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Searching for the Good

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“The basic element of joy, then, is profound peace, that imperturbability in the Spirit that remains with us even in the most painful, excruciating moments.” ~Pope Francis

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When arriving on the oncology floor at The University of Wisconsin Hospital last week, I felt an overwhelming feeling of absolute panic wash over me.  This is not an unfamiliar sentiment, as I have had a phobia of hospitals and doctors’ offices ever since my youth.  But my mom’s recent illness has brought on a whole new level of panic every time I set foot inside those glass doors.  Even seeing the sign reading “oncology” when the elevator doors opened on the 6th floor was enough to just about send me over the edge.  I looked around me and thought, “How do all of these people, these doctors and nurses, wake up every day and come and work here?  This would be the most depressing place in the world to carry out a career.”  These sentences have probably circulated through my consciousness at least a thousand times over the course of the last 4 months.

But after a few days of sitting beside my mom’s bedside, I decided to open a book that a dear friend gave me to help me through this tough time.  While reading, I came upon the following passage in Glennon Doyle Melton’s book, “I respect people who don’t try to escape permanently.  Who run toward the pain.  Who allow themselves to suffer with others, to become brokenhearted.  I respect people who, enlightened or not, roll up their sleeves and give up their comfortable lives for suffering people.”  I was drawn to tears.  Because, as I reread this passage, I thought back to my family’s experiences the past few days.  I thought of the young doctor who held my mom’s hand each and every time he came in her room, and when taking her vitals held her and said, “Let me hold you.  I am here to help.”  And I thought of the nurse who pulled my dad, sister and I into a private room to truly listen to us, console us and cry with us.  She told us that she can tell my mom is an amazing woman because of the unmatched sense of family she feels every time she enters our room.  And then we cried some more while she embraced each of us.

I believe these are the people of whom Ms. Melton is speaking.  These are the people who willingly go to work each day, knowing that it will be difficult, awful even, and do it anyway.  And in reflecting upon this, I realized that it sometimes takes the most terrible of situations for us to see the true good that exists in the world.  We are constantly bombarded by so much hate, negativity and loss that we often fail to look up from our despair and see that within the disastrous storm of life, there are people doing good.  Despite all that evil, they are working their damn hardest to make a positive difference.

This journey I am traveling right now has been awful, but it has also allowed me to raise my eyes above the hurt and see a kind of good in people that I was unable to see before.  I think I now agree with Ms. Melton in that “I am grateful for the beauty in the midst of suffering.  I am grateful for the treasure hunt through the minefield of life.  Dangerous or not, I don’t want out of the minefield.  Because truth, and beauty, and God are there.”

Pesto with a Kick

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I love making pesto with early summer greens.  It just makes me feel good.  It’s green. It’s a great way to pack tons of vitamins and minerals in my kids’ bodies.  And, there is cheese in it, and anything with cheese is a must have in my book.

I have written about making pesto before, like in this post, where I also discuss how I preserve my pesto for those Midwestern days when there is no green growing outside.  This pesto is a bit different in that I didn’t use any herbs to impart flavor.  This time I used kale and mustard greens.  If you have never had mustard greens, they are amazing.  They are incredibly earthy tasting, but very spicy.  They are also another one of those cruciferous vegetables that have fabulous health benefits.  I like to think of this pesto recipe as a cruciferous cancer-fighting bomb of deliciousness 🙂

This recipe made a giant batch of pesto, so feel free to adjust as needed.  You may also need to make it in batches, depending upon the size of your food processor.

Here’s what to do:

1.  Wash and spin dry (I adore my salad and berry spinner.  Summer would not be the same without it.  I use it Every. Single. Day.) 5 cups of kale and 3 cups of mustard greens.  (Fyi…I jam packed the greens in the cups when measuring.) Set aside.

2.  In a food processor, combine 1 cup raw walnuts and 6 cloves of garlic.  Pulse them in the processor.

3.  Add the washed greens to the food processor.  (Again, you may need to do this in batches.)

4.  Slowly add in 1/2 cups olive oil while the food processor is running.

5.  Add 1/2 pound good shredded Parmesan cheese to the food processor.

6.  Slowly add an additional 1/2 cup to 1 cup of olive oil depending on the consistency you would like.

7.  Add salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste.

Enjoy!

Culinary Inspirations

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Just to give some forewarning, today’s post is going to be Monday-ish.  You know how Mondays are?  It’s the day when you wake up and have a million thoughts, plans and lists going all at the same time–that’s this post.  Monday-ish.

