Teenage Sons

I have a category called teenage sons. I will have to change it to sons, because they are no longer teenagers. I started blogging when they were 13 and now they are 20. The last seven years have gone by quickly (and sometimes slowly).

It's a whole new parenting game, guiding them while letting them stand on their own. They are so eager to fly from the nest, but I want to help them avoid any big crashes. About the time I master this stage of parenting, they will be on to the next stage. But so it went in every previous stage.

Deja Vu

Just when I thought I had nothing for a blog post, there is a twin repeat from last week. Car in ditch. Ricky this time. "Mom, it's been 3 months since the last time."

Oh, he's fine, except for a huge bruise on his left shoulder and some self-disgust that it happened.

Daily Life/Daily Disasters

I'm sure glad yesterday is done, over, kaput, never to be seen again. Today has been much better (so far).

First, the temperature is now a balmy 26 degrees compared to last night's negative 14 degrees. I went outside several times today in just a lightweight jacket, while I dressed in layers yesterday. I recently read that what I call long underwear is now called a base layer. Much more civilized, don't you think?

Second, I got a call from my son yesterday morning. He was sitting in the ditch in the canyons, just like his brother several months ago. Car sustained damage from the front bumper to the rear bumper. Son missed the big trees. Son was not injured. This is his "new" car. My husband cosigned for it. Insurance is already over $1400 a year for him. And to top it all, I told him to stay home and he disobeyed. Last night I decided to talk to him as an adult instead of a child. I reminded him of Proverbs 19:20, "Listen to counsel and accept discipline, that you may be wise the rest of your days." And I think his eyes glazed over while I was talking.

Finally, I made the best Cuban Black Bean Soup last night. See that line: If a thicker, smoother soup is desired, purée half of the soup in a blender. I decided I wanted a thicker soup, so I put part of it in the blender and hit pulse. The lid flew off and black goop literally flew five feet in every direction. Today, my kitchen is clean and I'm heating a bowl of soup for supper.

So how were your holidays, Earth Girl?

Christmas Tree
The moon was full and the night was cold. Our impossible mission was to find a tree that would fit in the house. In 1995, we planted 25 Scotch pines on our tree farm to provide us with Christmas trees, but they have grown like Topsy, not pruned into the ideal conical Christmas tree shape. After wandering up and down Christmas tree row (watch out for the briars!), the beam of our flashlight at last lighted a passable specimen, a 30 foot specimen. We cut it off midway and brought it home. We cut it off again. And again. The tip of the tree that made it into the stand in our house was a poor reflection of the nicely shaped tree we saw in the moonlight. Lights and ornaments and huge sprays of red berries disguised a lot of imperfections.

Baking
Kolachi, date balls, key lime cookies, homemade caramels, lemon coconut squares, cut-out sugar cookies, cranberry bread, crispy cookie coffeecakes, lemon balm pound cake. No wonder my pants are snug this morning.

Making Gifts
I am not a crafty person (in all senses of that phrase). But I decided to make a scrapbook for my mother-in-law chronicling her birthday party and their fall hayride. This took me hours, but I improved as I completed page-after-page. She loved it, especially the pictures at the sand pit, the hayride destination, because she could not ride in the wagon and missed that fun.

I have been working on compiling Mom's recipes into a cookbook as a gift to my family for over three years now. Family pictures and stories are interspersed throughout the cookbook. It's at the place where I need a killer design for the cover and a really good editor. When I look at it, I love it and I hate it. I think that is about normal for such a project. My niece Jennifer agreed to edit it, so perhaps this gift will be ready to print soon.

Ice and Snow and Rain
A few years ago, REMC buried the lines in our heavily wooded neighborhood because we often lost power. When the bad ice storm hit, we had power. We lent our two kerosene heaters to friends without power. Then on Sunday as temperatures hit subzero, we lost power. Steve started the generator and we plugged in a small electric heater. As he went to retrieve one of our kerosene heaters, Ricky and I played word games by candlelight. (Steve didn't understand why we didn't plug a lamp into the generator, but candlelight was much more dramatic.) When he got home, we gathered up an elderly neighbor and her dog and brought them to our house. Her plan was to crawl into bed and heap on the quilts. As soon as we settled in, power was restored. I am so blessed to have a competent prepared husband.

