Sometimes I view things differently. Might be utterly insignificant-like appreciating the beauty in a gentle snowfall (umm-there is no beauty in falling snow-ever), how I feel about spacing children, religion, politics or anything in between. This might be one of those obscure subjects where you just scratch your head and think, I knew she was a freak. There’s a screw loose. Weirdo. Case closed.

I do remember approximately when this chore/necessity became more of an enjoyable hobby, which might perplex some. Right around the time we moved to Michigan. Early 1987. It hurts me to date this. Why? Because our lives got so much better after we moved to Michigan, which was mostly great, but I never wanted to leave Iowa in the first place. Although I love Iowa with all my heart, life got easier after we moved east. More money, better weather (don’t even start with me. Michigan’s weather is much more mild than Iowa-all year round. Not as frigid, not as many blizzards, not as hot or humid).

We were nearing our 18th anniversary. That’s almost 2 decades of counting pennies at the grocery store. I’m sure not everyone reading this can relate, but there was only so much in the bank for groceries. We were living paycheck to paycheck, on one income with me the ‘stay at a home mom.’ If I was shopping and spotted Mac & Cheese on sale, 4 for a buck instead of 3, I’d splurge and spend a couple dollars buying extras for the kids who grazed from 9 am to 9 pm daily. But the grocery budget was tight and there couldn’t be many splurges. That constant penny pinching kind of ended in Michigan. Though the cost of living was a bit higher than Iowa, Hubs had a better paying job and got regular, sizable bonuses. Sweet.

The main reason (besides more money) was my growing fascination with a chain of stores called Meijer. Never heard of them before we moved east. About half of the store is made up of groceries. This was my first experience with a chain of stores where you could run most of your errands. With one stop. What? Get a haircut, drop off dry cleaning, bank branch-ATM, pay utilities, money orders, fresh produce, rent movies, carpet shampoo rentals, ice cream cones, dry ice, glass-cut to size for your broken window, storm doors, film developed, lumber, electronics, housewares, small appliances, bedding, seasonal (like holiday decorations) clothes, shoes, pharmacy, post office, trees, shrubs, hunting and fishing needs, garden vegetable plants, landscaping needs, bestselling books, cards, party favors. The freaking list was endless. (Although many departments have been eliminated in recent years with the influx of big box stores like Lowe’s). Can you imagine what my famous lists looked like back then with all those departments? Geez, it was the size of a short novel! I guess Meijer was similar to K-Marts 30-40 years ago, (or today’s Walmart, except for the shoppers who refuse to wear pants, underwear or bras) but with the addition of a humongous grocery store-doubling it’s size. They were open 24-7, closed on Christmas Day. I was simply mesmerized. I wanted to move in.

Soon I was a constant fixture at my new favorite shopping venue. There are other grocery store chains in town and I read their weekly ads in earnest. But it is rare when I shop elsewhere. Meat is the main reason I might stray. If stew meat, steak, shrimp, lean hamburger or roasts are on sale somewhere, I will venture from my normal Meijer stomping grounds. But this occurs every couple months-max. I spend a fortune on groceries because we seldom eat out. But we eat very well at home. You can tell by looking at us.

But 30 years ago a big chunk of my shopping at Meijer meant one thing-kids clothes. I could literally listen to our boys growing during the night. What fit them one day would be an inch too short or a size too small the next. Bugle Boy was the popular brand when the boys were young (Shannon 16, was done growing-and way past Meijer’s various brand choices-more into Hudson’s-Jacobson’s type stores). But for the boys, I kept very close track of when they put winter clothes on clearance (right after Christmas and summer duds, right after 4th of July. Strange, just as the weather would heat up in July, all summer clothes were put on clearance and out came the winter coats).

Ever since funds became more readily available I’ve been a quantities shopper. One of my pet peeves is running out of something after I’ve started baking/cooking. Have to stop what I’m doing, run to the store to buy eggs. Really, eggs? Oh, I can’t even deal with crap like that.

So I’m just gonna come clean. Put it out there like every other taboo subject I’ve managed to touch upon since I started blogging. Ahem, I love grocery shopping. (Great, here come the haters). I actually look forward to my weekly trip, though the time frame has changed. I figured out that certain times are much busier than others. I never like to shop when there are scads of people. I learned Monday mornings at Meijer are a dead zone. I nearly had the place to myself. Only shoppers were little old ladies-and me. Umm, I wasn’t old then, but 30 years later, now I’m one of them!

I work most mornings until after lunch, so now I usually stop on my way home one day during the week to get the bulk of what I need. It is busier, but not like it gets when the rest of the world gets off work, starting around 4, which is a zoo. Too busy to linger, or leisurely walk from one end to the other, checking out all the clearance items. Lately I’ve been prone to hit Meijer about 5 am. (I can do this in the winter because dairy, meat or other cold foods will be fine in my car while I’m at work). Crazy I know. I’m a lousy sleeper, and if I have to be at work at 7, I have plenty of time to get my shopping done. Although Meijer is open 24 hours, from about midnight to 6 there’s not many shoppers. This is when the shelves are stocked and the floors meticulously scrubbed and waxed. The cleaning crew is nice and polite, but I know they are cursing me under their breath with, “good grief woman, stay home until it’s light out.” I say good morning with a smile and go about my business. Close the store if you don’t want customers at 5.

Another problem with early shopping is checkout availability. Sometimes just the self serve lanes are open because 99.9% of the shoppers have 1 or 2 items. But I have a cart full with a hundred bucks or more of groceries. When someone finally notices my impatient look, they’ll open a regular lane for me.

This mundane stuff gets me going-weird I admit it…

After seeing the front page of a recent Meijer ad I literally lost my breath. Blackberries-98 cents a box. Be still my heart. (It’s the little things in life peeps) Oh my, how many do I need? I’m out of seedless jelly, but how many jars of blackberry jam do I have? I run downstairs (right, there’s no running up and down stairs anymore, but my limp is gone so it’s much easier) and check my stash. A dozen jars of jam. That’s not going to get me very far in my ‘giving away’ department. I resist shopping early in the week because I’m not making jelly and jam after 6 or 7 hours of taking care of babies, so it’s going to get done on the weekend.

I stopped Wednesday, thinking I could wash, smash, cook the berries for jelly on Thursday. I decide I want about 48 boxes (4 cases, down considerably compared to 5-10 years ago when I would have easily bought 100 boxes) but there were only about 20 boxes on display. I’m a polite shopper and would never take all they have, so I head to the back produce area to ask if they have more? Nope, all of the blackberries are out. I order 4 cases which are coming by truck at 4 am (my kind of people) on Thursday. She takes my name and will have them set aside for me. I waltz in at 6. The whole cleaning crew gives a collective groan. I may not be able to hear them groan but I can see eye rolls. Whatever. Plop all my berries in my cart, and of course only the self check lanes are open. I groan and give my own version of an exaggerated eye roll. (Thanks for the lesson cleaning crew). There is a gal working these dozen lanes, so I ask for her help since you’re not supposed to have more than 20 items. She rings them up, I hand her 50 bucks. Not once since I saw the sale on blackberries did I ever think about buying pectin, sugar, lids or rings. I just ‘knew’ I had enough on hand. (That’s about 50 cups of sugar I’d be using). Haul the berries out to my freezing car, load them in the back, cover them up with a blanket and high tail it to work.

Look at the size of these blackberries. And who’s old hand is that???

I did the prep work for the seedless Friday afternoon, smashed the rest Saturday morning and started 3 batches of each in the afternoon. Next to apricot jam, seedless blackberry is my favorite, but it hurts when I watch the hot juice drip through the cheesecloth. All that beautiful fruit pulp, just wasted. You lose so much when you make seedless. I used 2 dozen boxes for each kind, but only got 18 jars of seedless jelly while making 30 jars of blackberry jam. Bummer.

John bought me another shelving unit, so I spent a couple hours rearranging my canned goods, canning equipment and food staples I keep downstairs. I kinda keep what I want to use of my canned goods separate from what I plan on sharing. I rarely (I do mean hardly ever) give away spaghetti sauce, canned meat or cranberry sauce. The meat is too expensive and a lot of work, the cranberry sauce I just plain hoard. Hubs becomes belligerent when he sees jars of strawberry jam making their way into gift baskets. Dude, we got plenty.

Luscious, I couldn’t stop snitching blackberries…

Shannon is always on the lookout to make my life easier. A couple of months ago she sent me a link. A new service Meijer just started offering. A grocery shopping service. You fill out your list online and let them know when you want your groceries. Ta-da. Everything delivered right to your doorstep. She even included a coupon to save on my first order. As if. Sure, take away one of my favorite pastimes. No more shopping at Meijer? Are you nuts? Shot through the heart…

My throw away spoon rest. Who is this little dude-devil-mouse-boobs-on-the-outside

When I was growing up, the word ‘smart’ was used frequently. Most often used to define three things. If you were of high intelligence, people said you were smart. (Unfortunately, no one ever accused me of this). If you gave a snakebite (placing both hands on someone’s forearm and twisting hands in different directions), they might say, “holy moly, that smarts!” Or before sarcasm was universally appreciated as a highly desirable personality trait and coveted asset (yeah, I was way ahead of the curve on this one. Huh. Maybe I was smarter than everyone assumed) you were hailed as a ‘smart ass.’ Yes, I excelled in smart-ass-ism. Way before it was cool. Way.

Though I never gave the word ‘smart’ much thought, it’s been cropping up more and more lately. Everything seems to require the word smart in the title or catch phrase defining the product. Over the years, I’ve owned 3 Cadillacs. A ‘92 De Ville, a ‘95 El Dorado (my favorite car ever, after our 1964 Vette) and a 2001 Seville (which I hated). My dislike of the Seville was because it tried so hard to be smart. You’re just a car-let it be. While I enjoyed the De Ville and El Dorado because they were nice cars (I swear the 2 doors of the El Dorado weighed a ton a piece) the Seville just pissed me off most of the time. It had features which were not only nigh onto impossible to disable, these features made me feel dumb, inadequate and old. So very old. I swear that car was invented for your average 90 year old. I didn’t show much intelligence in this decision because I bought the dumb/smart car. The feature that drove me bonkers were the stupid windshield wipers. When a raindrop fell within a 30 mile radius, my wipers would turn themselves on. I looked like a dork driving down the road. Which was completely dry. The wipers were not doing their job by wiping away the rain so I could see better. Because there was no rain! But the car, trying hard to be smart detected that errant rain drop 30 miles away. It somehow assumed I was not smart enough to turn my wipers on all by myself. Arggggg. Sold that p-o-s after a couple years.

