Top 60 of Pushin' 60

1. 7th graders rocking their state achievement tests!!
2. early spring--warm and green and beautiful
3. end of school year!
4. working in my garden for the first time of the season--I love that!!!  Green peaking through!!
5. week in Pocatello with teacher friends at a conference at Idaho State
6. glancing into the alpaca shed and seeing a brand new white little darling baby!!!!  Such a surprise!!! 
7. a magnificent 10 day trip to parts east with my friend Lana
8. a day at  Grounds for Sculpture in NJ
9. end-of-school-year party at my friend Cathie's with all my old friends
10. quilt store hopping with my friend Eileen
11. Newsies on Broadway!!
12. cheesecake at Junior's!!!
13. lunch at Yale
14. walking the Freedom Trail in Boston in an unbelievable downpour!!!
15. canolli's at Mike's in Boston
16. Make Way for Duckling ducks at Boston Commons
17. walking tour of Concord and Lexington, MA
18. walking around Walden Pond (never you mind that naked guy we saw..)
19. lobster on Cape Cod
20. Newport mansions in Rhode Island
21. alpaca shearing day (oh my gosh...)
22. 6 weeks with my daughter and grandchildren as guests
23. taking everyone in the electric car to the library, for ice cream, and to get Chinese multiple times!
24. playing in the water and mud with grandsons
25. early morning reveries in my English garden
26. reading books in the cool of the evening after everyone was asleep all summer
27. trips to the lake
28. Treehouse Museum and Dinosaur Park in Ogden with grandkids
29. raspberry shakes in Garden City
30. 4th of July parade in Paris
31. 4th of July with Aunt Norma and Thomas' family as guests
32. river trip down the Snake with Paco
33. hiking and camping in Tetons and Yellowstone with Paco
34. visit of friend Tricia and her adorable daughters Claire and Olivia
35. Zack's wedding
36. river trip down the Snake with friends
37. first days of school
38. Jackson/Teton trip with knitting friends
39. bonding with my entire family during the sickness and death of Aunt Norma
40. raclette Thanksgiving with family
41. Christmas in Denver!
42. massage gift from Tag on Christmas Eve with Tracy and Mary (two of my favorites!)
43. playing store with grandkids
44. knitting every Thursday night--oh how I love to do that
45. sewing Happy Birthday banners for New Beginnings
46. long weekend in Phoenix visiting my friend Lana
47. hiking in the Superstion Mountains of AZ
48. spring break in DC and MD
49. visiting the new Smithsonian Air and Space Museum (Shuttle, Concorde, Enola Gay etc.)
50. pushing a stroller around the monuments in DC
51. pandas, tigers, elephants, lions at National Zoo
52. Appalachian Trail adventures with Shelly
53. yarn stores with Shelly in VA and MD.
54. sitting by the fire with Paco
55. reading books in bed
56. dark winter nights (I love them!!!  I head for my bed!)
57. Shrek
58. brief spring visit of grandkids
59. planning trip to Europe
60. anticipating my 60th birthday!!

Book #60...whew...

In the interest of full disclosure I have read this book before.  Not only have I read it perhaps a dozen times, I mark in the little boxes--adding dates and locations etc., so my copy is getting tattered.  And not only have I read it a dozen or so times, marked in the boxes, and messed around with its binding, I have also given away probably 30 copies of it and been responsible for ordering conservatively another 175 which were then purchased by my students. Ms. Kipfer owes me...This is a book of 6,000 things you might want to include in your lifelist, bucketlist--whatever you choose to call it.  I have been doing lifelists with my students for 16 years as a writing assignment and keeping one myself for over 20 years.  Some of the kids get WAAAY into it.  I'm assuming this will all be grocery store talk (assuming I can still put coherent thoughts together) when I run into them in the years to come--already has been.  If you just tuned in, reading 60 books has been part of my Take That-You-Big-Bad-Nasty-60th-Birthday warfare.  Tomorrow I'll recap it all. Don't touch that dial!  I probably filled in at least 45 more of the check-off boxes this time around.  Surprisingly, the items on my list are getting done!  Furthermore, I noted some events I want to accomplish and cross off  very soon--this summer! (she squeals as she practically wets her pants!)

