Celebrating LIfe!

Yesterday was my birthday.  I love my birthday.  This year I am 33, the Jesus year.  I don't really know what that means, but people keep saying it to me.  Does that mean it will be my year of greatest trimuph or greatest heartbreak?  Only God knows.  I just pray I will handle my year, my circumstances and my troubles and joys with grace and eyes set on Christ.

Yesterday was my Birthday.  My mom always made sure that we felt very special on our Birthday.  It was our day and our day alone.  What I realize more and more is how I want to celebrate other people on my birthday.  To be surrounded by the people who love you, put up with you, listen to you, walk through life with you.  Hold you up when you fall miserably, pray with you when you are broken, cheer you on when you are inspired, encourage you when you are doing well.  My community gets celebrated today because they love me, invest in me, and make me who I am.  Yesterday we celebrated God's intimate design of our lives together.  Thank you for being here with me.  Last night we celebrated with cake and a bonfire and cocktails.  All food recipes come from www.thespunkycoconut.com.

Celebrate Life today!

This cake is THE BEST Vanilla cake I have found.  It was moist and fluffly  and amazing.  Totally made my day.

Who doesn't want a side of fresh berries and cream?  The blue and white dish came from Paul's grandma and the yellow dish I snagged at a pop up sale here in the cities.  So happy it lives in my home.

Terrible photo, amazing pie.  Mint coconut freezer pie with chocolate crust.  Recipe can be found at Spunky Coconut blog.

The candles were free from a friend.  The holder was found recently in our garage attic by another friend and the lace table cloth was purchased at an antique store for $3!  You heard me right.  I layered it on another yellow table cloth and the effect was perfect!

Peach and Cherry cocktails served in mason jars in an antique milk carries that I snagged at a shop with mom years ago.  I love bringing out small pieces that we don't usually use for special occasions like this.

Sangria served out of a large glass container usually reserved for oatmeal.  There wasn't much of this left over by the end of the night.  Perfection.

This beautiful addition was fond for $10 at a thrift store over a year ago and it was its first appearance tonight.  I did notice it has a small leak, but I hope to fix that.  I added fresh mint from the garden to freshen the water.  It was delish.

Mmmmm.... A slice of both cakes plus fresh berries.  I decided that since the yellow cake is made out of beans with no sugar and the mint pie is raw, I was in good shape to have two pieces.  So good.

I found old Terra Cotta pots in my garage, filled them with dirt, added more free candles and topped off with glass hurricanes that my mom and purchased for a $1 a piece at a garage sale.  Such a steal!  I placed them around our plants in our garden for more mood lightening.

Since we were eating and drinking, I brought out our TV trays and drapped them in fun scarves or fabric I had around the house.  I made small bouquets of mint in juice glasses for a table topper and lit a few candles.  The draped tables added to the effect of my garden party.  So did these ladies dresses.  They fit right in and made it perfect.

I made sure to have a wine table stocked with glasses.  Cocktails were popular, but we all ended our evening with a wonderful bottle of red.

For some reason, I love having wooden chairs around a campfire.  These were salvaged from a heap out back of a house that was severely damaged after the tornado.  To far gone to be kitchen chairs, but perfect for outside.  I love free chairs.

We had twinkle lights, a bonfire, amazing food, even better drinks, and wonderful laughs and memories shared.  This birthday truly was a blessing.  Even though we live in the hood, and the neighborhood noises reminded us of that, it did feel like a set a part garden party.

Fried eggs over fresh greens

Trying to cut down on the amount of carbs I am eating and at the same time teach Big how to cook, I thought I would include our favorite recipe that we indulge in almost every day here. We eat eggs or oatmeal every morning during the week and only bake on the weekends. I usually make scrambled eggs or frittata or egg scramble with veggies. However, Big's favorite eggs to eat are fried eggs. I thought this was the perfect thing to start teaching him. It teaches him lessons on the stove, cleaning cast iron, and how to season and handle eggs. So we have been working on this a few times, and Big knows that he can not under any circumstances work the stove without an adult, but with me, he is doing great and doing it all on his own. So how do you eat fried eggs? He likes them with just salt and pepper, but recently he is enjoying my salad. Fried eggs over a bed of spinach or greens, topped with avocado, salsa and blueberries for fun. When we have extra, we throw black beans on there or corn or fresh pepper from the garden, whatever we have on hand. For a quick lunch though, fry the eggs and put them on the greens and voila, wonderful lunch!

