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Sweet Potato Casserole

This is a recipe that my mother and my grandmother both like to make on Thanksgiving and Christmas. At some point I took it over as the dish I make for family gatherings during the holidays. I’m not sure where it originated, but it’s one of my favorite holiday recipes. It is written in the back of a cookbook that I will not be taking with me in the divorce so I am recording it here.

Ingredients

  • 4 large sweet potatoes, boiled and mashed (approx. 3 cups cooked)
  • 1/2 c. sugar
  • 1/2 c. oil
  • 2 eggs (beaten)
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/3 c. milk

Topping

  • 1/3 c. butter (melted)
  • 1 c. brown sugar
  • 1/2 c. pecans
  • 1/2 c. flour
  • 1 tsp cinnamon

Mix together all the main ingredients and spread evenly in an 11″ x 8″ baking dish.

Mix topping ingredients and spread evenly over main ingredients. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

I like to make this the day before and then reheat it prior to serving. Also, I’m pretty sure I use more cinnamon in the topping and I probably use a little pumpkin pie spice in the main ingredients.

Yum.

Percy Jackson Movie

Last year my boys and I started reading the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan. My boys and I love these books. If you have boys (or girls for that matter) ages 7-107 or you yourself love a good read that ties in Greek Mythology with the modern day world, then I highly recommend them to you. In fact, no one that I have recommended them too has been disappointed.

We just finished The Last Olympian which may or may not be the final book in the series and I was actually bummed to think there might not be any more. Much like Harry Potter, I am not really done with these characters. I want to know what happens next and I don’t want to leave it up to my imagination.

So you can imagine my delight when I learned of the making of the movie of the first book in the series, The Lightning Thief. In fact, it was my 7 year old who informed me that he saw the trailer for it when he went to see G-Force. Um, okay, well, I’m glad I missed G-Force (even though Liam loved it) but I’m bummed I didn’t see this on the big screen for the first time. In any event, I will now share it with you here on the small screen. (Thanks to Joey, I found a 2nd trailer with a bit more meat, also below.)

Don’t make any plans for February 12. We’d love for you to join us on opening day for The Lightning Thief.

Cyber stalking and harassment

There’s a part of my divorce that is getting ugly and out of hand. And it has nothing to do with my husband. It’s a third party person who has taken up the cause of maligning and harassing me. So far I have received his vitriolic messages through Facebook and in the comments here on my blog. He has told me it won’t stop coming, even instructed me to “Change Your Email Address,” and to me that sounds like a threat, so I’ve started researching cyber harassment laws. Wow, there are quite a few. This will be in the top five agenda items when I talk with my legal counsel later this week. In the meantime, if you are feeling threatened or harassed, here are a couple of resources. Also, I’ve had to disable commenting for a while.

National Conference on State Legislation

Cyberbullying

The lowest of the low

Today was an indescribable day.

The sun was shining.

It was not only warm, but hot.

It was cool in the house.

The boys were happy.

The world was spinning.

The birds were chirping.

And me?

I cried.

All day long.

I cried before I made breakfast and a little while I ate.

I cried later after I had done the laundry and mowed the lawn.

I cried on the phone while I talked to you.

And to you.

I cried while I replied to your email.

I looked at the books on top of the cabinets and I cried.

I know I didn’t cry yesterday.

I’m not sure if I will cry tomorrow or not.

At some point in this madness that I am author to, I just have to give myself permission to cry.

To feel really, anything but complacency.

I have shut down my feeling of anything for so long.

Seven weeks ago now it has been since I opened the faucet to the well of feeling.

My feeling.

Not yours.

Or yours.

I have always been tied to and felt responsible for theirs.

But mine I didn’t allow.

Occasionally it bubbled.

But I held it down fast, tightened the ropes, and stifled its call.

Now it is unleashed.

Today, it wanted to cry.

It being me.

And so I cried.

So long summer!

First day of school. Ah….

first day 2nd and 4th grade

Taking me out for a spin (aka With all due respect, part 2)

My trip to Chicago last month for BlogHer was very surreal. I bought my ticket and after that relied heavily on the wonderful women who I happened to end up riding with, sleeping with, sitting next to in sessions, or drinking with on the first and last nights of the whole show (that would be you Tara). Anne-Marie kept my out of the loop self in the loop about the carpool, Lotus handled the logistics of the room and Tara provided me much needed comic relief and friendship when I was most needing it.

