Waiting

In all my new discoveries about food I am learning just how crucial time and preparation are for food to be suitable to nourish the body (except milk of course, you can drink that straight from the udder...not that I have, but you can). But with other things...
For example, a good batch of broth takes a full 24 hours. Sure it can be done in less, but for the most nutrient dense broth, you want to let it simmer 24 hours. And that is after the chopping and preparing and letting sit and scum skimming.
Right now I have pecans, which I soaked over night, slow roasting in the oven to preserve their enzymes. There is a batch of wheat and spelt soaking in yoghurt so that I can make blueberry muffins tomorrow, as well as a few cups of yoghurt turning into whey and cream cheese. I need the homemade cream cheese so that I can try a recipe for rugelach with the pecans, but it will be a couple of days before I can taste the fruits of my labor and patience. The whey will keep for 6 months, allowing me to tackle many other cooking tasks.
Why am I going on and on about all of this? Yes, it brings me great satisfaction to know that there is delicious and nutrient-dense food in the works for my family. I love seeing the potential laid out on my counter tops. More significantly, I think that the whole process has begun my thinking about how patience, labor, and time are crucial to the proper development of other aspects of my life. I desire to be the equivalent of delicious, nutrient-dense, food as a human being. Of course, I don't always want the time and preparation. In this American culture, obsessed with instant gratification and 30-minute meals, it's hard to appreciate the process and accept that good things really do come to those who wait (thanks Heinz..but I don't think your ketchup qualifies). But as I learn to love the process with my food, and increasingly move my priorities further away from those of the media culture around me, I find myself more content with the time God is taking with my soul and life. I pray that the fruits of His labor and patience might been seen in my life before I am dying, but even if not, so be it. If "in 130 years [Abraham] got no further than faith" (Kierk. Fear and Trembling) , I should be satisfied with however many years God takes to prepare me for the next life. Somehow I think that even there, food will still require time to prepare. 30-minute meals are for the devil!

A Daydream?

He stares at her accross the table as he chats.
She looks at her tea cup and slowly rubs her fingertips back and forth on its equator.

I don't know how to love him anymore, she thinks.

Somehow she mananges to respond appropriately while thinking of a million other things. Like the nice man in the corner with his seven year old. Her children would be that old soon....too soon. And how would she explain this?

"I just wish my family could accept me for who I am," He says.

I just wish you could accept you for who you are, she retorts in her head while her lips actually say, "I'm sorry, dad, they really are acting cruelly."

He straightens his blouse and fidgets with an earing. She notices he keeps his legs shaved in the winter and relfects that none of her girlfriends do that. She smiles to herself thinking about how strange it is to watch first hand this man's perspective of what it means to be a woman when the real women she admires have little in common with his view.

Missing

1. Two small toy balls, one red and one blue.

2. One small blue cylinder for a shape sorter.

3. Regular showers..for me, not Seattle.

4. A green cap to one "Kiss my Face" chap stick.

5. Several Tupperware containers and lids, though not matching.

6. Carefree evenings and uninterrupted conversations.

7. The box for "The Telephone Book" by Dorothy Kunhardt.

8. My knitting habit.

9. A balanced checkbook.

10. The journal I kept when dating my husband.

All of the above items last seen in my house. I would enjoy receiving them all back.
Will give reward for return of the showers.

Fog

I bumped into an old lover the other day. I saw his wife first....but recognized her slowly. I realized that time is more like a fog than an eraser. Things disappear at a distance, but with proximity things are clear and distinct again. He was taller than I remembered, and suddenly our whole relationship seemed more significant than I had given it credit.
From his eyes, I knew immediately that he hates me because somewhere he still loves me. I was sad and pleased at once. We hugged and I made introductions to my family. I smiled and instinctively touched my swollen belly silently acknowledging how pregnant our own past had been.
As we walked away the fog began its work. Slipping my hand into my husband's I thought to myself, sometimes it's nice how things don't work out.

feeling good

It's nice to have days like today. It's only 3 o'clock and I have somehow managed to make some business calls, chat with my mother (enjoyably) on the phone for nearly an hour, have ample play time with my son, go for a walk, do yoga, clean the kitchen well, spend a little time reading, and finish making my largest pot of broth to date. And to top it off, the day has felt leisurely. How is it other days I can barely manage to put meals on the table without feeling like there is no time for anything else? I don't really know how time works. I think having a couple days where we don't drive anywhere helps me keep sane. Perhaps listening to McKenzie's melancholy piano waltzes are the secret. I certainly don't know. Nor do I expect to feel so powerfully productive tomorrow. For now I relish in this moment, and hope I can learn to embrace the not so accomplished moments as well. Accomplishment is subjective after all isn't it?

