Father's Day Sushi Feast and Fun

It's definitely summer. The temps are rising into the triple digits, I don't set my alarm to get up in the morning, and I only work for a few hours a week. 

Husband and I are back on the low-carb lifestyle, and I quickly ended up reverting to only one meal a day as soon as I cut out sugar and low-nutrient carbs. I guess OMAD (One Meal a Day) is my natural rhythm because I just don't get hungry until about 1pm or 2pm when I load up on protein and low-carb foods until I'm comfortably full and then don't need to eat any more until the next day. I have lost an average of a little over half a pound a day eating this way as well as cut out the need for heartburn medication and eliminated the symptoms of insulin resistance (including skin tags).

I'm getting older, however, and things haven't gone exactly the same as they did even just a couple years ago, so I've had to make some minor adjustments. First, after the first two weeks of eating mostly OMAD, I've had to switch to two smaller meals within a four-to-six-hour window instead of one large meal because I wasn't getting enough calories. I also had to add in some more carbs. It has been immediately obvious that eating low-carb (which means cooking from scratch almost 100% of the time) has thrown off my estrogen/progesterone balance, and maybe one of the reasons is because I'm not getting as much soy estrogen from packaged foods and junk foods. I'm speculating here, but there is no question that going low-carb on whole foods immediately equaled some unforeseen side effects having to do with an estrogen/progesterone imbalance, including the return of hot flashes (though only very occasionally and not the former fifteen to twenty per day, thank goodness!). My mom and I had a long talk yesterday about how she made her own soy milk and tofu for years, which got her through peri-menopause with almost no symptoms whatsoever. 

I remember my mom making soy milk because we lived with my parents for a long time before buying our own house. She bought a soy milk maker and organic, non-GMO soybeans. Two batches of beans in the soy milk maker would yield enough soy milk for plenty of homemade tofu (she made it very firm) as well as milk for a soy milk/berry shake every morning. The pulp left over from making soy milk is called okara, and she used that to make croquettes that she fried in a little bit of butter. It was quite an undertaking, to say the least. The soy milk maker did a lot of the hard work, but she still had to coagulate the milk into curds and then press the curds in a tofu box to extract the whey, which took a while, though the resulting tofu was delicious when sliced and fried in some seasonings. Cleaning the soy milk maker was also tedious. Yet I am tempted to buy my own soy milk maker and organic, non-GMO soybeans and make a go of it. 

Speaking of my mom, we had a big family get-together yesterday at our house for Father's Day. Almost all the usual attendees were there (my parents, my brother Aaron, my sister Ann and her SO, my three married daughters and their spouses, and all of us who live here; missing were my nephew, who had to work, and my youngest brother, Thomas, who also had to work), and we had a great time. When my three-year-old grandson, Tyler, walked in, he threw up his hands and shouted "Hi! I'm here!" because we all get very excited when he shows up, and he loves that. He had a great time.

I decided to make Sushi Bake--or Deconstructed Sushi, if you want to sound more avant-guard--and it was a big hit. We all love sushi, but making sushi rolls is one of the most tedious ways to spend hours of your time for a couple minute's worth of eating. Instead, you make sushi as a casserole, which will give you at least ten rolls' worth of great sushi experience for a fraction of the time spent making it. In short, you press the seasoned sushi rice into the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan, top the rice with furikake seasoning (found in Asian grocery stores) followed by whatever sushi filling ingredients you want to use. In this case, I kept it very simple by shredding surimi (fake crab) in my food processor and then mixing it with mayonnaise. On top of the crab filling, I squirted lines of Kewpie mayo (Japanese mayo), sriracha-mayo, and unagi sauce (eel sauce) before baking the casserole for fifteen minutes to get it warm. I served it with chopped cucumber, sliced avocado, sliced green onions, roasted sesame seeds, and more of the previous sauces along with squares of nori seaweed. Everyone scooped the sushi filling into their seaweed squares to eat it. 

I made two pans of the Sushi Bake and a huge pot of hot and sour soup (yes, I mixed Japanese and Chinese cuisine) to fill in the nooks and crannies if anyone was still hungry. Everyone got seconds of the Sushi Bake, and I still have a ton of the soup left (Elannah loves hot and sour soup and has been asking for me to make it again, so having leftovers was my goal). 

