Family, Food, holidays, Uncategorized

MOM!!!

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I was so looking forward to the end of the day on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  My plan was to have a quiet evening with Husband and  make two pies so that he could have free rein in the kitchen on Thursday.  I hoped for a calm evening.  Alas, it was not to be.  It started out with a text from my son in mid afternoon:

Mom! When you thaw your pie dough, do you let it come to room temperature before you roll it out?

I advised him to keep it cool but supple enough to roll out.

I got home at about 5:00, and started mixing up some pie crusts. About 5:30 I received a phone call from our daughter:

Mom!  I was slicing onions for that squash casserole with the mandolin and I sliced my thumb. Do you think I need to go to to Urgent Care? It stopped bleeding but it is a big cut!

I told her I had no idea but I thought she was probably ok and to bandage it up tightly. This led to a steady stream of photos of the thumb, anxious inquiries about how she should proceed, and great upset when I missed her calls because I was using the mixer for pie filling and couldn’t hear my phone ring.  I suggested she call  her dad on his phone if I didn’t answer my phone, since he was here, too, and I was trying to bake pies.

In the midst of this, our son called:

Mom! What should I use for pie weights when I pre-bake the pie crusts?

I suggested dried beans or rice after lining the crust with parchment, and video chatted briefly with our grandson.  Soon after our daughter phoned again:

Mom!  Two nurse friends said I should go to Urgent Care. I am going. Do you think I should go?

I told her I thought that was a good idea, and she went, and received five stitches in her thumb and we received photos of the sutures and bandaged hand.  Then son phoned again:

Mom! Should I brine the turkey in the garage or outside on the patio? I am worried that the garage is too warm. Hang on while I take the temperature in the garage. . . Oh darn, the cat got out and is under the car.  Hold on.

I told him I needed to see to my pies, and would he please figure this out with his dad, since he knew lots more about brining than I did. Husband told him to keep the turkey under 40° and brine it outside.

It wasn’t until 9:00 that the pies were done and both son and daughter had settled down.  Husband has always been a most attentive and involved parent, so I have no idea why the children always want my advice in times like these. Its exhausting!

Who do you go to for advice? Who comes to you for advice?  What is the best (or worst) advice you ever got?

 

 

53 thoughts on “MOM!!!”

  1. Renee, while I’m sorry your evening wasn’t as restful or productive as you intended, you should be thankful about the way things happened. You obviously raised kids who love, respect and trust you. Having kids hit on you for advice might be a nuisance, but I’m sure you appreciate the way that validates the way you raised your family. How wonderful for all of you.

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  3. I generally know better than to give advice, as I am so unqualified, and yet there was a time I did. When my daughter was about seven or eight I sensed that she thought I knew everything. She would come to me with fourth grade math questions, assuming in her innocence that I had mastered them long ago and could help her now.

    I decided to have fun with that, so I pretended to be omniscient. When she asked me to explain the pick and roll in the NBA, I’d bluff to delay answering, then read up about it and pass along Wikipedia knowledge to her. I remember her coming to me with a banana, asking if it was ripe enough to eat. I told her, “No, not quite yet, but if you wait until 2:30 or 2:40 this afternoon, it should be just right.”

    Of course, she wised up. That was fun, too. My favorite photo of the two of us shows me in the act of demonstrating the “one true way to blow a bubble with bubblegum.” Molly is looking at me with an expression that says, “Daddy, you are SO full of it.”

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      1. son says “daddy how dog you make a hamburger ?”
        dad says “ we’ll grab a big handful of ground beef and roll it into a ball that’s almost as big as your fist then put it on the table and pound it flat like a big hockey puck . but you know your mom does most of the cooking. why didn’t you ask her?”
        the son says “ i didn’t need to know that much about how you make a hamburger “

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  4. Depends – for mechanical issues and details of how house operates: Husband; for how to navigate on our PC, he asks me.

    Where I get advice is all over the map, depending on the issue. When I was seeing my weekly “lunch bunch” (outdoors in the warmer weather), I would save up any question I had and fit in the conversation… For the deeper concerns, I guess I seek out a friend who listens well.
    Will have to think more about this…

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    1. If you are using a browser, clear your cookies and try again. (This is the browser equivalent of “getting your hand out of the cookie jar” – which seems appropriate for a “mom” situation.)

