As another year ends....

 Another year is drawing to a close.  As I reflect back on this past year, I realize how much I have changed.  You may not think so, since my appearance is much the same.  Oh, a few more gray hairs and my complexion just a tad more leathery.  My weight remains the same and the hair is still white.  The changes are inside.  The changes are subtle.  I suppose it happens to all of us as we move forward from the cradle to the grave.

I moved into this house in 1982 with Kenny Mercer and my two kids, Sam and Susie.  They were both still in school.  Sam would go on to graduate college.  The kids are both gone.  Kenny has since passed and I remain here on my "Gods little acre."  with 7 geese and a calico cat for company.  The grandson that Kenneth and I adopted together is grown, married and has three  children of his own.

Today was Sunday, December 24.  Yesterday was December 23.  On December 23, 1983 Kenny Mercer and I exchanged our wedding vows in front of retired minister in Canon City, Colorado.  It was 15 degrees below zero.  We topped the ceremony off by enjoying a doughnut at the local donut shop. Susie was in middle school and Sam almost ready for college.

Sadly, I lost Kenny in 2002.  I have spent over half my life in this house.  I look around at where I am in my life journey and wonder how this happened.  It seems like only yesterday that I was surrounded by a vibrant loving family and the token dog and cat.  How many sunburns did I suffer while on a weekend fishing trip?  The children are gone, replaced by grand children and even great grand children.

I set here in my 2400 square foot house with a detached garage and an acre of land and wonder just where this will all end.  I can't sell the house and move into town, because I have 7 geese left from the good old days when I had 17 geese and 47 ducks and a pond.  They have only known this little acre  of mine as their home. 

And if I should move, where do I move to?  Do I go back to Hutchinson, where I have only one sister left?  I have no friends that I have kept in touch with.  Do I  go to Garden City, where I spent many years with my husband who is the father of my kids?  He is since deceased.  Do I go to Lakin where I have one daughter?  Or Longton where I have two daughters.  I have one daughter here and one son.  And one son in Dallas. 

Life would be so much simpler if the good Lord had not given us free will.  We should be born with some kind of handbook on how to do this.  But we weren't so I am stuck.  Guess I will just keep putting one foot in front of the other until one day I just cease to be.  Then it will be someone else's problem, won't it?

Peace!

It was all woman's work!

 I have been over the hill and on the downward slide for many years now and I have learned many things.  The first lesson as a bride at the tender age of 19 was that a woman's job was cooking, cleaning, and figuring out how to budget with no money, because the paycheck never made it past the bar where it was cashed. My first husband was a tree trimmer and as such there were no fringe benefits and of course no insurance of any kind.  No job security because it was also his job to knock on doors and convince the homeowner that their trees needed his expert care and their car payment could wait.  He was good at his job!

It was also known that as "man of the house" he was the only one who knew what the finances were and he would take me to the grocery store and pay for what he thought we needed to survive. This same thought process carried over into the bedroom where birth control was unheard of because after all, his mom had 12 babies.  OK.  Enough said about that!

We were married for 10 years and the first two years were spent with him pointing out to me that I was barren and he wanted a baby.  That was all he wanted, a baby.  Well, actually a son.  He wanted a son.  I was sent to every doctor who had room for another patient and came home with the same verdict, "No reason why you can not get pregnant."  One doctor even hinted that perhaps my husband was sterile and he would like to test his sperm.  That went over like a proverbial "turd in a punch bowl.   So, I gave up.  Bad mistake!  I immediately got pregnant!

 Nine months later I had a daughter.  He had clearly told me he wanted a son and I had ignored him!  Ticked him off royally.  Now, you should know that back in those days, men were not allowed in the delivery room so the best thing to do was drop the old gal off at the front door of the hospital and then call later to see if the wife was still alive and had she had that kid yet.  And most importantly, when could I come home as there were chores needing my attention!  So much for love.

A year and a half later I had a daughter.  

A year  and one month later I had a daughter.

11 months later he finally got a son.  HE.  Not me.  HIM.  Finally I had gotten it through my thick head that he wanted a son.  Silly me!

If I had thought that having a son gave me any status in his eyes, you are sadly mistaken.  Having a son was not all it was cracked up to be because the little boy needed diapers changed and he needed fed with a tiny spoon and a bath and all that was in addition to the needs of the first 3 girls.  So the care of 4 children the oldest of which was 5 years old fell squarely on my shoulders.  He was an "old school" father and his dad never touched him, so he never touched his kids.  I have one picture of him holding Debbie and talk about a man looking out of place!

