One year and a "new" used sewing machine

Last week was the first anniversary of the fire at our hobby farm. My hubby and I talked about that day and the days after off and on all week. After a year, I still feel very fortunate that we were not home at the time of the fire. I pay attention now to other home fires that are reported in the news or newspaper. I know for sure that two houses burned down in this past year in Minneapolis where one or more adults did not make it out. I can understand how hard it is to maneuver when your home is filled with smoke. We will always be grateful to the fire department for their efforts on that day. If you are reading this, make sure your smoke alarms are working and the batteries are new.

 Last week, I finally replaced my sewing machine that was lost in the fire. The firemen actually through it out a window thinking they might save it. I found almost the exact sewing machine on Craig’s List. The person I bought it from picked it up at an estate sale. The original owner bought it in 1980 at a small sewing shop in Minneapolis. The manual is loaded with her notes and scraps of fabric when she was learning all the stitches and features of this amazing machine. I feel like I am carrying on her legacy now. The machine is in excellent condition and hums along beautifully as I sew. This machine is a few years newer than my original but still a model where nothing is computerized (which is what I wanted). Meet Bernie:

First sewing on the machine was some baby blankets.

I am teaching Ellery to sew!

Finished blankets!

Thanks for stopping by and TTFN, Michele

A beautiful fresh snow is what I awakened to this morning. Lovely!

I started this blog as a way to document my sabbatical leave. For now I will continue to post about how I am keeping up on balance, downsizing, scholarship and other goals that I had during my sabbatical.  I recognize how fortunate I was to have that year, but, also as an academic how fortunate I am to have flexibility in my work.

I am already in my fourth week back. I know I will be in transition for a while, maybe the whole semester. I have excellent students and low class sizes, both of those make it easier for me to be back. I have made no excuses for not exercising and watching what I eat. There are a few days when my classes started at 8 am, meaning I am out the door at 6:15, exercise already behind me, to make the commute to campus.

I continue to try to maintain some balance in my life, too. My office is quite close to our campus Arboretum. Twice, I have taken a mile walk during our Chapel break instead of heading back to my office and doing more work.  I cannot believe I rarely did this before. The quiet of the Arboretum and the chance to hear the crunch of snow, the chickadees, the nuthatches and the cardinals is restorative for me. The beauty is that not a single other person was out walking during that time. Quiet and peaceful.

I am fortunate this semester to have a teaching schedule that allows me to be on campus three times a week most weeks. Before the semester even started I looked a head and planned some writing days. Last Friday and Saturday were two of those days. One of my papers is only 402 words away from being sent off to a journal. This particular paper started at over 15000 words. The journal limit is 10, 000, including references, tables, and of course text. This article is very close to completion. I have another one that is in the hands of the author co-writer right now and is also very close to completion. I hope to continue to set aside 4 or so days a month to write as the semester continues. My hope is to make some progress on the other 4 papers that are not ready for prime time.

I am caring for myself in other ways, too. For one, I stopped by intake of caffeine. I no longer drink coffee at all, nor any soda with caffeine. Being caffeine free is another step in trying to mediate my horrible migraine headaches. I can tell you that going off the caffeine was absolutely brutal. I had some of the worst headaches ever as my body withdrew from my addiction. It took my body about a month to get past those headaches, including a headache almost daily during my first two weeks back to work. I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to wake up and go about my daily life sans headache. That is where I am today. My hope is that as I continue to become healthier and more fit that I will be able to stop all the medication that I take, even the preventive ones.

So far every weekend we have made it to the cabin. It is a retreat more than anything for me. I can cook, cross country ski, watch and observe the trees that are everywhere and just fill my soul with the beautiful, peaceful and enchanting natural world. I bought hubby a collection of Clint Eastwood movies for Christmas.  Most weekends we spend watching one or two of these fabulous movies, especially the later ones.  We saw “A Separation” last week at a theater. One of the most compelling moves I have experienced in a long time.

