Matt’s aunt and uncle on his Dad’s side decided to host a family 4th of July potluck this year. It had been years since we had been able to join them on their annual Christmas get-together because of Matt’s work or holiday travel, so it was wonderful to have a chance to see everyone in his family. It was especially fun to see all the “next generation” kids play together. Matt’s two cousins each had their second baby in 2012 and I love that Bo is going to have these second cousins (first cousins once removed?) to grow up and play with at family events. What’s a family get together if you don’t have someone your own age to scheme and get into trouble with? Since it was the first time the whole family had been together in a few years, we of course had to organize a group family photo. Both of Matt’s paternal grandparents have passed on, but I couldn’t help but think how proud they would be to see how their family had grown – 23 people all as a result of their love. Pretty cool.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
The Beach
Oh how I love the beach. I love any beach, any time of year but I especially love my family’s annual April beach trip to Garden City Beach, SC. Last year, Matt and I were able to join our family for the whole week at the beach but this year because of work schedules we had to make the most of our too-short 3.5 days there! We managed to fit it all in…
Saturday night we celebrated my mom’s upcoming retirement from her career as a elementary school teacher with champagne and cupcakes! The cupcakes were made by my super talented friend Abbie (the same one who made Matt’s birthday cake a few months ago.) Not only are they adorable, but they taste so good.
Congrats Mom!! My mom keeps telling everyone she got accepted for a new job position she applied for five years ago – Grandma. (I appreciate the gentle reminder we’ve kept her waiting a whole five years and like to tell my sister that that means now she’s married the clock is ON.)
We had GORGEOUS weather this week. April can be hit or miss weather at the beach – but that will never stop a bunch of Yankees from spreading their towels out and claiming the sun. It makes me laugh to look up and down the beach and see the scores of people splashing in the freezing ocean – you can tell immediately who has traveled down from NY, NJ and Ontario for their spring breaks.
Fortunately we didn’t have to wear our Yankees tough skin on the beach this week {since I don’t have mine anymore} – each day was warmer then the next and we got plenty of time in the sun. Even Buddy was totally content curled up on a blanket under an umbrella.
Speaking of Buddy, one of the “perks” of bringing your dog to the beach is getting to wake up at sunrise every day to take him out! He usually gets up around 6:30 or so to go out, and at home I just let him out the back door and if it’s not time for me to get up, we head back to bed. But here the back door was a wooden staircases that led straight to a wide open beach, so I thought it in my best interest to actually put the leash on and walk him. It turned out to be one of my favorite moments of each day. There is nothing so beautiful as the sun coming up on an almost-empty beach. One morning we were out just as it was literally coming up over the water, and we plopped down in the sand to watch the sun climb higher and higher in the sky from dawn to full morning daylight.
I am okay with this version of 6:30. Sure beats an alarm clock and fumbling to the kitchen to mash the Keurig button.
Ok, so maybe you still need the mash the Keurig button.
We also, of course, had our favorite Claffey family beach tradition – buttery rubber bands!
Katie and Drew posed for this picture while we were waiting for our last rounds of clams to come up and I’m pretty sure it looks like it belongs in a church directory. Awkward is their specialty.
It was a condensed version of our usual beach trip, but expert beach goers that we are, we managed in everything that makes a Claffey beach trip great: surf, sand, hot dogs, clams, golf, walks, family time, beer. Ok ix-nay on that last one for me…. maybe next year. I don’t think Baby C would take too kindly to that!
See you next year, beach!
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Comforting
My Dad’s love language is information.
Every trip home I find a stack of newspapers in my room, folded so the relevant articles are apparent.
It makes me laugh, it makes me roll my eyes a little bit but it’s comforting.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Fix
Sad to say that I did not have my act together enough to make corned beef & cabbage this year for St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t think Matt was too disappointed… but I was. I was en route from picking Buddy up at daycare and meeting girlfriends for a fro yo date, trying to figure out what I could grab for dinner, when I saw Mozelle’s tweet that their feature of the day was corned beef & cabbage.
Done. Deal.
It’s a little sad that this one meal cost about the same as an entire brisket would, but that’s okay. It brought me great joy. I’m guessing that this is one of those meals that taste so good because it has nostalgia attached to it – I picture my mom in the kitchen, lading out the potatoes and cooked carrots out of the crockpot. And when we were really little – serving it with milk dyed green from food dye. So creative, that Sharebear.
