Brown Hair... or Golden?

I find it ironic that after a lifetime of envy of Mary's golden hair, Laura has at last turned the tables.

Wendy is a blonde-haired little girl, you see. And this hasn't bothered her a bit. But it bothers me -- not that she's blonde, but that in the land of Laura Ingalls Wilder, she's discriminated against for being blonde.

Case in point. Laura look-alike contests. Several of the homesites have them annually. But... what do little girls do who don't have brown hair? They can't possibly look as much like Laura as those blessed with chestnut locks, now can they? Do you see what I mean about Laura turning the tables on all the little golden-haired girls of the world?

Well.

Owning a prairie dress and all, I thought that Wendy might -- just might -- be interested in participating in one of these contests, but I also knew it was unlikely she would win because of her hair color. I went back and forth between not telling her the contest was even taking place and informing her and letting her make her own decision.

At last, I decided to ask and see how she felt about the matter.

"Wendy... if there were a Laura look-alike contest, would you want to be in it, or not?" I asked.

"I want to be in a Mary look-alike contest," she responded, without hesitation.

You see? Seven years old, and she instantly recognized the discrimination she would face for her blonde hair!

"There's not a Mary look-alike contest," I said. "It's Laura or nothing."

(Not fair, not fair!)

"Then no," she decided. "Because I don't want to dye my hair brown."

Laura sites -- please sit up and take notice!!! Could it not be possible to have a, "Look like a Little House character of your choice" contest!?!?

This is sad. Very sad.

The Happiest Place on Earth

And it's not Disney World. (I know, I know, I'm a huge Disney fan, but this place even beats out Disney...)

Where is it?

The Ingalls Homestead in De Smet, South Dakota.

Two years ago, my mother and I took Little Girl there for her first visit. She loved it so much that when her birthday came around the next summer, she thought we should have her birthday party in South Dakota. It's a long way to South Dakota... a very long way.

When the kind folks at the Homestead heard of Little Girl's request, they sent some of South Dakota to her! How excited she was to receive a gift from the Homestead staff, a card, and pictures of her beloved kittens!

So when I told her this year that I was going back to South Dakota and asked if she wanted to come, of course the answer was yes! I was a little worried about taking her away from her mother so long -- we'd be gone a week after all. But she maintained that she wanted to go and so we went.

Was it as good as we remembered it being? Actually, it was better.

We spent large parts of THREE DAYS (and a night) on the Homestead, and didn't want to leave then. And as a result, I've come home with a Little Girl who is very knowledgeable about various aspects of pioneer living.

What can a little girl find to do on the Ingalls Homestead for three days? She can ride a horse... or a miniature horse... or a pony cart. Or all three, several times. Cuddle with kittens. Handle a team of horses or mules pulling a wagon. Cuddle with kittens. Pump water and carry the pail back with Ma. Do the laundry, pioneer-style. Cuddle with kittens. Wear prairie dresses with pinafores and sunbonnets and go to school. Ring the school bell. And cuddle with kittens. Go for a walk across the prairie at night. Pretend to be blind and let your friend play Laura and guide you as you walk. Spend the night in a covered wagon. During a thunderstorm. (Awesome!) Make corncob dolls (and corncob butterflies! lol) Twist hay, grind wheat, and make a jumprope. Oh, and lest we forget, cuddle with kittens.

I think by the time we left, she was a little TOO educated. At one point at the school, she wanted to leave to go back and see the kittens again (granted, we'd been there over an hour at this point, for a special session) and I told her sorry, there was nothing I could do about it. (You take a wagon there as the school is on the opposite end of the Homestead from the rest of the activities.) "I can't drive the wagon!" I protested as she continued to beg.

"I can!" she retorted.

Yes. She certainly could. After all, she'd done it numerous times already. Confident little thing.

And then she and her little friends, on the last morning there after our covered wagon sleepover party, wanted to do the laundry. We headed down, talking amongst ourselves, while the little ones ran on ahead. A staff member was always at the shanty to assist with the laundry so we saw no need to rush.

When we rounded the corner, we saw our four small children doing the laundry. One was scrubbing, one was rinsing, one was putting the cloth through the wringer, and the last was hanging up the clean cloths on the clothesline. The Homestead folks weren't there yet so our children had helped themselves, and astonishingly, were doing the laundry correctly and had formed their own little assembly line! I wonder what they thought when they showed up later that morning and discovered their nicely folded cloths all washed and hanging on the line? :)

Anyhow, it was a wonderful vacation and Little Girl can't stop talking about it. Thank you, Ingalls Homestead, for sharing Laura's land with the rest of us and for spoiling our little ones rotten.

We will be back!

Things That Bug Me, and Other Tales...

Today is Mother's Day. I'll be honest. I hate Mother's Day. I've hated it for years.

Why?

Because Mother's Day is one huge blatant reminder of what I'm not, of course.

I hate watching adorable little girls and boys in church singing songs about their mothers or telling their favorite things about their moms. Because I don't have a little boy or a little girl up there with them. I hate when the pastor asks all the mothers to stand and every woman in the church is standing... except me. (I'm sure I'm not the only one, but it sure feels that way.) When the usher handing out the gifts nudges you, thinking you've simply forgotten to stand up, and you have to flat out say, "No, I'm not a mother..."

The worst though is when people send you Mother's Day greetings, online cards, virtual flowers, etc. Why are they sending me Mother's Day cards!? I'm not a mother. I'm sure they mean well, but the last thing in the world that I want on Mother's Day is someone wishing ME a Happy Mother's Day. Though I know it's not intended this way, it feels like a slap in the face.

I've asked people why they sent me Mother's Day cards knowing I'm not a mother. Their answers aren't at all logical to me. "Mother's Day is for all women!" they'll exclaim. No it isn't. It isn't Women's Day. It's Mother's Day. It's for mothers. You know, that thing I'm not.

Another justification is, "Well you HAVE a mother! So you get to celebrate Mother's Day!" Yes... but that doesn't justify sending ME a Mother's Day card. I have a father too, but nobody sends me Father's Day cards!

But enough complaining... next year, hopefully I will be a mother, or at least a foster mother, and these miserable Mother's Days will be over.

Next item on the agenda, for things that bug me... literally:

We had our first sunny day in WEEKS. Literally, we have had weeks where it has done nothing but rain, rain, and rain some more. So we took the kids out to play. Caterpillars were everywhere. Baby Boy wanted nothing to do with them, but Little Girl caught them, built them a house, the whole nine yards.

A little while later, while working on her house, she handed me a caterpillar and asked me to hold it for her. After a few minutes, I got tired of it crawling back and forth from hand to hand, so I set it down on my leg. It sat there just fine for awhile. Suddenly I glance down, and see this thing defecating on my pants! I instinctively flicked it off, and went after one of Baby's Boy's baby wipes, figuring they ought to be good for cleaning up poop. :) Well, the caterpillar didn't survive the flick, and Little Girl was furious with me for killing her caterpillar.

Sorry. It pooped on me. What would you have done!?

:)

A little while later as we sat there talking, a bug flew in my mouth. Yuck! So all in all, it was a very buggy day for me. :)

On the bright side of things, my little Laura-Ingalls-Wilder-wanna-be-in-training is coming right along. We've been reading Little House on the Prairie together, but she usually wants just one chapter and then she's done and moving on to other things, so it's been pretty slow going. Last week, I had a feeling she was hooked. We read a chapter, and then I turned the page and said, "Oh, the next chapter is the best one!" My mother asked what it is, and I said, "Mr. Edwards Meets Santa Claus." My mother and I are both clearly very excited about this chapter, and it must have been contagious. Little Girl seized the book from my hands. "Give it to me!" she said. "I want to read it myself!" I made her read it aloud to me. :)

So this week, she was clearly ready to read, and we read four chapters before she finally decided it was time to quit. And she said next week we will finish the rest of the book. Yep. I've got her now. YAY. :)

The other day, she was downstairs watching Alf and my sister was upstairs. Suddenly, she heard Little Girl's feet pounding up the steps. "MOMMY, MOMMY!" she shrieked. "YOU HAVE TO COME SEE THIS!!!" "What!?" my sister asked, and so excited she could barely speak, Little Girl gasped out, "ON THE TV! COME AND SEE!"

My sister went downstairs to where Little Girl had it on pause. She rewound it a little, and it was the episode where Alf broke the TV and Willie said he wasn't going to get it fixed, they just would have no tv. Alf was aghast and made reference to how they were going to be living like Little House on the Prairie. Little Girl's eyes shone as she said, "Isn't that SO FUNNY, Mommy!" I love that Little House references excite her. :)

Then another day they were at a store, and Little Girl picked up a stuffed Scottie dog and was playing with it. My sister was paying no attention, until Little Girl told her to look. She had tied a piece of cloth around its head to look like a bonnet, and she announced proudly, "Look, Mommy! I made a prairie dog! Not the little kind that live in holes in the ground -- it's a little dog on the prairie!"

