salsa 1 and 2

The salsa days are finally upon us.  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  

Yesssssssssssssssssssss.

Here ya go...

Garden Salsa

6-8 tomatoes, chopped and tossed a bit in a colandar to remove extra juice and seeds

(I've been using grape tomatoes - about 6 cups worth)

2 green peppers, chopped

1/2 yellow onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 jalapeno pepper, chopped

handful of cilantro, chopped

smaller handful of basil, chopped (you can leave this out if you're not quite as obsessed with it as me)

2 Tbsp. cider vinegar

1 Tbsp. lime juice

hearty dash of salt

smallish dash of sugar

Toss it all, let the flavors get to know each other for a few hours, and EAT.

Cucumber Salsa

This is a variation on my MIL's recipe.  When she makes it, it tastes best, but I'm working on it!

4 cucumbers, chopped - put them in a colander and toss them with a little salt, let them sweat for about 30 minutes before tossing them with the other ingredients

1/2 red onion

1 can of rotel - drained

2 Tbsp. vinegar

packet of Ranch seasoning - Hidden Valley was just certified GF - yay!!

Toss it all up and dig in.  We eat this on chips, but I bet it would be a good side for grilled meat too. 

direction

Ok, first, here's your picture.  Because we all know posts are better that way...

The Chachi Band walked in the door from school with her face in a book.  Oh my happy heart.

I've been gently exploring the concept of Spiritual Direction for awhile......meaning basically that I'm fascinated with the activity of the spirit.....God is just plain beyond huge and doesn't fit in a neat, tidy box of reason or definition.  There is this constant big movement of spirit - in people, nature, circumstances, dreams, teeny details and colossal world events.  God doesn't sit anywhere with a big wand moving mountains and directing job interviews and making my hair turn out decent today.  God instead sits in our spirits and we move, God moves, ideas move, hopes move.......

If I haven't lost you and you're still reading, congratulations because you're part of a rare breed of blog readers who can push through the greatest of run-on sentences.  Or you're my mom.

But here's the point...

I want to do this thing they call "spiritual direction" - where you intentionally ask someone or a program to move you.  I went for the first of what could be three years of monthly "direction" last weekend.

Here's the skinny.....

1.  I don't know yet if I'll go back.  I really want it to be the right fit for me but I think maybe its not.

2.  It was at a convent.  A real live convent.  You get buzzed in at the door by some unseen person behind some unseen camera.  It smelled like old people, was spotless, and was maybe the most calm, centered, hopeful, blissful place I have ever been.

3.  I saw real nuns in real habits, which was a first, if you don't count Sister Act I, II, and III.  The sister I at lunch with was patient enough to answer my questions....Do you sleep here?  How long did it take you to become a nun?  Did you have children?  Can I touch you?  Well, not that last one.

4.  We did some prayers aloud and some singing that I thought would never end.  Because it was 8:30 am and I don't like long chanted prayers.  It was brutal and loud and meaningless and I regretted spending money to be there.  But then they did this thing where we "passed the peace" and everyone started hugging each other.  I was so uncomfortable and when it was done I realized I totally loved it and wanted to do it again.  Strangers looked in my eyes and said with total genuine love, "Peace be with you" and then hugged me.  If I could put that in a bottle and bring out one hug and peace passing dose every Saturday morning, it would be the greatest invention ever.

5.  I met Phyllis, who was even better than the lunch nun.  She is a mom, grandma, widow, not a sister.  She has the most beautiful skin I think I have ever seen.  She is hyperactive.  Like for real Hyperactive, not just a little wired.  She is the embodiment of grace.  She directed my small table discussion and called anything anyone shared from the heart "so beautiful".   She's recently went to India for 3 months to learn to pray.  "Yes, very Eat Pray Love, I know" she said.  I got her phone number.

So.  I don't know what it is exactly that I'm opening myself to or even what I'm looking for.  But I think maybe I'll know when I find it.  And this weekend was one very blissful, hopeful peek in the right direction.

the femonite

Oh my goodness, I'm guest posting.  That rhymes with guest hosting.  Which rhymes with peeing my pants.  Thanks, Hannah and all the readers of the fabulous Femonite blog, for this opportunity!

Find me here today.....



To Celebrate the She

these are a few

Its time, friends.

Because, once again..............Things don't buy happiness but they sure do buy..................wait.........they really do actually.

I love pop.  I'm trying to call it soda instead because I want to be sophisticated like that.  We don't keep it at our house because we might as well shut off our water if we do.  Every once in awhile there is some left over in the bottom of a 2-liter from floats or pizza the night before and, oh my happy heart!

I was in search of the biggest sunglasses I could find.  $3.  Target, you just never let me down.

