It's My Favorite Day Today

I absolutely adore our life with our young adult daughters. Okay, one is still a teen at 18, the other just turned 21. 

I am so goddamn proud of the people they have become. We have long, insightful discussions, about whatever is topmost on our minds. We talk politics, the world at large, the difficult of working with others, and silliness.

Today my youngest had a crappy day at work. But because it's my birthday, she said she doesn't want to burden me with it, she'll vent some other time. She works at a doggy daycare where she's been employed going on 3 years now.

"Was it the people or the dogs?" I asked.

"The people," she replied. 

"Yeah, people can suck," I say. "Dogs rarely do." And that's all she needs for now to know I understand.

Our family has millions of inside jokes. If you are a fan of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and can recite the entire movie verbatim, then you will catch on quickly! Even today, Wayne asked Lindsey to get me something "real nice" for my birthday. Just look up Cousin Eddie and "really nice" on YouTube and you'll come across the scene. (And yes, we adapted it.) Throughout all 12 months of the year we reference Grace, who died 30 years ago, or being so surprised you could sew our heads to the carpet. 

Marissa informed us when she was in high school that we were the only family she knew who sat down and ate dinner together. None of her other friends' families did that. She would go to a friends' house for a sleepover and everybody ate what they could find when they got to the kitchen. She reported this to us as a source of pride, that our family was so close and so fun to dine with. Her friends who came to our home for dinner report the same, and that makes me happy.

So anyway, it's my 53rd birthday and I am so incredibly, incredibly fortunate in this world. I have a family I love, both the one I live with and the ones I tease long distance, a home that is a dream to come home to, a job I love, and the most incredible supportive, funny, and wonderful friends a person could ask for. I couldn't ask for anything more in life. 

Season of Change

Many things will be changing in our home come the start of the new year, so I've been savoring as much as I can now.

Lindsey will officially be moving back out after a semester at Normandale Community College. After her first year at St. Cloud State she decided that she wasn't loving it there and chose not to return in the fall. So she transferred to Normandale, completed the classes she needed to get her associates, and lived at home while doing do. Now she has transferred to Hamline University and has rented a studio apartment just a block from campus. She's moving there in two days. 

Marissa is officially graduating high school a semester early. She took two college classes through Normandale which completed her year-long requirement for social science classes, and her other classes she only needed one semester credit in them, so she is officially done as of January 25. She is planning on taking a gap year, so she will be around for the next 18 months or so, and then who knows.

Christmas morning chaos, after all the presents have been opened

Construction has started on our new home. We are hoping to move in June so we've got six months of city living to savor before having to drive 20 minutes in any direction to reach...well, anything. We are trying restaurants that we've never been to that are near to us, taking advantage of walking down to 50th & France, meeting friends at local coffee shops. There are a lot of wonderful things that I'm going to love about our new home and wide open spaces, and there are also a lot of wonderful things I will miss about where we live now.

I am six months into my new position at Crescent Cove, a children's respite and hospice home in Brooklyn Center, and I could not be more happy in a job or at a place. It is truly a place of joy and light — I look forward to going in every Monday and miss the place when I'm not working. And I'm finally in a role that I've worked around much of my career but have never been the main person in charge of it, and that's communications. Sure, I've written emails, direct mail, web copy, but have never been the person in charge of ensuring it goes out flawlessly, selecting the photos that represent our mission on our social media and website. I love every aspect of what I do and the mission that I'm working on.

This is the last Christmas in this home that we've lived in for 20 years, likely the last one when both girls will be living at home. We have played all the games, watched all the movies, baked all the cookies, and eaten all the food. It's been an absolute joy to have everyone home this holiday season. I know that this is not the end, but it will always be a little different after this. 

This year's coffee/ugly cake.

Watching "Christmas Vacation" on Christmas Eve.

Our Christmas Day table with family china

What Price a Life?

I find myself buying sympathy cards by the handful these days. My friends and I are at the stage of life in which many of our parents are passing away. Sometimes it is expected, after a long illness or decline, other times it is unexpected but not surprising when a parent leaves us.

Which leads me to the question..."What price for a life?"

