if you could take a gander into the recesses of my brain these days, you would see something like this:

yes, this is my kitchen. yes, that is a floaty. yes, it’s january. that about sums it up.

the disarray that once marked only my physical world has elbowed its way into my head. i find myself in awe of mothers who are still able to form and share coherent, insightful ideas. when i rummage around underneath the bibs and soccer trophies from two years ago, all i can come up with is a long-winded, ever-growing, increasingly hostile, feminist rant.

i see friends in restaurants and get random emails from folks who are wondering what happened to my regular posts. i tell them about the not-so-nice rant that i am not-so-eager to share. they all tell me to share it. “your blog is all about honesty, they say.” “aren’t you the one who preaches that it’s our generation’s job to tell the truth?”

yes. dammit.

it’s just that i fear that my writing skills aren’t sophisticated enough to temper and organize the fire that could be unleashed on the internet of all places. for example, this is just a small portion of the mess that has exploded into my thoughts.

+++

observation: a husband arriving home from work with eleven grocery items in tow should not be mistaken for jesus christ.

if you are at my house when this happens, there is no need to make a fuss about this display of ordinary responsibility. it is true that grocery shopping has traditionally been “woman’s work,” and i am thrilled to have a progressive husband. but nobody falls all over themselves when i go to my part time job outside of the home, which greatly resembles what has traditionally been called “man’s work.”

furthermore, when i carry on with all of my work, both inside the home and outside the home, i do so with the constant feeling that i am falling short. there are always mountains of laundry on the couch in my bedroom. there are always dirty dishes in the sink. there are always deeper relationships to forge with the college students i encounter at work. my part-time ministry, though it is gaining momentum, looks meager next to the full-time ministries happening all around me.

my progressive husband (who really is a good one!) experiences the opposite phenomenon. he’s good at his job, and he is able to dedicate the proper time and energy to it. he’s involved in the kids’ lives, and he even folds laundry. in all of his work, inside and outside the home, he blows the expectations out of the water. in fact, he walks on water, some would say.

the problem is not that other wives elevate my spouse to divine status. rather, the issue is that in the south, where i live, the sight of a dad pushing a grocery cart is (apparently) still a shocking display. women working outside of the home? that’s ordinary. but men folding laundry? what a miracle!

and here is my profound conclusion, folks. are you ready for it? okay. here it comes: THIS IS NOT FAIR.

+++

end of rant #1. more to come. consider yourself warned.

p.s. you’re welcome, anna.

dear santa,

you and i have a long and significant history that began when my eight-year-old self questioned the existence of you and god in one fell swoop. so i hope that you will not get your velveteen knickers in a wad over the fact that i have chosen you to be on the receiving end of my latest musings.

first, i should say that all i want for christmas is for my life to slow down. i’m not talking about the way that time creeps sluggishly under the weight of anxiety when sick kids are (again!) home from school.

sick bird

i’m talking about the reinstatement of routines that had their own happy, measured rhythm. i never thought i would ask for something like this, but i just want to wash and fold all of the family’s laundry on mondays while the kids eat popcorn on towels in our bedroom and watch back-to-back episodes of the british cartoon kipper the dog. also, i would love for there to be two (TWO!) nights in a row when the adult residents of our house are free from all recreational, church, work, and civic commitments and can resume the deep spiritual practice of falling asleep while watching the latest season of top chef.

p.s. if this slower-paced life could still include the necessary d.i.y. renovations to our newly purchased mountain house that would be swell.

den before and after

"the mermaid room" becomes "the god's eye room"

i am willing to give up running the half marathon this saturday, creating and distributing our annual christmas cd, and, as evidenced by my behavior in the days preceding and following thanksgiving, major components of my self-hygiene routine.

what do you say, big guy?

second, my children are under the impression that they can ask you for items on their lists without notifying me that they are doing so. goodness knows, at ages five and almost-three, the kids are way too young to start questioning your existence (and god’s), but their unwavering belief in you is making my job difficult. would you mind forwarding me all texts, emails, letters, and telegrams that come your way from our house? thanks. lylas (love you like a sis).

third, and this is a two-parter, when you come bounding down our chimney, would you mind cleaning it out at the same time? ’tis the season. also, how do you feel about entering our home via an UNDECORATED hearth? just think of it as a few less strands of tinsel that ms. clause will have to extract from your beard.

to show my appreciation for all that you do during this busy time of year, i’m going to leave you a little something special to go along with the usual christmas cookies.

peace out,

mary allison

hello, my name is mary allison, and i am a delinquent blogger. i know you are all attributing my silence to one of the following things:

1. i joined the witness protection program and am now living in boise, working at subway, and breeding cocker spaniels.

