7 quick takes. Or maybe not so quick.

1.       Today I am feeling EXTRA tired, and therefore my filter has collapsed. Maybe this is why I decided finally to blog. So your welcome. Or watch out. I’m not sure which way this is gonna go.

Food:

2.       So, food. Right now I am eating a salmon patty, sautéed yellow pepper and zoodles cooked in butter, chai tea with a huge tablespoon of whole fat coconut milk, a jar of home brewed kombucha and a bowl of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies with homo milk because I poured the milk before my two year old could tell me she would prefer almond milk. And I’m too tired to fight this morning.

The first things in my list are Whole30-ish, Paleo-mostly. Kellogg’s Rice Krispies. Not so much. In fact, I haven’t settled in my heart how exactly I am going to deal with (phase out?) some of those big brand names because the food industry is seriously broken. They don’t care about feeding people. But, I guess the point is that there is always juxtaposition in our lives. Sometimes things are squeaky clean. Sometimes I eat Chinese food smorg. Probably not this Lent, you know, the fasting and whatnot, and I haven’t eaten Chinese since October when I started a Whole30 reset, but I do see it in my future. I’m a little scared and a little excitedly expectant. Sort of like knowing I am going to ride a roller coaster that is going to be so incredibly fun and will most likely make me vomit after. That kind of good time.

3.       In the food vein, I just want to say that one day, a few years ago, I sat in my living room and cried on my couch after watching Julie and Julia because I was so excited about the idea of food and writing and how I could combine the two and my faith and write a cookbook about how amazingly these three things go together and it was going to be brilliant and the best thing I could ever do forever and ever amen.

I still love food. And writing. And Jesus. But I have seen some of those food bloggers on the internets and in the Instagrams who really have their shiz together. They GO for it, and this cooking/writing/Jesus project of mine never took any shape beyond the tears on my couch and a few impassioned discussions. Food is POWERFUL! I could tell you all about it some time.

I haven’t developed any recipes. I haven’t taken any food styling courses. I haven’t even done any serious writing. Obviously without some serious changes to my life course, this little project is not going to materialize. I mean, check out Cristina at The Castaway Kitchen. This girl deserves all the props. She obviously works her tail off running after her food dream, and it is amazeballs. I especially love how real and raw she can be, and her energy is contagious. And I don’t even know her. And her recipes are delicious, and so good for a body. Another amazing food person I follow is Danielle Kartes of Rustic. Joyful. Food. This gal is SO FUNNY! I can’t handle her Instagram stories. I wish we were best friends.

  

Now. This is not to say that I feel like the competition is too intense for me to jump into it. I mean, I would probably have moments where I’d feel like this were the case, because let’s be honest, the Competition. Is. Staggering. But I also listened to a podcast recently (Among the Lillies - I think, but I don’t know which episode because I don’t listen to them in order) and in the episode the girls were talking about how there can never be enough beauty in the world, so don’t be scared to contribute what I feel like God is calling me to contribute. Amen to that.

 

However I don’t think I’ll be throwing my hat into the food blogging ring. I think putting all that pressure on food would maybe ruin my relationship with it. And I’m just starting to figure that out. So I’ll borrow some recepies from Cristina and Danielle and from @thefeedfeed and Jaime Oliver and post a couple of pics to Insta when I feel like oversharing my life. The end.

4.       Whole30. I just have to talk about it for a minute. I sort of don’t want to because I feel like I am about to join a fad or reveal how trendy I am or how much of a crazy-control person I am (anyone who knows me knows how OUT of control I usually am! Yikes.) but I still need to confess. I did one. A Whole30. And at first I thought, “This sucks balls.” I was scared to start. As mentioned above, food has power, and I was under sugar’s spell. I am a full blown sugar addict and I could not stop myself from eating it out of control. If I had a bad day with the girls, I’d hide in the corner of the kitchen and eat seven packages of fruit snacks, just shoving them in by the packetful to try to sooth my angst. I used to hide mini Toblerone bars in my dresser and eat four of them at night after everyone went to sleep - or any time I got to leave the house solo I would stop at Walmart for a disgustingly dry package of $1 powdered mini donuts and eat the whole package in the five minute drive from the store to my house. Or get Twinkies at 7-11. Ew. The thing is I wasn’t even happy eating these things. I’d feel gross after, I would only enjoy the first bite or two, and then I would feel guilty about eating them. Hence the hiding. Emotionally, I had a tough autumn, and I finally got to the place where I decided I didn’t want to be controlled by junk food, and I wanted my mental health to improve. I needed to get a handle on something. So I was doing some reading, and everything was pointing to gut health and the things I ate affecting EVERYTHING about me. From the obvious things like weight and cardiovascular health, to mental health, infections, inflammation and all other aspects of life. So I wanted to figure it out.

