What is Adulthood Really About?

I am a person who, much to the annoyance of my children, loves Facebook and Pinterest. You are probably familiar with Facebook, but if you aren't familiar with Pinterest, you should be. One popular part of both sites is the abundance of clever, inspirational, offensive, ridiculous, and downright hilarious quotes that get posted and reposted regularly. One of my favorite ridiculous quotes is "repost if you love your grandma. If you don't then you hate her." The truly ridiculous part of that is the fact that it actually gets reposted! I am guilty of reposting all kinds of (hopefully not offensive) quotes such as, "I don't know Karate, but I do know 'crazy' and I'm not afraid to use it."
There are literally hundreds that have made me laugh, cringe, or go "hmmm." A while back my niece reposted one that said "Adulthood is mostly about being tired and wishing you hadn't made plans." When I read that I felt like Peppermint Patty when she knocked Schroeder away from his piano when she yelled "That's it!" At this stage in my life I have found myself not only tired all the time but napping on a regular basis. They usually aren't planned naps either. They they can occur at any time that I am lying on the couch, which is usually after dinner. Several years back I even made a 'no more than one night of plans per week' rule. More than one night a week of activity just makes me more tired. I love going out with Tom or friends. I really love watching the kids performances or athletics. When I do make plans,I get really excited about whatever it is I'm doing but when the time comes I think "Why did I agree to this? I'm just so dang tired!" Most of the time I convince myself that I need to get out of the house and have some fun with friends or family. Rarely do I cancel.  I do however, find myself in full on yawning around 8:30 PM. I sometimes find myself with an inner-conflict. I love to socialize and hate feeling like I'm missing "the fun" but when I get invited to join the fun I excitedly accept then, like the quote says, wish I hadn't made plans. I guess if that is what adulthood mostly is, then I've nailed it. That and another catchy quote "Now that I've wasted an hour on Facebook, Ill just pop over to Pinterest and make an evening of it."

You're Gonna Miss This

Well, it happened again.No matter how hard I try to control myself, I fail. It doesn't matter if I am driving home from work, riding on the back of the motorcycle, or jogging with my iPod. If I hear "You're Gonna Miss This" byTrace Adkins or "It Won't be Like This for Long" by Darius Rucker, I end up in tears, especially if I try to sing along. When my kids were young and I was in the throws of terrible twos or spending entire Saturdays at wrestling tournaments full of screaming kids, I didn't feel like I was "gonna miss this." Sometimes I feel bad that I didn't cherish every moment with my kids when they were young. More than once I stood at the check out line with a screaming child and a cart full of groceries thinking "Just take me now Lord" rather than "It won't be like this for long." I don't beat myself up over it. That's just the way parenting goes. When we are there, we don't always say "Hey, I'm gonna miss this." But something happens to me when I hear certain lines in those songs. I'm taken back to dropping a crying child off at daycare and an angry teenager telling me that I have no idea how he feels. But the line that really gets me every time I hear it is in the Trace Adkins song where the mom is apologizing to the plumber for her screaming kids and he says something like, "I have two babies of my own...ones twenty-six, ones twenty-three." I literally choke on the words every single time I try to sing them. In fact, I have a lump in my throat as I type this. My kids aren't out of the house yet, but they are independent young men who don't depend on me for much of anything anymore. I look at the pictures of them as little boys and wonder why it went by so fast. I hear screaming kids in the store and look at another middle aged mom and we smile at each other because we too had been there. The other night Tom and I were driving in the rain to watch Sammy play football. I was grumbling about having to sit in the stands and be cold and wet for two hours. And suddenly I remembered that it's his junior year. After next fall there won't be anymore football games, rain or shine. And I'm gonna miss this.

