Here is a veggie recipe I made yesterday that is hearty and delicious! You will be full for hours! Try it with a dollop of sour cream and some sharp cheddar cheese sprinkled on top. Happy eating!
Veggie Soup
2 tbs unsalted butter
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 medium jalapeno, finely chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
10 oz chopped carrots
1 15oz can white hominy, drained
1 15oz can diced tomatoes with green chilis
1 15oz can diced tomatoes, zesty chili style
3 small zucchinis, diced
5 cups fresh green beans, snapped to bite size pieces
6 cups fresh kale
4-5 cups water or broth
1 tbs cumin
3 tbs chili powder
1 tsp paprika
2 large bay leaves
salt & pepper to taste
optional:
cilantro
sour cream
cheddar cheese
Saute butter, onion, carrots, celery, and jalapenos over medium/high heat until tender. Add remaining ingredients. Simmer on low for about 3-4 hours.
Freeze or refrigerate remaining soup.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Friday, March 1, 2013
Follow your heart? or follow your heart?
My father is getting remarried this weekend. Sunday actually. Two days from today. *sigh*... Not *sigh* because I am not happy for him, because I am. *Sigh* because of everything else that has surfaced since his decision to remarry (which I might add was six weeks ago... but I digress). The decision was hard on my family. We have only met his fiance a few times, we have not met her son who will be moving into our old home, and we were barely made known about the wedding plans. It all seemed to be moving so fast and we couldn't figure out why. I suppose though that every marriage my father has been a part of happened rather quickly. Two days before my father was supposed to marry my mother he got into a car crash and was on crutches. But he didn't want to push the wedding back so they got married in the hospital. The man is persistent is what I am saying.
All of my mothers things were still in her closet up until two days ago. My sister, who recently flew in from Afghanistan for the wedding, and I drove out to Sunset to "help" pack up our mothers things. China, antiques, clothing, memorabilia, things that reminded us of her. He told us to take all of the pictures too. He didn't want anything that had her name or photo in the house. His words twisted my heart like a wet washcloth, but I tried to not think about that. My sister and I removed the items from the home. We cleaned the slate that was the home that my mother built. She created the memories, and the decorations. The roosters in the kitchen are hers. The dishes and the pots and pans are hers. But they will be used by a new family. A different family. A family that doesn't say the name LORI. LORI. LORI. Yet for me... the name is my mother.
Ever since my mother's death, a little over two years ago, I have been on a constant journey in trying to come to peace with everything. I have had to deal with guilt of her and my relationship the last couple years of her life. I have also had to fight the anger that I had towards her and the disease. I could never wrap my head around it. What set her off, what made her so unhappy that she couldn't put the drink down. Well... while we were cleaning out my mother's closet we came across a very interested folder. It was about two inches thick stuffed with postcards, letters, faxes, emails... I pulled out one of the papers and read:
"Honey, is it really true, can you really care for me this much? It was nearly impossible to return to Hemingway after our conversation; I found myself reading entire paragraphs without comprehension, thinking about you as I was. I imagined you sleeping, envisioned those long lovely limbs of yours, saw your pretty braid lying across the pillow. As much as I love to read baby, even Hemingway can't compare to you in the milieu of my thoughts. Maybe someday, no, someday we will lie together in a cool bed and mix the two loves of books and us. How I would love to love on you this morning... If I was a lumberjack I would chop through whole redwoods by myself this morning, my girl. As it is I'll simply write a novel by noon."
20 years ago my mother had a relationship with another man. A man that I recall briefly in my memory. I remember that he and I shared blueberry pancakes on a trip. When I first read the letter I said a lot of cuss words in astonishment. Then there was a brief moment of anger. How did I not know about this?!?! Once the shock subsided I continued to read and saw how deeply they felt for one another. The conversation of my father and how he was never home and she wasn't happy. How this man vowed to care for her (and my sister and I) and to love us completely... "When you told me of how Elizabeth looked in her new outfit I loved the tone in your voice, the love present. I want to share those times with you, and be there to have an arm slung casually around Erin when showering compliments on Elizabeth. I can still recall the physical embrace from my father during the Army days, and would like the girls always to remember not only yours buy my embrace as well. My father was not good about showing preference for one son over another, and I promise you I'll think about such things and work hard to pull them equally to my heart."
I took the letters, stuffed them into my bag and didn't look at them again until today. I read through them. I talked to family members and and divulged more information from them. I asked about the relationship and what happened, etc. etc. They didn't tell me much except that my mother ended it because she didn't want to break up the family. She stayed because she thought it would be too hard for us. She sacrificed her happiness for our well being. My mother wrote in a letter to "he that shall not be names" and in the letter she said, "Cite me an example of a relationship, any age difference or none at all, where the possibility of a painful end doesn't exist. I'm waiting..." *sigh*
Shortly after their "break-up" my mother started to drink heavily. And the years of Alcoholism and depression and "family torn apart" really began. We were happy, we were loved, and then there was a shift and I never really understood what caused that shift. That is until I read these letters. I know that some people are reading this post and judging my mother for being an "adulterer"(I almost feel like I'm writing a book report on the scarlet letter). Maybe saying she deserved what was coming to her? What can I say? All is fair in love and war? The heart wants what the heart wants? Love it and leave it? I don't know what you want me to say. All I know is that she chose another's (her children's) happiness over her own and it killed her. I have been sitting and wondering how my life would be different had she left my father for this man that she had a great love affair with (She always loved the English Patient and now I know why). Maybe she would still be here.... coulda, woulda, shoulda I suppose. That is just me missing my mother.
