Still swamped. Neglecting my blog. Haven't forgotten about the recipe. Just swamped. Here's a list of what I wish I had time to write about right now but will write about when life is normal again:

• Funeral
• Amy, version 2.0
• Bathroom
• Theme song
• Food (Sophia's soup, Wendy's chili)
• Halloween prep

But, until I get things under control, I'll just be thinking about blogging and writing (oh, and reading and maybe some scrapbooking...wouldn't some down time be lovely?) and giggling about this page, which I hereby command each & every one of you to click on and laugh at.

Be good.

I've not forgotten to post my mac & cheese recipe, nor the artichoke dip one, either. I've not vanished off the face of the Internet. I'm just deeply involved in a bathroom remodel. Not sure where Kendell or I got this wild hair, but we're painting and tearing floors up and arguing over which tile to put down. I'll be back for a real blog post when this is all finished, recipes promised!!!

ps, my Big Picture workshop is up, here, if you're interested!

I saw this meme on Sophia's blog and am stealing it from her, just because I liked it! Feel free to steal for your blog, too. If you want.

1. The best thing you cooked last week? Homemade macaroni and cheese. I have to say...I make excellent homemade macaroni and cheese! I have to turn off my "holy cow this is fattening" internal voice. And because it’s fattening I don’t make it very often. But—it’s good!

2. If money, time and babysitting were no object, where would you go and with who? I have two answers to this one. First, I want to go on a hike-the-Alps trip with my sister Becky. You set it up so that your baggage is portered to the next little hotel on your route, and then you hike all day. Day-long hikes and sleeping in a hotel—doesn’t that sound perfect? My second dream trip is a LONG trip to the British Isles. I’d like to do all the touristy stuff, spend time in Ireland doing family history research, and hike the Scottish Highlands. Since this is a fantasy trip, part of the time I’d have a friend there, part of the time my husband, part of the time my kids, and part of the time I’d be all by myself!

3. When was the last time you cried? I tend to cry a lot. My most recent: I went to the doctor yesterday (just the yearly special check-up). When I came out into the central office area, all four doctors in the office were standing together. They’ve each delivered one of my babies and I started crying right there (but in a dignified, silent, tears-rolling-down-your-cheeks sort of way) over the fact that I probably won’t ever be pregnant again. I don’t think I will ever really stop feeling sad about that.

4. Five things you were doing this month 10 years ago. In October of 1997 I was:

• pregnant with Jake (I think I had a Jamba Juice and a bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips every day that fall, the only thing that tasted really good) and
• half-way through an 18-credit semester at BYU and
• potty-training Haley (my hardest to potty train, btw. Jake and Nathan were CAKE!) and
• excited about finishing our basement (we worked on it as we had money to pay for it, so it didn’t get finished until 1999, lol) and
• caught up in that getting-ready-for-a-baby excitement, especially the shopping for clothes

5. Five things on your to-do list today

• watch my nephew, Jace, who is Kaleb’s age (my SIL Cindy and I swap kids once a week)
• watch a couple of DVR’d tv shows, since one of the tuners is broken and the whole thing has to be replaced, so I need to watch those shows before they’re gone
• try to get up the courage to quilt my Halloween quilt (yep, still trying to muster courage for that)
• pay some bills
• take the kids to a Halloween carnival tonight

6. Five favorite snacks

• healthy snacks: snap peas, nuts of any kind, raspberries
• sweet snacks: chocolate in nearly any form
• baked snacks: hot chocolate chip & oatmeal cookies
• chip-and-dip combo: corn chips and artichoke dip (while pregnant with Nathan, I craved this all the time and nearly always had a pan of artichoke dip in the fridge)
• travel snack: I’m not sure why, but when we are traveling I always want almond M&Ms

7. Five Bad Habits

• Popping my knuckles
• Picking my fingernails (and my kids', if they’ll let me)
• Soda (which my doctor insisted, yesterday, I must stop drinking)
• TV (I definitely watch too much)
• Internet surfing (granted, it’s hanging out at Amazon looking for new books to read or reading blogs, but STILL!)