Adventures in Veganism

After reading the title you are probably thinking one of two things, "Well it's about time she came to her senses! Hopefully she will convince others to go vegan." or "Has she lost her mind? Now she's going to try and get us to give up meat!" Actually it's neither of those. I haven't joined PETA and I'm not going to change the world, one carrot at a time. At the recommendation of my doctor I picked up a book by Rip Esselstyn called "The Engine 2 Diet." Rip is a firefighter/world-class triathlete who is introducing others to the vegan lifestyle (which he calls a plant-based diet) and basically has a 28 day challenge, hoping that that the end of the 28 days you will be so much healthier that you will never call a cow "dinner" again. I honestly have never had any interest whatsoever in becoming a vegetarian of any degree. I love meat, poultry, and cheese so much that I don't see any reason to let them go. Besides, I live with 3 staunch carnivores who are definitely not going to join me in any diet altering experiment and have made that quite clear. However, in the interest of getting my digestive system in proper working order, I could do it for 28 days, or so I thought. I read the book and thought "hmm this won't be so bad." Well, I'm here to tell you, it's a lot harder than you might think. I decided to give up dairy first and enjoyed a delicious veggie sub, sans cheese for dinner that night. Wow! this won't be that hard. But the next morning I blew it when I had to put milk in my coffee because I had nothing to replace it with. The next thing to go was meat. That first day went pretty well until Tom made these amazing chicken wings that I couldn't resist. I felt a little weak trying to survive on just fruit & vegetables for lunch so I added eggs back into my diet. I'm getting better at making food choices, but still have some trip ups. One day while waiting for my veggie pita at Roast & Toast I munched on some cheese popcorn. Halfway through the bag I asked Tom if powdered cheese on popcorn would count as dairy. Dang. After a few weeks I am adjusting to my new life without foods that I once thought I couldn't live without. While I have still have no desire to learn to cook with tofu or watch as my family devours a Thanksgiving dinner without me, for now I will make a go of it, expecting a few moments of weakness now and then. I think I may be more of an egg-eating vegetarian who enjoys the occasional bag of cheesy popcorn. And no, I won't try and convince you to join me.

This is Only a Test

*This is an extra column that I chose not to have published.
This past December I completed a Masters Degree program and now proudly have an MA  as part of my professional designation. In order for me to receive an endorsement through the state of Michigan in the area of which I hold my degree, I am required to take an exam. Why the state can't accept my diploma and 3.96 GPA as proof that I actually learned what the university expected me to learn, is a good question. I suspect that it has something to do with the fee I was required to pay. Regardless, somewhere along the line the testing became a standard part of teacher certification. So I paid my $57 or so dollars and registered for the test. When I got my testing information I read a laundry list of testing rules that made me wonder if I would be getting top secret government clearance along with my endorsement. For example, if we brought a water bottle it had to be clear with no label. Wow! Cheaters must be incredibly sophisticated these days! Were they able to create floating crib notes with alphabet soup noodles? When I got to the testing facility we were herded down a narrow, winding hallway into two rooms. We had to provide tickets and photo ID. After my purse was confiscated I jokingly told the woman sitting beside me that we would be asked to show our forearms and the soles of our feet next. Before we took the test we had to provide thumbprints and copy a sentence stating that we were in fact who we said we were. "Good grief!" I thought "I think my son had an easier time getting his passport!" All of that for a 100 multiple-choice question test. By the time all of the formalities were completed and we were directed to begin, I was so nervous that I might have accidentally come in with a stray MP3 in my purse (which would void my score) that I think I forgot half of what I went there to be tested on in the first place. Do I think tests are important? As an educator, of course I do. Do I think the testing craze has gotten a little bit out of hand? You bet. I had to wonder as I looked around that room if there was someone desperate enough to attempt to cheat. Maybe. Or maybe it's just a reflection on the state of morality in our society. Call me old fashioned, but I hold on to the notion that the majority of people would never dream of it because like their diploma verifies, they learned what they were supposed to and were able to prove it.

Explaining Those Random Injuries Takes Imagination

The other day I woke up as I usually do, except something was different about my knee. I started down the stairs and thought it kind of hurt and felt a little swollen. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I had done. It wasn't like I had some glamorous accident playing beach volleyball. I just woke up like that. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's not like I don't have a history of random bumps or bruises that have mysteriously appeared. In fact, I have so many I have contemplated writing down each time I run into something so that I can attach an explanation to the bruise or scrape that suddenly shows up somewhere on my body. Last winter I woke up with my hand hurting so badly that I could barely move it. I vaguely remembered falling into the house (I remember that one because the mishap was witnessed by my husband) a week or so earlier. Then I ripped up old carpeting and removed thousands of carpet tacks, but how could that cause such pain resulting in a wrist splint for two weeks? Unfortunately, there was no exciting story to go along with it. People would ask what happened and I'd embarrassingly respond, "Well, nothing. Nothing happened." After a day or so of this I jazzed it up a bit by saying "I fell." What I should have done was to add, "...down a long flight of stairs while I was chasing an armed fugitive!"  Maybe the bruise stories need a little embellishment too. "That bruise? I got that one from a rough landing when I was skydiving over the weekend...um...in Tahoe." Maybe I could explain the cut on my hand by saying I was whipping up a gourmet meal with Rachel Ray.  As I imagined the weird feeling in my knee getting worse for no apparent reason, I could envision people asking me what happened and me saying, "I don't know.  I just woke up like that one day." Which would be just as embarrassing as the wrist injury. I don't know why I worry about explaining unexplained injuries to people. Maybe it's because I lead a pretty uneventful life, or maybe it's because I just feel old. It's just another quirk in my life that I'm learning to get used to. So if you are wondering what happened to my knee, it happened when I was water skiing, no, slalom skiing, no, barefoot skiing! Oh who am I kidding? It's like all of my other injuries...I have no idea.

