Posts labeled “Keeping it Real”

Thursday, August 19, 2010

9 hours 49 minutes

What do you do when your husband's sister has red hair, lives in Ireland, and has a spare bedroom?

Which is just what we did. After months of stalking, Orbitz finally delivered a good price on our tickets. We leave in less than a month!

What do you do when your brother-in-law is an up and coming Hollywood writer on an HBO series (currently filming in Ireland)?

You decide to peruse the book series penned by George R.R. Martin as a show of support, only to discover a story so mysterious, epic, intriguing, and fascinating that your house goes to the pits while you swallow an 800-page novel. Four times.

The Mister of the House and I are soooo excited to get a peek at the The Game of Thrones series, coming out in 2011. For real, I'm nervous.*

What do you do when the American Dollar is worth 64 cents to the British Pound?

You jump at the chance to do data entry for a deliciously busy marketing company. Which is why the quaint idea of "working from home" meant that for all my kids knew, I had just started another Martin Novel. Yesterday they got ignored for 9 hours and 49 minutes.

What happens when you sit on a hard wood chair for an entire day trying to earn vacation money?

You throw your back out opening the windows in the morning. Sometimes it sucks being a granny in your thirties.

What do you do when you've been eating a raw salad every day in August....okay and then when you stop by the office to pick up some papers, you drop into the public restroom, and go into a stall and lock the door.....and sitting there on top of the toilet paper holder is a perfectly sealed and wrapped chocolate truffle....you are locked inside with a truffle...a commercially sealed truffle, but it's a public restroom ya know....What do you do?

So I will answer this question later in the comments, but I am dying to know what you would have done!

*p.s. I'm not recommending this book to folks that are unmarried, or to my mother. The intrigue is well handled by adults, we'll just say that. If you are judging me right now by that comment, please open the Old Testament and read about Lot's daughters.

Labels: FreshGreens, Keeping it Real, Olsen Multimedia

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Transference

As a born and bred Idaho Girl, I was excited for a recent reunion away from the farm, over the river and through the woods to Island Park. Driving through southeast Idaho, the valleys are wide and plain. Plod further north and you get to beautiful Ashton, and right on the border of that town, you see the impending rise of the land, a major geologic shift forcing your transmission to growl. Within the course of a mile, the landscape transitions from wide sagebrush plains and winding rivers to forest. Don't think lush Oregon forest: ferns underground shaded by the massive outstretched arms of pinion pines catching oceanic gusts. It's just miles and miles and miles of tall, straight, narrow Lodgepole Pines.

These are the trees of Island Park and Yellowstone. These are the trees of my childhood trips to cabins and geysers. These are the trees whose cones stay sealed shut, never replenishing their seeds until they are set on fire. And thus, these are all the trees that burned and burned back in 1988 when I was just 13 years old. The let-it-burn process was natural, but soon became a crisis. Then the fire and smoke sent boyfriends away as firefighters, and spewed a billowing gloom for hundreds of miles that turned the moon red and had folks quoting end of the world scripture.

I could, and I did, sit in the passenger seat for miles with head crooked to the right, watching the assembly line of lodgepoles running past catching their brief dance with sunlight from above. And so it was that I turned to The Mister of the House, on our way to the Olsens-from-Utah Reunion and stated in my best neener-neener voice: Idaho is prettier than Utah.

Where else but an Idaho Lodgepole Pine Forest could you hide in the forest while dancing in the light?

And where else could you have a cabin by the lake, with dozens of trees between you and the water, and still have a view of the blue?

With the Olsen Clan came The Mister's grandparents, Grandma Darling and Grandpa Jack. Like me, Grandpa Jack is a born and bred Idahoan, and so that makes him extra special to me. After the recent passing of my last living grandparent, I am left to transfer all the last conversations, acts of service, collecting of garden knowledge that I wish the adult Mrs. Olsen was able to have with her biological grandparents onto my grandparents by marriage. Nothing could be easier, because they are beautiful people.

