Sew Many Projects, Sew Little Skill

When I was a teenager in a land long ago and far away, my dad bought a new Viking sewing machine for my mom with the caveat that I would inherit it someday.  For the early 1980s, this was machine was state-of-the-art and could do anything but file your taxes.  

It did all the basic stitches plus about three dozen more that I didn't even know existed and had no clue as to why you would use them.  This, my mom said, is why they have sewing classes at Matzke's Sewing Center.  

And I just realized I have dated myself seven ways from Sunday with that name.  But I digress.

Mom and I faithfully attended the weekly classes for the six or eight weeks they were offered.  Mom soaked is all up like a sponge.  Me, I was teflon and absolutely nothing stuck.  But I powered through because I was in the sewing project in 4-H and had taken a sewing elective at school.  

I was...okay, brutal honesty here...I was barely competent, and that was only because I didn't have the patience to try and get better.  The seam wasn't quite perfectly straight?  That's okay, it's in a place that no one will notice.  The old "it's good enough" mindset that I operate on most of the time was my enemy once again.  

That was okay because about that same time, I met this guy and no longer had time for lame domestic pursuits such as sewing.  Disclaimer:  Captain did NOT tell me I had to give up sewing or any other domestic activity to be in a relationship.  I just figured I had way better things to do than fabric crafts.  

Fast forward a few years, and that guy and I are now married and living on his family's home farm near Pine Island.  There is an elderly neighbor lady who geniusly uses the backs of worn out jeans to use as liners for potholders.  Since Captain provided her wtih dozens of pairs of worn out jeans, we were the recipients of many of these potholders, and I loved them!  

In fact, I loved them so much that when our neighbor passed away, I got the bright idea that I could take over that project because I would never run out of worn out jeans and I could borrow that fancy-schmancy sewing machine of Mom's!

While both of those things were true, I quickly discovered that I was still enslaved by that "it's good enough" mindset.  I did manage to make a dozen or so adequate potholders that I think I gave as gifts one Christmas, but I realized that the sewing machine was much more practical in my mom's possession than mine. 

I've talked about this before, but it's worth repeating.  My kids were the envy of the playground because my mom patched their britches, not just with square denim patches.  Oh no, she could do much better than that.  Bigger's britches that had holes in both knees came back with a brown polyester baseball bat on one knee and a white cotton baseball, complete with red stitching, on the other knee.  Molly's hot pink snow pants that had a hole in the butt came back with a green terrycloth pine tree patch.  

She made beautiful heirloom quilts for all three of her kids for their wedding and for Bigger when he got married.  She could make clothes, curtains, and Halloween costumes.  She was an absolute whiz with a sewing machine.  

That's why by the time the machine came to me when Mom had to enter memory care, it was completely worn out.  I wanted to get it fixed, but the model had been discontinued years earlier and parts were hard to find on top of being insanely expensive.  So the machine was retired and given a proper burial, and I put away thoughts of being the next Betsy Ross.  

Then, several years ago, a friend was helping his parents downsize, and his mother had a sewing machine that needed a home.   I decided that I had matured enough now that I could do a sewing machine justice, so I brought it home.  When I opened it up and took one look at all the doo-dads and gee-gaws on it, I was immediately intimidated and put the cover back on it to wait a while to try it out. 

I finally got up the gumption to tackle the potholder project again since I had a pile of worn out jeans in my closet that needed to be used.  I bought some clearance sale cotton fabric and thread and got down to it.  

Remember I said I took sewing classes at Matzke, did 4-H projects, and a high school sewing class?  Yep, those were all decades ago, and it took me almost an hour to figure out to even thread the dang machine!  The pride that I felt from accomplishing that was quickly doused when I realized I had to wind a bobbin and couldn't even find the bobbin holder  much less wind the thread around that way!  Luckily for me, the owner's manual was right there in the case and 45 minutes later I had a full bobbin of thread.  

Then I remembered what the worst part of using a sewing machine is:  threading the needle!  I had trouble with this 40 years ago, and my eyesight hasn't improve any since then.  Good gravy Marie, there has to be a better way to do this than blindly stabbing the end of a spool of thread toward a teeny-tiny space that is (1) hard to see and (2) hard to maneuver around.  But I rose to the challenge and got it done with much gnashing and wailing.  