• sleep in a stable surrounded by animals (I don't remember ever having seen this!  I have animals AND a stable-like thingey too!)
• visit the country my spouse's family came from and look for cultural clues (Paco and I ARE going to the Czech Republic in June!  The cow of his relatives was stolen back in the day--Ellis Island time.  They reported it to the local constable who gave a primal shrug, and then the Hadds  said (or the Bohemian equivalent), "We're outta here!" and headed to Minnesota.  There.  Now that's cleared up.  Paco is Czech.)
• bike roads of Alps (check check soon!)
• see Cathedral of Autun (good chance)
• see a Viennese operetta (with some begging!)
• pause for a kiss under  the Arc de Triomphe (did it once but am game for another)
• visit a boulangerie, confiserie, and patisserie to determine differences
• visit Hradcary in Czech Republic--largest castle in the world!
• eat gaufres (hot Belgian waffles) in Belgium
• eat Edam cheese in Edam, Holland
• soak in an Icelandic hot spring
• ride an Icelandic pony across Iceland (a stretch perhaps, but maybe I could pet one)
• eat Limburger cheese in Limburg, Belgium
• smell lavender fields in Provence
• visit Giverny of Monet fame
• eat Suchen torte in Vienna

These may not all get checked off, but I'm going in prepared just in case!  Ya got have a plan!!  And I can always do write-in's on the lines provided if something else crops up.

I also jotted down a few items from the book that I just generally don't want to neglect because they are so ever-loving cool!

• build a backyard gazebo (I would just park my bones there and say gazebo, gazebo, gazebo over and over because it is the snazziest word in the language!  Right?)
• learn to say I Love You in 10 languages
• read the Kristen Lavransdatter trilogy (I picked it up at Strand's a bit ago!)
• learn to make baklava (I have a teacher!!!!)\
• wear white all year (the Year of Living Biblically guy advocates that as well)
• go to clown school (you laugh...you just wait...)
• shed ambition (Oh, I SO have!)
• build a backyard pond
• rid the Western world of body piercing
• diagram the Gettysburg Address, so I can see Lincoln's logic at work
• spend a summer at a writer's colony (ahhh...)
• rollerblade down the spiral ramp of the Guggenheim Museum
• build a getaway treehouse (we'll send pictures!)

And last but not least BECAUSE I WILL Do this tomorrow

• on your birthday eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

Looking For Spring In All the Wrong Places!

 

 Paco and I went in search of Spring.  We didn't find it in the new Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.  It wasn't at the National Zoo.  Rosie thinks the otters have a clue. We looked in a couple of parks.  Someone even suggested that Einstein was hiding Spring!  Was it behind the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial?  How about in that cool cool head of white hair?  Shelly and I searched high and low--all the way down to Corbin Cabin in Shenandoah National Park.  Maybe if we spend the night on the floor, Spring will arrive in the morning!!  Let's just hike a bit on the Appalachian Trail.  Surely we'll find it.  Wait a sec!!!  That bear is looking for it too!!!  Run!!!!  As for that elusive Spring--we're still stalking it.

Knitology

I knitted this little yellow dress which my granddaughter Rosalie is wearing on Easter Sunday.  I've knitted blankets, hats and sweaters for those two clown brothers behind her as well and for my other grandchildren.  If you were inclined to research all the knitting blogs available it would stagger your imagination.  Yet, I rarely write about the effect of this very intrusive hobby on my life.  I just finished a book called Free Range Knitting by a very clever and funny Canadian knitter named Stephanie. Her book has prodded me to write more about knitting or to at least blog about it today

