Annie Joy's Letters

Celebrating Winter's Tales and Treasures

2012-01-14T22:07:00.000-06:00

When Christmas is over, we still have weeks of winter to celebrate or endure, depending upon our perspective of the season. I enjoy decorating for winter, and bringing forward some symbols of the beauty of the season. The pop-up books are lovely reminders of the time when we stay inside (if we can) with a good book and a warm fire, but the stark beauty of nature is evident during during these coldest of months, as suggested by the crystal and glass. Friends and family can join us, whether we are inside with a good book or outside sledding or enjoying other winter activities, and our homes and communities will continue to bless and sustain us throughout the year.

Book Recommendation: Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks

2012-01-09T08:27:00.000-06:00

Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks was an inspired choice for the last book I read during 2011; it turns out that it is also my favorite book of the year. I am beginning 2012 with another of Brooks' titles, March, which won the Pulitzer Prize, and also have her People of the Book ready on my nightstand. I have also read her Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague.

My reading preferences fall to character-driven books and rarely do I choose to read a title solely based on plot or setting (although I do have an affection for books about the south or southerners). I was thinking about what it is about Brooks' historical fiction that sets it apart from the many other selections I might make. What would keep me in the 17th century Martha's Vineyard or the "Plague Village" of Eyam, England? In the cases of Caleb's Crossing and Year of Wonders, it was a woman of strength and courage who went beyond their era's prescribed gender role. In doing so, they both brought me to a better understanding of the time and place of the story. The protagonist in March is male -- the father of the March girls in Little Women -- but it is he who takes me to the reality of the Civil War and life during that period of history.

Caleb's Crossing was inspired by the story of the first Native American to graduate from Harvard. Caleb Cheeshahteaumauck was a Wampanoag native to Martha's Vineyard who meets Bethia Mayfield, daughter of a Calvinist minister, when she is exploring the island. Caleb and Bethia become close friends, and he introduces her to his culture as he learns about hers. His education extends to being tutored by Bethia's father and Bethia, denied such education because of her gender, learns by listening to Caleb's tutoring sessions. Caleb's intellect eventually takes him to Cambridge and Harvard, and Bethia is allowed to go along in the company of her brother. She continues to learn through any means she can find, including eavesdropping on lectures while working off a debt for her brother's education. Caleb's eventual matriculation from Harvard comes at a price, as he struggles with the prejudices against Native Americans at the college and eventually, his own spiritual beliefs and practices as opposed to Christianity.

As I mentioned above, it is Bethia who took me deeper into Caleb's story, even as I became more interested in her own struggles for knowledge and her willingness to do anything to educate herself. Her character (in both senses of the word) are what moved the story along for me and helped keep me interested in the plot.

I find it most interesting that this book was published at the time when the second Martha's Vineyard Wopanaak completed an undergraduate degree, almost 350 years after the first. Tiffany Smalley received her degree in 2011, presided by Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard's first female president.

Annie

Christmas Joys #6 - My Grandmother's Christmas

2011-12-22T17:35:00.000-06:00

One of the greatest gifts I have received (for Christmas or otherwise) is a heavy book which contains "An Autobiographical Diary" written by my grandmother, Mary Elretta Hardin Reagan. "Mom", as we knew her, was born near Crockett, Arkansas in 1891. To her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, the volume is "Mom's Book". The first half is the story of her life, written in great detail and including poetry and the words of songs she enjoyed. The second half is a journal or diary, written after she and my grandfather had moved from their farm near Kennett, Missouri, into town. There they opened a grocery store, and Mom recorded her days as she sat behind the counter.

I have been preparing a post about my childhood Christmas, which I will post in a couple of days. I decided that I also wanted to write about Mom's Christmas. I recalled that my dad would often go and pick them up and bring them to our house, if they weren't already with other family members. I wanted Mom's description of her typical Christmas.

As I mentioned, Mom wrote about her early life in great detail. As read through the entries for her Christmases in the diary section, I found little description. (I love reading about Christmas in the south as written by Truman Capote or Rick Bragg, or A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas, but I knew that Mom would be less eloquent than they, but I had hoped for more detail that she provided.)

Then I got it. I believe that I got it because I am so apt to get caught up in all the (religious and secular) facets of the Christmas season that I have little time or energy to enjoy and appreciate the basics. Mom had it distilled down to the essence, as recorded in her journal.

Her Christmas was Christ's birthday. She only missed church when the weather forbade going out. It was the reason for Christmas - period.

Her Christmas was family -- all ten children and dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.   She recorded every family member she saw or heard from on Christmas, or lamented their absence. Mom often wrote about being "homesick" in her book, even when she was at home. I believe that home, to her, was having her family around her, and when she hadn't heard from them for a while, she was "homesick for them."  The more of her family she saw on Christmas, the merrier it was.

Her Christmas was food, lots of it, and the opportunity to eat it with those she loved. She didn't record any individual dishes in her diary, but she did mention how she enjoyed sharing meals with those who lived close by.

Her Christmas wasn't about gifts. I found only three mentions of specific gifts -- one, a pressure cooker and the other, pitchers for her collection. I think she enjoyed the pitchers because they meant that the giver had knowledge of and appreciated her collection (which eventually numbered over 300). It also wasn't about shopping, or holiday parties, or Christmas movies, or Christmas outdoor light displays, or any of the other things that can distract us.

At first, I was a bit disappointed that Mom didn't record more. But she was a farm wife and a store keeper, not Dylan Thomas. Her eloquence was in her simplicity and that is what makes her book precious to me.  Thank you, Mom, for your book, your memories, and the life lessons you probably didn't know you were teaching.

Christmas Joys #5 - My Perfectly Imperfect Christmas (and Life)

2011-12-20T11:29:00.000-06:00

This morning Tom asked me what I would like for Christmas. I have received a tablet from my son and a gift certificate for new books for my Kindle from my stepson and his bride-to-be. I thought that some new books for my Nook would be a fine thing, so we negotiated an amount and I was ready to start shopping. I had read about a new book called My Perfectly Imperfect House and had added it to my to-read list. It turned out that it isn't available for the Nook, but I am ordering it in regular format anyway. Which brings me to the subject of the post.

I believe that we continue to do ourselves a disservice when we demand perfection of ourselves in decorating our homes, living our lives, and preparing or celebrating Christmas. Most of us know the damage that trying to live the perfect life can do, yet we continue to consider the highest praise to ourselves, our children, our spouses, and others in our lives, "Perfect!"

I'm going to do my part to celebrate the imperfect holidays by coming out of the closet. I have and will continue to stage photos of our Christmas (which, by-the-way, never seem to meet the standards of some of the lovely photos I see on others' blogs). I will also edit my posts about memories of Christmases past to leave out anything that would embarrass family or friends. But just for today, I am offering a glimpse of my perfectly imperfect Christmas through the photograph above. This is untouched, except for the addition of the Christmas cards, which I brought in from the office. It is actually a little less of a mess than it was last night, when some of the grocery items were still there.

The little lights were found with some old Christmas decorations. I thought I needed them for a particular drab location in the house. I asked Tom to buy some batteries and he did, but the lights are so old (marked down, according to the pricetag, to $6.95 about twenty years ago) that they go from dim to dark the further down the string you go. I'm tossing them, and that drab location will remain drab.

I'm also tossing the little trees next to the lights. They look like they've been through an Oklahoma tornado. Maybe they have been; we found them with the lights.

Next to the trees are two cans of room spray, in Christmas scents. I like to use candles and natural greens for their aroma. There are very few natural greens in my yard and I haven't had time to go collecting in other places. I'm not sure where those other places are; I picked up some pinecones one year at rest stops when we driving from Memphis to Oklahoma but I'm not sure that was legal. I would like to have some greenery and pinecones for the bowl in the center of the table. Anyway, natural scents and candle aromas are nice, but sometimes you just need a spray!

The box of candy next to the spray is for my dad. My husband bought it, even though I am planning to make peanut butter fudge for my dad. Tom says that dad likes the storebought candy and I'm not going to take that personally. By the way, we're giving my brother-in-law and his companion two potatoes and two sweet potatoes for Christmas. Maybe I'll explain that later.

In the back are the ingredients for chicken tortilla soup that I'm making for Christmas Day. I gave up on Christmas dinner years ago, because we couldn't get everybody together at one time. This year, I'm doing soups. This one is a no-brainer, which I will need. We are also having desserts. I got one relatively complicated recipe (for me) from a high school classmate who is a wonderful cook. She has already answered a couple of questions for me, such as "How do I keep the cake from sticking to the bundt pan?" (Answer: let it cool before you try to remove it.) Thanks, Helen!

Next to the soup ingredients is a box of green tea. I'm trying to drink more tea and water and less Diet Coke. Notice that the box is unopened. I have had two glasses of eggnog and three Diet Cokes since the tea was purchased.

Now for the Christmas cards. You'll note that there are two boxes of cards and a list of names. Some of the names are checked off and some aren't. If you don't get a card from me, assume that you made it to the list, but not to those checked off. I tried to get those out of town mailed first, so if you don't get a card, it's just that I ran out of time. Or stamps. Or money.

Hope you have a Perfectly Imperfect Merry Christmas! If you have a Perfect Christmas, I don't want to hear about it. (Just kidding -- I'll just clean up my own description to leave out the imperfect parts, just for you!)

Annie

Christmas Joys #4 - Holiday Guest Room

2011-12-17T16:32:00.000-06:00

I always enjoy decorating our guest room at Christmas; the curtains and bedding are already red and white, so I just add a few Christmas pieces and I'm done. It's ready for family and friends, and extra guests are welcome in the other rooms decorated for the season. (That means air mattresses in other other Christmasy rooms, since we only have one guest room. Our guests are always very gracious with their humble accommodations; we haven't had a complaint yet!)

These handmade wooden Santas were Christmas gifts from my daughter, additions to my Santa Claus collection. The smaller one is displayed with some antique spools.

I had been looking for a red and white pillow for the bed, when I found this one in the Coldwater Creek catalog. The reindeer on the pillow is company for the plush one on the bed. He is many years old and used to be very fragrant, but has lost his scent.

Hope you are blessed with Christmas guests, or provide that blessing for your loved ones!

Annie

Christmas Joys #3 - Norman Rockwell

2011-12-11T15:07:00.000-06:00

Norman Rockwell has brought us images of American Christmases from the past. They are very special to me, since so many were depictions of Christmas during the 1950's and 60's -- my childhood -- as featured in another staple in our home, The Saturday Evening Post.

These two favorites are part of my collection of Christmas books. The one on the right was originally a Christmas gift to my stepmother, Jo Ann, who passed away last November. It was given back to me as a keepsake and a reminder that we both loved Christmas and Norman Rockwell. It contains Christmas stories, carols, poems and recollections, all illustrated by Rockwell.

The other, smaller book on the left is a collection of more than seventy of Rockwell's holiday paintings. The buildings in the foreground are also featured on the book's cover, part of Main Street, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where the artist maintained his studio.

Here's hoping that your holidays are as peaceful and magical as those portrayed in Norman Rockwell's work!

Annie

Christmas Joys #2 - Church Christmas Pageants

2011-12-05T22:42:00.000-06:00

I have always loved Christmas presentations of all kinds. I have participated in many myself, and have enjoyed the experience of being part of a living Christmas tree, and in the background as accompaniment to the Christmas story. My favorites are the children's programs and my own children have provided some of the most interesting memories. There is a certain level of stress involved before your own child takes the stage. Hoping that the angel wings will stay put, the halo won't get caught in the scenery, and your husband's bathrobe won't provide the perfect opportunity for tripping can put you in a state of hypervigilance. My own nervous tendencies have probably contributed to the pageant mishaps in our family.

Two cases in point:

The angel wings were lovely and attached as instructed. The halo was attached to the headband. The child truly looked like an angel. She was ready to perform and I left her in the backstage area, confident that everything would go well. Her sister's Sunday School class sang their sweet songs and I knew that the next group would do equally well. The angels entered from the right. My child was not among them. I was in the middle section of seats and fought the temptation to climb over those in front of me to find out what was wrong. Then, there she was -- running onto the stage and taking her place. I didn't have to ask what had delayed her; part of her white angel robe was tucked into her panties. The group's performance was -- well, angelic. And so was she.

Another time involved a peppy song which was emphasized by enthusiastic clapping of hands. Delightful! But why was my child clapping by holding one hand open and bringing the other down in a vertical motion instead of the sideways clapping of the other children? And why was she watching her hands carefully with each clap instead of keeping her eyes on the choir director or searching for her parents? It was as if she were trying to kill a bug that had landed in her hand. At least she wasn't picking her nose, I reasoned. Then it came to me. She had a loose tooth that she had been wiggling all day. It was still in her mouth when we left the house. The tooth was in her hand and she didn't want to lose it! The up and down clapping was insurance that the tooth fairy would come.

These stories are illustrative of my own joy in children's pageants now that my children are grown. I can enjoy the performances of my grandchildren and the young members of our church without worrying about what could go wrong, while having the hard-won wisdom of knowing that those little incidents make the our Christmas Joys even more "perfectly imperfect."

May you have some happy pageant experiences this year!

Annie

Christmas Joys #1 - Sweet Little Jesus Boy

2011-12-01T20:07:00.001-06:00

I'm beginning my Christmas Joys this year with a song. I first heard "Sweet Little Jesus Boy" at a high school Christmas music program 50 years ago.  I had enjoyed the seasonal selections sung by the various choral groups and ensembles and was probably thumbing the program to see what was coming next. I heard her voice -- softly, sweetly, hauntingly beautiful -- as if she were singing a lullaby. My attention shifted and I was there with her and the child to whom she was singing, "Sweet Little Jesus Boy."

As I write this, I am struggling to explain the effect this song had on me then, as it does today. It stopped me in my tracks in the middle of the Christmas season when, even 50 years ago, so much was going on -- holiday concerts, shopping, parties, music, anticipation, stress -- all the good and not-so-good about that time of year.  Margaret Green's beautiful voice stopped me and her words spoke to me, "Sweet Little Jesus Boy; We made you be born in a manger; Sweet Little Holy Child, We didn't know who you was."

Today, hearing those words brings me back to the real meaning of Christmas -- not just to the manger scene, where the baby Jesus was born, but to the cross where he died:  "You done told us how, we is a tryin'! Master, you done show'd us how, even when you was dyin'".

That's the point that this song helps me remember, to celebrate Christmas and to be thankful for that Sweet Little Jesus Boy, but that even during this season I'm going to fall short: "Just seems like we can't do right; look how we treated you." But I know that the greatest gift he gave us is forgiveness, for all of our lives. All we have to do is ask, and accept.

To provide a musical link, I listened to several artists' versons of "Sweet Little Jesus Boy".   I was led back to Mahalia Jackson's. I hope you enjoy it.

Annie

The Night the Martians Landed: A Family Story from 1938

2011-10-30T14:45:00.000-05:00

I am reposting this story in memory of my Grandmother and Aunt Lona Mae, both of whom were born on October 31.

My Aunt "Sister", who would have been 101 years old on Halloween, shared this story at her birthday celebration the summer of 2010. Those who can remember the night of October 30, 1938 are becoming more rare, and it was a true gift to hear her first-hand account of family members' responses to a phenomenon of wide-spread panic and fear as a result of the radio broadcast of an adaptation of HG Wells' novel, War of the Worlds.

I had heard and read about the broadcast and its effect on individuals and families across the country. It was planned as a 60-minute Halloween radio drama, an episode of the Mercury Theatre on the Air, and was directed and narrated by Orson Welles. The first two-thirds of the broadcast was presented as news bulletins which suggested that an actual invasion by Martians was taking place. There were no commercial breaks, which added to the sense of realism. The use of the news bulletin format also contributed to the believability of the story, as well as to the resulting panic, since people were accustomed to legitimate newsflashes, but not those used as part of a work of fiction.

According to Wikipedia, historians have calculated that six million people heard the broadcast, 1.7 million believed it to be true and 1.2 million were genuinely frightened. According to my aunt, a number of those who believed it and were frightened resided in southeast Missouri, and were outside that Sunday evening, gazing toward the sky.

Aunt Sister, Uncle Jesse, and their three children stayed home from church and were listening to the radio, probably doing the equivalent of today's "channel surfing" between the Chase and Sanborn Hour, featuring ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and singer Nelson Eddy, and the Mercury Theater. The first comedy sketch on the Chase and Sanborn Hour ended about fifteen minutes into the program and was to be followed by a musical selection, presenting a good time to change the station. This would have taken them directly into the middle of the Martian invasion on Mercury Theater, with no reassurance that what they were hearing wasn't really happening.

This is a part of what they heard:

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed. . . . Wait a minute! Someone's crawling. Someone or . . . something. I can see peering out of that black hole two luminous disks . . . are they eyes? It might be a face. It might be . . . good heavens, something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now it's another one, and another one, and another one. They look like tentacles to me. There, I can see the thing's body. It's large as a bear and it glistens like wet leather. But that face, it . . . ladies and gentlemen, it's indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it, it's so awful. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate.

How many of us have thought about what we would do if the world was coming to an end? Their instincts were to gather with other family members, so they left in their car to travel the few miles to the my grandparents' home.

On the way there, my aunt noticed that baby Sandra's shoe was missing, that she must have dropped it or left it at home. Uncle Jesse reassured my frightened aunt, that Sandra "wouldn't be needing her shoe."

She also noted that people standing out on the dirt roads as they travelled, looking at the sky and exclaiming, "They're coming! They're coming!"

When they arrived at Mom and Pop's, the house was empty. Mom and Pop had gone to Arkansas to church and hadn't yet returned home. After a short time, they and the rest of their children arrived, asking what was going on.

According to Aunt Sister, Pop didn't believe a word of the story. He also scoffed at his oldest child's fear, declaring, "I didn't know that I raised a child who would be afraid to die."

Little brother Earl, then stepped up and joined forces with his sister, put his arms around her and said, "You raised two of them!"

The family story ends here, and we can imagine the relief they and others like them felt when they learned the truth. We can also understand their panic and fear in a time when modern communication was still in its infancy. We might also want to temper any thoughts or comments we might have about naivete or the willingness to believe the unbelievable -- at least until after Halloween!

Annie

p.s. You can hear the Mercury Theater broadcast on YouTube. It is in multiple parts, so I am not including links.

Pre-Surgery (Halloween) Shopping is Done -- Be Back Soon!

2011-10-15T00:48:00.000-05:00

This little Halloween Witch is helping to take the sting out of my upcoming surgery on Monday. We bought her from the hospital gift shop when I went for my pre-op appointment. I will be back to blogging soon. In the meantime, here are some photos of Halloween and autumn decorations.

Note: Framed graphics and cards are from The Graphics Fairy .

Black Hole Decorating Challenge: Large Screen TV

2011-10-11T16:41:00.001-05:00

I knew that it would be a big, flat, black presence in our living room when we purchased our large screen tv. Tom has no man cave, so we really had few options for its location. Especially in our downsized home, the mantel has always been a favorite decorating spot, particularly for holidays and seasonal decor. I was willing to make the sacrifice, though, to make my hubby happy during his retirement years. (And, I must admit, I'm enjoying seeing the programs and movies on the large screen, too.) So up it went, and it has been a continuous presence in our living room ever since.

I believe in "use what you have" decorating and am doing what I can to integrate the black hole into my scheme. This is one option: use its capabilities to bring more visual celebration of and to the times of our lives. Ours came with instant access to Flickr and I have put together seasonal slide shows to play to coordinate with my mantel decorations. Here are a few from my Halloween show. I have used about 20 photos of my granddaughters in their costumes through the years and some pretty shots from free photograph sources on the Internet.

Works for me, with my resources. Maybe you have some other ideas for the tv or other decorating black holes. I'd love to see your solutions, if you do.

Saving My Place with My Bookmark Collection

2011-10-06T11:56:00.000-05:00

I started collection bookmarks at the same time I started collecting books. As a new librarian, I had opportunities to attend conferences, book fairs and festivals, book signings, and other events where bookmarks were given away. Our libraries also provided bookmarks to our customers celebrating our summer reading programs, special author visits and other events, such as the Red Dirt Book Festival and Pioneer Library System's 50th anniversary (50 special bookmarks highlighting the progress of the system, such as the year we first reached circulation of 1,000,000 items, the year one of our librarians was selected one of the New York Times Librarian of the Year, the year our system won the American Library Association John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Award, and the year one of our branches won the Outstanding Rural Library Award from ALA).

My bookmark collection was much easier to transport home than the books I found myself buying when I traveled and they provided reminders of the accomplishments of our libraries and others across the country in guiding people to the best in reading and information. I found myself looking for bookmarks in museums and other places I visited on vacations and found they served as miniature pieces of art and history.

My collection grew as I received bookmarks as gifts and enjoyed the expression of love they represented. Those that are handmade are the most precious, as well as those produced as commemorative of special days in family and friends' lives.

Now that I'm retired and we have downsized, I find myself "weeding" out some of the books that I carried home from conferences. I no longer have room for 1,000 books (although I have room for thousands on my Nook and my Kindle). I also continue to use my hometown library and use my bookmarks to mark my place.

I'll keep my bookmarks until books are obsolete; that is to say, I won't ever give them up. I don't believe books will ever become obsolete, but if they do, my bookmarks will be even more collectible!

