Preschool Memories

Seeing the soft, wet cement out front reminds me of two things. The first thing is the book I used to read to my children and still do read to Destiny called Small Pig. The farmer's wife was doing such a thorough cleaning that she even cleaned the pig's pen. So he set out in search of some good, soft mud. He finally found some in the city, only it was wet cement, and he got stuck in it!! The other thing I am reminded of is the time I walked in soft, wet cement. That, along with other memories of my first five years of life, will be my story today.

Preschool Memories

Our family lived on a rented farm the first five years of my life. Although we moved to a farm that my dad bought when I was only five years old, I have many very distinct memories my first home. Here are some of them.

1. When we were preparing to move, the folks who had bought the farm were remodeling the dairy barn. One day my younger sister Doris and I were playing outside and decided to check things out in the barn. We were amazed at the beautiful new floor in the dairy barn and decided to walk across it. Hmmm. I soon realized that something was very wrong. With each step we took, our feet sank into the beautiful new floor. What to do? We kept walking the whole way across to the other side, then left the barn and never said a word to anyone about it. I was quite sure we had done a very bad thing. When I was older I found out that the workmen had had to come back to repair the damage we had done and they had worked until midnight to finish it!

2. Speaking of Doris, it's a wonder she survived childhood. I remember the day our mother was out in the "summer kitchen" doing the laundry. (Those were the wringer washer days.) Doris was in the high chair and I had climbed up onto the counter to get something out of the cupboard. I discovered this interesting stuff up on top of the cupboard. It looked like puffed rice, except it was hard. I asked Doris if she wanted some cereal. I proceeded to put the stuff in a bowl with milk and gave it to Doris. She didn't like it, thank God. When mom came back into the house I found out it was mouse poison! I had done a very bad thing again.

3. One day I was playing with my dolls and decided to pretend I was driving somewhere. I got into our 1951 Ford in the garage with my doll on the front seat (the way all babies rode in those days!) I was having a lot of fun shifting the gears, turning the steering wheel, and trying to reach the pedals. Suddenly I felt the car begin to drift backward. I kept drifting right out of the garage until it came to a stop against the hedge at the other side of the driveway! I screamed and screamed and screamed in absolute terror. I can still see my dad running out of the barn and my mom running out of the house. I'm sure they expected to find me half dead!

4. One summer evening after supper my brother Dick decided to take me for a bike ride. I sat behind him, bare feet dangling at the sides. The unthinkable happened. My one foot got caught it the spokes of the back tire. I've learned since that a major artery in my ankle was severed and the blood spurted out with each heartbeat. My memory was of others in the family rushing out of the house and up the road to see what had happened. And get this - I remember that Mary Ellen was still eating her dessert - a piece of white cake! How weird is that?? Anyway, I was rushed to the doctor's office. That ankle had to be doctored for months. Getting the bandage changed was always traumatic, so the nurse started telling me that she was using her dull scissors. Then I would settle down!!

5. We had a girls' bedroom in which three of us slept - Janet, Mary Ellen, and me. (Brother Dick, being the only boy, always had his own room.) Our favorite thing was taking saltine crackers along to bed. We would hide them under our pillows, then after Mom had left the room, we would lay there and talk and eat our saltines. She always complained about the crumbs in our beds, but we kept doing it.

6. The funniest memory of that bedroom was after Barb was born. She got to have the crib in my parents' room, and one-year-old Doris had to be moved, crib and all, to our bedroom. As she got older she thoroughly enjoyed the audience of three older sisters. At one point the one end of her crib railing broke and she could swing it open like a door. She would do that and climb out, then get in again and close it. We older girls would lie there in our beds and howl laughing as she would do that over and over again. It didn't take much to entertain children back in those days!

7. My not as favorite memory of that bedroom was the night my mattress started to push up and down. Something was under my bed! I told Janet and Mary Ellen what was happening and I started to cry because I was so scared. Turns out my brother Dick had quietly crawled across the hall, got under my bed and pushed up and down to scare me. It worked!

