesterday after I worked out I ran to Target to pick up some household items and additional wrapping paper and gift tags. When I got home I immediately sniffed something in the air. And it was not a good something. The dog was laying in his customary place on the couch in the conservatory, looking as innocent as a new baby. Walking through the house with my nose in the air (literally), I found that the dog had gotten sick in the sitting room off of the front entryway. And I don't mean by vomiting, which would have been way easier to deal with in this case. Our house has lots of hardwood floors, with some tile thrown in. Does the dog utilize any of that floor space? Oh no...he chooses the oriental rug to do the deed. The one with the long, white fringe around the edges.

Grabbing a bucket with water, carpet cleaner and a cloth, I knelt in the middle of the rug to begin the cleanup. Big mistake, I realize as I feel something seeping through my jeans. Apparently there was some spraying that went on. Ewwww! Without going into more gory details, I did the best I could with the rug. But I'm thinking it may be making a trip to Woodard's this weekend for a professional job. I doubt I did a thorough enough job.

This time of year Kirby's allergies kick into high gear. He has tested positive for moderate allergic reaction to grasses (fescue, rye, bluegrass - basically everything in our yard) as well as evergreens (also abundant in our yard). But what seems to bother him the most is junipers. I always thought it was weird that his allergies are worse in the winter, when most things have died off. But guess what blooms December through February? Junipers! Who knew? So I have an appointment to take him into the vet today for a check-up. He will probably clean out his ears, which tend to get infected when the allergies kick in, and perhaps give Kirby a prednisone shot. That shot lasts about a month and really relieves his itching. Poor Kirby - today it is going to get worse before it gets better!

Bittersweet Thanksgiving

2011-11-28T21:28:00.000-06:00

My in-laws invited us up to Iowa for Thanksgiving, which was really a blessing. This is the first time in 26 years that neither of our children were able to be with us for the holiday. Andy and Megan went to Indiana to be with Megan's parents, and Katie is in Shanghai for a semester abroad and internship. So it helped that we were able to spend the holiday with Jim's family. As usual we ate way too much, but everyone was happy and healthy and the weather was great. It even made it into the 60's on Thanksgiving Day, which for Iowa is saying something.

An added benefit of the visit was that we were able to take the Christmas presents up and drop them off, as well as bring ours back down here. So I can happily say that we are done shopping for Jim's side of the family. We also were able to bring back a chest of drawers that had belonged to Jim's great-grandmother. It has been in the family all this time, but the cousin who most recently had it no longer had a place for it. So it was offered up at the family reunion this summer, and we brought it back to Jim's dad. He very nicely refinished it and then gave it back to us! We are honored to have it, and now just need to find the perfect spot for it.

We have a lot to be thankful for this year. I am grateful for our wonderful families, my two super kids and daughter-in-law, and a husband who is also my best friend. My husband has a great business and I am having a blast writing and publishing books. Lots to be thankful for, indeed.

House History Seminar

2011-11-20T21:17:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I attended a 2 hour workshop on researching house history. It was put on by the St. Louis Genealogical Society and the speaker was from the Festus-Crystal City area. I have to admit it was a little disheartening that the organization to which I belong did not apparently even consider me for this speaking engagement. Especially since they sell my researching house history book in their shop. And since I had told them I would do a workshop if they were ever interested in having one on this topic. Sigh...

But I have to say that the gal who gave the talk (who is also a member, I might add) did a really good job, and she raised some issues that I had not considered before. And she was really sweet about letting everyone know about my book. Which I then quickly pointed out was available through the STLGS. I wish the speaker was from St. Louis as I think she and I have a lot in common. I would love to tag along with her on some of her jobs. She has her own consulting company for house research as well as genealogy.

The Eyes Have It

2011-11-16T17:37:00.000-06:00

Today was my annual eye exam. Everything went fine, but can I just say I hate having my eyes dilated. Especially when I am driving myself home afterwards. I don't care what they say, I don't think it is safe for people to drive after those drops go in. It was supposed to be cloudy today, which would have helped a lot. But as usual the forecasters were wrong and it was sunny and bright this morning.

Today they used the half percent formula instead of the one percent. The doctor said it would take about an hour and a half for my eyes to get back to normal. I will say that it was a bit easier to drive with these drops. I had placed their cheapo sunglasses behind my sunglasses, and that helped as well. But this picture is of my eye two hours after the drops went in. Evidently the eye drops work REALLY well on my eyes! It was several hours before I even felt comfortable to take the dog for a walk. Eye don't like it - eye really don't.

Kim's Cupcakes?

2011-11-14T22:14:00.000-06:00

Tonight my niece and I took a cupcake decorating class at the Webster Groves Recreation Center. There were 10 of us in the room, which was about 4 too many for the space. It was crowded and hard to pass the decorating materials around. Added to that was the Zumba class going on in the next room, and that made it hard to hear.

The instructor did her best with the conditions she faced. She had prepared chocolate, vanilla, and spice cupcakes ahead of time. Then she made vanilla, chocolate and caramel frostings as well as several frostings with a more substantive base for making colored additions to our cupcakes. And lastly we worked with fondant, dying it and shaping it into roses.

As I looked at all the tools of the trade she had brought along for us to try, I realized that this would be a fairly expensive hobby to get into. It kind of reminded me of scrapbooking and all the stuff I have in drawers upstairs. And I could also see that cupcake decorating takes a lot of practice if you want to do it well. So I think that this is not something I will jump right into. DC Cupcakes has nothing to worry about. It was fun to be out with my niece for a couple of hours though. We rarely get to do that without either my sister or my great-nieces being along.

No Trivial Matter

2011-11-13T15:54:00.000-06:00

My friend invited Jim and me to be at her table for the Mother to Mother trivia night. The Mother to Mother program is a support group for women suffering from post partum adjustment disorder. I am not very good at trivia, but I am a winner when it comes to trivia table snacks, so that should count for something. Armed with margaritas, spinach artichoke dip and peanut butter bars, we headed to the Richmond Heights Community Center. In addition to my friend and her husband, the table consisted of the two ladies who live next door to them, and a friend of Diane's along with her friend, the Ringer. Ringer knew the answer to every question in 6 of the 8 categories. The exceptions were "Name that tune", where you had to name the song and the artist, and "Identify the candy bar", which consisted of photos of 10 different candy bars on a sheet of paper. The song selections were pathetic, but I think we still got 7 points there. The candy bars were really tough since since they had similarities to more than one candy bar. For example what I thought was a Heath Bar was actually the Skor candy bar. We only got three of the candy bars correct, but everyone else seemed to struggle with them as well.

At the end of the evening we came in first place, beating the second place team by 1 measly point. Unbelievable...For our wisdom and skill (ha, ha) we were awarded $200. As a group we decided to donate the money back to the organization. And we also decided to come back next year to defend our title!

Fall Back

2011-11-09T14:44:00.000-06:00

Daylight savings time finally ended over the weekend, and it was time to Fall Back - our reminder to turn the clocks back one hour. Even though technically we gain an extra hour, my body never adjusts right away. It always takes about a week to get back in the time groove.

Our weather has been so pleasant that summer just doesn't want to let go of my garden. Here my Knock Off Roses blissfully bloom alongside the maple tree, which is exploding in fall color. My potted annuals are still blooming as well, so I am trying to enjoy all the colors before the first freeze takes us to the gray, denuded color palette of early winter.

We have two boxes of spring bulbs that Jim picked up somewhere a couple of years ago. I think I'll try to finally get them in the ground. Who knows if they are still any good, but I figure the ones that survived sitting in a box a couple of years will probably be nice bloomers. If the squirrels don't get them first!

A Fall Drive

2011-11-06T22:28:00.000-06:00

Jim and I went out for a fall drive yesterday hoping to catch the last of the fall color. Since we were out of town the past two weekends we sort of missed the peak season. We took Jim's fun little sports car, put the top down and turned the heat up, and away we went. Jim knows a lot of great back roads due to his motorcycle riding, so we headed out west towards Labadie. We had lunch at the Hawthorne Inn, and I have to say I just wanted to bottle our waitress. She was the most bubbly little thing! I ordered a french dip sandwich, and it came with sweet potato fries. Oh my gosh! Probably the best french dip I have ever had, and the fries were yummy as well. And I felt less guilty about eating them since they were sweet potatoes. Ha!

We headed back down the road and ended up at Klondike Park. I had no idea this park even existed. The 250 acre park is on the site of an old silica sand quarry. The Katy Trail ties into it so they have biking and walking paths all throughout the park. There was a boy scout troop camping out, so they

were having a great time riding their bikes along the trails. A family was taking their own portrait along one of the trails we walked, while on another we came upon a guy down on one knee popping the question to his gal. Since a professional photographer was there, I'm not sure how spontaneous it was but it was sweet nonetheless.

It was a great day for a drive, and nice to spend the afternoon alone with my own groom. No kids, no dog, just the two of us. Fun!

Folly Beach, South Carolina

2011-11-02T21:26:00.001-05:00

Last week we were down in South Carolina on vacation, staying at a lovely 3 bedroom, 3 bath townhouse located at Folly Beach. We had actually planned to go there the first week of October, but when Andy called and said he would be in St. Louis the first weekend we changed our plans so that we could see him. We hadn't been with him and Megan since Christmas, and that was only for one day. The change ended up having consequences as our friends who were coming with us could only come for part of the week at the end of October, my sister fell and broke her shoulder in 3 places and I wasn't here for her surgery, and the Cardinals ended up in the World Series and Jim had a ticket to game 7.

But we didn't know all those things when we made the plans back in August. So Jim and I had the place to ourselves the first few days. The townhouse overlooks a wetlands area and the Folly River. It was a short walk into town for shopping and restaurants, as well as the Atlantic Ocean Beach.

The owner of the townhouse provided bicycles, so the first day we road around the island. On Tuesday we drove down to Savannah, Georgia which is about a 2 hour drive. We took the trolley tour around the old town area since you had on and off privileges. We definitely could have used more time here. On our way back to Folly Beach we stopped at Hilton Head, South Carolina. Neither of us was too impressed with this island. We ate at a restaurant at the western edge of the island so we could see the sunset. The sand fleas were biting so bad that we had to eat indoors.

Our friend Kathy arrived on Wednesday afternoon. We showed her around Folly Beach and had supper in town before heading home to watch the Cardinals play. On Thursday we toured the Magnolia House and Gardens, a beautiful plantation. Then we picked up Kathy's husband Paul at the airport. We went to a sport's bar and, I kid you not, they had skate boarding on all the television sets instead of the World Series. They did begrudgingly change one of the sets for us. Since a really crappy band was setting up, we ate quickly and went back to the townhouse to watch amazing game 6. I have to say that it sucked to be on eastern time for the games! Late nights...

On Friday we took a boat tour of Folly River and Morris Island, which is the closest you can get to the 6th oldest lighthouse in America. The day was sunny but very windy and a little cool. The island was desolate and we were the only ones there. The ride back was pleasant since we were no longer riding into the wind, and the dolphins played around the boat. That was very cool.

Saturday we spent the day looking around Charleston, and we did tour an old mansion as well. Then on Sunday we went back to Charleston and did the tour of Fort Sumter, which is where the first shot of the Civil War was fired. It was interesting, but would have been better had it not been so darn windy.

We came back home Sunday night, though we didn't get back to our house until 12:30 a.m. All in all, it was another fun vacation shared with good friends.

Cardinal Fever

2011-10-23T21:14:00.000-05:00

Today I was passing through Lambert International Airport in St. Louis when I came upon this balloon archway supporting the St. Louis Cardinals efforts in the World Series. It is such a fun tribute to the Cardinals, and I found myself wondering if that is the concourse the team will be coming through when they come back from Texas.

I flew down to Charleston today for a visit to Folly Beach, and I went to a bar/grill for supper and to catch part of the game. Some guys in the bar, of course getting louder the more they drank, began to first make fun of this series because, after all, who cares about the Cardinals or the Rangers. I could ignore that, and their terrible attempts to sing along with the music in the bar, until they started the name calling. When Albert came up to bat, one of them shouted that Albert was just a fat, stupid fag. At that point I decided to leave and finish watching the game in my townhouse. It is hard to believe how ignorant people can be.

Once Around the Block

2011-10-17T11:10:00.000-05:00

We had a block party yesterday, and 181 men, women and children were there! Wow! I'd like to take credit for the idea as a neighbor and I had tossed around the notion of shutting down Maple Avenue for a party. But two women over on Portland Terrace beat us to the punch and organized the whole thing. They included multiple blocks and went so far as to set up a directory of everyone who responded so that we know who lives where. They ordered up a large inflatable jump pumpkin for the bigger kids and someone provide a small inflatable castle for the little ones. Porters chicken and tea, lemonade and water was provided (we all chipped in $5 per adult and $3 per child to cover that and other miscellaneous expenses). Even numbered houses brought appetizers or side dishes, and odd numbered houses provided the desserts.

I walked over at 2:30 to help set up the tables and chairs and then headed back home to get Jim, the dessert and two chairs. Jim had just returned from an overnight motorcycle trip, so I had to wait for him to shower and change. Then we headed over to the party, which was in full swing by then. It was great to meet so many new people (new to me if not to the neighborhood), especially the lady across the street who has been using my book to research the history of their home. I know her husband quite well, but she is extremely shy so I have only waved to her in passing. I also met another man who recently wrote a book about why we climb mountains; a bit of psychology thrown in as I understand it. We are going to get together and chat.

The party broke up just after 7 so we were able to get home in time to watch the Cardinals. Unfortunately it was already 4-0 so we missed whatever the Cards did big in the first inning. It was an exciting game to watch nonetheless. Go Cards!

From Rally Towel to Crying Towel

2011-10-14T17:19:00.001-05:00

Jim and I attended the playoff game last night at Busch Stadium. I didn't think I would even get to go to one of these games because of the structure of our tickets. There are four seats which are owned by three different groups in order to split up the numerous games throughout the season. In addition the one-third that is owned by SWT is split half with an architecture firm. It is all good and fine until the Cardinals get into post-season play. Then everyone wants the tickets. As it ended up, SWT had two of the tickets for last night and Jim's partner was out of town. So I got to go!

We went downtown early so that we could get a parking spot. Our normal lot usually charges $10 to park but for the playoffs the price was $25. Yikes! We walked to a bar near the stadium and had a hamburger before going into the stadium. We were too late to see the Cardinals warming up, but got to see the Brewers doing their thing. When the guy next to me sat down, he easily took up 1/4 of my seat as well. Not even kidding here. Plus he had some medical condition that made him sound like a cat trying to hock up a hairball, followed by persistent coughing. All through the game. I never thought I would be happy to have the gals behind us get progressively louder the more they drank, but that at least helped defer the sound of the throat warbling going on next to me.

Besides that, it was fun to see the Clydesdales once again parading around the infield, and their wagon filled with baseballs instead of beer kegs. And the military acapella group performing the National Anthem (with all the correct words!) was truly beautiful. The Cardinals were even beautiful for the first couple of innings. Then it was like a different team had taken the field. What a disappointing outcome. We did not want to be the ones who brought home a loser! On the other hand, it was a fantastic night to be outside with my hubby, so the night wasn't a total loss.

The Boys Are Back in Town

2011-10-12T14:56:00.000-05:00

Andy was home this weekend, and I can't believe we haven't see him or Megan since Christmas, and then only for one day when we drove over to Megan's hometown in Indiana so we could exchange gifts. Megan's folks have been out to D.C. twice since then, so we are definitely on the bad in-law list. Nick, who was Andy's best man, recently got married in New York by a Justice of the Peace, so his parents wanted to throw a reception for them here. (Well, in Jerseyville where they live actually.) Megan was unable to come because her graduate school classes meet every Saturday, so Andy came alone.

Andy thought that he was just coming to a party in the backyard of the house where Nick grew up, which he was told began at 6:00 on Saturday. On the way here Friday he received a text message from Nick telling him that he would need a suit for the pictures, and that he needed to be at their house by 1:00 for the photographer. Say what? Of course he did not have a suit tucked into his carry-on luggage. He brought khakis and a dress shirt, very appropriate for an outdoor party. He and Jim are nowhere near the same size, so I suggested that he call my nephew. Joe had a suit that fit Andy, so he borrowed that. He had to wear his tennis shoes with it since no one else has feet as big as his. What a combo! But we figured they could have him stand in the back for the pictures.

When he arrived at the house, he could tell that Nick had totally undersold the magnitude of the event. The "bridal party" gals had all had their hair and make-up done for the photos, which were taken both in the suits and then again in traditional Bhutanese clothes (Nick's wife is from Bhutan). For the guys, that meant wearing a gho, a knee length robe tied with a cloth belt known as a kera, and knee high socks. Andy thought it felt rather freeing! Following the pictures they went to a Catholic church where the couple was blessed by a priest. Following the ceremony they went back to the house for the party which was held in the backyard under a huge tent - the kind with the sides that roll down. A sound system provided music and amplifications for the toasts, one of which was given by Andy. The party continued until the wee hours of the morning, and Andy got back to our house at 5:00 a.m. Which we, fortunately, did not know about until the next morning.

Sunday we had all of my family over for a barbecue so that they could see Andy. They hadn't seen him since Thanksgiving, so it was nice to have a laid back event for everyone to catch up. The weather was great so we were able to eat outside and listen to the Cardinals game. Such as it was...Andy flew back home on Monday, so I had a little bit of time with him by myself that day. It was a great weekend, and only would have been better had Megan been able to join us.

