Moveable Type tells me that my last entry was May 7th. This has been one of those weeks where my blog and a number of fun things have been put on the back burner while I attended to things for my Mother’s estate, and other obligations.
I’m happy to tell you that both the egrets and herons have returned. I’m not seeing them in huge numbers, but I’ve seen an egret a day for at least two weeks, and I finally saw a heron this week. Mother and I used to watch for these beautiful birds as we drove to exercise, and I find I’m still checking out the retention ponds for a glimpse of these beauties.
In 1981 I went to stay with my parents for what I thought would be a brief summer visit, that turned into a year and a half stay. When I graduated from college, my parents and youngest sister moved from northern Illinois to far southwestern Missouri, to Table Rock Lake. My visits to them were during the summer so I had never seen the hills filled with the blooms of serviceberry and dogwood. The area is hilly, and the roads twist around, and you need to pay attention to your driving.
My eyes were drawn to the beauty of those blooming trees, and more than once I came closer to the edge of the road than I should have. It’s much like those days, watching for the egrets and herons, but at least the road is straight. Now I just need to worry about cars coming up behind me, wondering about my strange driving.
OUr spring has been mostly gray and wet, except for two unbelievably hot days this week. We made a new record in the Chicago area in the upper nineties on Wednesday. Thursday was almost as hot, but the weekend is thirty to forty degrees cooler. It will be one of those years where spring is missing for the most part, and we go from late winter into summer with no preparation. I don’t mind the cool, rainy weather, but I really need to get into my gardens!
I hope you are all faring well, high and dry if you are in the areas with too much water, and able to find a cool spot if you are in the heat Enjoy this day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it. 🙂

I noticed that the word of the day is “serviette.” I know this word, but I generally don’t use it.
My mother and my aunt were big on linens. When my aunt closed her house, preparing to move to an assisted living facility, she had loads of linens to share with us. She no longer needed so many and wanted to pass on to the family things that my grandparents and she had loved and used over the years. I have antimacassars, doilies, serviettes, dish cloths, pillow cases and I think there may even be some sheets.
As a general rule, most of my generation lives a much more casual lifestyle. We don’t use napkins that need to be ironed every day, and I rarely use the wash and wear napkins. We’re much more likely to grab a paper napkin. But, I can’t bring myself to throw or give these things away.
This Easter I let myself be persuaded that we should not use the china and linens. It actually made things easier on everyone. No one had to be chained to the kitchen sink to wash the china, and I didn’t have to press napkins for everyone. But it sure seems a shame to own all these lovely things and not use them.
I think Mother’s Day would be the perfect day to use the serviettes. Can’t you see a table set with beautiful antique linens, china and crystal? I was planning to make grilled cheese, but perhaps I can put together a simple but elegant meal to do justice to the setting! *G*

Shelly Tucker, the originator of Share a Square, has announced that she has enough squares for this year! YEA!! She has put out the call for enough donated 6″ crocheted squares to make 150 afghans, each having 80 squares. Do the math….that’s 1200 squares! People have been generous, and she reached her goal for this year.
Once the squares started coming in, Shelly organized people to assemble them into afghans. One of my friends and I have each done one for her, and last week she sent us two more to be done. Now that we are past the preparations for Easter, I should be able to sit each night and work on this project.
If you crochet, or know someone who crochets, please click on the link at the top of my blog, and it will take you to the FAQ page for Share a Square. Shelly is going to do another year of afghans, starting this August. If you want to participate, you could begin crocheting now, but be sure to read through the requirements before you start.
Size is important. Your block needs to be SIX INCHES. Please leave a 12″ tail off the corner of your block when you finish the last row. Crocheted blocks only (no knitted ones…they stretch too much). Worsted weight yarn. I know there are a few more guidelines, so be sure to take a look.
Hold your squares until Shelly puts out the call, and then you can send them to the address listed on the FAQ page. If you are on Facebook, you can join Share a Square to keep up on the news for the group.
And…..if you can’t contribute squares, you might consider donating cash to cover Shelly’s expenses. These afghans go to kids who are participating in Cancer Camp in Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. It’s a really good cause. Help us out, won’t you?

