Through the Glass Dimly

I love soup! It’s such an easy thing to make and have homemade-fresh-on-hand. Once upon a time I would make a big pot of soup once a week, and it would serve as lunch for my little two-person family throughout the week, or for a quick supper on a busy night with added homemade biscuits.  I have always heard of Butternut Squash Soup, and have wanted to attempt it. Today seemed like the right day, as I had a bit of extra energy (energy which is gradually leaving me completely as I am now 36 weeks pregnant), a butternut squash, some alone time while Josh was doing yard work for a woman at my parents church, and a need to eat something wholesome for lunch. I absolutely LOVED this soup. So I thought I'd share the recipe with you. It has such a rich creamy texture with a warm fall spicy sweetness. Let me know if you try out the recipe! Butternut Squash Soup Ingredients: 2 tablespoons butter (you can substitute a cholesterol free substitute if you prefer) 1 small onion, ch...

I'm pretty sure this song will forever remind me of this pregnancy. I listened to it so much when I was first pregnant, driving to work and feeling oh so nauseous. I heard it again last Sunday morning, on the way to church, and it meant so much more to me then. Since Josh isn't legally able to work right now, and I was put on modified bed rest just a few days previous to said Sunday morning, I was struggling in my spirit. I don't want to complain about how bad I have it. I am blessed. However humbling it may be, it is pure grace that we are able to live at my sweet and generous parents home right now. I could just as easily be out on the street this very moment, but I am blessed with a roof over my head, and food to eat, though I will not say that it is easy to live like this. Wondering how we will pay bills, and whether we will have what we need for Ellie when she arrives. Needless to say, this is not the position that I had dreamed of when I thought of ...

When I was a kid, Friday nights were reserved for only fun dinners, and family night. We'd start with something like tacos (which have always been my favorite), and brown cows (a brown cow is A&W root beer with just a shot of milk in it: kind of tastes like a melted float! Soooo good), and then we'd watch TGIF complete with the best shows like Perfect Strangers, Full House, Family Matters, etc. Friday nights were always so much fun growing up. When I was in college Friday nights became date night, and mine and Josh's favorite place to go out for a date night was Carino's Italian Grill (where I later worked for 2 years doing things from hostessing to waiting tables to being a salad/dessert chef). Because what is more romantic than Italian food? When I first got married I had the same mentality: Friday Equals Fun Time. And so I've always tried to make something fun for dinner. Tonight was no different. I thought I'd share the recipes with you (which I...

One of my favourite things to cook is soup. Saturday used to be my soup making day. I would make a big pot of some delicious piping soup that would serve as one dinner in the week, and several lunches. Soup is just such a well rounded food. It can be a nice light meal, or a hearty wintery dinner. In honour of fall inching its way closer to us, I've decided to post a recipe that I made for lunch today. Feel free to substitute any bean you fancy. I used white kidney beans because that is what I had, but black beans would be excellent as well. Lemonisious Bean Soup 3 Cans White Kidney Beans (feel free to try out other types) 1 Cup Water 1/2 Onion, finely diced 1 Rib Celery, with leaves, finely diced Freshly Ground Black Pepper (you can use regular ground black pepper, but freshly ground is nicer) 1 teaspoon celery seeds Juice of 1 lemon 1 lemon, sliced paper thin, for garnish Celery leaves, for garnish Method : Heat the oil in a medium sized pot over medium heat. Add...

Remember how when you were three years old it really made you feel like your daddy loved you when he let you climb up into his lap and just rest there? Or how you really knew your mommy loved you when she saw you watching her with awe whilst she put her makeup on, and she dabbed just a smidge on your cheeks? As children we saw that our parents loved us when we got a brand new pretty pink dress instead of a hand-me-down, or that brand new Safari Barbie Doll we wanted oh so much. But even then, as children, we did not think about how our parents loved us with everything they did, including the difficult things, like not allowing us to go to that school party that was on Sunday because it was better for us to go to church than to do cool fun things with our friends, or giving us the hand-me-down clothes so they could provide us with other good things like food to eat. I've been thinking about the love of God a lot for the past few weeks, and how sometimes its a comfortable kind of ...

