Coffee

Coffee has been on my mind lately. I never drank coffee until I was about 30 and my co-worker, Margaret, would start off her day in our little office with the most wonderfully, aromatic cup of coffee. The folks at the office would tease me since I was the only n0n-coffee drinker so one day I set out to prove to them that I just did NOT like coffee! Well, I lost that proof. I fell in love with it! We never really had coffee growing up at home. Dad was a tea drinker. He'd fill that green, insulated cup with black tea, saving 1/4 of an inch for his sugar and milk to fit in. It would be swimming over the rim of his tall cup and then he'd complain when we'd shake the table and make his tea spill. Mom would make coffee VERY rarely when we had a party or guests, but not often enough to have us get used to drinking it. So, I didn't grow up with coffee, but I sure love it now!

During the month of March, the coffee king restaurant, Tim Hortons, had it's Roll Up the Rim contest going - buy a medium, large or extra large hot beverage and roll up the rim to see if you won a prize of cash, bikes, barbeques, cars or free coffee and donuts. Or the most frequent "prize", as my friend Chris always says, "Tim Horton's is so nice to me. They always let me 'play again'." Yep. When I played Roll Up the Rim, we mostly won "Please Play Again" to the point that when we would drive past a Tim Hortons, Christopher would say, "Mommy, do you want to go get a "Please Play Again?" Over the course of the month and a half that Tim's had this contest going, we ended up winning three free donuts and a free coffee. The boys were thrilled to choose their own donuts and share a hot cocoa from these winnings and we felt as if we had won a lottery!

Other random coffee comments:

Stephen came home from school a few weeks ago and was so excited! He asked, "Mommy, have you ever smelled coffee beans before?!" Well, as a matter of fact, I have. Why? "They smell sooooo good! But I don't like the taste. Maybe some day I will."

During a conversation about the definition of caffine, Timothy says, "When my next tooth falls out, I want to drink a cup of coffee before bed." Why, I ask. "Because I want to stay awake and see if the tooth fairy is real, or if it really is just you."

While sipping on a lovely cup of vanilla flavored coffee recently, Stephen again commented on how good my coffee smelled. I offered him a sip, but he refused with shock on his face. "But I'm not 10!" he said. 10? What does that have to do with anything? Well, I guess someone told him that you weren't allowed to drink coffee until you were 10 and he was so shocked that I would offer it to him when he was still seven! He ended up politely telling me that he'll wait until he's 10 and until then, he'll just smell my coffee beans.

Even though I enjoy a delicious cup of coffee, I am happy to say that I am not addicted to it either. Sometimes days go by before I realize that I haven't had any, yet other days, I know that if I had a whole pot here, I'd probably drink it all non-stop. I'm the only coffee drinker in the house, so it's not uncommon for me to go without making any for long periods of time. Besides, for some reason, it's always more enjoyable to drink that hot cup of coffee when you're sitting with a friend anyway. Anyone want to come over for a cup of coffee?

A Few Thoughts on Aging

I always had a love for older people. Maybe it was because of all the time we spent at Angela's as teenagers (when she was in her 80's and 90's). Maybe it was because, growing up in East Akron, there were no age boundaries in our church. We were friends with the youngest, the oldest and everyone in between. I love talking with elderly people, asking them questions, cracking jokes with them, getting emotional with them, just sitting and watching them! When I was getting ready to make a decision as to what my life's career path would be, I knew that it would be either elementary education or geriatrics....working with either the young, or the old. I choose to work with children because I didn't think I could handle becoming so attached to someone, only to know that it was a matter of time before they would die. My thoughts on aging are changing now. I have been forced to be an active participant in the struggles of the elderly - forced, meaning that no matter how hard you may try to pretend that the aging process is not affecting you or your loved ones, it truly is a reality. Fred's dad came back from a vacation in Phoenix where he was with my sister-in-law and her husband for several weeks. We were hoping that it would be a warm, sunny and relaxing time for all of them. It was not easy to hear Esther tell about the struggles they had with Dad while they were gone. It was tough for him to walk, to move around, to use bathrooms that were too small for him and a caregiver to occupy. The hardest thing though, was to hear that Dad didn't have memories about their place in Phoenix. It seems that there were a few moments of some recognition, but for the most part, he didn't remember that this was a place that was special for him and for Mom, and that they were there every year for many years. I was with Dad on Wednesday afternoon for several hours and I thought again about how helpful it would be if we could start our lives out as old people and work our way backwards so that NOW I could have the knowledge of how to serve my aged father-in-law the best. If I had already been old, I would know whether or not he appreciates my constant chattering or if he would like his shoulders rubbed. Maybe he would like me to tell stories of the kids or maybe he would like me to talk about places that he had been as a child. Maybe I would recognize what truly brings him joy and what would please him the most when I visit. I don't know these things, so I guess and sometimes I guess correctly and sometimes I realize that I'm heading down the wrong path and I just shut my mouth and sit quietly with him watching the birds at his birdfeeder. What I do know, is that I am learning to give him greater respect and to keep his dignity. I try to put myself in his shoes and I treat him the way that I hope my children will treat me some day. It seems as if most of the time that I am with him, he doesn't have a clue who I am (he knows that I am connected to him, but I don't think he knows how or why), but I still want him to know that he is loved and respected and has worth in his old age. And those are my latest thoughts on aging.

