Tree Trimming Time

It took two days and and internet search, but we were finally able to get our tree up and lit and decorated in a perfect fashion!  Christmas is coming!

Thanksgiving, 2010

No one in earshot will accuse me of being over exuberant about Thanksgiving.  In fact, I imagine there is more than one person who could quote me as saying something along the lines of, "Cleaning, cooking and eating.  What makes it a special holiday if that is what I do every single day?" 

Suzanne and Steve were both eager for us to host the annual event since Cindi, the traditional host who LOVES cooking for large groups, is out of town.  Steve assured me that I would have to do nothing.  He and Suzanne would do everything!

As loyal readers are aware, these past two weeks have been anything but relaxing. After the recital on Sunday I was exhausted.  I heard from Steve that he would be bringing over the turkey and cooking it here and would be putting it in the oven at 10am.  Suzanne committed to making stuffing and pumpkin pie.  The cynic in me knew that this was not an entire meal... that I was indeed going to have to participate and going to have to change my attitude about the whole "cooking and cleaning" thing.  But how?

I was sitting at Weight Watchers, following the lecture on how to survive the holiday without overeating and I had an epiphany:  I would cook all of Vince's favorite foods to thank him for being such a great husband.  As Nancy was going over ways to make a green bean casserole have less points I decided to make a pecan pie.  As Nancy talked about loading the plate with vegetables and turkey and going lightly on the side dishes, I decided to make Vince a flourless chocolate torte.  As a member of the group talked about how she was going to not eat pie, I decided to make Willie his favorite cheese ball.  I would then make the side dishes from Cooking Light magazine, but that it could actually be fun to surprise everyone with their favorite foods!

Wednesday I spent the day cleaning and cooking.  It needed to be done.  I buckled down and did the cleaning.  With the place being way cleaner than anyone else who actually lives here would ever notice I began making the Torte.  This is not nearly as difficult of an operation than I anticipated.  The number of ingredients is minimal and the preparation, although it is an advanced technique, was not terribly overwhelming. 

After sliding it into the oven I continued on by preparing my vegetables, rolling out my pie crusts and organizing my appetizer trays.  Marina put together Willie's favorite cheese ball.  She also made a jello salad using pomegranate seeds and other fresh fruits.  She refused to read the directions.  I didn't care.  It's jell-o salad for heaven sake!

By eight that evening Vince was home and marveling at the desserts I had created.  I was starting to get excited.

The next morning, Marina and I started making orange rolls from scratch.  My previous excursions into the world of yeast and water had been far from successful so I was a bit hesitant to try this, but what the heck!  With a wood stove heating the room, the dough raised wonderfully.

Once the dough was set out to raise, and Steve was putting the turkey in the oven, Suzanne picked me up to take me to Sharon's for Mimosas.  Thanksgiving is Sharon's favorite holiday and she had about 8 plans laid out for her day.  I was so glad she worked us in.  Upon entering her home we found the orange press and fresh juice squeezed, ready for us.  Sharon was baking a pumpkin and then stuffing it with the stuffing she was taking to the dinner she was attending.  What an amazing concoction!  What a beautiful presentation!  She was so casual and refined, as always, blowing my mind with her cleverness.

After the tutorial she gave us on her pumpkin, Suzanne told her about the pumpkin pie she had made.  "Oh, Alana that milk I got from your house was supposed to be evaporated not sweetened condensed, but I used it anyway."  Sharon got a quizzical look.  "Is that bad?"  Suzanne said.  In her standard logical well paced way, she informed us of the drawbacks of using any evaporated milk at all.  She is an organic heavy cream girl herself.  She then laid out the possible drawbacks of this method over the standard evaporated milk. 

Suzanne and I looked at each other.  Suzanne then looked out the window and took a deep drink.

