Tea Rings

My grandmother Scott made tea rings, pictured below.  (Now a days, most people call them cinnamon rolls.) She gave them as gifts; she sold them at the bake table during church fundraisers.

Once upon a time, I spent Friday nights with my grandmother at her small farm and come Saturday morning would awaken to the house smelling sugar-y and cinnamon-y.  Usually, she was done making her tea rings by the time I got out of bed.  (I'm a late riser, you see.) After I ate cold cereal for breakfast, I would be assigned the cookie detail.  By the time I was ten, I could whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies like nobody's business.  But that's another story.

The photo above is how Nanny made her tea rings.  Very old school, isn't it.  I remember that she had a pair of super sharp stainless steel scissors that she used to snip the dough around the ring before baking. (You could never use those scissors for anything else other than her tea rings.)  After letting them cool, she would drizzle the ring with a little powdered sugar icing and meticulously quarter maraschino cherries to place on each semi-sliced portion.  We were not allowed to eat the maraschino cherries either because they were too expensive or so she insisted.  It was a real treat if she spared one, believe me.

I typically make mine like this: new school.  I think this style is popular right now.  Beside, it's easier.  (I don't have those stainless steel scissors to snip the dough; I have to use a serrated knife, which just isn't as precise.)

In the spirit of Nanny, we are giving the old school tea ring to the neighbors. Christmas morning we will enjoy the new school version, remembering Nanny all the while.  Merry Christmas, everyone.  

The Great Christmas Debate

To send a Christmas card? Or not send a Christmas card?

This internal debate ping-pongs around my head.

It's one more thing to do.  Stamps cost money.  Stop being stingy. It's a stamp, for crying out loud.  You already bought the cards.  Just do it. 


Then today, I get a card from a long lost friend, Meredith. Over the years and two relocations later, I lost her address.  The only time we connect is via a Christmas card.  Last year, she diligently sent me one detailing the latest happenings with her two kids and husband, but there wasn't a return address on the envelope.  So I couldn't send her one in reply.  

Sending Christmas cards is kinda old fashioned in this day and age of digital everything.  What with constant updates on Twitter and FB, e-cards and paying bills on-line, who actually mails anything anymore except credit card companies soliciting for business.

Here's an interesting perspective: most of you know that I work at a major retail bookstore (that shall remain nameless).  Ten years ago, when I first started, we had three to four tables dedicated to holiday cards during this time of year.  Now, we have just one.  Yeah, dear gentle reader, one table.  The cards are getting more expensive and the box doesn't contain as many cards either.  So sending a card is a fading custom.

Back to my point: today I open a card from our long lost friend Meredith to see the smiling faces of her two children. Simply beautiful.  I was overjoyed.  Really, I was, because old fashioned or not, Christmas cards are the one time of year where I communicate with friends long separated by distance.  Especially the friends who are not on FB.  

This time around Meredith's envelope had a return address, which I've noted in my old fashioned address book.  The debate is settled, as you can probably guess.  I'll be sending out those Christmas cards.

Happy Thanksgiving

What does home mean to you? A cottage?  A farmhouse?  A McMansion?

Certain houses from my memory evoke that feeling of "coming home."  As I crest the first hill of the long driveway and my grandmother's farmhouse comes into view, my soul floods with a sense of peace, that sense of "I'm home."

My generic townhouse on my quiet suburban street in my generic suburban town doesn't evoke that same sense of "I'm home." It's just a building with four walls and a hefty mortgage.

But what makes a house feel like a home?  Why don't I feel that "I'm home" connection the way I do with my grandmother's farmhouse?  Is it the memories associated with it?

Lately, I think I've been so preoccupied with looking elsewhere that I haven't paid attention to what I've got.  I have great neighbors, a quiet, safe street.  And even though I can't grow a garden in the backyard because of a lack of physical space and the lack of southern exposure, I can grow tomatoes in containers on the deck, which gets enough sun.  Lettuce likes shade and since I've got plenty of that, I can grow that too.

And this house has memories for Joseph and I beyond that it's our first house that we bought.  This is our boys' first home.  Wherever they end up on life's journey, their first childhood memories will be from here and they will remember it always.

So even though I still imagine myself writing in a little sunny room of an old, creaky farmhouse with a verandah, surrounded by rolling hills of pasture, what I've got ain't so bad.  I need to appreciate my house, the life I've forged with Joseph and the boys. Be grateful for what I have.  Right now.  In this moment.    

