Prayers and Pictures

Heavenly Father, as I come to you tonight, I feel like I don't have anything else to give. Although I didn't have the normal twenty seven kids competing for my time today, my own kids have lobbed emotional grenades at me today that I simply could not have prepared for. I am so thankful for your constant balm on their wounded hearts (and mine). I pray now for their future spouses, that You would be the center of their marriages and that their children would be protected from the hurt they've known through divorce. Father, I also come to you in an attitude of complete thanksgiving. While my faith was little, you had plans for my future that were incomprehensible. I still stand in awe of the gift you've given our family in Ray. His calm nature and unblemished integrity provide a foundation which has steadied this whole family. Father, I'm laying today's heartbreaks and trials at your feet. Thank you for your grace and the strength that you offer us on a daily (and nanosecond) basis. Amen.

This week in pictures...

Brotherly love

Reading her first book

This was after her first REAL dentist visit where they actually tried to clean her teeth. Moments before this photo, she looked more like a Tasmanian Devil! They even put us in the special room with the door that closed to conceal the screaming!

Intermission at The Rockettes - She was the entertainment.

Everyone was on their "Mama will KILL you if you act crazy" behavior - including the big kid!

Pastor Aaron talking with the kids on Sunday morning.

The girls were up to something!

 

Happy birthday, Grandma!

 

By child #3, sitting on the floor in a restaurant and using your phone is a way to maintain your sanity and that of those around you, as well. Who knew that she was snapping photos of relative's legs?

 

Taking Ray to the airport for a Salesforce.com trip to San Francisco. We toyed with the thought of making it an escape week and I'd go along... but... I have this thing called a job and the week before Thanksgiving break isn't the most opportune time to go AWOL!

Annie is getting ready for her first ballet recital.

Car line commentary - I absolutely LOVE mornings when I can drop the kids off at school. You just never know where the conversation will end up with Annie!

Annie's Thanksgiving Feast - She was the pilgrim in the back row who cried through all four songs!

Pouty Pilgrim wanted her daddy.

Thank goodness, a little turkey and mac n cheese turned her frown upside down!

Finally, a picture of the pilgrim with a smile!

Annie's new favorite - Where's Waldo. These darn books are worse than the I Spy ones or even the Dr. Seuss ones that seem to go on forever! However, Annie is sort of a Waldo freak and can find him faster than I can. I admit to Googling the solution to one page because I was thinking about ripping the page out since I couldn't find him myself!

 And that, my friends, is the photo update for the last week. I know you can all sleep more peacefully knowing that our sanity is still shaky!

Good night, all!

 

The Pioneer Woman as played by... ME!

Well, as most of you know, I've absolutely never claimed to be any sort of domestic diva. In fact, there are some days that I just pray that my domestic skills don't kill or permanently scar someone! So, I'm always on the lookout for cooking blogs and recipes. As a general rule, I like to find recipes which incorporate whole foods and look like something Emeril or Martha whipped up, but are pretty dummy proof. I thought that I'd found the jackpot a few years ago when Ree Drummond came onto the scene. She wrote with humor, and understood the necessity for serving real food on a somewhat reasonable budget. As Ree became more popular though, her blog got fancier and the photos that accompanied her recipes got more elaborate. And... The Pioneer Woman was born. She had her own Food Network show and lots of other fancies. I've continued to follow her blog and snatch her recipes, but I do shake my head as I look at the background of those photos at her fancy schmancy kitchen. Anyone could cook a perfect meal if they had a million dollar kitchen - right? So... here's what I decided to do. In order to justify my crappy cooking skills and inform Ray that I'll never be able to be anything more than an average sous chef without a million dollar kitchen, I've recreated one of the Pioneer Woman's recipes for your viewing pleasure.

Today, my friends, we're going to make Potato Soup. I think that Pioneer Lady calls it PERFECT Potato Soup. However, my version is called Practical Potato Soup.

Let me start by thieving the ingredients for this straight from Pioneer's site... I added my own comments in italics.

6 slices Thin Bacon, Cut Into 1-inch Pieces (Am I really going to COUNT the pieces)?

1 whole Medium Onion, Diced (Medium is definitely a relative term)

3 whole Carrots, Scrubbed Clean And Diced (Or, just buy a bag where the little boogers are already cut).

3 stalks Celery, Diced (Lovingly chopped is just about as much love as celery is going to get from me).

