The Sunday Evening Post--In My Extremity

I found an email today that I had written on December 15, 2007 to a former co-worker.  Reading it was a stark reminder of what my life was like a little over two years ago healthwise and how much I have been blessed.  Some of the details from that period of my life have already slipped from my memory, having been replaced with the day to day struggles of going through life with a damaged body.  Inside each day are blessings and trials, near continous reminders that once upon a time I was very, very sick and that now upon a time I live because God wills it. 

I've mentioned my health a few times on this blog, but generally I try to focus on the positive things in my life.  Writing and posting here is great fun and very cathartic.  It helps me to look at my life's blessings: family, friends, being able to see, being able to move, breathing.  When I was very sick, at the end of each day I would make a list of things for which I was thankful.  The list would include things such as, "I could see the sky today", "Gavin's smile and voice", "A hug from one of my children", "Hearing John's voice", "My bed", "Working bowels", "Working kidneys", "Medications that are helping me", "The beautiful honey locust tree in my backyard".  You get the picture.

I am sharing the earlier mentioned email with you below.  I have kept two friends' names in the email because I don't think they would mind. 

Hi Charles. Thanks for writing. I haven’t looked at my email from work for a few days, so I didn’t know that you had written…sorry.

Good heavens, just when I thought your status as a super hero was well established, you go trump your own self. Congratulations (?) on becoming a charge nurse. Are you replacing anyone and are you going to be on nights? Sixty hours per week…yikes! You must really want out of your in-laws’ basement.

You asked about my health. The good news is that all of my testing ( MRI brain, MRA brain, chest, abdomen; CT chest & carotids, CT abdomen and renal, lumbar puncture) are all negative. The doctors were surprised and puzzled, but how do I begin to explain to non-members about fasting, prayers, and blessings? My original renal and abdominal MRA had shown some mild stenosis of the R renal artery and the celiac trunk, but they were all gone by the time the doctor did CT scans of the same area. I know in my heart of hearts why those arteries cleared. Also, my renal function is improving…pee like a race horse now!

The prednisone has taken its toll, however. I have weakness in my arms and legs, lots of problems with numbness, burning, and tingling, and a general malaise. My face is rounder and of course the fat is shifting also to my torso, despite the fact that I have lost 10 pounds. I am also sporting bags and dark circles under my eyes. The last time I was tested, my inflammatory markers were well within normal range, so the doctor is slowly lowering the dose of prednisone. I find myself praying with all of my heart that my inflammatory markers stay low so that I can come off the prednisone completely. I get re-tested on the 27th of this month and will be on pins and needles until then.

You know, this is my Abrahamic trial. We are all supposed to have one (at least) and I truly believe that this is mine. It has tried my faith and testimony in ways that I had never imagined possible. I have always had a strong testimony, even as a small child. I used to go with my grandmother to her church from time to time when I was little. She was Southern Baptist and I remember sitting in Sunday School class listening about how Jesus could exist in the flowers and grass, etc. I would picture Jesus in my mind and the picture that would form was patently not consistent with the information from those little Southern Baptist Sunday School teachers. Anyway, the testimony and understanding have always been there, but this health trial has taken me down strange roads and I have been meeting God on terms unfamiliar to me. There are days that every breath is a prayer and every heart beat an answer.

I like my old life, the one where spiritual growth came in Holy Ghost moments while reading the scriptures or listening to a talk or hearing a Relief Society lesson. Now, though, it is as though Cecil B. DeMille is orchestrating my spiritual growth; ten plagues, booming voice, burning bush, Red Sea parting; don’t think that there will be 40 years involved, however.

It is both sad and still strange not working as a nurse. I knew going back to school so late in life that I would not have many years to work, but I had thought that it would be a great deal longer than 11 months. My husband reminds me from time to time that there will come a day when I am well enough to work again. He says that he has had had that witness.

Sheesh, I do go on and on. And you thought I talked a lot. Now you know, it is nothing next how much I can write!

Tell everyone I said hi. I keep wanting to come by and say hi, but I’m usually zapped by 22:00 and midnight or later lives in a galaxy far, far away. Claire called today and asked me to come and visit tonight. Sigh.

Take care,  Terri

I am happy much of the time.  I continue to learn to find joy in the moment.  When I have difficult moments, and I have them every day, the only way to get through them is to remember that I have had good moments.  There are two specific times that I remember relief from pain and worry and when times are bad, I close my eyes and savor the memories of those two events. 
 
If given a choice, I would choose to be rid of this illness.  However, without it, I would not know Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost as I do now. 
 
~Terri

No-Knead Dinner Rolls

Grandma (Mavis) gave me this recipe for No-Knead Dinner Rolls when I first married Honey Buns.  They are fast and unbelievably easy.  Oh, and soooo delicious.  It is a rare occasion for there to be more than two or three left over rolls at the end of a family meal.  There is, however, usually some leftover dough which I use to make scones--not the baked kind of scones; the kind of scones that you fry in oil and put honey butter on and eat with your bare hands and let the honey butter drip down your chin and lick it off the back of your hand and your fingers, all the while luxuriating in the crunch of the crispy outside of the warm scone and the doughiness of the soft inside and...