8. Janet, Mary Ellen, Dick, and I would play house. Sometimes they would make me be the mom, even though I was far younger. Their favorite trick was when we pretended we were at church praying, they would sneak away while my eyes were closed. I would open my eyes and all my children were gone. Then I would get mad and cry and they would come back laughing their heads off. It's a wonder I turned out alright!!

9. We used to hire Puerto Ricans to help us with our tomato harvest. We would transform a little chicken house into a living quarters for them. I was always jealous, because I thought it was so cute. Their bathroom was our outhouse. One day when I was outside playing I decided to use the outhouse instead of going inside. I started to open the door, but was yelled at by one of the hired men who was inside. I was mortified. From then on I never wanted to see any of them for fear they were mad at me.

10. Speaking of the tomato harvest, my first experience driving tractor was during the tomato harvest. It was September and the older three were back in school. My dad needed someone to steer the tractor as he loaded the baskets of tomatoes onto the wagon. So he sat me up there, put the tractor into the lowest gear possible, and instructed me to steer straight. It was scary, but I was very proud. I was even prouder when the other three arrived home from school a little while later and came running out to the tomato field seeing me driving the tractor. I felt so grown up!!

There are many more memories of that place, but that's it for this time!

The cement truck has arrived

Look what's been making a lot of noise out front since 6 AM - on a nice, cool Saturday morning when all the neighbors probably are sleeping without their AC, maybe with a window open??? I wonder how many are swearing. Tsk. Tsk.

An angel or not?

In her comment below, Tonja said Sophie is an angel. Hmmm... does this look like an angel to you??

Well....I guess she might be one after all!

Look what was waiting for me on email this morning!

Sophie, if you get any cuter, Grandma is just going to eat you up!!

Feeling good about my accomplishments today

Nothing funny or exciting happened around here today, but I feel good about my accomplishments. Besides working out at the gym this morning, I gave the master bathroom an old fashioned "house cleaning" from top to bottom, inside and out. I also gave Destiny's room a thorough going-through and cleaning. I went through all her toys and decided what things she probably will not want to share with a two-year-old next week, and put those things up on her closet shelf. I also threw out some things (she was at Abby's this evening while I did this, so she'll never miss the stuff), and then put the rest of the toys on the shelves. So we're ready for you, Sophie!!

Sophie loves calling people and telling them about the upcoming trip on the airplane, so this afternoon Destiny and I listened to her tell all about it, and I found out later she also called Grandpa at work. How are we ever going to wait another whole week??

We've been getting rain - last evening, and again this evening. Dick loves when the Lord does the watering and he doesn't have to!

The walk project is coming along. The frames are in place and the stones are laid. I think he plans to do pour the concrete on Saturday. Tim, the guy who's doing it, was our little neighbor boy when I was a teenager. I have seldom seen him in all these years. It's fun to look out and watch him work. Sometimes I can see that little boy, and other times he reminds me of his dad.

I'm enjoying the variety of flowers that are blooming all around our shed.

What is buzzing???

This afternoon while Destiny had her play date with her kindergarten friend, I worked at home instead of in my classroom. The house was quiet. I was going through Destiny's outgrown clothes in her closet when I had to go to the bathroom. I used the one closest to her room. As I "went" I heard a strange buzzing sound coming from inside the cabinet under the sink. I opened the doors and thought it sounded like the water pipes were buzzing. Hmmm. An excavator had just been digging in preparation for the walkway, so my first thought was that maybe he had dug into a pipe or something. I went outside, but could see or hear nothing unusual. I came back inside and listened to it again. I was having flashbacks of two years ago when, just two weeks after we moved here, a water pipe under our master bathroom sink had burst and we had a flood. (That will make a good Saturday story sometime.)

I got my cell phone and called Dick. I asked him what could be making a buzzing noise under the bathroom sink. He had no idea. He went through all kinds of diagnostic questions. I checked if the pipes seemed to be vibrating at all, but no, they were not. I even held the phone to the pipe so he could hear what it sounded like. He couldn't hear it.