Normally this time of year Dear Husband and I make a trip to Indiana to celebrate my youngest sister’s birthday. It’s rather odd….we drive down and act like couch potatoes, and she slaves over meals for us, and finds great ways to entertain us. It seems backward to me. SHE should be the one we are waiting on.
This year, it was a bit odder still. She packed up her 20-something daughters, their boyfriends, her husband, the dog and half the house and came to us for a short weekend. We met at Portillo’s for lunch on Saturday, and then spent a couple of quiet hours catching up and settling in. Sis organized a pizza order and she and DH went off to pick it up, While they were away, I began baking Vernice Kastman rolls for Easter dinner.
After dinner, DH put together his famous lasagna, which is offered at every holiday gathering in this house. Sis did dishes as fast as we got them dirty, and had things pretty well under control by the time we older four decided it was time for bed. The kids were awake for hours more, but the rest of us knew that we needed to get enough rest to make it through the next day.
Sunday morning Sis was up to walk the dog, and I caught up with her around 7:00 a.m. I made an egg casserole, and set out cereal, fruit, fruit juice and bagels. One of the boys told me that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had breakfast, but that didn’t stop him from eating it! Sis prepared crudites, and my step-daughter arrived with her spinach dip.
My-Sister-The-Nurse brought most of her family to join us on Sunday. She arrived around noon bearing two hams, a roaster filled with funeral potatoes, a vat of pickled eggs and beets, and assorted other goodies. I made cauliflower with browned bread crumbs, roasted sweet potatoes, tiny French green beans, bread pudding and a pan variation on S’Mores. My brother in law made a dark fudge cake, and my nieces brought green bean casserole, corn, and raspberry pretzel salad. By the time we added DH’s lasagna, and his Caesar salad, the island was almost overwhelmed! I’m still stuffed…….and so is my refrigerator!
I love these family gatherings. I like having the chance to talk to my relatives, I like seeing how the little ones have grown. We’ll have some wonderful pictures to share soon. My next to youngest niece is a superb photographer and she took wonderful pictures of the littlest members of the family, hamming it up and in repose. She will send some of them to me, and I’ll try to post a few of them here.
MSTN and her daughter washed the dishes for me. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. This year they FINALLY talked me into using plastic plates and cups. We put the glasses in the dishwasher and they washed silverware and serving pieces. I kept trying to help, but they kept saying, “GO SIT DOWN!!!”
Frankie and her family were the first to leave, because they had to return to central Indiana. Two loads of cars went to Frankie’s home, and then the girls and their boyfriends reorganized their things and drove on to their respective universities. Both the girls had work to be turned in on Monday so I know that it was difficult for them to devote those two days to us, but I’m so glad they did.
And Frankie’s birthday celebration…? It will be a little quieter this year than most, but I think she made up for it this weekend. Although she’s not posting at the moment, I hope that she will post this summer and tell you about her return to “throwing pots.” She’s quite the artist, and it contemplating a new career in clay. (Besides, she nags ME to post….she should TOO!!)
So, I hope your weekend, and your Easter celebration was as wonderful as ours. If you find yourself alone for a holiday in the future, join us here. We love visitors!

My sister pointed out to me that I had not posted in some time. It’s been a busy spring, despite the fact that it hasn’t seemed warm enough to get out into the gardens. We’re getting ready to host about 25 people for Easter dinner. I’ve been cleaning and sewing, reorganizing spaces, and today I caught up with some of my paperwork.
Read on, to see what else has been going on the past few weeks.

