Bread Is Love

My obsession with all things cooking isn't just about eating.

I simply love being in the kitchen; this is where the magic happens. I love cooking, baking, canning, preserving, you name it. I love reading cookbooks, recipes online, watching the food network. I even love going to the grocery store, the farmers market, or unique one off shops to find new ingredients.  It isn't necessarily about the end result; although often that is a tasty consequence. For me it's about chasing a feeling, a memory.

My mom was a stay at home mom for her first 3 children and for the first 5 years of my life.  She may very well have been the busiest mom ever. There were shelves in the garage filled with jars upon jars of vegetables, fruits, sauces, soups and jams. There was a chest freezer filled with corn, meat, berries, and more. We sat around the table every afternoon and had supper as a family before dad took off for his job where he worked swing shift. She made her own cereal, yogurt, popsicles, ice cream.  We would go to Nancy's Creamery and buy fresh peanut butter and honey. She took such great care of her family.  And then there was the bread. We always had fresh bread, loaves, dinner rolls, buns, cinnamon rolls, sticky buns... There is nothing more life affirming then the smell of bread coming out of the oven, the taste of that first slice, still steaming with melting butter. 

Life changed when I hit preschool. Around 5 or 6 my mom left home and joined the ranks of working women in the 70's. I don't fault her for it as she did it for a new beginning, but I did, without a doubt totally miss out on what could have been.

However, she was still the quintessential mom. She always took care to ensure that everyone was feed and cared for. I always knew that my mom loved me, cared for my wellbeing like only a mom can do. She made memories for me effortlessly, treasured moments that I don't even think she conscientiously knew she was doing. 

Years after my parents divorced, I was the last kid left at home. Just the two of us. However despite the obviously small nature of our home there was always bread. Not just a loaf, nothing simple, but counters filled with every kind imaginable.  I don't know what she even did with it all, because two people can only eat so much bread in a week. But waking first thing in the morning to that smell,.. There are no other words to explain it other than Pure Love. 

Have you ever made bread? It is not terribly difficult. However it takes time, lots of time and patience.  My mom didn't do these things for special occasions, she didn't do them every once in awhile. She did these things every week. Everything was fresh, everything was homemade, everything was whole grain, and we never went without. This is not to say that there were not fancy gadgets, clothes, vacations that we didn't want. But we had the essentials and we had the love of a great woman. This in retrospect was all that mattered. 

So I don't cook and bake and study cooking and put up preserves for my family. I LOVE them. I take the time to do these things for them because everyone deserves to feel the same love that I did. Because I want to be remembered as a woman who gave everything for her family. Because I want to be loved as much as I loved my mother. 

Propriety

Propriety
When I was in middle school, sixth or seventh grade at
Springfield Middle School the little boy who sat behind me in Mrs. Johnson’s
class said “you’re one of those fancy girls aren’t you?” I was mortified by his statement, because I
felt that he was judging me, and that I did not fit in. Middle school as we all know is pure
hell. In retrospect it might have been that
I wore clothes that matched and did not preview my pre-pubescent goodies to the
likes of little boys like him.
Today, I see girls, young girls sporting skin tight clothes,
low cut tops, WAY too much makeup and wonder where their mothers are. As we all know, I am certainly no prude – ask
your father, however as with every generation mothers expect more of their
children than of themselves. It’s a
tough burden for children to bear, I don’t know what to tell you – blame evolution! Why can’t girls, just be girls? Everyone is in such a hurry to grow up…Play
with a fricken doll for eff sake!
I digress.
Is it true, “the further from home you are the higher the
level of propriety required”? Or does propriety start at home? I say both.
Some things go without saying; at least one would think. Not
proper, going to the grocery store in your pajamas, using the “F” bomb in
public spaces, telling your grandmother she looks “sick”, maiming your body in
excess,…
I don’t expect tea parties, corsets, monogrammed stationary,
the Queen’s English or much pomp and circumstance. I do however expect everyone to live up to their
full potential all the while striving to exceed it wherever possible.
My concern is that one comment or action in mixed company
will leave parties with a sullied impression of my children, my family and
me. I don’t want to be perceived as a
snob, a bitch or unsociable. However,
more importantly I don’t want to be known as an idiot. While comments and actions can be funny at
home or among friends, knowing when they are appropriate is, well… propriety.

