KALEIDOSCOPE

FISH 2 / ME 0   Yup! That’s the fishing score.  The fish have stolen my bait, teased me by playing with the hook, and today swam around where I could actually see them, but did any bite the bait on my hook?  NOOOOO!  On the other hand, hubby, my fishing partner, has caught fish on both of the excursions.

It all began last week after I got home from teaching summer school.  My hubby had planned to go fishing while I was at work, but it had been raining, and he decided that it would be more enjoyable to wait and have me go with.   So, it was a date.

What I hadn’t realized was how quickly the fishing trip would relax me and get my mind focused.  Usually, I have a million and one things running through my head.  In fact, I had figured that this would be the case so I pocketed a few pieces of paper and a pen to jot down anything that came to me as I was fishing.  As the evening wound up, the papers were still in my pocket, unmarked.  Five hours had passed and I hadn’t once thought of grading papers, the dishes, the laundry, the vacuuming, or any other mundane tasks that needed to be completed.  I had let go and played with the fishes.

At the end of the evening, my hubby suggested that we go fishing again this week.  This morning was dreary and rain threatened on the horizon; in fact, it was raining when I left the school building.  I called hubby from my Jeep to ask if there was anything I needed to pick up and was duly reminded that we had a fishing date this afternoon.  I needed to hurry up and get home.

So, off we went fishing again.  Once again, he caught fish and I didn’t.  Somehow, I think that the fish know that I really don’t care if they swallow my hook; it’s enough that I am feeding them and I have escaped my stresses.

The worst of winter, I hope, is behind us.  Although I live in northern Illinois, my yard is almost empty of snow, but yesterday I found a couple of die hard weeds in one of my garden beds that are still green.  Go figure.

Sniff, sniff.  Is that a garage sale I smell in the air?

As my mood brightens, due to the increasing length of daylight we experience, I start to daydream of activities that begin with spring.  Afterall, spring break (I teach.) is only three weeks away.  Right now, gardening and garage saling come to mind.

I love garage sales; both having one and going to them.  Especially in the early spring, I like to make going to garage sales a weekly venture.  Why?  Because I find some cool stuff at other people’s garage sales.

Furniture (I have purchased chairs, dressers, tables, and book shelves.), media (I have added movies and music to my collection.), items for our camper (I found a mini crockpot last summer.), kitchen wares (I have replaced and added pieces to my kitchen dishes, purchased kitchen gadgets that usually cost more than I am willing to pay, kitchen linens, and tuperware.), books (What can I say, I’m an English teacher.), and antiques (I used to purchase anything that caught my eye just because.  This year I am looking for items that would resell well online.)

Stay tuned for my adventures in garage saling and helpful tips on setting up and running a garage sale.

Ok! It’s supper time and I have no clue what to fix, nor did I create my weekly menus so I could pick up any ingredients for specific meals.  Thus, it was what might I have the ingredients for and what could I substitute for missing items.  I had in mind a skillet meal that I had found in a recipe magazine, but, of course, do you think I could find the magazine, let alone the page?  NO!  So, time to be creative.  I decided to call this Pantry Hot Dish since I raided the pantry for ideas.  I thought it turned out great, but when my hubby came home and tried it and called it a “keeper,” I knew it was good.  

PANTRY HOT DISH

1 pound ground beef

1/4 - 1/2 cup chopped onion

a spoonful of jarred chopped garlic

1 - 2 tsp Italian seasoning

1 (11.5) oz can V8

1 (10) oz can diced tomatos with green chilies

2 cups uncooked pasta (use the shape of choice)

1/4 - 1/2 cup salsa

4 (or more) oz shredded co-jack cheese

Brown the ground beef, onion, garlic, and Italian seasoning.  Drain.  Add the can of tomatos with chilies, V8, and salsa.  Carefully mix in the uncooked pasta. (The pasta will absorb the extra liquid from the tomatos, V8, and salsa.)  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium and cover and simer for 15 - 20 minutes or until pasta is al dente.  Sprinkle with the cheese and serve.

As the clock ticks slowly to midnight, there is time for reflection on the past year.  2008 was a difficult year for many.  Financially, I am grateful that both my husband and I are still employed.  As a veteran teacher, I can, for the most part, feel assured that I will have a job; however, who knows what will happen if this year’s “apples” don’t score higher than last year’s “oranges.”  NCLB my have our school restructured.  My children and my step-children are healthy, and as far as I know, so is my step-grandson.  My mother, age 79 this year, has regained her freedom since her significant other passed away.  (He had dimensia and as of November 2007 could not be left alone at home.  His children helped grudgingly.)  Now, my mom has re-established herself in community groups and church organizations, and she has begun to travel again.

