An Apple a Day...

My Mom & Dad have apple trees. So does their neighbor. Two years ago those trees produced...big time. Last year...not so much. This year...bumper crop. 


I wanted nothing more this year than to go to my Mom's and "do apples". After plans fell through a time or two, I gave up. Mom lives a few hours away and school had begun at The Wright Academy and, and, and...Apple Day did not happen for me.


Before Apple Day could happen, torrential rains swept across the land. Not to worry, my Mom intended to pick apples, and neither rain nor sleet, nor snow...was going to stop her.

My Dad helped a little too...

At one point, my Mom borrowed and operated a bucket truck from a local business to reach the apples up on top!

With apples gathered, Apple Day commenced and a better cast of characters one need not attempt to assemble. Mom had the All Star Team right there in her very own kitchen.


Lemme introduce you...first the aunts...my aunts...actually one aunt and one ANT. No typo that's the way its always been, ever since at age 5, I made construction paper Christmas stockings and labeled the one for that smiling lady below "Ant Sab." 

Ant Sab is my Mom's sister and, therefore my Dad's sister-in-law. Her good friend, the lady in the orange shirt in the photo below, is my Aunt Janice who also happens to be my Dad's sister, my Mom's sister-in-law. (Have I lost you yet? Are you keepin' up?)

Now, both of my aunts, hard at work making applesauce, were flanked at this happy event by THEIR MOTHERS...

my Grandmothers...my parent's parents.

My Mom's mom, the farthest away in the picture above was busy loading quartered apples into gallon-sized freezer bags while my Dad's mom was busy quartering those apples. 

This great lady turned 90 last March. My Grandma Martha will turn 90 in a few months. I've learned lots from these women and from the weary ones below as well. (Check out all of that applesauce! Which, by the way is best served partially frozen. No kidding, try it sometime...)

I've learned even more from the lady below in red, the one working the apple-peeler-slicer-corer thingy.

Yep that's my Mom (all dry now). 

I love it when she wears red, and mascara, she looks like she's about 24 when she wears mascara. I also love it when she hosts Apple Day. 

All of those great women gathered in the kitchen working together making the most amazing applesauce on the planet, "putting up" apples for future use, making apple dumplings for deliciousness down the road, and sharing the efforts of their labor with me and many others to boot! (Happily these dear women had forgotten the story of the Little Red Hen!)

What a heritage! 

I'm a fortunate daughter, niece, and granddaughter who is doing her best to follow in the footsteps of these ladies, these grand, giving, hard-working  ladies.

I'd be proud for it to someday be said of me...

"You know, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree!"

{Here's an excellent use for these apples, click here for one of my favorite apple recipes.}

Tortilla Soup for the Less Adventurous Crowd

Today...dreary, chilly, damp.

Soup and crusty French bread...necessary.

Soup of the day...Chicken Tortilla.

Challenge...my Man does not like tomatoes, a main ingredient in this dish. Or onions. Or peppers.

Happily, my Man loves chicken in soup AND he's a big fan of tortilla chips.

Everything else...well, I can work around it, right?!

You'll need:
(Printable Recipe here)

2-3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 Tablespoon canola or olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin (more or less to taste)
1/2 teaspoon chili powder (more or less to taste)
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 to 1 teaspoon minced garlic
juice of 1/2 lime or 1 Tablespoon bottled lime juice
4-5 cups chicken stock (or 3 - 14 oz cans)
2 cups bottled salsa (shhhhhh don't tell)
1 cup frozen corn kernels
4 oz tortilla chips (for about 2 1/2 crushed)
shredded cheese for garnish

**other ingredients as desired like: sour cream, chopped avocado, guacamole, sliced black olives, jalapenos, black beans...what ever you might add to a plate of nachos!

Here's what to do...
First, pour oil into skillet and heat. While oil heats, cut chicken into bite-size pieces. Add chicken pieces to skillet and sprinkle cumin, chili powder, salt, and pepper over chicken.

Add minced garlic to the pan and stir chicken and garlic. Squeeze or pour lime juice over chicken as it finishes cooking.

Pour entire contents into a dutch oven (soup pot) and return to heat. Next, add chicken broth and salsa UNLESS...you are cooking for anyone who may not enjoy tomatoes, onions, green chilies or peppers. If you have such a person at your table, add the salsa to a blender or food processor and puree.

This adds the flavors without all of the objectionable textures.

"Hello...Dad? Mommy just added a whole bunch of salsa to dinner!!"

