Tag Archives: mom blogger

Thanksgiving Lessons During the Making of Mom’s Fresh Apple Cake: Dear Church Family, Thank You Mom for Legacy

Dear Church Family,

Tonight is our annual church Thanksgiving dinner. I signed up to make my Mom’s Fresh Apple Cake. At the time I signed up for what to bring, I was selfishly thinking “What is easy?” or not as selfishly “If I end up not being able to do it myself today, what will be easy for the girls?” Is it also selfish of me to want to cut a piece out of it before I send it to church with my family? Because I might do it.

What I didn’t know when I was a teen and in my 20’s was to appreciate that Fresh Apple Cake would become my Mom’s signature dish for all things potluck, all family gatherings, all trips. It’s a totally made from scratch, nothing from a can or box cake.  I get it now, Mom. Thank you for the legacy thought! It’s a true family age old recipe! I’m learning these are the best for passing on.

Recipes, Fresh Apple Cake
What I didn’t know as I made my Mom’s Fresh Apple Cake is that seeing my now 30+ year old recipe card, now stained with oil drops and sandy with flour, sugar, and cinnamon is that it would move me to tears. I didn’t know the memories that would flood. Even though my daughter agreed to get her copy out of her recipe book, I wanted to use the recipe card I’d copied back in the day from the card in my Mom’s recipe box. Thank you, Mom, for teaching me to value small things like personal touch and seeing the person in the memory, in a recipe card. We don’t get that in the digital age and on Pinterest! Thank you for teaching me shorthand because your Mom knew it and used it, and for what I’d need to know when I got to college and my nursing degree. There’s shared history and value in the actual writing. I remember Grammie S. in all of this too. This was originally her recipe. Thank you for sharing that history with me.

I didn’t know that as I diced apples into the mixing bowl, I’d be dicing a piece of my heart into that bowl. I didn’t know I’d hear her voice from 836 miles away with advice: “I always just put one more apple than what the recipe calls for for good measure.” as she put a slice of apple into her mouth and said “Yum. Good.” (I didn’t do this, so be at ease, Church family. This is a post Covid-19 era, and I wouldn’t eat while I baked the cake.)  Her advice was to always use Macintosh apples, too, for what it is worth to you. It means something to me. I get it now, Mom. I really was listening when I rolled my eyes at your seemingly frugal and archaic ways. I was a disrespectful 20-something know it all. I’m sorry for that. It’s a deep regret. I *really* do get it now. Thank you for making these memories for me, and for teaching me Joy in Simplicity.

What I didn’t know as I made my Mom’s Fresh Apple Cake is that I’d cry the tears bottled up for all the ways I have guilt for not appreciating my parents over the years, or words I’ve spoken that have hurt them, or words that seemed to judge them for the baggage they carry from hard experiences in their own lives. I get it now, Mom, and I’ve had to go through some hard stuff all on my own to get here. Words and the tongue are double edged swords, and the way they are phrased or spoken can unintentionally harm, but they can also build up. Maybe the way I heard them weren’t the way you meant them and I misunderstood. Thank you for teaching me Grace the best way you knew how.

I didn’t know that I’d be wondering as I diced the apples without any new shiny latest and greatest Pampered Chef tool, just my hands and my good old fashioned 1990’s wedding gift knife “Is someone helping Mom bake Dad an apple cake for breakfast? Does he bake it now? He doesn’t ever follow a recipe.” I didn’t know I’d be wondering if I should bake my Dad a cake the next time I travel to see them, or if Fresh Apple Cake is USPS friendly. Thank you, Mom, for teaching me the gift of consideration for others. I get it and all the time I get it even more.


My Mom told stories of packing my Dad’s favorite chocolate chip cookies into a coffee can and mailing them overseas for a taste of love and home when he was shipped out to sea with the Navy. I get it now, Mom. Would you like me to send Dad cookies for Christmas with your name on them? I remember that he likes them crunchy, even though I don’t. I’ll do it for you, Mom, if you want me to. Your Memories may be fading, but we can carry them on for you. LEGACY, Mom.)

My Mom is still very much alive, just not able to make cookies and Fresh Apple Cake. She has some demons she now wrestles, and right with her, I and my brothers and my Dad and our children all wrestle demons of our own for her.

Thank you, Mom, for teaching me about persistence and overcoming, doing our best, laughing at bad situations, making the best of hard things, and working hard. We might not have been financially rich growing up, but you made us appreciate the better things in life. I didn’t appreciate those lessons when I was younger. I do now. I’ve tried to pass these traits on to my children too, for you, for better or worse, and whether I did it well or not.