Whole30 didn’t require any purchasing of anything. No supplements, no shakes, no meetings or communities to join. No monthly fee. I didn’t even have to buy a book. I got them from the Library. (Win!) And in fact, all the necessary information is on the website, so really, there is nothing they are trying to hide. It is honestly just straight up food. So after being in mourning for a couple of weeks at the prospect of not being able to binge on whatever, whenever, and feeling like I could never be happy with a restrictive food diet - even if it was just temporary - I decided that this thinking was pretty messed up. Food should not - and in actuality does not - determine if I have joy in my life. So I obviously needed to get this under control. I bit the bullet. I did some food and sauce prep. I committed to 60 days instead of 30. Because honestly. I was sneaking around eating disgusting donuts. 30 days of rehab wasn’t about to break this habit. It wasn’t the revelation that many people claim it to be. As the first 30 days wore on, I still felt angst-y, I still had huge sugar cravings, zits, and I have no way to measure how well I sleep because I have small kids. Sleeping through the night is non-existent in my world. By day 25 I was ready to quit. But since there were only five more days until I would measure and weigh myself, I decided to hold on for those next five days. On day 31, I stepped on the scale to see if anything had actually changed. To my great surprise, I had lost 16 lbs. What? I didn’t even feel like I looked different. And that made me feel self-conscience because if my pants were still fitting me 16 lbs lighter, I must have been stuffing myself into these things sausage-style all this time. Yikes. Also, how could I have lost 16 lbs on a diet that didn’t count calories, and let me eat ALL the fats I wanted? You guys. I was cooking everything in ghee, spreading it on all my veggies, eating tablespoons of mayonnaise, and putting coconut cream into my tea all the time. ALL THE TIME. 

So I decided to keep going and stick out the next month. Actually, I was going to do 66 days total, but Christmas stuff started happening December 6 and that marked 60 days, so I kind of said, I’m just going to do Christmas. I had clean meals in between days of feasting, and I enjoyed myself, but by December 28^th my tummy was in knots and I went back to W30 full force for two weeks to recover. I meant to do a reintroduction carefully and scientifically so I would know how things affect me, but I failed at that. It was really hard to introduce grains without also introducing dairy and sugar and Oh My! I obviously still don’t have the Food Freedom that Melissa Hartwig talks about, but I have learned that I feel better when I eat more veggies and protein and less grains - especially wheat - and dairy. So I am kind of right there. Where I eat food. But I listen to my body and if it doesn’t feel good, I eat a W30 type of meal and snacks for the next while until I feel good again. I don’t have the exact information that I could have gained, but I do have some valuable knowledge in my easily accessible repertoire which I access frequently. And I have a strategy that I can easily get back to if I am feeling out of control. Good things.

As for overall what my results were - since October 9, I have lost about 28 pounds. My emotional state is much more even keel. I also started tracking my menstrual cycle when I started W30 and I have found that I am a nut job on the second last day of my period, and knowing that that is just a bad day overall, I can get through it easier knowing it is just hormones and not “me” or my failures that is making the day so BAD! My energy level has also improved. I am able to get more of the stuff done around my home. More laundry gets done. I vacuum now. The kitchen counters aren’t such an insurmountable task, and getting out for walks and adventure is easier - if the weather permits, which has been a whole thing for us this winter. Sometimes (usually) I still struggle with sugar. Like those Welch’s Fruit Snacks have trapped me in the kitchen once or twice since I started back to eating food with added sugar, but now I recognize disordered eating patterns AND I don’t have to feel guilty about them, I just use tools I have to move back in the direction of food as fuel instead of crappy comfort for a crappy moment. I had a phrase kind of hit me a couple of days ago - well, I don’t really remember exactly how it went, but it was along the lines of there being no sense in allowing a food choice to make me feel crappier on an already crappy day. Very eloquent. I should really be a writer. Must have been the second last day of my period.

