on this day

16 years ago. at 10:14 a.m. after only 5 hours of labor:

i became a mother for the first time. 16 isn’t sweet. it is bittersweet. for reasons that only those of you who have teenagers will understand.

nevertheless. he served at Mass this morning. “Christ’s page at the altar.”

St. John Berchmans, patron saint of altar boys, please make intercession for this boy.

my altar boy.

may God bless him. and keep him in HIS care.

forever.

~amen

casting purls

i am a really. slow. knitter. i don’t like purls. so i try to avoid them. i could be doing something wrong. but for now i am trying to be satisfied with little tiny useful projects. like this sweet cozy for my girl’s glasses.

we recently discovered she has a stigmatism and being an avid reader needed glasses. it is to her advantage that she looks so stinkin’ cute in them. but every girl needs a pretty glass case. so i being the crafty mama that i am, said, no, let’s not buy that zebra print one from the store. i’ll make you one instead.

and so i did. one sunday afternoon while we watched talk of the town with cary grant. laughing ourselves silly.

so glad to know i am not alone on the nutella thing. they really shouldn’t be allowed to make something like that and market it like common peanut butter. it is dangerous.

and i do keep hearing about the men losing weight faster thing.

now what do you think about this: should men who bring home donuts and starbucks in the morning be disqualified? immediately?

i smell sabotage.

is it really thursday, already?

 it has been one of those funny weeks. you know the kind where one day sort of spills over into the next. i have been “calling” in to see if i am needed for jury duty every single evening. dreading the words that would mean scrambling to get my kids up, fed, clothed and out of the house before 7 am. after all, isn’t that why we homeschool? to avoid those types of inconveniences.

sorry so heavy on the sarcasm. i am full of it because my husband and i are in a “race” to lose 20 lbs. the winner gets to look better than the fatter half. and gloat about how they won.

 monday morning i thought this wasn’t going to be so hard.

but that was before i a) discoverd how delicious nutella is. i could truly eat THE. WHOLE. JAR. and b) sat reading the february martha with a plate full of burnt. gooey. brown rice from this afternoon and 6 organic baby carrots. (without nutella of course).

speaking of sarcasm, i found it extremely funny to read martha’s ”calender” on page 4 of the magazine and see things like “clean window shades and blinds”  and “hand-wash sweaters”, when, honestly, are we supposed to believe she does such things herself ? however, i was pleased to see that even she doesn’t work out every day.

on  a lighter note: february is a funny month for me. while we are enjoying some very sunny weather, it is COLD outside. the wind this afternoon blew as if to say, it is still winter, silly, why did you go out with wet hair?

i bought more seed packets today after a period of mourning. it makes me sick to even type this, but our gardeners killed ALL of our seedlings. my girl and i were devastated. the cosmos. zinnias. sweet peas. sunflowers. dead. all of them. we will be starting over. from scratch.

all of our bulbs are doing swell, though. i am quite content with container gardening for the moment, except my curly-haired boy wants to grow carrots. so i guess we’ll be figuring out the ins and outs of that in the next few weeks.

i have over-planned for school, which is a good thing for me because even though i know i won’t accomplish half of what i planned, we have found a steady late winter rhythm. thank you Jesus and Mary.

i am extremely happy, but just a wee bit sad to say that my almost 6 year-old is officially “leading” his own decade of the rosary. with no mistakes. “let me say this one, mama” he whispers to me. and so he does. with just the hint of a lisp. and my heart melts. he is not reading yet. but that will come with time i am sure.

so is it really thursday, already? this bleak and blue month is usually a long one for me. this year my big boy turns 16 on super-bowl sunday. i have a little sad anniversary of sorts coming up. but time is such a great healer of all wounds. the ebb and flow of life and death are constantly around us. reminding us how precious our days are.

i don’t mean to be absent from this space so much. but sometimes i sit here to write and i don’t know what to say…not sure how much i should share.

and then my time is so rarely my own and even when it is sometimes i just want to take a nap or catch up on my reading.

so…i hope that this post finds you all well. enjoying the sweet things in life.

because really, even carrots can be sweet.

it all depends on how you look at things!

