beeconcise

42 years ago today I gave birth to my little daughter, Allison Jo, by hypnosis. My OG-GYN was Dr. Nelson Baccus, Ft. Collins, Colorado, & offered hypnosis as an alternative birth method.

His pg. moms were given strengthening exercises, which I did faithfully. At 5 months we began hypnosis classes, and sat in a circle in card table chairs. Dr. Baccus would close the blinds and in his deep, baritone voice he’d say, “Hello, Ladies.” We relaxed like rag dolls. Classes were now once a week.

We never used the word ‘pain’ – only the word ‘pressure’. The stronger the pressure, he said, the happier we’d be, because we were that much closer to giving birth. He said we’d walk to & from delivery, but we had to remember to go to the hospital. He said some of his moms would be so excited and happy, that the stronger the pressure, the more relaxed they became. He said, “When your pressure gets really strong, Ladies, please call me.”

In my first hypnosis session, Dr. Baccus asked us all to close our eyes. He went around the room and one by one brushed the tops of our hands. He said ii would feel cold like ice or rough like shoe leather. For me, it was definitely shoe leather.  When we opened our eyes, we discovered he’d pinched the blood out of the skin in the top of our hands, and we’d never felt a thing … except something very cold or very rough.  

 I had a beautiful pregnancy, but in retrospect must say I was glad that my little baby was a second baby, and the second one through the birth canal, weighing only 6 lb. 13 oz. My first baby had weighed a pound more. Allison was born at 4:59 a.m.. The only reason I called the Dr. a little after 1 a.m. is that my mother (there to help) said that if I didn’t call the Dr., she would. 

We arrived at the hospital shortly before 2 a.m. The nurses told me to be ‘very quiet’ because I was in a room with a younger mom having her first baby. They didn’t want me to ‘bother’ her since I was having my baby by hypnosis & no drugs.

One nurse finally wandered in, found me with my hand clamped over my mouth during a strong push pain (known to me, of course as ‘pressure’.)  I didn’t dare make a sound. This big, (dare I say ugly?) German nurse yelled for a guerney and another nurse, and quickly I was bumped over to the cart and sent running to the delivery room. I raised up on both elbows and exclaimed,  “I’M HAVING MY BABY BY HYPNOSIS AND WAS SUPPOSED TO WALK TO DELIVERY!” Both nurses looked at me like I was CRAZY and one said, “If we don’t hurry we’re going to deliver your baby in the hallway.” I remember saying, “Oh,” but then started to feel full-strength labor pains!

In the delivery room for about two minutes, with even more labor pains, Dr. Baccus walked in & said in his velvet voice, “Hello, Ladies.” I relaxed again like a rag doll. Pains were gone. He said to press my hands together hard & count backwards from 100, and   my beautiful little daughter was born when I got to 89. He held her up my baby and said, “It’s a girl, Ruth, and she’s perfect.” And you know what?  She really is. And now she has a perfect little boy, and the circle continues. My only regret is that I was also unable to walk back from delivery, due to one numb leg, but I was still deliously happy.  And now I had a new baby girl in my arms and her big brother at home.

They did ‘station’ me in the hallway for an hour afterwards, because the rooms were full. I was sitting up in bed, chatting, smiling, writing things in Allison’s baby book (I am a writer, of course), and asked the nurses to put my baby’s hand and foot prints into the book.  The young mom they’d cautioned me to ‘not bother’ was directly across the hall from me, yelling loudly for a shot, meds, anything, and I thought to myself ~ Well, Dearie. Next time just have hypnosis!

Who knew having a photo account with Flickr could be such fun?
I am having a grand time with it! Will be designating ‘groups’ from the photos my daughter and I have uploaded alreadyl

And while I’m at it, I keep forgetting that I named this blog ‘bee concise’ to help me remember to BE CONCISE. Always hard for me to do, but a necessary evil, I think!

It’s just time to cut it short. So, I’ll say Goodbye for now. There, where’s that Easy Button from Staples??

Today’s message is about southern cooks – those people in my family of origin who really do not use recipes, including me. Every now and then I ‘think’ I am going to follow a recipe. LOL. My husband says that I use a recipe only to find out what the ingredients are, which I may or may not use, depending on my whim at the moment … and that I definitely do not follow the directions. I suspect he’s right on the money here.

I mean, why on earth should I add four eggs one at a time to a cheese cake, beating with the mixer after each one, when I can dump all four in at once? What possible difference could it make?  Nobody has ever been able to explain it to me.

My friend, Gail, years ago in Upper Michigan, explained to me, “If you want it to come out exactly right, you have to measure exactly right.”  Nah … not me. This way it’s … well, it’s always a surprise as to how it comes out!

Yesterday afternoon I baked a wonderful chocolate cheese cake, whick actually came out more of a mocha cheese cake … but not with any coffee, although I could add a touch next time, couldn’t I?   The recipe actually called for 18 chocolate cream cookies for the crust – Oreos, I thought, but didn’t want that much chocolate in my cheese cake, or that much sugar, so I used regular graham cracker crumbs. Besides, I had two boxes of graham cracker crumbs in the pantry. Then it called for four (gasp!) 8-oz. packages of cream cheese. How many calories is that?  Needless to say I bought the low-fat cream cheese.

