Mommy's working

So it is the last day in November, and I have only written 18 posts, counting this one. For those of you paying attention, I was attempting to follow the spirit of NaBloPoMo and write a blog entry per day.

I did not.

The bright side is that, if you scroll through my archives, I have written more posts this month than I have in the history of this blog. I call that a victory.

More to come.

Christmas card outtakes

It's the boys' favorite part of Thanksgiving, and by favorite I mean most dreaded - taking the Christmas card photo. I like the outtakes the best, though, because they show their true personalities.

I can't send these out, though, because my grandmother would call me from Land Between the Lakes all mad because she can't see the boys' faces. And then we would get into how long it's been since I'd brought them up there for a visit and everyone's holiday would be ruined.

So enjoy these now while they last!

If it's on the counter, it's fair game

We have not reached the point in our family where I am responsible for cooking the entire Thanksgiving meal, but I do make some items to take the pressure off my mom.

Yesterday I made green beans from my Memphis Junior League cookbook, macaroni and cheese, and a tarte tatin for dessert. I'd swear that almost every time Mason, my hungry child, would walk through the kitchen, he'd point to something and say, "What is that? Can I eat it?"

Plain macaroni noodles? Sure. Cheese? Yes. Almond sliver? Go ahead. Sugar? Mm-hmm.

Phyllo dough out of the box? WAIT!

Pull up a chair

The first Thanksgiving that my oldest nephew, Walker, sat down at the “adult table,” I didn’t know how to act.

It’s not like we were telling dirty jokes in the dining room, but it just never occurred to me that, at age 15, he’d want to be there with us geezers. He’d always seemed happy at the kids’ table in my mother-in-law’s kitchen with his two brothers, one sister and four younger cousins.

He’s a smart kid, like all his siblings, who must have outgrown the tedious mealtime banter with my then-fourth-graders and 3-year-old Owen, who had learned enough information to be dangerous.

Back then, for instance, you could just mention how good the Easter ham is, and Henry would randomly say, “The Inuits didn’t have to do anything to their food. They just buried it in the snow to keep it from getting spoiled.”

Then Owen would hold up his fork and add, “This is the Jaws of Life. If Nana’s house catches on fire, call 911. I’m a fireman.”

Why wouldn’t a high-schooler want to stay for that?

At my parents’ house, it’s easy. I’m an only child, so there was no kids’ table. We all fit at one table there and, as long as there are Sister Schubert rolls and Owen hasn't gotten up too early, holidays go nicely. At my in-laws’ house, it’s more involved. There are three sets of brothers- and sisters-in-law with eight grandkids. That makes for a lively kids’ table, though most of them aren’t kids anymore.

Now we have a house full of tweens, trapped somewhere between kids and teens, who are in holiday limbo because they no longer use the phrase “go potty” but they aren’t old enough to drive themselves home.

During my tween-year family gatherings, the only thing my adult relatives knew to ask me was, “How’s school?” Then they’d go back to discussing taxes or football and I’d hover over the dip bowl.

When my twins were 10-year-olds, they claimed they still preferred the kid’s table because, as Henry said, “I understand what they’re talking about.”

“Yeah,” said Mason. “I don’t have to listen to how Joe fired Betty today on The Bold and the Beautiful.”

Even Walker would agree that’s not all we discuss. Besides, if the kids move to the adult table, we’ll have a new audience for those old stories we rehash about the time David tried to stop the blender blade with his finger. Or Tim’s exquisite display of Boy Scout skills when he saw David cut his face on a fence and yelled, “Run home! Run like the wind!”

Both of them are still making oldest bro Steve pay for the year they had to wait to see what Santa brought until Steve took a shower.

Walker may start taking his plate out to the porch, though, because now we just grill him about college and, of course, girls.

HOW many days hath November?

So it's Nov. 23, and the little thingie on the right side of this blog says I've written 13 posts in November.

Hmmm, I'm not exactly following the NaBloPoMo rules of one post per day.

I could have done a few like this one on Fussy. SO funny.

Instead I'll blame it on basketball, because it has taken over our little house here. JV tryouts are tonight, plus Tim has agreed to coach a rec team the big boys formed, and you know what that means. I am the official administrative assistant of rec bball. Woo HOO!

