I Am My Grandfather's Grandaughter. I Like A Way He Would Consume Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup My Grandmother Made.

They called him Robert but his given (first name) Eastern European name was Bozo. He emigrated to the USA before he was even out of his teenage years. He was a bachelor and enjoyed the life of a bachelor from the stories told to his children. He had a great sense of adventure. My aunt told me once that I have my grandfather's sense of adventure in me. I do, I am a free spirit at times. I go here, there and then over there as the wind of Holy Spirit leads me. He takes me on many great adventures, Holy Spirit and I that is. I am getting that wandering spirit rising up inside me again.
It bubbles forth then it subsides but it is bubbling up again in my life. I made a commitment to a shorter than my usual 1 year lease and it is about due to expire. I keep searching online for a place to either rent or buy and nothing presents itself to me. I even go on rides at times a ride of faith to see if anything pops out at me for a home. NOTHING presents itself to me. Sometimes I think stay in this region. Then there are the times that I am thinking maybe nothing is presenting itself to me because there is nothing to keep me in this region. I told you I am a free spirit. How do you think I arrived in the state I currently reside in right now. Spirit led on an adventure even though I knew not 1 person in the state I moved to at the time. Where God guides He provides.
I am following Holy Spirit direction in my life right now in this faith area. He shows me to start packing up my possessions. Little chores on His list here and there. I like to make practical furnishings a bit prettier. I got this idea years ago when I was making jewelry. I created jewelry for my ceiling fans. I bought jewelry making stones and spacers and created a pattern with them on the pull chain portion of the ceiling fans. I got on my 3 step ladder and took them down and placed each set in an individual bag and then stored them all together in a larger bag so I will remember what went where. Next project … years ago I bought decorative switch plate covers for light outlets. I took the time when I moved here to take the plain looking one's off and put mine on. I am clever when I do things like this, each one was stored with the screws that came with them. I also packed away my decorative light switch plates. Onto the next project... remove all pictures, large and small from my walls and spring clean them. My little tid bit on this is when I remove the nail or picture hook from the wall that hung that particular item I then tape it to the back of the picture. Almost done with this project. I cannot quite reach one picture I have hanging on the wall above my tub. I did not want to reach too far and take a chance of losing my balance so I have to put a small step stool in my tub to reach this one. My father's portrait is still hanging up and I do not want to take that down quite yet. I only got it  a few months ago.
Next project … you know the soffit space above the kitchen cupboards area? I decorated that empty space with a few groupings of items. I removed and cleaned my crystal cake plate/dome and I had another crystal cake plate along with a ceramic bean pot used to make baked beans. Also displayed up there was a Waterford crystal sea horse figurine. Do you know how I attained that piece of crystal. An older couple were joined in marriage and that was a gift given to the guests at their wedding reception. Pretty nice guest gift what do you think? My china is Mikasa and I have service for 16 and that is stored in my closet in the boxes. I do not have room to display it. I have serving pieces also that match this set of china. I have my silver plated silverware also. Every single time I use it is like therapy. Cleaning silver can be like therapy because there is something about seeing tarnished silverware become shiny when it is being cleaned. Who knows what my next packing assignment will be. Holy Spirit knows and I am sure He will reveal it to me when He wants me to work on that next project.
Back to my grandfather now. My grandmother made a big Sunday dinner and whomever was there that Sunday would eat a feast prepared for a king. Soup with home made noodles, entrée and dessert of some sort. I can guarantee you it was not store bought dessert either. So, grandma would take the time to make home made chicken noodle soup and she would get upset with grandpa do you know why? He would put ketchup in his soup. For some reason some of us cousins tend to do that too. I am one of them. Sometimes no but sometimes a bit of ketchup sort of gives a tang to the soup. I think grandma would say to him if he wanted tomato soup she would have made it. I fondly remember grandpa sitting at the table and he would not only eat the soup but he would eat some of the vegetables from the soup. I thought that was yucky as a child but guess what I found myself doing today? I made homemade chicken soup and as I was straining the vegetables to discard, something nudged inside of me to eat the cooked cabbage, I did and that reminded me of grandpa. Hum, I wonder if he was thinking of me. He spoke a broken English accent and he could never call me Kimberly, it would come out like this Chimberly.
When my one uncle did a biography of our family based a lot on Grandpa emigrating to the USA he included stories the children were told when growing up. As a young boy my grandfather worked on the farm tending to the livestock and other typical hard labor farm chores. He spent many days alone in the pastures as a shepherd guarding the livestock. On top of that he was an altar boy and student at a local Catholic church/school. I did not know this about my grandfather until I read what my uncle wrote, "he remained religious throughout his life."  This is interesting too, their farm house was made of natural limestone. The family lived in one part of the house and some of the livestock in an adjoining section of the same house. Kind of reminds me a bit of  Noah's ark. He told them that the farm land had very stony soil and the only thing it was good for was raising goats and sheep in the distant pastures. The soil was not good for growing crops so they sold wool and livestock and traded for items also. His port of entry was Ellis Island and it lists him having $25.00 in his possession when he arrived. This is definitely an adventurous man how in the heck could a 19 year old plan such a trip by himself?