Singing the Blues

2011-10-09T14:19:00.000-05:00

Someone gave Jim two tickets to the opening Blues hockey game taking place last night. We decided to take the Metrolink down to see the game. We board the Metro at the Shrewsbury station, which is nice because it is the end of the line (or the beginning, whichever way you choose to look at it) so there is never a problem getting a seat. Everyone that boarded was garbed in Blues gear (except for Jim and me since we don't own any), and the two little boys ahead of us had their hair spray-painted blue as well. So cute! As the Metro continued on down the track, fewer and fewer Blues fans got on and instead a more interesting and diverse population boarded.

At the Skinker stop a man, two women and three kids got on. I think that the two women may have been sisters and the man was unrelated to them but was the father of two of the children. The one woman proceeded to get into an argument with the man, and the swear words began to fly. "That child over there means the world to me and them two kids there mean the world to you, but you don't give a fuck about us." The two little Blues boys watched with wide-eyed wonder as the yelling took place. As they exited two stops later she said to the man, "You can come or not, I don't really give a shit." Nice. The woman behind me commented, "This is like watching t.v." Sad but true.

On the platform waiting for the return Metro after the game, the girl next to us was telling the guy with her that she has only dealt with the police twice. Once because her license tags were expired and once when she went to them to have her ex arrested. When the guy asked what had happened she explained that her ex had threatened her in person and through phone messages and emails. Run, new boyfriend, run!

I was thinking that if I road the Metro every day, I could probably write an entire book about the behaviors and conversations I witnessed. Or at the very least, I could cancel my cable!

You Don't Know What You've Got Til It's Gone

2011-10-08T14:59:00.002-05:00

New neighbors moved in a few months ago. The previous family had lived in the house for 11 years, so we had a nice neighborly rhythm going on. Since we have been in our house for 24 years, we don't take to change very easily or perhaps very graciously. New neighbor has three girls (the oldest of whom is 14) all in private schools, two large dogs and an indoor/outdoor cat. Old neighbors had one boy and two indoor cats.

I have been trying to keep an open mind, but the one dog barks non-stop every time any of us steps foot in our own yard. I've tried to talk to him, let him sniff my hand, make up to him...all for naught. Annoys the crap out of me! Our dog barked at them the first time he saw them in their backyard, but after that he was like "whatever". They also replaced the front sections of their fence (which needed to be done) with new fencing that a) does not match the rest of the fence (including ours which matched their old fence), b) does not meet the fence code in our town, and c) was put up without getting a permit. Additionally they leave their trash cans out on the curb for days on end, when the city requires that you not put them out before 5 the day before pickup and remove them by the evening of pickup.

Anyway, just a few little things grating on my nerves until last night. First of all, our son is home for the first time since Thanksgiving so after we picked him up at the airport we went out to eat and hurried home to watch the Cardinals play. As we arrived home we saw a bonfire going in the yard next door and lots of kids around. The number of kids continued to swell until we had to turn our t.v. up so we could hear the game. All of a sudden we heard something that sounded at first like firecrackers going off but was instead a herd of kids clambering across our back deck. They took off around our house and out the side gate. What the hell? We went outside to check it out, and close the gates because God forbid they should do that after trespassing on our property. Kids were swarming up the private alley behind us, including some in cars. At a 14 year old's party?

We turned on all of our exterior lights, and that kept any more kids from coming into our back yard. I think the party was designed to end at 11:00, because cars started pulling up out front to pick up kids. I was looking out our upstairs front window just as a truck proceeded to jump the curb and drive through the neighbor's front yard - fortunately the house having the party. Again I say, what the hell! About five minutes later two police cars arrived, and were shortly joined by two additional cars. That sent the party-goers on their way pretty rapidly. A couple of parents came to pick up their kids while the police were there. Can you imagine being that mom or dad arriving to pick up your prince or princess and finding police at the party???

There were still kids in the backyard at midnight, when we finally turned out our bedroom light. I can only hope that having the police show up will discourage this couple from allowing any more parties at their house. Otherwise, with this being the oldest girl, the next few years will not be pleasant. After all the money and effort we have put into our property and plant material, I'll be the one calling the cops next time the little creeps step onto our yard.

The $138 Halloween Candy

2011-10-04T20:43:00.000-05:00

Last week I decided that I was going to send our daughter a care package. I thought long and hard about what to send because there is a Walmart right outside the gates of her university in Shanghai. I know - how sad is that? So she can get pretty much whatever she needs there. But then I realized that since they don't celebrate (?) Halloween there, she probably could not buy any Halloween candy at Walmart. Thus was born the idea to send her a black and orange themed package. I purchased candy, some Halloween socks and some other fun novelty items to send that I thought the students from other countries might enjoy and boxed it all up.

After confirming that the "What can Brown do for You?" folks do actually deliver to China, yesterday I headed over to my neighborhood UPS store. The first thing the guy wanted to know is Katie's phone number. Since her Chinese phone number is about 14 digits long, I don't have it memorized. Nor do I have it in my cell phone since I hope to never call her in China. Strike 1. After weighing and measuring the box, he consulted his computer and proceeded to tell me that I should take it to the Post Office because they (PO) would only charge me $76 to ship the box. Strike 2. The downside, he added, is that while it would travel from here to China via the PO, once there the Chinese mail service would take over. No telling how long - or if - the box would get to her. But he was pretty sure it would. So I asked him what UPS would charge to ship it. Are you ready? $138! Strike 3 and your out. Or I'm outta here. I told him that I am not spending $76 much less $138 to send $10 worth of candy and other sundry items to my daughter. It's not like I'm shipping Mrs. Wryly's awesome cookies or anything. Get real!

I looked online and it appears I can get the small PO box and stuff it with as much as will fit in there. That box will ship to China for $13.25. That still seems like a lot, but I'll probably check that option out. The irony of the whole thing is that as I was pulling out of the parking lot, a PO truck pulled in front of the USP store and the driver entered the business. Have they joined forces or something?

Dadadada, dadadada...The Addams Family!

2011-09-30T23:45:00.000-05:00

Tonight Jim and I saw The Addams Family at the Fox Theatre. It was a fun show, with some really strong voices in it. The set design was awesome, as were the costumes. Well, except that Morticia wore a dress so low cut and revealing that I was positive we were going to see a wardrobe malfunction. They must have had the dress glued to her boobs. I haven't seen that much flesh since I was in New Orleans for Mardis Gras. To me it was a little distracting and I thought they could have done a low cut dress without also cutting across half of her breasts. But I'm sure the males in the audience would disagree with me. There was also more than a bit of sexual innuendos in the script, which didn't necessarily bother me. But I felt sorry for the dad in front of me as he was trying to explain to his pre-teen daughter what some of the lines meant. Maybe they had some sort of disclaimer out there about the play perhaps not being suitable for children - I'm not sure. Those of us who remember the television show would have imagined that this play would be fun to attend as a family. I guess that wouldn't sell too well on Broadway though, huh? Too bad.

Scary Time

2011-09-28T09:54:00.000-05:00

The first thing I do every morning is open up my iPad and review the headlines on Yahoo. The first thing I saw yesterday was that there had been an afternoon subway train accident in Shanghai. The article stated that 260 people had been injured! Calculating the 13 hour time difference, I realized that Katie takes the train about that time to get to her internship. I have no idea which line she takes from the campus to the business, but my mother's mind immediately assumed it was her line.

I checked my email next, and saw that I had gotten an email from Katie. Whew! But then I checked the time and saw that it was before the train accident. I sent her an emergency email asking her to email me ASAP. And then I waited. I realized that people in the dorm would not miss her for hours because of her internship. I decided to try calling her cell phone, which I had not attempted to do before now. The number wouldn't go through. I googled placing a call to China from the US and realized you need to enter a code to get you out of the country first. I tried the code and the number to no avail. Further research indicated that Katie might have given me the wrong country code for China, which is a little hard to believe since she is very detail-oriented. Regardless, I tried the number again with the alternate country code and got the recording of a very fast talking Chinese gal. I immediately hung up. But then I wondered, could that have been Katie? She probably does have her voice mail in Chinese while she is there.

While I was pondering that, Katie sent me an email. She was safe! In fact the train accident occurred on the one she normally takes, but she took a cab Tuesday for whatever reason. Her angel was definitely looking out for her! She had not heard about the accident yet, but her train ride back to campus from the internship was very delayed, and she had been annoyed by that since she didn't know why it was late. So thank you, God, and the little guardian angel you sent as well.

The Ulimate Vanilla Cupcake Finale

2011-09-25T19:14:00.001-05:00

In an earlier blog post I mentioned that I was one of 50 Explorers chosen by Stef at The Cupcake Project to test vanilla cupcake recipes in her search for the Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake. After the Explorers tried baking each recipe we completed a survey in an effort to find a cupcake that at least 80% of us deemed good enough to be called the Ultimate. The first recipe, which my husband, daughter and I disliked so much that frosting couldn't even save them, was given the Ultimate approval rating by only 29% of the Explorers. We eagerly awaited the arrival of recipe #2.

The second recipe required the use of a vanilla bean. This was a new experience for me, so I watched a YouTube video to see exactly how one harvests the vanilla from inside of a vanilla bean. It is a bit of a tricky process, with the vanilla sticking more to my knife and my fingers than I was prepared for. Regardless, this recipe was amazing! All three of us loved these cupcakes, and the highest compliment I can pay is to say that they did not even need frosting. And I love my frosting! I was certain that this recipe would be IT. Imagine my surprise when only 36% of my fellow Explorers agreed with me. I wondered how in the world Stef was going to improve on perfection with the next recipe.

For the third recipe we again used a vanilla bean, which was great because I had ordered a package of six beans online and had no idea what I would do with all of them. Katie had already left for South Korea at this point, so only Jim and I did the taste testing. While the cupcakes were very good, we did not feel like they held a candle to recipe #2. Again I was surprised when 66% of the Explorers thought that this recipe was the Ultimate.

At this point Stef had to decide whether she would ever get 80% of us to agree on a recipe. Considering that we all have different pans, ovens and brands of ingredients, not to mention taste preferences, perhaps 80% was an unrealistic goal. In the end she decided that if 2 out of 3 of us thought this recipe was the Ultimate, that was good enough. Recipe number 3 was crowned as king of vanilla cupcakes, and you can find the recipe here. While I am disappointed that my personal favorite was not selected as the best, I am very happy that I participated in this search for a great vanilla cupcake. Cupcakes from scratch no longer intimidate me, and I am eager to try some of the other fantastic recipes out on the Internet.

So for now, Wolter the Explorer signing out.

Nothing to Bark About

2011-09-22T23:16:00.000-05:00

Every Thursday during the growing season they have a farmer's market in my town. This is only the second year so there are not a large number of booths yet, but it has grown some since last year. Today was doggie day at the market, with promises of treats for your pooch. Kirby and I walked up to the area of the market, which is a nice distance from our house. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but there was not too much going on. In addition to the regular booths, a groomer had a booth set up with a doggie bag for each four legged visitor. And an animal hospital had a vet available to answer questions. That was it. There were a couple of gals taking pictures, so Kirby may end up with his 15 minutes of fame somewhere. As cute as he is though, most of the camera time was going to a tie dyed dog at the groomer's booth. He was a pretty docile little guy, mostly hanging his head in shame at looking so ridiculous with his four colors of fur. We didn't hang around long. In fact we spent more time walking there and back than we did at the market. The dog days of summer it wasn't.

Who am I?

2011-09-19T22:16:00.000-05:00

I have been feeling a little bit adrift lately. After my career in the insurance industry flowed seamlessly into working full time (or at least as full time as I wanted it to be) with our company Organic Resource Management, Inc., I was able to have my cake and eat it too. I worked out of the comfort of my home office and was available to our two children for carpool, field trips, being a room parent, Girl Scout leader, etc. It was perfect, and as the kids got older I was able to pursue my interest in researching and writing a book. Now our son has been married for four years and our daughter is in her senior year of college. And we sold our business last year after operating it for 18 years.

I love the fact that I can focus on my writing and publishing business now. But it is always a little awkward when we are out and someone asks me what I do. "I am an author and a publisher", I try to say with authority. And I know that I am! I guess I am just not feeling all that successful right now. Part of me has just a little built of guilt that I am not out seeking a full-time "real" job. Whatever that is. Sometimes I feel so invisible when we are at a gathering and the other people in the group are discussing the goings-on at work. Face it, not many people can relate to what I am doing. I guess I just need to hang around with more authors.

September 11

2011-09-11T21:14:00.000-05:00

Like most Americans I recall very distinctly what I was doing when the planes crashed into the towers in New York City. I had taken the kids to school, and had just sat down in our breakfast nook with a bowl of cereal. I had turned on "The Today Show" to catch up on the news before beginning my day. Katie Couric was reporting on the plane hitting the first tower, and they were speculating as to whether or not it had been pilot error. But as we watched live footage of the second plane hit the remaining tower, we all knew that the unthinkable had occurred - America was being attacked on its own soil. Like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, it was a day etched forever in my memory.

It is hard to believe that ten years have elapsed since that fateful day in American history. This significant anniversary brought with it renewed fears that our enemies would capitalize on the media coverage of the day and launch another attack. I watched a bit of the news coverage this morning, but then had to turn it off as the media once again began to sensationalize everything all in the name of ratings.

My niece chose today to celebrate her daughter's upcoming 16th birthday. She thought about the date, and decided that we all needed something positive and happy for this day, instead of letting the terrorists win by hiding from our own shadows. In the midst of all the fear and negativity we live with right now, it was refreshing to enjoy the laughter of the teens and the innocence of all of the Hello Kitty gifts that Molly received.

But on our way home, Jim and I stopped at Forest Park to view the 9-11 memorial that had been created there. Nearly 3,000 flags, each bearing the name of a victim from September 11, 2001, dot the hillside in front of the St. Louis Art Museum. It is an amazing and moving site, and having a visual such as all the flags helps you to comprehend just how many people lost their lives that day. God Bless America!

Hunting Dead People

2011-09-07T17:13:00.000-05:00

Today I traveled to Springfield, Illinois to attend the Federation of Genealogical Societies annual conference. I have never attended FGS before, but since it is being held within driving distance of St. Louis I decided to sign up this year. I have also never been to Springfield, except to fly past it on the drive to Chicago. It is kind of a drag to be here by myself, but when I entered the lobby of the hotel I found the Beldons from St. Louis. I have known them for nearly 30 years as Bob and Jim used to work together at HOK. We are going to have supper together tonight, so that will be great.

After I walked next door to the convention center to pick up my registration packet, I headed off with my map to do a little sight-seeing. I saw the old capital building as well as the new one, the Lincoln Presidential Library and the Lincoln Presidential Museum. I didn't get to Lincoln's boyhood home, but hopefully I can fit that in before I leave.

The genealogy sessions start tomorrow morning with a keynote address by the head of the National Archives, which should be very interesting. The meetings go all day, as well as all of Friday and Saturday. I will head home after the last session on Saturday, unless I am really dragging in the afternoon. In that case I will load up on caffeine and hit the road early. Looking forward to learning a lot!

All in the Family

2011-09-04T23:29:00.000-05:00

Labor Day weekend has been a lot of fun so far. On Saturday our daughter-in-law's parents came over to spend Saturday and Sunday with us. We are so blessed that we enjoy every member of Megan's family! We decided to grill hamburgers and brats for lunch since we were going to the Cardinals game which began at 3:15. I tried a new macaroni salad recipe that suggested you make it the night before. I appreciated that hint since I prefer to have as little as possible left to do once my company arrives. We also made an ice cream pie for dessert and that, too, could be made Friday night.

Saturday morning I was able to put together the french toast casserole that I wanted to serve Sunday morning, because it also is best made the day before and refrigerated. So all we had left to do was assemble the condiments and grill the meat. Of course the day would end up with high humidity and a temperature of 100 degrees at the ballpark. Whew! Fortunately our seats were in the shade by that time of the day. We ended up getting rained on though, which was a welcome relief from the heat. The temperature dropped and the Cards won the game - so, perfect!

Following the game we went to McGuirks for supper, and were actually able to score a table in their lovely patio area. It was a very pleasant night to eat outside. Then we headed back home for some dessert.

Sunday we had the french toast casserole, fruit and Canadian bacon for breakfast, and then decided to see what the crowds were like at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The Japanese Festival is going on this weekend, so I expected it to be packed. We did have to park in the far west lots, but once we got inside it was really not all that crowded. With a temperature of 68 degrees, what a difference from the day before at the game! Cheryl and Allen had never been before, so they very much enjoyed themselves. We definitely need to take them back in the spring or early summer when so much more is blooming, but the chance to see the festival was an opportunity that we didn't want to miss. We had a late lunch and then they had to hit the road for home. It was so wonderful to see them as we hadn't had a chance to visit since Christmas.

Tomorrow we also have tickets to the ballgame, so our friends are coming over for lunch and going to the game with us. With a predicted high of 75 degrees, it will be a wonderful day for the game. But I must say that I have been doing quite a bit of laboring on this Labor Day weekend. I'll be tired tomorrow night!

Vanilla Cupcake Recipe 3

2011-08-30T16:23:00.000-05:00

So the second cupcake recipe the Explorers tried was also deemed inferior and, as such, not worthy of the title "Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake". On Sunday I baked the cupcakes from recipe number 3. I am really curious to see the results of this one. Stef provides us with a thorough report at the end of each testing period, going over the results of the survey we each complete after we have baked and tested the cupcakes. She must be wondering if it is possible to have 80% of us agree on a recipe. It is a tough challenge because everyone has different tastes, ovens, mixers, etc.

