Just so you know it's all true...

The ad on TV says, " Ask your friends. Check it out on Facebook and Twitter."I don't know why I feel the need to do this, but everytime I see the ad on TV, with the small army of people saying "Ask me!" I want to jump up and be counted, too!
Everytime I see a Tempurpedic mattress advertisement on TV I find that I stop what I am doing and watch it. Maybe it is because with all the hyperbole and political rhetoric ricocheting through the media these days it is a relief to hear something I KNOW to be absolutely true.

It all began several years ago when our oldest daughter and her soon to be husband invited us to go mattress shopping with them ("We don't know anything about these things and it's a big investment and you and Dad have purchased mattresses before") Well, if you know me, I would never turn down an invitation to walk through a furniture store! As the kids wandered the bedding aisles and were being serenaded with "Mattress 101" by their salesman, I found myself standing in front of the Tempurpedic. Normally I would feel self conscious, but no one was around and so I laid my body down.
Life stopped.
In a split second I realized that I had grown accustomed to the chronic aching pains of my Fibromyalgia...and that when I laid down on that mattress, suddenly, nothing hurt. Bang.
I went from being self conscious about laying on a mattress in public to Ally McBeal imaginings of salespeople forcibly removing me from the mattress and the store at closing time.
....When I was a little girl I remember "The Loretta Young Show" and in one drama she played a model whose job it was to sleep in a bed in a atore window...Maybe I could convince ArtVan that people viewing my enjoyment of their sample mattress would be good for business?
....Also when I was a little girl, my parents would take us girls to the local toy store before Christmas in order to gauge our "wish list" for Santa. On one such trip my younger sister took one look at the stuffed "Zippy the Monkey" and threw such a tantrum at the thought of being separated from it that they bought it for her on the spot....but the Tempurpedic is ALOT more expensive than a Zippy and I didn't think the tantrum thing would so much work with my husband.
So, with reluctance and a couple looks over the shoulder, I got up and walked away from this newly revealed obsession.

Fast forward afew years. I had come to realize that sleeping on the sofa wasn't as painful as our bed and though still hobbling each morning, more or less took my nights on the sunporch couch. Both of us were dealing with stiff necks and chronic backache and then, it happened.
One day, Steve returned from running an errand with a receipt and date for delivery of our own Tempurpedic! As the Dutch say, "Oh, Oh, Oh!"WHAT a husband!
This is our testimonial: EVERYTHING they say on those ads....it's TRUE. You will notice the ads themselves are soothing and relaxing and that is how I feel when I even think about that mattress waiting, serenely in the bedroom. As it gets later in the day, I begin to look forward to crawling into that bed and when I wake up in the morning, I am conscious of how absolutely comfortable and soothed my body feels and how much I hate to get out of it. With our old mattress I literally had difficulty walking upon getting out of bed and would grab at furniture and walls for my hobble to the bathroom. I pop out of that Tempurpedic like "Mighty Mouse" (...also from my long ago youth.)
It costs a "Kings ransom" but it is one of the best purchases we have EVER made because when you sleep this well, as in no more waking multiple times per night, waking refreshed and relaxed and painfree...other parts of life seem to go better.
We miss it when we're gone from home and have actually verbalized, TO THE BED, how happy we are to return to it after a trip.
Believe it. BELIEVE IT ALL and begin to save your pennies.
Those Swedes know how to make a wonderful bed.

On Guard While You Sleep

I have always loved a powerful painting by Christian artist, Thomas Blackshear II called "Watchers in the Night". It portrays a young boy in bed asleep in a dark room with a guardian angel towering over him. The angel is massive, strong and handsome. He has beautiful and huge wings that protectively curl around the boys sleeping form. The spear held in the angel's left hand leaves no doubt he is there to protect, and a flame, representing the Holy Spirit's presence, hovers above the angel's cupped right hand. At times when I have been afraid, this painting comes to my mind and I am comforted by the promise that God is watching over me...and I recall the times in my life when I have been amazed at how HE grabbed me by the nape of my neck and plucked me from all nature of dangers...because HE is ALWAYS that close beside me!

