Mistletoes

Jan. 3, 2015

The Happy Holidays are over ... at last. Too busy to write in December, but here's my list of Christmas things I'm grateful for:

• The reason the world shifts gears, hangs lights on trees and eaves, redecorates everything from homes to streets, and even tries a little harder to be kinder: the celebration of the lowly birth of Him who descended to mortality to live a perfect life so that He could offer Himself as a sacrifice for everyone else's sins.
• The music - Handel, carols, and even some secular Christmas like Mannheim Steamroller, Amy Grant and some of the Oldies. I'm grateful for those whose gift it is to make and perform it, grateful that my parents let me take piano lessons so I can play it.

2014 Christmas cards from friends near and far

• Christmas cards. All these friends - rushed and busy like me - took time to sit down, sign and address a card, some with a 2014 recap note, and spent 49 cents to send it to Husby and me. A few are friends we see often, and our cards are a tangible affirmation that our friendship is a treasure. Others are friends who have moved away, and although the holes left by each others' absence quickly fill up, the Christmas card is the thread that keeps us connected - like a web of little strings anchored to points on the map with pushpins. If either of us were to stop sending our Christmas card, we would lose contact. Well, there's Facebook, you say. Ah, but I'm not on Facebook because it's superficial and narcissistic, and it doesn't count. Seriously. There's just something about the act of making or selecting a card, writing a note, signing your name, writing a friend's name and address on the envelope, licking same envelope (that's love) and placing a stamp in the corner, that says, "You're my friend, and you mean so much to me that I'm sending this!"
• Visiting with friends. I take them treats, they bring me treats and we visit. One friend has a party every Christmas, so we get to visit with lots of friends all in one place and eat her husband's to-die-for authentic Italian meatballs.
• Going to The Polar Express at the Omni IMAX theater with Grandson #1 and Daughter. He had seen the movie dozens of times, but never at the theater, and certainly not on a 120-foot screen. And the Omni makes it a pajama party, with "Polar" activities and hot cocoa before the show.
  
  It was Christmas magic to see all those children in pajamas with their big gold train tickets, and sweet Grandson held his ticket all through the show. 
  
• Lights. Lights everywhere, making the night glow. I love our family tradition of driving around town to look at lights; Daughter brought Grandson #1 one afternoon, and we visited & played, mostly in the family room in the glow of the tree lights. After dinner Daughter wanted to go look at lights together. As we cleaned up dinner, Grandson made the seat assignments and gave me my smile for that day. Mommy would drive, Grampa would ride shotgun and Honey would sit in the back next to him. Grampa asked why Honey got to sit by him; he wrapped his arms around me and said, "Because she's my best friend!" I'm grateful that our family tradition now includes grandboys. And that brings me to my next and most important blessing:
• Family. All the music, greetings, decorations and food would feel a bit hollow if I didn't have family with me on Christmas day. Christmas is brand-new to Grandson #2 who gets opening gifts but not the occasion for gifts. After all the gifts were opened, we worked on our Christmas stockings; we called him over to see what was inside, and seeing a very large "sock," he lifted his little leg to try to put it in the stocking. Smile for that night. 
• On Christmas day, I told Grandson #1 I would have to get him under the mistletoe sometime that day. A bit later, standing under the mistletoe, he called me over and gave me a sweet kiss (which he doesn't do much any more). Later, when we were sitting around the table having a snack, he said, "Hey! We could have mistletoes all over the house, and then we could kiss all the time!" I love mistletoes and little boys.

Sisters

Oct. 23, 2014

Today I'm grateful for sisters - mine, my mom's, and the daughters of my sisters. We met for dinner tonight - one of my mom's two remaining sisters, her daughter (my funny, funny cousin), my two sisters, and every one of our daughters. All of Mom's girls haven't been together like that since the last family gathering at her house when the granddaughters were just little, certainly long before they grew up and scattered. Since Mom's gone, it was all the more special to have her sister with us. As often happens when actively looking at everyday blessings, I recognize things for which I've always been thankful in a more poignant light. In the presence of 10 women who share blood and familial love, I deeply appreciate what a gift sisters are.

I'm thankful to have grown up with two built-in friends, and I'm thankful they are still my friends. I spent the last two days with Older Sister, and we never ran out of things to talk about. Younger Sister came to dinner after having just flown back into town from New York. She was exhausted after a pressure-filled business trip and a long flight, but she came because we're sisters. Growing up, my sisters were my confidantes, my allies, my sounding board when our dad's discipline didn't feel fair, my playmates, and my idols. We shared clothes, pranks and secrets. How different and solitary my life would be if I didn't have these girls!

