Keep the Old

Make new friends, but keep the old,
One is silver and the other, gold.
I love my friends. I have a lot of new friends that I love, but the friends I especially treasure are my “old” friends.  Those are the friends that I’ve had for years and are what Anne of Green Gables would call “kindred spirits.”  We all need many kinds of friends in our lives. We have our shopping buddies, our coffee girlfriends, our mentors, our friends who cheer us up, but nothing takes the place of a kindred spirit or two.
This week I was blessed to have one of my few kindred spirits come to stay with me for three days. Her name is Lindsey, and although we are 10 years apart in age, Nathan swears we are twins separated at birth.  We laugh at the same things, have the same personality, grab the same shoes and clothes in the stores and have the same silly sense of humor.  I will say this though, Lindsey is far, far braver than I am. Three and half years ago, she left Duluth (boo, hoo) and joined the Navy. Now I would never join an Armed Service, mainly because of that little thing called boot camp.  But, Lindsey did and this girly girl of all girly girls, rolled in mud and ran miles and eventually became an F-18 mechanic on the USS Harry Truman. See what I mean by brave!?  It was fun this week-end to hear her and my former Navy father-in-law talk. I asked Nathan, “What language are they speaking?” Navy speak, I guess.  She’s being deployed later this year and that takes more bravery than anything I know! We had a blast this week-end.  We giggled and talked and had adventures of all sorts.  And Lindsey knows, going around with me, always means adventures. I think the last time she was here, an umbrella table flipped over in the wind and pinned me to our table at a restaurant at lunch.  This time our adventures included making a fruit tree:

As you can see, she’s pretty handy in the kitchen as well as on a flight deck!
We also went cross country skiing. Although she grew up in Minnesota, she has never snow shoed or downhill skied or cross country skied.  So, we went cross country skiing, but I didn’t let the Navy map expert read the trail maps, and I got us off on a wrong trail; yeah, a black diamond trail.  After many falls and Lindsey actually crawling up one hill while we both laughed hysterically while rude, more experienced skiers whizzed past us, we did finally enjoy the view of Duluth:

Lindsey is waaaay more fit than I am, because she says she’s doing fine, but I can still barely walk two days later. Of course, falling in a 25-year old body, is quite different than taking numerous spills on icy trails as a 36 year-old, a fact she will find out only too soon. ☺
We also enjoyed a trip down to Bentleyville, our city’s grand lighting display, which she had never been to either.  This was much tamer and lots of fun too.  Free cookies, hot chocolate, and marshmallows! And lots and lots of lights right on Lake Superior!

I’m kinda choked up as I write this.  All my kindred spirits live far away.  My sister in Denver, my best friend in North Carolina, my friend Sarah in Michigan, and Lindsey in Virginia, but it sure does make the short times I spend with them, all the more precious.  I’m finding, as Anne says, “that maybe kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think.”  I’m finding new ones every now and then.  New friends, new kindred spirits surprise me every now and again. But, nothing takes the place of a true, pure gold, friend, a sister of your heart.

Why I Love Christmas

Christmas is my favorite holiday and there are so many reasons why.

- I love the tree all decorated with white lights and my favorite ornaments.  Ever since I was a little girl, my mom has bought me a new ornament, usually something related to a happening in the past year. I have all those ornaments on my tree now. I do the same thing for my kids too.  This year, I bought ornaments for Nate and Daniel that are little boys on snowboards, because they are learning to snowboard.  Laura got a skier ornament, since she is on ski team.  I love my tree all lit up, heaped with presents on Christmas Eve.

- I have a set of Christmas china that I only get out once a year.  There’s something about a beautifully set table.  I love to decorate my Christmas table with my Christmas china and make a pretty centerpiece.  This year we all laughed as I was setting my table.  I was arranging the candles and kept sending Laura upstairs for, “Another candle, please Laura. Oh, and some greenery.  And see if you can find a few poinsettias!”  Nate chimed in, “And a partridge in a pear tree.”

