Saving a Pattern

I'm beginning to feel nervous about my girls' 4H projects. 4H offers kids the chance to learn new skills and follow rules and gain self-confidence. The deadline is mid-July, but experience tells me it is not to soon to begin teaching them the skill of wringing their hands in distress.

I'm a little extra amped up because Sophia has added one project to her list and Ava is a "real 4H-er" now (not just in Exploring 4H - and limited to one project) and has multiple projects of her own. True, no one is required to do more than one project, but this is the choice we've made. I'd like Sophia and Ava to be skilled in the home arts, and those are Sophia's interests, but they aren't Ava's first choices. When it came time to choose Ava's projects, I told her she must do foods and sewing and then she may choose a project or two on top of that.

Sophia - Foods (baked and preserved), Sewing, Floriculture, Child Development, Leadership

Ava - Foods (baked and preserved), Sewing, Photography, Crafts

So we're getting started now, hoping to avoid tears and shouts later. Twelve-year-old Sophia is a big girl now, and if she and I want the same style of dress, we likely would find our sizes in the same pattern envelope. But how does one save a pattern to use for multiple sizes?

The "experts" say to trace the size of the pattern you want to use, and never cut the pattern at all. I was five when my grown-up sister got married. My mother kept the aisle runner - a semi-sheer white fabric with a floral white-on-white print - and traced pattern pieces until I was a grown up bride myself.

But I don't know any brides with aisle runners to share. Besides. I don't want to go to that much effort.

I saw the solution on Margo's smart blog. I'll document my successful experience here:

After laying out my pattern pieces, and pinning them, I make little snips from the edge of the pattern piece to the line of the appropriate size. The snips are made intermittantly - less on a straight edge, more on a curve.

The snips make little flaps, which I then fold back along the line of the correct size of the pattern piece. Now, when I cut the piece, I'm cutting alongside the fold, rather than through the fabric AND the paper pattern piece.

See how nicely the middle size has been cut, while retaining the view of the other sizes to be made later?

Making a Change?

The stars have aligned and I can ignore them no longer. Certain health problems persist in my home and too many sources are suggesting that a gluten-free diet might be helpful on all fronts. I really want everyone to feel better and I'm willing to try this approach.

The latest person who pointed me toward gluten-free I asked for shopping advice. I don't really know what I'm looking for as a read a label and the idea of reading every label before I put it in the shopping cart is overwhelming to me. She just said, "Oh, just ask the supermarket employees to point you to the gluten-free aisle. There are lots of nice choices."

So I went to the market and picked up these options.

I'm nervous, though. There are people in my family who are not adventurous eaters and resistant to change.

This is going to go over like a turd in a punch bowl.

Settling in With a Book

Now that the computer is back from the Exorcist, you would think I would be posting lots of entries. Yeah. I thought so, too. But I've been spending every free moment zipping through some John Grisham novels.

A new television series started this month, called The Firm. It's sort of a postscript to the Grisham novel of the same name. Mike, Brooks and I watched the pilot, which was very good, and we have looked forward to each subsequent episode. Brooks has read a couple of the Grisham books that we had in our personal library, but The Firm was not one of them. I checked it out of the library and read it aloud after the girls are in bed. Does it sound wierd that I read aloud to my 15-year-old son? It's something we do fairly often - on car trips and whenever we get a hankering to experience a book together. And I do voices and everything. It's a One Woman Show. *grin*

We finished The Firm in about a week and now we've moved on to A Time to Kill, my favorite book by that author. The experience is taking me back to my early married/early motherhood life when I first read these books.

I am a character-driven reader in most instances. I'll read books over and over again if they have characters who I want to hang out with. But I'm realizing that the books I'm drawn back to also almost universally take place in the south. Maybe I'm drawn to settings as much as characters? Or maybe there's a prototypical Southern Character that tends to appear in those books who draws me in.

Either way. Enjoying the time with my boy. And the southerners.

I'm back. The computer, however, is still not back. It spent a week and a half at the Computer Healer, who threw up his hands and banished it from his shop. We sent it on to the Computer Exorcist to see what he can do. So I snagged Brooks' girlfriend (Just kidding - it's his laptop. We call it his girlfriend because the two of them are inseparable.) to do some posting.

We had a bit of a snowstorm in my neck of the woods. The girls had been dying to make Snow Ice Cream, which they'd heard of but never sampled. For a couple of years, they'd had this recipe in the backs of their minds, but the timing and the catching of clean snow never worked out.

Until this week. The minute Ava heard about the impending snow storm, she put a clean washtub out on the stoop to catch the pristine flakes. (She also put spoons in the freezer and ice cubes in the toilet.... Have you ever heard of those Snow Day Supersticions?)

So Saturday night - the measuring and mixing.

