Tag: memories

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Heading to College Preview Week…revisted!

 

I originally wrote this two years ago and now we are facing the third child to graduate and leave our house, yet my emotions are much the same as they were then.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/103074242/comfort-coffin-fine-art-print-bird

Our oldest daughter is a senior this year. She will be graduating and  heading off into the great adventure called life which is exciting. I am sure that this is how she sees it. I know it is how I saw it. I am afraid that now I see it as an abyss full of dark and menacing shadows. Yes, I know I am being over protecting, but Moms do that sometimes. I did not feel this way when our oldest started out to college.

Well, back to the context, we are headed to a College preview week, not day or even weekend. It is a week of activities to help them get used to being at a college. It is a Monday to Thursday experience of living in the dorms, eating dorm food, even taking some mini classes, trying on a major to see if it fits. The college has bent over backwards for us. Which is exceedingly nice. There was one point on Tuesday that they had talked to me more on the phone than my mother had for the week.  I quickly remedied this on Wednesday and called my Mom for a long involved chat about sending your daughter to college. I came away with the knowlegde that it doesn’t get easier when you are a Grandparent. The abyss becomes the mouth of a hungry dragon that breathes fire.

I know that this weekend is set up to help us as home schooling parents cut the apron strings, and to assure us that they do know how to take care of our kids. So I will be there for the week as well, feeling I am sure somewhat like the third wheel. So there I will be living in the dorm, eating dorm food and even taking some mini classes about financial aid, helping your student prepare for college.  I  hope that I leave the week feeling that the abyss at least has some lights and a few life preservers stashed here and there, along with some friendly faces. I need to go and pack some super long twin sheets and my clothes, I keep putting this off as I am not quite ready to do the letting go required of me. Thankfully, I have a WHOLE YEAR of final events to get used to the letting go. Do I sound sarcastic, well I intended too. I rather wish that the letting go was like labor , BOOM there you go, and 24 hours later you have a graduate. They have fledged and left the nest successfully, but they don’t and it doesn’t happen this way.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/96487883/birds-nest-feeding-baby-birds-spring

Yes, well. She survived and did wonderfully well, loves college, made friends and has great grades. Her friends ARE the one she met at the college preview week.   So now on to the third child. Say some prayers for me as we head into the last stretch of the Sr. year of high school!

Thanks,

Karen

 

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Way back when…

IMG_0985-1 IMG_0986 IMG_0987 IMG_1049-002 IMG_1050-1

 

I made these both in the 70s when I was a girl.Just a glimpse into the past. The granny square blanket I made for my Mom and the stripe I made for my Dad for Christmas. The stripe was my first original pattern and I did pretty good for a young teenager. I am trying to come up with some new patterns for the shop this week and it is a struggle.

Talk to you later,

Karen

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Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!

It has been a  Merry Christmas at our house! I hope it has been so at yours as well. I always have mixed feelings about the Holidays. It is a time when I remember my Dad and now my Mother in Law. So, it is hard as I grieve but it is also a great time for family, fun and a chance to build new memories. We have been fortunate this year to have some time together with much of our immediate family.

2013-12-22 17.10.36

These are our outside lights that were covered in the ice from the storm. The ice is almost gone by now as it was warm yesterday but they were so pretty covered in ice that I had to include this photo. We have neighborhood  free range Guinea hens that come by the house  nearly every day. They tend to get on the front porch and I have been wanting to take some close up photos of them but this is the best I have done so far. They can get loud and we have watched the flock grow from four to about 20 or more.

2013-12-25 09.28.00

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all,

Karen

 

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The Speed of Life

Do you ever get frustrated at the speed of life? I know I do, sometimes life seems to crawl along and other times it is moving at light speed. I wish that I knew the secret of keeping life at a steady pace. When life is zooming by me, I tend to feel like I am missing something important. When life is at a snails pace then I feel that life is passing me by.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/165353781/great-things-take-time-fine-art

Well, I think this all boils down to one thing contentment. Learning to  be content with our lives and not reaching for the one thing that is out of reach will help us to live in the here and now. When times are slow I need to prepare myself for the days when spare minutes are non-existent. When times are fast I need to learn to slow down enough to enjoy the ride. I feel that God wants us to learn to lean on him throughout all of the times of our lives. Thankfully life’s speed tends to ebb and flow like a river during the seasons.  It is ok for life’s speed to change we just need to be ready to work or rest depending on what our life speed is.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/154501027/how-we-spend-our-lives-inspirational

https://www.etsy.com/listing/154501027/how-we-spend-our-lives-inspirational

What is the speed setting on your life?

Talk to you later,

Karen

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Things to do with Kids: teach them how to Really Cook!

