Bodily Functions……and Dog Ownership

Dog ownership provides lots of bonuses. Unconditional love, a four-footed companion, a reason to walk outside, a warm little body to pet and snuggle with on the couch. A watchdog to announce anyone at the door.

But ownership also comes with a whole list of responsibilities - especially if you want to be a good neighbor. Every walk means you, the owner, needs to be ready for "clean-up". You never leave the house without one or two plastic bags in your pocket. Preferably two without holes in the bottom.

My family had a boxer while I was growing up. She was a wonderful pet. And she was trained to stay in our un-fenced yard (not sure how my dad managed that!). I'm not sure who cleaned up after her - I know I never did.

When our kids were little we had another boxer, Daisy, for almost 12 years. We had a fenced yard where she did her "business" most of the time, and yes, "poop patrol" was part of the kids earn-your-allowance-money chores. This wasn't all that long ago….but I know, when I took Daisy for her two mile daily walk, I never had a plastic bag along. If she pooped we just left it I guess.

But times have changed, and we now have Fenway the Boston Terrier and we are good neighbors. We always pick up after him. Sometimes we use a plastic bag from the grocery store, sometimes a clear, empty bread bag (not my favorite). A friend saves all her pink newspaper sleeves and gives me bags full. And every once in a while we even buy the special rolls of dog bags for when we travel. A never ending supply just to take care of one little dog. Fenway is a "good dog" twice each day…..so yes, it's amazing how quickly we go through plastic bags.

So Now the Fun Begins……

For a quilter, a trip to Quilt Week in Paducah, KY tops the list of "things to do". What could be better than jumping on a chartered bus in Madison and hours later getting off at the motel…..dropping your suitcase in the room and "racing" to Hancock Fabrics just to browse. Then, over the next three days, spending hours wandering through the quilt show itself viewing one amazing work after another. Visiting hundreds of vendor booths to see the latest gadgets and thousands and thousands of bolts of beautiful fabric. Attending a lecture or demonstration or class to learn new techniques. Walking around historic downtown to enjoy the "pop up" stores with even more quilting necessities! Fleeing cold Wisconsin to enjoy flowering dogwood, azalea, daffodils and tulips. And spending time with like-minded friends.

The days are literally filled with sensory overload. I come away feeling both inspired and totally depressed (not really). The quilts I see give me hundreds of ideas for just what I want to make next….and the quality of the work on display makes me want to just quit right now. But I won't. I can't. I bought too much fabric!

So now the fun begins - where is my rotary cutter????

Sending Love Through the Mail……

We don't get many personal letters anymore…..with the exception of birthday or Christmas cards. Most days, if there is anything in the mailbox, it features bills or dear occupant or catalogues or advertisements. And, frankly, cards have gotten very expensive….never mind the postage.

We now keep connected with family and friends with emails and even shorter texts. It's OK and I do appreciate the connection, but sometimes I just want to send a note, or a card, or a letter….or something a bit more personal.

So I compromise….by finding fun images on the web, cutting and pasting to make my own postcards and sending them off to the special people who occupy my thoughts. I'm told they bring a smile at the other end and that's exactly what I hope for when I drop them off in the mailbox.

So here's a little note to let you know….I'm thinking of you….sending a hug….wishing we lived closer!

Maybe We Should Move West-ish....

Yesterday I drove into Elm Grove to visit one of my favorite quilt shops. I had a gift certificate burning a hole in my wallet....or at least a partial gift certificate. I don't remember who gave it to me....I think it was from one of my terrific kids for a birthday or something. For awhile it was sort of "lost" in my wallet.....but there when I found it there was with a balance of almost $22!

It is really fun to browse a quilt shop and know that you can add to your stash without subtracting from your bank balance. I had a fun thirty minutes or so and came away with four half-yard pieces of beautiful cotton quilting fabric.....and zero left on the gift card.

But it was driving home when spring hit me right in the face.....coming east on Good Hope Road there it was....a two story tree in full bloom! Big white blossoms.....I was moving past quickly so I don't know if it was a magnolia or dogwood...but it was big and beautiful.

Walking around Port Washington today we saw daffodils and a few crocus in bloom. But "our" trees are hardly even budding yet!!! I know it's cooler by the Lake....so I guess we can move a bit west to find spring quicker or just wait a few days.

Looking out our window at Lake Michigan......hmmmmm.....I guess I will wait.

And Here's To The Ladies Who Lunch......

Dave and I have moved many times during our marriage.....following career opportunities in order for him to support our family. We've found nice people and good friends no matter where our house happened to be located. But the flip side was we left many good friends behind as we packed up to move to another city.

