11 Words my Mother Said to Me

“YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON WHO HAS TO LIVE WITH YOU.”  Those eleven words I have heard directly from my amazing mother about a bazillion times in my almost forty years as a person.  Unless you have some sort of abnormal ability to have out of body experiences, this is true for you, as well as every other living soul in existence.  “YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON WHO HAS TO LIVE WITH YOU.” 

No, my mom is not a spirituality guru.  She hasn’t researched or written a selfhelp book.  She hasn’t studied any new aged awakening theories or fandangle mystologies.  What she is, is a daughter, a sister, a granddaughter, an aunt, a friend, a companion, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a lay minister, a teacher, a woman, a person, a soul. 

 

So what allows her to make such a conclusion?  What allows her to have such insight?  The answer is as simple as the statement.  It’s because she has lived just this sort of life thus far.  In a way, it’s a sort of motto or life covenant. 

OK, so what does she mean?  How can an eleven word sentence create a life’s work?  Make choices you can live with.  Be a good person.  Step away from prejudice, inequality, and persecution and into love, acceptance, and tolerance.  Do your absolute best to love yourself, truly love yourself (now that one takes a great deal of strength).  Take charge of yourself, your world, and your life.  Encourage good living.  Take care of yourself physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.  Finding happiness is your responsibility.  Finding a compliment to YOU (meaning a partner, a friend, a fur baby) is a gift to cherish and nurture.  Incidentally, she also says, “It takes two to be in a relationship.”  Allow yourself to feel, whether it is anger, upset, happiness, hurt, love, gratitude, passion… allow yourself to experience it.  Don’t hold onto pessimism or resentment too long, and stop poisoning your life with negativity.  It all amounts to the fact, you can’t get away from yourself; you’re stuck with you.  Other people can come and go on their own accord; they have choices of their own to make.  Nevertheless, at the end of the day, YOU still remain. 

So, make it all worthwhile, meaningful, significant.  Live life to the fullest, completely, wholeheartedly.  You don’t have to be perfect.  You don’t have to be right 100% of the time.  You will most definitely trip and fall.  But if you live by these eleven words you can’t go wrong.  It’s foolproof.  And you will ultimately find peace of mind.   

Our Daily Bread - By guest blogger Guenevere

Just a quick note. 

Please let me introduce my dear, dear friend Guenevere.  She has accepted my invitation to be a guest blogger for Living Conversations, and I am simply overjoyed.  She is one of those people who, just by being in her presence, reminds one how to be a truly beautiful, genuine person.  I am confident you find her as inspirational as I do.  With that, here’s Guenevere… 

Our Daily Bread

I must admit that I have always felt a bit daunted by the idea of baking my own bread. I have made plenty of quick breads, (like pumpkin chocolate chip-yum!) but never a loaf fit for a sandwich! It sounded easy enough: simple ingredients + time...yet my inner-perfectionist worried about getting nice, even slices and making sure not to kill the yeast. But with a four-year-old who devours peanut butter & honey sandwiches, and an almost one-year-old who adores toast, we go through a lot of bread in this house! So...

Last week, in an effort to simplify my errands a bit, and to stop spending $5 on a loaf from Great Harvest, I searched through several recipes online, and finally chose one that sounded close to our favorite honey wheat. Simple, wholesome ingredients, and an easy to follow recipe. I got out my mixer and loaf pans and got to work! I have great childhood memories of trips to Madison, and smelling the intoxicating aroma of freshly baked bread as we drove past Gardener's Bakery. So I am very proud to say that I have finally recreated that amazing smell in my very own kitchen!

http://bakingdom.com/2011/09/homemade-honey-oat-bread.html

I love the method Darla uses in this recipe. Her photos were a great tutorial for this bread-baking newbie. The only change I made to the recipe is the flour: I used 2 cups of whole wheat and 1 cup of all purpose. I made a loaf with regular active yeast and a loaf with quick-rise yeast, and I yielded a much better loaf with the quick-rise. I chose to leave the honey and oat topping off my second loaf, although delicious, it was hard to put the sticky loaf back in the bread bag!

This bread is just like the honey whole wheat from Great Harvest, and in fact, even tastier! It has a nice, soft crust, a delicious chewy texture, and it slices beautifully. After my four-year-old's first taste, he said, "I can't wait for a sandwich on this bread!".

