Day 25: You think you have problems?

I have noticed lately a phrase that has started cropping up in the written word and conversation: first world problems.
While it could get to be an overused and annoying phrase, I think it is worth examining.
Let's see. How about I gained ten pounds over the holidays and I can't seem to lose it.
First world problem.
Or My dishwasher broke and I don't have the money to fix it.
First world problem.
And I just can't find the perfect paint colour for my living room (fabric for my daughter's bedding, clock for my wall, dress for the prom, favours for my wedding reception).
First. World. Problem.

Just to be clear, I have friends that are dealing with terrible health issues or struggles like job loss, and I am not diminishing their plights at all. I am just attempting to put things into perspective.

Let me illustrate further, hoping that you will not hate me for my impatience with the attitude.

I have almost twenty-five darling piano students (ranging in age from 5 to 15) that visit me weekly. I am quietly amused by the trends that I observe as I interact with them every week. For a couple of years, every time they couldn't grasp a concept or a piece, they would claim (almost to a person) that it was "confusing". I finally lost patience with the word and pronounced a ban on using it, ever, during piano lessons.
This is not confusing, I would assert. It may be a little challenging, but all of the tools that you need are right on the page in front of your eyes. Or, if I suspected it to be the case, I would predict that the student had not given enough thought or practice time to the item in question. The response was inevitably a doleful look of accusation, and I am sure the student was wondering why this proclamation of "confusing" had not worked as an alibi, when it obviously worked so well everywhere else!

So "confusing" eventually became a non-issue in my music room.

This last week, apart from a couple of girls rolling their eyes at me, I have heard, twice, the announcement from piano students that something was "hard".
The second time, I snapped a little inside and I said No. Living in a shack in Haiti with a dirt floor and no blanket to sleep on and a tin roof that leaks water on you every time it rains and only eating once every two days is hard. 
This isn't hard. 
This is just a little challenging.
And, to their credit, the girls who were the recipients of this wee rant had the grace to look abashed and admit that it was true.

It's not the first time I have countered the word with the argument.
And it won't be the last.
So I apologize in advance for the next time.
And, just so you know, I have this conversation with myself all the time.
Oh, my arm (foot, hip, whatever) hurts so much today. 
You big baby, you. You could be living in Haiti in a shack.....

Today, I am so grateful for the circumstances of my life. There have been challenges, but nothing like those that are faced by so much of the world. I don't know why I am so lucky, whether it was chance or destiny or whether I earned it or was given it by grace. It is one of the mysteries of life.

Day 24: New adventures

In keeping up the tradition of never having a dull moment, Jeff and Sue are about to embark on a new adventure. Jeff had accepted a job in Eastern Oregon, about three hours away from our present home on a good day. More like four when the passes are snowed in. 

We have decided to buy a second home and do the weekend thing, with Jeff making the drive most of the time and me going over there at least one long weekend a month. We are excited and a little terrified, but the way things have worked out we feel like it is what was meant to be.

Jeff has been seriously job searching for a year, with little success. He is in his late 50's and at the top of his field, so in this economy it has been a tough sell. The company he is joining wanted him badly and has gone many extra miles to entice him, so we are grateful for this new adventure. 

We spent the weekend in Redmond, looking for a house. We have always wanted some property over in the eastern part of the state, where nature is abundant and land is cheap. We were thinking a few acres on which to camp, but this spurred us to think more extravagantly.

We ended up in a development that our first realtor termed "zesty" but we thought was full of character, so we fired her and found one that was more in line with our way of thinking. We spent a day driving around, checking out houses that we thought might fit our budget and lifestyle, and narrowed it down to about eight that we wanted to tour. As we began our drive, we both noticed a very cute yellow house sitting on a slight rise. "I would love that house," said Jeff, and I agreed. We passed it again on our way out and I yelled,"Jeff, there's a For Sale sign!"

We couldn't believe it. I t was a little above our budget, but we picked up a flier and went back to the agent to give her our list.

The first house we saw the next day was this one.

We loved the wrap-around porch.

Jeff was immediately rapt with the gazebo.

The kitchen is serviceable, but not large.

Lots of light in the living room, although we couldn't figure out why the air conditioners were still in the windows when it was only twenty degrees outside.

This little mezzanine will be a perfect sleeping loft for the grandkids.

