Wordless Ash Wednesday: after the carnival is over

Happy Valentine's Day

When I was a perfect little girl*, my dad used to buy me a pretty heart-shaped box of candy every Valentines Day.

photo credit: Dan4th

Sometimes it had flowers, sometimes it was velvety,


But it was always just mine and I knew I was very special.


But back in those dark ages, kids didn't get candy at every opportunity the way ours do.  Or maybe my parents just hid it from me.  Candy was special.  They weren't throwing it at parades down in my neck of the woods.


So I like to buy my boys a box of Valentine's Day because of what it meant to me.  But with candy-at-every corner, I'm not sure they'll remember it the same way.  Also, because they're boys.

But, still, I wanted to get them something. I found these cute boxes by Whitman's.  
No bows, no velvet, but just right for my boys!  


How do you celebrate with your kids?  Do you buy candy?  A gift?  A special card?  


Whatever you do, I hope you have a great day!  




*Go ahead and ask him.

Merry Christmas!

From my family to yours...I hope you're having a warm and wonderful holiday season.

Here's to a joy-filled 2011 for all of us!

Happy Holidays!

Wishing everyone a safe and wonderful holiday season! I have so much to be thankful for! Just look at my fun xmas photo out takes.

Peace.

In my imagination, there is a lovely, wintery, holiday-themed photo right....



HERE.



In reality, the camera, where the aforementioned holiday photo is stored, is in our car, three floors down from our roadside hotel for the night. I am in my nightie, watching my teenager fall asleep and listening to the last wimpers of protest come from my toddler as she tries to settle into her portable crib in another new place. Our family has been on the road for three days now, logging 1100 miles so far on our trek from Michigan to my hometown in Florida. We have a little over 200 more miles to go today.

It's a photo of the lovely gingerbread men we made during the weekend, the ones we brought on the road with us and have been munching on along the way.

While trying to salvage the situation, I even tried to fudge it, searching for some appropriate photo in my library already. 8000 photos, not a one fits the bill. Fudge.

I suppose it is all a reminder to me that the events of our daily lives are rarely picture-picture, but they are always worth being present for.

Happy Holidays to All. May goodness and kindness be yours, and may you pass it on to every soul you meet during this season.

Have a Wonderful Holiday Season!

From our home to yours...warmest wishes for the season.

xoxo
Heather and family

Is a Stress-Free Christmas Even Possible?

One of the clear indications that I am getting older is the sheer velocity of the passing of time. I'm pretty sure it was just July yesterday and now I'm told it's almost Thanksgiving which means that Christmas is pretty much tomorrow. Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhrrrrrrgggg!

Is there anyone who doesn't experience stress over the December holidays? (I'm generalizing...I don't know enough about religions other than Christianity to know if people who believe in other religions experience stress at the end of the year holidays.) I suppose you have to be older than 20 and probably have to have kids for it to be truly stressful but I remember being stressed even as a teen worrying about what I would buy my family (and the boyfriend...is THAT not the cruelest form of torture to try to figure out what to buy a boy you've been dating for a few months?).

My kids get those toy catalogs out of the mailbox and mark 98 percent of the catalog as "want." I know that's part of being a kid, though I don't remember the volume of toy catalogs as a kid. The toys are more expensive now too, right? Or am I just old and cheap? My son circles $100+ Lego play sets and thinks it's fine to ask for all of them.

We've always told our kids they can ask Santa to bring them 3 things. It helps them narrow down all those wants and really think about what they want the most. Sometimes Santa gets off inexpensively. Sometimes not. So far, Santa has always brought all three things for the kids. The number 3 comes from the 3 gifts the wise men brought for Baby Jesus. I've tried to explain that to the kids but I don't think they really care. Did I mention they're kids?

Other kids send Santa a huge list. My kids know that too. I think. But I've asked them (told them) to think of the other kids and remember Santa has only a limited amount of room in his sleigh. They know that they wouldn't want to take toys from other kids.

I think they get it. At least a little bit. They are so lucky. Santa should send more gifts to the kids who don't have as much. Santa is magic but still has limitations.

Thank you Santa, for the gifts you've given my family.

