It's been years since I have written on my blog. I was scanning through my blog today at work when I could have been writing my notes... Notes can be boring.. and by the end of the day I feel like I have ADD and really struggle to write them. I'll get to them in a minute. But first I thought I would take a minute and update my blog, The Threewells. 

The Threewells was a play on words when I created this blog. I was young, just married.. I think it was called something else before I had my baby but I don't remember what. When I had my son I changed the name to the Threewells because it was just us three Ewells. Get it. Sometimes I'm so clever!

Well now that "three" is back down to two. But I'm not going to change the name of my blog just yet. And I'm keeping the "Ewell" part/last name as well. It's my married last name but it's part of me now. I'm attached to it. It's my son's last name too and so it stays. I can't very well call this blog the Two-wells or the Two Ewells. I may have to think if I want to change the name, or if I even CAN change the name since it's literally the name of the blog site. Hmm?  

A LOT has happened in the decade plus since I last blogged. I think my son was just barely walking when blogging suddenly went out of fashion. Being a young mom, working full-time, trying to make ends meet, along with having PTSD from almost dying after my son was born, my marriage falling apart, etc. I just got out of the habit of blogging. It stopped being fun. And I don't think anyone was reading it anyways so I just stopped writing it.

Looking back, I am AMAZED at how much I had written! I thought I had about five posts, but I scrolled for an hour before coming to my first post. I couldn't believe it. My life has changed so much. I'm now middle-aged. My 30-year high school reunion is this weekend (tomorrow and Saturday). I'm divorced. My son is now 16 and is AMAZING! He's getting his drivers license this week. 

Some things are still the same. I'm still a social worker, LCSW. While that has stayed the same many things have changed. I no longer work with adults in recovery. I work with children. Children who are sometimes the children of parents who are in recovery. I remember when I was young and trying to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up my mom, who was a kindergarten teacher suggested I go into teaching. I kid you not, I told my mom "I would never want to be a teacher. I don't want to babysit other people's kids all day." And now here I am working with kids and loving it. My mom likes to tease me that not only am a "babysitting other people's kids all day" but I am working with the most difficult kids. The ones she would have referred to me who struggled with behavior issues at her school. 

I work at a day treatment for kids and teens. A nonprofit program for children. Many have experienced trauma. Some are in the foster care system. Some have behavior issues. We address all of these issues at our program and teach them coping skills. It is challenging but I love it. 

I've never been one to choose the easy path. I've had four toes broken my first month working with kids. A kid was mad and flipped his desk. The edge of the desk landed on my left foot, severing the bones in my toes but not the toes themselves. The kid who flipped his desk and broke my toes was suspended the next day. I drove myself to the urgent care and came into work the next day with a boot on my left foot. That was 10 years ago. This is the longest I have ever worked at a job and I don't see myself leaving anytime soon. 

I'll try to get better at blogging but I'm not going to make any promises. I would love to get back in the habit of writing. I'm kind of impressed by my writing skills a decade ago. I was a pretty decent writer if I do say so myself, which I do. 

If you've read this far I'm impressed. Good job! Maybe check back in once in a while and I may surprise you with another update. 

Day 25: A Place I Love: DISNEYLAND

I chose a picture of the castle with fireworks behind it because every time I think of us going to Disneyland this month I get butterflies in my stomach and fireworks are going off in my head!  

I cannot wait to take our (almost) two year-old to Disneyland! We've pretty much turned him into a Disney fanatic.  He LOVES the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and knows all the character's names (even Pete), but calls Goofy "Goose".  Well, and calls Clarabelle "Barbie".  Don't know why? She looks nothing like Barbie!

He loves Toy Story, 1, 2, and 3, Finding Nemo, Bolt, Sword in the Stone, Dumbo (who he calls Beebow) and of course CARS! He has to sleep with his McQueen car at night.  Too bad the new Radiator Springs addition won't be finished when we go.  I guess we'll have to go back next year to see it!

I'm so excited that we're going to be there on Leap Day this year.  Disneyland is going to be open from 6:00 a.m. February 29th, until 6:00 a.m. March 1st.  But with a two year-old we'll probably only take advantage of the extra time by staying until 10:00 instead of the park closing at the usual 8:00 p.m.  He's not going to last much longer than that!  It will be the first day we're there, and I anticipate his mind is going to be BLOWN! So who knows! 

I've been preparing our almost two-year-old for the Pirates of the Carribean ride by having him watch some Youtube videos that other people took of the whole ride.  He likes pirates so far, but then he's never seen scary pirates.  Hopefully if he kind of knows what to expect he won't flip out when we go on the ride.

I'm so tempted to start packing today.  After all, we are leaving this month.  Never mind that we are leaving at the very end of the month and today is the first day of the month! I've been making a list of things I want to be certain to pack: Goldfish crackers, sunglasses, coloring book and crayons, sippy cups, etc. I'm tempted to break out our biggest suitcase and start filling it with things for our trip.  If I don't count today, or the day we fly out we just have 26 days before our trip!

My husband, Josh's parents, two of his sisters and their little families, and two of his brothers, and their little families are going.  All together we'll have 9 adults, plus two "adult" nieces who are 18 and 19, and the 19-year-old's new fiances, who is 20. . . So I guess, make that 12 adults. . .and we will have 7 kids.  Our one, and six of his cousins.  

Random thought: At not even two years old Walter already has one married cousin who got married last year, and another one getting married this year. So he's a cousin-in-law twice already.  I guess that's what happens when you're the youngest cousin of 19.

Aaaaanywaysss. . . . . . . . I'm so excited to go to Disneyland!!!