 

Whew! Not so daunting after all! Maybe now I'll have the guts to attempt one of the pretzel bun recipes I have pinned! :) 

Defining a Hug

When Child Number One was a wee little tot he fashioned his own definition of *HUG*.  If the embrace he was receiving wasn’t what up to his standards he would blatantly say, “Only two arms make a hug.”  We always thought it was the sweetest, most innocent way of describing the physicality of an embrace.  However, during one of those nights my brain wouldn’t quiet down I came to understand what he was really trying to articulate using the limited language capabilities of a toddler.  It wasn’t the “two arms” element we heard through adult ears that was his fundamental message.  Our precious son was simply trying to open our hearts to the realization that a real hug, a true hug is when he had ALL aspects of our attention, ALL of our positive energy, ALL of our calming abilities surrounding him at that living instant.  Then, and only then, did he feel he was genuinely hugged. 

Not long ago his definition came to the forefront of my mind when I discovered a new trend in parenting which challenges parents to let their child end a hug first; allow the child to decide when to let go.  It is a lesson in living simply, being present in the moment, and giving your child the attention s/he deserves.  As a result of relinquishing this parenting control myself, I have felt an immeasurable wave of peacefulness.  It gives me the ultimate opportunity to live in a priceless moment and leave it with imprinted memories of my son that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.  His scent, the texture of his hair, the silkiness of his skin, the beating of his heart, all the magnificent, quiet pieces of my beautiful son.  I will forever treasure it all.

How Two Book Titles Changed my Life.

While rummaging around in the basement trying to find something interesting to fill up one of those famous homebound, freezing cold, northwoods winter days, I found myself reading over the titles of books lined up in our recycled cinderblock and 2 x 4, crudely assembled basement library.  The time was later 1980's and I was somewhere around the age of 13, give or take a year.  I remember the moment I came across two books that have been forever imprinted in my brain.  No they weren't some forbidden literature, Readers’ Digest large print books, or aged copies of National Geographic.  (The later of those being kept piled up in a place of honor in our living room.)  No, both were just beat up, well read, regular ol’ paperbacks.   I was drawn in by the colorful, visual noise of their covers.  Both happened to be authored by the same woman, the one, the only, Erma Bombeck.  I can't even tell you how many times since that day I have quoted just the titles, let alone her hilarious, true to life written words.  These titles find themselves involved in many a conversation, sometimes to loosen up an intense tone, other times just because the ideas they proclaim just fit so perfectly.  First is, The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank (McGraw-Hill, 1976), the second, If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? (McGraw-Hill, 1978).  I'm not going to bamboozle you, dear Reader, with all sorts of quotes, however, I urge you to please, please, please just take a second and do an internet search on Erma Bombeck.  Perouse a few of her quotes, download one of her books, or better yet get your bum to the library, (don’t forget a document with your current address printed on it to update your library card,) and check out a REAL LIVE BOOK.  She was genius.  Hilarious.  Genuine.  Authentic.

In case you're interested, click below.

Erma Bombeck: The Mother of all Humorists

I’ll leave you with one of her many quotes to tantalize your brain, "Seize the moment.  Think of all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart." 

