Friday, March 12

Today would have been Mom's birthday.

Mom loved her family, she loved to cook and she loved to take care of us. One of her favorite foods was apple pie. So Froggy and I decided that we needed to have apple pie today. Froggy makes hers from scratch. I prefer to buy mine pre-made, so I have a Mrs. Smith's in the oven. And a carton of vanilla ice cream in the freezer, since as Bill says it's illegal to have pie without ice cream. (Froggy, email me Mom's recipe for apple pie and I'll put it on the cooking blog.)

Since Otter's not a big pie fan, she's just going to have the ice cream part of the equation. But it will still be in Mom's memory. One of Mom's other favorites was to make homemade ice cream. Like the pie, mine came from the store. We do make it in the cuisenart (sp?) from time to time, but I wanted enough to have over the next couple of days so I bought it.

Mom also liked to make peach cobbler. Her recipe is on my cooking blog. She loved peaches, she preferred fresh ones to canned. She would buy them in Fredericksburg, TEXAS, which is the peach capital of the world. She would make various things with fresh peaches and she would also freeze them. Her peach cobbler was out of this world. I've made it myself a few times, but it's just not the same. She could make a meal out of the most different batch of leftovers possible, and it would be delicious.

Mom taught us to love animals. Some of my earliest and fondest memories involve the zoo. Dad brought me turtles, but Mom is where I first learned to love animals.

Mom also taught us to sit on the floor or ground. Even today, I'd prefer to sit on the floor as opposed to a chair. Although we didn't know it at the time, it's a Cherokee habit. If you are sitting on the floor (or preferably, the ground), you are touching something that the Creator made and that makes you physically closer to the Creator. Same thing applies to going barefoot, because after all, if your feet are touching the earth then you are touching something made by the Creator. Although Otter and I both have a shoe fetish, we still love to go barefoot. I think all of us do, and a lot of my childhood memories involve having bare feet.

One of my most special memories of Mom is being baptised with her. I have a very early memory of being baptised in the Methodist Church, I remember the water being sprinkled on my head but not much else about it. But when I was about Otter's age, we had started attending the Baptist Church on a regular basis - we'd attended it off & on already. Dad was baptised first, then I think Froggy was next. That left Mom and I. We both decided at the same time, on the same day and in the same service in fact, that it was time and what we wanted/needed to do. So we were baptised in the same ceremony, she was first and then it was my turn. It made a very special moment even more special and it is a memory I will treasure forever.

I don't mean to leave Toadles out, but he was already out of the house and in the Navy by the time my memories start. Toadles, email me if you have anything you want me to mention - Froggy, you too.

One of Mom's major joys was her grandchildren. I remember how excited she was when JediMom came along. JediMom was her first one and she was overjoyed. So was Dad, I'm not leaving him out, but this is about Mom. Each of her grandchildren was special to her and she was crazy about all of them. I think she would be very happy that there is another generation, JediMom's precious children. She loved children and they loved her just as much, total strangers would let her hold their children. She was just a natural!

Today is also what we are calling the dog's birthday. Maggie was Otter's birthday present 4 years ago, we got her right before the 12th and Otter decided that Maggie's birthday would be the same as her Grammy's. Frasier joined the family on January 1 of the same year, so we've had him a couple of months longer than Maggie, but we decided Frasier's day would be the same. We don't celebrate dog birthdays or have parties for them. (They get treats later on this evening.) With Mom's love of animals, we think it's appropriate to remember the dogs today.

One more personal note: Mom was very happy that Otter was born in March since it was the same month as her birthday. Otter was actuall due mid-April, but she must have known that it was better to be born in the same month as her Grammy because she certain listened when Mom told me that I should have her in March!

Sunday Quick Stuff!

Froggy is here, we have had a great time and have shopped our feet off. My Fenton collection has grown exponentially, and Thanks to Froggy I have a fairly rare piece of cranberry hobnail!

We went to Talequah today, to the Cherokee Heritage Museum and it was fun & informative. Otter took several pictures, I'll get them posted in the next few days. She wanted to make sure I gave her photographic credit, so when the Cherokee pictures show up you can thank Otter!

We've only been to Braum's twice. We might have to remedy that situation tomorrow. We are going to Skiatook and to two other stores after that. One of them is one we went to yesterday but it is closed on Sunday. Actually, I think it's closed on Mondays as well so it will probably have to wait until Tuesday.

So far, the score is: 2 flea markets, 2 antique malls, 1 park - fed 4 squirrels, 1 WalMart, 1 Atwoods Farm & Ranch store, 2 Braum's, 1 Museum. And 6 very tired feet!

Whine Wednesday

It's Wednesday. I'm whining.

