That Wasn't Nice

This afternoon I wrote a post that I have since decided to retract. It kind of poked fun at my own distantly-related redneck kin, though I only ever met them once and I'm sure they don't give a rodent's backside about me or even remember my name. It was a long time ago in a place far, far away where I met my redneck relatives at a family reunion. I am positive no extended family members from way back then have read my blog or will ever read it, or for that matter, would even think to look me up. So it's HIGHLY unlikely any of them would take offense.They were strangers then and strangers now--a one-time meeting of people who just happen to be connected to me through someone's DNA, and that's where it stops.

So let me share other things. (Why is it often harder to dig up the good instead of the bad?)

Here goes a five-minute recollection post on the topic "Remember." Thanks to The Gypsy Mama for hosting. I will go alphabetically as fast as I can.

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I remember ALWAYS having to come home for dinner whenever I was at a friend's house when their dad came home. My mom told me never to invite myself to dinner, so I didn't. Not back then. But I will now because my friends are good cooks (most of them). And the whole "don't invite yourself over" thing doesn't apply to friends anyway, right?

I wore a BARRETTE on a lock of hair I pulled straight back from my forehead. I thought it was cute. Looking back, I doubt my sense of style. But I was a confident third grader, that much I can say without doubt.

I loved CEREAL. I especially loved Life cereal (and still do). It was our breakfast as well our after-school snack and sometimes before-bed snack.

I remember the time my foster brothers (who were with us for 11 months when I was 3) had to share a bike. One day the older brother was riding, took a break to come inside the house for water, and the younger one hopped on the bike. The older one saw him through the front glass DOOR, flew into a rage, and bolted through the door. I don't mean he opened it first. He charged right through the glass, shattering it into a million pieces. Blood from face to feet is the picture I still remember.


STOP.

I

Silly Sister Sleepover

As best we could recall, it had been 30 years since my sisters and I had all four bedded down under our parents' roof at the same time. Rachel went off to college in 1981, and she was the first to leave home, followed by me in 1983, then Andrea in 1985. Jill commuted from home to college, and didn't leave the nest until she was married in 2003. (She is 14 years my junior, hence the big gap in time.) So from 1981 to 2011, we had gone our separate ways, and although we've been together since then many times, we have slept in hotels, extended families' homes, or our own homes (for those of us close by).I probably would have had to miss out on this slumber party had my dear husband not been able or willing to take Friday off to drive our boy to and from school, and tend to his needs while I was busy doing a host of things with my sisters. A big thanks to my honey for that!My parents absolutely loved having their four girls at their place, all snuggled up in pj's under blankets. We sure got silly. I mean, giggly-giggly and about as immature as immature gets. But boy, oh boy, was it fun. We laughed till our sides hurt and our faces cracked. My family is into big words as a matter of habitual speech, and phrases that sometimes could be simplified aren't. We understand each other, though. Yet it's comical to realize it's not "plain English" to everyone. We occasionally catch ourselves and ask, "Do you mean__________?" and then we just "lose it".
Let me give an example. Thursday night, when we girls were trying to decide sleeping arrangements, and Daddy wanted to know what we wanted for breakfast (since he is Breakfast King), he asked what time we each get up. I said, "Well, first, five o'clock, to pee, and then I go back to bed till 7--ish." Mama started the giggle fest when she asked if we were aware that nocturnal urination is an early warning sign of diabetes.

Rachel: "Do you mean peeing in the middle of night?"
Mama: (sheepishly grinning) Yes.
Me: I thought it was just from having too much to drink at eleven!
Andrea: Well, better nocturnal urination than nocturnal flatulence.
Jill: If you get nocturnal flatulence, Andrea, you can sleep by yourself!

We went on and on and ON about nocturnal this and nocturnal that. My poor mother just wanted to inform us of diabetes warnings, and we go making light of the symptoms. To the point we almost DID urinate on the sleep sofa!

