How Does Your Garden Grow?

This is the first garden I have ever planted since Ems was born eight years ago.  It is divided into two gardens a veggie patch and an herb bed.  Tonight I walked out and took a look to make sure harvesting the first pepper and zucchini could wait until we returned from our trip this weekend.  I think so.

It’s fascinating to me to see the amazing miracle of taking a wee seed, like these we planted in Spring, and seeing them grow to a midgen, then a stalk, then a leafy thing then sprout into these amazing shapes and flavors.  As always, I am in awe.

Some people find a place to be with their creator in church or a gathering.  I find it here in my garden with humble respect to this miracle of life.

Random Bits…..

1. I realized I didn’t post about my no-waste challenge week.  We did pretty good.  No non-compostable food waste except a handful of onions taken out of a cream sauce. We did have some waste with a package of cherries that we got from the grocery store that were basically half rotten and had to be tossed almost immediately and some bananas that I didn’t even have enough energy to turn into muffins.  A nice reminder about buying local, huh?  I know there were some serious opportunities (bananas), but it’s been one of THOSE weeks.  In the end we ate a lot of leftovers and incorporated things that might spoil (cream, ham, veggies) into new dishes rather than forgetting they were in the back of the refrigerator.  A good lesson and by god a hard one.

2.  Back to Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food” for a July book discussion over at Ideal Bite.  You already know about my Michael Pollan crush, right?   Every time I read his books or listen to him speak my head almost falls off I’m nodding with excitement so hard.  So I’m re-reading this weekend. AND remember the Food Inc trailer I posted here, my good, good friend and I are going to go next weekend to Baltimore to see it.  Girls day in the city.  YES.

3.  Speaking of this weekend, girls and I are off to my Aunt’s house in West Virginia for 4th of July weekend, so don’t look for any posts until late Sunday.  I will be blissfully disconnected from the world in the lovely mountains and enjoying every sweet minute.   Look for photo overload in the coming weeks.

4.  My house is driving me INSANE.  This art of simplifying is constantly being beaten back by serious lack of time, two children who are whirlwinds of mess and the simple fact that every time I gather up stuff to get out of here, more stuff keeps finding it’s way back in.  The problem is that I never fully cleaned out after the move last year (eleven years of stuff) and the whole aspect of it is so overwhelming I seem to take a look around and go, ” hmmm” and then walk back out of the room.

5.  And while I am complaining, I bought a bathroom scale this week.  Yes.  Scary.  Very scary.  However, I weighed about 15 pounds less than I expected (hooray) but still about twenty-five pounds too much (boohoo).  I’m not sure why I can’t tip the scale (so to speak, ha) toward my need to lose weight versus my constant want to eat.  Notice I said WANT to eat versus NEED.  Can someone please offer me a gym membership and perhaps one of those life coaches to get my life in gear?  I’m kidding.  It appears every life coach in the U.S. is following me on Twitter along with every “social media expert”.  If you are on Twitter, you will know what I mean.

6.  To end on a better note.  There are only fourteen days until the “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” release and tonight I saw new clips online.  Ahhhhh, the uber-geeky Harry Potter fanatic in me is unleashed yet again.  If you happen to also be an uber-geeky Harry Potter fan, you can see one here.

7.  My apologies as to falling behind on blog visits this week.  Did I mention it was one of THOSE weeks.  Hopefully will catch up soon.

Wordless Wednesday: Bedside Reading

 

Chicken Dinner

If you would have visited me nine years ago you would not have seen this.  I was a vegetarian then, and still have vegetarian thoughts now and again, but mostly I love cooking and I like eating meat.  It’s not an easy issue is it?

So my vegetarian heart is now turning around, probably with a few too many episodes of River Cottage and a few too many amazing recipes and with the building of a relationship with a local organic farmer.

Could I slaughter my own animal?  Probably not.  Do I think that it’s ironic that as I walk out of the farm store door with my first fresh farm chicken of the year, one comes around the corner and runs across the driveway in front of me?  Certainly, and I cannot help anthropomorphising  that this certain chicken is thinking “My God, I have to get out of here as quick as my little legs can carry me”.

But I do know if I am going to eat meat, it is nice to have this farm down the way, where I see the animals, roaming in the sunshine, eating grass and bugs and spreading their wings or legs and that they were treated lovingly and with deep respect while they were here with us.