As a former Stake President, Seminary Teacher, Temple President, and professional counselor, there's something about associating with Grandpa Jack. With every person he meets, he genuinely loves them. Like other intimidating holy men, he has laser vision.

Or so it seems.

Both he and Grandma tell me over and over what a wonderful wife and mother I am. There are times when I look into their eyes, I look away in fear that they will see that I sometimes lose my temper, fart under the covers, argue with my husband, and cuss under my breath when my garden goes to weeds.

More than once I have left Grandpa's house and wondered (and hoped) if I could really, I mean really, be as good as he thinks I am. I'm not talking just about a good mom doing her duty to her kids and family. I mean really good. Like the kind of good that lifts, blesses, and makes it back to heaven. And this is not me fishing for comments on the blog okay? Don't you ever wonder these things?

Grandpa Jack often looks at my little Vanilla Wafer and comments how much he looks like Grandpa did as a kid.

And I hope that all the years of hard work, the love of mankind to the point of serving them for free...for decades, the faith, the endurance, and the pure love embodied by Grandpa will somehow transfer to my offspring.

Like my Idaho Lodgepole Pine Forest, Grandpa practices a transference of light. Who else can you hang out with over a weekend and bask in warm delightful love of God?

Here's some more photos from our weekend of fun:

More transference of light from Herm and Norma, who I love love love. Thanks for the cabin getaway!

Herding cats.

River run.

Cautious smiles from my cautious boy. On the river with Grandpa Herm-Daddy.

My favorite girl.

"Smile with your teeth"

My Idaho. My Trees. Perty sunburst.

Before the boat showed up to take us on a river run, here's how we played in the water...or near the water.

Oh sorry, Yellowstone spiritually claimed by Idaho. Better luck next time.

Old Faithful = excited tension.

For an extra two bucks, Rainbow Girl got to hide food for da bears!

Hiding spot under the rock.

Found by "Spirit"

People training. Mrs. Olsen wanted to edit this poster so the female had a thought burst that said: Is HE ever happy?! First he swaps our 10 pound infant for 3 shoulder bags, a picnic blanket, and car keys and now his panties are in a wad over a kid who's excited to see a bear.

Sorry folks. The tetons also spiritually claimed by Idaho. Better luck next time.

More transference of light. My beautiful momma.

Labels: Apache Avenue Memories, Buddha Baby, Keeping it Real, Rainbow Girl, religious musings, Vanilla Wafer

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Sheep Go To Heaven

Late last year we made a farm addition that has yet to be announced on this blog. You see, after reading about cows and how they trash the land, we wondered what animal we could raise that would be cleaner on the land, and also require a little less maintenance. After asking around, The Mister of the House made the executive decision to get some goats. Their breed is called : Boer Goats. What that basically means is that they are.....ummmmm, they're meat goats.

Apparently if you can keep the pheramone-saturated and extremely smelly male billy goats out of the picture, goat meat tastes much like beef and is extremely lean. Did we try a goat steak before signing up for this project?

No.

Is Mrs. Olsen on the verge of vegetarianism?

Sometimes.

Because we were getting two friendly and curious female goats, we made a place ready for them in the yard.

We were warned they would trim up our tree branches. "They eat EVERYthing" warned one friend. We had plenty of limbs that needed trimmed, so we fenced off a portion of the backyard and let them have a go.

We did not expect them to go crazy over the only pine tree that was fenced off in the back. May she rest in peace.

It wasn't long until an old rock n' roll song kept thumping through my head. I actually am not sure what this song is about, but the chorus has stuck with me over the years:

Since we refused to have a male billy stinking up our meat, we found a farmer in the valley who offered to let Betty & Matilda (our female goats) a month long tryst with his billy goat.

And now here we are in spring-time April. And wouldn't you know those goats are having babies next month!

...and wouldn't you know that Mrs. Olsen may have talked The Mister of the House into experimenting with some goat milk instead of being 100% meat-heads. We'll see how it goes!

