Juggling

Sometimes we women, Mormon women in particular, try to juggle too much.  We try to be all things to all people.  We really want to.  We keep adding in balls.  And when we do, we inevitably drop one here or there.  We don't want to, but we're only human running at such a frenzied pace that we loose track of a thing or two.  Like having the wrong date printed on the Women's Conference invitations of which you were in charge.  All 450 of them.  And then distributing them to the entire Stake.  With the wrong date.  Because you forgot to fix it like you said you would.  Moments like that are, at first, humiliating.  I just wanted to die when I realized my mistake.  And then again when the woman in charge of the conference called me this afternoon.  I'm still sick about it now.  She's not mad.  No one is mad.  We're just doing what we can at this point to mop up the figurative spilled milk.  No crying.  Well, maybe a little bit on my part. 

And, while I'm still a little humiliated, I'm also a little grateful.  Grateful for the reminder that I'm human and that I need to slow down a little bit.  Grateful for the reality check.  Grateful for the self awareness that no, no I cannot speak at a baptism, host a boatload of family, keep a spotless house, make hand-crafted gifts for baby showers, bake six batches of homemade bread and twelve dozen mini-cupcakes, shop for and create a custom vintage cake stand, sew curtains (and otherwise spruce up my home decor), shampoo my carpets, watch the latest episodes of Lost and Project Runway, start working on Girl's Camp with it's associated meetings, attend Presidency Meeting, do my monthly Visiting Teaching visits, file my taxes AND do Women's Conference invitations all in the same five day stretch.  At least I can't do all those things well.  Or error-free.  Nor should I expect that of myself. 

But what do you give up?!  I really, really wanted to do each and every one of those things.  It's hard for me to know where to draw the line.  But draw I must because I'm not going to make a fool of myself like that again.  OK, who are we kidding?  Of course I am.  But not intentionally and not soon.

Oh, and if you live in my stake, Women's Conference is on February 27th.  Not the 20th.  Thanks!

Some Things Will Never Change

Remember when you were six or eight or whatever age and you cut your own hair?  I'm not talking about the two-year-old-gets-into-the-scissors scenario.  No.  I'm talking about when you intentionally cut your own hair -- just a simple bang trim before a piano recital, maybe -- with disastrous results.?  I know I'm not the only one who ever did that.  I may, however, be the only one still doing that.  Ate the ripe old age of 37.  Yessirree.  I was doing my hair yesterday, thinking how my bangs were in my eyes and I just had too much on my plate to call Alina for one of her complimentary bang trims.  Really, I trim my own bangs all the time.  This time, in particular, I just got a little overzealous.  And it's really not cute, if we're being perfectly honest.  15 family members are arriving at my home today.  And I've been asked to speak at the baptism tomorrow. 

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Thank goodness for hair clips..

Fuhgeddaboudit!

My "baby" is being baptized this weekend.  Lots of our family are coming to visit.  Lots of things in our house are in need of repair.  They have been since the last time we did a general fix-up before Riley's baptism.  A year and a half ago.  Why do we do that?  Why do we live with the towel bar dangling from one end, the other having been ripped from the drywall when one of my precious children decided to try some chin-ups? Just dangling there for years when it really only takes a few minutes to fix.  Why the unpainted pantry door for six months?  Why the nicks in the paint on the dining room wall for so long when it just takes moments to swipe a little fresh paint over them?  Why has there been a fork in the bottom of my dirty oven for almost a year?  OK, the fork is because I only remember it's in there when the oven is hot.  But, hello, my oven is self-cleaning.  Why is it dirty?! Why is it not always a sparkling beacon in my sometimes dreary kitchen?   And why, why is my kitchen so dreary?  Why haven't I replaced the light over my cook top sooner?  Why does it take my parents and in-laws coming to shame me into wiping down my white, but filthy doors and cabinets? 

I think my house is, generally, clean.  I really try.  Am I the only one who lets the little details slide until someone else is coming to town?  Please say it's not just me.  Maybe if I "detailed" my home more often I'd have time to blog in the week before we hosted visitors.  As it is . . . fuhgeddaboudit!

Are You Tired of This Yet?