I asked Sharon about the delicacies of making a flourless chocolate torte.  What a fantastic teacher Sharon is!  "Yes, that is right, very simple ingredients and not that many components.  I usually use semi-sweet chips.  Sounds great.  Then you put it in the water bath in your oven, right?"

Suzanne and I looked at each other.  Water bath?  What the hell is a water bath?  I then looked out the window and took a deep drink of my coffee.

Sharon assured us that both dishes would turn out great and not to worry.  We headed home better for the morning with Sharon.

At home we continued with the cooking and preparing.  The rolls were perfect.  The turkey came out of the oven.  The vegetables went into the oven.  My dad called.  Chaos ensued.  Pitt the dog broke a platter.  We continued cooking. 

Willie helped make food.  All the men helped with the turkey.  Kids played. 

I told Suzanne to remember to take the sweet potatoes out from under the broiler.  We both got distracted.  Sweet potatoes caught fire. 



Notice Flames Leaping from Oven



With that, we sat and laughed and enjoyed one of the best Thanksgiving meals we had had in a long time.  It is not that meals at Cindi's are not great or fun...they just work out perfectly every time...  There is no dramatic build up to make them exceptional. 



After eating we cut into the pumpkin pie.  Exceptional, even with sweetened condensed milk.

We cut into the Flourless Chocolate Torte.  Exceptional, even without having been cooked in a water bath. 

It was a great time.  Thank you everyone for your full participation in making this a truly fun and funny day!

Sweet Potato Foster

For my friends at the WW...just so you know, if you make a flourless chocolate torte and cut it into 8 slices each slice comes to 21 points.  If you bake a pecan pie each slice comes to 17 points.  Thanks for the inspiration

Recital Success

It is funny to think about what it must be like to stand up in front of a very crowded room and sing:  to know that everyone is in the room to watch and listen to you. 

When I think about the fact that there is a person in my family who can stand up in front of a crowded room and sing I have to shake my head.  It's not amazement really because i live with this guy and hear him sing from the time he steps out of bed to the time he lays himself back down.  The feeling I have is more of an amazement that this is a hardwired state of mind for him and that he may be a little nervous getting up there but that he can get past that, hit the notes and smile. 

In the morning, Vince and Willie took Falcom to a dress rehearsal and set up.  I stayed home and rolled smoked salmon sushi.  Maygen came over with all of her pottery platters and we loaded them up.  This cooking and presenting of food was a much needed distraction from the anxiety that I was feeling just a little bit of. 

Interestingly, not one picture was taken of this wonderful food preparation...  

Before we left I had an idea to take a family photo.  It is such a rare day when every one's hair is combed and no one looks like a gangster.  Could I get full cooperation?  Of course not... not with an 11 year old in the house.

With the food spread out perfectly and the instruments laid out around the stage, the show was ready to start.  At 5.15 people started arriving and soon the place was standing room only.  Fal started with Caro Mio Bien.  It was perfect.  He sang his Broadway numbers acapella and I was surprised that they sounded as good as they did.  I mean, when he sings Defying Gravity with Victoria it is out of this world.  It is out of this world, but it is six minutes long!  Too much for this setting.

When little glitches came up, Falcom buckled down and kept singing right through them.  He seriously did great.

Was this the same 11 year old who would not take a serious picture for me earlier in the day?

After the show people had some food and we were showered with well wishes.  People were thrilled to see him in his element.  They loved that he was being given the opportunity to do what he does best.  A couple people were disappointed that he was not able to open his mouth and let it rip Motown style as we've heard him do before, but when I explained that we were trying to train him to be more nuanced with his vocals they understood.  Anyone can be loud and brawly.  I overheard a vocalist reassuring an audience member that his voice will only improve once it changes.  That was nice to hear.

Falcom was pretty high after the show.  He was definitly embracing his future in the spotlight.  He said to Marina, "Marina, you can be my financial wiz!"  Marina responded, "Falcom, I am going to have a LIFE!"  It was very funny to me and also punctuated what I think is so brilliant about our current situation.  We are surrounded by a supportive and loving community.  We also have a homelife that is well anchored and does not allow anyone to over inflate!

