A Banana in the Box and When Dad Makes Breakfast

I won't tell you who I am because I want you to guess. I'm the third oldest child, third oldest girl, second tallest child, fourth tallest person (in my family), and—to top it off—the craziest. Guess who? Kate. :) Did you notice that all my posts are about food? Except the one about my purple dress and seven dead mice. This is a banana in the box, but I just got another dress from Dad and Mom for my birthday. I also got a wooden pen from them. One of my aunts gave me soap-molding supplies, and the other gave me a book by G.A. Henty and a gift card for Borders bookstore. Our neighbors (some friends from church) made doughnuts and they gave us some.

Okay, to my real point and story... This was not the healthiest breakfast ever, but it was really yummy. It was the day after Easter and (you heard about how tired we were) anyone who would usually get up and make breakfast was asleep. I woke up around 9:30, hearing the younger and "less tired" kids awake. Dad was working away in the kitchen at making a dish of "egg in the hole" for everyone, but because it was the day after Easter, he called it by one of its many names... "Bunny in the Hole". (That's not unhealthy, so far.) Some of the kids were suspicious of the dish, never having had a dish with somewhat runny eggs in it. Okay, I'll admit that I was too. Guess what Paul ate off of? A Tupperware lid. Dad didn't know that the dishwasher was done with its cycle, so we ate off of some unusual things. :) Mom got to eat off the "birthday plate." That's a special plate we use when it's some one's birthday. When the rest of us sleepy-heads arrived and most were done with their meal, Dad pulled out the left-over ice cream! It was really good!

 

Recipe for "Egg in the Hole"

Basically you make toast in a skillet except you cut a hole in the bread and crack an egg into it. Make sure the egg isn't super runny. :)

 

Recipe for Ice-cream

Sorry, I don't know how to make that at home. I think you need an ice-cream maker and some cream and sugar too. But we don't know the amounts of ingredients or how to do it so we just bought ours from the store.

Late "Happy Easter", Passover, Courtship, Scarf

A late Happy Easter or Resurrection Day to everyone! The happiest day of the year!
We had a great day, but I was exhausted for most of it, since I was up till 12:30 the night before finishing printing, folding, and perforating the church bulletin; helping Dad finish typing and printing the two messages, and fitting in a last-minute shower! Then... I had to get up at 5:30 to go to the sunrise service at the cemetery. So, on five hours of sleep, I almost zonked out in church for the first time since I was a baby. Yep. This is me around 3.5 months old...



Passover: This year, we did a Passover Seder at church and used a nifty little pamphlet called, “Christ in the Passover” by Rose Publishing. Mom did an awesome job setting up the room we did it in, don’t you think?



And Aimee’s girly sheep is a scream. Mr. S said, “I’m not sure that gold hoof-polish is kosher...”



So, how do you get a huge, piping hot pot of Matzo Ball Soup to church down 5 miles of bumpy, curvy road? You put it in the center of your spare tire, of course! ;)



Courtship: All you suspicious people... nope. Nobody’s askin’. But a gal I e-mail did ask me what I thought about the whole courtship thing and we had a rather confusing e-mail conversation about it until I realized we were talking about two slightly different concepts of courtship. I suggested some definitions and then aired my opinion about it all! ;) So if you click the “Courtship” link at the top of this page, you can read my maybe-wacko-maybe-not opinions on the whole thing!

I combined two of my favorite elements of knitting and designed this scarf (which is still in the works, I might add). Anyway, it has two panels of Shetland Horseshoe Lace on either side of a 3x3 cable. It’s done in the same green I used for my Tam O’Shanter and I’m hoping to enter both in the county fair... we’ll see. I’m running out of time. Here’s a picture to whet your appetite, then click the Shetland Scarf link at the top of this page for more pics and the pattern!

"Two Men with Knives" or "A Country Moment"

Okay, it was Sunday afternoon and Dad had surprised us all with a trip to town for Sunday dinner! Having finished dinner, Dad (actually, Perry—yikes) drove over to the recycling machine at Safeway so I could recycle some bottles that were in the van. I got out of the van and then realized that there was quite a crowd recycling and decided to wait since I was feeling rather shy...

When I finally did go over, there were two young men standing near one of the machines, talking. I had come just in time to hear a really short dark-haired Safeway carryout telling the skinny bowlegged guy who was recycling why he’d rather be on a particular kind of war ship!
“You didn’t get your receipt,” I said to the skinny lad.
“Yeah, I did,” he said, looking at me like I was crazy, “it’s in my pocket.”
“Oh,” I said, “maybe the machine didn’t notice that you took it.” It was still saying the amount he’d recycled.
He had been digging around in his pocket and didn’t find it so the carryout pushed the button again and when the receipt still didn’t come out, he opened up the front of the machine, whipped out a knife and started poking around inside and mumbling something about the contacts.
His friend, who I noticed was wearing a camouflage belt, whipped out his knife and said, “The best eighty bucks I ever spent!”
“That’s all?” the carry out said while a little shred of paper came out of the machine.
“Well, $79.99 to be exact!” Then he started listing all the different blades and tools that were on it. The carryout closed the machine and the skinny guy said, “Man, it ate my quarters!” And they started talking about what ever it was that they were talking about before.
“Will it work? Can I recycle?” I asked, directing my question to the carry out.
“Oh, yeah,” he said nonchalantly, “it‘s fixed.” looking at me like I had just appeared. Then they walked off.... two country lads who would pay eighty dollars for a knife and still enlist in the military, one a carryout at Safeway and the other an Ace Hardware employee. It might not seem so funny to you but when I got in the car and told my sisters they laughed and made me post this. And in case any of you were wondering, the knife did the job and I got my receipt. How many carry outs in AZ would have been impressed with a certain pocket knife??