8. Five favorite foods

• oatmeal with brown sugar, cinnamon, and cream
• fettuccine Alfredo
• pesto
• mashed potatoes & gravy
• fruit

9. Five plces I've been (this is a fairly lame response from me, since I want to travel but haven’t had many opportunities, yet)

• Niagara Falls
• Hawaii
• New York City
• San Francisco
• Mexico

10. Five Favorite Memories

• The days my kids were born
• Lake Powell trips as a kid
• My days at BYU (if someone would just pay me to be an eternal student, that’d be my perfect career!)
• A few experiences as a teenager
• Some of my teaching experiences

A big THANK YOU to everyone who's sent encouraging emails over the past two-ish weeks. The things causing the bad days have not gone away, but I am coping much better. To celebrate that, I thought I'd post a list of pick-me-ups...things I turn to to make myself feel better.

• downtime with Haley. Kendell took the boys for a boy-ish weekend of 4-wheeling in the mountains, while Haley and I stayed home, vegged out, and watched movies in my bed while eating take-out from Sonic. Have I mentioned that I adore my daughter?
• walks in the mountain. We live fairly close to the Provo River Trail, and I've been taking Kaleb there for walks lately. It's a toss up, what makes me happier: being outside in the fall or watching Kaleb's happiness at being outside in the fall. Give him a trail to follow and he exudes seemingly-limitless energy; he quite literally hippity-hops.
• baking and baking and baking. Since last Tuesday, I've made two batches of banana-nut bread, two big loaves of pumpkin bread, and a batch of chocolate chip cookies. It's not, almost, even about eating. It's about the process and the scents and the warmth of the kitchen.
• soccer game. Jake had a heartbreaker last week---he was in the final two teams for the championship, and after thirty minutes of overtime and a kick-off, his team lost. It didn't pick me up that they lost, of course, but it did make me smile to watch him working so hard and showing his dedication. He's not the best soccer player the kid-leagues have ever seen, but he holds his own.
• fall. I can't help it. It makes me happier to be alive in the midst of October. Here, the leaves in the mountains are nearly finished, but the valley is lighting up. My maple is almost yellow. Who doesn't love October?
• my kids. Somehow, they've all got this "mom needs TLC" radar. They know exactly when to give me a hug. Writing that, I realize it sounds a little trite. Who gets emotional strength from their children? But there is something so satisfying in the sincerity of a child's embrace.
• cold-weather cooking. I made chili last week and no one complained. (I serve my chili with a cornmeal pancake on the top of the bowl, then cheese and sour cream, so with each bite you get everything.) I made goulash, which I've not made for at least ten years. (No one but me really liked it, but it is a childhood favorite of mine.) Homemade macaroni and cheese, too. OK, it's fairly obvious I'm emotionally eating, isn't it?
• reading. What Will Suffice (poems about poetry), The Gravedigger's Daughter (Joyce Carol Oates' newest), Writers on Writing (essays about essays). By the tub, by my bed, in my purse, respectively.
• trying. Taking a deep breath and examining my life---trying to nurture this little spark of something I feel growing up through me. Not sure what it is or where it will take me but not wanting to lose it.

So, tell me---what are your pick-me-ups when you're in the middle of a difficult time?

In other news, Kendell wasn't among the 200 employees Novell laid off this week. At least, not yet---his team is being outsourced to India in January. So, he's not unemployed yet, but he will be fairly soon. I'm still processing this but am surprised at the anger I feel over the entire experience. Will write something about it when I can think rationally on the topic. THANKS AGAIN for all your support---I can't tell you how much it means to me! 

I've got approximately 25 minutes left of today, and I just discovered that it is blog action day, and while those scant 25 minutes mean I probably won't get anyone else to write about this topic---the environment---I'm still going to write about it anyway, because it is something I think about every day of my life. First, this quote, which comes from this amazingly distressful article from Granta magazine:

"For fifteen years now, some small percentage of the world's scientists and diplomats and activists has inhabited one of those strange dreams where the dreamer desperately needs to warn someone about something bad and imminent; but somehow, no matter how hard he shouts, the other person in the dream---standing smiling, perhaps, with his back to an oncoming train---can't hear him. This group, this small percentage, knows that the world is about to change more profoundly than at any time in the history of human civilization. And yet, so far, all they have achieved is to add another line to the long list of human problems---people think about "global warming" in the way they think about "violence on television" or "growing trade deficits,," as a marginal concern to them, if a concern at all. Enlightened governments make smallish noises and negotiate smallish treaties; enlightened people look down on American for its blind piggishness. Hardly anyone, however, has fear in their guts.

