Moments To Remember

I have mentioned how messes raise my anxiety levels. When the kids are playing in slime, or with play dough, or painting I am anxiously awaiting the mess.

They have a sandbox that they love to play in. Naturally, the sand winds up on the side porch, in their shoes, on the driveway, in the road, and in their hair. My wife, Sam, decided that they needed a “Mud Kitchen.” The idea is that they can make mud pies, etc…

Andrew and my father-in-law built the frame out of scrap wood. I ran up to the store to get bags of top soil to fill the frame. My wife went to the dollar store and bought containers, bowls, spoons and such so they could play in it. At first it wasn’t so bad. They the added some water.

They had mud all over themselves. I had to spray them down with the hose before I could even let them inside the house. I know that someday soon I will put on a shoe that will be filled with topsoil – or mud!

Mother’s Day was full of surprises, even if my wife had to sleep through it, because she worked the night before. Ella brought her home a flower from preschool for her. She was so happy to give it to mommy.

The kids and I had to run out to Home Depot on Saturday (more on why in a paragraph or two). While we were there we walked through the garden area. Andrew saw a hanging flower/plant that he though mom would like, so we bought it and actually got to hang it from the shepherd’s hook in the yard.

Sam has always loved gnomes. For her birthday one year I bought her a birdbath with a gnome sitting in front of a mushroom. The mushroom stem goes up to hold the mushroom top, which is the actual bath for the birds. There was a cute gnome that had mushrooms rising up around him that light up at night. So we bought that to put by the birdbath.

Earlier in the week, our dryer stopped spinning. It made noise when you turned it on like it wanted to spin, but it didn’t. After Googling, all the sites pointed to a broken belt broken pulley or a bad roller. I ordered a kit online and after watching YouTube, decided I could do this job myself.

The first thing I had to do was shut off the gas. So I went downstairs and found the only shut off valve I could find.

After I turned that off, I went upstairs to disconnect the hose from the dryer. As soon as the nut was loosened, I could hear the gas pouring out of the hose. It took me a bit to get it back on, and now the entire house smelled like gas.

It took me almost an hour of following pipes around looking for another shut off valve. There is a space right above the furnace that is like a dark hole. There is no light up there, and it is such an odd place for a valve, but it was the only place I hadn’t checked. After getting up and in a position where I could shine the flashlight, sure enough, there it was!

I watched step by step and did exactly what the video showed me to do. I kid you not, I almost had the dryer completely taken apart for this job. I pulled the drum and checked the belt, which looked ok. I looked at all four rollers and they looked ok, too. The pulley for the belt looked like it might be going bad, so I thought maybe that was the culprit.

After replacing the belt, the rollers and the pulley, I watched the video on how to put it back together. Once it was together, it was time for the moment of truth. I turned on the power and selected a cycle. I hit start and ….. it was still making the noise and still not spinning. I was devastated. I truly thought that I could fix it.

Monday after we dropped Ella off at school, Andrew asked if I wanted to take a walk. I was thrilled that he wanted to do that! We walked the entire neighborhood and he talked almost the entire way. He asked questions, pointed out dogs, talked about which cars were the same colors as ours, and watched squirrels run around.

It was a highlight of the day.

Tuesday, Ella had her first T-Ball game. I’m going to have to find days to take off so I can watch her play. Sam says she is like a different player this year. She is hitting pitches that the coaches pitch and catching/fielding balls like crazy. I’m thankful for mommy taking pictures for me.

Yesterday was one long list of things to do. My wife and kids were out almost all day doing something. When they got home they all went to bed.

This morning, Andrew had an early doctor appointment. It was close to where I work. So Sam suggested that before this work training meeting I had to be at meeting at a park. There is one about 2-3 miles from work. Ella and I met Andrew and mom there. The kids got to run and play with new friends and Sam and I got a little time to sit and enjoy each other’s company.

Being stuck at work is not the way I wanted to spend my birthday, but at least this morning I got to be with some of the most important people in my life!

A Morning Spring Walk

I’ve been struggling with a few things lately. I decided to listen to my own advice and take a step back and look around and appreciate the little things. So this past week, I put Ella in her stroller and we took a 2 and a half mile walk around the neighborhood.

She loves going for a walk and it was very beneficial for me as well. The first thing I did was focus on the sounds of spring, which were all around us as I walked!

The Sounds

As I was putting Ella in her stroller, the sounds of the birds singing rang loudly in my ears.

As I listened to them, I could here the songs of different types of birds. One, in particular, reminded me of early mornings in Caseville. I remember walking out of grandma’s trailer and hearing this one particular bird sound. Funny how you can remember that almost 40 years later.

At one point during our walk, the church bells began to chime.

It is not odd to hear the church bells/chimes begin to play hymns during the day. I recognized the hymn as being Blessed Assurance.

The weather was nice, so naturally, some neighbors were out mowing the grass.

This allowed me to experience not only the sounds of the lawnmower, but the smell of fresh cut grass.

There were also plenty of neighbors out working in the garage. I loved walking by and hearing the sounds of a small radio playing from inside the garage.

I remember my dad always had the radio on when we were outside on the weekends. If he was washing the car, working on the yard, painting, cleaning the garage, or fixing something – the radio was always on. I remember many Sundays listening to Casey Kasem and American Top 40 while we helped outside.

The Sights

Along with the sounds of spring, there were plenty of sights, too!

Ella always gets a kick out of the squirrels running up a tree or around a yard.

There are plenty of squirrels in the neighborhood – and many that run around my yard!

The Robin is the Michigan State Bird. We always look for the “first robin of spring.” They are all over now. They were hopping all around the yards and bird feeders we see along our route.

Along the way, we also saw many neighbors out doing yard work.

I truly wish that I had the time and energy to do what some of my neighbors do! I’m lucky if I get the leaves out of the flowerbeds by late summer! It is SO much work! Yet, there are neighbors who line their walkways with tulips, fill their flower beds with every flower imaginable, and have hanging flowers that are beautiful all spring and summer long! We bought hanging plants one year and they died within two weeks. I obviously do not have a green thumb.

Kudos to my neighbors! I love looking at the product of your hard work when I walk.

There is one house I always walk by with Ella. I do it because there is always this old hound dog outside.

The dog is either laying along the fence or up on the back porch. It always looks up when we walk by, but it is old and content to just lay there soaking up the sun. We have no idea what the dog’s name is, but she gets a kick out of seeing that dog on our walk.

Sadly, the dog is really old and I’m not sure how many more walks we will be seeing him/her out there.

The last thing I really enjoy seeing when I am out walking is people sitting out on the front porch. I’m not sure why more people don’t do this, but it seems to be more and more rare.

Before Ella, we would sit out on the porch in the morning and drink coffee. That doesn’t happen too much anymore. There is something about sitting out with a hot cup of coffee, my Bible, or a newspaper that is so relaxing. I don’t need a rocking chair, any chair will do.

I guess the only beef I have with sitting on the porch lately is the recent increase in the number of bees and wasps. I’ve walked around the house and looked to see if there are nests, but I can’t seem to find any. I read somewhere that peppermint oil will repel them. Maybe I need to find a way to put that around the porch?

The walk around the neighborhood really helped me relax. Noticing the sights and sounds instead of being lost in thought was a big part of that. I’m looking forward to my next walk …