Eat your heart out, Laura Ingalls...

My parents are both from farming backgrounds, and I often think there's a country girl inside of me just busting to get out.  As a kid, my favourite books were the Little House on the Prairie series.  Oh, how I longed to live the life of Half Pint, little Laura Ingalls.  Okay, so maybe I would pass on playing catch with a pig's bladder, but other than that I couldn't imagine a more perfect existence.  Life in a log cabin, living off the land, animals all around me and contentment in the simple pleasures of life.  Growing up, I tried to reinvent Laura's childhood as best I could in the city.  I climbed trees, collected insects (yes, "collected" as in euthanized them, pinned them to a corkboard, and labelled them - maybe that's more mad scientist than pioneer), raised rabbits and ran wild outside.  And that was just in the city.  Once I got to my relatives' farms in Leamington, I truly came alive!  My Opa would let us collect eggs in the henhouse (we were a little intimidated by the clucking Mama hens, though), ride on the tractor through the back fields with him and scavenge in the haymow for baby kittens!!  Even as I write this, I can feel the excitement of climbing through the bales with a flashlight, listening oh-so-carefully for the soft little "mews" of those babies.  My uncle taught us how to pick tomatoes.  He still laughs at the memory of the city slicker cousins coming for a week to earn some money in his tomato fields.  One summer I came for the sole purpose of earning enough to buy myself some Coca Cola shoes.  I never said I was all country.

This spring, my brother-in-law Todd mentioned that we could easily tap the three maple trees in our yard.  Country Steph's heart leaped at the thought!  Make our own maple syrup?   How rustic, how back-to-nature, how wholesome sounding.  How Ingalls!  The kids were right on board, too, of course.  Here's how it went:

   Ben and Emma strike a sap collecting pose

 Emma strikes her father on the head as he pours the sap into a huge pot

 We watch the huge pot boil.  And boil.  And boil.  

  7 hours later, we stare in disbelief at the bottom of the pot

 Ever so carefully, we pour the syrup through a coffee filter. 

(No one likes dirt and bark bits on their pancakes.)

 Ta Da!!!

 Saturday morning celebration

 Uncle Todd, the man of the hour

We did it!  We brought a little bit of country into our citified lives.  Next year, listen for the sound of our log cabin going up in the back yard.

Happy Birthday, Mom!!!  Here's an acrostic poem for you on your special day. (This should take you back to my elementary school days):

L - Love, love, love.  This is what she does the best.

I -  Irreplaceable ... No one like my Mom.

N - "No" ... this is a word she hates to say!  Especially to the  
       grandchildren.  

D -  Does she ever stop DOING things for us?  Nope.

A - Amazing cook!  We all look forward to eating at Oma's house.

My mom is one of my very best friends in the whole world.  We walk our dogs together, talk about everything under the sun and laugh, laugh, laugh at ourselves.  When I've had jumpy legs the night before, she sympathizes with me.  Unlike my husband.  Or brother-in-law, for that matter. 

Mom is one of the most upbeat people I have ever known.  People just want to be around her!   She smiles and laughs really easily - John has always loved her "hearty German laugh." I can't count the times I've heard, "I love your mom.  She's awesome."  I even have friends who want her to adopt them ... and grandmother their children. 

Speaking of which, don't even get me started on Linda Ann's grandmothering skills.  Honestly, sometimes I think my entire family would rather just move in with her and make it official.  She is the great Matriarch, the ultimate Nurturer of all children Hollingsworth/Konrad/Burnard... They drop in for after school visits and snacks, they want to sleep over at her house, they call her in desperation when their parents can't drive them somewhere.  Oma is the great constant in our family and all the kids feel safe under her fierce protection.  

Thank you, Mom, for being one of the most powerful influences for good in my life.   You mean more to me than you'll ever know.  I won't say all the things that Lillian already said in your mushy-gushy birthday card, but you are the best Mom ever and I hope I can be to my children what you have been to me.  I love you!





  

Aunt Bet's Birthday!

Today one of my favourite people turns 89.  You might think a person could get depressed by turning 89.  Not this person.  I was at her house yesterday and she laughed and said, "Next year I can start turning my age around again!!"  Ever since I've known her, Aunt Bet has loved to turn her age around ... she was 83 when we met, so that year she considered herself a youthful 38.  The next year she graduated to 48 and so on.  You get the picture.   When she hit 88 last year, she had to kick that habit but it won't be long and she'll celebrate her 09th birthday! 

Aunt Bet (Betty Routliffe) is a special person to a lot of people.  I can't speak for anyone else, but here are a few reasons I consider her to be an awesome person:

1. She is ALIVE!!  There's really no other way to say it.  She wants to experience every new day to the fullest.  She is a lifelong learner, always reading, always asking questions. She watches the news and KEEPS UP with the world. 

2. Aunt Bet loves God with all her heart.  And she is passionate about telling others about how much He loves THEM.  Her dentist, her neighbour, her paper boy, her furnace repairman ... I can guarantee they have all been told that they are precious in His sight.

3. Queen of the one-liner.  Hands down - no one comes close.

4. She pulls out a rifle and shoots squirrels if they try to dig up her flowerbeds.

5. She says stuff like, "Isn't that glorious?" and "Oh heavenly days!"  No one says stuff like that anymore.

6. She looks better in a bathing suit than most of us two generations younger than her.  Oh, she would disagree ... she's horrified at her thinness but honestly, the woman runs up and down her beach steps twice a day each summer and swims by herself in the Great Lakes.

