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Showing UP: a love letter

I love the three children that grew up in our house together. I tried my best to show up and be a good mama. It didn’t happen every day or every moment but I hope my children remember times that I was there for them, that I supported and encouraged them. All three are adults now off in the world doing their own things.

Kaylee, the oldest of the three and my stepdaughter, produces a podcast, Heavyweight, for Gimlet Media and she lives in Brooklyn, NY. She’s been stuck in NY throughout the pandemic learning to live there without the restaurants and live theatre that brought her great joy in previous years.

Tristan, my first born but middle in our family, manages the McGrath Kia & Hyundai dealership in Hiawatha, IA. He finished a degree in Political Science at the U of I two winters ago and loves working with cars.

Japhy, my youngest and better known here as Groovy Girl, is in her freshman year at U of I in Iowa City. She is learning to navigate college life through a pandemic with virtual classes and a very different dorm life than expected.

All three children enjoy spending time together, and I hope will continue to seek each other throughout their adult lives. After a few ups and downs with each child I’m most interested in their happiness. I hope they find good life partners who bring out the best in each other. I hope they enjoy their work and lead socially responsible lives.

I’ve reflected back recently on my talents as a parent and I realized I am good at cuddling and we spent hours curled up reading or talking together. This makes me a great emotional support animal: you can bring me anywhere. I’m also a pretty good personal chef. My kids have a wide variety of food they eat and don’t eat. Kaylee eats chicken but not red meat, Tristan went from begging for meat in our mostly vegetarian diet when he was a middle school student and is now a fully committed vegan. Japhy eats a wide variety and loves to cook but learned this summer that she is allergic to eating tomatoes after she did the elimination diet. She has had digestion problems throughout high school and we can’t seem to find all the culprits.

I am there for them when they need food or drink-most of the time. I’ve faltered a few times. In my beginning stages of learning to cook vegan I had some rough patches but as we usually do- we made it to the other side. Forgive me if I can’t remember who likes apples, kiwi, cranberries, or extra cheese! I love all three of these amazing adult children with all their unique personalities. I know they will show up for me as well. The empty nest feels strange but I’m happy to share these three humans with the world.

June; thank you so much.

Wow – this month has flown by. Groovy Girl and I started the summer off with a road trip to Denver, Co. We stayed with family and just had a lovely time. We hiked in the area and saw deer, bison + baby bison, and pronghorns. From Iowa, it is about an 11-hour drive and we did it in 2 days.

Our favorite things were Sushi Ronin, Little Man ice cream both in the Highland area of Denver and I loved the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse and we both loved hiking at Chautauqua in Boulder, walking the 16th Street Mall, and dipping our feet into Boulder Creek. We also had a great afternoon hanging out in Washington Park just enjoying.

We had dinner with friends and family we have not seen for years and it felt great to reconnect. It is very important to keep lines of communication open in friendships and family circles. If not nurtured in some way they can easily wither away. Sometimes that can even mean a place and I definitely enjoyed connecting with Denver/Boulder again and I’m happy my daughter loved our experiences as well. I wished on the trip that I’d had the foresight to take each child on a high school road trip. There are a lot of skills learned on a road trip that you don’t get if you take a 4-hour flight to the same destination. Different lessons. The talking and the navigation were the best parts; I’m trying to teach her to put down the phone as we drive so she can look out the window and daydream, think or just unwind. Unplugging is a huge challenge for all of us with smartphones.

This trip was also a challenge to myself. I used to make this trek back and forth frequently when my son was younger and the trip was longer because I was often driving back to Minneapolis/St. Paul or Rochester area. I wanted to prove to myself that I could still make it happen and get myself around. And I did it. Bravo to me. My life can now continue!

I’ve been lucky enough to call a variety of states home but Colorado will always hold a very special place in my heart. As we drove into the state and you can see your first glimpses of the mountains in the distance; my daughter said “hello mountains; its been too long”. I agree. Our souls are better now.