Yep. That's my girl. :)

A Love Obsession With a House

I absolutely love my new house. No, it isn't mine yet... still waiting... but soon! Like Mary Poppins, it is practically perfect in every way -- for my needs anyway.

But that isn't the house I'm referring to in my title. No, the house with which I have a love obsession is the final home of Laura and Almanzo Wilder, the farmhouse at Rocky Ridge Farm. (That rock house is very appealing, too, but there's just nothing like the farmhouse.)

I'm not sure what it is exactly; I guess it's that Laura and Almanzo lived there for so many years, and loved their home there. Built it the way they wanted it, and cultivated the land with their own hands. It's as if their presence can still be felt there -- not in any weird kind of ghostly way -- just in a warm fond remembrance kind of way.

I went out this past fall to celebrate my birthday there with a friend -- because where better to celebrate one's birthday than in the home one is obsessed with, right? :)

We knew we were more obsessed than most with LIW and with Rocky Ridge itself, but that trip revealed to us both just how far beyond obsessed we apparently are. It began with the owners of the place where we were staying.

"You're staying... FOUR nights?" they questioned. We nodded. "And you're going to the Wilder Farm?" We again nodded our agreement. "Oh," said they, "And what else are you going to do?"

We just looked at them. "We're going to the Wilder Farm," we finally responded.

They exchanged glances, and we thought to ourselves, "They think we have no idea what's there and we're going to be sorely disappointed."

So the next evening, they came hurrying over to meet us when we returned from our day at Rocky Ridge, and asked us how we liked it. "You were there ALL DAY?" they questioned, and we nodded. We discussed our day for awhile, and then they said, "So what are you going to do tomorrow?" Surely these ladies have now figured out they've done absolutely everything there is to do out there... they must have been thinking.

"We're going back to the Wilder Farm..." we answered. They just looked at each other and didn't say a word.

They weren't the only ones wondering about us. By the third day, we were starting to get some quizzical looks from some of the staff members who were now recognizing us. They were polite enough not to ask us why on earth we kept coming back ;) but they had to have been wondering.

But the icing on the cake... the event that convinced us that we are just beyond insane when it comes to this place... occurred on our last night there.

We had both come in separately as we don't live anywhere near each other, so we had our own cars. We had somewhere to be VERY early the next morning so knew that was our last day at Rocky Ridge. That evening, we went out to get something to eat, and we drove separately so we could each fill up on gas rather than have to worry about it at dark o'clock the next morning.

After we ate, my friend called her husband as she didn't get reception on her cell phone at the place we were staying, so I told her I was heading on back to our place and I'd see her there. On my way back, however, I remembered that we only had one key -- and she had it.

"Oh, well," thought I. "Rather than sit in the car and wait for her, I'll just take this opportunity to head back over to the farmhouse!"

Yes, it was night. Yes, it was long since closed. Who cares? I could LOOK at it, couldn't I?

I told you I was obsessed. Just gazing lovingly at this beautiful home from the roadside was an appealing thought. So off I went, and as I approached the house, I slowed down almost to a stop so I could look over.

But just as I did so, another car came from the other direction, and rather than just driving on past as I expected they would do, they too slowed and were staring at me. I quickly sped up and drove on past, so as not to look suspicious. I wasn't doing anything wrong, of course, but I recognized that it might be considered unusual behavior to slow to a crawl outside the Wilder home at night and therefore the townfolk might get a little suspicious, and perhaps the person in that car was a staff member or something so was concerned that something was amiss here.

"No big deal," thought I as I drove on. I'll just drive out to the Rock House and turn around and come back.

And so I did. And daggone it, despite the complete lack of traffic on that road, once more just as I reached the house, I saw approaching headlights. Again, I slowed and hoped they'd go on past, but no, they slowed too, and then came to a complete stop.

"You've got to be kidding me!" I thought. "What, do they just drive back and forth and patrol the place all night or something, to keep crazy people like us from staring at the house after hours!?"

I gave up and figured okay, I'll just drive on and turn around again and come back. But this time as I passed, I saw the car turn into the parking lot. "Oh, great," I thought. "Of all the luck -- it must be someone who works there, now I have no hope of going back. They totally will not understand that I just want to LOOK at it from the road!! That has got to be too weird for the average person to comprehend."

But then as I glanced in my rear-view mirror at the car that was now in the parking lot, I recognized the car. Before it had been too dark to see it clearly, but now there was a faint light shining on it. It was my friend!

She pulled out of the lot and followed me back to the place we were staying. We got out laughing and asking each other what on earth we had been doing.

And, of course, we had been doing exactly the same thing. She too had been on her way to take one last look at the house, and she too was thinking, "Oh, no!" when *I* slowed my car as she couldn't see mine to recognize it either until it was past.

Too funny! So neither of us got a good look at the house on our last night out, but the next day after arriving at our respective homes, we did learn that each of us, on our way out from the place we spent the night, did another drive-by in the wee hours of the morning and got a lovely view...

Of Rocky Ridge in deep fog. :)

Now that, my friend, is obsessed. Guilty as charged. :)

Remembering...

Happy Thanksgiving!

59 years ago, Laura Ingalls Wilder celebrated her first Thanksgiving since her girlhood without Almanzo. He had died a month earlier. What a sad day it must have been for her, although knowing her, she was simply giving thanks for the many years they shared together.

I love this news clipping from the local paper, the Mansfield Mirror:


December 1, 1949

Mrs. L.C. Turner enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving dinner at the beautiful country home of Mr. and Mrs. W.R. Brown and Tarry Lee. In the afternoon they all called on Mrs. A.J. Wilder with gifts showing her she was remembered. So did Mrs. George Freeman and Mrs. Walter Coday.

Bless them for remembering her. For not letting her spend the whole day alone and sad. For letting her know they cared.

Can you think of anyone you know who might be spending a lonely or sad Thanksgiving this year? Perhaps they've lost a loved one... have gone through a divorce... have a spouse overseas...

How about dropping in or giving them a call to give them a bit of Thanksgiving cheer... just to let them know that they were remembered. :)

A Visit to the Land of Little House

Okay, so I've been back for a week now, and I'm finally getting around to reporting on my trip. It was really fun!!

We started out with a visit to the Guthrie theater to see the Little House on the Prairie musical. This was actually what started the whole trip idea in the first place. Although it MAY go to Broadway or on a national tour, we couldn't take the chance that it might not and we would totally miss it. And if we were going all the way to Minneapolis anyway, well we just couldn't not go to Walnut Grove and De Smet, now could we? I didn't think so.

I'm a planner by nature. I love to plan trips, I think half the fun of a trip is in the planning of it! This particular trip was planned and re-planned so many times it isn't funny. We kept changing our mind about what we wanted to work in and when. Despite our careful planning, we had a last minute disappointment in that one place we very much wanted to visit wasn't going to be open on any day that we could possibly get there. So at the last minute, we totally reworked the trip, and ended up spending an extra day at De Smet as a result. It worked out to be a wonderful change in plans, so we're glad it happened and we'll get to the other place some other time. :)

So back to that play. Although it's the real Laura Ingalls Wilder and her books that I'm TRULY in love with, I can't deny a nostalgic link with the television series. After all, I grew up watching it faithfully. And I LOVE Melissa Gilbert. So that was another reason to make sure we got to the Guthrie to see it -- you never know if Melissa will stay with the musical even if it DOES go on to show elsewhere. And we couldn't miss our chance to see Melissa.

I had ordered some photos of Melissa to ask her to sign, and we took them along with us, but partway during the show, it hit me that those photos never came in with us. They were still in the car. So at intermission I dashed out to the parking garage to get them. The weirdest thing happened. I swear our car moved.

I clearly remembered parking on level 2. We had taken note of the letters where we parked and everything so it should have been very easy to find. Yet I walked over to the area where I just knew it was parked, and it wasn't there. I clicked the button to make it beep, and I heard it, but I couldn't place where the sound was coming from, it was so faint. I started walking and kept hitting the button. Every time I would hear it beep at me, so I knew it was there somewhere, but I absolutely COULD NOT find it. I walked up and down EVERY ROW in that garage on level 2 and it simply wasn't there. At times it would get a little louder, but I'd look everywhere and it wasn't there.

I ran up to level 3 just in case I was mistaken, but it wasn't there either, nor did I even hear it beeping there. There were only 3 levels total, and we had ridden the elevator down to the ground floor after parking, so there was nowhere else to look.

