How cold is too cold???

We're waiting the arrival of that winter weather that has been plaguing the midwest this week. But, once again (depressingly so) it looks like we will be on the "warm side" of the storm. I do not like to hear those "warm" kind of words. It may start out as some freezing rain and sleet, which may impact school tomorrow, but will change to rain, lots of it, in the afternoon. Once again it seems like EVERYONE in the country gets winter except for us. I feel like we live in a protective bubble.

We were talking about the weather in school today and one of the teachers told me that he has only spent about $500 on heating oil because he keeps his house thermostat set at 52 degrees. 52 degrees??? Oh brrrrrrrrrr. I would be so miserable. It is so satisfying and comfy to scurry in from the bitter winter winds and be enveloped by relaxing warmth. He says you get used to it quickly but I doubt I would EVER be able to get used to it. It is colder than living in a cave. My body would be in a constant state of rigor mortis. Don't you think that is a little too cold??

He did admit that they have a kerosene heater in the family room. I asked if it wasn't terribly uncomfortable to sit down and eat dinner in a house that cold while your body is quaking and jumping with the shivers. He said they eat dinner in the family room. In fact, they do just about everything in the family room. No wonder. When we get those nasty bone chilling days when the wind chill is below zero they do give in a little and turn the heat up to prevent the pipes from freezing........turn it up all the way to 55!

And now I think I'll go stand next to my warm little wood stove and count my blessings!

Identities revealed

Okay....for all of you (Lauri) who are waiting with baited breath for the identities of the baseball players, the time has come to see how sharp your memory is. Actually, Lauri, you did pretty well!

Picture number one was easy. That, of course, was Steve Bornemann. Didn't you just love the hat! Just a little bit different from everyone else.


The player on the left in picture number 2 is Kit Foster. The catcher is Tracy Atwood. The reader who sent these in did not know who the identify of the two boys not in uniform but thinks they were siblings of team members. He thought maybe the boy holding the glove was Ricky Harmon, whose brother Leon was in same class as the boys on the team. You were right, Mr. Grieser is the man sitting on the end. It really seems quite strange to see him here as I really can't picture him doing anything outside the pulpit, especially sitting in the bleachers at a baseball game. The man in the glasses I originally thought was Miles Blodgett, but the sender of the photos tells me it is, of course, our old principal Martin Godgart. Remember him?? He was apparently acting as coach of the team after a disagreement with the real coach George Tuttle (the teacher not the milk inspector).


In this photo the boy to the right of Steve is Jimmy Gustafson (I bet you didn't get that one!). To the left of Tracy is George Schreiber, who used to scare the holy heck out of me. No one knows who the other two players are but it's been suggested that the one to the far left is Chappy Allyn. I'm thinking that may be a little old for him and it might be his older brother Gid and maybe the little guy in the boots is, as you suggested, his younger brother Chappy. And you are right, Steve looks very much like Grammie in this picture.

Good job guessing, Lauri! You win the prize. It looks to me like at least one of the trees in the background is a beautiful old elm tree, something that we never see anymore.

Going back in time.

There were some guesses made as to the true identity of the "happy knitter". I'm not sure what your answers were because you kept them "secret"! If you said Tracy Atwood you are right. Congratulations! And in case you are wondering...........although it may look like Tracy was participating in an occupational therapy class, he was not. He was participating in a program at church called Warm Woolies where participants knitted sweaters, scarves and mittens for orphans. His wife, behind him, was teaching Tracy, who is very new at knitting, the basics. It looks like he was doing a pretty good job for a novice.

Here is something else to test your memory. A reader sent me these great old Falls Village pictures. Can you identify anyone? It will be MUCH easier if you click on the picture to enlarge it. Some of the people were easy to identify. Tracy Atwood in his young days is in two of the pictures. That's one of the easy ones. Can you pick him out? Some were hard. Some were a surprise. And some are unknown, so far.

If you are a member of the Frueh family you should have no problem identifying this young man.


Even if you didn't grow up in Falls Village and have no idea who these people are, the pictures are fun to look at from a historical and nostalgic perspective. Look at the PF Flyers the boys are all wearing. Remember those? No baseball cleats back then. I love the cowboy boots on the little boy.


Did I really grow up in a time when the cars looked so old? It really does seem like such a simple life. No one sat on the bleachers plugged into their iPods or cell phones. When they went home they didn't run into the house to play their video games or watch MTV or log onto the computer to check their "my space" page. Instead of spending hours IM'ing their friends, they had them over to their house to play "cowboys and indians" or "cars and trucks". It was a very unplugged society. I miss that.

