It's kind of like The Claw.

Remember The Claw?  The late 80's/early 90's hairstyle that resulted in some really, really big hair? Well, in the way that The Claw was just bad hair, the music my family listened to was just....bad. 

I mean, there were moments when the Neil Diamond sounded good.  But all the Crystal Gale and Kenny Roger and Oak Ridge Boys?  Not so much.  But I have a confession.  Whenever my dad would blast his record player with the Roger Whittaker Christmas album, I looked forward to a song about a little dragon named Darcy.

You see, Darcy was a nice dragon and wanted to buy presents for his friends at Christmas. The problem was that he would start a fire in every store he went in, which eventually made the townspeople resent him. So Darcy went away and cried.  Then, miracle of miracles, all the snow put out the fire in him.  Then he is happy and runs to tell his friends about his new fire-breathing-free status.  Yay, Darcy is free!

Tonight, when the Oak Ridge Boy's Christmas in Dixie song came on the Kosy (we had that album too, growing up. Special.) I remembered the story of Darcy the Dragon.  And then I found this YouTube link.

So here it is, my friends.  The soundtrack to my childhood Christmas, Darcy the Dragon.  When I played it for my family tonight, they all thought it was a little weird.  But it made me smile.  (Don't you love the snow on Roger's head in this picture?  He was no rock star, that Roger Whittaker.  He looks more like a math teacher.  Hopefully he's living somewhere sunny on all the royalties.)



Did your parents do things to warp you musically?  Any skeletons in your musical closet you would like to share?

Wading in.

I went to church at my old ward today. I walked into the chapel 15 minutes early and took up our old seat (3 rows from the front, left side.) One of the girls I had in activity days was practicing a song she would sing during the meeting. As the room filled up, I chatted with this person and that, watched others come in with their kids and sit down in their customary pews. It felt like I was home.

I've been in my new ward for 3 days shy of 7 months. By now, I should feel a part of things, but I don't. In fact, most of church today was spent convincing myself not to simply go back to my old ward. Throw in the towel. Heck, it's the same stake; why can't I?

Then in Sunday school, we were talking about a scripture in Ezekiel about the waters of the temple filling up the valley of the Judean Wilderness. A man is measuring the depth of the water.  When he first goes in, the water was up to his ankles. A little later it goes up to his knees, then his loins (wow, never thought I'd have the opportunity to write "loins" on my blog. Giggle. Ahem, sorry.) Then it was deep as a river.

The class started talking about the water and how it symbolized life. One class member talked about how the man kept going into the water to test it. He didn't wait for the water, or the knowledge that the water represented, to come to him, but he "went forth."

I learned so much during that lesson.  I guess I have to be the one to "go forth."  If you would have told me 7 years ago I would be as fond of my old ward as I was when I moved, I would have thought you were crazy.  There is a special bond that comes from digging through the trenches of life for many years with the same group of people.  I came to love them because I came to know them; I haven't done that yet in my new ward.  They don't know me.  I hide in the corner as much as I can, holding on to the person I was in my old ward instead of who I am now.  They don't care who I was anymore than I care who they used to be. 

So, I'm going to go forth. I'm going to try to stop looking down at the water around my ankles.  I have to wade in a little further.  I can't really jump all the way in, it isn't in my nature.  But I can take some furtive steps and stop waiting for all the water and experiences and knowledge to come to me.

I'm going in, friends.  Wish me luck.

Gratitude: The wrap up.

I feel like I've had to be really perky lately. Yay! Life is fun! I love everything!

Eh. That isn't really me. I mean, I get excited about things, really, really excited sometimes, but I'm not a ultra-positive, I-need-my-daily-affirmation type person. But I do try to be thankful for what I have. That is the real Becky.  (Not that I've been pretending to be someone I'm not. I just resent the enthusiasm a little tonight.)

But, I need to wrap up this month-long quest I've been on.  Did you know I have never, ever in the whole time I've been blogging had 18 blog entries in a month?  Wow. The most I've ever came up with was 15, and that was a few years ago. However, perkiness aside, I have had a great month blogging. It was fun to come up with so many different kinds of posts. I hope I can do as well next year.

My favorite thing about this Thanksgiving is all the new things I've tried.  Before this past month I had never:

• Whipped real cream
• Grated a fresh lemon
• Had a need for cornstarch
• Baked a pie crust
• Separated an egg
• Made a pie (I actually made two, Thanksgiving's lemon-meringue, and a pumpkin I made on Sunday.  Mmm, pie.)

Furthermore, things I want to remember from Thanksgiving:

• Having Thanksgiving at my sister's house.  It was fun to shake things up a bit.  It was the first time my family has eaten Thanksgiving together since 2006. And, miricle of miricles, everyone was there.  We had 29 people in all.
• Sitting at the table for a few precious moments with my five oldest nieces and their spouses (the ones who have them. BreAnn, don't even think about marriage yet, okay?). All those beautiful girls I have watched grow into such amazing women were sitting all around me.  I felt so lucky to be their aunt.  And so grateful they found great husbands to take care of them.
• Talking about washing dishes and filling up sinks with Amy, Kayci, Lyndsay, Shane, and Clint.  I was watching Amy wash dish after dish in a sink that wasn't filled with water (which is my natural tendency.) It sparked a fun conversation.  We all wash dishes the same; well, us girls do.  The boys fill up the sink. Strange thing to run in a family, right?
• All the drama leading up to the blizzard that wasn't.  But it did get me home early on Tuesday, which was nice. We spent the night watcing the snow blow, eating cookies and yummy rotisserie chicken and potatoes.
• My mom starting Thanksgiving off with a lovely thought about how, as a young girl, she told herself that she would have a big family.  It made me cry when she reminded us of our sweet grandparents who she said would have been proud of the people we turned out to be.  It felt like they were right there, in the room with us.
• Visiting Shane's mom afterward.  It was nice to sit for a moment in the quiet and eat some pie.  You know, since I forgot the one that I made at my sister's house. Argh.

