Sparkles and Sprinkles

Since Christmas was so strung out this year, this post covers a lot of time.  It was not all spent crying over the trashcan and coming late to the realization that your kids have left home...........5 years ago.  hahaha

Our house was visited by the amazing Abigail for a few days recently and I must say she adds a lot of sparkle.  Literally.  She came equipped with silver sequined boots and silver glitter ballet slippers.  To see those sparkly things in the pile of size 12 sneakers did my heart a world of good.  She came along at a time when I really needed her and has gotten me through some dark days.  (Ok-years.....but you see how perfectly it all works out?  And now another baby girl will be following in her footsteps.  I'm simply not the type to turn bedrooms into closets for myself.  I come from different stock, a more welcoming and less self-obsessed kind. ;)  No telling how long I can stave off the realization that the twins are gone before I have to face that, this way!  See?  There is a method to my madness.)

Adriana...you can see she is coming along beautifully

Her boots and shoes were only compliments to the rest of her wardrobe, which consisted of lots of tulle ruffles, sequined skirts and glitter leggings.  The dogs were the most thrilled of all.  Not only did she sparkle, but she moves a lot more than any human they have ever seen in the house.  A lot more.  They faithfully followed her everywhere she went and the three of them had a really great time playing a version of "the floor is made of lava".  This is what they did while Mimi tried to figure out how to get the video game player to play a movie......for 30 minutes......while she had one of the twins on the phone telling her exactly what to push on the controller.  He finally just had to come home, as his mother is so unfamiliar with controllers that it never occurred to her there are buttons on the front of the thing.  I couldn't even figure out what the buttons on top were supposed to do.  I'm proud of that, in the big picture.  Video games are one evil I have completely avoided.  It figures that I would pay the price when all I wanted to do was watch a simple video.  You say technology has advanced.  I say it's advanced right into the sewer, that's what I say.

So I let her open a Christmas present early.

Apron by Cheryl Arnold Craig of Cheryl's Sewing, Unionville, MO.  You can find her on FB or at    her blog

I think it is as adorable as she is in it!  We got to work right away.  I had several things already mixed up and ready to dip or bake, and we did both.

You always have make sure it's "fit ta eat"

We also had nice talks about who she was, as she is a big sister now.  She is not a baby anymore, but she is MY baby (her blue eyes looked up for confirmation at this, which I gave with alacrity).  She is a kid, not a big kid, though.  A little big kid, or as she put it "a widdle big kid".  She is just at the age where she still can't say some things and I try to hang onto these days especially hard.  It was interesting to see how she sees herself, not to mention me.  I know full well that the days when she knows everything already are just waiting a little ways ahead, so I intend to remember every one of these sweeter ones while I can.  Guess what else I got her?  I had to smile when I clean Mackenzie's room...remember the angel wings?  Without remembering them I had gotten Abigail some this year.  She loved them. 

She isn't into posing for pictures...yet.  I think that's Jack in the background, asking if she's going to eat that...

4 year old's simply tell you the most amazing things.  All true, nothing censored,  from their point of view.  You would be surprised at some of the things you learn, you should talk to one today.

She achieved Master Sprinkler status in a few hours, as she has so much sprinkling to do she had bottles in both hands, sprinkling for all she was worth.

Putting sprinkles into a cup gives you a nice mixture of red and green because let's face it:  who can ever decide between them?  And why should we have to choose?

My Bonus Daughter, her mom, sweet thing that she is, insisted we go "do something" during the week I had off.  This is one of the things I love most about my bonus daughter--she actually thinks of me and is willing to do whatever it takes to spend time with me.  She spreads sparkles wherever she goes, just like her daughter.  We met at high noon at a bowling alley and bowled a game.  We all had a great time, even though we are by no stretch of the imagination great bowlers.  It had been entirely too long since we had eaten at a bowling alley, too, as real bacon cheeseburgers and tenderloins were to be had for very reasonable prices.  It was a good day!

She is also young enough to grab up the camera and takes lots of pictures without focusing up our noses.  Just one skill I covet.....

