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The Difference A Day Makes

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Sunshine outside my window this morning

Yesterday I posted about Rainy Days. Today, the landscape is entirely different, as you can see from the picture above, taken from the same vantage point as yesterday’s photo. The trees, decked in all their autumnal glory, seem almost to glow in the sunlight today, backed by robin egg skies and puffy white clouds.

But the change isn’t only in the outside world.

Today, my spirits are lighter. I’m making a concerted effort to focus on the positive around me and inside me, and to take baby steps toward keeping that balance I spoke of before. I, like many busy people who work full time at fulfilling but demanding careers (in my case two separate careers: teaching and writing), while also trying to be good spouses, parents, children, siblings, and friends, have times of feeling overwhelmed and unable to climb from beneath the pile of responsibilities, pressures, and even sadness or sense of helplessness. Lately, I seem to be having too many of those times.

But just as the world outside my window changes, so can I. Not much around us is truly in our control, but that much is.

My dear late father used to tell all us girls that, while we couldn’t control what happened to or around us, we could control our reaction to it. And therein lies a wealth of wisdom. In the years since his passing, I’ve found myself shifting away from remembering that like I should. I continue to miss his common-sense support, his unconditional love, and his wisdom-filled reminders. Sometimes I let the cares and worries overwhelm my days.

Today is a new day. Each day is a new day: a fresh page to fill with the writings of our own stories. Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maud Montgomery captured the essence of this wonderfully when she said, “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”

I’ve had a version of that quote posted on the wall of my classroom for 26 years. It is nice. And I’m going to try to remember that whether the rain comes down in torrents, the ice and snow blow and bluster, or the sun shines down…life – and each day in it – is what we decide to make of it. 🙂

A Little Cup of Happy…

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vintage coffee

Vintage Maxwell House Coffee ad

I’m not sure why ads like these from the 1940’s and 1950’s make me feel happy.

I wasn’t even born until the later half of the ’60’s. My mother, who was in her 20’s during the 1950’s, tells me her memories of the defined gender roles, limitations in career and other options for women etc. – and I have no desire to live in that context, preferring the freedoms and opportunities available to American women in this decade.

But vintage pictures like this coffee ad still make me feel a little nostalgic. Maybe it’s the (likely false) idea of a simpler time. In memory it looks lovely and easier to navigate, but in reality it would probably be stifling. Still, the era – and everything that came after it – are all part of the fabric of who we are here and now…

I don’t have the same affinity for any other decade of the 20th century – not even my heyday decade of the ’80’s.

I guess I’ll just leave off my efforts to figure it out for now, and just enjoy the way it makes me feel…happy. 🙂

 

Early Autumn Tradition

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I’m the kind of person who loves traditions.

When I was a kid, I loved – no, I guess needed – routine. I liked to be able to count on things, and I thrived on the sense of security my parents and large family of sisters (there were seven of us total, no brothers) provided. Change rattled me, so much so that when two of my older sisters left suddenly, according to my six-year-old perspective (one for college, and one who basically eloped), it threw me for a tailspin emotionally that almost prevented me from finishing my first grade year.

That sounds ominous, I know, and perhaps makes this blog post sound like it’s going to be about doom and gloom, but it’s not.  Everything worked out, and life went on more or less smoothly in the long run (well, I’m still a little odd, but that’s just me, LOL).

applepicking edited 2014

Apple Orchard near my home, picture taken in September 2014

This blog however, is about a tradition I’ve enjoyed for decades and that is one of the perks of growing up and living in upstate New York: Apple-picking! I’ve gone apple-picking every single year of my life. In fact, the joke around my house now is that if we don’t go apple-picking, I don’t make any apple pies that year. Except it’s not a joke. ‘Cause that’s my rule and I’m sticking to it. 🙂

I’m not fussy, though. We don’t have to go to a full blown “real” apple orchard like the one pictured at the left. In fact, before I was married we hardly ever went to a commercial orchard. No, we’d take a drive north to Buck Hill and the state land there, where there was a wild apple orchard, created by nature. The apples were almost always smaller than apple orchard fruit, or pocked and imperfect in other ways – but they also had no pesticides on them and they were tart and crisp, resulting in pies, applesauce, and other baked goods that tasted amazing.

