A Handwritten Note

Some time ago, the Grand Rapids Press had an article asking if the art of handwritten letters was lost in this time of facebook, email etc. At the time, my friend An and I were writing to each other, long hand, once a week. She and I both entered to try to win the book they were giving as a grand prize, but, we didn't win. I did, however, get mentioned. I came across the letter I wrote and thought I'd share it with you......

Feb. 6th 2008

Dear J-,

Hello!

It was wonderful to read your recent article "Write On". The title immediately caught my attention. A dear friend of mine and I write letters to each other as often as we can - we try for once a week -. With seven boys between the two of us (ages 8 to infant) it is much easier (and way more fun!) to write than to try to call. What fun to get a letter from her! We decorate the envelopes with stickers to make them as girly as possible - we need to express our inner girl being surrounded by boys as we are! We just fill each other in on the day to day "going-ons". and for two happily married stay at home moms, we have a lot to write about!

For instance, last week I was attempting to get some chocolate chip cookies baked before my two oldest got off the school bus. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a big flash of white and turn in time to see out my kitchen window my two geese flapping their wings and squawking loudly down the driveway. Josie, my darling dog, was right behind them. This is not a scene that promises to be good. I quickly checked on my youngest two, who were watching a movie, called Josie back into the house, and took off running the driveway. I seen a car slow to a crawl and heard a squawk and knew my geese were definitely in the road. Thankfully (maybe? I know I seen them laughing!) there were two commercial trucks sitting on the side of the road, slowing traffic. And there, in the middle of the road, were Mr. Goose and Miss Goosey, looking completely flustered. I was sure they'd eaten enough over these three years to not fly but they, in fact, skimmed over the road surprisingly well. Imagine the scene...two large geese being chased down the middle of the road by a woman in a bright yellow apron. This is just not something one sees every afternoon! But those geese flew right into the side yard and once they had gotten over the shock of it all, waddled - rather loudly - back the to the safety of the coop.

And although I was WAY winded after that, the cookies were still done on time and when my hubby called to say "anything new with you today?" what could i say? "Oh, same ol', same ol'," I replied, "you know, typical chase the geese day." It concerns me slightly that this even seemed normal to my husband of ten years.

This is the live we love, these are the stories we live, and we laugh through it all - even when we are so tired we have tears as we are laughing. Our letters keep us laughing and it makes our friendship a special treasure.

So, thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you are bombarded with hand written notes.

Happy Reading to you!

Denise

I miss those hand written letter days. I hope your day is going great today, An!

So what do YOU think? Is the art of hand written letters a thing of the past?

Mr. Goose Updates

Some of you will recall the passing of Miss Goosey. Some of you laughed, some of you felt my sadness, but it has been a few months without Miss Goosey now and I thought you might all by curious to know how Mr. Goose is doing.

Honestly, I didn't think he was going to make it. I thought he would die of a broken heart. He spent well over a month walking bemoaning between the spot Miss Goosey died and the lean to they had shared. My super loud annoying goose hardly made an utterance. And he spent a long time just making 'coo' sounds. It nearly broke my heart.

Sometime in January, he must have made a new years resolution to venture out and he wandered, quietly, toward the bird feeder, the common meeting place of all my chicken flock.
I was so excited to see him venture out I tossed him some leftovers out the window.

Soon he was out and about every day. He wandered to the bird feeder, checked the chicken scraps bucket and then looked by the kitchen window where I had tossed the little morsel. I didn't really need the already slippery, snowy deck covered in constant goose poo so I tossed a few morsels more out the window again to him and it became a comment occurrence. See the goose, toss the food. I began to watch for vehicles passing our house. I didn't need them thinking I was a true hillbilly tossing food out my window.

For a goose.

Well, Mr Goose realized he is basically a Goliath amongst the chickies so he formed himself a little flock. He chases and honks and bites all other chickens who come anywhere near his little flock. Because his flock seemed to think they were too good for the chicken coop, they moved into my hubby's shed.

