Home again! but remembering Maine.

Day THREE at home.  Time to reclaim the kitchen.  I've dodged cooking as cooking and jetlag are a dangerous combination, and because I could.  Monday we scraped by on leftovers, and Tuesday was Gloria's birthday and they invited us over for lunch, thus procrastinating the inevitable.

By the time I got into the kitchen today, I was itching to putter around, cooking, cleaning, setting the little  alfalfas to sprout, making a couple of batches of granola, and baking a huge batch of chicken to rescue it from going bad.  

But I do want to chronicle some things from our trip to America.  It was the ultimate good birthday gift, made better in that I didn't have to do it alone, but Josh was with me.  

 Josh is such a good travel companion.  One of the perks for him, was when he got to drive his cousin Ariel's car (Boris, an orange Kia) when we went to New Hampshire.  New Hampshire doesn't require a driving permit, just an older driver to teach the young upstarts so the three of us went together to give Josh a chance to practice driving.  Not only did he drive, he got to drive first on the same street where he was born, 2 Fortier Drive, in my parents' guestroom!  They've moved two or three times since then, so we all thought this was just symbolic and special and cool.

While we were in the neighborhood, we went to visit a bridge where we used to walk, and we enjoyed memories.  Josh was maybe 4 the last time he was there, but he remembered.

 One of my projects at my Mom's house was to work on cleaning out some of my boxes in her basement.  For 25 years, she has been harboring boxes of my stuff, mainly full of pictures.  So I decided to transfer the slides to digital, the only way I could without buying more stuff to stash in her basement.  I projected the slides onto my Dad's old screen with my old projector and then took a picture of that picture, either with my phone or with Joshua's camera.  I'll be putting them on Facebook or here or sending them right to friends and former students.

That was a fun project.  I got to see pictures of my life from age 16-26, mainly, as well as my parents' wedding and honey moon at Niagara Falls.  There was my first missions trip to Mexico way back in 1982, and some of the second Mexico trip, in 1986, with the Bob Jones Mission Team.  I delighted to see my teaching days in Peru, and some of my cute little students who are now big grown up people, and I loved sharing some of these pictures with the family.  I'm having a good life!  I praise the Lord!  Following Him fills a life "with all precious and pleasant riches."  No regrets here, not on the parts where I've obeyed.

 Then there was Chester.  Chester and Felix are my sister's family's cats.  They are identical in color, but different in physique.  Felix is an indoor cat, and he is so heavy and bulgy, while Chester gets to go outside during the day, and he's sleek and lithe.  I think I see a lesson in there for me...

 Of all the reasons I wanted to get back to South Africa, here's my number one!  The love of my life, my handsome hublet, Paul.  ( As usual, I must apologize for the weird order of this blog entry.  I struggle with dragging pictures around, getting them to the best place.  So I just flex, and go with the order they appear.)

 The airport in Portland, Maine was decorated with lobster buoys painted with flags so we grabbed a picture before we headed back to South Africa.

 My son in law Ryan and I had a fun moment
making a snow toddler, with a pine cone nose.
April could be quite warm, but this one hasn't been yet.  I was thrilled to see and enjoy snow for a change.

Pippin, my sister's dog, was not so thrilled about the snow, but quite pleased to hang out by the fire.  He will be 15 in June, so I guess he's earned the right to the pampered life.  

Four generations of funny people!  My Mom, our daughter Evangel, me, and Clarity, our granddaughter, all with fake braids.  Our pastor wasn't too impressed when we brought them to prayer meeting for head coverings.  We didn't actually keep them on, just long enough to scare him.  

This is a photo-driven post, showing what I had pictures of, not necessarily the most important things.  Just a glimpse, but some precious family time there, the issues of Life. (Proverbs 4:23)

Fixer Upper Fixed Up!

 

This cottage in Maine, or Camp as we call it in Maine, is my favorite place in the world.  There's a lot of family history here.  OK, not the part of family history that goes back to Queen Victoria's cousin, but the good stuff, since 1941. 

My Great-grandfather built this in 1941 on a pie-shaped piece of land he bought in 1940 for $100.00.  (Incidentally, $100.00 doesn't even pay a MONTH of taxes on this place now.  Don't get me started on my opinion of that.)  

We got to stay here for about six weeks this year when we went to Maine for the birth of our first grandchild, Clarity.  I was lying in bed early, early one morning, listening to the loons on the lake and feeling thankful and blessed.  (Usually when we're in the States, we're on the go the whole time.)  It was so special to be there, with my Mom downstairs, and my sister and her husband there too.  Family is precious. 

The ceiling over my head was beautiful light pine, and I had to contrast that with the way it looked a few years ago.  My great-grandfather Walter Earl Campbell,  had built the camp himself, as he could gather the boards.  It didn't exactly have a foundation.  See how you can see right through those slats, and see light out the other side?  And the upstairs was just open boards, rather uneven, and dark with 70 years of smoke stains and what not.  It was cobweb heaven.

Now it's white pine, covered in polyurethane, not a cobweb in sight.  We've been renovated! 

No, it wasn't Chip and Joanna Gaines of Fixer Upper fame who renovated the Camp.  It was my Mom.  Check out the differences:

First of all, they added a foundation.  I think I was off in Peru during that one, which means it happened around 1989.  That one was to save the camp I think. My grandmother still owned it at the time, and my parents had to do some serious work to pay for that foundation.  

See the ramp at the back?  That was added after my brother in law Rick got paralyzed in 1997. Soon after came an enlarged bathroom to accommodate him.