Big Do-in's

Big Do-in' 1:
I'm on a leash now! Yup, that's right, I got volunteered to be the videographer/photographer for our little volunteer fire district. I was issued a pager so I can show up at all structural fires! Luckily, our community is so small, there won't be many calls to respond to!

Big Do-in' 2:
Got my driver's permit Monday!! I drove for the first time on Tuesday. I just love little gravel country roads... I was able to go about 15 mph! When I got out to the "highway" I simply flew at 25 mph! ;)

Big Do-in' 3:
I probably, almost definitely, pretty certainly, 99.9% for sure have a title for my book!!! Finally! The book is 3/4 of the way done and I still had nothing to call it. Well, now I do... "The Heavens Declare" subtitled "5 children, 8 planets, 1 God." (Thanks, Tyler!)

Big Do-in' 4:
I'm reading "Do Hard Things" by Alex and Brett Harris. www.therebelution.com
(Sorry... I tried to make that a link, but it wouldn't work... why??)

Talking about the Weather

Wow! Cool weather!!!! For weeks we had been having relatively un-wintry weather... then all of a sudden it’s cold!!! On Monday we went grocery shopping and while in Costco it started hailing really hard!!!!! IT WAS REALLY LOUD. We could hear this roaring on the roof and for once I was glad I didn’t have a nice car to worry about.

After we got home it started snowing.... very pretty!!! Poor Paul was looking out the window longingly and saying “Snow, snow!” (his friend Rob made a sled that he hasn’t tried out yet) but it didn’t end up being enough to play in!! Real pretty though! Well, I know, I just talk about the weather but around here that’s pretty exciting!!!

Russian? Maybe We Should Go with It!

We were at the register in Wal-Mart when the lady running the next register came over and said, “Are you from such-and-such-a-place? It’s up in the mountains.” (I can’t remember the name of the place she mentioned.) Dad said no. She said, “Oh, I just wondered because there’s a little church up in there and there are several Russian families that go there. I thought maybe you were one of them. Your family is so beautiful.” I think we were a little surprised. Russian!?


Later that day, we were in the produce department of the grocery store and my mom was talking with this very nice elderly man. After their conversation was finished and he’d moved on, we went over and started picking out onions. The man came over again and said a few more things and eventually asked... if we were Russian! Once again we were a little surprised. After he was gone, I said, “Uh... mom? That’s the second time today we’ve been asked if we’re Russian! Maybe we should go with it and learn to speak some Russian!” I looked around at us. For one thing, we were standing near the onions. (I’ve read that Russians often eat plenty of onions and garlic and are very healthy for it!) But we hadn’t been near any onions in Wal-Mart! I looked around again. Hmm... looking a little ethnic (Mom’s Hebraic heritage coming out in us kids), long dark hair, jumpers, dresses, skirts, Dad’s black and grey beard, my dark green Tam O’Shanter (if you’re not clued into the fact that it’s an Irish hat...?), and the large family size. Yes, I guess we may have looked a little different. But, Russian? Hmm...

That brings to mind another interesting incident when we were driving to AZ. We had stopped for dinner, and an older man asked if we were Lebidevitcher Jews! (That’s a very orthodox brand of Judaism, but I’m not sure I’m spelling it right.) Same thing. My hat, Dad’s beard, plus this time he was wearing a black cabby hat.

Failed Test in My Realm

So, I burned the popcorn a little. It was just the very center of the bottom of the pan, but still, it didn’t smell good! I thought, “Hmmm... that’s strange,” and started making the second batch (big family, you know). I was also making a huge pot of chicken, barley, cabbage soup, and this demanded some attention. So much, that... well, I kinda’ forgot that I was also making popcorn. Until the acrid black smoke started pouring out from under the popcorn pan lid! Mom hurried the pan outside onto the deck and we waited until it stopped smoking as badly, in the meantime, opening all the windows and doors we could. Talk about a headache! My head was pounding; popcorn stinks when you burn it! The popcorn was BLACK. Sooo, I started all over again after scraping as much of the black burned-popcorn-residue off the bottom of the pan. This time, the center of the bottom of the pan burned again! More burning popcorn smell. Finally, Dad figured out it was burning right there because the bottom of the pan was warped, so I needed to use more oil so the entire bottom of the pan would be covered.
I felt really dumb about that because I’ve made huge amounts of popcorn many, many times before... and it’s been fine! (Of course, at those other times, I was using the right pot... the one that was full of chicken soup that night.) So, I felt like a klutz. A popcorn failure. This was like one of those books I dislike where the girl is clumsy about all sorts of homey things (you know, always burns the food when she tries to cook, always breaks dishes, always messes something up...) I want to be an awesome mommy... great start, right?
That’s how I was feeling until the Holy Spirit shook me and said, “Hey... quit with the pity party.” And then I remember that someone I know had failed an important test just that morning. His was important to his college studies, which was ultimately important to his role as a man. My failure was also to my home studies, which was ultimately important to my role as a woman. His response: a little discouraged, but “God’s still in control. It’s not the end of the world.” My response? Uh, well... pouting, huffing, being unhappy with myself for failing, listening to all sorts of dumb lies that I was a failure and wasn’t going to be a good homemaker...
So it really comes down to faith in God! “God’s still in control. It’s not the end of the world” Really, just a few things will matter when it is actually the end of the world! And burnt popcorn isn’t one of them.