Over the last four years we have been aware of a sweet example of "guardians" in our little dogs, particularly our little female, Idgie Threadgoode, named after a favorite character from, "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe" by Fannie Flagg. Our Idgie really has the opposite character of the heroine she was named for. She is slow, pudgy, extremely timid and gentle. When the grandbabies started coming we noticed that she took on a new role. She seems to feel the need to protect the youngest. We have five grandbabies now. The oldest just turned four and the youngest is a month, so there are lots of babies to keep sweet Idgie busy.Though reticent and withdrawn (sometime under the couch) around strange adults and other animals, she is comfortable approaching the little ones at play and often seeks out the youngest to snuggle next to during "tummy time". As they grow old enough to sit upright, she changes her position to curling protectively behind their little bodies like some fluffy, furry little Bumbo seat. She very patiently allows the little ones to touch her nose and eyes and play with her tail and doesn't seem phased by alittle pull or poke here and there.

When the babies take naps at YaYa and Boppa's they sleep in the Pack 'N Play in the bedroom. I have long ago learned to be watchful. Idgies aim is to silently, lest we adults notice, sneak in behind us and stay with the babies. I have often discovered the "missing" Idgie sleeping on the floor beside the napping baby's crib. Denied by the adults in charge, she sometimes stays as close as she can get...snoozing on the floor outside the closed bedroom door.

After naps or for special treats, we have movies for the kids. (Ask me for ANY line of dialogue from "Finding Nemo" which, really, is a favorite of mine). As the kids scramble up into their "theatre seats" on the sofa the dogs stand in line waiting their turn to join the little ones for the show.



And their only compensation?.... the occasional Goldfish or Craisin "escapee", the orts (word of the day for all of you who don't do crossword puzzles) landing in the overspray perimeter of floor beneath the highchair. There is no hazard pay for the occasional pinched paw. One thing for certain, I know that after a day around the grandbabies, these hardworking guardians sleep soundly through the following day. Shepherding little children is NOT an easy task!

More Control Over My Thyme

Yesterday morning, while reaching into my cupboard for something, a metal container of Ground Thyme fell out. Upon closer inspection, I noted spots of rust on it's base and flipped it over to learn it had an expiration date of 1979!! That's right, it became ineligible for use as a spice in the eyes of some spice authorities THIRTY ONE years ago! That coupled with a three day and three night "sleepover" with an almost four year old, Eden and almost two year old, Judah made me realize that despite my "kvetching" I actually have more time on my hands on a daily basis than I previously thought. SO I launched into an early "Spring Cleaning" of my kitchen.

To make this a more "festive" occasion,and because "waste not, want not", I popped the cap off a long forgotten Killians sporting a dubious date on it's bottle face.(Steve assured me that if it had gone "skunky" I would know it!) Back in 1979, cleaning ovens was a chore( remember the horrid smell of Easy Off Oven Cleaner? Talk about a potential hazard...better the filthy oven!) All I do now is flip a latch and turn a knob and my oven ends up clean as a whistle. I am as thankful for that feature as I am that my four children accepted toilet training.
As long as I had begun with appliances, I next approached the long neglected pull out freezer drawers.

A detour to start a big pot of water on the stovetop. My BEST soups are one of a kind "clean out the fridge and freezer" variations, loosely based upon what meat I can identify through the frosty ziplock bags....in this case the remainder of the Christmas ham..plop into the water with a bag of a variety of dried beans and left over veggies from the refrigerator bins. Dribs and drabs of leftover vegetables, globs of mashed potatoes and sometimes even gravies, residuals of meals all frozen in little packets to make the soup yummo....and the freezer emptied. So now the house smells great...the soup bubbling hides the hot smell of the oven searing the remnants of way too many months of baking spills AND reminds anyone in the house all day that there will be a good meal tonight!

And there is the aerobic segment to all this. The stretching of unused muscles. I actually used my big ladder and all 17' of my Dyson hose to vacuum above the kitchen cabinets which was as close to Cirque De Soleil as I will get! I make multiple trips to make deposits to the recycling bin and dumpster in the garage to keep my feet moving. I take great pride in the weekly stuffing of our recycling bin...some sort of personal challenge.

Let's toss some more balls in the air! I threw doing the laundry into the mix, more steps, more accomplishment...more good smells in the house. WHY does this make me so happy, content, energized???

"Finds" of the day: A forgotten bottle of Gherkins with an expiration date of 2000. The bottle wouldn't even open so I thought it best to just toss. THUD! The last of the green coffee beans from a coffee roasting experiment of several years ago. I've heard these now aged beans are even valuable in other countries...also THUD in the garbage. I carefully considered my options with leftover Taco Bell sauce packets. These have saved my butt many a time when I have started chili and found my chili powder supply depleted or totally gone. So I made an executive decision and pitched all the old purple "Border Sauce" packets...That seemed safer.

