Ice Station Zebra

Greetings from Ice Station Zebra.

I am a scientist engaged in the study of global warming (ha!) and it's affect on moderen suburban families.

In this experiment, we will cut a small cluster of families off from civilization by encrusting their roads in ice and creating a hostile environment.  We will monitor the behavior of the trapped subjects.

The suburban offspring began the experiment by spending a lot of time out of doors, attempting to slide down glaciers.  While there were varying degrees of success with this behavior, due to the perpetual cycle of returning to the house for warmth and sustenance, and always forgetting to close the doors, their habitats now look like this:

This phenomenon has caused the suburban housewife to consume alcohol.

Seriously though.  What a mess!  Our roads have been frozen for three days, and it will not get above freezing today either, and then more snow is expected for Friday.  At this rate, with the "snow days" piling up, the kids will be in school doing makeup days until the Fourth of July.

I am about to run out of milk and am contemplating walking to the nearest convenience store just for the novelty of it.  Note to self, call first to make sure they DO have milk.  Rumor has it the grocery stores are running low.  Other than the milk (and I do have powdered), I am glad I have a well-stocked pantry.

The only friends the kids see are those within walking distance, and it is a cold, cold, walk!  Ray goes out daily to break the ice on the pool.  Aidan, obviously, hasn't been able to train at all, so I nag him to spend time on the stationary bike - it's about the only way I can get him away from the TV.

One of the neighborhood mommies kindly invited the rest of the neighborhood mommies over to a chili lunch today.  I am certain there will be wine involved, and so I may not be home until the spring thaw.

I am not Wonderwoman



Today I didn't.....

• Clean up the kitchen after breakfast.  Thank you, Ray, for doing it for me.
• Style my hair.  I dragged it back off my face and stuck a sparkly clip in it and hoped nobody would notice.
• Cook.  Breakfast was packaged oatmeal, dinner will be spaghetti w/ canned sauce and frozen meatballs.  I can't even be self-righteous and claim to use my own tomato sauce because I never got around to canning any this season.
• See my daughter for more than 20 minutes.

This week I didn't.....

• Wash the red sweatshirt my son needs tomorrow.
• Fold any of the laundry that I DID manage to get washed.  Can I start a "wrinkled look" fashion trend if my whole family participates?
• Mop
• Clip the mats off Dixie's hindquarters.  They're still there, looking like dreadlocks.  Maybe I'll rename her "Rasta Dawg" and cultivate the look.
• Exercise
• Use any coupons

This month I didn't......

• Earn any money whatsoever.
• Organize my backyard for winter.
• Wash my windows and now it's too cold.
• Purge my growing pile of magazines, recipes, catalogs, garden seeds, dog collars, nail polish, school memos, electronic chargers and adapters, etc. that is in the kitchen.
• Mop
• Hang those hooks in Aidan's closet that I got a year ago.

What DID I do?  Forgive myself.  Not every day can be "that" day where you hair, children and dogs all cooperate.  Where your car, kitchen and bathrooms stay clean for more than 27 seconds, and where you find the time to hang that hook, that curtain rod, or that annoying PTA lady.

We do our best.  I'll mop before company comes, merely fantasize about hanging the PTA lady, maybe ask one of the kids to clip the dog and try not to stress about the rest. I'd rather leave the dishes and the windows and have a few more moments with my family.  I imagine myself as a camera lens, with the F-stop adjusted so that I only focus on what's important, and the PTA lady, unmopped floors and laundry are all blurry and unimportant to the overall composition.

I'll be Home for Christmas

There is no place like "home" for the holidays.  Holidays and "home" just go together.  There are songs about it, and we go over the river and through the woods to get there.

This is my sixth Christmas away from "home" and I have come around to a different perspective.

I love my extended family.  I love my hometown.  These are a given.

But consider this..... those that are "home" for the holidays have a whirlwind of hosting (crazy) relatives, hauling presents, dressing children in itchy clothes, family squables, cooking for crowds or creating "moveable feasts" to contribute to chaotic gatherings.  Yes - I have lived all that and it has it's wonderful irreplaceable rewards.

But....

