the power of memory

 My Uncle Pete and My Aunt Millie

I've been thinking about my family and my childhood a lot lately...my Uncle Pete passed away last week, I guess losing the people who were so prevalent in your formative years can really throw you a curve ball.  My childhood was pretty idyllic in most ways.  My family was very close and while my mom didn't have brothers or sisters, my great aunts and uncles were always around.  We weren't a very large family, maybe that's why we were so close...  The night my uncle passed away my sweet husband asked me to share some of my memories of my Uncle Pete.  As I was going through them I started to realize that my almost obsessive fondness for tradition probably stems from my growing up.  Every Thanksgiving was spent at my Grandma and Nana's... every Christmas Eve my Nana made homemade tortellini and the whole family would come over, they would all wait for me to get home from my Christmas with my dad and he would come in and we would both get our bowls of tortellini soup...then every Christmas morning I would wake up early and had to wait in the hall while my mom got my grandmother into her wheel chair and called my Uncle Jim so he could drive over - once he was there I could go see what Santa brought then we would head to my Aunt Millie's for Christmas dinner.  Summers were filled with evenings of grilled steak, games of kick the can, chasing my Aunt Millie's chihuahua Buffy around the yard with my cousin Chris while my Uncle Clyde yelled at us to stop.

My Uncle Pete was my grandmother's brother.  He was so handsome that when I was a teenager I would show my friends the photo from his pro baseball days.  I have two very strong memories of my uncle...the first one was the day my grandmother passed away.  We were all gathered at the house, she had had hospice for several days, my mother and the hospice nurse were with her.  When the hospice nurse walked into the family room over to my Nana, my great-grandmother, I knew.  I was 11 years old.  I got up to run to my mom but my Aunt Millie (my grandmother's sister) stopped me and pulled me into a hug.  Soon the hospice nurse came to get me to take me to my mom. As we walked through the dining room I saw my Uncle Pete sitting alone, in the corner with his head in his hands crying.  It was the first time I had seen a man cry and it crushed me.

My next memory was of the day of my great grandmother's funeral.  My Nana was, and actually still is, indescribably a part of my heart, I don't know how else to describe it but I miss her so much that I ache for her some days.  I was 14 when she died and the day of her funeral I could not bring myself to walk up to her open casket, I just did not want to see her that way.  I was standing at the back of the church waiting for them to close the casket...my Uncle Pete got up and walked up to her, leaned over, then turned and began walking to me.  He reached, took my hand, opened it, and gently placed my Nana's rosary, that had just moments before been wrapped in her hand, into my hand.  He kissed my cheek and walked away.  I'm sure he never knew how huge that was for me.

I have very little of that side of my family left but my memories are strong and I will forever be grateful for the childhood they gave me. 

three simple rules

How is it October already?!?!  How?  uggg, there are so many things that keep popping in my head, things I need to do, stuff I wanna share, but that silly 'ole work just keeps getting in the way!

So for now, it's just this.  This great sign that was in the gym at Maplewood Elementary last Christmas during the Cherrywood Art Fair.  I was right near my booth and I stared at it for two days.  I love it.  I need to print it really big for my studio.  I guess the kids need it, but I swear adults need it even more...

Peaches Honeyblossom

Life has been a little cuckoo pants since returning from Mexico.  And for the most part I can sum it up with one word: Work!  I'm not complaining, I love having work.  When you work for yourself and your business relies almost entirely on people's disposable income and the economy was rocky for a few years, well, having too much work is a very good problem!  But it also keeps me from doing things like blogging, hanging out with friends, going out to dinner, going to the grocery store, in general, leaving the house.  I don't leave the house much.  But again, it's a good problem. 

So, what's the super smart thing to do when you are so busy that you can't buy groceries?  Uh, go get a mangy pit bull puppy from the shelter of course!

Enter Peaches Honeyblossom.

Let me back up a little.  After we lost Delta I felt a real need to get a foster dog.  I don't know if I can exactly articulate why I felt this.  I thought it would be a good way to honor her but maybe it was as simple as just distracting myself.  I don't know.  But I started hinting to Tom.  And by hint I mean sending him emails with photos of dogs at the shelter with the caption "can we get this dog?".  He didn't bite on the first two I sent him.  Dog one: a four year old, pure bred, male poodle.  aka a dog that would get adopted lickty split.  Dog two: a tiny, female, one year old Bichon Frisee/Yorkie mix (maybe!).  aka a dog that would get adopted even lickty splicktier than dog one.

Then I sent dog three:  a four month old, female pit bull with the worst case of mange I have ever seen (and that is saying a lot).  So in terms of what is hard to adopt, pit bulls, chows, and black labs are right up there.  I know, black labs?  But it's true.  Don't know what it is but people just pass them right by.  So anyway, add in the puppy thing, that is, uh, time consuming, and the little matter of the demodex mange which will probably take about four months to clear up - medicated baths twice a week, antibiotics for weeks, daily dose of meds to kill the mangey mites...we are talking loooooong term foster. 