The only other substitution I made was to use 4 oz. of bittersweet chocolate squares, rather than the 4 oz. of semi-sweet chocolate squares it called for, because that’s what I had in the pantry, and when I checked for which ingredients I already had before I went to the store, I marked off ‘chocolate squares’ and didn’t bother to notice if it was bitter-sweet or semi-sweet. Again, it was what I had in the pantry, and with a whole cup of sugar added earlier, how much difference could it make?   Okay – good to go here.

It actually turned out beautifully, it’s really delicious, and I did have fresh blue berries and confectioners sugar for the top of the dessert.  I felt supreme of all cooks when I finished. Even came out of the spring form pan nicely.  Imagine that!

But you know ~ a part of me really does wonder what would have happened if I’d actually followed the real recipe?  And not just ingredients.  What would actually happen if I did slow down and take the time to beat those eggs, one at a time, if I had bought the chocolate cream filled cookies for the crust, and had used semi-sweet chocolate instead of bitter- sweet?  I guess I’ll have to do that sometime this summer. 

For a party, I think. That would be nice! And then a little voice in my head tells me, if I have a party, I won’t have time to spend on this chocolate cheese cake, and I’ll cut corners all over again.  And I might even add a wee bit of instant coffee to the next one.  Deep down I know it’s ingrained in my soul.  I think I would’ve been bumped from a cooking school if I’d ever tried to attend!!

Dental insurance.  When you have it, you think it’s great. When you don’t have it, it’s not so great.  But it’s really irritating when you do have dental insurance and get a denial for a cleaning (and ex-rays, too, I believe) because of a simple mistake.

I always thought we had to go 6 months BEFORE another visit to the dentist … at least for a cleaning.  What I now know, thanks to the Assurant denial of payment for my November 8 dental appt. is that we have to wait 6 months ‘to the date’ of the last appt.  Does this make sense to anyone?

I always take my mother with me … 92, walker, oxygen. That in itself is an ordeal, when she lives 20 mintues away … and … and … well, you get the idea. So I get her, we go, we both have our teeth cleaned. Lucky me. It’s over. Except I now find out that my last appt. was May 17, but THIS appt. was only on Nov. 8 … and we needed to wait until at least Nov. 17th. to the ‘date’ in the month of the previous visit, for coverage to kick in. Has anybody else run up against this incredible rule???

I fumed about this all day, although I did tell the receptionist at the dental office to send me the bill and it will be paid.  (Boo, Hiss, Fume.) This morning I wrote a letter to the insurance company, requesting a reversal of their decision (Ha! Fat chance of that) saying I hoped Assurant is a company with a heart (LOL) and that they will offer us grace for this simple misunderstanding … believing that by waiting for the six month period we were following their rules.  But, no … not the case.  I said we DID wait from May untl Nov. and it’s only a matter of 9 days.  What do you want to bet we get anoter big NO from them??

Well, I fixed my bad mood. Went to the grocery store, bought tons of cream cheese and came home to bake a delicous AND VERY BIG chocolate cheese cake with blue berries and confectioner’s sugar on top.  (Ahhhhh … feeling very satisfied now.)  Sometimes cheese cake really is the only thing that helps!!  Now – what ever are we going to do with the rest of it?

Thank goodness I have another exercise class tomorrow morning!

Recently my daughter reminded me of an excellent article by Martha Beck in Oprah’s latest magazine (the Jan. 2011 issue).  It’s about setting three goals for the year. At first I thought my three goals would be – Lose weight, finish my book and avoid having a repeat stroke this year.  After reading this article by Martha Beck I realized I needed to add adjatives to my goals, rather than just using noun-verb statements. I came up with three excellent words: Strong, Disciplined and Healthy. To me, this says it all. The STRONG refers to being emotionally strong in the face of adversity of any kind, with friends, family or life situations (and I could have used more strength this past year!!); DISCIPLINED refers to everything from finishing my novel, to writing each day, to putting my shoes away when I kick them off in the living room, the kitchen, my office … then have no idea where to look for them when I’m in a hurry; the word HEALTHY refers to staying healthy, being a regular at my yoga and exercise classes three days a week, and walking two other days a week with my ‘walking buddy’ at the mall (in the winter), as well as lowering the size of my dinner portions, eating less fat, staying away from foods I’m allergic to (Yes, there are some and I like to eat them anyway). It also refers to being spiritually & mentally healthy as well as physically healthy. Truly – it’s an incredible article. I highly recommend it. You might also want to check out Martha Beck’s books, as well. They’re all soothing and  insightful, and her suggestions work like magic! I’ve got my three ‘goal’ words printed out now. I won’t forget them in 2011. I envision them as little sail boats that will take me to where I want to be this year in this big ocean of life where we all live!