My kids and family are used to me making weird stuff, so they're experienced in bravely trying out my attempts at international cuisine, and I am fortunate that my sons-in-law are also pretty food-adventurous. Not everyone in the world enjoys trying unfamiliar foods. Still, if they want to marry into our family, they're going to have to put up with my food experiments. I was very happy with the outcome. We all talked and laughed and played games until I was ready to drop, and then they all went home and Husband and I collapsed into bed.

Sushi is definitely not low-carb, but I ate some protein before eating dinner and then didn't eat any dessert. Also, even though it was my second meal of the day, my first meal was pure protein. Also, the fact that you mix vinegar into the sushi rice helps to slightly mitigate the insulin response from the rice. I won't be eating this type of thing again for a long time, so that is how I justified it, haha. 

Today I had to run to the store, and I stopped by the soup aisle to grab more bouillon because I had decimated my bouillon supply making the hot and sour soup yesterday. Two men were standing there looking at the broths and bouillon, so I snuck in next to them and snagged a bottle of beef Better Than Bouillon, which prompted one of the men to ask me if I liked it better than granulated bouillon because he had never tried the Better Than Bouillon paste. We had a little chat about bouillon and then they asked if I make bone broth and if I roast the bones before making the broth, which I do. We bid each other a good day and separated to continue our shopping, and I thought how fun it is to have unexpected pleasant little conversations with strangers. Is that mainly an American thing to just spontaneously strike up a conversation with strangers? It's been a long, long time since I was out of the country. The other day in the checkout line at a different grocery store, the cashier (whom I had never met before) quietly confided in me when I asked her how she was doing that she was having a hot flash and was very uncomfortable. I can definitely sympathize, so I told her about evening primrose oil, and she asked me to write it down so she could get some later. I hope it helps her like it did me. Weirdly, I had almost the same conversation with the lady who cut my hair a day later. I must be God's ambassador for evening primrose oil. 

Update on MIL's Ovarian Cancer

 Husband often plays music and asks me if I remember it from my youth or if it was a song that only made it big in Britain. 

A while ago, it was Yazz's "Stand Up for Your Love Rights." 

If you're like me, you haven't thought about Yazz since the 1980s, and you only barely thought about them then. I certainly don't recall that song, which I think was only big in Britain. In fact, I only remember one Yazz song at all: "Fine Time" 

Husband is always looking out for me:

We are pretty corny, I know. 

Speaking of Husband, you might be wondering how his mother is doing with the whole ovarian cancer thing.

The current news is a bit of a mixed bag, but it's mostly good. MIL had six rounds of chemo, which shrunk the tumors enough to allow surgery. The surgeon completed MIL's partial hysterectomy from decades ago and also removed the omentum, the fat sheath that covers the abdomen, which was riddled with tumors. This action removed the visible tumors entirely, and MIL's pancreas, kidneys, and liver also appear to be free of tumors. The bad news is that the surgeon saw something concerning in the colon, so she removed it for a biopsy, and that tissue turns out to be cancerous. So MIL will continue with chemo and they will keep an eye on her colon. She's in pretty good spirits despite the prospect of more chemo, but she's tired. 

They moved to Indiana almost a year ago now, and while Husband and his parents and siblings have a weekly Zoom call to stay connected, I miss having them just down the street. Even now, when we take Marmite the Dog for a walk, he wants to veer into their old driveway and go into their house, which is what we always used to do.

I just talked to my own mother, and, while her broken foot is healing nicely, she's been getting a series of migraines that leave her exhausted and brain-fogged. She gets the aural signs of a migraines (the flashing, jagged lights mainly), but, while the headache following isn't too bad, she has that drained, limp-noodle feeling you get in the aftermath of a migraine. Just when she is recovering from one, another one comes along. Her physical stamina is pretty low at the moment, just when she needs to be exercising her foot more. 

My mother is not a complainer, and she doesn't want to be pitied, but I worry about her and my dad, whose stamina is also very low. It's very hard having to face your parents' mortality. Even though Husband and I are middle-aged, it's hard to see your parents as old and much nearer death than you want to think about. We are both very fortunate that we have such good relationships with our parents, however. Not all people can say that. 

My mom did bring up life insurance on our phone call, and she was very pleased that their insurance broker had found them some extra life insurance policies that will cover the costs of their funerals. 