And then I’m just as happy when my little black Prius pulls us back into our little corner of Iowa and we are home; happy to sleep in our own beds and kiss the ground with happiness for a safe trip.

School starts WHEN??

Yes, tomorrow. I’m ready. I think. It doesn’t make any difference if I’m really ready or not; kids will come through the library doors tomorrow no matter what. They will be excited to tell me what they did over summer break. Some will be pleased to share how many books they read over the summer. Others will be happy to tell me all they things they did BUT read. Either way I will welcome them in with open arms and hope that I can help the challenging students to find a book they will embrace (could be non-fiction, graphic novel, or a really interesting fiction) and I will help the strong readers to reach for the stars.

Groovy Girl starts 8th grade. She will be a cheerleader this year for school. Her best friend just moved around the corner from our house and life can’t get much better. This weekend she’s shared her concerns though about school fears. Last year it was a rough beginning to middle school and she’s worried that this year she will again have those same troubles. No amount of talking her down about it seems to work so we’ll just have to see how it plays out.

Handsome son begins his second year at our local community college and he’s living with friends near school. I hope for him a great year as well. It’s a new experience having a child live in town but not in your house. He stops by to eat, do laundry, and just hang out every once in awhile.

Our oldest daughter, Kaylee, finished at The Salt Institute and is headed to Brooklyn to work for the podcast Reply All in September. She has her own website and is striving toward life as a full-time writer. I know she will miss Portland but new opportunities await her.

My husband also started a new job last week as artistic director of our community theatre. Long ago he was the children’s theatre director at the same theatre so it is a little like going home for him but with greater responsibility. His first play, Little Shop of Horrors, opens in October.

Everyone starts something new here and whether it is a new school year, a new job, a new house it’s important to remember that home is where you go at the end of the day to feel secure and loved. We are just going to take one day at a time.

Time.

{Home Improvement Half Done}

Time is fleeting. I just spent ten minutes catching up with what’s happening on FaceBook. I have the house to myself on a Friday night. Both husband and daughter are off acting in plays. Do I clean the house? My house is a mess with a capital M! We’ve been doing a home improvement project in our family area. Over Spring Break we pulled up carpet, painted, and laid wood flooring down. It’s almost done. But not quite. So we’ve been living with all our furniture jammed into the dining and living room. And wood floor planks stacked up until my husband gets it evened out. It’s an old house and certain areas have settled differently. House cleaning on a Friday night does not sound all that appealing even though several rooms could desperately use my help.

I could sit and write. I was doing so well over Spring Break blogging on a regular basis and I enjoyed that. This week has been crazy busy at home and at work. I’ve had a ton of lesson plan pieces to put together and it is time consuming. I also had a nomination paper to write and an application to fill out for an ESL program I hope to be accepted into this year. Crazy time. Add in that both husband and daughter are in plays (see previous paragraph).

I could go down to my little mini-yoga studio in our basement and do an hour’s worth of bending and stretching the wicked kinks out. That would feel good also.

What I’d really like to do is go take a warm bubble bath with a tall glass of wine and a good book. Ahhh. That is the way to end a busy work week. It is so quiet in the house. I’d like to come back downstairs and find that the maid has tidied up, dusted, and deep cleaned Groovy Girl’s room! Maybe Mrs. Patmore will have made me a snack as well.

How do you spend a quiet Friday night at home?

I’ve tried to do a little of all and that has made all the difference. And with my extra time I’m off to take a that bath.

Weekend Cooking; A few recipes from our week

{source}

“Welcome to the weekend!”, is just what I said on Friday afternoon as I headed out of school. It is exhausting getting back into the swing of school days. Now that it is Sunday afternoon and I still have a bucket-load of work to do I’m trying to reel Friday night back. It’s okay, I’ll get it all done after a little nap.