This weekend I will be taking small group of my students to a science conference in Duluth. We will stay one night at our cabin where they will briefly be able to enjoy the magic of it. I am excited.  It is the students who make it rewarding to be back at my academic life.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing your day with me. TTFN, Michele

A year

As you can see from that picture, it is a beautiful snowy day here in NW WI. I am writing this retrospective in our new cabin. A place we had not even conceived of owning one year ago. But here we are. Hubby and I. Here I am. Now on the cusp of returning to academic life. I started this blog a year ago as a way to process and document my year of sabbatical. A year rich in experiences and ruminations.  You never know how a year will unfold. You just have to be ready for anything. I think I was.  My sabbatical was a gift and a gift that I believe I never took for granted.  Today I will ruminate over my overall themes and goals. There will be more ruminations, but this will suffix for now.

Balance: I am definitely better at this now. Definitely. But of course being on sabbatical and achieving better balance is easier. The test will come when I go back to my regular commitments in my academic life. I learned this year how to delegate only a certain amount of time a day to work. Even in my throes of writing, I hardly ever worked more than 6 blocks of 50 minutes a day. During those 50 minutes I was totally in the flow. But when my time was up (I actually set a timer), I left my writing to attend to something else that I cared about.

Almost every day of sabbatical I cared for myself in ways that I had not done before: especially in exercising, planning my meals, resting and sleeping. Finding better balance also let me to find my cook within and to read some unexpected books. Even to watch some movies. I was my number one priority.

Life is short. There are some things that I am involved in that I feel I make a difference or a contribution. I hope to continue these endeavors. Through my sabbatical, I also learned that there are many things that I was involved in before where I do not really make a contribution  or are just too complicated for anyone to make a contribution. I will be stepping away from these kinds of things as much as I possibly can, for my own health and well being actually.  We all have to do things in our professional life that we do not especially like. I aim to fill my days with activities that I like and where I feel I can make a difference or a contribution. Life is just too short.

Organization: Definitely better here, too. My offices and my study are all in good shape. Organized and basically neat. I did not get as far on my computer organization as I hoped. I have over 12,000 pictures and thousands of files. I still have 5 weeks left before I go back to work. I hope to do more here.

Downsizing: Physically I am down a total of 40 pounds all together. We lost our farm to fire which made it easy to downsize. But also sad because we could not choose what to get rid of. Throughout the year I steadily went through my parents things and our things, too. I gave bags and bags of stuff to thrift shops and threw out a lot more. Even our Christmas items were all downsized. Minimalist is becoming my new slogan.

And the 5Rs for my year of leave:

Reading: It is funny how I had a shelf of books to read and except for Buzz and Flow, I did not read one of my intended books.  Instead I read other books, with the most recent the biography of Steve Jobs which I found fascinating. I read a book about menopause (which I am squarely in). I read  Sarah’s Key and the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I read other books, too, but these are some of the more memorable ones. I read hundreds of research articles and other scholarly books, too.  I read something every day and loved it. Love reading.

Research:  I completed two research projects and began a new one. I really was excited to catch up with students that I worked with 6 years ago during my thesis study.  I was in countless classrooms and schools. I interviewed teachers, students and even parents. Loads of work to still analyze. So stimulating, exciting and inspirational.

'Rriting: I have one paper that will go to publication this week. I am co-authoring it with another scientist who called it “great.” That is quite an accolade coming from her. I am almost finished with the revision of my paper that won the award. I believe this paper is becoming very strong. I hope to finish it within the next two weeks and send it off, too. There are 4 other papers, too, that I wrote. They were all presented at conferences. They all need a lot of work still before they can move on for publication, I will get there with those 4, too. I have found that writing for me takes time. It is a process of writing, thinking, rewriting, and reading of course, too. I never kept count of how many hours I spend per paper, but I am guessing for the two that are going off soon for publication it is more than 200 hours, each. Writing is a mix of writing and reading for me, so it is not just 200 hours spent writing alone. Definitely time intensive.

Rest: I feel very well rested. One of the tremendous benefits of my sabbatical was resting and getting enough sleep. I rarely had to get up and be at a research site or teaching by 8 am. I was able to set my own clock most of the time and loved it.

Recreation: Oh, I recreated this past year. I am a cycling junkie, which I admit, and now have 4 bikes: a hybrid, mountain, road and lovely Dutch bike. I biked almost 1600 miles during my sabbatical. But biking is only a small part of my recreation.