I am sorry for those of you who are vegan, maybe you could just use Tofu, but since we are soy free here, we love our eggs.



Fried Eggs over fresh greens 

2-3 eggs
coconut oil for cooking
Bed of greens
Avocado or Guacamole
Salsa Sea Salt and pepper to taste
Optional: peppers, onions, tomato, broccoli, hot sauce, black beans, corn

Heat pan on med-low heat. Add Tablespoon of Coconut oil and heat through. Crack 2-3 eggs over pan and sprinkle with sea salt and pepper to taste. Cook eggs to over easy, med, or hard depending on your liking. I like a runny yoke to act as my dressing.

Cube up your avocado and dice the rest of your vegetables.

Wash greens and lay on plate.

Dish eggs on top of greens and then top with your variety of veggies and guac, and salsa.

Dig in.

Love and Marriage

It's funny, whether you read a book or watch a movie, you can find a couple where one is ultimately devoted to the other. One person in the couple will do anything to be with the love of their life. They will move heaven and earth, fight evil, and live in harsh conditions. They will forgive any past wrongs, and devote themselves to the welfare and happiness to the one they love.

Now lets be honest, my gut reaction is, "I want someone like that! I want someone to always think of me first, be what I need, devote themselves to every wish and desire I have." The hard truth, is I never think to myself, "I want to be that for someone else. I want to always love someone else above my own wishes and desires, devoting my life to their happiness and health." At the very core, my sin of selfishness reigns strongest.

This here in lies the only times when Paul and I struggle in our marriage. You can use words like selfishness, submission, miscommunication, independence, expectations, it doesn't matter. When one or both of us stops looking out for the other, then we have a hard time communicating, living, and helping each other. our marriage hurts in these times.

I noticed this trend about two years ago. Paul and I were miscommunicating a lot. He was hurt by things I said, I was hurt by things he did, and when he was arguing with me about how I wasn't appreciating him, my gut reaction was to "nicely" point out how much I did around the house and all the things that go unnoticed. He was feeling unloved and I was feeling unloved. We were both needing and missing attention from the other person. He was coming to me saying, "I need..." and I was thinking and feeling, "I need...". We were both in so much need we couldn't give to the other. And for some reason, in that moment, a light bulb went off. This conversation wasn't about me, he was trying to share his needs, his frustration, his hurt. My job was to listen. He needed me to listen. And so instead of speaking my piece about my hurt, I waited. My hurt and my opinions were screaming to be heard. I remember squeezing my hands together as I listened to my husband communicate how he felt unseen and unappreciated and I wasn't supporting him. (Clearly he wasn't noticing the children were still alive, the house was semi cleaned, the laundry done and dinner always made. I felt I was supporting him plenty by taking care of all the house duties and he wasn't appreciating me!) But that wasn't what was happening. Paul needed to be heard. He needed me to put his needs first for a change. He needed me to listen and support him. And so I did.

What I noticed was by the end of the conversation, he got around to verbally affirming all that I do. He recognized my hard work and thanked me for it. What he said he needed in that moment was just my listening ear and support. In that discussion I was able to see our pattern.

And here is our pattern: Paul and I get busy. Life happens, he goes out on gigs with the band, I travel to go speak, he gets a few acting gigs that take up the next couple weekends, our kids have swim lessons and field trips, people visit or we go visit people. In that kind of life, date nights, quality time with spouse and kids falls away to chores and life responsibility. We both ending up giving so much to our jobs and chores and our children that we have nothing left over for each other. Then our response turns selfish toward one another. I think, "Can't you see all I am doing? Please affirm me, and help me and pull your weight around here." Paul is thinking, "Can't you see all I am doing? Please affirm me, and understand and don't put expectations me and just listen and support me I am doing everything I can to find extra work to pay our bills."

