The Best Chicken/Vegetarian Salad Evaaaaaaar.

Raise your hand if you think chicken salad is delicious, but way too hard to figure out how to make at home. Raise your hand if you secretly love chicken salad but you're a vegetarian and don't want to eat it (see note at bottom). Raise your hand if you made something requiring cubed chicken but you have leftovers and have no idea what to do with them.

Put your hand back down and print off this recipe and go to the store.


Ingredients:
1/2 can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained and rinsed
2-3 stalks celery, rinsed and chopped
1/2 small/medium white onion, chopped
1 cup red grapes
1/2 cup-1 cup chicken, cubed and cooked
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 tablespoon miracle whip
1 teaspoon honey mustard
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried dill weed
salt and pepper to taste

Tools needed: 
Food processor (not necessary, but makes things easier)
Large bowl
Mixing spoon
Cutting board
Knife

Serves: About eight sandwiches

Directions:
1. Drain and rinse chickpeas. Shell them if you're feeling fancy, but it's not necessary. It just tastes smoother.
2. Add 1/2 can of chickpeas, the celery, onion, chicken, and grapes into your food processor.
3. Pulse mix until well chopped. Do NOT create paste. This should still be chunky.
4. Empty food processor into large mixing bowl.
5. Add mayonnaise, miracle whip (this can be simply one or the other if you prefer), and the rest of the ingredients. Mix well.
6. Serve. Refrigerate leftovers.

Notes: Best served in pita bread. To make vegetarian, skip the chicken and boost the chickpeas.

School Pictures (and why I care so much)

Every year when I was growing up, there was a big build-up to School Picture Day.  What would we wear? How would our hair look? Would it be a good picture, or completely terrible? We'd wake up that morning and our mom would fuss over us, making sure that we looked as good as she could possibly manage, regardless of the haircut we'd chosen or the ridiculous style trends of the time.  She almost always vetoed t-shirts, and absolutely nothing with words on it. That was NOT acceptable. She would hairspray my hair (a big deal) and I would try to move as little as possible all day until the picture was taken. Then we'd wait weeks to see how we'd managed, and only if they were truly awful did we get retakes done. This was the only formal picture we had taken all year. Once every few years we might get a formal whole-family portrait done, but those instances were few and far between, and usually were only done when our church wanted to do a new directory. They were far too expensive to have done on a regular basis. Sure, we had plenty of informal pictures taken, and those showed our real personality. Those pictures were for the frames around the house, and for the photo albums. But each child had their own special binder full of school pictures, just for them. It was a chronological progression of cuteness to awkwardness to almost-adulthood, and upon graduation, we had them all displayed in a picture frame at the graduation party, a reminder of each of the years we'd studied and worked to get that point.

My grandfather enjoyed photography. My mother enjoys photography. I enjoy photography. It's a thing. It's a thing that we each grew up loving and doing as a hobby, though I have been able to turn it into a side business venture (currently on hold while I'm in graduate school). I have taken tens of thousands of pictures of my son over the last two years, and many of them have been worthy of framing. None, however, compare to the plain, dressed up, ridiculous-faced school pictures he's gotten taken at daycare. They don't compare, because there is no comparison. One style of pictures, to me, is NOT equal to another style of pictures. It's not that those photos are any better (more often they're worse) or more deserving of being framed. It's the tradition behind them. You're taken from your class to the picture chair or X on the floor. You're forced, under bright lights, to smile at a camera and a photographer you've never seen before. You wait for weeks to find out how they turned out, and more than likely wish you hadn't looked at them. It's a rite of passage.

