Tag Archives: ross moslander

Happy Father’s Day, A. Ross Moslander

June 15, 20142 Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Thinkdads, dave powers, dave rhoades, father's day, rocky rhoades, ross moslander, ryan faaland, tristan kelleyJeanie

I am not suppose to tell you

That his name is Alva Ross, pronounced “Al’ vee Ross” and now that I have let the cat out of the bag, I must ask for your total cooperation in never mentioning it to him.

I was almost 2. He was 22. Des Moines, 1961

My dad was named for a dad he never knew, a very young man tragically killed in a car accident when my dad’s mom was 6 months pregnant (and 2 little girls at home). He was born into adversity.

We struggled to know each other, understand each other during the years of his workaholism, perfectionism…then mine {we end up being what we judge, people} and I regret the time lost, but I truly treasure him as a close friend and mentor now. I admire him for being 75 and still crying out to God to transform him, lead him, guide him. I plan to be like him in that, too. And mostly, I am loving the restoration of the years the enemy tries to steal as I am learning to be his daughter, his little girl, and he is learning to be my daddy.

On relationships: It s good to pursue the great gifts God intended because He is able to rewrite the whole story, even if it gets interrupted or broken by enemy tactics {or our own stupidity}. Dads and daughters (dads and sons, too) have much to share on the journey toward being whole and holy. Writing it off would have been such a loss.

I arrived for a visit so late my dad didn’t see me until breakfast, at which time his first words were, “Jeanie – why is your hair so dark?” Haha. Dads. Gotta love ’em.

I love my dad!

“God rewrote the text of my life
when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.” Psalm 18.24 The Message

Then there is Dave {the father of my children}

Happy Father’s Day to the man I entrusted with our 5 incredible children. You were born to be a daddy and even though you’ll be the first to say you didn’t do everything right, I can attest that you tried. And I can vouch for the times you re-adjusted your sails and changed your mind and your tactics and that you are still looking for ways to bless and father our bunch.

And I hope the kids all know those morning blessings are not just idle words, they are deeply meant, spoken with the authority of a God-appointed and anointed dad and he means business. Please don’t ever take that lightly. You should say everyday, “I receive my dad’s blessing spoken over my life today.” You cannot go wrong receiving what he still has to offer, even though you are grown. And if you need to know how much he really loves you, let’s talk!

And Happy Father’s Day to Tristan, DP, Rocky and Ryan!

You are the daddies God chose to raise our grand-est loves, the 9 for whom our hearts pound with furious love and devotion.

But they are yours, these nine grandbebes, your heritage, the fruit of your love and marriage. And we are in 100% agreement that God has given these children good, really good daddies.

You are all men to be admired and I wish all children could be fathered through this life as well. Thank-you for being the courageous men you are and for carefully and intentionally raising, disciplining, teaching, playing, understanding and covering with love these granchildren we know and the ones to come.

My grandchildren are blessed, so blessed.

Happy Father’s Day to all the men who have loved a child enough to keep trying even when it wasn’t easy.

There aren’t enough good examples out there. Hope you had one or got to be one. And remember~

It’s never too late to be the family God meant for you to be.

So keep on fathering.

Thought-Collage Thursday

March 1, 20141 Christ is All, 2 Mi Familia, 5 Songs I am Singing, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Thinkfbi, hymns, moslander, my jesus i love thee, ross moslander, willie nelsonJeanie

Ok….so more technical problems…today is actually Saturday (March 1), obvi..but I wrote this Thursday. *sigh // ANYHOO-such profound thinking to follow…ha!

Throwback Thursday

I noticed recently that #throwbackthursday (as in hashtag-throw-back-Thursday) is picking up steam. It’s the chance for everybody to post those hilarious old photographs of themselves way back in the day. I can TOTALLY do Throwback-Thursday today because I have been scanning old family photos and oh, man – did I find some doozies (of OTHER people, of course).

The Moslanders, my family-of-origin, #tbt

Ross the Boss, Mrs. Moss and all the little Landers, 1975 @ Robert, Louisiana (I’m the oldest. I was 16 here)

The Sunday after Thanksgiving in 1988 in Hobart, IN (Southlake Church of God). Two words: shoulder pads!