I played. I swam. I canoed. I hiked. I walked. I talked and processed my day with my hubby more than I can remember in many years past. I played with my grandbabies. I cooked. I discovered that I enjoy cooking. I blogged and commented on countless blogs. I took long baths where I read research articles, the New Yorker and a plethora of books.

I watched a number of great films and basically no TV. I discovered pod casts. I had the gift of time to recreate (re-create) and loved it. Loved it.

Which brings me to the last rumination of this post: going back to work. I am looking forward to finding those certain students again. The ones that I feel "get it" or the ones that are scrappy and touch me in various ways. The ones who I can see make a difference in thought and action already. I am excited to meet up with students who I know are in this for the kids. All of those students inspire me to want to go back. They help me to do good work. I want to push my students hard and learn from them, too. I am not excited about the dysfunction that is rampant on my campus or seems to be. I am not excited about the coming accreditation and all that I have to do, which is a time and life sucker. I am excited to go back, knowing that it will not be that much longer that I do this work. Whether it be 1 or 5 or even more years, I know my years of academia are waning. I have discovered a full life away from academia and I intend to keep that part of my life full, too. There is more to life than work, even if the work that you do, you love, at least most of the time. Finally, privileged. That is what I am. Privileged. And yes, overeducated and over thinking, too. It has been a very, very good year, most of it anyway. I am privileged and grateful.

Thanks for reading. Have a great week. TFN,
Michele

Progress on sabbatical themes and goals for 2011

Fall lingers on in Minnesota. We had about an inch of snow at our cabin last Thursday night, but by mid day Friday it was already gone. As much as I love snow, I am happy we do not have any because that means that I can still get on my bike. So how am I doing on my sabbatical themes? Let’s start with:

Recreation: For me, recreation right now is all about the bike. I am nearing 1500 miles biked since June. To me that is unbelievable. I make it a habit to get out and exercise (outdoors) most everyday. Over the past month I exercised 28/30 days. Most of it: yes, you guessed it, biking. I write about my biking on my other blog, so I will not repeat what I write over there here. Suffice is to say that I am a cyclist. That was me tearing up the Lakes Trail on Saturday (60 degrees!) with a big smile on my face. You see, I adore being outside. I have found that biking is a great form of exercise for me. First, I have to pay attention to it and I can not multi-task. Yes, while I am biking, I am thinking and processing, but that is about it. No headphones, music or podcasts. Second: It isn't always easy either. Take yesterday: now that was a grueling ride. Cold. 30 degrees and hills. Hills. I do them. But they are not my favorite.

Rest: Most days I feel very rested. But there is more. Just like I cultivated new habits to get healthy, I cultivated habits to stay balanced. I struggle with balance. Being able to get in the “flow” is both a blessing and a curse. This flow allows me to see things through to completion. But the problem is that it is hard for me to turn it off. I am learning though. Over the past three weeks I spent the better part of my days holed up in my writing retreat: our cabin. Most days, I adhered to a 50 minute writing block with a 15 minute break. This break might be doing the dishes, walking our dog, doing some exercises or even reading the newspaper. I allowed myself to break away from the intense concentration necessary for me to write. It is a survival mechanism, too, because without those breaks I trigger my migraines. I am hoping that when I go back to my academic life in February that I will have the tenacity I have had during this late fall writing to set limits and to take breaks. For me that is my rest. Another thing, over the past many weeks I made it a practice to NOT work on the weekends. Not at all. Instead I enjoyed my family and spent a lot of time cultivating and becoming acquainted with my inner cook. Pizza or butternut squash soup anyone? How about some of my fantastic scones??

Writing: I am in major writing mode right now. I have to, the end of my sabbatical is closer every day. Both the papers that garnered my attention recently were presented at conferences earlier this year. The first one, related to the PD I am involved with in summers at the U, was really a very preliminary draft. I had not analyzed the 24 classroom teaching episodes, nor had I really thought hard about how this study advances the field. At times it was excruciating to write this paper. Just the sheer amount of data was a challenge to keep organized and at my fingertips. Four different theoretical frameworks shaped the research and the analysis. This research pushed the boundaries of what it means to do effective PD and what it mans to be an exemplary teacher through five assertions:

We assert that additional principles for effective science inquiry professional development include: 1) a definition or operationalization of and for scientific inquiry and 2) a culture of mentoring or coaching from scientists and expert science educators to teachers as they are learning and applying scientific inquiry. Adding these two dimensions to a PD framework that includes researched based PD guidelines published in recent years (Loucks-Horsley, Hewson, Love & Stiles: 2010; Jeanpierre, Oberhauser & Freeman, 2005; Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman & Yoon, 2001) positions teacher participants to embrace three additional tenets of exemplary teaching. We assert that exemplary teachers of science 3) draw from their own emerging identity as scientist with their interactions with their students; 4) have high levels of cognition and student engagement in their classrooms; and 5) are confident teachers of science who do not fear uncertainty.

Although I am the primary writer this is a paper that is co-written with another scientist. She spent the entire weekend pouring over it and offering feedback although I have not seen her remarks yet. I can not tell you how much it means to hear her exclaim: “I really liked it!” This is someone who doles out positive feedback to those she works with sparingly. Nice.

The second paper involves the work I do with my students where they learn to use qualitative research methods and apply these methods to their teaching. This is a monumental task for them which is clear in my course evaluations. However, their learning about themselves as a teacher, albeit not until the end of the semester if not beyond, is exponential. This is the paper that I won an award for that I will accept in January. I am reshaping the theoretical frameworks and rewriting the methods and discussion sections. I hope to finish this today.

Reading: Well I admit since summer my reading for pleasure has dropped off. I bought the new Steve Jobs autobiography, although I do not allow myself to have it at the cabin where I am writing. It would keep me up and distracted from writing. Not good for me right now. Instead it is at my bedside in MPLS.

And now for my other themes for 2011:
Downsizing: Personally, I am downsized almost 40 pounds. That is an incredible achievement. As I alluded to above, I believe the discipline that I cultivated to downsize physically will spread into other parts of my life.

I continue to go through the remaining items in our basement from both my parents. I also made the decision that my grandmother’s china, the ones that survived the fire, will be passed on to the offspring of my mother’s brother, Jill and her family. The sheer fact that it all survived, almost all intact, is impetus to pass it on. I lovingly cared for it for over 35 years. We celebrated many special events including Thanksgiving, Christmas and special anniversaries using that china. Time to share it with someone else in the family.

Organization: Well, I continue to aspire to be organized. For one: I keep all my writing stuff in my study and not scattered throughout the house like was my practice in the past. Downsizing helps with organization. My goal is to downsize enough yet this year that keeping organized will be a snap. I can do it!

Finally, balance: well I wrote about this one above, too. I aspire to be more balanced. Over my sabbatical I have come to terms with the tensions of balance or lack of it: flow/passion/diligence/persistence/inspiration and the flip side: migraines and exclusion. Just as I have come out on top with my healthy habits, I am convinced I will come up on top and develop methods (like I am ) of keeping more or less a balanced life.

Finally, as I ruminate over where I am in my sabbatical and in my life I have come to the conclusion that I have so far led a full and privileged life. I am fortunate. In a year that included many life changing events, I can still say I am privileged and fortunate. Thanks for reading and TTFN, Michele

Stepping out of the box

Sharon wrote a great blog post today about stepping out of the box or experiencing life differently than you usually do. Today I did just that in several ways.

First, I like to iron. Yep, I know that seems so antiquated, but, I do. I also like to do dishes and laundry in general. With ironing it is more about the pressed lines of the clothes, but I also love the sound of the steam swirling. Well, today was a beautiful fall day in Minnesota. One of my tasks on my "to do" list was to iron. Here is how I did both:
Nothing like being outside on a warm fall day experiencing an ordinary task in a new way.

