memories – Peaceful Reader

Handmade Clothes

I miss my mom really all the time but it goes in waves. Recently I bought a second hand pair of Loft jeans because I liked the fit and style. The only problem is they are too long for me. My mom used to help me out with this issue by cutting a chunk out and attaching the hem/bottom of the pants back on. I don’t know how she did it exactly but I was happy with the end result. I have asked a friend with a sewing machine to help me but I miss having my mom to do this simple task for me. She’d ask me to stand up on a chair with a back so I could hold on and not fall. I treasure the memory of her sewing my clothes or fixing them.

Of course she was sick for a long time and didn’t sew even before that but in my childhood/teens and into my 30’s she sewed. I have a few school photos that feature me in handmade Judy dresses and peasant tops. In high school she cut triangles in the sides of a pair of jeans and added in flowery panels to make them flare with flair. She made me a gorgeous velvet dress for Christmas.

I once saw her bring a dress home from Dillard’s and lay that dress down on a bolt of similar fabric and then draw the outline with small ticks of chalk. In this way she made her own pattern and then returned the dress to Dillard’s! Later in life she took on needlepoint and knitting. Her mother/my grandmother was a major knitter throughout her life. That craftiness skill skipped right over me. I’ve tried to sew and knit and neither comes easy to me. Think big holes and uneven seams.

I wish my mom was here today to help me with my jeans but also to talk about every day topics. She would be fired up about politics right now. I know my son Tristan misses talking Vikings football with her and she would be just as happy as he is on their fabulous season so far. Somedays I think of something and totally forget she’s not on the other end of the phone. In fact my nephew has her phone which always makes me smile. All the above photos show me in handmade clothes. I had to go on a photo hunt to locate these gems.

I hope I can get my jeans hemmed and that I’m asked to stand on a chair to get them at the right angle!

Photo 1: orange polka dot midi-dress that I wore for my school photo and a play at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre

Photo 2: Floral velvet dress but I know you are just focused on that out-of-control pixie cut!

Photo 3: high school maybe junior year peasant top that I loved and often paired with bell bottom jeans of course!

Photo 4: Red Christmas jumper with same pixie cut and my brother Mike smiling behind me. This is in Fairmont, MN with the family room fireplace. Above the fireplace is an oil painting of the three of us done by Jack Bender, a local Cedar Falls painter at the time.

My jacket

I’ve loved this leather jacket for many years. I bought it in my mid 20’s when I worked for Benetton in Minneapolis/St Paul. I wore it to concerts and shows, often to 1st Avenue. A coat like this becomes part of your person. Friends asked to borrow it and I happily let them because I wanted to share the good vibes I had while wearing the jacket. It brought me such joy. It still does.

Several years later I moved to Boulder, Colorado and I still wore the jacket although not as frequently. My Minneapolis downtown style intersected with my newly embraced mountain bohemian rhapsody. Flannel shirts and and t-shirts fit nicely under this black rugged jacket. The story of the jacket takes a turn here a few more years later while I was living in Denver.

I wore the jacket out one night with jeans and a simple white t-shirt. I met my friend Stan at a bar where he was entertaining his friends from Chicago. They’d gone golfing during the day and then he called and asked if I would join them. I was introduced to the guys who were rowdy and raring to go for their night out. I had one gin and tonic while we made plans to find some food. Both Stan and I needed to eat and were body aware enough that we usually made it a priority if we were out together. While we made plans to go to a favorite Mexican restaurant we ran into some local friends including Stan’s roommate Chris. We ended up back at Chris’ girlfriends house which was supposed to be a small stop but turned into a major ordeal.

The girlfriend’s roommate was acting as host and offered to make us drinks. We accepted but Stan and I were still very much on the “must get food soon” He (the roommate) brought hand mixed drinks out to each of us although several of the Chicago boys just had beers. They were restless so it was decided that they would go for food with Stan driving while I stayed back and waited for Chris and the girlfriend (I’ve completely blanked her name but I can picture her). It seemed like mere moments after they left that I finished the drink and I was beyond exhausted and started to fall asleep on the sofa.