Middle Aged Senior Moments

In the past I have been known to jokingly accuse friends and family members of having "senior moments." If you aren't familiar with the term a senior moment it is like accusing a person of having momentary dementia. When I was younger I would walk into a room and completely forget why I was there. At that time it was something to chuckle to myself about and chalk it up to having a lot going on. However, at 45, the term "senior moment" takes on a whole new meaning. It's like saying "Hey everyone! I'm getting old!" Recently Tom and I want to a craft show in Charlevoix where I purchased a bottle of syrup. I carried it around with me for what I assumed was the whole time. Later that evening at home I decided to make some granola with my syrup. But there wasn't any. I checked the saddle bags on the bike. No syrup. I asked Tom and he said he hadn't seen it. In fact I figured I had given it to him. Nope. I honestly had no recollection of what could have happened to it. The jug was in my hand and then it wasn't. It's like I had a  blackout. Frustrated, we returned to the two places I could possibly have set it down. I was really upset and a honestly the thought of early onset dementia crossed my mind. We always used to laugh and make jokes about my grandma's failing memory. She even got a T-shirt for her birthday that said "Now that I have it all organized I forgot where I put it." We joked about her forgetfulness until we found out she actually had dementia. I know I don't really have dementia. But it's interesting how things in life turn from funny to concerning once middle age hits. The other day I asked Tom if he called a friend of ours to which he responded, "Really?"
I said "Did I just ask you that?"
 "Yup" he responded.
"Did you answer me?"
"Yes."
"What did you say?"
"I said no."
I guess I could blame it on being a busy working mom who has a lot to think about, only its summer vacation with one kid gone and the other one self-sufficient. The fact of the matter is that it happens to everyone. Its just a part of life. Even though I know there will come a time when I need to be concerned about my failing memory, for the time being I will make more lists and laugh as I admit that I must be having another one of those pesky senior moments.

Why I Wear Grey in May

Sometime last fall I was on my way to work and I thought to myself, "Hey-I'm not sad anymore!" That seems kind of random, but I will explain. I've had a pretty uneventful life, relatively devoid of tragedy or out of the ordinary loss. But from January of 2010 until the summer of 2012, I pretty much got hit all at once. It started with my mother-in-laws cancer diagnosis and her passing, then the passing of my grandmother one month later, then the return of my brother Vern's brain cancer and his passing the next April, followed by a few more family losses mixed together with two very stressful years at work. An unshakeable sadness seemed to envelop me. I think the technical term is "situational depression." For some reason, in America, we feel it necessary to recognize what I call "death anniversaries." I really don't know why we do that. It seems to just dredge up that loss and bring back the pain. After the first year's  "anniversaries" of my mother-in-law and then Vern I did two things. The first thing was that I made a conscious decision; no more death anniversaries. Tom and I were watching Joel Osteen on TV and he said an interesting thing. He doesn't visit his dad's grave because that reminds him of the loss and accompanying sadness. He celebrates the happiness and good memories through photos and things like birthdays. That made a lot of sense to me. It wasn't easy letting those days go by unrecognized, but I did it. The second thing I did was to get proactive. I found out that May is Brain Cancer Awareness Month. So for the past two years I have gotten on Facebook and rallied my friends and family to wear grey. Then I paint my toenails grey and keep them that way the whole month. I went online and found out that November is Neoendocrine Cancer Awareness Month (the cancer that took Tom's Mom) and told him that we would be bringing awareness then too. Both types of cancer are rare and aggressive. To me, bringing awareness to these two causes makes me feel like I am doing something good that honors the memory of two people that were very special to me. I know I could wear rainbows every month, but I can't help but feel that once I made the decision to focus on the positive, that feeling of heaviness in my heart that I carried around lifted. And I wasn't sad anymore.

