My Baby Girl - My Stinkeroo

December 31, 1974. What a day! That was the day that my beautiful daughter, Larisa, was born. It is impossible for any baby to be wanted and loved more. And it's hard for me to believe that my precocious, smart, curly-haired angel is 31 years old today.

I've included the four photos above because of what they represent. The picture of Larisa as a baby, asleep with her arms flung out is precious to me because that's how she slept as a baby - relaxed and secure. In each part of her life she gives her all - her children, her marriage, her family, her friends, her job -- even her sleep -- although as the mother of two preschoolers she doesn't get nearly enough nowadays.

When she was almost four, her brother was born. She didn't show a bit of jealousy but enjoyed her new role as big sister. The two of them were close growing up, and they continue to be good friends today.

My father, known as Grandshaw, gave her the nickname Stinkeroo when she was little, and I still call her that occasionally. She was Stinkeroo - her brother was Scalawag.

I love the photo of her in the striped sweater. That mischievous grin shows her funny side. She has a terrific sense of humor, but balances that with kindness and compassion. She was a tomboy at times, and very feminine at others. She'd play soccer and basketball, but she wanted bows in her hair. And that's funny because she has to practically bribe her own two daughters to put a bow in their hair for a special occasion.

The school photo also reminds me of her first day of kindergarten when she asked her father, "Which looks more like a school girl?" Then she proceeded to model carrying her bookbag over her shoulder and then carrying it by her side. She wanted to be sure to do things properly.

The wedding photo shows her with her husband, Steven, and their dog, Caesar - who is a story unto himself. A few years after the wedding, they became parents to the angel I call Sweet Stuff here, and then a couple years later, Sunshine came along. I always knew Larisa would be a good mother, but watching her with Sweet Stuff and Sunshine, I am just amazed at what a wonderful job she is doing with the most important job anyone can have.

Today Larisa is a successful business woman, and she daily juggles a zilliion demands. She calls her mother (me!) every single day, and now I talk with her whenever I have an important decision to make. She's my friend, my little girl, my tee-not, my Stinkeroo, my precious, precious daughter.

Happy birthday, Larisa. I love you!

GOD'S CAKE

The day before Christmas my daughter was baking an apple cake as she chatted with 4 1/2-year old Sweet Stuff. She was telling Sweet Stuff about the real meaning of Christmas and how it isn't just about Santa Claus and giving and receiving gifts. It is Jesus' birthday. Sweet Stuff immediately made a connection - the cake my daughter was making was obviously Jesus' birthday cake. Realizing how well that fit in with what she'd been talking about, Larisa agreed - of course the cake was Jesus' birthday cake. That's when Sweet Stuff carried the conversation to a new level.

"Jesus was at Megan's birthday party the other day, and he told me he liked orange sprinkles. So we need to put orange sprinkles on his birthday cake," she said matter-of-factly.

My daughter looked at Sweet Stuff. "Jesus was at Megan's birthday party?"

"Yes, and he told me he wanted orange sprinkles on his birthday cake."

Not one to question a child's chat with Jesus, my daughter complied. So orange sprinkles were scattered across the cream cheese frosting. The next morning, my daughter decided to have a slice of apple cake for breakfast.

Sweet Stuff came into the kitchen. Shocked, she asked, "ARE YOU EATING GOD'S CAKE?"

"Yes," my daughter replied, hastening to explain, "It's all right with God." That satisfied Sweet Stuff, and the issue was resolved.

Now our family recipe for apple cake with cream cheese frosting has a new name. It is simply "God's Cake."

GOD'S CAKE
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups oil
3 eggs
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup nuts, chopped finely
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp. baking soda
3 cups apples, peeled and chopped finely

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour three 9-inch round cake pans. Combine sugar, eggs, oil and vanilla. Beat well. Add mixture of flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix in the apples and nuts. Pour in cake pans and bake for 30 minutes. You can also make the cake in a bundt pan and bake for an hour. However, the icing is what makes it so good, and the icing covers less cake if you use a bundt pan.

CREAM CHEESE ICING FOR GOD'S CAKE
8 oz. cream cheese
1 stick butter
1 cup finely chopped nuts
2 tsp. vanilla
1 pound box powdered sugar
orange sprinkles

Let cream cheese and butter soften. Add vanilla. Add powdered sugar a little at a time and mix well. Add nuts. When cake is cool, ice each layer and stack. Scatter orange sprinkles over the top. Yummy!

If you happen to use the recipe, let me know how it turns out - and I hope you enjoy God's Cake!

The Shopping Cart Incident

After we finished walking all over the 90 acres with a metal detector (found one cap pistol, two knives, two complete horseshoes, two pieces of a horseshoe, and several pieces of wire and chain), I told PawPaw I'd run by the grocery store to get some steaks to grill for dinner. I walked into Kroger and didn't see any shopping carts.

I looked around and saw an elderly man coming in from the parking lot to return his shopping cart. I met him at the door and told him I'd take the cart. People have done that for me before, and I always appreciated the few seconds they saved me. However, instead of turning around and going back to the parking lot, he continued inside the store. That's when it hit me -- he had gone to the parking lot to get a shopping cart, and was on his way inside to do his shopping, and I had commandeered his cart!

"Here!" I called to him as he walked away from me into the store, "I thought you were returning the cart. You can have it back." He didn't turn around - he just waved his hand and kept going - probably thinking I was a rude and pushy lady who stole shopping carts from defenseless little old men for kicks.

So now I'm an official Kroger cart-napper.

Keepers

I received the following in an email. Go ahead and thank me now because I took the "email this to all your friends . . ." portion out of it. You're welcome.

