Reclamation

Sometimes I land upright and realize, yes, that's it, it's been this way all along. Perhaps it was there all the time but I wasn't seeing and I wasn't listening. Rather than have that "ruthlessness to rest," as my great-grandmother used to write to her children (here "rest" as in "pause"), I have had a wanderlust for many months.

The Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts" speaks to this necessity to pause right where we are: "Till by turning, turning we come round right." That's exactly what I've done these past few months: whirling and twirling and now fortunate to have landed on my feet again, but glad for having had the journey.

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd,

To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come round right.

In the past six months I have been presented with several job opportunities, all from my own searching but each one, in its own way, something I feel I have been qualified to do and to do well. Problem is, I sense, with an especially tough job market now, that options are limited for writers or historians and certainly more competitive. I made the deliberate choice when my last job was downsized in 1997–– from site manager of an historic museum house to a part-time docent: I chose "I don't think so"––that it was time to have more children. We had been married not even a year and I was thirty-three, my husband forty-one. Our two boys were born within two-and-a-half years. ["The heir and the spare," as it is often referred to in jolly old primogenitured England.] I had our daughter in my mid-20s but that's another long and wonderful story.

My point is that well-educated little old me, who had worked hard at developing her career in historic preservation, public relations and freelance writing, felt it was important to be at home with her children. I had been reared in the "you can have everything you want" school: career, husband, children. But I knew better and I knew myself better than that: I have believed, for some time, that you can have everything you want, within reason, but certainly not all at the same time. If someone tells you otherwise, they are fooling themselves: their house-of-cards has to give somewhere (or they have a lot of hired help).

So I was able to be a stay-at-home mother and I hope it has served my children well (although perfectly organized, crafty and polished mother, I am not). Then we moved here several years ago, over the span of a year, and life has been busy and hectic and still not quite settled. We still have things in boxes and our real estate situation has more settling out to do yet. As my husband stretches out into the farm that we are creating, I'm often running around like some of my hens, cackling and scratching and generally in a twirl. He is project-based and linear where I am circular: he moves from A. to B. with great finesse, while I am dabbling in G., thinking about finishing A. and pondering X., Y. and Z. Occasionally I screech or peck at those around me, but I've been able to keep that to a dull roar. And, I've kept writing in some form, still selling the occasional magazine or newspaper article or copy of The Pantry from my home coffers (thank you all, for that!).

With each potential job opportunity there has been this expectation: what would the job bring in terms of challenges and income and benefits? How would it change our lives? But each job, as great it has been on paper, and as polished as I've been on paper, has not even led to an interview. This has been a bit discouraging, and also quite humbling. It has also been illuminating because I realize, finally, that I am meant to remain at home for the foreseeable future, perhaps consulting or working away from the ridge when the right opportunity may present itself, but not now. A few weeks ago when I realized this, I received a hearty check for a forthcoming article and some press-related queries on The Pantry. Around the same time I found some amazing writings from my grandmother, in an old college trunk of mine, some of which seemed to speak right to me [she was also a farm wife and a published magazine writer––and we share a focus issue, too]. The Universe was speaking to me and with a big, LOUD BANG!

So what am I going to do with all of this newly allowed "free" time, you may be asking? Well, I've given myself permission to write the stuff I want to write, to try to sell more articles and books. To blog more. To can food for winter and organize our house while we transition some more on the ridge. To be a more organized wife and mother. To start tackling a family archives project at last: for myself, for my extended family, for posterity. To walk again now that the hot summer is behind us and glorious warm fall days are here. To be more present with my family and have no regrets about what I'm not doing in the world, but to better focus on what I am doing. To be right where I am, "where I ought to be."

I've felt a bit like Dorothy in the past few months: looking for a different scenario than the one in my own back yard. Not only did I try so hard to get the right job that sometimes things backfired on me, despite my own efforts: like the time I was a "strong contender" last spring for a publications manager position, but they never received several key emails from me that would have weaned out the group to be interviewed. [I found this out two months after I first applied, when I had the guts to inquire as to what was going on: I have never had "dropped" emails before in my life, at least for something so significant!] There are other stories, some humorous, some pathetic: like when I virtually begged a headhunter (excuse me, a "Culture Catalyst"–don't ask) to convince the ad agency to let me write them some sample copy. I think that guy went running, and fast, leaving me a mere quip: "The agency is no longer in a particular urgency to hire at this time."

Finally, my own personal catalyst for this recent epiphany was this email response, when I inquired as to my status, after spending eight hours about a month ago crafting the pitch-perfect college development letter as another test of my writing abilities: "Thank you for your inquiry. We are in the interviewing stage for the position now but will bring in additional candidates as necessary. We hope to have some resolution to this search soon and will be informing all candidates of our decision." Perhaps I am reading too much into this but my gut says that, in other words: "You are way overqualified for this position (you nitwit), you will probably want a lot of money, and, most of all, you are old. And remember, don't call us, we'll call you for an interview, but only if our other younger, less qualified candidates don't pan out. As a lovely parting gift, you will eventually receive our generic 'We've filled this position but thank you and we wish you the very best in your job search' email. Now, thank you and go away."

"Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Sally O'Malley. I'm proud to say I'm fifty years old and I like to kick, stretch, and KICK! I'm FIFTY! Fifty years old..."

I've been out of the workforce for some time. I'm graying naturally and I kind of like that. I'm definitely middle-aged but my eyes can still laugh and twinkle or be tinged with melancholy. In my heart and my head I am still that idealistic, passionate twenty-five year old young woman. So, that woman is going to be my driving force now to accomplish the things at home and with my family, and in the world via my writing, that I want to do. Let's face it: writing is an ageless profession. Many women novelists, especially those who raised a family, got their start later in life. One of my favorite books on farm life, Little Heathens, was written and published by a woman in her 80s!

Now that this midlife crisis is effectively over (unless it is just beginning), I'm going to finish my canning this weekend: salsa today, peach jam and bread & butter pickles tomorrow. Then I'm going to tackle projects: both writing and otherwise. Little bites, one life at a time. Most of all, I'm going to "write and KICK!" as my now twenty-two year old daughter has so wisely advised. Because I'm (almost) fifty: fifty years old! And time waits for no one.

Happy Trails To You, Until We Meet Again!

Dear Friends,

Just a note to say that I'm packing to head on up to the New England for two weeks and I may, or may not, post here during that time. Like Mary Poppins, I'm watching for the right weather window to depart–and yes, we gladly support our Interstate Highway System–and also tying up loose ends so that I can hit the road for two weeks!

Like the crazed mother that I am, yesterday I spent the afternoon making 16 pans of meatloaf, several meals of "Poor Man's Steak" (I will post both recipes "one day"), and Swedish meatballs with my Old Order Mennonite friend Anna. This weekend I might add some casseroles and some more soup, just for kicks. [Let me just say that this was the most fun I've had in the kitchen in a long time and there is something to be said for "once a month cooking" or "freezer cooking" and the food clubs that people have to make a lot of food in advance. It was so easy with Anna's help and in three hours we had enough meals for three weeks and the kitchen cleaned, floor washed and food on the table for everyone's dinner. The last time I did this was when I was pregnant with our second child–part of a nesting instinct, I'm certain.] Now our husbands, and my children, will be well-fed while we're away and good food goes far when Momma's out of town. I suspect it will also make up, hopefully a lot, for my two-week absence.

Anna is coming with me, as far as Pennsylvania, where she will spend two glorious weeks visiting with her sisters, a son and some grandchildren, while I head up, after a visit with friends in Wyeth country, to the Woodstock Writer's Festival and on into New England. There I will spend some time with our daughter, my mother, and some very dear old friends, including the Cupcakes! Can you say "I am so excited that I'm completely freaking out!"?

Of course, the hardest part of any journey for me is the packing and the organizational frenzy that proceeds it. I hate packing but once I'm packed and away I feel this tremendous unburdening. [Knowing my husband is home tending the fires and our children is also a huge thing, too: and I know they are excited to have Mom away for a bit so they can do "Dad stuff".] Driving one's own car is always good in terms of "stuff factor" and ease of mobility–and control of itinerary–but whether you fly, drive or sail, you still have to pack! I am the kind of person who invariably has another "to do" list added to the one already on her desk before any trip: in other words, more stuff seems to happen just before I plan to leave. But "good stuff," writing stuff, job-related things. So I'm tending to those, too.

In the meantime, I am watching the skies and hoping for smooth sailing when I depart mid-week. I still haven't finished my archives project here–and even made a major gaff on old Flickr photos where I deleted some that had fed to older blog posts so there are huge visual gaps here and there–but I invite your perusal of old blogs from the past four, almost five, years now.

Thank you, as always, for reading and I hope you'll come back, hear?

My very best wishes,

Catherine

Wolf Moon

The Wolf Moon in January is the largest and brightest of our full moons each year because it is at its closet point to the Earth in its 12-month cycle. Last night around 6 o'clock, as I was shutting in the chickens for the night, I watched it rise against the dark blue winter sky. It was an odd cast of blue, perhaps a midnight blue, and unlike any night sky I had seen before. There was also a ring around the moon–a sign of bad weather to come–and I'm sorry that my camera does not do it justice.

Tonight, the actual date of the full moon, we are getting an unusual snow storm for Kentucky: 8-10" inches predicted over the next 24 hours. This monstrous storm has girdled the country, barreling right through the Midwest but at its own leisurely clip. So I expect that is why it will slowly work its way across Kentucky–and, of course, is the reason why we can't see the moon tonight. A year ago we had a major ice storm here but fortunately we were too far south to be affected by it. This storm is the opposite: the further north you go in Kentucky, the less snow that is expected.


The almost full Wolf Moon over Hickory Nut Ridge: January 28, 2010.

I have enjoyed this January: lots of time in the house, puttering, some writing, working on projects, closets, office, working on the diet again after a self-imposed plateau. We've kept to our goal of not going out to restaurants too often, we're working our way through freezers and foodstuffs, and enjoying a bit of winter weather here. We've had cold and snow off and on throughout the month. I like a bit of winter and a month or so of it here will be just enough (the rest of the winter seems like a perpetual muddy November). By mid-late February here it can be quite balmy: it even was last January when they were building our chicken house and shop.