I Have Sirius Envy, but Stitcher Helps!

2011-09-14T11:15:00.000-05:00

I'm talking about radio; specifically talk radio. I don't have a SiriusXM subscription in my car, and probably won't purchase one. NPR keeps me happy for the most part, with a mix of CD's and favorite commercial radio stations for music. But I have wished for more radio stations that focus on my individual interests and have found that Stitcher is a wonderful source. I discovered it while exploring apps on my smartphone and feel like I have struck gold.

Stitcher is like Pandora (music internet radio) in that you can select talk radio stations based on your own preferences and create your own station. Then you can choose the particular program and podcast from your own station's menu when you are ready to listen.

My own Stitcher station has a mix of programming about books, health, gardening, politics, writing, food, travel, and news. When I go to my station, I can choose the program and the most recent podcast, or other podcasts that I may have missed. I can also choose live radio by state or front page news.

I usually listen to my own station. It was created by selecting programming from broad categories including Comedy; Business and Industry; News and Politics; Education, Society and Culture; Entertainment, Games and Hobbies, Lifestyles and Health; Local; Music Commentary; Parenting, Family and Kids; Science and Medicine; Spirituality and Religion; Sports; Technology; In Spanish; and World and International. Many of these broad categories are broken down into subcategories, so that you can find just the kind of programming you want to put in your own station.

The problem may be that you will need to winnow your list down, there are so many choices -- but that's a good problem! For example, there are about 40 programs about books and authors alone!

My radio listening has been pretty much limited to my car in the past, but now I am listening more often on my smartphone as I get dressed in the morning or work around the house. I can also listen to my personal station on my computer through Stitcher's website. I think that radio is pretty much like tv in that the deciding factor is the quality of the content. Of course, "quality" is subjective, so if you want to listen to 18 hours of talk about sports or even just football, that's your call. I can accept that, while I listen to hours of talk about books!

You might want to give Stitcher a try. The smartphone app is free, so you could add it and explore the possibilities. You can also download Stitcher to your computer through their website at http://www.stitcher.com/home.php

In future posts, I will tell you about some of my favorite Stitcher programs.

Happy Listening!
Annie

Why We Cook the Way We Do

2011-09-07T21:46:00.005-05:00

Please visit Beth Fish Reads for more weekend cooking.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend

My mother had an interesting recipe for strawberry shortcake. I never questioned the fact that there was no cake involved; it was simply the way she prepared a fresh strawberry dessert -- with pie crust. She rolled out pie crust squares and baked them on a cookie sheet and layered them with the syrupy sweetened strawberries and topped it off with freshly whipped cream. It was delicious, and to our family, it was "strawberry shortcake."

Recently, a mention of strawberry shortcake on Facebook led me to ask my cousin if his mother (my aunt) prepared strawberry shortcake with pie crust. It turns out that she did, and he had grown up the same way I did, thinking that the absence of cake wasn't unusual. I also determined that the recipe must have come from my grandmother on my Dad's side.  Dad confirmed that he had been the source of my mother's strawberry recipe; he had always had it with pie crust and had asked Mother to continue making it that way. In other words, "It's a family thing."

Cousin Terry Joe also mentioned that his mother had always baked a pie with sweet potatoes and called it pumpkin pie. Same spices as pumpkin pie, but made with sweet potatoes. Another "family thing".

I began thinking about why we cook the way we do.  Some of us are Food Channel followers, may have developed into vegans, or have espoused other dietary traditions.  The Internet makes thousands of recipes at our fingertips, and many of us experiment with newly available food choices, or we grow our own.

During our earliest cooking experiences, we may have looked to our family members for advice or ingredients. That's how we may have come up with pie crust strawberry shortcake or "pumpkin pie" made with sweet potatoes. It's also how we may have a family tradition of "American spaghetti" (without Italian seasonings) or removing the skin from chicken before frying, years before healthy eating dictated it. (Both of these are further examples from my childhood.)

I have never been known as a great cook. I'm the person who puts together a holiday meal for a large group, who provides the meat and most of the side dishes, and wishes for that specific compliment, "This is really delicious." Sometimes it comes; more often, it doesn't.  My corn bread dressing will never measure up to my stepmother's, and my chocolate cake and fudge will always take second place to my mother's and my sister's.

I do have the edge with two dishes, though. The first is what our family always called "gunk". Gunk is that pie that you make with Eagle Brand milk and lemonade.  I like it best with a graham cracker crust that I make myself, with extra butter and sugar. It's called "gunk" because my kids could never wait until it set up into a pie (and because it was calling me, too). So we spooned it into bowls and dug in. And it was really delicious -- really!

The other dish has been designated the best meatloaf my husband ever had. That's a recent designation. My mother's meatloaf recipe is a mixture of ground beef, chopped onion, ketchup, egg, oatmeal, salt and pepper, with ketchup poured over the top. One day I was watching Paula Deen and noted that her recipe was very similar to mine, except that she mixed ketchup, brown sugar, and honey dijon mustard for the glaze. I tried it and the rest is history -- I have joined the ranks of complimented cooks and now I am adding ingredients everywhere!

Back to the subject of this post: some reasons we may cook the way we do -- to please our families and because our mother (grandmother, great-grandmother, etc.) did it that way.  You may have heard this story, or a variation:

Alice was baking a ham for Sunday dinner, and called her mother for the recipe. Mom told her to first cut off the ends of the ham. She did so, followed the recipe, and the ham was delicious. Later, she asked her mother why she needed to cut off the ends of the ham. Her mother said that Grandma did it that way and Alice should ask her why. Alice was visiting her grandmother in the assisted living center the next week and asked her why it was necessary to cut the ends off the ham before baking it. Grandma gave her an odd look and said, "I always cut off the ends because otherwise, it wouldn't have fit my roasting pan."

What odd recipes or food preparation traditions are in your family?

Annie

Learning to Savor is Worth the Effort

2011-08-29T17:27:00.000-05:00

I recently posted about words that I have installed on the walls in our bathroom and living room to remind myself and, hopefully, to define myself. I have added another word to my personal lexigon, one which may be most important to those of us who now understand that we don't (and never really did) have all the time in the world to decide what is important and what kind of lives we want to live.

The new word is "savor". I'm adding it to the other words -- believe, learn, listen, touch, dance, sing, relax, imagine, touch, trust, teach, dream, and "enjoy", which is listed as a synonym in the dictionary.

Maybe it's my age, but "to savor" means much more to me than "to enjoy." It's probably because the primary definition of "to enjoy" in the dictionary I consulted was "to have a good time."

I remember being asked, when I was a child, if I had a good time at a birthday party or a school picnic. The answer was usually "yes", but I didn't have the capacity to describe what it was that made the event notable. (This was before today's often outlandishly expensive children's parties, which will be the subject of a future post.) If nothing went wrong at the parties I attended (such as falling off the swings, or being chosen last for one of the games); if my friends were there and the food was good, then I had a good time.

"Savoring" an event, or even the daily routine of our lives, puts much more responsibility on our adult selves, but the reward is much more satisfying than simply "enjoying ourselves" or "having a good time." Savoring implies that we take the time and employ our senses to seek out exactly what it is that flavors the event -- what it is that makes it special. Call this mindfulness if you will, and we are told that the more mindful we are, the happier our lives will be.

"Savoring" isn't limited to an expensive cruise or a once-in-a-lifetime gathering; it can be experienced with a really outstanding cup of tea. It's a practice, and it requires practice. I love to hear and read about people who have mastered the art of living and I believe that savoring each positive moment is a part of their lives that they have cultivated. I appreciate the examples they set for the rest of us, especially when I note that the "good life" they demonstrate is within the grasp of most of us.

What do you savor in your life?

Annie

"Odd Girl Out" or "One of a Kind"?

2011-08-10T15:29:00.002-05:00

Dear Friends,
When I first posted this, I left out an important point. It is now included in red print. Thank you to my Facebook friend who reminded me of his own experiences and to Nance for her comment.

I imagine that most females in our culture have experienced the pain of exclusion. Maybe we've been the "odd girl out" in a friendship trio; maybe we've been rejected by the Queen Bee and Wannabes; or maybe at some point in our lives, we've been outside the charmed circle of sorority or club membership, or that happy little group of women who lunch, shop, or play cards together.

If you haven't been the excluded one, you may be just a generation or two away. The probability of being the "odd girl out" is high for our daughters and granddaughters. The shifting sands of "best friends forever" and junior high and high school cliques may be a training ground for self-doubt in adulthood. That self-doubt may promote that same behavior of exclusion in ourselves and our children.

Probably most of us have been on the giving as well as the receiving end when it comes to exclusion. In my mature years, I can now see where I have been guilty. I congratulated myself on being open to friendship when I was a girl and actually described my "group" that way. But the fact that we were a "group" has implications; there were girls I didn't know, girls I didn't make the effort to know. The loss was mine.

There's another term that I like: "One of a Kind". It implies, to me, the type of person who sets herself/himself apart. It's an internal quality over which the individual has control. You can make yourself "one of a kind" by paying attention to your own special gifts/interests/values and developing that part of yourself that is like no other.

"One of a Kind" is an insurance policy. I believe it protects us from feeling "less than" because of someone else's determination that we are the odd girl out. It transcends friendship because we are always centered in ourselves, but it can enrich friendships because it recognizes the unique qualities that we treasure about ourselves and others.

It is important for adults to guide young people in finding and developing that "one of a kind". Some young people are fortunate to have that special adult in a teacher, counselor, or older friend. When that isn't the case, some (rare) young people are able to nurture themselves; others can turn to bad substitutes.

We can ask ourselves the question, the next time we feel like an outsider: Am I the odd girl out or one of a kind? And whose decision is it? Whose decision should it be?

Annie

Father's Day and Birthday Gift Report - Ice Cream and Appreciation

2011-08-01T09:22:00.000-05:00

Some of you may remember that I posted at Christmas about our gift to my Dad. He has been having some age-related problems with his vision, which have interfered with his reading. As a librarian, I have always taken pleasure in selecting books for him, but had decided to buy something else until his vision problems were addressed. For Christmas, we gave him 13 12-packs of Caffeine Free Coke Classic. CFCC is hard to find in the small town where my dad lives and he really appreciated receiving a good supply.

When Father's Day came, I decided to repeat the purchase of something I knew he would really appreciate and enjoy. Sometimes when we go to visit Dad, we stop by the local Braum's and pick up a pint of his favorite ice cream, Braum's butter pecan. In Oklahoma and some locations in Texas, Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri, Braum's is the local gold standard for ice cream. (They have really good hamburgers, too.) Since Dad lives in a town without a Braum's, he didn't have a regular supply of his favorite flavor. We fixed that (temporarily) at Father's Day with a dozen individually-packed pints.

Dad's birthday is in early July, and I was again thinking about his gift. This was to be his 90th, and I wanted it to be special, but I knew it would be difficult because he has everything he needs and most of what he wants (except good vision, hearing, and the stamina he used to have). He is also planning to move soon and is trying to divest himself of most of his household possessions.

I asked him how his ice cream supply was holding up and he replied, "It's gone."

We decided it was time for another supply of ice-cream and made plans to stop at Braum's on our way to his birthday party.

The other part of our gift was appreciation. We were the messengers of greetings from several people who had known Dad during his business life in my hometown. Dad was a building contractor and I had several photographs of homes he had built in the 1950's and 1960's, at the time of their construction and more recently. I had posted the photos on my hometown's group page on Facebook. I had originally posted them for the enjoyment of the group, but was elated at the comments of appreciation for my dad's work and the homes that several group members had lived in over the years.

I decided to share that appreciation with Dad at his birthday party. He was moved to tears by the comments and good wishes from the kind people from our hometown. I felt good that we were able to give him a special moment, just by being the messenger, and am grateful for the wishes sent for that special day.

Ice cream and appreciation: I guess it's a pretty good gift for any of us, isn't it?

Annie

Concerts and Karaoke

2011-07-27T20:47:00.000-05:00

I remember a concert I attended in Memphis the mid-1970's. I remember it so well because I am not a regular concert goer. It also stands out because the artist was Cat Stephens (and I loved his music) and because I felt so old. I was about 30 at the time, but the other people at the concert were younger -- much, much younger (in outlook, if not in age). I was an adult, with two young children at home, and had to be told that the sweet smoky aroma around me was marijuana. I had never experienced the effect of thousands of cigarette lighters in a darkened arena, not to mention dodging Frisbees when the lights came back on. I loved it -- absolutely loved it -- and felt younger at heart for a while.

I had the same feeling, and a similar experience, last week. I attended an American Idol concert in Oklahoma City. Our tickets were a retirement gift for my husband from his brother. We usually watched Idol and then would predict who would get voted off each week. We had our favorites, of course. Mine were Casey and James; Tom really liked Haley and Lauren -- imagine that!

I looked forward to hearing Casey and James again, even though we were to be seated in the nosebleed section. My brother-in-law showed us the arena plan and I was set all to watch the show on the oversized screens. There was no way we could see the performers faces from where we would be sitting.

Mike decided we should try for a last-minute seat exchange and managed seats on the second row, center section. I couldn't help but wonder at out good luck and did a quick Google search to see if there was anything negative about seats that close to the stage. Nothing except the probability of having to stand throughout the concert and being on the receiving end of bodily fluids and other by-products of idol worship (American style).

I kept (tried to keep) my thoughts to myself and determined that I would enjoy the concert as much as possible. And I did enjoy the concert, except for the presence of my brother-in-law to my right, who blocked my view as he took dozens of photographs on his iPhone. I can't blame him, though, because he paid for two sets of tickets (he wasn't able to dump the nosebleed tickets) and he loves to take photos (lots of photos). I handed my phone to Tom and asked him to take a couple of Casey and James, which he did. And I sat. And I stood. And I sat. And I stood. I loved hearing Casey, and stood all the way through anything James performed. And I felt younger at heart for a while. I feel younger at heart even now, as I write about it. Maybe I'll go to another concert in 30 years or so!

Something else I have rare experience with is karaoke. I recently read an article in a local magazine about a young entrepreneur who has developed an app for smart phones. I remembered her from my daughter's Honor Choir days when they were both sweet little girls with the voices of angels. Now she has developed an app which translates into my having my own personal karaoke recorder. I downloaded LaDiDa to my phone and recorded my first song: It goes like this: "This is my song, this is my first song, probably not my last song, but this is my song." (Not very creative, am I?)

Sometimes I download apps and don't use them. I thought that this might be one of those. This time, though, I did find a very happy use for LaDiDa. On vacation, in Alabama, I showed it to my daughter and asked her to record something so she could see how it works, which she did (Patsy Cline's "Walking after Midnight".) Lovely! Part of the app is that you can save the songs and share them. I also asked my granddaughters to record some of the camp songs they were singing in the backseat of the car, after we picked them up from church camp. Wonderful!

When you use LaDiDa, you can choose different ways of recording and somehow, it adapts to your choices and to your voice (more or less successfully). You might want to try it for fun. (Search the app store for LaDiDa.)

As for me, the non-karaoke grandma, I'm happy for this app and for these songs now stored through my iPhone. I am now carrying around (once again) the voices of angels!

Annie

.

Adding Years to Our Lives and Life to our Years

2011-07-15T19:48:00.000-05:00

I've been feeling at the mercy of outside forces recently. My natural tendency is to let circumstances feed mental chaos, which leads me to a state of "brain fog". That's where I've been for a few weeks, with enough mental energy to check in and comment on Facebook, but not enough to sit down and post to my blog. Many, many thanks to those of you who have visited here recently and apologies that you have found me "not at home". I'm so grateful for those of you who are still around and I'm ready to join the blogging community again. My brother recently asked me how many read my blog and my response was "not many", at least as compared to the thousands who visit some other blogs. That's only part of the equation, though. I know (as you do) that the other important thing is visiting others' blogs, making new friends, and gaining new insight. That's why blogging will continue to be part of my life and why I'm happy to be back!

One thing that happened recently is two deaths in our extended family. Both were beloved women who will be greatly missed.

Terry was 62 -- much too young to die. She was my former sister-in-law and we had lost contact during the years after her divorce. I attended her funeral and was impressed by what her family members and friends said about her -- that she enjoyed her granddaughter's overnight visits, particularly racing through her home -- in her wheelchair. That she was very important to a young woman who saw her as a mother figure. That her nephew loved and appreciated her taking him in and loving him when he had nowhere else to go.

She had been in ill health for years. I don't know all of the circumstances and I want to be clear that there is no judgement in my writing about her health. She was overweight and so am I. There are often consequences for being overweight and most likely, Terry's early death was one of them. We know that statistically is often the case.

The other death in my family was my Aunt Lona Mae (Aunt Sister), who died recently at age 100. I have posted about my aunt earlier; her life was one of good health, hard work, and involvement in her church, her family, her friends, and a concern for others. She enjoyed life and lived it to the fullest.

During her funeral, many stories were told about Lona Mae. Many were quite funny. An example: When she and my Uncle Jess were expecting their first child, they moved to a small home on a plot of land on her parent's farm. One day, Jess went into town and ran into a local nurse, who told him that she was going to visit Lona Mae the next day, just to see how she was doing. Jess went home and told Lona Mae that the nurse was coming and that she would check Lona Mae's blood pressure. Lona Mae asked what checking her blood pressure meant; Jess responded, "I'm not sure, but you'd better take a bath."

A more recent story had the minister telling widowed Lona Mae that he thought it was time that she met a new man. She told him that it would be difficult, because she liked older men and there weren't any around older than she was.

The same minister asked Lona Mae what her rules were for long life. Her responses:

Have a routine. Eat regular meals, get up and go to the bed at the same time.
Have a passion. Lona Mae's was the Dorcas class at her church and the work they did for the community.
Stay away from doctors.

Her third rule was interesting. Lona Mae was seldom ill and was healthy until a few months before she died at 100. I think that she was able to stay away from doctors, for the most part, because she lived a life that contributed to good health. She didn't let things upset her, she worked and played hard, and she ate good food (most of which she prepared herself, out of her garden's bounty.) She had no bad health habits. She had a circle of family, friends and neightbors who checked on her and participated in her life. (She enjoyed playing cards regularly until the last weeks of her life.)

That's not to say that any of the rest of us would never need a doctor, even if we did live a healthy life. But if I may expand on her words, "Stay away from doctors as much as possible (by being responsible for our own health) and seek medical help when you need it." That would include all of the normal checkups that can keep us on track, and any of the medical procedures we might need because of circumstances beyond our control. If we all followed these expanded rules, maybe it would also help with the crisis in health care our country faces. At the very least, it might add years to our lives and life to our years!

Hoping for a long and healthy life for you and those whom you love,
Annie

Tywhappity, Two Mile, and Bark Camp

2011-06-10T00:25:00.003-05:00

My cousin, Terry Joe, is the most charming country boy you'll ever meet. I still think of him that way, even if he is 68 years old. He sounds like Johnny Cash when he sings (even Johnny Cash said so) and was a member of Mike Huckabee's band for a while. He's now retired from Arkansas state government and has a knack for storytelling. He grew up on the family farm at Bark Camp, not far from my hometown of Kennett, Missouri. I've recently learned of a place called Tywhappity from Terry Joe and I'll admit that I thought he was pulling my leg. Tywhappity sounds mythical, doesn't it? Like Glocca Morra or Yoknapatawpha County. It turns out that Tywhappity is a real place and is also not far from Kennett. I'm embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of the tiny community of Tywhappity.

It happened because of Facebook. I had recently become Facebook friends with Chris Kimbrow. I had known Chris as a child and had lived next door to her in Kennett. Chris made the connection and sent me an invitation to become Facebook friends. Terry Joe noticed that I had added Chris to my friends list and sent me an e-mail: "Was Chris one of the Tywhappity Kimbrows?"

I wrote him back and told him that I didn't think Chris was a Tywhappity Kimbrow, but I wasn't sure since I didn't know what that meant. Terry responded that Tywhappity was a place and shared this story:

I remember a presentation I gave to the Rotary Club in Fort Smith in which I mentioned where I was born. I told them the best way to find Bark Camp was to look on the map. We were four miles from Poole's Chapel, eight miles from Tywhappity and two miles from a place called Two Mile. The president of the club asked if that statement met the 4-Way Rotary Test, the first question of which is "is it the truth?"

I invited him to come with me to do some quail hunting. After breakfast at Bark Camp and hunting at Poole's Chapel, we were driving down the road and I saw the Two Mile Church in the distance. My brother, Tony, was with us and I asked him what the building was. He replied, "The Two Mile Church." I asked if anything significant had happened to him there and he answered ,"I was married there." Then I asked where his wife grew up and when he replied "Tywhappity". My friend the Rotary President nearly fell out of the truck.

Back to Terry's original question: Is my friend Chris one of the Tywhappity Kimbrows? It turns out that she is, by marriage. Her husband and his brother went to school with Terry Joe and Tony, after they moved from Tywhappity and Bark Camp Schools to a rural consolidated school. Both Bark Camp and Tywhappity Schools closed years ago.

It's a small world -- made even smaller by Facebook, blogs and other tools that bring us together through technology. But it's hard to imagine a place (in the real world) any smaller than Tywhappity or Two Mile or Bark Camp. The only thing harder would be to imagine a world without such places.

