Small But Mighty

My six-year-old is a non-fiction kinda guy. On our most recent trip to the library, I told my three children they could each get two or three books since they each still had several (have you heard about my library book....ummm...issues? Maybe another time.) books at home. The 4-year-old came back with exactly three books, probably the first three she saw, thrilled just to be able to pick something of her own without having to make any compromises with the brothers. The 8-year-old came back with four books simply because it wasn't three like I'd told him. We're having some control issues at the moment. Again, another time. The 6-year-old returns with an armload of books about to tumble out of his little grasp. He has one audio CD with Halloween music, four books on dinosaurs and four on planets.

Tonight as we sat down to read at bedtime, he handed me a book on Uranus. Little did I know I was in for an education. When I studied the planets, there were nine of them. And what the heck is a dwarf planet? Boy, how things have changed. Did you know that it would take about 10 years traveling in a spaceship to get to Uranus from here? Probably from where you are too, wherever that is. Did you know that it takes 48 years for the northern hemisphere of Uranus to experience sunrise since the planet is tipped on its side for who-knows-what reason? Did you know that Saturn produces more heat than it gets from the Sun because of its immense size and the heat generated from all that pressure? Nope, me neither.

All this reminded me of a shirt this same six-year-old likes to wear. It proclaims him "Small but mighty." Yes, I am certainly feeling how small I am. Not only is our solar system down a planet, but no one bothered to tell me. Our immense solar system is only a tiny speck in the unfathomable universe beyond. Despite movie makers' imagination, we will likely never know what's really out there, at least not for many generations to come. Many people don't know what the lives of people in other continents, countries, regions and cities are really like, much less what lies beyond our atmosphere.

It makes me feel small. Reminds me that in many ways I am small. More importantly, it reminds me that so many of the things that I allow to worry me, to sap my energy, to stress me out, to anger me, to keep me busy, to hold me back are so very small.

What a small thing that the grocery store is out of newspapers when I finally get to go pick one up at 9:30 at night. Yes, it will throw off my coupon strategy and grocery budget for the next month, but still-small.

What a small thing that some unnamed child left a green marker between the couch cushions, marring both of them with ink that refuses to budge despite my best efforts. It will just have to stay there, annoying me, until we can get a new couch which will probably not happen until 2017. Yes, small in the scheme of things. Very small in comparison to the love I have for this child and my desire for them to know that I will never love him or her one iota less even if they scribbled green marker on every single couch cushion I own.

What a small thing that our budget is falling a little short this month for many reasons that I won't detail for you at the moment but is in no small part a result of a rental property that has remained unrented for several months now awaiting a roof that has been delayed by roofer and insurance adjusters alike who do not seem at all concerned about the shortfall in our budget their lolly gagging is creating.  Stressful but small when stacked up next to the blessings our little family can count.

What a small thing that I seem unable to stop myself from writing run-on sentences when many people who I don't even know will probably read them and judge me for it. Annoying but small.

What a small thing that a wayward lump of cells has decided to overgrow its welcome in the breast of a strong, beautiful, intelligent, inspiring mother of two small children who is also my friend and who I cannot imagine this vast, enormous world without.

And then I remember. We are small. But mighty. We are mighty and the stress of life, motherhood, traffic, grocery shopping, embarrassment, too small budgets, and too full schedules is no match for me. I might occasionally huddle on the couch for an afternoon feeling scared and overwhelmed until I remember. We are mighty.

We are small. And this cancer thing is minuscule when standing against the strength and power and love and light and faith and laughter and joy and energy of those of us surrounding my friend. We are small. But we are mighty. Way, way more mighty than this.

Weekly dinner menu Sept 26-30

My BFF is an amazing woman who accomplishes more in a day than than most people accomplish in a week, maybe a month. She teaches a classroom of 27 first-graders, raises three children under the age of 8, runs a household in the country, helps her husband repair cars and split wood for their wood-burning stove, leads her daughter's Girl Scout Troupe, sings in the church choir, teaches Bible study, and manages to write random thank you notes to people to show her appreciation for their kindness. She's the kind of person who you annoys you because she's making you look bad, while at the same time you are in awe and admiration that she can do all that without the need to drink excessively or have a therapist on retainer.

There's just one thing I can confidently say I am better at than she is (probably because of the fact that she has way less time for it than me, but still...). That's cooking. She's been trying to come up with some new ideas for dinner and keeps asking me what I'm cooking. Of course, when she asks it's always something like chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese. Or PBJ sandwiches and cucumber slices. Glamorous indeed. AND, since I really, really, really, really need to be better about planning our meals ahead, I thought I'd put them here. Not only is it the easiest way to share them with my friend, but it will make me feel more committed to planning our meals. Hopefully, the information might be helpful to someone else too.

