Florence M. Ball

Yesterday while having coffee (raspberry-chocolate) at Rachael's coffeeshop..just a few blocks from my house..I was reading the paper and came across an obituary:

Florence M. Ball, 99, of Ashley, died Friday, April 22, 2005. Arrangements by Johnson Fueral Home, Hudson.

I tore it out of the paper, stuck in my jeans pocket and walked home with it. Later I took out the crumpled piece of paper and placed in on my desk.

I want to know more about Florence, but all I have is this obituary. She lived for 99 years...think of all the changes that she saw in the world. Did she like the color ruby? Did she garden? Did she marry and have children? Did she ever see the ocean or built a sand castle? What color were her eyes?

Do you know Florence? If so, tell me about her.

Earth Day...2005

Earth
turquiose emerald
spinning whirling dancing
spherical diverse
Home

I love Earth Day...I have been celebrating, or trying to celebrate it for several years. One year at school we all bought tee-shirts with pictures of the Earth, bought a tree and sang a specia song. Of course, it rained that day...but I remember all of the children poking their out the windows singing about the earth with much gusto.

This year a first grade classroom that I work with has gathered coffers for a tree and we are in the process of making our own list to save the Earth according to first graders! I will publish it next week!

I have told stories a Earth Day celebrations...planted trees...I recycle, car pool, turn my heat down...and do my part. So..you can imagine my disappointment for this Earth Day with 7 inches of snow predicted...all the celebrations canceled for the day, how I must feel.

However, it is nice to know she is still in charge.

And then there were five..

I live alone. My kids at school think that is weird...some of my neighbors wonder about me also!
After time a person gets used to it..now I'm not saying I like it..I am just saying it is how I live...or should I say how I used to live.

This afternoon around 4:00...a carload of folks moved in with me...they drove a white van that was filled top to bottom with "stuff" that has now filled the Cottage at White Picket Gardens.

Odd, you think...did they randomly choose my lovely house on this quiet tree-lined street? No, it was rather deliberate...it is my son, Aaron and his family, Karen and their two babies, Matthew and Jonah. They will be staying here until the first of June.

My kitchen is filled with baby food..the high chair is now in the dining room with a real live baby in it...my knitting basket, seashells, CD's, silver stars have all been tucked away...there are toys and cribs and diapers and trucks all over.

There is also something else around that I don't hear very often...soft voices, breathing, laughter, cooing, and someone to share dinners with.

Yes, life will certainly be different for the next few weeks. I'll keep you posted!

If I write it...will you read it??

Dear Friends,
I have just realized how irresponsible I have been to this blog site..and believe it or not..it it really important to me. So, if I become more faithful, will you become more faithful in reading???

Tonight was my book club night. I love book club. We are all women. We take turns hosting and serving dinner (yes, we talk about the book..a lot!!)

This month's read was Reading Lolita in Tehran. It will probably become (it is already!) my favorite book of the year. It is written by Azar Nafisi. I would recommend it highly!!

The book itsef lends itself to other reads...Nabokov, Fitzgerld, James, Austin...it is a rich read, and I found it especially wonderful after the V.M.

There are so many wonderful quotes that it is very difficult to choose one...but I shall indeed do that:
"Modern fiction brings out the evil in domestic lives, ordinary relations, people like you and me. What is frightening i that the blindness can exist in the best of us as well as the worst. We are all capable of becoming the blind censor, or imposig our visions and desires on others."1

1. Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi

Stuffing a backpack...

I can stuff a turkey, really I can...and I used to be able to stuff a Volkswagon (remember those days???), butI am having a hard time stuffing my backpack.

I will be leaving on my Carl Sandburg trip in just a couple of days and have been getting everything ready...black and white film, new mastercard to replace the one I lost at the fund raiser on Saturday night, cash from the ATM, charging the phone, stopping the mail, washing the jeans, finding sandals..raincoats, getting the new journal ready, books to read on the train, hair barretts, sweatshirts, business cards (never pass up a great opportunity!!), glasses...both distance and sunglases, sunscreen, t-shirts, socks, underwear, camera, clothes for Portland.

And then there are the travel arrangements...there are six folks involved in my getting to the airport and back from the train station..I feel a little like a bag of potatoes...but as long as everyone remembers their part, I should get there and back OK!!

So now comes the stuffing part...it just won't go, plus I forgot to put toothpaste, shampoo, hairbrush and all of that on the list.

The big question of the night is this? How in the world did the hobos do it?? Of course, they didn't photograph their historic journey (how did they know it would be a romantically preserved time period...and they didn't journal..again same reason. I am quite sure they didn't need sunscreen or sandals or their ATM card or business cards to drop along the way...here, Kansas City, have a business card, give me call if you have any work for fifteen cents an hour.

OK, ok, I am trying to duplicate the trip...but doesn't anyone out there want to go along to carry this big, stuffed backpack???????

Happy St. Pat's to all...

I love St. Patrick's Day...it is right up there with the Solstice and Robert Burns Day..

I love the wearing of the green...dusting off my brogue...and drinking green beer....(that comes later tonight!!)

Tomorrow night (at Rachael's) there will be a great St. Pat's celebration with singing (we made our own songbooks), and stories (that is my job!) Hopefully we will have folks from wall to wall..so if you are in Angola tomorrow night, come on over!!

Which reminds me..I best go brush up on those Irish tales, take my walk, and oh yes...have that green beer!!

Still winter according to my fourth grade writers!!