So thanks for sticking with me for this month of gratitudes.  I am grateful I have this blog to record all these rambling thoughts of mine. And I'm grateful for you reading my words.  It is an amazing thing to put my thoughts out here and know that you will read them and think about them and maybe use them to spark something amazing in your life.

I am grateful.

What will you remember from this Thanksgiving?

Gratitude 17: Thanksgiving Eve

I love Thanksgiving Eve!  Tonight I:

• Made my first ever lemon meringue pie.  I had never a - separated an egg; b - whipped egg whites; c - shredded a lemon peel.  Wow, I'm pretty lame to have never done those things probably.  I even had to borrow a grater for the lemon peel.
• Made two pie crusts.  The first one I didn't like; it tasted weird and I thought it was because I used salted butter. I went back to the store and got the kind of butter I used a few weeks ago for my first pie crust. The second turned out a lot better in almost every way.  I'm learning pie crusts are tricky!
• Made two batches of Thanksgiving crescent rolls. It wouldn't be Thanksgiving Eve if I didn't smell scalded milk sweetened with butter and sugar.
• Forgot to add salt to one of the batches of rolls. Oops.  Not sure what effect this will have on the rolls, sigh.
• Listened to the awesome Christmas tunes Amy gave me a few years ago.  Nothing like Rob Thomas singing Merry New York Christmas to get me in the Thanksgiving mood.
• Spent an hour cleaning the kitchen. 
• Cooked my sweet potatoes for tomorrow. My mouth is watering thinking about those brown-sugared puppies tomorrow.  Mmm.  I never ever imagined I would like sweet potatoes as much as I do. 

What traditions do you have for Thanksgiving Eve?  Did you try anything new this year?

Gratitude 16: 4th grader.

The little boy grew. He grew and he grew and he grew. He grew until he was nine years old. And he never wanted to come in for dinner, he never wanted to take a bath, and when grandma visited he always said bad words. Sometimes his mother wanted to sell him to the zoo!


But at night time, when he was asleep, the mother quietly opened the door to his room, crawled across the floor and looked up over the side of the bed. If he was really asleep, she picked up that nine-year-old boy and rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while she rocked him she sang:


I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be.

I think Thomas got this book for his first Christmas. Or maybe I bought it before he was born. I don't remember exactly.  But I do remember there was at time when I could not read it to him without crying. I also remember a time when I could read it to him without crying, which meant that I was reading it to him all the time, which is pretty cool, I think.

Wow, I have a nine-year old.  And he hates to brush his teeth, and he hates to get in the shower, and then he hates to get out of the shower.  He likes to talk about Pokemon. A lot.  He likes to play Pokemon on his DS. A lot.  He eats me out of house and home. If it were not for Frito-Lay and their awesome 50 packs of chips, he would die of starvation.  But he's equally happy eating an apple. Or a pear.  Where did this kid come from?

He also likes to cuddle.  And take care of his mom when she is sick.  He loves animals; one of his best friends in the whole world is his cat, Bucket.  They are inseparable.  He loves babies.  Whenever I make a baby blanket for someone, he wants to make the baby a burp rag from my extra fabric.  If there is a baby in the room, he wants to be holding it or playing with it.  And babies and dogs and cats like him.  It makes me smile.  Not the least because my dear Grandma was the same way.

I love that he can read some of the books that populated my childhood (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, Dawn Treader.)  I love that he has books from his generation (Percy Jackson series, Magic Thief series.)  I love that he loves books; that he can get a new book and cozy up to it the way that I would have at his age.  It makes all those hours of reading "Hello, little mouse, what are you doing?" over and over worth it.

I'm still new (it feels) at being a mom to a boy.  I don't get the tickle game.  I don't know why brushing his teeth has to be an opportunity for entertaining his brother.  But this is what it is like to have my Thomas.  We are so much alike that we drive each other crazy.  But I can still look in his now-growing-up face and see that sweet baby.  The one who I gave my heart to 9 years ago; the one who I surrendered my body to 10 years ago.  And even though he is so often yin when I am yang, we understand each other. 

So yes, I'll love him forever.  And yes, my baby he'll always be.  But the song is this: (sung to the tune of "Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Brother John?")

I love Thomas, I love Thomas, yes I do! Yes I do! I love him in the morning, I love him in the morning, and at night. And at night. 

Thomas is a cute boy, Thomas is a cute boy, yes he is! Yes he is! Even when he's whiny, even when he's stinky, and when he won't eat, and when he won't sleep.

I am grateful.And while he still hates to sleep, and is often stinky, I no longer have to worry about him not eating.  His 9-year old body is taking care of that one.

Gratitude 15: Uncles.

Today was my dad's Thanksgiving dinner at his rest home.  I've been to this event two years in a row now, and I really appreciate it.  The food is really good, and it's fun to sit with my family and enjoy dinner without any of us having to make any of it. Plus, it's usually just a few of us so we get to really interact with each other.

About 20 minutes before I had to leave today, my uncle came.  My dad is one of three boys, and his brothers have been very supportive of him throughout his ordeal with Alzheimer's.  They go to church with him every Sunday; I love the thought of my dad having someone to sit next to during sacrament meeting and priesthood, since I can't be there with him.

Last year, my Uncle Roe came to the Thanksgiving dinner, and this year it was Uncle Monte.  They both have so many characteristics that they share with the way my dad used to be. Like unnecessary tangents in the middle of stories. Or talking about people that they know but I don't as if we are all BFF's (at one point after Monte showed up, he started talking about someone in this manner. Amy looked at me and said, "Do you know who he's...." I just shook my head before she finished the sentence.   I remember Dad doing this all the time. It is endearing.)  Being around my uncles feels like I'm trying to transpose my dad onto whichever brother I'm talking to in an effort to make my dad come back to me.  It doesn't really work.

Monte almost coaxed a smile out of Dad.  It was the closest I've seen him come to smiling in months.  It was awesome to see that there is a little bit of him still in there that can escape every now and then. 