6 whole Small Russet Potatoes, Peeled And Diced (once again, small is relative)

8 cups Low Sodium Chicken Or Vegetable Broth

3 Tablespoons All-purpose Flour (I'm not going to dirty up a tablespoon just to measure flour)

1 cup Milk

1/2 cup Heavy Cream

1/2 teaspoon Salt, More To Taste

Black Pepper To Taste

1/2 teaspoon Cajun Spice Mix (What? There's nothing in my cupboard that says Cajun Spice Mix).

1 teaspoon Minced Fresh Parsley  (Once again, the parsley in the little jar on the spice rack does NOT say fresh or minced).

1 cup Grated Cheese Of Your Choice

Now... Moving on to the actual directions. Here's how you're going to put all of this together. Or, should I say, "Here's how I would put all of these ingredients together?"

Bacon. This is like the flute that the Pied Piper used to lead the children out of the city. The smell of bacon will make the wiliest child come out of their hiding place and put their iPhone down. So, chop up whatever bacon comes in the package. The recipe calls for six slices, but what are you going to do with leftover raw bacon? I don't cook breakfast, so it's just going to get shoved to the back of the fridge and turn unnatural colors and emit nasty smells. So, just cook the whole darn package.

Notice that I don't have some fancy high dollar pot to cook the bacon in. I have an IKEA wok! Yes, a wok! Don't judge me. The bacon got cooked to a perfect crunchiness.

Um, I also don't have a fancy lid for my fancy IKEA pot, either. Someone (I won't call names) dropped the lid while loading the dishwasher and it burst into a gazillion pieces. So, after choosing this pot as my vat of choice, I realized that if I didn't cover it, I was going to actually have to clean the whole stove area and rid it of spattered bacon grease. So... I used the biggest bowl I own to cover it all up! I'm so dang smart! See? I should get extra Martha Stewart points on my chart for being able to be successful against all odds!

Seriously? I'm glad I cooked the whole dang package. That stuff shrivels up to absolutely nothing. It's sort of like a teacher's paycheck!

Then, you'll need to chop up the onion. This should be pretty simple, but when there's a four year old calling for you to fix the computer because ABC Mouse won't let her color the right picture, even chopping an onion can take a while.

Then, there's the celery. Did you know that they make Biggest Loser celery? I don't care if they put a picture of SpongeBob on this stuff, I can't stand it. I like it even less with the skinny Nazis on the front of it. I should have sat the bacon right next to the trio and let them inhale the fumes.

Then, there's the carrots. Pioneer Woman wants you to use real carrots like the Easter Bunny carries around. She wants you to clean (scrub) them and chop them. Whatever. Just buy a bag where they've already done that for you. Duh!

 So, maybe I should have bought the shredded carrots instead of the chips. I still had to chop those suckers up and they were really hard. Every time I sliced through them, they went flying everywhere. It's recipes like this that make me miss having a dog who'd sit at the edge of the kitchen and wait for anything to hit the floor! Anyway, just get the dumb carrots into bite sized pieces.

 

So, you've now got the onions, celery, and carrots all chopped up into nice little pieces. Then, you'll dump all of that back into the wok that you didn't clean out thoroughly so that the bacon grease will coat the outside of those crunchy little veggies and negate every single nutrient in them. Please take note to be very careful when you initially pour the majority of the bacon grease out of the pan, though. Even the tiniest little dribble of grease on a tile floor will wreak major havoc. Oops.

Then, there's the potatoes. Once again, I'm not showing off any high prices cooking pieces. The colander shown in this picture has been used as a hat and a drum multiple times, but it still gets the job done! The recipe calls for six small potatoes. Ok. Who gets to choose what "small" looks like? I knew that I was going to be feeding a big crew, so I just washed the whole bag. Seriously? What are you going to do with one or two leftover potatoes? They end up sitting in the bottom of the cupboard, sprouting enough eyes to be classified as a martian, and then they start to ooze and smell like a science project gone bad.

I thought the easiest way to take care of the potatoes would be to use the vegetable peeler to de-peel the potatoes. However, the peeler was MIA. What's the next best thing? A husband, of course! Ray ended up on KP duty (killing potatoes).

Most times, when Pioneer Fancy Pants chops her veggies, they come out in very uniform shapes. Who cares! My potato chunks might not be uniform, but I can spell with them! I bet Ree has never pulled that sort of edible intelligence off before! Ha!