This morning I went to my yoga class and afterwards weighed. I’d signed up to ‘commit to not gaining weight over the holidays’ and lo & behold … on their ‘tell all’ scale I had not gained one single ounce. Hooray! But how could that be?  Fudge, Divinity, Almond Roca … lots of wine and oh, such good food … do not know, but it was wonderful to have that little test behind me.  Now – to do something about the rest of the numbers on that slip of paper the scale spits out … the numbers that aren’t so good!!  It’s still great to think that I might be off to a really good start for the year ahead!

So far, so good 2011. Knitting project underway, new phone, new texting capabilities and my daughter put “Spokane Summer trip” on her 2011 wish list. This is going to be a good year.

Trees outside this morning look like they’ve been basted with thick confectioner’s sugar cake frosting. It’s only 6 degrees here, with mounds of crystal white snow all over the place … topping fences, bird feeders, shrubs. I ask myself – What’s a Florida girl doing in a place like Spokane, Washington?

After moving to Upper Michigan as a new bride, with their 120” annual snowfall, I feel more acclimated to this kind of weather now than to the searing heat of Pensacola, Florida, from March – October, although I do miss the sandy white beaches of the Gulf Coast … unless there’s an oil spill, of course! That does color things a bit – no pun intended.

It occurs to me, this New Year’s Eve, that where we live is relative to the people we love, and how and why we landed where we do in the great scheme of things is a continued story in our lives. Yesterday, driving to a shop to buy knitting supplies … always need a new knitting project for a snow storm … I saw tall fir trees laden with sugar-frosting snow, standing poised, as ballerinas on stage, waiting for the music to begin. It reminded me of waiting for the music of our lives to begin, when in reality it was other people’s music we would dance to, depending on our roles at the time. When do we get to dance to our own music? Why do some of us wait so long to figure this out?

I know that for me personally it’s time to dance to my own music, however slow and mellow it might be. I’m done skiing, and will never put on another pair of ice skates, by choice. But I can still dance to my own music. That’s exactly what I plan to do this year.

My blog 12-11-2010

I’ve begun to stress about Christmas Cookies, and capitalize those words now because they are of great importance to me this time of year. As I sit here with a really bad burn on my left hand from removing a hot pan of homemade yeast rolls out of the oven last week, I’m not excited about baking pan after pan of homemade cookies.

This morning I read the best suggestion in our newspaper, a section on Gift Giving. Smarter people than I probably knew this years ago, but not me. It suggested very simply adding a ‘few’ of your own freshly baked Christmas Cookies to a platter of several kinds of store-bought cookies, along with small ornaments for color, & a few springs of mint for color. Why not Evergreen, I ask myself?  I think even a few piece of fudge or divinity might be a nice touch.

My very favorite cookie recipe is my friend Gail Murray’s Lemon Sugar Cookie recipe.  Through the years I’ve baked these cookies for my children at holidays but gave up frosting them years ago. Too much sugar. Now I sprinkle tasty colored beads from the grocery store on the cookies just before baking, and love the way they come out.

Gail and I met 47 years ago, in 1963 as new Air Force brides at K.I. Sawyer AFB, Michigan, and we’re still close friends today. My kids took Gail’s sugar cookies to school parties in the shape of hearts, bunnies, pumpkins or Christmas trees, candy canes and bells. When the grandkids came along, I baked the cookies in the shape of their little hands, trustingly placed on the cookie dough while Grandma (with great care) traced their fingers with a sharp knife. Who knew cookie baking could be so dangerous? But, OH the JOY when their cookies emerged from the oven in the shape of their very own hands.    

After meeting my RWA writing group for lunch today, I’ll tie on my apron and get busy baking Gail Murray’s delicious sugar cookie recipe. My mouth waters just thinking of it. I’ll have a beautiful plate to take, with cookies from my kitchen and Albertson’s, a few Christmas ornaments, and maybe some fudge or divinity, and a few sprigs from the beautiful ‘Fat Albert’ fir tree in our back yard.  I am so relieved to finally realize I don’t have to do it all by myself anymore. Good lesson learned.

And this time I’ll definitely keep my hands away from that hot top rack in the oven. Now, tell me again ~ Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

Funny that I’ve named my new WordPress blog toomanywords, because anyone who knows me knows I do use too many words! My goal here is to learn to be concise. I told my husband my ‘blog title’ and he actually Laughed.Out.Loud.

My techie daughter helped me with this blog, with a long, long-distance call. She and I both thought it was a perfect name, but I’m creating a blog to use the very thing I’m trying not to use – which is … well, you know!

We have discovered there are two other prolific writers named Ruth Andrew. I ask you – What are the odds of that?  I do have a registered domain name for my website (www.ruthandrew.com – shameless plug here). With all his time spent on blogging and website stuff, it’s past time for me to finish up this book I’ve been dragging around in my mind!

 I now have numerous Go-Daddy projects to finish up, but my daughter reminded me that she’ll be here from GA in 2 weeks for Christmas, with my 4-year old grandson and her computer tech husband. A computer tech in my house for a whole week.  Be still my heart!

All for now ~ RA