While we were at the family reunion in Cincinnati, the wife of one of my cousins brought along two different kinds of cupcakes. They looked like they came from a bakery! I did not try the vanilla cupcake as I believe she said she modified a box mix for that one. At any rate it wouldn't have mattered. As soon as I heard triple chocolate on the second cupcake, I made a beeline for that tray of cupcakes. Made from scratch, I can sum up these cupcakes in three words - Oh My God! They were amazing! I got her email address, and I am going to see if she will share her recipe with me. They were to die for, that's all I'm saying.

Will we find a vanilla recipe to die for? Stay tuned...

Family Fun

2011-08-23T07:20:00.000-05:00

This weekend was the Crusham family reunion in Cincinnati. We could not leave for the trip until 5:30 Friday night since Jim had to be in Kirksville on a project all day. Knowing that he was already doing six hours of driving that day, I drank a lot of caffeine so I could handle the night driving by myself. I had done a Map Quest to the cousin's house where we would be staying, and it indicated that going over on I-70 through Indianapolis would save thirty minutes over going the I-64 route through Louisville. We always go I-64 because it is far less traveled, particularly by trucks, and is a much prettier drive than I-70. But since it was going to be mostly night driving and we were already arriving at my cousin's house after midnight due to the hour change, we decided to try I-70. Things were going pretty smoothly until we hit the middle of Indiana. Then there was road construction after road construction. And the truck drivers decided that seven miles away from where the left lane actually closed, everyone should already be staying in the right lane. One of them would sit in the left lane and block it. So for miles ahead, no one was in the left lane. Bottom line - the decision to save thirty minutes ended up costing us an hour and a half. We arrived at 1:30 a.m. Grrrr... Needless to say, we did not come home that route, and despite stopping two times made the return trip in 6 hours and 10 minutes.

We didn't need to get up early on Saturday, but I was awake at 7:00 anyway. Gene and Rita's eight year old grandson had his first football game of the season at noon, so Jim went with them to that. (Jim said it was a real hoot because there was a little cheer leading squad - eight year old girls dressed in cheer leading outfits - and parents in team booster chairs, etc.) Kathy, Skip and I headed to the park where the picnic was being held at 1:00. The weather was a little hot and humid, but the shelter had ceiling fans which helped a lot. There was a decent turnout for the reunion. Only three of the eight children in mom's family are still alive, which is why Kathy and I feel it is so important to go over when we can. I think the last reunion was three years ago, and since then the twin of the man in this picture has passed on. It was great to see everyone and catch up on what has been going on. My sister and I were just in Cincinnati in April but we only saw a handful of the relatives at that time.

On Sunday my cousin Gina (first cousin once removed!) and I met up to go to Spring Grove Cemetery to take pictures. No one else wanted to go out on a hot, sunny day and join us. Imagine that! Anyway, this cemetery is like the Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis in that it contains the remains of the Who's Who of the city. Spring Grove is amazing, and may outdo our cemetery for the simple fact that the topography is so interesting. It is very hilly, and I lost count of how many small lakes were in it. Even though we were hot, dehydrated and bug-bitten, we had a great time there. I definitely will need to go back as we probably didn't see a fourth of the cemetery. After that I called to see what the rest of my family was up to, since they had been going to Newport on the Levee, a really cool shopping and dining location on the Kentucky side of the river. (Take note St. Louis - you could have an amazing destination like this!) They had eaten appetizers and had drinks outside along the river, so they weren't going to be ready to eat supper until 7 or so. Gina and I had not had lunch, so we decided to go to a little hole in the wall pizzeria. Her brother Tony came and joined us. We shared some great stories and some even better pizza. Yum!

Overall it was a great trip, but it was good to get home last night. The best ending to the evening came in the form of a phone call from Katie. It is the first time I have talked to her since she left for Seoul a week ago Saturday. She just called to ask quickly if I could get on skype, so we ended up finishing our conversation through the computer. God, I love technology! It was so great to be able to both see and talk to her. She is doing well, and loves Seoul. She is hoping that she will like Shanghai as much as she does her current home away from home. So far the only problem she has had is that she cannot buy an international sim card that will work in her phone (the brand new phone that the US Cellular folks assured me would work in Korea and China!) Katie does think that the problem only exists in Korea as they use a different type of card there. I hope she is right, because she will definitely need a phone for the four plus months she is in China. And I need her to have a phone while she is there. Phone home, KT!

It's All Relative

2011-08-18T16:46:00.000-05:00

This weekend we are heading to Cincinnati with my sister and brother-in-law for a Crusham family reunion. This is my mom's side of the family, and only one brother and two sisters remain of the nine children grandma and grandpa had. Each time I go to a reunion it seems that there is one less person in the group pictures. And I always wonder what will happen to the reunions when the last three siblings pass on. It doesn't seem like our generation is all that interested in large family gatherings. My sister and I make the trek from St. Louis every time a reunion is held, but cousins who live there in town can't be bothered to stop in even for a brief period.

Speaking of pictures, one of the many boxes I inherited when my dad died contains old family photos. I am in the process of scanning them so that I can share them with my siblings and other interested relatives. I first divided the photos up by family and created a bag for each of my three siblings. They mostly contain photos of their own families that they shared with mom and dad throughout the years. That was the easy part. The stack of photos I knew we all might be interested in I decided to make digital rather than making prints the others might not even care to have around. Scanning is a slow and tedious process, particularly since I feel the need to clean most of the photos up with a photo editing program.

I am not quite sure what to do with the scanned pictures when I am done. There will be too many to email to my siblings, plus I want the photos somewhere that my cousins can access them if they want. My Picassa account, where I post photos from the Missouri Botanical Garden and other public venues, has nearly 200 photos in it. Once you hit 200 photos, you have to pay an annual fee. I have a Shutterfly account where I import photos that I want to reprint or put into photo books, but I'm not sure if others can access the account or if they have to join Shutterfly just to look at my photos. I also don't know if any of my photos could then be downloaded by my relatives. It sounds like I have some research to do, which will take more time. But as I said, it's all relative.

Bon Voyage

2011-08-14T21:18:00.001-05:00

Yesterday morning we took Katie to the airport for her flight to Seoul via Los Angeles. She managed to squeeze everything she needs for 5 months into one large suitcase, one small carry-on bag and a camera case. Unbelievable! I took nearly that much on our cruise earlier this year. As we have done with her and her brother on the first day of school since they started kindergarten, we took a photo on our back porch. (Obviously when the kids went to college we had to take the photo on the day they left for the school year.) It is hard to believe that this is the last one we will take since she is now a senior.

I got one ticked off text message from her in LA because Asian Air had given away the window seat she reserved months ago. Apparently they go by when you check in, and people began checking in at 5:30 a.m. for a 1:40 p.m. flight. What the heck? What is their point in even assigning seats ahead of time then? They may as well operate like Southwest - at least you know what you are getting there.

Anyway, she was put in an aisle seat, which she doesn't like due to the carts knocking you in the arm every time they come up and down the aisle. Of course, they do that a lot less than they used to since they barely serve you any more. I would still take that over a middle seat any day.She had a small little girl next to her, and she said while she wasn't bad she did kick the seat ahead of her most of the trip (12 hours and 30 minutes). And the mom said nothing...I got an email from her this morning letting me know that she arrived in Seoul safely. She will be staying at a friend's house there for 3 weeks prior to heading to Shanghai. She said the only wifi is in Ji's little sisters room, so I don't know how often I'll hear from her. She is buying an international sim card for her phone though, so I'm hopeful she'll be able to call me. The time difference will be a challenge, but we can work around it.

As a follow-up on the cupcake challenge, only 38% of the cupcake Explorers thought that recipe number 2 was the Ultimate, so it is on to recipe number 3. Whenever Stef figures out what that recipe is going to be. Onward, Wolter the Explorer!

Family Heirlooms

2011-08-07T14:43:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we attended the Wolterman Family Reunion at Lake Okoboji in Iowa. As I was already up in Iowa to be of assistance as my mother-in-law had surgery on her carotid artery, Jim drove up separately for the gala. We were excited about this year's reunion because first of all it was being held at a lake, so swimming and boating were involved. But secondly, one of Jim's cousins had sent out an email earlier indicating that she was no longer interested in keeping a dresser that had been Jim's great-grandparents. The email told the story (and included pictures!) of the dresser, and how it had been passed from generation to generation, often serving as a baby changing table - before they came up with all the fancy changing tables on the market today.

If you had an interest in the dresser, you simply had to let Kay know and she would bring the piece from her home in northern Illinois to the family reunion. If multiple people wanted the dresser, then all the names would be placed in a hat and a winner would be drawn. The caveat was that you had to be able to take the dresser home with you. No delivery would be available. Anyone who knows Jim and me, especially if they had seen our house and all the antiques, would know that we put our name in the hat. Besides the fact that this is an antique, we would have wanted it due to the provenance of the piece. Interestingly, Jim's dad was the first one to say he wanted it. Jim and I discussed this, and we decided that if our name was selected, we would give it to his dad. In my opinion, the piece should have been offered to the remaining siblings first.

Jim's folks were unable to attend the reunion, located two and a half hours from their home, due to Lorraine's surgery the previous week. As it turns out, that would make Jim and me the only Woltermans at the Wolterman reunion. Funny... None of our names were selected for the dresser, which went to a first cousin of Jim's up in Minnesota. We were disappointed, but we had a great time at the reunion that day. There was great conversation, good food, boating and swimming. The lodge in the state park was huge, with screened in windows, ceiling fans and loads of tables and chairs. In the evening we headed to a cousins lake home, and didn't get back to our hotel room in nearby Spencer until nearly midnight.

The next morning the cousin with the lake house hosted breakfast, and Jim took off on a jet ski with another cousin. Had I not showered and done my hair and make-up that morning, I would have gone along. I love to jet ski! When we arrived back at the lodge for lunch before heading home, we were told that the sisters (Jim's aunts) had decided that we should take the dresser because the person whose name was drawn was not even at the reunion, and her mom didn't have a car big enough to take it home nor was she at the lodge that day to make arrangements for the piece. So we loaded it up and took it back to Charles City with us. There may be some hard feelings from the one family member, but for now the piece is in my father-in-law's garage where he is anxious for the weather to cool so that he can restore it. It was meant to be!

Vanilla Cupcake Recipe #2

2011-08-02T19:45:00.000-05:00

Today I baked cupcakes following the second recipe of the Cupcake Project as Stef searches for the Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake. I learned some new tips from this recipe, and that was exciting for me. Katie helped in the kitchen by cleaning up the dishes as I dirtied them. It has been quite a while since we have been in the kitchen together, and it was great to have the time together. She leaves in 11 days for South Korea and China, and she'll be gone for four months so today's activities together were especially precious to me.

The three of us had cupcakes, without frosting per Cupcake Project's instructions, for dessert tonight. But you will have to wait until the end of the weekend to hear what we thought about them. This is too fun!

Cupcake Deux

2011-07-29T13:48:00.002-05:00

We have been notified that the vanilla cupcakes we made were, in fact, not THE Ultimate Vanilla Cupcakes. Only 29% of the 50 bakers thought they were the best, and 80% had to think so in order for the cupcake recipe to be considered a winner. So Stef at the Cupcake Project is busy this week conjuring up a new recipe for us to try. We must bake the new cupcakes between August 1 and August 7 and report our results again via a survey. Since I am still out of town at my in-laws, I will need to bake mine when I get back to St. Louis. I think it is only fair that I use the same oven and pan that I cooked the first batch in. Wolter the Explorer is not finished with her adventures yet.

Corroded Artery

2011-07-25T20:31:00.001-05:00

Last Wednesday I drove up to Charles City, Iowa because my mother-in-law was having surgery on her carotid artery Thursday. I came up by myself and am staying until the upcoming weekend because the Wolterman family reunion takes place this weekend in Okoboji. Jim will drive up this Thursday to see his mom and attend the reunion.

On surgery day we had to be in Mason City (a 45 minute drive from Charles City) at 9:00 a.m. for a surgery that was scheduled at 2:30. I'm sure this makes sense to someone, but certainly did not to any of us. Jim's sister works at the hospital in Mason City, so she took a couple of days off work to help out as well. The four of us (Mom, Dad, Jenean and me) left Charles City at 8:00. We waited in the surgical waiting room for awhile before they took Mom off to prep her. Then we waited in a pre-pre-op room for a couple of hours before finally moving to the pre-op room around noon. By now Jenean's husband had joined us so we sent the guys down to the cafeteria to get some lunch while Jenean and I waited with Mom. They had tried three times in the pre-pre-op room to get her IV in and finally decided to let the nurse in the pre-op room have a go at it since she is "the best" at doing it. During her sixth attempt the anesthesiologist came in for the pre-surgery conference, and he said he would like to try. After three unsuccessful tries, the nurse gave one last attempt and finally got it in. Now remember that for each attempt they had to give her a shot of lidocain, so the poor thing ultimately had 26 needles going into her! Then they needed to put in the arterial line, and that too was not going to be easy. At 2:20 they decided they were going to wait until she was under anesthesia to put it in since she was fairly traumatized by now.

After they wheeled her out for surgery, Jenean and I headed downstairs to eat. Oops - cafeteria fine dining ends at 2:00. So we had to settle for cold sandwiches out of a machine. Yippee. They did have a bag of pretzels and a Cherry Coke Zero, so all was not lost. Then it was back to the surgical waiting room. The surgeon came in at 4:45 to let us know that everything had gone well, and that Mom would be taken to a room in a couple of hours. When we finally got in to see her I was grateful that Jenean had warned us that she was very pale. Was she ever! But she was awake and able to talk to us. She felt nauseous and had some pain, but otherwise not too bad.

We stayed at the hospital until around 10:00, and then Dad and I headed back to Charles City. Jenean decided to spend the night in the room with Mom. I knew she wouldn't be getting much sleep, and I was grateful she had offered to stay. Friday morning we drove back over to Mason City, and we were able to spring Mom out of the hospital around 3:00. She looked so much better than the day before! Night and day difference.

So far she has done great. She is sleeping through the night and only taking one Tylenol with Codeine each night before bed. Otherwise she uses regular Tylenol during the day. We are very grateful for all the love and prayers people have sent her way. Obviously someone was listening! I have been enjoying having this time alone with my in-laws without the rest of my family here. But it will be nice to see Jim on Thursday.

What a Crock!

2011-07-19T08:45:00.000-05:00

Peach Butter

After finishing up with the cupcake challenge on Sunday, it was time to turn my attention to the 40 peaches that were sitting in the garage for ripening. Since I had already canned the other batch of peaches, this group was destined to become peach butter. Making peach butter is usually an all day ordeal as the concoction has to slowly cook, while quickly splashing every nearby surface with sticky goo, for hours. To my initial delight, I had found a recipe that enables you to use the crock pot. While there is still splattering involved, the website declared that you could put your peach mixture in the pot and cook it on medium all night (up to 12 hours), and then can the next morning. Woo, hoo! No more standing over a hot stove frequently stirring the peaches so they wouldn't burn on the bottom of the pan.

I followed the instructions, except that my crock pot has two settings: low and high. No medium. Hmmm...I elected to go with low since I knew I could let it cook a while longer in the morning if need be. The mixture is supposed to reduce by half. At 8:00 Monday morning it had maybe reduced an inch. This was 12 hours into the cooking time. I bumped my setting up to high and by 2:00 in the afternoon I still had a soupy mess. So out came two large pots and I ended up cooking it on the stove the rest of the afternoon anyway. What a crock! And the biggest sad side note to the whole story is that I only got 6 pints out of the whole batch. Such a lot of work for so little reward. Every year I wonder why I go to all the trouble when you can buy a jar of peach butter for a few bucks at the store. But then in the middle of the winter when we open up a jar I think, "Oh yeah, this is why I do it!" It is incredibly good stuff. So I might need to make another batch while peaches are in season.

Cupcake Update

2011-07-17T21:20:00.000-05:00

So I got my batch of cupcakes made this morning. I waited until all three of the tasters were present for us each to try one. And the result is.... Sorry, you will have to wait until after the Explorers program closes to hear my review. But I can tell you that I was able to take the remaining cupcakes and frost them with Stef's recommendation of her chocolate cream cheese frosting. Here is what they looked like:

I have quite a bit of the frosting left. What shall I make next?

Cupcake Project Explorers

2011-07-17T11:56:00.000-05:00

I was very excited to find out this morning that I was one of 50 people selected by the Cupcake Project to test what she hopes will be the Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake recipe. When Stef posted on her blog that she was looking for 50 people to be Cupcake Project Explorers, never did she imagine that she would end up with nearly 700 people throwing their oven mitts into the ring! As she narrowed down the list of hopefuls, she wanted to have a nice mix of novice, intermediate and expert bakers. I admitted in my submission that I have NEVER made a cupcake from scratch. A sad but very true statement. I suspect that is one of the reasons that I was chosen. But whatever the reason, I can't wait to mix things up!

In a nutshell, the rules are that we must follow the recipe exactly, we must make the cupcakes between July 17th and July 23rd, a feedback survey must be completed, and we cannot release the recipe until after Stef gives us the go-ahead. If 80% or more of the Explorers agree that this is the Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake, then Stef will declare it as such and let us release the recipe. If not, she will make modifications and the Explorers will try again. The Explorers are allowed to talk about the project however, so I am blogging, tweeting and Google-plusing about my experience.

My first step this morning was to come up with a name for myself during this experience. Kim the Explorer does not have the same ring as Dora the Explorer. Stef suggested Wolter the Explorer, so I shall hence become known as Wolter the Explorer. (At least for today.) Next up was a trip to the store as I did not have all the necessary ingredients on hand. I was chatting with my favorite checker about the test, and he was trying to convince me to bring a cupcake up to him so that he could lend his "expert" opinion. Ha! I told him I would let him know how they turned out next time I see him.