After you have all of the potatoes chopped up, you throw those in with the bacon grease coated veggies. Do you still call them veggies when they're coated in pig fat? Anyway, you throw in some salt and pepper, too. Fancy Pants gives exact measurements, but I'm not going to dirty up a teaspoon just to measure salt. I just throw some into the pot and hope for the best. (This is normally the attitude that keeps my cooking out of any kind of high class competitions).

I think I should even get extra points for creativity for throwing in a spice that wasn't mentioned in Pioneer's original list. I don't know where I got this stuff, but you can throw it in anything. The original recipe calls for Cajun Spices, but there's nothing in my spice rack that says, "Cajun," so I just figured that this might kick it up a notch - BAM! Or not.

Then, after you've let everything sizzle for a while in your handy dandy wok, you pour in some chicken broth (or stock, if you're illiterate and think the words stock and broth look alike). Ree Ree's recipe calls for 8 cups. In alignment with my illiterate status, I also got an F in mathematics for this recipe. Eight cups would equate to 64 ounces since 8X8=64. Yes, I'm a 3rd grade teacher, and I know my multiplication facts. However, as you can see, this box of stock only had 32 ounces in it. Duh! Did I mention that while I was trying to solve my mathematical dilemma, Dasha was sitting at the table trying to complete a worksheet about elements and Annie had given up on the computer and was now watching Dora in the background? Please take note that Prissy Pioneer never has those sorts of distractions in the background. Once again, I'm giving myself some bonus points!

I dug around in the cabinet and discovered that I did have another box of chicken broth... oh, wait. That's what I was supposed to use to start with . Dang. Anyway, I was too lazy to measure out an exact amount to make exactly eight cups, so I just tossed the whole darn thing in. Like I said, I knew that I would be feeding a lot of people, so the more the better. Right?

This is what it looked like. Oh, did I mention that I moved the whole concoction out of the wok and into a stock pot? Once again, this stock pot has served as an awesome percussion instrument and seems pretty indestructible.

 

Since this meal was actually intended to be eaten the next day, I figured that this would be a good stopping point. I lidded the whole thing and put it in the fridge. I don't have the luxury of one of those nice big fridges that you could hide dead bodies in, so I had to rearrange the entire contents of the fridge prior to being able to stash the pot. More points for me.

On day two, after a long day at work, I heated the "soup" back up and then used an immersion blender to hack up some of the potato chunks. Pioneer's directions called for removing 2/3 of the "mixture" and blending it and then returning it to the pot. No way! I was not going to pour burning hot soup out of a huge pot into a tiny blender only to return the whole mess back to the original pot. That's stupid! That 2/3 that I removed would probably end up being about one cup after all of the spillage I'd have. So, the immersion blender worked out well for my laziness. Please note that while this was all going on, I was trying to dress Annie for ballet. Do you know how hard it is to get a leotard on a wiggly kid? And getting the tights on? Ha! If we made folks successfully get a pair of fragile tights on a ticked off toddler prior to allowing them to reproduce, we'd prevent a lot of folks with anger management issues from reproducing. Wow. That was really off topic.

So, next, you mix some flour and milk together so it looks sort of like pancake batter (or milk that's been held captive in a sippy cup under the car seat for a few weeks). Once again, measuring simply dirties up more dishes. This is where judgement and common sense (or lack of) comes into play.

Then, you add this stuff. The recipe only calls for 1/2 cup, but, I don't want to be wasteful and I know that the remainder of this tiny little carton will get shoved to the back of the fridge and mutate. So, I just dumped the whole thing in. Pioneer Princess can't ever say that I'm wasteful.

Finally, you get something that looks like this. I didn't have any time to lovingly ladle this into pretty bowls and garnish it. Maybe Pioneer's family appreciates that sort of frivolity, but my crew would think I'd lost my mind if I served them something that looked pretty.

 

So, that's how this whole Practical Potato Soup works. I don't have fancy granite counter tops to sparkle in the background of the photos. I have good old laminate stuff that covers particle board below to provide adequate counter surfaces. I also don't have mega-dollar appliances or cooking ware. However, I do manage to cook dinner without killing anyone - usually - just ignore that earlier comment about dead bodies in the fridge.

 

But, if that wasn't enough for you, and you need to feel even better about your cooking skills, here's what happens when I'm not "on camera."

 

I saw this great thing on Pinterest about budget dinners for the slow cooker. I'm not a fan of dark meat of any kind, but I thought I'd give this a try after seeing a bag of chicken drumsticks at BJs that would feed all of the third world nations for only $10. I thought I could easily skin them (the drumsticks - not the third world countries) and then toss them in the pot. Ha! Do you know how hard it is to skin drumsticks? I was gagging with every slimy tug. I lost count of how many drumsticks hit the floor or went flying out of my hands as I tried to take that nasty skin off. Ugh. After a few unsuccessful strategies to take the stuff off, I threw them in the pot with the skin on. Oh well.

