Eggstastic

Seven years ago my youngest left home to go to college. At first I was so excited for him and for me, the future seemed unbounded, limitless horizon. Then Easter rolled around and I felt the most profound sense of loss when he couldn't come home. Suddenly I realized these last months weren't a vacation from parenthood, this was my new life. It felt really empty.

Feeling blue, I stared out the window thinking about how this new life with children who'd flown the coop was REALLY going to feel. In the middle of this reveries the next-door-neighbor's grandchildren were spilling out of the car and making happy children's noises.

From that happy noise the Grandma Brigade was born.

The Grandma Brigade in action

The Grandma Brigade waxes and wanes, but from the beginning it has been my good friend Joni and Joanie. Yes they have the same name, spelled differently but when the children are yelling "Grandma" we all answer. Sometimes other Grandmas join us, regardless we three have been coloring Easter eggs, making May baskets, gingerbread houses and Valentines together now for seven years.

Today was time to color the Easter eggs!

The oldest of our artists is now 11 and youngest at 5 wasn't even born when we started.  Isn't that the wonder of starting new traditions? In short order to an 11-year-old or 5-year-old our holidays traditions so recently started are just-the-way-things-are.

Through change and loss, love and growth, tears and smiles the network of friends and lives shared buoys us.

It is in expressing love through traditions shared,  simple acts liking dipping an egg in food coloring, squeezing half a bottle of white glue on some red construction paper so that we can sprinkle it with glitter, licking frosting off our fingers and the back of candy before we stick a candy cane on some gingerbread that we taste that sweet, silly thing called life.

Wishing you all the most blessed Easter.

Lemons, corned beef, cabbage friendship

March is being her usual mercurial self. March is like the eccentric old aunt come to visit.  Half the time I love her and the rest of the time I want to help her pack her bags and show her the door.

These past couple of weeks it's been all love with daily temps in the 60's, daffodils growing fat and promising to pop their bright yellow blooms, snowdrops in full bloom and the first tiny little scilla blossom peaking through last fall's dead leaves.

Despite the bright sunshine this morning, March is threatening to turn surly later today and tomorrow with snow back in the forecast.

So before March gets all crazy, I'm enjoying sitting in a bit of sunshine, sipping my lemon-ginger tea with the fresh Meyer lemons Maryann brought me from her neighbor's tree in Houston. These lemons from a stranger have been passed with love from one hand to another. More on that in a minute.

First we have a winner from last week's gratitude give-away. Louise who writes that she's grateful for a smile from her mum who has end stage dementia, the smell of hyacinths and the anticipation of blue bells.  Louise's list and other's who shared their moments of gratitude remind me that puny little gratitude isn't big and grand, it's everyday, readily available and so easily overlooked and forgotten that we can forget to stop for a moment and notice.  So thank you to all who wrote in, taking the time and effort to stop and feel that little spark of joy that gratitude gives us. Louise send your mailing address to felecia.babb@gmail.com, I'll put your painting in the mail post haste! Congratulations.

Back to the lemons.  Maryann's neighbor gave her lemons from his tree which she so thoughtfully brought to me.  Really fresh lemons, plucked right from the tree by the hand of someone who knows someone I know are more precious to me than a chest full of gold coins.

Thanks to this gift of lemons I spent yesterday in a happy reverie baking a lemon pound cake to take to Marijo's St. Patrick's day dinner.  The pound cake recipe called for sifted flour which meant pulling Mom's old sifter off it's shelf.  Somehow the sifter was given away or loaned out to a family friend, Susan, who kept it for 25 or 30 years before re-gifting it to me a few years ago.

My family isn't sentimental and so we cast off pictures, and household items without thought.  Susan has always been there to pick up the shards of memory, store and treasure them until she thinks one of us is ready and responsible enough to be trusted with the family treasure.

Sifting the flour reminded me of the all the cakes Mom, Susan and I've baked and shared. Such happy memories from a friendship that spans more than 50 years.

