Category Archives: holidays

>It’s genetic: I get it from my children.

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>Mother’s Day: the annual opportunity to tell the kids that no, I don’t want to go out to brunch and stand in line with all the other mothers who tried to tell their kids that really, they didn’t need to go out, either.
Wait, that’s not me. We usually eat at home.
Mother’s Day: the annual opportunity to celebrate or complain about those lovely inherited traits that Mom passed along.
Long ago, I posted a list of ten traits I have in common with my son, Amigo. A few days later I posted a companion piece, a top ten list of traits I share with my daughter. Are these lists still true? Let’s find out.

Ten things I have in common with my son, Amigo
1. We’re both disabled. Yes, this remains true. He is vision impaired and has Asperger’s Syndrome. I am hearing impaired.
2. We like to go out for lunches and brunches, especially in the summer. This tradition will continue when school is out. Funday Friday, here we come!
3. Both of us have a tendency to get anxious in new and difficult situations. He’s gotten a little better at coping, which lessens the stress on me as well.
4. We bond over Trivia. Amigo’s expertise lies in the areas of sports venues and college teams, among others. He’s amazing.
5. Green Bay Packer football! He is a cheesehead through and through. We’re both appalled at the idea of Favre becoming a Minnesota Viking.
La Petite shares #5 with us. Favre? Say it isn’t so!

After I wrote my list of ten about Amigo, I promised La Petite I’d write about her, too. She responded, with her voice positively gooey and dripping, “Ooo, I feel so special.”
1. We share a talent for sarcasm.
2. We enjoy shoes. She loves her Converse All-Stars, and I actually enjoy taking her shopping for shoes because it’s so much fun.
3. We don’t mind getting dirt under our nails. she is good with flowers; I take charge of the vegetable garden.
4. We can share a box of mixed chocolates without conflict. She likes the milk chocolate, while I prefer the dark.
5. We enjoy our caffeine. She lives on Mt. Dew, and I love my coffee.

We do pretty well, my kiddos and me. We have enough in common to enjoy each other, when I’m not embarrassing them or driving them crazy with my hovering and worry. I’m cold, put on a sweater! Wash your hands! Don’t forget your cell phone! Call me! I mean it!

In honor of Mothers’ Day, Parent Bloggers Network is calling attention to the Celebrity Hand Me Down Auction running from May 7th to May 14th on eBay. If you’re not bidding on something from Jessica Alba or Gwyneth Paltrow there, do something nice in your own area for your own mom or another special woman in your life. We’re tentatively planning a potluck at our house. With everyone here, it’ll be like Thanksgiving, but better weather!

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>Celebrate (25 years of) good times, come on!

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>Husband and I are coming up on our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Our 25th! Wow. We’re thinking about celebrating, just the two of us, with a trip somewhere.
We’re not big spenders. Our trip to Nova Scotia last year was part research (his genealogy), part family relaxation and fun. We stayed at a cottage off-season to get better rates, brought our bicycles, and cooked our own food while we were there. The biggest expense was getting there. This time around will probably be similar. We’re not looking at a major expensive trip; we just want to spend time together and make it special.
Husband suggested Seattle. Coffee for me, brew-pubs for him, we’d both enjoy the destination. But it’s a little farther away than we’d planned. You see, Amigo will be at camp and La Petite will house-sit, but we’d like to be within a day’s drive in case of emergency. It can be a long day’s drive, but we’re still thinking of not straying too far away from home.
At the moment, we’re considering putting a pin in the map at home and stretching out a string to make a circle about 400-500 miles from the center.
Our hairdresser suggested we find a bed and breakfast, snuggle into the room for a week, and just relax together. It could work.
Husband said thanks but no thanks to the idea of a dude ranch. I could be talked into Seattle, but it’s a little farther than we want to go this time. Niagara Falls would be fun, but it’s a little on the outer range for distance.
We’re not sure if we want to find a rural cottage or B&B and just take walks and spend couple time, or if we want to go to a big city and explore the museums and restaurants and other exciting experiences. We’re not casino gamblers, so Vegas and Atlantic City are off the list. Shows? We enjoy watching a good quality concert, whether jazz, classical, or a capella vocal, or a musical stage show. We also enjoy watching the sun rise or set over a simple yet lovely beach.
This makes it harder. We’re looking for a long weekend or maybe a week. We don’t know if we want to go country or city, fancy or plain.
Then again, we don’t have to drive. We could take a train somewhere. Husband loves, loves trains! We could go a little farther by train…
Ideas, Internet friends and family? Drop a pin on the map in the heart of Green Bay Packer country and find a one-day drive. Then let me know what you recommend!

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>It’s Lincoln’s 200th, but I’m not that old.

