Life in My World--Over the River

upside down table

Over the river and thru the wood,

Oh, how the wind does blow!

Today that song keeps running through my head. (Song being loosely spoken here as I can only remember that phrase and something about a dappled gray and grandmother's house.) Probably it's because the wind is frantically rearranging the leaves outside and we're going to see Ray and Cali, which literally live over the river and through the wood.

It'll be a great weekend, the excuse to go is to deliver the butcher block table Ray and Calvin made. I don't want to steal Cali's thunder and post a picture, so I'll just post a picture of them building it and then it loaded in the . . . (get ready for it) sleigh.

Thursday Thinking—Cereal, Cereal, Cereal, Cereal, Cereal, Cereal

I think I’ll always consider cold cereal as a luxury and so yesterday when I stumbled on an incredible cereal sale and luxury suddenly looked like prudence, I picked out 22 boxes. The colorful boxes have been decorating the counter all day and I keep thinking about all the things I can do with them.

I also spent time thinking of answers to these sound-it-out brain puzzlers on the back of the box of Frosted Mini-Wheats:

folk is son’s cool
beef oak kissed hill hunch
deal is shush hole gray inn vibe burr

It took me a few hours to solve the second one. I had to walk away and then come back and look at it again.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about the tragedy that happened at Fort Hood. How could we not think of that. It is so sobering.

What have you been thinking about today?
What's your favorite kind of luxury cereal?

Did you solve the puzzlers?

Homemaking Tip--Keep a Clean Hand

Once while riding the New York subway, I noticed that our daughter Cali kept one hand in her pocket. The rest of us fiercely clung to the poles with two hands to remain standing during the propelling take offs and sudden stops. But not Cali, one hand always stayed in her pocket while she gingerly hung on with the other. Later I mentioned I needed to wash my hands so we could eat, she pulled out her hand, waved it and said, “Not me. I always keep a clean hand. Always.”

(image from newsteamtexas.com)

With flu-season in full swing here are a four things your mother already taught you. I'm just her echo:

1) Wash your hands often and keep them away from your mouth, eyes, and nose—easier said than done for us nail-biters.

2) There is something about the flu season that makes us think we’re indispensable—we must go to work, we must go to the store, we must go to the meeting. If we get sick this season, it is best to remember that the world will keep spinning without us and that we can contribute most by not contaminating the well pool. Remember to stay home if you're not feeling well.

3) Carry antibacterial lotion in your purse or car. The advertisements for these products in the New York City subways are graphic—one shows a toilet with the caption, “There are four times as many germs at a public drinking fountain” written underneath. I’m interested to see what the comparison is on grocery cart handles. After being in public places, use the lotion until you can use soap and water.

4) Use your own pen at the grocery store, bank, or department store. Use a paper towel to turn off water faucets, pump paper towel dispensers and open doors in public restrooms after washing your hands. Or, wear the inexpensive stretch gloves while using pens, grocery carts, etc. and remove when you're back in your car or home.

For more information about the flu, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publish general information on the web site www.cdc.gov/flu .

One last echo: keep a clean hand. Always.

Has H1N1 hit your family/area yet?

Self Portrait Tuesday--Garb

I hope these two coats never wear out. I’ve had the red one long enough it should be coming back into style any day now. The two of them together make walking in the fall just perfect.

Monday Memories—Music

Mrs. Kinsfather was my second grade teacher. She wore bright lipstick, boldly painted fingernails and high-heeled shoes. She sat at her desk a lot, filing her nails. She was also the music teacher for the whole school. When it was our class’ turn for “music,” we filed upstairs into the auditorium and sat on those wooden benches that you see in the photo. While Mrs. Kinsfather played the piano we read the words from a large flip chart and sang our little hearts out. Nobody goofed off for that would end music. The song I remember best was “The Ballad of the Green Berets” which we sang with great soberness, as if we were singing to save the Viet Nam vets:

Ballad of the Green Beret
by Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler and Robin Moore, copyright 1966

