Makin' Pancakes

 

When we got home last night we discovered that while we were away Nana had sent the girls a fun, new Halloween cookbook. Maryn and Brynna have been taking cooking classes once a week after school and it has helped their cooking confidence and desire to get in the kitchen increase. So this morning they were eager to pick out a recipe and give it a try! Since school is out this week and I didn't have to go to work, we decided to pull out the griddle and let them whip up some ghoulish pancakes!

 They didn't turn out exactly like the picture in the book, but I think they did a pretty good job! We substituted the  recipe in the cookbook with Ma Young's pancake recipe (Ma is the girls' great-grandmother, their Gramps' momma). That was Maryn's call since she felt like cooking with family recipes would be more meaningful.

 The girls have been semi-obsessed with "Cake Boss" lately and the concept of the importance of "la famiglia"! In fact as Lauryn dug into her pancakes she exclaimed "Hey Maryn, these are good! You really are Buddy the Baker!" It was pretty funny!

Oh Savannah....

Justin and I returned home earlier this evening from our impromptu weekend getaway to Savannah.

 If I have said it once I will say it a million times, Savannah is one of my most favorite places on earth.

 

Justin and I were newlyweds when we visited Savannah for the first time.

 

It was as magical then as it is now. 

 I remember sitting in one of the city's many squares on a park bench at dusk, hand in hand, with my husband. 

 It was just the two of us back in those days and we daydreamed of quitting our jobs, selling everything and moving into one of the basement apartments off a quiet square downtown.

This time, thirteen years later, as we strolled down uneven brick streets our daydream was of someday retiring here.

 

Of being in a place where inspiration was around every turn.

 Where stories were limitless and the twilight of ours could be written together.

  Justin and I mused over dinner on a perfect Southern evening about what it would be like to write a book together.

 I daydreamed of learning to paint and even found a beautiful impressionist piece to bring home with us as a reminder of our time together.

 We pictured in our minds the thought of a house, downtown or in the low-lands, to welcome grandkids to someday.

There are many years separating us from that daydream coming to fruition.
 
But I can say that I wouldn't rather have anyone else by my side, in daydreams or otherwise, than Justin Young.

Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy...

...or at least my version of it....

 

While sitting in the middle of an enormous pile of laundry tonight hating every unmatched sock, shirt to be hung and towel to be folded the thought occurred to me....Nudists don't have to do laundry. Freaking geniuses. Weird people who I wouldn't want to share chairs with....but geniuses none the less. Let this be an indication of how flippin' over laundry I am. I am being driven to somehow romanticize life in a nudist colony. Sick.

Packing My Bags....

 

Tomorrow Justin and I are leaving for an impromptu trip,

to one of our most favorite places in the world...

Savannah, Georgia.

I plan on wandering beneath the mossy branches I love so much.

Eating hot hush puppies as I watch the boats come in on River Street.

Holding hands and talking to my husband without interruption.

Strolling the streets of downtown past dark on a spooky ghost tour.

Walking through antique stores looking for treasure. 

Eating fudge I watched being spread over thick slabs of marble.

Sleeping in, shirking time, breathing deeply 

and enjoying this much needed weekend escape.

~A very special thank you to my wonderful friend Kathleen for making it all 

possible by watching all of the kidlets for us!~

Bodies

     Lately I have been writing back and forth with my brother Matt. He has had a drug problem for many years and is finally at a place in his life where he is getting the help he needs and confronting the demons of his past. I know with drug abuse it is a life-long battle. But I am so grateful to be able to interact with him and it be him. Not the drugs posing as him in his body. He was telling me how exercise and meditation have really been helping him. Recently I have discovered the joy of exercising too and am grateful to share that common ground with him. In my most recent letter I wrote...

"....It was good hearing from you again and I’m glad things seem to be going relatively well. I love how you are exercising regularly. I have to say, working out changes my whole outlook for the day. I go in early in the morning a few times a week before the kids wake up to get my exercise in. I can’t tell you how much better I feel when the kids do wake up and I have to hit the ground running! I’ve already had my “me” time and so I find that makes it easier to give the rest of my day to others.

