Music to my ears.
As a parent there are so many highs and lows. It feels like lately we’ve seen some of the extreme lows. Couple that with a barely functioning sewer line for a few weeks, end of the spring semester stress and a very long winter. But today I’m delighting.
I’m sitting on the couch, drinking coffee, listening to my girls playing in their room. What a sweet sound.
in the background? The sound of the washer humming in the basement.
Life is looking up here at Ice Station Zebra.
Advice on marriage from a seven year old.
If you marry a guy because he’s rich, well, what if he’s annoying to be around?
You would be spending every day thinking ‘this guy is a jerk’ and not very happy.
Yeah. So maybe that shouldn’t be why you marry him.
—-
This girl is sometimes your great grandma or aunt, in a seven year old’s body.
Beet Soup.
I know, yuck! Insert memories of some god-awful purple stuff with stringy beef. My own Polish grandma didn’t even serve it to us.
I recently asked for help — I had come to the end of the month, but we hadn’t eaten our month’s worth of winter vegetables. And it was time to pick up 25 lbs of new veggies. (side note, what the heck DID we eat if we had so many carrots, beets, parsnips and squash left over??). A friend pointed me to this soup, a gingery roasted beet and sweet potato soup on NPR’s webpage. I had all the ingredients (except cilantro) and I have a rockstar blender. Ok I’ll try it.
Here’s the recipe:
gingery roasted beet and sweet potato soup
Makes 4 servings
3 red beets (about 1 to 1 1/4 pound)
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into chunks (about 1 pound)
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, plus 1 tablespoon, divided
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 medium yellow onion
2 stalks celery, diced
2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
Juice of 1 lime
1 tablespoon fresh minced ginger
1/3 cup fresh chopped cilantro
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 (15-ounce) can light coconut milk
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Wash and peel the beets and sweet potato, and cut into 1-inch pieces. Roast beets in skin, peel them when done. Mucho easier. (You may want to wear gloves, as the beets may stain your hands. But then again, purple is the new black.) Peel and chop sweet potato and onion. No dicing necessary on either — it’s going in the blender later. Place beets, chopped onion and sweet potato on a large rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, salt and black pepper. Roast for 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned and tender when pierced with a knife. Remove from oven and set aside.
In a large pot over medium-high heat, add remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil. Add onions and celery and saute 5 to 7 minutes, until softened and lightly browned. Transfer the cooked beets and potato to the pot. Add the broth, lime juice, ginger, cilantro and cayenne pepper and stir well. Cook for 10 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes before pureeing. Working in batches, add soup and coconut milk to a blender and puree until smooth. For a velvety smooth consistency, you can strain the soup through a sieve. I like a few tiny bumps, so I leave it as is. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Downhill
“mama. I like the hills where both sides of it are downhill! But if they were all like that then you would never work hard. And sometimes it feels good to work hard, you know?”
“If they were all like that then the woods wouldn’t be so quiet and then it wouldn’t be as good. “
I love skiing with my kids because they’ll just talk and talk. Sometimes they are really tuned in to life.
thoughts for a tuesday
I’ve been having and listening to several on-going conversations with friends about relationships that are out of balance in their lives. My dog walks and exercise time this week has been devoted to thinking about, around and through these relationships. As I began to write an email to a friend last night, I decided it was better left until later. I wanted time to pause, reflect and to pull one of my favorite books about parenting off the shelf. My friend introduced me to the book about eight years ago. (Eight years, is that possible?). Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn. I’ve never read the book cover to cover. Rather from time to time I pick it up, read 2-3 chapters, put a bookmark in the book and return later, having processed what I read.
As I think through this email I’m about to send to a friend, I’m looking for a passage from the book. Turns out, as I look, that this book about parenting is about teaching too. I just lost myself for about 30 minutes in this book, that I have already read cover to cover, and yet I still haven’t found just the passage I was looking for. Perhaps I should just buy K the book?
We are continually seeking balance in our parenting. To a large degree, it is a very personal matter. What feels balanced to us might feel completely unbalanced to you, and vice versa, and what may feel right to you may feel wrong to someone else. Moreover, what may feel right to us now may not feel that way at some other time. It’s a continual process, since the balance point keeps changing. Each of us has to work at defining what balance means for us, and creating it from moment to moment for ourselves, for our children, and for the family as a whole, as best we can.
Perhaps my favorite part of the parenting routine
There are others, but nothing’s quite as sweet as cuddling with the girls, reading our favorite books, sharing our wishes for snow. What’s not to love that my 10 yr old will still occasionally snuggle and read the books she loved as a toddler?
Grandma if you’re reading this, first on said ten yr old’s Christmas list is a new story grandma and grandpa record for the iPod.
Goodnight moon.
