Tag Archives: Family

03.10.14
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Hodel’s Eggs and Chicken Candy Dishes

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I was thrifting with my mother in law the other day and had an awesome discovery. I found a chicken candy dish, just like the ones that once that littered the coffee tables and dressers of both sides of my family. I’m not sure why my dad’s side ever embraced chickens because his dad was a bee keeper and decorated with all things honey and bees; it’s my mom’s side that has a fair explanation. My aunt, uncle, and cousins lived across the field from my parents and ran “Hodel’s Egg Farm” with some 10,000 chickens; my Aunt Janet was/is pretty hard core about her chicken accessories. I’ve been told that my memory isn’t as perfect as I think it is, but I’m pretty sure she even had chicken wall paper in her kitchen.

“Hodel’s Eggs” was a huge part of my childhood. My brothers and I used to ride our mustard yellow three wheeler through the pasture/field to my cousins to gather eggs a few days a week. It was my first job, as there’s no age minimum for collecting eggs at the bottom of the wire coops, pushing a cart full of egg trays, and sledging through a couple inches of chicken poop when the pits ran over. (The slope at the end of row three was always the worst.) At any rate, it was a smelly job and regardless of how I scrubbed when I got home, it was almost impossible to get that stench out of my skin and hair. (And I thought I didn’t have boyfriends because of my homemade clothes…)

The smelly chicken house has since been renovated into “The Coop,” a snazzy gathering place for our families that smells quite fresh and clean in spite of its former inhabitants. I’m thankful that gathering eggs is now a distant memory and smell, but appreciate that for a mere six dollars I have a chicken candy dish for my coffee table as another reminder of the farm(s) that shaped me. (Insert Miranda Lambert song here).

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01.29.14
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My Dad Would Have Been Prepared For “Snowmageddon”

My dad has always been an extremist when it comes to safety precautions—he’s as prepared as a human could be for any possible disaster. If there’s ever a huge national crisis, I’m headed straight for rural Metamora where I’ll hide out in my parents’ basement, eat canned food and snooze under homemade afghans. As excessive as his precautions sometimes seem, (think mass amounts of bungee cords, pounds of sand, multiple blankets, and endless snacks) I was and still am thankful for his attention to detail, even if I didn’t recently heed his lessons like I should have.

My first car, an 80-something black escort, was a prime example, as the trunk was equipped with a box of sand, candles with matches, warm socks, a variety of non perishable snacks, flares, jumper cables, a first aid kit and a heavy afghan. I only needed a handful of these goods throughout high school and college, but on necessary occasion I was eternally grateful for my dad’s wisdom and diligence in making sure that us kids were always safe and prepared for whatever mother nature may have in store for us.

Most of my adult life I’ve resided in warmer climates and have subsequently paid little attention to these sort of precautions. Yesterday I was stranded for 22 hours in the snow/ice gridlock of our city, which has already taken on the nickname of “Snowmageddon 2014.” The usually one hour trek from Sugar Hill to my house became nearly a day’s trip, and I realized a few things:

1. My dad is always right, and I really wish I still had my winterized trunk of goodies.
2. In the absence of specific supplies my dad would have suggested, I still carry a pretty stocked purse—wipes, flashlight, pocket knife, gum, protein bars, and good lip gloss.
3. Southerners really freak out when they see snow/ice and my dad should give them a quick intro to downshifting on hills.
4. There’s still so much goodness in the world; a 20-something in Alpharetta was passing out hot coffee, an older woman in Roswell passed out cookies, and an entire family had their Red-Ryder’s out on 285 W passing out water.
5. Patience might be the most valuable attribute I could ever possess—I’m still working on this one.

My car will very soon be stocked with details to my dad’s specifications, just in case I ever need to spend the night in my car again. As for me? I’ve marked my spot next to Nicholas on the couch with my pink laptop and Rainbow Bright Snuggie and have no intentions of leaving the house any time soon.

Snuggie

I hope “Becah for JECA” knows how much I love this snuggie. 🙂

12.12.13
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My Sister, Dish Evader

As if we haven’t had enough (town)house drama with no air/heat since April and a variety of other household mishaps, tonight the dishwasher decided to have a significant meltdown.  After mashing all the buttons, attempting a re-set and reading manuals, I set to the task of hand-washing the dishes from tonight and last night’s pumpkin shenanigans.  (See, my neighbor Mark was throwing away two perfectly good pumpkins, so I swapped free pumpkins for pumpkin bread and salted seeds.)  At any rate, as I washed the dishes tonight, I noticed that I left all the silverware for last, because that’s the worse, most tedious part.  It reminded me of my sister…

