Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

As you know, I like to bake.  I like it a lot, mostly because I have always had a sweet tooth, and when you bake, you get to eat fresh baked goods.  See how that works out?

My mom made me fearless about baking.  She gave me all kinds of tips, but more important, she just told me that anyone who can read can cook and bake.  Hey presto, just follow the directions and you’ll get the hang of it–that was her basic philosophy.  That and, just do it and don’t get all hung up on whether it’s perfect.  I might have missed the last part of the lesson, because I do tend to want everything to turn out all pretty and perfect.  But when it doesn’t, that doesn’t stop me from getting out the flour, sugar, and vanilla and trying again another day.

Today I am going to start the onslaught of holiday recipe blogging with a fairly easy one, just in case you are only a sometime baker and don’t want to go to a lot of fuss this early in December.  This recipe will stand you in good stead through the year, but it’s always a popular cookie that is not “too plain” to make for the holidays.  It’s the basic chocolate chip cookie.

Let me preface this by saying that, because I was told I was allergic to chocolate when I was about 4, I never really ate chocolate chip cookies, and chocolate is not my go-to dessert flavor.  However, once I found this recipe I was hooked.  These are soft, puffy cookies, and I like them because I put milk chocolate chips in them, which is my favorite.  Some of my kids are hard-core and want semisweet chips or dark chocolate chunks in them, and you can do that if you want to.  But try them.  I think you’ll get good reviews!

Best Bet Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup softened butter (unsalted is preferred)
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed into the cup
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1 to 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (I use milk chocolate, but use your favorite)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Sift together the first three ingredients (flour, baking soda, and salt).

In the bowl of your mixer, cream the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until uniformly mixed. Add the vanilla and eggs. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, by spoonfuls, keeping the mixer at its lowest setting. Scrape down the sides once or twice to ensure that you end up with a smooth batter. Now fold in the chocolate chips. It’s best to do this by hand so that the mixer blade doesn’t break the chips up too much.

No need to refrigerate the dough. Simply scoop up large spoonfuls of the dough (about 1/8 of a cup or slightly more), roll gently into a ball, and place on ungreased cookie sheets. Place the cookies 2-3 inches apart for best results. Flatten the tops of the dough balls slightly and bake in the preheated oven until the cookies are light brown. This takes about 12 minutes for soft chewy cookies. If you like crisper cookies, you can bake them for up to 15 min.

Cool the cookies on the baking sheets for several minutes before removing to cooling racks.

Decorate Your Desktop for Christmas

Just in case you are in the mood to do a little Christmas decorating, but aren’t quite ready to haul out all the holly, here are a few sites that offer free computer desktop wallpapers with Christmas or Winter themes.  These sites are fairly trustworthy and I’ve never had a problem with viruses when downloading the wallpapers.  Enjoy!

Better Homes and Gardens Winter Scenes

Better Homes and Gardens Christmas Food

Better Homes and Gardens Christmas Scenes

Mary Engelbreit Desktops

American Greetings Wallpapers

Holidays in Hand, Page 1

Recently I took a nifty little online digital scrapbooking class offered by Jessica Sprague.  It was called, “Holidays in Hand,” and it was generously offered to anyone who wanted to sign up for free.  HIH was basically a week-long class designed to get us inspired to make some sort of little album documenting our various holiday traditions and celebrations.  Ali Edwards does a similar sort of album, which she calls, “Daily December.”

Jessica’s class focuses fairly strongly on the journaling, while Ali’s idea is just to get everything down in pictures, making one layout per day to show what your family was up to during the month building up to Christmas.  I think my pages will be a combination of the two.  Here’s my first page.  I didn’t wait until Dec. 1 to start my album because we traditionally head out on the first weekend after Thanksgiving to cut down our own Christmas tree.  We’ve been doing this for probably 20 years now, and I wanted to finally have one page that really shows what trooping out to the tree farm is like.  Unfortunately, this year only about half the kids were able to come with us, but I managed to get a few good pictures.  They don’t really need journaling to express the story, so I kept it simple.  I used one of Ali Edwards’s December Daily Templates (available at Designer Digitals) and Shabby Miss Jenn’s “Xmas Market” kit.  It went together quickly and painlessly.

Thanks for looking!

Black Friday Miscellany

Today I was wicked:  I stayed in bed until almost 7:30 a.m., while my husband took our two oldest sons and one daughter to the mall for some Black Friday shopping.  We had offered to get suits for the guys for their Christmas gift this year, and so they headed off to the Macy’s suit sale, scoring perfect fits within about 15 minutes of arriving at the store.  And there’s nothing better than Black Friday pricing on a designer wool suit.

While at the mall, DD#1 saw some Sperry Top-Siders that she has been coveting.  She tried them on for size and decided which style and color she most wanted.  I’ve already ordered up a pair from an online source-for $25 less, with free shipping and handling both ways!  I was pretty psyched about that.  Normally I would not spend that much on a pair of shoes for a high schooler, but at Christmastime, we make a few exceptions.

Next, Dennis and I went out to Furniture Fair in hopes of buying some pieces for our family room.  From 8-10 a.m., it was 20% off everything in the store.  But the set we thought we had decided on didn’t seem all that perfect for us when we went back today, so that was not to be.  I was disappointed, but the truth is, our family room is an ill-designed affair with multiple doorways and an assymetrically placed fireplace, and I just can’t wrap my mind around how to furnish it, even after 10 years of living here.  I’m anxious to replace our 20-year-old sofa, but I don’t know what we should choose to put in its place.  So those are the breaks, I guess.

When we got back from Furniture Fair, it wasn’t even noon yet!  (That’s the weirdest part of the after-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy, I think.  The stores open earlier every year, and you can get in a full day’s shopping before lunch.)  I had plenty of time to make my first digi layout in months, using a brand new kit from Christina Renee Designs. I especially love the alpha in this kit.  Check it out:

And after that, we drove out to the tree farm and cut down this year’s Christmas tree (I think it’s about a 13-footer; maybe more).  I didn’t take many pictures this year, because the whole family wasn’t able to go, so I was relegated to actually doing some of the hard work this time around and couldn’t fool with the camera too much.  :-[

After dinner, I made two pumpkin pies and got everything ready for a spinach salad.  All that goes with us to our Connair family get-together, tomorrow.

So what did you do today?  Did you participate in the shopping extravaganza, put up holiday decorations, or lie around in your jammies?  ‘Fess up!

Over the River and Through the Woods

It only takes us an hour, by interstate, to get to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving.  No horse, no sleigh.  Straight shot in our trusty minivan.  Besides, in Ohio you just never know if there’s gonna be any snow for the sleigh to ride on, kwim?  In fact, unseasonably warm weather led us to take a trip over the river and through the woods, quite literally, yesterday.  We loaded up the car and headed to Hocking Hills.  Two and a half hours, more or less north, straight into the most gorgeous part of our fair state.

Our first stop was at Ash Cave.  Of course, I had to get a photo of the group before we got too far into the woods.

Here’s a shot of the actual cave, taken as I stood on the precipice of the cliff overhead:

Just so you understand the scale, I’m going to include one of Molly’s photos from inside the cave.  (If she threatens to sue for copyright violation, I will have to take the photo down, though, so look quick.) See the teeny people?  That’s my point!

Ash Cave is where my husband found his lucky rock, about 40 years ago, when his parents took him on a family outing to Hocking Hills.  He picked it up because he noticed it was different from all of the other rocks lying around.  (Would you have even noticed something like that?  Seriously.  His lucky rock was only about half an inch square.  This may tell you something about why he ended up becoming a geologist.) I think he was hoping to find another lucky rock to replace the original, which was lost about 9 years ago and never found.  He’s still a little broken up about that, but alas, the lucky rock’s brother was not jumping up and down waving at him yesterday.  Rats.

