Keeping it Real with a Fake Tree

Here's Sammy before his '09 Christmas dance. You can't even tell the tree behind him is fake!

I have been accused of being a Scrooge. Not because I don’t have Christmas spirit. I have plenty. My house is attractively decorated. It has been since the Saturday after Thanksgiving. In fact, every year I am the only one who willingly puts up the Christmas decorations. There are helpers, but they have to be shamed or coerced into helping. My house is festive and full of Christmas cheer. I give and receive presents with a minimal amount of griping and make my annual white Chex mix not only for friends, but my family as well. So why am I called a Scrooge? It’s because we have an artificial Christmas tree. I don’t know when it became taboo to have a tree that doesn’t grow in the ground. I grew up with artificial trees and don’t really see what the big deal is. I’ve heard all of the reasons. One is that you don’t have the pine smell. Honestly, I prefer the cinnamon smell to pine which I can get from pinecones at Joann’s and from candles. One friend said that the trees look different every year. Mine looks different every year too, depending on which way I bend the branches. I don’t have to tromp through the snow to find a tree. My tree always comes from the same place…the attic and I never even have to put my boots on. I have tried real trees so I know what I’m missing. When we built this house with our high ceilings, I stated that I wanted a huge, tall, real tree. It was huge all right and low to the ground. What I found out was that there are special conditions that go along with the smell and beauty of a real tree. It has to be watered. No one braved being poked in the eye by razor sharp needles to crawl under the tree with a jug of water (only to dump ½ of it on the floor) but me. I found that a tree dries out quickly and the needles tinkle off the tree like a Charlie Brown tree every time you bump it. The final reason I was not satisfied with my beautiful real tree was the sap. After taking our tree down that year I was not only met with left over needles impaling my feet, but with my socks sticking to the sap globs in my brand new carpet. After a Christmas lesson on the down sides of having a real tree, my husband and I stumbled upon the best after-Christmas sale we had ever been to. Artificial trees were 75% off!  Right there in Lowe’s I had found my little slice of heaven. It’s a glorious and festive 7 foot artificial tree that may or may not melt if put too close to the fireplace.  And from the road, it looks real to everyone driving by. Nobody but Scrooge could tell it’s a fake.

Published December, 2011

Patience: The Greatest Sacrifice

For almost 20 years I have fought long and hard to secure and keep my well-deserved spot in garage. I feel that as a contributor to the mortgage payment, having a spot reserved in the garage for my car should be mandatory. My struggle for garage space has gone all the way back to our first rented home in Sault Ste. Marie. It had a one stall garage that was claimed as my husband’s man-cave before we even moved in. Our next house had a two car garage that quickly became a workshop/pool hall. “When will I be able to park in the garage?” I pleaded. He assured me that he would build a garage that I could park in. That dream became a reality when our beautiful 2 ½ car garage was built and I finally had a place where I could park out of the Sault Ste. Marie elements. Shuffling outside in my coat and slippers to start my car was no longer necessary with it tucked away in its own little stall. When we moved down here I was without a garage space once again. Since all we had was a small shed, we decided that a remote starter would be an alternative to a shelter for my car. That helped, but it wasn’t a garage. The first house we built had a 2 car detached garage and I could once again park in luxury. Our current home has a glorious two car attached garage. For the first time in our married lives I was able to drive home in the rain or snow and pull into the garage that led straight into the house. I no longer had to dart to the car in the midst of a downpour or gale-force winds. However, my coveted space in the garage was short-lived. About two years ago Tom embarked on a business opportunity which included the need for a work space. My beloved parking spot has now become a workshop. Again I found that my hair style was sacrificed as I dodged raindrops or scraped snow and ice off of the frozen windshield. I suffered in silence all in the name of entrepreneurship. I figured all hope of my ever getting back in there was gone. But to my surprise my sacrifice had not gone unnoticed. About a week ago my husband called me into the garage, “I was thinking that if I moved the bike to the shed for the winter, got rid of one table and turned the other one, that we could fit your car in the garage this winter.” My hero!  I have never worked so hard helping him clean, but by the end of the day we were returning my car to its precious spot in the garage.  I guess Tom Petty was right when he sang that the waiting is the hardest part.

