Update on the College Trials

Lucie was getting dressed for the Father-Daughter Dance* last night when she got a phone call from Corey at Webster University and she's accepted!!!
At the same time she also got (by mail) a Rubik's Cube "accept the challenge" acceptance from Maryville and the day before a beautifully crafted paper folder from Cornell College for acceptance. Added to Truman accepting her last Friday (when we got back from the Webster Freshman Preview) and the previously mentioned SIUC letter, and she's got 5 out of 6! and well, she's repeatedly said she doesn't care about SLU anyway...


I represented the family at Aunt Ruth's memorial service at Bethel today, which was lovely and I really liked Pastor Yancey's sermon. Sat next to Cousin Charlotte (of course I had to call mama later to remember her name) and behind the Schroeders and everyone sang their hearts out (Lutheran, so in parts!). There was a reception afterwards in the undercroft so I went round and talked to some of them - Judy, David, Mark and Mark's wife Kim, Joel and Christine and Aunt Dolly who was there with Vicky, Steven and wife, and of course Chryssie who is really the only one I know. Some other people were there but I wasn't sure if they were family or what and I didn't get introduced - oh Mrs. Bercht who Uncle Ed introduced "if not for her husband Robert Bercht some of you wouldn't be here," since he introduced Aunt Ruth to Uncle Darryl! I told Judy I always thought of Aunt Ruth as a young girl since that was how Daddy told the stories and she told me that mostly her mom talked about growing up in St. Louis when she was remembering her life. They were all going out to lunch but I had to go back to work.
Geoff, wasn't Pastor Yancy at Bethel before you graduated? I seem to remember he was a sem student or assistant or something. They had pictures up in the undercroft and he's been the pastor since Pastor Buls and Pastor Mundinger before him - only 7 pastors all together! The best part was walking through the downstairs school hallway to the gym (I always have dreams of that!) The linoleum is the SAME (with random orange squares) and there is the SAME accordian divider curtain in the 1st and 2nd grade room!!!
Also Geoff, Chryssie and David were interested to hear that you were digitalizing Daddy's negative collection - Chryssie said they moved so many times that her mom didn't keep alot of pictures. They had a photo of Grandma and Grandpa with all the family - Uncle Dick and Uncle Bob looked so like themselves and Aunt Ruth was so pretty, Daddy was rolling his eyes and Uncle George's hair stuck up about 3 inches! Mama said that's a picture you used for your event, Karen, does that sound right?

that's all write soon - love Agelaius

*picture coming later I hope

Lucie Votes

Happy Election Day!

Due to the perspicacity of a DMV employee, Lucie registered to vote last July!

(Unfortunately the actual task on that date, to START the driving ability reconnaissance

did NOT happen, but that is NOT the fault of said perspicacious DMV employee!)

So today, rainy today (why does it always seem to be raining on the first Tuesday of November?)

we went to vote and Lucie had a moment of recognition

when the election officials applauded "a brand new voter today!"

In other news, Lucie has FINISHED HER ESSAY!!!! With loud sighs, angry declarations and lots of "hard stares" a la Paddington, she stomped upstairs yesterday (day off because we did the R-K Open House on Sunday) and grinded it out. The tricky threat was "if you don't write the essay, default is SIU Carbondale" (they don't require an essay so she's already accepted WITH a scholarship!) and even though we really liked it there, Lucie's response (fallback) is "It's Too Big!"
So the Essay - Whoa! Good job - it was great stuff. Of course I did the comma and mama-spell/grammar check but she did get FOUR more applications into the pipeline. One of the silly schools still wanted more writing so she'll think about that tomorrow (Scarlett!) and the teachers are promising to ante up the recommendations. Great. So, a few more visits and then, we'll just have to wait and see what the $$$ part of it is all about...
love,
Agelaius

Bears and bears and bears, oh my!

Dear Family:

Someone donated a whole bin of leftover yarn to our knitting group, and I have been the only interested in using up the bits. So, you will have to take a look at my efforts at making bears. 




It turns out that one of my friends volunteers at the Ronald McDonald room at Edward Hospital; so she has been taking the bears there to pass out to the kids.  Some of them are pretty funny looking, but I guess if you are looking for something to hug, squishiness counts more than prettiness. 


 

 Anyway, here's what I have been doing lately:

I do wish I could figure out how to put the photos side by side!
Does anyone know?













