Ferguson’s new fire house

Residents come out to see Ferguson's new fire house.
Residents come out to see Ferguson’s new fire house.

Saturdays are busy days for us now. Ludi and Josie have a dance class early in the morning, and Jadzia has one later on. Today, in between the classes, we took a trip to visit Ferguson’s new fire house.

It was fun to see all the rooms and talk with the firefighters. Josie had some pressing questions for one fire fighter that we met in the training room. She found a whiteboard with a diagram of the Christian Care Home (which is near our house) drawn with black, red, blue, and green dry erase markers. “Why didn’t you use the PURPLE marker?” she asked, picking it up and showing it to him.

Purple has always been an important color at our house.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the photos.

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Young entrepreneurs

Jadzia, Ludi, and Yoli woke up early Saturday morning and headed to the Ferguson Farmers Market to sell some handicrafts for “kids entrepreneur day.”

Jadzia and Ludi got a pretty nice spot at the front of the market. Their booth was between the “Ferguson Youth Initiative” booth and the “Fun Time Donuts” booth.

The girls worked all week to prepare their crafts. Yoli found many ideas online, and they made good use of some supplies Aunt Joyce gave us that had once belonged to my Uncle Chuck.

I will let Jadzia tell you more about their day of selling:

Me and Ludi sold cards, necklaces, earrings and bracelets. It was a lot of work but I learned math and how you want to be acting to earn money.

We saw a few people we knew like Ms. Rita and her daughter Gina, and Ms. Judi and Mr. Norm.

It was still lots of fun especially when we bought donuts. After that, we had two or three costumers and we left.

But the count of dollars was $36!!!!!!!!!!!!

The market was a little quiet, maybe because of the cool morning, but still it was a nice haul for the girls. They spent $3 on donuts, so they came home with $33.

Being next to the donut booth naturally gave the girls some ideas about what to do with their hard-earned dough (so to speak).

A satisfied customer models the girls’ earrings.

Handy crafters

Jadzia and Ludi have been spending time this week putting together beads, bracelets, necklaces, ghosts and greeting cards.

Why? Because tomorrow kid entrepreneurs get a chance to hawk wares at a booth at the Ferguson Farmers Market.

Take a look at some examples of what the girls have done. And if you’re free any time Saturday between 8 a.m. and noon, stop by the market and see what the kids have to sell!

Waits and measures

Maybe waiting is the measure of a man. We have done our share of it.

Today, I daydreamed back to a sweltering Bolivian night eight years ago when we made pizza for Yoli’s family and I got down on one knee to propose. Not many days afterward, I boarded a plane bound for St. Louis.

I knew we would be separated for a while, working in two countries on the paperwork to obtain a fiancee visa. But I didn’t know how long.

How long turned out to be nine months. At the time I called it ‘the interminable wait.’

It seems to me that the waiting was hardest at the beginning (where the elation of getting engaged was followed by the loneliness of returning home alone) and near the end (though we never had a clear idea of when exactly “the end” would come).

My mind wandered, remembering those months of waiting, then returned to the present. I thought of our eighth wedding anniversary, just around the corner: Nov. 22 and 24.

But even sooner, I thought, our family will move back into the little brick house that was shattered by the Good Friday tornado.

Then it struck me: we have gone through another “interminable wait” this year.

In some ways it’s been harder. There was little joy at the outset, except maybe the solace that comes from knowing nobody was hurt and many of our possessions could be saved. There were so many unknowns: how do you pick a guy to cut down your tree? We chose one, and it went badly. Our temporary housing moved us farther away from all our usual places. We couldn’t walk Jadzia to kindergarten as we had planned, nor could we walk to the farmer’s market, or the bank, or the library.

But in some ways it’s been easier. Yes, we were separated from our house — but not from each other. We’ve been in exile, together. The rental house where we’ve lived was actually bigger than our own home, though it lacked some things (dishwasher). Our friends and family rallied around to help us. And our wait has lasted only six months, not nine.

Still, there’s no getting past the waiting. As with our engagment eight years ago, we had a vague notion of how long this reconstruction process would take. But the ending proved to be elusive. We would get close, and things would drag out.

At last, though, the finish line is in sight. Today our little house was full of people: cutting tiles, running pipes, painting walls, tracking in mud.

Tomorrow our long-stored belongings will begin to arrive at the house. Before the end of the week, we hope to be sleeping in our own beds again.

I would like to think that this “interminable wait” helped us, strengthened us inside.

Time will tell.

Ferguson Farmers Market, 1 week after the storm

One thing just about everyone looks forward to in Ferguson is the return of the farmers market. This year probably doubly so, because of the tornado and storm that ripped through North County last week.

We saw many friends and acquaintances, and my youngest brother even showed up! Many expressed their concern about our house and offered their help and support.

Since our yard and gardens are toast for a while, we didn’t load up on plants and perennials like we normally would at an early spring farmers market. We did buy some salsiccia, asparagus, and pastries.

Since Jonny was there, we took him to see the damage to our house, and he helped me grab a bunch of dirty laundry from the basement.

Ferguson Northern Lights 2010

This year’s Northern Lights was a lot of fun. We got there early enough for the girls to check out the petting zoo and to decorate a few cookies before the parade. We got a nice spot to watch the parade (while eating hot dogs), then we ate some free cookies and drank hot chocolate, visited with friends and neighbors, made peanut-butter-sandwich reindeers, rode on the train, saw a REAL train rumble past, and watched the tree lighting. There was a bit of whining and complaining along the way, but overall the children (I keep wanting to write “the girls”) did well.

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