When we arrived in Milwaukee in 2002 we started again. And, again, made new friends. Two of my friends "found" me while I was working for hospice......they were two of "my" volunteers. Then they joined my book club and our connections grew.

We don't see each other often, but when we do....it is such fun! We say we meet for lunch every month or so for laughter therapy. And laugh we do! But we also talk.....about books, current affairs, politics, families, health adventures, travel.

Frankly it is a connection and a friendship that I treasure. I need my women friends to complete my life. And these two special women are, to me, important pieces in my "puzzle".

So here's a toast to the ladies who meet for lunch......looking forward already to my next therapy session!

Notes From a Free Range Adult…..

It's in the news again…..a mother and father in Maryland are in real trouble for allowing their young children "free range" in their neighborhood. A neighbor called to report that the kids were unsupervised on the way home from the playground, the police arrived, the children went into protective services for a few hours and apparently the parents have now agreed to some kind of supervision plan.

I'm 68. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago in the 1950's moving from Chicago when I was five.  As I grew I guess I was a free-range-kid. I had some girlfriends who lived on my block, others who lived a bike-ride away, some older middle school "guys" who would allow us to join them to play kick-the-can on the street as darkness descended in the summer. Starting in first grade I walked to and from elementary school (about five blocks away) alone….until I hooked up with buddies to share the route.

I'm sure my stay-at-home-mom "knew" where I was…..at least she knew the general area where I was. But I was allowed, from an early age, to go outside and find my friends, explore, climb trees, build forts, walk to school, bike to town, roller skate to a friend's house. As long as I was home for dinner.

I have mixed feelings about the family in Maryland…..I believe the children in this family are ten and six so the ten year old is "in charge" when they go to the playground, or walk on home. That seems a bit young and a lot of responsibility if something happens. But still…..shouldn't the parents have the right to decide what they feel is OK for their kids? Am I going to say that nothing weird or scary ever happened to me on my forays around the neighborhood…..no, because once a man tried to offer me a ride in his car, and once a kid a few years older "dropped trousers" much to my amazement. Somehow I lived through it.

When our own two children were growing up they had freedoms that we thought were age-appropriate. Five years apart, a boy and a girl, they had separate interests and different friends. Son at age ten would have been off biking to a friend's house and spending the day exploring the woods in Nashotah Park. (They probably packed sandwiches, but had no cell phones to stay constantly connected with the umbilical cord to home.) We just figured out they'd show up for dinner…..or we would start looking! Daughter at age five was allowed to run on down to her best friend's house (admittedly at the end of our very long farmhouse driveway) to play and then two years later allowed to walk to school with friends. All of this was part of growing up, learning to feel confident in your space….getting ready to eventually go off and do "it" alone. Isn't that where independence starts?

I don't know…..but is "free range" parenting any better/worse than the "helicopter" parenting, or "tiger moms" or any of the other methods that make the news?

People protest by saying the world is "different" now, much more "dangerous". I don't agree….I know we hear more about the bad things that happen but I think that's due to the 24/7 news cycle with the 100+ TV channels that have to fill their air time. Something bad happens in Arkansas or Oregon or Germany and it's on the Milwaukee news within minutes. So parents get scared……but really, most people are just regular good folks trying to get along, take care of their families and do the best they can.

I don't know….I guess I support the free range parents in Maryland.

That Midwest Sky……

We spent the weekend just about an hour south of us at a home on Long Lake. A fun family gathering to celebrate a special birthday. There was a huge willow tree growing at the lake's edge and you could tell that the leaves were just about to pop. The whole tree had a kind of yellow "glow" about it - especially as we walked along the lake's edge about a mile away and looked back, across the water, at the property.

And we saw our first crocus in bloom and the forsythia at the end of the driveway was boasting yellow too.

We came home on Monday morning and the grass around our condo is greener, but most of the trees are still just biding their time. Few leaf buds showing at all.

But temperatures were in the 60's and the sky - the sky was magnificent. It was what I think of as a Midwest sky - you can see it for miles, blue and filled with puffy white clouds marching overhead. It was breezy so the clouds moved past quickly. It was beautiful! And hopeful….spring is coming to Wisconsin. Yes….it is!

Would You Tackle This?

I was looking through photos tonight and ran across one showing my cousin's farm when her husband first bought it. If I remember the story correctly, he was focused on the farm land along the Ohio River and the "house" came with it. And there was a tree (or maybe more than one) growing right in the middle.

Keep in mind that Dave and I have a "thing" for historic homes. We owned an old (for Wisconsin) farm house in Nashotah when our kids were little. It was built in the 1850's and needed some love and affection. (In fact, when my mother-in-law came to visit the first time she flew home to Massachusetts and told her friends "My daughter-in-law is trying to kill my son"!) That house turned out to be a wonderful, big, welcoming family home and it broke my heart to leave it behind when Dave accepted another job.  Years later we owned a 200+ year old home in Old New Castle, Delaware. Again, we purchased it knowing it needed work….but we loved it.

