The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

A Few Pictures from Thanksgiving Morning

Julia and Alex helping to make the stuffing…even though we didn’t actually stuff anything except ourselves…

Things

I have mixed feelings about this time of year.

Some call it the season of giving, but if you think about all the advertising, it’s more like the season of getting.  Of gimme, gimme gimme.

Even the commercials urging you to shop here to buy “the perfect gift” aren’t really interested in you and your gift-giving.  They just want your money.  Gimme.

And things.  It’s all about things. 

We’ve got lots of things in this house.

Things that we use, and things that decorate. 

Things that bring us joy, and things that gather dust underneath the beds or lie buried beneath other things.  Things the children were overjoyed to unwrap last year or the year before, which are now clogging shelves or access to the closet.

~~~

We have too much stuff.  Too many things.

I’m working on getting rid of the excess. 

It’s not easy.

I blame genetics.  Or the Great Depression.  Or my grandparents growing up poor in the East End of London.

They didn’t have much when they got married.  But over time, with a lot of hard work, they did well for themselves.  And they acquired things.  Lots of books.  Mementos.  Serving ware.  Things.

They lived into their eighties after living good lives and providing the world with one child – my mother.  When they died, my mother was left without her parents, but with a lot of things to sort through.  To keep, to give away, to throw away…

And before all that, my mother continued the tradition of collecting and keeping things. 

Our house – a full four stories high – was full of things.  There was a closet in the dining room, for instance, that was floor-to-ceiling dishes and glassware and salt and pepper shakers and odds and ends of serving ware.  The walls were adorned with platters…teacups and saucers…interesting plates.

I thought it was pretty cool (except when I had to wash them). 

We got lots of things for Christmas.  My mother, a depression-era baby, wanted to give us magical Christmases with lots to unwrap.  She did a great job.  I grew up thinking that was the whole point and quest of Christmas.  To give The Best Gifts Ever.  I overspent.  I drove myself crazy.  I gave people lots of things.

And I have lots of things now.

The other part of all this, is the Saving of Things. 

That spoon was given to your grandmother by her great-aunt-in-law’s cousin Matilda on her deathbed. 

That sort of thing.  The sort of thing that, while yes, it’s just a spoon, is also That Spoon, and it is this capitalized identity that gives the spoon a weight far heavier than the few ounces you see on a scale.

It becomes more than a spoon.  It is a spoon with meaning.  With history.  With great-aunt-in-law’s cousin Matilda’s very blood and soul forged into the metal.

It must be kept.

This makes it really hard to clean out the attic or to hold a yard sale. 

All those possessed things refusing to budge.

~~~

About 8 years ago lots of events took place.  (Like they do every year, I suppose.)  The ones I’m thinking of include these – my parents sold the house they’d lived in since the year before I was born.  Part of it was also my father’s business, and as a retired couple whose daughters were out of the house, it was too big.  For my father. 

My mother never wanted to move.  The house was such a possessed thing.

And I understand that.  I grew up in that house.  So many memories in those rooms.  It was my home.

But.  It was too much.  Too big and old (and drafty) to heat efficiently, too much to maintain, too many things that would need attention eventually, which would cost more than they wanted to spend.

So, with great gut-wrenching reluctance on my mother’s part (and my mother is a WHOLE ‘nother story that would need a separate blog), the house was sold, and they moved into a smaller place about 3 miles away.

And attempted to cram 40 years or more of things into a much smaller house.  It wasn’t easy.  And it’s still not really done.  The basement?  Full of boxes and boxes of things.  There are two full-sized hutches in the dining room, each filled and covered with all those dishes and glasses and things from the closet and walls of the former dining room. 

My mother won’t let go of these things.  This came from so-and-so.  That was given to me by this person who died twenty years ago.  These were the sugar decorations from your first birthday cake.  Yes, they are crumbly, but still. 

That same year, my daughter was born.  A gorgeous, healthy baby girl.  A baby sister for our son.  A girl cousin for the lone girl niece on either side of the family.  A happy occasion.