Ok. That was more than a minute. I guess it depends on how quickly one reads. Maybe I’ll make it one post on its own.

Not Food:

5.       So I’ve also wanted to write about being a Creative. What is a Creative (with a capital C) and how does one become one? How does one know if one is one? How many times can one use one to describe oneself in sentence anyway?

I have often felt a bit like I have serviceable skills in a number of areas and no real exceptional skills in any particular area. This might be true. For some reason I have this idea that there should be SOMETHING that is my one incredible exceptional talent. I don’t know where I picked it up. Maybe the same place “they” try to teach us that there is only one true love out there for each person. The B.S. factory.

What does this have to do with being a Creative? Well, I guess it is thinking that I should have one kind of art that I do and do well. Like make it a career well. I often lay awake fantasizing about how I will make a job out of my creative pursuits. Here is the thing. I don’t have a specialization, and so I often doubt that I will be able to ACTUALLY sell any of the things I make. I like to make. I like it a lot. I make all kinds of things, but I am an amateur at all the things I make. I took up knitting a few years ago, but I don’t make my own patterns I just make ones I find for free online. And I haven’t even finished a project bigger than a toque. For a baby. But I’m close. I don’t think I could sell knitting anyway.

I’ve been making cloth dolls for my girls. I like to bind leather covered books. I write. Making things makes me happy. It is a life giving thing.

I have been falling in obsessive love with pottery. Like I think about it all the time. I stress out about glaze fires to the point of glazing and re-glazing pieces after laying awake at night thinking about how I did it wrong. But I am still an amateur. Just learning the ropes. The thing is, I will always be an amateur if I don’t put the work into something. The woman at my pottery guild who inspires me said there is a book out there that says it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. That is five years of full time work. Will it take me the equivalent of five years of full time work to become a Creative? Do I need to settle down and just work on ONE kind of creativity?

One of the things I really want to do is start selling pottery because I honestly don’t have room to keep it, and I’d like for this obsessive habit to cost me zero money. But am I good enough to do it? This makes also makes me sound cheap. I am. I want to be generous and give pieces to everyone I know, but I only know so many people. And they might not want my attempts at pottery in their homes. SO if I sell it, people will pick pieces they actually want and I will feel accomplished. Like I’m a real Creative.

Is being a Creative equivalent to selling one’s work? Probably not. If the statement I mentioned above, “there can never be too much beauty in the world” is true, just the act of making, or the way in which we “do” the things we do should be the definition of being a Creative. I guess by our nature, we are all Creatives, styled after the greatest Creator of All.

Perhaps the lesson for me here is to worry less (stop worrying and wondering completely) about defining myself by my own means or by how saleable I am or by some social construct. There is a deeper, truer truth about who I am. Help me settle into that. And maybe sell a few pots. And maybe a doll. Or a book. How does one create and Etsy shop anyway?

6.       Often when I am writing, I am tempted to use the pronoun “you.” As if I can define you all by my experiences or by some general statement or universal feeling. I am trying real hard to stop it. When I write word “you” in my pieces now, I go back and try to change the pronoun to “I”. This is my story anyway. And, I don’t need to project onto you how you feel or what you should do when really, these writings are mostly cathartic exercises for me and a chance to analyze and come to terms with some aspect of my life. Anyway. I feel a bit like it is rude and presumptuous to put you into my head.

7.       I don’t know if any of this has been useful, but I have been thinking about all of these things for months and it was finally time to put them out there. If you made it to the end, you are a champion! God bless you, heal you and free you.

Peace.

Summer Fantasy

I have a summer fantasy. It started way back during university. It goes like this: Summer is time for travel, reading books, drinking iced beverages, staying up late, camping, campfires, connecting with friends, fairs and fair food, swimming in the river/lake/ocean, exploring creative outlets, music festivals, flip flops, falling in love all over again while we go on midnight walks holding hands and having sex pretty much where ever and whenever we please. And fit, tanned bodies.

