Martha Fern

There is a set of stories I have told more times than I can count about my arrival and culture shock upon  moving below the Mason-Dixon Line. The tales involve my (now) husband, and his grandmother. I met Martha Fern in June of 1992. I arrived at her house with boxes and boxes of my things to store in her basement... not exactly how one wants to impress her boyfriend's grandmother. She gave me a hug, and offered me sweet tea.
Over the years, as we spent more and more time with Maw Maw, who never would've let me call her Mrs.Anything, I came to appreciate her so very much.

She was lively, full of spunk, style, and humor. At age 70 something, she was line dancing at a town festival.
She was ALWAYS impeccably dressed. Matching shoes, handbags, and of course, hair done, and make up on.
She loved UNC basketball like none other. If you invited her out on game day, expect a no in reply.
She made the BEST chess pie. Ever.
She always had chocolate on her cupboard.
She kept her house spotless.
She taught me how to paint pecan shell Santa Clauses.
She was even there when I picked out my wedding dress...

and on December 11, 2012, she died.

I can't really put into words what it was like to have a "Maw Maw" in my life. My own grandmother was so far away, and having one here, that made me feel loved, was something I didn't even realize I cherished so much until she was gone.
She always gave me a Christmas envelope and birthday card like all the grandkids got... even before I was married to Micah. She knew my favorite color, and that I liked pottery, books, and vintage goodies. She was an amazing women for SO MANY reasons, but for now, I want to note one that meant so much to me...
In all the years we have been married, she never once introduced or referred to me as her "granddaughter in law". Not once. She would say, "This is my granddaughter, Judi. Micah's wife." I know it may seem like a small thing, I don't know if she even did it with intention. But I noticed it, and it touched my heart...

I have shed more tears than she would ever have wanted me to over her passing.
She was a great lady, and I know I will see her again someday, but for today, I want to be sad that I will never again be introduced as Martha Fern's granddaughter...

I love you Maw Maw. Thank you for being you and loving this Yankee so well.

Hello 2013

I know, its been a while.
I just couldn't publish many of the posts I have written in the last few months.
Some were just so... negative.
I like to poke fun at things, but if I am not careful, it sounds very harsh. I sent my Micah a post I had written up about people and their moral high ground bragging about not seeing Magic Mike or reading 50 Shades of Grey. He had to be honest (which is what I want) and tell me it sounded quite mean.
Then there were the posts about the election... oy vey. Let me just say, you will not find a registered Democratic OR Republican voter card in Jesus' pants pockets. Because he wore a robe, and was an Independent dummy. Just Kidding. Sort of.

So, I took a break from it all so I didn't become a snarky-what-or-who-can-I-make-myself-superior-to-today-type-of-blogger.

But now it is 2013. So I am back.

With a sunnier disposition.
 Sort of... 

So long to my sunscreen skill set.

Anyone that knows me knows that I am sunscreen challenged.

I want you to promise NOT to e-mail or otherwise rebuke me when you read the following.... promise?

I don't use sunscreen with SPF.

I feel like I just admitted to hitting old women at the grocery store. People are very passionate about sunscreen. VERY. I knew I needed to step up my game when I as pregnant with Alden and we took the big 2 to Disneyland. In July. IN FLORIDA. IN JULY.  As the Disney boat pulled into shore, there was an audible click as every good mom opened her sunscreen and proceeded to slather her children up. Micah looked at me and I just gave an embarrassed shrug, and said, "um... I got nothing."
I had a momentary lapse of mommynotgoodenoughitis and thought of patting my pockets down to pretend I was looking for sunscreen, as if I actually had remembered this "essential" item and just couldn't find it. Then I just decided my boys were of hardy stock, like their mama. If I have never had a sunburn neither would they!  It was not a proud moment of justification.

So, over the years I have gotten much more consistent in my SPF duties with my children. ( note I said "with my children." I still slather myself with no SPF hawaiian tropics. sorry.)  I thought I was doing so good. Take that world! I have mastered one area of motherhood! I properly SPF my kids! I even remember to reapply at times. Yeah, don't hate. It is my skill set.

Until this summer... when I read some articles about how deadly, yes DEADLY slathering my kids with SPF is. WAIT! WHAT??!!? BUT THIS WAS GOING TO BE MY SKILL SET!  Apparently, the chemicals in the sunscreen are evil, bad for kids, maybe even worse than (gasp!)  no sunscreen at all. How can this be? Not when I just bought three of the mega packs at Costco. There was a coupon in the flyer. It came with a free "face stick". How could I not stock up? Stocking up proves I take my skill set seriously. Crud.

