I Can Too Live On Bread Alone!

We have all known a child who can't sleep on Christmas Eve because he or she is waiting for the arrival of Santa Claus and his eight tiny reindeer. For that child, the night is endless - lying in bed wide awake for what seems like hours to discover that only nine and a half minutes have passed; tip-toeing down the hall to find mom and dad still awake and wondering when they will go to bed so that Santa will come; being sent back to bed at two am and three am and four am by parents who have had equally little sleep because they were putting together the tricycle with seven hundred and fourteen parts and trying to remember where they hid Grandpa's Christmas gift.

Thankfully, neither of my children ever spent a Christmas Eve like this. Erin thinks that Santa Claus in a creepy pedophile and goes out of her way to avoid him from August or October or whenever it is now that the Christmas season starts in our consumer world. Brooke, even from a young age, valued sleep too much to give up even a minute of it to spy on the antics of Jolly Ol' St. Nick. Her philosophy was that either he would come or he wouldn't. She'd deal with it in the morning. And as long as he, or someone, left her a book under the Christmas tree, all would be well in the world.

Though Erin never exerted any energy on the anxiety and anticipation with regard to Christmas morning, she does manifest that same level of anxiety and impatience when it comes to waiting for other things.

Family dinners are an important part of our daily routine. They do not always happen the same way, but they always happen. Sometimes we eat at five and other times it is eight. It just depends on the day. Regardless of when we eat or what we are having, we all agree that every meal should be accompanied by bread. I don't mean to sound snobby, but I don't mean just bread, like store bought sandwich bread, I mean good, homemade bread - the kind that should be kneaded and left to rise a couple of times before it is baked and then eaten. This process can take several hours. As you might imagine, when we get home from school at six, starting the bread making process would yield a warm loaf of bread about midnight. Even with our flexible eating schedule, that doesn't work.

Problem solved! Weber found a book that claims that you can have a fresh loaf of bread every day in just five minutes a day. As you might expect, with most things that sound too good to be true, there is a catch. This bread-making process involves about five minutes to mix the dough. It DOES NOT require kneading. After sitting for about two hours, it is ready to bake. That takes thirty five minutes. I know, you are thinking that we have already spent close to three hours on this bread. Here is where the five minute part comes in. When the dough is mixed, there is enough for four or five loaves. The assumption by the book's author is that you will make a loaf a day. The unused dough made on the first day is refrigerated. When you are ready for the next day's loaf, you pull out a hunk (Yes, that is a technical term.) shape it into a ball, and place it on a bread stone. This part takes five minutes - or maybe less. Then, the bread must bake - for thirty five minutes. So, the five minutes a day is a little misleading. Yes, you probably are only touching it for five minutes a day; however, it does take about forty minutes from start to finish. All in all, that really is not an unrealistic investment of time considering that the yeild is a piping hot loaf of fresh bread.

Unless, you are a starving teenager. Then, the minutes tick away like hours. You feel like in the time it takes for those thirty five minutes to pass you will age such that when the bread is done you will be eligible for Social Security. (Yeah right, but that is another story.) You are forced to stand in front of the over and try to exert mind over matter. You chant your wishes as if casting a magic spell. "Rise. Rise. Rise. Bake. Bake. Bake. Brown. Brown. Brown." You ponder questions like, "If God created the whole universe in only six days, why does it take Him so long to make a loaf of bread?"

"Thirty three minutes and counting . . . .very slowly."

The sound of the oven's timer chiming as the display reads "0" is a moment of ecstasy.

And when I mentioned earlier that you only touch this bread for five minutes a day, that includes the eating of it too. Once it comes out of the oven, the five minutes that it took to shape it and get it in the oven is an eternity compared to the time that it takes a starving and impatient teenager and her boyfriend to devour this long awaited loaf of bread, including the time it takes to spread the butter.

All In A Day

Three and half years ago I decided that I was going to start writing a blog. I’ don’t really remember why I made that decision since, as is evidenced by the title of my first post, I thought that bloggers were kind of egocentric. Who wants to read all of the drivel of my daily life. Despite those feelings, I started writing and posting anyway. I have fun writing and I know that there are a few of you out there who enjoy reading what I write. (You guys need to get a life!) Another thing I don’t remember from this blog’s beginnings is how I settled on its title. That would have been a great topic for one of those early posts. I missed the mark back there. Today, however, I know why it is aptly named, “All In A Day.”

I had a day off from school yesterday. I did not play hooky; it was District Conference Day and I was not required to participate, so I didn’t. There were plenty of those never ending household chores that could be done; I could get a head start on next week’s lesson plans (It is already midterm and I have tests to write!); or, I could enjoy the day off, view it as a gift and enjoy it as such.

