Is it just us?

Or are kids tough on stuff?


Or maybe it's just boys?


It seems every time I turn around something else is broken, bent, or torn.


Sometimes it is fixable.  Sometimes it is ruined.


We are trying to instill a respect for belongings, and the responsibility of care, without leading to a love of things.


People are more important than stuff.  But people need to take care of their stuff.

Sometimes I think if they would only use things for their intended purpose, in the way they were intended to be used, then maybe so much wouldn't end up broken.  But where is the room for creativity?  For invention and exploration?


In the end, I've decided this issue is like so many others, and there isn't one answer.  It depends.

So we continue.  To teach them to take care of their things, and the things of others.  To value people more than stuff.  To show grace when it truly was as accident.  And to discipline when it wasn't.


Is it just us?  Or do too many things get broken at your house, too?


P.S. I am not incriminating Alan with these pics of him.  I just happened to like them, and the fact they contain approximately 1,000 pieces.  Also, there wasn't anything broken today.  No 'straw that broke the camel's back' and led to this post.  :)

How many times in one post can I say "red-eye gravy?"

Seeing as how the last week of our Christmas break was slightly interrupted, I didn't get around to cooking our ham until New Year's Day.  And since it was served up more as an afterthought than as part of a Big Dinner I started thinking about other ham-related things.


Like Red-Eye gravy.


Red-eye gravy and grits first came to mind as we were eating supper Saturday.  It took 24 hours for it to come to fruition, but after church Sunday evening we finally sat down to our Big Country Breakfast:


Fried ham
Biscuits
Scrambled eggs
Grits
and...
red-eye gravy


I had to cheat on the grits and make corn meal mush, but it served its purpose just the same, because that meal was all about the gravy anyway.  


This is a good time to mention I find it interesting that this sauce is called 'gravy'.  It has no thickener and is hardly more than pan juices.  It doesn't matter to me what to call it, I always enjoy it!


Here's how i made mine:
1/2 - 3/4 c pan drippings left from baking the ham
1/2 c black coffee
I added an additional 1/2 cup or so of water because the drippings were SO salty.  I was glad I left the grits/mush a little lacking on salt; the gravy made up for it.


I heated all that together in an iron skillet in which I had just fried some ham slices.  (Also - made sure to leave  some fatty edges on for frying to make good pan drippings.)


That's it.  Salty ham juice and leftover coffee, but sooo good!


Searching the web for directions for it, I learned that red-eye gravy is almost exclusively a southern thing.  Which got me wondering about all of you... have you had red-eye gravy?

The Christmas Chronicles, 2010

This was the second oddest Christmas I can remember experiencing.  The first was hands-down the year of Alan's transplant.  But Christmas 2010 had its fair share of trials and weirdness.


I have decided to record it all here to be able to look back on it an marvel in years to come. :)  So... you ready for the run-down?


It went something like this:


December 22 - A close family member (who shall remain anonymous) was involved in an accident at home.  This led to several hours in the ER and a week of recovery (at their home), but very, very thankfully, no permanent damage.


December 24 - My grandmother (who has been in the nursing home and very frail, and will henceforth in this blog post be referred to as 'G') started having extra problems.  My dad spent a large portion of the Christmas Eve party on the phone with the doctor and nursing home.  It is also noteworthy that my sister and her new husband spent Christmas with his family, and their absence was felt by all here!


December 25 - First thing in the morning, G was taken to the hospital.  Dad was there with her until early afternoon, and Christmas dinner was delayed until he got home.  Even then, the prognosis he brought home was not encouraging, and no one felt especially festive.  However, opening presents with the boys served as a fun distraction for a little while.  Mom and I went to the hospital to visit for a little while in the late afternoon, then Dad spent the rest of the day there.  Greg and I came home with the boys, cleaned the house, and packed for the trip to Grandma's.


