Texas Bucket List: Blue Bell Creamery

As I began to compile my Texas Bucket List three years ago, I asked friends to share with me their favorite activities, events, landmarks, and destinations throughout the state. The recommendations came rolling in, and my list grew and grew…until it became so long that I couldn't look at it without feeling overwhelmed. I decided to prioritize my list based on the number of "don't miss ____" emails, texts, and comments each adventure received, and as a result of this system, visiting the Blue Bell Creamery in Brenham quickly skyrocketed to the top of the list.

I must confess that I had little interest in visiting Blue Bell. I'm from Wisconsin - the Dairy State - so 1) I've toured a creamery or two in my day, and 2) Blue Bell ice cream isn't the best I've ever tasted. Yes, Blue Bell ice cream goes down smoothly, but my personal favorite ice cream comes from the Babcock Hall Dairy Plant and Store in Madison, Wisconsin.

I assume that very few people have tasted both brands of ice cream, as Blue Bell ice cream isn't available in the Midwest and Babcock ice cream isn't available in the south, but if you happen to be one of those people, I'd love it if you weighed in on your favorite. Katie, I'm talking to you here.

Will couldn't jump on board the Blue Bell bandwagon either, primarily because of his proclaimed hatred toward all things dairy-based (a mental block left behind by the dairy allergy from which he once suffered), ice cream in particular. Poor boy lives a sad, sad life.

Hallie, on the other hand, loves ice cream of all kinds and begged me to let her "see cows and milk and ice cream and eat so much cookies and cream ice cream because I LOVE cookies and cream ice cream!" Monday morning revolved around a "super fun" speed and agility camp for Will, so I decided that Monday afternoon should include an ice cream adventure for Hallie.

We purchased tickets for the tour, but because Blue Bell was CRAZY busy that day, we found ourselves with more than hour to kill before our tour start time. We browsed the memorabilia, shopped in the gift shop, took pictures with the outdoor decor, and finally enjoyed a dish of ice cream. Hallie devoured Cookies and Cream, I indulged in Mocha Almond Fudge, and Will - in a strange and exciting twist - thoroughly enjoyed Rainbow Sherbert. I'll to teach that kid to love dairy if it's the last thing I do.

After all that, we took the tour. Will found it fascinating. Hallie cried - literally cried - out of boredom. I wanted more ice cream, and to not have to carry Hallie anymore.

All in all, I'm glad we visited this historic Texas destination. I enjoyed learning the history behind the company, watching the ice cream-making process, and of course, my scoop of Mocha Almond Fudge. Oh, it was good. So good. Maybe as good as Babcock's Mocha Macchiato or Berry Alvarez... 

I'm thinking seriously about organizing an ice cream social that would include a blind taste test of Blue Bell and Babcock ice cream. They can ship ice cream, right? Let me know if you want to attend!

High Five for Friday (3.14.14)

1. My mama comes to visit today! I haven't seen her since Thanksgiving, and can't wait to spend the last few days of spring break (and a few days next week as well) with her. Our plans include baking a banana cream pie, celebrating her birthday (which happens to be today), visiting the outlet mall, going to see Peabody and Mr. Sherman, an outing to Spoons, cutting my and Hallie's hair, and painting my front door. It's not too late to weigh in on what color we should go with, by the way!

2. I crossed two adventures off my Texas Bucket List this week! Next week I'll post about our day trips to the Blue Bell Creamery in Brenham and the Aquarium in Houston.

3. After years of waiting for the right time (as defined by an assortment of dentists, orthodontist, and oral surgeons), Will's two-year-old molar that never fully formed or emerged from his gums was finally removed on Wednesday. I have severe anxiety about all things dental, and even worse anxiety about medications - like the general anesthetic needed during the surgery to remove Will's tooth - that rob people of their faculties, so Tom graciously volunteered to completely rearrange his schedule and take Will to his appointment. Will did wonderfully throughout the procedure - the surgeon told him he behaved more maturely than most 15-year-olds, a compliment to which he held on tightly so that he could pass it along to me when he arrived home - and though there were a few rough moments during the 48 hours post-surgery, he hung in there.