Sometimes the bereaved is a very good friend, sometimes a distant relative. Sometimes the person is grieving, but are struggling with also being relieved that the person is no longer in pain. Sometimes the deceased was cruel and conniving, and the bereaved person is relieved that they are no longer in their life. Or they know they are truly missing their best friend and rock in the world.

Many times it is all of those things.

Trite cards of "sorry for your loss" lose their meaning among a sea of "sorry for your loss" sentiments. We are all sorry. Sorry for what? That they are no longer here, or that they suffered? Or that they made YOU suffer? 

Do I write a memoriam gift of $25? $50? $100? In the end, does the amount really matter? Writing the check for memoriam gifts is the one check that I think about for the longest time. Will they think less of me, or more of me if I write a check of a certain amount? Do they know that this amount is a sacrifice? Do they know we can afford more?  Does it matter?

Does it matter to them?

Does it matter to the deceased?

And so I express what I can, and focus on the things that made a person happy. Treasure the memories, be grateful for the gifts of the person's presence, for the happiness and good times that were had.

At the end of the day, that is all we can bring to others. 

Because no amount is ever enough. 

He Keeps Me Laughing

Wayne and I have a running joke about how I, as the mom of our girls, don't get any privacy when I have to use the bathroom. As I documented in this post from 2015, I've gotten into the habit of announcing when I have to use the bathroom so the family knows to leave me alone for the next several minutes.

We also joke about how men can't multitask. Okay, I joke, Wayne grumbles and says that women are too "judgy."

Which brings us to this past week's hilarity.

I went downstairs to Wayne's office to ask him a question, only to discover that he was in the downstairs bathroom, peeing. I yelled through the door, "Hey I have a question for you."

"Just a minute, I'm peeing," he yells back.

I find this ironic. 

"Are you kidding me?" I reply back, "I've checked over homework while on the toilet, listened to the kids' day, had essays slid under the door to me, given kids spelling quizzes while on the toilet, and you can't answer a single question?"

By this time he had finished, washed his hands and opened the door. He deadpanned:

"Well, I have to aim."

Grateful for 2020, Welcome 2021

I cannot begin to write about how amazing the past few weeks have been. I am so incredibly grateful for my life. 

Neither Wayne nor I lost our jobs this year due to the pandemic, though my business took a drastic "pause" in late winter/early spring. Still, year-end giving time kept me busier than I've been other years, and I'm immensely grateful for the work and the relationships built throughout this time.

We know of people who have gotten Covid and recovered. Yet, we mourn the loss of Wayne's dear Aunt Margie who passed on Christmas morning. We will miss her welcoming smile and loving nature. It was a treasure to visit with her. She was glad to share her gift of artistry with those who knew her, always unsure of her talents which would leave a person in awe of its beauty. It was a blessing when she passed as she suffered from memory loss for several years and was no longer herself. She is the closest person to us that we know of the more than 345,000 (and counting) souls lost to this pandemic, and I am saddened for those who are experiencing their first holiday without their loved ones this year. 

Our children are healthy. They are sometimes grumpy, moody, impatient and annoyed, as teens are, so we know they are responding normally to the times we are in. Our eldest is planning for college and excited for her future, as are we. Our youngest is forging relationships through the quarantine with new friends and — gasp — a boyfriend, and somehow pushing her way through her anxiety which is telling her to keep in her shell, don't do things that are new and scary. She's doing them anyways. I'm so incredibly proud of her.

One of Marissa's new hobbies, learning the ukelele.

Wayne's work is keeping him busier than ever right now, sometimes in fun and challenging ways, other times in frustrating and seemingly fruitless ways. Still, he gets to work from home, something he was dreading at one point and now is enjoying immensely. Sometimes he takes Beauty for a run over lunch hour, an activity they both love every chance they get.

Wayne ready for a card game.

I look around see and so many people struggling to put food on the table, to keep a roof over their heads and their children out of trouble, and I give whenever I can, which is often enough that I hope I'm making a difference.

None of us will forget 2020; the pandemic, the cries for social justice, the election that wouldn't ever freaking end. 

