Mercy

My mom's blog demonstrating my excellent salesgirl skills:
MERCY!

Skipper Lee

This past week, my parents, Lynette, RJ and I drove to Denver for my Grandpa's funeral. After the funeral we drove around my dad's old neighborhood. We came to a park and my dad pointed out their neighborhood pool and told us that was where he punched out Skipper Lee.

Lynette started laughing and I asked for a refresher on that story. Here is the best I can remember it in my dad's words:




"I was about 15 years old and I gave Jimmy Burl a dime and told him to go to the pool and get me a green snow-cone. [How old was Jimmy?] Jimmy was 7 or 8 and he did what I told him. So 15 minutes later, Jimmy comes back and he's crying and NO SNOW-CONE! I asked him where the snow-cone was and he told me some kid stole it from him. So I told him to come with me and we went back to the pool.

We got there and I told Jimmy to find me the kid that ate my snow-cone...and it was Skipper Lee. So we went over to Skipper with green juice on his lips and I said: "Hey! Do you remember this kid?"

He said: "Uurrrrrhhh....."

I said: "Why did you eat my snow-cone?"

He said: "I didn't know it was yours."

Scott: "Well you owe me a green snow-cone!"

Skipper: "Urrhhhh, I don't have any money."

That's when I decked him in the face. [How old was Skipper?] My same age, 15. [Did anyone try to break up the fight?] We were outside the pool at the counter and it wasn't a fight, it was a beating. I sure got my 10 cents out of that loser, but what made me really mad was that was my last dime and I really wanted a green snow-cone."

It was really exciting for me to see Jimmy at the funeral. Here he is with my dad, I should have asked him if he remembered the green snow-cone ordeal. My dad did tell me Jimmy was the toughest 8-year-old he's seen, but he couldn't take on a punk 7 years older than him, so Scott had to go get his snow-cone revenge.

love you Dad!

Christmas '94

This past Christmas was my first as a parent. We celebrated with Rhett's family. The expensive electronics i.e. touch cell phones, i-pods, DS's, etc. our nieces and nephews received for Christmas reminded me of my 4th grade Christmas.



December 1994 I only had one thing on my mind for Christmas. I remember laying up-side-down in a wing back chair one Sunday afternoon lamenting to my mom:
"If I don't get a walk-man for Christmas I will DIE!!"

My mom was mad and quickly told me "If a piece of metal and plastic is worth your life, you'd better re-evaluate things. I don't think you should have a walk-man if you are so obsessed with it."

I remember flipping my legs forward off the back of the chair, somersaulting to the ground.

"Are you serious?" I said, my voice trembling..."you won't get me a... walk-man?" (Santa was blown for me before kindergarten)

Mom: "I don't know, you better start getting your act together."



I don't know if my behavior or priorities changed between that Sunday and Christmas morning, but the photo shows my emotions of pure joy to be holding my own walk-man, and relief my life was spared....thanks mom.
Many recesses after that moment were spent listening to my Ace of Base:the sign & Amy Grant: Heart in Motion tapes. I of course had to wear a hat or hood to hide the huge headphones from the recess monitors.

So this year as I saw the kids enjoying their DS tournaments, texting, or watching youtube on their touch i-pods, I could relate to their "electronic passions" but realized my walk-man was probably $20 and those touch i-pods are around $300, so if my kids also have an electronic they want and feel they may die if they don't receive it on Christmas, I'll just have them pick out their coffin beforehand.

In Memory of...

James Elwood Kelly

1922 - 2009

My grandfather passed away this past week at 86 and he meant a lot to me. He was:

a Marine during WWII,

a hard worker,

a son,

a brother,

a husband,

a father,

a grandfather,

a great-grandfather,

and the best man I've ever known.

1 Corinthians 13: 4-5 "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up; doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth."

If I were to sum up my grandfather, I would replace "charity" with his name.

He was my best example of what it means to be Christ-like. I named my son after him, and only hope Rhett James (RJ) can live up to his name and honor the man who first made it great. Grandpa lived a good life and as much as I will miss him, I feel peace.