Fighting soldiers from the sky

Fearless men who jump and die

Men who mean just what they say

The brave men of the Green Beret

Silver wings upon their chest

These are men, America's best

One hundred men will test today

But only three win the Green Beret

Trained to live off nature's land

Trained in combat, hand-to-hand

Men who fight by night and day

Courage peak from the Green Berets

Silver wings upon their chest

These are men, America's best

One hundred men will test today

But only three win the Green Beret

Back at home a young wife waits

Her Green Beret has met his fate

He has died for those oppressed

Leaving her his last request

Put silver wings on my son's chest

Make him one of America's best

He'll be a man they'll test one day

Have him win the Green Beret.

This song made my throat burn then and it still makes me sigh. I’m certain I was no better a singer then than I am now, but what I didn’t have in quality I had in fervor.

Do you sing with more fervor than talent?
Would your kids’ school allow this song to be sung today?

52 Blessings--Washer

Our washing machine just had its 25th birthday. That washing machine has given me thousands of hours of time. Time I didn’t have to spend over a rock in the river or a washboard in the back yard. Without a washing machine, I would have thought cloth diapers were worse than they were. Without a washing machine our clothes would have been grungier, grayer, and smellier. Without a washing machine I definitely wouldn’t have had the time to write a blog. Thanks to Mr. Louis Goldenberg for the brilliant idea to let a big paddle swish clothes around in a big tub electrically so that I could have more time to do other things. I am grateful for the blessing of a washing machine.

What is one thing a washing machine has made time for in your life?

Saturday

Most every Saturday I read my hometown newspaper on-line. I check the obituaries, but my favorite thing to read is what the local churches are doing. Growing up, the town (population 87) nearest to our farm had two churches in it: the Presbyterian Church and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We were rivals, we were friends. Each week when I read the religion section I look to see what the Presbyterians are doing. There’s a comfortable feeling seeing the names of people I admired and remember well (Donna, Corny, Rhea, Bob, Mildred, John, Ilona, Dorothy) still conducting business, parties and Dutch-oven dinners, Sunday school worship and coffee hours forty years later.

I also enjoy seeing what the churches in the larger valley are doing. For example this week:

• The Lutherans are holding their Community Harvest Festival and serving hot dogs and chips with candy and prizes given away. (They ask that you to bring a can of food for the community Christmas baskets.)

• The Methodists are having a potato bar in one congregation while another is serving turkey stuffed with sauerkraut, roasted turkey, turkey dressing, mashed potatoes with turkey gravy, fruit and tossed salads, green beans, rolls, cakes and cookies. (Have you ever stuffed a turkey with sauerkraut?)

• The Congregational Church’s harvest dinner is having turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry salad, homemade noodles, and homemade pies. (They’re serving it family style and homemade noodles are available for purchase. Have you ever served noodles with turkey, dressing and mashed potatoes?)

• The Catholic Church is having a festival that includes bingo, a carnival and a turkey dinner.

• The Episcopal Church is holding its bazaar and soup and pie will be served. Another congregation is selling plum and carrot puddings for $7 each. (They borrowed a "closely guarded plum pudding recipe, recorded in a 1951 cookbook, from a congregation 150 miles away and were only given permission to use the recipe if they promised they would keep it a secret.” This is my favorite piece of news because I can imagine these women trying to decide who of the parishioners actually gets to read the whole recipe and then when the recipe does leak how they will decide who did it.)

One thing I love about America—be it rural, inner-city, or urban—is her churches and synagogues. Long live freedom of religion.

Life in My World—Gift Ideas

This week I had a bunch of gifts to deliver. Here are some inexpensive, tried-and-true ideas that maybe you can use someday.

1.

Three friends' parents died in the last three weeks. To a package of flower bulbs I added a bag topper and attached one of Michelle’s tags:

“These are to remind you of your dad next spring, and the spring after that, and the spring after that, because families are eternal.”

My friend’s mother who died reminded me of pink hyacinths while “Happy Generation” tulip bulbs were fitting for another friend's dad.

