Alvaretta

My grandma, Alvaretta Jones Hunt, got married at the age of 16, and raised 6 kids during the depression on a small farm in Enterprise, Utah.  

Alvaretta Jones, age 16, about 1927

She is the same grandma who nailed my mom's skirt to the floor when my mom had a temper tantrum.  She had fine, silky hair that frustrated her.  (Katrina: you and I carry the gene to future generations!) I remember my mom holding her hands over my ears when my grandma would cuss at the neighbor for burning garbage when there was wash out on the line.   I remember her washing laundry in her wringer washer, and hating to give it up for a modern washer because it did such a great job of getting clothes clean. I also remember her making bread, slapping and thumping the bread dough with great gusto.  She confided that she liked to make bread when she was mad,  'cause she always felt better after giving the bread a good beating.  Grandma was always working hard at something.   

Alvaretta Jones Hunt, 1977

When my sibs and I were young, one of her favorite things to do when we came to visit was to take us swimming at Veyo.  She was an awesome swimmer.  And skinny!  When the widows in her church ward had a hard time making ends meet, Grandma figured that flour and eggs are plentiful on their farms, so she got a pasta maker and conducted pasta making nights.  My mom passed the pasta maker to me along with Grandma's hand written pasta recipe, and it is one of my greatest treasures.  Eventually in her 80's Alzheimer's took her memory.  When I visited her in the nursing home she couldn't talk any more, but her body kept on going.  Years of hard work had hard-wired her to stay busy, and she wandered from one patient to another in the visiting lounge, tucking in blankets, and adjusting furniture.   I'm so blessed to have known my maternal grandma, a vibrant and resourceful woman, a mother in Zion.  

Store Room Ecosystem

What does it take to make a sustainable ecosystem?  Hundreds of ants, an open bag of pancake mix, and happy spiders.   I discovered a thriving community in my store room, but can't figure out how the critters found their way into my store room.  It is far, far, far away from any outside entrance or window.

Treener told me she battles ants with borax in a syrup mixture, so I cooked up a batch, added a spoonful of peanut butter for extra protein attraction,  set it out on yogurt lids, then found hundreds of ants drowned in it.  Set out more.  More ants.  Got the piggy vacuum and chased down more ants and spiders.  I feel a bit guilty about the spiders, after all, they were on my team, but everything with more than 2 legs was getting sucked up.  I'd say I'll keep you posted, but you probably don't want to know.  (Nor do you want to know how many times I had to run out of the store room in the process of prepping for the colonscopy this afternoon....I tried to do yard work, but that was a disaster.)

Why does she look like that?

Best Parenting Practices

My mom has always been a very determined woman.  A great trait as an adult, but pretty hard to manage as a child.  When my mom was very little she had a screaming fit where she threw herself to the ground, kicking and raising a ruckus.  My grandma grabbed a hammer and nailed her skirt to the ground.

My sister Wowie had a hard time getting her 5 kids ready for church in the morning, so she put them to bed on Saturday night in their Sunday clothes.

When I would get sick as a kid, my mom would say:  "Get out of bed, take a shower, and you'll feel better."  Sometimes it worked.  If we stayed home from school complaining we were sick, we knew we would be scrubbing toilets if we got out of bed to play.

Grandchild #10 likes to clear the decks when he is being feed.  His mommy gives him healthy finger foods.  He throws it far and wide.  Then she takes him out of his chair, puts him on the floor, and he eats his dinner. 

John-boy is also a very determined individual, much like his maternal grandma.  I begged his pre-school teacher to please take him for both afternoon and morning sessions to help direct his energy, but she  refused. As a 3-year-old John-boy had a favorite pair of superman pajamas.  It was impossible to get him to take them off, even for laundry.  Solution: set up the wading pool to sit in, and run through the sprinklers every day. If he refused the pool or sprinklers, I chased him with a hose.

Chain Saw Larry

Once upon a time, about August 2006,  there was a good-looking hunk that was also a loving son.  His name was Larry. One day he decided to help his mommy and daddy at their cabin at Bear Lake.  Lots of trees needed chopping and slashing and cutting.   Larry loves to chop and slash and cut, especially with his powerful chain saw.  Oh no!  Look out Larry!  Do not forget that when you hold a chain saw you must watch out for the limbs that are attached to your body, not just the tree limbs.  Too late.   Look at the hole in those pants.  Look at the hole in the left thigh.  Bandage, bandage.  Tape, tape.  Brave Larry finishes the job on the trees.  He is much more careful now.   The job is done.  Time to go for medical treatment. Time to call loving wife and give her a heart attack while innocently asking if Insta-care is covered by the family insurance.   Funny, funny Larry will have a lovely scar.

Nerd in training

This child is 6 years old.  Reading the newspaper.  With his legs crossed.  Watch out world.  A new king nerd is blooming.

On our Teton's trip last August he lost his second front tooth.  He really lost it.  Somewhere in the truck. It was a panicky time, involving lots of tears.  We SEARCHED that truck and eventually found the tooth, which we quickly bagged up so the tooth fairy could do her thing. So...we found the tooth, unlike Jordan's keys.  That's another story.

Making pennies scream

We raised our kids on a tight budget.  Very tight.  More than once John-boy would wear holes through the bottom of his shoes (he was a very active kid) and we'd turn him lose barefoot until we could afford to replace his shoes.   When Pauly-pocket was ready to graduate from high school we took him and Tonto-wanto-beans out for dinner, for the first time that either of them remember.  The waitress said: "Do you want soup-or-salad."  Pauly-pocket said, "Yes." The waitress asked again, "Do you want super-salad?" and Paul answered, emphatically, "YES."  Poor child.  He had no experience with the typical eat-out menu.   

So, it should be no surprise that we still pinch those pennies until they scream, roll over, and crawl into a crack.  On our spring break we stayed at this stellar establishment in Green River, Utah.

Here we are fixing breakfast on the grill on the patio.  The breakfast was delicious.  

The importance of toilet paper

When I was a teenager there was a huge push at church for family preparedness in case of emergencies. Families were challenged to go for a month without any shopping to see how well they would fare in surviving on their storage. My mom and dad accepted the challenge! It is a tribute to my mom's awesome cooking that we ate well and that she could whip up an amazing meal from simple ingredients found in our store room. HOWEVER, we quickly found out how much toilet paper a family of 7 kids and 2 parents would could run through. I remember some pretty serious discussions at family meetings about using one square. Near the end of the month my folks were encouraging us to go play with our friends and please use their bathrooms before coming home.
My own children probably wonder why every available drawer in each bathroom is stuffed with toilet paper, and why an entire shelf in our store room is devoted to toilet paper. Now you know. 
The other thing I will never run out of is.....