What Having a Big Family is Like on Holidays

This is the year we have Thanksgiving with husband's side and I cannot wait. There is something crazy and fun about having holidays with mega amounts of people, especially when it is family. For those of you who do not know, my husband has 11 siblings. That means huge holiday gatherings. One of my favorites is Thanksgiving. My sister-in-law is hosting this year and we are going to try and fit everyone in the living room.   As you can see, everyone means a lot of people. 

I always imagine that we must somehow stretch a house out when we all gather because it seems impossible to fit so many people under one roof. 

 My hubby's dad and mom are always busy in the kitchen the day of. I have learned that dinner is just never on time. That would be just weird. The first Thanksgiving I had with them I made the mistake of not eating before dinner...I was one grumpy person by 6pm. This year I am prepared to eat snacks. There will be plenty. This is the one meal the Emmons spare nothing. I do not think I have even seen as many pies at a bakery by the time the day is over. Mr. Emmons cooks a variety all day and soon we are putting pies in the oddest places so there is still room to cook. There is also no shortage of jello salads. Never in my life have I seen as many varieties of jello salads as we have on Thanksgiving. The shear volume and variety puts all church potlucks to shame.

 

The activities for the day always include large groups. There is no shortage of wiis and wii remotes as the entire family pools together their collection. This year I have been practicing for the Mario Cart Tourney. Not because I want to win (that is a few more years of practice away) but because I just want to keep up enough to cross the finish at each race.

We also place numerous board games and card matches all day long. 

Dinner is always more than filling and we get a chance to discuss what we are thankful for. Then we stuff ourselves full of dessert. 

And we Emmons never forget about left overs. Therefore, at least three turkeys are cooked so that we can all take home the golden combo of mashed taters, turkey and cranberry sauce. And jello salad. And pies. Lots of pies and jello salad. 

Living In Podunkville: Episode 1- First Impressions

When I first heard we were moving to Prineville, Oregon for sure I was a little apprehensive but as a couple weeks past I had conjured up all kinds of expectations of the little podunk town. I had come to the conclusion that it would be quaint, full of cow boys and girls, wholesome, innocent, a haven from the degradation of society. The town would be full of historic houses and everyone would own a horse. So when we visited Prineville for the first time in order to find a place to live it is no surprise it did not go as planned. As we neared Prineville it was well after dark. Hubby and I were in a pretty good mood and were singing to country music (mostly because that's all the stations in the area play and partly because we were excited about becoming county bumpkins).

We came to the welcome sign and entered Prineville. "Don't blink!" I joked, "You'll miss it."

There were about 6 large industrial looking buildings and then before we could blink...

 ...there was only blank road ahead and the backside of the ugly industrial buildings behind. 

 I looked at Zeph and asked, "Was that it?"

The horror set in.

Zeph broke the silence that had settled in, " I guess I will find a place to turn around up here?" 

But the road ahead had no turn outs. It was a long stretch with dirt and dead stuff. 

We finally came to a bend in the road and as we rounded the corner...

...lights! Glorious town lights below in a little valley.

We returned to being cool. We knew it was all going to work out the "whole" time. 

As we reached the valley floor we entered the as expected quaint Main Street and drove past a few shops.

All seemed fairly normal until we drove past the hair salon. 

I kid you not, the hair salon in Prineville is called Cougar Cuts and as we drove by there was a STUFFED COUGAR on lighted display in the salon.  

 Unsure what to comment on about that we proceeded to the hotel and got a good nights sleep in a surprisingly modern room. 

The next morning we were again in good moods because the sun was shining and it was raining 31/2hr away in Corvallis. We went to the local renting office "Wild West Properties" and asked for listings in our price range. Full of optimism, we headed for the first listing on the edge of town. 

The house looked nothing like the picture. 

 It was hideous, shocking and plain unsanitary. Most of the paint was gone, the roof was caving in, the windows were cracked and the door did not latch. It was the kind of house that only roaches would like. It provoked the irrational fear that we might catch drugs from it. 

Despite our fear of coming down with crack, we entered briefly. The smell was a mixture of poop, drugs, mold and grease. 

Unsure of what to do next, we pressed on to a couple more listings. There were a whole lot more trailer parks than I envisioned. At one point we got lost. This is extremely frustrating because Prineville is so tiny. How can one get lost? 

 We were looking for NW 6th Street. We found NE 6th, W 6th. But no NW 6th. Finally we found NW 5th Street. 

"Perfect!" I said to Zeph, " All we have to do is turn down here and then we will find NW 6th." 

Logical. But incorrect in Prineville.  

We instead found 5 1/2 Street around the turn and no 6th.  Who has a 5 1/2 Street?!?!  

 We reached our limit at this point. We were convinced we had entered the Twilight Zone or Prineville has an outsider defense system intent on frustrating visitors. 

