Spoon Club Affirmations

Whoa baby. The holidays are here. Even those who don't believe in religion or celebrate the traditions can't seem to escape the stress and the pressure and the chaos of the next six weeks. The upcoming events affect all of us in a negative way- traffic patterns are disrupted, shopping for everyday items are complicated, the weather here in the Midwest can also get treacherous, and people seem to be more bah humbug than joy to the world.

If you do partake in the holiday events and traditions? Oh my. That's just asking for it.

Asking for what?

Well, that depends on you. No. Really.

I'm not saying this because I am one of those chipper elves that dons the jingle bells and wears ugly sweaters all year long. I am. That's beside the point. The holidays have always been a horrible time for me. I love giving gifts. I love decorating. I love and I mean LOVE the food traditions. I love Santa and elves and snow and everything Christmas.

Except I don't. 

I hate how people get so stressed out. I hate how the food makes people sad instead of full. I hate how giving gifts means the next year is spent trying to catch up on the credit card bill. I hate how choosing whose house to go to is like the Mason Dixon Line of family feuds. I hate the mall. I hate the traffic. I hate the holiday station that I want to love but they play the same 8 Christmas songs over and over again and two of them are the same song just different versions/eras and I have at least 200 good ones on my iPod I left at home to choose from. I hate the look of disappointment when I give a handmade gift. I hate the look even more when it is something my child has made special. I hate that everyone is super ramped up and they all take it out on strangers, especially on the Internet.

So, friends, I am going to get on here everyday and write out a special message. Any of you who are right here with me on this holiday edge can play along. Anyone who isn't? Find someone who is and give them a pie or a hug or a pie hug, ok? Let's do our best to bring peace into each others lives, shine a light to those who are battling the darkness and the dragons, and make folks who have no family or no family who wants them feel loved, and then let's keep this generosity going long after the holidays. It isn't just a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving gesture- this needs to be for real and for always. Let;s just start with today though. Who's with me? I am going to call it the Holiday Chaos Spoon Club (and I'll share with you why tomorrow....)

Today I will remember that no matter how I live my life, friends and family and strangers will think I am weird. I will live my life for me instead. I will dye my hair purple and live in an RV if that brings me happiness. I will shave my head and hula hoop on the beach if that brings me happiness. I will blog like no one is reading. I will do what I love. 

I will remember this as I attend family and social events where the things I love are criticised. I will love myself and my life anyway.

It isn't a perfect start, but it what was in my head after I spoke with my friend Ashley this afternoon. I remember thinking these same things as I was making the decision to go to college to study poetry, then when I decided to get married, when I decided to have children, buy an old run down house, and then move to a farm. Every decision I made was ridiculed, critiqued, and I was made to feel incapable. Clearly, I am capable. What if I had listened.

Oh. I have listened actually. I stopped blogging after months of a friend making snide remarks about it. I gave that piece of myself away and I can't get it back. I allowed it to be stolen from my children, a record of their lives. How stupid is that? Why did I care so much what other people thought? So what if my pictures are messy, if my content is varied and unfocused, and you know who cares about my thoughts? Me! So again, I blog like no one is reading and that means it is messy and varied and pictures of food and crayons and piles of laundry and pigs and piles of crayons and more pigs and sometimes sheep too. I make mistakes. I love pie.

I wanted to perform street poetry in San Francisco. I didn't go. I was scared and let the critics feed those fears. I wanted to travel but listened to my friends tell me that it would be hard to do with Lily when she was two, even though our first two trips were wonderful, I had this nagging sense that they were right. I just worry about you. Those were the subtle underminings that were all it took. I let it. I let it crash my self esteem. Why?

I. Me. I let it. I can't even say never again. Why? Because I am human.

So, hold you head high and your spoons higher. Let's have some pie!

Dancing Barefoot in the Snow, Recovered

 Sometimes life can get overwhelming. I read this week about a friend who used to sword fight barefoot in the snow and she said it wasn't so bad if you keep moving. (Hopes she reads this and then reminds me who she is so I can give proper credit! I think it was.....someone in Iowa City?)