Why? Because, I think, we are fatally confused about time and space. Though we know that our culture has placed our own lives on a demonic fast-forward, we imagine that the earth must work on some other timescale. The long slow accretion of epochs---the Jurassic, the Cretaceous, the Pleistocene---lulls us into imagining that the world is big and that we are small. This humility is attractive, but also historic and no longer useful. In the world as we have made it, the opposite is true. Each of us is big enough, for example, to produce our own cloud of carbon dioxide. As a result, we---our cars and our industry---have managed to raise the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide, which had been stable at 275 parts per million throughout human civilization, to about 380 parts per million, a figure that is climbing by one and a half parts per million each year. This increase began with the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century, and it has been accelerating ever since. The consequence, if we take a median from several respectable scientific projections, is that the world's temperature will rise by five degrees Fahrenheit over the next hundred years, to make it hotter than it has been for 400 million years. At some level, these are the only facts worth knowing about our earth." Bill McKibben

I'm not certain exactly when I read that---at least four years ago---and it has haunted me ever since. Maybe it's the image of that bad dream you can't wake up from. The realization that global warming is not just a political issue like class size or health insurance. Or the startling facts. Or the fact that it did stir a swirl of fear in my gut, one that has yet to settle down. I do what I can---plant trees, drive the least amount possible, use energy efficient light bulbs and appliances. I'm always after my family to turn the lights off; I keep the heat down in winter and the a.c. up in the summer. I recycle as much as I can. But I do continue to fear. I look at how the world has changed in just my small area, with just my small experiences---the drought that won't go away, for example; the dwindling of the lakes, the rashes of wildfires in summer. The blazing, blazing summer heat. But, like McKibben says in his article, what makes me the most fearful is how people refuse to look at the truth and then change.

Someone I am close to tells me often that he doesn't "believe" in global warming---as if it were a matter of faith, not science. I try not to argue with him anymore over this topic, because I don't know how to convince him. He has an argument for everything I offer up as evidence. At the end of these "discussions" I am left with this thought: say that everything science is telling us about global warming is wrong. Say that all efforts to reduce greenhouse gases don't change anything. SO WHAT? The trying won't hurt you. You won't develop a brain tumor or suddenly become an atheist just because you tried to change how you treat the world.

You know I love this earth. I love the mountains and the trees and the desert, love everything that is  untouched by humanity. I wish I had a voice loud enough to counteract that all-too-human refusal to change. In the face of environmental issues, I feel very small. The problem is, no one person can change things. Just as we have grown too large for the idea that we are too small to affect the world---we did this damage together---we must somehow incorporate the idea that everyone has to change.

I've written about ten different paragraphs about this topic, then erased and started over. How do I say what I really mean? I'm not sure, other than to encourage you, whoever you are, whatever you believe in, to start right now. Turn of the lights. Walk instead of drive. Teach your kids one positive thing they can do for the environment. Encourage someone else. Even though it is overwhelming and the odds seem impossible. At least---let's try. (And now my 25 minutes are up, so I'm going to post this even though I've not yet come close to saying what I want to say.)

Because I have an overdue deadline (forgive me, AmyO, it's coming I promise) and because sometimes when you're stuck you need to ignore it for a little while, and because I've not posted a poem in ages, and because it is saying what I my silences can't say yet, I am posting this poem. Tell me if you love it, too, in that visceral, "me too, me too" sort of way.

