thankful house

Balsamic Pork Loin

2012-02-03T12:16:00.002-06:00

Some months ago, when Pinterest was a new phenomenon in my life, my friend Anna spotted a recipe for what was called Balsamic Glazed Pork Loin.

Well, I have a history with pork loins. It's not pretty. It involves me pursuing them with the reckless abandon of a fourteen year old girl who has more than a few daddy issues. And they never love me back. They almost always end up dry. But the problem is that they are healthy, relatively inexpensive, but company appropriate, and not the same ol' same ol' thing.

So, I saw this recipe, I had my doubts, but I did it, just like the girl who sends the 4th unanswered text message. More like 44th in this situation.

And he came through. Apparently, his phone had been dead the whole time.

I will say, though, that this ends up falling apart. A fact that I always think is good, but it often ruins a presentation. This is much more dinner with white table clothes than styrofoam plates and bad baked beans, but it looks an awful lot like its fattier, tastier, less classy sister of Pulled Pork Shoulder. You may feel the need to serve it with apology (the explanatory kind, not the sorry kind) - "This is Balsamic Pork Loin. White meat. Grown up food. Button up and khackis, not bathingsuits and fireworks. I promise." Or, perhaps, you're more secure than I am sometimes, and you are willing to say, "This tastes good. I don't care if you do think it beneath the occasion. Kiss my behind." If so, kudos to you!

So, here we go:

1 3 lb pork loin. (This reminds me. I grew up in the kitchen. Cooked all the time. But I was always cooking with my mother's ingredients, right? I didn't learn the art of reading a recipe and shopping for it until I stumbled through it as a newlywed. I can remember reading my mother's brisket recipe which called for a 3.5 lb brisket. I searched and searched. All I could find was like a 2.79 lb one and a 3.86 lb one. No 3.5 lbs to be found. I gave up, went home, and we ordered out. I was 22 and a mother and could not figure out that IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW BIG YOUR PIECE OF DEDGUM BRISKET IS, but I'm pitiful like that.)

Salt
Pepper
Granulated Garlic (this is better than garlic powder - tastes less fake for some reason).

Sprinkle all over the meat. Put 1/2 a cup of water and the meat in a slowcooker, thin layer of fat side up, for 5-7 hours on low.

45 minutes before you want to eat, prepare this in a tinyish saucepan on the stove:

1 cup brown sugar
2 T corn starch
1/2 cup balsamic
1 cup water
4 T soy sauce
2 tsp Tabasco

Boil until it thickens, simmer for a second or two.

30 minutes before you want to eat it, take the top off. Pull it apart with two forks. It should come apart so easily.
Toss with 2/3 of the balsamic mixture. You can also toss with all of it. But if you want something for people to spoon over something, save 1/3 of it, put it in a pretty bowl with a spoon and call it sauce. Because it is.

This is yummy alone, yummy on sandwiches; yummy on quesadillas and yummy in lasagna.

It freezes beautifully as well.

There ya go! Eat well, do good work and keep in touch.

Pork Loin Lasagna

2012-02-03T11:06:00.000-06:00

So... I like food. And I love making yummier foods out of simpler, especially leftover, foods. And for the last month, we've been eating out of the freezer and pantry, which has increased creativity in some ways and limited it in others.
To make greatest use of leftovers or pieces of frozen meat or bags of frozen veggies, often you also need to run to the store to buy a few supplementary ingredients. And I've not been able to do that. I blew my fifty dollar budget at the beginning of the month, so from January 10-31, I spent 7 dollars.
So, this week, I got to buy some food. And I thought being able to grocery shop would make all the difference.
And then yesterday afternoon I ended up crafting supper from things I already had - didn't buy a one since January 10th - and we all really enjoyed it.

And I need to write it down, because the three Forsters who express such opinions have already asked that it be added to the rotation.
So, here we go.

Pork Loin /Caramelized Onion Lasagna Roll Ups

For the meat stuffs:

2-3 cups leftover balsamic pork loin, pulled into shredded goodness. (See here)
2 good sized yellow onions, sliced
3 T butter
3 T olive oil
1 cup good quality barbecue sauce (either homemade or a good brand name - I had half a jar of Cherry Republic stuff, but I think it'd be good as long as it wasn't cloying Kraft stuff)

For the sauce:
4 T butter
4 T flour
2 cups chicken broth (from bullion cubes for me)
2 cups milk (I used 2 percent)
1 cup ricotta (I had this in the fridge)
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne (or more or less to taste)
2 tsps dried parsley
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp italian seasoning blend

Additionally:
3-4 cups mozzarella
12 whole wheat lasagna noodles

Caramelize the onions in the butter and oil for about 20-25 minutes, add the shredded meat and bbq sauce, heat through.

While the onion is cooking, make your sauce. Make a roux with the butter and flour. Blend in the broth, stir until it thickens. Blend in the milk, stirring well. (Using a whisk (coated if your pot is non stick) will make your life easier). Add all spices and the ricotta. Turn to low and let it simmer for a bit until all is melted, well blended, married, melded, all that jazz.

Now, grab a large pan (11 x 14 if you have one) or a 9 x 13 and a small loaf pan to supplement.

Put 12 raw noodles in the pan. Pour boiling water over it to cover. Let sit for 10 minutes or so until the noodles are pliable.

Take 1/3 of the sauce and spread it on the bottom of your pan.

Now, onto each noodle, place 1/12th of the meat mixture and 2 Tablespoons or so of Mozzarella cheese. Spread it along each noodle. Now, roll up the noodle. Place seam side down in the sauce lined pan.
Continue with all 12 noodles.
Pour remaining sauce over the top. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Cover pan tightly with foil.
Bake at 375 for 45 minutes.
Remove cover. Bake 15 more minutes.

You could also add spinach to the pork/onion mixture to get some green veggies going in there.
You could also probably use shredded chicken rather than the pork - just make sure it's thinly shredded and flavorful.
I used whole wheat noodles because I had a package in the pantry. We normally use white noodles, but these were so well received, I think I'll convert.
You could also make a traditional lasagna, just layering meat/onions, then cheese, then sauce, then noodles. You know how to make lasagna, people.

For lasagna, this is actually a very healthy option. Pork Loin is better for you than ground beef; 2 percent milk and only 1 cup of ricotta makes the sauce not to heavy, and even with the full 4 cups of mozzarella, at 12 servings, that's only 1/3 of a cup per person, which isn't going to win any health awards, but, again, for lasagna, it's pretty darn good.

Anyway, it is yummy and was oohed and aahed by Eason, who is my hardest to happy.

Yay for creativity; yay for austerity; yay for cooking! I feel like a new woman this morning!

Strong Enough.

2012-01-20T09:17:00.000-06:00

I read an amazing article this morning. My friend Ginny found it and posted it on facebook. I just sat in my seat and cried and cried.

Mrs. Fisher has a way with words and a wisdom that comes from birthing, nursing and raising nine young ones. And her picture doesn't even look tired.

I was simply going to post it and move on, but there were two points I wanted to record here, so I'll remember.

The essay is written by a mother with nine children, but it is written to mothers of one - to mothers of a little one who think, and truly recognize, that life is hard. It seems that 9 is harder than 1 (or that my three is harder than someone's one), and in many ways, it's true. More laundry, more food, more fights. When they're little at least, three makes it harder to escape, and it's harder to find someone who wants to steal three for a few hours than it is to find someone who wants to escape with one.

My baby, at six weeks, almost as tired as her mother was: With one, the exhaustion is from loneliness and a lack of surety about anything.

But, really, one is hard. It is so hard. It is lonely and you have existential crises about every fifteen minutes. You are dealing with being responsible for another person's well being, and you constantly worry that you are responsible for his or her soul - which you aren't, of course - but also, of course, you are responsible to be a tool for that soul along the way. Simcha Fisher talks about worrying that her baby's knees might break or head fall off or some other grotesque physical disaster; I can remember lying awake at night, trying to nurse, worrying about not the physical, but the emotional. What if she cries all the time? What if, as a teenager, she's depressed and struggles with any myriad of psycho/emotional disorders? What if I fail?

With one child, you're covered in milk and spit up and there isn't even an older child to do cute things to make you remember why you love children.

My babies now. With three, the exhaustion comes from craziness and insanity and never having a quiet moment. But there is an underlying peace that many new mothers do not yet know. It will come. With insanity comes inner calm.

With one child, there isn't anyone to talk to or grab the wipes when you've already put the baby on the changing table, taken the diaper off, only to discover its actually dirty, not just wet, so you need wipes, but if you walk away to grab them from three feet over on the bed, the little one is for sure going to roll over for the first time while you are doing this and he will die.

One child is hard, and I needed to be convicted of my "Oh, get a life - it's only one" attitude that creeps in sometimes.

The other thing she said that needed recording was one of the hardest truths of motherhood, of womanhood, of life:

"You’re suffering now because you’re turning into a new woman, a woman who is never allowed to be alone. For what? Only so that you can become strong enough to be a woman who will be left."

Strong enough to be left. That's what we're trying to become, ladies. In one very large sense, we are never left - our identities are in ourselves, not in our children. And many of us are blessed with spouse-best-friends who will, Lord-willing, grow old with us. But in a very real sense, they are all going to leave. They will fly the coop, just like I did, just like Paul did, just like any healthy person does. We leave. So will the children. We pray it every day.

Even for women who are superduper self-actuated and individuated and blah blah blah, the babies still leave, and it is still hard. The goal of it all is to send them on their way. If they're still in my house at whatever age, it won't be a sign that they love me the most and I'm just so awesome; no, no, it will be a sign that I failed.

Strong enough to be left? Not yet, but I'm thankful for those years with one child to beat me up and then build me emotionally and now the years with a bigger, busier, less-emotional-crisis-producing brood that's strengthening my day-to-day physical and logistical resolve.

Strong enough to be left.
I'm writing it in my bathroom, right under "Put your big girl panties on and deal with it."

Merry Christmas From the Family!

2011-12-24T11:12:00.001-06:00

Front of Christmas Card

We sent Christmas Cards. But knowing me, I won't be able to find a copy in years to come... So, here it is. The front. Eason is being silly, and I debated about using it because of that, but, really, when is he not silly?
New Years Resolution Number 1: Make Eason More Serious. Yeah, right.

I loved it, though, because Ada's smile is genuine and Collins is tickled, which actually are both kind of rare. Some grandmothers may have been annoyed that Ada Bee is hugging her knees. Well, I thought that was sweet.
But I can see the objection... Sort of.

Back of Christmas Card

This is the back of the Christmas Card. It was my attempt at an "Update on our Lives" without entering Christmas-letter-that-tells-about-every-gymnastics-lesson territory. It was hard to keep it short and actually convey information. I wanted to say much more - like my favorite things I've cooked this year, some quotes from all three children, Paul's school and job status, etc. But, that's what the blog is for, right?

My Effervescent Eason

Sweet Eas. This is my favorite of his face from the Xmas card shots. He continues to thrill us all, though he's turning the corner from source-of-amusement into child who actually has substance. He's learning to read, which is super fun - just as much fun as it was the first time around with his sister. He'll be five in March - so big. He struggles with controlling his motion - he isn't so much an internally hyper child, but externally, he is always moving - climbing, hanging, jumping - most often on things should not be climbed, hung, or jumped upon. (Upon is an adverb there, not a preposition, meaning it can end a sentence. I think this distinction may solve the ultimate marital debate that Paul and I have.) But, we're also working on us - being a bit more tolerant. We recently did spelling lessons with him in a tree. This isn't how life will work eventually, but for now, we can be a bit more accommodating. Paul and I both have the tendency to be intolerant. Eason has tendency to move too freely and too much. We're constantly working on all three of us. I don't think we make much progress, but, of course we really do. It's just hard to see when you're so up close to it. He's a tender soul and his sister easily hurts his feelings. But he drives her insane, so it all evens out? (Evens where? Evens out? Another adverb?) He continues a great Kindergarten year at Jackson Classical - taking violin, enjoying art and spanish, but of course gymnastics is his favorite. His favorite foods are mac & cheese, honey, ice cream, clementines, and cheese ravioli. Carboload much?

My Adamant Boundless Ada Brooks

My dear, only daughter. Ada has grown up a lot this year, for which we've been very thankful. She's learning how to navigate the world with a little more self-awareness. This is hard to handle, a bit, because it means she's aware of her interactions not just with other people, but with us. I've seen a few moments of conscious manipulation - and nipped them in the bud. She's forming her own tastes- that are actually thought through - she loves Roald Dahl and not as much Nancy Drew (though she'll read it in a pinch). She's sleeping later and later, and actually occasionally taking pride in the way her room looks. Ada loves on her brothers, bosses them around, and expects them to fall into line exactly as she wishes. This does not happen, so she fusses at them. We're working on it. If Eas will stop being annoying, and AB will always be kind, then Jesus will go ahead and come back, because the world will have been redeemed. Third grade is treating her well - she's studying the ancient times - Egpyt, Greece, Mayans, Ancient China and India - and in the spring, much time on Rome. Her handwriting is slightly short of atrocious, but her sentence construction gets better and better (guess which I care about more...). I continue to love the math program we're using - she's doing math intuitively, rather than from memorization. It means we get to have awesome conversations - it also means she's about to pass me by on speed - but I remind her weekly that I did perfectly satisfactorily in AP calculus, so she better watch it. She's a little chef, though I've enjoyed some truly humbling culinary moments she's had this year - it's good for her - really.

My Capricious Collins

Collins has been a test this year. He was the easiest baby known to man - and then he turned a corner. In fact, I'd say of the three, his two year old self has been the hardest. The other two were easy as pie to potty train (looking back, at least. In the moment, I thought my life was ending, I was dying, I hated all of it); Collins, on the other hand, just sort of refused. He's (mostly) over it now, but it wasn't pretty. He has actually pitched all out fits - something I don't recall with the other two, though, hindsight is, in fact, not 20/20, and maybe it is another one of those in-the-moment-it-is-awful-looking-back-it-seems-simple things.
But, in the last month or two, Collins has turned another corner. He's become conversational and mostly obedient. He's of course been talking for a while - but now he uses Nouns of Direct Address, Adverbs, Prepositions, and Dependent Clauses. He's started to mean his apologies (sometimes), and he continues to get funnier and funnier and funnier. Eason is leaving Truly Hilarious Stage, about which I've grieved, but God is good, and as Eas exits, Collins is walking in the door at the other end of the room. He pretends to read books to people, has very strong opinions, and still calls his favorite candy Nershey Kisses. If he's gotten enough sleep and is physically well, he's pure delight. When he's good, he's very, very good. And when he's bad.... well....
He likes to cuddle, be read to, and is quite fastidious. The most oft heard phrase is "It's messing up, Mama, so please help me." He could be talking about his shoe, his shirt, my pants, the milk jug. If it's not in order, he's not pleased.

All in all, 2011 has been a fantastic year. I don't have handy a great picture of Paul or me, but we're both doing very well. We count our blessings almost every day, and we're trying hard to limit the counting of our annoyances.

And now, back to wrapping!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Christ is born in Bethlehem.


My favorite Picture Of My Children Of All Time

a two year old and death

2011-11-21T07:55:00.001-06:00

Scene: My kitchen, This morning.

Characters: Belle, a beagle dauschund mix who is no longer with us.
   Pepper, a wonderful mutt of a dog who is very much with us.
                    Collins, a not-quite-2-and-a-half year old.
                    Mama, a 27-and-a-half-year old mother of three children and all sorts of animals.
                    Sadie Macon, a 2-and-a-half-year-old dear friend of Collins's.

Collins, singing: Belle, Belle, Belle - where are you. Where are you Belle? Pepper - where is Belle?

Enters stage left:

Collins: "Where is Belle, Mama?"

Mama, looking quite sad: "Belle is not here anymore, Collins."

            [We had to put Belle to sleep in July.]

Collins: "Belle is coming back to my house today."

Mama: "No, she's not, darling. Belle died, remember?"

Collins: "Belle will come back to the backyard today."

Mama, fighting tears at this point: "No, she's not coming back, sweetie"

Collins: "I love Belle. Belle and Pepper. Belle is coming home to play with Pepper today."

Mama: "I'm so glad you loved Belle, and that you love Pepper, but Collins, sweetheart. Belle is not coming back."

Collins, looking pensive, dramtic pause: "Okay. Sadie Macon is coming to my backyard today then?"

This serves as yet another reminder that they are people - individuals entirely separate from us - with an internal life, to which we are not privileged in anything close to its entirety.

Four months later, having not said a word about it in at least three of those months, Collins going through his own grief process?

Or just saw a bell pepper in the refrigerator?

2011-11-15T17:23:00.001-06:00

When I was little, I had a friend. Actually, she's still a very dear friend, but that's irrelevant for this story.

Every year, on Christmas Eve, Rachel and her sister got new Christmas Pajamas. At least, I think it was every year. Childhood memories are often unreliable.

Anyway, I thought this was super cool. When Ada Bee was a baby, I gave her the first set of Christmas Pajamas on Christmas Eve. And then I did it the next year. And I loved it.

One year, I gave the kids especially cute Pajamas and I got very sad that they would only be seasonally appropriate for a couple of weeks. And of course with a maximum of 2 wearings before too dirty to wear or else the Department of Human Services would come get me, it meant that they only got 5-8 wearings out of them before they (should....) would be folded and put away.

So, I thought I should give them earlier.

But I'm big on the Christmas morning climactic spirit in the air. We don't open presents on Christmas Eve (sometimes we do one... it used to be the pajamas). We do it all in one big burst of glory on the morning of Christmas.

So I thought.

And I thought.

I sat down to think.

And finally, it dawned on me. Advent! We can celebrate Advent with more than just a candle wreath. We can give preparatory presents! Why not?

So, now they get their Pajamas on the first Sunday in Advent. They get a small treat every night in Advent, but I try to make the Sunday treats a bit bigger. And the first Sunday is pajamas.

I love when I realize there is a tradition at my house.

First Advent Sunday Pajamas. It exists. I love it.

And here they are: The first Seven Years of Advent Pajamas. I promise to post Year Eight in a couple of weeks.

Year Number One; 2004; Ada Brooks 6 months; in my first Christmas Pajamas.

Year Number Two; 2005; Ada Brooks 18 months; in my little brothers' Christmas Pajamas and Hat.

Year Number Three; 2006; Ada Brooks 2 1/2; Eason in Utero. First Christmas Pajamas I Bought. Helen's Young Ages always has awesome Pjams. These remain my favorite, I think. Maybe. Because They're Green.

Year Number Four; 2007; Ada Brooks 3 1/2; Eason 9 months; These little sweet baby blue things with reindeers are actually George brand. Which means I found them at Wal Mart. It pays to put snobbiness aside for a moment.

Year Number Five; 2008; Ada Brooks 4 1/2; Eason 21 months; Collins in Utero. This remains one of my favorite pictures of all time. All time. My daddy reading on Christmas Eve to my babies. Second year in a row with blue pajamas. Ada's was a gown, with ruffles on the bottom, instead of normal pjs. Helens Young Ages does it again.

Year Number Six; Ada Brooks 5 1/2; Eason 2 3/4; Collins 6 months.

Don't remember where these came from, but I do remember that I had not yet learned to take pictures of three children at once. I did love that Collins's was a one piece footie that was the same fabric as the pants of the older two.

And Year Number Seven; Ada Bee 6/12; Eason 3 3/4; Collins 1 1/2; Old Man Flannel Style bought while in Florida at the Outlet Malls. Don't remember from which store. I love these, and I think they can all wear them again this year.

Menu 11/10-11/6

2011-11-10T09:39:00.001-06:00

I've been delinquent. And I got called out on it this past weekend.

So, this is what we're eating this week.

Today, I've no idea what we're going to eat for lunch. Maybe some noodles with butter and parmesan? I think it needs to be hot whatever it is.

Red Beans doing their quick soak right now for tonight. I might surprise my sweet husband and actually get sausage to go with them. The man loves him some sausage.

Tomorrow, we'll glory in day old red beans - the best kind.

Tomorrow night, I'm making one of my favorite pasta sauces - vodka sauce. How can you go wrong with red pepper, tomatoes, vodka and cream? Answer: you cannot.

(Well, you probably could, I guess)

I'm also going to grill some chicken. We have some friends coming to eat, and I'm always reluctant to plop in front of guests a vegetarian meal. Unless I know they'd appreciate that as much as I do. But people, especially men, tend to think that supper isn't supper without meat. They're wrong, of course, but hospitality is incompatible with trying to make a point.
Or at least point-making should take a back seat.

Saturday, we'll take the grilled chicken and some Sam's Club hoagies and have a hot lunch. Saturday night, we're going to have a big pot of Michael Jackson Chili. A black and white bean feast is what it is. We're going to be at my daddy's cabin in the woods, so we're also having smores. And probably a green salad, blah blah blah.

Sunday, we have our monthly church potluck. I'm taking poppyseed chicken, which has no redeeming nutritional value, but tastes so good.

Sunday night, burgers on the grill. I've been wanting them for weeks!

Monday lunch, sandwiches in lunch boxes.

Monday supper: Glory of glories.

Tuesday lunch: leftover bean burritos from monday. My baby girl, when she was little bitty, ate a lot of bean burritos (it's a forster requirement). She started saying "More bean- neeno- please." We still call them beaninos.

Tuesday supper: Homemade mac and cheese. I've also been wanting this. I think I may look for a new fun recipe to try.

Wednesday lunch: We have our thanksgiving feast at school! I'm in charge of fruit salad and mashed potatoes. One I'm excited about. Guess which. I think I'm also roasting a turkey. Still waiting to hear. If I am, I'll use an overnight recipe in Come On In which is really moist, though not super impressive looking.

Wednesday supper: Dominoes Pizza! My friend Ragan's favorite.

a sufficiency

2011-11-10T08:34:00.002-06:00

Yeast Rolls from Last Year's Feast

Yay! Turkey Day is coming! Gobble Gobble Gobble.

I love Thanksgiving. I'm a food girl [I hear a collective "No scheisse, sweetheart"]. And at Christmas, while there may be great food, it's not the focus. The focus is you know, a savior's advent, and lots of wrapping paper. But on Turkey Day, well, it's all about the food.

For a hot second, we thought we might be out of town for Thanksgiving, and I wouldn't get to perform the sixth consecutive hosting of the Feast this year. But, no worries. All taken care of; yay!

[Proper use of semi colon? Yay is an interjection, right? What does one do with an interjection at the end of a sentence? When we're diagramming at school, we call this one sentence, "Wow! Look at all those frogs!" However, we punctuate it like it's two, obviously. I have either entirely turned off or entirely turned on, to being a grammar nerd that is, every single one of my English grammar students this year. You can see why.]

So, menu is decided upon. No turning back now. Still finalizing some specific recipes, but the food-dish-name-cards can be written up without fear.

First off, the Bird.

Last year, we had a turkey-off. We couldn't decide if we would roast or fry. We tried both in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. We ended up going with frying. It was great, however, a big ol' mess and a lot of trouble, and we'd have to steal a friend's turkey fryer again (thank you, merediths!), or buy our own, and on and on the problems go. Okay, not problems, but I'm a sucker for something new. So much of Thanksgiving never changes, so I like to insert variety where I can.

