Yes, the days are cloudy and gray. Cold today with a probability of a few inches of snow overnight. Winter is lingering, and anyone who expected differently is disappointed.
This grayness is depressing, robbing us of energy and verve. (verve [vɜːv] n great vitality, enthusiasm, and liveliness; sparkle)
This morning when I walked into work, I was greeted by this:
We’re done waiting for Mother Nature to restore our vitality, enthusiasm, liveliness, and sparkle.
We make our own sunshine, Man!
I was browsing photos on my computer today, and remembered a photo that Aunt LaVerna and I talked about yesterday. This photo was taken at the nursing home in Henderson of my great-grandmother, Susanna, with me, my sister, and our cousin Jackie. I remember when it was taken, though I don’t know why Alan isn’t in the photo since he’s just 6 weeks or so younger than Jackie. Perhaps it was just a “girls” photo? 
Tonita, Great Grandma holding Jackie, me
One of the things LaVerna brought to me yesterday was a copy of a front-page newspaper article about Great-Grandma Regier’s funeral services. Her funeral was 45 years ago today.
She was born in 1880 and married in 1899.
Here she is with her family circa 1912. She would have been 32 years old.
%5B3%5D.jpg "Old Regier (Grandpa's family)")
(The littlest guy is my grandfather, Ferdinand.)
Her husband was Abraham. The eldest boy is Dave, the other boy is Paul. The girls are Olga and Anna, but I don’t know which is which. Dave was 10 years older than Grandpa, then there were two more children to come, Verna and Ruben. Ruben was 10 years younger than Grandpa, and was the youngest child. He’s currently the sole surviving sibling from that family.
The only thing I remember about Susanna was going to visit her in the nursing home, where she had lived since I was a year old. I don’t recall interacting with her at all, but I was pretty little.
Uncle Wendell told us that people called her husband “Abraham-Suz” because he was married to Susanna, and his father’s name was also Abraham (who was married to Sarah). That’s how they knew who they were talking about. It’s little things like that that I love knowing about. :o)
I love words. I like reading them, writing them, and mostly, speaking them. They’re a powerful tool when used correctly, and hopefully this latest project qualifies as such a use.
Many weeks ago at the gym where I work, we decided to add some inspirational vocabulary words to a blank concrete block wall in the gym. Rose, the fitness director, started a list, and Jess and I added to it, coming up with several dozen words that we thought would inspire our gym members to work hard and stay committed to their fitness goals.
This is not the first time I’ve put words on a wall in a public venue, but this time it was much easier. Instead of printing out the font, tracing it onto the wall, then handpainting, I used my Cricut and cut the words from vinyl. The vinyl adheres to the wall in a simple process, and will peel off without harming the paint when we’re done with it.
We started with wide expanses of purple(!) cement block walls. In this first photo, I have one word put up as a trial. I wasn’t sure how well the vinyl would adhere, but the paint has a flat finish, so it worked pretty well.
We did this wall first, putting up just a couple of words a day.
Then we moved to the other side of the men’s locker room door.
Then we went on to the other side of the wall, around the corner and down the hall.
You can see that I used several different fonts and letter sizes. Design Studio for Cricut was invaluable for designing words that fit the size of each brick.
Feedback from gym members has been wonderfully positive. When someone drags in early in the morning (I get up at 4 AM, so do not cry to me about getting up early!) I direct their attention to the wall o’ words and tell them to be inspired!
“Snowblind, can't live without you. Snowblind, snowblind, snowblind!
I’m reminded of the song by Styx when I look outside when the sun is shining.
“The what is shining?”, you ask.
Yes, the SUN!
We haven’t seen much of it lately, so when it shines, everyone’s mood is lifted and there isn’t so much complaining about this winter that will not end.
Anyway, these photos show why we’re blinded by the sun when it does shine. This is what my backyard looked like at 4:00 in the afternoon on Wednesday:
That snow alongside the sidewalk is 3 or 4 feet deep. The pile at the end of the sidewalk is still as tall as I am.
