A 'Wonder-full' week!

Some of the wonder I found this past week (in the midst of the rainy cold 'spring' weather we had!)....

Grandpa and Noah 'having a catch'

I took a group from Hope to tour the Hudsonville Ice Cream Facility!

The girls and their buddy enjoying a basketball game!

A pottery mug I made.

Reading in the rainy car while the girls had soccer practice!



Sophie reading 'Charlotte's Web' in Spainsh during school.  I love volunteering each Friday noon.

After  a week of rain, blue sky was such a sight!

 I am blessed.





A Feast for the Senses: Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist

I had the honor of reviewing an advanced copy of 'Bread and Wine' by Shauna Niequist.  One word:  Love.  Here are my thoughts....

Shauna Niequist’s newest book, ‘Bread and Wine’ is my favorite of her three books. It is a collection of essays about gathering around the table, breaking bread, sharing moments. Before you start to imagine stories about perfectly set tables and intricately planned meals (and panic), read on. This book explores the beauty of the imperfect. The blessing of being present over a meal, around a table. Of starting where you are and growing from there. Often my family dinner table is loud with triplet 9 year olds sharing stories from their day and laughing at things I often don’t understand! Sometimes someone is standing up, sometimes, for some reason someone is even standing up on their chair! Occasionally I have tried to reign it in, quiet everyone down, force them to be seated (yes, there is a time and a place for this) but what I find is that those aren’t the real moments. “You never know while it’s happening what will burn in your memory, sacred and profound. It seems like most of the things we try to make profound never are, lost in our insistence and fretting and posing. When we want something to be momentous, it rarely is. Life is disobedient in that way, insisting on surprising us with its magic, stubbornly unwilling to be glittery on command.” (p. 221-222) This book inspired me to embrace the chaos at our table, it is where we are right now. It’s happy chaos. I believe it will be burned in to my memory as beautiful.

Beyond my own dinner table, this book inspired me to want to share meals with my friends and family. To gather around the table with others as well. My friend Kate, entertainer extraordinaire, and I decided to plan a ‘Bread and Wine’ dinner party using a menu from the book. We began planning with menu selection and invitations. We cooked and baked several of the recipes separately to test them out, excitedly sharing photos and texts as they came out of the oven. The day before the party we gathered at Kate’s home to make the dessert and set the table. The day of the dinner we worked at our own homes on our parts of the meal, again sending photos back and forth as things came together. As the night arrived we were ecstatic to share this food with our friends. The evening was beautiful start to finish. A thought that kept reoccurring as the evening progressed was how all of my senses were being fed in beautiful and fulfilling ways. The quote we used on the invitation mirrored this thought, “I love the sounds and smells and textures of life at the table, hands passing bowls and forks clinking against plates and bread being torn and the rhythm and energy of feeding and being fed.” (p. 13)

See: Before the dinner began, we had so much fun preparing the table. We covered the table with butcher paper and wrote words in crayon that encouraged people to create an acrostic poem. With Kate’s darling daughter on our laps we tied tiny stems of flowers on to beautiful silverware with twine. We set the table with my grandmother’s dishes and Kate’s grandmother’s silver. We wanted a simple but meaningful place to share our meal.

Smell: Before the dinner began, I baked the bread at my home. There are not many smells in the world I love more than that of baking bread. It is the smell that brings my children to the kitchen asking, “What is that wonderful smell?” It is a smell that alone fills my heart with happiness. Arriving at Kate’s the night of our party the smell that greeted us was that of the cassoulet. It gives off the most amazing aroma. Perhaps it’s the garlic in the breadcrumbs, perhaps more than that. The smells of the dinner began the conversations with questions about what will be shared.

Hear: The sounds of our evening ranged from perfectly paired music to the voices of our friends. Conversations flowed and crossed the table. We talked as an entire table of 8 and in smaller pairs. We talked about food, recipes, children, books, and water parks. We laughed and we pondered. We shared quotes that were my favorites from the book typed out and placed on the table. We heard forks clinking and wine bottles lightly touching the tops of glasses.

Taste: We opted for the ‘Cozy Fall Party’ menu found in the book (p. 278) Even though the party was to be held on a cold March night, it was the cozy vibe we wanted to embrace. Keeping in mind the quote, “I believe every person should be able to make the simple foods that nourish them, that feel familiar and comforting, that tell the story of who they are.” (p. 40) We would serve Sullivan Street Bread with cheddar and mustard, Green Well Salad, Real Simple Cassoulet, and with a slight switch from another recipe in the book blueberry crisp with vanilla ice cream for dessert. The food was amazing. The bread (that even non bakers can make) was crispy on the outside and airy on the inside. The Green Well (one of my favorite restaurants in Grand Rapids) salad is phenomenal topped with cherries, pears, and goat cheese with the unexpected coming from the caramelized onions and maple vinaigrette. The cassoulet is thick and creamy without any cream. The vegetarian version (minus sausage) is rich and flavorful. Because many at the table were sugar free we opted for the blueberry (and cherry) crisp. We used blueberries and cherries picked by us and frozen. The sweetness comes from maple syrup and is perfect.