This is the one that makes Tom go down to the shelter on his lunch break and back to pick her up that evening.  And you know what?  I couldn't be happier.

She was a heartbreak wrapped in a hairless, scabby, pink, stinky, puppy package.  And on top of the awful mange she had a sunburn to rival any South Padre spring breaker!  She was a sight!  I barely wanted to touch her for fear her skin would come off in my hands.  And the smell, well, I'm gonna avoid that descriptive.  I wish the people who let this happen to this poor little girl could be prosecuted.  But she was picked up as a stray so we don't know who let this happen.  But what I do know is that Tom and I will do everything we can to make sure that where she came from is a distant memory.

We've been doing this rescue/foster thing for almost 13 years now and I'll be honest, sometimes it's made me not like people very much.  Just this week I learned of four senior dogs that were dumped at the shelter for a variety of reasons, but one was "It's old.  We are getting a puppy".  Makes me feel sick to my stomach.  I've seen dogs with acid burns, I've seen dogs tied and left in abandoned yards for weeks with no food or water, I've seen dogs with limbs hanging off and owners who said they were waiting for him to die, I've seen puppies hung from fence pickets to train dogs to fight, I've seen abandoned litters of puppies whose mom died because she had been over bred so there would be more puppies to sell, I have seen all of these things first hand and it has made me jaded...

But then along came Peaches and on a whim we decided to create a Facebook page for her.  It was just a silly thing at first, Tom and I being silly.  But then people started "liking" her.  A lot of people.  They were commenting on her photos and sending sweet, caring messages and well wishes.  It might not seem like much, but for me, when a lot of what I see is awful side of dog welfare, the little things mean a lot.  And then people started donating money to her care and then sending her care packages and gift certificates, and setting up dates to come meet her, not necessarily to adopt her, but just to meet her.  Just to hug her and play with her.  There have been multiple times where I have just sat and cried over the kindness these people have shown to this little hairless pit bull, a breed that tends to polarize people.  It has been truly amazing.  We've been posting her progress on her Facebook page and it's remarkable to watch.  When you see them every day you just don't notice the changes as much, but when you are chronicling it for other people you pay more attention.  You can see from the photos I've posted here how great the change has been.  And it's been less than a month.

So, yes, she does create a fair amount of time suckage.  Maybe I spend a tiny bit more time playing with her when I should be working, but you know what they say about all work...

knocked for a loop

 

 I had a very different blog post in mind for when I returned from Mexico.  We left town last Thursday for a destination wedding and the whole time I was there I was thinking about the photos I would share.  No where in my brain did I think I would instead be saying goodbye to our little fur ball just one hour after getting off of the plane.

 

Who knew that my heart could be stolen by this goofy, silly, head spinning, prancing, barky, Pomeranian?  I didn't even think I liked Pomeranian's!  But man, she sucked us right in in no time flat.  If I'm being honest there are only two things I would change:  I wouldn't have named her Delta Dawn and I would have officially adopted her.  On the way to the emergency clinic just minutes after we landed, as I held her bundled in my arms, knowing exactly what was happening, I turned to Tom and somehow articulated how upset I was that we had never actually adopted her.  In some lame attempt to make myself feel better I insisted we pay all of her final bills vs. Blue Dog covering them.  Logically I know it makes no difference and I also know that she never knew...I guess in these moments, where raw emotion is raging, bizarre thoughts and ideas surface and you just go with it.

I think we knew a very long time ago that she was our dog.  Shit, after the first trip to the vet we found out that she was a bit of a train wreck.  But I blindly told myself that there was some Florence Nightingale soul out there that was gonna snatch her up.  Over the two years that she was actually on the website, available for adoption we had exactly two interested parties.  By the time the second one rolled around Tom was so upset at the thought of her being adopted that he didn't even go with me to the meet-and-greet.  I thought they might be a good fit for her but I never heard from them again after that meeting.  That was it she was ours.

About a week before we left for Mexico she had a bout of coughing that gave us a little scare, but after some xrays we all (vet included) chocked it up to her collapsed trachea, something we've been treating for nearly two years.  So it came as a complete shock to us when my mother-in-law (who stayed with the dogs while we were away) called us as we were about to board our plane to say that she was in renal failure.  After frantic texts to my vet, who kindly called the vet at the emergency clinic, it was clear there was nothing we could do.  I so hoped we would have the evening with her, but the minute I saw her I knew it was time.  We bundled her up and headed to the clinic.  We made it to the clinic but she left us on her own just moments after we arrived.