In less depressing news, my two grandsons are healthy and happy. My second daughter, Gabrielle, and her husband, Raine, are currently living with Sian and Nathan and the boys while the landlord finishes fixing up Gabrielle's and Raine's townhome, which needed repainting, re-flooring, and some maintenance work after the last tenants of ten years moved out. The landlord, who is 85, moves slowly and is a perfectionist, so all of them have been crowded into Sian's and Nathan's place for the past two weeks, though the new place should be ready "in a couple days." Considering the rent is so reasonable and the landlord is also very reasonable despite his perfectionism in maintaining his units, it's a small price to pay. I'm just glad Gabrielle and Raine are out of that horrible condo. They were the first tenants in the newly-built condo, but it was built very, very shoddily with cheap furnishings. It wasn't obvious how shoddily it was built at first, but the more they lived there, the more apparent it became. The property management company is a nightmare, to make things worse. One of the things they told tenants is that, if anyone finds mold of any kind in the walls or rooms, it is the tenant's fault and responsibility, and the tenants would be forced to pay the rehabilitation costs, though the property managers got to choose the company. That is a huge disincentive to report anything, really. And Gabrielle and Raine did find black mold in the nearby roof-access stairwell, so it is safe to assume that the mold was also in their own walls. We are all hoping that this move helps their health, which has been terrible for both of them over the past year.

But tiny Nicholas is already teething, the sweet, wee baby. He's only three-and-a-half months old! (I had a kid who waited almost a year to start teething.) He's enjoying gnawing on teething toys, and other than being occasionally irritated by teething pain, he's a happy, talkative little boy who absolutely adores his big brother. He's sleeping through the night, as well, which makes Sian so very, very happy.

Anyway, just rambling on here, so I'll stop. I've only spent a few hours at work this week, and it's very, very nice to just hang out with Husband and the boys (Elannah got herself a summer job at the golf course again). 

The Dogwalkers' Dance

 We've been walking our dogs in the nearby field for years. Until about three years ago, it was a vast, empty piece of land filled with foxes, rabbits, the occasional snake, stink bugs, crickets, and ground-nesting birds. All of that wildlife is still in it, but the field has shrunk considerably as developers continue constructing neighborhood after new neighborhood. 

I'm not complaining about the new people moving in--we were new once, too--and some of those people who have moved in have become good friends. What I am saying is that the square footage available for walking dogs has been reduced greatly. This means that those of use who use the field to walk their dogs participate in what I like to call The Dogwalkers' Dance.

If you have a dog who doesn't necessarily play well with others (even if he is a sweetie to us, his family), you know what I'm talking about. You scan the field for other dog walkers and then you decide if now is a good time to take the walk at all or if you can get away with walking the dog by keeping him on his leash or just going nice and slow to let others stay well ahead of you. 

I was doing the Dogwalkers' Dance yesterday, and keeping clear of my neighbor and his very friendly goldendoodle puppy (so adorable!) forced me to stand still and listen to the wildlife in the field until Doug and his dog disappeared over the other edge of the hill. The crickets were particularly loud, and there were what sounded like dozens of meadowlarks and little water birds singing and piping their songs. If I had decent audio recording equipment, I would have recorded the sounds to share with you because it was spectacular. 

The wild grass is really high right now because of spring rains, but as the heat settles in over the next few weeks, the green grass will dry out and die off and leave behind the scrubby sagebrush and shorter, hardier grass clumps and ground-level wildflowers. Then, through the purple and sage-green vegetation, you'll be able to spot the holes and burrows of foxes, snakes, hares, field mice, gophers, moles, and voles. 

In other news, I flubbed up at work. I miscounted how many diploma covers we needed for seminary graduation when I ordered them back in February. I only realized my mistake today as I was sorting diploma covers for each stake. I was at least ten short, and wondering if I could possibly order more in time for this Sunday's ceremonies had me stressed, which distracted me as students came in to have a chat or wanted me to sign their yearbooks. I came back to work later in the evening when no one was around so I could find a solution without suffering distractions. Fortunately, the nice customer service lady at the diploma covers store was able to expedite a shipment to me. 

Graduation season is a stressful time. There is a lot to do, and my workload and anxiety have increased just at the time when the students get more squirrelly and ready for the school year to be over. I love talking to the kids, but now I have so many who feel very comfortable plopping themselves into my office chairs (or on the floor, or even stretched out on my very long desktop) and talking to me that getting work done is more difficult. I enjoy their company for the most part. My work can usually wait a little, and there are class periods when I have no students in my office so I can get things done. What I do really enjoy is listening to these kids tell me what's on their minds or exulting in a triumph or just being silly. 