Lots of love,
Gilly

Finishing Things

I took a look at my last post and realized there were some loose ends I hadn't wrapped up yet. First off, Ziggy seems to be all better now. Some combination of antidepressants the vet gave him, a new fancy litterbox and super-duty bioenzyme cleaner to clean up his previous messes, and now he seems to have his urinary tract back under control. The cleaner actually smells pretty gross, unlike the normal "pet mess cleaners" at the grocery store, but supposedly gets rid of ALL of the smell so the cat can't smell it anymore. Here's a picture of Problem Kitty himself:

I just keep taking pictures of Ziggy, because he does all those cute little paw things when he's sleeping!

I also finished the quilt. It was a pain, because it was actually too big for me to spread out on the floor anyway without moving furniture. Since I couldn't lay it out flat, I was worried it was going to be all wrinkly, but I actually managed to tie it without any noticeable puckers. The only problem was me bleeding on it, probably from one of the many times I accidentally stabbed myself with the pins. I think I will not do another quilt of this size without a quilt frame. Here is the finished product on my bed:

It survived its first washing and is functioning as a pretty nice quilt! I also finished a couple more dresses. This one was a different pattern than the blue one, which was nicer because it has a zipper instead of buttons, but the straps are all in one piece and the underarm seams ended up a little wrinkly and it took an annoyingly long time to blindstitch the straps:

I am still happy enough with the result to wear it though! The last one was another pattern from the same envelope as the blue one. I decided to try adding pockets, and I found this really complicated set of instructions for lined patch pockets on the internet (after determining that the side seams weren't in the right place for inside pockets). I serendipitously had exactly enough of this pink cupcake print ribbon to edge the pockets. They were annoying to make, had lots of steps and I ended up hand sewing them instead of machine sewing, but I think they turned out looking pretty nice!

Anyway, that about wraps it up for the sewing projects I had planned. I'm not sure what I'll work on next; maybe some sort of programming project?

Senior Citizen!

That's what a friend said to Rubén at church this week - she was actually referring to Lucie!

Whoooaaa!
She's working on her Essay, her "Activities List" is done (resumé style) and the Common Application is complete except for that awesome essay currently being created...oh, and there are probably some other things that each college will desire but we don't get to see that until the application is finished...meaning that awesome essay! They are a very controlling bunch of folks!

And now she's not only inundated with postcards and brochures from all over (4" high stack so far and that's not including the 6 she's actually interested in) and about 10 emails everyday but also phone calls since they come to visit her school and give her a personal invitation.

Well, that's what I've always known about Lucie - she needs a personal invitation - but this is sort of ridiculous. You end up feeling sorry for all those hundreds of schools that she won't be able to go to! The weird thing is she checked off she was only interested in schools close to St. Louis. Well, I guess Vermont IS closer than Bangladesh...

Rosati has a deadline for "at least one application" submitted by September 29th. Fortunately, SIU Carbondale doesn't require an essay or teacher recommendations, so she got that done. The rest have to be in by October 27th - even though the real deadline for almost all schools is December 1st. I am sure that they expect everyone to wait until the last minute but happily Lucie's point of view is "let's just get this over with." She's already talking about which schools have the most interesting semesters abroad program, so she's following your lead Sally!

I can't imagine no Lucie in the house - I secretly am rooting for an in-town college!
love,
Agelaius

Still life with moose

We finally hung the Uncle Richie painting that Karen and Dan brought up from St. Louis.  I took a photo so you could see it in situ and then another photo so you can see what the moose thinks.

I wish I knew how to place these: I wanted them next to each other.  Oh well!

Cats and Sewing

Well my summer has been largely busy dealing with Ziggy getting a blocked urinary tract and then an aftermath of as-yet-unexplained urinary problems. Here's a picture of him not being a problem kitty:

But I have gotten to do some fun stuff. Mom and Dad came to visit, which was lovely. I finally decided to get a sewing machine. It is a bottom-of-the-line model, but it does buttonholes and that was very exciting for me. With the aforesaid sewing machine, I finally embarked on the t-shirt quilt project I had been planning for a while. I have been wearing a lot less traditional logo t-shirts lately, so this was a good use for a lot of them. This is the top of the quilt:

The border is extra fat right now because I'm planning to use it to make the binding. I still haven't quite figured out how I'm going to quilt it. Here is another picture from piecing it where you can see the t-shirts better:

They are mostly t-shirts from the Women in Compter Science club I was in. There's one from VMware and a funny cat one from Gramma.

The other thing I decided to do with the sewing machine was make some dresses. This is the first pattern I tried:

There were lots of pieces, but it actually wasn't that difficult. The only thing I did wrong was that while I was sewing together the vertical panels around the waist, I tried it on over a tank top I was wearing at the time. So it ended up being a little loose in the waist. But that's better than too tight! My friend said he thought I looked like a wizard with all the shiny little stars. I have one more dress pattern that I want to try and then I'm not really sure what my next project will be (finishing the quilt I guess!).

