LEMON & ZUCCHINI cookies

I figured with summer approaching that I'd share one of my favorite summa time cookie recipes.Ok OK, it's almost summer here anyways. Some of you yutes in the N. East prob just cussed at my post. Once it hits the 80's in March and my dog begins to blow her winter coat I know what is on the swaying horizon.
Feel free to make changes based on your flour or sugar pref.

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• a pinch'ish of salt
• 3/4 cups unsalted butter, room temp
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 Egg
• 2 Tbl. fresh lemon zest
• 1 cup shredded zucchini

How to: 
oven to 350.  In a big bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt then build a well for my other wet ingred's. In a smaller bowl combine butter, egg and sugar w/ a mixer, beat until it fluffs, pour into well and mix and only beat til the flour is combined add lemon zest and zucchini.
Then drop by rounded teaspoon onto a cookie sheet and bake for 14 to15 minutes, or until edges of cookie are golden.

lentil meat balls

3 cloves garlic
1 small onion, peeled
1 1/2 cups cooked green or brown lentils, rinsed (or a drained 15 oz can is cool too)
3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 tablespoons water
1/2 cup seasoned store-bought breadcrumbs
How to : toss your onion and garlic into a food processor pulse til fine
: then add in remaining ingredients and continue to pulse til smooth.
: pan fry in light oil til browned then transfer to a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 15 to 20 minutes.
Tah dah!

just say NO

If you, like, um, almost everyone household in America are consuming large amounts of this junk every day. About 15yrs ago I looked through my cupboards and fridge and pulled out every item that had HFCG in it.
Since then I try to make everything from scratch as much as I can or have capacity to.
We have gone through hard season financially, like when Josh and I first got married. He was in school full time, we refused to take out more loans and I was working at a non profit youth shelter. We survived those first 2yrs on a wee less than $16,000 a year! Bahahah, after our bills were paid we had about $100 a month for food and gas! Yikes, right? But the coolest thing was that I continued to cook from scratch and we just made it work. Our big treats, when I worked overtime or we had birthday money from family, we would splurge on tasty fun cheeses and beer!

Something that I did not know about this beast of nasty is that HFCS has traces of Mercury in it! Mercury is a toxic metal that can exist as a pure element or in a variety of inorganic and organic forms and can cause immune, sensory, neurological, motor, and behavioral dysfunctions similar to traits defining or associated with autism. And not to mention that all HFCG is genetically modified! SHUT UP! if not for any other reason you should take this out of your diet!
Please read the link below for a more clear view of it and start taking better care of your family. Reprogram your brain and watch your labels!
http://happyfoody.com/2009/01/28/high-fructose-corn-syrup-bad/

color blind IS NOT my fault

This week we took the kids in for their one and three year pediatric visit, you know to have someone look at them and tell us they were good! I just so happened to mention my concern with Lakoda not getting his colors yet. The same boy that has been talking in complete sentences since he was 18months old has had major trouble with memorizing colors.
Being color blind is not my fault, Bahaha or so i thought! I had put a lot of pressure on myself for Lakoda not learning his colors as it's a very basic thing, right? About a year ago I started taking great effort in trying to teach the whole color thing differently every few wks and did playful rehearsing of colors throughout our days. We'd play I spy on our hikes and his answers were always the same. Come to find out, I still have mad teaching skills but it's actually that I carry the color blind gene! So that's that, sorry dude!  Lakoda was able to call out an orange or yellow object and can recall a stationary image that he has memorized to be a specific color form, like green trees or our kitchen walls are bright red! But when asked what color the kitchen walls are it never fails, he says "purple, I mean red!" Then when I hold up another red object he will say purple without hesitation and no recovery or correction. So I have wondered for a long time now, is our man child color blind!

So, as I asked our pedi about it, he kind of laughed and said he had two tests that he can do for our brilliant 3yr old. And after doing both tests he let us know that Lakoda is red green color blind. Hearing our Pedi. say this almost made me cry. I mean he still sees beauty and charm in everything and can at least see!

