Church

Hello,

Today we are having a special anniversary church service in the afternoon. We decided not to go to church in the morning. So I am writing to you and feeling slightly guilty for not going this morning as is my habit. I am not sure how Leroy feels about it, but we had talked seriously about going twice. First he only wanted to go once, and then when I agreed to it he and changed and wanted to go twice. It is so different when we are not the pastor and his wife. Then there would have been no question, we would have gone twice. It is nice to have the expectation lifted even if I mostly would have gone to most of the events anyway.

We are going to a spiritually class so now four of my evening are booked, two with work and two with church. Choir is one of those nights and this class is the other. I do find that a bit of a stretch for me as I do not fall asleep easily after having been out and about in the evening, but I am learning or just becoming more tired.

I have found the class to be good. One of the suggestions is to memorize some scripture verses. I have taken up that challenge, hoping to keep my brain young. Memorizing does not happen as effortlessly as it did when I was in confirmation. Now have to spend days and minutes each day in the week to get two sentences locked in. But even yet I would want to say to not put me to the test. I have found it interesting to spend so much time thinking about these ideas that I am. Certainly more learning and consideration is happening. I feel blessed by it in a way that I never realized I would. My brain and my spiritually are growing and changing. Hopefully it is all for the good.

Paula

Canning

Hello,

I have finally gotten enough tomatoes to make a batch of “Mom’s tomato soup”. Her recipe states that I needed a peck of tomatoes. Some time earlier I had written on there that a peck of tomatoes equaled 16 pounds. The tomatoes in the Ely garden have been stressed by lack of rain and much too much sun. So they limped along. In the community garden the vines have looked lush and green, but I was never there at a time when there were many ripe tomatoes on them. I saved a picking from a couple days ago and then picked again yesterday. Between the two pickings I managed to have 16 pounds. Before I could weigh them I had to go on a hunt for my household scale. Such a relief when I finally found it nestled in a box stored in the large bathroom closet.

This tomato soup has a green pepper. I felt lucky that I had picked a large one in the Ely garden. A bunch of celery, three onions, and rice were store bought.

I almost followed the recipe, but could not resist some changes.

I added one chili pepper that Leroy had brought home from the community garden as well as some cilantro. Then I splashed in some balsamic vinegar because I was a little concerned about the acid content of some of the pale tomatoes. I did put in the butter that I had in the freezer from the kids Christmas visit. I left out the flour and doubled the amount of rice.

When I was filling the jars I learned the one of them had a chip out of the outside rim. Luckily I had another that was clean so I could quickly heat it.

Just a little soup was left over so we could each eat about a ¼ cup for supper. We both thought it tasted good. I am pleased and grateful to my mother who did all of this in the past. I am not sure I realized how much work she did when I was growing up. Course I do remember helping a lot and grumbling about it.

Paula

Random Thoughts

Hello,

Another interesting thing about my job is that when I am the only person there I must not appear busy even though I am. I once had someone doing other things because they could see that I was working on something. “You should have let me know you were ready to check out,” I admonished lightly.

“I did not want to disturb you,” they said.

I have learned that I should not work at my usual desk because my back is to the library. I tried to listen for people coming in, but sometimes am so engrossed that it passes by without my notice. One of my co-workers who also does not always work the front desk told me that she reads some of the professional magazines so she can be more available. That is indeed a good practice. Before this I have read these only at home since I do not have enough time to get every other thing done at work.

Last week when I left work it was not raining from the ominous looking clouds, but about four miles later it was raining so hard that I wondered if I should get off the road. About three or four more miles and I was driving out of the rain. By the time I was home I could see that we had had no rain. That was only about another three miles. Life changes quickly.

Six year old Sophia told us that she was glad we had come to visit because she does not get to see us very much. My response was both sad and glad: sad because it is true and glad because it matters to her. I hope my other grandkids feel some of the same.  If I were richer would I let myself part with the money and time and fly to see them more times in the year? That might be a test. Where are my priorities?

Paula

My Job

Hello,

Sometimes I feel good if I know what I am doing and sometimes not.

Just last week someone wanted the movie “little brats”. They told me that we had it, but they could not find it on the shelf. I put in those words and no such movie title came to the forefront. “It seems we might not have that movie,” I told them.

“We know you do,” this mother and son assured me, “We have checked it out before.”

I put in just the word brats and came up with multiple titles, but no little brats DVD.

“Are you sure about the exact words of the title?” I asked them.

They were sure indeed as they walked resolutely back over to the shelf where they thought it should be to search fruitlessly once more.

I then looked at a source on the internet, but did not even find the title there. “That is crazy that you could not find it, as there is more than one title with this name,” they moaned, “We really want to watch this movie.”

I once again tried online, but watched carefully when I have put in the “bra” as in a movie. At that point I noticed a title with the word bratz in it. When I asked if that is how the name was spelled we found it in our catalogue with a different word than little in the title. I did not know whether to feel smart or stupid. Certainly I am culturally illiterate since I never thought to spell brats with a z.

