Pinterest Kinda Night

Last night was a Pinterest kinda night.  I've made these recipes before but thought I would share with you.  If you are like me  you are always looking for new recipes to add to your repertoire.  I give you Irish Stew with Mashed Potatoes and Firehouse Cornbread. 

Cornbread is a funny thing.  I grew up on beans, cornbread, mashed potatoes, traditional Southern foods.  Mama's cornbread was simple and dry.  Eggs, buttermilk, corn meal, bacon grease.  That's it.  It was mixed and poured into a cast iron skillet that was only used for that sacred bread.  I ate it each night (literally) covered with mounds of butter in an effort to moisten it.  Though my mama was an amazing cook and I rarely turned anything down she made, I longed for the sweet moist cornbread served at school.  This may explain why, as an adult, despite mastering most of what she made for us (and more), I cannot master her cornbread recipe and have been for years on the search for the perfect cornbread.  This one is close, friends.  Very close.

Oh!  If you know me, you know that I often adjust recipes to suit my needs.  With that said, the Irish Stew recipe is perfect as is.   I changed Bisquick to Pamela's Baking Mix in the Cornbread and I reduced the sugar from 1/2 cup to 1/8.  Future recipes I'll only reduce it to 1/4.  It needed just a little more sweetness! 

“Her corn-cake, in all its varieties of hoe-cake, dodgers, muffins and other species too numerous to mention, was a sublime mystery to all less practised compounders.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' (1852)

Mother's Day Rant

I stumbled across this great post from a fellow blogger today.  For all you moms....read on and enjoy!

http://www.rantsfrommommyland.com/2013/04/the-truth-about-mothers-day-gifts.html

Dana

Chicken Risotto

1 lb. chicken breast tenderloins, chopped into chunks
1 cup arborio rice 
1 large bell pepper (any color), chopped
1 32 oz. box chicken stock
2 tbs. butter
1 tsp salt
pepper to taste
1/2 tsp thyme
Up to 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese or parmesan cheese

Melt butter in large skillet.  Add chicken and pepper.  Cook on med low for approximately 10 minutes, stirring occasionally (can be allowed to brown if desired).  Add the rice.  Stir.  Pour 1/4 of the stock into the skillet.  Add salt, pepper and thyme.  Bring to boil.  Turn down to low, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add 1/3 of the REMAINING stock or 8 oz.  Repeat previous step (turn down, cover and simmer).  Repeat this process two additional times.  When adding the remaining stock, add the cheese as well.  Keep on low or warm and stir until cheese is fully blended in dish.  After 15 minutes turn off and allow to sit for 10 to 15 minutes (still covered) to set dish.  Enjoy!

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Making Lemonade

As a mom I frequently find myself telling my children (at least in my head) to get over it.  Stop fighting.  Work out their differences.  Make a good choice.  In essence....make lemonade.  You know the old saying - when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.  I think it is time I took my own advice.

As a person who has spent so much of her life with a bowl of lemons and finding myself frequently picking myself up and just carrying on I wonder how much joy I have missed and how many opportunities I have lost by not making lemonade.  Probably more than I would like to admit.  Right now as I look around at a house that needs a good cleaning, knowing that there are not enough hours in my day today to do all of the things I would like to do, hearing my husband tell me one of the cats not only caught their own dinner but decided to eat it on my nice new deep freeze in the garage and facing another 5:45 Executive Committee meeting for the Board of Directors I sit on, it is difficult to not make a sour face at the bowl of lemons in front of me.  

But today is the day I make a better choice.  Today I am going to focus on the fact that this is the LAST Exec meeting I have to attend as I am rolling off the Board as of Monday night.  Today I am going to focus on the precious hours of swimming I get with my kiddos this morning.  Today I am going to think about the fabulous weekend alone with my husband I am going to have in Atlanta seeing some great new products for my business.  Today I am going to not stress about the house and just know that all will be well. 

The reality is that I am beyond blessed.  I live in a fantastic house and am driving a new car.  I just landed my dream job and am going to be spending each day doing something that I am so passionate about and it just happens to be on the same campus where my children attend school.  I have a great husband and so much support in my life.

As I think this morning about why I have soured the last week or so and not found the sweetness of life I realize I am in transition.  I am transitioning responsibilities in the organization I have volunteered with and now will be working for.  I am transitioning from dreaming about the dream job to starting the dream job.  I am transitioning into the middle of my life.  I tell myself that this too shall pass.  

