Smiles in Your Vicinity and Mine

The kitchen was quiet...mostly but not really for Molly was prancing around singing a Sunday school song from this morning that was on loop in her head. Normally, a song sung over and over with wrong words scattered throughout would cause a vein in my neck to stand out a bit by the third time through. Today, however, her song became the tune to which I was baking...with pumpkin!

A short way into her fourth iteration of her song, Molly noticed the mixer was in use and grabbed a stool. Dragging it toward me she said, "Can...I...help...you...cook?" 

I added the eggs, Molly added the pumpkin and the commentary...

"Mommy...you are just...the very best Mommy." It is her familiar chorus.

"I'm glad you think so Molly. You are the very best Molly."

"Oh Mom, you know I love it when you say that. Is that why you say that?"

"Yes, Molly. I like to make you happy."

"Oh I know," she said wistfully, "Don't I just make you smile?"

"Oh my yes," I confirmed...

...and then she waltzed off to make sure I wasn't the only one smiling...

A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, 

making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles. 

~Washington Irving~

Quickie Chickie (as promised on Instagram)

We stopped our school day at 4:00 but still were not finished. Having worked at a steady pace all day and having plowed through two chapters of a difficult read, and Cole having an evening commitment made calling it quits on our education for the day a merciful move.

Even more merciful was the dinner I had on the calendar for the evening. It was a new recipe from an old cookbook. The recipe had only a few steps and those proved very low maintenance which was the reason I was holding out hope that this new dish was at least swallowable because if it was anywhere near average, it was going to appear in regular rotation.

Happily, Swiss Chicken was a hit. When I looked at the kids after dinner had begun, their faces were about two inches nearer their plates than normal and they were eating way too fast. "Sorry!" said one when I corrected, "it's just really really good."

From Instagram...

A keeper! Whoot!

Swiss Chicken
(click here for printable recipe)

I doubled the recipe for my crew and those are the quantities below. The original recipe only served 4 however, if you're gonna go to the trouble of cooking, you really need to score some leftovers. BUT if you only need 4 servings, just use half of the quantity called for.

Here's what you'll need for 8 servings:

8 boneless skinless chicken breasts (or if you're using the ginormous frozen kind, 1/2 of a breast will more than suffice. I usually cut those big pieces into three sections.)
8 slices of Swiss cheese
2 cans of cream of chicken soup
1 cup white cooking wine or chicken broth (I used cooking wine)
1 cup pre-seasoned croutons
1/2 cup butter, melted

Here's what you do:

1. Preheat oven to 350˚. 
2. Place chicken in a casserole/baking dish. Cover each piece with a slice of cheese.
3. In a separate bowl stir together the soup and the wine/broth and pour it over the chicken and cheese. 
4. Sprinkle the crushed croutons over the top evenly. Don't skimp on the croutons, they really add a nice taste to the final product. 
5. Finally pour melted butter over everything. {Note: we poured butter over one half of our dish and left the other half butter-less. There was a small difference in taste, but not enough to notice if you want to opt for a lighter version.} 
6. Bake for 25-30 minutes, being careful not to over cook the chicken. 

We enjoyed our Swiss Chicken with steamed broccoli and wild rice.

Happy cooking!
Original recipe from At Our Table by Roxie Kelley

"All great change in America begins at the dinner table."

~Ronald Reagan

The Smartest One

"Hey Molly," I said on my way to the coffee maker, "I'll get you started on school in just a second but first, I've got to get something started for me!"

"COFFEE!!" she shouted.

"That's EXACTLY what I was talkin' about!" said I, smiling both at her and at the wonderful scent of the coffee dripping into my cup.

"Of course it was," she bantered back, "you KNOW I'm the smartest one around here. 

Five year olds are very smart."

Smart, yes...but NOT very humble!

Smartness runs in my family. 

When I went to school I was so smart my teacher was in my class for five years.
Gracie Allen 

Anyway and Even Though

"I want you to sing at my funeral,"  she said. We were in her kitchen after a family funeral where I had been asked to sing. I agreed readily, honored that she'd asked.

I agreed readily because its easy to say yes to a woman whose eyes sparked often with humor, whose cheeks were full of color, whose hair wasn't even completely greyed, whose steps were quick and light and who had a regular early morning walking regime.

