rachel's continued ramblings

My favorite holiday

Back in the spring, I posted something somewhere about "clothesline day" being my favorite "holiday". In fact, here's a picture of me on Easter a few years ago, celebrating clothesline day (yes, with a mimosa - it was Easter).

Basically, clothesline day is whatever day of the year happens to be the first day that the weather is warm, dry, and breezy enough to allow me to hang out my inaugural load of laundry. It makes me very happy, since, if you have read even a few posts on this blog you know that I am pretty well bonkers about line-dried laundry.

I do, very much, love clothesline day. But it's not exactly a REAL holiday. And if I'm honest, I can't really even say that it's my favorite day of the year. That is something totally different:

The Day After Thanksgiving.

Some would call this day "Black Friday". Not me. Black Friday implies that I like the day because I enjoy getting up at ungodly hours of the night to stand in long lines in the cold with a bunch of strangers to get into crowded stores and buy things on sale.

That assumption would be completely untrue.

I have zero interest in doing any of those things. It doesn't appeal to me at all.

No, my reasons for loving The Day After Thanksgiving so much are many...

pajamas all day
eggnog in my coffee
pie for breakfast
day off of work
the house is already clean from yesterday
don't have to cook - leftovers for lunch AND dinner!
getting out christmas decorations
listening to christmas music
spending the day doing christmas puzzles
watching christmas movies
hanging out with my family all day since nobody has any place to be
even when the day is over, there are still 2 more days of weekend!

I'm sure there are more. Every year I think of new ways to appreciate this most wonderful day of the year. This year we will have the added bonus of being able to plug in our Christmas lights without the effort of having to spend the day on the roof hanging them up, since we got them out and Dave and Micah spent Halloween putting them on the house!

So we're all pretty stoked about that.

Really, the simple truth of it all is that most holidays generally mean a lot of stress for me. There's usually an unusual amount of cooking and cleaning involved. Frequently decorating. It's not that any of that is bad, or that I don't like to do it. But when EXTRA time and energy is required, it can be hard to come by. Halloween is definitely not my favorite, since 1, I'm just not that into it; 2, it means walking around at night in bad weather and 3, spending weeks arguing with my children about how much candy they should be allowed to eat. (Although this year was a definite improvement as both L & M stayed local and went together, so I could trust them to not be stupid, so Dave and I stayed home and binge watched Downton Abbey. Parent win!) 4th of July is decent, except for the stress over someone setting fire to your house or themselves. Valentine's Day is ok and has improved vastly now that none of my kids have to make valentine boxes for school, but it still seems to mean arguing about candy. Thanksgiving is fun, but really, it's a lot of cleaning, cooking, and dishes (and I don't really even like turkey that much). Generally, I love Christmas. I do. But Christmas, in recent years has become almost unbearable with everything that seems to surround it. If it were just decorating, baking cookies, making dinner, opening presents, and going to church, that would be fabulous. But all the extra - the band concerts, the parties, the multiple gift exchanges, the secret santas, the this that and the other thing that seem to just pile, one on top of the other has gotten to the point that the joy, peace, and magic of Christmas is just buried under a load of calendar entries. I hate covid, but I am thankful that it means this December can be a bit more mellow and hopefully unaccompanied by a constant feeling of drowning.

I know this whole spiel has made me sound like a gigantic stick in the mud.

But what I value most about special times like holidays is the ability to just BE with the people I love. To be at home. To focus on the ways that God has blessed us. To remember all of His good gifts - especially since holidays are days which generally bring one or more of those gifts to mind. The older I get the less tolerance I have for being busy. It's not that I want to be lazy - quite the opposite. I want to spend my time caring for my home and my people. I want to have energy to do my job well. I want to have time to enjoy the optional extras about holidays, especially Christmas - taking in the lights, hearing carolers, visiting favorite places, baking ALL the cookies... But when everyone is running in every direction every day, how does any of that not just seem like more busyness? More stuff you HAVE to do, places you HAVE to go. I'm not sure how to balance it. Most if it has to do with teams or organizations my kids are involved with, so short of making them quit everything, I'm not sure what to do. Maybe you're just supposed to try to keep your head above water until they graduate. That prospect kind of sucks. I'm already missing one kid, and don't want to spend the next 6 Christmases just surviving. Well, at least this year, I'm going to fully enjoy NOT being busy. Maybe that'll reenergize me for whenever "normal" comes back.