Our son, Adam displayed something of a phobia for foods past their expiration dates. I discovered that there were lots and lots of "elderly" items in my cupboards with NO expiration dates at all, leading the skeptical part of me to conjecture for atleast some items, this is a ploy to get you to pitch and purchase more.....but not the ten year+ old gherkins. And though there might not be an expiration date, the price stickers on the spice cans tell the story. $1.19 then, $4.29 now. I did find one can with only "1954" on the bottom. It CANNOT be the year...can it???

By bedtime, the kitchen gleamed. My copper pieces sparkled on the clean stovetop and a clean dishcloth draped the scoured sink, ready for use in the morning. I fought the temptation to just open the frig and freezer to admire the order....does anyone have a roll of that "Crime Scene" tape? I'd like to cordon the space off for just alittle while.....

Things Are Not What They Seem

It's been a not so bad winter here. Actually, we've had more peeks at the sun and full sunshine than in recent winters. I have felt little of the claustrophobic sense of wanting to somehow propel myself upward, out of the clouds and into the blue skies above. Maybe I was actually successful in etching the impression of sunshine onto my retinas during those eleven glorious, Southern California days last month.

What do you see in this photo of my front garden? Monotone...snow and icicles?

Everytime I drive up to the house or go outside to let the dogs out or head to the mailbox, I am "seeing" something vastly different.

Late last summer my dear friend, Donna took the tangled overgrown mess of my "cottage garden"; at least what the moles and rabbits had left of it,and convinced me that I needed a space more Fibromyalgia "user friendly".( It pays to know a Landscape Designer who is also a Registered Nurse) Over the course of a few days she totally transformed the jumbled confusion of limping perennials into a new delight. She hacked and dug and evicted the out of control "old" and replaced confusion with an orderly, pleasing mix of plants I have never nurtured before.
Donna redrew lines, anchoring a garden bench with a lovely flagstone path. I couldn't get over the immediate changes and last fall would just stand on the front porch doing R.L.H.C.'s ( rapid little hand claps...thanks, Helen!)

But...the best is yet to come! Donna planted all sorts of bulbs....all will be surprises for me in a few months. For thirty years, when fall comes, I have "plant bulbs" on my to do list BUT the "tyranny of the urgent" takes over, as it always does. Spring rolls around and I look at mud left by winter snows instead of tulips, daffodils, and their ilk. I sigh and resolve to do something about it in the fall....and then "groundhogs day" happens, again. Not THIS SPRING!! I can't wait to see what surprises Donna has waiting for me under their temporary blanket of snow!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Donna for the treat of transformation last fall and the delicious anticipation of Spring that has lasted throughout the long, frozen tundra winter!

When California Gives You Lemons...

As we took off from John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana a week ago, I tried to will my eyes to remember what the sunshine and blue skies looked like. I kept my face turned toward the sun's warmth radiating through the jet's window and craned my neck to keep the ocean and then the snow capped Mountains in view for as long as I could,then sighed and hit my sudoku. The entire trip across the country was in sunshine! We could watch cities,plains,canyons, mountains, rivers,lakes and farms on the ground with the occasional jet whooshing westward below us. The man in the seat behind us narrated what was passing below us..'And there's Lake Michigan!' Blue and visible until we hit the West Michigan coastline, which looked like an impenetrable mat of dirty grey cotton.

Christian has been asking for another California Blog and the past two days we have had bright blue skies and sunshine, such a GIFT in West Michigan at this time of year! It makes it easier to recall our last weekend in California. Steve was busy all day Friday and Christian came down to Santa Ana and took me back to Azusa. I had finally gotten so that I didn't flinch and call out while driving on the freeways, though we all marvelled at "splitting lanes": the legal practice in California of motorcyclists rocketing through freeway traffic BETWEEN lanes of cars! ( Can you say,"Death Wish"?) Christian was kind, warning me when he was required to swing rapidly across four lanes of traffic to switch freeways....so I had time to cover my eyes.