We’re eight years apart, so we’ve never had too much in common or really lived in the same space for as long as most siblings might.  I was an annoying little sister, of course, but I admired her and wanted to be just like her for years.  She wanted to be an architect at one point, and I signed up for drafting classes my 9th grade year because I decided I should have the same goals. I later realized my lack of spatial understanding and difficultly with numbers and abandoned the idea. My point is…I idolized her and would do any favor for her if she asked–even the dishes.  Joyce somehow always got stuck with dish-duty (I mostly manned the bathroom situation at our house) and inevitably had to finish dishes before she could go out on dates with Pat, this “city-ish” boy she used to date.  She’d wash the biggest two or three dishes, and then dump all the silverware in the bottom of the sink, layer the dishes on top, and fill the entire sink level full with water so that it looked like there were few dishes left to deal with.  While you would think I’d learn my lesson after her first escapades, I somehow had amnesia every time she had a date and I’d literally rinse and repeat in her honor.

Joyce and I have chosen really different lives and actually have little in common these days.  She’s the super-mom who makes cool crafts, caters to her kids, teaches Sunday school, and houses every possible family event at her beautiful lake house.  Her family was here in Atlanta at Thanksgiving and it felt so awesome to connect with her, share life stories, play with her kids and laugh with her husband.  I’m so thankful that in spite of our incredibly different lives we can embrace each other and support the choices we each make.

As much as I hate doing the dishes and the shriveled skin that it inevitably creates, I’d still do batch after batch for her if she asked me to.  I’ve since learned how to be me instead of being her shadow, but I still adore and admire her for the influence that she had on my life and the role that her and her family play in our lives.

All because my dishwasher broke….I suppose this memory is worth the $75 home owners insurance charge to fix the issue. 🙂

12.03.13
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Thanksgiving Sans Turkey

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IMG_3091[1]In spite of my serious tardiness here, I still wanted to write a little something about Turkey Day…

Ironically, we don’t do Turkey.  Tradition is overrated in our humble opinion, and we’ve only folded once in 10 years and attempted a turkey and the typical sides for our Thanksgiving meal.  (It was not good, by the way, and I remember craving pizza afterwards.)  We’ve traded in the age old goodies for an Italian feast complete with burrata, bruschetta, spaghetti done two ways—spicy red and truffle white sauce—topped with meatballs.  But we can’t shame Thanksgiving foods entirely, so we’ve kept our favorite golden oldies–Uncle Albert’s stuffing, cranberry salad, pecan pie, and peanut butter pie.

This has been our “tradition” for the last decade, but it’s interesting to note that my first sans Turkey festivity occurred many moons ago (1997?) when I first visited my best friend Denise in California for the holiday.  I’m still shocked that my parents allowed me skip our family gathering and fly across the country, but I’m certainly thankful that they relaxed the rules a tad.  I spent an incredible Thanksgiving with Denise and her family that year and was ecstatic to break out of the turkey and mashed potato mold in lieu of fettuccine alfredo and garlic bread; instead of pumpkin pie, Denise’s sister Heather made these ridiculous monster cookies.  I remember the jaunt to the grocery store equipped with our reindeer antler headbands and it was then that I realized it wasn’t going to be a traditional Thanksgiving–I readily welcomed the change.  I’ve always felt at home with Denise and her family and this particular Thanksgiving really solidified this for me—(and after being with her family again this past summer for her wedding, I’m happy to say I still feel the same as I did back then….”good bread,” as the Italian’s would say.) Thanksgiving with Denise is one of my favorite memories, and while the tradition to do Italian foods now is more a result of marrying an Italian than this particular meal in California, I love that our current tradition is something that I experienced first with a dear friend many years ago.

This year, my sister and her family drove down from Illinois to spend the holiday with us; we started cooking as soon as we woke up, starting eating around noon and the food a coma settled in around 3:00.  We essentially ate in courses, starting with bruschetta and burrata, complete with truffle seasoned Mascarpone cheese, basil pesto, roasted garlic, heirloom tomatoes and balsamic glaze.  We moved on to a strawberry vinaigrette salad as an attempt to have some greens and then chatted for about an hour before we served up the main course of red and white sauced spaghetti meatballs.  We postponed the pecan and peanut butter pie as dinner entrees…

It was a fabulous feast and I loved spending this time with some of my family; my nieces and nephews are a big piece of my heart and I loved spoiling them rotten with drawers of hidden candy, Pepsi before bedtime, and hours of Monopoly.  My sister and I had a couple of late night talks we were overdue on, and it felt good to have her and her hubby in our new place.  The time was fast and furious, but I loved every minute of it, and since my nephew declared it should be an every-other-year tradition, I think we’ll take them up on it.