Labels: enviro tips, goats, Keeping it Real, responsible agriculture

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

fire and ice

Dear Snowbird,

When I came to your mountain as a hotel clerk back in the last century, I expected a whirlwind adventure in the interim of getting residency status for the true blue Aggies. I was fresh from Idaho, with two years under my belt at the religious still-sweet-as-elementary Ricks College.

What I did not expect, because your "little" canyon provided granite for the Salt Lake Mormon Temple back two centuries, well I didn't expect to be the minority mormon upon your hills. I never knew the "F" word could be an expletive, verb, and adjective at the same time, and also that it could be an exclamation of joy.

I also didn't know the beloved blissful joy of snowboarding in dry powder up to my knees, the prize of first tracks, or how an elevation climb above city smog could clear my lungs as well as head. I never knew that working weekend graveyard shifts would translate to me finishing up the nightly audit, only to have hours to sit alone looking upon the mountain clear of riders and trees, with moonbeam brandishing the snow with silver glow. I didn't expect to lay spiritual claim upon Dick Bass' massive physical investment, but claim it I did. Claim it I have. Snowbird belongs to my heart.

Though my process of ownership was independent, I found a new camaraderie that was surprising. Thirty-something resort bums with seasonal lives on the mountain in winter, on the river in summer, and who were in better shape than most people my age. Their livelihood kept them in the sun, active, happy, and alert. Gordon, my lodge bellman and a thirty-something goofball, taught me how to drop down powder-filled chutes while he glided effortlessly on telemark skis. "Link 'em like sausage! Link 'em like sausage!" he would yell as I jumped up to drop my board the opposite direction, dropping several feet with each effort.

Pat, the forty-something bellman and Gordon's river guide, only gave away his age because of his bald pate. He could slide down a mountain on telemarks faster than most punks on boards or skis.

Being new and in transition, I began to understand why they did it. It was free, beautiful, and adventurous living. It was my first drug.

Yet, somewhere in the back of my head, during my note-taking and life-planning I wondered how to hold on to adventure, health, and vitamin D into my thirties as well as they did. I looked upon Gordon and Pat as my peers, but one day I turned to them and wondered: "Do you have kids?"

Proudly, I was shown a picture of a pre-adolescent son on the other side of the country. The boy lived with his mom, he was good at A, B, C, and he would see him for a couple weeks that summer.

I smiled to see a mini-version of my friend, but sadly recognized the fallout from this prolonged lifestyle. While I'm sure that a ski bum "family" exists somewhere, I'm not doubting it would be a pretty rare thing, what with the need to raise babies, drop roots, have neighbors, communities, and school-mates.

So then I left, went to school, served a mission, boarded during my breaks, and eventually got married and became Mrs. Olsen. And this is what I said to myself in my head:

It's time to really grow up now. You need to cut back on road trips, snowboarding, and eating out. You need to pay bills, act like a grown up, and be a good wife and mom!

So I did.

And now? Decade plus later? I realize that I was partly wrong!

I haven't snowboarded in ten years! My snowpants don't fit me, and I'm too cheap to pay 100 smacks for new ones when I dread to be the weight that I am. I don't even WANT to go on the slopes, for fear my former self would mock me to shame...alone...at night...remembering my mountain and my dreams for growing thirty.

As my reaction to being a good mom, I totally pushed away my physical and spiritual NEEDS for mountain, for powder, and for lifetime passports to all National Parks.

I'm just starting to realize this. It's taken me a decade to figure out I can mostly be a good mom, and partly be a ski bum....if I didn't have those darned beautiful fat-producing pregnancies to throw me for a loop.

Balance is the key people!

So I sit, and wonder how to gain it back. Wonder if it's worth it. I mourn for that floating powder shredBetty lost somewhere inside my soccer mom-ness with square arse. I see women my age, hitting the slopes while their kids are in school, and think that maybe...with 3 salads a day for 3 years (sigh) I could be a little bit of a ski bum again and return home invigorated and ready to lift and serve my littles to greater mountainous heights.