This year, I bought Jasper a dress shirt just for his pictures. I carefully watched for the Picture Day announcement, and delightedly prepared him that morning. I took a back-up polo shirt to daycare and put it in his locker "just in case." I fully expected him to be scared or unhappy and take a terrible picture, and was actually looking forward to that a bit. That evening, sure enough, they said he'd cried for his pictures. Oh well, I thought. There are always retakes, and who knows? Maybe I'll just order some crying pictures anyway.  The next day, I sent him to school in a hand-me-down "I [heart] Mommy" t-shirt. That evening, when I picked him up, his teacher told me that they got him to smile really well that morning.  WHAT? Apparently, unlike every other year I've ever experienced school pictures, including his last two years of daycare, they had TWO days of pictures and because he'd cried for the first day, they took him down the second day to try to get a better one. No, they hadn't put him in the back-up polo shirt I'd left in his locker.

If you know me, you know that I try to be pretty care-free, but I get exceedingly controlling about some things. Pictures are one of those things. School pictures are one of those things. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. There was supposed to be a collared shirt, and I was supposed to know it was happening, and he wasn't supposed to be wearing a t-shirt, let alone one with words on it, let alone one insinuating that he preferred one parent over his other three! That's right. He has a Mommy, a Mama (me), a Daddy, and a Dada.  How could I give his dads an 8x10 for their wall of Jasper wearing a t-shirt saying "I [heart] Mommy"? I know I'd be annoyed if they had taken him to get pictures done when he visited them, and they handed me an 8x10 of him wearing a shirt saying "I [heart] Daddy". This coparenting thing is hard sometimes, but we try especially hard to be considerate of each other's feelings that way.

So I got Jasper's pictures back today. He sure did smile great in that t-shirt.  In fact, if he'd been wearing almost any other t-shirt, I would have probably said, "Meh, it'll be a funny story someday" and let it go without retakes. His smile was that great. But with everything combined (not being told about it, not using the back-up polo in his locker, having an I [heart] Mommy shirt) I kind of emotionally lost myself. I didn't cause a scene or anything, but I have been unable to concentrate on anything else. People think I'm overreacting, and maybe I am. But I know myself, and I know this would bother me every single time I thought about it, and every single time I went through his pictures. This isn't how School Pictures were supposed to go. It didn't happen the right way!

I recognize that I'm too controlling.  But that's who I am.  I am a controlling person, and sometimes about extremely minor things. Yes, I am able to see the Big Picture in life.  Does this picture matter in the long run? Does this matter to my son's health and happiness? No. In fact, he probably would be mortified to know that it's this big of a deal to me. Does my wife care about it? No. Do his dads care? I don't know, I haven't talked to them, but I suspect they'd feel it was annoying, but a silly mistake. That's the big picture. For someone with anxiety though, it's the little picture things that help us keep our shit together.  The house is a complete mess. That's okay, because I have organized my ebook folders, and I made order in this small way.  Laundry hasn't been done in forever. That's okay, because I know where all of my pairs of shoes are, and they are all in the same place.

You can't love me if you don't know me, and you can't know me without knowing that I must have control over a lot of the little things in my life to feel at peace.  School pictures are one of those little things.  It might seem silly or trivial to you, but to me they represent my childhood, and I have to get it right for Jasper's. He doesn't have to be smiling (I've got plenty of those), but they have to be done in the correct way. If you can recognize that this is important to me, and support me in my ridiculousness, then you probably love me a whole lot.

A friend told me today when I was complaining about this to her, "You don't have to explain. We all have things we think are important that others see as silly or trivial." That was the first sigh of relief I took all morning. I'm sure that she didn't really agree with or understand my feelings, but she let me know that it's okay to feel one way, when everyone else thinks you should probably feel another way. And that was exactly what I needed to hear.

The Reason Margaritas Were Invented

As every parent knows, there are certain rites of passage that each child (and his or her parents) goes through – some good, some bad. The first diaper change, the first smile, the first roll-over, the first crawl, the first steps. The first time out of the carseat and into the front of the shopping cart. This brings me to the little-thought-of rite of passage my son and I experienced on Sunday. The first shopping trip out of a cart. Oh, he’d been in stores without being in a cart before, but usually it was just to the flower counter and back outside, or inside a small store like the Dollar Tree for a card. No wait. I think I used the carts in there too…Anyway.  Sunday we went to both Farm King and Hy-Vee without using carts.  While I wouldn’t say it was a mistake, I will say it was an experience I don’t care to repeat, as much as I know I have to.