Next we moved on to Cedar Falls.  On the way to the grotto, we of course clowned around some more.  Outcrops plus Connairs equal hours of good, clean fun!

The falls were low volume yesterday.  I guess there hasn’t been a ton of rain in that area lately.  But the grotto was still gorgeous.  See?

You’re probably wondering, “hey, did Jan actually participate in this outing, or what–I don’t see any photos of her!”  Well, I anticipated your disbelief, so I took a shot of myownself:

About three shakes after I took this photo, Danny slipped into the freezing cold crick while trying to cross it, just in front of where I was standing.  He was soaked from waist to ankle in cold muddy water, not to mention that his jacket, T-shirt, and face got splashed with grime.  Fun times.  And of course, none of us brought extra clothing along.  All we had was Wet Ones, a hoodie that Danny had thrown in the car in case he got cold, a mover’s blanket to cover the seat of the minivan, and Danny’s great attitude.  Honestly–the boy didn’t even complain.  He didn’t want us to head home, because we hadn’t yet seen the main attraction:  Old Man’s Cave.  So he paced around in the sun until he got somewhat dried out.  But I knew he had to be pretty uncomfortable.  I mean, it takes me 60-70 min. in the dryer to get his cargos dry.  But he just marshaled on.  Never complained once.  Actually had a good time.  Man, I love it when I am inspired by my very own children!  In case you think I’m joking about how decimated his clothing was, looky here:

It really was worth hanging in there.  Old Man’s Cave and Grandma’s Grotto (I think I got that last name right . . . .) were pretty spectacular.  Shady, but with lots of bright green moss lighting up the place.  Artistically twisted tree roots.  It was like being in a fairy glen in the heart of Ireland.  Here are a few snaps:

The Devil's Bathtub

Natural tunnel, about 15 feet long

Footbridge near the cave

Honestly, we could have spent a lot more time in Hocking Hills, but there wasn’t time in the day, really.  So we hit the little gift shop and then hit the road.  On the way out, Dennis remembered that I had wanted a picture of this, so he pulled over and I snapped it.  I mean, how could I resist?!!!

Remember: Only YOU can prevent forest fires!

And finally, I am happy to report that we stopped at the outlet mall and I snagged a pair of jeans and a sweater from Eddie Bauer for $48, because I remembered my 25% off coupon.  That was about a 45 min. stop, I guess.  The kids decided to stay in the car and doze/read, so we just kept in contact via cell phone and hurried up.  Oh, and Danny’s muddy clothes?  The pants came clean, if you can believe it.  The underwear and left sock–not so much.  But the pants and jacket washed up nicely.

Okay, this is probably going to be the only post I get in this week, so Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I hope you relax and make some wonderful family memories as the holiday season begins.

Come to Jesus

I had one of those “come to Jesus” talks with one of my kids today.  Well, really, with two of them.

Things have been a little out of control on the schoolwork and chore fronts around here lately.  Marching band put the pressure on the girls, and they had trouble keeping their assignments going on time and getting the grades they would normally get.  Dennis and I have had to be way more involved in homework prioritizing and helping with studying than we would normally be.  We haven’t felt able to expect a lot of help around the house, either.  And last night was kind of the final straw.

Last night Dennis was out of town, and at the eleventh hour, I found out that Danny had one of those big projects due in the morning.  As in, he was supposed to have been compiling an anthology of poems, song lyrics, and short stories on the theme of change.  Each entry required a written response from him about how the item expressed the theme of change.  Oh, and he was supposed to make a bookmark on the theme, using Paintshop or Photoshop (neither of which he really knows how to use all that well).  That last one baffles me.  When I was in 6th grade, I was lucky to be able to blow my own nose, and the biggest art project I was expected to do still involved a scissors and some Elmer’s glue.  Photoshop?  Really?!!!

We were up until 1:30 a.m., and he still had to get up in the morning, write one last response, and dash to the bus.  Ugh.  You can bet I gave him Lecture No. 50:  Why We Must Not Procrastinate/Why It’s Better to Do Big Projects in Bite-Sized Increments.

Meanwhile, DD#2 stayed home for a second day with the world’s most persistent and incessant cough.  She wasn’t feeling all that bad, but she was still spewing germs left and right, so she spent the day here.  And since she wasn’t feeling that bad, I naturally expected that she would spend a good part of her day getting caught up (or even, dare I imagine it, ahead!) on her art, social studies, chemistry, or math.  I think you can guess where that expectation got me.  She got lecture No. 51:  Take Charge of Your Life and Accomplish Something.  She also got a dose of Lecture 10:  Mom is Not Your Slave and Everyone Is Expected to Pitch In Around Here.

I got tons and tons done today, and even managed to catch a short nap.  So it’s not all bad.  But sometimes we seem to get caught in that cycle of stressfulness that I could do without.

So how’s it going at your house?

Most weekends just seem too short, and therefore I find that . . . .

Madame Librarian

I did something new and different this week:  I worked outside my home, for pay, for the first time in nearly 20 years!  It felt terrific!  For 3 1/2 days, I substituted for the Media Center Specialist (my good friend Karen) at the local middle school, and no one died.  No preteens were irreparably scarred by the library sub.  I think I was actually competent and useful.  For pay, people!  Did I mention that part?

Sean is almost 23, and if I’m remembering correctly, I quit working to stay home with our kids when he was around 3 years old.  At the time, I had been a career woman for longer than Dennis, who had stayed home with our oldest son for almost 2 years and done the “Mr. Mom” thing while he was trying to write his master’s thesis.  Even after he graduated and found a job, there were several years where my salary was actually the highest one.  But when it reached the point where his career was really taking off, it made sense for him to keep going and for me to switch careers from Editorial Wizard to stay-at-home mom.

At first, I found it thrilling to run errands and do housework–to be able to get it all done without rushing, being crabby, feeling stressed.  I wasn’t really sure I would have the patience to deal with toddlers all day, and frankly, it was a growing-up process, but I eventually found my stride.  I did some freelance editing work, which made me feel like I still had a toe in the water.  Eventually we had 3 more kids, and I became a multi-tasker extraordinaire.  I was the chatelaine of the keep, and I knew my stuff.  All was good.

But as the years turned into decades, I began to wonder if I had any marketable skills left at all.  “Is there anything out there someone would still actually pay me to do,”  I wondered.  (Oh, and whatever this wonder job was, it had to begin after 9 a.m., when our youngest finally gets on the bus, and end at 2:30, when the high schoolers get home.  Yeah.)  Certainly the world of publishing has advanced so much since the days of hand paste-up and Selectric typewriters (yep, it’s been that long!) that I would have a huge learning curve if I ever tried to go back to that sort of work.  And in fact, I have changed so much as a person in the last 20 years that I don’t think I really would even want to go back to editorial work, per se.  So I’ve been in a funk, wondering what I want to be when I grow up and also wondering if I would even be able to find any sort of employer who thought I was worth paying for anything.  Plus, I still believe that my job as a mom is not done.  I think it’s important for me to be here until our youngest gets on the bus at 9 a.m., and to be here when the high schoolers come home at 2:30.  I don’t know about you, but in my experience it seems it would be challenging to find employers who want someone operating on that schedule!

Well, I know 3 1/2 days of work is not a career.  But it was a start.  I found out that I can still learn new tricks, like how to operate the circulation desk, make spine labels, or give a new student a quick tour of the school library.  Frankly, a lot of my “mom skills” translate easily to the work world.  For example, I’m sure not shy now about hunting down whoever I need to talk to and asking whatever questions I need to ask to get a task done!  If you’ve been the mother of babies, toddlers, or teens, you just go ahead and get the job done, whatever that job is!  And I’m not afraid of hard work or dirty jobs.  So there.  I’m not hopeless after all.

