Buddha's Hand

Long before Big Daddy and I reconnected I did a lot of praying about the kind of man God would choose for me. One time when I was imagining Mr. Right, I imagined someone who would show up for a date and knowing I am a little quirky, he would present me with a bouquet of asparagus which we would then put into a teapot. It was a funny little thought that has stuck with me for a long time.

Yesterday Big Daddy called to tell me he had a surprise for me as we built up to Valentine's Day. He set my expectations by explaining that he got it at Whole Foods so "just think about the kind of thing I might find there..." When I got home, there was a funny card and this was waiting for me:

It's called a Buddha's Hand and it's this very fragrant citrus...thing. And here's the cool part--I love it. I have been obsessed with drawing and painting lately and while I'm not very good, it brings me a lot of joy. Big Daddy brought me this amazingly weird thing and today I got to take a break from hours of work in the kitchen to draw it. Uh oh. I just realized I spelled Buddha wrong on the drawing. Oh well. That's why I practice. I hope you have someone who gets you. I hope you love yourself enough to know that the weird stuff is what makes you special. Peace, love & crazy surprises.

Wrestling with the Boogieman

When I get afraid, I get angry. Fear trembles in the corner and anger feels like control--I know that when I'm angry I'm actually less in control, but that's not how it feels. I've spent several days struggling with fear and anger and I am not winning these matches. So I'm going to talk about and see if I can steal some of the Boogieman's power.

When Big Daddy and I got together and married it was glorious. We had the kind of partnership that I'd always dreamed of and honestly it made me smug. I felt like we needed to be teaching classes, something along the lines of "Wedded Bliss for Dummies." We had challenges in those first couple of years but we were in so much awe and gratitude that we had each other that we worked through those challenges with a certain degree of grace, or maybe I imagined that part. I don't know. I honestly don't know. I wrote myself a fairy tale love story and I have absolutely no idea what's true and what's not. What I do know is now we're sliding in to our fifth year of married life and some of the glitter has fallen off and it's all over the floor and life at The Love Shack got real. We're having to talk about, deal with, cry about, fuss over, and slog through real challenges and trust me, there's no Disney music playing in the background. I have become painfully aware of my childish reactions to responsibility and the need for some serious growing up. I have made myself crazy trying to get back to some romantic ideal that doesn't fit into day-to-day life. I need a reality check. My expectation that we're supposed to be grateful and graceful all the time is beyond comic. I have been so afraid of turning into one of "those wives" that I have denied myself the connection that comes with admitting and even embracing the fact that we are taking a ride on "The Hot Mess Express."

Most of my struggles stem from the same place: the fear that I will not be taken care of. When financial problems arise, the monster under the bed tells me that time I won't get through it (in Scaryworld, there is no "we," it's just me, alone and not okay). When my family members are sick and struggling, the monster under my bed tells me that I am supposed to be handling it better. I need to be proactive. I need to make something happen. I am supposed to know what to do and how to do it with no instruction or experience.  When my husband's work situation isn't ideal, the monster under the bed tells me that our life is about to fall apart. When my work situation wanes or feels too busy, the monster under the bed tells me I will not be able to do what has to be done. When someone wants something from me and I don't follow through the way I should the monster under the bed tells me I've ruined all the good I've ever tried to do. All of these lies presuppose that it's up to me, that I am alone and unaided. All of this fear ignores the fact that my okay doesn't come from me, my bank account, my husband, my job, or my reputation. The grace I live in isn't from me, isn't about me and isn't contingent upon me. It's grace.

So today I am going to pray and move forward. I'm going to shine the light on those shadows that I've convinced myself are out to get me. I'm going to breathe in the grace and exhale all the insecurities. Today I'm going to be part of "we" and "us" and I'm going to remember that feelings aren't facts, but grace is. Peace, love & blessed messes!