I couldn't picture a funeral in my Grandma's future back then so agreeing to sing was a simple matter.

She's such a part of all of us, in what kind of world would she not be present?

In the kind of world where time and sickness and decline had their way.

It's been nearly 18 years since Grandma requested a song of me and a few days ago the time came for me to sing it. The agreeing was so much easier than the doing.

Surprising sadness took hold of me that morning. We were, all of us, grieving more deeply than we expected I think, after Grandma's long illness. There was so much in the day for our hearts to take in.

The church was the same welcoming white church in the woods that it has been for all of my childhood Sundays when we attended while visiting my Grandma...

Then, in the choir loft, where my Grandma had sung many songs in her own time, her chair left empty, her robe hanging over it with a black tin bow in her honor....

Family and friends who had come from near and far to support us and to honor this dear lady of ours...

And too there was the added import of all of our family coming together as we hardly ever do anymore.

That day, our gathering had purpose.

We gathered in a back room before the service began, my cousins and our spouses and our children, then joined by our parents, all of us having said our final earthly farewells. Our missing of her at that moment was sharp. We filed back into the sanctuary and the pastor began...and very soon it was time to do what I'd been asked.

It was a simple hymn, one of my very favorites, one that held significance to our family.

It was not simple enough however, for as the introduction ended an I was to begin, I was suddenly thinking about my Grandma and green beans and ...I came in on a very very wrong note.

Not how I wanted things to go at allllllllll! I stopped and asked the pianist if we could begin again. She began with the introduction, but I began with the verse. Mercifully, she rescued me and said "Let me play the introduction then begin."

I followed her lead and off we went, song accomplished and duty done and comic relief provided to my grinning family.

Never in my life have I wanted to do so well and never in my life have I had such trouble. The funeral goers were kind afterward, telling me they enjoyed my part but I think secretly they were congratulating me for making it to the end of it with out totally falling from the platform!

My Ant Sab said she thought it was Divine intervention which lightened our sorrow for a moment. My Mom, "It really was the most beautiful I've ever heard you sing...I bet folks were so surprised that you really could sing after such a start."

True words.

My cousin hugged me later in the day and said, "I know you are going to spend a lot of time thinking about the beginning of that song, but you really did a good job after that."

Kindness, that.

After lots of thought and even more imagining, I think Grandma would have given me a pass for making an honest effort, I know she'd have grinned when I finished and would have given me a wink and a nod of approval even though it had been far from perfect.

She was like that. 

She always loved us...anyway and even though. 

Also...my sister has written a beautiful tribute to our Grandma with words I cannot begin to match and which perfectly captures her place in my sister's life and in the lives of all of her family. Click here to read it.

A Group Effort

We were attempting to chat about a new cd my Man had just purchased for me but we couldn't hear over the bass thumping through the speakers...as much as bass can thump out of minivan speakers. The volume was turned up because the kids in the back seat were contributing quite a bit of volume of their own.

Our day, the last before school was to begin, had been a typical jaunt into the next few burgs away to secure some shoes, some books, and some Sonic. One of the kids had visited the bathroom of EVERY establishment we'd entered. Another child nearly escaped getting hit by a car in the chick fil a parking lot, the same child who would later have to be removed very quickly from the very back seat of the van due to excessive gagging which often leads to a more tangible evidence of motion sickness.

The remaining two kids spent much of the car ride uncharacteristically exchanging snarky remarks. Then there were the constant squabbles over feet poking through seat backs and baby dolls taking up too much room and How much longer? and I am really hungry. and Can I have this? and I really really neeeeeed that.

The day that was to have been refreshing and relaxing had instead proven stale and stressful.

Screaming from the back seat caused me to snap the radio's volume down and toss a steamy glare into the back seat, "Can't you guys hear that your Dad and I are having a conversation?!?!?"

"NO," said the screamer, "the radio is up way too loud!"

My Man took the reigns...

"You guys have just about shot my and your mother's LAST nerve!"

"Well," said the deepest voice in the back, "it has been a group effort."

Indeed it had.

The GROUP... on a happier day!

The Cruise Director & The Cousins

Kate is downstairs making the case for being allowed a candy bar after breakfast, testing the exact level of vacation that we are actually taking...there have been PopTarts after all. I'm folding beach towels, as instructed by Candy Bar Girl, so that we may make better time getting to the beach than in days past.