Front Apples edited

Pa took this picture of the apple tree in the front yard, full of fruit

10 apple tree with apples on it in fall editedl

Shaking the tree for fruit

with the applepicker edited

Me with the apple-picker and a bag full of fruit

at the table edited

Kitchen at the Homestead, with the long table and Pa at his usual place, just before supper

My parents eventually planted two apple trees in their yard, one in the front, and one in the back, of different varieties. These ended up being very similar to those we’d find in the wild (probably because my father never sprayed them with chemicals). Still plentiful like in commercial orchards, but smaller and imperfect on the outside.  The picture on the left is from quite a few years back, when my father was still alive, and one sister and I  gathered with our families one weekend at the Homestead to pick apples and have supper with Pa and Ma.

Here I am, getting ready to use the apple-picker lying on the ground near me (more on that handy tool in just a minute) and finally just below is one of Pa in his place at the table, talking to my sister before supper.
Okay, so here’s more about the apple-picking tool: When I was dating my soon-to-be-husband, he’d come to visit me at the Homestead, and we’d pile into the van to drive up past Steuben and a Revolutionary War monument there where a tall, wild apple tree with gorgeous golden apples grew. My husband earned a reputation for his skill at wielding that awkward-but-very-useful apple-picking tool….a long wooden handle topped with a curved, coated wire “basket” of sorts, with little spiky fingers of wire to help grasp the high fruits, pluck them from the branch, and bring them safely to the ground. Maybe it’s because he’s tall and has strong arms and back (yeah, I love my guy!), but he could get to just about any apple I asked him to get for me. 🙂

applepicking with Pa

Pa and me, having a good time – and sampling the fruit – at an orchard years ago)

Over the years, apple-picking has become a beloved tradition that is more about the family and memories made together, than it is about the fruit we gather and pies  or other baked goods that result.  Pa’s death brought those memories into even sharper focus, knowing there will be no new ones to add to the collection.

Mary and Ma 2014 applepicking edited

Me and Ma at the commercial orchard near my home this past weekend…taking a ride on the tractor back to the apple barn!

And so each year the act of going apple-picking, whether at an orchard, at the Homestead, or in the wild, is both familiar and new – a kaleidoscope of images, feelings, laughter, and the comfort of sharing a simple pleasure with loved ones, and I’m so thankful for the many years I happy times I can think back on.

Traditions like these mark the moments in our lives, giving context to the whole and adding to the beauty of the tapestry. When times are challenging, such memories can bring joy that helps to balance out the rest.

As you can see, I’m a believer in the beauty and value of traditions. 🙂 Seasonal or otherwise, do you have any that you love?

“A Country Kid”

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Ravine without Rebecca_edited-1

The ravine near the Homestead, where I’d find all sorts of natural treasures

I was always proud to bear the designation “country kid”, as opposed to what we’d (affectionately) call our metropolitan counterparts: “city slickers”. For most of my life, I didn’t know many kids from the city. There were only two who had the right to that title in my little world: two sisters from inner New York City who came up to live with our family through the “Fresh Air Fund” every summer. Over the years, those two girls (and later their two younger sisters) became a true part of our family, and we’ve kept in contact with them for the more than four decades since their last “Fresh Air” visit.

In the past five years, though, this term has also applied (in my imagination) to a very important character in my upcoming novel, which is based loosely on my fun, crazy, tragic, poignant always love-filled life growing up as one of seven daughters in an old-fashioned family living in a little “Cape Cod” style house at the foothills of the Adirondacks.  Of course he’s a fictional character, but I had a great time playing with the stereotypes again and utilizing some of the fun and teasing that can develop between people of two different social experiences. Maybe it’s not a surprise that one of my favorite childhood stories was “The Country Mouse and The City Mouse”!

Being a country kid means a lot of things to various people. To me, it meant the opportunity to live much of my childhood outdoors. During school months that meant an hour or two in the evenings and any weekend time not taken up by dance lessons or play rehearsal for whatever production I or my sisters were in…but in summer, it meant hours upon hours roaming the woods, investigating and enjoying nature. Many an evening at dusk, I would come home with burdocks tangled in my hair and dirt smeared on my hands, knees, and usually my shorts (from my unconscious habit of wiping my dirty hands on whatever was covering my legs).