For the last six years, my Christmas events have consisted of bonding with my husband and children.  The four of us get a reprieve from school work, spreadsheets, carpool, sports practices, travel, volunteer obligations, conference calls, and even to a fair degree, routine chores (the dog poop can wait!).

Wait for it...... the audible "Aaaahhhhh......."

We hunker down together, turn up the cheesy Christmas music (and sing along with lousy harmony), lay in several days of decadent supplies, and just enjoy being together.

Of course we miss our family and I think wistfully of them all together sharing a boisterous meal, having a mountain of crumpled wrapping paper and total chaos, which I gleefully had hosted in my own home for many years. 

But we are far from kith and kid and luckily the four of us (still) truly enjoy each other's company.  These few days clarify for me that I am so grateful for the strength and steadfastness of my husband.  The adventure and drive of my eldest.  The creativity and generousity of my youngest.  The unconditional love that they all bear to me.  And I know that without these few days of intense attentiveness towards one another, I'd miss the moments that would be lost in the whirlwind.

Peace.  Quiet.  Love.

That is what the holiday feels like to me.

That is what I think the holiday is supposed to feel like.

I wish you all the best for 2011.  And especially a little peace, quiet, and love.

Unbearable Journey

Shoulders to cry on.

Bread to break with loved ones.

Kind words and remembrances.

Shared pain and grief.

Homes and hearts opened.

Breathe......  just remember to breathe.....

An impossible task completed - borne up on the hearts of family, friends, thoughts, prayers and love.

The sharp knife of a short life

This picture slays me most of all.

The boy that once was.  The man he could have become.  A future still yet filled with endless possibilities.

The boundless love and support of a parent with heart full of dreams.

The sharp knife of a short life.
Raymond Patrick Glynn
11-04-87  - 11-27-2010

Namaste

Yes, it's another post about food!

A while back, when I went to my farm share, I got some really cute 8-ball zuchinni.  I just love these little guys and if I ever get any better at gardening, I want to try and grow them for myself.

Someday, when I don't have hungry athletes to feed, just ONE of these, stuffed with random yummy goodness, will be perfectly adequate for a meal for me.

Also at the farm that day were sweet potatoes.  It was a logical step to stuff the squash with that!  So, dice it finely, and sautee with the ubiquitous onion.  And a bit of chili flake, 'cuz you know, I cook in Texas.

Also, the insides of the squash went into the sautee, and then the whole mess got stuffed back into the squash, which had been lightly oiled and well seasoned.  Next, they are roasted in the oven for about 40 minutes.

Surely stuffed squash is a perfectly fine mean on it's own!  But nooooo!  I had to add garlic bread, grilled artichokes, and a bit of steak as well.  Bon appetit!

Bridgie's Room

Once Bridget hit middle school, she decided that it wasn't exactly "cool" to have Barbie stuff strewn about one's room.

With needing to make space for her new desk, the time was right for a major overhaul for Bridget's room.

Fortunately, she has two closets.  The smaller one we put in lots of bins and shelves so she can now keep her toys out of sight, and the larger closet is dedicated to clothes.

We took all the artwork off the walls and then Bridget decided how she wanted her furniture arranged.  She wanted a lot of space in the middle of the room, her bed set up like a couch for lounging, and a reading area.  Since it's her room, I pretty much gave her free reign.  Once the furniture was all moved around, the posters and artwork went back up on the walls.

Bridget then photographed her room.  I just love her photographs, she's got an unusual way of looking at things.  I thought she'd eventually put these pictures up on her blog, but she hasn't been blogging much, so here they are.

Bridget's reading nook.  Looks comfy, I think I'll try it out!

Bridget made each of these items at different birthday parties.

She loves the lock and key on her new desk.

It seems like the quintessential "tween" room to me!

Okra

Something I've never had until moving to the south is okra.  Gardeners who grow it say it's one of the easiest things to grow around here.  Judging by the overflowing bushels of the stuff every week at Sandra's farm, I would guess that to be no lie!

The classic way to prepare okra is to deep fry it.  That's all well and good, but I searched for a healthier way to use it.  I tried roasting it in various iterations (with garlic, with cherry tomatoes....) and didn't really come up with a way to use it that my family would eat.

Until..... my neighbor shared a jar of pickled okra with me.  It's yummy!  And Bridget loves it!  Time to pickle my own okra, and teach Missy B in the process!