If you missed the performance, Falcom will next be performing for the Salvation Army bucket in front of Safeway, and then on to Long Term Care where he will sing for the residents.  In January he has been asked to sing the National Anthem at a High School Hockey game.  Should be a fun couple of months!

Suzanne keeps asking why I am not more amped up about Thanksgiving.... Maybe later, but right now I'm exhausted!

Here We Go!

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Marina

Marina is out of surgery and doing great. One thing we have discovered is that she is highly articulate, even when partially sedated. According to the nurses she may have been one of their best patients yet. The doctor said her tonsils were trashed when he clamped them. He feels she has been fighting infections for years.

She has a slight fat lip and as she sleeps, holding her Dad's hand, she looks like an angel. Thank you all for your prayers and energy.
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Winter...Pre-Surgery, Pre-Recital

There is a Northern Climate fantasy about the lazy days of winter.  It involves the lingering sunrises and slow magnificent sunsets like this one.  Would you like to go to sleep early?  Would you like to sleep in late?  Permission GRANTED!

I'm here to tell you that this was true for me at some point...several years ago...in fact so many years ago now that it was a dream...a distant hazy dream...

The Greear Family has now officially moved into the part of child rearing where we drive to town a couple times a day for different events.  This cuts into all writing and blogging and correspondence time.

This week we prepare for two huge family events.  Wednesday is Marina's surgery.  She has been waiting anxiously for the time to pass.  She can barely stand it.  Each night nightmares.  Each day a countdown of minutes and hours.  We have a pile of special surgery care items:  a new soft pillow shaped like a dolphin, a terrific care package from Grandpa and Grandma, a journal.  We are trying to focus on the surgery without having to focus to intently on it, but this is impossible.  

At the same time Falcom is gearing up for his big show.  The arts council created a wonderful flyer and we have been seeing it hung around town.  This makes Marina give a resigned sigh.  "Ug!" She says,  "It's always about Fal!"  Even when she is going in for surgery.   

I was telling Lance and Jerami at the salon about Marina's problem sharing the world with Falcom. They understood.  The next time I went to the shop I found this in the window.  I laughed so hard I thought I'd cry.  These two men MADE MY DAY! (I wanted that to be like a shout.) I showed Marina this picture and she got embarrassed from the publicity, but made me drive by it so that she could see it for herself.



In between things, Grandpa Tom sent us 2 large boxes of apples from his tree in Ohio and so I made 12 quarts of apple butter.  I am officially out of Balinese spices to use in it.  Guess we will have to head back to Bali before next fall!

I took the kids out of school early so that I could take them to Soldotna for Marina's pre-surgical blood work.  This just shows how cheap I can be.  I decided that since we were driving up to do to the blood work I should also schedule a mammogram, an ultrasound, and an eye doctors appointment on the same day.  Vince was unimpressed with my scurry to make all these appointments at the last minute.  "You've known about this for a month..."  One out of three ain't bad?  Right...

Marina got her blood drawn.  She was the best patient they've ever had. 

When that was finished I went to get my mammogram.  For those of you that were unaware, hospitals now have special "Women's Imaging Lobbies" where you can sit in privacy.  There is a tea and coffee bar.  There is nicer furniture than in my own house.  There is a flat screen TV showing tranquil images.  I took this picture with my lap top, trying hard to capture the ambiance.  Notice how even the lighting is a tranquil shade of green.

As I sat there, thinking about all of this I became aware of the music playing overhead.  Enrique Inglesias. I thought, "I like this song, he is sexy."  Then the next singer, "I like this song, he is sexy..."  by like the fourth song I realized that the lounge had a special play list to help get patients in the mood for their upcoming nudity.

