I love to work with TJ. I love to be able to be a help or an extra hand on the farm. I've found there are plenty of ways that I can help out, and I like to be available for that. Well this past week TJ purchased the deal of the season! A great air drill that will help this seeding season go by much more quickly and efficiently. This thing was five hours away from us and needed to be hauled back with a semi and two flaggers at the incredible speed of 35-40 mph. And I was the front flagger!
Well it ended up being a decent trip all around. I felt content like a little kid - two nights in hotels, three restaurant meals, continental breakfast, and Adventures in Odyssey all day (Novacom saga - the best!). I colored in my sketch book at breaks, listened to music occasionally and just drove for basically two days straight. And on top of it all, I was a help to TJ and the farm! I have to confess though that when I got home, I was drained and cranky. I was happy the whole time till I got home! did straighten up after some housework and a good long nap. :)
Thursday, April 27, 2017
Rainy Days
I really do love rainy days. When I wake up the house is filled with a natural light, not a brilliant sun, and it feels like a cozy morning. Breakfast with TJ, planning out my day and devotions is the regular pattern. Then I'll usually clean up the kitchen, breakfast dishes, unload the dishwasher and listen to Adventures in Odyssey. Some days I'll stay in the kitchen, and with all the rainy days we've been having, I have been doing that a lot. I'll cook, bake, prep food for the next week, recipe search, write some thank you notes, and just busy around the house cleaning this or that or organizing a cupboard or room.
It feels like morning till afternoon when it hits me that I've been inside all day and need some fresh air. Usually these rainy days will ease up around 3 and I'll head outside to prune, weed the garden, or get taken in by a spontaneous landscaping idea. After an hour the whether will turn cold and rainy and I'll head back into my little refuge. Within my home it feels like there's an endless mental list of things I should do, whether to improve my mind, develop a new hobby, or remodel. And yet, there's something about rainy days that I find all I want to do is be in my kitchen listening to Adventures in Odyssey. I don't feel like overhauling the bathroom, tearing down the popcorn ceiling, or tearing out the carpeting. I want to do quiet, simple tasks just now. I know one day (in the not so distant future) I'll be ready to repaint, refloor, and receiling (? Oh well..), but not today.
It feels like morning till afternoon when it hits me that I've been inside all day and need some fresh air. Usually these rainy days will ease up around 3 and I'll head outside to prune, weed the garden, or get taken in by a spontaneous landscaping idea. After an hour the whether will turn cold and rainy and I'll head back into my little refuge. Within my home it feels like there's an endless mental list of things I should do, whether to improve my mind, develop a new hobby, or remodel. And yet, there's something about rainy days that I find all I want to do is be in my kitchen listening to Adventures in Odyssey. I don't feel like overhauling the bathroom, tearing down the popcorn ceiling, or tearing out the carpeting. I want to do quiet, simple tasks just now. I know one day (in the not so distant future) I'll be ready to repaint, refloor, and receiling (? Oh well..), but not today.
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Bread, Tortillas, and Canada
I am loving life.
I have the wonderful job of making food, experimenting, organizing all our new possessions and cleaning through old stuff, and spending time with TJ. Our life is set before us and we have each other. This is the best.
Well that went in an entirely different direction than tortillas!
Yesterday I decided to experiment in the kitchen. Since we have been going through our tortillas and bread quickly, I thought I would try my hand at making them! I'm married to a wheat farmer, so flour is not a problem. I have been using allrecipes almost three times a day, ok not that much, but a lot. And I found recipes on there for my experiments. The one for tortillas used shortening. Since I didn't have any and didn't really want to use any, I followed a comment that recommended using olive oil instead and she cut the salt in half, "Works perfectly!" When I rolled up the balls though, they were very hard and sort of crumbly, but I didn't worry about it and just set them on a tray to rest.
I had the dough rising for the bread and the little tortilla balls resting when TJ came in. "Hey babe! Pack your bags! We're going to Canada!" (A side note that often my quotations are summaries and not direct quotes.) He had some things to do and wanted to wait till the bread was baked, so I commenced rushing around like a mad woman for the next hour. Really it wasn't a big deal to leave, but I wanted to do 100 things in an hour and be ready to go! Thankfully I'm married to a very relaxed man and he didn't mind running a little late or that not everything was done.
However, there I was trying to roll out these hard brown balls into tortillas, they didn't look like any tortillas I had ever seen but sad flat brown and completely misshapen dough blankets. I was trying to fry them and check the bread and prep road trip snacks. I couldn't do all the tortillas because they were so difficult to work with! When I had made some I realized that it would be dinner time by the time we were on the road, so I pulled out my skillet and began cooking meat, onions, and peppers for quesadillas. I used my new tortillas (which tasted like communion bread) and it was a hot mess! Not the same size and therefore spilling out, burning meat, and just messy.
When we were driving I was saying how the tortillas were a fail and tasted like communion bread. "They don't taste like communion bread," TJ said thoughtfully, "see those taste good."