Aunt Bet prayed for us to find the right van ... here she is with the kids

 in our "new chariot" (as she calls it)

I am so thankful that God brought this special lady into my life.  She is one of a kind and has taught me more about life than anyone except my parents.  

Happy Birthday Aunt Bet!!

Astonishing Christmas

Let the stable still astonish:

Straw—dirt floor, dull eyes,

Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;

Crumbling, crooked walls;

No bed to carry that pain,

And then, the child,

Rag-wrapped, laid to cry

In a trough.

Who would have chosen this?

Who would have said, “Yes,

Let the God of all the heavens

And earth

Be born here, in this place?”

Who but the same God

Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms

Of our hearts and says, “Yes, let the God

Of Heaven and Earth be born here—

In this place.”

Leslie Leyland Fields

My Day Off

I have officially spent an hour cleaning my fridge.  Before you sigh and think, "Blast that girl!  Why is she making me feel guilty for not cleaning my own dirty fridge?" ...fear not!  For it is not the INSIDE of my fridge that I have laboured over.  Oh no.  We wouldn't want to do anything that productive on our one and only day to clean this week.  No, what Stephanie Dawn has done is taken down one photo at a time from the OUTSIDE of her fridge, peered carefully at it, washed the outside of the little plastic frame that holds it, scrubbed the little spot on the refrigerator door that houses said photo - with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser no less - and then returned it to its rightful place in the display.  She has also reorganized her calendar/important quotes area on the bottom fridge door and cleaned that with the Magic Eraser as well.  She then moved on to the important task of sifting through the assorted magnets that litter her refrigerator's exterior ... last year's Focus on the Family Christmas magnet? .... into the circular file!  The little golden teapot and frying pan magnets?....ugly, but actually quite useful since they're small enough to hold up the corners of my "Important Phone Numbers" list, so they can stay.  Ben's Vancouver Canucks magnet?.... obviously I won't get away with chucking that one, so it's holding up the chunk of papers I have clipped together beside the calendar.

Meanwhile,  six feet down the hall sits my bathroom floor, screaming to be scrubbed.  Especially after last night's plugged toilet fiasco where I found John, plunger in hand, wading through poopy water all over the floor and sopping up the disaster with old towels.  blah. 

But thank goodness my fridge looks good. :))

Ok, off I go to clean the bathroom....

.

What I Learned

Way back when our kids were little, at the dawn of our family life, John and I stumbled on a dinner time tradition that has held fast over the years.  We call it doing our "Three Things."  Pretty much every night we eat together at the table, everyone has a chance to share with the rest of us:
1) Something you liked today
2) Something you didn't like today
3) Something you learned today

I won't bore you with all three of my things today, but here's what I learned.  You will thank me later, believe me.

Use these to clean off your baseboards:

 

Maybe you're a domestic goddess who's known this for years, but I for one am seriously excited about my new discovery.  It's amazing, I tell you!

You're welcome!

Happy Birthday to my Dad!

I've always known my Dad is a great guy.  Everybody knows it. "Oh, your Dad is Rudy?  I love Rudy!  He's such a great guy!"  People say that kind of stuff to me a lot.
But as I've grown up and grown older, my love and appreciation for him has grown and changed as well.  I used to love him for all the things he DID for me:

• bought me a used bike for my birthday and totally reconditioned it ... including the snazziest banana seat you'll ever lay eyes on
• taught me how to catch a baseball
• danced with me in the living room after supper
• helped me put together my insect collection (I know ..... UGH! ... but it was cool!)
• designed and built a rabbit hutch that could hold our 19 rabbits - in the back yard - in the city!
• scoped out clunker junkers with us until we found an old car he could buy for us teenagers
• paid through the nose for my university education
• sat me down and encouraged me to write out a LIST (one of his personal favourite activities) of the qualities I was looking for in a husband ... the non-negotiables and the negotiables

Yes, he was a great father to all of us as we grew up.  Quiet, but loving and always ready to help.  And of course, this hasn't changed now that we've produced nine grandchildren (between the 3 of us ... oh, thank You Lord, they're not all mine).  Dad still does all those same kinds of things for the kids now.  Tutoring, teaching sudoku, helping with bikes, driving them places ....

But in the past few years, as I've become a parent and a "grown up" myself, I've begun to appreciate my Dad for some other things as well.  For some deeper things, character qualities that I always saw as a kid, but never really acknowledged or thought much about.  Now I love him just as much for the things he IS:

• a man with a servant's heart who shows me what it looks like to reach out to the poor and disadvantaged
• a faithful, loving husband for my wonderful Mom
• a sacrificial giver
• a devoted follower of Jesus Christ, who loves God and has a growing dynamic relationship with Him
• a lifelong learner who will sit and chat with you over coffee about the things he's got mulling around in his head at that particular moment
• a friend to the people God brings across his path ... whether they're newcomers from China, neighbours he's just met or a young newlywed couple he and Mom have agreed to mentor 
• the kind of person who follows through on his promises and keeps his word

I haven't been able to swallow the lump in my throat as I've written this post, because I can't help but think that God heaped an extra measure of blessing on me when he gave me such a wonderful Dad.  Happy Birthday, Dad!  I love you so much!

Steph