Life Lessons

Life Lessons
It doesn’t happen every year, but every couple of years it
hits me, for no reason, no triggers, nothing different happens, just life…
I woke up this morning, and was 16 years old, standing in a
cold hallway of McKenzie Willamette Hospital where the walls, floors, blankets
and lighting are all a colorless hue of blue, walking away from the room where
I and my family had just spent the last week or so. It was Valentine’s Day. All of us were walking away except for
one. We left one person behind, my
mom. A very sad memory; a very sad day,
today, for me, even more sad that when it happened. A selfish, self-absorbed, careless teenager I
didn’t fully realize what had just happened, the poignancy of the moment. Mom, was sick for a long time, she lost her
battle with cancer, and I lost my mom and teacher for the rest of my life.
My mom grew up horribly poor, living in a tent poor. She herself was the first of 3 children. She married my dad when she was only 15 or 16
years old, never finished high school and started having children; four in
total. Dad was in the Army and for the
most part the family moved as he moved with the exception of service during war
time. They lived as far away from home
as Germany, Virginia, Colorado, and close as Astoria. When mom was either 31 or 32 I was born. Dad was still in Vietnam, but returned
shortly after I was born. They bought
the house on Kintzley where dad still lives today and he retired from the Army
and went to work for Weyerhaeuser.
My mom, was fabulous at being a mom. It wasn’t any one thing that she did, it was
that she loved wholly, she wanted the best for everyone and she gave for the
benefit of her children. She enjoyed
being in the kitchen, cooking and baking for her family, being able to provide
for them, she was horrible at managing money, she didn’t like to play board
games and the like, but enjoyed watching her family play, she was an
exceptional seamstress; she could sew you anything you wanted; clothes,
sleeping bags, toys, she canned everything from jam to spaghetti sauce, you
name it our pantry was stocked, she feed us handfuls of vitamins every day, we
could have cookies but our cookies had peanut butter, oatmeal, raisins,
walnuts, chocolate chips and anything else she had laying around that would
make those cookies “healthy”.
After, what I’m sure what felt like a lifetime of suppression
mom started a new page in her life. One where
she was earning her own money, gaining self-respect from working among her
peers. She took a job at McKenzie
Willamette Hospital, when I was in Kindergarten (irony at its worst in
hindsight.) She worked in the kitchen,
putting her talents to work for others. And a couple years later she divorced
my dad. Apparently getting out of the
house and seeing the world threw new eyes gave her the perspective she needed
to move on with her life. Did she go to
work because she was so very feed up with her home life or to broaden her
horizons, was it always her plan to leave my dad, did she have a plan or was
she just living by the seat of her pants?
These are questions that I will never be able to ask…another life lesson
that I’m forced to define the meaning of on my own.
We did our own moving after the divorce; Springfield to
Alaska to Springfield, all around town, then to Lebanon. All the while mom trying to hold it together
as her children grew up and moved away, leaving just me and her together. She took a job with OSU around 1984 when I
was in middle school and we moved to Lebanon; where it all finally came to an
end for her.
I believe that mom was her happiest when her children were
together and she was taking care of them.
I believe that she lived a very sad life which had the potential to be a
happy one should she have made better decisions so many years ago when she was
a teenager. She had limited skills and a
big heart. She should have stayed home,
being a mom; although with a better husband.
It’s what she loved; it’s what made her happy and what she was good at. Although I know my dad loved my mom, his love
was poisonous to her. She chose poorly
and paid year after year the consequences of it.
Standing in that cold hallway in the hospital, I was sad
because I had lost my mom, my childhood.
Today I’m sad because as an adult I realize that she lost the opportunity
to get it right, to finish a lifetime of work, to retire, to be a grandmother,
and truly find the happiness that she wanted and deserved so badly.
Life is a series of decisions, every single day, they will
pass you by if stand still too long (yes Ferris Bueller was right) however
sometimes it can take you a VERY long time to overcome just one poor decision –
so choose wisely and with great intent, so as not to waste the lessons of a
life that passed to soon.