Our pedi told us that once Lakoda is dressing himself that we should only buy him black and white outfits! This was meant as a joke but we were not laughing! Friggin crayzee! Our boy sees the world through wild eyes!
All of this makes me wonder what he really sees outside of his favorite color orange? Which by the way, I now totally get why that is his favorite color, it's because its one of two colors that sticks out! Poor bub!
So what color are the trees that he knows as green because we talk of them and their beauty all the time? I mean, really? He calls pretty much everything blue or purple when asked to name the color of any object since almost everything matches the hues that he learned with those names!

Sweet love of mine, what do you see?
Are the trees that line our property really blue? When we took you to the sea for the first time was the ocean purple?
Lakoda and Nyah will share their first birthday party tomorrow. I asked Lakoda what color of balloons we should order he quickly replied "orange and white and purple!"
Well, the orange and white ones are easy but what color do I get for that so called purple?

genlty moving

I find myself trying so hard to process the loss of our babies very quickly. I suppose I'm trying so, in order to have my need base go down and move on I suppose. Then I realize. If I move to quickly I miss the art of it all. How this loss, the depth of sadness inside can create a new and really beauty place within me, how I can become softer, more of a feeler than I already am.
How my children can have a more merciful mama and my husband will have a more radiant wife. I know this is not a loss that will make me lose my mind but I think it still catches me of guard. Like a good hearty weep in church. Weeping in church, I mean, if you're going to weep then there is no better place I suppose. As I cried and my sweet sister came to hold me tightly I realized something.
No matter what others says about loss or what's in the books that have been written, I have to go through this and process it gently in my own speed and my own place. I don't want to tuck all of this away so that the pain comes back over and over again. I don't want this magnitude to be felt every day if I don't go at it gently. I want to feel it all but gently feel it. As it takes my breath away and makes me feel so vulnerable and raw I know it is good and holy, beautiful and apart of our tapestry.

I decided to just get out of the house for a minute and run to target to get a little something for the kiddos who turn one and three this week.

How often does one see a set of twins, I ask you? As for me, I have not seen a set of twins in our area in OH, never. And then bam as I walk out of the store there they are. So tiny and beautiful.
As I looked upon their little pink faces I felt like in some way that God was using them to say " you can't run from this" "you need to take it as it comes and heal today!"
As I passed by those two I thought about our babies and the dream that I keep having about them and jsut began to cry as I walked to the car. I sat in the car in a daze and wondered how long it will take.


Babies, new pregnancy and children are everywhere. I have heard about anger after loss but how in the world could I be a hater for our losing 2 babies, that just 3 weeks ago, I didn't even know existed nor that we wanted more children in this season.

Processing is crazy hard but beautiful and I am going at it slowly.

who am I? or is it, Who I am!

Many have suggested that in my starting this blog I should give a glimpse of me, you know, my likes what makes me tick yadah yadah! so here are some of my feathers
I'm a lover of life and people, the wilder and more eccentric the better. My mom has always said that I don't know a stranger and this is truth.
I Love loud music that makes me want to dance and spin and anything that catches the sunlight and glitters. I adore when Josh and I dance in our kitchen without a song being played. I truly love this man called beloved.
I am ALWAYS barefooted and have been known to show up at the grocery store in just my feet and have to go back home for shoes. I like my toenails painted in shades of red.
I love our family and the time that we get to spend together. As much as I dislike Texas, our family is what makes it feel like home.I'm a healer, teacher and seer, hippie at heart.

I've given my hand at crafting many things like: beautiful children, beer and wine, a safe beautiful home filled with bright love, bread, cheeses, candles, food without recipes and medicinal salves, to name a few. But out of my all of my days and the roads traveled acquiring my love for hand crafted goods, I adore crafting our childrens little spirits the most. I want them to have sweet loving hearts, to show genuine kindness, concern and love for the poor, to not judge the man on the corner but to do what is in their little hearts for them, to walk in integrity and to care for and appreciate the beauty of nature.

We live in community with a handful of people which is precious. We've craved community for yrs and just a few yrs ago we were able to experience what that really looks and feels like through our sweet friends Ami and Cris Burr. We learned the art well and took it to our own home and have been so blessed to share in honest life  with a few close friends. Sharing crazy great food around our old kitchen table and long chats as we're all curled up onto the couches or solving the worlds problems at the foot of our fireplace.