Well, this year, my sweet friend Anna enthusiastically sent me this gem: Butterflying A Turkey!

It makes so much sense, really. The seasonings combo in this particular recipe is not my favorite, so I'm going to use the method, but not the exact flavors. This will be my first Turkey Brining. I do have a good friend who seems to be a brine expert (talkin' to you, Carolyn), so I'm going to be calling her to pick her brain. Because I'm weird, I cannot wait to cut the backbone out of the turkey. Makes me feel so competent. Amanda Q - You want in?

If anyone has favorite turkey seasoning combos, I'm all ears. Or, Anna, I may need to get Flavor Bible back from you for a bit. I'm always tempted to do what I'd do to a chicken: a very simple garlic/onion/lemon kind of thing. However, turkeys are so big - and really a bird of a different feather - that they seem to need and deserve something amped-up a bit.

[Yes, I just worked that in there. Between that and the grammar, I can tell we're in for a nerdilicious day]

So:

Butterflied, Roasted Turkey: Decide on exact recipe; use method in above link.

Cook: Roasting Pan

Serve: White rectangular platter

Brine on Tuesday; Roast on Thursday morning. May put Paul to basting.

Then for the sides

These are the most important for me. I'm a sides kind of girl. And my sides betray that fact.

We have a dressing recipe we've always used. I think it was my paternal grandmother's, though she wasn't much of a cook, so maybe not. I don't know if there's an actual recipe somewhere. I call my mother every year the week before thanksgiving, and every year, she says, "lots o onion, lots o celery, chicken broth, couple o eggs, one recipe jiffy, one recipe martha white buttermilk cornbread [recipe found on bag o martha white buttermilk corn meal], salt some, pepper until there is no tomorrow, come now, ann lowrey, you know the drill"

I'm going to call again this year. I always worry there is one simple ingredient I'm leaving out. Oh! I think there is sugar! See - now I have to get confirmation.

Anyway, dressing is a giant pain - with the making of the cornbread in advance and all. But it's my favorite, oh, so favorite. My extended family all love it. [Ooh! Collective noun!] Last year, my baby brother was in Scotland for the semester and missed thanksgiving. He asked that I freeze him some dressing. I did. I've not asked the results.

So:

Cornbread Dressing: Family Recipe - Call Ma

Cook: Large White Baker

Serve: Same

Cook all Cornbread (Ada Brooks) and chop onions and celery (AL) on Wednesday;

Assemble and Bake on Thursday morning

[This brings me to an important point. I'm proud to announce, in a way eerily similar to what other parents must feel when their daughters walk the debutante walk, that Ada Brooks will have a list of jobs to get us ready for thanksgiving this year. And they'll involve real live cooking jobs. Like: Make two batches of cornbread. Recipes on bag/box. Holler with questions. I'm excited for the help! No, really. Eason will move into the small kid jobs this year. Like: Crumble corn bread in plastic baggie once it's cooled. No, no. Be careful. Don't let the baggie open. Don't mash it. Just crumble it. Here, let me give it a try.]

On to spuds:

Sweet Potato Casserole is a must around here. Ada Bee also insists on Marshmallows as the topping. I love a good marshmallow topping, but some other grown ups have been quietly murmuring about a pecan option. So, we're going with:

Wait for it.

Stripes!

I just make up the sweet potato recipe every year. You know - butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, half and half, dessert disguised in a casseroled dish.

Does anyone have a good candied pecan topping recipe? I'll avail myself of google, but I always prefer to use a friend's tried-and-true.

Sweet Potatoes: No need for a recipe. Do need one for the candied pecan topping.

Cook: Oval Pyrex

Serve: Oval Pyrex in copper stand.

Make pecan topping on Wednesday morning.

Paul to peel and chop sweet potatoes on Wednesday evening; go ahead and

put together casserole. Refrigerate. Top and Bake on Thursday morning.

I didn't grow up with white potatoes at Turkey day, but why the hell not? For the second year in a row, my food-apathetic husband has observed me menu planning and, without a preface, has said, "Those scalloped potatoes, please." I figure the poor man can pick one dish. And, actually, this year, at a separate time, Ada Brooks said, "oh, and can we have those potatoes that Daddy and I like so much?" So, it's settled. They've lemon pepper, cayenne pepper, swiss cheese, baked in homemade-chicken-broth-goodness.

Scalloped Potatoes: Come On In Recipe with Swiss - double.

Cook: White Square Baker

Serve: Same

Make on Tuesday; reheat with final cheese topping added on Thursday morning.

I require a bad-for-me-green-vegetable at Thanksgiving. It's usually been asparagus casserole, but, like I said, I like variety. I'm making up the recipe from various research. There will be bacon, shallots, cream, Gruyere. Other than that, I haven't gotten far yet.

Brussels Sprouts Au Gratin: Make up recipe based on some research

Cook: Green Baker

Serve: Same

Cook bacon, roast brussels sprouts, saute shallots on Tuesday.

Assemble cream/topping and bake on Thursday morning.

A last minute (if two weeks out counts as last minute in any sense of the phrase) addition by Ada Brooks. It's sugary, vinegary, and yummiest 3-days-old, which is handy the week of Thanksgiving. If the child wants to whip up some three bean salad, go for it, kiddo.

Three Bean Salad: Family Recipe - need to find

Assemble: Green tupperware

Serve: Gold Annie Glass Bowl

Ada Bee to make [AL: chop onion and bell peppers] on Tuesday and

refrigerate until serving time.

We all love pasta!

Butternut Mac & Cheese: Make up a recipe based on some research.

Cook: Red Baker

Serve: Red Baker with stand

Make entire thing, other than final topping, on Tuesday, refrigerate,

reheat / top / brown on Thursday morning.

Mustard Broccoli: Brought by Forsters

I think carrots are a must. Last year, they were packed with spicy flavor and cooked into babyfood softness. I think I want something a little less obtrusive this year.

Adding the parsnips for fun.

Roasted Carrots & Parsnips:

Cook: 9x13

Serve: Gold Annie Glass Oval Platter

Peel and chop on Wednesday. Toss/Roast on Thursday morning.

My mother raised me with the believe that no meal is complete without a salad. I may have taken it to heart a bit much.

Crunchy Romaine Toss

Serve: square dark wooden bowl

Brown ramen noodles / wash and tear broccoli and lettuce / make up

dressing / chop green onions on Wednesday. Assemble and toss all

together on Thursday morning.

Condiments

Condiments are different than sides. They are left on the table to pass rather than served buffet style like the rest of the things [I don't like a crowded table, and passing large, heavy dishes when every other person is has pretty short arms is really frustrating, so we go buffet with the big sides]. Also, condiments are something you might eat no more than a tablespoon-sized portion of. And you even put some of these on things, which is the real definition of a condiment?

Pickles - Our Spicy, Sweet homemade Pickle Recipe

Serve: find a small pottery bowl

Make Saturday November 12th.

We've always done just basic cranberries, sugar, water cranberry sauce. Last year, my friend Via recommended this recipe.
I couldn't find kumquats in the greater jackson metro area. My friend Calen found them on Wednesday before thanksgiving or some such, but 'twas too late. I had scratched it and went with plain ol'. I'm hoping this year to be able to try the fancier version.

Cranberry Kumquat Sauce - recipe in above link

Cook: Medium Saucepan

Serve: White Gravy boat

Make Tuesday; get out of fridge first thing Thursday morning.

I mean, we haven't used any alcohol so far! 'Twon't do. [Double contractions? Allowed? I claim artistic license in this situation]

Bourbon Gravy -

Cook: Medium Saucepan

Serve: Red Vietri Gravy Boat?

Last thing to make before sitting down. Get roux ready before Turkey comes out of oven

Canned Spiced Peaches -

I kid you not. Every year. Wouldn't be thanksgiving without them.
Cook: Can Opener
Serve: granannie's plain glass bowl

Breads

Also served on table. We want to be able to get to them quickly.

Biscuit Bread - Oswalt Recipe

Cook: Cast Iron Skillet

Serve: Shallow Wooden Bowl with Pretty Cloth

Make on Thursday morning - Ada entirely in charge. Put in oven at 12:00

No Knead Onion Rolls - Recipe (Test First)

Cook: Glass Pyrex

Serve: Shallow Wooden Bowl with Pretty Cloth

Make on Wednesday, cover tightly on counter, then reheat for 10 minutes on

Thursday morning.

(If this doesn't test well, use Via's or grandmother's yeast roll recipe)

Desserts

Carrie's Famous Chocolate Pie - Brought By Easons

Pumpkin Pie: Either the sweet Beans' recipe or Paula Deen's which has great reviews.

Cook: Pie Plate

Serve: just from pie plate

Make on Tuesday, cover tightly, Paul to whip cream for top on Thursday at 12:30.

Add a bit of cinnamon to the whipped cream.

Caramel Apple Cheesecake: Make up recipe... ;)

Cook: springform pan

Serve: Annieglass Charger

Make on Tuesday or Wednesday (Tuesday if time, Wednesday if not)

Pecan Pie: Find a recipe that Ada Bee can make all alone.

Cook: Pie Plate

Serve: just from pie plate

Put Ada to making on Tuesday, cover tightly, serve with amaretto whipped cream,

probably.

As my daddy says, I believe this will be a sufficiency.

(next thursday: The Thanksgiving Grocery List)

Big Paul, better than you or I

2011-11-08T09:22:00.001-06:00

Paul, Bee, Eas and I just returned from a very important trip. A very dear friend, and Ada Brooks's godmother, married. Additionally, we were able to visit other dear people - Eason's godfather and newly inaugurated co-godmother. These were important occasions, and a wonderful time.

Sometimes, the calendargods become angry at you. Sometimes your dad's birthday dinner is the same night as a much needed girls' night. Sometimes you have a dear friend's baby's baptism the same weekend as free 50 yard line Hotty Toddy tickets. Sometimes you and a favorite person schedule your kids birthday parties same day, 30 minutes apart, invitations already printed.

But the calendar gods were really, really angry this time.

Saturday, a best high school mate got married.
Friday, my grandfather, Paul Burrow Eason, celebrated ninety years on God's green earth.

Visit to Jackson, 2004

It's always great when old people hit major milestonesBut my granddaddy is in a league of his own. He's one of those people who is just, well, good.
He'll make you believe that they were, in fact, the greatest generation.

You know that verse, Romans 3:10, "There is none good, no, not one."

Well, I can remember from a very young age thinking that maybe Paul the Apostle didn't know Paul Eason, the citizen extraordinaire.

Big Paul is better than you or I. [The Big Paul is referencing the fact that he was a lot bigger and older than Baby Paul, my little brother named for him, who has thankfully lost the adjective attached to his Paul],

When I was in college, I would drive to Tupelo about every-other-week on a Sunday. He'd take me to lunch - with no amount of pretension - we ate Olive Garden, or his favorite, IHOP. We'd go back to his house and I'd do my laundry and we'd work crossword puzzles together. I was his go to for pop culture references from the last 15 years that he just didn't get. And, as you'd imagine, I would use him for history from before I was born.

He was an officer in WWII, though he never got to fight overseas. He was too calm and kind and too good of a pilot, so they sent him to florida to teach other young men how to be pilots. They couldn't afford to have him shot down. Fifty years after the fact, when I was somewhere between 10 and 17 years old, I asked him about it. It was one of the only times I ever saw a look of disappointment on his face.

Presiding over Christmas Morning Joy, 2006

Big Paul was married to the same woman, my grandmother Margaret, for a long time; I don't know how long - somewhere around half a century, until she died in 1999. Back when it was almost a social stigma, they adopted two babies from the Methodist Children's Home in New Orleans, my daddy being one of them.

He was a credit to his generation, his country and his family. He pushed me in the swing and wrote me long letters at camp, always including money for me to "buy a little something at the camp store or put it in the offering plate."

On those trips from Oxford, I often had to wait for him, for, despite being in his early 80s, he was going to the local nursing home and picking up 'a van full of old people' to take them to church. I asked him one time if he realized he was older than some of them. He said, "I had never thought about it, but I guess that might be the case."
I record that little bit because it'd would make the grinch smile, but also because it epitomizes my granddaddy. He didn't think much about things; he just did them.

Paul Eason did what was right and good and what was required of him. He never felt the need to talk about it - and looked at you funny when you wanted to discuss.
Right is just what we do, Ann Lowrey. Hard work is the only salvation of the earthly human condition.
That's what he said, but only by his actions. Francis of Assisi said one time, "Preach the gospel always. When necessary, use words."
Big Paul believes this, lives it, and has no idea who Francis of Assisi is.

Doing what he's always done best. One for the money, two for the show, three to get ready and four to go!

His mind has started to suffer, and he is now living with my Daddy (though, he lived alone until a very short few months ago). But he still opens his arms for hugs from the great grandchildren, whose names he cannot quite remember. He still sits beside us at supper and asks if we're cold about every 3 minutes. He still watches the Ole Miss rebels play football, without comment. He chuckles with Paul Forster or I yell at the television.

Paul Eason is better than you or I, and it pains me that I missed his birthday celebration on Friday. He was given the keys to the city of Tupelo by the mayor, spoken about on the floor of the United States Congress -->;, and visited with old friends, smiling all the way. My baby child got to be there to help sing to him.
At the end of the night, after birthday supper was concluded, my daddy asked if he'd had a good birthday.

Big Paul said, "I can't wait until my next one."

Me neither, dear sweet grandfather of mine.

I hope I can serve God and country such that you'll smile that very calm yet very proud smile.

Prop. 26: The "I don't know if its a person" position.

2011-11-08T08:01:00.001-06:00

I have a little girl.

When I discovered her existence, I was nineteen and right in the middle of a really great Ole Miss football season. Eli was playing.

We beat Florida.

In Gainsville.

I had declared my philosophy major and College was what College should be. Lots of brain stretching and lots of fun.

I was not married.

It was not a good time for me to have a baby.

C'est la vie.

I was given a choice - a choice afforded me by our government - to not have the baby. To opt out of my womb being used as very low rent property. My uterus is my own, and therefore I didn't have to do anything with it that I didn't want to do.

I exercised my choice. And I had the little bugger. I threw up in the student section during the South Carolina game. I wasn't the only one, but the other fans' nausea was triggered by something slightly different.

This person is now beating me at arguments on occasion, reading a lot of great books, singing off key like there is no tomorrow, and crafting her daddy into the insane asylum. She is a true person - her own, and her personage has little to do with me.

This is a sensitive issue, and there are many people who I love, genuinely respect, and frankly just enjoy a lot, who are on a different side of the issue. I have dear friends who are actively pro-abortion, and scores of friends who are personally pro-life, but who believe, as I did for a while, that it is a personal decision best left up to women and their doctors.

Because of that, I've not found myself a public [facebook] activist on the matter.

But, occasionally, life takes a turn; all of a sudden, something that is normally not discussed around the dinner party table is now in the mouths and status updates of the masses. And, frankly, I want to keep my mouth shut, and not cause conflict.

But, at this point, I think it might be closer to cowardice rather than peacemaking.

Many people have written about Proposition 26 over the last couple of weeks. There are proponents and opponents. There is mass confusion.

If you'd like a legal treatment, this is the best I've found.

If you'd like a very good academic/spiritual overview treating most of the arguments, see my dear friend here.

If you'd like an argument strictly from Biblical Christianity, this is a good one.

Despite identifying as a proud feminist, despite having very much experienced a moment of true choice, despite politically identifying half with Ron Paul and half with the pretty far left, I'll load up all of the little buggers and go vote Yes on Proposition 26 today.

Are we Consequentialists?

Many who say they agree with the principle of the Proposition are arguing against it from a consequentialist viewpoint. I believe it's wrong to make moral decisions based on their consequences. Something is either right or wrong, and then we deal with the consequences.

We are bound by natural law, no matter how annoying it is. That means that we don't first ask "What will the consequences of Proposition 26 be?" We first ask, "Is it right?"

And make no mistake, Prop. 26 is positing a moral position. You know, like freedom of speech and the right to due process.

Now, if you don't believe a fertilized egg is a person, guess what? You should vote no.

If you do, however, believe it is a person, you should vote yes.

We don't yet know what the implications are of the proposed amendment. We don't know what lawmakers will now choose to say, within this slightly altered constitutional framework, about in vitro fertilization or about certain forms of birth control. But the fact is, if you decide to vote no based on that, you are using a consequentialist view. It is either true or not. There is no room for "true, but we don't like the implications."

Southerners who fought to hold on to slavery in the mid 1800s viewed the matter not as a question of morality [as would have been right], but a question of consequences.

Should you traffic human persons?

"It's irrelevant, because we cannot afford economically to not traffic them. And ps, they aren't persons, really."

Why? Because they knew if they allowed for their black slaves to be called persons then they'd have rights - rights that would make life less pleasant and harder for the slave owners.

So, we mustn't answer the question, "Do we like a world in which we affirm that an embryo is a person?"

We must instead answer the question "Is an embryo a person?"

The "I don't know if its a person" Position

This brings me to my second point. I think there are two reasonable answers to the question. "Yes" or "We don't know"

Many answer the question yes, either based on spiritual teaching or on the fact that biological life has begun.

You can also answer with "I don't know."

I think that's legitimate. At what point does that thing which makes someone a person begin?

We tend to think that our children are ours. But they're not. While they are our responsibility for a time, they belong, in a very real sense either to themselves (for the secular humanist) or to their Creator.

I don't belong to my parents; Ada Bee doesn't belong to me. I've no right to hurt her, and, again, I'd be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks that I do have that right. I have no right to hurt her because she's not simply an extension of myself; she's an entity.

A thing deserving certain things. She has rights. The rights of what? She has the rights of a person. When did those rights attach?

I don't think anyone looks at a brand new baby and says "Yes, it's biologically alive, but not yet a person." That little bundle of spit up and confusion is a person - and we, as a society, legislate morality surrounding those people all the time.

One cannot smother a newborn, right? Or leave it out in the cold?

A primary function of government is to protect those who cannot protect themselves. And little bitty baby people are the most helpless. There is a reason pedophiles have a hard time in prison. Even felons, whose moral compasses are oft skewed, know that hurting a child is a special kind of wrong.

So, it attaches sometime between conception and birth. An unfertilized egg is not a person. A screaming infant is very much a person, deserving all the lawful, moral protection that brings.

Sometime during those 40 glorious, miserable weeks, personhood attaches.

What should we do with an 'I don't know'? Well, what do we currently do? We deal with this all the time. Society has situations day in and day out where we protect potential persons.

Firemen run into burning buildings, putting their own lives at risk, to see if there is life there. Why? Because we don't know if anyone is in there, but if there is someone there, he or she needs to be saved. So, we act as if there is a person present, even though we don't know for sure.

Cities bulldoze condemned buildings. What do they do first? They check to make sure there aren't any people in there. We act as if there is a person there, even though we don't know for sure.

What would you do with an I don't know? Would you tell them to bulldoze the building away, just cross your fingers that it's not actually a person in there?

These are not merely "women's reproductive issues"; if they were merely that, I'd be first in line to preach None of the Government's Business. Don't tell me how to to take care of my body.

Instead, these are issues surrounding an entity that you cannot say with surety is not a person. A person created Imago Dei, I might add, a person who will one day legitimately beat his or her mother at checkers.

If you cannot answer no, you must answer yes.

Why? Because we've a duty to protect the potential people in the condemned building. We have a moral duty to protect the helpless. If there is potentially a person in a uterus, it is not less deserving of protection just because it is young or because it is in a different person's body.

This is the rub, right? "But it's my body!" Do you remember that old glorious example from ethics conversations?

You have a right to swing your fist through the air, but that right ends when someone else's face begins?

Well, you've a right to do with your uterus (and spleen and sinuses) everything you want to do with it (from the government's perspective). That right becomes limited when it affects the rights of another person.

[Although, it's worth noting, that when we tell people they cannot use heroine, we are telling them what they can and cannot do with their bodies. Oh? Because they might run their car off the road or leave their children motherless? Yes, I see. They might affect the rights of another person.]

Was Ada Bee a person while the youngest Manning was throwing for some ridiculous number of yards against the Gators?

If you cannot say no, you must act as if she was. And, if you cannot say Ada Brooks wasn't a person, you cannot say that any embryo is not a person.

If you can say embryos aren't people, vote no.

I cannot say they aren't, I cannot affirm the negative, so, to protect the helpless, who are potentially persons, I'll be voting yes on Proposition 26.

What is Hebrew?

2011-10-24T16:49:00.002-05:00

So...
My son is the funniest four year old person, perhaps, of all time.
And maybe a bit weird.

In the last 23 minutes, these are our interactions, as close to word for word as I can get them.

Appears where I am working,

Boy: I'm going to be a priest when I grow up.
His Mother: What do you mean?
Boy: Mama - you mean you don't know what a priest is?
His Mother: I do know what a priest is. I'm just wondering what you mean.
Boy: I mean, I'm going to work at a church.

Leaves for a moment.
Returns, carrot in hand.

Boy: I was hungry mostly for some chips but I can just eat a carrot I guess.
His Mother: Awesome.
Boy: When Steven dies, I can be our new pastor at church. Which will be a long time from now. *Runs out of room*

Five minutes later:

Boy: It's good that it's going to be a long time until Steven dies; I'm not good enough to be a priest yet.
Ooh, I just burped up a bit of that carrot.

His Mother: Let's not comment on burping, buddy. I gchatted Steven and told him you want to be the next pastor. He said he'll teach you Hebrew whenever you want him to.

Boy: Okay, today would be good.

A few minutes later:

Boy: What is Hebrew?
His Mother: The language in which the Old Testament is written. Preachers need to know it.
Boy: Well, it's good that Steven knows it then. How did he learn it?
His Mother: Went to school.

Boy: What's my name going to be when I grow up? Eason is a good little boy name, but not a good grown up name.
His Mother: That's not true, buddy. I have a cousin who is sixty something years old and his name is Eason and he leads a perfectly successful adult life - has a wife, children, and runs or owns or something at least one bank.
Boy: Where does he live? On our same continent. Probably since he is your cousin.
His Mother: Actually, he lives around the corner - on Meadowbrook Road.
Boy: Can I meet him?
His Mother: Sure - at some point.
Boy: Like soon. Like when we're not busy. Like at 5:30 today?
His Mother: Probably not today, but I'm sure bigger Eas would love to meet smaller Eas.
Boy: Good.

Five minutes later:

Boy: Can we start building fires every night? Now that it's pretty much Christmas and Halloween?
His Mother: You should ask Daddy.

One reflection: A year or two ago, I would have felt the need to delve into the logistically and theologically suspicious thoughts in his "Im going to be a priest" stream of consciousness. I mean, Steven isn't a priest. We don't even have priests at our church. Wonder why he chose that word. I have my suspicions [Priest carries with it a different ontology than Pastor, Preacher, etc., and even children know that]. Also, clergy people, whatever you call them, don't serve a church until death, at which point they pass down the mantle to a protege. We aren't Elijah/Elisha here. Also - good enough to be a priest? On the one hand, I want him to realize that he's becoming more sanctified - more well behaved, less rebellious, in a word, "better", but at the same time, I don't want him thinking that Priests are in a different category than the rest of us. They aren't better. And waiting until you're good enough to be one is like waiting until you have enough money to get married or until you're mature enough to have babies.