Yes.

That is what I feel like. If I keep moving, it doesn't hurt so much. If I am always learning, doing, dancing, playing.....then the things in my life that hurt will just fade into the background and I can keep fighting the dragons (and the windmills) that threaten to swallow me whole.

Special needs parenting is hard. If I stop and think, what will life be like in 10 years, I get burned alive with worry. Worry that ruins my today. Jealousy? For so many of my special needs parenting friends it can be devastating and paralysing to see the lives that others are leading, lives that they wanted for their family but will never have. I'm not there yet. I still can't imagine that Isaac's life won't be completely beautiful and that anyone could exclude or harm him. I mean, I know it is possible, but it isn't real yet because it has never really happened. When he was one, the fact that he was just barely crawling made some lady at a birthday party embarrassed that she asked how old he was, but that barely counts. You know? Yeah. I know in my head that worse is yet to come for all three of my children, but it has not happened yet so I can still believe in faeries and unicorns.

Farming is hard. I can't even think more than one season ahead right now, because weather and predation, and customer base determine what will happen year to year. We have to plan ahead, prepare for both the best and the worst and keep moving. It helps that we have amazing customers who support our efforts and cheer us on like family. We are so grateful for that. So grateful. Y'all have no idea how much that means to us.

Marriage is hard. Everyday we work on encouraging the gifts, talents, and interests that we both have. We work on better parenting our children together. We plan. We prepare. Like the farm though, things can change in a blink of an eye (farm accidents are on my mind right now as my neighbour is currently in the hospital after a life threatening accident) and if we dwell too much on the what ifs, we can't grow in the present. Just keep those feet moving and swords and plough shares sharp.

So my practise has been to stay in the moment, find the simple joys in the day we are in. Photograph it if I can. I have talked a couple times about this blog being love letters to my children. I mean that. I hope that if they ever have only these writings to know me by, that they will know they are loved and cherished. Knowing that is so important as you set off into the world. You know?

So that said, here are a few beauties from today.

I love this green on the fresh split maple. Maple is my favourite wood to burn, makes the house smell like caramel.

Holly loves My Little Ponies. She also loves dumping things out.

Isaac was figuring out if a golf ball fit in the trap door. It did. Over and over again.

Lily worked on Christmas gifts. She told me the best part of Christmas is making and giving gifts. She will probably do this for the next 3 months. Seriously. She loves it so much.

We sorted crayons, clay, scissors, and paper today.

Isaac's favourite cars.

Holly suited up and played outside for almost 3 hours. She knocked icesicles off of things, broke ice sheets, and made snow goblins.

Then she came inside and got to work building me a stationary bike. Love that girl.

Every day is a chance to start over, breathe deep in gratitude. Things may look impossible tomorrow and they may even be impossible, but I try not to let it ruin today. I am grateful for my friends, for my "secret gang of girls in my phone" (thanks Naptime is For Drinking for giving it a name), for pie, for snow, for firewood, for little boy laughs and smiles, for "Itsy Bitsy Spider", and for my family.

I am thankful for both my daughters. They make me laugh and cry and dance with joy.

I am thankful for an abundance of food.

I am thankful for our farm. I love this house, I love the warmth and the design and the location. Since I am home bound through most of the winter, I am also thankful that I enjoy living here.

I am thankful I can read. To build on that, I am thankful for an abundance of books. I will be reading a lot this winter.

I an thankful for good friends, both near and far.  Friends that I can count on and friends that I can just be me with. Sometimes that includes the frustrated, angry me. True friends, including my lovely husband, take us for who we are and not just on the sunshiny days. I think that most people might only have the kind of friend that walks on eggshells and is always nice. That's nice too, but when things get rough it is really good to have the kind of friends that will just let you be angry or sad or weepy or cranky and still be your friend. You know?

I am thankful for my husband.

