A couple of weeks ago I was trying to find my laminator pouches so I could laminate some stuff for one of my co-op classes. I looked in the cedar chest because I wondered if I’d stuck them in there (for some unknown reason). I came across a couple of letters that my dad wrote to his mom, my granny. He was writing from the hospital when he was in the Army in the 50’s. I wondered why he was in the hospital. I could ask him, I suppose, but we don’t really have much of a relationship nowadays.

Then… I came across a letter he wrote me almost 18 years ago, just a couple of weeks after my first son was born – so hormones were raging and I was feeling overwhelmed as a new mother. I remembered what was in it. He was writing to tell me he was marrying the woman that he was living with at the time. The one he cheated on my mother with. And he said he hoped I would accept it and not exclude her from my life. Oh, how I wept when I got that letter… rocked my baby and wept. It was awful. And then I cried again when I found the letter. I keep my distance from both my father and his wife but I have seen her a few times over the years and we even let them stay with us once when they were visiting us. But I really don’t like her much. Him either, I guess. Which begs the question – why am I typing this through my tears when I don’t even like him? For what I feel is lost? That my mother is not in very good financial shape to support herself the rest of her life without him? I sort of feel a mix of anger and sadness.

I also remember just days after my second son was born 14 years ago – my mom had been in town helping us with our 3 year old while we were in the hospital for the newborn. She abruptly left and went back home to East Texas. I thought it was kind of odd but she does that kind of thing sometimes. Well, she called me a couple of days later and told me she’d gotten married. I was so hurt that she didn’t tell me beforehand. I rocked my baby and wept… I cried and cried and didn’t talk to her for a couple of weeks – I just couldn’t because I was so upset. That marriage didn’t survive and left her in worse financial shape than she was before she married him. And I still get that mix of anger and sadness directed towards my father at this whole mess. As if it’s all his fault. I know it takes two. I know my mom’s not perfect.

I know these things in my head but I guess my heart hasn’t gotten the message.

It’s one of my favorite times – presents under the tree, stockings filled… silent night… just before we turn in for the night on Christmas Eve. And this year, it was even a white Christmas. Only thing I would have added was a fire in the fireplace, but decided against doing that at 1 a.m.

I don’t have an after shot, but just imagine no presents, empty stockings and a few miscellaneous toys on the carpet by the tree. It was a very Merry Christmas.

Being deep in trying to figure out this college thing, and being late to the party – it’s been on my mind a lot. Last night I dreamed that one of my sons got chosen to participate in a special art program. At Stanford. Hello? I don’t think of art and Stanford together (no offense to Stanford). Plus it was my 11 year old. Let’s get the 17 year old figured out first, okay?

Just need to dump some thoughts…

…I do like the new Alice in Chains song, by the way. If he didn’t have the ACT on Saturday, I’m sure my oldest would love to attend the Freaker’s Ball this Friday night. Ah well, at least he gets to play outdoor laser tag Saturday afternoon.
…it must be some sort of rite of passage that my baby is now reading Calvin & Hobbes. I felt kind of sentimental when he excitedly showed me Calvin’s Snow Man House of Horrors.
…my oldest took the SAT a week or so ago. Since he wasn’t familiar with the school location he tested at, I drove him over. I noticed a strange phenomenon around the school – one moment my cell phone would be searching for a network, and the next I would have 4-5 bars of signal strength, all while sitting in one place. I wondered if maybe the school has jammed the cell signals to keep the students from using the phones all the time… I don’t even know if that’s possible; but I love a good conspiracy theory.
…I am almost recovered from my run-in with some sort of poison plant… ivy, oak, whatever. I hope to never experience that again.

Lastly, a couple of weeks ago, we took oldest’s car to Costco because a tire had about gone flat. It was just my boys and I; my husband was out of town. We were there at suppertime so we dined at the Costco Cafe’. At one point a toddler started screaming nearby. My 17 year old said, “I’m never having kids.” My reply was, “I said that, too, about your age.” All four boys looked at me. One said, “You did not say that!” I smiled and said, “I really did, you can ask Grandma. But see how that turned out?” My youngest (age 6) was pretty concerned so I assured him that I was very glad I had all of my children. When I was in my late teens I never would have imagined this life. If you’d have told me I would have laughed my head off at the notion. I’m glad I changed my mind.

We are planning to go to the State Fair of Texas this week (note:  It is not called the Texas State Fair – this is one of my pet peeves as a Dallas native, lol).  Anyway, we would like to catch the light rail in Plano and ride the train down to Fair Park.  But I cannot figure out DART.  At least when I tried last night it was making no sense. Maybe today I can look at it and something will be revealed.   I did actually google “dart for dummies” but there were no hits related to Dallas Area Rapid Transit.

We may end up just driving ourselves there.  One way or another, I am having a Fletcher’s Corny Dog!  I am thinking I’ll pass on the Deep Fried Butter, though.  Fat fried in fat?  LOL.  Oh, and I am also planning to shell out the bucks for all 6 of us to ride the Texas Star – I have no idea how much it costs these days but it’s a treat for which I’m willing to splurge.  I’d rather ride that than all the other Midway rides put together.

