On Losing Candace

One week ago today was the worst day of my entire life. One week ago today I lost my sister, my friend. Candace was only 21 when she died very suddenly from multiple organ failure as a result of septicemia. It still doesn't feel real. I don't think it ever will.

We've always been the Fabulous Filler Five. We've been close, even from far away. We've been through a lot together. We've fought with and for each other. We've been through thick and thin. We've loved and we've forgiven and we've struggled and we've survived together. Together.

It's hard to believe it was only 8 days ago, my life was normal and happy and I had just gotten home from brunch with Steve and the girls. My mom called to tell me she had taken Candace to the emergency room and that she was weak and incoherent. I asked her to keep me updated and got to work on our remodeling project. A few hours later my step-dad called to tell me I needed to come as soon as possible. I packed up myself and the girls and got on the road within an hour. They were telling me she had pneumonia and septicemia (a blood infection) and that her kidneys weren't functioning. Through all of this I heard that she was sick, but that she was going to make it. Young people can always beat this kind of stuff. I drove seven hours in the pitch black that seldom-traveled winter roads provide, still unable to think of anything but her making it, her surviving. She is, after all, a survivor. If you know Candace, you wouldn't believe she could ever die. She just wouldn't let it happen. She's a fighter like you can't imagine. She has been in dark places before, and she has always, always pushed through. I just couldn't think this wouldn't be another one of those times. She's tough. Really tough. Nothing defeats her.

I arrived in my hometown around midnight, put the girls down to sleep in the guestroom at my mom's house and went to the hospital. It was a while before I could see her, but when I finally did, I knew things were bad. Just walking into the room I could tell she was very, very sick. A sick that is hard to describe in words. She was sedated and pumped full of fluids as they were trying to get her kidneys to start doing their job. "If she survives the night," the doctors told us, "we'll consider transfering her for dialysis in the morning." I had no idea how big of an if that was. I took her hand and told her she could beat this. I felt sure it would be like one of those romantic scenes in a movie when someone swoops in and saves the day with their brave declarations.

A few hours later, her kidneys still weren't functioning. She coded and they brought her back. The doctor came in to level with us. He kept saying she was very sick. They had cultured her blood a few hours ago and it was already growing bacteria (which meant the level of infection was extremely high - this kind of thing is pretty unheard of in bacteria culturing). Eventually he said what we couldn't bear to think ourselves, "If anyone needs to be here, you need to call them right now." My aunt was there with my brother, me, my mom and my step-dad, Dennis. We called my other sisters, Jaci and Georgia and my dad. They arrived just in time.

The scene that ensued is purely horrible to remember. And the words I could use to recount it would never tell the whole story. The infection spread to her heart and it ceased to be able to function. They tried reviving her several times. I had to watch from outside the ICU, where all I could see was the reflection of the heart monitor. I had figured out during the first code that a blinking red light was her heartbeat, and if it was accompanied by a steady blue light, she was breathing. But as we stood there, my brother and sisters and I, clinging to each other and crying and hoping and praying, I could see that the red light was steady and the blue light was gone. I couldn't tell them. I couldn't tell myself. My brother, Chad, led us all in singing "Amazing Grace," barely utterable through the tears.

At some point they must have decided to stop trying to revive her, and a nurse came to let us into the room. Her room collapsed into wails of disbelief and deep pain. We hugged her. We held each other. We tried to remember every little thing we would soon want to forget, her face in her last moments, our cries of anguish, her green nail polish. Before long my sisters and brother and I were collapsed in a trembling heap. And right there, on the floor of the ICU, amongst a quivering mass of limbs and broken sobs and unutterable disbelief, five became four. An angel with broken wings got new ones. One pain ended and many more began.