I will hopefully never forget the gratitude I feel in this moment for the additional time with my family to connect with our teen girls. I was able to spend time writing, exploring new hobbies, baking, being out-of-doors, and doing new things I've never tried.

Happy New Year. Welcome 2021. 

Let's move on, shall we?

Patio dining quarantine-style.

Fall Reflections on my Dad

Dad and I in Minneapolis, 2015

This coming October 28th it will have been four years since my dad passed away. I hate that autumn is associated with the loss of two of the most important people in my life, my dad and my fiancé. 

No one was more surprised when my dad died than he was. He said he wanted to outlive his own father, my Grandpa Vern, who lived to be 94. Dad was diagnosed with colorectal cancer at age 60 and battled it for 11 years before it finally took him.

Some of my most memorable times with him are from my adulthood. He, my sister Kristi and I became good friends as adults. His visits to Minnesota, Indiana and Michigan with us are some of the silliest, funniest memories I have of him.

In December 2013 my sister graduated from Valparaiso University for the second time, this time with her BSN degree. Dad drove up from Arkansas and I flew in from Minneapolis for the event. Kristi and Dad picked me up in Chicago and we toured the town. Lunch at a little deli, a tour of Willis Tower and goofiness all around. I love the photo Kristi took of Dad and I pretending to descend upon a miniature replica of the Chicago downtown area.

At the Willis Tower skydeck

Kristi's nursing school graduation, 2013

Look out Chicago, the Florias are in town! 

Dad could make any outing special, an ordinary day extraordinary. He saw the wonder in nature, the goodness in people and beauty in the every day world. Once I was visiting he and my stepmom Terry in Arkansas, and he was telling me about a spider he had watched spin a web over their kitchen window. Later that night, as we were getting ready for bed, I hear him call for me excitedly. "Jenny! Come here, the spider's back! Look at this." We turned off the kitchen light so we could see into the night. He and I stood at the window in the darkness and watched the spider, which was outside thankfully, begin its dance. Back and forth and back and forth she swung, creating a web that spanned the entire window. We probably watched the spectacle for half an hour or more. It was finally complete, and we saw her nestle in the center of the web, ready to pounce on any insect that dared enter her creation. She was quickly rewarded and we watched her go to work preparing her meal. By the next morning the web was gone, only to be spun once more the following evening. 

He and Terry often took road trips north to visit us and other family, and he made the drive sound like the most amazing trip ever. He spoke of the little cafes they stopped at, the roadside stand where they bought some apples, the kids he saw riding bikes down a sidewalk. He would make up a little story in his head about those people, what they were doing, the relationship between them, and always find something quaint or endearing to say. Later, Terry would confide in me that the café was more like a dive, the roadside stand not quite as picturesque as he made it sound, and the kids looked like they were up to no good. Not that Terry was being negative, but my dad always had rose-colored glasses coloring his world.

Antique shopping in Hopkins, 2015

Fall was one of his favorite seasons. He would wax poetic about the leaves turning vibrant colors, the industriousness of the squirrels preparing for winter, the chestnuts he and Terry harvested from their chestnut tree. He and Terry celebrated Halloween with all her family, whom Kristi and I call our "southern rellies," with everyone coming together with well-executed and quirky costumes. My sister made it to Arkansas for a few of those parties, they sounded epic.

An Arkansas Halloween party, 2015

Floria Reunion in St. Louis MO, May 2016

So...it's that time of year when I reflect on all those wonderful memories and remind myself to be grateful that my dad and I were friends. And I still miss him.

It's Apple Picking Time!

When our girls were younger we used to go apple picking every fall. It was such a fun tradition, everyone excited for a hayride, maybe petting some farm animals, fresh apples and, best of all, homemade apple pie!

As the girls have entered their tweens and teen years, excitement over this adventure has waned. Hay rides? Too itchy. Petting zoo? Too many germs. Fresh apples? Too...healthy.

But this is Lindsey's senior year and if she joins us again next year she'll have to make a trip home from college to join us (at least that's the plan), so off we all went to Afton Apples in Hastings, a place we've visited many times before.

