Hiatus

Life is hard sometimes.

July was a really tough month for me and my family.

Things will never be the same.

I'm not sure if I'm still in the denial phase or if this feeling that she is still with me bears some truth.

It's hard to collect my thoughts so they make sense for others.

So I haven't written.

Well that changes now I guess.

On July 8, just a few days after we were told my grandmother, the Erma this blog and my Etsy shop are named for, had about 6 month to live, she passed away.  My siblings, my mom, and I were all at her side.  We were called in after she basically passed out because of being short of breath.  She never woke up.  My gut says that once she saw that door to heaven was open for her, she ran for it.  As much as we love her, I tried to understand the reasons she was ready to go.  She grew up in a family with 9 children, only she and my Aunt Alice were left.  Her only child, my father, had passed on 13 years before.  It must be tough when more of the people you love reside in heaven than here on Earth.  And so she went.

The most beautiful thing about her passing is that there was nothing left undone or unsaid.  Sure her leftover coffee was still in the pot, but those who were dear to her knew where they stood.  In some ways, the words "I love you" didn't even need to be uttered.

I am so thankful for the innumerable precious memories I have of her.  It was amazing to see her love my son.  She played with him every time she saw him, which was almost every weekday while I worked.  Without directly instructing, she taught me so much about mothering a little boy.  She taught me so much, cooking, crocheting, knitting, and so much more.  I thought often of those times when I was holding onto her hand at the hospital wishing for a miracle while I knew she was praying to go home.

There's a saying, "A home is a house with a heart in it." Well she was our heart.  Every holiday was celebrated at her house.  There was always a delicious meal featuring everyone's favorites prepared with love.  When my dad passed away she helped my mom keep everything together.  She made a promise to my dad that she would take care of us if anything happened to him, and boy did she keep it.

I asked her to give my little Alex kisses from me in heaven.  I believe she is sharing her sweet love with Alex just like she did with Joshua.  Oh, how I wish Joshua would be able to remember that love.

Our family will never be the same.  But we are better for having had her for 87 wonderful years.

It wasn't my intention to write so much.

On the same day we got the prognosis about my grandmother, my husband got a call from his dad in Arizona.  His mom had terminal colon cancer that had spread to her liver.  She had 5 months to lives.

The stories intersect, because the next day I went to visit my grandma and told her about the news we'd received.  I told her I can accept it and I know she (Erma) had a good life and she was ready, but I couldn't control the tears revealing how burdened I was with both of those sets of bad news.  So she did what she always did.  She took my hands and prayed that God would give me strength to get through  the difficult times ahead.  While my faith has wavered at times, there is no denying the presence of God when holding hands and praying with my grandma.  And now when I think on it, I remember that Erma means strong (my grandma has told me that many times). I feel perhaps, I was given a piece of her to help me through

  Doug immediately requested time off from work as soon as they could fit it in the schedule so we could go down and spend time with his mom.  She wanted to see Joshua before she passed.

She did not get her wish.  On July 19, my mother in law passed away in a terrible fashion that I would not wish on my worst enemy.  As mother in laws go, I cannot complain.  We made the long journey (which is an unfortunate story for another day) to Arizona with our soon to be two year old for yet another funeral.  We were there for 2 weeks

And so I haven't written.  Now that changes.  Life is for the living.  We must go on.

Holding on to Erma

Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.

Erma
May 2, 1926- July 8, 2013
Forever in our hearts

Summer of Pinterest: Entry #1 Orange Chicken and Honey Balsamic Roasted Carrots

The great thing about being a teacher is having the time to do things in the summer.  Life gets so hectic during the school year, I rarely have time to try out all the amazing things I pin on Pinterest.  Enjoy my findings this summer :)

Today I wanted to make something different for dinner.  I love sweet and sour food so I went looking on my dinner board on Pinterest and opened up these two recipes which I thought would go well together (and they did).



I grabbed some Uncle Ben's Wild Brown Rice and steamed some broccoli from our own garden to complete the meal.  We were all quite happy with the results.  I'd definitely recommend these recipes to a friend ;)

Here are the brands I used.  I'd say this dinner for 3 (with at least 2 more portions for leftovers) cost less than $10.

And here's Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear's plates of dinner :) 

Have you tried any great Pinterest recipes lately?

