finding your passion

Yes, my husband and I just had a wonderful weekend away but don’t worry – this is a completely g-rated post! Our weekend of reconnecting was indeed just what we needed. It was filled with gorgeous weather, walks along Lake Michigan, sleeping in (!) and lots of wandering around looking at beautiful views while wine tasting. We hit a weekend where a group of wineries held an event – at each winery you had a snack waiting for you designed to be paired with a wine. Beef tenderloin on a baguette paired with pinot noir… dark chocolate brownie made with cherry wine and paired with a cabernet franc… creamy wild rice soup paired with a chardonnay… oh it was a yummy weekend.

One of the most fun parts of this event, and of wine tasting really, is getting the chance to meet the winemaker. These people have such a passion for what they are doing – it’s contagious. Tasting a wine with the person who spent months making decisions on how to craft it is far different than just sitting down at a wine bar and having a person (even a knowledgeable person) tell you about the wine’s flavors.

We heard about the 12-16 hour days they’ve been putting in lately harvesting grapes. (One of them was still wearing his stained jeans & boots from working in the vineyard that morning!) We learned that one wine is made from three different grapes but they grow the grapes all together and harvest them all at the same time to create their wine. We learned that some wines of the lightest color are made from the darkest grapes. We learned that red wine takes longer to make than white wine and involves far more variables.

We were enthusiastically greeted by Dan at Chateau Fontaine and told that we must try a bit of this with a sip of that and then a cracker with this and a sip of that. We sat across the bar from Charlie at Bel Lago and learned about his inspirations to create new wines. We listened to the son of the owner at Bowers Harbor talk about wines from different hillsides. We laughed with John & Jo at Willow Vineyard. I could go on and on – we visited approx 17 wineries over the weekend.

It’s so inspiring to hear the passion in these people’s voices. Of course, they have invested more time and money than a lot of us do in our profession but it almost seems as if they were driven to do so. I honestly think there is something in each of our lives that inspires that same passion. We may be lucky enough to have it from our work. Or maybe it’s a hobby or our family. Whatever it is, I left this weekend refreshed in many ways and one of them is inspiring me to relish the passions in my life. In some ways, far more simplistic than battling the weather to grow grape vines and making all the delicate decisions to create a wine. But they are passions nonetheless. Where’s your passion?

do you hear it?

Northern Michigan is calling me. It’s been calling for about a month but today, today I’m able to answer. In just a few hours my husband and I will be wandering north. I’m hoping for some sunshine and glimpses of sparking blue waters in my favorite Great Lake. It looks like that sunshine might be somewhat hard to come by but I’ll take a few semi-warm, cloudy days to see some dunes… visit some wineries… walk along the Lake… relax.

It’s gonna be a good weekend. And thinking back on my week – it hasn’t been so bad either. Here’s a few small moments of grace, week #40 and still counting…

1. Shoeboxes! Operation Christmas Child is a fantastic service project. Especially for kids – it’s a project they really get a handle on. I’ve been doing it for years and this week I did the project with E’s girl scout troop. I’ve got 20 shoeboxes in my car waiting to start their journey. Awesome. There is grace in helping others.

2. The value of a good vent. There’s something about running with the right person that lets you get a few things off your chest… that makes the weight pressing down a little bit lighter. I didn’t need that vent (at least not this week) but I’m so glad I could be the ear for someone who did. There is grace in listening.

3. Family dinner. I had the family at the table a decent number of nights this week. And I was all adventurous trying out three new recipes. I’m happy to report that two of the three are repeat-worthy (the third was awful). But even on the awful night, eating together and sharing our days is good. There is grace in coming together.

4. Confidence. My oldest set off on a new adventure this week. As for many of us, starting something new takes some courage. And in this particular case, it took finding some confidence in her abilities. She did it. And she did it well. There is grace in inner-strength.

5. Visiting grandparents. My in-laws have been here two weekends in a row. Once just for fun and this weekend to watch the kiddos for our little getaway. I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it now. We are so lucky to have all of our parents so active in our children’s lives. And I’m not just saying that because it lets Matt & I get away – though that is a nice perk. I love that my kids have real relationships with each of their grandparents. There is grace in family.

Shhh…. do you hear it? The Lake has missed me.

food thursday: pumpkin cookies

Yesterday I came up with a fun way to keep my lists of five going this week. I was going to give you a recipe today with just five ingredients. But that recipe is for a crock pot and I’ve been doing crock pot recipes a lot lately. So I decided it was boring to do that after all. Besides there’s a recipe I’ve been wanting to share and it’s kind of seasonal so now is as good a time as any.

Pumpkin cookies. Yes, you can make them year round but there is just something about the fall that makes me want to put pumpkin in as many things as possible. I make a mean pumpkin muffin and I’ve got a great pumpkin bread recipe (for the bread maker no less!). But a few weeks ago I went on the hunt for a good pumpkin cookie recipe. I’m happy to say, I found it. I’ve only made one tiny change to this recipe – its original can be found on Pioneer Woman’s Tasty Kitchen website (a great resource for all sorts of recipes).

Here is THE pumpkin cookie recipe. Approved by my kids, my cheerleaders who received them as a post-game reward, and myself. Mmmmm

2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 cup pumpkin
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 a bag of mini-chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350
2. Sift the first five ingredients together in a medium size bowl, set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl cream the sugar and shortening, then add the pumpkin and blend well. Add the egg and vanilla, mix well.
4. Gently stir in the dry ingredients, a little at a time until you have a nice smooth batter. Stir in your chocolate chips.
5. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and bake for around 12 minutes.