I've mentioned this before and in case you forgot, http://greears.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-first-mammogram.html,  getting a mammogram is not a big deal.  Yea, you are half naked and yea someone is manipulating your breast into a position which will give you a brief moment of discomfort.  Why would anyone not partake in this simple act of health care for any reason other than the fact that they can not afford it?  I had a woman tell me, "It doesn't run in my family so I don't do it."  What?  Are you kidding?  I'm pretty sure there were not mountains of free plastic radicals floating around in your relatives systems when you took that formal study, were there?  I didn't say that.  What I did say was, "I have a friend that thought she had a zit on her breast or an infected hair.  A double mastectomy later..."  What I also didn't say was, "I lost my friend because she put it off this year..."  That hits too close to home.

My favorite "Mammogram Moment" was when my first breast was being placed in the squisher and I reached up underneath the squishing tablet to pull my skin down.  The technician told me, "Good, thank you for smoothing out your fat roll.  Those interfere with the x-ray." Nice! Good thing I was all limbered up from my time in the the lobby with Enrique, I was able to appreciate what she was saying in the inoffensive way that she meant it.







I worked at Razdolna on Friday and when I got home I was informed that I had caused Marina to miss both the creation of the solar system in her class room as well as the all important Family Math and Science night.  I am helping the surgery to ruin her life. Never mind that I saved out family hundreds of dollars that I can now apply to Christmas, and birthdays, and food for a vocal recital and surgery care packages! She may be smart, but she is only 7 and can not fathom my practicality.  (Well, that or she is like Vince.) Not only did I get scolded right when she got home, but I got scolded in her weekly school letter to her family. 



Snow sliding off the roof at Razdolna School

Winter fantasy number two is that it snow and gets cold and stays that way.  False.  It heats up enough to cause the snow to become impossible to walk in and a hazard to walk under.  The surreal moment of the week came from taking a picture of this snow load curling under the eave outside the classroom at Razdolna School.  If this were any other state this school would be deemed too dangerous for children to be attending.  In Alaska, the principal leans out the screen less window once all the kids are in from recess and knocks the curl down with a broom.

Ah!Alaska, Family, Community...And somehow this morning I have managed to envelope Alaskan Fantasy number one.  It is now nearly noon and I've watched a sunrise, wrote my blog, and enjoyed the silence...  I guess all that wasn't a completely distant memory...

SNOW!!!

The kids went to Valda's Sunday morning and I didn't see them the entire day! I wondered what they had been doing and then I got an email from Valda with the following pictures.

The house was so quiet!  I got so much done!  I kept wondering, "Should I call over there?  I know Vince is not with them because he is plowing and pulling out vehicles with Willie...   No, Valda is handling it!"  And did she ever.  Not only did she handle it, she encouraged it and documented it!  Thank you Valda!

Friday and Saturday Surrealism...



In this first shot you will find a lunchbox that I found laying in the hallway of school next to my daughters classroom door. The small print reads, "Junior Member".

Went to pick up Falcom from his vocal coach and what did I find? Falcom being stretched musically by performing jazz while wrapped in feathers.

I took this shot when I thought the snow was going to stop falling. Willie was king of the day, getting 5 cars stuck on Sunday. Nice work Willie!

Regular Tuesday with Irene

"What has happened to Regular Tuesday with Irene?"

This is a mantra which has been swirling around this blog for almost a year now.  "Did you fight?"  "Is the love gone?"  "Is it because you have been working?"  "It's because of hockey isn't it?"

I must tell you now that it has nothing to do with any of that.  Yes, Irene is at hockey or dealing with hockey quite often.  Yes, I've been working.  Mostly though we found ourselves incredibly busy and doing all kinds of things in our super active families, communities, and selves. 

