Oregon Trail, Part 2: The First Six Weeks

The first morning we were here, Shea went outside to get something from the trailer. Since we arrived before the moving truck, and all he had were flip-flops, that’s what he wore.

Icy sidewalk + flip flops = We’re not in California anymore.

That was only the first lesson Oregon taught us. Since then we’ve learned…

…that there’s something to the old wives tale that if you don’t wear a coat, you’ll catch cold.

…to keep the dogs’ water bowls in the house, or they’ll drink out of the toilets—either because they’re too lazy to go out in the cold or the water has frozen over.

…while living on the hill overlooking town will be cool 90% of the time, the other 10% we’ll be in danger of sliding down the hill on the way to school.

Among other things.

But we’ve also been here long enough for the kids to make new friends in the neighborhood, new friends at school and be invited to four birthday parties.

(However, not long enough for this mama to find a gym. Ahem.)

It’s hard for me to explain the way people are friendly here, because California is an awfully friendly place. But when folks in So Cal are friendly, it’s more like an “I’m going to be friendly next to you” vibe. It has solid personal space.

And up here, the friendly reaches out and grabs you, includes you. Kate’s new teacher wrapped her in a great big old bear hug on the first day they went to school. The director of ministries at our new church wrapped me in a great big old bear hug the first time she met me in person. It’s like that.

I am not a hugger. I have big personal space. BIG. Even after four years in New York, I never got used to how people hugged and kissed each other hello. Hugging is a joke between me and Amy because Amy hugs everyone and it took me months to hug her back without feeling awkward.

But I once I realized that hugging could happen in Oregon, I decided we have to be open to our new life.

So I am open to hugging.

In California, it’s common for folks to head bob a stranger or offer a “Hey, what’s up?”. In New York, I had to adjust to the expectation that less words are better and no words are best. That stuff doesn’t fly here. When people ask how you are, they’re prepared to listen to the answer. There may be follow-up questions. It’s a small town and there’s nowhere that anyone has to be fast. This is part of the slowing down.

Gabriel has the run of the neighborhood with some other boys, including right on up the hill into the trees if he so desires. There’s lots of open land and not a lot of fences. I was scared for poison oak, and then someone told me “Honey, it’s not if he gets poison oak, but when” and I shook it off.

We’ve eaten at all the restaurants we came to love on our trips up here to see my husband’s folks, and discovered some new ones. We’ve been to museums, a working water-powered mill from 1872 and I even went on a Mom’s night out with the first grade moms. You never know what you’re getting into with a group of first grade moms, but I shouldn’t have worried. These are Catholic school moms, after all. Half went home at ten and the other half went upstairs to dance.

It’s quiet now that the holidays have ended. We’re settling into the dark peace of winter. But then, oh my goodness. There will be so many festivals and fairs and markets that it almost stresses me out when I look at the community calendar.

We can’t wait to explore our new home state. The trailer will come out of hiding in the Spring and off we’ll go to the coast and over the Cascades and north to Eugene. Everything is new: new stores, new parks, new museums, new towns. And all of it is beautiful.

My kids are content here, even though they do miss their friends. My husband, who really thrives when he’s helping people, is content in his new job. And I am content. My mama’s heart is quiet and thankful that this prayer was answered.

Some pictures of our new life:

Here's another one. The sunsets over the mountains look different every day. — Here’s another one. The sunsets over the mountains look different every day.

This is Butte Creek, home of the Butte Creek Mill — Butte Creek, home of the Butte Creek Mill

Dutch Bros is the local drive-through coffee joint. We love them, not the least because of their awesome coffee lids.

Oregon Trail Part 1: Campgrounds and Football Games

They said they were coming at 7 am, and the big truck rolled down the street at 6:45. Shea put flip-flops on to take the kids to school and when he came back, every single other pair of shoes was packed. I got distracted while moving the kitchen supplies into the trailer and when I went back at 9:30 am, all the pots and pans were packed.

I had a pile of laundry because I thought they weren’t unhooking the appliances until the next day. “Good news!” Dan the Moving Man told me at noon that first day. “You don’t have as much stuff as we thought! We are ahead of schedule so I am wrapping up the appliances.”

I texted JFK Amy: Can we come over tonight to say goodbye? And stay for dinner? And baths? Can I borrow some pots and pans? And can I do some laundry?

We planned to leave by 1:30 pm on Friday and by 1, there was a crowd of friends to see us off.

I will never forget that.

We drove 180 miles across LA on a Friday afternoon and made it to Bakersfield in four hours. I was feeling pretty good about that. We didn’t have to sedate the dogs. The kids were calm. And we pulled the trailer over the Grapevine with nary a shudder from the engine.

This is our sweet old girl Sugar, cuddled up with Kate in the backseat.

The only thing was, it was dark. And every person with an RV knows that you should never set up your brand new RV for the first time in the dark. This trailer has a side pop out. That’s new for us. We learned that you have to place the trailer carefully so the pop-out doesn’t pop into the water spicket or the power pole.

In our case, it took two tries to learn that lesson.