The place was crazily busy — I don't think we've ever seen it this busy before. We waited in a long line just to pick up a bag to pick apples. We walked out to the orchard and found the Haralson's, which make the absolutely best baked goods. 

Within a minute Marissa was fascinated by an apple with a rotten gash on it that had a ladybug inside of it. She took it upon herself to free the ladybug from the gooey interior and marveled at it on her hand for a while before it flew off.

Marissa freeing a ladybug from a rotten apple.

We picked for all of maybe 10 minutes and had two full bags of apples. There is something so satisfying about finding a lovely bunch of apples on a tree, giving one a little tug, and having it easily come away in your hand. 

Back to the store to pay for the apples and get some other goodies; a quart of fresh apple cider, some apple and pumpkin donuts, and fresh apple brats for lunch. Delicious.

By this time it was nearly 1:00 and the crowds were too much for the girls, so we took all of our goodies, including our lunch, and ate in the car. As we were leaving the line of cars arriving was longer than when we'd arrived just a few hours before. Glad we went earlier in the day.

Lindsey re-creating her "I don wanna be here" face.

While Marissa re-created her toddler smile of scrunching her entire face.

They're both taller than the picture board now.

Back home Lindsey declared herself "tired" of apple pie, and wanted to try some other recipes. So she made a batch of beautiful, flaky apple turnovers that were delicious. Later on she baked up a batch of apple cinnamon muffins that are the toast of our breakfasts right now. Both of these recipes used a TOTAL of 7 apples — only 1 3/4 bags left to go!

Today we dropped one of the bags off at my friend's house, their family makes applesauce every fall, so we'll be happy to contribute to their supply for that endeavor. 

Some day the apples will be gone, but the memories will be there.

2008 apple picking

2008 apple eating

25 Years!

It is my husband and my 25th anniversary today.

This seems quite incredible to me. I'm not that far out of high school, right? Our kids are just out of diapers, not about to graduate high school. These are laugh lines, not wrinkles, around my eyes.

My parents never got to see 25 years, they divorced before reaching that milestone. They both remarried within a year of each other, and as I like to say, my parents are happily married, just not to each other. I don't think I can say that anymore now that my dad is gone.

I look back at the people who attended our wedding. At the time I didn't have a single niece or nephew on my side — Wayne had eight. I remember feeling awkward the first time any of them called me "Aunt" Jenny. Our ringbearer, Travis, is in his 30's now and has 5 kids of his own. Our flower girl is living in New Mexico with the coolest dog ever, playing in a band and making music. 

Our flower girl, Emily Thomas

Our ringbearer, Travis Cambronne

I think of the guests who were there who are no longer with us. My father-in-law, Neil Horsman, my Grandpa Dolaskie, Carol and Chap Smathers, Phyllis and Pete Disher, Tom and Ann Dolaskie, and, of course, my dad who walked me down the aisle with a grin on his face. Over the years they've all left the mortal world; I like to picture them getting together in heaven reminiscing on the old days, laughter sprinkling down like dew drops.

One of the pages from our guestbook.

My dad walking me down the aisle. 

Do we have a secret to a long marriage? Not really. Except to say, it isn't perfect. No marriage is. They ALL take work and are not easy. We've learned over the years that there are traits that make a marriage work: 1. Patience 2. Listening skills 3. Humor.

We've both learned the value of time away from family and each other. Wayne finds peace in his long runs, and I've learned that when he can't go for a run, either due to family obligations or injury, his patience gets short, his temper goes up. I have a vested interest in making sure he can go for his runs. 

On the other hand, I re-charge by spending time with my girlfriends. We tell funny stories, support each other in our shared struggles and encourage each other in our endeavors. I have the most amazing friends and am thankful for their support every day. Wayne makes sure I get time with them away from the family because that's good for my mental health.

September 30, 1995

At one point in our marriage I was the breadwinner and Wayne was the main caretaker for our girls while I traveled. And then it reversed, with him accepting a promotion and my taking a new job that got me out of the airports and able to be home more. Now we've hit an incredible balance, with him just years from retirement and I working my business out of our home, able to balance parenting duties with professional duties. We are so fortunate. 