On New Terms
                     ~Deborah Garrison

I’d like to begin again. Not touch my
own face, not tremble in the dark before
an intruder who never arrives. Not
apologize. Not scurry, not pace. Not
refuse to keep notes of what meant the most.
Not skirt my father’s ghost. Not abandon
piano, or a book before the end.
Not count, count, count and wait, poised—the control,
the agony controlled—for the loss of
the one, having borne, I can’t be, won’t breathe
without: the foregone conclusion, the pain
not yet met, the preëmptive mourning
without which
nothing left of me but smoke.

Today was a hard day. Sturdy euphemism, that term "hard day." So much is contained inside its two stone syllables. More than I can write down in an hour; more than I want to remember. A day that made me think of something I learned in freshman philosophy. "What is the source of our first suffering? It lies in the fact that we hesitated to speak. It was born in the moment when we accumulated silent things within us." (Gaston Bachelard) I am tired of accumulating silence, tired of swallowing entire conversations unsaid. Tired of hard days.

Later, after the hardness had begun to soften a little, I went to dinner at my mom's, with my sisters and their families, and after we had finished eating and discussing education and books and ideas, two large, blue birds flew into the backyard.  None of us had ever seen birds like this. I immediately wanted a picture, so I tried and got a blurry one through the kitchen window. Determined, I went outside, but Mom's dogs started barking when they saw me, scattering the birds; I only got a good photo of the fence. So I stood there, waiting, hoping for the birds to come back, in the backyard that contains a sort of nesting-dolls ghost of my various growing-up selves. Standing still, looking at the top of the pine tree with its corona of pinecones, feeling that dampcold that only comes in the fall after a storm. Waiting for birds and realizing the hardness was dissolving, the necessary hardness that kept the hard day from hurting too much, and just for a second I could remember how it felt to be those growing-up versions of myself, hopeful, the opposite of cynical.

Maybe you don't believe in God. Maybe you do. I hope you belive, though, in the gift that seems to come after the hard day. You have to look for it, you have to be willing to open yourself to it. To let something be bigger than the hard day---to be swallowed up by the largess and to let go of whatever burden made it hard. It always comes if you look for it. It doesn't matter that the birds didn't fly back---the birds just got me outside, in the quiet stillness, not moving. Breathing, and realizing I'd be alright.

You know when you have a sort of mental list going of little things you want to blog about? Yeah, I've had that. I decided to name them randomalities and just make a list. So, without further ado, Randomalities:

1. How to Paint A Clean Line Against White. I'm hoping I can write this and have it make sense. So, you know when you're just painting one wall a color, and the rest of the walls are white? And you want a nice clean line in the corners and against the ceiling and baseboards? Here's how. The reason that the line is hard to get straight, even with painter's tape, is that the paint will bleed through any little bumps. If you have textured walls it's even harder. So, here's what you do. Tape the two white walls, the ceiling, and the baseboards. Then, using the WHITE, paint about 1" of the wall you're going to apply color to, right up next to the tape. In fact, you'll paint over the tape a little bit. This white (which matches the white walls, right?) fills in all the little gaps. Let that dry for about 1 hour. THEN, without removing the tape, paint the wall with the color. Because the white paint has already filled in any gaps, you get a clean, straight line. Voila!
2. Nathan Can Tie His Own Shoes! OK, yes, he's nearly 8, and in second grade. But he's almost always worn shoes with Velcro or bungee cords. This year he got shoes that tie, and finally, after six weeks, he's figured it out! Yesterday was the first time he did it all on his own, and he repeated the performance again today. I'm so proud of him!
3. No One Else In This House Likes Cinnamon-Raisin Toast. WHAT is up with that? In fact, now that I think about it, no one likes raisins in anything. Maybe I am the strange one???
4. Sewing Projects. I still have to quilt my Halloween quilt. Now that it's pieced, I'm terrified of ruining it by quilting on it. I've not ever done free-form quilting. Hopefully soon I can find my Inner Quilter and get it finished. I am on the hunt to find some Christmas flannel. I've been dreaming about quilts (which definitely makes me the strange one!) and I woke up a few days ago wanting to make a rag Christmas quilt. But after asking at three different fabric stores, I still can't find much of a selection. I've also got to start on Kaleb's Halloween costume and, yesterday, I got a wild hair to make him a quilt with this cute dino fabric that's been sitting around forever. Oh, and Haley & Jake both want me to make them new pajamas.
5. New Big Picture Class. Before I start all those sewing projects, I'm working on a new class I'm putting together for Big Picture. This one has to do with writing your Christmas gifts and I'm thrilled with how it is coming together. More details soon!
6. Kaleb Has Discovered Spitting. Seriously---he thinks it is the funniest thing ever to get a mouthful of liquid and then squirt it out of his mouth. He did this yesterday when we were at lunch (at the Cracker Barrel---haven't eaten there in ages!) for my MIL's birthday. He spit milk all over his cousin, then laughed hysterically. He's more than a little bit obsessed with it. I've never had a kid do this before!
7. Speaking of Kaleb. He has also discovered that saying "I'm sorry" is a good thing. He'll say it right after he spits on you.
8. Parent Teacher Conferences. Don't you love going to these and hearing glowing reports of your children?
9. Stubbed Toe. I watched the TV show Heroes last night, and one of the characters said something about humans no longer needing their smallest toes for balance. So Claire came home and cut hers off, in the name of scientific discovery (don't worry, it grew back). About now, I'm sort of wishing mine could be amputated. I stubbed it on Saturday night just walking out of the bathroom; I swear it was at a 90 degree angle to the rest of my foot. Now it is bruised and fat and painful. I'm keeping it taped to the next toe and feeling silly for hobbling around, but HOLY COW does it hurt!
10. Snow is Coming. We're supposed to get some in the valley tomorrow. I'm hoping for it, except for Jake's soccer game at 3:30, right in the thick of the storm. Could someone tell me why soccer clubs all act as if their kids are playing for the world cup and refuse to cancel games unless there's lightning?

