Holidays, Sanity, and a New Year

 Happy New Year, Y'all! Today is the first day of 2022 and, as with many folks, I look hopefully and gratefully onto a new year filled with opportunities, good health and great surprises. 

We moved to San Antonio Texas  in October of 2021, with plans and great ambitions to build our dream home on a gorgeous spread of land we purchased in Bulverde, Texas in February 2021. Our initial plans were, well, we really didn't have any initial plans or goals other than knowing that at some time in the future we would build on the land that sat peacefully across from our friends plot across the street. One conversation led to another about how rotten California was getting and how unbearable it was becoming to live in our sweet little town of Northridge. As the primary shopper and errand-runner, I saw much sooner how much our little town had changed in the course of a very short time to something I didn't recognize anymore. 

The night  fireworks - big fireworks - were set off behind our home at 11:00pm, startling me awake thinking that we had been bombed, I was ready to move! Fireworks had become a nightly occurrence, but never so close to home. Our trees on the back street were destroyed, burned to a crisp. Savages. But the homelessness, everywhere, was what pushed me over the edge. So many people with so much stuff littering the sidewalks just a block away from our home...and not being able to take a walk or ride to the store or outside of my little neighborhood was really not living a life I wanted to live. It was bad. When I went to our local grocery store to pick up a gallon of milk and driving by a homeless man with his shorts down to his ankles and pooping on the grass in front of anyone passing by on the busy intersection of Balboa and Devonshire, I had had enough! 

 California wasn't getting better, it was rapidly declining. We also realized that no matter when we began to build, we'd want to be in the general neighborhood of the build to keep an eye on things, which meant that at some time we'd need to make the move to Texas. by April, we set forth with a plan to sell our rental home, purchase a home in San Antonio, sell our home in Northridge and get the Hell out of California, which is exactly what we did and in that order!

Leaving the kids and grand-kids behind was unbearable, and something at the time I tried really hard not to think about, which was surprisingly easy with all the business, planning and details that had to be done selling, buying, and moving. All the friends and family we said our goodbyes to, it was hard. That entire time feels like fog; so much went on and so much to take care of to uproot our lives that the feeling and emotions of it all were so deeply suppressed in order to actually be able to do it! 

We drove back "home" to California to spend Thanksgiving with our family and visit friends. Oh, how I loved seeing everyone, and there's nothing better than grand-girlie hugs and giggles. I really thought I'd miss California more, but not true at all. Of course, I miss the mountains and familiar places, but California hasn't been MY California for a long time. I think that was what left me feeling the saddest of all. Not until moving out of that once great state and coming back to visit did I realize just how much California had changed from what I remembered it being my entire life. A certain melancholy has hung over me since then. I know I will always have my childhood memories and keepsakes kept hidden away in my heart, but I really don't know if I ever want to go back. It's too painful.

Christmas 2021 was the first Christmas not spent with my family. Even writing that line brought a swell of tears to my eyes. Christmas 2016 was the worst. The first year without mom, who was everything and all the holidays were wrapped up around, although I didn't realize just how much until that year. Her absence and the vacuum was left behind in her wake was the deepest, most painful cut of all. Christmas 2021 was just another cut to an already deep wound that will never completely heal. But isn't that what life is all about anyway? Moving on. Change. Growth. Love. Laughter. Sadness. Pain. Rebirth. It's all of this, and it keeps on keeping on. And with that, so do I.

This move to Texas was a leap of faith. The changes in our lifestyle. The changes in our work life, and the changes in our surroundings are all a good thing. Life is ever-evolving and there is so much life to live. It's painful, scary, exhilarating, and such a gift and blessing all at once. I have no regrets. The calmness of my new daily life has been like therapy in so many ways. My soul needed to slow down. While I don't know what this year will bring, I do know what I plan to bring to this year, and I'm ready for it.