It was many surreal hours later that I came into the room my daughters were sleeping in to try and get some sleep myself. Their breathing echoed through the room as soft as a purr and as loud as a freight train. And my heart broke anew. My mother's voice resounding in my mind as I could hear her desperate cry, "My baby is dying." The sobs that broke from a depth of pain previously unknown. The utter devasastation. Being a mother myself, I could imagine that cry coming from my own being, over a child who had come from my own body. And my soul ached anew, for me, who lost a sister, for my mother who lost a child. For the breathing that pounded on, and for the breaths that were no more.

She was finally at peace, and we were left with our questions. With our lack of understanding. With our hopes shattered. And our dreams changing shape.

***

One of the many difficult parts of the week that followed was the task of packing up her life. It was almost unbearable to clean out her apartment and box up her things. It was nearly impossible to find the words to so quickly sum up her too-short life for the obituary. And sorting through the pictures for the slideshow at her memorial seemed so awfully insignificant in comparison to the vibrant life they were meant to encapsulate. How could some boxes contain all that was left? How could a few words describe the life she had? How could mere pictures demonstrate what she meant to us.

It seems too cruel to have her life concluded this way. In boxes, in words. But I force myself to remember that this is not the conclusion. I look around and see the many hearts and lives she touched and I am moved to see that she lives on in some way in each of us. Her legacy is her kindness, her grace and the beauty that made a lasting and immeasurable impact on our lives.

She lives on because of the many people throughout our community who have reached out in compassion, just as she would have. She lives on in every smile at every happy memory. And every tear shed in sadness because she left us too soon.

We have been overwhelmed by the kindness expressed by everyone around us, and we are grateful. Grateful for the thoughts and prayers and phone calls and text messages and food and flowers. But mostly grateful for those who remember with us. That you will not let our sweet sister, daughter, friend be forgotten. Grateful you add to the meaning and significance of her life by telling your stories of how she touched you. How she moved you.

Candace was a wonderful friend, who also happened to be my sister. We may have had our sisterly moments of disagreement, but I always admired her tenacity and the vivacious way in which she went around and conquered anything she set her mind to. She was fearless. And she never gave up. Even when it seemed ridiculous not to give up. She pressed on.

And she was always so cool. The life of the party. Everyone's friend. She provided shelter for strays and friends and anyone who needed her. I had to learn from her how to be cool, because it came so naturally to her. But she was also smart and diligent and persistent, if not pretty stubborn. She was constantly working towards her goals, yet she never hesitated to stop what she was doing to lend a helping hand. She never blinked when she was needed, but extended herself in grace and kindness. She was very thoughtful, and even taught me to open my eyes beyond my own circumstances to see how I could love and bless others around me.

Personally, one of the times I have felt most loved in my entire life was when she planned a surprise birthday party for me the year I turned fifteen. Everything from the guestlist to the menu was perfectly thought of as something she knew I would like. She was only 13 when she noticed and cared for these many details about me that I was barely conscious of myself. Her generous heart of love floored me then, and it continued to amaze me. I still strive to be as thoughtful, caring and unselfish as she was as a young girl, and throughout her  life.

Candace, I love you. I admire you. I am thankful for the 21 years I had with you as my sister and for the innumberable ways you have taught me to love and to care and to keep persevering through the most difficult and seemingly insurmountable situations. You will live on in my heart as I try to become more thoughtful and kind as you were. I will tell my daughters about you every time they sing, "My Girl." I will be thankful for the gift you were to me and to our family and your many, many friends. I will be strong because you were strong and I won't let anything stand in my way, just as you have shown me a thousand times. I will always hold you close in my heart and look forward to being with you again before too long. I love you always.

The Lord looks down on the fields of the earth, and he picks a rose.
Often this rose seems the most beautiful and important here on earth.
But the Lord picks only what He needs, and the beautiful rose adorns his altar in heaven.

The One With the Eggnog and Caramel Ice Cream Pie

I was in a mood to experiment this year. I'm one of those people who likes eggnog is small doses around Christmas time, and I thought it might be fun to make a pie involving eggnog. My experiment turned out pretty well, I think.

