Remembering Andrew and Jeremy

They came into my life by storm...in my former marriage, after we'd been unsuccessful in adding to our family in the years after Rachel was born, we eventually decided to be foster parents. We chose to be available to whatever ethnicity and age child most needed to be placed in our home, and we had the expectation that would manifest as a teen boy.

When we got the call that two half brothers needed immediate placement or they'd have to be separated and would later be adopted separately, we said yes...and only a day later we were joined by Andrew, age 1 1/2, and Jeremy, age 8 months.

We had the opportunity to adopt them if we had them at least a year. God's wisdom prevailed, and though that adoption was something I wanted with all my heart, my then husband decided he didn't want to adopt a child that was not his biologically. I was devastated. But the family that became their parents was a beautiful couple that had tried for 16 years to have children of their own...and Andrew and Jeremy were their answer to years and years of prayers. I have no doubt they are having the fullest and most beautiful of family life now through their growing years.

I am grateful they came into my life for that year, and I think of them as my own children even today. They came to life in amazing ways in our family, and they are sorely missed. I know their quirks, their personalities, and their "firsts" as if I bore them myself, and the pang of missing them never leaves entirely. And oh, I am so grateful for having been their mother even though another mother is now their forever Mom.

This video is something I saw my daughter enjoying the other day...you may have already seen it. The two boys remind me so much of Andrew and Jeremy, even right down to the looks of the older boy and the way they interact. And it makes me smile!

And feel SO grateful.

As Shabbat comes and we get to have some rest this week, I leave you with this video clip that's been making its way around YouTube, called "Charlie Bit Me." I saw it and laughed with delight!

I am grateful for many things this week, namely that my job has improved to be something I actually enjoy, and gratefulness for God's continued protection of my family members as we come and go so busily, especially with long commutes. So grateful for my husband, daughter, friends, and for those I know here from a kindred mindset and kindred goals...an inspiration. And I also include among the many things for which to be grateful this week the piece of my heart that Andrew and Jeremy will always occupy :)

Have a great and restful night and day!

Some Family History Unearthed

I'm one of those folks who's disconnected from my family history. My parents have not been in the picture now for nearly two decades now, and with them was most of the preserved memory of our forbears, oral as well as in pictures.


My sister has been appealing to the more distant relatives on the family tree regarding my late maternal grandparents, with whom we were the closest growing up. We adored our grandparents! My Grandpa had the ?distinction? of being named Wilbur Wright, which made for a lifetime of late night prank calls by kids looking through phone books on a Saturday night :) My Grandma was Rebecca, or "Becca" to my Grandpa...Aunt Becky to her nieces and nephews.


My Grandpa's parents were B.R. "Bernie" and May Wright, and they survived a lot of upheaval and economic ups and downs and raised a large family. The siblings, during their lifetimes, always remained very close, even though they lived far away from each other's families. We are now the third generation, and have lost much of their history. But their imprint remains indelibly stamped on us in many ways.


I know Bernie Wright, my Grandpa's father, was an innovator. I may be one of the only surviving people with an insight into his private dreams...which happened by accident a long time ago. When my grandparents retired, they took their little cash (they always dealt in cash) and bought a tumbledown house and some land in north Mississippi, which was quite a change from the Chicago they'd called home for twenty or thirty years (they were originally from the South and Midwest).

My Depression-Era grandparents, though having had to move to the big city for survival at different times in their lives, always gravitated during their lifetimes back to land, and at the homeplace in Mississippi, they put in a garden, repaired the house, and built two large cinderblock buildings...one for storage and one as a carpenter shop where Grandpa set up the heavy woodworking machinery he'd bought over the years from the tool and die company every time they upgraded to something newer. He had enough equipment to fill it with a maze of saws and woodworking tables and gadgets, and drifts of sweet smelling sawdust...mmmm :)


Retirement didn't mean stopping work, but rather it meant working doing what they liked best. I could write and write about them, but suffice it to say, for now, that they were happiest right there...cash tight, gardening, being together, and being great neighbors...and the very best of grandparents.