Easy Riser

Before I get started musing, I think I'm going to give my self a little pat on the back for that breakfast right there. Big Daddy and I are still doing slow carb and you must admit that's a pretty tasty looking dish right there.  I went shopping last night so I could make him a homemade Chipotle bowl (I will post a tutorial later) and I took some of the leftover onions, peppers, corn and black beans, threw in some turkey taco meat with some eggs and topped it with a sriracha drizzle and ay carramba that's good stuff! (Yes it would be better with cheese and tortillas but that's kind of how we got in this mess.)

But back to my musing...next week Big Daddy and I will have been married four years, and we've been together for six. That pretty much triples my record and most days I think we're pretty pleased with the decision to get together and stay together. What has surprised me is the shift from my expectations early in our marriage to where we are now. When we were newlyweds it was important to me that my husband have nights and weekends off. I wanted to take dancing classes and get dressed up to go to dinner, I wanted plays and museums and dinner parties (?) and while we did some of that,  (and admittedly it would be easy to throw Big Daddy under the bus on this) I know I had unrealistic expectations about the Kelleys. (I'm sure there are couples who are out tripping the light fantastic three nights a week, but I'm not friends with any of them.) I think I based my daydreams on the Huxtables or something, but we're not a sitcom family and our lives and my expectations as well as what I appreciate and enjoy have gone through some transformations.

Case and point: I love mornings with Big Daddy. While we don't often run around town howling at the moon, I get the luxury of quiet mornings with my pal. We ride our bikes, share facebook news, read books, and watch Good Morning America. He waters the plants in the backyard while I fix breakfast. Our day unfolds slowly and we get quality time when we are fresh and nothing has messed up the day yet. I never would have chosen this. If someone had given me the option, I would have explained that I am not a morning person, that I am grouchy and hard to deal with before noon which it turns out isn't entirely true. I prefer to stay up late and to sleep in a bit which I get to do now. I rarely have to set an alarm. Most days I get twenty to thirty minutes in bed between waking and actually putting my feet on the floor. I was apprehensive when Big Daddy got a job at a bar but the hours have been GREAT for us. He now lives on my vampire schedule rather than me trying to keep up with the cock-a-doodle-doo clock (which I slept right through).

I guess one of the lessons of our first four years is something Mick and Keith figured out a long time ago. I hope your day is filled with peace love and unexpected blessings.

Homemade Chipotle Bowls:

Grill chicken (and or beef) marinated in evoo and fajita seasoning.

Make basmati rice according to instructions. Add fresh cilantro and lime juice. (We left this out because it's not on our diet.)

Then make some pico de gallo. (I just used the grape tomatoes and red onion I had in the fridge.)

To pan roast frozen corn, warm a nonstick pan on high heat and add corn (I didn't add oil so it would brown quickly--you have to keep it moving.) Add a can of rinsed black beans (you can substitute pinto or chili beans).

Chop a head of Romaine.

Make guacamole.

Set out bowls of salsa, sour cream and cheese.

If you are making salads here's a copy cat recipe for the dressing. (We usually skip the dressing.)

Set out all the ingredients and let your family have at it!

This can be wrapped in warm flour tortillas for the burrito, can be served as a burrito bowl or can be made into a salad. Enjoy!

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

I don't remember when I heard the phrase, teamwork makes the dream work, but I know that it made me roll my eyes. And then I started saying it. All the time. A lot. And then a weird thing happened--I started to believe it.

I have always be a bit independent. I don't join teams. I don't do group projects well at all. I enjoy my own company. Even as a little kid I didn't want to snuggle much and I think it hurt my mom's feelings. If I get too entwined with Big Daddy I have visions of being trapped under a beam in a collapsed mine shaft. I don't know where this stuff comes from, I really don't.

