Hope you have a wonderfully merry Christmas -- and keep a sense of wonder and delight just like grandson Capt. Adorable.
Christmas
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Tag Archives: family
Graduation
I am so proud of my awesomely wonderful Younger Daughter, who 
graduated summa cum laude today from the University of Alabama at Birmingham with honors in English. In addition, she was chosen to carry the School of Arts and Humanities banner — she was a banner-arian! And she did a fantastic job, too. We all got great reserved seats because she was a special honored graduate, which meant we were up close and personal and didn’t have to wait in line in the cold and the rain, for which we thanked her very much. And I only cried just a little, little bit. As of this moment right now, after more than 20 years, I have no children in any kind of school whatsoever. Sort of strange, you know? Wasn’t it just yesterday my daughters were doing Christmas pageants in preschool? But, bonus: No more checks to UAB. I asked Dear Husband if he felt rich now that we were no longer paying tuition, and he just sighed so I’m guessing that’s probably a “no.” Anyway, my parents and my brother and his family, all from Tennessee, came down, along with Younger Daughter’s dad and step-mother and we all went out to eat afterwards and had a marvelous time. Younger Daughter said afterwards that when she got back to her apartment, her roommate had a surprise “congratulations” party waiting for her. Sweet! I noticed something, though: There are very few “Happy Graduation” cards in December. I had to search all over for some, and then the selection was sparse. So if you’ve got a December graduate in your future, stock up on cards and decorations in May. I’m just saying. Also: Congratulations, Younger Daughter! I am so proud to be your mom.
Family and Christmas Trees
If you’re the oldest in the family and a girl and you’ve got one or more younger brothers, you know what a responsibility it is to keep those boys in line. I’ve been at it for almost 50 years and apparently my job isn’t done yet. Take, for instance, decorating the family Christmas tree. When we were young, Christmas began when our dad brought the big packing-barrel of tree ornaments out of storage and begin untangling the lights. As soon as the tree was draped with twinkling red and green and yellow-gold, we kids took over. (And it’s only now that I recognize my mother’s genius in making us children feel it was an honor and privilege to decorate the tree, thereby marking at least one chore off her holiday to-do list — a lesson I, sadly, never learned to apply to my own family. Sigh.) Anyway, I am four years older than my brother — our other brother is 16 years younger than me and didn’t figure into my growing-up adventures — and I always feel felt anointed with special powers of superiority, no matter what the subject. During the holidays, that subject was the Christmas tree. As my now-middle brother and I unpacked the ornaments and placed them on the tree, we inevitably began arguing. Why? Because my brother couldn’t follow basic principles of Christmas-tree design! I mean, c’mon! Who doesn’t know you’re supposed to put big ornaments in the back and lighter ones in front? Who doesn’t understand you’re supposed to balance colors and texture?? Who doesn’t get it that you put shiny ornaments next to lights to enhance their shininess??? It’s not rocket science here, people!!!! Whoops … sorry … deep breath … deep breath … As you can see, I maybe still have an obsessive-compulsive problem with tree-decorating. And with my brother. Because when I went to my parents’ house this past weekend to help them put up their tree (It is a privilege and an honor, right?), I found a note from my brother staking out placement for his favorite ornament: “Do not rehang. Sister, this means you! It’s perfect.” My mom said that he said he would have done all the tree decorating when he was there the day before but he knew I’d stage a redo. Just because he’s now a photographer and a college professor who teaches photography and art, I guess maybe he thinks he knows something about design. And big sisters.
Marriage — and Tweeting
It’s hard to believe how much technology has changed our everyday lives. When I was growing up in the 1960s, my family had one TV and one telephone — you needed parental permission to turn on the TV and you had to stay in one place to talk on the phone. How rich we felt as we graduated to more TVs — I had one of my own! In my room!!! — and more phones. I remember a Christmas when my brother and I were thrilled with our granddad’s gift to us: A reel-to-reel tape recorder. Talk about state-of-the art! Then, in the 1980s, it got harder to keep up with each newest thing — as soon as we got it, whatever “it” was, Version 2.1 came out. Changes kept coming, rapid-fire fast. It took me forever to remember to walk around and talk on cordless phones without being tethered to one spot — how amazing was it that you could take the phone into another room while you were talking? I used my paycheck from working at our church’s Mother’s Day Out program to buy one of those newfangled VCR things, and the delight my daughters found in watching Disney’s “Cinderella” over and over never diminished. Around that time, my then-husband laughingly dismissed a friend’s question wondering if we’d ever be able to play CDs in our cars, but of course, he’s also the one who shook his head in the mid 1990s at the preposterous idea of buying things over the Internet when I excitedly told him I could access the Simplicity sewing company and check out their patterns online — “That’s crazy. It’ll never work. Who’d want to do that?” he said. But, to be fair, he wasn’t the only skeptic. Weren’t we all, really? I mean, who would have thought years ago we’d have phones with us at all times and that we could watch movies and TV and listen to music anywhere we wanted? And who could have predicted I’d start every morning accepting virtual agricultural gifts and sharing my meandering thoughts with thousands of people I’ve never met? I love technology! And I love my now-husband, too — our relationship has spanned the range of communication from good ol’-fashioned e-mail to texting and tweeting. After, where would marriage be if we couldn’t keep up with our spouses 24/7? Read more at my weekly newspaper column at http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20091204/ARTICLES/912045004.