When both of us are feeling empty, one of us has to step up. One of us has to man up and think of the other person first. (We both try to communicate to each other about what we need, but when our hearts feel empty, someone has to act first.) I usually fall in the immature camp waiting for Paul to be mature and do it first.

Paul and I fell into this pattern again recently and I noticed we were arguing and feeling unnoticed and not cherished. So I put the theory to the test and tried to love as God loves us, unselfishly. Even though I was feeling deeply unappreciated I tried hard to be the person in the movie that everyone wants. I choose to organize my days so that when Paul came home, I could spend time with him. I wanted dinner ready and the kids and I would cheer for Paul when he came home. Instead of doing chores in the evening, I would sit with Paul and we would talk. I would listen and affirm him. I tried very hard to devote myself to making sure he knew he was loved.

I knew how to do this because yes, Christ poured himself out for all people, he spoke of loving God and loving others. He spoke and lived to love others. But my real life example really is my husband and Christ in him. I would say that when we married and even today I struggle to love like he does. Every decision he makes, I and the kids are at the forefront of his mind. When he knows I have had a long day, he brings me a coffee or puts the kids to bed to give me a break. He won't buy new running shoes so that we can use the extra money for groceries. He has taught me in the daily grind of life what it means to love others and put their needs first. Day in and day out he is my real life romantic comedy and the man I dreamed of wanting to spend my life with. One who finds his joy in my happiness and fulfillment.

I have learned from him to love him that way. Now I'm not gonna lie, when we do this for one another, our life together is filled with so much more joy. When I put Paul ahead of my myself it sounds selfless, but truly in the end, he feels filled with love and thus in return can love me. Can see beyond his own need to help out around the house, to see me, and make sure I feel loved. So I guess you can even make it selfish to love someone this way if you wanted to but that really is the wrong motive. I want my husband to know he is loved, cherished and appreciated.

As I write this I feel like you might get this impression that Paul and I have this whole thing figured out. Let's be clear that I have made a living emptying my pride and inviting others into all my mistakes and learning experiences. I write this to remind myself of how to love my husband and those around me. I write this to share with you what I have learned in my marriage. To remind myself that loving someone else deeply and wholly truly is a wonderful gift. This is not my idea, nor am I first to write it, but living it every day is hard and we could all use a little reminder every now and then.

Berries, bread, and coffee

Fresh homemade morning

Today started with having my in-laws in town.  It was so wonderful to start the day with them in the house.  Sharing stories and doing life.  It was a quick visit, but always so wonderful to see them.

Since we are heading out on Friday, the goal for all of our meals is to eat through our food so as not to waste it.  Since I am a sucker for cheap food when I can find it, I scored big at Aldi this week, but noticed that we are only about a day away from most of our fruit going bad.

This morning started with smelling coffee brewing while we cut fresh fruit to munch on.  Nothing beats fresh berries and fruit as a morning snack.

While we munched, the kids helped me make squash bread. I have a recipe for Zucchini bread but didn't have zucchini left over from the Lasagna I made last night, but I did had steamed acorn squash and it was sitting in my fridge earlier this week so I used that.  I needed to use it before it went bad, so we turned it into bread.  This bread tastes nothing squash and everything like soft, moist goodness.  I love the crunch of the nuts, but you can easily leave them out.  The Sorghum flour adds to the sweetness, but you can switch it out with an all purpose GF flour.  Coming from someone who has experimented with switching out flours and thinking they are interchangeable, take my word for it, not all flours are created equal.  You could use almond flour or sweet rice flour, but I would stay away from any kind of bean flour.  If you want your kids to eat squash, use the best tasting kind of flour to help balance out the flavor.  Here is a quick couple photo's.