The recipe also called for nutmeg.  Mom gave me whole nutmegs and a small grater for Christmas this year.  We had fun making and drinking eggnog and then I put the nutmegs away and wondered when I'd have need of them again.  I had no idea what nutmegs look like.

Here's a picture with a penny to give you an idea of the scale of the nuts.  It delighted me to be able to put fresh nutmeg in the cake.  It felt like I was sprinkling a little extra love on top of the golden lemon juice as I folded the ingredients in.

Is there any better smell than lemon pound cake baking in the oven on a windy March day?  Maybe the rich smells of corned beef roasting?  Once the cake was baked, Prince Charming and I hot-footed it next door to Marijo's for her annual St. Patrick's Day feast of

corned beef, boiled cabbage,

roasted potatoes, Irish soda bread and Irish whiskey and Guinness

This story of love shared, started with a stranger giving away a lemon, which was then given away, squeezed and pulped and grated into a cake, shared with friends at the end of a feast. It took the stranger, Maryann, Susan, Mom, me and Marijo all giving and receiving, passing and sharing the love around to complete the story. So let March with all of her eccentricities batter at the door with wind and sleet, rain and snow. I've got my lemony sunshine of friendship, memory and tea to keep me warm.

Hope you're enjoying your day, take good care of each other until next week.

Here's the Lemon Cake Recipe adapted from All Recipes

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 cup butter 
• 2 cups white sugar

• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• Juice of two lemons
• 1/2 teaspoon of lemon zest
• 1 cup milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a bread pan. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the sour cream, vanilla and lemon extract. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the milk, mixing just until incorporated. Pour batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Amplified Gratitude

Snowdrops blooming in the garden today!

Sometimes angels sneak up on us and whisper profound, life changing secrets right into our hearts.   One Sunday, Pastor Peter hit me with a message so wise and helpful it took my breath away.

"The opposite of love is not hatred, but fear," Pastor Peter said. It was like he'd given me the secret handbook to life.  The opposite of happiness is not unhappiness but fear, the opposite of courage is fear, the opposite of creativity is fear.

Fear is the one trump card the Crazy Old Lady who lives in our heads has.  Her whole hand is the fear card. 

Fear tells us you're no good, you're self-indulgent, you have no talent, you're embarrassing your family, you're too emotional, you are wasting your time, you are too old, too fat and too stupid....the list goes on and on.

Happiness shrugs it's shoulders and says, "Well it may all be true, but who cares?" It takes our big scary monsters and personal demons and shrinks them down to size.  

Wonderful, just great, you may be thinking. Sign me up for that happiness pill,  book, program, whatever it is because I could really use some tonic for the pile of unpaid bills, the kids fighting, all of the folks who made me mad this week, the harsh thing my sweety said last night and the pile of laundry getting moldy in the basement.

There's no book, no pill, no program. Here's how to let a little squeak of happiness into your life-- amplify your gratitude.  

Just notice what makes you smile, feel a little warmer, a little lighter, stop resisting whatever is happening in your life, if only just for a second. Gratitude puts a stop to the  ceaseless yearning and longing for something else. Gratitude allows us to take delight in whatever is right in front of us.  

When I started noticing the warmth of sunshine on a late winter day, I could, just in that one moment feel a spark of gratitude.  I'll admit it was slow going at first and required effort to find five things I could be grateful for each day. Day by day, it got easier to find gratitude in more and more things.

Research suggests that if you record at five things that you are grateful for each day, you'll feel happier. Just five, every day. Better than a pill more like magic, you'll feel happier!

One of my wise and busy friends, Lisa,--a mother of two, owner of her own business with a husband and two dogs (not sure how Andy will feel about being lumped in with the dogs, but he's friendly, loyal and trustworthy so hopefully he'll take it well) uses DayOne app to take a picture and record a one-word diary entry on her smart phone.  However you choose to record your gratitude, just do it.  