One thing I did at the 11th hour was start thinking about the parties. There were so many of them. I think I RSVPd for 2 or 3. I was overcome with the emotions of the experience of the conference on top of my personal life drama and so most of the parties I skipped. I never made it to the Shutter Sisters Suite so I never got to tell Jen Lemen how much I love her work nor did I get the opportunity to say hi to Karen Walrond and tell her how much I love her work (even though I saw her out and about in the conference and even rode on opposite sides of a crowded elevator once, I determined it would be inappropriate to begin that dialogue in the elevator. My shyness got the better of me. What can I say?) I also missed the MamaPop party which I vow to never ever let happen again. If ever there were a room of kindred spirits (which I discovered through sitting in many a session with many of the MamaPop crew either leading the discussion or sitting in the crowd) these just felt like my people. You know?

But on the first night, I was aware of and somehow made it to the GM party with my new friend and fellow car-pooler Becky. We walked across the street to the Irish pub. We ate some pub grub. It was yummy and just what we needed. I kept getting extra drink tickets but still only ended up drinking 2 drinks. We spent lots of time talking to Kameya from OnStar (oh how I love that woman!) and somehow I ended up on camera with Kristin from MotherProof.com. They were interviewing some of the car-poolers about our experiences. I obliged but must have seemed as loopy as I felt because I didn’t make many of the clips in the videos, but I did somehow let on to Kristin that I was from Denver (Mother Proof is local to Denver) and that my personal life was in a bit of upheaval.

When I got back from the conference, I received an email from Kristin with a questionnaire attached and was asked if I may be willing to be spotlighted on their site. Um, SURE! Today on Twitter I see this tweet go out and there I am, all over Mother Proof!

Check out my Guest Drive!

Many thanks for Kristin for her oh so kind words and for the whole featuring of my blog thing. We’re having coffee in a couple of weeks and I just can’t wait.

It’s a process

I am already an hour late to the party. An iris exchange we spoke of months and months ago. In fact, last year. Instead of going to the party I sit and write. After I write, I walk. The dog needs to get out. I need to get out.

As I walk I dial my friend. One of those friends who knows everything. Actually, the only friend who knows everything. I tell her that I’m tired of wallowing around in my own shit. Can she please tell me her shit, so I can get out of my own head for a while?

She obliges. She’s got shit. People have died, career is stifling. She is tired.

I listen to her shit. For as long as I can. Then I tell her about the incident where I feel like I’ve failed my son. It’s still fresh, later in that same day. I cry.

That’s when she reminds me of a talk we had about 6 weeks previously.

“Remember,” she says calmly, “we talked about the process. How it wasn’t going to be easy. How some days would be better and some days would be really really hard.”

“I know. I remember,” I answer. And I do.

Later, I read your comments. I know I’m doing okay. Going to be okay. The boys are going to be okay.

I read the books. I feel like we’re doing everything the way we should. For the boys.

I miss them immensely. I know someday it will become normal everyday life. A dull ache. Now it is pain. Sharp and glancing.

And I peer into the not so distant past. I see the boys, and really they don’t look that much different. A little younger, a bit less jaded.

They still fight, they still play, they still love. They are mildly disenchanted. They will never know the whole story. They will just know their part in it. And I try to be at peace with that part of the process. That their story will differ. Their feelings will be strong and will not be the same as mine. That they are allowed the process too.

Critical care

My oldest son has a flare for the dramatic. He gets it from me (and a bit from his father) but I think his propensity to show it off began at a much earlier age than mine did. Or maybe I’m painting pretty pictures of my childhood and wearing my rose colored looking-into-the-past glasses.

When he was in Kindergarten we received a telephone call from the school that he had fallen on the playground, was in hysterics and may have broken his arm. Both Chris and I left our respective places of work and rushed to pick him up. His arm didn’t look anything like broken to me. But off we went to the doctor’s office just to be sure.

He continued to cry the whole way there, which was only a matter of blocks from his school, but started to calm down after arriving still holding fast to his “broken” arm. After the nurse checked us into the room to wait for the doctor, we were sitting there all together. He was on my lap and his brother on Chris’ lap next to us. Liam tried to touch him, or come near him somehow and out of nowhere, like a frog’s tongue catching a passing fly, the “broken” arm shot out and swatted his brother’s arm away.