Tales From The Food Crypt

A few days ago I was going through our freezers taking inventory of *what lies beneath*.  It wasn’t exactly planned, but I found myself diving headfirst into our basement freezer chest, a.k.a. The Food Crypt.  About a decade ago, give or take a year, I had entombed a zippered freezer bag containing a number of skinned overripe bananas.  Initially this was my resourceful way of conceal them not to admit squander from my non food wasting husband.  See, there is like a fraction of a second in the life of a banana where they are not too green or too brown, where they are still firm yet sweet, and if you have a bunch of them this all happens at one time and you find yourself with five bananas that need to be consumed in 2.5 seconds.  Anyhoo, when I would randomly find said freezer bag I would add to it or take from it a banana or two.  The taking part started with smoothies.  They were super yummy, super messy to make (getting out the blender, frozen berries, ice, yogurt, honey, milk,…), super expensive to make (note the ingredient list), and in the end, my kids refused to consume more than a taste so I would declare it Mum’s Smoothie Day and end up with a bad stomach ache.  Next was mushy banana ice cream.  You know, the modest effort, low fat, one ingredient banana ice cream wanna be.  Again, a major NOT GONNA HAPPEN with the two wee ones.  And Mum can only eat so many banana flavored ice crystals before frozen brain sets in.  So now what?  I have three cryo-preserved elderly bananas needing to be utilize.  What comes to mind?  Chocolate Chip Banana Bread.  And a quick internet search found an easy recipe of which I had all the ingredients for.  So, bada bing bada boom, I threw together one loaf of yummy, gooey, chocolate chip banana bread sending heavenly scents throughout our little home.  I made a few substitutions, like a bit of brown sugar for white to make it gooier, and adding some freshly ground nutmeg to compliment the loads of cinnamon.  After the smoke cleared… oh yeah the smoke.  Not a big deal, the mixture just kept oozing over the sides of the breadpan onto the floor of our oven, noted for next time, so I put a cookiesheet underneath.  Also noted was the need to implement better time management as the end of the school day for child number one was timed painfully close to the end of required baking time.  But once we returned home from picking up Number One, the heavenly spiced aroma of freshly baked bread had laid a path to the kitchen for innocent noses to follow.  I said, “You both have a choice, you may have two pieces of Halloween candy or one slice of this bread.”  Without a second of hesitation both immediately answered, “BREAD.”  And the praises I received after they consumed the first of my experimental banana bread, well, I felt like queen for the day.  Later on when given the same choice, both again chose bread OVER HALLOWEEN CANDY.  Who were these children?  What kid would eat bananas from The Food Crypt over a handful of plain M&M’s? 

Let me just finish with this little bit, the bread is long gone.  It lasted about two days, or so, however, the Halloween candy is still sitting on the kitchen counter in an untouched pasta bowl.  In the meantime, we’ve gone through one batch of my mom’s famous chocolate chip cookies, a completely homemade pumpkin cake glazed with homemade vanilla frosting, amazing amounts of Haralson apples, and oodles of tiny purple grapes (note the post, The Feathered, Glittery, Pink Potty Tiara Day).  And that candy, well, it still sits, and sits… waiting to be eaten.

On my Way to Simplifying.

About a year ago I had an epiphany.  A thought had been in the back of my mind for a long time, but I just sort of ignored it, until… well, one day a solution appeared. 

Wasting, harming the environment, recycling, using more than one needs, etc. have always been in the forefront of my thoughts.  I grew up in a household where reduce, reuse, recycle was implemented even before I knew what those concepts meant or why they were important.  It was simply our way of life.  To understand why, it is essential to know I am of the first generation raised away from the family farm, and my parents are products of the Great Depression.  We planted a giant garden, regularly composted, hung out laundry in the backyard, saved soda straws, and reused resealable baggies and plastic eating utensils.

I finally couldn't keep my conscious quiet; the issue became a constant burden.   I realized that I was not only throwing away a ton of cashola, but also creating a huge amount of plastic waste in one particular area.  Disposable razors.  (Don’t worry, no TMI here.)  After throwing around some alternative ideas, i.e., sugar peels, chemical lotions, waxing, cheaper razors, I came upon the blog, Zero Waste Home, authored by Bea Johnson.  In her “Tips” portion she lists using safety razors as an option.  Really?  The old fashion razors of bygone years?  EPIPHANY MOMENT!!!  This idea sounded completely doable, and seemed a commonsense solution to my long lasting dilemma.  What came to mind next was that years beforehand I discovered a velvet covered box in my parents’ medicine cabinet which housed a safety razor of yore.  So, I asked my mom if it was still there.  And guess what.  It was.  Since then I’ve never turned back.  Ten refill blades costing anywhere from $1.99 up to $3.99, you can’t go wrong.  That’s almost a year’s worth for much less than what eight medium grade plastic disposable razors would cost.  There is also the fact I’m not adding to the already overflowing landfills or the minuscule plastic pieces polluting our beaches and waterways.  Another plus is I have found they don’t become dull as quickly, leading to less irritation or injury, just as long as they are completely dried off after each use.  So thank you Bea, for giving me yet another step in the right direction.  It may seem little, but it was pretty fantastic to me. 