What do you think? If you didn’t grow up having cb&c as a family meal, does it appeal to you?
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Back Where I Come From
Growing up, my mom always made corned beef & cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day. I guess I’ve never asked, but I’m assuming she started doing it for my Dad, whose father is Irish. (Although, from what I’ve heard about my Grandma Swales, my mom’s mom, boiling everything in one big pot would have been right up her alley when it comes to cooking!)
This was my first time attempting to cook it myself, and I was pretty pleased with the results. (I actually made this on Sunday, but it seems appropriate to post it today.) Then again, you basically just continually add things to boiling water: meat first, then potatoes, then cabbage. Making the sauce involves stirring and microwaving. It’s pretty much a no-fail, and it goes a long way. Definitely can see why my Grandma Claffey (my Dad’s mom) would have been a fan of this, since she was tasked with the challenge of cooking for nine every night!
I could hear her voice while I was cooking, with one of her most famous quotes:
“If potatoes weren’t so common, they would be a delicacy!”
I guess this should go on my cooking blog, but then again, it’s not the healthiest meal I’ve ever made, so between you and me, let's just agree to leave it here.
Did I mention soda bread? Mmmm, soda bread. We’ve been eating this for almost a week now.
I love being Irish. Growing up in the North I experienced a big focus on “where your family comes from.” Maybe it’s because the northern states were “melting pots” much more than the South, but I’ve not come across this same fascination with the place of origin in the South. Here, when you ask someone where they are from, they are likely to tell you which county their relatives have lived in for the last 100 years! That kind of longevity of place is a bit of a novel concept for most Northerners.
In 3rd grade, we had to make cut out paper dolls to represent our family's country of origin. I specifically remember using an excessive amount of red yarn for hair, and plenty of freckles. In 4th grade, we had to interview an older relative about their relatives - during this project I learned my great aunt was supposed to come over to America on the Titanic but fortuitously fell ill and couldn't make the departure! In 5th grade, we had Immigration Day in elementary school. We had to dress up from whatever country our ancestors had come from, and if I recall right, there was a pretend Ellis Island type experience and a swearing-in assembly. Oh, us melting pot of Western European suburban kids!
I was very conflicted as to whether to represent my Swedish ancestors (Mom’s side) or my Irish ancestors (Dad’s side.) In the end, I choose Swedish for one simple reason: I was blonde.
Other than our somewhat odd fascination with immigration projects from 3rd grade to 5th grade, I haven’t dabbled much in my family’s roots. My brother spent sometime in college tracing my Dad’s line back to Ireland, and my mother’s father has a great record of his family dating back to England. The first time I learned that my Grandma Swales (Mom’s side) had descended from Swedish missionaries who had lived in Venezuela was at her funeral!
As I grow older, I find myself being tugged back towards my roots. I know very little about my family beyond my grandparents – which is the complete opposite of my “100 years in one county” husband who can tell tales of a great-great uncle who was a physician who traveled on horseback throughout Lincoln County and a great-great grandfather who was a pilot. It wasn’t until about a year ago, when putting together a family tree in my wedding scrapbook, that I learned that my sister’s name – Kathryn – was my great-grandmother’s name.
I know that, strangely enough, this is some of my reason for blogging. Ever since learning my great-grandmother’s name, I’ve wondered who she was. At 27, what was she doing? What did she think? My mom has recently found and shared some writing from my Grandma (her Mom) and there’s something that seems magical about hearing the voice of the people who came before you. Especially, in the case of my Grandma, hearing her voice as a wife and a mother, before she played the only role I knew her as – grandmother. I blog for myself, to shake the voices and stories out of my head, to supplement my not-so-trusty memory, but also to put my voice out there for my someday children or their children to read and know who I was, before I play the only roles they will know me in. Isn’t that the fascinating thing about people? We play so many roles in our lives, yet we generally only know each other in one or two of them.
Maybe it’s the process of beginning to start a new branch of a family tree – getting married, the joining together of two families – that makes the desire to know more about where you come from grow stronger. Maybe it’s totally random. What do you think? Do you know much about your family line? Have you ever been curious to know more? Where would you start, if you wanted to know?
Who knew a blog on boiled cabbage was going to end up being a soliloquy on immortalizing my own voice? I think I forgot to mention another reason I blog: it turns out I can, and will, talk about anything I want.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, from a 25% 5th-Generation Proud to Be Irish Woman. Although, you should know, that’s just one of my roles.
