Should Mom's Play Match Maker?

I'm not going to beat around the bush. I would love to be a grandma some day. I see my sisters and my friends that have grandchildren and have a little twinge of heart melt, thinking someday. I need to be honest, but I don't want to be that mom. First, I want my kids to have partners who are truly that, partners in all things.  Even when you think you've got a partner that you share goals and priorities with, something about having kids, makes  it harder to maintain that balance. I've experienced it, and have seen it a lot. Single parenting is tough. I know some great single parents, and for the most part, are better off than had they stayed with the other parent, or who were unattached singles when they became a parent with intentionalality. That doesn't make the money stretch farther, or the chores get done faster with only one set of adult hands. No, I first want my kids to feel solid and secure in their place in life, and with who, if anyone, they want to build that life, before smudgy fingers join their household. DS in particular is so far from being ready to parent, I wouldn't wish that for any child.

Still, I can't squash my hopes for someday. Neither older kid is in a relationship, at least that I am aware of. As I read blogs by young writers, or videos from young You Tubers, or read about their lives in their parents  (usually mom's) blog, I play a little match maker in my head. 'YouTuber Ben's friend James would be perfect for DD#2. They both love classic films, the outdoors, and travel. Mrs. Sassy Money's daughter, K sounds like she has the same interests as DS. They are into music, the beach, and fitness.'

When DD first started her last job on a regular schedule, and before she decided to move back home and jump start a new search, she was living in a very rural area. Slim opportunities to meet many young people her age period, let alone a potential soul mate. One weekend when she was home, she indulged her mom, who was quite tipsy after drinking a bottle of red, by letting me  sift thorough prospective dating candidates on a web site. FarmersOnly.Com is a real honest web site that links single country people together.  The slogan, "City folk just don't get it" was quite apt. Perhaps it was just the current members, but the thought of DD being willing to date, let alone even hang out with a man who was looking for a girl who would be, "up with the sun to serve him breakfast before they labored, he in the fields, and she in the house," was not just slim, but none. 

Now, both live a sizable distance from me, so even if I was inclined, I am not in a position to help find them love interests. That is just as well. I don't really think mom should play that role in their children's life. However, if any of you readers are so inclined to make an introduction to someone in your life to one of my older two, who am I to interfere?

I love good Hallmark movie.  I've not seen this one, but something tells me things will go all shits up for mom at some point, but all will end happily ever after. 

Broken Bowls-More Than Just Shattered Glass

Rather than dote on my sad disappointment yesterday I focused on getting some tasks done.  What happened before I started baking, I had pushed aside.  In pulling out a mixing bowl I absentmindedly pulled too quick, and out of my cupboard came a stack crashing to the floor.  Did I mention I have a clutter problem and desperately need better organization?  The victims to the shambles were not one, but two parts of my beloved three piece yellow stacking bowls.  There was nothing special about these bowls-just ordinary nesting mixing bowls. They were though precious to me because of what they meant in my family history.

These mixing bowls ended up being part of a master box of kitchen items that my mom had collected and assemble during the months that preceded my wedding.  Originally though, these bowls were not for me.  She would pick up measuring cups and spoons, rubber scrapers, wooden spoons, pie plates, and cookie sheets-all the odds and ends a simple kitchen cook should need, but likely a bride of 21 wouldn't think to know were more important than selecting wine glasses.  She had 8 daughters and two daughter in-laws, and I was the ninth wedding she attended showers for and picked out gifts. This collecting before the time came became an art. The bowls were actually bought for a Christmas present for my sister, but then my mom came across on sale, the Pyrex style, similar to her own, she knew my sister had really wanted. These bowls were picked up on a clearance table at the downtown Ben Franklin, no return after sale, so sat in a closet for nearly a year. 

I remember opening my "goodie box" at one of my wedding showers, and being so surprised to see the bowls in the box. I had forgotten about them. They were packaged loose, as I'm sure they were purchased, with the other kitchen utensils assembled around them, and some inside the bowls.  It just so happened that I had also received two sets of stackable Pyrex bowls at the same shower.  I remember driving home with my mom, and she being quite quiet.  I broke the silence by thanking her again for the gift, and that it must  have been a lot of work to find and put all those items together. She had a funny reaction, but I can't remember her words, something along the lines of  an apology for giving a second hand gift. I must have reassured her the bowls were terrific, and that I knew I would use them all the time. 

Well, it just so happens I did use those bowls-all the time.  The large one was my cake, and brownie bowl and also was great for baking huge hot dishes for family pot lucks.  It fit nicely inside a round basket I received at some point, and I got compliments on the set whenever I took  it places.  It made a great popcorn bowl for munching on  in front of the T.V. The medium bowl was the perfect size for  green bean casserole, a Midwestern favorite, and as the kids got older, perfect for them making their own packages of ramen noodles, because it was big enough to not have to break the noodles to cook them. The small one was perfect for reheating a can or even two of vegetables-being both oven and microwave safe, it did the job without having to move the racks.  When the kids got older, all three were used to  give each kid heir own bowl of popcorn and not having to share, even if from the same batch. At least one of those bowls was put to use on over 9,000 days. Ironically, I never even took either set of Pyrex out of their factory sealed box, and they have been sitting on a storage shelve for the 23 years we have been in this house. I didn't need them-I had my yellow bowls.  I will open one set now, as I will miss the functionality of the two smaller bowls in my kitchen.