My quick loves: seems a bit like a personal add eh? I luv long walks on beaches.... :) joke, well actually I do like those as well but here are my real little loves!
I love cooking from scratch, sewing and felting, camping, hiking, not shaving my armpits (and yes josh likes it to) fiercely long road trips over plane trips any day, WAIT, ok, hold it, give me a few more yrs for the kids sake to return to that love!
Oh the joys of mountain bliss, the color of twilight on a fresh snow, the smell of fall and not the kind that comes in the form of a candle. Love a good hardy laugh, the kind that makes you pee your skirt, supporting community grown agriculture, homeopathic/ naturopathic medicine, holistic healing, junk sales, curb side scores which fill my house with color and fun, red wine, the smell and feel of dirt...the end.

Oh wait, I love being a daughter of my parents. I just love them! I am blessed to have shared many hard years of living by faith in my teens which grew me into the woman I am for real. I love life simply. Because of our growing up without many times, I am richly blessed to not want. I mean truly blessed. In our home we go against the grain of America. Josh grew up the same with his family being missionaries to China so we love and take pride in the fact that we don't have a desire for a bigger house, better job, big stories to tell, one up'ing our friends. I love that greed does not exist in our hearts! And we love listening and giving to those in need, for if it weren't for those same kind of people when I was a kid, then well, my family would have gone without alot of other things! listen deep people, and do what comes into your heart to do!
A yr or so ago, on a rainy cold day Josh and I saw a young hippie kid, prob an old friend of mine :) walking along the freeway. We both looked at each other and felt the same thing. We wanted to care for him, we felt he was in real need, not just a traveler but a broken man. So we went home, I quickly made sandwiches and a ton of fresh food, packed it up into a back pack as Josh hurried into the bedroom to gather clothes for him. Josh was concerned for this kids pants as they were torn to bits, not in a cool, i like them this way, kind of way. We packed the kids back up into the car with our loot and went to find him. We never found that boy and as we sat at a red light on the way home, Josh looked over at me and began to cry. That was one boy out of a huge population of broken wounded souls. And we want to meet every single one of them and love on them and help them heal!
there, that's me in a nutshell.

surprised by this magnitude

Tuesday. March 8th.
At first it seemed shocking. The idea of you took my breath away and made me wonder if I had the capacity to be a mama of 3. Very quickly those weedy thoughts were uprooted in my garden and crazy beautiful flowers of hope and anticipation sprang in place. I know that God had given you to us which made my awareness of you bliss!

I told your daddy about you as he sipped wine and asked what was on my mind. After the shock wore off, the room became busy with thought. "We can do this, it will be hard but rich and beautiful." "This baby is our gift and our lives can not be about us, it is about you, Lakoda and Nyah, about the Kingdom,” he said.  I cried as I heard his words of love for you without us even knowing your name. Oh how I wish we would have known at that moment and been crazy filled with wild trust that there were actually two of you nestled up together inside of me.

All to quickly our night of joy and sharing the news came to an end. We crawled into bed I could barley sleep without the thought of you all tucked neatly into the folds of my body, growing your delicate arms and legs and ear buds or maybe even asleep. I was amazed that Jesus would surprise us with such life in our wild eyed season. But you were here and I was ready.

Wednesday I woke at 4 am with the realization. All in one moment I woke from a dream that left me weeping then I realized it was not just a dream. You were leaving, you were not for keeps. You were on borrowed time sweet baby of mine. God had your days numbered before you have had even one. I asked your daddy if there was a special place for you in Heaven, he assured me that you were already there. He prayed over me and you as I became intensely aware of my body, the contractions, letting go of the blood that offered you life. My heart began to break as I thought of you, that just yesterday your heart beat and now, now you were going back to your Maker, the One who called you into being in my womb. 

What I wanted was…was to hold you in my arms, to smell your skin, to see you play among your brother and sister who would have loved to have taught you everything about everything!

What I wanted was…was to see your daddy hold you and watch you closely as his eyes laid upon you for the very first time.

What I wanted was… was to have you stay with me just a little longer.

Thursday. Soon after your daddy left for work an urge to push came in like a flood. I was surprised, no one had ever told me about this part. I was so afraid I could barely cry. All alone in the dark coolness of our bedroom I begged for this to be a dream. I cried out to Jesus to make this not happen, not to you, not to me! This is not what is intended for a child of my womb. He slowed me down and met me as I jumped up and ran to the bathroom.