Having only one daughter (and so grateful that I have one), I admit that although I was often annoyed at Older Sister's girls' obnoxious silliness when they were together, I was probably also a bit jealous that there were so many of them and that they enjoyed each other so much. Now that they are grown up, they're just as close, and silliness still breaks out, but to witness how they still genuinely love being together added to my gratitude for sisters - and cousins, which are really sisters-once-removed, right? As each of Older Sister's daughters was invited to dinner, three said it would be hard to come due to distance, children to care for, tight budgets ... but as soon as one learned that another was planning to attend, in quick succession each of the others committed to coming and found a way to do it. It was heartwarming to visit with each individually and appreciate what lovely young women they are and to be happy for the bond they share. 

Younger Sister's daughter said yes within minutes of being invited just a day in advance, and Daughter made arrangements for S-I-L to take Grandson for an outing tonight so she could be with us as well. I admit to being awed at how each of these girls made getting together a priority. They are wise enough to know that these are the moments that make life good. 

Cousin said her Mum was "just all kinds of happy about this." Aunt got verklempt when we all sat down at the table together. After dinner, Cousin presented Sisters and I each a wrapped gift to remind us of our reunion: a blingy pen, which they didn't even realize was the most appropriate gift possible for three sisters who have a pen and paper fetish. 

Dinner over and tabs paid, we still had things to say ... so we stood on the sidewalk, shivering in the cold, continuing one unfinished conversation that had been divided into two tables over dinner. We reminisced about our younger days and lamented that our memories were fading, and the people who could help us remember are gone. It came to me that memories become precious when they begin to escape us. Aunt couldn't remember the names of the family's work horses and wished she could ask her brother, which prompted a few of us to regret not having written such things down - and to resolve to start writing them now! So here are a few things I will be glad I wrote down, and so will my posterity, I'm quite sure. 

Starry, Starry Night

Oct. 15, 2014

Today I'm grateful for childhood memories of Yellowstone, homemade chili and stars. 

I remember my family's camping trips, many of them to Yellowstone, and some of my memories bubbled to the surface as we drove those roads again with Daughter, Son-In-Law and Grandson. Grandson is 5, and as five-year-olds do, he talks incessantly, usually nonsense. He pokes, squirms, laughs, then instantly turns to sulking when he doesn't get his way. That reminded me of three little girls squirming on the back seat of my dad's Oldsmobile as the miles stretched endlessly on, with my dad crossly threatening that he would pull off the road and spank me if I didn't stop giggling. He kept his word on more than one occasion, and I would cry, my bottom stinging, only to start giggling again as soon as the car was back in motion. My sisters have both independently recorded the same memory, so I'm pretty sure it really happened as I remember it. On this trip, the realization came to me that I must have been about 5 when my own annoying behavior caused some aggravation on family vacations. I never thought spankings would be a memory for which I'm grateful, but somehow, I am.

Daughter wanted a family portrait from this trip, so today, even though it was cloudy, we set up a portrait on the cabin deck and down on the river bank. Yesterday was sunny and would have been a perfect portrait day, but we had so much we wanted to see in the park that we got home too late to do a portrait.

Despite the clouds, the air was still today - until the moment we wrapped up, then the wind came up and blustered the rest of the day. I'm grateful that we got to take a family picture for Daughter. After my parents died, one of my sisters went through all of my dad's slides and made a digital selection of representative photos. I treasure more than words can express the ones of our trips to Yellowstone, many of them probably taken in the exact spots we have taken pictures the last few days. I know what this family photo will someday mean to Daughter and Grandson, and perhaps to others in the family tree who haven't yet been born. 

I also felt a sense of personal history when we drove the road around Quake Lake, as my family was in the great Yellowstone earthquake of Aug. 17, 1959. I was not quite 3 years old, and my family was in a camper when the quake hit at about 11:30 p.m.; the 7.5-magnitude quake triggered a landslide that sent 80 million tons of rock crashing down on sleeping campers at a Forest Service campsite just west of Yellowstone. About 28 people were killed, either crushed under the rock or drowned in the Madison River. I never realized until this trip how grateful I am that we were protected. The 50-year-old dead trees rising out of the depths of the six-mile-long lake are an eerie reminder of how blessed we were.

We put chili ingredients in the crock pot this morning before leaving on our day's adventure and came home to the most wonderful aroma. Even the next-door neighbor's dogs apparently knew something was cooking and were on the doorstep the minute our truck pulled up. I'm grateful for the blessing of food and for how delicious it tastes after a long day of exploring nature. After dinner we played games, and I'm grateful for the bonds that are formed when families play together.

The day ended with a gathering on the porch to look at the stars. This is the only night of our stay that the skies have been completely clear. It's been so long since I’ve seen stars like that, I was awe-struck. We saw the Milky Way stretch across the entire sky. Grandson saw for the first time the Big and Little Dipper, but the stars were so dense that Husby and S-I-L couldn’t find Orion. There we were with the expanse of endless stars like tiny holes punched in a perfectly clear blue-black sky letting heaven shine through; silhouettes of pines against that sky; the river shushing by, and night-birds calling … heaven on earth. I'm filled with gratitude for that breathtaking experience.

