Things I've Accomplished Today

Ate half my breakfast
Remembered to take my prescriptions
Turned off the alarm that I've set to tell me to take my prescriptions
Received a box for The Herdsman with a sock monkey inside (thank you, cousin K!)
Washed down my bedroom wall to rid it of pee
Changed someone's wet outfit...including a slightly damp hat
Pulled laundry out of the dryer from yesterday
Folded laundry I pulled out of the dryer three days ago
Thought about making myself a cup of tea
Found my camera...just in time to take smiling crying pictures during tummy time
Strapped The Herdsman into his car seat without waking him up
Read three chapters of Mockingjay while rocking back and forth
Read part of a fourth chapter out loud to a small but captive audience
Competed in a staring contest...and lost
Put The Herdsman's socks on...eight times
Written this blog post with one hand

So when I see a beautiful photo of my cousin R with her new little one (The Herdsman looks forward to playing with you, Little D!), I'll admit the first thing I thought was "Hey, R got to take a shower today!"

Tea for Fourteen

My mom visited last week and we decided to finally get the china out of storage and display it in our new china hutch. While we bought the hutch over a month ago, I hadn't quite gotten around to this step. That said, we only recently put the final touches on the new/old hutch as it needed a bit of work when we brought it home. 

We knew one of the doors rubbed a little, but upon further investigation the problem was more than just planing off the bottom millimeter of the door. We found a cracked middle support and the entire bottom of the hutch wasn't quite square. The Farmer couldn't quite figure out what had happened to it to create these issues until he recalled his days as a three-year-old climber. Yep...the bottom doors had been used as a stepstool from a youngster in previous days. So we took the back off. We re-squared it. We re-nailed it. We re-glued it. We added in another support in the middle. And we did plane off a millimeter from the bottom of the offending door.

And by "we" I mean The Farmer. I just held things. 

By the time we finished the hutch my mom was visiting in two weeks so I just waited for her to help me figure out what to do. Because, well, I have just a few pieces of china...

Disclaimer: Images may appear larger than in real life, but they really are this large.

Let me explain the drama around the "family" china.

My mother is the keeper of the actual "family" china. It is a cream design with raised scalloped edges and was a part of her father's family. Quite pretty. My mother remembers them from when she was little.

Until...

My great-aunt Jean visited from Texas one summer and she and my grandmother, Lottie, got into some sort of argument. My mother doesn't know what the argument was about - my grandmother never spoke of it. But the result was all the china was packed up and shipped to Texas. My grandmother wouldn't speak of the incident and no one was allowed to mention it. So the family china that was used for special occasions disappeared from the house until aunt Jean died and the china was shipped back.

It was stored in the back attic and never touched again.*

So where did this china come from? 

My grandmother bought it at an estate sale in the 1980s when she was in Arizona visiting her sister for the winter. 

I remember when this happened. Grandma made a big deal about it. While they were special dishes she didn't preclude anyone from using them on those special occasions. So yes, while I was merely a pre-teen I got to use the fancy plates. How fun!

She wanted them to be used, and while she knew she had 11 grandchildren (and a number of adult children) that might break them she wanted to enjoy them. So my grandmother declared that the first person who broke an item would inherit the china; an exciting yet scary proposition. You didn't want to be the first one.

My cousin Angie dropped the gravy boat the first celebration we used them. 

She inherited the lot. 

It was one of the few items specifically spelled out in my grandmother's will. 

Now the original set my grandmother purchased at that estate sale was not as large as what I have now inherited from Angie, courtesy of her daughter, Jennifer. 

But when Angie inherited the dish set it was missing a gravy boat and this was just around the time eBay started to emerge. And a lot of people were selling their gravy boats online.

The end result was a few more items that just a single gravy boat were purchased. 

Such as two gravy boats. (Just in case.)

So last week my mom and I unpacked:

41 dinner plates

26 salad plates

46 dessert plates

34 saucers

27 dessert bowls

17 large bowls

19 coffee cups

14 tea cups

2 butter dishes

3 covered dishes (1 slightly broken)

5 serving bowls

3 large platters

3 small platters

1 oval serving bowl

2 gravy boats

1 salt/pepper shaker set

2 sugar bowls

2 creamers

1 set of candlestick holders

and 

1 dinner bell

Lest you think I am greedy I decided to keep a reasonable number of these items as my china and the rest was packed up to be given back - as single items or in small sets - to family members. 

But thank goodness my mom was here because who knows how to arrange 27 dessert bowls in a china hutch?

My mom does.