So, with those things said.....I have a bag of lemons in the fridge and am headed into the kitchen to make lemonade to take to the pool while the kids swim with their friends and I chat with mine.  Today, make lemonade.  I don't believe I'll only live once, but I do believe I'll only live this lifetime once.

My Secret Garden

You may not know this about me but one of my favorite things to do is garden.  I think there is little else that gives me the satisfaction of a perfectly tended flower bed, freshly weeded and mulched.  We inherited some really sad flower beds in this home filled with plants that are not pretty or plants that are placed in the wrong part of the yard due to the sun or drainage or things I simply do not like.  Check out this collage of one of the beds that I recently recreated. 

On Becoming Forty

When I woke up yesterday it seemed like a normal day. I showered and then dressed in the uniform I now find myself wearing each day. A blue polo with the YMCA insignia over the left breast, black yoga pants, new Nike's. Though it seemed like a normal day, I knew I was in transition. It was my birthday and I was slowly throughout the day becoming.....40. Forty, 40, 4-0. How did I get here? How have 40 years passed me by? Did I enjoy them? Have I accomplished anything? Have I enjoyed each and every day the way that I should have?

Yesterday moved in slow motion so I can easily replay the day in my mind. There was a significance in the day, though I do not entirely know why. After all, it was just another day.

Once ready for my day I hopped in my car to begin my twenty minute journey to work which included picking up breakfast as part of my birthday treat for myself. A few weeks ago a friend loaned me Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd, one of my favorite authors. I had let it sit, simmer really, on my bedside table until I was ready to listen to it or until I had enough days in the car sans the kids that I could listen and enjoy it. I had no idea what the book was about but do know I was unprepared to listen to Kidd speak of turning 50 and the self examination she was going through. I wasn't prepared to listen to her speak of loss in regards to her daughter's coming of age and college graduation. I was quickly in tears and ejected the CD from the player – only to return to it later in the day when I had caffeine and a full stomach and better perspective of this seemingly normal day.

After a morning of cheerfully welcoming folks to the Y I headed to Moe's Southwest Grill for my free birthday lunch – a huge disappointment as I opted for a salad instead of my usual nachos. Hopefully dinner would be much better, though I wasn't sure (I was still uncertain as to whether or not my family had anything planned for such a normal day.) I spent the rest of the afternoon car shopping and then made my whirlwind tour around the city picking up the kids from two camps about as far apart from each other as they could be and still be in the county.

Still moving in slow motion we met Nathan at home and he and the kids took me out for a surprise. After slowing down at the Taco Bell, circling the Logan's parking lot, telling me we were headed for Cracker Barrel (you get the idea), my dear hubby pulled up at an entrance of the Opryland Hotel, dropped the kids and I and then parked the car. Now my birthday is getting good. We strolled through the hotel and made our way to Ravello's which sits among lush indoor landscaping, offers comfy chairs and serves house made pastas, local gelato and an overall great time. Another hour exploring the hotel and then home to bed. A great night out and 3 fantastic birthday cards were my gifts (along with some goodies I get to purchase this weekend). In all, it was a great day.

In so many ways yesterday was a very normal day, but I was acutely aware throughout the entire day that a shift was happening inside of me. To be honest, the shift has been happening for weeks – my awareness has shifted and it is as if I am opening to the potential of life in a different way than I have in the past and yesterday was the day that it solidified within me. I say solidified – if anything in life is ever solid.

I spent my childhood waiting for adulthood to arrive. Once an adult (or at least old enough to pretend to be) I embraced life. I worked hard and played hard and then prayed hard until I married and we began our family. My thirties sort of moved by in a haze. Having children, not sleeping (due to said children), navigating an adoption, kindergarten, the loss of a parent, the responsibilities of civic commitments....it seemed like I was still going full force like in my twenties but not awake or aware.

That is the shift.

I have reawakened and am aware of life once again. Maybe it's the move into middle age. Maybe it's realizing that the children are growing up and we have only 8 more years of Noah being home with us and that Arwyn's legs are growing longer and she is no longer a baby. Maybe it's knowing that the passion I lived life with in my twenties became everyday life in my thirties and I once again want to be passionate. Maybe it's that I have lifed life and have lived a great one but have not been as purposeful as I should have been and am claiming purpose now. Whatever it is the shift happened and now, today, I AM FORTY.