Well! This is interesting! I haven't been able to sign into this blog, or find my other blogs, but playing around on my new phone  here they are,  and I could get to the  "working parts. Now if I can go back and figure it out on my computer?   I am keeping a journal of my trip to Holland on another blog. You can find it at www.hollandinjune2016.blogspot.Com

Still working on Project list 2014

 Projects 2014--yes My blog is on that list.
 Sometimes trying something new just doesn't pan out so I'm back to the drawing board on the blog issues.  Going to try to clean up and give this one a new look--obviously what I should have just done in the first place.

It's crazy that the year is already 1/2 over.  I did pretty good with my list the first part of the year, but the closer we got to summer, the more busy it (and me) is around here with other things.

I did finally get all the way thru, back to the very beginning of my post, deleted some posts & I loved looking at all the pictures on here.  Wow--It gave me fresh inspiration to work on making a blog book!
So.....we'll go from here & hopefully get back into the blogging grove!


 

Come visit me at my new blog!

**Edit to below, several hours later.  Oh. My. Goodness.  I'm having such a terrible time with new blog.  There are things I really like about the way it's done, but I'm having a terrible time getting things to come out how I want them, and it's horribly complicated for my very small brain, and I've already made so many mistakes &......IT'S TAKING ME FOREVER to do any posts.
I may give up and go back to blogger afterall.  Things that take too much time don't work out very well in my scheme of days.  Sigh!


 Progress on my new blog.  It's coming along, in-between panic attacks of trying to learn something new!  Thanks Meshayla for having so much patience with me, helping me figure it all out!

Next--I'm trying to figure out how to put a "follow" button on it. *sigh* 

http://www.maxinejelinek.wix.com/sandsoftime

 We are also in the process of updating the bathroom, so I'll have some new pictures to add to this page soon!
From *house* to Home 8/2012~


 

The rest of 2013

Is there anyone still out in blog land?
Did you give up on my blog?

I guess I did!  Today is the last day of December, 2013 and my last post was in May this year.  Over a half of year gone by.  Tomorrow is New Years day! Amazing.  Time flies.

I'm celebrating 2014 by closing this blog and starting a new one.  I've had a few ideas for a while now, and just kind of tired of the "old".  I'd like to blog more again so I'm not planning on quitting, just giving my blog a new look and feel.  I started this one 6 years ago this last fall and our life at that time was quite different than it is now.

So I'll back up a little bit to give some closure here.

June-- We welcomed grandbaby #13 to our family.  Relyssa and Mark's first, Jasper Lee born in CO at the Midwifery center on June 11 he was 7 1/2 lbs 20 1/2 in.  born at 3:18 pm and I was delighted to be there, along with his other Grammy, two aunties and a (double) baby cousin just 6 mo. older than him.
Also had some kids/grandkids visit over my birthday weekend.  Pretty special to have all our grandkids here at once. A really fun thing is that we have 3 grandbaby boys all in Sidney, just 35 mi. from us.  Carter was born in Dec, Delon in Feb, and Jasper in June, so they are all just months apart, within 6 months.  Can you imagine 16 years from now? :)

July--My two sisters, my mom and I took a special and long awaited trip to Prince Edward Island, We flew to Portland, Maine and rented a car, driving up into Canada and took the ferry over to PEI.  It was a really special trip for us, and I will be making a page of our trip.

August--This month was filled with garden, canning, freezing and grandkids here.  Kind of a blur as I seemed to take forever to recover from vacation! We had super results from our garden, potatoes, squash & tomatoes.  I did alot of canning tomatoes, but also froze alot to make salsa from this winter while it was cold and I had more time.....hmmm guess I'd better get on that?!

September--  Another month that was just packed clear full.  We went to our annual Church convention the first part of the month, then a week later I & the 4 kids headed up to ND to visit our daughter and family up there and got in on their state's convention also.  The trip was a bit bittersweet, as Meshayla who turned 19 this month (Ekks, HOW can that be?!!) took a job up there, and was staying, living with her sister. 
When I arrived home I picked up two of our grandsons and had them here for a week with us.

October and November-- were both filled with helping our daughter and SIL get their house ready to put on the market to sell.  That involved many daily trips over to Sidney, but it was a great feeling when it was done, and their house sold within 3 days of listing it!
For Thanksgiving we had a special Thanksgiving day dinner with some "old" friends and my side of family and 9 of our kids in Kearney.

December--has been full of more trips to Kearney, some special company, special Sundays, and lots of quilting.  I helped my sister quilt a special quilt that she made for her grandaughter.  Now I'm so inspired to do more quilts.  Interspersed in all the above was constant house projects that I worked on doing and had my husband working on both.  I have some new pictures I want to get posted to the "house" page before I close it down too.
Christmas day we enjoyed having our "nearby" 8 kids & families plus Jana, another couple and my grandkids "other" grammie here for lunch and a birthday party for our 2 yr old Bethy girl, and 1 yr old Carter.
We have enjoyed Jana home with us for 10 days, and my mom out with us over a few days including New Years day too.
It's been a really full month!

Now the sun is setting on the last day of the year.
Wishing you all a Very Happy New Year.  I appreciated what someone said recently.  Experiences we go thru, Good ones and Hard ones.  Not bad ones.  Hard ones.  There are always plenty of those to go around it seems, but hopefully we can enjoy the good ones more, and profit from the hard ones.

Till next time........................................

It's May!

And it finally looks, smells, sounds & acts like spring has actually arrived.

To stay that is.

