February came and went like lightning for me.  I used to believe  that time moved more slowly as we age, but I’m beginning to think many of the “rules” don’t apply to everyone.. especially me.  I would like to slow down the special, happy times and keep them with me much longer. 

        February is the month of my birthday.  On a very snowy February 4th in 1916, a midwife named Florence Early helped me into the world.  Our log house on Tiger Hill was buried deep in snow, so the family had all moved in with Mrs. Early sometime around the first of January so that Mom would have her help during that critical time. She had been warned she might not live through the birth due to health issues left from an almost fatal bout with diphtheria years before.
 I had the thrill of sitting on the porch of what is left of the Early place when our family made the pilgrimage to the Tiger homestead in October of 2003.

        For my birthday, John and Nan came in the afternoon, brought dinner, and spent the night. The next morning, John, Nan, and Dave treated me to breakfast at Marie Callender’s. Then, Another day, Hildy invited me to lunch at the Green Lake Grill where we were joined by  daughter-in-law, Liz, niece Suzie, and grand-nieces Kirby and Gwen. Even with all the attention, it is hard for me to believe I am 93. I guess I just don’t really want to be 93!

        I've been longing for Spring and now I have Spring in my kitchen (a pot of red tulips) and dining room (a veritable garden of Spring blooms growing in a pot and a vase of cut daffodils and pale pink tulips) I love them all!

        Our newest great-grandkid, Heather’s and Thomas’ daughter, ‘Tasia, is now 3. They live much too far away.. in Maryland.  I’m grateful they keep the pictures coming.

Tasia sitting on John's lap, with Skyler

        February is Alice (Bunny) Pfister’s month to celebrate.  Her grandson, Eli can claim it, too.

The following intriguing “musing” came to Nan from J. P. Patches (Chris Wedes). She passed it on to me.

        There is a two-letter word in English that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is 'UP.'  It is listed in the dictionary as being used as an [adv], [prep], [adj], [n] or [v].
        It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?  At a meeting, why does a topic come UP ? Why do we speak UP, and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We call UP our friends and we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.  At other times the little word has a real special meaning.. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.
To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.  And this up is confusing:  A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped  UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.  
        We seem to be pretty mixed UPabout UP !  To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP , look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes  UP almost 1/4 of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
        If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
        When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP . When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets UP the earth. When it does not rain for awhile, things dry UP. One could go on & on, but I'll wrap it UP , for now  .......my time is UP , so time to shut UP!
        Oh....one more thing:  What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night?
                  U    P                     

                  Now I'll shut up 

        Nancy has a new yard art project going for the folks she does designing for….. she is working on a Buddha.  He is going to be beautiful.  I can hardly wait to see the finished product.

        I said a last goodbye to a friend of many, many years, Betty Leander.  She and her husband, Bob, who has been gone now for several years, were our very dear friends over the years. Vern knew Bob for most of their lives.  Bob was a fellow Saicom to Vern.  He and Betty were married the same year as Vern and I were, 1944. Betty had the reddest hair I’ve ever seen… like the red you see in a burning flame.  Utterly gorgeous!
        One of their sons played baseball for Ballard High School against Roosevelt High School when our John was Roosevelt’s varsity catcher. Lots of other good memories, too. 
        It is hard to let go of our contemporaries.  They are getting to be very few and more and more precious.    
    

From the Nordstrand cousins in International Falls, Ken and Kat, on February 21st:

          Our front yard. As you can tell, it'll be a while before we can see our Tulips. Yesterday or day before it was minus 28 in the morning. Getting pretty tired of this winter, especially since neither one of us could get out
(Kat missed the bottom two steps of their stairway and broke her leg.  Then Ken’s leg just gave out when he was walking across the room and he broke a foot.  Add those mishaps to a yard full of snow and it becomes quite an issue.)

Kat & Ken Nordstrand's front yard

        Every day, I spend some time working on editing my book.  I’m not sure I believe it will actually happen, but it’s a lovely dream, anyway. Nan, John, and I are choosing possible pictures from my old albums and Nan is working her magic on making them the best they can be.  She and PhotoShop are well acquainted..

        Vern has been living at the Norse Home in assisted living since last Fall.  I am still at home on Green Lake.  It sure isn't the way we planned to spend our waning years, but he is now confined to a wheelchair which cannot navigate around this house.  Our four kids all live within a half-hour's drive, so I get lots of help and they take me to visit Vern quite often.  I'm very lucky in that, as I no longer drive with my macular degeneration.
        He has a nice room furnished with our own furniture and his wood carvings and some paintings we had on our wall here at home.  Still, he can't seem to accept being away from home, making the whole thing very hard to deal with.  I sympathize, but there isn't a choice that I can see.. much as I would like to.  There are some thorny sides to getting as old as we are.  Vern is 90.  I’m even older..   

        I just talked with the girl who now lives in  what will always be Camilla's house across our alley.  She mentioned putting in a garden and I told her where Anne (a former tenant) had hers.  She sounds excited about it.  Me, too. The only thing better than watching someone work in their garden is working in your own.  This year, I hope to put a few more edibles into the pot garden I have alongside my driveway.  Last summer, two tomato plants and a tub with a variety of greens kept my salads going. This year, I would like to have some herbs and a few more veggies.

       The Tom Thumb daffodils are just on the verge. So is the forsythia.  Some odds and ends of primroses are blooming in a kind of tentative way.  I think they are afraid they will get snowed on, again.  What a crazy thing for Seattle! We are so spoiled!  This year’s sporadic snowstorms are taking some of the complacency out of me, at least.

        Son Dave has been having a wonderful winter of skiing.  Besides the areas close by, he has spent time at Sun Valley, Whistler, and with his friend Jeff near Kamloops, B. C. 
        We had each of our kids on skiis almost as soon as they could walk.  Dave is the only one to continue into his mature years, but he doesn’t look to be quitting very soon. Good for him! I don’t think he does “hot dog” stuff anymore.  No flips

Dave, 1964

With this “thought for the day” I agree:
        Inside every older person is a younger person… wondering what the heck happened.
                                                 -Cora Harvey Armstrong

It’s time to wrap up February and make a beginning on March.

Dixie/Dorothea, Senior Editor

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