Home Decor
Anybody who’s worried about today’s young people 
shouldn’t — at least based on their decorating skills. Isn’t this apartment absolutely adorable? I’d move in in a minute! It belongs to Rachel, a 25-year-old who’s one of Younger Daughter’s friends in Birmingham, Alabama. Rachel is a recent college graduate and recently started working — and although interior decorating is not her field, I think it should be. I loved the way Rachel used 
inexpensive touches — she shops in consignment and discount stores — to express her style and create a calm and 
peaceful environment combined with a sense of whimsy. And she’s got such inspiring ideas. For instance, she paints small wooden window shutters, hangs them vertically on the wall and puts photos in the individual slats — brilliant! She also found a practice climbing wall with various size handholds and set it up above a doorway for stress-releasing fun. And I love the way she uses the simple basic elements of candles and coffee beans for earthy and fragrant tablescapes. And she has such a good eye — her comfy thrift-store sofa and weathered chest of drawers with intriguing mismatched drawer pulls look as if they came from a top designer boutique. Rachel’s efforts have convinced me that when it comes to interior decor, money and time constraints are no excuse. Lesson learned. Thank you, Rachel!
Thanksgiving
Food, friends and family -- what could be better? Hope everyone is having a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.
Food
My husband and I were finishing our lunch at Ruby Tuesday today (And is it my imagination or does Ruby Tuesday change its menu, like, every three months?) when I noticed that, as usual, I’d left a good part of my salad-bar meal on the table. “I am such a messy eater,” I said, aggrieved, in that way we wives have of begging our husbands to please please please disagree with us, and my husband began to point out, as he usually does, that at least I didn’t leave a good part of my meal in my lap instead, when suddenly he leaned over the table toward me and my leftover mess and said, “Take a picture of that and then I’ll tell you why.” So because I never always do what my husband requests, I snapped a photo of the somehow artfully arranged lettuce and carrot pieces and turned the camera over to him. He zipped through the review menu, found the photo I’d just taken — this one — and gave the camera back to me, saying, “You need to post this on your blog and say, ‘In a California restaurant, this would be a $40 meal’.” So, I did. And the funny thing is that he’s probably right.
And in more food news, I thought I was being smart by doing my Thanksgiving grocery shopping today — surely the crowds wouldn’t start this early, right? Wrong, of course. Most crowded were the paper-goods aisles as people stood and debated the merits of foam over plastic plates and the dairy section, where people mostly just stood. In my way. So if you haven’t done your shopping yet, you may want to consider one of those 2 a.m. expeditions. I’m just saying.
Children
At almost 20 months, grandson Capt. Adorable hasn't quite yet grasped the concept of "if the shoe fits ...!"
Food
Anytime I can rummage through a grocery store where the primary 
language is anything but English — not so common here in Alabama, let me tell you — I take it. And one of my favorites is Nabeel’s Cafe and Market, in Homewood, Alabama (right next to downtown Birmingham). I don’t even know what most of this is, but it’s fascinating to wander around the aisles and try to figure it out. Nabeel’s Cafe is a favorite place to eat, too — I’m especially in love with the hummus (accompanied by fried pita chips, of course), bruschetta and Greek-fried potatoes. And if you’ve got restless young ‘uns with you who are less not-so-much interested in sitting quietly and discussing the latest judging mistakes on So You Think You Can Dance and debating the merits of Survivor’s Evil Russell, there’s a nearby playground for quick energy releases. Plus, you can take home a bag of fried pita chips. What’s not to like? Check out Nabeel’s at http://www.nabeels.com.
Food
To wrap up a fun but busy fall weekend of football, work, friends, family and work — the work and football parts are all my husband, you know — we celebrated with a home-cooked home-grilled steak dinner. Which turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. Actually, I just sliced the bread and tossed the salad and chopped the ends off the asparagus and Dear Husband did the rest. Yes, well, OK, I did whip up a batch of my famous oven fries and a pan of yummy sautéed mushrooms, but that’s not really cooking — it’s just fixin’, you know. We patted ourselves on the back — after wiping off our hands, of course — for frugally and deliciously and sustainably eating at home and had to wait about three hours to work up an appetite for dessert: Pumpkin pie from my mom, who cooks supper almost every night and would never think about bragging about it to the blogosphere. Unlike her shameless daughter.
Coffee with Cathy 