Now, when I tossed out scraps Mr. Goose, the gang of chickies got in on the good food too. Which meant less for Mr. Goose.

But he is a smart goose, so he began to show up at the dining room window when we were eating. If we ignore him, he taps the window and honks like crazy.

He can honk really really loud.

To show his appreciation for all this nicety I have shown him, he patrols the yard for me. He marches around the house all night, honking to let he know all is well. Usually around two he does a sweep, and since he knows we are sleeping he makes sure to honk REALLY loud right outside the bedroom window closest to my hubby.

He sleeps dozes under the bedroom window closest to me. I think he snores now in his old age.
And my chickies have become insistent too. Now if they so much as me walk thru the kitchen, the gang of chickens run full throttle to the window to wait for the scraps to be tossed out. I didn't give them any yesterday. They, and I am NOT making this up, started pecking the siding in protest!

They, however, do not show any gratitude in the form of eggs. I am still buying eggs from the store.

And so, now you are up to date on the Mr. Goose saga.

S1 Makes the Week

This week I have been over tired and exhausted. Emotionally spent. Busy beyond what I am used to. And I have been grumpy with my family and short whenever they aren't doing as I think they should. For instance, S3 and S4 have woken up every day this week disliking each other greatly. I mean, we all can wake up on the wrong side of the bed but these boys were opening their eyes and quickly putting the act of annoying the other and put into action what mean thing they had planned to do all thru the night, I usually just holler at them to knock it off and get along because they are brothers and stuck with each other for the rest of their lives. It usually is okay after that. But I would end up hollering at them and then I would send them to the couch to sit away from each other or something not pleasant. Never pleasant. Always much hollering. Buckets of tears. Every morning and night it has been like this and I have found myself looking for bedtime with greater and greater joy in hopes that the next day would be better but it hasn't been.

To this mix, my goose died. Now, I know some of you are going to snicker and shoot coffee out of your nose laughing that I would be sad about a goose. But I have had Miss Goosey for about five years. Defended her to the enth when others tried to chase her about the yard. There are few girls here on the farm and Miss Goosey and I both liked to chat with each other. Our conversations would vary but I would talk with Miss Goosey all the time. Mr Goose would ignore our girly chats, Mr Goose is a great goose husband, he protects Miss Goosey always and never leaves her side. But he is not a people liking goose. Miss Goosey died this week and we think it is just of old age. Mr Goose wanders the coop calling for her and he spends a lot of time standing near where she died. I buried her in a box behind the coop, it seemed heartless to bury her far away from Mr Goose. I know, I know, they are just geese but I cried. A lot.

S1 has been watching all this not saying much. Last night I was short with everyone and when dinner was done, I sat down with the S2 to begin the long bit of homework we had before us. While I was in the living room reading with his brother, S1 cleaned the table, washed the table and took all the dirty dishes to the kitchen. That is his normal job. But this night he emptied the dish washer of all the clean dishes, he took care of the clean dishes, he loaded the dirty dishes into the empty dishwasher and he filled the dispenser with soap and started up the dishwasher. He wrote me a note and taped it to the dishwasher.

This morning S1 brought my coffee out to the warming suburban he had started for me. He opened Jr's door for me when I came lugging the car seat out. He ran to the drivers door and opened the door for me, turning on my heated seat even though my heated seat has been broken for a year now. How would he have known?

All day today I have found cleaned dishes in all sorts of could be good spots. I found my bread pan on the top shelf when it belongs nestled with the others in the bottom cub-hoard. I found the big measuring cup with the bowls, but every time I found something where it didn't belong it just brought a smile to my heart and, yes, even a few tears to my eyes. I felt so loved.

I felt so guilty for how short I have been with the boys all week when my busy week had nothing to do with them and yet I had taken the frustration and over tiredness out on them.

There are pumpkin cookies (S1's favorite) waiting for him when he gets home from school. But it is just a small gift compared to the gift my boy gave this over tired moma. Oh yes, I am framing the note he wrote. He turned a rough week into a week I will instead treasure for all time.