2 cups milk
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon powdered instant coffee
1 gallon clean fresh snow

1. In a bowl, whisk together the milk, confectioners' sugar, vanilla extract, cocoa powder, and instant coffee until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is smooth.
2. Place the snow into a large bowl, and pour the chocolate mixture over the snow. With a large spoon, stir until the snow ice cream is thoroughly combined. Serve immediately.

This was a fun recipe to make and it felt good to check it off of our Recipe Bucket List, but it wasn't delicious or anything. After a couple of bites, the kids realized that it was ice cream without the... you know.... CREAM. In our mouths, it tasted like a sweetish and chocolatey water, really. A bit unsatisfying.

A few bites were enough.

One Big Weekend - Four Small Posts...Part 4

I just learned that my mother-in-law is reading the blog and since part 4 was meant to reveal Christmas secrets, I'm just posting to say.... I'm not posting.

Update later. Like around December 26.

Update 1/16/12: SIL Sarah and I worked together on this. Our Christmas busywork was getting the kids together for photos for my MIL's Christmas. Last year we took some photographs of the kids together and some of each child individually. They've all grown so much over the last year, that we thought updated photos would be appropriate to refill her frames. I'll just share a couple of my kids.

She is growing up!

Had to take Brooks' shot from a group pic. I cropped Sophia out of the print, but couldn't figure it out on the blog. I think Brooks looks handsome here, though.

Ava - my baby. I cannot explain the passage of time.

One Big Weekend - Four Small Posts... Part 1

This weekend we were sad to lay to rest Mike's kindly Aunt Bonnie, with the apple cheeks and great skin and the most expressive eyebrows I have ever seen. She loved her family and books and all children. We have lots of children's books in our collection which she purchased and inscribed for our kids at every gift-giving occasion. She had wonderful taste.

Throughout the weekend, we gathered with the extended family at the funeral home for the visitation, cried with the family at the funeral and shivered with the family at the burial. My schedule demanded that I go to the visitation at a time when I only had Ava with me. She was reluctant to go. I asked her if she'd ever been to a "viewing" before - I couldn't remember. She said she hadn't. I told her that there would be a line of Aunt Bonnie's children, siblings, mother and husband and that we would speak to them all. And at the end of the line, Bonnie's body would be in a casket, since some people would like to see her one last time before she is buried. ("And you can look, if you want, or not." "I won't!")

Ava watched the recieving line for awhile and asked, "So, all those people? They're saying they're sorry?"

"Yeah," I said. "They are probably saying things like, 'I'm sorry you've lost your mom,' or 'what a terrible shock.' But they are also saying, by being here, 'You are important to me. I'm here for you. You can count on my support in the bad times.'"

"Oh." I was proud that she was noticing and that she focused on the family and their loss instead of the fact that she didn't want to be there. And she was so GOOD at the social interaction with the adults. The only child at the funeral home at the time, all those inclined zeroed in on her to exclaim over her habit of growing, or who she favored in her face and build. Everyone she met, she hugged! Whoa, does she do comfort and grief great!

Everyone's loss experience is their own, but I often see them falling into two categories: Complete Shock by an unexpected death, or - like with my mother - Thank Goodness the Sickness is Over, which often comes with an extended illness. Aunt Bonnie had battled cancer twice, so I'm sure her family had spent time processing her mortality, but she actually died of a sudden, massive heart attack, which caught us all completely off guard.

Today, Uncle Carlyle's children all leave his home, returning to their own homes across the state. Uncle Carlyle, who looked down into the hole in the cemetary and said, "I love you, Sweetheart," before sprinkling his shovelful of dirt, is now going to have to figure out what The New Normal looks like in his life, where nothing is normal at all.

Festival of Carols

Brooks is thoroughly enjoying the wonderful music department which our high school offers. He is a freshman this year and has successfully infiltrated every corner of it as we add band, choir and orchestra concerts to the calendar this month. I believe the next step is clearly total world domination.

This is a busy weekend for us. Let me give you the run-down, for my organizational benefit as well as your entertainment. (Every time I talk to my devoted mother-in-law this week, she wants to do the run-down, too. "Now what's going on this weekend?" "Have I given you enough money for the tickets?" "Where is that concert located?" We did that conversation today. We did it last week. We'll do it again the next time we speak. She just doesn't want to miss an opportunity to support the kids.) Wed.: Tech rehearsal for Sophia's choir concert. Thurs.: Dress rehearsal for choir concert, middle school orchestra concert. Friday: First of three days of choir concerts. Sat.: All day chess tournament and second of the choir concerts. Sun.: Final choir concert, which conflicts with the high school orchestra concert. Immediately afterwards, we'll go to the church Christmas open house, hosted by the pastors.

