Our Cousins

When my husband's Grandma turned 80 years old, we all came together in a hotel in Salt Lake Utah for a family reunion in honor of her. She had 7 children, my mother-in-law Jo Anne was raised Mormon. So we instantly had a lot in common from a religious big family up bringing. On that weekend as Tony and I settled into our hotel room I handed him a room key saying "Here, you should have your own in case later on tonight you stay out late with your cousins." He looked at me in disbelief "Why in the hell would I do that?" I looked back at him in equal surprise explaining "Because you guys might want to sit in the bar of the hotel catching up all night long." He burst out laughing "This isn't YOUR family, I am not close to any of my cousins like that." I had to stop and think of how lucky I am to have so many good friends among my own cousins. It left me in pure awe!

While we were growing up we played together, we stayed in touch as much as possible and we loved everyone in our big family that in any crisis or trauma we came running to each other's side.

I am in awe of how truly blessed, how truly important my cousins have always been in my life!

For when our parents came together in huge yelling arguments, in holding grudges and disagreements in always judging each other we kids would slip away from the dramas and just be happy together just as we are!

We were just the little kids, who believed that;

You can be gay, you can have many sexual partners, you can be poor or rich, you can get married or never get married, you can have lots of kids or no kids at all.

You can vote however you feel, you can pray as much as you want. You can cuss as much as you want. You can tell a long winded story, You can tell a quick joke. You can take lots of pictures or just keep giving out many many hugs. You can be as real or as fake as you want to be. FOR we are family, we are the cousins who changed the setup through the years so that unconditional love wins out over everything else!

We are the cousins who grew up among the crazy crowded family tree! 

We know that there are other branches growing out there that we have never met. 

We understand that even our superheroes in our childhood made mistakes, they were not so perfect the more we learned about them. 

Yet we are the new leaders in the definition of what it means to have a good family from all the history behind us.

I have found myself as an adult standing beside one of my cousins with one of our aunts or uncles speaking down to them and I step in saying nicely and clearly "Don't be disrespectful, we are equals now." Of course this often brings a look of pure shock or surprise because the once only adults now share that spot of authority with their own kids, with us the cousins.

I understand how hard it is to remember we all grow up in the end, but it's my passion to bring about the best behavior towards each other with my deep love for my family!

I often check myself saying "My baby brothers." as I did for years now they are young men. I can't keep thinking that they are babies, that will not be nice for them.

I truly want to be respectful towards them as equals, to be a good friend and never abandon them in any situation.

Having my cousins in my life taught me the power of unconditional love. When I was disowned by my parents, and my Grandma Eva didn't like me at all, it was my cousins who came to my rescuing support and we were able to discuss those family issues for clarity and for love! How honored I am to have them in my life!

As I am growing older now I think that maybe every family wants to be close, loving and kind, but it's within the kids who can actually create it from the start with out all that  emotional baggage yet from the past. For each new generation can tell a better story about their lives and their families. 

Like a fresh start, we kids would escape into the woods, we would find honey suckle, and wild flowers while simply loving to just be with each other! In nature, in play, in new adventures we were a group of kids walking side by side in real delight of grateful peacefulness!

 

My husband said to me once  "It captivates me just how much you love your cousins." I replied "They were my very first friends in this world, I couldn't imagine my life without them!"

Care Away Street

                      When I was born unto my young parents who were striving for perfection, they had strong religious rules. Therefore I failed them often by the time I was 5 years, I almost just gave up on trying to please them. Then I found ways to be around people who actually liked me, my extended family. This is why I am very passionate about kids having multiple people in their lives while growing up because It really does take a village to raise a kid, it helps the kid learn how to be around difficult people, to not be stuck on just what their parents think but to learn from so many other views point in life! Looking back I understand much better just how my childhood was made far better for all the people in it!

My father's family was loud, chaotic and passionate in being alive while coming together.

My mother's family was quiet, organized and grounded in being alive while coming together. 
and I observed them all............

      
         Whenever we visited up north, in the small town of St. Maries Idaho where most of my father's family lived. We would all come together in the big house of Papa Rudy and Grandma Eva. For we grand kids would play "Store." or "Restaurant." With fake paper money or poker chips we would come together in our own little world away from all the noisy adults. 
We loved our puppet shows, nature walks and just hanging out in Papa's shop with those piles of sawdust. That smell of pine trees and clover can still take me back to being 5 years old again. 
Every Sunday that Nazarene church on the hill against the morning sun light greeted us all dressed up and ready for a big social day! I loved it of course, I was born desperate for socializing and desperate for friends! (Being home schooled fed that desire all through my life ironically) 

Church was one of the best places to meet new people, to sing songs all together and to teach myself how to meditate, to calm my soul in prayers. I was completely against going to hell of course, so it made me a very zealous christian that by the age of 10, if you didn't know the Lord then I would gladly tell ya all about him! I was so sure of what I had been taught, so clear on keeping my thoughts good for if God already knows my true nature then I better be the best that I can be! For I understood at a very young age that we can't hide anything from him!