My son wanted marble cake for his 11th birthday yesterday.  In the past I’ve done them by pouring one flavor batter in a pan, then pour another flavor around in it, then cutting it with a knife to marble it.  Results haven’t been too impressive.  So I did a little googling Monday and found this recipe.  The recipe included several ingredients that were foreign to me and seeing as I needed to bake it that night I decided to enlist the help of Betty.  Betty Crocker, that is. But I did use the technique described in that recipe for putting the batter in the pans.  Mine isn’t quite as cool as hers, but we were pleased with the psychedelic results we achieved.

I used 2 mixes – one was Butter Recipe yellow and the other was Milk Chocolate.  I used 2 9×2 round baking pans, so each pan held the equivalent of an entire mix.  This extended the baking time by about 20 minutes.  I had to trim the tops off the cakes but it is still a very tall cake.

Thank you to snappytreats for posting that recipe and technique!

Well, I have 2 quests right now.  One is to find the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever.  The second is to find the best brownie recipe ever.  My stipulation for brownies is that I want them to taste like the boxed kind but without all the ingredients I can’t pronounce. I want fudgy, dense – not cake-like, but want them to taste like the box mix.  That may be impossible.

The thorn in my side with chocolate chip cookies is that they spread flat.  I have a couple of recipes to try, one from Baking Illustrated.  I think part of the problem is that I use butter and not shortening.  I know there has got to be a recipe that works with butter.  I use shortening in pastry crust and biscuits, that’s it.  I have read a bit that the temperature of the butter can impact the spreading so I will be working on that – the Baking Illustrated recipe also uses an extra egg yolk and all brown sugar.

My preference is Ghirardelli semi-sweet chips and the store was OUT of them today.  I was ticked!  I had to settle for Hershey’s.  Bah.  I did pick up a Ghirardelli bittersweet bar that I might chop up and add to the next experiment.   Both Costco and Sam’s had only Nestle’ for semi-sweet.  Sam’s had Ghirardelli bittersweet chips but I really prefer semi-sweet.

At least my family puts up with my experiments, even when my cookies are flat.  I really want a cookie. Now.

…when the phone rings and it’s my 17 year old who’s out driving somewhere.  Unless I’m expecting him to call, my thoughts are immediately, “Is it car trouble?  Is it an accident?”  This morning he was on his way to the community college and called to tell me he heard on the radio that today is the 19th anniversary of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s death.  I’m glad he wants to tell me little things like that, and won’t ever tell him not to call.  And I guess if he is calling me himself, I should be glad because if things were really bad, he wouldn’t be the one calling with bad news, right? Someday I’ll probably be wishing he would call more!

Hopefully my heartrate will slow down soon, though.  Looking ahead to the future, I probably have many more years of my heart pounding when the phone rings seeing as I have 4 boys and the youngest is only 6 years old.

I took my baby (he’s 6) to a local emergency room today.  He was screaming in pain, it was on the left side.  He couldn’t walk, it hurt so much.  I should also mention he had surgery last Wednesday on his eyes so there was part of me wondering if he had some sort of systemic infection.  So I carried him to the car and carried him in the building, and carried him to the exam room, the x-ray room, the bathroom… I carried all 64 pounds of him.

But that’s not the mama bear part.  While the doctor was probing around his abdomen, my crying son touched the doctor’s hands – I imagine he wanted the doctor to cut it out.  The doctor, in a rude tone, said, “Don’t. Touch. Me.”  I think some sound came out of my throat, probably “Hmph.”  Really, I was stunned.  And appalled.

At that point, I just wanted to snatch up my baby and go elsewhere.  But he was in pain and I wanted to know more as soon as possible.  After the x-ray, the doctor thought it might be constipation and wanted to give him a suppository to induce… well, you know.  Then if he wasn’t feeling better he’d do blood work.  I decided against the suppository because I know my son is very regular and the x-ray didn’t show anything unusual.

When I said no to that, the doctor got up and headed out the door saying he’d get my discharge paperwork.  I said, “I’m not finished yet.”  “Pardon me?” he asked.   Ha.  I told him I did want the blood work done.  He did agree to do it.  When the nurse was drawing the blood she inquired why I had not done the suppository and I told her why and also told her I wasn’t pleased with the doctor’s examination of my son.

The blood work turned out fine and we were discharged.  But we were not given the customer satisfaction survey we normally get when we leave this facility.  Funny, huh?  Guess what, I found an email address for their customer service department and was able to give them feedback anyway.

My son feels fine now, probably it was constipation (like I’ve never seen before in a child!) and I am grateful.  But I will think twice before using that place again.

Dropping people off at Love Field takes longer than DFW from my neck of the woods.   I will say, if you gotta go to Love Field, 5 a.m. on a Saturday means no traffic.  However, 5 a.m. on a Saturday means waking up before 5 a.m. and I don’t do that well.  Pickup will be a weekday at 3:30 pm.  I expect traffic but hopefully will get outta there before rush hour.  *yawn*  Need.more.coffee.