Our wedding party with our ushers

And that's where we are today. A bit older, a lot wiser, and a lot funnier. At least to us.

But one thing remains the same: Neither of us can really dance. Our kids can confirm this.

Happy anniversary, Big Honey.

Slowing Down

Throughout this COVID-19 pandemic, I've been in almost daily contact with my sister Kristi who is a nurse at a local hospital. The emotional and mental toll of preparing for a pandemic is taxing to her and other front line health care workers, even though right now her hospital has a few COVID cases and many empty beds waiting for a wave of patients. Hopefully that wave doesn't come — Minnesota has experienced fewer cases than neighboring states and has done a great job of using social distancing and other tools to keep infection rates down.

She and I were commenting on an interesting phenomenon that's occurring through all of this. Currently she has a standing weekly video conference chat with a group of friends from her years living in Indiana, and another weekly chat with her high school classmates who are scattered across multiple time zones. These are friends who see each other once every few years, even though they still consider themselves close.

She also initiated a video call with relatives from our dad's side of the family, people we enjoy seeing very much but do so only every couple of years. My close group of local friends are gathering every week; previously we were lucky to get together once a month.

We joked that both of our social calendars are now busier than they were before, even though everything is happening online and not in-person. Which begs the question...

Why weren't we doing these things before?

Video-conferencing has been around for years, easy-to-use, cheap and effective. Yet we've never done a video conference chat with our extended family, nor she with her high school classmates.

The difference is that now, in these troubling times, everyone is realizing that the most important things in life aren't things. Each of us has been forced to slow down our lives, to stop scurrying from activity to activity, and to take time to breathe. All of our friends who are much busier than us, with multiple kids in multiple activities plus their own functions to attend to, suddenly have nowhere to go and nothing to do. What better time to check in with friends whom we think of often but speak to rarely!

Honestly, this little pause in life has been a rare gift. Our family eats every meal together, but instead of rushing off to finish homework or work on a project, we sit around after the meal and talk. We tell funny stories to each other and laugh. Oh my, how we've been laughing! Such a treat.

I hope that when this is all over, when we can go about our lives without fear of making each other sick, that we remember these moments and cherish them. And, I hope, we continue to make room in our lives for the people who matter the most.

The 90th Birthday Celebration from Afar

Yessss queen!

"Visiting" with Sherrie during Coronavirus lockdown.

 My mother-in-law, Millie Horsman, turned 90 years old today. She is such a gem, I always enjoy my time visiting with her!

Unfortunately our family get-together to celebrate her birthday was canceled, due to the Covid-19 pandemic currently keeping all of us apart. But the lead up to today was made special by the dozens and dozens of cards sent to her by family and friends and friends of friends! She said that nearly every surface of her apartment is covered in cards and getting the mail has been an absolute treat every day for the past several weeks.

At her congregational home they aren't being allowed to gather for cards and games, but she spent the day chatting with the many people who called.

Millie has led a remarkable and fascinating life. She grew up on a farm with her seven siblings and her parents. When she was in high school she informed her parents that she was going to go to college. No one in her family had been to college, and none of her siblings had plans to go. Her brothers complained to their parents, "Don't let her go, all she's going to do is get married and have babies." But she insisted and in 1948 went off to Mankato College. She didn't own a car, and when she needed to get back to the farm during the school year she and a friend would hitchhike rides back to home. I thought that was very courageous of her, she thought it was just practical because her parents weren't going to drive all the way to Mankato to pick her up, and as long as she and a girlfriend were together, they felt that it would all work out.

Millie loved spending time with all her grandkids.
Here she is with toddler Lindsey.

While in school she worked at the front desk of one of the dorms, checking in and out the girls as they came and went in the evenings. She was paid 45 cents an hour — boys who held the same job at other dorms were paid 65 cents an hour. Millie inquired as to why girls were paid so much less than boys and was informed that since boys foot the bill to take girls out on dates, that they got paid more. That seemed to make sense to her, so she didn't ask any more questions about it.