We saw other houses that day, but had trouble getting past the cute factor and panoramic mountain view of the first house. Plus, it is on one-and-a-half acres and across from a park and an undeveloped area of public land. Deer and rabbits roam freely about and the very reasonably priced home owner's association supports a swimming pool, basketball and tennis courts, other sports fields, and the best golf course in central Oregon.

We optimistically made a fairly low offer on the house and 24 hours later, to our surprise, the offer was accepted. 

So, in about a month, if all goes well, we will inhabit this little bit of paradise. The house is small and the bedrooms are a bit narrow for my liking and the staircase takes up too much living room space, but Jeff can find no flaws with it and it will be his main residence, so I let him win. 

I am already giddy with happiness about getting rid of a lot of my surplus supplies and sending them to Vista House.

Yes, it has a name.

The progeny are already making prodigious plans for their visits to the wild side of the state.

We will be fifteen minutes from Smith Rock, a favourite spot for the athletically inclined amongst us.

I plan to hike that zig-zag as soon as the snow melts.

Life is charging along, and today I am enormously thankful for the challenge and adventure that awaits us.

Day 23: Culinary customs

My Christmas baking repertoire has narrowed down to mostly two things:

Fruit cake, courtesy of a recipe from an old, dear friend, Norma Green. It is dense, moist, and full of buttery vanilla flavour. And, of course, lots of jeweled glace fruit and pecans.

I love the red cherries best of all.

Here's another one, just in case the first two weren't enough.

I also make a big batch of shortbread every Christmas. I like to press the dough into these molds that I got for 25c each after Christmas a few years ago.

The problem is, I can never remember, from one year to the next, which recipe I used last time. So some years the shortbread has been crispy and buttery, with the sugar almost caramelized as it slowly bakes.

Other years it is merely acceptable.

Like today's batch.

I think it is because the recipe I used tonight used powdered sugar instead of granulated, so tomorrow night I will try another recipe. I think I know which one.

Meanwhile, there is a humongous Tupperware full of small fruitcakes that will be distributed to lucky people.

But only the ones that love it.

And Jeff enjoyed a mug of homemade eggnog with a star-shaped piece of shortbread. 

He breathed in a crumb of the cookie and almost choked to death.

Would you like the recipes?
I thought so.

Norma's Fruit Cake
3 1/2 cubes of butter
2 c sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1/2 c boiling water
2 oz vanilla
6 eggs
4 c flour
3 lbs dried and glace fruit and nuts of choice

Cream butter and sugar, add soda and water. Beat in vanilla and eggs. Stir in flour and lastly, the fruit mixture. Spray small baking pans with Pam and divide mixture between them. I usually make 6 small loaves with this amount. Bake at 250 degrees for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours. Cakes are done when the top is firm, but you can poke with a toothpick to make sure.
I usually make double this recipe.

The tubs of glace fruit are prohibitively expensive, so I keep an eye on them in the produce section of Safeway after Christmas. Every two or three years, I find them marked down 75% and stock up.

Classic Shortbread
8 oz unsalted butter
1/2 c sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/4 c flour

Cream butter and sugar. Work in flour and salt, knead lightly if necessary. Press into greased molds or 8" round pans. Prick dough with a fork. Bake at 300 degrees for about 30 minutes for small molds up to an hour for larger pans. Shortbread should be golden brown. Leave in pans until firm before tipping onto cooling rack. For larger rounds, cut into wedges while still hot in the pan.

Eggnog 

1 c milk
1 egg yolk
A few drops of vanilla and rum essences
Sugar to taste
A sprinkle of freshly grated nutmeg

Put half of the milk in a mug or small pan and whisk in egg yolk with immersion blender. Add essences and the rest of the milk. Heat slowly in microwave (or on stove top if using a pan), stirring often. Nog should thicken slightly when done. Add sugar to taste.

Today I am thankful that my fridge and freezer are stocked up with lots of butter.
Happy Christmas baking to you!

Day 22: Sew much to do

A couple of years ago, I determined to make use of the large amounts of fabric scraps that have monopolized the space in our smallest bedroom ever since it was happily vacated by some child or another for the bigger bedroom. Jeff complains once in a while, but not so much since he got his very own man-cave and started filling it with books and tools and all sorts of masculine paraphernalia.

So I started cutting out little squares and triangles of coordinating fabric. I have lots of samples from about thirty years ago, when I sewed for a friend who was in the business. I always knew they would come in handy some day! I pieced this top together and pinned it shortly after making my resolution, then ran out of courage when it came to the machine quilting part. 

I manned up this week and dug the sewing machine out of a heap of stuff.

