cheesy zucchini marinara

Cheesy Zucchini Marinara

Ingredients:
Small zucchini
Marinara sauce
Garlic salt
Butter
Mozzarella cheese, grated
Parmesan cheese, optional

Don't feel like being weighed down with spaghetti or any other carby pasta?
Try this once. I swear it's yummy. But only if you're honestly in the mood for veggies.
Peel a small zucchini, all the way or just in stripes.
Saute it in a small bit of butter until it gets soft. A dash of garlic salt does good right about now.
Add some marinara sauce. I used a mushroom kind. (I love fungi.)
After all of that gets steamy, stir in a wee bit of shredded mozzarella cheese. Moderation or obsession; it's your call. ;)
As soon as it turns melty, serve it up into your vessel of choice.
Shake some grated parmesan cheese over it for some extra goodness and amazing flavor.

You're welcome.

what a (late march) day.

Hung towels on the clothesline with the husband's help. It was the perfect day for it.

Early afternoon helping my best friend of more than ten years and her husband and bebe boy start to move in just down the road. Even five years ago I wouldn't have even dreamed of such a thing happening. Three, even. It's strange, wonderful, bittersweet somewhat, and stunning how everything changes in just a few years.

Satisfaction for my ocd tendencies created by cleaning all their mirrors and windows. (Yes. I know.)
Found recipes for and made the best battered and shallow-pan fried fish tacos (tilapia) with a reportedly 'copycat long john silver's' baja sauce. I may have outdid myself, according to the best husband in the world.

Starting the fifth season of Gilmore Girls. Can't believe I'm almost through them all.
I just heard rain outside. It started falling softly against the side of the house as I washed off a honey mask in the otherwise quiet.

Ah, the evenings of a wife of a weekend nightshifter.
This really was a good day though.
Even though it was my older sister's twenty-seventh birthday and I wasn't able to hug her and celebrate it in person; the husband and I had an hour of silence and thoughts of how to mend a misunderstanding which ended in very good making up (we both process  arguments and misunderstandings quite similarly); and the kitchen still smells like fish and oil even though I sprayed a peppermint essential oil/water as a natural type of febreze.
This day was pretty fantastic.
Not in the always busy, always going places, always doing new amazing important things, but in a down to earth, enjoying basic, wonderful things kind of way.

in which i write about sibling bonds.

‎Saturday, ‎March ‎8, ‎2014
6:35pm

"you know something, baby? we tell ourselves we're happy, when what we really are is content.
contentment is nothing but the conviction that things are 'good enough,' and we let our fear convince us that if we try to make them better, we risk losing everything. well, i don't believe that, sara.
we tell ourselves the only reason to make a change is because we're miserable. but change is the natural order. the people who realize that and embrace it, they're the ones who discover real happiness."
- runaway saint
[lisa samson]

in which i write about sibling bonds
what have i been thinking about?

what is true for me right now? what is real? what matters? what am i learning? what hurts? what makes sense?

living six hours away from your family can be hard.

it took a few months (i think 5?) for the missing to really seep in.

i reveled in the sudden room to breathe, the change of pace, the newness of everything that my husband and i had just opened the door to.

and then one day, in the beginning or end of november, either when we were leaving from visiting and celebrating lyddie's 13th birthday or when caleb and rachel were leaving here after thanksgiving and some wonderful and terribly unfortunate events (caleb getting sick and justin sleeping out next to the couch to help him when he woke up throughout the night while rach, jacklyn and i slept in our master bedroom), then one day, i realized: i miss my siblings. (i miss my parents, too.)

my siblings are growing up and changing and becoming wonderful, hilarious, awesome individuals. we understand (or are coming to an understanding) for the place the other is coming into.

all the years of bugging each other and fights and bruises and yelling and shoving and homework races and immaturity have given way, slowly, day by day and then year after year, to a wovenness that we seemed to have woke up to, because suddenly i have no clear memory of the changing, but it appears blurred though definitely changed when i look at the tracks behind us, from childhood until now.

we've hurt each other; on accident sometimes, on purpose other times.

we've celebrated with each other, stayed up late nights discussing current life things with each other, been angered at each other, laughed with each other, talked through easy things and hard things and worrisome things and laughable things with each other.