School was canceled this morning but the snow didn't really start until 5pm. Oh well. No one complained–as the cold will go right through next week, the snow that falls will be on the ground for a while. It will be interesting to see how that affects school for our boys next week. Today they were supposed to have celebrated their 100th day in the school year but now it will have to wait. They've more than passed the midway bump now. The years just pass so quickly, the older they all get–the older I get! I have a good feeling about this decade for some reason: my daughter and I were talking about this on the phone last night. How we as humans seem to go through 7-year cycles in our lives, some better than others. But there is this necessary sloughing and growth, a renewal of sorts, that occurs within me every 7-years or so. Wintertime provides a sort of annual sloughing and soul-renewal, too: I welcome the introspection and occasional solitude, as long as I do not get consumed by it.

Picturing that first snow felt comforting. But why?...something deep inside me seemed to relax when I thought of seeing, just outside my window, those first thick white flakes begin to fall...like a white curtain, closing off the rest of the world. They would cover everything. I could sense them muffling my grief, hushing my tumult, damping my sense of loss...The world will be fresh and white, and I will start again.

~ from Leaning Into the Wind–A Memoir of Midwest Weather by Susan Allen Toth [University of Minnesota Press: 2003]

So a snow day–or a whole stretch of winter confinement–is just permission for lots more puttering, some blogging, cooking (I'll post some more recipes, too, and that "Friendship Quilt" blog at last!), ordering chicks and some seeds, and just hunkering in. I need that for a bit of time each year as I am, by nature, an old crazy hermit woman. I embrace this now where I used to fight this aspect of my nature. I'm going to finally get to our Christmas cards, too (besides, they say "Season's Greetings" and our printed letter says "Happy New Year-ish"). It would seem the perfect weekend to sit down in my big comfy chair with a cup of tea and a pile of holiday cards. It's just been that kind of season: leisurely, no pressure, lots of rest, sleep, time for reading, and a renewed sense of who I am and what I'm trying to do. Hopefully it will also be a time of renewal for the world and for our country. We can only hope. In the meantime, I know what I can manage in my own little haven here on our Kentucky ridge and sometimes, most of the time, that is enough.

Here's to comforting blankets, warm food in our bellies, the love of friends and family, peace down in the valleys and high on the ridge tops, and to a better decade ahead. Hurrah for the 2010s!

NOTE: While adding a few more thoughts and the Susan Allen Toth quote here tonight, I was serenaded by a chorus of howling dogs. I guess they don't call it the "Wolf Moon" for nothing! [If you are obsessed with weather, like I am, you might enjoy Toth's book of ten essays on Midwestern weather, Leaning Into the Wind. She also wrote three excellent travel books on her love affair with England that I highly recommend. Her writing style is seamless and approachable and there are times I feel like I'm reading chapters, or at least excerpts, from my own life and perspectives. ]

Snow Days

Eli led the way to the sleds, which surprised me as I'd forgotten all about them, and then I only had to give Henry a nudge out the door and the promise of homemade cocoa later on. Once outside they had an absolute blast. Who knows, I might even join them tomorrow!? [But I don't have a Carhartt® jumpsuit!]

Assembled winter decor on our mantel. The little log cabin came with balsam incense years ago. Our son Eli made the popsicle stick snowman in school this December and the painted outhouse was made by local artist and historic Penn's Store owner, Jeanne Penn Lane, over in Casey County, near the Forkland community and Gravel Switch. [I've blogged about Penn's Store several times in the past few years.]

I didn't realize how much I actually missed having snow around in winter until our two "snow events" in the past month. The first storm was a sloppy slushy snow which barely lasted a day but gave us about 4 inches for a brief time. The snow didn't pack on the roads and melted quickly–those kinds of storms can produce ice or a treacherous "icy mix," however. It happened a week before Christmas and just got us all into the spirit of things, especially while I was getting packages shipped off via the U.S. Postal Service's "if it ships–it fits" campaign (not only that, the packages got everywhere they were supposed to by Christmas Eve: for one price, flat rate and mailed within a week before Christmas Eve–I'm sold on that concept or maybe it was the luck and good spirit from a festive snow storm).


I bought that lit cabin a few years before we moved here–little did I know that it is a reminder of a Kentucky-style home place. The "Frosty" hat was bought at a nearby local craft store in Liberty, Kentucky. I like to pick up handcrafts whenever possible, especially for the holidays.

The past few days we've had flurries and periods of snowfall. We've also had sustained cold which guarantees that the snow will stick around a bit. While it's just barely a few inches, at least on our ridge, I now understand why they cancel school so readily down here: our ridge road is 8 miles long and it hasn't been plowed, or at least sanded or salted. Meanwhile, the state highways and parkway are supposedly fine. However, our road, more like a long driveway/lane that connects between two points of our ridge road (which makes it lovely and private), is quite hilly and treacherous right now because it has nothing on it to treat it. Our wimpy Toyota 2-wheel drive remains at the bottom of the driveway. Even our 4-wheel drive Honda Pilot is not too happy about climbing our hills with these road conditions.


