My Top Books for 2012

My top books for 2012 are chosen from among the 180 books I read this year, that total by tonight--one still underway. I did start but did not finish about twenty-eight other books that I gave up on for one reason or another.

Note that in the fiction category, I have *starred the books that are part of a series.  My top books are listed here in no particular order of priority and are as follows:

FICTION

1. *Sapphire Blue by Kiersten Gier--YA Fiction

2. *Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson--LDS Fiction (but not LDS story)

3. *Cinder by Marissa Meyer--YA Fiction

4. *A Fatal Waltz by Tasha Alexander--Grown-up Fiction

5. *Royal Secrets by Traci Hunter Abramson--LDS Fiction

6. Legend of Shannonderry by Carol Warburton--LDS Fiction (but not LDS story)

7. Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale--YA Fiction

8. *Austenland by Shannon Hale--Grown-up Fiction

9. The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer--Grown-up Fiction

10. *Twelve Clues of Christmas by Rhys Bowen--Grown-up Fiction

11. *Deed of Murder by Cora Harrison--Grown-up Fiction

NON-FICTION

1. King Peggy by Peggielene Bartels

2. Journal of Best Practices by David Finch

SERIES
(I read several series where most books scored five stars--the highest score)

1. Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan (9 of the 11 books scored 5 stars from me)

2. Bess Crawford series by Charles Todd (3 or 4 books scored 5 stars and the 4th scored 4 stars)

3. The Agency series by Y.S. Lee (5, 4, and 5 stars of the three books) 

There were several other series I read this year where some of the books in each series scored 5 stars.

1. Constable Evan Mystery by Rhys Bowen (ten books, the last four scored five stars with the fifth to the last scoring four stars).  Although I do not always score Rhys Bowen's books at 5 stars, I have read every single book she has written and liked them all.

2. Sister Fidelma series by Peter Tremayne (I've read seventeen of the 23 in the series with three books scoring five stars).

It certainly is a strange thing to see my reading boiled down to this list.  There were a lot of other books I did read this year.  For some reason they were not quite five-star books but I liked them nonetheless.  One thing that is new to the list is the number of LDS fiction books I have read this past year.  I used to AVOID LDS fiction like the plague.  Maybe it has improved over the years.  Anyway, there is the list for this year (unless the book I am still reading turns out to be a five-star book, too).

Edna-isms, Part Twelve

1. "Jumpin' Jehosaphat!"  This was an all-purpose exclamation.  For an explanation of its origins, see http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-jum2.htm.

2.  "Malarky."  The common usage means exaggerated or foolish talk, usually lies.

3.  "By the great horn spoon!"  This was an all-purpose exclamation but to what does it really refer?!  See http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-gre3.htm for a great explanation of what its origins may be.

Design Day--Clock Tree

This is one of my favorite Christmas tree pictures of all time.  I've always wanted to recreate it at my own house but could never justify tearing apart so many old clocks, even if I could find that many.  I think it ran first in Country Living. (I found this on an image search but it is also in Country Living's book Merry and Bright, item 11.)

Merry Christmas

There always seems a lot to do as Christmas approaches--no matter how prepared I feel going in to that last week--and so my Sunday post for the blog went by the wayside.  However, here I am to make amends.  We had a lovely Christmas morning today.  It is nice to be all together as a family.  I am aware that once the little birds fly the nest that isn't always the case.  

One news item that did not make it in here earlier, what with all the Christmas hoopla, is that T has his braces off his teeth!  I think his smile is great.  (Two children down, one to go.)

Other "news" but I will save that for this coming Sunday.  No sense writing everything I know in one sitting!  We hope you have a great Christmas day!  Now to go catch up on my sleep!  

Edna-isms, Part Eleven

More and more sayings.

1.  "Standing here flat footed."  Hmm.  How to describe this.  "I'm just standing here flat footed trying to peel all these peaches."  Or, "I've just been standing here flat footed doing [X]."  This implied some dedication to a task and implied she'd been standing there a while.

2.  "Here's mud in your eye!"  and "Here's looking up your old address!"  Two drinking "cheers" that she might say occasionally as one would use, "Well, here goes!"

3.  "Raising a hue and a cry."  The Free Dictionary has the saying, "Raising a hue and cry" rather than "a cry" but Mom always had the "a" in there.  This means to alert people to a problem or a difficulty.  Mom would also use it to refer to someone how had thrown a fit about something.

Breaking News . . . :o)

Guess who is the Sterling Scholar for English at the local high school?!?  (I had INSISTED she apply and, ever since her application was turned in, I have had a case of nerves about it.  Today when I received the news, I did a jig while singing "Happy days are here again!  Let us sing a song of cheer again!  Happy days are here again!")

Design Day, Jubilee of Trees

I have not been to the local Jubilee of Trees in years but when I heard that my friend Jacob Beecher had a tree in the Jubilee of Trees I decided I had to go see it.  So the kids and I went for Family Home Evening the other night.  (It was an outing reminiscent of the outings when they were younger--no one's arm needed twisting to come and they all seemed interested in seeing the trees, so I had a sweet time.)

