O Lord, my sweet mother-in-law could actually find and use the many lists she made. Me? I just found one I made three years ago in a shoe. Yet she loved me like a daughter. OMG, I’m thankful she’s now with You, maybe making perfect lists in Heaven. But how I miss her!
Monthly Archives: February 2023
The Best Cabin Fever Cure
Suffering from cabin fever?
I recommend a tried-and-true cure that works for all ages: baking bread.
Years ago, I was pregnant, diapering, potty-training, or all the above, laboring under a blizzard of “Mo-o-m-myyyyy!”s.
After coloring 147 Smurfs, we needed a different creative experience.
Baking bread worked.
My preschoolers stared in wonder at yeast particles. When we gave them a warm bath, I explained, they blew up tiny balloons that made the bread rise. (Hey, you play Mr. Wizard your way, and I’ll do it mine.) Everyone took turns measuring flour and salt. With luck, we didn’t reverse the quantities.
I needed to knead bread. The rocking rhythm soothed my soul. The children clobbered dough instead of each other.
We made the best bread on the planet — if we let it rise. Like a drying sidewalk, a blob of dough begs for kids’ fingerprints. So, the bowl rested on top of the refrigerator.
When the dough finally rose, we punched it down together. The final step: shaping loaves and twisty rolls. Only culinary experts age six and under can create these little masterpieces.
The baby swallowed the little lump of dough I gave him. The sisters rolled and cut dough into strips with plastic knives. They added cups of flour when Mom wasn’t looking. It whitened the dough, an improvement since one chef decided the floor made a great cooking space. I helped them braid segments and persuaded them to allow each magnum opus to rise again.
Scraping dough off kids, I began to reclaim the environment. One child had showered us with a bag of flour. Another washed dishes to “help.” After rocking them to sleep, I scraped goo off walls and ceiling. Redid the “clean” dishes and mopped. Could I finish a cup of tea before little voices called, “Is it time to bake twisty rolls yet?”
I opened the oven 14 times so they could supervise! But who cared? Heavenly fragrance swirled around us like warm love. Gray, alien lumps miraculously baked into little golden braids. Each kid slathered warm twisties with butter and devoured them while watching Mr. Rogers.
Half a big loaf of bread disappeared too.
Everybody felt lots better.
Decades later, half a loaf might cure cabin fever too.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s your cure for cabin fever?
OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: A Good Breakfast?
Oh, Lord, on a chilly February morning, I really like a good breakfast. Sizzling bacon. Fluffy pancakes. Eggs, over easy, and a mixing-bowl-sized cup of coffee with double cream.
I know dietary experts would disagree. But, OMG, must every day begin with Fiber One?
How to Rationalize Watching a Ballgame
My name is Rachael, and I’m a ballgame-aholic. Sports rivet me to the small screen.
Although I was raised with the Midwestern work ethic. My mother scoffed at grown men who wasted time playing games with balls and sticks. When she not only hid the “TV Guide” and sport sections, but dispatched Dad’s recliner to the roof, our family got the message.
My husband’s family, though equally industrious, considered watching ballgames valid and Indiana University basketball sacred.
Consequently, Hubby doesn’t require many ballgame rationalizations, though he sometimes borrows from my vast collection. One favorite: we accuse each other of working too hard, then prescribe couch-potato bliss “to keep our blood pressures down.”
If this fails, we add respectability with semi-productive activities that don’t detract from the loafing essential to sports viewing.
First, we count the money in our wallets.
Okay, that took four seconds. What next?
We fold Hubby’s brown and black socks. He does this on autopilot, and I rarely bother to separate the two, so we can focus on the game.
Hubby polishes shoes. If the score’s tied in the final minutes, the difference between black and brown also escapes him. But my flip-flops look really shiny.
I consider cleaning my handbag. But what will emerge from its mysterious depths? A penny with two Lincolns might make us rich. However, a 50-year-old photo of an old boyfriend might distract us from the important business at hand.
Picking dead leaves off plants qualifies as a ballgame pastime, unless teams play overtimes. I enjoy the excitement, but bald plants do not.
Manicures, pedicures and ear-hair-trimming sessions also work, though they necessitate similar caution.
Hubby and I sort through cassette tapes and vinyl albums. We cannot bear to part with any of them, so such endeavors provide pleasant diligence without accomplishing anything.
Some couples file tax receipts, answer emails, or alphabetize canned goods while viewing a ballgame. Some have the effrontery to exercise. They even claim this is quality couple time.
Quality time? My husband and I snuggle, cheering our teams, snarling at referees, consoling and/or celebrating with hugs, smooches and buttery popcorn.
After 48-plus years of watching ballgames together, we know how to do quality time.
It’s the best ballgame rationalization ever.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How do you rationalize watching ballgames?
OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: What a Guy!
