Narnia Revisited

This cute little Wisconsin contingy of family welcomed me into their home for a week of lulling and loving, exploration and adventure, projects and playing...and did I say, scrumptious eating, too?  Rich and robust like the finest coffee...and yes, there was plenty of that, also!

As hard as it is to have children so very far away, it is delightful to visit on their turf, to experience their world and their everyday lives. I felt quite indulged to be introduced to the deep and wide of Wisconsin's treasures, starting off with a trip to Amish country (thankfully before a new blanket of snow, on which day I might have been the only one within a thousand mile radius that was rejoicing). The down side of the Amish simpler lifestyle, often deemed idyllic, was tasted as we navigated freezing temperatures and considered the reality of hanging laundry on the line to dry, collecting sap from  buckets on trees to make pancake syrup, and urging the horse to giddy-up over hill and dale though daily chores. Surveying the myriad of flours and grains available in the no-frills, but ample, markets was fascinating. Of course, (just to be polite) we couldn't resist gathering up some home-made jam, hazelnut peanut butter, maple candy and that fun multi-colored popcorn.

On another day, when we wandered a snowy woods with a hush that hinted we might be treading near Narnia, we happened upon wild turkeys. With no lack of territory to explore we next took to country roads in the heart of dairy-land. Cows lulled on the hillsides, huddled together in the cold. Barns stood stalwart where family farms have been passed through generations and we spotted a cheese factory welcoming tourists.  In addition to reciting "Little Miss Muffet", we are now able to relate the process whereby the curds and whey are created and what becomes of them (after the spider.) Here's to Wisconsin cheese curds! Yum. A scrumptious take-away. Oh, and we tucked antiquing into the meandering of this country day, too.

All the walking kept Remy happy and our Fitbits perking (a necessity when we happened upon necessities like Babcok's famous ice cream and Aunt Ozies Restuarant serving up homemade triple berry and maple pecan pies). As we moved into DIY time, Remy found himself worn out and totally distinterested in learning a trade in the pillow project industry. He fancies himself only a happy consumer of such luxuries. 

Yes, time with my girl is never quite complete without tryng our hand at something new in both the DIY and culinary categories. Diana has connected with a roastery that imports coffee beans in bags with cool logos from different coffee-producing countries. So we harnessed the new (Christmas-gifted and hand-picked by her amazing hubby) sewing machine and produced a tote from a commercial burlap bag. We're dreaming big things and thinking table runners and wall hangings and Etsy! First off, because the original took the two of us half a day, we need to figure a way to streamline the process to be able to net a profit of more than $1.29 per hours of labor. Be on the lookout for the burlap boutique. You saw it first, right here.

Inspired by that great British cooking tv show, we set out to concoct our own version of a self-sauced pudding. Our test-kitchen specimen blended both lemon and lime flavors. And while we plan adjustments to the recipe (like studying the table for converting Centigrade to Fahrenheit baking temperatures, ahem), we think we'll try it again. Additional delights to our palate were Lazy Jane's gigantic, raspberry scones, Cashew Chicken ala Diana, and Korean fare on our snowy way to a Brahms concert. Ahhhhhhhhh, culture and refinement! Nothing is so comforting as good food shared in good company.....and an occasional Bananagrams match!

Unless, of course, it would be just the pure delight of be-ing together. While Diana juggled studying and her nursing work at the hospital we shared a full-orbed week of wonderful. Quality time, I am pretty sure, beats Narnia's Turkish Delight, and our winter wonderland was just as magical. 

Love this girl!

Back through the wardrobe I go...until we meet again. 

A Hundred Years

Daddy, I'm here in Wisconsin on what would have been your 100th birthday.

It really is possible that you might have joined the select centenarians still in our midst who are an inspiration...alert and conversant and engaged in life, even if at a slower pace than in earlier years. Alas, you were called home decades before this celebration we might have shared as a family. Eleven grandchildren and seventeen great-grands with the eighteenth and nineteenth coming this year. Wouldn't you have had a ball teasing and teaching the kids the spoon trick at the table?  (Why do  I wonder where my sons get their penchant for dinner-table reverie?) On my own recent birthday, I could not help pondering the fact that I have now lived longer than you, journeyed on this earth more years than either of my parents. I think on the fragility of life and the fleeting of the years. Yet, today, I celebrate you still, smiling inside about  how it might have been, had our children grown up knowing you. Only our oldest three sons experienced the fun of Grandaddy. Our first little girl, who came along just a month before your passing, never got to meet you. Nonetheless, she grew up with stories passed down about your quotes and convictions, mannerisms and quirks, playfulness and practical jokes, often announcing, "Grandaddy has a hug waiting for me in Heaven". 

Today, Daddy, my remembrances are juxtaposed with the present in a dissonant, yet not a maudlin way. While my mind  can only create imagined scenarios in the gap of space and time between the past and the present, I carry you into today where I want you to meet Diana. She and Aaron have welcomed me into their home. I am here for a visit, like those occasions when you came to see us as newlyweds.  We have enjoyed sharing hearts and life and, well, not every day is like that when we're parents, is it, Daddy? I guess you know. There were times during college days when I was focused on me and my life. I failed to realize a parent is always a parent, that your inquiries just meant you cared, that you looked forward to just hearing from me, that it meant a lot to be appreciated. Forgive me, Daddy. There's so much growing up to do in life. I am still working on it.  