Dashing past the chicken house...

The other factor about roads here is that they are usually narrow with few, if any, guard rails, let alone any shoulders for emergency breakdowns. I'm not complaining except to say that people drive way too fast in general and it's always the other guy I worry about. [Or maybe it's just advancing old age and I'm becoming more cautious.] Our neighbors and friends tell of us of heavier winters, back in their childhoods within the past fifty years, of such heavy snow fall that school would be canceled not just for a few days or a week, but often a few months. Talk about cabin fever! An ice storm hit our ridge several years ago, before we moved here, and people were without power for several weeks–the same thing happened just a bit north of us last January. It's good "in these parts" to have a full pantry and root cellar, a reliable spring, a wood stove and perhaps even a generator. [Just remember if you have a tomten or two around your farmyard to leave him some food and warm hay to keep on his good side.]


The red tin match holder was an eBay purchase a few years ago–part of the estate of a Kentucky farm and only a few dollars.

Another eBay "find" and a gift to my husband a few years ago was this Warfield cardinal, a rare catch on eBay and I was astonished at the bargain. Robert and Virginia Warfield used to carve and paint birds (he carved and she painted) in my hometown of Jaffrey, New Hampshire and became quite renowned for them. Their cardinal graces our mantel year round and I was reminded today–with a flurry of birds raiding the dog food on the back porch–that I need to get a good feeder and seed this week.

With the sustained cold for a few more days we're guaranteed that the snow will stick around a bit longer. We're making the most of our possibly brief glimpse of winter weather–a window on the old-fashioned kind of winters we used to know that aren't mixed with sleet or just damp rain for four months. It's still a great pleasure to know there are four seasons in Kentucky–but with a shorter, generally milder, winter. [But hey, remember all of those squirrels running around all fall for nuts and how cold October was here? If you believe the old-timers and folklore, which I generally do, signs were pointing to a colder, snowier winter.] PHOTO–What, you don't have a bobble-headed gnome in your home? A gift from my friend Linda a few years ago with a "Snow" ornament sent from my dear sister-in-law (the gnome is out all year).


Aunt Cynthia amidst the post-Christmas decoration pick-up. We both like to make "meany faces" at each other. Sometimes it is a guaranteed cure-all for cabin fever! [And she loves the Christmas sweater we gave her a few years ago.]

This weekend I've been (slowly) putting away our Christmas decorations. It's not that I want them lingering around but that I actually hate to pick them back up again and put them away–but once I do, it feels like a new year and a clean slate again. So, because I also enjoy some holiday decor throughout the seasons, and we are down to one mantelpiece, I decided to do an homage to winter for another month or so–OK, until the end of February. PHOTO–My sister-in-law gave me this primitive-style snowman just this Christmas (with a Cracker Barrel® gift certificate–yee ha! We all enjoyed that last weekend already) and I love it.

I have a growing collection of snow men–some vintage, some made by our children, some made locally, and some made in Occupied Japan or more recently, China. [Sometimes I wonder what I don't collect...] It was fun to redo the mantel with some lingering Christmas decorations, that didn't exactly say "Christmas" (alright, yes, two of the snow people are holding a "Noël" sign)–and that could segue well into "winter decorations." And, to be honest with you, right now it is the most orderly part of the house–so I look at that mantel and its tranquil snow scene and I think, yes, it is possible to organize things and have them in some kind of harmony around here. PHOTO–The salt & pepper snow people were $1 finds at Dollar General last Christmas. And yes, I'm not above buying cheap "junk" from China on occasion, especially if it's well made. And besides, the kids love them.


We're hunkering in for the rest of the weekend and dealing with some frozen pipes at Ida's house across the street. I'm doing a lot of cooking (I'll post some recipes tomorrow) and relaxing. I was supposed to have friends for lunch on Monday but with the freeze lasting through then, pipe stress, and the state of our driveway and lane, I decided to enact our "snow date" instead. By Martin Luther King Monday, who knows? It will likely be back in the 50s again, our winter magic put away for another time.

Some winter scenes from a vintage c. 1950s linen Christmas apron in my collection–the recent snow makes it feel like Christmas all over again.

Snow or no snow, may your days be merry and bright all the year!

Cocoa and Brownies

Today was the kind of day that I love: raw, cold and rainy. I've been doing a lot of puttering around and organizing this past week–much needed after two years. Call it delayed fall cleaning or pre-Christmas decorating frenzy (I've promised my boys Friday) but either way, I'll take it (as will my husband). When I clean and organize I do it right: I start with the bookshelves and work inward in the space. Just having my books dusted off, shelves cleaned with Murphy's Oil Soap® (love the smell!), and organized again, speaks volumes for me (hee hee!). PHOTO: Cocoa served in a favorite cup and saucer combo in the Country Fare pattern, originally made by the Zanesville Pottery Company in Ohio before it was bought, and somewhat altered, by Louisville Stoneware. The aqua and chocolate brown combination of color remains one of my favorite colorways. I have collected the pattern for about 20 years after remembering a few pieces in this pattern, and cocoa in them, at my grandparents' New Hampshire farm.

