C.E. and me

My mother brought stacks of photos, letters, cards, drawings, and videos from my whole life, when she came to Utah yesterday.  We've been having lots of laughs.  And sighs.  I just love these pictures, taken 13 and 11 years ago of sweet C.E. 

Me at Baby H's Age

Here's me at Baby H.'s age, six months.  I love that there is photography in this world.  Forty one years ago, the moment is captured, the baby is captured!  Me! Any resemblance to Baby H.?

Baptism Days

A.J.'s turning eight this week, and getting baptized.  I just found these photos of when C.E. was eight, getting baptized, and A.J. was two.  How adorable they look.  How fast time flies.  Oh, my heart could explode at their lovable little faces!

New Photos

Mormor came last night from Florida.  We are all so happy she's here.  She came to baby massage class with Baby H. and me today.  Here are some photos of this week:

 He loves bananas but hates rice cereal.  Our new little eater, at five and a half months old.  :)

 Here's A.J. and his buddy, sledding.

 Here's C.E.'s cool science fair project. 

 This is our last day of baby massage class.  It was really fun.

 Here's Mormor!

 Welcoming Mormor at the airport

 Welcome to Utah!

Ready for my baby massage!

From the Mine of Great Short Stories

While I nurse the baby, I read.  This week, I've been mining anthologies for great short stories that are not only well written, but make me feel enlightened.  Here's one:

Thank You, Ma'am

by Langston Hughes

She was a large woman with a large purse that had everything in it but hammer and nails. It had a

long strap, and she carried it slung across her shoulder. It was about eleven o’clock at night, and she

was walking alone, when a boy ran up behind her and tried to snatch her purse. The strap broke

with the single tug the boy gave it from behind. But the boy’s weight and the weight of the purse

combined caused him to lose his balance so, intsead of taking off full blast as he had hoped, the

boy fell on his back on the sidewalk, and his legs flew up. the large woman simply turned around

and kicked him right square in his blue-jeaned sitter. Then she reached down, picked the boy up by

his shirt front, and shook him until his teeth rattled.

After that the woman said, “Pick up my pocketbook, boy, and give it here.” She still held him. But

she bent down enough to permit him to stoop and pick up her purse. Then she said, “Now ain’t

you ashamed of yourself?”

Firmly gripped by his shirt front, the boy said, “Yes’m.”

The woman said, “What did you want to do it for?”

The boy said, “I didn’t aim to.”

She said, “You a lie!”

By that time two or three people passed, stopped, turned to look, and some stood watching.

“If I turn you loose, will you run?” asked the woman.

“Yes’m,” said the boy.

“Then I won’t turn you loose,” said the woman. She did not release him.

“I’m very sorry, lady, I’m sorry,” whispered the boy.

“Um-hum! And your face is dirty. I got a great mind to wash your face for you. Ain’t you got

nobody home to tell you to wash your face?”

“No’m,” said the boy.

“Then it will get washed this evening,” said the large woman starting up the street, dragging the

frightened boy behind her.

He looked as if he were fourteen or fifteen, frail and willow-wild, in tennis shoes and blue jeans.

The woman said, “You ought to be my son. I would teach you right from wrong. Least I can do

right now is to wash your face. Are you hungry?”

“No’m,” said the being dragged boy. “I just want you to turn me loose.”

“Was I bothering you when I turned that corner?” asked the woman.

“No’m.”

“But you put yourself in contact with me,” said the woman. “If you think that that contact is not

going to last awhile, you got another thought coming. When I get through with you, sir, you are

going to remember Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones.”

Sweat popped out on the boy’s face and he began to struggle. Mrs. Jones stopped, jerked him

around in front of her, put a half-nelson about his neck, and continued to drag him up the street.

When she got to her door, she dragged the boy inside, down a hall, and into a large kitchenettefurnished

room at the rear of the house. She switched on the light and left the door open. The boy

could hear other roomers laughing and talking in the large house. Some of their doors were open,

too, so he knew he and the woman were not alone. The woman still had him by the neck in the

middle of her room.

She said, “What is your name?”

“Roger,” answered the boy.