So today (because I started writing this post last night and then my battery died and I didn't have the energy to finish it before bed) I am grateful for my dad's brothers.  I am glad I get to see them a few times a year. I am grateful that they hold some of the memories that my dad was never willing to talk about.  I hope that I can hear those stories about the past that weren't talked about.  Not that it will change anything; my dad will still be sitting in a wheelchair in a care center, fading away.  But maybe through the retelling, they can flare back to life, intact, if only for an instant.

Gratitude 14: I am that I am.

Yesterday Amy wrote about what makes her Amy.  I loved the idea, but in my coughing-induced fog, I couldn't put a sentence together that satisfied.  I'll try again today.

The things that make me me:

1. I am snobby about grammar. Especially written grammar.  I love nothing more than to pick apart someone's email/note/Facebook post grammatically and then giggle about it with someone who knows better.  It's easier to do when I don't know the person.  Facebook is great for this.  I snickered the other night when a distant relative said she "finely" got to do something. Seriously?
2. Kleenex.  To live with me is to deal with lots and lots of Kleenex. Or toilet paper. Or napkins. Whatever it takes.  I used to have an item called "snot rag."  I'm not proud of it, but it's a fact.
3. Forgetfulness. I don't know if it's sympathetic or what, but I forget a lot of things.  That is, short-term. As me the date for when we met or when you first dated your ex-ex-ex boyfriend, I'll come up with it.  I have a thing for remembering unimportant things, but forgetting other things.
4. I wring my hands when someone other than me brushes my hair.  And don't even think about playing with my hair at any given time. It sends me through the roof.  My head is very sensitive and I can't deal with the anxiety or sensation of it.
5. There is a special Becky-speak that most people who deal with me a lot understand.  I call one niece by the other nieces name or the plate I want you to hand me "cup" or whatever.  It's probably really annoying, but I pretend it's endearing.
6. I really like to do things by myself.  I would rather figure something out on my own than have someone hovering over me trying to teach me.  I don't know that it's much more effective, but it's just how I am.
7. Like my sister, books are in piles all over my house.  And now it isn't just me who does it.  Thomas' book is usually flung on the floor of the family room, and Ben's are stacked next to the recliner.  I love it - if books are accessible, it's more likely people will read them.
8. I can never find my phone or my wallet.  Or my keys.  Shane used to (mentally) pity the man who married me, because for the 1.5 years we worked together, he watched me run around looking for my keys and my wallet every. single. day.  I think the joke is really on him.

And those are just a few of the things that make me me.  What makes you you?

Gratitude 13: Ah, who am I kidding?

Sometimes you just have to complain.

• I am tired of coughing.  It sucks.
• I want the cough drop taste to leave my mouth. Permanently.
• My cat has not left me alone all day long. She thinks because I am sitting down, it is an opportunity for me to pet her.  Also, she has a really wet nose.  Always. It's kind of creepy.
• Pokemon noises are really annoying.  Why do they all sound so whiney and babyish?  And what is appealing in that to children?
• I put off getting Thomas working on his (monthly) bookreport until we only have 2 weeks left.  Why do I do this?
• How is it that the $3.48 bottle of buffalo sauce isn't any better than the generic $2.50 one?
• Why does 7pm have to feel so late now?  And when will it stop feeling like 8pm?

Alright, that is enough. I could probably go on for another while, but it wouldn't go anywhere pretty.

So, today I'm grateful for complaining.  What is bugging you right now?

Gratitude 12: Sick day

I missed church today. I think it one of only a handful I've missed all year.  I've had a stupid cold all weekend and I felt awful when I woke up, so I declared it a free day.  My children were very concerned around 11:30 when I seemed to be feeling better. They didn't want my sudden good health to result in their having to go to church.  Punks.

But we had a good day.  I made manicotti for the first time in forever (manicotti was the only thing I came into my marriage knowing how to make.  It was my one claim to fame.  I'm pretty sure Shane is glad I've gotten more talents in the kitchen.) My kids even ate their dinner willingly and didn't complain about it.  We were done eating and cleaned up by 6:30 when we ran to the store for a few things.  I decided that what was in order was to sit in the tub, drink orange juice, and read The Elegance of the Hedgehog.  Which, after 120 pages I am starting to really get into.

So today I'm grateful for sick days.  For sitting inside a cozy house while it snows, warm and comfortable.  And while I don't often skip out on church, it's fun to do sometimes.

What is your favorite way to spend a sick day?

Gratitude 11: Project day

Today I was up by 8am.  This almost never happens. But, in a way it was a blessing, because I used it to finish off some projects that I have been working on for a while.

A few months ago, I found some mini-quilts that I loved that depicted the seasons.  I bought one of the patterns and then modified it for the appropriate season, be it spring, summer, autumn or winter.  I finished spring and summer back in August.  They were really fun to do.  I wanted to start working on fall and winter but I needed to find fabric that I liked for these seasons. My friend Shelly and I put our wares together and came up with enough for 20 mini-quilts.  Luckily we narrowed it down to two.

But then I got thinking about it.  Would the autumn one suffice for the whole season?  I mean, there are two decorating opportunities that are very distinct in the months between September and November, namely autumn and Halloween.  And oh, the possibilities of fabric and applique for both were staggering.  So, I knew that I had to have a Halloween one in addition to the fall one.

So, today I finished fall, winter and Halloween.  I still have to put on a border and do the applique and stitching, but the sewing part is mostly done.  I am so excited about how they turned out. 

Spring

Summer

Fall

Halloween (because there are never enough opportunities to put black, purple and orange together, sigh.)

Winter

Hodgepodge of all the mini quilts together.

To top it off, I finally finished a mitered corner baby blanket for a lady in my ward.  

I managed to not make it into a flannel box. Score!!!

I am grateful for my kids waking me up early so I could have a productive sewing day. And I wish I could be grateful for my awesome photography skillz, but apparently I don't have any, as evinced by the above pictures.  Has anyone mastered the art of taking photos of blankets?  Because I. have. not.