Like most Mormon girls of my generation I was taught to knit in Primary.  My grandmother knit and my mother knit sporadically, but I was a late-bloomer.  When we moved in the early 80's to Austin, TX, my neighbor, Janice, rekindled my interest.  She and I worked in the Senate and would spend our breaks and lunches out under a tree on the lawn knitting--which by the way, is totally pleasant.  She "retaught" me to knit European style or continental--a skill she had learned when her husband was stationed in Turkey.  Janice was a wonderful patient teacher, and we became good friends.  I made sweaters, Christmas stockings, and some scarves, but it wasn't until 17 years later in the middle of Hurricane Floyd that I pulled out my needles and never put them away again.  My friends Emily and Carl were in Alabama haggling out legal matters in the adoption of Spencer who was to be their child.  It was touch and go; we at home were on the edge of our seats!  On the day of Hurricane Floyd, I was sitting alone in our home in NJ with the winds raging--Paco was in AZ.  Hurricanes were a new matter for me. I pulled out my knitting to calm myself and decided I would knit a "sweater of faith" for Spencer--thus extending my hopes in his behalf that he would come home with Emily and Carl.  He did.  He wore the sweater, and that became the first of dozens of baby pullovers I would knit.  I can knit them in the car, in the dark of a movie, and almost in my sleep.  My skills have expanded as has my obsession. I meet EVERY Thursday with my current knitting group, "In Stitches", and we are one tight little knitting family.  They deserve more than this Shout-Out, so I promise more on them at another time.  I've added spinning to my hobby AS WELL AS 9 ALPACAS who spend 24/7 growing this phenomenol fleece. 

At times I feel obsessive which should perhaps worry me.  I pack my knitting around with me basically everywhere--in our ward in Princeton we even knit during Sunday meetings!!!  I'd SO like to be that gutsy here!!  My daughter Shelly is a knitter as well.  That compounds my pleasure!!  She's more funky and daring than I am, and it tickles me to behold that.  Someday when I pass on she'll inherit my stash.  When the semi pulls up in front of her house, I can imagine the neighbors will be disappointed in its contents...

I can tell this is the tip of the iceberg of what I have to say about knitting. 

Be Our Guest!

I've been keeping a guestbook since 1991  when my kids and I bought a little A-frame house, moved in, got a dog, and hunkered down for the next 8 years.  That book filled up, we got another etc. Last week headstone salesman/good friend Scott wrote the last comment in our 5th book.  Replacing a guestbook isn't as easy as one would hope.  They're very very challenging to find-- white wedding ones being dominant.  Our last book has a moose, a wood duck, a fish, pine cones and an Adirondack chair on the cover.  Outstanding as far as guestbooks go--top in its class!  I found it in a gift shop of a restaurant on Lake Superior in Minnesota.  I should have purchased two.

I curl up in bed with these guestbooks sometimes.  They make great reading and infuse one with nostalgia.  Several languages appear, some addresses and emails, art, jokes, recipes, and even titles of books or dvd's that have been borrowed.  Some people just sign their names.  Others write epistles.  A few just parrot back what the person ahead of them wrote.  Some signatures are illegible.  The next time we're all together, I think we'd better do some deciphering.

These books chronicle exchange students, wedding dinners, slumber parties, book clubs, knitting groups, baby and bridal showers, home evenings, class visits of my students, investment clubs (both inceptions and founder's days), family visits, fundraisers, missionary farewells and homecomings, Eagle Scout parties, graduation parties, birthday parties, cooking demonstrations, Chinese New Year celebrations, BINGO, Old Movie Club, new Beagle puppy baby  llama and  newborn alpaca visits, Halloween donuts visits, moving away farewells, moving in welcomes, visits from church people, strangers passing through who came to dinner, guests who stayed overnight or for multiple months, students who brought college roommates or fiancés or new babies to introduce, relatives in town for a funeral, friends who came to wallpaper or paint or start a furnace, guests using our NJ home as base or NYC visits, missionary meals, llama and alpaca shearing events--in other words, lives lived.