Annie

Following Severe Weather from Oklahoma to Georgia and Points East

2011-04-30T12:24:00.000-05:00

I will admit it -- I'm a worrier. I am also a person who will not let anyone leave without hearing these words from me, "I love you. Be careful." And I urge my family to check in with me when they get where they're going, or when bad weather is in their neighborhoods, or when I know that something is not right in their worlds. We have a large family, so that means a lot of checking in, but that's okay with me. I need to know -- as if knowing what's going on is a charm against something really bad happening. (I also want to hear from them at other times, but that's another story.)

When I started writing this, my daughter and her family in northern Alabama were under a tornado warning, the second one they had been under on Wednesday. I thought that I could work on a blog post as I watched what was going on in Alabama. I was wrong. I was so wrong that I never got dressed on Wednesday; I stayed in my pajamas all day. I didn't go to the library program that I had planned to attend. I needed to stay with her family, in spirit, as much as I could.

You know what happened in Alabama. There were many who lost their lives, their family members and friends, their homes and their businesses. My daughter and her family and their home were unscathed and I am so grateful for that. I also weep for those who lost so much in Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia and Virginia. I feel wrung out, as if I personally witnessed a tragedy. In a way, I did -- at least much more so than we have ever been able to. For me, it started last week. Maybe it did for you, too.

We knew what was coming in Oklahoma -- the possibility of tornadoes. That's not unusual; the town I used to live in before we moved here, the town whose library I managed for 13 years, received heavy tornado damage in May of 2010. We were under warnings that night, as we were last week. We were a little better prepared this year; we had enrolled in our city's "blackboard warning system", which called us on our cell phones to tell us to take cover. We could hear the sirens going off, and we were listening to NOAA radio. I knew it was time to take my little dog into our "safe spot" (our walk-in closet) and stayed there for 45 minutes. I had time to get really uncomfortable, take a couple of calls from Tom, who was at work, and think about the possibility of some sort of portable "safe bubble" (similar to what the astronauts have when they land in the ocean) that would be affordable, reinforced, padded and comfortable, and life-saving for those of us who don't have cellars or safe rooms.

As the storm system moved on, my attention was drawn to my home town and the surrounding area. Kennett, Missouri, is about 45 minutes from Poplar Bluff, where the levies were breached on the Black River. It is also 30 minutes from the Mississippi River. The entire area was drenched from rain and my friends on Facebook expressed great concern for the lives, homes and businesses as more storms approached them. Tornadoes in St. Louis and Memphis affected friends and family, but we were relieved to hear that everybody was safe after the storms.

Then came Wednesday. We had all heard that a monster system was heading towards eastern Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia and this takes me back to the beginning of my post. I was the beneficiary of information from many sources the day of the tornado outbreak, as I had been earlier in the week. This time, I was watching my daughter, her husband, and three grandchildren from a great distance, with a growing sense of alarm and helplessness. They seemed to be in the direct path of the tornados and I was able to talk with Mary by phone during the first round, making sure that they were in their safe place and had their weather radios close by. She reassured me that they all were together except Adam, who was at work. She directed me to the website of their local television station so that I could watch live reports of what was happening. Then we said good-bye and told each other we would stay in touch.

I watched the channel Mary recommended on my computer and also went to Google Maps to zoom in to exactly where the tornados were. I could see Mary's street west of town and follow the tornado path which went northeast. It appeared that they were in the clear, but the weather crew said that more storms would be coming. I took a break away from the computer during lunch.

When I went back, they were under another warning. As I started tracking the storm, they announced that electricity was out in some areas and that would affect the sirens; people might not hear them. I tried to call Mary and couldn't get through. I told myself that Mary had her weather radio and would be tuned in, so she would know they were under a warning. Then they announced that the NOAA weather station closest to Mary's home was out and would probably be until Thursday. I was in a panic and all I could do was watch and pray. At one point, as I watched, the electricity went out at the television station I was watching and the crew was in the dark. They were still broadcasting, but they couldn't continue with the radar tracking because their lights were out. They found someone's iPad and were able to focus their tv cameras on its screen, continuing to follow that way for a few minutes until their electricity came back on.

Finally, I was reassured again, as the tornado went east of Mary's home. My son Cory (who lives in the Washington DC area) was able to keep in contact with Mary through most of it, and relayed to me that they were safe. I later found out that they had no damage. They did have some debris, including some pretty good sized pieces of metal siding. As Cory texted me about Mary and family, I heard that the DC area was under a tornado warning and he signed off.

At this point, we were learning about the tornados that had hit Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, south of the Huntsville area where Mary lives. Eventually, we knew what the rest of the country knew, that this was the second-worst tornado outbreak in recorded history and hundreds of people lost their lives along its path. Their are thousands of stories like mine about the storms, many of them will be told by people who were there and personally experienced the horrors of that day.

My story is one of a mother and grandmother who watched from a distance and cried and prayed for her children. Technology has given us so much, including the ability to know (when it's working) minute-by-minute what is going on. Sometimes that's a blessing; sometimes maybe it's not. Now I know (as I always did, deep inside), that saying, "Be careful. I love you!" is a protective charm that doesn't always work. The most I will say about that is that "I love you" is always worth saying.

Enjoying the Season: Easter and Spring

2011-04-13T20:16:00.000-05:00

I love seasonal decorating but in Oklahoma, we sometimes need a reminder about what season it is! Today it's warm, but it's not too late for a cold spell. With that in mind, I will share what is going on inside our house -- bunnies and chicks everywhere! (Note: The printed cards in these photographs are from The Graphics Fairy, a wonderful source of vintage illustrations, many in color, that can be printed out for your projects.)

Wall Words: Instructions and Reminders of What is Important

2011-03-20T21:45:00.000-05:00

As I was getting ready for church this morning, I was also trying to decide on a topic for my next blog post. I was uninspired as I went through possible post subjects; one was discarded because the timing wasn't right, another because it was too similar to another recent post, and on and on. I looked to my left, to the wall next to the shower and there they were -- wall words, those rub-off decals purchased when we moved into our home and installed in the bathroom and living room.

Wall Words come in many varieties, including hundreds of quotations on dozens of topics. You also have the option to custom order individual words in your choice of color and font. I decided that I wanted instructions to myself for the bathroom. These words, then, are what my "best self" would do if she didn't get bogged down in worrying, regretting, borrowing trouble, negative ruminating, and the other habits I have that can make me miserable.

One wall in our living room has words that remind us of what is important. These words include kindness, serenity, strength, love, patience, freedom, peace, hope, courage, wisdom, compassion, friends, and family.

I feel that words have power -- words that we say to ourselves, words that we say to others, words that we write and words that we read. Sometimes we just need a little reminder or a little nudge to encourage ourselves to dance, or sing, or dream or believe again.

What are your "wall words"?

Book Recommendation: Living with What You Love: Decorating with Family Photos, Cherished Heirlooms, and Collectibles by Monica Rich Kosan

2011-03-16T19:32:00.000-05:00

I have always been enchanted by homes that, rather than having a "decorator" look, reveal the personalities, tastes, and values of the family members who live there. The presence of family photos, heirlooms, and collectibles illustrate the author's observation that "a house is not a home unless it displays our most cherished possessions." Living with What You Love gives us the inspiration, tools, and suggestions to approach our own possessions with the goal of reminding ourselves (and others) of who we are, and how we can display our precious objects with creativity and style.

I have years of accumulating photographs, books, and other precious items behind me; my challenge is to be selective in my choices for display. We are reminded, though, that "cherished objects are not just things of the past. Whenever we take a photograph, add a personal touch to something that belongs to us, or select a new piece for a collection, we are in the process of creating heirlooms."

A section of the book shows us the value of mixing the old and the new all around the house, especially in regard to photographs; mixing generations of family members can introduce discussions of the past and present. Also within the pages of the book, you'll find ideas for displaying large and small photos, as well as using technology for always-changing photo display. Photographic illustrations include an heirloom silver tray holding small, intimate photos framed in silver and a large tv screen devoted to rotating family photographs.

Since my home is filled with books, I was particularly interested in the ideas for mixing them with photos and other items.

I was also reminded that other precious items can be framed, including certificates, letters, and diplomas and placed on the wall with treasured photographs. For a start, I'm going to copy the back of my and my husband's birth certificates, showing our baby footprints, for a photo area in our guest bedroom.

Other suggestions included leaving albums and loose photos out in open boxes or baskets for friends and family to thumb through.

A chapter heading called "Intimate Landcapes" refers to little areas that remind us of what is important to us. Tabletops, shelves, mantels, buffets, wherever there is a flat surface can be used to put together family vignettes, which can include memories to hold in your hand, such as individual or collections of rocks, jewelry, or other mementos.

Devoted space can be places individual members of the household use for their own purposes, including personal offices or studios or spots as small as a closet or even an open drawer -- any place that can be used to reveal and enjoy the individual's personal choices of photos and memorabilia.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in decorating the home with a more personal touch and especially for the beautiful photographs, which can serve as a springboard to more ideas for creativity and personal pleasure in our surroundings.

You can purchase Living with What You Love from Amazon or borrow it from your public library, as I did.

"Going to Gobler": Before There was Walmart, There was "Missouri's Most Famous Country Store"

2011-03-07T00:40:00.003-06:00

When I was a little girl, growing up in the bootheel of Missouri, I loved to hear the words, "We're going to Gobler." Gobler Merchantile Company was a central location of commerce in southeast Missouri and northeast Arkansas from 1937 until 1956 and its success was nothing short of amazing.

Just a visit to the store was quite an event for a young girl. I remember a huge (today, it might be called humongous) building that had grown from 30x60 corrugated tin structure containing $900 worth of merchandise. It had grown into multiple buildings by the 1950's, housing everything needed by the farmers who were its main customers -- groceries, housewares, farm implements, hoes and other tools, and space for new departments and lines of merchandise. According to Virginia Branch, who has written a tribute to Gobler Merchantile, it eventually covered about five acres and contained a grocery store and meat market, drug center and dry goods section, furniture, housewares, and hardware departments, a restaurant, television shop and lumber yards.

People came from miles around to Gobler; cars were often parked on both sides of the highway for almost a mile distant on the county line road. Entertainment was scheduled to attract even more customers, which included the Slim Rhodes show and other fairly well known country and gospel performers. Many families planned their Saturday afternoons around a 4:00 prize drawing. Later, a drawing for a car brought the largest number of shoppers in Gobler's history.

Gobler Mercantile's popularity was largely due to business partner and proprietor, Dennye Mitchell, who was primarily responsible for building the store from one small structure to what was larger than many "superstores" today. Its reputation also grew when Mitchell began advertising on KBOA radio in Kennett, Missouri; thousands of households regularly tuned in to "Old Camp Meeting Time" while eating their breakfasts and heard what the 18-wheeler trucks had recently delivered to "Missouri's Most Famous Country Store."

My stepmother told me that there was also a smoke-filled night spot called the B&B Club in Gobler, to which young couples in the area would go for entertainment. Elvis Presley performed there twice early in his career.

The shortcut from my home in Kennett to Memphis took me by Gobler during my years of driving back and forth to the University of Memphis (then Memphis State). There was nothing to remind me of Gobler Merchantile and the time I spent there because Missouri's Most Famous Country Store burned to the ground in 1956. Today, the farm community has a population of fewer than 300.

If you happen to drive north of Blytheville on Highway NN, you may recognize the little town by "The Soul Shack", Ragins Salvage Yard and Trucking, or the Gobler Baptist Church. Nothing remains of Gobler Merchantile. If you stop and listen carefully, though, you may hear the country and gospel performers, The Slim Rhodes Show, or even Elvis himself entertaining hundreds of people there.. You may also hear the children, the young couples, and the old farmers sharing the excitement, their voices celebrating that special weekly event, "Going to Gobler."

Photographs of Gobler Merchantile and Virginia Branch's entire tribute, as well as a history of KBOA and its assocation with Gobler, by Joe Bankhead, are available on KBOA's website.

Book Recommendation: So Much for That by Lionel Shriver

2011-02-28T22:35:00.000-06:00

So Much for That is a precautionary tale for any of us who have health insurance, who don't have health insurance, or who don't have enough or the right kind of health insurance. It's about Shep Knacker, who has worked most of his life building a successful business. He has reached the point that he is ready to proceed with the second part of his life, which he has dreamed about -- a place where he and his wife can live the good life for dollars a day. He has been exploring possibilities for years, and his wife has not found any of his choices suitable. He has finally sold the business and invested the proceeds, but has remained as an employee to the buyer (who once worked for him), waiting for the perfect time to leave. The time has arrived and he is ready to tell his wife that he is going, whether or not she will accompany him. He leaves work and goes home, ready to make his announcement, but his wife beats him to the punch. She says that she is going to need his health insurance. She has cancer.

Shep was a good employer, who provided good health insurance for his employees. It turns out that the new owner has downgraded the health insurance. It turns out that Shep's wife has mesothelioma and her prognosis is grim. Shep lives with this fact, although the doctors don't choose to be completely open with his wife about her chances. They feed her hope. She is also buoyed by a possibility of a settlement, due to her exposure to asbestos. Who could blame her?

Shep, in the meantime, must deal with the reality. Thus, the title, So Much for That. He must continue to work for his former employee. The reader is kept apprised of Shep's investments, through an account statement every couple of months. We despair with him (and think, "so this is what it's like") as his account balance goes from about $750,000 to about $3,500. Remember, he does have insurance for his wife -- although it's not the insurance he(we) would like to have.

You will want to read this book. It's an interesting story of a couple living through a very rough time in their marriage. You'll want to know if they, and their marriage, survive. But, as I said, it's also a precautionary tale -- for the rest of us.

You can find this book at your local library or purchase it below.

Some Gifts and Blessings and a Warning

2011-02-27T12:27:00.001-06:00

I love white stoneware. My stepmother knew this, and gave me the beautiful soup tureen and pitcher before she passed away in November. The sweet creamer and salt and pepper shakers came to me more recently, and therein lies the warning.

We were visiting my dad on Friday and when we walked through the kitchen, a disturbing sight stopped me in my tracks. One entire cabinet in the kitchen was gone, leaving only the bare wall (really bare, with unpainted wall and screw holes showing).

I asked Dad, "What's this?" and he told me that the kitchen cabinet had fallen off the wall. He said that he had thought there was a car accident out on the road, the crash was so loud. All of the dishes were broken except a pitiful few that were on the countertop: four small dinner plates, three salad plates, one cup, the salt and pepper shaker and creamer.

The cabinet held dishes, quite a few of them, but it also held some of Jo Ann's collection of cookbooks. Dad said that the cookbooks completely filled a fairly large box; I think that there was an entire shelf of them. The bits and pieces of the dishes filled another box.

Lest you think that this was shabby construction, let me explain that my dad was a building contractor and built this house almost 35 years ago. No other cabinets have fallen. It was just that the tipping point was reached. You may want to check your own kitchen cabinets for overloading. I have, and acknowledge that I'm just about at that point. I'm going to redistribute some things.

I asked Dad if I could have the salt and pepper shakers and the creamer and he said I could. I brought them home and noticed that the salt shaker has a small chip in its base. Not bad, for such a small item taking such a big fall. They all have a place of honor now in my house and a story that can be told about how they got here.

Girl Scout Cookie Season: A Poem from PePaw

2011-02-26T09:50:00.001-06:00

It's Girl Scout Cookie season! I don't have Girl Scouts in my neighborhood, but have memories of selling them in the 1950's and 1960's. I also got involved as a parent (buying many, many boxes) and as a troop leader in the 1970's.

My Dad let me bring home a folder of newspaper clippings, cards, and drawings from and about his children and grandchildren. Included were several poems he had written when the grandchildren were small and the following is one of them:

To Jeannie, A Super Cookie Salesperson

1975

"Hi, PePaw, This is Jeannie!"
"Hello, Jeannie, How are you?"
"I’m selling Girl Scout cookies, PePaw."
Would you like to buy a few?"

"We have many kinds to choose from
Surely, there are some you need.
Chocolate chips, you can rely on
For a group you want to feed."

"One they call a sandwich cookie
They’re chocolate, one stuck to another.
Then we have one called Savannah
They’re delicious, peanut butter."

"Chocolate mints are tasty also
They disappear with great speed
Then we have a new one this year
A cracker called Sesame Seed."

Jeannie’s only eight years old
Not old enough to know
How much she means to PePaw
With her youthful voice aglow.

She could sell him anything
For a dollar or a penny
It’s worth the price to hear her say,
“Hi, PePaw, this is Jeannie.”

What was/is your favorite Girl Scout cookie?

A Tale of Two Kindles and a NOOK: Part 2 - The NOOKcolor

2011-02-22T18:10:00.000-06:00

A few weeks after I delivered my dad's new Kindle, I was talking to my son on the phone, telling him about Dad's learning to use his Kindle and how much I was enjoying mine. He said, "Well, actually, I need to tell you that I have purchased a NOOKcolor for myself."

He went on to explain his reasons for the additional purchase. Primarily, it had to do with the larger touch-screen, the fact that everything is in full color, and the wireless web access. (You can access the web through the Kindle, but it is difficult to manuever, due to the smaller screen size and the lack of the touch-screen.) His enthusiasm was contagious. I decided to explore the NOOKcolor on the Barnes and Noble website.

First, the color is beautiful. It's especially nice for cookbooks, decorating books, anything with photographs or color illustrations. (You can also enlarge and zoom in on the photos.) I remember when we went from black and white TV to the first color sets. The color was not good. This experience was more like going from watching one of today's movies on a black and white TV to watching it in color in high definition. I was sold on the color!

Barnes and Noble offers the option of purchasing subscriptions to many magazines, as does Amazon for the Kindle. Of course, the color makes a huge difference with a lot of the magazines. Another option for the NOOKcolor and the Kindle is to purchase the most recent issue of magazines and newspapers individually. This is an option that we will enjoy when we're on vacation or when a special event or issue comes up that we want to explore, without purchasing an entire subscription.

Next, some books are interactive. For example, some cookbooks have demonstration videos embedded in the text. You just touch the screen on the NOOK to play them. Brilliant! I can have my NOOKcolor right there with me in the kitchen (in a protected area) and use the demos as I go through the recipes. Also, some of the color children's books have interactive segments in the illustrations. The child can touch a ferris wheel car, for example, and the car will rock.

By the way, the screen can be turned sideways to read the children's books and there is a "read to me" feature that the child can choose to listen to the book as the pages are turned.

The touch screen is very nice, but there is a learning curve. I had no experience with touch screens (I don't have a smart phone) and am just now getting more confident using mine. It just takes practice.

The web browsing capability is also very nice; the touch screen makes it easier to use and there are some other extra bells and whistles like the ability to preset your social media and e-mail for easy access.

Here is the final selling point for me: My library system has books available to check out on e-readers from its website. The NOOK is one of the e-readers that will accept the borrowed books; the Kindle is not. This is a major money-saver and is what really made me decide to buy the NOOK.

The bottom line is that I will use both, and I'll be using them for different functions and for different reasons (just as I will continue to read the traditional book). The Kindle is a good basic reader with features that will appeal to people my age and older: it's lightweight, simple to learn, has buttons rather than the more senstitive touch screen, the screen doesn't smudge easily, and it can be read in bright sunlight. The NOOKcolor has, of course, beautiful color; touch screen; interactive functions; easier web access; and a larger reading screen (than my Kindle -- I understand that the Kindle DX has a larger screen) AND allows me to download e-books from my library. Both the Kindle and the NOOK have many features in common that make my reading an even more wonderful and varied pleasure than it has been.

I would recommend, of course, that you visit the Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites to learn more about both devices, especially if you are in the market for one (or both). Happy reading!

Annie

A Tale of Two Kindles and a Nook: Part 1 - The Kindles

2011-02-21T15:26:00.001-06:00

I thought that I had found the "sweet spot" in regard to my ever-present need to have books and magazines available to read. My library provides a "book box" two miles from my home, where I can pick up and drop off books that I've reserved through the system website. I also have three branches within a twenty minute drive, for those times I want to browse. I subscribe to a dozen magazines and look forward to their arrival each month, and I have a personal library with enough books to keep me happy into my eighties. I have carried suitcases full of books on the plane ride home from library conferences and book festivals (before that became too expensive) and never leave for an auto trip without a book bag filled with three or four books and several current magazines.

I thought that I had plenty to read when I went to Alabama in October. My daughter had a very bad case of double pneumonia, but she was released soon after our arrival. I decided to stay a couple of weeks, and settled in with her family. My granddaughters understood that Grandma's reading time was important and I was happy to see them (and hear them) read their own books.

My son had brought his Kindle when he was visiting there, and left it when he went home. During my stay, I picked it up and began reading. I alternated between reading my library books and The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo on the Kindle. After a week or so, I had finished my library books, and moved on to The Girl Who Played with Fire. I also read some of the Kindle's User Manual and figured out how to have a book downloaded (within seconds) from Amazon.

After I got back home, I let my son know that I owed him a couple of dollars for a book I had downloaded and also told him that I really enjoyed the Kindle. He said that he was happy to hear that and told me that he was sending me one for Christmas. I started making plans about how I would integrate the Kindle into my reading times at home. I wanted to put it to good use, but felt, somehow, that I was being unfaithful to my books; I was having an extra-biblio-affair -- my own guilty pleasure that would somehow diminish my book-lover status.