Recently car companies have touted several varieties of the ‘smart car.’ The tiniest one looks efficient, although I would never take it out on the interstate. Too small with no protection. Might be nice to drive around town running errands, but where in the world would I put my $150. worth of groceries? They might fit, but then where would I sit?

Now they have cars that parallel park for you! Where was this neat little feature 50 years ago when this poor 16 year old teen, knees knocking, teeth chattering, nerves on fire had to drive Mom and Dad’s straight stick during the driving part of attaining my driver’s license? With an Iowa State Trooper no less! One requirement was parallel parking, using only my (half) wits. But I digress.

Besides the smart car, you can buy smart TV’s. Ours tries to pick and record programs it decides we might enjoy. Has ‘free will’ totally been eradicated from everything? Please stop assuming you know me smart TV. Just sit there silent and dark and don’t try to get inside my head. You wouldn’t like it there anyway. I don’t even like it there sometimes.

Suddenly it wasn’t enough for every person in the world to carry a cell phone. We all needed smart phones. Mine however exceeds this requirement and has been renamed my Smart-ass phone. You’d think I’d really be happy with so many features, but again, it usually (on purpose, I swear) makes me feel inadequate and unworthy. Isn’t this the age of freak out fear, name calling and uncertainty? I need a phone that protects me, boosts my morale, doles out consolation trophies after I finally found the mute button last year. Instead it strongly suggests more and more Apps I need to make my life better, complete and truly meaningful. My iTunes app regularly chooses music it somehow knows I will love. You don’t know the first thing about me iTunes. No, you don’t. Just stop.

When I glance at Joshua or Shannon’s phone, their home page is entirely filled with their most frequently used apps. I have a couple problems with this. I don’t use many apps, and a busy home page like theirs makes me twitchy. Just too much stuff to look at. My iPad homepage has 12 apps, plus my bottom-top 4 which I actually use. And I only use 8 of the 12 on top. I keep the other 4 just so I look normal and popular. Keeping up appearances. My second page is filled with small squares containing 9 apps, bunched together. Aptly named Rarely Used, Useless apps, Extra Apps, and Never Used, 1, 2, 3 & 4. Which I keep just in case Joshua is helping me with something and for reasons unknown needs one of my 40 brilliant apps that I’m not smart enough to use.

How come we need all this stuff with the word smart in the name? Am I dumber than I was 50 years ago? Well maybe, but still. Do I need to feel enlightened with everything I own? Here’s the icing on the cake. One of my Christmas gifts this year was a pair of socks. (Thanks Josh and Erica). A really neat pair of socks. Black socks with a pattern knit in them. Not just ordinary socks either. Cause they’re smart socks. Are you kidding me? I. Am. Not. I guess the socks are smart because of their fibers. They’re Smartwool socks. The finest wool, sheared from the world’s smartest sheep. All sheep donating fibers are required to have, at minimum, a masters degree. Now even the smart sheep over shadow my inadequacies. How did I miss that big rollout?

But guess what? They’re stinking (maybe not the best choice of words) amazing socks. I cut off the tags, tossed all pertinent information away and tugged the socks on a few days ago. My word, my tootsies have never been so toasty during the month of December in my entire life. They’re not itchy, and they don’t slouch. I’ve not got one bad thing to say about my smart socks. Except where have you been my whole life? I want some more. The search is on. If I’m smart enough (maybe they’re rubbing off) I should be able to figure out where to find different colors and patterned Smartwool socks.

My Mom knit wool socks for me when I was growing up. But they were too thick (these fibers obviously were not from the smartest sheep in the flock) and cut off circulation to my brain when I wore them. I felt kinda bad for Mom because she said they were hard to make. Knitting difficult heels for this ungrateful heel. Sorry Mom. Nowadays these smart sheep eat a lean diet so their fibers aren’t bulky like their ancestors (who were probably carbo-holics-like me).

I don’t know. The older I get, the faster time goes, the behinder I am. Which, in turn tends to makes me feel old. Conundrum. But I really don’t feel very bad about it. I think I should, but I don’t. I feel like I should keep up with newest apps, smartest products, the latest technology. But all these ‘things’ just seem too much and too fast. I don’t especially want to be that fast anymore. I’m ok with life at a slower pace. I’m not always comfortable when I’m totally out of the loop, but meh, for the most part I’m ok with a slower and semi-smart Neese…

So one of my hometown childhood friends challenged me on Facebook a couple weeks ago. Nothing as exciting as a duel with black powder guns at dawn. The challenge was to show a black and white picture from my life. One picture a day for a week. Pictures without any people in them. Yikes. But even worse than no people in the shots, no explanations allowed describing the pictures! Double yikes. I’m a wordy person, I need to try and explain everything. In bulk. Multiple times.

I thought about just ignoring the challenge. Seriously. But I must confess, my curiosity was piqued. So with a big sigh and a little muttering under my breath, I started going through my 4,000 pictures on my iPad to see if a certain picture stopped me in my tracks. And needed no explaining. As if.

This silly challenge had been all over Facebook. Each time I saw it on my newsfeed, I cringed thinking, if you are indeed one of my friends, don’t pick me, don’t pick me. Please. Most of the pictures I saw were taken the same day they were posted. Simple life moments like clean folded laundry, cooking a meal, the speedometer of their car. But no, that wasn’t what I was thinking. I was leaning towards pictures I already had about my life. It didn’t worry me much about having good material without people in them. All my favorite landscape pictures are people-less. Who wants to see a throng of folks at Niagara Falls? Not me. Just give me the Falls please. Wild waves or an oddly calm day on Lake Michigan-spectacular-just hold the people please. But I wanted to tell a story with each picture. It’s what I do. Now that was gonna be the impossible part. (Photo taken by Jeremy Church in his kayak).

After the first 2 days I was already stewing about the number of pictures I wouldn’t be able to use because my 7 measly days were up. Yeah, thanks for that Anne. Just put a very short leash on this piss-poor-writer-picture-taker-constant-explainer. I decided long before my 7 black and whites were history I needed to do a mostly picture blog, plus words. But this time on my terms. People allowed, maybe some color and certainly words. Can’t forget to try and ‘splain it all for you. Over and over. Just in case you didn’t get it the first 3 times.

Here goes. Don’t think I’ve ever made a big deal about my heritage, when actually I’m quite proud of being Dutch. The reason it was never a big deal growing up was because approximately 80% of my small town was Dutch too. Guess I assumed the whole world was of Dutch ancestry. But after I moved to different parts of the country, I realized there’s a whole lot of nationalities out there and I’m a very small part. (Just happens to be the best one). Huh, who knew? Sorry, this explanation was already way too long for one simple wooden shoe. Let me try again.

With another shoe picture. My Mom’s first pair of baby shoes which were bronzed. The way families made keepsakes in the late 1920’s. That’s better.

This one is similar to the heritage thingy. Can’t say I really, really loved Iowa until I left the great state. It was simply the only home I’d ever known. That was 30 years ago. Things I never gave a second thought about. Acres and acres of corn crops, the richest, blackest dirt-needed to feed the world, wide open spaces, the mighty Mississippi, abundant sunshine. The older I get, the longer I’m away, the more I love my native state of Iowa.

My beloved little hometown. Immense love, loyalty, gratitude. My childhood wasn’t pain free, but whenever I think about Rock Valley, I smile and thank God I grew up there. Kind of like Opie in Mayberry. Hokey, I know. Still, the truth.

Rock Valley Community School. I wasn’t a good student, wasn’t very popular, but had a very close circle of friends (partners in crime too). Basketball games on Tuesday’s and Friday’s, pep bus rides, dances, cheerleading, bowling alley pizzas, slumber parties, stealing cars, vandalizing buildings. Lots of warm fuzzies for that huge part of my life. Neese, the thug. Ah, the good life.

My Dad, driving the Iowa State snow plow during one of our way too frequent blizzards. He was forever grateful for his job and benefits that it provided.

I never saw this picture until after my Mom died and I cleaned out their house when Dad was moving to Michigan. Summer of 1950 Mom was pregnant with me. Aww, too cute. She was 23.

Well, I’ve finally made my entrance. That’s me, about 6 weeks old on the kitchen table. Next to me is Larry, 4-1/2. Neither of us realized how much we would enjoy the few short years we would have together. Mutual admiration society. Wasn’t he just the cutest?

I know, I know, thousands of folks eat them everyday. But as far as I know, only Northwest Iowa call them Taverns. Not maid-rites, not sloppy joes, simply Taverns. Why this one word is of vital importance to me, I’ve not a clue. But it remains so.

My home all through school. One of the oldest houses in Rock Valley. It had more additions Dad was not an architect, every add-on (Dutch word is haukee) was a different level by a couple of inches. I wrote a whole blog about Dad and his odd way of building. But it was my home and I loved it.

A huge part of my upbringing, Rock Valley’s First Reformed Church. The youth groups were phenomenal, Sunday school, choirs, RCYF. (Being part of a group was very important to me).

Part of Mom’s legacy. She had more talent in her knitting needles and ability to read complicated patterns. I still have several of her wool, handmade sweaters she made for me. She was really proud of her work. Me too.

A frequent place to visit. Located about 70 miles from Rock Valley, it was a huge draw for teens. Lake Okoboji, one of the world’s bluest lakes, Arnold’s Park with gobs of crazy carnival rides, The Roof Garden, known for the hippest bands, concerts and dances. Thee Cat’s Meow, for sure. Fond memories.

Not to worry, this is just the first installment of my life in pictures. A snippet of a small town girl growing up. I’ve got lots more of my life to show and share. Next year. Thanks for tagging along. Stay tuned…

I’m not very adventurous. I don’t like heights, boats, (hey, there’s no brakes) roller coasters, or even scary movies. Although this seems more pronounced as I age, I’ve pretty much been like this my whole life. That enticing scraggly bridge across a gorge, or zip lining through a jungle are not on my bucket list. About the most daring thing I’ve ever done was scuba diving in Cancun. And the instructor led me by the hand under 20 amazing feet of the Caribbean and did everything but breathe for me.

