The Phoenix: Epicuriousmothering Rising

I told my friend during yoga this morning that I was going to send out my go-to meals for entertaining . . . but then, well, I got distracted as usual. So that's for tomorrow. For today, I'm going to talk about being a mama. I (John and I) have five children.  Henry Grey, 19 (on a LDS mission in Calgary Canada speaking Mandarin Chinese--he'll be gone until July 2017), Phoebe Laine, 16 (Junior), Celia Bangs, 14 (9th grade), Piper Jane, 11 (precocious 5th grader), and Finnegan John, 9 in three days (tiny 3rd grader).  They are my joy and my pain.  My greatest achievement and sometimes my greatest failure.  There is nothing like kiddos to humble and awe you.  Sometimes it's all humble.  Rarely it's awe.  But when it is, I'm telling you, AWE is pretty much the only word I can describe it. I'm not sure if it's genetics or my absent minded parenting, but my children are SUPER independent.  They were making their own meals honestly when they were...

Along with our 40 days of yoga, we started choosing an Intention for the month.  One for your mind, one for your body, and one for your spirit.  It's actually been pretty amazing and in a lot of ways as mind bending as physically doing yoga.  Its made me slow down and examine where I have weaknesses and help me really look at them and see if I can fix them or if I can start fixing them. For the last year and a half at the end of each month, I look over what's going on and where I need to be better or where I'm struggling and I try to focus my Intentions on helping me either beat it or fix it or at least acknowledge it.  So as it's the last day of the month, I'm really thinking a lot about what I want to work on this month.  Since John's been laid off, my Intentions have been going down the road of just get your butt out of bed and do something for someone else--even it's making breakfast.  Don't eat chips before breakfast . . . or if you must, stick to...

Soo tired. Woke up to mad texts about NYC trip. Solidified our reservations (we got our favorite one). Ran 11 miles (why?!). Forgot to eat or drink. Bad headache.  Reminded me to do both. Took down Christmas lights in the raging wind and lived. Watched something and fell asleep for a minute. Early dinner (Dodo) and a movie (Eddie the Eagle) and a smoothy (peanut butter shake) Very good part of the day. Kids to bed and now, I'm going to rest my sweet head on my pillow and go to my happy place. Parting words of wisdom: "Each day comes bearing it's own gifts.  Untie the Ribbons" --Ruth Ann Schabaeker

First . . . I have to tell you that I ate cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and I have, I'm sorry to say, a bellyache.  But . . . it was pretty much totally worth it!  Those cookies, the one I gave you a recipe for a few days ago, thems are the BEST. Now on to my rant . . . get excited . . . So, this morning as I was driving down to get my haircut (and ps I LOVE my stylist . . . ask me her name and I'll give it) listening to Paul Simon's Rhythm of the Saints CD (it's stuck in John's CD player so we get to hear it a lot) and he sang, "A trip to the Market/ a trip around the world/ where the evening meal is negotiable/ if there is one. . . . " That last part-- where the evening meal is negotiable if there is one --made me pause and think really hard.  I thought about a conversation I had last night with my friend Alison about what the teacher in our elementary school maturation program said. Alison said that when the teacher was talking about ...

10 Awesome (and really random) Ideas/thoughts I Live By 1)  Have Dance Parties.  Invite everyone over all ages and turn on lots of loud music and everyone just dance and dance and laugh.  I have one almost everyday in my house alone and it's honestly THE BEST THING EVER.  So I want everyone I know to come over and dance with me.  And bring their favorite songs. Are you with me?  COME OVER . . .  2)  We should eat cookies all day long.  I wish we could cookies for breakfast lunch and dinner.  Let's change the rules.  LET'S DO IT! 3) I love my children and I'm inordinately proud of them.  And probably, I'm blind to half their failings but I honestly can't worry about it.  Because they are insanely cool.  They.  Just.  Are.  And I can't take any credit.  They came that way.  I just get to watch them.  And sometimes yell at them when they are being a little too cool.  I go...

Waking up too early after sleeping to little. Running in the crisp dark cold nearly silent as our breath puffed white out of our cold lips.  The moon lit our path and made the run feel like dreaming. Running into the house, into the closet and changing in five minutes and back out the door to drive up and over the mountain as the sky turned pink and blue and the valley glowed with the light of the new day. A hour, no more, no less at the temple, listening to stillness and wondering at the peace of just being present.  Being wrapped in white and smiled at and loved and reminded that I am alive and well and that today is enough. Racing home back over the sunlit mountain to see a valley stretched miles and miles filled with houses and lakes and desert to my home filled with friends waiting for Choga.  Sweating and laughing and worrying together as we breathe in and out, in and out. Hugging goodbye with love and thanks, one set leaves and another set arrives to talk...

