Long Overdue Check-in

I already used the line "I didn't mean to be away this long," right?

Truly, I didn't.

It's become clear to me that I need one outlet for writing, and one alone. Since September that outlet has been seminary. But that means I haven't kept up with Caleb updates, a pregnancy announcement, spring gardening activity, what we're eating, anything.

So I'm back, and hoping spring will propel me to write a little bit more in this space. No promises though.

Caleb
Caleb's 2 years old. In fact, he turned 2 years old in January, so he's now 26 months. That kid is ball of personality. His verbal skills are off the charts, especially for a boy his age. (Only family reads this, so I can brag, right?) I couldn't begin to guess how many words he knows, it's in the hundreds. He speaks in full sentences/paragraphs, just as we guessed he might do. He can hold a full conversation with you, which makes this stage really fun. My favorite phrase of his might be "Hold my hand, Daddy/Mommy." He uses that when we're headed down to the garage. I don't carry him up and down stairs anymore, so we make him hold hands to walk down the stairs. His little voice asking us to hold his hand is just too cute.

 His latest trick is balancing on the top of his sit and spin.

We're about to move him into a big boy bed, if we can only pull the trigger on that purchase! He's been trying to climb into his crib at night. Thankfully he doesn't try to climb OUT of it!

 Our new-to-us minivan has a DVD player. Caleb was mesmerized on our road trip to NC.

He continues to be a really happy and loving little boy. He adores his grandparents and extended family. He gets good reports on his behavior at day care, and he likes to tell me what activities he did and who he played with. He's a toddler, so yes, we see stubbornness and pickiness and we're trying to get rid of his pacifer, but in general, he's a great easy kid. 

5 months pregnant

June
Our daughter is due in the middle of July. (No, not in June. We just like the name June.) I've been pregnant for most of my first year of seminary, which has been challenging, but not too bad. We're thrilled to be expecting a girl- I was convinced we'd have boys forever and ever, but the sickness in my first trimester should have tipped me off. I feel like I'm be able to pinpoint on boy or girl in future pregnancies depending on if I'm sick or not. Otherwise the pregnancy has been pretty easy, and I'm looking forward to a warm-weather maternity leave this time around.

 Tomatoes, peppers, parsley, basil, cotton

The Garden
I will freely admit that I have next to no energy for gardening this year. Seminary + pregnancy = very little energy left over. But that doesn't mean I don't have 30 some-odd seedlings in the basement already started, with plans to start more this weekend. I'll be planting my fenced-in garden as well as two big beds in front of the house. I ignored the bed along the front of the house last year, letting it get weedy and gross. Then in the middle of summer we had a big delivery of fill dirt put in, to try to alleviate water pooling down into our basement and garage. When that happened, I asked the guy to use the front bucket of his small bulldozer to plow up the grass directly in front of our porch, so that I could use it as a garden bed as well. (This was a surprise to Brian, but he saw my mother's garden before he married me and knew I had the gardening bug. He should have seen tearing up the grass coming. Plus that's less he has to mow.) I've got three azaleas in there now, and a lemon thyme plant that overwintered nicely. I noticed some hosta coming up in that bed too, it must have been gardened at some point. My mint came back in full force in the other bed. So those front two beds will be a mix of flowers, herbs and vegetables, some edible landscaping, if you will. I also noticed the rhubarb and peony plant has come back up as well in our back yard.

That's about it- I may post a seminary and ministry update soon. I'm halfway through my second semester and so far classes are going well and I'm feeling good about continuing down this path.

Caleb, 20 Months

At Caleb's 18 month well-baby check-up, his pediatrician asked me to guess how many words he knows. Maybe I wrote about this already? I guessed 15. Thinking about it later, I was definitely low, but either way, she assured me that by Caleb's behavior in the visit, he was on the verge of a vocabulary explosion.

And man, was she right!! 

 Last night Brian and I lay in bed and tried to count how many words Caleb says.

Rice

Read

Moon

Airplane, Acorn, Abby (they sound exactly the same, so you have to use context clues.)

 Truck

Bus

Swing

Outside!

Football, touchdown, tackle, BOOM!

Watch 

Ohio

And many, many more. (More??) It blows our mind everyday. He know all the major body parts, and is starting on what I might consider "advanced:" cheeks, elbow. He counts to five. He knows all our extended family's names. Animal sounds are out of this world.

His teachers are teaching him Spanish, and report that he has a very high interest in both English and Spanish vocabulary. Right now his most common spanish words are Rana (frog) and Cuatro (four).

