I'll have to say -- finishing my list of things to be thankful for in the month of February took longer than I expected.  And I was slightly derailed about the time I was ready to post my list for the letter H.  This is what happened.  Krysta was excited about a special day at school.  It was coming up soon.


"Mom, next week we are having Handicap Day!  What handicap do you think I should have for that day?"


My response was not kind.  I replied that I didn't care what she did for handicap day and don't expect any help from me because I am not rounding up any splints or bandages or crutches or anything this year.  


I was jerked back to reality when Ellis gave me a look that said, "Cool it, Hon!"  


The evening before this special day I started asking questions . . .  "What is the purpose of this day?   Do you learn how to treat handicapped people?  how to feel more comfortable around a handicapped person?  how to start a conversation and just be yourself and especially the best rule of all -- "Don't stare."


Krysta said, "I think we just put ourselves in someone elses shoes for a day."


That brought me up short.  But then I started in again --  "Does your teacher read you stories about people with handicaps who have learned to overcome the difficulties they are facing?" 


Krysta said,  "No, not really.  I think we mostly just do this day for fun."


Just as I suspected . . .


By this time I was asking myself -- "What's with you this year?  Why are you so bothered?  after all your kids have been doing this every year for the last how many years?"


But this is the first time it ever hit close to home.  This year my twenty-five year old, newly-wed son is handicapped.  He spends his day in a wheel chair.  He goes to out patient therapy three days a week to try and learn to walk.  He is learning to transfer from wheel chair to a lower chair/bench to the floor for exercizes and then back up again.  And lots more stuff that I don't know anything about.  We hear about muscle memory and the length of time it takes nerves to heal.  


And we keep on praying and continue to hope that God and time and therapy will help our son be able to walk again.  We keep cheering Evan and Chelsea on in this new life they've been given.  We are amazed at their strength and fortitude and ability to keep on keeping on.  We are so proud of them both.  Chelsea is sticking to Evan like a burr -- always there to help and encourage.  Evan has kept an amazing attitude of, "We'll get through this.  God has a plan.  He is with us.  He will see us through."
Somehow he is an encouragement to all of us.


The morning of *handicap day* came.  Krysta walked into the kitchen.  I said, "Good morning, Krysta.  What are you going to be today?"  


She held up a notebook with these words written on it.   I am mute.


And she spent the whole day being silent . . . writing everything down when she needed to say something . . . until after school when she started chattering to Jorgan without even thinking about it.
. . .  and so ended her day of putting herself in the shoes of a person who cannot talk.

February 26, 2013

1.  zebra
2.  zucchini
3.  zzzz's
4.  zest
5.  zoo





February 25, 2013

 1.  yoyo
 2.  yogurt
 3.  yarn
 4.  yard
 5.  year
 6.  yellow
 7.  Yellowstone National Park
 8.  yucca
 9.  yuletide
10. yorkshire pudding
11. yak










February 24, 2013

 1. x-ray
 2.  xylophone
 3.  xxooxxooxx








February 23, 2013

 1.  wagon
 2.  water
 3.  walks
 4.  winter-wonder-land
 5.  wheels
 6.  wintergreen berries
 7.  wild flowers
 8.  west
 9.  wonder
10. worship
11. wind
12. windmills
13. whippoorwill
14. whistle
15. whipped cream






February 22, 2013

 1.  Victory in Jesus
 2.  voices to sing this song
 3.  valley
 4.  village
 5.  voyage
 6.  velvet
 7.  violin
 8.  violets
 9.  vitamin C
10. vegetables 

February 21, 2013

 1.  umbrella
 2.  unicorn
 3.  uno
 4.  Ursa Major  (Big Dipper)
 5.  Ursa Minor  (Little Dipper)
 6.  uncles
 7.  USA
 8.  upside-down-pineapple-cake 
 9.  unity
10. ups and downs

What does fresh bread out of the oven, homemade soup and A. A. Milne have in common?  I didn't really know at first.  The other evening when I was making supper a lot of memories were twirling around in my brain.

Long long ago when I was quite little my address was Graceton MN.  We went to a small, white, country church that sat right next to Highway 11.  We kept back the forest by mowing the grass all around the church.  Sometimes dad found morel mushrooms hiding in the grass.  He would pick them and bring them home to eat.  On the very edge of the grass where the trees grew we found Pink Lady Slippers.

Inside the church there was a hard wood floor.  Cloak rooms, one on each side of the entrance had hooks just right for hanging coats.  The walls of these rooms were made of pine boards . . . beautiful pine boards that slowly darkened over the years to a warm honey color.   Pine boards were used for wainscoting half way up the walls, tall windows let the sunshine in, an old fashioned clock hung on the wall.  Someone had to wind it every week.   Near the entrance there were built-in shelves that held library books.

That's where you would find me -- checking out another book.  Since there weren't a lot of books I learned the fine art of rereading until I knew them backwards and forwards.  You could say that is where I met Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin for the first time.  Not in a story book with pictures.  They were in the book The Mystifying Twins.

The story takes place in England.  Lois and Lettuce Belmont were identical twins.   Instead of going to school on the bus they moved away from home and went to a boarding school.  Where they got into all kinds of trouble . . .

When summer came they went to camp.  The counselors put together a treasure hunt for the girls. They were supposed to find the characters out of A. A. Milne's books.  I read about Tigger, Pooh, Rabbit, Kanga and all the rest with no idea of who they were.

