Holding on and on and on….

Wow.

The last time I posted a new blog it was December 2013.  At the time, my older son was working at a university in Seoul, celebrating his birthday a world away.

Tomorrow he moves to Vancouver, starting a new chapter of his life. Clichéd phrasing, but in a family of writers we forgive things like that.

When I started thinking about how to approach writing a blog after so much time had elapsed, I turned to Karin Tauscher Fuller. Not only is she a great friend, she is an award-winning columnist.

Show them what you’ve been up to, she wisely advised. Thanks to her I have photographic evidence of my activities the last year or so.

In reality, 2014 was a rough year of holding on and holding on and not letting go. My mom, and writing partner of 25 years, got seriously ill but has since recovered. The last year was…challenging. And now I’m finally back in the saddle and ready to start blogging again.

Many thanks to Karin and the family and friends who didn’t ride off into the sunset when the going got tough.

Happy Trails to all of us.

End of an Era

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Part One: Party Planning

I flip the kitchen cow calendar to February – gracing and grazing my walls since 2002 – and interrupt my mother/writing partner at work.

“Andrew’s graduation party is three months from tomorrow!’ I say.

She looks up.

“Do you want to start baking cookies today?” she asks. And goes back to typing.

Sigh.

        

Part Two: End of an Era

For years I taught college students and directed freshmen orientation programs for a school of journalism at a university back east. Every June I’d gaze at those parents sitting with their son or daughter  and launch into a ‘holding on and letting go” spiel.

I was particularly zealous the year my older son, now 22,  was a foreign exchange student overseas his junior year of high school. As gently as possible I explained to the hover parents who were freaking out about said son or daughter leaving home, that I understood. 

Empathy fairly oozed out of my pores – along with bewilderment. How could these mothers and fathers not understand if we do our job as parents right, our children leave us. That’s the whole goal of parenthood – to launch sons and daughters into adulthood. I had it all figured out, or so I thought at the time.

Until turning into a hover mother myself lately.

My youngest graduates from high school in just a few months. It truly seems like only yesterday (but it was five years ago this month) my husband and I were flying out to this small city on the prairie for his job interview at a smaller university. I went along mostly because I needed to get on a plane again after many years flight-free, thanks to my forties inflicting claustrophobia on me.

I needed to get on a plane because we were going to fly to Germany the following month for a spring break trip to see aforementioned eldest.  Freaking out about flying was not an option. And whereas my husband spent a year living and traveling in Europe as a child when his dad was on sabbatical (and my parents and in-laws had traveled extensively) I’d never been overseas.

And how could I let a phobia prevent me from seeing my older son?

So spouse and I flew to Nebraska in February, then to Germany with our younger son.  And later moved that little 8^th grader to the prairie.

Time flies too, without any pharmaceutical assistance.

And the closer it gets to younger son’s leaving home – he’s going to attend the university his dad teaches at and live in the dorms five minutes away – the more I realize this holding on and letting go thing is a lot more complicated than I thought.

I’m still an ardent proponent of the ‘letting go’ part, but I’m struck by how much I’m going to miss having any children – young adults – in the house.

It’s not about them, it’s about me.

It doesn’t matter if they go one mile or a million geographically, it’s the distance we measure in our hearts that matters.

Cookie Rerun

Since Sunday, I've baked six pans of cookie bars -- seven if you count the one that ended up in the garbage can. Some will be mailed to my older son's friends in school on the east coast, friendships forged in middle school -- and these boys are now young men. My older son will be 22 this month and graduates from college in less than two weeks. Others will be mailed to our old neighbor girls...who were in 3rd grade with same son. Still more are for current neighbor girls and others will be plated and head to work with my husband.

I should be writing but I'm baking, booted still from recent ankle surgery. The boot prevents me from walking outside in the unseasonably warm December weather. It's sixty degrees on December 4th in Nebraska. To keep my spirits up, I tell myself how necessary this latest round of surgery was, and it means I'll be able to keep walking well into my dottage. Which sometimes feels like now. 

