T-T-T-Tuesday, memories and stuff

Not again! How'd I get so far behind here on the blog? Guess I've either been busy, playing elsewhere, or just not had a lot to say. Decided to change my header photo again. This is an old farmhouse we lived in two different times; once when I was in the 2nd grade, the other when I was in the 4th grade. This picture was taken back in the early 80's and the house has been added onto since then. We used to take jars and catch grasshoppers in that field. We had a horse name Fury, he was a pony actually. He liked to eat chili. We had another horse named Passion, she was my mom's horse and I don't remember ever riding her. Before these we had a dappled brown Welsh pony named Cocoa and she was the first horse I remember we had, but my grandma had two plow horses which she used to do farm work back in the 50s. They were Mike and Molly (funny, there's now a TV show by that name) and I remember sitting on their backs holding on to the brass knobs that stuck up on their harness collars. I was barely walking age in the pictures, but I remember it. I remember trying Neopolitan ice cream here. Playing with garter snakes, playing 100 dots on the blackboard in one upper room, my brother falling and breaking his arm and then keeping us all behind him going up the stairs when he'd hold his casted arm out, a big oak tree falling right in front of my parent's car as they drove up the road between the two bridges during the Columbus Day storm (1962), a babysitter that slapped me in the face because she was looking out the window and thought I was sassing at her, the day the new pastor came by inviting kids to a Sunday School he and his wife were starting just down the road, stepping on a dead bee in the living room and still getting stung, watching the movie Zot or Zots...I've never seen it since...being on the back of my dad's friend Vernon's motorcycle driving up and down the long driveway and getting burned on the muffler, and many other memories from here. But it was just one of many houses we lived in during the 50s and 60s up this valley where the ranch is that I call 'home'. The ranch owner died recently. His son and family still live there and I think he'll be keeping the ranch. I babysat him once when he was a baby and his parents went out for the evening. They were only on the ranch on weekends at that time. The house in this photo is the only one of the one's in the valley I lived in, still standing. After I graduated high school and moved away from home, my parents built two more houses at different times but I only stayed at one for about a month before moving to this dry land.

After a couple really warm, almost hot days, we're back into the 50's as a high today with some cloudiness. Low to be 35, brrr, but I love it. No rain though in the forecast for at least a week and then only 'showers' which may or may not materialize.

A second contractor will be coming over tomorrow evening to take a look at things. Sure wish we could've been on the ball enough to have had them out around the SAME time for estimates so the first one wouldn't be kept waiting. I'm tired of always dragging our feet on everything. I'm ready to get this show on the road! I've even packed up everything out of the one bathroom and am ready to do the same in the other. For that matter, I'm ready to pack up the whole kitchen too. We wait too long and I may even just pack up everything and move out! Not really, but it IS tempting, especially when I get frustrated with the fears and procrastination from my better half. If money were no object, I'd have the whole house gutted and rebuilt. Please, a girl can dream can't she? You have to remember, my only choice in living in the house was because I married a man who already had it and the market in '96 was such that it was in an upside-down mortgage and made no sense to sell at a loss and look elsewhere. I just didn't know it would take so long to do remodeling. We've done some things like put in retrofit dual-pane windows, copper repipe, installed A/C and replaced furnace, retextured the ceilings on the first level and stairwell, and tiled the kitchen/dining (that was out of necessity along with the repipe as we'd had a pipe break and flood the whole floor). We've also replaced the garage doors, the front door and repainted the exterior, and some of the interior - once and it needs it again inside. So we have done a lot, but the crucial, and most expensive, areas haven't been touched. Home ownership is not an inexpensive venture, is it?

Nick came home Friday night from an overnight school-related ministry out in the desert at a church ranch. The kids all did grunt-work. He was pretty sore after swinging a pick-axe for several hours - that's the most manual labor he's done in a long time! He also had a nasty rug burn on the top of one foot. I guess they were playing a game where you had to get the other person's sock off using only your feet.

I came across a website that had some info on my great-great-grandfather in Germany. I've had a copy of a couple of the pictures for quite some time, but the site has more info than I had. The biggest problem, is that it's in German, and Google translator only does a so-so job at getting the meaning of what's written. Within the site, when I do a search on Voltmer, I get two pages of links where the name is mentioned and/or expanded on. Now, to try to figure out who, and how, all the other Voltmer names are connected - that's where it gets confusing. Accurate translations are very expensive. I had his will translated a couple of years ago, which gave me his full name and the names of his wife and children.

I've done nothing quilting all week. Quilt guild meeting is Thursday night; will I at least have that community quilt done?...probably not :(