Are you the granola type? No, I'm not probing about your wardrobe or your voter registration!
"Granola" seems to carry as many connotations as a bowl of it has ingredients – few of them having to do with breakfast. (Didn't Birkenstocks and Berkeley politics cross your mind?)
I don't know how the world's best cereal became the icon of a lifestyle, because any of us can enjoy this hug in a bowl. The word, for me, conjures up wooden spoons, thick crockery, pure whole ingredients, and home -- and when made from scratch, a satisfying sense of accomplishment. Even a non-Julia Child like me, an Aga wannabe with a suburban stovetop oven – can create a batch of homemade granola worth yumming over. And it's easy. Come watch!
What makes you calllllllllllllllllllm? Do you have to sit very still and chant "ommmmmmmmm" to chill — or can you hustle about your busy day carrying a place of peace and serenity within you all the while?
Two recent discussions have reminded me how much our attitude influences our quality of life. Unlike circumstance and hard knocks – things you can't always change — attitude is something we get to pick. It's the place on the self-tuner where we choose to set our emotional dial. (Hmmm, will I pick wallow-on-the-floor-in-a-pity-party-for-one today? Or will I put my energy toward counting blessings and getting the laundry done?)
One of my recent attitude-bending conversations was with my sister-in-law, a woman who should know something about stress. Her six kids fall between ages 4 and 13 (all hers by birth, btw, and every single darn one of them entering this world between 10 and 11 pounds!). Her 80-something parents live in a wing my brother built onto their house for them.
Until shortly before he died last year, Laura (that's her below) had my dad living in her house, too, in her former reading nook, a room she gave up so my brother could convert it into a main-floor bedroom for Dad. (Even more generously, she gave up her pantry so he could turn the space into a shower in the adjacent bathroom.) And did I mention the two dogs? Two cats? The garden? The part-time job as the church pianist? The nightly cooking for 10? Like I said, she knows from stress.
Anyway, Laura (who is as cheerful and calm as they come) told me her new motto is...
I was an Adam girl. Still am. Always will be, even though Pernell Roberts isn't with us any more. He died this week of pancreatic cancer at 81.
Anna Quindlen famously wrote how her fellow teenagers, circa 1964, were divided among "Paul girls," "John girls," "George girls," or "Ringo girls." The four "Bonanza" stars didn't define and consume my adolescence the way the Beatles did hers, not least because by the time I discovered the show, it was already just in endless re-runs. But among its loyal fans in any year – and I suspect there are fresh ones hatching — there's one Cartwright for whom your heart beats faster during the rotating horseback cameos in the opening credits. You're an Adam girl, a Little Joe girl, a Hoss girl, or a Pa girl.
Joe girls – the biggest group – are the ones who like ‘em cute and flirtatious, usually because they're cute and flirtatious themselves. Hoss girls tend to be bold renegades making a statement (it's the equivalent of the "Ringo" pick). Pa girls are mostly grandmothers (mine, for instance).
I sure wish I still had this patchwork quilt (below). As quilts go, I own finer specimens (a good subject for a future post, actually, for what quicker way is there to farmgirlize your suburban house than by its bedding?). But this particular quilt — that's my younger sister posing in front of it when she herself was much younger — is beloved in part because it was made by me.
Entirely of potholders.
Not the comfy-coziest of quilt materials, I admit. But here's the more specific reason I love it: The amazing variety of potholder patterns I came up with for the squares. A bag of raw material, time to tinker, the courage to try, allowing yourself the freedom to make mistakes, and voila! Possibility! No such thing as one kind of potholder. Looking at things in new ways is the best kind of momentum I know.
It's said that there are years that ask questions and years that give answers. I'm not sure which was 2009 for me. More like a year that kept the ground shifting with transition. (Details in a second.)
I'm writing this looking at a lovely teapot on my desk. I own an inordinate number of pots and pitchers. I've always been drawn to them. I never understood why. After all, you can only use so many pitchers in an everyday kitchen. It's not like I have to haul water or keep one handy at every washbasin, for example.
Partly, pitchers and teapots are farmgirly icons: Utilitarian, comforting in theirroundness, often pretty, too. But I now think I'm also drawn to the concept of a pitcher: You fill it up, pour it out, and repeat as needed. It's versatile: Tea, water, juice, syrup, cinnamon sticks, bread sticks, a cheering bunch of flowers, a thought-provoking spray of branches. Pitchers brim with the potential of what might come next.
