dear girls (part II)

Dear Girls,

Please remember these things that I know,

1.  you were made perfect and human.

2. you should always have each other, there is nothing better than having a sister.

3.  when you really need me, and you can’t go to anyone else, and you are afraid,  I will be here.

4.  at some point you will see a beautiful sunrise/sunset and it will leave you in awe.

5.  love is worth it, even if it hurts sometimes.

6.  you are the only one who can give you self-worth.

7.  always use pure vanilla extract, the fake stuff isn’t as good.

8.  buying yourself flowers can make you feel better.

9.  you will be too critical of yourself.

10. you may never know who you want to be when you grow up, just keep growing.

11. live on your own before you live with a man.

12. pay your bills on time.

13.  have at least one good, good friend.

14.  trust your instincts.

15. people will surprise you with their kindness.

16. good music will lift your soul.

17. hiking through the woods is a good way to problem solve.

18. don’t be afraid to ask for help.

19. be proud of who you are, no matter who you are.

20.  know there is one person who will always love you, who will always know you, who will always hold you dear.

that is…..

-your mama.

dear girls, (part I)

Dear Girls,

I promise you that at some point:

1.  I am going to look at you and not know what you are thinking.

2. you are going to hurt each other’s feelings and not value each other.

3.   you are going to feel that I “DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOU ONE BIT”.

4.  you are going to think I am, weird, crazy, wacko, out of touch, a freak of nature, over the top, ridiculous.

5.  someone you thought was a friend is going to say something about you to someone else that will hurt you.

6. someone you thought was a friend will just disappear from your life.

7.  a boy you really, really, really like, is not going to know you exist.

8.  a boy is going to really, really, break your heart.

9.  school is going to seem too hard and too time consuming.

10.   you will think you are ready for a relationship that I know you are not ready for.

11. you will think that you got away with something that I will know about but never tell you.

12.   you will struggle with your body image.

13.   you will care about what other people think about you.

14.  you will think  every year that this is the only time there is and how important it is.

15.   you are going to question the existence of God.

16.  you will ask me questions about your father that I may still not feel ready to tell you about.

17.  you will be embarassed when I talk to you about sex.

18. you will no longer think the music I listen to is “cool”.

19.  you will shy away from my hugs and my kisses.

20.  you will be afraid to tell me how you are really feeling.

I already know this,

–mama.

Wordless Wednesday: Many More Words To Follow

Food Pleasures

I spent Saturday afternoon at Panera, just myself, a turkey-artichoke panini, a cup of french onion soup and the latest Body & Soul magazine.  It was heaven.  No children to clean up after, ask to sit down, or squabble with.  I felt like I was on vacation.

I spent my lunch hour today with a Mediterranean sandwich (roasted red peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, a feta-olive spread and balsamic vinegar, that  was heaven as well) and a new library book, The School of Essential Ingredients.  I haven’t been able to pick up and stay with a book for awhile, but this  book about a restauranteur who holds cooking classes in the evening has kept my attention.

I’m not sure where I am going with this post.  Sometimes I think that food makes a pretty darn good replacement for love when made correctly.  It satisfies a certain something in you that needs attention.  But enough about me.

Last night I made a quiche for dinner.  A crustless quiche.  I sacrificed pastry for cream because I really wanted it made with cream.  Boogirl helped me by cracking the eggs and pouring in the cream.  She gathered up the onions, the spinach, the ham and brought them over in the bowl for me to saute.  I think I found the perfect amount of cream versus egg and the perfect quantity of nutmeg.  Don’t ask me about the recipe.  It’s different every time.  Rarely do I take the time to write it down.  If you want recipes, and photos of amazing food go to Smitten Kitchen or visit Lisa at The Cutting Edge of Ordinary.  These ladies make me drool.  Besides I’ve never been able to take a good photo of a quiche, it’s just too neutral, but I bet Lisa could.

The girls made their own salads, to their own requirements.

Boo:  spinach, lettuce, tomato, broccoli, carrot, celery, egg, cheese

Ems:  spinach, tomato, broccoli, red onion, egg, cheese (Ems thought she hated salads until she discovered you can make them with spinach instead of lettuce).

