All The Year Through

Micah LOVES Christmas songs and sings them all year long. Whenever the chance for a concert from Bepa pops up he is sure to request a great number of Christmas carols. He is also fascinated with the guitar, and has recently begun to sing while strumming... or beating it like a drum!

He even dedicates them. This one is for you, Grandma Marmie! xxoo

Bye Bye Birdie?

Yay! The siding is done! Lucas began some time ago, if you remember, until Old Man Winter showed up and it became too cold outside to finish. This year, with that in mind, he hired two guys to help finish up before winter blew back in, and they did a great job.
However, they were interrupted by snow at least twice! (I think Winter is trying to sneak through early this year!) There is just one problem. It seems the dormers have the birds confused. Is it because we have quite a few farms on our quiet road, or that the dormers somehow resemble a barn to these poor, little guys? We're not sure, but at least three so far have smacked into them since they've been finished. No fatalities. Whew. Can you imagine? Enough of this and the bird union will blacklist our house for sure! Guess we'll have to set out seeds as a good will offering. But not, I'm told, until the bears go into hibernation, unless we want to find one of those on the porch!

Papas Peruvian Style

As soon as she discovered we were moving in, Juana was making plans. "I will cook for you," she said, and immediately set about finding just the right recipe. "How about giving us a cooking lesson," I asked, thinking that I'd better tell Fran and Shanti. They'd want to learn too. We've known each other since we enrolled our children in the same charter school a few years ago. Juana is one of our favorite teachers. Plus, it would be great for the kids!
So, to the sound of Peruvian music (thanks to playlist.com) we learned a few steps to a traditional dance, and prepared Papas Rellenas with garlic rice and homemade salsa. Apparently, there are lots of different ways to make these potatoes, but Juana's version included boiled eggs and raisins. What a lot of work goes into the preparation!
First you boil and mash potatoes, and boil and slice eggs. While you wait for these things to cool enough to handle, (Yep... with your hands) you brown and crumble ground beef and diced onions and a garlic clove together. Once these are fully cooked, you add the raisins, and any spices you want (Juana couldn't find the Peruvian ones she wanted, so we improvised with chili powder) and put it in the oven to keep warm.
For a side dish, fry dry rice, diced onions, a small, crushed garlic clove, and 2 tsp of oil in a pan until it begins to look toasty and add water to cook like you normally would.
By this time, the taters should be ready to roll! You pat a large, palm sized amount like you might a burger patty, spoon the meat mixture in the middle and form the mashed potato around it. It looks almost the size of a baked potato. Then, you dip it first in raw, whisked eggs, then flour, and fry it in a pan of oil. Put them on a cookie sheet in the oven to keep warm while you make a quickie salsa of chopped onions, tomatoes, and a little lemon juice or extra virgin olive oil. Put a few leaves of big green lettuce on the side of a plate, load it up, and you're all set! Boy, does this meal stick to the ribs!
Afterward, we sat like stuffed turkeys on the couch (mostly, I think, because it was hard to move, ha ha ha!!) and watched footage of Peru, from busy cities, with barely any green, to beautiful countrysides, and the lush rain forest.
Before braving the snow that had begun to fall (I Know! In October!) Juana left me with the considerably detailed recipe card. I'd better brush up on Spanish! A little help, Seth?

Banged Up Blessings

"Keep your mind on the task at hand." I can't count how many times I've bestowed this little nugget o' wisdom on the eldest boy. Funny how it is so easy to share advice, and not follow it! Monday morning, as Seth practiced violin and Micah was at school/therapy, I thought I'd slip out onto the unfinished porch and give Lucas a hand with his current project. As we cleared bits of wood, debris, and snippets of vinyl siding, I shifted into "auto mode" while thinking about everything other than what I should have been doing. That is, until I stepped on the edge of a board that was not screwed down. In true Tom -n- Jerry fashion, up the back of the board flew and popped me in the biscuits, knocking one leg through the studs. The other twisted strangely, my knee catching another stud with a wham! Aaaaaaooooooow! My knight in shining armor rushed over to see me dangling eight feet from the ground like a broken puppet. Making a bridge with a piece of OSB, he hauled me, myself, and my crumpled pride up to assess the damage.
By the time I made it to the couch, I looked and if I'd grown three extra knee caps! (EEEEEEEEEWWW!)
We dropped Seth off with grandma and rushed to the ER. What a strange blur of thoughts flew through my mind then! "What if it is broken...Now this house will never get done...How will I take care of the kids and Micah's needs...Suck it up, Micah has been through way more than this...Remember Souad, the girl who was lit on fire by extremist family members and survived... (a book I'd recently read).. Don't be wimpy!" I prayed for my leg and everyone under the sun I could think of that has been hurt recently... or might have been hurt... or could be hurt in the future!
It has been a few days now. With the urgency of the situation over, it is easy to see the blessings in it all. Lucas was off work and able to take care of me, both during and after. (Though he may be looking forward to heading back to work after his brief exposure to mommy life!) There are no broken bones, and I've been able to kick back, put my foot up, and recuperate with some computer/reading therapy. Plus, a long, uncomfortable trip with my leg on the dashboard of the car yesterday while we took Micah to his Shriner and Gillette visits, helped me gain more empathy for Micah's aches and pains, and a greater appreciation for Lucas and Seth who have lovingly picked up the slack. And that pesky, twisted knee? It kept me from crashing through those boards to what might have been something worse. God works in mysterious ways!