So, here we go…Give me a good book and an even better piece of produce and I am a happy camper.  Last week, I reached for two of my favorite books and some of my favorite spring-time produce, and I was off.  I have often talked about this book before in past posts, but Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver is a book that will change your world.  Not only is it a beautifully crafted piece about Kingsolver and her family’s journey toward eating locally, but it is also filled with the most delicious recipes! I looked out my kitchen window to find our strawberry and rhubarb bed was overflowing with goodness, so I knew this was the book I needed.  I went with one of my favorite recipes in that book: the strawberry rhubarb crisp.  This recipe is a family favorite, using very little refined sugar, and I love cooking it up in my small stoneware baker because I can cook in it and serve from it.  This time, I chose to dish up this gooey creation in our nourish soup bowls, which I thought looked just lovely because of the matching color profiles.  The other reason I have so many of these bowls on hand is because $2 of every bowl is donated to Feeding America.

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Also growing in our strawberry and rhubarb bed is asparagus.  We didn’t have a great crop of asparagus this year, so we supplemented our own with some from the farmers’ market.  I tried a new recipe, pistachio-crusted asparagus with feta vinaigrette, from Ashley English’s Handmade Gatherings to showcase this delicious perennial.  It was absolutely divine.  In fact, every recipe I have tried from this book has been a crowd pleaser.

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Now you may have noticed that when discussing the strawberry rhubarb crisp, I mentioned (and linked to) a few of my favorite kitchen essentials.  Please understand, it is not my intention to lure you to my blog with discussions of holistic living and sustainability and then try to sell you something.  Instead, I would love to share some of the kitchen items I use every day, because they help to make my life easier.  My hope is that in sharing this information, I can also help to make your meal preparation easier.

The other reason in sharing this information with you is to provide a means to contribute to my family financially.  After 3 years of debate, I have decided to leave teaching for good and homeschool my daughters.  I have wanted to homeschool ever since my eldest went off to kindergarten, but always held back because homeschooling was just too very far outside the box at that time in my life.  But as I mentioned last week, I need to do what I believe is best for my family, and for us, homeschooling is where it’s at 🙂  I have never beed more sure of a decision in my life, but the fact of the matter is that there will be a gap in our income.  I have worked (or maybe I should say dabbled) as an independent consultant with Pampered Chef for over five years, and I believe it’s business model is one that is keeping with my family’s belief structure.  It is based in Illinois (where we live), many of the products are made in the U.S., they provide funding to Feeding America and the American Cancer Society, and they allow women and men to work from home and put their families first.  So, from time to time, I will share some products that I use, and it is up to you whether or not you would like to link to them and find out more information.  I hope you understand my reasoning in doing this.

Well, if you have followed me through to this point, you have made it thought my Monday stream-of-conciousness post.  Books.  Produce.  Recipes.  Pampered Chef.  Homeschooling.  Lots of Action.

I wish you all a wonderful week, in which you can work through all those thoughts, follow through on all those plans, and check off all those items on your lists.  Happy Monday, friends.

The Ladies: A Lesson in Love and Loss

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Do you remember on Tuesday when I told you I didn’t ever really like to put myself out there and go too far outside my comfort zone for fear of upsetting others?  For this reason, I have never shared (in this very public space) a simple fact about our family’s suburban homestead:  We have a flock of backyard chickens.  Oh, and we have had them for over two years now 🙂

When we first brought them home as chicks, I didn’t feel comfortable talking about it here on the blog for fear that we may not end up being able to care for them as they needed.  I didn’t want to appear weak for having to give up on something that had only just begun.  Then as months passed, and the chicks became laying hens (Well, one ended up being a rooster and thus was scooted quickly out to a farmer we know.), I still didn’t share any stories about the chickens because it just seemed like too much time had gone by, and it would be strange to introduce the concept so late.

But in keeping with my promise to myself, to remain transparent and open, let me tell you a little bit about our backyard coop convent.

These ladies have taught our family more than we ever could have envisioned when we picked them up from the feed store so long ago.

Did you know that chicks sometimes need a little booty soak and wipe when they are first born in order to prevent their vents from becoming clogged?  I sure didn’t!  But there I found myself, sitting on my basement floor with a warm cup of water, a three-day-old chick cradled in my hands, giving her the best spa treatment imaginable.

Did you know chickens each have unique personalities?  We had no idea this was true until our gal Limey (She was named by my then-four-year-old.) came along.  She had the most loving demeanor and just loved to be in on all the people-action.  In fact, she would often fly out of the run, walk up to our back door, and scratch her claws against the screen door in order to get us to go outside and play with her.