Gratitude 10: Shelly

In my sewing room, I have a tiny Victoria's Secret bag full of embroidery floss.  I have carried that bag for years, toting around nativity stitcheries and advent calendar pockets and other gifts I have stitched.  The floss inside the bag is tangled in such a way that it would take hours to remove all the individual strands of red and black and yellow and green and orange floss from one another.

When Shelly moved across the street from me, I didn't know she was the friend I had hoped and prayed for so long.  I had imagined when we moved into our house that I would have good relations with my neighbors.  I had a secret longing for one of them to become a best friend, but the reality showed to the contrary.  It took more than 3 years for her to find her way to my street, and then it was a casual meeting of me walking across the street to introduce myself.  I still remember I was wearing a race t-shirt from a 10 mile run I had ran earlier that summer which eased us into a conversation about running that eventually turned into how many kids we had and where we were coming from and were we were going in life.  I also remember Thomas was riding a pink hand-me-down bike, and he screamed bloody murder when we left 20 minutes later.  I was excited that this new neighbor had a son the same age as Thomas.  She later made fun of the fact that my only (male) child was riding a pink bike.  But I didn't know that at the time.

From there, we became visiting teaching partners.  We weren't very good at going, I have to admit.  But it required us to talk on the phone once a month to decide who would make the appointments and who would give the lesson.  Our requisite phone calls turned into long conversations.  As we talked, we came to know each other.  I found it was easy to talk to Shelly.  We laughed at the same things, we understood each other's humor, our sons were becoming fast friends.  It was awesome.

I look back at those early days with such fondness.  We got pregnant within 3 months of each other.  We had play dates at the park with other neighbors.  I made her daughter a blanket when she was born and made sure to take dinner over.  We were building a friendship that transcended the bounds of neighbors or visiting teaching companions.

When I decided to start sewing, it was Shelly I invited to take a class with me.  When I wanted a friend for my kid to play with, it was her son (and later daughters) I called over.  If I needed sugar, I called her.  When I left on vacation, she fed my cats.  I once included her in a blog post and referred to her as my "neighbor" (it worked stylistically; it wasn't a reflection of the depth of our relationship.)  She never let me hear the end of it.  We weren't neighbors, we were friends.

Now my friend is moving. It seems a little hypocritical, since I was the one to move away first.  But I only moved half a mile away; she is moving 3 towns away.  95 blocks away.  Too far away for me to run over to ask her opinion on something I am sewing.  Too far away for our kids to be back and forth, in and out of each other's houses all day.  Too far away for us to have the casual conversations and visits we have grown accustomed to in 7 years.  We have too many strands of our lives tangled together to be able to separate them easily. I don't know how to do it. 

I know that I should just be grateful to have found such a friend who lived so close to me.  But I'm not.  I don't want our lives to unravel.  I don't want to go weeks without seeing her or her kids.  Our bond isn't made just on proximity, but it certainly doesn't hurt, either. 

So tonight I want to be grateful for Shelly.  I love her easy going friendship.  I love that I don't have to be anyone other than myself.  I love that the 7 people in her family mix perfectly with the 4 in mine.  I love that one of us can't start a project without the other one eventually taking it up.  There aren't any politics or niceties.  We can say what we think about what the other is doing and not worry about how it will be taken.  We don't keep track of who does what; we both know it will come back to us eventually.

So, I'm grateful. And sad.  And I wish I could write this post well enough to really say what I want to about the last 7 years and the incredible gift of friendship that they that bestowed on me.  I wish it were so easy, that I could just cut out the tangled floss and accept that she is moving, but it's kind of like cutting out a piece of my heart.

Thanks, Shelly. I'm going to miss you.  I hate that you are moving, but I will always be your friend.  And now I can never ever call you "neighbor" again.

PS - will you please get DSL at your new house?  There is this thing called the internet and it might make it easier for us to hang out.

PPS - can you find out where the half-way mark is between our houses? I am willing to meet in the middle if you are.

Gratitude 9: Beaters and bowls.

Subtitle: Fare thee well, old friend.

Sub-subtitle: Get along little doggy.

I'm not much of a baker. I feel bad admitting this but it's true. I wish I could say that I make cookies and cakes and breads all the time for my family, but that is far from the truth.

In a kind-of related way, I have an old mixer. Like 20+ years. I can remember being in gymnastics when my parents bought it from the ZCMI housewares department.  When my mom replaced this mixer with a new one, she passed it down to me.  I have used it, in my dessert-challenged way, most of my married life.  But the gears are all stripped in the beaters which makes it sound like a freight train rumbling through my kitchen when it's turned on.  And when I think about Thanksgiving and its requisite 2 batches of hot buttery crescent rolls, a feeling told me that I need to make a purchase.  And while I found one on KSL, I realized for a little more, I could have my own, grown-up kind of mixer.  I thought about it all day; covetous thoughts raced through my mind as I viewed photos on the internet of bright and shiny red and black and white and silver mixers.

Last spring, when Shane got his TV from the Sam's Club, he said he felt 10 feet tall walking out.  Like he was in a commercial where all the other men walking out behind him look covetously at his cart, wishing they were pushing out a TV instead of 35 pounds of dog food and some hamburger. 

I felt like that tonight when I left the Kohl's with a new mixer.  Even better: it was on sale, and I had a 30% off coupon.  All I could think of is Thanksgiving Eve in two weeks when I fire up that puppy and make some rolls.  Maybe whip up some egg whites for a lemon-meringue pie. 

I am so excited.  And grateful.  And amazed.  It just looks so awesome sitting on the counter.

So, old mixer, see you later.  You have been a good and faithful servant.

Hello KitchenAid.  You made me feel like a hero tonight.

So have you ever coveted an appliance? Is there anything better than bright and shiny electronics sitting on your counter?