Published November, 2011

The Trouble with Thanksgiving Dinner

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. The Christmas decorations have come out of hiding and my favorite jeans are a little tighter. I love turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and pumpkin pie. I love eating Thanksgiving dinner, but I don’t like making it. We dodged the bullet this year by going to relatives, so I only had to make a casserole and some dessert. My main problem with cooking a complete Thanksgiving dinner is timing. My dilemma is that I can’t seem to get the meal on the table without something being cold. I can understand now why almost everything on the Thanksgiving table is steamed, mashed, or canned. Since I like to cook in general, I reject the tradition that both the white potatoes and sweet potatoes must be mashed. I like baking sliced sweet potatoes in a brown sugar glaze with pecans. However, I can’t bake it because the turkey goes in the oven. If I take the turkey out and then bake the sweet potatoes, the turkey is the cold entrée. If I make the mashed potatoes too early, they are cold. If I forget to warm the rolls because I am making the gravy or mashing the potatoes, well, you get the point. The vegetables are almost always cold regardless of when I cook them. I can handle Christmas dinner. Ham is small so it can usually be baked along-side the scalloped potatoes. A few years ago I even discovered an excellent scalloped potato recipe for the slow cooker. Since I have two slow cookers, I can put the ham in the big one and the potatoes in the smaller one, which leaves the oven free for other side dishes. That means everything can come out at the same time and it will all be hot.  In order to boycott the cooking of Thanksgiving dinner we either have to go to someone else’s house, which was what we did this year, or go out. As I mentioned earlier, I do love eating Thanksgiving dinner. A few years ago we discovered the Thanksgiving dinner at The Pier in Harbor Springs. It was perfect. I didn’t have to clean my house and for about the cost of making dinner myself, we had the entire spread including leftovers. If it were up to me we’d do that every year. The problem with that is that if it’s my turn to host Thanksgiving for friends or extended family, they’ll be expecting a meal comparable to what they provide for us without having to pay for it.  I’m not saying I’ll never cook Thanksgiving dinner again. I can’t expect to be rescued by my relatives or the Pier chefs forever.  When our turn comes again, I can pull together a delicious Thanksgiving spread with all the fixin’s.  I’m just not promising anything fancy and I’m definitely not guaranteeing that it will all be hot.

Freedom of Contacts Comes with a Price

One of the bummers of getting older is the dependence on things like glasses.  For the past several years my eyesight has been deteriorating, especially my near vision. Each year I go to the eye doctor, I leave with a stronger prescription. I have only been wearing glasses full-time for a couple of years now and the truth is I just wanted to return life as it was before glasses. As I told people that I wanted contacts, they would inevitably say “Can you touch your eye?” Well, of course I can touch my eye for crying out loud. I’m a girl who wears make-up. I’ve been digging mascara chunks out of my eyes for years. So when I went to see Dr. Voci I told him that I was there for contacts. “Can you touch your eye?” That again? I was determined to do this and thought it should be a piece of cake. I’ve seen people put in and take out contacts before. There was nothing to it. So I proudly went to the other room for my contacts lesson. Dr. Voci’s assistant Michelle taught me all about my new contacts and their proper care. She explained how to hold my eyelashes and “stare-stare-stare.” Well I’m here to tell you that apparently, I cannot touch my eye. There’s definitely a difference between removing stray eyelashes and putting a tiny piece of plastic on your eyeball.  After a few frustrating attempts, I got them in. She then told me to take them out. Whew. What a challenge. I don’t care how tightly you hold you eyelashes, if your eye wants to close, it’s going to close. Later that night I worked on getting them out again. I took deep breaths. I prayed. I thought I was going to have to return to the eye doctor in shame to have my contacts surgically removed from my eyes. I did eventually get them out and retreated to the safety and comfort of my glasses for the night. Day two arrived and I had to put them in again. “Stare-stare-stare” I thought. Once I got them in I could tell something was wrong. I took them out and put them in again and again. Finally I called my friend Jessie (who claims to be able to put her contacts in in the dark). “I can’t do it!” I cried. “It feels like I have a fingernail in my eye!” After a quick tutorial from her, I took a deep breath and tried again. I was finally successful. It’s been a few weeks now and I can put in and take out my contacts fairly easily. It may seem silly, but contacts have enabled me to feel like I’ve turned back the clock just a little bit. Sure I had to step out of my comfort zone and do something that was difficult and took time to master, but in the end it was worth it.

Published August, 2011

There if I Need Them

One of the few pictures I have of just my mother-in-law and I.

Our cat Stanley isn’t really your ordinary cat. He does all of the things ordinary cats do, but to our neighbor’s dog, Ivy, he’s more than that. Ivy is completely blind. She gets around pretty well according to our neighbor, Dave, but she has lost both eyes and completely depends on Dave for her care. Every morning Dave takes Ivy for walks around the neighborhood. About mid-summer my husband noticed that Stanley had begun to accompany Dave and Ivy on their walks. He said that as they walked, Stanley would walk alongside them. If they stopped, Stanley flopped down on the ground in front of Ivy and waited. Dave and his wife have come to refer to Stanley as “Ivy’s seeing-eye cat,” for good reason. If Ivy starts to venture off to one side or the other, Stanley will nudge her back. Many days when I’m pulling out of the driveway I’ll see Stanley sitting on the front porch of their house next to Ivy as she waits for Dave to come out. Sometimes Stanley will sit between our houses looking over as if to say “I’m right here if you need me Ivy.” As I sat down to write this month’s column my head has been clouded with the recent loss of my mother-in-law to a relatively short battle with cancer. At times I have felt like I’ve been stumbling around trying to make my way. I believe that God has been there, providing for me and meeting my needs, but in addition to that my friends were there to support me with kindness and love. They walked along side me, stopped, and waited. They stayed nearby saying “We’re here if you need us,” and they sat with me as I waited for the inevitable. They said things that made me feel better and had a shoulder ready when I needed to cry. They knew what I needed even when I didn’t, doing things like providing meals or watching our dog. And when the time came for us to say goodbye, they were with me then too both in person and with words of encouragement. Stanley doesn’t know it but he is an important part of Ivy’s life now. I think that Ivy loves and appreciates Stanley as much as I love and appreciate those closest to me. Ivy and I both know that when things are at their darkest, there will always be someone there to help us along.  Thank you Stanley, for watching out for Ivy. And thank you my friends, for watching out for me.