Okay, I'm back and have cleaned up the drool again.  So let's make some rolls.

Here's the recipe with "how-to" pictures.  Don't let the easiness intimidate you.  And don't argue with me about stirring the dough and NOT kneading it.

No-Knead Dinner Rolls

3 C warm water (or you can use 2 cups of water and 3 eggs if you want a richer roll)
2 T yeast
½ C sugar
½ C oil
2 t salt
6-7 C flour
1 stick butter (1/4 lb.)

In a large mixing bowl (I use a glass measuring cup) dissolve yeast in warm water with 1/4 t. sugar. When the yeast has activated, add all other ingredients and mix well with a wooden spoon, but not too much. Let dough raise to double in bulk. Shape into rolls, etc., and let raise again. (See pictures below for the easiest "Parker House" style rolls).  Bake at 375 for 20 minutes or until the rolls are golden brown. This dough can be kept in the refrigerator for at least a week and the dough just pulled off as you wish to use it to make cinnamon rolls, scones, pull-aparts, hot rolls or bread sticks during the week.

Dissolve the yeast in 1 C. warm water and 1/4 t. sugar.

I love to watch yeast do its thing.  Keep an eye on it while it is activating because it doesn't mind rising right out of the cup and spreading itself across the countertop.

Pour the activated yeast and the remaining 2 C. of water into a large mixing bowl.

Add the remaining ingredients...oil, sugar, salt, and flour.  Start with 6 cups of flour.  After you have stirred the ingredients, you may need to add some more flour.  However, this is supposed to be a soft dough; a little sticky, but not gooey.  A soft dough helps make a lighter roll.

Now stir!  It really doesn't take much stirring.  Honest.  Remember to keep the dough somewhat sticky, you do not want to have "smooth and elastic".  If you get it smooth and elastic, then you have done yourself a diservice...and your rolls won't work well.  Again, you are just going to have to trust me on this one.

If you have controlled yourself, your dough will look something like this.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, put the bowl in a warm place, and let the dough rise until double in bulk. 

After the dough has risen, punch it down to release the large gas bubbles that have formed during the rising process.  Take half of the dough and shape it into ball.  Put the ball of dough on a floured countertop to "rest" for a few minutes.

While the dough is resting, melt 1 stick of butter.  I melt the butter in a glass bowl in the microwave.  One minute on high in my microwave is perfect.

Roll out the dough to about 1/2-inch thickness with a rolling pin.  Always roll from the middle to the edges.

Once your dough is all rolled out, start cutting your rolls with a round cookie or bisquit cutter.

Cut them close together.

For each roll, take the dough and stretch it into an oval.  Don't stretch it too much because you don't want to thin out the dough.  Just give the dough a bit of a tug to stretch it out of it's round shape.

Dip the bottom half of the dough into the butter, coating both sides.

Now fold the dough oval in half with the buttered side up.  You'll figure out a way to flip the dough easily with your fingers over your thumbs.  The top of the roll should overlap the bottom slightly.  This will help to keep the dough from unfolding while it rises and bakes.

Place the rolls on a buttered backing pan. Put them close together; it is okay if they touch, but don't crowd them.  Remember, they need room to rise and will double in size.  Repeat the whole process with the other half of the dough (the part that is still in the bowl, remember?)

When you are through cutting out the rolls from both halves of dough, gather the dough 'scraps', smoosh them together and form another ball.  Roll out and cut out more rolls to fill the remainder of your pan.

Put plastic wrap loosely over the rolls to keep them from drying out while they rise.

This is how the rolls will look when they are ready to go into the oven.  Bake them at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes or until they are golden brown.

Beautiful.  My favorite rolls are the ones on the edges of the pan because they get browner and sometimes, if I am lucky, crispy on the outside edge.  Yeah baby.  Now get me the butter!

Shock Value

Remember those old Driver's Ed movies where they showed you what-not-to-do because you would end up as a bloody puddle?  It was purely for shock value, not because it would really happen to you, right? 

I have always thought of aging as being a lot like a driver's ed movie...it would happen to someone else, but not to me and certainly I would never end up the saggy puddle of wrinkled skin that happened to some people.  I mean, no one from my high school graduating class was ever going to get 'old', we would somehow be frozen in time at age 18.

So, it was really shocking to see the above 'then and now' photos of actresses and actors from my generation (and actually a bit before my generation).  Terrifying, really.  I ran to the bathroom mirror and let out a blood curdling scream.  IT WAS TRUE!  I HAD GOTTEN OLD!  In the words of Gavin, "What the freak?"

I have to admit, seeing the last photo of Howdy Doody turning into a charcoal briquette was a huge relief. "I have options!", I thought. "I don't have to keep on getting older and older and wrinklier and wrinklier. I can just turn into a lump of charcoal...less wrinkled and a lot more firm. Oh, thank you, thank you!"   It was kind of like having one of those falling dreams or drowning dreams where you wake up all panicy and gasping for breath and then are flooded with the relief of realizing that it was all just a dream and that you actually are safe and have options!  Yeah, I think that being a lump of charcoal is a good option.