Of course, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas went very quickly, and I was extremely busy with preparations for both. We had lots of company for Christmas and I put my new Kindle aside until after everyone was gone.

During January, I explored the features, skimmed the manual, downloaded some free books, and visited the Amazon website to explore more thoroughly what was available. Among my downloads were two versions of the Bible: The King James and the American Standard. I also downloaded a book of daily meditations and a couple of classics that I had intended to read. I wasn't ready to download bestsellers, literary fiction or nonfiction, but I was happy with my Kindle and decided to use it in the following ways:

I wanted to read the Bible through. Previous efforts (or promises) had failed. The "Read the Bible in a Year" assignments that I had try to follow jumped around too much and the assigned readings didn't necessarily fit my schedule. Sometimes I was able to read more, and sometimes less. Using the Kindle, starting with the New Testament, I am able to read at my own schedule. The Kindle stays at the page where I stopped, in the font size that I have chosen. If I do happen to go to another passage, I can easily bookmark where I left off, so that I can return. (My "home page" contains a list of all my books. No matter what book I want to read, the Kindle takes me to where I left off in that book.)
I also decided to use my Kindle for my daily meditations, for the reasons above.
I have vision problems. I particularly have vision problems in church; I can't follow the scripture in the Bible because the print is too small and my eyes don't adjust quickly enough from visually following the minister and the illustrative screens at the front of the sanctuary to the small print in the Bible. My Kindle solves this; I can look in the bulletin and find the scriptures for the day's sermon and go ahead and have them in the font size that I can see.
I looked forward to having my Kindle with me when I was away from the house. I especially looked forward to travelling with it and planned to download some leisure reading when we vacationed during the summer.

During the time I was getting acquainted with my Kindle, I visited my Dad, who is 89 and is experiencing visual and hearing problems. Dad loves to read and I thought that he would be interested in the Kindle's font-size feature, where he could increase it to the size he needed. He seemed mildly interested, but as I suspected, he wasn't ready to commit to a new technology. This wasn't surprising, since his interest in any technology is pretty much limited to watching DVDs my brother loads for him, and using the closed captioning when it's available.

Later, I mentioned to my brother that I had introduced Dad to my Kindle and Rick said that Dad had told him about it. This was evidence that Dad was interested, if not completely sold on having one. I also mentioned it to my son, and Cory said that he wanted to buy a Kindle for Dad, which he did and had it delivered to my house. I downloaded a Bible and several collections of westerns, plus some biographies of presidents and the writings of Abraham Lincoln (all free or almost free). My Dad was one of the pilots who flew in supplies during the Seige of Bastogne (Battle of the Bulge) during World War II, so I also purchased a book entitled The Battered Bastards of Bastogne and downloaded it. I asked Rick to meet me at Dad's when I took the Kindle to him.

We introduced it and all it contained to Dad. There is a learning curve for seniors with any new technology, but Dad was willing to try, and didn't seem too daunted by accidently turning a page or learning the nuances of the arrow buttons. He has begun to read the Book of James in the Kindle version of the King James Bible and was very interested in the westerns and the book about Bastogne. As usual, I went a little too far when I wanted to show him how to search for his battalion and company; he was a little frustrated when I showed him the results and explained that he would have to go back into the book to read the complete passages. But he is willing to learn and I think that he'll appreciate the gift more and more as time goes on.

So, that's basically my own experience with the Kindles in my life. I will tell you about my Nook in my next post. Yes, I have a Nook and a Kindle and, for me, that's not too much of a good thing. More later --

Annie

Cure for a Listless Tuesday: A List of Movies that I've Seen So Many Times that I've Memorized the Dialogue

2011-02-15T17:24:00.002-06:00

This is not a list of my favorite movies; neither is it a list of "the greatest movies ever made" (although I would put some of these movies belong in both categories). Instead, it is a list of movies that I've watched many times. The reasons that I've watched them many times vary.  I will undoubtedly leave some out, not remembering until they show up again on AMC or Turner Classics, and I watch them again, maybe for the 100th time. Some of them, of course, would be on almost everybody's list; some (including the reasons for watching them) will be unique to me.

Just so you know, I normally don't watch movies more than once, just as I normally don't reread books. This is a list of exceptions to that rule.  Here is my list of movies I've rewatched again and again:

Gone with the Wind -- I guess GWTW would show up on the lists of most people over age 50. I didn't see the movie nor read the book until I was an adult. It was part of my parent's generation, and my interest in movies that would appeal to them was minimal. I actually have a memory of my mother saying "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" (although I don't remember the context) and my dad named one of a litter of our boxer puppies Rhett Butler. I first saw the movie on an army base in the late 1960's and have watched it many times on tv. I love the costumes, the scenery, and the background story of the war, as well as Rhett, Scarlett, Ashley and Melanie's story. I'm always moved when I hear "Tara's Theme" at the beginning of the movie.  The truth is, I do give a damn and would include GWTW in my own "greatest movies" list.

It's a Wonderful Life - For many years after my first husband and I divorced, my children would be with him and his family on Christmas Eve and spend Christmas Day with me and mine. Christmas Eve was my time for final gift wrapping. I would spend that time wrapping and watching It's a Wonderful Life. Somtimes I would watch it more than once on Christmas Eve and several times during the season. To me, it will always be the Christmas movie.

The Wizard of Oz - This is the childhood movie that will always stay with me. I've always identified with Dorothy's journey and the characters she met on the way. Even now, when it appears on tv once or twice a year, I'll watch at least a part of it. I used to think that the scenery and the citizens of Oz were the most enchanting part; now, it's Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow" that never fails to move me.

All About Eve - This movie has so many memorable lines: "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!" "You have a point. An idiotic one, but a point." "Everybody has a heart -- except some people." Eve Harrington's character provides a lesson in how not to be an authentic woman. Margo Channing's character provides a lesson in how to be one.

Steel Magnolias - I loved this movie because of the cast, the setting, and the many wonderful lines -- so many that I find myself repeating them 21 years after the movie came out. I enjoy, celebrate, and decorate for holidays and the change of seasons, and watching Steel Magnolias can always put me in the mood for Christmas, Halloween, or Easter. Some favorite lines: "A dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste." "An ounce of pretension is worth a pound of manure." "Well, you know what they say: if you don't have anything nice to say about anybody, come sit by me!"

Calamity Jane - I wonder if this would appear on anybody else's list. I have watched this movie so many times; the first was at the Palace Theater when I was about ten years old. I have always loved Doris Day and I found this movie enchanting. There was something that touched me in her portrayal of Calamity Jane that introduced me to the concept of strength and vulnerability in a woman. The scene where the song "A Woman's Touch" was sung and the dirty, falling-down cabin was transformed into a lovely and cared-for home was magical to me. Even today, I believe in that premise, that just a little work and attention can transform our surroundings.

There are two additional movies that I could (and have) recited almost every line of a specific character. My appreciation of these movies comes from participating in local theater.

Life with Father - I had the opportunity to play Vinnie Day (the mother) in a little theater production. It was a special time because there were several mothers and children who were among those in the cast. My son played the part of Clarence Day, Jr. My two youngest daughters attended many of the rehearsals. I remember hearing a familiar little voice from the audience when my character fainted: "My mommy died!" Of course, that was a show/rehearsal stopper! In the years since that production, I have watched the movie many times, to revisit the wonderful time I had with the rest of the cast and the production members.

Crimes of the Heart - I played Lenny McGrath, the oldest sister, who is celebrating her birthday. As the tags explained, "Meg just left one. Lenny never had one. Babe just shot one. The McGrath sisters sure have a way with men!" Participating in this play was such fun and I still think about how much I learned. I hadn't appeared in a production since our senior play in high school, where my part was a small one.  What impressed me most was the hard work and dedication that it took to present the play by so many people.  I was in a position to actually see what it took to direct, build scenes, make costumes, keep props in order, and all of the other tasks that are so vital to the production's success. Again, I revisit the movie time and again to remind me of the wonderful experience. Some of my favorite lines: "I'm not liberal; I was just lonely."   "Why, you're just as perfectly sane as anyone walking the streets of Hazelhurst, Mississippi." "We just have to figure out a way to get through the really bad days."

I might mention that I will be attending our Little Theater's production of The Miss Firecracker Contest this weekend. Beth Henley won the Pulitzer Prize for Crimes of the Heart and I look forward to being in the audience for another of her plays on Sunday afternoon.

Lots of Valentine Ideas at Laurie's and Holiday Haven Valentine Parties!

2011-02-11T14:11:00.003-06:00

I wanted to join the fun at Laurie's and Holiday Haven's Valentine party at Bargain Hunting (and Chatting) with Laurie and Holiday Haven and I needed to contribute an idea. I had already posted photographs of my Valentine curio cabinet, so I decided to do something quick and simple for our guest room. Believe me, this is the quickest and most simple display, thanks to a blog called The Graphics Fairy. If you visit there, you will find these vintage cards and more, ready to print out on card stock and use for display or for other projects. Thanks for joining me for this "lazy woman's" tabletop display and thanks to and these wonderful blogs for making it possible and so easy!

I also want to apologize for arriving late to the Holiday Haven party. Something happened to my memory! Please do drop in if you get the opportunity!

Book Recommendation: The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

2011-02-07T20:04:00.001-06:00

This book is beyond belief. I am not saying that it is unbelievable; it is believable and entertaining, humorous, sad, compassionate -- all the qualities that make a book worth reading and remembering. It is "beyond belief" in the sense that it's really not about whether you believe in or condone polygamy. It's more about a family (albeit one with one husband, four wives and 28 children) who struggle, compete, form alliances, break alliances, express love, fear, self-protection, self-doubt, and all of the other qualities of the human condition that we all do. The setting is certainly different from the family in which I grew up (and probably from your own), and it makes for a different story. But I didn't feel a complete stranger in that household; I felt a tolerance and an odd type of kindship with the members of the family. Maybe it's because I've been a wife (although not a "sister wife") and a mother (never with 28 children, although sometimes it seemed like that many).

This riotous household is headed by a building contractor who, in designing his own home, placed all the main rooms around the kitchen. The children have turned the area into an indoor race track, where they chase each other to the point where the carpet is worn completely through to the padding. This, I believe, is an underlying truth to the entire novel. The household is in constant motion. But while the reader gets the impression of a certain type of household chaos, we also understand that all of the children are also individuals and inevitably, some are suffering from lack of attention and expression of love. This is where we find that the book is more than a slapstick portrayal of a chaotic family.

And guess what? The man of the family is having a mid-life crisis, which brings him to a place where he's taken on a new mistress. Golden Richards isn't despicable; we can even sympathize for his wishing for some peace and quiet and relief from constant demands for his attention.

But we have more empathy for his four wives, who must share a man who has limited time, energy, and (apparently) foresight. We have empathy for his other children, who are, after all, children.

And we have even more empathy for Rusty, son of Golden's first wife, who finds himself an outcast among the children, and who receives the brunt of disapproval and punishment in the household. Rusty's bond with the youngest wife, Trish, provides a respite, but not a solution for his situation.

I recommend this book. I recommend that you read it, enjoy it, and share it. You may find some passages hilarious enough to read out loud (as I did); you may find the references to the Mormon religion interesting and informative. I hope that you will also find that nugget of truth that is found in all good and memorable stories of families like (or not like) yours and mine, whether they be monogamous or polygamous; Morman, Catholic, Jewish or Muslim; gay or straight: all of us seek love and understanding. The best of families are where we find it.

My Readers: More Friends than Followers

2011-02-05T14:36:00.001-06:00

I have noticed something recently; I have been falling really behind in my blog reading! If you look at the list of blogs I follow, you'll see why. I'm not inclined to trim my list, because there are so many wonderful, beautiful blogs there, many that focus on specific subjects in which I'm interested. The other thing that most of them have in common are the bloggers who produce them -- mostly vibrant, intelligent, humorous women who provide a lift for my day.

I'm not giving up my long list of favorite blogs, and will continue to monitor the newest posts and visit when I can.

But I want to make a promise to a group of people that give me another type of boost. In the blog world, they're called "followers". I choose to call them my friends. Most of them are also bloggers. I am not a person who claims 500 friends on Facebook; neither do have have thousands of followers on my blog. I know that I never will and am content with that.

My blog is one of those who is visited (as expressed by one of those funny ladies who makes my day better) by "tens of readers each day." Actually, make mine "tens of readers each week", on a good week.
The advantage of the smaller numbers is that I can actually consider these readers friends. They are more likely to get to know me, and through their comments and my visiting their blogs, I can get to know them.

So this is my promise to my blogger friends (aka "followers"). I will visit your blog (if you have one) at least twice a week. I won't wait until your latest post appears on my reader, which will lessen the chance that I'll overlook it. I will comment sometimes so that you'll know I've been there, but even when I don't comment, you can know that I'm in the background, not lurking, but interested in what you're doing and what you have to say.

That's what friends are for. I couldn't do this if I had 5,000 friends, but since I have a (much) smaller number, I can. I'm happy about that.

Annie

p.s. If you happen to read this post and are not a friend/follower, please don't consider it a ploy to add to my numbers. If you feel a kinship or like what I've written, please add yourself to my circle of blog friends.

Valentine's Day -- Here Before You Know It!

2011-01-25T22:33:00.003-06:00

You might think that I'm rushing it a bit by posting photos of Valentine's Day decorations, but I must confess that I've finally put away my Santa Claus collection and needed to fill this space. There is a Valentine mantle decorating party going on at The Story of A to Z and I wanted to take part and enjoy all of the wonderful decorating ideas. Please drop by and take a look; you have almost three weeks to do your own decorating!

Heirloom cut glass paired with a modern glass tray

Inexpensive valentine box, one of my collection of "hearts' books, a little milk glass tray that I gave to my mother, and hearts from a necklace I love.

Little china heart trays, a Valentine box I decorated with rubber stamps, a pretty gift card envelope, and another of my "hearts" picture books. The bottom shelf has another heirloom footed bowl filled with ornaments in (Christmas and Valentine's Day) red and gold.

Just items gathered from around the house -- A pretty teacup and saucer, a favorite paperweight, a little box and vintage jewelry box, a Christmas ornament and a sweet cupid blowing a kiss.

Down and Troubled? Open a Box of Good Wishes!

2011-01-21T20:26:00.000-06:00

As I've mentioned earlier, I have always treasured every card and letter I've ever received. My practice has been to put them in a drawer or box, telling myself that I'll discard them later. "Later" seldom arrived and I found myself with an accumlation over more than fifty years of cards.

In keeping with my goal of becoming better organized, I decided to do something about it. My youngest daughter and I have described ourselves as organized hoarders. She probably inherited the "saving" trait from me, and is now accumulating treasured memories of and for her three little girls.

But back to the "organized hoarding" part. Fifty years of greeting cards can take up a lot of room. I decided that the most important part of each card is the handwritten "I love you" or "I've enjoyed working with you" or even the "You are old, I am young, hee hee" written in the hand of my 16-year-old. So that's what I decided I should save.

They actually don't take up a lot of room -- just a little box that some salad plates came in holds all that I've recovered so far. I imagine I will find more as I work on my other organizing goal for the year -- cleaning out drawers and closets and the boxes in the garage. I may need a slightly larger box, but that's okay. You see, they are not there just to put away in the back of a closet. I found myself going through them again as I prepared this photograph. I told my daughters about them when they were here at Christmas, and they wanted to look through them. I told my husband that, if he ever doubted that someone loved, or admired, or wished him well, he should look through the box.

Much better than a box of chocolates, when you never know what you'll get! Well, maybe not, but who says you can't have good wishes and chocolates, too?

Annie

"Best of the Best" and the Books I'll Be Reading during 2011

2011-01-12T19:43:00.001-06:00

About five years into my 25 years as a librarian, I became interested in the annual "best books" lists. I would look forward to the issue of People Magazine, Publisher's Weekly, Library Journal, New York Review of Books, Time Magazine and a few others that featured their choices, and put together my own list of "best of the best" to guide my reading for the coming year. It was an unscientific process, made more so by the fact that some periodicals chose five titles while others chose fifty or more, some lists included nonfiction and others separated the two, some included poetry, and other differences that made a true and fair "best of the best" list a near-impossibility.

I didn't let that deter me, because I reasoned that the very "best of the best" would rise to the top and would be found on most lists. I would make an effort to read those books, understanding that even some of those titles would fail my own personal litmus test for readability. For those interested in what I look for in a (fiction) book:

I enjoy books that are "character driven" as opposed to "plot driven". This is not to say that I don't think a good plot is important, but I can read about an interesting character for quite a while, but the best plot with cardboard characters won't keep my interest. Also, really interesting characters seem to draw action to them, and their reactions to whatever life throws at them are the basis for great reading.
I enjoy books about relationships (again, it's that "character" preference), especially between friends and family members.
I love books that cover several generations of a family or long friendships, especially between women.
I love books that help me understand myself or others more completely.
I enjoy "multilayered" books, where different subplots are germinating beneath the surface.
I love long books that I can enjoy over several days or weeks. They keep me going on other, less enjoyable tasks; I can always look forward to going back to my book.
I enjoy books that teach me about history or geography or culture through their characters and settings.
I love southern literature and authors, but not to the exclusion of other great books and authors.
I love to read books by Oklahoma authors. It's my homestate and boasts of dozens of wonderful writers, many of whom I have had the pleasure of meeting.
I love young authors, because they will probably be around to write more.
I love old (and deceased) authors, because their work is limited and all the more valuable.

I have gone along happily since then, confident that the titles I chose from my "best of the best" list, plus all of the new titles coming out recommended by friends, bloggers, book reviews from magazines and newspapers, and the latest books from my fairly long list of favorite authors, will provide me with more than enough to read for the coming year. This treasure trove provides me with a never-ending feeling of wealth -- I have more than enough to read and the resources to supply me (my public library, my new Kindle, and a small budget for those books I really, really want to own.)

Now I don't even have to compile the "best of the best" list myself! The Fiction Award Winners website has a list of the best fiction books of 2010, compiled from many lists, including Amazon, Publishers Weekly, New York Times, Library Journal, Time Magazine, Booklist, and others. I was interested in seeing which of the "best of the best" books I had already read, and which I would probably want to read during the coming months. (I don't apologize for the times I have decided against finishing a book from a "best" list, including a couple which were at the top of everybody's list except mine!)

These are the titles of "best of the best" fiction books for 2010, determined from the lists on which they appeared. (Go to the website for links, summaries, and details on the number and names of the lists.) (An asterisk denotes books I have read.)

*Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
To the End of the Land by David Grossman
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
Room by Emma Donoghue
Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
How to Read the Air by Dinaw Mengestu
Great House by Nicole Krauss
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
The Passage by Justin Cronin
*Faithful Place by Tana French
Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
One Day by David Nicholls
The Surrendered by Chang Rae-Lee
*The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer
The Privileges by Jonathan Dee
By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham
The Wake of Forgiveness by Bruce Machart
Memory Wall by Anthony Doerr
The Ask by Sam Lipsyte
Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross
*The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
Sourland by Joyce Carol Oates
*Innocent by Scott Turow
Agaat by Marlene Van Niekerk
The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris
The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald
Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon

It is not my intent to read through the entire list during the coming year. I do plan to read summaries and reviews of each title, to read many of them, and to weigh in with you on some of them.

I wish you a happy year of reading and invite your comments on this list, your own "best of the year" list, or what you plan to read in 2011. Annie

The "After Event" (or, I Should Have Known It Was coming)

2010-12-29T15:22:00.000-06:00

It happened again this year, as it usually does after a really big, highly anticipated event. Christmas was over and after saying an early Sunday morning goodbye to my youngest daugher and her family, Tom and I went back to bed and slept for hours. I started the first of several loads of laundry and dishes (trying to be realistic about what leftovers we could actually consume in just a couple of days), and Tom went to work. Monday was more of the same -- getting the house ready for Tom's daughter and family, who couldn't be with us on Christmas, to come on Tuesday evening.

It started Monday night. It didn't help that I had consumed a lot of leftover sweet-and-sour meatballs and seven-layer dip instead of a reasonable person's after-Christmas meal plan. I was sick, sick -- oh, so sick! That's all that I will say (and maybe that's too much) but I was really, really sick.

I managed (with my sweet husband's help) to get back to bed and to sleep. Thinking that I was just paying for my eating choices, I thought that I would get up Tuesday and continue getting ready for our company. I tried -- I really did -- but I finally threw in the towel at about 3:00, explaining that I couldn't do it. I encouraged Tom to continue with our plans without me. I went to bed and threatened Tom with bodily injury if he invited anybody into our bedroom to "just say hello" or for any other reason. (He actually introduced this possibility to me. He backed down when I said, "Look at me! Do you think I want anybody to see me like this???")

I'm up and about today (Wednesday) and feeling much better, but I have a rash all over my neck, arms, chest and back. This tells me that it wasn't the food -- it is the "after-event" of something big in my life. It happened last year in January -- a week or so after I retired. All the rushing to get things in order at work, the receptions and farewell gatherings, plus Thanksgiving and Christmas -- all good things that I participated in with great enjoyment -- were also stressful. So I paid later -- and got sick. It's a pattern and you would think I would try to change it. I had even commented to my daughter that I would probably get sick after Christmas.