I finally gave up in frustration. I didn't want to miss the play and I'd been gone quite awhile now. I had to get back. I had no idea how we were going to get home, considering the car was invisible and all, but hoped perhaps my friend would have better luck finding it. It was such a disappointment to not have those photos to be signed, though.

I took the elevator down and on a whim, just before heading back across the street to the theatre, I stepped into the level 1 lot and clicked the button. LIGHTS! I saw lights across the lot flash at me and the beep was louder! I ran over and there was our car. On level 1. I have no idea how it got on level 1, but was thrilled to see it! I grabbed the photos and dashed back in the theater. They were making an announcement that the play would begin in two minutes just as I got there, so I didn't miss anything.

I asked my friend where we had parked the car, and she replied, "Level 2."

"That's what *I* thought," I said, "But apparently it moved." I told her the story. She was as floored as I was, so it was NOT my imagination. I was relieved as I really was beginning to think I'd lost my mind. When we left the theatre to go home, and went to the car on Level 1, she too was very surprised at its location and did not remember it being there. I don't know what happened, but it was weird.

Anyhow, we did indeed get to talk with Melissa after the show and she signed our pictures, so all's well that ends well. :) I got one done for Little Girl too. She likes watching Little House when she stays with Grandma. Which is like, every day. :)

Moving on... the next day was our big driving day. I'm sure everyone is wondering how Zenobia treated us. Apparently she has something against the Laura Ingalls Wilder Highway, aka Highway 14. We had no idea where she took us, but we never saw Highway 14. Then out of nowhere, there was the Ingalls' farm at Plum Creek! We drove right by it, not expecting it, then it dawned on me just WHERE we were. So we quickly turned around and went out to the farm. Not a soul was there, which was awesome. It was all ours.

It was so peaceful there. We spent some time walking around near the creek and along their new walking paths which make it so much easier to walk out to the tableland area now than it used to be years ago when we fought our way through the fields because we really weren't supposed to be back there. ;) I guess the owners figured if people are going to walk through their crops to get there, they were better off to just make a path and let them. :)

After we left Plum Creek, we headed into town (Walnut Grove) to tour the museum. I was thrilled to find a scrapbooking store with Laura stamps! How fun! We stopped in at Nellie's to eat, and do you know they only serve chicken? I found that funny, because do you recall the Little House episode where Nellie's restaurant becomes franchised, and they only serve three different meals, and all the customers get angry and it doesn't work out and they finally restore it back to just being the old Nellie's again, and then Col. Sanders comes up at the very end and says he has a great idea, he wants them to link up with HIS franchise, and they'll only serve one thing -- chicken. Nellie informs him that it will never work, and of course the joke is on her, since viewers all know the success of KFC. Except for the fact that Col. Sanders wasn't even born yet in the mid 1880s when the show supposedly takes place. But anyway -- I think it's really funny that Nellie's restaurant in Walnut Grove only serves chicken. :)

Our next stop was De Smet, where we spent the night at the Prairie House Manor. It's under new ownership, and the Todds are great hosts! We enjoyed our stay there very much!

We spent most of the next day at the museum and around town, and as I mentioned before, due to our last minute change, we had decided to spend an extra night in De Smet, and we did so in a covered wagon on the Ingalls Homestead. Were we ever glad our other plans didn't work out, because this was the coolest thing ever.

I'm hoping to take Little Girl back next year if it works out, and if we do, we are SO totally staying in the wagon. She'll love it!!

We loved being on Laura's land with nobody else there. Yes, there were other wagons, and a tent and an RV, but those people just stayed put, so we had the rest of the land all to ourselves. 160 beautiful prairie acres. Actually 159 because one acre belongs to the Memorial Society. Or maybe it's only 153 because I believe for some reason Pa's land only worked out to be 154 acres instead of the typical 160. Poor Pa, he got gypped in everything he did.

Anyhow. We took an evening walk. Visited the buildings, now empty of other guests, of course. Played with the baby kittens. If Little Girl stays there and they have kittens next year again, I don't know that we'll actually get to sleep in the wagon, as she'll want to be in the barn all night with the kitties. :)

We finally went back to the wagon and went to bed, and awoke to a beautiful sunrise over Pa's land. Does it get any better than that?

We couldn't bear to leave so we spent a good part of the day there, then finally had to head back to Minneapolis to fly home the next day. We left our hearts on the prairie though, so now we have a good excuse to go back. :)

And as for Zenobia... well. Remember I said she was prejudiced against Highway 14? We wanted to stop in Mankato on the way back, which I knew was on Highway 14, so when Zenobia -- who had been instructed to take us TO Mankato, not Minneapolis -- told us to take another road, I told my friend to ignore her and stay on 14. Every two minutes she was telling us to turn. Then she wanted us to U-turn. For about a half hour, she kept wanting us to U-turn and drive all the way back to where we had ignored her! Then she showed us driving NOWHERE, no road even on the display. The poor thing was so confused. We just stayed on 14 and she finally got over it, but boy was she annoyed with us for awhile.

Then in Mankato, we wanted to see Maud Hart Lovelace's home, and I had entered the street address so she would take us right to it, and apparently there are two identical street addresses in Mankato with different zip codes. I didn't know which zip code, so I just picked the first one. It wasn't the right one. It took us to some office building in the middle of the city. Next time I take a trip, I'm arming myself with maps for every single place I might want to go, the way I did in the olden days before Zenobia, and just using her for backup. She is so unreliable.

So that was the trip. It was awesome, and I can't wait for my next one!

My Battle with Poison Ivy

The first time I ever remember having poison ivy was following a "field trip" to my sixth grade teacher's house. I know, sounds unusual, but it was actually my favorite field trip of all time, I think. They lived a very old-fashioned life, and his wife taught us girls to bake bread and sew and very fun things like that.

Anyhow, we played some outdoor games while there and apparently they had poison ivy on the property and I got it. But it was no big deal. An irritation, but no big deal.

I got poison ivy again when I was about 16. It was in the crook of my arm - the inside of my elbow, if that makes sense. It was pretty bad, and well do I recall its peak. I was in the Foreign Language Festival, an event held at a university for area high schoolers. I had been selected to represent our school in the Latin test.

My arm looked horrendous, all puffy and red and oozy, and I could no longer bend it. But I thought little of it -- somehow when it's your own arm it doesn't look so bad. Everyone else kept commenting on it in horror, however.

I felt a little queasy all day. I attributed it to "butterflies in the stomach". It was unusual - I felt nervous like that when involved in events that required me to perform in front of an audience, like a spelling bee, a speech, a dramatic presentation... but it wasn't like me to be nervous about a test. Nonetheless, what else could it be?

The queasiness followed me into the evening, which I thought especially unusual. The day was done, the contest was over, there was nothing at all to be nervous about now. The poison ivy looked worse than ever, and my mother decided to call my aunt (a nurse) to see what she thought.

I didn't even notice myself, but apparently there were red streaks shooting up and down my entire arm, and my mother mentioned this to my aunt. My aunt asked about nausea, and I reported the queasiness I'd felt all day. She advised my mother to take me to urgent care. Not wanting to deal with that environment, she replied that she'd just wait till tomorrow and take me to the pediatrician instead.

I remember my aunt's response like it was yesterday, for it invoked terror into my heart. "If you don't take her in tonight, she might not BE here come tomorrow..."

For my poison ivy had somehow managed to turn into blood poisoning.

Well, after getting three different prescriptions and having to return every night for a week for a painful shot in the you-know-where, I finally recovered.

But that was not to be the end of my fight with poison ivy. I got it the next summer, and the next. I learned and have tried so many different "treatments", some of which probably caused more damage than they helped. (Anyone ever been told to use bleach? Yes, it dries up the blisters, but it also burns your skin. Kids, don't try this at home.)

I know what you may be thinking -- stay out of the woods already! I do. It's a sad thing for me, I grew up playing in the woods surrounding our house and I miss the ability to enter them without fear. I don't even have to get anywhere near the stuff anymore. It breathes on me from a mile away and I get it. And all too frequently it gets out of control and I have to go in for steroids to finally get rid of it.

Earlier this summer, the telltale blisters began to form on my arm, and I panicked. I had a big trip coming up. This had the potential to ruin it! My vanity was at stake, as well. ("I can't meet Dean Butler covered in poison ivy!") Frantically I searched the internet for some new cure, some way to stave it off if caught early. And I discovered a new wonderful amazing product.

It's made by Tecnu -- you know (or perhaps you don't, if poison ivy isn't your particular nemesis), the company that makes the stuff that takes the urushiol oil off of contaminated objects like doorknobs and other things you may have touched before the oil bonded with your skin?