So thanks, Karen, for needing a few days off to take care of your own family.  You thought I was helping you out, but really you were helping me just as much!  (Oh, and I’ll see you on Monday.  I’m your scheduled morning volunteer, lol.)

 

 

Ever Really Thought About It?

This is not a position post about whether the words, “under God” should be taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance.  I just thought the rest of the video was cool.

Hilarious Halloween School Traditions

My kids’ high school has some fairly awesome traditions.  They have a great Spirit Week prior to Homecoming, which all the kids seems to love participating in.  They have the kids make time capsules in 7th grade, to be opened at the end of their senior year.  But perhaps the one thing they all look forward to the most is the senior costume contest.

On the last day prior to Halloween (today), seniors only get to wear Halloween costumes to school all day.  The crazier, the better.  They can go with an individual costume or do a group theme.  At the end of the day, seniors are called to an assembly.  Every participant (from what I could tell, that was 95% of the senior class) goes onstage in the auditorium and tells what their costume is.  Some of them have little skits or routines prepared to show off their theme, even.  Parents are invited to come and take photos, and they select several moms and several teachers to be judges for the contest.  At the end of the day, they announce overall winners and give awards for most original and so on.

Allie’s friend K. had what I thought was a legendary idea:  Super Smash Brothers.  And because K and Allie are members of the marching band, which has 130 members, they had no trouble getting participation in their group.  In fact, about 22 or 23 kids dressed as characters from Super Smash Brothers.  It was awesome.  Allie dressed as Link (from Zelda).  I wish I could have gotten a group shot, but I decided to go for videos instead.  Fortunately, a friend of mine had her DSLR camera there and was taking pictures of every participant just before they came off the stage, so I should be able to get a copy.  But when Allie walked up to the mike and said, “We’re the Super Smash Brothers . . . and we’re gonna brawl!”  I almost lost it.  Totally cute.

In addition to Allie’s group, I saw characters from Alice in Wonderland, the Smurfs, Pac Man (those kids had built structures around themselves that were about 5′ w x 6′ h!), a Lego man, vampires, a barbershop quartet who sang, and 4 girls dressed as trophies (gold from head to toe, and they posed as an Emmy, a running trophy, a ballet trophy, and  . . . . I can’t remember the other one, dang it).  We also enjoyed a performance of “ABC” from the Jackson 5, and laughed our a**es off when one of the football players came onstage dressed in a cheerleading skirt and a blond wig and led a well-known cheer for the audience in a high-pitched squeal.

Can’t wait to see this again in a couple of years when Molly hits the big time!

Shame on Me

I was totally mean to someone today, and have spent the last couple of hours shaking my head and wishing I could apologize to the anonymous driver I purposely cut off in traffic on my way to yoga this morning.

Seriously, what was my problem?!!!  I got this sudden spurt of “oh no, she ain’t” when a big honkin’ SUV rode up on my right and tried to jump the line and get back in front of me.  I cut her off behind a parked car, and it was so obvious I was being mean, too.  She and I were both feeling a little testy, I guess, because she was going to just come on over in front of me, regardless, and I wasn’t going to give in.  We could both have ended up calling our insurance companies, and for what?  I should just have let her come over, resented her for doing it (because I know I would have), and forgotten about it 5 minutes later.

The ironic elements to the story are:  (1)  I was listening to a Deepak Chopra audiobook in the car on my way there–a book about reinventing my soul, (2) I was heading to yoga, which is really just as much about the spiritual as it is about the physical, (3) and the driver followed me up the street and saw me turn into the church parking lot where the class is held.  Honestly, at that point I was dreading the idea that I had just been a witch-with-a-capital-B to someone I was about to spend 75 minutes in the same room with, and at the same time I was kind of hoping it was someone who was going to pull into the lot behind me, because I soooooo wanted the chance to jump out and say, “I’m so sorry; I don’t know what came over me!”

So what did I learn from this act of stupidity?  That, even at 50, I still haven’t grown up enough.  And that it’s better to let someone else act juvenile and write it off than to act juvenile back and spend the rest of your day regretting it.  Karma, people.  Karma!

How about you?  Have you done anything silly, mean, or juvenile lately and regretted it?  What, if anything, did you do about it?

Channeling Julia Child

Last week my friend Barb and I played hooky and went to the movies.  We saw, “Julie and Julia,” which is about one woman’s quest to cook her way through Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in one year’s time and keep a blog detailing the experience.  One of the classic French dishes we watched “Julie” cook during the course of the movie was Boeuf a la Bourguignon, and I think both Barb and I left with our mouths watering for a taste.

Normally my recipe for Beef Burgundy is one of those 5-ingredient crock pot deals that uses jarred mushrooms, cream of mushroom soup, and burgundy cooking wine from a little bottle I find in the salad dressing aisle at Meijer.  It’s not at all fancy, and I know a lot of people would cringe at the very idea that I consider this a tasty meal.  But it’s one of my favorites. In fact, I serve it to company and take it to friends when they are laid up!

But sometimes it’s worth it to go all out, and that’s what I did today.  I started with the following ingredients and 5 pages of recipes for the overall dish as well as for the mushrooms and onions:

The first step is to cut the bacon every quarter inch and throw the whole mess into a saucepan, then simmer it in water for 10 min.  I have no idea why this step is necessary, unless it somehow helps to rid the bacon of some of its saltiness.  The next step is to brown the bacon, and what I noticed when I browned it was that the little bacon pieces fried up almost like pork rinds.  Wish I knew if that was what I was supposed to be going for!

After removing the bacon from the pan, I began browning the beef.  You know what?  It does brown up a lot nicer if you pat the pieces dry before adding them to the skillet.  I have been cooking for decades, and I never knew that!

After browning the meat, I removed it from the skillet and added in my carrots and onions.  I’m not clear on how this was supposed to go, and I may need to go back and review the directions again to see if I did this part right.  I ended up browning a bunch of baby peeled carrots and about 4 small onions that I had peeled and sliced.  At the time I thought they were to go into the dutch oven with the beef, but later I was honestly pretty confused about the whole veg deal.  I couldn’t seem to see any step in the directions where it said to cook them any further than just the browning.  So I ended up putting the carrots in with the beef about 45 minutes before the end of the cooking time.

I also prepared the mushrooms in butter at this point, and Oh Holy Crap, did they look delicious.  Don’t tell anyone, but I had a little “Julia Child” moment while I was working and dropped a few mushrooms on the floor, but I just rinsed them off and used them.  I think she would have been proud of me for that.

While I was doing this, I was also preheating the oven to 450 in anticipation of adding a bit of flour to the meat and popping it into the oven for a couple of 4-minute doses to get a bit of a crust to form on it. And that’s where my second “Julia Moment” occurred.  You see, last night I cubed up some stale bread, put it on a cookie sheet, and popped it into the oven.  My mom always has bread cubes sitting in her oven.  She lets them sit and dry out, sometimes popping them in after baking something so they can toast a bit in the warm oven.  Then she crushes them for breading or saves them to make stuffing.  She always remembers they’re in there though.  I don’t.

So there I was, ready to pop that casserole dish in.  I pulled open the oven door and a cloud of black smoke rolled out of there and hit me in the face, such that I was pretty much blinded.  I could see just well enough to pull the tray of bread out of the oven and dump it into the sink.  Prettiful!

After the smoke alarm stopped chirping and the windows had all been thrown open,  I was able to finish up the assembly of the dish and get it back into the oven for its 2 1/2 hours of slow cooking.  All that was left was to warm the onions and mushrooms and thicken the sauce.  And voila!