I was off to the races.  I had the fabric cut to size and pinned together, so I placed it on the machine, put the presser foot down, and stepped on the foot feed.  I even remembered to backspace a couple of stitches to anchor the seam.  I kept the fabric straight and was halfway along the seam when the needle broke.  

So.Many.Bad.Words.  I dragged the owner's manual out again and figured out how to change the dang needle, but now I had to thread the freaking thing again!  I swear, I would pay someone millions of dollars to come up with a stress-free way to thread that stupid needle!

After successfully changing the needle and threading it, I made it to the first corner.  I remembered to stop with the needle down so I could make the 90-degree turn to make the next seam.  I managed to sew three side seams in neat, straight seams.  I also remembered to do that back stitch thing again to anchor the seam.  

I got the fabric turned right-side out and used a needle to pull the corners out so they weren't all bunched up and messy.  I got the denim lining inserted and pinned down.  

And then my brain just shut off.  I was looking at that last side that needed a seam, but now the fabric was right-side out and I couldn't just sew the edges together...even I knew that much.  But I couldn't for the life of me remember how that got sewed shut neatly without doing it by hand.  That would be a deal-breaker for me.  

Bring on the YouTube videos!  I ask you...what did we do before YouTube?!  It's saved my butt more times than I can count, and this was no exception.  I followed the instructions and had a nice potholder!  So exciting!

Then I decided to go rogue because apparently I know considered myself some sort of expert.  Yeah...no.  

I decided that it would be much smarter and efficient to attach the denim BEFORE turning the potholder right-side out.  It was great in theory but made the corners so bulky that I couldn't get them to lay neat and flat to make a 90-degree seam.  I had to settle--it was that old "it's good enough" gambit--for making a 45-degree seam at each corner.  It turned out...okay, but nothing I was terribly proud of.  

Back to YouTube to see how other people might approach the whole denim-line potholder conundrum.  I ran across a video that seemed to maybe offer a workable solution.  Instead of folding a piece of 14x7 inch fabric in half to make a 7x7 inch square into which a 6x12 piece of denim folded in half to a 6x6 inch square was inserted and sewn in, this pattern had two 6x6 inch pieces of denim sewn together and then laid on the wrong side of a 7x7 inch piece of fabric.  Then the 1/2-inch edges of the fabric were folded in half, pressed, and folded in half again and then top-sewed onto the denim to give a lovely 1/4-inch border.

At this point, I realized I needed some sewing accessories if I was going to do this thing right.  I made a trip to Michaels and got a cutting mat, a rotary cutting wheel, straight pins, an iron (which I have never owned in my life) and fabric.  Now I was committed!

Well heck, I could do that!  Except...once again going rogue...I sewed the double layer of denim to a 6x6 inch square of one fabric and then used an 8x8 inch square of a different fabric to create the opposite side plus the hemmed border.  That one is probably the best one I've done so far but was much more labor-intensive than I had figured on. 

Anyway, short story long, I am trying to channel my inner Mom and do neat, precise work that I won't be embarrassed to share as gifts.  Wish me luck, and if I gift you a slightly wonky potholder, please don't judge; maybe next year's attempts will be better.  

In the meantime, my delusions of grandeur are telling me that I could maybe attempt a small quilt.  Stay tuned for that debacle!

  

Loved To Death

Image courtesy of YouTube

I'm going to throw this out there as a heads up for you:  if I give you a crocheted blanket, I expect it to be used.  I do not expect it to be put behind glass or on a hanger as display.  They are made to wrap you in comfort, love, and peace.  Make note and don't forget.  

My mom and I disagreed on this.  She made us a beautiful quilt for our bed when we got married.  I put it on the bed.  Over 10 years or so of use and washings, it started to show its age, and I would find small tears in it.  When I asked Mom is she could mend it, she got mad that I hadn't taken better care of it....preserved it, if you will.  Why wouldn't I use something that's useful?  It didn't make sense then, and it still doesn't.  

