2017 Christmas Letter

December 5, 2017

As the year winds down, time comes to consider what 2017 has been.  It is also a time to reach out to friends and family, those we only hear from once a year, and those that come in and out more frequently.
Where to begin?  The winters in Northern Indiana are certainly not the worse, weather-wise, to be found, but offer challenges none the less.  Last winter was not unusual.  But we have learned to deal with the snow, and the cold.  Having somewhere warm to hide is always good, and a furnace with plugged heat exchanger meant that for a few days things were cooler.  It only reminds how many things we take for granted.








 

An emergency run to Chicago to help Nick and his stranded Jeep reminded us that our vehicles, all of them, were getting old.  Or do you say mature.  Our Malibu, the newest, had 120K, while Nick’s Jeep had more than 180K.  Had hoped to postpone an auto purchase until Nick graduated, the university has its own financial thirst, but “the best laid plan of mice and men” fell to the wayside.  In any case a Jeep Renegade came to our garage.  Jackie named “her” Pearl.  No argument from the “peanut gallery”.  Winter…four wheel drive…seems like a match to me.

But a new vehicle was not the biggest change of the year.  For after all it was the first year I didn’t put in a crop.  Retired is too large a word for the change.  I am in transition from farming to something else…it won’t be leisure to be sure.  But though I’m still busy the biggest change is that the stress level.  So it’s raining…big deal.  That kinda’ thing.  But it also offers me more flexibility.  So we pushed back our spring escape into April.

A road trip to the Florida Panhandle, a first.  If you live in Indiana, the Panhandle is the closest Florida.  And in early April the weather can be delightful.  The sugar white beaches and emerald water at Fort Walton Beach must be  more than seen…a sensory experience that is beyond words.

 

Our week was filled with sunny days and warm breezes and hectic times.  We managed to see a few lighthouses…no surprise there…an aircraft museum…while reserving time for shopping, walking on the beach, and experiencing things beyond our everyday normal.

In May Nick finished his fifth co-op rotation at Zimmer-BioMet.  It has been a learning experience to say the least.  Dealing with real life situations helped him understand better the world he would enter.  But the semester breaks from classes made dialing in those skills more difficult.  The summer began his race to graduation.  Three sessions back to back, the longest straight through at PU will strain him but the end of the tunnel is in sight.  And there is an end of that chapter or a beginning of the next.  In October he accepted a position at Altec in Elizabethtown, Kentucky.  So next summer he will be leaving his home state and starting his own career, his parents proud but sad that he goes so far afield.

With repairing storm damage and mowing yards, plural, and all the ordinary things of summer, kept us hopping.  Yet between it all we made our way north to the great U.P. of Michigan.  Our last trip across the great bridge left us yearning.  And so we went to see a part of the Upper Peninsula we had not seen before, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  Of course our trip included lighthouses.  We saw six new ones.  At least they were new to us.  The weather was fantastic for hiking, shopping, the boat ride among the rocks, and lighthouse climbing.

 

In October I was able to share with Jackie a place I’d experienced three years before when I attended a writing conference in central Ohio.  A five day escape to Yellow Springs and the surrounding area a getaway we will remember.  Walking was a big part of that trip.  Hiking in Clifton Gorge, Glenn Helen, and John Byran State Park, walking miles each day of up and down over rocks and streams filled our days.

But life is more than vacations, even great vacations.  Jackie is on her third year as a pharmacist at Martin’s Supermarket in Plymouth.  Like all jobs there are good days and…well…others.  She enjoys the people she works with and the patients that have come to her for years.  But her life is more than the hours in the pharmacy and she enjoys her flowerbeds, shopping and long walks. 
Nick nears the end of the semester and will look forward to a couple of weeks of slower pace.  January begins the final months of his Purdue career and so we look forward to graduation in May.  He works hard at his studies and the long hours have taken their toll.  But a few days should recharge the batteries and fuel the race toward the end.
Though I have turned the “farm” reins over to my nephew Justin, I remain as I said before busy.  Among the things that keep me occupied is my writing.  Even now I anxiously await the proof of Misty Creek the first of my novels to be published.  I expect it to be available after the first of the year.  
So you see that the Vander Veldens of Marshall County remain busy in many ways.  But we are not so busy to forget all the people that make up our lives.  Those nearby and others scattered around the globe.  We take this time to remember YOU! And to say to each of you, may Christmas be the special time it can be.  That you feel GOD’s love each day.  That you recognize the blessing that come.  That love always exists in your heart and your home.
We wish you a very Merry Christmas, and that GOD gives you good things for 2018.
 

The Vander Veldens…Jackie, John, and Nicholas too!!!