Here is Jacob Beecher's tree that won the Mrs. Santa Award.  (I did try to straighten my picture in photo editing but it moved it the opposite direction, so maybe I am the off-kilter one.)  This was his very first year in the Jubilee and then to come out with an award was just great!  I thought he did a wonderful job--and red IS my favorite color so he could not go wrong there!

Another of my favorite trees there was this tree, pictured above, that won the People's Choice Award.  It had scaled replicas of different pioneer buildings in the county (I love just about anything miniature).

The Sugar Loaf

Pine Valley Chapel

Judd's Store

 I cannot imagine the hours that went into creating those replicas.  Here are pictures of just a few.  It was a great evening and there were a lot of pretty trees to see.  You know how I am about my Christmas "follies" . . . . I wonder where I could learn to make those replicas . . . hmm . . . maybe next year.

Pictures: A Moment of Truth

Well . . . we have our pictures back from the photographer. Strange how these photos are not capturing the "real me"--the person I am in my mind--but some middle-aged gal that I'm not sure how I have become!  HA!

A friend wanted to see some of the photos and so "by popular demand" (she's a popular person with me!) here are a few. It is taking fortitude for me to post  them here for my handful of dear readers . . . and the rest of the known world.  I am the problem in all the photos--there is heavy cropping but no photo shopping.  This is no reflection on a great photographer.

On the other hand, the photos of the kidlets turned out just great, of course, and I am posting this representative sample, below. There are some other photos from this photo shoot on my Christmas picture postcards (and I do not want to ruin the surprise for you).

Overall, I think the photographer did a great job and I would use her again.  However, and as one would say: "the moral to this story is," if you want a better picture, bring a better image/face/visage.  I'll try that next year!

My mother always used to say:  "The only difference between a good picture and a bad picture is ten years."

I know that when my husband and I went on our honeymoon, we posed for a picture and I thought I looked just awful. We had planned to use them as postcards but I refused to send them out. While I still do not think I look good in that photo (the humidity did in my hair and there is a look of "Lurch" about me), when I look at it now I see our newly married trim and young selves looking back at me and it makes me smile. I post it here with only the mildest cringe.

Then, on the occasion of my mother's 80th birthday party, we had a family picture taken and I hated it--a lot--and I refused to buy more than the proofs.  Ten years later, I cannot see now what the problem was then.  I am dazzled instead by our youth (B's and mine), the young children clustered around us (who are now all taller than I am), and all of our delightfully happy smiles.

Yes, next year I hope to bring a better "me" to the photo shoot, but I also know for a fact that the only difference between a good picture and a bad picture is ten years . . . .

Edna-isms, Part Ten

More of my mama's sayings.

1. "Pain in the neck."  Just like common usage.  Used to refer to an irritant or a frustration.

2.  "Blessings on thee, little man with hair of gold and cheeks of tan."  This is a misquote of a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier that actually says, "Blessings on thee, little man/ Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!"  This was said when we did something right or good.

3.  "Neck of the woods."  Just like common usage.  It was usually said to someone else about his/her "neck of the woods."

Design Day, Bubble Lights

You may not know this about me, but I love the creative process of decorating a Christmas tree.  When I start with a tree, I keep working to "get the tree right" (which can lead to many follies, I must admit). This year, I got a bee in my bonnet and wanted bubble lights on the white tree (started this white tree last year) because it is my "retro tree"--with my mother's old Christmas ornaments. We used to have a strand of bubble lights when I was a kid and so did my husband's family.  I had seen old fashioned bubble lights on a tree at the Jubilee of Trees this year and so I hoped they might be available locally.  The white tree is pre-lit with multi-colored lights but imagine how those bigger bubble lights would light up a white tree!

There were bubble lights available online at Miles Kimball ($19.99 per strand before shipping, and pictured above) and more at Vermont Country store ($29.99 per strand before shipping but it looks today like they are sold out) but it took a while to find them around here.

This is like the set we found at Lowe's.  What this picture does not show is that there is a colored bulb in each of those bubble lights--red, green, yellow and blue--and that bulb lights up the whole plastic "light" and makes it all appear to be the color of the bulb with the water bubbling also the color of the bulb.  Not exactly multi-colored like the top picture and like our childhood memory but the cost was about $8.50 each.  Sold!  They do create a bigger spot of bright light against the white tree, and they do bubble.

This is a picture of one of the bubble lights on the tree.  It looks great!  That issue is resolved!  Now, something is still missing . . . hmm . . . what could it be?  I guess I will just have to continue working on this tree until I get it right (read: another of P's follies!). What you do not know is that once I "get it right," I have to change it up again . . . a never-ending design story! Stay tuned! 

How the whole day was spent

Yesterday was the big day for family pictures--you remember my mention of my ambitious plans and no time to see to those plans? (Yes, how could you forget, right?!) Because of other demands, my part in the family picture day kept getting shoved farther and farther forward.

"And so it continued both day and night."  (Does anyone recognize those words? They are from a familiar Christmas carol.)

The tree prop back at home after the shoot.

Finally, it was "D-day" aka the actual day of the family pictures.  My part in the pictures was (1) to coordinate our picture wardrobe  and (2) to ready the props and. Simple, huh?  Not really.