I didn't delve in because I'm tireder than I used to be, and, oh, because I've come to realize a bit in my parentjourney (yes i just said that) that I don't have to correct every error every time?
Also, don't hurt my feelings about your name, Child. It is a beautiful name. Eason McNie Forster.
Also, I'm glad you eat carrots.

beautiful brains

2011-10-20T10:00:00.001-05:00

Overheard, a few moments ago:

Eas: "The world is not fair."
Ada: "What do you mean?"
Eas: "In North America we have machines and all that stuff and in Africa and Asia they don't."
Ada: "I know, buddy. I told you that."
Eas: "I don't think so. I don't think anyone told me that. I think I just know that."

Eight Observations

1) Robert Capon, in his wonderful, delightful little ditty, Bed and Board, says that the thing children cannot tolerate is unfairness. They can tolerate all manner of toughness and firmness and hard work and difficult requirements, but the minute we are unfair, we lose them. Eas definitely follows this rule.

2) My children, for all of their conflict, have a beautiful relationship, and their brains are beautiful things.

3) My husband and I used to be sad that the world is unfair. We lost that sadness somewhere along the way. Maybe we shall get it back from our little ones.

4) When I was pregnant with my middle child, I said he was going to remind us all of our dear friend Dan Woodliff. I was right. Not only is Eas goofy, bouncy, and not really concerned with social structure and behavior requirements, he is also really against the world's inequalities. I continue to be thrilled that somehow, someway, Dan passed on his delightful personality and love of all of God's people.

5) We have always thought that Ada was an emotional mess. She cries over socks and has occasionally punched her brother because, well, 'he was just talking in that way that is very annoying.' And yet, she takes in stride the horrors of the world.
Not sticking her head in the sand, but just, "Yes. It's life. People are homeless. Africa is machineless. Jesus was crucified. Babies die. It makes me sad, but miraculously, my affect never changes; however, if you mess with my bow in my hair, well, armageddon."
Maybe she's more like me than I've thought in the past. The hard things are easier than we'd imagine, and in their place, the small things become a tad bigger than they should be.

6) How funny is it that Eason truly believes that he somehow just knows that africa and asia are less developed?

7) However he and his sister know this, I surely am glad that they're aware that other people don't have 'machines and stuff'; the conversations in which I tell them that they have more than 95% of the world may actually be being absorbed. Or maybe it's the NPR on for every car ride?

8) That continent song that the kids have memorized at school is really working.

Not Whilst Frolicking in the Field

2011-10-06T10:14:00.001-05:00

To become well-educated, a person must, at some point, take ownership of his or her education. We can have compulsory attendance, but there is no such thing as compulsory education. Lead a horse to water, but yadda yadda yadda.

I am privileged to teach a wonderful bunch of kids at Jackson Classical, the halfschool/half homeschool program that is kind enough to employ me and receive my older two urchins.

I get to have the third through eighth graders for
Latin,
Literature,
English Grammar, and
Critical Thinking, which is an amalgamation of brain teasers, LSAT-esque logic problems, real-life inspired situationals (Yes, I made up that word), and other things I dream up to help them give their brains a daily workout. And yes, now after writing that sentence, I am tempted to brand myself a Brain Personal Trainer.

I work alongside some great teachers who have the kids for Ballet, Gymnastics, Art, History, Creative Writing, Robotics (using LEGOs, yes, be jealous), Piano, Violin, and on and on.

It's a full load for the kids. And we're only there two days a week.

The fact that the process of learning must be self-owned is never more apparent than in whole or partial home-education. In normal ol' school, you at least have possession of the kids for 35 ish hours a week. Not me, I get each of these kids for four hours a week. A whopping four hours. Two hours on Monday, Two on Wednesday. It boils down to roughly 40 minutes each day for Latin, 30 minutes each for Literature and Critical Thinking and then 20 for English Grammar.

Is this enough for mastery?

Of course not.

We're homeschoolers after all. So, much of the work is done at home.

We're two months into school, almost, and the new has worn off. My students are no longer enthused by their binders, books and colored pencils. The shiny is gone. The drive has fizzled. Only the truly type-A, or the ones who came into this world with an undeterred intellectual curiosity, are still engaged.

Last week, I sent them a note with a verse from Colossians in which we are exhorted to work heartily - to do all things with all our might for the Lord.

It didn't work. Or maybe it just hasn't yet worked. Or maybe they haven't read the note. Either way, I had more grumbling and undone homework this week. And I'll not place the blame on the parents. I mean, I might, in certain circumstances, but if one starts doing that, it enables children to, again, not take ownership of their own education.

Your Mama cannot decline your Latin nouns for you, and if she does, she is doing you harm, and you are doing yourself harm by letting her. Also, she doesn't have to get your book out and hand it do you. You have arms.   And opposable thumbs. You are nine or eleven or twelve years old and you can do this. Trust me. Get to work. You can do hard things. This is not an IQ thing - it's just a work ethic thing.

I'd wonder if I was expecting too much, but my daughter is the youngest of the students of which I'm expecting this. She can do it. She doesn't, often, but she is certainly capable. To achieve greatness or just, you know, goodness, you have to work hard. It's life. Oh, and it's mandated by almost all belief systems. I guess pure hedonism would allow for laziness, but every other belief system I know of requires work.

So, this week, they'll receive this letter with their weekly assignments.

Dear Students:

Wednesday, while we were at school, or perhaps on our ride home, a man died. His name was Steve Jobs. Your parents will know who he is, and you may or may not recognize his name. I bet, however, that you do recognize the names iTunes, iPhone, iPad, iPod, Pixar and Apple. Without Mr. Jobs, these would not exist.

Steve Jobs is our generation's Thomas Edison, Galileo Galilei, Alexander Graham Bell, or Marie Curie. Steve Jobs changed our lives. He changed all of life forever. Your great-grandchildren will read biographies about him. Do you know that when I was your age, a fifth grader, my family bought our first computer? Did you know that when your parents and I were born, computers were in no one's home? We also didn't have cell phones, and we remember using actual cassette players. You, my dear friends, were born into an era of a changing world. And Steve Jobs was a large part of that.

We often times look at people - great people - and think to ourselves that those people received an accident of circumstance. That it just happened that those folks are smarter or luckier, or if we're being theologically fancy and careful, more providentially blessed than we are. And sometimes that is true.

But, do you know what Steve Jobs had that actually differs him from many folks? It wasn't his brain, though of course that was amazing. It wasn't his circumstances, though God clearly always has a plan for all of the world - believers and unbelievers alike. What makes Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Marie Curie different? What does it?

Work.

Plain and simple. Hard work. Thomas Edison didn't stumble, one day, while frolicking in the field, upon any of the over 1000 inventions credited to him. Nope. In fact, he once remarked that "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."

Steve Jobs, 35 years ago, founded Apple Computers. Yes, that apple with a bite out of it, and that perfect leaf at the top? Yes, that ubiquitous Apple.   (Look up ubiquitous; it's a great word.)

And then do you know what happened? The Board - at the company that he founded in his parents garage - fired him.
And he pouted.
He quit.
No, he didn't pout or quit. He moved on to help Pixar make movies. You know, like Toy Story and The Incredibles. Yes, that's right; we wouldn't have those gems without Mr. Jobs either.

And then, while he was yet very young, he became ill with pancreatic cancer.
And he pouted.
He quit.
No, he didn't pout or quit. He kept right on going, inspiring technology that has now revolutionized our world.

Pancreatic cancer and being fired from your own company are worse than too much homework or losing at Around the World.

You and I would disagree with Mr. Jobs about much of what he believed. As far as we know, he was not a Christian. He should not be emulated in all things. Like many of our national heroes, he is far from perfect. But, make no mistake. There is hardly a person you'll ever know of who worked harder.

Work is good. Doing hard things is good. And it is the only way anyone has ever changed the world.

Work is what all world-changers have in common. Helen Keller, Paul the Apostle, our Lord Christ, Queen Elizabeth I, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin - I could go on and on and on. Some are beautiful, some moral, some faithful, some brilliant, some blessed financially or circumstantially. But you know what they all are? Diligent. Moses went back to Pharoah how many times?

Work hard, dear ones. You've been given a great opportunity to become a hard worker early in life. Work is good. All work. Even parsing Latin nouns and verbs. Even studying ancient history. Even reading too many pages in one day. Even math. Especially math.

Be a world changer. No one can work for you - not parents, not teachers, not siblings or friends. Get on it. Do not be discouraged. Think what you can do to bring Glory to your Creator and His Creation. Whatever it is, it will always involve work. And the work doesn't start when you're 20 or 30 or 40. It starts today. There is Latin waiting. How will do you on that quiz on Monday?

Be thankful for the work you have been given. It is the path to affecting your world, God's world, my world. Faith - without work - is dead, remember. Do it - all of it - heartily.

With much encouragement in the work in which you are engaged,

Mrs. Forster

Wife / Mother / Educator also finds herself, regrettably, a citizen.

2011-09-10T16:47:00.001-05:00

I've found myself, over the last few years of potty training and learning to read and cooking a lot and doing a lot of dishes and praising Paul for folding a lot of clothes, not so much politically engaged. Also, I don't have television and don't make time to read things online. So, I've been a bit out of the loop.

But until a couple of years ago, I was very engaged, and my leanings have swung all over the map as I've grown up and taken ownership of my own opinions.

My grandfather, in his retirement, was a local republican politician in Tupelo, Mississippi. Both of my parents have been republicans (though for different reasons, generally) all of their lives, and while I'd put neither of them in the activist camp, I'd put them both in the outspoken camp.

When I was in third grade, I lived next door to a delightful, equally opinionated, little eight year old Jewish democrat named Hannah. Hannah and I played all the time, and we were both precocious and believed ourselves to know all things.

She and I campaigned (pretty much to one another), Hannah vigorously for Clinton, I for George (H. W.) Bush. We fought, tooth and nail, and truthfully, her vigor came from a much more educated position - mine was more of a football team allegiance type. I was for George Bush like I yelled Hotty Toddy, because Mama and Daddy told me so to do.

I've also disengaged, because, in my adult life, there has not been a candidate or position that I could possibly be excited about. My principles are all over the current political map, and fit neatly nowhere. I'm anti unnecessary foreign military presence, and I've a strict definition of necessary; I'm very pro life; I'm pretty much anti war on drugs; I remain anti death penalty in any way that it is currently applied in America; I am pro protection of wilderness areas and endangered species; I'm pro separation of church and state; I'm against most government programs and regulation; and finally, I'm very distrustful of corporate America and "The Man" in general.

(And yes, I recognize that if I'm consistent, my precious national parks system probably goes out the door.)

I'm neither donkey nor elephant. I feel like:

But, a few months ago, a few friends and I had a debate about whether we ought to vote. The weighty, moral ought, not the probably a good idea ought. And I came down on 'pretty much, yes, as a citizen, you really should cast a vote in elections', which, dern it, means that I probably need to know more about what's going on.

So, I've been a bit more in tune. For my sake, and for the sake of educating the little people, I ought to be able to have informed opinions and then also to articulate them well.

I've always put myself firmly in the "Sarah Palin needs to take care of her own family and quit leading a public life and especially quit saying inflammatory and inane things" camp. And so I there remain. However, my sweet, former-republican-now-just-libertarian-and-frustrated father, sent me an article from the New York Times this week.

I encourage you to read it here.

And, who'd have thunk it. Sarah Palin made some good points. Or, at least Giridharadas distilled some great ones.

Big government and big corporations are both bad guys.

Giridharadas (I get extra points for spelling that the same way both times) says:

Ms. Palin may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a

vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism.

On one side would be those Americans who believe in the power of vast, well-developed institutions like Goldman Sachs, the Teamsters Union, General Electric, Google and the U.S. Department of Education to make the world better. On the other side would be people who believe that power, whether public or private, becomes corrupt and unresponsive the more remote and more anonymous it becomes; they would press to live in self-contained, self-governing enclaves that bear the burden of their own prosperity.

I thought this was an interesting distinction, one I haven't heard ever in my admittedly short 27 years in America. The idea that the people running it or the public/privateness of an institution is not what makes it bad or good, but it's actually the size and removedness that determines its worth to the country has not been a credible or even audible opinion in my lifetime. Perhaps Ron Paul can make it audible.

Kids, when you're reading this in 30 years, perhaps you'll see this time in history as a moment in which we turned toward this distinction being more relevant, or maybe, you'll just laugh at Mama's naiveté.

Or, even, perhaps the world will be so different this entire discussion will be like the one we had about life before Compact Discs the other day.

More on that later.

Love,
your mother, who has begrudgingly taken her head out of the sand

A Happy Morning

2011-08-30T11:05:00.001-05:00

I woke up this morning and went to the gym. (I'm trying.)

I left the house at 5:52 am. I arrived at the gym at 5:59 am. I picked out my eliptical machine (my friend Calen has challenged me to use the difficult eliptical rather than the easy one. It is a morning-by-morning struggle; this morning, I defeated the devilish temptation to go the easy route.).

After my eliptical, at 6:37, I called Paul to see if he cared if I did a few weights or if he needed to get going to work.
No Answer.

So, I did my weights.

I walked outside, at 6:59, and got in the car.

Except I didn't.

Because it was locked.

And the key was sitting in there, on the front seat, sneering back at me.

I tried all the doors. I tried the trunk.

I called Paul.

No Answer.

I called Paul again.

No Answer.

I went to call him a third time and accidentally dialed my friend Amanda. I quickly hung up, because, you know, the hours of acceptable phone calls are 8 am for people with kids; 9 am for those without until 9 pm.

I called Paul again.
7:23 am at this point.
No Answer.

Amanda called me. I had let it ring long enough for a missed call to show up. Dedgomit.

She sent her husband, Stewart, around the corner, to bang on my door to try to get Paul's attention.
No Answer.

Amanda loaded up her pajamed little girls and came and grabbed me and deposited me at my house. As we drove up, Paul called. "Are you alive?" (fair question....5 missed calls and all).

Now, I was in a car that we bought used. It came with one key. We had a duplicate made. It didn't work.
We bought a used car that had one of those lovely microchip keys, and we only got one copy with the car.

Awesome, Dodge Caravan's Previous Owner. Way to keep up with keys.

Being the children of our fathers, Paul and I are both cheap. Or thrifty? Well, depends. Unless it's food, and then I've a tendency to be a little more lenient on what fits in the budget.

So, we've never had a $130 stupid microchipped duplicate key made.

And, until today, in the three and a half years we've owned the van, it's not been a problem.

So, Paul googled. How to break into a car.
We all loaded up, wedges and coat hangers and a few other accoutrements.

We drove to the Y. I read the children's history lesson to them in the car while Paul fiddled with the door.
No luck.

I then, of course, insisted on trying.

I failed.

While I was failing, Paul called the police department to see if they unlock cars for folks.

"No," was the answer.

He then got the bright idear to call the fire department.

"Yes," they said. "Be glad to. May we finish our breakfast first?"

At this point, Ada Brooks and I are in a conversation about the accuracy of archaeological dating.

The Forster Five sat in the YMCA parking lot for about thirty minutes more, and then, what do you know, a big, bright red fire truck appeared.

Here they came. To save the day. Took them two seconds to open the car.

And they let the kids explore the truck a bit. They were awesomely kind, smiled, and had a sense of humor.
They made my day.
Cheers, to the Jackson Fire Department! Made me thankful, which I needed, to live in my city of occasional crime issues and more than occasional unwise budgeting issues, and even more than often water issues.

It began a miserable, exercise-filled, lock your keys out of your van kind of day, and then, by 9, we had done an entire three days worth of history work, and gotten to see a big fire truck, thrilling the souls of a passel of younguns.

And I got to visit with my friend Amanda for a moment. And see her precious ones in their pjs.

And we got to have more time with Paul than we normally would.

It was, in a word, happy. A happy morning all around.

Welcome, Happy Morning.

store up that mississippi summer angst

2011-08-04T16:15:00.001-05:00

This is the color Mississippi should always be on maps.

It is naptime here. This means that I'm taking a moment to rest as well. I spend a few minutes on pinterest (or more than a few, and then naptime is gone....); I read through my blogroll to see if there are posts that command my attention; I return emails from the morning; and, of course, facebook is ubiquitous.

[Yes, facebook is actually everywhere now. It always rearing its two sided head.]

So, just a few minutes ago, I was perusing my news feed. And noticing the large percentage of complaints about the heat.

On the one hand, don't complain. It doesn't make it better. "You fussing about it isn't going to change anything, so just smile" comes out of my mouth 17-43 times per week. I believe it. I don't always live by it, but I do believe it, and I do try.

But....friends.... On the other hand....
Therapists make a lot of money for a reason. We like to (need to?) vent. To bitch and moan, pardon my french. We need to just let it out. It's the human condition. Life is a pickle, and we want everyone to know about it.

[Of course for most of us, life's perfectly delightful, and we need to shut the heckfire up. However, again with the flipside, life is subjective, and while a chimney fire and wolves circling the house is stressful for Laura Ingalls, a bat in my kitchen is stressful for me].

So, rather than put on a cheerful face, I'm going to take a minute to complain. Don't keep reading if you don't wish to; you've been warned.
My children, reading this years from now, know that when you said, "it's so hot," and I said, "Aww, darlin', I know, but aren't you thankful for Air Conditioning?" what I was really thinking was the following:

It's freakin' hot.

It's too hot to go out; too humid to play.
What will we do on this sweltering day?

We are actually having to make an effort to stay hydrated.
Here's a potty training tip: Do it in Mississippi August, so that your kid just won't have to go to the bathroom.... he's sweating all moisture away.

My side porch is a wreck. I keep walking out there, getting an item, and coming back in for a few more hours, because that's the best I can do.

Every year in August, every single year, I try to come up with a reason we need not live here anymore. Just yesterday, a friend and I were contemplating Colorado. I know; I need to do a winter there (or anywhere that has pleasant summers), before I make up my mind, but still.

I want to be one of those people with two residences, "Ann Lowrey Forster lives in Maine and Mississippi" - you know - two actual places to live. Six months here, six months there. Let me tell you where I wouldn't be in August. Here.

My air is on 79. It won't ever stop running, even in my well-insulated, all storm-windowed house.

We were all complaining in June. Come back, June. Come back to me. I can barely remember June. It's like in apocalyptic stories when they forget what sugar tastes like. This is me, not being able to remember needing a jacket.

For goodness sake, it's too hot to swim.

I was reading a Eudora Welty essay earlier this morning. Whenever I read a Mississippi author, I stop and take a moment to be proud. And maybe a little bit prideful. I love that I live in and come from a state that has produced such amazing literature, art and music. So, we're fat and uneducated and poor. So what. Put our list of authors, musicians and writers up against any other state's and I dare someone to say that we aren't in competition for the number one spot.

I'm not the first, or even ten-thousandth person to note how prolific we've been in the arts. We Mississippians rock. Or at least sing the blues and create fabulous sentences.

Most great art comes from pain, right? Even the psalms; the great ones come from the times David's life is really very difficult. We don't write out of joy. We write out of pain.

When people notice a pattern, they try to find a cause, right? So, folks have asked, 'Why, Mississippi, if you cannot teach your children to read and write, and you have long ago cut art from schooling to save what little tax revenue you have, and so on and so forth, why, Mississippi, with all that, have you also produced Falkner, Welty, Walter Anderson, Rick Bass, Larry Brown, Willie Morris and on and on we go. Why, Mississippi?

And people have said, "Well, clearly it must be pain. Pain is what always creates great art."

And they're right.
But you know what they've said is the pain?

Reconstruction
Race relations struggles
Poverty
Lack of Education

But they're wrong. I'll tell you why we get great art, why our authors kick the tails of authors from every where else in this great nation, why we invented the blues.
I know why. And every Mississippian around today also knows why.

Why?
August.

That's why we write well. That's why Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. That's why we paint and sculpt and draw. Jim Henson created the muppets in the middle of an August heat wave, I guarandamntee ya.

Art is therapy, and we need a lot down here, or else we'll sweat to death.

So, friends, maybe we should all quit complaining on facebook. Not because it's unattractive and ungodly and not helpful, but because if we complain, we get rid of the pain, and someone has to be the next Barry Hannah, the next B. B. King, the next Wyatt Waters or Ellen Douglas or Walker Percy.

We must store up our Mississippi Summer angst, so as to create great art. I've not the talent or the time, but those of you out there who do, take your grief and put in on a canvas or in a novel or a measure of music.

Sweat-droplet topped lips are waiting to be described in perfectly detailed imagery; go, now, and create.

I'll stay here and complain enough for the both of us.

eat a shortbread cookie and croon

2011-07-25T14:43:00.001-05:00

I have a problem.

It's an American problem. It's a woman problem. It's a typical problem.
This is me being, in a word, unoriginal.

I have too much stuff.

I don't even like stuff, really. And I'm not fooling myself by saying that, I don't think. I'm not a stuff girl. I'm an open air, clean spaces kind of girl. I'm a "Screw it; throw it all away" kind of girl. I'm a "Blow up your tv; throw away the paper; go to the country; build you a home" kind of girl.
(Name that song and artist - go!)

But I have two problems that thwart this dislike of stuff:

1) I'm cheap. Whenever I get ready to send something on down the road to the goodwill, I start to think if I will ever possibly need it in the future and what a shame it'd be to send it to goodwill now and then have to buy another one of whatever it is in the future.

2) I'm nostalgic. Anytime I overcome my cheapness, nostalgia sets in. It was my great aunt's necklace (I don't like and have never worn). Ada Brooks played a fun game with that (particular piece of tupperware) as a baby. I remember using that (specific spring form pan that has rust on it now) to cook Paul a cheesecake right before we got engaged.

It's a disease.

My husband shares my Blow Up the TV attitude, desire and hopefulness. He is shockingly not as cheap and not-so-shockingly not nearly as nostalgic.

So, we have just a tiny bit of conflict.

I'd say about 27% - 42% of all of our disagreements can be traced easily and directly to a difference of opinion about what to do with stuff.

[I like fabric. I hoard it for all of my future and theoretical sewing projects.

"But Ann Lowrey, some of it is downright ugly."

"But, sweetheart, Ada Brooks loves to craft and she doesn't care that it's downright ugly."

"You may have this entire and rather large piece of furniture in which store fabric. You pick what you want to keep in there. If it won't fit in there, it goes, so choose wisely."]

Now, we disagree a lot about this stuff. And sometimes one of us actually gets angry, but the vast majority of the time, we see it for what it is. He'd throw away his great grandmother's (theoretical) antique, Danish sterling silver if I'd let him and I'd keep my great aunt's bent in bundt pan (making 3 for me) if he'd let me. We are the yin and yang, and we balance one another into a fairly healthy relationship with our things.