These three days of choir concerts have become a meaningful part of my Decembers. Our local college puts on a Festival of Carols which involves all the music groups on campus and the children's choir which my children have been involved in. We first went when Brooks was a part of the choir and now, he's moved on and Sophia has joined the ensemble.

It takes place in the college's state-of-the-art performance facility, which offers gorgeous ambience and acoustics. The choirs and orchestras offer special pieces interspersed with traditional carols in which the audience is invited to participate. A large percentage of the audience is culturally Mennonite, and rich in choral ability, so the carols sound straight from the Herald Angels. I am in my element.

Here's what the Mennonites are not rich in: Sentimental Weepiness. From the third verse of the opening hymn, I am pressing my hankie to my mouth, trying to stifle the sobs and the Mennonites to my right and left look at me out of the corners of their eyes. Sobbing - It's just not a very German thing to do.

This wrecks me every, EVERY time, sung by the children's choir:

"And through all His wondrous childhood, He would honour and obey.
Love and watch the lowly maiden, in whose gentle arms He lay.
Christian children, all must be:
Mild obedient, good as He."

And then, children's and college choirs together (to me symbolizing the in-the-blink-of-an-eye "day by day" growth - whether or not the symbolism was intended):

"For He is our childhood's pattern
Day by day, like us He grew.
He was little, weak and helpless
Tears and smiles, like us He knew.
And He feeleth for our sadness,
And He shareth in our gladness."

I mean, shut up.

I have tried to explain how obviously touching those words are to others, but my sobs always interrupt. And when I manage to convey the message of the text, the listener always just blinks at me. I don't know if they are touching to anyone else.

Anyone?

Turkey Hangover

We had a thankful day yesterday. Our family stuff is later, so I planned to make a feast for just us. I learned that some friends of ours had no plans so they accepted my happy invitation to join us.

I used the brine recipe that I used last year, with some tweaking. I didn't do any special shopping for the recipe.... I used the cider that I had on hand, but I was still a cup and a half short. Since it called for the citrus flavors of orange peel, I decided that the grapefruit juice in my fridge would be just the thing to round out the rest of the liquid. I also increased the amount of garlic in the brine. I'm telling you, the bird tasted better than last year's. The flavor permeated the meat better, which was my desire.

I suppose I did some overeating, but I didn't go crazy. Today, however, I am so sluggish. I guess that kind of food, even in moderate amounts, really isn't great for us.

Today, Sophia, with no plans on the agenda (which drives her crazy) offered to make supper out of the leftovers. She made barbequed turkey sandwiches - delish! - and potato pancakes - better than I've ever turned out.



And the thankfulness continued.

Fall Back

Whomever invented Daylight Savings Time was certainly not a mother, who expects her children to go to bed on time and who sees the necessity of a full night's sleep in order to have a pleasing, smoothly-running home. When we move the clocks in the spring I grumble and know that we will all pay for it for days.

But tonight I move the clocks back and hum.

You Know the World...

I'm on a little road trip with my kids. They are on a brief break from school and the opportunity presented itself to go visit some friends. (Look for some more interviews coming!)

A scrapbooking friend of mine has asked me a few times if I thought scrapbooking would get me and my girls through some tough days of adolescence ahead. She noticed her own pre-teen daughter wanting to sit down next to her mom whenever the scrapbooking supplies were out. They would work on their projects together and the daughter would get chatty. I didn't really see the same thing happening with my girls, though they like to craft, too.

No, I think travel seems a more likely "refresh button" for my relationships with my kids. We get trapped together without so many of our usual distractions. We talk and laugh, rest and play. If I can afford it, I hope their remaining growing up years will include lots of little getaways with me and their dad.

I've been thinking of a quote from Haven Kimmel's "She Got Up Off the Couch." I'm on the road now without my copy of the book... I tried Googling the quote and couldn't find it. Pre-teen Zippy was taken by her mother to see a highbrow play on the campus of the big university - a very strange and stretching experience for such a young and uncivilized girl. Later, Zippy realized that her mom was trying to give her new experiences and make her world bigger than just their hometown of 300.

We love OUR little small town, but I think we improve it when it's colored by the rich experiences of it's inhabitants. I think it looks sweeter when we can see it's contrast against other settings. Our citizens seem less homogenized when we recognize the dynamic personalities that were trees lost in the forest of intimacy.

And when I bump the horizons a little further east or west, I say to my children, as Zippy's mom said to her, "Why, it's just the world. You know the world.'

The Mouths of Babes

An acquaintance of mine inspired me recently. Last spring break, her older daughter went on a school marine biology trip to Florida. She took her younger daughter - Brooks' age - for a few days in New York City. Just mother and daughter. I loved the idea.

Since Michael doesn't care to visit NYC, I thought it might be nice to do shorter trips with individual kids over the years. I'm planning Brooks' trip for during some break in this school year.