Gratitude 8: My chester choppers

I have a thing about teeth.  Well, not a thing, but I'm picky.  For instance, there used to be this really hot guy who hung out at Denny's with us back in high school (Have I blogged about Denny's? Oh, that would be a good one. Only in Utah would people hang out in a restaurant night after night after night. It was fun and boring all at once.  Anyway, back to the story.)  So this guy was really hot, but he had really really bad teeth. Now I get that there are snaggle teeth out there and I don't obsess over them (so if we are friends in the real world, don't think that I stare at your teeth and judge them. I don't.)  But there are cases. Like Reggie Miller.  Pretty hot, lots of money, successful basketball player/announcer, mouth full of misplaced teeth. All I can ask is why.

Anyway, this tooth obsession includes my own teeth. Probably even stems from it.  I wore braces during 5 of my 12 grades.  As in, most of 5 grade, all of 6, 7, 8, and into 9th.  I wore my retainer for 2 years after that.  My bottom retainer didn't come out until I was in my 20's.  I have witnessed the shifting in my used-to-be-perfectly-straight teeth as I've grown. It bugs me.  There are times when honestly, I can't think about it.  I have dreams about my teeth falling out on a pretty regular basis.  (It is a family trait, I do believe.  I also have dreams about having to put plate-sized contact lenses into my eyes.  It's fun!)

Want to know more about my teeth obsession?  It wasn't until I was married that I had a cavity.  And then I had two quite large ones in my very back teeth.  It bothered me.  I had slacked off on going to the dentist and was convinced it was due to this that they occurred.  So, for the next year I kept my 6 month appointments religiously.  But then...I had Thomas. And I lost my employer's insurance.  And Shane's insurance was neither affordable or inclusive of dental.

Enter the dark days.  I went almost 4 years without going to the dentist.  I just couldn't afford it.  I didn't have an FSA plan to help me with pre-tax monies, nor did I know about credit-union sponsored dental plans that help those of us who don't have good benefits.  Basically, it wasn't until I had Ben that I could go to the dentist regularly. I ended the dark days of no dentist visits when Ben was 2 weeks old with my first visit to our current dentist, and I have paid every dime since  of dental care for every member of my family of four.  Which meant that while my kids went every six months, Shane and I have only gone once a year.

Can I tell you I hate waiting a year to go to the dentist?

But, enter my lovely husband getting a new job last April.  And they have dental coverage.  And while it's true that we had to wait 6 months for the coverage to cover us, that magical day was November 1st.  And guess where I went yesterday?  To the dentist.  They scraped and polished and x-rayed and counted teeth with their little instruments for over an hour.  I was giddy.  I was given a clean bill of health for six more months.  I made a follow-up appointment for May.  And it didn't cost me anything.  (Well, it does, because I pay a premium, but that doesn't count.  At least for these purposes.)

Did I mention that the plan covers 50% orthodontia?  Be still my beating heart.

And so.  I am grateful for dentists.  I am grateful for insurance.  I am grateful when they magically coincide with each other to allow me to assuage my freaky dreams for a while.  That I can know that I won't be toothless for another 6 months.  Ah, sweet relief.

Do you appreciate the dentist?  Do you have teeth dreams? I'm sure it means that I am over-wrought over something uncontrollable in my life.  Not that that stops them.

Oh, and should Reggie Miller stop by and be offended by my comments: Sorry Reg.  Can we still be friends?

Gratitude 7: The NFL

Shane is a Steeler fan.  For much of our married life, we slept under a Steeler blanket. We have a Steeler clock. I once got Steeler pajamas for Christmas, and the boys got light covers with - you guessed it - Steeler logos.

When I was pregnant with Thomas, Shane bought him a jersey.  Size 8, boys.  It looked more like a christening dress than football paraphernalia, but whatever.  That year, on the Monday night when the Steelers played, I put Thomas in his Steeler jersey and took his picture with Shane, who was also wearing a jersey.  It looked like this:

Wow, my husband was hott....Oh, and Thomas is 2 months here. He loves his outfit, can't you tell?

I've kept up the tradition. It is the only time during the year when Shane asks me to take his picture.  The rest of the time he hides from the camera.  When Ben came along, we bought another (size 8) jersey.  Now Thomas has almost outgrown both jerseys, and Ben is starting to fit into his.  I love these pictures.  I can remember taking each and every one of them.  Here they are:

Thomas at 1. I'm not sure what the black eye was from.  Like his skull cap?

2 years old

3 years old.  I was pregnant with Ben when I took this picture.

 Thomas 4 years old, Ben 10 months



Thomas 5, Ben 1 

Ben 2, Thomas 6

 Thomas 7, Ben 3



 Thomas 8, Ben 4

And tonight, Thomas 9, Ben 5.  The first picture that isn't taken in our old house. Kind of sad.

So tonight, I'm grateful for my boys.  And for the NFL creating an annual event in which I get to take their pictures all together in matching outfits.  (It's almost as good as having girls.  Almost.)

Gratitude 6: That first sip.

***Disclaimer:  Somehow, this post keeps getting away from me.  I started out wanting to write about the feeling of fasting that I experience each month.  But I keep self-editing and worrying that I sound like the hypocrites we read about in the bible who tout their righteousness for all to see.  Ugh.  I hate touting anything. I hate the thought of sounding a - flippant about something that is quite close to my heart or b - self-righteous/holier than thou.  Is it better to find something else to write about?  Or do I press on?  Obviously, since you can see the rest of   this post down below, you can deduce that I kept on with my post.  But as a disclaimer: this post is not intended to be any more or any less than it is: gratitude for something I feel internally.  There aren't words to adequately describe this feeling.  But I'm going to try.  So hopefully we can still be friends when we get to the end.****

The first Sunday for Mormons means fast Sunday. And whether or not you participate (there is no quiz, or box to check "Yep, I'm fasting today!!" on some roll somewhere), you do it or don't and keep quiet about it either way.  (Unless you decide to blog about it.  I promise I'm not trying to toot my own horn. It would be off-key at best, me thinks, if I did.)