My youngest baby is multi-talented: baby holding and keeping score simultaneously.

Everybody got plenty of practical and appreciated gifts, me included.  I got the warmest, softest new robe and slippers from the kids, which kept me all warm and snuggly, and this necklace I got for myself.  I LOVE it!

By ReBlinged.  You can find them on FB also.  They take vintage items and give them new life.  This is my version of a mother's ring.

I don't know if you remember or not but I vowed that my presents would be hand made this year at some point.  I did not say they would be hand-made by me, so the apron and the necklace still count.   But I did pretty good with what skills I have to work with and little time.  

We made LOTS of candy.  By far the most popular were the peanut butter balls.  Take 24 Nutter Butter cookies and crush 'em.  Mix with 8 oz. cream cheese, roll into balls, throw the balls in the freezer and then dip them in chocolate or almond bark.  Very good.  Tip: try to keep the balls small.  I have no patience and as a result my truffles ended up taking four bites to finish.  Two bites is about right.

It looks great, doesn't it?  None of it was hard.  Check out Kraftfoods.com and you too will feel like a wizard in the kitchen.  (Even if you didn't get a Snuggie-but if you did--watch the sleeves!)

I smashed the cookies by myself!

And in the interest of trying to survive without being able to get into a Dr., I came up with this:

Everybody went crazy for this stuff. * Some of them were actually  sick.

I found this on the blog http://HomesteadingSurvivalism.com, which I will have on my blog list soon.  They are redoing their website presently.  Check them out.  I  really like them.   For this I just cut up 2 lemons and about 2 finger-lengths of ginger root and then fill the jar with honey.  You are supposed to let it set, stirring each day until the honey and citrus makes a jelly.  Take a spoon or two of the jelly, add boiling water, and you have a tea that will help you when you are sick with a cold or flu. It's wonderful!  You can also add some whiskey for an actual  Hot Toddy.  I finally figure that one out!  One of the recipients was so sick that he did not bother with making the tea, or even the Hot Toddy, and just ate it by the spoonful.  He reported that it helped a lot and wanted more in just a few days.  I found some pint jars on sale and it was a hit.

My list for hand made (by me) presents is growing for next year.  Next year I will be ready!!  I know I've said it before but this time I think it's really going to happen.  Between the candy, cookies, remedy's and easy little projects that even I can do, it's going to happen.  After this, our memories will be about time spent together, good food and drinks, and the time we spent, instead of who got what.  It's not a competition and whatever you get someone, the worth should rest in the fact that it's from you instead of what it is.  This checking boxes off of lists stuff has got to stop.  I have grown up, so much so that there is no longer any question.  What a relief.  I think the days of questioning myself are finally over, happily, and it feels really good to know where I stand.  So much of our youth is spent thinking we know what we think and then being slapped right upside the face with a complete and total opposite truth that we just hadn't lived long enough to learn yet.  Young people, this is how people can stand to get old.  It's like a soap opera, we have simply seen it all before.  It's pretty hard to scare us, if you want to know the truth.

I'm done with Christmas being more about presents than it is about Christ.  I'm done with people who say Happy Holidays.  You could say that on Veterans Day!  I'm done spending money I don't have for things people don't want, need, or like.  How much stuff do you need to have before you have "enough" anyway?  That is a question we should all ask ourselves, and if you still feel greedy after that, just think about how much you will have to "maintain" or "dust" this "stuff".   Is it so precious to you that little kids can't be in your house?  Isn't it going to get broken or be obsolete with a few years?  What is the point of that crap anyway? The days when your children are small pass quickly, however hard that may be for you to believe now.  They will remember the times together, messes, blow ups, and all, and they will remember it as the best times of their lives, regardless of the "stuff" they get.  Treasure the days when they like the box better than anything that could be inside, and make sure they hang onto that bit of wisdom that they are here to teach you.

The old bait and switch...feminism revisited

My impressions of Women's Lib, straight from the front.  I was there, man, just young.

Feminism.  What does that mean?  Good question these days.

