New Grandbaby News & Unicorn Flu

Exciting news from the northern branch of the family, younger daughter is expecting another baby! Sunshine will have a little brother or sister just about two years younger. Which, if you aren’t planning to have a lot of kids, is pretty good spacing. Far enough apart to give each a good measure of developmental uniqueness and give Mom a bit of a break, close enough together to allow a strong friendship to develop between them.

#1 grandson is of course going to press once again for his favorite name – Cool Ass Mojo – and once again isn’t likely to prevail. That’s okay, he can name his own child thusly. Grandpa and I are just delighted, hoping this birth will be much easier on our sweet daughter who has proven herself to be an extremely good Mom. Her family is happily well-adjusted and for her good choices we are grateful.

Meanwhile, Grandpa’s intensive work schedule in various regional public school systems kicked into high gear when school started in August, bringing home more than ‘the usual’ season-change cold this year. Some of you may know that the new H1N1 flu is officially rampant here in the Southeast. Some wish to call it swine flu, but it’s also got elements of bird flu and Spanish flu – a regular Chimera. So I just call it the Unicorn Flu, in honor of the worldwide panic it’s engendered since its so-public appearance in Mexico City this past April.

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Obesity, Deadly Sins & The American Plague

The first part of July was very full of relatives here at the homestead, and my relatives run the gambit in ’size’ designations between morbidly obese and thin as rails. I’m a sort of in-between person. Weigh the same now (approaching my 40th anniversary next month) as I did the day I graduated from high school and the day I got married. Don’t tend to gain or lose and never have. Hubby is one of those ‘high metabolism’ sorts who could look like a starving Ethiopian with little trouble just by skipping a few meals, but keeps firm muscles under the no-fat covering by getting way more exercise than most guys these days. Comes from the homestead lifestyle, heating with wood (thus cutting and splitting), maintaining the acre of up-and-down yard, and playing lots of ‘challenging’ disc golf.

Our daughter takes after him. You’d swear she’s got a giant tapeworm or something watching her woof down more food in a single sitting than I’m likely to eat all day (or over two days!), never gains an ounce and has to eat lots to maintain what little she’s got. Her son takes more after his father, and could easily put on significant weight if he’s not careful. Of course his diet is worse than ours – he likes fast food burgers, fries and soft drinks, whereas we are mostly vegetarian, seldom eat out, and drink primarily our great spring water in herb/green teas or plain, or mixed with straight fruit juices like blueberry, cranberry, pomegranate or some combo. All of us get sugar cravings occasionally and are known to pig out on chocolate or other candy, but that’s rare enough not to be a big deal, living as far from town as we do. Daughter likes a little coffee in her sugar, when she’s not here a pound of sugar can last for months. Hubby and I don’t use it in coffee or on cereal (though we do like fruit on our Cheerios), and don’t drink milk straight-up ever. Daughter can consume a gallon a day without even trying.

Out of five kids in my family, 4 of us siblings tend to be slender like me. Yes, the poundage has rearranged quite a bit over the course of my 58 years, but you’ll have this (it’s a gravity thing, I think!). The youngest, my baby sister who had a 17″ waist when she got married, is now morbidly obese. She and her three children spent four days here, took grandson back with them to Florida. Her two sons are like her hubby, high metabolism guys whose plain old nervous energy keeps them skinny. They don’t exercise or even go out of the house much at all, so that’s not a factor. Her daughter is just now ‘chunky’, risks being fat as she gets older if she isn’t careful. Our parents weren’t fat folks, in fact, Mom was a runway model with long legs and perfect posture, lots of grace and beautiful chestnut hair – a real beauty. Grandparents weren’t particularly large on either side, though my father’s sister was a fat woman as was my mother’s grandmother. So there are no doubt a few fat genes in the mix, where there seem to be none on my hubby’s side.

And indeed genetics do play a role. Primarily, I suspect, in how metabolism is regulated, along with hunger signaling and tendencies to store fat. But my observations also tend to support my strong suspicions that most of it is diet and exercise habits. Primarily diet. This was doubly confirmed during their four-day visit, when we had to be the food suppliers.

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Grandmother’s House

The every-other-year trip to sunny Oklahoma to visit with Grandma (great-grandma to my grandkids) was quite the stressful situation this year, which is the year my hubby’s and my sole remaining parent turns 87. She was hospitalized for ten days a couple of months ago with a terrible case of food poisoning – we don’t buy the ‘flu’ excuse, it wasn’t flu – and we flew our daughter out there to stay with her when she got out because we couldn’t take the time off. Daughter made arrangements for home health care, which she needs because she lives alone in a too-big house. The one her mother bought just off Main Street, which survived the tornado that took out the hotel a block in front and the Presbyterian Church a block behind. Back when my hubby was 8 years old and Norma and Clint ran the hotel.