Fasting wasn't big in my house growing up. The only time I ever fasted in front of my family was the day I got my patriarchal blessing.  So, one Sunday in thousands isn't really good odds in learning how to keep this aspect of Mormon life.  Later on, when I was married, I was glad when I was pregnant or nursing because it meant I didn't have to feel bad that I was well fed on the first Sunday of the month.

But a few years ago, I started to feel like I should try it out.  While I had most of the mechanics of fasting worked out by then, I was terrified of telling Shane.  Not that he would care if I was forgoing food, but it's just awkward for me to try to explain. He was cool with it; like most things, I worried far more than I needed to. 

Now it's been a few years. I can function on fast Sunday almost as well as any other day (which is debatable whether that is good, but it's good for me!)  I struggled with caffeine withdrawal the most for the first few months.  Forgoing food was one thing; Dr. Pepper was quite another.  But I even beat that horse in 2009 when I gave up soda for Lent. And while I'm currently drinking soda, I can handle not having it a lot better than I could before.

On fast Sunday, I always skip breakfast and lunch.  I think the hardest part of fasting is not having drinks.  The liquid gets me every time.  Like when I'm brushing my teeth before church. How easy is it to talk a gulp of water while rinsing?  It's almost involuntary.  Or forgetting and making yourself some hot chocolate, like I did this morning.  I would never have forgotten and made myself a bagel, but the drinks are an easy place to mess up.  (I got so far this morning as to sit down at the table with my hot chocolate only to remember moments before I drank some.  I almost cursed my remembering. But fasting isn't something you can do with a bad attitude if you want to have a good day.  And I don't like cheating...what's the point in that?) 

But for all of my being okay with the fasting, I do love that first sip of something cold when it's done.  It's like a little party in your mouth to celebrate all the drinks you've missed all day.  In addition to a tall glass of icy cherry limeade punch, I sat down to a dinner of barbecued hamburgers, brown rice, and pasta salad.  I had made an apple cake for dessert that I could not wait to break into.  Apple cake is the perfect taste of Autumn; it is cinnamon and apples and walnuts and caramel topping perfection. But even more than the yummy food, I was grateful for the feeling that fasting brings.  It's a little like finishing a difficult run; knowing that you can master your body for a sustained amount of time when your nature is screaming against it - it's a good feeling.

So, do you dread fast Sunday?  And more: do you shy away from reading and/or writing about spiritual topics?  The whole time I've been writing this, I keep trying to spin it away from sounding...churchy.  Cheesy.  Hypocritical. Why is it so hard to write about some topics?  Is there a good way to do it, really?

Gratitude 5: Summer bouncing

 Thomas

 Ben

Best of friends...except when they aren't.

Our friends gave us their trampoline this year.  It was a second-generation tramp (possibly third!), and it had a few missing springs, but my kids loved it.  We put it up a week after our grass went in in July and it's still up now, minus a few more springs.

I never really wanted a tramp, but once we got one, I knew we will probably always have one.  Because I realized just how much the kids can - and do - use it.  Most of our summer days were spent with the boys jumping, it's true.  But they also played school on the tramp. And colored. And sat underneath it to play video games.  And sat on top of it to eat lunch. And one night, I took shadow pictures of them bouncing away in the fading light.

This hand-me-down trampoline made our summer. And since we have had this lovely indian summer, the fun has continued into autumn. But I don't think it will make it another year; approximately 1/5 of the springs are missing (luckily, all in a row! It makes a great slide for exiting the tramp, btw!).  So we will take it down this weekend and say fare-thee-well, thanks for the memories.

So tonight, I'm grateful for the summer my kids had on their first trampoline. I love the joy they felt whenever they saw it in their backyard.  I love that they didn't care that it was rusty in places or missing a few springs.  It was a living embodiment of the meaning of summer - something you jump into, fall hard for, and bounce back as often as possible for more.

Gratitude 4: Cinnamon Crust

The night before Thanksgiving is sort of a holiday.  Well, to me and my sister Amy anyway.  And probably to most people who have to prepare items for Turkey day.

When I was growing up, the Thanksgiving Eve was cinnamon crust night.  This is because my mom would make her pie crusts the night before and would always bake the parts of crust she cut off and top them with cinnamon.  Mmmm. These little odd-shaped tastes of heaven were part of the holiday as much as turkey and green bean casserole.

I talked with my mom today about my Thanksgiving assignment.  For the record, I'm not bringing the beans this year; I'll be taking rolls.  Which I would have made anyway because I'm never content with left-overs and have to have my own.  But anyway, today the conversation turned to pies and who liked what and who would make a pie.  I declined, but expressed my interest in someone making a lemon meringue pie.

But.

I got thinking. Just yesterday, I bought a $3 pastry cutter from the Walmart.  I have looked for one for years. And so tonight, I broke down and made a pie crust.  I had to call my friend Melanie, Shane's grandma, and my neighbor Karen, but I got through the sticky parts. 

Here's my experience:

I started with flour, salt, and butter.

  

I cut the butter into the flour. This went a lot better than I expected it to.



5 to 6 tablespoons of cold water later, I had a pastry ball.



I rolled the crust out between 2 pieces of floured wax paper.  This is the typical amount of roundness my pizzas and sugar cookies have.  So really, not really round at all.

Getting the pie into the crust was interesting.  I ended up with too much on one end and not enough on another. But I didn't drop it on the floor, so I count it as a success. 

10 minutes later at 425 I had this.  I wish I would have waited to put the cinnamon on until after I baked.  But it tastes just right.



The cut away parts of the pie.  I took these over to my neighbor Karen.  Hopefully the late night treat will inspire them to forgive me for breaking the 10 to 10 rule.  It was 10:15 when I took it over.

So tonight, I'm grateful for this little taste of my childhood. I'll share it with the boys in the morning when they wake up. But probably, most of it will end up in my own mouth. Can you blame me?  All in all, it was a good warm-up for the lemon-meringue pie I'll attempt in a few weeks.  Gulp.

Have you ever made a pie? What kind of pie is your favorite? Do you know what you are taking to Thanksgiving dinner this year?