We've been in the midst of a great purge here at Warrior Trail. So we've had a lot of these fun disagreements, that mostly have resulted in workable compromises. Yesterday, it was all of our yearbooks - elementary, highschool, college for both of us. We were missing a few, but still, it was a lot. He voted put in burn pile or garbage or recycle. I cringed. A lot. Compromise? We cut out the pages with pictures of us on them, so the children could laugh with us one day. We put them in a folder to keep in my (reluctantly allotted) nostalgia cabinet.

And neither of us was angry or even thought the other person was wrong. I know we shouldn't continue hauling all this junk around, dusting it, cleaning it up. He knows we shouldn't really chunk everything entirely.

But this morning was different.

This morning, I noticed my mustard yellow espresso cups that belonged to some female ancestor of mine. They had been placed in the goodwill pile.

Mustard yellow
Matching set of ten.
With ten espresso saucers.
With six matching perfectly, mustard dessert plates.

They scream early to mid 20th century. They were probably in existence before my mother was born. They are freakin' adorable. I tell you - cutest thing of all time. They hold 4 ounces of liquid.
A few problems.

1) I don't even drink coffee.
2) We don't now nor will we ever own an espresso machine.
3) My dishes are already exploding all over cabinets everywhere.
4) I cannot even imagine ever actually using them. I never have.

But other than that, they are cute in every way and Paul Forster can sit on a giant, dull, but sharp enough to hurt, tack. The bucket face that he is. You take my cups: I'll cut you.

A few weeks ago, a my friend Amanda sent me to this blog post. Paul and I both cried we laughed so hard. Okay, maybe I just cried I laughed so hard, but Paul laughed a good bit too.

So, Paul and I are reenacting almost this exact same event, but neither of us felt quite ugly yet. (though if I ever brought home a metal chicken, well....)

I didn't want to give away my useless (to me) espresso cups.

I even threatened to plant flowers in them and give them as gifts. I googled. They're even too small for that, really.

When Paul left this morning, he smiled and said to me, "If I need to break them up into pieces before I leave, I will." (I did not retort "Well, then I'll just save them to make a mosaic out of them." But I thought it.) I smiled and said, "I won't put them back in the cabinet, but you're going to have to be the one who takes them goodwill. I just won't be able to do it."

While I was still stewing about my very correct, kind, and responsible husband who doesn't love mustard yellow like he should, my same friend Amanda happened by.

I may have grieved a bit out loud to her. I wasn't so much frustrated at Paul, just frustrated at the fact of life that you cannot hold on to everything adorable or that has memories for you. You're expected to send it on to strangers.

She started grinning. Her husband has an espresso machine. He just recently asked for espresso cups to be added to his wishlist.

Providence, oh providence. Right down to the dishes.

My little cups get to be drunk out of by a couple of folks I quite like, and maybe Amanda will even invite me over for an afternoon espresso (which I won't drink) but I'll so enjoy seeing them out, I'll happily eat a shortbread cookie and croon, dry mouth and all.

Here's to you, Paul Forster. The cups are gone, and I am happy about it. We both win a prize.

Now.... on to the stash of fabric.

Make this this week. Bring me a piece.

2011-07-25T06:05:00.001-05:00


Mine usually aren't quite this pretty, but I bet they taste better.... (I didn't take a picture of my cherry pie from this weekend, and yes, I'm regretting it)

I have recently written about my literary love affair with cherries. Oh, lady macbeth, how do you make me delightfully somber.

But, let's be honest, we don't pit all the cherries for fun. Really, we don't. We pit them for a reason, and here it is mostly for cherry pie. And I've recently discovered that a cherry can take fruit salad from blah to luxury in a hot second, or we've put them in a salsa, or in a fruit compote to top pavlova or white chocolate almond torte. Okay, so there are a ton of ways to eat cherries, but Pie remains our favorite (prepared) way.

We only get cherries for about six weeks each year, and the first two-three of those, they are prohibitively expensive (not that I don't always buy a pound, but I cannot buy six pounds like I did this week...). We all love cherries. Love them. We like to just eat them by the handful. Want to get frustrated? Try to teach a two year old not to swallow his gum. Want to get more frustrated? Try to teach him not to swallow cherry pits.

Eas especially, but all of my kids sit and eat and eat and eat cherries as much as I'll let them. I've gone to hiding them when I'm going to use them for a pie. This kid-love-of-cherries is apparently a universal thing, because the other day the kids had friends over and the four of them (my two big kids - Collins was napping - and the other two big kids) demolished a whole pound of them in about twenty minutes. And I'm glad for them to do so. Cherries are like Christmas; they only come for about a month, so you better live it up while you can.

Anyway, back to pie.

[We aren't cake people. This is a realization that I've really just owned in the last six months or so. Paul prefers fruit pies or cheesecakes, I like the same, and lo and behold, so does our daughter. Eason, now, doesn't quite differentiate among sugared things yet, but goody for him, the world is as yet not disappointing.]

We are pie folks. Peach pie, chocolate chess pie, strawberry pie, lemon merengue, key lime, buttermilk, and on and on. I'm a bad mother to invite to a bakesale, because my desserts aren't transportable very well. I have a few cakes that I like, but they are much fewer and further between (and they're all fall-apart-gooey....making them less like a cake and more like a..well....pie).

Of all the pies though, Cherry Pie is the crown jewel. It's rare. It's expensive, in money, yes, but even more so in labor. It's hot, endearing it to me. Paul loves a cold pie; I'll eat them for sure, but a hot pie with vanilla ice cream is just, frankly, unbeatable.

The other day I made a Cherry Pie. And my friend made homemade vanilla ice cream. And the heavens opened up and the hallelujah chorus reigned down. Maybe not quite, but it was the perfect end to a yummy meal.

So, this is what I do. My mother taught me this; it could have been given to her by any number of great cooks in her life, but we'll credit Betsy Ann, who can make a pie, boy howdy.

2 lbs fresh cherries, pitted. (Good luck. Put on some jazz or sit in front of an episode of 30 rock. Or put the kids to work, though, I'll warn you, mine have figured out that this is fairly tedious.)

1/3 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp real almond extract

Pie crust in pie plate.

(optional - additional pie crust to top it)

Throw all of that into a medium saucepan. (not the pie crusts, silly. Just the first four ingredients).
Stir well with a wooden spoon. (I'm repeating directions as given to me. I don't mess with this formula, but use metal spoons to your heart's content. I'm not the spoon police.)
Heat over medium heat until boiling.
Boil one minute, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat.
Pour into pie crust. Let cool a bit. Top with optional pie crust that you have carefully cut and weaved into a lattice pattern. Or leave open. Really it doesn't matter.

Bake at 375 for 25-35 minutes until crust is browned.

Serve with very cold real homemade whipped cream or very cold real vanilla ice cream. (homemade or breyers vanilla bean or yarnells homemade vanilla which is as fake and perfectly yummy as vanilla ice cream from the store gets).

One pie will provide 8 generous dessert servings. And you want generous. You do. Really.
Make this this week. The cherries are not long for this world. If I recall correctly, and I don't always, cherries leave around the time we all start sharpening pencils.

all that bound up foolishness

2011-07-22T10:18:00.000-05:00

I am in love.

I am in love with both of these people, but specifically mine, the one on the right there.

Instead of Yes Mam, he says Messam.
He calls his Pajamas either Conjangles or Conjamas, depending on whether he's having a sense of humor (Conjangles he knows is wrong, but likes to say it anyway).
He brings me my shoes wherever he finds them in the house.

He would wear a diaper on his head if I wanted him to - a pink headband, sure, Mama, whatever you say.

Right this second, he is 'hiding' in a storage bin in the middle of the living room floor saying "ready not here i come" which is nonsensical since that is what the seeker says, not the hider.
And no one is actually looking for him.

His favorite color is pink.

He loves his quilt that our friend Carolyn gave him as a baby present. He says "Banket Time" when he wants to go get it.

Apologetic that he has icing on his face.

He says "Mama watch dis. Mama watch dis. Mama watch dis." over and over and over again.

Whenever I mention a bandaid, he reminds me of the ant bites he had on his hand about six months ago. For which he was given bandaids.

He counts. "1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13"

Happy playing with dirt alone.

He loves noodles and plums and peaches and shicken, though he calls all meat chicken.

(This is not something particular to him. A lot of children do this. For the love of culinary integrity: It is not cute past the child's third birthday. Then it is just silly and quite ignorant sounding. Children should know the difference between pigs and cows and birds, and between pork, beef and chicken.)

He says "Tanktoo" and "Pwease" and it will be extra painful when he adds the Th and Y and replaces the W with an L. But it will happen. And we'll be glad of it. Because that's what children are supposed to do, right? Learn to say words correctly?

One whole egg. The siblings can have the rest.

He has priceless cadence - different from his big brother or sister, and it endears him to me like nothing else.

He is absolutely doted upon by his siblings, who stress the second syllable of his name rather than the first.

Drawing in the sand.

He is awesome. Completely awesome.
But guess what? He is not innocent. Isn't that just the worst of it? These little people with whom we are entrusted, who are the cutest things of all time, who wow us with their smiles, then their laughs, then their mispronunciations, and then their perceptions (the perceptions are the best) are not without spot or blemish.

These precious ones who impress us at every turn (The child says "Messam" for heavens sake) are also sinners.

They don't do right.

Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. I didn't make it up; God said it.

My baby who is perfect is the furthest thing from perfect.

And, not only is he flawed like the rest of us, but he's had very little time to work on it.
Little bit Collins, in all of his glory, is just awful.

He screams when he doesn't get his way. He fights with his brother and friends. He is not good at conflict resolution. He makes messes. He is disrespectful to his mother and father. He refuses correction, especially from someone other than his parents.

Separating - or, more accurately, holding in tension - those two things - the glorious and the awful - well, it's the hardest task a parent has, I think. (At least the hardest abstract task; labor, delivery, pottytraining, and keeping their clothes clean all are quite difficult as well.)

We must glory in them without letting that shade over their need for discipline. We must discipline them without that interfering with our love and adoration of them.

Paul always says it's a good thing they are so cute because if not..... well.

It is a good thing, and not an accidental thing. They are the cutest at the same time they are the hardest. So we don't run screaming down the street, see?

Erring on the side of worshiping these delighful little people is what our current world does, but only a few short generations ago, we erred the other way. Daddies didn't love their babies, and often times Mamas didn't either (useful MadMen reference inserted here). Children were abused and put to work and not gloried in, and now they are bowed down before and allowed to set the family's routine, diet and not expected ever to work.

John Stuart Mill was required to read in Latin and Greek before his fourth birthday. (He wasn't some anomaly - it was commonplace in the upperclass of his generation to require of their children fluent reading and writing in at least four or five languages). And now, as the mother of a soon to be third grader I hear "Are you really going to make her memorize those declensions?"
Yep. I am.

We're trying to avoid the ditches over here. Trying to avoid worship or disdain of the little buggers. They're just people after all, and yet, they are people, created imago dei.

With my other two children, I was more apt to fall into the forgetting-how-awesome-they-are ditch. But with Collins, I can see that his sweetness and awesomeness and perfect cuteness is making me want to fall into the other ditch - of just letting him get away with not obeying.

So, when you see the pained look on my face over the next months, know that it is because disciplining my baby is harder than it was with the other two. When it was hard to discipline Ada Bee and Eas, it was because I was lazy. Now it is because Collins says "messam" and "ready not here I come" when he's the one hiding.

It's hard. All that bound up foolishness must be driven away from him. And it's not fun so doing. But, I've got to buck up little soldier. This is my fight. This is my battleground. Walk the balance beam. We'll get through it.

Equal and Opposite

2011-07-15T08:10:00.001-05:00

At church each week, we take communion. We don't process up for it, though. We have those little plastic cups. Not grape juice, thankfully, but real, cheap, red wine is found in them. The cups come down the aisle in a stainless steel round thing designed specifically for plastic, miniature, communion cups to be passed down church aisles.

Our children are encouraged to partake of the supper with us.

So, along comes the bread first. And each child in our family takes a piece of bread. [Our pastor always leaves one giant piece on the tray - the one that he broke in half in front of everyone and every week Eason eyes it with breadlust. And every week Paul says, just watching his eyes, "nope - just grab a normal one, Eason." And Eason obeys. Sometimes cheerfully. Sometimes the epitome of bedgrudgingly.]

Sometime over the last few months, Collins has become a regular church attender. He (usually) actually makes it through the whole service. You can imagine after a full one hour and ten minutes or so, when it gets to communion time, he's not at his most peaceful. I mean, heavens, sometimes it hard for me to sit still that long.

So, anyway, along comes the bread. Eason gets his normal-sized piece (much to his chagrin), I get mine, Ada gets hers, Collins his, and Paul his. And then we wait. This is painful waiting for Collins. He is hungry, dern it. He wants to eat the bread now. Please. But just like at any other feast, we wait until everyone else has their food to eat ours. I keep whispering to him. He keeps putting it closer to his mouth. I feel sorry for him. But I don't let him know that. Sometimes he pitches a tiny fit about it, which requires discipline, which does take away, just a little, from the great Eucharistic moment.

And then finally, the deacons go back up to the front of the church, having distributed the 5 loaves among all of God's people, and Rev. Wedgeworth eats his bread, and Collins giggles with hungry giddiness as he eats his piece.

And we'd all breathe a sigh of relief, except...

Here comes the wine. (Say that again, but this time, to the tune of Wagner's Bridal Chorus)

So, here comes the wine. Not all fat and wide. But all in these tiny cups and ready to spill. All over the church outfits of all the children present.

Ada Brooks is pretty good about the wine. Eason is pretty bad, and Collins is horrendous.

And as parents, mine and Paul's reaction is to jerk to stop it. Collins is not being careful with his mini-wine-vessel, and one or both of us reaches out to stop him.

Paul grabs his hand or I grab the cup and attempt to rescue him from certain stains.

As soon as one of us grabs, guess what Collins does? He jerks away. Guess what this results in? Oh? Spillage? The very thing we were trying to stop? So frustrating.

Sunday before this past one, as Paul grabbed for grubby little Collins's wine-cup-holding hands, and Collins jerked, I had a vision. Perhaps it was brought on by the excellent preaching of the Word. Or perhaps it was that I was faint with my own lack of breakfast. But, in my mind, I saw Collins as a teenager. With Paul grabbing at the wine and Collins jerking back and spilling it everywhere. Only now he was big and the cup much bigger and the spill much more consequential.

Why do we grab? Why do they jerk back? This grabbing at and jerking back pattern is evidenced all over our lives. I snap for everyone to immediately get to cleaning, "This house is a wreck." and they, almost inevitably, jerk back - some with pouty lips, some with ignoring me and one, maybe, throwing himself down in grief.

We want our children to submit to authority.
Obey first.
Obey cheerfully.
Obey quickly.

But everytime we grab - either literally or symbolically, they jerk back.

I think it's a simple 3rd law of (e)motion thing.
Let's all say it together, "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Good! Newton and your high school physics teacher would be so proud.

Equal and opposite. We grab, they jerk back. Wine spills everywhere.

So, our job is to teach them not to jerk back, right? Yes. Automatic rebellion is immature.
When an authority grabs, don't jerk back.

But...guess what....grabbing is rarely necessary.

The best strategy we have to prevent wine spilling are
a) don't let them hold the cup
or
b) come along side their little hands with ours and gently steady them.

They haven't done anything wrong by simply being children. They aren't even being particularly careless with their little wine cups. They're just kids, and kids, especially little ones, especially little male ones, need to be taught gentleness and carefulness. My heavens - I still spill stuff all over me all the time.
When the kid is about to run out in the street, that's the time to grab at them. But wine is not an emergency. (Lack of wine might be...)

[Who saw the Gnome Mobile as a child? Who remembers the scene of all the women gnomes trying to catch the one eligible bachelor gone?
The grab/jerk pattern reminds me of them trying to hold on to the slippery gnome and him just being shot far up into the air]

I have been struck by our need to be more discerning about what requires such an emphatic and quick and grabby reaction. Paul and I are both grabbers by nature. We've got to work on it. When Collins grabs something off of the grocery shelf, my instinct is to jerk it out of his hand and put it back on the shelf, admonishing all the way. But guess what that results in? An equal and opposite reaction. He pouts or fits or whines or, worst, goes for the item again.
But what happens when I say, 'Collins, please put the marshmallows back on the shelf. We remember now that we don't grab things off the grocery store shelf unless Mama asks us to?' Almost always, unless we are seriously nap deprived, he does as told.
Ada Brooks comes out dressed to go somewhere in three different colors of pink. My immediate reaction is to say "You cannot go anywhere in that." But what works much better is to say, "hey- sweetheart - can I offer a suggestion? I love pink - i love you in pink - but remember how we've been talking about clashing?" She doesn't wish to look ridiculous (yet...), so if I approach it calmly, she almost always sees reason.

We want them to learn not to jerk back. Yes. To obey without asking questions. First and quickly and thoroughly.

But there will be a lot less wine spilled, I'm slowly learning, if we'll very intentionally be calm; if we'll bring our big hands to their little hands and teach them how to hold the cup, rather than forbidding them from doing it entirely or, worse, letting them and then jerking it away.

Food 6/12/11 -7/2/11

2011-06-28T12:21:00.000-05:00

Shockingly, I've been a delinquent blogger.

But last night, the women and friends of our church got together to talk about feeding our families, and one of the tools of accountability we mentioned was actually writing down your menu. (Obviously).

And, so I remembered that I actually do have a spot to write down my menu.

Right here.

So, going back in time a bit -
Food from June 12th-June 18th:

Two weeks ago was Pentecost. This is the second year that the church has done an around-the-world feast to celebrate. It always makes us all realize why certain ethnic foods (chinese/mexican/italian) have been Americanized and adopted into our food culture as part of our own and why certain others (british/scandinavian/canadian) have not. But, I still really enjoy tasting it all. We do it just for fun, but it actually does serve to remind you about how there are people around the world having entirely the same life experiences - in a spiritual, collective unconscious, all created imago dei kind of a way - and yet, having entirely different life experiences - in a "They eat WHAT?" kind of a way.
We are all the same and yet we are all different.

So, I made Rigatoni (from Italy...), Baja Slaw, from Baja California, Mexico (Who knew that Mexico has a state called Baja California. Is that confusing or what?), and Madeira cake from Britain. I liked all three of them a lot, and may actually make them again. The Madeira cake was a Nigella recipe. That lady rocks my face off.

For supper that night, we vegged and at whatever we could put our hands on.

Over the next week, we had fridge clean out paninis [I had left over grilled chicken and some pork of loin that i needed to use, so we chopped it up and grabbed whatever cheese and bread we could find, slathered on some sauce and popped on some veggies, and stuck it all in the panini press. This is one of my go to meals.]; On Tuesday, more rigatoni - I doubled my sauce recipe on Sunday and used it again on Tuesday night. Who gets tired of meat and tomato sauce? Well a lot of people, but very few after just two meals.; Wednesday brought BBQ Sandwiches at church, which made enough to feed us again at the Pool on Thursday night (I love pool side supper. Love it. Love it. Love it.) Then, on Friday, we went to Cock of the Walk to celebrate Collins's Second Birthday. Yay Collins. Yay fried food. Fried catfish. Fried hushpuppies. Fried onion rings. Fried french fries (redundant? yes. worth it? yes). Fried dill pickles. And some pickled onions and slaw. That weren't fried. But barely.

Collins requested to 'feed de ducks' for his birthday, so we went to feed the ducks, and his Godmother made this delightful Duck Cake. The water on the bottom is brownish gray ish....to symbolize the reservoir where we were eating.

Then on Saturday, I had two showers for sweet friends having their first babies. So, that was my lunch, my afternoon project, and my dinner. My kids ate with my daddy and grandaddy for fathers' day, and some sweet friends fed Paul Forster a yummy supper. We were all taken care of. That's nice.

Then to the next week....

Paul wanted a big ol' sandwich for his Father's' Day lunch, so I took him to Broadstreet Bakery, our favorite spot for a big ol' sandwich.
That night, I helped cook fathers' day supper for my daddy - I was in charge of Pork Tenderloin, Tomato Tart and Cherry Cream Pie. It was a feast.

Monday we had bean burritos. Tuesday night, we celebrated Ada's birthday with a 5 course dinner for seven year olds. More about that later. Let's just say that two dishes in one meal at my house involved velveeta. And yes, a few pigs flew past the window. Wednesday, pizza at church. Thursday, yet another pool picnic- this time a variety of fruits and veggies coupled with Burger King Chicken Nuggets. Yes sir. Friday night I didn't feel well, so I just did a simple pasta with cream sauce thing a majig - more like alfredo, I guess. A big green salad and some leftover bread turned garlic toast. Took about 20 minutes total and was all tasty, and inexpensive, if not exactly low on calories.

Saturday night, after I had been at a three day conference, my wise husband knew he should order out. He knew this because I may have requested it.... but he knew it all the same. We got Roosters, a burger joint around the corner, from which I get chicken tenders. I don't even like fried chicken tenders too much, and I firmly believe in ordering what the restaurant specializes in, but Rooster's chicken tenders cannot be beaten. Can. Not. Be. Beaten.

Whew. Lots of eating.

If you notice the lunches from Thursday, Friday and Saturday, please know that those meals were not orchestrated by myself - far from it. I was at this small conference, and all of us conference attendees brought contributions. It's the way to eat, I tell you. Fresh, simple, lots.

Michael Pollan says "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants"

I agree wholeheartedly, though we may have a definition issue with
"Not Too Much"

And Now She Is Seven

2011-06-17T10:01:00.002-05:00

Dearest darling Daughter:

Seven years ago today, you were born.
Your labor and delivery were, in a word, horrific.

As were the first six weeks of your life. I have a vivid memory of our sweet friends Marianna and Mary Ellen driving us around for hours in the dark, hoping you would sleep, and yet, just more screaming.

But we made it through. I gave you a bottle, and you looked up and said, "Finally." Well, at least you said it with your eyes and the six hours and forty three minutes that you slept.

At Seven Weeks - Happy Baby

And since then, you have brought immense joy.

At Two Years, Eight Months

Rarely do daughters get to serve as their mother's flower girls (and rarely would we want such), but you did your job with perfection when you were not yet two. Rarely do Daddies get to chose to be Daddies to specific little blonde, blue-eyed girls, but your Daddy did, and maintains its the second best decision he's ever made. I hope you know his best.

You are a sister before all else.

Day After Eason's Birth - Two Years, Nine Months

Afternoon Collins was Born - Five Years, One Day

Your brothers both adore you, and, thankfully, you find it easy to adore them. You and Eas bicker, but you're learning, ever so slowly, that he matters more than those things about which you might fight. You don't mother Collins very much, which has been a constant prayer of mine for you, but he still toddles behind you both.

End of Summer, 2010

Please remember that they love you and believe you hung the moon. It took me a long time to realize this about my brothers, and I regret the number of times I bossed and snipped and even, perhaps, pulled hair.
You are the first: with great power comes great responsibility.

Your godparents, Melissa and Dan, have now spent more than seven years entirely doting on you. In fact, they have been pestering me over the last few weeks about birthday present ideas, and I have been failing. Not because I wouldn't shower you with all sorts of presents if I could (and if it were advisable), but because you are an independent soul. We have bought craft supplies galore, and still, you invent out of egg cartons and pine cones, driving me crazy and growing me all the same. [I prayed for patience; you started a rock collection]. We have bought toys for outside, and yet, you find sticks and daddy's tarp and create a tent. You are a planner and a doer, definitely a dreamer, and not always a follower through. So your godparents are sending you to the ballet at Thalia Mara and taking you on a shopping spree at our favorite local book store. They know you well.