The marriage survived for ten years total.  There was one more baby, another girl.  Upon divorcing, I got the kids.  He did not pay child support because his reasoning mind said "You have the kids.  I have nothing.  Why should I pay you?  You should pay me!"  And in my co-dependent mind, that all made sense.

Sadly, death called him early.  He was only 50 years old.  I left Kansas in 1973 and have been in Colorado now for over 50 years.  This is my home.  I think sometimes about moving back.  Where is "back"?  Would it be Nickerson where I grew up?  Hutchinson where most of my kids were born?  Or Garden City where they were toddlers and we lived in furnished apartments and drove a car we bought for $35 off a car lot on a side street? 

I look out every morning through my east facing window and think about Kansas.  I see the sun shining brightly and think of "home."  And then in the evening I see the same sun setting across the Rocky Mountains and I smile.  This is home.  This has been home for 50 years and I am sure when God reaches down and pulls the curtain closed on my life he will lift me up, up, up and I will look down at the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and I will know where my home was, is and will forever be!

Always know that when God closes a door, he opens a window!

Peace....

Rest in Peace, Aunt Maudie

In 1960 I met my first husband in Hutchinson, Kansas.  He and 3 of his brothers lived over on 2nd street in a small house beside the foundry.  Virgil was the oldest and he had a wife and 2 sons in Germany, or so I heard.  Delvin was not involved.  The same with Duane and Larry.  Larry was the youngest.  Duane, I married in 1960 and Larry and Maudie married a year later.  At the time the men were working for a man named Bean who owned a tree trimming business.   At some point the men decided that it would be better to move from city to city and trim trees and move on.  So that is what we did.

The next few years are a tad bit hazy in my mind, but I do know Maudie and Larry had a daughter.  When I became pregnant with Debbie we decided that we should settle down and be more stable, so we decided on Hutchinson.  Soon after I had Debbie, the men decided they wanted to move to Garden City.  Maudie's family was there and her daughter was now 1 one year old.  So the Seeger families moved west.  And then came the fruitful years where we had our babies and filled our families.

Maudie and I remained friends and sister-in-laws through the years.  Sometimes we were not in touch, but sometimes we were.  Our kids spent their youngest years as cousins and remain cousins to this day.  I am still Aunt Louella.  This makes a long story short.

Having given  you a bit of a background, I now want to say to the family, I am so sorry for your loss.  Your mother was a unique individual and I regret that I never stayed in closer touch with her, but know I will always remember our younger days together.  Your mother was a unique individual!  I will never think of "Aunt Maudie" wearing her hair in anything but a "bee hive" and know that her bee hive was always the highest and fullest bee hive that could be achieved.  I do not know when she changed her hair style, but I am sure she did.

Maudie was a very strong willed woman and I am sure that never changed.  I admired most the marriage she had with your father, "Uncle Larry."  They remained together through thick and thin and back in the early days, there were a lot of "thin" days.  Family was very important to her and I am sure that she was important to her family.

The Maudie I knew surely mellowed over the years.  There are stories I could tell that would curl your hair, but I shall keep those and only take them out and look at them from time to time.

So mourn your loss and then get back to the business of living, because that is what we all must do.  I shall mourn the young woman with the high, high beehive and the red fingernails.

God be with you at this time.

Aunt Lou

A three day vacation complete in 3 minutes or less!

