Forty-Five Years

Our wedding day was forty-five years ago.  How can this possibly be true?  Where is that sweet, young, innocent couple that dated in high school and married four years later?  I was twenty and he twenty-two.  

Richard just graduated from Ohio State University and acquiring a job in our county was pretty much the best way to start a marriage, he would be an Ag. Teacher at the Greene County Career Center.  Oh, we were young and like all other young couples, probably had our head in the clouds.  Life would be perfect and we would grow old together.  

Three years into our marriage we had our first child, Ryan, three years later we had Trisha and three years after that we had Emily.  Each came with no special planning, it was just "time" and so it happened.  I think sometimes we have always just moved along, everything happening in it's own time.  

I laugh when I think about having children, we didn't have a clue what we were doing, everything just happened along.  Working out the difficulties of living on a little farm, raising animals, kids and making do with what we had.  I never wished for more, we were happy and things were just they way they needed to be.

Children grew up, children left home, children married and have children of their own.  We are grandparents?  What?  When did that happen?  Then we are talking about retirement, seriously?
We are too young to think of that, wonderful husband taught for 36 years in the same school that hired him when he was twenty-two.  Does anyone have a job in one place today?

Then suddenly we are talking Medicare.  What?  Life goes on.  We have NO control when it comes right down to it.  We make decisions based on the information we have at that very moment.  Time keeps moving us on to the next stage.  And yet our hearts still are young, we think we are still able to do things that our body is telling us not to do.  Doing things that used to take a couple days might take a week to finish.  What happened to those twenty year old kids?

My wonderful daughter thought it would be fun to notify our friends of our anniversary and have them send cards.  Well, we have been overwhelmed with lovely cards, some from people who were actually participants in the wedding!  New friends, old friends and even our insurance company sent a card!  What fun!  

Our three wonderful children are taking us out to dinner tonight, grand-kids included.  Should be great fun.  

With Thanks and Happiness to all who have made our journey together even more wonderful.

Sleeping in the Tipi

Last night I slept in the tipi.  It was a wonderful night for July to be out there, we have little humidity in the air this year, could be because we are experiencing a drought across the country.

When I'm alone in the tipi,  I count the dogs as company, so not really alone, I usually go out late, maybe eleven or after.  It is always quiet and dark, I  have wood ready for a fire and will often bring a flute to play or sometimes a drum.  I have my own little ceremony before lighting the fire.  It seems I am in constant gratitude for even the smallest gifts found in my days.

The fire isn't really needed for heat in the summer, it does provide light and maybe helps with creepy crawly things.  I have never been bitten by mosquitoes in the tipi.  Of course creepy crawly don't much bother me, we usually have a toad that takes care of things in tipi.

Anyway, not much goes on in the tipi when I'm alone.  However, when I have friends come and stay with me all that changes.  We'll go out earlier, sometimes sit and talk at the outside fire.  When we all go inside the tipi and get our beds ready and sit around the fire, our tiredness is suddenly gone and we can stay awake a while longer laughing and sharing stories.

I have been blessed with some special ceremonies in my tipi lodge.  We will drum, sing and play the flutes and most importantly pray.  These are often moments for the memory to record, there are no photos taken, no recordings and certainly held with much honor and respect. 

The nights are usually quiet, my tipi sits as far from our road and house as I can get it.  We will hear a distant dog bark, an owl in the trees nearby, night insects are singing their songs.  One night I heard snorting, from a deer I decided.  I think one had a fawn in the trees not far away.  I will even hear coyotes yelping in the distance.  My dogs have  often been drawn out of the tipi for something I never hear, I always pray it isn't a skunk.  Raccoon sometimes can be heard chattering, but all have kept their distance and for that I'm grateful!

Morning sunrise is cause for celebration, a new day!   The birds start their song at first light and they can be deafening!  I am always awakened at dawn by their singing and the morning light on the tipi.  I'll cover my head and try to go back to sleep for a little longer.  I find it hard to sleep under such conditions.  The dogs will still be snoring peacefully, worn out from running outside and checking to make sure all is well outside the tipi.

I love when my grand children come and stay with me in the tipi.  They giggle and wiggle around.  The fire lights their faces as we talk and catch up on things in their life.  Pretty soon they are snuggling into their sleeping bags and are visited by their dreams.  I look at their sweet faces and am grateful to share this space with them.

"TIME".........

A couple weeks ago I went to an auction.  I haven't been to one in years.  Really, not since our children were little.  Before we were married, I went every Saturday, looking for furniture to
furnish our home.  I was so happy buying pieces I still love today. 

In our dining room table is a big oak table with six boards to make it bigger, it can seat sixteen people easily.   I also bought an oak kitchen cupboard, an old china cupboard, end table, chairs, a beautiful bench, and who can even imagine what else.  I spent the rest of the time refinishing pieces and getting ready to make a home with my high school sweetheart.  Oh, many of the things were a bargain and that was the thrill of the hunt, I love a good bargain.  

And soon the auctions fell away, I was married, children came, money was used to pay bills, dress babies and so on.  

Then my daughter ask me to go to an auction for her, she needed a dresser, a friend had some things in a local auction, dressers included, and I went.  I was in awe at many of the items there, just as I was so long ago.  Pieces of a home were put on display and being sold one by one.  Even framed photos were being sold!  The wedding china, a place setting for twelve, sold for $2.50!  WHAT?  My heart breaks watching treasures sell and knowing I have a house full of such things and probably no one wants!  

                                                                                                                                                                             

These beautiful mantle clocks were going for less than fifty dollars!  We have three such clocks at our house!   

See the little bird collection at the right?  I now own the little Bluebird, $5.  Who will want that when I'm gone, will they know my love of Bluebirds and the many Bluebird boxes I have made and put in our center of the world?  Or will it be discarded and the memory lost too?

We purchased my daughter a dresser, I can't say it was cheap but it was in good shape.  The other things I picked up were very cheap.  A humpback trunk for $15!  I know when I was still doing auctions in the 80's they were going for $100 or more.  It's in pretty good shape, paper is still good inside even. 

We also bought a great lift chair for $100, my husband was sure it would be useful in our future!  This makes me laugh, but it looks brand new and we knew who owned it first.  

Oh, I was on a roll now, the bug for buying was great, but I kept thinking about where I might put something and did I really need it!  We did purchase an old handmade Grandfather clock for my son.  He lives is a big old farmhouse that needs chimes to ring throughout the house!   


I guess the point of this Blog is to reveal that TIME has moved on, things change.  I wonder what will happen to our treasures when we leave them behind.  I think our children will cherish some things, but they are settled in their homes with their own special memories, maybe our grandchildren will like some of our treasures, I don't hold much hope for that idea.  Times are different now and I'm feeling the reality of "TIME".