He looked up at me with a sly grin on his face and met my look of confusion-slightly-tinged-with-anger. We had both left work. I had driven across town. Sick children were no doubt waiting in the lobby to see the doctor. This was not okay. The doctor came in and checked the arm. We all had a serious talk about not faking injuries, the whole crying wolf talk if you will.

Fast forward to present day. I drive across town to pick up the boys from my dad’s house so that I can then drive them back across town to get Ciaran to soccer practice on time. I beat them back from the pool and when they arrive I am greeted with the following statement from said 9 year old:

Ciaran: “Mom, before you say anything, I banged my foot on the stairs of the slide at the pool and I’m pretty sure it’s sprained and I don’t think I should go to soccer practice.”

Me: “Oh really.”

This conversation is followed by some dramatic limping until I tell them that we don’t have to leave for about 45 minutes. He then proceeds to make quick haste to the basement to log on to the computer. A few minutes later he comes up the stairs and when he gets within earshot starts making moaning in pain noises. I watch him carefully from the corner of my eye. No limping.

Right before we leave he gets on the trampoline to practice a few more back flips. I look up and see him jump off the tramp and fling himself behind a bush. I listen closely and start to hear the crying. I don’t immediately jump up to go to his rescue, but Grandma does. He has apparently landed on his hand and can’t stand up.

I walk up and tell him that if he landed on his hand he can stand up and to walk down to the house. Grandma is already taking care of getting the ice pack and good thing, because that thought never even crossed my mind. In the kitchen I stand there looking at him while he cries and his grandmother comforts him.

That’s when it hits me.

I spent an hour of this very afternoon reading the book I got yesterday called The Truth About Children and Divorce. I remember telling more than one person how Ciaran is quicker to become emotional since we told them about the separation. I remember saying he needs extra comforting. I remember saying how I was trying to be more cognizant of this and I stood there and did not try to comfort him at all when he was crying out for it.

(If this was Twitter I would insert the big #motherhoodFAIL here.)

As we drove home (not to soccer practice because his cleats weren’t in the pile of cleats I brought with me) I reflected on so many things. On how when the boys were babies we made a conscientious effort not to be the parents that dove to pick them up every time they fell down. How Ciaran has a history of faking injuries, wrapping tiny scratches up in gigantic ace bandages, and putting bandaids on sore parts of his body. On a thousand other things and all the inadequacies I feel as a mother and as a human right now.

I know this is all attention getting activity. I know he is asking in his own way for a little extra TLC. And I realize that I have once again, and in a time of great upheaval in his life, failed to respond appropriately. Even after I sat for an hour this afternoon and read how now more than ever he needs me to be on hyper alert.

So when we got home I picked up his growing and lanky 9 year old self and I carried him out to the patio. I snuggled him on my lap and rocked him. Just him and I. And he laid his head on my shoulder and draped his legs over the side of the chair and he let me rock him and pat his back and touch his hair.

And I felt like maybe, this time, it was better late than never. And I told myself that next time, I wouldn’t wait because at some point, it might be too late.

With all due respect…part 1

Having been home for almost a week now after the inspiration and drive fest that was BlogHer09 I finally feel like I’m in a somewhat centered place where I can talk about what the weekend meant for me. It was an emotionally charged weekend only insomuch as at the time I arrived at the conference I was in the third week of my separation and so things that may not have normally resonated with me reverberated in great waves and my anxiety sometimes got the better of me and I had to retreat.

So I didn’t hit anywhere near all the parties, missed seeing for myself much of the fuss over the swag, and occasionally got to have a brief conversation with women I admire greatly. The massive exchange of business cards is the most brilliant thing I can think of because it’s going to take me a while to process everything I took out of the weekend and I know for sure I will miss something or someone in this post. But I have those handy dandy cards to jog my memory and when the day comes that I’ve had a chance to go through all of them I hope to have reached out to everyone that touched my soul in Chicago.

My conference can sort of be broken down into categories, so for ease of telling the story this is how I will break it down: traveling companions, roommates, IRL friends, new IRL friends, and blogging inspirations. (Many of the people that I will categorize into these places can easily fall into any number of the other categories. You may overlap and I may not say that because at some point the post has to come to an end.)

First was the drive to and fro in the car that was donated by the big fancy car company and the women I got to know a little bit by being confined within the spaces of the vehicle with them.

the car

The car.