Did you know laying hens are more than just egg producers, but members of the family?  We definitely had no idea of the emotion impact we would face this past winter when our Limey would again fly out of the run without our knowing and was lost to a predator at night fall.

These feathery ladies have given us so much more than an egg a day.  They have taught us valuable life lessons of love and loss that I believe have helped to shape our family.

Here is a little photo tour throughout our two years with the ladies…

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First Steps

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It has been some time since I have written in this space, and my, I have missed it so.  I wanted to stop by and wish each of you a very blessed, happy and healthy new year.  May 2015 bring much love into your life, and may your year be filled with new adventures at every turn.

“Take the first step in faith.  You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Living for the Pockets

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Well friends, it has been almost a month since my last post.  When going back to work full time, I had high hopes of still being able to post each day.  Now I’m thinking I may have been in the midst of a bit of a crazy streak to think that would be possible.  In fact, for a few weeks there I did feel like I was quite the loony lady, and sure I would never again be able to take part in those “homestead-ish” acts that had come to make up so much of my life since I left the workforce in 2009.  I felt like I couldn’t balance anything, and found it difficult to stay afloat.

But as always, my husband was there to tell me two things: 1.  You are crazy.  But not  headed down the path to Crazy Town like I thought.  He said I was crazy to think just because I had started back to work full time, that I would have to suddenly abandon who I was.  2.  Give it a few weeks, and you will soon be able to figure out where to fit in all you love to do: teach, raise our family and keep our suburban homestead afloat.

So I did as he directed.  I waited.  And low and behold (and as much as I hate to admit it), he was right.  I have found those little pockets of time here and there where I can still do those activities I love.  In fact, I didn’t even realize I was doing it until I went to download pictures this weekend and discovered that over the course of the past month I had been able to do quite a lot.

But these activities have taken on a different form.  Instead of dedicating several hours in the afternoon to crocheting, I sneak in a couple of rows while sitting at tumbling lessons.  Rather than having an entire fermenting-day, I whip up a quick batch of yogurt on Saturday mornings with extra milk that is about to expire, and throw together an attempt at water kefir on a Friday night after the girls are asleep.

And I think my favorite part of all has been the ability to interweave these homesteading activities into my classroom.  In the midst of a soil composition unit, we  started a worm compost bin, and a chemistry assessment turned into a soapmaking lab.  And I can’t forget the measurement conversion unit where we went outside to make ice cream in the snow.

The crazy part of this new life of mine has been how I now live for those pockets.  Those pockets of time when I can do and share those activities that make me who I am.

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I hope you all move into this week, able to find those pockets in which you can do all that you love.

At This Moment

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At this moment I am…

~continuing to stitch away at some new dish wash cloths.

~very thankful I got caught up on all things school yesterday.  I feel that I can take a big breath and a sigh of relief.

~even more thrilled I got all of the above mentioned work-type items done yesterday, because we have a day off of school today because of the frigid temperatures.  Hooray for snow days (Well, cold days) 🙂

~checking on my curing soap I have stowed away in my basement.  More on this adventure in next week’s posts.

~preparing to ferment a new batch of kombucha.  The cold weather has really slowed down my kombucha brewing, but I’m hoping I can get a new batch up and running today.

~reading Michael Pollan’s newest book, Cooked:  A Natural History of Transformation.  As with all of his texts, this one does not disappoint.  It is truly captivating, and also so informative and inspiring at the same time.

~organizing craft supplies.  My little ones mentioned before their heads hit the pillow last night: “Mommy, if we don’t have school tomorrow, can it be Valentine-making Day?”  Well gals, Valentine-making Day it is!

~flipping through Ashley English’s A Year of Pies.  I feel as if a day off school warrants a day of eating pie, right?

~wishing you all a warm Thursday, friends.

Balance

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So much of being a parent is a balancing act.  Each of us who takes on this role knows that in order to be a parent you must find some sort of equal platform between all aspects of life:  between wife/husband and parent, between house chores and playing, between health and the occasional treat.  These past few weeks I have found myself trying to find this level ground between work and keeping my home as I have been for the past three and a half years.  I am not a stranger to working as a teacher while also playing the role of wife, mother and homemaker.  I just need to find that place again.

I truly believe that balance is within my grasp, getting closer each day, and hopefully soon I will find myself in a new rhythm of life that will guide me through these newly forming roles.  Until that time, I will just keep inching forward, as best I can, searching for harmony between wife, mother, homemaker and teacher.

Thank you for continuing to visit this space, and taking this new journey with me.  And great thanks for your kind words of encouragement on this space and outside of it.

May each of you find balance as you move throughout your week.  

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