2. my children have finally driven me past the point of insanity and i have taken off on an impromptu cross-country drive with no definite plans of return.

3. a pillow fort has blocked access to my computer:

alas, if my life held the drama and intrigue of items 1 & 2, i would have written a memoir by now, and i walk through pillow forts every day. no big deal.

all i know is that since my last post on august 30th, the following things have happened:

1. my children started back to school after labor day and then had a five-day fall break two seconds later.

2. i turned 35.

3. i started re-reading eckhart tolle’s a new earth:

4. my job at the university of memphis stopped resembling the tv show apprentice and morphed into relational ministry. in other words, my makeshift marketing campaign has given way to face-to-face contact with actual students! i believe in miracles.

5. the monkey started taking suzuki violin, and i rented myself a fiddle too. we make terrible, fantastic music together. remember this post about great expectations?

6. i made good on my promise to mask the bird’s wall doodlings with wild designs. if you stand still in my house for too long, there is a good chance that you will be stenciled.

new obsession: www.oliveleafstencils.com

p.s. did you know you can stencil fabric and flat-weave rugs? good times.

7. i discovered that i can download books via the audible app on my phone and wash dishes and fold clothes to the riveting saga of the hunger games trilogy. i actually look forward to household chores now. for the love of clean dishes and laundered clothes and all that is holy, suzanne collins needs to write some more books.

8. andy and i took a little trip to lake oconee, outside of atlanta. the kids stayed with my folks. we each slept for 12 hours, three nights in a row. i wore my vintage polyester house dress around the hotel like a crazy person. what’s the point in changing clothes just to wander down the hall for a glass of wine?

9. i got to serve communion to my children at our church’s family camp in middle tennessee. the ritual of communion is mysterious and multifaceted, and i will never fully understand it. but this i know: it was bread from heaven. also, the bird spit his portion of bread into the cup.

http://www.nacome.org/

i promise not to wait a month and a half to post again. off to polish the silver, iron my underwear, and plant bulbs in the front beds before the kids awake.

just kidding. i’m still not martha stewart. some things never change.

i was in first grade when my teacher read the mrs. piggle-wiggle stories to our class after lunch every day.  i remember quite a few details about betty macdonald’s characters and their ailments. i also remember putting a band aid box in my teacher’s chair when she interrupted story time to fetch something from her desk. she returned to her chair and crushed the box as our class erupted with laughter. i ended up in the hall but it was worth it. clearly, i would have been a good candidate for one of mrs. piggle-wiggle’s cures!

but now that i am reading mrs. piggle-wiggle to the monkey, i am surprised at how much i do not remember about these little story gems. i do not, for example, remember this hilarious fossil of a conversation between mr. and mrs. russell:

mr. russell came whistling into breakfast. he said mildly, “oh, scrambled eggs again. i was hoping for sausages and buckwheat cakes.” mrs. russell said, “we had sausages and buckwheat cakes yesterday morning.” mr. russell said, “what about brook trout? bill smith has’em nearly every morning.” mrs. russell said crossly, “perhaps that is why he looks like a trout and his wife looks like a great big halibut” (mrs. piggle-wiggle, betty macdonald, 117).

mrs. russell exibited quite a bit of spunk and self-assurance for 1947, right?

but even more striking than the quick wit of mrs. russell are the phone conversations the mothers have with each other in every chapter. while the children’s bad behaviors and mrs. piggle-wiggle’s unorthodox cures delight the kids, surely these ridiculous phone chats were meant to entertain the mothers. for example, who has never been in an exchange such as this?

