Janet's Blog

It seems like the laundry is never done. At least two days a week, I trudge up and down the basement stairs to wash and dry the clothes, Bill's, Levi's, and mine. Thankfully, Victoria does her own. And, I'm beginning to think that it won't be long until Levi will learn how to do his own laundry. I'm just not sure if I'm ready for the amount of supervision that will require... I really shouldn't complain. I have a large, front-loading washing machine and a matching dryer that do their jobs quite well, most of the time. All I really have to do is sort the laundry, carry mine and Bill's to the basement where I combine it with Levi's, which he is supposed to have tossed down the laundry chute from the second floor hallway. Then, it's just a matter of switching loads between the washer and dryer, folding the laundry into a couple of baskets (assuming that Levi and Victoria have returned them to the basement) and putting Bill's and mine away. Lev...

This is a silly little story about a frozen ham. It happened about a month ago, when I went to the basement to get some chicken out of the freezer for supper. I took the key from its hiding place and unlocked the freezer, as I always do; our aging freezer has to be kept locked so it doesn't open mysteriously, all by itself, and thaw all of the food inside. Trust me, I speak from experience. Anyway, I unlocked the freezer and opened the door, ready to grab a package of chicken, when this blankety-blank ham decided to ambush me. Before I could stop it, the ham rolled out, off its shelf, landing squarely on my left big toe. I was surprised. But, most of all, I was in pain. I gritted my teeth, picked up the ham, and placed it firmly on the shelf in the back of the freezer, making sure that it wouldn't be able to roll out again. Then, I located the chicken I had come for, closed and locked the freezer, and hobbled up the stairs to the kitchen, muttering, "Ow, ow, OW!"...

It snowed three times in the five days leading up to Christmas. Our local weather service predicted their standard one to three inches each time, yet somehow, by Christmas morning, we had accumulated almost 16 inches. I just love a white Christmas, don't you? Snow is a gift, a truly beautiful part of God's creation. There is something magical about watching those pristine, frozen flakes drift lazily to the ground--or swirl fiercely through the air when the wind is raging. I like to trudge through the deepening snow, enveloped in the silence of the storm, snowflakes brushing softly against my face. I love the way the wind sculpts the snow into modern art along the fence rows that border our country roads. And there is nothing whiter than new-fallen snow, dazzling in the sunlight, the day after a storm. The fence rows near Chimney Rock, after the storm Many of us have a love-hate relationship with snow. I never met a young child who doesn't love to frolic in the snow,...

It's a word we just don't want to hear, arguably one of the nastiest words in the English language-- suicide . Volumes have been written about it. Families have been torn apart by it. Lives have been wasted by it. Today, I heard that awful word again. It's bad enough when a young teen dies, for any reason, but suicide makes it so much worse. My heart aches for a troubled boy and the family he leaves behind. I pray that they may begin to find some peace, that God will wrap his arms around them and comfort them as only he can. I pray that their church family will step up and stand with them, cry with them, pray with them, and remind them of God's presence and everlasting grace. I pray for the other kids who knew him, who will be confused and shocked when they hear what has happened. I pray for my son, Levi, who knew him, too, who will have a hard time processing this tragedy. I pray for the pastors who have to help friends and family members make sense of the sensel...

It was an exciting day when Dad brought the dinosaur home from the Sinclair station across the street. It was a bright green dinosaur, the kind you blow into to inflate. The gas station owner, who worked across the street from the Oxnard Hotel in Norfolk, had given it to Dad just for us! Back then, we didn't have too much stuff. Most of our toys, Dan's and Laura's, and mine, fit into one old, metal, brown trunk that we called the toy box. We had trikes, and then bikes, but they were kept outside. My treasured Barbie doll and the clothes Mom sewed for it at the front desk when she worked in the evenings, after we were asleep, were kept in a shoe box in the bedroom I shared with Dan. Most of our books were borrowed from the public library, although a few were purchased at school, for a quarter, from the Scholastic Book Club. We also had a full set of Collier's Encyclopedias, which Dan read from cover to cover before he finished grade school, and a well-loved, acc...

Every Christmas, beginning when I was a very little girl, my family had a brightly painted, plaster, nativity set sitting on top of the TV. At first, our set consisted of only Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus, lying in a manger. But each year, until I was out of grade school, Mom, Dan, and I, and Laura, when she finally entered the picture, would walk to the dime store, first in Norfolk, then in Fairbury, to buy one or two more pieces for our nativity set. I remember standing in front of Hested's display table, gazing at each possible addition to our set, and discussing which ones we should buy that year. The figurines didn't cost much, certainly less than a dollar apiece, but each one was still a significant purchase for our family. We added shepherds and sheep first. It was a banner year when we were able to afford the cardboard stable. The wise men and camels were added two pieces at a time. After we had all of the most essential characters, we added an angel, a cow and do...

As I was growing up, I never expected to be married before I turned twenty. Bill and I met In January of 1974, when I was a freshman at Concordia College, and he was working toward a degree in electronic engineering at Milford Tech. Ours was a whirlwind romance. By the end of January, we were spending every evening together, and talking on the phone daily. Bill's biggest concern then, besides passing his classes, was scraping together enough money to afford gas for his Camaro, so he could drive the twelve miles to Seward and back to Milford every day. We were engaged by May, and married in December. When we announced our engagement, my dad's first question was, "Where's the ring?" It was a logical question, I guess, even though we considered ourselves engaged without that enduring symbol of our approaching marriage. We looked at rings in Lincoln that summer, but we waited until we made a trip to Gering in August, for Bill's sister's wedding, t...