If you read my other blog you know that I am a Minnesota Lynx basketball fan. Hubby and I took 4 of our grandbabies to the game last night. It was a nail biter. I am not sure how other WNBA games are, but the MN Lynx games are entertaining and incredibly fan and kid friendly. I like to get there early so I can watch the team warm up. So, we were all sitting watching the women stretch and practice when a couple of Lynx officials come up the aisle to ask if any of the kids wanted to be a kid captain. Nani, 8, and Hann 4 both shook their heads “yes.” I had no idea what a kid captain was, but they are chosen at every game. They go out on the floor with the captains from both teams to meet the referees and gather other pregame information. While they are rubbing elbows with the players and referees their images are projected on the big screen jumbo-tron and of course this is all taking place in a sports venue with about 15, 000 people.
I was thrilled that Nani said “yes.” Hann is a risk taker, even at 4, but Nani, not so much. But there they both stood, smiling ear to ear, sporting new t-shirts and an autographed basketball. At the ripe age of 8, Nani, stepped out of her comfort zone and by doing so cultivated her own courage, a firmer belief in herself, and a growing self awareness of what can unfold when one steps out of our own little worlds and tries something different. It was a beautiful life moment and I am glad I was there.

I think when I look back at this year, I will see that I made tremendous progress in my own physical downsizing. I have had the gift of time with my sabbatical. The gift of time to take care of me physically and as you will see emotionally, too. I blog about my physical downsizing on my other blog. I won’t repeat what I write over there here, but suffice is to say that the gift of time has been remarkable for me in terms of focusing on who I am and where I am going.

Like many people, I need to downsize or de-clutter my living spaces. When my parents passed away, I inherited their personal belongings, including their old scrapbooks, photos, letters, and personal papers. Last week, I started to tackle some of the boxes hovering in our basement, including my parents' boxes. One of my mother’s boxes contained some old family photo albums and scrapbooks. Unfortunately, most of the old pictures contain people and places that are not even slightly familiar to me. But not this one: I new right away that that picture was my mom when she was a young child.
I am guessing she was about 3 or so. As I continued going through the pictures, I came across this picture of my mom in 2005 with my lovely daughter on her wedding day.
Between those two pictures there had been a life time. My mother’s lifetime. My mother. My very own mother. My emotions spilled over as I ruminated about the life that had been and was no longer. I looked at that picture of that little girl and saw such promise. A whole world just waiting to be explored and discovered. A smart little girl, too.

As I looked at the other picture of my daughter and my mother, I just kept thinking about how we never know what will become of our lives. I know my mother did not. My mother never realized her promise because she was challenged with both physical and mental health issues. I always say and believe in my heart that my mom did the best she could under the circumstances. There were times when her life spiraled relentlessly out of control. During one of those spirals, I stepped in, went to court and became her guardian. There is more, but I will not get into that here. As a result of this arrangement, my mother made Minnesota her home and the last 16 years of her life were stable and more normal than most of her other years. I don’t regret being her guardian. It was the right thing to do and I would do it again in a heart beat.

Looking at the pictures brought out some deep emotions and a clarity that are important to recognize. I never felt comfortable talking with my mom about her mental health issues, nor about being her guardian. I was simply afraid to talk with her about things that were so very personal. I am not sure now why I was so afraid, but I was. Looking back, I wished I had talked with a professional about this responsibility and my feelings. My mom also spent most of her adulthood as an obese woman. She suffered many physical challenges like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease because of her neglect of her health and of course the ever present obesity. I never talked with my mother about her obesity because I was afraid, too. Afraid that she would see herself in me, like I did in her. I became an obese woman in my forties. I was in denial about my own obesity so how could I even talk with my mom about hers.

Looking at those pictures and processing my feelings and my thoughts brought clarity, too. You see I realized while I looked at those pictures that facing our fears, although hard, is important and necessary for our own well being. You all know that adage: there is nothing to fear but fear itself. I lost out by not facing my fears head on. I missed the opportunity to learn from my mother what it was like being her; her own story of being physically and mentally challenged. Her own story. Maybe she never really felt challenged... I can no longer talk with my mother, but I can talk with other people about things that are difficult and painful. I can face my fears and have those courteous conversations with others. And I will.

For me stepping outside of the box is not only about doing and experiencing something differently, it is about facing something outside of your comfort zone. It is about facing your fears, acknowledging them, and moving forward. I am resolved to have those courageous conversations. It is about time. Better watch out!

Finally, and for my mother: thank-you, mom, for showing me other ways to become a better person. Thank-you, mom. I love you.