“hello, mrs. bags, this is hubert’s mother and i am so disappointed in hubert. he has such lovely toys — his grandfather sends them to him every christmas, you know — but he does not take care of them at all. he just leaves them all over his room for me to pick up every morning.” mrs. bags said, “well, i’m sorry, mrs. prentiss, but i can’t help you because you see, i think it’s too late.” “why, it’s only nine-thirty,” said hubert’s mother. “oh, i mean late in life,” said mrs. bags. “you see, we started ermintrude picking up her toys when she was six months old. ‘a place for everything and everything in its place,’ we have always told ermintrude. now, she is so neat that she becomes hysterical if she sees a crumb on the floor” (22).

in her phone-conversations-gone-wrong, bettty macdonald illuminates and exaggerates the miscommunication, judgement, and posturing that often come between mothers. every night, as i read the monkey his chapter of mrs. piggle-wiggle, i find myself laughing and rolling my eyes as i am reminded about something i have said to another mother or something another mother has said to me. the children in macdonald’s books are not the only ones behaving badly. they’re not the only ones being cured either.

perhaps this is why betty macdonald’s books have endured for over sixty years.  

until six weeks ago, the monkey was a strict observer of naptime. to say that he was an “observer” of nap time is to say that he spent two hours per day holed up in his room. sometimes he slept, but most of the time he invented games for himself to play within his four walls.

for example, it was not uncommon for me to open his door after naptime to find a “puzzle piece room,” a carefully created state of affairs wherein the entire floor was covered in adjacent blankets, er, i mean “puzzle pieces.” other days were “sorting days,” and the monkey would spend the two hours organizing and cataloging his stuffed animals, game pieces, markers, and books. still other afternoons were spent “reading.” once, i walked in on this scene:

but times are different now. i gave in to the monkey’s complaints that he was bored in his room, and now, while his brother sleeps, he does things that require much less imagination (many of which involve the television and/or the wii). perhaps this is because i have not made the shift away from cooking dinner, folding laundry, and catching up on work between the hours of two o’clock and four o’clock. or perhaps it is because the monkey and i are both drawn to what is easier. for him, making a puzzle piece room takes more effort than wii bowling. and for me, extracting him from the tv takes more effort than cooking dinner in peace.

the problem with this scenario is that i don’t want to deprive the monkey of the gift of boredom. catherine newman, author of an essay entitled bored again, which appeared in the fall 2010 issue of brainchild magazine, defines boredom as “that agitated space between relaxation and action: dialed down, it can become a pleasant kind of inertia or a meditative stillness, where it feels good to sit quietly with your own thoughts; cranked up a notch, it can produce creative release.” newman goes on to write,

“i’m not trying to sound like one of those crafty-mama blogs that makes you want to kill yourself, the kind you bookmark one day because you think that putting out a wooden bowl of felt gnomes sounds like a good idea… and yet. you do have to learn boredom, learn to live with it, to manage it with the power of your own mind, without recourse to video games or bungee jumping or sniffing glue or starting a nuclear war or date raping your roommate’s girlfriend. the most dangerous people we know are the least able to sit still, to be inside an absence of motion.”

i definitely don’t want the monkey to become “a dangerous person,” but that’s not my main attraction to boredom. i simply think that boredom facilitates creativity and imagination, and these things are what ultimately make life beautiful.

our family spends significant periods of time away from our memphis routines and addictions to technology. our family camp weekends and julys in the north carolina mountains are hopefully deterrents from future glue-sniffing tendencies. but building boredom into our daily memphis routine, one that must also include my own significant accomplishments on the home and work fronts, is becoming increasingly difficult.

is there any way to give the monkey the gift of boredom (and creativity and imagination and beauty) without forcing him to play with a wooden bowl of felt gnomes?

i love me some note cards.

i never leave home with out them. they are the perfect place to record a genius idea, deposit toddler scribbles, and spit out used gum. i wrote all of my school papers, from tenth grade through graduate school, by putting one fact one each note card, arranging them into themed stacks, putting the stacks in order, and settling down in front of my computer in the midst of a veritable note card village. i even wrote my most recent homily this way.

when i started the re[frame] productivity system for creative people a few months ago, it wasn’t so much because i had friends who had successfully completed the program and were happy with the results. nor was the main draw its enticing low price of $42 for six weeks worth of daily emails explaining a detailed process in simple, attainable steps. it was the note cards, folks. i loved the idea of writing one “to do” on each note card and organizing them in a cute little box under headings for each day of the week. so excited was i about the power of this little box and its contents to transform my chaotic world that i diligently worked the note card system for months.