The story and thought are good ones, however, and I think there's an important message here:

Keepers

One day a woman's husband died, and on that clear, cold morning, in the warmth of their bedroom, the wife was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't any more. No more hugs, no more special moments to celebrate together, no more phone calls just to chat, no more "just one minute." Sometimes, what we care about the most gets all used up and goes away never to return before we can say good-bye or say "I love you!"

So while we have it . . . it's best we love it . . . and care for it and fix it when it's broken . . . and heal it when it's sick. This is true for marriage and old cars . . . and children with bad report cards and dogs with bad hips and aging parents and grandparents. We keep them because they are worth it . . . because we are worth it.

Some things we keep -- like a best friend who moved away or a classmate we grew up with; or a co-worker we worked with. There are just some things that make us happy, no matter what.

Life is important, like people we know who are special . . . and so, We keep them close!

Now for my "keeper" story: I was in the grocery store this afternoon buying some last minute items for the dinner I fixed for some in-town and out-of-town family. I heard someone call my name, turned around and saw a woman I had known in the church singles group a few years ago. She had been married for 29 years, divorced, was active in the singles group for a few years and then met Charles, and she married him. They've been happily married for almost six years now. As we caught up with what has been happening to each other in the two years since we last saw each other, I told her that I was single...again - that the second marriage had been a mistake from the beginning and only lasted a year. As she was offering sympathy, I assured her that it was okay. Then I told her that my first husband and I were getting back together. He and I were married for 28 years when we divorced 8 years ago. Her next remark was one I'll always remember. With a wistful look in her eye, she said,

"I saw my ex on Christmas when the family got together, and when I looked at him, I knew that we could have worked it out. But at that time I was just weary of all the problems, and I didn't want to work it out."

Although she's happy now with her second husband, she regrets that her first marriage had been a keeper that she let go.

I wish I could end this post by writing something profound, but the message is in the two stories - and they can stand on their own.

Just Desserts

I found this cartoon over at Dr. Sanity - and loved it! Figured I'd pass it along to you here. (Dr. Sanity has some recipes - yes RECIPES!! - to share along with the cartoon. I copied those, too.)

Life for The Median Sib in 2005 - a Review

I was watching TV, and they've started all the year-in-review shows. I decided to write my personal year-in-review. However, I can't remember much from early in the year...maybe nothing spectacular happened during the winter and early spring. So here are the highlights of 2005 for me:

(1) January: I started riding mountain bikes with PawPaw - great exercise and fun, but decided I could only handle it in cool weather - the helmet does horrible things to one's hair after sweating in it. So when June got here, I had to stop until the fall.

(2) May: I finished my first year as a reading specialist - great job - and and now I'm happily in my second year out of a regular classroom.

(3) June: I babysat Sunshine and Sweet Stuff for a full week while their parents went to the beach with friends. Wonderful and exhausting at the same time. There is absolutely not a time as tender as being with children first thing in the morning when they're sleepy-eyed and sweet and cuddly.

(4) July: PawPaw and I went to Alaska. I LOVED Alaska. We saw moose, grizzlies, caribou and Dall sheep in the wild. Enjoyed it so much, we've already scheduled another trip next September.

(5) July (continued): On the trip to Alaska I went fishing and caught a salmon. We wore waders and fished in the middle of a river. Catching a salmon is something I've always wanted to do. I caught my salmon the evening before we went home. That meant that I released it after I caught it. PawPaw had caught one earlier in the week, and we got the cook at the lodge where we stayed to cook it. It was delicious, and it fed about 16 people!

(6) July (still continued): We biked for 24 miles along some of the most incredible scenery in Denali park in Alaska. We had seen a grizzly bear with two cubs earlier along the route, and to say I was a LITTLE apprehensive would be an understatement.

(7) September: I started The Median Sib. Blogging has been both fun and therapeutic. PawPaw and Stinkeroo both can't figure out WHAT I get out of blogging. It makes no sense to them.

(8) October: I went camping by myself. It was great - except for the "by myself" part. However, I proved a point by going alone - I am woman, hear me roar and all that . Afterwards I went camping several times with PawPaw, and that was definitely a better way to enjoy the world of camping.

(9) November: After numerous stops and starts throughout the year, PawPaw and I got back together - for good.

(10) December: I did NO Christmas decorating for the first time ever. PawPaw put up my Christmas tree, and then he, Sweet Stuff and Sunshine decorated it. That was it. Nothing else. Zilch. I won't do that again. I enjoy having a Christmas-y house too much.

I'll almost definitely come up with other outstanding events for the year as I think about it more. For now, though, that's it.

Home Again

Home again! It's Monday night, and I'm back home and blogging again. I had a wonderful Christmas weekend with lots of visiting and fun. Highlights include:

Friday dinner with the children and grandkids - watching the little ones open their gifts and seeing their excitement.

Eating dinner today at my mother's with 48 family members! All seven of us siblings were there! Then doing the gift exchange - one person at time. It took forever, but it was so much fun! Two regrets: I didn't get a picture of the 7 of us together with our mother, and I wasn't able to stay very long.

Taking a hike yesterday on PawPaw's country property in the cold afternoon with occasional drizzly rain - very refreshing!

Holding my niece who is ten months old and having her smile at me.

Driving around town with PawPaw's mother, brother, sister-in-law last night to look at the Christmas decorations.

Flying home tonight with PawPaw in his small plane -- flying above the clouds and seeing a spectacular sunset that everyone below couldn't see because of the cloud cover. Then going from 6,000 ft to 4,000 ft as we neared Nashville which put us right in the clouds - rather spooky flying 150 mph and not able to see anything...just trusting the instruments.

Now I am looking forward to tomorrow when I'll get to visit Sweet Stuff and Sunshine and have them show me all the goodies that Santa Claus brought them.