Trash Day

I'm sitting here on yet another cold February day listening to the squeak of the brakes of the recycling truck. Later, the trash man will come with his loud music piercing the crisp air..by the trash man I mean the driver of the trash truck with the automatic arms that empties the non recyclables. I've been saving this picture for a couple weeks and the inspiration and thoughts finally came together today..
   Recently, the Mr. helped me focus on some household tasks that needed taking care of...particularly the Goodwill donation pile and the dump run.
   One Saturday this month, we loaded the truck with stuff that just needed to go...disintegrating patio furniture, some chairs that just spent too much time in the pool house in Indiana and kept growing mold, extra items that are either worn out or broken, but can’t just keep around anymore. We try to find homes for things we wish to discard, but sometimes things just have to go. We're all familiar with the drill.
   As we made the short trip to the county dump, where we can dump all we want for free, I recalled going along to the dump in Ohio with Grandpa Buster as a very young child. Any field trip with Grandpa was special so when asked, I went. And it didn't matter where. ( I particularly liked the trips to the 'pretzel guy' then 'Angie's Diner', but that's for another day...)
    It’s a image that stuck with me...I remember the smell hitting you when you approached the dump and it was a sea of trash as far as I could see. Not just ‘large item’ discards like this, but trash, actual kitchen type waste. The sound of backhoes and bobcats bobbed along the pile moving things around, for what reason, I didn't know.  Grandpa, and others, just backed their trucks up to the pile. Then they just tossed the stuff out of the truck drove away. Every time I take the trash bins and recycling out to the curb I think of this experience and figuratively throw my hands up in surrender, because what do you do?
   Like everything else, we’ve been softened by clever marketing to the reality of what we are doing....my experience as a child is a sharp contrast to what I saw this day. We drove up the winding, somewhat manicured hillside to a pattern of construction size dumpsters that almost looked like a neighborhood street, none were overflowing, labeled with categories and/or numbers. The attendant politely directed us to number 10 after assessing the items in the truck. We pulled up, waited our turn, politely said good morning to our fellow dumpers, as if we were having morning coffee greetings at the mailbox. We took out turn, emptied our items, and drove away.
   Just as our taking the bins to the curb separates us from the reality of the mountain of waste we create, the rather pristine conditions of our county dump takes the sting out of tossing aside items we had to have at one point but no longer want. I kept looking for the sea of trash I remembered as a child but it was not visible. There was no foul smell, I thank February for that, and as we got ready to leave I grabbed my camera to preserve the images of this new way of going to the dump. The impact of this experience likely doesn't stick with many people because it ISN'T impactful. It's just life now and we are conditioned to put it all out of our mind once a week when the bin is rolled to the curb and every so often when we toss things into rather clean bins at the dump.
   I will point out that making the dump more appealing to the general population probably serves the adjunct purpose of encouraging people to keep their properties more tidy. If it's a negative experience, people don't want to go, so, particularly large items, would clutter yards and sheds. (Some people still must not realize the dump is so nice!!!)
  I'm glad, through tagging along on a routine errand with my Grandpa, I have that image in my memory and I can share it with my daughter sometime. She was writing an essay recently when applying to a summer science program. One of the questions she was asked was to name something you want to know more about. She came up with pollution...ie, what happens to all that trash we create? Perhaps we need to take her to the dump and satisfy a little curiosity about the step just beyond the curb, pairing Science with History a bit.

New Year!

Welcome to 2015.

Have a few things to share with you!

December album was a success! I took off on the idea to put all our Christmas cards in a ring album and built some story telling of the month around it. Got it completed yesterday! I'm thrilled with how it turned out and most importantly it helped rekindle my enjoyment of taking pictures and gave me my functional Photoshop refresher I needed to hit the ground running with our annual album in the style of Project Life.

Towards the middle of the month Ali Edwards launched monthly Story Kits in Digital format. This is a monthly themed class with guidance on the theme and several elements to help you put together pages or an album, whatever you wish, to get more variety and focus in our story telling. I love writing, her approach, and the prompts to help flesh out the thoughts I have based on the themes. These kits are also available in physical products, and they are beautiful as well! Digital just seems easier for me.

I plan to not just document the everyday as I've become accustomed, but also keep the monthly themes going throughout the rest of the year now that they are somewhat top of mind. Each month I'll do an introduction page or two+ with words and photos, then revisit the theme as the year goes on. For example, 'Firsts' was the theme for December 15-January 14. Going forward, as a relevant 'first' comes to mind or occurs, I'll use the digital elements, photos, words tell the story and relate it back to the original theme. I'm hoping this, and keeping my word of the year, 'balance', more present through words and photos will break up the monotony I was finding in recent years with this album.