Not much of a tribute, but he's been consuming the majority of my thoughts these last two weeks.

Winter Break

The holidays are great when you are a student because you have the holidays off, Rhett had the whole week of Christmas off between rotations! Throughout our marriage, one of us always worked Christmas or Christmas Eve and it was great to both have it off this year and to be with family.

We took all the kids from Delta up to AF Canyon to sled at Tibblefork. I hadn't been since 2003 and it was awesome as usual. I always forget how draining it is to hike my saggy bum back up the steep mountain, but it was worth it. My camera ran out of batteries and I was so mad because I wanted a picture of the bowl up in the pines off the water...maybe another time.

My nephew likes to hunt and got this goose. He said he was going to eat it and so I was interested to see the process. He plopped it down and told me: "Jess the technique I'll teach you today can be used for any birds you'll have in the future." Prior to this goose, the only dead animals I'd cleaned were fish. It wasn't too bad I guess, I kept thinking of a delicious Christmas Goose Dickens would have enjoyed. But when it came to eat the meat, I had a weird relationship with it and could only taste it (I'll admit it was actually pretty good). My first goose gives me sympathy for my ancestors that lived without butchers where you had to slaughter and prepare animals you raised for meat...I may have been a vegetarian.

Over the break we made another movie with all the kids in Delta...Tonto's Revenge. It was a western. I filmed it and Rhett edited it. We were showing him our footage and he pointed out the gambling addictions, theft, violence, focus on obtaining "women", and smoking represented in our film and Rhett said it was definitely not a G rating...but hey it's a western. What did he expect?

These were my favorite two scenes. This little nephew pretty much improvs all his lines and we don't know what he'll say. Tonto digs on tribal lands with his loyal squaw Bonto watching. They dug up a baby-- RJ. (the kids made the plot for this one)

My only regret with our film is we didn't integrate one of my favorite Jack Handey's in somehow...

"If I lived back in the wild west days, instead of carrying a six-gun in my holster, I'd carry a soldering iron. That way, if some smart-aleck cowboy said something like "Hey, look. He's carrying a soldering iron!" and started laughing, and everybody else started laughing, I could just say, "That's right, it's a soldering iron. The soldering iron of justice." Then everybody would get real quiet and ashamed, because they had made fun of the soldering iron of justice, and I could probably hit them up for a free drink."

Now we are living in Delta while Rhett finishes his rural family medicine rotation and I am working rocks for the family business. I have learned much about sedimentary minerals...like did you know fluorite is used in steel production and comes in a variety of colors from purple to green?

Merry Christmas!

Mele Kalikimaka?

It had been crazy whether in the southwest. Vegas got 6" of snow and apparently this was the worst storm since the 1930s. My mom sent me this picture from St. George. She loves snow and it seems it followed her south since she couldn't be up here with us!

You mean to tell me you've had those gloves this whole time? Yeah...we're in the rockies.

I'm Dreaming of A White Christmas....

I thought it might be a dry, sunny Christmas this year (yuck to me) but I've been so pleased it's been snowing since last Saturday afternoon.

With the Christmas season, comes many gifts and treats from neighbors.....

WARNING: this following story is shared with no intention to cause offense to any who own, love, or even like pets

I was raised to hate animals. I don't think this was an intentional training on my parent's, or I should say, my father's part, but naturally developed over time. Despite growing up raising pigeons and having a loyal dog, for some reason my Dad hates animals. I guess that may be a stretch because a bird laid her eggs in the wreath on my parent's front door this summer and everyone had to walk clear around to the back of the house so as to not disturb them. Everyone was banned from touching the front door for weeks to preserve some finches...so I guess it would be more accurate to say my dad hates domesticated animals--pets.

I remember as a kid, we obviously wanted a pet pretty bad but knew it would not fly with dad so my older sister and I took it upon ourselves to walk to Wal-mart and buy a feeder goldfish for 15 cents and hid it under Heather's bed. Needless to say, the fish died quickly and we were pet owners for only a short time.