This is the end of February, and I ache for warmer temps. I want to take Bradley for walks in his stroller. I want to watch the birds and squirrels prepare to nest. I want to see green things peeking out of the ground.
I want SPRING!
I’ll take the sunshine.
Over the weekend while I was catching up on my blog-reading, I found these easy instructions on Homemaker for decorating t-shirts. It just so happened that Bradley had a plain shirt in his drawer, so yesterday while he napped, Grammy got busy.
I first measured the width of the front of the shirt, then cut the letters of his name out of vinyl using my Cricut. Design Studio made it possible to size the letters so they fit neatly across the entire front of the shirt.
To help with placing the letters, the center of the shirt was marked with a pin. While I just “eyeballed” the letter placement, the pin helped me keep things fairly well centered.
Once the letters were on the shirt, I did rub them pretty hard to make sure they were secure.
The countertop was protected by a plastic trash bag, the shirt in the middle, then I put straight chlorine bleach (Clorox) in a spray bottle and sprayed the entire shirt, front and back. I made sure to spray under the arms so the shirt bleached evenly.
The bleaching started immediately as I sprayed. As soon as the entire shirt was covered, I quickly removed the vinyl letters and tossed it (by itself) in the washer. I did wash it twice to get rid of the bleach smell.
Here’s the finished product. I think Mr. Bradley is pretty happy about his personalized addition to his wardrobe. His mommy loved it and told me, “You know we’ll have to make him one of these for every size he grows into?”. Shouldn’t be a problem.
*This technique can be used with lots of other things besides vinyl letters. Anything that can be laid on the shirt and sprayed with bleach will work – stencils, magnets, household tools. Use your imagination.
*One of the tips in the original post I read was to spray the bleach into the air and let it land on the shirt. That would work great for doing this craft outside, but I was hesitant to spray bleach around in the house. I will try it that way, though, once the weather warms up.
Remember how Bradley started having some rice cereal about a week and a half ago? Jess only gives him some every few days, and he’s beginning to get used to the texture, but the photos Jess took when I fed him on Thursday evening, show that he’s still wondering about this new addition to his diet.
He did get to the point where his mouth opened in anticipation of the spoon, and he even got a bit impatient when I took too long to give him a bite.
Here he is, finished with the food and ready for a taste of thumb. He ate all but the last bite of cereal. Yea!
but it’s already been stolen.
By this guy.
Forever.
But try to have a wonderful Valentine’s Day anyway. :o)
Love you all!
A couple of weeks ago I was cleaning out the closet in Bradley’s room. There are all manner of things stored in there, toys, games, books, Jessi’s high school memorabilia, Nick’s collection of Christmas ornaments, exercise tools, extra pillows, airbed, oh, and clothes. I came across a small cardboard box filled with odds and ends from Grandma Regier’s house. This box was stored in her guest room closet and no one wanted it when we cleaned out her house, so I brought it home, put it away, and promptly forgot about it.
The box held an antique swim dress, a velvet-lined box full of dress shields, some embroidered kitchen towels, a couple of sets of pillowcases, and quite an assortment of old hankies. Jessica was thrilled by the hankies, and we sorted through them, enjoying our new-found treasures. She picked out a few she wanted to keep, and I did likewise. All of them were washed and pressed, then divvied up between all of the Regier cousins. I hope they each enjoy having this small remembrance of Grandma.
As for the ones I kept, I put them in frames and hung them on the bathroom wall:
I love the touch of “vintage” they add to the room. Now I’m gonna have to re-do the bathroom again… :o)
Jess fed Bradley some rice cereal tonight – his first solid food. Here’s what he thought of it:
Sorry the photo is blurry – my camera, argh.
