I am not a crafty person, I merely like things to be efficient and functional. When we put the kitchen together, I designated one very large pull-out shelf for spices. It had to be next to the stove so that my "tools would be at my fingertips." High and mighty, huh? Well, when you pull out a drawer full of spice jars and look down upon them, it's pretty much a sea of black lids. Shuffling through them all while the garlic is burning is pain in the as...tronaut. So here's what I did to put a stop to it:
FIRST, go to IKEA.
I know that's 120 miles away, but go there anyway—and take me with you, because I love IKEA. OR, order online, these spice jars, 4 for $4.
SECOND: Go to your local hardware store, and pick up some ChalkBoard paint. $12.
Paint, paint your IKEA jars. It takes 3 or 4 coats, but they dry fast, and the paint is water soluble, so it's easy clean-up between coats.
Three days after the last coat is dry, take a chalk pencil and skritch in the title of whatever it is you're going to pour into that jar.
Alphabetize.
Cook.
Now, it sounds like this was just a weekend project for me, but you have to know: I rarely have entire weekends for projects. It took me well over 6 months to finish this out. It was a few hours and a few jars there, some transferring around, and washing used jars to paint the next. Another trip to IKEA when I liked the idea, and mostly just tending to them when I had the time. I've painted larger jars also, that hold various pastas and grains, and popcorn. I love them.
I manage to keep busy—some might say too busy. That in mind, I feel a certain smugness that, embedded in my crazy life as a hare, I still have an inner turtle that crosses the line with an accomplishment or two.
No big point to this post; just some vacation pix and commentary for posterity.
Clint and I hit the road to Fort Hood on the 23rd. We could have flown, but we're road trippin' people. We like to see things, and we're good at making up car games. For instance, we count things. I'm in charge of tallying. By the end of all of our trips, we have a useless record of the number of roadkill, roadside memorials, Waffle Houses, cows, and emus that we saw on our road trip.
It's not altogether useless, actually: we saw more emus on our trip (1) to Texas than we did armadillos (0). If that's not good conversation fodder to tuck away for a future happy hour, I don't know what is.
First and foremost, it was good to see my kid. I hadn't seen him in a year, and in some ways it was a tough year for him. Although his career is going very well—he's been promoted to Sergeant, completed air assault school, and has been accepted to an EOD school in Florida,—for the first time ever he put his friends into planes and sent them to war zones while he stayed behind.
He underestimated how hard it would be. There were a couple of midnight phone calls after planes left to Iraq and Afghanistan, in which he asked me "how did you do this TWO times?" After shipping him off twice, I still have no idea how I did it. I still can't even think about it without crying, and the only advice I could think of was "start shopping for care packages."
His worry for his friends and comrades brought back memories and flashbacks. He is, at least, unashamed of his fears, his tears, his grief. He talked openly, and those of us that he opens up to keep reminding him: keep talking. This is normal. This is good; the shit you saw in Iraq should *not* sit well with you.
I tell you these details (with his permission, of course) to express why it was so important to me to get over there and lay my own eyes on him, as if just missing him wasn't reason enough. I wanted to talk to him, and squeeze him, and see if he's really doing ok.
He really is, and our time with him was wonderful, and fun, and funny. He and his roommate, whose father was also visiting, pulled out all the stops for Christmas dinner. He had to work until noon on some of the days, but that just gave us opportunity to tour the base and do some fun shopping.
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We toured the museum, one half of it now dedicated to Operation
Iraqi Freedom Veterans. It was an odd feeling to be standing in a museum that actually represented my son's life, and by extension, mine. While I'm so far
removed, for instance, from a Civil War display, I know these clothes, those trucks. I have these photos of my loved ones, or photos very similar, hanging in my home.
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Brian had to put up with some good-natured ribbing when he told his CO that his mother wanted a tour of the motor pool. "A Mamas Boy, are ya?" (Good thing I wasn't there to hear that.) He gave us a thorough tour, and Clint and I both got a feel for the vehicles he operated in Iraq.
