Black Friday Morning Snapshots

Written by Lee

I am not a morning person. My man is. Thank God. What this means is that on weekends, or holidays, or any days when there is no school, he is awake with the kids and I am asleep in my cozy bed upstairs a million miles away from my mama duties.

On some of these particular mornings, I will be awakened by screams of chaos and I will have absolutely not one millisecond to adjust from sleep to wake. And then my day tends to take on a general feeling of chaotic grumpiness. Not. Good.

Other mornings, I will slowly emerge from my slumber to what I will describe as a lovely buzzing sound of warm family activity. Today was one of these mornings. Thank God.

As I glided downstairs into yet another perfect cappuccino brewed by my personal hot sexy barista, I took a sip and surveyed the scene around me.

Morning snapshots filling me with gratitude and peace and love and complete and utter satisfaction in being right here and right now. This is the feeling I strive for so when it arrives, I inhale it letting it seep into my flesh and bones. This is my mama meditation. And I know it will slip away on another day but this morning I have it. So I will live in it.

It was only 7:30 AM on this Black Friday, but much had been lived and learned since 6 AM when the kids awoke. My camera captured moments of the scene that had been both played out and was still going on.

My man and the kids had already sifted through the Black Friday super sales dreaming of which ones they would go to if any of us were actually motivated to leave the house.


Claire had boldly declared her love for a treat made by Grandma (my mom) that had made the trek across the desert into Claire's tummy. Claire had also taught Daddy who Roy G. Biv was. Daddy claims he was never taught about Roy in school. Could it be true?

I told Claire I briefly dated Roy G. Biv and almost married him. Claire responded, "But you didn't. You married Daddy."


Phoebe, our Love Fairy, was busy doodling away making more fairies - all friends of Tinker Bell - she told me.



Tommy told Claire to "Buffer up!" She had no idea what that meant. Tommy explained this bit of Thomas the Train phrasology and Claire decided that sounded like fun...

...and so train buffering up playing commenced.

And now a little after 10 AM, the hum of a family playing together is still being heard.

It's gonna be a good day. From beginning to end. Of that I am certain.

Oil of Olay is the Secret to Beautiful Skin

Written by Lee

At least that's what my grandma would tell me. Her skin was awesome. Sure it looked kinda like it had been around for a while. Hell, she was 90 but I'll tell you, her skin was sooooo soft and really? Had minimal wrinkles.


I always told her that I hoped I looked as good as she did when I was 90. But I guess to look that good, I need to start using Oil of Olay. And I haven't. What's my problem?

Two years ago today, my grandma Anne, less than two months shy of 91, slipped away from us and headed to the next world. She was so strong, so vibrant, so happy, I guess I just assumed we would have her until at least 100.

I miss her.

When someone lives for 90 years on the planet, you just expect that the time they spent living and the impression they made in the clay of the earth would be so indelible and lasting that I could look around me and catch glimpses of my Grandma in the air.

But two years later I feel that her presence is not as available to me as I want it to be. When she first passed, I felt her. I knew she was just a reach away into the sky - her soul still lingering for all of her loved ones to feel. She didn't speak to me then - at least not her voice - but her soul spoke to mine and I knew she was still with us.

I wonder as time passes if the souls of the departed drift further to their place in the after-world making it harder to get in touch with them. I still have moments when I feel my grandmother's presence - but it's only when I am very very still. Which is rare.

So I am left with memories and stories and cookbooks to infuse my living life with her deceased one. And I want to do all that I can to feel her. The her that was living and such a precious soul in my life.

My grandma loved to bake and she gave me a Kitchen Aid mixer as my wedding gift. Whenever I bake, I think of her. I stand at my mixer watching the dough swirl remembering the cookies, cookie bars, 7-layer cookies, holiday cookies, Polish "kolaches", rum cakes, pound cakes, coffee cakes, birthday cakes and all of the smiles plastered on our faces after eating some of her yummy treats.

She was baking almost until the day she died. It was her gift.

I have some of her cookbooks now filled with notations in the pages marking what recipes she liked and the dates she baked it. From one of her cake books, I have learned that on 11-15-05 (my birthday) she made Ambrosia cupcakes and she decided they were "very good." And on 8-13-05, she baked a pineapple inside-out cake and deemed it "crumbly."

