Roseau County Museum Woman's History Month Update

We have had wonderful programs celebration Woman's History Month. The second Saturday in March, Roseau County educators and supporting staff received recognition. One of the areas researched was the Teachers of the Year. All teachers in the county who had received this honor received certificates of recognition.

Speakers for the event were Kelly Falk, Roseau TOY 1975, Karla Rislov, Roseau TOF 1984, also was on the Honor Roll for Minnesota Teacher of the Year; Therese McBride, Warroad, 1994; Judy Puczinski, Greenbush/Middle River, 1997; and Cindy Sandahl, Warroad, 2008. They told of the changes that had taken place in education over the years. 93 year-old Kelly Falk had seen the most changes from when she first taught to the present day.

Special music was provided by two local church Bell Choirs.

The exhibits designed by the Education Committee chaired by Pam Solberg and the talents of Janice Brenden, Diane Churchill, Kelly Falk, Katie Hedlund, Gail Johnson, Elaine Lang, Sharon Lund, Aliza Olson, Sheila Olson, Lori Schaible, Marion Solom, and Joyce Wiodtke were wonderful reminders of how education has changed and how women have participated in that change.

Over 100 individuals attended the event and enjoyed the fellowship of other educators from across the county.

Roseau County Teachers of the Year

Temple Trip!

We are heading to Bismarck North Dakota to attend the temple tomorrow. It seems like it has been ages since we have been anywhere. The last time we headed out it was so icy that we decided to go back home. I probably wasn't ready for the 400 mile trip at that time anyway, now I am though.
Our friends called to tell us where they were staying and that it had a pool, so I immediately went on line found the phone number and called to make reservations. I love their children and their littlest one was so disappointed that she wasn't invited to my birthday party a couple of weeks ago (it was a ladies only party) that know she will be excited to know we are going swimming. Such an adorable little girl!

I have decided to take Monday off also. I don't usually do this but I have been working too many hours and need to remember that I am only suppose to be working four days a week, not five.

Most of yesterday and part of today was spent working on a grant. A friend did some editing for me; aren't friends great? It always is so much better to have someone else help you clean up what you write, at least for me it is. Often I don't have time to have someone do the clean up as I am working on things at the last minute. I put it down and try to reread it before I send it off, then when I see it in the paper, errors,glare out at me and I am frustrated. There is just too much to do and not enough time to do it all.

We escaped the big snowstorm. Brian, our Schwan man was in today. He lives about 125 miles south of us. He reported that they had between 12 and 16 inches of snow! We were lucky if we had an inch. It was very windy on Tuesday night, so much so that the visibility was no good on the way home. No snow or ice on the road though and in the morning the roads were excellent. It was strange seeing the snow piled in the middle of the streets in Roseau. It didn't seem like there was enough snow to make the piles that high, but after the grader pushed them to the middle there was plenty.

Early tomorrow morning we will be leaving to Bismarck . It is going to be wonderful to walk into the peacefulness of the temple and leave the world behind and think only of the Savior. Then on Tuesday it will be back to the business of life with the next Women in History program on Thursday evening, a Red Hat event. Fun!

Four days to the grand opening

The time has gone by so fast. For several days now, volunteers have arrived to help with signage and putting exhibits together. STS was in yesterday and rearranged the car, put the back on an exhibit case, hung a photo of Roseau High School's first graduating class. The piano was delivered for the musical numbers to be performed on Sunday.

To those who don't know what is going on, the Roseau County Historical Society is opening the first celebration of Woman's History Month at the museum on Sunday, March 1 at 2 pm. We will have a ribbon cutting and then honor several women (called One Woman)who have been selected by the cities and townships in the county as women who have contributed above and beyond to their communities. We will also honor the women who have contributed to the education of the children of our county whether they are teachers, paralegals, secretaries, janitors, cooks, well you get the idea.about 1/3 of the exhibits have been transformed to state these areas. It has been a lot of work, but what a wonderful example of a pioneer classroom and modern classroom are exhibited. Teachers of the Year from across the county will also be honored. See find out more about the events being held go to our website, Roseau County Historical Society events to locate a schedule. These programs are open to the public and are free of charge.

Well, it is time to get ready for work, or I will be late!

CrunchTime

It's crunch time at the museum. We have a week and a half until we open Women's History Month, Oh my! So much to do I wake up at night, after I couldn't sleep in the first place, with my mind in full gear. To top it off, I am having a problem with my left eye. It started to be painful under the eye a couple of days ago. I have an appointment at 3 today. One more thing to make things go slower!

