Janet's Blog

Our floral couch sat in the living room for more than 25 years. We hadn't had it for too long when we celebrated November birthdays in 2000. That birthday party was special because it was Victoria's first birthday with us, her new forever family. She had lived in our house permanently for exactly one week. The couch was a perfect spot for a picture to commemorate the day. Bill's mother, Beth, was celebrating her 74th birthday that day, while Victoria was turning five years old, and Bill had just turned 46.  I remember going shopping for a new couch for the family room, sometime in the late 1990s. I didn't expect to be able to buy a new living room couch, too, but the furniture store was having a fantastic sale. So we bought a new couch for the family room, as we had intended, and a beautiful, floral couch for the living room—two for the price of one. That family room couch served us well, and was replaced at least a decade ago. The living room couch wasn't used near...

It was Tuesday morning. All six of Meagan's kids were at my house while she was working at the church. Victoria had come to help, as she usually does, so she can tend to the two youngest while I help the older ones with their homeschooling assignments and, eventually, make lunch for everyone. The older kids worked hard on the letters they were writing, so they finished quickly and moved on to building things and playing Minecraft in the family room. Three-year-old Ruthie came into the kitchen to paint a beautiful picture with watercolors, and Evie eventually joined her. The painting was done, and I was just starting to boil water for the macaroni and cheese when Aunt Victoria carried Ruthie back into the kitchen. Ruthie was near tears as she held out a small stuffed animal in one hand, and a stubby little leg in the other hand. All she said was, "It's b w oke!" As I took the moose and its leg from Ruthie's outstretched hands, I told her it was okay; I could fix it...

Victoria was four years old when God brought her into our family. She turned five just one week after she came to live with us permanently. For our youngest daughter, I was Mom #4.   Four-year-old Victoria There is so much I could share about little Victoria. She had a wonderful smile. As far as she was concerned, everyone she met was instantly her friend. She blended into our family extremely well from the very beginning. She loved to sing and dance, and dress up like a princess. She adored her big sisters and their friends, basking in the attention they gave her. She loved our dog, Kirby, and our cat, Libby, and any other animal she ever met. She worked very hard to learn to speak in complete sentences and overcome her developmental delays. Victoria didn't hesitate to call me Mom right away. She was used to bestowing that title on a series of caregivers. Her birth mother, step mother, and most recent foster mom came before me; her new mother-in-law is Mom #5. Her early years had ...

Here we are at home, socially isolated to prevent the spread of COVID-19, that new coronavirus that suddenly appeared in China a couple of months ago. Never in my lifetime have I ever experienced this kind of reaction to a virus. It seems as though the whole world is quarantined.  Except for Levi's therapy and an occasional trip to the grocery store, we are staying home most of the time this week, and into the near future. We are not really quarantined, since none of us are sick, but the kids and I are isolating ourselves at home to help prevent the spread of this new, nasty virus. Bill is going to work as usual, with some recently added COVID-19 protocol, in an effort to provided essential TV and internet services to the homebound people who need it now, more than ever.  Yesterday, when I took Levi to the hospital for his appointment, we had to don face masks because I drove to an appointment in Fort Collins last week; since then, at least one health care worker the...

It was just a few days ago that Meagan and I were discussing chickens. I had noticed on Facebook that several of my Gering friends had suddenly decided to raise chickens in their backyards. It seems that the City of Gering has finally passed a law allowing up to five backyard chickens per family. I was thrilled with the new law, and started brainstorming with Meagan about how to add a chicken coop to my yard. Meagan even offered a couple of her excess hens to be my starter chickens. I knew that Bill would not object to having a couple of layers again, as we did, years ago, on our Michigan acreage. But first, we had to cross the chicken coop hurdle. I was prepared to scrounge through our stash of old rabbit cages, chicken wire, and boards, to find the materials we would need to enclose the bottom of the kids' tree house, which is really just a playhouse on stilts, but Bill decided it would be much easier to just buy a chicken coop from Menards. So, that's how I happ...

This morning, when Levi first woke up, he asked me if he could watch a movie called Matilda . I didn't have to give it much thought. After he finished his Saturday morning chores, Levi found the movie on the free cable Pay-Per-View channel, and I let him watch the movie he had requested. Then, I sat in the family room and watched part of  Matilda  with him. Perhaps you remember the movie, which first came out in 1996, or even the book it is based on, a 1988 classic by one of my favorite children's authors, Roald Dahl. He also wrote eighteen other children's novels, like James and the Giant Peach , and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory . Like many of his works, Matilda is a rather quirky tale about a child who is magically able to overcome a desperate situation, emerging in triumph at the end of the story. Today, National Adoption Day, was a perfect day to watch Matilda with Levi. Our youngest daughter, Victoria, was almost five when she joined our family t...