As requested! Here are my three favorite fall dessert recipes. I'll be making two enormous apple crisps on Sunday!

Brownies from Hell
(I honestly don't know the real name of these brownies. When my mom and I were working at WordPerfect way back in 1990, someone made these for a lunch party. My mom dubbed them Brownies from Hell because they have just about every fattening thing known to womankind. But they are delicious. You might just eat the whole pan all by yourself. Not that I've ever done that. Of course not.)

60 caramels (the square wrapped kind)
1 cup evaporated milk (separated)
1 cup chocolate chips (6 oz.)
1 German chocolate cake mix
1 cup butter, separated
1 cup chopped pecans

Melt 1/2 cup of butter; mix with the cake mix and 1/2 cup evaporated milk. Spread HALF of that mixture in a 8x11 cake pan; bake at 350 for 8 minutes. Unwrap the caramels and put them in a microwave-safe bowl. Add 1/2 cup evaporated milk, and melt in the microwave, stirring about once a minute until smooth. Sprinkle the chocolate chips and nuts on top of the brownies after they've baked for 8 minutes. Pour caramel on top. Crumble the rest of the cake mixture into small pieces and sprinkle on top. Bake at 350 for 15-17 minutes. Restrain yourself from eating all of them if you can!

Apple Crisp

4-ish cups of peeled, cored, and sliced apples
1 T lemon juice
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 cup oats (old fashioned oats will make your crisp crispier, quick-cook oats will be softer)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup diced pecans
1/2 cup melted butter

Toss the cut-up apples with the lemon juice, the 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and the 1/4 cup sugar. (NOTE: I don't really measure this part. For one apple crisp, I usually do about six apples---2 green granny smiths and 4 Fuji's---and then toss stuff in until it seems right.) Put apples in a 9x13 pan. Combine flour, oats, brown sugar, the 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and the pecans. Melt the butter and stir into the dry ingredients until crumbly. Pour over apples. (Another NOTE: I always double the topping ingredients because everyone always likes lots of topping.) Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes. (Last NOTE: I like my apples to still be a little crisp, so I generally bake my for about 30 minutes; the apples will get softer the longer you bake them.) Serve with vanilla ice cream and/or whipped cream. (OK, one more NOTE: I like eating left-over apple crisp, heated back up, with non-whipped cream poured over it; it's like an more delicious form of oatmeal!)