“Then, Roger, you go to that sink and wash your face,” said the woman, whereupon she turned

him loose—at last. Roger looked at the door—looked at the woman—looked at the door—and went

to the sink.

Let the water run until it gets warm,” she said. “Here’s a clean towel.”

“You gonna take me to jail?” asked the boy, bending over the sink.

“Not with that face, I would not take you nowhere,” said the woman. “Here I am trying to get

home to cook me a bite to eat and you snatch my pocketbook! Maybe, you ain’t been to your

supper either, late as it be. Have you?”

“There’s nobody home at my house,” said the boy.

“Then we’ll eat,” said the woman, “I believe you’re hungry—or been hungry—to try to snatch my

pockekbook.”

“I wanted a pair of blue suede shoes,” said the boy.

“Well, you didn’t have to snatch my pocketbook to get some suede shoes,” said Mrs. Luella Bates

Washington Jones. “You could of asked me.”

“M’am?”

The water dripping from his face, the boy looked at her. There was a long pause. A very long

pause. After he had dried his face and not knowing what else to do dried it again, the boy turned

around, wondering what next. The door was open. He could make a dash for it down the hall. He

could run, run, run, run, run!

The woman was sitting on the day-bed. After a while she said, “I were young once and I wanted

things I could not get.”

There was another long pause. The boy’s mouth opened. Then he frowned, but not knowing he

frowned.

The woman said, “Um-hum! You thought I was going to say but, didn’t you? You thought I was

going to say, but I didn’t snatch people’s pocketbooks. Well, I wasn’t going to say that.” Pause.

Silence. “I have done things, too, which I would not tell you, son—neither tell God, if he didn’t

already know. So you set down while I fix us something to eat. You might run that comb through

your hair so you will look presentable.”

In another corner of the room behind a screen was a gas plate and an icebox. Mrs. Jones got up

and went behind the screen. The woman did not watch the boy to see if he was going to run now,

nor did she watch her purse which she left behind her on the day-bed. But the boy took care to sit

on the far side of the room where he thought she could easily see him out of the corner of her eye,

if she wanted to. He did not trust the woman not to trust him. And he did not want to be mistrusted

now.

“Do you need somebody to go to the store,” asked the boy, “maybe to get some milk or

something?”

“Don’t believe I do,” said the woman, “unless you just want sweet milk yourself. I was going to

make cocoa out of this canned milk I got here.”

“That will be fine,” said the boy.

She heated some lima beans and ham she had in the icebox, made the cocoa, and set the table.

The woman did not ask the boy anything about where he lived, or his folks, or anything else that

would embarrass him. Instead, as they ate, she told him about her job in a hotel beauty-shop that

stayed open late, what the work was like, and how all kinds of women came in and out, blondes,

red-heads, and Spanish. Then she cut him a half of her ten-cent cake.

“Eat some more, son,” she said.

When they were finished eating she got up and said, “Now, here, take this ten dollars and buy

yourself some blue suede shoes. And next time, do not make the mistake of latching onto my

pocketbook nor nobody else’s—because shoes come by devilish like that will burn your feet. I got to

get my rest now. But I wish you would behave yourself, son, from here on in.”

She led him down the hall to the front door and opened it. “Good-night! Behave yourself, boy!”

she said, looking out into the street.

The boy wanted to say something else other than “Thank you, m’am” to Mrs. Luella Bates

Washington Jones, but he couldn’t do so as he turned at the barren stoop and looked back at the

large woman in the door. He barely managed to say “Thank you” before she shut the door. And he

never saw her again.

Swedish Cocosbollar Recipe

My friend called today to ask for an easy Swedish recipe that her daughter could use for a heritage-recipes activity they were doing at church.  She said the Swedish recipes she sought online were all complicated, with strange ingredients.  Well, I suggested Cocosbollar to her.  We actually make Cocosbollar by guesstimation, so I don't have a recipe.  Therefore, I found a recipe online and I'm putting it down here, for the record.  Enjoy!

