I’ve been on the lookout for a pendant necklace, something simple, classy, and earth-toned. I even spent valuable shopping time perusing the discount jewelry at Kohl’s. I found nothing, not even when, in desperation, I searched the regular priced racks.

Not even a week later, Mr. Handsome pulled a smashed penny out of his jean’s pocket and passed it around the dinner table. He had been working on a house that was located smack-dab beside some railroad tracks and, on a whim, had sacrificed a coin to the chugging choo-choo.

Before the dishes were even cleared from the table, the kids were out in the barn, bashing their money senseless. I thought nothing of their new game until Yo-Yo walked into the kitchen and handed me a smashed gold dollar. Immediately, I seized upon it. “This is exactly what I’ ve been looking for! It would make a perfect necklace. Can you punch a hole in it for me?”

“Sure,” he said, all nonchalant-like, and he did.

I stuffed two coins—the smashed gold dollar and a smashed quarter—in my purse and next time I was out shopping I swung by Michaels to look at their chain selection. Totally overwhelmed and confused by the endless options, I gave up almost immediately, deciding instead to take the coins to the next belly dance class to show Rose, the instructor. She makes chainmail, among other things, in her spare time, so I figured if anyone would know how to make a necklace, it’d be her.

“Wow! These are so neat!” she exclaimed, fingering the coins. “Tell me again how he did it? With just a hammer? No kidding! But how did he get the design? What did he pound it on? Is it very hard? Do you think he’d make some smashed coins for me? I wonder if these would work for a coin belt…”

And so it came to be that a couple days and a phone call later, Yo-Yo had an order for twenty smashed pennies.

I headed to town yet again, this time armed with Rose’s jewelry-making directions, as well as the Penny Smasher himself (and the two littles who did an excellent job keeping their grubby little paws stuffed in their pockets). Our first stop was the bank for two rolls of pennies, and then on to a little shop downtown where Yo-Yo and I poured over chains and jump rings. The shop owner listened intently to Yo-Yo’s plans, and then drew pictures and made lists for him. Yo-Yo asked questions and stated preferences, nodding sagely (our shaggy-headed-and-sweatpant-clad little businessman) at all the advice. Several hours later, after a visit to Michaels for more chains and clasps, a stop for some bagels, and some fancy maneuvering of a needle-nosed pliers back at our kitchen table, I had my new pretty fastened round my neck, and boy oh boy, was I ever tickled.

Yo-Yo’s shop has been upgraded from barn to basement, and the new space is all decked out with a workbench (a board atop two logs), space heater, and radio. Mr. Handsome set him up with a drill (nail-punched coins crack and split too easily), and just yesterday he brought home a piece of angle iron for a new and improved pounding space.

Now Yo-Yo spends most of his free time below ground, pounding and drilling to his heart’s content. Through my kitchen floor, over the ring of metal on metal and the twang of the country singers, I hear Yo-Yo’s happy whistle. Every now and then he trots his creations up to the kitchen for me to inspect, and then together we arrange and fashion the jewelry.

I’m not yet sure what the point of this venture is (etsy anyone?), or even if there needs to be a point. Just having fun together, making something new, savoring our creative genius (the term “genius” being used quite loosely here)—perhaps that’s the point for now. It’s more than enough.

(That the jewelry just happens to be dandy-nifty is a pretty sweet bonus.)

This same time, years previous: chocolate pots de crème

Remember last January how I kvetched right and left about not being able to find cranberries anywhere? I had a hankering to make cranberry sauce post holiday season but it was impossible. There were no cranberries to be found, not even in the freezer sections of the grocery stores. Which is ridiculous because cranberries freeze beautifully. In a fit of ill-temper brought on by thwarted cranberry hopes and dreams, I scrawled on the little square that stood for November 15 in my 2009-2010 pocket calendar: BUY SCADS OF CRANBERRIES.

Myself Of Ten Months Ago would be please to know I have been doing just that. Whenever I walk into a grocery store I pick up several bags of cranberries and, upon returning home, promptly plunk them into a larger bag and ship them down cellar to the freezer. I’m a cranberry buying queen machine.

Which is good because cranberry sauce and cranberry white chocolate cookies and cranberry juice and cranberry bread are delicious all year round, not just in November and December, so if you feel even one wink of partiality to the cranberry, I suggest you get thyself to the nearest grocery and start stashing.

This bread was another reason, besides the relish, I was itching for cranberries. My mother had served it to me one long distant time ago and I strongly recall (all my memories are of super-strength quality—most of the time—when they involve food) thinking it was the best cranberry bread ever.

So this fall, once I got me some cranberries, I rang my mama right up to ask for the recipe. “Mom,” I said, says I, “Could you give me the recipe for that cranberry bread?”

“Oh, sure,” she said. “It comes from Rhona, you know.”

No, I didn’t know, but as soon as I did know, I experienced a Happy Jive Moment. See, Mom and Dad and their friends Dave and Rhona were planning on having a sleepover at our place that very Friday night. When I thought “cranberry bread,” I was thinking of Rhona without even knowing I was thinking of her! Cool, no?

I’m (way too, I’ve been told) (fondly) easily excitable.

The happy foursome were first going to go to a granola-grunge restaurant to listen to my brother and sis-in-law’s band perform and then they were going to head over to our place to crash. After all those years of my parents hosting my friends and shindigs, the tables were turning. My parents were bringing their friends and pillows to my place. I felt so….grown up.

But then they didn’t. Mom got sick, just a little fever, but yucky enough want to skip out on loud music and strange beds (or sofas).