By Saturday, I did not know what to have us wear. I had worried and stewed about this in many quiet hours and still no revelation! I wanted  to coordinate using clothing we had but, since clothes are not purchased with an eye toward having to match with the rest of the family, it was tricky. I also needed to coordinate with the packages that were our props (my own little design issue).  Also, we were limited by what colors or items certain family members either did not have (for example: T does not have jeans and L and J had no casual pants except jeans) or would not wear (for example: can't see my husband in a scarf even if it would add red to his ensemble). So L and I went out in the morning, desperately shopping and plotting and planning, so we could fill in the gaps. As it turned out, I was the most difficult one to clothe and I bet I tried on clothes for at least two solid hours. In fact, I purchased one shirt that I had decided NOT to wear in the pictures just because I had worn it off and on for nearly those full two hours and I felt I had worn it to the extent that it was dishonest to put it back on the rack! HA! We were also limited by what we could find IN THE RIGHT COLOR COMBINATIONS in the time we had.

The wreath prop back home after the shoot.

On our way home from clothes shopping, we drove by the nursery and picked up a live/cut Christmas tree and a wreath of live pine boughs.  Lovely. That was the easiest shopping we had done. Earlier in the week, I had set out the tree lights and stand, so they were ready to go.

We arrived home and handed out clothes and instructions of what to wear.  I ended up wearing a pair of pants I ALREADY HAD and so could have saved at least an hour of pants-trying-on.  I handed out the few items we'd purchased in the right colors but, for the most part, we wore what we had. Then it was time for pictures.  Time just ran out to fine tune our clothing choices.

One hastily wrapped package.

By Saturday morning, I had wrapped three lovely packages as props but I did not have the two packages done.  I had shopped at several local stores for the right color of paper and ribbon. I wrapped the last two packages in the van as we drove to the shoot location. Do I have mad wrapping skillz or what?  It think it is "or what" because you can see the chop to the ribbon I made as we rounded a sharp curve in the road just as I snipped to make a decorative "V" with the scissors and you can see the crinkles of the paper, as I struggled with it on my lap, made little white marks, but who is noticing that, right?

The shoot itself went well but I have no pictures to show just yet. Everyone was in a good humor, at least at the shoot and at dinner, even if I had to strike some weird poses behind the back of the photographer to ensure some real smiles on the kids' faces.

We went out to dinner to celebrate or at least I was celebrating. Whew! Then, L and I went shopping again, this time for things she wanted/needed, because we had run out of time that morning to shop for those items. As L and I drove home last night about 9:30 p.m., L said, "Hey, Mom!  I've been with you all day today!"  With her soon off to attend college, what a great bonus that was for me!

So  if, despite my ambitious undertakings, the pictures make us look just like the common folk and mere mortals we actually are, it was still a good day to spend with the family.

Edna-isms, Part Nine

Yes, there are more.

1.  "Then it's all over but the shouting."  She would use this as a prediction of catastrophe--"Just use your sister's hair brush and then it will be all over but the shouting."  Or if someone caught wind of something wrong, "It would be all over but the shouting!"

2.  "Good-bye Randy and the kids" or "It would be good-bye Randy and the kids."  This was used in much the same way as #1.  I have no idea where it came from.

3.   "Erzatz milk."  Of course, Erzatz means something that isn't real and she would use the expression "erzatz milk" to refer to powdered milk which we kids hated to drink.

Design Day, Eye Candy

When I first started my blog, I was "inspired" by a few blogs that I wanted to emulate. Of course, I did not really emulate them and went on my own bumbling way, but that was the original thought. Once such blog is allsorts. I did not READ it so much as LOOK at it.  When one of my computers died a few years ago, I lost track of the site but have been recently "reunited."  Here is a photo from the blog.  For me, it is "eye-candy" in the truest sense of the word.  My favorite color is red and I think Jenny's use of red is one of the captivating factors for me. Perhaps you would enjoy looking through this cool blog, too?

My life as a grocery list

 There has been so much going on the past two weeks that I do not even know where to start.  A lot of it is the "same old same old" but ramped up. Some is new and different and some is seasonal.

This weekend at the meet--L between two friends.

• My part-time job as swim mom.  This is the regular song and dance that I keep posting about: 3:55 a.m. mornings five days a week, driving the carpool two to three times per week, managing the carpool (more effort than one could imagine), TIREDNESS, and lately there has been a new carpool schedule to draw up, swim team fundraiser snafus, and a swim meet (two-day away meet this weekend).  B and I were able to go to the meet together on Saturday.  Usually he cannot go because he has to work.

A picture for her application showing L
making a hat for an humanitarian project.