This portion I am going to share like it is composed by my uncle:
"He told a story about finding a payroll bag full of money along the railroad tracks, while working one day. He returned the money to the company and was well respected for that honest deed. Was there a reward? He didn't say. I believe that good gesture must have served him well, because he had employment on that railroad for some years after. He was eventually promoted and trained to be a professional mechanic and machinist, and relied on those skills the rest of his working career; I thought perhaps that training was his reward. He said his philosophy was to learn well and volunteer for the more difficult assignments, believing that would make him more valuable to the company and less likely to be laid off."
This is interesting, when he arrived at Ellis Island it stated his final destination was St. Louis, Missouri to join an uncle. This was possibly his sponsor when he came to the USA, for that was a requirement for entry at the time. We were not raised in St. Louis, not my family. Apparently in 1912 he was still 19 years old and living alone in New York City. Somehow he managed to find his way to a railroad construction camp in Pennsylvania and not St. Louis and was hired as a laborer. These camps were created into nationality groups, very interesting what do you think? My grandfather was very handsome and a fashionable dresser and they knew that because of photos they have of that time period. He was in Ohio and he owned a Dodge 4 door touring sedan and felt the call of adventure and left this railroad job and drove to California. Think of taking a road trip like that in 1923. No highways like we have now, that would truly have been an adventure. The highway was only 10% paved and the rest was gravel or dirt, wow what a journey.
He settled in Oakland, CA and worked for a transit company as a mechanic. This is interesting, if they could not fix the bus on the road he would wrap chain around the bumpers and tow the bus back to the garage using his own Dodge sedan. Now, that would be unheard of nowadays do you agree. I love this portion also. Because he had that adventure in him he toured California also. He tells how he met and befriended the famous silent film star Rudolph Valentino, they were about the same age. They met is Los Angeles or San Francisco. My grandfather did not get married until the age of 33 years old.
Then my uncle goes on to share of the adventures they had as children. My grandmother was a very kind person. Did you know she knew how to read and write Croatian and would write letters to Croatia for immigrant friends who weren't able to write themselves. My grandfather would butcher a pig in the basement in the autumn with the help of an uncle and they would separate sections of the meat and would also make homemade sausage. He had a homemade smoke house in the backyard also.
Also in the autumn he would buy a truckload of concord grapes and squeeze the grapes in a press to make wine. They also made sauerkraut in the autumn. My mom, aunt and uncles job was as children to step on the cabbage to compress it in the crock. So this is how it was done, placed cabbage into a 20 gallon ceramic crock and added water, salt and vinegar to it. Very interesting. They lived in a mixed Eastern European neighborhood that was about 1/2 mile from the lake in which they enjoyed swimming, sunbathing and even beach parties in the evening. There was a local amusement park not too far away I remember that and my mom tells us how they had dances in the hall there also. My grandmother canned fruits and vegetables and I do remember they always had a garden in their back yard. Pear trees too. Looks like the year I was born grandpa retired and he did enjoy his years tending his garden. He loved to tinker and create things in his garage. I fondly remember him relaxing on the front porch also. I do not recall this but my uncle shares that he continued to make wine still. He died at the age of 80.
Can you see where I get the adventure in me? I now know why I say yes when Holy Spirit says lets go on an adventure. You know me by now, I say ok lets go and we do go. I share many of my adventures with you all the time. Just when I think I am supposed to stay in this region the adventure inside of me rises up. This has happened to me on and off more so in the last year or two than I can ever remember it being strong. Let's see where Holy Spirit wind will take me. I know this for sure, I am to keep on packing up my residence for the great sound of lets go and I say ok lets go, show me where to go. You know He likes to lead me bit by bit by bit until I reach the final destination and then I sit back and say I see His handiwork in this.
Just before me sitting down to compose this I baked in the oven a cut up golden potato, sweet potato, carrots and onion slices seasoned with dry ranch dressing, fresh ground white pepper and a bit of garlic salt mixed with some olive oil. Side dish for the next few days. I have marinating in the refrig chicken breasts that I will make in the air fryer. I am tired now so I will end this and rest.

One more thought as I close this. I presented a question to someone a few weeks ago and never received a response. I trust Holy Spirit when He guides me to write a letter and send it. I do not sit there and try to think of things to put in the letter. It is as if He is hand feeding me the words to write as I compose it. I send it off in faith as He shows me to. My question presented did not receive an answer. Actually there were 2 questions in this particular letter. I need to start to be a bit more assertive and ask an explanation right then and there and not ask the question weeks later. Why can I be bold in some things in my life but I tend to be less aggressive in other areas. I guess it is I feel like I do not want to speak the question I am asking inside me when it happens. I need to vocalize the inside thought in the moment so as to not miss an opportunity. I tend to think abstract things at times. This is what I was thinking, in the bible it says the Gentiles are to provoke the Jews to jealousy. I understood that verse when I thought I was a Gentile. I now know I am part Jewish so my question is how and am I suppose to provoke myself now? I was the born again, spirit filled Gentile and then found out I am also the Jewish at the same time. A friend of mine that is a minister guided me to the scripture in the bible. I know how to look this sort of thing up. Do you know how I do it? I ask google where is the scripture verse in the bible and I read the verse. My friend was spot on with the scripture verse location answer given to me. See, I do not just take a persons word for granted, I did the google search also. I received my wisdom answer from Holy Spirit while reading it in The Passion Translation. Verse 15 was my answer, "For if their temporary rejection released the reconciling power of grace into the world, what will happen when Israel is reinstated and reconciled to God? It will unleash resurrection power throughout the whole earth!" I am going to be in a position to unleash resurrection power of Jesus through Jesus throughout the whole earth. Praise God.