Gratitude 3: Sir Charles

"Damn you Charles Barkley!"

I was in my early teen years, or so it seems. My mom, dad and me were visiting my Grandma "Elksie", my dad's mom.  Her warm family room, set right off her small kitchen, was bright in the afternoon sun.  In the 18 years I knew her, Grandma never changed her family room.  A couch sat against the wall opposite the door, covered in an afghan made by Grandma.  A single tall-backed chair sat next to a beautiful wooden side table.  On the wall behind the door was TV stand holding an old television with rabbit ears.  A picture of grandma at 9 or 10 holding a china doll adorned one wall, while a watercolor painting of a cat (painted by my late grandfather) hung on the other wall.  It was strange, because you never entered my Grandma's house through the front door.  Well, maybe on Christmas, when all the family was gathered in her formal living room, but mostly you came in through the carport to step into this very room.

I can't remember what we were doing that day, but right before we left, Grandma threw out this very un-grandma-ish statement directed at Charles Barkley.  She had been watching the basketball game, and (according to Wikipedia, where I had to look in order to figure out what team Sir Charles would have been playing for during this time period), Charles Barkley and his Philadelphia 76ers were playing a game.  I guess Grandma didn't like the 76ers, or maybe she did and he was screwing up the game for them, because this utterance was said with disgust.  I don't know what he could have done, but she wasn't happy with him.

I wasn't super close with my grandma.  In my mind, she was Grandma Elsie, and my other grandma was Grandma.  The one that didn't need the qualifier.  But, despite our distance (I never slept over, we never had a day together, shopping or going for to Wendy's or the park the way I did with my other Grandma) she was my grandma.  She did pick me up from school every day for 2 months the year I was 14 and broke my ankle.  She came to Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner and birthday celebrations at our house, never failing to call our old male cat "Hooker" (his real name was "Hooter." Not much better, but still, hearing your grandma call your cat hooker is pretty amusing.)  I once found an old quilt in a trunk down in her basement while helping her go through her things; it had been made by her mother, my great-grandma Olive.  The quilt now hangs over my railing; I marvel at it every time I go up the stairs to my room. And I remember one cold October Sunday three years before she died, Grandma came over suddenly as Amy and I were making cheese potatoes for dinner.  The memory is still so vivid of me and Amy sitting at the kitchen table, cutting up potatoes and talking with our grandmother.

The things I did know about Grandma was she liked to walk.  She thought nothing of walking up to our house or my uncles' houses, 3 or 4 or 5 miles away.  She loved to travel.  In fact, I believe she went to every state in the country.  She was a widow from the time my dad was 16.  She lived in a house that was right next door to the house she grew up in.  She raised 3 sons.  I believe she and my grandfather had a rocky relationship.  I know she worked for the phone company for most of her life.  She loved loved cats and dolls.  She was a descendant of people from the Mayflower on her mother's side.  She lived to 80 years old and was in relatively good health for all but the last few months of her life.  She had 12 grandchildren, 29 great-grandchildren, and now great-great grandchildren at the rate of 3 or 4 per year.

So tonight, when Shane turned the TV to the game on TNT, I saw Charles Barkley.  And I can't see Charles Barkley without saying aloud, "Damn you Charles Barkley!" and remembering my grandma.  Who, despite her prickly nature, her independence and distance, was someone I love.  I wish I could talk to her now, as a grown-up.  I wish I could talk to her about my dad, her baby.  I wish I could ask her about raising sons, and who my grandfather was and hear the things I never knew about him.  I wonder if I would have understood her more from a grown-up's point of view.  My older cousin Rochelle said to me just a few years ago, "Ah, I loved Grandma.  I know she was hard to know, but I loved her."  I wish I could have known her the way Rochelle and a few of my older cousins knew her.

So tonight, I'm grateful for Charles.  Who, without knowing it, brings back a little bit of my Grandma to me everytime I see him.  I hope one day she and I will be able to know and understand each other.  Maybe she will introduce me to my grandpa.  That will be a great day.  So thanks, Chuck, for being at work tonight.  Whatever you did that long-ago day that made Grandma Elsie so mad, I'm glad you did it.

Gratitude 2: Green beans.

The year I got married, my first assignment for Thanksgiving was green bean casserole.  It's a tradition in our family, and though I had never made it, my family somehow trusted me to bring it to our Thanksgiving feast.

Now I realize it was about the easiest think they could give to me: it was the meal item that required the least skill and room for error. Previously in the year, I had been asked to bring frog-eye salad to Easter.  It was a disaster.  I woke up Easter morning having forgotten to make the sauce that had to sit overnight in the fridge.  I didn't even have the ingredients to make said sauce.  And it was when Easter was on the time change day, so while I woke up at 9:30 am, it was all of a sudden 10:30 am and I had only 4 hours to show up at my mom's, salad in tow.  I pulled it off (barely) but I guess they didn't want to take the risk.

So that first married Thanksgiving Day, I made the green bean casserole.  It turned out perfect.  Our family's recipe goes like this:

Anywhere from 9 to 15 cans of green beans, drained.  (There are usually 25+ people at my mom's house.)
1 carton sour cream
1 to 2 teaspoons dried onion
3 or 4 cans of cream of mushroom soup
1 or 2 cans sliced water chestnuts
1 to 2 teaspoons black pepper
Container of French's fried onions

Mix sour cream, soup, pepper, water chestnuts and dried onion together in a large bowl.  Start to fold in beans. Pour into 1-2 9 x 13 casserole dishes.  Bake at 350 for 1 hour. Top with friend onions for last 5 minutes of baking time.

This is the perfect recipe for green bean casserole.  The water chestnuts add the perfect crunch just when you want them.  The fried onions suffuse the dish with their savory goodness.  I don't even mind them the next day, warmed up, when the onions have gone sort of soft. 

In fact, I cannot think of Thanksgiving leftovers without wanting to eat a bowl of green bean casserole with one of my mom's awesome crescent dinner rolls.  Heaven.