what do i want to say about siblings and the bond we share?

i wish i could easily tug the phrases and meanings out of my soul and write them in a way worth being stunned by; the rare resounding of truly good writing involuntarily bringing that loud, beautiful tone up in your soul as well, like the simple piano prelude for a favorite song.

i wouldn't trade any one of my family for anything. i cannot imagine my childhood, and my life as a whole, growing up without a single one of them.

i'm just so, so very thankful that i grew up with those people. so thankful for who they are and their presence in my life. i truly wouldn't be the same without them.

i wish i could blame my loss of more words, better words, on the fact that i gave in to sleep at 4:30am and woke up at 10:15am. that could easily be a legitimate excuse for it all, no? weird, terrible sleep hours?

yeah nevermind. (i tend to be an insomniac to a slight level when justin works night-shifts a couple nights a week.)

on another note, growing up so close in proximity and then bond-wise, here's a very odd, heart-stretching concept that we're all waking up to: that life was not necessarily, for every single person and every single family, meant to be lived in one town or one county or one state. dreams and purpose do not kill the love; the love grows the dreams and purpose that erupt after the right amount of years has elapsed for each human being.

the grace we have for one another, the tough love, the encouragement and nudging forward we have given each other through the teenage years and to this day, those things and the heart we have for each other is what waters the seed that resides in every soul, unique all to their own in all, and that grace and heart and courage we have for each other places that seed in an open, freshly tilled, spring-season field sometimes.

i wish i could perfectly, 100% of the time, express my heart to them so they would know that just because i can't be there to spend time with on any whim, or because i'm so, so far from being excellent at communicating and initiating it. time can only teach us these things. our importance to others. it's a deep, sticky subject.

on yet another note:
have you ever tried to think of an idea your mind finds amazing yet scary? something you might someday want to do, but maybe not? but maybe yes, and you're just going to wait until the perfect, over-prepared, well-thought-out time to do so and pursue it?

do that thing.

sure, wait a little longer if you need to summon courage.

but do that thing.

it grows the heart. it grows the trust in our Maker and the thrilling and unknowing one day turns into beautiful lessons that introduce us to new worlds and new points of view. it grows the capacity for feeling, for seeing, for wondering what else you can try in this life before we all reach the end of it.

i'm not speaking this out of the been there and done that experienced mindset.

i'm writing these things for my heart, to see it in black and white ink and reassurance, that earth shaking and things like change, and those terrifying and excited emotions, are good things, and usually precede things worth pursuing.

maybe it's something that will most likely hurt, but hold so much meaning that you can only hope to grasp the very beginning of at this time.

your soul knows this.

your soul knows where you need to go to find space and freedom to stretch into the pain and depth and light, and suddenly there's slowly a transforming coming about that happens as slow and yet as sure as breathing.

pain is beautiful when it leads you to something perspective-growing.

it's so hard to think of that above phrase as a good thing when you're in the middle of times that are especially rough...but it's still true.
<3

what to do on a bad hair day.

tuesday, january 21, 2014

ok this is getting weird.

i get the urge and lines in my head to start writing at the same time two days in a row? WEIRD.

anyhow.

what to do on a bad hair day --er, should i say "a bad hair, don't care day".

because really, in the winter, there are those days --regardless of length of hair, am i right?-- where you just don't want to mess with it. you don't want to put any effort into it. and maybe that's just me this morning because i woke up, showered, brewed coffee, and got the motivation to work out. bicycle crunches, pushups, etc. then i downed a glass of water with a bit of acv in it, and 5 minutes later my had-been empty stomach is feeling the nausea. i took that as my cue to pour a cup of coffee. :P it calmed it, of course. coffee's in my blood or dna or something. maybe that last line was redundant. that's ok with me.

so about these bad hair days...

what to do, what to do?

summon motivation and want-to? nah. just push it behind your ears, don't worry about brushing it (i know i don't; but then again my hair is barely to the shortest bob stage; growing out a summer pixie hairdo takes time, people), don't worry about gel. i mean, who are you going to see today? eh, don't answer that. it's a question for me. the house is neatened once again, shower and coffee and cozy clothes are taken care of, laundry is even started, and after the husband leaves for work i'm heading to my father-in-law's house to watch a chick flick with some sweet sisters-in-law. :) The Vow, if you were wondering. Jen hasn't seen it, and she really needs to. hahah. we're going to go hug our husbands tight when they get home from work later.