Well, I don't enjoy this kind of weather for days on end–maybe sometimes–as I do welcome the sun. As I have "November in my soul" I rather embrace our four months of November-like winter weather here in Kentucky, especially as we no longer experience the prolonged heavy winters of the Northeast. It suits my natural inclination to burrow in and nest, to not have the excuse of sunshine and gardens to make me feel guilty about wanting to be indoors.

All of our driving rain today–as Aunt Cynthia said, "It's raining bullets out there!"–is heading to the New England in the form of a big snowstorm. [All evening it's been raining so hard that my satellite Internet has been fading in and out–I'm hoping I can post this and upload photographs before bedtime**] I'm thinking of our daughter who is thrilled that they are finally skiing where she works in Vermont and of my mother and my friends all cozy in their New Hampshire houses with their wood stoves going and the snow falling down. Snow days were always a gift back home: a day of quiet when the world outside seemed to surround with more than a soft white blanket, but a needed pause and buffer. Here on our ridge farm we now have fences, even one enclosing a few acres around the doublewide, and it just feels so cozy and safe, even if our gate has a "welcome" sign on it. Add the rain and the wind and it's bliss on a December day.

I once wrote about this phenom in one of my first essays for the former Victoria Magazine and sometime I will reprint it here or include a PDF link to the original scanned article (it is not on-line as yet but I do intend to get links to all of my published articles over the years on my website). That essay spoke of how I organized all of the books at the farmhouse where I grew up, way back in the spring of 1988, and how that process both grounded and reconnected me with the people and places in my life. Then I was nesting before the birth of my oldest child; now I am settling in, finally, to my new life in Kentucky. That's really what it's all about: finding a place for everything and everything in its place–and finding a place for ourselves in the world. One closet, cupboard or room at a time–one book, one person, one experience, one moment at a time.

With the rain and gloom I decided we all needed a massive chocolate infusion! One of my favorite series as a child, and still today, are the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books by Betty MacDonald (who also wrote the classic farm memoir, The Egg and I, about her chicken farm in Washington state). These kinds of, what I call, book memories are what I was reminded of today while I was making homemade cocoa and brownies for my boys when they came home from school:

Mrs. Foxglove was baking brownies. Thick chewey chocolatey nutty brownies. The kind her four children loved. She slid the last pan into the oven, lifted Solomon the black cat down off the kitchen stool where he was drooling up at Alma Gluck the canary, and sat down herself.

It was a very dreary February day. The sky was gray, the snow in the yard was gray and slushy and a cold raw wind was swooshing around the house...The brownies were baking beautifully. She switched the bottom pans to the top shelf and the top pans to the bottom shelf, then closed the door and put the milk on to heat for the children's cocoa.

From "The Crybaby Cure," Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald (1957)

Most of the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle stories (in four collections–illustrated by Hilary Knight, of Heloise fame, and later by Maurice Sendak, with a fifth one added in recent years, reassembled posthumously) start with a cozy domestic scene in a family, with a stay-at-home mother preparing some sort of lovely snack or meal (the books were written in the late 1940s and 1950s post-War era that predates even my own nostalgic childhood). That image of domestic bliss is soon shattered by some kind of childhood malady which eventually requires the mother to break down and call Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, the neighborhood "good witch" and grandmother-to-all who swoops in and solves all sorts of things with magical cures and her innate understanding of the childhood condition. What else would you expect from a woman who lives in an upside-down house filled with treasures, bakes constantly and whose husband was a pirate and buried his treasure somewhere in the back yard? [It goes without saying that she wears an apron and smells of vanilla and baked sugar cookies.]

So you can see that loving children the way she does, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle just naturally understands them even when they are being very difficult, which is of course why all the mothers in our town call Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle whenever they are having trouble with their children. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle always knows what to do and then of course she has a big cupboard of magic powders and pills and appliances to help cure children's bad habits.

All of this is a usual long-winded preamble to a recipe! Here is my standard, without fail brownie recipe (it only fails if you lengthen the cooking time, unless you like dry brownies) that, if baked properly, replicates "baked fudge." But there is a fine line between underdone and overdone here so beware! Also, these only take a few minutes longer to prepare than a boxed mix but are likely more expensive in ingredients–worth every indulgence in extra cost (unless you buy your Bakers® chocolate and butter on sale, like I do).

If you can't decide between whipped cream or mini-marshmallows, by all means, please use both!

I always make the standard hot cocoa recipe on the side of the Hershey's® Cocoa box (also better than boxed cocoa mixes–and you can liven it up at Christmas with peppermint extract or Schnappe's®). I've probably posted these brownies here In the Pantry before (but I'm too tired to check). If so, here they are again–they are that good:

Brownies "Cockaigne" (from the mid-1970s edition of The Joy of Cooking)

• 4 squares unsweetened chocolate (1 oz each)
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup chopped nuts, optional (walnuts or pecans are best)

1. Melt chocolate and butter together on low heat; cool until warmish but not hot.
2. In the meantime, beat eggs, salt and sugar until light and frothy, preferably with an electric mixer.
3. Stir in cooled melted chocolate mixture, but not all the way.
4. Before chocolate is thoroughly mixed, add flour and nuts. Stir just until moistened.
5. Pour into a 13x9" pan (or large jelly roll pan–although this will require a bit less cooking time and create a thinner brownie) and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

You can also make substitutions like peppermint or almond extract, or Grand Marnier, for the vanilla. Chopped up candy canes or Andes® or Heath Bar® pieces (all variations I made for a recent bake sale) also work well in place of nuts. You might try Cinnamon Red Hots at Valentine's Day or even a bit of cinnamon in the mix. Otherwise, there is no use messing with perfection!