Calm Down. It's Just a Bee

A while ago I was leaving for work in my Bug convertible, with the top up so as not to ruin a perfectly good hair-do. I glanced up to see the headliner scrunched up and reached over to straighten it. I quickly looked over my shoulder to see if the other side was too and there he was. The hitchhiker. A yellow jacket of some sort clinging to the headliner. Immediately one of my favorite Gary Larson Far Side comics came to mind. It's the one with a human-sized bee sitting in the back seat and the woman driving thinking, "It's just a bee. I am not going to panic. I'll just pull over and let it out." I always laugh when I see that strip but I'm never laughing when one of those nasty things makes its way into my car. I have a sort of irrational fear of stinging insects, (for the sake of simplicity I'll just refer to them all as bees). I was always that kid who ran screaming and flailing whenever one came near me. And if one got in the car I'd get out,

open all the doors and windows an wait for it to fly out.
When I was a teenager, my dad, not knowing the consequences of his actions, plugged up a hole that contained a nest of bees. Instead of killing them, they came into the house. The expert they called in said that they'd die off in the fall, but there was nothing we could do about it. My life resembled something from a horror movie as bees entered my bedroom through cold air registers and dropped from my ceiling light. I'd lie awake at night listening to them buzz. I can vividly remember going into the basement laundry room to do my weekly chores armed with a can of Raid in one hand and a fly swatter in the other. I learned to manage my fear when I became a teacher. If a bee entered the room I would have to swallow my panic and say "It's just a bee boys and girls. If you don't bother it, it won't

bother you. We'll just open the window and let it out." On this particular morning in my car, I realized I could not drive all the way to school hunched over the steering wheel waiting to feel it land on the back of my neck. In fact, you may have seen me. I was the one with the top of the car half off, dumping the contents of my school bag on the ground next to the car after it had fallen in.  Oh I know. I probably looked ridiculous.

After all, it was just a bee.

Tapping Away the Injury Blues

Nothing makes me feel older than being sidelined from something that I love doing because of an injury. About a year and a half ago I suffered what’s referred to as a “high hamstring” injury from running. It’s a painful, nagging condition which is, from what I have learned after extensive research, one of the most difficult injuries to heal and recover from. Not only is it difficult to recover from. It takes a long time. It’s located on that sits bone in the lower pelvis and is easily flared. I have gone through various medical treatments only to discover that probably the only thing that is going to work is rest, plain and simple. For me that is easier said than done. I enjoy working out and being physically fit. And if you ask my family, they will admit that when I’m able to exercise on a regular basis I’m not such a grouch. I was trying to find something that wouldn’t aggravate it but when you aren’t able to do any kind of activities that involve jogging, lunges, squats, or extended sitting such as bicycling, you’re pretty limited as to what you can do. Even yoga seems to be a no-no. As my friends talked about their various core classes and races, I did my best to keep my chin up and try not to feel sorry for myself. After all, I have been running since Sammy was a baby and to listen to friends quickly surpass all of my accomplishments not only in speed but in distance was a hard pill for me to swallow. Just when I was getting ready to throw in the towel and accept my new sedentary lifestyle, my good friend Bridget told me that she was taking an adult beginner tap dancing class. Wow did that sound fun! I told her I might like to try that so a few weeks later she let me know when the next class would be starting which I promptly signed up for. I was of course, nervous that I would be only aggravating my injury. But I was determined to give it a try anyway. Even though I did a lot more stomping than fa-lapping, after just one class my spirits lifted. It didn’t aggravate my injury and I found a new form of exercise. I guess I didn’t have to let my self-pity get the best of me. I just needed to get creative and find my inner Shirley Temple. After all, she’ll be young forever!

Testerone in the Garage, Estrogen in the Volkswagen

I have heard men complain about living in a house full of women, (meaning a wife and

one or more daughters), like its one drama event after another or he easily gets

overruled by the females in the house. Well I'm here to tell you that living in a house full

of men is no walk in the park either. Whether you're up against estrogen or testosterone,

you're sure to be in for a fight at one time or another when they decide to gang up on

you. Take for example what was referred to as "that goofy Bug" less than a year ago.

What was dorky at one time quickly gained popularity in my house of guys. My husband

has spent the better part of this winter restoring our 79 Super Beetle. Since it is

supposed to be my car, I felt I had somewhat of a say in how the restoration would

occur and what the end product would look like. It started out being pretty cut and dry to

me. The car would be the original color, keeping it as much original as would be

possible. My husband was good about respecting my wishes since, again, it is my car.

Enter my two teenage sons. What started as a pretty straight forward hands-off

restoration became me with bloody knuckles, hanging on to my classic car for dear life. I

should have picked up on the fact that I might be in for a bit of a challenge when, before

the car even went to paint, the stick shift handle had been replaced with a 8 ball. My first

battle was for the fenders. I noticed on Facebook that my older son had posted a picture

of it without the fenders taking a vote on wether or not it should become a "Baja Buggy."