• L and her Sterling Scholar application.  EGAD!  I'm speechless!  Due this last Wednesday!  May I recover soon!  EGAD!  Now that the application is in and since I required her to apply, I am nervous about the outcome.  I guess  it serves me right.
• L and her BYU application.  Once again: EGAD!  Due last night at midnight!  She was trying to write her essays for this during the swim meet and the bus ride to and from.  Back-to-back applications this week!  And not just two simple applications and I was right in the thick of it!  May I recover soon from this, too! I told B if I had another week like this one, I would definitely need a blessing to get through it.
• My real part-time job. We are converting to a new circulation system and that is fun and exciting for me.  Did I say that I love technology?  Yes, I probably did say that already. Extra hours of work this week.  Always love extra cash at Christmas.
• The in-laws. B and I took his mother to the hospital late Sunday night two weeks ago and got back home at 2:30 a.m. (yes, I woke up at 3:55, then went back to bed 4:30 to 5:55, yawn). We really haven't even finished the entire flood clean-up. Just like with the flooding, this impacts B directly and I help where I can although I am mainly the assistant and then  fill in the gaps here at home. Things were pretty tense for the Thanksgiving week and we made multiple trips to town.  The worry of it all changed our Thanksgiving plans completely. She is somewhat better now and is home again, but B has made trips almost every other day to help them. I go along when I can.

Thanksgiving table, arranged by L.

• Thanksgiving. Never knowing from one day to the next, from Monday morning until Thursday morning, what exactly we were going to do for Thanksgiving, if anything, added a layer of stress to that week.  As it turned out, we ate here, just the five of us, everyone pitched in, and it was lovely. Plus, by then, my mother-in-law seemed to be slowly recovering.

A picture we bought on the occasion of our anniversary
to hang in our "front" front room.

• Our Anniversary. For our anniversary, B and I ate Subway sandwiches together in the cab of B's truck, parked in front of his parents' house, before we went in to help his parents.  They did not want us to bring them food.  I refused to eat in front of them.  It was our anniversary.  We ate in the truck. 

My white tree.

• Christmas. The thing about Christmas is that it creates an overlay over an already normally full schedule.  Things get pushed aside as Christmas things need to be done.  We have some Christmas things done but a lot more to go. Luckily, I love Christmas.  My sis and her little guy invited me to go to the Dickens Festival on Friday night. I could not get my two boys to go with us but the other three of us had a lovely time together.  Did I also mention we have two of our Christmas trees up and decorated?  Love them. Trying to convince B to put up my third tree.

      My German ornament tree.

• Relief Society.  Always a little something going on in this category all the time, plus the usual visiting teaching. We are also planning a Christmas program. 
• Family pictures.  OK, I'm doing this to myself, but I am really stressing out over this. Create an ambitious plan, have no time to set things in place for your ambitious plan, have little family interest or energy for this, obsess pointlessly about what everyone will wear (because there's nothing coordinating to wear!), stew in my own juices for weeks on end . . .  You get the picture.  Now it all has to come together this week.  Did I mention that I am stressed?  Yes, I am.
• Only one child has a driver's license.  If my boys have any activities (and T has almost daily things during the week), I am the driver. So doctor's appointments, piano lessons, work, fun, school, tests at the testing center, field trip--I am along for the drive.

Note the puppies on the pj pants.  My cute nephew R loves puppies!

• Sewing.  My youngest nephew (youngest on both sides of the family) asked me to make him a pair of pajama pants for his birthday.  I was really flattered.  Although his birthday was a few weeks ago, it took me a while to get them done, what with either "busy-ness" or whacked-out tiredness, but I finally do have those pj pants done.  I feel bad to be late but why not stretch out birthday gladness, right? Now to make a little something else to send with it and then get it in the mail.  My kids each want a new pair of pj pants for Christmas.  Let's see if that happens.

Well, that about sums it up . . . well, and then there is the pervasive tiredness (referenced above) that sometimes makes even simple tasks seem daunting or makes a simple task take weeks rather than days. Ah, the joy of being "relevant"--needed, useful, helpful, busy, hip . . oh, not hip.  This week looks a little calmer.  I can only hope. So that's wassup around here.

Edna-isms, Part Eight

Just an aside--I came across this picture of my mother after her death as I was cleaning out her house.  I had never seen it before in my life and it has become one of my new favorite pictures of her.

Skip these if you're tiring of them but I'm on a roll.

1. "Colder than a mother-in-law's welcome!"  This was usually in reference to the weather.

2.  "Colder than Logan in July!"  This was also in reference to the weather and implying that Logan was cold all year long.

3.  "Do you like that better than this year's styles?"   Mom had on a new dress and that was my grandmother's joke about the new dress--totally delivered as a joke and taken as a joke.

4.  "Whozamaflinkit." When Mom couldn't remember someone's name offhand, she might call them this.

5.  "There's just one fly in the ointment."  This would be used when there was a catch in an otherwise good plan.

The State of the Blog Address

Art by PGB

Since I “hatched” my new blog post schedule a couple of months ago (Edna-isms Fridays; Design Wednesdays and Wassup Sundays), I have been pretty consistent with this newly invented schedule until this last Sunday.  I missed writing my “’wassup’-with-my-family-and/or-me” Sunday post.

Edna-isms Friday.  This school year my mother has been on my mind.  As I go through the senior year with L, I think back on my mother going through my senior year with me.  I wonder what my mother was thinking and feeling back then, and whether it would mirror what I am thinking and feeling now.  Because she is so much on my mind these days, the Edna-isms are a fun way to remember my mother. One thing that made my mother unique was her conversation. That was something I missed as she descended into dementia—before losing those little bits and pieces of herself, she had never been one to let silences stretch out. I have been collecting these Edna-isms for a while and I am still doing so. I have been strangely motivated to write the Edna-isms on the blog, maybe because I can do it incrementally. At the end of each year, I print out my blog into a booklet, so if I write the Edna-isms here, they will be preserved in that booklet. This has been a pet project for me, so please bear with me.

