catalogue of abominations

I have so many things bouncing around in my brain that are begging to be blogged. But, alas, I have not been able to blog this past week. At the end of the day, I am just. too. tired. And in the day I am trying to be really good about using time, and OH what uses I have for it!

When we came back from our trip, the house was cold, clammy, and musty, after being unused for a month. Everything needed to be cleaned, even though we had left it pretty clean. The high level of moisture here makes an excellent breeding ground for mold and mildew in the summer when we don't routinely make fires, and this is house spider season, and we have moths really bad this summer and I can't figure out where they are all coming from (i.e. what of my linens or sweaters they are eating!), and we brought some things home with us from the trip but could not put them away without rearranging the contents of cupboards, hampers, etc. and so I decided this was a good time to sort and purge, but once you go through one area, pulling everything out and cleaning and sorting it, invariably to put things away in their ideal places you have to pull everything out from and clean and sort in THOSE spaces. . . until you have one big mess of piles and tubs everywhere and can't even sweep the floor for all the stuff everywhere and the stress level goes up and unwashed dishes start to accummulate in the kitchen because you are desperately sorting and cleaning hampers and trunks when you should be doing the normal house upkeep and feeding your children and feeding yourself and the low blood sugar does not help, but the new tasty barbeque joint on the corner does, and the back deck is covered in tubs pulled out from the underbelly of the house so the kids can't even play there and it has been two weeks of this complete upheaval and how many MORE spaces to sort and clean do I have in this dinky house anyway?!!

what started, and what feeds, the mayhem:
--massive moth damage on a sweater my sister Rebecca knitted for me before I was married, which had been stored in what I thought was a cedar trunk. : (
--mildew covering the bottom of the same trunk, which has permeated the particle board and so will come back eventually even if cleaned well now. out with the trunk! (now where to put the rest of the things that used to reside here? . . . )
--the moths, which I have started killing between my bare hands, that is how calloused I am to them and how glad I am to be rid of one more (I have been a catch and release kinda gal my whole life, but being loathe to kill has become loathing of another, more deadly kind)
--the huge wolf spider that was lurking on the ceiling of the girl's closet, definitely vacuum worthy
--the black metal bracelets from India that my mom passed on to me when I was in hs or college now corroded by a strange powdery film that did not wash off
--also found in my "jewelry box" (really more of a little dresser styled after a Chinese apocathary chest with lots of little drawers and one small cupboard, which resides in the bathroom because there is no other place for it): the adorable baked dough painted Christmas ornaments my sister's kids made for us last year, which had absorbed so much moisture they were sickly soft. : (
--At least now I know what those tiny white bugs in the bathroom were living on. (gross!)
--the green mold growing on the outside of the new bag of flour in the kitchen cupboard
--at least now I know what those tiny white bugs in the kitchen cupboard were living on (gross!!)
--the sour bedding smell on all our bedding that I *just* washed but needs it again
--the stale, mildewy smell on all the clothes, blankets, etc. that have been in storage that I have been washing and airing out
--the black mildew that grew on our baby playgym while we were gone, because it was lying flat on the hardwood floor and I guess trapped moisture and dust, which are an evil combination. it is clean now, but permanently disgusting looking. luckily there is freecycle--it already has a taker!
--the white mold film growing all over the walls, esp. in the kitchen
--the kitchen curtains, which are not only rust stained (from the rusting iron windows) and food stained (from children sitting at the dinner table) but I realized are now mildew stained. D does not know it yet, but they are SO gone. . . .

The day I found the moth damage in that trunk and began the ransacking, I could not help but have the words of Jesus over and over in my mind: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal, For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19-21) Fitting, eh? So the more corruption I found as I looked, the more of a life lesson I took in (and shared with the girls too).

And the best part of all this: D has gotten the purging bug (literally! ha ha) and is finally letting me release to the world things we have been holding onto but not using ever since we moved from CO. Nice stuff we bought for our house there in the Springs, Pottery Barn stuff, stuff that we still like but bought before we had kids (dry clean only, never again!) and will likely not use again, or at least for so long that they will probably be ruined in the wait. Freedom! So, out it goes! I am being brutal, inspired by my friend Sara's recently walking away from almost everything her family owned after the apartment building they lived in became infested by roaches (which can travel with you to your new bug free home). Anything broken, anything ugly, anything saved for "just in case someday." And D's mom and cousin actually gave me permission to pass on the girl clothes that B has outgrown! Yahoo!