When we would see animals dead on the side of the road growing up my Dad would always point them out and say something like: "oh look, the kitty decided to take a nap on the road." followed by everyone staring at the road kill and someone saying "it's not sleeping dad, it's dead!!" [Maybe this is the source of my obsession with always investigating the roadkill as thoroughly as I can during the short seconds as I drive by]
My dad would also always swerve toward cats, dogs, and even birds that were clearly out of the way as a joke. He'd usually get an exasperated: "Scott!" from my mom and giggles from us kids in the back. Why it was hilarious to us that Dad was jokingly endangering the lives of innocent creatures is beyond me, but I still smile at the thought of those occasions.

My Mom loves animals, especially dogs and has always made it known if my Dad ever dies she will be able to have a dog finally....and she will keep it in the house!

This is the greatest pet offense of all for my father, having a cat or dog in your house, which is where we get back to this story's intro--the neighbor treats.

A couple nights ago a neighbor gift was on the counter and he picked it up, excited to partake of the treats. Glancing at the gift tag, he suddenly lobbed the gift across the room into the trash as if his hand had been burned. "What was that about?" I asked. He wrinkled his face in disgust and said: "they have cats in the house." We all busted out laughing. I actually don't think this neighbor has cats in the house but just the suspicion was too much evidence for my dad, because having a cat or dog in the house inevitably means there is cat/dog hair in any food that leaves that house.

A phone call I had with my Dad right after I moved out off to college suddenly flew to my mind. One night my dad called me, which never happened as he hates to talk on the phone and my Mom at that point was still calling me every day. Here is our conversation back in 2003:

Me: Hello?

Dad: Jessica, I just want you to know if you have a dog in your house I will never visit you.

Me: What?

Dad: A dog. If you have a stinking dog rubbing his butt all over your carpet I will never come see you, no matter what your mom says.

Me: Dad what in the world are you talking about? I don't even have a dog.

Dad: I'm talking when you live on your own and grow up...I can't stand stinking dogs drooling in the house!

Me: Well I can promise you now I will never have a dog, let alone let a dog live in my house.

Dad: Good. I'm glad. Bye.

He hangs up on me.

I called my Mom back to ask what that was all about. She said they were watching TV and a commercial came on with a dog in the house and my Dad went off on how disgusting it was and my mom, to defend the issue said: "well Jessica, your favorite, will probably have a dog so you'll have to get used to the fact some people like them," or something like that. [To clarify, this summer my Dad announced Lynette is his favorite, so I don't know why I was the one to have the imaginary dog living with me to test my dad] Thus in defiance to me and anyone else who has an animal, whether real or fictional, my dad illustrated the necessity of our relationship dissolving, dare I ever chose to allow a "stinking dog" live in my house.

Caramel

We love making caramel for fall and Christmas. It is pretty easy and so delicious....not so healthy though

Caramel

3/4 c. butter (no substitute)

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 can brown sugar

1 can white sugar

1 can light Karo syrup

1 tsp vanilla

In heavy bottom pan melt butter. Empty sweetened condensed milk into pan and use empty can to measure the sugars and karo syrup. Over medium heat, stirring constantly, bring mixture to a boil. Using candy thermometer continue cooking and stirring until caramel reaches 245-250 degrees. We use the cold water test which is described here, cooking until it is the firm ball stage.

Stir in vanilla and pour immediately into greased 9x13 for caramel eating. **After it is done cooking, stir as little as possible to avoid a grainy texture**

We made caramel pretzel sandwiches and let it cool about 10 minutes and spooned a glob of caramel on a pretzel and topping it with another pretzel. After these cooled, I flipped them over and drizzled chocolate on them, but I was too busy eating to take a picture of the finished product.

Dipping pretzel rods is also delish. To dip rods, I spray a tall glass mug with Pam and pour the caramel in the mug and dip the rods about 3/4 of the length of the pretzel. The mug handle makes it nice to tip the caramel once it gets low to get good coverage and you don't burn your hand.

We Love to be Home for the Holidays!

It has been two years since we've seen the lights on Temple Square!

INTRODUCING...

My little sister's etsy store.

Carrying on the sewing tradition from my mom

http://www.ladydanburry.etsy.com/

Check it out!