Ada Brooks, your grandparents adore you. Grandma and Grandpa, your daddy's parents, take you on adventures galore. You love visiting the New Orleans zoo and aquarium, or simply trotting along behind Grandma at the Farmer's Market. You got your first birthday present of the season from them - a Kindle. You are a twenty-first century child. Papa, the man for whom you were named, still maintains that he loves you the most (a patent falsehood), and his delightful wife showers you with the perfect amount of grandmotherly spoiling. My mother, who you resemble most definitely, has finished grieving the misspelling of your name (she wanted an H at the end, but I fought hard and held out for the palindromic simplicity we have today). Your Ba, as you call her, lets you lick beaters and always washes your hands with warm bath cloths, rather than subjecting you to the harsh reality of (ground-temperature) tap water. And then there is D, whose Donald Duck impression makes you sing.

You love all things academic; you are, at this moment, explaining homonyms to your brother. I love you for this and this for you, but I wish the intensity that accompanies it didn't. I wish you'd breathe, calm down, laugh. Yesterday, you teared up because your cursive A wasn't with the right slant. Twelve or so times a day, I remind you to take control of your emotions, and you are doing better at that, but I fear it will be your lifelong struggle. Take the intense joy, my sweet girl, and leave behind the intense pressure and general frustration at yourself and others.

You have dear, sweet, wonderful friends, and I am able to see how they gift you and you them. You are blessed to be part of a church and a school that surrounds you with people who love you, who are bright and fun, and who take their work, but not themselves, seriously. Give thanks for those people, my sweet love. You know not how greatly you are blessed.

I am blessed by you. You challenge me, you encourage me, you make me laugh. A dear, wonderful priest of mine - he baptized your middle brother - once told me that his son, Benjamin, was his PhD. You are my PhD, my dear. It is a gift to educate you, to cook with you, and even to discipline you. For, in each act of discipline, I am myself disciplined.

Sometimes, mothers are adults long before they are mothers, but often times (even for women who missed the 'teen mother' moniker by longer than five weeks), it is the mothering of that first child that grows us up. You have grown me up, my daughter. Or, more accurately, our Lord has seen fit to use you to grow me up.

And, for posterity, some less important things:

Your favorite foods are bacon, ice cream, shrimp and cheese dip.
Your three favorite eating establishments are Brent's Drugs, Bravo!, and Taco Bell. At Brent's, you get a BLT, at Taco Bell, as many bean burritos as I'll allow, and at Bravo!, well, last night with Papa and Carrie, you got Shrimp with Mint on Angel Hair.
You eat more than any seven year old in the history of the world. But it's (almost) all good for you, and we laugh about it.
You are still not coordinated - at all - but you're a bit more over it.
You are reading, right now, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew on your Kindle.
You have absorbed from your father the idea that its okay to read more than one book at once (another falsehood). And so are also reading "The Little Riders" from the Library.
You like television, though its all Netflix Instant View for you, and you love Pink Panther (yay) and some tacky Japanese show called Avatar, the Last Air Bender (more Paul Forster influence).
You love the pool, but cannot dive (see uncoordinated above), and that drives you crazy (not an example of you being over it).
Your hair is getting darker and your eyes less blue and more green. You are fairly modest, though in the privacy of your own home, don't understand why panties aren't the perfect uniform (and who can blame you).
You don't like cake, but if you had to pick, it'd be Coconut.
You cannot sing, but you do it with gusto. Your Calen is trying to fix the former; we're, for the moment, doing nothing to correct the latter.
You've become quite an accomplished little cook. You can do Banana Muffins without supervision and Biscuit Bread from memory, though you like help with the heavy cast iron skillet. You get in bed with cookbooks, and I try not to let my face break from smiling.

But you are ever yet a little bitty thing. You have miles to go before I sleep, my darling, and the Lord sends me reminders of this daily, like this one, on Wednesday:

Me, To Daddy: "Ada and I could fly and you stay home with the boys, but we'd have to rent a car."
You, interjecting: "Why can't we just take our car on the plane - you know - like a ferry?"

I love you, sweet, baby girl.

You are a blessing, a gift and a challenge, and I wouldn't have you any other way.

Love,
Mama

Food 6/5/11-6/11/11

2011-06-14T09:31:00.000-05:00

I'm behind. I know.

This is last week's menu.

On Sunday, we were invited to some friends' house for lunch. She made beef stroganoff. I brought a caprese salad for an appetizer, a walker's house salad for our salad, and a pan of biscuit bread. Have I told you about biscuit bread? I'll have to get permission from its original author, but let's just say that it's the best of biscuits combined with the best of cornbread.

On Sunday night, friends came here for what I dubbed "freezer clean out kebob night" I have chicken and steak and shrimp and such that I have unused from recipes. And so I freeze it in little tiny freezer bags. I've been in freezer clean out mode, so, we had a few bites of steak, some chicken strips, shrimp kebobs, grilled veggies, 2 different kinds of yummy potatoes brought by two different sweet women, fruit pizza for dessert, and I don't even know what else. Other things to make me fat - I can promise you that.

On Monday for lunch, we all grazed like cattle.

On Monday evening, we had one of the favorite new recipes I've ever tried. Fried green tomato po boys. They were awesome. They were in the June issue of Southern Living, from which I've been much benefiting. Or not, if you are counting the calories. Anyway, here is the recipe. I recommend you try it, asap.

On Tuesday at lunch, we met some friends for chick fil a. Originally, we were going to take a picnic to the park. But it is too hot. Way, way too hot to be outside without being in water.

On Tuesday evening, we went to my mother's house for supper - I took marinated pork tenderloin and a cold corn salad. She made a big salad and a fresh cherry pie. Fresh cherry pies are in my top five favorite desserts, easily, and probably in the top two. They are just amazing. And, again, they have the whole Macbeth thing going for them. Out, damn'd spot! Couldn't help it.

Wednesday at lunch, we grazed again. We do that. A lot.

Wednesday at supper, we made pizza.

Thursday we had grilled chicken po boys for lunch, utilizing leftovers from Sunday and Monday nights. I'm a leftover happy girls these days.

Thursday night, we took a cold supper to the pool. Potato salad, Corn Salad, Fruit. And the children were slaphappy because we also bought them bagel bites/corndogs to supplement the cold food. It went well.

Friday for lunch, P, B & H.

Friday night for supper we had 6 courses or so..=) Every now and then (okay, once a month), the urge strikes me to do something fancy. To serve plated courses. To have sorbet. It just hits me. And about 1/3 of the time, I indulge that urge, which means that 4 or so times a year, I have a fancy dinner party. My only regret is that I cannot have all of the people I want to have every time. Coming soon....How to be a good dinner party guest. More on what we ate and such later.

Saturday for lunch we pretty much ate blackberries. We picked and picked and ended up with 10 quarts and it's been quite fun so far.

Saturday night for supper, we bopped to my daddy's and Carrie's house and ate burgers, caprese salad (I cannot get enough of that stuff....really....its a summertime addiction, which is better than other summertime addictions I've been known to have), baked beans, corn on cob, etc. A summer supper it was.

I love food. Can you tell?

will these hands ne'er be clean?

2011-06-10T11:07:00.001-05:00

I just pitted a ton of cherries.

I love to do that.
It's soothing, cathartic, juicy.

I always forget to put on gloves before I do it.

I'm supposed to remember, because, cherry juice stains, especially one's cuticles.

But, I think I unconsciously purposely forget.

Why? Because cherry juice looks a lot like blood.
And Macbeth is my favorite work by Shakespeare.

So, I get to stand at my kitchen sink, scrubbing my cuticles and saying "Out, damned spot!" over and over again.

I recommend, if anyone is needing a literary moment, to read Act V, Scene 1 of Macbeth. And so, I reproduce it here for you.

Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.

Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentle-woman.
Doct. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked?
Gen. Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon ’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.	4
Doct. A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching! In this slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?
Gen. That, sir, which I will not report after her.
Doct. You may to me, and ’tis most meet you should.
Gen. Neither to you nor any one, having no witness to confirm my speech.	8

Enter LADY MACBETH, with a taper.
Lo you! here she comes. This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.
Doct. How came she by that light?
Gen. Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; ’tis her command.	12
Doct. You see, her eyes are open.
Gen. Ay, but their sense is shut.
Doct. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.
Gen. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her to continue in this a quarter of an hour.	16
Lady M. Yet here’s a spot.
Doct. Hark! she speaks. I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
Lady M. Out, damned spot! out, I say! One; two: why, then, ’tis time to do ’t. Hell is murky! Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
Doct. Do you mark that?	20
Lady M. The Thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now? What! will these hands ne’er be clean? No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with this starting.
Doct. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
Gen. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: Heaven knows what she has known.
Lady M. Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh!	24
Doct. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
Gen. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.
Doct. Well, well, well.
Gen. Pray God it be, sir.	28
Doct. This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.
Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown; look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on ’s grave.
Doct. Even so?
Lady M. To bed, to bed: there’s knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed. [Exit.	32
Doct. Will she go now to bed?
Gen. Directly.
Doct. Foul whisperings are abroad. Unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds	36
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets;
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,	40
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good-night:
My mind she has mated, and amaz’d my sight.
I think, but dare not speak.
Gen. Good-night, good doctor. [Exeunt.	44

Food on the Ocean

2011-06-09T12:04:00.001-05:00

We just got back from a fabulous week away from real life with my dad and my stepmother, Carrie. And a few interlopers.

It was awesome.

It was not real life.

Real life began this week.
I prefer the beach.

Well, I probably wouldn't after a while. But for now...

When a family goes on vacation, apparently, they still need to eat. There are a couple of options about food. You can eat out, you can cook a bunch of food and freeze and take, or you can cook while down there.

We don't particularly like to eat out, in general. That needs clarification. I love, love to eat out. But, for me to enjoy, my requirements are as follows:

The joint almost always be locally owned and operated. Chains just don't produce a good product, by and large. There are always exceptions, but....
The food must be as good or better than food I can cook.
And there shall be no discipline needed during the meal.
Or the joint be Krystal or Taco Bell or Cheap (Tex) Mexican.

The first qualification and second qualifications sound quite snobby, but when you like to cook, it's very painful to pay for food that costs more and tastes worse than what you can do at home. And by 'very painful' i mean 'mildly annoying'. Regardless, the fourth qualification should alleviate snobby accusations.

All that to say, eating out at the beach isn't really on my to do list. It results in mediocre, over priced meals interrupted by "sit down, Eason." "use your fork, Collins" "sit down, Eason""Ada - remember how we talked about facing the knife inward?" "sit down, Collins." "Paul - can you help clean up the water spill?" "sit down, Eason." "Ada - No, I don't know the exact difference in size between large and jumbo shrimp" "sit down, Collins."
And so on and so forth. None of it is bad. I do it most nights at the supper table. Which is fine. And good. And part of an important proccess.

But it's not something I'd like to pay to experience.

I could cook and freeze. But I don't like pulling meals out of the freezer. I have a few things that work really well like this, but only a few. And I cannot do a week of casseroles.

So, we cook down there. Which I enjoy, and have learned to bring my knives and a couple of pans. Note to self - next year, bring a cutting board and some kitchen towels.

So, what did we eat?

Saturday Night 5/28: Spicy Spinach Lasagna
Sunday Night 5/29: Went to see Paul Thorne sing. He's awesome. And Funny. And great dancing music. We ate a smorgasbord of left overs and vendor distributed hot dogs.
Monday Night 5/30: Redfish Annalowrey
Tuesday Night 5/31: Carrie created some awesome roasted garlic french alfredo
Wednesday Night 6/1: Chicken Romano
Thursday Night 6/2: Elite Style Cheese and Onion Enchiladas
Friday Night 6/3: Carrie made shrimp scampi, but I missed out. I'm sure it was divine!

It was all good, and the only day I felt like I spent a lot of time in the kitchen was on Monday. But it was Carrie's birthday dinner. So it was worth it!

I measured out my spices and grouped all of my ingredients together before I left for the trip.

It's the way to go! Prepare well before you go and then cook down there!

We had a great week.

"never trust the sort of cooking...."

2011-06-02T14:54:00.002-05:00

I am enjoying a low key vacation with my family this week. My daddy is a generous man and rented a little house on the Alabama gulf coast for himself, his bride and their kids.

I've spent time in the waves, time in the pool, time in the sand and time in the kitchen.

But, shockingly, that hasn't taken up all my hours. The rest of the time, I've been reading.

I brought Crime and Punishment to read, and have read some of it, but regardless of the gaping education hole that not having read the greatest Russian novel apparently leaves, it is not the most uplifting beach read.
Strike one.
I also went to the library and checked out some Agatha Christie stuff, only to find out that the novel collection I picked up are her six romance novels, rather than six of her 84 amazingly British murder mysteries.
Strike two.

But don't fret. I also picked up Forever Summer by Nigella Lawson, who gives Dame Christie a run for her money as my favorite British author. And my stepmother brought an Ina Garten cookbook. So, I know you're shocked, but I've been reading about food.

And have dishes to try to carry us through labor day.
But Nigella doesn't write recipes. She writes prefectly crafted essays that happen to be about food.

In one such essay, she echoed the sentiments of Robert Capon in his collection of essays on domestic life, Bed and Board. Capon opines about our relationship to Things. When we love a thing in itself, that is proper, Godly materialism, but when we love a thing for what it can do for us - convey social status, etc., that is far from good. Mistress Lawson is writing about Cheesecake Ice Cream.

She says, "I don't claim [cheesecake icecream] as an original idea...but striving for originality is frankly a grievous culinary crime. Never trust the sort of cooking that draws attention to the cook rather than to the food."

That's the lesson I've gleaned this week of reading and writing about food. It's also the reason all recipes should be shared. It isn't about what glory the food [or clothes, or work, or friendships, or anything] can bring to us; its about the glory that we, by way of the perfect dessert, can bring to God and His Creation.

I am so looking forward to being back in my own kitchen to hopefully draw attention to some yummy summer food.

in the words of dave matthews.... (who should credit the prophet Isaiah and King Solomon)

2011-05-17T10:54:00.001-05:00

At the end of our summer here in Mississippi last year, well, our entirely red state was enticed into possibly believing in global warming.

It mightn't have been the hottest summer on record (thought it weren't far), but it was the longest one in my lifetime. It dragged on and on and on clear through to November. And then one day, it was Winter.

Yes, ladies and gents, we skipped Fall last year. And Fall is the best time to be a Mississippian.

Except not in 2011. No, sir ree. The best time to be a Mississippian is, well, today. Spring 2011 is a record. Of a different sorts. We've had the longest spring in my life time. A full three months. It's been Park Weather since the middle of February.

And today could very well be the end.

The forecast for Jackson states:

Entirely Sunny.
Highs in the mid-70s.
Breezy.

It's like May in Chicago, but we didn't have to drive eleven hours. It's like Southern California, but we don't have to be crazy. It's like Virginia, but we get to still have real sweet tea.

Yes, sir. God loves Mississippi right now. (Except that whole river thing).

Get out of your house, people.

I don't care if you have to take work with you. Go. Read a book, edit a brief, fold clothes, make a grocery list, draft a sermon - Whatever is on your to do list -or heavens - go make your to do list! - just do it in the sunshine. Let your little ones play. Find a slide or a swing. You're welcome to the one in my front yard. But whatever you do, don't stay in.

This is it. The last hoorah! Tomorrow, clouds, and then comes heat.

This is perfection. Savor it like the last drop in a bottle of perfect Cabernet. Hold on to the perfect moment like its Christmas Eve. Refuse to let it go like a lingering kiss before a long trip.
Stare a little longer at today like it's your last baby threatening to grow up.

Eat, Drink and be Merry, for tomorrow we......swelter.

The Great Tortilla Test

2011-05-16T10:26:00.001-05:00

One night last week, we had fish burritos. I seasoned and poached the fish and tossed it with lemon juice; made a very yummy fresh salsa; warmed some tortillas, created a sauteed onion, garlic, tomato, bean dish for a side, along with a fresh green salad.

It was good.
I was satisfied that I had created a meal that tasted good and nourished those I love. You know, from scratch and all.

I really love simple weeknight meals that are still great. They are the thing that make me feel like I'm doing well at my job. Yes - I heart a fayncee dinner party like no other. But that's a hobby, an interest, frivolity. Good frivolity, sure, but it's not sustenance; It requires work, sure, but let's be honest, it's really the way I play.

What makes me feel a successful homemaker is a simple, real, good meal on the table on a random Thursday night.

So, yes, I was feeling good at my job. Which is good, by the way. To feel like you're doing a good job is a good thing.

The next morning, I woke up early and read most of a little book that I highly recommend, references to which will appear, I'm sure, in many a life moment and many a blog post over the next years.
It's called Loving the Little Years, and it's by a delightful woman named Rachel Jankovich. More about it later, but if you have anyone at your house under 8, buy it. Today. I'll give you a dollar to go toward its purchase. I mean, after you've proven you've read it by taking an Accelerated Reader quiz.

I'm fairly ready to say that it needs to be read by every parent - not just moms - on or before the second birthday of the first child.

But more about that later. A lot more. I promise.

There is a chapter in her book where the author is talking about letting the children into the kitchen (and other spots to help), even if that means less gets done and the messes are bigger. And she remembers a specific anecdote. About tortillas.

This author mama realized, just before supper, that they didn't have enough tortillas. What did she do? She got out the flour and started making some. And the kids got in there with her and got flour everywhere, obviously. First, I absolutely identify with this - Our Monday Muffins are our best example. The kids get in there, and I sometimes spend the better part of a quarter hour fishing out egg shells. It's frustrating, but great, and it's what life is made of.

But, while I was reading, the identifying with the valuable kitchen mess isn't what got me.

What got me was the fact that she up and made her tortillas.
Do you know what I would have done? Not run out of tortillas.

Ha.

No, I do run out of tortillas. And baking powder. And cumin. And canned tomatoes (could have sworn I had 5 cans).

But how do I solve? I'd send (politely?) Paul to the store.

I thought to myself, "Maybe I could do more. Maybe my meal isn't really from scratch. I mean, I bought a package of flour tortillas at Kroger. I warmed them in a pan and all, but no hands were dirtied, no rolling pins used. Gosh. I mean, the fresh salsa is nice and all, but real love involves flour."

And thankfully, I've had enough grace drilled into my head (drilling grace? oxymoronic a bit?), by some people much further along in the journey than I, that this moment lasted a very few seconds in my psyche. But, sometimes that moment lasts longer...

Real love isn't salsa or flour or poached fish tossed with the perfect amount of lemon juice.

With what attitude am I cooking that great supper? Or putting together that 3,457th peanut butter and honey sandwich?
Am I excited to prick the taste buds and fill the bellies of my people?
Am I at work doing a good job for the sake of doing a good job? For the sake of fulfilling my role?

I've long had this test in the back of my head to see whether my heart is in the right place.

A test I now have a name for: The Great Tortilla Test.

Is it okay with me that someone is out there doing a better job?
Someone, somewhere made the salsa and the tortillas for their fish burritos last night.
And you know what? That's okey dokey by me. There were 23.5 seconds where it wasn't okay. And when I'm old and gray, hopefully those 23.5 seconds will dwindle to none.

We aren't making homes to be better homemakers than Sally down the street. Or to get into heaven - whether an earthly heaven or a real heaven.

We're doing it to make homes.

Laundry and salsa and yet another conversation about why knives are safe for seven year olds but not four year olds and all else are our sacrifices on the altar.

But what sacrifice does God desire? Homemade salsa? No? I really thought it was. No? I cannot chop jalapenos to get me into heaven? Oh, come on now, my hands stung from the scraping the seeds out.

God desires what?

Go to the Psalms

Psalm 51. Written during a time when sacrifices - like real live burnt offerings - were being put on altars. Not just salsa, but live baby sheep.
David writes this psalm after the whole Bathsheba debacle. You'd think God would be requiring a heck of a lot of lambs.

No?

Verse 51:17
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

So, yes, the feeding of people with the fish burritos is great. And it's something God wants. And blesses. But only if it passes the tortilla test. Only if I actually am offering the sacrifice with a contrite heart - Only if it is not filled with puffed up pride.

Someone is doing it (cooking, cleaning, sewing, love-making, educating, disciplining, clothes-washing) better, more than you or me. I promise.

Is that okay?

Yes? Awesome: keep on chopping the jalapenos!

No? Well, throw in the towel, because no amount of any of it is helping with anything.

It's Summer Time and the Reading's Awesome

2011-05-12T09:39:00.000-05:00

Don't really click to look inside....

When I was in Fifth grade, my teacher, the excellent, awesome, and legendary Mrs. Polk, had us complete an exercise in encouragement.
Each child in the class got a sheet of paper and wrote down the name of every other child in the class. Out beside each name, each child chose one thing about the person that they especially liked or just was generally great. Mrs. Polk then took a piece of nice paper, wrote our name all big and pretty in the middle, and then wrote our encouragements around it in a cloud, laminated it, and gave it to us as a present. I still have it. Somewhere.
I said she was awesome.

I remember most of the encouragements I got. (At the beginning of adolescence, your self-esteem, no matter how strong it started, has some faltering moments, and encouragements are huge). They were anonymous, and of course we all wondered who said what. I got one bizarre one: Great Cheerleader. Yes, I was a fifth grade cheerleader, and yes, that was the last time I was a cheerleader, but the fact that anyone at any point thought I made a good one, well.....

But, I got some that you'd expect as well. One of the ones that wasn't surprising to me or anyone was that no fewer than 3 of my 20 classmates commented on my reading. The most eloquent *cough* was "Likes to Read a lot." I don't know that this particular child, whoever he was, quite got the essence of encouraging words, but, it was true. Or, maybe he didn't like me at all, and that was the best thing he could come up with. Who knows.

I did read a lot. I sat on the curb each day after school waiting for my mother and I read. I ran into things in the hallway because I had my nose in a book. It didn't hurt my feelings when it was raining or freezing and we skipped recess and had free-reading in stead. I was poor at P.E., mediocre at art, music and Spanish, but our fifth weekly elective, Library, well, I kicked tail and took names.

I'm a nerd. I own it. Frankly, I owned it always.

And, folks, the acorn doesn't fall far. Paul and I will always require a certain amount of reading from our children - being both bibliophiles, and both teachers, so knowing how valuable ingestion of the written word.

But, we won't have to require it of our first born, because she's creating a life in which she'll also have "Likes to Read a lot" on her encouragement list. We lose her a lot because she is so enraptured she doesn't hear us calling her name. (And no, this is not okay, don't worry, she's not allowed to ignore us because she's reading anymore than she would be if she were watching television or playing a game.) She's voracious. This isn't a skill or an ability - it's an affinity. It's like Eason likes to climb. Yeah, he's good at it, but only 'cause he never quits, which is because he loves it so much. Ada Bee reads like I cook, beause it's the most fun thing she can think of. Nerd, jr. Which yes, I love, but I very much love Eason's affinities, which don't, as of yet, tend toward anything nerdy.