First we went to Farm King to pick up a roll of wire to fix my 1930s metal porch glider.  Now, I’m not stupid, but sending me to the store to pick up a certain (yet unknown) gauge of wire is like sending your four-year-old to the store to pick up a new memory card for your camera. I can do it, but I don’t know where in the store to go for it, and I don’t know the specifics of what I need. So I walked into Farm King, holding my toddler by the hand, and turned left, toward Customer Service and the tools.

Jasper dashed off to the card aisle.

I retrieved him, and guided him into the main aisle, deciding to just ask at Customer Service where I might find wire. Jasper stuck out his hand and discovered the taffy candy display was VERY crunchy sounding and VERY colorful.  I gently disengaged his hand and prodded him along to the Customer Service desk.  Once there, I sat him on the desk with my body pressed against his knees and lower legs, to prevent him from standing up and tap-dancing next to the register. I spoke to the very kind and helpful representative, who called a worker from Hardware to come and look at this ancient wire I had.  Apparently this worker was supposed to go on his lunch ten minutes ago, and when he said something about 12.5 gauge wire in a 10lb bundle, my eyes glazed over – and he was not amused. I regretfully had to interrupt him and tell him that I understood nothing of what he said, and that he had my permission to talk to me like I was a child to explain it.  I said that I needed about 20ft of wire “the size of this one,” as I held up the piece from my glider.  He almost imperceptibly rolled his eyes and told me that 10lbs would hold a hell of a lot more than 20ft.  I explained that I knew that, and I was just letting him know that as long as the wire matched and it held At Least 20ft, I wanted it.  He grunted and shuffled off to Hardware to get it. In the meantime, my son was quite through sitting still. I put him on the floor to move his legs around a little. However, he assumed that I meant he was now free to explore the store. By the time the man from Hardware returned, I’d already saved a display of sunglasses, and run almost to the front doors to catch Jasper as he made a run to escape. I profusely thanked both the man and woman as I paid for the wire, explaining it was my son’s first time out of the cart, then sighed my relief as Jasper and I escaped the store on purpose.

Now I had to go to the grocery store. All I needed was a bundle of cilantro (Walmart was out the day before) and some orange ginger sauce (which Walmart hasn’t carried for a while, but I really desperately wanted to make some stir-fry). I didn’t need a cart for that. He was just bored in Farm King, but in the grocery store we’d be walking a lot. On Wednesday I’d picked up Jasper’s (one week older) buddy from daycare and stopped at County Market on the way home. I didn’t use a cart with him, and he was a responsible little angel, following me around the store with the air of an eight-year old. If he could do it, that meant that Jasper was probably at about the same skill level.

How bad could it be?

He calmly walked into the store with me, and I asked him if he’d like to push the tiny green toddler-sized shopping cart. He pushed it once and then walked away from it, so I opted to just walk with him and carry a basket. He did very well as we walked to the produce section. I congratulated myself on my well-behaved child. Then, as I stood unbelievingly in front of the empty spot where cilantro should have been, trying to think how on earth I could rescue dinner without it, he tried to steal a lemon.  And salad dressing. And tried to start an avalanche of cucumbers. Well crap. I decided we’d have stir-fry for dinner instead, and grabbed his hand to guide him past the cookies to search for the aisle with the Asian food.

