The Summer Before

The summer leading up to me getting married was like one long, sentimental walk through the park. Everything my family and I did felt like, “this is the last time.” The last time we will ever take a car trip as The Anderson Family, the last time I will sit in my house, drinking from my coffee cups, and eating my cereal. Now it is my parent’s house, coffee cups, and cereal. They have never said it’s not yours anymore, but you just come to terms with that kind of stuff on your own. I’m quite sure everyone in the family was feeling the same way, sentimental. My parents seemed more like my friends, my sisters and brother, more like my friends. Everything in our lives was changing.

All in a Day’s Work

My life began like any other, the beginning. My parents were just like me in every possible way. My family, we all contained the same wiring if you will. We were a hardworking middle class family. I was brought up to be a tough, diligent worker. After I graduated from school I continued on to my career and began my first real job. I worked and lived in the home of a wealthy family. They always included me and I never felt out of place. I felt right at home with them and because of that I never missed my own family too often. It was a steady job and had its benefits. I was never cold, never without food or shelter, all was well, or so I thought.

The Scissors that Broke the Lock’s Back

As a child I was always nostalgic. I’m not sure why, but anything I did I would think about how in fifteen or twenty years I would look back on an exact moment in time and love or hate every second of it. Why on Earth would I need to remember a time when I was unloading the dishwasher quickly and my mom said, “watch out, sometimes the forks will stab you.” or why would I remember my sister throwing a fit for thirty minutes because I ate the last purple Popsicle (well…) or lighting my cousin’s leg on fire with hand sanitizer. These memories are seemingly useless to others; just random happenings renting my mind. Everyone has stories that they share, or don’t. We all have a story that can be applied to any situation and then those classified stories that can only be told to your small group of close, personal friends. We all have that watered down version of something crazy we tell mom and dad, and then ten years later retell it at Thanksgiving dinner, while your mom in horror utters, “That’s not what you told me!” Our stories make us who we are and what we are.

The Naïve Family and the Sea

It was a beautiful June morning in Galveston Texas. My aunt, uncle, two cousins and I were heading to the pier to meet up with our captain to go on a deep sea fishing adventure. Everyone was super excited and thrilled because our families are obsessed with fishing. The thought of catching a fish from the ocean was much more excited than our previous trips to the Blue River. We were all placing bets on who would walk away with the biggest catch. The stakes were high, our adrenaline was pumping, five whole hours of nonstop fishing, we were going to show the ocean something it had never seen before. Our gear was in the boat we met our captain, naturally his name was “Captain Ron,” and I was disappointed to see that it wasn’t Kurt Russell. Captain Ron read the rules of the boat and we were off. My cousins and I sat toward the back scheming and betting who would catch the biggest fish. I thought, “the water is so smooth, this is nothing like I thought it would be.” Then we exited the sound, the waves started getting bigger and it became extremely hot. I looked over at my cousin and he was a weird, greenish color. I closed my eyes, my mouth started getting watery. The next thing I knew both of my cousins were hanging over the side of the boat, chumming the waters. Looking back, IHOP for breakfast was a terrible idea. Blueberry pancakes are not as pretty the second time around.

Cooking is a lot of Wok

When I was about twelve years old I was helping my dad cook. My siblings and I really wanted fried rice, so dad decided this was something he could probably make. We were using his Coleman camping stove and I was in charge of running back and forth from the shop, twenty feet from the house, to gather the ingredients my mom had prepared. The only reason we were cooking it outside was because my mom didn't want to, "stink up the house." So I carried out the chicken we wanted to put into the rice as well as the onion, peas, water chestnuts, of course rice and whatever else we thought went into fried rice.

The Stove and I

I have always been terrible at cooking. If there are more than three ingredients, hence my love for beans, then there will be no food. I have an uncanny ability to scorch, overcook, or just completely burn food. My mother is a great cook, I was just never really interested in the beginning of the food prep process, only the end when I would slice tomatoes for the salad. I’m awesome at fresh vegetables, sliced carrots, green onions, cucumbers, basically anything that takes a few slices with a knife. When it comes to fire/heat, I will either burn myself or the food. Here is a small list of things I have learned while burning food:

1. Just because you turn the heat up does not mean it will cook faster. (This mostly happens with brownies).

2. It is possible to make the smoke detector go off while boiling water.

3. It’s not a good idea to call your mom in the middle of cooking only to find out what you did wrong. Just keep cooking, it’s going to get burnt anyway.

The stove and I have similarities. We both need supervision while cooking and there is always the possibility, eh, guarantee that we will burn your food. I, unlike Paula Deen have no skills when it comes to cooking, but sometimes I think, maybe if I use three sticks of butter it won’t burn as bad…