Yesterday she and I left the rest of our crew behind sleeping and enjoyed the beach, just the two of us. I had a lovely time watching her try to be content without her build-in beach buds.

A small family of cousins, I assumed, was playing in the ocean near her and she scooted and drifted and scooted and drifted and in her very determined way kept attempting to make eye contact with the little cousins all the while looking toward the beach to see if her own siblings were perhaps approaching.

Eye contact finally established with the oldest of the cousins, Kate spent the next 10 minutes in animated chatter with her mark. Soon however, the conversation ended and Kate made her way back to where I was sitting on the blanket, spending more time watching her than reading words on a page.

In the background, at the edge of the ocean I heard a little voice say as he pointed to Kate, "Mamma! I made a new friend!"

Eventually Kate and I returned to our gang as they gained the pool area. "Wonder if our other friends are going to be along soon?" Our other friends were yet another family of cousins whose acquaintance we'd made on another day poolside.

They were 7 in number and ranged in age from Kate to Molly and were remarkable in their ability to create copious amounts of both noise and splash. Two of the children were quite adept at seeming to be just ready to go perilously under and yet quite. They did this in such a way as to make you fairly certain that you didn't need to jump to their rescue but at the same time feel like an uncaring buffoon for not leaving the comfort of your lounge chair.

Much to Kate and Molly's delight, our friends did arrive en masse just as my Man and I were settling in with our cozy books and our coffee and our deep desire to not be bothered. Nice aren't we?

One of those cousins soon placed herself in Molly's floating whale boat which seemed completely fine with the girls but was less so with me.

That whale and I have a history.

Years ago, we'd purchased my blue friend to serve as a bath tub for a very small Cole and an even smaller Megan at a camp where my Man was serving as camp pastor. The room we were assigned had no good spot to bathe the kids, and the whale was the perfect solution. Since those precious days years ago, our whale has seen many a body of water and has faithfully floated the bodies of every one of our kiddos.

I was on the edge of my seat waiting for that other child to tire of the whale so that I could scoop it out of the pool and hide it before it was beaten to a pulp and deflated, never to take to chlorinated waters (or tile floor) ever again.

Kate, as usual, had other ideas.

I saw that first cousin preparing to disembark, so I too prepared to leave my chair and grab my the whale but before I could stop her, Kate turned to the rest of the group and said, "OK guys!!! WHO wants the NEXT ride?"

For the rest of the afternoon Kate became the official Cruise Director of Floating Whale Cruise Lines, guiding her passenger-filled craft back and forth from the shallow end to the deep end all the while enforcing strict order amongst the group of cousins.

"I'm next, I'm next," each would insist.
"No," answered the Cruise Director, "the one in the purple suit is next, then the one with the sparkles after that, you've already had your turn this round."

Not one soul argued with her. It seemed she who owned the whale was sovereign.

My Man and I eventually relaxed into our chairs and our books as Kate enjoyed what was probably her favorite day of vacation with her friends and her whale and ...her authority.

Kate reminded me of what I already knew, but had shelved for vacation purposes:

Being nice is not merely a luxury only to be shared with folks with whom I am comfortable. Being nice is simply THE way to be, even if you have to get a little wet and endure a LOT of noise and share a bit of your day...even if it's a vacation day!

{Above photo by Megan Wright}

Being nice could even mean having to share my whale!

NOTE: Kate's friend making adventures at the beach didn't begin this year. Click here to read of another.

Making it Matter

He reads to me sometimes, this Man of mine. He just wanders over to where I am and shares a well-written nugget or a thought-provoking sentence with me.

Can I tell you how that makes my heart beat just a little faster?

It's worth more than a bouquet of flowers, a diamond bracelet, or a case of mango sorbet.

Here's why...

Do you know how easy it would be for him not to stop and to not share? Terribly easy. So simple it would be just to charge right on to the end of the chapter and close the book and continue with the day, to mark another task off of the check list. Sure, you say, it's nice of him, but it costs him nothing at all. Yes, nothing at all except for time and concentration, both pretty rare commodities these days...have you noticed?

