apprentice

Summer break will be here soon. Something fun and productive we have incorporated into our summers over the years is the “apprentice program.” Every summer I let my children each choose a few things they’d like to learn how to do and they enter into an apprenticeship with me. I encourage practical, age-appropriate things such as ironing shirts, mopping floors, and cleaning toilets, but also let them choose fun things like learning to use power tools, how to paint a room, or crochet. They especially enjoy developing new kitchen skills: making the perfect pie crust, donuts, or a favorite main course. If I catch them young enough, they love to learn to use the machines including the vacuum, washing machine, and even the sewing machine. By the end of the summer they feel very confident in many new skills. It’s great to have one of them say, “Can I fix sweet and sour chicken for supper tomorrow night?” And I can’t help but chuckle when I hear a big sigh and the lament, “And I just scrubbed that floor…”

home alone

Last night Eli and I returned from a road trip to Utah for his brother-in-law's wedding and for Jesse's graduation ceremonies. Last December Jesse graduated from BYU with a degree in psychology. Great job, Jesse! My younger children, Hannah (18 1/2) and Isaac (15) had too many obligations at home to come with us, so I left them here to take care of each other. They were not home when we returned, but I could tell they had done a fine job except for a few minor things...

I noticed they hadn't brought in the mail for three days. I was surprised, as they had brought in Eli's mail for him (and he lives a mile away). In all fairness to them, however, that was on the list Eli left for them and I had neglected to put that on my list. (I wondered why checking HIS mail hadn't triggered the thought to check OUR mail; oh well).

Not wanting to burden them, my list on the kitchen chalk board was amazingly brief:
-pick up band uniform at dry cleaners Thur. aft.
-put trash out Thur. night
-mow yard Sat.
-take stuff to church
-stake trek mtg Sun night

When I got home, the first two had been done and erased, replaced with the message:
"Mom, cookie dough's in the fridge" clearly meaning, "Mom, we know you've had a long trip, we're glad you're home, please have fresh cookies waiting for us when we get home from church." Lest you think me cynical, know that the first thing out of Hannah's mouth when she got home was not, "Mom!" it was "Cookies!"

Back to the rest of my list. It was still on the chalk board but wasn't the same list as I left:
-move yard sale
-take &%#$ to church
-star trek mtg Sun night

Needless to say, the lawn wasn't mowed (but then, neither was the yard sale moved!?!), the star trek meeting was a peculiar disappointment, and I didn't dare ask what they took to church! But in all fairness to them, it had been a busy few days with school, tennis tournament, a two-day swim meet a city away, annual March of Dimes walk... And, although not on my list, they HAD done the grocery shopping and kept up with the dishes, aren't they great kids!

hands

This charcoal drawing of Nate and Jackie holding hands is titled "Unity." It is currently in an exhibit at the Citadel Mall. It is one of my daughter, Hannah's, drawings from her series on hands illustrating relationships. Her series includes drawings of friends' hands playing Nintendo, team hands in a spirit cheer, and a sweet one of Avey's hand clutching Eli's finger.

Her drawings have made me think of my own hands and how I love them. They are getting older, now; the knuckles are starting to get a little crooked and knotted with the beginning signs of arthritis. But the skin is still smooth and soft and they still can do everything I need them to do for me. Sometimes I forget how absolutely precious my hands are. I tend to use them and abuse them, take them for granted and neglect them. But they are my best tools; they are skilled and creative. They are agile enough to play the piano and do fine needlework; they are strong enough to pull weeds, scrub floors, and make bread. They are gentle enough to comb snarls out of a little girl's curls or nurse an injured bird. And they are tender enough to caress the ones that I love.

I hope they never get too tired to do good things!

books...

I always wanted to be a librarian. When I was about 12, I organized, categorized, and labeled the spine of each book in my personal collection. I put a card and pocket inside each front cover and my bedroom became a library. The only patrons were my brothers, who sadly had not much interest in Nancy Drew and other girly-type stuff. Still, it was a joy to me.

A couple of months ago, I applied for a volunteer position at our local branch of the library, and last Saturday I was trained and started my new job! I work 3 hours every Saturday. It is very exciting. I help work the “bins.” When library patrons put books on hold from other libraries, they arrive in bins. Anywhere from 10-20 bins full of books arrive at our library each day. The books each need to be processed and tagged with the patrons’ names, then I alphabetize them on carts and wheel the carts out onto the library floor where I place them on the “hold” shelves, in alphabetical order (I did get pretty tired of the alphabet after a while). This week I had two and a half carts of books. I have no idea how many books there were altogether, but one patron had seemingly dozens on hold, so we checked it out. A 15-year-old girl had put 60 books on hold (the limit is 100)! At first we were all duly impressed with such an avid reader, and so young, too. But then we got to wondering. Maybe she didn’t understand how to work the library web site, maybe she accidentally ordered 60 books, when all she meant to do was peruse the titles. Maybe a “friend”, as a joke, borrowed her card and ordered them for her. Let me just say, we at the library do not think that is funny. At any rate, she may be in for a big surprise. Unless, of course, she really did mean to order that many; I guess we’ll know if she shows up with a wheelbarrow!

simple gifts

We are missing Penny terribly and we wonder if the cat can tell. Although cats aren’t famous for their compassion, it seems Missy is sensitive to our sorrow, for she has stepped-up her gift-giving. In the past she has brought us daily gifts of pine cones and chunks of bark, shoving them under the closed bedroom doors or leaving them in the hallway for us to find (occasionally by stepping on them in the middle of the night). But since we have lost Penny, she has been bringing us nice, big, and live, earthworms.