This somewhat irrational fear has even hampered my food choices. And I believe it all started while Mom, Dad and I were in California during the summer of 1961. We were visiting relatives on both sides of the family. We went to Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, a Dodgers game, Mexico, and had a chilly picnic on the Pacific Ocean beach. Fabulous time. The relatives made great plans to squeeze as much California lifestyle in our little hicky bodies as possible.

So one night Mom’s uncle is taking us out for supper. Something new for the small Gerritson family. We went to a Chinese restaurant. I could tell by the scowl on Mom’s face, she was not pleased. She was less adventuresome than me and I was 10. I don’t know how much normal (I’ve never been normal) pre-teens are influenced by their parents, but that simple look on Mom’s face told me I would not be liking any Chinese food that night. I supped on tea and fortune cookies. This one evening’s destination exposing us to new and different cuisine was about the only part of the trip I remember which none of us enjoyed.

Hubs is a foodie. He likes all kinds of food, hot-spicy, and always enthusiastic about trying new dishes. I love food too, but only my usual food. Oh, I might add a few new recipes to my boring cooking routine each year, such as Shepherd’s Pie, or Chicken Corn Chowder, but rarely move out of that little comfort zone I’ve been in since my first decade of life has passed.

I’ll borrow a line from the opening of one of my favorite programs called The Goldberg’s. (Hilarious BTW, mirrors much of my own life as a Mom/with-kids/and married life). “It was July, 1980-something.” We were living in the Quad-Cities (Davenport-Bettendorf-Rock Island-Moline) and John and I were going out for supper together-without kids-a-rare occasion. The hot summer night was threatening with thundering black clouds, stifling humid air, and there was no doubt we would see a rain storm before getting back home. Shannon, in her mid teens was foreman over her 2 younger brothers. A job she hated but relished at the same time.

Hubs promised me Pizza Hut. Yup, it’s Top Shelf when we venture out by ourselves. No kids running around, spilling pop, arguing, or disinterested rolling eyes. Except John drove right past our Pizza Hut. “Hey, where we going, turn around, you missed it dipstick.” Calmly he answered, “no, we’re trying a new restaurant tonight. I think you’re really gonna like it. Kinda fancy and just opened. It’s called The Mandarin.” “Are you out of your ever loving mind? I’m not going to a Chinese restaurant. I repeat, I’m not eating Chinese food. Take me somewhere else or take me home,” I said in a huff. “No Denise, you’re gonna try Chinese food tonight. That California fiasco was 25 years ago. You’re all grown up now and I want you to try it again. I really think you’re gonna love the food.”

As God is my witness John parked the car, came around to my door (we had been married for about 17 years here, he never opened my door-nor did I expect him too) gently tugged on me until I was free from clutching the dashboard for dear life. Romantically hooked my arm in his so there was no escape and led me down the dark hole of hell. Oh wait, maybe it was the lovely restaurant entrance. Same thing. I was furious, livid and pissed off beyond words. Completely shut down. I walked woodenly as we were being seated. Beautiful decor, real tablecloths, Chinese paintings, pretty much red and white everything. Which I really didn’t see. Because I was crying, I was so mad.

Not to be deterred, John opens my menu and says, “order anything you want.” Tears streaming, I sob, “I want pizza. I want a cheeseburger and fries. I want a steak. What I don’t want is Chinese food. Let’s go.” He quietly closes my menu, smiles at me, then at the pretty waitress and says, “she’ll have Mongolian Beef, egg drop soup, an egg roll and hot tea. I’ll have blah-blah-blah.”

With my tears dripping in my egg drop, I hesitantly picked up the soup spoon. O-fricking-k, I’ll try one sip. Gag, gasp, hmmm. Not bad really. John moves a small dish of sweet sauce closer to my plate and says, “take a spoonful and dip your egg roll before you try a bite.” It looks like thick corn starch/water mixture tinted pink. I sniff and deem it non-poisonous, but I could be wrong. The tiny waitress moves in with a tray which quite possibly weighs more than she does. Sets down an oval plate in front of me. Small, white crispy noodles on the bottom, topped with rice. Covered with very thin slices of dark brown beef, vivid green 2 inch strips of onion, and a weird smelling gravy. Kind of sweet and gingery. Never smelled anything like it before. Well, I was only 35. First time my tongue had an orgasm.

Holy Hannah, I didn’t want to leave. More, I need more. I’d like to say I was mature and decided that very night I would try everything on their menu before the end of the year. Heck you know that just isn’t me. Now how long has it been since I started inhaling Chinese food? Little over 30 years. I’ve watched John order 50 various dishes when we eat Chinese. Wanna guess how many different dishes I’ve ordered? Well, it’s more than 1 but definitely less than 5. Although I love pineapple I would never order sweet & sour anything. I have tried one other soup besides egg drop called Sizzling rice. Made right at your table. (Hubs has ordered it several times). All my dishes contain beef. Beef & vegetables, Beef with Pea Pods, Beef & Broccoli, you get the drift. See, I can be daring and seek high adventure. And I want water chestnuts in everything. Love their crunch.

Of course I couldn’t leave well enough alone. Why couldn’t I make Chinese food at home? Because there are some things I’m not suppose to try to replicate. Chinese food happens to be the third food item. Lasagna and Reuben’s are the other 2. Foods I adore but hate to make, and I don’t know why. I usually like to kanooey around and enjoy several different steps. It’s what I love about canning. But not about preparing any of these 3 dishes.

The steps involved in a simple Chinese supper drive me to drink. I put this in the same category as prepping for a colonoscopy. The actual test is a breeze. They knock you out, a couple minutes later you’re awake and groggily shuffled out to the car, where someone drives you home to sleep it off. Butt (ha-ha some colonoscopy humor) it’s the prep work the day BEFORE the test that knocks your socks off. Do not work. Do not eat. Do not plan on leaving the bathroom for 24 hours. Drink a small portion of this gag worthy gallon of crap (yikes, more bathroom humor) every few minutes, and leave the cramping to me. The prep for the test is more miserable than the actual colonoscopy.

My last attempt at Chinese food started something like this. I had a tantalizing hunk of steak in the fridge. Just wanted steak, Texas toast, and a small salad. John was not enthusiastic. He doesn’t really care for steak as much as he used to and a sirloin is on the bottom of his list. Sirloin is my favorite next to prime rib. Alrighty then, I’ll use the steak for Chinese Beef and Vegetables. Off to the store for broccoli crowns, green onions, snow peas, fresh mushrooms, shredded carrots, bamboo shoots, and sliced water chestnuts. Holy cripes.

First, throw the steak in the freezer for half an hour because it’s much easier to slice thin if it’s a bit solid. Make a marinade of soy, sugar and sherry for the beef. Then stir together a big bowl of what will be gravy. Beef stock, soy sauce, cooking sherry, ginger, cornstarch, hoisin sauce, minced garlic and sriachi sauce. Well there’s 30 minutes I’ll never get back. And I haven’t even started with those dang vegetables yet. Rinse, give the veggies a friendly pat down and start chopping all of the above except bamboo shoots and sliced water chestnuts. A big thank you for the 2 canned convenience foods. Yay. Take out the steak, slice it thin and plop in the marinade mixture. Start a pan of white rice cooking. Throw the dripping beef in a large nonstick fryer (no I don’t have a wok-I may never do this again) and brown the meat for 3 minutes. Remove meat to a bowl. Add a bit of water and oil to the pan, dump in the broccoli, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts and carrots and cook for a couple minutes. Add the meat back to the pan cook another 2 minutes. Toss in the snow peas, green onion and heat through.

Although the cooking times are short in duration and I really like my Chinese food veggies crunchy, this is very time consuming. And the kitchen looks like a tornado struck. When you add up the steak, rice, fresh veggies and my time this meal cost is astronomical. An hour to prep and cook, measly 10 minutes to eat, and at least a half hour to clean up my disastrous kitchen. Pros, yes it was tasty, fresh and homemade. Cons, probably more expensive than eating it out. The final casting vote: Hubs and I are both hungry 5 minutes after I walked out of the kitchen…

Some new traditions developed when we lived on the farm. The year was 1976, John and I were in year 7 of wedded bliss. Shannon was in kindergarten and Joshua had just turned 1. Of all the places we ever rented before buying a home, the 2 story farm house was one of the nicest. But also one of the most isolated. Hubs was working in Cedar Rapids which was about 40 miles away. This farm was several miles outside of Cascade, Iowa. In sticksville.

The farm house sat next to a smaller place (for the farmers hired hand), both houses surrounded by fields, a grove of fruit trees and swine. Lots of swine. And let’s not forget a nice herd of cattle and feral cats. All new to this townie. The pitiful driveway was so long and curvy, I could not see the gravel road from the house. About the loneliest I’ve ever been. Both our families lived 350 miles away. I would not have made a good pioneer woman, although I probably learned more during the 2 years on the farm than I have since. About lots of things.

We were close to destitute, the commute was killing us in more ways than the cost of gas, keeping our junker car running and John being gone 12 hours a day. I had no car so I was literally stuck. When I think about that now I almost panic. What would I’ve done had Shannon gotten sick at school? Couldn’t even go pick her up. I did have a couple good friends but they lived about 20 miles away. Dang. Heh, we were young and dumb.

I pushed Josh in his stroller everyday as we walked Shannon to the road to catch the school bus. I wore out 2 umbrella strollers because the drive way was one pothole after another and jutted with rocks the size of baseballs. If Joshua was napping when the bus was due my heart would start racing. I’d wait until the last second possible, slip out of the house, jog along the edge of the driveway getting smacked by cornstalks, but the terrain was more even. Encouraged Shannon to book it back to the house with me before some un-named, un-seen ne’er-do-well turned me in for leaving my child unattended.

It was at the farm where I really learned to cook and bake. There was nothing else to do with all my time besides the copious number of letters I wrote. For 2 years I never bought a loaf of bread. Yeast was my best friend. Cinnamon and caramel rolls, hamburger buns and dinner rolls were made as easily as a box of mac & cheese. I soon realized the more often you make something, the better you become at that task. I could ‘feel’ if the dough needed another half cup of flour by the texture. Of course there were consequences with this new found talent. Hubs and I each gained 20 pounds during our 2 year carb-fest. Homemade bread with butter, now there’s a meal in itself. When you add goulash, pot roast, spaghetti, well it wasn’t hard to see where exactly those extra calories were coming from. But my desire and dedication to become a better baker and cook became important to me as a woman, wife and mom. Huh. Strange days.