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  6. Lately, my brother has been a go-to for “what do I do about…” – in part because several of these have been house related (and he is good at those) and in part because, well, he’s my big brother. Lately the tables have turned so it’s more likely that my mom will ask me advice about something (often technology, occasionally something else), though as a listening ear she can’t be beat.

    Earlier this summer Daughter declared that she couldn’t possibly move away for college because who would help her get that last bit out of the toothpaste tube and open stuck jars – I assured her she would likely be able to figure those things out. She wasn’t buying it. At least not right then. (Though it may have been a ploy on her part to get help when she didn’t really need it – just didn’t want to do it herself.)

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  8. “When you run out of chaos, you go looking for more. Just go get the damn cat.“ Some of the most memorable advice I’ve gotten from my BFF Sara.

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    1. I used to go to my mother for advice about canning and gardening, but that is all over now—she remembers nothing at all, sometimes not even my name. All her other advice—men, careers, life problems—was best ignored. She herself never figured most of that out. But blessedly, her ability to call me about nothing or to pass on family gossip, has passed as well. I have never been a great phone talker. Now her activities specialist, Taylor, facilitates our FaceTime call every Monday at 1pm. There is no advice anymore, and hardly any conversation.

      I most often go to the internet for advice about many things. Right now, I have to figure out how to reconnect my nest doorbell camera after Google bought Nest. What a pain.

      Sometimes I like advice from Baboons. It is a group of people with a lot of common sense.

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  10. Morning- I restarted my computer and it’s not letting me like things again…

    I upgraded our big office Mac a while ago and then it wouldn’t recognize my iPhone, or daughters iPad or phone. And I use her stuff on there a lot to add music. Somehow I got her stuff working. But it still doesn’t see mine and I don’t know why. Just did another update on it last night.
    My go-to for that kind of computer issue is a friend out in Seattle who works for Apple. I figure go right to the top if I need help, right?
    Banking questions / money issues go to our contact Sharon at the bank; if she can’t help, she knows who to go to.

    I am appreciating son texting me when he has home ownership issues. Good to know I can still have the answers.
    Kelly is my go-to for MS Office issues; she knows all that stuff.

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  11. DIL is a professional advisor at SDSU in the pharmacy school. She loves her job. . Professors rarely advise. I think this is a better strategy, since she has more time to check with students on necessary courses and schedules and such than a faculty member, who also has to teach.

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  12. At our house we’re still at the stage of development where everything I do is wrong. Of course she does still ask for advice occasionally but then when I give it, I get the eye roll and the harrumph. I know from having a sister much younger than I am that this will eventually resolve but it’s hard while it’s happening.

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    1. i wrote in a christmas card years ago how my son was still my best friend and thought i was great and i wondered how much longer this would go on. i’m guessing this was about 2007 and that year it turned and i became an idiot who knew nothing
      he is now my 27 year old basement dweller and i’m still an idiot

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  13. renee can i get your phone number. i have no one to call for advice

    how fast does a body decompose without a coffin and how deep should you bury it? with or without lime?

    thanks

    how were the pies?

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    3. Remember how well those bodies were preserved in the ancient peat bogs in Denmark and Northern Germany. That is pretty acidic soil.

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  15. I’m not sure if this was the best or the worst advice my mother ever gave me, but maybe it is the funniest. I was never a whiz at dating. I did it late and did it badly. When I was about 22 my mother said, “Your plan for dating seems to come down to just being your true self. You know, that’s probably not a winning program.”

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        2. i’m waiting
          maybe 70 will be the key
          my significant others always understand me better than i do myself
          ari knows me
          new grandson due in a week might get a shot too

          Liked by 1 person

        3. My dad used to say: “Some people believe in long engagements, others believe in short marriages. In the end, it boils down to the same thing.”

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  16. Compared to most of you, I think I live in a relatively ‘advice-free’ environment. Oh, sure, my wife gives me unsolicited advice all the time, but it’s actually in the form of commands or demands. I don’t see it as advice as much as I consider it nagging, or meddling, or telling me something I already know.