O Lord, Thank You for my love of more than 50 years. Even more — OMG, thank You for a valentine who does laundry.
Classic Post: Soda Fountain Magic
This post first appeared on June 20, 2018.
Entering Zaharako’s soda fountain as a preschooler, I knew magic was for real.
I spotted curlicue iron tables and chairs my size. Glass cases held hundreds of chocolates, hard candies and jelly beans. Had I reached Heaven early? The adult friend who brought me confirmed this with ice cream I didn’t have to share.
I pattered across the gleaming, black-and-white floor to the counter’s red stools. They spun round and round! My friend’s objection didn’t surprise me. Even if stools were designed to twirl, grown-ups said you shouldn’t.
A 1908 orchestrion — a self-playing pipe organ with drums, cymbals and triangles — fascinated me. Did jolly ghosts fill the high-ceilinged room with music?
Occasionally, Mama took us to Zaharako’s. How I longed for that pile of roasted cashews! But even a small packet cost too much.
My mother’s generation had frequented the place during their teens, so we cool adolescents of the 1960s avoided the fountain as if radioactive. Still, celebrating my first job, I treated my little sister at Zaharako’s.
I said grandly, “Order whatever you want.”
We ate huge sundaes. I played the orchestrion and bought cashews, toasty and delicious beyond belief.
Later, I chose fabulous Zaharako’s candies for my future in-laws’ Christmas gift.
Fast-forward several years to my mother’s visit. Adulting had drained away my coolness, so we visited Zaharako’s. The mirrors gleamed, but the near-empty soda fountain’s stained counter, dull woodwork and damaged tin-patterned ceiling didn’t brighten our day.
“Everyone came here after school. ‘Meet you at the Greek’s!’ we’d say.” Mom gazed at the broken orchestrion. “The fountain’s dated now. I guess I am, too.”
Decades later, I shared a similar feeling when I stopped for a treat, but Zaharako’s, a landmark since 1900, had closed. The orchestrion? Sold to a California collector.
Not long afterward, though, as I traveled past my childhood hometown, something sent me off the interstate.
Miracles do happen.
Inside Zaharako’s, red stools flanked gleaming counters, and mirrors glimmered amid rich woodwork. Pint-sized curlicue tables and chairs again held little diners. The original orchestrion played, grand as ever.
I sent yummy chocolates to my mother.
She couldn’t remember events of five minutes before, but she recalled Zaharako’s.
The soda fountain had worked sweet magic once again.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s your favorite soda fountain treat?
OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: True Belief
O Lord, Your daffodils insist on showing up every February. Don’t they know basketball tourney time lurks in the near future, with its usual accompanying blizzard? Yet nothing keeps them down. OMG, help me believe in the Resurrection as much as they do.
Classic Post: Booting Up
This post first appeared on January 3, 2018.
“Don’t go outdoors without your boots!”
These winter words echo across decades.
Actually, this child liked clumping boots. Despite Mom’s belief I would catch 19 diseases, their podiatric force field protected me when stomping ice-covered gutters.
Unfortunately for my parents, their children’s feet grew hourly. While my sister acceded to wearing my hand-me-downs, I drew the line at my brother’s galoshes. However, recycled boots weren’t always an option because we had honed losing winter wear to a fine art.
The positive side: Lack of sufficient winter garb kept us inside warm classrooms at recess. While friends shivered outdoors, I read favorite books.
Some stories featured boots. In Little Women, Jo March’s boots helped her play swashbuckling heroes and villains in homegrown dramas. In Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy, a traveling cobbler designed Almanzo Wilder’s first manly pair. Puss in Boots never would have brought his master fame, fortune and a princess if he hadn’t strutted about in that all-powerful footwear.
Still, most boots seemed mundane until go-go boots invaded the fifth grade fashion scene. My ignorant mother refused to buy me white boots amid the muddy slop season.
I whined. I pined. I promised I wouldn’t lose them, not even one.
She wouldn’t budge. So, I languished without the go-go boots every girl owned except me — and Becky Andrews, who wore thigh-high black boots like Nancy Sinatra’s when she sang “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.”
Ten years later, I wore a similar pair that stretched my height well past six feet.
But snow time with my toddlers required mommy boots. My little ones readily wore garage sale Strawberry Shortcake and Ninja Turtles boots, even with PJs. They, too, waded in yucky gutters, despite my warnings.
Years later, they cornered me in a boot discourse similar to my go-go debate with Mom decades before. My children wanted me to spend a gazillion dollars on short-topped “boots” designed to frostbite toes.
When I refused, they left a row of sensible boots to an undisturbed existence in the closet — until I discovered my son’s worked well when I shoveled sidewalks.
I couldn’t wear the tall, black leather boots (my size!) I’d found on sale for five bucks.
I still wear them. I just leave them home when it rains. Or sleets. Or snows. Or. …
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Fess up. Do you wear your boots during yucky weather?