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We went to the San Antonio River Walk and The Alamo. Since we were a party of 5, we took 2 cars. Here's soldier baby Anthony McFarlane (or McFifi, as they call him) hanging out of Brian's sunroof at 70 mph or so, near Austin:
Lucky he didn't lose that ball cap.
While near The Alamo, Brian spotted a cool hat & boot shop. I wasn't interested in a $600 cowboy hat, but I couldn't resist trying on a few boots. I was on the fence about these when the clerk showed me an alternate pair, saying "these are handmade—all real leather." This left me befuddled: Am I trying on vinyl boots?!! Forget it! Turns out they were leather, and the same boot is sold at our local Western store. I still might get them, because look how cute!
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Clint had a bit of a howdy do with Forrest Gump.
And that is all I have to say about that.
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One of the things I found most surprising about traveling through Texas was the lack of scenery. It was miles of urban sprawl, everywhere we went.
Still, I was determined to get a picture of either an armadillo or a longhorn steer. I'm not sure why I was so fixated on the armadillos—why did I think they'd just be running down the road like squirrels in a park? ZERO armadillos were tallied, as I mentioned before, so Clint and I got up early one morning to hunt for real Texas countryside, with a real damned Texas COW in it.
It took us almost 90 minutes to find a country road, and I yee-haw'd when I finally spotted this herd.
This guy refused to mug for the camera for me, no matter how much I yelled, "hey, cow!"
But when Clint said "HEY!" that steer turned right around and smiled.
Once we had his attention, I began talking, and he turned right back around:
Hmph. Sexist, stand-offish steer.
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On the way back from Cowville, I had Clint pull over to the Central Texas State Veteran's Cemetery. It's fairly new, and many of the names were of soldiers KIA in Iraq or Afghanistan. There were 3 funerals scheduled for the day we were there. I read names and ages until I shook.
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Texas Jones, whom I'd met in Fort Benning 18 months ago, happened to come home on leave from Iraq while we were there. Jones's son was born a month after he deployed, and Brian accompanied his friend's wife to the hospital. Jones showed up with a bamboo plant for me, telling me it's his favorite plant, and asking me not to kill it like his wife did his. So far, so good, my bamboo plant is thriving.
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It was interesting to get a glimpse of my son "The Sergeant." Who is this kid that removes his hat before he steps into a building, and places
it squarely back on his head before one foot is out. Is it really the same guy that hogs the couch and scarfs down 10,000 calorie mashed potatoes when he's in my home?
We witnessed a few other homecomings. The military homecoming hug is different from other run-of-the mill hugs. They are more holding than hugging. They are closer and tighter, and "I missed you" is entangled with "I'm glad you're alive." A soldier meeting his brother in Denny's for breakfast one morning almost undid me.
There are many military sounds that we don't hear in our civilian bergs, and I wish we did. A canon goes off at the end of the workday, followed by reveille, on a bugle. Then Taps plays every night at 10 p.m. Our hotel was 3 or 4 miles away from the base, but we could hear it clearly. It was distant and eerie, and beautiful every night.
Day is done, gone the sun, From the hills,
from the lake, From the sky. All
is well, safely rest, God is nigh.
Go to sleep, peaceful sleep, May the soldier
or sailor, God keep. On the
land or the deep, Safe in sleep. Love, good night, Must thou go, When the day,
And the night Need thee so? All
is well. Speedeth all To their rest. Fades the light; And afar Goeth day, And the
stars Shineth bright, Fare thee
well; Day has gone, Night is on. Thanks and praise, For our days, 'Neath the
sun, Neath the stars, 'Neath the sky, As
we go, This we know, God is nigh.
The Fifth Annual Santa Rampage, or Santa Rampage V, was held in downtown Champaign last weekend. For those of you not in-the-know, this is a bar crawl started by our friend Jeremy in 2007. Here he is, King Rampage himself, with Clint's daughter Jennifer:
Let's hear a nice round of applause for our leader!
You can't quite get a feel for Jennifer's clever-clever costume in that picture, so here's another, taken with husband Bill. I think they took home the best costumes of the year for the 2nd year in a row. The prize is braggin' rights, and that is it.