Sibling Protocol

Hey all!
Just finished talking with Karen who is #1 on the moving team.

We are hoping that she'll be able to get the ball rolling on sorting stuff. The idea is to make the front bedroom and the living room into "This Moves with Mama" and the other rooms (getting into the corners and closets) emptied out and beginning to be sorted. She will ask Mama "Do you want to take this?" about items she encounters (if it's "yes," then she'll move the items to the FBR or LR). She will also add a "Karen would like this" tag onto stuff she has a liking for.

Karen DOESN'T have a lot of room to take things with her (and Geoff told her he'd be flying in so he didn't think he'd be taking stuff) BUT don't let this inhibit you all, we can accommodate desires in three ways: stash in basement for later take-away, move stuff along with Mama's things (in boxes labeled "Karen's Stash" for example) and store it in her storage space (I don't actually know how big it is but it does exist), or worst-case-scenario-don't-tell-Ruben, give it to Kathie. I DO NOT think we should take the Strembicki's up on the offer to "leave it in the basement and come get it later," could be problematic.

By the way, I already took Lucie's/my high chair and a couple pictures from Daddy's office that I'd asked for in the binder.

This is all to say that Mama's big fear is that we'll fight or fuss over stuff, I think she's watched too much Judge Judy…

So here are the photos I forgot to send of our piano goodbye.
love,
Agelaius

I like this one because you can see "Yamaha" and "7227"

I have moved! (Well, four and a half months ago.....)

So I totally meant to write something here when I moved and got settled in. All of a sudden it ended up being May, so since I finally have a weekend that is not crazy busy I figured it would be a good time to sit down and write about it. As most of you know this winter was brutal. So what better time to move from Florida to Wisconsin. After Christmas when I came back up here I had to move everything in from the garage to the house. That took a bit, but after a few days I was able to fit my car into the garage. It was no fun bringing things in from the cold and then going back out into the cold to figure out what I wanted to bring in first and what could wait. Once everything was in came the snowy part of the winter. Boy did it snow. So much in fact I decided to head back to my favorite website of all time (Craigslist) and get me a snow blower. Most of the stuff I own comes from Craigslist. It is a truly awesome place, if you have the patience to shuffle through the garbage. $50 netted me a snow blower from the 80s that supposedly ran but the drive wheels didn't work. About a half hours worth of work and it ran like new. Kind of. It runs. That is the point, because boy did I need that thing this winter. A few days I barely made it to work on time because I was digging myself out of the driveway.

When the weather cleared up, and the snow melted I found out that not only did I have a curb but I also had a much smaller park way than I thought.

On the plus side, When it melted, it all melted. So instead of having a lingering winter, it just went to a lousy spring. A bit. Because it was still pretty cold. It was about this time I figured out why certain parts of my house are colder than others. The windows are very drafty, and now that it is warm enough to open them, I find out that some don't want to open and some won't stay open.

So for the last two months it has been chilly and rainy, which has been good for the grass, but not for my motivation to do things. After a horribly gloomy and rainy week, today I was able to get outside and do some spring cleaning. I pulled weeds and cleaned up the flower beds. I saw a few green things sprouting that were not weeds, so it will be interesting to see what they are. On the left side of the front door (looking at the door) there is a Goldfinger Potentilla and on the right there are two Japanese Red Leaf Barberry. Now to those plant people in the family, no I did not look at them and say "hmmm I know what this plant is" The people who planted them did not take off the tags from the place where they got them. I am not surprised on the Barberry bushes because they are very thorny. In addition to that I cut the grass for the first time this year. It has been a long time since I have done this much yard work. Maybe I need to invite my parents up for a weekend to show me how it is done.......

You can ignore all the things in the garage. Everything in there works perfectly and has no issues what so ever..... Nothing broken in there....

That is one of my summer projects. Get all the things I have running, and then take other things apart. I just can't possibly keep things in one piece. It would not be natural.

More projects that I have planned that I have not started (jeez I think I have a problem, too many unfinished projects... Well supposedly the first step to recovery is admitting I have a problem) I decided to make a model airplane of every type of airplane I have flown. This was a spur of the moment decision when visiting a hobby store and trying desperately not to spend too much money.

The nice part about these projects is I can put them off for a long time and it won't be a big deal. So they are sitting on the low end of the priority list.

