Mountainair

My grandmother is that way. She’s a terrible cook and while I am 40 now I have terrible memories of sitting at her table and being forced to eat slop. If my parents were there they would not make me but I often spent summers at her house without my parents. I eventually started feeding it to her dogs when she wasn’t looking. Her rule for adults was if there were leftovers they go in the dog bowl not the trash. A few years ago I visited her with my parents and my kids- my youngest was 3 at the time and we walk in her house and my 3 year old immediately says, “what’s that smell” and proceeded to throw up all over my dad who was holding her. Grandma was making a breakfast casserole and it smelled rancid. My mom went through her trash and found the sausage package she was using and it had expired three years prior. My grandma will be 90 in March but she is no longer allowed to cook when family visits and we all gather at a different family members house instead of hers.

My parents usually come over for the Super Bowl and we eat and watch the game but this year they are going out of town. I’ll still make food for my kids and I but will probably just watch in bed and change channels in between plays.

Ugh! Was hoping for Commanders/Bills. I’ll still watch because what else am I going to do. I grew up watching Washington games with my dad until we got the Panthers and that was our new “home” team. Damar Hamlin is really the only reason I care about the Bills (but he had a few bad penalties tonight). When his incident happened I was in the beginning stages of dealing with heart issues/surgeries/allowed sports with my 10 year old. It hit close to home. When they decided the Bills didn’t get that one first down I knew the game was over.

Aww I loved the Molly band nerd scenes. As a fellow band nerd I totally understood her connection to music and how it changes you, especially performing it. Playing music is like picking apart a novel. There are so many layers and pieces. My husband and I met in high school band and he played the euphonium so I’m very familiar. I played flute well into my 30’s while he quit playing in high school. I actually created (with the help of a nationally known flutist) a local flute choir in our town and played bass and alto flute. I had to step away when my son got sick and daughter had to have multiple surgeries. It’s been about 3 years since I’ve played but I get her band nerdom :)

I saw that Ashleigh Shanti was nominated. Good Hot Fish gets so-so reviews around here. I love fish but my husband has an allergy and she only serves fried fish which I don’t care for so I have not tried it yet.

We woke up to temps at 4 degrees this morning but no snow :( the snow that happened days ago is still on the ground though. I don’t know if I prefer being cold or hot. I did purchase myself a nice down coat this winter with a faux fur hood. At school the kids are expected to go outside and play if the temps are above 17 degrees and it gets cold standing in one place watching Kindergartners run around trying not to hurt themselves.

When I was pregnant with my kids I would get terrible Charley Horses in the middle of the night. An older lady at work told me I needed to sleep with a bar of ivory soap at the foot of my bed to get rid of them. So, I did and it worked! That’s really my only experience with ivory soap but if they have changed their formula I wonder if it still works on Charley Horses- lol!

I never went to camp as a kid. My mom stayed home with me and my brother until we were in high school. She did make sure we went to every Vacation Bible School offered in the area. I started working again three years ago when my youngest was in first grade and always wanted my kids to experience camp since I never got to. Turns out they hated it and I didn’t have to spend ungodly amounts of money. I work at their school now and my oldest is in high school so perfectly capable of staying home alone with the middle schooler and 3rd grader though I don’t do that often since we have the same schedule.

I watched The Pitt over the weekend and really enjoyed it. I’m generally not a fan of medical dramas but I watched ER for most of its run and was a Noah fan so I had to tune in which brought me down the rabbit hole of ER reruns. I did a rewatch about five years ago but as I age and my family ages I find more things that resonate with me. I’m almost through the first season and in episode 5 a young girl comes in with Coarctation of the Aorta. I immediately hit pause and called my mom because my son has the same thing. It was something I’d never heard about before my son was diagnosed so I couldn’t believe there was an ER episode about it! Was waiting to see what treatment they were going to use then in typical ER fashion the kid had OD’d on Cocaine and the coarctation never came back up again.

My husbands extremely large family has a tradition of giving everyone a middle name that starts with L. Eventually you run out of ideas so my middle child shares the same middle name as my husband. My oldest child goes by his middle name (which is something I swore I’d never do but I liked it better than the first name we picked for him). My youngest was easy because she was my only girl and I love Lucille Ball so she got Lucille as a middle name. My sister in law is obsessed with Star Trek so gave her daughter the middle name Lwaxana. lol!

Survivors Guilt is such a real thing. I live in Asheville, NC where we were hit hard by Helene. My husband’s job was completely flattened and he was without work for quite a while, schools were closed and I’m a teacher. Our water still isn’t “safe” to drink and many people are living in hot tents. However, I moved here almost 18 years ago because I wanted four seasons and snow! I’m laying in bed watching TV and the snow out of my windows and it’s beautiful but I feel guilty for enjoying it. My heart goes out to California but also my own community where my co workers are living in FEMA paid for hotels, limited resources and now 13 degree weather without a roof over their heads and I was lucky enough to not lose my home (just a lost income) .

I love snow if I don’t have to go anywhere in it. Unfortunately our city hasn’t recovered enough from Hurricane Helene to support even more infrastructure damage so I feel guilty for hoping for snow. I just don’t want to go to work :(

I’m feeling those blues majorly today. I work at a year round school and we’ve been off for 6 weeks. Tomorrow is our first day back and I had to take an emergency trip four hours away over the weekend for family. I can never sleep in hotels and I’ve been used to sleeping in until 11 everyday. 5:30 is going to come early tomorrow. We are under a winter weather advisory so I’m hoping school will at least be delayed but I know I have to rip the bandaid off at some point.

Every year my grandparents say they are coming for Christmas and every year they either opt out or come and leave in the middle of the night. My Grandma just turned 89, has COPD and CHF. They live four hours away. She was hospitalized December 26th, released the next day and then hospitalized again January 1. My grandpa refuses to let my mom visit her mom until she is back home and in full makeup, dress, etc. We know this is the “hamster wheel of death” if you will so my mom finally put her foot down and said we were coming no matter what tomorrow. My mom is adopted, my grandparents divorced when she was 17 and disowned her adopted brother and left her with her dad and step mother. My grandma remarried immediately and moved across the country her senior year of high school (Alaska-NY). Her step dad controls all of the conversations that happens between her and her mom. It’s a mess. Not the way I was hoping the New Year would start.

I grew up in a family of church organists and choir singers- my dad and three of my grandparents (one has his doctorate in music). My dad always played as a side hustle but for the longest time he played in a churches that were over an hour away. Growing up we spent a lot of time going to different denominations. One of my favorite was Moravian. Most of our time we went to a Lutheran church. But you are talking two young kids, having to attend choir practices, every “extra” service that ever existed and a two hour round trip. My life was taken up by church not to mention my family could be considered pearl clutchers. My parents have eased up a bit though they are still heavily involved in church and my dad still plays organ as a side gig. They now attend an Episcopal church which I have attended a few times. My dad doesn’t say anything to me but my mom won’t leave me alone about going to church. I have three kids, work and like to sleep in on the weekends. Not go to church. When we were kids and visited family out of town we always had to go to church. I’m just over it. Edited to add- in high school (and still now) I played flute and it was expected of me to play preludes and postludes and even whole services with my dad. He hasn’t asked me in a few years mainly because I have gotten too busy to play anymore but as recent as three years ago we played a service together. I like playing music with my dad but I don’t like audiences.