Lessons From My Mother

I was so inspired by our trip to Creston, B.C. this weekend that I just had to start scrap booking fall layouts! As most of you know, I "resist" making one page layouts and snottily refer to them as "one page wonders". Okay, I admit it, I am a snot!! Please don't take any offense by my put down of single page layouts!!! But to me, most often, these layouts contain one photo and next to no journaling (which is really my pet peeve in the scrap booking world) - sometimes only a quote and a date grace the page. They tend to show off a lot of pretty product, but don't tell too much about the person in the photo, or the person who made the page. But whenever I start a new album, there has to be a front page and a back page, no matter how hard I try to get around it!!! So I decided to use my one lone photograph of my canning jars, filled to the brim with pungent pickled carrots, to make a tribute page to my mom and everything that she has taught me.
I love the way the light is coming through the window and shining through the mason jars - which by the way, are one of my most favorite comfort items in the world. I love mason jars!!! As my moods strike me, I fill them with colorful flowers from the garden or sand, seashells and candles and cupboards full of jars get filled with crisp veggies and sun soaked fruit from our Creston trips. They are warm and homey and totally full of goodness!
Our trip last weekend, while short, was one of the best in recent years! Mike and I spent three days scouring the fruit stands, antique stores, my favorite pottery shop - we had so much fun!!! The truck and trailer were bursting with treasures on the way home. I will take some photos of my "finds" and post them soon!

Scrapbooking History

So you are probably wondering why I am scrap booking a page on slavery? This layout was one that I started last year, but found a little difficult. It is not like you can walk into any scrapbook store and find embellishments for slavery!!! It took a very long time to find all of the pieces of the puzzle. I googled slavery and downloaded a few images that showed slaves at auction and how they (the people) were advertised and what selling prices would be expected for them. I was also able to procure some drawings of the slaves loaded on ships and estate records that listed the human inventory along with the cattle, sheep, horses and other "belongings" to the estates. Some of the photos were very graphic and made me shudder.

By printing out the images and then collaging them together, I was able to create the backgrounds for the two pages. A clip art bull whip seemed to be the most appropriate embellishment for the page, considering that I did not want to cover up much of the text in the old slavery auction bills. I also used Barracks signature saying "Anything Can Happen" and included the People magazine article about Obama's historic election. But why scrapbook it in the first place?

From the very beginning of my scrapbook hobby, I have included pages in my family albums about significant events that have shaped our world. Because we are creating "history books" for our families, I feel it is necessary to include world events that have changed the way we live, the way we do business, the way we feel about things. Y2K, the terrorist attacks of 9-11, Amish school shootings, the stock market crash/Motor industry bailouts/recession and Barrack Obama's history making election all deserve a place in our scrapbooks. They have changed us in some way. Just try to get through security at an airport,with a liquid, and see what happens!!!

So the next time that a world event occurs that has a significant impact on you - scrap it!

Things I Love About Summer

If you could summer in a jar, my absolute favorite thing about summer is my soup recipe, with ingredients straight from the garden, it can not be beat! Try it out and see if you don't agree. It might seem a little complicated, because of all of the steps, but it is just a lot of chopping and dicing and nothing is too hard. Don't be freaked out by the title - it is not like the borscht that you have tasted that is just full of beets! This has a beet in it for color, but you fish it out and throw it away about halfway through the recipe. This soup is creamy and rich and chock full of good veggies! I have tried using the food processor to speed up the process (LOL) but it really made the ingredients too fine, almost like a big pot of baby food. Plus, there is something therapeutic about cutting all of the vegetables by hand and putting some "love" in the pot.

Cindy's Summer Borscht

In a large soup pot or stock pot, add the following ingredients and let simmer away :

1 quart canned tomatoes

1 onion, chopped finely

1 cup cream (I use whipping cream)

While that is cooking, peel about four large potatoes, do not cut them up fine, leave in large chunks so that you can fish them out of the soup later on.

Add to the pot:

the four large potatoes cut in big chunks

2 carrots, chopped

1 pint (2 cups) frozen or fresh peas

1 tbsp salt

Cover with boiling water and let it simmer away until the potatoes are cooked. While that is happening, crack a beer (LOL) and chop up the following:

5 stalks of celery, chopped up finely

1/2 head of cauliflower ,cut up finely

1 small head of green cabbage, cut up FINELY - no one likes big shreds of cabbage!

Fish out the big potatoes and mash them with salt and pepper, lots of butter and cream. They should be runny . Set aside. Add to the pot:

1 tbsp dried dill

the celery

the cauliflower

While that is simmering away, have another beer (you deserve it for slaving away over a hot soup pot) and fry 1/2 of the pile of cabbage and one onion, chopped in lots of butter. Watch this carefully, do NOT let the cabbage brown. You just want to sweat it and "almost" take it to the point of carmelization. ALMOST. If you cook it until it browns, it looks like there are "burnt bits" in the creamy soup.

When you are done frying the cabbage, finely chop and add to the pot:

1 green pepper, seeded

salt and dill to taste

Peel and dice four small potatoes and add to the soup:

raw pile of cabbage

fried cabbage/onion mixture

finely diced raw potatoes

Let that come to a boil once more. Turn off heat. Stir in mashed potato mixture. Cover the pot and let it sit, to fully cook the last vegetables. When you are ready to serve, bring the soup up to temperature. Taste for the last time and add salt and/or dill if necessary.

This sounds really complicated, but it isn't. It is just the best summer soup you will ever have! Enjoy!!

Summer Nirvana

Summer has so many attributes that I love, although it can never top autumn in my mind, it certainly gives it a run for its money. Have you ever had one of those days, were you don't really have any where else to be, you don't really have anything else to do, no one is expecting anything of you and this calm, serene peaceful feeling comes over you. It does not happen much in my life. Usually there are millions of pressing details every day that make those days just ordinary days. Only about one day of the year do I get that special feeling. Everything is good in my world, I have no worries and this state of mind just overtakes me. It is the day that you take the time to stop to smell the new rose that has blossomed, the day that you sit on the veranda with a cold beer and you SAVOUR it, not just drink it, the day that you really hear the different sounds of the birds twittering in the garden, the day that you realize that there is a hummingbird nest just a few feet from the veranda railing and it has been there all along and you just never LOOKED before. The day that you taste a warm from the sun, wild raspberry and you don't think that you have ever tasted anything so perfect and sweet. I imagine that this feeling is like the state that people obtain when they are deep in meditation. It's just too bad that it only happens one time a year.

Why do we push ourselves so hard? Why do I feel the need to fill every waking moment with some sort of productive activity? Why, when my whole yard is weeded and pristine, I decide to build a new brick wall and yet another flower bed? Another obligation that has to be met with regards to weeding and watering and dead heading. Another job, in an already "bursting at the seams" schedule.

Contentment. Why can I not achieve it? Why do I only get to feel calm and rested and wonderful just one day out of 365. IT'S MY MOTHER'S FAULT!!!!!

My mother is the proverbial energizer bunny. She never stops. She never rests. She can accomplish more in one day than most people do in a week. She expects perfection, she is demanding - on her body, on her production, and on her expectations. My need to fill every moment with activity is directly a result from being raised by an over achiever.

I have read that if you have an abusive or alcoholic person in your family, it takes four generations to undo the harm that one person has inflicted on the family. Looking at Mom and myself and Megan (my daughter) I can tell with absolute certainty that we are still a good four generations away from achieving a more peaceful, slothful, relaxed, lazy version of ourselves.

With that in mind, I am going to go and weed the vegetable garden.