Our youngest daughter, Victoria, turned 21 today. In honor of the occasion, she drove us the twenty miles south of Gering to the old Hilltop Cafe, now re-imagined as the Double L Country Store and Cafe. We enjoyed a marvelous, diner-style lunch, along with some good conversation, before she drove us home again. Driving hasn't come easily for Victoria. She is finally beginning to be a confident driver, and will soon be ready to graduate from her third learner's permit to a full-fledged driver's license. Victoria's life hasn't always been easy. As a young child, she was shunted from one caregiver to another until she was finally placed with a nurturing foster family when she was almost four years old. The following summer, I spotted her picture on a Nebraska HHS website for adoptable children. Early in our marriage, Bill and I had discussed adoption as a way to expand our family, but it was more than twenty years later before we were able to pursue that possibil...

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...

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...

Victoria was so excited last August, when school started, because she was a senior at last!  School has been a long, challenging journey for her, filled with many ups and downs.  There were times when we thought she might not be able to finish school in a conventional way.  But, last week, she graduated!  And, on top of that, she did so with maximum credits, which means that she took a full class load, and passed every class during her four years of high school. Victoria worked hard and accomplished much. Now, Victoria is ready for the next step of her life-long journey.  She will be attending West Nebraska Community College in the fall, with plans to transfer to Eastern Wyoming College, twenty-five miles away in Torrington, to complete the course work she needs to become a vet tech. (veterinary technician)  Since her graduation from Gering High School last week, Victoria is one step closer to meeting her goal. Last fall, as Victoria started her fin...

Victoria's hamster, Stripey, was obviously dying.  He had not been doing well for quite some time, but his symptoms had grown much worse in the last few days, and even more so this morning.  So, like a good mom should, I called the vet-- for a hamster!   I won't go into great detail about his malady, but Stripey was obviously in distress. The vet diagnosed fast-growing tumors, and recommended exactly what we expected and feared.  We had put off the inevitable a bit longer than we should have, but we had to leave Stripey at the vet's office to be euthanized.  I guess it was worth it for Victoria's peace of mind.  She said that she just didn't want to find him dead in his cage; waiting for him to die was too agonizing for her to consider. Stripey won't be joining his predecessors in the hamster graveyard next to our garden, but we are okay with that. We left the vet's office, $30.00 poorer, and headed home to clean and disinfect the hamster cage and ...

The challenge was daunting, at least to me.  One person would write, while the other dictated the highlights of his life in one minute.  I chose to write, because I didn't think I could possibly summarize my life so succinctly, in a way that would be entertaining.  Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the results were read aloud to the entire group as a way for us to get to know one another a little better. Some condensed life stories were funny, in spots.  Some were informative; I learned some things about certain people that I hadn't known before.  Many were predictable--"I was born, I lived, I graduated, I got married, I work, I have children and grandchildren..."   In a way, the vignettes reminded me of obituaries. I still don't think I can summarize my life, thus far, in one minute's time but, maybe, I can condense it to the length of a blog.  The real test is to make it interesting.  Hmmm, here goes... Grandpa Wegner often called me his...

I hate house cleaning!  It seems so useless, because it's never really finished.  Just when I think the house is relatively clean, some child (and I use that term loosely, because children come in all sizes and ages) comes in and destroys my strenuous efforts in ten seconds or less.  Or, the dog raids a garbage can, stringing chewed Kleenex all over the house.  Besides, even looking at a vacuum cleaner or dust cloth makes my allergies and asthma kick in.  House cleaning makes me sick! That's why I decided, several years ago, when I started working full-time, that I would use some of my wages to hire someone to clean my house.  It was one of the best things I ever did for myself.  What a luxury it was to come home from a long day at work, into a sparkling clean, fresh-smelling house!  I remember talking to my Grandma Vawser about this same subject, many years ago; Grandma told me how liberated she felt when she was able to hire a house cleaner in...

Victoria says that she usually reads the summary of my blog to see if it's exciting enough for her to read the whole thing.  Hmmm...what can I stick into this first paragraph to spark her interest?  Shoes with 12-inch heels?  An adorable, furry puppy?  A picture of Justin Bieber? Yikes!! I love new shoes, too, but because of my poor balance, I can no longer wear heels higher than an inch or two.  To tell the truth, I've never worn heels higher than three inches, because that was never the style when I was young enough to try.  To Victoria I say, "Go for it!" now while you're young and physically able.  And don't forget to thank your big sister for searching the internet to find shoes she knew you would love! I adore tiny, furry puppies, and kittens, too.  Unfortunately, they grow up to be dogs and cats with plenty of needs of their own.  One cat and dog at a time is enough, thank you very much, and when we add them to our one headstrong t...