Our oldest daughter, my step-daughter, Kaylee, spent the week with us in-between her job as a camp counselor in WI and before she heads back for her senior year at Oberlin. I cannot even wrap my head around the fact that she will graduate this year. We did have fun while she was here though and that will have to last us as we won’t see her again in person until Christmas.

The first night she arrived I made an easy taco bar with seasoned rice and black beans as the main ingredients. We had fresh lettuce, chopped tomatoes from the garden, salsa, and some shredded cheese to decorate our flour tortilla shells. This is often my go-to meal on busy week nights. I probably make a variation of this theme at least once a week. I’m glad my kids like rice and it is a perfect meal for self-expression as everyone can design their own taco ideas.

Another night we went to a new local Thai restaurant. It was packed and busy but once our food arrived we were all very happy with the flavors. I had a tofu red curry dish and Kaylee had a coconut chicken noodle dish. I have leftovers to eat today!

We also made fresh Iowa sweet corn one night using this new method my mother-in-law turned me on to through this video:

The corn does come out VERY hot so make sure you have an oven mitt on your hand. I didn’t the first time I did it and I almost dropped the ear of corn getting it to the cutting board. The corn comes out if you help it along and it tastes delicious. I think of all the years of boiling a big pot of water to feed my summertime sweet corn love.

We made my friend Stephanie’s margaritas (recipe is at the end of this long-winded post but well-worth the scroll) last night after we’d spent the day at a downtown festival. Happy hour rushed right into dinner as I sipped and pounded meat at the same time. We had the chicken cutlets from Dinner; A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach. This has become Groovy Girl’s all-time favorite meal. She not only ate her cutlet but begged for the rest of her dad’s when he was resting between bites. “Can I have that?” as she pointed at his plate. He raised his eyebrows in a funny way and said, “I’ll split it with you” and she took him up on it. I’m not making this every night yet it is a delight to have her eat heartily and not pick. Find that cutlet recipe at this previous blog post.

She and I biked to the farmer’s market in the morning and we picked up a bag of green beans, a big bunch of beets, and some eggplant. We found a new type of eggplant and had to bring some home. The grower says it will be good in a stir-fry so that will be on the menu for this coming week.

{Aren’t they cute!}

{Beets, of course}

{Japanese eggplant}

Groovy Girl and I carry our own bags to the market (really, where ever we might shop) hardly ever accepting despicable plastic grocery bags. The ones we do pick up on occasion are reused to pick up doggie poo. It kind of annoys me that all these growers hand out plastic bags with every little thing, just like the big box stores. I wish they could be motivated to move beyond the bag-offer a discount-for anyone going bag free. I know not everyone comes prepared yet it seems we are enabling the customer to be lazy. In my utopia plastic bags would be outlawed. Just my little green soap box for today…thank you for listening. I’m sure I’ll feel better now. Do you carry your own shopping bags? If not, this is such an easy thing to change as so many retail places offer their own variety of canvas bags. The ones I carry around in my purse fold into their own little sack, making it easy to take them everywhere. Mine look a little like this example.

We were somewhere this summer (on the East Coast) where they were NOT giving away bags-you had to pay for a bag and I was in heaven. Enjoy the produce photos. Eat healthy this week. Try the cutlets just because Groovy Girl loves them.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads weekend cooking meme. Click the blog link to view many other food-related posts and join in with one of your own. And now that I’ve typed about food for over an hour I find myself a bit peckish. Roasted beets or leftover Thai?

28 Days of Things I Love; #7

#7 I love my new refrigerator!

It came today. The trucking dude left it in our driveway, leaving my husband to maneuver it up and into the house. It is not hooked up yet but I’m thrilled to own this new beauty. I’ll be able to get a glass of cold water from the front door. It has a mini-wine rack inside the door. The freezer is ample for ice cream and organic chickens. It is magnetic so we will feel free to junk it up with gaudy magnets and frayed photos! The Sub-Zero that came with the house was not magnetic. Is it not sparkly and beautiful?

Happy Days!