Unfrozen and Breathing

We didn't freeze to death and I didn't end up dying of some horrible respiratory disease, so don't fret your little self any more. In fact, Husband did some research online and figured out which part to buy for the furnace. Once the part arrived (a blower fan, which, perhaps unsurprisingly, you can get from Amazon.com for a pretty decent price), and since he'd already replaced the capacitor, Husband fixed the furnace and it's worked beautifully and quietly ever since. We didn't realize how loud it had been getting.

As for illnesses, 2013 has proven to be an anomaly in the Aurora household. The theme for this year should be, "All sick, all the time!" While I did get over my bronchitis eventually and Husband managed to avoid contracting anything serious, all the kids have been through one or more rounds of...something. Infected sinuses, sore throats, fevers, flu, and more keep sweeping through, mowing down the children in batches. I blame myself, really, which is my right and duty as a guilt-trip-talented mother. I've been feeding the family far too much junk food because of my schedule, lack of energy, stress levels, and the fact that I have developed a sincere and earnest hatred of cooking. Sometimes the kids can go an entire day without tasting a real vegetable. We should buy stock in Little Caesar's Pizza.

I'm just letting you know we're alive. I'm sure you were worried. :)

The Happy Ice Queen

I have taken another brief hiatus, this time for the full-on flu. For a person who hasn't been sick in years, the last few weeks have been a wild ride. I started coughing a bit last Saturday, and I've been mostly in bed since Sunday.

I won't bore you with details. I wanted to die. Then I didn't. Now I'm up and around more, though I still feel that something isn't right with my lungs. Husband hasn't been sick, and he ended up taking care of all of us. He figures his body is waiting until he's off-track next week and then he'll collapse into a puddle of aches and pains and high fever, because nothing is better when you aren't at work than being confined to bed with the flu, right?

What has made the last week even more exciting is that our furnace stopped working. This appliance failure has coincided with a particularly lean time for money and a particularly cold patch of winter, so we've been very grateful for the gas fireplace in the living room. It doesn't heat the entire house, but at least one area is fairly comfortable. I have become accustomed to wearing three layers and putting on my boots in the house. I even (gasp!) wore socks to bed a couple times. It's surprising how quickly one gets used to it all.

I managed to watch and sometimes hear (through the complaints of two very bored little boys) the documentary called Happy. I was still quite under the weather, so it's no surprise that I teared up in a few places. It was a great program, and it reminded me of how blessed I am and how each of us chooses whether or not to be happy no matter our circumstances.

As difficult as this week might have seemed, I've derived a strange joy from the challenges it has presented. It certainly isn't the status quo, for one thing. Sometimes, any change is as good as a feast. For another thing, I've felt incredibly blessed as family have rallied to our support. Even though I forbade any of them from visiting for fear of becoming infected, they have showered us with food and love (from the doorstep). They call and ask how we're doing. And yesterday, my in-laws found a couple of excellent space heaters at the thrift store (see where my husband gets his incredible bargain-spotting talents?) and bought them for us. I can now sit in my office without feeling my fingers go numb on the keyboard.

I also picked up a new client who wants to pay m to help get his manuscript ready for publication. I have his manuscript and am beginning the evaluation, now that I can sit up without wanting to cry.

Oh, and being sick has helped me jump-start my diet. :)

Life is definitely grand.

A Blessed Upwelling of Hope

I've spent the last little while in a deep blue funk. It was probably the result of the whole fun 'n' wacky hormone thing (see previous post) combined with a diet consisting mostly of food devoid of any nutritional value whatsoever, among various other bits and bobs of stressors and whatnot. Considering all the emotional baggage that combined to form such a dark cloud over my head, I decided not to write anything during that time. You're welcome.

Now, however, I'm back. I'm wiser, I'm steadier, and I've watched almost the entire six seasons of 30 Rock for those moments that made me laugh out loud. I also spent several days in bed suffering from stomach flu during the Christmas break, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. My beleaguered mind relaxed, which it hadn't done in, well, a very long time. In fact, I got the best idea EVER for my long-pondered book whilst showering yesterday morning.