But this product, called Poison Ivy Scrub, is intended to make the oil UNbond from your skin so you can wash it off. For those not in the know, the oil bonds with your skin in about 15-30 minutes, so if you wash it off (in COOL water) before that time, you may prevent getting the rash later. But if you didn't know it was there or didn't have access to a way to wash it off, once it bonded with your skin, you were out of luck.

No more! This sounded promising, and I figured if anyone could test its worth, it would be me. It really did work! The two places that had already developed blisters remained for a couple weeks, but didn't grow worse. The many places that were just beginning to itch and show tiny bumps that hadn't blistered yet when I started using the scrub did NOT develop blisters! It was the BEST case of poison ivy I ever had.

I was totally sold on the stuff.

Much to my dismay, the other day I caught sight of a familiar looking blister on my finger. Twice in one summer! It's just not fair!

But this time instead of panicking, I just pulled out my Poison Ivy Scrub and scrubbed away at my hands and arms. That evening my eye started to itch. I didn't even make the connection at first; I thought I'd gotten an irritant in it. I rubbed it, it watered, that usually washes out the irritant and all is well. But it only itched more. And more and more. Until finally I went to the bathroom to remove the contact, and discovered that my eye was all puffed up and swollen. I gently swiped my finger across it and found the telltale bump. Just one little tiny one so far, but the panic began. The scrub clearly says to keep out of the eyes.

I used it anyway, as best as I could. And it seems to have staved off the worst of it. But in the meantime, I've had little spots show up here, there, and everywhere. Every time I find a new spot, I scrub away. I've repeated the scrubbing many times and yet new spots are appearing. I have a whole strip of it across my cheek that I've scrubbed and scrubbed in the hopes of keeping it from getting any worse.

I thought it was working, but this morning I had new bumps on my fingers, a new patch on my cheek, and a tiny patch in the corner of my eye.

Again, I have a big trip coming up, and again, it's to Laura Ingalls Wilder territory. Both Wilder trips cursed!?

I'm going to see Melissa Gilbert in the Prairie musical. Do you "Little House on the Prairie" tv show fans remember the episode where the Olesons were covered in poison ivy? I had visions of me looking like that for my Little House trip.

No. Not gonna happen.

I'm done. The poison ivy wins. I gave in, went to urgent care, got my shot and my steroids. Now hopefully by the time the trip comes around, I'll be poison-free.

Historical Assumptions Based on Unreliable Evidence

When trying to research the past, photographs can be extremely useful tools. But a point driven home to me this week is that while we can make many guesses about the facts based on photos, we also must be careful to remember that our guesses are just that -- guesses. Which may or may not be accurate.

Case in point. I was doing research for a book I am working on. I had access to a hundred-year-old photograph of a church that the main subject of my book attended, and fortunately several decades ago, someone had enough foresight to get the photo labeled before everyone in it was gone and it would be a virtually useless photograph.

I carefully studied the photograph looking for clues. I made some guesses. I compiled from all sources available to me a list of everyone I thought attended this church. And then I showed my list to the last living member of that church (from a later time period than the photo, but as her parents were in the photo, she knew the history...) and asked her if there was anyone she knew of that should be on the list and wasn't.

She looked over my list, and pointed out one family I had listed as attendees. "Why, they never went to church!" she exclaimed.

"But they must have -- they were in the photo!" I argued.

"Yes, but they only went to church that one day because they wanted to be in the picture."

Wow. It really opened my eyes to just HOW WRONG our guesses can be, and when there are no sources still living... we could state things as fact based on our assumptions, albeit very good ones with lots of supporting evidence, and we could be dead wrong. (I have to admit, it gave me a good laugh too. "Hey, I know we've never set foot in the door before but we heard you were having a picture made today and we wanted to be in it!")

Another example I stumbled across online when researching this particular family... genealogists frequently listed a family (living in the mid 1800s) as having seven children. I knew from my living source, however -- whose grandmother was the daughter of the family -- that this family only had three children. Yet, the genealogists insisted on their accuracy, they had compiled this list from historical sources such as census records. Well, we all know census records aren't terribly reliable, but this was a huge error. My source has no idea who these additional "siblings" are, but is quite confident her grandmother had two brothers only. Further investigation revealed her as correct, and those confident genealogists quite mistaken. The extra children belonged to a neighboring family with the same last name.

So I beg of you, if you do historical or genealogical research, make your best assumptions based on the evidence you have, but never state those assumptions as definite fact. Things are not always as they appear.

It just makes me wonder what else I trust as fact that has been based on false assumptions.

Two Weeks of Birthday

Little Girl is 6 years old. It's hard to believe how quickly she's growing up. It seems like yesterday when she was that tiny five and a half pound baby, wearing preemie clothes that were enormous on her.

Anyhow, we celebrated a LOT. The weekend before her birthday was the big party. She shared it with a little friend, and they had it at a place full of inflatables. Baby Boy was there, of course, which was fortunate for the 20 adults who wanted to try out the Super Slide. We all took turns "borrowing" him, so we'd have an excuse to go down. Most of the kids thought nothing of it, but my cousin's stepdaughter gasped and said to her, "What are you doing!? You're my stepmother! You're not supposed to have fun!" :)

After the party, some of the family gathered at my parents' house for the Opening of the Gifts. It was like Christmas. I seriously do not remember birthdays being this big when I was young... Some of Little Girl's gifts included a kids' sewing machine (because she's been wanting to learn to sew like her great-grandmother), a glider, and a pogo stick. She's up to three hops.

On her actual birthday, Little Girl and Baby Boy went to a local small amusement park (accompanied by their parents, of course). I wasn't there, but I heard they had a wonderful time.

As mentioned in a previous post, Little Girl had requested that we have her birthday in South Dakota. An impossible request, but the very kind people at the Ingalls Homestead responded to it by sending some of South Dakota to her! Little Girl opened that extra special gift the other day, and received some wonderful gifts, including a stick of twisted hay grown on Ingalls land. (Laura Ingalls Wilder writes of twisting hay to burn when the family ran out of coal in The Long Winter.)

Baby Boy carried that hay around all evening. As a result, I now have pieces of Ingalls hay all over my living room floor that I am reluctant to vacuum up, though I know I'm going to have to! But come on!! It's INGALLS HAY. On my FLOOR. That is just cool! :) And Little Girl was very excited to receive such a special present, I think even more special because she got it a little later (due to some post office pickup issues) and it wasn't "lost" in all the other birthday fun. If you read this, THANK YOU, INGALLS HOMESTEAD!!!

I got a great "gift" of sorts too, this weekend. The last time I was in to visit, Baby Boy was starting to repeat a lot more words, and I was able to get him to imitate my name. This weekend, we were all eating dinner, and Baby Boy's highchair was beside my chair, and he looked over at me and started saying my name repeatedly, out of nowhere!! I was so shocked! So were his parents. We thought perhaps we were hearing things, but numerous times through the weekend, someone would point at me and ask him, "Who's that?" and without fail, he answered every time. So at last, Little Boy knows my name! Hooray! :)

You Learn Something New Every Day...

... or at least, you should, in my opinion. :)

I love to learn. I constantly have new "projects" going, new things I want to learn about, new skills I want to master.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those perpetual school-going types. I know there are some people that love going to school so much they pretty much make it a living, going first for this degree, and then that one, and then this specialization, and that certification. That's not me. I do my required "continuing ed" hours each year to maintain my licensure, and that's more than enough "school" for me.

No, I like to learn things on my own, with an instructional book or video or website to guide me as needed.

But one thing that I have wanted to learn for many many years now, I simply have been unable to accomplish. And that one thing is playing the fiddle.

Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books have long been a great source of pleasure for me, and a key part of those books is the music that Pa makes for the family with his fiddle. I've learned most of the songs. I buy any Little House songbook or CD that comes out. I can play many "Little House" songs on the piano. But it's never been enough for me. I have so longed to learn to play Pa's songs on the fiddle myself.

So about 10-12 years ago, I decided to make it happen. I bought a fiddle on ebay, having no idea what I was doing. When I got it, I played with it a bit, but having had no experience whatsoever with any instrument other than the piano, I was just clueless and eventually gave up in frustration. The fiddle sat in a dark corner in my closet for years and years.

Every couple of years, I would notice it there and think that this time I would figure it out. But I never did. I didn't know how to hold it. I didn't know how to tune it. I didn't know where to put my fingers. And I had no idea how the strings coordinated with the various notes. And again and again, I became frustrated and sadly put the fiddle away for another time.

And so the fiddle has sat, silent, all these years, just waiting to make music with its incompetent owner. I would take lessons, but all efforts to find a teacher came up dry. There seemed to be nobody who taught fiddle, or even violin, in the area.