It’s a shame really that there are so many complaints about children who won’t eat properly.  Eat healthy foods.  Because if you get them involved, if they become a part of the process, the preparation, they are so much more apt to try new things.  When they get choices, they have choices, they will find what their preferences are.

I don’t know.  I’m off on a tangent today.

Today it is raining, and very, very cold.  A bone chilling damp kind of cold.  Tonight I will make black bean soup with chorizo.  I will take it with leftover quiche tomorrow for lunch.  Tonight I will stop by the Italian place down the street, pick up a pizza, we will curl up on the couch with a quilt and eat pizza and watch television and pretend it is not a school night.

Sunday At The Park

Two things happened this weekend.  1/ I got tired of being in the house and 2/ I watched a movie that reminded me about what I want life to be all about.  I have another post about that, but need a day or two to let it settle in and gather my thoughts.  So Sunday, we escaped the house and headed to one of the local parks.  I threw my sneakers and my camera in the car  and hoped to get some photos and a brisk run/walk in while the girls played on the playground.  Obviously, the snow was not cleared making the walk impossible, but we had a good time exploring in the snow.

Boo of course found a new walking stick from a piece of driftwood.  This girl picks up sticks everywhere.  Oh to count the number of sticks I find in the car, in the house, in the dog kennel…..everywhere.  Ems had a time rearranging some furniture for the fairies living in the hole in this tree.  ”Seriously”, she told Boo, “don’t mess with it”.

It was a nice day for exploring.  It was a warmer 40 degrees,  still I hate to be cold, so I did not care that I was walking around in a pair of crocs, yoga pants, a long sleeve-t-shirt and TWO sweaters…..quite strange looking, but warm, and hey at this point that’s all I care about.

Simple pleasures:  fresh air, sunshine, the river, a snowball fight around the jungle gym, laughing girls, all three.  Sometimes I have to remember to stop being so serious all the time, let loose, find something simple and have fun.  All the other boring stuff at home isn’t going anywhere, anyway.

working out, slowing down.

i feel myself disappearing slowly from the online world.  gone seem to be the days where i could sit for hours visiting here and there, looking up this, researching that.  has anything really changed in my life?  i couldn’t say.  but lately, it’s been one of the last places i seem to go.

i think that perhaps i should rejoice in the fact that i am finding my time elsewhere.  that i am busy.  that i am focused on other things.  that my attention is not solely focused on a machine, but on myself.

i am working out.  steadily.  cardio, 30 to 45 minutes at least four times a week.  strength training every other day.  building up our fruit and vegetable intake, cutting back our meat and white flour/sugar  intake.  my goal is to lose 33 pounds this year.  i started a little over two weeks ago and  i have lost 5 so far.  why 33?  it’s just a goal that sounds right to me.  if i lose 40 or 25 so be it.

the important part is that i want to feel comfortable in my body again.  which right now isn’t happening.  the excess weight i’ve put on in the last year and a half is chipping away at my newly found self-esteem.  i’m also thinking a haircut is in order and perhaps a make-up education, not for everyday, but you know, for special days.  i want to feel pretty.

so i’m working hard.  i am pushing myself.  but the funny thing is that as the weeks have progressed it feels less like pushing and more like enjoying.  i like the way my breath comes and goes when i exercise.  i like the fact that i am aware of my breath (thank you for the reminder) and i like the way my body feels when it is working.  who would have ever guessed?

most importantly though, i love the yoga afterwards.  i end every cardio session with yoga,  i slow down, cool a little and then strike my poses and it brings everything back down to earth.  yoga feels to me like connecting with my innermost self.  and after such hard work, it’s the soothing tunes of my favorite Kenyan musician, Ayub Ogada that help me relax back into a place of peace.  the words are in a language i do not understand so there is no distraction but his voice and the sounds of the instruments bring that lull i need, so that when i am done i can lay on my mat at peace.  the resting bit.  see i cannot forget that what my body also needs is the resting bit.

so why have i not been around as much? that is why.  besides being a working mother, being the head of the household, being the caretaker, i am also working very hard on being me.  and this me, as i say every year, is a work in progress.  i made so many beautiful strides last year with my emotional self, it’s time now to focus on my physical self, and unfortunately that eats up a lot of time, but i’ve decided, most certainly, that i am worth it.

someone  recently put up a quote about taking action, to not only think, but do, be the change you want, not only talk the talk, but walk the walk.

i am walking, the walk.

