Mothers Day, Mother's Day, Mothers' Day

It really is all about the apostrophe, isn't it? Is it a day for just the one mother, or all mothers? They say it is a "made up" holiday, similar to Valentine's Day, just a reason for the Hallmark company to make money. But, as a mother, I'm all for acknowledging all that we do. My daughter and I had a laugh last night at the supper table, unfortunately at my husband's expense, how he was unable to listen to the song that was playing and at the same time listen to the question I was asking. Multitasking is just such as way of existing for women that we take it for granted that everyone has that skill. It's not even a skill, really. I think every mom out there is able to accomplish a task while thinking about the six other things she either needs to purchase, complete, remind to, or ask about later that day.


My family has done themselves proud this morning. The fact that the two teenagers got out of bed to watch me open presents and read their cards is in itself a miracle. (They have both since gone back to bed!). Because Mother's Day falls in May, I often receive gardening type gifts, which are always used and appreciated. This year I received not one, but two pruners. I am always on the hunt for the ultimate set of garden clippers because I destroy about one a season. I am so tired of crappy tools and other consumer goods. So I now have two Fiskars on my kitchen table. I have high hopes.

Also, another favourite present has been porch sets (chairs, settees, tables, benches, etc). This year I received a bistro set of folding wooden chairs and a table. This is a good thing because our bistro set from maybe three years ago has started to shred and unravel, although the table is still in good shape and will likely go live somewhere else on the property.

My daughter picked out a rabbit statue for me, very heavy, concrete and absolutely adorable. I am a big fan of rabbits. I love old illustrations of rabbits from story books or greeting cards, especially if the rabbits are upright and wearing clothes. I have had rabbit statues in the garden and ceramic rabbits as decorative pieces in the house. I love spotting cottontails on the property. I am not even all that upset when I discover they have chewed off various plants. Unfortunately I have been gifted deceased baby bunnies by our cat, Samson. He is so proud.

Also from my daughter was a Monty Python mug with a variety of quotes all over it from different movies and skits. I LOVE Monty Python and can be obnoxious in my quoting (complete with appropriate voice and accent). I get a great kick out a discovering a fellow Monty Python fan when a situation lends itself to a particular quote and we both end up saying it and then laughing and pointing at each other knowing exactly why we said it. (Can anyone relate?)


My son's card included the line about me "borning" him which came from when he was very young and that is how he referred to me giving birth to him. (He is now 15 and much taller than I). I find it amazing that I am the mom of a young man and a young woman. I can still conjure up the feeling of holding them after a feeding, all heavy, warm and slightly sloshy. It's only been a few years now that I've stopped swaying while waiting in a grocery line. (You know, that bouncy sway that all of us moms did for years while holding our children).


This year, my husband had difficulty booking a place for supper for two reasons. First, our favourite place is now retiring as of this weekend, so it was fully booked quite a long time ago. Secondly, he (and I) have been exhaustingly busy making arrangements to get his own mother (who is now suffering from dementia, but is physically well) into a senior's apartment quite close to us. So, I actually have no problem being the supper maker tonight for the four of us. I picked up short ribs at the grocery store yesterday and I do them in a Dutch oven. They come out fall-apart tender and delicious!! Other wonderful things will be done for me, so making supper is easy. There is a surprise dessert in the "spare fridge" which I am not allowed to look at.


I sometimes listen to my younger female colleagues talk about the goings-on with their young children. They talk about how they worry about their illnesses, or their occasional behavior issues and I think that motherhood begins with worrying about your babe while it is still ensconced in your own body and the worrying never stops. I still fret over them now that they are 15 and 19. When they are feeling unwell, you want to make it go away. When they are upset over friendship issues, or they do poorly on an assignment, or they drive away by themselves, you just want everything to be o.k. But hopefully you have done your job to give them the self-confidence and strength to get through things. We have tried to raise our children to think for themselves and be their own people. We have tried to be their parents, not their "friends". That's not to say we are unloving and standoffish, but instead, we know how to say no and to stick to it. Our children have experienced delayed gratification whereby they had to wait for something they wanted. Our children have been required to help out without the promise of money when they were done. (You do chores because you are part of this family, not because you are getting paid). And in the end, they have both turned out to be really great kids. They are kind, funny, intelligent, caring, independent, mature, goofy, sweet kids.