Last week, as chance would have it, I was visiting a friend, and in the course of conversation, she happened to mention that she had discovered that her vet plays the violin, and her children were now taking lessons from her. How my ears perked up at that information!! To make a long story short, my friend put me in contact with this violinist veterinarian and I went over yesterday morning for an informal lesson, just to get me started.

She showed me how to hold it. How to tune it. Advised me of some accessories I should purchase that would greatly enhance my ability to do both. Marked off finger positions and gave a simple explanation of what notes they represented. Then sent me on my way to see what I could do, having this new information at my fingertips... literally. :)

I came home, and hesitantly attempted a scale. Wow. I did it. I played up and down the scale a few times. Then I thought, well now I know where the notes are, I should be able to play some simple tunes.

And I did. I played Doe, A Deer. Mary Had a Little Lamb. Old Dan Tucker. Amazing Grace. Song after song just came to me and I was amazed to discover that I could play them all! All I needed was that little bit of help getting started, and a whole new world is opened up to me now.

I'm not saying I'm playing them beautifully or perfectly by any means. I know it will take time and practice to really get a feel for the instrument and be able to play smoothly and screech-free.

But finally, after all these years, I'm well on my way to being "the fiddlin’est fool" that you ever see. :)

And that makes me really happy. :)

Almanzo Made Me Do It!

I have never eaten a tv dinner. No, never in my life. When I was a kid, I didn't even know they existed. We certainly never had them. When I was a preteen, my mother started buying them. Those little Kid Cuisines came out and my brother and sister ate them constantly, but I was never interested. I was going through a phase where I ate nothing but mashed potatoes. Man may not be able to live on bread alone, but I am living proof that one can survive on potatoes. :)

I eat more than potatoes now (though I must admit that it's rare to have a day without some form of potato as part of a meal) but I'm so full of food oddities that something so conventional as a tv dinner has simply never been something I've even considered eating. For one thing, I like to know where my food is coming from, and what it's been through. In other words, I avoid foods with ingredient lists a mile long with items that sound far more like chemicals than any food I ever heard of. If it doesn't have the word "organic" or "grain-fed" or "no hormones or antibiotics" plastered somewhere on it, it's probably not going in my mouth.

And yet, unlike the typical "natural foodie", I hate to cook. I have to be one of the laziest people alive when it comes to food preparation. My rule of thumb is, if it takes more than 5 minutes to prepare (not including cooking time as long as it can be unattended), forget it. I'll extend that to 15-20 minutes preparation time only if it's something that will make several meals, like a stew or a roast. The crockpot? It's my friend.

But tonight, I was reading Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which is well-known for its focus on food. The amount of food Almanzo puts away each meal is positively staggering to me. I swear he eats more food in each meal than I eat in a week. But the point is, the book made me hungry. And hungrier. And hungrier.

So I raided the kitchen. But I haven't done any grocery shopping yet this week so my cupboards were rather bare, and nothing I did have looked good. Not in comparison to Mother Wilder's heaping plates of everything under the sun. So in desperation, I headed to the freezer.

I don't have much in the freezer. It's for stocking-up purposes, and it simply isn't stocked right now. Awhile back, however, the grocery store had a huge sale on Hungry-Man dinners. Now while I have never eaten a tv dinner, the same cannot be said of the hungry man in the house... the typical tv dinner isn't satisfying enough for him, but Hungry-Man makes these huge one pound meals that he loves. So I stocked up. The entire full-sized freezer was filled top to bottom with stacks of these dinners by the time the sale was over. :)

So bit by bit the stack has dwindled until now it's almost as bare bones as the cabinets upstairs. However, when I opened the freezer door, my eyes fell upon one of these meals. "Hmmm," I pondered. "I wonder..."

Fried chicken. Mashed potatoes. Corn. And a brownie. I was sold.

I headed upstairs with this thing, and shook my head in disbelief at myself looking at the "1 Lb of Food" emblazoned across the box. Am I crazy for even fixing this thing? There is no way I can eat a pound of food. But I proceeded nonetheless with the great experiment: my first tv dinner.
I looked carefully at the instructions. "Remove plastic cover from chicken, potatoes and brownie. Poke holes in plastic over corn."

Ehh... not pleased that the plastic is going to be left on over the corn... I'm very careful not to let my food and drink touch anything plastic when at all possible. All those chemicals leeching out and all, you know... but I wanted to follow the instructions so I proceeded. I also realized that the entire tray was made of plastic, so the meal was doomed anyway. :)

It might be a little easier to remove the plastic from all but the corn if the plastic were sealed to the rim all the way around the corn instead of being just one big piece loosely laying over the entire top of the meal. How exactly are you supposed to leave only the corn covered? I managed, using scissors to cut the plastic around the corn... it laid there loosely but it was covered. I poked the holes obediently, then looked at the next step.

After carefully plucking twenty pieces of corn out of my brownie, I continued with the instructions.

"Place tray on baking sheet. Cook 40 minutes."

FORTY MINUTES? I thought these things were supposed to be FAST. I refrain from using the microwave as much as possible -- you guessed it, all that radiation in the food makes me more than slightly leery -- but I figured if I'm eating a terribly unhealthy meal anyway, how much worse can it be to do it in the microwave? So I switched to the microwave instructions and placed it in for 4 1/2 minutes.

When the timer went off, I looked at the next step. "Remove brownie with fork and set aside. Stir potatoes. Microwave 3 minutes."

I attempted to remove the brownie with a fork, but I'd like to know just exactly how that is supposed to be done when it all falls apart into bits? I ended up just EATING the brownie right out of the tray. Yes, I ate my dessert before my meal. Tsk, tsk... but what else could I do?

So after eating the brownie -- which was okay but not as delectable as something so naughty as a brownie should be (because of course I refrain from such sugary treats except for special occasions... but my first tv dinner, that's a special occasion, right? But boy, when I do eat those kinds of treats, I want them to be worth it... and this simply wasn't) -- I stirred the cold lumpy potatoes and put the tray back into the microwave.

I must admit, I didn't have great hopes for this meal at this point. If even the brownie was just so-so, how on earth could the rest of the food be a success? And the consistency of those potatoes was not promising. I felt like tossing the whole thing and peeling some real potatoes, despite the extra work. I'm quite used to potato peeling, after all, as you can imagine. :)

But I mustn't give up before I've even given it a try, right? So I let the meal finish radiating in the microwave. And then it was time to eat.

The potatoes were okay. Not great, but not bad either. They actually had some flavor to them, and the consistency was better with the additonal cooking time it had received.

The corn? I didn't have high hopes for the corn. I was prepared for what I call buffet corn. Have you ever noticed when you go to a buffet, the corn is almost never very good? It's either chewy and rubbery with no flavor, or soft and soggy with no flavor. I have no idea why that is. So I was pleasantly surprised with both the consistency and the flavor of the corn. Quite tolerable!

The chicken? Well, I ate a couple bites of it, but it was just too rich or something for me. It's been so long since I've had a fried food, my tongue just has no taste for it anymore, I think. Besides, I'd already had chicken for lunch... my nice healthy antibiotic and hormone-free chicken prepared in the slow cooker for ultimate juiciness and tenderness. Sorry, but this processed breaded fried chemically-laden stuff just doesn't cut it in comparison. I couldn't eat it.

So here I sit contentedly crunching away on a healthy organic apple instead, just as glad that I didn't fall in love with this meal, as now I shall never again be tempted to eat one.

Mother Wilder just may inspire me to cook a meal from scratch before this book is done!

(Not likely. :) )

Favorite Authors

Stole this meme from Kiwiria. :)

1. Who's your all-time favourite author and why?

Hands down, no hesitation needed, it's Laura Ingalls Wilder. Why? Although I love to read, I'm not a big rereader. If I really enjoyed a book, I may reread it a few years later. There are only a handful of books that I've read more than 2 or 3 times in my life. But the "Little House" books? Rereads must number over a hundred at least. I never ever tire of reading them. They bring the Ingalls family to life, and make them dear friends. Pa's fiddle never fails to move me to dance with joy or to wipe away tears of nostalgia. I rely on their wisdom in sticky situations, their patience in tribulation, their laughter in hard times, their love of family for comfort and a sense of belonging. These books, and their author, have shaped my life in numerous ways, including bringing me some of my dearest friends, who share a love of Laura. :)

2. Who was your first favourite author and why?

It may have been Laura. :) However, I will have to go with H.A. Rey, because I am reported to have wanted nothing else for my third Christmas than Curious George books. Which, at that time, my mother had great difficulty locating. But she searched every store in town and finally found them, so it was a merry Christmas for me and George. :)

3. Who's your most recent addition to your most favourite authors and why?

Francine Rivers. Why? Because on the recommendation of a friend, I read Redeeming Love about a year ago, and absolutely could not put it down. It's been awhile since I've found a book THAT good, outside of Harry Potter. I went on to read her other novels and found each of them to be the same -- compelling living stories that keep you eager to learn what happens next.

