My Monday Hero - Bobbi

This week I am honoring Bobbi, an awesome woman who not only knows everything (seriously!), but she can also do most anything. She spins her own wool for yarn, for goodness sake ~ who does that? Well, Bobbi does. And she raises Angora rabbits from which she gathers the wool for her yarn. She is a much sought-after speaker in the spinning, yarn, and knitting industry, having been  highlighted in August 2010  http://www.spinningdaily.com -- a website devoted to spinning, spinners, knitting, and all the peripherally related things of which I have little or no knowledge whatsoever! She was also a featured speaker on a recent Craft Cruise (how does one become a speaker on a cruise?!). AND. . .she owns Raven Frog Fibers in Sitka, Alaska, selling her wares throughout Alaska and the United States. 

Not only does Bobbi spin, she speaks fluent 

Spanish, 

has been in broadcasting for many years, is an accomplished dancer, could be one of those rare stand-up comediennes - should she so choose - and is one of the most spiritual women I know. While her spirituality is often couched within her humorous side, she radiates with faith and knowledge beyond the norm.  

Raven Frog Fibers

I know Bobbi has had her challenges in life (indeed, I have witnessed a few), yet this is a woman who has a talent for taking those trials and turning them into incredibly funny stories ~ all with a moral. And in sharing her stories, one cannot help but admire the determined strength which emanates from deep within Bobbi's soul. A strength she generously shares with those around her. A strength which has bode well for her throughout the years and has brought her to a knowledge of truths and integrity and commitment.

Bobbi, you are My Monday Hero ~ 
I honor your womanhood, your determination, your spirituality. 
Thank you for being a part of my life!

The Lost Week

To anyone loyal enough to RealWomenAreAlaskan to notice the missed Monday Hero -- my deepest apologies! Who knows where these weeks go sometimes? I have a bundle of reasons (read: "excuse"), but let's just settle for these:

1) I had to shave my cat

2) The crocodiles were entering into their annual feeding frenzy

3) Pluto is no longer a planet -- I had to attend the metamorphosis ceremony

4) We entered Daylight Savings Time

5) After reverting to childhood, it was way too difficult to remember what "adult responsibility" means

That being said, let me leave you with a "Maxine" favorite:

 

Stay tuned for next week's Monday Hero!

My Monday Hero: LIDA PERRY CALL

My other awesome grandmother is Lida Perry Call, my father's mother. She was conveniently born in 1900, making it quite simple to remember her age each year! She lived a long and oh-so-fulfilling life. And she was very blessed ~ in her words when she was about 93 years young: "I have always had such good friends, my entire life. Even now, they are always kind. They take me places, they help me however they can. I have been so blessed." I remember spending many hours in conversation with Granny. She once told me, "You are the only grandchild who calls me Granny and I really like it!" So Granny it was, forever-after.


I recall listening as Granny told me about living in Logan, Utah as a single young woman of 26 wondering if she would ever be married and have children. I asked if she could have even conceived of the great number of posterity who call her Mother, Grandmother, and Great-Grandmother. In 1926, no, she could not. And in 1994, so many of us came together at a reunion, and ~ as life would have it ~ to spend a few days, within the last few years of her life, as an entire family. Granny had five children, who each had multiple children (six in my family alone!), and from there, her great- and great-great-grandchildren began to arrive.


This woman is totally and completely my hero. She lived a long twenty years after Grandpa Call passed, and yet she stayed so strong ~ physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. She was blessed with a healthy mind throughout her nearly 97 years. Her wit remained intact, her wise-cracking one-liners keeping us constantly entertained. She was able to at once be the funniest woman around, and still demand respect simply by her presence. She was beautiful throughout her life with a perfectly innate beauty unmatched by the most glamorous of any modern-day model. She brought out the very best in everyone who had the privilege of knowing her. 


Granny, you are my hero, my ideal, a paragon of excellence toward which I strive to become. I love you with all my heart, and miss you with that same heart. And to you, as with Grandma Wheeler, I hope to report about what I have done with your name and your legacy. I intend to become the woman you always saw in me, and to present myself to you and Grandpa and all of my ancestors when I see you again. 

MORE on Grandma Wheeler

So many of my incredible cousins have sent email or facebook messages about our grandmother, Myra Fay Morgan Wheeler, that I absolutely must post some of them!

"I remember Grandpa would get on his hands and knees, we'd climb on his back, he'd growl like a bear at Grandma, she'd scream and jump up on a chair!"  


"I got to live with Grandma when I went back to Ricks to work in the library. We knelt for family prayer beside our chairs at the breakfast table. On Halloween we visited her friends who were ill."


"When I was 9 or 10 Grandma told us she had a "bone to pick with us." (I thought she meant the candy called 'chicken bones.') We had stuffed weeds down her septic pipe pretending we were sending messages to China. When the septic man came he had to pull them out."


". . .our lives have been built upon the backs of many faithful women either in our generational lineage or/and as part of our membership in the church. We do have faithful grandmothers who stood strong. We are blessed because of them."