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What I’ve got to show for 14 years of motherhood.

A Chinese New Year tradition.

We’ve been doing it for years. The guests change year to year, as does the selection of food. But we always end up with full bellies and a healthy dose of laughter.

We owe it all to our local Asian food grocer. This year they supplied us with such delectable treats as black moss, pig skin, grass jelly drink and canned silkworms. This year we had four people survive ten rounds of Food Fear Factor.

All this after stuffing themselves silly with homemade egg rolls, orange chicken, potstickers, and beef with broccoli. ‘‘Twas a sight to behold.

Rows and rows of egg rolls and potstickers prepped for frying. Devouring. Culminating in a whole lot of talking smack, interspersed with gagging, and a whole lot of laughing.


Comparing quantities. “No fair! You got more
than I did!”

Gosh I love this tradition.

Fayette and Priesthood Restoration Site.

We awoke early on Sunday to drive to Fayette, New York, where the first meeting of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was held.  We had been there the day before, to tour the Peter Whitmer Log Cabin, but thought it would be appropos to spend our Sunday worship at this singular site.

The church meetinghouse there was constructed in 1980 and used for the Sunday morning session of General Conference on April 6 that year.  President Spencer W. Kimball gave an address to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the restoration of the church of Jesus Christ.  Attending sacrament meeting there was a fantastic way to kick off our Sabbath day.

We then traveled southeast through the Finger Lakes region of New York, deciding then and there that a vacation home on one of the lakes would be a splendid idea.  Not unlike the giant RV, or beach house on the Oregon Coast, or the jet boat we’ve dreamed of on previous vacations.  Seriously beautiful scenery.  So beautiful that we simply soaked it in and have no pictures to prove it.

Our travels landed us in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania.  In recent years, the church transformed this area from the simple monument that once stood marking the spot of the restoration of the Priesthood, to a more souped up version.  A visitor’s center, the Hale home, the smaller Hale home that the Smiths lived in for a time, and an area of maintained land where the events surrounding the priesthood restoration were thought to have taken place (based on historical accounts).

What I would like to remember about Harmony Pennsylvania:

  1.  Joseph met Emma (Hale) there while working for a man named Josiah Stowell.  Stowell was digging for Spanish silver in the area and hired Joseph and his father for a handsome price.  Within a month, Joseph determined that no silver was to be found and informed Josiah of the fact.  Despite needing the salary to support their family, Joseph had the integrity to call it quits when he knew nothing was to be found.  He didn’t find silver, but he did meet his future wife while they lodged with her family in Harmony.

2.  The Hale home was fancy by 19th century standards.  Emma grew up in privileged circumstances and enjoyed the benefits of formal education.  This qualified her to become Joseph’s first scribe as he translated the Book of Mormon.  It also demonstrates the amount of faith Emma had to trade her cushy circumstances and Methodist faith to convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and marry its founder, an uneducated farm boy whom her father detested.  Though her father opposed their union, he later invited them to live in his home, then the home adjacent to their property, where they began work translating the Book of Mormon.  Emma was also part breadwinner, Joseph being occupied with the work of the Restoration.  She was a remarkable woman of faith and grit.

3.  Despite artwork depicting a veil separating Joseph and the gold plates from his scribe (so as to keep the plates from the view of others), there is no indication that this ever happened.  In fact, more of the records indicate that the plates were kept hidden under Emma’s tablecloth, and that Joseph did not even view them directly while translating.  Based on what we know, he would use what was called a seer stone, which would somehow highlight a phrase, which he would utter to the scribe.  The scribe would then record the words and read them back to Joseph.  If what was uttered did not match the words indicated by the seer stone, they would halt until corrections were made.  Some are weirded out by the whole idea of a seer stone, but I think that’s silly.  Especially if one purports to be a religious person.  Biblical accounts demonstrate the use of objects for religious purposes on several occasions (Moses’ brass serpent, the Urim and Thummim, etc.)  Others are skeptical that Joseph could translate without even looking directly at the plates.  But then, my husband Tim can read entire books via Audible on his phone without even looking at or touching the screen.  We call it Bluetooth.  We are so quick to pooh-pooh ideas that are unfathomable to us, due to our limited understanding of technology or the cosmos.  If God created the universe, certainly he can figure out a way for an uneducated farm boy to translate an ancient record into English without looking at it.  Seriously.