Yesterday we adopted two parakeets from a friend who is moving out of state. You can imagine the excitement that has created for Missy. I suspect she is thinking, “I knew those worms would pay off!” or perhaps, “Trade a dog for two birds? Works for me!”

Easter

"Easter is the commemoration of the world's greatest victory." Harold B. Lee

The spring snow seems appropriate today, making things seem quiet, clean, and pure. I hope your celebratings are happy!

a treasure called Penny

Penny became a part of our family in 2001 when we rescued her from the humane society. She has been ill the last few days and this morning we discovered it was acute kidney failure. We did the merciful thing for her and had her euthenized. She was a good dog, she was good for us. We will miss her love/hate relationship with the cat, her treeing squirrels and catching mice. We will miss her listening skills and how she always let us know when the mail came. We will miss playing catch with her and her taking us on walks. We will miss her in a hundred ways, but we will never forget her. And we will always love her.

DNA

My mother is from a large family and has several brothers and sisters with red hair, although hers is dark brown. My brothers and sisters and I all have brown hair. We knew the red hair gene was there, though, and I secretly hoped it would show up in one or more of my children. So far, the only red hair is on my nephew, Jeffrey. When my son, Nate, married a girl with beautiful red hair, I just knew we would get red hair in the family after all, but Dallin has his dad’s thick, dark curly hair. For a while there we wondered if Mia’s hair would turn red, we tried to convince ourselves that if the sun hit it just right it really did have a slightly reddish glow to it. But alas, it is brown. I can’t be too disappointed, though, for she has my hair, the same texture, the same curl, nearly the same color (it IS a little red compared to mine!). And I think that is totally awesome!

what's in a name

My grandchildren were over a few days ago and as usual, 4 1/2 year-old Dallin picked out a stuffed animal to call his own for the day. He chose Hannah’s small brown German shepherd dog that he promptly named “Furry Balls.” That name drew a lot of snickers until his dad suggested an even better name, “Furball.” It took me back to when Dallin’s dad was his age and named two of his stuffed friends “Cup” and “Fart”; he just liked the sound of those words. We’ve had lots of nicknames over the years; my brother George is still called “Doughy” or “Dough-boy” because that’s what I called him as a toddler. My brother Kirby is “Cubby”. I remember someone asking Eli what his middle name is and he said, “Bean,” because we called him “Elimabean” so much. Grand-daughter Avey is called “Aviator” by her uncle Nate, and we all find ourselves calling our cat, “Missy”, “Mithy” because of Avey’s lisp. It was a bittersweet moment when Dallin learned to say my name, I enjoyed his sweet voice calling me “Nana Lolla”, and although sometimes I wonder if Mia will ever stop calling me “Nana Barra,” I suppose that will be a bittersweet moment, too. They say that the sweetest sound is the sound of one’s own name. When spoken in tenderness and love, any name can be a term of endearment!

homemade bread

Last Saturday there was a bitterly cold wind blowing and it seemed the perfect day to make homemade bread. I make the dough while getting breakfast on. The first rising finishes up about lunch time, so we always sacrifice some of the dough to fry scones for lunch with a hearty bowl of soup. I haven’t made bread in months, so it was a real treat for all of us. It took me back to many fond memories of homemade bread, first watching my mother bake it every Saturday, the wonderful smells and then the tastes; my step-dad always said it was better than cake! I perfected my bread-making skills before I married and made all of our bread, 4-8 loaves a week, for the first ten years of family life; I made bread the day I got home from the hospital with my first baby. It was a way of life. I had my children with me at the grocery store one day and 4-year-old Eli noticed the shelves of bread for the first time. He was astonished, “Wow! You mean when people run out of bread they have to go to the store? When we run out we just make more!”

About the time I had my fifth child I just couldn’t keep up with it anymore and we started buying day-old bread to supplement our needs, and after a while my baking gradually slowed down to 2-3 times a month, and now I bake only on special occasions. A while back I thought about all that bread, all those hours mixing, kneading, baking, trying to save a few pennies, telling myself it was a good thing. And I thought to myself, boy was I stupid. I could have spent my time more wisely, we probably didn’t even save any money.

But baking this week made me think about it differently. My children were so delighted with the scones, I enjoyed them, too. And I realized that with all that baking I wasn’t making just bread, I was making sweet memories for my family that said “I love you” with every wafting aroma and sweet, warm bite, every piece of toast with cinnamon sugar dunked in hot chocolate, every PBJ or grilled cheese sandwich. Yes, it really was a good thing. And I think it won’t be so long this time before I bake again.


PS My basic bread recipe is from a Utah State University Extension service booklet which is no longer in print, but can be accessed at: http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/publication/FN_283.pdf

Note that this recipe will need to be adapted for lower altitudes.

it made a splash!

We celebrated Isaac's birthday today when family could all be here. The cake was a big hit!

birthday cake

Nearly 29 years ago I decorated a fancy cake for my first born's first birthday, starting a tradition that has served us well through six children and given me quite the reputation at countless Church bake sales, school cake walks, and from just sharing with friends. For our birthdays I always let the children choose their cake and we've had everything from fire trucks to trains, dinosaurs to "Cookie Monsters." Occasionally my children really challenge my creativity with their imaginations; Jesse once ordered a cake to look like "an orange buggy car with an eagle nest on top with an eagle in it." That one made me wonder how long it would be before this tradition would lose its appeal. Things have waned somewhat these last few years as they've grown older, sometimes they've opted for a birthday pie or just ordered a specific flavor of cake and icing. Now most of them have gone away to college, two are married. But my baby, Isaac, turns 15 tomorrow and he has requested a swimming pool cake with diving board and diver. "Oh, and I want it to be yellow cake with chocolate frosting." I hope I can pull it off. Maybe I'll post a picture of it tomorrow; wish me luck!