At any rate, we are currently in the month of my favorite day of the year, and I am most excited about it!

Dear Americans,

Please be kind to one another.

Please be decent human beings.

Please rise above what the media expects of you.

Please remember that you have friends and relatives and coworkers and neighbors on all sides of the political scale.

Please keep in mind that, whichever candidate a person favors, they likely have a reason for doing so, same as you.

Please understand that that reason is probably not as sinister as you may think.

Please turn off your TV, put down your phone, or whatever it is you need to do if the anxiety you feel about this election is causing you to hate people you actually love. If it’s causing you to hate anyone! When this is over, we still have to live with each other, work with each other, spend Christmas with each other.

Please don’t let your feelings about an election ruin your relationships. Or drive you to violence. Or make you believe that the world is ending. It’s not. The political leaders of our country do have quite a bit of power, but not that much.

November Meal Plan

Meal plans are something that have historically had a big presence on this blog. Not so much in recent years. Well, actually not very much has had much of a presence on this blog in recent years. But I digress.

Meal plans were big back in the day, because the overarching focus of this blog (and my life) at that time was homemaking and all that that entailed. Planning meals was an essential part of that.

Unfortunately, my kids were ungracious enough to grow up and I had to grown up with them and get a job, and thus, my focus has hence become divided.

That is not to say that I don’t still have to perform all of those homemaking tasks which, at the time, dominated the bulk of my focus and energy (and all that fun stuff like changing diapers and bathing children and dealing with fevers and runny noses and fighting with the never-ending onslaught of excessive toys), they just get shunted onto the back burner of my time and energy where they continue to taunt me with the guilt of having not been done well, properly, on time, or at all...

but again, I digress.

The importance of meal planning has become no less necessary in recent years. In fact, it has probably become even MORE necessary as we have all become busier. I used to always plan a week at a time, and then do my shopping accordingly. Lately, I’ve taken to planning a month at a time, and I completely LOVE it. I still do the shopping weekly, but knowing a whole month just became brainless relieves a lot of stress. I have done it list style, and like this:

I probably prefer the calendar lay out. It enables me to see what day is what, without having to figure it out based on disembodied dates. To further make things brainless (this is a big thing lately - apparently my brain function is limited and I don’t like to use it more than I must) I have several days of the week that fall into categories. Pizza happens once a week. It has been on Wednesdays, but I think we’re moving it back to Fridays. Sunday is always breakfast for dinner. Tuesday is some version of Taco Tuesday. Monday is generally something quick or something Dave can make without needing to wait for me to come home with ingredients, since I do the shopping on Mondays. And we clean out the fridge on Saturdays.

It’s fantastic every Sunday when I check the menu for the coming week and make my shopping list. Sometimes coming up with 7 meals every week seems overwhelming and repetitive. If I have a whole month in between having to do it, I find it much less tedious.

An excess of negativity

I have a confession to make. I hope you will hear it. Along with it comes an apology.

I have been feeling very convicted lately that my manner of speech and demeanor has been excessively negative. I could list off a number of excuses for why this may be. I'm sure you would nod your head and agree that all of them are perfectly legitimate reason for one to feel upset, angry, negative, pessimistic, etc.

But really, it is that I have allowed myself to become unfocused on the things that are true. I have allowed my heart and eyes to have been turned inward to my own reasoning of the things I see and experience around me and how I think they should be. I have not focused on Jesus and the promises of God's Word. I have neglected that relationship, due to a number of emotions and frustrations - not with God, but with what I have allowed to cloud my ideas about God - and my perception of things has been negatively impacted.

I have allowed myself to be negatively influenced by the negative speech and attitudes of others, and even worse, allowed my own negative speech attitude to negatively influence others.