Paper Mâché Ghosts

I believe that one of the many reasons that I have a houseful of boys is because God knew that crafts were not my strong suit.  On more than one occasion, I have had to apologize to a classroom full of kids because, as Room Parent, I planned a lousy craft.  It's not that I don't try, I do, really I do.  But the year we were making snowmen by gluing pom poms onto popsicle sticks?  The popsicle sticks we had donated were coated and the glue wouldn't stick.  That's the kind of craft luck I bump into on a regular basis.

But now I'm feeling brave.  When my brother was little, he made the cutest little ghost out of paper mache. (He made this at school, mind you.  I'm not sure why I'm considering attempting it at home.)  The thing is, my mother STILL has that paper mâché ghost.  And, people, she's moved something like 20 times since then.  She even sold the old-fashioned typewriter we loved--at a Garage Sale for 10 cents!  But the ghost, he's still haunting her halls at Halloween.

So I've been thinking about how fun (fun?) this project could be for my boys.  As best I can tell, we blow up a balloon, cover the table with newspaper/plastic wrap, and get busy dipping strips of paper into paper mâché paste.  Dry overnight, repeat.  Dry again, paint.

Should we try it?  Have you?  If we get brave, I'll come back and post the results.  In the meantime, I'll take any crafty paper mâché tips you have to offer.

Fall inspired popcorn, fresh from the kettle

Once fall rolls around and the temperatures stay low all day, it just feels right to pop popcorn. I've never liked air poppers, so I pop ours in a large saucepan or kettle over an open burner on the range. If I'm looking for an easy dinner, I can always pair it with grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, with some grapes on the side -- YUM!

As easy as popcorn is, I discovered a couple ways to make it even better. Around Halloween, I make the popcorn with melted butter and salt, but I also add candy corn into the mix. It's just enough sweet to make the popcorn seem like a dessert and just enough salty to take the sickening sweet out of the candy corn. Another snack I add the popcorn is dried cranberries. This is certainly more nutritious than the candy corn and it still adds a little sweet without overpowering the natural taste of the popcorn. I've even added candy corn and cranberries in the same bowl which works just fine.

Another trick for popcorn that I learned, (and it's an invaluable trick for me!), is to have a very large plastic bowl with a sealable top. Once the popcorn is popped, I transfer it to the bowl, add whatever else is going into the mix and then shake away. When I add all these extras, even if it's just butter and salt, it makes mixing up the popcorn a cinch. It works when the popcorn is still too hot to touch, too. And plus, if we don't eat the popcorn all in one sitting, the sealed top allows us to keep it fresh up to a day after it was popped.

Every year, my oldest daughter wants to have a Halloween party on Halloween itself. The teens can sit there watching scary movies and noshing on candy and soda if I provide it. But I've found that if I give them something a little more nutritious (and tasty), they'll be just as happy. And they won't be as hopped up as they would have been otherwise. So fall-inspired popcorn is my remedy. The only drawback is that we always seem to have that clichéd moment when something scary happens in the movies and the popcorn bowl ends up being thrown upwards, sending the popcorn flying all over the den :-)

Happy Children's Day!

Children's Day in Brazil is October 12th, so our girls got gifts and ice cream cake last night. They look happy, no?

To be part of two worlds

On July 4th this year, our family was in Brazil. Our baby daughter's first trip to her other home country. July 4th was always a big holiday for my family growing up. So we were torn. How do we celebrate the biggest national holiday of the year when we are in another country, one that our family is equally connected to?

The Brazilian side of our family solved the solution by throwing a July 4th barbecue that could not be beat. Everyone worn red, white, and blue, played American music and danced, and we even put up fireworks in the evening.

And lest you think this was merely a kind gesture, Brazil lost their quarter-final game in the World Cup just two days before. Though the wound from that loss was still raw, our family jumped in head-first to celebrate our nuclear family's heritage. What they did was nothing short of sacrificial. It made us realize that our daughter can grow up and be part of two completely different worlds, just as long as she has a supportive family on both sides of the equator.

Remembering

Many of you know that my father served as a military pilot.  He entered the Marine Corps before I was born and left two years after I had my first child.  Like other military kids, I moved from base to base enduring more goodbye's and more new introductions than most people will experience in the course of their lifetime.

But you probably don't know that my mother's father also served in the military.  He fought in the Pacific long enough to collect stories for a lifetime.  I have uncles who served, too, and my husband was in the military when we were first married.

