Three Years

Feb 162012
 

Three years ago, on Friday, February 13, we moved in to our new house!

In some respects, I can’t believe it’s been so long. Didn’t we just get here? Honestly, all the rooms look pretty much the same as when I gave our new house tour. I haven’t changed the furniture or decorations for the living room, family room, front hall, kitchen, or our bedroom since we got our new furniture just after moving in. I’m just not one to rock the boat when I like how things look, I guess.

On the other hand, I also can’t believe it’s only been three years. I love our home! Every time I drive up to my house, I feel so grateful that we were able to move here. I truly am coming home. I can barely remember the previous places we lived and I just love where we have ended up. I never want to leave.

We may not have made lots of decorating changes in the past few years, but since we moved in, we have done a number of big things for the house. We refinished the hardwood floors. We insulated the attic and the basement. We had the roof replaced. We had the cedar siding and trim repainted. We replaced the patio door. We painted the ceiling of the basement in anticipation of more changes down there. And we’ve now painted the smallest bedroom in preparation for a new baby!

There is still lots to do to make our home the most beautiful it can be. But I’m pretty happy with how it is today!

Peace and Quiet

Feb 262011
 

“If there are to be constant and bitter recriminations over the state of the house, better, for the man’s sake, the children’s sake and the woman’s sake, a dingy room where peace and quiet are than a spotless abode where no love is.”

Chapter 2, Round about a Pound a Week by Maude Pember Reeves, 1914.

This book is a report on 42 working-class families in 1910 Lambeth (England) who pay rent, eat, and stay clothed on one pound a week and with up to 10 children in the early 1910s. (That’s about $120 US in 2010 equivalent, or about $6200 a year). Book available at Internet Archive.

Read it and you’ll never feed your son a banana or have a glass of milk without remembering it. You are rich as a queen, my friends!

“And She Ministered Unto Them”: Thoughts on Work and Life

Feb 202011
 

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Peter’s wife’s mother was sick with a fever. The Savior came in and healed her, “and she arose, and ministered unto them.” (Matthew 8:14-15).

The Sunday school class last week was discussing the miracle of raising her from her sick bed. I was thinking about how she didn’t even get a break. One minute she’s sick in bed, and the next minute she’s making supper. She was probably the Relief Society president, poor lady.

That observation about the women in the New Testament times has been with me as I’ve gone about my week, because it’s not just New Testament times. Women simply don’t get a break from life: there is no running away. I think of when I’ve been sick and Paul hit me with his toys all day long. I think of when I’m in a cranky mood. I can’t just stomp, because I have to remember that Paul has needs. Even when I’m away at book club, I’m still thinking “I wonder if Paul’s in bed yet, otherwise he’ll be cranky tomorrow,” etc. Mothers never get time off. It’s the way it is. “Women should be women and not babies who need petting and correction all the time.”

The Relief Society Visiting teaching thoughts reminded me of the role I have, as a Relief Society sister, in this age:

“Just as the Savior invited Mary and Martha of New Testament times to participate in His work, women of this dispensation have an official commission to participate in the Lord’s work. … The organization of Relief Society in 1842 mobilized the collective power of the women and their specific assignments to build the Lord’s kingdom.” (Sister Beck)

Then, this afternoon, Ryan asked me about the cup of syrup spilled on the bottom of the fridge. I was a bit annoyed, angry, and upset. Yes, far too much. I didn’t want to clean that up. I want nothing to do with cleaning up that sticky mess. Grr! I didn’t knock it over! Yuck! What a pain! I just cleaned the fridge last week!

Less than ten minutes later, Ryan and I had a conversation about when I almost died, almost ten years ago now.

One minute I was eating a slice of meat in a café in Bolivia, not thinking much about life, and the next minute I was turning blue, literally choking from want of air. There was panic initially, but then an overwhelming feeling of sadness came over me. Mostly, I was sad to be leaving the world. I thought of all the wonderful things I’d experienced. Even more, I thought of all I had hoped to happen in my life: falling in love, becoming a mother, and seeing my parents and siblings again, telling them I love them. I wanted one more chance to do something wonderful. I didn’t want my physical body to be dead.