I believe with my whole heart that not only did she wait for us to get home to say goodbye, but she took that hard, hard decision out of our hands.  It just proves that these amazing animals have just as much capacity for love as we do - sometimes more I think.

I took this video just a couple of months ago and it sums up her hilarious, perky, ridiculously silly personality pretty well.  There was no rhyme or reason to her, she flung her head back and forth like mad anytime food was evident, every single time she came in from outside it was as if she was being chased by a swarm of bees, she was rarely allowed on the bed because she insisted on teetering on the edge instead of being safely in the middle or at least two to three inches in, she had de-pilling pill pockets down to an art form, and her bark was accompanied by the most adorable hop you have ever seen.

After losing Preacher in September and Daisy in April I foolishly thought that we might be spared for a bit.  But that's just not how it works.  I told someone earlier today that knowing her and being her people was worth every ounce of pain.  And it is, it's true.  I wouldn't trade one second of my time with any of them.

I miss you Deltie girl.  Thank you for finding us, for staying, and for waiting.  

love,

your mom

a wedding and a cake

 My little sister is getting married this weekend.  Okay, so technically she's not my "real" sister if you wanna talk blood relation, but I claim her as mine.  We met when our families moved in a couple of houses down from each other when I was 13 and Haley was 4.  We did the whole block party thing, I baby sat, typical white-bread-suburbia-USA.  Over the years we just got closer and closer.  Pretty soon our families were spending nearly every holiday together, I was the go-to person in times of need (ie. sneaking the car out and not being able to get it parked back into the garage well enough to pass Dad's inspection.  Turns out Dad was smarter than either of us and felt the hood of the car.  Smarty britches was quick on her feet and told him I had taken her out for ice cream.  In their car?!?!?  Whatever, we skated by.)

Over the years we have built a life time of memories like this one.  I could sit and rattle off one after another after another after another...like the time Tom took her to her high school winter formal when he and I were dating because she didn't have a date...or how every day I would anxiously wait for her to get home from school so I could tell her the latest on my budding crush on Tom...or about how we got matching cupcake tattoos (for real!)...or about how we play charades every Thanksgiving and she would be content if she got to act out every single one!  Long story short, I adore her.  She is funny and kind and I cannot believe she is getting married!!!!

 It's a destination wedding, we are Mexico bound, Tulum to be specific.  How cute is their save-the-date?  We are staying in the most amazing looking cabanas that are right on the beach.  They've rented the whole place so it will be like a big three day party.  I'm super excited!! 

 A couple of weeks ago we decided to have a girls' night, a slumber party, to just hang out, watch movies, talk, and be girlie.  Turns out there was very little movie watching.  We talked and talked and talk and talked and it was great.  Anyway, I had been looking for a special occasion to make this cake I had seen over on Sweetapolita.  To say I love her blog would be a huge understatement.  Her cakes are always gorgeous, her photos are amazing...and now I can officially say that her recipes (I've made three) are great!

The one I decided on was a chocolate cake.  If you are wondering about the photo above, I know, it's odd to show the pans but I had to share this...you may all already know this and I might be sitting here looking like a dumbass, but I did not know this - if you are making a chocolate cake you should dust the pans with cocoa powder instead of flour!  Did you know that?  Cause I didn't know that!

 One of the things that I think might make Rosie's recipes so successful is that she gives you a lot of measurements in weight vs. volume.  I've been reading a lot lately that that is the better way to measure when baking.

This recipe also calls for espresso.  I love adding espresso to anything with chocolate!  It doesn't make it taste like coffee, it just enhances the coffee flavor.  Go out and buy yourself a little jar of instant espresso and never ever use it to drink!  Uck! 

 So the reason I wanted to make this cake was the icing.  Didn't really matter what the cake itself was, you could do vanilla or anything really.  I was just itching to try this icing technique.  Let me back up a little.  You know I like to bake, but I'm more of a pie girl.  So in the past when I have baked cakes I've just kind of done it with the tools I have on hand.  Don't do that.  Go buy these three things:

• cake boards (card board and disposable, get the size to match the cake size you are making)
• a lazy susan
• an offset spatula (this is a MUST!)

A couple of things about the above photo.  It is the crumb coat of icing, not some minimalist icing technique.  The idea is that you put a thin coat of frosting on the cake, pop it in the fridge, and then when you go to ice your cake for real you won't have a bunch of cake crumbs co-mingling with your icing. Don't skip this step.

It may look like the icing to cake ratio is very one sided.  But I swear that is not the thickest layer of icing you have ever seen.  Well, on the very edges it is, but inside it's normal.  Here's why it looks that way, and this is another wonderful tip I learned from Rosie at Sweetapolita...take your first layer and put it top side up on your cake board, put your icing on top (for your middle layer of icing), then put your top cake layer top side DOWN!  This way you have a nice flat top to your cake instead of a domed one!  Clever!