Much later when I had moved away from home and was off on some adventure of my own I'd come back for visits.  My sisters were slipping quotes from Winnie the Pooh and friends in every conversation possible.

Like this . . . "How are you planning to get out of that predicament?"

I heard this reply, "Very carefully, so as not to hurt myself."

Someone would say, "Good morning!"

A gloomy answer, "If it is a good morning, which I doubt."

Or at the camp my family went to every summer . . . I remember a small child chattering away telling the story about heffalumps.  He was quite small and he was telling the story from memory.

That's where I finally "discovered" Winnie the Pooh and friends for myself -- in the pages of story books -- reading to my small crew at bedtime, nap time, anytime . . . to be truthful.

So pull a chair up to the fire, pour yourself a cup of tea and spread some honey on that fresh bread just-pulled-out-of-the-oven.  Eat a bowl full of homemade soup and read A. A. Milne's books to the small people in your life.  I promise - you will be making some lovely memories.

____________________________________________________________

February 20, 2013

 

 1.  tub

 2.  towels

 3.  tumbleweed

 4.  Tigger

 5.  tall trees

 6.  tea

 7.  teddy bears

 8.  tents

 9.  Thanksgiving

10. toboggan

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 19, 2013

 

 1.  soup and sandwiches

 2.  stars

 3.  sunshine

 4.  socks

 5.  stones

 6.  silver

 7.  sardonyx

 8.  sledding

 9.  skates

10. swans

11. sheets dried on the line

12. swing set

13. sweaters

14. sisters

15. sapphire

 

 

THE ENTHUSIASTIC, to those who are not, are always something of a trial.

- Alban Goodier, The School of Love, and Other Essays (Abbey)

Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He's going to be up all night anyway.

- Mary C. Crowley, Be Somebody . . . . . (Crescendo)

After 30, a body has a mind of its own. -- Bette Midler

I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun.

-- Katharine Hepburn, quoted by Alan Ebert in Good Housekeeping

taken from June 1982  Reader's Digest

February 18, 2013

1. roads
2. red roses
3. rag rugs
4. ruby
5. ruby throated hummingbird
6. rose-breasted grosbeak
7. Rocky Mountains
8. rock gardens
9. rummage sales
10. Rabbit
11. Roo
12. rainbows

Here is a story about rose-breasted grosbeaks. Every time one comes to
munch on sunflower seeds at our feeder I think of Grandpa Skrivseth
. . .  and God, our heavenly Father.

Years ago someone in our family interviewed Grandpa, asking about his
childhood and growing up years and young adult life. They recorded his
answers on a cassette tape. Grandpa died in October 1994.

More recently one Sunday afternoon we sat around the table in our
kitchen/dining room and listened to that recording. As Grandpa's rumbly
voice filled the room suddenly he paused and then said, "Well! look at
that. There's a rose-breasted grosbeak at our feeder."

Without thinking I turned to look out our window to our bird feeder and
there sat another rose-breasted grosbeak!

Coincidence? I don't think so. God is "the God of all comfort; who
comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them
which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are
comforted of God."
- II Corinthians 1:3-4

I was comforted that day and felt God's presence with me. I think He
delights in giving us reminders that He is with us.


February 17, 2013

1. quilts
2. quizzes
3. quarts
4. quarters
5. questions
6. quartz
7. Queen Anne's lace
8. quiche
9. quotes
10. quirks


February 16, 2013

1. pencils
2. purple mountains
3. pennies
4. pancakes
5. pastures
6. penguins
7. Piglet
8. Pooh
9. Paddington
10. pigtails
11. pineapple
12. pinks (flowers)
13. pink (color)
14. puppies
15. paints
16. puzzles

For those of you wondering where your names are -- I must refer you back
to Friends and Family since it seems like my friends and family are like
Hebrews 11:12 . . . "so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and
as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable." I am thankful for
each one.


February 15, 2013

1. oven
2. oatmeal - baked oatmeal, granola, in cookies, granola bars, in piecrust,
  - in fact - anyway you can fix it
3. oranges
4. onyx
5. opal
6. ocean
7. octopus
8. orangutan
9. organ - like the old pump organ we used to have
10. oxygen
11. Owl

I may have forgotten Christopher Robin and Kanga

February 14, 2013

 1.  naps
 2.  night time
 3.  Niagara Falls
 4.  notebooks
 5.  nails
 6.  Nile River
 7.  nativity sets
 8.  North
 9.  Norway
10.  nachos
11.  names
12.  neighbors 


February 13, 2013

 1.  Mark  (Ellis's dad -- Grandpa to our children)
 2.  moon
 3.  mail
 4.  monoply (deal)
 5.  maps
 6.  mist
 7.  milk
 8.  monkey
 9.  mittens
10.  MOOSE
11.  macaroni and cheese
12.  Montana
13.  Minnesota
14.  memories
15.  Mom


February 12, 2013

 1.  lamps
 2.  lambs
 3.  Lost Lake
 4.  Lake of the Woods
 5.  loons
 6.  life
 7.  letters  (in a mail box)
 8.  legs
 9.  light
10.  lollipops
11.  legos
12.  lincoln logs
13.  Littles  (books about these little people)
14.   laughter
15.  loft