In a Small Town

Living in this tiny, isolated town, we don't have a Goodwill or a thrift store to visit.  So Buy and Sell facebook groups have become popular.  Today we sold something on one of these groups.  I had no idea who it was that bought the item.  I recognized the name, but didn't know her. 

I called her number to set up a time for pick-up.  An older man answered. 
I said, "Hi.  I'm calling for Pam."
Unknown man: "Yes you are."  Huh?
Me: "I'm just calling about the-"
Unknown man: "I know."  Okay...
Me:  "Oh.  I guess you know everything."
Unknown man:  "No.  I'm reading your mind."  (Heh.  Heh.  Creepy.)  "I'm leaving to pick it up at your house right away."
Me:  "Okay.  So I guess you know where I live?"  (That was my attempt at a joke.)
Unknown man:  "Yep!  In Jake's old house!"

Isn't that a little weird?  Then when he arrived he greeted me in what I think was Pennsylvania Dutch.

This kind of thing has happened countless times.  It actually makes me smile.  A feel just a bit creeped out.

Happy Birthday, Lydia!

What can I say about this bundle of joy?
I cannot believe that just a year ago I was sitting in my hospital bed, stunned and awed by what had just transpired.  This baby girl, only 5 1/2 pounds. 

The past year has been so good.  I thought there would be days when we would ask ourselves, "What have we done?  It was so easy before!"  We acknowledge that life was easier a year ago, but there have been no regrets.  Lydia has brought our family so much joy.  There are days when I just sit there and smile as I watch her.  I just feel so happy to have her in our family.

 

The past couple days have taken me back to all that happened a year ago.  Lydia came into the world with a great deal of drama.  She was a miracle.  But then again, I am awed by what a miracle each new life is.

 

Psalm 22:9-10  "Yet you brought me safely from my mother's womb and led me to trust you at my mother's breast.  I was thrust into your arms at my birth.  You have been my God from the moment I was born."

 

Ever since Aunt Cathy gave me a teddy bear mold, I have the tradition of terrorizing my kids on their first birthday.  The cake looks so cute in the picture.  I copy the picture, really...but the teddy bear always ends up looking scary.

 





A Sorrowful Tale

Where oh where do I begin this sorrowful tale...

I'll start here:

That was cinnamon roll disaster #3, by the way.

Our youth group is having a bake sale on Saturday.  I need to contribute.  You have to understand that baking is not a natural activity for me.  I'm not ashamed to brag say that I make delicious cinnamon rolls.  But it is not second nature for me and it is a big day in the Hochstedler household when the cinnamon rolls come out of the oven.

Last week I had a beautiful batch of cinnamon rolls risen and was ready to turn on the oven.  Then the hydro (that's what we call electricity) went out.  What?!  I called Kendall.  "Oh yeah," he said, "There was a scheduled power outage planned."  I may have ranted and raved.  He suggested I run the risen rolls to someone else's house to bake.  Well, Lydia had just gone down for a nap and our closest neighbors also had a power outage.  I called a couple people to get advice.  Unfortunately, no matter how you look at it, over-risen rolls just fail.  It took me awhile to get over that one.

So I was going to bake yesterday.  Glenda even lent me her Bosch so that I could do more than 3 pans at a time.  Well, yesterday I woke up sick enough to die.  (Not really, but I nearly passed out when I first got out of bed and depending how I would have fallen, I could have hit my head just right and...you know...)  I wasn't surprised that I was sick, since I felt it coming on and the boys both came home from school the day before with stomach aches.  Kendall stayed home from work and I slept.  A lot.  I let go of the baking idea.  Until last night.  The baking was nagging at me.  I had a few things in the freezer from last week, but not enough.  So last night I did a batch.  Like always, it was more work than I planned.  But there were 7 beautiful pans of rolls.

This morning, Kendall was in the kitchen first.  He came and very kindly warned me, "I think you're going to be disappointed when you see the rolls."  I was.  Every single pan had fallen!  Under-baked!

So today the boys are home sick and Lydia seems to be feeling under the weather too.  I feel much better, but still not so great.  I was considering letting the cinnamon rolls go.  I even got some very kind motherly advice from one of the 5 or so people who were unfortunate enough to call or run in to me today.  (I say they were unfortunate because I took every possible opportunity to unabashedly unload my sorrowful tale, a.k.a. complain.)  This friend advised me to let go of the cinnamon rolls if my kids and I weren't feeling well.  I appreciated her advice and considered taking it.  I laid down for a nap when Lydia did, but couldn't sleep.  So what did I do?  I got up and started a batch of cinnamon rolls. 

Hahahahahahahahahaha!  (maniacal laughter)  (Evan just looked over my shoulder and kindly suggested, "Mom, I think there has to be spaces between the ha ha's."  No, not this kind of laughter.  I demonstrated maniacal laughter and he was convinced.  Or scared into silence.)

Bad idea!  Listen to your elders!  19 pans of failed cinnamon rolls!  All from the person who barely gets 19 pans of rolls baked in an entire year!

I laughed and laughed.  I may have yelled too.  Something like, "I want my mom!  Or my mother-in-law!  Heeeeelllllpppp!"  Lydia thought it was great fun and added her little yell with her arm waving around.

Evan has been trying to be very kind and helpful to his maniacal mother.  He said, "You'll just use the rolls you can and then leave it, right?" and "I think if you bake more, you should do something other than cinnamon rolls."  Then he asked, "Can I make cookies now?"  I can't remember for sure, but I think I said something about killing anyone who talks about baking.

A Song for Lydia

The beautiful moments that I never want to forget...