So, with a suddenly free weekend in front of us, we quick made other plans: Mr. Handsome headed up to PA with the girls to help his brother-in-law install a kitchen that they (a family of seven) had been without for 73 days. The Baby Nickel was already in WV nursing his sick grandmommy, and I quick made arrangements for Yo-Yo to go stay at a friend’s. As for me? I went shopping for clothes (saved a hundred, spent eighty), saw a movie with a friend, and then slept on said friend’s sofa because I was too chicken to go home in the dark of midnight. True, it was pitch black when I drove home at five in the morning, but pitch black at midnight and pitch black at five are two very different things. (Try saying “pitch black” three times fast.)

The movie we saw? Eat Pray Love, and the only good thing I have to say is, thank goodness I only spent two and a half bucks to see it. I hated it so much that when I got home I looked up reviews so I could get some validation, and boy, did I ever get some. Consider yourself warned.

Anyhow, the next morning I had peaceful alone time before collecting my boys. Late that afternoon Mr. Handsome called to say be was going to spend another night. (Even though he had declared upwards, backwards, and sideways that he’d only stay the one night, I wasn’t the surprised. It’s how the man does.) So I hung up the phone, turned to the boys and said, “How about we go out for pizza?” A sillier question there never was.

At Cici’s, I ate my pizza and stared at my boys staring at the TV, wishing all the while that I’d brought a magazine. After sufficiently dulling the senses with pixels and pizza, I suggested we head over to Barnes and Noble. We set up shop in the children’s section. Yo-Yo grabbed a much-loved book and was promptly lost to the world, The Baby Nickel lolled on the floor and played leap frog games, and I researched, read, and sipped my decaf caramel macchiato with whip, making forays to other sections as needed and marveling all the while that I was in a bookstore with my babies and I was relaxed. Kids really do grow up!

The next morning the three of us headed to church. I was all excited to listen to a whole entire service without the normal circus that is our family trying to mind our manners in public, only to have a friend walk by and ask if I had a free lap. I nodded and held out my arms even before the whole question got asked and suddenly there was a downy-headed, giggling, drooling little muffin staring up at me. It felt amazingly natural and right, and my boys totally dug it. And then I had that interview followed by a phone conversation with a friend and now I’m thinking that turning our home into a safe house for babies is a perfectly viable option.

Oof.

And I was supposed to be writing about cranberry bread. Though maybe you’ve forgotten that by now?

Orange-Cranberry Bread
Recipe from my mom’s friend Rhona, via my mom (and some phone wires)

I must admit, the idea of raisins in a cranberry bread seemed inherently wrong, but Mom assured me their chewy sweetness was a necessity. Of course she was right. And keep ‘em golden—aesthetics, you know.

1/3 cup oil
1 egg, beaten
1 cup sugar, minus 2 tablespoons
zest from two oranges (1-2 tablespoons zest)
2 cups flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
3/4 cup orange juice (juice the oranges, topping off the measuring cup with water as needed)
1 cup chopped fresh cranberries
½ cup chopped walnuts
1 cup golden raisins

Whisk together the oil and egg, and then whisk in the sugar and zest. Add the dry ingredients (the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt) and then the orange juice (alternate them, if you want to be fancy), stirring just until combined. Fold in the cranberries, nuts, and raisins.

Divide the batter between 3 small, greased loaf pans and bake at 350 for about 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. (Alternately, make one large loaf or 16 muffins. Adjust bake time accordingly.)

Cool the loaves for 10 minutes before running a knife around the edges and removing from the pans to cool the rest of the way. To freeze, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and then place the loaves in a plastic bag.

This same time, years previously: feminism, part one

Thing One: a dog

One afternoon last week Yo-Yo burst into the kitchen and tearfully choked out that Francie was down in the field acting really weird and to please come right away. When I finally got to her, Francie was lying in the grass, trembling violently, drooling and rigid, the whites of her eyes showing. I had no idea what was going on. A snake bite? A kick from a horse? Though there was no sign of an injury, she appeared to be in extreme pain. I ordered Miss Beccaboo to fetch a blanket and Yo-Yo to call Papa.

All somber and sad, we gathered around, stroking her head and murmuring kind words. The end was clearly near. I didn’t want the kids to see this, but then again, I reasoned, it was good they could be close to her. Death was a part of life, so we might as well face it head on.

Suddenly, Francie sat up and sneezed. Then she wobbled to her feet, shook herself, looked at us rather inquisitively, and then took off at a trot for the house. Her tail end looked weak, but aside from that, she acted fine.

Well, humph, I thought. So much for dying.

When Mr. Handsome arrived a few minutes later, Yo-Yo again described what had happened, how Francie had started flopping about, crashing blindly into a bush, stumbling and falling, legs pinwheeling. Mr. Handsome-turned-James Herriot felt Francie’s joints, looked in her eyes and mouth, and then pronounced his diagnosis: a seizure.

Ever since then Francie has acted fine so I’m inclined to think Mr. Handsome was right. Still, we’re keeping an eye on her, watching out for weird behaviors. Hopefully, there won’t be any.

Thing Two: a blog
My cousin Zoë (my aunt Val’s daughter, for those of you concerned with these sorts of connections) has started a blog!

Though she also has an etsy shop, the blog (so far) is all things food. Being the wholesome person she is, there’s a good bit of whole wheat (that she grinds herself) tossed in amongst the sugar and butter. Go check it out and give her a bit of good, old-fashioned blog loving. She’s a sweetie.

Thing Three: an interview
Today I’m posting over at Thy Hand Hath Provided. She’s doing a series on “giving of ourselves” and interviewed me on our experience as foster care parents. So, if you’ve been considering becoming a foster parent, or you’re just curious about how it all goes down (hint: it’s not all peaches and cream), head over there to read my tirade, er, words of wisdom.

This same time, years previous: Swiss chard and sweet potato gratin, SSR (sustained silent reading), and brownies