4. Mother Nature finally cut us a break, just in time for spring break. The sun is shining, the temperatures are in the 60's and 70's, and for the first time in quite a while, the grass and flowers and trees have color and life to them. Come visit us in Texas, friends, where you can roll down the windows, feel the sun on your face, and let the wind whip through your hair!

5. I usually post links to pieces I've written a few at a time, but I wanted to share this link on its own because of its time-sensitve nature. When you have a moment, check out a variety of delicious meals and snacks as well as quite a few fun activities and crafts in honor of St. Patrick's Day.

Last weekend I made the clover-shaped Rice Krispie Treats, which the kids and their friends loved, and the weekend before that I tacked the wreath and the clover cubes so that I could add a little more fun and whimsey to our St. Patrick's Day decorations.

Happy St. Patrick's Day cooking, baking, crafting, and playing!

Linking up with High Five for Friday!

Design Star, Chasing Roots Edition (Poll)

"The journey is the destination." I try my best to keep that sentiment in mind throughout my day-to-day life. Whenever possible, I pause to appreciate the ordinary - my kids singing along (loudly, and somewhat off-key) to the Sound of Music soundtrack in the car on the way to gymnastics or the 45 minutes spent alone with my thoughts while cruising the aisles at the grocery store - instead of powering through the "everyday" in pursuit of the kids' bedtime, my bedtime, "wine-time", the weekend, or our next vacation.

There is one area of my life, however, in which I don't appreciate the journey: projects. Craft projects, gardening projects, landscape projects, home projects. I want to enjoy the process - thoughtfully creating the plan, gathering or shopping for materials, and carefully following the instructions though to the end - but the reality is that I just…don't. I love the finished products though, so I regularly pull out my glue gun, hedge trimmers, or painting supplies to tackle whatever smaller-scale projects need to be done around the house.

Luckily for me, my mom LOVES projects of all kinds. Over the years she's helped me remove wallpaper; paint walls, trim, and ceilings; remove carpet; lay tile; build pantry and laundry room shelving; replace light fixtures; clean and stain decks; and lay patio stones…and she's done it all with a smile on her face, which is saying a lot because while I always work hard (I actually enjoy the physical hard work part of the deal), I complain A LOT. 

My mom flies in to College Station for a little spring break vacation on Friday, and we plan to tackle at least one product during her five-day visit. We haven't nailed down the project with which we'll start, but right now a small task - painting my front door - tops the list. 

Because reddish-brown brick dominates the facade of our house, our reddish-brown wooden door blends in and can barely be seen from the street. I know that painting the door a brighter, contrasting color would allow it to stand out and greatly improve our curb appeal…I just can't choose a color. 

That's where you come in - help me choose my color!

Here's what the front door looks like, both from the street and up close, right now:

Could it look any drearier outside? I'm ready for blue skies, green grass, and
dry enough weather for me to beat back those bushes with the hedge trimmers!

I grumbled through making that St. Patrick's
Day wreath a couple of weeks ago.

And here are a few of the (poorly photoshopped) colors I'm considering:

Originally I wanted black, but now I think black would cause the
door to blend in to the front of the house even more so than it does now.

A deep red, found about halfway between candy apple red and maroon.

A deep, sunset orange.

A warm, mature yellow.

A medium to medium-dark green with a blue undertone.

I chose these colors because they make sense with the colors one sees immediately upon walking through the front door and into the living room. I would love a bright or midnight blue door, but going that route just doesn't make good design sense. Or at least I don't think it makes good design sense. I don't really have good design sense, which is why I'm asking you to help me make this decision.

So please, tell me what color you like best! Comment here or on Facebook, or send me a message here (erin@chasingroots.com) or on Facebook. Thanks for your help!