Owning an historic home (or probably any house) just means you need to accept the Rule of Three. If you think it will take three weeks to fix, it will take nine. And if you think $100 should do it…again, multiply by three. Once you get that into your head you can just go along knowing that your original budget for any project was way out of whack.

But, back to my cousin's place. Here's how it looks today.

So, impossible as it seems, the falling-down-shack turned into an amazing, warm, welcoming, fun, colorful and relaxing family home. We love to visit……just so sorry we weren't close enough to help during the construction years. (Hah!)

:-)

Semi-Successful Day…..

Yesterday we took a drive up to Horicon Marsh. It's about an hour from home and we hoped to be there toward dusk when migrating birds might land in huge numbers. It was a nice day, puffy white clouds, sun peeking in and out but it was windy. Dave would not be getting many reflection shots!

In the end we drove a three mile loop, got out to walk on the boardwalk path into the marsh, hiked a bit through the fields and did see some birds. Not as many as we hoped, but we did see birds. Geese, trumpeter swans, a raft of red heads and scaups, pairs of mallards, a few sandhill cranes flying in to land and disappear in the tall grasses, redwing black birds, lesser yellow legs and others I could not identify. (Frankly I didn't identify most of the ones listed - we were lucky enough to find a bird expert walking the same boardwalk and she did the naming!)

So…bottom's up!

Here's to the redheads! (Look close!)

And the lesser yellow legs….lesser than what???!!

A nice drive through the not-quite-green-spring-in-Wisconsin yet…..some nature and a picnic supper along the way. Pleasures close to home.

Well That Explains It……

For some reason all day yesterday was a "blue" day…..just a downer. No reason I could think of. The weather was nice. Warm and nice enough to go for several walks. Ran a few errands, read a few chapters of my book. Had a nice phone chat with my daughter. But all day I just felt "off".

Yes, I struggled with my brand new sewing machine trying to get it to do what I used to be able to do with my old one! (Ugh….I put it away and will try again tomorrow.) Yes, I have back-of-my-brain concerns about a very good friend and a very loved family member who both have huge health issues. Yes, I pulled a muscle in my back while doing some core strengthening exercises. (How ironic is that?) But there was no real reason for me to feel so "down".

Dave left for an evening meeting and I decided to take the dog for another evening walk. It was lovely and spring-ish outside. Moving and getting some fresh air would no doubt boost my mood.  And it did….until I came out of the woods and happened to glance east at Lake Michigan. There is was - the full, full moon.

The sky was still light so the moon was soft and faint. But it was full and smiling down on me. That was the reason…..it was the full moon. My mom died several years ago - and when I left her hospital room at almost midnight I looked up and there is was….a huge full moon. So for me….it's not the Man in the Moon anymore - it's always my mom smiling down on me.

There are a lot of reasons the full moon now brings both lovely memories and also a sadness to my heart, and a lot of reasons I'd like a do-over with my Mom. Some time to say some things I didn't say enough. Some time for one more hug, for one more thank you.

I have to smile. I have to think that she is gently reminding me that it's OK….that she knows I loved her….that she's proud of her whole family and somehow knows we are all doing well. So tomorrow I'll wake up and feel better. I know I will.

It was the full moon.

Brownish to Greenish…..

March was pretty awful around here. Just cold and windy and nothing "spring-is-coming" about it. Sort of frustrating and gloomy. Our daughter, who is very well spoken and usually quite optimistic posted a comment on Facebook on March 28th saying something like "March you have three days to get your shit together and GO OUT like a LAMB!" Again, this was not the way she usually expresses herself.

But it worked! The last two days of March were really quite nice, wind died down, sun came out and the temperatures were acceptable. Today it really seems like Wisconsin's spring is just about ready to burst upon the scene. The grey, brown, dead yellow grasses along the bike path are just now starting to show a hint of green. The grass too…it's trying! Trees show tiny shots of green buds just beginning to peek out on the branches. And the pile of dirty black snirt that is piled in the corner of the condo's parking lot is just about gone. Pairs of ducks and geese are cruising the water along the edge of the lake and looking for good nesting spots. Robins are everywhere.

Today Fenway and I took our longest walk in quite awhile - along the marina and all the way around Coal Dock Park before heading home. Just now, looking out the window toward the bike path I see a young father pushing a baby carriage. He's jogging with his dog's leash in one hand and steering the stroller with the other….and he's in shorts! Yea!

I think we'll clean off our bikes tomorrow and see if we can remember how to use them.