 So this icing technique looks kind of like an ombre to me.  It's that lovely gradation of color and you could choose any color combo you like.  Rosie gives you a very easy to follow video of how to ice this cake right HERE.

 I'm a sprinkle junkie.  I need a support group for a few things, sprinkles are one of them.  So are Weck jars (like the one with the blue sprinkles).  I sometimes just look at their website and imaginary order.  Do you ever do that?  Imaginary order stuff?  I do it all the time.  Anyway, yes.  I obsess on sprinkles and jars to put them in.  Doesn't everyone?!?!

So it's not perfect but I do love the way it came out!  By the way, I searched high and low for a cake topper and they were all hideous!  If I would have planned better I would have found a vintage one on etsy but I didn't.  I finally found this adorable topper at Party City of all places.  They had some white folks, but man, their clothes were terrible.  This precious couple was hip and classy and that's my Hay, hip and classy, but not black.  And not always classy, she burps a lot.

I kinda like New York City a little plus some collaboration

If you've read my blog for very long you know that Tom and I both have a slight obsession with New York City.  Manhattan to be specific.  The West Village to be more specific.  Between Horatio & Perry and 8th & Greenwich Ave. to be completely ridiculous.  We try to go a couple of times a year.  When we are really lucky we get to dog sit one of our former foster dogs and that is pretty much my idea of Heaven.  When we aren't there we look at real estate and dream of renting or buying a tiny apartment within the above mentioned few blocks.  I am about to admit how incredibly dorky we really are - when we have a day or so to ourselves we will actually  hole up in our bedroom and pretend it's our NYC apartment (Tom quite possibly will kill me for sharing this).  But it is, in an odd way, like a mini vacation.  And from doing this I believe whole heartedly that I could live with Tom in 350ish square feet and be not only content, but quite happy.  Don't believe I could do it?  Buy me an apartment and I'll show you!  I'm up to the challenge!  Seriously though, if it weren't for the matter of 12 dogs and a cat we may have actually given this more serious consideration.  Anyway, a girl can dream...

Over the last couple of trips Tom's developed an eye for spotting any and all graffiti with the word LOVE in it.  It's actually amazing how many there are.  The 5th one over, the triple LOVE, that tagger has put his or her "love" all over the city.  Sometimes one "love" sometimes three.  We saw them everywhere, on buildings, in the middle of the street, on fire hydrants.  They were super cool.

Not sure if it was him or me that said "these should go into a necklace" but I Love, pun intended, the series.  It's inspired me to collaborate more...in fact I've hit up a good friend from college who lives in Poland now to start a project together.  He is a bad ass painter and he and his wife are making crazy cool jewelry in Warsaw.  So these little necklaces are the start of a new collaboration page on my website...hopefully just the beginning...

Clarence Davis Jr.

AKA Clarbee, BoBo, Bobie, Clib, Clarbee Davis Jr., Clib Cliberson, Clarence Worley, Clare de Lune, Clarbee Wan Kenobi, Michael Diamond, Lil C, C Note, or King of the Sea, take your pick. 

Is it weird to base an entire post on a photo?  Tom took this photo a couple of days ago and I think it might be one of my favorites ever.  It's my sweet little bitty man.  He was the fourth addition to our pack.  He is so chock full of personality - If you are a dog person you already know how dogs are just as different from one to the next as people are.  If you aren't you might think a dog is a dog is a dog.  But they aren't  My Clarence is a bit gangsta, has a terrible potty mouth, is the president of both cereal and cracker club as well as a member of the popcorn club.  During the day he sleeps on his side pressed against a wall (got to get a good photo of that!) and at night gets in and out of bed a half dozen times to do God knows what.  He is terrified of thunderstorms but fancies himself quite the tough guy.  Once a year he goes to his stylist to get his ear hairs trimmed and his legwarmers cut off.

I know you are not supposed to have a favorite child and I do also know that dogs are not children.  But seeing as how I don't have children I hope that those parents of human children out there will forgive my referring to my dogs as children.  Okay so again, I know you are not supposed to play favorites...and I will never admit to having a favorite but if you infer something from me bringing up this topic while posting about Clarence, well, I can't help that.

Several years ago I tattooed his paw print onto the top of my foot so that no matter what he would always walk with me everywhere I went.  Just a few months ago Tom got a tattoo for Clarence - his portrait, but with a fish tail, wearing a crown, holding a trident (King of the Sea), and carrying a chalice full of gold fish crackers.  I kid you not.  It is the most awesome thing EVER.  I'm not envious, I'm straight up jealous!

So, in case you did not know this before, it is clear now, we are the crazy dog people.  I'm not ashamed.

three little birds, pitch by my doorstep

 Literally.  It was just like the Bob Marley song.  A momma cardinal laid three little eggs in a hanging basket just three feet from our back door.  I'm not sure how we even knew the eggs were there, but they hatched just two days after we noticed the eggs.  I tried to chronicle each day with them, but missed two days.  So these photos, in consecutive order, mark each day of their growth.