This girl of mine makes me wonder about traits that get passed down through generations. She's so organized, just like you. You would love her, Daddy.  Her work ethic is stellar. She has goals and a plan for reaching them with self-disciplne and determination.  She loves peanuts and ice cream and those little pink wafers you used to serve up with bedtime snacks.  Recipes from her grandmothers and aunts are framed in her kitchen and she even collects random pieces of china that match a set from Mother's cupboard.   Like the home, in which you reared us, Daddy, where honor was given to  grandparents and thoughtfulness extended toward them, this girl prioritizes family. As far as biological genes, do you think she looks a bit like Mother? She is of the small-boned frame and angular facial features, with dark hair and olive complexion, that has caused me to wonder (too late to help with college scholarships), about the possibility of Native American ancestors on Mother's side of the family. What do you think ? 

 

This girl shares a birthday month with you. Soon she will join the quarter-century club. I think about the many years that separate the life experiences and everyday days. Yet, we remained connected. Through our biological make-up, genetic heritage, and spiritual birthright, we are united. With our warts and flaws and joys and sorrows, we are family. We might have celebrated your hallmark birthdays together and baked you two a penuche cake. Indeed, we celebrate life.

Remember how you used to jingle candy corn in your pocket and leave a trail hoping that our Old English Sheepdog would leave you alone? Somehow, you never understood that you were training Schawnroi to follow you everywhere you went. That might be where past and present part ways. This girl loves her pooch....and we're off to more adventures today. 

So save this girl a hug in Heaven, Daddy. 

And me, too. 

I love you.

Christmas Afterglow

So my girl asked when I plan to finish the Christmas blog. She's been looking, checking, waiting, watching and I am totally surprised. I thought i was the only one who loved to massage the memories, and having missed the moment, (afterall, here we are two months later) I felt compelled to move on. Even my current mailing (belated-Christmas-card-turned-valentine, below) offered testimony that our God is, indeed, a god for all seasons. Emmanuel, God with us, means His love is magnified through a myriad of everyday days. So I am happy for the invitation to rewind to Christmas 2016 and revisit the precious fleeting moments.

My goals for Christmas-tide are intentional: 

-deck the halls to the hilt (sorry, but I love that God created me a visual person and my children have known since toddlerhood that anything that stands still in December gets a bow tied around it as part of my effusive joy in the season)

-stuff the freezer and cookie tins to the max, have beds made, put pillow presents in place and push the pause button as the kids weave their way in and out (confession: I might have notoriously forgotten to make house-cleaning a priority...yep)

-note to self "release, release!" those coming from out of town to come & go at will making our place home-base, to have their friends in, to not be on-the-clock for my schedule

-encourage relationship & family reconnection in an atmosphere of grace with space for everyone to be where they are on their spiritual journey 

Perhaps, being a step away from Christmas season affords an opportunity to assess how well we did with all of the above. Decking the halls is the easy component. Making beds and fluffing pillows, well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist, only stamina with this crowd. The releasing part is tricky with an ever-escalating learning curve. How to have a favorite meal on the table for those family members visiting for only a short time when being non-chalant can screw up others' efforts toward connecting w/ folks beyond our four walls? Need growth in that area. Grace. Grace. Always room for more. The trees are down, although I still find a few pine needles and a stray ornament every now and then, linens washed and stacked, tins are long-emptied and tucked in the attic, and paw-prints mopped from kitchen floor (because with the downpour of rain, rather than snow, visited on this Christmas-tide, we may have acquired  more of those than human footprints.) What remains? The gifts? The tangible ones seldom take the spotlight. The drone is in need of mechanical repair. An iPhone has been reclaimed for a time. A sweater is the wrong size and must be exchanged.  However glorious on the gifted-day, presents take a back-seat to the memory of relationship. What remains?

The visual memories stay with us... pine and holy, lights reflected in the eyes of a child, scrumptious repasts with loved ones gathered round, challenging games and pastimes (incorporating both old and new technology), blending of generations as one  listens and learns from the next (or the previous). 

Always, it seems to be, not only with our family, but also across the lines of space and time, throughout generations, within varied cultures around the world, photographs commemorate family gatherings. In our clan, the Christmas morning cluster is a tradition, perhaps instigated by my parents penchant for capturing their little girls on Kodak film. The Scheidtlings gathered  on our "home-base" stairway Christmas morning is a different crowd each year in this season of life. Yet, what joy to see our big kids corralling their crew for a similar photoshoot in order to capture the moment for posterity.

Relationship. That's why we were created...for The Father to have a reatlionship with each of us who would embrace the Son He sent to  dwell among us. It is because of that relationship that we celebrate. Through the cookies and cake pops, the dominoes and golf, the coffee clatches and late night Settlers games, new jammies, tea rings and  sausage balls, buckeys and pine bark, Pat Boone and Andrea Bocelli, center-pieces lit on fire, and the myriad of things that only family understands (because "you had to be there"). Through all the temporal, the fun and frenzy that are the trappings of "our family Christmas", let the eternal be that which remains. We gather. Then we scatter. Pass it on, my dears. Live it and love well. Let His light shine in and through you to one another. And then, take the Light out as you swish through the revolving door of this year.