2.

I love sending mailing packets because they're so colorful and little kids love them. If you want to make a kid happy, send a candy packet. If you want to make 24-year-olds happy, send them a packet. You mail them just like this so that when they open their mailbox they instantly see the colors and candy. Two year old Hydn loved his. Rachel wrote:

Dear Jane,

You saved us yesterday. Were you aware of that? Hydn got your present in the mail. We weren't going to give it to him because it was just too pretty and we wanted to save it. But then he saw it. So, we opened the sucker to give to him. We made him eat it outside, alone, in the rain. When he was done he came back in and I thought he would go straight for the other candy, but he didn't. He wanted those gloves!! NOW. We put them on him and he kept saying, “Ball. Ball.” (They have that basketball on them) He would stretch his hand out really wide, admire it, then clasp them together and just sit looking at them. He wore those stinking things from 3p.m. until night. And they kept him enthralled. I've never really seen anything like it. He couldn't wait when Bert came home for Bert to admire them. Truly, one had to sit and stare with him for five minutes before he would let you alone. He also grabbed a car and with his little car and his gloves he played happily all the rest of the afternoon. When it was night time I changed him for bed and tried to take his gloves and socks off. He let his socks go, but no way, no how were those gloves leaving his hands. So, there he lies. Still in bed this morning with his gloves on all night. It's very cute. So cute, I'd take a picture if I had my camera. I'm wondering if he'll let me bathe him.

Love,
Rachel

3.

I also had some wedding gifts to deliver and relied on the cookie jar idea with a tag saying,

A full cookie jar is the most magical appliance in the kitchen. If the cookie jar is full no one complains that dinner isn’t ready or that dinner is bad. If the cookie jar is full company feels like you were expecting them. Here is your first full cookie jar to congratulate you on your marriage. Best wishes!

4.

Finally I needed a few baby gifts, so I made hooded towels. These are still missing the rubber ducks and baby wash.

In the way of other news, Stacy is right. Sprinkles do make a difference. They magically turned our salad into a dessert.

So I took another suggestion of hers and rented the movie, "Gifted Hands" for us to watch tonight. (**Updated. It is really good. Calvin and I both enjoyed it.)

I hope these ideas can help you out sometime. I do appreciate all you bloggers out there who are so willing to share your ideas with me. Thank you.

Thursday Thinking--Black Thursday

Grandpa Hoops

(first generation American)

I’ve been thinking about how today is the 80th anniversary of the infamous stock market crash of 1929 which plunged America into the Great Depression.

Society rode high through the roaring 20’s even though there had been a humbling world war and deadly world-wide flu epidemic (killing between 50-100 million people) ten years earlier. The decade of the ‘20’s was one of excessive spending, speculation and waste. Arrrrghhhhh. It all just sounds so familiar. I recognize those things now . . .

When I was younger I suppose I felt like most—invincible. It’s a merciful thing really for youth to have that kind of confidence to launch them into adulthood, but it can also deafen them to danger warnings. First the Revolutionary War, then eighty years later the Civil War, then eighty years later the Great Depression and World War II—those were all things that had happened long before in areas far away from me, so I had no fear of them repeating themselves in my early adulthood. I was invincible and so was my country. History had taught us powerful lessons in those events; we wouldn’t be repeating them I thought. That’s why I couldn’t understand why my grandfather (born in 1899) was so adamant that his grandchildren write a paper on The Free Enterprise System when we were 29 years old. The communist countries in Eastern Europe were going through revolutionary changes when I was 29, no one would be foolish enough to sell out capitalism for socialism or communism after seeing what those countries had endured. But Grandpa offered $1,000 for the essay and so I wrote it.

Grandpa had lived long enough to know that history is cyclical. It was his job to warn his invincible-feeling generations beneath him that “each time history repeats itself, the price goes up” for someday we would realize we were vulnerable like everyone else.