But as long as I can remember how to turn on the oven, I like to do a little holiday baking....and reminiscing.

Here's a holiday baking 'rerun' blog post from November 29, 2009.

It’s not yet December 1, but my holiday baking is done. Granted, the Buckeyes still need to be dipped in melted chocolate (yes, a Michigander-born girl doesn’t let the Ohio-ness of those tasty treats dissuade), but that’s it.

Why the frenzy? The reasons range from wanting to mail a tin of cookies to son Erik in Germany to having a nice variety for a tray for my department chair husband to take in to the last faculty meeting of the semester and…

…wanting to get it over with. There I said it. The days of joyfully dumping out all my Grandma Rock’s old metal cookie cutters and pulling out her sugar cookie recipe are long gone. Sometimes I wonder why?

Frosted cut-outs and golden cookies studded with M&M’s were just two of my maternal grandma’s specialties. Both my grandmothers excelled in the kitchen. My dad’s mom, widowed when my dad was just 12, supported him and her four older daughters by being the head cook at Mercy Hospital in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Even though she was on her feet cooking all day, Grandma Andrews spent all her time in the kitchen when all her children and grandchildren gathered for holidays. From her sister Carrie, my great aunt, I learned how to make shortcake dotted with butter and Sugar Cakes, melt-in-your-mouth sugar cookies made fluffy with buttermilk.

My mother didn’t like to bake so she taught me when I was very young. Soon I was adept at family favorites from both sides, including chocolate applesauce cake, date nut bars, tomato soup cake, best two egg cake….and inept at things like fudge and one concoction involving powdered sugar, cocoa, milk and Cocoa Krispies. I think it was supposed to be frosting.

In 7^th grade I nearly flunked the sewing part of Home Ec (In middle school, my sons took BASE, which was…home ec with careers added. Sensible addition.). I did much better in the kitchen. I can still remember the day we learned the ‘water displacement’ method to accurately measure peanut butter. It’s slimy, but it works.

So what happened over the years?

Well, writing became a much better (and lower calorie) outlet for my creativity. Then there was my husband’s diabetes diagnosis…and the fact the disease runs on both sides of my family. The oldest of Grandma Andrews’ four daughters was Dorothea, a nurse, who had a foot amputated due to complications from the disease. Also, while both my children enjoy an occasional cookie, and Erik is very partial to the chocolate chip oatmeal cookies (recipe listed below), neither seems to have inherited my raging sweet tooth. Finally, the whole working mom balancing act ultimately left no time for laboriously rolling out cookies and decorating with colored sugar, not when there were papers to grade and copyedits due.

Now there are no more papers to grade, not for me. After 15 years at a large university, my husband and I were ready for a lifestyle change. This will be our second holiday season here on the prairie, in the town my husband wanted to live in for nearly 20 years. Long before we had children, we’d drive ‘home’ for the holidays from Flagstaff, Arizona to our folks in Iowa. This Nebraska town on Interstate 80 enchanted him, though at the time I thought he was nuts. And not the kind that go in cookies. Instead we went east. But when a job opened at this university of 6,500 students in his ‘dream town’ at the exact time we were ready for a move, it seemed like fate and faith were aligned.

It’s been a challenging yet wonderful change. Soon I will be realizing my life-long goal of staying home to write fulltime. It’s scary, exhilarating and, apparently, baking inducing.

Maybe next year I will pull out Grandma Rock’s cookie cutters.

What’s your favorite holiday cookie recipe?

Basic Cake Box Cookie/Bar recipe

• 1 box any flavor cake mix (Pillsbury Classic Yellow particularly good)
• 1/3 cup oil
• 2 Tablespoons water
• 1 egg

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients. Add one 12 oz. package chocolate chips or any flavor. Spread in a greased 9 x 13 glass pan. Bake at 350 for ten – twelve minutes til golden brown. Let cool and cut into bars.

You can also use this dough to make cookies. Bake the cookies at 375 degrees.