Why was I so incredibly sad? After all, life continues after this one. Why should I be sad when I knew I’d have chances, at some point after this life, to marry, to raise children, and to otherwise continue to progress? Why be sad at the fact that I was done with this life when I’d be soon rejoining the Maker in an even more glorious world? The life after this one is glorious, and this life is rather hard.

But when I got that precious little breath of air once more, about 3½ minutes later, and I realized that I wasn’t going die, that I was okay, that I would make it home again! That I might still fall in love! Be a mother! LIVE! I was so grateful.

So I should not complain so much now. I shouldn’t be so annoyed at the spilled syrup. (All. Over. The. Fridge.) I should be grateful I’m still alive, that I’ve lived to have a husband, and a son, and a home, and a fridge, and maple syrup to clean up.

That, I think, is why Peter’s mother-in-law was so grateful to get right back up and serve the Lord. And that is why we, as women, should likewise rejoice in service. These relationships and opportunities are just what we are here on earth to do.

Today’s Relief Society lesson was also about the glorious principle of work: why should we as home-working women, resent the housework so much?

I need to remember that memorable bite more often. Life is so glorious!

P.S. The photo above is from the horseback ride we went on shortly after my experience. I didn’t take the picture, since my camera had been stolen; one of my friends took this picture.

P.P.S. The Heimlich Maneuver works, if you wanted to know. Please learn it!

The Management of the Home Is an Art

Nov 152010
 

Those women we call “house”-wives deserve praise. The domestic work they carry out, and which is not paid in hard cash, is essential to the home. Their compensation remains the pile of well ironed, sweet-smelling washing, the shining tiled floor on which the foot glides, the gay kitchen filled with the smell of stews. Their silent action is felt in the least useful detail: over there, a flower in bloom placed in a vase, elsewhere a painting with appropriate colours, hung up in the right place. The management of the home is an art. (page 63, So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba, translated from French by Modupe Bode-Thomas)

Background: Ramatoulaye is a teacher in 1970s or 1980s Senegal, married to a man who, after twenty-five years of marriage and twelve children, has taken a second wife: a young girl who was his oldest daughter’s best friend. In Senegal, under Islam, polygamy is legal. Ramatoulaye has plenty of issues to deal with, but I certainly appreciated her praise for those who care for her home. (Despite the fact that she has domestic help, she still must do much of the work to keep the home running.)

My Pumpkin Cake

Nov 062010
 

I meant to post this on Halloween so my site would be rather festive. Alas, it has taken me a week to post this, but never fear: here is my pumpkin cake.

I have never decorated a cake before, so this was quite the undertaking. But actually, it was quite simple. I made two cake mixes and baked them in three rounds. When they were cool, I sliced off the top of two of them and stacked the three together, with frosting in between the layers.

Then I carved the sides off, so it was rounded a bit like a pumpkin. I frosted the sides and top. I used some of the extra cake (from the carving) to insert a little stem. After it sat in the fridge overnight, I frosted another layer so it would be smoother. I think it turned out well!
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It is a little lopsided, yes, but what pumpkin is ever completely rounded? Besides, it was my first attempt. It has the equivalent of one and a half cake mixes and five batches of frosting (each batch is 1/3 cup butter and 3 cups powdered sugar).

Is this to be a Halloween tradition?

I should note that I didn’t eat it. I took it to my ward Halloween party; it was a prize for the pumpkin carving contest. No worries, I had tons of leftover cake and frosting at home!

Train Restaurant at Home (aka, Making Leftovers Fun)

Oct 262010
 

It’s only for two nights. It’s nothing, but I still miss my husband tonight! I keep thinking of things like “oh, I have to take out the trash” and “Oh, right, I need to make sure all the doors are locked before I go to sleep.” Etc. It’s amazing how quickly I got used to having him home! (And I just talked to him and he apparently <sarcasm>really missed</sarcasm> all the fun that is O’Hare Airport.)

