You know what's interesting, I'm pretty good at standing up for myself to most people. I won't take criticism without a fight and rarely back down from confrontation. Except where it concerns my own parent. On the other hand though, I don't know many children, regardless of their age or advanced maturity who aren't affected at least in some part by their parent's opinion. It's even more interesting to watch the cycle as it repeats completely without knowledge of all parties. I can see the cycle, my mother, cannot and would be completely mortified and antagonistically/aggressively deny any such associations with her own mother. I know, because in the past if I've pointed out similarities to her, she vehemently and viciously denies to the point of anger that she has anything in common with her own parent.

I am an animal lover, I have been since childhood. I was restrained by parentage while young, less so by marriage, though still somewhat restrained. I have a brain and common sense, I'm not an idiot. David offered me a choice of holiday gift: an Ipad or a puppy. The puppies are purebred (non-papered) Labradors. The Ipad, in my opinion, is too much of a gift, I don't want it. Not when I can barely give a decent holiday to my children. We have bills that should take priority also. The puppy is a much more reasonably priced gift, though the long lifespan and accumulated upkeep costs of years would certainly far outweigh that of the ipad's single expense. Not to mention the training involved: housebreaking, basic obedience, and harness. Then there's the inevitable shedding and potential bad habits (chewing, barking, jumping up on people/furniture), and the fleas that we have mostly been able to avoid. However, it's the first time in our entire relationship that he has offered me an animal as a gift. So I choose to cherish this rare moment.

I made the mistake of mentioning my dilemma to my mother. I hadn't mentioned it to anyone else as I was torn between wanting the pup and my more practical side telling me to not accept, that it was not the right time. The moment I let it be known to my mother that he was offering me a puppy, her comment was "you don't need another mouth to feed." Thank you very much, however, the number of mouths in this household to be fed are none of your business. I was merely sharing my conundrum, not requesting her opinions on the matter. Whether or not she's right is completely beside the point.

I know it's been awhile, but I was sitting here and listening to Ari play a Katy Perry song called Firework and something occurred to me. I just viewed the video of that song earlier today, and while I have always enjoyed the tune, I never really paused to truly listen to the lyrics. It's actually fairly impressive prose and a powerful message to young people everywhere. Very much to my surprise, I learned that Katy wrote that song herself. My impression of her as a person increased as a result.

I won't pretend to be impressed with everything every entertainer does. Some of them are reprehensible in the extreme. Most of them are not the kind of examples I want my girls to be setting up for hero-worship. Many of them create works of 'art' that are not of their own minds, and all too often, the message gets buried beneath lewdness that utterly destroys the basic meaning. It's disappointing since so many of these people are handed the opportunity to do the right thing. To set the example for the next generation. To step up and actually be the hero. To show girls they don't have to starve themselves to be beautiful. That they don't have to be addicted to drugs, sex, or alcohol to have a good time. I feel like in most cases, they see nothing beyond their own selfish worlds.

Very rarely, one of these people will take a step above and out of the general melee, and show themselves to be genuinely worthy of their fans. Katy Perry has impressed me today. We'll see how long she's able to hold onto that. If you haven't heard the song or seen the video yet, I urge you to take a look at her piece titled 'Firework'.

Oh, and ignore the sparks that appear to be shooting out of her breasts, I'm of the inclination that was poor planning on the part of the video director. Though it's good for a laugh!

Why women live longer than men

A long time ago I was sent an e-mail about why women live longer than men, and while I can't find the exact message, I can recall a good bit of what was in it. It went something like this:

A man and a woman were sitting together watching television. The woman stands up and announces that she's going to bed. She then goes into the kitchen and washes the few dishes in the sink and wipes down the counters. She moves a load of laundry from the washer to the dryer and starts another load washing. She notices the mail lying on her desk and remembers she wanted to pay a few bills and writes a note for her child for the next day's school field trip. She then remembers that she really should pack a lunch for her child, so she goes back into the kitchen and fixes up the bagged lunch. She then gets out hamburger to thaw from the freezer for the next day's meal. About this time the husband calls out, "I thought you were going to bed?" To which she replies that she is. She then goes into the bathroom and takes a shower, brushes her teeth, cleans her face, applies moisturizer, and shaves her legs. She peeks in on her child and picks up a few scattered toys and clothing garments and adds them to the laundry basket. About this time the husband stands up and announces he's going to bed. He turns off the television and goes to bed. The woman then notices there's some dust on the tv and goes to get a dust-rag. She folds the basket of clothing and puts everything away. Finally she goes and lays down for bed.