    I don’t really seek out advice unless you count looking up information on the internet to evaluate competing brands of merchandise or how to fix a broken thingamajig. I can’t recall being much of an advice-seeker even when I was growing up. Consumer Reports gets a lot of looks as do rating sites for various categories of merchandise, restaurants, or travel information (like Amazon or Trip Advisor).

    As far as people asking me for advice, I think my wife believes she’s asking me for advice when she thinks out loud about some sort of global political or social or financial or environmental issue, but she usually ends up not wanting advice as much as she just wants to vent her frustration that the world doesn’t run the way she would run it if she were “Sandra, exalted Queen of all living things.” 🙂

    But my first Little Brother, now 27 with a steady girlfriend, two daughters, and a house he’s renting with said girlfriend, asked me for some financial advice last summer. I was blown away because while he was growing up, he never met a nickel in his pocket he didn’t want to spend on video games or Magic cards or Pokemon cards, or candy, or “presents” (aka cheap trinkets) for his sister or Mom.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  18. Best Advice; I have two pieces. Both came from Theater but one applies to anything.
    Them told me “Don’t half-ass it. If you’ve got time to half ass it you’ve got time to do it right. And besides, when you half ass it you have to come back and fix it later”. Boy, that one has come back to bite me more than once.
    The other was my friend Erica, who in regard to getting a set done said “Just get the paint down.” Sometimes we get stuck. Like writers block. I don’t know what I’m going to do with this. In her particular case, we didn’t know what to do with the floor. But we just have to “Get the paint down”. Usually something comes out of it or we can turn it into something. We just need to get the paint down.

    Actually, maybe they both apply to life in general.

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  19. I get more advice than I need or want. My sister, and husband, too, seem to think that if I tell them about something that I find problematic that they need to offer advice on a solution. With husband it isn’t as big of a problem as it is with my sister, because with him I can address the situation immediately. With my sister, on the other hand, weeks between emails make it seem futile to even bring it up again. For instance, I wrote her shortly before the election, and mentioned that I was pretty anxious about the outcome. No advice asked for or needed, but she thought some advice on how to relax (like taking a long walk in the woods) was appropriate. Drives me nuts, and makes me consider very carefully whatever I write to her.

    Headed over for my Sunday visit with Philip. Ciao!

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      1. That sounds like it may have been something I said to you, but if I did, it wasn’t meant as advice in general, just direction as it pertained to what I wanted you to accomplish in my garden. My garden has never been, and never will be, weed free, and I’m fine with that. I would prefer, however, that it doesn’t appear to the causal observer as a place with nothing but weeds. I do recognize, of course, that some people don’t know the difference.

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  21. i remember an old motivational speaker named zig zigglar who talked about being raised and given garden chores. planting the beans in a straight line was the task. his dad looked down the line and told him to go back and do it again to get the line straight. his dad had a friend over and the friend said the beans will grow if the lines not straight and zigs dad said
    i’m not concerned about raising beans …i’m concerned about raising boys

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        1. Not sure I understand. Are you saying that you agree that teaching your son to replant the beans, even when you know that the way he has planted them is perfectly acceptable, is a good idea?

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  22. my dad was raised by an ocd bricklayer who insisted everything be done perfectly.
    i as a result was given lots of freedom to decide how to get the job done
    my dad simply avoided doing tasks i simply figured out how to get it done.i remember putting a fence in at their house when they installed their pool. instead of obsessing with lining up the uprights in a perfect line or cutting the 2x4s between the posts at a perfect 8’ we had a mantra of make it up on the next one and if we were an inch left or right or a touch long or short we’d try to make it up on the next one.
    getting to work is important but being paralyzed by making sure everything is perfect will kill you

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    1. It’s important to recognize when “good enough” is good enough and when good enough isn’t sufficient. My dear friend, Sarah, who is a hyperactive somewhat compulsive person, cranks out hundreds of quilts a year. They are far from perfect from a quilters perspective, but she donates them to shelters all over the state, and they do keep people warm.

      During the pandemic, she is also cranking out face masks. These are, however, of such sloppy craftsmanship, that it’s hard not to see it. I can’t attest to how effective these masks are if you wear them, but I’m sure that if you don’t wear them because you’re embarrassed by how obviously shoddy the craftsmanship is, they serve no function at all, except for making Sarah feel like she’s doing something useful.

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