When the fenders were put back on I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I went out in the

garage to find a race car style steering wheel where my classic VW steering wheel had

once been. This was after Tom and Sammy had outfitted it with a stereo and speakers

that could rock out a Hummer. The only reason there isn't an amp and subwoofer is

because the electrical system wouldn't support them (and don't ask me what those

things are, because I really don't have any idea). Most recently Sammy informed me

that he would be driving it as much as possible this summer. Um...I don't think so. Tom

assured me that its still girly, just with a few male touches. And I guess I can put up with

all of the testosterone filling the garage because I know how happy it makes them. So

when the snow melts and I'm on my way down the road in my awesome VW convertible

I'll say my usual morning prayers, thanking God for my wonderful boys.

The finished product: My fully restored '79 Super Beetle

Catching Up!

Wow, Where has the winter gone? I didn't realize that I had gotten so far behind! Here are my January and February columns. I'll post March as soon as it gets published in the local paper. Enjoy!

The Lost Cooking Lesson

This is my first attempt at Mom Hovie's Pasties. It almost looks like I know what I'm doing!

I think that a big fear that people have when they lose someone they love is that as time passes that the memories will begin to fade. About two and a half years ago we lost my mother-in-law to cancer. She had a short battle from the time we found out until she passed. I was lucky in that I had a really good relationship with her. Not a lot of daughters-in-law are quite so fortunate, I’m told. She was a very giving person and we became great friends in the 18 years I knew her. I think about her all the time whether it’s when I’m lying on the couch with my head on one of the throw pillows she made, or if I’m putting on one of the many coats or sweaters she had given me over the years. I have so many wonderful memories of my time with her and I cherish them all. My mother-in-law was an outstanding cook and my only regret is that I was never able to have her teach me how to make pasties. If you don’t know what pasties are, they are a Cornish meat pie that can actually be held, sort of like a Stromboli. Pasties became popular in the UP because the Finnish loggers would take them into the woods for their lunch. Being both Cornish and Finnish, my mother-in-law was a great pasty maker. She would bring us pasties that were ½ the size of dinner plates. Tom and I would split one for dinner and freeze the rest. I can still see her coming in the door with an armful of foil-wrapped pasties, ready for the freezer because she only made them once or twice a year and wanted to make sure we always had some on hand. I buy pasties from time to time from Glen’s or Oleson’s and I even tried to make some from a recipe I got in Munising last summer. Tom and I just looked at each other as we ate them because they weren’t even close to hers. I thought that was the end of it. Then I was going through my recipe box and found an old yellowed note card that said “Mom Hovie’s Pasties.” I had completely forgotten that she had given me the recipe! Tom and I were excited when I showed him that we were going to be able to reproduce his mom’s pasties. We got the ingredients and I felt like she was there with me as I carefully pinched the dough of each one, giving me one more thing to add to my cherished memories and reminding me that the pain of losing a loved one is eased by those memories (recipes) that they leave behind.

Time to Relax

I am one of those people who always has a lot on my plate. I can easily become overwhelmed if I am not careful. For the past two years I have been working towards earning my Master’s Degree through online courses. If you have ever completed any type of online class or program, you know how much time these classes can consume because they require an incredible amount of writing, not to mention all of the reading that goes along with post-graduate coursework. Spending 2-3 hours a night and 6-7 hours on the weekends doing classwork had severely cut down the amount of time I had to take care of my responsibilities as a working wife and mother. I figured out a way to make it all work, but what I couldn’t fit in was my crafting time. I would plan projects in my head and sometimes even go buy the stuff to make these projects, hoping that I would get to them in the short time between semesters. Last year I learned to crochet beanie hats and could whip those out in a couple of hours, but once classes started up again, they would be put to the side. Fast forward to December of 2012: graduation. Although I won’t participate in commencement until May, I was finished with my classes and could join most of my colleagues as a holder of a Master’s Degree. When I finished I found myself confronted with all of those projects, not only the ones I had bought stuff for, but new ones that were found on You Tube or Pinterest. In my desire to dive right into my passion for creating, I was a bit overwhelmed with the multitude of projects that lay before me. What would I do first? Knit socks? Learn to crochet Granny Square scarves? Sew new patchwork Christmas stockings? Make jewelry? I am also seriously behind in my scrapbooking and my card collection is sparse at best. I really never imagined that something that I found so enjoyable could be so stressful. I tend to think chronologically, so I decided that since I have been collecting sock yarn the longest that I would start with knitting a pair of socks. When I get tired of knitting, I head downstairs and make some jewelry or work on a sewing project. My challenge is to not let something that I enjoy so much become something that is a chore. I also don’t want to be that person who has 6000 started projects, but nothing finished. And most importantly, I really shouldn’t take on anything new until I have tackled some of these projects. Although quilting looks like it might be fun.