The wait is over!

After a VEEERRRRRY long week of waiting and mail mis-haps, Abram's mission call arrived at his dorm today.

We were all expecting it Wednesday.  However, the MLK holiday delayed the mail by a day.  And then it should have been yesterday.  However, someone at BYU campus mail misplaced all 100 mission calls going to students this week.   The calls were located and delivered to the dorms early this morning.

Abram is going to Xalapa, Mexico.  I had never heard of it, but after I looked it up, I see it is very likely the most beautiful place in Mexico.  Tropical, beautiful, not hot or cold, and on the Gulf of Mexico.  There are also some familiar things from home there--Costco, WalMart, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, etc.  It is famous for flowers, jalapeños, and a very moderate climate.

The coolest thing is that it is a hotspot for Olmec relics.  He will get to see some really cool Olmec heads.  Lucky kid.

It is so exciting to finally know where he is going.

Abram is already fluent in Español, so he is super excited to get going!  He leaves in May less than a week after his 19th birthday.

Oatmeal Bread

This is the bread my kids go crazy for.  It's better than candy.  They absolutely freak out when I make it.  The great thing is that it is a pretty fast bread with minimal rise time, so it's not an all-day commitment when you decide you want to make some bread.  This recipe makes one loaf.  It is also makes excellent rolls.

Ingredients: 2 cups bread flour 1 package of yeast 1 1/2 tsp salt 1 cup water 1/4 c molasses 2TBSP vegetable oil 1/2 cup rolled oats 1 cup whole wheat flour Walnuts, chopped (if you are into that--I'm not!) egg, water and rolled oats for topping Directions: In mixer, combine 1 1/4 cups bread flour, yeast and salt; blend well.   Heat 1 cup water, molasses, vegetable oil and rolled oats until warm (120-130 degrees).   Add to flour mixture.   Knead at low speed until moistened; beat 3 minutes at medium speed.   Gradually stir in the whole wheat flour and enough remaining bread flour to make a firm dough.   Knead until smooth and elastic.   Use additional flour if necessary.   Place dough in lightly oiled bowl and turn to grease top.   Cover; let rise in warm place about 15-20 minutes. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface; punch down to remove air bubbles.   Roll or pat dough to a rectangle, approximately 14x7.   Starting with the shorter end, roll up tightly, pressing dough into roll with each turn.   Pinch edges and ends to seal.   Place in a greased 8x4-inch loaf pan.   Cover; let rise until indentation remains after lightly touching the side of the loaf, about 30-40 minutes.   Combine egg and 1 TBSP water; brush top of loaf.   Sprinkle with rolled oats.   Bake in preheated 375-degree oven for 30-40 minutes.

Outrageous Chocolate Chip Cookies

This weekend I pulled out this old recipe from our Omaha days.  I hadn't made these cookies for years, and I had actually totally forgotten how much I love them.  I am not super crazy about butterscotch on its own, but with just a little bit in these cookies, it is just right.  I can't even remember where I got this recipe.  Likely it was on a bag of chocolate chips 20 years ago.

1 c butter
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
2 c flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 c rolled oats
1 c chocolate chips (I always add a bit more)
1 c butterscotch chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, white sugar and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in the peanut butter, vanilla and egg until well blended. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; stir into the batter just until moistened. Mix in the oats and chocolate chips until evenly distributed. Drop by tablespoonfuls on to lightly greased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, until the edges start to brown. Cool on cookie sheets for about 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

a slight delay

Abram says it's a curse, Mark says it is just a coincidence and that things just aren't made as well as they used to be made.  I can't believe how statistically improbable it is that I can buy the one item out of 100 in a stack at the store that is broken, or have an appliance break and hear a repairman say, "I've never seen or heard of this before," or to get on an airplane and hear the pilot say, "Sorry folks, but it looks like one of our engines is not working, so we're going to have to get a new plane in here," or to have an electronic device have major freak-outs that nobody can explain.

Seriously, do you know of anyone who has had more flat tires that me?  When I walk into Les Schwab they greet me by name.  I am not kidding.

I am convinced that I have an ultra-powerful electromagnetic field around me that messes with things somehow.  But it is just how things go, and I know that.  I always say it is our selfless sacrifice for the rest of mankind.  We are taking the big hit so that others can go on with their lives as normal.  There is no way cyber-commerce could exist if every person had the same percentage of purchases-gone-wrong as I have had.

But when things go right, they go very right.  And it makes me very grateful when they do.  It's never big things that go wrong, just lots of these little unimportant things, so it's not a big deal.  I am grateful that it is just little things that don't matter or can be fixed that happen to go wrong.

The story this week is that somehow Abram's mission papers didn't go in on January 3rd when they were submitted to Salt Lake.  I got a phone call on the 3rd congratulating me on my great son and telling me the papers had been submitted.  We were all expecting him to get his call on Wednesday.