It feels so good. And so, out of ruination comes release; from burden comes blessing.

But first, a whole heck of a lot of cleaning. . .

best of the blogsphere

Rosa, thank you. I needed that.

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

People who don't read blogs are missing out.

thank you, mom and dad

My roadtrip blogging would not be complete without a big thank you to my parents, without whom the roadtrip back home would not have been possible. We love you!

one more

ok, so i came across this one just now, and realized it was just a perfect roadtrip moment that i lived over and over--and i thought you might like it too. : ) the hotel, our last night, in Reno.

roadtrip humor

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20090610.gif

take the long way home: the roadtrip video wrap-up

After DeSmet, SD, we went on to Mt. Rushmore (the first place on the entire trip that was actually crowded! Who knew?!), then Custer St. Park, then Devil's Tower, and finally Yellowstone. But instead of posting a lot of photos of flora, fauna, water and rock, I will leave you with a series of short videos that sum up the rest of the trip. They are terrible quality, so only watch them if you want to experience my life for the end of the trip. They really do sum it up.

First up, a whole lot of nothing in South Dakota. (Rosa, this one is for you--when I called you out of desperate sleepiness and lonliness and promised I would post pics of exactly where I was when I called.) Miles and miles of almost no signs of man, but the scent of yellow sweet clover filled the car as we drove by. Please forgive how the camera kept losing its focus, and instead marvel at how steady I was holding the camera. Think about it.

Bison at Custer State Park. This was the one time we were all in the same car--and after being squashed by carseats in the far back and being carsick for a couple of hours, I did not mind so much being the lone driver of our car the rest of the trip. ; )

One of the many cool features at Yellowstone, and us. This also is notable as the last record of mom's favorite hat before it blew off her head later that day to lie forlorn and abject at the edge of a magnificent blue mineral hot spring, tantilizingly close, but just out of reach of the ranger's retrieving tool. I am sure it will live forever in our memories, and in the photos of tourists from all over the world who will one day admire their photo, then suddenly squint and lean in saying, "What the heck is that?!"

Our last hotel room, in Reno, the last night on the road.

Little Girls on the Prairie

After leaving Iowa, we headed to that much-anticipated destination, the Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead living museum and DeSmet, the "Little Town on the Prairie." These photos cannot really convey the peaceful, sun and breeze washed day at the living museum, but they will demonstrate some of the delightful hands-on activities that helped bring the "Little House" books alive in our minds.

The recreated homestead, built to the specifications given in the books. We felt quite at home there.

B play cooking on Ma's stove (ok, not the original but one Just Like It.) In the sitting room they also have a real working organ Just Like Mary's, and they do not mind children playing it!

Doing laundry out back of the house.

Everyone piled into a horse-drawn covered wagon for a ride out to a period one-room schoolhouse Just Like the one Laura went to school in, and later taught in. And the young woman in charge of the tour made sure each of the kids in the wagon had a turn driving the team!

In one of the barns you could do all kinds of fun things, like use old-fashioned shucking tools to strip the dried kernels of corn from cobs and then make corn cob doll, Just Like Laura's!

Making rope

What historical re-creation of the Laura Ingalls stories would be complete without taking a hand at grinding wheat in a hand-cranked coffee grinder a la The Long Winter?

The sweetest miniature pony

I highly recommend the experience to anyone who happens to be passing that way.

(Willow, please feel free to comment on your own experience there this Spring, and share pics if that is possible!)