So while I was becoming an expert in the world of yeast breads, gorgeous fruit was ripening before my eyes in our tree grove. I asked Bob (the sadistic farmer who owned a thousand acres) if I could pick some apples? He said sure (he was nicer to me than he was to his wife, Mary Ann. Actually Bob was nicer to everyone than he was to her, and he really wasn’t very nice at all). Anyway, there were several varieties of apple trees, and I tried them all, my sights set on becoming a good pie baker.

Of all the apple trees, one really stood out. Wooing me like Adam & Eve in the garden of Eden. I can’t say for sure if it was a Granny Smith but it was a large, tart green apple. After I made the first pie, I realized it wasn’t quite sweet enough, so I increased the sugar amount by a quarter cup. Yes, that’s the ticket. My pie crusts however took a bit more time to perfect. Crusts were kinda tricky for me. Not enough flour on the counter and they’d stick, too much and they didn’t fold easily and would crack trying to slide it on the pie plate. We ate our way through some mighty unattractive pies 40 years ago. But like feeling the texture of bread dough, my hands knew when the texture was right for pie dough too. That last tablespoon of water might be too much one day or not quite enough the next. Fickle stuff. But I continued to bake and learn.

I remember discovering sometimes a brand name makes a difference. Back then, I don’t recall a lot of different brands, or very many of their own ‘store brand’ products in stores. I know there was Spry and Crisco for shortening, and you could buy lard, but that just sounded gross. (There are women who swear by using lard in their pie crusts, including my sister, but I never jumped on that bandwagon). I tried a couple different brands and was convinced Crisco made the best pie crusts, still feel that way today. Though to be brutally honest, I’m loathe to try something new this late in the game. I just stick with Crisco.

My Mom was a good cook and baker, though didn’t bake too often. She excelled with candies, Fudge, Penuche and Divinity. Also a 7-minute cake frosting which very much resembles divinity, (which I’ve always been hesitant to try). After Mom made a pie, she gathered up the leftover crusts bits. When rolling out a crust you make it a couple inches bigger than your pie pan, then trim it after it’s in the plate, leaving enough extra to fold under the plate edge and crimp (yes, with a fork). Thus you end up with quotation mark shaped pieces ranging from small scraps to some several inches in length. After the pie was out of the oven, Mom would takes these leftover dough bits, dab a bit of milk on them, then sprinkle sugar, and cinnamon on top and bake them. Almost better than the pie. For real.

After I mastered decent pie crusts, I made all these tiny scraps exactly the same way Mom did. And my kids loved them. (Me too). That all changed when Shannon had Landon 17 years ago, though it took me a couple of years to figure it out. Landon (Drew to the rest of the world) has some allergies, so finding foods, especially treats became a challenge. One I embraced seriously. Always on the lookout for different ways to fix the foods he could have. And take care of his sweet tooth with something other than chocolate.

When Landon was still in preschool, Shannon would come to our house for a weekend of pie making during the fall. With 2 of us tackling peeling and pie crusting duties, it didn’t take long before we had a couple dozen cooling on the counters. The amount of leftover scraps (I find you can’t keep re-rolling pie crust dough-it gets tough, even though I’m a pretty good judge of pinching off just enough for tops and bottoms) was staggering. By this time the boys were grown and out on their own, so the fun of making all this extra sugary pie crusts was a moot point. And neither Hubs nor I needed more carbs when we were grazing through good sized pie wedges like we were prepping for a pie eating contest as serious contenders.

Since Ariana and Landon were along for the weekend, I decided to make some sweet crusts for them. Oh-oh. Looks like Landon had found something good, sweet and right up his alley. He loved them. Ate them as fast as he could until they were gone. Then asked for more. Instead of dabbing milk on top though, I switched to water. I dab milk all over my top pie crust, then sprinkle the top with sugar. As it bakes, the crust gets a bit shiny, crusty and sweet. I don’t know why I do this, just always have. Maybe Mom made pies this way. I think most people use an egg wash. I never jumped on that bandwagon either. Egg wash sounds gross.

That was the beginning. What had I started? Indeed. That little boy was possessed with pie crusts. Still is. Used to be the first thing he’d say as he walked in the house. “Got any pie crusts grandma?” But now he’s gotten sneaky about it. Because he had a little sister named Peyton who also likes pie crusts. And he doesn’t care to share. I supposed he feels somewhat entitled. Peyton loves chocolate. I usually make her a batch of fudge when they came for a visit. According to Landon, the pie crusts were just supposed to belong to him. It wasn’t like he had a dozen treat choices with which to indulge.

When they were kids, I thought Josh and Adam ranked near the top in their uncanny abilities to hide stuff-right out in the open. Most often the items in need of being stowed away from their brother’s view and memory were leftover food. I know, they were just a couple of nuts! The lengths they would go to, the time, and thought process. Masterminds-both of them. Spaghetti was the top vote getter. Their favorite supper and ANY LEFTOVER was well worth dying for. Ok, that’s maybe a stretch but they made hiding that leftover their main goal in life-to keep said leftover out of the mouth of their brother. Countless times when they were growing up I’d find a container, green with mold because they had hidden it so well, then promptly forgotten about it. That part wasn’t a priority though, as long as their brother didn’t get to eat it. I swear as God is my witness this is the gospel truth.

It’s no longer efficient or worthwhile to continue to use pie crust scraps. Whenever I’m making scratch pies, I simply dedicate the equivalent of 3 9” crusts for Landon’s treats. Roll out the crust in a large rectangle as if I was making a slab pie for a party of 50. Fold it, slide it on parchment paper and onto my biggest cookie sheet. Dab on the water, sugar, cinnamon, more sugar, then cut it in bar size pieces. Bake it for 15 minutes or so, let it cool and start filling his container.

Landon has taken hiding pie crusts to a whole ‘nother level, which is kind of odd because in truth he’s the only one who feels their life is not complete without cinnamon-sugar pie crusts. He might just be bordering on paranoia. If the family is here for a holiday, he rarely asks about crusts anymore. The sports jock saunters in and immediately heads downstairs to check out the freezers, if he doesn’t spot the 9 x 13 rectangular old Tupperware container on the counter. Landon then makes it his mission to ensure not one other person in this house gets nary a whiff of pie crusts. Landon’s hidden the container under beds, in cars, shoe boxes, outside, behind pillows on beds. He’s quite inventive. Every few minutes he’ll just appear, walking through a room, sporting a dusting of cinnamon and sugar. Chewing, smug and contented. Goofball kid, always playing his crazy gram…

We all have them. Personalized, unique to our upbringing, environment, fetish-whatever. In my head I own my quirks. They’re part of what makes me-me. But when I think about them realistically, I realize it would be very rare for someone else not to share what feels like it belongs to me alone.

I’ve never been a very good breakfast person. I need to be up for several hours before I’m hungry and feel like eating. I do better when we eat omelettes, waffles, pancakes or eggs for supper than in the a.m. Big breakfasts often feel too heavy, like lead in my stomach throughout the morning. If Hubs and I are out and stop to eat during the in-between time, mid-morningish-10 to 11:59 I always opt for lunch if given a choice. John will choose breakfast 95% of the time.

I go to work early, either 6 or 7. To squeeze all our infant room caregiver’s lunch breaks in during a reasonable time frame, someone has to go first-and it’s rather early. Since I get up about 4:30, I’m starving by mid-morning, my usual break time. I have my lunch packed in the fridge, ready to go the night before. Not once have I ever considered bringing something remotely associated with breakfast fare to work. Spaghetti, beef stew, chicken corn chowder, shrimp cocktail, shepherds pie, and on rare occasions a sandwich (not much of a sandwich girl either). While the smell may gross out those in the hallway while I heat up my leftovers at 10 or 10:30, I have no problem eating supper food with a Diet Pepsi at this early hour. I’ve been up for 5 hours, to me it’s lunchtime. And a miniature Hershey Bar for dessert if I’ve got nothing homemade to fulfill my sweet tooth craving.

It wasn’t until I had kids I realized cold cereals was their top choice for breakfast. Early morning television programs packed with commercials vying for my kids to pester me non-stop. Snap, Crackle, & Pop, Toucan Sam, Tony the Tiger, the Leprechaun hawking their wares. Available in containers the approximate size of one of the smaller Great Lakes. One might think this would last 3 normal sized growing kids a month. Yeah, try 2 days. Three days max. Their role model in this venture was their dad. Maybe not so much Shannon but definitely Joshua & Adam. Grab a bowl designated for holding a double batch of chocolate chip cookie dough, pour cereal for roughly 3 minutes, add a quart of milk and viola’. Three minutes later, lather, rinse, repeat. Another 3 minutes, well, you know the drill.

I always gave them choices. Occasionally making French toast or oatmeal. When instant oatmeal packets became the rage, they became a hot ticket item some mornings, requiring only water and a minute in the microwave, thus my ravenous kids had another choice. These packets came (probably still do) in several flavors with bits of dried fruit that bulked back up with the addition of hot water. The Van Berkum kids preferred apples and cinnamon. But never just one packet, at least 2, sometimes 3. Pre-sweetened cereals were a huge hit, Lucky Charms, Count Chocula (gag), Cap’n Crunch, Froot Loops, Frosted Mini-Wheats (looks like a bale of straw, how un-appealing. John and Shannon used to fight over Frosted Mini-Wheats, and as adults have given each other boxes of it for Christmas over the years) plus Frosted Flakes (more on this one later). Still, all of them enjoyed Cheerios, Rice Krispies, Raisin Bran, Corn Flakes, Wheaties and the least appealing one-Grape Nuts (were they nuts? horrible stuff, looks like gerbil kibble). One weekend morning we might make waffles, pancakes or eggs, but the majority of mornings, cold cereals were preferred.