I'm 19
If I hear this one more time from one son, I'm going to scream! OK, so I did respond several days ago with "So, I'm 59." He thinks our rules, especially curfew, no longer apply to him. This "letting go", a euphemism for ripping apart the family structure, is not easy on either the parents or the sons. I just can't wait for him to be fully emancipated and our relationships restored. If you think I'm being overly dramatic, you have not experienced this stage. As parents, we have worked hard toward the goal of independence for him, but he is so immersed in it that he can't see that we are all working to the same ends. The biggest sticking point is "If you live in our house, you obey our rules."

Excitement in the Canyons

This morning I decided that I wanted to post something more uplifting than the last post about the economy. Perhaps pictures of my late fall garden, the apple harvest, the family cookout, a recipe. But no, I'm posting about my son's latest accident.

Ricky just left the house to visit a friend in Parkview Hospital and the phone rings. "Mom, I'm in the Canyons and my head hurts and my car is in the ditch."

Hoping for the best, I hopped in my car for the short ride to perhaps the most dangerous section of road in the county and found my son hurting but not injured. The car was smashed on every corner. I called 911 and they recommended an ambulance. A few minutes later I heard the siren and looked up the hill at the curve and saw a sheriff's car hit the same slick spot that sent Ricky into a guard rail and across the road into the ditch.

Except the sheriff's car went airborne, knocking down a small tree, and ended up teetering on a ridge. The ambulance showed up along with a fire truck. Then six sheriff's cars and two tow trucks. Poor Ricky was just shivering in the icy rain that was falling.

We're home. I'm monitoring Ricky in case of a concussion, but his vital signs are fine. He doesn't know how sore he is going to be tomorrow though. And we have to figure out the car situation so he can go to classes.

Wild Pectin

My "go-to" cookbook for years has been The Joy of Cooking, because it includes so much background information. For example, the intro to jellies includes information about pectin. By using natural pectin, instead of commercial pectin such as Sure-Gel, jellies require about half the sugar resulting in an intense fruit flavor.

But the seven bags of Concord grapes on my counter are not high in pectin. The Joy gave several options for natural pectin for grape jelly: use under-ripe fruit, use wild grapes, add an apple. So here are the steps for making low-sugar grape jelly without commercial pectic:

1. Take a ride on the river.
Make a date with your husband to go to the St. Joseph River in the Western Lake Erie watershed. Nose the riverboat into shore and cut off (prune?) the vines until you have a large pile on the floor of the boat. Remove the clusters. Step on numerous tiny grapes (they are smaller than blueberries), staining the floor with unique patterns of reddish purple. Watch the moon rise as you head back to the landing. Some sweet smooching is required at this point.

2. Ignore all warnings posted on the blog of an Internet friend.
Google "wild grape jelly" and find this post by Kylee, which includes the money quote:

The first thing I had to do was take all those tiny grapes off their stems. This job reminded me of shelling peas. It takes forever and a day of cleaning those before you get enough to feed two people one time.

3. Spend five hours de-stemming the grapes.
Yes, it takes a long time. Kylee is right. To break the monotony of this chore, make two batches of Concord jelly using some under-ripe fruit and half an apple to 8 cups of grapes. Making jelly with natural pectin requires a candy thermometer to know when the syrup reaches the sheet stage. If you are easily entertained, as I am, use the spoon method to test the jelly as well as the thermometer. Instead of the one or two minutes required with commercial pectic, this approach takes about 30 minutes of cooking.

4. Accept five bags of peaches and pears from brother.
At this point, you may be getting slightly insane, so when your brother calls and offers you peaches and pears from his orchard, resist the offer. Remember you still have four bags of grapes left on your counter. I didn't resist. My son drove over and collected the fruit so it could sit on my table. I ran out of counter room.

5. Cook, drain and strain the fruit.
The proportion of seeds to juice for wild grapes is about 10 times more than for Concord grapes. Empty the cooked wild grapes into a fine mesh strainer, listening for the clunk of seeds instead of the usual plop. For clear jelly, strain for 15 hours. Skip the straining if you are getting impatient or if you must use every last edible bit of these grapes.

6. Add sugar to grape juice and boil until it gels.
Add the sugar gradually, tasting the syrup until it is the right combination of sweet and tart. The wild grapes will gel in about ten minutes.