Back to Grandpa's dad, B.R. Wright...when my grandparents began cleaning out a lot of their storage items in later years, there was this really cool old trunk...the sort that looks like a treasure chest...that I found and which they let me rifle through. Inside it was hundreds of cardboard cutouts...cut into shapes of all sorts and labeled precisely. It was a collection of homemade templates for making not only furniture, but wonderfully creative things, like wooden children's toys...rockers in the shapes of swans and rabbits, toys with flourishes and swirls, odd things and beautiful things and practical things and impractical things.


And somewhere in the midst of it all, were some small note pads and a little black book. I was given those, and I quickly made off for my favorite private spot on their property...a bare, cool place under the arched branches of a hawthorne bush. I opened the books.


Two of them were tallies of expenses, down to the very nails and such. It was essentially a handheld accounting of...something. Every penny was accounted for with precision and deliberation. The black, smallish notebook was full of other things, though...a cutout picture of a WW1 army building surplus being sold as housing...and page after page of layouts of how these could be used for housing for the homeless or for orphans...who fared quite differently in those days...and other pages with original poems and songs, drawings of ideas for toys that could be built for his children or furniture and shelves (with bric a brac) he could make for his wife. It was in a sense a very personal glimpse into his aspirations and his personality...and heart.


I remember sitting on the back porch and telling my Grandpa I'd love to see us make some of the things we'd found in that trunk, and Grandpa became very sentimental. Perhaps some of those things had been built over the years, but I have an idea most weren't. Grandpa told me of his father's ideas, and that he had been an ideas person and had put a lot of elbow grease to the practicals of taking care of his large family. I wish I had had days to listen to Grandpa tell me more...and that in my youth I'd known to soak up every detail or at least write them down. I do know at one time, GGrandpa Bernie raised carrier pigeons. My Grandpa got very, very quiet and a bit choked up every time he talked for very long about his father. His father was a man with his thumb in numerous projects, an inquisitive and intelligent mind, and clearly his children adored him.

Families of that era sometimes keep family secrets. Some secrets are better being kept secret. It was not until years later, years after my grandparents and all but 2 of their many siblings had passed away, that I was told in hushed tones that Grandpa's dad, B.R., had lived with he and my Grandma out on the farm as a very old man. All our family took care of our older relatives in their own homes in those days. It was soberly and quietly related to me, respectfully, as I was asking about any memory from that time that they could remember.

It seems that what I was never told as a child (and rightly so) was that a tragedy that rocked my family happened when Grandpa's dad, who was living with them out in the country..WAY out..at that point, began having chest pains and needed to be driven to the doctor. It was night, there was thick fog, and my Grandpa decided to carry his dad to the nearest place to be treated...which was miles and miles away through farmland. Back then roads weren't what they are today, and neither were cars. But cows were. As my sweet Grandpa was trying to get his father to help in time, and driving fast through those back roads, there in a bend in the road, fog and all, was the unexpected cow. The vehicle hit the cow and the impact killed Grandpa's father on impact...or caused them trauma that GreatGrandpa didn't survive.

It's a very close and special family that never brings this up except years and years after someone's passing. They'd never have done anything to hurt each other's feelings, even with the regular spats that siblings have throughout their lifetimes. It makes me feel even more tenderly toward my Grandpa, and I'm glad I never knew till after he was gone...he'd have hated knowing that we even knew.

I really miss my grandparents...regularly. I defer to the wisdom of their simplicity, intelligence, and wit more and more the older I get. Their common sense was of necessity, and their Great Depression survival taught me much. Plus, I've just always loved people who are older than I am, their histories, and their stories. Give me a couple of years, and I, too, may be doublechecking the cash register printout for accuracy right there in line and counting my pennies out of a little changepurse at the checkout stand at Piggly Wiggly, as a long line of customers waits behind me... ;-)

Anyway, when my sister emailed me today and included an attachment she'd received from a distant relative on that side of the family, I was ecstatic! Among the pictures sent was a picture of GreatGrandpa B.R. Wright, who in his lifetime was many things, among which were farmer, merchant, and carpenter. Here he is shown in front of a store I never knew he owned...and the little boy on the far right was my Grandpa as a young boy, still in knickers. That'll tell you how old the pic is...