Balance (Flow), Reading and Conference

I write this post on the way to my last big conference of the year at the University of Exeter in England. It is the EARLI conference: European Association of Research on Learning and Instruction. They hold a conference only every other year. The conference coincides with the beginning of the academic year, which makes it impossible for me to attend usually. Now that I am sabbatical, I have the luxury of attending, plus I will be presenting two of my papers one in a formal paper session the other in a less formal, but, I think helpful round table format. My hubby is along, which will make for great companionship, plus he is the planner of all things fun.

One of my themes for my sabbatical year is balance. I struggle with maintaining balance in my life because I am one of those persons who is easily caught up in something that engages me. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (don’t ask me to pronounce his last name!) describes this state as Flow in a book of the same name. Flow is a “state of concentration so focused that it amounts to absolute absorption in an activity.”

One of my areas of research is trying to understand the perspectives of students as they learn in science and mathematics. I try to uncover what motivates them, what is easy, what is hard, what they are thinking about as they study or do science and math, why it matters to them, and a whole host of other perspectives that they have. Generally speaking I try to understand this learning from students who have rich and diverse backgrounds because I am trying to understand how we really develop equity in science and math and achieve this noble idea that is advocated by many: science and mathematics for all. So, the students I listen to maybe labeled in various ways by their schools because they are “gifted,” or do not learn in ways that are more typical, or have behavioral demonstrations, etc. When I completed my thesis study, I worked with a group of nine students in a 7th grade science classroom. Last spring I was able to reconnect with 5 of those students in one on one interviews. Each student allowed me to see what mattered to them and what did not as they moved through the prescribed sequence of courses in science and or math in their secondary schools. It was fascinating to talk with them and later to pour over their words and ideas as I read and reread the transcripts.

The transcripts of our conversation become the data for this research. I combed through over 200 pages of interview transcripts as I analyzed the data. There were several fascinating results that will be part of one of my talks at the EARLI conference, including:

• the difficulty that they all had with vocabulary, especially in science, and the various metacognitive mechanisms that they all developed to “get through” the readings or text found in science especially; none of the students enjoyed reading, either.
• the influence of the Hmong parents and culture to do well in school and to get a good education and the pressure that is shouldered by said students, too because of their familial expectations. In the case of one Hmong student, she felt the presence of her deceased grandmother (her scent to be exact) when she struggled with a math problem or something else that was difficult. Her grandmother’s “presence” reassured her that she could do it because she was smart.
• the yearning of each and every student for teachers to connect what they teach to the world, the real life world, of the students, in other words help the students understand why it is important to learn what ever it is;
• that teachers get to know the students they teach and finally, and especially in a student who struggles mightily to learn, yet wants to be successful, to slow down and stop saying “time to move on” when he was not ready.

There is more, but that is enough for here.

As I worked on this research and pulled it in to a paper I found that I lost myself in this analysis and writing, and easily. I do this often as a matter of fact. That is my flow: it is not effortless, but the task (in this case writing and analysis) requires a high degree of mental discipline, but I am rewarded by each and every section that I complete. A research paper follows the accepted scientific protocol for publication with clearly delineated sections: abstract, intro, theoretical framework, design and methods, analysis, results, discussion, implications, limitations and conclusion and finally references.

On one of the days when I was really into it, I stopped late in the afternoon after writing the results section. At the time I remember thinking: “Well, I will just come back to the next section, the discussion section, after I eat something and then work through the evening.” As I prepared dinner I realized what was happening. I struggle with balancing my engagement in an activity, in this case analyzing my research and writing it up, with other things that are important in my life. I block everything else out. This flow swirls within me in many things that I do.

In my sabbatical I am hoping to find balance: to strike a balance between my flowing engagement and concentration and redirecting that flow or even shutting it off for a while. Can I switch it on and off when I am in the throes of it like I was on that day? Yes! I can. After I made that decision to work on that section the next day, I made dinner, cleaned the kitchen up, and since I was at the cabin, went on a evening canoe ride with my hubby. The next day, I picked up where I left off and finished that paper within a few hours. Additionally, I felt recharged and re-energized and even noted that my thinking had greater clarity (of course I could not switch off my thoughts and was guilty of thinking about my paper while I did all the other evening activities). I will continue to work on balance and maybe reading more of that book will help.

Reading: I never really got into the Harry Potter books, but now my grandbabies are either reading them their selves (Nani) or having them read to them (Ellery). So, I started to read them, too. I am into book three now and am enjoying them. Clever and imaginative. I have always loved the Lord of the Ring books, so I knew I would probably like these once I really started and I do.