Thirteen years later, we were all married, I had 5 kids (ages 2-9) and Tami had not grown an inch in height since she was 10 years old.

Meanwhile, I’ll call this Thought-Collage Thursday because that is what this blog is, anyway a collage! :)

I think I’m being followed.

Seriously, everywhere I go, when the Wi-Fi options come up on my phone, there is always an FBI Mobile or FBI Van #7 or some sort of FBI vehicle around. I am pretty sure I am being watched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Why? I do not know. If anyone questions you about me, send me a coded text to warn me, will you? Thanks!

Willie.

I have this {I own it!}, the Willie Nelson – His Hits and Finest Performances album distributed in a Reader’s Digest collection in 1987. A former co-worker gave it to me just because I have a turntable (or “record player,” as they were known while I growing up!).

And while it is packed with all the great songs you already know by Willie Nelson, there are so many great treasures I had never heard anywhere until I got this. 53 great songs on 5 LPs. Seriously, his rendition of “Let it Be Me” is the best I have ever heard of that gorgeous tune – and it has been sung by every. body!

Any song Willie Nelson sings, with that unmistakable gravel and sophistication actually just sounds more authentic and true than anyone else who ever attempts that song again. A little raw and wholly soulful, he owns any melody that comes out of that talented heart.

Other songs he covers that I would totally encourage you to try out on iTunes or Spotify: “Without a Song,” “Stardust,” and “September Song.”

February is (almost) over.

I am surprised every single year at how quickly it is gone. Every year. You’d think I’d know by now that it is going to happen.

Speaking of things I should know

When I take a drink and sort of miss my mouth…and dribble down the side – I am always appalled. Occasionally when I am eating, I bite my tongue. How is it 50-some years down the road I haven’t totally mastered these things, having practiced SO much?!

My Jesus, I Love Thee, verse 3

I love old hymns and find restoration, when I am frazzled and shredded by life, in just singing them. Modern worship is wonderful, but I am drawn to lyrics deep and timeless, to melodies that have been sung by voices before me and which will still be drifting heavenward long after I am gone.

William R. Featherston wrote the well-known, “My Jesus, I Love Thee,” as a poem when he was somewhere between 12 and 16 years of age. How does such a young man know how to communicate such depth of love?

I was playing the keyboard and singing this song the other morning and the 3rd verse caught in my throat for a minute as I wondered: Will I love Jesus as much in my death as I do in my life? Because I love life, too, really. And what if I am not happy with the whole death process? Will it make me love Him less?

But as suddenly as I questioned myself, I realized, we’re already dying anyway. Part of our living is dying. And if I am loving Jesus wholly each day in my living, then when I step through the door of death from this realm, and actually see Him face to face, Oh, yes. I will be loving Him more fully, more truly than I have ever been able.

I’ll love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,

And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;

And say when the death dew lies cold on my brow,

If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

Adoniram Gordon added a melody to the words in 1876. And William R. Featherston died at age 27 never knowing his words would become a hymn of the deepest devotion, sung around the world and included in almost every hymnal for years to come.

Live Stream Ransomed Heart Event!

1) Get the book and read it! 2) Sign up for Live Stream HERE 3) Saturday March 15, 9am-3 pm…4) While you wait, enjoy archived events from Ransomed Heart Ministries.

That is all for today. Enough.

Who Says You Can’t Go Home Again?

July 2, 20112 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 5 Songs I am Singing, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, Stuff I Actually Thinkdan moslander, family, joe moslander, moslander family reunion, Norma Moslander, ross moslander, tami moslander ayento, tim moslanderJeanie

The basement apartment in Des Moines, Iowa (1959); the Washington Street Apartment (Joe and Tim show up 1961 and 1963); 1310 York Street, just two houses down from Grandma and Grandpa Baker; then the beloved 1723 York Street across the alley from Nancy Lydon (Tami and Danny are born, 1965 and 1966); the Jersey Ridge Road house in Davenport (1971); then the brand new house we built at 5506 North Howell (1972); the corner parsonage in Cedar Rapids (1973); a parsonage right next to the church in Robert, Louisiana (1975); Finally – 4995 ROOSEVELT PLACE IN GARY (1977) – the last of the houses where we all, Ross-the-Boss, Mrs. Moss and all the Little Landers, dwelled together before leaving the sweet (Glen Park C of G parsonage) nest my parents had provided the 7 of us…