All worth it. It was a totally fun day. We went to Emily's house in Claremont. Oh to live in a place where windows need no screens and doors opened to the yard are left wide open to let the glorious outside in!!! We hit downtown Claremont, a jewel of a town with wide random "gardens" of trees surrounded by perennials between sidewalk and street curbs. Stores line the outer edges of downtown city blocks with bustling courtyards in the centers of the blocks. As you walk down the street and happen to look up you are stunned to see the Snow capped San Gabriel Mountains towering right above you! We ate lunch at a a brew pub, The Back Abbey, where we sat in 1940-esque, oversized chrome framed, leather easy chairs at concrete tables outside. The kids told me that at night if it gets chilly, they bring fluffy white throws out to wrap around diners. The outer "wall" of the restaurant was a long line of planters bursting with Horsetail Grass. We ordered a cone of homemade Pomme Frites served too hot to dip in four sauces, to eat as we waited for our meal along with our choices of delicious, exotic beers. I didn't want it to end. Sitting and laughing with the kids, in sunshine and warmth. We sauntered through some wonderful shops before driving through streets full of enchanting homes (to a design junkie like me). After rearranging furniture and making some paint suggestions at Emily's (could there be a day of more fun?),the kids returned me to the hotel in time for Steve and I to reconnect after his busy day and meet dear friends,Jerry and Carolyn for dinner. It was wonderful but just trying to find a parking spot in a GARGANTUAN mall parking lot studded with a forest of palm trees, completely filled with cars made us begin to long for home. More than once we heard that no one cooks in Orange County. An exaggeration unless you try to find a parking spot at meal time. Orange Country is clogged with restaurants. Every kind of restaurant you can imagine. Persian restaurants and Peruvian restaurants, Indian restaurants and Korean BBQ restaurants...We talked and laughed and closed the Buco de Beppo's which made finding our car much easier in the now near empty parking lot.

Our last day we returned to the foothills, to laugh at Christian's new pet: a squirrel who comes to scratch on his front screen door for bagels. Then we headed over to Emily's where we spent our last afternoon playing cornhole and euchre under the pergola in the sunny backyard with music and chirping birds. Oh, and plucking lemons the size of small grapefruits from the tree branches and making lemonade.

It is all so idyllic, breathtaking, particularly for shivering Midwesterners blinded by the sunshine and trees bursting with citrus and day-glo flowers too gaudy to be real. Yet as we drove through the Foothill communities "ohhing and ahhing" I was aware THESE are the towns we frequently hear of in television coverages of evacuations for wildfires and subsequent mudslides. I can see why they take the risk.

The shuttle driver taking us to the airport in the chilly pre-dawn hour the next morning, apologized for his knit hat. He appeared to be Indian, perhaps, and was curious about where we were flying. He was asking if water froze where we lived and we told him yes, and described cutting holes in the ice to ice fish. His quick response had a tone of concern. "Why don't you move here?" he asked.

Friday on the Freeways

I'm waiting for Emily and Christian to arrive to pick me up to spend the day together. Christian has prepared me for traffic and speed on the freeways today being really crazy. I am bringing my knitting to distract me, willing to sacrifice ohhing and ahhing at more California exotica in order to preserve my mental health.

Our first full day in Cali we headed north to Azusa to Christian's apartment. He arranged a tour of the beautiful campus of Azusa Pacific University with a friend whose job it was to give tours to prospective students and their parents. It was a GREAT tour! ( Thank you Douglas Clay McCoy!) Douglas is a Californian and probably wondered why I was so frequently exclaiming over the trees and plants. He'd point out an original building to the campus...and I was impressed not by it's history but by the incredible bougainvilleas climbing up posts and stretching and dripping along the buildings edges in hot pink and oranges. The campus is like a giant botanical garden. Plants we singly place in pots and baby on a window sill at home grow is wild "patches". And this is the time of year when the locals are apologetic for how scrubby the vegetation looks!
The mountains literally begin at the edge of campus and students climb them. There are trails to hike and I learned through Google research that Azusa is called the Canyon City. I also learned that not too far from my baby boy's apartment is a place called "Rattlesnake Gulch"....so now when Christian tells me he's going for a hike I will worry about rattlesnakes on the path...and then there are the cougars up in the canyon...(the reason the APU teams are called "cougars"? You be the judge!) And the coyotes he's seen on the golf course right outside his front door.