So, I am off to do some more gardening today, my favourite way to spend a weekend. I will get help to dig out and lift and very big "ugly" hydrangea from its current spot to a not yet decided new spot. I want a different shrub there. One that is more showy and colourful which will show up better from the road and be enjoyed while sitting at my new bistro set on the front porch.


Enjoy your mother's day and well done on all the things you do!

Western Sky

Sometimes the sunsets we see are so incredibly, breathtakingly beautiful. It's hard to capture their true essence with a camera. And then, inevitably, the husband chimes in with, "Red sky at night, sailor's delight."  (sigh)

Only took me 15 years

So, the other weekend, the weather finally felt warm enough to get outside and clean up the yard and the gardens. We have a pretty big property (one acre) and this job takes some time, especially if I didn't cut perennials back well in the fall. I did cut some perennials back, but not all of them. And, our great big old spruce tree had issues throughout the winter months. I have no idea why, but huge amounts of branches, leaves (?), clusters of needles dropped off the tree. So much dropped off, that when the snow melted, it looked like a green carpet out on the lawn (which was dormant brown). I do not know if it was related to the horrendous winter we had or not, but the tree itself seems perfectly healthy. As well, the usual amount of spruce cones also came down.




Much of this ended up in one of my long perennial beds that follows the line of a rail fence. It was quite a job raking all of this up, but I completed it in a weekend. The following weekend, I tackled more of it (other side of the rail fence, and another perennial bed, in front of my east-facing porch). Not only do I rake and get rid of dead leaves, but I also cut back perennials and shrubs. I am pretty ruthless with shrubs because they usually end up being more lush and full and wonderful after a severe hair cut. So, I cut back a lot of spireas. I really like them for their lovely pink blooms in the summer.

Spirea with a bit more trimming to go.

How it works at my place is that stuff gets burned. We have a burn pile. It used to be a burn barrel, but with all the construction my husband does around the place, renovations, and my gardening, we generate a lot of burnable scraps and dead/ dried vegetation. However the burn pile is at the other end of the property, so that means a whole lot of loading into a wheelbarrow, pushing the wheelbarrow, dumping the wheelbarrow, repeat.




Sometimes I can use the 15 year old who is stronger and has more energy than I, but at other times he is unavailable, or I think, "C'mon woman, consider this a workout!" (Which it is!!). But what is more annoying than the actual physicality of it, is the tendency for plant materials to bounce around, shift around, and fall out as you are pushing a half acre away, so then you have to bend over and pick stuff up, or gather it all up later. Or, a good gust of wind comes along and blows the top half of the load off. This drives me nuts and I have done things like try to push with one hand while holding the load in place with the other, use a piece of board to put it on top and weigh it down in hopes that it stays in place, or uselessly toss my clippers on top of the load thinking they are heavy enough to keep the little branches from springing out (they aren't).

Wheel barrow full and ready to fall out.

Then, in a moment of sheer brilliance, I realized I could solve this problem. I went out to the husband's garage and found the pile of old threadbare towels I give to him to use for various purposes, and two good sturdy clamps. I draped the towel over the load and then clamped it to the wheelbarrow on either side. Ta-da! I was able to push all the way to the burn pile and nothing fell out.

I've been cleaning up this property for about 15 years and it has taken me this long to come up with the mind blowing concept of a towel and clamps. Imagine what I might accomplish in another 15 years!

When to deconstruct Christmas?

Christmas is one of those big events that takes a lot of planning and preparation leading up to the big day. Then the big day happens in a flurry, but you are too busy to genuinely be part of things and really relax and enjoy it. In a short time, the day is over and you are left sitting, tired, and wondering what happened.