And I call it an ice cream pie not because it uses ice cream, but because it's creamy and then you freeze it to make it kind of like ice cream. Also, if you let it stand out for too long, it will melt like ice cream. So don't do that.

Eggnog and Caramel Ice Cream Pie

Caramel

• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 3 Tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

First of all, prepare all your ingredients and have them standing by, measured out and ready to use. In a heavy saucepan, combine the water and sugar over medium high heat. Allow the sugar and water to come to a boil, stirring very little, if at all. Allow the mixture to boil, undisturbed, for 8-10 minutes.Watch the sugar as it melts. When the mixture becomes an amber color, quickly stir in the butter, being careful not to be splattered by the boiling. Remove from heat and count to five, then carefully stir in the whipping cream until mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool while you prepare your eggnog filling.

Eggnog Filling

• Graham cracker crust
• 1 8-ounce package cream cheese, at room temperature*
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup thick eggnog (like Alpenrose)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 king-size Twix bar, chopped into small pieces

In a medium bowl with an electric mixer, cream together cream cheese and brown sugar. Add the eggnog and beat together on high for 3 minutes, until well combined. Add the vanilla. Stir in half of the Twix bar pieces. Pour into the prepared graham cracker crust.

Once your caramel has cooled, pour it over the top of the eggnog filling. Use a knife to swirl the caramel into the filling. You will be mixing the top half or so of the pie filling, not stirring together all the batter.

Sprinkle the remaining Twix bar pieces on top and place in freezer for 3-4 hours. Half an hour before serving, remove from freezer and place in refrigerator to soften slightly.

*Make sure you use a really good cream cheese, like Philadelphia. You don't want something that is going to chunk up when you try to add things to it.

And there you have it. Easy as pie, really.

The Last One of 2012

It's been a pretty amazing year, that's for sure. Maybe one of my favorite ever. I mean, what could be better than traveling around with your best friends and cool little family? We've certainly had a lot of adventures, seen a lot of pretty things, been reunited with a lot of good friends and traveled a lot of miles. In fact, if you counted all the miles we've driven or flown this year individually and lined them up end to end, they total over 48,000. That's enough to drive around the equator. Twice.

And those miles have not been in vain. I have loved having Ellie and Olivia as my little travel buddies. They are great sports on road trips, and they're always excited about "a-wen-tures." And, of course, Steve is an excellent travel companion, too. We both have the travel bug as of late, and it's fun to always be thinking of the next place we want to go together. Plus, I'd like to thank his employer, Moss Adams, for sponsoring many of our trips. For an accountant, Steve has a pretty cool lifestyle, if I do say so myself. And it has been wonderful to reunite with friends both near and far many times over the year. It's not very fun when all your friends move away. But it is fun when you get to go visit them in places like Austin, Baton Rouge and San Francisco.

It's always difficult for me to figure out how to recap an entire year. Chronologically? Categorically? Photographically? Linkilly (that's when I repost links, obviously)? So I went with Instagramically this year. Because I like that Instragrams sort of capture our everyday life... the regular stuff, as it were. With two squirmy kids I don't always feel like I can bring along my expensive camera, so I'm grateful for the relatively good quality provided by my iPhone 4S's camera. I think it does pretty nicely. Plus, I enjoy the fact that Ellie and Olivia really like to look back through all my pictures and remember the fun times with me.

So if you're ready for the longest, most Instagram-filled post ever, may I present a little recap of our year.

In 2012:

We saw a lot of pretty skylines:

Main Street, Disneyland, California

La Jolla, California

San Francisco, California

Downtown San Francisco

Spokane, Washington

Honolulu, Hawaii

Houston, Texas

(More after the jump.)

The One With the Christmas Dinner

We had a lovely Christmas in our first home this year. My family came to visit from Idaho. It's always fun to have Christmas with my family because my mom is a great cook and we have a fabulous food, which is one of the reasons I love Christmas so. That and Christmas songs and lights and glitter crafts. 