I am only pondering this now because over the weekend, I received a text message from Captain's aunt.  She was visiting her daughter and grandchildren, and her oldest grandson brought out the blanket I made for his baby shower 10 years ago.

The text said "Can this be fixed?  Easton is very sad about this." and was accompanied by this picture:

Friends, this made my heart so happy!  That might seem contrary to what would be expected, but this kid literally loved this blanket to death!  They say the sincerest form of flattery is imitation.  Nope, I saw the sincerest form of flattery is a beloved blanket in tatters from use.  

I replied to Captain's aunt that fixing it might be possible but I would have to actually see it to know for certain.  Since Easton's family lives over an hour away, the timeframe for this to happen was uncertain.  

However, two days later I had to make a parts run for Captain that would bring me within minutes of Easton's house, so I texted his mom and asked if she would be home so I could look at the blanket and probably take it with me.  Yes, that would work fine.  

Unfortunately, the blanket had come apart from the middle out rather than at an edge, so there was no fix to it.  I explained that the yarn used originally was still in production and easily available, so I could deconstruct the blanket, get some new yarn to crochet a new blanket and then use the old yarn as the border so that Easton would have part of his beloved blanket still with him. 

When I got home, I started the deconstruction process, which was much more complicated than I had expected because it hadn't come apart in such a way that I could just unravel the blanket.  I had to undo each stitch individually going backwards until I hit a joining knot that would then allow me to unravel it.  

Once I was able to quickly unravel the yarn, I soon ended up with a coconut-sized ball of yarn plus half a dozen little piles of the yarn I had undone stitch by stitch.

  

This is where the project currently is at a standstill until I can get to Hobby Lobby to get new yarn.  Plus, I have another idea for a surprise for Easton that I can get at Hobby Lobby.  Retail therapy....YAY!

I hope that there comes a day when I get another text, maybe from Easton himself, that says "Can you fix this?" with another picture of a tattered, well-loved blanket.  

If I have ever made a blanket for you, please know that prayers and love are included in every stitch, and my sincere hope is that those prayers and love wrap up with you under your blanket.  

Blessings, my friends!

Delusions of Grandeur

Nugget will be seven weeks old tomorrow, and I can't believe how much she has already grown!  She is starting to show her own little personality, too!

The one trait she seems to have inherited from her mama is being hangry.  Anyone who knows and loves Molly will attest that this is a real thing.  When Molly and Rocky first started their relationship and Molly was getting to know Rocky's family, his dad--who is nicknamed Farmer--scoffed at "hangry" being a real thing.  Trust me on this one, he soon learned differently! 

Nugget carries my middle name, and if you paid attention, you noticed that it wasn't the conventional spelling but, rather, had an "e" at the end of it.  This is because Nugget's Gramma--that would be me--had delusions of grandeur and didn't realize it would follow me the rest of my life.  

For all of you who have ever said that I spend way to much space in my blog mocking Captain, this one's for you.  

My birth certificate issued by Olmsted County when my adoption was finalized reads Judith Kay Brehmer.  First and foremost, you will now forget that my given name is Judith and will never, ever, ever call me that.  Now that my mom has passed, there is only ONE PERSON allowed to call me that.  Secondly, you will notice that there is no "e" in Kay.  

Image courtesy of usercards

Fast forward 21 years to a young woman googly-eyed in love with a handsome young farmer, and they get married.  On the marriage certificate, that young woman, who is now not only googly-eyed in love but is having delusions of grandeur, decides that Kaye would look much more sophisticated on this license than Kay would.  

The problem is that this young woman in all her gooey lovey-dovey state failed to recognize that the spelling used for her middle name on that marriage certificate would follow her FOREVER...just like the new last name would.  She was young and stupid; don't judge.  The first--and only--thing this new spelling showed up on was her new drivers license.  

Let's fast forward some more years...as in maybe 30 years or so.  Okay, I'm going to quit saying young woman because it's me, and we all know it.  So, after 30 years of my drivers license not matching my birth certificate and me thinking this now made me a criminal and might impact my application for a passport, I requested the license bureau in Mantorville to change the spelling when I renewed my license.  