Maybe while reading this post, or future simplification posts, you will find your ah-ha moment, your epiphany, or maybe a first step in living a less complicated life.  And if you have any ideas on other ways to make a positive change like this, please feel free to share.  I’m all ears.

Zombies and other Apocalyptic Monsters living upstairs.

Being five years old is really tough.  Especially when zombies and other apocalyptic monsters live upstairs.  All I did was ask him to go to his room and put on his pajamas, and what happens?  A supermega meltdown.  I really feel for the kid, I mean he feels seriously traumatized right now.  Then I remind myself, tis the season of haunting shadows.  With the change in temperature, and the all around feeling of darkness taking over light, you can't blame him, or anyone else, for how a seemingly normal task morphs into the zombie apocalypse.  With all due respect, Halloween is NOT an easy time for the vivid imagination of a developing child, or scaredy cat adult.  (Hi, yeah, I'm talking about me.  This oddball adult right here.)  Well, maybe for those who are able to embrace the horrific, but not this chica nor her eldest offspring. 

It seems not only do advertisements for all things spooky pummel the airways, but also every based on true life events, freakishly terrifying movie trailer appears to reproduce exponentially.  Then there are the "classic" horror film marathons shown in chronological order, or first the original followed by an updated, more gory remake.  Then there are the ones taking place in, oh say a cornfield, a wooded plot at the lesser populated end of a road, a haunted cemetery... you know "normal" places that exist in every dark corner of every town in America.  You watch the movie, then take a hike to a similarly scenic destination trying to talk yourself into believing this will be "FUN" only to find yourself closer to a coronary with every passing moment.  Oh, now don't forget the ever popular haunted house.  So not my thing.  I'd rather eat headcheese.  I can't comprehend why I should pay someone to scare the crap out of me, or better yet, publicly pee myself.  But the frosting on the cake, cherry on the sundae issue for me has always been creepy dolls.  The more realistic those porcelain headed, stare through you to the depths of your soul, demonic creations the more creeped out I get.  That fear was cemented in my adolescent years when I begged my sister to tell a story about a possessed doll who's nails dripped blood.  Yeah, not a great scenario for a kid already developing serious doll issues.  And what is it with sleeping with closet doors open?  Who does that anyway?  Besides, where else does one lock up those disturbing dolls at night?  They can't just be left out to aimlessly roam about stealing life giving breath from people.  Don't even get me started on the space under the bed.  I even wrote a paper junior year of high school about it.  I entitled that skillfully written, literary masterpiece, "The Bermuda Rectangle."  Incidentally, you may find it amusing that the first video I ever saw on MTV was Michael Jackson's Thriller... the extended version.

Needless to say, I'm not a huge fan of the spine-chilling side of Halloween, but I will take the trick-or-treating, caramel apples, spiced apple cider, hayrides (as long as they aren't haunted), and all the other not so scary stuff.  Well, October 31st is only a couple days away, so be safe out there and have fun.  I'll be on the sidelines continuously reminding my rational self none of this is *real*. 

Happy Halloween!!! 
(Bla, ha, ha, ha...) 

Happy Life Day

Celebrating life sounds more like a birthday than the anniversary of a fatal car accident, yet that is exactly why LIFE DAY came to be.  In order to understand where I'm coming from let's take a flash back to October 27th, 1986, sometime around 1:00 in the afternoon.  (Insert those squiggly, wavy lines formerly used to identify flashbacks in the sitcoms of the 1980's.) 

On the way back to our northwoods home from a wonderful family celebration, my parents and I were driving along a stretch of highway on an unseasonably warm and bright autumn afternoon.  Being the normal girl of tween age, I was sleeping, sprawled out on the benchlike backseat of a 1970 white Buick Skylark my parents had just recently purchased.  She had tail fins near the trunk, an AM only radio, vinyl white seats, and the shoulder seatbelts, located only in the frontseat, were folded, fastened to the ceiling with two metal clips.  She was in pristine condition.  What a beauty she was!!  But most importantly, that car saved our lives.  (They just don't make 'em like they used to.)  The first thing I remember is hearing my mother yell out so I lifted my head.  To this day, 28 years later, I see in my dreams two lit headlights moving toward us against a pitch black background.  All is as silent as silent can be.  The next thing I see are florescent lights.  I hear voices.  I don't know where I am yet at the same time I do.  I know I'm safe.  A nurse says my name and stresses for me not to move emphasizing "AT ALL."  She continues that my parents and I had been in a terrible car accident and that we all were alive but at a nearby emergency room being evaluated.  Let me just say, things were not good, not good at all, but that is another story for another time.