More than anything, these letters and this revelation has made it painfully obvious how IMPORTANT it is to follows the path of our hearts. In yoga, we spend so much time listening to our bodies and our minds and our souls, but do we really respond? Do we remove ourselves from situations that are painful to us and search (even if we are desperately lonely for a time) for something that truly serves us and makes us feel like bigger and stronger and more vibrant human beings? My mother also wrote in the same letter about two friends, "I don't see any passion or great love between the two of them. It's as though they have settled in a nice, comfortable routine and don't have the energy to change it. I sometimes wonder how many people stay with the wrong mate or a bad situation, not out of love or commitment, but out of habit- that insidious, deadly anesthetic." Amen. I could probably count on one hand (at least) things in my life that I hold on to that do not serve me. Bosses and boyfriend, fear not. It is nothing as dramatic as this, but is it any less important?
My mother has taught me, and at an unimaginably desperate time in my life, that if I am not working from my heart it could literally kill me. Ugh dramatic right? I am not advocating for adultery. I am simply saying that I applaud her for being able to love so much. I wish she had the courage and the knowing that if she had left we would have been okay. But life goes on.
The last letter I read was a letter to my beautiful Mother. The author should remain anonymous but I will say that she is my soul sister. When I read this letter it brought tears to my eyes and a fire in my heart and made me too want to "forage ahead" and take on the world with an open heart! This had nothing to do with the relationship. It simply describes the strong woman that my mother was at this time in her life:
"In your thirties you have moved towards a place of strength and purpose that is utterly unlike anything I've seen in you, ever. There was no hint, really, to me anyway, that you were going to actually make it to this place. You are strong, yes, always were. But there was a fork somewhere back there, and the odds were just as stacked towards the possibility of another reality: Lori the snob suburbanite. You know, the rich wife who stays shut up in the Big House all day feeding her discontent... laying old dreams on a shelf to gather dust or throw back jeering reflection's of failure and emptiness when looked at... You showed 'em all up. All of the women of the old neighborhood, the Sunview Drive people, their little lives...And the greatest gift is that, as you stopped judging yourself by those fake gold lame society standards, you also stopped judging those around you...So girl, set the pace, forage on ahead. When the last kid, Lizzie B., is safely in route to her own life, we'll go. WE are the writers, we should be living out there on the edge. My recent descent back into my interior spiritual journeys- zen, psychic energy, meditations, God, love- are all hands on the compass pointing me out into open ocean. I'll strain my eyes, looking for the residue of your wake. Big sister, if I should fall behind, wait for me..."
Wherever you are mom, whether you are looking down on me or not, thank you for this life lesson years after I lost you. You are a Warrior Goddess and I salute your bravery and your strong heart.
Your little Tortuga,
Lizzie B.
All of my mothers things were still in her closet up until two days ago. My sister, who recently flew in from Afghanistan for the wedding, and I drove out to Sunset to "help" pack up our mothers things. China, antiques, clothing, memorabilia, things that reminded us of her. He told us to take all of the pictures too. He didn't want anything that had her name or photo in the house. His words twisted my heart like a wet washcloth, but I tried to not think about that. My sister and I removed the items from the home. We cleaned the slate that was the home that my mother built. She created the memories, and the decorations. The roosters in the kitchen are hers. The dishes and the pots and pans are hers. But they will be used by a new family. A different family. A family that doesn't say the name LORI. LORI. LORI. Yet for me... the name is my mother.
Ever since my mother's death, a little over two years ago, I have been on a constant journey in trying to come to peace with everything. I have had to deal with guilt of her and my relationship the last couple years of her life. I have also had to fight the anger that I had towards her and the disease. I could never wrap my head around it. What set her off, what made her so unhappy that she couldn't put the drink down. Well... while we were cleaning out my mother's closet we came across a very interested folder. It was about two inches thick stuffed with postcards, letters, faxes, emails... I pulled out one of the papers and read:
"Honey, is it really true, can you really care for me this much? It was nearly impossible to return to Hemingway after our conversation; I found myself reading entire paragraphs without comprehension, thinking about you as I was. I imagined you sleeping, envisioned those long lovely limbs of yours, saw your pretty braid lying across the pillow. As much as I love to read baby, even Hemingway can't compare to you in the milieu of my thoughts. Maybe someday, no, someday we will lie together in a cool bed and mix the two loves of books and us. How I would love to love on you this morning... If I was a lumberjack I would chop through whole redwoods by myself this morning, my girl. As it is I'll simply write a novel by noon."