“I’ve been around the world and as a matter of fact”*

Dave and I have lived in a few places (Minot, ND; Kokomo, IN; Sioux City, IA; Norfolk, NE; Denver-forever), different houses. And my parents have been all over since I left their home, too (Hobart, IN; Willard, OH; Richmond, IN; St Joe-MO; Butte, MT; Springfield, MO; back to St Joe-MO). I visited my parents in their current digs in Saint Joe early in the year. The house they are living in? Not home. No. But my parents? Wherever they land, is kinda home to parts of me. I always need to know where they are and what their house looks like so I will know the space my heart is rambling about in. Mom and dad are the fixed stars in my sky. LOVE them!

God, it seems you’ve been our home forever; long before the mountains were born,

Long before you brought earth itself to birth,

from “once upon a time” to “kingdom come”—you are God. Psalms

“Goin’ back to Indiana” ~ The Jackson 5

While we were at the Moslander Family Reunion last week in Chicago and Northwest Indiana, us old-timers took a late-afternoon, impromptu drive through the old neighborhoods; saw places we had worked and schools we’d attended and the house we called home. It is all the same, but so different. The huge mountain spruce in the fron yard at 4995 Roosevelt Place, trimmed to above roofline and barely clinging to life now, was once a full, thick, green privacy wall between the house and street. There are pictures there of my brothers in their graduation attire and even my babies running on the lawn from way back when. The juniper has all been removed in favor of more manageable potted flora. The dings Tim and my other brothers put into the side of the house playing baseball in the 70’s are still there, a testament to long summer days spent with a bat and ball in hand.

And we actually were just a few blocks from the Jackson family home in Gary, Indiana, btw!

The streets of Gary used to be positively frightening during business hours, the traffic heavier than the city had prepared for. The business district I used to drive is nearly a ghost town. Boarded up windows and abandoned buildings everywhere, yet minutes away, there are still quiet neighborhoods with established lawns and trees. You can buy a beautiful brick bungalow for $15,000 (the for sale signs made of cardboard and black marker) there on an empty street. The same would cost 1.3 million in Denver.

“Who says you can’t go home again?” ~ Bon Jovi*

Surprisingly, standing there in the old yard, looking at the house in conjunction with neighboring homes and recalling old times and people from the past, it didn’t seem smaller. Often you’ll return to a childhood haunt and you’ll just feel like, “Wow-this seems so small now.” But that wasn’t the case at the Roosevelt Street house, the last home we all shared under one roof, the place my kids remember going to see Grandma and Grandpa Moslander. It really didn’t seem smaller.

It just seemed like: wow-how did this house ever hold all the life and loud love and laughter and memory and family and patio swimming in a 12-foot pool and Uno, all the huge bags full of 19-cent White Castle burgers after church ball games, or Bronco’s Pizza with 5 pounds of melted, dripping, greasy cheese, and church friends and Lake-effect wind and graduations and marriages and teen-agers and letter writing and boyfriends and girlfriends and Lake-effect snow and family altar and family feuds and kids and toys and books and WGN afternoon movies with our first color TV, first jobs and rusted out cars and Tip Top and Bible study and early morning prayer and first grandchildren and the first few spouses and all the rest of living that the Moslander family brought to it?

How on earth did this modest house on this unicorporated county street handle all that?

And it yet stands as a testament.

The Moslanders were here June 1977 – Spring 1990. And again in June 27, 2011. We were here.

* LOVE Bon Jovi’s song, “Who Says You Can’t Go Home Again?” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abzbVFuxigg

Room 222

April 11, 20112 Mi Familia, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think1960s television, lloyd haynes, Roon 222, ross moslanderJeanie

Before I’d even turned 5, my dad had gotten rid of our family TV in favor of more prayer and Bible study time. He was devoted in his faith and we are none the poorer for it, after all, but it did take away Popeye and The Jimmy Dean Show for me. I loved Jimmy Dean when he’d sit on that porch swing with his guitar and sing…he died last year, I think, and I felt sad. And it ripped The Rifleman and The Fugitive from my mom’s favorite-viewing list.