This is the point in the story where many of you might be thinking “what was in the drink?” and you would be right. I ended up crashing in the roommate’s bed with promises from both Chris and the girlfriend that I would be completely safe. I crashed hard, missed Stan and friends coming back with food, and ended up puking my guts out in the middle of the night after feeling said roommate naked and rubbing up against me. I wandered out to the living room, grabbed my jacket, and dialed my own apartment asking my brother to pick me up through quiet sobs. I waited outside for him and realized I was missing the belt of my beloved leather jacket but I couldn’t walk back into that house and hoped it could be retrieved at a later time.

I should have had my brother take me to the nearest emergency room. I just wanted to crawl in bed and forget about it. This was the 1990’s; until that night I’d never even thought about date rape drugs. It just never occurred to me but there was definitely something in that drink that made me pass out. Even though I still love this jacket and wear it happily I always remember a glimmer of that night when I put my arms into the sleeves, when I think about the empty belt loops. I choose to wear it anyway.

Even though I remember I’m not going to let it overwhelm my love and attachment to this singular item or my general well-being. Humans are hearty souls and we are able to adapt to overwhelming situations. I tell this story now just to write it out one more time as a reminder of what I’ve experienced and how lucky I was to have woken up because the story could have had a much different ending.

Memorable Memorial Weekend

{Minimalist Baker}

I love a good three day weekend! I’ve accomplished quite a few things over the last three days but the best parts were several social occasions seeing friends and hugging people in my circle. We had an engagement party last night and a graduation party today. We also had lunch with friends on their patio. I made these strawberry rhubarb margaritas for the occasion. The recipe is from Minimalist Baker and they were delicious, so refreshing and tart.

Last week I tried a new recipe because I just couldn’t figure out what to make for dinner. We recently have had a lot of pasta and I’d made tacos and salmon other days so I just was looking for something different to try. A friend from school mentioned that she’d made lentil sloppy joes and so I searched and found a vegan recipe to try. I made them on Friday night and I loved them. Because of Groovy Girl’s tomato allergy I switched out the cans of tomato and used one 28-oz can of pumpkin. I feel like I could add in sweet potato to replace tomatoes as well. I had lovely brioche buns that I broiled in the oven first because I like them a little crispy/crunchy. Both my husband and I loved them and GG, well, she was not quite as in love because it had onions (next time I would make sure to really dice up the onions) but she ate it. I liked that it was a super easy slow cooker recipe that I put together and it was done in about 3 hours. Here is the recipe I used from Yummy Mummy Kitchen and here is another one I plan to try next time from again the amazing Minimalist Baker.

I did do some gardening this weekend as well, channeling my lovely Grandma Bruch. I think of her so much as I cook and plant as those are two areas she excelled at in life. She loved geraniums and irises and planted lots of vegetables. My love of rhubarb comes from her as she had a several large plants and did a lot of baking and jam making with the stalks. She was an amazing and wonderful grandma and I miss her very much. I’m glad my son was able to spend so much time with her and I’m sad that she never met my daughter. I can still hear her voice calling my name. I wish she and I could play one more game of spite and malice, our family card game. I can still hear my dad’s voice as well and I wish I could play one more game of backgammon with him.

How did you spend your weekend?

Gratitude for what is

My people: friends and family are vital to a good life; you have to have a strong crew to support you through life. Old friends, new friends, young friends, and older all lend me support in innumerable ways every day. I’m a glass half full generally happy hippie-spirited person and we all need our own crew. Thank you to those of you who support me every day. This past weekend I was able to reconnect with an old friend from 30 years ago-wow-it was amazing to talk with him even though we haven’t spent physical time together; there’s a certain cool connection you have with people from your past. It filled my heart to be in person and not on Zoom or FaceTime. The top photos is me 20 years ago and the one with two of my brothers is 30 years ago. To be honest I love looking at those young faces. I appreciate all my experiences through the years but that fresh face and wide smile….not going to lie, I miss that. The photo below shows my Pete family and I miss them. Hanging around young people united in a common and vibrant cause is uplifting as hell. Same for the 2008 family photo after Obama was elected. Same elation.