Last night a boy wanted to know if we had gotten a new book that had just been published that was a fourth in a series he liked. We did not find it in our collection. Then I was sure we would want it and tried to put it on the book order spreadsheet, complete with ISBN. However there was no ISBN listed for it. It took some more serious searching to learn that it had not yet been published. Lesson learned? Approach all searches with an open mind no matter what patrons might firmly believe.

Paula

Another Afternoon Off

Hello,

Leroy and I took another afternoon off. Or sort of did. I had wanted to ride the bikes to Ely and clean out the garden some, but Leroy was not interested in that. If it had been about five miles closer we would have done it.

Instead Leroy took a nap and I started reading emails when I got a Skype call from my dear Slovak friend, Maria. We ended up talking for almost an hour. Leroy joined the conversation when he woke. Isn’t it wonderful that we can have this connection? Who would have even dreamed about it ten or fifteen years ago? Life has many surprises yet to offer. I wait in anticipation.

I had read in the paper that it was still time to do some fall planting. Trusting that word we planted radishes, Swiss chard, and some lettuce outside the house. If it comes up I like to be able to just go out side of the house and harvest these things for a nice lunch or dinner. On the way home from church we picked some basil, cilantro, one zucchini, and some small growths of broccoli. I made up a dish with those minus the zucchini and added some kale that I had brought home two days ago as well as some of the many tomatoes in the house. I figure that one kale will be producing for some time to come. It is my impression that I am the only one using it. I will just keep picking two leave at a time so I am not depriving anyone else.

I learned today that one of the applesauce jars did not seal. That is sad, but something I can get past without sadness.

The almost thrown out mum I planted last year looks glorious this year. That was fifty cents well spent. The beautiful return is so much larger than the outlay.

Paula

Update on Leroy: the other day he said, “I dreamed we were living in Africa. I think I am getting restless.”

Today on the way home from church he talked about how great it would be to get his doctorate. “In what and what goals do you have for it?” I wondered. Thinking, “How old is this guy? And he is not dead yet!”

He thought cataloging, but he did not know just what he would do with it. Stay tuned. Life could change any minute.

Leisure time?

Hello,

Leroy and I used to have leisure time. Somehow that is not the case anymore. Part of it is the gardens and the wonderful produce from it that demands attention one way or another. Now we are into getting apples from which I make applesauce or crisp. I canned seven more quarts of applesauce. The apples were from Brian or really they were from Jen’s father. I do know that when making cider these apples did not produce a lot of juice. When making the sauce I added water two or three times and still had trouble getting it to flow off the spoon and into the jars. Finally in desperation, I just forced it off with a spatula. We ate some of the extra sauce today and found that it tasted good even though it had unusual stiffness.

This morning Leroy and I took part in the neighborhood clean up along with Coe College students and their families. It was such an enjoyable morning to be out and about. Even though I do not like a trashy neighborhood it was satisfying to pick up quite a lot of things. However much of it was not lying around in the open, but tucked up in a copse of trees. I learned how to pronounce copse because even though I have read it more than once, I do not remember hearing anyone use the word before. So learning took place as well on this walk.

This afternoon Leroy and I have been just sitting around, except for a visit to the grocery store. I was happy to see that someone was putting throw away produce in a recycle container. When I commented on how good that was to compost it, he replied, “I agree, but we have to padlock it because otherwise people would come and take it out.”

A part of me wonders if some of the neighbors are hungry enough to eat what they can find in bins. If that is the case it is too bad that they cannot have access to it when it has just been put there. I suspect it is not at that point really unsafe for human consumption

Paula

Traveling

Hello,

We traveled to Brian’s house this weekend to participate in the celebration for Sophia’s sixth birthday. Can we have three granddaughters who are six? How did that happen?

The drive up was mostly uneventful in spite of me needing to use the restroom when we were not ready to stop for gas. But we were still making good time until we got to some road construction south of the split of 35W and 35E where a sign declared use both lanes in back up. Ok, so there were not many cars and we just stayed in our lane. By the time we saw another such sign both lanes seemed to be full. Sometimes we crept along at 3 mph and at others we were stopped. An electronic sign informed us that it would 45 minutes until those Interstates went their separate ways. We did not look at the time but later it said it would be 30 minutes. Not sure but we believe it had been much longer than 15 minutes to make that much progress.

I looked at the map of the Twin Cities searching for that alternate route. The map did not go that far out. Unfortunately, on the Minnesota map, there was not enough detail for the place where we were currently residing. I have to confess that I did not consider using Leroy’s phone as I do not know much about it. We do not have GPS in our car.

I called Brian to let him know where we were moving at a snail’s pace. He wanted to know the mile marker, but it was not instantly handy. He was able to use the information when I did give it to him to create that alternate route for us and save us seven minutes. So we do have a GPS named Brian. We did use technology just in a different way. He used his computer at home, talked me through the close intersections and then sent a text of the rest. It worked quite well. I like maps, but at times the paper is a bit limiting.

Paula