Flowers in Spring

Spring. For me means so many different things, but the thought, the picture that stays in my mind when I imagine spring after a long winter it is the first sight of a crocus or daffodil - that is spring's real statement of new life which is a totally new beginning.

Spring can be wonderfully gaudy in those new beginnings, or like when it first begins can be delicate and pastel and simple. Unlike the profusion of life in summer, spring can actually have many faces, and all new starts for that year's new season.

My paternal grandmother as she aged made a celebration of each decade of her life by doing something out of the ordinary for an "old" person. One decade she took up diving, one she took up snowshoeing but whatever she took on, she challenged herself to physically and mentally stretch. In her later years golf was one of those challenges and she always read volumes to keep up on an ever changing world. This seemed to her to be the way to the real fountain of youth.

I have taken up that same challenge - but in my own way. From this day forward I will try to find something new and lovely about life and myself with each new spring. I certainly won't wait for a new decade since I want to cherish all that I have in this life of mine. Like the flowers every spring I will stretch to touch those different and new things and embrace them.

Grandma C, here's to you and your every growing love for new beginnings!!

Family Connections

In America, most of us who call ourselves Americans are really immigrants. Whether we're from some where in Europe, Asia, the Middle East or somewhere else in the world our histories are carried to this place of the immigrants. On the East Coast, Ellis Island was a door through which many families first wrote their name on the tree of this growing forest of America's new and growing family.

Many who landed new near Lady Liberty found homes within or just outside the grand city of New York, but many kept moving spreading through this expansive country we now all call home. My own history began in two areas of Europe - Sweden and Ireland, with stops to pick up relatives from Wales and the Netherlands as well of course.

Many of us know our histories, but many of us have always lived with only the knowledge of parents, grandparents and siblings but know little of those who came before us. Five years ago my mother-in-law put a yellowed wedding announcement into my hand and asked me to connect the dots for her.

I began online like many these days, but found only tantalizing bits of information - only really basic family connections but no real information. So, where does that budding genealogist turn for information and connections with those long lost ancestors? It actually began in the bowels of a local library. The smells of the old documents filled the basement space as I cranked through roll after roll of microfiche with newspapers from the period. As I began this impossible search, here I was hopeful since the bride had been born here!

My first hit on information was only a bit, but it gave a place to look for more - Washington State. For heaven sakes! I couldn't just go there, so where to begin was the question? Through the librarian there at the library I made the connection to the genealogical society in the specific area I was looking for information. After sending off a few emails and making some contacts they were going to help on some of the spots where they didn't have the information online locally yet. With that information I also began looking through what the society did have online.

After months of searching and digging through the dusty files and online I began to put together the beginnings of a history that was fascinating. This touch of research has really wet my appetite and I've really only begun the search. When will I be done? Who knows! I'm on my way to discovering connections to the old world, so I'm getting revved up for the next phase of my history treasure hunt!

For me, this is the beginnings of family connections - a connection that began long ago and connects the dots to where beginnings actually happened. What began in the late 70s with the first of the yearnings for discovering those personal histories has continued right up to today through my personal search. I love this hunt for historical pieces of my personal life picture!

Coffee is an American Treat

Where do you get that first cup of coffee, or joe in the morning? I think many of us start with a cup brewed at home - no matter that how good a coffee maker you are that first cup is always a great start to any day!

I also like to discover a special place to have another cup, maybe in a comfortable booth or outdoor table somewhere local. We're lucky here in Holland to have quite a few places to comfortably settle in with a great cup of coffee. In most places you'll find students, those who like the Internet as well as those who read or simply sit and enjoy the surroundings.

Here the coffee house movement of the fifties has really had a reemergence. In the fifties it was a place to gather and have coffee, and often had poetry readings. Today the coffee is better in my opinion, there is an ambiance that is more European than in the past, and more accessible to everyone. Besides, the coffee is great!

Well, I'm off to enjoy the people watching, and some really good coffee!

Daffer-Down-Dillies

The daffodils are beginning to bloom here. When I was little there was a name for them that use to make us all laugh. Those bright yellow pieces of spring sunshine were daffer-down-dillies and we use to skip along the field that led to the hill down to the creek where what seemed thousand of those golden flowers.