And when I made this chicken Sunday night.  The herbs slid nicely under the skin, the meat was flavorful and tender and the girls got a lesson as we finished and I picked through the carcass preparing for stock and chicken pot pie later in the week.

I didn’t feel at all queasy ripping off the legs and the wings.  The girls were fascinated by all the bits.  What part is this Mommy?  That’s the leg bone where it’s foot would have been.  OH, it’s the ankle, the wing, the neck.  And then the ultimate prize, the realization that not only does a turkey have a wishbone, so does a chicken.  And so it sits drying out on my windowsill.

(Mr. Chicken, night two, in my Grandmother’s birthday pot pie.)

I feel so lucky that we live where we do and we have access to local, fresh organic food.  I may be wrong about the meat eating thing.  It runs against my buddha nature.  We still are trying two-three vegetarian meals a week.  I may change my mind.  My girls may decide against it.

That will be okay.  In the meantime, I’m lucky.

Because I have a farmer.  A real farmer.

How lucky is that?

So Many Layers….

A Present.

I did not do much to mark the occasion of the divorce.  I made it through the testimony fine.  I teared up when my amazing mother testified as my witness.  It was a dual punch of hearing the officialness of the divorce and hearing my mother continue to stand with me as she has always, always done, right or wrong, good or bad through 37 years.  My Mama and I had peach smoothies afterwards and held hands in a bagel shop. I took the girls to see Night at the Museum II.  It was just what felt right.

However I did do something rather selfish. Throughout my marriage I could never have a pretty bedroom.  It always had to be masculine or neutral.  (Bleah, right).  So I was at Target the night before the hearing and found this Shabby Chic coverlet on clearance, (clearance people, as in super-duper on sale).  Then I went the next aisle over and found these lovely spring green bamboo sheets that feel like heaven.  When I was married I couldn’t have a girly bed and I certainly never had enough money to treat myself.  So, I bought them both.  And now my bed looks like this. It makes me feel happy and at peace when I climb in and my bunkmate agrees that it’s not only pretty but so darn comfy.

It Was Raining

so we took our cones to-go.

mama said, make sure not to spill

but was the first to drip chocolate on her white sleeve.

Another Great Find…

First, a thanks, to all my family, friends and fellow Twitterbugs, Bloggers, and Facebook pals who sent me loving wishes yesterday as I headed to my divorce hearing.  It has been a long journey to get here (14 month separation) but in the end I felt confident going in that I gave the marriage every opportunity I could in the face of dealing with addiction and that every second and dollar of it was worth the outcome for both myself and my girls.

So on a lighter  note, I said previously that I was going to try to make up some sandwich and snack bags to rid ourselves of the plastic baggy lunch waste.  Coming to face with some serious reality, like lack of time and the outdoors being a priority in this lovely weather, I decided to rely on the talents of other creative  mothers out there to do the job for me.  So I headed where I always do first, Etsy, because I believe wholeheartedly in supporting small time artisans and purveyors of the handmade, homemade lifestyle.

And so yesterday I got this lovely package from Little Green Pea, who sent the loveliest of sandwich and snack bags and they are  just what I needed.  I have ordered a second group from another seller and will post when I get them.

So if you were looking for another easy way to cut back on waste, here is a nice recommendation and if you are less pressed for time than I am you can break out that fabric stash and make your own.

Day of Divorce

Today I step into the courtroom and my eleven-year marriage comes to an end.  I do not feel sad, so do not worry about me, the blessing of a fourteen-month separation is that by the time the divorce happens, your heart is on the mend.  Therefore, I continue on with this new chapter I find myself writing.

Letting Go

author unknown.

To let go doesn’t mean to stop caring;
It means I can’t do it for someone else.
To let go is not to cut myself off…
It’s the realization that I can’t control another…
To let go is not to enable,
but to allow learning from natural consequences.
To let go is to admit powerlessness,
which means the outcome is not in my hands.
To let go is not to try and change or blame another,
I can only change myself.
To let go is not to care for, but to care about.
To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.
To let go is not to judge,
but to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others to affect their own outcomes.
To let go is not to be protective,
it is to permit another to face reality.
To let go is not to deny, but to accept. To let go is not to nag, scold, or argue,
but to search out my own shortcomings and correct them. To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes and cherish the moment.
To let go is not to criticize and regulate anyone, but to try to become what I dream I can be.
To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live for the future.
To let go is to fear less and love more.

Wordless Wednesday: My Same Sweet Baby