Taking Time to Remember

I keep this quote taped above the calendar.  It's a reminder to keep me focused on what really matters.

And as one month closes and another opens, I look back and see the failures and successes in living this focused life during November.  I see ordinary days, extraordinary days, and everything in between.  I can remember days of joy, days of pain, days of love unleashed and days of heartache.  This is life...the ever unfolding array of emotions and experiences.  Only one life, and it will soon be past......

Before falling into December's busy pace, I wanted to sit quietly and remember November...

Cups of hot tea...

Daily meals that fed body and soul...

The whirring of the grinder and the smell of fresh ground wheat...

Autumn books coming out of storage...

A Medieval night's candlelight dinner planned by my youngest son, including live music as both boys alternated between eating and playing instruments...

Sugar pumpkins that were decorations in October were baked in November for fresh pumpkin pies...

A growing boy's hands helped Mama snap green beans...

Sweet potatoes were mashed...

I passed along my secret recipe for mashed potatoes to my oldest son (who did a fabulous job!)...

Pumpkin pies fresh out of the oven (this recipe is for Crunchy Pumpkin Pie and is topped with pecans)...

Sweet oldest daughter with her hands messy in meal preparation...

My 2 boys came inside with sticks they found in the woods for our thankful tree...

Our thankful tree...

Lovin' these things we are thankful for...the simplicity of gratitude struck me...

Creative and fun place cards for our Thanksgiving meal...

Giggling...one of our favorite things to do!  A little more that 4 years ago, this child was in an orphanage...her face etched with loss and hurt.  To see sheer joy on that same face now is a miracle to behold...and to be chosen as her Mama is a gift.

Siblings enjoying each other....ahh, this makes my heart happy...

Crowded in together enjoying a book...one of my very favorite pastimes...

A Thanksgiving meal that everyone helped make...

Goodies...

Eating pumpkin pie, watching Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving, and enjoying a fire...a perfect way to wrap up the evening.

These moments I treasure in my heart...the mundane, the amazing, the calm, the storm, the happy, the sad, the love, the hurt...all blend together into a mosaic.  And I will remember this November.

The Language of Love

Here's just one way to speak love...  Oatmeal pumpkin cookies.  And the icing has maple syrup added in...a delightful discovery that I plan to put in future icings!  This particular recipe came from CHOW. 

One of my children once told me that she loved the secure feeling of seeing cookies in the cookie jar.  It was one of those things that spelled H-O-M-E.  Those cookies were far more than treats.  They meant that there was a Mama in the home who was always there...for baking or cooking or mending broken hearts or cleaning tree-climbing wounds or listening to secrets or reading books...whatever the day or hour or situation, there was always a Mama within reach.  Love is spoken in many languages, and I suppose a jar full of cookies is one of those languages.

We recently finished a missionary biography about Wilfred Grenfell, and near the end of the book, there was a description of love that struck my heart.  Wilfred and his wife Anne had spent their lives working together in ministry to the fishermen and other families on the Labrador Coast.  Near the end of their lives together, Anne was very weak from surgery for a stomach tumor, and Wilfred knew she would be going to her Heavenly home very soon.  He wrote a note to a friend:  "Now that the final goal seems not so far away, we are holding hands closer than ever, confident that the final experience of life also will be easier to face then and indeed become another joyous adventure, when these worn-out bodily machines of ours shall be discarded, and on the other side we shall work again in a new field together."  What a precious love and life work they had shared together!  And there was the realization that their love would go on beyond this earthly life...that there would be new adventures for them together on the other side.  They had a thread connecting their souls.

Genuine love is eternal.

Amid all the stuff that clutters our lives, we can often forget about those things that matter most...the things that aren't really things at all.  A plate of cookies, a meal shared around a table, a hug when we most need it, encouraging words that are spoken at just the right time...these things can be submitted to flame, and when it all burns away, what is left is love...simple and eternal.

Daily Meals: Labor of Love

When tired children come in from playing outside, they pass through the kitchen on their way up to take showers.  And inevitably, at least one will stop to ask, "Ooooh...what's for dinner?"  Usually by that time, dinner preparation is well underway, and they begin to peek through the glass on the oven door or into bowls or pans that are filled with goodies.  This is more than just food.  It's an environment of the home...a stable routine...the smells of home in action.  These meals are not wasted effort that will soon be forgotten but rather are tangible forms of love.  Feeding the body and the soul...

This particular meal was chicken on tortillas (call it burritos or tacos or whatever you want...I created this recipe but haven't stopped to name it).  It involves chicken thighs marinated in Vinaigrette dressing and a little bit of white wine.  Before baking, top chicken with 1 onion (sliced), 1 pablano pepper (chopped coarsely), 1 can of green chilies, and spices (cumin, cayenne pepper, paprika, garlic powder, black pepper and salt).

Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 40 minutes or until done.  Cut cooked chicken.

While the chicken is baking, we make homemade wheat tortillas.  We have a child who simply cannot process preservatives well, so I try to make as many foods from scratch as I can.  Tortillas are very easy to make and are always good.  This particular recipe calls for butter instead of lard, which is a personal preference.