I started teaching my oldest (7) how to make toast in a toaster when a good friend told me that she was teaching her 7 year old to fry eggs on the stove. I was amazed here, yet again was a creative outlet for my then oldest (he was also 7) that would teach him needed skills. The pride he had when he finished frying his little egg was overwhelming. He quickly moved on to making cookies, spaghetti and other things. I, of course, supervised him closely when he was little. The harvest is great because now he is 23 and he can cook a whole meal for us (when he feels like it and has time)!  His younger sister can bake cookies, bread, follow a recipe and make cinnamon rolls.

All of the kids have made mistakes, cookies running off onto the bottom of the oven, no salt in the cookies, etc..! In the meantime they have all learned to pay attention to what they are doing. :0) The middle son learned to make pizza crust from scratch. He is rather a particular eater and his interest is being awakened to try new foods. All four of the kids know how to cook basic food from scratch and to follow a recipe.

I would also add that we use regular cookbooks. I am on hand to explain anything so the kids cookbooks don’t work for us. I guess there is not enough volume of food! Having four teenagers or near teenagers it worked best for us to use a regular cook book.

I would suggest that you allow them to cook and then clean up after themselves. Allow them to pick the recipe, if they are interested in the food then they will pay closer attention to what they are doing. Edit their choices a little, if they pick a pastry shop style cake redirect them to a pound cake with whipped cream.

We love the Betty Crocker cook book for its wealth of easy recipes.  We also like  learning  to use crock pot recipes and freezer cooking recipes. We will turn to www.allrecipes.com when we can’t find what we want in our home cookbooks.

Here are some Favorite recipes for young cooks:

Dip for veggies or fruit. (There are many recipes out there and no cooking is involved)

Chocolate Chip cookies, There are so many recipes out there for chocolate chip cookies. Just find one and follow the directions.

Spaghetti with sauce from a jar. Follow the directions on the package for the spaghetti.

Pound cake from scratch. There are many recipes on the internet for pound cake. It is really hard to ruin a pound cake.

Baked potatoes (I have the kids wash, prick and put the potatoes in a cold oven, that way they don’t get burnt. I also take them out if they are under 12.)

After they master some basics I would pretty much let them browse the recipe book, guiding them a little bit and keeping them from exotic ingredients that we didn’t have on hand.

What have you taught your kids to cook?

Talk to you later,

Karen

 

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Things to do with kids: Build a city!

Kids often need toy extenders as I call them. Things that extend their play in an imaginative way, props would be another word for it. There are a wide variety of ways that you can make a city for your kids.

1. Use cardboard

http://keriene.wordpress.com/category/homemade-toys/page/2/

As my kids are now all in high school or graduated. I am showing you Emelia’s beautiful cardboard city. There are more photos on her blog. http://keriene.wordpress.com/category/homemade-toys/page/2/

2. Wood houses. I really like these as you can write on them with chalk. I think these would make excellent Christmas gifts.

http://mommo-design.blogspot.it/2013/03/diy-for-kids.html?m=1

3. I love these little felt houses by Sarah Nichols.

http://www.sarah-nicol.com/shop.html

The kids and I usually made our toy extenders out of cardboard covered with paper that they cut out and glued on. It took more time that way and they were practicing their fine motor skills. We would use the houses until they looked like trash and then recycle or put them in the trash. What things do you make to help your children’s imagination to grow?

Talk to you later,

Karen

 

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Long term projects….1 down and several to go!

I have had a busy six weeks. It is incredibly boring to sit around doing nothing for six weeks while you recuperate from surgery.  I can say that I am working on my list of boring hard things to do; finish the AARP defensive driving course, finish up the sequin stocking kit that I started in 1999. Yes, I did finally finish it, minus the instruction sheet and cover sheet. I found a photo of the complete kit on E-bay. Printed that picture out and went to town on it yesterday. It is now just waiting on me to put the embroidered name on it for my sweet new daughter in law. She and our son will now have matching Christmas stockings. I am now on to the dreaded 1994 cross stitch project. I have finally found all of the parts, pattern, cross stitch, missing threads but I am missing a cross stitch needle. It will turn up quickly and I will get this done and marked off my list. I am  sorry about the size of this photo but I took it with my phone and it is just not working quite right I can’t figure out how to resize it today. Tomorrow I will have more brain power I am sure. I do know that if you click on it, it will take you to another window and show the a bigger photo if you are really want to see it.

So we will see if I get to show you the finished project. I will have to say in my self defense that having four children under nine is not the time to be doing counted cross stitch anything. So now that they are older (23,20,18, and 15) and we have moved four times. I think I can get it finished.

See you later,

Karen