I've been all about basketball to the point that I almost forgot about Thanksgiving. Eeep!

Why, yes, that is a log in my eye

I've been going to church for, like, my whole life now, but I'm not getting any better at it.

It's not church's fault, of course. It's just that there are so many other people there messing up my holy experience.

My entire family manages to get out of the house early on other days, but on Sundays we act like we've never done it before. In fact, I've written before about how a visit to church is an opportunity for all seven deadly sins to pop up. I sin all the other days of the week, but shouldn't I do it less, not more, at church? God is REALLY watching me on Sunday, right? Shouldn't I be at my best while I'm in His house?

I think God's onto me.

The main thing working against me on Sunday, besides pride and judgment, is that I don't deal well with crowds. My church is really big and has a lot of people trying to get to different places in a hurry. It wasn't always that way. It had a beautiful, normal-sized sanctuary when I started going there in 1991, but it has grown tremendously over the past two decades because it is so awesome and so many other people want to attend. My husband started going there in 1978 as an eighth-grader, and it's where we want our boys to grow up, too.

I just hope the church experience doesn't kill me before I get to see that happen.

The breakdown begins before we even arrive. With so many faithful followers, our church naturally has parking "issues." To relieve some of those issues, they implemented a shuttle bus to ferry people to and from an empty office parking lot across the street.

My family used to ride the shuttle bus, but I'll tell you the truth. I shied away from the shuttle because those folks were just too damn cheerful for Sunday morning. Am I the only one who finds it hard to be sweet after an exhausting car ride spent convincing 13-year-olds that, no, they are not the only boys on earth who have to wear long pants and a collared shirt to church?

Maybe it's also the fact that my body is two decades older, too, but some mornings before we're even done with church, I am worn out. After we forgo the shuttle and park a quarter-mile away, we get upstairs to the balcony, where we like to sit so our 6-year-old can see everything. We used to choose our seat according to whatever activity we needed to watch our kids doing, whether they were acolyting or singing in the choir. Lately, however, a new factor has come into play: the overly fragranced parishioner.

If I didn't already have a headache after the drive to church, I will have one after sitting near a woman who has on too much perfume. It doesn't matter if I'm in front of, next to or behind her, that overwhelming smell will keep me from focusing on the "Our Father" no matter how hard I try.

All I can do is watch carefully next week and hope she heads the other way. But then I'm judging again, right? In church! Zap!

Still, you never know who's going to overdo the Estee Lauder on any given Sunday.

Other worship service regulars who mess with my holiness include the Toddler who Colors Very Vigorously. And you thought coloring was a quiet activity! It always enhances prayer time when mom stores the crayons in a metal box or a Velcro pouch.

Some men in my church have begun letting their Sunday clothes speak for them, especially in the fall. When their favorite college football team wins the day before, they'll wear the school logo or colors to church the next day. Now, I don't have a problem with a tie that has little tigers or even tiny gators on it. But if you're 54 years old and you wear a crimson Alabama T-shirt to church under your suit jacket, I think you're violating, like, the whole book of Matthew. We're supposed to be praising God, not Nick Saban.

Zap!!

After we stand up and sit down 27 times in the service, with all the "singing" of songs I still don't know because I can't read music, we have to run our 6-year-old down two flights of stairs to his Sunday school class and then find our own class on another floor, with a possible trip to the cavernous youth area downstairs. In heels. When that's over, it's time to head to the back of the parking lot to our car. That's all before 11 a.m.

Whew!

I'm not the only one still seeking peace in the sanctuary. Last week I ran into a friend in the hallway, and she had such an exasperated look on her face, I asked, "Are you okay?"

"No," she huffed. "You will not believe what I just saw."

She had just left the casual service that has praise music with a band, which I can't stand, but that's another post for another day. My friend is not a complainer, though, so I was really concerned about what got her riled up.

"We were praying, during the final benediction, and I kept hearing someone talking. I looked over, and this woman was standing in front of the stained glass window talking on her cell phone! During the prayer! She was trying to cover the mouthpiece to keep it quiet, but I kept thinking, 'There's a door right there! Why don't you just step out?!'"

No, nothing is sacred anymore.