Tortillas:
4 cups of flour (I usually use 3 cups of wheat and 1 cup of white flour)
1 tsp salt
1 stick of butter, softened
Warm water

Mix flour and salt.  Using pastry knife, cut in butter.  Add water a bit at a time (I begin with 1 cup and then add a bit more until the dough reaches a good consistency).  The dough should be fairly moist but not wet.  You should be able to pinch pieces of dough off for rolling easily.

Pinch a piece of dough off about the size of a golf ball.  Roll onto clean countertop.  If your dough is of good consistency, it should not stick to the counter or the rolling pin.  If it does, add more flour to the dough until it works well.

Roll flat.  These are homemade, so they won't be exact circles...especially if little helpers are involved.  You'd be surprised at all the creative shapes we've had in the past!  :)

Cook tortillas on the griddle (set on 350 degrees) until done on both sides.  You'll have to toy with the time on this, depending on your griddle (or medium heat on stovetop).  These cook quickly, so don't walk away.  We usually do this as a team, with one person rolling and one person flipping tortillas on the griddle.  If your tortillas get crispy, you're keeping them on the griddle too long.  If you want some more visuals, I saw that another blogger has lots of photos of the whole process of making tortillas.  Her recipe uses lard, which you may or may not find to be what you'd prefer, but the process is about the same either way.

Someone is assigned salad-making for this particular night.  He chooses all the ingredients and makes a nice big green salad (which we have with nearly every meal).  This is my natural-born cook...always helping in the kitchen.  This night, he flipped the tortillas and made the salad...huge help!

I love Organic Girl's lettuce.  This particular salad is a combination of spring mix and spinach.

The chicken mixture is spooned onto the tortillas and topped with homemade salsa, sour cream and cheddar/pepper jack cheese.  Black beans are added, and it makes a simple and really good meal.

Oh, and here's a labor of love for dessert...   Our oldest baked a homemade carrot cake (complete with shredding a zillion carrots...bless her for such endurance!).

She's an artist, so she created her own pastry bag out of a sandwich baggie and filled it with homemade cream cheese frosting to make carrots on the cake.  Really, this was an amazingly delicious treat!

Another meal has been prepared and eaten...but so much more is wrapped up in this daily event.  It's love tangible and worth every minute of effort.
 

Bursts of Autumn

The woods were aflame with intense color this morning.  I slipped outside alone with my camera.  This is my favorite time of year, and these trees were putting on an elaborate show.  I ducked up under low-lying limbs, my feet sinking into the thick layer of leaves on the forest floor.  Standing right up under these towering trees, I aimed camera skyward.  Stopping to smell and listen and feel, I remembered again how I've grown to love these mountains where I live.  

My last fall in Georgia...  I want it to last as long as possible.  I cringe when the wind blows hard and leaves pull from their anchor, leaving bare limbs.  I want to soak this vibrant scene in one more time, to learn the colors by heart, to memorize the unique smell of the woods.  This is part of me and always will be, and I want to remember it.

Some things in life are just like that.  When they come along, you just want to hold on forever and never let go.  It bursts with color and depth that enriches your life like nothing else.  And you just want to hold onto it forever...to commit it to the lifetime memory of the heart.

The leaves drop one by one...some blown away on gusts of wind, others strewn in dotted patterns over grass and ground.

It's fall...both glorious and sad...like fireworks that explode and then sizzle into black sky.

The floor of the woods grows deeper with each added layer.  Year upon year of once-vibrant foliage.  And next year I won't be here to see the new layer.  But I'll remember.

Farmhouses and Other Favorite Things

My mom's favorite movie has always been The Sound of Music, so I grew up singing all those songs that Maria sang.  Her advice when feeling sad?  To sing about your favorite things, of course.  I thought about that today, and I began to pull up in my mind some favorite things...  Sorry...no singing from me...but lots and lots of favorite things...

Hot tea with milk and syrup...a new box of crayons...kittens...mini chewy Sweet Tarts...quilts...my grandmother's old dishes...the sound of children giggling...friends who go deep...adoption...hot fudge cake...the smell of fireplace smoke in the air...old friendships...organic gardening...Baylor football games...the north Georgia mountains...the smell of homemade bread..anything having to do with homesteading...personal faith...excellent literature...the woods after it rains...fresh sheets right out of the dryer...creamy butter straight from the farm...sincere words from someone who loves me...vibrant colors...tea pots...books, books, books...Texas...multi-colored leaves in the fall...fields of wildflowers in the spring...the smell of packages my parents send in the mail...notes from my children...the Anne of Avonlea movie...love...farmhouses...

The thought of farmhouses returned again and again to my mind.  I would love to have one of these on some land where I can play with some gardens, take long walks and make homemade everything.  I don't know if God's plan for me includes this.  So long ago, I asked Him to please give me a farmhouse in Heaven when my work on earth is finished.  I've asked Him to fill it with orphans who will no longer be orphans in Heaven.  I imagine a giant front porch with rocking chairs and a swing.  And there I will someday know forever love...where there is no hurt or tears...where there are lots of long walks with those I hold dearest.  I imagine Heaven will have new lands to explore and exciting new things to discover...and an eternity to simply love.  Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  And so eternity and that farmhouse fill my thoughts...