Janet's Blog

I don't have a cute picture of my grandchildren sitting on Santa's lap. I don't know if I ever will. It seems that they are both terrified of Santa Claus. Tobin, who is almost four, doesn't want to get close to Santa at all. He clings to whichever parent or teacher is available, or hides behind a trusted adult when Santa tries to talk to him. He won't approach Santa even to get a candy cane, although he is happy to accept Santa's candy from a willing go-between. Evelyn, who just turned two, keeps her distance from Santa, pointing at him across the room while loudly accusing him of being a monster. Even toy Santas and book illustrations of that jolly old elf are called "monster" by our sweet little Evie. Meagan, their mom, blames Andy's vintage Santa doll for her children's aversion to Santa. That doll, which first belonged to some older relative, is not exactly cute and cuddly. Andy loves it, probably for sentimental reasons, but...

Christmas will soon be here. If you are like me, you may feel like you are drowning in the flurry of activity that accompanies the season. So much shopping to finish, wrapping, decorating, Christmas programs and parties, baking and meal preparation. I love it all! But it is too easy to get wrapped up in the outward trappings of Christmas.  We mustn't forget why we celebrate. Even the very word, Christmas, tells the story: Christmas is the time that people assemble together to celebrate the birth of Christ. Like all people everywhere, Jesus did not stay a baby. He grew up to fulfill his purpose on Earth. He was born to die in our place, take away our sins, and rise again in triumph so that those who trust in him can live with him forever. It's just a few days until we will get together with family and friends to celebrate Jesus' birthday. What a joyous time it will be! But as we wait, as we complete our preparations, we might need to slow down a little, and just be stil...

Levi was livid when he burst into the house after school yesterday. He started yelling at me immediately. "It's a freakin' blizzard out there! Why didn't you pick me up after school? I was the only kid who had to walk home in the snow! I'm freezing! What the **** were you thinking?!" After I let him know, very clearly, exactly what I was thinking, I sent Levi to his room to calm down. I called him downstairs a little while later, insisted on an apology for his disrespectful behavior, and fixed him a cup of hot cocoa. I even unlocked the safe to get a handful of precious marshmallows to add to his hot drink. (Marshmallows in the safe? That's a story for another time.) Then, as Levi sipped his cocoa, we discussed his frustrations a little more calmly. First, I made sure that he understood the meaning of the word, blizzard : a lot of snow, frigid temperatures, and high winds, which can lead to poor visibility, disorientation, frostbite, and deeply...

It's December. Christmas is coming!  It's time to celebrate the birth of Jesus, our Savior. Now, I know that's not exactly new news, but it's still the best news ever. God sent a Savior!  He was born, he lived and died, and he lives again. Merry Christmas!  That being said, the fact that I'm attempting to write a real, actual Christmas letter before Christmas is not typical for me. Let's just blame it on retirement, and the fact that I have a few extra daytime minutes to accomplish things without distractions. It's been a busy year. That's life in the twenty-first century, I guess. Everyone seems to be too busy. I don't want to bore you with our family's busyness this year, but I do want to touch on the most memorable events of our year. So, here goes. It was just one year ago that Aunt Ellen died. It wasn't unexpected, since her health had been failing for quite some time. Since then, we've been working tog...

It was a young girl's dream--a whole room full of dolls. And, not just any dolls. No, the walls in that room were lined with shelf after shelf, each one filled with breakable, keepsake dolls, beautifully dressed, rarely touched except to be dusted, never played with, but obviously treasured. I'm talking about Mary Thurber's dolls.   Miss Thurber was my Girl Scout leader during my late elementary and Junior High years. She lived, with her mother, in a small, yellow house just a block or so away from the Episcopal church where our Girl Scout troop met every week. Miss Thurber had some sort of health problem that made walking difficult, so that she sometimes had to resort to using a wheelchair. I still don't know how she made it up and down those steep stairs that led to our basement meeting room in the church. Mary Thurber was a dedicated, creative scout leader. I remember singing folk songs at every meeting, and trying out new recipes in the church kitc...

I've been feeling a lot like the peanut butter in the middle of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Or, maybe I'm the jelly. Either way, I'm beginning to understand the meaning of the phrase, "sandwich generation." The sandwich generation is so named because we are effectively "sandwiched" between the need to care for our aging parents and our children, who may all require physical, emotional, and financial support. Everyone who lives a relatively normal life will get to be the bread, as well as the filling, in the sandwich of life. The oldest and youngest generations, the bread, naturally need support from the middle generation, the peanut butter and jelly. Just as bread comes in many varieties--wheat, rye, sourdough, vitamin enriched, flat or raised--we all come with assorted needs and personalities. Each family is unique, with its own mix of people to love and care for. Think about a pbj sandwich for a minute. The sticky peanut butter is the glu...