Really, I love my church. Besides the whole eternal salvation thing, I love sitting close to my family in the pews, because I can't make my older boys sit next to me any other day of the week. I love seeing my kindergartner recite "Our Father" by heart. I love looking down at the choir and seeing my friends' babies, who somehow along the way grew up and drove themselves there. I feel for the ministers, who do this three times on Sunday and once on Saturday night.

The fact that I can't turn off my powers of observation when I'm there is my problem.

So, why do it, you ask? If it's so stressful, why not go to a smaller church, if a big church is "not for you"?

With my luck, I'd find a small church where the membership was just my family plus Mr. Alabama Fan, Mrs. Estee Lauder and their children, Miss Vigorous Colorer and Little Pew Kicker.

And me, Church Lady in Training.

Part of a complete breakfast

I get a big laugh from the fun names grocery stores come up with for their store-brand products.

So-called generic items, especially cereals, have come a long way from the days when stores only sold "corn flakes" or "crisp rice" in black and white boxes. Now stores have figured out how to make a reasonable facsimile of the best-selling cereals, and most generic items are packaged and named similarly to their more expensive competitors. Kind of.

It's not a stretch to see why Kroger calls their version of Cap'n Crunch "Crisp Crunch." Henry's favorite, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, becomes Cinnamon Swirls. Yawn. The funniest names go to the unique cereals. Special K has been around so long that I never stopped to think about what a weird name that is. Kroger's version is called "Active Lifestyle," which doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

General Mills popular Chex cereals - corn, rice, wheat and the other siblings - are called Bitz at Kroger. Kroger execs must think the letter Z is marketing gold because they've added it to many of their new products, including a Hot Pocket-like item called Stuffz and the charming Ice Cream Sammiez. I'm surprised they don't go ahead and name their frozen corn on the cobs "Corn Totz."

Publix is getting in on the act too, with Fruit Spins for Froot Loops (which part of the food pyramid is "froot"?) and Apple Express, which are second-rate Apple Jacks. Whenever I see Kroger's Apple Dapples, I say it the way Bill Murray sang out "Razzle dazzle!" in Stripes. Please click on that link. It'll make your day. ("Just like last night, only better!")

Where was I? Oh, yes. Does Malt-O-Meal still call their version of Cheerios "Scooters"? hee hee

My award for best generic cereal names goes to the Crispix knock-offs.

I could not believe Crispix has been around since 1983, so I looked it up. It's true! Along with Wheaties, Crispix is one of the most expensive cereals, usually around $4.19 per box. It took a while for the generic versions to come out, but some companies obviously spent more time thinking up the names. Publix took about a minute, I'm thinking, to name their version "Crispy Hexagons." Mmmmm!

At least Kroger tried to be cute with "Hexa Grains." Harris Teeter makes eating cereal fun with "Crisp 6." Get it? 'Cause a hexagon has six sides? And if you say it fast, it sounds like Crispix!

No combination of letters and numbers will convince a kid that "Marshmallow Treasures" is the same as Lucky Charms.

But maybe I'm not the best judge of names. I still think the best cereal of all time was Kaboom.

Live and Learn

Note to self: Never use Ritz Honey Butter crackers to top a casserole. It tasted like creamy chicken with cookies on top.

Trust me, don't do it.

Getting in the Christmas spirit

I don't shop at The Fresh Market often because I'm not rich or an empty-nester; that seems to be their target market whenever I go in there. I mean, I don't think Fresh Market carries the box of 44 fish sticks, if you know what I mean. But my mom and I strolled through yesterday because Fresh Market always has a great holiday candy display that gets me in the giving mood.

I should have taken a picture of the candy, but I couldn't think once I passed the pastry case in the one photo I did take.

I have to go lie down now.

FarmVille turned me into a nag

Ever since my twins started playing "FarmVille" on Facebook, I've been hearing some weird conversations in the house. It all started when one of their friends, of course, told them about the simulation game where you start with a bare square of green and plant crops, tend animals, and try to earn enough coins to build a house and there's something about fruit trees and I don't know what all.