Last year, I cooked Thanksgiving dinner.  It was awesome.  I had practiced cooking turkeys for a few years (one disastrous day-after-Thanksgiving years ago, I neglected to take the packet of neck and giblets out of the turkey cavity before I cooked it.  Gross. I won't make that mistake again!!)  So I was ready to be the hostess for this king of all holiday meals.  I think it went great.

But I'll always be grateful for that first year when I tried my hand at the green bean casserole.  It led to me trying more and more traditional dishes that culminated last Thanksgiving.  I am a little sad that I'm not cooking again this year, but it will be fun to be with my family again; it's been 4 years since we ate together. And I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving-eve in 3 weeks, making the beans again.

At least if I forget this year, I won't have the time change against me.

Gratitude 1: Sewing

When I was young, my mom had a sewing room.  I think it must have given her a singular thrill every time she got to enter this room.  After having 4 children and nary a place to sew, she finally had her own space.  A space that also doubled as storage for canned foods, but a sewing room all the same.  It was lovely in 70's orange and brown, with floor to ceiling cabinets running all along one wall, and the centerpiece her sewing machine and table.  Ah the luxury of such a room.

I spent a lot of time pretending to sew in this room when I was young. I can remember my mom trying to teach me how to sew, but I was impatient.  I didn't want to follow crinkly, easily-torn patterns showing me how to make a doll dress. I didn't want to make casings and worry about facings and those little dark triangles that sometimes mattered and sometimes didn't.

No, my favorite way to sew was random piecing together of fabrics.  I can remember making some little purses out of red sweat-shirt material.  I embellished the front piece with stitching going this way and that, trying out the different stitches on my mom's machine.  I would cut out random squares of fabric from one of the closets to piece together my masterpieces.  (Sidenote: we had A LOT of fabric. So much that when we would hear conference talks about food storage, my mom would claim she would just barter all her fabric for food.  Kind of makes sense, to a certain extent.)

I also really liked to do handwork.  Cross-stitch appealed to me, but I again hated the pattern and how long it took to make those tiny squares into something that was identifiable.  And then what to do with a cross-stitch once it's done?  My uncle dated a lady who made all sorts of counted-stitches and framed them all. I found them more than a little creepy.  I mean, if you want a tiger/elephant/waterfall hanging on your wall, why not just buy a painting?  Have you ever really looked at a counted cross-stitch hanging on the wall and not been a tiny bit repulsed? 

What I'm really trying to say is that I really love the process of sewing and doing handwork, but that most of the ways I experienced these hobbies were unsatisfactory.  I wanted to sew, but not make clothes.  I wanted to do handwork, but not spend hours making tiny x's that would never see the light of day.  Or a frame.

Enter one of my mother-in-laws, a used sewing machine, and a $5 block of the month class at a quilt store.  That class, which resulted in some extremely ugly and useless quilt blocks on one hand and some great experience with triangles, squares, piecing, cutting fabric, and using a sewing ruler on the other, brought back some of that joy I experienced as a child. I got better at sewing.  My friend and I found patterns that mixed the joy of hand stitching with piecing.  No longer would my handwork be confined to rows of creepy x's showing dragons and unicorns frolicking in the mist.

Instead I found delectable muslin and linen.  I learned how to coffee-die fabric to make it look old.  I bought my own sewing machine and made my kids quilts. I've made blankets of varying levels of skill for the babies of friends, neighbors, and nieces.  I made an advent calendar that I love, even if it's slightly crooked.  I found fabric stores that sell fabric that I wish I could eat or inhabit because they are so beautiful. Recently, I am making a set of seasonal mini-quilts.  They are as fun to cut out as they are to sew.  When I'm done, I'll have one for spring, summer, autumn, winter and Halloween.  Just buying and deciding on fabric made me giddy.

So, if it isn't obvious: today I am grateful for sewing.  I am grateful for the patience my mom showed in teaching me the little I would allow her about sewing.  I am grateful for my old/new sewing table that Shane helped me fix up this summer so that I don't have to sew over the hump anymore.  I am grateful for all those nights when he went up to bed, leaving me to sew and listen to sports center (rude.  He did it on purpose, hoping it would make me come up to bed sooner. It didn't. But I always wondered why when I sewed late at night the TV was always on ESPN....)  I am grateful to my mom and my friends Shelly and Melanie and my sister Amy and my nieces Kayci and Lyndsay who talk to me about fleece and minkie and flannel and bindings and the merits of triangles versus squares.  I love seeing how we all sew but have found our own niche, our own way of making this hobby personal.

So, do you love to sew?  Do you cry like my sister (who, btw, is displaying a gorgeous quilt over on her blog today...go check it out!) did when she received her sewing machine because of the joy she felt at the future possibilities in that one machine?  Or do you want to cry from the tedium of quarter-inch seams and seam rippers and button holes? 

(And sorry to anyone who might love counted cross-stitch that I've offended - to each his own...I still love you, and I won't say anything rude about the unicorn hanging in your livingroom.)

November: Gratitude!

I have had a theme for the past 3 years for November, and I don't see any reason to buck tradition.

November is gratitude month.  I've been extra whiny lately so I think I need to try and see the glass half full for a while.  Maybe it will change the general malaise that I've been feeling. 

I always look forward to my November gratitudes.  Each year I set out to write every day, but I have yet to succeed. Maybe this year is the year!  My friend Lucy gave us some lovely snippets of life all through September, and they inspired me greatly.  Plus who doesn't love to open their blog lists and see new material to read every morning?  Like a shot of Irish cream in your coffee.  (Not that I drink coffee. Or Irish cream. But I do know what both taste like and can drool a little when I think of them.  Mm.) (For the record, I don't know that you drink them either. If you do, lucky! If not, hopefully you have something to equate this with.) But yeah, just a little something to make the day a little extra special.

So stop by and check out the gratitudes.  As always I will overshare on history, undershare on details that are important, and dismiss my own abilities in an attempt to be witty.  In other words, just my blog in a nutshell, just hopefully more of it.

Yay for November!!