At Considerable Cost

All three of my children started school this year.   All three.   Thomas is now a proud kindergartner.   Clare is in second grade.   Emmeline began intermediate school which means a locker and schedule to remember.   My house is nearly silent during the day and it feels very empty and lonely.   I have to stop here and step off any pity train, though.   Every school day, I climb into my car and get to pick up my babies from school.   Then, I get to spend the rest of the evening with them, along with the weekends and holidays.   My house is not always empty.   It's not the same as the seven years we waited for the sounds of children to fill our home.   The idea of returning to homeschooling has been very appealing to me recently.   It's been appealing because I want my children with me all the time.   I honestly miss them.   My head soon takes...

C.O.D--Cash on Delivery--remember that on old television product offers? Friday, I received a late Christmas card from the daughter of Mama's best friend.   She had mailed the card earlier but it was returned and between then and now, her mom gave her two pictures.   They are from May of 1991, the weekend of my high school graduation.   Mrs. Carmel and five of her six children travelled to spend the weekend with us.   One of the pictures was much like one in my photo album from my high school days.   It was a picture of me, in cap and gown, between my parents.   It was the top of the stack in the envelope.   The second picture--one I'd never seen-- threw me.   Tears, as I leaned against the kitchen counter.   C.O.D.?   Comfort on Delivery...comfort I miss so much, but have such memories of, and comfort that I am hopefully able to give my own children.   It is po...

It's the day before Thanksgiving and it's quiet here.    I keep thinking I'm forgetting something.   For the past few years, this day has been the culmination of several days of intense pie making.   Careful planning and shopping was followed by a tight time schedule so that by Wednesday morning, beautiful pies sat complete, boxed and ready to be picked up by customers.   This year, I'm taking it easy and the only pies I'm making are our own. I've had to rest a bit between my own cooking today, so I'm glad I declined all pie orders.   I realize though, what those orders meant, beyond extra spending money for Christmas gifts.   They meant planning and anticipation.   I had people coming to my door throughout the day.   Those pie orders and the customers who placed them helped to keep me occupied so I had less time to think about who would not be coming through my door for Thanksgiving.   Or C...

"Let me get my purse," she would say, as she turned around, untied her apron, and headed back inside.   My parents would wait for Mama's Grandma Taylor until she came out with her purse and closed the door beside her.   Mama always said that after they'd driven a few miles, only then would her grandmother ask, "Where are we going?" This was the story Mama liked to tell me about picking up her grandmother for Sunday drives.   Mama would emphasize to me when I was little that my great-grandmother did not care where she was going, she was just always ready to go.   To get out of the house.   To go on a little adventure.   I knew my mama daydreamed about traveling across the country on a motorcycle or in an RV as part of a retirement life.   She would imagine all the places she would see and the people she would meet along the way.  She was always open to adventure when a friend called or stopped by with an idea o...

As part of my recent attempts to cozy up our home (since it's only been almost two years since we moved in), I finally hung up this little painting I purchased in November. I bought this from the artist at a festiv al.   It remi nded me of the rolling farmland we saw from our windows on our many trips to east Texas over the past few years.   All thos e trips we made to my parents' home after my Mama's death and after my dad went into a nursing home.   All thos e trips to check on the house, to clean out the house, and to finally sell the house.   All those heavy, hard trips which left me drained and emotionally wrung-out. But, take my word for it,  this picture is beautiful and it's bright.   It reminds me not of the heavy, hard trips, but of the glimpse of beauty and the true pleasure I took in seeing that beauty as we dro ve to our heavy destination.   It 's a reminder of God always being the re, of friends like Am ber   who would m...

The first major cold front finally blew into our area.   It offered us relief from unseasonably warm temperatures that followed our seasonably hot summer.    Along with a welcome change in weather, Autumn has brought back memories of that season on our small farm in Louisiana. The pecan harvest fell to women and children on our farm.   My father commuted thirty miles to the university where he taught and when he was home, any work he did was related to the cattle.   I would pick pecans after school, but for me, the real work —and the real memories—belonged to Saturdays.   On those mornings, I woke early and dressed in my warmest, oldest clothes.    Blue jeans that could take wet, grass stained knees and a too-large coat–previously the property of my parents or older sister– were basics in my pecan picking- ensemble.     A quick breakfast and then I headed outdoors, grabbed a bucket and prepa...