I was feeling sad as dinner came around. Trying to cook for two (and Paul doesn’t like to eat my dinners so it’s mostly for me) does not feel worthwhile. Plus, we had leftovers in the fridge, so I decided the lazy side won out and went for those.

Then I had a brilliant idea. Paul loves going to a restaurant, and he always orders Mac and Cheese. As soon as I say “restaurant,”  he yells out “I want Mac and Cheese!” So I told my son we were going to a restaurant for dinner. I welcomed him to the restaurant, sat him at the table, handed him a “menu” (really a piece of junk mail that was sitting on the counter) and asked him what he wanted: Mac and Cheese (left over from the other night when we did go to a restaurant) or Chicken Nuggets (other leftovers I had in the freezer for just such a night). He had a big smile as he pretended to read, then said, “Mac and Cheese!” I gave him two crackers to eat while he waited and a cup of milk with a straw (since restaurants always give him a drink with a straw), and he happily waited.

Then, out of the blue, Paul said, “Mommy, it’s a train restaurant!” A few months ago (a year ago?!) we went to a restaurant with Grandma and Grandpa in Naperville that did have trains. We sat around a counter and a train “delivered” the food to us. He loved it. So tonight I agreed our restaurant was a train restaurant, and got some GeoTrax from the basement. Soon, we had a small circle track for our battery-operated train. But I wouldn’t turn it on until he took a bit of food!  Turn off, and repeat for each bite.

I had mentioned that maybe after he ate we could have dessert. After a little while, he asked me for the “menu” again, and then he said, “I want some blueberry yogurt for dessert, please.” I hadn’t even suggested it, and I had been thinking of ice cream, but it was fun to know that for him it was a treat to have yogurt.

I noticed a lot of interesting things about this. I was treating him as if I were a waiter (“Hello, young man. What can I get you today?”) and acting all polite. As a result, instead of demanding as he usually does (“MILK! NOW!”), he mellowed out. “Can I please have some more milk please?” Was it the fact that we were in a restaurant (where he normally is more well behaved since it’s in public) or the fact that I was treating him nicer than I normally do? Probably both. I should treat him nicer more often.

At any rate, it made for a fun dinner and it got him to eat more than he would have eaten if I was grouchy as I had been when I was feeling sad that my husband was gone!

Anna

Sep 022010
 

I have just scrubbed Anna’s name from the corner of Paul’s bedroom wall. It may have taken a year and a half, but now that room is wholly his.

When we first moved in, I found myself creating a drama in my head about this girl. At ten or eleven, she was forced to leave her home and her swing set. I imagined a dramatic story for her parents that explained why they stopped paying their mortgage payment, a story for why the mother kept a snapshot of her son (Michael) in her bathroom drawer and how she kept it there to the last and then forgot it. I imagined Anna’s reaction come winter when she realized she’d left her size 7, purple-laced ice skates in the attic. I imagined the reasons behind the pair of sneakers left in the garage, the sweatshirt under the kitchen sink. (Turns out that sweatshirt was there for a practical reason, as the faucet was broken when we moved in and turning it on forced water into the under-the-sink area. The sweatshirt came in handy.)

At any rate, eighteen months later, I’ve realized I don’t think of Anna and Michael and their delinquent-on-their-mortgage parents anymore. I see my house and love it as my house. I see Paul’s room, and whenever that door opened all the way, I saw Anna’s height on the wall, marring Paul’s room.

And thanks to magic erasers for getting that pencil and pen off the wall. It’s truly Paul’s wall now.

Spring Flowers vs Obnoxious Weeds (AKA Why There Are No More Dandelions on My Front Lawn)

Apr 252010
 

Since we moved in last winter when there was more than a foot of snow on the ground, we weren’t quite sure what to expect in terms of the yard. I waited all spring, hoping something would come up, and not sure I wanted to mess with it.