Ava has been asking questions about why it might be desireable to go to such a big city. Finally, she asked, "But isn't it, you know, DANGEROUS there?" What did she mean by dangerous, you might ask? I DID ask and was told that that particular city has gangsters and mobs.

I feel 90% humored and 10% saddened by this.

What Did She Mean By That?

I spent the weekend away from home.

My personal trainer said, "Welcome home, Mommy. You have one hour to nap, then you get on the treadmill."

Wasn't expecting that.

Infuriating

Yes, Dear Readers, I am planning to post pictures of my newly colorful rooms. My intention was not to leave you hanging. In fact, I was planning to post them the day after my previous post. Now, nearly a week later, I'm still fussing with the Technological Beast.

I took the giant memory card over to my mother-in-law's. Her computer is always up to date and seamlessly functioning. It couldn't read my card either. In fact, suddenly it couldn't read her own memory card.

Strike one.

Then I had Michael spend some time at our computer to see if he could figure it out. He is better at such things than I. He spent an hour and a half tirelessly attacking the computer's brain with vacuum and canned air. He went through the memory and deleted and reloaded. He called his tech-y brother and picked his brain...

Strike two.

Today I went to the supermarket which has a photo kiosk and transferred all the photos from the memory card to a cd, thereby emptying the faulty card. The day was already not going as planned. My Sophia had one of her migraines and I kept her at home. My son forgot his laptop, which he needed for school, and I got in the van to drop it off for him. (I certainly had the discussion in my head about how he might learn to be more responsible if he spent a day without it, but helpfulness won out today. Never fear; I am inconsistent - he can learn that lesson later.) Since I was on that end of town, I decided to swing by the store to get this photo situation resolved. Maybe I would even have time to stop in at my husband's office and load them on a new blog post for the three of you clamoring to see. I can switch back to my card with the tiny memory after this and all should be well.

After doing the transfer at the kiosk, I scanned my bar code to begin the cd burning and to tell me how long until pick up. I should be out of here and back with my girl in five minutes, I thought. Instead, the message screen told me my order would be ready in 13 minutes. Ouch. This is turning into a long time away from my unwell child. I told the photo assistant that I wasn't sure I could stay this long.

"Well," she said archly, "I can TRY to keep an eye on it and grab it when it spits the cd out, but I can't make any guarantees."

I knew the right thing was to leave and get back to Sophie, but I lingered long enough to make the decision that my nephew's terrific wife, Mandi, came down the aisle and struck up a conversation. It was great to chat with her and the topic of our conversation was one I'd like to visit here - Foreign Exchange Students. I'm sure we talked for five minutes at least. I thought I'd check the ETA of the cd one more time. Maybe more time had elapsed than I thought.

"Your order should be ready in TWELVE minutes." !!! As far as the kiosk was concerned, one minute had passed since I placed my order. I told the disapproving attendant that I couldn't stay. I hope it'll be there when I can get back but for now...

Strike three.

But still swinging. Stay tuned.

Great American Road Trip - Part 6

Norris/Tower-Roosevelt/Old Faithful

When planning excursions within our vacation I knew there was one which was a must, just for the joy it would bring one family member. Ava is a lover of animals like no other. She was given a summer of horse riding lessons as a birthday gift last year and was over the moon with glee. Horseback rides were offered in a couple of different locations on our route and we took advantage of the Roosevelt Corrals in the northern part of YNP.

Our first attempt at a ride was thwarted by heavy winds. When we were told the ride was being cancelled, this child, who ran ahead of us from the van to the corral, was a bit disappointed. I was glad we had time to reschedule it the next day. We were a part of a group of 20 riders and we were asked if we had ever been on a horse before and how experienced we were with horses. I was among the most experienced (Most had not even been on a horse before, lest you be too impressed.) and I felt utterly confident that I would be able to handle anything a ride for city dwellers would offer. However, this country girl was humbled by a belligerent horse who stopped to graze every time he lost interest in the trail, which was often. I nearly popped a blood vessel trying to wrestle him into submission throughout the ride.

These rock formations are called "hoodoos." Often hoodoos look like faces. These hoodoos aren't the best example of that characteristic, but they distinguished themselves be being very different from the surrounding smooth cliffside. The kids admired them from the comfort of the van, but Mike and I climbed around together for fifteen minutes or so.

Later Brooks and I had our own climbing adventure. The girls had been working toward getting their Junior Ranger badges and needed to attend a ranger-led lecture or activity. While they went to their lecture Brooks and I headed to the trails to get a great view of the Lower Falls, via "Uncle Tom's Trail." The original trail was forged by Tom Richardson in 1898 and now involves a few paved trails at the top and then a series of 300+ steel grate stairs which loses you more than 500 feet of altitude.