Have fun. Those of you from Falls Village or the Frueh/Bornemann family, let me know if you recognize anyone!

Do you recognize him??

Okay. A little quiz for all of you who grew up or lived in Northwest Connecticut during the swinging sixties. Do you know who this happy knitter is? (the man not the woman)

The worst show ever

I was watching the UCONN men's game tonight. It was one of those very stressful, palm-sweating games that brings me to my knees. When I am watching a game like this I sometimes have to switch channels and then come back a few minutes later because the tension is more than my little heart can take. Tonight I found myself with my thumb on the remote, toggling back and forth, alot. One of the programs I came across was a new program called "Moment of Truth". What in the hiney-ho is this world coming to?? I could not believe this show. Did anyone else see it and what did you think??

The basic idea of this show is that the contestant is seated and connected to a lie detector. He/she invites 3 friends (ie wife, husband, boss, father, father-in-law etc) to sit opposite him. He is then asked very personal and intimate questions such as: "Have you ever gone through a co-workers personal belongings?" or "Are you really in love with your fiance" or "Have you not had children yet because you do not think you and your wife will have a long lasting relationship?" or "Have you ever had a sexual relationship with someone the first day that you met them?" And these were the easy, less revealing questions.

Each time he answers a question the lie detector signals whether he told the truth or a lie. He stays in the game as long as he tells the truth. The closer he gets to $500,000 the more intimate and revealing the questions are. The most difficult part is that he has to answer these questions in front of his friends/wife etc and the whole world. What kind of ninny would put himself in that position?? The look on the face of the wife of one of the contestants was heartbreaking as he anwered some of the questions.

Is this how sick our world has become that we enjoy sitting around and watching people get hurt like this? Do they have any morals? Are people so greedy for money that they will embarrass themselves and hurt others? Do they get some perverse pleasure out of hurting the ones they love, or like? I won't watch this stupid show again. I wonder how long it will last. There are no winners on this show.

A day to remember MLK

Martin Luther King day. A day that will, as long as I live, remind me of my mother. My mother has always had such love and admiration for him. She has always had his picture hanging on the wall, right next to Abraham Lincoln's. She believed in everything that he stood for. She taught me to always treat everyone with respect no matter who they were. Every year on his birthday she used to have a "Martin Luther King birthday party". And she would invite EVERYONE! And I do mean EVERYONE. One year she even called Andrew Young, President Carter's UN ambassador, and invited him. At least that is the story she told us, and I do believe her. Unfortunately he had to regrettfully decline the invitation.

There was a little 6th grader who brought a book on MLK's speeches up to the desk to check out last week. She said, "I thought I would take this home so I can read it on Monday. I think that's a good thing to do on Martin Luther King day". What a very smart little girl. I wish they all could be like that. She must have a mother like mine!

Today I went to visit my Martin Luther King mother and helped her by driving her to her doctor's appointment. She has been having a problem with the sound on her computer so Paul sent me down with a program to hopefully fix it. But first, he told me to make sure the speakers were plugged in and turned on. You would be surprised how many people have non-functional speakers, printers, etc that would function if only they were turned on or plugged in. I can't count the number of times we get a call in the library from a teacher who says their printer is broken and can we fix it. (we don't know why they call us because that is a job for the tech departmen, not us library folks. But they do) We always ask them first if the printer is plugged in and more often than not, by gosh, it's not plugged in! It's like pressing the Easy Button. So, anyway, I went to check the speakers and hmmmmm they were nowhere to be seen. I looked and looked and looked EVERYWHERE and just could not find them. I know they used to be there because I always used to hear the little man say "you've got mail" when she checked her email. So how in the heck do two speakers just disappear? It is a real mystery to me.

I came home and watched the UCONN women play North Carolina, a game that made me so nervous that I had to keep switching channels when I couldn't take the stress.

Day-tripping

Paul and I took a little road trip today.........a Grammie and Grampie road trip. We left early this morning for Rhode Island to visit Megan and Brett and the twins.

Twins in name only because they don't look AT ALL alike. They don't even look like they came from the same family! That is what makes them so interesting and so much fun. They are growing so fast. It is hard to believe that next month they will be a year old already. Crawling and standing up, they are really keeping Megan and Brett busy. Their house looks like a happy day-care center with baby-stuff for two wherever you look.

Okay....people in the Frueh family, who do you think Albion resembles in our family? I think he looks alot like Sam did when he was little. Does anyone else see it? Maybe you have to be there.