Caramel Apple Cake

1 3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup oil
2 cups self-rising flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup chopped pecans
2 granny smith apples, peeled and diced
1 batch caramel glaze

Combine all ingredients; bake at 350 for 45 minutes. This batter will be THICK. About twenty minutes before cake is finished, make the caramel glaze:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 T Karo syrup
1/2 cup buttermilk
Place all ingredients in a largish pan; cook until boiling. Let simmer for 15 minutes, stirring about every two minutes. (It should be the color of caramel.) When the cake comes out of the oven, poke holes in it with the handle of a wooden spoon; pour caramel sauce over hot cake. Serve this warm or cooled; it's delicious either way!

October is officially my favorite month. I love everything about fall, the changing leaves, the way the color of the light is warmer but the air cooler, the temperamental atmosphere (in Utah, we can be at 30 degrees one day and 70 the next). I love decorating for Halloween---I had all my stuff out by last Thursday, I just couldn't wait any longer! I've been thinking for a long time about this comment from Elliebelle, one of my blog readers (hope you don't mind me picking on you, Ellie, but I loved your idea!):

I have resorted to watching the fall colored candy come out in the stores and oddly enough find great joy when I see the change (eating them is always fun too!!). I noticed the first bag last friday and have noticed the M&M's are coming out in the fall colors as well, we do what we have to to enjoy the changing seasons!!

She lives in Arizona, so her perceptions of fall are completely different from mine. But she's right: autumn isn't only about the changing leaves. So, here's the challenge: First, write down what makes fall special for you --- the things that aren't about the changing leaves. Then, make sure to focus, all month, on appreciating those things---on paying attention to them and not taking any of it for granted. You could photograph some things, make a scrapbook page, write about it in your notebook, have your kids write their own lists, whatever. Just pay attention! Here's my list:

• Red Lobster. In October it's all-you-can-eat shrimp at Red Lobster. I am NOT a fan of seafood at all, but Kendell loves it. Luckily, I am a fan of a good steak and an even-better pile of mashed potatoes, which I can get at the R. L. We'll go at least three times this month.
• Taking pictures. There's just something about the light in the fall that makes me want to photograph things.
• Cleaning out the flower beds. There's something satisfying about pulling things out by their roots, smoothing the dirt over, and putting everything to rest.
• Hiking. There are several kid-friendly hikes in our area that we try to do every fall. This year might be our hardest year, though, since Kaleb will be hard to carry in the backpack but is definitely not ready to hike on his own yet. We'll see how it goes.
• Raking leaves. Our big sycamores drop a lot of leaves. We try to rake at least every three days or so, to keep as much as we can out of our neighbors' yards. This is a family thing for us; even Kaleb helps!
• Organizing closets. I've finally figured out a good system of rotating clothes. There's a lot of swapping, passing things down between Jake and Nathan, figuring out which of Nathan's clothes I should keep for Kaleb, and passing down his too-small things to someone else. Is it strange that I really like this process?
• The pumpkin spice candle. I have this burning all autumn long; it is what fall smells like to me.
• Sewing projects. This year I'm making Kaleb's Halloween costume (he's going to be a dinosaur). I'm also working on a Halloween quilt. I've got the top pieced together, but now I'm stuck, as I've never done free-form quilting and am afraid to ruin it. More on this quilt later!
• Hoodies. I love sweat shirts. I've especially had a problem this year, since Kaleb had three hand-me-down hoodies and I bought him three new ones. I've got to stop.
• Fall desserts. Caramel-apple cake, brownies from Hell, and apple crisp. Want the recipes?
• Novell lay offs. OK, this is one I am NOT looking forward to and am NOT savoring. They generally do a few lay offs every fall, but this year they're apparently doing a ton. Rumors are 30-40%. On Sunday I had an enormous meltdown about this---we're talking good old-fashioned hysterics. I'm not ready yet to go back to working. I don't want to be supportive while Kendell looks for a new job (along with 750 other unemployed ex-Novell employees). I want this life, the way it is right now, to continue for just awhile longer. So keep your fingers crossed that the lay offs can pass us by this year!

What's on your list?