Here it is, in honor of Bernie and May, and their dreams...and determination and survival and emphasis on family and God. They were made of durable stuff in a world that is entirely different than today's. I pray we're made of the same stuff, deep down, to leave a similar legacy.


My Grandma, Rebecca, in her younger days, with other family members. She's on the left of the row of women.

My Grandpa (left) and one of his brothers, Donald. My Grandpa was not short, so that'll give you an idea what a tall drink of water Uncle Donald was!

May and B.R., my Grandpa's parents, and his brother Donald in the middle.

The Collection Grows!

Those of us who are intently waitinggggg waitingggg waitingggg on the day when we'll finally have some LAND have to do something to occupy our curiousity and interests in the meantime...and so my hubby has grown very excited about our little collection of plants in pots...with a view to growing them to a more mature size and closer to fruit-bearing by the time we can plant them on Our Someday Land permanently.

I've mentioned recently how this wee collection was added to with raspberry canes, gooseberries, a couple of grapes, and even a currant start...in addition to the mango, papayas, and the moringa we had before. Glad to say, so far so good as far as their survival. We'll see how they weather the Florida summer temps and our own amateur attentions by this time next year...hopefully we're choosing ones hardy to our area, as we really don't want to be raising things that are so fussy and delicate that they can't hold their own with minimal care when mature.

So the experiment commences, and tonight we had the happiness of adding some more sale plants (thank you, Lowes!) to the family...little one gallon pots...a few meyer lemons, a key lime, and a Persian Lime. We use lemons around this place like crazy, so lemons will surely be welcome, and of course limes are a great Florida fruit, too.

Earlier today we tried locating some camellia sinensis plants, as those are the actual plants from which "real" tea is made, either green, or fermented and such. We found one grower in north Florida, but his aren't ready for sale for a few more months, and he described their survival as very iffy...so they're not on the Foolproof Florida Plant list. My enthusiasm for plants declines directly in proportion to their being prima donas and needing a butler or a nanny. I'd rather wait hand and foot on some farm animals, for all that. Or on Antonia Banderas when he comes for a visit just to say hello. Oops, did I type that? Well, in my dreams, the Banderases will be our neighbors and regularly need raw milk and deliveries of fermented foods and fresh made bread. I'm sure it'll happen...

OK now that I'm awake again...

The biggest addition has been the smallest...we just ordered online from a northern supplier...guess what?? Yes, a Western Soapberry tree, yeeha! It's a native plant used as a traditional soaping agent, and has a fruit similar to the Asian Ritha tree from which "Soapnuts" are currently marketed as a natural clothes and household cleanser...and from which a gentle and natural shampoo and body wash can be homemade. We're realllyyyyyy excited about this! In all the excitement, we never found any actual Asian Ritha trees for sale anywhere online, but we did find (after a long search) a source for packets of the seeds, and ordered one packet of 5 seeds. According to the description, when the tree is finally mature, it can provide loads and loads of the fruits/soapnuts yearly....enough for ourselves and others, too, if we can get some to germinate and survive till maturity.

Anyway, it's ordered and on its way! Oh SO fun to try new things, especially growing ones!

And now to get some chickens to mingle with the pots out there, in the Taj Mahal, oh oops I mean pieced-together shade shelter J wants to put up in our backyard to buffer the summer sun. After all, shade cloth would be put up around its perimeter, and what better than some hens...oops, I mean Exotic Florida Ground Parrots (chickens are illegal here supposedly) to keep the weeds down and the bugs eaten?? Heh heh...

By the time that happens, I could very well see a sheep there, and oh a couple of rabbit hutches...you know...for free fertilizer (so goes the persuasive attempts to reason with my hubby, lol)

Ah, well, for now we have baby trees!