bad hair, don't care. i truly don't today. i'm tempted to put a hat on it and just call it a day.

i mean, with growing-out hair (i know, i know; it's my fault, it was my choice to get it chopped), what can you do on a bad day? with longer hair, you can finger comb it back into a ponytail and you're done. everyone does ponytails. no one knows unless you tell them you're having a bad hair day. but with short hair that's growing out and not even past your ears yet? you can't even do anything with it sometimes. i might be paranoid or over-thinking it, but come on. everyone can tell when you're having a bad hair day with not-quite-long-enough-to-call-it-a-hairstyle hair. :P

patience is a virtue, i guess. it's humbling to have nice quality hair but not being able to help the style as it is in the present moment. you have to live with it and let it go. heheh.

20 minutes later, here's my update. i got up from my cozy place cuddled on the couch with this laptop, poured myself another cup of coffee, and set about to pampering this thing at the top of my body. my head, of course. coconut oil to moisterize for those winter-induced dry spots. gel in my hair to guide it a bit. headband to keep it out of my face and behind my ears. i might even go so far as to add some basic makeup to this blank canvas.

happy january 21st.

(when will winter end? please say beginning of march.)

what to do in the morning when your husband has yet to wake up.

monday, january 20, 2014

i'm about to enjoy my second mug of JOY diva-nilla coffee from ben and martha (christmas gift). i've already showered, brewed a pot of coffee, cleaned the kitchen, neatened up the living and dining rooms, and even dusted the entertainment center and t.v. stand. they're both dark colors and haven't been touched by a dustcloth in probably 3 months. i'm not a dusting kind of woman. dusting's for the birds. but once every 3-4 less-than-full-moons, i'll take a damp cloth to the sorry little thing. dust gets gross after a while. i can't stand walking by it once it gets super noticeable when you put a dvd there, remove it, and there's a clear scuffmark in the dust. um. gross.

anyhow. to the subject at hand.

justin has yet to get up.

i've learned slowly --not in the first few months, but over the last one or two-- to let him wake up mostly on his own time. especially on mondays, when he is sleep-recovering from having been up for 24+ hours. in the first few months of being married, i would try all my morning-person ways of waking him. kissing him. bouncing on the bed. tickling him. pulling the covers off.

but then i learned (not a fast realization at all) that he wakes up much slower than i do on a daily basis. :P hah. and he also seems to need more sleep than i do. go figure. well, i can't say that. he works 4 long days a week. i do, in a different sort of spread out way. housewifery stuff, you know. i'm my own boss. my own slightly ocd boss.

so what does a wife of almost 8 months do in the afternoon/morning when her husband is sleeping?

well, i would highly suggest giving in to looking at the webcam photos from your best nannying job ever. you know, the one with the 3.5 month old mostly-bald, easygoing cutie? hahah, that one. and just because your fertile/babyfever times of the month usually only last 4 days, don't think you're past accidentally stretching this time into more than a week. :P looking at baby pictures of your husband will do that to you. flowermama (thoughts & whatnots blog) confirmed it's not an odd thing to get the worst baby fever ever when seeing baby pictures of one's spouse. cray-cray feelings of wanting to reproduce and see what the sweet bebes would look like are absolutely normal.

anyhow.

totes click on that photo folder. enjoy. feel your heartstrings tug and your breath catch at the sweet smiles shared in the pictures between you and the little one. savor the annoying-enjoyable feeling of your ovaries wanting to explode.

yep.

now go get another cup of coffee.

stare at more of those pictures. the cutie gets bigger, your hair gets longer and you see bad hair days and good hair days and take note of them; the cutie has yet to grow any hair to speak of. but the adorableness is undeniable. the good-naturedness of the kiddo is apparent.

you remember your night owl tendencies colliding with his sometimes too-short naps; the copious amounts of coffee ingested to carry you through another 6 hours.