Anyway, it was fun to decorate for Christmas dinner, which was out in our garage that is about to be converted into the girls' bedroom. (Fancy, I know.)

Just a few hydrangeas and pink roses arranged by my mom amongst tons of candles and some ornaments, and of course, gold glitter. We had berry pretzel salad for starters, followed by a green salad with spinach, craisins, pomegranate, sunflower seeds, croutons and poppyseed dressing. And then twice baked potatoes, green bean casserole, and pork wellington - which is quite a feat of engineering (in which I am not very involved). And a pecan pie cheesecake and a chocolate toffee almond pie for dessert.

After dinner we went to see the lights at Peacock Lane and then watched the Muppet Christmas Carol, as per tradition. Well, except that the tradition is becoming more and more that we fall asleep to the Muppet Christmas Carol, but whatever. And we played games and introduced the new family members to Nertz, which is the best card game ever.

And look at this picture from Christmas morning. The girls got a kid-sized piano from my mom. They love it. And they look ridiculously adorable playing it. They probably need piano lessons...

Ellie and Olivia also got a pink oven and we gave them pizza and cookie making sets to go with it. They walked around all day in their new princess dress-up shoes and made sure everyone got more than their fill of pizza and cookies. It was very fun.

Did you have a Merry Christmas? I do hope you did.

The One With the Almond Roca Cookie Bars

This recipe was inspired by a box recipe I found a couple years ago at CostCo. But now I don't have to depend on the box and can make it myself all year round. Which I might have to do because this is Steve's favorite.

Almond Roca Cookie Bars

• 1 package Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix (if you don't want to use this mix, see my recipe here for Almond Roca Cookie Bars from Scratch)
• 1 cup + 2 Tablespoons butter, at room temperature
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup almond roca bits, either made from scratch or crushed from Heath or Skor candy bars

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
In a medium bowl, use a pastry cutter to combine the sugar cookie mix and 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter. The mixture will still be dry, but the butter should be fully incorporated. Press into the bottom of an ungreased 9x13 inch glass pan. Use your fingers to make sure the mixture is evenly distributed and packed firmly. Set aside.
In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, melt 5 Tablespoons of butter and the brown sugar, stirring constantly to make sure the butter and sugar are fully incorporated. Once this is achieved, add the remaining 5 Tablespoons of butter and continue to stir as the mixture comes to a rolling boil. Allow the mixture to boil for about a minute and then pour over the sugar cookie mixture, spreading evenly with a spatula. Place in oven and cook for 16-18 minutes, until caramel is bubbly.
Remove from oven. After one minute, sprinkle the almond roca bits over the cookie bar. Allow to cool  in the fridge for about two hours. Set cookies out and let them come to room temperature before cutting into squares.

Easy as pudding pie. And super yummy. So far everyone who has tried these has liked them. So maybe that means they're a no-fail Christmas treat? Good for your neighbors and Christmas guests and all those important people.

The One With the Atlas Wreath

I made this before Thanksgiving and am just now on top of things enough to show you. And even though it's late, I think it turned out pretty cool.

I saw the idea at a DIY Christmas show I attended with my mom. The designer behind Inspired by Ellee was there showing us all kinds of cool stuff (seriously... the things she did with chalkboard paint = very fun!). But my favorite thing she had on display was an atlas wreath with the word "Peace" (as in Peace on Earth) in the middle. I spent the next day searching all over my hometown for book of atlases so I could make my own.
An old picture frame from goodwill, some wooden letters, glitter and a hot glue gun later, I had my atlas wreath. And I really love it. Although mine is more like Joy to the World.

I accented it with some of the trees I made last year for my Glittery Christmas Village, and a nativity from my grandmother. And even though I made this for Christmas, it might stay up a little longer than that. It's nice that it's not super Christmas-y color-wise, so I could probably get away with it for a bit. Right?