In fact, members of my family have served in the military as far back as the Revolutionary War.  On Memorial Day, as we remember the men and women who have given their lives in service to our country, I am thankful that most of the men in my family returned home.   I'll never forget the first time I saw the Vietnam Wall in Washington DC.  The names of my father's  contemporaries are engraved on that stone.  They were sons, brothers, husbands, friends.  I was one-year old when my father left for Vietnam.  I realized, as I stood there with tears streaming down my face, that had he not returned, everything--everything--would be different.  This would not be my life. 

So I pause every Memorial Day and think of the men and women who gave their lives; some of their names are on that wall, where my father's is not.  I silently thank them for fighting for our freedom and our rights.  I tear up as I think of the ones who once waited for their return; those whose lives were inconceivably altered the moment they heard the news.

Today, as I think of them, I honor both the service and the sacrifice.  And I offer a heartfelt thank you to all who have served.

Sleepheads

In this world, you've got a lot of negative personas you can take on. You can be an airhead. Or a deadhead. The kids have even picked up on this and invented "poopyhead." Whatever. In our house, we have sleepheads.

I know what you're thinking; you're thinking, 'don't you mean sleepYhead, Heather?' Ah, no. A sleepYhead is a cute little expression to describe someone who needs a bit more rest. Sleephead is something far more permanent. Sleephead is a state of mind. It could even be considered a condition.

("Condition" is such a great euphemism for "disorder.")

It's the desire to sleep at any given time of the day, with no real reason why. No, it's not narcolepsy; you could keep from sleeping if you really were a better person, more hard-working. Sleepheads sit at work, watching the time tick away, waiting for the time they can snooze again. They dream about sleeping. They sleep in on the weekends as late as is socially acceptable, even when at Disney World, sometimes later.

We are a house full of sleepheads, from the oldest (over 40) to the youngest (less than a year old). The teenager will sleep for more than twelve hours straight if left to her own devices. The baby will cry and rub her eyes, we lay her in her crib, and she turns on her side, sucks her thumb, and sleeps sometimes for three hours in a single stretch. And me? The mother of an almost eight month old? I should be up and at 'em most hours of the day and generally sleep deprived, right?

(Oh, I'm going to hate myself later for confessing all this here.)

Well, I sleep a lot. I don't mean that in an, "I sleep when the baby sleeps" kind of way. I mean, my baby sleeps a lot, so I do too. Which I love.

She turns in about 10 or 11p each night. Then she sleeps until about 8 or 9a. Then I pull her in bed with me, nurse her, and fall asleep in the meantime. The next thing I know, it's 10:30a or so and she's looking up at me after sleeping with me another hour or so.

That's right, I can get about 10+ hours of sleep each night if I want.

I keep this a highly-guarded secret from other mothers of babies. And to make it worse, this is the second time I've done this. My older daughter slept through the night...when she was two weeks old. She slept 9-10 hours straight every night after that until she was about 6 months old. I realized after her two month visit to the pediatrician, when another mother of an infant asked about sleeping, that I should never, ever, EVER, confide in another young child's parent what my children's sleep patterns are. When I told her about my baby, she just about ripped my head off. I'm sure she was a very nice woman, she was just sleep deprived and I had no sense not to fake like I was too.

Is there a bad side to this? Well, yeah. We never can schedule anything before 10a in the morning. Seriously. Our family trying to get out the door early in the morning leads to severe duress. My older daughter is on the varsity swim team with morning practices beginning at 6a. Those are REAL killers. On those mornings, I wish we weren't such sleepheads. We have NEVER left for a road trip less than three hours after we planned to leave. And we have either missed flights or cut it way too close for comfort at the airport more times than I can count anymore. On the weekends we know that if we want to have breakfast together, we'd better not plan on the meal happening before 11a or else the meal conversation will consist of nothing more than grunts and growls. Oh, and here's a real hard one: how do you teach a kid who loves to sleep, one who's just like you, to get up when her alarm goes off and get ready for school no matter what hour of the day it is and no matter how much she wants to sleep more? We had a very difficult few years of learning that skill with my oldest. The rule is, if she misses the bus, just start walking to school. People think we're harsh parents for this rule, but we know from experience that she'll either learn now or she'll learn when she fails her college courses or she gets fired from one or two (or ten) jobs. Suffice it to say, she gets up when that alarm goes off on school days, no matter how much she adores her bed.