When my great-grandfather built the camp, it had one downstairs room, one upstairs room, and a porch that wrapped around three sides.  The outhouse was up the hill.
Grampa made the sink extra low inside to accommodate my Great Grandmother Ada Augusta Marange Purington Campbell.  Later he added indoor plumbing for Grammy's sake, and turned the back corner of the camp into a bedroom for her so she wouldn't have to climb stairs to that big upstairs room.  That room has remained a prized room for privacy even until now.  It got bigger when a few feet were added on to make the bathroom bigger for Rick.

So we lost most of the back porch then.  Later we lost a chunk of the side porch when my Mom had it made into a room for my Dad as he was needing a place to escape the hubbub of the camp.  It's a cute little room, with a desk, and built in shelves for his favorite things:  books.

For Paul, Mom put in recessed lighting after he took out two light bulbs in one day with his head.

Then again for him, and his two tall sons, she had the whole inside gutted and torn down to the studs, and the rafters that he kept hitting his head on, removed! 

 

She had the porch closed in so we could use it all the time, instead of only when the weather was tolerable. 

 

The porch has been the scene of our family and friends bigger summer celebrations.  

When the kitchen was gutted, she moved a cupboard that was knocking Rick's knuckles when he rolled by, and widened a door. 

Are you getting the picture here?  Most of our renovations have been to help someone in the family. I like that!  It's a camp for people, and it's very structure has changed for the people it serves.  
( I don't think there have been any specifically for me, but I am GRATEFUL for the shower that was added when I was in my 20's.  We made it that far with "spit baths" and swimming in the lake, but I'm thankful now we have a hot shower when we need one.)

I'm grateful this camp has been our go-to place for fun and family my whole life.  It's beside still waters, sometimes, and it's the place I go to in my mind and in my memory for tranquility. 

So as I lay there musing, I determined to compile at least this partial list of the place that my Mom has fixed up for our family.  Proverbs 31:27-28 says, "She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.  Her children arise up and call her blessed."

I call my Mom blessed!  

That stinks!

 Look what my sister Wendy found in the trash can on Monday morning after the Sunday baptism/picnic at the camp!!!!

She came to the bottom of the stairs, and whisper yelled, "Hey, Vic, do you wanna have an adventure?"  I yelled for Josh who has the good camera, and we went out to meet Jimmy the Skunk. (Anyone besides me read Thornton Burgess's books about animals, including Jimmy the Skunk?  I loved them when I was about 7).

 This skunk had made himself very easy to catch.  We just put the lid on the trash can, and put him in the truck.  We took him to a shooting range/sand pit about 2 miles from our camp. 

 This sign made us giggle.  We were pretty sure it didn't pertain to skunks.
Rush hour traffic went by (three or four cars) and I'm sure they all thought we were wicked trash dumpers. 

And there you have it!  The dramatic release, with the aid of a water ski rope.

So now you know what we do for fun in Maine.  And we didn't even get squirted.  I think we can hang out our shingle as "Skunk Removal Experts".  


"The beast of the field shall honour me...."   (Isaiah 43:20a)  

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

 Thrillsville!  We got to go to Maine!  Maine's having it's deepest snow in about 100 years, and we got to see it.  For the kids, this was already on the schedule:  a trip to visit their grandparents and other important people in Maine.  For me it was a last minute decision to go along as my Dad had been hospitalized with some mysterious bleeding.  When he started having pneumonia, I thought I needed to go too.

 It was our first time to see their ol' homestead, established in 2014.  My parents and sister and brother-in-law moved in here in October and I was tickled to be able to see where they live.  We were all pleased when my Dad got out of the hospital and was in reasonably good shape for our 8 day visit, though the bleeding started again and he was back in ER the day we left.  He's 89.  "If by reason of strength they be fourscore, yet is their strength labour and sorrow"...Ps90:10.

 I enjoyed a few walks in the winter wonderland.  The best one was out on the lake at their "camp", but I didn't bring the camera.  Good thing because we ended up rolling off the ice as we were falling through to a slush layer which sucked my boot right off!
This trail above was made by a snow mobile so was hard packed enough to walk on, without going up to our thighs in the snow.

 The white birch trees were pretty in the snow.

 My Mom's wreath added a spot of color to a largely black and white landscape.  I love and admire their decorating style on this new house.

 I'm so glad the boys got to make snow angels.

 They discovered the easy part is flopping down and flapping.  The hard part is standing up again without ruining your angel.

 Ta-da!

Last and least, I thought some of my lady friends in South Africa would just like a glimpse of how they get mail and send off their trash with all this snow around.  My family uses a snow blower to clear away enough snow to find the mailbox, and then the trash goes in that cleared out nook too, to be picked up on Wednesdays, I think.

I loved seeing our kids impressions of things, and excitement over the icicles.  Hopefully I can post a picture of an icicle over 6 feet long that the kids picked and posed with.

It was a wonderful thing to be with family we haven't seen in nearly 2 years.  I thank God for a loving family.

Reminiscing

I thought we had a new Christmas card here, but I was having a bad hair day, and Evangel is missing so we'll have to keep trying. Here's a sweet memory. My Dad was given a special book written and autographed by Warren W. Wiersbe. My pastor gave it, and got the special signiture from the 90 year old author, and then, my Dad thought it was a joke! That's what he gets for being such a joker himself. :-) He doesn't even trust the pastor.

We were out in the Boonies so far, it was even labeled: The Boonies. Paul and I hiked with the boys about 3 miles to get... something. I can't remember what. I just know we didn't buy any donuts, tempting though they were.

A stunted blog. I want to add more pictures, and am having no success so will start another entry.