Design Wednesdays.  The Design Wednesdays are a nod to that design "bug" I always feel and had always hoped to do something about on my blog.  This is such a cheerful task--being on the lookout every single day for design items to include in the blog--that I hope others enjoy this, too.  

Wassup Sundays.  The Wassup Sundays are for me to record something that has been going on in my life or to record something that has been going on with other people in my life.  I assume this type of post is why most of my tiny handful of readers check in occasionally, so I will keep going with these kinds of posts.  However, these are the hardest posts to write--so much to write about, really, with all the "wassup" in my life, but so much that probably should NOT be written and left to float about in cyberspace. Ah well.

  

There are always other ideas floating around in my mind that would be good blog fodder but nothing that seems to merit a day of the week of its own.  So maybe I need to add a "what-not" day at some point and include a random idea every now and again.  Hmm.  Maybe I will.  Stay tuned.

Design Day: It's all about the table

Does this make you want to throw a party?  It certainly has that effect on me.  But I would have to have the tablecloth AND the harlequin ribbon (tablecloth available at grandinroad.com) and not just one or the other. Did I mention that red is my favorite color? Hmm, maybe I do "need" this tablecloth . . . .

Edna-isms, Part Seven

More sayings . . . .

1.  "Just us chickens."  My mother was an English teacher so I am sure this is some quote she picked up from somewhere and used it as a joke.  This was said in reply to, "Who's there?"

2.  "And that's a whole nother batch of cats."  My mother often explained that "nother" was not a word so this is some saying picked up from somewhere and used with a smile on her face.  This was like saying, "And that's another story!"

3. "Out/Off on a lark."  The Free Dictionary says this means doing something for fun.

4.  "The hired help."  When Mom came upon kids or people working, she would often say, "How's the hired help?"

5.  To describe someone who was acting crazy or to refer to herself after doing something crazy, Mom might say that person was, "crazy as a loon" or "batty."

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you had a happy day!  We're thankful for a lot here.  I've been reluctant to publicly itemize my thankfulness this year lest I seem to gloat over something that I have that someone else does not.  However, today, I want to go on record as saying that I am thankful for successfully making dinner rolls using my mother-in-law's recipe.  Last time I made them, my efforts seemed jinxed. This time, armed with a new bottle of yeast, I was successful.  It really boosts my cooking self esteem to finally have a scapegoat for the last time--that darned yeast!

Design Day

From about a dozen place settings at pier1.com, L and I voted this our favorite!  I think the carved wooden charger and the cute pumpkin covered bowl are the accents that really make this our fav.

Memories of Thanksgivings Past

Thanksgiving dinner has always meant extra people at the table and lots and lots of good food.  That table was my grandmother G's table that we had inherited along with its multitudinous leaves.  It could really be a big table when we needed it to be. The chairs were some matching chairs from my grandmother G (6 chairs?) and some not-matching chairs from my grandmother N (8 chairs).  Sometimes we even had to bring out the folding chairs. For Thanksgiving dinner, my job was to get out all the table's leaves, extend the table as far as we needed to accommodate everyone, arrange all the chairs around the table evenly (sometimes including the piano bench at one end of the table if we needed it to squeeze in a couple of kids), put on the table liner (which my mother insisted we use), then a nice table cloth.

Next, my job was to set the dining room table with our "best" (Lennox) dishes or "second best" dishes (a pinkish/purple floral patterned set), along with Mom's silverware (Reed and Barton) or the silver-plate service, along with some glass goblets. I also had to remember to set out things like salt and pepper shakers, napkins (usually Mom bought some Thanksgiving paper napkins), butter (well, probably margarine), salad dressing, jam Mom had made in the summer, and condiments like Mom's picked beets, "store-bought" olives and cranberry sauce, and different kids of pickles Mom had made--bread-and-butter pickles, sweet pickles, dill pickles, and one other kind of pickle I can recall but cannot name. I also had to set out whatever we were going to drink (milk always but also water and/or punch).

I had to be a kitchen helper and "fetch-it" for my mother.  For example, I would have to retrieve the serving plates from their different cupboards.  I peeled the carrots and, if they were on the menu, potatoes.

One of my jobs was to arrange the fruit center piece--one pineapple, bunches of grapes, bananas, oranges, and apples--that sat in the middle of the table on a circular tray.

I may not have done all this when I was a wee lassie but I did grow into this role of assistant.  I know it sounds a bit like an unintentional Cinderella story here.  Maybe my brother was chopping wood for the fire place that was kept burning day and night?  Maybe he was bringing in the newspaper?  Maybe my sister had to tidy up the rest of the house or was sent to borrow something from the neighbors that Mom might have forgotten?  Honestly, I do not remember a thing about what they were doing when I was doing all that other stuff and Mom was in the kitchen cooking.