I didn't need a coat when I was working in the yard today.  The grass is still green and growing, even though a small patch of snow was melting in the shade.  My rose bushes still have leaves and slightly faded blossoms.  The parsley, oregano, and thyme are lush and green, just waiting for me to pick it all, and dry it tomorrow  The purple petunias in my barrel are still blooming beautifully. It's the middle of November!  Yes, we've had frost.  It even snowed a couple of inches on Wednesday.  But, for the most part, we've enjoyed a beautiful fall, with balmy daytime temperatures and little wind.  It's been quite a contrast to last year, when the snowy, bitter weather began in early September, and continued into mid-May. I've heard that we can thank El Nino for our temperate fall and the predicted mild, wet winter yet to come.  It's hard to believe that warmer-than-usual water in the Pacific Ocean can effect the weather here in the midd...

It's November--time to think about what I'm thankful for this year.  I am glad that our country has a long-standing holiday set aside for thankfulness, to help us remember that there are so many reasons to thank God for his blessings.  That doesn't mean that we aren't thankful during the other eleven months, though.  I guess that our fall Thanksgiving season just serves to focus our thoughts, to help us remember how blessed we are all year long.  So, in no particular order, here are the top ten things that I am thanking God for this year: Bill survived a heart attack in April, and is doing well since then. Victoria is working hard at college, and is happy there. Levi is having a good school year; I am especially grateful for his caring sixth-grade teachers. Erin moved to Cheyenne this summer; she is thriving in her new job as director of instrumental music at LCCC, and we are thrilled to be able to see her often. Meagan and Andy live close enough that we can s...

It was Thanksgiving, 1982.  I was pregnant with Erin, the baby we had yearned for for such a long time.  We had just moved back to Nebraska from Michigan that September.  Even though we had been married for almost eight years, it was the first time Bill and I had ever celebrated Thanksgiving together with his family in Gering. The food was amazing, as usual.  Bill's grandmas were both excellent cooks, and his mother was proficient, as well, even though she always said she hated to cook.  The smell of that succulent turkey wafted throughout the kitchen and family room as we seated ourselves at the extended dining table. Then, before we could enjoy the beckoning feast, even before we said grace, someone, probably Bill's Grandma Lucas, asked us to "go around the table" and each tell one thing we were thankful for that year. I was totally overwhelmed.  How could I express my feelings of thankfulness out loud, without crying, to that group of people I b...

A light saber has become the marvelous weapon of choice for the younger generations in my family. This relatively harmless, Star Wars-inspired toy has everything: bright colors, buttons to push, realistic sounds, and bright lights. Levi and Tobin love to compare their light sabers; they engage in make-believe battles almost every time they get together. I've been told that Tobin and Andy spar with each other often, too, most recently outdoors, by the light of the blood-red full moon. How exciting for a three-year-old and his dad! Light Sabers Others in my family have used more dangerous weapons (real ones!) when they hunt for ducks, pheasants, or deer. My dad, most of my uncles, and at least one aunt, as well as various cousins and a nephew, all are proficient marksmen. Their weapons of choice include all kinds of shotguns, rifles, and handguns. It is important for them to choose the right weapon for the particular type of game they are hunting; shotguns work best for sm...

Paint is a wonderful invention!  Just think about it.  With a little paint, you can transform dingy, dirty walls into pristine and stylish backdrops.  With minimal sanding and a couple of coats of paint, outdated furniture becomes new again. Fresh paint transforms old windows into new ones, or so it seems.  Brightly colored paint gives well-used doors a more welcoming face.  Old houses regain their youth when someone takes the time and effort needed to apply a fresh coat of paint.  Paint can cover up a "multitude of sins." Best of all, paint is relatively cheap, and easy to use.  Most do-it-yourself-ers can afford to buy paint, and they can apply it themselves with little or no training. New furniture may cost hundreds of dollars; a new house, hundreds of thousands of dollars.  In the whole scheme of things, then, what is a can of paint?  Liquid gold? In case you haven't guessed it yet, we have been painting.   In the past eight m...

Meagan was eight when we moved from our tiny, two-bedroom house to our current, much larger home.  She was so excited to choose her own second-floor bedroom, the long and narrow, pale pink room.  Meagan loved that room, and was perfectly content with it, until three years later when she started sixth grade. That's when she learned that her teacher, Mrs. Bahl, had grown up in this house, in that very room.  And, what's more, Mrs. Bahl and her sister had chosen that pale pink color for the walls. That's all that Meagan needed to hear.  As soon as she got home from school that day, she insisted that we needed to redecorate her room. So, a few weeks later, we bought two new comforters for her bunk beds, and decided to sponge-paint a matching color scheme on the walls.  First, we painted the walls white, cutting in carefully around the three windows and three doors with a paintbrush, then using a roller to complete the job.  Next, we used a narrow roller to pa...

In fourteen-hundred-and-ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. I remember learning that ditty way back when I was in early elementary school. Back then, Columbus Day was observed on October 12 every year, even if it wasn't on a Monday.  In first grade, we celebrated by crafting the explorer's three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, out of halved walnut shells.  Each student got to make three ships!  (It was a big deal....)  I remember choosing the biggest walnut shell I could find to be the Santa Maria, because that flagship, captained by Christopher Columbus himself, was known to be bigger than the other two.  Then, I pressed a marble-sized ball of gray, oil-based clay into the bottom of each shell-boat, and stuck a toothpick in for the mast.  I must have used old-fashioned paste to attach one rectangular paper sail to each mast.  I think we got to float our ships in a small tub of water in our classroom before taking them hom...