Luckily, this winter we have made a vow to get back on track.  We met early Wednesday morning at Two Sisters and reviewed the following events:

• Halloween.  Really?  Is this something that we need to continue encouraging through our active participation?  The truth is that yes.  We still must participate in this ritual for the sake of our children.  They have not proven to be able to maintain a safe distance from moving vehicles and their refusal to wear winter appropriate clothing require us to have a heated car at the ready for them to jump into.  Next year we will simplify by bringing a Thermos of hot cocoa and we will sit in her van as the kids shiver from door to door.  We will sit happily inside the van chit chatting and doing what we do best...
• Hockey.  Irene's description of being the hockey manager, the children's time commitment, the money...   It all made me feel like I was doing nothing for my Brownie Troop, at all...no time, no money...  It made me feel like all that I am doing for Falcom's recital this month...  nothing.  Comparatively speaking, this is level of activity is a piece of cake!

• Brownies.  I told Irene about our trip to Islands and Oceans and how the scientists there told Marina she was a natural scientist.  They told her that she should bring in the bird nest she found so that they could help her identify the species that built it.  We took in her nest and learned that an Orange Crowned Warbler built it.  Fascinating.

It was at this point that we were greeted by one of my East End neighbor men.  We had some election chat.  "Sarah Palin, invasion of privacy during a reality television show?  Really Sarah?"  "At least it wasn't Miller!  Did you hear how he let his wife draw unemployment benefits?"  and then I asked this fellow how his wife was doing.

"Oh she is a little sick of the camera crews following  us around."  Then he must have realized that he said something that he was not supposed to be saying and pinched the conversation to a close.  Yep!  It looks like ANOTHER Alaska based reality show is in the works.

Back to Irene

• Marriage.  Need I say more?
• Falcom's recital.  This is going to be a VERY Grandma friendly show with many age appropriate song selections.  I am able to be hands off for this show, but I will be making food and getting a guest book.  Hopefully Marina will be healed enough after her surgery that this will be easy.  Sunday, November 21, HCOA  5.30pm
• DeeJay.  Sarah.  Both seem to be doing much better or well or yea... 

And then we had to pick up and go.  We both laughed at the memory of our former Regular Tuesdays and how they used to be these leisurely afternoons of coffee drinking and blogging and chatting.  I'm looking forward to reinstating a new tradition!

Halloween, 2010

Marina woke me up this morning saying, "Mom!  It's Halloween!  What is our tradition?"  Being half awake it was hard to get the gist of what she was trying to get at.  "What traditional food do we start the day by eating." 

"No traditional Halloween breakfast."  I mumbled and I laid there trying to piece together this blog post.

Homer Alaska is not the home of tropical Halloweens.  The end of October is always a horrible time to have children parading outside with their light rayon fabric suits.   We recall the holidays in terms of, "That was the year it was blizzarding."  or "Last year was the year it was so brutally cold, wasn't it like zero?  but there was no wind!"

This year will be remembered as the year with wind.  At one point it was blowing so hard, my curly hair was standing on end and I swear I felt I was dressed as Medusa.  

The day started with the family going to church.  This year, because it was Halloween, the nurturing committee had a pirate theme Halloween party at church and imagine this, a potluck.  It was very nice and the kids really seemed to enjoy it.

It reminded me of a midnight mass.  It was a good way for the kids to pass the time between waking up and being able to knock back some serious candy.

Ready for the Candy Round Up

We all went to Mema's for our traditional Halloween dinner and party.  This party happens at Mema's because she lives in town.  In Homer Alaska there is no trick or treating except in town so all kids travel to town for the event.  On the menu, pumpkin soup served from a baked pumpkin.

The kids watched movies and waited for the time to pass until they could get out and Trick or Treat. 

The wind was blowing at least 30 last night and it was cold but did that stop my vampire or ninja from saving the world from it's extra candy.

Falcom "Dead"

 We Trick or Treated Homer style:  in the van driving house to house letting the kids out to trick or treat and then pick them up to warm up and go to the next house.  The kids went to bed with serious chocolate hangovers. 

Ah, tradition!