My health: I’m quite a lucky person to have experienced two open heart surgeries before the age of 18 and still be in really good health. Yes, I struggle with baby bulge/ menopausal belly and I’m not muscle bound but my heart is strong and I walk, get my yoga on, and am trying to add weight lifting to my routine. Meditation and yoga keep me focused which helps me deal with the highs and lows of my family. And I’ve been fortunate enough to birth to beautiful babies that I love very much. Plus I was gifted an amazing step-daughter who loves to read and write like I do. Below photo shows part of our back yard and some of our garden flowers in bloom right now.

My house: I love my brick Tudor-style home with it’s wild garden spaces. I love my girls who live in the backyard squawking and laying eggs for us. I love their personalities and don’t know how I lived without them. We love showing them off and talking chickens with other flock families. We jumped into gardening this year with all our extra time and have red cabbages, broccoli, cucumbers, and eventually pumpkins growing in our backyard. We took out a pond that was not functioning and added a birdbath instead and we have birds fluttering back and forth. When we head back to school I will miss watching all the birds but especially the gorgeous cardinal family. There is a certain spiritual thing that happens in the outdoors, in nature and I’ve purposefully added more time enjoying state parks and nature centers during this unique summer. I made a little movie of recent hikes and adventures just from July.

This year an old friend of mine from my Colorado days died in a tragic accident in California. This broke my heart and reminded me how important it is to stay in touch with people we care about. I hadn’t talked to him for a few years and that caused me a lot of grief and anxiety. Why hadn’t I called him? He showed up in a series of dreams and that should have been the catalyst to pick up the phone, say hi on FB, something. In the world we live in today every day is a new day with joy and horrors, embarrassments, and lessons to learn. Keep moving, keep loving, keep growing…hold hands and hug (even virtually). United together.

Growing memories

{Back door of my grandmother’s home : circa 1999}

I come from a long line of gardeners. My grandmother had an amazing green thumb and had a large square garden in her backyard and grew a variety of plants in and around the house. I remember clearly the Clematis that climbed a trellis right outside her backdoor so as you walked out you were greeted with an airy wall of delicate purple flowers and lovey green leaves. She had a huge hill of rhubarb growing that we would suck on after dipping the end in a cup of sugar she would provide. I remember eating garden produce like sugar snap peas and raspberries right out of our hands as we picked. She didn’t believe in spraying and loved that her garden was clean of chemicals. Oh and the ground cherries-so delicious to pop right out of their paper-like shells and eat immediately except if we were saving up for a pie. Rhubarb-ground cherry pie is still my favorite even though I haven’t had it for years.

{My new garden box with lettuce varieties}

My husband is blessed with a green thumb as well. I can grow things but he has like magical powers and we are amazed at his ability to resurrect plants that look like they are ready for the compost pile. Every year we plant a variety of flowers and vegetables around the house. We don’t have a set spot for either but intermix them together. This year we planted kale, sugar snap peas, cauliflower, broccoli, basil, cilantro, butternut squash, and cucumbers. Plus we watched a master gardener class with Ron Finley and we are rooting and will plant a sweet potato bc he made it look so easy. And then we have a whole variety of flower pots and window boxes that we filled in yesterday. My grandmother loved geraniums and this year I have two varieties planted in pots to remind me of her all summer long. I don’t have an actual photograph of her smiling while gardening but in my mind I have many snapshots.