I talk to my sons the way I talk to the students at the seminary. I have a very good relationship with Joseph and Gary, and I often miss them when the students do something or say something that reminds me of my boys, so I'm always glad to see Joseph and Gary when I get home from work.

~A few days later...

Today was seminary graduation for all the seminary students in the valley. I'm hoping the ones for all the stakes I'm in charge of went well. I'll find out tomorrow...

Mother's Day

 Sunday was Mother's Day, and I was surrounded by almost all my children, my grandsons, my parents, and a couple brothers and a sister (and her SO). It was wonderful. Gabrielle and her husband were sick, which was sad, but I talked to them on the phone.

Little Tyler in a British bobby's helmet

Sleeping angel Nick

Nicholas did wake up after an hour or so and spent a lot of time smiling and cooing, which was absolutely adorable. 

I made sure my mom just sat down the whole time. Her broken foot is still healing, and I didn't want her to feel any guilt for not being able to assist me in the kitchen, so I chose something really easy to make for dinner: crispy black bean tacos and Spanish rice. You can make a lot of tacos and rice in a very short amount of time, and since people were showing up at different times, we just had sort of a constant buffet going. As usual, my living room wasn't large enough to contain the number of people our family has grown into, but that meant that there was lots of talking and laughter and eating in close quarters, which, I think, just forces everyone to socialize. We all get along very well (I'm very blessed to be able to look forward to family functions!), and I was a happy mama/sister/daughter. 

The Season of Change and Song

Edit: I finished writing this last Thursday, so events are slightly out of date.

I offer my editing services for free to my co-workers, and Skyler has frequently taken me up on that offer. A couple days ago I finished editing his last thesis paper for his masters degree in religious education, and he was very pleased with the edits I made. He said, "You blew my mind! How do you take what I'm trying to say and make it crystal clear?" I find it easier, sometimes, to figure out what another person is trying to say and help them clarify it than I do voicing my own thoughts. With a few quick changes to grammar, punctuation, and rephrasing a few sentences, it's amazing how much clearer someone else's words can become. When I'm editing someone's else's work, I'm thinking, "How can this be written in a way where I don't have to struggle to figure out what they want to say? How can this be written so that I want to read it?" 

When I write my own words, I'm thinking, "This doesn't make any sense to anyone else but me. Crap." And then I get bogged down with indecision and dissatisfaction. When I'm writing my own ideas, I have to come up with all the words from scratch, and I'm hardly ever satisfied with them, which is why I have three times as many unpublished drafts as published posts for this blog. 

I haven't really missed being a professional writer and editor, and I would have to think long and hard before agreeing to do any more content writing or other big editing jobs. The amount of research required for the subjects of my content writing was truly exhausting, and I got paid by the piece, not by the hour. Plus, it was exhausting. You wouldn't expect that writing could be quite so physically as well as mentally exhausting, would you? 

Having said that, however, I enjoy helping Skyler. He's already a good writer, which makes my job easy, and he appreciates the skill that it takes to edit. Yesterday, I quickly edited a couple additional pages that Skyler's mentor requested to be inserted into his thesis, and the writing went from slightly murky to brilliantly clear with just a few adjustments, which thrilled both myself and Skyler. Very satisfying. Today I told him that I will be happy to edit his future college papers despite the fact that he is selfishly taking himself and his family to another state. 

Speaking of co-workers taking off, I was just informed today of the changes on the horizon. Now, no one is supposed to speak of these changes until tomorrow morning when the official email is sent from the region director, but Griff quietly filled me in on the news today (I was really the only person in the building who didn't know exactly what was happening). I'm trusting you to keep this to yourself until tomorrow. Thank you.

Tanner is leaving. I was previously pretty sure he would be staying, but I more recently got the feeling that he was going to be transferred. I was right about that, but I was wrong about where. He isn't going to the seminary in the town where he lives (which is about ten miles away from this town) but to another small town in our valley. He's swapping with a teacher from that seminary, who will come here. 

In another exciting change, Denise is also coming to my seminary! Denise, who is also my choir director, has been a seminary teacher for the last two years. She started out as a seminary administrative assistant (or "office specialist," as they called them then) and did that for eight years while she was raising her kids (all now grown) and working on her Master's in mathematics, but the call to be a seminary teacher steered her away from her original idea of being a math teacher. Now we'll work together, which I expect will be a great experience. I envision spending lunch breaks playing accompaniment on the piano while she sings, and both of us sifting through new and exciting choral pieces. She thinks I'm funny, which is endearing.

