It’s Not Quite Homesteading

I still want to talk about the Little House books – anyone else interested? Trent’s past the point of even being able to listen or respond.  When we’re trying to figure out something in our yard and I respond with, “We should ask Almanzo,” Trent just shakes his head and walks away.

We have eaten a few glorious, meaty, juicy red tomatoes.  I’m the big winner because I’m the only one who wants to eat them.  When we cut into the first tomato of the season, Trent said, “Oh yeah, tastes just like a home grown tomato.  I do not like that taste.”  He’s so into a growing tomatoes, taking the boys outside every day after work to check on them, that I forget that he doesn’t like to eat them unless they’re contributing to a sauce or salsa.  So more for me.  There is nothing like a fresh tomato on a sandwich.  My favorite sandwich of the moment:  toasted wheat bread, mustard, hummus, avocado, fat tomato slice, maybe lettuce or spinach if we have it. 

I might add bell pepper to the sandwich soon.

We’ve also had three ripe blueberries.  One of our blueberry plants has produced a few berries, the other is alive but not growing.  I wasn’t expecting to see any blueberries for a few years (based on the scientific approach of reading one website and maybe remembering that – or not- where’s Almanzo???) so I’m happy with three blueberries.

The other parts of the Summer 2012 Williams Garden are jalapenos, garlic, and herbs.  Not featured are the green beans and onions that never got planted.  Our small garden continues to be a minor supplement to our groceries, but nothing beats the smell of a tomato plant. It’s worth it just to stick my face into the plant and breathe and time travel to Gran and Pop’s house.

House Blessing

My little brother Hunter, who saved every quarter our grandparents ever gave us and probably used those quarters as a down payment, recently bought a house and my whole family congregated there last weekend for his house blessing.

The house is pretty awesome, and I wanted to just blow in like a giant storm and sweep away the whole house, including its spacious floor plan and exposed brick dining room and huge backyard with established trees and relocate it for myself.  His girlfriend Caroline is a florist, so she arrived with sunflowers and made the house immediately look magazine worthy. 

We were the first weekend guests to arrive, so unfortunately Hunter wasted the clutter-free countertops on us because we do tend to arrive with a tornado of matchbox cars and phone chargers and people who start opening kitchen cabinets and emptying them onto the floor.  My sister’s family arrived the same way a few hours later and while Casey would have previously (and did again this weekend) chastised me for leaving crap everywhere, she’s a mother now too and left her share of sippy cups laying about.  Because the house blessing and party were planned for Saturday night, we all thought it was best to head to the zoo with my dad and leave my mom and Hunter to cook and get ready for the party.  

I may have mentioned it once or twice before, but I’m not ashamed to post the same things over and over after every trip to Tyler.  The Caldwell Zoo is just the best.  We headed straight for the Wild Bird Encounter.

I’m not sure what the difference was, cooler weather maybe, but the birds were the feistiest I’ve ever seen them.  They didn’t hesitate to climb onto the popsicle stick of bird food, or onto your hands or back or shoes.

My dad was the official photographer last weekend, which explains why these picture are a million times better than the pictures usually featured here.  That also explains why he’s not in any of the pictures, although that is his foot.

I love a good candid action shot, and here’s why:  What is happening just to the left of the next picture?  Trent and Chris were both watching the same thing and they don’t look to excited about it.  Mystery!

My dad bought what we call a “Norwegian lunch” for Rush – ice cream.

No trip to the Caldwell Zoo is complete without a stop in the gift shop for fifty cent (yes!  best gift shop ever!)  animal print sunglasses.

The house blessing that evening was wonderful.  There was a great crowd of people of all ages, from my 10 month old niece to some older (older like old enough to have kids in high school) people from my brother’s church.  We all gathered in the entry way of the home, then moved as a group from room to room.  In each room the priest would say a prayer relevant to the location, for example, by the front door, praying for the people who would be coming and going and that the home would be welcoming.  I think that was the gist of it.  At the time I was trying to keep Rush from escaping to the backyard, but I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. 