Showering is almost like being in a sensory deprivation unit. You are, of course, experiencing the sensation of heated water on your skin; but for a mother of six children, slave of three cats, and alpha pack leader of one and a half excitable dogs, it's as close to a place for silent meditation as I'm going to get. If anyone knocks (or scratches, depending on the species), I simply shout that I can't hear whatever it is they're saying over the rush of water. Then I ignore all further attempts at communication while dialing up the heat a notch or two.

Yesterday, however, I bolted out of the shower, hastily threw on some clothes, and ran to the office to capture the idea down before it disappeared into the vast wasteland of my bad memory. It was gratifying when, later, Husband was as enthusiastic about the idea as I was, since he's actually written multiple novels and has a good grasp on the mechanics of creating a viable story arc. I'm not saying it's a New Year's resolution to write that book, but I am saying that I'm really, really grateful for that spark of hope, which was indicative of the overall sense of caring and love I suddenly felt. I like hope. I need hope. When hope is missing, dark clouds converge.

So here's to hope in this new year. Here's to the knowledge that God loves you and can turn even difficult situations into a chance for learning and growth. Here's to joy, which is not merely perky enthusiasm but a deeper sense of purpose and meaning beyond the temporarily pleasurable, mundane, or painful moments. Here's to love, which is the real reason we're all on this earth together. Here's to my triumph and yours. And, of course, here's to pie.

Hate Mail to Perimenopause

Hello, Perimenopause. I suspected it was you, and now I'm pretty sure. You cranky old witch, I don't appreciate what you're doing to me. I am so tired and sluggish. My brain is fogged. I can't sleep deeply. I gain weight just by thinking about eating a salad, and it's mostly going to my middle. My waistbands are tighter. I feel puffy and fat and ugly. It's hard to fight off depression. I want to eat carbohydrates just about all the time. Normal cycles are off, and there's a particular week of the month when I turn into Horrifica, the Amazing Screaming and Eating Machine. You're killing me here!

The fact that you could be hanging around for a decade or so just makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry, although knowing that a visit from your sister, Menopause, is somewhat imminent is even worse. You must love misery and company.

I will vanquish your effects, Perimenopause. This I vow. I may have to live with you, but I don't have to take your bullying. I will figure it out so I can enjoy life, since I still have years left in me. I will bring you to your knees and laugh in your face.

And once I get you pegged, I imagine I won't be quite so tempted to talk to myself through the forum of a blog post. One can only hope.

Sincerely,
What's Left of Eva Aurora

Fun Fact: Hippos Love Tomatoes

Ernesto Sirolli is an Italian entrepreneur who helps people. But he learned a thing or two about what is actually helpful and what is not before he embarked on his career, and the method by which he learned his lesson is both amusing and incredibly instructive. I'll paraphrase, but it's not as funny here as when he tells it here. Nor do I have such a great accent.

When Ernesto was young, he and a bunch of Italian do-gooders decided to go to Zambia, Africa, to help the natives learn agriculture. They selected a luscious valley by the Zambian River that seemed perfect for a thriving farm and set about trying to get the natives excited about what they were going to be taught. The Italians tilled the land and planted tomatoes and zucchini. Though they paid the natives to work, the natives were pretty casual about when they showed up and when they didn't. In fact, the Zambian people in that area were pretty blase about the entire operation. But that was okay because the Italians were going to help them anyway. They felt very good about themselves and their righteous and charitable works.

When the harvest started coming in, it was amazing. The tomatoes were huge. The zucchini was ultra-bountiful. The earth was so well suited for growing it was incredible no one had figured it out before!

And then the hippos came and ate the entire crop down to the nub.

"Why didn't you tell us about the hippos?" asked the Italians. "You never asked," answered the Zambians. The Zambians knew very well why farming that land was useless unless you really liked feeding hippos.

