Normally I steer clear of controversial topics but occasionally there are times (like the great macaroni debate) when I’m willing to broach a touchy subject.
Photo taken for Mundane Monday with Trablogger!
The holidays are upon us, people everywhere are baking and I need to know…
How do you measure flour?
Weekly Photo Challenge: Transformation
Errr… you know when you go around taking pictures of things in “transition” because you think that’s what the photo challenge is and then you look late at night and realize it was a different, long, “t” word?
Yeah… that’s what I did.
I was going to talk about the transition from day to to night, how the neighbor was taking the corn off his field tonight and how this was taken in my driveway and all the transitions those things contain. It was a great “transition” post I had been writing in my head.
As it stands it was a good thing those clouds have been transformed by the setting sun or I’d have nothing to post tonight!
A Friday ritual.
A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.
A simple, special, extraordinary moment.
A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
Grandpa didn’t say he was coming home to die. He said he was coming home to make good memories with the time he had left.
Today we celebrated Thanksgiving. Our celebration included grace said around the hospital bed in the living room that we can only hope Grandpa heard before we had dinner on the other end of the house.
Today was hard.
Today we cried.
But today, when the butter shot out of the mixer while mashing potatoes, across the kitchen into the gravy and when we pulled out the old deck of animal rummy cards for a few lively rounds before bed and a dozen other smaller points in between, we also made good memories.
And that’s worth all the heartache and tears.
Hey Honey…
“Yes?”
•What is something I say a lot?
Go away.
I do not!
Have you ever met you in the morning?
touche
•How tall am I? 5′ 7 3/4”
Nicely done.
•If I became famous, what would it be for?
Writing books.
If only we could get that first one on amazon…
•What makes you proud of me?
Writing books!
Aww thanks honey!
•What is my favorite food?
Chocolate… cake… quesadillas. Things make with flour and cheese that aren’t good for you. No erase all of that -Diet coke (Brother asks if a noncaloric item can be considered food.) No, M&M cookies from the bp gas station.
I do love all these things.
•What is my favorite restaurant?
Please tell me so I know!
Culvers
Eh, I eat there lots but favorite…
•If I could live anywhere, where would I be?
Somewhere where no one is around you, cold and barren and by yourself. Really you are missing out, Siberia is the key place for you. (Brother says: Just trade whiskey for vodka, you’ll be set.)
They are snotty but not exactly wrong…
•What do I do to annoy you?
Don’t know how to find the garbage can when there is a wrapper in your hand. Y0u makes cakes and never ever, ever, clean up after yourself. Especially frosting.
Because you need to save extra frosting in case you make something else…
•What is my favorite movie?
French Kiss, Beauty and the Beast…(brother says: Triple X) You do like Triple X!
All true and I’m beginning to understand where Clara got her definition of favorite from!
•You get a phone call that I’m in trouble. Who am I with?
Sarah, or your mom.
Yeah…
Photo again courtesy of Aunt Helen
I’ve been completely negligent.
My eldest daughter did something she’s never ever done before and I didn’t even mention it… for weeks.
Ivy shot her first deer! 
My brother Tyler was her mentor and the two of them had a great time together getting ready for the season. Tyler says it’s the most excited he has been for deer hunting in years. And then Ivy shot her first deer, using a crossbow, with her uncle by her side coaching her through it.
It’s a bit of a surreal mothering experience. As much as I’ve been around and about deer hunting and as much as I’ve shot guns and gone bird hunting and butchered deer, I’ve never been an actual deer hunter. But I can tell you it’s a proud moment to watch a kid go off and do something you’ve never done. Especially when they come back full of grins, a cooler of food for the freezer (Thanks again for that Tyler!) and announcing that they want a “real” bow for next year.
It has always been my opinion that Grandma Elma was the center of our family’s universe, though she would hate it if you pointed that out. She wouldn’t want anyone to make a fuss. Now, I am only one of her 15 grandchildren, not to mention the 15 great-grandchildren, 8 children and all their associated persons, so my views are not the definitive ones. But I have watched our family swirl around her kitchen and her smiling face for my whole life.
Even past the time when Grandma would produce an endless stream of food for visiting family, the family centered their talks and conversations around her chair. When Grandma passed last week she, of course, didn’t want a fuss made over her. No funeral, no service, no memorial… but she was our family’s center and so a few of us naughty grandchildren planned a little something anyway.
We filled a kitchen with people.
We put knives in the hands of those who were capable of cutting and we put babies in the laps of great-uncles.
Some of us started stirring up dough and rolling out pie crusts, while hunters came and went and told stories. 
I have wondered in the last week how our family will do with it’s sunny center gone, but I watched as we talked and laughed,
told stories and cried,
waved sticky, floury, messy hands about and demanded help from hunters who thought they were just passing through.
As the family worked together making a foolish amount of pasties and apple pies, I watched us all swirling around one another. And then, as we sent the food off to feed to hungry hunters and more home with families to be eaten later, I had hope that even with the center of our universe gone, she taught us well enough that we will still spin through life together.
Grandma would still probably scold us for making a fuss about her but, I think, if she had been there in that hot kitchen with all her family working together, she would have had a smile on her face while she did it.
Elma Eloranta
1919-2017
All photo credit belongs to my Aunt Helen.
It was something of a hostage situation.
A thirty year hostage situation.
Sadly for my little hostages I didn’t know they were missing. Please don’t let them know but I might have even forgotten about them until I saw them again today. But now, rescued from my cousin’s treasure chest, my Sea Wees are back in my possession.
My Sea Wee was long ago chewed on by a puppy, and her hair is a ratted mess, and my girls are already fighting over them but they came out of that wooden box with a slew of memories for my cousin and I that made me ridiculously happy to see these two resurface after so long.
Do you have any old toys that spark particularly fond memories?
Behind the Willows 