My Dad's truck

Yesterday I spent an hour with my dad, while my husband was at work, my girls were in Irish dance class and my mom went to the store.  I asked him if he's seen the NEW 10 minute weekly videos by Sister Vassa (here is the first episode), which is full of information and also a bit of humor.  He said yes and told me that he sat next to Sister Vassa about 10 years ago at a meeting discussing the reunification of the Moscow Patriarchate and Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (the reunification happened on May 17, 2007 and my father and mother were both able to go to Russia for this)!  He said she is very intelligent.  We went on to talk about her father, who is the priest who served the funeral when my dad's sister (Martha) passed away in 1976.
I grabbed a pen and paper and began writing and we added another chapter to his memoirs.
When my mom returned, I asked her to help me find some old pictures...and these are what I wanted to share today:

This is Dad's 1987 Mack, complete with a shiny silver bulldog hood ornament.  In 1965, the Mack truck produced the R series, which they made until 2005...and that's what kind of truck my dad purchased in the 1990s, he used it for many years when he picked up containers (big rectangular boxes you see on trains that are brought to the ports and then put on barges to go overseas).  It was shiny red.  Beautiful.

There it is, parked in our driveway, where my parents still live.  My sister took this picture many years ago, while she was in high school taking a photography class, you know the old film kind?  They used black and white film.  My dad even helped her to make a photo lab in our basement, where we had a large closet to use as a dark room, with bins of chemicals mixed to lay the photo paper in to let it develop.  Dad is still awesome, just now he's not as active as he used to be, not able to DO stuff we used to do, but he is here to tell us the stories.

Just around the corner

We will be celebrating Pascha, the Lord's Resurrection, on Sunday, May 5th.

• Last Sunday was Palm Sunday.
• Monday, I baked kulich with Maria, a friend from our church.
• Tuesday, we cleaned the house, my sister, Mary, her husband, Andrey and 8 month daughter arrived late.
• Wednesday, we bought some special things at the market.  Olivia wanted sliced olive loaf (basically bologna with green olives with red pimentos in it) and we also got some of our favorite Guggisberg baby swiss, smoked cheddar, cheese curds (to make poutine), etc.  That evening, we all went to Confession after church.
• Thursday, we went to church and celebrated the Last Supper in the morning by going to Holy Communion.  I used yellow onion skins and colored our eggs, Hannah polished them with olive oil, so they shine!  In the evening, we went back to church and read the 12 Passion Gospels.  We take the candle we held while listening to the gospel and put it in a lantern and take it home and mark our doorways.
• Friday, a solemn day, we dressed in our darkest colored clothing and went to church, where the crucifix was in the middle...and then replaced by the tomb.  I frosted the tops of the kulich and added almonds & raisins to the top and started making "cheese pascha" (I should've done that earlier in the week).  This is Gretchen's blog post on Holy and Great Friday!
• Saturday, tomorrow, we will go to church in the morning and then again about 11pm, as we have a beautiful midnight Paschal service.
• Sunday, we will probably get home at 4 or 5am, after the service we have our Pascha baskets blessed with Holy Water.  Then, sleep...and have dinner at my parent's house with almost all our family (missing my littlest sister, Andrea, her husband, Wally and 2 boys).

Please pray for my father, Fr. Paul, and mom, Barbara.  It's been a tough week.  Yesterday, Dad's coffin arrived.  If you've seen the film The Island made in 2006 which is about a monk who has his coffin ready, you'll understand why I think this is so beautiful.  This link takes you to the 11th of 12 parts of the film, if you forward to the 8:00 minute mark you'll see what I mean.  They ordered it from Fr. George Brooks in Arkansas.  It's beautiful, smells like fresh pine or cedar, has a nice big cross on top, and the words "Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal have mercy on us," around the sides.  My dad fell again today.  Parkinson's disease affects so much of your life.  It's been about 10 years now for him.  He would be at every single church service this week, if it were possible, and so would my mom.  ♥

Writing...

I am a person who never liked writing much, but has always kept a diary or journal.  Now, I find myself NEEDING to write.   It’s a wonderful release.  I write personal things, about my family,  spiritual life, our garden and how we are growing...