But something happened in cyber-space, and the papers didn't go in.  It will be another week before we learn where Abram will serve his mission.  I feel like a kid whose parents just said, "We're going to have to postpone Christmas for a week." 

I'm choosing to look at it like this:  the place he is supposed to serve would not have had a spot for him yet if the papers had gone in as planned.  It's all good.

Everything happens for a reason.  I have had too many little miracles happen in my life to believe anything else.

Here is one example, totally unrelated.  This week I took a last-minute sub job on a day I wasn't planning to work.  I just felt like I should go.  Plus, it was high school science--how could I turn it down?  Anyway, about half-way through the day a bunch of kids were talking about an incredible teacher they had in middle school.  They were giving great details about the way this teacher had done things to make them so fun and memorable.  I happen to be friends with this teacher, and I also think he is the best teacher my kids have ever had.

I just sat and listened to these kids talk.  And then I sent a message to this teacher to let him know what had just happend.  I just felt like I should do it.  And then I got this reply:

Now see what you've gone and done! Made me all misty and wanting to keep doing this..  In all seriousness, thanks so much for sending that along to me. It really does recharge the batteries to know that once they've left here, they still remember, still appreciate and still talk about class.

You never know... they sit here and be 7th and 8th graders and you just don't know. It's nice to hear that what I do -- and how I do it -- has a lasting impact... I really was really feeling like backing off and not doing all the extras... but now I know I shouldn't do that. Mysterious ways, eh?

Yep.  Mysterious ways.

Christmas Eve

We had our traditional family Christmas Eve party last night, and it was so much fun.  We invited the missionaries over to celebrate with us.

We had the usual pizza dinner for the kids, and then sent them all to the basement to play while the adults sat down for a fancy dinner.  

We had our usual cousins Nativity pageant, and we like to keep it real.  Like when one angel was mouthing, "Blah blah blah," while the narrator read the angels words from Luke chapter 2, or when Mary and Joseph BOTH wanted to hold the baby, or when a cute little angel was doing this.

 Then we had some musical numbers.  The missionaries even performed for us.

One of the missionaries is from France, so I made a Bûche de Noël.  I had never done this before, and I failed the first attempt, but the finished product from my second attempt was fantastique.  The Frenchman gave it a thumbs up.

The cousins ran around and played and ran around and played some more.  It was a super fun evening with lots of love and lots of family.

What Christmas means

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT.

I have written before (basically every Christmas) about how we don't do Santa at our house.  We watch the movies and sing the songs.  Our kids know from the moment they can talk that there is no such thing as Santa, because Santa is just one of the many symbols of Christmas and selfless giving.  The kids get plenty of gifts, but they all know that Mom and Dad worked hard, saved and sacrificed to give them those gifts because we love the kids so much.  The kids also know that we can work together to do kind things or buy things as surprises for others to make the spirit of Santa come alive.

And just as I don't like people judging me or getting mad at me that my kid told their kids that Santa was not real, I never want to come across as judging people because they DO  Santa.  Christmas for every family should be celebrated in the most meaningful way to them.

Actually, I do judge people when they use Santa as a threat.  As in, "If you don't do this right now then Santa will not come," or my personal favorite at the store, "Put that back or Santa won't bring you any presents."  I think that is just wrong.   My parents did Santa in a very fun way, but never used it as a threat.

So we are weird.  What else is new?

One thing about my Zack is that he spends every spare minute drawing or making some other crafty thing out of whatever he can get his hands on.  He is an artist.  I found these drawings on the kitchen table recently.

Another thing about Zack is he is the biggest sweetie pie in the whole world.  Christmas to Zack is about Baby Jesus and angels.  When he writes about Christmas, it is always about how much he loves it when his cousins come over. The party is not about the food or the presents--it is about playing with his cousins.

Waiting for snow

There is a line from the movie "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" that reminds me of myself when I was a young girl.
"When I was a girl, I had glasses, I wore my hair in a ponytail, and I was totally obsessed with weather. Other girls wanted a Barbie, I wanted a Doppler Radar Turbo 2000. All the other kids made fun of me."

Except for the glasses....

But I was totally obsessed with the weather.  And I did dream of my own Doppler radar.  I had to settle for a dial barometer/anemometer/thermometer weather station for Christmas is 1983.  After all, a portable, full-color weather station was something totally something from my dreams.  Fantasy.  It could never happen.

But dreams come true.  Now every day I sit down on my laptop, go to wunderground.com and weather.com and check out the doppler.  I look at satellite images, radar, and all kinds of weather maps.  I have my sweet Davis Pro2 weather station to know the precise weather data at my house, and I love to check out the different graphs it gives me showing me the trend of whichever data I want--air pressure and wind speed are my particular favorite graphs.

I am dying to have some snow here at my house.  I keep watching my weather station for a drop in air pressure and temperature.  I really, really want some snow.

As Phil Connors asked in Groundhog Day, "Did you want to talk about the weather, or were you  just making chit-chat?"  I will seriously think you want to talk about weather if you bring it up.