 Check out the difference in their wings from day to day!  It's crazy!  They look prehistoric.

 Tom and I had grand plans for how to protect the babies from the dogs once they were ready to fly.  We were going to fashion some kind of net (a sheet) under the nest so they wouldn't fall and then get rushed by the dogs when they race out the back door.  I had no clue what the nest time was for a baby cardinal.  In hind sight I should have looked it up.  But I had no idea it was less than two weeks!  One morning I went out to check on them and they were just gone.  It scared me half to death because I had gotten ridiculously attached to the little boogers. 

I need to quick tell you, I am pretty freakin' scared of birds.  I would NEVER have one as a pet.  My friend Kathy has two that live in, I swear, like refrigerator size cages and they scare the crap out of me every time I am at her house.  Every time they squawk I think I lose a year off my life.  But how can you be afraid of these tiny, precious things?

So I was pretty devastated when I went out there and they were gone.  Vanished.  No sign of them anywhere.  I was terrified that maybe the dogs had gotten them on the early morning trip outside where I grudgingly walk to the door with my eyes still shut in a desperate attempt to not wake up enough so that I can crawl back into bed for an hour or more of sleep.  But Tom assured me that there would be "signs" if the dogs had gotten them.  If you think otherwise DO NOT tell me!  I looked all over the yard, in the trees.  Nothing.  So, my hope is that they are off making nests of their own, scaring the bajeezus out of some other bird fearing person, happy as little clams.

it IS all it's cracked up to be.

This dog fostering thing can really suck sometimes. Sometimes they chew up a shoe or a window sill. Sometimes they dig a hole in the yard. Once or twice they've had accidents on the floor. Occasionally they bark or whine. And then every once in a while they make you fall in love with them so hard that it just nearly rips your heart out to let them go. Is it worth it? Yes. Do I still hate it? Yes. Would I recommend it? Absolutely.

We kept the first dog we ever fostered. Not a good sign of our ability to let go. But we kept at it. The first few were horribly hard to say goodbye to. The second one even went to our dear friends and I still stayed in bed for a day and cried. Then it started to get easier. Soon I was able to happily take them to their new homes and just leave with no ache at all. I don't think I was becoming hard hearted, I was just becoming more able to see the many positives: happy dog, happy family, and a new space in my home to save another dog in need. Win, win, win. But occasionally a dog would come along who, for some reason or another, got under my skin. We've fostered 200+ dogs over the last 12 years and aside from those first couple, that I think were actually the foster learning curve, there have been maybe three that were just really hard to part with (aside from the few that we, um, did not in fact part with). Let's see, there was a tiny, hairless pit bull who made me cry my eyes out in the middle of the shelter. Something you might think would happen a lot but had actually only happened once before when I accidentally witnessed the mountain of euthanized dogs being loaded onto a truck for cremation. Then there was the great dane who was so attached to me that he ripped down the blinds of his new home as I walked away from his home visit. And then there is Bernadette.

 I almost start off saying "I don't know what it is about her", but I know exactly what it is about her - she is that kind of dog that makes you feel special.  She makes you feel needed and wanted.  She looks at you with these soulful eyes that say "All I want in this world is you".  I dare you to try parting with that.  I'm not kidding you, it's making me feel sick.  Lots of my friends have said "just keep her", "whats one more?"  But man, have you ever tried buying food and heartworm pills and paying for vet bills for 12+ animals?  It ain't easy.  And then there is the whole attention thing - when you have this many animals are any of them really getting the attention they need and deserve?  So the right answer is to find her a wonderful home where she will get ALL the attention and ALL the love.  I can do that.  It's gonna suck, but I can do it.  And another dog will need to be rescued.  And I will have a space.

 But seriously, how freakin' cute is she!?!?!?!  Come on! 

Now that I have made this fostering thing sound just like a barrel of laughs I'm sure you'll be rushing out to find your nearest rescue group to volunteer with.  You should.  You will not regret it.  How can you regret saving a life?

can we talk?

A few weeks ago I was reading one of the blogs I like and she had a post, top five things to be a good blogger, or something like that. One of the things was don't complain. Or was it don't whine? Anyway, I get it. People have their own issues, they read blogs as an escape. That's why I read the blogs I read. But I thought about it, and the blogs I love most are at their core, real. And sometimes they whine. And I'm okay with that. It makes them real, makes me feel like I know them, like we could be friends. Ok, before I start to sound like some weirdo who thinks she's "friends" with a bunch of people she's never met, in a nutshell, I relate. And isn't that also one of the things we love about blogs? Relating. Reading about people who are dealing with the same things we are, whose lives are as nutty as our own, makes you feel a little less alone, right?