No-Bake Swedish Chocolate Cookies (Chokladbollar)

1 1/2 C quick-cooking oatmeal
1/4 C sugar
6 Tbsp butter, softened
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract
coconut or pearl sugar* for rolling the outside of the balls

For Mormons: 1 Tbsp Pero, Caro, coffee flavoring, or powdered chocholate milk

For Everyone Else:  1 Tbsp. Coffee 

Directions:   Combine butter, sugar, oats, cocoa, vanilla, and (optional) Pero/coffee. Roll into balls about the size of a meatball. Roll balls in coconut or pearl sugar to decorate. Eat immediately, or refrigerate, or freeze.    *Pearl sugar is coarsely ground sugar used for decorating baked goods. (Find it at Ikea if you are not close to Sweden.)

Deer Update

This week, I put out spinach and carrots when the deer chow ran out.  Then the deer left for a few days, because the food was gone, I suppose.  I missed them.  Deer chow costs $15 for 50 pounds.  It's also a workout. I have to toss the 50-lb. bag over my shoulder and trudge through the snowy yard to the barn. But I did it, and they're back again. Those deer have me so suckered in.

Family Home Evening Game

Mondays are Family Home Evening.  Last night, C.E. took over the lesson for D.H.  She had us playing a game that was so funny. 

The way you play:  Give each member of the family a piece of paper and a pen and tell each one to write a sentence, and pass the paper.  The second person has to draw what was written, and then fold it over.  The third person has to write what was depicted in the drawing, etc.  The results are great. 

A.J. wrote:  I was happy because I got valentines.  Then I drew the lovely pink boy below.  Then D.H. wrote: I love to get valentines in the mail.  It makes me glow from the inside out.  Then C.E. drew the purple girl getting valentines.  Then A.J. wrote: I saw a French lady getting valentines.  Then I drew a lady next to the Eiffel tower, the French flag and a basket of baguettes, getting valentines.  And D.H. thought my Eiffel tower was a rocket ship, so he wrote:  My what a beautiful day on the moon.  Look, I found a valentine.

 We all laughed hard.

First Bite of Baby Food

This morning, Baby H. received his first bite of something other that Mamma's milk.  It was watery rice cereal, and he thought it was okay.  He only gagged once and made one frown.

Valentine's Day Weekend

It was unseasonably warm on Sunday, so C.E. and the baby and I took a nice, long walk to the swing by the canal.  Here are some pictures.

What a beautiful, happy afternoon.  C.E. tells me I take too many pictures, and that I should just enjoy the present and not prepare so much for the future.  (She's heard me saying that when I'm old and they don't have time to call me, I'll look at all the photos and bask in the days when they were young.) 

 But I disagree.  Photos are sacred to me now.  I love capturing these beautiful moments of our lives and I hope to live on them for a long, long time!  Life is beautiful.  Despite the chaos and the worries that swirl around our ankles!

Also, on Saturday night, D.H. took me on a Valentine's Date to the theater.  We saw "A Night of Broadway" and the funniest part was that the baby enjoyed it so much.  He did his inhaling gasps of delight over and over, kicked his legs, waved his arms, stared and stared.  His favorites were "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," "The Music of the Night" and "Welcome to the 60's."  The theater has a wonderful, glassed-off cry-room in the back, which we ended up in --not that he was crying, but that he was making such loud, happy commentary about the show.

For Primary Workers

Feb. 6-12 Spotlight:
I'm posting this to be helpful to my Sugardoodle friends who are primary workers, (children at church) like me.  Here's the scripture spotlight for this week to review the reading assignment.

 From Ist Nephi 15 and 16 (22 selected verses; see other post)

Nephi's brothers couldn't understand the dream of the tree.  Nephi asked his brothers whether they had asked the Lord what it meant.  The brothers said that the Lord would not tell them.  Nephi said that if they would ask in faith and keep the commandments, the Lord would tell them, too.

Then Nephi answered their questions.  Next were five wilderness weddings (!) between the sons of Lehi (Ask children to name them: Laman, Lemuel, Sam, Nephi) and Zoram (ask them to remind us he was: Laban's servant who they met in Jerusalem when they got the brass plates from Laban), to the daughters of Ishmael.