Signed,
My Own Worst Enemy

Labels: good health, Keeping it Real, living free

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

To Drive, To Remember, To Hug

When I was in high school, I hung out with the Parker twins. I daresay it's the only time, ever, that I have successfully and confidently been able to distinguish identical twins.

Among the twins, were some other gems...

Tonya...you totally saved our bacon on that trip! There's something so my childhood about getting stranded in a snowstorm over Spring Break.

So back to the Parker twins, they epitomized bohemian cool by shopping at thrift stores for quirky original finds, and it seemed they took cues from their mythical, cooler, older sister Michele. I never really knew Michele, only caught glimpses of her looking gloriously grown-up on her way out the door.

Then she died.

She was hit by a car, and while I didn't talk too much about it with her twin sisters (what words does a budding teenager have in this situation?), I got this much from her death: the seatbelt she was wearing cost her her life. She was sideswiped by a car and would have survived if she hadn't worn her seat belt!

{Stacie and Stephanie...I don't know if you read the blog. I hope this doesn't seem irreverent. I'm really really really sorry you lost your sister while she was in her prime.}

Me and my seatbelt have had a sporadic relationship ever since. With all the stats and figures and research about how seatbelts save lives, I always would remember the cooler older sister that they hurt instead of helped, and would refuse to click.

I think now, twenty-plus years later, that I am finally starting to trust the figures. I think that I am finally starting to trust that maybe Michelle was meant to go, beautiful, bohemian, and young, seatbelt or not. Maybe, I would be safer if I came to the other side of wearing a seatbelt.

This video helped convince me.

By the way, I have always buckled my kids in case you were wondering.

Labels: Apache Avenue Memories, Keeping it Real

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Week of Love: Where's the Love?

Back in 1999, I changed my name to Mrs. Olsen and started a new life with The Mister of the House. Like most college-aged newlyweds, we started out our life with a good many gifts, but lacked major assets that made our living nomadic and even sparse. I entered the arrangement, like most newlyweds, with the mission to buy things, make things, and acquire things to eventually fill up our house and home.

Little by little, we started our path to make a home and acquire stuff! We bought used furniture and made it beautiful with tile mosaic tops. We made babies and outgrew our clothes, but saved them just in case we became lithe and fit again. We held onto the former symbols of our lives, tapestries, tape collections, and those first pair of hiking boots that took us (well me!) into The Grand Canyon.

Half a decade later, self-employed and working hard, I realized that in some ways we still felt that newlywed "climbing to the top" syndrome. We were working to make our way into our own affluent family economy, but had not yet arrived. Yet, even then we had acquired boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff!

Old torn levis to make into a quilt! Saved toys from our childhood so we could relive their glory through our offspring! Sterling silver tableware to make into a custom wind-chime! Boxes of loose pictures waiting for rounded edges and acid-free paper. Books, books, and more books from school and life and religion. Old clothes, future clothes, baby clothes, free clothes for the eventual baby boy. You name it! Basically, physical representations of my good intentions never realized.

Slowly, and as the piles grew older, I felt like all this stuff with its attending promises of action were suffocating me!

Mrs. Olsen to people, especially newlyweds: Savor sparse living! Purchase with caution, and only what you need!

Adding fuel to my new mantra is A&E's t.v. series "Hoarders". The Mister of the House and I are morbidly fascinated with it. It starts out informing you that hoarding is a psychological syndrome that has seduced more than 3 million people. It is characterized by people who can't let things go, even if it's trash, even if it's unsanitary, even if it's old and has no use. And they are drowning in this stuff. In some sad ways, I can relate to them. Boxes full of intentions that (while they have their place) are no good once they get in the way of living and loving!

Watching the show makes me thank the good Lord above that I know how to have relationships with my kids, my friends, (some readers?), and my husband....instead of nurturing relationships with things....with inanimate stuff!

So this Valentine's Day, do yourself and your loved ones a favor. Let go of that box you've been tripping over for a while, and get to making living loving memories with your special people.

Here's a teaser to the show Hoarders, watch and enjoy!