For this, I hope you will forgive me.

My peace is grounded in the God of the universe and knowing that my place with him is secure, regardless of elections or wars or church politics or pandemics. And because of that, I can have hope and hopefully leave my negativity behind.

adventures with spicy pickled beans

Well, thanks to COVID, we had some extra time on our hands this year (with all the lack of activities and school and commuting and all), so we did what everyone else did and planted an extensive garden. Dave built me these fantastic raised beds, we filled them with compost, added plants and didn’t do a lot else. One of the things we wound up with an abundance of is green beans. I planted both bush beans and pole beans. We eat beans at least once a week (with our pizza, because we’re weird like that), but at the height of the season, there’s really only so many green beans one family can use.

Now, because I’m old-fashioned like that, I have long held this delusional fantasy of something along the lines of homesteading… living off-the-grid, if you will. I have this idealized, Little House on the Prairie idea of how we should live, not dependent on the grocery store, or really anyone, to aid in our “survival”… But, let’s face it, I’m not exactly cut out to be a “prepper”, much as I would like to convince you all that I am. BUT, growing and preserving our own produce is one of those things that I’ve always wanted to do, but never gotten around to learning how to do. Usually, when I want to learn how to do something, I check out every book I can find on the subject from the library and read them until I’ve either convinced myself I can do it, or get too intimidated and ditch the idea. Canning is one of those “intimidating” topics for me.

But, one random Sunday afternoon in August, finding myself with an abundance of beans and a bee in my bonnet, I suddenly announced that I was going to the store and buying jars and canning supplies. FINALLY. (I’ve been threatening to for at least a decade.)

Now, my mom sufficiently scared me away from wanting to do any normal canning of green beans. The word “botulism” is right up there in the URGENT: MUST REMEMBER portion of my memory (right along with choking on fish bones will kill you), so the whole pressure canner thing is something I still approach with caution and much fear and trembling. But I thought I could probably pull off some pickled beans and just do a normal water bath canning.

Honestly, the only way this actually happened was because of the aforementioned “bee in my bonnet” phenomenon. Had I waited, this never would have happened. But, I found a recipe that sounded yummy: https://www.splendidtable.org/story/2018/09/10/spicy-pickled-green-beans

And then I set out to find all the things I needed.

I acquired jars and lids, pickling salt, and all the spices, along with the jar tongs and funnel and all that.

I picked my beans, washed them and cut them into lengths that would fit in the jars. I sliced up my garlic cloves and measured out my dill seed, red pepper flakes, peppercorns, and brown mustard seeds… I mixed up my brine. I filled my pot with water and put the trivet in the bottom. I washed my jars and boiled my lids… all the stuff you’re supposed to do.

I was SO CRAZY NERVOUS!!!

The biggest problem turned out to be that my pot wasn’t quite big enough and keeping the jars covered meant that water would boil over and put out the burner. So I kept having to move the pot back and forth from burner to burner to keep it boiling, since being doused with water makes a gas burner reluctant to re-light. Next time I’ll use my biggest pot.

But, when the time was up, and I pulled the jars out to cool, they looked like they were supposed to.

I followed the recipe’s instructions and left them alone over night.

The next morning, they appeared to be sealed properly, so I labeled them and put them away on a shelf in my pantry. They looked so pretty! I’ll admit, I was outrageously proud of myself for actually doing this, and (apparently) not screwing it up!

So, there they sat. Looking pretty. I kept looking at them and wondering if they were appropriately “pickled” yet… I was apprehensive. Would they taste good? Would they poison me?

Finally, last week I got a hankering AND the courage to pull a jar out and try it. Based on the evidence provided by how hard the jar was to open, I’d say the sealing process happened according to plan. I tried my first bean…

I think my exact words were something like, “Oh my gosh! This is delicious!!” Seriously! They were SO good! Definitely pickled, definitely spicy, but super crisp and yummy, and definitely NOT poison!

The first jar was gone within a couple of days. All the brine and spices left in the jar made me feel like they should be able to be repurposed for something… Seemed a shame to just dump them down the disposal. But I couldn’t think of anything practical to do with them, so away they went.

