Stop and Smell The Flowers

Our kids are under so much pressure these days. Besides me nagging them all the time to wake up on time to catch the bus, eat a decent breakfast and whatever else I decide to nag them about that day, they also have the pressures of selecting a post secondary school and careers at very young ages. That's almost crazy. I think schools want to see their students succeed but sometimes there's a price that many are not prepared to pay. I hate watching stressed kids. I remember holding down a part-time job myself while going to school. I couldn't do it.
Here in Alberta, kids can write their learners license at the age of 14! That's fine and dandy, but when I'm in the passenger side of my truck, staring at my 14-year-old child BEHIND THE WHEEL, it scares me at first. First thing I tell them is that they have, have, have to listen to me or else I'll just pay to have them take driver's ed. Number one, I don't want my truck banged up and number two, I'd like for us to come back home alive. So far I haven't had to pay for driver's ed. (Notice how my truck was more important than our lives.) In my opinion, 14 years old is way to young to be behind the wheel of a vehicle even if it's with an experienced driver.

Don't get me wrong, I want my offspring to work hard and be successful in life, but they're expected to start so young. The tension building in teens today is scary.

With all the pressure our kids are experiencing right now, it makes my heart smile when I see them smiling, laughing, being with friends or just plain having a good time. I loved it when my daughter, Raelynn, came to me a few days ago and showed me this photo.

This is a picture she took with her tablet early one morning from her bedroom window. She loves looking at the sky, day and night. This picture tells me she took time away from her busy, over-worked mind, to enjoy something relaxing to her. I suppose life's about balance and even these young ones need to learn to release tension productively.

I also need to learn to stop and smell flowers more often just like Daffodil here likes to do. Except I don't think she's actually smelling the scent of the flowers. 

It's Grandma's Way or The Highway

Anyone who has done genealogy knows it's time consuming. Several years ago I thought I'd try to find my family's history so I eagerly opened my laptop, searched for a website where I could hunt down my ancestors and, with shaky hands, keyed in some names. I was so excited! Well, if I should know anything about Mennonite history, I should have been aware that there were about 50-75 people with the same name that came on any given boat to Canada in the late 1800's. I totally understand why the people I know, who have done extensive research on their family's lineage, are retired. That's right...retired. They generally have a little more patience, can organize their time better and probably know more relatives and have connections to figure out which relative on the boat was their ancestor.

So I gave that up...for now.

This is my maternal grandmother. I don't know much about her. She looks like a no bullsh*t kind of lady, doesn't she? I feel like yelling low german expletives when I look at this picture too long. She raised many children and did a lot of cooking and cleaning. I know that in this picture she is about 65 years old. 

Elizabeth Harder was born in 1890 and died in 1968, which was a year before I was born. My family doesn't talk much about her and I don't know why.  I hear little snippets of stories about her but nothing that sticks to my memory bank. I know that this is a passport photo so that makes me wonder whether she travelled. 

My mom and I went looking for her grave about 8 years ago and we found it, unmarked, in the Winkler cemetery. Grandma's grave had not been visited, by anyone in my family anyway, since her funeral in June 1968. My mom and her sister purchased a nice little headstone and had it placed at her grave. 

I often wonder whether Elizabeth and I have anything in common. Oh, I need to talk to her!

Oh for the Love of Scouting!

We put Coleson in scouting when he was 9 years old and he has never looked back. I started volunteering a year later....I have looked back. I quit for a couple of years then jumped back in. I started off helping the leaders with Cub Scouts and then was registrar for for the group three more years. I registered this year as fundraising coordinator. I just couldn't stay away!

It's the camaraderie between leaders, parents and youth that I missed so much. I'm sure I gave the group commissioner a sideways look when he asked me if I was interested in volunteering back in 2010. I'm not the camping type but I found that one doesn't have to like camping in -40 degree weather to enjoy scouting! What a bonus! Paperwork and organizing things is more my bag anyway. 
Warning: One may develop wonderful friendships with other members and parents of the group. 