Our silly sister sleepover. It was the most refreshing time I've had in ages , even though I didn't fall asleep until 4 a.m. My parents are truly old, as evidenced by the setting on their thermostat. It feels like they keep their house a toasty 84 degrees (or is it 94?). At any rate, menopause and toasty already go hand-in-hand, so I wasn't exactly comfy. Nocturnal perspiration. Nocturnal suffocation. Plus, I really had had a Coke while we were making pumpkin vases a few hours earlier. Guess I'm more sensitive to caffeine than I thought. We then got up at 8 for the grand decorating day that was upon us. Beauty rest eluded us, but I repeat: it was so much fun!

Hodgepodge: Food, Flowers, and Fluffy Friends

1. Who taught you how to cook?

I have learned to cook from many sources. . My mom taught me what is probably the most important lesson and that is, "If you're going to have to cook for yourself and others for the rest of your life, you might as well learn to enjoy it." She enjoyed cooking, although she wasn't particularly creative and never "gourmet." But she taught me the basics (not that I was interested). She also taught me to think through steps of cooking so that everything would be hot at the same time.(That was before the days of microwaves.) She also taught me to make food look pretty. Presentation matters. At least that's what I believed as a single. Imagine my shock when it didn't matter to my husband, so when we got married, he couldn't figure out why I'd transfer food from a pot on the stove to a pretty dish for the table just 28 inches away when we could simply take our plates to the stove and save ourselves some dishwashing.

It never dawned on me that it was acceptable to do it that way! We've met in the middle several times. He's learned to appreciate pretty food, and I have learned to accept "a guy's ways" which, I gotta say, sure DOES save dishwashing time!

When my mom turned vegetarian in 1979, cooking meat was something I couldn't learn from her. I was 14 and not really into domestic arts; they were pedestrian compared to cheerleading and crush-of-the-month relationships. I ate whatever. At 21, I learned from my friend Kim how to cook meat. She and her hubby Gary had my Paul routinely to their home for good eats in his single days, and it was in my best interest to sway him toward me by following in Kim's footsteps.

The picture above is of my latest vegetarian meal--eggplant parmesan, which happened to be the first meal I tried to cook when Paul and I were dating. I had never made it before. (You can call me brave or stupid.) I didn't know the eggplant should be steamed or sauteed first to soften it. To this day I recall the result was more like Hockey Puck Parmesan, but the man married me anyway.

2. Have you been told you think too much? Are too much of a perfectionist? Are you too sensitive? Were they right?

Indeed I've been told I think too much, but moreso that I talk too much. (I'm sure that comes as a huge surprise to my regular readers. Most Hodgepodgers answer the question with 1/4 of the words I do!) The thing is, I often talk in order to think through a problem to its solution or root cause.

I am not really a perfectionist (except that I am hypercritical about grammar, spelling, and punctuation). I figure there is more value in having 80% of my to-do list done well than only 20% of it done perfectly. Things can almost always be fixed if you mess up anyway. I do not give my surgeons the same margin for error, but then again, they probably don't give themselves that margin , either, and that's why they pay them the big bucks and I get nuthin!

Am I too sensitive? About some things, yes. I get my feelings hurt (or I get angry) if people don't communicate with me. If I think people are withholding information from me, I fear the worst--that either they don't like me or they're about to do something that'll hurt me. It's happened more times than I can count. It's especially true if those people are in authority.

3. As a child did you have a favorite blanket or toy? Tell about it.

I still have my favorite stuffed animal ever. I got him for Christmas in third grade. He's a panda bear named Quincy. I named him that because I wanted to have a friend with a rarely-used first initial like I have.

4. What 'institution' do you have the most faith in?

Great question. Not sure I have a ready answer. I think I don't have faith in any institution because all of them fail. Marriage fails, the church fails, the government fails, schools fail. So as cliche' as it might sound, I put my faith in God. He is the only Faithful One. By His grace, those institutions succeed as well, but the track record is something I don't put stock in.