Was it worth it?  Well, the meat was gorgeous and tender.  The carrots were nicely flavored and still just a teeny bit firm.  The onions and mushrooms were magnifique.  The flavor of the sauce was a bit bland, though, I have to admit.  Most of us added a sprinkling of salt.  I’m not convinced that the full-out version of beef burgundy would be worth all this trouble on a regular basis.  Most days, I’ll probably still stick with my crock pot version.  But I’m really glad I tried the real deal at least once in my life.

Oh shoot, I forgot to shout, “Bon Appetit!” when I served my masterpiece.  Darn it, maybe I will have to make this again!

Not sure if the appropriate title is “Peace,” or “Gag me with a spoon”–you decide.

The week leading up to the big Homecoming game is Spirit Week at my kids’ high school.

• Monday was PJ Day. All the kids wore their pajamas to school. (I am still waiting for the year when everyone comes to PJ Day dressed as the principal, whose nickname is based on her initials: “PJ.”)
• Tuesday was Twin Day. The kids paired off with a friend and tried to dress as twins.  Molly and her best friend are mistaken for twins on a regular basis, so they decided to dress as nerd twins, just to give it a twist.  Allie chose a classmate I’ve never seen, but I hear they look a lot alike as well.  Apparently they did such a great job that the band director called them by the wrong names at practice after school.
• Today was Decade Day.  This one is probably the most fun of all of them, and the seniors especially look forward to it.  You see, each class dresses in the style of a different decade.  Freshman do the fifties, sophomores the sixties, juniors the seventies, and seniors always look forward (for some reason I can’t fathom) to dressing in eighties style.  I had no problem helping pimp the girls out in sixties and eighties styles, having lived through both decades.  It was really kind of fun, although I still shudder every time I realize what it means that it was easy to go to the mall and find Allie lots of eighties gear (leg warmers and neon are apparently making a comeback!).

Here they are, dressed for the day:

This is Allie’s chemistry class.  Hint:  Allie’s wearing really bright colors.  (Oh wait, I guess that doesn’t help much, does it?)

• Apparently tomorrow is Class Color Day (green for Molly and black for Allie), and Friday is School Colors Day.

My high school was NOT this much fun.  How about yours–did you have any big “spirit” events that everyone really got into?

Needed This Reminder

I have this saying hanging on my dining room wall, surrounded by family photos:

Our Family is a circle of strength and love.
With every birth and every union, the circle grows.
Every joy shared adds more love.
Every crisis face together makes the circle stronger.

I needed this reminder today.

King for a Day

Tomorrow is Danny’s birthday, but due to circumstances beyond my control, if we want anyone here to celebrate with him (like his dad or siblings), we need to have his birthday dinner tonight.  So I’ve been going to town in the kitchen since he left for school.  We now have a crop of Pizza Burgers ready for the oven, a chocolate cake with white frosting waiting on the counter, and about 5 dozen chocolate chip cookies ready to take in for a class treat.  I’m pretty tired of standing in the kitchen, but the up side is that it’s going to be a breeze to actually get dinner on the table later.

Danny is one of the older kids in his grade, having been born just after the customary cut-off point for school enrollment.  But I think that, since he’s a boy, this has worked to his advantage.  He’s a bit taller than most of his classmates, he’s a little more confident in his abilities, and he’ll be able to get his driver’s license way before most of the other kids when he’s in high school, which should totally up his coolness factor, right?  It’s not going to hurt that he’s learning to play the drums either.  Or that having older siblings means he already has high school kids who wave and say hi to him in front of his friends.  In short, I think Danny’s position as youngest in the family, but oldest in his class, definitely has some benefits..

I hope he likes his birthday gifts.  It can be tricky to buy for a 12-year-old.  He’s too old for toys, but kind of young for electronics, although he’s been showing a lot of interest in Allie’s iPod lately.  That one scares me a little bit.  Apparently his favorite artist to listen to  on the iPod is Ozzy Ozborne.  Yikes!  Who is this preteen, and where is little Danny?  I’m pretty sure I’m not ready for him to  grow up and idolize Ozzy.  What if, next time I blink, he’s working on a soul patch and getting confused for Dennis when he answers the phone?

Enough scary thoughts for today.  I’m off to put these cookies into containers before a bunch of them leap into my mouth.  Then it’s off to wrap a few gifts, and I’m all set.

Connections

September is usually a month of beginnings for me:  school is freshly in session, marching band kicks off for the kids, I begin another year of life, and so on.  This September has also seen two endings.  A friend’s mother passed away early in the month, and more recently, the priest who married Dennis and me 25 years ago passed away and was buried today.

The funerals were very different experiences.  Father Jack’s (to us, but Msgr. John Dittoe to non-relatives) service was marked by some serious pomp and circumstance.  Knights of Columbus standing watch over the casket; on the order of 50 clergy present, including 2 bishops; music provided by a beautiful choir with 2 extraordinary soloists.  The homilist was a friend and colleague who spoke eloquently about Fr. Jack’s life of service and his love for his vocation, revealing a few personal comments along the way, but mostly sticking with a “teaching” sort of approach.  Although I tend to be a sentimental softie, I was easily able to maintain dry eyes during this service.  It was beautifully done, but restrained.

By contrast, the first funeral we attended this month brought me to tears–in fact, nearly to racking sobs.  Strangely, I didn’t even know the woman being buried.  She was the mother of our church’s cantor, a man who has always seemed somewhat distant and reserved and who I do not really know well.  But Dennis and I are members of the choir and wanted to support him by being present, so we went.  And I was amazed.

Mark’s mother was buried from the small inner-city church she had attended for most of her life.  Mark’s brother was the officiating priest.  Our music director provided the music, which was some of the most beautiful and touching I have ever heard at a funeral.  And near the close of the service, 20 or more Franciscan friars “sang her home” with a traditional a capella chant.  I mean, I was already shedding quite a few tears before the mass neared its ending.  Then Mark stood up and spoke, and I was done in.

Mark spoke about his mom so eloquently.  He described her love of home and family and how she welcomed everyone in, reveling in the human interaction and the chance to feed them a nice Italian meal.  He told us of her many talents:  her beautiful voice, which she used in singing lullabies to her kids when they were little;  the pottery she began making later in life.  He spoke of her faith, which sustained her in so many ways.  He teased about some of the funny expressions she was known for.  It was obvious that he loved her deeply and truly appreciated all she had done for him over the years.  Mark didn’t dwell on her illness (Alzheimer’s), instead he chose to celebrate the person he understood her to be at her core.  And what touched me so deeply was that he really seemed to “get” her.

How many of us moms hope that our children see us?  How many of us try to be more than just the Charlie Brown cartoon parents, whose kids hear only a blah, blah, blah in the background? How many of us long to connect with our kids, to make ourselves known, so that someday when we are gone, they will have a sense of who we were and how deeply we loved them?  I can’t explain it, but the way Mark had connected with his mother filled me with a curious mixture of despair and hope and renewed determination.  Someday I want my own kids to be able to speak of me with the same love and respect and understanding that I heard in Mark’s words.  I don’t know what I’m going to do to make that happen, but from now on, that’s my goal.  I want to connect.

Maybe that sounds dumb.  Maybe this revelation is a bit late in coming (my kids are not little anymore!).  But I was always a late bloomer, and nothing is impossible if I am determined, right?

What about you?  If you died today, do you think your kids/spouse/loved ones would be able to show that they knew and understood you?  Are you connecting?  If not, what are you going to DO about it?!!!

Another Year Bites the Dust

September 7 is my birthday.  This year, it’s my 50th birthday.