That's my interpretation, anyway, and I'm sticking with it. And I know something of both pitchers and transitions. Here's what's happened, oh, just this past year, for instance:
Have you ever seen the motif of a heart nestled inside the palm of a hand? I love this little image because it captures my heritage so well: I come from a line of women whose hearts lived in their hands. At Christmas, especially, their handiwork fills my house.
A couple of posts ago I wrote about Christmas decorations. Last night we trimmed the tree! Almost every ornament is handmade by 1) These amazing women in my family, 2) My kids (I once wrote a column in praise of clever teachers, Brownie leaders, and Sunday school teachers and the wonderful ornament crafts they think up!) or 3) Other craftspeople (whose ornaments I've bought as souvenirs or received as gifts).
Uh, notice my own name is absent from that list?! I can't make anything! How is it that some people just miss out on the crafty gene?
So I have to ask: Are there any dolls on your Christmas-buying or -making list this year? I'm wondering because — as I troll websites and ogle, as I do every year, things I might have wish-listed as a girl – I've realized that my very favorite present to give this time of year is… a doll.
Yep, dolls!
Admittedly it's not the kind of gift you can give everybody (or most anybody!) on your list. And -- big sigh --my three girls are outgrowing their doll years. But when you have the right recipient, and (this is key) you're a "doll girl" yourself, like me – why there's nothing more fun to give.
Dolls can be so much to a girl: Confidant, role model, co-conspirator, pal, loved one to nurture, loved one to nurture you. It's a real shame kids think they want to abandon them earlier and earlier.
So do you have your Christmas tree yet? Where did it, or will it, come from? Chopped down in your backyard? Picked out after an outing in the woods or to a tree farm in the country? Bought at a local farmer's market or -- as is the bane (I mean convenience) of us Suburban Farmgirls -- plucked from the nearest corner lot that sprouted last week the day after Thanksgiving?
(Hard to imagine there are any farmgirls out there who go for an artificial tree -- are there??)
Welcome to December, that season I wait all year for… yet which inevitably sneaks up on me way too suddenly, just the same. There I was, perfectly content in the whole cornucopias-and-crunchy-leaves groove of the last holiday when, overnight, my pumpkin-and-brown color scheme is all wrong wrong wrong!
When do you typically make the pilgrims-to-Santas switch?
I'm a sweater girl. Oh, I'm devoted to my sturdy, throw-it-on, functional fleece. But there's nothing like thick wool or supersoft cashmere to make me feel warm, cozy -- and something extra. Classic, maybe? Distinct? Stylin'? Many of my sweaters were knit by my gifted late mom, adding a whole extra meaning to "warm-and-fuzzy."
What I really like about hand-knits: Their personality! Nobody else has a sweater, scarf, vest, etc. just like it. And when the knitter goes that extra level beyond basic to create something with a story -- it's magic!
So now that the weather's cold and I've hauled out the woolies, it seems like a fitting time to share some standouts from my Witty Knit Hall of Fame:
You know the expression, "You can take the boy out of the small town, but you can't take the small town out of the boy"? That was my dad. He died last week, just 20 days shy of his 88th birthday.
Sylvester Patyk may have raised a tract-house-full of suburbanites (five of us) and lived in three different 'burbs himself, but for my whole life he seemed like a fish out of water. He was a small town fellow through and through, born in tiny Wakefield, Michigan, among the lakes, forests, farms, and mines of the beautiful Upper Peninsula. (Picture Bedford Falls from that old movie, "It's a Wonderful Life.")
I'm still processing his being gone – it was amazingly sudden, even though he'd been in decline – but his passing has me thinking a lot about a person's legacy. And how that legacy is tied to place...
Paula Spencer
is a “MaryJane Farmgirl” and journalist who’s partial to writing about common sense and women’s interests. She’s the Woman’s Day magazine “Momfidence” columnist and a contributing editor of Parenting, the author of Momfidence!, and a collaborator on 8 other books, including The Happiest Toddler on the Block. Way at the opposite end of the age spectrum, she’s also a senior editor of Caring.com, a leading eldercare resource. Best and not least, she’s a mom of four.
She’s lived in five great farm states (Michigan, Iowa, New York, Tennessee, and now North Carolina), though never on a farm. She’s nevertheless inordinately fond of heirloom tomatoes, fine stitching, early mornings, and making pies. And sock monkeys. You can learn more about Paula in future posts.