Today one of the small exhibits is going to be installed. I have no idea what this woman is expecting so we will be in dark until she brings everything in. I did see a photo though and we are hoping that we can pull it together.

Photos of exhibits from other museums are a wonderful help for small museums as is the Smithsonian exhibits on line. Their exhibits give wonderful ideas that one can use to design an exhibit in your own area.

Following the 2002 flood in Roseau, I visited numerous museums so we could design a museum for the future. I took hundreds of photos and now have an arsenal of exhibition examples. One could say that is copying, but in the museum world, if someone copied an exhibit of ours, I would be honored.

Although I don't spend a lot of time doing it, I enjoy cooking and baking. A couple of weeks ago I made the most delicious cookies. I don't remember where the recipe came from , I'm sure it wasn't my original, but they sure went fast.

Nutmeg Snicker Doodles

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Coating
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 tsp cinnamon (or your taste)
1/2 tsp nutmeg (or your taste)

Mix dry ingredients together. Cream first five items, add dry ingredients and mix until smooth. form into round balls and roll in sugar mixture.
Bake 350 about 9 minutes or until light brown on edges.

I am waiting for our new phones to arrive. We have just had our cell phone carrier changed to Verizon Wireless. I am hoping that the service it good and we don't end up paying through the nose for this new change.

Woman's History Month and a little knee rehabilitation

Things are moving right along with the exhibit setup for the upcoming Woman's History Month. Last evening several of the women were in working on exhibits, helping with signage, and taking publicity photos. It is getting very exciting! We are now moving into the final two weeks before we have our grand opening. Wow!

Two classrooms have materialized, a early 20th century and a modern one. The educators involved in the exhibits have put in many hours, especially on the modern classroom, ensuring that it represents every aspect of what a classroom of today has in it. We even have a set of lockers!

Britt and I have been working hard and furious trying to get the signage ready within this next week for the exhibits. One of the hardest things to work with are the photos we have access to. Many of them come from books, including school yearbooks. The quality is not always good and they are hard to improve. We try to make up for it by improving the signage. Every once in a while, some additional glitches appear, today we found out that the individual we thought was the first principal or superintend was not correct. Ouch! We have no idea where to go from here with that one. Hopefully someone will do some research and the info will turn up, with a photo too.

I have been trying to increase my range of motion on the tkr and yesterday I dropped my stationary bike seat down about 1/4 inch. This may not seem like much but believe me the first time one tries to pedal, you know you have changed something. The interesting thing about pedaling on a stationary bike and rocking in a wooden rocking chair is that they really help not only with the flexibility but also with the pain. I do ice after exercising most days. It helps with inflammation and also pain. I also do a lot of massaging of my knee (and hip) as this seems to improve circulation and helps ease pain. I am past seven months on the total knee replacement and close to a year on the hip replacement. The hip seems to just improve constantly without any real work other than exercising, including walking and biking. My goal is to purchase a 5-speed bike this summer and work toward riding the full six miles from here to Ross and back or to highway 3 and back. That should give me a good workout. The key to recovery really seems to be exercise.

Biking brought back so many memories of when our older two children were young. We lived in Hoyt Lakes Minnesota when they were young. Michelle graduated from Aurora-Hoyt Lakes High School; Brian wanted to graduate from Roseau, which turned out to be the same year James started school. This led to our moving permanently to the Haugen family farm in Roseau. Hoyt Lakes really catered to young families back then. It has wonderful bike paths, at that time a life guard at Colby beach, two nice playgrounds; one of which we lived right across the street. Brian fell from the top of the slide while climbing up the slide, not the steps, one day and broke his arm. By the time it was ready to come off, he had gone through 3 casts. Why you may ask, because he hung from the monkey bars by the cast and went swimming with it on (covered but...) several times.

Back to the biking. One of our favorite activities was to bike out to Fisherman's Point, which was about 2-2.5 miles from out house. We usually stopped at the gas station and bought some pop and took some bread to feed the ducks that weren't suppose to be fed. :) We also enjoyed riding to the St. Louis River which was about three miles way. We skipped rocks there. Now we would probably go farther because a paved road goes to the North Shore very close to the river. I was in much better shape then, you can imagine. Good memories!

