Thanks giving...two

My 20th birthday

In continuing to write throughout the month of November about things I am thankful for, I have to extend my thanks to my husband, Jim, who has lived with me and put up with my quirks for more than 30 years. How is it that when you are a teen you think life is going so slow and then you get to your later years and realize that you have been out of your parents home (hopefully) longer than you were in and the people around you now know you better than anyone you lived with those first 18 - 20+ years?

July 10, 1976

Jim and I met at his dad's automotive garage when a friend introduced us. As I got to know him, what I saw in him was stability. Jim was much more mature than most of the guys I had dated. He didn't drink, do drugs or sleep around. He was a homebody who respected his parents, held a steady job, saved his money and was very detail oriented. While he did not go to college, he had mechanical mind that could plan and complete anything he set out to build or fix. As a teen, he built his own race car and drag raced for several years. He helped his dad in the family business and did small engine repair. He remodeled his parent's home and helped with many maintenance repairs. He wasn't flighty or unsettled as most my male friends at the time. Eventually he worked for more than 25 years as a Mechanical Engineer.

We got to know each other through many long talks in his dad's or my car into the wee hours of the morning. At his father's urging he took me out to eat, the movies or camping. Eventually we moved in together and a short time later married and started our family.

We have raised three great sons and are now enjoying a renewed relationship with each as the kids have moved out of our home.

Christmas at Mom Muller's with Rick 1977

To some we appear to be polar opposites. While I like to be organized, I do put limits on it. Jim is more of a neatnik and kiddingly says he has had to lower his standard while living with me! I like to plan long range, he likes to tackle things closer to the date -- but not spontaneously. While I tend to jump into things, he tends to think things through and hold back until he has thoroughly researched them. These attributes of our personality, while causing some bones of contention through the years, have also helped give balance to our lives. Sure we struggled through some disagreements, but we have also come together when the time to be united was necessary.

I am luckier than most in that Jim has provided for us and given a firm foundation to build our family on, yet wings to fly off and do my own thing. If he didn't want to participate in projects or causes I was interested in, he never stopped me from doing what I wanted to do. That's not to say he didn't suggest curbing some ideas when he thought I may not have considered all the consequences at times. I, on the other hand, helped him to try new things and go places he had never been before even though he may never have done them on his own.

Christmas 1982 with Baby Aaron

He has also been a great dad to our three sons.

Coaster car built by Jim & the boys.

Aaron's hernia surgery - Age 2

This was another area we balanced each other out. Because I was home with the boys more, I tended to be the disciplinarian. I was the main teacher when home schooling and I was the one who handled the bulk of the challenges that came along. But when I needed him he was there.

One of our last gatherings with boys at home.

Today we are working on being a couple once again. We greatly miss our kids since they have moved out of the home and out of the state! We try to make it a priority to spend our vacations with them as much as possible, but we have also learned that we do need respites with just the two of us.

Grandpa learning one of Elijah's new gizmos.

While we are both challenging to live with, we have hung in there through life's changes. It is said that marriage is work and we both would heartily agree. Marriage is also forgiveness and compromise. Some say marriage is the giving up of yourself for another. Personally I do not agree with that, nor do I believe marriage is 50/50. Marriage is more like an ocean current with some nice calm areas in it. If you do anything to bring something new into the relationship, you cause ripples, waves or unfortunately, crashing waves that create some hard knocks. Once you learn your way through the change, you have calm -- until the next pebble or rock is dropped in. So when you marry, purchase a home, get new job, have children, even bring a pet into the home or decide to follow a particular faith, you both have to work through the resulting ripples. This means bringing two personalities together to a place you can both live in harmony. That's the work of marriage. Not one losing oneself for the other. Or one compromising all they are to keep peace. It's more give and take. Currently, we have grandchildren in the picture, which is a very happy ripple for us to sail together on!

I am grateful for a husband who is willing to WORK through all the choices, changes and challenges our life together brings to us. Thank you, Jim, for sailing with me and keeping us on course. I look forward to many more years together sharing our past experiences and making new memories. 

Many a man claims to have unfailing love, but a faithful man who can find?  The righteous man leads a blameless life; blessed are his children after him. Proverbs 20:6-7

Thanks giving...

A friend of mine, started a tradition a couple of year's ago to blog throughout the month of November on things she is grateful for. She calls it, "Taking back November" you can check it out at Sandy's blog and go to her November postings. It reminded me of years ago when Oprah did a period of shows based on the book, Simple Abundance, and I was encouraged to start a thankfulness journal.