My youngest sister is a teacher, and last week she was on Spring Break. Each day she posted how she had chosen to use the day and everyone sounded envious of all the fun she was having. She came to visit us and rather than get some much needed work done on our Mother’s things, we vegged out on Friday. I know I’ll regret that, but it was really nice to be a sloth, and visit and chat and snooze and eat. It turns out we were charging up for Saturday.
Saturday morning we met our oldest sister and we spent the day shopping in a four by three block area of Naperville. It started with dropping off knives to be sharpened, then we browsed our way through Penzy’s Spices, Barnes and Noble, a new tea shop, and a boutique before walking back to have lunch at Hugo’s Frog Bar. Luckily the cars were just across the street, so we left the morning’s round of purchases in the cars before going to lunch.
Lunch was to die for! Our waiter was perfect. He had the answers to a multitude of questions and was present when needed, otherwise unobtrusive. We ordered fish tacos, seared scallops and a jumbo lump crab cake, and all three of us were totally happy with the meal. I enjoyed it so much that I told Dear Husband that we needed to plan a lunch-time visit so that he could enjoy it too. (I had the crabcake!) (With a heavenly remoulade)
We had a loose list of other shops to visit. Sur La Table was right next door, so we started there. I bought an immersion blender that I had been coveting for some time. Chico’s was next, followed by Eddie Bauer. Since we were right there, we paused for tea at Starbuck’s, and stopped at Anderson’s Book Store as we worked our way back toward the cars. The list doesn’t seem terribly long, but we spent SEVEN HOURS together. I was absolutely astonished. I don’t think I have ever shopped that long before, but the company was so totally entertaining that I never realized how much time had passed.
While we sat at Starbuck’s my techie little sister took out her phone so that we could make a list of what we needed for Easter, and had the menu planned in no time flat. We thought of one more of Mother’s quirky sayings, and that went into the phone, too! And while we were in Sur La Table, she opened an app to try to find out what music they were playing. Those phones are scary, ya know?!
I hated having to say goodbye to our oldest sister. I think Saturday may go down as one of the best days I’ve ever had. My youngest sister stayed a second night with us, but by morning, she was thinking about all she needed to get done before school resumed today, and she was on the road before 11:00. We are a family that worries, so she called as she got to the outskirts of her home town, to let us know that the trip had gone well.
Both my sisters and their families will join my family for Easter. We are all conscious of needing to store up memories. We can only hope that Easter Sunday will be as wonderful a day as Saturday was. Perhaps we will be able to share that wonderful sense of community with our children and grandchildren.

We have had the oddest problem in the main bathroom. We thought that condensation from the upstairs bathroom pipes was dripping onto the ceiling drywall. Eventually it became so bad that the wallpaper began sliding off the wall! At that point, I nagged Dear Husband and Second Son into checking it out, to determine if we needed a plumber or whether we could do the repairs on our own.
It turns out that the medallion behind the handle of the upstairs shower was coming unscrewed from the fiberglass shower wall. When SS would shower, he’d splash water on the wall and it would slide behind the medallion and soak the ceiling. We might not have discovered the truth of it, if the ceiling had not been opened, but when we saw the volume of water that covered the counter, potty and floor in the lower bathroom, we knew that more sleuthing was needed.
Dear Husband seriously caulked behind the medallion, and pushed it back into place, removing the excess caulk that squeezed out. He tightened the screws to re-secure the medallion to the wall, and then they did the shower test. No drips. A second test the next day. No drips! YEA!!!
Today, my favorite contractor, our painter, came to strip the wallpaper, close the ceiling, and spackle rough spots. Tomorrow he will paint, and hopefully, our bathroom problems have come to an end.

I have egg on my face in a major way!
Today, I received an e-mail from a friend about children of Congressmen not having to pay back student loans. I had just been listening to a local radio program where the speaker was talking about how much it costs to send students to various colleges for four years. The cost is astonishing! Moderate expenses might be $60,000 or so for room and board and tuition. Most private schools are much more expensive than that for four years. The students or their parents are left with huge loans that have to be repaid, and a years worth of some of the payments could be the equivalent of buying a brand new car for cash each year!
At any rate, I read the opening of this e-mail and saw red. I hit forward, added a personal message, and then sent it to almost everyone in my address book. (Those who live outside the US were spared, as were business contacts.)
So, I started to post the message here, and found myself writing “If the item about not having to pay back student loans is true…” I hadn’t checked. Drat! I’m always the one who gently tells friends that they should check with Snopes before sending on rabel-rousing e-mails. So I checked, and sure enough, most of it was false.
I HATE making an error of that magnitude. The only good thing that might come out of it is that I’m bound to hear from a lot of people I haven’t talked with for a while. Of course, they will be writing to tell me that they forwarded it BEFORE they read my mea culpa.
For the record, I think an amendment requiring Congress to operate under the same rules as everyone else in the United States is a good thing. They should be required to participate in Social Security, Medicare, and the health care reforms, and they should earn MODEST pensions based on years of service. If there’s a grassroots movement out there to accomplish this, I’m all for it!
And for the record, I’ll be more careful about what I pass on in the future.
Mea culpa!