during this time, i returned emails and phone calls promptly, sent school picture money back on time, made headway on long overdue projects (the sewing room reorganization, for example), and developed a regular schedule for household tasks such as doing laundry and making dinner. i was the very picture of productivity. the problem was that i wasn’t feeling very creative anymore.

there was no time to whip up crazy pants for my boys in my newly organized sewing room. i began having visions of things i wanted to paint or cook, but there wasn’t time to bring them to life. i pictured myself (and still do) dropping by amro music of an afternoon, renting a fiddle, and spending “free time” indulging myself and horrifying others with the excruciating cacophony only a beginning fiddler could produce.

so for the last six weeks or so, i have abandoned my dear note cards. we are living in piles of laundry and dirty dishes but the laundry now contains several pairs of fabulous new crazy pants for the kids, and the dirty dishes are the result of creative cooking experiments. i have devoured a few great books (both the for-fun kind and the brain-stimulating kind) but there are an embarrassing number of unread emails in my inbox.

i generally prefer allowing my intuition to guide me from one task to the next. the only problem is that my intuition is not so good at taking care of business. and after a while, it becomes evident that i need things like friends, and clean underwear, and an unsoiled mug for my coffee. 

so today, i’m getting back on the re[frame] wagon. i’m returning to the world of note cards. however, instead of attacking every piece of unfinished business in my life the way  my dog attacks his breakfast (in an near-violent frenzy), i’m going to take a more measured approach. i have only one goal for the week, and that is cleaning out the bird’s closet. i know there must be clothes to fit this child in there somewhere!

is there any way to be both productive and creative at the same time? or is this particular brand of balance just another part of a mother’s quest for pie-in-the-sky equanimity? i think i’ll just write these questions on note cards and carry them around in my purse.

as someone who seeks middle ground motherhood between the extremes of june cleaver and superwoman, i must take a minute to reflect on the recent death of barbara billingsly, the woman who brought june to life, warm rolls to the dinner table, and visions of peaceable family existence into the american consciousness.

image from cultureblues.com

 june never ordered takeout. she never poured herself a glass of wine at exactly five o’clock. she never forgot to shower or brush her teeth. she gave her full attention to her children and husband, even while whipping up culinary delights and wearing recently ironed clothing. some viewers saw reflections of their own family lives in the cleaver household and derived a sense of okay-ness from such screen-lit similarity. others escaped their own family dysfunction and entered a miraculous world where all conflicts were resolved neatly at episode’s end. for all of the flack that i have given billingsly’s character for helping to create monolithic and impossible standards for wives and mothers, even i must admit one thing. the mothers who came before us, those who gave expression to their gifts and desires during a time when there were fewer options for doing so, cannot be faulted for aspiring for and achieving near-perfection in the realms over which they had charge. there is something to be said for doing a good job, even if that job is more narrowly defined.

yesterday’s “my thoughts” column by bill haltom  in memphis’ commercial appealwas about the reassurance june cleaver brought into american homes during the time of sputnik, bomb shelters, and fears of war with russia. haltom writes,

“And then there was June, the quintessential 1950s mom. While Sputnik in the skies above terrorized us, the very down-to-earth June Cleaver reassured us that everything was going to be OK. She wore pink dresses and beautiful white pearls. She stayed at home while Ward went to the office and Wally and Beav went to school with Larry and Eddie…. 

It was the American family at its best. It was America at its best — America at work, at school, at peace, at home.”

was this really “the american family at its best?” perhaps this was merely television at its best — distracting, inspiring, giving viewers a brief respite from their anxieties. this kind of simplistic nostalgia is unhelpful for those of us who are attempting to take the realities of today — the thrilling and overwhelming abundance of choices many women now possess — and construct authentic lives of meaning and contribution. 

i’d like to think that barbara billingsly was willing to re-imagine women’s roles in a way that her character, june, was not. perhaps this kind of resolve is what led her to play the cameo part of “the jive lady” in the movie airplane in 1980. i leave you with this little clip. perhaps i could even say that it is american film at it’s best…

last week’s pantry week was a huge success and a little too easy. our fridge and freezer are no longer avalanches waiting to happen but the pantry is another story. any minute there could be a chocolate-covered-blueberry rock slide in there. something has to be done!