The clerk informed me that I needed to bring in my birth certificate in order for that to happen.  Fine, great, whatever.  

Weeks go by since this wasn't a critical priority at the time.  In the meantime, I did go ahead and apply for a passport and dutifully supplied the paperwork requested, including my birth certificate.  The United States granted and issued a lovely passport book to Judith Kay Brogan.  

Does anyone see where this is going?

Back to the drivers license thing, since I had my birth certificate in hand, I headed back to the license bureau in Mantorville.  The clerk looked at the birth certificate and at the license and asked if I was married.  

Yes ma'am, I am.  Why?

"Mrs. Brogan, your marriage certificate supercedes your birth certificate because it legally changes your name.  Whatever is on your marriage certificate is now your legal name."

Image courtesy of Pinterest

Well just crap.  Now my passport doesn't have the right name on it.  

I had to go home and stew about this for a while.  As in...months.  Once I got done stewing about it, I found the link on the Department of State website and filled out an application to correct a passport, included copies of my drivers license and my marriage certificate along with the rather hefty fee and mailed it off.  

Three months later, I get the entire package back with a REQUEST DENIED letter because--get this--I made the mistake in name spelling when I applied and it wasn't their fault.  But they kept my fee, dang it.  

In the interest of full disclosure, I have not applied for a brand new passport as yet but will do so soon given that I'm flying to France in less than a year.  

So, even though the story is a big old joke on me, I am proud and honored to share this middle name with Nugget!

Happy Together

No, not the song by The Turtles from 1967, although that is a good song!  This is about getting together with family and friends to renew old connections and make some new connections.  

The connections started Friday night when Captain went to our local brewery, South By Southeast, for a mixer as part of his 40th class reunion.  I was otherwise occupied providing security in the Fine Arts Open Class Building at the Dodge County Fair.  I am pleased to report there were no brou-ha-has that I needed to address.  

Captain and his classmates had what looked like a lovely time, at least judging by the pictures on Facebook.  For a class of 60 to 65 students celebrating 40 years, they had a stellar turnout!  In fact, they had so much fun that some of them kept the party going at the local bar & grill, The Trailhead, after the brewery closed for the evening.  

I was home by 9:30, and at 10:45 I texted him to see if he would need a ride home.  The answer "no" came quickly, so I went to bed.  Captain arrived home before I actually got to sleep, so I got up to hear about his evening.  I bet he said at least a half dozen times, "It was just a really nice night."  That made my heart happy.  

Saturday morning, Captain joined some classmates for a tour of the middle school/high school building.  When these folks were attending Pine Island High School, the building was a K-12 building.  Since then, a new pre-K through 4th grade building was built out of town a mile or two.  

Captain's comments were that the wood shop and metals shop didn't look any different and brought back some fond memories for him.  The biology lab also didn't appear any different than back in the day, but he said that room brought on PTSD flashbacks for him.  Apparently biology wasn't his thing.  This surprises me, actually.  

My Saturday morning and afternoon were spent preparing for and attending the Prokasky family reunion.  I started this last year with much success, and this year was no different.  In fact, this year, the oldest living cousin of my mom, Duane Whipple, drove with his wife, Monarae, all the way from Moore, Idaho.  Pals of mine, he will be 91 years old in August; can we give him a round of applause!!  I hope to be that active and able-bodied at that age.  

We had some new faces at the Prokasky reunion this year, in addition to Duane and Monarae, I got to spend time with my cousin, Keith Prokasky, and his family bonding over camping stories, as they were camping at Oxbow Park for the weekend.  I think maybe we might plan a camping trip with them in a year or two!  

Captain passed up the golfing activity part of the class reunion and was able to join the ranks for the tail end of the Prokasky reunion and since there was plenty of food left, he got to have lunch as well.  

I have mentioned before about wanting to write a family history of the Prokasky family, so this is fair warning to any Prokasky peeps that I'll be reaching out to you for photos, letters, diaries, newspaper articles, and memories over the foreseeable future!