Add contents of blender to soup pot along with the frozen corn and bring soup to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed (add salt, pepper, lime juice etc).

Crumble tortilla chips into bottom of soup bowls and add soup. Add cheese, and any other toppings desired.

Serve with crusty bread or corn bread. Enjoy!

My Man declared this a Do-Over and said that the level of heat in the soup was just right for him. Next time, however, I'm adding a bit of Texas Pete to my bowl!

Pools and Puddles

I woke up in a blur the other morning. I stumbled in and pressed the "Give-Me-Coffee-Quick" button on the coffee maker and grabbed my morning devotional. As the coffee began to do its work, so did the words I read from the skinny brown book. The word picture painted for me was that of a pool of water.

"We dig a well," said the author, "but heaven fills it with rain." It was a good reminder as I looked ahead at the duties the awaited me. The work was mine to do, but it was God's to bless, for, as my slim book asked,

"What are the means and ordinances without the smile of heaven? They are clouds without rain and pools without water. O God of love, open the windows of heaven and pour us out a blessing."

Thus bolstered, I met the morning with a skip in my step and praise on my lips. My few moments of devotion had changed my morning perspective. I saw beauty everywhere. I grabbed my camera as the kids finished getting ready for school so that I could record God's blessings in my day...

There were the flowers from my mom's cutting garden waiting for me in the bathroom when I brushed my teeth.

Our little cherry tomato plant, which had recovered from animal attack last month and has been producing a red tomato or two every few days.

My children, gathered 'round to listen to their history lesson on a sunny side porch.

Peanut butter cake, delivered to us by one of our favorite families, for morning snack with hot tea along side.

"Blessings all mine with ten thousand beside..."

I was soaring on the wings of blessing, my heart as bright and cheerful as the sun was warm and...sunny. 

Until...remember by devotional and its talk of pools of water...

...the green mug in that picture above was soon to tip over and cover our maps with sticky sweet hot tea which dripped through the table top and covered our shoes and the porch.

No big deal. We stopped and cleaned it up, and got back to work.

Until...remember that green mug up there...after it was refilled with tea, it was knocked to the ground by a student more intent on her work than on her beverage. 

(This teacher is not complaining about that!)

No problem. We stopped and cleaned that up too and got back to work.

Except...during that break, Cole found a slug, a big slug and decided that it would make a good pet. I decided it would probably make an educational pet and sent him to see what a slug eats. After providing apple and broccoli and a bowl to Cole's new pal, we got back to work.

Until...it was time for first grade art to come to an end and ... 

well...remember my morning devotion about pools of water and about how my work was God's to bless and not mine to fret about?

I'm so glad He's in charge of the puddles. 

There certainly were plenty of them for both of us to deal with today.

Know what else I'm glad about? I'm glad I had a moment that morning to lift my chin toward Him first thing. If I hadn't, I might have been a hot steamy pile of discouragement and defeat before lunch time.  If I hadn't given up by lunch time, I'd surely have given up after lunch, because things became more difficult as the day progressed. Nothing was earth-shattering, there were just lots of little puddles underfoot and all about. We just kept cleaning them up and getting back to work.

Having taken a small minute first thing had rescued our day. 

I really must begin every day like that because into every life, a little rain must fall and I want my rain to be the kind from heaven...the kind that fills the pools...the kind that blesses!

"Oh God of love, open the windows of heaven and pour us out a blessing!"

Morning devotion: Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon. Devotions from this work are also available FREE online here. 

Writing about Rules...(& a Molly Pic)

Remember last month when I read 5 books while on vacation and I only was able to tell you about 4 of them (click here if you don't remember and are curious about the other books...) ?

I read that 5th book as a member of BlogHer Book Club and my review has posted there today!! Yea! The book that I read is called Rules of Civility by Amor Towels whose writing really swept me off my feet!!

Please (pretty please?) click on over to BlogHer for a just a second and take a look at Rules of Civility and why I'm such a fan...Thanks a bunch!!

A really whole bunch... (click here).

(Picture included for my "non-bookish" Mom, who frequently skips scrolls quickly through my book reviews wishing instead to see pictures of her grandchildren...the nerve!)

"The things I want to know are in books; 

my best friend is a man who'll get me a book I haven't read." 

~Abraham Lincoln

Talking to my Six-Year-Old About 9/11

“Why are those soldiers from Afghanistan at the game? Wait a minute, what did they say? What people died? Mom, what are they talking about?”  Kate pelted me with question after question.