4.  The restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood through John the Baptist and the Melchizedek Priesthood through Peter, James and John here in Harmony, Pennsylvania are of particular significance to me because they gave men the authority to do God’s work on the earth.  It made baptism and receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost available to people in this day and age.  It is not enough to just say one believes in God and then go about your merry way doing what you’ve always done.  God has a plan for us, and the fulfillment of that plan is predicated on our acceptance (and execution) of His requirements.  Receiving and keeping priesthood ordinances/covenants is an act of faith on our part, one that binds us to Him and will eventually lead us safely back to His presence.

By the time we took the path down to the river, we were all crazy hot, not to mention tired and hungry.  Anna even toyed with the idea of staying in the car, so we left it running so she wouldn’t melt in the heat and humidity.  She snuck out of the car, unbeknownst to Tim, followed by Eve, who was about to shut the door, when I stopped her abruptly, seeing that Anna had exited the vehicle.  Tim, out of habit, had locked the doors, which would not have been much of a problem if Anna had stayed, but since she didn’t, we were THIS close to locking our only set of keys in the car while it was running.  We were all grateful that we avoided that potential disaster.  Ah!  On to Albany for the night!

June iPhone dump.

The month of June this year can be characterized by three things: cooking camp, summer school carpool, and home remodel.  Oh yeah, and an infusion for Jack.  We might have squeezed in a trip to the park, a visit to the zoo, stocking up at the library.  The usual.

Here’s what my iPhone revealed about June 2018:

A last-minute visit from my parents and aunt Jill over Memorial Day weekend.  (Yes, I realize that’s still in May.  I’m not here to get technical.)

The final day of school coincided with National Donut Day, so naturally we combined the two celebrations.

Tim and Anna all geared up and ready to cheer on our runners at Boise’s annual Capitol Classic race downtown.

The runners themselves.  Alongside their biggest fan and photobomber.  Betcha can’t guess who crossed the finish line first…

Eve’s cooking/sewing camp with friends.  Rachel and Anna both did cooking camp, too, but I neglected to take pictures of them.  They all loved it.  SO much more fun learning to cook with friends.

Jack strapped to my back for a quick visit to the zoo.  (Giraffe is in the background… sort of.)  He had just completed his second day of infusions and I was on summer school carpool duty.  Rather than waste my time driving home only to have to leave again, we made the most of the 95 degree heat and spent it with the animals.  Jack looks thrilled, doesn’t he?

Celebrating our favorite dad on Father’s day.  With Strawberry Custard and Cream Pie.  Delish.

Summer rain.  Otherwise known as, another reason to delay working on our remodel.  Living in the west I should be grateful.

Jack helping us pick out granite for our new countertops.  Considering how many times we took him to the showroom, he was an angel.

Grout options for the tile in our bathroom (and for our kitchen backsplash).  So many decisions.  Tim and I spent early mornings selecting tile and carpet, lunchtimes looking at hardwood, and Saturdays picking out doors, trim, lighting, and all sorts of nonsense.  On the bright side, we got lots of “dates” in this month.

Eve, all dressed up for a photobooth picture during a family history activity organized by the church.

My last day of summer school carpool!  Happy day!

The one picture I got of our Roaring Springs trip this summer.  Note to self: leave the toddler at home next time.  For heavens sake.

Our most enthusiastic raspberry picker!  The berries were aplenty this year.  We were lucky enough to be in town for the harvest.

Not pictured: an enormous battle with our HOA over a policy change requiring us to remove fruit trees from the common area.  We had planted them 10 years ago with permission from the HOA board and in response to a wildfire that had occurred in our neighborhood.  The trees have provided an effective fire barrier in an area that is dominated by dry weeds.

Our HOA board decided to alter the existing policy to exclude fruit-bearing plants from the allowable plants that homeowners can cultivate behind their property lines in HOA desert common areas.  It was a arduous battle that generated ample support from many homeowners in the area and still resulted in being denied the right to plant firewise edibles in the common area to protect our homes.   The HOA board wants to maintain the area as they see fit (which means they will do pretty much nothing).

The fight occupied way too much of our time during a month where we had little to spare.  Losing our battle was a big blow.  Fighting the battle was, however, heartwarming because we felt the support of our friends and neighbors as we argued for the benefits of fruit-bearing plants in otherwise un-maintained common areas.  We felt loved.

And that’s a wrap for June.

 

 

 

 

Adventures with rodents.

