2nd to last week in Columbia

This is how our house looks right now...

It was a week of packing.  But not all the time.  Steve and I went to the movies Tuesday night and saw Guardians of the Galaxy Part 2.  The MMCO rehearsed Monday night and performed Saturday at Parkside Manor.  Then we had a lovely potluck afterwards and this is the gorgeous gift I received from the group.  It is a beautifully framed print of a watercolor by a retired art professor at MU.  The subject could actually be me in younger years.

I managed to take a couple of friends up to a little flea market/antique shop east of Centralia on Wednesday afternoon.  Of course I didn't buy anything but I sure had fun with the litter of three kittens.  Cara, five-year old granddaughter of one of my friends also enjoyed playing with them.


Not only are we packing up the house but also the yard - at least the vegetable garden which will not be planted this year.  Remember all the fruit tree covers I sewed out of the dozens and dozens of discarded pillowcases several years ago?  I had enough covers to fill a large tub and I just couldn't see saving them.  Well, I found a good use for them.  They are acting as weed-prevention on the garden.

those are logs on top.  Trust me, they are not the only way we are keeping the sheets in place.  We have tent-pole-like rods also poked into the fabric at intervals.  And rocks.

Steve had a bunch of blackberry brambles to get rid of and we had a falling-apart bench under the deck that needed dismantling so Steve had a bonfire Thursday evening.





It also happened while I had my last lessons with the Barner twins - Ethan and Andrew - and they, being normal 10-year old boys, had a blast with burning things in the fire.  And writing with charcoal tipped sticks.  They also brought me and Steve a beautiful Edible Arrangements.

 
Steven turned 35 on Wednesday.  Steve and Steven celebrated by going to a Cardinals game that night.  And we had his birthday dinner Sunday night.  Here he is sporting a ribbon from one of his gifts as he blows out his candles on his carrot cake/cheese cake birthday cake!



Julina turned 41 on Thursday.  And we got the wonderful news that Kirsti and Ryan are expecting a baby girl.

*^%$#$@$%^ Food Storage!

Oh, my!  Dealing with OLD food storage has been our trial this week.  Back in the day, when we had all seven kids living at home, I generally said "sure" to people offering their unwanted food storage because they were packing to move away.  Evidently, I said yes to stuff when I should have said "no thank you" - like twenty #10 cans of dried corn!  Aside from grinding into cornmeal, what on earth does one do with dried corn kernels?    We opened one of the cans this week  and there is clear evidence of bug damage. Plus, it looks very unappetizing.  No way were we going to keep this or even give it away.  The next problem was opening 20 of these can-opener killing cans (we destroyed two hand-crank openers and the electric opener just groaned).  Steve finally used a can tapper to make a jagged opening about 3 inches long - enough to pour the corn into 5-gallon buckets.  

Now what????  Well, every morning on our walk with Sadie, we each take a full can of corn and broadcast it in the wooded thickets across the street in the park and hopefully, the deer will eat it!.   Did I also mention we have three buckets of dried soybeans?!?!  That is even more of a "what do you do with it" puzzle than the corn.  I hope deer like soybeans....

And, then there is the wheat....

  All of this is wheat.  Most of it was given to us over twenty years ago - again by people moving away.  Thankfully, a young family with three children took all that we had except for six cans which we kept for Steve.  We also had a HUGE and ANCIENT drum of wheat (probably about 60 pounds) we acquired from Marilyn Richey who probably bought hers in the eighties  OR it actually could have come from my mom and dad which would mean it was from the seventies.  Needless to say, it is OLD wheat.  And, guess what?  There is a market for the stuff!  Back then, wheat was not genetically modified to have more gluten and there is theory out there that the reason we have so many more incidents of celiac disease is because our immune systems cannot handle all that genetically modified gluten.  So, old wheat would be easier on the body.  Or so the theory goes.  When I had lunch with my friend, Terri Anderson, on Monday,


she told me her yoga instructor would LOVE my ancient wheat.  And, she WAS interested!  This drum was SO heavy, though, that we said she had to come to our house to pick it up.  And, that is what she and her husband did!  Hooray!

Aside from dealing with food storage, Steve and I packed up rooms and I fought a cold, and we were invited to enjoy dinner with good friends Friday evening.

On the left are Jared and Karen Runnels with Katherine Eschrich behind them.  Heidi and Mark Burris are on the right and the dinner was held at their home.

We drove to St. Louis on Saturday - to work at the temple and to deliver a dining room table of Beckie's that we forgot to bring last week with the big moving truck.

We drove up to Brookfield today to attend church.  Back when Steve was in the stake presidency, he got quite attached to the folks up in that little branch and he really wanted to visit one last time before we left.

It is iris season and the hybrid bulbs I bought last year have done magnificently their first year!

Upcoming week - more packing.