What I DO know is that ever since they started FarmVille, we've regressed to a lot of the old computer-related conversations we used to have - mainly, how much they're over their time limit. Apparently life in FarmVille is as fraught with anxiety as real farming, because last week when they were going to be gone overnight, Mason was fretting about when some plant was going to be harvested because if he didn't get to it within the time limit, he wouldn't get any coins and all his hard work would be for nought!

The other day I was working at my desk when I heard Henry calling his brother to shoot hoops in the driveway. Mason said, "Let me harvest my soybeans first!"

That's something I never thought I'd hear in my house.

Knocked out with one punch

When my older boys accompanied me to Kroger the other day, they nearly died from embarrassment when I dared to say goodbye to one of the baggers by name.

All I did was say, "See ya later, Clayton." You'd have thought I'd danced naked on the check-out scanner, the way they shushed me and tried to hustle me out the door.

I don't see the big deal. I see Clayton almost more than I see my husband.

Deck the halls with pilgrims and turkeys...please!

While driving around Brentwood today I noticed that both Brent Meade and Fountainhead subdivisions have decked out their entrances with Christmas decorations. So I guess it's on, y'all.

Still, I wish somebody would just designate a day already when everyone is supposed to put up their outside decorations at one time so we wouldn't have to endure these awkward few weeks when some people hang tinsel and garland while others, like me, still have pumpkins on their porches.

It's bad for my chi to see competing seasonal gee gaw out there. It absolutely drives my son Henry insane. He gets so put out when he thinks people or stores bypass Thanksgiving and head straight for Christmas. I would not be surprised if he starts a "Give Thanksgiving its Due" Facebook group.

I guess not everyone wants to extend their "harvest" celebration one minute longer than they have to. If you think about it, though, at no other time during the year does this seasonal overlapping take place. You never see valentine hearts competing with Christmas lights or shamrocks getting in the way of the Easter bunny.

Wait, I just noticed that Thanksgiving is at the tail end of November this year, which means there'll be less time between Black Friday and Jesus's birthday to get all my decorations up. Guess I'd better go chuck those punkins!

Iran is for lovers?

One of the top headlines right now is the story of the three American "hikers" detained in Iran for supposedly crossing the border from Iraq illegally.

Hiking in Iraq? People do this? Seriously?!!

I know I have a very small circle of reference since I am not a world traveler. I mean, I'll do stuff, as you can see from that very old photo of us at Rock City. But the stuff I do has to be near an interstate and some kind of truck stop or Wal-Mart. Call me pedestrian, but my knowledge of the Middle East comes from news sources, and those lead me to believe that the only people going to Iraq are military. I am quite happy to stay in familiar areas and leave the roaming to those so inclined. You won't find me signing up for the Peace Corps, and the last flight I was on left me so impatient to get back home that my fidgeting nearly got me tagged as a security concern.

Still, it seems pretty obvious that the Middle East should not be a recreation destination. I haven't seen any brochures luring people to "Cruise the Gaza Strip" or trumpeting that "What Happens in Yemen Stays in Yemen."

An article on cnn.com is not clear about whether the three hikers worked in Iraq and were out for a "relaxing" weekend or went there specifically as tourists. It says they stayed in a hotel and were warned many times by the hotel owner to stay away from their destination town because of its proximity to the unmarked border with Iran. Iranian officials say the three are spies, but I'll bet they say that to all Americans.

Lots of folks revile the suburbs, where I live, as hell on earth. Of course, they aren't that bad, and maybe I'm just unaware of a growing market for vacation packages in war zones.

Just let me know if you see any bumper stickers that say, "Pakistan: Land of Enchantment."

The zen of Mondays

I've grown to enjoy Monday because it's my chance to reclaim the house from the weekend pillaging that inevitably takes place when we're all home.

Putting away crayons, DVDs, newspapers, blankets and whatever else we left in our wake is all part of getting my mind set right for the week. And laundry...so much laundry to wash, dry, fold and put away. Every Monday, the hampers seem to hold enough clothes for a weeklong trip. My kids manage to change clothes at least three times a day on the weekends. Our weather being as schizophrenic as it is now, with cold mornings and warm afternoons, it's common to find sweatshirts mingled with shorts. Somehow, even when I think I've washed every thing in this house, no one can find that perfect hoodie or just the right shorts to wear to school.