I'll be honest, the bread was so good, we ate the whole thing fresh out of the oven and didn't use any nut butter or jam.  Just soft, moist bread warm from the oven.  It truly lasted about 15 min and then it was all gone. We don't get a lot of bread in this house, so when we do, we go all out.

Coffee and bread this morning was just what I needed to start my day right.

Big really wanted to make a smoothie, so we let him be the chef on that front.  He didn't want any liquid or health benefits, just fruit.  ONLY fruit.  So we scooped fruit from our fruit bowl and he wanted to add a peach a plum and an apple.  So all in all, I think the smoothie included peach, plum, apple, strawberries, blueberries, grapes, and kiwi.  It was Delicious!  That kid is onto something.  I always try to sneak in a veggie or some other health benefit and he went straight to the good stuff.  I'll let him cook more often I think.

After we feasted on brunch we went out to tend the garden.  This is when we got to pick our first produce of the season!  It was very exciting.  We planted late, and last year not at all, so this was a very, very big deal.  I let middle pick it and then we all took a turn to smell our fresh beautiful green pepper.  The smell was so potent.  We decided then we would marinate chicken and have baked chicken on a bed of spinach and strawberries and blueberries that night for supper with strips of our beautiful green pepper.

So today was filled with homemade goodness, a trip to our favorite children's bookstore and a game of Sorry where everyone was in a good mood and not one kid minded loosing. (a rare moment mind you).

Enjoy the recipe!


My version of a Zucchini Bread Recipe

I didn't have zucchini but had lots of squash frozen in one cup increments.  Here is my final version of a recipe that I altered.

Gluten/dairy/corn/sugar free Squash Bread

Preheat 350 degrees

1 cup cooked and mashed squash (or 1 cup of zucchini or pumpkin or banana.  Use whatever you have on hand.)
1 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup tapioca starch (sometimes called tapioca flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 tablespoons of Chia seeds or flax seeds
1 tablespoon cinnamon
3/4 cup honey or agave or pure maple syrup
1/3 cup coconut oil or olive oil
1 teaspoon fresh lemon or lime juice
2 egg whites or egg replacer (1/4 cup liquid)
1/4 cup coconut milk (or rice or almond if you don't have coconut)

1/3 cup nuts optional

Wisk together sorghum flour, tapioca starch, baking powder, baking soda, chia seeds, xanthan gum, sea salt, nuts if using, and cinnamon.

Add oil, lemon juice, egg white, coconut milk and honey.  Beat to combine and continue to beat on medium high until batter is smooth.

Add in squash or banana, or pumpkin or zucchini.

Scoop and scrape the batter into prepared loaf pan.  Sprinkle nuts on top if using.

Bake for one hour, or till tooth pick comes out clean.
Enjoy

Part Two...EMDR and a bright beautiful party

Because I promised...

Because of a dear friend, this weekend Big was able to participate in EMDR therapy.  This friend has noticed what we knew to be true, that since the tornado, Big hasn't been the same in regards to storms, wind, rain, and if we were being honest, even white puffy clouds.  He is constantly aware of the weather.  He gets incredibly anxious when the sky turns grey, even just for rain.  I can hear him chanting to himself, "It's just rain.  It's just rain.  It's just rain."

My heart breaks for him knowing how scared he is.  Knowing that we don't go anywhere for the day when there is the threat of rain.  I try to balance it out and push him out of the house when I know there isn't rain, but just clouds that day, though I can tell it is hard for him.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of ours, Kyle Hood, was watching the kids, and while at the park, it started to rain.  Big had a huge panic attack and cried like it was the day of the tornado.  Our friend Kyle, who is a counselor, offered to do EMDR therapy with Big after watching his reaction.  Of course being so close to our family, she can't do regular counseling for him, but she could do this.  So on Saturday, Paul and I went with Big and did  our first session of EMDR.