There is SO, SO much to this story as it still lives on to this day.  That was the day my loving older sister had to take over and become the head of household (and a third parent to a scared little sister).  That was the day I learned how strong I could be and what sort of pain - physical, mental, or emotional - I could overcome.  I'm more than sure, dear Reader, you will hear many stories in the future of the outcome from that one day, that one instant.  But in the meantime, dear Reader, what I wish for you to take from this post, right now, is the following passage taken from my personal Facebook page posted today...

"HAPPY LIFE DAY!!! 28 years ago today my family of four was involved with that crazy HWY 29 car accident, forever changing our lives... for the better. We are who we are today because of those few moments of time.  So with that in mind, live every second of this day, and every day for that matter, to the fullest.  Love without limits.  Search for the good in the bad.  Give your family, friends, neighbors, strangers, enemies… everyone the gift of kindness.  Be present in the moment.  Celebrate with us by spreading grace, love, peace, and appreciation for this day.

With gratitude and love, Leah (HUG)"

The Feathered, Glittery, Pink Potty Tiara Day

My precious, blue-eyed, blondie of a three year old yells from the living room, " Mum. Mum.  I need your help p'ease."  Being as the tone was nonthreatening or panicy, I calmly reply from the kitchen, "Are you hurt, did you destroy something, or are you in danger?"  In her wee little voice she answers, "I'm just super frust-er-ated."  At this point I'm halfway into doing the dishes, by hand, and figure the situation could wait another moment... or three.  However, it wasn't but a few seconds later that I hear a loud BANG, followed by the dragging of an unidentified large object across the 130+ year old hardwood floors of our living room.  Out of the corner of my eye I see one of our yellow, hollow formed, plastic toddler chairs simultaneously being turned upside down and carried through the entrance of a hallway.  (By the way, it's a hand-me-down chair.  Yay for hand-me-downs!!!)  At this point she is starting to feel defeat.  She turns to me, drops the chair with a clamor, stamps her foot screaming, "It's stuck!  Get it out!"  Now curiosity is killing me; the dishes are instantly forgotten.

"Mum, I can't get it out so I can eat it."

Um, first that sounds serious.  Second, gross.  And third, what exactly is this food item and where is it stuck? 

Her bright blue eyes look at me questioning why are you just standing there during this time of catastrophe?  "Mum, you're making me nervous."

In my best mum voice I inquire, "OK sweetheart, what exactly is wrong?"

"I put a wee, teeny, tiny, li'l purple grape inside of brother's chair," is her answer.

"I'm sorry, you put what?  Where?"

"I said, I put a teeny, li'l grape inside of brother's chair and I can't get it out and I want it.  Now!!"

Picking up the yellow, formed, plastic chair, I discover there is a hole about 3/4 inch in diameter under the seat portion, between two hollow rear legs.  (Did I mention the legs are hollow?  All four of 'em?  Yeah, well it's kind of a big obstacle.)

Instantly I think, "Get this thing out now or it will rot turning into an indescribable stench haunting our nostrils 'till the end of eternity."  Turning on the rational switch, I brainstorm on what sort of object can be shoved into a little hole to get a globular object, appearing to be nearly the same size as the hole, out.  All this while still balancing the chair at such an angle that said object does not plummet to the bottom of one of the afore mentioned hollow legs, or fall into a crevasse created from the hollow backrest.  In a moment of pure genius, I grab a two foot, metal shishkabob skewer from a nearby drawer and... VWALLA!!!  I successfully impale the grape without releasing any oozing guts.  Now to maneuver it out without disimpaling it.  And again, BOOM!!, instant success.  The grape has been removed.  (So glad for the talents I gained playing that boardgame called Operation back in the '80's.)  Being as this chair is probably 15 to 20 years old, and the inside of it has probably never seen a cleaning agent of any kind, I declare the grape inedible and toss it into the rubbish bin. 

