"Behold the Turtle...

...He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out." - unknown

I have been thinking about turtles a lot lately because my Aunt Mariam loved turtles. Last week, my cousin sent me a box with two turtles from my Aunt Mariam, one for me and one for Alex. Aunt Mariam was actually my great aunt, my Grandma's sister. She was born in 1919, and would have turned 90 this year. Two weeks ago, Alex and I flew home for her funeral.

When I was little, we lived out in the country just a few miles down from Aunt Mariam’s house. Their farm was named Seven Oaks Farm, and I loved playing there. The big Oak tree in the front yard always had a swing of some sort to play on, where I spent wasted countless hours of my life spinning and swirling. In the back, there was a garage and the cob house. To the right was a big red barn and to the left was a black raspberry patch. Aunt Mariam had about 100 cats in the cob house. Ironically, I am sure she watched Bob Barker everyday on the Price is Right but never had a single cat spayed or neutered. Even though the cats were too afraid to let you pet them, I spent hours upon hours trying to catch one.

I loved picking black raspberries with Aunt Mariam. If you have never had them, you are missing out. They make the best jelly, but they have lots of thorns. I remember wearing long sleeves and long pants in the heat of summer so we wouldn’t get scratched. Aunt Mariam would also tell me about the big black snakes that lived under her porch, but thankfully, I never saw one. I also loved helping her with her laundry. Finally, sometime in the late 80s, Aunt Mariam got a new laundry machine – a new wringer model to replace the old one she had.

For snacks, Aunt Mariam would have Fig Newtons, or on special occasions, she would make us ice cream cones. My cousin Josh and I would always have her make ours with a curl on top, just like Dairy Queen. For Halloween, she would always have those little pumpkin candies.

Directly behind their farm was the grennel hole in the Kaskaskia River. My dad and his sisters spent many summer days swimming in the grennel hole when they were young, and we spent many nights fishing on that river bank.

She and Uncle Owen lived just a few miles away from Camp Kelso, a small, ancient family camp that probably defined the word “rustic”. I would go to church with Aunt Mariam across the street, and go to Bible school there in the summer. The church was filled with aunts and uncles, cousins and my grandparents. I have so many fond memories of seeing them all together. One of my favorite parts of camp was getting a snack at the confession stand after each night’s service. I didn’t realize it was actually called a concession stand until I was a teenager.

All of these things were comforting to me, largely because Aunt Mariam was a sweet, gentle, caring person. I know the Bible says we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but I cannot imagine Aunt Mariam ever sinning. She never complained, never gossiped, and strangely enough, we were never in trouble at her house. She was just like 1 Corinthians 13:4-5; she was always patient and always kind. She was never rude or self-seeking or easily angered. She was my living example of Jesus.

I left Aunt Mariam’s funeral, determined to be exactly like her. Never again would I yell at my child, I vowed. I would never complain or raise my voice to another living soul, and I did great for about 20 hours. I have finally decided that if God wanted me to be exactly like Aunt Mariam, I would have been Aunt Mariam. I am different from her because that is the way he made me. I would still like to be more patient and more loving. I can always strive to do more, but I cannot measure myself against her. I was especially pleased to see that my turtle from Aunt Mariam was a turtle of patience. I do hope to be persistent like a turtle and slowly every day work to being a more patient mom and wife.

My Grandma passed away a few months before we got to meet Alex, which caused me great sadness. I am so thankful and blessed that Aunt Mariam got to meet him. Here is a photo of us at out welcome home party. Aunt Mariam would keep the pictures of Alex in a photo album with all of her grandkids right next to her. I am so lucky that God let me be in her family.

Goodbye Aunt Mariam. To say you will be missed is an understatement.

Our Newest Addition

Going for almost a whole month without a cat is too long for our family, so this weekend we went to the Humane Society and got Cameron, a female calico. She is so sweet; we are really enjoying her and she has adapted well to our family. Here she is, hangin' with Elmo:

Todd picked her because she's pretty, and he did a good job. It's blind faith, since they don't let you take the cats out of the cages until you're adopting them, which is a little scary. Then she didn't peep the whole way home and I thought she'd died or something. She had a family, but for some reason they took her to the Humane Society; she'd been there since early November - another reason Todd picked her. She still has a lot of kitten in her. The first two nights she woke us up meowing at 4:30 a.m. so we shut her out of our bedroom at night now. She sniffs the boys and rubs her face on their hands. She's not crazy about being chased by Ethan, but she adores Todd and likes to chew on my hair. We named her after Dr. Cameron on "House," one of our favorite shows. It's nice to not be quite so outnumbered by boys now. :)