I spent the morning in my pajamas, reading. When I finally decided to get dressed, I took an extra long shower and actually shaved my legs. Spring is coming and I don’t need that extra layer of warmth anymore. And, Weber wasn’t sure whether he was touching me or the dog! By lunchtime I was dressed and had fully committed to the day.

I have a composition student who is working on a piece to enter in a competition whose submission deadline is April 1st. I am doing some heavy editing and entering her score into a music notation program on the computer. She wanted to give a group to which she belongs a preview of her work this morning. I sat down at the computer yesterday afternoon with several hours to give to the project, more than enough time to finish what needed to be done before today.

I was plugging along though admittedly ideas for a composition of my own that I have been half-heartedly working on kept floating into my conscience. I was able to push them aside and continue working on the task at hand. I had a few transitions between verses and an ending to write – two of the most difficult things to compose, in my opinion. By mid-afternoon I was on a roll. Until . . .

I got a call from Offspring No. 2, the one who is about to leave for college and be on her own, saying that her phone had been stolen out of her backpack in the midst of a mob during a passing period at school. This child has a tentative relationship with her phone at best. (See my post from April 12, 2009.)) If I had been this child and my parents had been me, I would have gotten the, “if you can’t be anymore responsible than that then you can just learn to live without the phone!”

Times have changed. Lots of people steal things. Kids steal things. Kids steal things from each other at school. And times have changed for parents too. When I was a teenager and away from home, I was also away from my mother’s constant nagging, I mean motherly love. She could not call me whenever she had the whim to do so. I can. I can call Offspring No. 1 in Chicago to make sure that she is wearing her mittens, and getting enough sleep and staying sober . . .And I can call Offspring No. 2 and make sure she is on her way home, or that she has her lunch. I can talk to her just about any time I have one of those motherly urges – except, of course, when she is at school. The truth is, I miss her phone almost as much as she does! So, what to do?

We all know how the cell phone companies work. You have to have an upgrade available or a new phone costs the equivalent of year’s worth of groceries or a semester of college tuition. They are not big on a barter system either - no trading loving Labrador Retrievers or homemade chocolate chip cookies for a new phone. Our afternoon was spent figuring out a solution to the day’s crisis.

Weber spent the afternoon trying to hack into Erin’s MobilMe account because she could not remember her log-in ID and password. He was successful, only to discover that she had not completed the registration process so there was no hope of finding her phone that way. Erin’s boyfriend sent her phone a text message offering a reward if whoever had it would call and return it. I called it several times hoping that some teacher who had a zero tolerance for cell phones in class would hear it vibrate and confiscate it with the hope of earning $15, the cost to students to buy back a phone that is in use during school hours. None of us were successful. So we did what all creative and intelligent people do in the face of a dilemma. We ate dinner.

Because I had a day off, I made a “real” dinner, the kind that involves no boxes and lots of ingredients. Erin wanted Au Gratin potatoes. This was a good thing because potatoes of any kind are her comfort food of choice. After the brief diversion of a meal together, we were back to solving the problem of the kid with no phone.

Weber and I went to the ATT&T store. A very nice woman, the woman who bailed us out, or is that, “provided us with exceptional customer service”, over the summer when Erin was in a similar situation again came to our rescue. Through another rather humorous series of events unrelated to the situation here, Weber was eligible for an upgrade on his phone. Though Erin is not on our account, he was able to use his upgrade and buy her a new phone. We left the phone store a little poorer than when we went in and headed to school to give Offspring No. 2 her new phone so that I did not have to worry about her driving home late without a phone. Weber got a big “Thank You” and a big hug.

When we got home, I still had the student composition that I had intended to finish before dinner to complete. I had lost my concentration and felt like I was not producing my best work. I played with it until about 11:15. At that point I sent her an email and said that life had gotten in the way of my creative process and I promised that I would get her a complete draft of the score this morning. And I did. I got up at our normal 5:30. After breakfast I made satisfactory progress on the composition and sent the files on. Within minutes, I got a “Thank You” email from my student. That was much appreciated. But more impressive to me was that she signed her email “your student and your friend.”

Sometimes in the midst of what seem like major obstacles, the little things make the biggest difference – sincere thank-yous. a hug, au gratin potatoes, knowing that someone values your friendship. The ups and downs of life, the joys, and sorrows, smiles and tears, hugs and laughter, happen all in a day. That is how this blog’s title was born.

Time Is Relative

We have all heard the phrase “time is relative”. What does that really mean? To what is time relative? Time is fixed. It is quantifiable. It is what it is. A second is a second. Sixty of them make a minute. Sixty minutes make an hour. Twenty-four hours make a day. Nothing is going to change that. No matter how hard I wish that some days had thirty hours, and then there are those that after ten hours feel like they have gone on way too long, the truth of the matter is that every day is going to last twenty-four hours and no one can change that fact. Again I ask, to what is time relative?