I was born in 1965.  I can vaguely remember the women burning their bras on TV.  I just got a glimpse before my mother turned it off.  She shrugged it off as something "the hippies" were doing.  I asked why people would burn bras they had paid money for.  She said that they were protesting because they didn't think they should have to conform the natural shape of their bodies with foreign objects.  Those were not her exact words, of course, I was 7 years old.  I don't remember her exact words, but I do remember a little history lesson that started with corsets, hit girdles somewhere in the middle and ended with bras, burned in a dumpster.

I should mention now that my mother never, to my knowledge, went anywhere but to bed without a bra.  I should probably also mention, because in my opinion, this MATTERS on this subject:  my mom actually had boobs.  Good ones, which get plenty of attention WITH a bra on, thank-you-very-much.  I am pretty sure they must have all been small boobed women, those bra burners.  Or high.  Maybe they were just stuck at home with the kids and would take any opportunity to get out of the house.  I wouldn't really know.  I was at home with my mother, who explained what she could about the movement but never waivered in her conviction of what a woman is.  Or the wearing of her bra, either one.

I wonder who watched the kids while they were burning their bras?  Probably their mother's, who were at home doing what women had always done: raise children and making a home.  I figure those mothers were probably thinking "get real".

Next was the Equal Rights Amendment, that resulted in nothing ,for decades, but a whole lotta arguing and a new name for laudry detergent.  I love the irony there.  It was supposed to make sure women got paid the same as men for doing the same work. The "same" work was never satisfactorily defined.  At the time, my mother "had" to go to work, as was her right after she was left with two small children.  Her husband finally left her to run off with another woman.  I think she was a woman, although a legal definition of "age of consent" may need to be consulted to tell for sure.  Never heard if she wore a bra or not.  Mom got a job at a bank, where she was not allowed to wear anything other than a skirt or a dress.  Of course she wore a bra, too.  I'm pretty sure they would have frowned on liberated sorts who didn't.

I do not remember hearing discussions of who would watch the children if the women went to work, but I'm sure they were going on.  Maybe they were figuring their mothers would do it.  I also do not remember hearing discussions of what would happen when those children got sick, but I'm sure people were discussing it.  Or, they may have just figured that their mother's would do that, too.  Because they always had.  When you decide to change the way things have always been, there are a lot of variablesI suppose it's hard to be prepared for.

What I brought out of the whole experience was that girls were supposed to be equal to men, and get paid the same.  That is pretty general, I know, but I was about 10 at this time.  Honestly, I have to say it sounded good to me.  I already felt I had been somehow devalued, not to mention being defensive about it, which must have been part of their plan, but it was years before that would occur to me.

Flash forward 10 years, say 1985:

We girls are all prepared to have "careers" and make all this money, only we still don't get paid the same amount as men.  We are pissed about this.  A lot of us aren't married because we don't feel that we have been indoctrinated to look down on women who feel they "need" a man.  We are also of childbearing age now, and oddly, the pill did absolutely nothing to decrease unplanned parenthood.  Since we would be working, we would also be sending our children to daycare, where they will get sick, necessitating the missing of work to take said children to the Dr.  We are missing getting paid, but we have to come up with extra money for the Dr.  and the pharmacy. 

It occurs to me that this might have a little bit to do with the fact that we don't make as much as men.  Most of the men have a wife, mother, sister, someone to do this for them.  Free.  I'm pretty sure that's because no women actually trust any men to take care of small, sick children.  In any event, those damn men hardly ever miss work.

Madonna arrives on the scene as a pop culture icon. 

Everybody starts getting boob jobs.

Oh, and anti-depressants are everywhere, and you are not to feel bad about taking them, either.  It's not your fault you're depressed.

I wonder if this was what the bra burners had in mind.  I think they are doing it wrong.  I solidly stand behind their RIGHT to do it wrong, however.  I mull over the fact that boobs have been the biggest source of money coming to females since........there have been women with boobs.  I think some things never change.  I think someone needs to GET REAL, but I am no longer sure whether it's "them" or me.