Captain and I went home to do chores before heading back to Pine Island for the class reunion dinner at the legion.  Let me give a shout out here to the kitchen crew at the legion:  they put on a wonderful meal with a choice between beef tips and smothered chicken.  Captain had beef, and I had the chicken and both were very tasty!  

Once the meal was over, people began to mingle and the stories started!  At some point, two retired teachers stopped in to say hello and visit with their students of 40+ years ago.  And once again, this class of 1985 that has always opened their arms and hearts to me, welcomed these ladies into the celebration wholeheartedly.  

I've said this before and nothing has changed my mind:  the Pine Island High School class of 1985 puts on the BEST class reunions!  If my memory serves me right--and correct me if I am wrong--Captain and I have attended every reunion that has been held and have enjoyed each one of them immensely.  Not only do the classmates all get along but so do the spouses.  I am so glad to have been welcomed and accepted by Captain's peers, and I absolutely look forward to the next reunion!

The Perfect Pedigree

 

Image courtesy of Among My Branches blog

No, I am not talking about any sort of aristocracy or purebred animal species.  I am talking about pedigrees as pertains to genealogy.  I know, I know...you're all getting sick of hearing about my ancestry adventures, but it's my blog so I can do what I want.  <<insert snarky smiley face>>

Several years ago I paid an obscene amount of money to build all of my and Captain's family trees.  The obscene cost allows unlimited entries onto the tree, and between the two of us, we have thousands of entries!  

I happily spent hours adding names and dates here, there, and everywhere.  However, I didn't pay a lot of attention to where the information was coming from.  Thus, I ended up with a lot of disinformation on my trees that I am now going back and trying to correct.

In adding all these names and dates, I have connected with heretofore unknown cousins across the United States which has been fun.  Last summer I invited as many of the Prokasky cousins as I could track down, and we had a fabulous afternoon of acquainting ourselves.  It was so much fun that we are going to do it again this year...bigger and better!  

After spending that lovely afternoon hearing stories from these newfound cousins, I realized that just having names and dates in my genealogy data wasn't enough.  It's like that poem about The Dash...what matters is what happens between the start date and the end date.  It dawned on me I had no DashData to record, and I decided I wanted to change that.  

In fact, I wanted to change it enough that I could write a family history book going back to my four-times great-grandfather, Henry Prokasky.  

I'm going to remind you all that I am neurodivergent with ADD, so when I have AN IDEA, I jump in feet first with no personal floatation device to keep me from sinking.  I'm talking whole-hog-investment of time and energy.  

Acknowledging the neurodivergent thing, I knew I needed to get organized about the data that I do have, so I ordered a genealogy research starter kit on Amazon.  Me...I love paper.  If I could fill out forms in triplicate all day long, I'd be happy.  Call me crazy.  

I was super excited this morning when I went to get yesterday's mail and the forms had arrived!  I opened them up and looked at the five different forms and immediately had an anxiety attack because it was too much organization at one time for my poor feeble brain.  

There is a 5-generation pedigree chart (hence the title of this post) that has in the header spaces to note the Surname being recorded, who it is compiled by, and the Chart No.  I understand the surname and researcher name fields, but that chart number thing is giving me fits.  How do I note that people in Chart No. 1 (my chart with spouse, children, and parents listed) are also listed in the charts of the preceding four generations?  Again, my feeble neurodivergent mind is curled up in the corner sobbing hysterically. 

Beyond figuring out what to put where on the forms, the next problem I am running into is that my writing is such that the information doesn't fit in the tiny little spaces allowed on these forms.  Sorry, Charlie, I have fairly large handwriting because I have been bat-blind since I was 5 years old and that's the only way I can see what the hey-hey I'm writing.  So I will have to ponder that and see what's to be done about it.  

That is all the easiest part of the genealogy research, actually.  Next comes online searches via Google, FindAGrave.com (which isn't as creepy as it sounds), FamilySearch, and the National Archives website.  Then I could branch out (see what I did there?) into local historical records found at the Olmsted County Historical Society, the Rochester Public Library, and the Minnesota History Center Research Library.  

If I wanted to get really I-N-T-O it all, I could go to state and national genealogy conferences, but that costs more than what I can possibly afford at this stage.  