       

My Grandparents church was basically the same small town coming together for worship, crowded and full of activities I was in awe and in pure delight of it all. I looked forward to going there every time we came to visit, During the service as the adults all held open their bibles the pastor would dismiss the kids, I was so happy to leave the long winded sermon to find a chair in the basement looking out at all the bright colors of the stage set. It was a magical scene! The doors opened and closed on to main street where the windows popped out with hand puppets, to the familiar style of the famous TV show "Sesame street." I truly loved it there! 
This was Care Away Street! The music was fun, the bible verses were inspiring and most importantly for me it was watching my Aunt Vee jump out in her excitement to share with us a great story from the bible! 
Oh how I felt like she was on Broadway! 
I would lean into the other kids so excited to say loudly "Hey, guess what!?! That's my Aunt! I know her!" I would try to stand up so that my Aunt Veta would see me in the crowd, especailly that very first time I saw her on Care Away Street I went crazy! "Aunt Vee, Aunt Vee it's me! It's me! I see you! hey guys, I know her!"  
It took her daughters who sat behind me in their older grade classes to calm me down. I was in pure awe of it all!
Aunt Veta was staying in character of course while chuckling to herself as I just couldn't believe my eyes, for she was truly famous to me!
When I look back at all the good times while growing up, it was how Care Away gave me such wonder in the world of acting, in the world of imagination! 
I could recite any bible verse and sing any song at the top of my lungs because I had an Aunt out there on stage, who I wanted to be with singing and dancing along side all those puppets!
I loved those Sundays in St. Maries, where everyone came over to Grandma and Papa's house for lunch after church. 
Where I would sing the new song I had just learned in Care Away Street, where my Aunt Veta would call me by my nick name "Little Dee." and I felt so special, so loved and so happy that she was a wonderful part of my family! Because her honesty, her strength, her story telling ways live on in me always! 

I sat on Aunt Veta's lap at the long stretched out picnic table on the patio of my Grandparents home. That afternoon sun was shinning on the lilac bushes while we were all under the shade, simply enjoying that fun family Sunday, Aunt Vee asked me "What do you like about Care Away Street?" I replied back quickly "The candy store window, I just wish it was real though." She burst out laughing and I knew that she didn't mind my honest self.        She liked me just as I was, just as I am.

Yard Work plans

I was feeling so sore the other day when I said "I can't wait until I am done with all this weeding and moving dirt so that I can get into gardening." and my husband tilted his head with a smirk asking me "Isn't that all a part of Gardening?"  I paused a moment to laugh.

I love before and after pictures, I have been working from the front yard to the back. Starting first with adding some lavender plants to the first thing you see growing when you drive up. To the fresh new bark laid down helping keep the weeds down. While I wash windows, spray for wasps and step back to smile for the front yard is fun to care over.

Then I tackled the sides of the home, where one side was full of random stuff and the other was a stretch of huge weeds and ant piles. My goal was to clear it all away by June so that was heavy work, I couldn't of done it all with out my brother Davey's help!


BEFORE, and AFTER it's now a lovely place for a fire pit with lots of room for everyone to sit around it safely.

I hope to start off next spring with my garden beds at the ready, with a better understanding in fruit tree care and have a fun fairy garden to play in! So the aches and pains of working hard now makes my plans so worth it in the end.
And I like doing those before and after pictures all the time too!

LoLa & Hauser - Moonlight Sonata

This music welcomes in the Summer solstice, there is such a beauty in spring leaving and summer arriving. The hope of those good weather days ahead and that sense of adventure too!
I truly love this time of the year, I have been spending more days with my pets out on a blanket in the warm nice sunshine, we are all together in a magical place called HOME!

The moon light is pure wonder in this sweet summer time, summer time!

Happy Birthday Brother

        I would often say "Wait a minuet....You did WHAT?" to my brother Derek.

He would grin back at me knowing already what I was going to say next. He would have that look of "Yup, that's my big sister, having her questions and concerns."

I would often warn him about the whole buddy system when heading out into the wild. I would constantly share everything I knew about safety first and he would always match me word for word in already knowing the risks. He would have that spark in his eye at the fun of watching me freak out for a bit. I can still remember feeling like one day he will die in the mountains........