The challenge is how I should change it. I believe that (at 64), I need to build up my reserves. Not to change Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or any of the events or holidays that we enjoy. Instead, I should pay more attention to those days when an event isn't on the horizon. Taking better care of myself everyday will help build my resistance to whatever is lurking in the background, waiting until I have exhausted myself with a really good time.

I'm starting that today -- now. I'm going to take a nap.

Annie

Hooray -- I Got It Right! (A Christmas Gift Story)

2010-12-27T15:24:00.003-06:00

My Sweet Dad and His Usual Christmas Gift -- A Book

Purchasing Christmas gifts for my dad has resulted in a tradition to which I look forward each year. I usually purchase a couple of new books for him, and take great pleasure in researching the titles that would please him -- a natural and enjoyable thing for a librarian to do. Dad also receives books from other family members for his birthday, Father's Day, and Christmas. We all understand the pleasure he gets from reading and want to make sure he always has something good to read.

This Christmas presented a special challenge to us. Dad is experiencing age-related physical problems, all to be expected for an 89-year-old man. This is the conversation I had with him a few weeks before the holiday:

Me: "Dad, you mentioned that you were having trouble seeing the print in your books. Would you like some large-print books for Christmas?"

Dad: "No, I plan on getting new glasses and I don't want to start reading large-print."

Me: "I guess books-on-tape wouldn't work either, until you get your hearing corrected." (Dad has hearing aids, but still has some problems under certain circumstances)

Dad: "No, I wouldn't be able to hear the books-on-tape."

Me: "How about a DVD? Have you watched the one we got you for your birthday?" (The History Channel's "America".)

Dad: "No, I don't know how to work the player. Rick has to put it in for me." (Rick is my brother)

Me: "Um, okay."

I might mention that my Dad is very frugal and has always kept items of clothing given to him until he needed them. You could shop his closet like a department store.

I thought and thought and made a decision -- I was going to give him something that I knew without a doubt that he would use -- or should I say consume. Caffeine Free Coke. As a Diet Coke drinker, I wasn't aware that Caffeine Free Coke Classic is sometimes hard to find. I learned this when Dad and I were together and tried to find a twelve-pack. (Remember, Dad is frugal and we were looking for a good price as well.) That day, we didn't find it. Dad informed me that he was often frustrated looking for his favorite beverage.

The other consideration is that Dad is 89-years-old and the season of ice, snow and bitter cold has arrived in Oklahoma. It would be good if he had a good supply of his favorite drink handy.

My daughter and her family came from Alabama to be with us for Christmas. I asked her to check for Caffeine Free Coke Classic anywhere that they stopped on the way. She brought several 12-packs and we were able to find several here.

All of us went to visit Dad on Thursday and presented our gifts. He received a plate of peanut butter fudge. He also received one Caffeine Free Coke Classic in a gift bag. I told him that there were 155 like it in the garage.

He laughed and said that he was happy to receive them. He was also happy with the peanut butter fudge and offered some to his three great-granddaughters, who politely refused. (My daughter and I had instructed them to do so, since there was a supply for us waiting at home.)

It made me feel good to know he was happy with his gift. I look forward, of course, to shopping for books for him again. I'm still a librarian, after all.

Christmas Joys #19 - Christmas Eve and Family is Gathering

2010-12-24T13:49:00.000-06:00

Little tree is lonely, no presents are there

The family is gathering, no longer so bare

They're patiently waiting, each child and each mouse

For Christmas to fill every room in our house!

Merry Christmas to You and Your Loved Ones!

Christmas Joys #18 - A Nontraditional Bonnie Glen Cove Christmas

2010-12-23T21:23:00.000-06:00

I wrote this Christmas story more than 25 years ago. I hope you enjoy it.

A Nontraditional Bonnie Glen Cove Christmas

The Clovers moved in next door the day the Bonnie Glen Cove Improvement Committee was meeting at our house. My mom had been in her usual tizzy, greeting the neighbors and taking their coats, and we hadn't noticed the moving van until Tiffany Underwood arrived.

"Have you seen the van next door?" Tiffany shed her mink with the same carelessness as my brother Joey when he drops his school books and parka on his way for an after-school snack. "I saw a Louis XIV chair go in the front door."

The ladies gathered at the living room window to get a better view. "Jacobean!" Carolyn Carruthers crooned, as the movers carried a dark, ornate, dining table.

Next came a glass and chrome dining table. "Eclectic!" said Jane Zorba. "I'm so glad they're cosmopolitan enough to mix styles!"

The movers were now struggling with a cumbersome piece of furniture, its girth almost too wide to come out the back of the moving van. The ladies strained to see; Mrs. Underwood even put on her glasses, something I had only seen her do on one other occasion, when she was inspecting my mom's new wallpaper.

"Oh, no!"

"You've got to be kidding."

"Nouveau riche comes to the suburbs!"

I pushed my way to the window to get a look. Two of the movers were almost to the front door, carrying a heart-shaped mattress the size of a small gymnasium. Another mover followed with the headboard, a confusion of brass cupids, hearts, and flowers. After a brief struggle to get the mattress through the front door, the movers decided that it would be amusing to set up the bed on the front lawn, after which another covered it with a velvet spread of bubble-gum pink. The effect was not unlike the valentine Greg Hopkins sent me last year, the one my dad said had a little bit of everything, except some blinking neon lights.

The ladies had a hard time getting down to business after that. The subject of the meeting was to be how to decorate for Christmas, as it always was the week after Thanksgiving. I felt the meeting was really unnecessary. It was always the consensus that exterior decorations should be understated -- a little greenery, and perhaps some red velvet bows on the driveway gas lights or mailboxes. Certainly nothing that would mar the image of Bonnie Glen Cove as the Middleburg, Ohio gentry.

"Do you think we should advise the new neighbors as to our decorating policy?" Carolyn Carruthers asked.

     "We certainly should," Tiffany Underwood was emphatic. "The cove has an image to maintain. I'm sure these people would be grateful for being included in our plans. Now, Carol, isn't it time for some of your homemade chocolate cake?" Tiffany's tone made the word "homemade" sound like a synonym for "tainted". The ladies ate every bite of it, as they always did.

     My mom loves the Christmas season and her efforts, though haphazard, always get my dad, Joey, and me excited and full of the spirit of the season. As usual, we kept our outdoor decorations sedate, but pulled out all the stops inside. Our tree held every ornament Joey and I had ever bought or made, even including a piece of a tin can lid that Joey thought would make a pretty ornament when he was three years old. We hung tinsel everywhere and put out the Santa Claus doorknob and toilet paper covers that Grandma Story had made before she died. The house was certainly colorful. We probably would have even decorated the station wagon, but Mom commented that the neighbors already disapproved because we didn't own a gray Mercedes. We didn't need to flaunt our poverty and lack of taste.

     During all the Christmas flurry, the committee members must have forgotten to notify the Clovers of the decoration policy. I don't know, maybe Mom was embarrassed to mention it; I know she had visited with Mrs. Clover and had even taken over some of her chocolate fudge brownies. "She looks like Dolly Parton," Mom had said. "Same curly blond hair, same friendly smile."

     "Same build?" my dad had asked, whereupon my mom had given him a gentle punch in the belly.

     "I think she's beautiful," Joey said. "She looks like an angel. She said that she wished she had a little boy just like me and that maybe someday she and Mr. Clover would get lucky and have one. And she gave me cookies!"

     Joey thinks that anyone who gives him cookies is beautiful, but I think that he made a good point. Anybody who would want a little boy like him would have to be an angel, or a bit insane.

     Anyway, the last day of school before Christmas vacation, Joey ran into the house babbling about the beautiful decorations next door. We followed him outside and were greeted by every symbol of the Christmas season known to man. A huge Santa and sleigh trotted across the Clovers' roof, led by a Rudolph with a red lightbulb for a nose; a life-sized nativity scene graced one side of the front lawn, a Santa's workshop scene was on the other, and three gigantic camels seemed to be trekking between the two. Frosty the Snowman stood sentry duty at the mailbox, the front door was a giant foil-wrapped Christmas gift and every window held a wreath. Colored lights were everywhere -- outlining the house, the trees, the mailbox, the driveway, even the fire hydrant.

     "Isn't it something?" Joey asked.

     "It's something, all right." Mom looked like she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She hesitated. "It's certainly well lighted, isn't it?" My mom tries to be kind to everyone. You can tell when she's trying extra hard, because sometimes it takes her a couple of seconds to think of something nice to say.

     It must have been hard for her the next few days. All the neighbors seemed to have something to say about the Clovers; none of it was kind and none of it was to their faces. Everytime the phone rang, it was for Mom, and I could tell from her expression that it was another tirade from Tiffany Underwood, Carolyn Carruthers, or Jane Zorba. I never heard Mom say anthing but, "Well, it is colorful," or "They really have the Christmas spirit," or "Joey really loves the lights." The cove had more traffic that week than it had had during the ten years it had been in existence. Carloads of people would drive by, the children ooing and aahing over the lights and Christmas scenes.

     Another Christmas tradition on Bonnie Glen Cove was that Christmas Eve was a family time. The week prior to Christmas was a round of luncheons and parties and Mom told me that the Clovers weren't invited to any of them. By dusk on Christmas Eve, everyone on the cove was at home, enjoying a quiet family Christmas. So we were surprised when the doorbell rang at 7:00, and even more surprised at the old man who had rung it. He certainly wasn't Santa Claus, even though he had a white beard. His clothes looked slept-in and he had an odor something like old sneakers might smell if you filled them with cheap wine.

     "Could you tell me where 1716 Bonnie Glen Cove is?" The old man seemed ill at ease, and I wondered if he might be a long-lost relative of the Clovers, showing up unannounced for a Christmas handout.

     "It's next door." Mom gestured toward the Clovers' house.

     "Thank you, Ma'm." The old man started across the lawn and we noticed about a dozen cars parked in the Clovers' drive and in front of the house. Several looked like the junkers the boys work on in shop at school.

     The phone rang and I could tell from Mom's end of the conversation that Mrs. Underwood across the street was complaining about the party at the Clovers'.

     "Yes, Tiffany, it is nice to spend Christmas Eve with the family, but . . ."

     "No, Tiffany, I didn't say anything to Mrs. Clover and . . ."

     "Well, I really think it's too late to do anything about it now . . ."

     Once again, the doorbell rang and I went to answer it. The lady on the porch was so thin that she reminded me of the pictures of anorexia sufferers we had seen in health class. Two children were holding onto her coat. At least I think they were two children; all I could see were two pairs of round eyes peeping around the lady's legs.

     "Could you tell me where 1716 Bonnie Glen Cove is?" My face must have shown the question I felt like asking; she held out an index card, and printed on it in large capital letters were the words: "There is Room." I took it from her and read the rest of what was written:

There are still those who are looking for a place

Come join those who wish to share theirs

If you have no gifts to bring, bring your love and good cheer.

1716 Bonnie Glen Cove

Mom and Dad had joined us at the front door and I gave Mom the card. She read it aloud and then said, "You'll find 1716 Bonnie Glen Cove next door."

As the lady left, Mom turned to Dad and said, "I think it's time we broke Bonnie Glen Cove tradition."

Dad nodded and said, "Get your coats, Jeanie and Joey. We going to a party."

As we traipsed across our lawn towards the Clovers', laiden down with the refreshments prepared for our family Christmas, Joey pointed to the sky above. "Ya know what," he said with a grin. "I'll bet their house has 50 million lights. I'll bet, on a clear night like tonight, you can even see their house for miles and miles and miles."

And you know what? On that night, I'll bet Joey was right!

Christmas Joys #17 - How About a Little Holiday Reading?

2010-12-22T21:22:00.001-06:00

The time is getting short and there is so much to do! My family understands that I include reading in my daily routine, no matter how busy we get. (They just shrug their shoulders when I leave dirty dishes on the table to escape for 10 reading minutes.) I love these three books of "holiday stories from the south's best writers": Christmas in the South, A Dixie Christmas, and A Very Southern Christmas. Short stories don't take much time to read, and I enjoy these year after year. I will continue reading these books into January -- just 10 minutes at a time! The pretty little church scene was a Christmas gift (part of a fresh flower arrangement) several years ago. I love to display it under this cloche.

I hope that you will continue to join me throughout the month of December as I post about some special decorations, traditions, collections and memories that bring the joy of the season to our house. Perhaps you will want to respond with your own story or comment about what brings happiness to your heart at Christmas. I would love to hear from you and look forward to sharing a bit of Christmas! Annie

Christmas Joys #16 - Some Treasured Decorations from My Childhood

2010-12-22T00:16:00.001-06:00

This little Santa and the two ornaments came home with me one day; they used to be part of the Christmas decorations that my mother loved to display when I was a child in the 50's. I miss her especially at Christmastime; she found great joy in decorating and buying gifts for her five children. Now, of course, I know how much work it took to make a beautiful Christmas look effortless. I like to display these ornaments with Mary Engelbreit magazines (no longer in publication) because they so often remind me of those earlier Christmases.

The two Santa mugs were also from our childhood Christmases. I like to display them with this version of Twas the Night Before Christmas with illustrations by Jessie Willcox Smith. While the cover has a 50's feel to it, Miss Smith was famous for painting children for magazines such as Harper's and Ladies Home Journal, and especially covers of Good Housekeeping until 1933. She died in 1935, but her work has remains popular even today.

I hope that you will continue to join me throughout the month of December as I post about some special decorations, traditions, collections and memories that bring the joy of the season to our house. Perhaps you will want to respond with your own story or comment about what brings happiness to your heart at Christmas. I would love to hear from you and look forward to sharing a bit of Christmas! Annie

Christmas Joys #16 - Our Living Room Mantel (or is it Mantle?)

2010-12-20T22:47:00.001-06:00

My daughter gave me these two Santas when I first began my collection and they have appeared in various places in our home during the Christmas season. The past few years, that place has been on the mantel and I have added bronze, gold and maroon ornaments that coordinate with the Santas. I am happy to learn that these colors are fashionable now -- I am very seldom on the fashion curve!

I hope that you will continue to join me throughout the month of December as I post about some special decorations, traditions, collections and memories that bring the joy of the season to our house. Perhaps you will want to respond with your own story or comment about what brings happiness to your heart at Christmas. I would love to hear from you and look forward to sharing a bit of Christmas! Annie

p.s. Since I posted this, I have seen two spellings for the word "mantel/mantle". I haven't been able to figure out which is preferred.

Christmas Joys #15 - Merry Christmas from Coco and Malone!

2010-12-19T11:49:00.003-06:00

Mr. Malone was very excited about a Christmas visit from Miss Coco (named after the elegant designer, Chanel). Malone had a special bath and grooming session and Coco came in her seasonal coat and hat. Unlike celebrity columnist Hedda Hopper, Coco doesn't care that much for hats and lost hers during the first few minutes of running through the house with Malone. Except for a minor disagreement about a treat, the evening went swimmingly, and Miss Hopper would certainly have wanted to include this soiree in her newspaper column.

I hope that you will continue to join me throughout the month of December as I post about some special decorations, traditions, collections and memories that bring the joy of the season to our house. Perhaps you will want to respond with your own story or comment about what brings happiness to your heart at Christmas. I would love to hear from you and look forward to sharing a bit of Christmas! Annie

Christmas Joys #14 - Blended Families, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," and Christmas Lights

2010-12-16T21:32:00.006-06:00

Christmas memories often come in the form of traditions such as "Our family always attended Christmas services on Christmas Eve" or "My mother and I baked and iced cookies the week before" which are usually based and recounted in a childhood setting.

We realize, of course, that not all Christmas memories are good ones, and (paraphrasing what I recently read in the wonderful novel The Widower's Tale by Julia Glass) at every family event, at least one or two dramas are going on in the background and family alliances form and reform like clouds in the sky.

Those of us who have "blended" families know how difficult it can be to forge new holiday traditions. Our family, in the 1980's, wasn't exactly the Brady Bunch  Our six children included four teenagers/young adults and two little girls who had seen their parents separate and divorce. We were dealing with disappointments, broken dreams, and failed expectations and were struggling to create a semblance of harmony and hope during the holiday season. But we were "feeling our way", because we didn't have any standard or set of instructions, except our own memories of our childhood family or a recently broken one, neither of which still existed.

What helped break the ice for us was a song, but it wasn't a Christmas Carol or even a popular holiday "sing-along" tune. It was "The Lion Sleeps Tonight."

We decided to load all of the kids into the oversized gas-guzzling van we owned and drive to Sky Island in Oklahoma City to see the Christmas lights. Sky Island was a neighborhood that attracted visitors from all over Central Oklahoma to their beautifully decorated light displays. It was a "destination" for families and I remember that it was certainly something to see, but as they say," the trip was more important than the destination".

We sang on the way. We sang with the radio. We sang without the radio. For some reason, we sang "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." As you may remember, there are high voices and there are low voices; there is chanting and howling and yodelling in the popular recording, and although our rendition wasn't technically perfect, it provided an outlet for six children (and two adults) during the holiday drive, a time for silliness and fun. And for that few moments, for the first time, we were a family.

We were (and 25 years later, continue to be) a family. We're not perfect (but what family is?) and our Christmas memories are a mix of good and not-so-good, serious and funny, picture-perfect and downright embarrassing, attentive and attention-seeking, giving and "give-me" moments, that make Christmas (and our lives) human and not Hollywood (or Hallmark) manufactured.   And for that I'm grateful.

I'm thankful, too, for my special Christmas memory of the Christmas lights and "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".  My special wish for all "blended families" during this holiday season -- enjoy each other and love each other and, if you have a drama, a disagreement, or just a lapse in the conversation, try singing a few bars of "In the jungle, the mighty jungle.. . "

Annie

Christmas Joys #13 - Retro Santa and Mrs. Claus

2010-12-14T23:38:00.001-06:00

Santa and Mrs. Claus have a place of honor on top of the shelves in my office. They belonged to Tom's Aunt Betty, who was like his second mom. We put them next to the Mary Engelbreit mailbox so that they can keep up with all the Christmas letters Santa will receive.

I hope that you will continue to join me throughout the month of December as I post about some special decorations, traditions, collections and memories that bring the joy of the season to our house. Perhaps you will want to respond with your own story or comment about what brings happiness to your heart at Christmas. I would love to hear from you and look forward to sharing a bit of Christmas! Annie

Christmas Joys #12 - Christmas Pop-Up Books

2010-12-13T00:07:00.004-06:00

The Nativity in St. Peter's Square in Rome

I am a dedicated customer of our public library (especially since I'm a retired librarian), but there are certain books that I simply must own. Among my collection of Christmas titles are several pop-up books and the two I'm sharing today are among the most beautiful. They are both by Chuck Fischer; the first two photographs are from Christmas around the World and the second two are from Christmas in New York. I hope that you enjoy these photographs and have the opportunity someday to see the books in their entirety.

Christmas in Germany

Metropolitan Museum of Art's Angel Tree

Rockefeller Center

Christmas Joys #11 - Remembering Mr. Bingle

2010-12-11T17:30:00.004-06:00

During my early years in school, I looked forward to watching my favorite television program, The Howdy Doody Show, every afternoon when I got home. I loved the members of the cast -- Buffalo Bob, Clarabelle, Chief Thunderthud, Mr. Bluster, Dilly Dally, Flub-a-Dub, Princess Summerfall Winterspring, and of course, Howdy Doody.

Another program appeared during the month of December and was broadcast by a Memphis television station (which reached my hometown of Kennett, Missouri) and sponsored by Lowenstein's Department Store. Although the Mr. Bingle show only lasted five minutes, I would never miss it, and his high-pitched voice was as familiar to me as the deep "ho, ho, ho" of Santa Claus. Mr. Bingle's role in the program was to assist Santa, usually by getting him out of a jam (such as missing toys).

Mr. Bingle was actually a product of the New Orleans department store, Maison Blanche, first conceived there in 1948. Most recently, he has been associated with Dillards Department Stores, although I have never seen him in any of our local stores.

Many children have received and adults have collected Mr. Bingle dolls and other memorabilia over the years, but for me, he remains a specific childhood memory, a little voice and "snowy" picture on a black and white television set, sharing Christmas magic with children throughout Memphis and the mid-south.

You can learn more about Mr. Bingle, his story, and his many fans and their memories by visiting the Mr. Bingle Fans website.

I hope that you will continue to join me throughout the month of December as I post about some special decorations, traditions, collections and memories that bring the joy of the season to our house. Perhaps you will want to respond with your own story or comment about what brings happiness to your heart at Christmas. I would love to hear from you and look forward to sharing a bit of Christmas! Annie

Photograph of Mr. Bingle was used with permission from Kerry Crawford, who writes the I Love Memphis blog.

Christmas Joys #9 and #10 - Using Cloches for Holiday Decorating

2010-12-10T18:12:00.005-06:00

I enjoy experimenting the use of cloches or other glass pieces to cover Christmas display items. The two examples I'm showing feature two versions The Night Before Christmas with items from my "little house" collection and from my Santa Claus collection. You will find many more beautiful decorations using cloches by visiting Marty at A Stroll Through Life. After you've looked at Marty's gorgeous display, scroll down and follow the links at the bottom of the page for many wonderful ideas.

Christmas Joys #8 - A Sooner Christmas!