The quilting isn't very complicated and sewed up pretty fast.

A little Google and a YouTube video got me past my fear of binding.

It is all very imperfect, just like me.

The pin-tucked white fabric in the centre of this square is from a wedding dress that I made almost thirty years ago. It had all sorts of pin-tucked sections and lace inserts and took about forty hours to complete. 

Pardon me if you've heard the story before, but this was when the Portland, Oregon LDS temple was being built and our family had been asked to contribute $200 to the building fund. It seemed like a fortune at the time, because Jeff was earning very little money and it was all we could do to pay the basic bills. I was working at a restaurant as a hostess, doing childcare, and also sewing for my friend. I couldn't think how we were going to come up with the money. Then my friend asked me to sew this wedding dress for some promotional thing she was doing. I charged her $200. Which, in retrospect, was too little money, but it was before I had gained a healthy respect for the value of my time. And it did solve the problem.

The strip of blue heart fabric is from Daisy Kingdom dresses that I made for Bethany and Annie one Easter. I still have the dresses, but apparently they are not stylish enough for today's girls.

They were considered to be very fashionable at the time, is all I'm saying.

So, the quilt is finished, just in time to be put in the mail for a very precious little boy.

And I am thankful for the sewing teachers that taught me, at the grand ago of twelve and thirteen, to use a sewing machine. And the kind lady from church who taught me, on a few Saturday mornings, some handy short-cuts and skills that have stayed with me all these years. 

It changed my life, in a good way.

Day 21: I am an Amazon fan

Try saying that five times fast.

I have become, of late, an online shopper.

Specifically, an Amazon shopper.

I can find everything I need, at a better price, and I don't have to drive around in the weather and traffic. 

Tonight, thanks to my favourite frugal website, I found this Richard Scarry game and a set of books, which was just what I needed to finish up my Christmas shopping for a couple of precious grandchildren.

Total cost: $0.00.

I paid for them with my Discover Card Cashback Bonus.

And shipping was free.

But if I hadn't spent over $25, it would have been free anyway, because of my free month of Amazon Prime that came with the Kindle Fire that I bought on a lightning deal a couple of weeks ago.

And that Kindle is already filled with free books that I found on that same frugal website.

And my house is full of smoke detectors that came in a contractor's six-pack.

And my minimalist shoes (most of which came from my favourite shoe website, 6pm.com)  are all fitted with Pedag metatarsal pads that I bought by the dozen on Amazon for much less than my podiatrist charged.

And the Lego man flashlights that we gave the grandkids for Christmas last year (bought on Amazon, of course) are replenished with lithium batteries that cost mere pennies compared to the local stores.

And Bethany and I will both be drying foods all season next year, thanks to a sale on Nesco dehydrators.

And you know those lovely Silpat baking mats that cost a fortune from Demarle? Found some Made in American ones for $5 a piece that will make some nice gifts for my Kiwi friends.

So yes, you might say that I am thankful for Amazon these days.

You can call me the Amazon Queen.

Or Queen of the Amazon.

Have you made any grand purchases on Amazon lately?

Or do you have any favourite websites that you would like to share with the rest of us?

Day 20: Truth in advertising

Today, after a very trying day (which I will tell you about soon, whether you want me to or not), Sam, my witty piano student, sat industriously scribbling away at something while his little brother was having his piano lesson.

Noah and I were playing lots of duets today, as you can see.

I am thankful that Sam very kindly didn't make my behind as copious as he should have if he were being truthful.

And I am thankful that all five of today's aspiring piano players were as sweet as could be, or we might have had a repeat of the tears that followed my altercation with Western Union customer no-service this morning.

How's that for a teaser?

Do you even care?

Day 19: I heard the bells

Sometimes I just need an excuse to post cool pictures of cool things.

Take these here bells.

Every Christmas season for the last several years, I've had the most fun experience of participating in a bell choir. As a piano player, life can be lonely at times, in a musical way of speaking, which is one of the reasons I sometimes give group lessons to my piano students. 

So ringing bells with a group of music-makers is particularly satisfying to me.

And this year, for the first time, Bethany is ringing too, so it is even better.

The music this year is more challenging than usual and we have thirteen ringers, so practices have been frequent and long. I do love a challenge.

But the hardest thing, as usual, will be not grimacing when I make a mistake.

Because you know I will.

Make a mistake.

So today, I am thankful for friends who have indulgent husbands who buy them very expensive sets of bells.

And who let me play with them.