I burst into tears and went on a rant about how it is already hard enough to leave Corvallis and our friends behind and then this and what kind of town has a 5 & a 1/2 street and everyone here is a country bumpkin and life will be terrible here. I finally calmed down to a resigned sniffle and we resumed our hunt for NW 6th Street. 

Somehow we ended up on NE First Street which, of course, is in the SW part of town. We took a turn onto Ewen Street to get back to Main Street when I saw it. The perfect style house for rent! 

 It was in our price range, had hardwood floors and new appliances. We called about it and left feeling much better about living in Prineville. 

Totally knew everything was going to be fine the whole time. 

How I Ended Up Doing the Dishes

So the other day I came home from work.  It had been long, hot day and work had been full of grumpy customers. I started the usual routine I go through when I find that the husband is not home yet. I dropped the constant, ridiculous pile of junk I am always carrying from the car and zombied over to the computer to indulge in the mindless entertainment of Reddit and FB.

I began cooling off from the long day and just as I started to relax I thought I would like a snack. This reminded me of the mountain of dishes in the kitchen. Defeated by that thought I kept facebooking.

Somehow I came across a video about this really dedicated wife whose husband had been in a  tragic accident and she cared for him even when he now can no longer walk or communicate in the same way.

This inspired me and I decided that if she can work and take care of her husband I can BUCK UP and tackle the dishes!
Just when I was going to get up, my mind took one of its regular tangents on the meaning or origins of phrases. What on earth does BUCK UP even mean?

Does is mean you become like a buck and be all tough and stuff?

Or do you get tough enough to lift a buck?

Or do you just get skin tough like a buck?

The thought of how doing dishes would make me need to look like I had buckskin suddenly irritated me. A crippling word slipped into my thoughts:

That was all I needed. An all-out pity party was at hand. I thought of how awful life is going to be with having buckskin. How all the hours of work I have to do is making me wrinkly and soon I will be just hideous, and how all the buck-uping will wear me down. That I was all alone in my bucking up and that no-one else has to put up with as many hours of work as I do and then come home to dishes. And how terrible heavy bucks are.

After wallowing in my self-pity for who knows how long, I was still hungry (which I felt very sorry for myself about). I somehow crawled to the kitchen despite my fear of those wrinkle causing dishes. 

I paused for a long time discouraged (and yet feeling more justified in my pity party) about the large pile of dishes.

Still thinking all my woeful thoughts, I began hunting for food.    


While sad about not finding "anything" to eat, I spotted a piece of paper with my husband's handwriting.

"Dear Lindsay, I was not sure what time you would be home, but I made you dinner. Check the fridge..." The note included all the nice things about love and stuff that I needed to hear. In the fridge was an entire dinner with salad included. Nothing like someone who is actually just as busy as you doing something loving to snap you out of a self-pity attack.
And that is how I ended up cleaning the entire kitchen after a long day of work.

The Saga of the Shelves

Our apartment was seriously lacking in space and normality. The largest obstacle in the way of having a nice looking apartment was our hideous metal bookcase that really should have been garage shelving.

After much convincing, my husband got on the bandwagon to replace our bookcase with shelves. We left our apartment with great expectations for the outcome of such an undertaking and headed to the Habitat for Humanity Restore to find some shelves.

Little did I know that our idea for the projects outcome would be so different... Zeph, in his engineering/large family mindset, wanted indestructible shelving. I wanted something cute (after all, what other reason is there?).

When we got to the restore we were so lucky to find a lack shelf and two corner shelves. Zeph, however, did not feel the same about the lack shelf (if all men are like Zeph I have no idea how Ikea sells any of these!).

While Zeph was calculating the inevitable doom of our books, I was already thinking of how many awesome things could go on that shelf.

Needless to say I convinced him in the end, although I think he still had plans to add reinforcements. We got home and began working furiously for what seemed like a lot of hours on painting the shelves, taking down our old shelves and prepping a corner of our living room.

After getting the shelves painted and ready go on to the wall I started feeling like it was time to wrap-up for the night. But when I started hinting at such I noticed that Zeph was now really into the project. He was now determined to finish the whole project that night and I was going to stay up and help him.

After trying to hold up a shelf for him for a little while, I gave up and collapsed on the couch. Zeph kept working which made me grumpier by the minute. When I reach either a point of great hunger or tiredness there usually is no going back from an explosion of emotions and great despair about life in general. I begin to fill Zeph's ears with complaints that we are doing nothing with our lives and it is all so meaningless, etc.

Zeph hears the key word. Meaningless. Suddenly aware that the situation is about to get messy, he looks at me.

After assessing my overall body language he decides that tonight is not a good time to finish the project.

I process.

And the wiser Zeph and less tired Lindsay finished a stylish (and earthquake proof) set of bookshelves another day.