December 26 - Got up early to finish cleaning and packing before church.  Dale started 'acting funny' while we were at church.  He laid down while the rest of us ate, and, sure enough, when I checked him after lunch he had a fever.  Not knowing where that would lead, we called Greg's grandparents (our first planned stop before heading to Grandma's) to cancel that portion of our trip.  Mom and I went to visit G at the hospital while Gramps kept Alan.  Greg had Dale, because we were trying to keep him and Alan apart.  By the time we came back from the hospital Alan  had a fever too, and not long after I got home with him.... he threw up. Three times.  Long story short, he and  Dale both had fevers all through Sunday afternoon and evening.  Dehydration is always a concern for Alan, so we did our best to keep fluids in him.  But in spite of our best efforts the fever burned it all up, and by bedtime Alan was showing signs of dehydration.  So, off to the ER we went.  We arrived home 6 hours later (4 in the morning).  Mimi and Gramps went home and we fell into bed for a few hours.


December 27 - This day involved a lot of sleeping (Greg and me) and a lot of snot and sneezing (me).  Seems I had me a cold.  Great.  By bedtime I was feeling pret-ty rotten.  But the boys were just about back to their usual selves, so it was looking like a trip Grandma's might still be a possibility.  Meanwhile, my grandmother was still in the hospital, but would hopefully be returning to the nursing home in a few days.


December 28 - Early this morning our family got a call that G had fallen at the hospital and broken her hip.  She was transferred to a bigger hospital in a bigger town, where she, my parents, and several other family members spent the entire day in that ER.  A lot of scary things happened throughout that day that had everyone prepared for the idea that G might not make it.  She was scheduled for surgery to repair her hip.  On the homefront, I now had a fever.  And Greg had the cold.  All things considered, the trip to Grandma's was finally officially cancelled.  


December 29 - I spent the day at home getting better.  Greg spent the day at home getting worse.  The rest of the family spent the day at the hospital with G, comforting, helping, making decisions.  My sister arrived for a couple of days to be with everyone.


December 30 - Another long day at the hospital with G.  I was well enough to go along this time.  Greg stayed home and kept the boys, even though he now had a fever and was feeling pretty yuck.  We all made mention several times throughout the day that this was Alan's 3-year transplant anniversary.


December 31 - Surgery day.  Considering G's condition, this surgery was very risky.  However, it was also very necessary.  Once again, we all prepared ourselves to say 'goodbye'.  Early afternoon G went into surgery.  A short time later the surgeon came out to report that, surprisingly, G had done very well.  With the hurdle of surgery over, the family prepared to help G (and each other) through the recovery phase.  My sister went back home.  Greg was finally feeling better from the cold.  Is it any surprise none of us stayed awake to ring in the New Year?


So while our story of Christmas 2010 could have been sung as our own version of "The Ten Days of Christmas" (Threeeeeeee E.R. visiiiiiits!!! Two pukey kids, and one very high risk sur-ge-ry), it still held plenty of laughter, love, peace, and hope.  No matter the circumstances of our planned celebrations the fact remains that 2,000 years ago, a Savior was born.  And as my Daddy says, no matter what, "Life is good, because God is good!"


Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Isaiah 26:3


Happy New Year to all of you!!  Praying you have that 'perfect peace' through life's storms and surprises.

Christmas Vacation

I have never really understood people taking "blogging breaks" and especially the part about making an announcement about it.  Just blog or not, I always thought.

But the open-ended blankness of days (or weeks!) -old blog posts sitting here on my own blog leave a sense of guilt and stress hanging over me.  

The blog has ceased to become fun, and has become a burden.

Therefore, I am officially declaring myself on blogging vacation, to enhance my enjoyment of family and the holidays, without the obligation of blogging about it all.

Wishing a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and yours, and I'll see you all back here (I think) in January!

The Great Christmas Countdown

We're trying something new this year, and so far, it is a raging success!


I like success.


I searched long and hard for an advent calendar that 1) was cute, 2) was quick & easy, 3) would be a good visual for Alan for how many days were left until Christmas, 4) would contain a surprise or surprise activity for each day.