In its basic form, EMDR therapy is taking the person back to the day and moment of the trauma and having them retell the story.  The idea is that because a certain event is so traumatic, the brain has stopped connecting from right brain to left brain in regards to that experience, so it is not functioning fully.  Therefore, every time something similar to that traumatic event happens, that person is thrown back to that day, that moment in time.  Their emotional response is just as heavy and intense.  If I understand all this correctly, the EMDR therapy is sound and vibration that bounces between right and left ears and hands so that when the person retells the story, their brain is making connections, new paths, between the right and left brain.  This will help in moving them forward from the trauma and helping them heal.

Big was timid when we started, and after him retelling the story, then Paul and I both retelling the story and then Big retelling it again, by the end, he was remember new details and could talk about it without crying.  It was pretty cool to see.  I even think just talking about this helps a ton.  What really took me back, was asking Big to retell the story, because I have told it so many times, I forget to ask my kids their opinion about what they remember seeing and hearing and feeling that day.  It was fun to hear his side of the story again.

So we leave for camp on Friday and are going to visit Kyle one more time on Thursday morning to do it again.  We were a little nervous for Big being away from home, his safe place, but at camp if there was a storm, and just want to do everything we can to help him.  Its been bright and sunny here for the last few days so no way to know if the therapy worked or not.  This isn't a cure all, and I don't think the first storm he sees  he's gonna want to throw a party or watch from the porch, but I am hoping he can think things through a bit more, and his anxiety will be less.  We still plan on going to therapy, but just haven't figured it out with insurance yet.

After therapy while in the car, the kids had lots of questions about death what happens to them when Paul and I die.  In a weird way it was such a great way to express to our kids that even in our death we still love them.  That we made a plan to have them taken care of and loved.  Middle had all sorts of questions about when we die, who tells Nana and Papa so they can come for them, are they going to be alone, can we go to the police and hospital and give them Nana and Papa's phone numbers so they can call them when we die.  It was a little weird for me hearing my son figure things out so fast and make a plan for himself when we bite the dust.

That night, after a wonderful day of fun and healing, we went to our neighbors party where they  were celebrating two of their children's birthday and a baptism.  Our neighbors, whom we play with all the time outside are Mexican and this party was in full tradition, the cream of the crop.  Big white tent out back, a bounce house, Spanish music blaring, over 100 guests with all the woman in their finest, and little girls running around in dresses.  In the garage were pots filled with enough rice and chicken and beans to feed a village.  Drinks overflowing and dozens of kids running around.  It was a scene out of a movie or a book.  It was so wonderful getting to experience a completely different world just three houses down.  We enjoyed playing basketball with the kids, playing catch with Big, and getting time to visit with our neighbors.  I'm not gonna lie, one of the best parts was that the food served was food my family could eat.  They had boiled chicken with garlic and onion and delicious rice.  My kids were able to eat a feast and I didn't have to cook it.  Do you know how rare that is?

After all the fun and excitement, we came home, enjoyed bath time, stories and then sang to our kids and prayed over them till they fell asleep.  It was a beautiful day.

I think a lot of times we look at the 10 commandments or law or guidelines that God sets before us for living.and look at it as a chore.  Something else we have to do or can't do.  We feel guilt when we don't do it and God's judgement if we ignore it.  I believe that if we approach his word and will for our life that way, than we won't ever want to participate in the gifts that he has for us.  Making and creating a Sabbath is hard to do.  It's hard to not work.  It's hard to break habits and create new ones.  However, the gift of the Sabbath and all that it gives and offers is irreplaceable.  It changes your mindset to focus on relationships instead of "to do" lists.  It makes it about people and not about work.  It allows time to focus on God and what he is and what he has for you.

We were abundantly blessed on Saturday.  The ground work of spending time with our kids and prayer over them has blessed the rest of our week.  We see the fruits of that for days on end.

The other bonus is that our work has been more productive because we started from a place of rest.

Thanks for letting me share my day.  Look at the link above to know more about EMDR.  And take time in prayer to see how you might be able to incorporate a little bit of  Sabbath into your life.  You won't regret it.