Cooking

I had someone ask me for a recipe that I haven't made in years. When I looked at the recipe I was surprised to find how much things have changed for me in the intervening years. Just looking at the recipe I remembered all the anxiety I had associated with making the dish. It was amazing just thinking back to what kind of cook I was 10 years ago. I remember being so concerned with the size of the garlic cloves in the recipe because it said small. I miss read the recipe the first time I made it and steamed -not stemmed- the jalapenos. I used all red tomatoes because my husband worried that the green tomatoes would kill people. Now I know it doesn't matter so much. I also am able to let things like that go a little bit. I'm still not great about letting recipes evolve but I now know that I don't need to be reminded to cover something before I put in the refrigerator. I also know that if I don't have the exact right type of onions available here(because let's face it, Idaho is not known for super developed palates-mine included!) it will be alright. It's onion Ruth, let-it-go!

Rest in Oregon

We went for awhile to collect our ourselves. It is so easy to do when away. We just got back yesterday. It was such a lovely time. I have only played with a couple of shots. I didn't get nearly as many photos as I thought I would. It seems that I was just soaking in the trees.

We each did what we needed. The kids played until they could play no more. Peter read and felt peace. I spent a great deal of time day dreaming and feeling joyful. What a blessing this vacation has been!

Crying

Crying is one of those things that can make me go crazy. As a mother this one of my great struggles. I have no idea why since most of the time I am on the verge of crying and feeling sorry for myself. I should clarify. If the kids are in pain I never feel frustrated. However when they cry when answering a question I have to fight to remain in control and not get angry. It feels like manipulation. And it frustrates me that they continue to do it even when I don't respond to it. And I'm talking pulling the hair out, running out of the room crazy. I have been known to raise my voice.

Today was one such day. Samuel spent a good portion of the day that whenever he spoke he started crying. I eventually sent him to bed for a rest until he was able to give me an answer to a question I asked him.

The whole point to this story is that it started making me think about God and how He feels when "we" (ME) always cry to him about life. When I am tired, frustrated, hungry, or disappointed I cry to Him about how hard life is. I wonder if He ends up wanting to treat me the way I deal with my kids. Maybe I'm in timeout. Because there has to be a reason I spend SO much time alone. Anyway, if you look at the Bible you don't read about how Jesus whines and cries about how hard it is to be human. Here you have the Lord of the ENTIRE universe walking around in human clothes dealing with the frustrations of being human but He didn't cry about everything. (I wonder if He felt depressed. I doubt it. Is depression a sin? Hm, maybe this a whole different blog post.) While Jesus did cry and asked to be released from what He had to do, He still did it.

I can't help but be reminded of how much God loves us when I am so weak that I cry to Him all the time and He doesn't yell at me.

Pictures

This is one of my favorite pictures I have taken in the last couple of days. When I look at it on my camera or computer it's really pretty. Somehow this doesn't look as nice. I just can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Oh, well. It's still nice. Here are some others.

The boys were pretending that they were refugees, or homeless, in the rain the other day. It was funny.

Here the guys are making breakfast on Saturday. Abraham is an excellent bacon maker. I think I will leave the bacon to Abraham until he leaves home. Then we will either have overcooked bacon from me, or someone else will save us. I'm hoping for the latter.

What to do with books

Since we have started homeschooling the books in our house have started to breed. It seems as though every time I turn around there are more books. Right now half of my dining room table is covered with books. I eat on the corner of the table surrounded by books. And the bar is mostly covered with books as well. There are some on the floor too. We got two pieces of furniture last year to try and accomodate all of the new items that we have aquired for homeschooling. However it seems as though it is not enough. So today I spent some time perusing decorating blogs to see what other people use to hold their books. This is what I would love.

Restoration Hardware

Isn't it lovely? However, I noticed that people don't keep books in their front rooms. This is very confusing to me. I grew up surrounded by books pretty much everywhere. I think that these bookcases would be great in any living area. What better to talk about than books!

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers. I thought I would celebrate by sharing one of my favorite pictures of my oldest and youngest.

When I "fixed" this photo in Elements it wasn't nearly as light. The color difference will take a bit of getting used to.

Crazy thoughts about older childhood

Disclosure: I had a colorful childhood with lots of interesting characters. If reading about AIDS and the like makes you uncomfortable, don't read.

I was reading somewhere else about the state of sex education in schools. I can't get over the fact that plenty of schools aren't teaching sex education at all. It's important. It scares you away from kids of the opposite gender! While they do reduce the chances, condoms don't prevent pregnancy. I know from personal experience. I have also come to discover that kids aren't having the begeebbers scared out of them with disgusting pictures. What's up with that? The drug needle pictures kept me WAY far away from drugs. And the STD pictures made me lose about 5 pounds and break up with my boyfriend. I wonder if graphic "stupid-teenager-driving -caused-this" videos are shown any more. I remember one where the stupid teenager killed a girl in his class and instead of going to prison he had to send her parents a check for 1 dollar every Friday. It made the guy crack up after 10 years.

But back to middle school. When I was in 6th grade I had a teacher die of AIDS. I didn't know it then, but my mom pointed it out to me the similarities surrounding his death and the things I had learned about AIDS. I think that she looked up his obit in the paper. He was my arts/drama teacher. He liked Michael Jackson, specifically "Man in the Mirror." I had never heard it before but it was a good song. I was supposed to lip sync a song in that class, but I think I remember him getting sick before it was my turn. During my sex ed class in 6th grade (I had one later in high school, it was the scary one) I remember the banana and the condom thing. But what I remember most was that my teacher couldn't find the ones to be used for the class so she went to go get one from her purse. What was she thinking?! I think she was trying to be provacative because she made a really big deal out of it. And I knew that she had just gotten divorced.

That middle school was really interesting. I learned a lot. Being sick and dying doesn't mean you can't still love what you do and feel passionate about it. Getting divorced can make you do really stupid things. And collecting frogs makes kids look at you like you're a frog. (My principal collected frogs and everybody thought she looked like a frog.)