We were watching our college team play football on tv when, at the end of the first quarter of the game, to honor those who had died on 9/11, the cameras zoomed in on a color guard dressed in camouflage standing at attention. The marching band, a group we are accustomed to hearing play our school’s fight song, was playing one of our nation’s fight songs instead. 

As “God Bless America” played in the background, I took a deep breath and prepared to answer my six-year-old questioner. 

Where to begin? 

I have dusty memories of explaining all that I could of the events of 9/11 to our older children a few years ago, but Kate’s world had never been touched with its dark reality.

I began, “Ten years ago, a few months after Megan was born, people who don’t like our country flew big planes--four of them--into buildings in New York and into a government building in Washington DC. The fourth plane was full of heroes who figured out the danger that the bad people intended to do and overtook the plane they were on and gave up their lives to save many others.” 

I stopped my explanation there, but my mind continued its backward journey remembering, as all Americans do, just what I had been doing on that awful morning...

 I had just finished changing Meg’s diaper and was getting ready to dress her for the day when a strange feeling caused me to turn on the radio in the nursery and tune it to the local NBC station. I heard the broadcasters on the Today Show attempting to report on what was happening. I finished dressing Meg and rushed to the family room to turn on the TV. What I saw, of course, would change things forever...

It was Kate’s voice again that drew me forward once more into the present. With those big blue eyes trained at me she asked the exact question I had asked my Mother many years ago when our nation was dealing with acts of terror wrought by Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi, 

“Will they come here?” 

My Mom promptly took me to a world map and showed me the distance between our country and the country where that decade’s evil seemed to reside. The large gulf that her fingers spanned comforted me, I remember the physical feeling of relief that my new-found knowledge had given me. It never entered my mind as a young child that any airplane could cover the distance between my Mom’s fingers on that map. I was looking for a reason to feel safe, and that map was reason enough.

“Mom, can they get here?”

Oh baby, I thought, I want to tell you a resounding, absolute, “No.” but I can’t answer “No” and be completely honest. They made it to New York, they made it to Washington D.C., they even made it to a field in the state next door to us. 

I want to reassure my child, but there doesn’t seem to be enough distance on any map from that Pennsylvania field to my own home for my fingers to be very reassuring.

I answer her, “No, probably not. Those soldiers holding the flag and many, many more like them are working hard to keep something like that from happening again.” 

“OK,” she said, and off she went on to her next activity. The sight of the soldiers on TV seemed to have done the same work that my Mom’s map did many years ago. 

I wonder, what will she use to reassure her child in years to come when, all of a sudden that child learns of evil in the world. What, dare I wonder, will that evil look like?

I can only pray that whatever form evil takes in the decades to come, there will be in this nation the same spirit of determination and courage in the hearts and minds of its citizens to match that of those who suffered, mourned, healed, and ultimately overcame the unspeakable tragedy this nation experienced one decade ago. 

In his address to the nation on September 14, 2001, President Bush described such a people:

“It is said that adversity introduces us to ourselves. This is true of a nation as well. In this trial, we have been reminded and the world has seen that our fellow Americans are generous and kind, resourceful and brave.America is a nation full of good fortune, with so much to be grateful for, but we are not spared from suffering. In every generation, the world has produced enemies of human freedom. They have attacked America because we are freedom's home and defender, and the commitment of our Fathers is now the calling of our time.”

The calling of my time as a mother today involved introducing one of my kids to tragedy that did not even happen in her lifetime but still ten years later casts its long shadow, a shadow that--for a brief moment--flickered on her face. 

It will flicker too on the face of her little sister in a few years when her father or I tell her the story of the morning of 9/11 and its significance to her homeland and her future.

However, here in 2011, ten years removed, we can add to the 9/11 story the chapter that follows. The one that includes rebuilding, rebirth, renewal...recovery. The one that reinforces messages like “Don’t quit because it’s difficult,” and “I know you hurt, but get back up,” and “glance back, don’t forget, but move forward.” 

Let us never, ever forget what happened to our nation and her people ten years ago--words haven’t been written to describe the horror of it all. Let us also never forget the lessons this nation and we her people learned as a result of 9/11 --mere words can’t be written to capture the enormity of those either. And THAT is something I still need to tell Kate about, the next time I see shadows cross over her little face.

An Itty Bitty Book Review

I've just finished a book by Dominique Browning entitled "Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put on My Pajamas, and Found Happiness."