Next, Lehi found the Liahona  outside his tent. (Ask the children to describe: It was made of fine brass, was of curious workmanship, was round, and had two spindles; one pointed the way they should travel through the wilderness. It was powered by faith.) Next, Nephi broke his steel bow and they were all hungry/sad. Even Lehi murmured. (Explain the word murmured.) Nephi corrected his brothers, but not his father. (Explain: respect.) Nephi made a wood bow, gathered stones, asked his father where to go to find food (animals to hunt). The Lord wrote on the Liahona and He spoke to Lehi. (He answered Nephi's question:  Food would be found up on mountaintop).

Berry Breakfast Bake

I tried a new recipe last night, and the family liked it.  It came from my friend, J.H.  It's actually a breakfast dish, but it worked for us for dinner.

Berry Breakfast Bake:

Lightly grease a 9 x 13" pan.  Place 10-11 cubed pieces of bread into the pan. (You can go crustless, use white or wheat, for options.)  Mix and pour the following over the bread: 

4-5 eggs
2 C milk
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 C berries (or more)

Then, put on the topping* and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.  Serve with or without syrup.

*Topping:  1/4 C. flour, 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 1/2 Tablespoon brown sugar, 2 Tablespooons butter

Thoughts on writing

February 9, 2011

Thoughts about writing

I wrote a letter to my 8th grade daughter's principal this week.  The essence of the letter was a request that he encourage the teachers to give more challenging assignments, the kinds of tests and quizzes that students actually have to study to pass, and especially, lots of essay writing assignments. 

I have not seen one essay assignment this year-- not even from her English class.  They do it all in school, I am told.

I don't believe in that.

Having taught high school English for five years, third grade for two years, Freshman English and remedial English at the university for two years, and one semester of teaching a journalism lab, I feel qualified to say a few things about the importance of writing and teaching kids to write adequately.

My daughter has said that she wants to become a writer someday.  Well, this will be difficult if she is not exposed to many difficult writing assignments-- and not all self-imposed-- over many years.

So I wrote the letter.  I also attended her parent-teacher conference (last night) and politely let her English teacher know that on my wish list was a wish for more writing assignments outside of class.  She responded that she doesn't want to punish the students who are doing their classwork so well with extra work.  I smiled and nodded and decided that I need to return to teaching once Baby H. has grown up  and started kindergarten.

As for me, I can write essays and articles all day long.  But what I really want to write someday is great, classic literature-- fiction. 

Charles Dickens

I can't do it, because I am too scared.  I am overeducated, too:  I can recognize great stuff and the not so great stuff, and it makes me shudder to think of being guilty of producing the not so great.  That's my paralysis.  Like that guy in the movie "Amadeus" who was Mozart's friend.

I tremble at the feet of the writers I see as great-- Charles Dickens, for example-- whose witty characterizations, poetic descriptions and intriguing plots I'd never be able to match. 

But my inferiority complex about fiction writing used to be much worse.  I used to assume that any published fiction writer was a good one, better than me.  I used to think that if a short story or a poem made it into an anthology, it was worthy, and if not, not.  Ha!  Now I am judgmental, (although also a better judge) and I'm finicky and overcritical and hard to please and much less easily impressed.  Yet, still, I want to learn how the truly great fiction writing is done, and do it myself.  I'm afraid to try.

I just borrowed a short story anthology from the library yesterday and read two stories that I hadn't read before.  One was about an insane man who hated his cats and murdered his wife, by Poe.  The other was called "Elk" and I don’t know who wrote it.  Both were well written, but neither was good.

They were in the anthology because of Ray Bradbury --and, by the way, I have not only met him and have had him autograph my book (in my college Freshman days), but I also kissed him on his large, pink, writerly cheek, and heard him speak on three separate occasions in two different states.  Ray Bradbury liked and chose the stories.  So I'm going to keep reading them.  And if there are too many more that I don't like, I am returning the book to the library with a happy sigh that I didn't purchase it with my husband's hard-earned salary. 

Part of the reason that  I borrow books like this is that I am still attempting to train my mind to know what great writing is, so that I can write wonderful stories myself. 

I am forty-one, and have yet to publish anything other than blogs which nobody reads, a bundle of newspaper articles, some concert reviews, a  400-page thesis on Literary Journalism, and a few vehement letters to the editor.  I'm no Dickens.  But I still have half of my life left.  (Or more.) And I don't think it's too late to start.