God save us all if someone comes into our family who's not a sleephead. Like, I'd like to have another baby, but boy, it would be tough if the baby didn't love her beauty rest. And then there's a day when my children might marry. Good luck to them. I just don't think I can handle it if family holidays begin at the crack of dawn. I like Easter egg hunts to start no earlier than 10a. Or maybe in the afternoon. That is, if we can even get out of bed in time to make it to morning mass in the first place. Mercy.

Blessed chaotic aftermath

Not exactly the tranquility of our holiday greeting, but the baby seems to be happy.

It's the most horrible time of the year

Am I the only one who finds the first week back after New Year's the bleakest of them all? The festivities are over, we're all trudging back to the normal routine, the winter weather is suddenly no longer charming, and we're all realizing that the egg nog and candies have indeed had their effect on our waistlines. Right now my den has become "De-Holiday-ication Central," complete with a 7" desiccated Douglas Fir and more bags of discounted holiday paraphernalia than I care to admit to. And through it all, I just keep nibbling on the leftover gingerbread men and red, green and silver chocolate kisses.

The day before we left for Christmas weekend, December 23rd, I had my prescription for migraine medicine filled at our local pharmacy. I just picked it up yesterday. They had messed it up, billing it incorrectly and giving the incorrect amount of pills. It took 2 hours this morning to sort it out.

The weather outside is frightful, no? We don't even have it that bad compared to the rest of the region; we're in the 20s with flurries. My recollection is that this same time last year we were having days in which the temperature stayed sub-zero around the clock. Still, the clouds won't break and it's making things a bit dreary.

Just yesterday, my oldest daughter, a high school sophomore, brought me a note from her orchestra conductor. The note came home two weeks ago, of course, but I was just getting it on January 3rd. The message? She needs to perform her solo piece with accompaniment at a school recital in a week. There are two catches: she's not ready to perform it...and I'm her accompanist. I hadn't even looked at the music until I saw the note. Eep.

The laundry is piled up in the basement, the kitchen is a mess, the baby is turning 5 months old this week and I STILL have not sent out birth announcements. I've been trying to hang window treatments in the den and in the nursery for months to no avail and we're still trying to solve the problem of sweating windows throughout the house (maybe it's an unknown setting on the humidifier we had installed in March?).

My birthday is coming up in 3 weeks and I'm feeling old. And fat. And tired.

And yet...

In each of these annoyances, isn't there a blessing?

I have a home, one I have wanted for years. The first home my husband and I have ever shared, even though we were married for three years before having one home we called "ours." More than that, it is more than I could have ever dreamed I would have. Plenty of space, lots of comfy corners, and beautiful wildlife that visit every day.

We have a driveway that needs to be cleared if we want to drive out of the house. But we have a car and a driveway and places to go in the car.

We have clothing to put on our backs to keep us warm. More than we need, in fact. We should donate some of our less-used coats and sweaters to a charity. Especially at this cold time of year.

I have health insurance with prescription coverage. And I can afford the co-pay. Yes, I could bitch all day about how broken the system is when it takes so long to get the medicine I need. But five years ago, I was suffering without the medicine, dealing with migraine pain with overdoses of OTC pain medicines because I didn't have sufficient insurance coverage. I'm definitely better off than I was five years ago.

About a year ago, I got a piano for free through our community's freecycle. Because of this, I have been able to enjoy making music in my more dismal moments. Sure, I've got to practice my head off in order to perform with my daughter in a week, but it's a simple pleasure that doesn't present itself often. It's a pleasure I wouldn't have at all if someone else hadn't given their piano to me.

We had a wonderful gift-giving season, full of family time and plentiful provisions. Food was flowing, and the smiles were all around. The gifts were spot-on and I went out today donning all new clothing. Clothing that fit around my broad belly. My broad belly that really isn't that broad, but I'd like to believe that I should have my 25-year-old body back despite my lack of discipline.

There, now. I think I've gotten my head screwed back on straight-like. A new year full of blessings.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays from my family to each of you...

If You're Gonna Live in the Midwest,

you deserve a White Christmas!