Plus, all of the data that I would find in any of those places would be cold facts; nothing personal or heart-warming that would truly show the life of any person I might be researching.  

So you see my dilemma!

But still, the data is the foundation, and it needs to be correct and organized in a logical fashion for whatever final result you wish for.  

In my case, the final project will be a book detailing Henry and Margaret (Tomangh) Prokasky and their descendants through six generations to Cubby and Nugget (this is what Molly calls the baby bump).

Therefore, my plan is to leave what's out there on my public family tree site as it is.  On an interoperable web site, I will start the tree from scratch, paying much closer attention to who, what, when, where, why, and how.  I will write down what I do, when I do it, where I found it, and who it's about.  

It will be long journey, most likely years in the making, but it will be worth it when the final product is in my hands and I can share it with my family.  Luckily I find myself with more 'spare' time now that I am done with school, so what better what to spend that time than climbing the family tree?!

And guess what, pals of mine?  I'm going to drag you along on the ride!!  

Hugs, my friends!

Hiking Club Adventures

 When Captain and I stayed at the yurt in Afton State Park this winter, we spent quite a bit of time chatting with the ranger in the office when we were checking out.  I wandered around the little gift shop because I like to have a memento from each state park we stay in.  

This time I didn't purchase a memento but the Minnesota State Park Hiking Club log book and the Minnesota State Park Passport log book.   My theory was that the hiking club log book would provide me with dozens of trips with Cubby.  

The object of the hiking club is to get people out exploring the state parks and the incentive to do so is a find and record a password that is posted at about the halfway point of the dedicated hiking club trail. 

For our first foray into this adventure, I took Cubby with me back to Afton State Park because we needed to pick up the jacket that Captain left in the yurt when we stayed there.  Cubby wasn't thrilled with it being a 90-minute drive so I bribed her with the promise of lunch at McDonalds on the way there and a stop at Thelma's Treats in Afton on the way home.  

On the way to Afton, I really hyped up how much fun it was going to be to do a treasure hunt type search for the password, thinking there would be some sleuthing skill required.  When we discovered that the password is plastered in great big letters on a sign that says PASSWORD, it was a little anticlimactic.  Thus Cubby's crabby face.  

Still, I convinced her it was still a fun activity and we kept on hiking.  Lucky for me, we found  a stream she could play in for a good 15 minutes!

Of course, when we finished the hike and were heading home, I took her to Thelma's Treats in Afton--the oldest ice cream shop in Minnesota!  She had a cherry shake and I had a salted caramel ice cream cone...both were scrumpdillyicious, to borrow a word from a competing ice cream franchise.  

Fast forward several weeks and we had our second adventure to Carley State Park in Plainview.  We were a little early for the bluebells, although we did see a couple of tiny ones.  Cubby found a teepee type structure that fascinated her, but her biggest enjoyment were the concrete blocks that needed to be traversed to cross the stream.  

Me...not so much.  The first set of concrete "stepping stones" wasn't bad but the second set had a 3-foot gap between the bank and the first block.  Of course little Miss Nimble On Her Feet skipped right across and then looked back at her grandma.  

"C'mon Grandma, just step quick on the rock, the log, and then the block."  Uh-huh, sure.  Listen, child of my child, my center of gravity is WAY different than yours so just let me do this myself.  Yeah...it took me a good 60 seconds to accomplish what she did in a nanosecond.  But I did it!

And then...

From the last block to the other bank there is, again, a 3-foot span of water but this time there are no handy objects to step on to get from here to there.  Nope, I was going to have to launch myself and hope like heck I didn't face plant in the mud.  

I even had my own little cheerleader for this as I was sort of bouncing to really spring through the air.  Just as I was crouched and ready to leap, there was a voice behind me from a group of people I had no idea were there.  Ermagerd....I flailed around mid leap and landed back on the block facing back at a woman and two men.  The poor women who had spoke and robbed me of the last two years of my life looked as shocked as I felt and was apologizing up and down.  

The guy behind her?  Hmmmmm...he was laughing so hard I thought he was going to wet himself.

So was Cubby, for that matter.  