After visiting the twin family in Rhode Island we drove up to Arlington to see the Maddens. As we pulled up to the house I could see their precious little faces smooshed up against the window looking for Grammie and Grampie. Eamon immediately wanted me to go up to his room to keep him company while he played with his trains. Yes, Grammie can do that and very happily too. While I was keeping him company Elizabeth wanted me to read to her. Grammie can do that also and very happily. Kara showed me the fantastic quilting job she is working on.

The clock ticked away much too quickly and soon it was time for us to trek back home. On the way home we stopped off for a bite to eat at the Landing Zone Grill at the JohnnyCake Airport in Burlington. The airport is there no longer but the restaurant still stands. Not exactly a "restaurant", it looks more like a biker bar that should have a motorcycle line-up at the front door. A true "hole in the wall". It looks like a shack in the bayou. It is known for it's potentially lethal heart-stopping high cholesterol wood-fired grilled juicy, dripping with fat burgers and steaks. That wonderfully appetizing, sizzling odor greets you as you step out of the car onto the dirt parking lot. They also have unusual items such as frog legs and alligator. As much as I really wanted to indulge in the good stuff, I settled for a BLT. How dull is that?? Next time it's the good stuff.

The inside is very tiny and retro. It looks like something from 40 years ago. They have a tiny bar which seats only about 4 people and a beer list that is pages long. Every square inch of wall is taken up with airplane memorabilia. I find airplane stuff pretty ho-hum boring but it always sparks Paul's interest and he spent lots of time reading the walls and tellingme all about the "interesting" stuff. Ho hum. They have run out of space on the walls and are now plastering items on the ceiling. They did have some other local memorabilia and old license plates that were quite interesting. It really is a fun place to eat and would take more than one visit to "read" all their walls. It is worth the trip for anyone who is in this area and looking for a fun place for a bite to eat.

Now we're home and I'm tired and ready for bed and, hopefully, a nice "sleep-in" morning tomorrow.

I'm really happy that part of my family lives close enough so that it only takes a day-trip to visit them. I hope that never changes.

A green thumb for me?

Last fall a very dear friend from my high school days who now lives in Florida sent me a lovely gift, a box containing some seeds from an Angel Trumpet flower. The Angel Trumpet is a gorgeous showy plant but it is something that is not grown in New England because it wouldn't survive our frigid winters. Along with the plant came instructions on how to grow this plant from seed indoors.

Whenever I plant a seed it is always done with lots of prayers and crossed fingers because, as much as I love gardening, my seeds often don't sprout. It has something to do with the lack of green color in my thumb. I dried the seed pods as she instructed. They split and yielded herds of little seeds. I bought some potting soil and last week I poked them into the potted soil. I parked the pot in front of one of my south-facing windows and crossed my fingers and toes.

Today I peeked into the pot and there they were.........you can hardly see them but they are there. Little green sprouts. All over the place. Success. It's only the beginning. Now I have to keep them going until they are big enough to transplant outside in the spring. But if I fail I have lots more seeds that I can use to try again. The dried seeds, by the way, smell just like popcorn or dirty feet.



If my prayers and crossed fingers do the job, my little green sprouts will turn into this next summer. Not only will I have a lovely flower unique to New England, I will have a reminder of a very good friend.

An overnight change

Every year, when the last leaf falls from the trees and the sky begins to turn a steel gray color, I put away the scarecrows and pumpkins. With happy anticipation I start plastering my home and yard with "snow signs". I figure that the more images of snow I have hanging around the more likely someone will answer my prayer for a snowy winter.

The power of positive thinking. If we think snow often enough, it has to happen.

It must be working. Last night I when I went to bed the grass was green and the world was dull. This morning I woke up to this sea of white. Oh, how lovely. No school, of course. Breakfast on the porch watching the snow pile up. A day spent cleaning out filing cabinets and other assorted junk. This must be heaven on earth.

This little guy seems much happier now that he has a coat of snow. It makes me much happier to see him that way. I hope it's only the beginning of many white days.

The Dating Game

It was a busy Saturday. There was a Union meeting this morning to ratify our contract (which was supposed to have been done by July 1). That took almost two hours. When I came home I manically dove into my housework and laundry so that I would be able to plant myself in front of the UCONN men's basketball game at 2. And then the women's basketball game at 4. Neverending joy! By the time the games were over at 6 I was not in the mood to cook dinner, especially one of Paul's boring meatless beans and brown rice and squash meals. So off it was to the noisy Berkshire Cafe for pizza and beer (my non-alcoholic brand).

