New Voices

The other night parents at my children's elementary school were treated to the annual talent show. The talent show has become something of legend in our school community. No act is turned away, as long as they get their permission form in on time, acts must be performed within the time limits of 30 seconds to 1 minute and 30 seconds, and best of all, no lip sync is allowed! My kids have been jumping in to perform dances, skits, class songs, etc. for several years now. Out of the 60 something acts presented, we can always be sure that at least 3 of them will present with some actual talent. The rest is all about getting up there and having the courage to perform on stage in front of your classmates and their parents.

This year, there was a surprise at the end of the talent show in the form of a new vocalist, Lucy Horton. A video clip was shown of Lucy singing at the school talent show 11 years ago when she was in first grade. After the clip, she came out and treated the audience to a performance of one of the singles on her new CD. Lucy graduates from high school this year. I don't know what her post-high school plans are, but I really like her voice, and what a great thing for the future generation to aspire to!

Check her out at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/LucyHorton

Back in the Swing of Things

I am by no means an expert golfer. But I do like the sport, the walking, the smell of the fresh grass, being out in the sun...of course springtime in the Northwest is hardly a sunny time, being out in the showers is more like it. I haven't golfed much since having kids. It is a rather time consuming activity. Ages ago I golfed in a women's golf league, my parents live off of the second hole of a country club, I come from a family of golfers. In the last decade I have had to pick and choose free time activities and golfing just hasn't been one of them. I have decided to dust off the old clubs and give it a go again because I want to and because I have found a couple of other friends who are also interested in getting back into golfing. The great thing...there is a pretty great course less than 15 minutes from my house and they offer kids lessons at a reasonable rate, this may become a family activity after all.

It's that Time of Year Again!

It's that time of year again and with two Girl Scouts in the house, I am slowly, or maybe quickly, eating my way up that scale! Forget ordering in bulk and freezing to have all year long, if I ordered in bulk I would probably eat in bulk right now!

Television Series Addiction

Yes, it is true, I am officially addicted to the BBC Dr. Who telly series. THANK YOU MEG! I can blame her all I want, but I am addicted to the story line. I am not typically much of a science fiction fan, but I buy into the fantasy elements of the story lines in Dr. Who so it works for me. Sadly, this duo, David Tennant and Billie Piper will be replaced in this new season (actually Billie Piper has been off the show for a while now). I will miss them, but I have no doubt that I can probably get used to the replacements. It seems somewhat odd to be addicted to a television series again. I used to have my line up of shows and then the screen writers strike came (yes, I know that was a long time ago) and there was nothing new on for a very long time and I just lost interest in my old favorites. This is a fairly common cycle with me and television though, on and off again addictions. Sometimes I just prefer to read or futz around on the computer or talk to my family (what a novel idea!).

At any rate, I was going to post a rant today about how I have been needing to do everyone elses jobs for them all morning. There are some low hanging power lines that cross the PUBLIC street in front of our house. The garbage service is refusing to pick up our trash and after two hours on the phone with a number of different possible power line sources, nobody wanted to take responsibility for the problem. I was actually forced to call the city, which is not something that I ever like to do. Aside from taking the power lines down myself and re-setting them I was really out of options. It felt much better talking about the joys of Dr. Who. I think that I will just reflect on that right now and take three deep breaths.

Random Thoughts on a February Morning

So here it is, almost halfway through the month of February and I have only one post for the month. A fairly good one, if I do say so myself, but only one nonetheless. It has been a busy month so far. My good friends and neighbors for the last several years moved out of their house last week. I miss them and our little lane does not quite seem the same. There are projects here and there, like scrapbooking, that I am trying to get caught up on. I am trying to fit in my writing, but have also had house guests and this has made that a challenge. In addition to the house guests and sudden neighbor/friend move and catching up on projects, I have been trying to catch up with old friends, read some books, and get over a nasty cold. Next week my kids are off from school. I have taken some time off of work and am hoping that we can have some fun together. The book I am currently reading is called "Home" by Marilynne Robinson. If you have never read her, don't be deceived by the slim size of most of her works. This woman makes every word count when she writes. She also teaches at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, perhaps that is why. I love her work, I just have to think in order to read it, probably a good exercise for me.

Blue Monday

I just heard that today, the third Monday in January, has been identified as the most depressing day of the year. Some scientist who studies seasonal affective disorder decided this based on research. These are the reasons why today is the most depressing day of the year:


1) Distance from Christmas
2) Debt incurred from Christmas
3) Too much rain, sleet, snow, and hail and not enough sun
4) No holidays in sight
5) Monthly salary
6) Abandoning, giving up, or not starting new year's resolutions

I am not sure that these are all of the reasons why this day is labelled the most depressing of the year, but it certainly seems like enough. Now I almost feel guilty for having such a great day today, it was the last day of a wonderful and relaxing long weekend in a high altitude snow camp and I got to ski down the first four miles of the mountain road to catch the shuttle to the parking lot. The sun was out and the views were incredible. I should think about spending this day in such splendor every year!