5 of 7 daughters Mary and Deb

Me (on the left) with my sister Deb when I was around age 8, with long hair probably hiding snarls just behind my ears, and holding one of the walking sticks we would find and use to hike all over the woods

In fact, until I was around 12 and began to notice boys, I used to try every trick in the book to stop my mother from having to “help” me with my long hair. This included brushing or washing it. I told her I wanted to be a big girl and do it myself (using all of my acting skills) mostly because I didn’t want her to see the ever-growing matted snarls I had that I could never be bothered to comb through, instead just covering them with some brushed out hair over the top of them to hide them.

The picture at the top of the post is a location of much of my summer wandering, sometimes by myself and sometimes with a couple sisters, friends, or Pa (in those days of the late 70’s/early 80’s, we didn’t need to worry about kidnappings and such if we were out there by ourselves…it was a sense of freedom I so enjoyed and regret the loss of for my own children in current society). This is a ravine less than 200 yards from the Homestead. The base of it is dry in this picture, but you can see where the water would run  after snow melt and rains. The ravine was formed when glaciers moved through, carving out the Adirondack mountains after the Ice Age, and I was always finding interesting and wonderful things along its sides and bottom.

More than once, I found evidence of a prehistoric leaf or creature left in the fossilized shale. Growing or fallen along the bottom of the ravine I’d find plants of all kinds, flowers, leaves…and of course the occasional animal or bird carcass or bleached white bones. I learned quite a bit from examining the weathered skeleton of an owl, the skulls or jawbones of several small animals like opossum, fox, or raccoon. And once we stumbled upon the body of a large golden eagle whose wingspan was more than five feet.

I’ve lived and travelled both nationally and abroad, but nothing compares to the wonderful, free, nature-and-love-filled childhood that I enjoyed. I guess the old saying is true: there’s no place like home!

A Gift from the Heart

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Pa sewn art

I stumbled upon this piece of “sewn art” in the attic recently. It’s something I made when I was around seven years old. My sweet mother had recently taught me a bit of hand-sewing, beginning with showing me how to thread a needle and complete simple tasks (like replacing buttons or making hems).

I’m not ashamed to say that as a child I adored both of my parents (and I still do). However, I’m not saying I never got angry or frustrated with them; I did so pretty regularly, all the way into young adulthood. But I kept my frustrations to myself 99.9% of the time, because I respected and loved them. Unlike in the world today, where many young people (whether on TV, in the classroom, or in one’s own family) often seem to have little compunction about speaking whatever they feel at a given moment without any kind of “respect” filter in place, I always tried to treat Pa or Ma with deference for who they were and are as people and the role they play(ed) in my life.

Maybe I was helped in that by being a pretty sensitive kid; the only thing a teacher, the elementary school principal (another story I’ll share soon), or my parents had to do to make me contrite (and sometimes even burst into tears with regret over whatever naughty thing I’d done), was to look stern and tell me they were disappointed in me. I never wanted Pa or Ma to feel that way about me, and so perhaps that’s why I wasn’t much of a rebellious child, teen, or even adult. Oh, I knew how to have a good time, and I did my share of stupid and even risky things in my youth, but the ways I tended to push the boundaries were pretty mild compared to some of my peers in the 80’s.

Anyway, back to this piece of “art”. I can distinctly remember sewing it as a present for my father for either his birthday or Father’s Day in the early 1970’s. I remember the effort the project took, but that I didn’t mind working really hard at it, coming up with the idea and then picking through Ma’s bags of fabric scraps to find just the right colors (regal, dark red and sparkly gold, so it would look important and wonderful when it was finished).

I painstakingly cut out the golden letters and “border” and then sewed it all together, placing a golden bow at the top. This was it: a most elegant and fitting gift for my beloved “Pa”. Looking at it from a more mature perspective, its drawbacks are clear, including how asymmetrical and ragged it is around the edges. But when Pa opened it, he reacted as if it was sewn perfectly and expertly from the finest fabrics…treating it like something precious and even doing me the honor of having it professionally matted and framed, and hanging it on the wall next to his bed.