I do know that I was so proud of my brother and happy for him, not necessarily because he took the step of buying a house, but because he’s making a good life for himself.  It was hard when he was a recent college graduate, living in a seedy apartment complex in a town where he didn’t know anyone.  A few years later he has a very nice place to live (I fall asleep dreaming about how I would arrange my furniture in that house) and a community of people who obviously care about him.  Most of his friends at the party were from church and I’m so happy that he found the church and became an active part of it.  I can see how that is enriching his life.

Also, the priest’s daughter walked in and immediately declared that she and Rush were getting married.  Rush told her they should wait until they could get married in a castle. 

A house blessing is also of course a party, so we ate and celebrated and talked until everyone left, then we stayed up to play a board game.

It is very disturbing to me that a can of Sprite looks so much like a can of Miller Light.  I spent half of my evening doing double takes over that can.  Since when are lemon-lime drinks blue?

The weekend wrapped up with the perfect example of why Mother’s Day is, let’s all go ahead and admit it, the stupidest holiday.  Tate woke up at 2 AM on Sunday morning making the most horrible, can’t breathe, barking cough.  It was terrifying.  Thankfully my mom was there, so I woke her up and we stayed with Tate in the backyard until who knows what time, trying to calm him down and debating whether or not to go to the emergency room.  So Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.  I’m a grown woman and you stayed up half the night with me; here’s some granola that I made for you.  Flowers, cards, diamond tennis bracelets, a mason jar of granola, it’s pathetic to think that any of these things would be enough to thank my mother or let her know how much I love and appreciate her.  Granola.  Come on.

Tate is fine, by the way.  When I took him to the doctor on Monday morning, she did assure me that it was highly unlikely that he picked up any strange virus from licking the birdseed popsicle every few minutes. 

In the end, I just wish Tyler was closer and not hours away.

120 Years of Jim and Karen

We celebrated my parents’ 60th birthdays (April and June of this year) with a big beach party last weekend.  Beautiful weather, fried fish and shrimp and fries, a margarita machine, coolers full of cold drinks, children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews and friends and the beach – what more could anyone ask for to celebrate 60 years on the planet?

Rush summed up the essence of a good party pretty well in a conversation with the a woman at the grocery store.  Seeing multiple boxes of cupcake mix and icing, she asked Rush if we were having a party.  His response was, “The Porta Potty is coming today.”

My parents are truly great people.  I can only comment on about half of their 60 years and even then I’m limited by the sides of themselves that I’ve seen as their child.  But based on the people I know as my parents (and I avoid any stories before their 1977 marriage, because from what I can decipher they’re both Cookie Googlemans – both of them) I can label them as two of the best people in the world. 

My niece Carolena won Best Dressed for her Ester Williams inspired bathing suit complete with flowered swimming cap.  She went home with a bag of matching bonnets and dresses from my aunt’s recent shopping trip and because of the unvarying nature of boys’ clothing, Rush and Tate came home with a bag of hand-me-downs.  Levis and swim trunks and plaid shorts and hoodies are eternal for males, all ages. 

Tate does like to spice things up occasionally.

The beach is now in its full summer glory.

Trent, Hunter, Hunter’s girlfriend and I spent some quality time with pitchforks and metal rakes on Saturday morning trying to clear a path through the 2 foot deep seaweed to the water.  In the past, I could never remember from year to year that Spring Break is always cold.  I’ve finally accepted that, but replaced the confusion with the reality of seaweed.  Brain, please note:  the beautiful beaches of February are not guaranteed in hot weather.

But the overabundance of seaweed couldn’t bring us down last weekend.  Happy Birthday Mom and Dad.  Many Happy Returns.