Kneading Bread Dough and Holiday Traditions

When I first started this blog, I promised myself that it wouldn't become a "homemaking blog" although it is difficult for me to avoid homemaking altogether as I have three young children. So consider this a therapy post rather than a homemaking post.

It is that time of year again, the one where we get ready to celebrate Santa Lucia. This is one of the only holiday traditions that our family has carried over from my Swedish ancestors. This celebration includes the making of Lucia buns. Of course I could probably buy something similar to Lucia buns or we could just have jam and toast, but I started making them a few years back and found that I rather enjoyed the process.

Yesterday was a long day. I had a hair appointment and have determined that I just don't have the time to sit around getting my haircut by someone else. Perhaps it is time that I learned to do it myself. This set the whole day behind. We went to see Santa Claus and the line was long. My kids have pretty much started to not believe in Santa anymore, this whole process is more about me taking them to have their picture taken. In the end they had fun, I just wonder how many more years I will be able to drag them out to get their perfect Santa picture. There was a twenty-one-year-old in line ahead of us with her mother. She was giving her mother one last Santa picture, so this gave me hope!

Now back to bread dough! Last night I made up the dough for the Lucia buns and started kneading it. Once I started, I found that I didn't want to stop. My hands were a mess, but the feel of the soft dough, rolling it rhythmically back and forth and pushing it down at each turn was somehow therapeutic for me, I found that I started to actually relax. This got me to thinking about how the pioneer women must have made it through difficult times without support. Maybe kneading bread dough was part of what helped them through a difficult life. Maybe there are some other household tasks that have this same effect, but I haven't found them yet. In the meantime, during this busy holiday season, maybe I will have to find more time to knead.

Jacksonville Historical Cemetery

I must admit that I like cemeteries and not just on Halloween. I am not so fond of new or overly manicured cemeteries, I prefer older cemeteries, ones where the dead have withstood the test of time. Today I visited such a cemetery, the Jacksonville Historical Cemetery in Southern Oregon. I haven't been here for quite sometime. This is a cemetery that house dead folks from the War of 1812 through the Gulf War. There are large family plots, unmarked "potters field" graves, and old headstones that are quite literally cracking at the seams.

The ambiance is peaceful. Indeed I am not the only person to feel this. There is a small interpretative center with guest book, I noted that more than one cemetery "guest" observed a peaceful atmosphere in this cemetery. This is a cemetery where one might observe the term "killed by Indians" on a number of headstones. Then there are the mother, father, son, daughter, baby plots with no names. It is easy to think that "back then" human life wasn't as valuable as it is today, after all people had so many children. The ornateness of many of the infant, toddler, and child headstones make me question this assumption. It seems as though people grieved much for their lost little ones back then, much as they would today.

This cemetery is housed on 32 acres. It is divided into seven sections, six of which represent religious or fraternal organizations: Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Catholic, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Independent (German) and Improved Orders of Red Men, and Jewish. The seventh and largest section is the City of Jacksonville's portion which includes a Potter's Field.

Some of the more notable stories include those of Regina Dorland-Robinson (1892-1917), William Green T'Vault (1806-1869), and Mary Ann Harris Chambers (1821-1882). Regina Robinson was a promising young artist who committed suicide at a very young age, William T'Vault was a newspaper editor who died in the Smallpox epidemic of 1869, and Mary Ann Chambers held down the fort during an Indian attack on her homestead, she died later of natural causes. One could learn the whole history of an area, a history that would be much more interesting than what could be found in a textbook, just by following the stories of the dead.

I think that John Lieshman sums up my feeling about cemeteries the best, "A cemetery tells the history of its people, and through its people, the history of its town."

Favorite Painting

This is my favorite painting, or at least one of them, there is so much good art out there that it is kind of hard to choose. When I was in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin I used to drive my crappy little car in all kinds of weather to get to the Art Institute of Chicago where this painting is housed. I spent an incredible amount of time looking at it. Because I have seen the original so many times up close and personal, I find that I am reluctant to accept a copy. What gets me is the red in the older sister's hat. Never has a copy even come close to the red in the original. The colors are so vibrant that they almost feel alive. I think that this painting transcends time, look at it long enough and you can almost feel as though you are there.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

My girls and I went on a short ski weekend. We stayed at the vacation home of some very generous friends and hit the nearby slopes. While we were there, we watched "Breakfast at Tiffany's." In hindsight, maybe my younger girls were a bit too young for this movie, but most of the references went over their heads. As I talked to them, mostly on the chairlift, today all they could talk about was the fashion and the glamor and wanting to see New York City-all in all, great things to take away from an enduring classic. I had forgotten how much I love it.