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No App to Replace Your Lap

Grandma Diane’s Story Time With Elsie and Eli

What with COVID-19 and our social distancing as well as being pretty much confined to our homes, all of my school visits have been canceled until this virus lifts. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later. In the meantime, my grandkids came up with the idea to create “Story Time With Grandma Diane”. Every day (M-F) on my Facebook page at 11:00 a.m., I read a favorite children’s book. Homeschoolers can now listen in giving their caregivers a little time for a cup of coffee or a little breather. We started doing this on Monday, March 23 and will continue until the kids are back in school. Tomorrow I’ll be reading my own Life in the Neck New Friends as a special request of my great-niece Lily Lindemann in Oshkosh. Tune in and enjoy the story along with the rest of us. If you have your own copy, you can follow along as we read. Hope you listen in.

No App To Replace Your Lap

Gratitude is the Best Attitude

 
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Gratitude Defined:

Gratitude is thankful appreciation for favors received. Webster’s

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home. a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. Melody Beattie

In this time of great fear and difficulty with the COVID-19 virus hanging over our heads, with schools closed, social distancing, and many many of us working from home experiencing being quarantined for perhaps the first time in our lives, we as a nation and as communities would do well to think about what we do have instead of what we do not have. For most of us, our daily needs at this point are being met. We have homes, food on the table, and clothes to wear. Most of us can walk and talk, see the beauty that surrounds us, listen to music that stirs our souls and makes our feet want to boogie. We have family and friends to love and be loved by in return. Focusing on our abundance rather than the lack in our lives helps us experience the sense of fulfillment which is gratitude at work. This fulfillment creates in us the desire to share what we have with others. What better time than now for us to reach out in love and thanksgiving to the community in which we live? What can YOU do to bring some happiness and joy into the lives of those around you?

 
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No App to Replace Your Lap

Just thinking . . .

Covid-19 has forced us to stay home and spend more time together as a family. Schools are closed, parents are working from home, sports have been canceled (professional as well as school and community programs). So what’s a person to do?

Social media is full of advice for and from all of us. As I’m thinking about all of this, what comes to mind is that list of things I wanted to do when I retired. Read, write children’s books, clean the pantry, and the list goes on!

Now having two grandchildren home from school everyday for the unforeseeable future, my thinking has turned to them and to how can I help the “boredom” that they seem to be complaining about so much as time passes. I trust that if I put my mind to it, I can come up with a plan that may turn this time together into an opportunity to grow in learning, understanding and love.

Children need and want structure. It helps them feel safe and in control - they know what to do and when to do it - even though they will argue about it. So to provide structure we need to first talk about the “have to dos” and the “want to dos” and then make room for both in our daily schedule.

So that’s my job for today - working together to make our daily schedule. This could be exciting. I’ll let you know what happens . . .

To be continued . . .

50th Wedding Anniversary Celebration Canceled Due to COVID - 19


March 21, 1970     Butch & Diane Davies

March 21, 1970 Butch & Diane Davies

As Butch and I were busy planning our wedding fifty years ago, we never took into consideration that the world would be suffering a pandemic of Coronavirus when it came time to celebrate our 50th Anniversary. Who Knew? Right?

Our party on March 21st has been canceled. It has been fun in the planning – going through old pictures and old memories – putting together a slide show for your viewing enjoyment – never to be seen. Oh well !?!?!?

So instead of celebrating with all you on Saturday as planned, we will be sitting home on the couch watching nothing on TV and eating macaroni and cheese. Send happy celebratory thoughts our way and envision the fun we could be having together.

Jeannie Ann’s Grandma Has Breast Cancer Trailer

By Diane Davies

Illustrated by CA Nobens

 
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Davies 50th Wedding Anniversary Celebration Canceled due to

COVID - 19

As Butch and I were busy planning our wedding fifty years ago, we never took into consideration that the world would be suffering a pandemic of Coronavirus when it came time to celebrate our 50th Anniversary. Who Knew? Right?

Our party on March 21st has been canceled. It has been fun in the planning – going through old pictures and old memories – putting together a slide show for your viewing enjoyment – never to be seen. Oh well !?!?!?

So instead of celebrating with all you on Saturday as planned, we will be sitting home on the couch watching nothing on TV and eating macaroni and cheese. Send happy celebratory thoughts our way and envision the fun we could be having together.

Jeannie Ann’s Grandma Has Breast Cancer

By Diane Davies

Illustrated by CA Nobens

 
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Thoughts On My Growing Up Days

I was born Diane Eileen Lindemann on March 24, 1948 to Loren and Eileen (Nieman) Lindemann.  My Mom tells me that she and Dad drove around Mounds Park Hospital in St. Paul for most of that day thinking I was about to arrive.  I waited for them to drive all the way back to our home in Old Cottage Grove and start dinner before I was ready to make my entrance.  The trip back to St. Paul was a bit faster they tell me than the ride home had been. 

In 1954 we became a family of 5 when my younger brother Daniel arrived.   David, the first born child came in 1945 when my Dad was still in the service at the end of WWII.  We lived in an upstairs apartment above my Grandparents until we needed more room.  My parents purchased a farmhouse just outside of Cottage Grove that needed to be moved to our new lot about 5 doors down from Grandma and Grandpa.  What a day that was!!!  David and I attended a two-room country schoolhouse three doors up from my Grandparents that just happened to be on the road that our house would travel on.  As the whole school watched our new home move by ever so slowly, we became the playground celebrities.