Paul and I were sitting in the booth chatting while we were waiting for our pizza to come. As we were talking a thought came to me that made me giggle. I told him that I was wondering what our thoughts would be about each other if we were meeting each other tonight for the first time on a blind date. For the rest of the evening I kept thinking of everything we said and did in that context. If you know Paul you know he has a "unique" way about him and some of his conversation topics can be a bit bizarre. At times I was quite bursting with laughter at what I would be thinking if I had been meeting him for the first time (such as when he said "I need to lube my nose. It is dry dry dry). I told him that if we had been a blind date it would have been a date that was dead in the water. Just for fun, try looking at your spouse or significant other as if you were going out on a date for the first time. It's almost guaranteed to give you some good belly laughs. It also makes you realize how tolerant you have become to each other's quirkiness over the years.

Not as cold as it looks.

It was a cold looking winter sky that I saw from our porch tonight. But it looked colder than it really was. It was another strangely warm day. Although the wind (we had gusts of 44mph at our school on the hill today) kept it feeling rather chilly. The sun warmed my lovely Belly Acres room to a cozy 76 degrees today without the help of any supplemental heat. It was an inviting place to park myself and a book after school today. I really love that room.

The dinner hour

Was it really only last week that I was bundled up in my scarf, mittens, ear muffs and boots and I STILL felt like an ice cube? Today we were shedding our jackets as the temperature soared to a high of 63. How interesting New England weather is. We are having a lovely January thaw. Like all January thaws it will all be over too soon. Snow is in the forecast for Monday. Thank goodness. As much as I've been enjoying the balmy weather, it is still winter and in the winter I want winter weather.

On another topic......Someone said to me today that a student had mentioned to her at lunch that their family never sits down to eat dinner together. I have had students tell me the same thing. One time I was disciplining a student with abysmal table manners. He was standing up while eating, sitting with his back to the table, etc. I asked him if he sat at the dinner table at home like that. He looked at me and said, "We never sit down to eat. We always eat standing up." How sad. The dinner table is often the only time during the day that a family has time to spend with each other.

When we were first married and Paul was in school and we were poorer than we are now, some of our meals were pretty dull.......and cheap. Beans. Hot dogs. Canned corned beef hash (remember that stuff?!) In order to make a mundane meal seem a little classier we would turn down the lights and eat by candlelight. Every night. And we never stopped. We still do it today. It still makes my mundane food look a little better. The thought of eating dinner under bright overhead lights jangles my brain. I don't think our kids ever remember a meal where we didn't eat by candlelight when they were growing up. Did they think everyone ate that way? Did their friends think we were a little eccentric when they ate at our house?

The dinner table was a great place for family discussions. Sometimes our meals would go on for well over an hour. There were other times that dinner had to be sandwiched in between soccer, basketball, ballet lessons, cross country and band. Those were the nights we literally gulped our dinner in five minutes. But we gulped together!

There were usually two rules. No hats at the table. And no controversy. That last one was a hard rule to keep when you have three kids who want to use the dinner table as a spring board to try to get one of their siblings in trouble in the name of sibling rivalry or who are just plain irritable with each other and can't hold back. But in spite of that minor glitch, the dinner hour can be one of the best times of the day. Listen to what your kids have to say. Let them talk. Let it be THEIR time. You might be surprised at what you will learn.

And put on some soft music. Turn down the lights and light the candles. See what a difference it makes.

How do you stop a toe-sucking- licking- chewing-slobbering monster?

I have had only three satisfactory nights of sleep in the past month. That is because our cats, finally, were shut out of the bedroom for three nights this past week. Three wonderful, peaceful nights. It seems that one of our twin cats is a head-hand-toe sucking, licking, chewing monster who gives me no peace.

As soon as I slide in bed at night and prop my book up for a relaxing read he zeros in on my hands, licking and chewing and sucking. He is merciless. Wrapping my hands like a mummy in my sheets does not stop the assault. He continues with even more vigor, trying to undo the mummy-wrap. Frustrated with the barrage of cat-wetness I finally give up, put my book away, tuck my hands under the pillow and turn off the light. But he is not a quitter. With my hands out of reach he turns to my head. He bangs and bumps and sucks and licks at my head and face with the vigor of a jack hammer. I bury my head under the sheets and he attacks the lump that is left there. This continues most of the night. Paul tells me that I actually tossed the cat across the room in my sleep the other night. Thus the reason for the cat being ousted from our room for three nights, Paul felt sorry for the cat.

The barrage actually begins before I climb in bed. As soon as my feet hit the floor after my shower he is after them. As I try to brush my teeth he is there, slobbering all over my toes. I stand on the toilet to get away from him and lean over the sink to continue brushing my teeth. Not to be outsmarted, he climbs up on the toilet and continues his sucking. The only way I can get any peace is to toss him out of the bathroom and close the door.