Speaking of choir, our concerts are tomorrow and Saturday nights at the Methodist Church. The Episcopal congregation in town dried up, so the diocese turned the running of their building over to a property management company, and the property managers have become ultra-paranoid about insurance issues, so they won't let anyone use the sanctuary (chapel), which is where we used to perform. That's so sad because the modern concrete-and-glass structure had such great acoustics. Fortunately, the Methodists have allowed us to use their cosy little chapel that has a stage/rostrum. The chapel is so small that it is still good for acoustics despite the carpeting, and it's a quaint little red brick box whose back halls smell appropriately musty to reflect the extreme age of the building (built in the 1930s). It was originally a chapel for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but the congregation grew out of it and eventually sold it to the Methodists. Modern LDS chapels are not great for choral performances, so even with all the LDS chapels around, that was never an option we considered. The only other performance hall in town is the high school auditorium, and performing there would just be silly.

Over the last eleven years, I've invited dozens of people to our performances, and only two or three have ever come. I realize that sitting through a choral performance where you probably don't know any of the pieces or more than one person in the choir is not most peoples' idea of a good time, so I quit inviting anyone except my family. This time I have a small solo, so I had even more incentive not to invite anyone except family. As it turns out, there's so much less pressure when I don't know the people in the audience! 

Update: The choir concert went incredibly well. We sounded really good, and I even felt fine about my little solo part. It was a really fun concert, with drums and everything. 

High-Altitude Cake Mix Baking

 I have been a little obsessed experimenting with cake mixes lately, and I am now confident I've found the winning combination. This is how I take a cake mix and make it taste like homemade, with adjustments for higher altitude. And yes, I know how to make a cake from scratch, but I am experimenting with boxed mixes for the moment, you purist. 

Boxed mixes call for 3 eggs, 1 cup water, and 1/3 cup oil and to cook the cake(s) at 350 deg. F. No. At higher altitude, you will get a crumbly finished product that is also boring. No bueno.

Instead, to a boxed cake mix, add the following:

 4 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1/3 cup melted butter

1 tsp vanilla or other extract (I love using almond, rum-flavored, or orange extracts for chocolate cakes. The sky's the limit with a yellow cake as it is basically a blank slate.)

1 (3.9 oz) box instant pudding mix (any flavor you like)

Use a hand mixer to combine ingredients for two minutes. Fill cake tins only halfway. The batter will be thicker than you're probably used to for a cake, but it will work out.

At higher altitudes, you also want to cook a cake faster at a higher temperature to prevent it from drying out. I heat my oven to 375 deg. F and cook two 9" layers in dark metal pans for 21 minutes, and the cakes come out tender and moist. Your oven might be different, so cook for the minimum recommended time and take cakes out as soon as a toothpick or fork, when inserted into the cake, comes out clean.

I have also been obsessed with the following frosting recipe:

1 (3.9 oz) box instant pudding mix (I love the cheesecake flavor especially)

1 cup milk

1 cup heavy whipping cream

Thoroughly mix the pudding mix with the milk and set aside. Beat the whipping cream until it is just going from the soft peak stage to the stiff peak stage. Carefully fold in the pudding-milk mixture until it is fully incorporated into the whipped cream. Use a pastry bag or offset spatula to spread the frosting on cooled cake. 

My husband's favorite so far has been a vanilla cake with vanilla pudding mix with raspberry filling between the layers and a cheesecake pudding-cream frosting. That would be a great combo for cupcakes, as well, but making cupcakes annoys me. 

My next attempt will be the chocolate cake from the movie Matilda. I've made it before from scratch, and it was okay, but I didn't know as much about high-altitude cake baking, and I found the cake a little too dry--especially around the edges. I'll try to remember to take a picture of the new one I attempt with cake mixes.

I just realized that talking about mundane things is my way of retreating from an oversharing episode (see my last post). I am, metaphorically speaking, hiding in a quiet room until I feel like coming back out to mingle with the crowd and be emotionally exposed again. 

Oversharing

I am attempting to sew a t-shirt. 