Mom had all the cooking to do.  She would make the pies ahead of time: apple, pumpkin, cherry, and mincemeat. My dad liked the mincemeat pies and she would make and can the mincemeat filling in the summer.  The mincemeat always smelled great but you could not have paid me to eat any.  Some years she would make cream pies of some sort but not always. The apple and cherry filling were, in the earlier years, fillings she had made and canned.  Later, once the apple and cherry trees had died, she used commercially-canned apple, cherry and pumpkin filling.  She would serve ice cream with the pies (not homemade ice cream, in case you wondered!).  When it was time for the dessert, this was when Mom would claim that a person always had room for ice cream since it would just melt over everything else in your stomach.

She would make a couple of jello salads ahead of time.  The one most often requested by my brother was the Christmas ribbon jello salad.  My sister liked the green jello with pecans, cottage cheese and pineapple.  I liked orange jello with Mandarin oranges and crushed pineapple.  I cannot say that she made all three but her making two was not unheard of--perhaps it depended on how many people she was feeding.

She would cook a huge turkey.  She made her own bread dressing and included carrots, onions and celery in it.  She would save crusts of bread from her homemade bread, cut it up and bake it in little squares to use for the dressing.  She might have sometimes mixed it with some commercial package like Mrs. Cubbins (sp?)--half and half.  She ground up all the bread and the vegetables together.  Usually she would put some stuffing in the bird and some stuffing in a separate pan to cook.  She also made turkey gravy--with flour.

I loved the homemade rolls. Sigh. Once in a while, she might serve warmed up rolls she'd made earlier in the week when she made her bread.  Most of the time, she would try to have fresh rolls she had made that day.  My favorite rolls were the ones using Aunt Lucile's recipe and those were the ones she made in my teen and young adult years.  They were bread twists, shaped kind of like big bread sticks.  My mom excelled at making bread and rolls. Yum!

She would make a fruit salad (probably fruit cocktail and bananas and some kind of pudding mixture), and I would likely make a "lettuce" salad, including carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers out of our garden. She would cook string beans (from our garden that she'd canned in the fall--"always make sure they boil for ten minutes" she'd say when she would be heating them up to serve), corn that we'd cut off the cob and frozen in little baggies in the fall or corn that had been frozen on the cob, and she would cook some kind of dish with sweet potatoes. I must admit, she usually cut corners and used instant potato flakes for the mashed potatoes.  Sometimes we just had cubed potatoes that were boiled, and we mashed them ourselves before pouring the gravy on them.

And after all the food was eaten or put away in the refrigerator and the table was cleaned off, Mom insisted on hand washing her own china.  She said she did not want to feel bad if someone else broke a piece.  What a lot of work she went to for all of us to have a great Thanksgiving!

Probably most years we did not have guests (and the menu and particularly the quantity did not vary much with or without company!) and some years we did have guests, mostly extended family.  I think in my very young years, the G family (my father and his siblings) would still get together for Thanksgiving and I do remember one such year with many tables set up outside on the lawn at my grandmother's house (before we lived there).  However, my memories of Thanksgiving are of my parents and my siblings sitting down to eat at my grandmother G's table in our own house surrounded by all the bounty I have described.  I have very happy and fond memories of my "Thanksgivings Past" of my youth.

Edna-isms, Part Six

More of my mother's sayings . . . .

1. "Bathe and shave."  Instead of saying, "Go take a bath" or "I need to bathe," my mother would always say both of them--something like, "Make sure you bathe and shave" or "I'm going to bathe and shave and then we can go."

2.  "Spit bath" and "spit curls."  A spit bath, according to the dictionary, is a quick bath where you don't wash your hair and it takes about five minutes.  Mom sometimes used the expression like this but sometimes it implied that you should (as in an earlier post) "wash up and far as possible and down as far as possible" and it really wasn't a bath at all.  The spit curls were little curls around your face that you would curl the night before with a little water and hold the curl in place with a bobby pin until it dried.

3. "How 'bout them apples?"  The Urban Dictionary says this means, "What do you think about that?"

4.  "Hotter than Halifax!"  Mom had a lot of descriptive expressions and this was regarding the weather.  This one saw a lot of use because we live in a hot climate.

5.  "Scrubbed with gasoline."  The best example of the use of this expression is this.  A friend of mine had a passel of little children and they were all extremely clean, with hair slicked down firmly with hair goo, and wearing nice clothing and shoes.  To this my mother would have said, "They look like they've all been scrubbed with gasoline!"

Design Wednesday

We made these blocks at a Relief Society activity this month.

"Regrets? I've had a few . . . ."

"Regrets? I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention."  The lyrics of that Frank Sinatra song were running through my mind while L and I again visited a local campus--the same campus that I wrote about here.

L was invited to attend a "Distinguished Scholar" day at that campus and she really wanted to attend (maybe because two of her best buddies were attending?).

Yesterday, the college administration "wined and dined" high school scholars from around the state with the hopes of convincing those scholars to choose that particular university. I felt perhaps it would be a bit redundant since we had only just been there, but I am always L's 100% supporter. So we did attend.

Lo and behold, we had an even better day yesterday than the already good-enough day we had had a couple of weeks ago (despite rain, wind, and a dying umbrella that drew blood) and it did not feel redundant. Our day was capped off by a dinner and entertainment in what looked like a Hogwarts dining hall and then each scholar was presented with a certificate awarding scholastic achievement.