I ♥ to read my old journal entries.  I take my journals on trips, too...from a couple years ago (I also draw a lot, I do not like lined books, but one with completely blank pages, just so I can draw & write).  I'm first an artist, I love to draw, but find that art is truly visible in writing down beautiful words, too, and in baking, in photography & watching things grow. 

After last week's adventure to meet one of my favorite fictional authors, I've been thinking a lot about the difference of fictional writing and non-fictional writing (which is mostly what I do), I really enjoy writing and documenting my life.  And a friend of mine, Jenny, just blogged about a book she is writing, which inspired me to blog about writing!  One of my favorite books is The Diary of Anne Frank.  My intention as I write is that it is not only therapeutic for me, but also something to pass on to my daughters and grandchildren one day, that they may read of our life together, the happiness and sadness.
I've been helping my dad write his memoirs.  I need to sit down with him on a regular basis and do this, but with Parkinson's disease, there are often bad days, where you just don't want to do much of anything.  Or you can't do anything.  God help him.  That is a portrait I drew of my dad in 1996.
Dad's dad (my grandfather is now 90) has written a few short memoirs, of his time in the Navy and sketched a picture of the view of Mt. Fuji from the top of his ship.  My grandfather's dad (my great-grandfather, who passed away when he was 101 years old, I keenly remember his 100th birthday party, I had a broken arm from a skiing accident and there were LOTs of people there) also write his life and all of his children and grandchildren and even great-grand children, like me, have a copy of his book:

Mariah, the cat

Let me tell you about the cat that my sister, Mary, and I brought home when we were 15 and 17 years old.  She was a cute little kitten.  A friend of ours had a cat that had kittens.  We picked this one out, she was a calico with long fur and mewed very loudly and high pitched, so we named her after the singer, Mariah Carey.  In the years that followed, we left for college and worked and got married...

I took pictures of her with a plastic purple egg on Pascha in April 2012.  She looked very good then.  She kept herself clean.

(My mom started and then my husband finished digging a hole for her.  She is now buried right by these wooden planters, where the mint and ground phlox grow in the spring.  It was one of her favorite places to lay.)
My parents kept Mariah at their house.  Now, it's almost 20 years later and Mariah is still mewing very loudly, but in the middle of the night, in the house and even outside, so that it wakes my parents.
Dad has Parkinson's disease and now a broken arm and the hours that he is able to sleep peacefully are limited.  Mom cleans up after Mariah, who in her old age has stopped cleaning her fur, it is matted and knotty, and even has some feces stuck to it...  It's my job, now, to help out.  I wanted to bring her to my home, but she has never known another home and we think she is going deaf and blind.  We also have a young cat, dog and 3 chickens...  I don't think Mariah would like it here.
So, we prayed for her to pass away peacefully in her sleep.  It didn't happen.  After talking about it, we called the vet and made an appointment to have her put to sleep.  When they examined her, they said that her kidneys were enlarged and that her muscle tone was very low...  They were very kind and explained that they would give her 2 injections, the first one, which would let her sleep, as they would give to any cat, undergoing a spay or neuter, then another injection that would stop her heart.  ♥  It was very hard to hear that and to not feel guilty about allowing this to happen.  I told my girls that animals don't have souls, that this is different from a human life, but I still felt badly.

I have to think of the life of an animal, as the life of a tree (maybe it was beautiful and bore peaches for many years and is now dying, shall we leave it or cut it down?) and there I feel like what I did was humane.
She would've been about 90 years old in cat years.  Most cats live 12-15 years, although some live quite long!  Mariah had a longer than normal life.
It was the first time I've ever had to do something like this...
I hope it is the last.

My father broke his arm!

Friday morning my mom called to say that dad fell and they were at the hospital!  We found out that he dislocated his right shoulder and fractured his humerus.  No surgery was needed, no cast either.  BUT my father is having a hard time with the sling.  Parkinson's disease makes everything harder.  The pain medicine he was prescribed is interfering with his Parkinson's medications.  The dyskinesia are making it hard for him to keep his arm still.  ♥  Please keep him in your prayers.

Mini-cheesecakes ♥

For this recipe, you can use any sort of little cookie (I used gingesnaps, but you can try vanilla wafers...I even saw some with oreo cookies), place it in the bottom of the muffin cup, and then pour or scoop the cheesecake batter on top and then bake.  I used gingersnaps from Trader Joe's.

