jen

let dirty dishes lie… and other wive’s tales debunked!

September 9, 2011 by jen ·

At one of my bridal showers, some sweet, well-meaning woman gave me this advice, “Don’t ever go to bed angry! Talk and work things out.”
And we tried.
and tried.
and tried.
But it seemed that for us, with any argument that came up, regardless of how small it was, if we tried to stay up and iron it out,
the only thing that happened was
we got more tired
and more grouchy
and more fighty
After a few years of this (I said we tried and tried!) (or maybe it was that we just plain got too tired to stay up anymore!)…
We started to just go to sleep.
smoldering.
still angry.
but sleeping.
By morning time, 9 times out of 10, we both looked at each other and said, “I’m so sorry!” almost simultaneously. Sometimes we even wondered why we had gotten so bent out of shape over really small things.
For us, this method works. We have found that our energy levels are at their peak in the early morning hours, so those are the times that have morphed into our ‘deep thought’ moments.
I am fully aware that this doesn’t work for everyone.
But it works for us.
I just wished someone had told me that not ‘everyone’ stays up to duke it out at night many years earlier.

… in fact, this philosophy works across the board.
One question that I pose in my nutrition seminars is, “what is the best time of day to exercise?” I get many different responses, depending on what studies people have heard about exercise and health.
What we then discuss is the fact that this is a trick question.
The best time of day for you to exercise
Is the time of day that you WILL exercise.
In other words –
If you are not a morning person, DON’T set the alarm to ring at 4:00 am and expect to bounce out of bed and do a quick 5 mile run. That plan is going to last as long as it takes for you to reach over and find the ‘snooze’ button.
Find YOUR rhythm.
Know YOUR body.
We all have different peak energy levels at different points of the day. Don’t fight yours, learn how to utilize your peak hours, and give yourself a break on your ‘off’ hours.

… which brings me back to the dirty dishes.
Well, as with my marriage, I have found that my kitchen is another area that I can best work in the morning.
In many circles, it is often heard, “oh, I can’t go to bed with dirty dishes, it is such a mess to wake up to – I have to wake up to a clean kitchen.”
… and I have fallen victim to this thought pattern, thinking that if the ‘other moms’ do it, then it must be the way it should be done.
So I have spent many nights cleaning my kitchen.
Being very tired
and grumpy
and yelling
and not snuggling the kids
and not reading extra books
because I had to go to bed with a clean kitchen!

… but I have in recent years started applying this ‘go to bed’ scenario with my kitchen.
And guess what?
It works!
Not for everyone, mind you,
But for me…
Leaving this:

(don’t worry, I did put the hamburger in the fridge!)

right where it is,
and heading off to bed
is the best thing for me.

You see, when I get up in the morning, and I am once again greeted by this:

(only minus the hamburger, I just didn’t take another picture – deal with it 🙂 ).

I instantly have something tangibly productive that I can do.
And I dive in. It kind of becomes a rhythm
and me cleaning the kitchen,
lets the kids know that it’s working time,
and they start doing their chores.
and by the time we head off to school,
I get to feel so productive because my kitchen then looks like this:

(okay, maybe not ALL the time when we walk out the door, but I’m creating the mo-jo here, so just go with me!).

… and instantly I feel like the day has been a success.

So I invite you to site back,
Do a little introspection,
and if it works for you…

Let the dirty dishes sleep 🙂

Filed Under: Deep Thoughts, Featured Posts, Motherhood

Ahh, the sites of fall…

September 6, 2011 by jen ·

the leaves…

(yes, I realize these are fake… just work with me as I build the image here folks 😉 ).

The cozy decor…

(too soon for that, you say? Well, then just count yourself lucky that there is no recording of the sounds coming from our house… because you would be hearing… and I’m not joking about this… Christmas music! yes, I am just shy of fanatical about Christmas music. I set a personal goal this year to wait until September 1st to break it out. Those last few days were excruciating! It’s a good thing I have other love-able aspects about me, so hubs simply smiles and lets the music play on – gotta love a man who will endure that quirk!)

The steam bellowing from the house,

(okay, so it’s only bellowing from the dishwasher here, just go with it!)

Ushering in the TRUE sign of fall…

CANNING SEASON!

Yes, I do realize that through couponing and sales, picking up some quick bottles of pre-canned fruit is really just as cheap (if not cheaper) than the home-canned stuff…

Which begs the question…

Why go through
this

and this

And even this…

to get a few of these??

Well, I’ll tell you.

I don’t know.

Or at least I didn’t know, until this year.
year after year, I have followed in the traditions of my youth, buying up huge boxes of peaches and pears, and then working like crazy to get them canned and stored for the winter… wondering if all of the work really was saving any money at all.