The Worst Monday Morning of the Year

Argh.

A lovely way to start a post, right?

Sorry about that.

I can't stand Daylight Savings Time. I don't want to lose an hour of sleep on Saturday night. I don't want to spend Sunday searching for all of my clocks' manuals in order to figure out how to change their times. (Actually, I never changed the clock in our office last fall, so this spring I had one less clock to change. Score!) I don't want to arrive late to church, or to feel like I'm "behind" as we move through our Sunday activities and chores. I don't want to wake up under the cover of darkness on Monday morning. And more than anything, I don't want to walk Will to school before the sun has crested the horizon. It's just mean to send kids to school when it's still dark outside.

Did you know there is a 10% increase in heart attacks on the Monday and Tuesday following our shift to Daylight Savings Time? Maybe we should listen to our bodies - and follow the lead of states like Arizona and Hawaii that don't observe Daylight Savings Time - and stop setting ourselves up for sleep deprivation, decreased immune function, and out-of-whack circadian rhythms...

(source)

So, how does one motivate oneself to get out of bed on a morning like this one?

For Will, Sports Center does the trick. Tom and I granted Will permission to watch Sports Center in the mornings once he's completely ready for school. After waking up on his own at 6:30am, he gets dressed, makes his bed, tidies up his room, makes his own breakfast, puts his dishes in the dishwasher, and brushes his teeth. Then he runs - yes, runs (I can hear him cruising through the house while I still lay in bed) - to the playroom and settles into the giant beanbag chair to catch up on the sports-related happenings of the night before. We've had absolutely no problems getting him up and out the door for school on time since we implemented the Sports Center policy. (In fact, on the morning the policy went into effect, I found Will completely ready for school and watching Sports Center at…5:25am. We had to amend the policy to add a "you may not get out of bed before 6:25am or exit your room before 6:30am" clause.)

For Hallie, the promise of beautiful hair pulls her out of bed and keeps her moving. A couple of weeks ago she asked me to style her hair like Elsa and Anna from Frozen, and I agreed, if she was ready to WALK OUT THE DOOR ("ready" and "ready to walk out the door" are two completely different states of being in Hallie's mind) with 20 minutes to spare. Sure enough, Hallie turned on her own alarm clock each evening and got out of bed when it went off each morning. And because she upheld her end of the deal, I had to uphold mine. My fingers were sore - and Google Images had been given quite the workout - by the time we worked our way through the four Frozen hairstyles Hallie wanted to try.

Early Elsa

I'm quite proud of this hairstyle - perhaps my best work in the series.

Late Elsa

These pictures make this hairstyle look like a hot mess, but I swear it 

wasn't when Hallie left for school. I forgot to take pictures that morning, 

so these were taken after school and after she'd changed clothes twice.

Early Anna

This hairstyle was by far the hardest of the four 

because of the texture and length of Hallie's hair.

Late Anna

It was nice to end on a hairstyle with which I'm familiar!

For me, there is no magic motivator. Well, I take that back. It's coffee. Just coffee.

How many days until we "fall back"?

High Five for Friday (3.7.14)

1. Catching Fire comes out on DVD TODAY! I plan to pick up my copy this morning, and then spend the remainder of the day counting down the minutes until Will and Hallie go to bed and I can watch both the movie (for the fourth time) and all of the special features.

2. Divergent tickets went on sale this week! A few friends and I bought ours on Tuesday and are looking forward to finally see one of our favorite books come to life on the big screen.