We were well above fifty when we stopped counting.

I'm sure every parent lays awake, in awe of their kid's learning skills. We watched Caleb turn on the tv by himself yesterday morning. He asked for football.

I'm not sure if all kids are like this, but Caleb just loves to try on new words. He repeats everything. It's such a privilege to walk along side him, and guide him, as he continues to grow up and learn new skills.

Doing a New Thing

Well I certainly didn't mean to be away this long. I was homesick, then I ate a ton of Swedish pancakes, the weather changed, and I went off to seminary in Ohio.

One of those things is not like the other, right?

I started Seminary this past week. We kicked off with a bang, a mess of first year students ranging from their mid-twenties to...fifties? sixties? I think we all arrived with our doubts, our unknowns, our uncertainty. We were told we had responded to an invitation from God, like God had sent us a vellum backed invitation via white dove:

God, the Son and the Holy Spirit cordially invites you to:
A New Life
September 14, 2015
8am
Christ UMC

Please RSVP (yes)

Can't you just see it with a olive branch motif around the edges?

We were told we had been split into groups that would be diverse. I found myself the youngest in my group by 14 years. The only person not licensed for ministry, not pastoring a church. The only white girl. I called Brian halfway through the first day, on the verge of tears. "I feel like I have nothing to contribute," I told him. He talked me down, assuring me that my age and experience were an illusion- I still had graces from God that would be a gift to the group. I presented the prework I had done to my group that afternoon: an oral telling of a spiritually significant event. I, of course, had written mine out in its entirety, like a manuscript preacher would. I didn't want to forget an important point. I didn't want to mess up my words. I didn't want to look stupid and inexperienced. I won't lie: I worked really hard, for weeks, on this piece of writing and storytelling. 

When the woman sitting to my left invited me to share, I pulled out my papers and slowly found my voice. I had read this out loud before, practicing in the car. I tried to think of it as a gift to my group members: I was letting them in on a really rough point in my life, and they would know me and my story better after hearing it. I was only person reading fully from a manuscript, and I tried not to let that affect me. The assignment had clearly stated we could bring notes, and I had read the assignment probably 20 times. (I had also read all the books for this class ahead of time, but that's neither here nor there.) I summoned all twenty years of acting experience and told my story.

I won't go into a "humblebrag." I'll state a full on brag: I received praise. I was told I had a gift for writing, and storytelling. For preaching. I haven't received affirmation like that since college- I felt like I was absolutely in my right place. My group leaders and members prayed over me, thanking God for my presence with them, affirming my call to ministry, asking God to remove obstacles from path, lifting me up as a beloved daughter of God.

The entire week was one affirming moment after another. I met my two professors for my online classes. I heard inspiring preaching. I was anointed. I saw God's plan unfold for something I had been worried about. I spent most of the morning worship service on the second day in tears, singing "Bless the Lord, Oh my Soul," knowing that this was right move for me. Seminary, United, my call to be a leader, to speak God's Holy word, learning to bless the Lord.

I did a fair amount of note-taking that week, so I won't go into it all here, but I wanted to capture what the first week of seminary felt like, when I feel like I'm lost and drowning. The closer I got to leaving for Ohio, the more my excitement to start school ebbed. I had some issues at work concerning school and I began to think this had been a terrible, horrible idea. What if I couldn't handle the workload, and my family suffered? What if I put our family in debt for nothing? How would I tell my colleagues I was not called to ministry, it had been a mistake.

I thought, perhaps, I should just take up quilting, instead of the immense undertaking of graduate school.

In the denomination I grew up in, we call that nasty voice "mortal mind." Some call it the devil, the tempter, the evil. In truth, it was nothing but mortal mind asking me to take up quilting instead of ministry. God's voice was so loud last week, drowning out the doubts and concerns. I didn't realize how desperately I needed last week until I stood in that church feeling the Christ, the Holy Spirit, there with us, blessing each of us as we claimed our place as leaders in the Kingdom.

Bless the Lord, oh my Soul...There's a new day dawning...

Caught Somewhere In the Middle

Homesickness is a funny thing.