I was about to tell him he'd better come home and check it out, because it definitely sounded like something was wrong. Then I started pushing things around down there, and as I shoved the stack of towels over, the buzzing became much louder. It surprised me and I exclaimed, "Oh my goodness, I just moved these towels and now it's really loud!" What WAS it??? I started to pull the towels out of the cabinet, when lo and behold, what did I find, but Ray's battery operated tooth brush, just buzzing away!! I told Dick what I found, and he said, "It had to be Destiny. His tooth brush has been up in the cabinet." Well, I just laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. Dick said, "Are you going to be alright?"

Yes, I was alright. I found out since he came home that he got his share of chuckles out of it this afternoon too. I remembered that when we were getting ready to leave for the gym this morning, Destiny said, "I already brushed my teeth." I thought that was amazing. She never thinks about brushing her teeth in the morning without a reminder.

On the way home from her friend's house this afternoon I asked her about it. Yes, she had found that tooth brush and had tried it out, but she didn't know how to turn it off, and she was afraid I would be mad at her for using Ray's tooth brush, so instead of asking me to turn it off, she hid it in the towels under the sink!!

What a relief. I'll take a hidden buzzing toothbrush any day over burst pipes and a flood!

Feels like Florida up here!

We had tropical weather today. I gave the porch steps two coats of paint - one this morning, and the second this evening. I did some weeding this evening too, but it was still really, really hot. The rest of the day I spent either in my car or indoors. I taught a piano lesson this morning, then went to Lancaster to pick up Destiny at noon, got some groceries on the way home, and did some work in the house this afternoon.

I discovered while I was painting this evening that I had forgotten a VBS planning session at church. I never wrote the date down, and I wasn't at church on Sunday to get a bulletin. It was dreadfully inconvenient for the director for me to be absent, since I'm in charge of the music and drama, but by the time they called me half an hour after I should have been there, I just couldn't see the sense in cleaning myself up and driving the 15 minutes to get there. So we discussed things over the phone.

I'm really struggling with focusing on anything except the stuff I want to do here at home before Lisa comes next week. I wish the rest of my world could just be put on hold. I know she will love me whether I do any of this stuff or not, but I just want to have things really nice when she comes. I think most women can probably relate.

And speaking of their coming - Sophie is SO excited for her first ride on an airplane! Last week already she was putting toys in her backpack to take along! She keeps talking about how they are going to get on the airplane and go up,up, up, then they're going to go down, down, down. Today they saw an airplane overhead. She got so excited and started on her spiel again about how they're going to get in an airplane and go up, up, up, then down, down, down. Then she added, "That's the way it works, Mommy. That's the way it works!" Lisa just cracked up. She had never heard her use that phrase before!

Speaking of airplane rides, I guess Anthony got to Sweden okay on Sunday. We haven't heard otherwise anyway. Lori was in Norway last week for a conference, then she flew to Umea, Sweden on Saturday to our daughter Miki's. Anthony's band had a big gig near Johnstown, PA Saturday evening, so he couldn't fly over until Sunday. They will be there until July 4th.

And speaking of Anthony, he's put some very thought provoking posts on his blog recently. If you haven't checked it out lately, it will be worth your while.

Sooo sleepy this morning

For some reason it was hard for me to get moving this morning. I felt soooo sleepy, which is weird, because I thought I got more sleep than usual over the weekend. However, it was quite interrupted, so that must be why. Let me tell you about it.

As we were driving toward Camp Hebron Friday evening, Dick said, "I don't remember putting the pump for the air mattresses in the car." I said, "You have got to be kidding. We don't even have the air mattresses!!" Now years ago, I used to pride myself on how well I slept in a sleeping bag on top of a piece of carpet. But those days are long past. SO one of Dick's brothers generously offered us an extra piece of soft carpet that Dick lovingly put under my side of the sleeping bag we were lying on top of (we covered with a heavy comforter.) I thought I would never get to sleep, but apparently I did. When I awoke at 4:00 I was aching all over and considered getting up, but I actually went back to sleep till 6:30. At breakfast I discovered that all kinds of things had gone on during the night that I had apparently slept though - a coyote was barking, Natalia was awake and noisy and wanting to play for several hours in the middle of the night, much to her parents' chagrin. But I had not heard any of it.

