Monday Thoughts

It was a busy weekend & today was a nice, quiet day working from home.
Saturday was the estate sale at my G-maw & G-paw's house. My sister & I had prepared one another for the fact that is was going to be difficult to have complete strangers digging through & purchasing things from our grandparents' home. Thankfully it was busy & there weren't any annoying customers, & we only had a couple really rough moments (the sale of the clock that chimed every hour in their Lake Oswego home & the little bird painting that hung in the bathroom). It was amazing the multitude of neighbors that stopped by to tell stories of our grandparents & especially nice that my folks' neighbor, Brit, showed up with the female members of her wonderful family in tow. We all had some lovely, reminiscing talks with both neighbors & customers alike. Sidenote: my G-paw died this winter, but I want to clarify that my G-maw is still very much with us & currently adjusting well to her lovely apartment at the Merrill Gardens retirement home. This month just signified the end of their home together after 65 years & a necessary clean-out of much of their estate.
Sunday was spent with the other side of my family, at the memorial service for my Great Aunt Kathy. It was wonderful to have the sun shining, illuminating the stained glass windows at Queen Anne Presbyterian Church.

My mother & aunts put together a wonderful glimpse into my aunt's life. Both Aunt Kathy & Uncle Hal (passed away in 1994) were gifted artists. Here are little houses (one for each grand-niece & nephew) & a Noah's Ark for my mother, all built by Uncle Hal & painted in tiny detail by Aunt Kathy,

My aunt loved miniatures--here is her 18 room dollhouse. This weekend is when the majority of the Gowey family will take special items home from the "Kathy Boutique." The choices & fairness make for quite the process in a family over 30 people. While it will be sad to breakup the dollhouse, I look forward to having some of TK's miniatures for my own dollhouse.

I had to share this photo from the collage at my aunt's service. This is my sister, myself & my cousin Robert (also one of my good friends) on the train my Uncle Hal built at their cabin in Index. The locomotive was powered by a lawn mower engine.

And finally to today.

It was wonderful to wake up to the beautiful snow this morning & to have the option of working from home. Levi suggested I pick up firewood, as we tend to lose power here very easy, so I took a break in the middle of the day & drove to my grandparents' house. I gathered wood, fed the chickens, walked the property, & remembered the Gowey elders gone.

The chickens gave me two little presents.

I spent the rest of the afternoon at the dining room table, doing research for the upcoming Heifer University I am facilitating. While working at home was relaxing, there was lots around to remind me of family memories, including the cup of tea I had in honor of my Aunt Kathy & Uncle Hal.

This turned out to be quite the lengthy update!
I'm hoping to follow-up soon with Mandy's suggestion that I share more of the family treasures I now have in my home.

And one more story to share: Levi saw a recent comment & asked "Who's Katie & Ryan?". It was wonderful to mention that in addition to attending middle school together, "Katie is one of the blogging girls." I love all the girls I have met or reconnected with through the blog world (& Kristen!). And like most of you, I'm hoping for more snow tonight.
Sweet dreams, my friends.

Snow in Spokane

My parents are getting snowed in. Something like 12 inches in the last 30 hours.

Enjoy the winter wonderland!

In case I haven't told everyone yet...

Heifer International Receives $42.8 Million Grant from Gates Foundation

This is incredibly exciting for both Heifer & our project partners in Africa. The grant will aid 1 million families in agricultural development (specifically small dairy operations) in Kenya, Rwanda & Uganda.

For more details, click here.

Thank you to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for their generosity!

Word from our camp...

We are still here!!
I want to update, but I also don't feel like writing much, so our month in bullet points:

• clearing out two family estates
• the loss of my Tanta Kathy
  
• my job has expanded to include Oregon
• lil sis turning 21 & seeking happiness
• finding places for family treasures in our home
  

Elyse's Christmas Present

A while back I removed my mothers old bike from our garage. I had intended to give it to a charity or sell it on craigslist. After finding out the charity had all the old ten-speeds it could handle and no-one wanting to pay me $35 for there own rebuilding project I got the bright idea to try rebuilding a bike myself. The reason I had not done this previously it the bike is way to small for both myself and Eliza.

As you can see from above the project was going to be an involved one. The bike was never going to shift again and the amount of rust was pretty amazing. Gotta love steel frames.

So I completely disassembled the bike, got out a drimmel, degreaser, scotch-brite, and elbow grease. I had to buy a few parts because some were beyond repair and some were needed to covert this old rusty item into a slick hip single speed.

In the end I am very happy with how it turned out. I was able to save the original wheels, paint, stickers, seat, bars, bearings, brakes, and levers.

Heres to hoping this bike has many happy days on the streets of Bellingham.

T.K.

My mom called on Monday morning to let us know that my great Aunt Kathy had passed away peacefully on Sunday night. She was my mom's aunt & almost like another grandparent, especially as she had no children or grandchildren of her own. Because Alan's sister is also "Aunt Kathy", our family called my great aunt, "Tante Kathy" (aunt in German) or T.K., to avoid confusion.
Growing up, we usually had Sunday supper at Aunt Kathy & Uncle Hal's. They were both creative people, wonderfully imaginative & funny. Uncle Hal was Kathy's senior by 20 years & he died in 1994. Sunday supper was always soup, followed by dessert & tea. Kathryn (who is named after T.K.) & I always got our own little teapots, even when we were so young that we were drinking our mostly-milk-tea out of sippy cups. We each have those little tea pots now & I even have my yellow sippy cup from their kitchen cupboard. I know my mom has photos from Sunday supper--we'll have to dig them out. T.K. always fostered our love of dolls & miniatures, as this was something she loved her whole life. She helped Kathryn & me buy our American Girl Dolls when we were little, & both she & Hal contributed to our Sylvanian miniatures. I remember when one of us was celebrating a birthday, the other would get a little "half-birthday" present, as our birthdays are six months apart.
Here she is at her 80th birthday party in 2005.

And her amazing dollhouse.

I love this photo of Grandma Donnie, Mom, & T.K. from 2006.

After getting off the phone with mom, I got on my bike & rode to my Wallingford office for the first time. I was thankful to be out riding after hearing the news. The sun was shining, illuminating the bright green moss along the side of the trail. The lake was calm, with just a hint of wind in my face. I rode along the Burke-Gilman, up through Ravenna towards Greenlake, then up the big hill to Keystone, thinking the while about my Tante Kathy & the other elders we have recently lost.