so… this week is modified pantry week. the same rules apply with a couple exceptions:

• one farmers market trip is allowed so that we get enough veggies and don’t contract scurvy.
• i took a cue from my friend tiffany and gave certain pantry items “must use” status. then, i bought a few necessary groceries to make that possible. for example, we now have chicken broth, which was the missing ingredient in several of my most brilliant makeshift culinary schemes.

monday night we had sausage and chicken gumbo using this recipe from the best of cooking light. also, the monkey and i made these tasty glazed  pumpkin cookies.

last night we had chicken pot pie using this delicious recipe from edible memphis’  melissa peterson:

2 ready-made pie crusts

1 T veggie oil

6 chicken thighs

1.5 quarts water/chicken broth (i use much less)

2 carrots peeled and diced (substituted red bell pepper)

1/2 onion diced

2 ribs celery, diced

4 T all-purpose flour

4 T butter or veggie oil

1/4 c. milk

1/2 cup frozen peas (i used leftover lady peas)

1/2 tsp. poultry seasoning (i used much more)

salt and pepper

1 egg beaten with 1 T water

2-3 T grated parmesan

in a large pot, heat oil over medium heat. brown chicken thighs, then carefully add water or broth. boil. reduce heat to a simmer. cover and cook till chicken is fall-off-the-bone tender, about 40 minutes.

remove thighs from broth and set aside to cool. add carrots, onion and celery to cooking liquid. simmer until veggies are soft, about 4 minutes. in a small saucepan, heat 4 T oil or butter. whisk in flour to make roux. add roux to veggies and broth. cook over medium heat until mixture thickens, whisking constantly. add milk.

remove skin from cooled chicken. pull meat from bones. shred and add to vegetable mixture. add poultry seasoning and season with salt and pepper. stir in frozen peas.

place bottom crust in 10″ pie plate. spoon in chicken mixture. place top crust and crimp edges. cut 3 vents into crust. brush with egg wash and sprinkle crust with parmesan cheese. bake at 350 until crust is golden brown, about 40 minutes. cool for at least 20 minutes before serving.

tonight’s must-use items: black beans, red beans, and canned corn. any guesses?

last night’s pantry week cuisine was a homemade, kid-made, pizza that included such oddities as meatloaf and lady peas.

i always have a stash of pizza dough in the freezer (see yesterday’s revelation that i am a food hoarder) thanks to this delicious recipe perfected by my friend, mary.

one side was “decorated” with pesto, basil, lady peas, onions, tomatoes, and an assortment of cheeses. the other side’s toppings were tomato sauce, meatloaf, pepperoni, and the same assortment of cheeses. andy was out of town, so he missed this curious culinary compilation. i invited my aunt over to partake in the weirdness, and the two of us ate all but one piece!  

pics of my pantry and fridge are coming soon. the shelves (in all of their grubby glory) are actually beginning to reveal themselves.

i don’t know whether to be delighted or embarrassed about how well we have eaten during pantry week. let’s face it. my name is mary allison, and i am a food hoarder.

last night’s entree was this double-cheese meatloaf  from cooking light. my lamb, ground beef, and sausage combination worked really well, as did my substitution of front-yard-basil for the called-for parsley. i didn’t get a chance to photograph the meal until it was almost gone, but as you can see, it disappeared fast.

along with the meatloaf, we had some farmers’ market lady peas (purchased saturday before we hatched the pantry week plan) and some broccoli that was nearing its date of expiration.

apparently, i am not the only person who is seeking better organization through eating. many of you have responded to our little pantry week experiment with your own versions of this challenge, and some of you have even sent me your favorite makeshift recipes. here is one that’s in keeping with the meatloaf theme:

elise’s makeshift meatloaf:

add crumbled crackers or oatmeal to hold leftover meat together. add one egg, some worcestershire sauce or ketchup, salt and pepper. put it in a loaf pan or dutch oven and cook at 350 for 45 minutes or until done.

tonight’s menu will feature a return of the lady peas in an unconventional fashion. any guesses where they will turn up?