Make a Smilebox postcard

Ah...my first blog outside of my English 101D class! Now I am blogging all on my own, footloose and fancy free (what ever that may mean! :-). Here it is the end of the first week in April and there is still patches of snow hidden here and there. My beautiful fuchsia baskets (purchased just a week ago) look like old rags and my slim hope that they will somehow rally and come back to the world of the living is starting to fade...I am not sure what part of me that offends the worst, the gardener or the budgetor!

I am so glad that I decided to take this Spring Quarter off from college. Having Brynne's wedding to help plan for in July and Cait's possible wedding in September on top of having to really get things rocking as far as my business expansion plans means that time is limited...extremely limited! It is a good time of the year to look forward and cross things off the proverbial "to do" list with the time to actually do them. I can't believe how much I've accomplished this week. Two dog's papers transferred, OFA X-rays taken and sent, an official BUSINESS LICENSE application completed and paid for (oh yeah!), kennel plans finalized and materials being gathered for that undertaking. It just feels good to get rolling!

Of course, my other big accomplishment was visiting the CPA that Marlene referred me to and getting the taxes completed with his stamp of approval! That was a relief, because my portion of the retirement account was paid in a lump sum and must be claimed this year...that is a lot of taxes to pay. Jim was demanding that he should get all of the deductions, but he didn't qualify for 80% of them, and the 20% that he did sort of qualify, we gave him straight away. He wanted to fight about it,though I figured that it wasn't about a dispute, but rather about who qualified for what. That is why I was willing to go to the expense of a CPA (as opposed to a tax preparer) as I needed to know that facts and not an opinion.

I do believe it is possible to create, even without ever writing a word or painting a picture, by simply molding one’s inner life. And that too is a deed.-Etty Hillesum

Thanksgiving Dinner with the Dutch Mafia

For my family the third week in November has always meant an exodus to Lynden, a return to our ancestral home and the kith and kin that reside there. Alright, maybe ancestral is pushing it a bit, but certainly the place where our roots have been growing in that rich farmland for close to 70 years. My two sisters and I were always dolled up for these trips in frilly dresses that sported scratchy lace along the hem and sleeves…these features would added their own torture to the miserably long two hour drive North. We sat in the back seat of some old Ford sedan trying to not accidently cross the invisible line of demarcation that would mean instantaneous war if your infringement was noted by either backseat companion. Mom and Dad, innocently oblivious of the health hazard they were inflicting upon us, smoked like chimneys in the front seat the whole trip up…with all of the window rolled up, of course. Mind you, this was also in the days prior to the use of booster seats and I was too short to see out of any of the windows except to see the telephone poles zipping monotonously by on old Hwy 99.

By the time we arrived in Lynden, I was almost comatose with motion sickness! Dad would open the door and I would stumble out, wanting to kiss the ground, but since it was a dairy farm, I resisted the urge. Surprisingly my sisters were never plagued with being car sick and would read books and work puzzles to pass the time…if I just looked at those things, I would toss my cookies! Once we were out of the car and I was able to stand without wobbling, we were given last minute instruction on “the proper behavior of young ladies at family gatherings” and entered the front door to the house of my Dad’s oldest sibling and sister, Aunt Del.

Aunt Del would rush from the kitchen the moment we opened the door, cheeks flushed, eyes sparkling, and she would scoop us into a bear hug before releasing us into the fray that constituted a large…and I mean large…Dutch family gathering! My Dad had 5 siblings and each of them had 4 or 5 children, so when we got together we easily filled the largest farm house. A curiously long table (I later learned it was actually 8 tables) snaked from the dinning room, through the living room and half way into the parlor. Around it was a mix of wooden and metal chairs and even a piano bench or two. All of the tables were covered in starched white table clothes and lined with an assortment of plates, silverware, and Tupperware cups. Each year someone lovingly crafted place cards to clue us in as to where we were assigned seating. This unveiling was much like an Easter egg hunt as my cousins and I clapped with glee or groaned with dismay as we found our place cards and discovered who we were sitting with this year (would it be with a favorite cousin or an elderly relative who smells like cod liver oil?).

We are kept in the house because it inevitably is raining and cold outside (Thanksgiving in the Northwest!), but our racing from room to room, crawling quietly under the tables, playing hide and seek behind the heavy brocade curtains was well tolerated since everyone has large, active, and young families. Waves of wonderfully, delicious scents escaped from the kitchen every time one of the ladies comes out of the kitchen bringing a plate of sliced banana nut bread, or home canned baby dill pickles, or cranberry sauce, clueing us in to the fact that dinner is “almost” ready. Steam is literally starting to roll out the kitchen door every time they open it and with it a glimpse of kitchen counters and tables covered in pumpkin pies, scalloped corn, sweet potatoes, savory ham, mountains of mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, fruit and Jell-O salads…and turkey!

My Uncle announces in an authorative, though jolly voice, that we should find our seats and there is a mad scramble to do just that. Standing behind our chairs, we all join hands, bow our heads and give thanks for this bounty. The short, to the point grace that I am used to for our own dinners at home, is now a much longer, much more inclusive variety and my stomach was growling like a rabid wolf by the time we all join in with a hearty Amen!

We sit and all of my aunts and older female cousins start to parade out of the kitchen in an almost endless line of food. The only thing that I have ever seen that looks anything like this processional is when I saw a program on the National Geographic channel on army ants having a very good day. Then we pass the bowls around our assigned clique, loading our plates up, trying to sample every dish, new or the old favorites, and we hear our aunt remind us to “leave room for pie!” The laughing, the talking, and the eating goes on for at least two hours. Of course we never managed to leave room for pie, but that doesn’t stop anyone from having "just a little slice.”