14th McKillop Scouting Group has an Investiture day at the beginning of every Scouting year where we invest all the new members. It's quite the ceremony! This year it was at Park Lake and all the families were invited to witness and be involved in the great event. Later, we all went to the corn maze a few kilometres down the road, got lost for awhile, petted some farm animals then enjoyed a weiner/marshmallow supper over a beautiful camp fire. Many youth and leaders made a camping weekend of it at Park Lake.....they find any excuse to go camping....but many of us just went for the day. It was so much fun.

Mennonites Are Us: Kielke und Schmontfat

That's pretty much the extent of my low German since I left southern Manitoba. I know a few other impressive words but that's all I'll amaze you with for now. I can understand low german better than I can speak it for when I was growing up in the Mennonite community in southern Manitoba, I wasn't required to actually speak it very often. I grew up in the village of Schanzenfeld which is about three km's south of Winkler (which is about 16 km's north of the Canadian/US border). It's not a colony, as some of you may think. Mennonites like us don't colonize....unless we were drinking too heavily. Today, if you drive through Schanzenfeld, it is the suburbs of the small city of Winkler.

There is the Mexican Mennonites and then there are us "modern?" Mennonites (for lack of a better word). The Mexican Mennonites are the ones whose ancestors came to Canada on the boat and then travelled to Mexico and then back to Canada. Many of the Mexican Mennonite women still dress in the old-style garb....the duek (kerchief or shawl on the head), simple dresses, socks with heeled shoes or sandals....you've seen them. You may have thought they were an off-shoot of the Hutterites. Most Mennonites dress like anybody else though and speak really good English....most of the time....unless we've been drinking heavily you may hear the word "oba" every now and again.

My family is of Mennonite descent but we weren't very good ones. We didn't do church and that seemed to define being true Mennonite in the Winkler community. Our family was from bad seed I think but I still call myself a Mennonite and we grew up eating plenty of the good food which I still make and we enjoy today.

BBQ'ing Farmer sausage.....from Winkler. Something about southern MB farmer sausage...there's nothing like it, I mean nothing. The farmer sausage sold here doesn't compare. I have to get my MB sausage on the black market. Well, not that bad. I get it "imported" from family members. When I run low, I send out an SOS.

This is Kielke. Also known as homemade pasta. It's not gluten-free by a long shot...more like injected with gluten. Gluten-intolerant people would just die at our house.

And this is Schmontfat. Also known as cream gravy. There's different variations of this stuff. I like mine with lots of pepper, parsley, salt, garlic powder and tabasco sauce. You non-Mennoniters would say it's close to an Alfredo Sauce. This would be another gluten-injected food item.

And there you have it. One heck of a Mennonite meal that we enjoy frequently when we have the right farmer sausage.

Any of my fellow Menno's who read this blog, please correct me if I'm wrong on any of my information. I didn't do extensive research.   ;)  

The Zippered Path

Found a catchy title for my new post......it's the name of the pattern for the most recent throw quilt I made. I think I'm going to be donating this one to the scouting group' s silent auction in December. Hopefully I can make a few bucks for the kids going to Canadian Jamboree in Halifax next summer.

This quilt was fun to make. I know, I know....some of you are rolling your eyes. I was a non-believer too at one point in my life. I find quilting very relaxing. I don't give myself a deadline (anymore) or else it's really not fun. I may work on it for ten minutes before I go to work. I may work on it a few minutes before going to bed or while I'm waiting to head off for an appointment. I think that's the key to enjoying a hobby like this--just working on it whenever you feel like it.

At least it turned out better than the cake I made today...

The Concussion Game. Sorry I Meant Football

So here we are watching Winston Churchill Bulldogs Football on Thursday night. This is Coleson's High School team. Unfortunately they lost once again but it was a great game. They were playing really good at the beginning but somewhere along the line they lost their mojo. The score was something like 43-26 for the Chinook Coyotes. 