She has also lost sight in one eye, so needed someone to take her car keys away for public safety’s sake. This also makes her depth perception non-existent, and has led to a series of nasty falls that have us and her other son’s family who lives about 45 minutes away most paranoid. Her friends and neighbors love her, but don’t want to be the ones to discover her dead one day alone in that big house, but she’s stubbornly clung to her independence since her husband of 50 years died over a decade ago.

Luckily she has very tough bones, product no doubt of her youthful career as a Rodeo Queen – champion barrel racer – and the number of times she’d been bucked off her horse. But it’s inevitable that one of these days she’s going to break something, and all her choices will be gone. That would be a very sad end to a wonderfully storied life, and not something we would ever wish upon her. So our job was to unite with the rest of the family and try hard to convince her that she should go into a nice assisted living facility less than a minute away from #2 son.

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Another Grandchild Makes the Grade

Pictured is Grandson #2, Michael, who graduated from high school last month and will be attending a college for the artistically gifted, which of course he is. This marks two grandchildren to make it to college, two with rather extreme artistic talents who ought to do very well in the world, and one very, very proud grandma!

We’ll be seeing Mikey and his folks and sister for the week following the 4th of July. Now this is going to be a little bit tricky, but I’m looking forward to Mikey’s complaint-less help in harvesting blackberries for the cobbler he loves so much. We are leaving this coming Saturday for Oklahoma to visit Great-Grandma, who will be 87 in August. We’ll be on our second day homeward on the 4th, and will have to swing through Kentucky on the way home to meet with other sisters, brother-in-laws, nieces and nephews to send my little sister’s ashes over Cumberland Falls, something she made us promise to do before she died a couple of years ago. It’ll be the first time we’re all together since then, and I’m really looking forward to it.

Meanshile, Mikey and family will be leaving Atlanta on the 4th to come here. I’m going to give them the ‘break-in’ secret for getting into the house if we’re not home yet (and we might not be), because we’ve been having a bit of bear trouble this year. Don’t want them camping in the yard, for very good reason.

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Obama Salad & Berry Cakes

First Lady Michelle Obama takes an end-of-term garden work-day to offer some thoughts on healthy food and healthy bodies…

The volunteer students from D.C.’s Bancroft Elementary School who have put some backbone into the First Family’s organic kitchen garden this season enjoyed a fresh lunch salad topped with sweet, fat peas that they’d helped to grow and harvest. For dessert, they got cupcakes topped with berries, also grown in the garden on the South Lawn.

Thus far the well-tended organic garden, which sports various cultivars chosen by the White House Chef to compliment the cuisine served both to the Obama family and to their guests – with a majority of the bounty going to local D.C. food kitchens – has thus far produced 80 pounds of fresh food. And it’s still June, not even tomato time yet! As the First Lady says in this clip, getting involved in growing, harvesting and preparing fresh, organic food can help with a number of health-related issues that plague this country’s citizens…

Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure are all diet-related health issues that cost this country more than $120 billion each year. That’s a lot of money. While the dollar figure is shocking in and of itself, the effect on our children’s health is even more profound. Nearly a third of the children in this country are either overweight or obese, and a third will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lifetime. In Hispanic and African American communities, those numbers climb even higher so that nearly half of the children in those communities will suffer the same fate. Those numbers are unacceptable.

A. Siegel of Get Energy Smart blog does a little math and comes up with an intriguing scenario related to gardens just about a quarter the size of Michelle’s. If just five million Americans were inspired to create a Victory Garden in their yard (or in containers on their deck or patio, in window boxes, inside by a sunny window, etc.) that produced 20 pounds of food each year, it would amount to 100 million pounds (50,000 tons) of fresh, healthy vegetables and fruits grown right at home or in the neighborhood. That’s 50,000 tons of good food that would not have to be grown with chemical intensive agriculture, harvested by third world peasant/slaves, shipped to your local market using fossil fuels, and costing a hefty chunk of the shrinking household budget.

The added incentive is of course getting people outdoors instead of parked in front of the television when they get home from work, bending, digging, hoeing, tending and simply enjoying their garden. Even that little bit of exercise and simple enjoyment can help reduce a tough day’s accumulation of stress, and reducing stress has its health savings dividends as well.

Kudos once again to our beautiful First Lady, her helpers in the kitchen, the Obama girls and the students of Bencroft Elementary for a tasty job well done. Things like this are a fun and healthy chunk of the Change We Need!

More of Life’s Comings and Goings…

Yes, Grandma is once again gifted with a baby grandson, this one making his appearance on Valentine’s Day! No doubt a signal that he’ll be as much of a heartthrob (and/or heart-breaker) as his big brubby and his Daddy, whom I often describe to people as one of…

The Few, The Proud, The Incredibly Good-Looking. Yup, he’s a Marine. Seems to like it okay, will soon hit the decade mark with the Corps. We’d been hoping he would be stationed nearer, but it seems they like him too much where he is now. Welcome to the world, grandson #7!!! I hope it treats you well, and that you will spring lightly along your journey.