Every day we say what we are thankful for at our meals together. It was really got me thinking about how gratitude brings peace to the table.

What are you grateful for?

Burek, My Version

Years ago, at a local place, I had burek. It was so unremarkable. Bland. The meat was clearly low quality or cooked until mushy- you know like bad taco filling. I remember thinking that I could do better, that the item had so much potential that was somehow wasted and ruined by using low quality ingredients- not what you would expect from a place that brags the opposite. You know?I love meat pies and have a goal to try the meat pies of as many cultures as I can. Except maybe the ones from Mrs. Lovett's shop on Fleet Street. I'll pass on those. (That's a nerdy literature reference, ha!)

So years later I am scanning the Interwebs for a friend looking for venison recipes that use no tomatoes. There it was- burek. Though none of the recipes used venison, which was odd, considering the search terms, but I decided it would work.

So I bought phyllo dough, thawed my ground venison and decided to have a go at it. Could I do better? So far, the only meal I have had out that I could not make better at home was pretty much anything at the Northside Cafe in Winterset. I combined from a couple different sources, used what I had on hand, and it turned out great.

For the filling:
1.5 lbs of ground venison (though beef, lamb, or goat have been used traditionally, depending on region)
2 heaping T of Alepbo pepper (Penzies, but a good medium hot dried ancho will work)
8 baby bella mushrooms, sliced thin
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 large red onion, diced
1/2 cup beef broth with fat on top (Basically, I skimmed for just the fat and the broth that came with it. Venison is very lean and added fat is needed. Other meats may not.)
Salt and pepper to taste



Brown the meat in the broth and fat. Add the dried pepper about half way through. Once it is cooked, add the veggies. Let this simmer down until the broth is mostly gone and the onions start to caramelise. I start the meat on high and move to medium simmer when I add the veggies, low when the broth is mostly gone.



Take off heat and let sit while the dough is rolled out.



Phyllo is fine and thin in layers. I used three layered sheets for each one, brushing melted butter between two layers. About 1/2 cup of meat mixture per roll. I rolled like burritos.If I was rolling lengthwise I would use 2 more sheets and double the meat. Rolling short made easier serving portions and I didn't roll into coils this time anyway.



400 degrees in the oven until browned. Serve with fresh tomato garnish, sour cream if wanted. Chevre (a soft goat cheese) is my favourite.

The kids begged to have it reheated for breakfast and then they actually ate it. Then they fought over the last bites, resolving an negotiating with extra clementines and Lily telling Holly about the mushrooms contained in the filling (that was the deal breaker).

Eggnog Oatmeal

Oh there are so many things on my wish list to cook with eggnog. I LOVE eggnog. So much. Funny, though, I had never even considered this one.

Today we were out of milk and cream AND ice cream. This never happens at our house. So I looked, also out of cream cheese, but we had sour cream, yogurt, and.....eggnog.

So. Eggnog it was. In oatmeal. It was brilliant, easy, and the kids each had two bowls.

Recipe
Eggnog Oatmeal

4 cups of old fashioned oats
1 Table spoon of allspice
1/4 cup of maple syrup
1/4 cup of eggnog
...appropriate amount of water to cook four cups of the oatmeal....I always just eye it.

Cook the oatmeal- this takes about 5-6 minutes. I boil the water first, then add the oats. About 2 minutes from being done, add the sugar, spice, and eggnog and then continue cooking and stirring until the oats are cooked. Then turn off (or take off) heat, cover and let rest for 2-3 minutes (enough time to get kids to wash hands and set the table (and who's kidding, argue over who gets the pink spoon. I hate that pink spoon).

Serve!

*I used allspice because previous experience told me that it was easier than trying to get the cinnamon, nutmeg, etc combination right for such a small serving portion. It worked really well. The eggnog lost most of the spice flavour once it hit the oats, but added the perfect creaminess. I like to use maple syrup instead of sugar because of the trace minerals and because it is a product from our own farm. Raw sugar also works.