Rain and Ice

If there is one thing we don't like in February, it is rain! It started sometime last night and this morning there was a thin sheet on everything. It rained off and on all day, Grand Forks reported 3/8th inch. We had 39 F so it finally quite freezing but that wasn't enough for the ice to melt. We closed the museum today and I probably won't go in tomorrow either. There will be no walking outside for me until it quits raining! A friend told me that her husband insisted on going out even after she told him she wouldn't be able to help him if he fell. He would not pay any attention to her, what man does! He ended up falling and had to crawl back into the house! Ardmore put on his spiked boots so he could go out to the shop.

There is a new strain of staph virus that is going around and our granddaughter Leah has become a victim two times now. Today she went to the doctor and was told she would have some problems with this as she is susceptible to it. She was put on antibiotics. We are all concerned that it comes under control.

Our son, James is busy doing some air force business in Maryland and called tonight. I wonder if this weather will end up there too. He is in the Civil Air Patrol and went flying in LA on Saturday. He does this fairly often as training. His favorite place to fly is over the ocean. There is less traffic and he loves to fly the coastal area.

Brian starred in the play, A Compulsive Line on Saturday. It is a play about people who have compulsive disorders and was designed in the format of the play A Chorus Line. He played the part of the director. I get very discouraged when I am so far away from our family and can't attend things like this. At least this isn't the turn of the Twentieth century when one would never see or talk to their children when they moved to another country. We at least can talk every day and even go on Skyp and talk face to face. Pity the pioneer, who knowing they would probably never see them again, still sent their children to the New Land with hopes that their life would be better.

On a techie note, we changed internet providers today. We were both thrilled to see how much faster it is surfing the web. Fun!

Walking in the winter

Seeing as how it "looked" like it was much warmer according to http://www.wunderground.com/ I decided to head out for a walk. 7 mile an hour wind at 29 above couldn't be too bad right? Wrong! In our sheltered yard the wind was just a light breeze, by the time I got halfway down the driveway there were thoughts of going in for more clothes. Commitment is tough in the winter but one must endure so endurance it was, a mile and half of endurance in northwest winds. I walked south so first the right side was freezing and coming back the left side froze. Hot chocolate, marshmallows and a cookie in the recliner was a delight!

Last night I finished reading the first of Stephenie Meyers' Twilight Series. Leah finished and had raved about it, plus several of my younger friends had also given it high marks, so I though, why not. It was fun to read, definitely young adult fiction but that didn't keep me from enjoying it. I had read Meyer's science fiction book The Host last fall and thought it was quite thought provoking. I see it is number 4 on the New York Times Best Seller list.

I have also downloaded the audio book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Blink is about our immediate reaction to anything and how we are affected by the reaction, i.e. cognitive reaction. I heard him talk on the CBC Radio podcast The Next Chapter and was very impressed by him. (Another plus for my iPod, I would never think of listening to this program due to the time it is on the radio.)

Now it is time to move on to a new book. Hum, do I have time right now with all that is going on at the museum? I do have two on the shelf right now that may be interesting. Full Speed by Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes, plus A Christmas to Remember by Thomas Kinkade and Katherine Spencer.I know that Christmas has come and gone, but I live in Minnesota where right now Christmas doesn't like it was so long ago.

Well it is time to go ride the bike and then ice the knee, it has been quite sore today for some reason.

How is the hip and knee?

Perhaps it is time to put some perspective into having hip (THR) and knee (TKR) replacement for those who are contemplating it or are recovering from both or either surgeries.

It has been ten months since I had thr on my right hip. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate my hip at an 8 1/2. It is the best thing I have done for myself in many years. I had suffered with terrible back pain for quite a while and had almost given up on being able to have relief when I had an MRI that gave a diagnosis of severe hip degeneration. Once my hip was replaced, my back pain disappeared! I also didn't realize how out of shape I was. PT was a struggle but it taught me that I needed to get into better physical shape. I began exercising and walking and then decided it was time to have my knee replaced. By the time I had my knee surgery, I was walking about 2 miles and my knee wasn't as bad as it had been even though I knew it needed replacing. I think if I would have known there was going to be so much pain during the recovery and that it was going to take so long, I would not have done the tkr. Would that have been good or bad? I don't know and won't ever know. As it is right now, I can say, it is definitely improving now. my range of motion is still not what I would be happy with but I find I can climb up and down stairs fairly easily, especially after riding the stationary bike. The key to recovery from tkr is riding a stationary bike and rocking in a wooden rocking chair or glider. Bending the foot back as far as can be handled and holding there for as long as possible also increases range of motion. I enjoy walking but lately our weather is just not allowing for that outside, today we had -5F and 15 mile winds bringing the windchill to -29F. Definitely not walking weather. I have gone to Lake Therapy two times this past week and ride the bike daily or at least 5 times a week. Winter is not a good time to have tkr or thr as far as I am concerned. One is too concerned about falling, I have gotten past that point now, and the chances of it happening are greater due to the lack of balance and strength in the leg that you had the surgery in. For my knee, I requested PT for six weeks prior to surgery so I would have an easier recovery. I needed that, the recovery has been difficult. Enough about tkr and thr.