Roll the yellow cake mix cookie dough into balls and flatten with a sugared glass slightly. 

Bake at 375 7-8 minutes or until golden.

Frost or sprinkle with colored sugar.

You can also use a chocolate cake mix, but it’s drier so use ½ cup oil. Or just make brownies!

Lemon is also a good flavor. Just form into balls and let flatten as they bake. Make a thin glaze out of lemon juice, powdered sugar and a little milk or water.

Or bake in a greased 9 x 13 pan again til done and frost with canned lemon frosting.

Try cherry cake mix, and add cherry chips and almond flavoring and a vanilla frosting glaze or spice and melt caramel and drizzle on top.

Iowa State Fair Cookbook Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup shortening or margarine (I use margarine sticks)
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 12 oz. Package semisweet chocolate chips

In a bowl, combine sugars, shortening, and eggs; beat until light and fluffy. Stir in vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, soda, powder and salt. Add to shortening mixture. Add oats. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoonful onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in 375 degree oven 8-10 minutes or until done.

The dough works better after it’s been chilled a bit in the refrigerator. And the best thing about these cookies is you can freeze them as drop cookies or roll up as logs in wax paper. Either way you can bake right from the freezer when you want some.

Empty Nest

My to-do list for yesterday consisted of the following:

1. Figure out the day of the week
2. Reschedule dental apt
3. Be brilliant writerly-wise

Guess which didn’t get done?

It’s a tad chaotic here on the prairie right now. DH (dear husband) is recovered from his broken/sprained ankle, sustained on Labor Day weekend. However, I am once again booted, due to surgery on my ankle. Between spouse, my mother, and me we function like a well-oiled domestic machine.

Except when we don’t.

Like when one of us is out of commission.

My mother/writing partner folds all the laundry, God bless her a thousand times over. Two autumns ago she had hand surgery. I nearly wept with relief when she could go back to sorting socks.

Husband cooks. 

I however, clean. I take a lot of ribbing from friends, but few things give me more satisfaction (domestically) than scrubbing toilets or dusting. Cutting clutter gives me enormous satisfaction. I find the older I get, the more I need order in my surroundings.

When I can remember where I am and what day it is….

This fall with two graduations looming (older son from college in December; younger son from high school in May) I keep telling myself I’ll miss the mess because it means they’ll be gone.

Technically, though, the big guy is the biggest clutter culprit …. not planning on him going anywhere soon. The absent-minded college professor stereotype exists for a reason.

But he does cook.

And we won’t really have an empty nest because my mom lives with us and has for the last 13 years.

She is an organizational whiz, able to eyeball a room and know exactly how to pick up and arrange things perfectly in intelligent systems

Me, I handle maintenance.

Lately I’ve been trying to envision life without clutter, without children in the house. Since my early days of motherhood when I held my firstborn six-pound son in my arms I knew if I did my job as a mother ‘right’ he would eventually leave me. Same with his little brother. The goal is and always has been to launch those baby birds out of the nest.

So I’m going to enjoy all the twigs and pieces of yarn scattered about while I can.

Back to school

This morning my 16-year-old (for one more week) told me he graduates from high school in nine months.

This ‘revelation’ kind of took both of us aback.

He’s ready for school to start, ready for senior year, ready for what lies ahead…college...and beyond.

Me, I think I’m ready for the nursing home.

Also this morning I had a routine appointment with the surgeon who did my foot surgery last summer.  Earlier this summer I had a blood clot, most likely caused by hormones and a long car trip.  Since then I’ve been having shin pain, and the ‘good’ news is that annoyance isn’t  alarming. It just takes time for all the ‘vascular systems’ to return to normal after a blood clot.

But I also got some ‘not so good’ news. The nerve damage in my other ankle has worsened. Deep down I think I’ve known this as I limped along on my daily hour-long walks. Fortunately, I inherited my mother’s high tolerance for pain.

Unfortunately, high tolerance notwithstanding, this needs to be taken care of surgically so I can continue to be active into my declining years.

Which quite frankly have felt like this summer.