Alaska, a.k.a. The Seventh Ring of Hell

Moving to Alaska was no one’s first choice. Okay, maybe Mom, but still I doubt it. Mom was trying to move as far away from dad
as possible and we were just along for the ride.
I believe I was in first grade when they got divorced, all
the proceedings, etc. and by the time I was in second grade, the divorce was
final. Mom was selling the house, back
to my dad and high-tailing it for Alaska.
She would start her own business in Alaska, be her own woman, “hear me
ROAR”, etc. it was the end of the 70’s.
To start off this “wonderful” journey mom would leave ahead
of us kids (Renee, Eric and Me – Daphne was long gone, already out on her own). Leaving us behind with a young family from
the church left in charge of our safe keeping, until she was settled and/or I’m
assuming until the school year was finished, we move.
Please keep in mind, up until this point in time I had a
pretty good life. I was healthy, had
good friends, lived next door to my grandma, walked to school every day, played
with neighborhood friends, had a nice house, I had to share a room with my
brother, but I adored him so that was okay.
Life was “normal”.
Our first residence in Alaska was far from a “home”. As I remember it, it was an apartment on
and/or near the army base in Anchorage.
It was a Class A SHIT HOLE!
Small, dark, dirty, nasty. I don’t
remember that we were there long; however this is what I have to say about it
now. If our mom traveled ahead of to get
a “home” set up before the kids moved and followed her, leaving her children,
with the presumed expectation that she was setting up a suitable residence for
us. Uuhhhh – where the hell was our “home”? Before we were all consumed by cockroaches we
did finally move. To a house, with a
yard, within walking distance of my school, with neighborhood friends, etc.
Here is what I remember of my life in Alaska, in no
particular order:
I had a friend across the street who would have me over and
we would eat SPAM sandwiches (what did I care, I was a little kid), that and
fried egg sandwiches. I had another
friend who was only allowed to watch Little House on the Prairie, as per her
parents it was the only show suitable for children. And yet another friend whose father or
step-father was a complete pervert.
When we moved to Alaska, mom had a boyfriend. A real tool from what my brother and sister
tell me. However, I didn’t like him
because one day I stayed home sick from school and he made me feel like an inconvenience
to him. Which I probably was, but if
that is how he felt then he shouldn’t have been dating a single-mom. After yelling at me, he took me to a café for
lunch and taught me how to tell time.
Mom joined a group called PWP (Parents without Partners); it
was a way for single parents to meet other single parents. She would throw parties and there were new
people to meet, games to play, etc. it was a good time.
There was a mother in our neighborhood that had two little
kids. They would come over and
play. However one day they just weren’t
their anymore. My mom told me she couldn’t
afford to have her kids anymore. What
the hell does that mean? I’m assuming
they became wards of the state, due to some sort of either diminished mental
capacity or drug use, or…. Who knows! But
more than anything I think that this speaks to the economic status of the
neighborhood that we were living in.
My mom did start her own business (along with two other
partners). One lady named Judy, who was
short with fuzzy blond hair, along with another lady, I cannot remember her
name but she was tall, lean and from what I can remember very eloquent, moving
like the wind. They started, of all
things an African Boutique. Whose brainiac
idea that was, I’ll never know. She not
only had her own business, she also worked full time. She was a cook at the Captain Cook hotel. She had a great work ethic.
I got a bicycle for either my birthday or Christmas. I can remember, knowing I was getting a bike. I can hear someone putting it together in the
other room, the day before I received it.
It was the coolest bike you would have ever seen. Long streamers that hung from the handle bars
a seat that was decorated with a rainbow.
It was fantastic.
My brother and sister put my hand in warm water one night to
make me pee the bed (loving family).
We had to put tinfoil on the bedroom windows to keep the
light out in the summer. In the summer
it was light when you woke up, light when you went to bed and light while you
were sleeping. And, for about 9 months
out of the year it was dark and fricken cold!
Miserable, beautiful in retrospect, but FREEZING. For a family that didn’t have a lot of money,
staying warm was at a premium. You know
the movie “A Christmas Story” when the little boy is getting ready to walk to
school; he had to get so bundled up he could hardly move. It was that, times 10. When your mother has to tell you “don’t cry
when go outside or your eyes will freeze”, it’s too damn cold! After walking to school, I actually had to
peel off my artic wear to go sit down in class, boots, parkas, etc. RIDICULOUS!
One year, hot air balloons landed right in our front
yard. It was an amazing spectacle.
One evening we were all sitting around the table, mom’s
boyfriend was playing the guitar and singing.
I was singing along with him, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”. I don’t think that I knew the words; I think
I was more repeating them as he sang them.
He sang “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown, baddest man in the whole Damn town,” and
I sang right along after him. However
when the word “Damn” slipped out of my mouth, I gasped, I was mortified, my
mother gasped. I don’t know if she was
mad or not. I just knew that I was not
to say such words.
We would travel home during the summer to visit dad and our
house. Oddly, it will always be “the
house I grew up in” even though I didn’t live there for very long. It’s too bad none of us will ever live in it
again.
Well, that’s what I remember. In summary Alaska is hell, it’s cold, your
siblings make you wet the bed, you can’t go outside with wet hair or your
eyelashes will break off, people eat “meat” from a can, and hot air balloons
randomly fall from the sky.

Future Topics

• Propriety
• The day my mom fished a sanitary napkin out of the toilet for me
• Working at the bakery
• Family slideshows
• Alaska, the seventh ring of hell
• Junior year, the beginning of the end
• Grandma Juanita
• My mom, the voice in the back of my head
• My childhood, or the pictures that I remember of it
• Best friends
• The best Christmas ever!
• The day you were born
• I loved High School
• Home Perms
• The Fatherland, and that place where is Grandma is from
  

Live, Laugh, Love

Writing is hard! (I know, deep statement right?) I just mean, putting the proverbial pen to paper is a very personal statement, private, open for judgement.

I'm a quiet person. I like to listen more than I like to talk. But none the less, my oldest daughter, Jordan told me tonight that she doesn't know anything about me. After 21 years of life, I figured she deserved to know a little about me, our family, and whatever random thoughts find there way to this site. So here I am; ready to expose my self on paper.

What one event had the most profound affect on my life?????

I honestly don't think that anyone can point to just one event, one emotion, one day, etc. We ALL are a collection of events, people, feelings, memories that make us who we are. My parents divorced when I was young, we moved around a lot when I was little, my mom died when I was a teenager, I married young, have always had a job; working every summer since I was 15???, had a baby young as a teenager. While that all sounds very depressing when I spell it out, it's my life - and I love my life. The upside is where I live. Here's how I see it: My mom was strong enough to leave a marriage that wasn't making her happy, I was given the opportunity to see new places and meet new people, my mom taught me to cherish those you love, I found the love of my life when I was 17, I have a great work ethic, and my husband gave me not just one but two baby girls that I love with all my heart.
Life is all relative. I choose to be happy because the alternative just isn't worth it.

More later...