I mean, after all, people started canning because they grew so much food on their own farms, they had to find a way to store it and literally live off of it through the whole winter. Understandable.
In the not-too-distant past, people could still find fruit at rock bottom prices, so canning was also understandable.
Now-a-days, it seems like the fruit that we find here comes at a premium price, plus all of the time and energy spent in preserving it make it seem like fruitless efforts…

I was going through all of this in my mind as I dug into the 5 boxes of peaches and two boxes of pairs, getting into the canning rhythm and (for the first time) training my kids in the ways of the ‘petersen peach and pear preserving party’.

… and I had an epiphany. I realized that every time I can, I return in part to my child hood. I re live all of those moments (both good and bad!) of our (seemingly) countless years spent canning together as a family.
With 7 kids in tow, my mom had the whole system down to a fine science.

And you knew, the minute you came home from school and opened the door to billowing steam…

That your night was shot.

Any plans you had were out the door.

… it was petersen preservation party. No one was exempt.

So we all took our stations and hunkered down for a looooong evening together.

Where we laughed
and joked
and sang (albeit extremely off key)
and fought
and sometimes sassed (yes, the only time I really remember getting a good ‘knuckle thump’ to the head was during one of the canning sessions when I sassed my mom about something, and my dad thumped me before my lips had even finished whatever smart-allec comment I was making. Boy did I learn how much he loved my mom that night when he said in his ‘this is NO joke’ voice, “Don’t you ever talk that way to my wife again!” and I didn’t. ever. lesson learned.)
… yes I think about that moment each time I can, and I have come to love and admire my dad for that – for teaching me how a husband respects a wife, and teaches his children to respect her as well.

I also think of the games that we concocted and the grooves that we formed with our own little systems working independently, yet interlaced with each other and we moved the food from fresh to canned.

And each year, as canning season arrives,
I get to open my book and see a little bit of my mom

I find myself nostalgic as I go through the steps
and remember the fun moments
(and the not so fun moments)
and for a little bit of time, I am transformed to the days of childhood
(yes, those same days that as a child I dreaded going through!)

And find myself smiling and content
As I look across the counter to see rows and rows of perfectly preserved peaches and pears.
And think to myself, “My mom would be so proud!”
(… and just to make sure, I usually call her up to let her know that we just canned, so that she can actually be proud!).

Because sometimes canning
Is about way more than the money and time.

… now, if you ask me why I decided that this would also be a great time to can 50 pounds of black beans all in one shebang… that I really don’t have an answer for… Other than maybe the steam melting my brain… but that’s a topic for a whole new post!

Filed Under: Deep Thoughts, Featured Posts

It’s my party…

August 27, 2011 by jen ·

and I’ll eat cake how I want to!

… as I have been reading about mindfulness, one of the points that really caught my attention is that to be mindful is not to be perfect. It’s about coming to a space where you see where you are, and fully accept where you are, how you are, and who you are.

… and one of the areas that I have fully come to accept about myself is this: I am a topping girl. Let me explain…

I love THIS much frosting with about this much cake. (Many years ago, a friend gave me a tub of frosting for my birthday. Best.present.ever.)

Love the chocolate chips… could take or leave the cookie

Love pie guts… can’t stand the crust

I’d love to split an oreo with you… I’ll slurp out the cream and you can have the cookie part

creme filled donuts… love em… minus the donut

I’ll lick the topping right off the donut… then throw away the rest (a trait, which incidentally two of my kids have picked up… and makes me laugh every time I see it in action)

I know this is not exactly ‘kosher’ behavior, so I try to act like the rest of you ‘normal’ people when eating, and pretend that I like it all the same.

But on my Birthday, when my hubby brings home a double dose chocolate cake from the best bakery in town…

I have absolutely no qualms about turning this:

into this:

Yes, I even funneled out the mouse-like layer divider… and didn’t bat an eye…

ya know… because I’m mindful like that ;).

Filed Under: Featured Posts, Random

On Your Mark…

August 13, 2011 by jen ·

… since moving into the new house,
… which has barely beige walls,
… painted in flat paint
… I have had many opportunities to clean these…

(okay, quite honestly, the only times I have really cleaned them are times when company is coming, and I suddenly look around and see all of the little ‘handy’ work of the kiddos on the walls)

… and I oftentimes chant to myself something my mom has told me before, “you will miss this when they are all gone… you will miss this when they are all gone…”

On one particular wall-wiping occasion, which took a bit longer than usual, thanks in part to our lovely Joshy, who by the looks of the walls was afraid he would forget how to find his way back up from the basement, so made himself a little chocolate hand trail to follow… I started thinking about ‘leaving your mark on the world’ and began a thought process that I will attempt to recreate here…