That is the balance today about balance and flow. Thanks for reading and till the next time, Michele

A new possibility

Tomorrow will be four months since we lost our farmhouse in Mankato to fire. Moving forward has definitely been a process. Initially we had to manage just the loss and the sadness of the whole thing: of losing a home that meant so much to us. We moved there in 1987 from California. Our kids were 12, 12, 7, 5 and 4. There were many years of challenges, especially financially as one would except with a household with five kids. Those lean years beget more years without the struggle of finances and as time moved on that place became a center for our family. There was just so much life that happened at the farm. Our life as a family, but, also the wonder of the wildlife and the diversity of life represented in the prairie/river valley acreage. Here are some pictures from my last visit a couple of days ago.

The dirt that you see and the bricks in the foreground
are the remains of the house

Brick pile that we will use for something like a brick terrace eventually

Some of the wildflowers

I think Jan planted at least a 1000 trees over our 24 years there. We lost probably half of them to wildlife, winter and other weather elements over the years. Everywhere you look on that property you can see the gentle hand of Jan in those trees, the lilac bushes, the ginella maples and the arbor vitaes that are planted all over the property. We had this idea that we would eventually plant almost every tree that is native to Minnesota on our property. We also hoped to restore at least two acres to a native prairie. That was to be this fall’s project. It is funny how life turns in ways that you do not expect. That is certainly the case with the fire and us. We are moving forward now. We have made a decision that feels right for us.

After exploring many options, including rebuilding, we have made a decision to not rebuild on the property and that we will eventually, maybe next year, sell the property. As I wrote before on this blog, we were shocked at the cost to rebuild. Rebuilding something similar to what we had before would cost more than it would ever be worth in the Mankato market. At our age, we cannot take that kind of a risk. After our trip to the Netherlands, Jan and I began thinking about other options and started looking in Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin for a lake type property. The recreational housing market has been hit hard by the down turn in the economy. For us, this means that there are many properties to choose from with acreage, woods, and various types of cabins.

We did a great deal of research on the geology, water quality, biomass, and population of both Northern Minnesota and North Western Wisconsin. After doing more research online of various properties, we narrowed our choices down to about 20 properties and went out to see all of those twenty properties over several long weekends. One place stood out for us above all the rest. After much thought and consideration we made an offer to purchase that place that stood out for us last week and our offer was accepted. We will close on August 12.

This place is situated on a small and quiet lake in the beautiful hilly countryside near Danbury, Wisconsin. This cabin is totally different than the farm. First of all it is in a coniferous/deciduous biome rather than the prairie/deciduous biome of Mankato. It will be a new place for our family to gather and to celebrate. I know that for certain. There are three bedrooms, all large so we can accommodate many people. It has a great room type kitchen, living and dining room combo with a large fireplace. Surrounding us are many hilly blacktop roads that will make for great biking for me as I continue to improve at cycling. Most of the furnishings were part of the deal, so we will not have to buy hardly anything. It is in a very, very quiet area of Northern Wisconsin. Did I say quiet???

Most of all, there is little maintenance to do on this property. This is a rest and recreation property that will finally allow my husband to do just that. I know he will fool around with trees and yes, we will plant some more, but there is little else that needs to be done. We can put in a garden and other things, but compared to our farm property: little effort.

We never would have looked for a lake property if the farm had not burned down. Of that we are also certain. Through the ashes of our farm came the vision for something very, very different for Jan and I and for our family. My DIL had an artist create a watercolor picture of our farmhouse. She gave it to me for mother’s day. It is beautiful. It will be the first thing we hang in the entryway. As we pass through the door of our new cabin we will always know what we passed through to get there. So, my friends that is what we have done. We are moving in a different direction than we ever thought possible. We both are planning for our retirements, too. We have a ways to go still, but it (retirement) is in sight. Enjoy a peek at our cabin location.

The lane down to our cabin

Hardwood trees in the woods. These lead down to the lake.
The steps down to our small lake

The dock

The porch

So, there you have it my friends. A new possibility for us and our family.

Thanks for stopping by. TTFN, Michele