The next morning we were up and off pretty early. It was the Day of a Thousand Stops. In our hurry to leave Bakersfield, we forgot to send the kids to the bathroom one more time, but we did make sure they had full water bottles.

Why can’t everyone have to pee at the same time?

We were trying to get to Merced by 1 pm, since there was a very important football game that needed watching and I had picked a campground with cable hook-ups for this very reason.

There is no shame in this game. Every new trailer comes with this kind of outdoor tv hookup. — Even Lizzy likes the Tide!

It was a little slice of river heaven.

The next day was our long day, 250 miles to Redding. It was colder, and the landscape was changing from the flat farmland of California’s Central Valley to the rolling ranchland of Northern California. We started to see more water, although I can tell you that California’s drought is real. The lakes and rivers were disturbingly below their normal levels, with sometimes hundreds of feet of exposed bottom. At Lake Shasta, we drove past a houseboat marina that had dropped more than a football field below the dock, left dangling on the hillside.

Redding looks more like Southern Oregon, and it was the first time we were cold during the day. We huddled up in the trailer with the TV on and had a movie night with Maleficent.

We arrived home the next day, ahead of the furniture. We slept on the floor in the master, all seven of us, and woke up to frosted sidewalks.

In the first week, we unpacked all the boxes that came into the house. Which doesn’t mean that we found all our things, only that we unpacked all the boxes that came into the house.

I don’t want to sugar coat something that was hard for us. The sound of Gabe wailing as we drove away from the best friends he has ever known left a wound on my heart. Sometimes when Kate feels lonely, she says “Mom, remember the day we left California and all my classmates gave me a hug and a goodbye card?” Overall, I think they were a great age to make a move like this, and they have adjusted well in Oregon. But Shea and I knew that we needed to get the trip part–in-between the old life and the new–right. It had to be a fun adventure, a special time for us to be together as a family. The kids needed to know that while lots of things were changing, this part, the family part, was not. It was still the same mom and dad, same way of doing things, same crazy dogs.

Things they can count on, things that don’t ever change.

Friday: Oregon Trail Part 2: The First Six Weeks

Our most popular post ever… Soup in a Jar

We’ve made it… it’s the final week before Christmas. If you’re like me, you’re done-ish with Christmas shopping, and you’re close to being done-ish with your wrapping. The kids are amped up: there are team parties, dance studio parties, preschool parties, and family parties. And you, my friend… you need an easy dinner.

And guess what. If you make a bunch of these this weekend, you’ve got gifts for co-workers, new moms, overwhelmed moms, college students, stay-at-home dads, grandmas. You’ll be super popular. You’re welcome.

Here’s the how-to:

Line up a bunch of ½ pint mason jars on your kitchen counter. Then layer in the dry ingredients. That’s it. You could tie a little plaid ribbon around the jar or something like that. Heck, you could tie a cute vintage spoon with it. I just thought of that, how cute would that be?! When you or the recipient of these cute little jars are ready to cook, just add a can of diced tomatoes, 1 lb of cooked meat (I prefer sausage, of course), and 6 cups of water. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 45 minutes. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and have a Cool Yule.

Soup in a Jar

Ingredients:

1/4 cup split peas

1/8 cup chicken bullion

1/8 cup pearl barley

1/4 cup dry lentils (I used pretty red, but any color will do)

1/8 cup onion flakes

1 tsp. Italian seasoning

1/4 cup white rice

1 14 oz can diced tomatoes

6 cups water

1/2 – 1 lb cooked meat (I used Hillshire Farms sausage for extra flavor but I bet chicken would be delicious, too.)

Directions:

If making jars ahead of time, layer all dry ingredients in half-pint mason jar.
When ready to cook, combine all ingredients in a stock pot. Bring to a boil.
Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 45 minutes.
Enjoy!

A Season of Hope ~ Guest Post by Amy

Amy is how we all got to know Meg. We prayed for her health and then we prayed her through the door of this life into the next. Meg left behind a husband and two young girls, one only an infant. This is their first Christmas without their mama.

No doubt, Meg’s husband Sam will struggle as he learns to walk without his partner, juggling his grief with the responsibilities of his girls and the season. How hard it must be for him to find the light right now.

But Amy wants to share with us a story of how we don’t always have to find the light on our own.

Meg was an AVID coordinator in the Ontario Montclair school district. AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) is a national educational support program, designed for students who will be the first in their families to attend college. As coordinator, Meg was directly involved with the teachers and students, promoting a college education for all.

A few weeks ago, I attended a regional AVID training. Memories came crashing back: Last year when I was here we had just found out that Meg was diagnosed with breast cancer while pregnant with her second child.

Meg took off work to fight the disease with a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation. She lost her hair so Sam shaved his off as well, in support. By early summer, the doctors felt Meg was on the road to recovery. In July we celebrated the news that her PET scan was clean, showing no lesions.

Somehow, just six weeks later, she was sick again. She had lesions on her liver, which was swollen and losing function. The cancer was aggressive and untreatable.

By October, she was gone. Her daughters were four and six months old.