Instead of the ERA passing, we got something called "affirmative action", which was supposed to be good not just for women, but anyone of "minority" status.  I vividly remember having a discussion of this with grown adult (around 40 years old) at this time.  The adults were against it, because they said it would end up with people having to hire people because of their gender or color of their skin, which would be bad.  I said that that was just silly, it was to keep people from holding any gender or color issues against you.  They said "GET REAL", they are going to tell us who we can and cannot hire!  I said that would be stupid.  NO one would ever hire a people who weren't qualified, that would be stupid!!!  Then, I am pretty sure I stomped away in a rage, as teenagers are wont to do.  They probably rolled their eyes and lamented my lack of vision.

You see, I could not concieve of a time when what I thought of as adults would ever NOT be in charge.  I also, and this is a luxury not available to the youth of today, was sure that common sense and justice would always prevail in America.
So, I would like to take this opportunity as an adult to apologize to the adults of yesteryear because I have to hand it to you:  YOU WERE RIGHT.  You know who you are.

Some kind of war between working women and stay at home moms begins.  Also at issue, oddly I think, is nursing in public. 
I mean, GET REAL, women have been nursing babies since....women have been having babies.  It's what the ever popular and lucrative boobs are actually designed for.

At any rate, now women, instead of being attacked by other groups, feel free to attack each other.  I think they are doing it wrong, and suspect their mother's are saying "I told you so".
Flash forward 20 years:

All the old rules seem to have been thrown out, along with most of what you would recognize as music.

The little girls who were raised not to compare themselves to or aspire to be Barbie dolls have steel in their faces, ink from one end to another and instead of worrying about careers, just make sex tapes or become pop stars.  Which is now the same as porn, by the way, FCC rules for tv having gone through a liberation of  their own.

Thanks, Madonna! (Who wears big caricatures of bra's incidentally.  Coincidentally?)

 I still do not negate their RIGHT to do that, but I'm wondering what kind of parent (mother) they have (Madonna?  No, you may be surprised to know that she is very strict with her children.  They don't even watch TV, probably for obvious reasons), and what kind of life this is going to make.  I conclude that they are nothing but a cash cow to their parents, who must not be able to conceive of the notion of "nurturing" or "protecting innocence".

We have court cases because, of all the firemen who are eligible for promotions, the ones who get hired have to be black, and none of the black ones could pass the test.  What to do???  Thanks affirmative action!

We have women serving in armed forces, despite having children, and soon will have openly gay people there too.  I wonder who is raising their children.  Not just the women's children either.  This being the age of equality, gay people are going to have the right to get a job and leave their children for someone else to raise also.

On the upside, women finally gain a little in the battle to make as much as men.  Woot!  Woot?

Boob jobs and plastic surgery have reached a saturation point, so begins the long and no doubt painful backlash.  Products said to remove tattoos flood the market.

It occurs to me that when you tell kids they can be anything, they believe you.  As proof, transgenderism abounds almost as much as diagnosed cases of ADHD. 

You can get any kind of drug you want as easily as going to your Dr. and requesting whatever the commercial said repeatedly right before the long and horrifying list of side effects.  Except anitbiotics.  There remains no black market for them unless you can get some for your pet from a vet.   At least, as far as I know.  If I hear of any I will be sure to let you know, though (wink wink).

Where does this leave us?

Beats the hell outta me!

All I know for sure, is this:  the children have to be taken care of and it's usually the women who do it.  I do not mean to take away from what a father brings to the equation.  Perish the thought.  Children need both a mother and father, working in tandem.  One of them needs to be with the child constantly when it is small and cannot take care of itself.  Traditionally, this has been the mother, due to the boobs. 

We have the right to do just about anything we can imagine now.  It pains me to see young girls being encouraged to devalue themselves. And being in some gansta's rap video is not something to be proud of. You can blame drugs, tv, hippies, almost anything and be a little bit right about how we got into this mess, but it seems pretty clear to me that nobody has been taking care of the kids for the last several decades.  That cannot and should not be taken lightly.  I think everybody should do whatever makes them happy.  I just always assumed that personal dignity would always be the natural, unanimous choice of women.  I think they're doing it wrong. 

What have we gained? 
What have we lost?
When are we going to get real?

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