I have to say there are so many things to like about that university. I do not know if that is where L should go to college--whether it would be the right or best choice for her--but I am completely won over. Therein hangs the tale.

As with our earlier campus visit, I kept reflecting back on my own senior year of high school.

I received a full-tuition scholarship to this same school. I did not apply for the scholarship. It was handed to me at an end-of-the-year scholarship banquet and I was thoroughly surprised. I was not an excellent scholar like L--but I was a pretty good student and I was extremely involved in extra-curricular things. Maybe my mother had a hand in my receiving that scholarship, convincing the school counselor to go to bat for me, since my mother was so universally liked. Be that as it may have been, I had the scholarship and all of my plans set in place for going to that school. Then, somewhere around the end of August before I was to attend, I changed my mind and I went somewhere else for college. And never looked back . . . until now.

Around the time that I became an adult (some would argue as to the exact moment that occurred or whether it has occurred at all! :o), I have forced myself to absolutely spend no time on regrets, on "what-might-have-beens," on "if-onlys," as I have gone through my life. I have felt that if I went back in time to those same pivotal moments where I could have changed something, either doing or not doing something, AND NOT KNOWING THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW, I would have made exactly the same choices, because I have always been "carefull"--as in "full of care," serious, weighed down with thought--about trying to do the best I could do under any circumstances regardless of whether I actually did well or not, or whether things turned out well or not. For better or for worse, this philosophy of not entertaining regrets has continued with me for the past several decades and I have spent almost no time taking out my regrets and looking at them. Yes. "Regrets? I've had a few."

However, as I walked around that campus--twice--and heard all the glowing things about that campus--twice--and felt myself thoroughly converted to the idea of that school--twice, I have wondered: What would have happened if I had followed through on my long-ago plans to go there? How would my life have been different now but for that one decision?

I recall my decision very well--I felt I absolutely could not go there--period--that I absolutely had to go closer to home to the other school. No if, ands or buts. And, as it turned out, I did not even LIKE that other school I attended my freshman year and I quickly went to another school for my sophomore year. As it turned out, I did not like that school either, but decided I was the problem, not the schools, so I just stayed put and eventually received my bachelor's degree from that school.  Chances are that I would not have liked any school I attended.  Chances are that I would have changed schools after my freshman year no matter which school I attended first. Who knows?!

As I visited this school of my original choice, through my mind paraded so many experiences that were unique to the other schools I attended (three different schools, to be exact--one of them after college graduation, and one of those schools I attended two different times--and liked the second time, btw).

Hands down, I believe I chose for my freshman year the more easy-going and accepting set of roommates (whom I love to this day) in my choice to change schools--and both of those roommate sets were choices that I fell into and didn't orchestrate on my own.

Some experiences have been so pivotal to who and what I am now that I cannot imagine NOT having had those experiences--people, places, things. Would I have experienced the exact same kind of growth and in the same ways if I had gone to the school of my original choice? Would I even be the same person today? Close on the heels of those thoughts comes the thought of all the experiences I would have been happy to avoid. . . . Don't we all have those?!

As with all self-discussions and mental perusals of regrets, the answers to all those questions are unknowable, which is one of the main reasons I do not like to entertain my regrets. The real crux of the recent thoughts is this: Would things have been BETTER if I had gone to the school of my original choice? Would my life have been DIFFERENT in significant ways if I had not changed schools before attending this school to which I am now obviously converted?  Or did everything turn out exactly the way God wanted, despite my seemingly willy-nilly school choices?

Like it says in Alma 29:3--"But behold  I am a [person--as opposed to a God, perhaps], and do sin in my wish [to know the unknowable, ala "It's a Wonderful Life"]; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me."  So, once again, I go back to my life philosophy of putting regrets away.  Likely things turned out just the way I needed them to be for my personal growth, likely just the way God intended and "allotted" them to be, I would imagine.

Regrets, you say? I actually have had a few. But then again, they are just too, too few to mention . . . .

Law School Graduation.

Edna-isms, Part Five

 These are sayings of my mother's. . . . Edna-isms.

1.  Once, while I was in high school, my mother and I saw about five blond girls walking along the sidewalk.  My mother's comment was, "They're all dyed out of the same bottle."

2.   When we were leaving singly to go somewhere and meet up later, my mother would say, "See you on the ice!"  I always thought this was something an ice skating performer would say, but I do not know its origin.

3.  "Criminently!" The dictionary says this word is used as an expletive to express disbelief, disgust or dismay. Once again, a general purpose cuss word.  :o)

4.  "Glory be to Gideon!"  Mom would use this expression when something good happened--much like someone would use "Hallejuah!"

5.  "Gadzooks!"  The dictionary says this word is used to signify alarm.  Yep, another useful cuss word.

Design Day

I could use some bar stools like these!  They are for sale at grandinroad.com.

Just about like dementia . . . .

Sleep deprivation--one of about ten things that can make a person SEEM like he/she has dementia when he/she really doesn't--is my current nemesis.  Actually, studies have shown that prolonged sleep deprivation is actually linked to dementia, but I do not plan to be permanently sleep deprived, just temporarily and for a good cause.