Raelynn and Mike. Raelynn has been enjoying the football games this year. I'm sure I enjoyed watching boys running around in tight pants at that age too. ;)

And here we are.....the fearless leaders of our Dyck clan.....of the Lethbridge chapter. That night was a nice evening. We're usually in toques, mitts and heavier jackets.

When we grew up in southern Manitoba, football was not a popular sport and I knew absolutely nothing about it. Since Coleson has been playing, I've been learning and enjoying it. We encouraged Coleson to play when the opportunity came to him last year. He has never played before but he loves it. Mike and I played plenty of sports as youngsters and it's not just the sport itself that is so enjoyable, it's the camaraderie the team shares. 

I Won't Always be There...

I was hoping to write about something a little more upbeat this time around but my mother has gone into the hospital recently and my head has been filled with other thoughts. She's 84 years and she doesn't get hospitalized very often but when she does, it can be worrisome for us kids. This time she's dealing with infections in her legs and lungs. Living so far away from her, I must contact family to find out what's happening with her. If she's in the hospital for a couple of days, then I call the hospital so I can speak directly to her. At that point I just need to hear from HER how she's doing.

As a child, when I would fall out of a tree and get bumped and bruised, she'd say "I won't always be there to say 'Rebecca, watch out'". Today, when I think back, all I hear is "I won't always be there". She had a point and I probably should not have rolled my eyes. There's a lot of things I should not have said or done.

Being the youngest in the family and being born later in her life, I see her a little differently than my older siblings. We're not really close but we have a bond and, after all, she's my mum. Who cannot worry about their mum?

My name is Rebecca and I'm a Bookworm

There is a lovely lady I know and her name is Barbara Warren. She has recently written and published a novel and it is called Everlasting Lies. I immediately purchased the e-book the day she emailed me to tell me it was for sale. The story is a work of fiction but is based on her ancestors. It's a love story that takes place in Victorian England during World War 1. You can read more about her and the book at www.bewauthor.com or follow her on Facebook, Author Barbara Warren.

Great book! She's been tirelessly promoting her book and wants people that have read it to do a review. Now, I'm usually not at a loss for words but for some reason I can't seem to put together something in my head for a suitable review that would do it justice. This is the first time I've read a book AND actually known the author. I love the way she writes and for some reason when I was reading it, I kept hearing Barbara's voice reading it to me! That's weird. (She's going to laugh when she reads this.)

Anyway, I highly recommend this book. It's a wonderful read, hard to put down and triggers emotions that I like to keep tucked away until necessary. 

I guess I just did a review. 

You can purchase it through FriesenPress.com, Amazon.ca, or www.chapters.indigo.ca. You won't be disappointed. 

Quilting: The First Step is Admitting It

I started this blog back in 2009 and wasn't really sure what I was going to blog about. Sounded like a good idea as I was laying awake one night. Recently, I revisited some old files on my laptop and thought maybe I'd just start to write something on this site. It's my way of putting myself "out there" I suppose. I'm not a traveller or do anything exciting very often but I do find excitement and appreciate every day. So here goes....

I like to learn something new every now and then. On a whim I've taught myself to play acoustic guitar, crochet, among other things but a couple of years ago I looked into quilting. Quilting has now become a little addiction. I love it! I've quilted blankets for my son, his friend, two of my brothers, my mother and the list goes on. I've been thinking I should move on with myself and start another, new hobby but I can't seem to get away from this quilting thing. I'm now making throw blankets for at home.

This is the last one I made. (It's an Amy Ellis pattern.) People have asked me if I would sell them but, to be honest, I don't know what kind of price to put on homemade blankets. If I added up the costs of fabric AND labour plus add some profit, the number would be phenomenal! I'd much rather be up to teaching somebody how to make quilts over a pot of coffee and laughs.

Anyway, this has been my most recent love. I turn on the radio, brew myself a coffee or tea, check my emails, rrrrroll my chair over to the other side of the room and start measuring, singing, cutting, sewing and creating. Very relaxing and it makes me smile. :)