This is year #3 for Zymkie & Associates. Once you show up for a Rampage, you are hooked for life!
Here's me and Clint. I'm wearing the costume I bought last year but didn't get finished. See, that dress is a mini-dress, and I'm a maxi-girl. I added a good 12-inches to the skirt and stitched on all that fringe and fur. Before you go a'getting yourself all impressed at my seamstress skills, I'll reveal that the inside of that dress is a big giant mess. The fringe was the saving factor in the entire deal: it covered up all of my crappy hand sewing and bunchy seams.
Enough about me. Let's talk about my family. We actually recruited cousins this year! This is my cousin Rudolph. I mean, Mikedolph. I mean, Mike:
Mike is a reindeer. If you weren't sure about this, just check out his hiney for the proof:
Now stop checking out his hiney before his wife kicks mine. Here she is with my cousin Tammy and my brother-in-law Tim, at Memphis on Main:
The party always gets kicked up a notch at Memphis because there's live music. Cover charge is waived for Santas each year, which, let me tell you, keeps us loyal. Candy Foster and Shades of Blue was playing and you can see it wasn't too difficult to coerce us out onto the dance floor.
As it has been every year, the evening was too, too much fun. You just can't beat lots of beer and 70 Santas for a great Saturday night, y'know?
We cabbed it home at the end of the night:
Those in our household managed to stay up to scarf down some pizza rolls before finally retiring at 4 in the a.m. Yes, I said 4, that is 1/6th of tomorrow already!
We crawled out of bed and went back downtown at the crack of noon for the best breakfast in town, whether you're hungover or not: Sam's Cafe. They're famous for their french toast, but Jennifer and I decided to live it up. You know what's good for a hangover? So much food it takes two plates to serve it.
There are about 70 more pictures of all the fun here: HERE, CLICK HERE!
It could only have been better if my kid were in attendance again this year (and you, of course). I haven't seen him Christmas eve last year, and I miss him like crazy.
I miss him so much, in fact, that I think I'll go see him this weekend. I may catch you from the road, but if I don't, Merry Christmas, everyone!
I'm a little late with this post, but it's mostly due to spending the last week or so wrapping up loose ends to what turned out to be a FANTASTIC wrapping and packing event for our soldier babies.
As there is no RSVP for these events, I'm always anxious about what the turnout will be; it's simply unknown...until we know! Slated to start at 1:00, we had 6 or 7 people in attendance at 5 'til. Same at 1:00, and at 1:05. I had a quick, sick feeling when suddenly:
That's kind of how it was.
There was sorting and wrapping:
Stuffing of stockings:
And packing of boxes:
The boxes were tidied and filled with tinsel, then topped off with precious letters from children in Homer and Mahomet, IL, and from Enterprise, Florida (see, I TOLD you that you can help from anywhere!).
One of my favorite vets, Dave Martin, stopped by with a hefty check from the Thank You Veteran's Run. Dave represents at all of our events!
And our last stop, the next day: The post office. Here's a very frazzled Donna, our postal clerk extraordinaire. Even though we called ahead and emailed ahead, and Facebooked ahead, someone at the post office got transferred to another station at the last minute, and they were a little short-staffed.
Most people were understanding, or at least soothed with the homemade cookies we brought to appease them, but there were a few that crabbed at the two poor remaining clerks as if it were their fault.
Oh, and there was one near cat-fight when one lady told another lady to shut her yap, and that if it took FIVE HOURS to process the boxes going to our troops, then they should all damn-well stand in line for 5 hours and be happy about it!! Ooo! That was exciting!
But it was mostly lovely. People did, as they always do when we are taking this many boxes to the post office, hand me cash. It touches me every single time, strangers handing me cash, asking if they can pay for a box, or if they can help.
My favorite part of the post office trip is visiting with Veterans. Older gentlemen leaning on canes as they wait, laughing and reminiscing with us and with each other about care packages they received from their mothers. It is almost always their mothers I hear about, and I think about how young they were when they were in Korea, or Vietnam.