4. If someone asked you who your favorite authors were right now, which authors would first pop out of your mouth? Are there any you'd add on a moment further reflection?

First ones that always come to mind are Laura Ingalls Wilder, L.M. Montgomery, and Louisa May Alcott. When I stop to think about it, I add Corrie ten Boom, Karen Kingsbury, Francine Rivers, J.K. Rowling, Beverly Lewis, and Janette Oke. Really, I'd best add William Anderson to the list too. :)

...and deer roamed everywhere.

I love my job. I really do! If I shared every comical, odd, or unbelievable thing that happened to me on the job, I'd have a story for you every day, just about. I enjoy people, and in this job, working with toddlers in their homes, I get to know people from all walks of life. Some perfectly normal people, and some very... colorful... people. :) As a result, I have a lot of fun, and never lack for entertainment.

But while I knew this job would lead to spending a great deal of time with all sorts of people, what I didn't count on was all the wildlife I'd encounter. And I'm not referring to the older brothers and sisters!

After all, there was the evaluation of the child who couldn't say a single word, but I was informed that the family had four goats and they each made a distinctly different sound, and the child could imitate all four goat sounds. Now that's a skill to be proud of... I got to know those goats quite well, as the child's favorite place to have therapy was the barn, but I certainly was never able to imitate those four goat calls!

And then there was the stifling hot humid summer afternoon last year where I arrived to find the family in the pool because their electricity was off and the house was even more hot and humid than the outdoors. The dripping wet toddler was handed out to me -- I put him down as quickly as possible to avoid getting drenched myself, and he headed straight for the sandbox, of all places. You know what he looked like when he came out of there, having gone into it soaked... At this point, the mother shrieks to the older son that the horse is loose... I'm personally not thinking this is any big deal, go get your horse and put it back in the fence, right? But no, this mother then informs me that this is a MEAN horse, and it will attack, that this horse pinned her against the car the other day and she was sure she was a goner. Okay, so why do you OWN an animal like this, I'm wondering? So I am assigned the job of keeping the toddler on the sidewalk outside the house, because the horse won't step on the sidewalk because he doesn't like the way it feels. I'm serious, this is what the mother tells me. I then proceed to try to keep a very hyperactive wet sandy toddler on a sidewalk for the next 45 minutes in the hot sticky heat while the mother and older son are attempting to round up this horse, and they're both positively terrified of it, which is why it took so long. The horse just stood there this entire time beside the barn looking at us and swishing its tail calmly, not looking at all like the ferocious beast it was made out to be, while the son and mother are skirting around trying to entice it into the fence while maintaining their distance. At long last, some food placed inside the fence caused the horse to meander slowly around the barn and into the fence, at which point the mom rushed up and locked the gate triumphantly. I am thinking, "THAT is the dangerous horse they're so afraid of?" when the mother returns to where I am waiting with the toddler and says, "Did you see the dirty look that horse gave me when I shut the gate?"

I'll pause while you take in that entire preposterous event.

My favorite wildlife story is the house where I have to drive 45 minutes into the middle of absolutely nowhere. I went there one morning and the mother says to me, laughing, "Boy, was he ever scared last night. He heard a sound outside, and BOLTED right off the couch and dashed to the other side of the room!" I waited for an explanation that never came, so finally said, "What WAS the sound?" "Oh," the mother shrugs, "just a mountain lion or something."

A MOUNTAIN lion!? I didn't even know they existed in this state! Sure enough, the mother says there are several roaming around in the woods near their house, and a black panther has been spotted on numerous occasions, as well. A panther!! I felt like I was in the middle of a "Little House" story...! I looked it up online when I got home, and sure enough, there have been a few rare sightings in the most rural areas of the state, which is exactly where this child lives. Who knew!?

But today, I had a very tame wildlife experience. I pulled into the driveway of a house, and as I got out of the car, saw the little boy dash out the front door excitedly to meet me, holding something brown and wriggling in his arms. He has a brown dog that he carries around at times, and I assumed that's what he was holding. Imagine my surprise as I begin to walk down the hill toward him and discover it's a FAWN he's holding! He put the deer down and it let us pet it, and then trotted right into the house with us. I asked his mother what happened to the mommy deer, and she said the kids had found it in the woods and the mother deer wouldn't come back to it after the kids had been messing with it, so now they were going to have to raise it. It was only two days old, it had just been born, still covered with blood, when they found it. I was a bit skeptical, but didn't really know for sure, so I didn't say anything. The deer was so sweet and so friendly, the little boy got to feed it with a baby bottle, and then it curled up in their dog's cage and went to sleep.

And then the older siblings came home from school. With friends, to see their new pet. The poor little fawn... I don't know how it tolerated all the attention, because the chaos about drove me nuts and I'm not two days old... I just hope it survives. I looked info on baby deer up this evening to see if what they said was true about the mother not taking care of it once it had been disturbed by humans, and they're wrong. The mother would have come back after the kids had left. But apparently a "kidnapped" fawn should be returned within 12-18 hours so the mother will come care for it, and they've already had this deer for two days, so I've no idea if it still would or not if they put it back. Apparently, raising a deer can have serious consequences for both the deer and for humans, and they need to either try to take it back to the mother or give it to a wildlife rehabilitator. So I guess now I need to tell them that. I bet they keep the deer anyway...

Update: The deer? It died.

Lessons from Harry Potter and Laura Ingalls Wilder

"You... This isn't a criticism, Harry! But you do... sort of... I mean -- don't you think you've got a bit of a -- a -- saving-people-thing?" she said." (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling, Ch. 32)

I remember the first time I ever read these words spoken by Hermione Granger, and the eye-opening experience it was for me. "That's me!" I thought. "I have a saving-people-thing... perhaps that's what I like so much about Harry."

It's an interesting concept -- it's one of Harry's strengths, and yet in the chapter above, as Hermione so intelligently predicted, his very strength is used by the enemy and it becomes his downfall.

I've been thinking about my "saving-people-thing" a lot in recent weeks, as numerous situations with people have come up to bring it to the surface. So many people are hurting or in need, and I find myself just wanting to fix everything, and being so frustrated when my hands are tied. Harry's situation reminds me that I need to be so careful that what could be a strength doesn't become my downfall.

I have to come to terms with the fact that some people simply don't want to be fixed, or don't even recognize that there's something that needs fixing. Other people may say they want your help, but when it comes to actually changing something about their behaviors, they give up. Some people want help and could improve their situations, but they don't want MY help, they want someone else's. I so often find myself heartbroken over situations like these, and I have to be careful not to intervene when my presence isn't wanted, and yet to be sure that people know I am totally there for them and willing to do anything I can to help them if they do want it. It's an intricate balance, one that is hard to maintain.

Depression and the ongoing emotional struggle it brings is an especially difficult issue for me to watch others battle, because I battled it myself for years and intimately know the damage it brings to one's life and relationships. Because I found my way through the darkness, and that's a battle I've conquered (through Christ, of course), I also know how different, how joyful and content, that life can be without that cloud overshadowing everything. I want the peace I've experienced over the last few years to belong to everyone who is suffering, and it frustrates me to no end when for various reasons, I'm unable to help a person find that.

Arguments and friction between people is another situation that really burdens me, especially of late, as I watch yet another one evolve... one small explosion in a war that has been raging for years, really. I think most people expect me to take sides -- to take a particular side, in fact, given the circumstances -- but I simply can't find myself doing that. I see all the sides and understand that underlying issues are spurring on the conflict, and it's all so unnecessary. If only people would accept other people regardless of their flaws, and understand that hurting someone else or getting even with them really isn't going to make you feel any better about yourself or your own hurt, the whole thing could be put to rest; and yet, this is one of those frustrating situations where I recognize that my hands are tied and there's really nothing I can do but watch, because my help simply isn't wanted.

I read this poem on another blog, and it summed up my feelings regarding this so exactly that I just had to share it. Laura Ingalls Wilder quoted it in an article where she explained the reasons behind the behaviors of a woman who had been harshly judged by people who didn't know the whole situation. It may be anonymous, but it's also been attributed to Rudyard Kipling.

Could we but draw back the curtain
That surrounds each other's lives,
See the naked heart and spirit,
Know what spur the action drives,
Often we would find it clearer,
Purer than we judge we would--
We would love each other better
If we only understood.