I loved the campus.It is full of wonderful surprises. You turn a corner and look to the top of a several storey building to find in big letters at the top "God First", or an ivy choked wall in which a beautifully, but simply carved wooden door sits. Douglas told us that students post things on the door...opinions and thoughts and then other students respond on the door. Reminds me of Luther and nailing HIS thoughts on that church door in Germany.
Here and there around the campus are pieces of sculpture done by students. WONDERFUL pieces that delight you. AND....stained glass sky lites and hallways filled with art installations. Little architectural and artistic "surprises" to delight everywhere. I liked the long, broad stairway flowing from an outdoor courtyard, the edges of each step edged in a different colored tile; colors descending in rainbow order. I loved the prayer garden with a small "wailing wall" where students write prayers on paper and insert their prayers in the cracks of the wall just as in Jerusalem. Douglas told us that it was contributed by a benefactor who was felt so strongly about it and passed away the day after it was dedicated.
I was stunned to discover that Azusa has five fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls THE Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as other noteworthy scriptural artifacts.
All in all, I was pretty blown away, not only by what I could SEE, but what I HEARD about the programs and the integrity of the University. The growth seen all over campus and in the surrounding community they touch. I especially loved the new, state of the art Science building. Etched on the outside Glass walls facing the streets bordering the campus are words from the Book of Genesis, lest anyone passing forget WHO created science and all it's elements.

Several times during our visit this time I have found a confusing thing happening..at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood and at APU. We enter a door INTO a building only to quickly find that there is no ROOF save the beautiful blue sky above our head. Walls with no roof. I do not think this building concept would work in Michigan, but for here, it's magic. It would be a painful thing to waste time being IN a building when outside is perfect light and temperature and no bugs and lush plantings and fountains. So much of California seems to be one big, beautiful courtyard.

It is a great convenience that APU also has an excellent Masters program in College Counselling and Student Development because once Christian visited the campus there was no question of his becoming a Cougar. And I so totally understand this. I think I would like to be a cougar, too and live in this wonderful place.

"We're Not In Kansas Anymore, Toto!"

It is Day 3 of our stay in So. California and I am getting reacquainted with my frustration that words and photos are inadequate to convey the essence of this place...though I am unable to stop trying. On our southbound route to church services this morning( A Presbyterian congregation meeting in a Jewish synagogue in Newport Beach!?!),Carmen Garmin, our GPS instructed us to get into the left lane and "make a U-turn when able". As we complied we looked up to see the San Gabriel Mountains covered with snow against a sky of Impressionist purpley blue in the distance. It was a breathtaking surprise. It was so beautiful we all gasped.

There's been alot of that going on. Saturday was a day of whip lashing from a contemplative and unexpectedly sentimental stroll through Yorba Linda's beautiful Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Birthplace, to touring the impressive campus of Azusa Pacific University literally at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains and finally to a totally surrealistic pilgrimage to downtown Hollywood after hours. At the end of the day I felt as though I was some sort of stroke victim whose vocabulary had suddenly dwindled to one word used over and over again..."wow!"

Wow!:
To the heavenly,exotically spicy smell of humongous California Pepper trees with their convoluted branches and clusters of cream and pink berries or to wondering WHAT smells so good and realizing you are standing next to a row of eucalyptus.
To city streets lined with towering palm trees or glossy leaved trees trimmed in the shapes of perfect, deciduous gumdrops as far as your eye can see ahead.
To the man selling sequined gloves out of a brown paper bag ten feet from where "Michael Jackson" and "Prince" stand talking to gaggles of teeny bopper girls (what the heck are THEIR parents thinking of???)
To Szechuan Green Beans and Crackerjack Shrimp at Hollywood's Ghenghis Cohen's
To wondering what homeowners do with the hundreds and hundreds of plump oranges and grapefruit hanging from the trees in their landscaped front yards?
To realizing as Christian's passengers on the freeways of So. Cal. that if he needs to find a new way to make a living he is probably qualified to consider NASCAR racing.
To a bird, with a tail twice as long as it's body sitting in a bush at Del Taco.
To small trees bursting with kumquats previously seen only in a little basket in the "exotic fruits" section at Meijer.

Everything here seems different. The light is brighter, different. The trees and plants are exotic; greener greens with flowers of such technicolor bright colors it seems they can't be real. The air has a spicy smell and all these things seem to draw people out of doors. Perfect temperatures, no bugs...I think it makes for the uncontrollable draw to be outside here. People hate to be separated from the Eden outside. The chapel we worshipped in this morning had outer walls of floor to ceiling glass panels giving the sense that we were all worshipping in the garden. And what can you say about snow capped mountains? Oceans? The fascinating architecture. You know the movie, "The Wizard Of Oz"? The movie begins in black and white until Dorothy's tornado spun and flung house lands with a thud in Oz...and Dorothy looks out the bedroom window and everything is suddenly in COLOR! That's what California is to me. WOW!!!