Haiku for Winter by Fourth Grade Students in Northern Indiana

blustery cold winds
blankets of snow falling down
gleaming snow glows bright

snowflakes still falling
animals want snow to leave
arctic winds blowing

Spring is a traitor
betraying us in sharp March
adios Winter!!

Winter, be gone now
take off your dreaded white coat
you've stayed long enough

cold frosts evenings
winter's sweet maple syrup
wondrous tree tapping

deer bound across fields
like snowshoe rabbits in snow
which are both awesome

longer March sunsets
warm air melting it's cold ice
geese swimming in ponds

snowy freezing days
cold, chilly, raw March evenings
people wanting spring

The way it is...

Philip left this morning.

Coming home at the end of the day to an empty house was difficult. It is always like that when he leaves. He spoils me when he is here...cooking, washing dishes, having a lovely pot of tea ready for me when I walk in the door. Oh, how lonely my house is tonight.

I called my sister. She always has a way of listening to me...I read..I cooked dinner...and I walked in cold, dark tonight..the temperature is 21 degrees, but the stars are like diamonds. It was a good night for walking and thinking.

I think I'll just go to bed early with the electric blanket...a cup of herb tea...and a good book. Sigh.

Life has a way in interfering....

Sometimes I think I am on tract with my journal writing and then...life just happens right in the middle of everything. (If you are only a blog reader go to my website www.louannhoman.com and click on Sunday Passages for the full story. Also check out the new photos on the scrapbook page.

It is a rainy, dark day in Indiana. The rain is to turn to snow towards evening with another blast of cold, arctic air....but the promise of spring is somewhere???

Tonight is dinner at a friend's house..simple, cozy...soup for a cold night...a bottle of wine to share..and stories...always stories.

Winterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

It does not end. The plow chugged up and down my street all night as I slept with the curtains open catching site of the blinking light in my dreams. By morning we had several inches of snow and my good neighbors were here shoveling for me.

By two in the afternoon, it had all turned to sleet...heavy, heavy sleet pelting all around my house and gardens.

Currently, it is raining and quite foggy outside. One of my favorite quotes about winter never ending is found in the book, Winter, by Rick Bass. He writes, "Be loyal to winter, all the way through--all the way, and with sincerity--or you'll find youself high and dry, longing for a spring that's along way off, and winter will have abandoned you, and in her place you'll have cagin fever, the worst."

Friday afternoon Haiku...

What a nice way to end the week with a fourth grade class loving Haiku, clinging to Haiku, not wanting to go home from school (well, almost!) Haiku!! These were all written by the kids!!

wishy-washy pearls
what's in your recollection?
Liquefy or not

savouring winter
non-ending glacial snowflakes
forsaking sunshine

cold silver diamonds
fridget crystals of winter
frosted crescents fall

snowflakes drifting
white pearly crystals falling
dancing all over

February's warmth
always melts your snowman's heart
so what about mine??

steal a broken heart
February warming air
my tragic break-up

ice looking like stars
walking in the cloudy snow
snow melts in my arms

cotton candy snow
sticking on windows like lace
flying in the air

Confession...

I own a Jeep. There, I have said it. Some of you don't know me personally, but now you know the truth. I own a gas, guzzling SUV vehicle. I also protest against drilling oil in Alaska, support the Brady Bill for gun control and will be in the Vagina Monologues.

But, before you close out....just let me explain. I have to own a Jeep, I mean it is part of my storytelling. I have a great license plate that says STORIES...I have bumper stickers that give the world a clue as to who I am.

My Jeep is my house on wheels...my Laura Ingalls Wilder wagon..the first flight of the Wright Brothers...

I write in my car (not a safe practice!!)...read in my car (also not a safe practice!) sometimes enjoy other activitie in my Jeep (I'll not even go there!!)...I cry and eat McDonald' burgers in my Jeep (did I say McDonald's, I meant soy burgers from the health food store, really I did!!

I carry microphones, work out clothes, walking shoes, scraper,tapes for the tape player, 8 pair of ice skates (well, you never will know when you run across a lovely patch of ice, meet 7 folks who also need skates)...a cowboy hat (!)...musical instruments..empty and full water bottles, candy wrappers (they were from a hitch hiker I picked up once, and that is the truth)...and a lovly prism that bobbles from my rear view window.

Today my Jeep will turn 100,000. I have had three Jeeps during the past few years...all run 250,000 mles..I think Jeep should be reading this and letting me do their commercials..I am a walking (I mean driving) testimony to their durability.

Besides, I think I look cool in my Jeep. When I work at schools, the kids are all impressed when they carry my stuff out to my Jeep, "is that yours?" they ask in amazement.

"Yes," I say with pride looking at my beginning-to-be-rusted, bumper stickered, covered with Indiana salt Jeep,
"Yes, that baby is all mine!"

Limericks

The fourth graders I am working with just caught on to Limericks. Here are a few of my favorites: (By the way, if you have one of your own or a favorite, send it my way!!)

There was an old man with a prize
Who loved to eat dirty black fries
He stayed out all night
He got in a fight
And now he has two blackened eyes!

There once was a clumsy your mare
Who loved a young lady named Clare
Asked her on a date
He ran a bit late
Then he bought them a dinner to share.

There once was a lady named Bell
Who was riding her bike and she fell
She scraped up her knee
And got stung by a bee
And then she forgot how to spell.

Thee was an old man not quite dead
Who stood up and cracked open his head
He had a small cat
Who sat on his mat
And often would call him Sir Red.

A flimsy old woman named Pam
Who couldn't eat nothing but spam
It started to snow
How could she know
And finaly ate strawberry jam!