Welcome to February 2025. Here is what Katie has been up to since we last caught up:
- Mr. Man and I built a fort in the living room last Friday night. He received a HearthSong Cardboard Fort building kit for Christmas several years ago. We tend to forget about it in the basement until January rears it’s ugly head and we pull it out. As of today (Tuesday), the fort is still intact in the living room. The boys are using it as their private space for hanging out. I am considering passing it on to a new owner after this season. We will see, it still is providing them fun, but we do usually forget about it again until next year.
- I have been doing some reading. This January, I have preferred the comfort of fluffy, romances published in the last few years. Though sometimes, I get classy with my book explorations. I am listening to James by Percival Everett, winner of the 2024 National Book Award, as it is my book club’s February selection. I didn’t opt to re-read the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with my group in January, so I am scratching the back of my brain for what I can remember about Huck Finn from when I read it in the year 2000. I can see why James has been revered by the critics, it is very good so far. It is artistic and interesting.
3. In mid-January my older sister finalized the sale of my parent’s house. Though I am glad to be done with the process of cleaning it out, I have complicated feelings about saying goodbye. My parent’s purchased the house in May of 1985 and I lived there from ages 5 until I moved out on my own. Then I continued to visit them there and bring my own family to the house. Now, after 39 years, my family no longer owns any property in the town that I grew up in. When I was a teenager and older, we used to joke that even though we had lived in a town for more than 10 years, we weren’t really locals yet. We thought that to be a local, you had to live there for 40 years or more. May of 2025 would have been 40 years. So I guess we just missed becoming locals. Truthfully, though, we had probably been locals for sometime now. Someday, maybe I will revisit this topic.
Here are some pictures from the early years at the blue house on Diamond Street.
4. I cleaned some windows in my house so I could see the winter skies better. Winter is cold, at times though, that sunshine shining through the window can be brilliant. We had a friends over on MLK Day who noticed our great kitchen windows, but I noticed while my friend was enjoying the windows, was dust on the windows. So later that week, while I was home from work because Nugget was absent from school, I cleaned the windows in the kitchen and the dining room. Then I took some time to hang pictures that I had been meaning to hang for a while now. I have been enjoying my redecorating.
5. I hosted a live Quizzo Night at my library last Monday night. We all had a nice time and the evening’s winners had never won before, so that added an extra level of excitement to the evening. The fun that we had reminded of why I like planning and hosting trivia nights.
6. The last Saturday of January, the boys’ Cub Scout Troop hosted their annual Pinewood DerbyTM. ( Did you know it is trademarked term? I better be careful. That’s a fun fact I learned while looking up trivia questions about “the derby”. We had a nice afternoon with the boys’ pack competing in races and enjoying snacks. Here is a picture of my crew after the awards ceremony. Nugget won 3rd place in his den. Mr. Katie won a golden toilet bowl trophy that he gets to keep for one year.
7. On that same Saturday, the boys’ elementary school had it’s annual hockey night at the Lehigh Valley Phantoms (minor league team for the Philadelphia Flyers). Mr. Katie and I met at a Philadelphia Flyers hockey game many years ago, so this is always a fun event for our family. We invited some family to join us. Here are some pictures. Mr. Katie has a collection of jerseys that he leant out for the occasion.
8. I spotted this giant bird on our swing set last Wednesday morning (the same day as Lunar New Year 2025). I believe it is either a Red Shouldered Hawk or a Red Tailed Hawk. My neighbor told me that some people believe hawk visits to bring strength, protection or good fortune. My sighting of the formidable bird was meaningful to me. I believe it to be a sign of good things to come or a sign of protection from things to come from someone watching over me. I saw a hawk in my dreams that night and could not stop thinking about it for several days last week.
I like the old Berlin house pics! Your hockey game looked really fun!!
Thank you Annie 🙂
Katie, I really enjoyed this blog! We have lived here in our big pink house for 49 years, and sometimes I don’t feel like we’re Berliners. Our kid do, though. I loved the pictures you included . Your trivia groups intrigue me. Keep up the blogging, and may that hawk protect you.
My mother died in September, and we’re still cleaning out her house 2 hours away from Berlin. I know what you went through. We really don’t know what to do with the contents, so any suggestions you or your sisters can give me would help. It’s really a bittersweet time.
Thank you so much Mrs. Nakich! I will keep blogging. I am sorry that your mother passed away. I do want the hawk to protect me. I read a book before my father passed away called Decluttering at the Speed of Life by Dana K. White. It does not have any specific instructions about how to clear out your parents’ house, but it does have lots of information about how to declutter your own house and I tried to keep it in mind while I was working. My husband and his sister cleaned out their parents’ house in 2020 and he had to use the manta “These things are not my parents”. He also took pictures of things with his phone that he didn’t necessarily need to keep but also didn’t want to forget about. I did some of that.
I would recommend getting an estate sale involved. That makes you feel like the stuff is going to a new home instead of being thrown away. You can always call a clean out company after the estate sale if you don’t know what to do with the rest afterwards. Good luck. Thank you for reading. I hope all is well 🙂
I love all of this! I love your hawk visitor and the good stuff he’s bringing you! I love your new artwork, too.
Thank you Liz
Sounds like you guys are having a pretty good January. Congrats Nugget and Mr. Katie on your derby awards! And Annabelle wants me to tell you that your dad reminds her of Patrick in the picture of him in his uniform.
Thank you Katie and Annabelle. I will tell him 🙂
Katie: what a nice blog! I can understand your feelings about the family home. I am sure you and your sisters have many great memories. Of course, your blog mentions the events of the month, which E and I were somewhat familiar with since we visited a few times this month and saw the awards.
Ironically, it looks like a Cooper’s Hawk. 😉
Hi Jamie, I hope so! That would be awesome. The funny thing is the second oldest of 5 children. When my mom was pregnant and we would ask what the baby’s name was going to be, my Dad always said
“Cooperhawk” so that’s like a family name for us. I still think about that because he said that every time. I didn’t even know that was a real name for bird until I was an adult.