As for those New Year’s resolutions that I made last year, I have not accomplished them.  I have, however, made strides toward seeing the goals I set accomplished.

The musings have now come to an end because  it is time to pop the cork on the champagne, ring in the new year, and determine what I want to accomplish in 2009.

The change of holiday traditions over the past two years leaves my husband and I working to establish new traditions.  I grew up with Swedish traditions for Christmas and the idea that extended family is important.  Now, however, my cousins and I are the parents and grandparents and traditions change.

In our Swedish tradition, we assembled as an extended family on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day; Christmas Eve was usually divided between two or three sides of the family (my grandmother’s relatives and my grandfather’s relatives on my mom’s side and for several years my grandfather’s side on my dad’s side).  It didn’t matter who hosted the festivities; since all sides are of Swedish descent, everything was basically  the same.

The evening began with velling, a warm milky rice soup flavored with cinnamon.  Then, we were all seated: kids at one table and the adults at a different table.  The first items to be passed around the table were limpa (Swedish rye bread) and then the boiled potatos and lutfisk. One year, as we arrived at my aunts, I remember the  people in the kitchen trying to decide what to do since the lutfisk had dissolved into a plate of soupy, jelly-looking ooze.  This was followed by Swedish pickled ham and korv; the only foods, in my mind, that were worth eating.  Dessert consisted of ice cream and numerous homemade cookies.

After dishes were done, we could all retire into the room where the tree stood with presents all around.  When I was a kid, it seemed to take forever to open presents since we got presents from each aunt and uncle.  As I grew older, I became a part of the adult sector who received “house to house” gifts.  Each family made or purchased something to give the entire family: candy, breads, mulling spices, candles, unique ornaments, or some other specialty.

Gifts were followed by going to the candlelight carol service at church.

Christmas Day was a turkey feast and the singing of carols.  My aunt was a phoenomenal piano player who could play any carol by ear and most of  the rest of us sang in a choir somewhere. We sang everything from “Angels We Have Hear” to “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.”

I remember these get togethers fondly since, in the last two years, they have disappeared.  My cousins parents have become very ill, and since they have large families,  they have decided that having everyone together is too much, especially for the kids.  That left my husband and I alone for Christmas Eve.

It is time to start new traditions: steaks, baked potatos, and cookies for dessert.  Next year, we will add something new until we have our own traditions.

My children, now adults, still expect to see that Santa filled their stockings when they get up on Christmas morning.  Silly? Maybe.  I tried, one year, after they had both graduated from college to stop the practice of filling Christmas stockings.  They were appalled and upset.  I guess I tried too hard to keep them believing in Santa.

One year, when they were at the age where they had decided that Mom and Dad were Santa, the behavior of both my boys was completely uncivilized and unacceptable.  The age old threat, “If you’re not good, Santa won’t stop here this year,” was given the response, “Oh, Mom, you’re Santa.”  Little did they realize that I had the power to keep them believing in Santa.

A friend of mine at work played Santa for one of the area shopping malls; it just happened to be the mall where we always shopped.  One afternoon, after plotting with him, I took my boys to see Santa.  They impatiently stood in line with complaints about the fact that I was Santa.  I told them to play along for all the other little boys and girls who still actually still believed.

As the little boy in front of us got off Santa’s lap, Santa looked at my son.  “David, I hear you’ve been giving your mom some trouble and you’ve been picking on your brother.  Why don’t you come up here and talk to me?”

The mouths of both my boys dropped and they looked at me.  As a mom, I just gave them that “I know what I’m talking about” look and urged them to go up and talk to Santa.  They were good as gold for the rest of the holiday season, and it took a few more years for them to be sure who “played” Santa.

Since I come from a musical extended family, music was an important part of Christmas.  Everyone sings and most can play at least one instrument.

Christmas music began for choirs and orchestras as early as September.  I sang with the school choir and in the church choir, and I also played in the orchestra.  Many of the kids at church played instruments and we would play, at the very least, for at least one service during advent.

My favorite memory of Christmas music occurred on the Christmas Eve carol service.  All the choirs at church sang in our historic cathedral church.  For the last song, all the choirs stood in the balcony with a battery operated candle.  There were so many of us we had to stager our shoulders.  The song?  “A Thousand Christmas Candles Light” - an old Swedish song.