The trip down is easy and the trip up is difficult, for obvious reasons. I think I read somewhere that it was 350 steps down and 1025 steps up - when you factor in the extra effort at 8000 feet altitude. All I know is that, whatever direction we were headed, Brooks charged ahead and sighed mightily when I had to stop to rest.


We noticed a rainbow in the spray of the waterfall when we neared the bottom of the steps.


We had a beautiful view of the whole falls and some great bonding time for me and my boy. It was hard to climb back up, but the whole hike was done for us in about 45 minutes. It's manageable for people in reasonably good health and we recommend it to anyone planning to visit the park.

When we got back from our hike, the girls had completed their ranger lecture and thereby finshed all of the requirements to get their Junior Ranger badge. I was so glad that they did this activity. I knew Ava would enjoy the process, but I was pleased to see Sophie dig into it with the gusto she showed.

Here they are being solemn and taking the oath, promising to follow the rules of the park and to do what they could to preserve the parks throughout their lives.

Our friendly old ranger found a proper chapeau to preserve the moment in our photos.

The Great American Road Trip - Part 4

Grand Teton National Park

The French speaking explorers who named this mountain range called it "les trois Tetons" or The Three Breasts. I studied that mountain range long and hard and I think they must have been some pretty lonely trappers.

I've already told you that we first glimpsed the beautiful mountain range and the surrounding national park on our drive through to Jackson, WY. After the pizza and the shootout in town, we actually got to spend the night in the national park. Lodging in the national parks is not particularly abundant and they sell out quickly. There are campsites, cabins and rooms in the beautiful historic lodges. Though the lodges are generally quite posh, most of the rooms don't have private baths, as they were mostly built 100 or more years ago and have been kept as original as possible.

I delayed my planning too long to get one of those rooms. In fact, the only lodging I managed to secure within the parks was a "tent cabin" for our one night at Teton. I'd never heard of a tent cabin before, but I was told it was just one step up from tent camping. Our tent cabin had two walls and an awning made of canvas and two log walls. For most of my family, three of whom are what I like to call "avid INdoorsmen," it looked pretty grim. And, truthfully, I prefer the tent camping that we do once a year to our experience in the cabin. The canvas was cut and finished with holes too generous for the supporting poles, leaving gaps beckoning an invitation to the huge flock of mosquitos outside. We had to buy firewood and kindling to burn in the iron wood stove to keep us thawed during the 40-degree night. And we know the quality and cleanliness of our own air mattresses we use in our tents - not so the nasty striped ticking on the cots provided. I have to say, though, the family went from stomping about over the conditions to laughing about the conditions (and laughing about the stomping) very quickly. I know we'll remember it and smile always.


We wasted no time packing up and moving on the next morning. We were none too comfortable and, besides, we had an appointment at 8:00 for a rafting tour of Snake River.

Our guide was named Mike and he was born and raised in Teton National Park. His father worked for the Park's concessionaire so Mike lived in those beautiful surroundings until he went away to college in Hawaii. He was certainly knowledgeable about the park and it's wildlife, but I was most fascinated about the things he shared about living in such an isolated environment. He asked Ava how many kids were in her class (24) and how many different third grade classrooms there were (3). He was one of three kids in his third grade class. All six primary grades met in one building with two teachers, younger kids downstairs, older kids upstairs. That school is on the park's grounds, but when he advanced to middle school, he went to Jackson and rode the bus 1.5 hours ONE WAY. When he got his lisence, it cut down on the commute time, but he put 300 miles on his car every week. When they went on vacations, they went to cities - practicing not talking to strangers and learning how public transportation works.


River Guide Mike also recommended a hike to Hidden Falls, which sounded good to us after our three-hour raft trip and lunch. It was a very ambitious hike and probably not the right one to introduce hiking to the kids. By the way, what is the difference between hiking and walking? I'm not sure I know, but I do know I wished for my family to have their eyes up to enjoy the scenery on this hike. We started the day with five bottles of water in our bag and two of them were gone during the raft ride. I wasn't concerned having just three bottles for the hike, but when two of them were guzzled before we got to the falls, I knew we'd have to seriously conserve on our return.

(This hike afforded us really rewarding views, and really unrewarding photos.)

Halfway through our two+ mile return hike, Ava started lagging behind. Mike slowed up with her while I charged ahead with the olders. Only one problem: Mike had the one and only water bottle with the paltry inch and a half of remaining water. The last mile was grim. Mouths were parched and sticky, muscles were straining, tears were shed. And it was pretty hard on the kids, too.

When we got back to the Visitors' Center and the drinking fountain, Brooks said between gulps, "This is possibly the worst thing we've ever done." On the plus side the view of the waterfall was very spectacular and we even spotted a baby moose who stepped into our path and then scampered (as much as a giant thing can scamper) into the wilderness before I could get my camera out.