My batch of cupcakes is now in the oven. I will post an update later today.

Everything is Just Peachy

2011-07-11T20:58:00.000-05:00

My daughter had her wisdom teeth taken out last Thursday. Did you know that, according to her oral surgeon, wisdom teeth are named such because they appear around the age of 18 when people should be gaining wisdom? Who thought of that crock of crap? At any rate, things went pretty well except for the fact that both nasal cavities were nicked in attempting to remove the long roots of the upper teeth. So she has a couple of stitches there as well as in her gums, and isn't supposed to blow her nose for a week. Good thing she was already over her cold. After seeing all she has gone through, I am really grateful that I never needed to have mine removed. I have all four but they never came down, and don't bother me at all. She is flying to Chicago on Wednesday to interview with 3 people at a communications agency that has offered her an internship in Shanghai while she is studying there this fall. This is the same agency that her class worked with in Prague this summer, so obviously they were impressed with her. I just hope that the flight poses no problems for her mouth. The surgeon said it was okay for her to fly.

Around playing Nurse Nancy, I picked up some peaches at the Kirkwood Farmers Market on Saturday. The vendor assured me that the peaches (which were seconds) would be ready to can on Sunday. Hah! They were barely ready to be canned today. It took me three hours to get the job done, and all I have to show for it are six quarts and one pint of peaches. Every year I wonder why I go to the trouble, but then in the winter when we open them up I remember why. So nice to have fresh peaches in the winter. I also make peach butter every year, so I need to go back out and get a second batch of peaches. I should have made the peach butter first, because it is an all-day ordeal as you have to cook the peaches for hours before canning them. Oh well. The peach butter is definitely worth all the work. I think I will wait for the weekend because then I might be able to coerce Jim into helping me peel and de-pit the peaches. Hate that part!

Happy Birthday, America!

2011-07-05T08:57:00.000-05:00

This past weekend seemed really long, which is a good thing. Saturday night we finally got around to celebrating Father's Day. Katie was in Prague and Jim on his motorcycle trip on the actual day. We took Jim to a new restaurant in Webster Groves called The Block. It is an interesting concept in that they have a small butcher shop inside the restaurant. So if you love their pork chops, say, you can buy fresh pork chops to go and they will tell you how to prepare them. It took me forever to locate their website (not good, restaurant owner!) so that I could see what their menu looks like. They bill themselves as a family restaurant, but the menu is definitely not kid-friendly. When my kids were young, they would not have liked anything on the menu. I never could find the hours on the website, so I had to call to see when they are open. (Not good, restaurant owner!)

When we arrived a little after 5:00 (this being the time they open), all of the wait staff was sitting in the dining room going over the specials for the evening. We were seated anyway, which was more than a little weird. I ordered the burger and fries with coleslaw, Katie got the mussels appetizer (see what traveling abroad does?), and Jim got the pork chops. I am not a very adventuresome eater, thus my dinner decision. But the burger was grass fed beef with a strange little spice in it, the fries had salt and pepper and something else on them - maybe sage or oregano? - and I don't know what was up with the slaw, which I usually love. Katie said her mussels were good, though not as fresh as Europe. Go figure, right? Jim loved his meal. So there you go...I would not rush back there, which is too bad. I like patronizing the local businesses.


The Block

On Sunday we drove about 30 minutes from St. Louis to a friend's lake house. The day had been sunny and hotter than Hades, and we were looking forward to a boat ride and swimming in the lake. As we were driving, lightning lit up the sky and it began to rain. And it rained for the entire time we were there. So we were cooped up in a small house with 7 adults and 3 kids. But we played games and were still able to grill, so it turned out fine.

On the 4th Jim, Kirby and I walked over early to claim our spot on Gore for the Webster Groves parade. Fortunately I had brought umbrellas, as we ended up getting a nice little downpour for a bit. People improvised on keeping dry as you can see in the pictures.

But they were still able to get the parade in, and in fact it was not so ungodly hot for a change. Then in the evening we walked up to the railroad tracks behind Schnucks to watch the evening fireworks. I drug my tripod along as I wanted to see if I could get any decent photos of the fireworks if I used it. The show was really good, but only lasted 15 minutes. We spent that much time trying to navigate through the crowds to walk home. Is it really worth it? I found a super nice cell phone on the tracks as we were leaving, and debated what to do with it. The owner might come back for it. Or one of the PAS persons might steal it. Do I take it home? Take it into Schnucks and turn it in to the courtesy counter? I ended up bringing it back to the house with us. We turned it on and went through the contacts until we found Home. I called that number and probably really confused the man who answered the phone. He thought it might be his father-in-law's phone, which made no sense to me. Katie said it looked like a woman's phone, not a man's. I gave him my name and phone number to call if someone in his house reported it missing. Then the cell phone rang. To answer or not to answer, that is the question. Thinking it was probably just a friend calling, we didn't answer it. Katie went into the Facebook account through the phone and found the gal's name, along with the fact that she recently married the guy who had just tried calling the phone. (All of this felt like a huge invasion of privacy to me, but I couldn't see any way around it.) So I called him back and explained where I had found the phone. They had just been walking the tracks looking for it so they were still in the area, thankfully. They came by to pick it up, and we learned that they just bought a house a couple blocks away from us. They will be moving into it as soon as it passes inspection. All's well that ends well.

More Stitches in Time

2011-07-02T15:10:00.000-05:00

Since we had my old office/new guest bedroom painted a couple of months ago, we have hung nothing on the walls in there. We have four vintage sheets of paper dolls that we framed and hung in Katie's room when she was little. Jim now has his office in that room, and doesn't want the dolls in there. Imagine that! So we will be moving those into the guest room. But I also decided to make a quilt to hang on the wall above the new bed we purchased for the room. I was about two-thirds done with the piecing when my sewing machine began to act up. All I could think was, "Thank God this didn't happen while I was working on the graduation quilt for Tommy!"

I took the machine into Jackman's Fabrics since that is where I purchased it. They will do an initial trouble-shooting on the machine, in case it is something simple. No such luck with this one, so the machine had to be sent in for repair. I have had it for five years and have never had it cleaned, which they recommend that you do on an annual basis. So I guess I am lucky that I have gone this long with no problems. Though I could point out to them that my Sears Kenmore machine, given to me as a college graduation gift by my parents in 1978, has never been in the shop and runs like a charm. As my dad would say, they just don't build things like they used to. At any rate, a week later I received a call that the machine was ready to be picked up. All that needed to be done was a good cleaning and an adjustment of my feed dogs. So basically I just had to pay the cost of the cleaning. Not too bad.

Now I have finished the quilt and just need to sew the hangers onto the back of it. My secret? I attach several of the coated paper clips to the back. You can then bend them as needed to hang the quilt on the wall with Command hooks. No harm, no foul.

A Girl and Her Dog

2011-06-26T10:24:00.002-05:00

This past week was Jim's annual motorcycle trip with the guys. So Kirby and I have been hanging out taking care of the house. Kirby is definitely Jim's dog, and goes into moping mode whenever he is gone. He sits on the couch in the conservatory gazing mournfully at the garage as if he could conjure up Jim's presence just by wishing it so. It is pathetic. For the first few nights he didn't even sleep with me. I guess he thought Jim might sneak in while he was upstairs. Finally he decided our bed was a better place to be than the couch. Jim gets home today, so I know the pooch will be ecstatic and will quickly get over his funk.

My sister came and stayed two nights with us, and that was fun. We went out to eat, shopped and enjoyed the Missouri Botanical Garden on a particularly beautiful June day. We also went through a box of photographs that I had taken out of mom and dad's photo albums after dad died. I have been sorting them into bags for each of my siblings, but there are some I know that we all might want to have copies of. Kathy helped with the sorting. Now I have a bunch of scanning to do. Bleh. But I also have a batch of photos to take over to Cincinnati for the family reunion, so that will be fun.

Katie is now in Barcelona for a few days. She called yesterday to let me know that she and Megan had arrived safely. In a few short days I will be picking her up at the airport. Can't wait to see all of her pictures and videos, and hear all about her adventures!

Thoughts on Father's Day

2011-06-19T12:06:00.006-05:00

This is a very unusual Father's Day. Just like Mother's Day, we have no children here to celebrate the day with. But that is not bad since there is no dad here to celebrate with either. Jim is off on his annual epic motorcycle trip. I was surprised that they picked this week due to Father's Day occurring this weekend. Not so much from Jim's perspective, but the other three guys are all dads as well.

I guess I will be up for the bad daughter-in-law of the year award because I forgot to send Jim's dad a card. I have never forgotten before, so I will blame it on the fact that we were not making any Father's Day plans around here to tickle my memory. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! I will call Jerry tonight and hope that a phone conversation makes up for my memory lapse on the card.

I find myself thinking about my own dad today, in part because of finally completing the book I was writing about his time period in the war. But also my cousin posted a really heart wrenching story on Facebook this morning written by a man whose dad died at a fairly young age. There were lots of things they wanted to do together, planned during a period when they thought they had all the time in the world. I feel that way about my mom, since she died when I was only 33. But we got to have my dad a lot longer than that, so I was blessed that way.

Dad

You held my hand
to keep me grounded
You let it go
So I could fly
I held your hand
as you lay dying
Then let it go
So you could soar

Happy Birthday!

2011-06-12T20:51:00.004-05:00

Saturday was Katie's 20th birthday, and she was celebrating all right. Just not with her parents. She is in Prague for five weeks with a global marketing class, but has been taking side trips each weekend. Therefore she turned 20 in the French Riviera instead of St. Louis. So for the first time in 20 years, I was not with my girl on her birthday.

That got me thinking about birthdays in general. When it is our birthday, we tend to think only about ourselves. After all, it is OUR day. But we don't stop to think about the woman who made it possible for us to have a day to celebrate. On the birthday of each of my children I always flash back to the day they were born. There was the pain, of course. Whoever said you forget the pain is a filthy liar. But there was also the awe of holding that baby for the first time, counting the fingers and toes. Katie was whisked away from us almost immediately because she was born with a collapsed lung. She spent several days in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and I was alone in my room. It made me wonder how women who had lost their babies coped, because my arms felt so empty without her. But all those babies in the NICU, some so critically ill! We very quickly realized how lucky we were that Katie's illness was so minor.

Twenty years ago I was a very blessed new mom. And today I thank God for the lovely young woman I am proud to call my daughter. Happy birthday, Katie!

The Expense of Lessons Learned

2011-06-08T07:40:00.005-05:00

Yesterday was the last day of my photography class at the Missouri Botanical Garden. This was actually my second class, so for the past ten Tuesdays I have been at the garden for class. Tough job, I know, but someone has to do it. Scott is a really great instructor, with the exception that he likes to show too many slides. Yes, I did say slides. He uses those photos because he wants to impress upon us that no alterations have been made to the pictures. No Photoshop, no Lightroom, no iPhoto - well you get the...errrr...picture. Don't get me wrong, I love looking at his photos. Just not for 45 minutes in a darkened room on hard plastic chairs. Especially when it is beautiful outside and we could be taking shots.

Since it was pretty hot out yesterday, we only went outside for a little over an hour. He worked with each of us one on one to make sure we didn't have any last minute questions. Two of us had just gotten polarizing filters, so he talked to us about proper use of those. Then we went back inside for - surprise! - a PowerPoint slide show of his photos. He can't seem to get his timing down, so this ran past the end of class. I had to excuse myself because I had places to go and people to see. All in all, I learned a great deal from the classes and am glad I took them.

Katie forgot to take her business cards with her to Prague, and she needs them next week. On the way home from the garden, I stopped at the post office to send those over to her. I needed to catch a quick bite to eat because I had a dental appointment at 2:00, but I had a phone all and email that needed to be dealt with first. Both of these were from the father of one of Katie's roommates from Chicago. We have one last outstanding issue with their apartment.

When the three girls signed the lease last year, we got the apartment management to agree to a nine month lease. For this privilege, we paid an extra premium each month, but it still resulted in costing less than a twelve month lease. Katie told the management in March that they would be moving out, and asked questions about reserving the elevator (such as did they all have to move at the same time - which is what we had to do when we moved them in - and what else did they need to do before moving out, etc. She was told they could move out separately, and to reserve the elevator with the door person at the front desk. Flash forward to May, when Lauren went to reserve her elevator time check into moving out. The girls were informed that they did not give proper sixty days written notice for moving out. Apparently that clause is in the lease. But come on - we paid extra for the nine month lease, they KNEW the girls were going to be moving out June 6th! They then gave the girls a letter dated May 10 stating that they needed to pay an additional 45 days of rent at the new "market rate" plus a premium. The bottom line is that they said we owe an additional $5,200! The office said that they had placed a move out packet under the girls door more than 60 days prior to the expiration of the lease, telling them how to avoid extra charges. Right! All three girls walked over the packet and no one picked it up. Numerous other kids in the building also were facing this same issue and said they had never received the packet.

Now this all occurred just as the girls were studying for finals, and they were all worked up about it as you can imagine. Their numerous attempts to reason with management fell on deaf ears. I told Katie to try and put it out of her mind and that we would see what we could do after finals. We all decided to have the girls get their stuff moved out before we created any additional waves on the issue, so the apartment didn't hold anyone's items hostage. Lauren's dad is an attorney, so we put our heads together and came up with all the reasons we think we are in the right. Yesterday he sent a letter via email and also certified mail to the AMLI management. It was written as only an attorney can write, and I think makes our case. My fallback position personally is that I would agree to pay our third for the month of June at our old rate if I have to. Hopefully the legal letterhead will end this thing now. So the lesson here? Read the lease closely!

On a funny note, at the dentist's office yesterday the next hygienist over from mine (separated by a partial wall) was treating a six year old girl and her four year old brother. "You know what?" the boy questioned. "I tricked the tooth fairy! I put a lemon seed under my pillow instead of a tooth!" When life hands you lemons...

Is There a Doctor in the House?

2011-06-02T20:43:00.002-05:00

Tuesday evening I felt the start of a urinary tract infection. Another sign of getting older, another sign that God is, indeed, a man. Men don't normally suffer from this ailment due to the length of their pee pipe. Anyone who has had one of these infections knows when they are getting one. Why can't these be like yeast infections where you can buy the medicine over the counter? Why do we have to go to the doctor and pee in a cup to get the drug? And why do the infections always occur when the doctor is indeed Not In?

By Wednesday morning I was very grouchy about the whole thing, so I called the doctor's office first thing. "Can't I just come in and pee in a cup?", I begged the receptionist. It's not like I have ever been wrong before. Oh no, you must see the doctor. She could take me at 10:40. Grrr...I wanted my drugs! I should explain about this doctor. She is from India, and dresses like she is still in her homeland. She has a revolving door of Indian residents flowing through her office like the Brahmaputra River back home. She used to have her office in a crappy little building walking distance from my house. She has since moved a little farther away into a building that used to be occupied by a restaurant. Still in a crappy, slightly bigger office. My daughter had just gone to see her for a check-up prior to her trip abroad, and she reported an hour and a half waiting period. So, still a crappy building and still crappy scheduling. I was hoping that a move to a new place would help her get a little more organized. You might be asking yourself why I continue to go to this doctor. Well, I like the convenience of the location, she is very thorough, and she can always see me the day I call if I have an issue like this. With my ob/gyn I had to call and leave a message for his nurse, wait for her to call me back, and then hopefully get an appointment in a couple of days. I just can't wait when I get one of these.

Anyway, when I arrived at the office at 10:35, there was only one man in the waiting room, and he had listed his appointment as being at 10:20. Not too bad, I'm thinking to myself. Ha! I was able to pee in a cup fairly soon after I got there, but then the wait began. Due to Katie's experience, I brought my iPad along. Thank God! I mostly leaned against the wall in the waiting room (named that for a superb reason!) because sitting with this infection is not very comfortable. Finally at 11:50 I was taken to an exam room, where the non-smiling resident took my vitals, as well as my blood. She decided I needed a blood sugar test since I hadn't seen Dr. K. for well over a year. It was low. Ya think? I didn't realize I needed to pack a lunch to go to the doctor's office. She brought me in some crackers. That seemed like a bad sign. Exactly how long was I going to be sitting in the room?

Dr. K. finally came in, said my urine test was positive (what a surprise!), and asked if I have been taking my cranberry pills. 1650 mg. every morning, I told her. She said there is a new cranberry pill out that has additional macrobiotics or something in them, and that studies were indicating that they are helping people like me. She couldn't remember where she saw them, so I'm supposed to call in a week and ask about them. Whatever - just give me my prescription so I can get out of here! By 12:30 I was on the road to the pharmacy. Where I got to wait another 25 minutes for them to fill the prescription. What a bummer that when you feel so awful, you have to wait around for the people and things that can make you feel better. The drug works like magic though, and I feel so much closer to normal today. Until next time...

Quilted Memories

2011-05-26T13:50:00.005-05:00

Now that the high school graduate has received his quilt, I am posting a couple of pictures of it. I have not yet heard how Tommy liked it, but I was very pleased with the end result. My friend Kathy, who quilted the top to the bottom on her long arm machine, did a fantastic job. It really finished the quilt off nicely and looks so professional. Hopefully Tommy will enjoy it for many years.

For the first time ever I kept track of all of my expenses and all of my time on a quilt. I knew it would be an interesting experience, but by the time it was all said and done, I earned $1.30 per hours for the quilt. Woo, hoo! Slightly more than I used to make baby-sitting back in the late '60's. Well, just like writing books, you do it because you love it not because you expect to get rich.