I was never ready for such a loss in my life but I had a few thoughts of how my "mountain man" (as I called him that all the time) would one day go out into the beauty of this earth and never be seen again.

Last year I was up crying through the night in all my grief of such a severe loss for my life, it was the eve of his first birthday gone from this world.....

....and the year before that we had gone out to sushi in celebrating his 34th year. 

My memories of us laughing, of us teasing Tony or sharing our childhood memories. Derek always told good stories, we spent that night of all you can eat sushi chatting up storm of politics, of new movies we had seen and our favorite TV series. I told him how his Christmas gift had finally made sense to me in the whole world of chrome casting and he giggled happily at me. That night as I watched my brother Derek help my husband Tony find a seat while waiting for me to catch back up to them, they looked like such good friends walking side by side that I took a mental picture. That I was truly happy to us get together like that! I even said "Next year we should not eat anything all day so we can order more sushi!" The guys looked at me in surprise as they both replied "I did do that." I laughed on as Derek half hug me leaning in with his usual clever smile "See Deb, Tony and I know how to prepare for an all you can eat place."

Last year was the first year, so this is now the 2nd and I still can lay on the floor to cry........

No matter the years ahead for on this day, my brother's birthday I will mourn. and I will remember him!

I will remember how nice he looked walking casually down the street waving goodbye on that nice June night.

Happy Birthday Brother! I will always miss you!

From the movie "Babe."

This scene always gets me dancing and moving, I have loved this movie from the first time we rented it. My Grandparents were visiting from St. Maries Idaho and I was 16 years old. We had big bowls of popcorn that my father would request me to butter because I evenly tossed the kernels in the freshly melted and lightly salted butter slowly and carefully.
Then we would all find cozy seats in the living room to watch TV. Most often us kids would get pillows and blankets for the floor while the adults had the furniture.
This movie was very unquiet in it's story telling style and the brave pig captured our hearts. My baby brothers grew up with this movie on in the back ground all the time and we would often dance to this very clip then jump off the couch together for fun!
Lately I have been reminiscing about those days, living as a teenager in the 1990's with no internet and no cell phones. I have been realizing how drastically different it is now, while there were many of the same things back then in technology, my life on the fruit farm was like in this movie for Farmer Hogget so the words "Fax Machine." seemed like nonsense.

As I have been doing yard work today I have been singing this song.....
I live in a cozy place, in simple things that I can capture so easily with a click of my phone or some typing on my lap top. I wonder how these things could change in the future too....and yet music and songs still remain!

I can see everyone in my memory all settled in once again, watching this movie for the first time, laughing out loud or cheering on the show, I can still remember the good times...........

Mornings with Jazzy

I have 3 old cats, I hope they can all live to 20 years old I would be delighted so that's in 8 more years, (ya never know with cats really) I love my cats so much because they kill mice, chase off birds and just purr away the day or sleep on my head. Fuzzy paws on my cheeks can wake me up in a perfect moment of peacefulness.

They are all 3 very sweet and very cuddly in their own personalities, The black cat Lewis lets me hold him and kiss him all over while I feed him chopped chicken, he gets the most infections so he is usually on medication. Tinker lets me hug her and carry her in short spurts, she was our first rescue kitten now she will be 12 years old. Tinker always purrs at night when she lays between me and my husband, she hates to share attention with the other cats but she is never mean to them, so now these 3 cats have been together 6 years this July.

Actually Jazzy came to me in 2013, one of the most loving lazy and sweetly always happy cats in the whole world!

Her big fluffy gray stripe colors make her a BEAUTIFUL cat and she is always purring the moment you pick her up, which makes her so sweet for everyone!

I love having my first cup of coffee in these nice mornings with her on my patio against the warm lovely sunshine. My life is full of such loves in all these pets, in our simple quiet life!

I am ever so grateful that Jazzy came into my home devoted to my dogs and loving to my cats, she never tried to ever pick a fight, never tried to dominate. She simply came in and ran beside the dogs outside, smelling them as they did her. She simply went right over and licked my big black cat on the nose he was shocked at first then fell head over heels in love with her!

They are always together napping, cleaning and cuddling each other. I admire how Jazzy as a grown cat of 4 or 5 years old would be so easy going in a new home!

She likes to hide in wait of Tinker walking by then pop out to make Tinker freak out, as Tinker shoots away hissing and annoyed Jazzy lays right down with what looks like a smile. It is almost like they have these 3 personalities that they enjoy being different of each other yet in the world of cats they all want the same things. I love my big backyard for them to be safer then ever before!