When I open the door, there he is, lying in wait for me inches outside the door. He eagerly jumps up and follows me into the bedroom, sucking and licking all the way. It's a race each night to see if I can jump into my bed before he grabs my toes.

If I walk downstairs after my shower in my bare feet, he is waiting on the stairs, creating a tripping hazard as he does that little twiney thing around my legs so he can grab a toe. Once in the kitchen I do a move reminiscent of the old cartoons of the ladies when they spy a mouse running across the floor. With a yelp I scramble onto a chair to get away from him. Unlike a mouse, he thinks it's all a game and he leaps on the chair with me in happy anticipation of a good toe lick.

What is wrong with this cat? Does he need cat therapy? What does it mean when a cat drools at the thought of licking your extremities? And why isn't he interested in Paul's?

It's brrrry brrrry cold.

(I tried to post this blog last night but, for some odd reason it wouldn't post. Hmmmm. I'll try again and hope it works. Sorry it's a day late)

Oh brrrrrr. Brrrrr brrrrr brrrrr. It is just plain old cold out there. And in here, too. The last time I looked it was 1 degree out. Brrrrrrr. The wind chill this morning was 13 below. I had some serious painage doing bus duty this morning at our Arctic school on the hill. I had my scarf wrapped around my head with only my eyes peeking out and my cheeks still felt like the cold air was turning them into little ice bricks. And even with this biting cold, can you believe it, some children were arriving in short sleeves, shorts and NO coats. As much as they tried to put on the macho-I-am-one-cool-dude act, I could tell they were suffering, really suffering. Oh brrrrrr.

I heard that it was 29 in Tampa, Florida this morning. Daytona Beach even had a little bit of snow. Are we having a turn at Global Cooling now? Just a short bit. Global Warming will be coming back on Monday as temperatures are expected to be in the 50's. Possibly even 60. Maybe it will melt the snow so I can finally get the rest of those leaves raked! Hopefully it won't be long before our January thaw will be over and I'll have a chance to use my snow shoes.

It's time to take a hot shower, put on my flannel jammies and climb under my fluffy comforter. That's the really nice thing about cold weather.

And a happy New Year to you all.

A fresh snowfall today made it perfect weather for closing out the Christmas season. The tree is history now. Decorations gone. Out the door. It's something that I can't wait to put up but when New Year's Day comes, I can't wait to take it down.

There is no activity that gets those little nostalgia strings strumming like decorating and undecorating the tree. Every decoration has a memory attached to it, or should. I don't believe in decorating a tree with baubles that mean nothing. We have the "unique" decorations that the children made and gave to us when they were going through school. Who, with children, doesn't have a gold-painted macaroni decoration hanging on their tree? There is the one lone red glass ball that is left from the box of twelve that we bought for our Christmas tree the first year we were married. They were the ONLY decorations on our first tree because that was all we could afford. There's the decoration I bought the Christmas that I was expecting Kara because it looked like a pregnant lady. And the funny looking owl with the wiggly eyes that has always been Paul's favorite. The wooden indian angel that Kara brought us from New Mexico and the glass Santa in a gondola that Damon brought back from Venice. Every decoration brings back a reminder of a part of our past. The more decorations we have the older we are!

One of my very favorites is this old 40's/50's era glass bulb that I found. It is exactly like the bulbs we used to hang on the Christmas tree at the farm. I pack it away very carefully in a box surrounded by soft packing. Looking at the bulb brings back memories of giggling children, cocoa and cookies on a stool for Santa, a warm wood stove, reading The Night Before Christmas, my mother calling upstairs to let us know the radio reports of Santa's progress towards Falls Village, the smell and sight of a white pine Christmas tree, my father...............and on and on. If you remember these bulbs I can bet that you also can remember the noise and sight of those fragile things falling off the tree and hitting the floor.

I've posted some pictures of our Christmas on the Gallery. You can get to them by clicking here or by going to the Gallery and clicking on "Our Christmas 2007.

We spent New Year's Eve doing my favorite thing with my favorite people. We gathered at Gail and Charlie's house for a lobster dinner and a movie. I can't think of a better way to ring in the New Year than sharing time with good friends.

From the pot....................

...............to the table. If only I could learn to be neater when I eat lobster. But it's so good I find it hard to hold myself back.


Also a very happy birthday, December 29, to son-in-law extrodinaire Sean. He's a very brave man to put up with this slightly off-kilter family. It takes a lot of patience! He's a good father and husband. What else could be more important than that.