Could we judge all deeds by motives,
See the good and bad within,
Often we would love the sinner
All the while we loathed the sin.
Could we know the powers working
To o'erthrow integrity,
We would judge each other's errors
With more patient charity.

If we knew the care and trials,
Knew the efforts all in vain,
All the bitter disappointment,
Understood the loss and gain.
Would the grim external roughness
Seem, I wonder, just the same?
Would we help where now we hinder?
Would we pity where now we blame?

Ah! we judge each other harshly,
Knowing not life's hidden force;
Knowing not the fount of action
Is less turbid at its source;
Seeing not amid the evil
All the golden strains of good--
Oh, we'd love each other better,
If we only understood.

All I can say to that is amen and amen and amen.

And I suppose the lesson I'm to learn from this entire situation is that there really is something I can do even when... especially when my hands are tied. They can be tied together, in prayer, to another who has a saving-people-thing, but One whose hands are never tied.

Train Up a Child in the Way (S)he Should Go...

...and Little Girl is well-trained, I must say. :)

Her sixth birthday is approaching, and my sister was discussing with her what kind of birthday party she would like to have this year. A swimming party, perhaps, or a skating party, a gymnastics party, or a bowling party...

Little Girl, without hesitation, responded, "I want to go to South Dakota for my birthday."

(Background: My mother and I took her to the Laura Ingalls Wilder sites last summer, trip report posted here.)

My sister said, "But don't you want the whole family to come to your birthday party?"

Little Girl replied, "Yes, I want the whole family to go to South Dakota and have my birthday party there."

Seeing as how we are a VERY LONG WAY from South Dakota, my sister then questioned, "But how would the whole family get to South Dakota?"

Matter-of-factly, Little Girl answered, "On an airplane."

Because the cost of airline tickets for the entire family is of no concern when one is five years old. :)

Regardless, I am thrilled to see that she has her priorities in life straight. Of course she should go to South Dakota for her birthday; what better place than the Ingalls Homestead to spend one's special day? (And now I feel guilty, because I am going to South Dakota this summer and had no plans to take her with me...)

But can you see why I love this kid!? :)

Merry Christmas

I have had so many things I've wanted to blog about, and just never have the time!! I'll try to get them all out in the next few days, so this blog may actually have some activity for awhile.

For starters, Merry Christmas! It was a nice one here, Little Girl got some really nice gifts (meaning, instead of a bunch of junky toys, she got some nice things she'll really get a lot of use out of) and Baby Boy had so much fun opening gifts and dancing to the Christmas music. Her favorite (and mine!) were her "Little House" Lincoln Logs, as she calls them... now she can build a log cabin and have a wagon and horses and Ma and Pa to go with them -- but she wants a Mary and Laura too, and I've no idea where we'll find figures so small to play the part... but we shall try.

My favorite gift for myself was a copy of These Happy Golden Years. Not just any copy, mind you, but a Sewell-illustrated edition -- meaning pre-1953. Oh, but not just a Sewell, I have several of those after all, nice but not that big of a deal. But an AUTOGRAPHED copy. Yes indeed, my brother who has complained for years about how everything has to be about Laura went out looking for an autographed copy of one of her books. Now how's THAT for a merry Christmas? :)

Merry Christmas, one and all...

A Little House Journey

So... my mother and I took Little Girl on her very first Little House trip. First of many, I am quite confident. She had a wonderful time!! Now I've been on numerous visits myself, the first ones with family where everything was so new and exciting and I was simply breathless taking it all in, and later ones with various friends where we were always investigating and exploring new things to do, but this time surpassed them all. The standard things, the things that were so exciting those first couple of visits, have become so familiar that I don't know that it would even be worth a trip back just for myself at this point. But seeing everything through Little Girl's eyes, and acquainting her with the stories, brought back the joys, the beauty, the simplicity of the stories themselves.

Who cares if this object belonged to the family? Who cares if that building was originally some building in the books? Who cares that so and so lived there, and so and so homesteaded here? I've certainly been very interested in those things in the past, but this trip was about Little Girl experiencing the books and pioneer life for the first time, and I must say, that enjoyment far surpassed that of any other trip. Well, let me stop rambling, and get on with the events of the trip!!

We flew to Sioux Falls, and after a visit to the zoo, headed up to our Bed and Breakfast in De Smet, South Dakota. It is a restored home that had belonged to Banker Ruth, from the Little House series, and is just two doors down from the Ingalls home the family lived in after Laura's marriage. So that was fun!! Little Girl was very excited about the Murphy Bed in the closet that we pulled down for her. That first night in the B&B, we let Little Girl watch the premiere movie of Little House on the Prairie.

Now, I liked the show as a kid, but I always knew it was very very different from the books. I have no problem with Little Girl watching the show later on, but I really want her to know the BOOKS first. I had bought her the series for Christmas, and wanted my sister to read her at least Big Woods, Prairie, and Plum Creek before we left on this trip, but that didn't happen. When I'm in town, I've read to her, and we finished up Big Woods but that's it. So I decided that since the premiere movie stays relatively close to the book, that would be a good way to get her to experience the stories of Little House on the Prairie a lot faster.

The next morning, Little Girl had a pancake man, like Ma made the children for breakfast on Christmas morning in the Big Woods, only with chocolate chips for the face :o), and after breakfast, we headed on over to the official LIW museum in town. I had made us shirts for the occasion -- Little Girl's had the front cover of Little House on the Prairie where the two girls are looking out the back of the wagon, and it said My First Little House Trip. :o) Mine and Mom's had a pic of the Ingalls family from the De Smet time period (Silver Lake really), dancing to Pa's fiddle, and read: "It is the sweet, simple things of life that are the real ones after all." ~Laura Ingalls Wilder.

So we looked around in the bookstore while we waited for our Surveyors House tour to begin. When we went in, Little Girl was interested in seeing and touching EVERYTHING, and not so interested in listening to the tour guide, who just went ON and ON and ON, telling the ENTIRE HISTORY of the Ingalls family and all of their moves -- you know, "Then they left the Big woods and went to Kansas and bla bla bla, and then they went back to the Big Woods and bla bla bla, then they went to Walnut grove and bla bla bla, then they went to Burr Oak, and then back to Walnut Grove, and then to De Smet... Since Little Girl was so busy exploring, and I was so busy trying to keep her from touching anything she shouldn't, I didn't figure she was paying the least bit of attention, and there was a man there with a baby who wasn't being OVERLY fussy but who was making some little whimpers and cries here and there, and the woman asked him to leave!! So I was terrified she was going to send us out with Little Girl!!

But she didn't, and at long last the talking was over and LG was free to look around. She got to grind wheat in an old coffee grinder like they did in The Long Winter and she enjoyed that.

Our next stop was the Discover Laura center across the road -- an old schoolhouse that the association has put there since the last time we went, for hands-on activities for kids. Little Girl LOVED it there. She did every single activity: she sewed with an old sewing machine, she used a writing guide to write her name with her eyes closed pretending to be blind like Mary, she spelled out her name in Braille by glueing peas in the appropriate circles, she made a covered wagon out of paper, she built cabins with Lincoln Logs, she cooked with the play food on the old-fashioned stove, she gathered toy eggs from beneath stuffed chickens , she tried on several bonnets and aprons and dresses from the dress-up trunk, and she made butter from cream and served it to us on crackers. We were in there for over two hours. Every other family came in, their kid would do one or two things, and in 10-15 minutes they'd be bored and leave. Not LG!!

And apparently she had been listening more than I thought during that Surveyors House tour, as in the school, she sat at the teacher's desk, picked up a book and said, "Now children, I'm going to tell you a story about a girl named Laura, and her Pa, and Ma, and Mary, and Baby Carrie, and Jack, and Black Susan. And they lived in the forest for a bery bery long time, and then they moved to....?" She looked questioningly at me, and I said, "Kansas." She says, "They moved to Kansas. And then they moved to somewhere else, and then they moved to somewhere else, and then they moved to somewhere else, and then they moved to somewhere else. And then Laura got bery old and she went to heaven to live with God and Jesus. The End."

I laughed SO hard, especially because her biography is so accurate!!!! :o)

At long last, she had completed every single activity and was ready to go. A playground was outside the building so she played there for awhile, and then we went to the Ingalls house in town, and toured it. We then went and had a late lunch, and then I took her swimming. There were real frogs in the pool!!

After swimming, we headed back to the B&B and got cleaned up and then it was time to head out to the pageant grounds. We got there right after they opened the grounds so we could get front row seats. There were wagon rides around the prairie while we waited. Little Girl provided a running commentary of the entire pageant. She NEVER stops talking... but at least she was paying attention as she talked, and her comments were hilarious.