    I kind of had an epiphany at Nana’s funeral. As I sat there looking at her little body, knowing her spirit was no longer there, I felt such a reverence for these vessels that we have been given to carry us through this life. Every day our heart beats, every day our blood pumps, our brain sends signals, muscles move and flex, bones support, eyes see, ears hear. It’s such a miracle. As I looked at the table with pictures of Nana’s life; of her as a baby, a young girl, a young woman, a mother, a Nana…I saw her body had been there with her through her whole journey, supporting her and providing a home to her Spirit the whole while. It’s pretty amazing and gave me a different outlook on our own bodies and how we appreciate them, how we treat them, how we feel about them. It made me get more serious about fitness and giving back to the body that gives to me every day. I am glad that after years of abusing your body you are treating it with respect and taking care of it. Keep up the good work!..."

   I am grateful that every day I wake up my body is there to serve me and to help me serve others. I hope my girls grow up with that same knowledge. It took me a really long time to see my body as a gift rather than an imperfect "thing". I hope my girls recognize the wonder that it is and always strive to take care of the gift they have been given here in mortality. And while I know we all will age and eventually die, I'm grateful that our bodies, including our minds, during our time on this earth have the ability to heal and to renew. I am grateful that my brother has this time to reconnect with the vessel he has neglected for so long. It is my sincerest prayer that he is able to renew his life, his purpose and his body and become the man he was sent to this earth to be.

Bath Buddies

 Lauryn and Devyn being bath buddies!

Monday, Mondays....I started working one or two days a week back at Dr. Taylor's office about a month ago. I started with Dr. Taylor, who is a pediatric dentist who also does orthodontics, when Justin and I first moved to Georgia back in 2000. When Maryn was born in 2003, as much as I loved everyone there, I quit to stay at home with her. Now nine years and three more babies later I am back! It's been a nice, little outlet for me and keeps my brain cells firing. But waking up at 5:00 a.m. and not getting home until about 6:45 p.m. on Mondays makes for a long day.

So I was grateful to be able to come home and give my Littles their bath before bed tonight and watch them play. It's so strange, it doesn't seem like that long ago that it was Maryn and Brynna singing and playing in the tub. Now they can run their long-legged selves to the shower and do their own thing. But my Littles, they still love a good hair-washing from Momma and relished giggling as they saw how ticked off they could get me with their splashing. I am ready to freeze these two. Because if the passage of time with their sisters has taught me anything, it's that these little, squeezable years fly by way too quickly.

Fall Is In The Air

     The air that has hung over Georgia as a result of Hurricane Isaac has been warm and thick. Clouds loomed from horizon to horizon like a playground bully loving to see it's victims squirm and sweat under their oppression. But this morning some force of nature pushed Isaac and his unwelcome presence out and we were greeted with a crisp 58 degree morning with an endless view of blue sky. I cooked up a big pot of oatmeal with apples I picked myself from a North Georgia orchard this week, walnuts, cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar and butter.

     The girls cozied up to their warm bowls of goodness as they exclaimed "Mom! This tastes just like Fall!" They then started in, going back and forth, about their favorite things that were inspired by cooler weather. Pumpkin patches, Halloween, warm wassail laced with cinnamon, orange and cloves. They drooled at the thought of chocolate chip pumpkin bread and eating breakfast wrapped in a blanket. The turning of leaves and the hope that winter would bring snow. All things I love so much myself.

     I've often wondered what it is about Fall that captures my heart. Spring has blooms and new life. Summer, warmth and carefree days. Winter, the anticipation of the holidays and all the wonder that goes with it. But Fall....there is something about it that I love so much. Maybe it's that with the turning of the seasons, as leaves change from who they were, we see that there is beauty in that transformation. And maybe I like the idea that that change can be reflected in our own lives. That time may change us and challenge us, but it doesn't have to diminish us. That our beauty, inside and out, can become more vibrant than ever with each turning season of our life.