2010-12-08T21:01:00.002-06:00

I must confess that I've always been a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas decorations. I have never had a themed wreath or tree, although I have seen several that were beautiful, whimsical or just plain cute. Now we are the proud owners of an OU Christmas wreath, a gift from Tom's daughter and son-in-law, and I think that it is adorable. My kitchen is decorated mostly in red and white for the holidays, and it fits perfectly there. This is one wreath that will be hung year after year, and will continue to have a place of honor on New Year's Day, when OU plays in the Fiesta Bowl. (We are also looking forward to a return to the national championship one of these days!)

I hope that you will continue to join me throughout the month of December as I post about some special decorations, traditions, collections and memories that bring the joy of the season to our house. Perhaps you will want to respond with your own story or comment about what brings happiness to your heart at Christmas. I would love to hear from you and look forward to sharing a bit of Christmas! Annie

Christmas Joys #7 - A Favorite Christmas Book

2010-12-07T20:49:00.004-06:00

Christmas books are among my favorite collections and I have found many of the illustrations to be just the right decorating touch. for the holidays and other times of the year. Jan Brett is a favorite children's book illustrator and her Christmas Treasury contains a beautiful presentation of "A Partridge in a Pear Tree", which complements my pear, pomegranate and hydrangea holiday arrangement.

I hope that you will continue to join me throughout the month of December as I post about some special decorations, traditions, collections and memories that bring the joy of the season to our house. Perhaps you will want to respond with your own story or comment about what brings happiness to your heart at Christmas. I would love to hear from you and look forward to sharing a bit of Christmas! Annie

Christmas Joys #6 - Our Tiny Kitchen Christmas Tree

2010-12-06T18:55:00.003-06:00

This little tree came from Hobby Lobby and is wrapped in burlap. The snow people can be made to glow with tea lights. I love the Santa tray, a gift from my daughter, and the miniature Christmas books -- the smallest members of my holiday book collection.

I hope that you will join me throughout the month of December as I post about some special decorations, traditions, collections and memories that bring the joy of the season to our house. Perhaps you will want to respond with your own story or comment about what brings happiness to your heart at Christmas. I would love to hear from you and look forward to sharing a bit of Christmas! Annie

Christmas Joys #5 - Some More Special Tree Ornaments

2010-12-05T21:31:00.002-06:00

As you can tell, our Christmas tree has quite a "symphony" of decorations, but none are more important to me than those that were made by hand by my children. The paper and beaded candy canes and the felt horse were added to our ornament collection about twenty-five years ago and share the stage with more "elegant" ornaments such as the dated 1981 Dove of Peace. The little knitted jingle bell is one of several and is also beginning to show some age.
When we downsized our home, we also had to reduce the size of our tree, which makes it necessary to snuggle the ornaments more closely.

I hope that you will join me throughout the month of December as I post about some special decorations, traditions, collections and memories that bring the joy of the season to our house. Perhaps you will want to respond with your own story or comment about what brings happiness to your heart at Christmas. I would love to hear from you and look forward to sharing a bit of Christmas! Annie

Christmas Joys #4 - A Holiday Memory from the Court Square

2010-12-04T20:25:00.002-06:00

This 1950's photograph is from a Christmas party at James Kahn's Department Store in Kennett, Missouri. Two of the ladies pictured here have been very precious to me during my life; on the far left is my Aunt Ann, who was like my grandmother, and in the middle (third from the right) is my stepmother, Jo Ann, who married my dad in 1985.

That both of them were employed by James Kahn's has special significance to me at Christmas, because it takes me back to my childhood when I bought gifts for friends and family. That always meant a trip to the town square, where I did most of my shopping at Kahn's and Blakemore Drug Store, just a few steps away. My Aunt Ann always took a few minutes to help and advise me on my purchases, and I would usually stop by the office to say hello to Jo Ann. Later, when I was a teenager, I got a job at Kahn's wrapping gifts during the school Christmas break. (I was one of dozens of girls, including Sheryl Crow, who were lucky enough to get a Christmas job at Kahns through the years.)

Both Ann and Jo Ann are gone now (Jo Ann left us November 7), but they will always be in my heart and in my Christmas memories.

James Kahn's closed its doors several years ago, but the building is enjoying a new life (or should I say, a renewed one). The building first opened as an opera house, and is again "The Opera House", a venue for special events in town. I understand that a small part of the department store was maintained when the remodeling was done.

Gift-wrapper Sheryl Crow returned to Kennett to give a special benefit concert at the Opera House to an audience of 250 the day after Thanksgiving. And tomorrow, December 5, the Opera House will open its doors from 1:00 until 3:00 to welcome in the holiday season and continue the tradition of Christmas on the court quare.

I know that Ann and Jo Ann would love that!

I hope that you will join me throughout the month of December as I post about some special decorations, traditions, collections and memories that bring the joy of the season to our house. Perhaps you will want to respond with your own story or comment about what brings happiness to your heart at Christmas. I would love to hear from you and look forward to sharing a bit of Christmas! Annie

Christmas Joys #3 - Santa Claus is Coming to my Bathtub

2010-12-03T17:09:00.001-06:00

Years ago, I started collecting "architectural miniatures", or as I call them, "little houses." I have a variety, in several sizes, and once displayed many of them throughout the house during the holidays. Now that we have downsized, I found myself searching for a place for just a few, and having found that there was no tabletop real estate left in the other rooms, settled on the shelf between the tub and shower in our master bath. The separating glass is usually a bit foggy, which adds to the vignette. These are from Dillards; I think that I have about 50 of them.

I hope that you will join me throughout the month of December as I post about some special decorations, traditions, collections and memories that bring the joy of the season to our house. Perhaps you will want to respond with your own story or comment about what brings happiness to your heart at Christmas. I would love to hear from you and look forward to sharing a bit of Christmas! Annie

Christmas Joys #2 - Decorating my Desk

2010-12-02T17:14:00.001-06:00

The large beribboned Christmas ball is a product of a library workshop last year -- just the thing to decorate a small area with another vintage ornament and guilded words of the season. Be sure and check with your library for special holiday events and workshops during December!

I hope that you will join me throughout the month of December as I post about some special decorations, traditions, collections and memories that bring the joy of the season to our house. Perhaps you will want to respond with your own story or comment about what brings happiness to your heart at Christmas. I would love to hear from you and look forward to sharing a bit of Christmas! Annie

Christmas Joys -- A Special Tree Ornament

2010-12-01T14:05:00.001-06:00

Our Christmas tree is decorated with a mix of handmade and purchased, elegant and folksy, whimsical and traditional ornaments. What is constant is that each item on the tree has special meaning to our family and I take pleasure in recalling that meaning each year. This little angel was crafted by my Aunt Lona Mae, who celebrated her 100th birthday on Halloween. (Lona Mae is still quilting, crafting, sewing, knitting and crocheting for friends and family and to benefit those in need.) The angel's body is made from a white silk flower. Isn't she adorable?

My Stepmother, JoAnn

2010-11-08T16:39:00.001-06:00

JoAnn

I lost my stepmother yesterday. There will be many words spoken during these coming days about Joann, about what a wonderful wife, mother, stepmother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and friend she was. I want to write about JoAnn here, since that's my preferred way of expressing myself. Some might say that's my gift, although I'm not certain about that.

One thing that I am certain about is that JoAnn was gifted and did express herself through her gifts. She would probably laugh at me saying she was gifted, but that was because she was also modest. Her gifts came to us simply by knowing her and being around her, and they will last much longer than she could have ever imagined.

She had and expressed the gift of love. I don't believe that there was one of us in our large family that didn't benefit from her love in some way. She had a way of letting you know that you mattered to her, and that you were an important part of the family and her life.

She had the gift of listening. In a one-to-one conversation, she listened more than she talked. She focused on you and you could feel her interest and her empathy. Expressing her own opinion was not as important to her as hearing yours.

She had the gift of enjoying and appreciating life. She enjoyed many friendships, two of whom were planning an overnight visit with her this week. She was looking forward to spending time with them. Her youngest great-grandchild, Georgia Beth, was a visitor to her bedside in the hospital. Her words to Georgia Beth, as she caressed her little face, were, "I would like to see you grow up."

She had the gift of strength. JoAnn might have appeared frail, but she impressed and amazed me at her determination to continue to do as much as possible for herself and my dad. Her strength of character drove her forward as her body's strength diminished.

She had the gift of graciousness and hospitality. I think that she learned good manners at her mother's knee, and she demonstrated it to the very end of her life. We marveled at her sweet smiles and hello to each of us during the hours that she was occupied with the very hard and painful work of dying. She wanted us each to know that she treasured the time she had spent with us.

She had a gift for teaching. Again, she would probably deny that she was a teacher, but I believe that the best instruction comes by example. Her example will stay with me for the rest of my life and if anybody were to say that I was loving, a good listener, enjoyed life, gracious, hospitable, strong, or a good example, I'd say "I learned that from my stepmother, JoAnn."

My mother, Jeffie Jean, died at 55 and we loved her and missed her greatly. After a time, I joined the rest of the family in welcoming JoAnn to our family. She had known my dad since they attended a little country school together, although he was several years older than she. To me, she was the nice lady who worked in the office of James Kahn's Department Store, and later a good friend and neighbor to both of my parents. We all celebrated Dad's and JoAnn's marriage because we wanted our dad to be happy. We didn't know it at the time, but our family needed JoAnn. She proved that to us over the years that we had her and I am grateful that she was willing to move to from Missouri to Oklahoma and thankful to her son and grandchildren for sharing her with us.

I will truly miss my stepmother, JoAnn.

Annie

The Night the Martians Landed: A Family Story from Halloween, 1938

2010-10-28T16:53:00.000-05:00

Illustration from 1906 edition of HG Wells'
War of the Worlds

My Aunt "Sister", who will be 100 years old on Halloween, shared this story at her birthday celebration this summer. Those who can remember the night of October 30, 1938 are becoming more rare, and it was a true gift to hear her first-hand account of family members' responses to a phenomenon of wide-spread panic and fear as a result of the radio broadcast of an adaptation of HG Wells' novel, War of the Worlds.

I had heard and read about the broadcast and its effect on individuals and families across the country. It was planned as a 60-minute Halloween radio drama, an episode of the Mercury Theatre on the Air, and was directed and narrated by Orson Welles. The first two-thirds of the broadcast was presented as news bulletins which suggested that an actual invasion by Martians was taking place. There were no commercial breaks, which added to the sense of realism. The use of the news bulletin format also contributed to the believability of the story, as well as to the resulting panic, since people were accustomed to legitimate newsflashes, but not those used as part of a work of fiction.

According to Wikipedia, historians have calculated that six million people heard the broadcast, 1.7 million believed it to be true and 1.2 million were genuinely frightened. According to my aunt, a number of those who believed it and were frightened resided in southeast Missouri, and were outside that Sunday evening, gazing toward the sky.

Aunt Sister, Uncle Jesse, and their three children stayed home from church and were listening to the radio, probably doing the equivalent of today's "channel surfing" between the Chase and Sanborn Hour, featuring ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and singer Nelson Eddy, and the Mercury Theater. The first comedy sketch on the Chase and Sanborn Hour ended about fifteen minutes into the program and was to be followed by a musical selection, presenting a good time to change the station. This would have taken them directly into the middle of the Martian invasion on Mercury Theater, with no reassurance that what they were hearing wasn't really happening.

This is a part of what they heard:

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed. . . . Wait a minute! Someone's crawling. Someone or . . . something. I can see peering out of that black hole two luminous disks . . . are they eyes? It might be a face. It might be . . . good heavens, something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now it's another one, and another one, and another one. They look like tentacles to me. There, I can see the thing's body. It's large as a bear and it glistens like wet leather. But that face, it . . . ladies and gentlemen, it's indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it, it's so awful. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate.

How many of us have thought about what we would do if the world was coming to an end? Their instincts were to gather with other family members, so they left in their car to travel the few miles to the my grandparents' home.

On the way there, my aunt noticed that baby Sandra's shoe was missing, that she must have dropped it or left it at home. Uncle Jesse reassured my frightened aunt, that Sandra "wouldn't be needing her shoe."

She also noted that people standing out on the dirt roads as they travelled, looking at the sky and exclaiming, "They're coming! They're coming!"

When they arrived at Mom and Pop's, the house was empty. Mom and Pop had gone to Arkansas to church and hadn't yet returned home. After a short time, they and the rest of their children arrived, asking what was going on.

According to Aunt Sister, Pop didn't believe a word of the story. He also scoffed at his oldest child's fear, declaring, "I didn't know that I raised a child who would be afraid to die."

Little brother Earl, then stepped up and joined forces with his sister, put his arms around her and said, "You raised two of them!"

The family story ends here, and we can imagine the relief they and others like them felt when they learned the truth. We can also understand their panic and fear in a time when modern communication was still in its infancy. We might also want to temper any thoughts or comments we might have about naivete or the willingness to believe the unbelievable -- at least until after Halloween!

Annie

p.s. You can hear the Mercury Theater broadcast on YouTube. It is in multiple parts, so I am not including links.

My Suggestion for Oprah's Aging Beauties

2010-10-01T17:40:00.000-05:00

I watched Oprah's program on beauty and aging last night and was very interested in what Teri Hatcher, Cybill Shepherd, and Linda Evans had to say. (Okay, I was also interested in what Cybill and Linda look like now, since they are in their sixties. But that's another subject.)

The focus was primarily on what happens when really beautiful women age and have to come to grips with their beauty fading. Not having been beautiful at a young age nor when older, I can't really speak from their experience, but I did have my share of compliments and attention as a reasonably attractive woman and can offer my opinion on the subject.

Of course, there were background photos of these gorgeous women as they were and their own remarks about how they didn't really feel beautiful when they were younger. I'm not saying that they (Cybill and Linda, specifically) weren't being truthful, but I wonder what they thought about the rest of us, if they didn't see themselves as beautiful.

But that's really not what this post is about. All three women, plus Oprah, emphasized the importance of finding things to like about ourselves, to develop our inward beauty and grace, and to accept the inevitability of (our culture's concept) of physical beauty going away.

I agree with them. I also read somewhere that it's good for women to have beauty when we're young, brains when we're older and money when we're really old. (I'm not sure that is the exact way it should be quoted.) I agree with that, also.

For those of us who don't have great reserves of beauty, brains, or money, I have another suggestion. I would like to offer it to Teri, Cybill, and Linda. I think that Oprah would agree that the best thing you can have as a hedge against loss of beauty, love, money, or even when you get so old your brains give out is ----- GIRLFRIENDS!

If you have girlfriends, they probably didn't choose you as a friend because you were beautiful, and they certainly won't care if your beauty fades. They will be there when your looks go (but will keep telling you that you look great). They will be there when your man is gone either because he's found another, probably younger woman or because, sadly, men tend to die earlier than women. They will be there when your money is gone or it's not, because they will remember the fun you had when none of you had any. They will be there when your brains aren't so sharp anymore -- they'll point you in the right direction and make sure you stay out of trouble.

It may well be that Teri, Cybill, and Linda have girlfriends. I know that Oprah has Gayle, but I hope she has some other girlfriends, too. It's my belief that you can't have too many girlfriends. The subject didn't come up on the "Fading Beauties" show and I wondered why.

I think that the rest of us, especially those who were never "great beauties" understand the value of our friends. We wouldn't trade them for anything!

Annie

Downsizing, Organizing and Decluttering: It's All Relative

2010-09-24T19:54:00.002-05:00

We downsized about five years ago, from a home we had lived in for over 15 years. I considered it "home" and had lived there for longer than anywhere I had lived in my life. It was part of me, and I actually worried at night that it was lonely without us. I drove by it sometimes, hoping that a new family would buy it soon and was happy when they did. I was saddened again when it went to foreclosure and there seemed to be no buyer, until it sold at auction. It was a lovely home, I thought -- 2300 square feet of living space, three large bedrooms and three baths, an office, a large and open living and dining area, plus some very nice features including a darkroom, Jenn-Air built-in convection oven and grill tops for the range, central vacuum system, walk-in pantry, and built-in bookshelves in the living room and office. But it was in a declining neighborhood and we were both working in a neighboring town and approaching retirement, so we decided that it would be wise to find a smaller, one-story, newer home that would require less maintenance and care.

I love our new home and feel that downsizing was the best choice for us. It is 1600 square feet, three bedrooms and two baths, so we have a guest room and an office. We are now a mile away from our church, a couple of miles from our local mall and many additional stores, most restaurants, the hospital, our doctors, two universities, movies, little theater, and I-40, which puts us 40 miles to the city and 30 miles to the little town where my parents live. Our master bedroom has room for a loveseat and television armoire, and many nights serves as our "family room" where the three of us (my hubby, our Shih Tzu and me) hang out and read or watch television. Our master bathroom is almost as large as our bedroom and is the feature that sold us on the house. We have a shower and tub, two lavatories with a large amount of counterspace, an enclosed toilet and it's still large enough for a chest of drawers with room to spare so we're not bumping into each other.

What was reduced in order to have the large master bath is obviously the living room. That's not a problem most of the time, but it's a pretty small space when we have family gatherings. In fact, the entire house is small when we have family gatherings. We have six children in our blended family, as well as three spouses (that number fluctuates), and 12 grandchildren. Add them all together, plus other family members who may come by, and we have the potential for a houseful.

What we do is accommodate and appreciate everyone's flexibility. We find surfaces to eat and we visit in whatever room has room. If family is spending the night, we have the guest room, the living room couch, and inflatable beds for the office and the living room. We have fun and we don't get too uptight.

One thing I find myself doing anytime I'm in a hotel (if the room is large enough) is to try to imagine myself living there. (This habit is not a reflection of the happiness of my marriage.) I think "I could put a small kitchen there, and a living area there". I also do that when I imagine trying to find a space for a large group of family members if they were stranded in our home. This is when I face the possibility of people sleeping in the halls and the bathtubs. It's not beyond possibility that fifteen or so of us could be sleeping in close quarters. Last Christmas was a nightmare for travelers in Oklahoma; my stepson had to stay two nights that he hadn't planned because the roads were too icy to travel. The timing gave us an almost empty house; it could (in the future) give us a house overflowing.

Our downsizing leaves me wishing (sometimes) for another guestroom, a larger living room, and a screened-in back porch. For the most part, however, I'm happy with the decision we made and expect that the coming years will confirm the wisdom of our choice.

It follows naturally that downsizing probably makes decluttering and better organizing necessary and I have been working on that. I have been cleaning out closets and drawers, purging, and finding that I will probably have room enough to finally unpack the boxes in the garage that have been driving my hubby up the wall. I also think that I can continue my addiction to pretty dishes and serving pieces, holiday items and can find a home for my mother's silver tea service, which my sweet stepmother has designated to go to me. I'm proud of my progress and have decided that hoarding, for most of us, is a relative term. (I confess to watching the television programs about the psychological condition and have empathy for those who suffer from it, and their families.) I invite any of my relatives or friends to tell me if they think I have a problem (but I warn them that comparisons may be made!).

I have found the "tiny house" movement fascinating and have enjoyed looking at photographs and floor plans of the homes. Of course, it follows that I have tried to imagine myself living in one of these abodes, and I have decided that my 1600 square feet is quite spacious indeed. I also read an article about downsizing in the September issue of Traditional Home. The homeowners (a family of two) had felt the need to "scale back and simplify" and I thought that I could probably find some good ideas for our home. Reading the article, I discovered that the "downscaled" home is 4,805 square feet, "not tiny, but certainly more manageable" than the 8,000 square feet of their previous home.

I guess it's all relative.

What are your "downsizing" experiences?

Annie

Going to a Party! Autumn Cloches

2010-09-16T21:33:00.003-05:00

Marty at A Stroll thru Life is hosting a party on her blog and has invited us to post photographs of fall decorating using cloches. I have chosen to use a glass pumpkin instead of a cloche this time, and my arrangement is called "My Favorite Little Pumpkins". Look closely and you'll see them; they live far away from me, but I love to look at their photos -- these were taken last autumn so I thought they would be perfect for this vignette. Please visit Marty's blog and look at the beautiful photographs of autumn decorating ideas there and at the participating blogs. Have fun!

Remembering the Original Amateur Hour and the Minstrels from Southeast Missouri

2010-09-03T20:53:00.003-05:00

Before American Idol and America's Got Talent, even before Star Search, the Original Amateur Hour was introducing Americans to singers, dancers, comedians, and other performers through television and radio broadcasts for 70 years, from 1935 until 1970 -- with a total of 3 1/2 million auditioning and 25,000 acts performing on the program. Such notables as Ann-Margret, Frank Sinatra, Pat Boone, Maria Callas, Joey Dee and the Starlighters, The Gentrys, Penny Marshall, Beverly Sills, Jim Stafford, and Gladys Knight appeared on the Original Amateur Hour and countless others competed for the public's votes each week. The "Wheel of Fortune" was spun at the beginning of each show to determine the order of the acts' appearance ("Round and round and round she goes andwhere she stops, nobody knows"). From there, audiences enjoyed jugglers, baton twirlers, tap dancers, ventriloquists, and a variety of other acts -- all applauded and supported by friends and family back home.