Then a weird thing happened. I fell in love and got engaged and then we got married. It was crazy. And now I'm half of an us. I'm part of a we. It's been the best thing for me ever. Ask anyone. But to be honest, things haven't been easy here at the Love Shack. My business has slowed down to almost nothing and that's put a lot of pressure on Big Daddy. We love to run around and have fun and it's taken some of the wind from our sails that we can't just decide to hop in the car and go where we want when we want and while we both know wholeheartedly that this will pass, I think we'd both love to know when. One would think that this kind of strain would cause problems in our partnership, only in our case, when the going gets tough, our marriage gets stronger. This isn't an isolated incident, this has been a fact since we became us. Big Daddy pointed that out during a recent conversation. He reminded me that we thrive under pressure and while I wanted to throw up my hands and wail, "I don't want to be thriving under pressure--I want to have what i want, now!" but it's hard to argue with the truth. We have more quality time together when we have less quality cash. We are more creative and more collaborative.

So today, I'm thankful for blessings that come in disguise. I'm thankful for "one day at a time" and I'm grateful that I get to share my days with someone who doesn't let me forget what makes me a woman of abundance: I am blessed beyond measure to know who I am, what I am and whose I am. Happy Friday, ya'll!

Yam-tastic!

Okay before I start any other blather, I really have to tell you about the sweet potatoes I made last night because they were killer. All I did was take two sweet potatoes and scrub them well. Then I took some butter and gave the sweet potatoes a massage. Then I mixed together 1 teaspoon of chili powder, 1 teaspoon of cumin and 1 teaspoon of sea salt (or kosher salt or what ever kind of cheffy kind of salt we have) and then I cover the sweet potatoes in the spicy stuff. Then I wrap them in waxed paper and nuked them for about eight or nine minutes (until I could squeeze them and feel the give). I cut those bad boys open and broke up the insides a bit with a fork and then I put lime juice inside. No butter, no fat grams, just lime juice. I really expected Big Daddy to give me a pat on the head for busting out the spices and getting an inch or two out of my comfort zone, but what I didn't expect was how freaking good it was going to be. Chef ate it skin and all while I just sort dragged each fork-ful through the chili seasoning. The lime juice just gave it this extra zing but you really don't notice that it's lime juice. It made the sweet potato sweet potato-ier. I busted out a little pork loin action and the daily tossed salad and doooood, when Big Daddy looked at me and said that was deeeeelish, I looked right back at him and said "I know."

For anyone who may not know, Big Daddy is a chef and while he will sputter and hem and haw about what he does right now and where he does it, make no mistake--from the tippy top of his big old mellon head to his tore up from the floor up feet, that man is a chef. Now a lot of people think that makes him a prissy eater or a kitchen snob--he is neither. He likes whatever he doesn't have to cook and we've got the same folgers coffee and uncle ben's rice mix that everyone else does. We shop at Kroger and Sprouts and occasionally very occasionally we go to Whole Foods and Market Street for something special because it's just too painful to spend two weeks in grocery bills on one meal. I can't remember anything I've made that he has not been kind about but cooking every day is a lot of pressure! I have trouble getting everything done at the same time or I get a little too ambitious and I wind up multitasking and over cooking a thing or two. There are LOTS of times when I'm completely uninspired and if I don't pay attention we'll eat pork four nights in a row or I'll do something mexican flavored for days and days and days. Then there's the battle with left-overs, I say it's a bonus if you eat stuff more than once, but Chef has a really hard time watching food go in the disposal. It causes him physical pain. All this to say that I feel inadequate in the kitchen often and I face that inadequacy five days a week. That is what I choose to do because I want to be a killer cook and the only way to become a killer cook is to practice practice practice.

I was never the house wifey type. I never made beds or stayed on top of the laundry. I cleaned when I felt like I had to and any request by a potential house guest was met with a very hesitant, "Well, I guess so." So this married thing and this stay at home thing is a completely new planet for me. For the first year and a half we were together, Big Daddy and I played show and tell as we got to know each other, but I already knew the things I was showing and telling. These days, I'm finding there are things I didn't know about myself that are being reveled through our relationship. It's a little alarming at times to realize that I am completely exposed with him and while I've always been a fairly open book, I've never been this open. I was talking to a girlfriend about it today and she said, "Oh yeah, you'll be learning tons of things you didn't know about yourself and each other for years (and years and years and years)." All I could think was, God I hope so.