Each Thanksgiving causes me -- as well as you, probably -- to reflect on all that we are thankful for. While I would love to write something each day in November as Sandy is doing, I can't find the time to squeeze in a blog each day when I have so much going on. So as I think of it and get the time, I will do as many as I can.

Two of the most important people that I am grateful for in my life were my parents.

Charles & Philippa Muller

While they weren't perfect parents (who has those???) they did the best they could raising seven kids with little money. Dad worked full time whenever and wherever he could get it so Mom could stay home to raise us.

What Mom and Dad did instill in each of us is a responsibility to work and provide for ourselves. I often hear the Japanese or Chinese accredited with "a great work ethic." Looking at my brothers and sisters, I have to say all of us have come away with a great work ethic.  Our parents did not shower us with everything we wanted and this instilled in us an eagerness to get out and earn our own money so WE could purchase what we wanted. It also taught us to respect our belongings because we really did have to earn them. All of us learned to work and never expected others to provide for us. In fact, we were taught to provide for those less fortunate than ourselves as well.

We also learned to serve others without receiving anything in return. Dad was a volunteer fireman. Mom and Dad were volunteer ambulance drivers and EMTs. If a family was in need, we were all asked to give up our toys, our clothes or our bedding to help those that lost them in a fire. Meals were provided or we had families over for dinner.

Dad worked many jobs to provide for our family. Here he is on the turkey farm with my cousin, Edwin.

I wasn't born yet when he did this, but I have heard stories from my brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, I believe it all ended when the turkey coops flooded and the turkeys all drowned. Dad also worked as carpenter, plumber, cement plant worker and many other jobs to provide for his family. We raised sheep, pigs, chickens, goats and even a bull at one time. I assume these were to provide food and money as I remember shearing the sheep's wool and selling it.

Mom was a stay-at-home mom until I was in my teens. She used to babysit for other families, sew clothing for a woman in town, clean houses and eventually worked in the school cafeteria to provide a means to get by.

Mom and Dad moved to West Shokan from the city -- Woodhaven and Ozone Park in New York. Dad had an acoholic father, so he never drank anything stronger than orange soda most of my life. He would taste champagne at special occasions, but I never knew him to have a glass of beer or wine.

Neither of my parents smoked during my early years growing up. My mom socially smoked in my high school years and I used to tease her that she was caving in to peer pressure.

My younger brother and I came along eight years after the first five so our parents were a bit spent by the time we came along.

Mom and Dad were not overly affectionate with any of us but we knew we were loved. We were provided for and we were taught to value life, honor our elders, respect those in authority over us, and to always be ready to help someone in need.

Those values have carried on throughout our family and probably are responsible for the successful lives we lead. By no means are any of us perfect, nor do we live perfect lives, but we try to do our part to make the world a little better for those both in it and who come behind us without asking for anything in return.

I remember at my dad's funeral, my Uncle George sharing with everyone that "Charlie raised a great bunch of kids and that he would be proud of each of them." I was proud of that statement at the time it was said and I am sure Mom and Dad are both proud of each of us.

For a mom and dad who stuck it out through thick and thin....I am thankful.
______________________________________________________

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

Exodus 20:12 (King James Version)

Hallo Weening

I am not a big fan of celebrating Halloween. Yes, I loved Trick or Treating when I was a kid. Mostly I liked the creativity in making my own costumes. Oh yeah, I LOVED the candy too! I can remember my brother Rick and I scattering our goodies all over the living room floor and swapping for our favorites.

Let me see... I remember being a witch once. My mother made me a costume out of black paper that looked really cool! All the fringe would blow around as I moved. What wasn't cool, was that it rained that year and I came home covered in black streaks. But the candy was worth it.

I also made a costume once using one of my mother's old fur coats. (Hmmm, I think it is at least two bears atm!) I was a cat and I used a hanger covered in a tube of fur that I actually sewed together. It was a pain, because the tail kept swinging around the front or drooping on the ground. Then there was the year I tried to duplicate my older brother's costume of a scarecrow. The broom stick on my shoulders didn't go through doors too well. How did he do that???