That sounds fairly straightforward, but I bet you don't have to make quite the full bust adjustment onto a pattern that I have to make, and the complexity of that operation is somewhat paralyzing. 

Little did I know, back when I was a B-cup with a perfect hourglass figure, that I accidentally fit the standard measurements that pattern companies use to create their patterns, so most of those patterns worked really well for me without me having to do anything other than cut out the cloth and follow the sewing directions. When I was 17, I sewed a cute little dress for a dance, among other things, and I thought sewing my own clothes was easy. 

Nowadays, not only is pattern fitting very daunting, but buying material for your own clothing is definitely no longer a money saver over buying off-the-rack. Yet I persist in my attempts to learn how to do this because I eventually want to get to the point where I don't throw material and patterns into a pile in the corner and weep with frustration. If I can successfully make a well-fitted t-shirt once, I can use that pattern over and over and make alterations to hem length, sleeves, and necklines as I desire. I'm just really ignorant at the moment, and getting past that ignorance is a process. Who would think you could be so afraid of a pattern? It helps that I'm using cloth I didn't pay much money for, so I can experiment without making a really expensive mistake.

Will I show you the completed t-shirt? Absolutely not. I hate pictures of myself, ok? 

What I will show you is this cool little notepad I made out of scrap paper at work. 

At work, we had a lot of old letterhead after we updated our stationary, but I thought it was a shame to toss stacks of perfectly good, quality paper into the recycle bin. Instead, I have been cutting it up into quarters, stacking it together, and then running some hot glue across the top edge. Once the glue is dry, I have scrap paper notepads. As I work through some of my other store-bought notepads, I'll save the cardboard backboards from those pads and repurpose them for my scrap notepads. For now, my scrap paper notepads are just stacks of paper, but they work very well for what I need them for.

Two finished pads on my desk at work. I made sure that the blank sides of the paper scraps were all facing the same direction so I never have to write notes around any print.

I stacked the scrap papers flat against one short edge and used bulldog clips to keep the papers compressed while I spread plenty of hot glue along the edge. 

While the glue was drying, I added two more clips to the top to further compress the paper stack together.

Of course, I don't always spend my time at work making notepads out of scrap paper. Those two notepads took approximately three minutes each to make. What I do spend a lot of time doing, however, is creating spreadsheets. I had no idea before I took this job how much I enjoy using Excel to corral information. Thanks to the good people of YouTube, I have learned a ton of tricks for making very usable spreadsheets, and I'm a little too excited about it. My co-workers laugh at me when I geek out over new Excel tricks I've learned, but it pays off for them, as well, when they want information. Yesterday, for instance, Tanner wanted a paper method for students to record their daily scripture reading. "I have three options," I told him, "because I've made them for three other teachers, and they each wanted something different." When I showed him the options, and he got all excited about one of them. Who's laughing now?

I also spend a lot of time at work interacting with the students. They're delightful. Plenty of them call greetings to me as they pass by, some of them stop and chat with me at my window every day, and a few of them come right on into my office and make themselves at home. Most of the kids who come and plop themselves down into my office chairs are sophomore boys (15-16 years old). For some reason, at this age more than any other, they feel very comfortable hanging out with me. I probably remind them of their mothers, and they're probably still young enough to miss their mothers a little while they're at school. We chat about their lives, joke around, and sometimes the more rambunctious ones--each of whom argues with the others that that he is my favorite--redecorate my office until I firmly kick them all out so I can unstring the paperclip chains and untape my pens from the ceiling. Punks. 

One student in particular--and yes, he's a sophomore boy--has become especially attached. I'll call him Jay. I was initially very surprised and alarmed at things Jay would occasionally throw in during our otherwise non-controversial conversations, and I confided in Tanner and Skyler, who are usually the last two teachers to leave the building, that I thought this kid might have some sort of inexplicable crush on me. He's a normal kid. He's not creepy or weird. He's very intelligent, but he's not overly nerdy. He loves vintage (60s and 70s) muscle cars and 80s music, so some of our conversations revolve around cars (I know just enough to barely know what he's talking about) and 80s music (which I do know a lot about). He has plenty of friends of both sexes, though he's certainly not a ladies man. So when he throws in stuff like, "The first time I met you last year [when he was a much shorter freshman], I felt like I knew you," or "If I was born 35 years ago, I could have married you," or "Do you think we knew each other in the pre-mortal world?" it's enough to deeply unnerve this overweight, middle-aged woman. Every time he said something like that (and blushed hotly under his very fair skin), I immediately jumped up and kicked all the kids out of the building, him included. Gosh, look at the time! We're locking up the building! Everyone out! And then I would tell Tanner and Skyler what Jay said to keep everything aboveboard and get their take on it.  