He makes a very good point about the fact that going to a country and helping entrepreneurs requires you to find their passions, which isn't possible until they trust you and they are willing to talk to you. I think that's true of most people. We walk into a situation thinking that our good intentions and ideas are the best and only way, and when the person we're trying to help balks at our charity, we get angry. Don't they know what's good for them? We tend to have an empire mindset where we are either paternalistic toward the people we want to help or we patronize them. We think of them as slaves or as children. Either way, it isn't the proper mindset, and you won't ever do any real good until you change how you think of and approach people you'd like to help.

Good stuff. Here's the link again if you want to watch his 17 minute talk.

The Old, Dark Fear

 
There's a certain sense of dread I associate with dark, cold mornings. It's not just the fact that I have to stumble out of bed after an unsatisfying sleep in order to drive my oldest girl to the school for early morning seminary. It's not just because I know that after I get home the day will have well and truly started and there will be no more chance to snooze, or that I will be under pressure to produce billable work while also running a household bent on entropy. No, this horror and dread go way, way back.

I was in first grade. My teacher, whom we quickly nicknamed "Mrs. Shark," was an older woman who didn't seem to like children very much. Looking back now, I realize she had probably been teaching for decades by the time I arrived, small and quite intimidated by authority, and she wasn't willing to put up with any funny business. Frankly, she terrified me. I absolutely hated getting into trouble, so while I was a model student, I was probably also kind of annoying in my shrinking fear. The worst thing I could possibly imagine was to make a mistake, because if I made one single mistake, I and the other mistake-makers had to stay in during recess and fix it. It was even more worrying because I had no clue what the awful punishment could possibly be for failing to adequately correct the mistake. I really liked recess. What if the next level of punishment was a visit to the principal's office?

Back in those days, principals were still allowed to spank naughty children. Every once in a while during lunch, our principal would walk out of his office and just stand casually by the front doors, kind of swinging the board that was used as a paddle. The noisy room would suddenly hush, and we would whisper to each other  rumors of spanked children past and present. I still remember the room itself with its huge Peanuts characters painted in happy colors on the walls. Snoopy and Charlie Brown, Lucy and Linus looked down on our antics, contented smiles on their faces, a stark contrast to the smirking principal with the awful piece of wood in his hand.

One day, I made a mistake. When I got my boardwork paper handed back to me, red pencil had been slashed across it like blood. My fate was sealed. My stomach hurt and my head swam. The awful day I had been anticipating had arrived. I would miss lunch recess, and if I was really unlucky, I might get to visit the principal and his paddling board.

I was completely relieved to find that Mrs. Shark's duties took her out onto the playground that day, so at least I was spared her presence while I attempted to correct my paper. I sharpened my pencil, pulled out my paper, and began erasing the misspelled word. But to my horror, the paper ripped. The rip ran right across the space where I needed to rewrite the word. I almost passed out with fear, and tears burned my eyes. I remember saying, "Now what am I going to do?"

A boy who was also missing recess happened to hear me and looked at my problem. "Why don't you put some tape on it?" he suggested. Great idea. I taped the rip. But now I couldn't write the word in the right spot. And worse, my pencil made no discernible mark on the tape, so I couldn't write over the top of it. The same boy came to my rescue again (I wish I remember who it was). "Just write the last part of the word after the tape," he offered reasonably. There would be a huge gap in the word, but Mrs. Shark would understand that the tape was to blame, wouldn't she? I fixed it as best I could and then ran out for the rest of recess, though I wasn't completely at ease. It wasn't until the rest of the day passed and I heard no more about my paper that I finally relaxed a little.

So you see my fear, even if it was the fear of a 7-year-old. I lived with it on a daily basis, and it was very real to me then even if it looks completely irrational to my grown-up eyes. But the soundtrack that will forever remind me of that year was the Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy talking alarm clock I got for my birthday. The clock itself was cute: when the alarm went off, Raggedy Ann and Andy had a little conversation about waking me up. So sweet. But the sweetness of their conversation morphed into some sort of dreadful death sentence in my head. Oh no! It was time to go to school! Raggedy Ann and Andy had betrayed me yet again!