Christmas was very nice here. Christmas day was spent quietly with just the four of us and a ham. The next day, Boxing Day, was spent with 16 people mostly in the kitchen (good thing it's big enough) eating WAY too much food ahead of time and then not actually able to cram around our table even though we had two extentions on either end. (I really thought we would all fit!). The meal turned out well and I had lot of help tidying up.

But now, on December 30th, I am tempted to pack it all up. The kids are older, so it isn't like the "magic" of Christmas is the same. We are not having anyone over for New Year's Eve, so it's not like I should have decorations up for company. The giant rubbermaid bins are still upstairs, waiting to be repacked and put away for another year. Yes, it is a royal pain taking everything down, apart, packing, padding, re-labelling because they don't end up in the same boxes as last year...

How long do most people keep their Christmas decor out? I suppose it depends on how long it has already been on display. But for me, it's like the rush and exhilaration is over and now it is time to move on. It may sound a bit "grinchy", but even though we are still picking away at turkey leftovers and ham leftovers and lord knows, chocolate and cookie leftovers, I'm so done with Christmas! Anyone else feel that way?

Christmas Baking

I've spent some time doing my usual Christmas baking. One of my family's favourites starts being baked in the fall and continues throughout the winter as well. They are formally called Molasses Sugar Cookies.

Here they are laid out on baking racks to cool. The recipe that I will include makes this amount (a little less than 2 dozen depending on the size).

They are never-fail, easy to make cookies which are nice and crinkly on top and moist on the inside. I take them to the staff room for special occasions and have brought them to family Thanksgivings.

Here is the recipe:
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
additional sugar for rolling the cookie balls in

In a large mixing bowl, mix the oil, sugar, and molasses together. Add the egg and mix well. I do not bother to pre-mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, cloves and ginger and mix well. Use a teaspoon or scant tablespoon as a scooping guide, roll small ball of cookie dough in your hands, then roll in a small bowl of white sugar. Place on cookie sheet (I use parchment paper as well) in ball form. They do not need pressing down. Bake at 375 for aprx. 7-9 minutes.



In addition, I also made:


Sugar cookies which got decorated later...



These are peanut butter rice crispie squares. Enough corn syrup and peanut butter to choke a horse!

I also made the chocolate clusters made from chocolate chips, peanuts, butterscotch chips, and chowmein noodles.

Good thing not everyone is stressed over holiday baking!

Oops, he's a bit blurry! (and furry)

Danger Zone

I am entering the danger zone. (cue Kenny Loggins). This is the time where I am now off work for a bit, and I am questioning the shopping I have already done. Who doesn't have enough? What about the stockings? Are they equal? Do I need to get a bit more for this one? What about mine? Do I buy something else and just say, "Oh, just get me this." And what about the perennially impossible-to-buy-for husband????  Drives me nuts. This is when I forget what is already crammed in bags in  my closet behind the clothes hamper (not yet wrapped). This is when I enter stores and, in an act of  desperation, start buying little things, just in case it doesn't seem fair.


What also makes it tough is that teenage son has a very early January birthday. So you end up buying more for him and keep some of it back for the birthday. ( I know people whose birthdays are December 24th and December 25th and I think it must have really sucked when they were kids, feeling cheated out of a "real" birthday).


Can anyone else relate to the last minute scramble?


Oh, and I also begin my baking frenzy. I will, however, post about my favourite Molasses Spice cookies! Crackled on the top, chewy, moist and heavenly in the middle.

Setting Up For Christmas

Many years I go on a mad marathon frenzy of setting up the whole house for Christmas all at once. (Apart from the tree which depends upon when we buy it and when my husband gets it ready in the tree stand). I keep all of our decorations in large Rubber Maid boxes and bins whose labels have been scratched out and re-written over the years, some saying "1/3 village", or "snowman collection", or "tree ornaments".


The boxes are kept in a small room or large closet, depending on your frame of reference which I have deemed, "The Rubbermaid Room". It is part of the addition built onto our house and has shelving that fits three levels up and can hold two boxes deep, depending on the box. This room also holds other boxed things that are to be kept, not gotten rid of, such as children's toys, our own momentos, an album collection (??? why?), Hallowe'en collections, and work-related items. But the largest stash is definitely Christmas.