Now that high school swim team practices have started, I wake up every weekday morning at 3:55 a.m. to help L get off to swim. On the days I work, I go back to bed and try to sleep until 5:55 a.m. but the quality of that sleep is very poor. Then, I WANT to go to sleep about 8 in the evenings but invariably I am kept from it until 10 or 11 p.m., primarily because the household (and the world at large) is not on the same schedule as I am. I can feel my brain go into hibernation mode about 8 pm but "the show must go on."  On days I do not work, I drive the carpool and wait while the kids practice. In the past, I've slept for about an hour and a half during the practice time, but this year, for some reason, I cannot seem to sleep. Plus, because during the past two weeks I have almost not been at home at all, chances for naps have been rare. (I had planned to draw a calendar and black out all the time I was gone from home the past two weeks to illustrate this point, but. . . . I was too busy to do that.)

The end of this week was particularly bad in the sleep deprivation department. On Thursday, I woke up at 3:55 a.m., was awake until about 1:30 a.m. (sorting the swim wear items into jumbo bags for each person's order), woke up at 3:55 a.m., was awake until about 10 or 10:30 p.m., woke at 5:00 a.m. (and immediately demanded of my almost sleeping husband, "What am I awake for now?!" because I couldn't remember).  I was able to take a two-hour nap in the afternoon and then went to bed about 10 p.m. last night. I am still tired today.

An article in the Deseret News, on Monday, October 29, 2012 (A5), about sleep deprivation and students stated: "We know that sleep deprivation can affect memory, creativity, verbal creativity and even things like judgment and motivation and being (engaged) in the classroom. . . . [W]hen you're sleepy, (being engaged) isn't going to happen."  This is all true.

The "engagement" issue happens regularly--I'll think of something I should do or would ordinarily want to do, and then think, "Oh well."

I find that when I'm tired, I talk a lot more (I've spent twenty-two years trying to be a quiet person like my husband's family--which hasn't really worked entirely anyway but this blows it all to heck).  I find that when I am overly tired, I don't really have a "governor" that tells me when to shut up or tells me what to avoid saying.  I already have what I call the ADHD "blurts" where I am pretty forthright and call it like I see it, and severe sleep deprivation just ramps that personality trait up.

I also find I cannot reason things through, so I make a lot of dumb errors--such as making errors at work. Luckily, errors in the library are not of the same caliber of errors as those errors in the law office or court room. I tried to drive to our practice pool instead of the swim meet pool on Saturday.  One morning, I tried to drive away with one girl just standing by the car--trying to open the van door when I thought she was closing it.  No harm, no foul--I caught myself in time to stop (I'm already known for driving away before they're fully IN the van, so this was a new low). I have called some people by the wrong names--repeatedly.  For example, I called Zach "Josh" two times inside of about a five-minute time period. I even called my children the wrong names--not sibling names as is common for mothers to do but random names.  I could not order my food and talk with my friend at the same time.  I have forgotten some things I had put on my calendar.

I can't come up with things when I'm put on the spot. I could not solve a problem with a particularly ornery person until I had had a few hours to sort things through (I did keep from blowing my stack, though). Over all, I find that I am not very productive, creative, or "engaged." I have trouble being motivated.  My judgment is strained.

For now, my main goal is just to keep going.  I expect to continue on this way--not expecting a whole lot of myself--until swim ends about mid-February.  

If I had not been a mother before I was a swim team carpool mother, I would not be able to do this.  Because I was a mother first, I know I can keep going, regardless of sleep or illness or dark of night or temporary derangement of mind.  In other words, I "keep going," but I am not very high functioning while I "keep going." So bear with me (and I'll try to bear with me, too).

Edna-isms, Part Four

 Another installment of Edna-isms!

1. "Between the devil and the deep blue sea."  This means to be caught between two equally unpleasant situations.  This is probably a well-known phrase but also something my mother would use.

2.  "The ice cream just melts over everything else in your stomach."  This was usually said after Sunday dinner or Thanksgiving dinner when you didn't feel you could fit another thing in your stomach and she'd point out ice cream's quality to fit into the cracks.

3.  "It's OK.  We're just renters."  When my mother was teaching junior high school, she returned to her room one day to find a young man jumping from desk to desk around the room.  She admonished him, "Is this something you would do at home?!"  He replied, "Yes."  When she didn't believe him, he explained, "It's OK.  We're just renters!"

4. "Coom coom."  I don't know how to spell this but Mom would say this sometimes in place of "come, come."  I also assumed it had Danish origins since my grandfather N had Danish-speaking parents but I don't really know.

5.  "Little Boy Blue,"  "Little Tom Tinker," or "good old What's-His-Name."  When Mom couldn't remember someone's name, she would refer to him with some silly name like this. (To refer to two people whose names should couldn't immediately remember, she might have referred to them as, "Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee."

Design, Day Two This Week!

I LOVE this mantel scarf!  I know I already posted this week's design interest yesterday, but I had to post this since, well, today is Halloween.  As of today, this mantel scarf is sold out at grandinroad.com and I can see why.  However, it is also available in a Christmas-themed material.

I need to figure out how to make this because I can just picture a similar scarf on my own mantel!  [My friend NACS came to my rescue with this link: http://www.kerribradford.com/category/projects/.]