5. Chrysanthemums-pansies-burning bush-ornamental cabbage...your favorite in an autumn garden?

I love the burning bush, but am thrilled by the pop of color that mums bring to an otherwise drab fall garden. My mom's bridal flowers were mums, so she requested mums at the party which I've been blogging about. Jill and I bought a variety of real and silk flowers to add to them, and all of us joined forces to carve, scoop and fill pumpkins as "vases". Here's some busy busyness going on a few days ago. It takes a village to make centerpieces, ya know. Here's Rachel "fussing" with something on a flower, so it runs in the family.



Sarah and Andrea look so serious about the job at hand. Paul looks serious about the TV show. (He actually asked a few times, "What stinks?" and I said, "Mums and pumpkin guts. Wanna help?") He
has little use for either flowers or
pumpkins, and even less desire to
fuss about them, so the answer was a consistent "no" in the gracious name of
"you need sister time"!


6. What superpower do the kids in your neighborhood seem to possess?

The ability to pierce second holes through my earlobes by screaming, from the distance of three football fields.

7. Are you a fan of the cranberry?

Eh, I would not say a fan, but I like it okay. I have to be in the mood for cranberry juice or cranberry sauce, and when I am, I really enjoy it. But if the cranberry didn't exist, I wouldn't sit around trying to invent it.


8. Insert your own random thought here.

"A promise made is a debt unpaid" (from "The Cremation of Sam McGee") The promise I made to myself (ie the debt I'm in) is to walk 26.2 miles in November. I have thus far walked a half mile. Can I just say I am not a fan of making debt payments, but in the long run (long walk?) I concur that it's better than not making them?

50th WAP: Making Picture Boards

If memory serves me, my wisdom took a flying leap out of a high tower the day I agreed to take on the visual display portion of the party.








My sister Rachel actually did the lion's (lioness's?) share of making collages from pictures the other three girls sent her. She took advantage of Walgreen's online photo software and did a great job. (Those shots later.) Meanwhile I said, "Sure, I can handle making the background boards for them. A little spray paint and something to connect the things and a way to make them remain in an upright and locked position -- that should all be fairly simple."

The operative word there? "Should." Who are we kidding? And the word "fairly" is being used loosely in this context. Very loosely.

Actually it would have been easy had I stuck with Plan A to spray paint the boards. But I wasn't happy with the color I chose after all--thought it would look blah to have just a solid backdrop. My motto: Why be simple when you can be complicated? Put another way, Why stay sane when you can go lulu instead? Life is too short not to live on edge, right? It's the way I roll, which explains a lot. It's why they invented Zoloft, for when "Zo's a little off."

Anyway, I decided I really wanted to use the Faith paper collection from Hobby Lobby since we'd already bought it a ton of it. Like 160 pages of it! I figured I'd make a patchwork quilt of sorts for each board.

Choosing the paper arrangements was easy. Gluing them in place was easy.
But getting the edges cut clean with a razor knife ? Not so much.

The time consuming part is always the fussing. It seems I double my time on task when I start the fussing part.


Every job needs a supervisor. My dog volunteered. It was the least he could do. And the most. Part of his job description (which I did not write) was "keep thwacking your tail into those lightweight foam boards all afternoon, but stop just short of getting hauled back to the humane society. And charm her with your good looks when you're on the brink of impoundment."

As you can see, the tools of my trade include a "Mod"est amount of ModPodge. I love that stuff. It seals and glues and shines in one swell foop! And at times, it gave me the lift I was needing when boredom set in. Just kidding.


Thirteen and a half hours later (the boards are two-sided, if I failed to mention that little factoid) I came to the stopping point. The more time wore on, the more I wore out.

Yet I enjoyed the fussing and dreaming of how they'd turn out when all was said and done.

Finished product will be shown later. I promise.