The travels of 2014 continue and we’re adding another star to our map this year. We’re currently in New York and will be gone until the 21st.

When we return I’ll be heading to Nebraska (for work) and J will be in Georgia (for work). Weird we’re both getting sent to our home states!

When I was 14 or so my dad got out of the drivers seat on a back gravel road and said “take me home.” I got in the car and drove 10 miles in the wrong direction before he told me to stop.

My sense of direction is helpless.

In my defense I would like to say all gravel roads in Nebraska look the same!

May. Was. Crazy!

-My parents came down to visit for a short weekend and helped James and I get a lot done. We planted flowers, hung a clothes line, fixed my pantry door, trimmed back the trees in my driveway, patched a pair of jeans, and drank beer! It was a great escape from our usual weekend.

-We also went kayaking early this month and got our first summer sunburn.

-I forced J to go get a physical, only to have it backfire and I ended up being the one with health issues. Heart murmur and high cholesterol!

-J shot pistol in a World Championship and USA team selection match. Because he didn’t fire in the first half of the selection he wasn’t able to make any teams, but he did perform outstanding for someone who just picked up the pistol 2 weeks before the match.

-I traveled to Missouri for work to help run a sprint/shoot (think summer biathlon) and had a blast. Not only did the event run great, but the leader out there took me up in his plane, and even let me control the gears and fly for awhile! Doing the dive bomber was my favorite part and feeling weightless!

-I worked and worked and worked… an event in North Alabama, a monthly match, a youth leaders conference in the range, etc.

-Now we’re driving up to Nebraska to shoot a 3-gun match in Grand Island. Both of us are shooting, so this should be interesting.

Just when I think I might not be crazy (I don’t wear the pedometer every day guys!) I attempt to make homemade cat food.

Homemade “stuff” is definitely a trend now. Check out anyone’s Pinterest page and I’m sure they have all the tips and tricks to make homemade laundry detergent (not doing it) and homemade dishwasher detergent (did it). So while I was on a roll with homemade cleaning supplies, after shave and cream-of-chicken soup, I attempted cat food.

Unfortunately, the cats were not near as excited about this new endeavor as I was.

Marcy Svoboda lived such a full life I cannot sum up in a matter of minutes all the things she will be remembered for, or how loved she is or how much we will miss her. She was many things; a daughter, sister, wife, friend, aunt, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.

She was often the unashamed laughter heard in our family. And in going through photographs it’s easy to see the many pictures of grandma with her head tilted back and a wide smile on her face. She truly loved life, and she loved sharing it with her family.We shared many Thanksgiving walks down the creek together, and games of tarrocks. We shared travels with her because her van was always ready to take us somewhere. And even in everyday life, she could turn even mundane tasks like picking up or washing dishes into a game. She was a #1 fan to many grandkids, and helped us learn by being an endless pitcher, catcher and outfielder all at once. She decorated her van visors with buttons to support us. Marcy lived such a colorful life it’s hard to mention all the hunting trips, collected gadgets, red hat events and kitchen dances we shared with her.

She was also a creator of beautiful things. She made a beautiful garden. She made scrapbooks and intricate cards. She made afghans and crocheted designs without a pattern.  Marcy spoiled 4 daughters, 10 grandchildren, and 9 great-grandchildren. And each of us have a pair of patched clothing we ripped while playing at the farm. The jeans that our mother’s wouldn’t patch for us, Grandma would fix because they were our favorite. She poured her love into the creation of sewing, crocheting and paper crafts to share with us.

Sometimes the expression of her love for us was in Hoska, rolls or oyster soup. Grandma’s house was the only place to get “grandma soup” or chicken and dumplings. And like the sewing and crocheting, these things didn’t have a recipe. Grandma knew when the rolls would be just right because the yeast would tell her.

“It will tell you” she said.

The patterns and recipes may have been written down for us to remember, but the yeast, the yarn, the lace, the paper… it will always tell us. The yeast will tell us when it has risen enough. The yarn and thread will tell us when the tension is right. May my family always be blessed to hear when the beauty of these things are ready, because that is Grandma Marcy speaking to us still.

I do believe she is never gone, her life will live on through the descendants of her heart, those family and friends she loved with the creations of kolaches and embroidered pillows. She will never leave us for hand-sewn lace wedding gowns and long wedding veils hold her love in them. In hundreds of hemmed pants and dozens of decorated scrapbook pages, her life will be remembered and carried with all of us. May we always tell of times where her laughter filled the room. May Marcy’s humor, selfless love and beauty be genetic to our children, and their children after them.

For all who love and miss her, and long to see her again, let’s do as she often told us….. “Just close your eyes, I’m there.”

I remember Grandma’s great culinary skills; like melting cheese on a plate in the microwave. I didn’t like eating the sauce or bread on a pizza, so instead of even getting the pizza in the first place, Grandma would make me a plate of cheese. It was special to eat it at Grandma’s house because she never complained when she had to clean the burned cheese off the edges of the plate like mom would. Another great culinary dish at Grandma’s was “Grandma soup”, aka Ramen noodles. I remember making homemade noodles with Grandma and getting to turn the lever. We ate the majority of them raw instead of cooking them into soup. She would make me poppyseed kolaches because she knew they were my favorite, or it was a lucky guess because she also called me “Mandy-I-Mean-Sarah!”