So back to this odd quirk of mine concerning breakfast foods. I didn’t grow up with boxed cereals in our house. I ate sliced bananas in a bowl with milk and sprinkled with sugar or Mom would peel and dice a couple of oranges in a bowl (sprinkled with sugar). Ruby red grapefruit, cut in half and placed in a small bowl. Mom took a knife, gently cutting between the pith and fruit all the way around, sprinkled the grapefruit with sugar. Using a spoon, I’d slide it down the side of each membrane section, then scoop up each tiny sweet bite. When the fruit part was gone, picked up the grapefruit half, tipped it sideways. Squeezed out the juice to fill my teaspoon a dozen times, then moving on to the next half. Oatmeal with milk & brown sugar or toast (not toasted too dark or it got tossed) & butter, topped with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. (I’m noticing a common thread here, might have something to do with sugar). And yes, I’ve strived to keep my breakfast traditions alive with my kids and grandkids. (Plus Hillbilly Bread, butter, sprinkled with a half inch of light brown sugar. But not for breakfast, this delicacy was more like dessert). And now the kids have to eat it on my whole wheat bread. Leveling the playing field for the brown sugar. Of course I have their best interest at heart.

OK, I’m ready to divulge my quirk. This one belongs to me and me alone because no one else is weird like me. Wrong. A couple of weeks ago at work I’m feeding 3 babies breakfast in low-riding high chairs. Moms bring their food which ranged from yogurt to oatmeal to a cut up bagel. So I’m doling out small portions of bagel bites to one, but feeding the yogurt and oatmeal kids, while carrying on a conversation with Angie (the other breakfast weirdo in the world). Ang and I are talking breakfast traditions. I mention I don’t eat cereal very often, but when I do it’s an ordeal. As I described the steps taken to eat the occasional bowl (or bowls, I’m getting there) of cereal a knowing look crossed her face. Good grief, there’s another one in the world! I’m not alone. Thanks Ang, or maybe I should say-sorry.

I only eat 2 kinds of cold cereal. Frosted Flakes and Cheerios. The bowl for my cereal resembles an antique individual salt bowl. About 2 inches in circumference, and holds approximately 8 Cheerios, 2 Tablespoons of milk and a quarter cup of sugar. Seriously. Yes. I’m. Serious. All ingredients must be in place, close at hand before the ice cold milk is poured or I have to toss the whole works and start over. There is no book to read, my ever present iPhone and iPad are oddly absent. I will not be distracted by phone calls, conversations or eye contact. There is now only one purpose in my life. To consume 8 Cheerios, 2 Tablespoons of milk and a quarter cup of sugar BEFORE THE CEREAL GETS SOGGY. These 3 steps will be repeated for approximately 10 minutes, which equals a normal size bowl of cereal and milk. Sugar part, maybe not so much. But once I start, it’s all about getting to the finish line. Eating only crunchy, crisp cereal, nearly frozen milk and a heaping helping of sugar. Yes, one must have goals in life. And no, I don’t eat Life cereal. It’s not on my approved breakfast list…

It was September, 2013. Our house in North Muskegon had been on the market for 6 months. Essentially we had been guaranteed a quick sale with a move most likely by Labor Day. Well that didn’t happen. We were already sorely disappointed, and didn’t have a clue it would be another 2 long, miserable years before we were finally able to move.

Ari 3 in the back of our North Muskegon house, 1994…

I had just retired from my Parish Visitor stint. Partly because we were moving, but the main reason was the rapidly rising death count on my watch. Couldn’t grieve more than a few days when I would lose another dear person from my long list. I had been losing an average of one person a month for a decade and it was taking a toll.

The pull to central and eastern Michigan was strong. Our whole family, 3 adult children, spouses, and 4 grandchildren lived within 50 miles of each other. Except for us. Now both retired, living in a too big, too expensive home on the lake, where we no longer wanted to be. We were 175 miles away from everyone we held dear.

Landon in junior high..

Landon (Drew to the rest of the world) was in junior high and already making a mark in the basketball world with his uncanny skills of ball handling and shooting. Peyton, 9 was tuning up her skills on the dance floor, or singing in front of a crowd. Adam & Sarah needed help with caring for Graham, 4. Sarah was a full time student to become an RN and Adam was head chef at a ritzy restaurant in Ann Arbor. On the weekends Sarah was a waitress at another ritzy place to earn some extra bucks. Between Sarah’s Mom Karen, Hubs and I would take turns with her watching Graham on their busy work filled weekends. Newlyweds Josh & Erica had just purchased a lovely condo over-looking the Detroit River and Canada on the 24th floor, in downtown Detroit. We were driving 150-180 miles every weekend to visit, watch games, performances or stay with Graham. We loved it, just not all the driving. But our nice house remained un-sold. So we continued to drive. And drive.

Ari…

At this time, our oldest grandchild Ariana was a great concern. In her early 20’s she had recently suffered a major heartbreak. She was in a funk and rightly so. This might be one of those times in your life where you either fight or flee. An opportunity was presented to her and she grabbed it with both hands. An acquaintance needed help for 6 to 8 weeks with her 2 children, 5 & 1. Would Ari be willing to live with them during this time? The mom Bobbi, an American was in the Air Force and transitioning back from her deployment. Her husband Paolo was in the Italian army, training for his deployment. Did I mention they lived in Anzio, Italy? Ari took a leave from college & work and flew to Italy to nanny the kids (and escape). Make the return of one parent and departure of the other easier. And think about her own future. Away from the pressure and hurt.

Probably need to tell you about Romeo here. (No, not the low-life-pond-scum-asswipe-dick who had hurt Ariana so deeply). Romeo was Ari’s new kitten. Jet black, cute and cuddly, he helped Ari with her massive hurt heart. But keeping the kitty at Shannon’s while she was in Italy was out of the question since Landon has animal allergies. Shannon went to Ari’s apartment every couple days to feed, water, and play with Romeo, but poor kitty was alone a lot. Enter the super grands. Ari had a great apartment in a large complex in Jackson. Part of a 100 year old abandoned prison building converted into apartments. It boasted 1 foot thick brick walls. And Ari’s apartment was empty (except for Romeo) for the next 6 weeks.

Handy and helpful for us plus the kitty. If Shannon and Tracey needed help to chauffeur kids here or there, or it was our turn to watch Graham for a couple of nights, we’d just get Ari’s apartment key from Shannon and spend a few days. Her apartment had a TV, a decent queen sized bed and a kitchen so we didn’t have to eat out the whole time we stayed. Plus John was warming up to the kitty. That might be a stretch. John actually liked Romeo, but there were some issues.

Romeo didn’t feel it necessary to move out of the way when John was walking where Romeo had put down roots for the moment. When Romeo did move he was either trying to join John in the restroom, or sneak into the bedroom. If Romeo missed sneaking through the bathroom door, he’d sit by the closed door and meow, plus swipe his paw under the door a thousand times like, “dude, you forgot me. You can’t do this on your own! I can help, honest.” We kept the bedroom door closed all the time, which stumped Romeo cause he had free reign when Ari was around. And had a highly prized sleeping nook near her head on a pillow all night long. This sudden freeze out miffed the kitty. So he made it his mission in life to sneak in the bedroom whenever the opportunity arose. But he quickly learned if he simply hopped on the bed like he owned it and had won a major battle, one of us would just snag him in our arms, haul him out of the room and close the door. Well shit.

When we were visiting and sharing Romeo’s space, if the bedroom door opened for a nanosecond, he’d zip through faster than the speed of light. But now instead of leaping on top of the bed and bragging about his accomplishment, he’d zoom underneath the bed. To the farthest corner and the only impossible spot where neither one of us could get him. Romeo would hunker down, in for the long haul. Until we tried to go to sleep. Then he’d claw the bottom of the box spring while on his back, going over every inch meticulously. And making quite a bit of noise, protesting over us not sharing the top side of the bed with him.

We were spending a few days at her apartment, not long before Ari flew back home. We’ve loaded up the cupboards with canned goods, the freezer with home cooked meals, and picked up a few things her apartment needed. One appliance still missing was a microwave. We decide to buy one before we drove back home. Found one on our way to Landon’s basketball ball game which started around 6. We visit with Shannon, Tracey and Peyton during the game, then head back to Ari’s apartment. It’s about 8:30, we’re tired and hungry, but don’t feel like a sit-down restaurant. (When faced with this dilemma I always choose McDonald’s-always). But Hubs has different fast food in mind. Ugh, about my last pick and if there was another choice nearby I’d make him stop for me. It’s not that I don’t like Mexican food, I do, but Taco Bell, not so much. But that’s what he’s hungry for, and since I usually get my way, I cave this time.

Taco Bell has one thing I can stomach fairly well, don’t recall the name, something Crunch. Some kind of folded flat thing with pretend beef and a crunchy flat taco shell in the middle. We do the drive-through thing, anxious to get back to the apartment, put on our pj’s and relax. The parking lot at the complex leaves a lot to be desired-especially around 9 on a Friday night. Luckily, there’s quite a few singles who hang their shingles there, so they’re ready to go out and party when we’re ready to poop out and crash. It is 9 after all. After zigzagging through the parking lot a couple of times, we nailed a spot not too far away. I’m not someone who has super powers to carry nineteen bags of stuff at one time, but would rather make a dozen trips. But not tonight, we’re both bushed. We’ve got a couple of bags, my purse, the Taco Bell bag and the new microwave in a box the approximate size of Ari’s apartment. We got this.

At least the city-block-sized-box has indented holes on each side so we can easily lug it together, staggering our steps, trying not to drop anything or smash our shitty food. The apartment complex outside entrance has a key code, so we set the compact-car-size-box down and enter the numbers a dozen times before iris recognition kicks in. Clumsily we make it through 2 outer doors and the 3-city-block-foyer. (Geez they could have made another dozen apartments with all this space). Head through a small hallway (where the foot thick brick walls are exposed-really neat looking) and mosey towards the elevator, since we gotta go up 3 flights. Push the button, wait an eternity, finally the door eases open. The box is about the size of the elevator. We wheedle our way in, set the box down, push the third floor button. Door finally closes. And nothing happens. Nada. Zip. Zilch. No nice hum, no little belt creaks that cause you pause as it glides slowly upwards. Nothing. John pushes the lobby button, nothing. Floors, 2, then 3. We’re simply in a dead zone. Going nowhere fast. With smelly food that now borders on a dumpster dive grand prize.