Fifty is good, right?  I mean, hey, there are 50 states, which seems like a perfectly nice round number of states.  There’s a famous rapper named “50 Cent”–he must have chosen that name because 50 is a hot, popular number.  Everyone must be eager to be 50, right?

Well, I can’t say I’m unhappy to be 50.  Lots of people aren’t lucky enough to reach the half-century mark, so all in all, I’m grateful to have made it to this point.  I’m not all that fond of the effect gravity is having on me, but even that could be worse.  Plus, I could have hellah more aches and pains than I do. Worse yet, I could actually get my wish to be 18 again.  Wouldn’t that be awful?  Sure, I’d be young, but I’d be back to being completely self-absorbed, having no fashion sense, no money, no car, no independence, no idea what to do with my life, and no Dennis to hold my hand through all of the agony.  Ugh.

You might have noticed that my birthday falls on Labor Day this year.  It also fell on Labor Day the day I was born.  I’m guessing that was a real treat for my mom.  She was probably begging them to put her under by the time she had heard her 50th “you’re in labor on Labor Day” joke.

Some fun facts about my birthday, from Paul Sadowski’s “Birthday Calculator” page. This is a fun page to check out, if you haven’t done it before. There’s also a “what your name means” calculator on the site that I thought was fascinating. Anyhoo, as of the time I wrote this post, the birthday calculator told me I was:

49 years old.
600 months old.
2,609 weeks old.
18,262 days old.
438,310 hours old.
26,298,627 minutes old.
1,577,917,640 seconds old.

Celebrities who share my birthday:

Devon Sawa (1978)	Corbin Bernsen (1954)	Julie Kavner (1951)
Gloria Gaynor (1949)	Richard Roundtree (1942)	Buddy Holly (1936)
Elia Kazan (1909)	Grandma Moses (1860)	Elizabeth I, Queen of England (1533)

Top songs of 1959

Mack the Knife by Bobby Darin	The Battle of New Orleans by Johnny Horton
Venus by Frankie Avalon	Stagger Lee by Lloyd Price
The Three Bells by The Browns	Lonely Boy by Paul Anka
Come Softly to Me by Fleetwoods	Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Platters
Heartaches By the Number by Guy Mitchell	Sleep Walk by Santo & Johnny

Oh, and here’s the best part from the site:

Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 7.14755381604697 years old. (You’re still chasing cats!)

Your lucky day is Wednesday.
Your lucky number is 5.
Your ruling planet(s) is Mercury.
Your lucky dates are 5th, 14th, 23rd.
Your opposition sign is Pisces.
Your opposition number(s) is 3.

Today is not one of your lucky days!

There are 1 days till your next birthday
on which your cake will have 50 candles.

Those 50 candles produce 50 BTUs,
or 12,600 calories of heat (that’s only 12.6000 food Calories!) .
You can boil 5.71 US ounces of water with that many candles.

That’s my fun website for the day.

Be good peeps, and have a safe and happy Labor Day!  If you’re on the highway, be careful–the cops will be out!

The one that takes a turn toward the bizarre . . . .

I was reading Kayla Aimee’s blog this morning, and she was describing how she and her husband were having one of those moments where they were basically thinking and functioning in tune, as one.  Which led me to this bizarre memory.

A number of years ago, I was having a rather strange dream involving the Chinese countryside at night, a pond with a lot of people around it, and a boy in the middle of the pond.  I can’t remember now whether the boy was drowning, or what.  Frankly, I think I might have been the boy in my dream.  It was, after all, a very unusual dream.  I guess the alarm must have gone off or something, and I woke up abruptly, still fairly deeply wrapped up in this mental imagery.  I said something like, “the boy . . . the boy!”  And Dennis, also waking up, said something like, “the Chinese boy!”  And that’s when we realized we were having the same dream at the same time.  Yeah, we talked about it, and we were both dreaming of the same scene.

How’s that for “being one”?  And, do you hear the Twilight Zone theme song playing right now, or is it just me?

Champagne

This post will probably be of no interest to anyone but Dennis’s brothers and sisters, so forgive me.  But I just had to post these photos of what is probably the first dog I ever liked:  Champagne.  Cham was the Connair family dog.  Dennis tells me that technically Cham was his older sister Cecilia’s dog.  She got a dog, Dennis got a parakeet.  I guess the other 5 kids got “tough luck.”  Not sure what the deal was on that.

We never had a dog when I was a kid.  We were cat people.  And I was fine with that, because I used to think that cats were cool, and all dogs did was drool–mostly on me.  Plus, every dog I knew barked a lot and jumped up on anyone who came to their yard or door.  So imagine my surprise when I went to Dennis’s house for the first time, walked into the house, and Cham just stood there and looked me over.  No barking, no jumping.  Maybe a little drool, but not so much that I minded.  I skritched her under her collar a little, and she decided she liked me.  She was probably about 8 or 9 years old at that point, so she was pretty mature and well behaved.  I thought she was awesome.

And that wasn’t the end of her list of charms.  Frankly, I think she was the best behaved dog I’ve ever seen.  They had her trained to stay within the boundaries of the yard, no fence needed–not even an electric fence.  She did her business in a certain area of the yard and never while on a walk around the neighborhood (think about it–no carrying a plastic poop bag with you!).  My favorite was the way the family had trained Cham not to venture into the living room or dining room (light dog hair + dark brown carpeting do not mix well).  If we were in the living room and Cham put a paw over the threshold, someone would say, “phooey, Cham,” and she would step off.  That was that.  Fantastic dog, seriously.  I was really sad when she passed away.

Today I was rooting through some of our older photos and found these pictures of Champagne when she first came to live with Dennis’s family.  I just think they’re cute.  For example, here’s puppy Cham.  Looks like she’s pouncing on leaves.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no . . .

it’s a stick!

Cham’s a little older in this one.  For some reason I think this one’s hilarious.  Cham doesn’t look real thrilled with the new addition to the family, Dennis’s bird, Binker.

And finally, just because it’s marching band season, I give you Cham suffering the total humiliation of being dressed as a band geek.

If you made it all the way to the bottom of this post and are not related to Dennis, I thank you for sticking with me.  Now tell me, is there an animal in your life that stands out as the ultimate awesome pet? I’d love to hear all about it.

What happens when you combine 28 marching band seniors, 14 canoes, 6 adults, and one river.

August always signals the beginning of all sorts of fun and games for our kids.  Fun, like reporting to school at 9:00 a.m. and staying until 3 p.m.  Fun, like marching around on the hot blacktop.  Fun, like memorizing 5 new pieces of music.  Fun, like coming back some evenings for 3 more hours of . . . fun.

You sold on joining the marching band yet?

Just so you know, we band parents do our best to try to balance all the hard work with some socializing and partying for the kids.  We have a big picnic on the first evening, provide popsicles every afternoon, host an ice cream social after one of the evening practices, and tie it all up with a “swim and gym” party at the very end.  And for the band seniors, the kids who have hung in there through four years of band camps, we always plan a special activity.  This year, it was a canoeing trip, and Dennis and I were the organizers.

The weather forecast for the day of the canoe trip was bleak, but the radar turned at the last minute, the sun eventually came out, and we had a fairly gorgeous day with perfect temperatures.  We carpooled to a local canoe place, where everyone suited up in life jackets and grabbed a paddle.

After taking a moment for a group photo (which I’ll show you later), we loaded up into a couple of buses and were driven 6 miles upstream and where we hit the water.  With three canoes of chaperones at our disposal, we decided to have one adult canoe in the lead, one in the center of the group, and one taking up the rear.  Dennis and I volunteered to bring up the rear.

