Thanksgiving

I have so much to be thankful for. I suppose Thanksgiving is a good day to take inventory.

• My wonderful husband who loves me unconditionally and vice versa.
• My beautiful and kind and generous daughters.
• My adorable and smart grandchildren.
• My son-in-law who is a great father and husband.
• The family I grew up in.
• My kind and loving parents who taught me, by example, how to be a good spouse and a good parent.
• My sister who is also my best friend.
• My little brother who has taught me much about being a positive person and to make your own luck.
• My big brother, the unexpected silver lining of our mother’s passing, whom I love dearly.
• My big extended families. The Owens for always being fun and showing me the true meaning of family love and loyalty. The Primos for growing up with me and staying close no matter what. And the Smith side for hanging in there in spite of differences and distances.
• My friends – every single one of them, near and far, old and new, (real and virtual!)
• The blessings of my everyday life. Waking up in a lovely home, not worrying about being displaced or having a war waging outside of my door.
• For always having enough even though I sometimes worry.
• For access to good food and clean water and medical care.
• For a healthy body and mind, and for the health of my family and friends.
• My sweet dogs who love me unconditionally and to excess.
• For a dependable vehicle that I have been driving for 10+ years.
• My good neighbors and good neighborhood.
• For always having everything I need even if I don’t always realize it at the time.
• For opportunities to travel.
• For the time I get to spend with my grandchildren.
• My husband who encourages me to do whatever I want rather that be to head out at a moment’s notice for weeks on end or to take expensive art classes we both know I’ll never complete.
• For the talents God has given me (even though I neglect or ignore those talents).
• For the beautiful world in which we live. For nature and the great outdoors and my proximity to the river and the herons.
• And for many, many other blessings that befall me every minute of every hour of every day that I take for granted.
• I am grateful to be alive.

 Happy Thanksgiving

Chill Out

            With Thanksgiving this week I find myself in panic mode. Seriously, how did it get here so quickly? Wasn’t it just summer? I don’t know why I always do this to myself. I wait until the last minute to menu plan, to cook, to clean, to take the dogs to the groomer. Then to add to the pressure I decide to participate in various writing challenges.

 At least I can say that this year I’m not doing NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month), the 50,000 words in November challenge, but I did sign on for the daily thirty minute sprint. How many words can I write in thirty minutes and will they all be crap? So here I sit, writing when I should be showered and dressed and heading to the grocery store.

The first mistake I made was committing to the writing challenge; the second mistake I made was asking my husband what dishes (or culinary opuses he especially wanted for Thanksgiving dinner.)  His reply was, “the usual.” Then he proceeded to name things that I’ve never made for Thanksgiving dinner. Broccoli and rice casserole, candied yams, real stuffing (not the vegetarian version I always make for our daughter), and giblet gravy (again, not the vegetarian gravy I always make for our daughter). Wow, all of this in addition to the forty-seven other dishes I prepare will not only be a ton of work, but where the hell am I going to put all of this food?

            The third mistake: Not buying a new back-up refrigerator a month ago. The refrigerator in the guest house (aka the garage apartment, aka the storage room) is dead, kaput, pushing up daisies. The refrigerator in the main house is not that big, having to conform to the space allotted to refrigerators when the house was built in 1932. This morning while listing the dishes he would like for Thanksgiving dinner my husband also suggested I buy a new refrigerator today. Sure, because I have nothing else to do but drive all over town in hopes of finding a refrigerator that can be delivered before Thanksgiving.

            The fourth mistake was thinking that I could actually pull off a stress free holiday dinner. Yesterday I actually convinced myself that I would buy almost everything pre-made. A smoked turkey breast instead of a big-ass turkey and maybe a small ham. I even crossed several side dishes off of the menu. But no! I’ve already had requests for the items I eighty-sixed. Even though there will be only three people (3 PEOPLE!) at my Thanksgiving table I am cooking for a crowd.

That is perhaps the fifth mistake; the Thanksgiving leftover party which I host every year on the Saturday night after turkey day for all of our friends and neighbors. The party is great fun and supposedly a great way to get rid of leftovers. The only thing is I have to make a huge meal in order to ensure I have adequate leftovers. The point of the party is to give everyone the opportunity to get rid of their leftovers by sharing them in a huge tryptophan buffet. But the reality is I end up with everyone else’s leftovers in addition to mine. Plus, I have to clean my house for company.

Oh well, it is the holiday season. Let the cooking, the cleaning, the stressing and the eating begin. Seriously, why do we do this to ourselves? I guess it’s to prep for that other holiday that comes on the heels of Thanksgiving. The one where you not only have to cook and clean for a crowd, but buy ridiculously expensive gifts that no one needs, and travel cross country on airplanes that lose your luggage and have endless delays. I know I sound like a Grinch, but just thinking about that broccoli and rice casserole has a tendency to turn me slightly green.