She married her sweetheart, Neil, in 1954 and began her career teaching. As her brothers predicted, she did indeed have a family, and a rather large one at that. She had four children in 5 years, all in a home that did not yet have indoor plumbing. (She did go on to have one more, another 10 years down the road). When her youngest of the first 4 children turned 5, she decided it was time to go back to work, and so she did. She taught elementary school in Tracy, Minnesota the remainder of her career, retiring at the age of 67. Unlike her brothers' predictions, she did indeed have a job, one that influenced thousands of children over the years, leading to many good memories of Mrs. Horsman by her former students.

Millie and Neil walking in Central Park, NYC, 2005

She tells the most incredible stories of her life, of learning how to bake bread at age 9 because she was upset her sister Clara got to do it and she didn't know how yet, of picking raspberries one summer with her sister and saving up the money so they could buy a piano together. There's a photo of her kitchen sink with a big cardboard sign on it that says "1961" — that was the year they got running water in the house and she didn't have to use the hand pump anymore. She is incredibly unconventional in having an education when women of her generation — especially women in rural farm towns — never went to college.

Millie's 81st birthday in 2011 with many of their grandkids and great-grandkids (but not all).

Laurie, Mark, Millie and Kathy, 2017

Hopefully we will be able to re-schedule this gathering after we can be together without the fear of making each other sick. In the meantime, happy happy 90th birthday, Millie!

Cooking During a Pandemic

Our house is out of chicken. I was low before the whole coronavirus/hoarding thing happened, and now all of the stores are out.

It is a main staple for me in my cooking, it is so versatile in all the ways you can prepare it. I've shopped multiple Cub Foods locations, my local Lund's, Wayne hit Costco, and no one has any. We are not dark meat eaters, all those chicken thighs can just sit in the case.

I'm so bummed. And yet...my kids couldn't be happier.

"Chicken this, chicken that," they would say. They are thrilled. No chicken during the entire quarantine! Hooray for them!

Both Wayne and I picked up cuts we normally wouldn't pick up. Pork tip roast. New-to-us cuts of beef. Turkey tenderloins.

And tonight, I roasted a pork tip roast with a dry rub recipe I selected from Allrecipes.com.

As it roasted the house filled with its aroma. It drifted from the kitchen through the entire lower level, up the stairs and finally to the closed bedroom doors of the two teenagers. They finally came downstairs wondering, "What smells so good?"

This stuff, oh yeah.

Even my non-pork eater ate two slices of this roast at dinner, it was that good.

Later this evening, at a virtual happy hour via Google hangouts, my friends and I kept looking for silver linings in what's going on right now.

• More acceptance from corporations to accommodate work-from-home arrangements.
• Insurance companies finally accepting and paying for telehealth appointments. (Yay progress!)
• Unity across our entire country regardless of party.
• Universal focus on what's important in life: Family. Relationships. Love.

These are crazy times. The last pandemic of this size was in 1918. The Spanish flu took 50 million lives worldwide — its mortality rate was 10%. The coronavirus has a mortality rate of 1%, nowhere near as deadly. And yet, if 70% of Americans get it, 2.5 million people will die.

Let's not go there.

So please, stay safe, stay home, love your family, and eat all the random sh*t you can buy. Except this stuff. I would be hard pressed to buy this, even with the enticement of bacon.

Good Minnesotans never take the last one. Anyone? Anyone?

Creamed Tuna on Toast

Subtitled "Validation that I'm a good cook."

My youngest is known for her back-handed compliments, statements like:

"You're not as annoying as I thought you'd be." (Said to a new student after they became friends.) 

"This isn't as bad as I was expecting." (Said to me after taking a bite of a dish I made.)

"After eating school lunches, your cooking is pretty good, Mom!" (Also said to me after she started taking school lunches in high school.)

So I have to set the record straight.

I'm a good cook. Most of the food I prepare is edible, not chewy, not dried out, has flavor and provides nutrients to my family when enjoyed in moderation. I make an amazing marinara sauce, have learned how to make fresh pasta which has gotten rave reviews, and can roast and saute vegetables to perfection. 