Movin' On Down The Road!!

The time has come! It started as a trickle, a few boxes brought over here and there. Then after a visit from the inspector, the tide brought in the rest with some help from the world's most wonderful neighbors. At least the constant rain made it feel as though the tide had a hand in it. A prayer went up when we got to the heavy duty stuff one afternoon, and amazingly, the rain stopped just in time to load the furniture and squeak it through the door! So, with one floor pretty much finished, the Greene family packed up and moseyed on over the hill looking just a little too much like the Clampits! (All we needed was Grandma sitting in a rocking chair on the roof!) Without the distraction (addiction) of the internet, we've had the chance to settle in a bit before swinging the hammer once again.

Thank you Audrey, Royce, Kathy, and especially John (for helping out a family you didn't even know) and thank you, God, for such sweet brothers and sisters and for our precious home!!!!!!!

Round Two

The little boxer stands in front of a mirror in nothing but undies and cowboy boots. He runs his fingers through a shock of red hair, then adopts his best "put 'em up" stance with the "Rocky" theme song blaring on Daddy's record player.

He flexes his teeny muscles and yells "YO!" Daddy throws Jay over his shoulder , spinning him around before they collapse in a heap of laughter. Then Daddy grabs his karate uniform and speeds out the door, but not before a quick glance in the same mirror to check his Fu Manchu.

A few years later, Daddy hammers boards and carries shingle bundles to the roof as if they were nothing, intent on building a sturdy home for his family. Little sister falls asleep on a carpet rolls to the sound of hammering and the smell of saw dust. Late in the evenings, Rachie pretends to stay sleeping, just to feel Superman carry her to the car.

It is amazing how, in our minds, our parents stay the same. We kind of take for granted that they will continue to do the same things they've been able to do forever until the end of time. Dad's rooftop days were over the day he fell from one head first in 2005. Still, after two major head injuries, many bouts with pneumonia and several surgeries, Rocky (Yes. His real name!) gets back up, shakes himself off, and goes another round.

The latest is round two with a tumor, the first in the colon, this second in his stomach. Seth and Micah snuggle with him Sunday in the hospital room watching Star Wars and giggling at his jokes. Soon we wait outside the room as it takes three nurses to help him to the bathroom. Once he's settled safely into a chair, we head back in for goodbyes before a two hour car ride. There is a lot of time for reflection on the way home. Really there isn't a lot of difference in strength, it is just in a different place. It has shifted to his spirit. He may not be able to go round after round in a ring, but he sure can go round after round in the hospital. Yo, Cancer! Put 'em up!

A City Mouse Tale

Grandma is in the kitchen, surrounded by all of the preparations: something that looks like a shortened baseball bat with a knob at the top, a sieve (complete with stand) a paring knife, four five gallon buckets 'o apples, and a pressure cooker the size of Robbie the Robot. Three large kettles already bubble happily on the stove when she gets a call. A family member is in the hospital for unexpected surgery. She looks at me and I know. She needs to go, and I'm on sauce duty. Okay. I've peeked over at her apple smooshing operations a time or two while cutting the stem and belly button from the apples (Don't make fun! I'm talking about the thing on the bottom of the apple!) The paring knife, I'm comfortable with. It's just those other things...

Alright. The apples are ready. So you dump them in the sieve like this? Then smoosh 'em like that? Cool! It's working. I've got this! Pour them into the quart jars, trim more apples while the others boil. Get a little routine going and the jars fill up one by one. Success! Except Robbie is staring at me from the stove, trying to intimidate. It's working! I glance at the crusty old cook book with no covers on it. You have to do what? For how many minutes? I think Micah's calling me. And don't the boys need lunch? Let's take a break.

Boys are fed and settle in to do other things. The army of jars on the counter wait for new orders. Shouldn't they be taking turns boiling away by now in that hunk of metal? I just can't bring myself to try it alone. What if it explodes? I'm pretty sure years ago somebody told me that could happen. Better leave it to the professionals. I smoosh more apples.

It is early afternoon. Grandma breezes back, eyes searching her kitchen for any signs of destruction. She smiles at me, at the army, and at the robot, relieved.

The city mouse steps aside and the very capable country mouse takes over!