This year I did not go on a frenzied marathon, instead I did a little here, a little there. Today I will focus on the village. This is something started by my husband. He always wanted a village display and it began humbly with a couple of buildings and a few little stand alone items. When we first started the village, there were various kinds of village displays from which to choose and we had to decide on the size we wanted. Some had quite small buildings, others larger. My husband had a "go big or go home" attitude about it, so we started in on the larger size. It was a lovely tradition, where one or two more buildings would be purchased each Christmas to add to the village. We would always find a large selection at Zellers, a department store in Canda, which has now unfortunately closed shop.


Because our village started small, it first was displayed on a simple dresser that we used as a piece of furniture in the corner of our big old country kitchen. Single layer, very simple. Our daughter was wee little at the time and we have a video of her telling about the different buildings. One is a rustic log pub which shows people sitting at tables through the front window. She announced, "And this is where people drink..." It still makes us laugh when we watch it.


As the village grew, it required more space, so it then moved to being displayed on top of a sideboard that we bought early in our marriage at an auction. We paid $75.00 for the sideboard and it has stayed in our home in different rooms playing various roles ever since. At that point I started using the original cardboard boxes that the buildings came in (always stored them in those with the Styrofoam to keep them from breaking), draped them in quilt batting (snow), so I could create different layers. We had more 'upscale' homes, so those were uptown. A downtown core was also created with the different stores we purchased.

Then, after a trip to Prince Edward Island, my husband built me a hutch very similar to one we saw in our travels, so the sideboard got moved. That Christmas, the village also moved to the top of a huge t.v. unit in the den. It was no longer at eye-level, but it was lovely to look at from a distance and the little lights inside each building created a nice, warm glow in the evenings. I still elevated some of the homes. It was quite a snaky confusing mess of wires and power bars hidden behind and below the 'snow'. At some point, the kids also helped to set up the village. We each would perch on top of wooden stools from the kitchen and help to hold things, move things, plug things in.

One year my husband set it up because he thought it would look nice on the hutch he built, but I could not see how it could be done by having wires and power bars showing at the fronts of the shelves due to where everything could be plugged in, so I said, "Go for it!" and let him figure it out.
Last year, we sold our huge t.v. unit and replaced it with a gorgeous Craftsman style piece which cannot possibly hold our village, so the village now occupies the hutch again. However, this year, my husband, my son, and myself put it together. Our daughter is off at university writing her exams, and so she was unable to help. (We did promise her we would not decorate the tree until she was able to come home). It looks wonderful. I still have a shelf above the village that is currently empty. I am not certain what I will put there. I want something simple because I don't want anything to "compete" with the details of the village.

This was the first year the village was set up on the hutch that my husband built.

If you were to visit our village, you would see: 3 rather grand homes, 3 simpler houses, a school, a museum, a mill, the country pub (where people drink), a book shop with a small coffee shop attached to it, shoe store, Christmas shop, and a bakery.  All of these were chosen for specific, personal reasons. As well, there is a tree house (in honour of the tree house my husband built for the kids which is no longer in existence due to a nasty wind storm), a bridge, a duck pond, a gazebo, and many trees, stone walls, fences, people, and Santa Claus.

This is the village this year. It now occupies three levels.

The stone mill beside the treehouse and duck pond (because a mill needs to be close to a water source!).

One of the larger homes with an older couple drinking tea inside and carolers outside.

Here you can see the bakery with children building a snowman by the town square's gazebo. Santa is available today at the gazebo.

We would probably add to our village even more, but as stated earlier, Zellers does not exist anymore. We have not found any other villages in stores like ours. (Keep in mind, we are pretty rural here and don't get to 'the big city' very often, where likely we would be able to find something that would work with our village). So for now, there is no expansion in the works. But every year that we unpack the village from its three large bins, there are still comments like, "Oh ya, I forgot about this one." or "I've always liked the people in this window." or "We should put the pub beside the mill so they can go for a drink after work."
Do any of you have a village as part of your Christmas decorations?