A fascinating book on the history of America, The Fourth Turning, points out very clearly that every eighty years or so America goes through major turmoil to get her footing. We’re eighty years since our last big national crises. After listening to the news, reading the newspapers and reports, and hearing the cries against freedom, capitalism and the free enterprise system . . . I understand Grandpa perfectly now. And that’s what I’ve been thinking . . . well, that and what I need to do about what I've been thinking.

Homemaking Tip—Soap & Germs

I finally followed Cali’s tip and bought an olive oil dispenser for dish soap. It’s a little accent (less than $3), but adds such a nice touch. It feels fancy.

We’ve gotten the e-mails that tell us not to put our purse on the floor of public restroom stalls, but what do we do about our pant legs now that short/capri season is behind us? I roll mine up. Calvin laughed when he saw me do it at a rest stop, but it keeps the hems off the floor so that later when I criss-cross my legs or tie my shoes I don’t get stall germs on my hands. Sidewalk germs or grocery store germs, yes, but somehow they seem cleaner than stall germs.

Have you got a tip for today?

52 Blessings—Trent

Crisa, Trent, Kiara

Trent is the family memory bank for the little details . . .

When he was four or five we were hiking in the Arizona dessert. After we’d seen scorpions and rattlesnakes, Trent suggested we pray. Important detail. I rode the coattails of his faith the rest of the day and never got more than a foot away from him.

One day when Trent was nine or ten someone assigned the kids Indian names while they were playing. I had forgotten all about those funny names until recently when Trent addressed Cali by her’s. Out of nowhere, 20 years later. I have no doubt he remembers the other kids’ names too.

About that same time the kids decided to throw me a birthday party. It was taking them too long to string popcorn for decorations so Trent suggested they stretch a piece of tape across the living room and stick the popcorn to it. I walked into a living room clear full of criss-crossed popcorn tape stretched from one side to the other. He didn’t forget the minor detail of homemade confetti to throw over Calvin and me when we walked through the door, either.

Now years later as a dad, Trent still pays attention to the little details: he can braid little girls’ hair with the best of them, insists his kids use good manners and lotions the baby so she smells nice.

One of the best details in Trent’s world now is his new wife, Crisa, and baby Kiara. I love Trent and Crisa and their new combined family (Elexus, Ethan, Breña and Kiara) and the new details they add to each others' and our lives.

Life in My World--Five Fun Things for Friday

1. I got this in the mail from Julie. Julie was Ty’s host mom the first two years he went to the Air Force Academy before she and her family moved to Norway on assignment. Julie is an incredibly talented individual. It doesn’t matter whether she is organizing the masses, catering a meal, or decorating a home, Julie does it all with extraordinary flair. Julie also collects Polish pottery. After reading this post, Julie knew I wanted a fun pitcher for serving syrup, so when she went to Poland she bought me not only this darling pitcher but the matching saucer. I am simply delighted and happy and grateful she would do this.

2. I got an e-mail from Hoe Se Sing, my Health 101 partner at BYU-Hawaii. I swear I was a good foot taller than Jimmy (his Christian name) and he was much wiser. Sister Swapp (who repaired her broken eyeglasses with band-aids) taught the class. Jimmy says he remembers jogging at 6:00 am, that I was much taller, and my "distinctive" voice. It was very kind of him not to remember me as the one who always fell asleep in class. Sister Swapp would occasionally take us to the gym for relaxing exercise on the floor mats during class. First she’d have us flex our toes, hold for five seconds, then relax them. Next she’d have us flex the muscles in our feet, then the muscles in our calves, then . . . well, I heard she had us flex all the way up to our brains but I never made it that far because I was sound asleep long before then. One day Jimmy said, “Jane, it’s so embarrassing. We’re not supposed to go to sleep, we’re just supposed to relax.” Then he paused and nicely said, “And, you snore.” Oh ho, Hoe Se Sing, you were a great partner! One time after relaxing exercises I woke up and I was the only one left in the gym and the lights were off. Even Sister Swapp and Jimmy were gone.

Jimmy has since returned to Singapore and is married with a family of his own. It was so fun to hear an update from him.