20 years ago my mother had a relationship with another man. A man that I recall briefly in my memory. I remember that he and I shared blueberry pancakes on a trip. When I first read the letter I said a lot of cuss words in astonishment. Then there was a brief moment of anger. How did I not know about this?!?! Once the shock subsided I continued to read and saw how deeply they felt for one another. The conversation of my father and how he was never home and she wasn't happy. How this man vowed to care for her (and my sister and I) and to love us completely... "When you told me of how Elizabeth looked in her new outfit I loved the tone in your voice, the love present. I want to share those times with you, and be there to have an arm slung casually around Erin when showering compliments on Elizabeth. I can still recall the physical embrace from my father during the Army days, and would like the girls always to remember not only yours buy my embrace as well. My father was not good about showing preference for one son over another, and I promise you I'll think about such things and work hard to pull them equally to my heart."
I took the letters, stuffed them into my bag and didn't look at them again until today. I read through them. I talked to family members and and divulged more information from them. I asked about the relationship and what happened, etc. etc. They didn't tell me much except that my mother ended it because she didn't want to break up the family. She stayed because she thought it would be too hard for us. She sacrificed her happiness for our well being. My mother wrote in a letter to "he that shall not be names" and in the letter she said, "Cite me an example of a relationship, any age difference or none at all, where the possibility of a painful end doesn't exist. I'm waiting..." *sigh*
Shortly after their "break-up" my mother started to drink heavily. And the years of Alcoholism and depression and "family torn apart" really began. We were happy, we were loved, and then there was a shift and I never really understood what caused that shift. That is until I read these letters. I know that some people are reading this post and judging my mother for being an "adulterer"(I almost feel like I'm writing a book report on the scarlet letter). Maybe saying she deserved what was coming to her? What can I say? All is fair in love and war? The heart wants what the heart wants? Love it and leave it? I don't know what you want me to say. All I know is that she chose another's (her children's) happiness over her own and it killed her. I have been sitting and wondering how my life would be different had she left my father for this man that she had a great love affair with (She always loved the English Patient and now I know why). Maybe she would still be here.... coulda, woulda, shoulda I suppose. That is just me missing my mother.
More than anything, these letters and this revelation has made it painfully obvious how IMPORTANT it is to follows the path of our hearts. In yoga, we spend so much time listening to our bodies and our minds and our souls, but do we really respond? Do we remove ourselves from situations that are painful to us and search (even if we are desperately lonely for a time) for something that truly serves us and makes us feel like bigger and stronger and more vibrant human beings? My mother also wrote in the same letter about two friends, "I don't see any passion or great love between the two of them. It's as though they have settled in a nice, comfortable routine and don't have the energy to change it. I sometimes wonder how many people stay with the wrong mate or a bad situation, not out of love or commitment, but out of habit- that insidious, deadly anesthetic." Amen. I could probably count on one hand (at least) things in my life that I hold on to that do not serve me. Bosses and boyfriend, fear not. It is nothing as dramatic as this, but is it any less important?
My mother has taught me, and at an unimaginably desperate time in my life, that if I am not working from my heart it could literally kill me. Ugh dramatic right? I am not advocating for adultery. I am simply saying that I applaud her for being able to love so much. I wish she had the courage and the knowing that if she had left we would have been okay. But life goes on.
The last letter I read was a letter to my beautiful Mother. The author should remain anonymous but I will say that she is my soul sister. When I read this letter it brought tears to my eyes and a fire in my heart and made me too want to "forage ahead" and take on the world with an open heart! This had nothing to do with the relationship. It simply describes the strong woman that my mother was at this time in her life:
"In your thirties you have moved towards a place of strength and purpose that is utterly unlike anything I've seen in you, ever. There was no hint, really, to me anyway, that you were going to actually make it to this place. You are strong, yes, always were. But there was a fork somewhere back there, and the odds were just as stacked towards the possibility of another reality: Lori the snob suburbanite. You know, the rich wife who stays shut up in the Big House all day feeding her discontent... laying old dreams on a shelf to gather dust or throw back jeering reflection's of failure and emptiness when looked at... You showed 'em all up. All of the women of the old neighborhood, the Sunview Drive people, their little lives...And the greatest gift is that, as you stopped judging yourself by those fake gold lame society standards, you also stopped judging those around you...So girl, set the pace, forage on ahead. When the last kid, Lizzie B., is safely in route to her own life, we'll go. WE are the writers, we should be living out there on the edge. My recent descent back into my interior spiritual journeys- zen, psychic energy, meditations, God, love- are all hands on the compass pointing me out into open ocean. I'll strain my eyes, looking for the residue of your wake. Big sister, if I should fall behind, wait for me..."
Wherever you are mom, whether you are looking down on me or not, thank you for this life lesson years after I lost you. You are a Warrior Goddess and I salute your bravery and your strong heart.
Your little Tortuga,
Lizzie B.
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