In the non-creative years, I was a hobo and just covered my face with burnt cork. I was a teen by this time and just wanted the excuse to run around at night and get the candy. Oh, but one year my best friend Ann and I did ourselves up based on the current James Bond movie that was at the theater. I can't remember if it was Live and Let Die. We blackened our faces on one side and put white make-up on the other. Halloween fell on a Saturday night and her mom insisted we go to mass before she would let us trick or treat so we decided to have fun with it. We went to church in costume. All through the service we would either turn our faces toward each other or away from each other every time the priest looked up so he would either see our black side or our white side. We could hardly contain our laughter....I have no idea what the sermon was on that night, but we had done what we were told!


Then... I had kids.

Bryan in an early costume (I dread this one, today)

Bryan was 10 months old and crawling on his first Halloween. I put him in his brown footsie pajamas and tacked on a cotton wad tail and he was my little bunny that first year. The next year I took a pillowcase and cut a three holes in it and slipped it over his head and pulled his arms through; cut him a rope belt and folded another pillowcase for his hood and, wallah, he was a monk. (Too bad the only pillowcases I had were pink!)

Aaron as his favorite character.
He still loves cats!

The best costumes I made were the Garfield cat for Aaron
and the Clown costume that was worn by both Bryan and Aaron and Dan's train Engineer that I just had to put together.

Dan our Engineer loved trains.
We have no idea what the finger signals mean.

Private Dan in PJ's

Other times, pajamas helped!

In Glasco, where the boys grew up, the children didn't go door to door Trick or Treating. We found this out the first year we went around. Everyone still gave out candy, but they all mentioned that there was a party at the firehouse for the kids to do instead. So the next year we headed for the firehouse to check it out. There were lots of people, lots of donuts, and lots of kids milling around in costume. No games! No contests! Then they announced the parade would begin. These poor kids walked around in a circle numerous times so "judges" could pick the winners for the most creative, cutest, scariest, or whatever category they decided on. Then the kids won silver dollars or fifty-cent pieces. I don't know if they have changed it over the years, because we never went back. This was too lame compared to the parties we had when I was a kid, so we headed to other neighborhoods to find our treats.

I recall just a few challenges at our parties were: bobbing for apples, eating a donut off a string hanging from the ceiling with your hands behind your back, balloon on a spoon races, sitting on a balloon to try and pop it. Aaah, so much fun! I don't remember the prizes, but I am sure they were more in line with what kids want.

In later years, I wanted to get away from the demonic side of the celebration and started a Fall Family Festival at our church. I had so much fun creating various rooms for the different age groups to have an age appropriate challenge where they could win fun prizes. Sure we had tons of cupcakes, cookies (and donuts) and cider, no fall festival would be complete without them.

I created a Feely Meely House out of a refrigerator box and cut out special doors that you could reach in and feel sheep eyeballs (peeled grapes), monster brains (tripe), and all kinds of other ewwie, gooie stuff. All the attenders were asked to dress up -- but not in scary costumes.

I too, dressed up, once as a Geisha girl (complete with chopsticks in my blackened hair) and once as a Teen of the Times, with baggy jeans, t-shirt, flannel shirt, work-boots and a ring in my nose. Did I mention I was the church secretary at the time? The kids kept asking me, "Mrs. Bell, is that real?" to which I replied, "Of course it is!" Then my boss -- a.k.a. pastor of the church -- caught sight of me and said, "Please tell me that isn't real." to which I winked and said, "Yeahahahahahah!" What fun we all had during these festivities. The entry fee to get in was  bag of candy and we made up gift bags for everyone to take home. It was a wonderful safe alternative to the sinister (or boring) Halloween celebrations.

Elijah following in his father's footsteps!

Nowadays I may go to my sister's house or a friend's to hand out candy and see what characters come by.

We live too far from our grandson's to participate.

But Bryan is carrying on the old tradition, much to the chagrin of his wife, by carving some very creative pumpkins

and getting dressed up in his own costume...

only problem -- is he uses the same one over and over each year!



Nowadays, all three sons attend local hauntings in their respective towns to see if anyone can scare them and see what creative juices are flowing this time of year.



Jim and I did something different ourselves this year and visited Cortlandt Manor's Blaze.

What a fantastic night it turned out to be. We drove about an hour and a half toward NYC to Croton-on-Hudson to see more than 4000 pumpkins carved in every imaginable shape and form...

The manor of the VanCortlandt family.

 

 

Changes...

This post is for our sons and daughter-in-law, Jessica. The photos are of the Saugerties Public Library in the heart of the town they grew up in. To the left in the first picture stands the original library. To the right the new addition  that is being completed.