With our extra amount of together we stumbled upon an Epic Gardening video with Kevin and we learned a lot about ginger and have a large root planted in a shallow pot. Both the sweet potato and ginger pot may need to live inside our house in order to stay warmer if we have an unusually chill fall season. Today we celebrate old memories and new ones we are making together. We will always look back on the 2020 spring/summer pandemic with interesting memories of gardening, good food, good books, extra streaming time, and planting some new adventures. Peace.

Even librarians make mistakes…

You know it’s easy to lose a book in a house full of books even when you are a librarian! My friend Tina and I have often joked how we are terrible examples of library book care as we’ve both had to pay not only overdue fines but for lost books as well.

Today I opened up several boxes from Scholastic that I ordered using our book fair $$. Inside one of the boxes was a copy of The False Prince by Jennifer Nielson and I cringed a little. My school library had a copy of this book when I started the year off-mind you this IS my very 1st year here-and I was reading it at school as my “I’m reading” example book (loosely translated to the book I read a page or two out of to demonstrate to students what a good reader looks like as they read near me; trust me it works). I’d gotten to the half way point in the book and was pretty engaged so that Friday I stuck it in my backpack and carted it home with high hopes to finish it that weekend.

Saturday (way back in November) I toted The False Prince with me in my little “31” bag as I went off to work our church Christmas bazaar, where I am in charge of the used book sale. When we finished setting up I set it on the counter because I thought for sure during a lull that I would be able to read a chapter or at the very least a few ~~pages~~ paragraphs. That lull never came and at the end of the bazaar after Teri and I counted the money and closed up shop I went to pick up my book (more accurately my library’s book) and lo and behold all heck broke loose because it was GONE! Now I must be completely honest here and admit that the table I had set this book on was also the table where we exhanged money for books and bagged sold books up for happy buyers. Really, really a poor choice on my part.

So when I pulled this new copy of The False Prince out of the Scholastic box I felt sad that I’d lost the first copy. This is why when students come to us with the crazy excuses they have for losing a book I have to look at them with total empathy. I’ve walked in their shoes.

Somewhere out there is a copy of The False Prince sitting in the bottom of someone’s Target bag of books, waiting to be found. Maybe someday it will be returned to our church or to our school as it is stamped inside. Maybe it will even be returned with my book mark sticking out. Who knows? More than likely the book buyer will just shrug their shoulders and think “I don’t remember buying this one but it looks good!” and they’ll proceed to move the book mark back to the beginning.

Maybe every year I could lose a book to remind myself to stay humble and remember how tough it is for most kids to come in and admit that their new puppy chewed their chapter book to cardboard bits.
And I still need to finish the rest of Jennifer Nielson’s excellent book.

Weekend Cooking; The true meaning of brunch…

(source)

We love breakfast at this house and because we are like passing ships on weekday mornings it is great when we can gather for brunch on the weekends. Brunch has such wonderful memories for me; I remember as I child huge meals that my dad would make either on Saturday or Sunday after church, My dad loved making huge skillets of scrambled eggs. He sauteed the onions in butter first while he whisked the eggs together using a fork and then he’d pour the cool egg mix into the hot cast iron creating a sizable sizzle. I remember that sound like it was yesterday but I don’t think it has anything to do with why I love brunch today.

In my 20’s brunch meant meeting friends for food and beverages at classic little joints from Minneapolis and St Paul to Denver and Boulder, Colorado. These gatherings could take the better part of your day but what an excellent way to relax and enjoy your friends before husbands and children came along. Bloody Mary bars, crispy hash browns fresh off someone else’s griddle, patio dining, and laughing all come to mind when I think of those shared brunches around big round tables. We were free with our time and you only had to pay for what you ate and drank.