They laugh about the delicious boxes of cookie crumbs they devoured, and how much the letters meant to them then. Their boxes and letters clearly mean as much to them now as they did then, and their reminiscing reinforces everything we do: You know the efforts of this community and these events are still going to be remembered somewhere in this world in the year 2062.
To all of you that continued to work for our troops, to schlep out in holiday crowds and shop for them, to bake homemade cookies and write them letters, and to donate your hard-earned cash to make sure that everyone on our list had a really great Christmas box:
I'm not sure why, or even how at this point, but some years ago I signed up for a thingy that notifies me if my name or text or blogs appears on "teh internets."It's been so long since I arranged it that I have no idea how I did it—I just know that I get an email now and again, telling me what some other Lori Stewart has done to make it to the world wide web.
Any sighting of Gnightgirl, however, is always me, and so I'll get a notification screaming that Gnightgirl just posted on The Sandwich Life, which I already knew I did.
Tonight, however, I stumbled across this notification:
Click to embiggen.
Gnightgirl Night Cream? I have a night cream? Heyyyy! I've been Gnightgirl since 2005, and I never endorsed a night cream with my name on it! I clicked through that link, and sure enough, there I am. I'm being sold at Target, right alongside Isaac Mizrahi's cute little dresses:
Ok, the spelling's a little different, but tomato/tomahto, this is me! They stole my name from me!
Never you mind that I stole it from George Burns and Gracie Allen. ("G'nite, Gracie," "G'nite girl," "Gnightgirl.")
This is different. This is... I demand a...I...Umm
Aurgh, so much to tell, so little time! I'm distraught that time constraints prevent me from telling it all properly, but I'm still here to give you the highlights.
The Spaghetti & the Pasta!
Rob Meister, of Minneci's Italian Ristorante went above and beyond with the spaghetti. And the fettucine alfredo...and the pasta with pesto sauce...AND the pasta arrabiata. All with bread and parmesan, and it was endless; every last person was fed, and fed well. I can't tell you how many times during the evening I heard how great the food was.
If you don't already know it, Rob is running for State Representative; go check him out here!
The Music!
Asking ThreeBird to play was one of the best decisions I made about the entire event; I have no idea what I'd have done to keep people present and entertained when they were done eating. ThreeBird, featuring Jammin' Jimmy Bean, Jesse Frances, and Dave Cooper definitely kept the audience captivated, and this event was more successful as a result of their playing for us that night. The crowd was wow'd, and Clint and I have already discussed future outdoor home concerts at the country casa.
Not to be overlooked, and represented in all of these photos, of course, is Bob Osiek, the Esquire Lounge, and all of the staff at the Esquire. The venue was given to us for nothing, and with bottomless free pasta, I imagine they sacrificed a few burger and pizza sales for us that night. The staff was incredibly accommodating, offering to help out wherever they were needed.
I suddenly have an idea of what it's like to dragged off the stage with a shepherds hook, on an awards show, for carrying on and on while you try to give everyone credit. There were so many that stepped up again. People that show up and work for us and do nice things, and I can't think of anything I've ever done nice for them, except to accept their services.
And oh! The guests that showed up and gave so generously, I can't thank you enough for reaching into your pockets for us. We made $4000 that Sunday night, and when it was all said and done, one thing kept occurring to me: I never directly asked anyone for money. While it was a given that the event was a FUNDraiser, I never wrote letters asking for money (well, one, but I was told to). I didn't ask you to empty your bank accounts. I didn't charge you for Minneci's spaghetti.
I didn't have to.
I didn't have to ask because you care, and you understand. And in every letter I write to every soldier I meet, or will perhaps never meet, I stress to them how much you care. How you leave your comfortable homes, and you gather to support them. I tell them, "Soldier, I'm not kidding; people just give me money to take care of you. So tell me what we can do."
Ok, friends, they're giving me the "wrap it up" cue, and it's time for me to get moving on the Christmas event. (Ahem. It's December 4.) I can't thank you enough, I really cannot.
This is a CAKE, made by one of our sponsors,
Buffy Vance, of Madeline's Confectionary.
Former soldier (airman) baby and now vet
Jeremy Jay rocks the Free Hugs apron.