3. Little League baseball started this week! Well, baseball kind of started this week. We were supposed to practice on Monday, but our coach cancelled practice on account of the weather - it was 27 degrees with a windchill of 20 degrees outside. (To be clear, I'm not complaining about the cancellation. Sitting on ice cold bleachers…in the dark…bundled up against the frigid cold and biting wind…for 90 minutes…all while trying to entertain Hallie sounds about as fun as sticking my pen in my eye.) We were supposed to practice on Wednesday, but our coach cancelled practice on account of the standing water - what remained after Tuesday's ice storm - on the fields. (A second to be clear, the city keeps an unbelievably tight reign on their baseball and soccer fields, opening them to youth practices and games only when weather conditions don't pose a risk to the fields' conditions. The fields have been closed all week, so even if our coaches were willing to brave cold weather and standing water, practicing would have meant risking a $200 fine.) At least we had a team meeting with our coaches, parents, and players…go Blue Claws!

There's just nothing better than watching kids find their footing in and then succeed at the activities and sports they love. Will looks and feels at home on the baseball field, and I am so proud to sit in the stands and cheer for him.

Will's very first tee-ball game two years ago. 

4. Will and I rediscovered "Just Dance for Kids" on the Wii. Someone gave us this game years ago, and while we played it once or twice after it was first opened, it spent most of its time in our media cabinet. Last Sunday afternoon, when the rain and freezing temperatures made playing outside nearly impossible, the kids were going a little stir-crazy. Will had wrapped himself in Ace bandages and was jumping on the beanbag chair in the playroom, and Hallie was SCREAMING the words to Little Red Riding Hood's "I Know Things Now" from Into the Woods while wearing only her yellow, polka dot bikini and pink blanket as a cloak. I needed something - anything - to help them expend energy, and though I usually hate turning to the Wii, the electronic device seemed my only option.

Will and I ended up dancing for a full hour. I broke a sweat, added nearly 6,000 steps to my daily step total (I happened to have on my sports watch), and had a blast with my boy.

Meanwhile, my gal - who didn't want to participate - settled in to watch us and eventually fell asleep under her cloak while we danced circles around her. Literally.

5. And finally, I loved this compilation of photos that together aim to change the way we as a society look at women. Show these to your daughters, friends.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Linking up with High Five for Friday!

I'm Not Quitting

Throughout the 12 years since I graduated from college I've held five different professional positions in four different - though related - fields. All required innovative thinking as well as resourceful and productive problem solving (anyone who has ever tried to provide community services on a nonprofit organization's budget understands), but in most cases, the creative work began and grew thanks to collaborative efforts. This worked out well for me because creativity has never been one of my strong suits. I stand proudly behind my planning, organization, and time-management skills (which allowed me to grow existing successes and turn failures around) but acknowledge that I rarely planted the seedling of an idea that eventually grew into a project, event, or program.

Knowing this, I assume you can understand why I write the way I do. I'm not a creative writer. Despite the fact that my high school creative writing class changed my life - for the better - more so than any other high school or college course I ever took, I hated it. I don't write poems, short stories, or novels. I don't develop plots or create characters. I can't imagine and put into words what a sunset looked like or a car accident sounded like or what a protagonist wore when she finally conquered her beast…unless of course I actually saw the sunset or heard the car accident or witnessed the protagonist during her proudest moment. So instead, I write about my life, my experiences. The stories I tell are MY stories, and I tell them well only because I lived them. (And because I have a pretty solid memory for details that don't actually matter, like what I wore on my 6th birthday or what it feels like to step on a buckeye.)

I panic when Will or Hallie asks me to tell them a story (instead of read them a book) before bed because I CAN'T DO IT. I end up telling them stories I already know but changing a detail here or there (a little mermaid named Ariel Muriel lived under the sea with her father, King Triton mother, Queen Brighton, her seven sisters brothers, and a crab named Sebastian lobster named Antonio), or I retell stories my dad told me and my little sister when we were little.

All writers experience slumps. Days, weeks, or even months when the creative juices - which when flowing smoothly inspire page after page of brilliant text - dry up. These slumps cause problems for any writer, but they're especially problematic for someone like me who isn't all that creative to begin with.

And that's where I find myself right now.

My heart is here, but my brain? Not so much. I'm distracted. I lack focus. I can't find the words.