**NOTE: I am posting this on Wednesday morning, December 9, after our storm ended and the satellite would let me do so–even this morning it is a struggle with the high winds. I miss DSL! There, I've said it. I also have never figured out what "Cockaigne" means, either.

Midway

I used to be a more spontaneous person. And then I had a child. And then I married a man who likes a plan (generally). And then I had two more children. And then I got rather broody and nesty, where I didn't want to stray too far from home. I'm not complaining. I wouldn't have it any other way and yet, all the while I've had this innate wanderlust: an armchair travel sense of "what's beyond the rainbow? what's through the dell?" It's not so much a romantic spirit or a greener pastures kind of thing, more of a "what's behind door number 3?" But wait! I also wanted to see what was behind doors number 1 and 2. Like many people today, I want it all at once.

Well, I know what you're thinking: didn't this woman just move 1,100 miles across the country from her familiar to a land where she knew no one? Isn't that like opening doors 1-3 all at the same time? Yes, and that hasn't been without its complications, it's string-tugging and introspection and periodic bewilderment. It has also brought a great deal of joy and wonder and shear jumping up and down, too. [Pandora and I would have gotten along famously. "Let's see what Carol Merrill has behind Door Number TWO!"] But now that I'm here and settled and refiguring what is meant by "home place," I'm redefining the concept of home, too, and what is it that I want from my home (and family) and what do I want to give back to it (and them)? Same thing with the rest of my life: what's next?

Occasionally along the journey I've lost that zest–you know, that lust for life that hits you when you wake up in the morning and say, mm, what will I do today? Oh, I think I'll go in a direction I've never been, to boldly go where no (wo)man has gone before, but only after I do ten loads of laundry, plan dinner, and run three miles (no, not really). It's not that bad but sometimes I am overcome by focus–or lack thereof–and if I plan too far ahead, well, then I can easily derail myself. At the same time, I often run from a whim or a possibility because I feel I won't live up to the expectations of others, or I get stage fright, or I think I'd rather be at home puttering in circles like a whirling dervish (and in a home that is not always ready for company). Around and around she goes. [But a fully stocked, well-planned pantry, that I do have...well, sort of: it's in several locations right now. Don't ask.]

It goes without saying that I can drive people nuts or be considered inconsiderate. I frequently apologize to the people in my life. I'm a good idea person–an idea starter with the best intentions but my follow through, well, let's just say a lot of balls get dropped. When I'm writing, it's a different thing altogether. I focus, I do well on deadline, I want to make it all work. I tune out the clatter. I periodically bake or cook something familiar–or new–to help refocus again.

You might say that this woman needs a life, a job, a purpose. Well, part of midlife, midway, so to speak, and being a few months away from my "late forties" is that I'm finding new purposes. My boys are needing me less, or so it seems, and my daughter is off in the world. I've had a "mini empty nest" experience in the past year: both with my daughter being on her own and with my own nest-shaking and relocation. I am settling well at last but it has been a journey and will continue to be one. I've never been a joiner type of person but rather a loner who likes to socialize on occasion but with comfortable small groups of diverse friends or individual friends. I "play well with others" but I crave solitude, too. That's just how I've always rolled.

As I've become older I've grown more comfortable with girlfriends, as I have with my own uniqueness. I have always enjoyed talking with intelligent, interesting men and listening to their ideas, philosophies and thoughts on life–appreciating their usual candor and ability to cut through the cow poop. Yet I often misunderstand the nuances and niceties of other women. Perhaps my newly found candor and authenticity can be off-putting at times. We, as women, tend to dance around each other while men just cut right to the chase. In another life I'm convinced that I ran a literary salon where ideas were discussed as freely and openly as the absinthe was poured. And I'm sure I smoked a lot. Either that or I was a Shaker in a very egalitarian society and did a lot of canning.

Yesterday my friend Teresa sent me a musing that a woman, Pam Young, posted recently on FlyLady. In her "Young at Heart" essay she spoke of dealing with our inner child in our forties and trying to tame her:

We have the ability now to get to know our little child within us. We have neglected that child for a long time. Like any child they are going to get your attention one way or another. We have let her run wild in the streets with our credit cards. She has neglected to clean her room and to eat good foods. She stays up way too late and doesn't get enough sleep! This makes her cranky. Oh and she spends way too much time on the computer and doesn't get enough exercise. Do you know anyone who would allow her children to do this? So why do you allow yourself to do this?