So, when you have a kid that likes to climb, you take him to the park as often as possible, and you conquer your tendency to fret when he's more than 3.7 feet off the ground. When you have a kid that likes to draw, you buy colored pencils and maybe art lessons. When you have a kid that likes to dance, well, you get the picture. We're supposed to encourage our children's talents and loves.

My friend Ragan has this little boy, who, incidentally is in my top five favorite kids ever. This little boy loves snakes, weeezirds (as collins says), and all other things reptilian or amphibian.
He doesn't just like them, but because he likes them, he's darn good at them. Do you have a snake in your yard that you wonder if it's poisonous or not? I have an almost-seven-year-old you can call. He knows. He can catch an animal like nothing I've ever seen. Ever. And sometimes he gifts them to my daughter. And that makes me love him a little more and a little less.

Do you know what my friend Ragan does? Well, the husband of Ragan and father of this sweet child is a great help in this, but Ragan herself, as Mama, is encouraging of this affinity and talent. She lets the child keep snakes in her house, for heavens sake. They're relegated to a certain room, but she has snakes (only perfectly safe ones, obviously) in her house. They read snake books and go to the science museum on snake day. He loves it, he's good at it, so his parents encourage it.

So, what to do with the little girl who cannot get enough books? Well, take her to the library of course. But what first? Make the child a summer reading list.

Ada, like most children, loves to have lists and goals. So, here is Ada Brooks's summer reading list.
Most of them are recommendations for her class (Rising 3rd Graders) from Jackson Classical, where she goes 2 days a week during the school year.
She has a corresponding Google Spreadsheet that she and I created together with dates she'd like to have them completed, number of pages in each, and where we'll find them (have to buy 2, own 2 already, 5 are free kindle books (public domain b/c they are old- awesome!), and 5 are found at our local library!).

Some have already been read aloud to her, but there is a difference, and now she needs and wants to read the words herself.

The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis (The First in the Narnia Series)
The True Story of Noah's Ark by Tom Dooley
The Cat of Bubastes by G. A. Henty
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
Detectives in Togas by Henry Winterfield
Basil of Baker Street by Eve Titus
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater
The Little Riders by Margaret Shemin
The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit
Goblin Market by Christia Rosetti
Twice Freed by Patricia St. John
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald
What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge

This list works out to be 1 book a week from now through mid-August. I'm going to require that she space them out until then, and if she finishes a book mid-week, she can read Nancy Drew or Encyclopedia Brown or whatever else she chooses as free reading. She and I are going to make a schedule and order them, alternating the easier and harder ones, the deeper and lighter ones. I haven't read all of these, so Amazon information is invaluable. Number of pages, reading difficulty and reader reviews are all helpful to me.

It would be wrong to expect nerdiness from all the Forster babies (though, with their genes, it could happen), but it would be equally unfortunate if I didn't support them in all of their endeavours, nerdy or not.

Have you read any of these? What would you take off? What would you add for rising third graders?

And now, off to the library we go.

Menu 5/9/11 - 5/15/11

2011-05-11T20:58:00.000-05:00

Monday: I had tons of roasted-chicken salad leftover from the Latin Workshop / Lunch on Saturday, so, rather than make what I had planned (fish tacos!) I made pretty great grilled chicken salad sandwiches, served it with leftover potato salad and a simple green salad. I'd be all self-deprecating about the sandwiches, but, well, I was shocked by their tastiness.

I have a very strong yet simple philosophy about sandwiches. Grill it or go home. Unless you're an open-faced tomato or a cucumber sandwich, you better be warm. On Monday, I took some store-bought large yeast rolls (also from Latin Workshop), sliced them in half, and added:

A thin layer of Dijon mustard on each side
Shaved red onion (I love shaved red onion like the Pope loves his hats)
Thick Sliced Tomato
A Few Pieces of Mixed Greens
A Slice of Munster Cheese
A generous blob of chicken salad

I then lined them up on the Panini maker, turned it on, and voila! Good Stuff.

Tuesday: My dear, sweet friend Jessie fed my husband and children while I was watching my little brother's graduation. After graduation, my Mama took me out for birthday supper at Walker's Drive-In, which, even though I live in a city with a blessedly good food scene (for its size and general keeping-up-with-culture), continues to be my definite favorite restaurant.

And every year, at the time of my birthday, it is soft shell crab season.
And Walkers (Chef Derek Emerson) does most things well. But it does soft shell crab better than anyone in America. I am prone to hyperbole, but I think this is perfectly legitimate. Better than anyone in America. So, I had two perfectly flash fried crabs, garlic mashed taters, thin beans, and awesome lemon butter sauce. And a Walker's house salad, my favorite salad ever (I know that's not hyperbolic, see, because it's just my opinion, and I'll promise its my favorite ever). And then for dessert, peanutbutter banana cake AND a giant brownie and ice cream. And a perfect gin martini. And an awesome glass of Malbec.

So, yes, awesomeness.

Wednesday: BBQ pulled pork at church, along with great mac & cheese, salad, baked beans

Thursday: Either Shrimp Pasta or Fish Tacos, depending on my mood/my day/which ingredients need to be used first.

Friday: My darling husband is taking me out for our anniversary (Three weeks late, but we don't care!) The restaurant we're trying, Table 100, opened on our anniversary, so that counts for something, right?

Saturday: My darling husband, on a roll he is, has arranged with a couple of my dear girlfriends, a very small birthday dinner for me. Cannot wait to see the menu they've planned!

Sunday: That afternoon, I'm privileged to help host a baby shower for my friend and former colleague, Amy. She's having a baby girl, Elizabeth Ann, this summer, and we're going to shower her with pink, pink, pink.

That night, we have our last book study meeting at our house that night. We're going to have grilled chicken fingers w/ comeback, open faced tomato sandwiches, hot onion souffle, and whatever others bring to contribute!

Whew - that should hold us!

"But Mama...."

2011-05-10T16:26:00.000-05:00

In general American culture in 2011, children are very much involved in every day life decisions. They pitch fits, argue, bargain, whine, fuss, cry, etc. and then decisions are altered, because, heaven forbid, the baby/toddler/young child/adolescent is perturbed.

Paul and I, and thankfully many of our fellow journeyers on the road, are trying to push back against this a bit. We often don't let our children offer up alternatives to the plan we've laid out. "No talking back. No arguing. No bargaining." Tone of the child governs how much of this alternative-pointing-out is allowed, because some is, but by and large, they are Puerto Rico on the Floor of the House - occasionally can offer an idea, but no vote is counted.

But, we have to be careful....

Yesterday, I cut up a watermelon. The children gobbled up an entire 1/4 of it. I thought this was a lot. Until today. Now the entire watermelon is gone.

With watermelon comes, yes, watermelon juice. Which, next to grenadine and the juice from my great grandmother's homemade pickles, is the stickiest substance on earth. It evaporates quickly leaving the perfect layer of contact-paper stickiness.

And then we went to the park. And they played and played and played hard.
So, park dirt + watermelon juice stickiness = well, they weren't Easter morning ready.

And then we came home. It was nap time. They were nothing short of disgusting.
Beautifully grimy little munchkins. We got out of the car, I said, "hey yo - all three of you go turn the shower on in my bathroom and just rinse off really well before nap time"

"But Mama"

"No Buts"

"But Mama"

"Ada, Eason, I'm serious - do not talk back. It is rest time. You must be slightly less gross before you lie on any bed in this house. Go, shower, now. And Collins, follow your siblings."

"Yes Ma'am, but may I ask you a question?"

"Yes, Ada, you may ask me a question."

"Mama - remember how earlier you said the tomatoes and herbs needed to be watered. Can we put on our bathingsuits and get cleaned off in the hose while you water the plants?"

Well, by darn, that's a marvelous idea.

Sometimes, the little buggers are right. They have a better idea than I do. Not just a more fun one (though it is almost always that), but an idea that actually makes good use of time and such. They're people, and like all people, they have things to offer to most situations, things we shouldn't always overrule or ignore.

So, no, Eason, you cannot have dessert first and promise to eat your veggies,

(And Yes, 9/10 Pictures of Eason are Blurry)

and no, Ada Brooks, you cannot quit learning to have attractive handwriting and just start typing,

and no Collins, you cannot skip today's nap.

(I cropped to an appropriate level of modesty, I thought, but I couldn't bear not to leave just a tiny hint of baby bum)

But, come to think of it, yes, let's all go get in the hose. And play and water plants and love life.

I'm thankful when the kids know better than I do.

Tibi Gratias Ago

2011-05-10T09:46:00.001-05:00

I've mentioned before that what we're doing for Ada for school right now is this weird, bizarre, awesome hybrid thing-a-majig. For two days a week, she goes to Jackson Classical, and for the other three days a week, she's at home with me. We find it to be an amazing balance for us. She and I get the accountability of other authority figures for her (She cannot just not do her English because it is annoying both of us - she has to to it, because Mrs. Lewis is going to check it; similarly, I have to actually make sure she knows stuff because she's going to be tested at school).
Ada gets the socializing with and calling to a higher level of achievement that having classmates provides, not to mention forming dear friendships with many of the children there. I get my week broken up from the monotony of the same thing every day. We get great academic counseling and test score interpretation help. And on and on and on.

But, one of the best things about Jackson Classical is not Ada being there for school (And Eason! In the Fall!). One of the best things is that I get to teach there. For two days a week, I get to go and, from roughly 8:30-3:00, teach young people. I love to teach. Or rather, I love to draw things out from my students. It's amazing to have these great conversations with people who are shorter than we.

In the fall, I'll get to teach:

Latin,
Logic,
Literature,
Critical Thinking

Pumped!

This past weekend, I got together with most of the 'upper school' moms (and right now, our upper school students are in 3rd-8th grades - we're still young!) to talk about the Latin program we'll be using and how best we can work together to teach it to our children. We had a great Saturday talking about conjugations and declensions, cases and persons and numbers. We also talked about the book we're using, Latin for Children - it's awesome - highly recommend, and the dialectic or Socratic method of teaching the book to the children.

It is important, in most subjects, especially once a child is 10 or so, not to just lecture. We teach best when we ask questions. It is infinitely better to say, "What do you think "Number" might mean when we're talking about a Latin verb?" than it is to say "When speaking of a Latin verb, "Number" indicates how many people or things are doing the action." Obviously, eventually, you may get to a point in all this questioning when you have to give the answer, but, often times no; oftentimes, the child comes to it on his or her own, and that is so very valuable.

I find myself more and more and more thankful for the Socratic method. I am thankful for the privilege of teaching and for my daughter's (And eventually sons') privilege to take good, hard stuff, not the pablum provided to most kiddos her age.

But most of all, the other day, I found myself thankful for community; for the encouragement provided by folks on the same road, who want the same things for their children. For their children to be kind, loved, bright, thoughtful, to have friends who care about them and challenge them.

We have been blessed with a great community. Thanks be to God.

ze menu: 5/2/11 - 5/8/11

2011-05-03T23:43:00.001-05:00

Monday, 5/2:
Lunch - Peanut Butter and Honey. Peanut butter and honey is a magnificent thing.
Supper - Red Beans and Rice, Biscuit Bread (I'm trying to get over my seasonal issue with Red Beans and Rice....Who ever said you couldn't eat it when it's hot? My father in law, apparently, ate it every Monday evening for 20 some odd years. And my grandmother-in-law more like 50 some odd years. It's great stuff.

Tuesday, 5/3
Lunch - Peanut Butter for the kids, Red Beans for me, their choice.
Supper - To Ma's for Spaghetti. I made a double batch of spaghetti sauce in December and froze half of it. It needed to be used. So we thawed it, made some noodles, and served it up. Sauce is a great thing to freeze for later! I am thankful for my freezer.

Wednesday, 5/4:
Lunch - Eater's choice of Spaghetti, Red Beans, Peanut Butter, Other leftovers scrummagable
Supper - Pizza at Church

Thursday 5/5:
Lunch - Same as Wednesday....
Supper - Well, some darling ladies from church are taking me to supper for my birthday. I'm fairly thrilled about it. Since that's happening, well, I may have purchased frozen pizzas. If I get to have my dream supper, why shouldn't the other four Forsters?

Friday 5/6:
Lunch - I feel I'm getting repetitive.
Supper - Well, I'm pretty much darn pumped about this. We're heading to Pepsi Pops. It's the Mississippi Symphony's spring outdoor concert. The 30th anniversary of the event, in fact. I remember, vividly, attending this as a very young child. It's on the Ross Barnett Reservoir, a big ol' lake, named after a big ol' racist governor of Mississippi. Despite its namesake, it provides amazing sunsets. Anyway, we're a goin'. It always provides a great opportunity for what I've dubbed....

dum dum dum duuuuummmmm

The Fancy Picnic. It requires a separate post. Someone beat me if I haven't posted it by Thursday... =)

Saturday 5/7:
Lunch - I'm so excited to be facilitating a Latin Workshop for Homeschool Moms. I'll be teaching Latin next year at Jackson Classical, and parents of the oldest kids I'll be teaching are attending a workshop so we can all brainstorm about the best ways to teach Latin grammar. Which is hard stuff. We're having lunch - a fancy salad bar. My job is Chicken Salad and Pasta Salad.

Supper - We're heading to game night at some of our favorite friends' abode. It's a snack food type supper, and I'm thinking, between Fancy Picnic Friday and Salad Bar Lunch on Saturday, I'll have enough leftovers to choke three mooses meese moose. I'm not in charge of supper, but I'm taking all of my leftovers to contribute!

Sunday 5/8:

Lunch - Mother's Day Lunch down south with Paul's Mama. Her birthday is also May 11th, so we'll be doing dual celebrating! I'm going to make her a cake - I haven't decided yet what kind - as well as marinate some chicken to throw on her grill and make some tater salad.

Supper - It's Mother's Day, for crying out loud, so I'm hoping not to cook....

I am thankful for food, for ingredients, for friends who hold me to high food standards, and most of all for fellow travelers on the road to share food with! What's the point of eating if you aren't eating with someone? (Unless it's cheese dip, and then, well, serve it up, honey, I'll eat it any which way).

Eason, the pot, Collins, the kettle

2011-05-03T13:08:00.006-05:00

My family has a few sayings that we throw around willynilly and, frankly, expect the whole world to understand.

Which is ridiculous.

Or maybe we don't expect them to understand - we just don't care if they do or not.

Which would be unkind.

Either way, we say things that sometimes are ridiculous.

Many of these sayings are abbreviations of saying that other people do understand.

My dad says, "Glass house, glass house" And what he means by that is, "People who find themselves in glass houses should not throw stones." (They shouldn't by the way, unless they are like me and feel trapped and want the house broken down so they can get out...)

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Eason, just a little while ago, came running to me, and said,

"Mama - I need your help. I want to play alone, and Collins won't let me."

Oh, really? You do? Huh.... That's interesting....

If we replace the second subject in that compound sentence guess what we have?

"Mama - I need your help. I want to play alone, and Eason won't let me."

Huh... Fascinating....

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Sometimes, when my children criticize something in others that they themselves have in spades, I just say "pot kettle"

Today, I actually took a moment to help Eason see how his life as the little brother could inform the way he lives his life as a big brother. He could be more patient with Collins, because he wishes Ada would be more patient. He could make a positive effort to include his brother when Collins is feeling left out. He could talk to him in a kind tone. He could wait for him, help him, love him.
And on the other side of things, he could respect Ada's wishes to be alone, especially if she ask's nicely. He could be not quite so annoying. He could not follow her around. He could not make messes and rely on her to clean them up.

So much to learn! Walk a mile, man, walk a mile.

Eason actually seemed to hear me. He's been playing very dotingly with Collins since our talk 40 minutes ago. Don't laugh. 40 minutes is a long internalization of a lesson around here.

Perhaps I should take moments to teach more often.

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Wonder if I can figure out a way for eldest-miss-impatient-pants to be a little sister for a day....

swallowed by the Red Sea

2011-05-02T07:31:00.008-05:00

Osama Bin Laden, confirmed dead, 1 May 2011.

(I learned this as I was being mocked at my window by an opossum, but that's a story for another day.)

The facebook statuses were all over the place.

There is a fairly sizable group of boot-in-your-ass folks celebrating with much glee. ("Sick Bastard- got what he deserved")
There are some more academic-minded people who are making note of the event merely because of its historical significance.
There are some people who would much rather go back to normal life and ignore the event, nearing offended that their television programming has been interrupted to broadcast this piece of news.
And then there is a group of people calling us to repent for being excited he's dead. ("True Christianity precludes us from being joyful about any man's death")

I don't know if I'm going to go there yet with the kiddos. Ada, my second grader, knows about September 11 and the twin towers. She has a vague notion of terrorism. She doesn't know the names of all of the guys involved.

But often we don't get to choose whether we go there. Children overhear conversations, radio news, read articles over our shoulders, etc. If we really, really want to protect them from something, we usually can, but Paul and I naturally tend toward explanation over sheltering.

(The Billboard promoting the Strip Joint on the Way to Church falls into the shelter category, however.)

So, since the little buggers may say to me, over the next week or so, "Who is this Osama character, and are we glad he's dead?" or some such, here we go:

Are we excited? Are we to grieve all death? What is the proper posture to take?

What is the proper view toward Osama, and by extension, all the bad guys?

Bad Guys? Bad Guys exist. Some people are actually bad. Yes, we're all sinners, but we aren't all bad guys.

Children know this intuitively, and it's important that we don't try to talk them out of it. The four-year-old disobeys and takes food to his room, or worse, gets frustrated and shoves his little brother. The nearing-seven-year-old has a bad attitude about nearly everything at one time or another, and can be, frankly, unpleasant. I have been known to speak pretty darn unkind words to my husband, to gossip, and to have hate in my heart toward fellow drivers on the road (and those are the sins I'm willing to own up to publicly.....)

Hitler rounded up the Jews and sent them to concentration camps.

The children know the difference. Don't try to convince them otherwise. Really.

People who kill innocents are bad guys. Osama Bin Laden is a terrorist. He's a bad guy. Yeah, we're all sinners, but we aren't all terrorists.

God is very, very clear in the bible that there are bad guys and good guys, who are still very much sinners. Jesus isn't the only good guy.

David - adulterer, murderer - good guy; Peter - denier of Christ, chopper off of ears - good guy; Rahab - woman of the night, betrayer of her people - good gal. Why? Because they, even and sometimes especially in their flawed, sinful natures and acts, are on the side of the Lord, on the side of love and peace and truth and honesty. They want the good guys to win - for the Lord of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to prevail.

(If you'd like a secular argument for this, almost any ethical or political system will work. Allowing the killing of innocents won't pass a utilitarian test, or just go with the social contract. We cannot allow the killing of innocents because the world will descend into a chaotic, Lockean state of nature, so we have all come together and agreed that killing of innocents is something we'd like to collectively ban and prevent. We've given up our right to kill other people at will so as to ensure that other folks aren't allowed either, and we've called the people who do it, you guessed it, bad guys.)

Back to the biblical characters: They are all saved by their faith, not because they are sinless. And the size or horror of the sin is irrelevant, it seems. Eason's 37th apple-in-his-room doesn't prevent his salvation, and neither did David's arranged and premeditated murder of Uriah. But Pharoah's sin is different, right? Hitler and Stalin aren't even saved under the most gracious of views, right? Mostly, our bad guys qualification is based on what these people do to society. But there is some 'hardness of heart' going on too, right? Either way....

... there are bad guys. We'll often times disagree about who they are, but they exist.

If there are bad guys, and there are (see above), Osama is a bad guy, we'd almost all agree, right?

So, what's our proper attitude toward bad guys? And, consequently to their death?

Well, I think the Book of Common Prayer describes the right, first, governing attitude:

O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love
our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth:
deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in
your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

We are to pray for our enemies to come to the Father. To come to truth. To deny hatred, cruelty and revenge. And for us to do the same: we also need to stay away from these traits, and don't think, that because we are good guys, we're not able to fall into hatred, cruelty, and revenge.

It would be wrong for us to prefer the death of Osama to his conversion and living a right life. We are called never to hate, never to be cruel, and never to seek revenge.
The boot in your ass guys need a little (or a lot of) tempering.

But is it okay for us to be glad he's dead?

Well, yes. Heavens yes, in fact.

Why?

Because, back to basics here, he was killing innocent people. It's not as though he had stopped being a bad guy.
Preach to him, pray for him, attempt to capture and try him in a court of law, but ultimately, if he's going to flog women for being rape victims or organize the mass murder of innocents for being capitalists, he's got to be stopped. The sooner the better.

This is where it's hard with children. We absolutely do not want to foment hatred or a sense of self-righteous revenge. We want the opposite. We are trying our best to train up humble servants who judge not, notice the plank first, and know full well that they are no better than their sinning neighbor. But we are for good prevailing over evil, and sometimes that comes down to a CIA sniper. Yes, that should be done with great trepidation, and we've not enough of that fear and trembling in 21st century America.
But, if ever a guy demanded, by his actions, to be at the other end of a rifle, Bin Laden is he.

If Eason turns out to be a boot-in-the-ass, it's-the-American-way type of guy, I'll cry. And maybe place my own boot...

But, if we get trapped in "But we are supposed to love our enemies" land so much so that we allow our enemies to ruthlessly rape and murder our friends, we are no longer loving anyone; we're just paralyzed.

It's good that Osama is dead, because it's good that he's been stopped. It's good that he's dead, because God did not see fit to stop him by conversion or capture. Rejoice that the bad guy has been stopped (not in his death, per se), that our men and women in uniform have succeeded, and thus people have been saved. The children already know that this is the right reaction. We don't celebrate the death - at all - but we celebrate the victory of good over evil, and are fairly much over the death.

We read to our children the Exodus story. The story of a people enslaved, abused, murdered. A sinful people, no doubt, but a people under the thumb of a much worse dictator - a bad guy. We go through all the plagues. And then the sun-god Pharoah goes back on his word again. And chases after the fleeing Israelites. God allows the the walls of the Red Sea to fall. And a large chunk of Pharoah's army drowns, thrashing about in a violent death. And yet, the children don't lose sleep, or even blink an eye, really, over the Egyptians being swallowed by the Red Sea. They are the bad guys; the people of Israel were thus saved.

It's a hard line to walk, but we've a responsibility, as people, and an extra one as parents, to walk it: To teach them that sometimes death is the route to deliverance, and the rejoicing over the deliverance is the natural and right reaction.

That's a difficult belief to hold in tension, much less teach. But hop on board, friends, this is the life we've been given.

a real woman

2011-05-01T16:19:00.005-05:00

As soon as Ada's personality started to come out, it was clear that she was all girl. She wanted to sit and read books (and still does). She has always loved a good costume, and already elicited promises from me for when pierced ears, high heels, lipstick, mascara, boyfriends will be appropriate.