 

I dumped the BBQ sauce right over them just like the directions said. I clapped the lid down over those nasty things, turned the cooker to low, and left for work.

 In the words of Brittany, "Oops, I did it again."

 

So, you can see why I feel compelled to search out worthy recipes and things that I can cook without causing too much damage. I guess I'll continue to follow Princess Pioneer to get some good ideas. However, if we were to ever be put toe-to-toe in an everyday person's kitchen, I think I could take her.

 

 

Good night, all.

 

Oh, here's the link if you want to check out this Perfect Pioneer for yourself...

http://thepioneerwoman.com/

 

 

Forfeiting Your Peace (and sanity)

forfeit: something to which the right is lost, as for commission of a crime or misdeed, neglect of duty, or violation of a contract.

 

 

I'm not exactly sure how this is going to turn out. I'm just giving you an honest heads-up. I have so many blog topics romping around in my head like ginormous hippos that have sprouted wings and can manage to get just enough momentum to take a flying leap. Ok. That was weird. I'm glad we got that image out there. Anyway... tomorrow will mark four months since Ray and I tied the knot and he publicly committed himself to this funny farm. Some days, I'm still in shock that I'm married. (I'll always be in shock that I'm a mom and actually responsible for other human beings). If someone had told me a year ago that I'd be livin' la vida loca with Prince Charming, I would have laughed in their face (politely, of course). I won't lie. The transition has had quite a learning curve. No. Correction. This journey has had learning booby traps. (Go ahead and laugh. I giggle on the inside every time someone says, "Booby trap!)" Yeah... this is why I work with 3rd graders! Learning to live as a married couple with three ever-present chicken nuggets is difficult. Privacy is non-existent and, despite the "Do Not Disturb" sign that Ray thieved from Best Western and hung on the door, Annie can't read so she just flings the door open with no regard for the counseling that it might take to undo what she sees! (Clorox is on aisle three if you'd like to delete that whole thought from your brain, as well). And, those conversations or explanations that would be nice to have at the onset of an issue (i.e. me getting angry because I assumed that he assumed that I'd have dinner on the table prior to his arrival) just can't be aired in an efficient manner with three kids bounding around or calling for their fanny to be wiped, homework questions regarding elements to be answered, or questions about the purpose of reading a particular boring book for lit / comp are being fired like buck shot! As I said in my previous post, the potential for explosion is exponential.

 

Many times, I feel like I'm being pulled in several different directions and Ray feels like he's helpless. He would absolutely do anything possible to be helpful. (This does not include using throwing knives with Grant INSIDE or having a full out WWW match in the middle of the bedroom). But, there are some things that he just doesn't feel comfortable doing yet. For example, Dasha has had several doctor's visits lately. He would have been more than happy to take her, but he didn't know how to fill out the paperwork or her medical history. It's sort of hard to fill out her birth history when we don't know it. Many doctor's will question your reason for writing UNKNOWN across that section and then you have to go into the details of adoptions. I'll admit that I've thought about telling them that child birth was so wretched that I had to be completed knocked out and I just didn't remember any of the details. But, these kinds of things are hard for Ray to step in to handle. Discipline is the other area that has been somewhat of a tightrope act. While I'd sort of gone with the mantra of survival of the fittest over the last few years, Ray would like to see the kids have some sort of behavior expectations. Don't get me wrong, I'm in complete agreement, but I created a three-headed monster with my lack of firm boundaries. Now, if you know my kids, you know that they are relatively good kids when they are in public. They know that as an educator, my kids need to look the part of well-behaved and polite children (or else). However, behind the asylum doors, they had grown accustomed to doing what they wanted, whining to get what they wanted, and basically being my equals. Ray didn't want to come in and play "bad cop." So, we had to have some time to come up with expectations and consequences. However, it was sort of like trying to draw out new plays in the play book while we were in the middle of the big game! My point? While the last four months have been incredible, there have definitely been some bumps.

