with silver bells and cockleshells...

Every year, around spring, Mom gets really excited. Because it is time to have a garden. We till the ground behind the house and then we head off to Lowe's. We only return from Lowe's when we have enough seeds to grow a small jungle (and when we are on a first name basis with most, if not all, of the employees).

Some years we grow tomatoes. Some years we have cantaloupe and cucumbers. But every year we grow weeds.

Mom tells people we have a garden, but when they come over, they wonder where it is. We point to the plot of ground behind our house that resembles an Amazonian rain forest. They don't believe us, so we take them over and point out the several cages of tomatoes. The tomatoes resemble raisins more than they do tomatoes, but the fact that there are cages out there usually convinces people.

I am tired of having to use what looks like a machete to weed the garden, so this year I have a solution. I will have my own garden. A small garden. I will grow sunflowers, wild flowers, and banana peppers (it is impossible to have a good garden without banana peppers). I am excited.



Hopefully, I will be better at gardening than I am at cooking.

a piece of history

It's funny how people you never knew, or people you hardly ever see, become inextricably entangled in your life because you think about them, or are reminded of them constantly.

Our house was built in 1903, and I find myself wondering about the families who once went about their everyday lives here. It's like everyday, I find different little things that clue me in about what their lives were like, and what they were like as individuals.

I wonder about the family who built this house, the Meisenheimers. I find their names carved in trees when I take walks. We have pictures of them. Their names are carved into the foundation of our house. I pass their headstones when I drive into town. They are gone, but they are still very much a part of my life. It's odd to think about this family going through their lives here 100 years ago in a style that is so different from the way I live mine here today.

The Meisenheimers lost this house in the early 30s, and it changed hands several times, before coming into the possession of a Mr. Brakefield. Mr. Brakefield did many things to the house. He placed interesting and beautiful stained glass windows throughout the house. He had an auto repair service in the garage. He built a beautiful stone wall outside and an equally beautiful stone fireplace in the front. He also did wondrously strange things such as building a fence out of iron headboards up the driveway, and shoving all of his garbage over the property line. But I see Mr. Brakefield's handiwork around me everyday-- he was a hard worker full of interesting ideas. He must have been quite the character.

Then there is the house itself...we cannot do anything in this house without being reminded that other people lived here first. Whether we are trying to repaint while peeling off years of other people's choices of wall paper, looking at the oddly patterned linoleum floors (they honestly resemble the inside of a kaleidoscope), or standing on the indoor-outdoor carpeting in the kitchen, it is entirely obvious that this house has been decorated with a century of styles, none of which are anything to be desired today, but all of which are incredibly interesting.

The Kaleidoscope Floor

I wonder if, 100 years from now, someone will peel off layers of wall paper and come upon a bright orange wall. I bet they'll wonder what sort of idiot would paint a room orange. It happens to be my favorite color, thank you very much...

sauerkraut

On Sunday night, my parents left me home alone. As they were walking out the door, Mom said, "Ashlyn, do you think do you think that you can cook this while we are gone?" There are two very bad ideas here:
1. Ashlyn cooking.
2. Ashlyn cooking when there is no one else at home.

It is not that I do not like to cook. I love to cook. But I'm terrible at it. No matter how hard I try to follow the directions, something always goes wrong. Always. Even with microwave popcorn. I will follow the directions on the bag and it still messes up. I will open the bag, and instead of being enveloped in warm, buttery steam, I choke on clouds of black smoke.

The fact that I cannot cook is only made even more terrible by the fact that the rest of my family can. And they're really good at it, too. Sometimes, I will get up, and there is my brother, standing over the stove making breakfast. Pancakes, eggs, and sausage. And it's not like Grant says, "Hey, want some pancakes?" and then reaches into the freezer and grabs out some frozen stuff and jams it in the toaster. Grant makes pancakes from scratch. Good pancakes. The fact that my brother can cook and I cannot bothers me.

So, here's how the whole 'cooking' thing turned out...