This library is where all the kids went for story time when they were just tots. Then they took part in many a summer reading program in their school years. The paintings they produced during the years of art classes were proudly displayed here. In later years, many hours were spent looking up references for school papers or college prospects.

Of course nowadays with the internet, many folks think the libraries will become obsolete. Thankfully our town feels that it is a place that must be enlarged so many more families can use it as a place of refuge to read real books, learn crafts or languages, take a CPR or parenting class, and so much more.

We love our library in Saugerties and once it is completed and reopened, we are sure many more families will experience a lot of the same things we did. A computer can never replace the familiar musty smell of old tomes or the joy of feeling the glossy pages of a new magazine. Yes, you can still look up a subject of interest, or find a new recipe from some famous chef's cookbook, but to go through time in many of the historical volumes and escape from reality in the fictional writings of many many authors, just isn't the same as sitting in a corner of the couch on a rainy day and snuggling under a blanket turning page after page of a great book!

It will be fun to go back when the construction trucks are gone and the fences are down to be able to walk through the new building with it's bright and shiny surfaces. Personally, I relish the thought of still being able to return to the library of old that was not torn down, but expanded to do so much more. Kudos to the people of Saugerties for keeping it in town and using the old with the new!

Escaping from the World...

Last weekend Jim and I set out on a quest to find an overlook that I used to pass on my way to a Women's Retreat in Spofford, NH. We have set out on this trek in the past with no success. This weekend we hit paydirt!

Since it is Leaf Peeper time here in the northeast, once again we decided to take drive from our home in Saugerties to head over to Spofford to see if the route we chose would help us locate the overlook. We took Route 7 & 9 across New York and Vermont. We have been on these routes many times in the past but never found the scenic overlook I had remembered. It turns out we just didn't go far enough. Route 9 is also known as The Molly Stark Trail and at the highest point on this "trail" is the overlook I remembered.

Unfortunately due to our poor timing the colors were not quite a magnificent as I remember. We were about two weeks later than when I used to travel this route. We also had just experienced heavy winds and flooding rains due to hurricane Nicole this past week. Hence many leaves that were in full color were torn from their branches and blown to oblivion. (One bit of advice - don't trust The Weather Channel's Fall Foliage maps. They had the area as near peak when it was actually past peak.)

So we drove on to our destination of Camp Spofford near Keene, NH. It was nice to see the camp was still there.

The sign deceivingly gave evidence of neglect and wear, but actually I was quite surprised by what we found. We tried to find someone to tell that we wanted to park in the lot and walk around but the one man I did see disappeared before we could catch him. So I headed to the office to see if anyone was there.

The left side of this building is the office/registration area and it was locked. Not a surprise. The right side of this building is the gift shop (closed). It looks small, but this shop could hold almost a ton (ok, a lot) of ladies during our retreats. One time I remember feeling the floor giving way to the weight of all of us (no where near a ton!) traipsing through looking for gifts to take home to our families or to remember the experience by.

We then headed for the Dining Hall to see if anyone could be found and I gave Jim a tour of where we ate many meals during our stays. Hundreds of women took turns eating, serving, setting up and cleaning at this buffet style eatery. (We were told there are plans to rebuild this in the future.) It was here we ran into (almost literally) a young man who was on his way to the refrigerator. We told him that we just wanted to walk around the camp and he was more than obliging. Jim thought we probably caught him taking food he wasn't supposed to be taking and was just happy to send us on our way.

So we started our tour of the camp. First to the little Tentels that I did share once with some friends.

These actually have a wall in the middle and an access door on each side to house up to six people. They offered a full size bed and a single upper bunk bed. They were great for rainy weather, and offered great shelter from the cold. Our retreats were usually held in late September and there could be a nip in the air in the mornings. I imagine they were pretty hot in the summer.

Continuing our tour, we then moved on to the "Lodge" which had a living/gathering room in the center with cathedral ceilings and a fireplace. We tried to get our whole group in here once, but as this was one of the most popular facilities --with real bathrooms -- it was often booked by the time we made our reservations. I did stay in here once with some gals. Most of us would stay in cabins where we shared dorm style rooms. I remember them being really rustic and crude, but I couldn't find them on our visit. So I assume they rebuilt new ones like these to replace them.

We learned the chapel had been rebuilt after a fire destroyed the one I remembered.