Saturday morning, Little Girl wore her prairie dress that Mammaw made her, and she was absolutely gorgeous. After breakfast (LG got a Mickey Mouse pancake today! The B&B owner had made one for her grandson the day before, so LG put in a special request...), we headed out to the Ingalls homestead, visiting first the society's corner of the homestead claim, where Pa's cottonwoods still stand. Then we headed up the hill to the "Ingalls Homestead", which is a huge hands-on experience basically, spread out all over the original Ingalls homestead claim. There are several buildings -- a dugout, a claim shanty, etc. and the entire thing is hands-on, nothing is off-limits or only for viewing. So if you want to lay down on a straw tick, play an old pump organ, play at cooking on the stove, etc., that's all totally fine. And that is Little Girl's idea of a museum!! :o)

She did so many things that day it would be impossible to relate them all. Again, though, she did EVERY SINGLE activity offered, never growing bored or wanting to skip ANYthing, so we were there ALL DAY LONG. She did some laundry, using an old wringer washer. She sewed, she quilted, she braided a rug, she made a button toy and a jumprope and a corncob doll, she ground wheat again, she pumped water, she checked out the outhouse but was NOT impressed (people actually use it...YUCK), she went on a pony cart ride, she drove a team of horses across the prairie to take us all to "school", where she performed beautifully. There were about ten kids present for our school session, most older, about 8-12. The teacher had them line up and had a spelling bee. Those kids could not spell, I think only one or two spelled their words correctly (and they weren't hard words, apron, bonnet, cowboy, etc.) and even those were slow and unsure. Two 3 yr olds were only asked to count to 3, so we were hoping Little Girl, the only other really young child there, would be given a word to spell instead of asked to count to 5 or something dumb like that, because she CAN spell any short vowel word you give her. The teacher asked her name, and then asked her to spell it, which she was able to do at 2 or 3, but at least it was spelling a word instead of counting to 5. Then they had a music lesson. The teacher sang, "My name is Mrs. Nelson" and the children were to try to match her tune and use their own names. A couple of the older girls did a decent job, but most of the kids were totally off-key. We wondered what Little Girl would do. When it came to her turn, the teacher sang, "My name is Mrs. Nelson," and in perfect pitch in her ever so sweet voice, she sang back loudly and clearly, "My name is Little Girl." The entire schoolroom of people awwwwed. :)

Oh, and then there was the barn. I mustn't forget the barn, for upstairs was a box of kittens. How Little Girl loved those kittens. We were there a LOOOONG time.

That evening, the society was holding a free "covered wagon supper". No more details were ever given, and I had been quite eager to see what this would be, thinking it would be a legitimate pioneer style meal. Um, try hot dogs, potato chips, and baked beans. Can't beat free though, so we ate, and then let Little Girl try out every playground in the entire town. :)

Saturday night at the B&B, we let Little Girl watch more Little House: the first part of a Harvest of Friends where the family lives in the dugout and Pa builds the house, then turned it off before they went into the crazy story about Pa stacking those bags and getting hurt, and put in Country Girls, where the girls start school and meet Nellie Oleson. Those two pieces stay fairly close to the books and we figured it would help her get familiar faster with the main events of Plum Creek, in preparation for our visit to Walnut Grove the next day.

Sunday morning, Little Girl got another pancake man, and clothed once more in her prairie dress since she begged to wear it again, we headed off for Walnut Grove. The two hour drive seemed ENDLESS, and we really felt for the Ingalls family riding in a wagon across the empty prairie from early in the morning until late at night -- and that was only from Tracy to Brookings, about HALF the trip we made in two hours...

Walnut Grove has added quite a bit since our last trip too. Most of its stuff was roped off and you just look at it, and LG whizzed right by that stuff, but there was one hands-on room and once again, we spent a LONG time in it. She carried firewood like Laura and Mary, put it in the stove and "cooked" us a meal, tried on numerous hats, played with some old wooden toys including a Noah's Ark like Willie Oleson had in Plum Creek, looked through a stereoscope (very cool, as I always wondered just how they worked!), played us a tune on another pump organ, etc.

After touring all the museum had to offer, we went out to Plum Creek. I couldn't believe it, but Little Girl seriously wanted to wade in the creek. We tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted. She did an excellent job of holding up her dress so it didn't get wet at all, but when she came out, her feet were quite muddy. We had wipes in the car and I tried to clean them off but they just weren't terribly effective. Oh well, our next stop was our hotel, and it was only a few minutes away, so we headed there, and I carried her with her muddy feet straight from the car to the tub. I used soap and a washcloth and scrubbed those feet and still she had some brown spots on her feet when we were finished. I don't know how on earth Ma ever got Laura's and Mary's feet clean!! Perhaps she didn't. :o)

There was a park across the street from the hotel conveniently enough, so after we ate, and stopped by the Wheels Across the Prairie exhibit in Tracy, where Ma and the girls had ridden the train to, from Walnut Grove, I took her to the park. Then we headed off to the pageant. I've always preferred the Walnut Grove pageant to the De Smet one just because the sets are so awesome, it's more professionally done, etc., but I'm changing my mind now. It has a few events from the book, but so much is centered on town life, and church life, and it takes away from the charm of the books, in my opinion. Just act out the book, that's the only play I need to see!!

And so the next morning we traveled home, with a visit to the Creation Museum during our SEVEN HOUR layover. My sister told me that the whole way home from the airport, Little Girl chattered away about leeches and the big crab and Nellie Oleson. :)

Yes, the Little House obsession has effectively spread to the next generation... :)

My Introduction to "Little House"

Pretty much everyone who knows me knows I'm very interested in -- okay, obsessed with -- author Laura Ingalls Wilder and her "Little House" books. But how did this obsession begin? Who was responsible for introducing me? It's really a somewhat interesting story, so I thought I'd share it today.

When my mother was a little girl, her bookmobile driver recommended that she read Little House in the Big Woods. She took his advice and checked out the book, and when she returned it the next week, the bookmobile man asked her if she liked it. When she said she did, he led her back to the shelf and showed her the rest of the "Little House" books lined up there, and said, "Look -- all of these books are about that same little girl." So she read them all, and of course, she was hooked.

Now interestingly enough, that bookmobile driver had a brother. And that brother was raising his young nephew. And that nephew, when he was grown, married my mother. So the person responsible for introducing my mother to the "Little House" books, and who was thus indirectly responsible for my obsession with the series, is none other than my great-uncle's brother. He had no idea what he was starting... :o)

Now back then, my mother wasn't into "Little House" like I am into "Little House". She liked the books, and when Michael Landon's television series came on, of course she watched it and enjoyed it, although she obviously recognized from the beginning how much the show strayed from the books. But that was pretty much the extent of it.

Well. I discovered the "Little House" books on my mother's bookshelf when I was three years old and insisted she read them to me. She said I wasn't old enough for them yet, but I protested that they had a little girl on the front, so they must be little girl books and I wanted to read them. What could she say to that? So she read them to me, and I loved them from the start.

Now I read and reread those books several times throughout my childhood, but in seventh grade, I became friends with another "Little House" fan. She knew a girl who had a book called The Story of the Ingalls, which contained information about the real Ingalls family and what became of each of them after the series ended. She told me all she could remember, which wasn't nearly enough to satiate either of us.

We discovered a biography about Laura at the library, written by Donald Zochert. We devoured the book and all of the information it had to offer, but to us, the treasure trove was found in the very back of the book: a list of addresses to all of the Little House museums scattered across the midwest. We wrote to them all, and they sent brochures about their sites as well as order forms for their gift shops. The Story of the Ingalls was available through those gift shops, as were many many other booklets about the various people and places of the Little House books by the same author, William Anderson.

As the years passed, we managed to accumulate them all, and in 1993, my family took its first "Little House" vacation, visiting each and every one of Laura's Little Houses. How excited I was to discover that we had planned our trip quite by accident to be the very weekend that William Anderson, who had become quite the hero to our young Laura-obsessed brains, was going to be there signing books.

Since then, I've taken many trips back (and seen Bill Anderson so many times that the thrill has worn off, I'm sorry to say), some of which were with that same friend from junior high. Those little towns seemed so very far away to us then that we never would have dreamed that someday we'd be visiting them together.

Perhaps there's another fan in the making reading this here today, and wondering just where ARE all those real Little House sites? Send me a message and you will quickly learn all you could possibly care to know! Seriously!! And if you've never read the "Little House" books -- how much you've missed!! I highly recommend you rectify that and pick up your copy of Little House in the Big Woods today. No excuses that they are "children's books", the online community of "Little House" fans includes almost NO children, and many hundreds of grown women, and even a handful of men. Why don't you join us today? :o)