I love all the fruit trees that they climb up on and all the cat mint they eat! My mornings with Jazzy are so important to me! a coffee, a blanket as the sun warms everything up with Jazzy on my lap!

It is PERFECT! Truly a PURRFECT way to live for me!

As my brother Derek went to sit down beside me he stopped to ask "Is this a new cat?" I laughed "Yup! Cousin Ryan helped me volunteer at an animal rescue so after we walked some dogs they gave us this cat for free! She's so AMAZING." Derek kept trying to sit down but Jazzy wasn't moving or even aware much of his shadow as we sat on the patio that evening. I explained "She won't move even if you sit directly on her, she'll just purr in happiness that you are touching her. These pets don't know anything about sudden danger around here...it's an oasis of peace." He stopped to look at me with a smirk "So they aren't very smart is that what you are saying?" I grabbed Jazzy up and he sat down then seconds later Jazzy was in his lap as he giggled back "I didn't invite you over, I'm not a cat person." I smiled big at my brother explaining "She will change your mind, there is no cat in the whole world more full of love then her!" And so Derek just let her stay there all through the evening on his lap as we chatted away together......

The Hollies- He ain't heavy, He's my brother

There is such beauty in June that it so often takes my breath away!
There is such a sense of hope for the summer time ahead and the beginning of everything growing that gives such a comfort to being alive.....
There is always going to be something so deeply special to me for my love of June! That bitter-sweet reality of living and dying will always be apart of me.
I am grateful to see another summer season ahead, to think of all the good I can do with these early mornings and warm days ahead!
I am inspired and I am intent on creating such beauty every where I go!
Living here in my brother's home, gives me such tears of loss and longing to talk again with him as I fix things and plant flowers all around here.
................THE ROAD IS LONG with a many winding turn.......
    (and I still live here, I'm strong enough to do my best!)  

Derek's Cherry Trees

   

I walk around every day to admire and love my backyard, I worry over how to care for my fruit trees. Pulling weeding and trimming back suckers, my fruit trees were once my brother Derek's fruit trees. He loved them and he cared for them so I find some of his tools and sprays. I think about how I can honor him in creating a beautiful cozy home. 

My family comes over for the holidays and I know he would be smiling over that. Our mother stays with me for a weekend at a time, we have the handicap set up to make her stay comfortable and nice. My father knows so much about fruit tree care as well so I have much to learn as he explained last time I had a blight to fight on the peach tree. Over mother's day my father was telling Tony how to care for the cherry, apple and peach trees as Tony was watching the hamburgers on the grill and Tony explained "I have no idea what you are saying, Debby handles all the outside stuff." I laughed so much as I realized it has always been this way, I love and adore nature, I sit outside to eat or drink my coffee every single nice day I can get! 
To just BE outside is wonderful and every morning even in the winter time I open all my windows just for that clean fresh air to run through my home and my lungs!

My brother Derek shared his harvest fruits while talking about his new home with me, so that now as I live here I feel closer to him.

I whisper to it all growing up around me in the warm morning sun shine "Come Alive!" For I am dreaming with my eyes wide open!

It will all get done, it will all get there, and truly look AMAZING as I plant flowers and setup my gardens along side those fruit trees.

Along side Derek's Cherry trees.......

Allman Brothers Band - "Midnight Rider"

As the moon shines so bright at the midnight hour, as the world mostly sleeps on, the simple fact that I will always miss my brother Derek comes back to me again and again. 
For this is June, I love this month so much but I also know how sad it is too..... (in 10 days he would of been 36 years old)
I miss him so!
He is now the midnight mountain man who shots across the sky with stars above like a wave of his hand back down to the rest of us and I'm left to admire his time here on earth.
I think of him so!

When we were Kids

For it is June, the best days of summer have begun!
It's without a doubt such a fun month with summer beginning and the sun shine warming up! 

I came across an old picture of my brother and sister at Christmas time, The Aquarius, The Gemini, and The Taurus. The looks on our faces says it perfectly in our 3 personalities as mom was always making us pose for pictures like these......she had just made these dresses for us too. It's funny how she decide to give my sister all the bright colors and me all the dark colors since as adults I wear all the bright colors and my sister wears all the dark stuff now...When we were kids we had no say in how we looked.
When we were kids we did what we were told while growing and learning every day in new ways to see the world!
For I loved the summer time far more then the winter even back then when this picture was taken.....

When we were kids we played together, we sat together and lived together.

When we were kids we spent our childhood all together. We didn't always want to be friends, but we were always family.

When we were kids.....We loved the days in June!