Then there was that one time that we came home from a really long camping trip and after sinking into my comfy bed I watched a mouse scurry across my bedroom floor.  It was like in the movies, you know the whole bit about standing on the bed (as if that’s going to do any good) and squealing like a little girl.  Me, not Tim, naturally.  We set traps that very night, caught one little bugger and called the exterminators the next morning.  I wish I could say it was over quickly but it wasn’t.  Once we determined their food source (our storage room) I set about sterilizing every last corner of each room in the house and threatened the kids with their lives to keep food in the kitchen, no ifs, ands, or buts.  (This has always been a rule in our house, but because it was loosely enforced it quickly became an afterthought for some of our more disgusting children… hence the mouse problem).

Not what I wanted to do with a week of my summer, but I guess our house got clean.  And the mice are gone.  We even caught a clearly pregnant one and didn’t feel a bit sorry for her.  Die, die, DIE!  All of you.

Camp cooking hack.

We’re vacationing on the cheap this summer.  Yes, that means we’re camping.  Tent camping, no less.  Camping can get expensive really fast if you don’t prepare your own food.  And, it can get exhausting really fast if most of the prep work hasn’t been done before the trip.

Which means, for the last week I’ve been making breakfasts and dinners galore that can be easily cooked or reheated on a camping stove (or in the fire) so we can enjoy yummy food in minutes with minimal mess.  I started with French toast sticks.

How to love leftovers.

I grossly overestimated the amount of gravy my kids would put on their chicken fried steak the other night.  I could have thrown it out.  Tim could have chugged it single-handedly.  But thanks to the waste not, want not side of me, I opted to incorporate it into another meal this week:biscuits and gravy.  Yum.

When my husband and I got married, he brought with him a strong aversion to leftovers.  I quickly cured him of that.

Here are my favorite ways to use up leftovers:

  1.  If there’s enough for another meal, throw it in a labeled Ziploc freezer bag, lay it flat in the freezer until solid, then line it up filing-cabinet style in your freezer.  Like so.As a side note, my very favorite meals to freeze include:  Indian food (meat and sauce), Chili, Chicken (Our family doesn’t eat an entire chicken from Costco so I shred up the rest, pop it in a freezer bag and save it to make something else another day), meaty spaghetti sauce, and pulled pork (or chicken, or beef).  It is delightful to thumb through my freezer filing cabinet on a busy day, pop the leftovers in a crockpot and only have to worry about whipping up a vegetable or grain to accompany it.
  2. Stow it in a clear container in the fridge and enjoy it for lunch another day.  Store them at eye level so they don’t disappear into the dark abyss.  If your leftovers start to pile up, designate one night of the week “leftover night” and have each of the kids pick out his/her favorite to reheat for a hodge podge dinner.  Everyone gets what they want.  It’s almost like eating at a restaurant.  Almost.
  3. Plan a meal around it.  Put the right side of your brain to work and come up with another way to use up what’s left behind.  For instance, when we have taco salad for dinner, I invariably end up with extra lettuce and cheese.  So the next morning I sprinkle all of that cheese on scrambled eggs for the kids’ breakfast and throw some grilled chicken strips(frozen leftovers, naturally) on the lettuce for a lunch salad. Or I might use the cheese to make quesadillas and the lettuce to pull together a Caesar salad to go with pasta that night.  The possibilities are endless but you’ve got to get creative.  Or just google recipes that use up leftover ingredients.

 

One of these days I’ll get around to posting some of my faves.  Until then, get your own creative juices flowing so you don’t have to guilt your kids into eating more than they want by telling them about the starving kids in Africa.  Because, while guilt trips might be effective, they aren’t necessarily the best course of action for weight management, or for saving your wallet, or for showing gratitude for the abundance we enjoy.  Or for learning compassion for the starving kids in Africa, for that matter.   So yeah.  Leftovers for the win.

 

To my liberal-leaning friends.

In the months and weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election, I discovered just how many of you there are.  Your support for Clinton and disdain for Trump flooded my social media feed in the form of shared articles, likes and comments on political posts and articles.  I don’t engage in a ton of political banter, despite the ridiculous amount of political science college coursework I racked up in my degree program. So I spent most of the election season taking it all in, watching everyone duke it out over policy and personality.
The mainstream media (and my Facebook feed) had me convinced that, as a conservative, I was in a minority that was shrinking fast.