Cheap Entertainment

This is what happens when you give little boys a digital camera to play with so that you can have a decent conversation with other adults who are visiting. You never know what they will think is important to capture!

I must say, it certainly was a cheap form of entertainment and kept us all laughing afterward! Who knows? Maybe the photography gene truly is present in this family, too!

Potatoes, Potatoes, Potatoes

The past couple of Tuesdays I've been cutting tons and tons of potatoes! I've been spending a couple of hours at a time cutting bins of potatoes, and now this week I also got to cut celery and green and purple cabbage as well. I cut purple cabbage this week until my hands were stained as if I had just cleaned ten pounds of elderberries! Why am I doing this? A friend of mine introduced me to the Ontario Christian Gleaners in Cambridge, Ontario. Wow! I'm addicted now, I think.

If you have time, poke around the website to see what it's all about, but in a nutshell, a few years ago a Christian from here in Ontario heard about a similar organization in British Columbia and decided to come back home and establish an Ontario-based distribution center (or centre, since it IS Canadian). Two and a half years ago, this operation opened up here in Cambridge. The Gleaners receive surplus fruits and vegetables from nearby farmers, food production facilities and food distributors (in places like Toronto) and volunteers come on a daily basis to sort through the bins and pallets of produce, gleaning what they can from the donated food. This is then sent through a chopping machine that dices it fairly small and then it's spread on a conveyor that goes through a massive dehydrator that dries the produce. It's stored in bins until there is enough to package into bags of "soup" that is then ready to be distributed to places in need like Haiti, many African communities, Guatemala, Peru, Mexico, Romania, etc. One bag of dehydrated vegetable soup can feed 100 people. These bags are very lightweight, so many of them can be shipped at a time at a very low cost.

I wish that all of you could see this production! I am amazed every time I go and I just can't get enough of it! As I stand at my table, cutting my bins of vegetables and chatting with all the other volunteers around me, I can't stop wishing that Grandpa could have seen this! He would have been in there and involved in absolutely every aspect of this operation! And he probably would have had a thousand contacts for even more donated materials and equipment and volunteers. This week, there was an 80 year old gentleman standing across from me who reminded me so much of Grandpa. He knew this person and that person and knew where each piece of equipment came from and who designed it and where they got the materials donated to make it. He found out I was from Ohio and he told me that he was just there last week buying some milking cows. He said, "I was in a little, little town in Ohio that you probably never heard of before." I told him to try me. He had been in Berlin! Ha! Small world!

Anyway, this blog post isn't turning out like I wanted it to. I am so overwhelmed with the magnitude of this little endeavor of the Ontario Christian Gleaners and I wanted to somehow get that awe across in my writing, but it's just not happening. I think it must be similar to what John felt when he tried to talk about Heaven. Although his words are beautiful and create anticipation for us, they probably sounded like just words to him since he had a greater glimpse of that reality. I just can't describe to you the blessing that I feel going in to that building every week, never knowing what I'm going to be digging through or cutting up, but in my own little small way, I am helping to feed some child or some mother somewhere who may feel that there is no more hope...until they are blessed with this nutritious soup that someone far away prepared for them. It reminds me of the story of the man walking along a beach that had thousands of starfish washed up from the ocean. He saw someone bending down and throwing one starfish at a time back into the water. When he stopped and asked the man why he was doing it, seeing that there were so many that it really wouldn't make a difference if a few were thrown back in, the man stooped, picked up another one and threw it in and said, "It made a difference to that one...and to that one... and to that one." I cannot feed all the hungry people in the world. I cannot go to places like Haiti or Ghana or Peru to help feed the hungry. I CAN, however, spend a few precious hours a week sorting through rejected potatoes or crushed celery or sometimes slimey cabbage to glean food for the other children of God that have none.