We've had quite a few teasers, whispers of spring; the fickle thing it is in this part of the country.  (And quite a few other area's too, from what I've heard & seen evidence of)

We had very little snow this year, and not much "real" cold either.  In fact we didn't even get any snow here until Feb.  Once it got going tho, we had some every little bit right up to our last snow on May 1.
Nothing exciting tho, you know when it starts snowing, blowing, drifting and you can't get out of your drive way or you have to keep your snow shovel right beside your door so you can grab it to make a path-IF you can get the door pushed open far enough.  Like in the "good 'ol days"  HA.

No, all our snows were half hearted attempts that fizzled out almost as soon as they got a start.  The ground was barely covered, the tops of the grass, weeds & mowed off corn stocks sticking out.  That is until the last of April when we were done with the whole disgusting chilly, blah, black & gray landscape & thoroughly ready for some weather to match our idea of what we think spring SHOULD be, then we got about 6 inches of the wintery stuff.
Now mind you, I'm not (nor I'm sure anyone else in this area) complaining about the moisture, as it was greatly needed & appreciated, but at that point we all would have loved to see it come down in a more liquid form rather than the white flakes. The best thing I can say about it all is that it didn't stay around very long, our temps were high enough to melt it off in a couple days.

It's been a long drawn out winter, regardless that the calendar was marked spring back in March. I was ready for sunshine, blue skies, leaves on the trees & green grass. Six months of "winter" is just too long!

We planted grass.  It's going to be a challenge, nothing has been done with the yard for (??) years.  We have garden space tilled up, a beautiful waiting bed generously sprinkled with a donation from our back yard feed lot for the veggies I'm hoping will grow.  Gardening is a challenge for me, I have a love hate relationship with it.  I love the idea, like planting, love the produce & canning/freezing, but I get burned out in the middle of the summer when it's hot, and I dislike the maintenance of it. Some years are better than others.
The upside of it is when I don't get something picked or put up when I should, the chickens benefit, and I don't feel near as guilty feeding it to them!
We have baby kittens, 4 of them.  Our 3 adult cats are happy & flourishing.  The chickens that freely roamed all winter are now fenced to protect our garden.

I love May.  It's jam packed full of special dates for our family.
My sisters birthday.
A niece, two nephews.
Our (4th) daughters Anniversary
Mothers day.
Our oldest son's, our 3rd daughter & our "love in the middle" girl. #6.
Can you believe that out of 14 grandchildren & one on the way, we have none born in May.  That's o.k......  (smile!)

 Earlier this year I actually spent quite a bit of time scrapbooking. I did a first three years album for our middle son. We did lots of little projects on the house, I need to get my page updated again.  There's lots more on the "to do" list.

In the mean time I'm loving seeing spring for the first time in this part of the state & looking forward to a new grandbaby in a few weeks.

 Evidence of spring even thru the snow

 Our cats sunning on the porch. Even tho the trees have no leaves, our bush is nicely leafed out.

 All we have to do is step out the door & the cats are right beside us.  The gray one is our mama cat.

 The fields are green!

 The newly planted lawn

 Loving the sight of blue sky, planted fields & the feel of *WARM*
We had a sudden rain shower come thru this afternoon and it was wonderful. It's sandy soil out here tho, and you'd never know this picture was taken minutes after it quit.  The rain soaks in very quickly.

Inch by inch, they're coming up.  An iris bed that has survived.  I'd love to do something fun with the old stump by the mail box too.

--That sums it up for this time.

The Day is Done

 I've mentioned before that my grandparents loved poetry.

Tonight this poem came to mind, and I remembered my grandpa.


The Day is Done

 The day is done, and the darkness
 Falls from the wings of Night,
 As a feather is wafted downward
 From an eagle in his flight.

 I see the lights of the village
 Gleam through the rain and the mist,
 And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
 That my soul cannot resist:

 A feeling of sadness and longing,
 That is not akin to pain,
 And resembles sorrow only
 As the mist resembles the rain.

 Come, read to me some poem,
 Some simple and heartfelt lay,
 That shall soothe this restless feeling,
 And banish the thoughts of day.

 Not from the grand old masters,
 Not from the bards sublime,
 Whose distant footsteps echo
 Through the corridors of Time,

 For, like strains of martial music,
 Their mighty thoughts suggest
 Life's endless toil and endeavor;
 And tonight I long for rest.

 Read from some humbler poet,
 Whose songs gushed from his heart,
 As showers from the clouds of summer,
 Or tears from the eyelids start;

 Who, through long days of labor,
 And nights devoid of ease,
 Still heard in his soul the music
 Of wonderful melodies.

 Such songs have a power to quiet
 The restless pulse of care,
 And comes like the benediction
 That follows after prayer.

 Then read from the treasured volume
 The poem of thy choice,
 And lend to the rhyme of the poet
 The beauty of thy voice.

 And the night shall be filled with music,
 And the cares, that infest the day,
 Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
 And as silently steal away.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow--     

To be-or not to be

"I am still determined to be cheerful and to be happy in whatever situation I may be, for I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions and not upon our circumstances."
~Martha Washington~


I saw this posted the other day on a friend's facebook page, and it was one of those "Got to keep" quotes. 

It's always interesting to me when i see something that was spoken so many many years ago that is still so true in our day & age.

I have to say that once again it reminded me of what my grandma was like. She was very quiet, not assuming, and although no doubt that her life didn't always go the way she might have wished it would have, other than quiet "sigh's, complaining about her lot in life; or the situation was not in her nature.

Another quote I saw & (re-)posted recently was this:  

"One day you'll be just a memory for some people.
Do your best to be a good one."

 That one fits my grandma really well too, and I'm pretty sure that If I could choose to have qualities like any one person, I would choose hers.

Here's raising my glass to you, Grandma Ruth!