Mini-cheesecakes with cookie-crust:

• 20 little cookies
• 2 packages of cream cheese (8 oz. each)
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Make sure the cream cheese is room temperature, when it is warm, it will mix better.  Mix the cream cheese until smooth in a bowl.  Then, add the eggs and sugar.  Blend until smooth and add the salt, sour cream and vanilla.
Put a cookie in each cupcake liner and pour cheesecake batter into each cup.  Bake at 325'F for almost 1 hour.  If it starts to brown on top, take out immediately and allow to cool.
Top them with a few blueberries or raspberries!  Then, enjoy with your friends ♥
(I got little matryoshka cupcake liners from TJ Maxx.  I used 20 of them, but they are smaller in circumference than the average cupcake liners, so you may only make 12 using this much batter if using the regular size ones).

I brought these mini-cheesecakes to church yesterday, as we celebrated Nativity (old calendar)!  It was a potluck dinner after the service.  Some of my favorite people in our church:

Many of you have been praying for my dad.  He is doing well, managing his Parkinson's.  In the mornings he is pretty good, using just his cane to get around.  In the afternoons and evenings, though he needs to use his walker most of the time.  He has 2 wheelchairs (one manual and one electric, that my in-laws gave us) but thankfully he hasn't really needed them!  I think the key is that he knows when he is able to do things himself, and when he needs to ask for help.  My mom does a lot to help him out and she ends up doing most of the chores.  May God bless her.  Last week, though my dad took the garbage out, so he is able to help sometimes!  I know he would like to do more.  

I'm reading a great book by Rohinton Mistry called Family Matters right now.  The main character, Nariman Vakeel, is 79 years old and in rapidly deteroriating health due to Parkinson's, when he breaks his ankle.  His step children who are grown adults, are living in the flat he owns with him and feel the burden of taking care of him, then get their sister, Roxana, who is poor, with a husband and 2 children to take care of him.  There are some very beautiful and poignant passage in this story...one when the 9 year old grandson feeds his 79 year old grandfather, spoonful by spoonful and wipes his chin.

My husband took a photo of my parents with my sister and her 3 girls & me and my girls!  It was a lovely sunny day...with a little snow still on the ground, although it was warm, and it is all melting.

the sweet place ♥

 

Yesterday was Dad's 62nd birthday.  Dad ♥s sweets.  I do, too.  My girls used to ask me which tooth was my "sweet tooth."  Like Dad, I am also a morning person, rising when the sun is up, sometimes before.

One of my sisters gave him a beautiful painted ceramic bowl that her girls made. 
She also got him a t-shirt which 7 of the grandchildren have put a painted hand-print on...and she will take it to Canada this week for Elizabeth's hand-print (who is a month old now and will be baptized next week), then, Dad can wear it. 

Another sister gave Dad a box of sweet pastries from Bon Bonerie, a Cincinnati shop.  I remember having their scrumptious scones with clotted cream at the Celtic festival about 15 years ago.  It reminded me of when my grandma (my dad's mom) took my sister and I to Scotland when we were kids, for a month in the summer. 

We got Brooklyn style pizzas to eat for dinner with Dad and Mom.  Then the my girls wanted to play "Cincinnati" the local version of Monopoly, they have Aglamesis ice cream as one of the properties you can buy, Kroger's grocery or the Cincinnati Red's baseball team, for example.  I sat in Dad's walker as a chair. 

I went with Dad and Mom to an awesome Parkinson's Symposium on Saturday, we listened to Dad's doctor, Alberto Espay, talk about the myths of Parkinson's (one was "stem cell research will help those with Parkinson's"...and I am pro-life, do not think it is morally right for anyone to use a fetus to do research).  There was one doctor who talked about caffeine and how it makes the levadopa (medication used to maintain the Parkinson's disease) more effective!  Dad had 2 cups of coffee right then at the Oasis. 

Linda Armstrong is a woman who has Parkinson's disease and makes jewelry.  She spoke about my dad's first doctor, Fred Revilla, who is down in Bolivia climbing to the summit of a mountain in honor of his patients.  She said "We are all on a climb, looking for a cure."  I love her frosted glass pieces with little beads around them.

