Lego mania

I find the Lego phenomenon to be quite interesting. If you do a quick Google, you can see grown people who own thousands of Lego bricks and spend every spare moment designing and building their creations. There are movies, theme parks, clubs, robots, magazines, video games, and more things Lego than I will ever see in my lifetime.

And cakes.

This may not be the worst ever Lego cake, but I have Googled them and it is in the top 10. 

Little Jeff turned seven this week and his mom, of course, is throwing him the party of the century right at this very moment. She asked me to make the cake and I happily assented. "How hard can a Lego cake be," I foolishly thought to myself.

Well, let me tell you.

It was not easy.

I probably put four hours into the creation. Luckily, each brick improved upon the last, learning as I went along. And I am on my second load of dishes in the dishwasher.

What I want to know is, who is it that writes all the logos on each little Lego brick?

Whoever is is, they don't get paid enough.

I was very relieved to deliver this, while dodging large raindrops, to the party venue, only ten minutes late. I said to Jeff (the big one) when I got home, "Why do I always time things to the last minute? Do you remember when I used to be frantically hemming the prom dress when the date arrived to pick up our daughters?" "Yes, I do," he replied. "Why didn't you just buy the prom dress?"

He forgets the extreme cost of a ready-made prom dress, along with the fact that you can't find a modest prom dress this side of Utah.

Wait. Where was I? 

Oh yes. Lego cake.

I remember some school friends owning Legos when I was growing up in England. I thought they were the best things ever and I wanted some of my own. Did you know that Lego is a Danish company and the word is an abbreviation of "leg godt," which means "play well." The company was founded in 1932 and is now owned by a grandchild of the founder. 

The Lego brick as we know it today was created in 1958, which means that I encountered it in its infancy. This is a good link to the history of the toy, if you are interested.

Legos are hardy, you can mix and match them, they foster the imagination, and they don't have large boobs and tiny waists, like some other iconic toys.

We have a big bin of them in our family room and they more than earn their floor space. 

So I say Long Live Legos! 

Happy May!

I love this time of year, when everything "comes up roses" with very little effort or thought on my (the gardener's) part. I wandered around the garden and immediate neighbourhood the other afternoon and took some photos, looking for the bits of beauty that were everywhere.

I have been waiting for these lily-of-the-valley bulbs to flower for several years and this year they finally came through. I love them.

When we built this house 26 years ago, one of the first trees we bought was a pink dogwood. It turned out to be a big disappointment, with insipid blooms that opened after the leaves sprouted, and it never inspired devotion. So, a few years ago, we replaced it with a Japanese maple tree, which turned out to be a much happier planting.

I was very glad when our neighbours planted this gorgeously dark pink dogwood tree right in front of their house so that I could enjoy it. I know they did it just for me! It is a beauteous sight every April.

And I snuck this shot of a forget-me-not in their flowerbed, just because I have always enjoyed their unassuming little flowers.

Pink hardy geranium, a trusty bloomer.

Our lilac met the same fate as our dogwood (bad shrubbery behaviour will not be tolerated in the Osborne garden) but this one is at the house on the corner and seems to be very contented.

I've been having a love affair with huechera lately. They are a reliable pop of colour almost all year long.

Don't know what this is, but it's in one of my flowerbeds so I must have planted it. 

My friend Lori gave me a bagful of bluebells last year and I am enjoying their blooms this year. There are white, blue, and lilac-coloured flowers.

This bed of hostas is one of my most well-behaved parts of the garden.

Well done, hostas! 

Grape flowers. I love the hint of red in the leaves.

I managed to keep the blueberry bushes alive another year. I think their their little blossoms are adorable.

The scarlet rhubarb stalks are just begging to be picked and turned into something yummy.

The berry vines are rampant this year. These are raspberries.

The marionberry buds are very different to the raspberries.

The kiwis are putting on lots of flowers. They still haven't produced any fruit, but I now know how to tell a male from a female flower, so this year I will be able to tell if we have two of the same sex, which would explain the dearth of fruit.

Hints of strawberries of summer.

This isn't a great photo, but I love this huechera flower, also known as coral bells, because hummingbirds visit them in the evening and I adore them.

These irises are outside the senior centre. I won't have them in my garden because of how much space the greenery takes up all year long, but I like to admire them in other gardens.

Nothing could be finer than Oregon in the springtime!

Real food

I have always loved chicken.

I also love chickens, but that's another matter.

I remember as a child, cleaning off the chicken carcass until there was not a scrap of meat left. Dad always said we didn't need a dog in the house because we had me. I just loved meat that much. Pork crackling, chicken skin, the parson's nose, beef gristle, tongue, you name it, I slurped it up. Except for innards. I have never done innards. 

