Women's Work

SPLASH

I really liked Susan's advice to save your own life first. She articulated what I am trying to do after too many years of trying to save everybody else first.  So I am walking every day, writing almost every day, and promising myself a massage....one day.  And a few private yoga classes ...maybe.  This saving one's self first is not easy.  Perhaps I just need to dive into the icy water head first!  Everyone else is on their own.

Mass Communication

When you reach a certain age, you have to be careful not to complain too much or you risk sounding like Andy Rooney.  Having said that... what really bugs me is celebrity twittering.  How self-absorbed can you be?  TWITS!

Blind Love

When I was a senior in college, I went on a blind date to please a friend.  She had met a boy she was crazy about.  He was going home with his roommate for the week-end, and if she would get his friend a date, they could all go out.  I was the last minute stand-in after someone else backed out.  I did not want to go.  I was busy writing a paper and did not want to give up my week-end.  Also I had never been on a date, and I was scared .  But this was very important to my friend, so off I went.  The date was over thirty four years ago.  Blind Date and I have been married for almost  all of those thirty four years.  Love at first sight?  Well at least at second or third sight.  Was it smart to marry my first love after knowing him for less than a year?  Conventionally, no.  But I still love him, and I have never been conventional.

GRACE

My niece has a new baby, and we are all in love.  I have had the honor of holding him many times in his first ten days.  While holding him, I felt calm and comfort.  It seems to me that a healthy, much-wanted infant bestows grace on all who love him, a little bit of heavenly calm.  Congratulations to all of us.

One Woman's Trash.....

My husband's church has a yard sale twice a year, the proceeds going to community outreach.  It takes the better part of a week to set up this indoor sale, and I usually help most of the week.  I really love doing this, and not for noble reasons.... if you work at the sale, you get first chance to buy.  Because of scheduling conflicts, the spring sale was yesterday.

I helped set up the linens area.  We had all manner of sheets, comforters, towels, etc.  But what caught my eye, and always does, were the old hand-made pieces, utilitarian items embellished with handwork.  I see treasure where many see old junk.  Who could part with a hand embroidered dish towel or apron?  A  handkerchief with crocheted lace?  A grandmother"s handiwork?  I feel a kinship with the women who made these items and sorrow that no family member wanted them.  So I bring them home: to treasure , to marvel at,  to inspire.  One woman's work, one woman's trash, another woman's treasure.

Learning is Life

I keep forgetting that life is about learning,forgetting, relearning, forgetting, and learning all over again.  Learning to change my opinion as I grow older and gather new information about life.  Thinking I know something, am on the right path, getting interrupted, and having to learn all over again.  ( Learning I don't have to write in complete sentences ).  I thought I had made a permanent change in my life, walking every morning for at least an hour.  I learned it made me feel better both mentally and physically.  Then I went away for two weeks, and broke my right elbow.  I tripped while walking with my daughter.  I did not walk for over a week and starting again was scary.  I am building my walking time again.  I had forgotten how good walking makes me feel.  I am learning that again.  I am learning that nothing is ever really learned.  You forget and learn all over again.  That's life.

Feuding

I come from a feuding family.  Or to say it correctly : my mother creates chasms in our family.  At the moment she is not speaking to one of my sisters, or answering her letters, or acknowledging her existence.  My mother is 86 years old and has been this way as long as I have known her.  One by one she has let her family go.  Her parents went first , then all of her siblings.  There was  an aunt we were close to, but she and my mother haven't spoken in several years.  She has temporarily stopped talking to all of us or been very cold on many occasions.  This latest thing with my sister is probably permanent considering my mother's age.  So what does this mean ?  Other than making family get togethers impossible,  it makes me very wary.  I never forget that she controls by exclusion or that I come from a feuding family.  I am very close to most of my family, their spouses, and their children.  I have an extraordinary relationship with my daughter and her husband.  But I never forget the feud-gene and worry that it may be inherited.  It makes me sad and it makes me angry.  It makes me cherish and guard my relationships.

Culture To Go

I feel about this topic about like Laura did on the food topics, but I cannot stop by my neighborhood culture store, and order some to take out.  I grew up in small towns in SC in the fifties.  I didn't hear my first symphony orchestra until I went to college or visit a major museum until I was married.  What I did have was books.  My mother read us a chapter a night when we were small....Heidi was a favorite.  I remember getting my first library card when I was seven.  Then I could read anything I wanted, from the children's room, anyway.  By the time I was twelve I had graduated to the adult section, and I began to pattern my reading after my father's.  I read more World War II fiction than was probably healthy !  Reading fed my imagination and filled many summer days.  It still does.  I like biography, craft books, house books,  almost anything.  Fiction is still my favorite take out from the public library...that is what I call culture to go.

Birthday Cake

I love food and I love to cook.  I like recipes with very detailed instructions, but I hate writing down all those instructuons. This is my recipe for layer cake, the official birthday cake for my daughter, my husband, and me.  I have been using this recipe since I was about ten, and this all I have written down:

Layer Cake

2/3 cup butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 cups self-rising flour

3 eggs

1 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Bake at 350 degrees

Now for those unwritten directions:  Beat softened (unsalted ) butter and sugar until smooth.  Add eggs one at a time.  Beat in flour.  Add milk ( anything from skim to half evaporated milk and half water ) and vanilla ( pure vanilla extract only ).  Pour batter into 2 greased and floured 9 inch cake pans.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.  Remove from pans and cool layers on racks.  Ice layers with your favorite icing or try mine.  My mother, who seldom uses recipes, taught me to make this.  There is no written recipe and the measurements are not precise, but I'll try.

Chocolate Icing

1/3 cup softened butter

1 box ( plus some ) powdered sugar

cocoa powder

2 squares unsweetened dark chocolate (melted )  I added this because I don't think cocoa is as rich as it used to be

evaporated milk (not skim)

Beat butter and cocoa together until smooth, adding milk as needed.  Add melted chocolate,  beat til smooth.  Add cocoa until you like the way the icing tastes.  Keep adding milk til the icing is of spreading consistency.  If its gets too thin, add more powdered sugar.  Too thick, more milk.  It really is trial and error, but it is delicious !

Blackberry Jelly

July is a momentous month.   There is the Fourth of July, my sister's birthday, my wedding anniversary, and blackberry season!  Almost every summer my sister and I meet at a berry farm and pick blackberries side by side.  We talk as we pick so it is a very enjoyable activity.  Then we take our berries home and make jelly.  This summer we haven't gotten to the farm yet, so this past Saturday I wimped out and bought my berries at the farmers market.  I missed picking berries with my sister, but it was Time To Make Jelly!

I did the dirty work on Saturday.  That is cooking the berries and putting them through the Foley food mill twice.  Then I refrigerated the juice until yesterday, when the actual jelly making took place.  I made two batches of jelly---that is sixteen beautiful half-pints of wonderful jelly.  The most welcomed sounds are those pops that signify the jars are sealing.  And the most wonderful treat is warm jelly left in the pot, sopped up on bread.  And that is blackberry jelly time at my house!