Yesterday Eli and Evan were hanging out with their little sister.  I heard the following come out of Eli's mouth in spontaneous song form:

"Lydia!  Why are you so cute?  Why are you just the cutest baby in the whole world?"

Isn't that awesome?  Definitely one of my favorite parts of parenting!  I could tell it was very subconscious and unplanned.  In fact, later when I told Eli what he had sung, he had no memory of it.

As a side note, immediately following that beautiful song, I heard Evan ask, "Cuter than me?"

Eli's answer:  "Oh yeah."

For the Grandparents

She's getting around really well now.  But just not too interested in walking.  Cheering her on hasn't worked so well, so here we try some negative reinforcement.  I don't think it was very effective:

The Dangers of Ice Fishing

Poor Bushman. 

He has been so family-friendly with his ice fishing this winter.  The fishing shack is set up at a mediocre fishing hole just so we can be close to home.  Other than a couple trips during cousin visits, Kendall has done all family fishing trips.

Finally on Saturday Kendall had organized a group of guys to go out in the bush for some real fishing.  Kendall took his boys and another friend took his kids.  Several other guys were along.  They drove 45 minutes out into the bush.  Then they took snowmobiles a kilometer or two to the lake.  Ahhh...  Kendall had been looking forward to this time.  He had moose steaks marinating to cook over the fire.  He had packed everything they would need for an afternoon and evening on the lake.

Five minutes after getting to the lake, he grabbed the ice auger and hurt himself.  Bad. 

Someone started the auger and Kendall grabbed the shaft to go drill his very first hole.  The shaft was rotating and somehow Kendall's mitt got caught on a bolt.  It yanked his arm around and threw him on the ground over the auger.  Kendall suddenly came to and heard guys running around yelling and trying to get the auger turned off while it still pulled at his arm. 

When they got it turned off, Kendall knew he was hurt and laid there trying to figure out what had just happened.  He took off his mitt and freaked himself out.  He said his hand looked like it belonged to a dead person.  After sitting for awhile, he knew he needed to get to the ER.  So his buddy drove him back to the truck and then on in to the hospital.  Evan decided to go along with Kendall.  Eli stayed back with his friends.

That's when I got a call.  Kendall said, "I'm coming back in to town.  I messed up my arm."  He asked me to meet him at the hospital.  I could tell he was shook up.  I knew that depending on his injuries, he could very easily end up being flown out to a bigger hospital.  Anything needing surgery or a bone set gets flown out. 

Lydia and I met Kendall and Evan in the ER.  There they sat in their snow pants, Kendall's hand on ice.  I knew he was in pain and so very disappointed.  I felt so bad for him.  While he was off getting an x-ray, I got a text from his buddy asking if Kendall was gonna live.  I texted back that if he died of anything, it would be disappointment.

Thankfully, there was no definite break.  Nothing showed up on the x-ray.  However, there are so many bones in the wrist, that they couldn't be sure.  There was one particular bone that they were concerned about.  If left untreated, it causes a lot more problems later.  So the decision was made to go ahead and cast it, just in case.  After 10 days, they'll cut off the cast and do another x-ray.  And hopefully that will be that.

Ice fishing season closed yesterday, so I guess there will be no abundance of walleye for us this winter.

Kendall was a local hero at work and church this weekend.  He was rather bashful since he felt dumb. :)  He asked me to write "Don't Ask" in bold letters across his cast.  But I don't think it would work anyway.  Everyone wants to hear about how he valiantly reeled in that whale before it bared it's sharp teeth and snapped his wrist.  

April Fools

I learned a couple lessons about my kids and April Fool's Day last year:  1.)Don't talk about it ahead of time, encouraging them to build anticipation.   2.)Don't let them down.  It's true that there were tears of disappointment last year when Mom's pranks did not live up to some very high expectations.

We started April 1st this year with baked oatmeal served up for breakfast.  It was frozen solid.  That's when Eli and Evan realized what day it was.  After breakfast, they were given a list of chores.  That is not uncommon for a day at home.  When Eli saw that his list included wiping down the ceiling, he clued in.  Here was Evan's list:  practice music, empty cupboards and wash all dished inside, clean all shoes in entryway with toothbrush, fold all your shirts then hang them up again.  Evan was not impressed with this list.  To our delight, he declared that He was only doing music and cleaning the shoes with a toothbrush!  He just thought the other two were completely unreasonable.  They were.

The boys were also not impressed when their Wii would not turn on.  I released them to the basement for some Wii time.  Then I heard them yelling, "Mom!  This is not a good April Fool's joke!  Come fix it!"  All it was was the power source. :)

After lunch I welcomed them to the kitchen as giants.  They had a yummy "little" meal.

Later I offered them "Brownies".  When they opened the pan, they found "Brown E's."  It was disappointing, I'm sure, but not as disappointing as if they would have gone ahead and tasted the graham crackers that I had so thoughtfully prepared for them with frosting.  The frosting was actually toothpaste, and they didn't bite.  Literally.

For supper we had a backwards meal.  (Thanks to the Stauffers for this idea.)  We came dressed appropriately, had breakfast, and ate under the table.

After supper we went ice fishing and there was a headless body lying in our shack.  (You'll have to ask him if you want his secret.)

 

We came back for a bedtime snack of upside down ice cream cones.

Lydia was not easily fooled.  A huge plastic cockroach doesn't faze her in the least.

I finished off the night by salting all the males' toothbrushes.  Kendall salted mine as a little payback, but not nearly enough.  I guess he hasn't realized that if you're gonna be mean, you have to be really mean.