Random Picture Update!

So, I haven't posted any pictures on this blog in awhile. Like, real photos from my real life. In fact, let me check and see just exactly how long it's been!

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Well, I guess it was like 6 months ago if you're counting funeral posts, but it's been almost 2 years since I posted pictures from my graduation! And as far as non funeral/wedding/massive life event pictures, from what I can tell, I haven't posted any pictures since March of 2016! Three years ago! And those pictures were from the trip I took with Shaina and Sasha to visit Uncle Nathan and Aunt Ruth in Colorado, in 2014!

Edit: (A few days later) I found a few other more recent picture posts, but the most recent one still seems to be from mid-2017, and they were all catch-up posts containing several-months-old pictures as well. So either way, it's still been awhile, and either way, I'm still bad about posting pictures. I mean, I got right on the "Big Event" pictures, but I knew there were a lot of people waiting for them. To this day looking at my analytics, they are among the most viewed posts I've written.

So, for the past 5 years, I haven't done too much with pictures. At one point it was the main thing I posted. I even had, have, a photography blog, but I just checked there as well, and the last post was from the end of 2016. And that was also some pictures from the Colorado trip.

I took a LOT of pictures in 2017, but I still have yet to post them. The summer after I graduated I lived at home, worked part time at Hy-Vee (Like I have for 10 years now! Good grief I feel old...) and I spent my free time doing things with Sarah. That was the summer I started my YouTube channel, so we recorded a lot of videos, but every couple of weeks we would make it a point to go somewhere, and do something, (usually free) and I took a lot of pictures on those mini trips.

And then I never posted any of them. Not even our longest trip where we hit three states in one day on our way to watch the eclipse. YouTube just kind of became the main focus of all my free time. I mean, I edited and shared a vlog from the eclipse trip, but still not pictures. And then when I got the job at the hotel, between that and Hy-Vee, I barely had time for YouTube either. Someday, I swear, I will get those pictures up. But today is not that day.

Today I just wanted to share some random pictures I've taken recently. I don't take that many pictures these days, but if something interesting is happening, I have my phone, so I take some pictures.

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The biggest thing that's happened around here recently is the snow. At the moment it has almost melted, but at one point there was a LOT.

Before I get to the good pictures, I had to share this one that I took one morning after work, when I went shopping. I didn't know it at the time, but there was a huge snowstorm in the forecast. This is the bread isle at Aldi. I just started laughing. The stereotypes are true! Apparently people panicked, and wiped out the bread! Good thing I didn't need any! 😂

 

This was really one of the worst winters we've had in awhile. Grandma even got a snowblower for me to use, which was a lifesaver. Until it broke right before the winter just went completely downhill. Technically I've seen worse than this winter in the past, but this was the worst I've seen in Ames, and the worst I've seen during a time when snow removal was up to me. So for most of February, I only had the shovel to rely on.

At its worst, the depth of the snow reached well over a foot in some places, and probably close to two feet at the end of the driveway, after the snowplow had passed. I took some pictures on the day the snow was at its highest. This one is the end of the driveway, the morning after the biggest snow. I work overnights, so I came home to a mountain in the driveway. I could not pull in to the driveway. And this snow was dense. This mess held my weight, I didn't even sink in an inch, when I climbed over to walk up the driveway.

 

And when I say two feet, that's probably how deep it was in the shallowest part. We had gotten so much snow in the days before this that the "Mountains" on either side of the driveway were over three feet high, and I couldn't keep the snow I was scooping from flowing back down at least somewhat, and I could just barely keep them apart enough to pull one car through. I'd taken to parking in the street on days I knew grandma would need to get out. Working overnights I sleep during the day, so it was just easier to park in the street than have to wake up to move my car for her.

This is the driveway the morning after the foot of snow fell. You can see where the newspaper people had walked up before I got home. They couldn't pull in either.

 

And now that I think of it, I think the snow had been falling for two days. It was snowing when I got home the day before, so I waited to scoop when I got up, but by that point it had grown to near blizzard conditions and I decided to wait until I got off work instead. Either way, the amount that fell all at once, was huge, and by the time I came home from work the next morning, this was the result.

At this point I didn't want to even be bothered with the snow. I just wanted to go to bed. I figured I'd scoop when I got up, but I wasn't expecting to even get close to finishing. There was no snow in the forecast for a few days, so I figured I could take my time and not kill myself on the two feet of snow-cement at the end of the driveway.