Cammy Dierking biked (although she doesn't have Parkinson's) the 40k, I ended up not doing it, but next year, I WILL.  She is the local evening news anchor for channel 12 (CBS) and what a wonderful, warm and inspiring person!  She called up a young boy, Benji who is perhaps 10 years old, who also biked, he has had numerous back surgeries and his father has Parkinson's disease.  We applauded him.  It brought a tear to my eye, seeing this young boy. 

Davis Phinney is a professional cyclist.  He was diagnosed as having Parkinson's disease at age 40.  He is now 53.  He wrote a book, The Happiness of Pursuit,  about how he is reaching back to what made him so successful on the bike and adjusting his perspective on what counts as a win.  He said a smile brightens his day and that is a victory!

♥ the sad place...

To me, the sad place, only exists because of the opposite...the joyful, happy times that we can compare it to.

Hannah and Olivia with their great grandparents in December 2004.  Their great grandpa was a jolly man, always smiling, loved to have the girls on his lap, or snuggle with him when he was bed-ridden.  He passed away in March 2007, when he was 81.  

Yesterday, we went to the cemetery to visit Rob's grandfather's grave.  It was a beautiful sunny day, the breeze making it cool.  We picked purple, pink, white and yellow wildflowers to put in the vase on his grave.  We laid out a blanket and gathered dandelion greens, grass and pinecones.  Rob got out his mandolin and played for about a half hour.  I gave grandma some cherry pie I made that morning.  Then, we talked...

 

Rob's grandma is 82 and living in a nursing home.  She has a picture of herself when she was young and grandpa on the shelf above her bed. I think the nursing home is a sad place, people lose their freedom, they depend on others, but sometimes we need that extra care and cannot do things ourselves any longer. 

My father will be 62 next month.  His father came to visit last month, he is 89 right now.  He seems to be in better health that his son.  We all went out for pizza together, they day after my birthday celebration together.  Dad's life is difficult because of  Parksinson's disease...he has lived such an active life, I remember swimming with him in Lake Dunmore in Vermont, him chopping wood, riding bikes with him to get doughnuts on a Saturday morning, lifting my daughter Hannah up to the ceiling and pretending she was on a roller coaster...

And now, he is forced by this disease to be much less active.  Stiff.  Uncomfortable.  Clumsy.  It's like a bad dream I've had when I'm laying in bed and can look with my eyes around, but cannot move any of my limbs, nor yell to ask anyone to help me move.

Having family and friends who love you, will spend time with you, help one another out...a true gift from God, that's what makes it worth wading through the sad times.  ♥

Do you have something to offer on this subject?  Link up here:  I am hope...

Feathers...

• the first feather is from Nutmeg (our Rhode Island Red who is a little over a year old, molting for her first time, been 3 weeks already)
• the second feather is from Pepper (our 11 week old Barred Rock)
• the third feather is from Cinnamon (our 11 week old Araucana, born May 21, 2012)

Every Wednesday, I follow this yarn along and sometimes I'm actually working on something, crochet or knit, but not right now.  Today it's something especially interesting.......her husband is knitting!  I doubt Rob would pick up yarn and delve in, but I'm glad he enjoys gardening, watering, harvesting, sowing new lettuce seeds...

I ordered these bicycle pins from Joscie in Hawaii.  I ♥ them.  I went for a bike ride (alone) Saturday, just 2 miles.  Then, Olivia and I went for a bike ride yesterday.  We stopped to see some people in our neighborhood, Bob and Carol.  Carol has had Parkinson's disease for 20 years now and thankfully is still pretty independent.  We talked to Bob for quite a while, neither he nor Carol can drive right now, Bob just had hernia surgery! 

As you know, my father has Parkinson's disease.  It's been 9 years.  This past June, family and friends joined us as we walked a 5k to benefit Parkinson's research.  In exactly a month, September 8th (a day before my dad's 62nd birthday) there is a 40k bike ride for Parkinson's that I'm considering...it's a LONG ride.  Do you think I can do it?

 Nutmeg in the watermelon patch (Cinnamon and Pepper behind her)...

 Olivia is feeding Pepper and Cinnamon some mozzarella.

Lusy seems to like the chickens...if anything she might be a little afraid of them, or at least she is kind, giving them space.