family | BulgingButtons

October 26, 2014
by BulgingButtons 6 Comments

Why I Decorate For Holidays

Have you been inside a store lately? Someone thinks it’s Christmas already. It’s not. It’s still October. I’m not ready for Christmas. Or Thanksgiving. Or, frankly, even Halloween. In fact, I went out looking for some cool yard decorations for Halloween yesterday, but apparently you’re supposed to do that further in advance of the holiday than one week. Who knew? I did pick up a few small Thanksgiving decorations, on clearance, no less.

I’m slowly trying to rebuild my Halloween and Thanksgiving decoration stock, as I foolishly allowed most of it to be given away by my ex. It wasn’t his fault. I moved out of the house and left behind lots of things to donate. Somehow the box that contained some really wonderful decorations (including some handmade items and some treasures that my son made in his early years) ended up in that group. I’ve been mourning its loss for three years now.

The stacking jack-o-latern boxes, the ceramic haunted house candle holder, the cross-stitched ghosties, the tole painted pumpkins, the elegant ceramic pumpkins that used to grace my Thanksgiving table… all gone. So are the mini-pumpkin lights and the larger jack-o-lanterns stake lights for the yard. It still makes me sad to think about it.

As we speak, my house has a hand-made fabric wreath on the front door and a small wooden sign with a jack-o-lantern. There is a doormat in orange with a jack-o-lantern face on it, and a plug in jack-o-lantern that isn’t plugged in, because we need an extension cord. How is anyone going to know that we’re a house to trick-or-treat at? I know, I know… turn on the porch light and they will come. But it’s our first year in our new neighborhood, and I want to make a good impression. There should be some sign on Halloween on the premises!

When I was a kid we had a large plastic jack-o-lantern. We would place a small lamp inside of it and put it in the front window. It looked awesome! Then we would carve a pumpkin or two and stick those out on the porch, with candles in them, of course. I loved how it looked. It was the only time our house was ever really decorated for a holiday, at least from the outside.

My parents were immigrants, and my family is Jewish. We never did Christmas lights. In fact, it made my mom a little uncomfortable when my dad would bring home a wreath for the front door, which he did a couple of times during my growing up years. Our house basically always looked the same, inside and out.

Back in those days people didn’t go quite as crazy with the decorations as they do now, of course, but there were lots of Christmas lights in our neighborhood. They looked especially beautiful in the snow. I loved visiting my friends during the holiday season and seeing their Christmas trees and other decorations. I was always fascinated and enchanted by all the things that people would do to make their homes different and special during holidays, whether it was embroidered hand towels or special placemats or garland along a bannister. I always wished that we could do that at our house, but it was never going to happen.

We did have out our menorahs at Chanukah time, and one year my dad built a huge gingerbread house. We also dragged home a small evergreen and put it in a bucket in basement one year, much to my mother’s horror. Then there was the year that my dad and I built a “tree” out of dowels. I’m not sure if that was cool and creative or just plain pathetic. Anyway, our holiday decor was extremely limited.

I vowed that when I had a home of my own I would decorate it for the holidays, and I did. I still do. I don’t fill it to the gills with junk, I try to use pieces that make me happy individually, and that collectively create a festive feeling. That’s why replacing items is so difficult. The missing items were collected over years, and each had its own story. You can’t just load up at Target and call it done. Well, I can’t.

So now I’m back to clearing out clutter so I can enjoy my holiday decorations, such as they are, and I’m planning a trip to the hardware store for that extension cord. Who knows what I might pick up along the way? Maybe something spooky.

October 7, 2014
by BulgingButtons Leave a comment

Alone vs. Lonely

I am home alone. This is a rarity. If the whole family isn’t home, I’m usually either with my son or my sweetheart. Occasionally I get home from work first on a day that my son is with his father, so as I’m puttering around, unwinding from the day, I may have fifteen minutes to myself, but they are full. I come in, put my work things away, let the dog out, feed her, use the bathroom, check the mail, and *poof* the alone time is gone.

On the days my son isn’t with his dad, I’m his driver. We walk out together in the morning, and we walk back in together in the afternoon. When he’s gone for the weekend, my sweetheart and I spend a lot of time together. We like it that way. We run errands together, we go on dates together, we do projects around the house together, and we just generally enjoy each other’s company.