Minutes pass. I’m now sitting on the microwave box and don’t care if there’s a dent the size of Delaware when and if we ever get it to Ari’s apartment. The smell filling my nostrils is tepid, gag-worthy Taco Bell which I swear has been made last June. Is this building deserted? Does no one ever need to use the elevator? Hubs tries the emergency phone made for umm, emergencies. We get a recording instructing us to call maintenance after 8 in the morning if we still need it. Thanks for that. Finally, we hear muffled voices. We yell and scream as if the elevator is on fire and about to free fall 40 stories. No, merely a couple of hysterical old coots. Lo and behold, it’s someone we actually know, one of Ari’s friends. She realizes we’re stuck, gets her boyfriend who tries to pry the door open. That doesn’t work, so they call 911. We’ve been with the box (and molding before our eyes) Taco Bell for a good half hour. Just telling you about it makes me want to hurl. Ten minutes later the firemen arrive. They have some kind of tool used for prying open elevator doors. After the door opened, we were instructed to stay inside until the smell dissapates from within. Nice.

We later learned the elevator’s issues was a common occurrence in this building. Had I known, we surely would have used the stairs, no matter how tired we were, and certainly not entered with less than desirable food products. All in all about an hour until we were rescued. The firemen encouraged us to use the stairs until mainenance could look at it in the morning (after 8). That was fun. At least the Taco Bell got tossed, but the smell had permeated my hair, clothes, even my purse (a Michael Kors for heaven’s sake).

We don’t watch much TV that hasn’t been recorded. So we rarely watch commercials, Hubs fast forwards right through them. We watch an hour program in 40 minutes. Recently however, we switched from Directv to Dish (long story, and you don’t want to know). John is still learning all the buttons and has yet to program all the junk he likes to watch (see how I take the high road here). Thus we’ve been subjected to some live TV, which prompted this story. I’ve been exposed to a barrage of COMMERCIALS. Oh the pain. Every time I have to endure one of Taco Bell’s, I cover my mouth and eyes. My mouth so I don’t gag, my eyes so I don’t have to watch 2 things. One is some kind of coated chicken nugget blob, cut up in a taco thing. I think I’m gonna be sick. The other is a fried egg Taco Bell is trying to pass off as an outside shell for some yummy breakfast sandwich. Just kill me now. Could there be a less appealing way to serve an egg? Definitely not, no yolk…

It’s sneaky fast and virtually un-noticeable. By the time you realize it, years have slipped through your fingers. What happened? One minute you’re in the middle of moving 800 miles east of Iowa and raising 3 kids. The next minute (I swear) you’re celebrating your 48th anniversary. There’s no way we’ve been married that long. Weren’t we just the brave young couple who defied my parents and eloped?

I’m out-of-touch. I notice this in everything I do. From the wall colors I pick, the clothes I wear, the way I talk and songs I sing at work. Yup, still singing my odd playlist of songs to the babies. A song, long forgotten popped in my head a few weeks ago at work. I was valiantly trying to rock one of the babies to sleep. Whenever I start singing in the infant room, there’s a protest. Some of their reactions are pretty funny. Everyone looks up (workers included) because they’re trying to find out where those claw marks on the chalk board are coming from. For some reason it does not seem to affect the baby I’m rocking as much as the rest of those around me (yes, including my poor co-workers with the bleeding ears). Some babies protest falling asleep with every fiber of their being. Others are dream babies about taking naps.

The song? I’m sure Mom sang this song to me, thus I sang it to my kids. Still it’s been decades since these words left my mouth. And those were not hearing impaired days, so I might have been in tune at least for a couple notes. Not anymore. But this doesn’t seem bother the baby I’m rocking. They usually find comfort in the midst of my caterwauling. So I’m rocking, patting and I start singing:

“Oh where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
Oh, where have you been charming Billy?
I have been to seek a wife, she’s the joy of my life.
She’s a young thing and cannot leave her mother.”

Her head pops up and she gives me her best, “what you talking ’bout Willis?” Her furrowed brow quickly turns into a enormous, toothless grin and she lays her head back down. Doesn’t get any better than that. No matter which baby.

What happened # 2? I’m at work walking from the fridge with bottles, food containers etc. on my way to the gated kitchen section to warm everything up for various aged little ones. Bottles get plopped in a crockpot of hot water for a couple minutes, solids placed in little bowls in the crockpot with their name on it. But as I walked through the playroom, I get smacked with a smell. Somewhat offensive. Someone’s got poop. I politely ask for a show of hands. They band together choosing not to be singled out. I pick up one after another, nothing but sweetness. OK we have a winner! This is what slips out of my mouth-without thinking. “Let’s go change your pants.” What? I’ve never heard another worker say ‘pants’ instead of diaper. Just another goofy phrase that dates me.

What happened # 3? This most often occurs when I head to what I’ve named the pantry. Really the rear entrance of our house just off the kitchen/dining area. A small room with cupboards, countertops and a narrow closet, which has been a lifesaver. Our kitchen is small, thus I utilize this room and stock it with everything from soup to nuts. Literally. Soup. To. Nuts. All my small appliances, crockpots, popcorn popper, garbage bags, cereal, pop, potatoes, some canning supplies are hidden in the closet. Cupboard hold cook books, pantry staples, drawers with extra utensils, silverware in case 40 people show up to eat unannounced. So I head to this room at least 20 times a day. At the same time, my mind is on everything but what I need immediately from the pantry. Pause, gaze around with a blank look on my countenance. Shit, why am I here? Hmmm. Glance behind me, looking towards the kitchen, hoping for an easy answer. Why isn’t there a light shining down from the heavens with a clue to help me out here? Dish cloth, marbles, cake mix, Diet Pepsi, cupcake papers, jello, casserole, parchment paper, red hots, light bulb? Yes, even red hots.

Quite possibly, I could stand there for an hour hoping for an easy answer or a sign. Sometimes I just have to retreat to whatever room I was in when I felt it necessary to go off to my la-la land called the pantry. Return to whatever I was doing and hope that my not-so-literal light bulb goes off and I recall what it was I so desperately needed. So how come I can remember every word from a song 60 years ago, but not the Cream of Celery soup I need for the casserole I’m in the middle of making?

I’d like to think I’m aging well. At least about some parts. No, this isn’t about the wrinkles, saggy skin, age spots or the solid head of grey hair I cover with artificial light brown every month. This is realizing when I feel that dull ache between my right index and middle finger knuckle trying to open a Diet Pepsi screw top lid or baby food jar (I often have to hand it over to a co-worker, which is embarrassing, not so much with the pop to Hubs at home). Or that painful catch in my left leg whenever I pivot wrong. I’m thankful and grateful these are my only aches and pains for the day. Many are not so lucky or blessed like me. Friends with real health issues. Friends who have passed away way too young. My complaints are piddly at best. And while annoying, I realize remembering Cream of Celery soup (in the moment) is NOT a biggie. Just annoying and frustrating.

But I am strong willed, stubborn, and have a real problem changing my ways about a lot of things. These character flaws seem to get more pronounced the older I get. Let me point out a couple. (No you don’t have to help. I’m sure you’re all well aware of my faults, but I got this). I’m usually a real stinker when it comes to following rules I’ve been given. Hold on, I know what you’re thinking. But I’m really the exact opposite of what you assume.

After I’d been with McDonald’s a year or so I was given the responsibility of calibrating the grills, doing meat temp checks at changeover, and recording these temperature checks daily in a booklet. On the days when I wasn’t there, it still was my job to go over what had been logged in my absence. All meats, chicken, fish, beef had various temperatures they needed to reach after cooking, and though I can’t remember all of them anymore, beef was 155 degrees. Every couple weeks I’d go over this temperature book checking for issues. Why? Not sure. I believe we had to send them in to corporate, plus they got checked when the health department visited twice a year. Since beef had to reach 155 degrees before serving it to the public, there was no wiggle room in that magic number. After a day off, I resumed checking out what had been recorded when I spotted a glaring 153 degrees beef temp staring back at me. No explanation, no remedy, just a beef temp 2 degrees off. Kind of embarrassed but I went ballistic. Yes, Neese the rule follower was livid. At the manager who recorded the (lowly) temperature number. Why didn’t she do a second check, add a second to the cooking time until the grill could be re-calibrated or boost the grill temperature a couple of degrees for the day? When I’m given a set of rules to follow I’m usually a stickler about those rules. Although the word ‘usually’ can cause me to do the exact opposite at times too. Yeah, I’m complicated.

I don’t bake as much as I used to. When the kids were little I’d make a hundred fruit pies a year for the freezer. I love pie. I. Love. Pie. Not the easiest dessert to make, but once they’re made, baked and frozen, an easy answer for the best way to end supper. With our family of 5, a pie didn’t last long since Hubs got dibs on the extra slice sitting glumly in the pie pan. Now it takes us 3 or 4 days to get rid of a pie. And neither of us need 3 days in a row with a slice of pie, although he’d argue that point emphatically.

For the last decade when I’m baking apple pies in October, I tend to make much smaller versions, (which are just as much work). This inspiration came from my aging congregation too. A group of church ladies (they did not invite me) got together and made a hundred pies to sell. The problem? They froze the pies raw, and they were all 9 inch pies. For most members, now couples or singles at this point in their life, that’s a lotta pie. Plus it still had to be baked. I searched the Internet, found deep dish, 6 inch foil pans and bought 100. Made and baked 25 cleverly named, Itty-Bitty-Apple-Pies, slid them in quart size zip lock bags and advertised them for an upcoming church bazaar. Guess what? Not one pie was available when we opened the doors that fall morning. Workers, setter-uppers, members walking through looking at other folk’s castaways found my cute little pies. Bought them all before the general public walked through the doors. Ha!

Before I fell off the organized religion bandwagon, I did a lot of volunteering and contributing of my so-called gifts in our last church. Cooking, baking, canning and offering my goods and services. With our aging congregation anything homemade was highly anticipated and well received. I donated hundreds of jars a year of Bread & Butter Pickles, Pickled Beets and assorted jams, which were sold on Sunday morning after worship. The money was used for mission work. We had regularly scheduled dinners to raise money for a variety of needs. Chicken, pork loin, or turkey dinners, where cooks and bakers volunteered their time, but got paid for ingredients. The rest was profit going for whatever need we were trying to fill. I often signed up to make the desserts for between 125-140 people. Yikes. (I was a lot more ambitious 15 years ago).