If it were not for the Ontario Christian Gleaners, this produce would have been dumped and tilled under and just thrown out! Honestly, most of the vegetables that I have worked on are in better condition than the ones that I buy in the grocery store!!

If you are ever able to volunteer a few hours at the Gleaners, I greatly encourage you to do so! There is so much love poured into that work and God has really blessed this organization as it blesses so many, many lives! For you out of towners come for a visit during the week sometime and I will take you with me for a morning of gleaning. It will change your life.

Now, since I've worked on so many potatoes and cabbage this week, I'm off to make some vegetable soup for supper tonight! It just seems like a good idea today.

Cultured? (Only if this reference is to something that has soured)

Recently another stay-at-home-mom friend and I decided to take advantage of a free noontime concert at a local university that was open to the community as well. The website said that it was to be a piano duet that day, and I was really looking forward to this! It has been a long time since I've done anything like this, so I had really geared myself up to getting a little taste of 'culture' again!

Unfortunately, our parking meter gave us a bit of a problem so we were a tad bit late getting into the recital hall and we had to wait outside the doors until the first movement was over and we could slip in. I couldn't really hear much from out there. The pianos were muffled and I wasn't really able to follow any type of melody or anything, but it was probably because we were not yet sitting in front of the pianists, enveloping ourselves in their music.

Finally there was a break in the music and we quickly slipped into our seats near the front, anxiously awaiting this culture that we were going to experience! For the next forty minutes I sat there mezmerized ... and dumbfounded ... and confused ... and terribly amused. I should have clued in that this was NOT what I was expecting when the lead pianist was leaning into her piano and then bellowed some sick sounding noise in at the strings as we were walking in. Then she started banging on the piano and tapping it, but not with any type of rhythm that I could pick out. I honestly thought that something was wrong with her piano and this was her way of dealing with it - not so professional - if you would have asked me.

It just got weirder from there. Looking at the program a bit closer, my friend pointed out that it was improvisation and the two pianists seemed to just go at it in their own little worlds. Nothing made sense to me. It just sounded like a bunch of noise thrown out at itself and banged around until it finally fell onto the dusty stage floor and got kicked under the pianos. To top it all off, there was an elderly gentleman sitting on the other side of the recital hall who seemed to have nasal and breathing issues like you wouldn't believe! Oh*my*goodness! This guy's breathing was soooo distracting that I wanted to just burst out laughing! The "music" was hard enough to concentrate on, but then to have this man's consistent, obstructive-sounding breathing echoing across the seats was just too much for me!

I didn't want to say anything to my friend because she does know a lot more about music than my measly four years of failed piano lessons and four years of very elementary alto sax lessons. If she was enjoying this, I didn't want to let her know that I was about ready to die in there! It was unbelievable. Since I couldn't focus on any of the musical elements of the pianists' work, I just took in my surroundings. I noticed the paneling behind the pianos and how they tended to stick out and wondered if the patterning of the pieces was done on purpose to reflect the sounds more appropriately. I noticed the layer of dirt on the stage floor and wondered why someone didn't take a quick swipe of a dust mop before the concert. I noticed that one pianists' clothes didn't match in the least and that the other was wearing jeans, and Birkenstocks with SOCKS! I noticed that people were getting up and leaving and we were still sitting there! Sheesh!

That's when my friend leaned over and whispered, "If we hadn't have come in late, I so would have been out of here long ago!" Ha! The truth was out! She didn't enjoy it either! That sure relieved me because I didn't know how I was going to have a conversation about this ... this ... this noisy stuff that I was hearing! I could hardly wait to get out of that place, but I remembered that I was being cultured, so I sat and patiently waited until they were done so I could politely clap and then leave. The audience all must have felt the same way because the applause died out so quickly and everyone jumped up to leave and the two pianists didn't even have the chance to come back out for a second bow. That's quite alright with me. I needed to get out of there before I lost it royally!

So, yes. I feel that I was cultured because I sat in a university recital hall, in a plush, maroon seat that folded down, but the "music" was so sour to my ears that I left feeling quite cultured in my stomach.

Next week is a string and piano duet. I think I'd like to try it again and give this culture thing a second chance.

My Friend

My heart is heavy today. I received some very sad news about my best friend from high school yesterday. According to her sister, my friend's little daughter found her yesterday morning after she had passed away. There is all kind of speculation as to what happened but I'm not here to spread rumors or tell breath-taking stories. All I know is that my friend is gone at the age of 43, leaving behind three children, one grandchild and a lifetime full of friends and I am sad. Even though I haven't had much contact with her at all over the past 25 years, there will still be a hole there where my friend used to be.