Nathan and I stayed at Grandma’s house a lot while dad was farming and sometimes when mom and dad took trips. I liked getting to sleep in Grandma’s bed because she had silk sheets. She would also rub my back with “big circle little dot”. Grandma’s house had cool things like old movies, an outside playhouse, and a driveway full of dirt we could find nails in. It also had a large tree with a great limb for climbing, until we broke it and Grandma yelled at us, probably for coming close to breaking our necks.

The first thing I remember Grandma making for me (I’m sure there are things before this) was the pillow I took to Kindergarten for nap time, it had a kitty on it. And the last thing was the veil for my wedding. We laid out a sheet on the floor downstairs so I could wear the wedding dress without touching the ground, and then we measured how long the veil needed to be. The mesh tulle must have been terrible to see and sew on, but she edged the entire thing in ribbon. On the morning of the wedding when the top clasp of my wedding gown came loose Grandma sewed the gown together with me in it. She gave James a crochet hook to undo the buttons and a stitch ripper to get me out of the gown later.

Grandma got me started scrapbooking. She bought me a book, paper and stickers to start a  wedding album. Scrapbooking helped keep me sane while I was unemployed, newly married, and living in a state far from home. I traveled the book home for Christmas just to share with Grandma.

I remember many road trips where all the seats in the back of the blue van were removed so we could stretch out and color while we traveled. We traveled to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s home and walked through an historic town. Grandma traveled to Kentucky to see me during the week of my birthday and we attended a horse race. She came to Nashville for another birthday a few years later.

And when I couldn’t be home I remember Grandma caring for me. I received many care packages from Grandma while I was at school in Kentucky, and also living in Alabama. Sometimes they had household items like vases to decorate my new home in, or scrapbooking pieces. One of my favorite packages was actually sent to James, and contained several chicken feathers for him to ‘plant’ and start his chicken farm. When my favorite pet died she sent me flowers. I called to thank her and she told me she wasn’t good with words to help me through this, but she cried with me on the phone, and told me she loved me.

But what I remember the most in all these memories is Grandma smiling. She is easy to picture sitting at the end of the bar at my parents house, getting ready to take a sip of a gin and tonic, saying that she really shouldn’t drink this, but she doesn’t care because she likes it. And then she smirks a smile because she is going to unapologetically do whatever she wants. She was laughing when she handed James that crochet hook. She was laughing at the horse race and at us eating raw noodles. There were Thanksgiving walks, Easter egg hunts, Christmas gifts, shooting matches, school musicals, and foot surgeries she was there for.There was laughter and beers drank around a card table of tarock cards. I don’t believe there will ever be enough hands of tarock cards to play, or beers to drink, with the ones I love.

I drank to write this.

I drank not to drown sorrows, but because an amazing woman needed a celebratory cheers for her long life. A wonderful woman, my grandmother Marcy Svoboda, died this morning. Her soul has been reunited with the Earth; to give growth to the beauty of flowers and the newborn life this spring.

Cheers, Grandma.

Cheers to a woman who spoiled her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. You will be remembered in plates of melted cheese. You will be remembered in Grandma Soup. You live on in loved patched jeans, milk glass shoes and scrapbooks. You will never leave us for hand-strung lace wedding gowns and long wedding veils hold your love in them. In a millions ways while we continue through time on this Earth, your life will be remembered.

I drank to write this,

Because I cannot say all there is to say. I cannot tell you how she is missed, how she is loved, or how she is remembered. But she is never gone, I believe she lives on in each of us. May my family always be blessed with Grandma rolls and Hoska. May we always tell of times where her laughter filled the room. May Marcy’s humor, selfless love and strength be genetic to our children, and their children after them.

Cheers, Grandma. I love you.

For a very short period of my childhood we had a pet hamster named Nibbles. When we received Nibbles from my cousin he was already an old pre-named hamster, but we loved him til his dying day. He still liked to hide places we couldn’t find him even in his old age, like under the couch, and he continued this habit until the day he died in a red plastic hamster cage tube. We were sad for Nibbles death, and my mom promised she would bury him while we were at school.

At the end of the day we come home to our acreage. It’s a nice place for a hamster to rest. There is quite a bit of manicured lawn, surrounded by trees and flowers. There’s also a creek that passes through the middle of the property, which could supply Nibbles with a resting place of tall grass and trees blowing in the wind. He wouldn’t be lonely because there are other pets buried at this homestead. We’ve had, and still had at that time, dogs and cats.

Joey and I wondered where our beloved hamster may be spending his afterlife while we walked up the porch to the front door. Waiting to greet us home was a barn cat, and at his feet, was a dead Nibbles. The horror! The trauma! Mom didn’t bury Nibbles- she flung him out in the tall grass thinking he was far enough away from the house we wouldn’t spot him.  What she didn’t anticipate was a friendly cat bringing us a trophy to the front door. Her toss of the fuzzy rodent must not have been far enough, or the cat was on a hamster hunting prowl that day. Either way we came home to a stiffened, mauled Nibbles, and a gloating cat.