Son of a gun, they didn’t have my darned orange ginger sauce. They had two types of ginger teriyaki, but I wanted the orange ginger. Jasper was getting antsy, so I set the basket on the floor so he could play with it while I chose from the sauces available.  And by play with it, apparently I meant “fill it up with anything in reach.” In went a huge bag of chow mein noodles (which we didn’t need). Well that was satisfying. He turned to the shelf and grabbed a can. Then he threw it into the basket as though he were warming up for his first pitching gig in the major leagues. I gasped and checked the can for dents (none) and then put it and the noodles back on the shelf. “No no, Baby, we don’t need those. Gentle hands.” He ran away down the aisle and I had to go get him and carry him back, apologizing to the sweet older woman next to me for bothering her, saying that I was disappointed I couldn’t find the orange ginger sauce.  She replied in a thick accent with a question about the sauces available, but I didn’t get a chance to answer her as Jasper was squirming to get away from my arms, which must have been excreting a toxic substance and causing him pain, and I hustled down the aisle to prevent him from kicking her.

Well darnit I didn’t want to leave empty-handed, so I took my toddler to peruse the salad dressings, in hopes they’d have something I could use instead.  He shot into the aisle with his left hand outstretched, heading for the pickle jars. Most parents can understand my sense of terror at this action. I ran after him, grabbing his flailing hand just before he swept an entire row of glass jars of dill pickles onto the floor. The sigh of relief at avoiding this catastrophe was probably louder than it should have been. I guided him to the salad dressings, where he went limp and rag-dolled onto the floor. I left him there and picked up two dressings that might work for dinner. Once I’d put them in the basket, I picked him up and asked him to follow me. He cheerfully did. We made it halfway down the aisle, and he fell down. I’m pretty sure it was on purpose. He laughed, and then caressed the cold hard floor like a drunk in the bathroom after a long night of partying. I sighed again and said, “Come on, let’s go!”

He did The Worm.

Now, I realize that I can’t expect my toddler to behave like an angel his first time out of the cart, but I think it’s acceptable to at least hope he’d refrain from terrible dance moves from the 70s. I took Jasper’s hand and helped him up, then walked him to the soda aisle, stopping every six feet or so, so that he could fall to the floor and touch it. I don’t drink much soda, but after this shopping trip, I figured I deserved a six-pack of Sprite.  By the time I put it in my basket with the two bottles of gourmet salad dressing, Jasper had made a fast break for the checkout lanes – or at least in their direction. I sincerely doubt he was looking to hold a place in line for me. This lengthy run was suspiciously done without falling even once, so it’s clear that his shoes weren’t the problem here.  I ran after him and caught him before he collided with anyone’s cart, saving him from permanent grate lines on his face.

Holding Jasper’s hand, I aimed for a nearly-empty checkout lane. He fell down. I picked him up. He broke away from me and overshot the lane, so that I had to run after him again. When I turned back to the checkout lane, a woman with a full cart was waiting for me to get in front of her.  She motioned me to go ahead of her, and I said thank you.  Gone are the days of politely declining and insisting the other person go first, regardless of how many items I’ve got. Now it’s a ruthless race to get ahead of anyone with more than one item. After I said thank you, though, Jasper fell down again. And again. And again. And again. I finally apologized to her and explained that it was his first time out of the cart, and told her that maybe she should just go ahead and go in front of me. Her face brightened with understanding.  “No,” she said. “I’ve been there. Please go first.”  I wanted to cry with gratitude. Not from being able to go first, but because this well-dressed, perfectly coiffed, pleasant woman wasn’t judging me for my inability to corral my son, or my mismatched, grilled-cheese-covered outfit and flip flops, or my previously tight bun having unwound and frayed around my face, hanging down my back, or the sweat I’d broken out into after chasing him all over the store. This woman knew what I was going through, and she wasn’t judging me. Well, maybe she was, but she was doing a great job of being polite and pretending she wasn’t, anyway.