 

One of the biggest bumps that I keep stumbling over, though, is myself. By nature, I'm a people pleaser. I've spent much of my life doing what I thought others expected of me. Most times, those expectations were never even real.  Believe it or not, the lack of Ray's expectations is what has continued to stump me. I'd never really realized it, but who I thought I was had been based on others' expectations. I was a creation of the person I thought my parents wanted me to be. What Eric had wanted. What my bosses expected. And, what the church implied was right for a "good girl." I'd been stuffed so full of expectations that I'd never really figured out the real me. Now, I did get a little bit of a crash course in Me 101 after Eric left. But, what I'd done was fill the void left by his removed expectations with others' expectations. Am I making any sense to anyone? It's so hard to type out matters of the heart. On the outside, I was playing a really good game. On the inside, I was trying to figure out who I was. There were a few things that I was sure of during that crazy time - my relationship with Christ, the need to protect my kids, and the knowledge that I couldn't continue to be Superwoman.

 

Over the last few years, I've started figuring out who the real me is. I've done quite a bit of figuring. It's not easy to engage in self-discovery with three kids in tow. Dating is also another thing that really isn't a great thing to engage in while you are in a discovery phase. I think this is the phase that most kids go through while they are away at college and during those early adult years. I never went away for college. I went straight from living at home to being a wife, and not too long after that, a mother. I simply never went through that phase of life. I feel like I'm rambling and getting miles away from my point. My point... oh yeah, I'm still doing lots of self-discovery when it comes to being a wife. Thank goodness, Ray is also doing the same thing when it comes to being husband. We are figuring things out together.

  

Ok. I'm going to leave that last paragraph, although, I feel like it's part of of song, "One of these things just doesn't belong here... One of these things is doing their own thing..." For some reason, it's important to me to leave that piece of my heart on the table. So... I'll leave it there. Weird.

 

But, I am going to get back to the whole point of this. For years, I'd heard pastors talk about the Enemy stealing your peace. I went through a time of believing that my peace had been stolen. However, as I learn to operate on a plane without expectations from worldly influences, I realize that I forfeited my peace. It wasn't stolen. I never doubted my relationship with Christ, but I sure made the choice to step away from the promises of peace that He gave to me. I always think about the song by Scott Krippayne that talks about Him calming the storm sometimes, but other times, He calms His child. The peace was always there. For some reason, it was just easier for me to writhe my hands, worry, and forfeit my peace.

Well, that really wasn't where I'd planned to go with this rant, but... I'm learning to stop planning every single detail and leave some room for Him to work. Is that easy for me? Heck, no!

Let me wrap this up before the girls end up getting high on the Sharpie fumes that they are currently breathing. (Hey, they got all excited and started pretending to cooperate and love each other when I let them play with the Sharpies! Don't judge... At least I didn't turn the TV on... Oh, never mind. They turned it on by themselves). The point that I was trying to veer back around to was that while the last four months have held incredible bliss and a new found freedom in being a wife without worrying too much about others' expectations, there have been some moments where I've basically had to perform open heart surgery on myself while Ray and the kids stood by watching. It's so much easier to fix other people than deal with your own issues. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.

"Why do you see the speck in your brother's eye but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?" Matthew 7:3

The mischievous side of me wonders what sorts of beams Dr. Phil might have lodged in his own eye. Geez. See? That was completed ridiculous. My ADD is kicking in and I'm having a hard time not chasing squirrels. I'm out of blogging practice!

Must. Get. To. The. Point... As I begin living a life full of knowing who I really am, my dreams for the future are becoming more vivid and I'm not fearful of the open doors that are lining the hallways. I've spent the last several years making excuses for not stepping through those open doors. Now, although it scares the stuffing out of me, I'm ready.

Marriage to Ray has been both the easiest and hardest thing that I've ever done! To fall asleep at night (after elbowing a snoring giant multiple times) in the arms of a man who loves me despite my lack of domestic skills and continues to tell me that he loves my heart and could care less about anything else, is freeing. While some of you might laugh and say, "Give it a year and the honeymoon will end." Well, go ahead and say what you want. I'll leave it at that... Marriage has also brought growing pains and recognition of many bruises, scars, and gaping wounds left from my past. However, for anyone who knows anything about medical issues (um, not me, but I'm going to pretend to be knowledgable since I slept at a Holiday Inn Express once - remember that commerical?), you know that for any wound to heal, it must be cleaned out before it can be properly bandaged. And, healing will never come to a wound that is infected. Well, it's not a walk in the park to have those wounds cleaned out. It hurts. It can be maddening. At moments, it can be so painful that you wonder if the cleansing is worth it. However, in the hands of the ultimate Healer and with my husband's gentle touch, I will continue to hold on to the peace that passes all understanding and won't forfeit it.

"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:7