The Sunday Evening Post--Matt

Yes, I know that it is Wednesday, but if you follow my Sunday Evening Post then you know that it pretty much doesn't make it into the blog on Sunday.  However,  it is still conceived on a Sunday, so technically it is my Sunday Evening Post.  Get it?

This Sunday's post is easy.  Basically a no-brainer.  All I needed to do was actually make the time to edit the pictures and then post them here with a little bit of writing.  Yet, there have been obstacles to overcome so that this post was actually created.

Take a moment to congratulate Matt, the newest Elder in the family.  I may have had some obstacles to overcome in getting all of this posted, but Matt has overcome many obstacles in his life to make this post possible. 

Sometimes we are born with challenges that make our lives a bit trickier to set and keep on a steady course, yet at other times we create our own challenges which steer us away from Heavenly Father.  And sometimes, most of the time probably, it is a combination of the two factors. 

With the help of a dynamic Bishop, Matt chose to pursue a more excellent way and embrace a new life for himself.  On Sunday, January 31, 2010 Matt was ordained to be an Elder in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with John performing the ordination.

For me, it has been taking a little time for everything to sink in...Matt is an Elder.  Each day since Sunday the realization of Matt's choice has been settling into my heart.  Peace is moving in where fear, doubt, and discouragement have lived for so long.

I am proud of Matt.  He has fought many battles in his personal life to arrive at this point.  When we choose to follow the Savior, we spend our lives trying to master ourselves, but we do not take steps through self-mastery alone.  We plead with the Savior for forgivenes and help and guidance, and time after time He is there for us.  Our families and friends and nameless, faceless others from beyond the veil watch over us and pray for us; cheering for our successes and weeping for our failures.

Enjoy these pictures of Matt on his day of triumph.  While it would have been ideal to have gotten photos at the Church, the hecticness following the ordination made it impossible.  So, these pictures were taken at home following a special family dinner held in Matt's honor.  He had requested seafood and the house smelled deliciously 'seafoody' on Sunday: hot crab dip, clam chowder, and shrimp scampi lead the way with a few other fixings to embellish the meal.  We ended with Grandma's tapioca pudding and some peach cobbler, one of Matt's favorite desserts...although I didn't know it until later in the evening after he started licking the baking dish.

Matt and Grandma Mavis

Matt and Nama

 Matt, Terri, and John (aka Mom and Dad)

Matt and his biggest fan, Gavin. (I love you, Matt. You my best fwend.)

Sleepover

When Tricia and Tim came to visit on Thursday evening, Gavin came running into the house and asked if he could have a sleepover. Who could say no to this face? (insert snickering here)

John and I had so much fun with him. He is such an easy little boy to keep. We stayed up late, until after midnight, because Gavin asked to see pictures of himself when he “had two teef”. I pulled up pictures of him on my computer from when he was 1-2 years old (of course he had a full mouth of teef by the time he was two, but that’s not really the point). I don’t know who had more fun looking at the pics, John and me or Gavin.

October-November 2007

Cali Day-trip May 2008

The neighbor's horses September 2009

After convincing Gavin that he really did need to brush his teeth, we put him to bed in Tricia’s old room. I kept trying to take pictures of him all tucked in bed and he kept telling me ‘no Mom-mom’ and would hide his face.

In the morning, John made green eggs and ham (bacon) for breakfast and then he and Gavin ate their breakfast on the stairs. One of Gavin’s favorite things to do is to eat on the stairs with Papa.

Ummm...yum?

For some reason, when Gavin eats on the stairs, Papa has to feed him.

I've been trying to teach him the finer arts of chew and show.

I do like green eggs and ham, Sam I am!

Later in the day we went to see Disney's The Princess and the Frog. It was Gavin’s first time in a movie theater. He was great! The parts of the movie that impacted him the most were the parts with the bad alligators and the evil shadows. After the movie he couldn’t talk about anything else except for the parts that he found to be scary. My bad. I had forgotten about how much scary parts in movies could impact a child. Oops. Maybe I need a refresher course in movie watching with kids. I used to be so careful about potentially scary things in movies when my children were little and would get irritated when my mom would not understand my reticence. Dang, now I am on the grandma side of things and will have to reach back into my memory of the care I took with my own children’s fears.

When we got home, Gavin disappeared.  It took a few minutes for me to realize that things were awfully quiet.  When I went to find him I noticed that Tricia's room door was closed.  A closed door with a toddler on the other side of it is usually not a good sign.  I quietly opened the door and to my surprise I found that Gavin was curled up in the bed already fast asleep...cuddling his two favorite blankies and sucking on his binky.  No, I didn't catch the moment on camera; I just let the sweet little boy sleep peacefully.

John and I had plans for later in the afternoon and evening.  Just before we took Gavin home, he took a picture of us!