There is a silver lining to the holiday craziness. The silver lining is family. My youngest daughter will be here for Thanksgiving and her presence makes up for all the special vegetarian dishes I have to prepare. The stress I will suffer during my Christmas travel will be worth it in the end when I get to spend time with my oldest daughter, son-in-law, and my beautiful grandchildren. So, I’m going to take a deep breath, make an extensive grocery list, and give myself an attitude adjustment. I need to remember these wise words: Chill out. Oh, and buy a refrigerator. 

Kindness

Since the terrorist attacks in Paris there has been nothing but bad news on my horizon. Everyday when I turn on the television (which I’m doing less and less), or when I catch BBC news on NPR on my car radio, or read the newspaper, or open my computer to social media I learn of some new despicable act perpetrated by “bad guys” on the rest of the world. I am down. I am sad. I am scared.

Then things hit home in a personal way. My father-in-law died last week, on my birthday. He had been heroically battling cancer, and seemed to be doing a valiant job. My husband and I visited him last month and felt that the most recent chemotherapy had bought him some time. But, alas, as cancer will do, he was struck by an associated side effect; he developed a blood clot and was brought down by a massive stroke. At least, we tell ourselves, he didn’t suffer through a debilitating and dignity-robbing end of life experience from the cancer.

The past week has included early morning risings for early morning flights, three different hotels in two different cities, two funeral services 250 miles apart, lots of unknown relatives, tears, comforting, facing old wounds, and exhaustion. In short, it has been grueling.

Today we arrived home tired, a bit loopy, and confused about how to proceed with the work of settling an estate. Even though we’d been pre-occupied with dire family matters the woes of the world were still there just waiting for me when I opened a week's worth of newspapers my next door neighbor had collected for me. Things – my life, my world, my outlook, my mood, were low.

The first task upon arriving home was to pick up my dogs at the kennel where they were boarded while we were out of town. The kennel owner, Kelley, is a military veteran so I told her about the beauty of my father-in-law’s military graveside service as I was writing a check for payment. I asked how much I owed her and her reply was, “Nothing, it’s on me.” I was shocked and my husband tried to argue with her, but she got her way by playing the I’m-the-owner-of-the-kennel-card.

What a kind and meaningful gesture for her to make. I know she did it because she is a genuinely good person and because she wanted to express her sympathy and her condolences. But, little does she know that she did so much more than that. She planted a seed of hope in my sad heart. She made me realize that there are always good people to shine a light no matter how much darkness is in your life. Her light illuminated all of the other kindnesses I have been shown all week. The neighbor who took care of my mail and newspapers, the hotel clerk who gave me a hug and a bottle of cold water when we checked in late at night, the relatives I’d never met who hosted a beautiful lunch after the graveside service, my daughter who flew from New York with my ten month old grandson so she could comfort her daddy, the laughter I shared with Gwen, my father-in-law’s companion of twenty years, as she told me stories of their life together, and so many more acts of love and kindness that I was on the verge of overlooking because of  “the state of the world.”

Things are bad right now; my heart is still heavy with loss and with fear. But the generosity and care of another human, of a kind and gentle soul changed me today. Thank you Kelley, you have no idea how far reaching your kindness will ripple. I will pass it on!      

The Most Important Meal of the Day

Breakfast. My mother was not one to rise early to make breakfast. On Sunday, after Mass, she would make up for all the breakfasts she neglected during the week. Sausage and/or bacon, hash brown potatoes, pancakes, eggs – fried, scrambled, or both, orange juice, milk, coffee, maybe fruit, and of course – catsup for the hash browns, or for everything in the case of my father.

Dad would eat quickly, either because his blood sugar demanded it or because he was in a hurry to be in front of the television to watch whatever pre-game show was in season. I don’t recall my mother ever sitting down to one of those Sunday breakfasts with us. I see her from across the kitchen bar; standing at the stove with a white plastic spatula in her hand, a short order cook is what she called herself.  

The four of us kids at the table eating and talking and laughing, Mother egging us on to share our stories, our lives, our tales and adventures of the week with her. Daddy occasionally hollering from the den for us to be quiet or simmer down so he could hear Howard Cosell tell about this or that player’s stats.

How breakfast on Sunday differed from the rest of the week. My recollection of breakfasts on Monday through Friday is that of a quiet time in a house lit by only the kitchen light. The soft sounds of 1960s top-40 music coming through the built-in intercom radio system – Winchester Cathedral, Feeling Groovy, Bus Stop and the sound of the newspaper pages turning as Dad sat next to me at the Formica breakfast bar in our house in Ft. Worth, TX. We were the only ones up. I’m not sure why. Perhaps I went to school earlier than my siblings, or perhaps this only happened on one or a few occasions. Yet, I have such a strong memory of it; it feels like it happened every day.