Now a disclaimer…

None of this is life threatening (well, except for the blood clot), it’s just annoying and depressing. Recovery won’t be nearly as extensive since I’m not having toes pinned, etc. as I did last summer. But the bottom line is I’ll still be inactive for a longer period of time than I’d like.

Exercise makes me happy. It keeps the endorphins flowing and prevents me from being pudgier than I am.

My ‘baby’ graduates from high school in nine months, and it took me ten years to lose the worst of the baby weight.

Another disclaimer: My mother says the statute of limitations is up on that area of blame.

Exercise also gifts me with excellent cholesterol numbers, keeps me off high blood pressure medications, and staves off the diabetes which runs rampant on both sides of my family.

So…if I want to be able to keep exercising I have to take time to have surgery and recover.

Time has a way of passing quickly though.

After all, in nine months my baby graduates from high school.

Volunteerism….

I have vague memories of being a ‘Candy striper’ for a few moments in high school..or rather of the unflattering shirtdress-styled uniform. But I’m not really sure. Maybe it was my sister who was? A career in the healthcare field was never in the cards for me.

What I do have are vivid memories of my first volunteer experience at a nursing home when I was in junior high in the early 1970s. They weren’t called assisted living facilities then, and what those elderly people were doing there could hardly be called living.

In high school, I volunteered in a classroom of special needs children. Never had I considered being a teacher a career choice, either. I knew I would never have the patience to teach students with any needs, although I enjoyed my time volunteering with Special Olympics.

(Note to all my former college students: I did gain more patience by the time y’all and I were in the classroom together!)

Fast forward a few years, and my volunteer ‘career’ started in earnest: my eldest son went off to kindergarten. Oh the marvelous opportunities for mommies and daddies to be a part of the classroom experience. My first foray was to the pumpkin patch one sunny fall day to ride herd on a bunch of five and six year-olds as they selected their future Jack ‘o Lanterns with other parents.

And for the most part, for the last 17 years I feel I did contribute as a volunteer and did have my own life enriched. My favorite ‘job’ ever, paid or unpaid, was working in the North Elementary School library in Morgantown, West Virginia. My boys are nearly five years apart so I had plenty of time to spread my volunteer wings. Then-librarian Vicki Wilson remains one of my favorite people ever and that’s where I developed my adult love of young adult and middle grade books. Not to mention the joy (usually) of helping kids in a book CENTRIC environment.

Numerous highs, and the occasional lows, have occurred over the years. All the Read Aloud time in the classroom (which my husband participated in also), the homeroom parties (wrapping kids in toilet paper at Halloween to turn them into silent mummies remains one of my favorites), the middle school trip to New York City where one mom abandoned her group to go off on her own, which resulted in my group gaining one of my older son’s best friends still to this day, the list seems, well endless.

Until today.

Tonight is a sports picnic, which I’m marking as my final act ever of mom volunteerism. This year, along with a super awesome group of moms and dads, I was a ‘spirit’ mom for two sports.

Recently I finished three years of being involved with our church’s middle schoolers, two as a confirmation small group leader. I wanted to ‘pay it forward’ because we moved here when our youngest was in 8^th grade, and he received a warm welcome at this church. I had a wonderful group of girls, and the class as a whole was lively and engaging.

But it’s time to ‘retire.’ My youngest graduates from high school next year and heads to college.

I wouldn’t change anything about the experiences of the last 17 years, except maybe the accidental-crashing-glass shelves-laden-with-snow globes debacle that involved 5^th graders at a museum in Pittsburgh years ago….

Being a volunteer is not about ‘you’ (me), but I do cherish one memory above all else….

I’m in the middle of a crowded CROWDED ballroom at the student union at a university for a ‘don’t do bad things’ field trip with middle schoolers. All the schools in the county have sent their kids for this fun educational activity. The snow globes shattering woulda been preferable to this….

Somebody tells the kids to sit down for the ‘fun’ lecture so I sit down with them and look around. I’m the only adult sitting on the hard floor. So I say to no one in particular:  “Why am I the only parent sitting on the floor”?