Things break in houses all the time, and it is really a marvel with all the banging those bowls took that they survived this long.  I kept the other two sets for just such a time when one or all would break.  My mom passed away four years ago this November.  She worked hard to give all ten of us good lives, and it was not without struggle.  I'm sure the cost of providing a wedding to a household of girls, no matter how happy she was for us, caused financial angst.  I never looked at those bowls as second rate.  My mom knew what I meant when I referred to "my big yellow bowl."  See, she had her own big yellow bowl, the Pyrex one my sister wanted a copy of.  When my dad passed away two years later, and we were getting all their things sorted, having the  grandkids to take things that were meaningful to them, my sisters son only wanted Grandmas' yellow bowl.  I hope I can make mine last, and will be honored to tell my grandchildren how I came to receive it. 

The Beauty of Ordinary Days

"Well, that's what life is - this collection of extraordinarily ordinary moments. We just need to pay attention to them all. Wake up and pay attention to how beautiful it all is." -Alexander Payne

About half way through the movie Nebraska, I started realizing just about every character resembled someone either I knew or remembered from my childhood.  I was a little bored up until that point, but was a captive audience as it was a limited selection on a transatlantic flight, and I was wide awake.  The basic premise is a man thinks he has won a grand prize, and is intent to go claim it, despite his age and deteriorating health.  His son agrees to take him, and they end up bonding in an ordinary, yet unexpected way for both of them. I felt my mind drifting, remembering some of the events that were part of my life.  Well actually, none would be considered an event, but rather moments, ingrained in my memory.  Since losing my parents, mom four years ago, and dad two years ago, the memories while bittersweet, in looking back, become simply beautiful moments.

I'm old enough to remember the days before pump your own filling stations, and my dad pulling up to the pump Sunday mornings after church, filling the car for my mom for the week ahead.  There was one station with the "hot"  pump attendant, and getting a look at him while he used the soapy water and squeegee to clean the windows. While he was  beautiful to look at, the real beauty was in the weekly ritual, which meant my mom didn't have to start Monday morning, or any other morning with a stop at the gas station, an ordinary action that in its meaning was anything but ordinary.

I remember the memorial day services, and meeting up with other family friends for hot dogs and pop, at the VFW club later in the day.  These men, friends, more like brothers,  of my dad's, were of the Greatest Generation, WWII vets. I remember walking down to the same VFW club after middle school sports, where my mom sometimes, not often, stopped for a little beverage instead of going home after work, saving a trip back into town. If we weren't in a hurry, she would sit and visit with friends sipping her sloe gin and orange juice, while my sister and I munched on Old Dutch potato chips and a coke from the mixer gun, freezing cold over ice.  I remember wedding receptions of my sisters, and anniversary parties for my parents in the back social hall.  There is still a VFW post in our small town, but the cost of upkeep, and diminishing interest in a "club" meant the post sold the bar and accompanying hall, no longer deemed fancy enough for the weddings of today. The vets now meet in a space in a strip mall.

Being 10 of us kids, one of us was often the acolyte on Christmas morning, as my dad ushered. I remember my dad being beside me one Christmas morning, when I woke up in the little overflow room next to the church sanctuary, after fainting in the front of the church.  I was the acolyte, lighting the Christmas morning candles.  I foolishly wore a  new hot sweater, underneath the acolyte robe, which added to a crowded church, meant a recipe for disaster.

 My mom, each summer, used one of her precious vacation weeks, to  support our 4-H activities around the county fair.  As we girls were the ultimate procrastinators, it was not uncommon to be sewing a hem, or wrapping a loaf of bread the morning of judging.  She would get us to and from the fairgrounds, and take a full day shift working the 4-H lunch counter with us as well.  My parents were not particularly demonstrative, but they created beautiful moments in ordinary days. 

My dad found the styles his grand kids wore in his later years a bit perplexing.  He always got a chuckle at seeing the girls in their name brand blue jeans with fashionable wear and tear on new models. My daughter was running late yesterday morning to church, and threw on an old pair of comfortable jeans.  The jeans were clean, but even by our own casual contemporary worship standards, a bit "holier" than I would have liked. She sat and played with a hole in her knee during the sermon.  The words of my dad came in my head and I wrote my daughter a little note on the pew note pad. "Grandpa would be wondering if you paid for those holes."  She smiled, and wrote back.  "No he would have said, 'I could have made those holes and saved you a bunch of money."  I smiled, but felt a tear in the corner of my eye.

That's my dad and me in one of the "big moments".