1. I preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
2. I try and measure out 1/2 a cup of mayonnaise. How in the world are you supposed to measure mayonnaise? I tried shaking the jar upside down. I tried scooping it out with various utensils. I tried sticking the measuring cup in the jar. Nothing works. And when I finally got it all in the measure, it wouldn't dump out into the bowl. It just stayed there. Someone please invent something special with which to measure mayonnaise...
3. I mix Thousand Island dressing and something else in a bowl. This goes incredibly well (meaning no one gets hurt, and I don't spill anything). I am thrilled.
4. The oven is preheating irksomely slow. I open it. Black smoke pours out. Inside is a smoking paper box, and several other things that shouldn't be in the oven. But they are. I panic and start looking for potholders. My family has taken all the potholders with them (they went to a potluck. They don't just do this). I settle for dishtowels. After I grab everything out of the oven, I throw open the door to let the smoke out. 4 cats run out. I don't care. We have 12, who's going to miss about, oh, a third of them?
5. I preheat the oven. Again.
6. The recipe calls for grated Swiss cheese. We only have a block of Swiss cheese. I look for the cheese grater. And look. And look some more.
7. I find the cheese grater. This was a small miracle, so I thought it deserved its own number.
8. Do you move the cheese or the grater when grating cheese?
9. I hate Switzerland. And its cheese.
10. The recipe calls for Sauerkraut that is "rinsed and drained". What is Sauerkraut and who knew you had to rinse and drain it?
11. The oven is finally preheated.
12. Sauerkraut feels like paper mache. I was really bad at paper mache.
13. I assemble everything in a pan and shove it in the oven.
14. 25 minutes later, I take out the pan. Whatever is inside it has become something that no rational being would touch, much less, put into its mouth. I seriously consider tossing it into the garbage and telling Mom I didn't make it.
15. Mom comes home to pick up the dish and take it with her to Bible study. I wonder if all those nice people will be mad at her if they get food poisoning...

I guess I'll never know.

Maybe I should just take a cooking class.

food lion

I went to the grocery store today.

Not like it was the highlight of my day or anything, because I just got back from the Convocation. Things like that are just better not written by me about because they are so enjoyable that I know that if I try to put them into words, I will only fail miserably, and they are thus better left untouched.

So anyhow. I went to the grocery store today.

Not like my entire family went out and 'took the grocery store by storm' (as some families I am acquainted with enjoy doing), but I said, "Hey, Mom, we need milk. Can I go get some?" "Sure. Go get some milk." Mom said. And off I went. Actually, it wasn't that easy. I had to have the 'parking lot' lecture ('park close', 'park under a light', 'walk with a purpose', and 'remember you have a knife in your purse if you need it', etc...), and I received a list, and then we went and did a 20-point inspection of the truck.

And then I went to the grocery store by myself for the first time.

It is very possible that I should not be so thrilled with this. But the grocery store is an entirely different place when you are by yourself. You hear screams and shattering glass several aisles over and realize that it isn't your siblings who are playing catch with a jar of salsa. You also have the entire shopping list to yourself, rather than clutching a third of it, while wondering what the rest looks like. Your siblings cannot insist on riding on the end of the buggy while they are at home. You have time to do more interesting things. Like watching the way that people push their buggies.

Some people push buggies just for the fun of pushing buggies. They have no idea what they are doing. They just know it is lots of fun. When they come to an empty aisle, they hop on the back of the buggy and careen down it. They have no idea where anything is. Except the beer. These people get lots of speeding tickets and lots of other things in real life. Such as DUIs.

There are people who are completely oblivious. They push their buggies on the wrong side of the aisle. They cause traffic jams by staring endlessly at a can of tomato soup while standing in the middle of the aisle-- people behind them clear their throats conspicuously. They still don't move. They also run into the back of you while you are looking for condensed milk. "Oh, I'm sorry," they say, " I didn't see you." "It's okay." you mutter while rubbing the back of your heel (it is beginning to swell). These same people make you consider using hand signals whenever you plan on stopping or turning. In real life, these people get shot because they incite road rage.

There are the older people. They move very slowly. They forget to look both ways before exiting an aisle. So they run into people frequently. They are always very polite and apologize though. Sometimes, they forget where they are. They ask you if you work there. You don't. Other times, they can't reach something and they will sit there and stare at it until you ask them if they need help. They do. You get the thing for them. Then you go to the check out lane.

I had no idea that grocery stores provided such diverse cultural experiences.

I probably need to get out more often...

of nuns and national parks

Well, we're back. None of us are scarred, broken, or horribly maimed. Dad sprained his ankle but that doesn't count.

My favorite part was getting to be back in Yellowstone (if you do not already know about my obsession with National Parks, do not ask). It is incredibly beautiful in a way that is different than anything I have ever seen. Words can't really do it justice, so I would post pictures but the camera was broken. That drives me crazy.

Because I don't have any pictures, I don't really have anything else to say about this trip except for the fact that it was wonderful. If you would like to know more about this trip, go see Lauren's wonderful post. I feel like a commercial. Maybe I should give a phone number and say something about it costing $19.95.

Oh well, since I don't have any pictures from this trip, I ran across some very interesting pictures from a previous trip.