I put down my basket and picked up my 40+lb son. As he struggled against me, I gently nudged the basket with my feet the remaining distance into the lane – about four feet. He was wiggling out of my arms, so I put him down and picked the items out of the basket and put them on the conveyor belt. Meanwhile, the checkout lane next to us was empty, so Jasper had plenty of room to run in circles. He made a run for it once or twice while I was trying to get my debit card out of my purse that was magically still on my shoulder, but I caught him. A minute and a half later we were on our way out of the store, toddler in my arms.  He struggled again and I asked him if he wanted to walk. He lunged for the floor and I put him down so that I wouldn’t be the mom who dropped her baby on his head at the grocery store. I took his hand, and he held it like a perfect little gentleman all the way to the car. Except for when we were going across the crosswalk, where he rag-dolled on me twice as a car waited for us and I had visions of dropping my purse and my bag of groceries and scooping him up out of the path of danger.

When we got home, I put him to bed for a nap and got my mug of leftover margarita out of the freezer, chopping at it with a spoon. When my wife came in from her own casual and relaxing trip to Walmart, she asked me how my trip went.  I glared at her and took a spoonful of my iced deliciousness. “Next time it’s your turn.”

Pride is a nasty thing.

I should know. I wouldn’t admit it to you yesterday, but I pride myself on my listening skills. I listen to what my loved ones are saying, and I make the appropriate responses. They’re heartfelt, don’t get me wrong. But I pride myself on really understanding them.

I just had a phone call that really blew me away. Someone very special to me had to repeat something she’s been telling me for a long time, something I always “heard” before. But this time she spelled it out, and I really understood. And I felt like a jackass, because all this time I thought I was such a good listener and I just couldn’t figure out what the problem was. Maybe the problem is that I don’t actually hear what people are saying to me. I know I do this with Wife all the time. I don’t tell her things, because I’ve already told BFF or other friends, and I just assume I’ve told her. I know this really bugs her, but I’ve never actually done anything proactive about it.

Well you know what? I’m starting over. I’m going to start listening—really listening. Take notes if I have to. Because pride really does go before a fall, and I just fell really hard. And if I want to pick myself back up again, I need to pay some serious attention to what people are saying to me.

I Dream of You, You Know

I dream of you, you know
I dream of your eyes
I dream of the skies
You'll see when you play in the snow

I dream of the things we'll do
I dream of your laughs
I dream of the paths
We'll explore and create some brand new

I dream of your little hands
I dream of your nose
I dream of your toes
Oh I've got so many plans

I dream of the day you'll be here
I dream of your face
I dream of the place
It's becoming ever so clear

I dream of you daily, my sweet
I dream of my child
So wild and beguiled
The darling I can't wait to meet

All You Need Is Love

By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. [John 13:35]

I know some people believe it to be impossible, that a woman in a lesbian relationship could consider herself a Christian, but I do.

I don't follow every single rule in Leviticus--in fact, find me someone who does, and I will give you $25 (I was going to say $100 but I really can't afford that, on the off chance someone knows a real stickler for Old Testament rules). There is one rule professed throughout the Bible, though, that I do take to heart.

Love one another.

Love.

What is love? "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." [I Corinthians 13: 4-8]

This is my rule--the one I live by. Love one another. Many people think that this passage only applies to the love between a couple, read at their wedding, but it doesn't. It applies to every moment of your life. It applies to the person in front of you blocking your view at the movie theater, it applies to the parent with a screaming child two aisles over, it applies to the scruffy-looking "delinquent" teenager on the street in the city.

This isn't something that only applies to Christianity. I know many other religions practice love and forgiveness as a main component of their belief, and many people who do not practice any sort of religion act with much love, forgiveness, and kindness in their lives. I'm just saying that I myself am a Christian, and that is my inspiration for my life.

If you ever wonder why I find it difficult to immediately suspect someone of malice, this is why. If you ever wonder why I am always say things like, "Well maybe they were trying to do this, and it came across wrong.." it is because I am trying to see things from their point of view. I am trying to protect, trust, and hope. If you ever wonder why I find it ridiculously difficult to choose sides in an argument between my friends, this is why. Because it breaks my heart. I want forgiveness to prevail. I want happiness and love to abound. But most of all, I love them, and to cut that love off once it has been given is like cutting out a piece of my soul.