 

That afternoon I got up, got all my snow gear on and went upstairs to get the shovel, and found this!

I had told grandma how solid the snow at the end of the driveway was, and as soon as I went to bed, she went to the phone book, and found someone who was apparently right up the road who had some kind of industrial snow-blower, he came over with his son, and apparently their machine chewed right through the ice in the driveway! She said they had it clear in less than a half hour! I couldn't believe it!

Thankfully that one awful storm was really the worst of it, and the few times it has snowed since hasn't amounted to much at all.

My other thing this winter has been getting back into knitting. Apparently it's been two years since I started learning according to Facebook's memories feature.

I seem to do a little knitting around Christmas every year, but not much past that. This year I've actually made quite a few projects past the official holiday season. One of those projects was a late Christmas gift for my friend Rachel in Utah. I actually brought it to work one night after we lost internet access. 😂

 

I had my coworker Dominic take a picture of me to share with the knitting/crochet group that my sister-in-law Alex made on Facebook, but I thought it would be good for my blog too. :) And then Rachel sent me an Instagram Story after she got the package, so I asked if I could share that here as well. :)

Speaking of work, here's a random picture. Apparently a Red Bull representative left a case at our hotel for the employees to drink. It was a long night, so I decided to try my very first real energy drink.

It wasn't that great. I mean, It wasn't as horrible as I'd been led to believe, but it definitely wasn't good enough that I'd ever actually purchase one.

Oh, and here's another random picture I took recently. Not sure how I managed this.

I didn't take many pictures this Christmas but I did take a few cute ones of Jackson and Kadin.

I have a LOT of old pictures of my nephews from random events all last year. I'll probably eventually do a catch up post for those.

These kids are too cute. The paparazzi is always following them around. :p

Last year my cousins lost almost all their pets within just a few months. I took a few pictures right after they started getting some new kittens. I could have sworn I got some of all three, but for now, here's Sarah with Tadashi.

     

Tadashi loves my sandals. Also you can tell how long ago I took these, because I wore my sandals that night...

Anyway, that's all for now. Like I said I have a LOT more pictures. I just need to find time to actually do something with them. I think my next photo post will probably be more catch-up on family pictures, the majority of which will likely be nephews, but I do have other stuff coming. I may even try to do a photo-blog post one of these days. We'll see. I make no concrete promises, aside from that it'll happen. Some day. 😂

Grandma's Obituary

I wanted to share my grandma's obituary here on my blog, both as a way to archive it for myself, and as a way to share it with anyone who may not have been able to make it to her funeral. If you missed my previous post about Grandma I will link that for you HERE. I wrote that the day after she died, and it was significantly harder to get through than this one. I actually haven't gone back to read it since then.

Also, while he was home for the funeral, my brother Jared went over to grandma's to take some pictures before everything inevitably changes over there.

Four Generations
Jared, our dad, Jared's son Jackson, & Grandma.

I'm including a couple of his pictures in this post, but if you're interested in seeing them all, I'll link you to his album on Facebook HERE. Not sure what his privacy settings are set to, but hopefully at least family and friends will be able to see them. Those pictures got to me almost as badly as writing my original blog post.

Grandma's obituary was written by my cousin Sarah, who took care of my grandma just about every day in her final years, and got her to share many of her stories from her years back in Canada. Sarah probably got to know my grandma the best of all her grandchildren, and was the perfect choice to write the obituary.

Sarah also shared a bunch of pictures with me, to use in this post, so the obituary will be a more illustrated version than the one in the funeral program.

Also, just to be a completist, before I get to the obituary itself, I wanted to include the inside of the program as well.

Marion North

1926-2018

Marion (Carleton) North was born November 14, 1926, to Clayton Carleton and Lillian (Dawkins) Carleton. She was raised on a farm in the tiny town of Orkney, Saskatchewan, during the Great Depression, living without electricity and hauling water, tending and butchering chickens for the family, shooting prairie dogs for the money by the tail, and attending a little schoolhouse by foot, or horse and cart, with her siblings.

It was at this school that she met her friend, Rose Marie, with whom she would have a friendship spanning over eighty years. Marion loved to ride her horse "Babe" across the prairie to break up the loneliness of living in Orkney, and would ride for miles in order to visit Rose.