 

Tuesday, November 30, 2021: LESSONS FROM THE KITCHEN

Browned Butter, and the Importance of Patience

Have you ever made browned butter? If you have, you can attest that on paper, the process seems quite simple and rather elementary, as though even a brand-spanking novice in the kitchen could master it. Simply take two sticks of butter, plopped them into a heavy-bottomed pot, heat on low-medium heat with a constant stir for about 5 minutes until it has a lovely amber color, then immediately remove from the heat. Simple, right?

Well, I’d like to think I know my way around a kitchen and am quite a good cook and even better baker. However, I’m embarrassed at how many times I’ve completed wasted sticks upon sticks of perfectly quality butter at the quest of that perfect deep amber hue.

While constantly and devotedly stirring the pot (literally) filled with unsalted sticks of butter for what felt like hours this afternoon making Salted Honey Chewy Pumpkin Cookies (add recipe link and include below), I realized that so much about life and how I communicate with others can be found in the making of browned butter. Have I lost you? Stick with me (pun intended).

Patience is not a virtue for nothing! As Barbara Johnson said, “Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.” Patience is hard, really hard. Yes, it certainly is. Patience is delaying gratification when you just want something now! Patience is taking your time and moving at the speed not of your desire or design but of someone else’s or some other thing. When browning butter, it can be easy to take a short-cut and turn the heat up to accelerate the process. Oh, is it tempting! Fools know what happens when you do this. Yes, you end up with burnt butter and a smelly home for days. No, true success comes in patiently and painstakingly stirring the luscious concocting with consistent commitment over relatively low heat for at about five long, seemingly endless minutes. Do this, and you will likely have success. When it comes to relationships and communication, I can’t tell you how important it is to just bide your time, sit on your hands, zip up your mouth, and just patiently wait at the pace of the other person. Or the pace in traffic. Patience is not just the ability to wait, it’s also how we behave while waiting. If your dear wife is pouring out her heart to you after a long day at the office, and your eyes are glancing repeatedly at your watch, you just blew it. There is wisdom in patience and waiting before opening your mouth, waiting before speaking and saying something that you may regret that can be impossible to take back. As Elon Musk once said, “Patience is a virtue, and I’m learning patience. It’s a tough lesson.” Learn it.

Keen Observation. The recipe may state to stir the butter consistently for five minutes, but if you aren’t paying attention to the important details that five minutes may be 30 seconds too long and there you go, burnt butter nightmare! Don’t take things at face-value. Everyone’s stovetop is slightly different, and your clock may be slightly off from the actual time. There is so much value in staying observant and not just going by what is written in a recipe. The best results require both. With people, often what we say is far from the truth of what we are feeling. A husband who asks his wife “what’s wrong” and gets a response, “nothing,” when he can tell something just doesn’t jive is wise to take a moment to sit down with his wife and just listen to what’s on her mind. Unfortunately, and all too often, that same husband is relieved that his wife said nothing is wrong and moves forward with his day, not realizing until it’s too late that he missed all the signs and now has to deal with her wrath. Poor chump! Keen observation and listening keeps us in the know and helps us really tackle the problems with much greater chance of a successful conclusion. As they say, actions always speak louder than words.

Stick with It! Don’t walk away from the pot! Otherwise, you’ll end up with burnt butter and the odor of which you won’t be able to get out of your home for days. Similarly, when someone needs you, don’t walk away from them. When we are in need of compassion and empathy or someone to simply listen quietly as we vent, one of the worst things we can do is become distracted and appear uninterested. Literally walking away when they are speaking (even if it’s just to get something from another room or answer the phone) can send all kinds of wrong messages to the person in need at that moment. Best to put all distractions aside and be 100% committed to them in that moment. That person (and your pot of perfectly amber-hued browned butter) will thank you.

Salted Honey Chewy Pumpkin Cookies

Perfect little spicy morsels that are oh, so worth browning butter for!