We were able to make some real progress on Friday. STS came in around 1 and spent the rest of the day working. We ran into some road blocks when we called for Masonite, it won't be in until the middle of next week. STS removed several items from exhibits and helped with other things that needed to be done.

Today, I dedicated myself to Primary and designed the calendar and the opening exercise handouts. With that done, I can now focus on work again.I started writing two grants so will try to complete them next.

For pleasure, I am reading The Shack by Wm. Paul Young. It is a poignant story about the death of child and a grieving father's recovery. Even though it is fiction, it reminds one that life it not fair and we live on earth.

I can tell it is cold tonight, the window above my head is cooler than normal. I guess that means it is time to curl under and warm up and sleep.

Social Security

Life has a way of creeping up on one and before you know it another milestone in life has arrived. Thus was the case yesterday when I received my call to sign up for social security. Yes, I will be 65 next month on the 27th. No, I am not going to quit work, that would mean boredom. I have a problem with days off as it is. I will cut back to 4 days a week starting in February though. Now I need to sign up for Medicare.

Ardmore had a problem with some bleeding the other day but it was determined to not be serious. He has been trying to figure out what caused it and now thinks it was his nose. He wakes up in the middle of the night and watches tv in the dark. He thinks that while sitting at the table he had a nose bleed and didn't realize it because of the dark. He says he has had that problem since he had some polyps removed about 2 months ago. I thought they sealed the polyps and that would take care of any bleeding, apparently not.

We have several projects at the museum for Sentence to Serve to do today. I hope they can spend the whole day. I think I will go in early so that I am there if they come in. Perhaps I can then leave a little earlier and work out at LifeCare.

One Wednesday, we took down the Minnesota's Historic NW sesquicentennial traveling exhibit. It is time to begin putting up the installation of the Woman's History Month exhibits. Time is really creeping up on us, we have only five weeks until we open the exhibit.

I attended a Roseau Rams girls hockey game last night with Micky and her mother. Roseau beat International Falls 11 to zip. The Falls team is reorganizing and had several seventh graders on their varsity team, so they will be an up and coming team to watch. Seems like that is the first time I was able to do something like that in a long time.

It was sure slick out when I went home last night. It must have started raining about 3, the windshield on the car was one solid sheet of ice. By the time I left the game it had changed to snow. This morning, it is cold, 6 below and clear. Yeah! No more ice.

Museum Trips

Britt and I spent an exciting three days going to Brookings South Dakota for some training on the Smithsonian traveling exhibit Between Fences Monday through Wednesday. We managed to squeeze in three museums and besides the South Dakota Agriculture Museum where the Between Fences was displayed.

About 12 of us met for the workshop which was very enlightening. It will be enjoyable to design exhibits to highlight our area and how fences/borders affect our way of life. Living on the Canadian border gives us a way to expand our exhibit.

Snow fences will be added of course! Monday when we left it was 40 below Fahrenheit. That is cold! We never saw anything below -1 F while gone, and I didn't see snow either although there was ground drifting on the way home most of the way.

For several years, I had been wanting to see the King Tut exhibit but it was always too far away. We were driving in Watertown on Tuesday, after going to the Terry Redlin museum, looking for a place to eat when Britt noticed a sign advertising the King Tut museum. It was on display in Watertown! Needless to say, on Wednesday morning we went to the exhibition. We spent about two hours examining this wonderful collection. I was very disappointed to see we were the only ones there.

The Terry Redlin museum is always an enjoyable experience. They have put a cabin in the lower level now which adds a new dimension. I counted the number of art pieces he did in 1980 and came up with 10. It is amazing to think he could do ten in a year with the wonderful details he places in his work. I purchased a puzzle and will have to set it up tonight.