WARNING: kind of weird, deep-thoughtish-not-completely-put-together thoughts coming through…
There. Consider yourself warned…

I started thinking about the role of motherhood (which started out with something like, “really? REALLY?! Will I REALLY miss this when they are all gone?!)…

And I started thinking about how in today’s society the actual role of mother is so knocked down. Sure, people give it the ‘lip service’ like saying, ‘oh, motherhood is the hardest job of all’… or, ‘every mother is a working woman’…

But, unless one has truly been in the trenches, day in and day out, reorganizing your schedule for the 97th time because you suddenly find yourself cleaning the completely dumped out bottle of sunscreen all over the floor, or fabric softener filling your purse, or get all the kids loaded into the car only to find the last one has had a major diaper blow-out, I don’t think those lip service phrases mean anything. There really is no way you can describe the role of a mother with any cliche or catchy phrase.

Mother hood is…
… simply indescribable.

In both good and bad ways. It’s tough. It’s awesome. It’s sweet. It’s stinky. It’s fun. It’s depressing. It’s enchanting. It’s lonely. It’s pretty much every emotion, every day, every minute showing one extreme change with some sort of emergency or fire to stamp out in some aspect.

… and then there are the moments of ‘ahhh’ when you can find an eye of the storm to just sit and be.
… but then you feel too guilty for simply be-ing.
… so you get up and get busy doing something
… because, c’mon, at the end of the day, you have to have something to show for all of your work.
… and dishes don’t seem to count, you did those yesterday.
… and laundry, also a ditto from yesterday (although you would never know it as clothes have come from nowhere to build a replica of mt. everest in the laundry room).
… and vacuuming, well, you did it this morning, but no one could possibly tell because not one single vacuum line remains in tact.
… and the glistening toilets just hours before are now smoldering pots of sewage left by recently potty-trained-yet-not-expert-aiming users.
… and all the poopy diapers you changed during the day… well, those are just better left in the garbage.

… so what exactly is it that you have to show that you have actually made your mark on the world?

… I am so not an expert in this arena by any means, nor do I propose to have all of the answers.

… but in this particular moment of time (of wiping down Joshy’s chocolate trail home), somehow, somewhere, I found great satisfaction in knowing that I was (hopefully) making my mark in the hearts of 5 little souls that Heavenly Father has gingerly placed in my care. Though I couldn’t put any tangible name to the mark, I became acutely aware of just how important the ‘Mother’s Mark’ is on the heart of every child who enters this world.
… I have felt my own mother’s mark every moment of every day, in ways that I’m sure she will never be aware of. Tiny things that as I look back on my own little lessons in life that I learned at her side, and that I now call back upon as I go through my own moments of wondering what in the world I should do at this particular juncture and can easily answer with a simple question, “what did my mom do in this type of situation?”
… more often then not, the answer is, “she always, always put the needs of her children first, made sure they were comfortable, fed, clothed, kissed, hugged, changed, etc etc before she took one thought for her own comfort or her ‘alone’ time”
… that is a mark that can never be erased in the soul of a child who learned the love of a Heavenly Father through the role of a mother.
… that is a mark that I will work everyday to re-create in the hearts of my own children
… will I be able to create the ‘mother’s mark’ in my own children?
… I may never know in this lifetime…
… but one thing I do know – they have left marks in my heart that will last much, much longer than a chocolate handprint on the wall.

… and yes, I think I will miss those tiny prints guiding my kids back from their basement adventures once their adventures lead them outside the walls of my home and the grasp of my arms.
… so for now, I will be content to wipe off the wall marks, and try to etch in my own marks on their tiny precious hearts.

The End.

Filed Under: Deep Thoughts, Motherhood

The power of the pea!

August 7, 2011 by jen ·

Our not-quite-so-baby girl is pretty much a clone of me… (yes, even inherited the drama-queen gene, much to the chagrin of hubby whenever that one comes to full force!), down to the super duper sweet tooth.

In fact I think ‘coookeee’ was one of her first words.

… which brings us to this week as I was eating some peas fresh from the pods (yummy!) in the kitchen. (which happened to be by some cookies we had made a day before).

As she walks in, she comes up to me and reaches out her hand (sure that I am eating some of her favorite treat.)

When I gave her the fist pea, this is how it ended up…

yes, she put it on the floor, then stepped on top of it. Kind of a sign that she wasn’t terribly interested… then she walked to the cookies and repeated “cooookeeee”

calling on all of my dietetic lessons, I thought about the studies that have shown that children need to be exposed to a new food up to 11 times before they will actually eat it… (a fact that was much easier to tell people before I had kids – once I entered parental realm, 11 times seemed like a much higher number of times to offer a rejected food!)

So I offered it again…