Touch: One of the things I loved most about this book was the concept of imperfection. Everything does not have to be perfect to be shared, to make a memory, to be meaningful. This lesson of embracing imperfection has been growing with me this year as I began taking pottery classes. As our guests left the dinner party, I gave each couple an imperfect pottery bowl I had made. These were the first items I had given away. I gave each of them a parting quote from the book and hoped they would remember it as they held the imperfect pot. “My prayer is that we’ll find ourselves drawn closer and closer to the hear of the story, the beautiful, beating heart of it all, that the chaos around us and within us will recede, and the most important things will be clear and lovely at every turn. I pray that we’ll understand the transforming power that lies in saying no, because it’s an act of faith, a tangible demonstration of the belief that you are so much more than what you do. I pray that we’ll live with intention, hope, and love in this wild season and in every season, and that the God who loves us will bring new life to our worn-out hearts this year and every year, that we’ll live, truly and deeply, in the present, instead of waiting, waiting, waiting for perfect.” (p. 170)

Photography by the lovely and talented Kate Bolt.  Leave a comment for more information. 

Searching for Wonder

Today I am participating again in the Folk Magazine Community Journal Challenge.  The topic for this week is "Take a nature walk and connect with the sights, scents and sounds that surround you. Reflect on these senses and how they affect your mood."

 

As I mentioned in a post last week, my word for 2013 is 'Wonder'.  As in, searching for the wonder in each day, each moment.  This word struck me for several reasons one of them involves a favorite parenting moment that occurred during a drive to school on a beautiful fall morning a year or two ago. My daughter Sophie shouted out, “WOW”, right in the middle of our prayer. She was struck by the immense beauty of a yellow tree, she couldn’t do anything but exclaim her wonder. My first response was to be discouraged because of the interruption, but that was immediately changed to awe as I realized that the exclamation was probably the most beautiful prayer we could offer at that moment. Her eyes were open, in wonder.  

With my word of the year in mind, I try to observe, even seek out as much wonder daily as I can.  This past Sunday was no exception.  The day here in Michigan started out rainy and cool.  The girls and I spent some time snuggled up on the couch.  By mid afternoon the sun came out and we knew we needed to get outside.  We started our walk around the neighborhood, heading towards the lake.  It is remarkable how a breath of fresh air can provide instant energy.  We stopped at a spot my kids call, "the rocks" because it is a rocky area leading down to the water.  The girls explored down by the water while I sat in the grass soaking in the sunshine.  Listening to the gulls call and my girls exclaim joyfully at the things they could see I felt my 'cloudy' mood from earlier in the day clear.  As we stood to continue the walk I noticed how much easier it was to laugh and to be silly after just a few moments outside smelling the lake, feeling the sun, listening to the birds and my laughing children.  We were nearing home again when I could smell someone burning leaves or perhaps starting a grill.  I stopped the kids and told them to close their eyes and "smell...it smells like summer."  They dutifully did this and when they opened them again one of my girls said, "What is that mom?  What does summer smell like?"  I loved this thought.  Right then, summer smelled like a campfire or cook out but we spent a few moments after that talking about what else summer smells like.  Fresh cut grass, dirt in the garden, flowers, even sunscreen.  All of those smells made us smile.  By the time we got home our cheeks were rosy from fresh air and laughter.  Our spirits soared with the wonder we had seen, smelled, and heard on our walk. 

A 'Wonder-Full' week

My word for 2013 is 'Wonder'.  Below I will share my thoughts on that word and share some of the pictures of 'wonder' from this past week. 

I was drawn to this word for 2013 because of a short quote I read. This quote challenged me to imagine going through life looking for the treasures as I would in an antique shop. When I ‘treasure hunt’ with my girls (like I did for hours on New Years Day 2013) we look high and low for small things that amaze us. These things might be buried on a bottom shelf or covered by other items. They may be covered in dust or cluttered in a corner. At first glance, these items might not even seem like the treasures we are looking for. We seek them out and take them home. Our eyes are constantly open, in wonder.

One of my favorite parenting moments of all times involved an interruption during a drive to school on a beautiful fall morning a few years ago. Sophie shouted out, “WOW”, right in the middle of our prayer. She was struck by the immense beauty of a yellow tree, she couldn’t do anything but exclaim her wonder. My first response was to be discouraged because of the interruption, but that was immediately changed to awe as I realized that the exclamation was probably the most beautiful prayer we could offer at that moment. Her eyes were open, in wonder.

I want to live my life in 2013 in wonder. I want to seek out not only the obvious moments of beauty in my life, but also the ones buried on a bottom shelf or covered by other items. I want to shout out in wonder at the joyful noise my kids make, even when at first glance it seems to be adding chaos to the moment. I want to look closely at each moment and search for the wonder that it holds. I want to rid myself of the stress and anxiety that creep in when it seems like there aren’t any treasures to behold. Stress and anxiety make it even more difficult to find the treasures, and waste energy I could be using to find and enjoy them. I want to shout out “WOW” 1000 more times this year as I record these moments of wonder. I want to keep my eyes constantly open, in wonder.

