A Still Life

Since my husband brought it home as a surprise find at the dollar store, I have been reading A.J. Jacobs’ The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment. He’s the guy who wrote The Year of Living Biblically, and this 2009 collection of essays follows nine different month-long experiments from practicing Radical Honesty to following his wife’s every instruction to living by the rules that George Washington followed. As I have read through each month’s practice, I began to see this experiment idea as a fresh way to look at New Year’s resolutions.

Last year I declared that I would finally embrace my body and reconcile the things I know to do with the things I actually do. I am really proud of sticking with the Master Plan and keeping off the 25 pounds I set to lose last year. I certainly have more fitness and wellness goals for 2012, but those aren’t new or particularly inspired. But when I think of applying the Jacobs’ month-long experiment model to my 2012 goals, I get excited.

First, I am not choosing all hard projects or significant life goals. Some may become practices that I carry into the next months while others may be a one-time experiment that ends with the month. The goal is to stick with it for the month and reflect, as Jacobs does in each chapter, on what I’ve learned through the practice. I plan to write about the experience at the end of every month to hold myself accountable.

As promised, here are my 12 goals for 2012:

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This year’s garden is simultaneously disappointing and fantastic. Our peppers haven’t grown, some kind of critter is enjoying our tomatoes at night, and the aphids have taken over the peas. But the squash, zucchini, and cucumber are so plentiful that I’m too busy to notice. In all honesty, we’re washing off the peas before we bring them into the house, and we’re cutting the uneaten parts of the tomatoes off before we roast them. Gross? Meh. It’s not like we’re raw food purists or something, so the germs surely cook away.

I shared this Smitten Kitchen recipe today with a friend after snacking together on our second double-batch of zucchini bread with dark chocolate. I think I’m up to six loaves and two dozen muffins, though some were with walnuts and pecans.

We’ve also made zucchini chips two ways by adapting this recipe from Cinnamon Spice, and I plan to make this grilled treat from the Cookin’ Canuck (because I love Canadians as well as kalamata olives and goat cheese) in the next couple of weeks; both via Pinterest.

The Boy loves dill pickles, so we made those (completely undocumented) and shared quart jars with friends. I hear they were good, and I liked them just fine. The Boy prefers his Vlasic, so he turned up his nose after his first home taste. Since I ate a jar by myself, I decided the second batch would be my choice: Bread & Butter Pickles! I loved the Smitten Kitchen zucchini bread so much that I returned for the pickle tips. Again, I didn’t document the process, but Deb at SK does that beautifully for you. We’re heading off to visit family soon, and these lovelies will make a great gift to bring along.

While we can’t harvest such wonderful treats year-round, I am pleased to discover that the Winter 2011 arugula has propagated underneath the cucumber, around the tomatoes, and is thriving beneath the old arugula plants that were uprooted but not moved. We’ll be rich with greens into Winter 2012! What’s growing and cooking at your house?

Inspired by folks like Meg who give some intentionality to their mothering days with activities and themes, I decided with The Boy that we would pick a book each week this Summer to guide a couple of projects. This won’t be a super heavy-handed motif for hours each day but will give us three or four activities each week to approach meals or afternoon quiet time creatively. This week’s book: Pinkalicious. Do you know the book? We learned about it through my friend April who threw a great Pinkalicious birthday party for her eldest child one year. She even made pink cake pops like these. Oh, those were really good. Maybe we should do that.

But the plan for now is to make pink cupcakes, of course, as well as a meal of all green foods. The Boy has already decided on green peas, guacamole, green grapes, green apples, and pickles. He loves pickles. And our third project actually began this morning as we started looking through our stack of Ranger Rick and children’s outdoor magazines for pictures of birds, bees, and butterflies. The critters don’t know that Pinkerella (does she have a name? I’ll have to read it again) isn’t a flower. We’re cutting, pasting, then hanging our animal friends to create the swirl that surrounds her in the park. Fun stuff, right? I’m excited to add a small touch of order to our Summer fun. What are you doing to pass the time in these weeks of leisure?

I have a slightly abused Pantech phone with countless photos stored away inside its tiny memory card. The quality isn’t great, and I forget I’ve taken pictures. But there are some great moments tucked away in this little mobile phone.

Early morning tea:

Great urban art on my drive to and from the Y:

A recent fundraiser date-night with My Love:

Perfect Spring afternoons of play with The Girl, The Boy, and our old dog:

What moments are tucked away inside your phone? What are you noticing today?

Today is gorgeous. GORGEOUS! The Boy and My Love are off to soccer, The Girl is about to take a nap, and there are so many ways I want to spend this day that I can’t decide where to start. Will I paint furniture on the front porch? Will I weed the walk? Will I start planting our pea seedlings? No matter what wins, I will soak up the sun and savor this amazing afternoon.

I am thankful for the luxury of choice and time. I am thankful for the luxury of an empty schedule. I am thankful for a gentle, kind, funny spouse. I am thankful for the delightful evening out we shared last night that “ended too soon,” he said. I am thankful for how much we enjoy each other after a dozen years in relationship and ten years in marriage. I am thankful for funny children, precocious as they may be, who keep life interesting and busy and full. Sure, there are plenty of things in life that are not perfect and are not as I wish for them to be. But there is so much more that is better than I could have ever asked or imagined. For all those things, I am thankful.

So get off the computer, friends. Go, soak up the sun. And if it’s not sunny where you are today, then sit and make a good, sunny, long list of all the things in your life for which you give thanks. Notice the abundance that surrounds you!