So, with that exhausting intro said and done I can now get to my point. I am overwhelmed with a capital Oh my God am I overwhelmed. I see my life in four large chunks: Work, Blue Dog Rescue, Family, and Friends. And right this minute they are all in overdrive. I can handle it when one is high maintenance. Even when two are. Three and things start to get a little iffy. All four, well, I'm just gonna start to suck at everything then.

 I read this book a long time ago by Leo Buscaglia. It was called Love. There was a part in it that was about the broad based education in the school system, but I think it applies to a lot of different aspects of life. So he lays it out like this: there's this school in the forrest...Squirrels, birds, fish, turtles, rabbits, etc. The squirrels are great at tree climbing, birds excel at flying, fish at swimming, and so on. But then the broad based education is implemented. The fish has to learn to fly, the bird to tree climb, the squirrel to swim. All of the sudden the bird who used to get an A in flying is getting a C in flying because she broke her wing in tree climbing and she is still getting an F in swimming. My point: instead of doing one thing well I feel like I'm doing everything half ass. What to do? Honestly? I've got no ideas other than ride out the storm or drop one of the balls I'm juggling. 

At least I'm not bored, right?

Kid With The Best Mom

I am sure there are a lot of you out there that will say "I have the best mom ever".  I hope there are.  But I might fight you for the title - Kid With The Best Mom.

I was just three years old when my parents divorced.  I'm not gonna get into why they divorced and all that, let me just say that a lot of women might wallow, be bitter, and begin to settle for less than they deserve after something like that.  My mom decided to go to grad school.  We packed up and moved away from any family, just the three of us - me, my mom, and our dog.  I was just barely six years old, my mom was a whopping 27.  Looking back I am amazed at the bravery that must have taken.  I honestly don't think I could ever have done it.

We were poor.  Poor with a capital P!  But I never knew it.  Never even suspected it.  Not because she spoiled me or bought me things.  She just never ever let me see her worry.  Again, when I look back there were signs.  Like when you open the freezer and out spills 20+ balls of tin foil filled stuffed bell peppers because bell peppers were on sale 20 for a dollar that week and ground meat and onions are cheep stuffin'!  But at the time I just thought my mom really liked bell peppers!

My mom let me be a kid.  There are a lot worse things out there than being poor and having divorced parents - but if your parents handle it wrong those two things can be much harder than they have to be.  I didn't spend a lot of time with my dad... again, don't need to get into that too much here, but there were times when that was hard on me.  I didn't understand.  It would have been really easy for my mom to make digs at him, at the very least not defend him.  But she defended him every time.  Every single time.  Because she knew it was best for me.  How in the word did she know that at 20-something?  I had friends in high school whose parents talked all kinds of shit about their former spouse to their kid, in front of their kid, to their ex in front of their kid.  Its appalling!  I truly cannot emphasize enough how insanely important it is to never, ever, ever let your kid hear a single bad word from one parent about the other.  I'll get off my soap box now, that's not what this is about, but take it from a kid of divorce - it matters.

Now I'm 40 and my mom is a speech pathologist who hammers bangles and does post office runs for me on her days off.  We spend time together because we want to, not because we feel obligated.  I could tell a million stories that would qualify me for the above title but I don't need to.  As long as I know I have THE best mom and as long as I make sure she knows that I know - well, that's all the matters.

Happy Mother's Day Mom.  I love you.

baking = medicine for the blahs

 I've had a serious case of the mean reds lately.  If you haven't seen Breakfast at Tiffany's...well, first, Why?  Second, go get it.  Now.  Third, the mean reds are this:

Holly Golightly: You know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul Varjak: The mean reds. You mean like the blues?
Holly Golightly: No. The blues are because you're getting fat, and maybe it's been raining too long. You're just sad, that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid, and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?

For me it's this impending doom feeling mainly because it just seems like icky stuff keeps happening.  Not the worst of the worst, I haven't lost all perspective.  My uncle recently had a heart transplant AND stem cell replacement, so I know what real difficulty is.  Mine are just a series of things - getting an email from a couple who wants to return the dogs (dogS, plural!) they adopted from us eight years ago.  EIGHT years people!  WTF?  getting pneumonia, losing our sweet kitty.  Stuff that sucks on their own but when you string them together over two weeks time you get a case of the mean reds.

 Luckily I have a bit of a remedy.  I bake.  When I was younger I would wallow.  Now, I bake.  It just makes me feel better.  There is the obvious reason - eating.  Who doesn't like to eat when they are down?  But that's not even my main reason, albeit a lovely side affect.  For me it's the satisfaction of building something from scratch.  Baking is a precise process.  It's not like cooking where you can throw stuff together and taste, adjust, taste, adjust.  Not that cooking isn't it's own art - it certainly is!  Anyway, I like the step by step of it all.  It takes focus.  So when you've got a case of the mean reds, focusing on something else is always a good thing.