It hung on that wall for more than four decades, staying exactly where he had placed it, until nearly a year after his death. At that time, my mother decided (with all of her children’s encouragement) that it was time to move forward and redecorate their bedroom. When work commenced and the framed piece was removed from the wall, I received it gratefully. But getting it back marked  the end of an emotional era for me – a time of innocence, love, and respect, both given and received. I cried a little when I got it home…and when the time is right, I can still cry a few bittersweet tears now for all it represents to me of the stern, exacting but also patient man who loved me so unconditionally and taught me so much.

As a child, I made this little banner as a true gift of the heart. As an adult, I realize that as imperfect, flawed, inexpensive, and silly as such gifts might be, they are indeed worth more than all the jewels and gold the world has to offer, and we should cherish them and the memories they evoke forever.

The “Attack” Cows

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Cow

A cow in an autumn field near my current home, looking far more placid than the “wild” cows of my story!

Let me preface this little story by saying that 1. I was raised in the country but not on a farm, and 2. If you’ve ever been close to a cow (or a whole herd of them!), you know that they’re large, solid animals.

Ok, now that that’s out of the way, here’s my (funny and embarrassing) story. I was probably around 14 years old. I’d spent the entirety of my life until then with cows as my favorite animal. Horses were a close second, but there was something about the calm, peaceful, placid sight of cows in the field, chewing grass or their cud that made me happy every time I saw them (and still does).

It was a hot day near the end of a long, dry summer, and I was home alone – an unexpected treat in my rather large family. My mother was at work and my sisters were all elsewhere. My father was due home for lunch soon, but for that hour or so the house was all mine. It was a first taste of independence, and I was reveling in it…until I heard a thumping sound and looked out the window in the kitchen door. A big black and white head blocked out the sun and the creature’s  large, dark eye rolled as it lifted its nose and bawled out a cry. There was a full grown cow standing on the back steps of the house as if it was asking to come in! Suddenly, the cow shifted and banged its head against the window a few times in succession, making me shriek and run back into the living room.

What was I supposed to do? And why was the cow acting like that? Was it scared or angry or…rabid? Tingles went up my spine and the awareness that I was completely alone here shot through me. Before I could gather my wits together, a blur of movement outside the big picture window in the living room caught my attention. Then another out the side windows, looking over the garage. I snuck over to take a peek and almost shrieked again. There was a whole HERD of cows in the yards surrounding the Homestead and coming out of the woods on all sides. They were running, mooing, sometimes banging into the fence or the house like crazed beasts. Large, surprisingly fast-moving crazed beasts.

My heart was in my throat, and I tried to force myself to calm down to figure out what I could do. Should I call the police or what? Something was clearly wrong with the cows; they weren’t acting anything like the gentle animals I’d come to know over my 14 years of loving their peaceful, placid ways. What if one of them actually broke through a window and got in the house?

They’d shifted around into the back yard by now, away from the driveway, and the thought crossed my mind that I should try to make a run for it and see if I could get to the neighbor’s before the cows “got me”.

Just then I heard a motor and some tires on the driveway. Pa was home! He made his way slowly up the driveway, and a new fear swept through me. Oh, no! Pa would be crushed by these stampeding cows! I had to warn him before he got out of his car.

Yanking up the window, I leaned into the screen, waving my hands and shouting as I saw the driver’s side door open. “No, Pa!!  Watch out! Get back in your car! There are cows loose all over the place, and they’ll charge at you!”

Pa turned to look at me, and I could see he was holding back laughter. “It’s all right” he called out to me, before proceeding to grab a stick from along the driveway and walking calmly and steadily in the direction of the “herd”, calling out a sharp “Hiya!” several times as he tapped lightly on one cow or another to guide them back toward the woods from which they’d come.

When they were all gone, he came back into the house, laughing so hard he almost couldn’t catch his breath – thanking me for trying to “save” him, but explaining that cows don’t “attack”. He said that they were probably just thirsty from the hot summer day and had likely broken through the fence of the farmer’s field on the other side of the woods. The knocked over buckets in the yard seemed to attest to that likelihood.

I know my cheeks got red, but I got a good laugh out of it, too, once I got over my mortification. And from that day onward, my family has had some fun ribbing me about the time I tried to save Pa from the “Attack Cows”. 🙂

The Infamous Lemon Meringue Pie

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It was 1986, the second  full summer my husband and I were dating, and I’d recently learned that one of his favorite pies was lemon meringue. My mother always made a wonderful lemon meringue, with flaky, tender crust, tangy-sweet lemon filling, and a shiny, billowy and perfectly-browned meringue heaped on top. I’d watched her bake all sorts of creations from scratch many times and thought how difficult could it be?