Into the bottom of each jar goes mustard seed, dill, crushed garlic, one fresh jalepeno and one dried red chili.

The pickling liquid is equal parts cider vinegar and water and a whole bunch of pickling salt.  Packing the okra in the jars was a bit of a challenge.  I don't like to use wide-mouth jars so that my canning rings are interchangeable amongst my smaller jelly jars.  But, by alternating big end and little end, and starting with the largest okra pods first, we got the jars stuffed tightly.

Ladle in the hot pickling liquid, and drop them in boiling water to process for 10 minutes and voila!  Pickles!  Bridget loves them in her lunch and I hope we've made enough to get through the winter.

Well furnished

This year, Ray decided to make each of the kids their own desk.  They are old enough to do their homework in their rooms independently, and it was time to relcaim the dining room so that it no longer looks like a one-room school house.

Ray looked at a lot of plans, catalogs, etc. and eventually came up with his own design.  (Kind of sounds like how I cook!) Lots of storage room, lovely lines with tapered legs, beautiful dovetail joinery.  The desks are similar, yet different.  Aidan's top is chunkier, more masculine.  Bridget's is more elegant, with detail routed into the edges.  The legs on Bridget's are slightly slimmer than Aidan's desk as well.

One of my favorite features is the slanted top.  It isn't so steep that things slide off, unless you pile the clutter too high.  Sort of a self-regulating clean-up reminder!

The wood is maple, and beautifully figured.

I know Ray had a lot of fun building these, and I had fun during the times that I helped.  Woodworking is often like a big logic puzzle and I've learned a lot helping Ray.

How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?

Only one, but the light bulb must really want to be changed.

 

Our light bulbs are not so open to psychologic enlightenment.

 

Above our kitchen, we have five niches.  Four contain artwork, one contains a clock.  All have a spot light above them.

 

Twice a year, when it's time to change the clocks, we drag the 20' extension ladder in, and Ray goes up to set the proper time on the clock.

 

This year, we figured we'd replace all five light bulbs as long as he was up there - easy, right?  Um, no.

 

1. Get the wrong light bulbs from the store.
2. Go back and get the right light bulbs.
3. Haul the ladder in, trying hard not to bash it too many times on the walls, or the 120 year old suite of furniture in the breakfast nook.
4. Reconfigure the ladder to the proper positioning for the job.
5. Insert finger in the wrong place at the wrong time as telescoping ladder collapses.
6. Take a first aid break.
7. Painstakingly wrestle ladder into a position that allows access to the recessed lighting.  It is scarily veritcal.
8. Head up with light bulb in hand.
9. Drop the light bulb.
10. Take a cleaning break to deal with shards of glass projected in a 20' radius.
11. Head up with another light bulb.  One down, four to go.
12. Painstakingly wrestle the ladder into the next niche.
13. Discover minor electrical problem too high to reach from ladder.
14. Find a bench that will fit on the ledge and that is high enough, carry it up the ladder.
15. Three trips up and down and out the garage for the proper tools.
16. Insert light bulb.  It does not work.
17. Send light blub back down to be tested in another fixture.
18. Test light bulb in fixture and realize how very dirty the fixture is.
19. More work on the recessed fixture.
20. Send light bulb back up.
21. It works!  Two down, three to go.
22. Painstakingly wrestle the ladder into the next niche.
23. Remove clock to change time.  Decide that it needs cleaning.
24. Clean clock.
25. Decide the batteries should be replaced.
26. Back down to find proper batteries.
27. Adjust time, change bulb.  Three town, two to go.
28. Painstakingly wrestle the ladder into the next niche.
29. Have a lot of trouble getting the ladder in the right position.
30. Bash the wall in the niche a couple of times.
31. Head back out to the garage to find the special paint the niches were painted with.
32. Remove socks and put them on the ladder to avoid this problem in the future.
33. Head back up with light bulb and paint brush.
34. Change bulb, paint niche.  Four down, one to go.
35. Painstakingly wrestle the ladder into the next nook.
36. Realize that since one was broken, we are now out of light bulbs.
37. Take another trip to the store to buy light bulbs.
38. Head back up and change the light bulb.

 

Success!  Illumination!  Cocktails, please!