The thing that pleased me most was the fact that I could be on my feet so much without any back or knee pain. I did get a little stiff and sat in the hot tub on Tuesday night but other than that it was a piece of cake. I can see that both the thr and tkr have made a lot of difference in my quality of life. It was nice to be back in my own bed last night though.


Well today will be spend working on a grant, it needs to be sent off.

Where does the time go?

I have problems sleeping all night. Last night was good though and I only woke up at 5:30 then fell right back to sleep. Sad part was when I woke up again it was 7:30 and I wanted to just lay there a little longer and fell asleep again only to wake up at 8:34. I really had to hustle to get ready for work after that. I had planned to stay home today but decided I had a couple of projects that couldn't be left, especially when two of us will be gone for Monday through Wednesday.

I started our research guru on a new project, copying the photos in the files into pdfs or jpegs so we could put them into our museum software. This is a project that will take a long time but will be very valuable. All photos, not just the cataloged photos will be done, which will give us wonderful access to the photograph collection.

On Wednesday, I started another staff person on the project of making a data base of the files and what photos are in them. When both of these projects are completed, we will be able to locate photographs and replace them in the correct file each time they are used. Our museum software program, PastPerfect, will give their location. An opportunity for a volunteer, someone out there in our area want to help with this project?

There is an endless opportunity to do projects in the museum and none of them seem to be dull. I love to watch a person take on a new project that they were leery about being able to do and then the see the confidence they gain when they find out it wasn't as hard as they thought it would be.

Ardmore
finally
cleaned
off
the
deck
and
the
table.
What
a
lot
of
snow!

Five for Friday

1. Name your favorite TV show - Extreme Makeover - Home Edition, I love the service rendered by this program.
2. Name your favorite author - Richard Paul Evan, he tells the best stories that tug at the heart.
3. Name your favorite winter activity - surfing the Internet. I love to read blogs, especially blogs about books and from friends.
4. Why live in Minnesota? - Spring, winter, summer, fall, we have them all.
   
5. What are you the most thankful for right now - having no back pain.

Have a great weekend!

Sweet, Sweet Success!

After all the hard work designing and installing exhibits this past month or so, then having a resident bring a beautiful restored 1930 Model A Ford in for exhibition, and putting together the traveling exhibit, Traveling Through Time in Minnesota's Historic NW, Britt and I had the joy of seeing others enjoy and comment positively on exhibits. One of the board members had put together a great program for the evening and the potluck dinner was delish. I can't say we feel the exhibits are totally done right now but they will be in a couple of weeks.
One of the trials of putting together the ship immigration exhibit was finding items that the people would have kept with them and not put into storage while on board the steamer. I have search the internet for this info and can't find anything. Tonight I decided to call one of our social study teachers, Arron Nelson, who incidentally is Roseau High School's Teacher of this Year. He and I brainstormed and now have some ideas. Museum staff will need to contact the schools around us and inform them that we have this traveling exhibit and invite them to bring in their students.We never run out of things to do.
Breanne called today and we visited a couple of times. She said Damen is now walking. Well walking about 4 steps just to get to the nearest thing to hang onto and walk around. I wish they had a camera so I could see him and talk to them.
I purchased a camera about a month ago but haven't used it yet. I am not sure how to but will know tomorrow. On Friday I am attending a Minnesota Humanities board of directors meeting via Skype so will need to be familiar enough with using the camera by then to be able to answer a few questions. This is all in conjunction with our last Smithsonian SITES exhibit, Key Ingredients: America by Food. We will be having another SITES exhibit, Between Borders in the spring of 2010. We are excited to be able to have these exhibits.
It seems we have several things coming up in the way of exhibits. Our wonderful volunteer Woman's History Month program committee has been organizing upcoming exhibits and programs for March 2009.
My tkr knee seems to be a little better today. Last night I woke up at 3 with a terrible back ache on that side. After an hour, I went upstairs and did several exercises and ended with about 15 Bridge exercises. That amazingly took care of the back pain and it hasn't bother since. I also had a massage this afternoon and that always helps.