 Ikea placemats.  They bring out the best in us all at dinnertime.  This is no small thing.

Dance Partaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

Going on 3 years now.  I cannot live without this pair on my kitchen sink.  Don't try me.

This fact.

Ok, its called "Push Powder".  You sprinkle a teeny bit on your roots after your hair is dry and it magically no longer looks like this:

Lake Michigan.  Because she's sassy.  And the only lady who lays every single day.

The Arboretum.  We feed the fish and turtles there and pretend they're our pets.  Let's not get confused.  Ralfie The Turtle is not a favorite thing because he is bigger than Sage, who begs me to hold her but I can't because I'm too busy being held by River, the brave child.  But I digress.  We really really love this place.  When my kids write a story someday about their childhood, this will be the "setting".

These are a few of my favorite things!

thank you, summer

School starts tomorrow.

This is my happy dance this is my happy dance.

Summer 2013 has been.  

Just been.

There have been pockets of pure goodness.

There have been moments in which we have pushed through with shear determination and chocolate.

When I had one tiny sweet baby girl and hours free to lay by the pool and push the stroller down to Starbucks and time to check off a project every day, I judged the people who said they couldn't wait for school to start.  How could they wish away time with their kids?!  Now I get it.  I so so so get it.  This family needs routine.  And I need my village to help raise my kids, especially their teachers.

So today I'm just going to breathe in the last day of summer and say thank you.  
(If I were only as witty as SJ, I would do this Jimmy Fallon style!)

thank you God for powering us through, for keeping us safe and healthy all summer long

thank you kids for sleeping til 7 am every day

thank you Ryan for letting me drive away and get groceries or coffee or fresh air when I needed it

thank you family for visiting us

thank you friends for your texts that gave me sanity at just the moment I most needed it, even though you didn't know it

thank you community pools for your chlorine baths and just plain being open

thank you neighbors for the sanity in bottles after the kids were in bed

thank you Grandmas for spending time with the kids

thank you school for starting.

on books and kitty shelters

Ok, previous posts addendums....

Not sure what that word means or if I'm using it right, but it does sound good, doesn't it?

1.  That rain I was thankful for, well it flooded a ton of homes.  Like big time flooded.  Like 9 inches of sewer water in people's carpeted basements flooded.  I'm sorry.  I do love the rain, but I don't love that it did that to you.  I feel badly for riffing on about something that brought people hardship.

2.  Sage McCage and potty training.....Well, the girlie is potty trained, no thanks to me.  I haven't offered a single treat or set a single timer.  I did my infamous Happy Dance after her first poop, for which she waited patiently for me to be done with a puzzled look on her face and then said, "What are you doing are you done?" No kidding.  She just goes pee and poop on the potty when she needs to.  End of story.  Dear God, please let puberty go this easily.

Ok, now to the real deal.  I'll get to this ^ in a minute.

Long story made short....

We found some kitties in our window well that I thought were abandoned so I got a box and made a bed and got my most dramatic self on and googled how to save kitties that don't have their eyes open yet and learned how to make a milk concoction out of eggs and whole milk and oil and fed them through a syringe and cried over them and loved on them for 4 hours and dedicated my life to saving them and set up an Abandoned Kitten Rescue Shelter That Will Save Every Sweet Kitty's Life (AKRSTWSESKL) in my living room only to hear their mama crying outside my door and begging to have her babies back at which point I brought them out to her and she took them and hissed at me and I felt like a horrible kidnapper who steals other mama's babies for my own entertainment.

I had insisted on staying home to woman the AKRSTWSESKL while my family went to spend the evening with grandparents.  Only one hour into it was when the mama cat took me down a few notches and took her babies back.  The silver lining was the remaining three hours in the house by myself with my books.  And a bowl of fresh sliced avacado and garden tomatoes and feta cheese.  Sigh.  Grace.  God even smiles on us kittynappers.  

So the real point is the current booklist....I highly recommend them all...

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris.....nonfiction...his newest.  He does not disappoint!

Plan B by Jonathan Tropper....a novel about 30-somethings with lots of references to the 80's.  I'm eating those 80's up!

The Book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper....like the other one by him, only bettter.

Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle.....I'm reading this one because Anne Lamott told me to.

The Secrets of Leaven by Todd Wynward.....Ryan and I were extremely privileged to meet him and sit down to dinner together at the Menno convention in Phoenix.  He is a total vegabond, a real maverick of a revoluntionary - not to mention a great writer.  Check him out at www.leavenrising.com.

Now if I could just find some other kitties to rescue, maybe I could finish them.

And other pictures that just make me happy...

Maybe she was tucking her baby in and just couldn't last a second longer?  I love this big girlie!