Drawing Pictures in the Sand

The sight of my child drawing in the dirt was a full circle and strangely healing moment for me today. It reminded me of the hours I spent drawing in the dry red dirt of African villages just to pass the time. It also reminded me of another childhood past time that was reminisced about in a recent sermon at our church: my sissies and I made endless mud pies to dry in the sun and serve to our family. 

Back to Little B. His attention span isn’t normally long but a piece of metal and an almost dry puddle kept him occupied drawing for a minute. I want his life to be boring enough that he can find joy in writing in the dirt for many years to come. And maybe the healing of it isn’t just my imagination. After all, even Jesus wrote in the sand for catharsis. 

Reevaluations

I used to groan inside And whisper to sisters or friends When grey hair people stood up And started lecture on the good old days. Because all I cared about was Now And the future.

Forward 10 years.

Today I soak up every Grey haired reminiscence With fascination Around a wiggling toddler head Because I want to know about the past Because I know the past is why the now is. 

I am Still Here

Although I’ve been really silent, I’m still over here watching sunsets -the sunset makes a  daily showing at our supper table -I love my big west facing dining room  window. Watching sunsets and:

Slogging through the last month of winter,

Stalking other people’s blogs, but not posting on my own for months. It should be the other way around.

Cooking for my family (how does this become a full time job when you have a kid?)

Organizing my already organized grocery shopping to new levels of organization. In my defence it was basically the coldest day of the year so what else was there to do.

Pulling a calf sled with a toddler in it behind me on excursions into the winter or spring or whatever season it happens to be each day.

I have a low key winter weaving project I haul around with me annoyingly whenever I think I might need to sit still for a minute.

We’ve had a winter of slow empty evenings, which is my best.  

I’m  slowly finishing the walls in my laundry room. It’s more work than I want it to be; sanding is so tedious. sometimes I get discouraged and strike for a while between working on it.

I have tiny plants, hundreds of them maybe.  Starting herb and veg and flower seeds is how I cope with Saskatchewan winter. The end goal is of course mature plants to put outside in May and June but even if half of them don’t live that long, they’ve already done their work by getting me outside to my greenhouse every day from February to May and supercharging my serotonin levels daily. 

My 22 month old still doesn’t sleep through the night, not even sometimes, not even close. If you want to judge our parenting I’m okay with that but I’d prefer advice or lived experiences similar to this instead.

I got a new mop, and it changed my life.

Sourdough Cheese Crackers

Sourdough Cheese Crackers

•1 cup All Purpose Flour

•1/2 cup ground flax 

•1/2 cup fresh ground whole wheat flour 

•1/2 cup nutritional yeast 

•10 Ounces grated Cheddar Cheese ((haven’t tried it but a subbing part of the cheddar with another cheese would be amazing. Parm, Gouda, maybe even feta.)) 

•2-3 tsp Sea Salt or flavoured salt ((I used rosemary salt with fantastic result))

Mix above ingredients on high in a stand mixer until the cheese has turned into crumbles and the mixture resembles coarse sand ish. Then add:

•3/4 - 1 cup  active Sourdough Starter at 100% hydration. ((The original recipe called for 1 cup but I only had 3/4 cup and that worked just fine.))

•1/4 cup  Melted Butter

•just under 1/2 cup water

Mix until combined. The dough should be very soft but not sticky. Let sit for 8-12 hours. I like to make the dough first thing in the morning and let it ferment throughout the day, then roll and bake in time for supper. It could also be made in the evening, rise overnight and be ready to roll and bake in the morning. 
After 8-12 hours preheat your oven to 350*. roll half the dough between two baking mats or pieces of parchment paper to 1/4 - 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into 1 inch squares. Transfer each square to a parchment lined cookie sheet ((I find this quite tedious. This recipe made over 3 cookie sheets for me.))  Repeat with the remaining dough. You can sprinkle with salt before baking; i like salt so I prefer them that way. Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes. It can be tricky to get them done to perfection. You dont want to over bake them and end up with burnt hard crackers but if you under bake them you run the risk of sogginess. I recommend keeping an eye on them toward the end of the bake time. The edges should be browned and the middles just starting to brown when you pull them out of the oven. Let them cool completely before eating.

I struggled to find a long ferment sourdough cheese cracker recipe on the internet so I had to make this recipe 

into what I wanted.  

While we were eating these crackers I told Little B that he was the weird kid whose mom only allowed him to eat homemade snacks made with bougie ingredients (nutritional yeast, rosemary sea salt in this recipe) and I was sorry it had to be like that. Of course I exaggerated as usual. (or did I, Mom?) 

Guiding Lights in the Sky Still Exist, Thousands of Years After First Christmas

Guiding lights in the sky still exist, thousands of years after wisemen followed an unusual star to find Baby Jesus . The auroras shine in the northern sky on all the clear nights. I watch them almost every hour some nights thanks to Little B’s wakings. They talk to me loudly with their moving colours, speaking of unfettered Majesty and Power. They make me feel small in this universe and remind me of the insignificance of the time I occupy compared to forever. These lights in the north are my star of the east. They lead me to Jesus. 

More Wise Words From a Kid

 Our friend, age 11, said something the other day that made my heart so happy. I haven’t spent much time with her lately and had forgotten how profound she can unintentionally be. She was looking over a list of school responsibilities in the congregation (hot lunch, devotions, cleaning) and asked me, “why do they sometimes have just your name and mostly just Brent’s name?” She immediately answered her own question. “Oh, I know ! It’s because you guys do things together. They know that if they write Brent’s name you’ll go with him, or if they write your name they’ll get Brent there as well.” 

That might be the most beautiful thing anyone has said about us. It’s what I want my marriage to be. The instinctive doing all the life things together. 

The annoying “goes ask BTT” I have often told all “our”  kids. And then they come back and tell me “well, BTT says yes if you say yes and no if you say no.” That must have showed told her that we were (generally) in agreement with each other. She’s seen the way we eat meals together, collaborate in caring for Little B, pray together work together on projects together, clean up supper together, the way we don’t make decisions without each other or without at least factoring each other into the decision. All these mundane life things we often do without thinking, pretty much as second nature. These every day things are each fairly inconsequential on its own but add up to a solid happy marriage. And these little things sent a message to our little  friend -“these guys do everything together. They’re basically one person.”  Her parents haven’t modelled a relationship like that so she’s not used to the security and stability of it. But us, we’ve been lucky. We see this kind of relationship modelled a lot -by most of our friends, by our parents, by our siblings, by the couples we go to church with.

Sometimes I’ve balked at the staid Holdeman tradition of using the husband’s name to represent a couple or even whole families. I’ve felt erased. But Lex doesn’t see it that way. She views it as the ultimate inclusion, automatic, because, “you guys do things together.” 

Overthinking and the Internet isn’t Real

When I don’t post for a long time it’s not because I haven’t written anything. I write things but run out of time to finish them. Then I come back to them later and realize how poorly written and arbitrary the piece is and that I’ve written from a biased perspective once again and I give up. 

On the topic of biased perspective: E’s Mom was talking to me in church one day about Mennonite mom blogs / instagrams and how perfect everyone tries to appear on the internet. “The internet isn’t real,” she said. I felt smitten. Maybe this is why I haven’t posted for months.  I think it’s pretty much inevitable to present some degree unrealness on the internet or even in face to face social interactions. There’s really no way for someone to know your actual life / lifestyle without being an intimate day to day part of it. That said, I do acknowledge that some people are better at presenting realness than others. I want to be one of those people.

Are confessions the same as being real? I have one. My son listened to a cocomelon song for the first time in his life tonight. In my defence, I did not let him watch the video.