I felt His warmth as I sat motionless. Waiting and then came the urge again. I wept so hard that it was almost silent and before I knew it I had reached down and you were there in my hands.

So fragile, you were wrapped up in a warm cocoon of my flesh. I see you when I close my eyes, I see you in my hands. Sweet tiny baby, you were woven into my body in the secret, flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood. You my love were no secret to the King! I was amazed with how even at this many weeks you were perfect.
By Monday morning those same contractions and cramping all came back. I had yet to really even leave the bedroom as everything felt like too much. By Tuesday evening that urge to push came in like a flood and what I expected to be just the placenta passing, was our 2nd loss, a twin.

What I wanted was…was for a friend to hold a camera.

What I wanted…was for your daddy to be next to me, encouraging me, holding me and telling me that I was doing great and that I was almost there!

What I wanted…was for our midwife to drip hot oil over me and you to take away that pain.

JESUS, meet me now. Will you come right now and pour your hot oil over me to take the sting away? Deep inside my body I feel this ache, an ache that runs through my veins like lightning. I don’t need to ask You WHY or HOW COULD YOU! I know You are still in this and have been since the moment I knew about these babies, meant to be in Your Arms.

Tonight again I hand our babies back to You Jesus. A better place for them is to be with You, than in my arms. It feels hard to imagine at this very moment but it is truth! 

I imagine you in Heaven, children of His.

You both get to see roads lined in Ruby, pillars of agates and oceans of quartz.

I bet you get a way better view of the Aurora Borealis than any place ever. I wonder if Jesus swept you both up onto His knee and threw out His hand and said “this is what your mama loved!” 

I imagine you both with crystally blue eyes like your daddy and your hair is like the color of the sunset in the Grand Canyon.

I would have loved to have known you and you to know me. Without ever hearing your words you have spoken life into and through me. You have softened me, made me revel in our family. I have been so busy caring for and making plans in life while life itself has been busy happening right in front of me! I feel like my eyes have been closed but seeing you two has made me soundly aware of this one thing…

You were created for Him. You were created to sit on His lap and have Him run his fingers through your hair, not me. You were created to visit with the Angels as they worship and have them lead you out in a dance.

Sweet loves, I will know you when I enter Heaven one day. I will know you without a word needing to be uttered! I will sit with you and watch the Aurora Borealis be born and we will worship the King together.

Love like no other, your mama

Empathy is only learned

We discovered last week that I was pregnant. What we thought was about 5wks ended up being more like 10weeks. Over the course of 7 days I was curled up in bed and miscarried two babies, 6 days apart. the above note is about this loss and love.
I feel like miscarriage is spoken of by very few and the silence of this loss is deafening. I have been humbled, broken, softened and blessed by my past 7days as a mama.
For all the mama's who have gone before me with this loss, my offer for bringing meals, hugs, laughs, a bottle of wine or to watch your other children, I wish I could have known better how to love and bless you.
But as I said, empathy is learned and now that I have learned it well, I know that God is going to use these wee ones in my tapestry of healing for other mama's.
Rough start to a blog eh? Feel free to not follow my junk BUT for right now, now that you're reading, catch this.
Maybe it is my personality that wants our loss to somehow be spoken of, out of the closet, under the light or simply to bring healing to someone else. Quite possibly I just want you to know what miscarriage, the beauty and the pain in it is like in case you ever come across a mama who is silent but in pain.

why Quilted Feathers

Why blog? Not super sure except that I have been wanting to care for me in the rush of caring for the world around me. In some way I want something of my own. I share every meal, except for my coffee, I share my showers with rubber ducks, tonka trucks and dinosaurs. I have craved somewhere to just check out for a minute and do what I adore, writing. Now, please be aware that I may not be the best with correct grammar or spelling, trust. And please be aware that I adore run-on sentences! But friends, I write the way I think, even if I put commas where they don't belong.

I have wondered "why blog" for a long time now and after a recent loss I realized I need to write. I need to share it OUT LOUD. Some things may bore you, make you cuss or make you enjoy life more, eat healthier and cry when you don't feel like it!
But here it is! A journey of our days. Quilted Feathers.
And why Quilted Feathers? I was trying to think of a sassy name, something that reflects our family, the way I perceive things and this is what came to mind. Well, this and Bending Waters which was weird!