Category Archives: Happenings

Some Turkey

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Everybody knows some turkey and some mistletoe/ Will help to make the season bright. –The Christmas Song

I was feeling a bit left out of the Turkey Day celebrations (since, of course, there was no holiday here). I decided that it was time to do my own Thanksgiving dinner. I invited my friend Michelle and her family for a Saturday, 1 December, Thanksgiving dinner. There were 7 people total. A small gathering, but the largest number I’ve entertained.

I went to order a turkey from the Christmas Made Easy counter on Monday so I can prepare a lovely Turkey Dinner. They won’t provide ordered turkeys until 21 December. They don’t carry turkeys other times of the year.

I finally found a 3.2 kg (7 lb) frozen turkey breast at a supermarket. They seem few and far between. You’d think they’d have big signs advertising them. Is that how it is in the States? Aren’t turkeys just flying off the shelves already?

For those of you preparing to do your own Turkey Dinner this holiday season, here is what an amateur learned her first time around.

  • A turkey breast is a lot smaller and looks a lot easier to manage than an entire turkey. (And, while I never have done an entire turkey, it really was easy to do the turkey breast!)
  • When defrosting turkey in the fridge, don’t put the turkey on the top shelf.
  • When defrosting turkey in the fridge, make sure you put a pan underneath it.
  • If you don’t do the two preceding things, you’ll have to scrub the entire fridge and throw out the fresh fruit that is sitting on the bottom shelf.
  • Brining the turkey breast really isn’t hard.
  • When cooking a turkey in a small oven, make sure the oven shelf is as low as possible. Otherwise, the turkey will be just millimetres from the top broiler and will get all crusty on top.
  • When purchased, the turkey is wrapped with a foam pad. Throw out the foam pad before putting the turkey in the oven. Otherwise, at the end you won’t be able to separate the foam from the turkey drippings and it will be kind of nasty.
  • Make your husband carve the turkey.
  • Don’t have too many dishes: turkey, cranberry sauce and gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and salad is plenty of food. There will be leftovers! (Hmmm, maybe it just wasn’t very good and that’s why it’s left over…)
  • When hurrying to put things away five minutes before company arrives, be careful not to bump the Pyrex liquid measuring cup from the top shelf of the cupboard. Otherwise, it will shatter and glass fragments will end up everywhere and you’ll be in even more of a panic. And you’ll get cuts on your hands.
  • If the pecan pie cooks too long, the crust will fly across the room when you try to cut into it.
  • If the pies don’t taste very good, just put more whipped cream on top. (Note to my family members who will be amazed at that comment: this is not Cool Whip or cream from the can, which I never have liked. This is real whipped cream, which is actually very tasty.)
  • If the pies don’t taste very good, everyone will still eat them because they have lots of sugar in them. Plus, there’s the whipped cream.

That’s what I learned. And, just to clarify, my husband (who is the true cook) had to work all day and didn’t get home until 5 p.m., when I was about to take the turkey out of the oven. (Company came at 6 p.m.) I did it all, except make the gravy and carve the turkey. Yes, I can cook a turkey dinner! Maybe I’m a cook too…

And now I feel like it’s the holidays! Happy Turkey Days to all of you!

Cleaning as Nurturing

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the talk by Sister Beck in conference about motherhood. Here’s the part I’ve been dwelling on the last few days:

Another word for nurturing is homemaking. Homemaking includes cooking, washing clothes and dishes, and keeping an orderly home. Home is where women have the most power and influence; therefore, Latter-day Saint women should be the best homemakers in the world. … Nurturing mothers are knowledgeable, but all the education women attain will avail them nothing if they do not have the skill to make a home that creates a climate for spiritual growth. Growth happens best in a “house of order,” and women should pattern their homes after the Lord’s house (see D&C 109). Nurturing requires organization, patience, love, and work.

To nurture, I need to cook, wash clothes and dishes, and keep an orderly home.

Firstly, cooking. As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve recently discovered I love to cook! Cooking no longer feels like a chore, but a delight. I can see how cooking a meal for my family is nurturing them.

Next, washing clothes and dishes. I don’t mind doing laundry and dishes. Once the clothes are clean, then the hampers are empty, and that feels satisfying. I get to do twice as much laundry now with an infant. I really don’t mind doing it. True, I dyed a few of Pauls’ white onesies pink the first week of his life, but since then, there have been no “disasters” and we’ve been clothed well.

As for dishes, one of my first jobs at BYU was a dishwasher in the CougarEat kitchens. It was relaxing. My husband does dishes each night after dinner now anyway because Paul is usually hungry at just the right moment…but really, I don’t mind dishes at all.