I do have stories that I'd like to tell --but only if I can do it very, very well-- up to my own high critical standard as an overeducated English teacher. 

"The greats" inspire me: short stories and books like Katherine Anne Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall," or Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations," or Leif Enger's "Peace Like a River," or Bryce Courtenay's "The Power of One," or John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men," or even the sweet script of Nancy Oliver's "Lars and the Real Girl."

Willa Cather

A friend of mine is writing a book of short stories and has asked me to edit them for her.  I am happy to.  I know where the commas are missing.  I know which words require capitalization.  I can give advice about which parts are too slow-paced and which parts need clarifying additions.  But being able to edit is like being able to set a table and carve a roast that someone else has cooked.  What I really want to do is make up my own feast, my own recipes, from my own garden, grown with herbs and vegetables I've grown-- new inventions of hybrids, all to delight the table guests. 

What stops me is fear and the inability to juggle time.  Mostly fear.  Time comes when it's really wanted.  I have to put my flag in the sand and say, "This is what I'm writing.  It might not be perfect.  It might lack important qualities.  It might make someone mad.  I could be wrong.  But this is my best, wisest choice and I am going to have confidence in it."  This is what I want to say, and then just do it.  Okay, New Year's Resolution # 2:  Write a short story; post it here. 

Thursday, I read "Paul's Case," by Willa Cather.  I very much admired the first two pages.  The descriptions were vivid, the imagery rich, the story interesting-- "I've found another Great story", I thought.  But as the story continued, I found it to be mercilessly spiraling into suicide, which it did.  I was disappointed that it was a story without hope, because it started out so well.  I mean, I loved the beginning so much that I re-read it, just for the awe it inspired in me-- Cather can write!

I also read "The Black Cat," by Edgar Allen Poe, and hated it.  Although Poe is psychologically fascinating, and his descriptions are superb and his command of the language is great, I hated that story, as I hate most everything Poe writes.  It depicts ugliness of character, wickedness of soul.  Yuck.

Friday, I re-read "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" by Twain.  What was the purpose of the weird framing of the story?  It was really about the lead pellets weighing down the frog, the outsmarting of Mr. Smiley  --not about the people in the story's frame.  I liked the way Twain captured dialect-usage, but did not love the story.  I liked it, though.

Mark Twain

Friday, I also read "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been," by Joyce Oates.  Ditto the strengths and weaknesses of Cather's "Paul's Case" story, and Poe's cat murderer story; good description, good suspense, interesting characters, but depressing, hopeless ending.  Existentialism.  I keep thinking about that verse from the Book of Mormon:   "the natural man is an enemy to God…unless he/she yields to the enticings of the holy spirit…becometh a saint…willing to submit…to God."  (willing to submit to hope, to strength beyond your own, to the love and faith that surrounds us from both the seen and unseen worlds)

Why are so many famous, classic, literary stories such illustrations of the natural man/woman being a clueless, and wicked, enemy to God?  Maybe because of the apostasy and its attendant effects on society's understanding and consciousness collectively.  The best and brightest writers in such a state are only aware of the missing-ness of light.  They don't know how to describe that light, but only its absence.

If that is the case, then why aren't many LDS writers (except Shannon Hale and her "Book of A Thousand Days," which I loved) writing GREAT literature?  The stuff I've read has been lacking in plain old interest, for the most part.  They are so "I can take it or leave it" dull to me, lacking that imagery and poetry and realness that I love --the kind from Katherine Porter and Willa Cather and F. Scott Fitzgerald and Charles Dickens-- also lacking truly involving (Real, unique-as-a-snowflake) characters, poetic depictions, and suspenseful plots.  (Except Stephanie Meyer, whose plot was good but everything else was yuck.  --I only could get through half of one of the Twilight books, because even though the plot was suspenseful, there was no richness to the descriptions, no poetry, and so much twisted teenage low self-esteem that it made my eyes roll). I crave that literary stuff that should be wrapped around a tale like a cozy sleeping bag.