Seeing that visual cues my dear daughter into a screaming fit, "Mum!  I wanted to eat that grape.  Now it's gone!  Get it back!" 

My brain explodes into nonverbal rational dialog, "First of all, I don't think the world will fall apart around you over this one impaled, possibly highly toxic grape.  And second, you have an entire container full of freshly washed, destemmed grapes in the living room... where this entire saga started from."  However those are not the words that fall out of my mouth.  Instead I say the following, "I forbid you to consume that grape as it was just removed from the highly toxic nucleus of that anctient artifact of a chair, and when tossed into the rubbish bin it landed inside of one of your piddle filled diapers.  See, just one more reason to be potty trained right now.  You could have saved that grape from the harsh sentence of decomposition via human pee."

With that, my wee, precious, little girl immediately stops her tantrum, pivots on her toes ballerina style, and skips into the living room, not because she understood or even cared about what just occurred over the past 15 minutes.  It was only because she had just heard the title sequence to Sesame Street. 

End of saga. 

Oh yeah, she did earn her feathered, glittery, pink potty tiara because it was, after all, the first day she had no *potty in the underpants* accidents.   



What? A Blog?

Wow, a blog.  Never thought in a million years I'd be writing a blog.  I recall back in my sophomore year of college, some umpteen million years ago, sitting in Intro to Computers 101, a pit class.  A one semester course with the option of a follow up pit class, Intro to Computers 102.  The prof prayed for internet connection all THREE times she tried to dial up claiming it was *new* and *improved* and more user friendly.  All three times failed.  Miserably!!  What we witnessed was basically just classroom speakers screeching out an incredibly loud dial tone accompanied by some serious feedback, then a horrendous "ring" once an outgoing line was found.  Finally, a bunch of dings and dongs, and the grand finally, the letdown of a busy tone.  Sorry, please try again in, oh say, two years.  I remember thinking to myself, "Self, this internet business will never come to fruition in your lifetime.  It's too outrageous.  Maybe in your offspring's lifetime but definitely not yours."  Well, hardy har har to that 1994 pessimistic teenager.  IT IS ALIVE!!!  And we've come to depend on it, completely.  I remember, in that same 101 course, having such a difficult time identifying with the ideas that files went into folders.  What??  Aren't they the same thing only one has pockets and the other tabs?  And really, they don't get "saved" onto a hard drive or a floppy disc, but rather walked across the room and filed, using some crazy system, into a metal cabinet you prayed wouldn't fall over and smoosh you to death.  Fast forward a year and you'd find me in the first block of classes toward getting a bachelor of science degree in Exceptional Education.  There, we were introduced to this dark, creepy room meant to represent the common classroom in the year 2000.  Really!!!  Still using the old fashioned overhead projectors with wipe off markers we were introduced to the new and improved electronics of our future profession.  We ended up having to team up on Mac's because they were too expensive to have one for each student.  Then, there was the heat those mammoth boxes, I mean computers, pushed out.  Yikes, it was like sitting in the boiler room with a bunch of unshowered college kids the day after a house party (oh wait, that's really what it was).  And yet what one thing was the "key" to everything?  A bent paperclip!!  Litterally!!  It was the golden key.  All this grandiose, updated electronic hype and in the end we depended on a large, bent up paperclip to jab into a dimple near the floppy disc drive in order to forcably eject a jammed disc and restart the computer.  So, you can understand why I'm just a tad bit surprised with myself at where this life has lead me.  Writing a blog?  What?  (And incidentally, whatever happened to closed and open apple anyway?)

 

Now here's the funny thing.  You know where I am writing this?  I don't mean typing this.  I mean writing this?  I'm sitting on a wooden picnic table in my backyard watching the two kiddos playing in freshly fallen maple leaves.  Am I using an electronically powered notebook, phone, or laptop?  Heck no!!  I write these words in a beat up black and white composition notebook using a black Paper Mate pen that is nearly out of ink.  There is no room for electronics here.  This is my personal heaven for the moment.  My kids are happy, running, trying to catch magenta colored leaves on their heads before they fall to the ground.  The sun slips through between neighborhood houses and in an instant that magenta leaf turns BRILLIANT.  All this reminds me to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n.  Take a breath.  Relax.  And live in the moment.  Because too soon it will be gone.