May Moments

April showers bring May flowers ...  well, they actually brought them in April this year and they lasted through early May.   The squirrels have long-ago dug up the pretty, red tulips that I planted over ten years ago, but they tend to leave the daffs alone.  Next month, we'll enjoy the peony and rose displays.

I delight in all signs of spring.  As Chris and I enjoy conversations and observe nature from one of our favorite rooms in the house ...  the screen room ... I made my yearly confession of how spring is my favorite season (with fall following closely in second place).  Spring just radiates fresh, new life.  Brilliant colors of green, yellow, red and pink repaint the dark, gray, slumbering landscape of our LONG Indiana winters.

The first week of May, Chris mowed the yard for the first time and tilled the two vegetable gardens.  Our undesirable zoya grass always stays brown far longer than the neighbors without zoya.   We can thank previous neighbors (from many years ago) for planting the invasive and supposedly drought-resistance, luxury, southern, SLOW-TO-GREEN grass.  Maybe someday we'll re-turf.  But for now, the lawn will catch-up and look better in June.

Flashback 1994 - Taylor, age 3, helping his Dad mow the yard.

Note the freshly installed fence and screened-in patio.  That was to keep the three year old contained safely in the backyard for outdoor play while I was busy with his newborn brother and two pre-teen siblings.  Doesn't seem all that long ago.  Time sure does fly fast.

Mother's Day arrived on the 8th and always sprinkles a hint of sadness for me each year.  When both of our mothers were living, Chris and I always enjoyed shopping for pretty hanging flower baskets for their front porches or a new rose bush to add to their gardens.  We miss this tradition and our moms.

This year, we enjoyed church with boy Taylor and girl Taylor followed by a Mother's Day Sunday brunch out on the town.   

We hurried home after lunch and enjoyed an afternoon visit from daughter, Holly, and grandkids, Haylee (and her boyfriend, Damian), Kayne, and Danika.  They brought two beautiful hanging flower pots to admire from our screen room and kitchen window.  

When you're the mother of four, it's hard to coordinate and share visits with all your chicks on the same day, so we'll be catching up with the other two soon!

The rest of May kept us busy with planting vegetables and flowers when the weather was warm and not raining.  

On cold, rainy days we organized and priced for a garage sale as we continue downsizing years of accumulated possessions.  Chris and I have done pretty well the last five years or so with our downsizing pursuits, however, inherited possessions continue to arrive.

Last month, I was surprised to inherit 8 tubs of my mother's keepsakes - nearly 8 years since her passing.  Old pictures (some dating back over 100 years), recipes, family artifacts and newspaper clippings from the adventurous lives of my parents, grandparents, brother, sister, myself and the grandkids.  Some tubs were carefully organized and some not so much.  Whew.  

As they were delivered, I was asked where I wanted them stored in our house.  I knew if we were to continue our downsizing pursuits, I couldn't store them out-of-sight and out-of-musty-smell.  So, I asked they be carried to our second floor landing just outside our bedroom door.  There, I would see them each day as motivation to go through them a little at a time to make appropriate decisions.

It's been hard.  Bittersweet, actually, going through the treasures and re-living many, many memories.  But, I knew I couldn't leave this daunting task for our kids to do someday.

As I go through each item in these tubs, I have yet to make these same decisions of legacy treasures accumulated by our own Ram Fam flock.  This has helped me see the importance of not putting-off the legacy paper/artifact trail of inheritance.

I'm so thankful Mom spent many of her retirement years lovingly creating an 84 page heritage photo album for each of her three kids.  She proudly gave me my album, below, several years before her passing.  

She had copies made of the best ancestor photos (dating back to my great great grandparents in 1889) up to and including her and my dad's childhood/young adult photos.  She didn't, however, throw away the originals or all the extra, less desirable photos.  This made it easier (a bit) for me to cross-reference pictures in the tubs with my heritage album before discarding the originals and less desirable photos and artifacts (like Mom's black quilted make-up bag filled with all her last used cosmetics in 2014 and the tiny box of ALL Mom's baby teeth from the mid-1940's my Grandma saved from her only child... Eeek!).  Chris and I have had great success in downsizing by simply asking ourselves this simple question:  "Would the kids want this, display this or use this?"  I think our decisions have been wise so far.   You're welcome, kids.

Mom concluded the heritage album with wedding pictures of her and Dad.  It was hard, she said, for her to go beyond that marker knowing their 27 year marriage would end in an unexpected, bitter divorce.  So now it's up to us to sort out the good photos representative of my childhood and lifetime so far and that of Chris, our kids, and grandkids.  I see now how to keep only the "best-of-the-best" photos for future generations to view the personalities and characters of us ... their ancestors. 

So ... with the staged location of these tubs, I'm happy to report to our kids, your mom has successfully made content decisions and has emptied five of the eight tubs to date.  Only three more remain.   My goal?  The "best-of-the-best" of the Ram Fam in these tubs must fit in half a shoebox.  The remaining half space is reserved for my monstrous digital photo collection.   And then, convert Mom's heritage album, plus one of my own, to digital format for archiving.  I also still have my Granny's (my Dad's mom) large storage trunk filled with many more ancestor photos to go through too.  And ... not to mention (or forget) over 40 years of video archives of the adventures of the Ram Fam!  One day at a time, Cheryl.

Thanks, Mom, for the many hours of ancestor documentation in your beautiful handwriting.  I'll carry the torch through my generation ... only without as many tubs, I hope!

A Peek from the Past ~

In honor of Mother's Day ...  my Mom.  We love and miss you.

Karen (Lawton) Casey in 1995     1939 ~ 2014

"I thank my God every time I remember you."  ~  Philippians 1:3

For Him,