I spoke to my friend the other day – the one whose wife of 47 years passed away. He sounds depressed. His four children have not been much help to him. He’s left alone to wonder “Why mow the lawn? There’s no one here to tell me that I did a good or bad job.”
I spent the day painting and thinking about his words. The older I get the more “things” seem insignificant. Will I care if my clothes are clean on my death bed or if I spent enough time with my family? Quality time that is.
There are too many people alone and lonely in this world. Being alone is not a bad thing in and of itself, but the loneliness is what brings people down. After I hung up the phone after speaking with him, I felt helpless. I live so far away from him now so all I can do is call and check up on him and pray — pray that others will remember him and help him in his time of sorrow.
As my husband and I were getting ready to leave the house, we noticed through a window that a male gentleman had come up on our front doorstep. I hurried around and opened the door.
It was Mark, the mailman. He came to the door because he had a letter that was sent certified and needed a signature. Mark introduced himself and told us he’d been on this same route for approximately 24 years. And, if we needed anything, we could call the annex, ask for him and he’d get back to us.
While driving around Lake Jane, we spotted this pair of white cranes.
White Crane
One of them decided to fly way up into a tree. They are beautiful graceful birds and I had never seen one before. What a treat on this drive.
White Crane in Tree
Minnesota has a lot of wildlife to offer but you have to look carefully and slow down in life. That’s exactly what I need – to slow down. But not too slow – I don’t want to age quickly.
The area we live in has access to a lake called Lake Jane. It’s not a very large access area but it is sandy and private.
Lake Jane Access
I’m looking forward to learning how to fish. In checking the Department of Natural Resources site, I found that the following fish are in the lake:
Northern Pike: above average abundance, smaller than average size. Largemouth Bass: above average abundance, above average size. Bluegill: above average abundance, average size. Crappie: below average abundance, small average size. Bullhead species: average abundance, above average size. Yellow Perch: Low abundance, small size.
Fishing season started yesterday. All I need is a fishing rod, bait and some kind of a boat.
Lake Jane Access
We’ll see how long it takes me to to get my fishing gear and catch some fish.
After we arrived home from a car ride, we found a plate filled with a sweet bread – a cinnamon swirl-type – that a neighbor had left us. She also left a card welcoming us to the neighborhood.
It’s a little ironic because earlier today I was talking about how we hadn’t received any welcomes from our neighbors. I thought perhaps I would extend myself and take some homemade cookies to them. Then, this surprise. We ate this delicious bread with our dinner this evening.
I’ll have to go thank them personally sometime this week.
To think — I’ve been in Minnesota since November and will finally be returning to Seattle in a couple of weeks to visit friends and attend a high school graduation. The evergreen trees will be a welcome sight to these eyes that are now just starting to see spring arrive in Lake Elmo. Within one week it appears everything is starting to come to life.
Six months – so many changes I’m sure have taken place in the city that I “grew” up in. Friends of mine have told me “We’ve gotten older since you’ve left.” Translation? They don’t move as quickly, have been ill and have gained weight (their translation not mine). “Not to worry” I told them. It feels like Minnesotans hibernate like bears. Some go to gyms but most appear to stay indoors until the weather gets “comfortable” and they can get outside and walk or bike.
I used to walk in Seattle all the time and at the end of my walk would reward myself with a hot cocoa — never mattered what season it was.
The house painting this past week came along quite nicely but I looked forward to this Sabbath day for much needed physical and mental rest. Still, I can’t get Seattle out of my mind. So many people to see and so little time.
Seems so long ago I started “keeping” the Sabbath day near to my heart. And now, every Friday evening my body seems to shut down – an automatic shut-down of the “need” to do physical or mental labor, instead allowing time for fellowship with family, friends and, most importantly, God.
We had our first official backyard visit from a deer. He/she came to eat our plants – well, the plants that the previous owners planted. We have yet to plant anything as we’re waiting to see what grows.
So far, we have had daffodils, tulips, hostas and many ferns that are starting to come up throughout the property.
This little bird sat on my deck for about an hour perfectly still except when it moved it’s head to look at me.
Sparrow or Finch?
I thought it was injured and worried that one of the local hawks might fly by and pick it up.
But, it eventually flew away into a tree. I wonder if the previous owners of the house fed it. Checking my Audubon Field Guide, I checked to see if I could determine what type of bird it was and unfortunately I could only narrow it down to two species – sparrow or finch.
Most of this week has been spent prepping the bedrooms on the second floor to paint them. The master bedroom is large but the 2 other bedrooms are smaller than what we’re used to although they are “big enough.”
The master bedroom is a dark red so we have to prime it first before painting it the color we want.
Red Bedroom Wall
Because our furniture arrived about a week earlier than expected, I’ve had to work around beds and boxes to prime. I started off not taping the ceiling thinking that I could carefully paint around the edges without getting any primer on the ceiling. That didn’t last very long. Normally I get a “blue” painters tape to tape off the border and window areas but we decided to try a generic brand of Frog Tape. It didn’t work too well though as the tape stuck a little too well and I had trouble getting it off after the painting was completed.
The primer I used is called Fast Prime 2 by Zinsser. I bought it at a local store called Menards (similar to a Home Depot). It worked pretty well and had very low odor.
Zinsser Fast Prime 2
Once the master bedroom was primed, I took out a new brush I bought for painting the corners with the paint I bought. I used a 1 1/2 inch brush for the corners prior to painting the whole room. The paint brush worked amazingly well. The brand is Painter’s Collection and when I finished with it the brush cleaned seamlessly.
Painter's Collection Paint Brush
Then it was time to paint the whole room. I selected a color called Thunder Bay by the Water’s Edge Home Collection. Â It looks like a light teal with a tad (very tad) bit of gray. I say a tad because it does not look like it’s white-based. Very pretty.
Thunder Bay Color Paint
It looks very light but when it dries it looks a little it darker — much different than the red that was on the wall.
Unfortunately, once I painted the walls, the ceiling now looks dreary. It looked very nice and white until I tried to wipe off some dust in a few areas. Because it’s a “knock-down” ceiling, it doesn’t clean very well. All it did was make a darker blotch.
So – sometime in the future, I will have to paint the ceiling.
We haven’t met our neighbors yet since moving into the new house. The door bell rang the other day and I was so excited that I dropped what I was doing and ran to the door to see who was there. Alas, it was just my husband testing the door bell. Grrrrr …
We see people walking in the neighborhood all the time especially with their dogs. Uphill, one neighbor was using a wood chipper (a machine that cuts wood into very small pieces). We might have to get to know that neighbor really well as we have lots of branches and a couple of felled trees in our background.
Overall, the neighborhood is fairly quiet especially since the neighbors aren’t right next door.
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