The second jar was opened soon after, and at this point, my only regret is that I only made 4 jars!

Next year, I’m planting lots of beans, and I might just pickle them all!

Micah’s Birthday

This kid had the audacity to turn 13 yesterday… As was expected, I was a bit of a hot mess about the whole affair.

Here’s his “last day to be 12” photo. He ran out of fingers a couple years ago, so taking a page out of Shane’s book, he borrowed a couple of feet from the cat to make 12.

But, not too old to choose Lucky Charms for his birthday breakfast.

He got his happy birthday facetime call first thing and got to open his gift from Gramma and Skip while they watched…

He’s had a boom box on his list this year. You might remember that 2 years ago, it was a Walkman. The obsession with 80s audio continues. Gramma found this one and it seems to fit the bill. Looks totally retro, plays and records tapes but also has radio AND a USB port so he could use some modern tech with it, as well.

So, he spent the morning taking advantage of the birthday allowances of not having to do his weekend chores and lifted time limits on video games… all while listening to the radio or one tape or another on the boom box that followed him from room to room. At one point, he expressed frustration about wanting to record a certain song off the radio, but he didn’t start it in time, AND they were talking over the beginning of the song! Dave and I laughed really hard over that.

Eventually, we headed out to play some mini golf, and Micah got to enjoy riding shotgun. (Small kids… We have to go for the age limits rather than weight requirements.)

Micah’s godmother, Amy, and her kids joined us, as did my dad, Shane and Leslie.

Enjoy gratuitous golfing photos:

JQUB3399 Shane, in particular, seemed to have an uncanny ability to get his ball wedged down in some crazy crevice or through some tiny space in the edge of the course.

Then we returned back home to eat some birthday dinner (Red Robin take out), open presents, play some Scattergories, and have cupcakes.

Enjoy gratuitous gift-opening pictures:

In summary, he received a lot of what was on his list… new joy cons for his switch, a new mario game, money, a nintendo gift card. Layla also passed along her 49ers jersey (grudgingly) because it’s really too small for her and he had one on his list, and the latest Dog Man book. We also gave him a Costco pack of tape, which will probably be the most well-used of all his gifts, even if he thought it was silly. There’s another couple little things that should be here tomorrow – Amazon didn’t come through in time.

As usual, Layla made his birthday cake this year – cupcakes this time, so as to avoid the whole blowing your nasty germs all over the cake we’re all going to eat scenario. Thanks for the awareness, covid. He requested white cake, purple frosting, and Skittles.

This cracks me up. Shane was heading out and I wanted to grab a picture really quick… They were horsing around and I wound up catching Shane with the hugest, cheesy smile – I can NEVER get him to smile in pictures! HA!

So there you go… My last one has become a teenager. I’m not handling it particularly well. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a super-cool teenager and I very much like him just how he is right now. But man. They’re all so OLD! I keep feeling like it’s nearly over – this parenting gig. Not that you ever stop, but still. There are phases of parenting, and a lot of them have already been left behind and you can’t go back. That part makes me sad.

fall.

I have kind of a confusing love/hate relationship with fall.

On the one hand, I get super excited about the beautiful trees changing color. I love seeing pumpkins piled up on people's porches. I love cuddling up with a hot beverage in the afternoon. I like windstorms - yesterday's was pretty impressive - and even the potential power outage that follows, provided it doesn't last too long. I love digging out my Uggs.

But at the same time, fall depresses me. I love summer, and I hate rain. Knowing that my shorts and sandals are put away until next May (at the soonest) is super sad. Knowing I'm going to be cold and wet for the foreseeable future is extremely discouraging.

Some people love fall because of Halloween. I'm kind of ambiguous about it. I don't love it, I don't hate it. Really, at this point, it just means arguing with my kids for the next month about candy. I could easily do without it...

Some people love fall because of pumpkin spice everything. Doesn't do it for me. I've had the lattes and they aren't terrible, but I can think of lots of better ways to ingest a million calories in one shot.