Most of the kids had had some experience canoeing, and the bulk of the group quickly took off.  There were a couple of the kids who were novices, though, and we struggled along for the first half of the route, coaching them on how to paddle and steer.  With not a lot of current to help us along, it was hard work, but the girls were pretty good sports.

Thanks to the wonder of modern technology, we were able to call the adults in the lead canoe and ask them to pull up and let us catch up.  So they found a good turnout and let the rest of the kids goof freely in the water.  Here’s what we saw as we approached.

Eventually we mounted up and got back en route.

Here’s our girl, Kristen C.  She and our Allie met in 2d grade and became best friends.  They bonded back then because Kristen happened to have a horrible case of poison ivy and most of the class didn’t want to sit near her.  Allie apparently walked up and said something like, “Cool, can I touch it?”  And the rest is history.  (At least, that’s the story Big K’s mom told me years later.)  But I digress!

Towards the end of the trip, some of the guys got a little crazy and began doing stuff like this:

And this (that’s an inner tube he found in the river):

And this (another found raft):

All that was left to do when we got back to canoe headquarters was turn in our equipment and break out the snacks we had brought along, which were devoured.  I didn’t take any photos of that part, but it looked something like this:

All in all, this year’s senior canoe trip was a success.  I think a good time was had by all.  As of yesterday, these guys are once again busy with books, homework, afterschool and evening band practices, games, and competitions.  Oh yeah, and since they are seniors, I guess they’re busy ruling the school, too.  I give you this year’s seniors!  (That’s my little senior in the front, next to the girl in the red shorts.)

My Kryptonite

I can’t run a cash register, even these baby versions, without making a mistake and screwing up the end-of-the-day totals somehow.  Or worse, sometimes the whole machine freezes up.  I find this very frustrating, because I’ve volunteered in the school bookstore for going on 6 years now, and I don’t know if I’ve ever made it through my monthly shift without goofing. Today I used the register a total of 3 times, and managed to make 1 error.  That means 1/3 of the time, I am incompetent!

It’s a simple sequence when you are running the register for a school bookstore.  You enter the price of the items purchased, one by one, each entry followed by the department no. the items fall under.  School supplies are Dept. 1.  Books are Dept. 2.  Candy (which they sell on MWF during lunch hour at the high school) is Dept. 3.  After the department key, you hit Subtotal.  Then you enter the amount of money the person is giving you in payment and hit Total.  The drawer pops open, you put in the cash received and remove any change (it tells you how much change, too), and you shut the drawer.

My problem is, I freeze under pressure.  When faced by a mob of kids who all need to make purchases but have only 3 minutes to do so and get back to class, I fold, my brain locks, and I goof.

Thank God the mom who’s been my bookstore partner for the last six years is a really good friend.  Otherwise, I’m sure I’d have been fired from my volunteer job by now.  We have it down to a science now.  I get the supplies and take the money.  Then I pass it to her with the correct information on prices, and she handles the register!

You know what’s ironic about this?  When I was fresh out of college, the first book they assigned me to edit at the textbook publishing house was “Cashier-Clerk,” by Eugene Doehring (wow, I can’t believe I remember that).  It was more of a vocational school text on how to run a cash register in the most efficient way, what to do if certain problems came up, and so on.  At the time, I thought it seemed like a funny thing to write a textbook about.  But one day I was standing in line at Kroger when the register locked up, and I stood there thinking to myself, “I’ll bet she needs to get the Supervisor Key to unlock that and then do so-and-so.”  I was afraid to say that out loud, but that was indeed exactly what needed to be done to solve the problem.  And I knew that because I had edited the book.  Strange but true.  So isn’t it ironic that running a cash register is like my kryptonite now?  I consider myself a reasonably smart and capable person.  But I’m actually afraid to go out and get some sort of simple part-time job because I’m convinced I’ll screw it up totally if it involves running a cash register.

What about you?  What’s your krytonite?  Is there something that you fear you won’t be able to learn or do that’s holding you back or keeping you from trying to reach a goal of some sort?

Fire!

Exciting title for a blog post, isn’t it?  But you may have been misled.  I am not going to tell you how I almost burned down our house, watched anyone else’s house burn down, or set myself ablaze.  This post is about “agni” or internal fire.  In other words, it’s about yoga.  Gotcha!

While I can still bear to keep my arms raised to keyboard level, I thought I would just mention that I tried an intermediate level yoga class this morning at YogaHome.  The brochure said that the class would be “para inspired,” which I had to look up online.  Turns out that “Para Yoga” is a method of pure yoga, combining breath, asana, meditation, chanting–the whole nine yards.  The teacher for this morning’s class had just returned from a 5-day course of instruction in Colorado with Para Yoga’s founder, Rod Stryker.  She was pumped about it.

The brochure didn’t say much except that it warned “not for beginners.”  I’ve been taking yoga for a few years, so I figured I was cleared to try this class.  But it was a little more than I could handle, really.  I loved all of the breath work, trying to build up the agni, or fire within, energize the spine, etc.  I loved all of the stretching, although I spent so much time peeking under my arm to try to keep up with the sequence of poses that I missed out on a lot of the focus I would normally want to apply to my yoga work.  We were all sweating up a storm and breathing hard.  The room got stuffy.  Lol–I guess we got two classes for the price of one: para yoga and Bikram (hot yoga) all at once.

About 45 minutes into it, the teacher said, “now let’s move into side crane pose, gently twisting and balancing our legs on our forearms.”  Oh no, honey, my shoulders, biceps, and triceps got no juice left.  I can barely do forward crane pose on a good day, much less attempt side crane after a 6-mile canoe trip earlier in the week.  But everyone else in the class managed, I think, to do it.  Here’s what side crane should look like:

Many of the people in the room looked just like that, only sweatier.

Then the teacher says, “if you feel comfortable doing so, gently open and extend your legs.”  In other words, while you’re up there, do the splits in mid-air.  Several people did it, holding the pose for quite a respectable length of time.  Not all of the successful students were in their 20’s, either.  A couple of them looked my age or older.  I was impressed.  It’s not cool to clap for a fellow student during class, but I so wanted to!  I can’t find any images of this exact variation of side crane, but here’s one variation:

Now let me just remind everyone that my exercise goal for 2009 is to be able to do one full-plank-style push up by Dec. 31, and that I am not yet able to do it.  I can only get down halfway at this point if I want to raise myself back up.  And I’ve been doing yoga daily all summer to build up my arm, shoulder, and core strength.  Still have a long way to go before I can look like the woman above, but wouldn’t that be totally awesome?!!!

Do you think I’m kidding myself?  I’ll be 50 in a couple of weeks.  I’m bendy, but aerobically I need work, and I definitely need lots of work on general muscle strength as well.  But if I keep it up, do you suppose I’ll ever be able to do extended side crane pose?

What about you?  Are you in top physical shape, or do you have goals for this year that you are working on?  Do you feel good about yourself, or do you feel like you are losing it more and more as the years go by?

Holy Kraits, Batman!

I’m always recommending audio books to people, because I love them.  I love being able to “read” while at the same time driving to the grocery, doing chores around the house, or whatever.  I even like to wear headphones and listen to my current book as I’m falling asleep.