As a way to get you thinking about what makes you grateful here are 10 things in my life that make me feel grateful:

Notes from friends

Hanging laundry on the line

Wearing hats

Taking a walk

Serendipity

Bike Riding

Sweet corn in August

Summer nights on the porch

 

Days spent on the water

Gardens, especially creating beauty in my own garden

And one bonus gratitude

First Snow

Dear ones I'd love to hear what makes you grateful. As a special thank you for sharing I'll be giving away this unique one-of-a-kind painting I made to one lucky winner who shares what makes you grateful in the comments below. Deadline for submissions is next Tuesday.

Dear readers you fill me with gratitude.  Take good care of each other until next week.  And don't forget to leave a comment!

Finding the Happiness Channel

When the bell strikes midnight, your gown ball turning from glitter and fairy tales to ashes and drudgery and you from the belle of the ball to the scullery maid, you can be sure you're in the heart of February.

It's time for a winter retreat. Our brains and bodies cry out for unplugging, turning down the volume, finding a way out of the 24/7 cacophony of email, meetings, to-do lists.  It's time to rest and notice the everyday things that make us happy, the things right within reach. Betsy Lerner calls it "that which cannot be extinguished even in the face of silence, solitude and rejection" which pretty much sums up February.

Credit: K. Thorne (Caltech) and
T. Carnahan (NASA GSFC) -
 See more here

 Recently scientist discovered the faint sound of two gigantic black holes colliding, the silent boom echoing for billions of years, only now heard.  Happiness is like that ancient echo.  It's ready for the taking, only you've got to have the right receiver to pick up the signal.

February, especially this Leap Year February with it's extra day gives us an extra chance at discovering happiness.

Happiness used to seem random and chancy to me, like a fairy god-mother who can change you from scullery maid to princess, but only for a few hours. Most days ended without even a squeak of happiness. Life felt like a forced march towards some gloomy end. Years went by with happiness just out of reach, each day another grey and gloomy February day.

Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue. -- Eugene O'Neill

My happiness receiver was broken and needed mending. Fortunately we are never alone when we've lost our way, God or Jesus or a higher power, however you think of it, the Universe even, is right there with us in our muddle and confusion willing and able to help us dial into the happiness channel, to find our way.

Rest
The natural world is resting in February. The Universe makes sure we get the point by covering the fields with feet of snow. Sure the Bible quotes God's call for resting on the seventh day, but did he really mean me?  Does he really mean you?  As it turns out he did mean me and he does mean you. We were designed to need at least seven hours of sleep.

After a few months of getting enough sleep passed, a little of the cloud and darkness of my February mind started to lift. I'd found the happiness signal, even if I couldn't quite hear it clearly.

Practicing Gratitude
I found the happiness channel by noticing who and what makes me happy.  Sounds simple, but the reason I wasn't dialed in on the happiness channel 24/7 was that happiness is so ordinary, I didn't notice it like lint clinging to everything.

I began a practice of noticing by recording five things I was grateful for each day, a gratitude journal. Journaling, every day, did a lot to fine tune reception of the happiness channel.

At first, there was a lot of static on the happiness channel, only the most obvious signals got through like a good cup of coffee.  Getting bored with finding ways to describe that first cup of coffee in the morning, I started noticing subtler happiness signals.

Like grapefruit spoons with their serrated edges, cutting out all the messy slicing of grapefruit flesh from membrane. Prince Charming introduced me to grapefruit spoons and to so much more happiness.  When I look at the the grapefruit spoons nestled neatly in the silverware drawer, it reminds me of spooning with Prince Charming before we fall asleep, the happiest moment of every day. Now, even when I'm not eating grapefruit, just opening the silverware drawer brings me happiness-- static-free, clear happiness channel getting through the clutter of a busy life.