One oddity (which I never knew was odd until I was an adult) is that everyone is offered coffee with their pie…even the young children. Of course the children actually get a little splash of coffee in their milk, but the odd thing is that everyone, and I mean everyone, gets poured just half of a cup. I never notice this, particularly since you could go back for endless refills, until I brought my fiancée to one of our gatherings and he asked why they only poured him half of a cup? I asked my non-Dutch mother and she said that the Dutch hate to waste anything, so they pour a half of a cup of coffee at a time to eliminate the likelihood that it would be left cold in the cup. Following suit, leftovers are painstakingly divided amongst the families and sent home surely to be eaten and certainly not left to waste.

Coats are brought out of the bedroom, bear hugs are distributed, and sleepy, children are tucked into the vehicles for a long ride home. Backseat boundary disputes fade and all leave with a better idea of what it means to be a family…and what it means to be a part of the Dutch Mafia.

Home Schooling is a Community

There is a growing contingency of parents who have chosen to either not enroll their children in or have removed their children from our public schools. Those who chosen to home school their children do not make their decisions lightly. This decision will impact the children, the parents, and their family life the entire time that homeschooling is underway. Because it is an important decision, and not the standard educational choice for our society, it tends to draws people together who have come to this same educational option, no matter what path they have trodden to arrive there.

The homeschooling community has grown by leaps and bounds within our state, but it is still considered outside the norm. At best, it is a curiosity to those who haven’t made that leap themselves or who may not personally know a home schooling family. There are home school support groups within even our smallest communities and most home school families make good use of these. Home school families rely on the support and encouragement of other families who have made this same decision. Support groups are also a great way to share teaching ideas, information, curriculum and just to get together with those going through some of the same victories and valleys. Homeschoolers, through either friendships or support groups, have forged a strong sense of community within their ranks. This sense of community has come about in part to offset the negative social pressure that results in crossing any social norm.

Though the majority of Homeschoolers do share a strong Christian faith, there are also a good number of people that homeschool their children and practice any number of different religions or no religion at all. The common thread seems to be a high value placed on children and a strong belief in a parent’s singular responsibility to thier child. These parents have a strong desire to bring the best education, in a healthy and supportive atmosphere, and in a way which does not diminish the child or the family’s belief system or life style. Within a very diverse home school community and due to the intensity of beliefs, it is almost inevitable that there will be a certain amount of conflict and this probably explains why there are so many home school support groups. People tend to gather in groups that share their basic beliefs and the sheer numbers of groups give testimony to the variety of people that choose to home school.

The reasons that I chose to home school our children were varied. I disliked the large class room size of our local public school and yet we didn’t feel that we could afford to send our children to a private school. My husband worked nights and we wanted to have a more flexible schedule which would allow more family time for us all to be together. Both of my sisters’ homeschooled their children and it was working amazingly well for them from both an educational and family point of view. We went from being skeptics to seeing it as a practical, positive option.

I have enjoyed these last 20 years of homeschooling my children and in being part of a community that gives educational options to those who are seeking them. It is encouraging to be with people who feel that their children deserve to be a top priority in their lives. Homeschooling isn’t for everyone and I realize that there are many wonderful parents who would not chose to home school but, if it does suit your family situation, or your child’s individual needs, then I am glad that we have the freedom to choose home schooling and a strong and supportive community to walk along side us.

What's in Your Wallet?

Like most everyone the first thing that most would notice is the outside, the most obvious, and in my case the first thing they would notice about my wallet, is that it is a purse. If they allowed their eyes to linger just a few seconds longer they would notice that it is a fairly new, designer brand knock off. This could give the observer a few pertinent clues about me and lead them to make a couple of assumptions…both of which would probably be correct. They would likely assume the owner of this personal carrying case is a woman and that this woman would like to be thought of as not too far off the fashion path but, that she is also unwilling to throw a good deal of funds in that direction. The color of the case could well indicate to even a casual observer, that it is owned by someone who’s somewhat conservative, as the purse is basic black and sports no accent color or flash, to either draw attention to it or its owner. The purse does have a design inscribed within the weave of its black fabric and it is leather trimmed…so there is an attempt to stray from the totally bland.
If the person who came across this lost vestige of individuality bothered to look deeper and opened the lost purse they would find, as exists in all of us, the deeper revelations of who we are, what we care about, and what we value. It takes concern or at least curiosity to bother with exploration or recognition but, allot of times, it is simply a matter of a decision to do so. If they crossed that bridge, and opened the case they would find a mass of keys. Keys to a home, keys to a garage, keys to an SUV, and an older truck, keys to a storage shed, a postal mail box, a safe deposit box, and a locker at the gym…keys to a life. On those keys are a plethora of magnetically encoded tags claiming various memberships around a small town. There are tags for the library, a gym, auto insurance, a health food store, and a grocery. One could easily assume that this person is likely responsible for running a fair amount of errands.
Digging deep would reveal a closed inner leather case and within that case beats the heart of the purse. One casual flick of a finger and the secret inner workings of this person’s life are revealed. The first item to be seen is a lovely picture of a smiling group of five siblings, ranging from child to young adult. Behind that picture is a driver’s license revealing a face hauntingly similar to the picture of the siblings but, a fair amount older. Within the aged leather inner case are the financial workings of a busy family, a pack of checks, debit cards, one credit card, folded cash, and lots of change! In a neat and expanding pile are the punch cards to virtually every espresso stand within a 5 mile radius of that home address. On a laminated card are the address, home phone and cell phone numbers of two gals who used to share a maiden name with the purses owner. The card is creased with heavy use but, maintains it key placement along the slot next to the driver’s license.
Could someone be able to make some logical assumptions as to who I am by just going through my wallet? Yes and no…it depends how deeply they were willing to dig.

Day one and counting...

Well, it took an English Course requirement to get me to finally set up my blog...but, I've done it!