And, at the very end of that year – this was 2004 – a tsunami struck a lot of the Asian coastal countries, destroying homes and families, drowning lives and memories and dragging them out to sea.

My mother did not look on 2004 fondly.  She was focused on the sale of her home, and oh, yeah, she also broke her hip.  That, at the end of the year, was all she could focus on.

I pointed out that a granddaughter was also born that year.  Oh, yeah.

That didn’t sit well with me.  But again – I need a separate blog for all that.

Anyway, those three events – house, daughter, tsunami – have become intertwined in my mind.  I think about them like this: 

I love my home, I love my stuff in my home. 

I love my daughter.

What if a tsunami came and dragged it all out to sea?

I wouldn’t care about the home or the stuff.

I can’t imagine losing my daughter.  Or, rather, I can, but I choose not to because it is too painful to even contemplate.

But it has changed something in me. 

My feeling about things.

I care less about them.  Instead, I feel as though they are looming over me sometimes, crowding me with all their history and meaning.

Yes, some things are meaningful to me.  Some things I cannot part with.  Or, rather, I could, but choose not to, at least for now.  Some things – habits are hard to break – I will keep for my kids.  Pieces of furniture.  Sets of dishes.  These are functional things.  They will be used.

I think I’m tired of things that just sit there.  That aren’t used.  That, okay, I can look at them and feel time shift and remember something significant, or a certain person…but…I don’t find it quite as hard to let go any more.

I don’t want to be crowded. 

I don’t want to be haunted by these things, or by the…the familial obligation to keep things because great-aunt-somebody-or-other left them behind after she died and now I’ve got to dust it.

Yes, I have items that mean a lot to me; that have some kind of significance.  But how many of these special things do I need or want to keep?  Do I need to keep EVERYTHING I’ve ever been given?  EVERYTHING passed down from a passed-away relative?  I feel things clutching at my arms and legs, and clinging to me with whispers that trigger all my guilt reflexes.  I don’t want that.  I don’t need that. 

They are things.  Sure, they bring me a smile or a memory.

But if a tsunami were to strike?

