Here’s to my mother, and to my foremothers, and to all the mothers in the world (whatever that feels like to you), and to the children who made me a mother. I see and cherish you all. Happy Mother’s Day!
Today we celebrate @madrigalgrace ! “Madge”, short for “Magical”, to her friends - and she is. First photo more than a decade ago, second just recently at Rose’s wedding, but still in blue. Devoted cat mom, artist, musician, and loving partner to Lolo - she is looking forward to one of her best friends @elenaclaire marrying her to her other best friend @loloyoungwalser this spring! All this while conquering Mount Medical School. Truly Madge-ical! Happy birthday! 🎉
This amazing woman, being born the day after Mike’s 40th birthday, is also celebrating a milestone birthday, and doing it with her usual grace and panache. Rose is talented, empathetic, and caring - and also fierce, funny and in your face! A willing knitwear model, a great travel companion, a lover of animals, a fantastic welder - and also now married to a great guy. Spinning into the next adventure, I give you the inimitable Rose! ( 📷 bathroom selfie: Rose )
OMG, this guy is 70! Can you believe it? I can’t either. Some things change, like hair color and spryness. Other things don’t, like Mike’s favorite Disney attraction and a certain iconoclastic approach to life. Through it all, he has been a firm friend, a defender of the defenseless, a great father, and the love of my life. Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday to @madrigalgrace , the best thing about February! Three recent photos, for a wonder (I have MANY photos of Mad with a cat in her lap, but look at Benedick looking up at her adoringly!); Chicago road trip to see the Glaucomfleckens; and some well-deserved time off with Lolo. Then back a few years at House on the Rock, and a few years before that, and a magical hike on the bluff. Lastly, baby Maddie & Blankie are with me in my new office! Looking forward to the next 27 years!
@rose______v modeling my first colorwork sweater, which is now hers! I knit this Lopi sweater in the early 1980s, when I was away at college. My mother bought me the yarn, and also gave me Elizabeth Zimmermann’s “Knitting Without Tears” - from which I taught myself continental knitting so that I could carry one color in each hand. (And then was a Continental convert!) The sweater is in excellent shape, and actually still fits me, but I knit it such that it stops at my waist because, well, it was the 1980s and that’s how we wore our tops with our high waisted pants. Also, I was overly optimistic that it was long enough when I was knitting. Rose likes her sweaters cropped anyway, and I’m so glad that she likes it and will wear it! The second photo is me and a family puppy at Christmas time, right after I finished it. The third photo is Rose and her cat trying to reenact the second photo!
This is a @rose______v and @campolsonymca appreciation post! YMCA Camp Olson and I both celebrated milestone birthdays this past year (camp turned 70, and I just turned 60). It was the perfect time to commemorate the lasting influence of Camp Olson (and Up North) on me and my family. I still had stationery from when I was a camper in the 1970s 😯 and I asked Rose (pictured at camp!) if she would be willing to do a tattoo based on the camp logo of the time. While we were Up North this summer, she obliged beautifully with this amazing stick-and-poke tattoo. I am thrilled. Camp was a big part of my life growing up. It is where I learned to canoe, to camp, to shoot a rifle and to ride horses. It became a big part of my daughters’ lives as well, and even got my anti-summer-camp husband to love family camp! (And at least tolerate the talent shows - pictured, the von Muchow Family Singers performing “C, a camp, a family camp” circa 2007.) Now I can wear my ❤️for Camp Olson on my sleeve. Thank you, Rose, and thank you, Camp Olson!
She walks in beauty and in grace - and always makes a grand entrance. Unforgettable, inimitable, fierce and kind. Wish @rose______v a very happy birthday!
On August 1, 1994, I started my career at @gundersenhealthsystem , having just completed my OB/GYN residency at the University of Michigan. I’m not sure how they let me practice, looking like a kid! (Admittedly I was 30 years old….) I soon gravitated towards infertility treatment and minimally invasive surgery, both interests of mine since medical school at the other U of M, University of Minnesota. I feel extremely privileged to have helped so many people from the Coulee Region and beyond to achieve their dream of having a family. And I have cried with some of my patients in their times of loss. My colleagues in OB/GYN are some of the most compassionate and knowledgeable clinicians I know, and I count many as friends. (Shout-out to Ken & Janine Merkitch, who befriended Mike & I even before we moved to La Crosse!) Over the years, I have also been a birthing mom and a patient at GHS - so I have seen GHS medicine from both sides. It’s been an amazing 3 decades!
Citrus. 🌈 He made himself part of our family almost 19 years ago. He literally meowed on the back step on a rainy October evening in 2005, strolled into the house when I opened the door, and immediately strolled into our hearts as well.
He and Mike bonded that first night when he became seriously ill from a medication reaction. @rose______v gave him his name. @madrigalgrace was his quiet corner, voted most likely to be a long-term lap. He ‘helped’ me knit but did not care for being a knit/crochetwear model. In recent years, he also bonded with @loloyoungwalser and @chevy__high . The next to last picture is of his last snuggles this morning. The last picture is how I will remember him, though. I think he is napping on Bob’s lap now. Our thanks to Hillside Animal Hospital who cared for him all his life. #CitrusTheCat #CitrusTheCatForTheLastTime #RainbowBridge #CatsOfInstagram
This is a hard Father’s Day post to write. On Wednesday June 12, my beloved father-in-law Bob got “the tap on the shoulder” that he said he was waiting for. He was 99 years old, and full of beans to the end. He always had a story, a song, or a joke on his lips, and made friends everywhere he went. I am so grateful that he moved here some years ago, so that I could spend more time with him. I learned from Bob that family (birth or chosen) comes first, that faith is a rock foundation, and to always tell someone you love them. “Love you!” were our last words to each other, as they usually were. There was a rousing duet of “Side by Side” that happened around then too - one of his favorite songs. Being privileged to be a part of his life, also makes me grateful for the fathers still in my life, my own father Dennis, and my husband Mike, an amazing father to his daughters. So long, Bob. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