A tribute to Joseph

Once upon a time, this is where I imagined myself living.  I also imagined myself married to a big ol' farm boy who would tolerate my penchant for reading and writing but not insist that I, you know, work on the farm.

(Photo courtesy of morgueFile. Thank you.)

This is what I got instead:  a generic townhouse in a quiet neighborhood on a tree lined street.  I can't see the horizon because of the trees (which I'm grateful for.  I'd rather not see the horizon because of the trees instead of other buildings or smog or both. I digress.).

You see, I had Big Ideas and Big Plans, once upon a time (like the last century.  Think about that, dear gentle reader. The last century!). My Big Plans were to go to Frostburg State University in western Maryland, then keep on moving west after graduation. I wanted to get lost out there in the vastness of the wide open space and find myself. Or lose myself.

Then along came Joseph.

I stumbled into Joseph, who interrupted my Big Ideas, my Big Plans, at least in part.  I still graduated from FSU in western Maryland.  But that's where the Big Ideas, the Big Plans stopped.  I didn't find myself in the vastness of some not so populated state west of the Mississippi River after graduation.

Instead, I found love right where I was.  With Joseph. In Maryland. 

I can't say the exact moment I fell in love with Joseph.  It just kind of happened: a slow, stumbling into it, really.  By the time I realized I was in the thick of it, there was nothing left to do but accept it.  I'm not sure how I managed not to screw it up. Or crush it.  (Living with me ain't easy, let me tell you.)

Here's the thing I've learned over fourteen years of marriage: Yeah, it takes love, but it also takes equal parts compassion and forgiveness.  So that when our disagreements stretch into several days of not speaking to one another except to communicate about the neutral topic of our boys, Joseph and I trust that we can wade through that disagreement with compassion and forgiveness to rediscover the love that's been there the entire time.

Happy Anniversary, Joseph, my Beloved.

The Writing Life

I know I haven't been consistent about posting any entries lately.  I've been busy crocheting.  Yes, really.  Crocheting.  You see, dear gentle reader, I've got an idea about a collection of poems percolating in the back of my mind.  I keep a small composition book nearby to jot down any ideas or images that pop into my mind row after row of single crochet loops. The repetitive action, for whatever reason, seems to inspire ideas.  Or maybe it opens my mind so the ideas can move around freely to swirl together to make a clear image. These ideas are the scaffolding for these poems.  Soon, the ideas will be ripe enough to put down in poetic form.

Are you enticed, dear gentle reader?  Curious as ever?

Check back soon for more.

The Writing Life

I've always wanted to be a writer.  As a teenager, I imagined the writing life to be something like this: me hunched over a small, wooden writing desk in a cramped attic room with the weak winter sun streaming through a dingy window, dust motes floating in the air.  I would be wearing lots of bulky layers to ward off the ever present, nagging chill, a scarf draped around my neck and those funky knit gloves with the tips of the fingers missing so I could grip my pen.  I would subsist on tea and dry toast.  (Mind you, dear gentle reader, I said dry toast, not buttered toast.  It's an important distinction.)

Very Charles Dickens-esque, isn't it?  

Here's the reality:  I carry a little black journal in my purse at all times.  When an idea pops into my head, usually at odd moments,  I jot it down.  I scribble observations too.  Like the grocery store cashier who pursed and wiggled her lips like a fish as she scanned each of my items.  No doubt it was an unconscious habit.  But wouldn't that make an excellent character trait for a novel?  

I write in my journal late at night after the boys are in bed asleep (like now).  I find the hours of 10 PM and midnight to be rather productive writing hours.  I recently finished a manuscript--an entire novel--written entirely during stolen moments.   

I'm always thinking of characters, what they would say, how they would look, what they would do.  Ideas are constantly simmering away in my mind. (That's why I can be a bit absentminded.  I'm not thinking about the task at hand.  Instead, I'm thinking if a character would really say that line I just thought of.) 

Even though I dream of spending every waking hour writing, writing, writing, I don't think I would be as productive that way.  My mind works much more efficiently when I say to myself: you've got two hours--get something accomplished! 

As always, thanks for reading my posts. 

   

New Designs

So, even though I haven't added a new blog entry, I've been busy designing the blog itself.  Thank you to shabbyblog.com for sharing their beautiful designs and how-to instructions to make my blog pretty.  Bless you.  To all my friends and family: please let me know how you like the updates.  I'll be sure to add a new entry soon.  Thanks for reading.