They are just things.

~~~

I know – this has been long and rambling.  And unedited.  And not thought out entirely.  I just sat down and started typing, with a vague idea of what I wanted to say, and this is what came out.

Years ago I would definitely have disagreed with these words.

Tomorrow I might disagree with myself.

But somehow, I don’t think so.

The First Two Window Quilts

I finished them!

Yesterday, which was Thanksgiving, was also my only day off this week.  As I mentioned in my previous post, we did a brunch instead of the traditional turkey dinner, which was wonderful and relaxing and left us with a whole afternoon and evening to do whatever we felt like doing.

I felt like finishing these two quilts.

Twas the Day Before Thanksgiving

This post has nothing to do with Scratchy.  I just wanted to post a photo of something.

It’s Wednesday morning, the kids are getting ready for school.  Tonight Bill and I and the kids will all be cooking and prepping food for tomorrow.

We’re not going traditional this year.  Not exactly.

Oh, we have a turkey, but we’re not serving it whole.  Bill’s making sausage with the dark meat and I’ll brine and roast the breast portion for those who want turkey slices.

We’re doing brunch this year instead of dinner.  My sister and I came up with the idea for a variety of reasons, and the more we talked about it, the more enthusiastic we grew. 

We’re keeping some traditional things (stuffing, gravy, pumpkin/squash pie) but my sister is making a brussels sprout, bacon and potato hash, I’m making kale pie (for the eggy breakfast portion of the program), and for dessert, besides the pie, there will be apple waffles with an apple syrup. 

Beverages will include coffee, tea, hot cocoa and hot cider. 

My niece, Natalie, is making rolls or biscuits, too. 

Oh, and I’ll be serving one of my Camemberts, too.  A larger one.  We’ll see how the texture came out.  I’m pretty sure it’ll taste good, regardless.

And that’s the plan.

Naturally I’ve caught a cold, which started the other night with a sore throat, joined the next day by aches and congestion.  I think the sore throat part is subsiding, now it’s congestion in my head and chest.  Oh well.  Tea with honey and lemon…rest when I can get it…and advil to get me through the work day. 

It could always be worse, so I’m not complaining.

Anyway, that’s my little status update for the time being.

I hope you all (those of you who are celebrating it) have a wonderful Thanksgiving!  And those of you who don’t celebrate the day – have a wonderful Thursday!

Squash Muffins

Sure, I could have called them pumpkin muffins, because a pumpkin is, after all, a squash…but these were made from one of our butternut-futsu hybrid squashes, not a pumpkin squash, so I decided to stay accurate.  Or accurate-ish. 

But I digress.

The thing I like best about these muffins, besides how yummy they are, is that the recipe came about because I hadn’t been grocery shopping and I didn’t have some of the things called for in the original recipe. 

So I had to improvise, and it worked!

Camembertish

You can see that it wanted to be Camembert.

It tried, and it tried, but it didn’t quite make it.

Yes, I tried one of my cheeses today.

Just a few minutes ago, in fact. 

I couldn’t wait any longer.  I wanted to see what was going on inside those furry little blobs.

Scratchy and Softie

Just a little update. 

Scratchy is doing great, his fur is growing in, and we’re doing a better job on regulating his food intake. 

A funny little thing we’ve noticed….

From This to That

One last rose in our neighbor’s yard…picture taken a couple of days ago.

Window Quilts in the Works

On Monday I mentioned the wall quilts I want to make for our bedroom windows (and who knows, maybe I’ll make them for the other rooms, too.

Anyway, I cut out lots of squares and rectangles for each of my kids to use.  Then, when they got home from school and finished their homework, I put them to work.

Just Because

I’ll be voting in tomorrow’s election, of course. 

I believe it’s my responsibility, not just my right, to place my vote.

I feel that if you choose not to vote, you don’t have any right to complain about the way the government is run, since you didn’t bother to put your own two cents in at least once every four years.

But that’s just me.

And about voting tomorrow?

I don’t feel all that passionate about it.

I don’t have a whole lot of faith in the idea that ONE person will bring about major positive changes in four years. 

Regardless of political affiliation. 

I think any president – Democrat or Republican – can just come in and magically clean up whatever mess the previous president left behind.

Or change course so that whatever party the newest president belongs to will be all happy and satisfied.

Because this isn’t a dictatorship.  There are lots and lots of voices and opinions.  The president can’t just announce that this is the new way we’re going to do things around here.  Which is good.  Except that it makes it harder to get things done.

It’s like if we’re going to pick a movie to watch.  My daughter will want one movie, and maybe my son will want a different movie.  And they each want the movie THEY picked.  Sometimes because they really and truly want those different movies, but sometimes just because. 

Just because Alex picked the movie, then Julia will not want to watch it.  Not that she has no interest in that movie – maybe secretly she’d really like to watch it.  But.  Just because Alex picked it, Julia doesn’t want to watch it.

And of course it works the same way in reverse.  Julia will make her choice, and Alex, just because, will absolutely no way in heck want to watch that.

That’s what politics looks like to me.  I know it’s probably more complicated and nuanced and lofty, and it’s also more ugly and money-driven and selfish. 

So it’s election day tomorrow.

Maybe we’ll have the same president, maybe we’ll have a new one.  The thing is, whichever president we have, things will be slow to improve or change or whatever, because there will be plenty of people from the opposing party who don’t want to work with the president and his party. 

Just because.

That’s how it all feels to me.  Like lots of squabbling.  Roadblocks everywhere.  Regardless of party. 

It makes me weary.

Jumping Past the Planning

I do a lot of planning. 

I make lists.

I design things.

I rearrange.

I organize.

And sometimes, that’s as far as I get.