Still some days static drowned out the happiness signal.  The static sounded a lot like the voice of the Crazy Old Lady who lives in my head, busy making judgements about me and everyone else. The Crazy Old Lady is always striking the midnight bell,  anxious to turn us from Cinderella back to the scullery maid we all know we are underneath whatever thin veil of success and accomplishment we may have used to cover the humbleness of our "true" talents.  The static screeches, "who do you think your are?!" over and over until it can drown out the happiness channel signal.

Meditation
Some good people I know, Pastor Peter, and  others I've read suggested they'd been able to filter out the static with meditation practice. Imagine my delight at the easy-peasy and oh so indulgent sounding sitting and do nothing for 20 to 30 minutes each day.

I thought they said that the meditation practice would shut-up the Crazy Old Lady.  I misunderstood.

It's not easy to sit for 20 to 30 minutes while the Crazy Old Lady rips. She's got a lot to say. She's not going to shut-up and she resents my shushing her. Given a platform, she takes full advantage.

After a while; when she's broken every dish in the house, hurled all the insults she can think of, and questioned your worth, her act gets boring.  You don't take it all so personally anymore. She runs out of new things to accuse. And maybe you start to think OK. I'm really as bad as she says, but I'm still a child of God, human, broken, impaired, selfish, egotistical and still here.

Maybe you move just the tiniest way towards accepting even the most broken parts of yourself.  You learn to live with the Crazy Old Lady in your head, her constant banter fades into the background. It's still there and she can crank it up from time to time, especially when you do anything new and difficult or life tosses you into a storm. The happiness signal may fade in and out, but you know how to dial the channel in anytime you choose.

February, with its gloom, grey, silent days when the thrill of winter is gone and spring is a breathy promise unrealized, is a time to dial down the the daily static and crank the happiness channel. God is the glue that can mend our brokenness, if we will only sit silently, after getting enough sleep and counting our blessings.

You, dear reader, are one of my blessings. Wishing you well into this leap year. Take good care of each other until next week.

Cabin Fever Cure

The wind blows, the snow falls and silence fills the air on wintry nights here in the heartland. It can get a little lonely, just Prince Charming and me looking at each other over dinner.  There's no gossip to share, no news from friends and neighbors.








I haven't seen the neighbors in weeks.  We rush in and out before our noses and fingers freeze.

There's the muffled wave to Mike, our neighbor across the street as he blows his drive out.  I assume it's Mike. He's so covered in coats, mufflers, hats and gloves, I can't be sure.

The window panes are coated thick with frost so I can't see when Marijo takes the dogs for a walk or catch Larry throwing the ball to his Portuguese water dog. It's a relief when the phone rings and it's Diana inviting us to dinner. There are to be seven of us.  What joy, what relief!

..having bowed to the inevitability of the dictum that we must eat to live, we should ignore it and live to eat...” ― M.F.K. Fisher, An Alphabet for Gourmets

The night for dinner arrives, perfectly frosty and frozen.  We're greeted at the door by Diana, with a fire blazing away, soft music and perfect cocktails.

Everything about Diana's house delights.

The spirited conversation where politics and religion are discussed at length. No one agreeing with anyone else, just like the politicians.  But we seem to have more fun disagreeing than they do. I adore dinner parties when the invited guests know how to disagree without being disagreeable.

Diana sets a beautiful table. One picture won't do it justice.

Here's one more of the centerpiece.  What a clever hostess Diana is. Doesn't a white lace table cloth look just like frosty windows?  All my lace table cloths are yellow.  I guess I'll have to get myself a white one for a pretty winter table.

I've seen these crystal trees before and turned up my nose at how much dusting they'd require. But perched here on a round mirror they're divine.  White, white everywhere you look and so pretty.

I'm always drawn to paper cut outs like this in the store.  But I walk right on by wondering how I'd ever use something like this.  Now I know and I can't wait to buy a snowflake, a heart, something, I don't know what, for St. Patrick's Day, a wonderful bunny or egg for Easter.  So much fun to be had so cheaply!  And to think I've missed out all this time.  Not Diana, she's rolling in the fun.

