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.

Welcome to our Kitty Wonderland

Here's the tree a few days after the kitties discovered it. It got a lot worse before I redecorated it

Christmas Eve with the kitties banished to the basement for the night.

After we lost our cat, Stanley a little over a year ago I knew it wouldn’t be long before I got another kitten. Last spring I could wait no longer and made my desire for a kitten known on Facebook. A good friend of mine happened to be a reputable kitten breeder in the area so I was not surprised when she stated that she had kittens ready to be adopted. Tom, Sammy, and I headed over intending to take one kitten but after a convincing sales pitch, we found ourselves taking two adorable grey kittens home with us. Our last two cats were older when we got them, so we were surprised at the amount of chaos two rambunctious kittens could cause on a daily basis. I spent the summer unsuccessfully trying to keep them off of the counters and table. Knowing all too well what kind of damage cats can do to Christmas decorations, (specifically the tree), I secretly decided that I would put off putting up a tree until someone noticed that we didn’t have one, hopefully somewhere around December 24^th, when it would be too late. In my dreams we would simply settle for a Christmas chair, covered with gifts on Christmas morning. There would be no broken ornaments or one of us arriving home to a tree on its side in the living room.  When our older son Robby announced his plans to venture out into the world I realized that next Christmas may only be three of us so of course the tree had to go up. I had to put aside my aggravation at coming home every evening with more ornaments scattered on the floor, branches dislodged, and lights tugged ½ way down the tree. Even in my threats to take it down, I knew that for my family, I would keep it up even with only the top 3^rd decorated. I had to remind myself that the tree was an important part of my kids’ lives and as I look at one of them possibly leaving home in the near future I could quietly fill the bowl on the table with ornaments reminding myself that this will be one of those Christmases that we will talk about years from now. When Christmas is behind us, I will pack away the memories of those goofy cats un-decorating the tree and remind myself that it really didn’t matter what the tree looked like after all.

My World of Light Colored Carpets

There are mistakes in life that we are destined to repeat. My repetitive mistake is purchasing light colored carpet. I don’t know why I do it. I just love light colored carpet. It started as light colored burbur in Sault Ste. Marie. Next it was off-white pile carpet in the first house we built. This house has light colored short shag. As I vacuum I ask myself “What were we thinking?” while I grumble about how bad it looks. The burbur was bought in the days of sand from sand boxes and red juice in sippy cups.  No amount of vacuuming can pick up sand. I don’t care what you say, Mr. Vacuum Cleaner Salesman. And hopefully the pink stains are in places that a plant or chair will conveniently cover. The off-white pile carpet was in a house that had a dirt driveway on a dirt road. You can train the humans to take their shoes off, but the pets just never quite get the concept of wiping their muddy paws on the door mat.

We didn’t live in that house long enough to watch the demise of that beautiful carpet. Our current home has the short crushed shag and we have definitely lived here long enough to see the color change. We recently called in the professionals so we needed to move the furniture. “Put it baaaaack!” I screamed in my mind. After 5 years the carpet had definite light colored marks where the furniture sat. After two tries by the professional we purchased our own carpet scrubber and got moderate success after 3 hours and a variety of cleaners (including bleach). I do think this problem could be avoided though. I really believe that carpet salesmen should only be able to sell light colored carpet when the following questions are answered correctly:

1.       Do you have children living at home?

2.       Do you have pets?

3.       Do you have a cleaning lady that vacuums at least once per week?

4.       Do you have “Stanley Steemer” on retainer?

If your answers are no, no, yes, and yes, then you will be allowed to purchase light colored carpet. If you answer yes, yes, no, and no, then you will be guided to the caramel, clay-pot, and coffee colored carpets. For now I will have to live with the error of my ways. I will be destined to a life of shame if I cannot learn from my repetitive mistake. Within the next few years Tom and I are planning to replace the living room carpet. I have my eye on a beautiful taupe colored loop carpet.

Crafting is a "Brain Sport"

In this month’s Martha Stewart Living magazine there is an article about how crafting makes a person happy.  It’s called “This is your brain on crafts” by Lisa Borgnes-Giramonti.  The author cited references from esteemed psychologists who have studied the phenomenon of how doing something you love, like crafting, has stress-relieving and calming effects on the brain.  Well, duh! I could have told you that. A long time ago I started scrapbooking. At first it was just a fun way to get out of the house one Friday a month. But before long it became an outlet for me to let go of the stress of my job and just detach and think about nothing but the layout that was in front of me. Friday nights gave way to weekend scrapbooking conventions and overnight scrap-a-thons with my best girlfriends. Once I had an over-abundance of paper and embellishments, the card-making came naturally.  

About 10 years ago I rediscovered knitting and my winter evenings were consumed with knitting scarves, hats, and the occasional pair of socks or brightly-colored dish rag. A few years later my mom taught me how to sew my first pair of PJ pants and suddenly I was sewing. Around that same time my niece Ericca taught me how to make earrings and other assorted jewelry. Finally last year I taught myself how to crochet via a You Tube video and have made several beanie hats with cute little crocheted flowers attached to the front.