Iowa, Pt. 2: The Grotto of the Redemption

Cousin Margot also took us to visit a highly surprising and amazing West Bend tourist attraction, The Grotto of the Redemption. I took lots of pictures, because it is almost not explainable--but imagine a large multi-level "garden" with walkways and rooms all filled with beautiful statues depicting the life and ministry and death of Jesus Christ, including the 14 Stations of the Cross, all encrusted--every last inch, save the statuary--with semi-precious rocks, minerals, crystals, geodes, petrified wood, I even saw a stalagmite. I heard that faithful Catholics (who knows, maybe even more than a few Protestants) from all over the world sent stones and decorative bits for the Grotto. Work on the Grotto was begun in 1912, and different sections of it were completed in different later decades.

A corridor of pillars, I think representing the Stations of the Cross (I was chasing children at this point and could not linger past taking the photo)

The other side of the same corridor, showing the detail of the pillars.

Adam, being cast out of Eden

Eve also being cast out of Eden, (Adam is to the right, off camera) by the Angel of The Lord. The statuary was really breathtaking--my photos cannot do them justice. You gotta love the loudspeaker thrust into this poignant tableau. And is it coincidence or mastery of the subliminal that makes it appear as if both Eve and Adam are about to be devoured by demonic rock mouths?


The most beautiful statue in the Grotto, of Jesus' body being laid in the tomb.


Still, this was my favorite statue.

M and G amidst the crustations.



An unexpected room: the home life of the Holy family. Mary is shown with a mortar and pestle. This is by far the most unexalted and human portrayal of Mary I have ever seen in a Catholic setting, and I was touched in a new way by thinking of her cooking in a tiny, crude kitchen. Inspired, actually.

Jesus, the homeschooler


Another very human depiction of Joseph. I love how each of the Holy Family is holding a symbol of their daily work. Such a small but purposeful detail gives lends so much meaning to the statues.

Set here and there amidst the profusion of rock were carefully set "bouquets." I don't know what else to call them--some were rosettes, like the one pictured above, some surprising and lovely groupings like the one below. They were all gorgeous, and helped give sections of the walls focus and drama. And helped the viewer re-appreciate the individual God-made materials of which the Grotto was formed--and the individual hands that placed them with such love and artistry.






Artful arrangement of beautiful sections of petrified wood.

As we walked through grotto after grotto and the first thrill of wonderment wore off, I started to think about all the money and labor involved, which seemed a waste--did God desire them to do this with so much of His resources?--and my eyes and brain were so oversaturated with texture and color that all the beauty of the rocks became tiresome and even gaudy. The predominant color of the Grotto, besides brown, is, surprisingly, pink. Borderline cheesy meditative instrumental music (I think they were going for angels and awe--I seem to recall lots of harps playing) follows you everywhere from loudspeakers that are wincingly hard to hide. My arms were going to break from carrying E around (steps and strollers not mixing--the Grotto was clearly built before accessibility laws came into effect) and I was letting myself entertain thoughts about how stereotypically Americans, and Christians in general, and Evangelicals in particular, have such monumentally bad taste and definitely run too easily into tacky excess. How I am uncomfortable with non-Christians seeing something like the Grotto and thinking it represents the values and taste of all Christians, and specifically me. (C'mon, esp. those of us who go to Vintage Faith church clearly have "hip" awareness and are probably much more comfortable with non-believers seeing us there than linking us with, say, a small congregation of overweight, Wal-Mart apparelled, bland-faced middle-Americans. I've been to churches like that in Indiana, and while I trust God was at work in them, I had no desire to visit twice.)

I am being vulnerable here, because clearly the "problem" with the Indiana churches or the Grotto lay not with them, but with me. I am judgmental at times in most unattractive ways, but luckily God does not let me get away with such thoughts unchecked. For as we finished our wanderings in the Grotto, we ended up in front of a sign that read:

And I was completely, immediately, humbled. The sign, installed by the modern Catholics who maintain the Grotto and worship in the church next door, modestly but firmly takes the focus off the amazingness of the Grotto and puts it back on God. I repented of my negative thoughts and judging the hearts and motives of the people who built the Grotto, who operate it, who visit it. Would that when God looks into my heart, he sees a space for Himself as beautiful as the Grotto. As carefully fashioned with years and years of dedicated, joyful labor. So abundant with the tangible manifestations of God's handiwork, that all who come in contact with it are dazzled with beauty and filled with awe.