100 Likes!

Today was a great day for my little business.  We reached 100 "Likes" on Facebook!

11 Minute Pasta Salad

My husband has been nagging me to make pasta salad this week, especially since he harvested broccoli from the garden.  It's a simple recipe I just made up myself with veggies we like.  Thought I'd share :)

1.  Boil a pot of water.  Pour in a box of pasta.  I like to use Garden Delight pasta go get even more veggies in there and for the beautiful colors!

2. Cut the veggies and put them into a 13x9 container.  You could use a deep bowl too, but I don't have one with a cover, so I just use some multipurpose tupperware.  Here are the veggies I used:

• About one and a half heads of broccoli
• 1 pint of grape tomatoes. Cut in half of quartered, depending on size--do what you prefer.
• Coin 3 average carrots.  If you get the giant carrots, one would probably be enough.
• 1 green pepper.  Preferably organic because peppers are in the dirty dozen.  Red peppers would go well too.  

Before Cheese

3. Drain the pasta and add it to the veggies.  I think the little bit of heat and steam brings out more of the flavor in the veggies.

4.  Add about one small container of Italian Dressing.  I usually use Wishbone because it goes on sale.  I'm sure it would also be delicious with homemade dressing, but that would send me over 11 minutes :)

5. Make small cubes out of about 4 oz cheddar cheese. You want to add this last because it will melt if the pasta is hot.

Voila!  Eat or Refrigerate :)

I'm not a card carrying feminist but...

To be honest, since I've become a mom I've really wondered how far we have come.  We being women.  Now we are not only expected to keep a tidy house, raise good children, feed the family, and be a general family manager, but now we MUST significantly contribute financially as well.  It can be a bit overwhelming. Often a lot overwhelming, at least for me.

Yet all these thoughts flew out the window when I was at the park last week with my son.  First of all I was aggravated because even in the year 2013 people still light up cigarettes around children.  It doesn't make a difference if it's open air or not!  Get that thing away from me and my family!!

My son is a bit of a daredevil when it comes to play and I'm the kind of parent who believes in letting him try out what he wants to do (within reason).  Of course J is not satisfied with the 4 and under playground, so we headed over to the big kids playground.  He led the way onto the "ship." It's a neat playground near the river.  The equipment was just replaced from what was there when I was a kid.  The new one is made to resemble a pirate ship, you know, if pirate ships had slides to exit and rock climbing style ladders to board.

And now we're to the point where I get really upset.  We go to the park later in the afternoon so it's not too crowded, so only J and I (I do insist on following fairly closely when he fancies himself to be a big boy) and a group of 5 children around age 8 to 11.  A little girl is the ring leader and sets the stage for the play game.  Naturally they're pirates.  The ring leading girl begins a story telling a younger boy she will need to be saved as she is helplessly drowning at sea...

Why couldn't she swim?

Why in this day and age do girls still think they need to be saved by boys?

Why couldn't she be heroic? or brave?  or at least fight for her life?

Why couldn't one of the boys be the floundering victim?

Why are women still painting ourselves as helpless?

Why are helpless women put on a pedestal?

I really wanted to scream at this little girl, but I realized it's not her fault she thinks this way.  This has be replaying in my mind for weeks and it still bothers me.  Hopefully, this post will help me put it to rest.

Thoughts?

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss and some odds and ends...

The last few months have been jam packed with holidays, end of semester and start of new semester craziness, and sickness that brought my entire extended family to their knees, including me (I haven't been seriously ill since 2009!).

I've had a few recent commissions that I wanted to share.  Here's the first twin set I created which happens to coincide with Dr. Suess's birthday.  These went to some very special babies in New Hampshire.

And here is a newborn version of my Girly Penguin Earflap hat that headed up to Massachusetts on Monday.

 Here is the hat for the hippest baby on the block.  If there are any teenagers in your life, you'll recognize that these are my spin on Beats headphones which are quite the status symbol!  One of my students commission and helped me design this hat for her cousin!  Oh, and its not my dyslexia kicking in, the "b" is upside down because these were made for a little guy named Patrick, so we swapped the "b" for a "p" to personalize them.

  Lastly (which I failed to notice until today due to the crazy month I had in February), Kate Nesi has some of my work featured on a little guy in her blog.