My mother was busy with other cooking and going up and down the cellar stairs with the laundry, so I just went ahead and read her recipe card of instructions as I completed the process of mixing and rolling the pie crust dough. After the first roll-out, it didn’t look right, so I scooped it all into a ball and rolled it out again. Then a third time. I wanted this pie to be perfect for my new boyfriend!

The rest of the pie-making went splendidly. The filling looked good and the meringue top turned out fluffy and pretty. I hovered over the oven as it browned, pulling it out when just the right shade of caramel touched the tips. Into the fridge went the pie, to await the moment of glory after supper at the Homestead that night with my boyfriend in attendance.

When the time came, I was wreathed in smiles, seeing how happy my boyfriend was at the effort I’d gone through to make one of his favorite desserts. We gave him the honors of cutting the first piece of pie. I felt a tingle of apprehension as he cut into the center…and then had to push down pretty hard to cut through (and he was a college football player with plenty of arm muscle to spare). He was still smiling, though, and I tried to keep a brave face – but it all came to a screeching halt when he put the piece of pie on his plate and tried to use his fork to get a bite.

His fork wouldn’t cut through the bottom of the crust.

He paused, a little flustered, and my heart fell. My mother looked at me and whispered, “Did you have any trouble when you were making the crust?”

I shrugged. “Well, I had to roll it out three times to get it just right.”

She started to chuckle. Anyone who has worked with pastry knows that it has to be handled lightly and as little as possible to be tender and flaky. The more it’s handled the tougher it gets. My boyfriend, who had a good sense of humor said, “Well, I can just eat it like this…” and he picked up the slice of pie by the fluted edge, lifting it from the plate and intending to take a bite that way.

Except the pie didn’t shift. The crust was like a rock, preventing the filling or meringue from moving even a fraction. If he’d tried to bite it, he’d probably have broken a tooth.

Everyone burst out laughing at that point, including me. In my quest for perfection, I’d created an inedible crust. But as my boyfriend reassured me, the lemon filling and the meringue tasted good!

Great-Grandma O’Halleran’s Hot Water Pie Crust

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Hot water pie crust recipe

Great-Grandma O’Halleran’s Hot Water Pie crust recipe

As you can see from this old recipe index card, I’ve made this pie crust quite a few times. The card is stained with use but only a little worse for wear. The handwriting on it is my dear mother’s, and she copied out this recipe for me from her files, back when I was newly married more than two decades ago.

It’s a different kind of pie crust because unlike most, which use ice water and sometimes butter, this one uses lard (or Crisco, which is what I and my mother have always used) and boiling water. My great-grandmother who was born in Ireland in the 1860’s, Katherine O’Halleran, favored this recipe, and since she lived in my mother’s childhood household and was the primary cook when my mother was a girl in the 1930’s and 1940’s (since her own mother – my Grandma – was away all day working in the cotton mill in Utica, NY), my mother picked it up along the way.

It’s surprisingly easy, adapts to just about any pie, and I never fail to get compliments on the light flakiness of this crust. Except for the very first time I attempted to make it on my own…but that’s a story for another day. 🙂

Here’s the recipe, with instructions for a single or a double crust pie:

Place in a Bowl:

Single Recipe                                                  Double Recipe

1/2 cup lard or Crisco                                     1 1/4 cups lard or Crisco

Pour over it:

1/4 cup boiling water                                      1/2 – 3/4 cups boiling water

Mix the following ingredients together, sifting before measuring (Note: I admit I always skip the sifting part and it doesn’t seem to hurt anything!)

1 1/2 cups flour                                              about 3 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsps baking powder                                1 1/4 + a little more tsps baking powder

1/2 tsps salt                                                    1 1/4 + a little more tsps salt

Combine the liquid and the sifted ingredients quickly and form into a smooth ball. Roll out.