The most interesting part of my writing every day (all six days of it) is how it is a barometer of my emotions.  They go up and down and all over the place.  Today I am feeling  . . . weepy.  Not sad or unhappy, just a little weepy.  I used to think it was hormones, but I've been tracking it and it happens to me all over the month.  Some times, our hearts are just a little tender. I guess today just about marks the six month anniversary of our unemployment.  That is a long time.  It's gone both slow and strangely fast.  The thing that I've noticed the most is that I have little to almost no expectations of anything.  At first, I thought everything was a sign.  A phone call, a friends new job, a odd connection or anxious interview were all signs of some amazing job.  Now, well, now, I just focus on this very exact moment and what needs to be done in that moment or what I can do.  I don't even notice for the most part what...

  During my year of living yoga-ly, John and I would pick an intention for our bodies: no white flour, nothing fried, no red meat, no sugar, etc.  It was actually really interesting what I missed and what I didn't miss and how you adjust and what my body felt so much better not eating. What I learned more than anything else is that my body does not like things fried (still eat them chips though--a good salt and vinegar, oh yes, but in very small quantities), really does not do well with creamy things, sugar is a no no, and white flour, darn it, just does me no good at all. These were devastating things to learn because I LOVE dessert.  I love rustic white breads and really all white bread.  And I live, LIVE, for cookies. So what I've learned to do is eat the things I love but my body doesn't, very very sparingly.  And I've become very creative in my cooking. I've got a bunch of recipes that I promise you taste amazing and are healthy or modified to the h...

I've been thinking a lot about marriage lately.  Some of it good, some of it not so good.  It's interesting over the years to watch marriages around me either crumble or get stronger or some, just sort of plod along.  I know, it sounds like I'm describing something animate and real when I talk about marriages and here's the deal, I think they are animate and real.  They're like this living organism.  If you talk to Brene Brown, she'd tell you that LOVE is a living organism and it needs food and water and light to survive. And of course, at the base of marriage is love right?  But honestly twenty years in, there is a lot more things involved.  It's like this crazy map of a million different emotions and memories and feelings and to be honest, it can get a lot messy. I remember my parents having a bit of a rough patch (for years on an off) and when one of my sisters suggested that my mom just divorce my dad and be done with it, my mom said, Oh, I cou...

An early morning of sitting in my bed thinking and reading and just being quiet.  Followed by a 8.5 mile run with Doreen along a river path, laughing and chatting.   Boulder . . . best outfits ever at thrift shops, huge ice cream cones, unknowingly walking into an "adult" section of a specialty shop, wild wind, and super cool sidewalk performers. Watching Phoebe and Ashley and their Barlow Arts Ballet Conservatory silence the audience with their stunning performance.  Made me cry and scream and scream and wildly clap as they finished.  We are TOTALLY GOING TO NYC!  Coming home at 10:38pm to find Doreen has made us Beef Stroganoff to feed the starving dancers.  Spoiled and loved in every way. Honestly, there are moments when I think, there is not room to receive such great blessings.  Today is one of them.

 Here's the deal:  I believe in Angels.  I know everyone has a different name for miraculous things that happen in our lives, but for me, I use the word Angels and God. And last night our Angel's name as 4LTC7965. That's right.  And no, it wasn't an escape prisoner from Les Miserables.  It was a huge tractor trailer carrying what looked like thousands of pounds of coiled wires.  I don't know because I never saw very clearly, I just know that he took us through the scariest drive I've ever had between Rawlins and Laramie.  When the wind blew (which it did constantly) so hard that the snow made a wall of completely impenetrable white, I could see his read lights and he saved us from flying off the edge of the road.  He slowed us down as we passed one . . . two . . . four . . . six either over turned or slid off or jackknifed tractor trailers or we came upon stopped cars and trucks in the road.  He took us up and down passes and we sang his ...

About a year and a half ago, I decided that I was going to do my own 40 days of Yoga.  My sister went to one at her local yoga studio and it sounded awesome.  I was too cheap and busy and impatient to sign up for one at my local studio.  So with my friend, we started a 40 days of yoga challenges with DVDs and youtube videos (a list will be coming . . . don't you worry).  Soon several other friends joined in (some more faithfully than others).  We did yoga 5 days a week for 8 weeks and . . . it totally changed my life. Really.  Changed.  My.  Life. Physically . . . well, lets just say that I discovered that there are all these lovely little muscles in your legs and arms and belly that I had no idea I had.  My posture is kick butt better.  And how I feel about myself?  I really like my body.  It's not perfect.  Splits are a challenge.  It took me six months after the challenge to do a good headstand. The jump handst...