The adventures of Hickory

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Our foreign exchange student from Japan arrived safely Friday night. She was tired, so we gave her a little cheese and sent her off to bed. She already has the knickname of Hickory, very similar to her own name. I liked the name so much it made me long to have one more child. What? Wait! No!  Forget about that, but it is nice to have one teen in the house that doesn’t talk back. Lol. Everything is exciting and new for her. Her sense of wonder reminds me of a 2 year old without the tantrums. So far it has been a very pleasant experience. Paul and I would like to have a foreign exchange student longer than a week when our youngest is in high school. 

Saturday morning, Paul made bacon and pancakes with real maple syrup on top. As is customary when we have a family meal, we say a prayer in thanksgiving for our meal. We tried to explain to Hickory our culture and beliefs. Paul asked Hickory if she knows what Christianity is. “No” replied Hickory. He asked if she knows God. “No” replied Hickory. He asked Hickory if she knows about Jesus as he was bringing out the cheese. Very excitedly Hickory replied, “Yes, I know cheeses”. I suppose it will be confusing if we send her home with a cheesehead. She may end up telling her parents that we have a strange culture. Stories of us Wisconsinites worshipping cheeses before eating it. Stories of us worshipping strange men in cheese colored uniforms while wearing cheeseheads. Makes me wonder what other people think of us, huh? Don’t ya know? 

Hickory also arrived bearing gifts from Japan. She gave us green tea cookies and chocolate, a fan, soup bowls, chopsticks, and saki. The saki was wrapped in newspaper written in Japanese. Of course, I am thinking of sending back some good WI beer wrapped in newspaper. I could wrap it up and send it back in a cheesehead for protection. Hickory’s dad is a sushi chef. No pressure, right? We have been making a lot of “American” food for her. Paul is making his homemade pizza tonight. It is the best pizza ever. Good thing you don’t know where we live. We are thinking of getting her dad either a Brewers or Packers apron. Now if we could only get some brats and cheese to them…hmmm. 

Other than that, we have been trying to show Hickory as much of our culture as we can. Last night we went to a chili dump. Some of the other foreign exchange students were there. They had a bonfire, live music, pumpkin carving, a piñata, and other yard games. Today we played miniature golf and had a picnic at a park with the school group. I hope she really has a good experience here. And she doesn’t go home telling everyone that we worship cheeses. 

Welcome home?

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On an airplane right now sits a young 13 year old girl flying from Japan with a few of her classmates to America. Her destination, my house. We will be hosting a foreign exchange student for 1 week. She doesn’t speak a lot of English and is probably nervous about the kind of family she is going to meet. I would be nervous if I was her too. Especially if she read some of my blogs from the last few weeks. Lol. 

Thankfully Jake made it home safely before her arrival. After my son and his friend tried to stop Jake from running away, Jake started his journey on the railroad tracks in the rain. He walked all night to obtain his sense of freedom as he told his friends. He walked 30 miles that night. Then he was cold, tired, and hungry and decided to turn around and head back home. Maybe the adventure of all of the survival reality shows spurred him on. Never mind the search efforts back at home. If I had to place bets on any of my son’s friends winning a survivor show, it would be Jake. He is a tough avid outdoorsman. When my son asked Jake how his sense of freedom felt, Jake replied terrible. I would suggest marathon running for Jake next time instead of running away. At least he would get a medal. I think he learned his lesson, so it is probably best not to say anything for awhile. 

Talking about running, I did get in a 12 mile run today. I had no motivation at all. It was cool and very windy. I spent half of the time running against that strong wind. At times I felt like I was running in place. That was almost enough to knock the wind out of my sails. Lol. Today I feel hungry! I haven’t felt hungry in months. I think my body wants to go into hibernation mode to put some meat on my bones for winter. 

I hope our foreign exchange student likes it here. I have always wanted to do something like this. I guess I will find out how good I am at nonverbal communication. What an adventure!

The 1st (planned) overnight sail

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Last year for my husband’s birthday, we planned our first overnight sail on our sailboat. Technically, it wasn’t our first overnight sail. But we won’t talk about that. If you want to read about everything that could go wrong without sinking the boat, feel free to read the accidental overnight sail post. It was pretty funny, but not at the time. 

