"You'll be a Man, My Son!"

Today is my baby's birthday.  As of today, I now have three teenagers in the house.

This is my favorite picture of Brennan.  With a frog, of course.

How much older he looks in just a few years!  Boys grow like crazy.

This is his birthday present from his dad.  Wow.  Sigh.

I'm going to take this chance to share a favorite poem:

If, by Rudyard Kipling


IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!


And some random quotes by one of my heroes, Teddy Roosevelt:



Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.


A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.



Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

With self-discipline most anything is possible.


When you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.


To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.


Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.


Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.


When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.


I am a part of everything that I have read.


I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.

~~~~~~~~

Fine words, aren't they?

Co-Eds

The girls started college this month.  College.  It was a totally last-minute decision, which works for me, because I didn't have any time to get all maternal and weepy.  It's just a couple of classes at the community college, but it's a great way for all of us to ease into the whole idea.  And it's going great!

Here Kitty, Kitty

I'm a little late in introducing our new family members here.  A few weeks ago, we brought home two kittens.  Two are better than one, believe me!  They entertain each other and mostly leave our older cat Pumpkin alone.

This is Arya.  Isn't she gorgeous?  She's very sweet and cuddly.  A good candidate for our cat hall of fame, along with the late greats Tigger and Baci.

This is Hermione.  She's a bit wilder.  Not cuddly, but wants lots of attention and crawls all over me, night and day.  If I start misspelling wildly all over the internet, she'll be the reason.

And this is Pumpkin, who's not thrilled with her new house mates.  However, she's not actually possessed either.  Apparently cats get blue eye instead of red eye.  I hope.

Fortunately, the kittens get along great with each other.  We got them from a wonderful cat adoption facility called Eva's Eden, where the cats roam free in large rooms.  It's great for the cats, and a great way to get to know them.  They are named after book characters, of course.

Aren't kittens wonderful?

In Which the Gentlemen Meet the Usual Suspects

Yesterday, my precious girls turned 17.  Seventeen!

To celebrate, we had a history class meeting at our house.  Because I'm just that mean.

Actually, we invited Capt. Brock and Sgt. Lawless over to meet the Usual Suspects, and yes, to talk with them a bit about the Civil War.

Captain J.D. Brock

Sergeant Rufus Lawless

I asked my girls if they were going to "dress" for the evening.  Hailey replied that she'd wear a nice sweater.  Claire laughed, because she knew I meant this:

Things started out well.

But then, Capt. Brock and Rufus got into a terrible argument in front of the whole history class.

                            

They brought out guns!

Things did not end well for poor Rufus.

But the gentlemen made up and things improved.   (It looks like Rufus was still a little mad about the whole shooting thing, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't.)

Rufus told the infamous story of the dread "Stumpleg."  I pity you if you have never heard "Stumpleg."

Then the kids took turns telling a bunch of stories.  Most of the stories were scary.  The parents may never forgive me.  I have lots of lovely pictures of happy kids, but if I put them all over the internet, the parents really might never forgive me.  So just imagine a large group of splendid-looking teens and pre-teens, rolling on the floor laughing.

And because it was, after all, a birthday, cake was involved.  A 4-layer chocolate cake - that's one up on Mrs. Cheever!  (*See my last blog post.)

What a great evening!  What a great bunch of people.  Thank you all for being part of Hailey's and Claire's birthday, and for bringing to much to our lives every day.  See?  Celebrating your birthday with a history class isn't actually so bad after all.

Men ♥ Lemon; Women ♥ Chocolate

I'm a little behind on posting anything.  Had a fine Christmas and New Year's - how about you?

In preparing for an Occasion tomorrow, we decided to make two desserts.  Claire chose chocolate cake "with thick frosting," which totally reminded me of one of my very favorite books, Gone-Away Lake, by Elizabeth Enright.  Doesn't this sound scrumptious?:

“On the table, where four places were set, there was a chocolate cake under a glass bell.  Julian noted with pleasure (so did Portia) that it was a triple decker, with the frosting laid on one inch thick.
‘It is my belief that a fudge cake should be built,’ Mrs. Cheever said, ‘strong and thick, the way the Mexicans build adobe houses.’”

-”Gone Away Lake” p. 82

Mmm mm.  I'm with Mrs. Cheever, who, by the way, is the sweetest old lady in all of literature.  When we first listened to our audio of Gone-Away Lake, I had to stop the tape to ask Claire, who had already read the book, if anything bad happens to Mrs. Cheever (or "Minnie" as she is also known, short for Minnehaha.)  I adored her and I simply could not continue the story if she came to a sad end.  Happily, she doesn't.  And yes, absolutely everything reminds me of a book.

Hailey's choice for dessert was lemon bars.  She wrote to her Nana for the best lemon bar recipe ever and is busy baking them as we speak.  

We had a talk the other day about lemon and chocolate.  I explained, as every mother should, that women love chocolate and men love lemon.  This is true!  Okay, I could not find any evidence on the internet to support this (though I did look), but many years of anecdotal experience have taught me this.  I told Hailey that the true way to a man's heart was lemon bars, but that she should save this knowledge until the right time, or the right man, comes along, because it's powerful stuff.

Of all the things I don't fully understand about the opposite sex, this is the one that really stumps me.  When you could have a chocolate experience like the one described above, why on earth would you choose lemon?!  I mean, there's nothing wrong with lemon; it has it's place, and I'm not adverse to nibbling a lemon bar, but if chocolate is a possibility, there is simply no contest.  Why would there be?

So girls, save the lemon bars for wooing, but when baking for your friends, go with chocolate!