To which one of my older son’s classmates replied “Because you care.”

I did care.

Of course there was the time as PTO co-president, I left a meeting rather than take a swing at the principal – verbally – and the counselor had to talk me off the ledge…but for the most part it’s been a great ride.

And I never lost any kids on any field trips…permanently.

This too shall pass…

… is one of the ‘mantras’ I’m trying to adopt for 2012. Another is ‘Just say no’ when you can. Lately, however, I need to admonish myself to ‘Just quit whining!’

This year I vowed to banish negativity from my life – when at all possible. Also, I promised myself this was my last year of volunteering – for anything.

The time has come.

My 21-year-old returns from studying abroad in Seoul this summer and has one more semester before graduating from college. My ‘volunteer career’ (as chronicled before here) started in a pumpkin patch when he was a kindergartner.

Another phrase I’ve embraced is ‘don’t engage’ as in when confronted by bullies, idiots, annoying people – let it go. There’s nothing rotten-to-the-core people dislike more than not having someone to spar with.

Life is simply too short to engage negative people.

But lately I feel I’m turning into a negative, whiney person and, whereas I’m not the Pollyanna my positive (and God bless him for it!) husband is… I don’t like being whiney.

Previously in this space I’ve chronicled the tale of ‘Whiney Girl Rides a Bike.”

When Erik was in first grade each night he brought home a text to read out loud to us. One story detailed the life of a cranky girl who did not like to ride her bike. It’s not quite the purple prose of the Dick and Jane years my husband and I endured (I went from Spot and Puff to Nancy Drew to J. D. Salinger and Stephen King, thank you very much). It does mimic that early reader style somewhat: “I do not like my red bike. I do not want to ride my red bike. Blah blah blah.”

You get the idea.

All three of us -- dad, mom, and first grader -- concurred this story should have been called “Whiney Girl Rides a Bike.”

We all also agreed whiney girl needed to get over it.

Me included.

Punxsutawney Phil

Groundhog Day is just around the corner, and I’ve yet to write a New Year’s post. December was all about DEADlines. The last time I blogged was on eldest son Erik’s 21^st birthday on December 21. That was right before he flew home from studying abroad in South Korea. In less than a week he leaves on the first leg of his sojourn back to Seoul for the second term.

Erik spent the better part of this afternoon putting together a schedule and registering for classes. When I couldn’t give him a definitive explanation for why a class that meets for four hours a day is worth three credit hours, he was puzzled. After all I spent years teaching and advising at the university level.

I told him to ask his father.

Tonight his 16-year-old brother, Andrew, was looking at the general studies requirements for the major he’s interested in at the local university father teaches at.

This one knows better than to ask me questions on matters of academics, although in a previous ‘life’ I did have a few answers.

I don’t miss teaching and I really REALLY don’t miss advising, although I do still miss many of my students.

More than a few are parents themselves now, which kind of makes me feel like an honorary – aunt. Surely you didn’t think I was going to use the ‘G’ word?

I know all the rhetoric about age being a state of mind, you’re only as young as you feel, etc. but I ain’t buying it. When I was pregnant with Andrew, I was classified as being of ‘advanced maternal age.’ I was pushing 36.

Never, ever do I get baby fever…not even puppy fever. This morning Erik laid out the classifieds from the Omaha newspaper and circled the ad for the $500 Labradoodles (I have allergies). This same Erik is leaving the country for five more months then will finish up college and then venture out for parts known or unknown. No puppy passports right now. I told him if his father, who periodically lobbies for a dog, gives up his motorcycle I’d be happy to get us all a puppy.

No takers.

Last weekend, though, a strange thing happened. Nostalgia for the baby years sideswiped me. Even though I had babies, I’m not a baby person. My husband is wonderful with babies, I’m skittish. I went to a couples baby shower for a delightful woman in my book group. The event was for two couples; the other mom-to-be was Erik’s children’s literature teacher last year and his minor advisor. She’s sweet and smart, and watching the joy on her husband’s face as he took his turn opening presents was worth the price of admission.