(for the curious and for when she tries to argue with me later:

Pierced Ears: Ash Wednesday of Sixth Grade (So she can wear new and beautiful earrings for Easter that year - you know, how you have to wear the ugly little ball studs for six weeks before you can take them out and put in pretty earrings? I got mine pierced six weeks before sixth grade graduation so I could wear pretty little earrings during the ceremony. Well, who knows if Ada will have a sixth grade graduation, but we'll always have Easter, right?)

High Heels: Thirteen (And still not like pumps - just the little teenage square-type high heels)

Lipstick: Twelve

Mascara: Fourteen

Boyfriends: Thirty Seven. (she laughs. I don't. until later. when I laugh a lot).

She's a girl's girl. She loves to set a table, light a candle, arrange a flower. She loves to dress to the nines, have a 'braided crown'.

I've often lamented this. I had two little brothers and was the best of friends with the little boys in the neighborhood. I've wished for her to be a little more play-in-the-mud, wear-camo-to-ensure-a-win-at-capture-the-flag, catch-snakes, bruises-on-legs-the-origin-of-which-we-know-not type of a girl.

Please don't get me wrong. I could write books about the importance of femininity and masculinity and how much we want our boys to grow into men and our girl to grow into a real woman. I am so proud of her love of beauty and of creating the perfectly textured whipped cream. I look forward to her womanliness growing more and more. But, so much of childhood is dirty and romping and just plain kid fun. I haven't wanted her to miss out while primping in front of the mirror.

But, there is no need to worry. Her little brothers have begun their epic influence. Her best guy friends' ideas have started to creep in. And the other day, I looked over, and:

I believe she's having plenty of kid fun.

(Incidentally, hang a lizard from your ear sometime soon. It's a thrill).

the fates intervened

2011-04-28T08:20:00.005-05:00

Over the last few weeks, we've had an awful lot of weather events. We've been in the hallway a lot. We've had no less than three "Stick Picking-Up" outings, and most of those 'sticks' really qualified as small branches. We have fences of ours and fences of friends to mend.

A couple of weeks ago, we were powerless at school, sirens going off, which may have led to chanting Latin and singing hymns while under our desks. We are not nerdy, I promise. A few minutes before we got under our desks, the same storm system was running through our dear friends' neighborhood, knocking over hundred foot oaks and destroying homes, banks, businesses.

Yesterday, there were more tornadic events. My little brother in Oxford, Mississippi, as an Ole Miss student, was being prayed for by weathermen. When the weathermen start praying, and exhorting others to pray, for specific groups of people, you should probably look up and quickly scurry to the hallway. Of course my little brother, being a thinks-he's-invincible-21-year-old, was outside watching roofs be torn off, talking to me on the phone, causing me heart palpitations.

Brother is fine (clearly due to the weatherman's exhortations...), but a lot of people are not. Over 100 people are confirmed dead in the Southeastern states. A tornado estimated to be a mile wide went tumbling through Tuscaloosa, Alabama, causing damage reminiscent of Katrina. This qualified as weather. And deserves much prayer.

There has been lots of weather. This calls us to faith and to peace, both of which can be hard during the sirens. It also calls us, I believe, to act seriously while not letting our hearts and minds remain in a place of somber worry. We need to hop up, put fences back up, and learn to laugh. Either we believe in an omni-everything God or we don't. If we do, we can do nothing but pray and rely on His promises to us. If we don't, nothing to do at all. But either way, worrying is never a help.

I've been trying to model this and explain this to our children. Playing card games in the hallway is much more help than discussing all the possible eventualities. Be honest, move on.

Tornadoes are scary, they can kill people, God is control, the chances of it hitting our house are very low, we should be prepare anyway, now who wants to deal the UNO cards?

I love when I can put things into sayings for the kids. They are affected by humor and sing-song tones. I was just thinking that I'd love a saying about how we deal with weather that we don't particularly like, or on the other end of the spectrum, that is actually very scary.

And then the fates intervened.

While compiling a list of children's required literature, I remembered the thing I keep remembering - I haven't done a great job teaching poetry. And I like poetry. Especially the old stuff that is actually written in a particular meter - None of this current writers-almanac-garrison-keilor-free-verse stuff. I hear some of that 'poetry' and think, "ooh - you can ramble in non-complete sentences....so can my four year old"

Anyway...

A more seasoned homeschooling Mama pointed me to a site to help with my required reading list, and while there, I stumbled onto this list of 200 poems for first graders.

And I scrolled down to April (they were sweet and organized them by seasonal appropriateness. Don't want to talk about Snow in July).

And this little, practically perfect in every way ditty popped up.

Weather
anonymous

Whether the weather be fine
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be hot,
We'll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not.

of the black eyed variety

2011-04-26T19:41:00.003-05:00

Every spring, I crave black-eyed peas.

This kind:

Not this kind, ever, especially post superbowl xlv:

I was about to say "I don't know why, but every spring I crave black-eyed peas" but that would be a lie.

I know exactly why.

My mother, whilst I was growing up, was not a meat and potatoes kind of girl, but, as in most of America, most of her meals had some type of meat in them. We weren't pot roast people or roast chicken people (like my family now is), but we were spaghetti sauce with ground beef and chicken enchilada people.

But every summer, from April through September, inclusive (because that is summer here), my mother would have what she deemed "vegetable night." This seems silly, because we had vegetables every night, and we were not always meat-ed people (meatless taco salad, cheese ravioli, red beans and rice, black bean soup are just four entrees I can remember that appeared sans meat).

But I understand it now. These vegetable nights were when she could serve vegetables that tasted like God meant them to taste. These vegetable nights were to showcase the vegetables. We didn't have broccoli or carrots or salad like on every other night. These vegetable nights almost always followed a trip to the farmers market.

We had tomatoes, served alone, with dash of salt and pepper. We had corn on the cob, boiled for just a hot minute and then buttered (or, per my mother, margarined, don't get me started, bless her heart), salt and peppered. We usually had cornbread. And we had peas. Sometimes purple hull peas, sometimes I don't even know what, sometimes just the plain ol' pea of the black-eyed variety. If we were lucky, we got fried okra to along with it, or if my mother had her way, sauteed squash, heavy on the onions. And if my baby brother, her baby child, was around, we also had a tomato tart. Because, see, it's his favorite.

These nights found my mother at her best, that is, my mother without measuring spoons. She was just throwing stuff in pots and pans, as she well should be. It is harder for her to do that than it is for me; her motto is, "If I make it the way the recipe says and it tastes good, why would I mess with it?"

Mine is, "I like variety and have an overconfidence that often leads to greatness, but at least as often leads to 'I should have just followed the recipe.'"

Thus, I walk the line.

But I look back on these hot, summer evenings with great joy in my heart. She just threw in butter, salt, sugar, pepper with abandon.

Mama was always working from farmers market peas. She, except on new years, never bought non-fresh peas. She didn't like them enough to try to dress up a supermarket distant fourth place when she could just be patient and wait for a Mississippi backyard blue ribbon champion.

I did inherited neither her wed-to-recipe-ness nor her patience. But I did inherit, with a vengeance, her love of food and her seasonality.

I am growing my herbs (more on that later this week). Paul has planted his tomatoes. My children have been playing in the sprinkler. The air conditioning is on; if I have to sweat, I also get to eat summer vegetables.

I've been incorporating summer veggies into our menus for the last few weeks: I've made a tomato tart (but had to buy basil for it), we've had corn on the cob, and I've made squash.

But this week, I felt it come on. A need for a veggie night.

So, tonight we did it. Though, we'll have better ones later in the year, when all the veggies can be farmers market.

We had corn on the cob (which Ada slathered with butter, I protested, she said, "I gave up butter for lent, Mama, I have to enjoy Easter"); we had biscuit bread - as southern as southern can be; we had a big green salad; we had leftover Easter mac and cheese; and we had black-eyed peas.

Now, fresh black-eyed peas should be nearing unadulterated. God made them a certain way, and you should only add a little onion, salt and pepper to them.

But dried peas in a bag from Kroger need a little more help. And since it ain't culinary summer quite yet, we had the latter.

So I googled and messed around and so forth. Ultimately, I fiddled with a Paula Deen recipe.

And this is what I did. Paul and I highly recommend it. If you have "but I don't like pie-see food Mama" people at your house, cut down on the pepper, chili powder and onion. But as is, this is not a spicy dish - just a little hint of a kick.

1 lb dried black eyed peas, soaked (I used the quick soak method taught on the bag, and was very satisfied - that's a first time for me)

1 onion, sized to preference - I used large - are you shocked? Cut into whatever size pieces of cooked onion you prefer

In a pan over high heat, put a mixture of olive oil and bacon grease, the second of which you have dutifully saved in a jar in your refrigerator for occasions such as this. If you have not done so, you can fry up some bacon really quickly and crumble to throw on top of the black eyed peas. Or you can skip the bacon grease and go with some butter. I think my mixture was about a tablespoon of each.

Throw in onion, saute over medium heat for about 6 minutes, until soft - you don't have to get it to a translucent point.
Then add:

1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
3/4 teaspoons pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 can Rotel (Or, obviously, store brand tomatoes and green chilies, but don't you think everyone knows what Rotel is better than "Can of Diced Tomatoes and Green Chilies", huh, don't ya?)

Stir around for a bit.

Toss in soaked beans and 4-5 cups of water. Bring to a boil. Cover. Cook on Medium or Medium-Low heat for 45 minutes to an hour.

Serve and enjoy! On veggie night or whenever the mood so strikes.

Food 4/25/11 - 5/1/11

2011-04-26T13:16:00.003-05:00

Monday 4/25: Bless you, Bean Burritos. Bless you for all that you have been, are and will be again. Bless you for your ease of preparation and for the excitement of each family member when they smell the cumin. Bless you still, for while we eat you often, we are never sick of you. Most especially last night, because it had been almost 2 months since our last visit.

Tuesday 4/26: Black Eyed Peas, Corn on the Cob, Green Beans, Biscuit Bread, Roasted New Potatoes - A Vegetarian Feast!

Wednesday 4/27: Subway at Church

Thursday 4/28: I'm being fed by a girlfriend - who has promised breaded eggplant/tomatoes/provolone/pesto sandwiches, but I'm feeding all of our children. I'm going to roast some chickens, and toss some noodles with butter and parmesan for the little buggers. One chicken will feed a ton of kids, plus Paul, probably; this will give me a ton of roast chicken left over for the weekend.

Friday 4/29: I'm sending my husband and older two children off for a one night camping excursion. I have a slight problem - Ada doesn't like hot dogs at all. I know I know - she's not american. But she doesn't. So, I'll likely get hotdogs for everyone else and make her a turkey sandwich. Obviously, also, material for s'mores. Maybe send a pasta salad to keep them carbed up. And then bacon and eggs and the giant cast iron skillet for breakfast. Also, some croissants, probably to help them stay full. Can you tell I worry that if I'm not there to see them eat, they might die?

Saturday 4/30: Collins and I will join the campers and the rest of our church for our annual crawfish boil. So we'll eat.... well....crawfish. And shrimp and corn and potatoes and burgers and hot dogs and we'll never eat again. I'll bring a dessert to share - I'm thinking something non-messy. So a cookie or some such. Maybe peanut butter. With hershey kisses. A throwback to the 90s. A beautiful, sweet throwback.

Sunday 5/1: Lunch - Rosemary Pork Roast, Mashed Potatoes, Something Green, Something Sweet

Sunday 5/1: Supper - Book Study meeting.

Food From Ages Past

2011-04-26T09:39:00.001-05:00

I've been very delinquent in food blogging and somewhat delinquent in food preparing - which, admittedly for me, means cooking 3-4 suppers a week instead of 6, but such is life.

Saddle her back up and hop back on.

Going backwards a bit:

(This is an exercise in warding off alzheimers - try to remember what you've eaten for each meal for the last 5 some odd weeks)

Friday, 3/18 - Pasta with Vodka Sauce, Grilled Chicken, Comeback Sauce, Roasted Potatoes, Asparagus, Hollandaise, Pavlova for dessert.

Saturday, 3/19 - We went to the St. Patrick's Parade all day, and I made a BBQ feast for supper. Pulled Pork, Beans, Slaw, Lemon Mint Sorbet.

Sunday, 3/20 - We had church book study to which I contributed fruit - There were all sorts of other goodies there - dips and finger sandwiches and such.

Monday, 3/21 - Pork Tenderloin, Mashed Taters, Biscuit Bread, Salad

Tuesday, 3/22 - Leftovers/MishMash

Wednesday, 3/23 - Buttermilk chicken, rice, roasted broccoli.

Thursday, 3/24 - I went out to eat for a friends birthday dinner - Rest of family had cheese ravioli. Have I told you about cheese ravioli? You get it frozen from Kroger, boil it for four minutes, drain, and pour a jar of spaghetti sauce over it. It's not nearly so terrible for you as the prepared foods you can buy at the store, but it's just as fast and easy and the family still feels fed. It's Paul's culinary specialty for when I'm out of pocket. Out of pocket is a great phrase.

Friday, 3/25 - Paul took kids to a baseball game and the little ones feasted on a hotdog and a hamburger and even some icees, I hear. Then he came home and we ordered out Roosters with some friends. Sometimes, you need to order out on a Friday night. (Though you can see what I mean by delinquency)

Saturday, 3/26 - Eason's birthday party! Hot dogs on the grill, chips, grapes, homemade pickles

Sunday, 3/27 - Lunch - Sam's club pizza!
Supper - Reuben Dip, Rotel, Chicken Tortilla Soup, Italian Sauteed Shrimp,
Fettucine Alfredo, Spinach Salad, Strawberry Shortcake, we're fat, it's the sabbath, what can I say.

Monday, 3/28: Fajitas - chicken and steak - the chicken was much better, beans, rice, guac, all the fixings - it was really quite fun, and I'll add it to the rotation.

Tuesday, 3/29: Creamy caramelized onion, grilled chicken, artichoke pasta, chicken tortilla soup, big green salad

Wednesday 3/30: Subway at Church

Thursday 3/31: Sloppy Joes, Green Beans

Friday 4/1: Burgers with all the fixin's, mashed taters, onion rings (I'm in love with homemade onion rings - I need to post the recipe!)

Saturday 4/2: Hosted by family friends to a dinner celebrating my dad's recent marriage - Had salmon, phenomenal pasta, a great salad, and I forget what else...

Sunday 4/3: Church Book Study at our house - snack food brought by all.

Monday 4/4: Leftovers

Tuesday 4/5: Black Bean Soup, Paninis, Salad

Wednesday 4/6: Pizza at church

Thursday 4/7: To a dear friend's art show, out to Bravo for supper, where I had great soup and some yummy as always Bruschetta! (Brushetta? or Broosketta?)

Friday 4/8: Grilled chicken, sweet potato fries, Other things....

Saturday 4/9: Paul and I spur of the moment found ourselves kidless and we went and spent a gift certificate at a local spot called Aladdin.

Sunday 4/10: For lunch - I made a roasted turkey, Green Beans and Footprint cake...

Sunday night 4/10: We went to the cabin with my daddy and some friends and had a feast comprised of leftovers and tomato tart, corn on the cob, salsa verde, hot dogs on the grill..

Monday 4/11: Supper - Veggie Quesadillas, second half of batch of black bean soup

Tuesday 4/12: Spicy Beef Roast, Green Beans, Potatoes

Wednesday 4/13: Pulled pork at church

Thursday 4/14: Arts, Eats and Beats - neighborhood spring art festival - snacked there, came home and finished off supper with leftovers

Friday 4/15: Cock of the Walk - my favorite place maybe ever - fried catfish, hushpuppies, french fries, onion rings, dill pickles, marinated onions, best cole slaw ever.

Saturday 4/16: Big lunch with my in laws - Grilled chicken, giant salad, potato salad, grilled veggies, grilled pineapple

Sunday 4/17: Lunch - Chicken Romano, Caesar Salad, Frozen Strawberry Margarita Cheesecake, courtesy of my friend Calen.

Sunday Supper 4/17 - Church book study - I contributed Rotel dip. Sometimes, ya gotsta do it.

Monday 4/18: Pot Roast, Taters, etc.

Tuesday 4/19: Cold Corn Salad, Arugula Salad, Burgers on Grill, Buttermilk Pie... =)

Wednesday 4/20: Pizza at Church

Maundy Thursday 4/21: Cheese Board, Biscuit Bread, Maundy Thursday Soup (chickpeas, garlic, spices), Fruit

Good Friday and Mine and Paul's Anniversary, 4/22: Shells and Cheese out of the box...What can I say - he's a ridiculous person, but he knows what he wants.

Easter Vigil 4/23: To my dads for a going away party for a friend - Baked Beans, Burgers on Grill, Hummus, Arugula and Mozzarella hot dip, blah blah blah.

Easter Sunday!

For both lunch and supper:

From Scratch, with a hostess gift I received of Wisconsin Cheddar, Mac & Cheese
Deviled the hellfire out of some eggs
Three Bean Salad - An Easter Culinary Tradition. I love the vinegarry, sweetness of it.
Homemade yeast rolls

Contributed by others at lunch:
Amazingly smoked ham and turkey
Super yummy hashbrown casserole
Green Beans
Fruit
Death by Chocolate
Perfect Strawberry Shortcake

Contributed by others at supper:
Perfect Pork Tenderloin
Grilled Pineapple
Blueberry Yum Yum.

No, I have not eaten since Sunday.... =)

talk about a mixed bag

2011-04-24T17:50:00.002-05:00

I've been social-internetless for the last 7 or so weeks.

By social-internet, I mean mainly that I haven't been on facebook. I did not make myself give up wikipedia-ing the eating habits of various bugs, which I do, an average of once daily, because of questions for the myriad of bug collectors I have around here. I haven't been facebooking. I had not planned on giving up blogging, but it just sort of happened. Why? Because I didn't sit down at the computer to 'quickly check facebook' and end up remembering that I really needed to update this little ol' blog here for fear that my children not have ANY record of their childhood.

So, no facebook and no blogging, and no really reading of blogs. Basically, my only computer time has been at night, with Paul, watching the latest Community on Hulu after the children are in bed and we are literally too tired to talk. We just hold hands and make grunting sounds at the television (computer) indicating whether we think it is funny or not. Which lately, it has not been.

So, did this unplugged (or half-plugged) existence revolutionize our lives? Did it make us feel disconnected? Did we craft more and visit more and play more board games? Were we out of the loop?

Yes.

I missed a couple of engagement and pregnancy announcements that were made via facebook, and it did sort of make me feel a bit left out. I did pray more. I did read more. Most importantly, I did play more with my children.

Since we homeschool, we are together a lot. We 'do school' for a while each morning, and then at some point, we take a break. During this break, the children play; usually, I'd catch up on email, and inevitably end up searching for creative new recipes or reading about the potty training woes of my friends or researching the latest in latin curricula. None of these is bad. At all.

But over the last few weeks, I've done a lot more playing. Chutes and Ladders (the worst game EVER), Set (the best game EVER), or just I was the patient to Ada's doctor and Eason's nurse. Or I actually got down on the floor and built blocks with Collins, much to his delight.

I like the unplugged feel.

But, I remain fixed in my "everything in moderation" philosophy about the intranets. It's not poison and it's not life. It's yet another thing. Familys are not made or broken, and neither are friendships, based on the internet. There are many a families that spent the entire 1950s and 1960s at home baking bread together who do not speak more than twice a year, and there are families now that are 'connected' and that leads to exactly that - being more connected than they would otherwise be.

I like to hear that others are having potty training woes (Collins's training is on the horizon and I ain't pleased one bit about it); I like to be able to sit and have 'screen time' that is my own; I like to see pictures of my friends' weddings that I could not make because they got married in, you know, the British Virgin Islands or some such.

I also like to build blocks with my baby; talk about a mixed bag.

So, an Easter toast:

To the via media.

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!
The Lord is Risen indeed, Halelujah!

what is thankful house?

2011-04-15T15:35:00.000-05:00

We live in a house.

We are a family of five.

We're trying to be thankful.

I, Ann Lowrey, am the primary author of this here website. I am the goose, married to my gander, Paul, and we have three goslings, an eldest girl, Ada, and her two little brothers, Eason and Collins, approximately 7, 4, and 2 years respectively.

We do a lot - we cook (and eat), we host (and visit), we discipline (and are disciplined), we educate (and, goodness knows, are educated).

We mess up a lot, being human and all, but the thread that brings us back to center is gratitude. We are trying to be thankful - to God and to all of those around us. For our friends, our health, our things, our appetites. If only the metabolisms always went along with the appetites.

Thankful House is just us, and a place for you to come and be thankful with us. We love help along the way and hope to be that for a few folks as well.

And, whether we're blessed enough to live in your neighborhood, or you stumbled upon us in a land far away, we are thankful for you. Stick around, drop us a line, and laugh with us, please.

oh who cares why....

2011-03-08T14:42:00.003-06:00

So, Lent starts tomorrow.

Which makes today Mardi Gras.

But the British, of which I am one (both spiritually and ancestorally), don't like calling things Gras.
Fat.
So crass. So French. So Bestial.
Beyond tacky.

But, the people over there in the UK still had to fast - Which meant that we had to get rid of our eggs and our sugar and our butter and all the good stuff you might eat drastically less of during Lent. One last culinary hoorah. And what better thing to do that with than pancakes.

Or something.

Who cares why the English eat pancakes. But they do, and so do we displaced Anglicans at heart.

And who wants pancakes without bacon?

So, I'm getting out the griddle and making a pancake feast.

This serves another example of the markers we give children. I could preach them a sermon about Shrove Tuesday or have them read an article (and eldest baby girl may have been doing a bit of that today), but you know what they'll remember most?

Syrup.

Tomorrow, we repent. But today, we drizzle and sop and all things sticky.

and to dust you shall return

2011-03-08T07:01:00.005-06:00

We 'do' lent at our house.

(I have a tendency to be overly ambitious with my lenten goals, and so sometimes I fail at doing lent, but we try.)

Why?

Well, it's complicated. First of all, we do not believe that doing lent is like doing the sabbath - required for all Christians everywhere. We are required to keep the Sabbath, which in our world may mean a additional things, but what it definitely means is weekly corporate worship.

There has long been a discussion of whether or not we should 'keep days': Paul (the apostle, not my husband...) tells us that keeping days will not earn favor with God (and by extension we are no longer required so to do) (Gal.4:10). So, we can throw out day keeping as a requirement; unlike our Roman brothers and sisters, we, in the freefromthePope world, don't have Holy Days of Obligation.

But, the traditional Presbyterian (the branch of the church in which I currently find myself) position had a little bit of throwing the Baby out with the Bathwater. That is to say, we knew that the Church couldn't (and shouldn't so pretend to) determine our salvation based on whether we made it to mass on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

But along with that, we threw out the entire church calendar.
There went the Baby.

Or maybe not the baby, in my opinion, at least something useful.

Why useful?

Well, we humans tend to forget things. We especially tend to forget things we don't particularly like. If it were up to us, we'd probably just have Christmas and Easter. And Christmas and Easter again.
And Christmas and Easter are great - they are both celebrations of hallelujahs, of wonderfulness, of Christ, of Grace.

And grace is good. It's not just good, it's it. It is the story. The climax. The point.

But guess how Grace doesn't make sense?

Alone.

It's like Cinderella meeting Prince Charming without our having seen her scrubbing the floor.