When my grandmother was still alive, it was tradition that we take a shopping trip to Chicago.  Although those days are long gone, I remember them fondly.

We never drove to Chicago; instead, Grandpa would drop us off at the local Greyhound Bus Station somewhere between 7 and 8 am on a Saturday morning.  Mom would purchase the bus tickets and we would board the bus.  We usually brought something to eat on the bus (usually sweet rolls bought at a local bakery), and we watched out the windows as the bus made its way to the terminal in Chicago.

The first thing we had to do was to take in the window displays at Marshall Fields (now Macy’s) and Carson, Pierres, & Scott.  We always made our way to each window, starting with the window numbered one, to read the section of the story conveyed by the window and ooh and aah over the details of the display.  Some years it was beautiful, temperate weather, but some years it was blustery and cold.  No matter what the weather, Gram insisted on taking in the windows.

Our second stop was the seventh floor restaurant in Fields to have lunch under the tree.  They served hot chocolate which warmed me up after the window viewing.  As I got older, my favorite lunch was one of the signature salads: a half a head of lettuce with turkey and Swiss cheese topped with 1,000 Island dressing.

After lunch, I was allowed to wander through the store and begin my Christmas shopping.  I was expected to wear my watch and meet Mom and Gram in a specific department, but where I went in the store was my business.  I always made it a point of visiting the toy, book, and candy departments.

A couple of years ago, I went with my husband to Chicago just before Fields was bought out by Macy’s.  We viewed the windows, but the line for lunch under the tree was much too long to warrant waiting.  We did some shopping there, as well as at other stores in the area, but the charm and thrill of the trip wasn’t what it had been when I was a kid.  Unfortunately, some traditions are out grown.

The Christmas tree stands as a focal point of many people’s decorations.  Set in a prominent place, its lights and decorations create a special, festive mood.

For years, the decorating of the house and tree was a family activity.  After breakfast, we lugged the boxes of decorations out of the basement.   With the surfaces dusted, we carefully packed away all the routine decorations that sat out for ten to eleven months out of the year so there was space for the Christmas decorations.

The mantle was dedicated to Santa’s village and the stockings were hung in wait for Santa.  Tables held figures of trees, Santas, snowmen, nutcrackers, special Christmas books, and anything else that looked Christmasy.

For the first couple of years after I was first married, we went out and purchased a live tree a week and a half to two weeks before Christmas.  One year, however, there had been a shortage of trees and we trudged from tree lot to tree lot only to find them closed.  This was the year we purchased an artificial tree, and even those were in short supply.  The tree stood in front of the front picture window that was lined with lights.  Then, we put the lights on the tree.  Finally, the box of ornaments was opened.  I took the ornaments out one by one and unwrapped them.  After I put a hook on the end, I gave my two boys, alternately, the job of putting the ornaments on the tree.  Some years the ornaments all seemed to be on one side, but I never rearranged them.  Although my youngest is now 22, I was honored that he wanted to help decorate the tree this year.

The decorating was followed by enjoying a glass of eggnog.  We rounded the evening off by snuggling up together on the couch and watching the movie Prancer.  As the movie came to a close, my sleepy boys got ready for bed and we finished the evening off with a Christmas themed story.

My boys are grown now and as I decorated the house this year, I found myself missing those old traditions.

It was tradition in our family to give gifts to all unmarried cousins that had not yet graduated from high school or college.  It was also tradition to give a gift to the households of those who were married; these gifts usually consisted of candles, holiday knick knacks, holiday towels, or homemade edible goods.

Money was tight the year my oldest was born and we were struggling to figure out what to give as the house to house gifts.  I finally decided that it would be fun to make several kinds of candy and create a candy sampler for our gift to each house.  (I hate gifts that will probably get thrown out or put up for sale at the next garage sale.)

I had my mother come over and we turned the kitchen into candy making central.  We made fudge, marzipan, three layer jelly candies, rum balls, creme de minthe  balls, caramels, and even marshmallows.

We still talk and laugh about the “stained glass” candy we made.  We made the hard candy syrup and, as the directions said, poured into a pan lined with foil.  Then, we proceeded to snip the cooling candy with scissors and drop it into powdered sugar to cool.  The idea was to make several batches of different colors and flavors and combine them into a glass jar.  They looked pretty; however, our fingers were burned and sore by the time we finished; the candy had to be snipped before it cooled.

Later, someone told us that we should have worn white gloves to avoid burning our fingers.  Oh, well, live and learn.