As I mentioned briefly previously, I got my first ear cartilage piercing for my 40th birthday. I am a very ritualistic and rule oriented person, at times borderline OCD. My world consists of order, rules, rules, rituals, and more rules. My rules. My structure. I am an extreme person. That is just the way I am. So, I got my ear pierced for my birthday. It required cleaning 3 times a day for 12 weeks. Ok, I got that, no problem. My husband’s birthday was exactly 12 weeks to the day after I got the cartilage piercing. It would be perfect to change the earring right before we left for the overnight sail, or so I thought. I had a hoop earring that I wanted to try. 

Removing the back of the earring stud required a lot of yanking. My ear was “ear itated” before I got the earring out. Then it started to swell and bleed. I tried to get the hoop in which was impossible. I could barely get it into my regular ear piercings. Hmmmm, now this is where I really went wrong. I put a nickel earring stud into the ear cartilage piercing and left for the overnight sail. 

It was a perfect early fall day for a sail. It was warm and windy, but not too windy. We sailed several hours to get to the resort. Once we got there, it was during the week and the pool was closed for the season. There was not much to do. By the time we got there, my ear doubled in size. I thought that maybe my piercing was infected. I was so stressed that I couldn’t eat. Worried. This is the point when my acid reflux acted up again as an adult but I didn’t know at the time what it was. 

The next day we headed back home. I called the ear piercing place and they said I was probably allergic to the nickel earring. I found that strange because I didn’t have problems with nickel in my regular ear piercings. They suggested putting the piercing stud back in. This was problematic because I was on open water and didn’t have any other earrings with me. The minute I got home, hours later, I put my piercing stud back in and haven’t taken it out since. I am almost afraid to. I felt bad that my seemingly great idea turned my husband’s birthday into a big mess of anxiety. I have only stayed overnight on the sailboat once since then. It was for our anniversary when the big unexpected storm hit. 

Why does everything have to be so eventful in my life?? Well, it sure gives me things to write about and at times things to laugh about. 

Running away

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I thought that after how hectic last week was that this week would be a breeze. Boy was I wrong! This week has been just as stressful if not more so. I left off with recent events telling about my brother’s wedding, coming back home and getting a cold, and ended Monday with the news that a best friend of my son’s ran away from home. Things would’ve probably ended up fine if he would have came home later the night he left, but he did not. 

My son and his friend Logan were the last ones to see Jake. Jake bragged on the bus ride home Monday night that he was going to run away from home. His friends didn’t believe him because he said that before several times and never did until Monday. Monday night our summer days reached an end. A cold front brought the wind and rain. Logan saw Jake walking down the road in the pouring rain with a backpack on. Logan called my son and they attempted to stop Jake from running away. He had a backpack full of clothing, water, food, and a couple knives. He told the boys he was going to catch a train out of town. The boys tried to stop him, but he ran off into a corn field. 

At this point, the boys went over to Jake’s house to alert his mother. Jake was born to teen parents who ended up marrying other people and having other children. He was having a lot of conflict with his stepdad. His father lives out of the state. I thought Jake would come home that night. 

Tuesday morning arrived, but Jake had not. His dad flew in to help try to find him. The neighborhood was scoured. Abandoned buildings, deer stands, unlocked sheds, farms, the railroad tracks, the park, fields, and woods were searched with no signs of Jake’s whereabouts. After school, my son and a group of boys looked for him in their secret hiding spots. I offered to search the corn field where he was last seen. All I found was a battery and an empty sleeping pill wrapper on the ground. The corn was over my head and I was searching after dusk. I heard noises out in the field and was convinced there was a bear coming for me. It was scary. When it got dark, we all met back by the road. A night bird cried out. Jake’s mother mournfully responded by shouting out Jake’s name. He was not there. 

We went back to Jake’s house where the boys were questioned some more. Jake’s stepdad was pouring over Google maps and also was looking over the railroad track locations. Jake’s grandmother cried. No one had slept the night before, no one had eaten. There were tears, anxiety, and anger. It was heart wrenching to see the family’s pain. They were so desperate trying everything with no answers. We decided to search outside of a trailer of a friend of the boys that recently moved out that had a broken window. Jake’s dad cried out his name in anguish receiving nothing but empty silence. After this, I took the boys home. It was going to be a cold night, near the freezing point with a boy who ran away a day ago into the pouring rain. We feared hypothermia. We feared death. 

Last night Facebook got flooded with missing person posters. Jake was spotted near a highway about 30 miles away. This morning brought relief that up until last night, Jake was alive! A couple of hours later, Jake was found. 