Now and again, though, we’d be visiting my grandparents in Ames, Iowa or my neightbor Nancy Lydon across the alley in Des Moines and get to catch up on the television shows of the times: Mayberry RFD, Julia, Love-American Style, That Girl, Batman (pow–zowie–bop!), or Hawaii 5-O. I loved it!

One show I always really liked from those years was Room 222. When my dad decided to re-immerse himself and our family into television 5 or 6 years later in time for the World Series that fall, Room 222 was still playing and I got to watch it now and again on Friday nights.

I always just really liked Mr. Dixon (played by Lloyd Haynes). He was the handsome (quite dashing man with a beautiful smile), idealistic teacher who gently taught the high schoolers to be tolerant and have understanding on the social issues of the day, even if they were watered down for prime time TV. I thought Mr. Dixon looked like a black version of my dad (whom I also thought to be very handsome). Even in retrospect, I think I was on to something because I was looking at photos of my nephew Ross Moslander (my dad’s namesake) and still saw a family resemblance.

Whaddya think?

I am telling you: we could be related!

Ahhh…..memories!

Scenes from a Good Summer or “Reunited and it Feels So Good”

September 20, 20092 Mi Familia, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 5 Songs I am Singing, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, Stuff I Actually Thinkfamily, family reunion, moslander, ross moslanderJeanie

Ode to the Family of my Summer, for I shan’t and mustn’t acknowledge an autumn which does not truly begin until the September (or Autumnal) Equinox, on the 22nd day of this month ~ yes, just a couple of days from now, but still. Despite the fact that my sweet daughters, Stephanie first and then Stormie, have brought me a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks each (how sweet are they??), I won’t purchase my first until it is truly autumn. I must sing of my love for the summer until the last verse fades softly…

Ross and Norma with grandkids and great-grandkids

Dad and the brothers visit

Press close, bare-bosomed Night! Press close, magnetic,
nourishing Night!
Night of south winds! Night of the large, few stars!
Still, nodding Night! Mad, naked, Summer Night!
~Walt Whitman

Joe’s wife, Robin with my dad; hanging on “Moslander Mountain”

Ross the Boss, Mrs. Moss, and all the Little Landers (Jeanie, Joey, Timmy, Tami and Danny)…except Tim didn’t come this year, but the rest did – with their spouses and children.

It was a divine time, full of remembering and creating new memories. Cousins kidded and cajoled. Siblings sought to reconnect. Dad told us where we came from and gave us insight for our futures. Mom cheered us all on and hugged the stuffing out of us. Love was in the air and in our hearts.

Gerron, Jordan and Austin being dudes

Tredessa, Grandma Moslandr and Uncle Joe

Sister-in-Law, Dawn.

Dawn and Dan share family secrets

Just the other morning my sister-in-law, Dawn, whom I have known and loved since she was 14, emailed me these beautiful sentiments about The Moslander Family Reunion:

“I took you all in during our time spent together. Kinda like a wonderful meal! I feel full, but want to take in some more. Good memories, but missing everyone.”

Cousins Rocky and Corbin having fun at the Phipps farm

Riding horses at the farm.

Brothers telling fish stories, no doubt

So blessed.

Me with little sister Tami and her husband, Gerron; Jordan and Rocky-best cousins forever!

I love my family. I am so blessed by wonderful parents and amazing siblings who have married so well. They have gifted me with extraordinary nephews and nieces. And everytime we are together, all is right with the world.

Aunt Tami with her nieces; Aunt Tami pulling me into silliness.

“In every conceiveable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.” Alex Haley

Mom and Dad.

Whom I have also sometimes (with great affection) called “Mammogram” and “Pap Smear.” Not sure how they feel about that! This is the result of these two people.

All my love to family, both near and far, both born to us and joined by love.

Related posts:

Scenes from a Good Summer ~ Heaven Fest
Scenes from a Good Summer ~ The Grandbebes
Scenes from a Good Summer ~ The Garden
Scenes from a Good Summer ~ Puerto Rico