Published October, 2010

The Eternal Challenge of Feeding Boys

“We need milk,” my husband said. “Again?” I asked, “How much milk do we go through in a week?” His reply was “About a gallon a day.” I find that unbelievable. How in the world can a family of four consume a gallon of milk everyday? That’s 30 gallons of milk per month! At approximately $3.00 a gallon, we’re spending about $90 a month on milk alone. I don’t know why I’m surprised. I have two teenage sons. The amount of cereal we go through is equally staggering.  Growing boys eat an incredible amount of food. The term “hollow leg” comes to mind. My boys would probably eat 3-4 bowls of cereal as their after school snack if we’d let them. I don’t buy much in the way of snack foods, so if they want a snack they immediately reach for the cereal. Box macaroni and cheese and Ramen noodles run a close second to cereal as the snack foods of choice for my guys. I understand that my kids are hungry when they get home. The eat breakfast at about 6:45 am and lunch at around 11:00. That leaves about 6 hours between lunch and dinner.  I literally have to race them to the kitchen and then smack their knuckles with a wooden spoon to keep them from eating while I am cooking. There are weeks when I get groceries on Saturday and the cereal is completely gone by Tuesday. And I’m not talking about those small boxes either. I’m talking about those big bags and the biggest “family size” boxes. When I talk to my friends I realize that my problem isn’t uncommon. I remember my older brother sitting down and eating an entire box of cereal after school and still having dinner. That makes me wonder if I could ever keep up. Some days I think if I only bought cereal I would kill 2 birds with one stone. They could eat as much cereal as they wanted after school and I wouldn’t have to cook dinner. I recently analyzed our budget and was astonished at how much money we spend in groceries each month. As the boys get bigger, the budget gets higher. I remember being so happy when I didn’t have to buy diapers or pay for daycare anymore. What could I do with all of that extra money? It turns out I use it to buy food, and of course, milk.

Published March of 2011

The Slippery Slope of Middle Age

This past December marked my 43^rd birthday. Most of the time I don’t feel 43. In fact, I’ve heard that 40 is the new 30. I try to keep up with the times. I don’t wear elastic-waisted “mom jeans” and I’m on facebook along with my kids. But I’ve come to believe that the overused phrase “Over the Hill” was originally intended for those turning 40. Statistically, if we are supposed to live until we’re roughly 80, then I’d say 40 is the top of that hill. It’s literally middle age. We’re standing at the peak, looking down. Nothing makes me feel older though, than the rapid deterioration of my body. I hit 40 and wham! I couldn’t read books that weren’t held out to the furthest point of my arm. I got shin splints for the first time in my life. That was also the year of the melanoma scare. I started getting aches and pains I never knew could exist. Suddenly, I couldn’t scrub the shower without an achy shoulder. I couldn’t do push-ups with my workout videos without my newly discovered tennis elbow flaring up and I couldn’t play tennis without a sore neck the next day. My feet and knees snap, crackle and pop as I get out of bed. I know that I’m not the only one that has experienced this phenomenon. Many of my friends discovered the wonder of bi-focals and achy joints after turning forty. My husband has even broken down and gotten readers. Those pesky surgeries and procedures start popping up for everyone. My friend, Tracy said that after 40 she went for her annual physical only to leave the dr. office with 3 more appointments. My friend Stephanie is already looking at a hip replacement. A hip replacement? We are the same age! Talk about a reality check. I recently took the Dr. Oz Real Age Test and it had me at age 37. I didn’t think that was too shabby. Sometimes I even try to convince myself that I have the body of a teenager. One day I thought I’d show Sammy how I could still do a backbend from a standing position. Have you ever seen stars before? I actually don’t mind being in my 40’s. It’s a time of life that comes with a lot of wisdom gained through prior experiences. My marriage is solid and my kids are independent. I can laugh at myself more and I’m not afraid of the second half of life. So with my calendar full of doctor’s appointments, I’ll strap on my skis and head down that hill wearing my stylish jeans and bi-focals and thanking God for every day he blesses me with.

This column was published January, 2011