Grateful for this quiet moment while my sweet two are sleeping/resting. It’s rare, these moments alone at home. Grateful for warmer weather and the signs of Spring. Grateful for the simple joy of a fresh magazine. Grateful for sweet porch furniture, almost 12-years-old now, that my beloved bought for his first post-college apartment. Grateful for this life we have built together. (Not grateful for the gnats flying around my face, but they come with those signs of Spring.) Grateful to work with a fun friend and fine pastor who dropped of good books to enjoy. Birds and windchimes and soft breeze, oh my. Grateful for pink toes and flip flops. Grateful for crazy neighbors emerging to greet one another. Grateful for fabulous Nikole and her Mondays of gratitude. Grateful.

On a morning excursion to pick up some yummy items for our weekend menu, this lovely reminder from area artist, Happy, was waiting for us at Farm to Family as invocation and reminder and blessing.

If you live in Richmond, you really should make stopping by Farm to Family part of your weekly routine. I spoke with Suzi briefly this morning and learned of their big plans for summer activities for families. It’s an exciting thing to support local business and local, sustainable farming practices with my time and with my dollar. In these winter months, I’ve slipped into quick and easy shopping habits at the large supermarket where folks carry groceries to the car for me. (When I’m out with two kids, that kind of help matters.)

But I can make different choices and better choices each week. As the season of soups, stews, and chilis winds down, I am welcoming a fresh season with return to daily and weekly practices that support wellness; that includes what we physically consume and how we consume as shoppers. I need this reminder often. Each moment counts. Each moment is precious. Each moment can be redemptive, if we choose it and claim it. Glad and thankful for that blessing from Happy and friends today.

The big week is finally here, and our countdown calendars have few days left while the wreath has only one remaining candle to light. The glee from my eldest is contagious! As always, my children have me noticing all that is around me. When I get too wrapped up in my words and thoughts on the hope and peace and joy and love of this season, my children remind me to simply be in it; live it.

The train comes around again and again and again!

Taking a break just to watch the water.

Trains and flowers and fairy houses, oh my.

Like her mommy, The Girl is tolerating the cold with an eye for warmer days.

But the Boy has big plans for three months of snowball fights.

As I mentioned recently, I am not spending as much time on meals lately. The last really good cooking/baking day I had was our Black Friday Thanksgiving meal. Otherwise, we’re eating very simple meals that take under 30 minutes from start-to-finish. Today, I’ve moved my stack of three years of November/December Southern Living, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, and Martha Stewart LIVING magazines to the side table in our living room in hopes of actually thumbing through for daily inspiration as well as party food ideas.

But on a day like to day, our first generous snow flurry of the season, I find myself drawn to recipes that don’t build a meal at all. My growing list does not require a trip to our favorite shop for local veggies and eggs, though last night’s viewing of How To Cook Your Life did help restore some cooking energy. No, my list is all in the baking category:

This gingerbread has been on my list for a couple of weeks, and the ingredients have been in the house for almost as long. Perhaps today is the day.

Then there’s this dreamy apple-rosemary tart that knocked my socks off at a fantastic celebration just over a week ago. I almost made it last night, but the darling dear and I decided to watch other people cook instead. And The Boy just walked through the living room eating one of my honeycrisps…so this one waits.

And finally, we have the molasses cookies I’ve been eyeing. At that same celebration, our hostess made button-sized molasses cookies, and I keep thinking about those great flavors. I like the large cookies by Framed, and it’s one of the only recipes I’ve come across that doesn’t call for shortening. They won’t be the soft little bites I tasted last week, but I suspect they will be delightful.

Where should I begin?

I’m in the process of switching from an old Mac to a new Mac (boo-hoo me, right?) and haven’t gotten photos and files straightened out yet to resume my technological life. And I’m still in the process of switching from a full-on SAHM life to a working-plus-home momming life, and there are some kinks to work our there as well. And somehow I’ve gotten multiple emails or voicemails from smart, creative, talented minister-mamas who want to talk about balancing their mothering lives with their ministering lives. Sometimes there is even an assumption that I may have figured out a thing or two and can speak to a life that is balanced and thriving.

Oh, my.

So it was pure joy today to sit and catch up on my RSS blog backlog (it’s on the old Mac and was up to 130-something) and find this post from Meg at Whatever. Fun blog, super fab mom, amazing family, seems like somebody I’d like to know. (I found her blog because of her margarita recipe.) She starts this great post with these words:

i want you to know…
that i don’t have it all together.
or get it all done.

And then she posts photos of room after room of a real, lived in home. If there’s one part of my life that’s consistently on the FAIL list, it’s keeping a tidy home. I think I was (good) better at it for a little while (like when I was so zen about washing dishes), but then The Girl went from being an active baby to a super-active toddler. And somewhere in there I started teaching and preaching more, then I took on the dreamy part-time job. Being one who firmly believes you cannot hold all things at all times, I suppose I’ve released not only some of the house tidying but the good food cooking, too. *Long sigh.*

I want you to know…

I do not have it all together.
I do not get it all done.
I sometimes feed my kids pure junk while simultaneously remainning principled about why it’s junk.
I don’t do life alone. I have an amazing partner who is a tender, present father, remarkable friend, and loving man.
I have somehow (stumbled, dumb-lucked, fallen backwards into) been gifted with circles of stunning, beautiful, wise friends.
I am deep down to my toes and back happy, even when the house looks like we’ve been robbed and the fridge looks like we eat ketchup and turkey carcass. (Hey, it’s a Polyface, pastured-turkey carcass, thankyouverymuch.)
I have to remind myself to take a deep breath…slowly, deliberately, steadily exhale…and be gentle with myself.
It feels good to tell the truth about my life. (Go watch the video that everyone’s blogging about: Brene Brown via TED.)
I wonder how you seem to carry it all so well, too.