 

fair and bright

If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Come winter, have another flight;
If Candlemas bring clouds and rain,
Go winter, and come not again.

 

 

Lord, now you let your servant go in peace,
your word has been fulfilled:
My own eyes have seen the salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of every people:
a light to reveal you to the nations
and the glory of your people Israel.

turnips and dishtowel dementia

those were turnips in that picture below of chicken-pot-a-feu. one of my culinary accomplishments of last week. (tonite and for the next week we’ll probably just be having tired mama soup.)

it was the first time i made something with turnips. and guess what? all. my. kids. like. turnips!

that’s the kind of week i’ve had. where the revelation that my children like turnips is about the only exciting thing that has happened to me.

i am very involved in homeschooling these days. i say that as if i am not always involved in homeschooling my children. but for some time there has been this disconnected feeling and it was really bothering me. 

disconnected as in sending these four souls under my care off to different “corners” of this great big house. handing out “busy work”. without much feeling. or caring on my part.

do you do that too?

it happens to the best of us.

i am not a newbie to this homeschooling thing. i should know better. but when things get overwhelming i tend to want to run. far. far. away.

far away to a place that doesn’t care about endoplasmic reticulum or the napoleonic wars.

i’m a good little person mama. but it’s all the big stuff that really frightens me.

luckily the love for my children is so strong that i never run far. the running really only happens in my mind and in my heart. hence that disconnection.

luckily the love of my God is so strong that He pulls me back to where i need to be.

here. in the here and now. not just merely present as some disinterested spectator.

with a head full of fresh ideas and a dishtowel tucked under my arm. i wander to and fro like a mother duck. correcting english homework. cutting out paper snowflakes. listening attentively to loose tooth woes. making lists of science experiment supplies.

i feel good.

and then humbly and contritely i look everywhere for that dishtowel. i know it was here somewhere….

oh! there it is. it was there all along. right under my arm.

that darn dishtowel dementia.

what a work in progress am i. changing constantly.

so it is with the chemistry of salvation and vocations.

i never will “get” it.

salvation is not something we “get“.

it is something that for now, as a mother, i will continue to work out, with fear and trembling. sadness and joy. dishtowel under my arm. rejoicing in the simplicity of turnips!

wordless

right now

i’d just like to say i love you to the person who left the lid off of the blue glitter.

and the gold glitter.

and the star confetti.

you just made my job more colorful………

ps. i’ll be back soon with a real post. i’m still smiling at all of your comments. and great ideas.

with love from the land of glitter and mud.

dough-ray-me-not

why hello there blogland friends. have you missed me?

i have been trying to keep myself dry. and sane. as we were hit with a really bad storm last week. which kept us pretty much inside for days upon days. which is interesting. to say the least. when 3 out of my 4 children are rambunctious boys.

luckily my girl and i had some much needed girl time with a dear friend and her sweet daughters. she introduced me to this book. we drank tea and sweet milk. there was lots of doll playing and fashion talk. they took pictures and laughed. we did a bit of knitting together and she brought me an apron made by her very own hands out of the prettiest bird fabric as a gift. because she knows how much i love birds. how blessed am i to have found a real life friend. after all. these. years. who loves to sew like i do. (but she’s much better at it than i am!)

i am sort of in an overwhelming homeschooling funk. could be winter blahs. but i am feeling pressure. praying for grace and peace. and playing around with lesson plans and ideas. but i won’t bore you with the details of that.

that dough recipe we discussed last week is here. i did add more flour. and more butter. and then some boxed cornbread mix from trader joes (because i was out of plain cornmeal). that was how the sweetness was achieved and it worked out well. everyone loved them. they were flaky and soft. i even wrapped the dough. stored it for fresh morning corn tortillas and those, too were yummy.