A few thoughts on my style of meal planning:

• I take a look at what's in my freezer and pantry so I can use what I have whenever possible.


• I like to use a mix of new recipes and old family favorites, as well as quick and easy recipes combined with more in-depth, from scratch, old-fashioned cooking.


• I take a look at the weekly ads before getting started so I can use what's on sale.


• I don't assign days to the menu. I like to cook based on what I am in the mood for (which is part of the reason I am so bad at planning meals ahead) so I try to get the ingredients I need for the week and then decide on a daily basis what we'll be having.


• Generally, I make the more complicated, longer-cooking dishes early in the week, so there are leftovers that I can then base other meals on later in the week. Plus, I have more time, patience and energy early in the week.


• The menus don't always include side dishes or vegetables. It's not that we don't have them. I just use whatever I happen to have on hand. Right now, that means cucumbers since they are currently plentiful in our garden, sliced apples or waldorf salad, grapes which are inexpensive and in season right now, or salad or carrot sticks which we pretty much always have on hand. If all else fails, unsweetened applesauce.

Here's what's on the menu this week:

Meal # 1: Spice roasted chicken (legs and thighs) with vegetables (carrots, onions and potatoes). I will make enough so that there is plenty of leftover chicken to use for lunches and quesadillas later in the week. This is one of the new recipes I'll be trying. The chicken is rubbed with a combination of salt, pepper, paprika and cinnamon. It calls for parsnips to be added to the vegetables. I've never had them. We'll see...

Meal #2: Nachos and Quesadillas. You can pretty much use whatever you have on hand for these. While I don't exactly consider nachos a healthy dinner, (1) I've had a craving and (2) I have a bag of tortilla chips in my pantry that I don't have a plan for. So, I'll brown a pound of ground beef, season half of it and use on the nachos. I will use a little leftover chicken from earlier in the week, plus whatever vegetables I have on hand, to make some quesadillas.

Meal #3: French bread pizza. I will use some of the ground beef from nacho night (the unseasoned half), combined with some chopped salami or pepperoni (or some Italian Sausage if I end up getting any to make soup later in the week), mixed with spaghetti sauce, spread it on the bread, sprinkle on some cheese and bake. Probably add a salad or some carrot sticks.

Meal #4: Crock pot Mongolian beef with rice and sauteed baby bok choy. This is one of my very favorite recipes ever. I love Chinese food, but find it challenging to make at home. This is so easy and delicious.

Meal #5: Spanish Tortilla with Salad. This will be another new recipe. Basically, it's eggs, potatoes and whatever else you want to put in there, started on the stovetop and finished in the oven. The recipe I have calls for red pepper and salami, and since I can use salami in the kids' lunches and in the French bread pizza, I'll probably stick with that. I might even have a pepper in the garden and can take that off my grocery list.

Meal #6: Mac-n-cheese and fried green tomatoes. The kids have been requesting my "very best mac-n-cheese ever" made with white cheddar so I am going to make that for them this week. It's rare I try three new recipes in a week, but I found a simple and delicious-sounding recipe for fried green tomatoes. Plus, I have a ton of them in the garden, and I've always wanted to try making them so why not? If that's not your thing, any fruit or vegetable could stand in.

Meal #7: I may or may not end up making this one, but I saw a yummy recipe sausage, white bean and spinach stew. If I cook 5 nights, we usually have plenty of leftovers for another night, and end up going out one night of the week. I still like to make a pot of soup to have on hand for lunches or an extra busy night. So if I have time, I might do this one too and just plan to freeze the leftovers.

I'll let you know how the week turns out--if anything is a huge hit or huge flop, if we resort to peanut butter and jelly any nights, if we have entirely too many leftovers by Wednesday, that kind of thing. Hope you find something useful here. And happy cooking!

Faith

My friends said, "You HAAAAAAVE to join Facebook. It's so great to connect with everyone and we can share pictures and see the babies and chat online and ...." So I did. And it has sucked away time I didn't have anyway. Instead of laundry and dishes and clipping coupons and putting together a puzzle with the kids, I check all 231 friends' status 27 times a day. So more friends say, "Oh, your FB status updates are so funny! You should start a blog." "What's a blog?" I say. Well, here I am, instead of folding the laundry or cleaning the basement or planning my grocery list. We'll see how it goes. Somehow it seems I have faith my friends know what they are talking about.