- I LOVE pumpkin pie.  I didn’t get any at Thanksgiving this year because we were at my in-laws house this year and pumpkin pie has eggs in it. But, I made the Christmas dinner, so I made pumpkin pie with egg replacer.  You can’t tell difference.  And everyone wanted apple pie today, so hey, this is GREAT! I have an entire pumpkin pie to myself! Sweet!

- OK, I admit. I’m a kid when it come to presents. I love them.  My love language is gifts. And I love that Nathan pays attention and shows his love for me by giving me gifts that I really, really want.  Like this cool, new purse.

- As long as we’re on the subject of presents. I really love seeing my kids get all excited about their gifts. Poor Daniel, he must have asked me 20 time yesterday, when we got to open our gifts. After the service, after dinner, then we get to, Daniel. He was practically quivering with delight when he got his Star Wars Captain Rex mask that he asked for.

- I love the low key day after eating dinner, sitting around playing games.  We got a few new ones this year.  Everyone always thinks we’re bizarre because we don’t have a TV and often ask, “So what do you DO, if you don’t watch TV.” Well, we read and we love to play games. Today we played a really funny game called “You’ve Been Sentenced” that is not only a lot of fun, but helps the kids learn grammar!

- More than anything, whether the weather is perfect, or whether it snows (or sleets!) I love being snuggled up in my warm house with my family for Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Two Sisters

Our family, on both sides, is wrestling with the ugly enemy called cancer this Christmas.  Both families are trying to make sense of the pain and suffering cancer brings.
My Dad’s sister has been struggling with colon cancer.  This has been especially difficult, because just a few years ago, her daughter, my cousin Beckie, passed away from cancer at only 26 years of age.  We are all left wondering why cancer strikes again in the same family. Thankfully, the chemo and a surgery this week have given this sister a wonderful outcome. It appears that with a few more chemo treatments, she will be cancer free.
Nathan’s Dad’s sister is close to the end of her struggle with cancer.  In fact, she will be in heaven most likely before the New Year.  Her family waits by her bedside, making the most of her last, precious moments on earth.
Two women: sisters, mothers, daughters, wives.  Both fighting a common enemy.  Both going home.  Both facing healing.  One sister going to her earthly home, one to her heavenly home.  One benefitting from the healing that modern science and medicine brings, another receiving the ultimate healing that our bodies receive when we, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, enter heaven.
When faced with any kind of tragedy or sickness like this, I have to admit, it’s hard to understand.  Why does my Dad get to continue his relationship with his sister, while Nathan’s Dad has to say good-bye for now?  Why is one person cured from cancer and another dies?  All persons involved love God, all the families are praying desperately for a miracle.  All have children and grandchildren and husbands that need their loved one to stay here with them just a little bit longer.  Why?
There are a lot of questions I can’t answer. But, there are a few things I know for sure.
“One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that you O God, are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving.” Psalm 62:11
“This I recall to mind, Therefore I have hope.  The Lord’s lovingkindnesses never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Thy faithfulness. The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him.” Lamentations 3:21-23,25
“’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways My ways’ declares the Lord.  ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.’” Isaiah 55:8
“and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” Revelation 21:4
“Home free, eventually, at the ultimate healing, we will be home free,
Home free, oh it’s more than a feeling, at the ultimate healing, we will be home free.”
-Wayne Watson, “Home Free”

Imponderables

There’s a lot of random thoughts that wander through my brain and make me wonder, why?

- After watching The Princess Bride probably more than 200 times in the last 20 years, I just recently realized it was never explained where Prince Humperdinck met Buttercup. He chose her as his bride, but he was a prince and she was a farm girl. Where the heck did they meet to begin with????

- I recently read a book where the heroine had some stressful circumstances and when she got to her home she fell into an exhausted sleep and when she awoke she was confused about what time it was. Her sister told her she had slept around the clock for 20 hours without waking. I was like, 20 hours!!!! Who sleeps 20 hours without peeing? I was totally distracted by this thought. I mean, I’ve never gone 20 hours, even in sleep, without having to use the bathroom. Bizarre.