What ties family?

Today was a definitive day for me. I have long wondered what my relationship with my "family" on my dad's side would be after my grandmother died. Since my dad is not a biological father, nor even adopted, we have only been family in name and familiarity anyhow. In addition, for the last 8 years I have been trying to establish my own healthy life and family apart from the chaos of what I grew up around.
My grandmother and I were never close, but I respected her, and out of honor have always tried to remain a part of the family. She died Tuesday morning after a LONG battle with cancer. I think that it was probably a relief to her sufferings. I'll save my thoughts on death for another time. Now it is just the rest of the family that is left....and they are very unhealthy. Today at my grandmother's memorial service I was able to watch first hand how they treat my father - who has recently (1 1/2 years) decided to live the rest of his life as a woman. Now, I do not think this is a good decision, nor one I particularly like, but I still love him, and think he deserves to be treated with the respect that you should show any other human being. We humans make bad decisions, myself and the rest of the family included (I'm not saying you should just support everyone in their bad decisions. There are hard consequences, of which, we have some for my dad who is not allowed a relationship with his grandchildren until Andrew and I feel they are old enough to comprehend it all. I am not going to do research with my own children's development to see how presenting a transgendered person as normal effects their view of male and female....anyway, perhaps more on that later).
I guess the point is that I have seen all I need to see to be settled in my decision to cease being a part of that family. I am not going to pretend that we were never family or have no ties, but I will not be attending family events or investing myself into deeper relationships. Truly, there have not been many relationships developed thus far anyway.
I am not sure what family is exactly. I know it has little to do with blood. I don't know anyone on my biological fathers side, and I don't feel like I'm missing anything (though I did try to send him a birth announcement when Søren was born so that he'd know he was technically a grandfather). Family is also not just who you grow up calling Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin. Yet it certainly can be, and I hope that my own children have the blessing of a family that includes their relations. I think family takes community. I feel like most of our real "family" live in Eugene (and Springfield and Coburg =)), and we miss them.

Sometimes God talks in wisper

Today was lovely in the midst of its business. Søren and I met friends for a play date at the zoo, then met up with Andrew to have an appointment with our new midwife, then sat in Seattle traffic on our way to stop by and pick up some real milk from a drop point on Mercer Island on our way home.
Today was one of those days God reached out and reminded me He is always listening and caring for me. It's always in small details that I see his faithfulness to me. When we arrived at the zoo I was COMPLETELY unprepared. It didn't really occur to me that the zoo was an outdoor activity, and we are in Seattle in winter. So aside from not bringing myself warm enough clothes, I also neglected to bring a stroller. Søren walks a lot, but not enough for the zoo, yet I can't carry him for long because of my protruding belly. Walking with Søren is a little like trying to walk a cat (I've tried that too), they want to look at every little detail before moving on. Thankfully, I did not have to cat walk him, our dear friends happened to have an extra stroller in the back of their car. You may not understand the depth of this miracle, but I did, and I praised my God.
Then we met our new certified nurse midwife. This has been a battle in itself to find a midwife in a hospital setting that supports my trying to have my next child naturally after having Søren by cesarean. I have also been trying to find someone in the medical profession who is informed and supportive of the nutrition decisions we have adopted and is familiar with the Weston A Price Foundation (WAPF). I had no expectations that this woman would be, but we liked her all the same. Then she starts talking to me about omega-3 fatty acids verses omega-6's and I thought to myself "I should ask her," so I did, and she is a WAPF adherent and supporter! She stopped talking to me about nutrition then and there and said she had no concerns about us in that department.
I drove away amazed at how God hears and responds to the prayers that aren't even officially prayers. He knows my thoughts and heart and desires, and is faithful to give me what I need when I need it, and even somethings I don't need, but just feel very blessed by. I know it may sound small, but for me it was big.