When we got there we'd all sit amongst the flowers and watch the wind and bees brush past them and then get up and run through them as fast as we could. Those days the blur of yellow and green gave an image of spring in the fast lane.

Today I can spend more time sitting and enjoying the daffodils, I can even contemplate the flower and it's soft crape paper like ruffled edges.

But I still call them daffer-down-dillies!

Freedom

One lonely road
Once entered can
Be a lost cause.

Step out from the gray
And the mud
Onto a road paved
With much more
Than sunshine.

Moving on
Can be
Freedom.

A Room of Ones Own

Blue sky today. With that touch of clue, and the sunshine I have become a sun worshiper all over again with the coming of spring! Right now I am sitting at my desk, peeking through the slats of the blinds that cover the window to see the large branches of a neighboring tree and enjoying the backdrop of puffy white clouds, and blue that almost takes the breathe away.

I consider my office/TV room the cave, it's dark and cluttered usually. I don't mind the cave feel because it's the only room that seems to catch the overflow from the rest of our house and really is a comfortable spot. The walls are lined with runners that hold shelves covered with books and miscellaneous other junk (junque!), and our computer desk is stacked with papers, and other paraphernalia that seems to slither its way down here all on it's own. We also have 2 filing cabinets, wrapping paper for gifts piled in a corner, a TV surrounded by four boxes that makes it able to be, a movie house, and receptor for the HD signals from all over.

This is all present in a room that is only about 8 X 10 feet! I love to be in it since it's often home to ideas, and to escapes from the world during any given day. Having a room of one's own to dream, write and sometimes simply ponder is truly a gift.

The other great part of this hideaway is the window which seems like a picture show too, since it is constantly changing it's views. From green to gray, from white to the yellows and gold of fall my "window-vision" gives a scene that isn't cluttered and very restive. For that the room something I am very thankful!

A Mystery that Captures

Mysteries hold my attention more than almost any other genre at the moment, and the author who has captured my imagination is Kate Sedley, the author of the Roger the Chapman a series of mystery novels. I'm presently enjoying The Wicked Winter, and after our own nasty weather this winter I find it fascinating to see how those in the Middle Ages dealt with extreme winters and the problems they can create. Oh, and if you haven't guessed, the setting for the series is an England of the late 1400s. The author has closely captured the feel of the time, if not totally the language. But since I don't speak the English of the period, that's okay!

This tale centers around the death of a young noble woman and the winter that keeps everyone from the lowest to the the most wealthy together totally captured by a raging winter storm within the castle where the event has occurred - including (most likely) the murderer. From the descriptions of the life of the servants, to that of a chapman, or peddler, the author has given a good taste of the period as well as the stress surrounding the death. The anxiety that holds the mystery to who might have done the deed is there on every page too.

I found the book captivating, except for some of the language used by the main character, Roger the Chapman. At times it is a bit too modern and probably for the use of a more educated character. But in the same breath, I find that to capture the reader the dialog used is easy to follow and doesn't get bogged down with all the typical language and dialects of the period where many a reader would get stalled in the "thees" and "thous" that are usually used for books about the period.

I enjoyed this mystery and the view of the everyday people of England during the Middle Ages. Kate Sedley has an interesting character in the chapman and her stories have a depth that can truly capture the imagination.

The Times They Are a Changin'

Hopes of spring are the center of attention in our area right now. We have some early spring flowers, but are a bit stuck in the "almost spring" weather. That is we're 40s and sometimes 50s during the day, and freezing temps still at night. The grays and browns are everywhere - though the grass is a bit greener, finally. I'm ready for spring...but not quite ready for summer!

Where the Wild Things Are...

I had the shock of my life when I came out my back door with my dog, Foxy this afternoon...I saw something I never thought I would see in my small yard on five lanes of fast - a rather large wild turkey standing at least four feet tall! It had to be at least a 25 to 30 lbs!!

My sharpei/German shepherd mix dog which is a mid-sized dog at first dove after the bird - that is until she saw how big it was! She quickly ran behind me but the turkey had been spooked by then and took to the sky flying over the tops of our neighbors and another house as well. I never knew they could fly like that! After my close encounter with a wild turkey, I was still in awe as it disappeared.

All I could say was, wow."