Jed Clampett Speaks to Me

WOW!  They said we were going to get another 10 inches of snow and for once they were right!

Look what quiet little tiny flakes can do if they are consistent and stick together.  Consider this a metaphor for our country right now and look up your Representatives numbers right now.  What else do you have to do today?

I got up this morning, having heard no roaring winds in the night, and as always, God whispered "Go look outside."  Maybe it's just a mid-western thing, but every single day is a surprise.  Sometimes it's a surprise because it's different than yesterday.  Some times it's a surprise because it's the same.  There is no real "normal" at any given point in time.  We do have periods where it stays cold, or hot, for a couple weeks at a time and that makes us crazier than anything.  It gives us time to complain, and nobody likes that.

Today will be a day of scooping, woman, pull out the sky pants, pronto!

I didn't let it get me down.  In fact, I got all excited because NO ONE was out.  NO ONE seemed to be up, either, which for some reason always makes us MOMs feel super efficient and equal to the task.  I texted my boss and asked how the roads were.  He said very deep and not to get out until the streets were plowed.  Ah, no guilt.  Why does having permission always make me feel so much better?  It probably just harks back to a time in my life when I was able to believe that adults were in charge.  Those were good old days, and I miss them very much.  Or maybe it's just because I'm a woman and in our culture (I use the term very loosely these days, which I know you, dear reader, understand) we (used) to defer to men's opinions.  Why?  because they were in charge.  I know, it seems a little crazy now but there was a day when that was true.  Well, there was a day when one could believe that was true, if one so chose.  It was very comforting.

The only sound was the wind and clumps of heavy snow falling off the branches.

I took the dogs out.  They looked at me like I was crazy.  

Look, lady, I love you and all but this is DEEP!

I've never claimed NOT to be crazy, so I scooped the stairs down to the backyard for them.  All but the last one, which is buried under the snow, that is.  Then they really got with it.

 Someday I will probably figure out how the settings on this camera.  Until that day comes, use your imagination.  It's the best I can do.

A squirrel?  Falling clumps of snow?  I don't know because by now I already had gotten one face full of snow and refused to look up any more.

This is what the chain link looked like.  No wonder they were looking up.  It was the only direction they could see.

I shoveled the drive.  It took me about an hour, done in 3 shifts, as you can clearly see by how much is still coming down if you look closely at the next picture.

You might think this made me feel like it was futile.  I happen to know futile very well, and we are locked in a struggle that I am simply too stubborn to ever give up.  This struggle has been going on for 47 years and shows no signs of stopping.  Now the big question is: Is that futile?  I'm too stubborn to examine that one too closely.  Feel free to do it in my honor.

 Bend, trees, don't break!

 The snow......it came from the North......

 Remember the Wang Chung song?  "Move it down to the ground"  Almost there.  This was about 6:30 a.m.

 "down to the ground"......CHECK.  About 7:30 a.m.

I am still not sure how much snow we have gotten, but we got 10" last week and I would say at least that much more last night and today and it is still coming down.

Toward the end, just when my arms were getting shaky, Jed Clampett spoke inside my head.  His voice clearly said "Whee, doegggies!  That's a lotta snow!"  I smiled and planted my shovel, and threw me head back and just let the snow hit my face.  It was still absolutely quiet, and no one was out.  One of my neighbors did get out and make a foray around the block.  I smiled and waved as he came around and went right back home.  

Jack and Shadow stare in consternation at a tree limb that is bent down to the level of the snow.  That's.....different.  Should we chew on it?

It's a snow day her in Missouri.  It will be spent shoveling and eating and laying around, in that order, repeated as needed.  I hope you enjoy yours.  I have already enjoyed mine.

Oh, Red Bud Tree, I will miss you so.  Maybe some of you will rally.  Rally, Red Bud Tree!!

Come on!  What's taking you so long?

Just Like Old Times.....

I have been a bad blogger.  Well, it's winter, and as you know I would rather be hibernating.

Recently, I kept both Abigail and 4 month old Adriana while their parents went out for a few hours.  We are calling Adriana "Rose", and she is quite fetching.  She is at the age where if you happen to catch her eye, she grins and it spills out of her, washes all the way down and she giggles and waves her hands and feet.  I am, naturally, very taken with her.

We got a long famously...... until we didn't.  She may have been hungry, I don't really think so, but as she didn't settle down, I warmed up a bottle.  This is no small feat when you are dealing with frozen breast milk, but I got it ready and offered it to her.

Bless her little heart, she has so far learned that when she wants her mother, and therefore to be fed, all she has to do is cry a little.  Well, she cried, I offered her the bottle, and she cried some more.  Abigail dove into action and performed all her tricks.  Her tricks did not work either.  That night Rose learned an important life lesson which was captured perfectly by the Rolling Stones in the song You Can't Always Get What You Want.