All of this brought back memories of the times that my autistic brother Matt ran away from home as a child. Multiple times he ran away. At times we had a search for him in the woods near our house. We feared for his safety. He couldn’t take care of himself. It brought back brief moments of the terror we went through searching for a lost child. 

Lately I have seen a lot of banter going back and forth about who has the hardest job as a parent. I want to offer my opinion. Parenting is hard! It doesn’t matter if you are a biological parent, a step parent, a foster parent, a parent of one or ten, or a parent of the disabled. If you want to be a good parent, it is difficult. It takes everything that you have. I think that parents who have both disabled and “normal” kids probably have one of the toughest roads to walk. We need to work together to bring our lost children back home. I am not sure what will happen with Jake now, but I feel a lot of relief that he made it home safe.

20 years and a couple of days

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It has been 20 years since I met my husband on his birthday. All I have to say is that it was meant to be or else it probably won’t have happened. You see, I never wanted to rent the apartment above his. I wanted to rent an apartment closer to my college. For some unknown reason, my roommate did not like that place and pushed for us to move to the other place instead. It really didn’t matter to me as much as it seemed to matter to her. So we moved into the apartment above my husband and his roommate. Incidentally, my bedroom was above his. 

At that time, I went out with a couple of friends and played darts. The owner of the bar talked me into joining a dart league. The only problem was that I didn’t have any players. My friends were from out of town and my roommate was underage. So I asked a few neighbors, one of them being my future husband who said yes to the dart league. The day I met him was on his birthday. He answered the door in his short sexy little blue robe. 

A few days later, I was upset that my cat had a hair ball on my blanket. I ended up having to run down to the laundry room to wash my blanket and guess who was there?? In the laundry room, Paul asked me to go out with him and a few friends that night if I wasn’t busy. That night it seemed like his friends liked me, all except for one girl who kept touching his leg when she spoke. That night he kissed me in the parking lot. 

After that night I relentlessly chased him. He liked being chased, but didn’t like being caught. At one point, I decided to walk away. It is not fun chasing someone who appears not to be interested. The moment I walked away, he wanted me back. We have been together ever since. 

In sickness and in health

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Last night I went to bed early. I am still feeling sick, stuffed up like a head cold. I overdid it last week. We got home from Texas late Wednesday night. Then on Thursday I ran 18 miles. The afternoon consisted of a staff meeting to update everyone on the conference, and the evening consisted of unpacking then packing for the wedding. Plus dishes, cleaning the house, and trying to put a dent in the laundry sitting around the house for a week. Friday was the 6 hour drive to my brother’s, Saturday was the wedding, and yesterday was the drive back home. I overdid it and now I am sick. I did run 6 miles today. What can I say, I am not good at taking it easy. Only emergencies, injury, and extreme sickness keep me from my exercise plan. 

I have a little secret to tell you. Last year on New Year’s Eve I fell asleep on the couch at 9 PM. Right after Christmas I got sick with a head cold. It took me over a month to get over it. I exercised up until I came down with a fever. Besides the marathon, one of the most grueling times I ran was right before I came down with pneumonia. By the time I got home I had a fever. It was a couple weeks after my daughter got pneumonia on my 40th birthday. 

My daughter and I weren’t the only ones who got pneumonia last summer. My son got it as well. We took a family vacation with some good friends to a remote resort in Minnesota that their family owns. Our friends took our son with their boys. By the time we traveled the 6 hours on dirt roads to get there, my friend told me my son was sick. He had a fever of 105.8 on a Sunday night. We took freeze pops to cool him down. It was horrible. Thankfully Paul asked the dr in advance if we could call in a prescription for antibiotics if we needed it. He felt better in a couple of days. 

On a whole different topic altogether…. I am really worried about my son’s friend. He ran away from home tonight. He told my son and another friend his plans on the way home from school. They tried to stop him. He also grabbed a couple of knives and has a couple hundred dollars on him that he saved up. It is dark and raining. He has been gone over 4 hours now. His mother called several times frantic wondering if we had any more clues of his whereabouts. We are concerned that he may harm himself. If you are the praying type, please keep him in your prayers. I am hoping and praying for the best. 

My brother’s wedding

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I feel like I travelled around the whole world in one week. Technically, I could say that I went from the southern end of our country to the far northern end this week. I am exhausted and feel a cold coming on. 

When I said that I live in rural WI, my brother Mark lives in extreme remote rural WI. An area so remote that sometimes no service appeared on our cell phones, gas stations were at times hard to come by, and the largest of towns consisted of a bar, a church, and 2 houses. A majority of people at the wedding never thought that Mark would marry. He lived as a hermit in this remote area for a long time. But just like the seasons change, sometimes our lives takes us on unexpected paths. 