The fund raiser that comes to mind was 6 or 8 years ago. I was responsible for desserts for 130. The tasty treats were on a table in Parish Hall. You went through a buffet line for your meal or someone served you. After you were done with the main course, (yes there are folks who maintain pork loin, potatoes, and green beans take precedence over dessert! Freaks, et al) you would peruse the dessert table and decide what you were craving to complete this feast. I made 3 different desserts, amounting to 45 servings of each: Apple Pie, German Chocolate Cake and Cream Puffs (with my homemade vanilla pudding and drizzled with dark chocolate syrup). Yum.

Shannon sends me You Tube videos on ‘how to’ for anything ranging from something cute to make for the families of our babies at work for a specific holiday to recipes I might want to try. Recently a catchy video piqued my interest. About a dozen ways to top a pie without using a whole boring crust with 4 vent slits like I’ve been doing for 45 years. Cute little cutouts like various sized hearts to top my pie, or polka dots crust, or leaves for fall. A dozen different themed crusts. I was intrigued. I got this. This was definitely doable for a pretty good pie baker. Until I’d been standing on my feet for hours. Me, with my own little assembly line of one. First thing I do is take the recipe for a 10” double crust and multiply the ingredients by 4. I make pies until I run out of pie crust dough. For the apples, I double the apples used for a 10” pie (so 16 cups total) plus the sugar, flour, salt, cinnamon and my secret weapon-nutmeg. I mix this up in a huge bowl and fill bottom crusts with gooey apples until they look “just the right amount of full.”

Now this is where I should review the fancy crust video and add the “wow” factor to my humdrum pies. But I’m bushed. If I don’t dawdle, I can make 2 or 3 pies, slide them in the oven, sit for a grand total of 5 minutes, and have just enough time to make another 2 or 3 pies just as the first 3 are done. (I really get messed up when I eat in between).

Let me back up for just a second. Several hours after the church fundraiser dinner featuring Neese’s desserts, I got an email from a friend who attended the dinner. Said she was too full for dessert so she and her family picked out desserts to take home. Later as they were enjoying my apple pie, they got curious about something I do to my crusts. She inquired, “what kind of fancy crimper do you use on the edge of your crust? We are stumped by it’s unusual design.” Huh? Fits of giggles ensued as I read the email to John. “What’s a crust crimper,” he asked? “Don’t you just use a fork?” Indeed…

Not many days go by where I don’t spend at a few minutes reminiscing/ reflecting about something from my home town. I have not called Rock Valley home since 1969. Yet it remains of utmost importance in many facets of my life, nearly a half century later. I suppose this midwest town can easily be summed up as one of thousands of small rural, farming communities. The heartland of America. With a twist of course.

At the time I certainly didn’t think there was anything unusual about my town. It was just a normal little community. We had town kids (I was one and didn’t know what a soybean looked like-or cared) but many of my classmates grew up in the country-outside of our little shopping Mecca/swimming pool/park/school. They lived on farms with their parents, growing the best corn crops/cattle/hogs on earth. No, I didn’t realize that either until I grew up. Crops-bushels per acre/prices of beef and pork weren’t part of my vocabulary. Going to Sioux Falls (45 miles west) to shop, eat, see a movie, and be part of big city life, even for a short time was important. And I’ve yet not gotten to the oddity of RV.

Really shouldn’t single out Rock Valley here either. Because some of the same size small towns surrounding us were eerily similar. Instead of having a quirk, it was probably more like a county wide issue. As in Sioux County, # 84 of 99 counties in Iowa. For some reason, when Rock Valley was being founded in the late 1800’s, folks of Dutch descent flocked here. Growing up, I never gave that a thought.

That’s not to say the whole town (in the 1950’s & ’60’s, maybe 1,600 to 1,800 including all those fabulous-out-of-city-limit-farmers) were Dutch. But the vast majority were. If I click off churches that I remember, I come up with 8. One Methodist, 1 Catholic Church, and 2 Lutheran (one was several miles south of town). Add to that one Calvin Christian Reformed, the First Reformed, one Christian Reformed and the Netherlands Reformed. See what I’m saying? Goes a long way when assuming over half our town was Dutch. At least. Me included.

All 8 churches had various services on Sunday morning. I believe most began around 9:30. With Rock Valley’s one stoplight (the very reason I chose the name for my blog) directing some of the traffic flow, an extra stop sign was erected at Main Street & 16th Street to help folks arrive at their destination on time. Never a problem for the Gerritson’s small band of misfits heading short 4 blocks away. Dad would drive 1-1/2 blocks west to the stop sign. His head swiveled south, watching a string of constant traffic heading north on Main. Every church with a ‘reformed’ in their name was north of us. Weird huh? He could have easily turned north a half block from our house, then west, thus landing at the temporary stop sign and making it much easier than waiting for an opening from the traffic light. Yet Dad did not. We always arrived at church a half hour before the preacher perched on his pulpit. Our pew choice might not have been assigned formally, yet somehow we always sat in exactly the same spot. From the back of the Narthex, left aisle, approximately one third from the back. I went in first, then Mom, with Dad pulling up the rear and sitting on the end. Quite often he had to get out for some reason, help serve communion or a baptism. Dad was elected as an elder of the church (thus placing this brat on notice to behave and not embarrass him) many times. So I guess it was important to arrive early, get to our non-assigned-assigned seat, watching other folks file in. And what they were wearing. Who had on new church clothes. Just saying.

One other small detail about the 8 churches I remember. The 4 with the word Reformed in them-had second services on Sunday nights too. Sigh. You don’t know how much this little known fact affected every facet of my life from that day forward. My own fault. I forced my parents to switch churches right before I started junior high. Already did a blog or 2 about that touchy subject. But I did little when researching other venues of worship. I was just a little sheep trying to join a herd with familiar sheep faces. Did I not notice that all the churches west or south of me did not engage in that extra Sunday night service ritual? I did not. I was ecstatic having friends in my new congregation. I was an outsider and outcast at Calvin. The only kid not attending Christian school. Being a loner, I don’t know why this bothered me so much, but it did. I was happy to belong to a big group of my school peers, although probably about as many friends attended the Methodist church. Maybe in the back of my mind, I knew Mom and Dad could never be coerced into the Methodist ideology. (Dad was a firm believer in predestination). Was I really that clever? Doubtful. Either way, I made a huge deal, cried hysterically, pleaded, whined, begged, was thoroughly aggawase, Dutch word for stubborn or pig-headed and zhanicked Dutch word meaning begged, pleaded & whined for months to convince them switch to a church with kids I knew and ran around with at school. I really, really needed this after we lost Larry and they acquiesced. While I feel bad about being an all around jerk, I’m not thoroughly convinced a church change wasn’t good for Mom and Dad at that time too.

It was February 1964 and this chick had just turned 13. Something big was about to happen, literally changing the world. Alas I was totally left out. And it was a very big deal. The Beatles were going to be on TV. It was almost as good as seeing them in person. (Yeah, a small black and white TV, snowy features, no remote or surround sound). Ed Sullivan had booked The Beatles for 3 weeks in a row!! They were going to sing I Want to Hold Your Haaaannnnndddd. All four of them wearing those cool Beatle boots. Was I glued to the TV like the estimated 70 million lucky folks watching across America? Screaming, crying, fainting or swooning? No. I was in church. All 3 Sunday nights. Every Sunday night. Every. Sunday. Night. Cruel world out there Neese. You think it would have been permissible to watch The Beatles one of the Sundays. Just once. Nope. Television was off limits-period on Sundays. And we didn’t miss church. Ever. No You-Tube, Google or even a VCR tape to covet back in the day. I had to wait until I got to school on Monday morning to be filled with dark green/leaning towards black envy at the lucky ducks who got to sin on Sunday nights while I was being preached to for the second time that day. Fourth if you count Sunday school and RCYF (hmmm, not sure, Reformed Church Youth Fellowship maybe). RCYF was held in First Reformed church’s basement before the evening service and and I really did like it. Our fellowship meeting ended just as the preacher upstairs was gearing up for his second sermon of the day. We were required to file up the stairs, (guards were not posted, though a couple dads disguised as ushers were mulling around but trying not to watch us as the doors were now chained from the inside anyway. I jest) and sit in the new addition together during worship. There was no doubt, every single parent went through the mass of kid’s heads until they lit on their own, now safely ensconced to hear more of God’s word before we were allowed to ride around the loop of RV for a couple of hours. Yup, this was my life.

So I missed a lot. For this girl, there would never be a do-over. I missed watching the British Invasion at its inception. Over one third of the United States watched The Beatles on that first of three Sunday’s on the Ed Sullivan show. However, not me. Oh I still enjoyed the music of The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Dave Clark Five, Monkees, Animals, Kinks, Zombies, and Herman’s Hermits. But I could never say I watched The Beatles when they were first on American TV. A sin and a regret. Should have faked an illness. I was a good liar. Great even. Could have, should have pulled it off.

By the time The Beatles broke up in 1970, I was expecting Shannon. Too busy learning about the ins and outs of marriage, figuring ways to pay our numerous bills, find something suitable and affordable besides Starkist Tuna (sorry Charlie) to eat every day rather than mourn the loss of my number one rock band. Plus the upcoming overwhelming job of motherhood. That one had me all twitchy. There was a lot on my plate besides music. But new music and news about about my favorite groups did invade my world at times nonetheless. Hubs brother Arly sent us all The Beatles and The Doors music (reel to reel) while he was in the Navy for safe keeping, which we played continuously. So, compounded with the loss of my favorite group, add to that the death of Jim Morrison (lead singer and lead hottie) of The Doors in 1971. Both hit me hard. I just didn’t have time to dwell on these minor tragedies that quite honestly didn’t affect my real life. I did feel bad though.

Shannon rocked her poncho, 1972…

I listened to a lot of music in the 70’s while raising our kids. But when homework and school activities added to the mix, the music of the 80’s didn’t get much of my attention. Until my kids really started listening to music. Which is way different than the kids of today. Much like my love of contemporary music when I became a teen, my kids didn’t listen much to the radio/tv/boom box until their early teens that I recall. By the time Shannon was in high school and Joshua in junior high did I realize I did not like most of their music when we were in the car together. If I wanted to listen to music, I now required ‘an oldies station’ much to their dismay. All my great music from the mid-60’s to around 1980. The aforementioned bands plus CCR, and still number one in my heart, Neil Diamond. It would be almost 2 decades before I started listening to new pop music again. New playlists to keep my feet and fat ass moving when I walked daily. Pitbull, JLo, Maroon 5, Enrique Iglesias, P!nk, Lady ga-ga, Black eyed Peas, Kelly Clarkson, David Guetta and Kylie Minogue. I know, I’ve lost my mind.