With wounded pride and all, I managed to jump across far enough to (1) stay out of the stream and (2) not face plant in the mud.  All good things in my world.  

After THAT ordeal, the last leg of the hike was a set of steps that looked pretty daunting, but we powered through it and made it back to the van in one piece.  

Next up in the Hiking Club adventure I believe will be Big Woods State Park in Nerstrand!  

Parental Validation

 

Image courtesy of Pinterest

You've all read (or should have by now) my stories of parenting wherein Captain and I diverge on philosophies.  Captain is of the "everything is a crisis" school of thought while I am of the "choose your battles" camp.  Captain tended to yell about everything.  I only yelled occasionally.  

But when I did...you can fill in the blank here.  

You know that old saying, "her bark is worse than her bite"?  Yeah, my description is more like "you won't hear the bark until she has chewed your face off."  

Stay with me here because I'm not trying to build myself up as a World Class Beeyatch.  I'm trying to illustrate that a child's healthy respect of an adult has to have just a tiny drop of fear in it.  

The reason I bring this up is because I got the sincerest validation of my parenting choices recently.  Have any of you ever had one of those "Lord, I did something right as a parent" moments when your adult children are talking?  Usually it's because your young adult son took time to help a stranger load something heavy into her car at Fleet Farm or whatever.  You get what I mean.  A warm fuzzy moment.  I've had those, and it's an amazing feeling.  

Recently, however, I had one of a different flavor, but it was just as satisfying. 

I'm going to paraphrase and take some artistic license with the details to protect the innocent here, but the crux of it is that we were recently at a gathering that included many of Bigger's classmates.  They are all in the early 30s now and parents themselves.  

I'm not certain how the conversation got started; probably one classmate started talking about stupid stuff they'd done as teenagers and whether or not they (1) got caught and (2) got in trouble.  One classmate asked the group which of their friends' mom they were most afraid of. 

I had three fingers pointed right at me.  

Huhn?  

The follow-up question, obviously, was "Why" and the unanimous answer was, "Because she didn't flip out about everything, but when she did, she followed through on a consequence."  

It stands out as one of the proudest moments of my life.  Again, I don't want to be known as the Class A Beeyatch, but being known as fair but fierce is okay in my book.  

On the same note, I saw a Facebook reel this morning which actually prompted this post.  It was a male comedian talking about parenting and yelling.  He said you can't just yell at your kids all the time because they will eventually tune that particular frequency out and, in his words, all they hear is a Yamaha dirt bike in the distance.  For my fellow Gen Xers, that means you'd sound like Charlie Brown's teacher.  

Anyway, he said that as a parent, you have to have two discipline voices.  One is the generic yell akin to a Yamaha dirt bike.  But then you have to have what I call the Come To Jesus voice.  My kids--and apparently their friends--know this voice of mine.  

I have a big voice, so my standard discipline voice generally covers a radius of a half mile.  Everybody in the neighborhood knows my kids are in trouble.  That's the voice to use when someone didn't finish their chores.  

The Come To Jesus voice is a full two octaves lower than that, is soft, and it's deadly.  And usually has fewer words.  This voice is what comes out when the child pulled out the old nugget about being old enough to do what he/she wants (i.e. stay out to the wee hours drinking and then not get up in the morning to do the expected chores).  This conversation will then move into Come To Jesus territory and end with  me saying in that two-octave-lower voice "If you are living under our roof and we are paying the bills, you do what I want you to do."  And here's the kicker.  The voice drops another half octave and ends with "Are we clear?"

I didn't pull out the Come To Jesus voice often, but those times when I did are still talked about.  And I'm okay with that.  

I have had two outstanding Face The Consequences situations as a parent; one with each kid.  I consider them to be the pinnacle of my parenting career.  And neither one actually involved the Come To Jesus voice, now that I think about it.  Hmmmm.

But, we must have done something right because between the two of us, Captain and I raised two children who became functioning, contributing members of society with respectable lives of their own.  That's what parenting is supposed to be, in my mind.  

Call me a Big Old Meanie, but if I run into any of my kids' classmates and get a bear hug and a story about how I terrorized them...that's a red letter day in my book.  

Call me crazy.