The title snagged me -- I'm always up for anything remotely dealing with pajamas!

Dominique Browning was living her exceedingly busy and seemingly full life as the editor-in-chief of House & Garden magazine work which she described as "the scaffolding of her life."

The scaffolding, however, collapsed entirely when her magazine, her job, and her only known way of living her life very suddenly ceased to exist.

The ensuing memoir tells the story of how Ms. Browning discovered what she calls slow love "the most sustaining sort of love I have ever known--a love that comes of an unhurried and focused attention to the simplest things."

The reading of this at times poignant, and at times funny tale, was a pleasurable one. Each time I opened the book it felt like I was visiting an interesting acquaintance and hearing in her voice the journey she was undertaking which was slowly leading her to peace.

Mind you, Ms. Browning's peace is not my peace, but that was interesting too. It was enlightening to see another's take on life from a viewpoint decidedly not my own yet with interests that turned out to be much the same.

The joy, was truly in the journey for the author--a journey that led her through baking, purchasing PJs, mint gardening, reading, the end of the author's irritating relationship with "Stroller" who, alas, was not really hers for the loving, and rebuilding a Rhode Island beach home. The new home, like her new life turns out simpler, purer, and much more beautiful than the old one.

**Note: I received and read this book as a part of the BlogHer Book Club and will be participating in ongoing discussions (here) on the many topics contained in this book worth discussing like: what does one do when she looses her job, what does one do in the midst of a trying long-term relationship, the lifestyle the author lived while employed and then while unemployed...please feel free to join the discussion!

My Oh My Spaghetti Pie!

It happens 100% of the time. We have spaghetti for dinner, everyone eats until their bellies are full and then I have extra pasta and extra sauce staring up at me.

Often, I will just shove the extras into the fridge and plan on eating "Left Over Lunch" later in the week. And while all of this looks good on paper at the time, it rarely pans out and the pasta ends up being lost in the back of the fridge only to be discovered along side of the sauce in all of its fuzzy green glory many weeks later.

The solution = Spaghetti Pie (Possibly one of my first "Do Overs" as a young married gal.)

Here's what you need:
(Printable recipe here)

• Cooked spaghetti (about 4 ounces, but you can use a little more or less according to your leftover amount)
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 Tablespoons of melted butter
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups spaghetti sauce  (if the sauce has no meat, add some ground beef if you choose, that's up to you...you're in charge!)
• 1 cup of cottage cheese (or, ricotta cheese)
• 1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese

**This is another one of those versatile dishes, you can add pepperoni, olives, etc.

Here's what to do:

Melt the butter in a pie plate. 

Then to the pie plate add the cooked pasta.

When butter has cooled enough NOT to cook the eggs, add the eggs.

 Combine until the spaghetti is evenly coated with butter and eggs and loosely press into the pie plate.

(I use my hands to do that, gooey--but it works well.) 

Next, grab the cottage cheese or, as in this picture, the ricotta and spread it on top of the pasta.

Follow with the sauce ...

and the mozzarella and any other desired ingredient. 

(Please note technique...it is important to stick out your tongue while placing the cheese. 

This will also serve to hide some of your Kool Aid mustache!)

Now, you have a choice, you can either serve this up immediately (my Man says that this qualifies as an entirely different meal than simple spaghetti and sauce, I however, am of a different opinion), or freeze it at this point.

To bake: 350 for 20-25 minutes. Don't over bake the spaghetti pie or the noodles will dry out and be tough.

To freeze: Cover with plastic wrap and then a layer of foil. Make certain to add a label and the cooking instructions so that you: 1) don't cook the plastic--not pretty, or 2) have to stop your meal making momentum and send out a search team to look for the cooking instructions before you can pop it into the oven.

From frozen, bake at 350 for 25-35 minutes until cooked through.  I like to insert a butter knife directly into the center to check for doneness. If you remove the knife and it is very hot to the touch, it's done. If not give it more time and check again in about 10 minutes or so. You can also set the dish out on the counter an hour or so before you want to bake it and let it defrost a bit.

Enjoy your spaghetti pie and that wonderful sense of accomplishment you must feel by NOT letting good food turn green!!

Happy Labor Day

Today...may you find rest from your labor.

(This blurry pre-coffee picture is what we awoke to find in the chair beside of our bed a few mornings ago. Kate was upside-down and sound asleep and had kicked the top chair cushion back sometime during her slumber!)

"Come to ME, all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." ~Matthew 11:28