Just like you, Mom.

I’m more like you than I ever appreciated and realized. I’m thankful for that.

Thank you, Mom. It took more than 30 years, but I get it now. I love you now, and I always have.

Church family, enjoy my Mom’s legendary apple cake at Church Thanksgiving dinner tonight. There really may be a piece missing when I send it, but know that I replaced it with a really big piece of my heart.

I’m off to make a not so legendary Green Bean Casserole for the church family for tonight, too. I got it off the interwebs and the Google. <insert a 20 something’s eye roll here> There may be a piece out of that as well, because a girl’s gotta eat you know.

But no worries, I am not a canned cream of mushroom soup kind of girl, either, and I know some don’t like mushrooms. So at least it’s void of ‘shrooms and made from scratch. Well, except the canned green beans I used this time. I usually don’t use those. I was looking for easy–again. It does have flour in it if my gluten free family need to know. Signing off as the Whole Foods kind of girl. See Mom? I can attempt goofy humor in spite of a broken heart just like you do! Thank you for the gift of humor in the middle of some really garbage-y times.

With Love & A Broken Heart,

Blessings,

Deb


Lessons from a Family Legacy, recipes, Fresh Apple Cake, Thanksgiving, Faith

 

Restoration, Renewal, & Hope: The Difference A Month Makes

Taken just five days after brain surgery, December 4, 2018

The scars on my forehead are gradually disappearing.

Forehead scars fading, January 3, 2019

My 8 inch-ish C-shaped incision behind my ear where a piece of bone was removed for surgery and then replaced with titanium screws is also healing. The muscles and nerves there do cause me some discomfort, and I’m having to be sure I’m moving and stretching by turning my head often enough to avoid creating strictures.

I need to keep my head on straight! Literally.

The hair behind my ear was clean shaven for the incision during surgery. The neurosurgeon left a layer of hair that adequately covers that scar. He shouldn’t quit his day job, but it’s clear he is good at what he does do! The good news is that my hair in that area is already an inch long. We’ll see what I do for a hair style once everything is healed, hair grows long enough, and I can return to my actual hair stylist. That is our friend’s, Michael at Identities in Kalamazoo, area of expertise.

I’m nearly off all pain medication. I’ve been off steroids for about 10-14 days. I am definitely thinking more clearly now that I don’t have a tumor, am not on steroids, and I’m going off pain medication. I’m finding myself less tired during the day too.

I’ve walked up to 3300 steps out on the road in front of our house with my bright red walker. There is one small hill that I call “you won’t own me” that does get my heart rate up and kicks my rear. Last year at this time I would not have even considered it a hill to be conquered. In doing my walking, I have put myself in great shape for the vestibular physical therapy I’m doing at Core Balance in Kalamazoo three times/week, an hour each time. And boy, let me tell you I leave there with rubber legs. I work hard. They are encouraging me to do as much as can at home, and that includes walking, grocery shopping, housework and homeschooling, but nothing that involves ladders.

I’m sleeping, and that is HUGE. It’s an incredible gift.

I still have facial droop and numbness. I still can’t blink my right eye, and if I’m not careful, could actually sleep with one eye open. I CAN drink with a straw and eat on my right side, although I have to be careful not to bite myself. I have hope that this will result in full facial functioning in coming weeks or months. While I was at Walmart the other day, I forgot that I need a straw to drink . I took a swig of Sprite and spilled it all down my front at the checkout. That is embarrassing, and frankly, this is part of a grief process that I am going through. Even though the people that love me aren’t noticing some of my limitations, I do. And they can’t be minimized to me. I don’t like scaring children when I try to smile at them, and can only do what looks like a grimace. Strangers can just be rude, and that is hard to take.

Keep your big girl pants on, Deb.

That’s harder to embrace than I realized it would be. And, often, my family receives the impact of my impatience, anger, and demoralized feelings. So here I am on January 3rd, trying to keep up the good fight and to keep faith. (2 Timothy 4:7)

January 3rd, the difference a month makes: forehead scars are lightening, less tired looking, inflammation reducing, same attempt at smiling.

Clinging to Restoration, Renewal, and Hope in 2019,

Deb

Strength In Weakness

“The only person I’m trying to be better than is the person I was yesterday.”

 

Yesterday I stopped at Biggby for a coffee treat after my husband’s follow up doctor’s appointment.
This was my cup cozy message.

My husband had a serious car accident on Tuesday, requiring an ambulance ride to the hospital in a neck brace.

