Ellie's Life

Our winters are short in Tennessee, but the small amount of harsh weather that we get causes everything to shut down. Readers from colder areas probably think it’s ridiculous when the Southeastern United States closes schools and businesses for an inch of snow, and we used to think that, too. But it makes sense when you realize that cities and towns have very few snow plows and salt trucks. In fact, some of the less traveled roads are never plowed or salted.

Ice storms are infrequent in the North. But here, with our temperatures going well above freezing on most winter days, rain can turn into sleet and eventually ice when temperatures drop overnight, causing treacherous road conditions. Then it all gets covered in a thin layer of snow, and you can imagine what happens.

With multiple rounds of icing and sleeting over the past three days, we have spent a lot of time indoors, only venturing out when the temperatures go above freezing. Schools have been closed for three days, and Mr. Handsome’s office has had late starts. It actually isn’t anywhere near as bad as the winter storm two years ago that prevented us from leaving our driveway for six days. We kept getting hammered with ice and snow, and the temperatures stayed in the 20s for a week.

To keep our kids from going stir crazy, we have been painting, doing sticker books, and pretending to howl like wolves. Here is a picture that Little Buddy painted yesterday called “The Cow.”

Is anyone else having a snowy/icy week? What have you been doing to fill your time?

We really enjoyed our first year of gardening in the raised beds that Mr. Handsome built. Our tomato and lettuce plants were bountiful. In fact, our tomatoes were still going strong when the first hard frost hit in the second week of November.

Our peppers took longer to get going, but they gave us some tasty treats at the end of summer and into fall. Almost exactly one month ago, when we were outside enjoying the last warm day and anticipating the freezing weather that would roll in that evening. Little Buddy reminded me to pick our remaining peppers. They were still green, but I ended up gathering enough for a delicious meal of stuffed peppers.

The green beans we got were delicious, but they weren’t many. And our carrot crop was just downright unsuccessful. The plants looked great all summer and fall, but the carrots themselves were only about an inch long. Next year, we plan to sow a bigger crop of tomatoes so I can make more fresh tomato sauce. I would also like to experiment with different varieties of lettuce, since it did so well.

If you planted a garden this year, how did yours do?

Last year, we told you about our experience trying crawfish pie at a Cajun seafood restaurant in Florida. It immediately became one of our favorite dishes ever, although most people have told us that they would never eat such a thing.

My father-in-law explained that crawfish live in the mud and that no amount of cleaning would make him want to consume them. That statement shocked me because he grew up on a farm and enjoys getting his hands dirty, but to each their own. Mr. Handsome and I still love our crawfish pie, and we hope to find a restaurant in Nashville that offers it. If a restaurant ever serves it in a pool of mud, I might consider ordering something different, but so far that hasn’t happened.

During our last trip to the Florida Panhandle, I surprised Mr. Handsome by ordering duck gumbo. We both thoroughly enjoyed it.

We are thrilled that Little Buddy has inherited our love of fresh fish. Most restaurants unfortunately only offer a kids portion of fried fish, but we are thankful that he will eat it any way we give it to him…fried, sauteed, or grilled.

One of my culinary goals for the near future is to learn how to make brabant potatoes, which pairs well with both duck gumbo and crawfish pie…or really anything else. They are a classic side dish in New Orleans and by far the tastiest way I have ever eaten potatoes.

Have you ever tried duck gumbo? Brabant potatoes?

With all the negative news in the world, we thought we would share a story that proves there are still good people out there.

We were eating at a restaurant with our kids and had just finished a delicious meal, so we asked the server for the check. She smiled and informed us that our meal had been paid for by the couple that had been sitting at the table behind us. They had already left, so we couldn’t thank them. We tried to think back but couldn’t picture their faces, although we think it was the kind woman who had stopped by our table to “chat” with Littlest Buddy. She has said that her grandchildren are all adults so she enjoys seeing babies out and about. (Just for the record, I hope I look half as good as her when I have adult grandchildren.)

This gesture made our day. Have any of you had this happen, or have you paid it forward to anyone else? 

This year, we really stepped up our gardening game, and we have enjoyed using it as a teaching experience for Little Buddy. I believe the best way to learn is by doing, and there is no better way to learn about plants than to grow them.

Through gardening, Little Buddy has learned about the life cycle of plants, photosynthesis, erosion, pollination, soil nutrients, the importance of water, the importance of hard work, and countless other lessons. When he is older and learns the details about the science behind these concepts, we hope he will think fondly of the time he spent gardening with Mommy and Daddy.