This re-found pleasure in popular music appears to be the reason I started attending crazy concerts during the last decade. I don’t think I’m trying to rediscover my sad sack youth or assume I’m trying to stay relevant in any way-shape-or-form. But the concerts have been a hoot.

P!nk soaring in Auburn Hills, 2013…

Which brings me to my latest adventure (and most expensive). First, the expense. I just can’t let this major gripe go on without pitching-a-bitch. I’ve never been a huge sporting event, concert person, so this weird (isn’t it illegal) phenomenon hit me hard between the eyes about 15 years ago. The Cubs were playing the Tigers in Detroit. We were buying tickets for the entire family (though not all were baseball fans-yes it breaks my heart). For some reason it was hard to buy tickets. I was used to going to Chicago Cubs, picking out the section and price I was willing to part with, pushing ‘purchase’ and have them send me my tickets. That ship sailed. It’s now required to go to Stub Hub, Ticket Master, Vivid Seats, or some other scalper and buy your $90 dollar ticket for $225. What the hell? I am in total disbelief that any ‘star’ or ‘team’ allows this to happen. Or our government. I thought if you got caught near a sporting event scalping tickets you were arrested. Now that seems to be the only way to get tickets for anything. And it seems to be legal. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Five minutes later, you’re connected to one of these blood-sucking sites and the ticket prices have tripled. A crying shame and pisses me off so bad. OK I’m done. And exhausted. Bastards. Rotten bastards.

Six months ago I noticed Paul McCartney was going on tour and Detroit was on his list of stops. About an hour from us. Wow. I already had tickets for Neil Diamond in June. Could this old gal ‘do’ 2 concerts in one calendar year? And would we have to resort to 6 months of nothing but Starkist if we bought tickets? Pretty close call. If not for Erica, my wonderful daughter-in-law who knew a guy (isn’t that always the way things get done) Her friend’s name is Jeff and he had a suite, tickets (also sweet) which didn’t cost me a dime for Diamond. Very sweet. So I took the plunge. Told the Hubs I wanted to see Paul before one of us died (Paul or me). And I wanted good seats. Paul’s concert was one of the first in our brand-spanking Little Caesars Arena, downtown Detroit. New home for the Pistons and Red Wings. Two-$150. tickets cost us $552. bucks. Bastards. Seems like Aswin (appropriate first name) Hartono bought my tickets before I could and deemed it necessary to add $252. in fees in addition to the already exorbitant prices of $150 each, thus allowing Paul to sing for Neese. I’m just not gonna say bastards again. But it’s so wrong. Just wrong.

The concert was fantastic. No changing of sets or clothes for Paul. At 75 years young he came on stage and sang for almost 3 hours. Started out with A Hard Day’s Night (he probably knew it was gonna be). He told story tidbits, dedicated a song tribute for his late wife Linda. For John Lennon, A Day in the Life and “all we are saying, is give peace a chance.” For George Harrison it was, Hey Jude. The sold out crowd helped Paul by singing, “nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, hey Jude for 5 minutes. (I might have lost track of some ‘nahs’ there, but you get my drift). Paul’s voice was a bit wobbly by the end, but he came out for 2 curtain calls. The last one was ‘Yesterday’ on an acoustic guitar with a Red Wings sticker on it. The crowd went nuts.

So glad we went. Well worth it. Parking 1/2 block away was 40 bucks, my Paul t-shirt another $45. We’re been pretty content with tuna casserole for a month of Sundays. About the blog post title. I’ve always been somewhat different in my choice of favorite songs of a band as opposed to everyone else’s favorite song by the same group or individual. Three songs from The Beatles or Paul with Wings remain on most of my playlists for walking.

1. Ob la Di
2. Ballad of John & Yoko
3. Mull of Kintyre (by Wings)…

I don’t know whose idea it was at first. Shannon’s certainly smarter than me, and much more clever. At the time though, I was the money supplier for such extravagances. What I can pinpoint and tell you is almost the exact time within a few days. It was October, 1991. Where it began.

Shannon & Josh, 1976…

Twenty-six years ago there were 3 likely venues to choose from. Penny’s, Sears and Olan Mills. The Sunday paper carried coupon specials that were hard to beat. Get your baby’s picture taken for $1.99, sometimes as low as 99 cents. For that sum you could choose one 8 x 10 from maybe 3 poses. An incredible deal. However, these businesses made their money by guilting you into buying more than one picture. These photographers were ruthless and relentless in their bid to make money off us poor unsuspecting new parents. They had been well trained not to take no for an answer. They’d lump some locket sized charms, wallets, 5 x 7’s all in different (the cutest) poses to wear you down until you’d pay just about anything for those damn pictures and get out of there. Because your kid was never gonna be that cute, wear that outfit or have that same adorable smile ever again. It happened often enough to this hapless, helpless mom when my kids were small (and cute, wearing adorable outfits from my Mom, with beaming angelic smiles). Walking out of those store I’d be half crying/cursing for spending money-we-could-ill-afford-on-pictures.

Shannon 1, 1971…

By 1991 we were a little better off. The kids, Shannon 20, Joshua 16, and Adam now 12, were long past getting their picture taken every 3 months because they changed so much and fast. But our granddaughter Ariana was getting close to her first birthday.

Ariana, 10 months, 1991…

We had already had several pictures of this exquisite child taken at various ages in different stores. Ari was a natural, stunning with the most beautiful almond shaped eyes and arched eyebrows. With this many years in service as a mom and now gram, I wore a tough coat of armor when being accosted by the hard selling band of photographers. And I was honing Shannon’s skills early as a young mom. She could offer a steely-eyed glance that would burn the lips right off their smiling face as they hit paragraph 2 during the sales pitch. Makes me a little teary. Yup, I taught her well.

My favorite picture, Adam & Joshua, 1980…

So unless Shannon’s going to argue the point, I will take the credit of the bath time pictures. Ari was 9 months old, probably having her picture done at Olan Mills. I may have had a lot of resolve in saying no to enormous picture packages, but had not yet acquired the set of skills needed in saying no to buying bundles from Olan Mills. When I bought these bundles, there were time constraints involved. I had a year to schedule 3 different photo shoots. I could fake a sick kid, or say the Hubs was out of town on business and stretch it out a couple extra months if I needed to. They actually were pretty lenient. Olan Mills always did a good job getting cute poses, and didn’t seem quite as crestfallen when I said no fourteen times. In a row. At one sitting. So Shannon and I were trying to come up with something different when we took Ariana in for yet another round of pictures. One of us (ok, me) thought maybe a bathtub shot would be cute.

Ariana, 1991…

Well, the bathtub pictures turned out simply adorable. My favorite part was Ari’s little curled toes. By now Ari had her first set of white high tops (as every baby should. BTW, my Hightops & Onesies story from May, 2017 is rather funny. I know, I was surprised too. Read it some night when you’re having trouble falling asleep). Anyway, I always had a tough time getting her high tops on that chubby little foot of hers. When I noticed her toes curled up tight as a drum on the picture I realized why I was having so much trouble.

Zoom forward 10 years, 2001 (which really took all of 3 minutes). Landon, (Drew to the rest of the world) is now about 9 months old. Shannon and I decide to have his picture taken with some kind of bathtub scene like we did with Ari. Turned out just as cute. Those dark ringlet curls all over his head like a halo. In one of the pictures he’s holding a basketball. Of course. He has yet to let go. I decided to have Ari’s and Landon’s professionally matted and framed with matching frames and mats. Our master bathroom in North Muskegon is huge with a whirlpool tub. I hang both pictures on one wall above the tub. Man does that look cute.

Landon, 2001…

Wait, we’re not done. Late 2004, Miss Peyton is now 9 months old. Her bathtub shots were all gauzy and she was chewing on a bead necklace. It’s adorable. I go back to the frame shop (still open, thank heavens) with Landon’s picture so they can match the blue mat and metal frame. And kind of wonder if I’ll have anymore grandkids? Shannon seems kind of done, but there’s still Adam and Josh with no kids between them. Oh what the heck. Just in case, I order 2 extra mats and frames. For future use. If there’s ever a need.

Peyton, 2004…

Sure enough, God gifted us with an incredible grandson named Graham in 2009. I reminded Sarah and Adam every month of Graham’s life about our family tradition of bathtub scene pictures around 9 months. Sarah had G’s appropriate picture taken at the same age as the rest of the grands. It too turned out so cute. When I spot Graham’s little leg high in the air, I just smile. I kind of thought my last picture frame would be wasted. None of the kids seemed to be having any more babies. The wall of four tubby time pictures of our grandkids have been my favorites since I hung the first one up.

Graham, 2009…

Months after we moved back to Jackson, our bathroom remodel was finally done. But it’s less than half the size of our old master bath. I’ve stood with those 4 framed grandkid pictures a dozen times, staggering the frames, holding them up and down, straight, from the ceiling, to no avail. Trying to figure out a way to get them on a wall without overpowering that rather small space. Cannot. Be. Done. So back in the spare bedroom they’d sit on the floor. Forlorn and dusty.

And then along comes Jovi! The best surprise package this family’s had since 2009. Our amazing first great-granddaughter. How times have changed. I don’t think Olan Mills is even still in business. Haven’t had pictures taken at Sears or Penny’s in years. I’ve been keeping tabs on the months flying by and reminding Ari to get a bathtub picture when Jovi’s 9 months old. Which Ari did by a talented young photographer named Faryn Steel yesterday. I’m sure these are some the preliminary shots aimed to tease us (well done Faryn), but my oh my. Jovi. This baby is simply too cute. She melts my heart. Melts. My. Heart.

A mommy snapshot of Jovi, 5 months…

What to do about our darling picture less bathroom? Now I’ve got another fabulous picture to squeeze in a too-small-room. I think I’ve come up with a plan. I’m going to take all of the pictures out of their custom frames, resizing them all to 5 x 7’s with a mat, or 8 x 10 without a mat. Try and find a hanging pattern which suits my one big wall in the bathroom. Hubs is great at figuring that stuff out. And I’m instructing him to leave an inconspicuous spot open. For another bathtub shot if the need arises. Just in case…

Jovi photographed by Faryn Steel, 10-17…