Yesterday was a perfect day for a wedding. It went without a hitch, figuratively anyway. It was an unseasonably warm day. The leaves were starting to change color. My daughter sang a solo for the wedding. My son was an usher. Mark and Carla did not have any attendants. They just got engaged 4 months ago. Mark took Carla out on the lake, pulled out a ring, and dropped it in the water seemingly accidental. He made it seem like the plan was foiled, then pulled out the real ring. They had a small wedding. Carla bought her wedding dress from Goodwill for $25. It was beautiful. I am glad she is tight with money because Mark sure is. 

The reception was at a saloon. They had a bonfire and their DJ also served as their photographer. I have never seen my brother so happy, or dressed up for that matter. We had a great time and are very happy for them. This morning they drove off in their Jaguar for their honeymoon. I am excited to see what the future holds for them.  

Texas 

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Wow, it’s been awhile. I left off at Texas, right? We got home last night at 10. I was thinking about getting arrested so I could prolong my stay in the warmth and sunshine. However, I don’t think that incarceration would be an acceptable reason to miss my brother’s wedding. Seriously though, I’ve never even gotten a speeding ticket. Not for lack of trying though. Lol

Saturday morning Paul and I woke up at 4:30 AM to fly out. I couldn’t even leave the house before something eventful happened. As I was putting on my backpack, I knocked over a candle holder shattering glass everywhere. So before 6 AM, I was vacuuming my floor probably furthering my neighbors assumptions that I am crazy. If anyone was up that early. We got to our hotel in Texas at 4 PM. They put us on the 31st floor. I might as well check that off my bucket list since the last hotel that had that many floors, I pleaded and begged to get a room on the lowest possible floor. Later that evening we met up with conference friends and went downtown for a few drinks. We didn’t know that we went to the college clubbing area. Someone told us that we looked like a group of parents looking for our kids. Nice. I have never felt so old. 

The conference went really well, I really won’t bore you with the details. I did end up meeting with my old friend and neighbor I haven’t seen in 18 years. We watched the million of bats fly out from under a bridge in the evening. Might as well check that one off the bucket list as well. Especially since bats scare the guano out of me. 

It is good to be back home. I really don’t think I could handle staying up past 1:30 AM any more nights. One vendor at the conference threw lavish parties complete with food, free drinks, and dancing two nights in a row. So with the wedding this weekend, I can check dancing 3 nights in one week off my bucket list too. Geez, really there is no nightlife in rural WI. That is why I felt appalled that a conference friend wants to come visit us. The guy is from NYC. He is a retired NYC police officer who was there during 9/11. He is masculine, muscular, and has a great accent. His girlfriend is pretty cool too. Their work has taken them around the world, well everywhere except Wisconsin that is. They may be coming our way and want to visit. Really, there is nothing to do here. What should we do? Go cow tipping? Seriously people, I am just kidding. I have never known anyone who has done that. I feel like millionaires are coming to my run down shack. We’ll see if it pans out. Paul said that they just may want to relax. Which pretty much means there is nothing to do here. 

Well, I had better finish unpacking so I can pack my bags to leave for my brother’s wedding tomorrow. In honor of my husband’s birthday tomorrow and the 20th anniversary of the day we first met, next week’s blog will be mainly about him. Talk to you when I get back….

Dreaming…

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Wow, what a busy day. Most of the work is done, now I just need to pack my bags. I got in a 12 mile run. You are probably just sitting on the edge of your seat wondering if I am one of those people that work out while I am traveling for business or on vacation. The answer is no, I don’t. Last time I didn’t even pack my athletic shoes, which was stupid because I ended up walking a lot in sandals. Seems like every time I travel now I have been know to add and check stuff off my bucket list. I am excited that I decided to meet up with an old friend that moved to Texas. She has horses. I never rode a horse. I am not the kind of person that says I know I haven’t seen you in almost 2 decades but can I ride your horse. So I am leaving my options open. Maybe it will be uneventful, but it never seems to go that way for me. 