So elegant!

Dinner is served.  Diana has the perfect set-up for dinner parties.  Her dinning room is separated from the kitchen by a wall entered through a swinging door.  I know "open" plan is all the rage.  But if you're cooking dinner for seven people it is ever so much easier on the hostess if there's a little separation from the "mess" in the kitchen. As you can see Diana doesn't make much of a mess, but she makes an absolutely to die for dinner.

Diana started us off with cauliflower soup. Count me a cauliflower skeptic. But Diana's soup won me over. The soup was followed by melt in your mouth short ribs (recipes to follow).

"People who love to eat are always the best people.” Julia Child

Dessert was accompanied by a home made cherry cordial.  The cherries come from Diana's trees. Her son picks them when they are ripe in July and makes the cordial.  

How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?  Vita Sackville-West

The cherry cordial tasted of summer heat and ripeness, like eating cherries right off the tree, only sweeter and less buggy by far.

Prince Charming and I strolled arm-in-arm to the car under the indigo blackness of a moonless winter night.  The velvety darkness pin-pricked with star light, winter's cold seeping back into bones warmed with friendship, fire, food and wine the only known cure for cabin fever.

Here are Diana's recipes for cauliflower soup and short ribs.

Vegan Creamy Curried Cauliflower Soup

2 T extra virgin olive oil

2 medium white onions, thinly sliced

1/2 t. kosher salt

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 lb. head of cauliflower, trimmed and cut into florets

4 1/2 c. vegetable broth

1/2 t. coriander

1/2 t. turmeric

1 1/4 t. cumin

1c. coconut milk

Heat oil in large pot over medium heat till shimmering.  Cook the onions and 1/4 t. salt until onions are soft and translucent, 8-9 min.  Reduce heat to low, add garlic and cook additional 2 min.  Add rest of ingredients incl. remaining salt.  Bring to boil, then simmer till cauliflower is tender.  Puree in a blender in small batches or in the pot using an immersion blender.  Stir in coconut milk and warm the soup.  Adjust seasoning.  Serves 8.

Slow Cooker Short Rib Stroganoff

5 T flour, divided  

 1 T smoked paprika, divided

3 lbs. boneless short ribs

2 T oil   

 8 oz. whole mushrooms, cut in half

1 onion, coarsely chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 t. black pepper

3 T Worcestershire sauce

1 c. sour cream

Mix 4 T flour and 1 t. paprika.  Add to ribs; toss to evenly coat.  Heat oil in large skillet on medium heat.  Add ribs; cook 5 min until evenly browned, turning occasionally.  Place ribs in slow cooker, top with remaining ingredients incl. rest of paprika, except sour cream.  Cook on HIGH 6 hours or LOW 8-10 hours.  Remove ribs from cooker and tear into bite size pieces.  Return to slow cooker with sour cream and remaining 1 T flour.  Cook, covered, on LOW 10-15 min. or until slightly thickened.  Serves 8.

Vegan Creamy Curried Cauliflower Soup

2 T extra virgin olive oil

2 medium white onions, thinly sliced

1/2 t. kosher salt

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 lb. head of cauliflower, trimmed and cut into florets

4 1/2 c. vegetable broth

1/2 t. coriander

1/2 t. turmeric

1 1/4 t. cumin

1c. coconut milk

Heat oil in large pot over medium heat till shimmering.  Cook the onions and 1/4 t. salt until onions are soft and translucent, 8-9 min.  Reduce heat to low, add garlic and cook additional 2 min.  Add rest of ingredients incl. remaining salt.  Bring to boil, then simmer till cauliflower is tender.  Puree in a blender in small batches or in the pot using an immersion blender.  Stir in coconut milk and warm the soup.  Adjust seasoning.  Serves 8.