A few helpful hints: Don’t overwork the dough. Roll out once, on a well-floured surface, with a well-floured rolling pin. I like to gently fold the crust in half to transfer it to the pie dish, but if you’re using waxed paper under the dough when you roll out, you can just carefully flip it over into the pie dish. Cut off excess before crimping the edged with your thumbs. A finished double-crust should look like these two pies:

pies

Two double-crust pies sprinkled with sugar

 

Rituals: The Lady in the Red Dress

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When I was little, I was like most kids: I didn’t like to go to bed. However, I was unlike other kids, perhaps, in that I was almost always happy: Singing, playing, occasionally getting into mischief, and just general loving life. Like really loving it, from the moment I woke up, smiling and raring to go every morning, according to my parents (yes, I agree, that might be supremely annoying in an adult, but don’t worry; although I’m generally an optimist, I outgrew the constant sunniness by my 20’s for the most part. The way I see it, Giselle in Enchanted could only get away with it because she was…well, a princess).

Anyway, as a child, I never wanted to waste precious time sleeping.

If I wasn’t running around having fun inside our little house, I was playing outside in the yard or in the woods with the two sisters closest in age to me, often while at least one of my other, older sisters watched over us. Pa was at work during the day of course. Ma was never far away, but she was busy doing two loads of laundry a day (timing it so the well wouldn’t run dry), cleaning, and cooking for nine – or 11 when we had two “Fresh Air” sisters living with us each summer.

You’d think I would be tired out by the time 7:30pm rolled around.

I suppose I was, but I just didn’t want to give up and hit the sack.

Pa, who ruled the roost with a wonderful combination of military-style strictness and indulgent soft-heartedness (in my eyes anyway), liked to invent games of all kinds, sometimes as a way of connecting playfully with his kids but often also teaching us something important in the process, too (like logical reasoning, persuasion, or sharing etc). In this case, he invented a game by which I could feel I had some control over my bedtime (and therefore never need to dissolve into a tantrum, which would need to be dealt with sternly), but through which I was still following the rules. It was the “Goodnight” game….made popular in our family long before any of us ever knew there was a book called “Goodnight Moon”.

It went like this: when it was time for me to go to bed, Pa would let me say goodnight to everyone in the house (which meant at least eight other people, so that took a while), plus the dog (Lassie), the cats (Dominique, Gigi, and Marmalade), any other pets we might have at the time (there were birds and fish and even turtles at one point or another) and various objects around the house. When I got to the “Lady in the Red Dress” I knew time for bed was really near. I said goodnight to her and then with a big sigh, I let my Mama walk me (and my younger sister) upstairs to bed.

Several years ago, I inherited our family’s (very inexpensive) print of the Lady  – the official name of which I later learned is “Sonata” by M. Ditlef –  and I will always treasure it for the happy memories of times gone by. “Goodnight Lady in the Red Dress!” Anyone have any bedtime rituals you did as children (or do now with your own kids) to share?

Sonata M-DITLEF

“Sonata” by M. Ditlef

Seasons Change and So Do We…

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The author and her father at a river fishing spot in the late 1980's

The author and her father at a river fishing spot in the late 1980’s

So, although I’ve done some guest blogging in the past, I’ve never really ventured into the blogging world on a regular basis myself. But as my mother always told all seven of her girls when we faced something challenging – there’s no time like the present! So here I am, ready to share some of my ponderings, anecdotes, book-related “behind-the scenes”, and various other kinds of musings.

As the inaugural post, it seems only fitting that I should write about the shift from my historical roots, leading to almost six years spent writing a quirky, poignant, comical and from-the-heart contemporary novel. I hesitate to call it Women’s Fiction, even though it showcases the emotional journey of a late-30’s female protagonist, because the story engages far more universal issues of life, death, and the afterlife.

The idea took root long before I actually started writing the book, but once my final contract for the third and last of my Templar Knights books was complete, it kept percolating in the back of my mind. I dabbled with more historical fiction, but I kept coming back to the idea and the characters, who are loosely based in some factual aspects of my own life, growing up as one of seven daughters in an old-fashioned family (living in a little house with only two “kid” bedrooms and one bathroom!) at the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. My father’s death in 2011 served as a watershed moment, allowing me to see the book with new eyes and undertake the task of finally completing it.

So there you have it. A new direction that like my romances sprang from the heart, only in a much more personal way. Where this path will lead, only time will tell, but in the meantime, I’m delighted to share my tales with you. Stay tuned for more updates as the publishing schedule is established.