Don't you agree?

Merry Christmas, from my family to yours.

Merry Christmas from Heather and the gang!

Hope you have a fantastic holiday season and are able to spend time with those you love.

One of Our Holiday Traditions

My kids are a little like the retail stores. They start thinking about Christmas just before Halloween. They daydream about the presents they will receive and plan the best things to ask Santa to bring.

I've always wanted my kids to see the magic of Christmas and dream those dreams, but I also wanted to try to keep the greed monster at least a little at bay. When M was a toddler I heard another parent explain that Santa brings her children only 3 gifts. She explained that the number three was arrived at because the wise men brought baby Jesus three gifts.

Three seemed like as good a number as any to me. So this is the number of gifts my kids ask Santa for each year. Maybe I'm a Grinch that I limit the number of things they are allowed to ask the big guy to bring, but it also makes them think more carefully about what they really want instead of simply asking for everything that looks even mildly interesting.

Because the kids only ask Santa to bring three things, Santa has (so far) been able to bring them all the items they request each year. They don't write their letters to Santa until they've carefully considered what they want to ask for and know once they've written the letters that they're committed to their decisions.

Santa still brings a few more gifts along with the requested items, and I've told them that Santa only brings one really big item per child because he has so many kids that he needs to bring presents to each year.

This has worked for our family so far. What do you do (if anything) to try to control the greed and consumerism of the holidays?

Orange Cranberry Muffins - perfect for Thanksgiving morning!

Before I jump into writing about cooking and food and recipes and the like, I feel it necessary to disclose the relative amateur nature of mah skilz, as they say.

I do not cook very much. I do not cook well. My husband, in fact, cooks more often and better than I do. It is not because he likes to do it or feels he is especially good at it. He does so because he likes to eat and he likes it to taste good. Ergo, he cooks for our family quite frequently.

What I DO do is bake. I'm much better at it than cooking. Each Saturday and Sunday morning, we have fresh baked goods paired with hot eggs, fresh fruit, juice and coffee. Halloween? I'm ready with homemade pumpkin bread and butterscotch cut-out cookies. For Christmas everyone knows to expect gingerbread men, sugar cookies, bourbon balls and pecan pie. Other specialties of the house? Key Lime Pie. (No, I will never give out the recipe here.) I make almost all the birthday cakes in the house. I bake my own yeast breads. Our house runneth over with scones and muffins and cookies and biscuits and popovers and such.

That being said, let's jump in: Orange Cranberry Muffins

For this yummy, we will turn to our trusty companion, the Better Homes and Gardens NEW Cookbook, publication date 1996.


In the chapter of the food group "Breads," on pages 118-119, we find the general recipe for "Muffins."


Lest you believe for one minute that I would give you nothing more than a recipe from a cookbook, have faith. I wouldn't lead you astray. No, I rarely make a recipe exactly as it's written. The recipe in the cookbook gives a variation to include cranberries, but even that would be too ordinary and trite. It takes a little bit of know-how, but one always has to change up the recipe and add a little something extra in order to make the end result "pop" (as Stacy London might say).

Here's my spice, seasonings and herb cabinet:


We buy such stuff from a local market and then fill jars we already have.


This makes it possible to buy only as much as we need, enabling it to always be fresh and also enables us to buy expensive spices that we otherwise couldn't afford (like saffron). The per pound cost is as much as 1/10 of what it costs at the grocery store. So, hello exotic things I normally wouldn't buy! Like:

dried orange peel

The perfect complement to the tangy flavor of the dried cranberries. Just the little extra something we need to make this otherwise ordinary, run of the mill recipe for cranberry muffins become something extraordinary.

Without further ado then, here is the recipe:

************************

Orange-Cranberry Muffins

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried orange peel
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 cup dried cranberries

Line twelve standard muffin cups with bake cups; set aside. In a medium mixing bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix in orange peel. Make a well in the center of dry mixture; set aside.

In another mixing bowl, combine egg, milk, and oil. Add egg mixture all at once to the dry mixture. Stir until just moistened (batter should be lumpy). Fold in cranberries.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full.


Bake at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes or until golden. Cool in muffin cups on a mire rack for 5 minutes. Remove from pan and serve warm. Makes 10-12 muffins.



ENJOY!