Raisins and Cinnamon

I used to stand on a chair and help my mom bake bread, mixing flour, yeast, water, salt and honey in a huge silver bowl, until my arms stiff from stirring couldn't turn the mixture anymore. When my mom took the spoon from my hands, I would wonder how she had the strength to stir and stir. She taught me how to knead, and I still use the same rhythm. Turn, fold, push and push. The 5 brown crusty loaves, 4 large loaves and 1 small, would be our bread for the week. Our family of 9 ate a lot of bread, thick slices with cheese or my favorite, just warm from the oven and covered with melting butter, and honey, that ran in sticky streams down my hands.

The leftover bread would often become pudding. Large chunks of bread soaking up milk and eggs and honey, the tops poking out and becoming golden and crispy. Raisins dotting the pudding with stabs of sweet.

I still make bread, just not as often, testing the water with my finger to make sure it's the perfect home for the yeast, the way my mother taught me. Turning, folding, and pushing the dough until it feels just right, with my sleeves shoved to the elbows. I love how the house smells all warm and yeasty while bread is baking. Comforting. These days I experiment more, this time adding a thick swirl of spicy cinnamon and nutmeg. Poppy seeds and dried currents tucked within the folds of tangy sourdough. Chloe and I sliced thick slices and smeared them with a melting covering of coconut oil, whipped with orange zest and cardamom. And Chris made our weekend tea time treat; bread pudding.

Dreaming

I think best with something in my hand. I prefer pen and paper to a mouse and keyboard. I love the way a pen scritch scratches on the page, and I really love to write with a pencil, especially a pencil with thick velvety lead. My favorite spots are almost invariably linked to patches of sunshine, and emptiness. I like to be in the rooms that are filled with color, books and art supplies. But I like to dream when I'm alone. In a barren place, of light and shadow, with nothing guiding me or fighting for my attention.

Maybe that's why I love Colorado winter so much. When we first moved here, it depressed me with it's bleakness. Now, I love it. The thing about winter is that it's wild and free, untamable. Summer can be tempered by air conditioning, the pool, and iced vanilla lattes. But winter forces you to take notice, to find yourself small, and not in control. To face the bold scars and imperfections that no longer hide beneath a show of beauty. Winter reveals what spring, and summer, and fall, cover.

And yet, beneath the layers of decaying leaves, and dried up grasses, life is regenerating, preparing to bloom. It's a perfect time for dreaming. This year, I'm giving myself space to dream, and to put those thoughts into words, and actions. And it's kinda scary, but exciting at the same time.

A bit ago, I randomly saw a post for a "dream job" contest for week in Africa with World Vision. And my heart leapt. So I signed up (Chloe says that if I go-she goes, that girl has Africa on her heart.). Because I wanted to give voice to my heart. It's one of those  "how many votes you can get, and how good you are at what you do?" kind of deals.  So check out my video here. And vote, (everyday!). That would make me happy.

What's in your hand?

And if I don't get to go to Africa, this time, and one of the other amazing people gets their dream job, I'm still going to keep moving forward until thoughts become reality and my feet follow my heart, to somewhere amazing.

A Review of Simcha Leah's

Sometimes the best things come by happy accident. We ended up in Tzfat (Safed) because I saw a picture in "Fodor's Israel" of cobblestone streets flanked by stone houses with blue doors, red tile roofs, and iron balconies, in a little village called Rosh Pina. That single picture demanded an audience, so we rented a car and drove to northern Galilee and a bed and breakfast in a nearby town called Tzfat. Our jelly bean green rental car labored up the winding, twisting road, more often than not, taking the wrong exit at the roundabout.  We stepped out of the car and were completely charmed. The town itself is perched at the top of a hill, overlooking Galilee with layers of green descending to the Sea of Galilee. Tzfat is one of the four holy cities in Israel, along with Jerusalem, Hebron and Tiberias, and is the home to Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism.

Tzfat at sundown

Simcha Leah's was nestled in a corner, it's courtyard opening to a cobblestone street and young Orthodox children who frankly assessed our obviously foreign appearance.