And that's all I have to say tonight. Except that it's hard typing a post while my husband is watching and commenting every few sentences. Especially the Antonio Banderas part. But his middle name is Antonio, so I'm off the hook, I think. (He's laughing!)

What I suffer for my art...

ha ;-)

Thank you!

Just here catching up on my post-crastination, and I want to thank Meg and Kelly for nominating me for this award! What an honor...and since I'm at a loss for words to adequately express it... THANKS :) :)

Every blog name on my side bar could fall into this category, in my opinion, so I pass this along to ALL of them. Is that allowed? Well, here I am, the rebel Excellence award-passer-onner...lol!

Seriously, ALL of these blogs are excellent. Try choosing from among them. I cannot!

And so, without further ado...

A Homesteading Neophyte

A Posse Ad Esse

A3

Accidental Smallholder

Apifera Farm

April Showers

Bad Home Cooking

Bean Sprouts

Bellebouche

Boulderneigh

Children in the Corn

Confession of a Pioneer Woman

Cooking With Yiddishe Mama

Cricket Bread

Dancing in a Field of Tansy

Dirt Under My Nails

Down on the Farm

Down to Earth

Edge Effect

Edifice Rex

Farmgirl Fare

Future House Farm

Gracious Acres

Green, Blue, Brown

Homemaking Homesteader

Housepoor, Homesteading, Happy

Irish Dexter Cattle, Cheap Sheep, and More

Irish Sally Gardens

Kentucky Hollers

La Ferme de Sourrou

Little Blog in the Big Woods

Losing Our Shirts, Keeping the Farm

Mommymommyland

Muddyclogs

Not Eating Out In NY

Not So Virtual Homestead

Path to Freedom

Permaculture in Brittany

Pile O'Melays

Plan Be

Plants and Animals

Raining Sideways

Rurality

Scarecrow's Garden

Slowly She Turned

Small Meadow Farm

Smitten Kitchen

Spered Breizh Ouessants

Stop the Ride

Sugar Creek Farm

Talk of Tomatoes

The Beginning Farmer

The Beginning Farmer's Wife

The Country Doctor's Wife

The Good Life

The Soay Sheep Chronicles

Tiny Farm

Two Frog Home

Unusually Unusual Farmchick

Urban Hennery

Each of their links is on my side-bar...

Excellent :)

Cooking up Memories

My daughter's friend, Cathy, is here for the week...trying to thaw out in our Florida sun.

My work schedule has really picked up, and yesterday was my off day, but I was having "work lag."

I did manage to get myself into gear shortly after noon, and put together a big homemade meal. Menu of the evening was pieced together from recipes that are tried and true...originally dating from my grandmothers or family friends. I realized when I looked at my plate that our meal was really a tribute to a heritage of good memories preserved in good foods...and it made me smile to have those memories connected so closely to the present, in something as warming as dinner.

My Grandma's meatloaf...
My Grandmother's yeast butter rolls...
My Grandma's Scalloped Potatoes...
One of my best friend's buttered carrots...
My own sauteed asparagus...
and some freshly shucked corn on the cob.

Oh and iced tea...from all my forebears from the deep South.



And leftovers for today's sack lunches...


:)

Congratulations, Rachel!

Here she is right before we went into the auditorium...this is a happy day for us all!

All the medical programs were represented at the ceremony. Here she is in the lineup of the practical nursing graduates, after having their names individually called. They are holding miniature candlestick lamps (with candles), waiting for the candlelighting ceremony and the Nightingale Pledge.

This is an approximation of what was read during the ceremony:

The Nightingale Pledge

I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug. I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession, and will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping and all family affairs coming to my knowledge in the practice of my calling. With loyalty will I endeavor to aid the physician in his work, and devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care.






Yes, I know the picture quality is atrocious. It's my fault, not my camera's. It's not easy getting a good indoor pic in the dark when you're crying through the whole thing!