But having a three-year-old help in the garden also comes with its share of mishaps. We were playing on the driveway, near where our potato pot sits, and while I was adjusting Little Buddy’s helmet, we had one of those mishaps. I looked up to see Little Buddy breaking off the potato plants. I told him to stop and then asked him why he had done that. He replied, very thoughtfully, “The potatoes looked bad, so I fixed them.”

I couldn’t possibly be mad at him because he genuinely thought he was helping, but we did have to make a rule that he can’t touch the plants unless he asks Mommy or Daddy first. So far, there have been no more mishaps. Mr. Handsome talked to an experienced gardener who thinks the potatoes will likely grow back, but if they don’t, it’s not a big deal. Our potato pot was more of an experimentation anyways, so we weren’t expecting a ton of success. Our bounty has come from our lettuce and tomatoes, and we hope to plant a fall garden, as well.

Do any of you have funny stories about little kids helping in the garden, or similar mishaps?

On a slightly different topic, when Mr. Handsome told his coworkers about the mishap, one of them shared a story of her own. When she was little, she attempted to climb a stool to grab something out of the pantry and accidentally knocked over her mom’s entire stash of canned vegetables. She broke dozens of jars and made a huge mess. How sad her mom must have been, and how bad she must have felt!

Burgoo is a fun word to say and a unique food to eat. Mr. Handsome and I had the chance to try it at a BBQ festival in Owensboro, Kentucky. A type of stew made of vegetables and three types of meat, burgoo is a regional dish popular in Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, and West Virginia.

Burgoo is an old-timey dish that was traditionally made using whatever kind of meat people had available. Squirrel, possum, and racoon have all been known to make it into a pot of burgoo, as well as your standard chicken, beef, pork, and venison A well-made cup of burgoo is supposed to be so thick that your spoon will sit straight up in it.

I would not have eaten the burgoo if it had had varmints in it, but Mr. Handsome probably would have. I tried squirrel once, and I don’t plan on having that experience ever again. I would have to be very hungry to eat possum or racoon. The burgoo at the festival contained pork, chicken, and mutton. It had a sweet and spicy flavor and was quite good.

Have any of you tried burgoo? Would you eat it if was made of possum, squirrel, or racoon?

Happy Sunday afternoon! We have a cousin over helping Mr. Handsome with some exterior work on our house. Little Buddy is occupied playing with his 10-year-old second cousin, and Littlest Buddy is down for a nap, so I have a few minutes of quiet. I’m drinking iced coffee with heavy cream and feeling very relaxed, so I thought it would be a good time to answer some questions:

What are your go-to meals to make for your family?

Mr. Handsome’s go-to is burgers. Whenever I’m struggling to think of something to make for dinner, Mr. Handsome says, “Just pull some ground beef out of the freezer, and I’ll make burgers.” We have opposite opinions on how burgers should be dressed. Mr. Handsome likes to taste the meat, and I like to put enough toppings on so I don’t taste the meat. I love sauces and condiments, and sometimes I’ll even add avocado or pineapple. My go-to meal to cook is fajitas (recipe is on my Recipes page). I try to keep cut peppers and raw chicken tenders in the freezer and tortillas on the counter so I can make fajitas on the fly without a trip to the store.

Can Mr. H tell us something about his two youngest sisters?

I just love Mr. Handsome’s little sisters! They were 9 and 11 years old when I met them, so it has been fun to watch them grow up and enter adulthood. They are both very mature, which I think is the result of having five older siblings. One has two years left of college (she attends nearby so we still see her a lot) and the other graduated college and got married (hence the photos of the cupcakes and wedding cake). She is about to start a job, and her husband is planning to get a master’s degree, so they will be busy.

Do you want more kids?

Yes! We both really want four, but more than that, we want God’s will for our life, whether that is more or less. My most recent pregnancy felt so much harder on my body than my first, so I am going to spend the next couple years working hard to get back in shape.

What are your favorite YouTube channels?

I don’t spend much time on YouTube, but every once in a while I watch a comedy clip from the Holderness Family. I can’t vouch for all their videos because I have only seen some, but I especially enjoy the ones about Costco and Hallmark. Mr. Handsome doesn’t find them very funny (although he laughed out loud to “Buying a House in 2022”), but I think they are a hoot. What do you think?

…..Continued from Part 3

I was dilated to 10 cm, and it was time to push. The midwife returned, and the supplies was brought in. Everything was going so well, until a few minutes in. After a few pushes, the baby’s heart rate started dropping.

The midwife told us that a drop in the heart rate was normal at the very end, but when she instructed the nurse to call the hospitalist, I could sense that our time was limited. I asked if she was preparing for a C-section. “It’s just a precaution,” she replied. “I really think you can do this, but you have to push really hard.”