 

 The beach of course was very scenic. It was always too cool to swim here whenever I attended a retreat, but we did go out on the lake on the pontoon boat or rowboat when we had time.

Special Note here:  Jim and I had planned to walk around the lake. I had done it once before and seemed to remember that it was an easy walking trail. Here's a funny - you know how sometimes people remember things BIGGER than they actually are (i.e. the fish we caught). I seem to have a tendency to go the other way...the lake was a lot larger than I remembered. When Jim caught sight of it through the trees as we drove in he said it looked too large for us to make it around before we lost daylight. (We had arrived around 4 p.m.) He was right. The lake was six miles around and thinking my memory of the trail might me off as well, we ditched the hiking idea for a stroll around the camp.

Now back to our tour...
Many heartfelt stories were shared around the campfire. We sometimes reverted back to our childhood and roasted marshmallows or made s'mores.

 

This gazebo was good for gathering in the rain. It also offered a peaceful getaway when no one else was using it. There is an attached deck that we would come out at night and look at the stars. I remember Louise McClelland, our pastor's wife, sharing some Biblical teaching in this gazebo.

These retreats offered the women of the church a quiet respite from the busyness of their lives. The grounds offered many places to "retreat" and get closer to our Creator.

A view of the camp from the beach.

 The two newest additions that we found were this kayak and the gymnasium.


We assume practicality and building codes forced the camp to build the gym in such a way that is so out of character with the rest of the camp. It is a nice addition however for activities and large gatherings.

While we were there it seemed to be offering itself for some teen party, as balloons were on the door and teenagers were
popping out from all over as we toured.

I hope some of those that have been on these retreats with me will share their memories. The camp provided a great way to get to know each other and to learn more of what God created us all for. Be blessed!

PS - Missing from the pics are the campers. I had the privilege of staying with Louise in her parents camper one year...Camping to the ultimate -- in house bathroom, hot showers, fridge to supply midnight snacks...electric blanket...To think I had swapped out to let Miss Lillian (an elderly sister in the Lord) have my Tentel and ended up with this made me guilt ridden --- not enough to give it up though, lol.

North Lake Revisited

Just short drive from our home is the North (officially North/South) Lake State Park. This park holds many fond memories for me, first as a child when I came here for picnics and swimming with my mom and later with my own family. My mom and her friend, Irene, used to round up a hoard of kids and bring us here on several summer outings.

In my teen years, I came with friends for many joy filled memories sitting around campfires, sharing ghost stories and practical jokes and doing lots of hiking.

Then for several years I came here with my own family. The church I attended organized a traditional Memorial Day Family Camping outing each year. We hiked, swam, created church services, and even baptisms. The boys loved the time with the other families, the hikes, swimming, but most of all the campfires. We really thought we were raising pyromaniacs the way they would throw logs, food, rocks, and almost anything that we weren't sitting on just to see it go up in flames!

We also fished, canoed and Bryan, one time, mountain biked.

We had our share of memory makers, the biggest and last being the time our whole family camped together with the church families. Bryan was known for having accidents as soon as the weather got warm enough to play outside. Memorial Day seemed to hold some significance for him and became the time of year we would say, "Bryan be careful! This is the time of year you have mishaps." This one fateful day, I remember warning him just as he road his bike on the very edge of a culvert on the side of the road. Later that day he would be taken to the hospital with a broken collar bone after flying over the handlebars of his bike into a creek bed. That was the last time we camped as a family!

This past weekend however, Jim and I returned for a more relaxing time. Since my torn calf muscle was limiting my hiking abilities, we decided to go up and take a boat out on the lake. We rented a canoe and paddled around South Lake (where the rentals were) and then went through the small area connecting to North Lake. Usually we swim and camp on the North Lake side, so this was unusual for us to go back and forth between both sides.

As we rowed around I took some photos of the sights we came across. These days I find it amazing how something as simple as lily pads floating on the water can take on a beauty all their own. A beauty that I probably overlooked in my many times at a lake or pond.

These two were a just as surprised as we were as we paddle by them. They followed us over to the beach later in the day to feed themselves as we fed ourselves.

Though the day started out cloudy, the skies cleared for a beautiful fall day! We were amazed that the colors in the mountains were as far along as they were. We are pretty green still around our house. Just goes to show you can't trust the weather channel's leaf mapping!

All in all it was a good day for two 50+ adults to enjoy God's creation.