The Heart of It

Oh, to get to the heart of it.  Easier said than done.  Choosing to be with a partner is a constant learning experience.  A relationship and lessons I choose again and again.  My beloved partner gets to see my best and my worst.  Often.  When there's a break in communication, someone has their feelings hurt again, for me it is a matter of intentionally pulling each other back together again to talk about what happened.  "Yes, thank you for sharing your point of view.  Here's mine."  Even after being with my partner for 16 years, through years of various healing therapies, and now being a healer myself, my defenses from an abusive childhood are still present.  I have come so far, yet life is a journey and we are always growing toward where we want to be.  My partner and I are both well-intentioned, wonderful people, though this relationship requires our constant intention.  The more we put into it, the more we feel the love grow.

My point is this.  Love one another.  Find forgiveness by seeing their perspective.  Play together, find ways to laugh, spend quality time together.  Without children or animals climbing on your body.  Remember the spark you held together in the beginning, the love you had for one another, the details of your exciting courtship.  Find that spark.  Follow your bliss with your partner.  Fall in love again.

A Fine Balance In Marriage

Marriage.  My mentoring friend shared that the first 25 years of marriage were the hardest for her.  I am far from hitting that mark on my ninth year, so with young children I am in the thick of it.  I find in marriage it is a constant process of trying to balance and rebalance, to communicate and reconnect when it's uncomfortable and sometimes inconvenient.  Talking about our thoughts, reactions, and where we need readjustments takes a lot of energy while also raising young children.  Yesterday I asked (not gently) for and received time alone to blog and shower.  Today I was alone enough to blog, open windows, and breath.  These investments we make into marriage come back to us tenfold.  With some time alone, I then had energy for cooking dinner, washing dishes, more laundry, and loving on my family.  These small treasures bring such a fine balance into the rewarding challenges of marriage.

Homemade Bread In A Bag

Last week we crafted bread with fantastic friends.  As a visual learner, I love seeing someone else craft something before recreating it.  Here is the simple bread recipe we followed with friends.

Bread In A Bag

1. Add ingredients into a gallon-size bag: One cup wheat flour, half cup warm water, 1 Tablespoon salt, 1 Tablespoon yeast.
2. Zip the top of the bag.
3. Mash it up for three minutes.
4. Sprinkle in some flour till not so sticky.
5. Let rise 30 minutes.
6. Add more flour, any crushed nuts or desired dry flavorings, and mix.
7. Spread on parchment.
8. Roll into a ball.
9. Slice the top.
10. Bake 25 minutes or until lightly browned.

This recipe definitely needs a bit of tinkering, such as on bake times and flour quantities.  We had a great time mixing, baking, and devouring our loaves of bread.  We compared texture, flavor, and coloring.  The results of our science experiment were scrumptious.  The next day we made a batch of this bread and Challah bread with garbanzo and rice flours, resulting in dry dense loaves.  I continue to check out Bob's Red Mill Baking Book from the library, though I have yet to make the time to open it in search of an alternative grain bread.  (I use alternative grains for my family to eat a variety of grains, and I become itchy and tired after eating additives often found in gluten products.)

In the meantime, we've given new life to a friend's old bread machine.  My alternative rice flour sourdough starter and Bob's Red Mill wheat flour together make a scrumptiously sour loaf.  My children choose nuts and fruits to add mid-cycle.  It's great fun to experiment with breads.

What is your favorite bread recipe?

What culinary crafts does your family adore?

Mixing the bread in bags

Letting dough rise outside in the sun

All that was left when I paused in my consumption to snap a photo

Auntie Karen

Radiant light, joy,
Unconditional love, bliss,
Our Auntie Karen.

Ode to Holy Gail

Big rain overhead,
Only room to love, grow, flow,
Our hearts open wide.

Let me count the ways,
Enoughness, bliss, my
Dearest Holy Gail.

Ode to AnneMarie

Miles between us,
Months between conversations,
Still we're together.

Homeschooling, growing,
Weaving our webs, poetry,
Climbing muddy trees.

Healing families,
Take flight, find ourselves, friends, bliss,
Dearest AnneMarie.

Mom's Balance

Balance.  A simple word, a simple concept, so much more difficult to enact than to say.  I find new ways to describe my life as a fine balance.  Yesterday I used it to describe my need to have ambitions outside my full-time mothering of my delightful children.  My work-outside-the-home husband's life ambition is to raise happy healthy children who grow into good adults.  On a big level, I feel he (or our society's expectations) expects me to feel complete with 20 years as a full-time mother.  As a homeschooling attached parent, this requires even more of my role.  However, my life's ambitions are to grow, learn, and heal (self, others, and our world).  The child-raising side of my balance is quite fulfilled.

There are many ways to expand my world with children at my side, such as sewing, healthy baking, sour dough starter, homebrewing kombucha, and growing and learning aside my children.  The sorting of books, cupboards, clothes, schedules, and the organizing of craft projects keep me (more) calm while I ask my child for the 13th time in three minutes to keep food at the table.

If mothering is on one side of this pendulum of balance, the other side holds my time alone, child-free time with friends, and time to learn and grow as a student of various studies.  One challenge with this balance is I require my husband's time to find my own balance, as he automatically has my time for his own home-work balance.

As my children are now awake and chasing kittens as their papa catches that last bit of sleep, I conclude with this.  My life is awesome.  I am supported and appreciated by my husband.  I am here for my children, yet also I am here for myself.  It takes a team to find balance.  I love balance and I love my team.

I love my team.