In the chaos of my life as a mama to three young kids, I must remember to find the time in between the hustle and bustle to slow down and honor my grandma's rich and storied life. And with three kids ready to bake anytime I am ready, I realize this is a perfect way to keep her soul close to us in a tangible way.

To me, she was "Grams" or "Gramma" and to my kids she was "GG Anne."

I miss you Gramma.

Now I must bake.



A recipe from GG Anne's kitchen:

GG Anne's Filled Coffee Cake

Ingredients:
2 sticks margarine or butter
4 eggs
2 t baking powder
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 cups sifted flour
I can pie filling
1 t vanilla

Frosting:
1/4 lb. butter
7-8 oz. cream cheese
2 T vanilla
3 1/2 cups of powdered sugar

Directions:
Cream margarine or sugar well. (My grandma preferred Imperial Margarine for all of her baking.) Add whole eggs one at a time. Add sifted dry ingredients, then add vanilla.
Grease 15 1/2 x 10 1/2 pan. Pour all dough but one cup. Place your favorite flavor pie filling on poured dough then spoon rest of dough on top. (Cherry Pie filling works excpetionally well with this recipe.) Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

Frosting: Mix above ingredients and spread generously over top of coffee cake. Or if you don't want this heavier frosing, sprinkling some powdered sugar on top instead works just as well.

Enjoy this yummy cake with those you love.

Affiliate Friday: Swirl Girl on A Big World Resting on Little Shoulders

Swirl Girl from Swirl Girl's Pearls lives not far from me. She's basically a Los Angeleno although maybe she doesn't consider herself one. I'm not sure. I know there is only about a 30-40 minute drive that separates us and yet the only place we have connected as of yet is through our blogs. The blogosphere's cool like that. Hopefully we'll share a drink together sometime soon. For now, she is sharing a bit of her heart with us in this Affiliate Friday post. It's a different tone than her usual fare but she always speaks straight and true, in MWOB fashion, and that's why we adore her. Thanks, Swirl Girl for jumping in on this fine Friday.




In our humble town (and not only here,but around the country as of late) there was a tragedy - of epic proportion. A young father facing economic ruin in the throes of a nasty divorce and job loss killed his two young children before taking his own life. Emily Rose, my 10 year old, was asking me if that would ever happen to us. At that point, I wasn't sure if she meant the divorce part or what. So I answer. "Sure Dad and I fight sometimes...but we fight because we care. I think it's important to be open - because if you hold things in - they fester and you wind up resenting the other one."

Then she asked if I had ever contemplated suicide, and she used those very words. I told her that as many times in my life as I have been depressed or angry about anything (and there have been quite a few) I never thought there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I always knew that something would change, whether magical, mystical or spiritual , and I would be okay.

Emily Rose said there was a positive side to this tragic story - She said in her very 10 year old way, that the only good thing to come from this story was that the children don't have to suffer anymore. "Because," she said, "if the father had something genetically wrong with him - at least the cycle stopped because his children wouldn't pass it down to their children."

That my 10 year old even fathoms the concept of depression as a genetic illness scares the crap out of me. Such big words and bigger concepts . I don't think when I was 10, I worried about much - okay, maybe I did. But my worries were more along the line of hoping that nobody outed me for actually liking the chicken fricasse on the hot lunch line at school, or if that boy really 'like-liked' me. Or would I ever get boobs. At 10 years old, you should just not have to be sad for anything other than stuff like that.

It's sad that these young children were yanked from the innocence of childhood and slammed into adulthood. It is sad that some adults are saddled with sadness and depression so great that it crescendoed and culminated in that horrific act of violence. It is sad that our community has been rocked by this tragedy.

So, the next time I complain about our shrinking household economy, or that Hubby has to work late again, or that nobody listens to me when I talk around here - I, for one, will try to remember this conversation I had with my daughter. I hope I can use my words more carefully. She is listening...maybe too much.

If life could only be swirled like a wine glass to release its bouquet or decanted to let the sediment fall to bottom only to savor the best juice intended.