Welcome to Simcha Leah's

The hosts, Dave and Miri, were welcoming and friendly, making us feel instantly at home in our room with bright yellow plastered walls, freshly cleaned sheets and towels that had air dried in the sun. There was the added bonus that they spoke English, having been born in America. The refrigerator was stocked with hard boiled eggs, milk, fruit, and pita bread, and the shower had a seemingly endless supply of hot water.

The view

Breakfast was a feast that our Williams & Sonoma clad host prepared. French pressed coffee, warm pita bread, shakshuska (eggs poached in a tomato and spice sauce), homemade hummus, olives, Israeli salad, tahini sauce and cucumbers.

At night, after walking the old town, the Citadel (ruins of a crusader fort), and alleyways full of shops brimming with locally made artists' wares, we sat in the courtyard and asked questions over hot tea and salted nuts. Dave Bender is an accomplished photographer and journalist who even offered to lend me his lenses.

Tzfat

We did make it to Rosh Pina, and we found the cobblestone streets that demanded my attention, but we found much more. The interactions in Safed we had with the local residents, lent a richness to our adventure that would have been lost to us otherwise. From the Russian Jew who brought us into the Citadel's cave like cistern and sang to us, to the Jew from Los Angeles who sold Aidan a shofar claiming that "it had chosen him", to the man from the archeology department who shared his version of historical events, including his favorite spot to give Iran "the bird", to the café owner who soundly made his point, that it cost more to sit and drink our coffee, we were enchanted.

At a literal level, Kabbalah means, "to receive", and that is exactly what we did in this ancient little town nestled at the top of a hill. Our only regret is not staying longer.

From the Citadel

Simcha Leah's website can be found here.

New York in the Rain

I went for a girl's weekend to New York City with a friend in early December. We had a hotel right off of Time Square. It felt like such a grown up thing to do, like trying on my Momma's shoes. But I was a little disorientated. I've never been the best with directions, until we moved to Colorado and then suddenly I was grounded; with the mountains in my view, I could never get totally lost. And the  wild patches of open space where you can stand and see for miles, with unbroken sky above and the horizon stretching beyond, helps me breathe. Suddenly, I was surrounded by skyscrapers, the sun nowhere to be seen, and I was completely unmoored.

I dearly loved all of the yellow taxis on a rainy Saturday

Near Central Park, after breakfast at Sarabeth's with my oldest brother and sis in law.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The windows of Bergdorf Goodman

I loved the contrast in this moment when a woman walked in front of me, carrying her blue umbrella, and paused  in front of the red saturated window display.

Yellow taxis and Tracey

We trudged through the steady rain, ducking into every bakery that we saw, filling bags with flaking croissants, pan au raisins, and crumbly buttery cookies, and warming our hands around cups of tea and macchiatos. When the sidewalks filled, walking became a contact sport, dodging umbrellas shopping bags, and jostling people in a hurry to somewhere important. I followed Tracey's bright orange umbrella bobbing through the crowds as she moved through with an ease that was lost to me. I nearly lost an eye to an umbrella coming in low and hard, but it fortunately deflected off my glasses.

But the palette of the rain, the gray, and the bright yellow taxis with light glinting off puddles, made me feel completely happy, like being in the midst of an oil painting.

Sinks & Beans

I'm an eternal optimist and I don't see anything wrong with that, in fact, I think that everyone should be. My husband, bless his heart, is not always as optimistic. He prefers to say that he's a "realist", but what that means is that he's really waiting for the sky to fall. Not me, I'm a silver lining kind of girl. So when our bathroom sink went from draining slow to really draining slow, I decided to fix it this morning. Now, my beloved, still on crutches from knee surgery, suggested that I wait until Friday, because he will be allowed to walk, and also, contort his body into weird angles to fit under the sink. But I figured that I could do it, and I did. I used a couple of doohickies and a wrench, and wrenched that thing apart. Really apart, as it turns out. Sure enough, there was a nasty clog in the drain pipe which I triumphantly held up as evidence of my do-it-yourself awesomeness. At which point my husband calmly congratulated me, and then also pointed out that I had broken something important. I personally don't think that there is anything wrong with this scenario, I did after all, accomplish something amazing, and the fact that the sink is no longer functioning really feels like a side note. And on the bright side, I hated that sink, and this was a perfect opportunity to get rid of it. So I unscrewed some more things, grabbed a door mat to put under that ugly vanity, and dragged it successfully out into the living room. Then I noticed that the sheetrock behind the sink looked weird, and got a little concerned that maybe there was mold back there. So I got a hammer and a razor and pulled it out. The good news is that there wasn't any mold! The not-so-good news is that now the sheetrock needs to be replaced. But, Chris can walk again on Friday, and I'm thinking that I may have helped enough, getting rid of that pesky clog and all. We can just wash our hands in the bathtub, plenty of people have to get by with less luxuries than a bathroom sink, and this can be a great learning experience for the kids, especially when they have to help put in a new sink.