Day 26: A child I love. . . Walter

Day 23 & 24 Christmas Memory and 5 things I love about Christmas

Wow! It's a very late Christmas miracle that I am blogging again.  For the longest time I've been stuck on "Day 22 - A family photo" because I've been meaning to get a new family photo and it just hasn't happened.  Hopefully this Spring we will get family photos taken, so I decided to skip that post and move on because, let's be honest, this 30 days of blogging has turned into almost a year!  Wow!

Moving on. . .

Day 23: A Christmas Memory:
Childhood - Christmas eve dinner by candlelight, with our own candles clipped to our plates.  One year my cousin's hair caught of fire!  My parents inviting families, or widows over for this dinner who they knew didn't have family in Utah to share Christmas with.

Waking up Christmas morning. Not being allowed into the living room to see what Santa brought until AFTER all five of us children were dressed, our beds made, have eaten breakfast, and the dishes were done.  Talk about torture!  Then we were lined up in order of youngest to oldest to enter the living room where Santa had left our gifts.

My senior year of high school, getting Phantom of the Opera tickets, third row.  Even though I'd seen in three times I cried I was so excited! It was completely unexpected and exactly what I wanted. (Could someone please do that for me for Wicked!?)

As a child - Going to my Grandma and Grandpa Martin's house to say hello and see cousins.  Wearing my coat in the living room, seeing my breath, to play with cousins because the heat was always turned off to save money.  The kitchen was always toasty warm if we got too cold because they used their gas oven to heat it.  Parting the heavy blanket that hung in the doorway between the living room and the nice warm kitchen and being hit with a blast of welcome warmth.

Going to my Grandma and Grandpa Yospe's for the rest of the day to visit with my father's side of the family and have Christmas dinner.  Having my Grandpa Yospe, a former Jew-converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints- and a police officer read The Littlest Angel every year and having him cry every year, which made all the rest of the family cry and not having a dry eye in their house by the end of the book.

DAY 24: Five things I love about Christmas:
1. The anticipation and Spirit of Christ-mas. To me this is the BEST part about Christmas.  The waiting for it to happen.
2.  Being Santa.  It is so fun to be Santa to my own little family now.
3.  The food.
4.  Being with family.
5.  Looking at Christmas lights and window displays.

Preparing fo Disneyland

A big THANK YOU! To my friend Michelle, who co-owns Potato Bug Clothing for making this awesome shirt for Walter to wear when we go to Disneyland next Spring. Potato Bug Clothing uses real potatoes carved into stamps to create prints on children's clothing.  Love it!  And they're so artistic they're willing to do shirts to order.

I can't wait to take Walter to Disneyland next year!  He's going to love meeting Buzz Lightyear, Woody, and of course Mickey Mouse!

Lemon Sugar Cookies

I've been asked to post some recipes I'm cooking tonight.  All of them come from the Betty Crocker 40th Anniversary Edition Cookbook from 1991.  This recipe is on page 121, called "Sugar Cookies".  I've made some substitutions, putting in lemon extract instead of almond extract, and decreasing the vanilla, while increasing the lemon extract.

Lemon Sugar Cookies:
1 1/2 Cups powdered sugar
1 Cup butter, softened
1 to 2 teaspoons lemon extract (When I made my cookies today they weren't as lemony as I wanted.  I had used 1 tsp of lemon extract.  Next time I'll use 2 tsp instead because the cookies only had a light lemon taste with just 1 teaspoon and I really wanted the lemon flavor to be more promenent.)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, or self-rising flour*
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
Granulated sugar (to roll dough in)

Mix powdered sugar, butter, vanilla, lemon extract and egg.  Stir in remaining ingredients except the granulated sugar.  Cover and refrigerate at least two hours.

Heat oven to 375 degrees.
Greese cookie sheet lightly.  Roll dough into little balls.  Roll the balls in sugar and place on the cookie sheets.  Smash the balls down with the palm of your hand, or with a decorative cookie press.  Bake 7 to 8 minutes or until edges are ligh brown.  Cook.  Makes about 5 dozen cookies.  65 calories per cookie.

*If using self-rising flour, omit baking soda and cream of tartar.

Clam Chowder

I've been asked to post the recipes of the food I am making for dinner tonight.  This recipe is a combination of the "New England Clam Chowder" and the "Manhattan Clam Chowders" as well as adding my own variations, from the Betty Crocker's 40th Anniversary Edition Cookbook from 1991.  These recipes are found on pages 340 and 341.

Esther's Clam Chowder:
1/4 Cup finely chopped bacon
1 small onion, finely chopped, about 1/4 cup, or 1/2 a leek finely chopped (I prefer the leek)
1 pint shucked fresh clams with liquor (or 2 cans canned clams with juice)
2 cups corsely chopped potatoes
1/3 cup chopped celery
1, 12 ounce can chicken stock, or 1 cup water

2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley (today I'm substituting Rosemary for parsley because that's what I have)
1/2 teaspoon salt (omit salt if using chicken stock)
1 teaspoon chopped fresh, or 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme leaves (I'm using fresh sage today instead of thyme because I have it growing in my garden).
1/8 teaspoon pepper
2 Cups milk, half & half, or heavy cream, reserve 1/4 cup of the milk and mix it with 1/4 cup flour.

Cook bacon and onion in pot, stirring occasionally, until bacon is crisp and onion is tender.  Today I'm substituting precooked crumbled bacon because it's on hand.  Stir clams and clam liquor, potatoes, celery, and water (or chicken broth) into bacon and onion (leeks).  Heat to boiling.  Reduce heat.  Cover and simmer about 10 minutes or until potatoes are tender.  Stir in remaining ingredients, except milk.  Mix the 1/4 cup milk with 1/4 cup flour to make a rouix to thicken the soup.  Stir in the milk and the rouix mixture.  Bring to a boil. Serve.  Makes 5 servings, about 1 1/4 cups each.