Janet's Blog

My eyes are green. That's not at all unusual in my family. My mom's eyes were the same green as mine, and so are my brother's. My dad's eyes were also green, but with enough amber flecks that they might have been better referred to as hazel. My sister's eyes are definitely hazel green, with so many amber and gold highlights that her childhood friends often insisted she had cat eyes. My husband, Bill, has beautiful blue eyes. All four of my children, even the adopted ones, have blue or blue-gray eyes. I thought that at least one of my eight grandchildren would have inherited my green eyes, but no, they all have blue or blue-gray eyes--every single one of them. Blue eyes are really quite rare, with only 8-10% of the world's population possessing eyes of blue. Research indicates that all blue-eyed people share a single, common, Northern European ancestor whose blue eyes resulted from a genetic mutation a few thousand years ago. Because blue eyes are recessive, a fr...

I wasn't consciously afraid of snakes when I was young. I had seen a few garter snakes around the farm and, later, in our backyard, and I was usually curious enough to take a look at them--from a distance. But when I was about five or six, I started dreaming about snakes. Actually, they weren't dreams at all; they were full blown nightmares. Sometimes, when I was in that state of consciousness right between wakefulness and sleep, my mind would play tricks on me, and I was sure I saw snakes on the floor or in my brother's bed, across the room. The worst times, though, were when I dreamed of snakes in my bed. One night, everyone in the family was asleep when I woke up screaming. Dad rushed into our bedroom, clad only in his underwear, wondering what was the matter. When I cried out about the snakes in our room, he turned on the light to show me that there were no snakes, only Danny's socks lying on the floor next to his bed. I calmed down enough to go back to sleep that ...

My daughter, Meagan's, family raises chickens. Her hens aren't laying very well right now, but when they are, the kids gather the eggs everyday and take them into the mudroom, where a couple of the kids are tasked with washing and drying each egg carefully before they are meticulously placed in cartons or egg trays, and refrigerated. The eggs can sit on the counter for a few days, if necessary, until someone has time to wash them, because eggshells have a natural, protective coating that keeps them in good shape at room temperature. In Europe, eggs are usually sold unwashed, so they don't need to be refrigerated, but in the US, most eggs are washed before they are sold, making refrigeration necessary--because who wants to buy eggs spattered with chicken poop? When young children are in charge of gathering and washing eggs, a few of them are dropped. This isn't a great catastrophe, since there are always more eggs to gather, and there is usually at least one cat or dog w...

Conforming is easy--you just follow the crowd. Wear the newest fashions, cut your hair in the latest style, use the currently popular slang. If you can afford it, you can do it. If you're unsure about what to do, just check any school. The most conforming schools insist that kids wear uniforms: polo shirts in the prescribed colors, khaki or navy pants or, for girls, a coordinating navy or plaid skirt or jumper. But even schools with lax dress codes are full of students and teachers who conform by wearing the latest contemporary fashion. T-shirts and jeans remain the most popular clothing, with shorts, sweats, and even pajama pants in the running for the most comfortable school attire. For people who want to conform, smart phones are a must; flip phones are sadly out-of-date, and we shouldn't even mention corded house phones. Young kids whose parents give them talk-and-text-only phones are careful to keep that information to themselves as they struggle to fit in with their peers...

My husband, Bill, has always been good at fixing things. Over the five decades of our marriage, he has rarely called for someone to fix something he is able to fix himself. That includes most plumbing repairs, even though he always reminds me, as he gathers up his plumbing tools, that he hates plumbing. Even as a young child, he was inquisitive and precocious, often taking things apart and constructing useful items from found objects. Bill's mother shared that he was a hard one to raise because he couldn't sit still, and was always into things. Over the years, he has repaired and constructed a variety of things, always working on some project or another. I guess there's a good reason he decided to become an electronic engineer. Have I mentioned that Bill holds several patents that have been widely used in the Cable TV and Internet industries? Both of our biological daughters have inherited their dad's ability to fix things around the house and work on significant home ...

All of my life, whenever anyone asked me to name my favorite color, I had a hard time answering. I would usually mumble something like "I don't have just one favorite color," or "any color except green."  To tell the truth, I have always liked lots of colors: red, blue, purple and, in my later years, even certain shades of green. I chose red as the color for my wedding attendants to wear because we were getting married right before Christmas, so it just seemed right. I became so tired of the dingy, pale green that adorned the walls of our hotel apartments that it was a long time before I was willing to embrace any shade of green. I love certain colors of pink and peach, but I am not really a fan of bright orange. Purple has always been a favorite, and who doesn't like blue? God has made so many gorgeous colors on this earth that it has been impossible for me to pick just one favorite. It was probably only a couple of years before Dad died, when we were all g...