So the reason women live longer than men? Well of course, she still has so much to do!

On Losing a Loved One

Have you ever noticed that when you find out the news, that a family member has passed away whom you had known very well, even if you hadn't seen/talked with them in a long while, that it brings all the memories crashing back, and inevitably, regret. Today I learned that my paternal grandmother had passed away on Tuesday. My father apparently did not feel it to be a momentous enough occasion to inform me or my other brother directly, even though he was present when she passed, for which I am glad, truly. However he informed my eldest brother and left it to him to pass the information along to the rest of us. A bit cowardly in my opinion, though perhaps, just maybe, he was overcome with grief and was not able to make those necessary calls. I honestly don't believe it really.

Family strife aside, I miss my grandmother. Even though I hadn't seen her in a decade. Even though I had made the decision a few years ago not to seek her out for reasons that, at the time, seemed viable. Even though she had dementia and would not have recognized me anyway (decade of years aside and all). Even though I had seen photos of her before and had (selfishly) thought that I would not wish to taint my memories of her as I remember with those of her as she had become. I look back through my childhood and remember her idiosyncrasies. I developed my strong feminist attitude because of her. The cedar Hope chest behind me came from her and my grandfather as my 'coming of age' gift at 13.

My grandmother died from breast cancer. Now, this might cause me alarm except that she developed it as a side effect of certain medications she took when she was younger. She was still cognitive when she was diagnosed, she refused to allow treatment. So we all knew it was a mere matter of time. In all honesty, she lived much longer than probably would have been expected, given her condition. She also lived with cirrhosis of the liver for nearly 3 decades. I can only barely remember when my grandmother could walk unassisted. But I remember how much she loved me, her only granddaughter for a long time.

No Waste

I'm a frugal person by my very nature, always have been. It was ingrained in me during years and years of struggling by my mother to make ends meet throughout my childhood. However, I sometimes wonder if I don't go to much more impressive extremes. For example, I purchased half a bushel of apples. The first half of that batch was made into applesauce, the cooked 'pulp' remaining after having been strained was given to the chickens. Tonight I went farther with the other half of that batch of apples. I had my eldest daughter help me peel and core the apples. Then I canned those sections in spiced syrup (got 5 qts too), but what to do with the peelings and cores?! It seemed like such a waste! All that lovely flavored peelings. So I cooked them down with a couple cups of water and ran them through an uber-fine mesh sieve. I not have 3 cups of the loveliest natural apple juice. I will add another cup later and make jelly with it! Still not quite finished though, because I also have the remaining paste-like pulp that is left after squeezing every possible drop of juice from it. I put that aside and tomorrow I plan on mixing in some whole oats. I'll bake those 'apple biscuits' on low for awhile and hopefully I will have home-made apple crisps to feed to the rabbits! I wouldn't want humans to consume them as they may contain whole stems and seeds as well. However, that accounts for every bit of the apples I purchased, with no waste whatsoever. And gives me 5 qts of canned apples, 3 pints apple jelly, and a couple dozen 'apple biscuits' for the livestock. Definitely a thumbs-up on this one!

A few other no-waste recipes I use include one for peaches and one for watermelon. The peaches you peel them and section them, canning the fruit itself in syrup, and then boil down the skin peelings to make peach honey! The watermelon recipe, you eat the pink part of the fruit (it's best to cut it off though LOL) then peel the green skin off and use the remaining part of the green rind to make watermelon rind preserves!

I have other methods to reduce waste. I have a dog that frequently clears most of any 'plate' leftovers from the children, not to mention her special usefulness in cleaning up toddler food messes. In addition I have a pair of rat boys who stay fat on leftovers and bones. Not to mention the compost pile!

Stray Dogs

After literally weeks of housing one small dog, I've finally managed to find him a permanent new and loving owner. Interestingly when I had the dog advertised as being free to a good home, I had just a couple inquiries. The moment I placed a re-homing fee on him, even though I didn't really care about the money, I had over half a dozen people wanting to see him. What actually prompted my adding the fee was the second person inquiring actually left me waiting in a hot car with a dog and two small children for 30 minutes. Then simply stopped returning my repeated requests to meet to see him.

I admit, I feel better knowing someone had to put out money to adopt the dog. Even though it was just a minimal fee. At least I know the new owner is willing to spend some money on him.