Wordless Wednesday: Summer Farmer’s Market Flashback

Boo.

She was an explosion of color.

Looking a little like a French girl.

Or maybe Pinky Tuscadero.

But beautiful.

In a way that I still cannot fathom.

writing.

I could write probably twenty-five posts here about my love for Harry Potter.  In confession, I am probably one of the biggest Harry Potter nerds there are. I have read the books four times completely through.  I have read through the night still with book in hand when the sun comes up.  I laughed roaringly reading them, I sobbed miserably and very unbecomingly through them.  I have spent far too many hours thinking about it, listening to podcasts about it, reading the works of John Granger and Travis Prinzi who have discussed and dissected the books multiple times.

Bear with me here, because I am getting to something.  When I read Harry Potter it left a profound mark on me and this may seem a silly thing if you are a casual reader.  But when you invest yourself that  much into the characters of a book, these characters that seem so real after seven books that they feel like family,  if you sit and think about the struggle a young boy must go through from abused orphan to tortured teenager, to hero, it is quite a story indeed.  If you think about the greater themes of good versus evil, social prejudice, political corruption, and the power of love, which in the end was what the story was about: how a mother’s love was more  powerful than evil even after death, if you look at it that way then you know why these books are so important to me.

Last night I finally watched J.K. Rowling:  A Year In The Life.  It’s been a long time coming for me to watch.  I already knew her story, having heard it over and over. Her divorce, her depression, her single motherhood, her poverty, her writing in cafe’s when she had nothing else, the loss of her mother and how it impacted her books.  But this documentary which covered her as she finished that last book and took her back through her past moved me in an even bigger way.

It was quite amazing to take that journey with her.  To see how from pain and struggle came something quite amazing. To know the power there is in writing and how it can heal.  When I turned off the computer last night after watching it I lay awake for quite some time.  For weeks and weeks and weeks now I have been struggling with myself, beating myself up for not knowing myself, trying to find myself.

And then last night in the dark, it came to me.  I write.  I have written for a long, long time. Created in my head, turned words into something else on the page.  I have stacks of papers upstairs filed tidily away of the beginnings of stories, the ramblings of my emotions during tough times going way back to my freshman year of high school.  It’s what I have always done.  When times were tough, when life was too hard, I have escaped into my own imagination and for a long time I have considered that a weakness, others have considered that a weakness, a pulling away from life.

Writing is a very easy and inexpensive form of therapy, any blogger knows this.  I find it funny that I have been searching all this time and didn’t see what was right here in front of my face.  I am sitting here doing it now, I do it just about every day.  I write.  It may never, ever amount to anything, but if i do it, and I do it diligently, I might just find myself again. And that would be completely worth it. Thank you  Joanne Rowling.

I ♥ Jamie Oliver.

before i fell smitten with michael pollan there was jamie oliver.   actually, there still is jamie oliver.  i love this man madly for his passion about food, about children, about education, about reform.  we could all take a lesson from his message.  i hung on every minute of his school dinners campaign in britian.  now there is jamie’s food revolution in the usa coming to abc in march.

sometimes i think better food for our children is way too small a drop in the giant ocean of our nation’s woes.  sometimes i think with all the budgetary concerns of our local schools, asking for better food might just be too much.  but in the end it’s all tied together.  personally, we here as a family have totally transformed the way we eat in the last two years, but that’s not enough.  i’m thinking more and more about proper holistic nutrition.  i’m thinking more about whole food education.  i’m thinking more about children.  i feel my heart embracing a new direction.

here is a clip for the new program here in the USA coming in March…

here is jamie oliver’s TED acceptance speech.  it’s long, 20 minutes. but it’s important.

Here is Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution website.

Here is the TED award site.

Here is the Slow Food movements Time For Lunch campaign, of which Ems has already solicited signatures for their petition from everyone we know a few months ago.