It has been far too long since I have written anything. After I poured out my spirit in my last post about Patience being a Womanly Virtue , I found out some rather unexpected news. On April Fools Day, at 4:41 in the morning I found out that we are expecting a baby! No joke. In fact, when I wrote those words about how I feared I would have to wait forever to have a baby, I was with child. Way Un Expected. And oh how I wanted to write about it then, but I had to wait until those that needed to hear it from me had heard it before I told the blog-o-sphere. And then. The nausea hit. And oh how it hit. And the sleepiness. I pretty much hibernated the last two months away because if I wasn't at work, or eating, I wasn't feeling well, and sleeping came so easy. It is tiring work growing a person. And then my heart started irritating me, once more. Palpitations galore. Racing heart beats. After all of my adventures to get a healthy heart, and thinking I was all...

Patience. There's a certain patience that is required in being a woman. Its a lesson that I've been learning for a while now. First, the patience was knowing who I wanted to marry, and having to wait for said person to get ready to marry me. It only took eight years**.... but still. So there were many many nights of tears, wondering why. That story is far too long and we won't go into it now. I'd rather talk about other issues of patience, but I did want to let you know that, yes, patience is something that I've struggled with... at least since I was 15, if not my whole life. So then you get engaged, and then you have to wait for the big day. The wedding day. Then you're married. And everything is lovely. You are learning how to be a wife. How to meal plan. How to manage to keep the whole house/apartment clean. How to budget. How to do all these things and still hold down a grown-up job. And then it hits you. Because there is always something else. ...

Yesterday I went to this neat local Mediterranean Market to get good quality cold cuts to make sandwiches. Today I made the most yummy lunch ever for my husband , my parents, and I. I thought I'd share the recipe here for a delicious Saturday afternoon lunch. Italian Panini with Oven Yam Fries and Cinnamon Aoli Italian Panini 4 Slices Prosciutto Salami 4 Slices Capicolo Ham Provolone Cheese (or whatever cheese you prefer) enough to cover the meat Balsamic Marinated Red Onions (Recipe to follow) Some hearty, heart healthy bread (I used Multi-Grain Sourdough) Dijon Mustard The night before, thinly slice the Red Onion in half rings. Place them in a bowl and cover in equal parts Balsamic Vinegar and water. Place in refrigerator until needed. Lay out two slices of the bread of your choice. Put the Dijon Mustard on one slice of bread. On the mustard lay out the four slices of Salami, and then the Capicolo. Then put on the Balsamic Marinated Red Onions, and top with the Pr...

I was standing in a barren desert surrounded with brown sandy nothingness. All I could see for miles was dry earth, sand, and a couple of tumble weeds. The sky was an eerie yellow color with a faint hint of blue. It was a Dali desert. It made me feel queasy. I must have been standing there for a while before she said to me, "This is the place I love to come and remember that I never have to have children. This is my happy place." I turned to see a friend of mine who I've actually only met in person once. She was guiding me through this desert place gently, smiling. I asked how this could possibly be a happy place for her, that it made me feel nothing but anxiety and nausea. She smiled and said, "This is the path I've chosen." Then, I was alone again, wandering through the sandy meadow, quietly aching inside. When I woke up this morning, I could not get that dream out of my head. So rich in symbolism. So... odd. I told a co-worker about it, after I had be...

So, for a long time I saw myself as one who would fit well in a Corner-Office-With-A-View-Museum-Curator-Position. I would have all these wonderful contacts, I'd get to talk art theory all day long, I'd get to have a real voice in the art world. Even now there is something alluring in the sound of that description, and I was pretty sure that my life would feel pretty much complete if I got to do something like that, as long as I had a husband at home who would do the laundry, and the dishes. I'd have to make enough so that I could have a nanny for my children, and make sure that we could afford to live in the best neighborhood so that the children could go to the very best of public schools, where they would have so many opportunities to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. Because programs, and "those" people that teach our kids, are, of course, the best way of forming well rounded children. This, of course, was before my Purple-Pilgrimage began....

I used to be under the impression that I would really be something if I could get an amazing, well paying job, a husband that loved me, and that at that point we would equally get stuff done in our home. I'd probably cook (because I enjoy cooking so), and he'd probably clean. If we had kids, we'd both take equal child rearing duties. I had it planned out. We'd share the leadership in the home as a team. We'd get equal time to relax in front of the tv. We'd go on romantic adventures at least once a month. I thought I'd be really something if I could just become a powerful woman, a force to be reckoned with; this great famous artist/writer who wore a modern "power suite", probably peacock blue, with a pale green button up shirt, and some fantastic scarf that I bought from someplace exclusive and underground. Complete modern woman. Hear me roar. I'd sell thousands of books, my art would be shown at museums and high end galleries. I used to loo...

