So – Scott and I took a much-needed, 5 night, break and drove to
McCall, Idaho (north of Boise) for what was supposed to be a stay in a cabin on
a lake. Ha! The cabin was nice, the lake was across the street, but we couldn’t
see it from the cabin because of the bigger cabins on the lake-side, the beach
was a dingy dirty rocky sandy little area, the water had receded, so the
dock that was so beautiful in the pictures was on dry ground, surrounded by
muck! And then, to make matters worse, the area was covered in smokey haze from
fires all around, so we couldn’t even see the lake or the mountains. And –
Scott and I both got sick with stomach flu day 2. And – well, it wasn’t the
dream mountain vacation I was hoping for!
Thank heavens Scott and I have both been through enough hard
times in our lives to recognize and realize that we didn’t need to make this
any tougher on ourselves than it already was. “When life
gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Well, sometimes making lemonade is
impossible, so you just have to accept that there are going to be lemony, sour,
pucker up days, and roll with it, and we did: thank goodness the bed was comfy, there was a
DVD player and a video store nearby, we had cold cereal to eat, and there were toilets that flushed and running water. And really,
there wasn’t anything we could do but just make it through our situation.
However, last night we decided that since we have a busy
week this week, no sense in arriving home tired on Monday evening, so we
drove home today, using our day off tomorrow to really rest for the
week. Good decision! We're unpacked, wash is happening, stomach is still deciding where it's rolling, and life. goes. on.
I guess my “and thus we say,” or moral to my story is – sometimes
you’re the windshield (or lemonade), sometimes you’re the bug (or lemon); but
regardless, I've learned, and continue to learn, rolling with our circumstances, rather than fighting them, can be a
good way to go!
And - we had a safe, warm, dry, happy home to come home to. Praying for those who want similar.
Five years ago this week - whew, although I'm feeling a little anxiety today. So I'm taking the week off to "ommmm." In the meantime, I found this bit of good news - Triple negative breast cancers tend to recur within a few years and when they recur, prognosis is usually poor. However, because triple negative breast cancers tend to recur early, if a woman survives five years without a recurrence, her chances of survival are high. Once the five years are over, TNBC cancer rarely relapses, and a person can feel confident that they’ve been victorious over their cancer. In celebration - this -
Founder & CEO of The Representation Project, Filmmaker of ‘Miss Representation’ & ‘The Mask You Live In’, Mom of 4, Married to Gavin Newsom08/30/2017 08:47 pm ET
The Problem With Melania Isn’t Her Shoes
Her silence, not her stilettos, should be of concern to us all.
NICHOLAS KAMM VIA GETTY IMAGES
I don’t care what Melania wears, I care what Melania does.
I don’t care if Melania walks in stilettos, I care if she uses her platform to defend sexual assault as “boy talk.”
I don’t care when her portrait is airbrushed, I care when she says she will fight cyberbullying but instead continues to stand by the biggest cyberbully in her own backyard.
I don’t care when her hat says FLOTUS, I care that she is FLOTUS ― that she uses one of the more powerful positions in the world to do anything productive, save promote her personal brand and line her personal pocketbook.
I do understand the instinct to critique her, whenever and however possible. Her husband is a morally repugnant and dangerous leader, and she stands by him, silently waving, smiling, and normalizing his despicable behavior. My spirit was crushed when I realized that my four young children would grow up with him as our president instead of one of the smartest, most accomplished, and experienced women in politics. And Melania as First Lady is setting a terrible example for my daughters. She is passive when we want her to be substantive, an object when we want her to be an agent, and prejudiced when we want her to be inclusive. And so I too want to poke holes in her carefully manipulated image. But I refuse to do that by commenting on her footwear.
Because when our critiques of Melania focus on her appearance, we play right into her and Trump’s hands. We are complicit in their worldview that demands women act mostly as prized possessions, in a Barbie-esque package, who speak only on script. And when we judge one woman in power on superficial terms, we make it acceptable to judge anywoman on those same terms. And that has real world consequences for how we see and value women - and how women see and value themselves.
So, David Joy's writing is refreshing, irritating, laughable, gritty, and pure Southern. I found him on The Bitter Southerner, and his story about his grandfather had me laughing and hurting.
Give this young man a try; his "Blessed are the White Trash," certainly applies to others besides those living in the South.
And while you're at it, read "My Mother Wasn't White Trash," found at This Appalachia Life, and Hillbilly Elegy, a controversial memoir by young JD Vance.
With this quality of writing coming from young Southern men, the likes of Faulkner, McCarthy, Berry, Bragg, Ferris, are living on in these young men - strong material comes from a strong love and dislike for family, region, community, culture.
I'm always drawn to Southern raw/real/romantic writers - I think the portion of me that still longs for the life I left in the South, and the life I discovered while living there, lives on, vicariously, in pieces such as these.
One of my favorite book titles
is, Today I Baled the Hay to Feed the Sheep the Coyotes Ate. Interesting
isn’t it! A rancher/farmer works so hard to take care of his sheep, and in the
end, the coyotes love his sheep as much as he does!
Today, I baked nearly 10 dozen
muffins – blueberry raspberry ones and zucchini chocolate chip ones. I also
made nearly 2 dozen lemon ricotta pancakes. All are filled with extra protein.
Why? To freeze and feed Scott and myself for a few weeks of breakfast, to share
with our neighbors, and to get some healthy
breakfasts into my mother. Scott also husked, cooked, and de-corned a dozen
heads of corn, to freeze for use this winter.
What does our undertaking today
have to do with the book title? Sometimes what we think we’re doing for
ourselves is really for someone else, and they benefit just as much, or more,
from our service as we do. In fact, cooking today was a joy, because service
was at the root of it all. I wonder if the farmer sang to the coyotes as he
planted his clover fields!
My father died last summer, July
5; he was a month shy of being 86. He’d been really really ill for the last 2
years of his life, and aging significantly for about 5 years. All but one of
his children, and my mother, were around his bed when he died. It was a
beautiful experience. Scott and I had the privilege of serving him, helping
care for him, those last years. In fact, one of the reasons we purchased our
home was to be close to my parents and Scott’s parents, helping them as they
aged. And now, last Sunday, I took my mother to the hospital; she was not
feeling well, and rather than “wait and see,” I took her to the ER, where she
was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was in the hospital for just 2 nights, which
was enough! She’s home now, next door, and Scott and I are caring for her, with
a little help from 2 of my sisters. Not only does she have pneumonia, but
exhaustion, dehydration, and she needs to eat better.
Hence – today I baked to feed
the people who fed me – physically, emotionally, spiritually, and who give me
the opportunity to serve. If we
listen, and if we act, we will always find ways to serve. And we are blessed in
that act – those muffins weren’t only for others, they were for Scott and me
too, and there were more than enough! (My grandmother, my mother’s mother – Geneve Jensen,
taught me that food is always best when it’s shared.)
As with nearly everything I make, cook, sew, I seldom follow the recipe exactly. Hence - 1/2 white flour, 1/2 whole wheat, less sugar, raspberries with the blueberries, no glaze because then I can't freeze them, pumpkin pie seasoning rather than only cinnamon, chocolate chips too. For both recipes, to increase the protein in the muffins, I added extra eggs or egg whites and unflavored vegetable-based protein powder. For the zucchini bread, bake muffins for 20 minutes.