Lambson family reunion

I do want to share the events of last week.  It started on Monday with me driving a BIG moving truck to St. Louis and back.  In a perfect world, Beckie would have found an affordable apartment by now and we would have moved her things from the parking side of our garage into her new home.  Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world but thankfully, Emily's garage has space so we moved Beckie's stuff (and a queen size mattress for Katherine Eschrich) from Columbia to St. Louis.  Since I was the one who made the truck reservation and since we didn't want to spend the extra $26.00 for a second driver and because we didn't have time to change the reservation into Steve's name -  I got to drive the truck both ways.  Lucky me!

(hey, Jeanne, your shoes are untied!)

As you can see by the raincoat, it rained lightly much of the day but, thankfully, all went smoothly in spite of the wet.  And, I only had to back up twice.  First time was after we had loaded an extremely large and heavy mattress at Katherine Eschrich's place and the second time was into Emily's driveway (just barely missing her across-the-street neighbor's mailbox!).  At our place, Jim Bonuchi backed the truck into our driveway.  In addition to him, we also had Ray Stubbs, and Larry Jespersen  to help load here at the house and at Katherine's.  The biggest challenge was getting a VERY HEAVY sofa bed out of the basement, up the lawn, and into the truck.  This was not even Beckie's sofa.  It belongs to Emily and when they were living in Kate's house, she had no room to store it so we brought it to Columbia and I used it in my music studio.  Emily found this sofa at a Deseret Industries in Provo and somehow hauled it up a rickety flight of stairs to her little second floor studio apartment on Center St. Then, it was carried back down those stairs into a U-Haul trailer that she pulled behind her silver Honda when she moved back to Missouri and it went into her apartment (on ground level, thank goodness) in University City.  Then, somehow it was hauled up TWO flights of stairs to the top of the Mason Lodge until it was brought to Columbia (back DOWN those two flights of stairs).  It now resides in the garage in Ballwin and Steve and I hope we NEVER have to move that couch ever again.

After a full day of driving on Monday, we spent Tuesday buying groceries and I attended my last CCO rehearsal that night.  On Wednesday, I did my duty as a visiting teacher and as a friend and I helped dress 92 year old Violet Davis for her burial.  Her funeral was Saturday right in the middle of our family reunion so this was all I could do for her and her family this week.  On Thursday, I made three batches of jam - two blueberry and one blackberry - to try and use up some of our frozen fruit.  I put up about 21 jars and we STILL have leftover fruit.  Sigh!  That afternoon, Kirsti and Ryan returned from their little trip up to Chicago.  Friday morning, they helped haul down all the stored boxes and tubs from the attic that belonged to both Kirsti and Sarah.  From about eight tubs, Kirsti was able to whittle what she wanted to keep down to one tub.  Food preparation took the rest of Friday and Emily and Joe and kids arrived that evening.

Saturday was the BIG DAY! Our Lambson Family Reunion.   And, it was a perfect day.  I loved every minute of it.  In the morning, after a pancake breakfast, Lucy and I strung beads for a necklace with some beads from Kirsti's storage tubs.  Julina and Shiloh arrive around 9:30 and she and I left take care of a safety deposit box loose end and we also dropped off a bunch of stuff to hazardous waste.  (yeah, that is a pretty random thing to do on such a day but the hazardous waste collection days are only on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month and this was a 1st Saturday and the FIRST Saturday since Steve and I had cleaned out our garage so we had about three boxes of chemicals and paints that were taking up valuable garage space.  It was a much needed errand, in spite of an already busy day)

At 11:30, we spread Trissy's ashes at the pond across the street in the park.

( walking over to the pond)

We ate a delicious and easy lunch in our back yard under the shade trees.








then, after we ate, Emily took a family portrait.  Mid-day is not ideal for taking pictures but the north side of our house is nice and shady and it provided the perfect light.  Next on the agenda was the give-away.  I gave each child a shopping bag and list of places in the house where they could "shop"(food storage, games, holiday and sports stuff in the garage).  I had some of my pottery I was giving away and I also numbered the paintings I was willing to share and each person ended up taking two home with them.  After all that was done, and while folks returned to sitting and visiting in the back yard, I let Noah try out my full size violin and my cello and we practiced a couple of duets.  We then went out to the back yard and played our duets for the rest of the family.  That was followed by a little family jam session with Steven on guitar, Emily on banjo, and Kirsti on mandolin, Noah on violin, and me on cello.  Our repertoire was quite small and limited to the key of G but we had fun!  When we were done, Noah and I went back inside for his piano lesson.  Beckie had brought Luna (she was dog-sitting for Kyle) and that dog was perfect for the energies of Lucy and Quinn.  They loved throwing Luna the  ball and she loved retrieving it.  That evening, Steven and Tamara provided Shakespeares pizza for dinner.  And, eight of the family (Steve, Julina, Emily, Noah, Lucy, Elise, Beckie, and Melanie) came to listen to my Columbia Civic Orchestra concert.  We returned home to a campfire and campfire desserts and the perfect day was done.

Kirsti found an old costume I had made for her and she gave it to Lucy who wore it pretty much the entire Saturday.

including the concert!