How Zack became a fan of chocolate milk...

OK... Here's what happened.

In December of 2002, we had a winter weather event. There was a little snow. There was a lot of ice. The power went out just about everywhere.

We were living at Crooked Chute and while there was a wood-burning fireplace, we didn't have gas logs. Or a generator.

Since it was as cold as _________________ (fill-in-the-blank with your own favorite simile), we all piled into the family room, putting sheets over the doors to the kitchen and the office. Mind you, when the power is out in 23 degree weather, nine-foot ceilings are NOT a selling point for a house.

Once we managed to scrape together a small pile of fire wood, we tried to stay still and close to the fire. It wouldn't have been too bad if we never ever had to get up and go down the icy hall to use the bathroom. Brrrrrrrr!!! On so many levels.

After 24 hours we and our next-door-neighbors, the Przybylas, realized that the power was going to be out for a while. We pooled the contents of our refrigerators and what we couldn't cook for dinner on the gas grill outside, we put into coolers on our back deck because: a) outside it was below freezing while inside it was a toasty 48 degrees, so the food stood a better chance of staying fresh on the deck, and b) if you put a whole bunch of really cold things together, they tend to help each other stay cool.

At dinner we learned that Joy is, like, the best cook EVER! She made these kabob things that were the best I've had. Joy rocks. She should have a post too. She's from Texas originally and has a hospitality streak a mile wide. She's the only person I know who still knocks on your door with a glass of tea in her hand and says, "Can we visit?" Amazing.

Anyway... Joy, being the superwoman she is, had a carton of chocolate milk in a cooler on our porch. And it wasn't just any chocolate milk. She took plain whole milk and mixed it with the exact amount and kind of chocolate her kids liked.

At night the Przybylas headed home to sleep by a gas log fire and our little family all huddled together under blankets in front of the wood-burning fire. Zack was around a year old and would drink a bottle now and then, especially at night. So when he woke up around 2:30am and it was SOOOOO cold and he was crying, Jimmy grabbed a bottle and filled it with the milk from our cooler so Zack would have a snack and go back to sleep. Only Zack drank the milk and declared it "Party Time." He was up over two hours and we were dumbfounded as to why.

In the morning light, Jimmy went back to the cooler to get Zack some milk and was perplexed as to why the carton was so full. He knew we'd given Zack a bottle in the night, but the milk looked as if it hadn't been touched. Then we had a thought... "Uh oh!"

Sure enough, there was only about 1/3 of a carton of chocolate milk left in Joy's cooler. Oops! We gave Zack a bottle full of chocolate milk. It WAS Party Time!

From that moment on, if we gave Zack a bottle of plain milk, he'd refuse to drink it, but chocolate milk... look out!

Harris Teeter redo

Ever since the Ice Storm of '02 our boy Zacky has been addicted to chocolate milk. It's along story that deserves a blog post of its own, but I'm not going to explain it here.

[Focus, Norma. Focus.]

Have you seen the price of chocolate milk?! Oy! The good kind he really likes is nearly $5 for a half gallon. Seriously. So... we're letting Zack get hopped up on hormones and drink regular milk, but he's drinking a LOT less of it than he used to, so it evens out.

I found chocolate milk in a GLASS milk jug at Harris Teeter. Yeah, that's right. Harris Teeter. Glass milk jugs. I know! I didn't know they still exist either.

Anyway, it's a pretty little glass jug and I couldn't resist using it for flowers. Aren't they just darlin'? Yes, they are from my yard. And yes, I'm cheating as I took this picture a couple of months ago. The hydrangea bush has pretty much maxed out. But back then I just thought I had a cute vase. Now I'm celebrating the rebirth of an object that would have otherwise landed in the recycing bin.

No, I'm not going all left-wing militant environmentalist. I'm just trying to be a good steward of the resources with which the Lord has blessed us. And it's really kind of fun!

Feedsacks...

I am blessed to be the daughter of Melvin Bennett. She's my mom. Yes, I know Melvin is a boy's name. She does too. My Granny, Ethel Southern, thought Mom was going to be a boy. She'd picked out the name "Melvin Louis." When Mom turned out to be a girl, Granny added an "e" to the end of her middle name and thus was born "Melvin Louise Southern."

Growing up I heard all sort of stories about the olden days. I had a few favorites as a little kid. But as I approached adulthood, got married and began having children of my own, I came to treasure the wisdom of these two fine women of God.