On Saturday we drove 15 miles to the nearest Walmart and got a cheap twin-size camping air mattress and another pump. We spread our sleeping bag out, half of it over my mattress, and half of it over the carpet for Dick. That night I woke up to find half of myself sleeping on the plastic of the air mattress. I tried to wiggle around to make the sleeping bag cover the whole thing so I could go back to sleep without having to get up to go to the bathroom. No luck. I had to go. I came back and yanked on the sleeping bag so hard I tore it!! (Dick soundly slept through all this!) I tried to go to sleep again, but that plastic just bugged me. So I decided maybe I could try to push my mattress under the sleeping bag further. So I got out and tried that. No luck. Dick was in the way and he wasn't about to be moved. Keep in mind that both these nights were around 50 degrees! Somehow I did go back to sleep until 7:30! So maybe that all explains why I felt sooo tired this morning!

Destiny's mommy had off work today and called to ask for Destiny to spend the day, so I took her there around 12:30, then took advantage of the chance to do some shopping without her along. I hit Ollie's, T.J. Maxx, Maxwell's, A.C. Moore, and Michaels Arts and Crafts. When I got there a lady said to me, "I feel like I'm following you." I had not noticed her, but apparently she had seen me in several of the stores! She said, "I just kept noticing your bright green shirt!" I found some good deals and came home happy and tired.

This evening we worked outside. I was scraping old paint off the steps to the porch and Dick was transplanting hosta. It had to be moved because we're having a new walk put in later this week right where the hosta was. He replanted it all along the deck, and there's still a lot to put somewhere.

Some of you may remember that last year Dick started this walk project, but because he needed hernia surgery and also ended up with another diagnosis of lymphoma and the accompanying chemo treatments, the project never got finished. So we decided to hire someone we know who does small projects like this on the side. Dick will still build the ramp from the new walk up to the deck. Our goal is to make our house more accessible to our friends and family who use wheel chairs or have trouble using steps.

Time to hit my good, comfy bed!

Stauffer camping at Camp Hebron

We're home from a wonderful weekend of camping with Dick's family. Anytime we're together is a good time, no matter the weather. But we were blessed with AWESOME weather - beautiful sunny days with no humidity. The only complaint was that the nights were cooler than we expected and some of us had trouble keeping warm enough. We are tremendously blessed to have such a tradition of family unity and special times together.

Destiny was happy about seeing her kindergarten teacher - cousin Laura.

There were about 25 of us there. Mealtime involved cooking over a wood fire and eating at three picnic tables end-to-end. This has been an annual Stauffer event for thirty-one years!

Even dish duty can be fun with a group!

There's always some kind of game going on when this family gets together.

Aunt Deb took Destiny on a walk to look for....

...these little guys!

Greg couldn't wait till the next meal, so he helped himself to some leftover fruit!

We enjoyed just sitting around the campfire talking and laughing together.

Joe holds the newest member of the Stauffer family - his son Avery. I called him little Joey, because he looks so much like his daddy did.

Joe and Kim's Morgan entertained us with her expressive gestures.

Poitr and Krista's Natalia enjoys her food all the way up to her ears!

Does anybody want to come into my tent and play with me?

The pool was fun, but the water was a bit too cold for me this year. (I forgot to take my camera to the pool, so this is from two years ago. Destiny certainly doesn't need that little life jacket anymore!)

Jim came back from fishing with two trout. Destiny thought it was cool to look inside their mouths!

Steve made our Saturday supper - chicken breasts grilled over a wood fire. Delicious!!

I played a round of Phase 10 with a few others. If I look disgusted it's because I WAS. I have never had such bad luck in a game.

Dick took Destiny on a hike around the very large camp. He wanted to reminisce about his camp counselling days.

Seeing these horses was a highlight of the walk for Destiny. Later in the day she got a chance to take a ride in a horse-drawn wagon.

A stuffed turtle from the summer of 1971 when Dick was a counselor at Camp Hebron!