Well, nothing came up. The rose bushes in the front on the right were dead, and the other three bushes on the left are random and overgrown. Last year, I dug out the dead roses and spent my meager budget of $70 on four new bushes for the right hand side. I got small ones. They still looked small by fall, and they looked small all winter and they still do (you probably can’t even see them unless you know they are there). I spent another $20 on bulbs in the fall. This year, I had so much fun watching the flowers appear! I hope to plant lots more this fall so I can enjoy them in the backyard too. Paul loves saying “Look, Mommy! The flowers come up!!” every time he sees them.

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taken April 22, 2010

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taken April 22, 2010

You may notice the lovely green lawn. There is nary a dandelion on the front lawn because I spent hours pulling Every. Single. One. that I found. Yes. I went in a very thorough linear pattern and I was very careful to look for dandelions without the flowers yet.

Why did I feel compelled to eliminate the yellow flower from my yard in such earnest? Let me tell you the saga of the dandelions.

Last week, Ryan fertilized with non-dandelion stuff that supposedly kills them all. Two days later, it rained. The next morning, the lawn was covered with dandelions! What?! So I went out there with Weed-B-Gone and sprayed every dandelion I saw, careful to get all I could see. The next morning, there were twice as many! Grrr. I love my spring flowers but those awful dandelions were making me cross. So out they came.

Of course, the day after I took this picture, I saw at least six more dandelions on the part I’ve already pulled out! Grrr. I didn’t pull out of the parkway — I just sprayed those but there are a ton. So maybe I must do those tow. Sigh.

It’s a daily/weekly/monthly battle, but I realize that it’s okay. Knowing the effort I put in to getting my lawn so nice and green is actually quite rewarding. It’s part of makes the spring flowers that much more satisfying! I love my house, I love my yard, and it just makes me so happy to look at these dandelion-free pictures and feel all warm and fuzzy in side!

I compare our yard to the house two doors down, which is still vacant (as it was last year). YIKES. My yard is so much nicer.

Don’t get me started on the backyard. I am not about to crawl on my hands and knees for a full quarter of an acre. Here’s to hoping I have energy to at least spray them tomorrow! It’s pretty bad and I do not want them going to seed…

Spring Cleaning

Mar 202010
 

I’ve been busy getting in the spring cleaning mood this morning. All week, Paul and I have been walking to the park, walking to the Big Big Bridge to play “Poohsticks”, and outside watering flowers and getting in a Spring-y mood. I had Yardwork with a capital Y on my list for this morning but ….. it snowed last night. Yes, I shouldn’t have expected it to say in the 70s!

So instead, Paul and I have been cleaning out this morning while Daddy runs some errands. It’s feeling pretty good. See some pictures of Paul from this morning.

When I Haven’t Been Reading…

Mar 062010
 

I have been painting the banister, trim, and risers for our front hall. I think it turned out pretty nice.

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Looking at it now, it doesn’t look like much. Why did it take me two months? We started the week after Christmas, sanding the current coat off. Then when Ryan went back to work, I spent two or three weeks painting coat after coat of pre-stain and stain and dark-colored poly. Then I took a week or two off. Then I cleaned and taped again and painted the risers, the trim, and all the spindles.

I worked when Paul was sleeping and he doesn’t nap anymore, so just at night. I discovered I could only paint for two hours at a time before I started feeling I was going crazy. Lots of bending over for this job.

At any rate, I can’t find a before picture to show you how much nicer our home looks. When we moved in, our wood floors were all light, pine colored wood. We wanted them dark mahogany so before we even moved in, we had the floors done. The banister remained the light colored pine, and it took us a year to get around to doing it! Here’s the newly finished floors, not finished banister (i.e., how it’s been for a year).

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Although it does look like an amateur did this, I do feel very good about how I did it all myself (mostly)! I really do want to do all the rest of the trim in the house because it gives ti a newly finished look and feel. I’m just not sure when I’ll have the energy to bend over so much again!

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