I admire any writer who actually writes rather than just analyzing writing so much, as I do.  Maybe I am still in the embryonic stage and once I get what it is I need to write, I will be able to write it.  Maybe LDS writers, too, are suffering the neglect of our own limited reaching toward truth and light, either in the gospel and the scriptures and our view of our lives in God's eyes, not learning what God's gospel truth really is,so that we can depict people in its light, more fully, or else in not studying the great ancestral writers enough to learn how to write richly and literarily.

I re-read "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Anne Porter last night.  Now, that's rich characterization, description, imagery, insight (like the first three stories) but it adds the glorious element of hope, and of humble, even noble, endurance --and character-pluck.  It took me all night long, mulling over these stories in my sleep, to discover why this story alone matched my expectations for good stories. 

Hope and  humble, ---maybe even noble--  endurance, and pluck.  These characteristics matter more to a literary story than even the dazzling qualities of descriptive perfection and suspense.  (although without the latter, you likely won't read it in the first place.)

This morning, DH said that he'd been computer programming in his sleep.  I said I'd been analyzing short stories in my sleep.  He said that during his scripture reading time today, he decided to write, and he started writing down stories from his life.  He felt like crying when he remembered many of his childhood stories, because of how vulnerable, hurt, and also foolish he was.  But he remembered moments of nobleness.  And he remembered some stories in a new light.  For example, the story about when a woman he knew used butter to try to oil a bicycle gear used to be a story that illustrated  cluelessness; now, DH sees that story as illustrating her sweetness and her determination to try to help with what resources she had.

This morning, I read "Open Boat" by Stephen Crane.  I had to jump to the end to make sure it wasn't another depressing, existential-death ending.  I read the last page, and then went back to the first and dared continue through.  Crane writes with wonderful, painterly descriptiveness about the qualities of the waves in the sea.  He also explores the faith/doubt of men in God, while they are in the face of great peril. 

  Stephen Crane

There's the image of a fist being shaken at the clouds, but there's also the image of the correspondent being tossed --by a miracle-- over the last section of the sea that was between him and the shore.  It seemed as if just the thought of God, wondering about him (or them:  the seven gods), even without a formal prayer, counted as prayer to Crane's unspoken faith.  Yet not all his characters escaped drowning. 

Well, I am typing one-handedly, pecking at the keyboard like a one-fingered wonder because the baby woke up.  And thar's another reason I'm an obscure blogger instead of a great novelist:  I like hanging out with people-- especially my own folk. 

Heart - Healthy Cooking

LOVE AND BUTTER

Look at that baby's happy, chubby face!  It's incredible to me that this five month old, 21-pound bundle of love and butter has never eaten anything but his Mamma's milk.  Speaking of love and butter, last night I said to D.H. that I've finally, a month and a half past the New Year, decided what my New Year's Resolution will be: healthier cooking.



Here are things I've made for dinner that my family likes:

1. meatballs and potatoes,
2. meatloaf,
3. marinated steaks,
4. beef roast,
5. enchiladas,
6. tacos,
7. spaghetti, 
8. fish and potatoes,
9. stir fry and rice,
10. barbeque chicken,
11. Hawaiian haystacks,
12. fresh ravioli,
13. pasta primavera with shrimp and mushrooms,
14. broccoli beef and rice,
15. home-made sub sandwiches,
16. chicken pot pie,
17. pancakes with jam,
18. chili and cornbread,
19. yam curry with brown rice. 

Out of these 19 dishes, there are 8 that are meat-heavy.  Most could be recreated with less meat, with a mixture of meat and beans, or with no meat and only beans, or with zero meat.  I could make chicken pot pie without the chicken, just with broth and veggies.  I could make vegetarian tacos, spaghetti, stir fry, haystacks, ravioli, chili, curry, bbq.  I just don't think of it.

This late resolution is inspired by the fact that many of our friends and relatives have had heart attacks or near-heart attacks, high cholesterol reports, and other physical scares that are said to be diet-and-exercise-related. 

The responsibility of cooking better, for the bodies and lives of my family members (and me) scares me.  My family is so dear.  And food is one way we show love.  But are high-fat, high-sugar, low-nutrition treats a loving gift-- in the long run? 