Love From,
Still too much stuff but currently have 3 major items listed online thankyouverymuch

Labels: good flicks, Keeping it Real, Marriage

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Confession

When I was 21, I left the desert west (my home) and wore a dress for 18 months straight for the Lord. I was a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in hot, jungly, muggly Florida. When I read "Florida" was to be my intended Zion, the only image I had in my mind was Southern California (the western equivalent right?). I imagined beach bums, bleached joggers, health nuts, and short shorts. What I soon learned was that Florida, at least northern Florida, was not reminiscent of any Beach Boys tunes. It was technically "The South". As in Live Oak Trees with their own gravitational pull with their pretend branches in reality tree trunks glued sideways into its totem. Spanish Moss drips from their limbs like the syrupy southern accents oozing off the tongues of Southern Belles, Baptists, Evangelists, Racists, Pentecostals, and barbecue-ers.

Oh and I loved it.

While I wanted to go "foreign" as they say (meaning: send me to an exotic country that will force me to learn another language and build in 15 language credits when I come back to college) I soon reveled in another planet with plantation homes, invitations for fried chicken and church revivals, prayers in parking lots and speaking in tongues. And much of this revolved around porches. Rockers on porches, plants in pretty pots, sweeping views of Live Oak, and outdoor rooms screened in complete with beds for summer sleep-outs safe from biting bugs but in tune with the crickets.

Mrs. Olsen loves porches. Like this one:

My current porch is nothing like this. Darnit. But I will admit, in my own small efforts, I like to add a little piece of furniture to make my lame non-wrap-around porch feel like a room.

This little piece with wings was reclaimed by the newlywed Mrs. Olsen. Childless and optimistic, she scraped five layers of paint off of it, put on a mosaic top, and painted it the official wedding reception color of the 90's: forest green.

Since some of the tile is green, I could have pulled it off alright were it not for those cheesy oversized wood knobs. I didn't even have forest green at my 90's wedding, but evidently it rubbed off on me. At least I don't have forest green carpet.

As luck would have it, it matches my porch railing to my home. Coincidentally, my home was built one year before I was married. Come and sit for a spell.

Somehow a porch, even when you don't sit for a spell, makes the front door more friendly and appealing.

Here we come, straight for the door. Gotta hurry. No time for chat. Gotta get back ho...ho...hold the phone!

Yes that's a goose. And now my invitation: please love me.

I'm thirty-four people. And yes, I bought this resin goose from an old ladies catalog. I was alone late at night at a computer, and I had just had a baby. My hormones were whack, and I wanted to celebrate the holidays without having to lug around an oversized rubbermaid for every holiday.

Somehow, nothing says porch love like a goose. Above is Gwendolyn in her Halloween attire. Below is how you can behold her current glory.

This I know: resin geese with clothes are for grannies.

And yet, as a testament to my eternal love of porches, my unmet desires for slower living, lazy chatting, and outdoor living, Gwendolyn remains...despite a broken leg twice (and mended), chipped tummy, and cracking paint.

Labels: Gwendolyn the Goose, Keeping it Real, porches, Thanksgiving

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Prowess for the Thanksgiving Princess

Okay ladies! One week is all we have until the big dance. You know what I'm talking about. All the moms, grannies, aunts, and the occasional occupational male chef put on a show of creativity, baked goods, harvest wares, and 12-piece place settings amidst all the important people in their life on the Annual Day of Thanks. Now if you want to actually have time to take a shower and smell nice, then you'll want to follow The Pioneer Woman's Thanksgiving Cooking Schedule that begins on Monday.

Yep. You heard me. Monday. And to add to this schedule, Mrs. Olsen has some special preparations that will help your Thanksgiving Feast be over the top! The perfect place settings that use mini-pumpkins, candy corn, and popcorn...the best silverware polish you can make from scratch!....and adorable crafts that will force your rugrats to stop and think about all the dang things you do for them all the time and that they should be grateful for...I've got it all here!

Let's start here shall we?

Wait, what is that? Let's get a better look shall we?

