Housing, Boating. Parenting

Good lord a mercy I have been having a life.  After our sailboat journey this summer I was asked in passing, rather casually, if I would be interested in sailing around Vancouver Island.  Knowing that is quite an adventure... lots of weather, currents, waves I answered I wanted to see the boat's nether regions first.  Next thing I know we are hauling out in Port Townsend and I am looking at the bottom of a boat.  What am I looking at? What am I looking for? Who knows, but there I am.
Next, turns out, the boat is being painted. Teak is being replaced. My daughter and I installed fresh new name letters on the stern. There is talk of new sails.

Then we finished painting my front door and house.  Which looks great!

And then my daughter, my lovely, gentle, kind, intuitive college bound girl, postponed college.  There is a boy she fell in love with, some really squirrelly, negative choices, and endless challenges have knocked on her door. I have been trying to stay calmish and healthyish all the while riding this wave without drowning, or letting any family members drown.

But that is all firmly part of living.  Can't avoid, ignore, deny the unpleasantries, they run right alongside all the joyful parts.
I will not say my life is tedious or boring.

The sign company said putting these letters on the boat would be
excruciatingly easy. They sooooo lied. 

Front door painted.  Cheery bright... orange?
I avoided a pic of the clutter to the left of my door. You know, the fence posts,
 garden plants waiting to go in the ground, mud shoes, clippers, feed bucket.  

One whopper of a rainbow while out sailing...

Crazy faith -

When a youngster I was baptised at the Congregational Church.  It was the only church to attend in my small community , other than the Catholic Church.  I then attended a Presbyterian church as a kid on  San Juan Island.  The UCC church in Seattle was an active bunch of feisty people which I got along with swimmingly, my local UCC church in Kitsap is on the smaller side and has not clicked with me yet. The other morning I got a bee in my bonnet to go to church. I haven't been in a while since I worked weekends.  But since I took several weeks off of work -- I have my Sundays available for such endeavours. I was going up to Port Townsend that day for a hike so thought I'd visit a local church up there.  I looked up the program for that morning... and thought it looked like a grand topic.  I walked in a couple minutes late, sat in the back, and listened.  It began with the usual rituals, singing, announcements, candles.
Then the minister began talking. I listened and heard him mention Albert Schweizer which immediately brought to mind my grandfather, Wilhelm.  My grandfather would talk of Schweizer, Joseph Campbell, Jung with fire in his eye.  (He always had fire in his eye, he was full of German feistiness!) I realized I so was not listening to the sermon - so started paying attention again. That is when the minister said he was previously sixteen years at Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, MI. This caught my attention, that was my grandparents church. This man knew my grandparents.  In this small church in NW Washington memories tumbled through me as he talked about the things my grandfather talked of.  Same philosophers.  Same church leader.  I started tearing up when he said "the welcome card in the entry way is directly from Duncan Littlefair" -a man my grandfather had great respect for and with whom he completed an oral history of his life.  On a whim this day I visited this church where the direct beliefs from my grandfather were spoken.  The first and last time I heard this ministers voice was over twenty years ago, at my grandmothers funeral. Here I was hearing that voice 26 miles from my home in a church I went to on a whim.  
I got up early from the service and went and cried in the bathroom.
After leaving the church, I went to my favorite brunch place. Since living on the Kitsap Peninsula I do not hear the German language much. At this restaurant which I go to every Sunday...my grandparents voices were present - a woman at the table next to me was speaking German.  Her two seatmates were speaking English, but she was talking German.
When I went back out to my car a handwritten bible verse was on it, about opening your heart.
When I took it off my windshield I started laughing.  What a strange day.

The 4th and fireworks

Pic: The fearless fireworks watching cat Bella. (Can you tell we got her during a Twilight saga?)

Last night, Rose and I sat outside in our driveway watching the neighbors shoot off WAY LARGE fireworks, not the little "cones of sparks" or "happy pagoda house" that we used to do. The kind that shoot in the sky and force out an "ooooh" or "aaah" from your body. The bonus of living near a reservation (well, depending on if you like loud noises).... is all our neighbors spend oodles to buy big fireworks for the 4th, and then we get to watch them. Our chicken dog Amanda sat under our legs trying to bury her head anywhere. Our cat Belly sat in front of us and the horses stood next to us, watching the sky. Afterwards, Rose found the big dipper and then we spent a good ten minutes using the big dipper to find the north star and little dipper. We are not so quick in these constellation searches. As soon as we found the little dipper, a shooting star fell across our line of sight. We both laughed, Rose said it was the stars telling us 'good job' after our lame long search for the small dipper.
Yesterday was also the culmination of four BBQ's in three days. I am a little tapped out on burgers right now. I think I could eat the strawberry shortcake again, however.