I remember once, in passing, telling my sister how I enjoy that the verse says neither death nor LIFE can separate us from the love of God. I love the bit about life not being able to separate us from the love of God, because so many many times I feel like life really gets in the way. I get feeling bogged down. I return to the wilderness with those whiny Israelites, complaining that, while I have miracle bread that falls from the sky each morning to feed me, I lack meat to eat. There is always something to complain about. I've felt agitated all day long. Wondering why things have to be difficult and why I seem to have to struggle all the time. Part of me knew, in all my soul's murmurings and whinings, that I was in error. Then I read this: "The love of the Lord."—Hosea 3:1. "BELIEVER, look back through all thine experience, and think of the way whereby the Lord thy God has led thee in the wilderness, and how He hath fed and clothed thee every day—how He hat...

Oh how weary are the days that we labor on this earth. While we are young we labor over school work, we toil with our friendships, we fight through the questions about who we are and who we want to be and why we are here, we seek to fall in love and find that lasting love that will last a lifetime. When we get a little older we work to find the perfect job, and then we expend all our energy to bring home a paycheck. Perhaps we get married and then we have to figure out what life looks like as a wife, doing housework, making dinner, paying bills, perhaps still working in a career. Afterwords, we may find ourselves being blessed with the opportunity to carry children in our womb, give birth, and raise little minds and souls in the fear and admonition of the Lord. I don't know about the latter part (the making babies and raising them part) but I do know most of the rest. Its easy to get weary. Perhaps I'm just weary today because I'm trying to adjust my circadian rhythm. I...

So, I get to plan dinner for the next week and a half because my parents are out of town. Its back to the old days of figuring out what ingredients I have, what produce needs to be used up, what new recipes I can cook, and what old recipes I can cook. Here's the menu for the week: Saturday: Tex Mex Beef Enchiladas with black beans and rice Sunday: Dill Roasted Garlic Chicken with greens Monday: Penne with Italian Sausage and veggies with a Romaine Salad Tuesday: Chile Garlic Chicken Legs with an Asian Veggie Stir Fry Wednesday: Asian Rotisserie Chicken Salad (using left-over roast chicken) Thursday: Perogies and Cabbage Rolls (which are frozen from a previous batch of cabbage rolls) Friday: I'm working this night, so left-overs And there you have it. I'm hitting the grocery store to get the missing few ingredients.

Edward Weston, Pepper , 1930 Last night I dreamed that I was grocery shopping at "my" Fiesta on Alabama and Dunlavy in the Montrose area of Houston, Texas. I was showing all of my female friends about how awesome Fiesta is for prices. I remember picking up a tin of cocoa powder (of course it had to have something to do with chocolate) and saying, "40 cents. Can't beat that." Before I moved to Kelowna, I had certain rituals that I did every Saturday. Saturdays were my favorite days because, well, I worked Monday through Friday nine to six every day, and Josh didn't have Saturdays off. Saturday was mine. Saturdays belonged to me and I loved them. So I would wake up around nine or ten in the morning, head straight to the coffee brewer, where I would make 6 cups of coffee all for myself. Of course, they've always called me the coffee snob, so this coffee was something dark-deep-heavenly like Sumatra (from Starbucks) or Rowanda (from Taft Street Coffee). On ...

... How shall I begin filling you in on the goings on in our life? I went for my ablation procedure last Wednesday in Victoria, British Columbia. It was a grueling few days-well lets just say few weeks-- leading up to the procedure. It was the tightchest-can'tbreathe-can'tthinkofanythinggood-fearscented kind of stressed out. So while I was so... occupied... I let my mind drift into some silly reading material. Yes. Ashamedly. I did read them. All of them.... The Twilight Saga I allowed myself to be that girl I once was long long ago. You know... the fifteen-year-old girl who can't think of anything besides a good romantic story full of intrigue and excitement. So for a week and a half I read all 2381 pages of fanciful fiction. It was a good mind break. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I must make an aside comment: I did take note that I would not allow an impressionable-young-teenage-girl read the books if I had one. Bella is not a good role model for a young lady. Bu...