Further chastisement came when I started this blog entry the other day and visited the Grotto's website to read its history. I am clearly not the only visitor of the Grotto who has wondered at the cost of its making, for the website addressed this issue with a response that, again, places the whole human endeavor within the context of hearts in tune to God:
"No accounting was made either of the many man-hours of labor involved in building the Grotto or the money expended in gathering the stones and shaping them into a harmonious unit. This is perhaps because Father Dobberstein wanted the cost to be known to God alone."*

Looking back over this entry, I can see how much I overused the words "surprising," "beautiful," "unexpected"--but this is the truth of the whole Grotto of the Redemption experience. Moving through it, and processing all the different thoughts and feelings that came to me, left me a different person than when I went in. So while on one hand it was a gaudy pile of rocks, on the other hand, it was a truly spiritual experience. Thank you for joining me on the tour of both!



*http://www.westbendgrotto.com/

from Cousin Margot's recipe file: Wilted Lettuce Salad

Fill large bowl with washed and torn leaf lettuce.

Sprinkle with salt, and spoon over with sugar.

Then in a small saucepan, cook chopped bacon and diced onion. When done, add vinegar, about 1/2 cup. (Add a little water if it is too tart)

Bring to a boil, then pour over lettuce and mix well, immediately.

Serve.

Alterate way of serving wilted lettuce:

Heat half-n-half and sugar in saucepan. When hot but not boiling, pour over lettuce and mix well, immediately.

from Cousin Margot's recipe file: Easy Cake

Take any cake mix.

Mix with one 12 oz can of pop* **.

For chocolate cake, use 7up.
For lemon cake, use Diet Mountain Dew.

Cook according to directions.

For chocolate cake topping, mix 1 package instant vanilla pudding, 3/4 cup milk and 1 container Cool Whip. Spread liberally.


*pop being the midwestern term for soda.
**that's right, no eggs, milk or oil. just pop.

from Cousin Margot's recipe files: Rhubarb Swirl Dessert

3-4 cups rhubarb, diced
3/4 cup sugar
1 (3 oz) pkg strawberry jello
1 (3.5 oz) pkg instant vanilla pudding
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 tsp. vanilla
8 oz Cool Whip

Mix rhubarb and sugar. Let stand for one hour. Place in a saucepan and simmer over low heat until tender (10-15 minutes). Stir in jello until dissolved. Cool until syrupy. Prepare pudding with milk and vanilla. When thick, add Cool Whip. Pour rhubarb mixture into pudding mixture and lightly swirl. Pour into graham cracker crust and refrigerate overnight. Double recipe for 9 x 13 pan.

Graham Cracker Crust:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs

1/3 cup melted butter

1/3 cup sugar

Mix ingredients, pat into pie pan, and bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Iowa, Pt. 1: Cousin Margot of West Bend

Upon leaving Illinois, we drove up to visit my mom's cousin Margot. She lives in an old farmhouse two miles out from the town of West Bend, population 834 at the time of the 2000 census. Cousin Margot was very matter-of-factly pleasant in manner, and was overwhelmingly hospitable with her time and her table.

One day she drove us over to town to pick up the keys to the local museum and gave us a private history tour, which also included the old one-room schoolhouse and ity-bity original post office and the historically-built pioneer sod house seen above, complete with native prairie grass.

Cousin Margot giving the history lesson. The intense mannequin is modeling the actual outfit worn by the last schoolteacher on the last day the school was open (I don't remember the actual year the schoolhouse closed, but it was not as far back as you would think--the 30's or 40's perhaps).

The view from the teacher's desk. Note the bonnets hanging in the back, ready for when the students leave--and the communal water pail and dipper on the table at the right.

Then Cousin Margot took us downtown to the soda parlor/gift shop for refreshing, old-fashioned ice cream cones, malts and root-beer floats. The only flavor of ice-cream on hand--the only one needed--was of course vanilla.

Actually, during our two day visit, much of my attention was fixed on gastronomic delights. Even with all the fun and interesting things we did and saw while there, Cousin Margot's homecooked Iowan food was the most fascinating and memorable experience for me. In a very, very good way. Our first dinner there the table was loaded with dishes, no less than three of them involving bacon, including the vegetable and lettuce salad. In fact, bacon and white sugar played a very large role in every meal we had at Cousin Margot's table. Fittingly, I ate like a pig, and would have needed larger pants if we had stayed any longer.