Today I recounted to my kids one of my favorite meals that I ate as a kid — creamed tuna on toast. It is exactly what it sounds like. If you want to try it, here's the recipe:

1 can of tuna

1 can of canned peas (15 oz, strain out the water first)

1 can of cream of mushroom soup

Mix it all together, add a little milk if needed and warm on the stove. While warming, toast up a bunch of bread. Serve the stack of toast alongside the bowl of creamed tuna, and voila! It looked a lot like the photo above when you put it on your plate.

I loved this meal as a kid. It had a blend of mush and crispy toast, or mushy toast if you let it soak in. And I loved the satisfying "pop" of peas in my mouth when I ate them.

When Wayne and I were first married I made this dish for the two of us one night. I like peas, he does not. If his mom ever cooked with tuna he doesn't remember eating it. We sat down to our stack of toast and bowl of creamed tuna and he looked at me skeptically. He tried it, ate one spoonful and got himself a can of chicken noodle soup from the cupboard which he warmed up and ate instead.

"Don't ever make that again," he advised. And I haven't, for as much as I've wanted it myself.

Fast forward 25 years. We have two girls, teens now, neither of whom like peas or tuna. One of them is gluten-free, and gluten-free bread isn't known for being the best, even when toasted.

Today I just described this dish to them both and told them how in my house growing up, it was a staple dish in frequent rotation. They both made gagging noises and agreed that I am indeed a better cook since I never try serving them that dish.

Speaking of which, I believe this entire post is a back-handed compliment to my mom, because I loved that dish and clearly her grandchildren wouldn't. Love you, Mom! 

The Minnesota Definition of "Salad"

From L to R: Kathy, Mark, Millie, Sherrie, Laurie and Wayne. Thanksgiving 2015, the first without Neil.

For more than 20 years we've been celebrating Thanksgiving with my husband's family. His family has always celebrated on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. When Wayne was a senior in high school all of his three older siblings got married. All of them, in one year. Can you imagine marrying off three of your kids and having your fourth graduate high school in the same year? Whew! Anyways...

For years all of his older siblings had Thanksgiving Day at their in-laws homes, which meant that the Horsman family gathering wasn't until the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The day itself didn't matter, what mattered is that family came together to spend time together, eating, visiting, playing cards or board games...eating again...

Card-playing. 2015.

Watching Christmas movies, Thanksgiving 2012.

For years I would ask what I could bring and was usually given the non-cooking task of bringing drinks for the grandkids, which, at the time, usually consisted of several 2-liters of soft drinks. I perhaps brought some dinner rolls, store bought, of course, that was it.

One year, Millie asked me to bring a salad.

When someone says "salad" to me, I picture a bowl of lettuce and spinach, tossed with tomatoes, cucumber, rings of red onion perhaps, maybe some dill weed or other things mixed with a dressing.

When my mother-in-law says salad, she means a side dish that goes alongside the turkey.

That year, I dutifully brought a salad. The tossed lettuce and vegetable kind, which went entirely untouched by family members. I watched as person after person went down the line to serve up their plate, smiled at the salad bowl, but didn't take any. It all ended up back in the frig; we ate it the following afternoon for lunch alongside other leftovers.

The next year, when I asked once again what I could bring, I was asked to bring a salad. So I did, which, again, went untouched. It seemed so odd to me, to ask me to bring a dish that no one was going to eat!

Soon the request went back to store-bought rolls and drinks for the kids, and I didn't think anything of it.

It wasn't until years later, when my sister-in-law was reminiscing about Thanksgivings past with me, that I learned that when my mother-in-law was asking for a "salad" she meant "side dish." She told me that the smiles at the salad bowl was people taking in my "city" salad.

Weather kept us from getting together with Millie this year, but we were able to gather with some of the extended Horsman family by way of nephew Travis, his wife Elizabeth and kids. It's always a treat to have our house filled with giggles, sweet little voices and quickened footsteps. And since my sister Kristi lives in town also, she got to spend some time as well with the family.

Snapchat filters are so entertaining apparently! 2019

And no, I did not serve "salad" this year.

Happy Thanksgiving!