Praise God he is ok with no internal injuries, no broken bones, no head injury. He does have back and neck pain from whiplash. And, he has some muscle pain in his braking pedal leg.

I’m well aware and don’t need to be reminded of how thankful I need to be that this wasn’t worse.

I cleaned out our oh so likely totaled van Tuesday afternoon.

Our van debris picked up off the street by….someone. I found this when I went to gather our personal belongs and our new mailbox post out of the van later Tuesday.

Believe me.

I need no reminders.

This is the least alarming post accident photo. It says enough.

I don’t know how they got my husband safely out of the van. The driver’s side door barely opens. The windshield is bowed and is not actually in the window frame. The van body shape is no longer a rectangle shape, more like a parallelogram,trapezoid or rhombus. Not that I got the tape measure out and analyzed angles or anything. I mean, it’s not like I use geometry in my every day life, right? <insert sarcastic but healing humor here>

For the 48+ hours after the accident we’ve been in a literal brain fog, for two different reasons. His fog because of the literal accident, mine because of his accident and the realization of what worse could have looked like.

It was enough that I got called to the scene of the accident and where the fog began to crowd my peripheral vision. It’s where I began to pretend I was strong. A fireman asked me if I was ok when I climbed out of the ambulance where hubby was waiting for me with the police and EMT’s. I said “I will be. I have to be. Yes. I’m ok.” and tried to convince myself that I’d be strong.

In the ER my mother in law was talking about how strong I was, how much peace was in my countenance. Inside I was thinking “What is she talking about? I can barely think.” It was an out of body experience. A tunnel visioned fog with no peripheral vision. I could only tunnel in on one minute at a time.

Inside my head and hurting heart was turmoil, not peace.

On Tuesday we took “things” minute by minute as we ticked through the day…neck brace, ambulance ride, traffic citation, calling family, employment, and our pastor, CT scans and X-rays, and the results of those. Getting pain meds filled, coming home to comfort children, more phone calls to family, follow up doctors’ appointments made, cleaning out the van, and answering messages and offers of help.

Fog.

Tick-tock…minute by minute.

Once home, my focus was only on making sure my husband was ok, and making sure my children were ok.

None of us were ok. Yet we were.

We were home together, we were on the phone with our oldest in the Boston area.

There was some laughter. We did crack jokes.

We were <mostly> ok.

Wednesday we took it hour by hour as emotions began to flood and we left room for processing events and comforting each other, planning, insurance calls, finishing our taxes believe it or not, answering more messages, the list of things to do got long but things were being checked off in spite of the continued, but slowly dissipating fog. Hour by hour…

 

Thursday the day formed into compartmentalized sections. I could think a little more ahead and make plans. I even could begin to think about Friday and Saturday.

“Do I have a show Saturday? I wasn’t sure. I should find out. I should begin to pull stuff together if I do.”

The Thursday morning doctor’s appointment brought some reassuring and good news results! Yay! I brought hubby to work to teach his class (poor guy!), stopped for coffee, did some mental health processing, and finally had a good cry alone in the Biggby parking lot. We had to reschedule pick up of rental car, and I had to be home to clean up our bedroom for a mattress delivery that was actually scheduled two weeks ago! (GOD!), take care of more things, and go to our second follow up appointment. I don’t mess around with getting those health and healing affairs in order, even in fog and fatigue.

I intended to come home, make said new bed and fall into it after that second appointment.

But our chickens had gotten naughty and created a new plan. And that was God too. It was therapy to go enjoy the fresh air and their antics, and I’m thankful for that. I also enjoyed an unplanned visit from a sweet friend who dropped off dinner, which I also didn’t know I really needed (more God!), and I enjoyed a two mile walk listening to peeper frogs and singing birds.

By Thursday night the fog was lifting. I could feel strength returning in the ending day, in spite of fatigue. And I know the fog lifting is from the prayers of others.

Friday morning I awoke on my new mattress, having slept like a rock, and finally not quite so tired. I’d dreamed about chicken antics, some of them featherless and looking rough.

Kind of like how I had been since Tuesday.

After my good cry alone in a Biggby parking lot.

Every day, I’m a bit better person than the day before.

Every day we’re a bit stronger as a family.

Every day, my sweet husband has healed a little more.

We may look rough. We may feel rough. But every day is a bit better than the day before.

And it had only been a little more than 72 hours.

We know.

This could have been so much more.

Praising God for protection, healing, and for where we are.

Praising Him for His strength in each new day.

Praising Him that I only need to be better than I was yesterday.

Blessings,

Deb

2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.