This Post Has Nothing to Do with New Year's

Let me tell you about my miracle cat. When my husband and I first starting dating, he didn't believe me when I told him I had 2 cats. Mia, the girl cat, was a shameless flirt, but Dakota never came around. Kota loosened up a little bit when we moved into our new house and when Todd and I married, the cat soon fell in love with his "daddy." The cat that hid for 2 weeks after I first brought him home began lying on the couch with us every night to get scratched. He purred; I kid you not, the cat didn't purr for 5 years, but he purred when Todd petted him. When my eldest son was born we were a little worried about how the cats would react, especially Kota. Turns out, Mia, little diva that she was, resented Ethan, but Kota adopted him. Kota slept by his crib and put up with having his tail pulled and being chased around the house with great patience. We lost Mia in 2007 to a congenital heart defect. Kota sat by the door for 3 days, waiting for her to come home. Enter Micah, who grabbed handfuls of Kota's fur and lay face-first on the cat, cooing. Still, ever patient Kota cared for his boys and waited until they went to bed to receive attention from Mommy and Daddy. It was a total transformation from the scared little kitten I adopted in 1998.

A few months ago Kota was diagnosed with asthma. The vet gave him a shot of cortisone and he was good as new. For about a month. I took him back, more shots, nothing. No change. Labored breathing. Coughing. Open-mouth labored breathing. Fear he was going to keel over and die in front of my son.

This is what happens with pets. They get sick, they get hit by cars, they die. They're not like our children - they don't outlive us. But it still sucks. Todd called the vet this morning and he confirmed what we already knew - it was time. So I loaded my baby into his carrier for the last time and took him to get put down. Todd offered to take him; he offered to go with me, but I knew it would be best if I went alone. 

First I had to sign some paperwork. Then I had to decide if I wanted the body. Yes. No, I don't want to do that. No? Then do you want ashes returned to you? God, no. Do you want to be in the room with him? Yes. Dr. Schotman sedated Dakota and left the room. I stroked his ears, his head, told him he was a good kitty, that I would miss him, that Ethan would miss him and Lori and Erica, my former roommates, and of course Daddy. I reminded him of the time he disappeared outside for 3 weeks and told him he would soon be with Mia again. Then the doc came in and administered the last shot and it was over. And let me tell you, the whole experience sucked, but I am so glad I was there with him until the end. That cat loved me and trusted me like no other human and I wouldn't have had anyone else be there when he left this world.

I told Ethan Kota went to Heaven. I'm not sure of the theological accuracy of this, but I like to think my cat is up there with my Mia and my sister-in-law's cat and my father-in-law and my grandma and my dad. And what else do you tell an almost-3-year-old? 

So that's my story. I had a great cat and now he's gone. I will mourn and then I will get a kitten. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go drown my sorrow in a pint of peanut butter chocolate Haagen-Dazs.

You might be a redneck If...

...you've ever used chicken wire to make a fence around your Christmas tree.

Before I explain, I must say that I am a rural country girl. I grew up in the midwest in a small town of around 100. Most of my friends were farmers, and for a brief period in the late 80s, I wanted to be a farmer. I am very proud to say that not only was FarmAid started in my home state, but I have also went to FarmAid. I am still afraid of parking garages and elevators, as I was never around these new-fangled, big-city technologies growing up. Having said all of this, I think I have earned the right to use the word redneck as a term of endearment.

So we had just moved to Mattoon circa 1998, and like usual, we bought a real Christmas tree. At the time, we only had our two furry children, our cats Salty and Pepper. I loved watching our cats play, and Christmas was no exception. They would chase each other up into the tree, and the whole thing would shake. I remember fondly watching Salty chew on the branches of our beautiful tree and smile. How cute, I thought to myself.

Then, she started getting sick. I'll spare you the details, but it had an odd green color. Let's just say it wasn't a pretty Christmas green. Ironically, it took me a while to figure out that eating pine needles was probably not good for her. When I took her to the vet, I was shocked to learn that too many pine needles could actually cause a blockage and be fatal! We were really lucky that she didn't get very sick, but we now had a Christmas decorating emergency.

I have long been a tight-wad, so buying an artificial tree after I had already bought a real tree in the same holiday season was not an option. Until we could decide what to do, we moved the tree, decorations and all into our spare room. Finally, it was clear that the best option was to fashion a fence out of chicken wire, no less, to keep the cats out of the tree. We headed over to our local Rural King (a farm supply store, which is really cool BTW), to get our supplies. I have to tell you that it doesn't matter how many strings of Christmas lights you use, chicken wire is chicken wire. You can't really pretty it up.

Here is a photo of Salty and the tree, before her evergreen eating binge. Isn't she cute?



Oddly enough, I do not have any photos with the chicken wire. So, do you have any redneck Christmas stories?