Thought for the Day
The Christmas holidays have this high value:
that they remind Forgetters of the Forgotten,

& repair damaged relationships.
Mark Twain - letter to Carlotte Welles, 30 December 1907

Quality Time with the Hubby

The past three weeks have been more than a little crazy at work. We are trying to get our exhibits ready for this coming Sunday and the grand opening of our Traveling through Time in Minnesota's Historic NW traveling exhibit. We have redone several exhibits in the museum and are only about 1/3 done. I took three posters I designed today up to Polaris for the walls on a Sno-Mo-Cade exhibit. There is so much still to do that I know it isn't going to get done but we definitely have made a running start. But... all this work means late nights at the museum and not a lot of quality time with Ardmore.
Last night the guilt set in and I decided we would have to find some time to spend together so I pulled our our church magazine, the Ensign, and we took turns reading two articles, the First Presidency message was wonderful, then we read one about sharing what we have with those who are struggling. Tonight we did the same thing, read two stories bother were excellent and motivational.
We also listened to a couple periods of the Roseau Girls' High School hockey game, which they won after playing a very challenging game against Bemidji. The game ended with a score of 5-3 in favor of Roseau. Roseau has not lost a game so fare so it was good for them to play a team that worked hard to show they could play hockey too. I am going to have to start going to the girls' games, they are very good and destined to the state tourney's in March. Go Rams Go!

Movies and the weekend

One of my favorite things to do it to watch movies on the weekend. This started when I was about five when my mother took me to my first movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. We lived ten miles out of Eveleth Minnesota in a location called Leonidas, so at that time we rode the train into Eveleth to see movies.That was when families didn't own two cars. We went often but I think my favorite at that time was Cecil B. DeMille's 1952 movie The Greatest Show On Earth starring Betty Hutton, Cornell Wilde, Charlton Heston, and Dorothy Lamour and perhaps, the greatest clown ever to grace the big top, Emmett Kelly. The story was like magic to a young girl of eight. The trapeze acts were outstanding and, of course, there was the love story. That was the beginning of a life long enjoyment. Now I order movies through Netflix, which is great as I don't always have time to watch them from beginning to end at one time. It is also a great past time when I am exercising the tkr on the stationary bike.
This weekend I watched two movies, Amazing Grace is about the life of antislavery pioneer William Wilberforce. It takes place in the late 1700s. This morning I finished watching Two Weeks, about the death of a mother with cancer and how the children handle the last two weeks of her live. this one stars Sally Fields and made a person think about how they would want their children to handle their death if they were placed in the same circumstances.
Other than that the weekend was spend working. Saturday I went to the museum and worked on the installation of the carpentry exhibit. There is sure a lot to do this coming week! I am going to leave it right there.

Veteran's Day

I always think of my dad when Memorial or Veteran's Days roll around. My dad served during WWII and although he never spoke very much about his service time, the few times he did, left an impression. One of the times he would talk about was when he was in France on the front lines. One dark night, they were in their fox holes waiting out the night when one of the soldiers behind him lit a cigarette. This was like a flare going off for the enemy and suddenly they were under fire. My dad told of how he lost some of his best buddies that night. All because one person decided he had to have that crazy cigarette! Often in our lives, it is the things that we do without thinking of the consequences or outcome that are our downfall. That circumstance was one of those times.
Our prayers must be for the leaders of our young men and women who are serving in areas of dispute now, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. I was listening to a former military Lieutenant on CSPAN tell of his time serving in Iraq. He spoke of how they were unsure of how to handle Iraq following the initial attack and what looked like an immediate win and how it has taken years to get to the situation where we can actually now see some progress. I feel that we are progressing only because they are hoping to have us leave their country. Now that Obama is in what will the result be? How long will be remain and what will the end result really be like.
Shopping
Today I went to Grand Forks to look for a winter coat. I wanted a coat that would be long enough so that if I wanted to walk when it was 10 - 20 below F I wouldn't feeze too much. I found a down coat at Eddie Bauer. That of course, didn't end the shopping day. I went to Target and Bath and Body and stocked up on toiletries. Picked up some winter gloves and a head cover that will keep me warm during the walks I plan to take. Then I headed for the Jelly Belly section and stocked up on about 15 different flavors. Ardmore and I are going to the temple in Bismarck this week so I thought it would be fun to have a treat for the road.
Tomorrow
Busy day at the museum again tomorrow. The art class is coming in to check the painting job I hope they will do. We also need to paint a couple of the other display areas and get the bunk stained. We have taken several of the exhibits apart so now need to get them together again. I called a noted military artifact collector in hopes he would exhibit some of his wonderful collection. He has collected WWII items for many years and has a fine collection. We don't have long to get our act together so we best get hopping!
Total Hip and Knee Replacement
I was thinking of the many things that have improved since I have had the two surgeries 9 and 4 months ago.
1. It is much easier to climb in and out of the car.
2. My back pain is not as bad as it was, although now I seem to have more pain on the opposite side.
3. My stamina is improving daily.
4. I can sleep without the awful pain I had before the hip surgery.
5. The trip to Grand Forks went well. I was able to walk for about two and a half hours back and forth across the mall, many times as I went to at least 10 stores for one reason or another. Super Target, I decided, was too much for my knee to handle as I didn't know where things were and knew I would give up before I got everything I needed.
6. Driving long distances don't bother me as much as they did before, Bismarck will be a real trial run though.
7. Exercising gets easier each day.

