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...

Breakfast on a Cold Fall Morning

The boys have been antsy to set up the tent and try out the new extra insulated sleeping bags.  So, they headed out with Daddy for a little campout on our property.  

The next morning, I was the first person out of bed.  I stepped out onto the porch and looked down the hill at the tent.  All was silent and still...and chilly.  Imagining pajama-clad boys peeking out of toasty warm sleeping bags and meeting the cold morning air gave me inspiration for a hot breakfast.

Homemade oatmeal with cinnamon apples was cooked on stovetop and transferred to the crockpot.  I love the "warm" setting that allows a meal to sit in anticipation.  

This ended up to be amazing oatmeal (and this coming from someone who doesn't typically liked cooked fruit!).  When I added the cooked apples to the oatmeal, I also added quite a bit of the natural apple juices that had cooked out of the apples.  Ohhhh...very good stuff!

See...this is what I love.  I get a deep satisfaction out of setting the stage, making preparations to surprise and please.  The candles, the fun fall napkins, the smell of apple cinnamon oatmeal, and the warm house were all set to welcome the camping boys and the sleepy-headed girls (who decided that they'd rather sleep in their comfortable beds instead of in a tent).

When it's time to serve the oatmeal, these are the must-haves for topping it all off...  A pad of farm fresh butter goes into the center, where it eventually melts into goodness (and if you haven't tried real butter straight from a farm, you are in for a big treat...it makes all the difference in the world).  And, with maple syrup drizzled over the top, this is a meal fit for a house full of hungry campers and non-campers alike.

Eager requests for hot chocolate were granted, and everyone was quite pleased that fall's chilly mornings had finally arrived in the mountains.  

An Alternative Charlotte Mason Schedule

For those homeschool moms who want to have a Charlotte Mason-style education but just don't have the daily time to make all the components happen, here's an alternative.

We are moving soon, and that means I'm needed in the packing-and-cleaning department right now.  To free up some of my hours during the school week (because let's face it…CM-style education does take time to implement), we have temporarily shifted our "delightful extras" to one day of the week.  Wonderful Wednesday was born, and it's all good.

In a nutshell, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are filled with the typical subjects (i.e. math, grammar, history, science, etc).  I arrange my days so that I do their read-alouds early in the morning, followed by some subjects that I do with the younger 2 children.  When independent work begins, it frees me up to be able to get some other things done.

Then, on Wednesday, we spend the morning going through all of these wonderfully rich components of our education:

This schedule made for a nice change right in the middle of the week.  Everyone enjoyed it.  And Wednesday will simply be one day when Mama doesn't get to pack any moving boxes.  And that's a nice break for me too (I'd rather listen to Bach than pack anyway!).  

After their nature study outdoors, they headed in to record some things in their nature journals.  All 4 children chose fall leaves for their focus today…

And lookie who drew a leaf today!  It amazes me how all of a sudden a child's little lightbulb moments come along.  She has never really drawn something recognizable in her nature journal…until today.  Something clicked, and voila…she drew her leaf!  The room exploded in cheering siblings, and she was very happy with her progress.

And just to keep it real…for those of you who still somehow think I have it all together all the time (HA!)…

Yep, baby doll came to do lessons with the princess…distracting perhaps?

And things were scattered all over the floor after nature study.

And sweet sock-wearing little boys had a mounting pile of scraps all around the desk.

But, the messes clean up, and another day is filled with the rich goodness of children thriving in an education we all enjoy.

And while I made lunch today, I spied a certain quiet young man who had retreated under the dining table to read a book alone with kitty.  These are the moments I am storing up in my heart and memory.

We Just Never Know

Just a week after burying our son Elijah, we found ourselves sitting at a restaurant...our table right down on the banks of a local river.  My parents had come into town and had offered to take care of our children while we had some reprieve.  It had been one of the worst weeks of my life...discovering no heartbeat on the sonogram and then a domino string of events that left my son in a tiny coffin and his mama sitting at a restaurant a week later trying to make sense of life.  

Our waitress must have been hand-picked from Heaven.  God must have chosen her Himself, because she bubbled over warmth and love.  I cannot even remember much about that night, but I remember her.  I was sitting there feeling empty and overwhelmed as the world around me was going on as if nothing had happened.  Though my outsides looked normal, my heart was gaping wide and dripping lifeblood.  And this waitress stranger heaped doses of warmth and a love that I knew was other-worldly.  She was God's vessel, and He was right there on the bank of the river at that table with the amazing dishes and tiny white lights.  He was right there pouring out a tangible warmth that I desperately needed. And this waitress didn't know. 

A year later, we visited the same restaurant, and I found that waitress and told her how she had been such a balm to my spirit in such a trying time.  With tears in her eyes, she hugged me.  She repeated a few times that she had no idea.  But me…I remembered.  And today, six years later, I remember the love God poured out through her.  

Sometimes we just never know.  We may never know how far reaching the ripples are of the tiny pebbles we toss towards others in life.  We may never know the trial of another's soul...the havoc they are feeling at home...the utter loneliness they feel in their lives no matter what they look like on the outside.  We may never know what salve we are applying with a simple encouraging word.  We may never ever know how other-worldly our love may feel to someone who is seeking God and finds Him nestled somewhere inside of imperfect us.

The water of Yellowstone Lake looks very placid and inviting.  A van load of excited children couldn't wait to kick their Crocs off and jump into the water.  "I can't wait to say I have been swimming in Yellowstone Lake!!"

The initial thrill soon wore off, and reality brought teeth to chattering and feet being nicked by rocks.  A casual glance cannot tell the temperature of the waters.  And what is below the surface is not always obvious.  

But what is below the surface is there, whether we see it or not.  

  
When we see the smiles...when we see someone who looks like he has it all together...when we see the outside all shiny and seemingly fine...let us not forget that under the surface may be some gaping holes and needy hearts.  Under the surface may be someone who needs desperately to feel God's love all fluid and tangible.  We really just never know when we have been hand-chosen by God to be His essential touch in someone's life.