Don't get me wrong. There are people in my life that I really can't stand. There are people who drive me crazy, and I am NO saint. There is one woman in particular who has hurt me enough that I'm fairly certain I will never be able to forgive her, and when I hear that bad things have happened to her, I can't stop myself from feeling a sense of smugness. I am a sinner, just like everyone else, and that is just one of my many faults. Everyone has their own faults, their own sins. Everyone struggles with something or another, but I can't help thinking that with just a little bit more love in the world, how much kinder the world would be.

I read an interesting quote this morning:
"Forgiveness is the scent that the rose leaves on the heel that crushes it." - John Arnott

I think that pretty much sums up how I feel about life. People will hurt us, consciously or unwittingly, every day. People say things, do things, or perhaps ignore us completely in an effort to be hurtful. Sometimes they do it without even knowing how upsetting their words or actions are. Who you are is determined by how you respond to the situation once it has been catalyzed.

One of the things I am most ashamed of, is a friendship that was ignored for too long. We both said things we may or may not have meant at the time, and in between many hurtful things were said and written. I am pleased to say that we are friends again, but in the end it wasn't me who made the first step toward reconciliation. I will always be ashamed of that. She will always remain the bigger person to me, the one with the bigger heart. She was the one who embodied the Word of God, the Lord's commandment to love one another. She doesn't know it, but every time I speak to her I think of how much I admire her for that, and my heart warms knowing that we are finally in contact again.

So, Christine, this post is dedicated to you. Thank you for showing me that forgiveness and love is a way of life, not something we pick and choose on whom to bestow. I love you.

Time Travel and Me

We've been having a Doctor Who marathon this last couple weeks. For those of you who don't know what that television show is about, it's a British sci-fi series about a time traveler from another planet (who looks surprisingly human) who has human friends, and he can travel anywhere in time and space. They go on great adventures together, and in fact rarely go anywhere without having a great adventure--some more fun than others.

One of the problems that The Doctor's human companions have to deal with is "life after The Doctor." They become accustomed to traveling universes all over time, and to live back among humans who have no idea that there is life on other planets is their idea of a monotonous hell. To plod along living life one day at a time, with many days being mundane--how could anyone live like that? They don't understand how to readjust.

My job consists of many different little tasks, but the majority of time I spend copying and pasting information between programs. The end result is a fantastic conversion of important paper documents to the Internet for your viewing pleasure, so it's definitely all worth it--just boring at times. Today I was walking out of work after a particularly mind-blowingly boring afternoon, and had the sudden thought that I wished The Doctor would come sweep me away from this life and whisk me off to various new worlds. It's a time machine, right? I could come back to this exact moment?

Then I thought about the movie Click. It's an Adam Sandler movie about a man who gets a remote control that controls his life instead of his television. He realizes he can skip past all the dull parts of his life, and thinks he's won the lottery. But after a while, the remote control begins to learn his habits, and overrides his choices and soon his whole life is over and he has missed out on all the best things.

Would I really want that? Sure, it would be nice to visit another time and another place. Heck, I'd love to just visit next week and get some lottery numbers. But I know I wouldn't want to give it up, all that traveling. I'd keep going until I was too old to go anymore, and then come back to what? My family would have all grown old without me, my friends would be gone, my pets would be long gone, and I'd be all alone in the end. And I would have missed out on all of life's small joys, like finally realizing the fun and beauty of planting a flower bulb, or sitting on the porch listening to a soft thunderstorm and the rain patter. Sure, I'd love to skip past the snowy months, but then I'd miss out on the crystallized patterns on the windows.

So, I think, ultimately.... yes. Vacations can be wonderful, but in the end the best part of life is being at home with your loved ones, living each mundane little day as it comes. One. Day. At. A. Time.