Phone messages

For some reason our son is in the other room playing all the phone messages. I don't know why I have not deleted these, other than there is the plumber apologizing for disappearing... my kids in various places checking in... friends singing me happy birthday and one of my mom saying "Hi, I hope you are having fun... I hope you are not lifting heavy things like trees or toilets!"

Gotta love that. Could that be why I am going to the physical therapist next week for my back? Huh.

Ma at the Michigan Auto Show

My mom said she and friends took a field trip to the auto show. They had to jump in the air while the 3D camera took their pic. This is the lady who has two new hips. I forecast she will be playing center in basketball in no time with this jump. (Hi Ma)

Blogs - Soap Opera - Part II

So I got sucked into this online hissy fit between three bloggers. It is like reading those reality shows I won't watch, except there is no editing to make it more palatable for primetime television.
Only one was actually having hissy fits you could see online. Her sister and brother in law were having their own uncomfortable online blogging episodes and the point of all the brouhaha a) her attacks on a blogger who is one of the big bloggers with the aforementioned clean and easy-reading blog, visually appealing and supposedly well-funded by advertisers and b)she had a crisis of faith, as in, completely went away from the church. This may be fine and dandy to do on the West Coast of the U.S. but from reading her it sounds like hell on earth in her part of (Kansas? Iowa? anyway the corn and bible belt) She is pretty feisty. Reading her I stick by my "I think menopause is hitting her bad..." or else she has tucked alot of 'shoulds' under her belt without knowing why and when the hormones started changing she began to question things. Really really question things. I don't envy her one bit. She has alot of anger, although it is well-worded anger. Her stories of how her family is dealing with her make me sad.
Note: I am editing all the blog name specifics out of this and my previous post. I wanted to comment on the impersonal/personal nature of blogging and how we bloggers may or may not match our online blogging persona. What I don't want is to benefit traffic-wise just because I put some big name bloggers in my verbiage here. And I was. So now I am not.

Off in the wild blue yonder

Just placed the two wonder kids on a flight to their great aunt and uncle. Not that I want to sound tragic or anything... but it was very difficult letting them fly off on the silver 'tube of sky death' without me. While the ticket was purchased I was fine. While they were packing I was fine. While we went over our manners and how to lock the airplane bathroom door I was fine. When I was hugging them and wishing them a good time and blah blah blah I was fine.
When the plane was pushed away from the gate, when the plane sat on the tarmac running through its systems, when the plane began rolling toward the runway I was not fine.
However, since you did not hear or see reports of a crazed mother breaking through security checkpoints and running after a departing plane down the runway yelling stop you can assume I dealt with it.
Crap. This growing up thing is going to be so hard on me.

Blessed neighborly neighborliness

Photo: Wilder pointing out the one true path to God Wilder has been invited to born-again christian camp by our neighbor. She stopped by today, and told me she had been praying for my mother and her brand new hip and invited Wilder to god training... I mean summer camp. In the context of a 2-D page of writing it does not come across that I actually like my neighbors. I do. People believe what they believe for reasons that are allover the map. I am always curious how they get where they get in the spiritual world... but really, as long as it is not the hate-spewing, fearandcrap-mongering religions I could give a rip what people believe. If it makes it easier for one to navigate an unsteady or uncomfortable world... go for it. My neighbors are gentle and open people, who will help me or the kids in a lickity split. We will never probably talk god or politics... that is why I have my Jehovah Witness, Poppy(!) but they are next to me and somewhat less judgemental than other various pyschotic passive aggressive NW neighbors I may or could have. Even with the god quotient. Plus, a bonus for me, I LOVE being told I am being prayed for, or God Bless Me, or whatever little religious bon mot (how do you spell that??) comes out of her mouth. I can handle her religion, because it is seamless with her life.
Re: Wilder... I am giving him the option for camp. His sister is flippin' out. She has had bad experiences with the more wicked (stupid) side of religious zealotry on her schoolbus, and now is anti-religion, as only a teenager can be. This too shall pass.
Re: Grandma. Two hips down, two knees to go. Everyone reading this: take care of your ankles, knees, hips. It is not FUN to do this surgery or recovery. On a lighter note, we are going to start calling her Grandma Bionic for all her metal and mechanisms at her joints. Wilder will probably call her Grandma Bionicle... gotta have boys to get that one....