I can remember in 8th or 9th grade getting a new dress. My mom said, "That looks like a feedsack dress." A what?

Off and on I'd heard Mom and Granny talk about feedsacks and making dresses and shirts from them. Gotta be honest... I didn't really "get" what they were talking about. But one day I sat with them in my mom's den and we got to talking about the olden days of the Great Depression when, whatever you got, you used it until you couldn't use it anymore.

Take feedsacks. (OK... click here for a primer on feedsacks. And click here to see a nice selection of vintage feedsack fabrics.)

They had a tobacco farm. And they had chickens. Chicken feed came in sacks made of very durable decorative fabrics. Once the feed was out of the sack, they'd wash the sack and make a dress or apron or shirt or bonnet or curtains or whatever else out of it. The bonnets must last forever because I've never heard tell of anyone making a bonnet into anything else. But the dresses, aprons, curtains and shirts eventually wore out.

You'd think that'd be the end of them, wouldn't you? I mean, when we get an ugly stain or giant tear in an article of clothing, even Goodwill won't take it. So it goes into the trash. Rag bag... for what? We use Swiffer Dusters to dust and wash dishes in the dishwasher. But back in the day, they would cut up worn out adult feedsack clothes and make children's clothes or dishrags or, my personal favorite, quilts.

I have a nice collection of quilts that Mom and Granny and Grandma Bennett (my dad's mom) made from feedsack fabric. And I wouldn't take a (Momma, you know I can't say that on this blog)... uh...anything in this world for one of them. I will give them away someday, though. To Kelsey. And to Zane's and Zack's wives. Treasures like those need to belong to women. There's a heart connection between the generations of women in a family.

So, I come by that hey-don't-throw-that-away-we-might-be-able-to-use-it-sometime philosophy honestly. Except that with the help of the Flylady, I have been able to part with some of the old junk. Some.

But before I run out and buy something new, it is my family legacy to look around and see if I can "make do" by using something I already have for a different purpose. I thought I was old school in that, and then the other day, my YOUNG friend, Sarah, made this wonderful post on her blog, "Create." How inspiring!

So I'm going to take a little challenge and see what around here I can "repurpose." Check back in a couple of days. I'll post the results.

Getting an education in education...

I spent two days last week at the convention for a really large Christian school association. There were some good things I learned.

The first seminar I attended was titled "The Battle for Our Families." The speaker was one of the more passionate speakers with respect to the preservation of the family unit in a society that seems bent on destroying it. He talked about having Family Markers, citing Joshua 4. Remember that chapter where the Lord told Joshua to move 12 large boulders over to the Promised Land side of the Jordan and make a monument? The whole point being that when the children asked, "What's that monument all about?" the parents would tell how the Lord delivered them out of slavery in Egypt and into the land promised to their forefathers.

He encouraged the educators as parents themselves to set markers for their own families. His wife is an art teacher and has painted each of their children's life verses on their bedroom walls. He shared about how his own dad sold a piece of property that had a huge pile of rocks on it. That rock pile had been where the speaker prayed in tough times when he was growing up. When he told his dad its significance, his dad had the pile of rocks moved onto dirt that would remain family land. Now there's a literal pile of rocks that the speaker's kids look at and ask, "What's that all about?" And he shares the legacy of faith with them.

Then he hit us with probably the best moment of the whole conference. He showed a clip from the "Opie and the Spoiled Kid" episode of The Andy Griffith Show. It's one of my favorites. If you have 25 minutes and can click the link, you can watch the whole episode. In it Opie learns from a very manipulative new kid on the block to throw tantrums and make demands of his dad. My favorite parts are how Andy handles Opie's tantrum and how Andy handles the Spoiled Kid's dad. Classic.

Earlier I had a lot of other stuff here. Largely stuff the Lord is working on in my heart concerning the philosophy of teaching and why I went back to do it. But in light of a conversation I had with Tracey via old skool email, I think I'm going to cut it off here, with the positive.

And, by the way Tracey, last night my quiet time was Hebrews 10:32 - 12:4. What do you think that means? ;-D

What it was was football... by Andy Griffith...

Pepper got an "F"...

Done.

I am done with blogging about this election. Done.

I'm thinking that the best use of my time at the moment would be in prayer for the election.

Won't you join me?