I, however, spent the rest of the weekend morbidly depressed. Former students having babies are one thing, former professors of my own son having first babies?

Intellectually I know my husband got his first assistant professor position at the tender age of 27, but were we ever really that young?

Over the years I’ve been to and hosted a multitude of baby showers – and never felt the urge to return to those rewarding exhausting times.

But for a fleeting moment on a mild January afternoon, I was transported back to those days of diapers (and diaper rash), onesies, and fleece.

The trip didn’t last very long. And for my children the adventure is just beginning.

But just to be on the safe side, I recycled the classifieds.

The Ghosts of Halloweens Past….

It comes up every year at this time: the accusations, the recriminations, the denials. My younger son and I will start reminiscing about Halloweens past, and my husband will invariably start pouting about the year we ditched him. Said son and I always turn the tables and blame dad for being left behind, but it’s time to come clean.

We ditched him.

On Halloween younger son and his twin pals would take turns trick-or-treating in our oh-so-hilly neighborhood or their flat but spread out one.

The incident in question happened a year the boys headed out armed with pillowcases in our neighborhood, aptly named North HILLS. Husband and I followed at a discreet distance, saving our lungs for the long hauls up and down the streets.

The ‘gold at the end of the rainbow’ was a huge Victorian manse tucked away at the very bottom of the biggest hill. It was the ultimate Halloween destination, lit up with strings of lights, illuminated bats, cats, and assorted monsters. The owners were also legendary for handing out GIANT Hershey bars, the kind you buy only if you’re making S’mores for Bigfoot and his crowd.

The boys made quick work of the streets surrounding our house then were ready to head down the hills to the mother lode. It should be noted, our sprawling university town had set hours for trick or treating…after that the little munchkins (and Buzz Light Years and princesses and Spider Men) had to be off the streets. The college students would be heading out a few hours later for their version of trick or treating, but that’s another scary tale.

At a house just before the big descent to the big candy bars, we got held up. Dad started talking motorcycles with the homeowner and talking and talking and… Three eager boys and antsy mom me stood at the end of the long driveway waiting and waiting and… bolted.

Dad was on his own… curfew was a comin’.

Over hill and dale (and fence) we tromped until we reached our destination. It was a long trudge back up the hills to reach home. The big candy bars were forgotten as the boys participated in the annual ritual of candy swapping and scattering.

Yep, we ditched him. And if we had to do it over again, we’d do the same thing. No time for idle chatter when the treat is giant candy bars and the trick is growing up.

Back to school

On Sunday night I started writing a ‘back to school’ blog post – which I’ve yet to post let alone finish.

With my younger son entering his next-to-last year of high school and the older one heading to South Korea soon to study before his final semester of college, writing about ‘holding on and letting go’ seems apropos.

After all, Erik was only 16 – the age Andrew is now – when he sojourned to Germany on a foreign exchange student program.

It’s hard to believe it was only four years ago we dropped Erik off at an elegant Washington, DC hotel after touring the Lincoln Memorial, the then-new World War II memorial, and ‘the Wall.’

I probably fled that hotel as fast as earthquake evacuees did from various buildings yesterday, wanting to be back in the car before the flood of tears began.

Today my niece Kasey, Erik’s birthday twin, started kindergarten. On Erik’s first day of kindergarten, I put him on the bus without shedding a tear. Ditto Andrew, who this year drives to school. Sometimes I miss Crazy Louie, the bus driver who scrawled my phone number next to his seat so he could call me if he couldn’t get up our hill in snowy, icy West Virginia winters. When that happened I led the children at the bus stop down the street to be picked up.

Early Monday morning when we drop Erik at the airport for the first leg of his journey, I don’t think I’ll cry. When he graduates from college, I probably will. And when commencement rolls around for Andrew, no doubt I’ll bawl like a baby.

But I won’t be crying because we failed in our job as parents: to hold on as tight as we can then let them go.