So, now I am supposed to pay $40 for a 1.2oz micro-tube  of organic sunscreen, made from herbs grown by monks in the hills of some idyllic country, where the only fertilizer used is earthworm guts, hand blended with mountain spring water by the aforementioned monks. It is a lot of pressure to pick the right sunscreen. A LOT.
 So, I cringed every time I sprayed and/or slathered the boys down, asking them afterwards "Can you still see me? What is 4+4? Are your toes tingling? Do you know my name?" I am not sure, are these the correct questions for a neurological battery check?

It's just too much pressure. I can't handle this. I am just one mediocre mom who lost her one and only skill set. It was a hard season for me.
 So, I was ready for summer to end. Ready to put away the swim trunks, and goggles. Ready to pack up the deadly sunscreen. Next year, I think we will just swim at 6pm...

Welcome Fall, welcome. Pumpkins are safe right? RIGHT? 

 

tuesday ten

I promised my friend Chrissy I would do this, and she has a bun in the oven, so I will oblige her wishes. And I will also give her my bacon at any meal we eat together. If you are not willing to give your pregnant friends your bacon, well, I'm just not sure you know what real friendship is.

1. Fall is here. Finally. I was about done with shoving myself into a damp swimsuit. I was ready for summer to end. The very idea of greasing up another kid with sunscreen was giving me a tic. or is it tick? Don't believe me? Wait a few days and come back, there is a WHOLE post dedicated to sunscreen. Yep, exciting times on the blog folks...

2. I think pinterest is slowly killing my desire to make anything. Oh, there are great ideas, but there are just.so.many. Not to mention, do we really need to knit our own washing machine cozies?  Why can't we just be happy with chocolate chip cookies? Who really bedazzles their envelopes?

3. Breakfast for Dinner has become my go to-oops-I-forgot-to-thaw-the-chicken-AGAIN-dinner. I added in some turkey sausage, and these boys are happy campers.

4. Painting. If I ever tell you we have decided to paint our home again, and utter the phrase "We are just going to do it ourselves!" Tie me down, call a professional painter, and intervene. INTERVENE my friends.

5. Why am I so down on the painting? Our house is old, which = crooked = lots of patchwork=lots of sanding=lots of vacuuming =lots of time and by the time all that crap is done, you still have to prime, paint, switch colors because you didn't like the grey you picked, and then tape and do the trim.

6. Did you catch that part about the switching paint colors. Yeah, that happened. Poor Micah. You all should really add him to your prayer lists. He started rolling and got 1½ rooms done when I walked in and just said, "oh". He knew. He knew that he knew that he knew that I was never going to get over the blue-purple hue our grey had become. I am not a purple gal. Sorry.

7. Sometimes you have to just tell someone, "I don't know the answer here, I don't know why this is happening to you." I hate that. I want to say "Here, do this and this and this and the situation will be fixed!" But life, and people, are not like that all. Faith is not a fix-it-all. It's the willingness to keep the faith when something isn't fixed.

8. Did I mention I hate painting?

9. There was a cow in my backyard somewhere last night. I could hear it mooing for hours, but was too scared to go out and check. Oft times bad guys stand in fields mooing just to lure women outside, I'm sure I read that somewhere.

10. chicken. thaw the chicken. sorry, this last one was just a personal reminder.

Burger of the Week

In my last post I mentioned that one of our family's summer "things" was going to be a new/different burger each week. Some folks have asked if I would write down the burgers we made, so here they are... at least the ones I remembered to photograph before scarfing them down!

It started with this burger, that my friend Derek snapped a photo of when we were all cooking out together.

Traditional Cheeseburgers
I know, this isn't exactly exciting, but I didn't want to go too extreme right off the bat.

Next up: Bacon and Guacamole Burgers.
Oh.My.Word. These were easily our favorites, and I made them more than once!

And next... The Mushroom Swiss Burger.
 My least favorite. Micah and Emerson loved it.

We also tried: The Bleu Cheese Burger.
I wish I had mixed some of the bleu cheese in with the burgers, and even melted some a bit more to put on top. Live and learn I guess.

And if course, last week's: Onion Ring and Special Sauce Burgers.

Now we had a few others in there that I forgot to photo, or were repeats (like the bacon and guac ones!) or that we ate in a restaurant.  The boys loved this new tradition and I plan on doing it again next year too :)  My biggest lesson learned was that the best meat is the 80/20 beef. I NEVER normally but this kind, I get the extra lean that doesn't even need to be drained of oil when you brown it. I tried that in one of our first attempts... um... did you know that burgers need some fat? Those things were so dense it was like chewing a giant meatball. Yuck.  So, over the winter I will search for some new burger recipes to try next summer... YUM!