One small guest recorded losing a tooth at our house that day.  One guest was traveling through on horseback from Colorado.  He stayed for a week, cutting wood, making fabulous omelettes, and filling our dinner table with such stories. Another guest proclaims she's "Going out to see the world!" At last report from her mom, Marti is living in Italy, so I guess she is! Eight senior citizen cross America bikers that I met in a camp by our home came for dinner.  They wrote:  "Thanks for stopping to inquire about our trip.  It was so nice to meet your son and friends."  "I loved your bread, my Bosch 'sister'!"  "Marilyn, I don't know how to tell you how much pleasure it gives me to see God's children being kind to wayward travelers."  Oh, but that was MY pleasure, Bud.  I have addresses for a few of those bikers from Corvallis, OR.  We're going to Oregon this summer.  What if...?

One of my favorite entries was made in August of 1997 by one Jerry Hadd: "Sure beats Wyoming and Western Nebraska.  Great dinner and marvelous company.  It gets better every day!"

At the moment we're freefalling with no replacement guestbook to break our fall.  I'm tempted to lock all the doors and turn out all the lights until I can once again offer a guest a place to record a date, a signature, and a comment.  Paco always tells people that if you don't sign the book we won't let you come back.  I always deny that. Have I chased people down the sidewalk to their car waving the guestbook?  Well...maybe once or twice.  What good hostess wouldn't?

April 15

• 1775--Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language is published
• 1817--Gallaudet and Clerc found the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, CT
• 1865--Abraham Lincoln dies after being shot the previous evening by John Wilkes Booth
• 1892--The General Electric Company is formed
• 1912--The RMS Titanic sinks at 2:20 A.M., two hours and forty minutes after hitting an iceberg.  Only 710 of 2,227 passengers and crew on board survive.
• 1923--Insulin becomes generally available
• 1924--Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas.
• 1927--The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the most destructive river flood in U.S. history, begins
• 1945--The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is liberated
• 1955--McDonalds opens its first franchised restaurant by Ray Kroc in Des Plaines, Illinois
• 1964--Chesapeake Bay Bridge opens (world's longest)
• 1969--North Korea shoots down a U.S. Navy aircraft over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 on board
• 1973--Walt Disney Store opens
• 1983--Tokyo Disneyland opens
• 1989--The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 begin in the People's Republic of China
• 1992--Leona Helmsly is sent to jail for tax evasion
• 2010--Volcanic ash from the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland leads to the closure of airspace over most of Europe
• Births: Leonardo da Vinci, Catherine the Great, Henry James, Corrie Ten Boom, Nikita Kruschev, Sir Neville Marriner, Roy Clark, Elizabeth Montgomery, Heloise, Dodi Al-Fayed, Emma Thompson, Emma Watson
• Deaths: Jean-Paul Sartre, Corrie Ten Boom, Greta Garbo, John Jacob Astor

Sprint!

I'm down to less than a week before my "Pushin' 60" becomes history--a thing I did once, an experiment.  What started out as a hairbrained idea to spend my 60th birthday on the Appalachian Trail has grown and evolved and morphed into something I would never have anticipated.  Not that it's over.  Oh no!  I'm still pushing each day.  I have blogposts to write--lots to still say because I'm going to wrap the year all up in a bound book.  I still have 4 books to read, 60 cookies to give to strangers, and some other stuff I'm keeping as a surprise.  Oddly enough I'm hoping that by the time the commemorative day arrives I can basically ignore it.  In this case, the journey has devoured the destination completely.  The natural question my friends ask is "What next?"  That is a GREAT question!  We should ask that on a daily basis.  Originally I thought I'd write a book--sort of a handbook for graying women.  I'm no Nora Ephron, but I know there's an audience of baby boomers like myself.  Crossroads, self minimization, deteriorating whatever--good stuff to write about.  I've also toyed around with the idea of starting another blog and bravely addressing some non-conservative matters--perhaps anonymously.  It also looks like I'm going to be able to redefine myself as an elementary teacher for a while--a big big deal personally.  Don't touch that dial!!!  You can all come along--that is, if you thrust yourself into something as well.