But take my advice, and don’t ever listen to this book while falling asleep:

Patterson’s book is great reading, don’t get me wrong.  But it’s about a series of murders in which poisonous krait snakes are the murder weapon.  Not especially gory or anything, and I don’t have any particular phobias about snakes.  At least I didn’t until I read this book, I guess.  Most of the victims in the book were bitten while asleep in their beds, you see.  So I suppose that, without realizing it, I was harboring some degree of the willies over this plot.  All I know is, I woke up abruptly at 2:38 a.m., sucking in big gasps of air, heart racing, hardly able to catch my breath, and making some sort of weird whimpering noises in the back of my throat.  I had been dreaming, rather vividly, about a poisonous snake coming into my bedroom and flying (hey, it was a dream) over to hover near me and Dennis.  I had laryngitis in the dream and couldn’t do anything but make faint whimpers.  Oh, and the power was out, so we could barely see the snake, but he could see us just fine.  I remember feeling like the little kids in “Jurassic Park” who were trapped in the cafeteria, trying not to scream, as the velociraptors stalked them.  Thankfully, I woke myself up just as the snake pressed itself against my throat.  Ugh.

Of course, I turned on the lights for a second, got a drink of water, told poor Dennis all about my dream, and then restarted the CD I had been listening to and went right back to sleep.

Sigh.  I guess I’ll never learn.  Same thing happens to me sometimes if we see any of the Terminator movies right before bed.  And yet I still can’t help watching Arnold if we run across them on TV in the evening.

Ever read something scary or watch a scary movie right before bed and pay for it later with bad dreams?

Not Thrilled

The day started out really well.  I got my heinie out of bed and did my usual yoga/exercises.  Had a good breakfast.  Nice hot shower to loosen up all the muscles.  Then I headed to a 9:00 yoga class.  I’m trying out the offerings at YogaHome, thanks to the suggestion of a friend, and they have some really nice classes to tide me over until my regular class gets going again in September.

Then after lunch I had promised Molly and her friend that I’d take them to the mall.  We’ve done a lot of shopping lately, and I thought Molly, Allie, and Danny were pretty well supplied in the wardrobe department, but I was wrong.  Guess what she needed?  Khaki shorts for her summer band uniform.  By tomorrow, when the band appears at “Meet the Team” night.  I swear that the last couple of times I’ve been out shopping with the girls, I’ve made a point of asking if there was anything else they needed, such as khakis for church or band.  They always assured me they were full up in that department.  Aaarrrrrgggghhhhh!

Ever tried to shop for khaki shorts in late August, when 119 other kids from your child’s school alone are searching for khakis for band?  Stores are switching to long pants, for Pete’s sake.  We hit Penney’s, Kohl’s, Aeropostale, and American Eagle, and then we were stumped.  So we had to take a deep breath and go to Hollister.  And I mean that literally.  Oh Lord, save me from Hollister.  I don’t know how the kids who staff that place can stand it.  It’s so dark you can barely see your hand in front of your face.  And the perfume!  It hits in a cloud when you are still 3 storefronts away!  Personally, I think Hollister’s own storefront should be covered with warning stickers, like these that I found on Zazzle.com:

The good news is that Molly did find shorts.  And they were on sale, big time.  The bad news is that she tried on two different sizes.  I saw her in the larger of the two and thought they looked pretty good, although maybe a little looser than she likes them.  She tried on the next size down and, without showing them to me, decided that was the pair to buy.  I couldn’t breathe anymore, so I threw some money at her and fled the store for the fresher air out in the center of the mall.

We got home and I made her try them on for me.  Skin tight and “crotchtacular,” as they say on GoFugYourself.com.  Two-inch inseam, at best.  No freakin’ way she was going out of the house in them.

She is now en route back to the mall with her older sister.  I am praying she gets this fixed.  I’m sure she thinks I am out of my mind and the meanest mom in the world to make her go back to the store and return the first pair, but I’m not kidding, they needed to be exchanged for something else.  Not flattering, and then some.

I try to be flexible when my girls show me their fashion must-haves.  Often I totally don’t get them and don’t agree with them.  Sometimes I try to tell them why I think the things they want to buy are not the most flattering choices.  Lots of times, though, I am just not in step with what kids today like to wear, so I try to give them the benefit of the doubt and let them experiment (you know, within budget).  There’s no other way for them to learn about style, fit, clothing maintenance, and all of those other things they need to know, right?  But I draw the line at stuff that is unattractively tight or short.  And that’s probably never going to change as long as they are living at home.

What do you all do when you are shopping and your kids desperately fight to buy something you think is wrong for them, or just wrong, period? Do you put your foot down, or do you cave?  I’m really wondering if I am just too prehistoric for words!

Today

• I am going to make a dent in at least one of the big projects on my list.  I don’t care which one.  I am tired of them all hanging over my head.  It’s making me feel just plain tired all over.
• I am going to read for at least half an hour.  Not sure what’s happened to me lately.  I’ve gone from not being able to find enough books to read, to never picking up the printed word.  That hasn’t happened to me since Mrs. Patterson taught me to sound out words in first grade.
• I’m going to walk around my house and remind myself that it doesn’t have to look or be perfect, and that I live like a queen regardless of the fact that our family room couch is 20 years old and our kitchen has been transported straight from the 70s.
• I’m going to think of one loving thing to say to each of my kids, because lately I’m afraid I’ve been using the few moments they’re around to bombard them with “you ought to’s” and “you should have’s.”
• I’m going to be happy.  No matter what!

What’s on your list for today?

Cincinnati Mom Wins Award for Great Parenting!

Yeah, I so wish that headline would someday pertain to me.  But if my brain continues to take a long vacation, you are more likely to read that I have been outlawed as a parent due to cruel and unusual punishment techniques.  Why, you may ask?  Well, a couple of weeks ago I drove Molly over to the dentist’s office to get a couple of teeth pulled.  Which she was dreading.  Then we found out the appointment was actually for the next day.

Today I had Danny all cranked up to find out who his teach will be this year and whether his friends would be in his class.  We headed over to school to pick up his packet.  Only to find the doors locked, because packet pick-up day is tomorrow. I thought today was the 12th.  Can I get a D-U-H?!!!  (Rah, rah, rah!)

To make matters worse, I am on my computer all the time, and it has a calendar feature.  Not only does it send me alarms an hour before each event, but it also displays the current date right there at the bottom of the screen in my icon dock.  I either didn’t notice it, or else I have been putting things onto the wrong days on the calendar.  Either way, holy cow.  I mean, I have an electronic hand-holder to keep me on schedule, and I still can’t be trusted to be places on the right days?!!!  Sigh.

The Cost of Being a Parent

As I munched my cinnamon swirl bagel this morning, I perused the Cincinnati Enquirer.  Most days I don’t.  I know there are a lot of people out there who would consider that statement to be an admission of some sort of crime, but it’s the truth, so why try to be someone I’m not?  I’m no longer a regular newspaper reader or a news watcher, and that’s because I find that the news feeds my already overactive tendency to be anxious about as many things as I can possibly find to be anxious about.  Not being in the know probably makes my conversation a lot duller, but it also makes me a lot calmer, so I’m going to go with it.

Anyhoo, today I took a peek through the pages and was pleasantly surprised to find an article entitled, “What’s it cost to be a parent?  Everything,” by Krista Ramsey.  You can find the whole article here, if you want to give it a gander.

I know that title doesn’t sound like it heralds a cheery, upbeat article that would keep my anxiety at bay.  In fact, there were some moments during the reading of the piece wherein I had to take a deep breath and chant a few Om’s.  Like when she mentioned that the USDA’s annual report, “Expenditures on Children by Families” had stated that parents spend an average of $221,000 to raise a middle-class kid.  (Just give me a second, I think I felt a little heart palpitation there as I counted to five:  1–Ryan, 2–Sean, 3–Allie, 4–Molly, and 5–Danny.) So yeah, I had to overlook the replay of those facts and figures in order to enjoy the real message of the article.

