Old Friend

We may have been friends for nine years on Facebook, but we've been friends for over 46 years in real life.

Our mares both had foals in 1974. We spent that summer riding across the countryside with their little ones running free alongside us.

You were one year ahead of me, Kathy, at NDSU. I joined you there, ending up your dorm room mate, in the fall of 1977 (circumstantially, for only one quarter, but it was very memorable...)

We both ended up being single mothers, doing it our own way, but finding lasting love later in life.

We've come a long, long way, old friend...

A Horse and his Human

Carl & Joe...with a kitty friend

It was so true, once upon a time, in a little town called St. Vincent, when I was a girl.  










I still greatly miss having that very special relationship with a horse.  I live vicariously through my friends who have horses, including my cousin Carl, who has a  long, ongoing, and close friendship with his horse, Joe...

The End of a Childhood Friend

I lost a good friend recently - an old oak tree that was one of two that held up an iron bar, a set of rings, from which ropes hung that held a wooden seat. My grandfather put it up over a century ago. My mother and her siblings, my sisters and I and my nieces, nephews, and my children all swung on it.

But a recent bad storm broke the tree in half, at the point where the tree had grown around the iron bar many, many years ago. Slowly but surely, my childhood home is going back to nature.

The acorns, the oak leaves I collected and preserved in wax paper with an iron. The red squirrels that made it their home and ran through the branches chattering and chasing one another. I didn't even hear any squirrels or even birdsong in the little woods north of the old home I grew up in.

I feel incredibly sad but realize this is how things are, always have been, and always will be. Change is the only constant...

Embroidery Reverie

I am SEW (pun!) excited about this book!! I ordered it recently and it's on its way to me. This video shows some of the exciting projects and lessons I'll be learning from it.

I recently got back into embroidery after a much-too-long break from it. I learned embroidery as a wee girl from my Grandma Fitzpatrick. I loved doing it, and did pillowcases, dresser scarves, and dish towel sets back then. My little fingers were busy, busy, busy learning straight, lazy daisy, french knot, and satin stitches. It has been so much fun getting back into it. I look forward to making my first embroidery journal, or book of stitches!

Running Away from Home

I was about 6 years old, and I was really mad at my mother.  I don't remember why I was mad, but I was so upset that I wanted her to be very worried about me.

I ran out of the house, grabbed my red tricycle, and started madly peddling down the gravel road towards Grandma's house. Halfway there, I realized that Mom would likely check for me there first thing.  So I thought I'd really outfox her, and went into the big ditch and hid in some trees.  It seemed like it took her a long time, but soon she walked past me on her way up town. 

I waited as she inevitably came back. As she walked past the area I hid within, I could hear her say, "I am so sad.  I hope Patricia comes home soon..."  I almost spoke up, but I was a very stubborn little girl,and held onto my anger.  After she left for home, I waited to make sure she was really gone.

I struggled to drag my trike back to the road, but I did it.  On to Grandma's house!  When I got there a couple of minutes later, I ran into the front porch, letting the wooden screen door slam behind me. Inside, Grandma was in the kitchen.  I don't really remember a lot after that, except that once there, I felt home-free.  I had accomplished my goals:  I ran away, and I worried my Mom.  I was satisfied.  I obviously got picked up at some point and brought home.  But in the meantime, I may have managed to wrangle an overnight at Grandma's house with homemade hot cocoa and brown sugar toast in the morning...

The Pot

I grew using a chamber pot.  But we just called it 'the pot'.  In fact, once I got a certain age, I was responsible for preparing it for the night, taking it upstairs, and then taking it downstairs and cleaning it in the morning, for re-use that following night.

My mom had me put in chlorine bleach mixed with water every night before taking it upstairs.  You may wonder why we did this. Well, we had no upstairs' bathroom for one thing.  The second thing is I had a lot of problems with my urinary tract system when I was a little girl growing up, plus I was a bed wetter on top of it all. I think Mom may have thought if I had a place to go to the bathroom close to me (right outside my bedroom door) it might help. It didn't - but it was much appreciated anyways rather than running downstairs and across the house to the far corner of the utility room at night in the dark!

Eventually, I stopped wetting the bed, and I had years of respite from urinary tract problems (to return later in life, but that's another story).  Mom and Dad built on and had a new downstairs' bedroom.  I was upstairs alone, a teen...no more pot.

But I have never forgotten sitting way down on the cold rim of that old iron/porcelain pot many a night those many years ago.  At the time, it seemed perfectly normal.  It was the way it was...

More than One Way to Skin a Cat

It's a lovely thought, having "a liberal arts education". I personally LOVE the idea of having one - but the cost of college has gotten gigantic and out of many people's possibility even with best-case scenarios of scholarships, grants, working, etc. I personally advocate for the even "older school" of life-long self-education. The same individuals who are motivated to learn in a group environment can do it as individuals, via traditional libraries, museums, as well as online. And universities aren't the only way to get out and meet people of diverse backgrounds, interact, learn about different cultures, etc. I know, because I've done it. There is more than one way to skin a cat! I never got to go four years to college, only one. Another two years a few years later for a technical Associates Degree (for IT - computer programming and network administration) But I have never stopped learning. I am a ideas and learning junkie.

I learned to read before starting school, in part thanks to Dr. Seuss

I had two advantages getting started on my lifelong path of self-education - a mother who valued reading and started me very early, and both parents who valued discussion and questioning the status norm, and weren't afraid to talk about ANYTHING with us or around us. They were fearless examples. My Dad grew up on a farm and only went through 8th grade (but was an avid reader and debater all his life) and Mom was a high school graduate (no college), but also a life-long reader and sometimes writer. Her oral skills at passing down family history and stories had been passed down to her by her Irish-Canadian parents and I benefited from them all.

1967 Party: Debbie, Trisha and Heather

I am the little girl on the left as it starts, and I put on my glasses...