3. We have a scrapbook retreat coming up in a few weeks. Here is the location:


and here is a sample of one day’s menu:

~Orange Juice, Scrambled Eggs, Breakfast Potatoes, Crisp Bacon, Breakfast Bakeries,
~Penne and Prawn Carbonara, Suncadia House Salad, Rolls and Butter, Assorted Miniature Desserts
~Tossed Green Salad, Grilled Top Sirloin, Garlic Roasted Potatoes, Fresh Seasonal Vegetables, Seasonal Fruit Tart

Fun indeed. We still have a spot or two left if you'd like to join us.

4. Not all at this exact minute, but generally speaking . . . Ande is in Utah wedding dress shopping with her best friend and her best friend’s mother, Ty got tickets to Wicked and is organizing a date (not an easy task at the academy), Cali is making ghost cake-balls for two Halloween parties, Ray is flying home from meetings, Abe is driving Abram’s tanks, Grace is volunteering for the Red Cross, and . . .

Calvin said he's cooking supper tonight for our date (he just called to say what he's cooking and goulash it's not).

5. I've also been in contact with a good friend from high school, Rhonda, this week. We were teammates, biology partners (her petite, skilled hands and smart brain were valuable resources to our dissecting worms and frogs partnership) as well as friends. It's been really fun to be in contact with her again.

What's fun in your world?

Thursday Thinking--Think, Think, Think

I love when Winnie-the-Pooh taps the side of his fluffy head and says, “Think, think, think.” Right now even when I tap hard on the side of my head, nothing shakes loose. It’s all used up.

When I heard that men speak 12,000 words a day and women speak 25,000, I didn’t hesitate to use mine—after all I had a quota to fill. Poor Calvin. I don’t think there was anyone more relieved than he when I got a job that required lots of talking. From then on when we came together in the evenings we could match each other word for word, I didn’t have two for every one of his, or beg him to use more than he had.

Tonight Calvin’s going to get the silent treatment, for not only did I use up 12,000 words on the job, I had to take the final for my World History to 1500 AD class. Do you know how much history that covers? Yes, yes, I’m sure you do since you learned world history when you were supposed to, but well . . . the professor thought we should know everything from the Classical Age to the Hans Dynasty and back to the Sumer and over yonder to Euroasia civilizations. He said something about "ecumene." It was a three-hour, 2 essay-question test and I wrote as many words as I could possibly think of (including that the Chinese invented paper and the compass in a noble effort to fact-drop), for even though I read the entire textbook it all just landed in a heap in my pile of fluff. Tapping into it didn't necessarily mean it came out in the right order.

Between my morning job, the test, and this post, well . . . every last word of mine is

Homemaking Tip—A Stiff Upper Lip

With all her talents and perfections, Martha Stewart has mastered a stiff upper-lip. She can burn something, look straight into the camera, smack her lips and say, “Delectable.” I’ve watched her do it. One time she pulled a piece of chicken from the frying pan that was positively burnt—the piece that the mother in the family would have gotten. While the rest of us would have secretly tried to scrape the burnt layer into the sink or cover it with a sauce, Martha convinced us that although the recipe was not a “blackened,” “charred,” or “peppered” one, the chicken piece was done to perfection.

Since seeing that episode, whenever I cook something less than appetizing I think, “Delectable!” and serve it with a forced air of confidence. A stiff-upper-cooking-lip is probably "the good"-est thing Martha has ever taught me.



**Disclaimer. I probably should mention the time that Cali added 1 cup of mustard to tuna casserole and tried to pull it off with a stiff-upper-lip. When we sat down to supper, the other kids asked her why it was so yellow and smelled funny. She airily waved their skepticism aside with her fork. After the blessing on the food (and it did need one) she took a big bite with an exaggerated, "Yuuummmmmmm." The rest of us took a little bite. I don't remember what we had for supper that night, but it wasn't tuna casserole because a stiff-upper lip can only cover so much, and a cup of mustard is too much.