- After having three kids I’m still confused as to how a woman’s stomach (namely, mine) can go from the size of a submarine back to (relatively) flat. At least I fit back into my old jeans. Why is skin so stretchy? And how does it stretch out like that and then where does it go when it gets all flat again? And how does it do that over and over? Oh yeah, that must be where those stretch marks came from! And although I was there, I still don’t know how in the world that baby got out of there!

- Why is ice fishing considered fun?

- Why do people in Minnesota pay good money to go to things like Lutefisk Dinners and Fish Boils? What is a Fish Boil, by the way? It sounds like a disease.

- Why do I like quilting since it involves so much math and so much ironing?

- Why don’t skinny jeans make you look skinny?

- Why do accompaniment CD’s with one song cost as much as a regular CD?

- Who goes first at a 5-way stop?

- Why in heaven’s name did SuperOne move their Super Pretzels to the the frozen section with fish sticks? Why not with the snack foods or the frozen dough? Does anyone else see the connection between frozen pretzels and fish?

- Why does Heinz call their ketchup “Tomato Ketchup?” Have you ever eaten any other kind of ketchup? Like, Green Bean Ketchup or Zucchini Ketchup or Carrot Ketchup.

- Why do some people call crayons “coloring crayons.” Duh, what else do you do with them? They’re either crayons or colors, aren’t they?

- What exactly does “uff-dah” and “ish-dah” mean?

- Why in the world does my mother think “Hunca Munca” is a great exclamation!?

I’m sure I could go on and on. My brain seems to be filled with fluff. But, the one that I really don’t understand is this:

- Why did God become a man? How can Jesus be both God and man? Why would He choose to love me, come to Earth as a baby and suffer and die in my place when I deserved the punishment He took on Himself?

I really don’t understand that one, but I am forever grateful that He did.

Peanuts

Homeschooling has provided us with quite a few interesting days this fall. Laura has entertained us with quite a few fascinating science experiments. But, this week the spotlight was on Daniel and his math. For some reason, I guess to keep the first graders engaged in their math, Saxon math uses a lot of manipulatives and real world food to keep them interacting with numbers.

This week it was peanuts.  This was fun because recently Daniel was asking me about peanuts.  He had seen a big barrel of unshelled peanuts at the grocery store and wondered what they tasted like and how to eat them. Then I read his lesson for the week and noticed we needed peanuts. How bizarre. As Nathan was out, I called him and asked him to bring us home a large bag of unshelled peanuts. He too, thought this was a strange request, but has learned that in homeschooling I often ask for strange things.

He did a good job and brought home a big bag of peanuts:

The first day our lesson consisted of using the peanuts to count by tens. We sorted the peanuts into 10 cups with 10 peanuts per cup.  Then we counted by 10’s to 100.  Then we cracked open each nut and put the two nuts on a sheet of paper that had 10 peanuts drawn on it and drew the two peanuts. If Daniel found a peanut with 1 or 3 nuts, he got to eat those.  Then we counted by 2’s to 10:

The next day’s lesson was about following a recipe. We were going to make peanut butter! We had to shell and measure one cup of peanuts. This took awhile.

Then we mixed the peanuts with oil in the blender and made peanut butter:

We then learned about halves and fourths and spread our peanut butter on fourths of bread and shared with everyone at home.  It was a little salty, but tasted very peanutty! We decided maybe next time, to use unsalted peanuts and a little sugar. All in all a nutty adventure for sure!

Cookin’ Cookies

Today I had one of those, wow-I-can’t-be-this-old moments. I was decorating Christmas cookies with my boys.  I remember being the kid with the bowls of colored frosting and sprinkles that my mom gave me.  Only now I’m the mom and my kids are decorating cookies. My, how time flies.  It hardly seems possible that I am carrying on the tradition of making cutout cookies and decorating them with my own children. But, I am and it’s so much fun.
First of all, the most important thing for good cookies is a good recipe.  Many people, when they eat my sugar cookies at my Open House rave over them.  For some reason this recipe, from my mom, never gets crunchy or nasty.  They are always sweet and soft. I think part of the yumminess is the hint of lemon flavoring in them. Here’s our recipe for Sugar Cookies which we always double:
1/2 C. softened butter
1/4 C. shortening
1 C. sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. lemon extract (you can substitute 1 tsp. vanilla if you hate lemon, but it’s the lemon that makes these cookies special)
2 1/2 C. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
Mix thoroughly butter, shortening, sugar, eggs and flavoring. Blend in flour, baking powder and salt. Cover and chill overnight. The next day you heat the oven to 400 degrees. Roll dough to 1/4” thick on floured surface (part of having chewy cookies is not making them too thin). Cut into desired shapes. Put on ungreased cookie sheet and bake about 6-8 min. Don’t overbake!
Of course the enjoyable part of all of this is letting your kids help you cut out all the fun shapes:


Yes, it’s true, flour goes everywhere, but deal with it. You can sweep later. Have a blast and let them cut out whatever they want. It’s the tradition and memories that count here!
The next day is frosting day! And this is where it gets lively, crazy and messy. Anal people need not apply!
Frosting:
2 C. powdered sugar
3 T. melted butter
1/2 tsp. lemon extract
2 T. milk
Mix until right consistency (I doubled this to make enough for a double batch of cookies and several kids) Divide between several bowls and dye whatever colors, OK our blue was a little too blue, but who cares. Get out lots of sprinkles and go to town!

Realize that there will be some, ok more than some, really ugly cookies, but those are the ones you save for your family to eat!

One funny memory I have is that my dad used to take a tree or an angel and decorate it with every color of frosting and every single type of sprinkle. I think he did this #1 to drive my mom nuts and #2 just so he could eat that cookie! :)
Realize also that this will make a big mess! But, as my friend Sara used to say, “If it entertains the kids longer than it takes you to clean it up, it’s worth it!”


This entertained Nate and Daniel for at least 2 hours, and took me 15 minutes to clean up. Well worth it, I’d say. Plus, we listened to Martina McBride’s Christmas CD and laughed and talked while we made cookies. A treasured memory for sure. 
And when you are finished, you will have cookies for the family and cookies for guests and you’ll be surprised that most of them look pretty A-OK and taste pretty awesome too!


Happy Baking! And thanks, Mom, for starting such a wonderful tradition with my sister and me, so I could carry it on with my kiddoes!

They Just Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To

 

I decided to make spritz cookies the other day. I made my yummy butter cookie dough and got out my trusty spritz cookie maker. Or as it turned out, my not-so-trusty spritz cookie maker. I bought this cookie maker a few years ago at Kmart. It’s just your average 21st Century spritz cookie maker. It’s plastic, and that’s the problem. I got four tree cookies pressed out when I felt resistance. I squeezed the trigger and SNAP! The trigger just completely broke off in my hand. What in the world!?  There was nothing I could do at that point, it was completely broken.  I just had to toss the dumb thing in the trash. However, I had an entire mixing bowl of cookie dough. So, I called my friend, Wendy, to see if she had a spritz cookie maker.  She said she did, but she said it was kinda different.  Kinda different, how, I asked? She said it had been her mom’s. Wow!  Your mom’s, I asked? That means it must be at least 40 years old, because I knew her mom had passed away awhile ago.  I told her I could handle different, I just needed to get my cookies done.  I went to get the cookie press and this is what I got:

Amazing! That is one heavy duty cookie press!  No wonder this thing had been around for 40 or 50 years.  It is made of metal, tin I think.  The barrel holds twice as much as mine and you crank the cookies out.  I had fun using this one.  Trust me, there is NO way this thing would ever break.  The Christmas trees were also a little prettier than mine. 

I was also amused by a camel cookie shape:

I almost wanted to make another batch of dough just to see what the camels would look like.  I was kinda hoping for a wiseman cookie to go with it. But, the only other “living” creature cookie available was a dog. A dog?  Very odd:

Maybe I’m missing something. Is this Rudolph? Or is it a Christmas dog? Or were dogs just popular in the 60’s?  Don’t know, but it kinda cracked me up.

Anyhow, I am now searching on eBay for an antique cookie press. No more plastic junk for me.  They just don’t make stuff like they used to!