My Favorite Apps are the Ones Before My Meal*

Last Saturday I left my phone sitting outside next to a water bottle filled with ice water.  The drink sweat enough to create a pool of water that drowned my phone, setting in motion the series of events that led to me being close to tears in the Target parking lot over what kind of case to get to protect my new phone, which, as the people in the AT&T store and Target told me fifty eight times IS GLASS ON BOTH SIDES.  Thanks, got it.  It seems to me that if you buy an expensive item that it meant to be carried in your purse or pocket, it should be durable enough to withstand a purse or a pocket, and you shouldn’t have to spend an additional $50 on a case to protect it.  Go capitalism!

My old phone was meeting my needs perfectly:  I could talk, text check my e-mail.  Now I have a world of new options and aps, which for most would be exciting but I’m apprehensive.  I’m thinking about Alan Lightman’s essay, Progress, from one of my favorite books, Dance for Two (a book sale find from a few years ago, by the way), a collection of essays.  Lightman is a physicist and many of the essays in this book draw on the connections between art and science. The overall premise is that you can’t claim to just be a math person or just be an art person, everything is so connected that you have to be both.  Progress examines the definition and responsibility of each of us in regard to technology and, well, progress.  Here are bits and pieces so you get the point:

“For at least the past two hundred years, human society has operated under the assumption that all developments in science and technology constitute progress…in the twentieth century the concept of progress changed, becoming increasingly tied to technology and large dehumanized technological systems…Today, a crucial question before us is whether developments in technology inevitably improve the quality of life.  And if not, we must ask how our society can employ some selectivity and restraint, given the enormous capitalistic forces at work.  That is a terribly difficult problem for several reasons, not the least of which is the subjective nature of progress and quality of life…I am certainly not opposed to technology as a whole; I benefit greatly from it.  But we cannot have advances in technology without an accompanying consideration of human values and quality of life…How should this examination and questioning proceed?…The problem cannot be solved from the top down.  It’s a cultural problem.  Perhaps we must regulate ourselves.  Perhaps we must think about what is truly important in our lives and decide which technologies to accept and which to resist.  This is a personal responsibility.  In the long run, we need to change our thinking, to realize that we are not only a society of production and technology but also a society of human beings.”

When the sales person at the AT&T store told me I would like my new phone, I didn’t doubt it.  I’m sure it’s great.  But when she, and many others since then, have told me how many “great apps there are for your kids!” I pulled into myself a little.  I don’t want my kids to play outside less because they’re playing an inane game on my phone.  I want to keep bringing a bag of toy tools to Discount Tire so they can “fix” all the tires on display in the waiting room while we wait, not sit zoned out to a YouTube cartoon.

I don’t like sitting in a room full of my friends watching people click away on their phones or ipads.  I’m not blameless, I’ve certainly sent or received a text in the company of others.  But I don’t want to become someone who zones out on a little screen instead of engaging the world around me.  I just have too many other things I want to do:  quilt ideas bouncing around in my head and a closet full of fabric scraps ready to make them possible, plants to water, bread to bake (Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day is technology I will lovingly embrace), cats to feed and stop from sharpening their claws on the couch.  I have family and friends who love me and I want to love them back by being present with them.

So new phone, hello, welcome to my purse and kitchen counter.  I will use you to connect to people, but I reject your calls to make me waste energy on things that add no value to my life or the lives of those around me.  I reject your zone-out-your-kids apps.  I reject your e-reader and will go chat with the librarians and work on the stacks of books overflowing from our shelves.  Although I will look up maps and directions , I reject your GPS.  (You really don’t want to get me started on the GPS, but I’ll say this:  devolution.)  I will take your music though.  Hello Pandora in the kitchen and in the car.

I’m counting on the help of my friends and family to brutally make fun of me if you see me abusing my new phone.  Brutally.  Let’s keep it real.