Ingredients:

·        1 cup salted butter

·        3 tablespoons honey

·        1 teaspoon kosher salt

·        1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar

·        1 egg yolk

·        1 teaspoon vanilla extract

·        1/3 cup pure pumpkin puree

·        1 teaspoon baking soda

·        2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

·        ¼ teaspoon ground cloves

·        ½ teaspoon cinnamon

·        2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

·        1/4 cup granulated sugar

·        1 teaspoon cinnamon

·        Flaked sea salt to garnish

 

1.      Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

2.      In a large saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the butter. Stirring constantly continue cooking the butter until it reaches a deep amber color and remove from the heat. This will take about 5 minutes. Allow the butter to cool for 30 minutes.

3.      While the butter is cooling, stir together the honey and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.

4.      Add in the brown sugar and honey into the cooled butter. Using a rubber spatula mix together, scraping up all the brown bits of the butter. Add in the egg yolk, vanilla, pumpkin, baking soda, and pumpkin pie spice, ground cloves, and cinnamon and mix until smooth.

5.      Stir in the flour until combined. Set aside.

6.      In a small bowl mix together the granulated sugar and cinnamon. Use a medium (3- tablespoon) cookie scoop to portion out the dough. Roll the dough into a ball and drop it into the cinnamon sugar mixture and coat. Place the dough onto the prepared baking sheet 3- inches apart. The dough will be soft but not sticky. Bake for 9 -11 minutes until the edges are golden. As soon as the cookies come out of the oven, drop (or bang) the pan down onto the stove top 5 times. This gives the cookies a crackly top, and reduces any airiness, making them even chewier.

7.      Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Sprinkle with sea salt flakes.

8.      EAT!!! Your reward for patience is at your fingertips to enjoy!

Recipe adapted from www.cookiesandcups.com

Choices

"EVERYTHING in life is a choice: Courage, happiness, religion, marriage, everything. The sooner you realize this, the happier your life will be." - Dennis Prager 

Choice is everything. What a profound statement, and one that takes some amount of bravery and self-reflection to embrace. In this self-centered world, it is so easy to blame everyone else for our problems and our strife. Of course, there are always things that are completely out of our control, but even in those situations it is up to us individually to decide and determine how we will accept the situation or not. Our attitudes and our actions. How we treat others and how we treat ourselves. How we serve our communities or engage in work...all of this and everything else is all about choice.

I think many of us, if we are completely honest with ourselves, want everything both ways. We want to make our own choices or feel as though we are, yet, we are often extremely obliging to allow and give over that choice to others or "them" to make the decisions for us. Taking complete ownership of our choices takes bravery and 100% accountability. The choices we make will sometimes be horrible or at least not the best when we look back on what we've done years later. Our choices may completely impact which paths are open to us as we move one foot in front of the other on our life's path. We choose to have a negative attitude rather than see the sliver lining and positive takeaways in our situations. 

Many years ago I found myself very unhappy in my marriage. My husband and I were very young when we married, and he had come from a very abusive family. Being so young and inexperienced, I had no idea that this or how this would impact our marriage and relationship. Very soon after we said "I do," he began threatening to leave me. At first these threats occurred about once a month,  and by the time we had three children all under the ages of seven-years-old, I found myself very unhappy in the marriage. While not physical, this manipulation and ongoing torture was abuse. For years, I kept telling myself that he's a good man, he's so nice to everyone, and he's a good father. The threats tore away at my own self-confidence and eroded my trust in him and in us. Honestly, I felt trapped and I felt that I was dying from the inside out.

I chose to stay with him because I did not want to break up our family. As hard as the choice was either way, this was the path I made and lived with for years; ten years, to be exact. On the day my then husband came home and threatened to leave us, his family, in front of my three young children, I couldn't take it any more. Something changed in me, and that change led to the immediate decision to leave him. We separated then divorced the following year. It was the toughest choice I've ever made, knowing it would affect everyone I loved and held dear and above all else...my children. But the alternate choice to stay was one I couldn't be accountable for any longer. 

Choice. Choices. Not always easy, usually quite difficult. But it is our choice to be.