Here's a little glimpse into the first couple pages of the annual album. I'm not much for sharing too many of our personal family moments and photos on a public blog but if a neutral page comes up or I can block out personal info as the year goes on, I'll certainly do so. I think it's helpful for people new to this whole thing to see how it comes together.

I've chosen some kits from both Becky Higgins and templates and elements from Cathy Zielske which are more earthtone in color. I'm also employing the lots of whitespace philosophy. It saves time and looks more clean. I tend to be all colorful in the beginning of the year and more plain as it goes on. I'm not too worried about matchy match this year....just whatever strikes me at the time.
Questions?
Post to comments.
C.

Time and Trees

   

Last Wednesday I took off, alone, to Ohio to visit my grandmother and other family. We usually travel as a family, but I wanted to go longer than a weekend considering the seven hour drive and work and school schedules for everyone just wouldn't allow for a family trip this time.

     We moved a lot when I was a child, and my parents have changed houses and home towns in my adult life, so Grandma's house is the closest thing I have left of a childhood home that is still tangible to me in a physical sense. It is always heartwarming and nostalgic to go there. Memories and long standing routines flood me at every turn. By not having any other responsibilities other than myself, I was able to spend some one on one time with my grandma doing the things we always do. Additionally, I was able to just look around and really see the place I spent so much time as a child. 

     Grandma is usually up before the rest of us and I generally find her reading in the 'new' living room, which predates my existence on this earth. There is never a paragraph or chapter to finish first. She simply places her bookmark in the book and we start our day with a hug. I don't think I've ever spent a night there where the morning hug didn't occur. Then we have coffee and breakfast. Even if she's already eaten she sits at the table with me. In recent years she's adjusted to the idea that we make our own breakfasts but she still asks if she can make me anything special. 

     The rest of our days are simple and easy:  talking, playing cards, running an errand or two, planning meals, watching the news and the game shows, reading, visiting with other family members who come in and out, sitting on the front porch. I occasionally go out and do my own thing for a few hours but I'm never gone from her very long. 

      The conversations are loud so Grandma can hear and filled with a bit of repetition that naturally occurs with the older folks. We talk about the past and what family members are up to. We talk about Grandpa. His absence is the proverbial elephant in the room and has been for nine years. It isn't the same for me without him there but I often feel his presence. Talking about him keeps him alive between us. 

     We usually play any number of games of Rummy 500. We all play Rummy 500 with Grandma. The whole family puts in their Rummy time. It is one of my favorite things to do with her. She's good, really good, and taught us all the game when we were kids. The lessons were hard because you learned to lose gracefully, because you did lose...often. Grandma never let you win because you were a kid. If you won, you always knew, and still know, you earned it 100% on your own. Once when I stayed for a week helping her when she hurt her knee I think we played 25 games. We tied at 12-12...and played that last game way past her 830 bedtime in order to not end up even. I don't remember now who won that last game, but the competitiveness and concentration rivaled the final rounds of the World Poker Tournament.
     All these routines of a visit settle against a backdrop of a house and property that has seen 64 years of evolution. The home's only inhabitants were my grandparents and all of us. The scissors are still in the same drawer they were ever since Grandpa put the new kitchen in place when I was very young. I can always find a pair of nail clippers, the Oreos, and the bottle of bourbon.
     I still remember the old kitchen, straight out of the 1950s with its pink walls and blue and red tiles. I still picture it sometimes when we sit at the dining room table, because to this day it seems odd to sit there. We always sat at the kitchen table before the new kitchen.
     I took a walk around the property on Thursday, a most perfect fall day,  and took some photos of trees and flowering shrubs. It gave me pause to think how the trees have grown over the years and I no longer felt like a little girl as I always do when I'm there. I felt every year of my almost 41, especially when I stopped to remember distinctly trees that used to stand but have long ago been cut down. Very few things can illustrate the passage of time like the size of trees on a familiar landscape. My mind's eye always seems to fill in the missing items when observing the property.
     One tree in particular was so large that we always feared it would come down in a storm and destroy the house. My grandma retold of the day my grandpa leaned against that massive tree and it moved. They had it taken down shortly after and was rotten in the middle.

