Thursday, June 29, 2017

Mommy and Me sweaters

The year Ruth and I bought "Mommy and Me" sweaters for us and our girls! (Rachael Kari didn't want one!) We all went swimming at the Indian Springs Pool in Idaho Springs on Christmas Day.

Church bank

Received from my Sunday School at the Hickman Mills (MO) Community Christian Church. My Dad was the Sunday School Superintendent and I think he made these for the students.

Athena Craig high school graduation

My mother, Athena Craig (Berg)'s high school graduation picture: Yuma Colorado, 1934

Comments from the FB posting:

Susie Schaap Wow, she lived in the heart of the dust bowl!

Arlene Lipman Yeah! I always thought she loved gardening because she lived on that farm as a girl but found out that her mother didn't let her do the garden, instead she learned to sew and majored in Home Ec when she went to college. She went to 4 different colleges because she stayed with her older brother and helping with his kids. She attended Colorado Normal College (now UNC), Colorado Aggies (now CSU), the University of New Mexico, and the University of Utah.

Susie Schaap Any one living through the dust bowl would appreciate gardening!
Delena F Previd Grandma Craig wanted our mother to get an education. They had helped my uncle Dock get an education so said you help Athena........ families did that and she got an education. She taught school, and loved to sew. Mom and Dad had a garden to make the income stretch. ......

Snowflakes

I found mine at Michael's on sale. They were also at JoAnn's. I couldn't resist (you know I love snowflakes!)
Did you know why I love snowflakes? When I first graduated from college, I got a job in the Atmospheric Sciences department at the University of Wyoming (my alma-mater). The Professor I was working with was the "snowflake" expert. We were trying to see if we could increase the snow-pack in the mountains with selective cloud seeding during the winter. So every-time it would start to snow we would go outside and collect samples. By using a plastic which was disolved in a solvent, we were able to study the flakes and their properties under the microscope and take photo micro-graphs of them. I still have some slides with those "fossilized" flakes from those years ago.
Anyway when I got back from Peace Corps, I bought some ornaments and hung them from the ceiling in my dining room. And of course when I started collecting cookie cutters, I naturally bought all the snowflakes I could find (at a reasonable price). Elenna has given me several that she was experimenting with too.
I have a number of books with photos of snowflakes in my library. And as a Girl Scout leader, my nickname was "Snowflake"!!
The other day it was lightly snowing, and catching some flakes on my coat sleeve, I was delighted to see they were the beautiful dendrites that I love.
Arlene

Big Rivers Mini-Vacation

From 2015
I had a wonderful time on my mini-vacation to Minneapolis and the Big Rivers Cut Outs meeting. Thanks to Carole Anderson and Barbara Douvier who picked me up from my stand-by flight from Denver and took me to Stillwater where we had lunch and went shopping where I found a new animal multi-cutter. Then I spent the night at Carole's house. The next day Carole and I went to the Swedish Institute for a wonderful tour with the most knowledgeable guide. Dinner with cookie cutter friends (Joyce & Al Moorhouse; Gary Oldenburg & Louise Juliani; Nila & Steve Phelps; Leah Day; Carole & Barbara;  Ruth & Loyal Nystrom; and me)  at the hotel, then sharing a room with Leah Day completed Friday. 
Saturday was a fun meeting with food writer Eleanor Ostman as the special speaker. After lunch Joyce E. Moorhouse and others shared multi-cutters and cube cutters and Elizabeth Cukla showed us how to roll out perfect cookies.  I was lucky to win the special door prize North Woods cutters that Betsy brought. I also bought some cutters from her and from Kitty Latane´ (I got this year's Baby Grace cutter).  Kitty also had some of the beautiful stamps from Tim Hartzell so of course I bought a new snowflake one.  Joyce had some of the extra cutters being sold by the CCCC museum and I got one by B&S Gerlach and one by Gene Valasek.
Dinner with Nila and Steve Phelps and Leah Day finished out the great day.  
Steve took me to the airport on Sunday morning and I made my flight back on the first try.  

Remembering moving across the country

I remember moving from Kansas City to Bountiful, Utah with our dog, bird, Mom's plants, two girls and a car full (a 1952 Nash) when I was 12. My sister Delena F Previd was 14. We stopped in eastern Colorado to visit our Grandparents on the way. It was before the Interstate hi-way system was completed.