When my Man was a seminary student he told me that one of his professors warned the students not to neglect their wives. The professor wasn't speaking of the typical dangers of not appreciating one's spouse, or of denying her enough attention. He was referring to the spiritual and mental condition of the students' mates.

It seems that there exists a danger among all types of married students for the partner gaining the education to be mentally nourished, stimulated, and excited about all that he was learning while his wife was living in a completely different existence be it a 9 to 5 job and all of its worldly challenges or a 24/7 career as a mother of small children trying to piece together a real life on a shoestring budget and a steady diet of Dora the Explorer and three-year-old chatter.

Imagine the dinner conversation:

"Honey! You should have HEARD Dr. Deepfaith's lecture today on the different theories about the intertestamental period! It was the best part of my day when he brought it all together at the end."

"That's great dear. The best part of my day was catching Max's juice spill before it ran off of the table and on to the carpet again...or was that yesterday? Oh, AND I found a new recipe this morning for hot dog casserole that I thought we'd try soon."

See the problem?

My Man took his professor's advice seriously and has, for the better part of twenty years, been including me in his education. It began with us listening to systematic theology lectures on cassette tape after work in the kitchen while I washed the dinner dishes and it continued as we attended youth leader conferences together.

As the children entered our lives, my education took on a different appearance as my very busy Man came home from work early once a week so that I could attend a Bible study with my peers during a season as a young exhausted mother when I needed to feel like my brain was still able to function. It was an hour of his week then that still pays dividends in my memory to this day a decade later. Over the following years my Man encouraged me by buying for me whatever particular how-to book I was interested in at a particular moment.

My appetite for books hasn't decreased, nor has my Man's willingness to provide them.

And while my interest in the nitty gritty points of every branch of theology has been...more piqued at some times than at others, my pastor-husband has been a quiet student and a humble teacher ready with soft answers to my let-me-poke-a-hole-in-your-theory questions.

Does he always show up just when I need to hear a fresh thought from a favorite author? No way.

Does he roll his eyes at me sometimes? Absolutely, then he huffs...a little.

Does he care a little about this mamma's brain and spiritual well being? More than a little.

Does he come home every night bubbling over with conversation to share? Not always. But he does come home every night and that's all a gal should ask for some days.

Every now and then though, when he comes through the door he carries a pair of identical books, one for himself and the other for me and every time that happens I feel like I've been invited to dine at the big kids' table where the food being served requires a sharp knife and the conversation calls for a keen mind.

That feeling is worth more than the book, 

     ...worth more than all of the books, 

           ...(and there have been many), 

                ...and God willing,

                    ...may there be many, many more.

Happy Birthday my Man.

Thanks for bringing me along with you. 

Thanks for making it matter 

...and then for making it happen.

All my love,

  G

Overheard at Dinner...

"Dad, your girlfriend is on the phone! She wants to talk to you."

My Man, taking the proffered pink plastic toy cell phone from Molly asked in a whispered voice holding his hand over the mouthpiece, "My girlfriend!? What's her name?"

"Joanne."

"Can't it be Roxanne?" he asked.

"Nope. It's Joanne and she wants to talk to you. Tell her something."

"What should I tell her?"

"Oh," grinned Molly, "tell 'er something sweet!"

"Ok...Hi Joanne. What kind of pie do you like?"

The conversation was interrupted by a small chubby hand grabbing the phone and holding it tightly to her chest. "DON'T talk about pie to your girlfriend!"

"You said to talk about something sweet!"

"I said to say something sweet. I did not say to ask her about pie." She handed the phone back to him expectantly.

"Joanne, I'm about to eat some pie. What kind of pie do you like?"

"DO NOT talk any more about pie!" Molly instructed and nodded to the phone to prod him along.

"Hello, Joanne? How do you feel about noodles?"

After ending the "conversation" with "Joanne", my Man turned to Molly and explained, "Molly, Mommy is my real girlfriend. Do you know how long she's been my girlfriend? For over 20 years."

"Well, she's not your girlfriend now, she's your WIFE, and ya can't have BOTH."

"I really can," said my man to this little girl who would not be convinced.

"Which is better," I asked her, "for me to be Daddy's wife or for me to be his girlfriend?"

"For you to be my Mommy," said she grinning as she delivered what she knew was the perfect answer.

"Molly," I said, "what kind of pie do YOU like?"