At the AVID training this year, her school site team, including Sam, wore pink shirts in honor of Meg. Every year, the region raffles gift baskets to raise AVID scholarship money. One of the baskets had a pink breast cancer theme, but all the money donated for this basket would go directly to Sam and his girls. Without hesitation, I dumped all my tickets in this basket.

The next morning, another coordinator stood at breakfast and announced a challenge: that every person in the room donate $1 for Sam and his girls. Sam was stunned. In tears, I made my way to his table and wrapped my arms around him. Together we watched.

In five minutes, people donated $1500.

Sam cried. I cried. Everyone in the place, 400 people, cried.

Miracles are real. This was a miracle. It wasn’t the miracle we had prayed for months earlier, to heal Meg and keep her here. Instead, the healing was for Sam, to show him that all is not lost. Meg had a hand in it, I know she did. She used all those people to give her husband a hug and remind him that people are good, the village is good. And there is light in the world for us when we need it.

Thank you to all those people who donated that day. It was about so much more than money. Thank you to Sam’s school, who love him and hold him up. Thank you to everyone who prayed for Meg. Thank you for reaching out in love and faith to strangers. I want you to know that it’s working. God’s hands are healing this family with love.

We have to remember that we are God’s work in this world. Happy weekend.

Coughs and Colds

Here comes cough and cold season.

Back in the day—and I mean way, way back—moms would whip up a hot toddy for their sick chickens, like the one my friend Paula’s mom used to give her: whiskey, honey, lemon.

That wisdom slipped away with the arrival of over-the-counter cough and cold remedies.

Then in 2007, we got told that we can’t give our kids over-the-counter medicines if they’re under the age of four. Wed MD explains why (emphasis mine):

For decades, parents have relied on kids’ cold medicines and cough syrups — typically grape, cherry, or bubblegum flavored — to ease their children’s discomfort.

However, the FDA and manufacturers now say that over-the-counter cough and cold medicines should not be given to children under 4.

Evidence indicates that children’s cold medicines don’t really help and may pose a real (although small) risk of side effects, particularly to young children. This has cast serious doubt on a common and trusted group of medicines — and left many parents anxious and confused.

They don’t really help. And there was a dangerous downside. We had certainly seen that with allergy medication prescribed by our doctor for Gabe’s persistent runny nose in the Fall. We had seen it with the teething gel we gave to Kate when she was cutting teeth. And when I thought about it, I realized that I couldn’t honestly say that any of the adult cold and cough medicine worked for me or Shea either.

Except…we woke up with hangovers from “nighttime” cough syrup and walked like stuffed zombies from “daytime” liquigels.

So when I was pregnant with Annie and suffering from a winter cold, I reached for the homeopathics.

And they worked.

Let me clarify what I mean by “worked”.

There is a lot of evidence out there that all over the counter cough and cold medicines are ineffective, evidence which has been squashed by the mass marketing of the companies that make the meds.

See this, this, and this.

The homeopathics did not make me better. But no over the counter medicines can “cure” a cold or cough.

At 2 am, all we’re looking for is an alleviation of symptoms. Homeopathics and commercial cold and cough medicines both claim to help.

But some commercial over the counter medicines contain other things that are not so good for us and cause side effects. Most of the “inactive ingredients” in these syrups and capsules are “generally rated as safe” by the FDA, such as propylene glycol and synthetic food coloring. Generally. And most nighttime formulas use an antihistamine, like Benedryl, as the sleep agent.

This explains the Nyquil hangover. And any mom can tell you that a child’s reaction to an antihistamine is a crap shoot. Sometimes they get sleepy, and sometimes they run up and down the plane aisle like you fed them three chocolate bars before you boarded.

(Or maybe that’s just Kate?)

The homeopathics, on the other hand, have shorter, more recognizable ingredient lists. And they work. Our favorite is Zarbee’s Nighttime Cough Syrup, which is a dark honey formulation with vitamin C, zinc and melatonin. Like the old fashioned hot toddy, minus the whiskey. And it will soothe a sore throat and calm a cough. I’ve also had success with the Hyland’s allergy formula for Annie.

My girls have a cold this week and I am using the Breathe essential oil formulation from Do Terra. They get a bit on their chest and on the bottoms of their feet, plus some in the humidifier. Kate has a cough, but between the Breathe and the Zarbee’s, she is not coughing at night.

You know Dana and I are only crunchy-ish. We believe in flu shots and vaccines and antibiotics when they are needed. These are my precious babies and I am not fooling around with their health. Homeopathics are an ancient wisdom, but they come from a time when people regularly died of fevers. So we use our common sense and pediatricians who believe in a blend of the old and the new.

I do have a back-up bottle of Mucinex in the cabinet. What prompted me to sit down and write this post is that in cleaning out the cabinet in preparation for the move, I re-discovered the Mucinex—unopened and expired.

Resources:

Recipe for Hot Toddy: www.foodrepublic.com

Zarbee’s Natural: www.zarbees.com

DoTerra Breathe: www.mydoterra.com/danaalvarez

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