I loved school and learning.   I was a good student because I worked hard at it not because I was so smart.  Our country school had two teachers and a custodian.  Mrs. Black taught the “little room” which housed grades 1, 2 and 3.  The “big room” had Mrs. Jensen for grades 4, 5 and 6. Each room had a unheated coat room with hooks for our outer wear and a shelf for our lunches.  When winter set in, the lunches came inside on a shelf behind the furnace.  We also had a large crock water cooler and a slop bucket under the spigot – no running water.  We used the water from the crock in a dry sink to wash our hands.  The chemical toilets were attached on the back of the building – also no heat in them or the hallway to get there.  We dressed warm in the winter believe me.  For recess we could bring our sleds, cardboard or whatever else we had to use on the hill behind the school for sliding.  Of course we always made sure we were at the bottom of the hill when the whistle blew calling us back inside. 

Attached to the front of the schoolhouse was the bell tower which also served as a storage room for textbooks, art supplies and other necessities like paste!  We loved it when we were assigned to the storage room for our reading group.  We ate more paste than we did read our books, however.

Each classroom also had a five shelf book stand in the back called the Library.  I know that over the six years I spent in that school I read every one of the library books in each room at least 3 times if not more.  I loved to read then and still do today.

The playground consisted of a large metal slide, a set of what we called monkey bars, set of swings, and a wooden and metal merry-go-round.  All four of which could have killed anyone of us at any time, especially the way we used them.  We’d save the wax paper from our lunches and rub it on the slide to make us go faster.  We’d twirl around until we were dizzy and then jump off the bars.  One boy promised us he could fly when he jumped off the highest bar and knocked himself out when he hit the ground.  The merry-go-round was a special treat when the big boys would lay underneath and use their strong legs against the braces to push us ever so fast.  The swings were a special challenge to try to make them go up and over the top with someone hanging on for dear life.  We had a few bumps and bruises but I never remember anyone really getting hurt bad.  Well maybe Lyle when he “flew” off the monkey bars.

Grade School holds many fond memories for me.  I knew I wanted to be a teacher at a very young age.  Students and teachers alike, we all knew each other very well.  I was in grade 6 when the “little room” teacher was ill for several weeks with no sub to be found.  I and another classmate were asked to cover the lessons for grades 1 – 3 on alternate days so that we would not get behind on our own work.  What a thrill to be actually teaching real students not just my dolls and stuffed animals at home.  I knew the material well as I had already sat through 3 years of the lessons myself.  That was the beginning of my teaching career.  The values of and the lessons learned in that tiny two-room schoolhouse were instrumental in shaping the person I am today.

My parents  taught us through modeling the importance of a good work ethic.  If you said you were going to do something then you better by God do it.  “If you can run around until all hours of the night on Saturday, then you better be able to get up Sunday morning and go to church,” were some of my Dad’s favorite words.  We grew up with a lot of “If yous” but my parents lived by them just the same as they expected us to.

I came by leadership naturally.  My father played a dedicated role of leader in our church and in our community as long as I can remember.   Both of my parents gave their all to any organization or group that they were a part of.  My dad was a founding father of the East Cottage Grove Volunteer Fire Department after a neighbor’s barn burned to the ground.  He played a significant role in the building of the church building we still use today.  Mom was a leader in the women’s group through church and the mother’s club through the school – they were both made up of the same women give or take a few.  Family, faith and friends have been an important part of my life from the beginning – those three things make a solid foundation on which to build a life.  I thank my parents for that lesson.

 

 

Easter Morning Diane & David 1949

Easter Morning Diane & David 1949

Diane, Danny and David 1954

Diane, Danny and David 1954

Loren & Eileen Lindemann

Loren & Eileen Lindemann

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Author Diane Davies reads to Kennedy Elementary students

Diane Davies reads to elementary students at Kennedy Elementary School in Hastings, Minnesota.

Diane Davies reads from her book, Life in the Neck, to 4th grade elementary students at Kennedy Elementary School in Hastings, Minnesota.

Diane’s new award-winning book, Jeannie Ann’s Grandma Has Breast Cancer, is available online.

Special thanks to: Karen Arnold, Beth Ann Kerber, and Kyle Latch.

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Diane Davies, Reads Her Children's Book, "Life in the Neck" at SC Toys

Diane reads at children’s toy store, SC Toys, in historic downtown Hastings, Minnesota.

This is one of my favorite pictures in the story. I love it.

I’m Diane Davies, and I’m so glad that you all came today to hear my story, Life in the Neck - New Friends. I’m a retired school teacher here in Hastings.

I taught at Kennedy, 3rd grade for ten years. Then I moved to Tilden, and I taught 1st grade at Tilden. Then I moved to McAuliffe, and I taught 1st grade at McAuliffe.

I’ve been around a long time, and it’s been a lifelong dream of mine to write children’s books. I’ve read thousands of children’s books being a teacher and hundreds of books to my grandchildren.

So, I’m happy to be here today and happy to share Life in the Neck - New Friends with you.
— Diane Davies, SC Toys, 10.25.18
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