7. Seal in small jars.
It is important to use the smallest jars possible. This is precious stuff. Don't calculate the cost of each jar based on your consulting rate. You may weep.

8. Let your son lick the pan.
And smile knowingly when he raves about the taste.

Brothers (who don't shave on the weekends)

"Hey, Mom, why don't you take our picture?' So I snap it and Ricky is making some kind of weird hand and face gestures.















So I take another picture.




















And another















And another
















And another
















And end up with this.

Graduation Time

Ricky is graduating this summer. He was three credits short, but wanted so bad to graduate with his class and HAVE A PARTY. So he took three classes this summer, because we refused to have a graduation party without, you know, him actually graduating. He finished his English class a few weeks ago and finished his health class tonight. That just leaves Economics, which should be done tomorrow night.




















The party is August 2 and he just asked me, "Mom, you'll make me a scrapbook, right?" Yikes! I've tried scrapping and even attended a scrapbook night at church once. Five hours later, the other women had completed numerous pages and I completed just one. I dinked around with the design and then had to write a narrative, while they just slapped the pictures on the page with one or two words. To complicate matters, I've printed very few pictures the last two years. I think I'll put the recent pictures into a digital frame and then make posters of the major events and perhaps make a few scrapbook pages. Probably in desperation I will just throw the rest of the pictures in an album.














His cousin, who graduated in the same class, took these pictures of Ricky for me.

Absolutes

It is absolutely guaranteed that my husband will love his Christmas presents if they are power tools. It is absolutely guaranteed that my sons will love their Christmas presents if they are electronic. It is absolutely guaranteed that I will love my Christmas presents if they are books.

Pickle Party

When my teenagers were starting grade school, my niece started having a pickle party for the children the Saturday before Christmas, which also coincided with her birthday and my birthday. Plenty of reasons for a party, eh?

What's a pickle party? She hides a pickle-shaped glass ornament on her tree and the children try to find it. The one who finds it gets the Grand Prize but she always has prizes for all the children. Here are my great nephew and niece searching for that elusive pickle.
And here are the original children, now teenagers, still pickle pondering.
And Ricky celebrating finally finding the pickle after a ten plus year domination by his cousins.I love that my family will pop the Christmas crackers and wear the crowns. No hesitation. No shame. Notice the gingerbread houses decorated that evening behind Jennifer (the gracious hostess). That's her mother in red, my sister.
I found Jennifer's not yet two-year old daughter behind the chair in this pose, pondering the unthinkable. "You mean one day I'll have boobs?" I love her pink cowboy boots. They would go well with my dress.

Cat Naps

When I downloaded some pictures today, I found a lot of kitten pictures, probably taken by Ron. I was taken by these two photos, perhaps because I so rarely see the kittens at rest.

Barefoot Ricky

Both boys had overnight activities this weekend. Ron spent Friday and Saturday at Butler University in a Jazz Choir workshop. He learned a lot and had fun. Ricky spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday at a Campus Life retreat. So Friday night was date night for Mom and Dad.

We had just ordered appetizers and settled in with a microbrew when my cell phone rang. "Mom, they threw my shoes out of the bus. Go get me a pair of shoes out of my closet and bring them to me." It was Ricky. Being the compliant mother, the hovering helicopter parent, I said, "Handle it, son." Sputtering, he hung up on me. I smiled and shared the conversation with Steve. Then I started to worry about my poor shoeless son. Steve suggested after we finished eating, we could go home and get him a pair of shoes. That settled me down.

The phone rang again. It was Ricky who put his leader on the phone. Joe immediately apologized for throwing his shoes out the window! It seems that a pair of shoes hit him in the head, the window was open and he just deflected them out the window. But they were near their destination and he sent two kids to find them with a flashlight. He was on the panel speaking so he didn't have time to find out whose shoes they were and reassure the shoeless soul (not soleless shoe).

Senior Busy Times

Despite the best efforts of the team, which included Ricky getting a Carroll Charger lightning bolt shaved into his head, the boys soccer team was stopped at the regional final game.

Meanwhile Ron's activity in Jazz Choir is gearing up. He just joined this choir his senior year and he really enjoys it. The choir sang several numbers at the fall concert last Friday and were very good. Ron will be attending a two day workshop at Butler University next week.