 

Again, not a food blog.  Just another delicious recipe.  I don't think I've ever made zucchini bread before.  I've eaten tons of it in my day, however, and I love it.  We got a bunch from the produce co-op last weekend and how many times can you serve steamed zucchini as a side dish?  The answer is NONE.  None times, because my kids won't eat it.   They will eat the bread, though, so . . . baby steps.  And D did take one bite of a stuffed pepper Tuesday night.  I don't think I could have been any happier had I won the lottery.  Small victories.  Anyhoo, I made this bread without the nuts because that's my family's preference, but I personally think it was just begging for some.  Something about the flavor made me think that pecans would have made it all the more delicious.  Next time I'll have to do half with, half without.  Enjoy!

Who Ever Thinks of These Things?!

 

Now, we all know that this is not a food blog.  If you are looking for gourmet eats, you've come to the wrong place.  But I do cook a lot.  Like every night now that we are on our debt-reduction super money-diet.  So I'm always looking for something new to put on the table, more for my own entertainment than out of strict necessity.  And I do so like to share . . . I found this fun recipe today whilst skulking around a blog I love. It was so intriguing, I just had to try it for dinner.  And then I loved it so much I just had to digi-scrap it and share it with you!  (Because I have big plans of digi-scrapping all my favorite recipes like this and binding them into a cutsey cook-book -- another idea I got from said blog.)  The kids thought this was the best dinner we've ever had because they got to choose exactly what and how much they wanted in their omelet and mix it up themselves.  I have to say, they (the omelets, not the children) were pretty delicious.  And because you boil them in the ziploc bag you're not adding any fat.  Sweet.    I'd love to know if you all try it!  (As always, click the photo to enlarge.)

Shake & Bake, Baby

On a much lighter note today, I bake a mean banana bread, folks.  It won third prize in the New Mexico State Fair when I was ten. I've always been fiercely proud of that.  Always.  Even though, having now had a ten year old daughter, I understand that my mom probably really made that bread while I stood by "helping" in the way only ten year old girls can do.  I don't know why a third prize ribbon and a $9.00 check have meant so much to me over the years.  Especially when, in the immortal words of one Ricky Bobby, "If you're not first, you're last,"  and, "Second place is the first loser".  (Talladega Nights, people. Anyone?  OK)  Anyway, it's fantastic banana bread.  The only recipe I've ever made.  It makes especially good peanut butter and honey sandwiches.  Try it out.  And tell whoever eats it that this recipe won third prize in the New Mexico State Fair in 1983, because Ricky Bobby also said, "I tell everyone that.  I'm real proud of that."  Thanks.

(click the photo to enlarge)

Opposition

"One's life . . . cannot both be faith-filled and stress-free. . . . Therefore, how can you and I really expect to glide naively through life as if to say, 'Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken.  Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!' . . . Real faith . . . is required to endure this necessary but painful developmental process."
--Elder Neal A. Maxwell  (1926 - 2004) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, May 1991

My word, this blog has taken a serious turn, hasn't it? I just can't get a few things off of my mind lately, chief among them the idea of opposition.  The idea that the good (easy) and the bad (difficult) experiences in life so often come hand in hand. And the idea that their close proximity in our lives make the one all the sweeter and the other mostly bearable. 

I think for most of my life I truly believed that if I was a good enough person life would be easy for me and bad things wouldn't happen.  And, for the most part, I've  had a pretty idyllic, sheltered life to support that conclusion.  That's why when things occasionally took a turn for the worse, as a result of my own poor choices  or just by "random chance" (if such a thing exists), I went straight to a place of devastation.  "Why is this happening to me?"  I cried.  Or I prayed, "Please, make it stop."  All I could ever think in those dark times was that I just desperately wanted it all to go away because I didn't deserve it.  I was too good a person to be suffering.  And in that state all I could see was darkness.  I felt so alone, though I never truly was.   

The good thing about those dark times is that we can't help but emerge from them wiser.  I can see so clearly now how those difficult times have been, and continue to be, for my growth.  As I look to my future now, fully expecting to be challenged, I can see more than just the darkness.  I can see glowing "candles" of goodness and happiness all along the way -- the sweetness that I would never have known before I tasted the bitter. And, because of those lights, I can see, though vaguely at times, that I'm not alone.  And that soon, when the time is right and I've learned all I need to learn at the moment, I will emerge into the full light of the sun once more.

Life is hard, and it is so exquisitely wonderful at the very same time.