This week, Leila at Like Mother, Like Daughter , announced a Master Bedroom Challenge: Make Your Bedroom Beautiful and Useful .   It was a perfectly timed challenge for me.   As part of the Reasonably Clean House series at the blog, Leila recommends beginning the process in your master bedroom.   Her reasoning is right on target, as I've learned after nearly sixteen years of keeping --or trying to keep--our house.   Our bedroom is last on our list to work on in this house.   Since we moved in over a year ago, we've worked on all the other rooms .   Now, it's time to start making the master bedroom come together.   It's a large wonderful space.   My mama always said the problem with a bigger house/space is it is easier to clutter it and you aren't as wise with organization.   She was right.   Lot of corners and spaces to "store" things in this room until I get to them.   Plu...

"Is she in there?" "I think so.  Should we knock?" This was part of the conversation from my fellow teachers outside my classroom door the morning I returned to work, two months after the birth of my first child.    My locked classroom door.   I managed to get into the building with no contact with others, cover my window on my door, and lock myself in for a good cry.    I did not take separation from my baby very well.   I called my husband and told him I just couldn't stay.   He called the personnel office and asked about my leave options.   Then, he called Mama.    "I know it's hard, Joey, but you have to let her face this; she just has to do it." Later, when I talked to Mama, she told me how she felt when she took me to my first day of school.   She said leaving me at that poor, old south Louisiana school building was one of the hardest things she ever did. ...

Today would have been Mama's 75th birthday.    Part of me reads that as "should" rather than "would."   I want her to be here.   I need her to look at me as only she could and I need her to tell me what I should do in so many situations as a mom.   I need to know more about what I was like as a child and how much of that is reflected in my own little ones.   I need her to tell me all the old stories again as the names and faces of those relatives so distant to me are fading.   I need my children to have a grandma.   I just need her.   Here. Here and now, that's okay for me to feel.   I've given myself permission to let the tears flow today and indulge in a good cry, without any pep talks or attempts at pulling at my own bootstraps.   Because my favorite memories of Mama are her just being there.   There in that moment.   Sitting with her friends and laughing so hard ...

I wrote about Mama's "famous" chocolate chip cookies in another blog post .   She kept the recipe in her first cookbook, a 1955 Betty Crocker book she bought for Home Ec. class in junior college.   It's one of my prized possessions.   Mama had hundreds of cookbooks, but this is the one that kept my attention as I was growing up.   I spent hours reading it and looking at its faded pictures.   She gave it to me before she passed away, along with a second copy she bought at a garage sale.   So, I've got a spare copy! Here's the original recipe, in Mama's hand: Mama always doodled as she talked on the phone. Here's the recipe, with notes and additions: 1 cup butter, softened (Mama always used Superbrand --Winn Dixie's store brand margarine--she said nothing else worked the same; I'm going to  try a butter & margarine/shortening blend) 2 cups brown sugar 2 eggs 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 tsp. baking ...

I usually catch a glimpse of Mama's face in my baby girl's face.   As a friend, the daughter of Mama's best friend, told me, "It's a special blessing." My baby girl Mama Thanks be to God for little blessings everywhere.                     

Last year, I sat down and wrote about the details of Mama's death for the first time in this post: An Anniversary .   Today begins what amounts to a week-long anniversary for me now every year.   It has been seven years now since I lost her.   She may be gone, but she passed down so much to me.   Here's just a few I've been thinking of lately. Her perspective was formed by her suffering .   People outside of our family who knew Mama are shocked to find out how much suffering Mama experienced in her lifetime.   I think that was a reflection of her generation along with her as an individual.   Many times, she pointed out people to me whose troubles were far worse than mine.  Mama knew both the heartbreak of not always being able to help her medically fragile son and the pain of losing him.   It seemed to put all other suffering in perspective for her because she had endured that ultimate pain....