(source)

Now as a family it is not only much harder to take the family out for brunch price-wise but also what we can create at home often tastes much better. Our local nature center hosts a maple syrup festival this weekend and I had my heart set on going though but with the snowy week we had I didn’t make it over there until Friday to pick up tickets and once I parked my car and trekked the long winding path to the lodge I was not happy to find the door locked. Searching the assortment of signs I saw they had closed 10 minutes ago. “Aaargh” is how I felt. I told myself it was okay I didn’t really want to go anyway and now I really didn’t plan to go! I got in my car to drive away and 5 beautiful mama deer (does) ran right in front of me through the snowy park path and my mental balance was completely restored. When I got home and explained how I’d screwed up getting the tickets, and the deer running in front of me, my husband and I decided what was most important was the maple syrup after all. For the price of the tickets I would be better off with a big bottle of their syrup anyway.. I broke the news to the kids by telling them I would be hosting my own maple syrup festival in the morning around 10 am. We ate pancakes, fried eggs, pineapple and cups of steaming homemade hot chocolate. There was laughter and good food, which is really all it takes. Bliss.

A new tradition is born; The Holt Family Maple Syrup Festival: to be held any Saturday morning we can all get together.

I followed Katie Workman’s pancake recipe but it is quite similar to this one from the recipe girl. I use whole wheat flour and I don’t add sugar. I couldn’t find Katie’s recipe online and if I keep copying her recipes to my blog they’ll be some kind of copyright issue I’m just sure…You’ll have to buy the book as I’ve done.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekly Cooking meme. Click her link to find many other marvelous food-related posts and lots of lovely conversations.

Have a peaceful Saturday.

Porcelain Unicorn; directed by Keegan Wilcox-Grand Prize Winner of Tell It Your Way Competition

My mother sent me this and I love it. It is emotional and startling to me every time I watch so thought to share it out to you.

Weekend Update; Library Loot

I had a meeting the other day at the library and because it started 30 minutes after my yoga class and they are right around the corner from each other-it left me about 20 minutes to browse at the library. Browse quietly at the library by myself, she said with glee.

I’ve become addicted to the NEW section of nonfiction, but specifically usually just for cookbooks. This time though I sort of did a swoop through all the nonfiction section. I’m not a nonfiction reader, prefering fiction hands-down almost always but for some reason I found a ton of interesting titles this week.

1. The Locavore Way; Discover and Enjoy the Pleasures of Locally Grown Food by Amy Cotler (2009). This one has lots of tidbits and helpful advice. As I paged through it there was plenty in there I didn’t already know so I had to bring it home.

2. Earth to Table; Seasonal Recipes from an Organic Farm by Jeff Crump and Bettina Schormann (2009). I love good farm stories and this one has beautiful photos as well.

3. The Power of Small; Why Little Things Make All the Difference by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval (2009). I liked the pages I read through and thought it might enlighten me a bit.

4. River House; A Memoir by Sarahlee Lawrence (2010). A dad and his daughter build a cabin together in Oregon. Proof that I miss my own Dad.

5. Scout, Atticus and Boo; A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird by Mary McDonagh Murphy (2010). This is a collection of interviews from authors and icons…Wally Lamb, Rosanne Cash, Rick Bragg, Tom Brokaw, Scott Turow, Adriana Trigiani and Andrew Young, just to name a few. I read part of one chapter while standing and was intrigued. Mockingbird is one of my all-time favorite reads.

6. Johnny Cash; The Biography by Michael Streissguth (2006). This wasn’t on the new shelf but on a music display. We love Cash in our house and I thought Teenage Boy might enjoy this.

7. Legendary Homes of Lake Minnetonka by Bette Jones Hammell w/ photography by Karen Melvin (2010). When I was a kid we boated on this lake (thanks, Dad) and now my brother lives near the lake. I recognize some of the landmarks and enjoy reading about the architechture of these beautiful homes. My mom was here on Saturday and it was nice to look through some of it with her.

Have you read any of these? Which section of the library do you usually frequent?

While it was strange to not have one fiction book in my stack, I am just about to finish Moon Over Manifest, I have to finish The Glass Castle for next Monday’s book club and I have two books to read for my 5th grade book clubs so I guess I’m fiction-full as well.

Happy Reading.
Hope you’ve had a peace-filled weekend.