Proud and happy as I am to report another grandchild in the growing ranks, it’s been a rough couple of months on the loss side of the scale too. First a friend succumbed after a hard-fought five year battle with ovarian cancer. Days later a another dear friend discovered he had cancer of the spine. He went out relatively quickly, which is just as well with this particular cancer. Yet another old friend fought his cancer hard, checked out last night.

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A Holiday Gift of Self

…that lasts throughout the year!

It’s getting closer to the Big Day, even as credit continues to dry up, jobs go away by the thousands, and ideas for alternative gift-giving are increasingly making the rounds. So today I’m going to promote an idea that will hopefully begin to catch on all over the country for Christmases present and future.

It’s called volunteering. Now, many families volunteer their services at Thanksgiving every year, preparing and serving T-day feasts to shut-ins via Meals On Wheels, at senior centers or at the city soup kitchen. Of course many others donate goods, like food and clothing, blankets and winter coats, etc. during the holidays. But not so much at Christmas, and I’ve always wondered why.

Sure, there’s not much call for volunteers at most charity operations on Christmas Day proper, but on most other days all year long there is a shortage of volunteers to do the work. Things like sorting and boxing donated food to be distributed to needy families and food banks, the preparation and serving of regular meals through all the agencies and charities that feed the hungry, manning the check-out at the church or secular thrift store, spending a few hours sitting with a disabled child or adult so their primary caregivers can have a much-needed time out, maintaining trails in parks and forests, even repairing and building homes with Habitat for Humanity. There are ongoing projects in most cities and counties all over the nation that would love nothing better than to have more volunteers than they need during day-to-day operations, at all times of year. I’ll include some source links at the bottom that should help readers in search of projects to volunteer for.

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A Fun Family Do-It-Yourself Christmas!

It’s November already, the the world economic situation – or just the US economy – is dire. Many are wondering if there will be a Christmas at all this year, and that’s a shame. It means we’ve come to identify this wonderful holiday with the ugly consumer orgy it’s become over the years. Where credit cards get maxed out buying useless, cheap plastic junk or electronic gizmos that don’t last, and just about everything ends up in the landfill before next Christmas anyway.

So I’m going to advocate very strongly here for the kind of Christmas that whole families can enjoy together doing and making things that will surely become treasures to be cherished forever. Gift-giving really isn’t all about how much money you’ve got to waste, it’s about giving of one’s self and one’s thoughts and love and skills. Grandmothers are particularly adept at teaching these sort of things to the up and coming generation, and apart from some serious messes to clean up, these are wonderful projects for the holidays.

Our friends over at the blog Life on a Shoestring Budget have some very nifty ideas, a surprising number of them having to do with that ubiquitous dryer lint that mostly gets tossed these days. My favorites are dryer lint paper – for Christmas cards or handmade notebooks – dryer lint mache, and dryer lint clay. The recipes offered in links to Frugal Living and PlanetPal look to be easy and satisfying.

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Favorite Snacks: Stuffed Grape Leaves

Since our daughter and grandson got back from their sojourn to Florida and Costa Rica, I’ve again had cause to prepare the kind of labor-intensive foods I didn’t bother with at all when it was just hubby and I here by ourselves. One of our favorite cold munchies are two-bite sized stuffed grape leaves, so I thought (since I made a big batch today) that I’d go ahead and give the details on this delicious delicacy.

The key ingredient, of course, are the grape leaves. These should be gathered in the late spring (May-June), when the vines are barely blooming. The newest leaves and the leaves near the bloom clusters are the best, they should be as large as your spread hand at the base. Wild fox grape leaves work too, though they are only about half the size of good vineyard leaves. They also have a tarter flavor of their own, so these can even be the preferred leaves if you’ve got some growing in your immediate area.

When the leaves are gathered, you can freeze or brine them. I usually freeze enough to add to every jar of dill pickles that I produce during the cucumber harvest (July-August), as they help lend crispness to the pickles. Those leaves that you want to preserve for stuffed leaves are best put into brine. For this, use kosher or pickling salt, 2/3 of a cup of salt to two cups of water. I use the “cigar” method, which is pretty easy.

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Homecoming!

Yea, the kids are home! Kind of strange how empty this place seemed while they were gone. Hurricane Fay came through in August and dumped a full foot of rain in two days, flooding the ground floor thoroughly and making hubby and I have to sleep on the fouton on the living room floor. We liked it being so handy so much that we stayed there for a month before putting the room back together. It was just us, who’s to care?

I never quite figured out how to cook meals for just the two of us either, the leftovers just kept piling up until the fridge was completely overloaded. It all eventually got tossed into the compost bin. When the pears ripened Da Bear came on in to feast, totally destroyed the trash bin to get to – whatever was in there he thought he could eat. Since we don’t toss food scraps, I’m guessing it was stale, flat, watered-down drips of beer from cans waiting for recycling.

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