Exactly: Why? But why, also, do we punish ourselves so severely or allow ourselves to be held up to what society says we should be or how we should look or how our houses should appear inside? Teresa has recently become an advocate of the website Operation Beautiful which advocates a form of stealth Post-Its in all the right places–notes of positive reinforcement, a form of paying it forward in the nicest possible way. Think Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live, played by Al Franken before he was the (finally) elected Senator from Minnesota (yay, Al!), saying to himself in the mirror: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggone it...people like me." Only you see it on a Post-It, in different expressions and on bathroom mirrors–and other public places–or where you least expect to see them.

This past year I've realized that not only should a mother give herself oxygen first lest the entire enterprise fall to the Earth (my friend Edie calls this "the choose yourself first" mantra, which isn't as selfish as it sounds), but that home is not only where the heart is but where we are. I don't like to reduce life to a greeting card (but hey, it's a blog), but sometimes that reductionist thinking is really that simple. Several from Mary Engelbreit are constant reminders to me: "No matter where you go, there you are," also "Bloom where you are planted" and “If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it.” [That is also the core mantra of Buddhist mindfulness as well as DBT or dialectical behavior therapy.]

We can't always change our (sometimes difficult) circumstances or the minds of (sometimes difficult) people, we can only change our reactions and interactions with those circumstances and people. Above all, we have the power to change ourselves or our behaviors. That I am doing: with a lot of introspection, honesty, new purpose and direction. And a very patient family who lives with me (and who love me for who I am). In the process I am peeling back, and peeling off, the layers. It is both frightening and liberating.














In The Wizard of Oz–ironically on TCM tonight and that we watched for the bazillionth time–Good Witch Glinda instructs Dorothy that the power to get home has been there all along, within herself and in her own back yard. It's such a simple sentiment and yet so powerful:

Dorothy asks Glinda, the Good Witch, "Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?"

"You don't need to be helped any longer," A smiling Glinda answers. "You've always had the power to go back to Kansas."

"I have?"

"Then why didn't you tell her before?" Scarecrow demands.

"Because she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself."

The Tin Man leans forward and asks, "What have you learned, Dorothy?"

"Well, I . . . I think that is . . . that it wasn't enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em . . . and that if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard; because if it isn't here, I never really lost it to begin with."

In Andrew Johnson's pitch-perfect essay on The Spirituality of Oz–The Meaning of the Movie on the Theosophical Society in America's website, he writes that this is what Dorothy learned:

1. We have the power. We have Ruby Red slippers to transport us to Kansas, to bring about the Edenic state, or to create our heart's desire.

2. Witches and cyclones, while bad, can be a means for spiritual growth.

3. We must learn for ourselves. Truth is not given so much as it is realized. Look within. You do not have to go off in search of a mystic or seek truth from a variety of exotic religions. Truth is found in your own back yard.

4. Reality is very simple. We create our own reality. We tend to make it more complicated than it need be. The simple universal fact is that, if we believe it to be so, it is.

5. There's no place like home. The kingdom of heaven is not a place; but a condition.
   

Reprint from Quest 88 (November-December 2000): 213-7.

The poet and writer Maya Angelou said, "It is this belief in a power larger than myself and other than myself which allows me to venture into the unknown and even the unknowable." It is a great thing to be comfortable in our own back yard and in "the temple of our familiar," as Alice Walker wrote about, but sometimes it is good to wander a bit outside of it, away from the garden gate and the apron strings. To enjoy a new world and realm–to select a journey, but to sometimes depart from it, too. To always find the way home again after a series of dead-ends, new roads, new horizons. To savor the unexpected as my friend Teresa and I did, today, in a town called Midway, Kentucky. It was a very unplanned, spontaneous visit (the date determined a few days ago and our destination and itinerary were only decided this morning at 10am), and we hadn't seen each other in over six months. It was a great journey and I only spent the gas money (thanks Teresa for lunch!). [Photos and travelogue to follow soon.]

Oh, Happy Spring on the Ridge! Hurrah!

Here on the ridge, forsythia and Bradford pear trees are blooming, and the daffodils are poking up around my chicken house! This is a view up to our knob on Hickory Nut Ridge from the back of our chicken house in the circle in front of the double-wide where the old barn once stood. It is the largest knob on the ridge, Dick Knob (no, "Dick Knob Farm" just won't do, will it?), but you can't see the top from our double-wide. Soon it will be a pasture to cattle after we hay it one more season.

And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant"

In third grade, we had to memorize Riley's "Little Orphant Annie" and "The Raggedy Man," with Miss Schell at Old Trail School outside of Akron, Ohio (a beloved place and time in my memory). Both are classic Riley poems about a hired girl and a hired man. Because of their sing-song cadence, amusing dialect, and images that delight children, it was not hard to memorize them. At the start of my kindergarten year in 1967, my grandfather Penfield in Akron also gave me his original illustrated book of Riley's children's poems, The Raggedy Man [This edition was reprinted several years ago.] I still have this cherished edition, complete with Grandpa's own childhood scribblings and a lovely inscription to me. [I am hard pressed if I can find it in my boxes and general clutter right now--for more on this topic of chaos and clutter, see my recent posting over at Cupcake Chronicles. The Cupcakes are all in a tizzy about spring cleaning, town meetings, Peeps, and our upcoming reunion in Asheville, North Carolina on April Fool's Day! Biltmore Estate will never be the same...talk about spring cleaning!]