 

*You know who it is:  Liz Lemon

Little House on the Suburban Coastal Plain

Rush wants all kinds of things for his train set:  various cranes and trains, a windmill, and Sir Topham Hat (aka The Fat Controller).  He wants Sir Topham Hat “so he can tell Thomas what to do.”  Basically Rush wants every train character he has ever seen in a book or tv show.  Obviously we’re not going to buy all this stuff, but the great thing is that Rush doesn’t really expect it.  All his train pieces have been birthday or Christmas presents, so thankfully it doesn’t cross his mind that we would just go out and get something new.  He decided, mostly on his own, to make the things he wants.

I saw a Barbie Dream House in the Toys R Us ad before Christmas and it was a total disappointment.  Thank God we never had one when I was growing up, even though I wanted it.  My sister and I would take everything (everything including big things, like a record player) off a big bookshelf that was divided into nine big sections.  That bookshelf became a giant apartment complex and/or Barbie mansion.  The Barbie Dream House is to a tenement as that bookshelf is to the Plaza.

So I’m really proud of Rush for using his imagination to add on to his train set.  Our new Sir Topham Hat has a close pin body, a Sharpie on a champagne cork face, and hot glued felt scrap clothes.  He’s now actively admonishing engines for causing confusion and delay.  The popsicle stick and coffee can windmill was less popular, because when I was hot gluing I didn’t realize that the windmill had to spin.  Trent and Rush will have to work on that this weekend.  (Have you ever noticed what a horrible word “gluing” is?  If a gluing was a sea creature, it would attach itself to your leg and suck all the life out of you verrrry slowly.)

Rush and I made Colin and Cranky (cranes) this morning, out of construction paper, cracker boxes and twine.  They look nothing like cranes, but the great thing is, who cares?  Rush is happy to have them and lined them up alongside the wooden track this evening.  I don’t mean happy to have them in a poor-Rush-he-doesn’t-have-any-toys-and-has-to-color-old oatmeal-boxes way, far from it, but happy in a content, imaginative way.  He looks around for Colin and Cranky, by name.

This is all somehow influenced by the Little House on the Prairie books, which I’m rereading for the first time since my mom read them to me in second or third grade.  Somehow thirtyish women get back to these books, because I know I’ve seen detailed references to them on other blogs.  In my case the gateway drug was the Little House children’s books we started accumulating a year or two ago.  After reading the picture books to Rush, I started looking for copies of the series for me.  And here we are.

The tricky part is that these books get into my head and influence my thoughts all day long.  I’m only on By the Banks of Plum Creek and all I do now if compare myself to Caroline Ingalls.  I do not measure up.  With Caroline, dishes get washed right away, chores are done, and certainly children would never be lounging around in their pajamas.  She’s capable and calm and never complains and her children are always in crisply ironed clothes.  Can you even imagine what I would say to Trent if he told me we were leaving our newly build home and freshly planted crops?  I have a shower with hot water and a closet full of dresses and I didn’t have to milk a cow today, yet I wore jeans and had my hair in a ponytail.  The shame!  Either this is a totally unhealthy way of thinking or I’m going to turn it around and become awesome, just like Ma Ingalls.

I’ll try to drag myself back to 2012 for the moment.  At Tate’s last pediatrician check-up, she asked if he could color.  Um…should it have occurred to me to give a 14 month old crayons?  Obviously it wasn’t a big deal either way, because when I said I didn’t know she just moved on with the visit.  But today we learned the answer:  Tate will scribble briefly (3 seconds) then eat the crayons.

Here’s what happened right after train accessory making/crayon eating:  crying, by both boys.  Tate is just taking one nap these days and he wants to take it at 9 AM.  That just cannot happen, so he has some rough patches in the morning.  He’s still adjusting.  I don’t know what was going on with Rush, I think his crying started after I told him we were going outside.  Who can remember?  All I know is that going outside will fix things at least 97% of the time.

I call it a successful morning because I got everyone outside and happy.  Caroline Ingalls once saved her house and family by putting out a wildfire by smacking it with burlap bags soaked in water.  All’s well that ends well.