Then watching your efforts transform, smelling that yeasty aroma, seeing a small ball of dough rise up and over the top of its bowl, watching gooey batter become a spongey little cake...oh, it's just happiness for me.

 Look at those pretty soon-to-be cupcakes with all of their little specks of vanilla beans!  Is that not just joy in a paper wrapper?  Mmm mmm mmm!

 You can easily throw your happy quotient right over the top by adding in sprinkles.  Who can be sad or scared or angry or blue when you have piles of sprinkles in front of you?  Sure, it's not a long term fix.  But it does the trick for a little bit.  And one good way to drag out that good feeling is to give away the goodies you make.  As I type I have dough rising in the kitchen that will soon become: a few rolls for Tom, or as he likes to call them "vehicles for honey", cinnamon rolls, and a loaf of bread.  A good half of the cinnamon rolls are headed to a friend who is pregnant.  I don't know why, I just wanted to make her some cinnamon rolls.

 So seriously, you've never seen Breakfast at Tiffany's?  Man.  That movie was a huge for me.  And I will never forget the first time I saw it.  I had moved to Lubbock to go to school at Texas Tech.  I was down, missing my parents, all that first-time-leaving-home stuff.  The first night I was there one of my dear friends (who I have known since I was six and she was two) came to my dorm with a sleeping bag in one arm and Breakfast at Tiffany's in the other.  She set up her sleeping bag in between my bed and my roommates bed and we all plopped down and watched the movie.  It was awesome.  I can't really tell you why, except that it IS.  But it was just a feeling that everything was gonna be ok, that I wasn't alone.  I guess I wrap all those warm fuzzies up in my feelings about this movie.  Thanks for that Nat.

Just to wrap up.  When you are feeling blue or red maybe you need a friend or maybe you need to bake or maybe you need to bake for a friend.  But I can tell you this for sure - all of the above work way better than that angsty wallowing I used to opt for!

pallet garden

 A few weeks ago I saw the coolest thing on Pinterest.  Hang on, let me back up.  I pretty much think Pinterest is the coolest thing,but I am trying to detox from it some...I was a tad bit obsessed for a couple of weeks.  Just ask Tom.  Anyway, I saw these pallet gardens - basically a ready made raised bed but even better because 1. they have built in rows  2. it's recycling  3. they are free  So it's win win win.  I had also seen on Pinterest that laying wet newspaper down over your weeds, grass, what-not, and then putting the dirt over it was a great way to stop the weeds from coming through.  So we pulled a double Pinterest and started installing these, maybe three weeks ago.

 We planted tomatoes, radishes, a couple peppers, tomatillos, okra, watermelon, lettuce, green beans, cucumbers, spinach, basil, oregano, thyme, chamomille, lavender...I think that's all.  We put in seven of these things!  I did reserve one for zinnias so that I could have cut flowers all summer.

Over Easter weekend we took Tom's mom to The Great Outdoors.  It's a fantastic nursery on South Congress here in Austin.  While we were there we came across these gorgeous Meyer Lemon trees.  Tom flipped out because he is such a lemon nut.  We snatched one up...but it's been sitting in the pot since then because we could not figure out where to put it where it would do well and be safe from the dogs, ahem, peeing on it.

Over the weekend Tom decided if her planted it in the middle of  a pallet the dogs wouldn't be able to get to it and we could just pop boards out as it grew.  Done.  It looked pretty lonely out there so we decided to turn the whole thing into a little garden for Daisy.  Tom's mom had given us some daisy seeds in our Easter basket, we got some varieties of daisy's from the nursery and we spent Sunday building this little garden for our girl.  I was thinking I might spread some of her ashes out there until my mom reminded me that she would absolutely hate being outside and would much prefer her ashes to be right in the closet where she belongs.  It made me giggle through my tears and I knew that she was right.  The garden is for us.

 

Tom turned one of the pallets on it's end, disassembled another pallet and used it's remains to put bottoms on the rows so that they would hold dirt and Voila! we have vertical gardening!  This is our little Daisy garden.  The daisy's are sharing space with strawberries, some herbs, and some nasturtiums.  It might not be a place Daisy would have spent time or even have known it existed.  But it will do Tom and I some good.

addendum::::: 

our little pallet got picked up by Hometalk!!!  How cool is that!?!?!  Check it out here!

Our first baby.

 I was 21 when I got Daisy.  She came from an ad in the paper, someone giving away kittens.  I was moving from an apartment into a house, my roommate had a cat (that's him in the photo), and I thought "I want a cat."  I didn't give much thought to vet bills, food, and the fact that she would be with me for the next 19 years.  Classic immature 21 year old who probably had no business getting acquiring a dependent.   But I did, happily, I did.  We lived in that house for a year and a half.  I still maintain that in that formative time she was shaped by Kim's less than normal cat, Taylor.  He was a dear, sweet cat, but odd.  They loved each other...she truly never liked another cat after him.