This is my summertime reality: I am sitting here on my unmade bed, using a broken laundry basket for a desk, stealing a moment to desperately write down the discord I am feeling realizing my summer actually is nursing a nearly two year old toddler and wondering how to make it come to a satisfactory end for both of us; hiding from the hot, hot heat in my basement; folding and stashing away six loads of laundry, wondering why I can’t keep only those six loads worth, and chuck out every other stitch of clothing that remains in our dressers and closets. It is scraping and scraping and scraping the paint on the deck and house so it can get that new, preserving coat or three. It is sealing the roof and seems on a leaking ’77 camping trailer we bought to help make some of my summer dreams a reality. It is spending more money than we thought we would on these upgrades and wondering if $300 more for a paint spray gun will be worth the time we hope it will save us. It is navigating two small kids and a husband who is equally hot, tired, grumpy, and full of his own dashed summer dreams, dreams, that like mine have become overwhelmed with home maintenance. It is forcing time to talk and touch so we don’t end up yelling later on. Instead of falling in love, sometimes it feels more like clenching the thread of love that holds us together and desperately trying to remember we are on the same team, working for the same goal. Hoping for the same dreams to come true.

I used to make elaborate plans for travel and leisure. Precious few of them ever came to fruition - and usually because they were paid for somehow by work. Then, being work trips, were not exactly about luxuriating on a beach somewhere. Still amazing trips though. Many, many of my future plans and schemes were really only wasted hours dreaming dreams that never came to pass. I feel too maxed out to dream right now. Yet, even now there is potential to be cooking up elaborate plans for the next five years. My husband wants to dream. I want to settle down deeply in the here and now. I don’t want to look any farther ahead than supper with friends tonight and kids swimming lessons that needed to be booked a week in advance. Being in this season of small people has seemed to weigh me down to a near stop. I took a lot of my dreaming, scheming ways into my first two years of parenthood, but I am resigning myself more to the snail’s pace at which we move through life, and the incredible changeability that happens moment to moment in the lives of small children and all they encompass, even while everything seems to also unbelievably be constantly the same.

I was gifted a mantra about six months ago. It came as I lay in the darkness of the January and February bed, reading books about permaculture while my baby slept beside me, starting tomato and asparagus seedlings in paper cups on top of my fridge. I was voracious in my need to create this garden oasis of berries, herbs and vegetable abundance; however much landscaping is required to make the steep hillsides in my yard terraced garden plots. Unemployed I may be, and unafraid to wield a shovel and wheelbarrow, but time is not one of the currencies I can trade in greatly. That exchange happens more highly in the area of stories read, baths given, strollers packed for outings and the general preparation and deconstruction of meals. I realized that my garden dreams were not going to come true this season. Probably not next season either. I could only do what was in my hand to do, a little here and there, a half hour stolen between pushing swings, or weeds quickly pulled up from the cracks in the sidewalk as we draw with chalk. More than this space, these people will always be my responsibility, and the space, the children and I will always be a work in progress. So while things have ground to a near halt for me, the mantra that has filled my heart with optimism and allowed me to breathe gratefully, has brought me back to living very presently in this moment only is, “I have all the time in the world.”

When I am tempted to become anxious about what may come five years from now, when I get frustrated that grass has been choking out my perennial beds, when my hugelkultur lays half-finished for the season, and the other little projects are scattered about unmade I can breathe and try not to worry about it. I can read one more story. I can take my kids to the creek instead. I can scrape the deck paint and tackle each task a little at a time. I have all the time in the world.

Instead of dreaming of being away, doing exotic things, or spending energy dreaming of a somewhat murky future with potential career options or relocations, I can rest knowing I have all the time in the world.

I’ve heard the “go-getters” in my travels say things like, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” It might seem utter nonsense to base my life on an idea that is actually completely false. I do not, in fact, have ALL the time in the WORLD. Don’t think I don’t understand that. It is very apparent to me. I think the truth of “All the time in the world” is inextricably linked to “The most time you have.” It is only now. At once, “now” is both fleeting and eternal.  I’m not saying that I’m never going to plan ahead for something; or that I’m going to stop dreaming about the things that light my spark. I’m just choosing to be here, now. Imperfectly, I assure you, but I think this kind of presence in time is actually where all the dreams come true. As for my summer fantasy, there may not be fit bodies, but there are definitely flip flops. 

The One That Got Away.