Time is in direct relationship with time itself and our direct need or desire for it. On those days that we seriously need it or desire it, there never seems to be enough. Take time spent sleeping, for example. I treasure that time. It seems that whether I sleep for three hours (I have had my share of those 180 minute nights in the last couple years) or whether I sleep eight hours (there have been a couple of those nights too), it is never enough. I say that, but I really don’t know what enough is. Or for that matter, what too little is. I don’t notice a whole lot of difference during the day one way or the other. Maybe I just don’t appreciate the complex relationship of time spent asleep verses time spent awake.

Maybe that’s it. Time is relative to how much we appreciate how we spend it. I have spent almost twenty-one years raising children. Offspring No. 2 is leaving in the fall for college. A lot has happened during those 21 years. It many ways the birth of both girls seems like forever ago. Fortunately those days of every meal I ate for nine months making a second appearance are now only a blurred memory. At other times, the days of teaching them colors and numbers and how to bite a Dorito and create a trapezoid seem like yesterday. I have enjoyed nearly every minute of every day with the girls and I don’t regret how I have spent any of the past twenty-one years. That is a great feeling!

When I look back, time has passed quickly. As I am fast approaching fifty, I want it to slow down. I don’t want the next 21 years to go by so fast. Maybe these feelings come from the fact that I am starting all over in life. In a few short months I will no longer be a 24/7 parent and I will be a newlywed. The last time those two things aligned I was twenty one and had a lifetime ahead of me. It seemed then like I had all the time in the world to go to graduate school, establish myself in the work force, have and raise children, buy a house, save for retirement, travel, and the list goes on. My perspective is a little different now. How much longer do I have to work to pay all the girls’ tuition, have enough for retirement, and still have enough time to enjoy retirement? Suddenly I feel like I am working against time – or is it that time is working against me?

I can’t change time. I can only change how I look at it. And here is my perspective. In the twenty-four hours that make up every day, I can choose to look with joy and gratitude at all that those hours bring, or I can spend them wallowing in dissatisfaction and worry. For me, there is no decision to be made here. If time is relative to how much we appreciate it, it may pass quickly for me, but I would rather come to that end smiling at where I have been and at what I have done than crying because I have staggered so long in misery and grief.

Approaching each day this way gives me confidence to believe that the best is yet to come.

Happy Valentine's Day

In years past I have taken the opportunity to write some fairly sarcastic posts on Valentine's Day. It doesn't take a PhD in psychology to know that such musings are a way to avoid facing the fact that I really didn't have any reason to get excited about Valentine's Day. I am happy to say that things have changed and that there will be no sarcasm in today's post. After today, however, anything goes.

After many years in denial, I have confronted my true self. I am admitting here that I am a hopeless romantic. So how does a newly proclaimed hopeless romantic celebrate Valentine's Day? Well . . .in many ways, like any other day. These days, every day feels like Valentine's Day. I know without a doubt that I am loved. My days are filled with those seeminly small but very meaningful gestures such as

• helping me make the bed first thing every morning
• making the morning's coffee
• putting the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher
• a "Good Morning, I love You!" email or text message every morning
• a "How's It Going?" phone call at lunch
• an after school hug that says "I missed you today."
• gentle reminders about those menial tasks that I tend to put on tomorrow's to-do list but that really need to be done today
• genuine appreciation for whatever dinner happens to be whether it is a can of soup or something that involves real cooking
• loading and unloading the dishwasher
• sitting with me while I grade papers or work on the week's lesson plans
• talking
• listening

These are the things that really say, "I love you." Sure, a gift on a special day like Valentine's Day can be nice. But given the choice between candy, flowers, even a fancy piece of jewelry and those daily text messages, I will take the latter any day.

So what did we do today? We happened to be in Austin this weekend for reasons totally unrelated to Valentine's Day. Our gift to ourselves was not setting an alarm clock thsi morning, something that rarely happens these days. We enjoed a lovely brunch together and then headed back to Dallas where when we got home we did a couple loads of laundry, went grocery shopping, and prepared for the school week. That's romantic, huh. You bet! Because we did it all together. Oh, and we shed a few tears as we listened to Mary Chapin Carpenter's song. "Grow Old Along With Me." There's the hopeless romantic shining forth in all its glory.

As we move past February 14th, my hope for all is that each new day will bring with it the love and joy that, for many, are too often reserved only for Valentine's Day.

Holiday Cheer

As we approach Valentine's Day, Christmas has faded into the distant past. And almost without notice, January has whizzed by. It is sad that life passes so quickly that once Christmas Day has past, its details are all but forgotten.