The last couple of days have been stressful, okay the last couple of weeks. I have been flailing around trying to keep my head above water when yesterday a weed wrapped itself around my foot. I went to the pharmacy and my insurance refused to refill my antacid prescription. I was so upset that I started shaking and my stomach burned. “You’ve gotta be kidding me?!?” I pictured myself for a minute at a conference in a room full of people in a fetal position on the floor while vomiting. A little bit of steam escaped sssssssssssshhhhhhhhhit. Then I realized that I can buy it OTC for 10 times the cost. Yippee! After this, Paul and I were invited to lunch with an eccentric elderly couple that we befriended. I was so upset that I didn’t want to go, but when I got there I felt totally at peace. They are a very loving couple with a clean and nicely decorated old house. We ate lunch outside on their patio underneath the grape vines. Paul is going to harvest the grapes and make wine out of them. 

During lunch I mentioned my desire to learn how to shoot a gun. Even though our hostess is in her 80’s she is not a stereotypical woman of her age. She likes to hunt and fish. She showed me her study full of furs she sewed together and spoke of a woman’s survival class where she even learned how to dog sled. She told me that I was the perfect age to start new things. She also mentioned that I should think about joining an elite choir that she is in. I am thinking about doing that with my daughter. We both have a 3 octave range. My daughter is going off to college next year for music. I would love to do something with her before she leaves.  Besides singing in a few weddings, funerals, singing a bit in church, and being involved in community theatre I have not used this gift as much as I would have liked. She also inspired me to do other non traditional things like fix up an old car. 

I have wanted to fix up one of those old hippie vans, I am picturing a robin egg blue VW. It would be awesome taking that on Route 66 tour in vintage clothing. I have auto mechanics in my blood, but being a girl no one ever taught me. Girls didn’t belong in the garage. I love the smell of gasoline and tires, the comforting scents I associated with my family’s garage. My great grandparents started the business and passed it down to their kids. Out of those kids, my dad was the only offspring. He didn’t want to fix cars. He wanted to fix electronics. I want to fix cars, but never learned how. Last week when cleaning out my grandma’s house I found a book on how to fix antique cars. I had to chuckle because the book was older than me. My mom said that I could always take her old MG and fix it up. Maybe that would be a good project to do with my son. This seems like a couch potato to marathon goal for me, but the possibilities are endless. 

My parents sold my grandma’s house today. It makes me so sad to let go of that part of my life forever. It could be worse. I watched my mother’s childhood house burn down when I was 5. A gas station now stands where my husband’s childhood house was. His bedroom was pump number 9. At least a new loving family will have a chance to make memories in grandma’s house. 

I am going to try to relax. It will be nice to learn new things at the conference and visits friends. I am hoping to enjoy some time by the pool as it seems like fall in Texas is warmer than our summers are here. Then come home, do an 18 mile run, plus 18 loads of laundry, and head out for my brother’s wedding. I am excited about the adventures that await. 

The civil war reenactment

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Apparently there is a memo out there about the things parents shouldn’t do with young children. Apparently that list is a little longer when you have a newborn. But I am a parent that never got that list. When my aunt and uncle told us that they were going to be in a civil war reenactment in our area, my husband and I loaded up our 5 year old, 3 year old and newborn into the car. 

Everything was going well at first. I just didn’t realize at the time how much acting I was going to be doing in the reenactment part. We had a fun time touring my aunt and uncles tent. My aunt sewed all of the costumes. We had our family picture taken in civil war period clothing. I think every family should do an old time picture just for fun. Then my uncle and two teenage cousins geared up to go to the battlefield for the reenactment. 

This is where things got a little sketchy. I probably should have stayed behind or had my aunt take the baby at this point. But I thought, this is just acting. I mean, how bad could it really be? We took the kids to an arena type area without seats. We were there a few minutes when my baby started crying unconsolably. After dirty looks and nothing else worked, I did what every breastfeeding mother of a newborn would do (except being there, of course).  I tried offering the comfort of milk. At this time, an announcer stated that the event was about to start. He said that there was going to be loud gun shots, loud noises, and cannons. It was advised at this time that parents with young children exit the way they came in. Not even stopping to reattach my bra, I headed out the way I came in. The only problem was that I came in the back way. When I left this way I couldn’t go back in and to make matters worse I was heading straight towards the cannon which was going to go off in a matter of minutes. The man next to the cannon said there was nothing that I could do but run fast. So here I am running as fast as I can with a newborn and my breast half hanging out. 

It really didn’t feel like a reenactment to me. I’m sure that mothers were running away from cannons all the time during the civil war. Lol. I couldn’t stop laughing when the other people saw me running. I haven’t been back to a civil war reenactment since. But with my performance I could say that I had a lead role. I’m surprised I didn’t end up in the local newspapers.