O, and this is what Olivia saw in the living room that she described as "berry cole" and "beau-iful." I have to say I quite agree with her.

The One With the Buttercrunch Almond Roca

Christmas is an excellent excuse for making candy, and lots of it! In our house we have to make an unusually large number of batches because too much gets eaten before it gets distributed... so then we have to make more.

This year I've been making lots of Mint Chocolate Fudge, Almond Roca and Almond Roca Cookie Bars (perhaps you sense a theme...). All of these are impressive, but surprisingly simple to make. It's almost a shame to give away the secret, but I will anyway. Just for you.

First of all, however, a few comments about making candy. I don't use a candy thermometer, but rather a cold-water test, which I will explain later. I've never needed a candy thermometer for this in particular, and you don't either. Also, candy can be kind of sensitive to things like humidity and elevation and such. I don't really know the variables or how to work around them. Sometimes I find that I will make a batch of the toffee and it just won't turn out well, no explanation. A few days later I'll get several good batches. But as long as you know what you're going for, you can do a little trial and error until you find what works perfectly for you in your humidity/elevation condition. The good news is that this is a really simple candy to work with - it's not extremely expensive, nor does it require a lot of complicated steps or ingredients, so really, it's the perfect place to begin. Don't be intimidated. It's mostly just butter and sugar.

That said, I'm going to give you my most fool-proof explanation so you can give it your best shot. I've marked a few items with asterisks to give further explanation at the bottom.

Buttercrunch Almond Roca

• 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Unsalted almonds, chopped small 

Prepare a cookie sheet by lining it with parchment paper. Set aside.
In a non-stick medium saucepan*, melt the butter, sugar and salt over low-medium heat. As the butter begins to melt, stir the mixture constantly and quickly with a whisk. Be sure to scrape the sides of the pot to make sure all the sugar is getting mixed in. Keep stirring until the butter and sugar are fully incorporated. You don't want any butter separated at the edges or sitting on top. Continue to stir and let your mixture come to a boil. Here, you are going to start watching for color change. Once boiling, stop stirring and let your mixture cook. It will gradually become an amber color as the toffee cooks. Once you have a medium amber color, perform your first cold water test**: Drop a bit of the toffee into a glass of cold water. Wait a moment and then remove your toffee and taste it for texture. If it is soft and easily rolls into a ball, you have reached the soft ball stage. If it is soft but crunchy, you have reached soft-crack stage. Keep cooking your toffee, stirring only as needed to keep the butter and sugar from separating, or to help the color distribute evenly. Intermittently check your toffee as it darkens by repeating your cold water test. When the toffee comes out of the water and is solid and crunchy (hard-crack stage), you know it is ready. Do not overcook your toffee or it will burn. Pour the toffee onto your prepared cookie sheet and even out with a spatula. It may not reach the edges of your pan, and that's fine.
Wait one minute and then sprinkle your chocolate chips over the toffee. Allow the residual heat of the toffee to melt the chips for a minute or two, and then spread the chocolate evenly with a clean spatula. Sprinkle with the almond bits. Once the pan is cool, place in refrigerator to set, about an hour. After it is fully set, break or cut the toffee into bite-sized pieces and enjoy!
You can store your toffee in an air-tight container at room temperature or in the fridge.

*I have found that a non-stick, coated saucepan is pretty essential for this. If you use a regular metal saucepan, the sugar tends to stick to the sides, which won't melt and crystallizes the whole batch when you pour it out.
**The cold water test basically accelerates the cooling of your toffee so that you can see the consistency that it will be when it is finished. If you like your toffee to be softer, less crunchy, remove your toffee earlier. And if you like it harder, let it cook a little longer.

See? It's really fairly simple. I think the hardest parts to master are stirring the right amount so that the butter and sugar don't separate, and removing the toffee from the heat at the right time. Some of this is a little trial and error, and will come to you as you determine your preference for consistency. If you have a difficult time at first, don't be afraid to try again. After all, it's just a little butter and sugar.