(Look closely for the moose.)

But more than anything was a sense of accomplishment. I read in one of our guide books that a national park vacation should be mentally relaxing but physically exhausting and that they should be the chance to find out what you can do. And I hope that my family can all fully absorb that a five-mile hike in the dehydrating heat over rocky terrain is not our limit. It's good to know that and to understand that you can go further yet.

That was some great-feeling pain.

Great American Road Trip, Part 2

Cody, Wyoming

On the evening of the morning on which we visited Carhenge, we landed In Cody, named in honor of Buffalo Bill Cody, who helped lay out the town.

We arrived without much of a plan. Or rather, having scrapped the plan that I had in mind.

Insight into this marriage: I was telling a friend recently (a friend who's married to a bit of a control freak) that I was reading up on our destinations, I was booking this or that excursion, and I was making decisions here and there. She, wide-eyed, asked, "Can you really plan the whole vacation with Mike just looking at you in the car to ask where he should drive?"

Kind of embarrassed, I shrugged and nodded.

On second thought, I don't know if this is insight into the marriage or into my own inner Control Freak. I just know that whenever I've asked for input into those kinds of things, the answer has always been, "I don't care."

I have never answered 'I don't care' to anything.

Nevertheless, *I* had decided that we would take in the Cody Night Rodeo, which happens every night just outside of town. It would be a chance to experience what Cody has to offer and take in a bit of cowboy culture, too. Of course, I hadn't bothered to share any of this with my family. There was nothing sinister in it, just distraction and cluelessness.

Twenty miles before we reached town, we started seeing billboards for the rodeo, which Ava begged to attend.

"Oh honey, I really don't think you'll like it. I think you'll think they are being mean to the animals."

Whabba-wha?

Fast forward through the next 30 minutes of Ava tearfully protesting, Mike sagely insisting and me irrationally grouching about my apparently secret plans being rebuffed. Yadda, yadda, yadda, we went out to eat instead.


We decided upon The Irma, the dining room of the 1902 hotel of the same name. Built by Buffalo Bill and named for his daughter, the focal point is a giant cherry bar. The bar was a gift from Queen Victoria to Buffalo Bill after she watched him perform. I was also impressed by this and other buildings I have seen on this trip which are kept so original. Even the wallpaper looked to be original. As for the rest of the decor, think ornate chandeliers, taxidermy and, strangely, photos of every governor in Wyoming's history.


I'm sorry that the decor is the most newsworthy part of our evening in The Irma, but I definitely got the sense that the proprietors were not counting on repeat visitors. Just get the tourists in, get their money, and get them out.

The next morning, after finding a supermarket to replace some of the forgotten items still at home, we drove past the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. It seemed a bit pricey for no more time we had to spend in it, so I decided to just snap a shot of the sculpture of the hero of the wild west before driving on. While getting my shot, I struck up a conversation with an apparent cowboy named Phillip, who was drumming up interest for the Cody Night Rodeo doing rope tricks in front of the museum. He asked if we would be attending the rodeo. When I told him our concerns for Ava, he asked if he could talk to her to put her mind at ease. If I was at home, I would feel as I do when at the mall, when the middle eastern college guys ask if they can show me what the Dead Sea products can do for my nails - that is: I would try to get away. But On Vacation, I figure I'll never meet anyone like him at home, so I wanted to interact and see what he's about. Sorry, middle-eastern college guys.


Now, Phillip did give us an education on the rodeo. He said the bucking horses were bred to buck, not tortured or frightened into bucking. He told us the young calves are roped on ranches in order to be doctored and the rodeos came about because the cowboys were competing to see who could be the fastest, and therefore, the least disruptive to the calves. He made me feel like roping is like parenting - there might be times when the calf/kid is annoyed or uncomfortable but it's because the cowboy/parent is responsible. Truth or propaganda? I dunno. What I do know is that Phillip's moustache was fascinating. It was actually FEATHERED, like my hair in the 70's. He also had two boys, named Roper and Rider. Roper was doing rope tricks with one arm. The other was in a sling since his collarbone was shattered from a fall in the rodeo! So Phillip, I get why you might allow your calf to participate in the rodeo, but what are you thinking putting your CHILD out there?


For our last hour or so in Cody, we visited Old Trail Town, a group of 26 buildings dating from 1879 to 1901 . They are not all original to Cody, but many have been. Relocated here to offer interested parties the chance to see how the early settlers might have lived. I really enjoyed this little visit - its exactly the way I like to visit a museum. We could get into most of the buildings, which included a saloon, a trapper's cabin, a store and a Livery stable, to name a few - and we could touch and handle a lot of the things. As much as I enjoyed it, I do worry for the preservation of those items, being no more protected than they were. Items encased in glass are less enjoyable than an item in my hand, but the ones under glass tend to last a lot longer.

