Mountain Mama

Can I just say...

That these children of mine take my breath away with their beauty, inside and out?

I don't mean to brag, really. I just feel so privileged to know them.

Today I am thankful....

for the gift of these girls in my life

Soup Sunday 2009 :: 1

Despite the bare feet in the photo, above, it's still soup season to me. And time to reinstate my Soup Sundays. [Note: I've added this as a category in my sidebar category cloud, and am (slowly) moving previous soup recipes to that category to make it easier for you to search for recipes.]

I'm really loving the soup this autumn. I'm working on changing my eating habits toward eliminating processed foods, artificial sweeteners, and high carb/high sugar snacks, replacing all of that with whole foods. A huge part of that is cooking more from scratch, and my saving grace there is soup. Such an easy way to cook healthfully, reduce my meat consumption, and not have to slave over a stove all day. So my meal plan for the next two weeks has us eating soup practically every other day. Luckily I have two new soup cookbooks and a new slow-cooker cookbook to help me along. It doesn't hurt that my family likes soup, too.

Still, Sunday remains my favorite day for soup. It's also my favorite day for sharing new recipes with you, so now and through fall and winter, I hope to continue to post Soup Sundays. And, hey, if you have any good soup recipes to share with me, I'd love to see them, so please email me or share them in the comments.

Today's soup began because I was at the grocery store this week without having done an inventory of my cabinet and fell into the trap of thinking I didn't have an item when in reality I had several at home already. (Usually that item is mustard. For some odd reason, I always think I'm nearly out of mustard.) In this case it was 15-Bean Soup. The dried kind. Imagine my embarrassment when I get home and realize that I not only have so many bags of dried beans I could mix my own multi-bean affair, but I have three--oh yes, three--bags of 15-Bean Soup. So I figured I ought to cook up at least one of them.

This recipe I adapted from a Many Bean Soup recipe in this cookbook. With changes to meet my needs, of course.

Slow Cooker 15-Bean Soup

1 package of dried 15-Bean Soup, seasoning packet discarded

1 large onion, chopped

3 medium carrots, chopped

3 stalks celery, chopped

several cloves garlic, minced (my addition)

2 teaspoons dried thyme

1 bay leaf

One 15-oz can chopped plum tomatoes, with their juice

1 smoked ham hock or ham bone (I didn't have this so I substituted a fatty slice of bacon, cut into large pieces)

8 cups chicken or vegetable broth

salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

1/2 pound fresh mushroom pieces (the original recipe did not call for these, but I had them in the fridge, leftover from Friday's meal, so I threw them in).

Soak the beans overnight in water to cover. Drain and rinse thoroughly.

Add beans to the insert of a 5- to 7-quart slow cooker. Add the remaining ingredients up to (and including) the broth and stir to combine.

Cook on low for 8 to 10 hours, until the beans are tender and the ham (if you have it) is falling from the bone. Add the mushrooms about halfway through (so they don't get too mushy).

If using, remove the ham hock or ham bone from the soup, chop any meat (removing the fat), and return the meat to the slow cooker.

Remove the bay leaf and season with salt and pepper just before serving.

I served it with a shaving of parmesan on top and a hank of rustic bread for dipping in the broth.

Enjoy!

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Today I am thankful for...

bare feet and playing in the creek in November,

nourishing soup, despite the warmer weather,

a productive weekend, getting done with some cleaning tasks I'd been putting off for too long,

some Mama time snuck into the corners of a weekend,

and yet still plenty of reading and snuggles and play with my girls,

a pace of life which works quite well for me.

30 Days of Thanks :: 14

Today I am thankful for...

Saturday morning pancakes,

An excursion to the book fair, farmer's market, and fish market by myself while the girls worked in the yard with my dad,

An afternoon of painting, playing, imagining, playing, creating, playing, cleaning, and playing,

A spontaneous backyard picnic,

Owen eagerly cleaning the kitchen with me,

Barrett happily engaged "helping" me clean up the paint supplies (for an hour!)

 

 

After letting her play in the sink for a while, snapping pictures and getting very few of her actually looking at the camera (none of her smiling), I snuck around outside, popped up in the kitchen window, and surprised her. Jackpot!

 

Another beautiful, ordinary weekend.

 
 

30 Days of Thanks :: 13

Today I am thankful for...

yet another beautiful fall day in the mountains,

an unexpected hour to myself in the middle of the day, cooking dinner (putting it in the CrockPot), windows open, Leo Kottke and Old Crow Medicine Show on the CD player,

my dad, for all the work he does around our house, spending the day cleaning out the flower beds and garden, taking Barrett to run errands with him so that I could have the above hour,

Owen's teachers, who nominated her for a "Light of Character" award at her school, and who guide and inspire and encourage her daily,

your patience in waiting for my promise final post on my reflections on this journey (and other posts I promised is response to your kind requests)--they're coming, please continue being kind and checking back in with me.

30 Days of Thanks :: 12

Today I am thankful for...

girls who like to climb trees and collect earthworms

a sunny, cool day

leaves like mosaic tiles on the sidewalk

a cup of peach tea in a favorite pottery mug

warm thoughts/plans for the holiday ahead

30 Days of Thanks :: 11

Today I am thankful for...

the opportunity to participate in celebrating the talent of someone I love, seeing her get some deserved recognition, and knowing this is just the beginning more and greater things for her,

connecting with old friends, realizing that I kind of like how we all turned out (as grown-ups, that is)

safe travels on a rainy, nasty day,

my mom, who helps me so often in so many ways.