Felling a little cabin feverish yourself?  Call the neighbors, invite them over. Until next week, take good care of each other.

Adventure

When we were children there was so much to learn: how to tie our shoes, how to ride a bike, how to use a fork properly, timing a belch outside your mother's hearing to the delight of your friends and the disgust of your sister.

Failure and frustration were our constant companions along with sitting in time out while our sister smiled smugly just out of reach.

Slowly, painfully we learned with scraped knees and injured pride how to master riding a bike, write our own name.

As children, just as we mastered one skill another challenge presented itself. Once we'd learned to make our mark, the teachers introduce cursive writing.  Here we were back in the trenches together making  curvy, looping, shaky letters.

We graduated. Went off to college. Learned to manage our calendars, our bank accounts and our hearts. We slipped into comfortable routines. We became ourselves with mortgages and children's schedules, car maintenance and a yard to mow.

Those heady days of adventure and self discovery behind us, we became, at least in our own minds, a respectable, functioning adult. This gig of adulthood can be a weary treadmill. Our lives still contain failure and frustration, but it's an anxious kind of frustration full of questions: will I make the deadline, do I measure up, will the downsizing impact me? This adult failure and frustration has none of the joy of the wind in our hair as we bike down the street, wobbling from side to side.

Six or seven years ago, I found myself kayaking on Lake Superior with a group of couples and men. Prince Charming was back on shore, sick with a cold. The two person kayaks and those powered by the men, were soon far ahead of me as I struggled with the wind and waves and office worker arms to pull my paddles through the water with any kind of competence.

At first I was mad. I was mad that I was so weak.  I was mad at Prince Charming for being sick. I was mad at the others for not waiting.

And then something wonderful happened.  A tiny little shift of heart. Instead of being a mad, middle-aged woman in a kayak.  I was a six-year-old falling off my bike, skinning my knee on the gravel drive, crying mad, hot tears.

Suddenly I remembered that it all worked out.  I can ride a bike and tie my shoes and write my name in cursive, even if it's still shaky and barely legible.

I spent the rest of the time paddling and thinking about how comfortable I'd become in my routine. I'd put my heart in a safe deposit box and lost the key. It was time to search for the key to novelty and adventure.

Isn't it always true that when we go looking for something, we'll find it? I found my fount of inspiration in author and illustrator Vivian Swift's work and books--When Wanders Cease to Roam and Le Road Trip--A Traveler's Journal of Love and France.

Ms. Swift's beautiful watercolors of the everyday

Courtesy of Vivian Swift's blog

beauty

That is so easily overlooked, taken for granted

inspired me to tackle my own adventure--watercolor painting.

This adventure has been full of failure and frustration and many, many bad paintings. It's been like falling down Alice's rabbit hole into another world familiar and strange, in which skill is like the Cheshire Cat, fading in and out of view.  I've learned that tree bark is purple and blue and rocks are orange.

Routine feels comfortable and pretty soon it feels tired, worn, boring. Adventure lies within your grasp.  Check your heart out of the safety deposit box. Embrace the childish sense of adventure.  Take a piano lesson, zen doodle your heart out, rock out in a Zumba class, splash and thrash your way across a swimming pool. Life is so much richer.  

My adventure in painting has been an adventure in giving up the rather rigid confines of ego and control. It shatters my sense of competency. Doing something badly day after day, with only a little glimmer that I'm getting better makes me think twice before offering some unwanted, sure to be brilliant, piece of advice. Maybe I don't know as much as I think I know. Maybe life isn't as certain as I'd like it to be.  And then there's the thrill of seeing it all go well, only to ruin it with the next brush stroke and then paint my way back into beauty. Painting tests the power of fortitude, forgiveness and redemption.  

Anything that you do that invokes the childish sense of failure and frustration will send you through that amazing fortitude, forgiveness, redemption loop.  Go give it a try.

Take good care of each other friends until next week.