Surrounded by Majesty

Oct. 14, 2014

It’s pretty easy to find things for which to be grateful while on vacation – it’s vacation, after all! 

I’ve kept vacation journals before, but I’ve never recorded how I feel about what I see and experience. Doing it brings a new dimension to vacation, just as it has done to everyday life. 

I'm grateful for the wonders of nature I've seen the last few days. I've seen these same features many times, but it occurred to me, as I’m sure it does every time I visit (but I forget when I get back home), that I'm witnessing God’s majesty here. I don’t often see or feel that in man-made surroundings. 

As I looked out at the stunning vistas, with dramatic rocky cliffs towering to the sides, a clear rushing river cascading to a dramatic falls, and beyond that, miles and miles of green pine trees stretching to the blue mountains on the horizon, I felt so grateful for all this splendor! 

And today I’m grateful for 60-degree temps, which made visiting all these sights even more pleasurable than yesterday, when it was overcast a lot of the day, 38° and windy, so our hands, noses and ears stung with the cold. 

Walking through the mist from the hot pots made it even colder, and at one particular spot, the steam was so dense our hair was dripping and our eyelashes froze; our coats were covered with frost, and we looked like wet cats.  

 


We headed to Old Faithful at lunchtime and ate our little picnic on a bench near the geyser, shivering and walking around to stay warm. We were blessed with a tender mercy: the geyser went off about 15 minutes after we ate lunch, and the next eruption wasn’t for nearly two more hours! To be at the site I visited so many times as a child and to see it again now through the eyes of my grandson was ... kind of like Christmas. Things that are magical to a kid don't seem quite so magical when you grow up until you become a grandparent. I'm grateful to have felt the magic again!



We walked and hiked and got in and out of the car dozens of times, and we came home tired and happy. 

We built a fire in the fire pit on the riverbank and roasted hot dogs and completely saturated our clothes and hair with campfire smoke. I'm grateful for all the happy family-camping-vacation memories this activity conjured and to share it now with Grandson. 

 

I'm grateful to look out the window and see this for five glorious days in autumn!

Warm Memories

Sept. 27, 2014

circa 1947 Salad Master Machine

Last week, while making Danielle Walker’s Spanish Frittata with Chorizo (Against All Grain), I hauled out my mom’s Salad Master to grate the sweet potatoes. I gave away my food processor years ago and was kicking myself (now that I’m making meals from whole foods and spending an inordinate amount of time peeling, chopping, slicing and grating) until I remembered that I had the Salad Master. Here I digress, because it’s my smile for the day: setting up that rather elegantly simple device - no electricity necessary - on my own countertop brought a tidal wave of memories from my mom’s kitchen, complete with 1950s pink appliances and now-Retro pink & gray patterned Formica countertops, yes, from those wonderfully simple days before electrical appliances took over the kitchen. I remember helping Mom grate and slice, watching the colorful veggies turn from whole to shreds or slices as they tumbled into a bowl in a smooth, almost mesmerizing motion with the turning of the cylinder. And then they became zucchini bread or potato chips, or some 40 years later, the vibrant orange basis of my frittata. 

And is this serendipitous, or what? Of the three Nielsen sisters, the one who lives in Texas took the Salad Master after Mom passed away, only to learn while writing this post that Salad Master was established in 1946 by Harry Lemmons, who set up operations in his home in Dallas, Texas! The company was so successful that within a year he moved into a new building in Dallas, where the company operated for the next 43 years. Today, the company is located in Arlington, Texas, halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth, and alongside a line of stainless steel cookware, the Salad Master Machine is still the flagship product of the company's business, sporting a sleek new design, but performing exactly the same uncomplicated function. Would I trade Mom's for a new one? Not a chance, but check out the new beauty here.

I am grateful for happy memories, and for my mom, who I see and feel beside me again when I use her tools or read her handwritten recipes, who made our house a home and who gave me lovely memories that make me smile today. 

Here are images of the Frittata-making process, a la recipe book. The final two images are Reality, because I have no kitchen assistants measuring out the ingredients in nice, neat little bowls, nor cleaning up behind me so the counters and sinks are pristine despite all the prep work. This is why the current love affair with open-concept home design is quite 
beyond me ... 

First time used in at least 15 years

Deja Vu!

Add chorizo to grated sweet potato/onion ...

... sauté together ...

8 organic eggs ...

... beaten (yes, I succumbed to the stick blender rather than my mom's egg beater, which I also have!)

Top with sliced tomatoes and pop into the oven for 12 minutes ...

All set and ready to serve with avocado slices and chopped cilantro. Nmmmm!

What you don't see ...

... on camera or in cookbooks!