I'm whining about the fact that we are pool-less! We've looked on Craigslist and there have been a few that are promising but they have sold fast. There are a couple of others, but for various reasons we probably aren't interested in them. Price, condition, etc. We decided to look at a couple of stores so we checked some on-line ads. BigLots current online ad had a promising pool, so we went to the store. And discovered that their online ad is about 2 weeks out of date. No pools left. Except for what we call kiddie pool size, which is about 1 1/2' deep. So we went to Wallyworld and they do have some, but they are not what we want. Wrong style, size, price. We went to another store (Froggy, remember Atwoods?) since they had the dog food we use on sale and they did have a good ad 2 weeks ago with a bigger and cheaper pool but they were out of stock. Which is what we expected, but since we were there anyway it was worth asking.

So I think we are going to have to spend this summer without a back yard pool. Hopefully, we'll find one on clearance at the end of the summer or we will go get one as soon as the ads come out next spring/summer.

Well, Otter's summer is about over anyway. She's going to Summer School for algebra. She'll start Monday. It will last until the end of July. It's at the intermediate high school that she's attended for the last two years. (Our school district is Intermediate High School for grades 9 & 10 then 11th and 12th grades are at the Senior High School). She passed all of her other classes, and has enough credit points to go on to 11th grade. But there are a couple of classes that have to have a passing grade to be able to go on and algebra is one of them. It's the only one she didn't pass, but it's the one that matters. She really tried, but she is not particularly math-abled. She's like me! So she'll be going to school in the mornings, 7:30 to 12:45. She was hoping to be able to come home and go for a swim, but that's not going to happen this year. Anyway, Summer School will end at the end of July, then she'll have a couple of days break before her annual summer trip to Texas to spend a week with her grandmother. Then she'll have about a week before school starts.

Froggy arrives tomorrow! I have orange slice candy ready. It's a family tradition. Along with peanut M&M's, but I didn't buy those yet because I would have already eaten every last one of them! Flea marketing & thrift shopping are on the schedule for the next few days. Along with a trip to Talequah, which is about an hour east of where we live. There is a Cherokee museum that we want to go to, that's Sunday's plan. Oh, I can't forget the real reason Froggy comes to see me: Braum's!

Today is Not a Holiday

Or it should be retitled. How about Anniversary of the Destruction of a Culture Day. That about sums it up.

Complicated. Need to Simplify.

I'm talking about life in general. There have been plenty of times when Bill and I both feel like we were born to the wrong generation - like maybe we should have been born a couple of generations ago. We have discussed simplifying our life at times and we've been taking some steps to do that.

Most women of my age range read the Little House on the Prarie books when they were younger. I loved them, I have a set now that I re-read at times. (It will eventually go to my future grandchildren). But when I was a kid, I kind of wanted to BE Laura. Or at least live the life she led. It still appeals to me to basically live off of the land and not have to depend on anyone else. I have my mother's Cherokee lessons to thank for that, although we didn't know at the time that it was Cherokee. It's also part of the Texan mind-set. I'm not complaining, I think it was a good lesson she taught me. I'm not afraid of hard work, and niether is Bill. And Otter has been taught to be a strong woman as well. She might occasionaly gripe when asked to do something, but that's mostly normal kid stuff. When she needs to, she works just as hard as we do. And we can (and do) work pretty hard.

Toadles, I'm probably talking your language. But I think we are on the same page.

Did you ever stop to think about how many different chemicals you come in contact with during any given day? Go read a label sometimes, you'll be surprised. Food as well as non-food items. Chemicals can make life easier, some of them I don't want to do without. But there are a lot that we don't need. There are some cleaners that I am not going to compromise on, but I am going to look into more natural cleaners. (Kim, you reading this? You've been talking about that for months now! I'm finally listening.) I have been reading food labels for years now, due to certain food allergies that I have to contend with. And since my illness last year, I have had to read the labels to check the fat content and I'm also reducing the salt intake. I haven't added salt to anything or cooked with it for years, but there is a LOT of salt in most processed foods. Salt is at least a natural chemical, just not one that we need all that much of.

We've been slowly taking steps to eat less chemically enhanced foods, but that one is not as easy as it sounds without a garden. Which we might have next year. But there are things that can be done, it takes some organization (my calling in life!) and a little time, not to mention attention to detail. I learned to cook from scratch, from the time I was little. I still use a lot of mom's recipes and techniques. And Otter has been taught like I was, she frequently spends a lot of her Saturday Sabbath rest day baking or reading a cookbook to find something to try.

We are not tree-hugging environmental wackos by any stretch of the imagination. I do work for an oil company, after all. But we are taking steps to reduce the amount of "stuff" we use, and we recycle as much as we can. Newspapers, plastics with 1 or 2 codes, most glass, tin cans, aluminum cans and cardboard are all things that we can recycle locally.

This is a work-in-progress. I'll post periodic updates or comments as I think of them.