Friday, April 17, 2009
My To Do List: The Beach Version
Myrtle Beach has been my family's traditional vacation forever - starting with my mom going with HER parents. (Then: camper. Now: 3 story house on the beach with kegerator by the pool. I like my version better.) It is so much a part of our family's tradition that I threw an all out fit when I was in 3rd grade because my parents planned a family trip to Hawaii instead of our usual MB vacay.
Yes, that's right, I was enraged at the idea of going to Maui over the Redneck Riviera. What can I say, I'm a suckah for tradition. And oh yea, I was 7. What did I care about volcanoes and mai tai's?
In the last 8 years, other members of my extended family starting joining us, until gradually we grew from a family of 5 in one house to last year's grand total of 20 in two side-by-side houses. This year we're going for a major dice roll: 19 family members. One house.
Since college and this little thing called "employment", I've only been able to come down and stay with my family at the beach for a long weekend. This year, the stars collided (i.e. I rearranged my teaching schedule) and lo and behold, I was able to get the whole week off. Pretty much, I could not be more tickled. I'd probably still at 26 years old, take an entire week at Myrtle with my fam over a few days in Maui. Although I do anticipate needing those mai tai's with that many family members in close proximity.
My plans for the beach week include: reading approximately 7 books and 4 magazines, revisiting my neglected journal, using up an entire bottle of SPF 50, getting sand in my running sneakers, teaching my 5 year old cousin Amelia how to use my (old) digital camera, playing race cars with my 4 year old cousin William, playing princess with my 3 year old cousin Mae, getting sand dumped on my head by 2 year old Scott and trying to figure out a way to bottle up the precious new baby smell of 6 month old Charlie.
As you can see, I will be very busy this week.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
My Very Own Version of Hell: The Mall at Christmas
Last night was low-key, with a trip to El Dorado with neighbors Zac and Jamie. Lots of queso was ordered, lots of laughter was had. Later, Matt and I watched Cold Mountain - a movie I never would have selected from the video rental, but was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the story. I love reading historical fiction (The Other Boleyn Girl, The Year of Wonder, etc) and I often forget that genre exists in movies as well.
Today I braved the mall post office line, which I survived in thanks to the foresight to plan ahead with an ipod book on tape. Deep yoga breaths and lots of calf raises. Lines. :::Shudder:::: Ipod in ears, I stepped foot into the belly of the mall - something I have not done at Christmas since I stopped working at Gap Kids in '99. Crowds. :::Shudder:::: I spent a surprisingly pleasant hour perusing the racks at Forever 21, all the while with Michael Gerber chattering in my ears on an audiobook. I was delighted to piece together an outfit for my brother's girlfriend that I think is actually quite cute. I have not met her and all I am going on is her age and the style of outfits I have seen her wear in f-book pics. Here's hoping. If she hates it, Forever 21's return policy is super easy....sooo... oh yea, no, it sucks. She better like it. Especially because I texted my brother THREE times in the span of an hour to ask him if he was around so I could photo-text him. My brother = the least communicative person EVER. My plan when I am home this Christmas is to see how often he screens calls and/or checks text without responding. I have a sneaking suspicion he is not just "missing" my calls or "charging his phone." What? It's not like I call THAT much... I just like to communicate with my siblings. Is that too much to ask? Anyways... I digress. Weekends, Christmas shopping, crowds, et cetera... back on track.
So, all I have left on my Christmas list is to hunt down the almost-discontinued Polaroid film my Grandpa uses and the 2009 tear off Dilbert calendar I've gotten my dad for the last eleven years. In high school, he used to tear off pages he thought were funny and leave them either on our bathroom counter or taped to my bedroom door. Throughout college he would mail them to me, so much so that my roommates recognized his swirly black inky handwriting on the envelopes and would know some Dilbert goodness awaited them. Every year I wonder if he is sick of the calendar, but approximately 2 weeks later when I've received my first Dilbert offering in the mail, I know I would have disappointed had I forgone the tradition. My family looooves traditions and nostalgia, nearly to a fault. Ask my mom about a recent conversation in regards to a fridge we've had in our family for 29 years.... "It held my baby bottles!" I pleaded. Nostaglia: To. A. Fault.