     In the front yard stands a tree about 30 feet from the road. I stayed there in summers for extended visits when I was young and Grandpa still worked. He took part in a carpool to the office. I would spend my days with Grandma watching the stories on TV, hanging laundry on the line, playing cards when I was old enough, and she'd start supper in the late afternoon. Around the time it was getting close to him being home, she'd let me sit under that big tree by the road and watch for his carpool. As soon as I saw the big red four door truck, I'd jump up. He'd get out at the end of the driveway and we'd walk up to the house together.  I still see myself under that tree every time I'm there. My mother used to do the same thing.
     As Grandma and I sat on the front porch the last evening I was there we talked about the trees. She relayed when they were planted, when some were taken down, and how the place had changed over the years. I thought about the changes not just to the trees, but to the entire place. A ten point buck leaped across the road and through the yard into the neighbor's back yard. We were both awestruck and speechless. When she went inside shortly after, I closed my eyes for a few moments to recall the sounds I used to hear, what I still hear if I listen. In general it is so very quiet compared to when I spent time here growing up.

     The buzz of activity the garage once hosted and the normal household routine of keeping up with kids and grandkids is present in my memories and again my mind fills in the details. I see Grandma's beautiful annual flowers in the flower bed which is now a concrete patio, rarely used. The garage, closed usually, is always open in my mind with the hum of the air compressor and the clanking of tools in the background. On the quiet front porch I hear laughter of family and friends with the occasional 'pop' of a soda or beer bottle. The kids are riding their bikes up and down the driveway or playing ball in the front yard. It's all there and always will be.
     It cannot be denied that the time there is limited now and that is an incredibly difficult inevitability. Grandma is a pretty healthy 91, but still 91. I still see her as 60ish...I don't know what's going to happen to this place when she's gone, but I'm happy she is still able to live in her home and has the support of nearby family to make that happen. I wonder if, in her quiet days spent there, her mind also completes the scene in a similar way mine does and it gives her the same peace it brings me. I hope so.
     We are approaching the season of thanks, and I'm so grateful to have this place that has served as a second home to me all these years and that I can still experience it hands on. I have so many places I've called home and like the trees that have come and gone here over time and left seedlings or roots behind, there are pieces and parts of me that live on everywhere I've been.

    I felt called this past weekend to slow down, observe, look, and feel the place that has always been special to me. It is very much a part of me as are the people that are part of the mental picture I paint of it, and I'm ever thankful I am a part of it as well.

Rainy days

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there really is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather." -John Ruskin     

I often stand in this spot with my morning coffee. Some mornings, when I'm up early enough or season is right, I catch the sunrise over what we call in the neighborhood, "Mt. Wakeland". It's a man made berm with trees between two phases of our planned suburban community. Not at all a mountain by local standards, but it's all we've got in our back yards. The back of our house faces several other homes, and toward the east and the sunrises are usually beautiful. Today, I just look at the mud that remains from a patio installation (ahem, reinstallation) this summer, the withering remains of a cherry tomato plant among other hodge podge plant items, the patio furniture that needs to just go, and the soon to be minor stream that will present itself in the corner of the yard. I also remember that the cleaning people came on Monday and by days end their work on my kitchen tile will be for nothing what with the dogs' paws tracking the gunk inside. 

     Fall has descended on the Shenandoah Valley and daily the palette of color changes around us.   It is by far my favorite season here and one of the reasons I immediately fell in love with this area when we moved four years ago.
     Today, it's a dreary gray color with steady falling rain. Too much rain. This is the type of day that I always think of my grandmother, Adele. I often call her on days like this, thankful I still can, but a week from today I'll be visiting with her, so I forego the call. When I was little these were the days that the electric bill be damned, every light in her house was on. I sometimes do this myself to brighten things up a bit, to attempt to ignore the blah.
     Today though I'm just listening to the steady drip drop on the siding and windows and enjoy the peace it brings. I notice how green the grass still is and has remained most of the mild summer. I like green. I hear the occasional starting of the sump pump in the basement, which is music to the ears. I process through some emails, look at some creative stuff online, pay a few bills, pour another cup of coffee, and get ready to tackle the mess I created for myself in my guest room when I moved furniture to the den for my craft stuff. Kent's parents are coming Friday, and the current state of the guest room is well, not conducive to guests.
     I could complain about the rain, but why? It's just another kind of good weather.
Edited: Guest room put back together. I'm glad to have comfort in the fact that my normal rotation of house  guests don't really care too much if there's a few things lying around or things are put in the closet out of sight. It's tidy and functional. 😄