I knit socks!!!

thank you Bevs Country Cottage.

First you helped me make super awesome easy baby booties and now you have nursed this beginning knitter through socks!

I no longer have sock envy because I have a great pattern I can play with and have fun with.

How do they look?

Another one

We lost another chick. I'm starting to feel rather cursed.

This time it was not the weather or anything like that.

No, this time it was the other chicks. He managed to get trampled when I went out to feed them.

They always rush over to the side of the pen in anticipation of when I might throw a few handfuls of feed in to distract them.

They are usually the 3rd coop to be fed, and I'm not certain when it happened...

But when I opened up the coop, I was surprised to find a twitching and dead looking chick. It spasmed when I picked it up. I thought I had killed it.

I fed the chicks and did most of the chores all the while checking on it here and there.

It only got worse.

After some contemplating over the problem, hubby offered to kill it with the pellet gun.

I left the pasture to turn on the hose and was spared the noise of the gun. Hubby was nice enough to throw it over the fence afterwards and I couldn't help but go and look just to make sure it had died.

I was so glad that it did, and that hubby was able to put it out of its misery so quickly.

It was a rooster.

I think it gets worse the bigger these birds get.

I can't believe I've lost so many birds!

The end of an era

Late last week my 91 year old Grandma passed away quite expectedley. She had suffered from organ failure for the past month and basically got progressively worse.

My grandfather (her husband) had passed away in late August. So Grandma was going to get to be with her sweetheart.

I thought it would be a happy occasion with many happy reunions.

It surprised me however when I felt the tears come.

I came to the realization that a part of my childhood had come to an end. Some of my childhood memories had ended.

The memory I'm talking about is all the memories of Grandma and Grandpa and them in their house.

The crazy rug in the basement that we played hopscotch on. Aunt Linda's wedding. All the Readers digests in the bookcase and watching movies in the TV room. The crazy things Grandma and Grandpa had on their fireplace mantle and how they rarely changed. I mean how long was that crazy sundae looking thing there for anyway?

The pictures in the hallway and using the upstairs bathroom with the sliding door and Grandma's panty hose hanging everywhere. The weird bathroom downstairs where you weren't quite sure how to lock the door but you hoped you did it right.

Sleeping on the couches in the basement and the breakfasts that Grandpa would cook for us and how he would go to the store (even in his 80's) for the ingredients before we were even up.

The path in the backyard and how when I was young it felt like a secret forest.

These are all good memories, but with someone besides Grandma and Grandpa living there, it will never be quite the same.

I posted this on my family website, but so far, people have ignored it.

Sometimes I feel so out of synch with my family.

Unexpected

Tonight I had an unexpected conversation.

I had put the girls to bed and was kissing hubby goodnight. He has to go to bed really early. And rather than going to bed like a smart person would do, I stay up and work on projects.

Tonight when I went into the family room, I found A with a blanket and pillow on the recliner. She didn't want to sleep in her room, but I told her that the recliner wasn't an option.

I tucked her into bed and she told me that she had a bad dream. She had gone to the beach and died. This brought to mind all of the times that hubby and I will be into a show and not realize that a child has wondered into the room. We've been changing our ways and if we watch a violent show like Burn Notice or Life or whatever, we try to watch in another room or on a computer where they can't see. But anyway... I digress.

She told me that she died on the beach and that Jesus had come and told her that she shouldn't go to the beach without Mommy and Daddy.

So we said a prayer and asked that she would have happy dreams and no more bad dreams tonight.

So this led to a very sweet conversation about what would happen when we die. I explained that if she died, it wasn't something to be frightened of. I told her about how our spirit goes up to heaven and then she would be able to spend time with all of her grandparents who had passed away and how nice they were. And then I started crying because I had such wonderful memories of them all and how I missed them all (especially my paternal Grandfather who passed away when I was 8). So that led to me crying and A said "don't cry Mommy" or something like that. And I told her why I was crying.

I told her how I missed all of those people and how the thought of her dying made me sad. Then I told her that she wouldn't die for a long time. I told her that her Great Grandmother who is dying from organ failure right now was something like 96. I told her how it would take her 92 years to get that old. That was a long time. And in the meantime she would get older and go school, jr. high, high school, college, and how she would get married and have babies of her own.

Then C piped up from the other bed and said "Mommy I want to be a teacher when I grow up and have lots of babies." It was so sweet.

So I kissed A goodnight and then went over to C's bed. We talked a little about the Grandma who was dying. She asked me what happened when we died.

I told her about how our spirits were separate from our bodies and how when her body died that her spirit would go to heaven.

So this led to a short explanation of how when she was a baby inside my tummy her spirit joined with the babies body. I am sure I confused her a little. But I tried to break it down for her.

Then she asked about how babies get out of mommies tummy, or something like that. So I said that the babies grow in mommies tummy and then come out here in a special place here under my tummy.

I was very vague and just pointed to the bottom of my tummy.

I told her that I would explain it better to her when she was a little older. And she said "when I'm 10?" and I said, no, maybe when you are 7 or 8. And it dawned on me that she is nearly there.

Anyway, I kissed her goodnight and tucked her in.

It's just amazing to me the kinds of conversations that happen when you are least expecting them.


What a sweet experience. I love my kids so much.