It's like a wedding day without the courtship.

And, here in America, protestant land, we have done just that. We have gone with grace alone - with Christmas and Easter only (and we don't even all go to church at Christmas - don't get me started...), and if you look around, we seem to have forgotten the evil stepmother.

The hours on our knees.

The altar, the sacrifices, the law.

And it shows in the lives we lead. We are overgraced and underhumbled.

What does this have to do with the Church calendar? Well, it is the forgetting the things we want to forget and remembering the things we want to remember: We don't like the altars or the law. But they're necessary. And something that helps us remember is Lent.

Lent is the season in the church calendar that reminds us of the story behind the Grace. Of the law. Of our humanness and of our need for Christ.

And, frankly, I need reminding. I'm a seasonal gal, and an absent minded professor on top of that. I operate seasonally - I drink red wine in the winter and white in the summer; I get so excited for red beans and rice and heavy stews as soon as the leaves start to change; in May, it's all I can do not to make pitchers and pitchers of pina coladas and sit on the back deck dreaming of the gardens I have not planted.

I am not the only one. We are seasonal creatures. We were created for the seasons and the seasons were created for us.

This is why all the people in Southern California are insane.

=) Gotcha.

Anyway, I need the seasons as reminders, or my life would be all out of whack. The same with my spiritual life. I need Advent and Epiphany and Pentecost and most definitely Lent.

So, what do we do with Lent? Well, it has been traditionally a time for fasting.
Find a major form of spirituality that is not all tied up with food, and you will have found something noteworthy. And we Christians are no different. Paul (again, apostle, not husband) preached about food; one of our very few sacraments is the Eucharist, the Great Thanksgiving, the Lord's Supper.

What do we do to commune - to sign and seal our common relationship with Christ?

We don't shake hands or hug or kiss or make love or visit. We eat together. Bread and Wine.

So, we fast. And it needs to be from food.

But, Lent is a fast with a purpose (and it's not to look better in our bathingsuits, like one darling little fluttery girl once told me). It's a fast to have us contemplate; to have us pray and meditate on our sin and our need for Christ. It is there to get us ready for Easter; to make us know what the resurrection means.

And sometimes to do that requires more than just giving up food.

For me it requires a couple of things, and one is that it requires that I limit my media consumption.

Television and the Internet are, frankly, the opposite of contemplative. A big part of my non-contemplative day is time I spend cruising CraigsList, education blogs, Wikipedia or, most for me, Facebook. I love the comfort of witty, but non-consequential updates from my friends and family. I love to see pictures of my friends and of their children. I love to connect with those whom I don't often get to connect. I love to see what funny things people can come up with to respond to other's comments. I love it. But it ain't helpin' me contemplate jack.

So, this year, for the third year in a row, during Lent I'll be deactivating my facebook account. I'll be out of the loop a bit for the next 46 days, but it'll be a good out of the loop. That out of the loopness will force me into having time for other things - most specifically for prayer, reading of scripture and meditation.

This is not a fast. A fast is inherently tied to food, and we've got that going too, but there is something to be said for arranging the season so that it is better able to help you do what it's there to do to begin with.

So, adios Facebook. See you in late April or early May.

a lot in common with drunken fraternity boys

2011-03-03T11:00:00.000-06:00

My first and most favorite girl child has a tendency to be a frustrated big sister. Why?
Because my second and most fun child has a tendency to be an annoying little brother.

Frustration is not the problem - it's life - it's the reaction that matters, right? But Ada doesn't always react well...
I mean, we're all going to be frustrated at something most days of our lives.

Poor drivers, milk cartons with holes in them, 3,923 loads of laundry left to fold, miscommunications, our own sin, onions that won't hurry up and saute, husbands that don't call when they're going to be late, children that spill things and walk away, and, yes, little brothers that won't leave you alone.

They keep following you everywhere.

Or climbing up on your bed.

Or interrupting your reading time.

Or drawing on your paper.

And, like any imperfect six year old who nonetheless expects perfection out of herself and everyone around her, especially her little brother, Ada gets frustrated. Bee doesn't particularly like Eason to bother her. Would you?

Eason and Ada still share a room. In a year or four, we'll have to move her out, and Collins in to Eason's room, but as long as Collins will stay in his baby bed, everyone is going to stay where he or she is.

And at night, Eason can become a bit needy.

And he worships his sister. We're working on that, but it's a nuanced issue, so it takes time. When Eason becomes needy at bedtime, he gets up on the bunk bed belonging to Ada. And sometimes Ada loves on him and he scurries back to his own bed.

But sometimes she gets irritated. He's invading HER space AGAIN, and he WON'T MIND.

The rule, as should be obvious, is that if Ada doesn't want him on her bed she's supposed to

(1) Ask him nicely to get down.
To which he should respond by respecting her wishes and
(2) Getting down with all deliberate speed.
If (2) doesn't happen, she's supposed to
(3)calmly remind him
that by not respecting her wishes in this case, he's actually disobeying his parents who have instructed him that if Ada calmly requests for him to leave her bed, he needs to comply.
To which he's supposed to respond by now engaging in step (2). If that doesn't happen, Ada is supposed to
(4) Calmy remove herself from the situation and come get us to intervene.

And this is what happens. Because secretly we're living in Eden, or we're the Walton or the Ingalls family and everyone obeys first and if they don't, they feel genuinely bad about it, and everyone works together for the good of each individual.

Right.

So, what actually happens is that Eason gets up on the bed, Ada yells at him, or pushes him off, or pinches him. And if she does remember to proceed with step 3, Eason almost never actually gets down. He just becomes more belligerent.

After all, almost four year olds have a lot in common with drunken fraternity boys, and at bedtime, those commonalities are exacerbated.

And we've never before made it to step (4).

Until a couple of weeks ago.

One Friday evening, I think, in February, Paul had tucked the children in bed, and we were proceeding to have a nice adult supper with some nice adult friends.
All of a sudden, without any warning, my eldest child appeared.
I didn't even hear any conflict preceding this.

She said, 'I've asked Eason to get down from my bed, and he won't. Would you please come help me?'

Dern.
Dadgommit.
Rrrraaahhhh.

Sometimes, we don't love the obedience. I didn't want to get up. I wanted her to deal with it. Just shove him off the bed, I thought to myself. My soup is getting cold.

I'm a monster.

One of us, I think Paul, begrudgingly got up. And went and did our job. You know, as the parents living at this house.

But, I know she saw it on our faces. I know she saw that we didn't want to fool with it. That we were beleaguered and wanted a glass of wine and uninterrupted dinner. Wanting that - now, there's nothing wrong with that at all - I'll trump the horn myself for that cause. But, in reality, unless they're in the care of someone else, we aren't ever off duty.

So, though we did not let Ada down by our actions, we certainly did by our attitude. And I wonder, as I listen to her this morning not following the steps of appropriate conflict resolution when her brother is annoying her. I wonder if I had hopped up! and bragged on her! done a little dance! - bragged on her doing the right thing - coming to us calmly, removing herself from the situation without committing her own sins - if I had done all that, what an impression I would have made.

It works on the 1.7 year old. We get excited when he does what he's supposed to do. And that has an effect on him. When Ada Brooks does what she's supposed to do (in this situation -appropriate conflict resolution - which frankly most adults cannot muster), I just stare at her like she's heaped another burden on my list of parenting duties.

I pulled her aside in the morning and bragged. But the moment was lost. The good thing is we get 18 years with them. Almost 2 decades to instill the fact that we love them and how to act right. When Ada's college roommate leaves the refrigerator door open again or her husband absolutely will not quit stealing the covers, hopefully, she'll use a kind tone to correct him or her. Lord willing, she won't pinch or bite or throw anyone out of the bed.

Though, I think I may have pushed a husband out of my own bed for cover stealing before....

I have faith that this one moment won't do any damage. But it's a great reminder for me. One that I needed. Keepin' me on my toes these little people are. Keepin' me on my toes.

Find the What?

2011-03-03T05:31:00.005-06:00

Good night light, and the red balloon.

If I wrote a post about the epic goodness of Goodnight Moon, all you parents, my generation and the couple of generations before, will roll your eyes at my lack of originality.

Though, does it invalidate the uniqueness of my individual experience just because millions of other mothers, fathers and children across America for the last 60 some odd years have been having a nearly identical experience? I think not! But, let us come back from the brink of philosophical humdrumedness.

Quickly, now. Come along!

One of the first books I remember being read by both of my parents is Goodnight Moon. And then I remember reading it to my little brothers, and to babysitting charges, and then to Paul at some point, as though he wasn't read it by his dutiful, reader-parents.

Presently I have, and as far back as I can remember, I have had a very, very irrational and frankly ridiculous fear of all things rodent. I am not scared of much - not snakes, not spiders, not the dark, not bad guys, not giving birth, not traveling alone, not heights, and goodness knows not public speaking. But anything with a pink tail, well, it can make me scream like the girl that I am. I have jumped on tables. In restaurants. I even had an argument once with Paul about whether rats are mammals. How dare they share not only a Kingdom and a Phylum, but a Class with me. I am not in the same (taxonomic or otherwise) Class as a Rat! And done all sorts of other things that made my husband consider taking the next train out of Dodge.

[Here is a side note about the pink-tailed description: The only reason this description is necessary is because people are always challenging this fear. I readily admit that the fear is irrational, but still, people doth protest. "But why?" But then they go further. If I say that I am afraid of rats, they want to know, "What about mice?" and when I say, "As ridiculous as it is, yes, pretty much all rodents," the people invariably say, with smart alec written all over their faces, "Well, what about squirrels?" Well, then I want to slap them upside the head. No, not squirrels, dumbo! But yes, opossums make my adrenaline start pumping. And finally, my dear friend Ragan came into my life. She shares my fear, though I don't know if she'd be quite so difficult as I am. And she remarked one day "it's those pink tails." Aaahh - Thank you, Ragan. Now I know the reason squirrels are cute and mice are evil.]

Back to sweet and wonderful children's literature.

I don't know if I actually remember this, or if I've been told with such vividness and adoration so many times, but when I was a very young child, starting not long after my first birthday and continuing, I imagine, until I was no longer being read Goodnight Moon, I played a game with my parents. On every color page of Goodnight Moon (any decent human raised in North America will remember that it alternates between color pages and black and white pages), there appears a mouse.

And I would crawl up in the as-yet-uncrowded lap of my Daddy (being a first kid and all - that empty lap is heavenly), and he would say "In the great green room..." and then, page by page, I'd get to Find the Mouse.

The mouse moves. He's in a different spot on each page. At times, he's very central to the scene - perched happily in front of the fire - and at other times, he's very peripheral - peering over the edge of an obscure bookcase. And I'd hunt. I'm sure it was developing some sort of awesome brain processing skill (though I never was good at Where's Waldo), but more than that, it was creating a memory. A memory that my Daddy cannot help retelling over and over again (he has a problem we're all fond of, and he's still quite a young man: he tells us things multiple times). But, as much as Daddy repeats himself, I've never tired of hearing of my mouse hunts.

I actually looked for the mouse. Sought out the mouse. Tried so hard to find it.
Wonder what went wrong?

(Actually - I trace my fear of all things rodent to two things: First, another story my Dad tells all the time - a story for another day - that involves a rat running up a broom handle. And secondly, seeing The Princess Bride at too young an age, and no one protecting me from the R.O.U.S. scene. And yes I just googled to put a picture here of a Rodent of Unusual Size, and I couldn't do it because my heart rate went up. Instead, a young, beautiful Carey Ewles, sporting his R.O.U.S.-inflicted injury upon emerging from the Fire Swamp: )

(Yes, I just put that parenthesis there. What would you have had me do? Put it before the picture, when clearly it belonged after? Or worse, leave it off entirely???)

I hate mice. But I used to hunt for one all over an entire book. (Perhaps because his tail does not appear pink, but white, and kind of short).

And I still do hunt for one.

Last night, Collins crawled up in my lap for a bedtime story. He picked Goodnight Moon. We haven't had the hours of Goodnight Moon with Collins that we had with Ada and Eason, or that my parents had with us. Some of that is because he is the neglected third child, but it is mostly because he has gravitated toward other books.

But last night, the little bald-headed dude plopped his as-yet-diapered bum down in my lap and opened up to those three little bears sitting on chairs. And the mouse game came flooding back to me.

I said, "Collins, can you find the mouse?" and he immediately went to looking. Searching for him. He found him in front of the fire:
"Mouse hot."
He couldn't find him by the bowl full of mush, but when I pointed out the little pink tailed demon:
"Mouse eat."

I inherited my father's tendency to repeat the stories that are most important to me. I can already see that my children will know - and know and know and know - about the mouse hunting game their grandparents played with me, and then that I played with them.

Yes, Goodnight Moon is ubiquitous, and I am not quite naïve enough to think we're the only family to play Find the Mouse, and no, Find the Mouse did nothing to inoculate me from terror at the little mammals. But, I treasure it. The book, the game, and the memory.

And so does this guy:

This pensive, mouse-hunting, low-on-hair, adventuring, happy, not-so-neglected-after all, little guy.

a blessing or a burden

2011-02-22T14:20:00.002-06:00

I get to spend time with other people's children a lot. I teach them two days a week, go to church with them, live in the neighborhood with them, and on and on.

Today, a friend of mine had a sick child. And two of her other children had a scheduled field trip that Ada also had. So I grabbed the two well children to add to my brood and took them all on a field trip.

After our field trip (because, secretly, I'm hoping to win MostFunMomEver, 2011 - and no, I don't want to hear about my very, very bad chances...), I took them to Chick Fil A.

Ada Bee, Eason, Collins, and extra children 1 & 2, a 7 year old boy and 3 year old girl. We were excited to be joined by my dear friend Jessie and her sons (yes! two sons!), who are 3 weeks and 5 years. (We were missing Jessie's dear daughter).

The point of all that was to show you that we had a 7, 6, 5, almost 4, 3, 1.7 and .05 year old. And two Mamas.

Brave Mamas.

Mamas up for MostFunMomEver, 2011.

And we ordered a slew of chicken nuggets, six kid waters (we aren't sprite fun), some french fries to share and all gathered around a teenincy picnic table.

We divided nuggets, squeezed ketchup, distributed napkins, poked straws, and then collapsed at the mom table beside.

And I looked at guest child number 1, 7 year old boy. All the other children were greedily devouring fried poultry goodness, and he was staring out into space.

I said, "Hey - you - kid -Do you need something?" (obviously, I used the poor child's name, but I'm reluctant to put names of other people's children out there on the google, you know just in case - anyway....)

"No Ma'am"

"Okay, well, you looked like you were just staring out there into the world a bit"

"Oh - I'm just waiting for us to say the blessing."

Oh, well, damn.

(I didn't say that to the poor nameless kid either.)

What I did say was "heavens - I forgot" and I got up and said a humble and quick blessing, and the children, including the eldest, fearless leader of them, went to devouring.

When other people have my children - a school teacher, a grandparent, a friend, a godparent, a babysitter, a sunday school teacher - anyone - I am always fearing that my children will be a burden.

When I get my children back from anyone, I give them the third or seventh degree about what all sins were committed. I am terrified that Eason has climbed on yet another inappropriate apparatus, or more likely, something that doesn't even qualify as an apparatus. I am petrified that Collins has thrown food or himself in the floor or just been generally whiny. I dread the possibility that Ada has been a disrespectful smart alec (and let's be honest, hers sometimes qualifies as a smart other word that starts with a) or an emotionally difficult basketcase.

I quiz. I assume. I seriously sometimes cannot enjoy myself when I'm away because I'm worried - not that my children are unhappy or unhealthy - but that the person who has them has been burdened.

But what I never wonder is if the person who has them has been blessed?

I don't seem to worry so much about that. I worry that they haven't been a burden. I am constantly on them about not being bad, but, wonder of all wonders - what if they could be good? What if they could be blessings?

What if - while sitting at a picnic table at the outside play ground of a very busy fast food establishment - what if - my child could patiently and silently wait for a mother who is not his own to bless the food.

What if my child could cause two mothers, who both normally tend to be food-blessers, but today were just a bit too harried, hurried and hungry, to stop and bless the food of the seven children in their care. And the food they were themselves about to scarf down?

What if, when I send my children out into the world, instead of striving for non-burdens, I could actually start striving for blessings?

Food 2/17/11 until 2/23/11

2011-02-17T08:56:00.002-06:00

Thursday
Lunch: I'm strongly considering Sam's Club Pizza. I'm just sayin'. Because, if not that, then I'm going to have to make a grocery store run just to enable peanut butter sandwiches, so why not eat while we're doing the grocery shopping.... =)
Supper: Eason has the St. Luke's Circus tonight (more on that later), so we're eating separately from the kids. I'm thinking of doing something fun for them like Pizza Sandwiches, and then for supper for us - pot roast. Trying a new recipe - it has brown sugar and horseradish and some other yummy stuff. I picked it because we'll be gone from 6-715 and it can be in the oven during that time, without me worrying it will get too done.

Friday
Lunch: Pot Roast Sandwiches
Supper: Grilled Blue Cheese Pork Chops, Mashed Sweet Taters, Big Green Salad

Saturday
Lunch: Leftover smorgasbord
Supper: Black Bean Soup, Veggie Taco Salad, Mojitos, Other assorted Snacks and Drinks brought by friends for Game Night!

Sunday
Lunch: Haven't gotten that far yet
Supper: Filets on the grill, twiced baked taters, port reduction sauce, big green salad. I think I've spoken before about the beauty of 'bring your own meat' night - You obviously can only do this with folks you love and who love you - because it wouldn't be proper to invite people to your home and ask them to bring their own entree - if you aren't close. But, say you are close to the people, it makes it super easy to have a really yummy meal without breaking the bank, and you get to share it with people still. There is just something depressing about steak without friends.
You know, unless you're out on an awesome date at Shapleys. And then it is not depressing at all.

Monday
Lunch: We'll figure it out. Hopefully, there will be leftovers of some kind, and if there aren't, we can thank George Washington Carver for the solution.
Supper: Bean Burritos. I didn't make them this week when I was supposed to - monster migraine, which was resulted in my husband bringing me bean burritos - but the taco bell variety - so, i still have the stuff, and monday nights just seem to be good for bean burritos.

Tuesday
Lunch: Clearly, leftover BB
Supper: Sketti. Plain ol', jane ol' sketti. Paul will love me more than he already does.

all the dishes are still dirty

2011-02-14T09:41:00.003-06:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

I am so blessed by my darling valentine and our three little miniature valentines.

So blessed, that, this morning, when Ada Bee asked if she could make banana bread muffins (the oven is already preheated, Mama), I said 'Sure.'

One of my big goals for the next couple of years is to teach Ada to be a competent cook. She can now read well enough to follow a recipe, and she's responsible enough to not burn the house down. Not that I'm ready to truly abandon her in the kitchen, but I don't feel like I have to worry that while I'm putting in a load of clothes, she's going to put her finger in the immersion blender.

Wait, that was me.

At 25 years of age.

Well, over the last couple of weeks, she's made a couple of things alone. I'm usually also in the kitchen, but I'm not counting her teaspoons.

So, today, while I was getting the boys dressed and such, Ada began making banana muffins.

And I didn't monitor any of it. At all.

Come to find out, maybe that would have been a good idea.

After the timer went off, we opened the oven.

This is what we found.

So, we got back out my recipe for banana bread (a recipe that I've made at least 100 times, maybe closer to 500), and examined.

"Oh, one AND A HALF cups of flour...I forgot that half of a cup."

Yeah. That's what you did alright, bee.

Ada Bee was disappointed. "I worked so hard, and all the dishes are still dirty." I hate it for her. But what a wonderful lesson to learn now - when you're six - rather than when you're twentysix.

One of the biggest things a parent can do to to make a child really feel our love and God's grace is to empathize. So, this morning, before Ada set about Latin and Spelling and Grammar, I gave her a few stories of my cooking disasters.

The time I put the cheesecake in the waterbath without wrapping the springform pan in foil first.
The time I put the roast in the oven, invited folks for supper, and didn't turn the oven on.
The (at least one) time I turned the red beans on high to speed up their cooking and didn't check on them before every single bit of the water was gone and I had a burned mass of dried out red beans .
The time I pulled a pie out of the oven, placed it on the stove and later turned the wrong eye on, which I didn't notice until the pie was actually on fire. There was a burning pie on my stove. It was awesome.
The 523 times I've burned the bread. Including this past saturday night....

Ada and I had some good laughs, and after her disappointment, she did not feel failure - she felt camaraderie. She did fail, in an important sense of the word. She failed to follow directions, and that resulted in us having 24 miniature burned cups of banana soup. And it's important that I not think that failure is cute. (or at least not let on...) But, it ain't the end of the world. It's not even the end of the morning. And she gets that.
She knows that I'm perfectly capable of failure, but the key is that she knows that I'm also perfectly capable of success. And so shall she be.

Ada said, "Oh well - I tried to make a valentine treat."
I said, "let's have a reeses peanut butter cup."
She said, "I'll mess up more often."

Uh oh...

food 2/10/11 until 2/16/11

2011-02-12T10:00:00.002-06:00

We are eating. I promise. We usually do.

Wednesday
Lunch: I have no idea what I, or anybody for that matter, ate for lunch on Wednesday....
Supper: Pulled Pork - supposed to be at church, but you know, when it snows .125 inches in Mississippi, we cannot, so we ate our pulled pork at home.

Thursday
Lunch: My darling mother took me and the kids to get mexican. She is pretty cool. Paul ate something...hmmm.... =)
Supper: I cooked. I swear I did. No, wait, I didn't. I went out for a girls night at one of my favorite Italian places - Fratesi's - it was delicious-o, and such good visiting time.

Friday
Lunch: Sandwiches- various kinds - all around.
Supper: Burgers on the grill, homemade onion rings and french fries, asparagus, ice cream.

Saturday
Lunch: Leftover scrummaging in the fridge. There is actually plenty there for the taking.
Supper: The kids have a birthday party, but the grownups are having supper - a pasta recipe from my stepmother - Penne, Shrimp, Cream, a whole ton of roasted garlic - and then spinach salad, garlic bread, Pavlova for dessert. I heart heart heart pavlova.

Sunday
Lunch: Church potluck. To which I'm bringing cheesy beef enchiladas, roasted broccoli, and a mulitcolored jello tower.... or rather Ada is bringing the multicolored jello tower.
Supper: Book Study, snack food.

Monday
Lunch: Hot Dog Sandwiches. A Brooks Eason Original Creation, as far as I know. I don't really like them, but the rest of the family thinks they've died and gone to heaven. I'll have a grilled cheese, thank you.
Supper: It's Valentine's Day! We're getting out of the house without kiddos, but we really don't like to be out with the masses, so we're going to my ma's house for Valentine Supper. I have no idea what we're having - I'm taking Twice Baked Potatoes and Pavlova. yes, two servings of Pavlova. But I really do heart it. A lot. And so does Mama. And I can double the recipe today for the meringue part of it - it'll keep in an air tight container for three or four days. And then do the rest on Monday.

Tuesday
Lunch: PB&H
Supper: Bean Burritos. What? It's been two weeks...