(A buggy in the livery barn)
Just as we were finishing up, Ava caught sight of an old codger volunteer, who was carrying around his own oxygen tank and practicing his roping skills on a mock-up of a calf. After checking with me, she trotted right up to him and asked to be taught how to lasso.


He let her try over and over, as long as she wanted. Or really, as long as I allowed. Eventually I had to practice my own cow person skills, herding my family back into the van. We needed to get to Jackson (is it Jackson or Jackson Hole?) for other activities I never bothered to mention.

Chewy Brownies

Here is some scary math for you: If a=a two-week vacation and b=a departure date this Friday, c=a return date a day before Leadership Camp, d=5 4-H projects for which e=a due date the day after Leadership Camp, then a(b+c) + de=a personal due date of This Friday for all projects and my stress level to the seventh power.

This is always busy time in our household. We are finishing up the last week of Little League with games nearly every night of the week. I'm trying to prepare for vacation, with jobs like making the van spic and span, laundry, packing, and - as my mother-in-law has always done - vacuuming myself out the door. I also have the big job of overseeing the time management of my 4-H-er.

What can console me at a time like this? Baked goods. For an end-of-the-year choir activity, Brooks volunteered me to provide brownies. This recipe comes out just as I like them - not too dry, not too cakey.

And now, to make you laugh and me cry, I find that I have loaded these pix in the order they were taken, making them appear in the reverse order than which they are needed. Please scroll to the bottom if you care to read the recipe from the beginning. (It really is funny, I suppose.)

On Motherhood

Stuff I learned from my mother:

Selflessness - In the way she always convinced us she really wanted the smallest pork chop or the burnt piece of toast.

Work Ethic - I have a mental picture of my mom every Saturday evening, setting her hair in rollers for church the next day, her chin dropping to her chest as she nodded off with hairpins in her mouth, exhausted from the day's work.

Self-Sufficiency/Thrift - Mornings in the garden, before it got too hot. Evenings under the lamp of the sewing machine. Vacation days away from the government job, but hard at work canning in the summer kitchen.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. - "Kids, stop scuffling."
"Settle down."
"I asked you to stop."
"Kids!"
"OK, AS SOON AS ONE OF YOU CRIES, YOU'RE BOTH GETTING SPANKED!
(Actually, should this entry be called, "If you can't beat 'em, give them a beating?"

Individuality - In the days of my adolescent conformity, my mother was not one bit interested in my desire to not be noticed. I was constantly embarrassed by my simple family and my mother just shrugged and did as she saw fit. If it was raining, she pulled from her purse the little pouch with the rain bonnet in it, unfolded it from its accordion shape and slapped it on her head... while I walked twenty feet behind and pretended to study my shoes.

Ambition - I don't know how my mom thought she could go to college. It certainly wasn't a precedent in her community. Her own mother died when she was only two, and her older sister moved back to the farm with two young children, so Mom had babies on her hip from the age of ten. The family was rich in love, but not particularly lucky at farming. When Mom went an hour away to college, earned her degree and settled down two hours away from the farm, she seemed elegant and city-ish. (She was a school teacher and our town had 1200 people.)

Family is Precious - "If I happen to be in a coma when your baby is born, please make sure I hold him." (From the hospital bed in her living room.)

My mom offered me a lot during the 25 years I had with her. As a child, I felt like nothing was quite right if she wasn't at home and even terrible things were manageable as long as she was a part of the solution. There were times when my parents went out for the evening or mom had a meeting at church and I had to go to bed in a house where my mother wasn't. I would lie in bed and stare at the wall wondering how to sleep in such a house. The country road outside my bedroom window was not well-traveled and if the headlights of a car crossed the wall of my darkened bedroom, I would wait and hope that the headlights would slow down and turn into our driveway. Often they did not and that felt so sad.

My mom is gone now and I lost her too soon. She didn't get to hold my baby, coma or not. I remember the moment, a week into my own motherhood experience, that a wave of realization crashed over me. What I felt for my baby was WHAT MY MOTHER FELT FOR ME. And I never had a chance to let her know that I GET IT. And my grief started all over again.

But really, not all people have such great mothers. Or such moments of clarity. I'm lucky to have these reasons to be so sad sometimes.

I hope I honor motherhood as much as my mom did. As much as I learned at my mother's elbow, first-hand experience is a better teacher. The best truth I've gotten is the knowledge that I'm actually tough as nails.

OK, I've been mulling over deciphering the formula that makes a mother a warrior. I just keep landing on cliches, like the fact that we're nurses, chauffeurs, housekeepers, cooks, mediators, educators, coaches, philosophers, etc. I think it's all true, but everyone has heard it already, so it's lost the meaning of what I'm trying to say. I think part of it is that we ARE all of those things, but we do all those jobs while we're exhausted, grieving, angry, lost, sick, worried, lonely, misunderstood and unsure. And we do them not because its our job, but because we are compelled - by duty, by devotion, by dedication to our families.