The shared solitude of eating raisin bran with my father. Very few words, yet I knew the love was there. I felt the security of our home and our lives while sitting in the glow of the red shaded lamp that perched at the end of the bar over the telephone and the yellow scratch pad. I was loved.

So, I agree. Breakfast is important. Good food and family and love. Oh, and on Saturdays we got doughnuts!

August 4, 2015

August 4^th? How is it already August? This summer has gone by faster than that high-speed internet I hear tell about. Is it because I’m getting older? I understand that the older one gets the quicker time passes. Yikes! My young friends with school age children are already purchasing school supplies, dropping freshmen off at college, or having their boys outfitted for high school football uniforms.

Summer is nearly over. In my case that might be a good thing. This has been a summer of excess; too much of a good thing. Excessive travel, food, drink, and fun. In keeping with the adage, “All good things must end,” I have put a halt to my excesses. In keeping with my life’s pattern of “there is no such thing as balance,” I have gone from one extreme to the other. I’ve gone from sipping tequila all day under a beach umbrella to abstaining completely from alcohol, from partaking of every morsel of food offered to eating a strict diet with no sugar, grains or dairy, from lazy mornings over cups of coffee laden with cream to rising at 6:00 a.m. to write, from late nights to early evenings, from gadding about to staying home.

I have seen the results of my summer excesses (and the number on the scale) and put a halt to it. But, I have no regrets or apologies. Summer is supposed to be fun. I have merely had the adult version of my childhood summers.

Remember staying outside until way after the street lights came on to illuminate the neighborhood at 100-yard intervals? Chasing fireflies and maybe even catching some in a rinsed out jelly jar? Your mother insisting you wash your filthy feet before climbing into bed because you’d gone barefoot all day on the hot streets and sidewalks and neighbors’ lawns? Sleepovers and slumber parties? Wrapping houses with rolls of toilet paper pilfered from home? Cookouts and eating big slices of watermelon with the juice dripping off of your elbows? Chasing down the ice cream truck to spend a few quarters you got as your allowance? Spending all day at the neighborhood swimming pool and coming home sunburned and smelling of chlorine? Summer vacations to visit grandparents, or to Six Flags, or to the beach with all of your cousins? And speaking of the beach – that feeling you’d get lying in bed after spending all day on a rented rubber raft, that feeling of still bobbing in the ocean? Doughnuts for breakfast, and not just on Saturdays? Sleeping as late as you wanted, or as late as your mother would let you?

Yes, I have enjoyed the excesses of summer just as I did as a child. I have thirty days to recover, as the excesses of autumn will begin soon. And that my friends is another story!

Happy Birthday Mom

Today would be my mother’s 82^nd birthday had she lived past age 57. What a life she was cheated out of. I know she would be extremely proud of all of her children. I know she would be beyond happy that we found John Anthony, her oldest son, placed for adoption before she met and married my father. There is no doubt in my mind that the two of them would have had a special relationship. The death of my younger brother, Wade, left a hole in her heart. Perhaps John could have helped fill it, never replacing Wade, but giving Mother the comfort of knowing her oldest son was happy and healthy and had a great life in spite of her life-long fretting over the choice she was forced to make.

How she would beam with pride over the accomplishments of all of her children. And her grandchildren – oh my, I know no one who would relish being a grandmother more than she. My oldest daughter, Courtney, is the only grandchild lucky enough to really remember her. What a sad loss for the others. Now there are great-grandchildren. I wonder if she ever imagined that.

Mother is gone but she left a great legacy. She taught us so much: How to parent, to love unconditionally, to have a successful and loving marriage, to be a good friend, the importance of family, and to have fun. I think of her many times every day. I think of her when I prepare a meal, wash a load of laundry or iron a shirt. She was a domestic goddess disguised as a housewife. I cannot run a kitchen sink of sudsy hot water without thinking of her. We nicknamed her Our Lady of Perpetual Dishwater. She always had a dishcloth in her hand and was cleaning something. I can’t walk the beach in search of sand dollars without feeling she is there with me. And every time I am with my grandchildren I send her an unspoken thank you for showing me the way love multiplies with each generation.

On this, her special day, I could lament all she lost, but instead I’ll focus on all she had and all she gave. Happy birthday Mom. 

