Ode to a brutha...

This morning started off like usual...stiff getting out of bed and shlepping around the house for a little before settling in to work.  Then the phone rang.  It was my little brother and he was in my neck of the woods.  

He showed up at the door, his handsome self and brought with him, as he always has, a certain amount of his specialness.  Now, I have always had this theory that if you have known a red-haired boy you will always love red-haired boys.  I love this little brother.  I have a second theory that if you have known a Kevin, you will always love Kevins! I do, too!  I have a special fondness for Kevins! 

Anyway, my not-so-much-red-haired-any-more brother Kevin came to my house, with his specialness, this January morning.   Now, this is unusual.  Kevin has not been a drop in to see you kind of guy over the past 20 years or so.  He’s busy, has a full life and a wonderfully busy wife as well.  They have been active in their community and surroundings and generally, well, involved.  

In my neck of the woods, he was to pick up some bicycles.  Now, he has had bicycles around his house for a long time. There are even some for decoration in his pretty back yard.  But, today, he is here picking up bicycles for another reason.  My brother is involved with an organization out of Chicago, Working Bikes Cooperative, that rehabs old bikes and sends them to countries all over the world.  Places like Ghana and Guatemala...places where the difference of having a bike and not having a bike can be life changing.  The organization accepts donated bikes from a host of places and you can even run a “bike drive” to encourage your neighbors and their neighbors’ neighbors to drop off a bike at your local event.  Clean out that garage and basement folks...there’s a need for your unused bike.  Is this the coolest thing ever or what? 

I love this little brother for a whole new set of reasons today! Oh, and kids, about your old bikes in the garage....

The balance

I consider myself a good mother-in-law.  I don’t think I could write a book, and I know I make mistakes, but, generally I consider myself good.  

In a gathering of my circle of friends recently, we talked about what makes a good mother-in-law.  Of course, the perfect balance of interfering and not interfering is a skill that is difficult to achieve but it is a great trait.  An example I will give you here concerns my son-in-law, whom I love dearly, and gift giving. 

Recently, for one gift giving opportunity, my son-in-law commented he did not have a clue as to what to get my daughter.  I suggested jewelry, of course. He didn’t agree, made a remark or two about how she had a lot of necklaces already and wasn’t in to jewelry much.  (I said I love him, right?) 

The next day or so, he started sending me links to items he found online.  He was very proud of himself for finding a number of options, and they were lovely, but “upscale costume” pieces and she has a lot of those kinds of things already.  I hinted at how nice “real” jewelry is and maybe a heart shaped necklace might be good.  He said to me “She doesn’t have anything heart shaped.  She likes circles”.   ( I said I love him, yes, I do) 

So, here’s where the delicateness of being a good mother-in-law comes in.  “Well, that is true, she does really like circles but maybe the reason why she doesn’t have anything heart shaped is that its not something she would buy for herself? I mean, isn’t that something that would come from you? As her love?”  Then, the second morsel. “Why don’t you stop in to a jewelry store and see what they have? A real jewelry store, I bet you’ll see something there that fits the occasion. Trust me on this one.” 

My son-in-law is a wonderful person, and bright.  He did make it to a jewelry store and purchased a lovely heart shaped pendant with their daughter’s birthstone floating inside.   Its gorgeous, she loves it and wears it almost every day.  

On the other hand,  I totally missed the second son-in-law’s gift for my other daughter this Christmas.  I’m a work in progress, I guess. 

Oh, for a frother.

Just got back from an attempt to locate a recipe in a magazine I saw some time ago at my mother-in-law’s house.  Went through a stack of food mags and came up empty handed as far as the recipe I wanted, but, boy, there’s a lot of good sounding stuff out there in the world, isn’t there? Especially if it involves cheese.  Yum. 

At times I think it is just too difficult to be a great cook.  Other times, I review a recipe and it doesn’t seem all that hard.  I can follow a recipe for crying out loud, can’t I? I’m an okay cook, not a great cook.  By okay I mean my family didn’t starve while the kids were young.  The trick is, like so many projects, its not necessarily the cooking its the tools.  I don’t have a lot of fancy tools, pots or pans.  No frother, no stand mixer. 

I am a big fan of the small house, small mortgage line of thinking.  However, it leaves little room for “stuff”.  For example, I would really like a toaster oven.  I don’t have room for a toaster oven.  I would like a stand mixer, again, no room.  I just  realized that this may be a carry over from growing up in a trailer days...just no room.  But, on the other hand, I can’t say that I don’t have other stuff.  I've got plenty. 

I guess it is just that I don’t have the kitchen stuff that is required, or seems to be if the magazines are being truthful with me, to be a great cook.  Like a super huge pot.  I’ve got a pretty big pot.  It has to stay in the basement when not in use as there’s not a cabinet that will hold it.  My niece has an ginormous pottery bowl that she makes spinach salad in...I love that bowl but I have nowhere for a bowl of that magnitude.  Along with their beautiful family, I love seeing that bowl come in the door.  

The thing about it is, after I realize I don’t have the stuff, I realize I don’t really want to be that cook anyway.  I don’t want to spend an hour getting the perfect peaks in my egg whites or, seriously, bringing the glaze to the proper sheen.  I am really grateful for people that want to be great cooks, and have the stuff to make it happen.  I am more than happy to visit their homes. 

The back burner simmer.

Its rather odd to wake up the first few days of January and have the snow completely melted and sunshine beaming in the windows, but, hey, I’ll take it for now.  Makes it easier to get out and grocery shop anyway.  It is super cold, however, and I guess that is why this is winter. 

A negative to working at home like I do is if there is a computer issue, its all on me to fix. If  I can’t get connected in to the systems for some reason I have to go to a support queue to be managed in a way, way too long and overburdened system.  That’s how my January morning is starting out.  It gives me time to look around my desk, see what I need to throw out and begin organizing my paperwork for taxes and what not, but, gosh, patience for this is not my strong suit.  One of the trade-offs for my work-at-home life. Today is one of those days; the tech support queue is long and the time I was going to have “for myself” this morning is being spent waiting in that queue.  

I often reflect and have the time “for myself” late at night, so this is a little different for me to just be waiting here.  If I look to the left, there it is - the big pile of papers and filing.  If I look to the right, eh.  Not much.  If I look ahead, well, that’s another story.  That’s the window, that’s daydream land.  While I am waiting in this queue, you see, I have to be ready for that tech support person to come on.  I am basically stuck here...simmering.  I can’t really get up and go about my day because they might be here any second, and if I am not, boom, they let me go and on to the next one who has been willing to wait.  I’m not scheduled to work yet so thank goodness I tried my systems early. 

This is when I usually shred stuff.  I feel good about shredding things.  It makes me feel like I am so organized.  I like deciding what doesn’t need to be shredded and can just be thrown in the recycling bin.  I am constantly amazed at the amount of paper garbage that comes in our  mail.  I know we have made great progress in the land of junk mail but wow, it is still a huge issue in my house.  I stopped taking magazines years ago, we do not get the paper but I get a tremendous amount of other junkmail.  If I could figure out a way to get the bills to stop coming in the mail, that’d be perfect.  

Oh, here’s the support tech now.  I guess its time to focus on a bit of work.  That wasn’t so bad; an hour and a half.  I got some shredding done and had breakfast.  Made a call.  Its not always a bad thing to be put on the back burner!