We were in Mesa Verde National Park, hiking around some of the old ruins and cliff dwellings. And there were these nuns. In funny colored habits. They were behind us for the first part of the hike, and then they were with us for about five minutes before passing us. About 5 minutes later, we look up and the nuns are 20 minutes up the trail, scaling cliff dwellings, climbing ladders, and generally putting all of the other hikers to shame. They were older women in habits, hiking in the desert. It was odd.

At least I know that if I ever decide to be a nun, there is some order where I can wear a teal-and-white habit and hike in the desert.

a misconception

Recently, I realized that I have all these preconceived opinions of people in my family.
Somehow, when I think about their childhood, I imagine them as they are now rather than how they were. Like my grandmother. When I think about her childhood, I see her in a rocking chair, embroidering a shirt or something. I would never ever see her singing "Chattanooga Shoeshine Boy" in pig-Latin for her school talent show, and winning.

I can't see my Mom sneaking onto the top of a church bus so that when it started, she'd be up there to ride. I can't see my Dad amusing himself by dumping water off a hotel balcony onto the heads of pedestrians.

Recently I found out that my uncle is a potter. A good potter. It was slightly shocking because it just isn't something I would have expected him to do-- he is a 6'4" guy who looks like he played football or something. It shocked me because the picture of him in my mind was different than how it really was. I was talking with him while were visiting at their house and we were sitting at the dinner table waiting for everyone else and I said, "Hey Uncle Randall, did you make that bowl?" "Why, yes I did." "It's a very nice bowl." "Thank-you." I asked about everything on the table individually. He made all of it. He really makes very nice dinner sets.

What it all comes down to, I guess, is that the way the people are now, and the way they used to be, are the same person. Not like, exactly the same, but those characteristics are still there. It's still hard for me to make the connection in my mind, but every once in awhile I get a glimpse of that characteristic from childhood that's still hidden away and it all becomes clear.

an essay about the nana

I have a great-grandmother. We call her 'Nana'. Of course, this all sounds very ordinary and boring, but Nana is one of the furthest people from boring that I know. Some might go so far as to say that Nana is odd, but I have a word that I reserve for describing Nana. It is eccentric. Nana is the very embodiment of eccentricity...

Nana lives alone in a house on a hill with a cat named Penny. Penny has not had rabies shots in approximately 5 or 6 years, but Nana still insists that we play with her. Nana is a 'fling caution to the wind' kind of person.

When I was younger and would visit Nana with my grandfather, she would say, "Now, Ashlyn, I want to show you my horse." And of course, with all the naivete of a 7 year old, I would follow Nana to her garage where she would point to her Dodge Colt and say, "Yep, there she is." And then she would collapse into hysterical giggles. I was always quite disappointed. She played this joke on me numerous times before I figured out that there would never be a horse in that garage. Nana has a sense of humor.

One of my most vivid memories of Nana occurred several Christmases ago. Nana had just arrived at my grandparents' house. I was waiting for Nana to find me. She has this uncanny ability to find people. Somewhat like a heat-seeking missile. Dad came up to me and said, "Ashlyn, go find Nana and tell her hello. I know you think she is a little bit...um..." and at this moment, my father was cut off in mid-sentence by the Nana herself.

"Oh, Ashlyn, dear-- Merry Christmas!" Nana shouted. She kissed both of my cheeks, and shoved a small container into my hands. I looked down at it. It was a can of microwaveable Chef Boyardee Ravioli. Mission accomplished, Nana swept away leaving my father and me just staring at each other in her wake. My uncle put his hand on my shoulder and said quietly, "Don't feel bad, Ash, when I was your age, she gave me a square dancing kit." Nana is full of surprises.

Last Thanksgiving, Nana (ever the epitome of tact and discretion) visited with family for a full 10 minutes, and then seated herself in a recliner and began to sing (loudly and off-key)-- "I want to go home. I want to go ho-ho-home." Nana also wears bright red lipstick-- you know-- that oil-based kind that stays on you after the wearer kisses you. You will scrub and scrub at it, but you will take the top layer of your skin off before you remove that lipstick. And Nana kisses people on both cheeks. Nana is a bold and outspoken person.

Nana is a skilled oil painter. I don't know if she does it anymore, but we still have some of her pieces: a mountain lake, a pine bough. She also writes poetry. And plays the guitar. Nana is a person of varied talents.

Nana is like a bold colored quilt. When you look too closely, the individual colors seem to clash annoyingly, but when you took at the whole thing, the unique colors work together to create a beautiful quilt.

So yes, Nana has her eccentricities, but that it what has endeared her to me...