I finally decided 3 out of 4 ain't bad and went with this:

The cute scrap-booky number squares came as a free download (that I would really, really like to share here but haven't been able to find it again anywhere! :-( Sorry.).  They printed 6 to a page.  I printed them on cardstock, glued each one to a piece of solid green paper, then laminated them.

You could do anything you want with them.  I chose to arrange them in this tree shape and tape them to my refrigerator.  

Every day we take down that day's date, switch the tape from the green side to the number side and tape it back up. 

By the time Christmas day rolls around, we'll have a solid green tree on our fridge!  Ta-daaaa!  And hopefully we'll get around to making a big yellow glittery star for the top before then. :)

So... item number 4 - "contain a ... surprise activity for each day".  I couldn't figure out how to link those two together, so I didn't.  Making them separate just adds to the fun, right?

Beginning December 1, the first thing the boys do every morning is check the "surprise stocking."  It's really catching on big time, so much so that this morning Dale came and asked me while I was still in bed if he could check the stocking.  It's like  Christmas morning every morning!  Dale has mentioned several times how much he loves it and asked if we can do it again next year.  

And what is in this stocking?  Here's so far:

1 - A handful of ornaments. We put the boys' tree up in their room this day.

2 - Hot chocolate packets, with Christmas mugs sitting nearby. Breakfast treat!

3 - Two jingle bells and two lengths of yarn, with Polar Express book (from Library) sitting nearby.  Made jingle bell necklaces and watched The Polar Express on tv that night.

4 - Two big Christmas bulbs.  Put up the outside lights that afternoon.

5 - Box of old fashioned peppermint sticks and two forks, with Little House in the Big Woods storybook "Christmas in the Big Woods" sitting nearby.  Read the book and had 'pancake men' for breakfast just like they had in the book.  (They also received peppermint sticks in their stockings in the book.)

6 - Various spices and a recipe.  Made ginger cookies.

7 - Peanuts Christmas books.  Read the books and watched A Charlie Brown Christmas movie (borrowed from Library).

8 - Measuring cup, food coloring, glitter. Made Christmas playdough. (With glitter!)

9 - Six piece clue puzzle I made and printed from the computer.  The answer to the puzzle: We're going to Daddy's Christmas concert at school tonight!

It's been so fun putting a little bit of Christmas into every day!  Seeing what we've done so far, I definitely want to put in more nativity activities (ooh, that's fun to say! ha!) and more book-related fun, too.  Any suggestions?

How are you celebrating the season?

He picked out the hat himself.

This afternoon just before we went out the door to go out to the post office I looked at Alan - really looked, and saw he looked like such a little ragamuffin!

It struck me as really funny, and I wondered if anyone at the post office noticed how much like a little street urchin my boy looked.

We decided to take a few pictures when we got home.

You can see he was feeling a little camera shy.  (Yeahhhh, right.)

Then we traded places and he took a few pictures of me.

In this order.

I didn't crop anything.

He did that for me when he took the pictures.

Street urchin ragamuffins don't make the best photographers, apparently. 

But they sure are cute!

Did Cinderella have a swiffer?

My Grandad has been batching it for several weeks as my grandmother has been back and forth between the nursing home and the hospital.  


I went out to their house this afternoon to "help" him get ready for an aunt and uncle that are coming in for a quick visit. 


I say "help" all quote-like because there really wasn't much for me to do.  The dishes were all washed.  The laundry was all folded.


I swept a few crumbs out of the floor and did a couple of other light jobs, but I was obviously there more for moral support that physical labor.  Never mind the fact that the boys went home with pockets full of bubble gum and a ziploc bag full of cookies, and I had several newspaper inserts and coupons stuffed into my purse.  


It wasn't until I got home to my own crumby floors and dirty dishes that I realized: My 70+ year old grandfather is keeping a neater house than I am.


I'm not sure if this says more about his housekeeping skills or the fact that 2 boy-kids and a baby inhabit this house.  I am also not sure if I want to investigate that thought any further.


And with that, I am off to bed.


May your sleep be sweet and your house be clean!