I love these slide shows.  I can take the pictures in 6 minutes, download them to the computer in 1 1/2 minutes, and spend three days trying to find them and another day and a half getting them into an album, which is immediately lost, and when found is accessible only to the man over on County Farm Road.  But now you see it. Gotta love technology!
So the vacation began on Saturday and Sunday morning was the Garden City Pool which was not open, followed by the Richardson Zoo which was not open either.  Lot of planning went into this vacation! 
Dodge City proved a little better.  First the Casino and the camera stayed in the car.  Then Boot Hill then off to Hutchinson.  Hutchinson is always the visiting place so first to Donna and Karen's, then off to Skaets to test out the Moon Burger.  Never made a trip without bringing one of those back in my tummy!
Now I do need to interject something here!  Usually a trip to Hutch the end of July is very miserable weather-wise.  Such was not the case this time.   It was cool.  Course it rained buckets, which I thought was wonderful, but it does make dashing some where on foot a little tricky.  And since driving in rain is a trick itself and something you forget how to do living here in Colorado, a lot of time was spent in the parking lot.
But Monday I met cousin Daryle at McDonalds for breakfast.  Donna and I dropped in to see Dorothy and Joyce.  Michelle, who had chosen the time so we could meet her fiancée, was a no show.  Then drove to South Main to check on cousin Stephen, who was not at work.  I wanted to walk the riverwalk, but then again was the deluge so I gave that up.  I did find Evelyn and Kay at home, so that was good.  Karen made Ham Steaks for supper and then it was veg time in front of the television.
Tuesday was breakfast at Skaets with Daryle.  Then back to Smith's to see Stephen.  Lack of rain let me take a quick trip along the river walk which is coming along nicely and is very well maintained, although I do not understand that one painting on the side of that building.  Before the highlight of my trip, I did get a quick visit in with Sharon Jackson, whom I had not seen in over 35 years.  She looks the same as the last time I seen her, but then so do I!
At 12:30 I was back at Skaets for the rendezvous with cousin Sandy and My Favorite Republican!  Did not have the camera for that either, but I do have him and I on my phone as wallpaper.  Every time I look, there he is and it makes me laugh.  We discussed politics for 2 1/2 hours and never once did we get into an argument.  As you can imagine in a Bible Belt state. the majority in the Kansas government is Republican, but as I found out, they are a different breed of Republican.  A Democrat can actually get a bill passed if it is the right thing to do.  He was having a little problem with the gay stuff until I explained to him my thoughts. 
"When my husband died, I received benefits for my son from Social Security.  Two weeks later my friend David passed leaving his partner with two kids and one paycheck and no insurance.  Is that fair?"  You should have seen his little brow furrow and the wheels turned.  "I never thought of that!  It is about families, isn't it?  That is what we are missing!"
And that, my friends made the whole trip worth it.  I am confident that he will convey to his constituents our conversation and if any of them are like minded, which I am sure they are,  we will see good stuff come out of the state house in Kansas.   I bid my friends a fond farewell until next time and drove out to the Nature Center, then through Carey Park and back to the house where popcorn and game shows awaited my attention.
Glad I went?  Sure I am.  Glad I am home?  Of course.  And of course I hurried to the kennel to pick up the dogs.  "Here are two leashes and here are 2 dogs.  Sorry, but they ate their pillow!"  I think they were pissy at me.  What do you think?

Sister Patty and her little brood, or some of them.

Here is sister Patty and if you look at the last picture down at the bottom, you will find her husband Bill.  I had him up here, but he jumped back down there.  Guess he wants to be the last in line. 

Now Patty is my second child.  Debbie was the first.  Patty lives in Western Kansas in a very small town.  Well, not in town, per se, but out in the country on the other side of the river.  She is retired from the library in that little town.  Bill works some where driving a truck.  He is usually home at night and if not Patty is where he is located.

 

This is Patty and her brother, Sam.  This was taken last week while Sam was here on his way back to Dallas, Texas.  We had a nice little family reunion.  The only one not here was Debbie, and that is just too far to drive to sleep on the floor!

Patty's hobbies are all art related.  She did all the art work for the Library when she was there.  Even designed their tee shirts.  She also is very accomplished in cross stitch.  I have several charcoal drawings and they are of professional quality.  She sure did not inherit that from my genes!

This is her oldest grandson, Javan.  He is a pistol and smart as a whip.  He was born out here in Colorado, so he is a transplant back to Kansas.  Seems to have taken root rather well!

And this is the little Kaison.  He is such a serious little fellow.  But he does love his granny Patty and his Grandma Lou.  Not to say that Javan does not, just that Kaison is a lot more demonstrative.  Kaison usually shuts his eyes at the exact moment the flash goes off, but I got lucky this time.  Might be because he loves his Uncle Sammy!

Here is the mother of the children and Patty's oldest daughter, September.  She and her kids and beloved live in Western Kansas, near Patty.  She has just completed her Master's Degree and is thinking about going for something else.  Doctorate?  I do not know.  I was lucky to make it though the college I took.  She is smart and gets on the Dean's list, and I know she got that from me!  Woohoo!  See that bear?  I made that for my dear husband who was a trucker.

And here is Patty's youngest daughter.  This one is my little Indian, Savannah. She and her chosen one live farther away so we do not see her that often.  They have one daughter to whom Vanny is a step mother.  If I ever had a step mother I would want her to be like Vanny as opposed to that witch Cinderella got...

Ok, now I am down here where Bill is supposed to be and that rascal has ran off again.  Ok, I got him again!  I better get this published before he gets away again!  He is not in the habit of taking off, just that he does not like to be seen online and in print.  A very hard working man and one of my favorite son-in-laws.  That is saying a lot since I only have 2. 

That is it for today.  Next time you meet a family member it will be my middle daughter.  Well, middle child and she is not that anymore.  I adopted one later so she lost her place in line. 

But there you have it from Western Kansas, near Garden City, and the one place I lived that was hotter than hell.  Well, maybe not, but 110-115 degrees was nothing unusual.  I had 3 kids while I was there.  Fond memories.