On to a different subject...My hair stylist is quite a character. He is going to Chicago this weekend for the International Mr. Leather competition. Charles is the reigning Mr. Midwest Leather, so he gets to compete again this year. The competition takes place at the Hyatt Regency downtown. Apparently they have all the rooms in the hotel reserved for attendees again this year. What I wouldn't give to be there. From what Charles had told me, just being in the lobby is quite the experience! The hotel staff told them they just love it when the competition is there because "you gay guys are great tippers".

Charles is taking the train to Chicago today since air prices are so high. However he will board the train at Union Station, not Kirkwood. "Did you know that the Kirkwood station is unmanned?", he asked me. I admitted that I did know this. "Well that means you can only check one 50 pound bag and have two carry ons!", he exclaimed. "They have obviously never traveled with a gay guy", he continued. "I couldn't fit all of my outfit changes into one bag. And it's all leather, for crying out loud. I would exceed the 50 pound weight limit!" Apparently if you go to Union Station you can check three bags and have two carry ons. Much more to Charles' needs.

So go get 'em Charles! Any guy that still looks good in leather at age 56 and can compete with the young'uns has my vote!

On the Move

2011-05-21T19:27:00.003-05:00

Sunday afternoon we drove over to Chicago to pack up Katie's apartment and move her home. We pretty much had everything packed by around 9:15 that night. In this apartment building you have to schedule the elevator when you are moving things in or out, so we had it set up for Monday afternoon from 2-4. Katie's two roommates will be moving out later. We also scheduled a local moving company to help us load up the Penske truck we had rented. By late Monday morning we were ready to go, so we walked over to Target to pick up a couple of things and then went out to eat. After that we retrieved our car from the hotel parking lot and went to pick up the truck.

The movers showed up right on time, and the truck was loaded in less than an hour. Of course they have a two hour minimum, so we lost out on that deal. I tried to tell the scheduling lady that we only needed two guys, but she insisted we needed three. Now I see why she said that...While the guys were moving stuff, Katie and I cleaned as much as we could considering the other two girls still had all their stuff in the apartment and would dirty the kitchen and bathroom again. I feel bad leaving the rest for them, but we had no choice in the matter with Katie's schedule.

The good part about getting the truck loaded early is that we were on the interstate headed for home by 3:30. Unfortunately, that is still rush hour in Chicago. I would not live in that city for love nor money. I am SO happy we don't have to take Katie back there in the fall!

On this end, I hired Simple Moves to unload the truck on Wednesday and move everything to the basement. There is no way we could accomplish this alone, with Jim's bad knee and all. They were done in a little over an hour, and also moved a gargantuan television from the 3rd floor out the door for me. Yay!

Today we put Katie on the plane to Prague, via Chicago and Madrid. Her 5 week international marketing class begins on Monday. There are 14 students and 2 instructors going. They are staying in a hotel that provides breakfast each morning and includes full laundry service (when can I move in???), and they will do their class work there as well. Classes are held all day Monday through Wednesday, and until noon on Thursdays. They will be able to travel around on the long weekends. In addition they are working with a Prague based marketing company on an Oreo cookie campaign. Apparently Oreos are not big sellers in the Czech Republic, and they want to change that. The trip sounds amazing!

Sew, What's New?

2011-05-13T21:21:00.003-05:00

The quilt that my friend asked me to make for her son's graduation is now in the hands of the long arm of the quilting law - my friend Kathy. I actually finished it a couple of weeks ago, but Kathy couldn't work on it until after May 5th when she finished a quilt for her nephew. After that she was not available until May 11th for me to drop it off, at which time she informed me that she will not touch it until Monday the 16th. This was very disappointing to me as Diane wanted the quilt by the 17th. After Kathy is done, I still need to sew on the binding, which is time consuming. While I machine-sew the binding to the top of the quilt, I then hand-sew the binding to the back. Obviously I will not make the deadline of the 17th. Diane is understanding, thankfully, but I definitely want to get it to her by the graduation date, which is the 20th.

It would have been fantastic to get the quilt back from Kathy by today as Jim is gone on a motorcycle training trip this weekend. I could have sewed to my heart's content, and made the deadline. Also, on Sunday afternoon we go to Chicago to pick up Katie and all her crap. We will not get back to St. Louis until late Monday night. So if I get the quilt from Kathy on Tuesday I will really have to hustle to get it completed. I may be calling my sister over to have her help me with the hand-sewing. She said she wouldn't mind, and she wants to see Katie sometime during the short four day time period she will be in St. Louis.

Next Saturday Katie flies to Prague for a five week marketing class with 13 other students and two professors from Columbia College. They will be working with a marketing company in Prague on the Oreo cookie campaign. Apparently Oreos are not big sellers in Czech Republic, and Nabisco wants to change that. What a fun account to work on!

So in the meantime, with nothing to sew, Kirby and I are holding down the fort. I guess I will go back to working on my e-book. Sew natural...

Mother's Day

2011-05-09T19:37:00.004-05:00

In my mind's eye, Mother's Day has always been about my mother, despite the fact that mom has been gone for nearly 22 years now. For many years I could not even look at the Mother's Day cards in the stores because I would start to cry. I am finally at the point that I can purchase the card for my mother-in-law each year now. But I miss my mom every single day, and Mother's Day just seems to bring that ache a little closer to the surface.

This year, like last year, I did not have either of my children here for "my" day. Fortunately my sister's son Joe has organized a family picnic for the last several years. So Jim and I gather with my sister and her husband, their children and their grandchildren. Joe married a woman with three grown children, so they come with their spouses and grandchildren as well. Then there are a couple of miscellaneous in-laws thrown in for good measure. I think we had about 21 people attend this year.

But before we headed out to the park, we met up with my sister and brother-in-law at the World Bird Sanctuary (WBS) in Valley Park. None of us had been before, but we had a special reason for making the trip on Mother's Day. This bird sanctuary is where my little owl Hootie was taken by the conservation agent. We were hoping to catch a glimpse of him, because an email I sent to the WBS was answered by the director of operations with the information that Hootie was okay and was in a cage with three other juvenile Barred owls. He added that Hootie would be released some time in June.

The WBS is quite an interesting place, and I definitely want to go back when we have more time and it isn't so hot. We walked the trail looking at all the birds, but saw no sign of a cage with four Barred owls in it. We thought maybe Hootie was the little owl we were able to see through the hospital window, but the date on the cage was wrong. As luck would have it, a volunteer came by the window so I was able to ask him about Hootie. He pulled the chart that lists all the birds and their arrival dates. He was able to tell us that Hootie's cage is down in the valley in the propagation area, away from the visitor's path. This area is for birds who will be released to the wild, so they don't want them to have too much human contact. That makes perfect sense, but I was a little saddened by the fact that I didn't get to see him for myself. We left a donation at the WBS to help with his care, and then headed on over to the park for the picnic.

We had a very nice time, and the breeze picked up fortunately so it wasn't too hot. Both of my children called me, so I guess I did feel like a mother after all. Happy Mother's Day, mom! Love you!

What a Hoot!

2011-05-05T19:41:00.003-05:00

Yesterday afternoon I was planting some of my annuals since it was a) not raining and b) there was no frost warning for the night. When I looked out our side window as I was filling the watering can I caught a glimpse of something in the shrub. At first I thought it was a cat, but as I looked closer I realized it was an owl. We have heard a male and female owl in the trees for several weeks now, but I had not seen one up close. Quickly grabbing my camera I tiptoed around the back of the house. The owl simply blinked his big black eyes at me. I crept even closer to him, and he made no move to fly away. He looked pretty young to me as his feathers appeared to be downy. I got some great pictures, but I guess I should have realized something was wrong with him as he was sitting fairly low in the tree. The next door neighbors came out to take a look, and we all marveled at being able to see an owl so clearly.

After supper I checked the shrub out the window and the owl was no longer sitting there. So Kirby and I went outside to do more planting (well, I went out to plant and he went out to pee on my plants) and there was the owl in the center of the sidewalk. The dog went crazy and the owl began to flap his wings and make a clacking noise with his beak. It took a while for me to corral Kirby and get him into the house, and I came back out with my camera. That's when I noticed the owl seemed to be limping, and when he would try to fly he could only get a few inches above the ground. By now the boy who lives in the house on the other side of me was in the yard watching with interest. The owl flapped and limped his way up the sidewalk, only to be trapped by the wooden fence. It was painful to see him flapping and trying to fit through the fence, but by God he made it. He ended up hopping into one of our small arborvitae trees. Alexander had gone home to get his mom and her boyfriend, and Barbara and her daughter from next door came over as well. The little owl was quite the pied piper!

I tried calling the wild animal rescue center and the wild bird sanctuary, but both of them had closed at 5:00. I put out a plea for help on Twitter, and received lots of advice from people. There was some debate about trying to scoot him into a large dog crate so he would be safe from predators for the night. I was concerned about giving him a heart attack, and I also had no desire to have my eyeballs scratched out. And then someone posted that it is illegal in Missouri to capture a bird of prey. So I decided to say a Bird of Pray and hope he made it through the night.

Of course I didn't sleep for crap last night, I was so worried about him. I went out as soon as it was light this morning, and the little guy was still safe on his perch. At 8:00, as soon as they opened, I called the Missouri Conservation Department and explained the situation. The lady gave me the cell number of the agent on duty and I quickly contacted him. Gary said he would stop by this morning and see what needed to be done. When I went back outside to check on Hootie, as I had dubbed him, the little scamp had gotten himself into a new tree. The arborvitae had great access and the bird would have been trapped between us and the fence. The new tree was between our utility shed and a pile of stepping stones and pavers left over from various landscaping projects. Not convenient at all!

When Gary arrived he confirmed that the owl was a juvenile and did not have the developed wing span to fly. We speculated that he had fallen from his nest, hence the limp, and wasn't quite ready to be on his own yet. Gary put on heavy gloves, and told me I would need to hold the white sack open after he grabbed the bird. Wait a minute - where are MY gloves? Plus this bag had about a 14 inch opening. What the heck - where is the BIG bag? So Gary squeezed by the shed and the owl began his clacking noise again. When I commented on that, Gary said "Yeah, that is his beak. He wants to bite me." Great! And I get to hold the sack...

He actually captured the bird pretty easily - I think the poor little guy was tired, hungry and thirsty - and he turned him upside down to stuff him in the sack I was reluctantly holding. Talk about trying to get a cat in a bag! But we got him in and tied the bag off to the sounds of a clacking, pissed off owl. Gary told me he was taking Hootie to the World Bird Sanctuary where they would evaluate him for injuries and determine if he needs to be held there for a while until he can fly. So there was a happy ending to the story, but tonight a large owl sat on the front peak of our porch. I couldn't help but wonder if it was Momma, looking for Hootie. No happy mother's day for her.

Picture This

2011-04-17T08:28:00.006-05:00

I am halfway through a photography class that I am taking at the Missouri Botanical Garden. It is on Tuesday mornings for 3 hours, and lasts for 6 weeks. The instructor is a professional photography with many published photos to his credit. This is a beginning photography course, and I have taken a couple of those in the past. For some reason I just don't get the aperture, focal length, f-stop, ISO terminology stuff. Whenever it is discussed, my eyes glaze over. Math - bleh! So I was hoping this class would help me understand my D-SLR better. And I want to take the next class on photographing nature, and it is for intermediate students. I didn't want to be "that person" in the next class...the one who asks all the inane questions.

My camera is a Nikon D-40, and it takes amazing pictures. I love it, and the lens I purchased for it. So why am I taking the class, you might ask? Because I shoot everything on automatic exposure. And most of the time, that is perfectly acceptable. But you do get the rare time when the lens can't focus on what you are really wanting to take a picture of due to junk in the foreground. I experienced that just the other day when I was trying to photograph a bird's nest through a tree. When I took my camera setting off of automatic {gasp!}, I could manually focus on the bird in its nest. So I can understand the beauty of knowing how to shoot on manual, but by the time I think about changing the exposure and working with the lens, sometimes the photographic moment is lost. The instructor assures us that it will become second nature to us. We shall see...

At the very least I am learning a lot about photo composition, so that will be invaluable whether I shoot on automatic or manual. And every Tuesday I get to go to the Garden and take photographs. It's a win-win!

It's All Relative

2011-04-09T20:05:00.007-05:00

My sister and I are in Cincinnati this weekend. We drove over on Thursday afternoon and will head home tomorrow. Usually we stay with our cousin Gene and his wife Rita. This weekend they had lots of family plans with a birthday party, flag football game, children coming in from out of town with grandchildren, etc. We looked at coming a different weekend, but it seemed like nothing was going to work out with everyone's schedules. We had selected this weekend because the International Quilt Show is meeting in Cincinnati for the very first time, and Kathy and I are both quilters.

We decided to come this weekend anyway and stay in a hotel. There are no hotels near our aunts or cousins, so we are staying in Florence, KY. It is about a 15 minute drive to downtown Cincinnati from here, but the hotel room was a lot cheaper than staying downtown. The Clarion Inn & Suites is quite nice, and our rooms are large and comfortable. My only complaint is that there is a group of kids here (college? high school?), and they are noisy in the hallway and with slamming doors. But that is not the hotel's fault. Where are the stupid chaperons?

Anyway, our first stop after we checked in Thursday night was Skyline Chili for the famous chili three way - spaghetti, Skyline chili and grated cheese. What a way to begin our mini-vacation! Then Friday morning we headed for downtown Cincinnati along with 5,000 other quilters. The quilt show was amazing! They have hundreds of fantastic quilts on display, and booths of vendors selling every kind of quilting supply imaginable. After five hours I walked away with only the batting I need for the graduation quilt I am making. Boy could I have gotten a good deal on a new quilting machine. It was only $15,000!

Because we were at the show until 4:30 and were meeting 6 of our relatives for supper at 6:00, we decided to drive directly to the Newport Levee where the restaurant is located instead of all the way to our hotel and back again. We enjoyed sitting outside and looking across the river at the Cincinnati skyline. This area (Ohio and Kentucky sides of the river) has really been revitalized and offer lots to do. They have been successful in drawing both tourists and locals back to their river fronts. Supper was awesome, and the restaurant allowed us to hang out and talk until after 9:00.

This morning Kathy and I went back to downtown Cincinnati to an area called Findlay Market. It is the oldest continuously running outdoor market in Ohio, and has been around for over 150 years. Knowing that my ancestors worked and shopped in the area was very exciting for me. I don't know how I missed coming to this before now. It reminds me a bit of Soulard Market back home. After that we picked up Aunt Margie and Aunt Betty (my mom's two remaining sisters) and went to the Golden Corral to meet up with a couple of cousins. We were there for 6 hours! They are so nice to us that we always go there when we come into town. They don't mind that we sit and visit that long. We dropped the aunts off around 7:00 and then came back to our neck of the woods in Kentucky. We will head for home in the morning as Jim and I have tickets to the Repertory Theater at 7:00 tomorrow night.

The Quilting "B"

2011-04-04T13:34:00.003-05:00

Around working on my dad's book and all the extra work on the pictures I had to do for it, I have been trying to keep up with this graduation quilt I am making. Now that it is April, I am beginning to feel the squeeze. The mom has not told me exactly what date she needs the quilt done, but I know graduation is May 20th. When I made Lauren's quilt (sister to this graduate), it just needed to be completed by Lauren's graduation party. This bought me a little extra time, which was great. Tommy knows he is getting this quilt, so it is not a surprise like Lauren's was so the deadline may not be that big of a deal. I guess I better ask the question, huh?

Originally I was going to make 70 squares, which is the number I used in Lauren's quilt. But since I cut each of the center fabric pieces larger for this quilt so you could really see some of the larger focal pieces, I realized that 70 would make this quilt huge. (Unfortunately this was after I had already cut all 70.) So I have scaled back the number to 48. I have all the squares pieced and am now just "squaring" them up. After that I'll be ready to start sewing the squares together. When that is complete, I'll decide if I'm going to put on one border or two, depending on the size I am aiming for in the end.

Last night I called my friend who actually did the finished quilting on Lauren's quilt to see if she is willing to do the same for this new one. She has one of the really expensive long arm quilting machines that can handle larger quilts. It just makes a much nicer finish than I can do on my machine. Thankfully, she has the time to take on this project after May 3rd. It will only take her a few days at most, and then the quilt comes back to me to apply the binding. Whew! Could be crunch time in early May, especially since we have to go to Chicago and move Katie home the middle of the month. Always something... No wonder I have been a quilting "b" lately.

What a Weekend

2011-03-21T09:08:00.005-05:00

Man, I am worn out. As previously mentioned, Katie and her roommate are here for spring break. I picked them up at the MegaBus stop Friday afternoon. I then fixed lasagna, cheese garlic bread and a salad for supper, followed by ice cream sandwich cake. Yum! This is not the way to take off the extra pounds I added on the cruise ship. Saturday the girls took off for the zoo and art museum, and I worked on my presentation about traditional publishing versus self-publishing. I was on the program at Borders that night with other SLPA members. Jim went off on a motorcycle ride for the afternoon.

Yesterday we went to Crown Candy for lunch, and that took a big chunk of time since we had to wait nearly an hour to get a table. Then we went downtown to the arch, and unfortunately all the tram rides for the rest of the day were sold out. They are only operating one tram currently. It was packed since this is a big spring break week. We did get some nice photographs of the arch outside anyway. Then Katie and Fay took off for the Loop, while Jim and I stopped at SWT so he could check on some work. We walked home from there since the girls had dropped us off. It is about 2 miles from home, so at least we were able to get some additional exercise. Last night we hung around the sitting out on the deck since it was so nice outside.