No, seriously. Over the course of 30 minutes I wrote six versions of the extremely short paragraph above before I deleted all of them and left you with those five sentences. Argh.

In the past, three "cures" have worked in combination to pull me out of my writing slumps.

The first - and most frustrating - is time. And because I don't consider "just sit tight and wait for things to improve" an acceptable course of action when faced with a problem, I usually move on down my list of cures pretty quickly.

The second is to keep writing, even if/when I feel like everything I create, along with the laptop computer on which I wrote that nonsense, should be thrown into the fire. My seventh grade language arts teacher required us to free write - to write without stopping, or paying any attention to spelling or grammar, for a set period of time - at least once each week. Though the raw material produced during free writing wasn't useable in its initial format, it often inspired future stories or project/paper topics and helped break down some of the barriers we had to writing. I free write periodically, but because more often than not free writing turns into writing a to-do list, I move on down my list of cures once again.

If all else fails, she can start ghost writing for me.

The third is to read.

When you cannot think, write.
When you cannot speak, write.
When you cannot sleep, write.
When you cannot write, read.*

I love these words.

In the last six weeks I've finished Inferno by Dan Brown, Unwind by Neal Schuster, Maze Runner by James Dashner, and Legend by Marie Lu, and I'm midway through three more books right now. (I often read more than one book at a time so that I can switch back and forth between genres depending on my mood and attention span.) When I can't write, I surround myself with the words of those who can and hope their brilliance rubs off on me.

So I'm not quitting. I'm hanging in there, giving it time, continuing to write, and reading like my life depends on it.

Writers, any slump-cure recommendations?

Readers, any good book recommendations?

Help me!

*My apologies for not giving credit to whoever said this originally - I know it wasn't anonymous, but I can't find the author's name online.

Chasing Roots Around the Interwebs

Though I spend quite a bit of my time writing for Chasing Roots (and trying to keep up our family blog as well), I also contribute regularly to the National American Red Cross blog and MomsEveryday.com. Every couple of months I like to link up to some of the pieces I've written for these sites, and I'd love it if you'd check out not just my posts but the sites in general, as both have a lot of valuable (though completely unrelated) content to share!

Red Cross: Youth Preparedness Week
The 2014 Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service and Youth Preparedness Week (January 20 - 24) have come and gone, but the community service and preparedness information (geared specifically toward youth and young adults) included in this post is still relevant today.

Red Cross: Be Your Own Valentine
Lessen your risk of suffering from an (in many cases) avoidable crisis – such as a heart attack caused by an unhealthy lifestyle, for example – by taking prevention into your own hands. Check out these tips to help strengthen and protect your heart.

MomsEveryday: Breaking the Rules
Some days I struggle to find the words to express what I feel inside. Other days, thoughts and feelings I didn't know I had spill out of me faster than I can type. Midway through writing a completely different article, this post - about wanting to change, ever so slightly, how I parented my Hallie Claire - appeared on my computer screen and begged to be shared.

MomsEveryday: Bathrobe Bowl
In case you missed it the first time around, check out this post about Will's efforts to use football to drive all of his family members completely insane. (Watch for a follow-up post about Will's efforts to use basketball to drive all of his family members insane. And then, because Will played with his basketball too close to the car-rider line outside of his elementary school and a car ran over it, watch for a second follow-up post about his efforts to use baseball to drive all of his family members insane.)

MomsEveryday: Bertie Bott's Bean Bonanza
Another repeat, but a funny post about 1) Tom's most valuable (non-academic) contribution to society and 2) how not everything we create should be passed on to our kids. Until they head off to college, that is, and then all bets are off.

MomsEveryday: Mom to Mom with Erin
MomsEveryday reformatted their website and now all of my posts can be seen on "Mom to Mom with Erin Ferris". The page has not yet been fully populated with my posts, but eventually everything I've written for MomsEveryday will be available to read from this one location.

Thanks for your support, friends, both here on Chasing Roots and out there in cyberland!