But, ultimately, I enjoy the cyclical rhythm of the seasons. The predictable nature and knowing what you'll see and what to expect. The fact that, after you've endured months and months of dark and wet and cold, you'll start seeing daffodils and crocuses poking through the ground. Eventually things will dry out and warm up. Being outside won't require a coat, and your feet won't be wet.

But until then, I'll do my best to embrace where we are...

I spotted this cool mushroom while out walking the dog tonight. I don't particularly love fungus, mostly mushrooms annoy me because they pop up in my yard and let me know that things are really just too damp... This one is super cool, however, and probably super poisonous.

I also love it when I find a perfect leaf. Gorgeous color, shape.... Just being its best leaf-self.

And then there's this... has nothing to do with fall, but this cat is something else. She really is the Queen of All Things....

And that's that.

I actually am loving this. I get to put stuff out there. Say whatever I want about it. People can read it if they want to, or not if they don't. I'm not so much loving the blogger platform. There used to be some better external publishing tools that would allow a little more freedom and customization in posting. But I've been out of the game long enough to have let all that knowledge lapse... Maybe I'll catch up and figure it out. In the meantime, this'll do.

just a fall day

Yesterday was a little bit exciting, in the usual mundane way... on my way out of my neighborhood in the morning on the way to work, I passed a school bus on my street. a big, full-size school bus! then, when I pulled up to the light, there was another one!!! Kindergarteners in our district started in-person school this week! a few little signs of "normal" can be found returning here and there. I didn't realize how much that sort of thing would affect me, but then again, school buses always get me a little bit verklempt.

Although it was absolutely POURING all night and in the morning, it all moved out by afternoon and Bonezy and I got a proper walk in.

After our walk, I did a little garden clean-up/maintenance. We had a few of the giant sunflowers that hadn't fallen over yet, so I cut them down and composted and started pulling out some pumpkin vines. I harvested our final pumpkin that has now turned almost entirely orange and put in on the porch with the others.

And, lastly, a balloon sighting!! This time of year, you never know when will be the last one you see.

Leaving Social Media behind - at least for now

I'm attempting to resurrect this blog as an outlet for all those mundane things I might have shared on Facebook or Instagram, but have decided not to.

Mostly because I enjoy using that sort of thing as a record of the happenings in and around our house. But Social Media has become particularly icky and I don't really wish to contribute to or partake in it any longer.

I still take pictures. I still want to record what's going on. I still want to share funny things that happen, even if only with my future self.

Right now, I'm wading through the technical aspects of doing this. Back when I blogged regularly, I did so usually from my desktop. Adding photos was easy, because I regularly uploaded the pictures from my phone or camera to files on my computer. Then 3 or 4 years ago, I got a phone with obscene amounts of storage, and I haven't done that since, and I honestly don't even know how anymore! Yes, all of my photos get backed up to google photos, but that is under Dave's google account, and this blog is under mine, so it won't let me access them. So there you go.

And then there was the bit where I wanted to be able to blog from the road when we took our big road trip in 2018. But blogger no longer had a mobile app. So I started a WordPress blog and Dave transferred all the content from this blog over there, which is why none of the former posts on here have any pictures. But WordPress has funny privacy settings. If your blog is public, it gets pushed out there to all sorts of whacko strangers who then decide to subscribe to it. Creepy. But if you set it to private, anyone who wants to read it has to set up a WordPress account. Super lame and inconvenient and most people won't do it.

So here we are. I'm sure my handsome IT guy will have a workable solution for me at some point. Maybe he just needs to remind me how to use a computer. 😂

At any rate, I may pop onto FB to post links, if I ever figure out how to actually make this work the way I want it to.

You can leave comments on the posts in here if you feel the need to do so. I'll see those.