Sidetracked Home Executive

I retired four years ago to become a stay-at-home-wife or, as I’ve heard it called, a Domestic Engineer (I prefer the term Domestic Goddess). What this means is I no longer get to (have to) get up early, shower, dress, and be at work at a designated hour. I can get up at my leisure, enjoy my coffee, read, write, and do the crossword puzzle. It also means I am the one responsible for making sure we have groceries, washed clothes, and a clean house. I am a housewife and I’m not very good at it.

When I was a young stay-at-home-mom and wife I found an interesting book called Sidetracked Home Executives by sisters Pam Young and Peggy Jones; it soon became my bible. In essence it was a treatise on Adult Attention Deficit Disorder before we knew there was such a thing. By following their “unique, organizational 3x5 index card system” I was able to keep up with my household and my children. Fast forward some twenty-plus years and I find myself in need of the sisters’ counsel once again.

This is what happens when you are a Sidetracked Home Executive: This morning I got the brilliant idea to give the guest room a much needed cleaning. Because there is no other room design option the bed is against a wall of windows. (Yes, I can hear all of the designers out there groaning.) My husband helped me move the bed so I could sweep and mop the hardwood floor underneath the bed. As I began sweeping I realized I should dust the window blinds and sills first. Easy, right? Well… Once I began dusting the blinds I realized I should take down the curtains and wash them. They have been up since we moved in four years ago. I have vacuumed them, but I figured that after four years they probably needed a good cleaning. (Yes, I can hear all of you clean-freaks out there screaming.) Another issue with said curtains is the previous homeowner hemmed them too short and I wanted to remedy that. Out came a ladder and down came the curtains. That is when I realized that the hem job had been done with that iron-on tape. I peeled it apart to discover the bottom edge of the curtain was unfinished. If I attempted to wash them they would unravel.

This is where the sidetracked part really kicks in. In order to avoid miles of linen thread in my washing machine I would have to hem the curtains. Out came the sewing machine. My sewing machine is an archaic mid-century model that requires extreme feats of strength just to get it set up and a PhD in engineering to thread. (You can read more about that here http://cleaninghouseamemoir.blogspot.com/2012/02/sewing-machine.html) Once the sewing machine is in place I realize I also need the ironing board and iron. By this time the guest room is so congested I cannot move through it, but curtains are hemmed and in the washing machine.

I don’t know when I will find time to re-hang the curtains or clean the room because I always prefer to write about cleaning than actually doing it. And, since the sewing machine is out I have mending to do and after that I’m going to find my old copy of Sidetracked Home Executive and see about honing my housekeeping skills, and after that I’ll probably need a nap. It’s a good thing I’ve not made my bed.  

The Sale

I will begin by confessing that I am a bargain addict. I elaborately plan garage sale routes and attend every estate sale in the county. I haven’t paid full retail for clothes or shoes in my adult life and I only travel using frequent flyer mileage. I try to be frugal at the grocery store too, but the things I like to eat are rarely on sale.

 

This morning a friend introduced me to a new type of sale. We met outside of our local grocery store and stood in line to enter a maze of bright green plastic totes containing grocery and sundry items. Shoppers waited eagerly to snag items for a dollar apiece.

I should have realized I was out of my element when cautioned by the store manager to play nice, or in his words, “No fighting or we’ll shut this down.” A whistle blew and we, along with our huge grocery buggies (in the south we call them buggies) were allowed into the labyrinth. It took me all of three seconds to see that everyone in town must have let their aunt out of the attic for this. I ditched my unruly shopping cart/buggy for a red plastic basket and I was off.

My new mobility allowed me to rush past lines of shoppers pushing their already overflowing carts and to get to the good stuff. I passed on the generic green beans and corn and made straight for the wasabi-soy almonds, crunchy peanut butter, brown rice with quinoa, bags of organic granola – all of the overpriced specialty items I so love. When I added a twelve-pack of mineral water to my basket I knew I had exceeded my weight limit.

Now for step two of the grocery gauntlet: The check out. Finding the end of the line proved problematic, but I was able to deftly maneuver with my small red basked around the shopping carts to secure my place in line. My friend joined me in the queue to chat away the waiting time. Suddenly, to my horror, someone pushing an overflowing shopping cart cut in line two spaces ahead of us. Then, even more horrifying, I heard a voice, much like my own (okay, it was mine) say, “Excuse me?!” Seriously, was I about to challenge a fellow bargain hunter over a few minutes of my time? I broke eye contact with the poor woman who was obviously lacking in social skills, not to mention morals, and ignored the transgression.

I finally made it to the checkout, paid thirteen dollars for thirteen items (thirteen items I didn’t really need and would never have bought at full price), and was on my merry way. It was time to head back to my attic. Sometimes we all have a little crazy in us and as I said upfront, I’m crazy about a bargain.