I’m not sure what was actually going through her mind, but I appreciated her positive attitude. And even if she didn’t have much faith in my ability to deliver naturally, I’m grateful that she didn’t advertise it. Can you imagine what would happen if she had the habit of telling laboring moms what was really going on in those final minutes? It’s would be almost certain to end in panic and C-section if a mom were told. “There’s about an 80% chance that you’re going to be cut open in a few minutes, but give it one final try, and we’ll see what happens.”

After a couple of very hard pushes, the baby was born. The total “push” time was less than 10 minutes, compared to over an hour with my first baby. I found out later that the midwife had made a tiny cut to get him out quickly, and I was grateful for her quick decision making. I was also grateful that she didn’t tell me as it was happening.

With my first birth, the baby was placed on my chest immediately after delivery, but that didn’t happen this time. I heard the nurse say, “Do I need to push the button?” And the midwife responded, “Yes.” I watched the nurse run to the wall and push a button labeled ‘CODE BLUE.’ That’s when I knew something was wrong.

A team of NICU specialists flooded the room. They must have been told to wait in the hallway because they were there in a flash. As our baby was whisked off to the warming tray in the corner, I saw that his face was dark blue. He wasn’t crying…or breathing at all.

I burst into tears as I realized what was happening. It was truly the most terrifying moment of my life. Mr. Handsome stood beside me and stroked my head as the team in the corner worked on our son. He seemed very calm, so I asked him later if he was scared when he saw the baby’s dark blue face, expecting him to say that he knew the whole time that everything was going to end well. But he admitted that while he appeared calm on the outside, inside he was panicking.

The baby made his first cry a minute later. That doesn’t sound like a long time, but to us, it felt like an eternity. And when you consider that the average baby cries within 10 seconds of delivery, one minute is a very long time. It was still a very “wet cry” and did not sound good. The NICU nurses continued sucking fluid out of his lungs for almost 10 minutes. It was difficult to have to wait so long to meet our son.

When they brought him over and laid him on my chest for the first time, I was so relieved. One of the nurses explained what had happened. The cord had been wrapped around his neck and had tightened during delivery, thus restricting blood flow. His initial Apgar score, which measures how well a baby tolerated the birthing process, was 1/10. But she assured me that because he scored a 9/10 a minute later, there wouldn’t be any lasting effects from his lack of oxygen.

To Be Continued…

…Continued from Part 1

In the last month of my pregnancy, there were several days when the baby didn’t move as much as he had been moving up until that point. It was usually only one day at a time, and then the next day he was more active. As time went on, the low movement days became more and more frequent. I was really looking forward to holding my baby in my arms and being done with the concerns of pregnancy.

Just like with my first pregnancy, my blood pressure started creeping up. At my 38.5-week appointment, it was high enough that the midwife said she could justify doing an immediate induction. But she said it wasn’t dangerously high, so I could alternatively choose to draw preeclampsia labs, which would check on the condition of my liver and kidneys. I opted to do the blood work, as the results would be available the following morning.

Both Mr. Handsome and Little Buddy were with me at that appointment, which helped put me at ease. As we left the office, the midwife told me that if at any point I developed preeclampsia symptoms or started feeling overly stressed about the situation, all I needed to do was call her and she would schedule the induction.

That afternoon, we spent a lot of time in prayer. Before dinnertime, I started feeling like it was time to get induced. I ignored the feeling at first, convinced that it was just my mind saying it was tired of dealing with pregnancy, but the feeling became stronger with each passing minute. I was also experiencing some slight vision changes, which is a symptom of preeclampsia, so that was concerning.

My concerns about the baby’s movement had dramatically increased over the past few days. The day before, I had hardly felt him, and at one point in the evening, it took 40 minutes of gently rubbing and poking at him to get him to move at all. That was a huge red flag because up until that point, he had always moved, immediately, every time he was at all poked or prodded.

After we ate, I called the midwife and told her I was ready to be induced. She was on board with the decision and told me to meet her at the hospital at 1:00am. That sounds like a strange time for a medical appointment, but when you consider that hospitals are open around the clock, it’s not so odd. When I hung up the phone, I immediately felt at peace. Until that moment, I had been feeling quite stressed out and on edge. That peace confirmed to me that I had made the right decision. I thanked God for his incredible guidance.

We put Little Buddy to bed and got everything ready to go, but it was only 8:30pm. My house wasn’t dirty, but cleaning is a de-stresser and a distraction for me, and I wanted to avoid allowing my mind to think about labor and delivery, so I went at it. Within an hour, I had the house vacuumed, the kitchen spotless, and the bathrooms sparkling. Then I took a long shower, and both Mr. Handsome and I went to sleep, setting an alarm for midnight.