I started getting stomach aches and headaches. My mom took me to the doctor, and he diagnosed me with stress. And then, thinking they were doing me a favor, my mom and the teacher agreed to take me out of the special little class for kids who read a lot, where we would leave the classroom with another teacher and do experiments and talk about cool stuff. It was the one place I felt absolutely safe, and now it was gone. The other three kids left in the class teased me about being dumb, which didn't make me feel any better.

I probably got used to Mrs. Shark over the months, and the rest of my years at that school were fabulous. I loved my teachers, who were all young and idealistic and believed in encouraging my interests. I really thrived. But the feelings of horror associated with those dark and cold mornings of the winter of my first grade year have never quite left me, even if I now have an adult perspective on Mrs. Shark (whose real name was Mrs. Sharp) and making mistakes. It's not as acute, of course, but it lingers. At least I can laugh about it now as I drive Sian to school.

Remind me to tell you about the time I got teeter-totter splinters in my behind and ended up half-naked and standing in the teachers' lounge while Mrs. Sharp picked the bits of wood out. Good times. Especially with all the other teachers walking in and out and laughing about my predicament. But that's okay, because I was wicked good at crazy and highly unsafe teeter-totter tricks when the teachers weren't looking. Best in class.

UPDATE 12/11/2012: My dad found the recording of the Raggedy Ann and Andy Talking Alarm clock. Of course, he sent me the mp3 file of just the Raggedy Ann and Andy clock, but I am stoopid with technology and will have to embed the entire YouTube video. Listening to it now, it's hard to believe the enthusiastic little message turned so sinister in my mind. But, then, the blaring of a regular alarm clock heard at any time of the day is enough to put me into fight-or-flight mode.

It Wouldn't be Thanksgiving Without the Red Mung

Happy Thanksgiving. I've celebrated twice now, and I still haven't started using the leftover turkey. We had everyone over yesterday because that was the only day schedules all meshed, what with one of my brothers and his family traveling in from out-of-state as well as the need to incorporated my British in-laws into their first American Thanksgiving celebration. Since the Wednesday meet-up was kind of a last-minute decision, there was no time to cook the turkey; instead, we had ham, cheesy potatoes (the kind we in Utah call "funeral potatoes" because everyone always brings them to a funeral luncheon), homemade rolls, and chunks of fried zucchini. The zucchini was thanks to my chef brother, and it was immensely popular with one and all.

Today, Thanksgiving Day, some (but not all) of the same family members came back and we had a more traditional feast, though I completely forgot to bake the sweet potatoes. Fortunately, to make up for that horrific oversight, my mom made her famous Red Mung jello salad.

Red Mung has been a family tradition for holiday dinners since before I was born. My mom got the recipe from the wife of my dad's best friend back when they were all newlyweds, and Mom has been making it ever since. My children, nieces, and nephews demand it at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It just isn't a holiday without Red Mung, and now it's a multi-generational thing.

Don't ask me where its unattractive name came from because I don't know. I wasn't born yet, remember?

Red Mung
3 oz. box raspberry or strawberry gelatin
1 cup boiling water
1 lb. can crushed pineapple, undrained
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1 lb. box frozen strawberries in sugar
3 Tbsp lemon juice (or juice of one lemon)

Pour dry gelatin into the boiling water and stir until dissolved. Add the frozen strawberries, breaking them up and stirring them until thawed. Mix in all the other ingredients. Refrigerate until set. Serves 6. Double or triple the recipe for a crowd, but separate the gelatin mixture into several containers so it will still set up in time. 

If there's a more American recipe, I don't know what it is. A sweet gelatin salad with dinner? No, we don't count it as dessert. Slap it on that plate next to the mashed potatoes and boiled carrots and never mind if the juices mingle a bit.

Wait. I've done the math and there wasn't time for Mom and Dad to have any holiday dinners before I was born. They got married in January and I was born exactly nine months later -- to the day -- in October. We hadn't hit Thanksgiving or Christmas yet. So I was around, I guess, but I still don't know the reason for the naming of this salad. I really didn't care at the time.

Also, Mom must love me because she always makes me a special batch without bananas. Me and fresh bananas, we don't have a friendly relationship, but she doesn't want me to miss out on the tradition. I'm grateful for that, among many, many other wonderful things.