Little Orphan Annie was a real person who came to stay at the childhood home of beloved Hoosier poet, James Whitcomb Riley, in Indiana. Riley wrote poetry in the native cadence and speech of his day, like Mark Twain and others, and for that reason was often considered offensive or in poor taste by contemporary critics (and even when examined in our more politically correct modern times). But I say, put aside your PC-ness and embrace this beloved rural poet. His poetry is made to be read aloud, preferably by a cozy fire with children and puppies at your feet.

Here is the first verse of this immortal poem:

Little Orphant Annie's come to my house to stay.
To wash the cups and saucers up and brush the crumbs away.
To shoo the chickens from the porch and dust the hearth and sweep,
and make the fire and bake the bread to earn her board and keep.
While all us other children, when the supper things is done,
we sit around the kitchen fire and has the mostest fun,
a listening to the witch tales that Annie tells about
and the goblins will get ya if ya don't watch out!

NOTE: If you want to read the poem in its original dialect and sentence structure, as written by James Whitcomb Riley, click here. To hear Riley reading this poem, and "The Raggedy Man," click here.

Today I was reminded of Little Orphan Annie (or "orphant" as Riley spelled it -- I should note, too, that no one knows if she inspired the comic strip version a few decades later on) when one of the Cupcakes asked about whether or not there was a local rag man in New Hampshire (spring cleaning and all that). Apparently, rag men used to come door to door and would buy old rags, clothes and cloth to sell to paper companies for pulp. I just learned of this term in Perley: The Story of a New Hampshire Hermit that the Cupcakes are reading this month. [In looking for images to illustrate this blog, I discovered a new blog that I know I will love. James Whitcomb Riley was written about over at Life at Willow Manor and I look forward to reading more of this blog on art, literature, good food and so many things I enjoy reading and writing about.]

I could use a Little Orphan Annie around here, or Wendy Darling from Peter Pan, especially when those chickens arrive next week (although I expect the puppies will do their best to shoo them off our porch). And I know those goblins will get me if I don't finish my office and bedroom tidying up. Today, and every Friday of late, I am blessed to have Debbie cleaning up a storm in the double-wide. It is helpful to have someone help me clean house, especially when I have ADD and am generally distracted by other things (like writing, office organization--she still hasn't seen my office and bedroom--and soon our garden). Fortunately, I have a tolerant husband and one who suggested that we hire Debbie in the first place. I had to admit I needed help and for someone with self-diagnosed compulsive-hoarding syndrome, Debbie is God sent.

...Now, I'm just thinking that Debbie might not mind if I call her "Little Debbie," as she has a great sense of humor, but now that has me thinking of the oatmeal pies creme-filled pies by the same name and Whoopie pies, those delectable chocolate pies that deserve an entire blog to themselves and that my Mennonite friends make to perfection--chocolate and pumpkin and that I once made from the King Arthur Flour recipe long ago (divine: click here for the recipe) and that were recently written about in The New York Times "Food" section--oh, dear, are Whoopie pies the new Cupcakes? Please, no! And can't you tell that I haven't had lunch?--and oh, just a literary aside, do you realize you are now witness to my ADD problem just flowing to the bark of the tree like fine New Hampshire maple sap, that is surely boiling on a day like today up there?...Believe it or not, this ADD-addled woman once wrote a book. Who was that woman!!?? Hopefully I shall find her again after I recover from this intoxicating, brisk first day of spring...and a necessary late-March frenzy of spring cleaning, too...

HOLY FRENCH COOKING, BATMAN! Strange Face Seen at Bottom of Le Crueset Pot!

Caramelized Jello© chocolate pudding mix or freakish portent baked on enamelware? You decide!

What does this mean? I burned some pudding mix on the bottom of my Le Creuset pot yesterday (yes, I turned on the burner, added the mix and forgot to add the milk right away...that will teach me to make it from a box). When I went to wash it today--yes, today--behold, a vision! But what is it?


Oddly enough, the image looked best, and even more freaky,
when 3-D enhanced under running water.

I soaked the pot a bit and then poured the water off and before soaking it again, there was this odd form that looks like a face. It does not appear Biblical in nature. I don't believe it is anyone I know. That weird face on Mars? Julia Child or Emily Post crying out about my life in abject squalor?

I just hope that the folks at Le Creuset do not find out and charge me with expensive-enamel-French-pot abuse! "Idiot!" I can hear them saying. "Cet Americaine est stupide!"



Maybe I should contact my new favorite supernatural show, Paranormal State on A&E. However, I have likely missed my chance as they were just in nearby Russell Springs at an alleged haunted home. As their opening credits state: "We are students. We are seekers. And sometimes (long pause), we are warriors." I guess I'll just have to brave this one alone.

[NOTE: This post appeared, slightly altered, in its original form at Cupcake Chronicles, our book group blog, where we all-too-frequently depart from things literary...]