I have something I wish I didn't. And it isn't an infection. Maybe you've had one of these: a friendship that was pivotal, important, consuming and fulfilling in your life and is now missing. I have one of those. I've had it for nearly 10 years. There have been many friends who are beautiful and amazing and moved out of my life and it has been ok. They were for a time, and what a wonderful time, but because of circumstances the time has passed.  My life is better for having had those people, but it is ok that I move on from them.

But I have one friendship in particular that feels like “the one who got away.” 

This woman, she is a babe. And so smart and sweet and opinionated. She is so different from me. She was the yin to my yang. For about four years I wasn't quite me without her. We were equally slobby. We drank the same liquor – rye and coke as all good farm girls drink starting out. She taught me that milk from cardboard cartons really does taste better than from plastic. When we would get mad or claustrophobic, we would take the other for a walk. A long, fast walk in the winter air, so that at the end of it, our eyelashes were covered in frost and we could hardly feel our legs they were so cold. We worked at McDonalds together. Pierced our belly buttons together – well, not together literally, but at the same time. Lived together. Cooked runny eggs and toast for hangovers. Had our first taste of adulthood together. Our first boyfriends. Our first place. We spent holidays with each other's families. We knew everything about each other. We pushed each other's buttons, made each other cry, drove each other crazy. Loved each other.

But we grew apart, and she moved too far away to casually drive up for an afternoon tea.

To be honest, I think it was all my fault. I think she got away from me because I lost her. When I think back on our friendship I see countless times that she helped me, but it makes me wonder if I ever really helped her.

I was so young. 18. Too young to know anything worthwhile. Or at least too young and inexperienced to apply anything I knew of value. In some ways, we kind of grew up together; those first few baby-adult years away from home. As we were finding ourselves, we were also finding our mates, our voices, our paths, opinions and hearts. When I look back I am amazed at how much I changed between 18 and 22. And since then. I mean, there are core things about my personality that are the same; but I hope I have grown in maturity and grace – something I sorely lacked in those early adult years. 

While I was 18, I also found God. And I am not saying that in a facetious way. I had a legitimate, moving, experience with the Risen Christ and that became a big defining characteristic of my identity – as it still does, even more now. But I was young and wise, and uneducated about things like the baggage churches bring with them, as well as trying to define my own identity and belief system based on almost zero experience outside a farm kid existence.  Well, it was easy to pick things up that should be left on the ground. And it was easy to believe in absolutes. And it was hard to live one way without seeing it as the only way. I let people who weren't any more mature than I was teach me lessons they really knew nothing about. I became somewhat of a zealot, and a hypocritical one at that. It doesn't really lend itself to bff material. 

So there was that. 

Plus I was often a super sarcastic d-bag. I thought I was funny. 

I was also dating my first boyfriend. And, as everybody knows, making out time seriously cuts into friend time. And that boyfriend eventually, during those four years, turned into fiancé and husband. I was married before I graduated from University, and that can really separate a girl from her old crowd. Not because they ostracized me, but because being married has a bunch of responsibilities and expectations that set you apart from the not married crowd. It isn't bad, it just is what it is. 

Finally, there was graduation and the inevitable moving away to find jobs. It was kind of the last wedge that split the entwining of our trees of life apart.

We tried to keep in touch for a bit. Write letters.The occasional visit. But it all dried up too quickly. And I was busy with life, so while I missed her, I didn't pursue her. What a silly girl I was.

Instinctively I knew she shouldn't be one of those friends who drift into and out of life. She should be one of the Ones. There are precious few people who settle into one's soul in life, and they should not be neglected. They should be fought for and pursued. They should be treasured. Kept close in your breast pocket, next to your heart so you can feel the weight of them as a comfort on your way. I didn't know how to do that. The years grew and grew the space until it turned into a broken old sidewalk with weeds sprouting all up in the cracks and the distance was so great and the path so untravelled I didn’t know how to get started down it. 

I think I have a chance to walk it now.

I guess all I really want to say is sorry. Sorry for being a stupid “Christian” and letting that push you away. Sorry for letting other relationships push ours too far to the side. Sorry that I didn't pursue you once I noticed the gap forming. Sorry I didn't write. 

I hope that we can be friends again.

I miss you.

Peace.