As I get older I am experiencing first-hand how much less energy I have to stay at work until 5:30 and then be up until 10:00 analyzing professional journal articles for yet another critique as I write my master’s capstone paper. I practically drag myself into the kitchen to empty and fill the dishwasher each night.  But put a box of beads in front of me and I could make earrings for 24 hours straight. Put me in front of the TV with a skein of yarn and a crochet hook and I could make hats through a full-day marathon of Sex in the City re-runs.  Give me a big long table and my 3 best gal-pals and I could spend 72 hours scrapping Robby’s graduation and Sammy’s football season.

According to the article even cooking falls into the crafting category. I have really come to enjoy cooking over the years and find as much joy in creating a uber-yummy scratch-cake as I do sewing an apron for one of my nieces.

As I spend the next two months finishing my master’s paper I force myself to focus while my crafting supplies beckon. Nope, you didn’t have to tell me that crafting is good for the brain. My brain already knows.

T-shirts, shoes: Same difference

This is one of the t-shirt quilts my mom made for Tom.

After the overwhelming response I got from last month’s column, I felt it would be fitting to write a follow-up. The parent of one of my students came up to me during meet-the-teacher day at school and the first thing he said was “No, I don’t understand the shoe thing. My wife has about 50 pair of shoes!” Once I figured out what he was talking about (Oh yeah- I write a monthly column!), it suddenly occurred to me that my husband has a t-shirt collection that easily rivals my vast assortment of shoes. So of course I told him that. But I couldn’t get that out of my mind because it seems like women get called out on our shoes, but we choose not to talk about that dirty little secret which is a man’s vast array of t-shirts. It might not always be on purpose, like Michelle’s husband who has acquired his through various events sponsored by his work, which usually get passed on to his son. What I am talking about here is those who hoard t-shirts. Every memory must be sealed through the purchase of a commemorative t-shirt. Jeff Foxworthy once said “You can find out anything you ever wanted to know about a redneck by his t-shirt collection.” Although a guy doesn’t necessarily have to be a “redneck” to have this type of collection. My friend Kari was losing the battle with what seemed to be hundreds of 100% cotton memories that her husband was not willing to part with. She did manage to free up some dresser space when she convinced him to preserve those memories with a t-shirt quilt. When I found myself being squeezed out of my precious shelf space in our closet with yet another Harley-Davidson t-shirt, my mom offered to make Tom a quilt. That was all we needed to be able to do a clean out of sorts. My mom put together two amazing quilts with what he had reluctantly sacrificed. I guess the thing that kept cropping up when I put the question to a Facebook poll, was that these men just won’t get rid of shirts without a fight, even if they really only wear a few with the rest permanently being squished by the weight of the more beloved shirts. When we say “You never wear these, so why don’t you get rid of them?” we usually find ourselves accused of trying to destroy precious memories. Tom still accuses me of getting rid of the shirt he got in the Bahamas when he was twelve and I forever stand by the argument that it just disintegrated in the wash, captured by the lint trap in its final moments. Whether its shoes or shirts, no one is innocent here. So if your husband or significant other makes yet another unnecessary comment about that Payless bag in your hand, simply repeat those famous words from country singer Miranda Lambert: “We’re just like you, only prettier.”

Men: Don't Try to Understand the Shoes

Sorry I'm a little late getting this one up. I'm consumed with second grade! Here's August's column!

There are some things about women that will always be a mystery to men, like our love of shoes. I went to Walmart recently to purchase plastic shoe boxes to use as book totes in my classroom. I needed roughly 40 boxes because I was sorting my books into categories. When I told the cashier that I had 8 five-packs she looked at me funny. “What are you using those for?” When I explained she said “Oh, I thought you had that many pair of shoes.” I laughed for a second, but then I said, “Well, actually, I probably do.” When she looked at me with a shocked expression, I continued with “uh, that includes sandals and flip-flops too, you know?” Then suddenly the woman behind me in line piped up “And the shoes you don’t wear anymore.” Then the cashier joined in and described a pair of boots she only had worn once because they were so uncomfortable but she couldn’t bear to get rid of them. My love affair with shoes began when I was in high school. A friend of mine had a 3 tier shelf that extended the length of her closet and was covered with shoes. She had seasonal shoes, boots, athletic, casual, and dressy shoes. I gazed with envy at that beautiful shrine of shoes and decided then and there that I would have to have just as many. Fast-forward to 2012 and my 40+ pair of shoes. My husband doesn’t seem to understand my need for a variety of footwear in an assortment colors and styles. The topic came up in a conversation with our friends a few months ago. Lisa had gotten a new job and would need shoes she could wear to work and stand on her feet in all day. She needed two pair- one brown, one black. Her husband didn’t understand the need for both brown and black as the shoes were a bit pricy.  While I thought she could uses several other colors, depending on her wardrobe, my husband piped right in and explained how I have to purchase a new pair of athletic shoes every time I take up a new sport, which in his opinion was utterly ridiculous. You’d think that after 20 years of trying to explain it to him he’d understand my reasoning. The shoes must fit the purpose in both color and style.  I think my friend Keni summed it up best when she was explaining to her son the reason why his younger sister would be getting the room with the bigger closet in their new home.  She said, “Boys only need 3 pair of shoes: school shoes, gym shoes, and church shoes, but girls need lots and lots of shoes.  So your sister needs the bigger closet to hold her shoes.” So simple, yet so true.  I guess there are just some things guys will need to accept without ever fully understanding. Love me-love my shoes.