Then we moved back home, two cats there.  Didn't like them a bit.  After a couple of years we moved into an apartment where my new roommate got a little black kitten named Dream.  He was less than a dream.  There was an incident where Daisy was slowly, gingerly crawling into a plastic grocery bag.  She was not a terribly playful cat so I was loving watching her be so inquisitive.  Out of no where Dream pounced on the bag.  Daisy went flying, plastic bag and all, up the stairs, ripped her toenail out, and never came out of my bedroom after that.  That began a trend for my girl.  Each place we lived after that she claimed a room (or closet within a room) and that is where she stayed for the duration of her time in that home.  It was around this time that I met Tom.  Slowly Daisy and I moved our stuff out of that apartment and in with Tom.  Soon the three of us found an adorable little old house in the heart of Austin.  Daisy claimed the guest room in that house, I even painted her name on the door there.  We were there for one year and in that time managed to adopt our first dog (Seven) and our second cat (Berkatu aka Berklie).

In October of 1998 Tom and I bought a house and the five of us moved.  Daisy and I drove over together.  When she set foot into her new home I think her objective was to run as far as she could - that happened to be the closet in the master bedroom.  And there she stayed.  For the next 14 years.  She came out at night to sleep in bed with us.  And as she aged she ventured into the bedroom more during the day, but her home, her food, her bed, her litter box, it was all in the closet.  I can probably count on two hands the number of times she has left that room in the last 14 years.  Walking her out of that room yesterday morning was one of the hardest things I've ever done because I was pretty sure she wouldn't get to come back.

And she didn't.  We had to say goodbye to her at about 8:30 yesterday morning at our vet's office.  She was in renal failure.  It all just happened so fast.  I had no time to prepare.  It was just last week that I was writing about her birthday.  I'm in shock.

Daisy has been with me all of my adult life.  She was there when I met Tom.  She was there to see each new dog and cat be adopted into our odd little family.  She saw more than 200 foster dogs come and go.  How do you say goodbye to a life like that?  How do you let go?  How do you learn to live with out nightly battles over foot space and glasses of water?  It's been less than seven months since we lost Preacher and I'll be honest, I have not recovered from that yet.  I guess it's just time.  Time to settle in to a new normal.

I might recover, I will recover.  But I'll never get over the loss.  The empty space.

Dear Daisy,

Thank you for being my cat...even though in the last five years you decided that Tom was more your person that I was.  It's ok.  I thought it was cute.  The way you tugged at the covers until he let you under and you did that little turn around so that you were curled right against his chest with just your head sticking out.  Y'all were adorable.  Going to bed without you last night was excruciating.  We almost slept in the guest room.  Instead we stalled as long as possible.

Looking back there is not much I would change about our life together.  It was pretty great.  But I would let you sleep on my feet all night.  And I would let you stick your feet in my water if you want to.

My Daisy, my Razor Rae, my Maizer.  I will love you forever and ever and ever.
Sleep well crazy girl.
love,
mom

homemade vanilla

 A year or so ago I caught an episode of The Barefoot Contessa where she talked about making homemade vanilla.  I don't remember her actually making it, more just quickly running through the how to's.  Seriously, you can barely call it a recipe, its that easy. 

 Here it is:

12-24 vanila beans
vodka
a jar

That's it.  And all you do is split the beans, scrape the seeds, throw 'em in the jar, put the empty beans in the jar, cover it all with vodka, and shake.  Ms. Garten says it'll be ready in six months.  But I choose to believe this recipe, over at Zoe Bakes, that says five weeks.

I've been wanting to make it ever since I saw that BC episode, but I knew I'd have to take out a loan to get enough beans.  I finally caved when I needed another excuse to buy more Weck jars.  Which brings me to my new obsession.  Is it weird that I am obsessed with these jars?  Ok, maybe a little, but there are worse things.  Anyway, I wanted to get these mini carafes and knew they would be perfect for the vanilla.  And since Easter was just a few days away these were a perfect addition to my mom and mother-in-law's Easter baskets!

Since we have a minimum five week wait to test the extract I needed some instant gratification so I threw together a little homemade vanilla simple syrup.  I just tossed a few of the empty pods into a pan with equal parts water and sugar, brought it to a boil, just til the sugar dissolved.  We used it in lemonade, coke, and when it got a little low we added it to our creamer - instant flavored creamer with out all of the nasty hydrogenated this 'n that!  So that's what, three? fun things to do with vanilla beans?  And in a month or so I'll let you know what I'm doing with the extract itself!