And today, my dad would be proud.

Having bought three (!) Costco rotisseried chickens on Good Friday, I was left with massive amount of which to dispose after the feast. Bethany nabbed one of the carcasses to make stock (after telling me I should clean off all the meat because she wouldn't) (but she makes her mama proud nevertheless) and I decided to try canning some good homemade stock from the other two. 

Jeff was out of town for most of last week, so I ate leftovers until Thursday, and after that I couldn't make another bite of mashed potato and chicken go past my lips.

I just couldn't.

So I threw the carcasses and some leftovers veggies and an onion into the stockpot and boiled it all for about 24 hours. The plan was to be brave and can up the stock on Friday, but the day got away from me. We were heading to the beach for a bit of a relax, so I got it all ready and put it back in the fridge.

I arose this morning and knew I was doomed to face the pressure cooker today. I could procrastinate no longer. Fear was in my heart, as it always is when I contemplate using the beast.

But darned if I didn't get it done, after talking to a couple of friends and Google and reading the manual.

And look what's sitting on my kitchen counter while seven more bubble away in the canner and Crystal Gayle plays on the stereo.

I think they are purely beautiful.

And with a bit of extra stock and some carrot water and the last of the mashed potatoes and carrots, I made some soup which I ate for lunch and will eat for lunch again tomorrow.

The only thing that would make it better is if I could share a bowl with Dad.

Easter came and went....

...and all that's left are the Cadbury mini-eggs and Lindt bunnies that I nabbed from the post-holiday sales.

Oh, and the memories. Mustn't forget the memories!

I was busy in the kitchen most of the day, so photos are sporadic. Luckily, I thought to send Jenny outside with my camera during the hunt.

I found a lady who was making these minion crocheted egg covers for only $2 each, so I had her make up seven different ones. They were a bigger hit than I expected. I love it when the grandkids are thrilled with little things.

Kenzie spent the first half of the weekend helping me make peanut butter eggs to put inside them. They were awfully yummy, covered in dark chocolate and less sweet than the Reese's variety, which I can hardly eat any more. I even came up with a peanut/milk-free version for Josh, using tahini and chocolate soy butter.

I know, I'm perfectly brilliant. 

Bethany has taken over the responsibility for the egg hunt, and Jeff and Chris hid the eggs. Madelyn got to find some eggs before the general melee of the other six hitting the turf. I think she quite enjoyed it! 

She had missed her nap and was on the grumpy side, hence the binkie in the mouth.

Desperate times call for desperate measures!

Don't you love the looks of longing on the faces of the older kids?

Pardon the brown, dead grass. The lawn and I had a long conversation about its proliferation of dandelions and rogue grasses, and the lawn lost.

There commenced an overabundance of sugar inhalation.

Before dinner.

Stickiness and elation abounded.

It was better than Halloween. 

I had the ingenious idea of buying Costco rotisserie chickens for dinner, which worked out rather well. I bought them on Friday and they reheated wonderfully. Cheaper, easier, and more delicious than just about anything.

These are some bug-shaped gluten/dairy-free rolls I made for Josh and Bethany.

I'm getting the hang of this stuff.

Hope your Easter celebration was full of good memories.

Married to amazement

Three very dear friends of mine have passed from this earth in the last few months, all younger than I and after long illnesses. News of the passing of other acquaintances is becoming a regular topic of conversation in my circles of friends. Each one leaves a hole in the fabric of my life, so that sometimes I feel I am unraveling. 

Not that I want to make their deaths all about me, you understand. 

It's just that sometimes I wonder, Why not me?

Maybe next time it will be me. Or the time after that. 

And I think that maybe I should live differently, with an eye to eternity, instead of today. And I want to give away money and be nicer to the annoying survey person on the phone or my husband when he irritates me or the person next to me in line at the supermarket, who reeks of cigarette smoke and is coughing all over me.

On Monday, on a whim, I started to clear out a big pile of newspaper and magazine articles that I have accumulated over the years. Home improvement, gardening, crafts, recipes, and all kinds of useful tips. Most of them were pre-internet, because nowadays a simple bookmark will do the trick. I feel a need to clear out the unimportant, so that when my girls have to decide what to keep and what to toss, they will only be greeted with beautiful and useful things. 

Somehow, it doesn't feel morbid, just another way of being prepared. 

The book club at our local library read poetry this month instead of fiction. I chose a collection of Mary Oliver's, remembering this poem that impressed me a few years ago. I only read the first few poems, but this one I love, particularly the line, "all my life I was a bride married to amazement."

That's how I want to be.

When Death Comes

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

when death comes 

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common 

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, 

tending, as all music does, toward silence,  

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, 

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.