Well that is about all the fun stuff I have been doing at home. The other 90% of my life has been devoted to sleeping, eating and work. My new job is really awesome. I work with some nice people and they are all very knowledgeable and are very willing to help me learn and be a better mechanic. We do all sorts of things. Basically just about anything that can be done to an airplane we do it. I have helped reinstall engines, put engines back together, I have fixed seats, put wheels on, helped out with running airplanes to make sure nothing leaks and countless other things. I am really enjoying it at Cessna.


I swiped this picture from our website because it is better than anything I could have taken and looks much more professional than having airplanes all over the place. 

Anyway that is all from me! I hope you are all doing well, and hope to see any of you when ever I can.

~Dan

I've been eating a lot of salad this week…

…I'm sure you want to know why…
In our last episode we saw the Barrios family as they were headed to the Junior Ring Mass, meeting up with the obliging Hoyer-Greenlees. We were sorry that Mama wasn't up to coming but it was very festive having you all come!

After the Mass

Coin Ring

Official Portrait?

 Lucie didn't think the official Josten's rings were worth the $100+ and so we went on Etsy and had a ring made out of a Susan B. Anthony coin she was given as a present at her baptism. She only wore it that night anyway, now it's on a chain with her St. Catherine medal (confirmation) and her cross from the Kairos retreat (more on that later). First we had the Mad Art opening Friday night which was thrilling and impressive (but we didn't like the cigarette smoke!) and the ACT ordeal on Saturday - aarghhh, very stressful.

That orange dot in the back is Lucie's painting!

Then on Palm Sunday afternoon we took Lucie off to Belleville to a retreat center where she and half the Junior class (the others did the retreat last fall) had four days together and she really enjoyed it, even though it was COLD and she got sick. I must have caught it from her too since we were both sick by Maundy Thursday and had to miss one of our favorite evenings. We did get to go to the Living Stations of the Cross on Friday (do you remember seeing that when Lucie was in it, Karen?) because I took a half-day and then had Saturday off. Too bad I was whooping the whole time!

Easter bouquet

So that brings us up to Easter and the obliging Wilsaks who agreed to bring Mama over for dinner, since my family doesn't like to budge out of the house unless a gun is at their backs…and I didn't take any pictures because all we did was sit on the porch and eat this great ham Gill cooked. I guess I could've put some pictures in from last year's Easter with the Hoyer-Greenlees, it looked mostly like that…This is the first year we didn't dye eggs or make Easter type desserts! so I made up for it by putting hard-boiled eggs in the salad. Then I forgot to serve the salad and the rosemary bread I had ready! SO, that's why I've been eating salad all week!

Hope you all had a good Easter week!
love,
Agelaius

P.S. This took me too long to write! We just came back from another action-packed day: We woke up at 3:30 and saw the Pope Saint Mass from Rome - and then went to the special mass at the Cathedral Basilica, waiting around afterward in the sunny but windy garden as Lucie finished a service project next door at R-K, then zoomed out to Maryville University for a COLLEGE FAIR ooohhh yikes that was overwhelming. But at least it gave Lucie an incentive to look through the huge pile of "gimme letters" from colleges all over the U.S. that all seem to come from the same zip code and think we live in Breckenridge Heights…hmmm and they all say "Send in the postcard for Seven Things You Must Know About Applying to College." Somebody is making money writing copy! So we were flinging them all over the living room floor and found out she had a letter from True Green Lawn Service - whoops! She wants to go to school and live at home, but she's still not ruling out Iowa, Illinois and other parts of Missouri.

Kudos to Lucie

The orange is Lucie's!

I've been wanting to post this for a while now... Lucie's been going to New Art in the Neighborhood since January at the Contemporary Art Museum. Contrary to what we thought, it isn't really about making art, more about portfolio prep and meet the artist kind of thing. We're very proud of her for sticking with this workshop , even though it's pushed her comfort zone a little. https://www.facebook.com/NewArtintheNeighborhood  Also very happy that R-K is making a big deal about this - her painting teacher posted the flyer and they've mentioned it in the weekly newsletter and put a pop-up about it on the website. Geoff, Sue, and Alex are going to try to go see the exhibit, we're waiting for opening night on Friday (I don't know why opening night is ten days after the opening!) which they will miss since they're leaving that morning.
Tonight is Junior Ring Mass at Rosati and hopefully they'll be able to come to that too. Even though this is a big deal, it's a bit of a mystery, so we'll let you know later.
love,
Agelaius

Who Are You?

Since I'm drowning in cute pictures of my sisters, and trying to avoid the boring ones of baby me drooling food, here's post #2 with a pair of favorites, and a stack of "who is this" pictures.