These might be the fluffiest cookies I’ve ever made. Be gentle with the dough and yours will be too. Mmmm…. I love pumpkin treats!

Note: be sure you buy canned pumpkin NOT pumpkin pie mix.

Hey – there are five steps in the recipe so that still works in my lists of five! wahoo!

missing this… oh! and that too

So I’ve done two posts this week with lists in them. I feel like I should stick with that theme but as I’m lying in bed this morning waiting for my alarm to go off I realize I’m terrible at top five lists. My top five movie list would go something like this:
1. Bull Durham
2. It’s A Wonderful Life
3. that movie with Denzel Washington as the coach of the newly desegregated high school football team… you know the name??

Not long ago at the dinner table we were talking about big shows that we’ve seen. One of the kids asked for our best show list. I started it in no particular order:
1. Jersey Boys
2. Thoroughly Modern Millie (on Broadway)
3. Ummm… and then Matt reminded me of the show we saw oh 2 months ago that I totally loved but was leaving off the list: Spring Awakening. Definitely in my top five but I couldn’t think of it.

I swear I’ve got a good memory but I just don’t have the brain storage for names. I can’t remember names of songs, movies – heck sometimes I can’t even remember the titles of books I’ve read. It’s sad really. I’m going to be old and gray sitting on my rocking chair some day and I’ll be able to carry on a perfectly lucid conversation, as long as it doesn’t require me naming something from my past. Sigh… SO in honor of my future missing memory I’m going to write a list of things I miss. It may or may not be five things, we’re just going to roll with this one and see where my tangent-floating mind takes us..

1. Family Feud: the original one with that guy who kissed everybody (and no, I don’t remember his name)

2. Playing fun board games: we don’t do that enough any more, probably because we don’t hang out with my brother & sister-in-law as much as we used to. Which is most certainly due to the fact that we moved two hours away.

3. Which reminds me, I miss living within 15 minutes of a real downtown with real museums and sports and restaurants. Oh! And a Target I drove past every day.

4. I miss having nothing more important to do than pack a backpack and walk across a beautiful campus to stuff my brain with knowledge.

5. I miss having a puzzle always lying there waiting to be worked on. (In our first apartment we always had a card table in our living room with a puzzle on it. We’d work on it while we watched tv or do a piece or two while waiting for water to boil. It was fun. And then we had kids. Kids who run around and knock things down all the time.)

I could go on and on… I miss fitting in size 10 clothes… I miss Must See TV (esp Seinfeld in it’s heydey)… speaking of tv shows, I miss Ed and the notion of the $10 bet… but if I don’t stop thinking of random things I’m going to end up missing a paycheck. I’ve got work to do before the patter of little feet come down the stairs demanding things like breakfast.

do you like your job?

This morning I’m going to spend 2.5 hours as a helper teacher in J’s classroom. It should be fun, if headache inducing. I do like teaching in its various forms and when you teach preschoolers you get to be a little goofy – that’s always fun. But I have a feeling that when lunchtime rolls around I’ll be glad that I’m just an occasional helper.

It reminds me of other jobs in the world that I’m glad I don’t have. My kids are fascinated with that show Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel. Now there’s a list of jobs you don’t want – roadkill collector, sewer painter, ostrich wrangler. It’s like a train wreck, you can’t stop watching the show while at the same time being completely disgusted/in awe that he is doing that job. That someone has to do that job every day! Whew!

Here’s my Top Five Most Miserable Jobs (paid and unpaid)

1. Copy Mom: I’m not sure I can even tell you how much I hated this job. For one school year I went in once a week and made copies for a teacher. Now, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if I was copying for a regular teacher. (Unless it was for kindergarten or first grade – those copy moms have their work cut out for them with laminating and cutting and copying and punching things out – whew!) My copy job was for the wackadoo teacher. I spent my time breaking copyright laws – copying entire books mind you – or trying to make abnormal size papers copy onto normal size papers with an ancient, touchy copy machine.

2. Street Cleaner: I was on the board of our local Y in Indy. Our Y adopted a very busy road/intersection nearby. The board had to volunteer once every three months to go clean it. OH! Talk about a crappy job. You’d be amazed at the stuff people will throw out their windows. And this was even in a nice part of town.

3. Cold Caller: For 4 short hours (6 if you count the training) I was a cold caller at IU. Wow was that a bad job. I consider myself to be a reasonably persistent, successful person. However, I was extraordinarly bad at this job. I’m not sure I got past the first step in the ladder of money asking all night. And I felt like a total chump doing it. Terrible.

4. Inventory: When I was first married we decided to move to Indy for no other reason than it was a big city and Matt’s Aunt & Uncle had a place for us to crash until we got on our feet. Our first day there I went out to get a job – any job. Something that would at least let us pay rent on our own place while I was looking for a real job. I went to the mall and by the time I left I had a job. I spent the next 2 days counting inventory at L.S. Ayres. Dusty, crappy stuff in the backrooms that I can’t imagine people buying. Racks upon racks of clothes. Boooooorrrrrriiiiinnnnngggg.

5. Second Shift Support: I quit the inventory job because I got this job with more hours. A catalog producing company out by the airport needed an all-around support person to work from 2pm until 11pm. I made copies, created work schedules, proofed copy, stocked supply cabinets. It was grunt work and it was at a crappy time of day too. But I was able to spend my mornings interviewing so I only had this job for three weeks before I found a real job. I must have been too excited to leave this lovely position because my supervisor said something along the lines of don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out. I didn’t.

Makes me appreciate the job I have today. Writing for other people in the comfort of my own home. Calling my own hours. Watching my kids play while I work. It’s a darn good gig.