On to the Regionals

Go Chargers! The boys won the soccer sectionals today and will play Wednesday night in the regionals. Ricky noted that they were only 4 games away from the state finals, but I reminded him that the only game that mattered was the next game.

Soccer Sectionals

We won the first game last night against Leo, so play in the championship game on Saturday against Bishop Dwenger, always a tough team. Ricky was put in during the last 2 minutes and had a perfect set-up for a goal with seconds left, but he missed it. The crowd went crazy with Ricky's near goal. Here are the seniors on the team. I can always spot Ricky on field, with his rec specs and headband. There is also a picture of the "round" I created for Ricky's locker this week as they gear up for the tournaments.

October already?

How did I miss September, one of my favorite months? Not in real life; it was full. But not a single post on either blog. Maybe I'll catch up on the posts I meant to write, such as my new adventures in vegetable gardening.

I picked the last (perhaps) eggplant, peppers and tomatoes last night and roasted them along with onions, garlic, basil in olive oil. It tickles me that Ricky raved about the dish. Ricky was a failure-to-thrive baby, who would hardly eat anything when we adopted him at about six years of age. Now he raves about roasted eggplant and is studying culinary arts. So there is hope for you mothers of picky eaters.

And here's a little story that I wrote in the comments of May Dreams Garden:

Several weeks ago an adolescent boy in line behind me at the store asked if I just got off work.

"Yes, did you ask because I'm so dirty and this logo on my shirt?"

"No," he said, "because there is a praying mantis in your hair."

Kitties

We've had two new additions to the household during the last month, both the result of son Ron seeing "Free Kittens" signs along the road.

First came Prince Tommy, a tiger tomcat, whose purpose in life is to reduce the mouse population around the homestead, especially this fall as the field mice seek warm shelter. Tommy likes to climb trees. He's affectionate and fun.


















Then came a little black female kitty, with a white stripe down her forehead and white paws. She is one fast kitty, as you can tell from this picture I took of her.


















I tried again. She was posing nicely until Tommy came along and they decided to romp.


















Finally she hesitated and I got this picture.

Eighteen and I like it

Note: click link only if you want to play the song. I've been singing this Alice Cooper song for the last week, much to the consternation of husband and sons. It seemed appropriate given that I now have two eighteen-year olds in my home. When my sons protested my singing (and I'm sure it was the lyrics and not my voice), my husband said he couldn't stand the song when he was 18 and he still can't. Ignoring that it's Alice Cooper, I think it's this phrase that bothers them: "I'm a boy and I'm a man."

Happy Birthday, Ricky and Ron. I promise only to call you a man and not mention those times you act, sound and look like the little boys you still are sometimes.

See you at the Preposition

Rushing out the door, just slightly late to pick up Ricky after soccer practice, I called to hubby over my shoulder, "Ricky will be calling soon demanding 'Where are you?'"

"No," he replied, "He will ask "Where you at?" and you can tell him you are in front of the preposition."

With a giggle at his little joke since I could hear in my mind Ricky saying just that, I left. A minute down the road, my cell phone rings and Ricky says, "Mom, where you at?"

Of course, I responded, "In front of the preposition." And then the call dropped.

A few minutes later, the phone rings again. "Mom, where did you say you were?" And I just told him I would be there in 5 minutes. (I really try not to talk on the cell and drive.)

As I pulled into the parking lot, the phone rings again. Hubby is laughing hysterically. He called his brother about something and his brother said, "Where you at?" Of course, Steve told him "in front of the preposition." Confused, his brother stammers a bit and asked again with the same response from hubby.

Hoosierisms. It's a family affair.

(Yes, I did explain the joke to Ricky and explained for the umptieth time that he doesn't need to add "at" to the end of a sentence. Being 17, he insisted that he did not say, "where you at" but rather "where are you.")

Not so Freudian slip?

Ricky informed me last week while we were running errands that Dad was mean but I was the nice parent. I chuckled and explained that I have three roosters in my barnyard, three bulls in my pasture, three cardinals in my woods. In other words, there are three males in my house all vying to be the top dog. This is normal and a healthy course of events as they mature into men. But as long as they are living in our home, Dad is the alpha male. (And he's not mean. He's one of the nicest men they will ever know.)

When we got home, Ricky carried his package into the house and his dad told him to go back and carry in the groceries. With a bright smile, he replied, "Sure, Dad. I'll obey you, because you are the alfalfa male."