An occasional "bulla" or brownie is okay, but too much of our family's diet has too much fat, too much meat, and too much sugar.  I need to educate myself and begin to use more vegetables and more whole grains than I do.

I am thinking about what we eat here.  On the good side, we usually have a spinach salad, at almost every dinner.  On the bad side, we usually have dessert, at almost every dinner.  We also have nutrition-free snacks in the house, like crackers, candy, ice cream, etc., which we eat more often than we eat the apples and grapefruits we keep in the fridge.  How to refocus?  I think it will take a little creativity and some work.

My friend, J.H., said she dramatically dropped cholesterol points a year after she dramatically dropped meat out of her family's dinners (except for her husband's).  She read a book called the China Diet that convinced her to do it.  She says now she uses veggies and grains and eggs like crazy, and rations one pound of ground beef per two meals for her seven-person family.

She and another friend of hers started a healthy cooking club recently.  I was invited to my first one, coincidentally, today.  It was inspiring!  We learned how to make homemade yogurt and healthy quiche, berry breakfast bake, oat-wheat pancakes, and more.  When I try out the recipes that I got there, on the family, I will post them here.  I also just checked out the recipes at the Mayo Clinic's website and bought ingredients to try their heart-healthy dishes.  I will report whether they are yummy, and whether my family likes them.

I do have a lot of meat in my freezer right now, because I live in the friendliest town on earth.  (When I moved here three years ago, I was stunned at the friendliness!  People just come, bearing gifts, as if it's Christmas most of the year.  One neighbor brings us Alaskan salmon, fresh from Alaska, and rainbow trout, fresh from the local lakes, from his fishing expeditions.  Another neighbor often shovels others' snow, secretly.  Another one brings zucchini bread.)

Well, one of my neighbor friends came over the other day with at least thirty pounds of extra lean, grass-fed, home grown beef, frozen ground beef, and wouldn't accept a penny for it.  She'd just gotten a whole cow and didn't have room in the freezer.  This is lean, good meat, and I mean to make it last until summer with my new, less-meat resolution.



   

Second Grade Mom

A.J. brings home worksheets every day.  This one is an example of the hilarious, matter-of-fact way he, and most kids at this age, think:  He's supposed to write sentences comparing how they are different and alike, so he writes, "I have a square and a circle. And a circle is not the same so I can't tell you how they are alike." 

I can't imagine a sweeter, more tender-hearted boy than almost-8-year-old A.J.  He loves to cuddle and snuggle with his baby brother, and with me.  He is sensitive; he gets in trouble for crying too easily.  We're trying to teach him that the world expects him to be tough.  But he's not tough, at least not at this age-- and I love that about him.

Here he is, attempting to draw the deer while I am taking more pictures of them.

He finally decided to draw from a photograph instead, like his step-dad does when he paints.

This morning, A.J. went to school a half-hour early, wearing pajamas, to participate in the school's read-a-thon.  I just want to capture and keep A.J.'s cute smile and soft skin, his slightly too-short p.j. pants, and his hair, brushed with a big purple comb and sprayed to be both forward and backward at the same time.  ("Mamma, du gor det inte ratt!") 

Mornings, he listens to me reading a few verses from the Book of Mormon out loud (we're in Helaman now) while he eats his Raisin Bran or oatmeal.  I have to remind him to sit still and listen because he's trying to read the cereal box, look for deer, pour more milk, get me to sign his homework, and find his socks all at the same time.

Next week, I get to go to his second grade class to produce the Valentine's Day party.  We are playing "Don't Eat Pete," the chopsticks-conversation hearts game, cookie-decorating, and story-reading.  I love second grade Valentine's Day.  Everything in life is huge and colorful at this age.

A.J. doesn't want to give valentines to everyone in the class, but he has to, says Mrs. M.

I think I'll make this one my new main photo.  Dalarhast and deer.

Well, here are the photos of what he was trying to draw:  look how close they came to the house last night.

This one was leaping, just for fun, back and forth in the farmer's field, spring-loaded like a kangaroo.

These were almost in the house!

I do think deer are beautiful.  I wanted to get a photo of the one with the missing antler.  He looked comical, lopsided, yet very dignified because of his pride.  "Feo, fuerte, y formal" John Wayne would have called him.