On another note, I'm getting a little tired of cooking. So I have a clever plan, and it involves cooking weird food until I get kicked out of the kitchen! I just thought of this at lunch as I was making breakfast burritos for Chris and Aidan (home sick), only we didn't have enough eggs. (The hens are free loading through the winter again.) So I threw some refried beans in there. (It was really bean soup left over from last night that I blended so it looked like refried beans.) That didn't really look like enough either so I grabbed some of the tomatoes that I had roasting in the oven and added those. (It worked in my mind.) The good news is that I think I'm well on my way to getting kicked out of the kitchen, AND the bathroom. See? Silver linings everywhere!

Black Belt Spectacular

If every picture tells a story, then these pictures tell a story of perseverance.

The Black Belt Spectacular

Signing the certificate

More than 4 years of training, countless hours at the gym.

Introducing Chloe

A grueling final testing process, heaps of stress, sleepless nights, and training 7 days a week.

The black belt candidates

And nobody gets a black belt alone. Chris and I spent countless hours in the car, ferrying her back and forth. Aidan made dinners, and sometimes accompanied Chloe on her bike to make sure she made it safely on days we couldn't drive. I coached her soccer team because then I could choose the schedule. Some days felt like a merry-go-round that strapped you and wouldn't let go. On those days,  friends and family stepped in various ways, taking over portions of the carpooling, bringing dinner,  coffee and chocolate.

Our little warrior

And not because Tae Kwon Do is so important, but because Chloe is. And if she sets her mind to accomplishing something, then we are going to do our darndest to support her.

Forms

There was a whole community to celebrate with her. Grammie flew in from Oregon and spent three days cleaning our house from top to bottom. (Including the oven that caught on fire while roasting tomatillos for salsa. I was shoveling burning chunks out of the bottom with a metal spatula while Chris and my mom looked horrified. Don't worry guys, it's not my first fire. So then Chris recommends dumping baking soda in the oven. Brilliant plan, worked like a charm..and also filled the room with chalky dust. That's the point when Grammie decided that our competency might be a little lacking and took over. )

The knife edge strike

I think I'm going to show this picture to every potential boyfriend, that is, when she's 39 and allowed to date.

Board breaking

Hammer Fist

This is her instructor's daughter holding the boards for Chloe.

The spinning Crescent Kick, which is kind of like Chuck Norris' Tornado Kick

On a side note-Chris is thinking about doing his hair like Master Tran-there on the right

We had a party to celebrate our girl. We made lots of food, chili and hotdogs, bacon wrapped dates, guacamole and salsa (hence the fire), cheesecake, orange spice cupcakes with chocolate ganache, cider, and chai...and our people showed up, crowding our tiny yellow house, bringing more food, (smoked pork and chili, pesto in canning jars, cupcakes and brownies...) and laughter, and the presents of community who wanted to honor Chloe.

There she is

Chloe went to bed wrapped in a cocoon of happiness. She was completely blown away that so many people loved her enough to show up. And that feeling of being surrounded by people who love you, is more empowering even than a black belt.

All the black belt candidates from Muy Thai and Tae Kwon Do

Black Belt Testing

Step Defense

Holds and Soles

Fitness Test (100 jump ropes then 2 laps-x5)

200 Step Ups (+200 burpees+200 push ups+200 air squats)

Review

Hopefully Chloe will get her board breaking stripe this week and then we are done! Four times a week since kindergarten! This kiddo has some perseverance.