Raccoons and Bees

It has been a long day. I woke up about 7, which isn't too bad but when I went to the kitchen Ardmore asked me what happened to my flower pot on the deck. I didn't know what he was talking about. All I had on the deck was one covered flower pot because of a frost prediction. Well, a raccoon or some other animal must have decided to dig for something in the pot, dirt and flowers were all over the northeast corner of the deck. It was close to the winter bird feeder, and we had a raccoon feast off of the sunflowers last fall. The animal must have smelled the sunflowers and came to investigate. The mess took about an hour to clean up including the hosing of the deck. It was already in the fifties so I put the flower pots and hanging plants back out on the deck and took the pails off of the eight pots in front of the house.

The dirt had accumulated on the carpet by the sliding doors and with company coming on Monday, it seemed like a good time to vacuum and dust. I ended up going in to work at 11:30.

This evening, I started to mow the yard...again. Ardmore noticed that there were several hundred bees in the air by the back of the barn and when I was mowing on the east side of the shop I saw them swarming. They were in a mass about 2-3 feet around and Ardmore thought about 2-3 inches thick. After they settled down I took some photos.

Bee Swarm

My brother and wife will probably be here on Monday evening. Bob has a severe allergic reactions to bees so I hope the swarm has left. If not the bee keepers will come and take care of the bees.

I spent much of my time working on a PowerPoint program for new board members today. One of the board members will be in to critique it tomorrow.

The School Year and Spring Wind-down

This is the last week of student tours. We had forty first grade students from the Greenbush/Middle River Schools in today. Tomorrow we will have one third grade class from Roseau. Although we invited the rest of the third grade classes to come in, they decided not to and asked if they could come in and do the scavenger hunt in the fall. Hopefully by then we will have finished the new exhibit designs and will be on our way to the Minnesota Sesquicentennial exhibits. Last week was so busy, it is good to see it wind down.

I always worry about funding, especially for exhibit designing. The Key Ingredients exhibits really caught people's attention and we were fortunate to be able to find funders that covered all of our expenses. I guess it just takes faith and if we do it the way we did last year, funding shouldn't be a problem.

I have had some pain in my hip these past couple of days. I think I over did on Saturday! We had six to seven acres to mow and I started mowing at about 9 am and finished around 11:30, except for an area where Ardmore had the truck that holds our drill hoppers. Once he moved the truck, he decided to mow there, which was a nice relief. I fixed us some lunch. He had used the neighbor's roller packer to pack the soybean field in the early morning, about 6 so was quite hungry when he came in. Tired too, he headed to bed for a nap right after he ate. I went to town and picked up some more flowers for my container gardens. I also did a little grocery shopping. Arriving home meant more work, I wanted to get those plants into the pots TODAY, all 19 pots and I did! By the time I finished, the sky looked like it might rain and the grass clippings were in rows that didn't look too pretty so those had to be swept off too. It is so great to have a lawn sweep, it takes so little effort to pick up the grass and make the yard look better. By that time I needed to go for a walk and stretch out the muscles that I had cramped up sitting on the lawn mower. It sure was nice to enjoy the deck and the flower pots and drink some cold water after the walk.

Yesterday dawned cool and rainy. Memorial Day services were held in the high school auditorium/gym and a nice crowd was in attendance. The Roseau High School Advanced History class of Aaron Nelson's had spent much time video taping and documenting about 12 WWII veterans. They compiled a documentary called "A Soldier's Song" from the interviews. It was very moving. The class had put together binders with all of the soldier's taped interviews and presented them to each vet and also presented one to me for the historical society. This will be a lasting tribute to these veterans who served in WWII. I can see family's coming in to see the video in the mini theater. Aaron also said that they planned to record several DVDs for the historical society to sell as several people were interested in obtaining a copy - a very nice gesture on the part of the students and Aaron. They will sell for $10 each.