I may have gotten to know them even better had I not slept most of the way from Ames IA to Chicago and then again on the way back to Ames, but such is the life of an angst ridden woman who takes medication for her angst that makes her sleepy and also falls asleep quite easily in the back seat of any car.

Anne-Marie was awesome for taking charge of the car and making sure she and I had a place to sleep both to Chicago and back. She was great to talk to in the car and is a fellow NPR junkie and didn’t mind at all listening to Fresh Air or whatever other human interest story happened to be on at any given time.

anne-marie

Anne-Marie driving through Iowa.

Becky got to sit next to me while I slept (sorry!!) but I also had the honor of attending the party that was thrown by the big fancy car company on the night we arrived in Chicago and having a couple of drinks and a really good time!

Jenna provided ample inspiration for me to ponder adding more tattoos to my body and kept us up on what was happening behind the scenes or in between the scenes at the conference. They were all wonderful traveling companions!

The roommates were equally fabulous and also, I feel like I spent way too much of my time sleeping in your presence instead of basking in your glory. Lotus is every bit, if not more, lovely IRL and loaned me a very valuable listening ear the first afternoon in Chicago.

Lotus

Lotus being slightly afraid of our waiter at Dick’s Last Resort.

I didn’t want to spend the whole weekend talking about my personal drama at home, but it is what I blog about, and as I hadn’t been able to write about any of it previous to the conference it was good to find someone to talk to about it. Took the pressure off I suppose. Beyond a soft and snuggly shoulder to cry on, Lotus has the most adorable accent (she sounds nearly identical to a good friend of mine) which immediately made me feel completely at ease with her.

Mishelle is even nicer and cuter and funnier and more genuine in person than you could ever imagine (or maybe you could) and it was all I could do to keep from squeezing her whenever she came into the room. She also photo-documented the conference magnificently (because beyond being the nicest person on the planet she’s a rock star with a camera). Check out her set on Flickr. I am still waiting for a text message from her in a language I cannot now recall but it’s something like Mesopotamian. Her father sent her one while we were there and I felt slightly left out, even though I wouldn’t be able to read it anyway…

Amber is and IRL friend who also happened to be roommate and is just FUN to be around. Talk about energy. The lady has it in spades! I did ditch her for a party one night, but I think we got back together before the end of the conference. Did I mention she’s the editor for Mile High Mamas? Well, I should have. She’s a super star!

(This concludes part 1. By the time I finish writing about my trip to BlogHerO9 I will be on the plane to BlogHer10 in NYC. Oh yeah, you heard me. I’m going. There. I said it.)

Antidote

I have this broken heart, you see, with a capacity for love that is indescribable. It surprises me from time to time that a thing that is so broken and hurting can still love so much. Every fissure that manifests, between, and among the broken chambers, is a new portal. Instead of becoming scarred and hardened, they remain open, slightly oozing, slightly sore. Love pours from the cracks, even when I wish it would bottle itself up and sulk in the corner instead.

I’m not sure when my heart broke the first time. I know I was a little girl. I know it had to do with the fact that my daddy wasn’t a part of my life then. I’m not sure when I became aware of being sad about that. But I know I was a little girl. The oozing parts of my heart, even then, were pouring forth with love. They were searching for the serum that would stop the bleeding.

Somewhere in my little girl head I had construed a world in which a broken heart actually healed when someone returned the affection of the love that poured out. The holy grail of serum, according to my little girl self, would be displayed in the center of the table on my wedding day. Getting married would, according to that little girl, right all the wrongs, and fix that broken heart.

But she was wrong. No matter how bad I wanted it, no matter how much I thought marriage was the magic fix, no matter how hard I tried, it wasn’t enough. My heart is broken. It broke so long ago and when it did, my head made the decision that I could love enough for everyone. But I can’t.

So I have called the game. I need to seal up the cracks and hold some of the love in for me. I need to learn to love that little girl. And it doesn’t mean I don’t love the man I will soon not be married to anymore. Far from it. I’m just tired of hurting him because it’s not enough for me.

There’s a little girl in my head now who’s wearing a dress with a skirt that flies when she twirls. She’s laughing while she dances. She catches my eye and sends me a message from the past. A message laced with a smile that understands and forgives. And with every tear that falls from my big girl eyes, the cracks in my little girl heart slowly begin to heal.