Don't leave comments on the FB posts. I won't see those.

ramblings from quarantine...

it's been like 37 days since the kids' schools closed and we all started working from home. for the most part, it's been WONDERFUL. for me.

unfortunately, not all the people who live with me seem to agree with that stance and i don't think they'll allow me to institute a quarantine lifestyle when we're no longer required to do so. {insert sad face}

so I'm trying to make the most of it now, while i can. But, in true "rachel" fashion, i'm already anxiously analyzing what will happen when things return to "normal".

that's where i am today. it's kind of a blah day. we've had the most amazing string of beautiful spring days. i've taken my dog on a good, long walk every day of this quarantine. i have only been rained on once. ONCE people! do you understand how crazy that is for March/April in the pnw? but today it's been rainy and overcast. it's messing with my positive attitude.

i've been toying with the idea of creating a pro/con list. or something like that. things i do and don't like about this particular weird and "unprecedented" time in history.

Things I don't like about Quarantine:

The obvious: people are sick and dying. The actual reason for this quarantine totally sucks.
related to that is the fact that people are out of work, businesses aren't surviving, the economy and stock market are not in a good state.
the library isn't open! Not being able to put actual paper books on hold and go pick them up is majorly frustrating me. I can't even return the books i'm done with!
i feel like i'm committing a crime every time i go to the store. mostly that's been the grocery store once a week and i went to lowe's once with dave. we discovered that layla's shorts are all too small and she needs new ones. shopping with her is a nightmare anyway, but not having a lot options where she can try stuff on is problematic. online ordering intimidates me because i figure i'll be forking over a lot of money all at once and will involve a LOT of returning because nothing ever fits her, and that will require a trip to the post office, which will feel like a crime as well.
layla is feeling antsy about not seeing her friends and she's disappointed that the school play she was just starting to rehearse got cancelled.
i bought a bunch of fun spring dresses from thredup just before this all hit, and now i have no place to wear them.
i do miss seeing my co-workers and that fun, but we keep up a group text so that's nice.

Things I like about Quarantine:

working from home. there is not one teeny little thing i miss about my sucky commute and long hours away from home. i know how lucky i am that my job has translated very easily to working from home. i like my job, i just don't like having to GET there.
messy buns or baseball hats every day!
not getting up at 5am!
kids going to school at home. i love having them around all day. and not having to put them on the bus at 6:20 and 6:45am every day is amazing.
no in-person meetings. dave had a crazy amount of meetings that he was always running off to, which meant a lot of juggling who was going where, how they were going to get there, and who was going to pick them up, especially when they both had to be picked up or dropped off at the same time in different locations.
no activities. i know this makes me sound like a horribly unsupportive parent, and it's not the activities themselves i don't like. it's the craziness of everyone running every which-way every night.
slower pace of life. i love a leisurely morning. i love going about my day, not rushed by schedules and traffic and making sure the timing is right to leave one thing to make it to the next thing on time. riding the hamster wheel is exhausting to me. and we live way too far away from literally everything.
long walks with my dog.
knitting projects.
reading books - individually, and as a family.
not having to put on makeup. (actually, the best part of that is not having to wash it off at the end of the day. i hate that part.)
family dinner every night.
cooking real food every night.
having time to deal with home projects and maintenance that need to be dealt with but we never have time.
having time and energy to clean and tidy my house every day.
having time (and appropriate weather) for using my clothesline. (it doesn't work very well to hang things up at 5pm... you kind of need all day)
seeing my kids truly enjoying each other and spending time together (since that's their only choice!)
spending all my time AT MY HOUSE, which i love!
saying hi to neighbors as they walk by, because they all do!
coronavirus memes. seriously. they're funny.
my anxiety level is WAY low. one of my biggest sources of anxiety is the same old vomit phobia i've always had, and that's pretty much non-existent right now. my kids aren't going anywhere, so there's no place for them to pick up the stomach flu! lower anxiety means i have so much more energy, since i'm not in panic/battle mode all day, every day. laugh if you want, but it's a very real thing for me and it sucks.
the feeling that we are working together as a family at something. i'm not sure what that something is, but we're in it together. it's not "everyone for himself" every single day as we go off to do our own jobs or school, followed by our own activities, none of which involve anyone else, except for the part where you need a ride to get there.

I guess i must be weird or something, because i feel like everyone else is really hating quarantine life. to me, this feels like living. normal life just feels like surviving.