Frankly, Tanner and Skyler were as skeptical as I was that Jay could possibly be crushing on me, which was faintly insulting (LOL). We all agreed that it's most likely misplaced feelings for the mother figure that I represent (he has some issues with his parents, as all teens do to some extent), and he's harmless and navigating being a teenage boy with all the incumbent emotions that go along with that. He's certainly never made me feel like he's planning on locking me up in a basement or anything. Most of our conversations revolve around his very astute questions about what he reads in the scriptures or how he feels about gospel topics. I think the fact that I listen to him and treat him as an intelligent person is what he enjoys. And since those early conversations, something has shifted; I don't feel like he's crushing on me anymore, which makes me feel far more comfortable. I mean, ugh! he's the same age as my sons, for goodness' sake! I'm older than his mother! Jay is an old soul, and I very much enjoy our conversations while also making sure all the rules governing interactions with students are being followed to a "t". 

Finally, in other news, Husband's older brother, Thomas, came to visit from England.

Husband has had a very rocky relationship with Thomas. Thomas is the oldest of the seven siblings (Husband is second oldest), and Thomas and Husband really could not be more different. Thomas is Gaston from Beauty and the Beast: drinker, smoker, overly confident extrovert, popular with the ladies, and ready to brawl at the drop of a hat. He can be very charming when he wants to be, but he was quite cruel to Husband all throughout childhood, casually causing both physical and deep emotional pain. He never takes personal responsibility for his actions, which has put him at odds with everyone in his family for most of his life. His parents had to kick him out of the house when he was a young adult because of his drinking and drug use, and he has managed to blame everyone else but himself for the constant problems his actions produce. 

He has had several come-to-Jesus moments in his life, but they have been sadly short-lived.

Now, in his 50s, Thomas is trying again to make some positive changes, though it's somewhat of a case of "too little, too late" as far as Husband is concerned. While Thomas was always very scared of flying, he recently managed to fly to the States to visit his parents and two brothers in Indianapolis and then to Utah to meet his online girlfriend. We did not invite him to stay with us, but Husband met up with him one day and gave him a tour of the Big City, and we arranged to have a picnic at a park in the Big City with almost all our kids and their spouses (Siân and Nathan were sick and couldn't come) and Thomas's girlfriend and her two young daughters, ages 10 and 12. For our kids, it was meeting this larger-than-life cartoon they'd only heard about from stories of their dad's childhood. 

It went well. Thomas was very charming and made a huge effort with my children. I tried to make his girlfriend feel welcome and comfortable (she is honestly a lovely person, and I felt a little sorry for her), and I was so proud of my kids, who immediately swept up the girlfriend's daughters and played all kinds of games with them. 

Thomas decided to go back to Indiana earlier than originally planned (he likes it better than Utah), and then he'll fly back to England to HIS WIFE AND TWO KIDS. That's right. He's still married. They've been estranged for years, but he still lives in the same house with her, like roommates. Why she has not divorced him, none of us knows. Even my in-laws have asked her why she hasn't divorced him and encouraged her to divorce him so she can maybe find someone who loves her like she deserves. She's also a little crazy, so that might explain it. The two boys, though, are great kids. The oldest one (in his early 20s) is ashamed and angry with his dad, though the younger one (late teens) does have a pretty good relationship with him. 

Do you remember a few years back when I told you about that woman who showed up on our doorstep with a tale of woe about Thomas basically catfishing her? Yeah, that's the Thomas we know. Charming in small doses, very problematic in all other ways. 

The current girlfriend, the woman we met at the park, is getting dropped according to a text today from Thomas, who was on the flight back to Indianapolis. I wonder if she's aware? Thomas's plan is to come back to the States in June, get a green card, and start living and working here. He has absolutely no idea how hard that will be if he doesn't marry an American citizen. Good luck, man. 

Thomas on the left, Husband on the right.

This was a long post. I probably kept writing just to put off finishing that pattern adjustment and start making dinner. Husband would say that I overshared, but he is British and very reserved about what he shares about his personal life, and I am American and share way too much. 

To quote my favorite sailor man, "I yam what I yam."