Community Journal Challenge: Against the Grain

This Monday I am participating in the Folk Magazine Community Journal Challenge.  The prompt for this week asks about a time that I went against the grain of the general population.  The time that comes to mind for me is last summer, which we called, "The summer of no."  As a mom of then 8-year-old triplets the popular summer plan for kids these days is filling every single hour with camps, activities, and more camps.  The past few summers even when I intentionally tried to be smart about the summer schedule, I would still need a spreadsheet to plan out the swimming lessons, basketball camps, and art classes.  While I do believe in helping my children to be well rounded, and love to encourage their interests, the spreadsheet summer was just too much.  I also think that at their young age, there should be more to summer than moving from one activity to the other.  Last summer I tried a radical and counter-cultural plan:  The summer of NO.  No organized activities.  No camps.  No classes.  No.  This caused a small ripple to run through our peer group.  I received calls and texts daily for several weeks asking if I had signed my kids up for this camp or this new sports clinic.  As the school year wound to a close parents asked me daily what sessions of this or that we had signed up for.  My answer was always simple, non judgemental, and the same, "This is the summer of no, we are not signing up for any organized activities."  I was certainly going against the grain.  As the first week of summer began I even paused to question whether or not this would work.  Would we run out of things to do?  Would we be bored?  Would we regret this decision? 

As the days grew in to weeks we fell in to what would be the very best summer any of us can remember.  We were not rushed.  We did not spend our days shuttling from one camp to another, cramming food in our mouths in the car.  We did not look longingly at parks as we sped past.  We did the opposite.  We slowed down.  We savored moments.  We stopped, got outside, and played.  We spent a day 'hopping' to 16 different parks.  We biked to the market, stopping on the way home to read in the grass of our community garden plot.  We stayed for longer than we had ever been able at the cottage, splashing, swimming, and laughing.  We Laughed.  We played.  We made an amazing list of summer activities we wanted to accomplish, and we slowly checked off each and every one.  To me, and to my family, we found that this slow summer full of play was what summer should be.  We loved each and every moment. 

At the end of the summer, I asked my kids what they thought.  Did they miss the classes and camps?  Did they feel short changed?  All three of them said no.  The summer of no opened up a world of moments to us, and we savored each and every one. 

This was not the popular summer plan, but in this instance going against the grain gave me moments with my children I would not have missed for the world.

Traditions

I love creating and continuing traditions with my family.  Traditions that make us laugh like always getting ice cream from 'Captain Sundae' the day it opens in the spring (even if temperatures are in the 30's!)

Then, there are more serious traditions that I love, like Lent.  I am not one who believes you must always 'give up' something for Lent.  Instead I believe that it should be a time of remembering, improving, and growing.  Remembering the sacrifice, improving and growing in to a better person over the course of the 40 days.  This year I did 'give up' two things.  The point of the 'giving up' however, was to inspire growth.  I gave up refined sugar and shopping for myself.  These two things may seem random and disconnected, but in my life there was a very logical connection.  When things are busy and I feel stressed two of my favorite stress relievers are shopping (just a cute little shirt) and sweets.  I use these things to create a false calm in my life.  My goal for Lent this year was to fast from shopping and sweets as a way to remember that I cannot always have what I want at the moment I want it.  As a way to find strong, nurturing, and healthy ways to relieve stress and feel real moments of calm.  I have found wonderful replacements in things like pottery, reading, snuggling, and creative cooking/baking.  This message carried over to the Lent journey of my 9 year old triplets who all gave up their 'DS' in the hopes of finding more time to play.  Play outside, play with legos, play with crafts.  It was a wonderful conversation around the table that brought them from the act of  simply 'giving up' to the question of 'how do you want to grow and improve by doing this?'

As we approach Holy Week we are reflecting on what we learned over these past 40 days and asking new questions about how we can carry the traditions of Lent with us for the rest of the year.  Remembering the sacrifice made for us, improving and growing as we live our lives. 

What could you do?

Tonight at dinner we looked ahead to the last week of Lent.  We posed the question, "What could you do to make your school or classroom a better place this week?"  The kids thought for a moment, and their answers were full of beautiful simplicity:
A:  "I could play what my friends want to play while we are on recess."
S:  (after a little prompting from her sister) "I could go outside everyday this week to play with my friends" (vs staying inside to 'help' the teacher...which is wonderful but apparently causes her friends...and her sister to miss her)
N:  "I could offer to be the 'referee' in our 2 on 2 football tournament"  (apparently the same boy did it many days next week, and no one really wants that job...because they want to play!)

Abby making the lives of her feathered friends better by creating her own recipe for birdfood!

These simple and sweet answers caused me to think, making our lives better doesn't have to start with a large, grand or expensive project.  We can start in our homes, at our tables, or in this case on our playground.  What can you do this week to make the lives of those around you better?