My Grandma and Grandpa named him Leland, the first of three sons whose names started with the letter "L."  Most people called him Lee.  I called him my uncle. He had lived on borrowed time for years, or so it seemed.  In spite of several chronic health issues, and one serious fall from the top of a t-a-l-l ladder, he apparently took lessons from the Energizer Bunny, or maybe a Timex watch. He certainly "took a licking and kept on ticking." And, Uncle Lee lived his life to the fullest.  Married to Rose for 61 years, he was a father to five, grandfather, and even great-grandfather, to quite a few more. He had been a teacher; I'm sure that he was a good one.  He also worked as a principal, a pastoral assistant, a grocer, a house painter, and an investment representative.  He was a community leader, a cub scout leader, a leader in his church.  He kept a stack of good, clean joke books in his living room, so he would always be ready to speak to a group ...

retire: verb leave one's job and cease to work, typically upon reaching the normal age for leaving employment.  synonyms: give up work, stop working, pack it in, call it quits withdraw to or from a particular place.   synonyms: go away, take oneself off, shut oneself away In May, I officially retired from teaching preschool.  I suppose that at least one or two of the traditional definitions, listed above, apply to me.  I definitely stopped working at a job I had been doing for quite a while.  The state of Nebraska considered me old enough to draw some retirement income rather than simply resign.  I guess you could say that I withdrew from a particular place, school, to another particular place here at home, but I haven't exactly shut myself away. I don't quite know what to say when someone asks me if I am enjoying retirement.  Apparently, my retirement is not at all conventional.  After all, how many other retirees still have child...

Late Sunday afternoon, I drove to the ranch all by myself--no kids, just me and my music.  The 2 1/2 hour trip was uneventful, even enjoyable.  Traffic was light. The expansive blue sky and rolling sandhills were awe-inspiring, as usual.  The golden cornfields, and acres of drooping sunflowers, swayed gently in the breeze, and herds of black Angus grazed contentedly in the distance.  No one cared that I sang along with the radio.   I avoid making the trip to the ranch during wet or snowy weather, because the last eighteen miles of unpaved roads become nearly impassable then.  I don't like to drive those last few miles after dark, either, because it can be really, really dark out there, in the middle of nowhere, and I don't see well enough to drive safely on unfamiliar roads after dark.  There might be as many as eight ranch houses spread out along those last eighteen miles.  It's rare to meet any other vehicles on the narrow country ro...

It was a dark, chilly, evening, and I was out with a couple of high school friends, walking door to door to try and sell tickets for the current Fairbury High School musical.  I didn't have a speaking part, but I was content to sing in the chorus, as I did for every musical the school produced during my four years there. I don't remember for sure which musical we were doing that year, perhaps Finian's Rainbow , but it doesn't really matter. Everyone who was affiliated with the musical in any way, big or small, was required to sell tickets.  As I recall, the town was divided into sections, and each of us was given a map, with a few blocks designated as our territory.  We usually went door to door with a friend or two, hoping to meet our quotas. On this particular night, we were canvassing the east side of town, not too far from the high school.  As we walked up the front sidewalk of a mammoth old home, the dim blue light of the television was fl...

Erin just bought a house in Cheyenne.  It's a mid century modern home, build in 1952.   Mid century modern is defined as "an architectural, furniture, and product design from the middle of the twentieth century."  Her house certainly fits the bill. Erin's cozy brick house has been completely remodeled, but it still retains elements of the original design.  The updated galley-style kitchen utilizes the same footprint that it has always occupied.  No walls were knocked down in this remodel!  The back entry, just one step down from the kitchen, includes laundry facilities, as well as the furnace, hot water heater, and ample storage.  Mid century architects must have been known for their practicality. The house was originally billed as a three bedroom house, but one bedroom has undoubtedly been used as a den or office for decades.  In fact, the original window has been replaced with sliding glass doors that lead out to the covered patio. ...

I spend a good part of every summer doing yard work.  I enjoy working outside on those cool, balmy mornings of early summer, or in the early evening after a brief summer rainstorm has freshened the air and brought a cooling breeze. This summer, I seem to have spent more time than usual pruning bushes. I don't usually mind pruning.  I like to see the transformation that results when I lop off the dead branches, leaving just the healthy, green branches that will bear fragrant flowers or luscious fruit. This year, I spent several days trimming the bushes that used to grow in the shade of the big, old hackberry that we had to remove last fall.  Unfortunately, the people who cut down the tree could only promise that they would not damage our house.  They gave no thought to the low-lying bushes that occupied a flower bed near the injured tree.  So, they drove their heavy truck right over the bushes, and trampled them thoroughly as they worked to remove the tree. ...