In 1964, residents of Kennett, Missouri and the surrounding area supported a group of young men called The Minstrels. The Minstrels were folksingers and first performed together in a Teens Against Polio assembly in January of 1963. David Freeman, David Kerr, Ken Stuart, Terry Hunter, Richard Cleek, and Steve Reagan went on to compete in several area talent shows in Senath, Deering, Portageville, Hayti, Rector (Arkansas), East Prairie, Cardwell, Charleston and Jackson. They also performed at numerous local and regional events, on Memphis television and Missouri and Arkansas radio stations. They were also among the finalists at the Mid-South Fair talent competition in Memphis in 1963.

The Minstrels won their audition for the Original Amateur Hour at the 1963 Delta Fair Talent Show . They tried out for the Ted Mack show in June and were scheduled for an appearance in August. The group sang "Frogg #1" (also known as "Frog Went a Courtin'") and won that evening, entitling them to a second appearance, where they performed "Waterfall."

I was a Minstrels fan throughout the existence of the group, attending most of their talent shows, and I was proud of my brother for being a member of the Minstrels. They brought pride to their community and continued to do so as they grew into respectful and respected young men. I believe that this is because they were a product of their community, which expected and rewarded great things from them.

I was visiting with a group of friends recently and the conversation went to Sheryl Crow and up-and-coming country star David Nail, both of whom grew up in the small community of Kennett. Credit was given to the outstanding music education opportunities and support that the community offers to its young people. I agree with that assessment and appreciate the benefits of a strong school music program to everybody -- whether it be through a noted local performer or an individual's lifelong enjoyment of music. The contributions of music teachers, band directors, music club organizers, and all of those who support music for young people can't be overestimated. Groups like the Minstrels and performers like Sheryl Crow and David Nail are products of their work -- and make us all proud.

Autumn is Coming to Oklahoma!

2010-08-30T18:05:00.000-05:00

Seasonal decorating is always a challenge for me, although it's one of my favorite things to do. I've been looking forward to bringing out my autumn things, but with the temperatures in the 90's here in Oklahoma, it seemed a little premature. Thank you to Marty at A Stroll Through Life for hosting a fall "Tabletop Tuesday" on her site; visit there and you'll see how beautiful she makes the transition from summer to autumn throughout her home. You'll also have the opportunity to see many other blogger's ideas and examples of how we can decorate for this most beautiful season. Part of the participation process is for me to offer my own example. I confess that I haven't made the transition yet (although I surely will begin now), but I have a photograph from last autumn. The little squirrel was purchased from Martha Stewart about 15 years ago, the leaf he's resting on is from Cracker Barrel, and the acorns and nuts were purchased years ago from Hobby Lobby. The temperature is already dropping; I can feel the crisp weather of autumn coming on!

"Julia, You Have a Call in Phone Booth Three"

2010-08-27T10:13:00.001-05:00

Residents are moving into college dorms this week across the country, including my alma mater, the University of Memphis. It was 46 years ago that my parents drove me the 100 miles to Memphis and my memories are still vivid of the building, the reception and meeting area, and my room on the third floor.

One feature of West Hall's reception area was to be almost as important as our own rooms. It was "communication central" and is in stark contrast to the cell phones and other technology students have available today. It was also a step down from the princess extension phone I had in my bedroom at home. Across one wall were ten or twelve phone booths. At first, it didn't register exactly how important the booths would be to my personal life. The first hours and days were spent in getting acquainted with other dorm residents, making new friends, attending dorm meetings, and going to classes.

Going to classes and the student center introduced another element to my life -- meeting new boys and developing new relationships with them. This is where the phone booths came in and why they became very important. There were no phones our rooms; there were no phones in the halls on our floors. If someone called for us, we were notified through an intercom system and we went down to a phone booth to take the call. I was not the most popular girl in the dorm, although I did receive my share of those exciting announcements of a call downstairs. It must have been exhausting for some of the more popular girls, running up and down the stairs to the phone. Since it was 1964 and not 2010, there were also expectations about how a resident should look in public; you never knew who might be coming in or going out, so you tried to look presentable when you took your call.

I learned about another means of communication after I pledged a sorority. The entry to one part of the student center had a series of bulletin boards, one for each fraternity and sorority. These were used for announcements of events and other chapter information, as well as honors, engagements, and other news about individual members. The boards also served as a posting place for notes to the members. We stopped by the boards several times a day to check for notes, the most important of which were from guys. I think that, for some of us, you could trace a courtship from the early notes ("Meet me for a coke at the Sigma Phi table at 2:00?") to the engagement ("I love my ring and I love you!").

I still have some of the notes I received during that time, as well as some of the messages taken when I wasn't available for a phone booth conversation, and the "sign-out" cards which recorded where I was going, with whom, and when I would return. Some of the notes are reminders ("Don't forget to pick up your Ole Miss football ticket. Larry") and some are sweet ("You are a fine woman with a great personality and much beauty. Ric") They are an informal record of my first months of college that now seem quaint.

Today, visits with children and grandchildren often include a third party -- the cell phone. My college-age granddaughter places hers on the table while she talks to me and a vibration tells her that her boyfriend has texted her. Instant connection - no waiting - no anticipation. She's never picked up a love note from a bulletin board and I doubt that she's ever used a phone booth to talk to a boyfriend. She doesn't know what she's missing.

Book Recommendation - Sharing the Journey: Women Reflecting on Life's Passages

2010-08-25T14:58:00.000-05:00

I have a small library of books that I have bought because they are part of a collection (Christmas books, pop-up books, books about the south, books about books) or because I saw them at a book festival and had heard the author speak, or because I might run out of something to read (not likely, since I usually have a dozen or so library books checked out at any one time).

There are a few that simply spoke to me -- about women, family, friends, home -- and I knew that I would want to read and probably reread. Sometimes, these books get shifted to the bottom of the stack or left on the shelf because the library books are due, and I simply forget about them. Often they are books of essays or anthologies and, once I do get around to reading them, I find myself enthralled with the treasures they hold.

Sharing the Journey: Women Reflecting on Life's Passages edited by Katherine Ball Ross is such a book. The 68 essays within are in sections such as Childhood, Motherhood, Grandmothers, Sisters, Places of the Heart, Rituals, The Past, Writing and Writers, and "The Quiet Center of One's Life" and are by some of my favorite authors, including Jane Smiley ("Horse Love", "Jane Austen's Heroines", and "Giving Love a Melody, Memory a Tune"), Whitney Otto ("Collecting Grandmothers"), Madeleine L'Engle ("A Crosswicks Kind of Christmas" and "Too Obvious to Forget"), Carol Shields ("Parties Real and Otherwise"), and Diane Ackerman ("The Deer in Springtime").

Here I found essays that spoke to me personally, such as Susan J. Gordon's "May Your Life Be One Sweet Song", about her grandmother's girlhood autograph book; M.J. Andersen's "At Grandmother's Table", about her grandmother's love of and lifelong accumulation of dishes; Susan Minot's "Messengers of the Heart", about the importance of letters in her life and "Reflecting on Foot", about the pleasures of walking; Catherine Calvert's "Wrapping Up a Memory", about Christmas gifts; Patricia O'Toole's "Passport to the Universe", about libraries; and Susan Allen Toth's "Hiding Out," about the importance of finding private spaces to nuture imagination and spirit.

I found this book so engaging that I am going to buy several copies to give away. As a blogger, I discovered an additional bonus between its pages. Reading these essays helped me recall numerous people, places and incidents from my own life which could later be subjects for my own blog.

Sharing the Journey: Women Reflecting on Life's Passages is available from your local library or from Amazon through the link that follows.

Happy Reading!
Annie

The Plain Princess: A Fairy Tale Revisited

2010-08-14T16:29:00.003-05:00

The Plain Princess, by Phyllis McGinley, was my favorite fairy tale when I was a girl. The story is about Esmerelda, who has everything a princess could want. She lives in a kingdom where girls who are considered beautiful have noses that turn down, mouths that turn up, and eyes that twinkle. Esmerelda, unfortunately, has a nose that turns up, a mouth that turns down and her eyes have no twinkle. Esmerelda, in a word, is spoiled, but her royal bubble is burst when the prince to whom she is betrothed wants nothing to do with her, pronouncing her "plain." The king and queen do their best to help their daughter, consulting with every available physician and wizard, but nothing works. Dame Goodwit promises that she can make the princess beautiful in three months, if Esmerelda comes and lives with her and her daughters. While there, the princess learns the value of working, sharing, and unselfishness and when she returns home, Dame Goodwit's promise is fulfilled; the princess is beautiful, with a nose that turns down, a mouth that turns up and eyes that have a merry twinkle.

This, of course, is a story of internal beauty and its rewards. I believe that it held a promise for me and other little girls that, even if we weren't "beautiful" and might never wear a crown, others would recognize us for our good hearts and dispositions.

There are many mothers who are still teaching that lesson to their daughters and many girls and young women who work hard and give of themselves unselfishly.

On the other hand, there is evidence that girls are being sent another message --- one that says "demand to be treated like royalty", "expect that your parents will spend beyond their means to make you happy."

Hearing a four-year-old describe herself as a "diva" makes me want to gnash my teeth. I wonder if the mother knows what a diva is, or if she has explained it to the child. The word implies a certain level of success in performance coupled with a difficult personality.   Is it the success or the unpleasant personality that the child possesses? I believe that it is most often the personality -- in other words, "I'm a brat -- live with it!"

The "bridezilla" personality is another manifestation of the acceptance of bad behavior. Why would anybody subject their best friends and family members to tantrums, manipulation, and plain nastiness and then excuse it by saying "I am a bridezilla" or "I've always been a diva"?

The traditional "Sweet Sixteen" party, an event to celebrate that special birthday, implied that the girl was actually "sweet." Today's "Super Sweet Sixteen Parties" are exhibitions, usually masterminded by the daughter and (very highly) financed by the parents, to demonstrate that the girl can outspend her friends, classmates, or those enviously watching on television.   To add a little "punch" to the envy or hurt feelings of those not invited, the invitations are given out in a very public way. You may be invited to the invitation ceremony, but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll receive the coveted invitation.

All of this is to say that maybe something has been lost in the concept of royalty.  As Americans, we have limited our tradition of kings and queens to celebrations like Mardi Gras, homecoming queens, those honored at local events like Frontier Days and the Blackberry Festival, and pageants like Miss America.  At least a portion of those have demanded a level of service and good manners with the crown.

I think that the self-proclaimed "divas" "bridezillas" and "royal" celebrants of the "Super Sweet Sixteen" parties are deluding themselves. What they need is a three-month stay at Dame Goodwit's house. She would straighten them out and the entire kingdom would benefit.

I'm Joining a Rooster Party!

2010-08-05T22:24:00.002-05:00

This is a new adventure for me -- and no, I don't claim to be a rooster. Barb at Bella Vista has invited us to post photos of our rooster decor. The only roosters I have are a pair that currently reside on the top of my refrigerator. I move them around as season or whim prompts me. I'm in the mid-to-late summer phase, which means I look for fruits, vegetables, colors, etc. that fit my late-summertime mood.

If you visit Bella Vista, you'll see the many others who are joining the party, and their ideas and examples of decorating with roosters. And you'll probably want more roosters, like I do.

Here are mine:

Travel Mercies: Weight Loss, Organization, and Writing that Novel

2010-07-27T19:21:00.001-05:00

Like most people, I set New Year’s Resolutions and then am (not) surprised when mid-year comes and I have not stuck to them. This year, I decided to phrase my resolutions as goals, even including step-by-step objectives for some of them. I have actually reached a couple of the goals I set.

I believe that part of my problem is accountability. If I hadn’t shared with you that I wasn’t moving forward, nobody (except for myself) would be the wiser. Since I really do want to accomplish my goals, and procrastination has always been a factor, I am going to use my blog as an incentive. I will report progress or lack of progress to you. You may wish to join me on my journey; you may have the same areas of your life that are challenges. If so, I welcome your comments and suggestions. I will note, before telling you about the areas that challenge me, that some may suggest that working on three at once may be too difficult, that my journey should have only one destination. My feeling is that the areas that challenge my life are interrelated and that I can journey in more than one, as long as they don’t lead me in different directions.

Weight Loss

I have been struggling with my weight for 40 years. After the birth of my first child, I retained about five pounds; with four children, I was 20 pounds overweight. That 20 pounds was not obvious, but the extra weight kept creeping up in the years that followed until I was 30 pounds overweight. My divorce gave me an incentive to lose, which I did; a happy marriage eventually led to more weight gain. I lost again by going on fen-phen (and was fortunate to not have any permanent heart damage); then gained and lost again on Weight Watchers (twice) and Nutrisystem. Sporatic attempts led to small weight losses, but a broken foot five years ago was a good excuse to cease the little exercise I was doing, and soothe myself by over-eating. So here I am, post-retirement, with a lot of weight to lose if I want to continue my life in good health. My plan is to watch calories, but emphasize eating foods that contribute to my well-being. I know, too, that it is time to build back the muscle I’ve lost and to pay attention to my body’s need for exercise. That is what I will report to you – my progress, challenges, and my (certain to happen) slip-ups.

Organization

I’ve recently had an opportunity to revisit my organization goal. An air-conditioning problem led to the carpet in our office being soaked. We had to remove all contents of the office (including emptying drawers, cabinets and bookshelves) and the office closet. I’m now replacing everything and am using the process as a weeding time as well – a jump-started decluttering. It is leading me to reconsider many of the things I am keeping. I have recently read the book Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, and recognize myself in some pages. I am not a “hoarder” in the most extreme sense, but feel their pain when sorting through old photographs, school papers, and a lifetime of memorabilia. I will share some of my adventure in decluttering with you; maybe we can encourage each other as we pitch some of the photographs with decapitated subjects and decades-old coursages.

Writing My Novel

I have begun several novels and haven’t finished any. I want to try again. I don’t know what else to say about that except that I have finished short stories, essays, columns, editorials, book reviews, blog posts – you get the picture. It’s easy to say that you’re working on a novel (as I have, many times); there aren’t very many people who will corner you and ask how it’s going. (I do have a few sadistic friends and relatives who do that.) Maybe going on record here will help. Maybe you have the same problem and we can prod each other.

So that’s it – my public goal list. I’ll revisited it soon (and often) to let you know how it’s going.

Annie Joy

Music Contributes to the Fabric of our Lives

2010-07-14T22:52:00.001-05:00

You may have seen the television commercial about cotton -- the touch, the feel, the fabric of our lives. I would like to add that, for me at least, music is a great contributor to that fabric. We all have favorite musical selections, whether they be popular music, classical, jazz, opera, etc., that we choose to hear again and again. In addition to those favorites, there's another category of music that may have an even deeper connection to our memories and our life story. You might consider this "background music", but I believe that it is very powerful, almost like our sense of smell; it can transport us back to a time and place in the same way.

I'll give you some examples from my own life:

My parents' record collection included two selections that take me back to my childhood. The first is Till Then by the Mills Brothers. I will always connect that song to my dad's service during World War II and his being apart from my mother.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYQ2yc9g51c

The second is from a record that I asked my mother to play over and over. I loved the rhythm and would even (try to) dance to it. It's Blue Flame by the Woody Herman Orchestra. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3BfSTc0vc8

I am transported back to my childhood breakfast table by gospel songs played on Old Camp Meeting Time, such as On the Wings of a Dove http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLfGCs_sV1A and I'll Fly Away http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr_3TVucft0&feature=related

When I was a teenager during the 60's, popular music accompanied almost every event. A few songs take me back to specific friends and events. When I hear Twist and Shout http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVlr4g5-r18 I am driving my Buick convertible with my friend, Judy, and we're singing along. If it didn't happen to be playing on the radio, we sang our own version, without accompaniment. (Twist and Shout can also take me to Albuquerque in the 1980's, when my new husband, his children and mine had our own version taped in an amusement park.) If I should hear Gene Chandler's Duke of Earl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9PoUsRibtE, I am again in my convertible, singing with my friend Beverly, as we drive the country highways of southeast Missouri.

My mother was hospitalized in Memphis when I was a junior in high school and a couple of songs will always remind me of riding in the car with my dad, on the way to visit my mother. I remember these songs especially because he mentioned that he liked them and because they spoke of his love for her. They were Let It Be Me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWWXJObowsI&feature=related and We'll Sing in the Sunshine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxZI0Cxaq20

Now I find that, more and more, music reminds me of my children and my grandchildren, often to school and church performances and concerts. Lean on Me http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPoTGyWT0Cg&feature=related   by Bill Withers takes me to the Great Lakes Naval Base when my son graduated from basic training; he was soloist for a select choir performance of the song.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LBmUwi6mEo will always be connected to Christmas lights in my memory. Our blended family drove to the city to see the displays shortly after Tom and I married and we entertained ourselves by singing "a wimoweh a wimoweh" over and over.

There are many more examples of the "background music" that have given my own life and memories texture and detail. I'm sure that you have your own and would love to hear about them.

Love,
Annie

Happy 100th Birthday to an Amazing Woman!

2010-06-30T10:17:00.004-05:00

My family is getting ready for a special get-together to celebrate the birth of its oldest member. Aunt Sister, our family's name for her, will be 100 years old on Halloween. That her birthday party will be in mid-summer is not because she is frail -- far from it -- but because it's the best time for the large number of family and friends to gather to honor her. I have every confidence that she will be just as vital, engaged, and lively in October as she is now. But the celebration is now and I want to tell you about it, and her.

What I want to share is that Lona Mae is a testament to living longer. I'm emphasizing the word "living" because our culture seems to be fixated on the numbers (oh, how we agonize over the 40th, or 50th, or 60th birthday) or on eliminating the external signs of aging. Lona Mae doesn't seem to be too concerned about the numbers or the wrinkles; she's too busy with the living part. She's an example of what the experts refer to when they say that, to live longer, we need to keep our brains sharp, our bodies healthy, our relationships strong, and our spirits nourished.

That's what Lona Mae does when she has her friends over twice a week to play cards, or when she plays dominoes with family members (and usually wins). That's why she enjoyed a recent trip to St. Louis to watch the Cardinals play (walking from the car to the stadium and up the steps to her seat without assistance). That's why a drive to Memphis to watch Avatar didn't daunt her, even if it meant getting home at 2:00 a.m. It's also why she planned a slumber party for her younger sisters, so that they could come to her house, catch up on family gossip and have fun. And it's why she enjoyed a trip to Las Vegas and will enjoy a trip to Greece next spring.

But Lona Mae is not just about having fun. She has a very active spiritual life, which was recognized by a recent Christian service award by Harding University. The recognition noted that she has taught Bible classes for more than 80 years. She was also one of the founding members of a group of ladies in her church who provide help for community members in need. Here is a photo of Lona Mae with some the dresses she made for distribution through her group:

Lona Mae's skills are not limited to sewing; she also enjoys quilting, ceramics, crochet, knitting and making holiday ornaments. She is generous with her handiwork and many family members have examples of items she has made. At a recent family reunion, she unveiled a large table which was filled with beautiful scarves that she had knitted. She invited all of her nieces who were present to come forward and choose one. You'll note that, in this photograph, I am among the happy recipients:

Lona Mae has always had a special place in the hearts of her family and friends. As the oldest of 14 children, she learned early that her contribution to the family's welfare was crucial and her mother recorded in her life story that Lona Mae was a caretaker for the younger children and a great help around the house. Today, she is the touchstone for the family; all of us depend upon her wisdom and "good sense", as well as her knowledge of the family history and its continuing story.

I heard through the family grapevine that Lona Mae is a little bit concerned that she doesn't deserve the celebration that is planned for her 100th birthday. My hope is that she'll stop worrying and enjoy what we, her many family members and friends know -- that she is more than worthy and that the pleasure will be all ours on that special day.

Happy Birthday, Aunt Sister!

Much love,

Judy

Book Recommendation: A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly

2010-06-21T15:39:00.000-05:00

In A Northern Light, by Jennifer Donnelly, the murder that inspired Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy (as well as the Academy Award-winning movie, A Place in the Sun) serves as the backdrop for the story of Mattie Gokey, whose life is limited to caring for her motherless sisters and dreaming of a life as a writer. When a young woman's drowned body is brought to the hotel where Mattie works, she becomes involved as she realizes that the young woman is the same person who had earlier given her a bundle of letters and asked her to destroy them. Mattie is torn between keeping her promise and revealing the contents of the letters, which suggest that the woman has been murdered. Mattie must also make a decision about her future, to follow her talent and dream of being a writer by accepting a scholarship to Barnard College or to stay where she is and comply with family expectations by marrying a local man.

This story reminds us of the narrow choices that women had just 100 years ago and is especially interesting, due to the tie-in with a true story, as well as an earlier novel and movie. As I mentioned in an earlier recommendation, Mattie reveals a growing understanding about when she comments that some books tell stories (showing you life as you want it to be) and some books tell truths (showing you life as it really is). The first kind, she says, makes you cheerful and contented and the second shakes you up. I enjoyed A Northern Life for these insights into a budding writer, as well as the plot development and the mystery.

You can find A Northern Life at your local public library, or through Amazon.

Happy Reading!
Annie

Hollywood Costumes Come to Oklahoma City

2010-06-15T21:50:00.004-05:00

We celebrated my birthday on Saturday and visited the Oklahoma City of Art for the "Sketch to Screen: The Art of Hollywood Costume Design" exhibit. I expected it to be impressive, and was delighted, captivated and entertained by this wonderful collection of costumes and design drawings from the age of the silent screen to the movies of the 21st century.