I know most of you don't know her, but that's ok. I'm really just writing this for myself because I'm so sad to think that I will never have the opportunity to spend time with her again. It was so sudden and no one was prepared for this. Madelyn was beautiful, intelligent and knew what it meant to be a friend. I sure will miss her.

2010 in Review

2010

Doesn't that number sit well with you? I LOVE even numbers! My friend, Bethany, teases me because she's an odd number person, but I'm even. I love that I was born on an all-even day: 10-18-66. I am not so fond of my anniversary date since it's all odd: 03-27-99. I just feel a bit off when numbers can't be divided evenly, but 2010 ... that's so nice and even! You'd think that it would have been a wonderful year.

The truth is, this has been one of the most difficult years of my life.

There was hope back in January that despite Fred's unemployment, we'd be turning corners and life would be easier. God did bless him with several months of work as the manager of a group of subcontractors and things went well job-wise for a while.

In the spring, I noticed that some of my MS-ish symptoms were popping up again - tingling on the right side of my body from the top of my head, down through my cheek, my right arm and on down to my ankles and toes. I had a scare when I was out walking one day and was afraid I might not even make it back home when my leg decided to go numb altogether on me. I was able to manage this just fine until the stress of events set me back over the edge in the summer.

Late spring, Fred's parents came back from Phoenix and his Tante Lene went back home to Germany. His mom had an undeniable cough that seemed to hang around even though she tried to hide it. After many doctor's appointments and tests and x-rays and the whole gamut of investigations, Mom Weinhardt was diagnosed with liver cancer in late summer. Mom was always the strong one, the one who pulled things back together again, the one who gave encouragement and love. This time she was the one who was hurting. As a family, we reeled in emotional pain as she dealt with her physical pain.

This all happened at the same time that Fred's subcontracting work was starting to ebb and my MS symptoms started showing up big time! Stress was working it's way into our lives.

School started. My baby began his Junior Kindergarten year and I was mourning the loss of my time with him when God decided it was time to mourn an even greater loss. Mom W. passed away in September, and although we knew it was coming, the shock of reality still hit us hard. Work slowed down to pretty much nothing for Fred and once again we were forced to crunch our finances even more. When you're down to the bare minimums, it's hard to find even more ways to economize, but God is creative. He found ways!

I started babysitting before and after school for several neighborhood children. The beauty of this is that about half of the kids are only at our house for about 10 minutes total per day, yet they still pay the full price. This has allowed our family to still have our own time together in the afternoons and evenings.

In October, when I was fully overwhelmed with the burdens of grief, lack of income and worry of the future, several of my dear friends surprised me for my birthday. I thought I was meeting only two of them for coffee one night and I walked in to a table full of my closest friends who showered me with blessings of encouragement (and socks)! Even though I told them this, I don't know if they'll ever fully understand how important all those words of kindness were to me.

November began the annual Cookie Kitchen business so baking began in earnest. So did the pressure from some of the residual ridiculousness of some legal issues that have been hanging around from the sale of our business two years ago. More pressure built as Fred had to spend hours in meetings, on the phone, typing e-mails and talking out the scenarios of this mess.

By the beginning of December, I was just in auto-pilot. I did what I had to do and did most of it without any emotion whatsoever except frustration at times from the overwhelming burdens. I was so very ready for a break, for some relief, for some hope.

Last week we were able to go to Ohio for our annual Schley Christmas celebrations and I got my Schley-fix! Being with my family always gets me back on track. We laugh. We joke. We have fun. We laugh some more. This year we also surprised Dad with an early 70th birthday party where we had CAKE and gave him a wii from all of us. What fun this past week was! I am feeling rejuvenated and revived. I'm feeling like there is light at the end of this long, long tunnel, despite the fact that there is still no constant income, nor any resolution for the legal mess that will be ongoing. Yet, I've been able to come up for air and I've gulped some deep breaths so now I can go on.

Despite the tough year, I can still say that God is good. He has been faithful. We have never been in want, even when we have wondered how we would make it. We have been blessed with so much that I can't complain. He has allowed us to go through these struggles because He knows that we need them, and that we will be able to comfort others with the comfort that we ourselves have received. God is good. He loves us and He will carry us through.

2011, even though I don't like that you are an odd number, I welcome you because I know that God will continue to be faithful as He has in the past. Despite the trials that you will bring, we will press on because we know that you will also bring joys and blessings.

Welcome, 2011. The Lord is opening the door and we'll walk right in with Him!