Unglamorous, motherhood is. I never said it was pretty. Everyone else's needs come first and, while I sometimes get tired of it, I wouldn't have it any other way. How many Sunday mornings do I focus on getting everyone else dolled up for church, only to slam on my one and only coat of mascara in the parking lot of the church? I could be sitting, midstream, on the toilet, and if any of my children called me with urgency, I'd be running out the door with my pants around my ankles. Every one of us has been soaked in urine, diarrhea, breast milk, mud or vomit and kept on tending to another, simply because it needed to be done.

Last summer, I allowed each of my three kids to take a friend for a day at the beach. Great day, for sure, but no sooner had we pulled out of the parking lot and gotten on the interstate than we had a flat tire. A flat tire! With six kids in the van! It was hard to figure out how to change the tire, but I did it. Actually, for me, it was hard to figure out how to get the spare out of its hiding place! I got filthy dirty and aloof strangers felt they were doing their part by looking at me sympathetically as they whizzed by in their functional cars. But had they stopped and helped me out, I would have missed the triumph in doing a hard thing simply by putting my head down, being an adult and getting through it. And because I'm a mother, I did it while teaching valuable lessons: Here's how to change a tire. Here's where you put the jack. If you don't know the answer, look in the owner's manual. Oh, you tightened the nuts as far as they would go? Lemme see. (Craaank. Craaaank. Crrraaaaaannnnnnnk.) Your mother is still the toughest person you know.

I'm always confused by women who call in the coast guard whenever they are sick, busy or unrested - women who need someone with them when they take the child to their immunizations - because it might be hard. They are totally robbing themselves of the chance to find out what they can do. They can be the only one in the room, heck, in the WORLD who will make things better for another human being. Your child's head fits perfectly into that comfortable spot on your shoulder. No one else's feels as good to them. The way you do Christmas, or Sunday evenings, or road trips - is going to be the way your children think they should be done when they have children of their own. Doesn't that make you feel frikkin' powerful? It does me. I don't know if I've done justice writing about all motherhood has given me. It gave me a backbone and self-esteem and resolve and identity and it made me an adult once and for all. I'm nobody's princess. I'm a gladiator. A superhero. And I can feel great about myself because such a job will have an eternal presence in my family tree.

Caramel French Toast

I did not have one healthfully redeeming meal on Easter Sunday. I helped to serve the breakfast meal after Sunrise Service this morning at church. We had a family Easter meal after church. And, finally, we celebrated a couple of birthdays with that same branch of the family at suppertime, complete with homemade ice cream and a cake with an entire pound of butter in the frosting. By the end of the day, I didn't even feel treated by the birthday party.

What a fun-packed weekend, though. On Saturday morning I took Ava to the egg hunt put on by the Lion's Club in the wee village in which I grew up. I'm all the more charmed by it because it is exactly as I left it when I last hunted eggs myself nearly 30 years ago.

Ava's age group lined up at the section of the playground which was designated for them. The kids were thick on the end closest to the door from the gym where they had gathered at 9:00 AM. Not being the pushy type, Ava kept moving further down the line until we reached the very end, where there were no other kids. Interestingly, that left her with the entire east side of a playground full of plastic eggs where she might hunt in relative solitude.


...For about 48 seconds...

...Or until the heavily populated west end was picked clean and the swarms descended upon her.


Sunday brought a day of church and family. When we finally got to the family part, I could sit down for a spell and rest my feet. Lawd, those church shoes were not meant for cooking breakfast. Behold, the Easter toes.


While I like to make things from scratch and experiment with recipes, my friend Tammy is expert at feeding crowds. She has done many funeral dinners and Easter breakfasts at our church. We worked together to plan this year's menu. She made biscuits and yummy gravy and an awesome baked egg I'll have to tell you about later. I made French Toast. For weeks beforehand I wondered, should I make traditional French toast (needed: lots of griddle space and time to spend flipping) or baked (needed: lots of oven space that might be in short supply)?

Twenty hours before we were to serve, I decided to do the baked. Here is the recipe:

Caramel French Toast
In a heavy saucepan, combine the following:
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. butter
2 T light corn syrup

Cook over medium heat until thick. Pour into a 9 x 13 pan. Cover with 12 slices of bread. French bread is better and more dignified, but the sandwich bread here was donated by the parishioners, so beggars can't be choosey.


Combine the following and pour over the bread:

6 eggs, beaten
1-1/2 c. milk
1 t. vanilla
1/4 t. salt



Cover and chill overnight. Uncover and bake at 350 until set and golden brown. Serve immediately. Serves 6 generously.