but those other moments...the moments rocking the tired wee person to sleep, and that first moment when you walk into the room after you hear him waking on the baby monitor, that moment as he looks up to see you and smiles in that sweet, perfect way that fills your heart and the whole world with enough sunshine and love to melt the thoughts of tiredness and all the matters on your mind for a little while...those moments are logged with indelible ink on the soft, hard-working walls of your heart, no matter how many years you've seen.

the journeys of our hearts in well lived lives are mostly the same.

there are hard journeys of mourning the empty space in this world left by an early-passing beloved.
there are the thrilling journeys of finding one's love and looking forward to the rest of your life by their side. there are the hiccups, disappointments, frustrations and walls that your run into on that path...and sometimes you  learn how to scale the walls, while other times you have to walk on tired feet to find the end of the wall and trek around it in years of hard work and wearied determination. finding the one whom your heart feels at home in, that is a beautiful journey of loving.

then there's the journey of growing a portion of your together-love and together-life; bringing a small, fresh soul into the world, and sharing the joys and sadnesses and loves and wonders and pains of life with them.

we want to share life with people, no? we don't want to be alone. we don't want to be forgotten. so we bring our combined love into the world, in the form of another life to love and learn from and grow older with.

(i walked away from this writing to do something, and got caught up in other stuff so i didn't make it back while i was still in the certain mojo to keep writing on it. my apologies for the lack of a better ending.)

thoughts about 2013.

2013 was the year i started a nanny job i loved (for a sweet 3.5 month old boy whose birth i attended as birth photographer).

it was also the year i said goodbye to that job. it was a pretty sad day when i rocked him to sleep and laid him down for one of his mid-day naps for my last time. :\

2013 was the year i planned an outdoor wedding, with some special people, to a pretty amazing guy.

2013 was the year i got married. (only 7 months ago.) :)

2013 was the year my hair had grown out almost to my shoulders for our wedding, and i got it cut pixie-short again just a few days after the wedding...2013 was also the year i started growing my hair out (again) in august...and it's going to be for good this time. for a while. i know i love short hair, even two times in a row, and i might go back to it someday (like...when i'm a mom? i don't know.) but i'm so ready to have messy buns and ponytails and braids and length to play with a little. :P i miss it so.

2013 was the year we drove to kentucky to buy a second vehicle with great gas mileage--a cute little car off craigslist (from a really nice, considerate guy), a geo metro in great shape and made the same year i was born.
(hah. hah. hah.)

"I learned some hard lessons about friendships and that some need to be let go, and some you need to fight to the death for."
via michmash: 2013

2013 was the year i moved 6 hours away from my family, and joined my husband to make our home here in southern illinois.

2013 was the year i started running. also, the same year that it got so cold (and icy, and snowy, and hey, i've been sick off and on so heck no to the question "don't you want to persevere and go running anyways?" ...hahah. heck no. i can't wait till the spring though. no promises to myself or anyone else that i'll get back to it on any and every above-freezing day...)

2013 was a super hard, super good year. filled with so much goodness, so much hard stuff, things to grow through and learn from, and quite a bit of bittersweet.

2013 was the year my old blog fell quiet and i started a new one. this one. :) 

december 31, 2013, i got to stand next to my husband and watch the ball drop in new york, along with most of justin's family and a couple friends. we kissed as the first part of north america stepped into the first moment of the new year. (i really like that tradition. a lot. after being "long distance" through the beginning of our friendship, dating, and engagement, i cherish getting to be by his side even moreso.)

i'm looking forward to this new year ahead of us.

time to start writing 2014 at the beginning of my journal entries...

cardamom bread.

Cardamom Bread
(via Sharla:)
Sift together:
4 cups flour
2 tbsp yeast 
3-4 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
 
Heat: 
3 cups milk
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 lukewarm water

Add to the above wet ingredients: 
3 eggs
Beat and add to milk mixture
3-5 cups flour
Add more flour til dough is of good consistency. Let rise 30 minutes to an hour. 
Separate into 4 parts for loaves. Cut each "loaf" portion into pieces for braiding with 3 or 5 parts. Place on cookie sheet and let rise till double. Glaze top of bread with egg wash. Sprinkle white sugar and/or almond slivers over top. 
Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes or till done to preference.
Enjoy! :)