Fay leaves on the 4:35 bus this afternoon, so I'll see what they want to do until she has to go. I could take them back downtown to the arch, or we could go to the botanical garden. It is a nice day for doing either one of those things.

Mrs. Clean

2011-03-17T20:37:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow Katie and her roommate Fay, who is from China, are coming here for spring break. We are excited as we barely had time to meet Fay when we moved Katie into the apartment in September. I am picking the girls up at the MegaBus stop at Union Station at 2:30, and then it sounds as if they will hit the ground running. It tires me out just listening to the itinerary. So many things to see and do before Fay heads back to Chicago Monday afternoon.

I have been on a cleaning rampage for the past two days. I guess since it was 82 outside today it can count as my spring cleaning. I think I'll be ready in time. I need to do the guest bathroom yet, but since that is the one that Jim uses I'll have to wait until he goes to work tomorrow morning. I also need to go to the store. I am going to make my lasagna with a salad and garlic bread for supper tomorrow night. Katie and I thought it would be nice for Fay to have a home cooked meal for a change. After tomorrow night they will be on the go so much I don't know if I'll even be cooking supper for them again.

To add to the confusion around here, we are doing some remodeling on the garage. I had suggested to Jim that we put a larger garage door on (it only had a single door with a man door next to it) so that he wouldn't have to move his car out of the way to get a motorcycle out. Of course they would pick this week to begin construction. Everything had to be moved out of the garage, so it is a little messy out back. I hate for Fay to see it that way, but I can't do anything about it. I think we'll be able to move some stuff and a car back in by this this weekend, so we can get it cleaned up a little anyway.

Takin' a Walk

2011-03-13T12:51:00.003-05:00

....down memory lane. I have enjoyed catching up with old classmates on facebook. The other day, one of them mentioned that he keeps in contact with Mr. Wadden, one of our teachers from high school. Mr. Wadden taught Advanced Placement English, and he was "that" teacher for me. The one you remember even though thirty-plus years have passed. The first day of class, he released a litany of expectations for the class that led to at least five students dropping out. I admit, I considered it. It was my senior year - did I really want to work that hard? But I really loved reading, writing and English, so I stuck it out. Mr. Wadden was an amazing instructor. I really think he gave his little speech at the beginning to "separate the men from the boys", so to speak. The class was challenging, for sure, but it was also thought-provoking and lots of fun.

So I got Mr. Wadden's email address from Bruce, and I contacted him not really expecting too much in the way of a reply. Boy, was I surprised! Mr. Wadden remembered me quite well, down to the fact that I transferred classes second semester so I could be with my good friend, Kim. "Didn't you guys call yourselves the Kimmys or something?", he asked. Close - we called ourselves the Kimlers, because I was Kim Kubler and she was Kim Taylor. He also remember that I was headed to Iowa State to major in Mass Communications. I told him about my two degrees and the fact that I have published a book. I added that he is the reason I was able to accomplish that feat, as he provided me with the skills to succeed in college and to be a good writer.

He said that he wasn't surprised that I had written a book because my highest grades were always with my writing in his class. He went on to say a lot if really nice things, which I won't repeat here. But I know that on a down day when I question what I am doing and if it makes difference, I will pull out his email for a boost.

Did a teacher make a difference in your life? Write and tell them so.

Back in the (Cold) Saddle

2011-03-05T20:07:00.005-06:00

We just returned from a week long cruise in the Eastern Caribbean aboard the Celebrity Eclipse. What a fantastic ship! Our friends Kathy & Paul Corbin joined us again, as they did 2 years ago when we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary in the Western Caribbean on the Ruby Princess. Kathy and I not only graduated from high school together, but we also attended Iowa State where we met our respective spouses. Coincidentally, Jim and Paul were fraternity brothers. Kathy and Paul sang at our wedding. They are the type of people that you can pick right back up with no matter how much time has passed since you have seen them.

We flew to Miami for this cruise, and our room was right next to the Corbins. We were able to open up the glass divider between the balconies so that we could sit outside together. I was a little concerned because the rooms were at the very front of the ship, which can be bumpy. But none of us had any problems with the waves. The staterooms were by far the best we have had (in our limited experience). They were spacious and very well appointed. The whole ship was beautiful and the staff was excellent.

We spent late Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday at sea before arriving in San Juan on Monday. We met up with a friend of Paul's, who took us on a walking tour of old San Juan. It reminded me of New Orleans, but with narrower, hilly roads. Then Tuesday we arrived at St. Maarten, and Jim and I went on a snorkeling expedition. It was a lot of fun, but the snorkeling was not too great. Kathy and Paul scuba dive, so they booked a scuba trip.

Wednesday was Jim's 55th birthday, and we spent it on St. Kitts. We had rented scooters to tour the island. It is not very large, so you can make it around the island in 2-3 hours. The first thing is that they drive on the opposite side of the road. I am sort of comfortable doing that, but I was not sure if I wanted to try it on a scooter. Especially since I have never been on a scooter before, much less operated one. Then I saw the size of the scooter as they were going over all the features of them. They were bigger than the Vespa size I thought we were getting. I reluctantly decided I would ride behind Jim. Now, I should mention that I have never gotten on his motorcycle with him. I have control issues and I don't like sitting behind him whether on a motorcycle, jet ski, bike or whatever. But it seemed the lesser of two evils. Unfortunately they did not have a larger scooter, and this thing was really not a bicycle built for two, let me tell you. The seat was small, and the foot pegs for the second passenger were minuscule. At one point going up a hill I had to get off and walk because it didn't have enough power to take both of us. I know we had been eating a lot at the buffets, but come on!

Anyway, we took off. The roads sucked, but at least the traffic wasn't too bad once we got out of town. Then it started to rain, and I'm not talking liquid sunshine here. It poured! I had just gotten comfortable (sort of) with Jim's driving, and now I was fearing slippery roads and a wipe out. Plus the buses would fly by, cut back over in front of us and create a tsunami of water flying at us. There was no place to take shelter and we had no rain gear. So we kept going, despite chattering teeth and the fact that we were freezing. The sun would pop out, we would begin to dry, and then the rains would come again. This happened multiple times during the day. I was never so thankful as I was when I saw the scooter rental shop. Ughhhh!!! NEVER want to do that again!

Thursday and Friday were days at sea, so we played trivia games, hung out at the pool, saw shows and just relaxed. It was hard to come back to 39 degree weather and gray skies. But it is good to be home.

Almost There

2011-02-12T16:39:00.004-06:00

This week I concentrated on getting the bedrooms back in order. The closets are all cleaned out and the furniture is all in place. We moved 2 pieces of furniture from our bedroom into the new guest room along with the bed from the smallest bedroom, and it all fits nicely. That room now just needs items on the wall and a new rug. I would love to make a quilt for the wall, but with the graduation quilt I'm working on I would not be able to get to a wall quilt until June. Maybe that's okay - we'll see. Our bedroom needs a new rug as well since we "re-purposed" the old one in the entry foyer as it would not go with the green walls I wanted in our room. We also need items for the walls in our bedroom, but there is no rush there.

Jim's office is all set up in the smallest bedroom, and it looks pretty good. We are debating on a rug in there, or just leaving the hardwood floors bare. He also doesn't want the framed antique paper dolls left on the walls. What's up with that? We will probably move 2 or 3 of those to the new guest room. Then I think we will simply take some of our landscape photos and have them enlarged to 8"x10" or maybe 11"x17" and put under glass for the walls in the office. We have some nice shots so we might as well use them.

In between all that I have managed to work a few hours on the graduation quilt. It has been very time consuming! I definitely need to carve out a couple of hours each day to work on it. Slowly but surely...

Measure Twice, Cut Once

2011-02-07T20:28:00.004-06:00

That was an old adage my mom used to throw out when I was learning to sew. I've gotten a lot of mileage (or should I say yardage?) out of it over the years. Over the weekend I came up with a modification of mom's words of wisdom. Measure twice, buy once. I have been working on the graduation quilt I am making for my friend's son. She helped me pick out 26 of the fabrics initially, though I need 73 different fabrics all together. I finished shopping on my own. I have all 70 squares cut and sewn with their borders attached. The next step is a purple fabric for the sashings, which is what joins the squares together. Diane had helped me select this particular fabric, and it quickly became clear to me on Sunday that I was not going to have enough to do all the squares. Crap!

Knowing that Jackman's was having a Super Bowl sale, I rushed up there hoping to be able to buy 3 more yards of the fabric. They only had 2 yards left. Double crap! I made an executive decision to change to a different purple, one that has a suggestion of tie-dye effect to it. I think it will mesh nicely with the 70 different novelty prints in the quilt, and it blends with the purple border already around each square. (Purple is the graduate's favorite color, in case you couldn't tell.) Now I get to cut 280 strips 9" x 2". Yippee! My least favorite part of quilting is all the cutting. My wrist hurts thinking about it. Maybe if I had a decent layout table it would help. Instead I am either hunched over on the floor cutting, or bending over a table that is too short.

Maybe my retirement home will have the perfect craft room???

Once the Dust Settles

2011-02-02T10:26:00.002-06:00

So I got our bedroom all put back in order, and found a pretty quilt at Macy's that looks great with the wall color. Then over the weekend, Jim and I had to take everything out of my "office" for the painter who was coming on Monday. Now our bedroom as well as the small guest room is packed with stuff from the office. I just don't know where to go with stuff. I have recycled as much as I can (or will, when the weather clears - all THAT stuff is in the entry foyer!), and the trash cans are full this week. But since some of the stuff will go into the small guest room when it becomes Jim's office, it has to remain elsewhere until we can take the bed down and move it into the old "office". Honestly, it is like a Chinese fire drill around here.

But the old "office" was painted a cheery yellow Monday, and yesterday I began to clean out the closet in there. That is where I stored all my office supplies. I'm boxing them up for now and those boxes, too, are cluttering up our bedroom. Who would have thought that some wall paint would cause all this mess? Me and my big ideas! I can't wait until it is all done...

(Wall)Paper Roses

2011-01-29T20:49:00.003-06:00

Since we no longer need a home office for our business (said business now being someone else's headache), we decided to break down my office space and put it back into a bedroom. The bed that we set up for our Thanksgiving guests in the smallest room on the second floor, probably originally a nursery, will now be moved into my old office. Some temporary insanity made us decide to also redo our bedroom while we have a painter handy. When we bought the house in 1987, nearly every room in the house was covered in hideous wallpaper. Our bedroom was no exception, and it was blessed with wallpaper on the ceiling as well. Nice! We painted the ceiling and woodwork a nice cream color and put a floral wallpaper on the walls. And that is how it has remained for 23 years. Jim and I do not re-decorate much. (Understatement of the year!)

So my trusted painter came over on Monday to look at the job and, I thought, give me a cost estimate. Instead he asked me when I was getting all the stuff out of the office so he could start. Seriously? We are talking desk and chair, working table and chair, a tall bookshelf, copy machine on a stand, four file cabinets (two drawer size), a four drawer filing cabinet, two printers, a scanner, a fax machine...well, you get the idea. This move was not going to happen overnight. So I asked him to start in our bedroom instead. I figured trying to get 23 year old wall paper off the walls would entertain him for a while, and I was right. Some unhappy grumbling came out of that room for a few hours on Tuesday. I selected two shades of green for the walls, as we have a chair rail about halfway up the wall, and we went with white for the woodwork to match the rest of the house. Bye, bye cream...and good riddance!

While they painted, I spent the week de-cluttering the office. There is still a lot to do before the painters come back on Monday. We are getting rid of the white desk, table and file cabinet that we bought used from a local business 10 or more years ago. Instead we will put a glass topped desk in the smallest bedroom for Jim to have as his office. He spends a lot of time on the computer with his hobby, which is photography. I purchased the program Lightroom for him as a gift and he has really enjoyed enhancing his photographs. It will be nice to get his laptop and monitor off the kitchen counter. Anyway, a few items from my office will be moved into his, such as a couple of the file cabinets and a printer. As for the rest of my stuff? I'm at a loss, but I better figure it out before Monday.

That Old Sew and Sew

2011-01-15T20:57:00.003-06:00

I had a bit of a sewing set back. Actually it was a cutting remark that caused all the problems. My 70 different squares of fabric are all cut, so this afternoon I began cutting the purple fabric that will surround each novelty piece of fabric. It readily became clear to me that I did not have enough of the purple fabric to cut into 280 pieces. I quickly gathered up a piece of the purple and one of my squares and dashed off to Jackman's Fabrics, offering up a prayer to the fabric saint that more of the purple remained in the store.

I found the proper color on the shelf, eying it with the sinking feeling that there were not 3 yards remaining on the bolt. Once at the counter I had the clerk go over the numbers with me to see how much more fabric was required for my squares. Math is totally not my thing, so to try to calculate the yardage needed to cut 140 5 1/2" x 2 1/2" rectangles plus an additional 140 9 1/2" x 2 1/2" rectangles was a challenge for me. But I thought 3 yards would do it. As the clerk measured my sample square, she said "You do know that your square is 5 3/4" and not 5 1/2", don't you?" Huh? I know I looked at her like she was crazy. I explained that I use a quilting ruler, and I am very accurate with my cuts. She explained that some of the rulers have an extra 1/4" in them. WTH!!! Why would anyone think that was a good idea?

At any rate she confirmed that 3 yards would do the trick, and as luck would have it that is exactly what remained on the bolt. Whew, crisis diverted. But when I got home and looked at my ruler, sure enough it has the extra 1/4" on it. So the rest of the afternoon I cut that amount off of each of the 70 squares plus all the purple strips I had already prepared. Like I don't already have enough cutting to do! First I threw the stupid ruler and its three larger sized brothers in the recycle bin. Maybe I should rethink that and throw them in the trash. Or else some poor woman who shops at Goodwill is going to be cussing this old sew and sew!

Sew Be It

2011-01-11T19:23:00.003-06:00

Two years ago when my friend Diane purchased the quilt I had donated to the school auction for her daughter Lauren, she cautioned that she would need quilts for for Tommy and Courtney when they graduated as well. At the time I wasn't sure if she was serious, and anyway Tommy wouldn't graduate until 2011 and that was a long way off. Well, Diane was serious and it is now 2011!

Last week the two of us went to Jackman's Fabrics to begin looking at material. Tommy wants a quilt just like Lauren's except that he wants purple as the main color and not Mountain Dew green. So the good news is that I know what pattern I am doing, the bad news is that the quilt has 70 squares of novelty fabric, each representing something of the past or present. That's right - I need 70 different fabrics. We found 26 at Jackman's, as well as three different purples for my borders. I came up with 18 additional fabrics I had a home that will work, leaving me with 26 additional fabrics to locate.

I love shopping online as I can enter what I'm looking for, say Harry Potter fabric, and I can usually find something that will work. The trick is to make sure it will look okay with purple! I located the lady I have purchased from in the past, and I'll be able to make up the rest of the squares from her I think. She is looking for a few things I could not find, such as something to represent a trip to Germany/Austria. Castles, perhaps? It will be fun to see what she comes up with. Last time she sent me a whole bag of scrap materials to dig through, and she wouldn't let me pay her anything for them since I was donating the quilt.

Last night I cut the 44 pieces of fabric I already have into 5 1/2" squares. Lauren's were only 4 1/2", but Tommy is quite a bit taller than her for one thing. The fabrics we located also have larger patterns on them, so I wanted the extra inch to capture more of the detail. While I am waiting for the other fabrics to arrive I'll begin cutting the purple strips which will border each of the squares. All the cutting is the most time consuming and least rewarding part of quilting, in my opinion. I like seeing all the squares come together as I sew. Oh well, off to the cutting board!

Going, Going, Gone

2011-01-04T11:49:00.003-06:00

Last Thursday we sold our composting company. Jim and I started ORMI 20 years ago, following the ban on yard waste in Missouri. We saw a business opportunity as waste haulers, landscape contractors and homeowners would need a place to dispose of their yard waste. I was pregnant with Katie at the time. For a while Jim was the only employee, working out of a shop trailer. I continued to work full time at MOMEDICO and did administrative duties at night and on the weekends. We added a couple of employees and eventually built a nice building on the site.

Time passed and we added equipment and additional employees, and Jim built a thriving landscape architecture business. I resigned from MOMEDICO when Katie entered 1st grade, and set up my office out of our home to handle the administrative side of ORMI. We had grown to 9 employees, multiple semi trucks and trailers in addition to the tub grinder and screens, and created a nice market for compost, mulch and soil.

But things have changed in this industry. Our state legislature nearly overturned the ban on yard waste last year, which would devastate small composters like us. The down-turn in housing starts means less land clearing waste coming into facilities such as ours. We were concerned about having enough material to supply our customers come the spring. And we are about due to replace the tub grinder, which go for around $750,000. Not good for cash flow.

So when we were approached by our main competitor in October about a possible buy out, our ears were open. We signed a letter of intent so that they could look further at our organization, and then they completed their due diligence. Negotiations were made regarding terms and conditions, and we closed the deal on December 30th. Two months from start to finish. Wow!

Yesterday Jim met with our employees to tell them the news, and the new owner came and introduced himself as well as some of his key staff. Our employees will all have the opportunity to keep their jobs, should they so desire. This was an important condition for Jim and me. The employees were understandably shocked, as we had given no indication we were looking to sell. Heck, we weren't really looking! But this was the right offer, at the right time, with the right company. When the guys take a step back and separate their emotions from the facts, they will realize that this new company offers them so much more opportunity than Jim and I ever could have done. Things do indeed happen for a reason, and I think this will be a good deal all around for everyone involved.