I haven't written much about this recently. It can come off as complain-y. Instead, I write emails to my best friend who's dealing with the same affliction. Nevertheless homesickness has come on strong in the past few weeks. I blame the sale of my parents' house, my "home" in Wisconsin, in Wisconsin, my house, which I miss so very much and didn't realize how attached I had become until I left. This is where the complain-y part comes in, you see, my parents are moving here, right down the road. We'll see them once a week, at least, again. They will babysit when Caleb gets sick unexpectedly, or we need a night out. My mom will call me from the grocery store, a call that evolves from "these cherries are on sale, and look really good, do you want me to pick you a bag?" and ends with "we're having roast for dinner, do you guys just want to come over?" and I'll say "yes!" I'm so very, very glad they will be here.

But all of a sudden I have no home in Wisconsin. Wisconsin! A place I did not think I was attached to, because I hate the Packers and I love Southern cooking. Right? And yet, I'm terribly, terribly homesick and the week before last was the worst, holding back tears at the office, feeling all the feelings about losing the home when I got dressed for 2 proms, packed for college, came home from my first date with my husband (and lots of other first dates!), got ready for my wedding and my son took his first steps. Feelings, so very many feelings.

My friends who visited (from Wisconsin!) asked me "What's your favorite part about living in Tennessee?" and in my homesick mind my first thought was "Well, we have jobs. And that's about it." It was snarky and I didn't say it out loud. There are plenty of things I like about Tennessee: springtime, the longer growing season, live music everywhere, lots of bbq. I could counter with all the things that I'd prefer in Wisconsin: the summer, sweet corn & tart cherries, fish fries, snow at Christmas, my home church that I still miss, the ability to pronounce all the funny Indian names of towns that we don't have down here.

I find myself caught in the middle in the kitchen. I recently picked up The New Midwestern Table, by Amy Thielen, who lives in the Northern reaches of Wisconsin. I made Swedish Pancakes, a dish popularized at a restaurant in Door County with goats on the roof. I've now made them twice, they are exceedingly easy. They are a definite cure for some of the homesick blues.

They definitely had a Southern twang served with Bourbon Poached Peaches instead of Lingonberries. My sister has strict instructions to bring some with her from IKEA.

Also, this cookbook is amazing, it's on my Christmas list. I will be checking it out from the library repeatedly until then. Every recipe I've tried is outstanding, they have obviously been thoroughly tested and well written.

But then, yesterday, I stopped at the farm stand in town. It sets up on T/Th/Sat and has a small variety of fruits and vegetables. It's not everything I might find at a farmer's market, but what it lacks in variety, it makes up for in convenience. I can pull right up to the tent, leaving the car running with Caleb and grab a handful of things for dinner. Everything is $2 a pound, grown in a small town just west of us, maybe 20 minutes away or so. The Southern part of my heart thrilled to see a basket of okra. I was introduced to okra, fried, in college in Texas. Brian loves it and I hoped Caleb might see it as a version of a french fry (he didn't, but he did at least try it twice). I took it, and some exceedingly nice plums and passed on the peaches, but might go back later this week because peaches are only here for so long! I fried it up, sans recipe, because I can fry okra with my eyes closed. And that makes me feel a little bit more at home here. 

Simple Fried Okra

I like okra cut longwise, into long strips as you see above. They've easier to pick up and less work than the small rounds you often see. 

1 handful okra, or however much you want to feed your family. I do not enjoy reheated fried okra, so I try to fry just enough for the one meal.

 

Wet: 1 egg + a nice splash of meat + cajun seasoning. Whisk together. I would add something spicy if I weren't trying to get Caleb to try it. You could also use salt and pepper instead of the cajun season if you prefer, but go easy with the salt. You can always salt them later, hot out of the oil.

Dry: Equal parts self-rising flour and cornmeal. I like the yellow cornmeal. You could use All-Purpose flour, I liked the way the self-rising flour made the breading extra puffy. 

Bring a heavy pot with about an inch of oil up to frying temperature. I used Peanut oil, Canola or Vegetable is also fine. I didn't tend to use a themometer here. I just turn the heat on high and keep an eye on it- you want it to shimmer, not smoke. Flick in a little of the flour mixture to test it. When it start sizzling, turn down the heat a touch and toss in your okra - not all at once. If it sizzles too fast, turn down your heat a lot. 

Toss the okra in the wet, then the dry, then into the oil it goes! Keep an eye on it. If it browns too quick, turn down your heat. Pull it out with a slotted spot when it's golden brown and put it in a paper towel lined bowl or basket or pin tin. I like to sprinkle a little seasoning salt on top, but taste before you do! Over-salted okra is no good. 

Brian and I cannot keeps our hands out of this before we get to the dinner table. It's just too good!