We both started laughing and he tried to correct what he said, in that they tasted differently - but I understood. They were what Matthew would call, "So-Called Tortillas."
This story pretty much ends there. We got out about a half hour later, I ended up having plenty of time to clean up, I cut up the best pieces of the quesadillas so TJ couldn't tell that much, and the bread turned out pretty good. TJ loved the bread, so there was some success. Our trip to Canada was to look at an air drill for seeding. It was 8 hours away, we stayed in a hotel, swam in the pool, ate lots of Tim Hortons and drove back after he looked at it. Anti-climatic trip, but the spontaneity and the hotel were fun!
I have the wonderful job of making food, experimenting, organizing all our new possessions and cleaning through old stuff, and spending time with TJ. Our life is set before us and we have each other. This is the best.
*Note: In my ponderings of marriage I have considered that while I was single, the struggle was wanting to be married, but knowing that marriage would not "complete me." However, being married, it is the happiest place I have ever been in. It is the most wonderful time with a friend, lover, and provider - how could I help but feel completed? Well here is what I have come to understand, it is not the marriage itself, but God's call upon my life now being fulfilled. The past year was a struggle and fight within myself of trying to understand where it was God wanted me. As soon as I chose to believe Him, I was one step closer to that complete joy, yet I still had to work to get there. Deciding to marry TJ was a freeing decision, but it took patience, trust, work, and much prayer to get there. Marrying TJ was the easiest thing to do, but to get to that point I had to sacrifice much of my own will and independence. I had to sacrifice much of what I thought made me who I was. Yet after marrying him and coming wholly and completely under the submission of God's will working in my life - there is a peace which passes all understanding. The struggle within is gone. Therefore, it is not marriage itself that "completed" me, but being in the will of my Father. And could He be more loving? That this is His will for me amazes and humbles me. What a gift! What joy!
Though I don't think anyone but maybe my Mom reads this, if anyone single or searching or struggling reads this - please do not misunderstand me. Every phase of our lives is a gift from God. Some phases are times of trials and some of pleasant meadows (Pilgrims Progress) in which we walk together in delight. C.S. Lewis in A Grief Observed said that "happiness" and "sadness" are not points that we reach, but rather our happy and sad times are made up of both happy and sad moments. We are not usually only in a happy or sad place, but there are often moments of sunshine during a storm and dark spots in the meadow. (I hope my paraphrasing was not too confusing!) Wherever God calls you, though perhaps frightening or life-altering, it is the greatest freedom to submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.
Well that went in an entirely different direction than tortillas!
Yesterday I decided to experiment in the kitchen. Since we have been going through our tortillas and bread quickly, I thought I would try my hand at making them! I'm married to a wheat farmer, so flour is not a problem. I have been using allrecipes almost three times a day, ok not that much, but a lot. And I found recipes on there for my experiments. The one for tortillas used shortening. Since I didn't have any and didn't really want to use any, I followed a comment that recommended using olive oil instead and she cut the salt in half, "Works perfectly!" When I rolled up the balls though, they were very hard and sort of crumbly, but I didn't worry about it and just set them on a tray to rest.
I had the dough rising for the bread and the little tortilla balls resting when TJ came in. "Hey babe! Pack your bags! We're going to Canada!" (A side note that often my quotations are summaries and not direct quotes.) He had some things to do and wanted to wait till the bread was baked, so I commenced rushing around like a mad woman for the next hour. Really it wasn't a big deal to leave, but I wanted to do 100 things in an hour and be ready to go! Thankfully I'm married to a very relaxed man and he didn't mind running a little late or that not everything was done.
However, there I was trying to roll out these hard brown balls into tortillas, they didn't look like any tortillas I had ever seen but sad flat brown and completely misshapen dough blankets. I was trying to fry them and check the bread and prep road trip snacks. I couldn't do all the tortillas because they were so difficult to work with! When I had made some I realized that it would be dinner time by the time we were on the road, so I pulled out my skillet and began cooking meat, onions, and peppers for quesadillas. I used my new tortillas (which tasted like communion bread) and it was a hot mess! Not the same size and therefore spilling out, burning meat, and just messy.
When we were driving I was saying how the tortillas were a fail and tasted like communion bread. "They don't taste like communion bread," TJ said thoughtfully, "see those taste good."
We both started laughing and he tried to correct what he said, in that they tasted differently - but I understood. They were what Matthew would call, "So-Called Tortillas."
This story pretty much ends there. We got out about a half hour later, I ended up having plenty of time to clean up, I cut up the best pieces of the quesadillas so TJ couldn't tell that much, and the bread turned out pretty good. TJ loved the bread, so there was some success. Our trip to Canada was to look at an air drill for seeding. It was 8 hours away, we stayed in a hotel, swam in the pool, ate lots of Tim Hortons and drove back after he looked at it. Anti-climatic trip, but the spontaneity and the hotel were fun!
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