Over the weekend I packed up all the ORMI files in my office and added them to the boxes in the basement (some 20 in all), and they were picked up by the buyer. They will arrange later to get the boxes from 2005 and prior which are stored off-site. We will now take my office and return it to a bedroom once it has been painted, and take the little bedroom we just refinished and put the office in there. This will probably also motivate us to redo our master bedroom since it hasn't been done in (gasp!) 23 years. Then the whole second floor will be in keeping with the rest of the house.

As for myself, I plan to initially spend my time finishing dad's book, turning my house research book into an e-book, and doing some research on a book Jim has in mind to write (or have ghost written as the case may be).

2011- bring it on!

On the Road Again...

2010-12-29T21:19:00.003-06:00

...I just can't wait to NOT be on the road again... We have had quite the driving experience here lately. On December 18th we hopped in the car to drive to Chicago to pick Katie up for Christmas break. Jim thought seeing the lights in Chicago would help put him in the Christmas spirit. Was cold enough there to freeze spirits, let me tell you! But we did have fun shopping with Katie and picked up a few last minute gifts. Sunday we headed home for a couple days and celebrated our Christmas here on Tuesday night. At this point I should probably interject that we did ultimately purchase a small tree to decorate so that Katie could experience seeing all the presents spread out under the tree.

Wednesday at noon we loaded up the car and the dog and drove to Iowa to spend a few days with Jim's parents. We had great driving conditions on the way up and back, but got to experience 9 inches of snow on top of the existing 7 inches already on the ground in Charles City. A white Christmas indeed. We got home about 5 on Sunday, unloaded the car and the dog and then left for the Repertory Theater to see "Above the Tavern". This is a great play, and anyone who has experienced Catholic education would get a kick out of it.

Monday morning we got back in the car, sans the dog, and drove the 3 hours to Huntingburg to see Andy and Megan (as well as the rest of Megan's family) at the Englert's house. This was our only chance to see them and exchange gifts since they were leaving for D.C. the next day. We stayed for supper and got home around 10:30 that night. So 3 major road trips in 10 days, and my butt is begging for mercy! I don't want to go for a drive anytime soon.

Having said that, we had a wonderful Christmas and it was great to have the opportunity to see everyone. We are so blessed that all of our family is happy and healthy and that we could get together. Here's hoping for a great 2011!

Deck the Halls - Not!

2010-12-08T09:17:00.003-06:00

I'm becoming something of a Scrooge. I really don't want to get a Christmas tree this year, and I am not at all interested in decorating the house. I have the big wreath on the front of the house and the Christmas flag in the pole, but that is it. This is the year that we travel to Iowa for Christmas. Every other year we alternate staying home versus going to Jim's hometown. The years we go to Iowa coincide with Andy and Megan going to Indiana, which works out well since I have no idea how we would ever get them to Charles City. But the down side is that they never get to see the grandparents, and that is just sad.

At any rate, it just seems like such a waste to go to all the effort of the decorations when we won't even be here to enjoy them. I think we may compromise and just buy a small tree this year. Or we are toying with just purchasing a small artificial tree. Jim has always been adamant that we have a real tree, but maybe he is now getting a little like Scrooge himself. I guess I'll just see how motivated we get this weekend. In the meantime, I need to get the Christmas letters in the mail. Ho, ho, ho...

Back to the Empty Nest

2010-11-28T16:00:00.003-06:00

The house is empty again. Even Jim and the dog are over at SWT right now. After a houseful of people and nonstop activity the last five days, it is nice and quiet here. Maybe too quiet.

Andy and Megan flew in last Wednesday morning, and after picking them up at the airport we drove to Pappy's to attempt to get some barbecue. Ever since Andy saw this restaurant on "Man Versus Food", he has been dying to go there. I dropped him and Megan off at the line forming outside the door and went to find a place to park. Before I even got out of the car, they were back at my door saying that a lady had come out of the restaurant advising that there were at least 100 people waiting inside for a table! Not having the time or the inclination to wait in the rain for that long, we went to Seamus McDaniels in Dogtown instead. We got home in time for us to let the dog out, then Jim and Andy went to Union Station to pick up Katie from the MegaBus stop. Megan and I waited at home for JoEllen and Bruce to arrive. Oh, and their dog, Casey.

We had a nice supper and then played Sequence for awhile. Thursday was non-stop action preparing the turkey and all the fixings, and then JoEllen and Bruce headed back home to Kansas City since she had to work the next day. On Friday morning Megan's mom, dad and two brothers drove over from Indiana to spend the day with us. The guys all went to Cabellas and the gals stayed here and got caught up. We ordered pizzas, watched some football and some of the group played Euchre for a bit before the Englert's had to leave. Friday night Jim and I went to the Webster Groves State Championship game at the Jones Dome (where Webster was beaten by a phenomenal Kansas City area football team), Andy went to the Casino Queen, and Katie and Megan hung out at the house.

Saturday Jim, Andy, Megan and I went to the botanical garden to see the train show while Katie did homework, then we went to our favorite Chinese restaurant for supper. Katie went back to Chicago on the train this morning, and we dropped Andy and Megan at the airport this afternoon. As soon as Jim gets back from the office we are going to the gym to see if we can undo some of the damage of five days worth of company. More than the bird was stuffed this holiday!

Being Neighborly

2010-11-18T20:49:00.002-06:00

Down the street from me lives a woman who is 95 years old and living once again in the house she was born in. It's a fun story in and of itself as she (I'll call her V) is living with her 85 year old boyfriend (I'll call him D), who actually owns the house now. I was thinking that it would be really interesting to interview her to talk about what it was like growing up in Webster Groves. After all, she probably knew the Morton family who built my house. They lived here until 1938. I understand my neighbor's mind is very sharp, even if her body is failing her. And she loves to talk!

I was trying to figure out how to go about seeing if she would mind answering some questions for me. Well, yesterday while walking the dog I saw the boyfriend (tee, hee!) talking to his next door neighbor, whom I do know. Always one to try to answer when opportunity is knocking, I hurried up my friend's driveway to introduce myself. As I explained why I was interested in speaking with V, D quickly expressed that V would love to talk to me. She loves discussing old times. As she feels best in the afternoons, we agreed that I would just come over one day after Thanksgiving around 1:00. After D went back to working in his yard, my friend said, "You're going to write about this, aren't you?" It ends up that she knows a lot about the neighborhood as well, and she had some suggestions about other elderly people that I should interview before it's too late.

So I may be on to my next book idea. We'll see how this first interview goes.

I Got "High" Last Night

2010-11-08T20:36:00.003-06:00

Last night we went to see the play "High" at the Repertory Theatre. I didn't know much about the play other than the fact that it starred Kathleen Turner and involved a young man with a drug addiction. Oh - and it was listed as being for mature audiences. I try not to talk to other people who have seen plays I am going to, and I don't read reviews because I so infrequently agree with them once I see the play (or a movie, for that matter). It was tricky with this one because lots of people were excited to have Turner in town, and our tickets are the last night's show. This play was actually written by a man who has a drug addiction, but who has been clean for 3 years now. There are predictions that it will head to Broadway, and I can see that happening.

There are only 3 actors in the play - a nun (played by Turner), a priest (Michael Berresse) and the young man (Evan Jonigkeit). While the subject matter is serious, there were some surprisingly funny moments in the play. The set was clever yet somber and didn't detract from the play. All 3 of the actors were excellent, with Jonigkeit doing an exceedingly credible job of portraying a drug addict. It was pretty obvious that Turner was not feeling well as she coughed a lot during the production. But she hung in there, and looked very relieved when her last line was delivered. The play has some interesting twists, and is definitely thought provoking. I "High"ly recommend it.

Elementary, My Dear Watson

2010-11-04T20:12:00.004-05:00

This afternoon I gave a presentation on composting to a class of 25 4th graders in Cahokia, Illinois. My niece's daughter is in the class, and she had been bragging to her teacher about her aunt and uncle who own a composting facility. As the class has just finished discussing microbes and how they help to break things down, the teacher thought it would be perfect to have me come in and talk to the class. Normally I would just discuss the composting process, but Cordelia had told them I would be bringing my "trash" along, so I modified the program a bit to include recycling.

I talk to the students about the different kinds of landfills and recycling centers available, and then each gets to pick a piece of trash out of my garbage bag. They then have to decide which of the centers that I talked about would accept the "trash". They don't always get the category right, but at the end of the day the point is that of all the pounds of trash I brought along, nothing had to go to the sanitary landfill. It all could be recycled in one way or another.

From there I talk about backyard composting, and then expand on what we do at a commercial composting center. I have large photographs showing them the equipment we use as well as some of the places around town that have used our compost. But by far their favorite part of the presentation is when I bring out our worms so we can talk about vermicomposting. Kids love worms! We have a stacking vermicompost bin at our house, so I have to remove some of the worms and their compost and place them in my traveling worm bin. Everyone was allowed to come up and gently pick up worms if they so desired. Surprisingly most of the kids were game. And my favorite part is when the kids finally figure out that they have their hands in worm poop. Priceless!

But they were great, and I think they enjoyed talking about recycling and composting. And maybe a few will take something home from today and make some positive changes in their own lives.

Double Nickels

2010-10-29T10:09:00.007-05:00

Thursday was my 55th birthday, and I had sort of thought about my blog post for the day. But then, as we know, shit happens (or compost happens as we say in our business). At 7:15 that morning I received a phone call from the compost center telling me that during the night someone stole one of our semi trucks and two of our walking floor trailers. Really? How does that happen? So the morning was spent talking with insurance companies, the police, etc.

Then good news came in the form of a phone call from an alert truck company owner who saw our truck parked across the street from his business in north St. Louis city. He put a call into his dispatch with our DOT number, and found out that we are the owners. He then called our facility with the location of the truck. Our guys call the St. Louis city police to check on it. Here's the interesting part - there was a flat bed trailer hooked to the back of the truck, and it had a large spool of stainless steel on it. Not our stuff! It ends up that this trailer and metal were stolen Sunday night from a business in Illinois. Weird...but he got his trailer back and we got our tractor back. So I did get a decent birthday present after all, which is great because then Jim and I headed off to boot camp for our usual Thursday night torture...I mean, workout.

Friday we drove down to Branson to be with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew for the weekend. On the way down I got a call from our site manager who told me that the two walking floor trailers had been located and were in East St. Louis. They had been found in the parking lot of the Casino Queen, and their security had them towed because they didn't belong there. They are now impounded as they are part of a crime spree where trailers are being stolen and sold for the scrap aluminum. I have to dig out a lot of documentation before they will release them to us on Monday. But all's well that ends well, and this ended very well for us.

So I have been able to relax and enjoy our stay down in Branson, where the weather is fantastic and so is the company. Double nickels might not be so bad after all!

Show Me the Blog

2010-10-24T20:47:00.004-05:00

On Saturday I attended the first ever Show Me the Blog conference. I first heard of it through a posting on Twitter, appropriately enough. At the time there wasn't much information about the meeting on the internet, but as it was the last day to qualify for the early registration fee I went with my gut and signed up anyway. Am I ever glad that I did! Danyelle Little (thecubiclechick.com) put together a fantastic program. On Friday evening conference attendees and speakers gathered in the space of St. Louis Coworking on the 11th floor of the Shell Building downtown. Coworking is an interesting new concept, offering desk space (or just space to hang out) to entrepreneurs looking to get out of their home offices. It was great to be able to meet some people before the conference, and to be able to see what Coworking has to offer.

Saturday the room at the Maryland Heights Community Center was packed and humming with energy. Throughout the day we learned the secrets of successful bloggers on how to have a blog that is fun, profitable and interesting without sacrificing who we are as creators of the blog. The recurring theme seemed to be "Keep it real". The entire day was fantastic, and I very much enjoyed meeting all of the other bloggers and hearing about their stories. It was so odd to be in a room where everyone was constantly on their smart phones and/or laptops. What would normally seem rude in a conference was in fact encouraged. Attendees were tweeting about the speakers (and some awesome boots!) and the contacts they were making, so others who couldn't attend sort of felt like they were there. How cool is that?

So kudos to Danyelle and the other great people who helped her as she walked out on a limb to bring a conference of this magnitude to St. Louis. Can't wait for the next one!

The "New" Guest Room

2010-10-16T16:28:00.003-05:00

The painters arrived as promised on Thursday morning and began their prep work while I ran out to pick up the paint. I wanted to make sure I purchased the right finish for the woodwork and walls, so I waited to consult with the painters. After all, Porter Paint is just down the block from us. Jim assured the painters I would be back within a half hour with the paint. I joked that if I was not back within 15 minutes, they should call the cops. Famous last words... Off I went without my cell phone because, gee, Porter is right around the corner. I arrived at the paint store only to be told that someone had come in yesterday and purchased ALL of their cans of the woodwork paint that I needed. Seriously? It's white paint, dude, how can you be all out? He graciously called the closest store to see if they had a gallon for me. So off I headed north towards Clayton in rush hour traffic. With no phone to call the painters and let them know I would be delayed.

At the Clayton store I waited in line (of course there was no one else at the Webster store when I was there), and gave the gal the yellow paint can while telling her that they were holding the white paint for me. She looked at the yellow can and said that it would be 20 minutes for her to come up with the formula as their numbering system had changed. I bought the yellow paint from them a couple of years ago for the conservatory. I told her I couldn't wait an extra 20 minutes as I have 2 painters at my house standing around with their thumbs up their butts since they didn't have the paint I needed in the Webster store. I asked her to find an existing paint that came close to the same color and I'd just go with that. It didn't need to match exactly.

Once back with the paint the job went smoothly and the painters were done by 1:00. Friday Jim grabbed one of the young guys from his office and they went to pick up the bed and mattresses. They got it all set up in no time, and I put on all the new bedding. The room looks great, and now I have to ask myself if we made the room too comfortable. Will the company ever want to leave?

The Nursery

2010-10-12T19:57:00.003-05:00

The small bedroom is vacant of all furniture now, awaiting re-decorating. I was thinking back to the last time we did much of anything with that room. It was 1991 and I was pregnant with Katie. We painted the walls a very soft green and set up a crib, antique dresser that doubled as a changing table, and added the rocking chair that Jim gave me for Mother's Day that year. Four sheets of antique paper dolls were matted and framed and hung on the wall. A lot of rocking, story telling and singing of lullabies took place in that room. Eventually the crib came down and Katie graduated to the "big girl" bed, which remained in that room until we carried it upstairs.

We purchased a new full size bed last week, and it is ready to be picked up. We decided against trying to hassle with the antique wrought iron bed again. The painter is coming on Thursday, and I need to select a wall color. Today I picked out a quilt for the bed, and that will help me determine what color of yellow paint I want to go with for the walls. Fearful of the bed bug invasion, I immediately threw the quilt and matching pillow shams into the dryer. Supposedly putting any newly purchased garment in the dryer for 20 minutes will kill any bedbugs and their eggs. Ewwwww!

As for the roll top desk in the entry foyer? It went on craigslist last week, and we sold it for asking price last night. That was easy. Anyone need a wrought iron bed frame?

St. Louis Shuffle

2010-10-05T21:14:00.004-05:00

We have been shuffling furniture around in the house. Katie took her trundle bed to college, so we needed to take the twin bed out of the small bedroom and move it upstairs to the third floor so she has a place to sleep when she comes home. Then we found out that we are having additional company for Thanksgiving, and with Andy and Megan here we will have no bed for the other guests. So we took a second look at the small bedroom and decided if we moved the dresser and my sewing machine/table up to Katie's room, we could set up a full size bed in the that bedroom. But first we had to move the roll top desk/chair and vanity table/chair out of Katie's room.

We now have a roll top desk in the entry foyer (anyone need a desk?), and a vanity table in the basement. The other items fit in Katie's room just fine, though I'm not sure she would agree. The small bedroom is now a blank slate. With nothing in there, it would be a perfect time to paint the room. And we are not sure what to do about a bed. We have an antique wrought iron bed frame in the basement we could use. The problem with it is that it was made during the time when people only had a feather mattress on their bed - no box spring. When you put both on the bed you practically need a step stool to be able to get into bed. Should we try to find a modified mattress/box spring or just start over with a new bed? Decisions, decisions...

A Tale of Three Sisters

2010-09-29T19:35:00.004-05:00

Once upon a time three Post Oaks stood sentry over the property at 213 S. Maple Avenue. Since they appear in the 1902 photo of our house, I know that they were here long before the house was built. Post Oaks are extremely slow growing trees. When we bought the house in 1987, we named them the Three Sisters. Through the years the Sisters sheltered our home and planting beds, and provided an interesting backdrop when we photographed our children.

In recent years the middle sister began showing signs of her age. We had a tree specialist attach cabling a few years ago in an effort to give her more support. But despite our best efforts earlier this year Middle Sister gave up her post, so to speak. Her large decaying bulk was a magnet for every tree guy from here to Perryville. Oh wait...they were all from Perryville. At any rate, we finally accepted a "reasonable" quote from a younger guy who agreed to remove Sister, a large limb from South Sister which was hanging dangerously over our roof, another large oak in the backyard that had died and a small dead maple from the side yard. Today they came and did the work. Middle Sister has gone to the great mulch pile in the sky, and the two remaining Sisters appear bowed in grief. I hope they also don't die on our watch.

As the weather cools, the boys from Perryville will be back on my street, offering to sell parts of Sister for my fireplace. I paid to have her taken down and I can pay again to get her back as firewood. Only in America...