rachel ray, i am not. all this cooking has me tuckered out.

and feeling fat. i think i’ll be taking a “bread” break and plan some low-cal/lower maintenence meals.

my “sourdough” wasn’t sour. i feel like i wasted 6 days of my life “caring” for starter. and it flopped. the freezing cold temperatures we’ve been having could have something to do with it. but who knows.

don’t get me wrong. it was still good bread. it just wasn’t the sour i had hoped for.

well, wishing you all a lovely week.

hope i’ll find something nice to say about the next few days….as i anticipate another storm. 

oh, spring…where are you?

bits and pieces

so it was one of those days where my husband was home because of the weather. we take so much longer to get going in the mornings when he is home.

at one point i found myself back in bed with a small black and white rabbit cuddled up next to me. my mother thought this was hilarious for some reason. as i relayed it to her over the phone. “what would your husband say?’ she laughed. and i said, well, actually he thinks pepper mcfizz (the bunny) is so soft and sweet ’cause he’s right here petting her. but we did wonder if she was scared of us….the bunny. not my mom.

anyhow. i played hide-n-seek with a cup of tea all morning. boiled the water. forgot about it. re-heated it. put the tea bag to steep. left it again. it wasn’t until mid-afternoon that we were finally able to meet up again. that cup of tea and i. but when we did i sipped it quietly. whilst watching  raindrops race down my bedroom window. avoiding a confrontational teen. a reluctant writer and thinking about the two little ones who still needed me to be a happy mama.

and so we headed to the kitchen to tackle the venezualan empanadas.

i had to play around with the dough as the food network recipe called for pre-made cornmeal. but that’s just not how we do things around here. so instead we called butter in. because butter makes everything better!

and so i think i have discovered, what just might be, the yummiest dough ever. it had a little bit of cornmeal. and was just a tad sweet. in fact tonite, when my hubby and i lay snuggled watching AI, we, actually he, dreamily told me all the things he thought might be really good stuffed in those little pouches of soft, flaky goodness.one minute he was talking chorizo with potatoes. i suggested vanilla pudding. then he mentioned chocolate. we really are a match made in heaven….

tomorrow i’ll try to post the dough recipe. but probably not the tomatillo salsa though because it was HOT.

we’ve lots to do tomorrow as some of our favorite friends are coming over for crafts. and our town is turning 100 years old so there will be a celebration at the library…

you know it’s not everyday that your town turns 100!

good-nite friends! i so enjoyed all your comments yesterday. especially the ones about taking kids to the store. i ended up taking my girl with me. she is my shadow these days.

a cooking plan

i am sure most of you agree that meal planning makes everything run a little more smoothly during the week.

it takes time. sifting through recipes. thinking about everyone’s likes and dislikes. but i always feel so much better when the meals are all tucked in my notebook. listed in columns like dairy, meats, veggies, etc.

last week i picked up the newest food network magazine and was pleasantly surprised at some of the different, yummy recipes i discovered.

so between cooking light and food network here is the dinner/lunch menu i have come up with for the next week:

main courses-

asian beef stew

white bean chili

chicken-pot-au-feu

turkey meatballs

venezualan empanadas

stuffed cabbage soup

sides/dips/soups-

moroccan couscous

cucumber yogurt dip

carrot coconut salad

chickpea and cauliflower curry

hot crab and cream cheese dip

roasted squash, apples & cashews

tomatillo salsa with corn chips

breads-

sourdough flax

indian flatbread

greek pitas

———————————————————————————————————————

depending on how things turn out, maybe i’ll post some recipes if anyone is interested.

so i’m off to finish my shopping. albeit in the rain.

i have kids so bored they want to come with me to the store.

that is never good. i’d really rather they stay and keep an eye on the bunny. who we had to bring in from the cold.

i’ll probably come home to some sort of mischief….and wish i’d just taken them with me.

or not.