Her paternal grandparents homesteaded near their family farm, and Marion would walk down to visit her Grandpa Charles, whom she called her "boyfriend".

They would eat apples and read each others letter's. Marion had pen pals early on, including a couple of young ladies from England. Her dedication to letter writing would shape her life, and others, for decades to come.

When she was 16, her future husband was hired on, as a farm worker during WW2. She kept in touch over thousands of miles between their home towns, writing letters by the light of a coal oil lamp, seeing him only during harvest season, for years.

 

Then on July 3, 1946, Marion Carleton, and Roy North, were married in Malta, Montana. She traveled, by train, with him to live in Ontario, where she was treated to many luxuries; like running water, and bread delivered to their door. In 1950, they moved to Transcona, Manitoba, and started a mushroom farm.

At this operation she was in charge of payroll and bookkeeping. In 1951 their first child, William, was born, and would be followed by five more children: John, Daniel, David, Andrew, and at last, her beloved daughter, Ruth. In 1971, the family moved to Spencer, Iowa, and then to Harlan, Iowa, in 1976.  

It was as a young married couple that Roy and Marion would profess Christ as their Savior. She would go on to teach Sunday School, do charitable work with other Christian ladies, and happily show much hospitality to preachers, missionaries, friends, and family. She loved to cook and bake for others, embroider, collect china, and cactus.

She was very faithful writing letters and sending cards. She kept written records of birthdays, anniversaries, addresses, and when she sent responses to letters. Through shaky handwriting, and memory struggles, she still made efforts in later years to write and call others, to keep in touch, and be an encouragement.

On October 7, 2018, her gentle spirit was taken from her home into the presence of her Savior, having attained the age of 91 years, 10 months, and 23 days.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Roy, brothers; Stanley (Lois) Carleton, Kenneth (Jean) Carleton; and her sister Mae (Thomas) Woods. She is survived by her children; William (Linda) North of Wheaton, Illinois; John (Cindy) North of Harlan; Daniel North of Harlan; David North of Harlan; Andrew (Sherri) North of Harlan; Ruth (Nathan) Klindt of Granby, Colorado; 11 grandchildren; 4 great-grandchildren; brother, George (Sophie) Carleton, of British Columbia, Canada; other family members, and friends.

Thanks to everyone who came to grandma's funeral, or sent their support. It meant a lot to everyone, and thanks again to Jared and Sarah for the pictures. They mean so much now, and will mean so much to us all in the future.

Christmas Catch-Up

Can you believe it's almost the end of May and I still haven't gotten Christmas pictures up? I can...

I'm notorious for not getting pictures up in good time. Frankly it was a miracle that I got my graduation pictures up only a week after it happened. Maybe now that I've finished school I will be a little better about that kind of thing. Maybe. We'll see... :p

Anyway, on to the pictures from Christmas! Technically these are from New Years, as we didn't have Christmas until January, but most of them are from the present opening day.

Jackson! My most adorable nephew! He looks so little here! He's already so much bigger than this, and it was only like 5 1/2 months ago! What happened?

Presents 2017

The fam.

Aunt Ruth made us all new cowboy boot stockings to hang above the stove downstairs.

This one is mine. :)

Baby's first Christmas. :)

Christmas Paparazzi. :)

Literally. :p

Grandma and Jackson. :)

I have a feeling that most of these pictures today are going to be Jackson. :p

Did people get bored waiting for Jackson? :p

Jackson needed help opening everything. I got him these two books, but I think he enjoyed the colorful wrapping paper even more. :p

Daddy and Jackson. :)

Eva gave me a Mr. Rogers mug for Christmas. :)

His sweater changes color with heat!

I got a bunch of books for Christmas too. A Doctor Who Cookbook from Shaina, as well as a Doctor Who history book and the Atlas Obscura from mom and dad.

I tried to do a selfie with Jackson, but it wasn't entirely successful. :p

Okay, it was kind of successful. He's so stinkin' cute. :p

Grandpa and Jackson. :)

I found these pictures on one of my devices after most everyone had left. :p

And of course, the last pictures of the day were Jackson as they were leaving.

He's just too cute.

I have some other pictures from around that time as well, but I'll save them for another post. We'll see if I have some time tomorrow. Stay tuned! :)