Life & Death Experiences

2010-09-22T19:33:00.003-05:00

On September 12th my niece's father-in-law died at the nursing home where he had been staying for the past couple of years. Ralph was 88 years old, but his mind and body had checked out a while back. I last saw him at our family Christmas gathering, and he was in tough shape then. One thing that hadn't faded was his sense of humor. He was quite a character! As Ralph and his wife Emily had no church of their own, my niece's pastor offered to have the funeral at their church in Cahokia. It was very touching and moving, especially considering the pastor had only met Ralph on a couple of occasions. One particular statement he made has stayed with me. "We can spend time or we can waste time, but we can never make time." As a veteran Marine of both WWII and the Korean War, Ralph was eligible to be buried at Jefferson Barracks Cemetery. They provided a full military ceremony, complete with the firing of the rifles and the playing of Taps. A military funeral is something that touches everyone in attendance, and there were no dry eyes in our group. R.I.P. Ralph - you earned it.

My mother-in-law turns 80 tomorrow, and we all traveled to Iowa last weekend to celebrate with her. Jim and I stopped at the St. Louis University Lay Education Center near Bowling Green on our way up to see what that was all about. It is a sculpture garden, and it has a cemetery next to it that was established in 1831. Very interesting! We also stopped at a few barn quilts on the way so that I could take some photographs. Unfortunately the day was dreary and we were on a bit of a schedule, so I only got to photograph 4 of them.

On Friday we attended the Charles City homecoming parade. It was fun to see all the kids in the parade, and strange to think that Jim would have been on the flatbed truck with the other football players more than 30 years ago. Saturday we hit the Farmer's Market in the morning and a quilt show in the afternoon before going to Mass. That night 10 of us took Lorraine out to supper in nearby New Hampton. Great food! Sunday Jim's sister had us all over for brunch before we had to leave for home.

Monday of this week my brother-in-law turned 65. On Saturday Jim and I will have 12 people here for a barbecue to celebrate this milestone. Emily will come, but we sure will miss Big Ralph!

A Moving Experience

2010-09-06T18:35:00.008-05:00

At noon on Friday Jim and I picked up our Penske moving truck and brought it back to our house. One of the young guys from his office brought a friend over to help Jim get Katie's bed down from the 3rd floor and our old couch up from the basement. They ended up staying and in 40 minutes we had all of Katie's stuff loaded into the truck. At 4:00 we met up with Lauren's family to pick up the IKEA orders we had placed from a warehouse in Webster Groves. After placing those in the truck, we went to Lauren's house and got all of her stuff on board. By 5:30 Katie, Jim and I were placing our order at the Trainwreck Saloon for a last St. Louis family meal together.

Saturday morning Katie and I left our house at 8:00 to take Kirby to Cahokia, where my niece would take care of him while we were in Chicago. Jim called when he in the Penske truck and the DeGroots in their van hit the Poplar Street Bridge. Katie and I jumped back on the highway and we were on our way. We made really good time until we were about 80 miles outside of Chicago, which is when I-55 shut down. Both northbound lanes of the interstate came to a complete stop. As sirens blared and lights flashed behind us, all the cars and trucks crept as far to the shoulder as we possibly could, considering construction was going on and the shoulders were mushy roto millings.Several members of our group walked towards the accident scene, and as I stood by our car I saw the medi-vac helicopter approach. At that point southbound I-55 was closed as well so the helicopter could land.

I began to chat with the couple in the pretty Lexus ahead of me, and learned that they were returning to Naperville after attending a 50th anniversary party at the Whitmore Country Club in St. Louis on Friday. When I commented on how great it is that the couple has been together that long, the woman told me that she and her husband have know each other since they were 15. But both of them had married other people (in fact her first husband was in her second husband's first wedding!) - wow, you need a score card to follow all that. Her first husband had died of a heart attack at age 55, and her current husband's first wife had died of breast cancer 7 years ago. They had then become re-acquainted and later married.

I explained that our three vehicles were heading to Chicago to take the girls back to Columbia College. The man said that two of his children had graduated from there as well. Small world... By now our surveilance crew returned from the accident scene and said that they had seen body bags on the pavement, with at least one of them containing a body. There was also wet substance smeared across the highway, and this was before the fire department had done their job. Don't even want to speculate there. By the time it was all said and done, we spent an hour and a half stuck on the interstate. We called the apartment complex as we were scheduled to use the loading dock from 3-6, and there was no way we were going to be there by 3. They were very accommodating and said we could have extra time. As it turned out, we arrived at 4 and had everything moved in from the truck and the two vehicles by a little before 6 anyway. We started putting furniture together and at least had Katie's bed ready for her when we finally took off for our hotel room at 9:30 that night.

At the Hyatt, which offers a great rate for customers of Katie's apartment building, I heard the front desk clerk say something about executive room, and I assumed it is because I have a Hyatt customer card. But when we got to our room, we had a corner suite! Windows facing downtown and windows facing the lake, a whole living room area with a t.v, king size bed with another t.v., bathroom with two sinks, a large desk area, and a kitchen completed the suite. Very nice! After quick showers we fell into bed anxious for a good night's sleep after the stress of the day, but that was not to be. Let alone hearing doors slamming all night long, there were the most obnoxious people out in the halls. Different groups throughout the night laughing and talking loudly. At 5 a group of men coming in from their night on the town decided to hold a conversation in the hallway, followed shortly by another man who locked himself (or was locked out) of his room. Brother... This was not good as we were driving home on Sunday as soon as we finished putting Katie's furniture together and got her room to a reasonable stopping point. I did not want us to be another statistic on I-55 due to falling asleep at the wheel.

We started back on the apartment at 10:00, took a break to eat lunch with the other family at noon, and at 1:30 Lauren's family left to drive back to St. Louis. We stayed with Katie until 4:15 and then took the truck key back to the Penske rental place. (The guys had dropped the truck off Saturday night, but the lock box was broken and they were afraid to leave the key lest the truck be stolen.) By 4:35 we were on the road, and got home at 9:45.

The apartment really is lovely, and I hope that the three girls all have a great year together in Chicago. Meanwhile, I'm going to fluff my feathers in my empty nest.

See You in September

2010-09-01T16:39:00.003-05:00

It is hard to believe that today is the first day of September. I'm really thankful it has arrived what with the heat we have been experiencing this summer, but still the year is marching on its way. While most colleges have already begun, Katie's first day is not until the day after Labor Day. Since we ran into problems getting an apartment in Chicago, that is actually a good thing. We ultimately secured a three bedroom apartment in the building that Katie began looking at last April. It is a beautiful apartment, nicely appointed with stainless steel appliances and granite countertops. Didn't we all have that in college? Oh wait...I lived in the dorm for three years and then in a two bedroom trailer my senior year.

But that was then and this is now, and I am happy that Katie is in a building and area that I feel comfortable with, or as comfortable as any parent can feel with the world being what it is these days. Katie and I spent a good chunk of today picking up some last minute items. We'll still have shopping to do at Target once we get over there, but we picked up non-breakable, non-perishable items here.

Friday at noon I will pick up the moving truck (woo-hoo, haven't driven one of those since I moved Andy out to D.C. in 2007). One of the young guys from SWT is coming over at lunch time to help us get Katie's bed down from the third floor and the couch out of the basement. Then at 4:00 I'll take the truck to a new business in Webster Groves to pick up out IKEA order, along with the order from Katie's roommate. We'll finish loading the truck with all the girls' stuff Friday night as we want to be on the road by 9:00 Saturday morning. I'll leave slightly earlier as I am dropping Kirby off at my niece's house in Illinois. Her girls are excited to have Kirby spend the night with them.

Our move in time at the loading dock is 3:00. Sounds like the girls have recruited a number of friends so we should have many hands on dock - yuck, yuck. We'll need them as we have a lot of furniture to put together. Jim and I can pretty much stay as late as we need to on Sunday, and I know we need to not only go to Target but also the grocery store to get the pantry stocked.

I'm looking forward to meeting Katie's third roommate Fay from China. Hopefully this will be a good mix of personalities, and everyone will have a fun year.

Where East Meets West

2010-08-26T21:54:00.002-05:00

Today the final five design teams presented their ideas for rejuvenating the arch grounds to the panel of judges who will select the winning design. It was open to the public, so I went downtown with Jim early this morning. The presentations had been moved to America's Center as it was felt there would be too large a crowd to hold it in the auditorium under the arch as had been originally planned. I think they forgot that by holding it on a week day, most working folks would not be able to attend. Even though the news reported 150 people in attendance this morning, I don't think there was anywhere near that number in the auditorium. Maybe they were counting all the people in the building?

Anyway, while I had seen the boards of each of the teams on the competition website, I had not had a chance to study them in person. That is the first thing I did this morning. Each of the design teams has come up with innovative ideas for connecting the the downtown area to the arch, and then across the river to East St. Louis. Some of the concepts seemed a little too far out there for St. Louis, but maybe that is just me. I preferred the designs that embraced the natural ecology of the St. Louis region.

Each team was given 45 minutes to present, and then allowed 30 minutes for q. & a. from the judges. (The audience was not allowed to ask any questions, or make any comments.) The first 2 teams presented in the morning, with a 30 minute break between presentations. I very much enjoyed the opportunity to have the one dimensional boards brought to life through the PowerPoint presentations of the teams. It was interesting to hear the thought process behind the designs. Jim and I went out for a quick lunch during the hour long lunch break and then I headed home. Honestly, I don't know how the judges sat through an additional 3 presentations after lunch. They went on until 6:30! My head was spinning after just 2. As all the presentations were videotaped, I figure I can watch the others at my leisure once they are posted on the competition's website.

All I can say is that no matter who wins, this is going to be huge for St. Louis. If they can find the money.

What a Card!

2010-08-20T08:29:00.003-05:00

I can't believe I forgot to mention a low-light of our DC trip. Andy lent us his car to get to the Metro station on the days he was at work. When we tried to leave the parking lot at the Shady Grove Station on Thursday, we soon found out that you needed a Metro Card to exit - no cash or credit cards accepted. Jim had to go back into the station and purchase a Metro Card, which required a minimum amount of $10 to be loaded onto it. Interesting, since parking for the day is $4.25. The card worked fine upon leaving the lot that evening.

On Monday Katie, Maggie and I went back to DC on the Metro, parking again at the Shady Grove lot. When we arrived back at the station that night, I pulled up to the automated gate to use the balance on the Metro Card. At this point I had one car in line behind me. Holding the card to the magnetic reader, I got nothing but beeping noises. I pressed the card this way and that way to no avail. I'm starting to sweat (okay, I was already sweating from a day of tromping around in 90 degree heat) and I look in the rear view mirror to see about 30 cars behind me. By now the horns are starting to honk. There are no attendants in either of the two booths at this exit to help me out. There is no way for me to back up. It is starting to get ugly. "Get the fuck out of the way!", I hear yelled at me. Well, since you asked so nicely, let me just move out of the way - not! The man behind me was waving to the people behind him in an attempt to get them to back up. More horns begin honking, because that always helps. Additional slurs are shouted at me.

Finally, the man behind me manages to maneuver his car off to the side enough so that I can back up. I sheepishly crept over towards the other exit line, which does accept credit cards, oddly enough. The line at that exit was also backed up 20 cars or so. Do you think any of them would take pity on me and let me into the line? I guess that is what happens when you have a car with Maryland plates; everyone thought I should know better.

We finally escaped and headed back to Andy and Megan's house. My son then informs me that there is a $5 service fee to get one of those Metro Cards (because you can keep adding money to them), so that is why there was nothing left on the one Jim had bought. Oh, and by the way, you can check the balance on the card inside the station. Thanks for telling me now, son. Doh!

Vacation Ramification

2010-08-17T20:05:00.006-05:00

Katie, Maggie and I flew back from DC today (Jim came home on Sunday). The flight left on time, there were no crying babies, and we even arrived on schedule. I was a little (okay, a LOT) amazed when the flight attendant announced not once but twice that we should pick up all our trash so they could be ready for the next flight, and then proceeded to ask us to lower the window shades, turn off the overhead lights, and open up the vents before leaving our seats. REALLY??? Is this my job now? Pay more for a ticket, pay to check my bag, receive no pretzels much less a meal, no pillow or blanket and then be expected to pick up the plane for them too? Unreal... Why don't they just pass the Dust Buster and we can vacuum on the way out.

We had a nice vacation though. Yesterday I headed to the National Archives to do some genealogical research, and the girls went to the Crime and Punishment Museum and then to the Spy Museum. It was hot but not super humid, so I did a bit of hiking around on my own when the archives turned out to be a bust for me.

Coming back to reality bites though. Listening to all the voice mail messages, going through a 5 inch stack of mail, watering the outdoor plants and getting started on the laundry took my vacation mood away pretty quickly. On the plus side, we got a 3 bedroom apartment lined up for Katie and her 2 roommates today, so that takes a big weight off of all of our shoulders. (Long story - the one we thought we had lined up all summer was snatched away from us.) Now if we can just convince the landlord to let us move in before the 6th since the girls start school on the 7th.

Back to the daily grind...

Rainy Days and Sundays

2010-08-15T12:22:00.005-05:00

Jim, Katie, Katie's friend Maggie and I are in Washington, D.C. to visit Andy and Megan. We arrived Wednesday night. The girls are staying with the kids and Jim and I are at a local Comfort Inn since Andy and Megan don't have a guest bed in their townhouse. There was a heck of a storm at 6 Thursday morning, with thunder, lightening and heavy rain. We heard 3 separate car alarms going off from the thunder-boomers.

Thursday the four of us went down to the city (Andy and Megan live in Gaithersburg, MD) for the day while Andy and Megan went to work. Jim and I went to the Mall to photograph the WWII Memorial for my dad's book while the girls did their thing, and then we met up after lunch at the Holocaust Museum. Wow - what can you so about that museum? Doesn't seem right to say I "enjoyed" the museum, but I can say unequivocally that it is very sobering and thought-provoking. After that we went to the Smithsonian Visitor's Center as I had always admired the brick castle-like appearance of the building but had never been in it. It is beautiful inside, and we also found some great ice cream. Good pick-me-up on a really hot afternoon. We also hit the Air and Space Museum before heading back towards the train. Unfortunately it began to pour, so we ducked under a building overhang for a bit. It was a soggy 45 minute train ride back to the Shady Grove Station where we had parked Andy's car.

Friday Andy took half a day off, so we drove first to Georgetown to try to score some Georgetown Cupcakes (made famous from the cable show DC Cupcakes), and found a several block long line waiting to get in. Passing on that idea we went on to Alexandria to have lunch at one of Andy's favorite restaurants. We stopped at the Jefferson and Roosevelt Memorials on our way back. While the day was cloudy and not great for picture-taking, it was pretty cool with a nice breeze. This time we hit the Georgetown Cupcake location in Bethesda about 4:30. There was still a long line at this location and it took us 40 minutes to get our dozen cupcakes. Wow - people here haven't heard that cupcakes are "out". I will say that the cupcakes are very good, but they have a cream cheese frosting, which is not my favorite. Pretty much ruined the cupcake for me.

Yesterday was spent at Gettysburg. Unfortunately we had to take 2 cars since there are 6 of us, and it is about 1.5 hours from their house to the visitors' center. We spent 4 hours driving the auto route, and it was fascinating! Again we had a gray day, but it was a comfortable temperature. Beats the heck out of the 97 degree temps back home. Today we intended to go to Mount Vernon, but it is very rainy again. Since it is nearly 2 hours away, we didn't want to gamble on doing a walking tour in the rain. We are going to play Yahtzee instead. Jim flies home at 6:55 today to rescue the dog-sitter, so we can't go too far anyway. The girls and I are coming home Tuesday.

On a side note, the storm I mentioned on Thursday apparently resulted in a lot of damage in Gaithersburg. A fairly significant number of people were without power. Lightening struck a tree which crashed on top of an apartment complex and caught on fire. At our hotel are a number of refugees from the complex. It has been heart-wrenching to listen to their stories in the breakfast room each morning. Today the Red Cross arrived as it sounds like the people have only been given rooms through tonight.

Google Me

2010-08-01T19:21:00.003-05:00

The St. Louis Genealogical Society had a meeting at the Viking Hotel yesterday on how to Google your family tree. The speaker Dan Lynch has, in fact, written a book coincidentally (not!) named "Google Your Family Tree". He is an excellent speaker and I learned a lot about how to more efficiently and effectively use Google. I typically use the Yahoo search engine because I like my Yahoo home page, but now that I know the power behind Google I will be surfing a whole new wave. I had no idea that there are numerous filters available to help you get a better search result.

Another interesting thing involves something called "cached", and I don't mean in a "Show me the money!" kind of way. Have you ever clicked on a web link only to get the dreaded error message that says this website is not available? Well, off to the side of the link listed in the search is the word "cached". If you click on it you will be taken to the static pages of what used to be shown on the website. Perhaps the information you are looking for is there, or at least a contact person so you see about getting the information. If a plus sign (+) shows up under a link in your search, that indicates that Google thinks that particular website has other pages relevant to your search.

When Dan got to the part of his presentation covering Google maps, it got pretty exciting. And not only because the fire alarms went off and we had to vacate the building for half an hour. (Fire trucks came but never did hear if it was the real deal.) Anyway, Dan went live online for this segment and it was amazing. Imagine going to the town in Ireland where your ancestors were from - from your own home. Or how about looking for landmarks when you are heading out to a store or business you haven't been to in the past. OR...what about if your are doing house research and want to see what the house looks like now??? I need to blog about that on my house history website for sure.

All in all, a very productive use of my Saturday. Let the searching begin!