All of the costumes are originals used in the movies with the exception of the three from Gone with the Wind. Those three costumes designed for Scarlett are reproductions; the originals were not preserved. Some of the original costumes featured are Mary Pickford's from Tess of the Storm Country , Rudolph Valentino's from Blood and Sand, Jean Harlow's from Bombshell, Claudette Colbert's from Cleopatra, Audrey Hepburn's from Funny Face, Deborah Kerr's from An Affair to Remember, Gregory Peck's eyeglasses and briefcase from To Kill a Mockingbird, Glenn Close's from 1001 Dalmations, as well as costumes from True Lies, Three Amigos, Quigly Down Under, A Foreign Affair, From the Terrace, Valley of the Dolls, Witness for the Prosecution, Apollo 13, Raging Bull, Dick Tracy, Flintstones, X-Men: The Last Stand, Hello Dolly, Mama Mia, The Sound of Music, Ben Hur, Chicago, The King and I, Camelot, Titanic, and others. Also displayed are many original designer drawings of the costumes, as well as backgrounds on the movies, costumes, awards, actors and actresses.

If you live in Oklahoma or will be visiting between now and August 15, be sure to put this exhibit on your calendar. In case you don't already know, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art is home to a comprehensive collection of glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly. You'll find more information about the museum at http://www.okcmoa.com/aboutokcmoa, about the costume display (including photographs) at http://www.okcmoa.com//sketchtoscreen and about the Dale Chihuly collection at http://www.okcmoa.com/exhibitions/dalechihuly-theexhibition/chihulyglass .

Here is a photograph of the multi-storied Eleanor Blake Kirkpatrick Memorial Tower Chihuly sculpture which graces the atruim of the museum.

Friday Favorite - Three-Crock Slow Cooker

2010-06-11T07:57:00.001-05:00

My old Crockpot bit the dust and I had been looking for a new one. I had also been bemoaning the fact that in downsizing, I no longer had cabinet space for a large and a small slow cooker. Then I found this online -- it's a Hamilton Beach slow cooker and came with three crocks, two-quart, four-quart and six-quart. I'm cooking a five-pound pork roast in the large crock this morning; the meat is in and there's plenty of room for the carrots, potatoes, and onions. Best of all, it was half-price through Amazon ($34.99)! Happy Day!

Indian Paintbrush - Oklahoma State Wildflower

2010-06-08T18:04:00.001-05:00

There are dozens of Indian Paintbrush across the road from my Dad's farm. I picked these this afternoon. They are really beautiful alongside the highway this time of year.

Book Recommendation: Where the God of Love Hangs Out: Fiction by Amy Bloom

2010-06-04T14:54:00.005-05:00

For years, I included volumes of short stories in my reading lists and still own several, collected against that day when I run out of things to read or the library is unavailable. The reality is that I have moved away from reading short stories. I do continue to (try to) write them occasionally and understand the undeniable creativity and craft that goes into a good one. Most recently, I have more enjoyed really long novels that I can live with and in for weeks at a time, something the best short story can't do.

Amy Bloom's Where the God of Love Hangs Out features two sets of connected stories, providing the time and space to more fully develop character and plot. I enjoy this format for the resulting length and depth of the series, as well as the natural stopping places provided at the end of each story. (I do a lot of my reading "in-between" tasks, as a break and a reward for accomplishment.)

As the title implies, the focus is on love in its many forms. A resulting sexual relationship in the first of the series is adulterous and in the second, between a stepmother and stepson after the husband/father has died. Bloom gets to the heart of the matter for those who will move beyond any natural distaste for such relationships. Her talent for creating multifaceted characters and situations can bring us to the point that we understand what motivates ourselves and others to do the things that we do, without necessarily approving of what has been done. That, to me, is an important quality of fiction, and why I read what some would consider unsavory -- what some would not approve as worthy of reading.

In the book I'll be recommending next, the young protagonist comments that some books tell stories (showing you life as you want it to be) and some books tell truths (showing you life as it really is). The first kind, she says, makes you cheerful and contented and the second shakes you up. I believe that the stories in Where the God of Love Hangs Out belongs to the second category. It takes us to the place where we recognize ourselves and others. And that's a good thing.

Annie Joy

Too Many Ladybugs - A Library Story

2010-05-25T19:09:00.004-05:00

I look back with fondness at my years as a librarian and realize that many of my more interesting days in the library involved children. As the manager of a small library, my duties and those of all the staff could be summed up with "we do a little bit of everything."

Planning for the annual Summer Reading Program began in March and as soon as school let out in May, the library was a hub of activity. An example of the need for quick thinking and flexibility took place one year when we were focusing on bugs and insects. One program was about ladybugs, and we decided that we would send each child home with some ladybugs to release. We learned that ladybugs would remain dormant if refrigerated and we placed an order for several thousand.

We kept the sleeping ladybugs in the library's refrigerator until the morning of the program and then removed the package to put them in the hundred or so film cartridges we had collected. We took the package into the auditorium and opened it, finding that the ladybugs were far from dormant. They were awake and very energetic and many quickly escaped into the large, open room. We couldn't catch them, but were able to sweep them towards and out the back door of the building. More than half of them were lost -- and probably found homes in the neighborhood gardens around town. We were able to scoop enough of them up so that each child received a few.

I also managed to catch a few in my clothing. They went down the front of my dress and up the skirt. I shook a few out as I walked to the restroom and removed a few more when I was able to lift my skirt and reach down the front of my dress. When I went home that evening, I found still more nestled in folds and crevices -- places I wouldn't have imagined that they could have been!

The program was a success and I gained a new appreciation of ladybugs, especially en masse.

This is the time of year when children all over the country are signing up for their library's summer reading program. If you have the opportunity, you might give a special thanks to the librarians who work hard to make the summer special for the kids in your community. They will tell you, I'm sure, that the pleasure is theirs, even when it involves the unexpected -- like thousands of ladybugs!

Annie

p.s. The ladybug photo is from the Thomas Hawk Digital Collection.

Friendship and Amalgamation Cake

2010-05-19T22:20:00.004-05:00

I connect a certain cake recipe from the 1950's to my mother and her best friend, Nell. You don't hear much about Amalgamation Cake these days, so I was elated to find the recipe on a couple of sites through a Google search.

My particular memory involves going home from school one day and finding Mother and Nell putting together the approximately 20 ingredients(including jam, raisins, coconut, and walnuts) to make the cake, and having the time of their lives.

Nell always brought extra spark and energy into our home and my mother was the main beneficiary. Nell was a nurse and kept my mother, a homebody with five children, informed about what was going on around town. They were both beautiful women; my mother was a natural beauty but I always thought Nell was particularly glamorous; she was tall and tanned and wore red lipstick and nail polish. My mother was shy, but Nell was an extrovert who was unafraid to express her opinion. I suspect that many considered her brash and unrefined, but I doubt that Nell spent any time worrying about what other people thought.

It's interesting that I connect Amalgamation Cake to my mother's friendship with Nell. The word "amalgamation" means combining or blending and that's exactly what happened. Mother and Nell enjoyed a friendship that bridged their differences and concentrated on things that they could enjoy doing together, such as baking cakes. They were like Lucy and Ethel in some ways, always "cooking something up" that was different or fun.

Today, it's more difficult to forge friendships like Lucy's and Ethel's or Mother's and Nell's. Maybe that's what I really yearn for, someone to bake an Amalgamation Cake with me.

Click here for a recipe for Amalgamation Cake.

Annie Joy

Giving Mary the Camera

2010-05-15T22:16:00.006-05:00

At our house, we have a box full of home movies that we haven't been able to watch. In fact, they were missing for several years and were recently rediscovered, just in time to have them converted into DVD format. Since we have so many, Tom decided to send in a few at a time, and did so, in no particular order. (They were the result of random and sometimes misleading labeling.)

We received some of the DVDs this week and spent some wonderful time reliving Thanksgivings, Christmases, Easters, birthdays, and awards ceremonies from 1992-1995. The viewing was even more fun because so much time has lapsed; our granddaughter who was two years old in the earliest films has just finished her freshman year in college, my two youngest daughters (then 12 and 14) are now adults and the rest of us are, of course, 15 years older.

Tom and I laughed ourselves silly watching the movies. At one point, I had to excuse myself for a bathroom break; I can only laugh for so long without developing a real emergency.

I learned something unexpected through watching the movies. When we first bought the camera, Tom was the "official" recorder and I was the stand-by so that Tom could be in the movie. His method of recording was to stop at each person at a gathering and say something like, "Well, Dad, tell us how you are and what's going on with you" at which point Dad or whomever he was camera-stalking would freeze, say something like "I'm fine" or wave Tom away. Tom's true desire has been to record some good memories for all of us, but the response has often been "get that camera out of my face" (or something more subtle, depending upon the family member). Despite the challenges, Tom did produce some really good sequences and provided comic relief in others, when he wasn't behind the camera.

The really good stuff happened when Tom allowed Mary access to the camera. Mary, at age 12 (now the mother of three daughters of her own) shot her own views of holidays at our house. Since she was 12, nobody paid much attention to where she was going or what she was shooting. Her recording included her remarks to her sisters (not always polite), and their responses (also not always polite). She recorded moments of affection between Tom and me (including one when I had a bad case of the giggles). She followed two-year-old Whitney around and recorded her and Tom as they fed the birds, Whitney repeating everything her grandpa said. She recorded all of us, just as we were.

There are moments in these videos that some might not appreciate. For example, I would have preferred that my backside (bent over the dishwasher) not be featured in a couple of the kitchen shots. Close-up food-chewing shots are not my favorite holiday memory. But that's the price you pay for a 12-year-old camera girl. The benefits, however, are immeasurable -- a true picture (not posed) of our holidays, warts and all, and the confirmation that those times were good and that we loved each other then as we do now. Maybe we are more like the Conner family than the Cleavers (though I continue to "set the stage" as if we were the Cleavers). Maybe that's why Roseanne, Dan, Becky, Darlene and DJ still make me laugh.

By the way, Mary is still carrying a camera around. She's getting shots of her family that professionals dream about, and many of the bloggers I follow seem to have the same skill. I think that most of it is accepting what she sees and appreciating it in the present -- instead of looking back later and seeing how good it really was.

If you have a 12-year-old in your family, you may want to assign him/her to camera duty at your next family gathering. Then let go and have fun; it really will be out of your hands!

Annie Joy

May Memories -- Forces of Nature

2010-05-03T14:57:00.003-05:00

My heart goes out to those who suffered through the weekend of storms, tornadoes, and flooding in Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee. Lost lives, injuries, homes and property -- words can't express the heartbreak of those lives which will be changed forever by these forces of nature; neither can they adequately express the sorrow that we feel for those affected. All most of us can do is keep them in our thoughts and prayers and, if possible, contribute to relief efforts.

I stayed up late Saturday night to track the path of tornadoes as they approached my home town in the bootheel of Missouri. It's amazing that we can now get almost up-to-the-minute reports via the Internet, and I was relieved when I saw the "all clear" and was able to go to bed. I didn't learn until Sunday that Memphis and Nashville had been hit hard. I hurt and I hope that friends, family members, and those I don't know will be comforted.

It reminds me of a night here in Oklahoma -- May 3, 1999. "Bad weather nights" aren't unusual for Oklahomans and we knew that one was coming. Tom and I decided that we would have dinner at the Delta Cafe before we went home to "batten down the hatches", but midway during our meal, the lights flickered and the sky darkened and we decided to hurry home. It was the beginning of a night that almost every Oklahoman will never forget -- the night of 74 tornadoes in Kansas and Oklahoma, one of which traveled through Oklahoma City, making it the single most costly tornado in U.S. history. Doppler on Wheels (weather radar) measured it as the highest ever recorded in wind speed and intensity, just one mph short of an F6 tornado.

Tom and I watched and listened after we prepared our safe space: Meteorologists on television were admonishing everyone to "take cover", telling us that this was really, really bad -- even by Oklahoma standards. (This information was later credited for saving many lives.) We were among the fortunate -- we lived in Tecumseh at the time and one of the tornadoes missed us by about ten miles as it hit the little town of Pink and moved on to Shawnee, where numerous homes were badly damaged and one woman was killed. Another tornado hit Stroud and completely demolished Sanger Outlet Mall, which was never rebuilt.

The worst damage and greatest injuries were in the Bridge Creek and Oklahoma City area; 36 people died and 8,000 homes were badly damaged or destroyed. You couldn't drive on I-40 or I-35 without seeing the devastation -- complete neighborhoods gone; trees that were now splintered stumps; businesses, including multi-storied buildings, that were unidentifiable. Most of us knew somebody who had lost a family member or their home or something precious. If you didn't, you heard the stories on television or the radio. And you cried with your neighbors, your fellow Oklahomans.

That's one reason I'm writing this today. To remind those who have faced, are facing, or who will face a "force of nature" that you are not alone. God is with you, and there are many who you will never know who are with you also.

Annie Joy

p.s. I want to add this note about another "force of nature" -- a wonderful one -- who came into our lives 19 years ago. My granddaughter, Whitney, is celebrating her birthday today. She is finishing her first year at the University of Oklahoma and we are proud of her and love her very much. Happy Birthday, Whitney!

Five Friday Favorites -- Things That Make Me Happy

2010-04-30T22:37:00.008-05:00

This soup tureen belonged to my mother and will always have a special place in my home. It is ironstone and quite heavy.

Do you remember the hard Samsonite luggage from the 1960's? My sweet Aunt Ann gave me a beige set when I graduated from high school. This set belonged to my husband's Aunt Betty(whom he called his "second mom"). I love the red color.

This decorated mailbox was a gift from a co-worker when I moved from one branch of our library system to another. She and I both love Mary Engelbreit and it has a place of honor in my home office. It touched my heart that she would spend the time to decorate it just for me and pack it with ME envelopes and notecards.

I bought this pillow in Kansas City at Halls Crown Center. I fell in love with it when I saw it and it still gives me pleasure and was worth every penny I paid for it.

If my house were to catch fire, this is one of the first things I would carry out. It is my grandmother's life story and diary, which she started in 1949. It covers her life from her birth in 1891 and tells about her parents, grandparents, and siblings; her childhood; her courtship by my grandfather and the births of 13 children and deaths of three. She writes of her children serving during World War II and her grandchildren during the Vietnam War. She notes the birth of each grandchild and the deaths of many of her friends and family members. There are many stories here, that reflect life in another time for those of us who have only a brief recollection or no memory at all.

Annie and BFFs Weigh in on Public Restrooms

2010-04-27T13:40:00.006-05:00

I have a group of BFFs who really are best friends forever and I doubt that anything can change that. Some of us started first grade together in Miss Carroll's class at West School in 1952, others joined our group of friends later. I use the term "group of friends" rather than clique, because we were more inclusive than exclusive. I am thankful for that, because it gave me many more opportunities for friendship.

One of the things that we still enjoy is getting together every couple of years. Sometimes it takes place in our hometown when something else is going on (I'm looking forward to a girlfriends reunion when I go home for a family reunion this summer). Sometimes we visit each other where we've settled, and other times we go someplace else. The number varies depending upon who can get away.

On a trip to Chicago a few years ago, we were in and out of many public restrooms and developed a running commentary of what we appreciated and what we really hated. I should mention that there were four of us on that trip and, for the most part, we have a "southern" point of view on most things, having been raised in the mid-south. We are not cosmopolitan, we've lived in small towns most of our lives. Alice is the exception; she lives in a large city and is a world traveler. This seems to have made her more tolerant of restrooms, hotels, etc. The rest of us are more persnickety, and I may be the most of all, if past behavior is an indicator.

I have always tried my best to avoid public restrooms. I have gone for as long as eight hours, if I'm heading for home, or if I know a clean private (or hotel) restroom awaits me. I know that this is bad for my bladder, but my bladder understands and has learned to accommodate me (as long as I head straight for the toilet upon arrival). Early training for this happened at two camps I attended as a child, where the "accommodations" were communal latrines.

Back to Chicago -- we visited the Chicago Art Institute, the Navy Pier, the Chicago Public Library, saw The Blue Man Group, the Second City, "Menopause the Musical", took the architectural boat tour, as well as shopping and eating our way through the city. This provided several opportunities for restroom use and observation. The following are observations and recommendations, based not just on our trip, but upon years of experience, with and without children in tow:

Clean restrooms are objects of beauty and gratitude for all women. Most of us have been taught from an early age that really bad things lurk on every surface and we have passed this knowledge on to our children. We don't necessarily trust that surfaces that look clean really are, but they help to calm our nerves.
Puddles on countertops may be tolerated; puddles on floors won't. We will open every stall door to find a dry floor; if we don't find one, our "on alert" bladders may have to wait.
Toilet paper is expected, but not always present. A supply of one's own is to be recommended. Those who steal toilet paper should be sentenced to a term of catalog use in a dirty bathroom.
We hate, hate, hate, toilet paper dispensers that are designed to not turn freely, so that you get one or two sheets at a time. It is false economy because we will fight back by taking as much as we can.
Off-center toilet seats often "lean" toward the dispenser. This may be attributed to the stingy dispenser mentioned above and the necessity to lean towards it to get enough to wipe.
Squatting is sometimes necessary if paper seats are unavailable; deep knee bends are recommended practice for young girls.
Never put your purse on the floor. Hold it on your lap or in your teeth if you must. Even if the floor appears clean, you don't know what's been there.
Taking a friend with you is always recommended. There is safety in numbers; the friend can hold the door closed because you can't depend upon the lock working; the friend can hold your purse if there is no hook or shelf.
If there is a designated spot, leave a tip if you can. And thank your lucky stars that you don't clean restrooms for strangers. And appreciate those who do.

Okay, I may have forgotten a few items. Maybe Connie, Alice or Emma will remind me. Maybe you have some remarks, observations, or recommendations of your own.

Annie Joy

p.s. We did see some beautiful ladies rooms in Chicago and I've seen some photographs of some on blogs I've visited. I'm going to begin making photos for my own "Ladies Room Album of Honor".

An Afternoon at the Oklahoma City Festival of the Arts

2010-04-23T11:36:00.000-05:00

It was cloudy with rain in the forecast, but that probably contributed to the relatively small croud -- some who had planned to go on Thursday may have decided to wait until the weekend. We had plenty of space at the booths to look, and buy (or wish we could buy)! A wonderful annual event in Oklahoma City!

I love glassware and stopped at several of the booths.

The artist is here with his paintings. He has also published a book of recipes that include his work.

We fell in love with these lovely portraits of Native Americans.

Myriad Gardens are beautiful at this time of year. Crystal Bridge is in the background.

Lots of wonderful food; we had to try the tequila bread pudding -- simply delicious!

Didn't have room for the Strawberries Newport, but have it on good authority that it was yummy!

My purchase for the day -- this beautiful hand-blown paperweight by Oklahoma City artist Toby McGee.

Book Recommendation: Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier and Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos

2010-04-21T17:56:00.002-05:00

In an earlier post, I listed some characteristics that draw me to certain books and both of the books I'm recommending today provide what I look for when I'm looking for that next "best book" for my own list. They are both character driven, which sometimes means that I develop an almost personal relationship with the protagonist(s) and feel a sense of loss when I must leave the book to do something else, or when the book is over. Both are about friendships between women, which immediately drew me to them. I enjoy books about friendship, and have read countless stories about old friends who have known each other for years, or who are of the same age and experiencing the same issues and challenges. Remarkable Creatures and Broken for You are about friendships between young and older women. Both are wonderful stories about how common interests can bring two very different people together and how long-lasting relationships can be forged. Friendships are precious, and I am reminded, through reading these two books, that the extra effort to look for friends who are not "just like me" is well worth it.

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier is the story of Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, both of whom lived during the first half of the 19th century, and their unusual friendship, based upon a common interest in fossils. Mary was a member of a poverty-stricken family who brought in money by using her gift of finding (and taking) fossils on the seashore. Elizabeth was of a more privileged class, but was dependent upon her brother, who inherited their father's estate when he died. She and her younger sister found themselves living at the same seaside town as Mary, and Elizabeth struck up a relationship with Mary, which eventually developed into a real friendship. Society didn't give much credence to Mary's ability and her status as a woman discounted even more her getting credit for her fossil finds. Her friendship with Elizabeth opened doors for her, and she finally gained some recognition for dinosaur remains that she uncovered. The friendship ultimately suffered because of Elizabeth's understanding of societal contraints, and Mary's refusal to accept her advice. This is a compelling story that brought me to a greater understanding of the value of friendships between women (especially women of different ages), and the progress we've made on our own behalf.

Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos is a beautiful story of friendship between two women, one young and one older, both who are "broken" in different ways. Margaret Hughes, in her seventies, lives alone in a mansion filled with antiques, both inherited from her father. Wanda Schultz, in her twenties has come live with Margaret while she searches for her lost love. Both women hide painful pasts which have inflicted damage to their lives but events lead to redemption for Margaret and a new life for Wanda as a mosiac artist. I was led to this book by Kallos by reading and enjoying her second novel, Sing Them Home.

You can find the titles mentioned above at your local library, as well as through Amazon, linked below.

Happy reading!
Annie Joy