My family, however, understands that I’m a bit of an introvert, and that I need some time and space to myself.
I have a wonderful “studio” in our home where I can retreat for a bit. After a while one of them might wander in, and that’s fine. I’m not a hermit by any definition of the word. I love them both dearly, and enjoy spending time with them.

There’s a difference between being alone by choice and being alone by circumstance. I learned that lesson when I got divorced. I was okay with the idea of being divorced. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I understood it, and figured that in the long run it would be best for all involved. It has been. But what I didn’t understand, just couldn’t wrap my head around, was the idea that I should be forced to be 100% utterly alone as a result of circumstances that were beyond my control. I’m talking about my son’s time with his father, of course. My rational brain knew that they deserved to spend time together, and that my son needed his father in his life. It was the primal brain, however, that screamed out, “THIS IS UNFAIR!”

The weekends he was away were torture for me. It felt like the most horrible type of punishment I could imagine. I went from what I considered a normal family life, with a husband and a son, to a completely single entity for those ghastly weekends. How could I be a mother for x number of days a month, but not a mother for the rest? Oh sure, I was still his mother, but I couldn’t parent him. I tried not to think about it too much. I tried not to be critical of his father’s parenting (he’s not a bad father at all, in fact there are a lot of things that I think he does really well in terms of his relationship with our son). I tried to just separate myself from the whole situation when he wasn’t with me. I was always available for my son, but he didn’t need me when he was with his dad. It’s been several years now and to this day I rarely speak to him when he’s with his dad. It’s not that I’m not interested in what he’s doing, but I don’t want to infringe on their time together.

That first year or so of that utter and complete aloneness when he was gone forced me to make some decisions about how I wanted to handle myself. I could have spent those entire weekends in front of the tv, binging on movies and ice cream. I didn’t. I started to find things to do and people to connect with. It started to hurt less and I started to find peace in the alone time. Still, I didn’t like it. I loved having a family. I loved going on outings and sharing family dinners and playing in the pool together and watching movies and celebrating holidays and going on vacations and all of those things that families do. I was heartbroken that it all came to an end, both for myself and for my son. I felt like we were being robbed. Still, I had to make a decision to either wallow in it and make myself even more miserable, and take my son down with me, or deal with it. I’m a grown up. I dealt with it.

Time has passed, and there is a new man in my life, and family has a new definition. No, we’re not married, but the three of us are a family, just as my son’s father and his extended family are still part of our family. It’s not what I expected, but it seems to be working out okay for us.

Long story short, I enjoy those few hours alone at home when nobody is around, but I enjoy them because they’re not forced on me. I’m alone, but I’m far from lonely.

September 10, 2014
by BulgingButtons 5 Comments

Throwback Thursday – Dinnertime

There is something to be said for Mom’s home cooking, even if your mom isn’t the world’s best cook. Now I’m not saying my mom isn’t a good cook, but she does have an aversion to spices, and as far as I know, butter has never seen the inside of her kitchen. Be that as it may, there are some family dinners that I recall from my childhood with a certain amount of nostalgia.

1. Shabbat dinner. This is the traditional Friday night sabbath meal that Jews the world over share. At our house it usually consisted of a piece of pan fried halibut (coated in Italian style breadcrumbs) served with carrot sticks and a baked potato. The potato was always topped with chip dip (sour cream and onion, of course). It was a long time before I realized that putting chip dip on a baked potato was considered weird by the rest of the world. It’s delicious.

2. Baked chicken breast. My mother would sprinkle Lawry’s Seasoned Salt all over chicken breasts, then bake them. Since this was the only time anything with any type of seasoning was ever served, it seemed like a real treat.

3. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes. My mom made fantastic mashed potatoes, even if they were made with margarine. The meatloaf was pretty good too, when my mother stuck to the tried and true method. The various experiments with green peppers, oats, and Campbell’s alphabet soup weren’t as well received.

4. Dry, grey-brown roast beef. ‘Nuf said.

5. Dry, grey-brown steak. See number 4.

6. Hamburgers. These were small and pretty tasty. They were generally pan fried. They weren’t as grey as the other beef dishes.

7. Spaghetti with meatballs. No complaints here, it was quite tasty.

8. Liver and onions. My father loved it. My brother and I ate something else, probably cereal. Fortunately my mom didn’t make it often. I don’t think she liked it either.

What did your family eat when you were growing up?