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>It’s not my birthday. It’s not even my half birthday. But right now, on Friday the 13th, I need a little fun to lift my spirits. Plurk buddies were enjoying this version of a Birthday Calculator, so I tried it, too.

I won’t insult you with a copy and paste (that would be wimpy, too), but I’ll share the highlights and my reactions.

My virtual fortune cookies says, “Today is a lucky day for those who remain cheerful and optimistic.” Okay, I’ll try. It’s tough to remain optimistic in the midst of creepy kids who keep trying to sneak out to their lockers to plan their next bully attack on the poor awkward and annoying kid who really doesn’t know any better.

My birth tree is the Ash Tree. I’ve always loved the folk song The Ash Grove. Coincidental? Probably. It’s a lovely melody.

My age (in dog years) is the equivalent of a dog that is 6.88688845401174 years old. By now, of course, a few of those decimal places have changed. How quickly we age!

I knew JFK, Jr. shared my birthday, but I didn’t know that Donovan McNabb and Joe DiMggio did, too. Ricardo Montalban, too? May I live as long as he did, and maybe spend part of it on a fantastic tropical island!

I knew that I was born in the year of the Rat, but I didn’t know that my Native American Zodiac sign is Owl and my plant is Mistletoe. Ironic: I’m more of a morning person than a night owl. Mistletoe? I do enjoy Christmas, especially the music. That’s a better fit.

Lucky numbers are more complicated. I may need to do some research to find out just what each number means. My life path number is 7, my golden number is 4, and the epact number for my birth year is 2. Epact? I had to look this one up. In the definition link, epact is “the moon’s age at the beginning of the calendar year, or the number of days by which the last new moon has preceded the beginning of the year. ” Oh-kay. I think I can stop there.

All these numbers and signs mean very little without background, but it was fun to see “my” stats come rolling out of the birthday calculator. I wonder what Husband’s report looks like? He’s two weeks younger than I am.

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>To-Do list fights with Ta-Dah!! list

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>Who needs an inbox and an outbox? I have to-do and ta-dah. Sing that last one: Ta-Dah! Here’s the set from mid-day Sunday: let’s see which side wins.

Accomplishments for the day so far

  • made coffee
  • cleaned kitchen
  • ran dishwasher
  • washed two loads of laundry
  • dried four loads of laundry (including two that were washed last night, hung on drying racks overnight. Jeans and sweats work great that way)
  • folded five loads of laundry (the socks and underwear were already out of the dryer last night. they don’t wrinkle, so I left them overnight)
  • Read the Sunday newspaper (yes, even a working mama deserves a simple pleasure)
  • Ate a grapefruit (it’s an investment in my health. Of course that goes on the list!)
  • Are you ready for this? The major accomplishment for the morning:
  • I took the ornaments off the tree and put them in storage.
    Diced veggies and thawed other ingredients to put a turkey soup in the crockpot.
  • Made lunch for Husband and me and Amigo while La Petite slept in
  • Cleared Christmas decor from the mantel and around the house, sorted it into “keep” and “donate” and “throw away,” stored the “keep” boxes.
  • Replaced Christmas decorations with snowmen for January!
  • Helped Amigo with his homework
  • voted for the Packer in the Click for Cans contest

I think I need to sit down and take a break with some playoff football, a Diet Coke, and laptop time.

Yet To-do

  • correct spelling tests (abbreviations)
  • correct math tests (mid-chapter, multiplication and division)
  • check penmanship papers
  • add barley to soup, determine side dishes, prepare to serve supper

I must add this: Husband, noticing my progress in getting the ornaments down, took off the lights, stored them, and then dragged the tree outside. He put the tree stand in the basement and even (yes, honestly, he did) vacuumed all the pine needles and put the furniture back in its regular place. Isn’t he a gem?

Hmmm. I’m a pro at rationalization. But even without rationalizing my excuses for doing housework before schoolwork, this looks pretty darn good. No guilt: I’ve accomplished plenty, and the rest will get done, too.

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>Reclaiming the den

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>”Can we take the tree down tonight?”
“Absolutely not on my agenda.”
“But the Maids are coming tomorrow!”

Let me be clear. I am not wealthy. The Maids are on the order of a cleaning service, a group of people who come in once every four weeks to do the main cleaning chores in our home. I have the utmost respect for them (and tip them every single time) because I really detest cleaning. They clean the floors, the toilets, the bathtubs, and the sinks – all the dirty and grimy places I can’t stand. The Maids will be the last item I cut as we adjust our family budget for the tightening economy.

But I digress. I really started this post thinking about the den, the mantel full of Christmas decorations, and the rapidly-drying Christmas tree. I like to have the tree down before the Maids’ visit because they vacuum and dust, and that’s exactly what I need done after the holiday decor goes back in the basement. This year the post-Santa cleaning visit arrived closer to Christmas than usual, so we weren’t ready to deal with the tree.