It’s the Little Things

So much of Christmas seems to be about the big, in-your-face stuff. Like extravagant gifts that result in massive Visa bills in January, huge, dazzling displays of lights like Bentleyville, the Rockefeller Center Christmas trees.  But, lately I’ve been discovering that Christmas is all about the little things.

Things like seeing Christmas through the eyes of my child.  Daniel is so excited for Christmas. Everyday he can hardly stand the sight of the presents under the tree. Oh how he wishes today were Christmas Day and he could open his gifts NOW! I remember that kind of anticipation when I was a kid. Nathan has a word he made up for when you are waiting anxiously for a parcel to arrive in the mail and I think it applies to the kids longing for their Christmas gifts: “anticiparcelation.”

I also love it when I come out into the living room without my contacts and the tree’s white lights are all misty and sparkly. Nathan thinks it’s funny that I squint at every set of Christmas lights I see, but I love to see the lights all “fuzzy.” One of those “little things” at Christmas that brings me joy.

On Saturday we had a Christmas Breakfast at church.  These breakfasts always consist of an egg dish in some form. I am allergic to eggs, but no big deal.  I always just have something to eat at home. But, this week I got there and after I finished helping the ladies serve, Gwen Ornell said, “I have a special breakfast just for you, Molly.”  Then she handed me a plate with fruit and something wrapped in foil. She said it was a surprise.  It was a little breakfast sandwich she had made that morning and baked just for me with ham and cheese all warm and melty with no eggs! Wow! I felt so special. Talk about a little thing that just embodied the spirit of giving that Christmas is all about!

And there’s one more small thing that never fails to make me smile at Christmas and that’s when a store clerk chooses to go against the flow and wishes me a “Merry Christmas” instead of the stupid and “politically correct” “Happy Holidays.”

After all, the reason Christmas exists is because of something so very little that turned out to be big.

Isaiah 9:6,7

“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace.”

“Hallelujah, we’ve been found, a child is born to save us now. Jesus.

Hallelujah light has come a Savior who will set us free.

A Promise for those who believe.”

(Hallelujah, Light has Come, Written and performed by BarlowGirl)

Hallelujah, we’ve been found.  Some of us didn’t even know we were lost when God sent his Son, this child to save us.  But when we recognize just how lost we are in sin and in darkness, what an amazing thing to be found.  Have you ever been lost or ever lost a child?  Being found is an incredible thing!  When Laura was about 18 months old we were at the Kansas City Airport together.  The automatic doors to the outside were just behind us and we were sitting down waiting to check in. I was going through our luggage trying to get my things together.  I bent over for about 3 seconds to get something out of a bag and in that instant Laura disappeared. When I sat up, my baby was gone!  I was instantly in panic mode.  I jumped up and started yelling into the crowded airport frantically asking strangers, “Have you seen a little blond baby? My baby is gone!” After what seemed like forever, but was probably only a few seconds, a kind gentleman took my arm and led me around the corner. He said, “Is this your baby?” There was Laura, stepping on the pad that opened the automatic doors and watching in fascination as they opened, then stepping off and watching them close. Over and over. Hallelujah, she was found! What an amazing feeling to be found!

Hallelujah, light has come, a Savior who will set us free. Jesus. There seems to be this popular notion these days that we’re all kinda ok in ourselves. You know, unless you’re like Sadaam Hussein or something, you’re basically good. Which is an unfortunate error, because if we’re not really dark people, we don’t need a Light or a Savior.

John 1:3-5

“All things came into being by Him (Jesus) and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  In Him was life and the life was the light of men.  And the light (Jesus) shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

Romans 3:23

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

A Promise for those who believe. Jesus, the baby that God sent into the world at Christmas, His Son, is a promise to those who believe. A promise of life and hope and joy.

John 1:12

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.”

A baby, born in a stable.  The only witnesses a teenage girl, a carpenter, some poor shepherds.  It seems like a small, insignificant thing.  But, it’s the little things that matter.  That baby grew up to die on a cross for our sins, rise from the dead and sits at the right hand of God the Father today. When you experience the little joys of Christmas let it remind you of the reason we have all those little joys and graces.  Because God sent a little baby to save us all from the darkness.