Here’s the part of it I’ll be taking with me today as I sort through Danny’s wardrobe and check to see whether I still need to purchase a crapload of cargo pants, shoes, notebooks, and 2-pocket folders with prongs:  whatever you end up spending to raise your kids, it’s worth it. I love that Ramsey took that USDA report and gave it the right spin!

She could have asked questions like:  Why have kids?  Why put yourself through all that?  Why work two jobs?  Why give up your chance to buy the big home with the airplane-hangar-sized master bath in order to send your kids to college?  Why trade romantic getaways for family trips to the beach (or no vacations at all)?  She touched on the monetary sacrifices it can take to be a good parent, sure.  But the heart of her article (and I do mean the heart) was that any money we parents have to sacrifice; any time we have to give; any growing up we need to do ourselves in order to provide the patience, wisdom, discipline, and love that kids need in order to turn into good human beings–it’s all worth it.  We sacrifice everything, and in the end “it’s worth every penny,” every drop of sweat, and every scream of frustration.  If you are not a parent, that may not make a bit of sense.  But if you have kids, you’ll understand that that’s the bottom line.  For every sacrifice I’ve made, for every time I felt like I just wanted my kids to be “returned to sender,” for every moment I stopped to question why I had wanted to become a mom in the first place, there has been a moment where my heart burst with pride or was filled with overwhelming love because of my kids.

So I have to agree with Ramsay:  It’s worth it.  It just is.  And whatever it takes to get the job done, Dennis and I are in!

My Life is Incredibly Exciting.

Envy me if you must.  I cannot deny that I live an exciting life.  Today, for instance, I paid the bills, put some French Dip in the crock pot, did two loads of laundry, and spent 4 hours fitting the marching band for uniform hats.  In the past, on uniform fitting day, I have measured kids and also had the job of crawling around on the floor determining if their uniform pants needed to be lengthened or shortened.  Glamorous, you say?  True.  In fact, as I write this, I am waiting for the phone to ring.  I’m sure Penguin House publishers will be calling to broker a deal for my autobiography.  But try not to hate me.  I promise I will remain down to earth and continue to revel in the ordinary.

Flying

Just for your general amusement (in case anyone needs a chuckle), here are some pictures of my darling daughters having fun on vacation with Molly’s bff, Clare. You see, we drove to Ocean Isle and decided to break up the car time by staying overnight in a hotel. One room for me and Dennis, Sean and Danny. One room for the girls. It seemed reasonable at the time, and we were right across the hall, checking in fairly often–at least at first. You see, we figured that once we had hit the hotel pool, everyone would go to the rooms and settle in for a little TV and then an early bedtime. Hah! Here’s what the girls were up to, as evidenced by photos from their cameras.

These two (above) are my daughters, by the way.

And now there will be a brief pause so that you can applaud how very well I have raised my children.  Just call me “Miss Manners, Jr.”!

And so it begins . . . again

Fundamentals of marching, Day 1

It’s band camp time again.  Day 1, in fact, running from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.  They start indoors with a brief meeting, and then it’s out to the parking lot to learn marching fundamentals (for the newbies) and begin on the drills for the show.  Anyone who forgets to wear sunscreen or to bring the industrial vat of water with them will be in trouble, although our band director will make sure that no one collapses from heat exhaustion.  I suppose they must break it up and go indoors at some point to rehearse the music, but I’m not sure how it’s planned.  What I do know for sure is that (a) at 4:10 p.m., two hot, sweaty, and exhausted girls are going to come through the front door, and (b) they are going to be happy.  Because band camp, believe it or not, is big fun.

We have 127 kids in the band and color guard this year, which is actually down a bit from previous years, but still fabulous, considering that our student body is around 1100 kids.  What other club gets over 10% of the student body to join?  And what other group can you join as an incoming freshman that will provide you with 126 new friends before the doors even open on Day 1?  Besides football or soccer, the two big sports here, band is the organization to join. And we don’t really seem to have kids that drop out after band camp starts.  They all seem to keep coming back for more.

Allie is a senior this year, and a section leader.  So all you trumpet players, look out!  Allie is smiley and outgoing, and if you are a freshman she will be just as happy to befriend you as if you were a senior.  But if you don’t take your job seriously, and if the trumpet section looks bad because of it, I’m guessing you are going to attract some negative attention from your section leaders.  And that’s true of every section in the band.  They are not afraid of hard work, and they want to make a good showing with their final product.  Much to my surprise, even Molly got totally into it as a freshman last year.  She was dedicated to her art classes, as expected.  But the biggest and most pleasant surprise was that, not only did she like band, but she also took big time pride in her work with the band and in being a part of that organization.

So here’s where my little sentimental speech comes in every year about band.  Dennis and I have been high school band boosters for 10 years now, through 4 kids.  (The back story is that we were both band/drill team geeks in high school and met during college band.)  Band has been a phenomenal, formational experience for each of our kids.  I  honestly don’t know how they would have turned out if they hadn’t stuck with music throughout high school.  And marching band, in particular, has been the key.  The kids themselves are staying with band mostly for the social experience, because they have lots and lots of fun.  I’m not even sure they realize that band is shaping them into mature adults almost faster and better than their dad and I could hope to do it on our own at home.  They learn to be organized and budget their time to keep up with their schoolwork while participating in all of the practices, shows, and competitions.  They learn that it takes hard work and practice to excel, and that you can’t just show up unprepared and still do well.  They learn that other people are counting on them to pull their weight, and that if they goof off, everyone may pay.  They might be lucky enough to learn to be good leaders, or brave enough to learn that they can stand up in front of a huge crowd and play a solo.  They learn the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. And of course, they can get out their instrument for the rest of their lives just for the sheer enjoyment of playing music.

This is why I am an active band parent, and I’m sure why other parents are huge supporters of football, soccer, swimming, and other sports for their kids.  What about you?  Do your kids participate in a sport or in marching band?  If so, do you think it’s worth all the time, sweat, and money your family puts into it? I’m curious!

Unbeknownst to me (and probably to her), my daughter is a tower of strength!

Molly, the quiet one.  Her baby teeth love her so much, they just never seem to want to come out on their own.  She’s had to have about 6 pulled in the past, and this morning she needed the very last two, which should have come out about 3 years ago, pulled out.  So off to the dentist we went.

We have a fabulous dentist, by the way.  The man can give a shot so that it’s practically painless except for that first little prick.  I should know, because I have had lots of dental work in my day.  But to Molly, the shots are the focus of a great deal of nervousness and dread.  She honestly didn’t know what would be worse, having the numbing shots, or just letting the doctor pull the teeth out without any anesthetic.  It took 5 minutes or less to actually pull the teeth, which barely had any roots left, and probably 10 for her to make the decision to go without anesthetic and just squeeze my hand.

And she did squeeze my hand, so I could tell the process wasn’t a complete breeze for her.  In fact, she was panting after the first tooth was extracted, but still decided to go for broke and have the second one done without shots.  Afterward, in the car, she told me “it hurts a lot when he’s pulling them, but it’s better to get it over with quickly.”  I was sooooooo impressed!

So going to the dentist this morning turned out to be a learning experience in more ways than I had imagined.  I found out that Molly is stronger than either of us had ever suspected.  And I found out that I could go to the dentist and hold my child’s hand during a tooth-pulling session without passing out on the floor.  You see, after having had my own dad try unsuccessfully to pull out my own baby teeth using a pliers and a string on a doorknob, I have always avoided even the mention of wiggly teeth like the plague (not easy to do when you have 5 kids).  “Squeamish” doesn’t even begin to cover how I feel about it, and until today, Dennis has always been the one who has dealt with it all.  But today I conquered a bit of a demon of my own.  Yay!

What impresses you about your kids?  Have you ever had a moment where you were just so proud of their character you could hardly stand it? Tell me about it!