So here it is, already the second week in January. I’m back to school, Husband is luckily (according to him) not working any play-off games, but Amigo is gearing up for final exams and I’m busily gathering data for Semester I report cards. Who will take the tree down, and when will it finally happen?

Most years we get the tree down and the knick-knacks stored within a few days of the New Year. The Maids sweep and vacuum any needles we’ve missed and leave the place looking Christmas-free. This year, I’m going to end up doing it all myself because no one, but no one else is interested in helping out.

No help? I’ll be like the little Red Hen. See if I bake any cookies for the lazy family this weekend. Not if I have to do it all. by. myself.

Parent Bloggers Network is looking for more stories about the holiday clean-up. If you’d like to post on the topic and link to them, go to their main blog. SCJohnson’s new website also gives cleaning advice… for the dreaded day that I stop the cleaning service!

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>Hindsight is always 20-20, so enjoy it!

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>Looking back over the year: here’s the way each month started in 2008. I offer the first line of the first post of each month, complete with link to the post should you want to read the rest.

January: Last January 1st was a retrospective like this one, so I offer instead New Year’s Eve 2007.
February: It’s a little like Supermom meeting her Kryptonite.
March: One thing that keeps me judging music festivals is this.
April: When Jordan proposed “Savoring the Season” for her next group writing project, I thought, savor what?
May: I bake bread when I’m home watching a sick teenager. Doesn’t everyone?
June: Some days I think the world revolves around underwear.
July: I can’t call it a la king, or a la queen, for that matter.
August: Dumbledore’s wisdom.
September: A passive chore is something that “does itself” while I’m doing something else. October: Pepper and Potential
November: I remember the days when teachers could have kids bring in candy wrappers….
December: Ah, contradictions. This is a case for “Shoulds are Bogus.”

It’s interesting that none of these First Date posts were election-related. The primary and general elections were huge on the national scene and in my own life. The selected posts do touch on other big subjects for 2008: Amigo’s illness (May), our family travels (June), and the challenges and changes in teaching (November).

May you live in interesting times, and may the interest and challenge be exactly what’s right for you. Happy New Year!

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>Turkey Barley Stew

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>1 each, sliced: carrot, celery stalk
2 small potatoes (russet or red), diced, skins on
1/2 cup diced onion
1 clove garlic
2 cups diced turkey, pre-cooked (or leftover from your holiday dinner)
2 cups turkey stock
1 can diced tomatoes, drained or 1 cup frozen cherry tomatoes
1 cup quick-cooking barley
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
pepper, freshly ground, to taste

Place carrot, celery, potatoes, onion, garlic, tomatoes, herbs, barley, and turkey stock in crockpot. Simmer on low for 3-4 hours. Add turkey and turn to high. About an hour before serving, add gravy or your thickener of choice (mine is 1 tablespoon cornstarch in 1/4 cup water). Cook until gravy is thick and turkey is heated through. Add pepper if desired.

Serve with rolls or over wheat bread.

This served 4 with some leftovers, but I only used 2 turkey wings. Next time I might double the veggies and use the full 2 cups of turkey. Next time? What am I saying? Next time, this will be chicken. I’m not sure when I’ll next cook a turkey. November, perhaps?
turkey.

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>Post-holiday let-down and laundry, again, still.

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>I didn’t have enough baskets to sort laundry this weekend. You guessed it; the daughter’s home! And she brought her entire wardrobe, dirty! I think the only clean clothes she brought home were the pieces she was wearing. Add that to my holiday stresses and my PMS, and there is one unhappy mama in this house.
She’d been home two days when she asked, “Mom, are you, like, going to do laundry anytime soon? I need pants and underwear.” This was in the evening on a school night, mind you. I was worn out from dealing with kiddos too wired for learning and too old to believe that “Santa’s watching, you’d better behave.” Well, I did it anyway: she sorted out the main necessary items, I threw them in the wash, and she made it a few more days.
The day after Christmas I sorted ours and then asked for hers. She gave me a hamper full of hoodie sweatshirts, sweaters, and tanks and thin tees for layering. Almost everything was to go in the delicate cycle.
The result? Four overflowing baskets for the delicate cycle, not enough Woolite, and one cranky mama off her routine.
I’m ready for a coffee break, I’ve filled two baskets with clean, and the laundry room still looks like a tornado hit and left the contents of her closet behind. How did she ever manage to last that long without doing laundry on her own?
Last year I stocked up on underwear for the entire family with the goal that any one of us could go at least two weeks without washing clothes. I think I bought her too much!

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