Miss Rose ratcheted herself up louder and louder.  She got to the point where she was stiff as a board, she made little fists, and she screamed for all she was worth.  Personally I had to admire her tenacity.  This girl already shows signs of deep commitment and the courage of her convictions.  I think she is going to be one to watch.  She doesn't give up easily and compromise is not yet in her repertoire.

At one point, early on, Abigail started screaming too, I guess figuring that she was speaking her sister's language.  I got that stopped.  Abigail decided she would brush my hair "for" me at this point, and I let her. I was holding screaming Rose, bouncing on the edge of the bed, and when Abigail brushes your hair, you are not allowed to turn your head. It went along pretty good until I turned my head and she caught the brush in my earring.  No harm done, but no more brushing my hair either.

Poor Shadow, who you may already know pretty much runs this house, about lost her mind.  I wish I would have thought to take a picture of her eyes because they were pouring empathy out by the bucketful.  She would look at the baby and then look at me, like "What should we do?  Why don't you know what to do?"  Jack just laid on the floor and sighed a lot.

At one point My Youngest Baby got up and said "I can't take this", and I actually laughed out loud.

When this happened with my own babies, I felt just like poor Shadow, which is to say, I felt like I should be able to figure it out and stop it immediately.  You get better with practice, of course, and by the time the twins were born I was much better at it.  But My Youngest Baby was a child who could not settle down if he could see or hear ANYTHING.  I finally figured out that if I put him in the bassinet, draped a receiving blanket over the top so that he could not see any visual stimulants, and then rolled him in by the dishwasher that the gentle WHOOSH.......WHOOSH.......WHOOSH of it would lull him to sleep.  I once saw a commercial for a dishwasher that made no noise (so they said) and thought that would be a bad choice.  It would have been for me, anyway.  I told him that story and he looked at me like there was no way that could possibly be true.

About 20 minutes into the end of the world as we know it, I called Rose's mom and Daddy told me that Rose prefers her bottles warmer than I probably realized.  It turned out that he was right.

By this time I was sweaty, Rose was sweaty, the dogs, twins, and Abigail were stressed, and all I could do was be glad that I could handle this.  This was not my first rodeo.  It made me remember what was, in reality, the most miserable time of my life fondly.  Not unlike a seasoned soldier looks back at boot camp.  Yeah, it was terrible, but you survived it and just look at you now!  You can do this, and you know you can do this.  It makes all the difference in the world.  Or like how much you hated going to school until you had to get a real job, when all of a sudden you would give anything to go back to that place and do it over.

 .

I was equal to the task.  I am like a baby screaming ninja now.  I saw her screaming and raised her a bottle that was not quite hot but much warmer than I thought it should be.  And she folded.  After 35 minutes of giving it all she had, she learned the art of compromise.

The silence was deafening.  Everyone's shoulders went down about 2 inches, and that baby went to sleep like an angel.  I laid her down in the cradle that my own babies slept in and sighed a contented sigh.

Around midnight, she rolled over, or maybe just moved her hand.  In any case, she made a noise and I shot out of bed like the ninja I now am and got a bottle all ready.  Defrosted and too hot (for me) but just right (for her), I was ready.  The only one up in  my quiet house, I waited. I thought about reading but didn't want to wake my brain completely up. It's a fine line between getting up and doing what you have to do and being able to go right back to sleep.  One I apparently have still to master.

I waited so long that the bottle was no longer the right temperature.  I stood over her and observed her closely.  She was out like a light.  I waited some more.  I put the bottle in hot water to keep it warm.  The water cooled, and still she did not move.  Her parents came home and she slept on.  I felt, for some reason, like she had one-upped me, and if I went back to bed she would have her revenge, so I waited some more.  After an hour I started calculating how much sleep I was missing and finally I went back to bed, still believing that she would wake up as soon as I drifted off.  Then I remembered that I did this same exact thing with my first child.  If I would have just left him alone, I would have gotten a lot more sleep!

Well, that baby slept right through until 4 am and the only one who was really happy with that was her mother.  She said she never did that for her.  I laughed and said "She never has to do that with you, you're the mother!!"

I guess the lesson is that no matter how good you are, you are never really in control of anything.  Better to be ready, of course, but don't be surprised if what you are ready for doesn't ever happen.  Oh, and roll with the punches, because I can promise you they will keep coming.  But you will get better with practice, and there is no finish line, or ceremony, or prize that you can keep on a shelf and show your friends.

Mothers don't need that kind of recognition, not really.  Mothers know that no one judges them as harshly as they themselves do, and that no one will ever know the victories they win.  All you can do is the best you can, and that is enough.  More than enough, sometimes, even if you are the only one who ever know it.

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.