Ardmore went into the doctor today for his stuffy nose. He thinks he has a sinus infection which is causing terrible headaches. About three weeks ago he saw an ear, nose, and throat specialist; the same one who had removed polyps from his nose several years ago. He says Ardmore has polyps again. Ardmore doesn't want surgery so decided to ask for some prednisone and antibiotics. The doctor gave him some today. I hope they help.

My surgery recovery is basically going very well even with a little pain. Yesterday at the Memorial Day service , I walked off without my cane a couple of times, including when I went to receive the WWII veteran binder. I felt I walked fairly well. My left knee caused me to have a painful walk sometimes. It was not too good this morning but is better after I worked out tonight. Interesting. I can't extend my knee back flat anymore. I think it is a spur on the tibia. I hope Dr. Schall looks at my xrays and can tell if that is the case. My knee clicks and catches, probably on the cartilage. Such is the part of wearing out as one gets older.

Our children spent the weekend off in all different directions, except for Michelle and her family. Brian text me from New York City where he went for 8 days of vacation. James and another fellow rented two sail boats and headed for Catalina Island with friends. Michelle had Breanne and Josh's baby for a couple of days while they did some things alone and she was going to do some gardening. After Breanne picked up Damen yesterday, Michelle , Leah and Bryce went to see the new Indiana Jones movie. I told them to use my credit card and enjoy everything, popcorn, pop and the whole ball of wax. I just wish I was there to go with them.

"I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances."- Martha Washington

If the time on your watch stops does that mean that time is standing still?

9:00 am - We set the clocks ahead on Sunday am so yesterday my watch was losing time during the day, it stopped working at 3:15 this morning. If the clocks all stopped would we be on hold during that time? Don't you feel like there at times when you would just like to see the perfect day go into a hold cycle and stay there? (Well not indefinitely but for a reasonable period.)

The museum staff is busy working on labels for a traveling exhibit for the Minnesota’s Historic Northwest consortium. The consortium received a $5,000 grant to put together a historical exhibit of 150 photographs that tell the story of NW Minnesota from past to present. We are also going to produce a photo book. It has taken way more time than I thought it would. Then we decided to change the large label format. I have only a few days to completed my part as much as possible.

11:00 pm - What a wild day. I decided to go in late because I had a historical society board meeting this evening. At 10:00 this morning, my reminder alarm went off on my cell phone. I had an appointment in 5 minutes with the orthopedic surgeon and I was 20 minutes away from the clinic! Of course, I called and told them I was going to be late. I ended up only about 15 minutes late and then waited for the doctor for at least a half hour, thank goodness there were others who arrived early.

I felt very good about the surgery after talking to my doctor. Dr. Schall works out of the Bone and Joint Clinic in Grand Forks, North Dakota. His training is what first impressed me (I always look at the doctor’s certificates when I visit their offices). His residency was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN for 5 years in the orthopedic department before coming back to his home town of Grand Forks. The next thing that impressed me was his “bedside manner”. He took all the time necessary to answer any of my questions. Then I went home and looked up everything I could and studied hip replacement. Today, he answered the final questions I had. I guess I am as ready as possible to have hip replacement. Ardmore is more worried than I am. He is a pessimist by nature, although he calls himself a realist. If anyone wants worry about something, talk to him, he will help you worry!

At 11:45, I finally got to work and started on the consortium posters. When I finally think I like something and then change my mind, someone else changes their mind about something. I had about 22 messages on my email this morning and at least 15 were from the group. Boy was I ready for my massage at 1:15! Picked up some lunch after the massage and headed back to the museum.

At 4:30, I had a newsletter or program meeting, depending on who showed up. We did the program committee. Our board meeting started five and ended at about 6:45. I worked until 8 on some business the board had passed so it wouldn’t be hanging over me in the morning. The consortium group is coming at 10 and I knew I wouldn’t get it done if I waited. Working in a museum is never boring, there is just not enough time in a day to get it all done.

I forgot to mention that last week Lakeland Public Television was in and filmed our recovery from the 2006 flood. It was shown on the news last night. I missed it but saw it on their website. We have had lots of coverage these past few day, tv and radio both!

Oh, oh, it is 11:30, time for some shuteye.