Still, I perform this ritual every Monday, and it feels good. Katherine Paterson said, "What a gift of grace it is to be able to take chaos from within and from it create some semblance of order." That's how I like to think of my mundane Mondays, anyway, as I picture myself with a bullwhip and a stool facing down all that crap that didn't get put back last night. Even with our nightly prep-for-school routine, not everything is in its place.

Just cleaning out my e-mail inbox and emptying the refrigerator door of notices about events that have passed helps settle me down mentally. If I can accomplish that, I will have done the world a favor.

Book 'em

So I did something today that I've never done before. I got fingerprinted.
I hadn't been arrested, so this post probably won't be as exciting as you'd hoped. It was all part of the extremely rigorous hiring process in my local school system. I was hoping to spice up my life by working a few days a month as a substitute teacher at my kindergartner's school. So I dug up my old grad school transcript and my real Social Security card and attended a new hire orientation. All that still wasn't enough; I had to fork over a refundable $48 to get fingerprinted for a background check.
With all the headline-making, teacher-student scenarios inspired by that old Van Halen song, you'll be glad to know that our school system is doing its best to keep your kids from being locked in a classroom with a raving maniac.

I guess fingerprinting has come a long way since the days of Dragnet or even NYPD Blue. Of course, it's digital. I had to place my fingers just so on a touch pad that relayed a digital image to a computer screen and deemed them acceptable or not. Guess what? Mine were never acceptable. My fingerprints failed! The poor Official Fingerprint Lady had to try three times for each finger and thumb! It was a day of firsts for her, too.

"Well, I guess your ridges aren't very deep," she mused as she smashed and rolled my fingers on the screen in an attempt to capture an acceptable image. "I've never had one where I had to override all ten."

See, I AM special!

By the way, you can't go just anywhere to get fingerprinted. The school system's current list of approved locations included some random security agencies, but only one place in my county, about 20 miles from my house. It was at a UPS Store! I really wanted to go to the Guns and Leather location in Greenbrier, but that's two counties away.

After holding hands with the nice UPS lady for about 15 minutes, I finished and turned to head back home. She did have some parting words of advice for me, though.

"I guess if teaching doesn't work out, you'd be perfect for a life of crime!"

Don't even tempt me.

Read me read me read me

As I sent my husband an e-mail this morning, I did all the things I normally do to make it stand out in his inbox. At his work address, he gets approximately 117 e-mails per hour. I am not exaggerating. So I need to do all I can to make sure he sees my urgent messages. I usually type the subject in all caps, which in Internet-speak means yelling. I also don't ever include "Fw:" in the subject line because he has been known to skip over something if he thinks it's a frivolous chain letter I'm sending, which of course I would never do. As a last resort I hit the "High Priority" button.
Since he works approximately 117 hours a day and we have three kids at home who all want to talk to him at once when he does get here, Tim and I really don't talk TO each other that much. We rely on e-mail. I also recommend e-mail as a marriage-saving device as it allows you to "discuss" things without using a tone to which your partner may object.
The problem is that people are wearing out the "High Priority" button so that nearly every e-mail he gets has been designated a high priority. I mean, who's going to click on the "Low Priority" button? Why even send an e-mail if it's just a low priority?
Since everyone thinks their message is SO important, that leaves me just sitting here waiting around for him to tell me what he wants for dinner while he scrolls through and determines whether a work project really is falling apart or if he's just one of 32 people copied on a management manifesto.
Of course, I think all my e-mails should be of the highest priority to him. That's why I think there should be a "From the Wife" button similar to the high priority button. That way he'll know immediately what the next job is on his to-do list.

NaBloPoMo Day 1

November is National Blog Posting Month. Since it takes longer for the power of the Internet to reach us here in Tennessee, I am just now getting this news.
Inspired by the Fussy one herself, I will try:

Things I like

Hostess Ding Dongs
birds singing
red wine
shopping very early in the morning
flannel sheets
green left-turn arrows

Things I don't like

monkeys
twisted police dramas on TV
kids who sing Broadway style
emptying the dishwasher
already being awake when my alarm goes off

This week's Brentwood Home Page column

Why we had two types of Halloween at our house this year.