Finally, keeping an orderly home. I take this to mean cleaning and not just keeping things organized. I can put things away and avoid piles of “stuff” and wipe down kitchen counters. I can follow a grocery budget and keep my pantry stocked and in order. But my problem right now is cleaning. I find sweeping, mopping, cleaning toilets, scrubbing down showers, vacuuming, and dusting absolutely tedious. Mom suggested I like cooking because it’s a symbol of my love. For some reason, I just can’t think of cleaning in the same way. It just feels tedious.

My dislike of cleaning is not a new problem. As a kid, when Mom gave me my chores on Saturday mornings, I’d sing “It’s a Hard-Knock Life” and grumble about how unfair it was to have to clean. As an adult, my philosophy has always been: if I can see the dust, it’s too late. But after Paul was born, I went a month without touching a broom. As I mentioned before, that was much too long.

The problem is that we have a two-story, three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath town home with hardwood floors the size of Kentucky. And as I got around to mopping the other day, I saw little ants and a spider’s cobweb.

As Sister Beck said, I need the “skill to make a home that creates a climate for spiritual growth.” Dust and ants hinder that spiritual growth. How can I delight in cleaning as nurturing rather than as a chore? How can I develop the same sense of satisfaction with cleaning that I recently have found with cooking?

Happy Thanksgiving

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I am thankful for:

  • My precious little boy
  • My wonderful husband
  • Eternal covenants that bind families together
  • The Gospel of Jesus Christ and everything else that entails

I celebrated the day by:

  • Changing an explosive diaper
  • Doing laundry (thanks to the explosive diaper)
  • Cleaning spit up off the rented couch
  • Sweeping the floors
  • Trying to figure out Christmas presents for you people
  • Eating leftovers

That’s all. (Well, we didn’t get a holiday. What do you expect?)

Enjoy your turkey!

‘Tis the Season?

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At church, they’ve announced the ward Christmas party.

It is a picnic at a park.

As I shop at the store, I see Christmas lights and Christmas decorations and Christmas sales.

But what is wrong with this picture?
20071114100333.jpg

Exactly: They are eating their holiday turkey around a pool.

Is it really Thanksgiving for all of you?

It is spring, and summer is coming. At 9 p.m. the other night, the bank displayed a temperature of 28 degrees. And with the air conditioning set at “high” all day, the house is still 23 degrees!

I can’t bring myself to roast a turkey and bake pumpkin pie. It’s too hot. Maybe we’ll grill some burgers and make a fruit salad and sit out in the back yard.

Last year, my husband and I were listening to Christmas songs on Halloween. This year, neither of us can bring ourselves to listen to them. Christmas songs just seem odd right now. How can we listen to “Let it snow! Let it snow!” when it is more than 30 degrees outside?

(Just to clarify: I don’t have any idea what the temperature is in Fahrenheit. But I do know it is very hot!)

I can’t imagine Christmas at all. How can I get into the season despite the season?

Getting Paul’s Passport

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Monday, we went to the U.S. Consulate in Melbourne. All three of us had to be there. We submitted paperwork for Paul’s Consular Report of Birth Abroad, passport, and Social Security number.

It was a fairly straight forward day. The paperwork was long but understandable (mostly), the drive took 45 minutes (including circling the block looking for parking), and time in the government offices was miraculously less than an hour (it was the day before a public holiday!).

What did take a long time was getting Paul’s passport photo the week before. Here are the required dimensions:

Here are some “helpful” requirements (courtesy the Department of State website).

7 Steps to Successful Photos

  • Photograph subject against a plain white or off-white background.

If you went to a photo shop for a passport photo, you would be put in front of a plain white screen. But for Paul, of course, there could be no arms or hands or anything to prop him up, so that wouldn’t work for us. Instead, we used white blankets over pillows to try to prop up the little guy. I don’t think passport photos are intended for infants who can’t hold up their own heads!

  • Position subject and lighting so that there are no distracting shadows on the face or background.

This is very hard to do without professional lighting. I admit, some of the shadows from the background had to be eliminated in the end.

  • Encourage subject to have a natural expression.

OK, Paul, look natural! (Should this include spit up?)

  • Frame subject with full face, front view, eyes open.

Have you ever tried to get an infant, who is awake and has his eyes open, to stay still? It doesn’t happen. Paul wanted to wriggle around. He certainly didn’t want to face forward and pose.

  • Center head within frame.

Paul kept squirming, so his head kept flopping out of the center of the frame. He really likes to have his hand by his face, too. Thank goodness for cropping!

  • Make sure photo presents full head from top of hair to bottom of chin; height of head should measure 1 inch to 1-3/8 inches (25 mm to 35 mm).

Babies faces are quite round, so I think this requirement makes the head huge in comparison to the rest of the frame.

  • Make sure eye height is between 1-1/8 inches to 1-3/8 inches (28 mm and 35 mm) from bottom of photo.

So exact!

In all, I think I took 100 pictures before we found one that we could fix up to meet the requirements. Here are the attempts and the final product.

Passport Photos

The attempts and the final product.

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