Two words: Butter Braid

Cousin Margot's Green Salad.

This colorful gelatin salad comes with a funny vignette. At lunch when this was served, G ate a good meal of everything put before her, and was eagerly anticipating a lot of dessert in reward. Cousin Margot was offering a rhubarb ice-box dessert, chocolate cake, cookies, and two kinds of ice cream. I told G she could choose two. She thought about her options, and then slyly asked me if she could have some of the gelatin dish in addition to her two chosen desserts. I laughed and said no, that she had to limit herself to two desserts. Cousin Margot looked at me strangely and corrected me, saying, "It's not dessert, it's salad."

Recipes, much anticipated, I am sure, to follow.

Butter braid photo from West Bend own butterbraid.com

the gallery. . . in the garbage

Every time I go home to my parents' house in Illinois, I try to go through the closets, attic, basement to see what remnants of youth might still be lingering unbidden. With that wonderful walk-up attic, there is plenty of storage, so my parents have been generous about letting me and my sisters hang on to things. . . but they are also thrilled when we clean things out. Usually they have urged me to take whatever childhood things I would like for our family, so on previous visits I brought home vintage Fisher Price toys (the castle! the A-frame! the yacht!) and books (The Fourteen Bears Summer and Winter! Gyo Fugikawa's Busy Day!).

This time I finally dug out the four huge paintings I made for a watercolor class my sophmore year of college. I took pics, and then folded them and trashed them. I don't regret finally throwing them away, since they are not all that great. But each of them had one feature I thought I did well, for my first painting class. And since I have not painted since then, getting them out to look every few years when I would visit home and admiring that one touch of artistic value in each made me feel a sense of accomplishment. Of course secretly I wish I was a really good artist. I am not, but have my moments in which I can pretend.

And since this is my blog, I'll finally get that exhibit of which I have always dreamed. ; )

watercolor lends itself so well to imitating stained glass! I was astounded to find a matte board of the exact same shade as in my painting, but in retrospect should have gone with basic black--the resulting color effect is too grandma, too motel art. Still, for my very first watercolor painting ever, made up in my own mind, not bad.

This painting is of an image I tore out of a woman's fashion magazine, like Vogue. I thought it looked cool, and I was actually proud of the way I was able to reproduce the sheen of the hosiery. My instructor was not as impressed.

My roommate took a pic of my back and I used that as the model. I tried to use colored pencil along with the watercolor, to give an "old" texture to the skin and hair, but it did not turn out great. I liked how the hair turned out, though.



my final piece, which earned me an "A." It looks much better in person. The instructor praised me for my use of gesso (can be used to thicken the paint and give texture and depth) in this work, but, actually I just painted the whole thing using watercolor paint straight out of the tube.

Illinois

At the Abraham Lincoln museum in Springfield, IL.

If you are ever in that neck of the cornfields, you MUST go visit--the most amazing, interactive, technologically artistic museum I have ever experienced. Highly educational, very powerful, even for the young kids.

One of the highlights for the girls was ending the museum tour at Mrs. Lincoln's Attic, a large room with many different kinds of old-fashioned toys, a historically-correct play kitchen, a large wooden dollhouse with child-friendly furnishings and farm animals, even historical dress up! We could have spent several hours in that one room alone.

G as Abe Lincoln

Back at my parent's home, we made a trip out to the farm where my dad (a retired biology teacher) works much of the year.

There is dad and his farmer friend. . . and Ferdinand sitting just quietly and smelling the flowers.



Happiness to my girls is a field full of flowers that nobody minds them picking.








Have I ever mentioned that I love old barns?

I wrote some in an earlier post about the idyllic stay we had in my parents' home, my childhood home from third grade on. I tried to capture some of the special feel of the neighborhood and the house, but am not a good enough photographer. But these will at least give you an idea of my physical roots, and hopefully convey the tranquility I feel when we are there.