At the Indian Restaurant, (her favorite) where we escaped afterward, we had the whole place to ourselves, and stuffed our faces with Curried Lamb, mango and mint chutnies, and Garlic Naan. Rachel opened cards, received more money from relatives than I currently have in my account, and received some bracelets and a new watch from our faraway family friends in North Carolina (thanks, Lisa!!!) And $25 is hers to start microlending through Kiva.org.

We toasted Rachel, each of us who teamed up with her, and especially God who saw her safely through each step of the way with protection and also provision. It was such a fun night!

Rachel: "Ok, well that was an awesome meal! I'm 3/4 stuffed...I saved room for my sweet tooth...what's for dessert? I could go for some ice cream or cake!" (we've been off sweets for a while at the house, except for fruit)

Me, wondering why I hadn't brought a cake: "I didn't bring a cake, Rache...uhoh..."

Rachel: "How about we stop for an ice cream on the way home?" (looking hopefully at J, who was the evening's driver)

J: "Ok, but everything is closed, I think, at this hour" (it was pretty late, and we're not in NYC)

So y'know what happened....we stopped at a convenience store on the way home, picked up a box of donuts, and after about 5 minutes of Rachel's polishing off two or three Krispy Kremes we heard her groan from the backseat, followed by "I'm seriously going to regret this..."

LOL

Happy Graduation, Rachel....we love you so much!

Tikkun Olam and Kiva.org

J and I have a belief in Tikkun Olam, or "the repair of the world," as an extension of the WHY in what we do for ourselves and our family. It is a Jewish/biblical concept of life purpose being in somehow contributing to the healing or transformation of the world around us, rather than the focus being only to better ourselves. In all we do, and in the homestead life we're pursuing, tikkun olam is at the heart of what we want to leave as a heritage...because life is very short. I am daily reminded how fragile it is.



The enormity of need can often discourage folks from feeling that a single act of kindness or integrity will make a difference. Yet that old canard about the pebble being dropped into the pond and the ripple effect extending outward is very true. I don't worry about the enormity of need anymore...we are bombarded with overwhelming needs around us we can't begin to meet. But if we respond even in a small way as a natural part of who we are, it is participating in the "repair of the world." And those small actions do save in literal ways... a concept the sages stated succinctly when they penned "he who saves a single life saves the world entire."

I am very thankful for today...our daughter graduates her first leg of nursing school. We are so very very grateful, but not only for her achievement and our sense of team spirit, but also for every day she had to drive in the dark there and back, and came safely home. I just thank God every day my family is gathered safely back together. I see those memorial flowers on the roadside in different places along the highway that say "drive safely" and it turns my attention to those who have lost much, likely during an everyday commute.

My heart goes out to my coworker, whose grown son is now back home, his kidneys slowly failing him and preventing him from an active life. And her second son, in special forces in Iraq, whom she'll only see perhaps once a year, and hear from only sporadically. She works hard for the money to support herself and her other teenager, plus the sick son...and has to find the inner strength to not despair and to keep her chin up and make it cheerfully through her workday. Which she does, beautifully.

There is much to pray for, and much for which to be grateful.

A while back, Monica wrote about micro-lending and an organization called Kiva. You can check out their webpage at Kiva.org

I am encouraged that with a very small amount of money from folks like ourselves, we can help in a very large way folks who, indeed, homestead for a better life. The money is repaid and can roll over to another family or individual of our choice, or can simply be recovered and put back into our pocket.

It is an incredible opportunity at very little risk, and a definate way to give back...one that anyone, even children who save some loose change, can participate in...and that does, indeed "repair the world."



We celebrate God's graciousness tonight with our daughter with many thanks. We invested much to help her on her way to this point, and are grateful for the blessings. We celebrate also by investing in the lives of others...we'll do so in her honor as part of our graduation gift to her. that way our joy will be compounded and invested in some lives where pennies make a difference.



I invite you to give Kiva.org a look-see to see if you might be as excited about its opportunities as we are. Lending small, for very big dividends ! :)