Another thing that was gone immediately after December 25th was the bombarding of our Inboxes with enticing advertisements for "the perfect gift." However, like with the retail stores, there were a few Internet stores that had great after Christmas sales in an effort to clear their stock of those things that did not make it on to many people's wish lists.

Always being one to appreciate those things that others may not, Weber was taken by an after-Christmas sale email. Shortly after the first of the new year his purchase was delivered. He opened it without much comment about what was in it. The arrival of the unremarkable brown box went unnoticed by the rest of us. I figured that if he wanted to share it he would and if not, that was certainly OK.

A few weeks later, he called me to "come see." There on a small table that may be the only surface in this house that is not a repository for discarded junk mail were the first stalks of an amaryllis peaking through the mossy layer covering the bulbs. I then understood why every so often he would disappear from the kitchen with a handful of ice cubes. I suppose I should have been a little more curious about that than I was.

Now, a month later, those stalks that stood only an inch or two high are supporting the flower's beautiful blooms. As I walk past them, it looks like they are smiling. How can I not be cheered by these bright faces looking up at me?

And, they arrived just in time for Valentine's Day!

Counseling: Session 1

The pre-marital counseling has begun. With the help of a professional, we have now begun to explore all the secrets of a successful marriage. In my last post here I listed the topics that we felt that we needed to address. In our first session, we focused on the most important aspect of any good relationship - communication.

The ability to talk honestly and openly with another person is the only means to creating and maintaining a trusting and loving relationship with another person. Sharing all those thoughts, dreams, wishes, and fears that for so many remain hidden forever in the darkest corners of the soul is what binds the lives of two people together. I am lucky to have such a relationship with both Weber and the girls. There is no topic that is off limits for discussion, no question that will deliberately go unanswered, no dream that must go unexpressed.

We do, however, have one serious problem relative to communication - what will be our primary second language at home - French or Spanish?

Erin and I speak French. It is not uncommon for us to have conversations about dinner, or clothing, or the weather in French. We can also talk about the people around us because no one else here understands what we are saying. That is definite advantage to French.

Weber and Edgar (Erin's boyfriend) speak Spanish. They too can talk about the people around them (usually Erin) in Spanish. Though Erin had several years of Spanish in elementary school, her Spanish vocabulary was repressed with the memories of a horrid Spanish teacher that she had in school the last year she took Spanish. Once you get past Gracias and taco my ability to comprehend Spanish is almost nonexistent. That is a rather sad state of affairs given that I live in Texas. Though I teach at a school that is in an area with a large Hispanic population, I have very few Spanish speaking students; most of my non-English speaking studenys are Korean. Fortunately all of them are commited to learning English!

So what to do at home . . .

The language line is rather sexist - the girls speak French and the boys speak Spanish. (Even Adidas, the male dog understands Spanish because as a puppy Brooke taught him all those important dog words in Spanish.) With gender as the dividing line it is easy for Erin and I to talk about how sweet the boys are without it going to their heads. On the flip side, I have no idea what the boys are saying. Their conversations are usually quite animated and involve many hand gestures and laughing, undoubtably at our expense. Since we don't underdstand much of what they are saying, its OK. We don't know that they are talking about the fact that we ae lousy cooks or are having a bad hair day.

Perhaps having gender-specific languages is not such a bad idea . . .except for one thing. Erin thinks it is "hot" when Edgar talks to her in Spanish. Remember that no topic around here is off limits . . .She asked me if I thought it was hot when Weber spoke Spanish. I had never really thought about it in quite those terms. Usually when he is talking to me in Spanish it is to relate stories about the "not-so-nice" things that his students have said forgetting that he will indeed understand them .

I was telling this story to a group of friends, one of whom is a single male Latin teacher. Another member of the group, a woman in her sixties, turned to the two bilingual guys and said, "When you are in bed, you should talk to the woman in both languages so that they will feel like they are in bed with two guys!" First we all had to get over the shock that this particular person thought and then said that and then we had a good laugh at the scenario. All I could think was that I would have to learn how to say, "Are either of you awake?" and "Can one of you move the dog out of the middle?" in Spanish.

So how was this settled? We will remain a tri-lingual family. Despite our language differences, we manage to communicate well with one another. The truth of the matter is that the most important things that need to be communicated between people require no words. A smile or a hug is understood universally; they require no translation.

I think we got our money's worth from our counseling session. What a pleasant surprise.

Oops! Make that a tetra-lingual , or should we just go with multi-lingual, family. Brooke is fluent in Russian, a language that none of us understands even a single word, which may be a good thing since her Russian class last quarter focused on Russian bath houses!

Thought for the Day

IF "Less is more." AND "Size matters."

THEN The fewer the merrier.