30 Days of Thanks :: 10

Today I am thankful...

that the tantrum years don't last very long 

that my family is all healthy

that I have a job I love even when there are frustrations in it

that I have a reliable car

that I can find things to be thankful even on a not-so-great day.

30 Days of Thanks :: 9

Today I am thankful for...

a first lost tooth, my girl growing up

two new soup cookbooks (ya'll know how I love me some soup)

a spontaneous support group that arose from a post I made on Facebook on wanting to do something about my weight--those comments sustained me through the first day of a self-created program to build healthier eating and exercise habits (wherein I am aiming to stop feeling like such a big fat cow)

friends, online and in person, who have, in general, been so very generous and kind and loving to me of late for no reason that I can fathom other than that I have great people as friends.

Reflections on the Journey (Part 2)

I've been thinking a lot about the question Meredith asked...about how we were able to find the courage to pick up, move, and start a new life for ourselves. And I think there were several things that helped to facilitate such a leap.

1. A lot of years of visualization. We had been dreaming of it for a long time. Since we first got together. Heck, I think we may have even talked about it on our first date. With every visit home, we would discuss it more, adding considerable detail to our vision over the years. At one point we even fleshed out a fantasy of the day we would leave Raleigh, our belongings on a U-Haul, happy and free and headed to our beloved mountains. Of course the reality of that day--and of everything else since--did not exactly match our vision for it, but, wow, much of it was awfully darn close.

2. Paul getting sick. I know I mention this all the time, but I really believe that Paul's illness is an integral part of this story. Without it, we may have floundered in our fantasies for many more years, become entrenched in a life we couldn't leave behind, one that needed more and more money to feed. Paul's illness had the effect of stopping us in our tracks. His getting sick showed us just how short life is, just how quickly everything can disappear. It showed us what is truly important and what, quite simply, is not. It began a conversation between us about authenticity and values and meaning.

3. A strong marriage. We are not in any way perfect. We have our stressors, our fights, our triggers that we revisit over and over. But we also have this incredible connection between us--something a friend of mine once referred to as "the sweetie factor". We have a solid commitment to one another and to this family we have created. We share our dreams and support each other in realizing those dreams. We treat each other as a best friend--talking, sharing, laughing, playing, supporting, encouraging. Believe me, changing your life like this is stressful enough. I can't imagine making it through if we weren't solidly together.

4. Good financial planning. I must credit Paul for this. I grew up without the best money-management skills, but Paul has taught me so much and has kept our family on solid financial footing since we first joined households. The biggest factor in our favor is the fact that we do not carry debt (beyond our mortgage). We use our credit cards as true "charge" cards, paying them off every month. We do not buy cars, furniture, anything unless we can pay for it. In the early years this was a source of struggle between us, but I have grown to see that this one practice is what has given us the freedom to make this leap. Yes, we did make good salaries when we were first married, and over the years Paul's work in telecommunications has been lucrative in terms of stock options, but we were also in danger of building a life around something as frivolous and fleeting as money. It was Paul's insistence that we always live within our means that allowed us to move toward using the money we have to create a life that reflects our true values. It has also given us the savings that we are now using to invest in his graduate education, buying him a PhD without a huge debt hanging over his head at graduation.

(Note: I don't mean to imply that we are in any way independently wealthy, or that we aren't making sacrifices of several of our future financial goals--retirement, the children's college savings, to name a few areas of concern. As our income has been reduced to half what it was before, we face tougher choices in order to continue each month to live within our means and without debt. It's not easy to find ways to live frugally and we--mostly I--have a lot to learn. We just happen to think it's worth it to be able to live the life of our dreams.)

5. The support of our family and friends. One of our reasons for making this move was that we wanted to raise our children close within the circle of family. Our families have been wonderful in this regard--supportive in emotional, practical, and material ways.

Also, only one person in our circle of family and friends actually told us not to do this. While they may have thought it, none of our friends actually said out loud to us that we were crazy to try it. As scared and unsure as we were, it really helped to not have to fight the battle of others' ideas for our life.

6. Faith. Paul and I don't really discuss our faith publicly. We are decidedly not evangelical in our Christian beliefs. We do, however, try very hard to live our beliefs. Both of us have had experiences in our lives where we have felt an outside influence, a guiding hand. The year or so leading to and following our decision to move, we felt that influence very strongly--together. There were many times when what happened to us was completely beyond our control and yet unfolded in such a way that felt as if we were being led. A series of improbable events like runway lights, showing us the way. It was our faith in these events, in the Divine Intervention behind them, that allowed us to heed the message and to follow.

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So that is my list. These are the elements of our supposed courage, the determinants of our decision-making. I hope it helps.

Next (and last) in this reflection: What we've gained.

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Today I am thankful for...

all of those factors I've listed above...how they came together perfectly to change the course of our lives together

the opportunity, the blessing of this beautiful life.

30 Days of Thanks :: 7

Today I am thankful for...

a beautiful day to be in the mountains (way too pretty, in fact, to be inside on the computer).