I did get a little bit of video. Oh, and yes, Jess calls him “whiner boy” all the time. With love. :o)
And he did spit up all of the cereal later…
Several years ago I started collecting crocheted snowflakes to put on the Christmas tree. The summer before she got sick, my mom made several for me for my birthday gift, and I love them. I hung them on my Christmas tree, knowing what an effort it had been for Mom to learn to make them, and that she’d enjoyed learning a new handcraft.
The Christmas after Mom died, as I was unpacking my ornaments and decorations, I had a pit in my stomach and an ache in my heart. My mom loved Christmas and I was missing her so much. I called Tonita and we cried a little and she made me feel better. Then I opened the package that held the snowflakes. I literally felt like someone had punched me at first, but soon I was able to be comforted by the love they represented.
Over the years I’ve used the snowflakes well after Christmas as part of my winter decorations. Usually they’re on a small tree that stays up past Easter, but this year I did something a little different. You saw snowflakes hanging on the baker’s rack in my previous post – some are from Mom, but most of those are the ones I purchased.
They’re hung using twisted ornament hangers. The ones on the candlesticks just have their strings under the candles so they hang freely.
I wanted something wintry for my few apothecary jars, and filled them part-way with fake snow, then started looking around for something else to tuck inside. Aha! The snowflakes.
I love how these came out, so delicate looking.
So while I long for Springtime, I can’t help but enjoy these wintry displays. You see, they warm my heart.
The days have been gray – foggy, wet, cold, and depressing. Winter is a long way from being over. In an effort to lift my spirits I picked up some clearance tulips at the store the other day.
Yes, those are snowflake decorations hanging on the baker’s rack, and I think they’re very pretty, but the tulips made me smile. They’re a little touch of Springtime, a glimmer of hope that this insane winter will one day go away.
My kitty boys are kept inside most of the time, and they’ve been okay about not having to be out in the cold and wet and miserable weather this winter. But it gets a little boring being in the house all the time…
The other morning when I got home from work I found them on the table by the back door. Tucker was lying on the dirty clothes in the basket. Max was contemplating climbing inside my gym bag…
Well, perhaps that would take too much effort.
Last Saturday we had the kids here all day to play. The weather was beautiful and they spent some time after lunch out in the yard, climbing the snow hills.
Each of them got a spray bottle filled with colored water to “decorate” the snow. 
I purchased “ironing spray” bottles at “SprawlMart” – they cost a little more than the ones in Health and Beauty, but I figured the volume difference was worth it. We only refilled each bottle once and they played over an hour with them. Be prepared to use a lot of the liquid food coloring in each bottle so the color shows up on the snow. I purchased the store brand at a little over a dollar for the four colors.
This activity not only fosters creativity, but teaches cause and effect, and is a good one for small muscle control. We had a little lesson in social development also when they had to choose to settle a dispute without squirting each other with the colored water. :o)
I love my decorated snow spots around the front yard.
Just showing off a photo of the grandboy and his mom. I took this last week when they were playing on the floor.
Bradley was three months old last week. He’s starting to grasp objects and when he happens to get ahold of something, puts it in his mouth – his favorite thing being our fingers.
He seems to be recognizing people, or realizing when he doesn’t recognize someone. He also recognizes the bottle and opens wide when you show it to him.
The jabbering continues, cooing and squealing and belly laughing. Takes after his mom… :o)
Well Bradley’s first Christmas was definitely an adventure as far as the blizzard went. He was pretty laid back about all the excitement, though. Jess is blessed to have such a good baby who takes the routine changes in stride.
He’s three months old today, oblivious to the gifts and celebrating, so the excitement of his first Christmas was ours. We actually didn’t go overboard with gifts this year, but cannot wait for next year – Grammy already has plans for a sled, and a wagon, and toys, and…
He’s pretty happy here while we wait for Grampy to wake up and join us to open presents:
Santa brought a Glo Worm that plays music. Santa said he was really impressed with it in the store, smiling and laughing. Here at home he was a bit puzzled…
It ended up that a nap was preferable to present opening…
Uncle Nick’s gift of a new bouncy seat turned out to be most useful for that.