So here's to you, grandma Lottie...

We're even using the correct cups.

And here's to you, dear cousin Angie.

We'll use the gravy boat and think of you every time.

*The mysterious argument was confirmed when my mom found the china in the attic after my grandma passed away. The boxes of china were all marked in my grandpa's handwriting, which was odd as they were the only items in the entire attic in his writing. And...all the dinner plates were missing. Hmm. I like to think those dinner plates never made it to Texas. 

Happy Turkey Birthday

The problem with a four-month hiatus from your blog is you have a lot to catch up on. I realize I could just start from today and move forward, but then you'd miss out on all the excitement of the last few months. I mean, don't you want to know why we didn't have water for six weeks and about the 35 gallons of paint?!?!? I know I would...

So what do you write about today? Versus tomorrow?

I decided since today is the start of the countdown to my birthday I'd update you on that. What? A countdown to my birthday? Yep...I turn 30-something 11 months from today. I think that counts as a countdown.

At least my sister E, when she was about 12, thought the day of each month counted. She wrote on every "18" on my mother's calendar a reminder that her birthday was 8 months away...7 months away...6 months away...1 month away. So Mamacita...put it on your calendar...my birthday is in 11 months from today!

My birthday is the week before Thanksgiving, which was a travesty when I was little. My sister's birthdays were both close to Valentine's Day, so they had pink and purple and sparkly stuff in the stores around their birthdays. Me? Ucky yellows and browns and silly Pilgrim hats. (This was before stores decided the Christmas decor needed to come out mid-summer.)

Ironically, Thanksgiving is now my favorite holiday and I like oranges and yellows and all those fall colors. And since I got the turkey platter (more on that in another post) Thanksgiving is at my house. We split up the holidays and Turkey Day is all mine.

So this year my family descended on The Farm to eat up a 22 pound turkey, stuffing, pie, and turkey birthday cake.

What? You don't have turkey birthday cake during your Thanksgiving meal?

I mean, how could you pass up this?

Now how to explain...

So when I was little I promise I had my own birthday party. Good ones. Great ones. We're talking Willie Wonka parties complete with chocolate cake for breakfast while dressed up as Oompa Loompas. 

But when I got older and moved out of the house, my birthday sorta merged with Thanksgiving. Now on one hand a party is a party, and to pair my birthday with turkey and mashed potatoes seems like a pretty good deal. But it also brought up those memories of Thanksgiving birthdays of my childhood where all I wanted was sparkly pink hearts and all I got was pumpkins and gourds in that horned shell thing-y. I mean who wants to dress up like a Pilgrim in 3rd grade and make butter by shaking a baby food jar when your sisters get to make Valentine's mailboxes to hang on your chair around THEIR birthdays.

I'm not jealous or bitter. Really.

So...turkey birthday cake.

A few years ago my sister E decided to turn the tables on the whole thing and she made me a birthday cake shaped like a turkey. Her children, L and K, were so excited about the cake; I remember there was lots of jumping around. They couldn't wait to show me. 

And now, five of six years later, the tradition is that I get a turkey cake for my birthday. It makes me smile just thinking about it. Because who wants a plain ol' cake when you can get a TURKEY CAKE?!?!??! 

In case The Farmer is reading this, please note that I loved my lemon cupcakes you got me on my birthday...special order!

Every year we've had a different cake for the celebration and this year...cake pops! Yep...those things that seem to be everywhere now. My sister M made them for my nephew's birthday and they figured out how to make turkey cake pops. 

And as usual, the process was the most amusing.

Exhibit #1: M brought along the cake pop decorating book, but didn't realize it didn't have a cake pop recipe in it. What sort of cookbook is that?!?!? It just kept referring to the "basic cake pop recipe". 

Very helpful, Ms. Cookbook.

So she sat there on her iPhone trying to find a recipe that looked familiar. 

Meanwhile, Mamacita started mixing things up.

With my hand blender. 

I do have an actual stand mixer, in case you were wondering. 

After we found a recipe that seemed reasonable, nephew M2 had to taste the batter.

Yes, I know you shouldn't eat the batter. 

But I know you eat it too. 

To make these turkey cake pops you frosted the cake pop, then added fall candy corn for the feathers in the back, a tip of candy corn for the beak, and a piece of Swedish fish for the waddle. And don't ask me where E finds things like candy eyeballs, but she does. 

Of course quality control can be questionable at best.

And when you are three and you lose your cake pop off your stick...

...it looks like this.

And the claws...with a pout...come out.

Don't you wish your birthday was a week before Thanksgiving?