*cough* Where in the good heck are my candy corns? That axe is totally rusty! I have a feeling there's no such thing as a home remedy for rusting axes...uh, I mean silverware. Uh, I mean...where am I?

Okay, the gigs up people. I killed 2 turkeys yesterday and it wasn't funny at all. See now, when we moved to a little more country last year we wanted to be more self-sufficient. We wanted that connection to food that has been culturally lost, but is probably still pretty important, and very likely even vital to our existence. So I asked for it, but I swear I didn't sign up for this.

Keep reading if you dare, but consider yourself warned.

First of all, I thought it would be no big deal cause I've been dealing with a kid that freaks out whenever she has to go collect eggs. Mr. Tom can't let Miss Hen turn her head without saying Excuse me? Look at me! My feathers are ruffled up for you baby. I love you! Wanna come stay with me at Bok Bok Cottage over the weekend? So Miss Turkey Hen literally runs for her life whenever my kid shows up. She's runs at them, jumps up on them, and totally freaks them out. Hence, the big stick carried by Rainbow Girl (and tears).

When he gets all hot and bothered wantin' some feather love, he puffs up and his face turns blue. Isn't he pretty?

Oh how I desperately wanted to film The Mister of the House trying to catch this big guy, but I was disappointed when he brought out a long metal hook, caught his foot, and pulled him right into his fateful arms.

So here's this picture again. See those 2 little nails that the axe is resting in? That is where you catch the head, then pull the neck and head down over the sawhorse. Usually The Mister has some boy helpers, but he exhausted their services this spring, and so it was just me and him. I was really really nervous.

I had to hold the feet of the turkey while The Mister took the axe. I'm a tough girl okay? I'm on the lazy side but I love nature, want to live simply, and outweigh most Mormon mommies on my block. I had no notions of my toughness, or expectations of how I should act when the axe came down.

Thwump!

Half of the neck is open, and I'm holding onto a body that is flapping and flailing. I scream like I'm trying out for Return of the Rapist Swamp Thing. I screamed, inhaled, screamed, The Mister is yelling 'Let go of the feet! Let it go!' and I am frozen, holding the flailing body, and screaming and screaming. And even as I write this, I have to admit that I was truly truly traumatized, because when I finally did let go and shuffled backwards away from the scene of the crime, I started sobbing my guts out.

What the hell?

For real.

When I finally mentally checked myself Uh, Mrs. Olsen you are freaking out. You are being a dumb girl. Please stop crying. Please stop. So I stopped and looked over across the yard. All my laying hens, who had been pecking in the garden and flowerbeds just moments before, were frozen in there tracks. I then watched all of them hightail it into the safety of Bok Bok Cottage.

And guess what? I had to do it again, was still in shock, and shocked at how freaked out I was, but then got to hold the ladies feet while the axe came down. No screaming that time, but I winced and sobbed some more.

Anybody that doesn't appreciate their turkey dinner is getting it shoved down their face by yours truly.

But wait, there's more! Here's a drill bit that has rubber stoppers to help pluck the feathers. We actually didn't use it, cause our learning curve taught us that you drop the birds in hot hot water and the feathers will then pull out nice and easy.

I post these photos with an outpouring of love and respect for the life of these birds. After plucking the feathers, you lightly torch them to get the remaining hairs burned off.

Did you know you had to do that?

Signed,

Started my cycle today but don't think that
had anything to do with it

p.s. my turkeys had a good life and for that I am grateful.

Post-Edit: I'm not sure I can fully describe the emotional wave that overthrew me with the post-screaming sobbing. Racked. Tears. Wrenched face. Curious husband. Mascara down past my cheekbones sobbing. I mean, my shoulders were shaking with each cry. Did anyone see/love the movie Raising Arizona? Holly Hunter is in the car after they stole their baby and she starts crying: I just love him so much (and her shoulders move up and down about 5 times in that sentence). Anyway, high school break-ups were never as emotionally draining as watching the violent release of the life of our turkeys. How do hunters do it?

Labels: chickens, Keeping it Real, Rainbow Girl, Thanksgiving