{ musings }

Thankful

Thanksgiving weekend was filled with anticipated arrivals, a few surprises and some sad blessings.  While I was sad to be away from my girls for the first time since their birth, my weekend was with filled with the love and companionship of some amazing people.

We cooked. Slept in. Took naps. Spent hours and hours catching up over countless pots of coffee.  Played the music too loud. Watched about a billion episodes of Chelsea Lately and Talk Soup. Ate too much good food. Drank a few too many yummy cocktails.

(Because so many have asked, here's the sangria recipe I concocted:)

Seeds from 4 pomegranates
2 oranges, cut into thin circles
1 pint fresh blueberries
1 pint fresh raspberries
1 c Triple Sec
1 c simple syrup
1 c fresh orange juice
2 c pomegranate juice
*******************************
Mix all of this together and refrigerate overnight

Add 2 bottles good, drinkable red wine (I used Trader Joe's 2009 Chariot Gypsy) and refrigerate another few hours. Before guests arrive, add about 1/2-1 liter of Soda Water. Serve in large goblets, with or without ice). My guests also used spoons to enjoy the delicious, drunk fruit! ha!

We aughed till our sides hurt.  Went to a great hockey game.  Enjoyed some time with new friends. Sat on the patio soaking up the beautiful, sunny days. Snuggled on the couch listening to the rain come down in the evening. Teased, joked and cajoled.  Had some deep talks and intense debates.  Solved many of the world's problems, only to forget the solutions over "just one more" glass of sangria.

 

Sadly, though, the long weekend was filled with some sadness, too.  My beloved grandfather, Papa Bob, passed away on Friday morning, moments before I awoke.  He held on just long enough so we wouldn't have to mourn his passing every year on Thanksgiving, and just long enough to have lived an incredibly rich life with no regrets.  He will be missed so much, but I am grateful that his suffering has ended and he has begin a new journey.

I'm a little melancholy today, missing a a few special people in my life, but am still overwhelmingly grateful.  I am blessed.

Blueberry Tart

Another delicious, elegant, yet relatively simple summer treat sure to impress your friends!

• 1 oz sheet of frozen puff pastry, thawed in the refrigerator
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1 tbsp granulated sugar
• 4 oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/4 c heavy (whipping) cream
• 1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
• 3 tbsp confectioners (powdered) sugar
• 2 c fresh, rinsed & dried blueberries (you could also use raspberries, blackberries, or other...)

1. Heat oven to 375
2. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper
3. On a lightly floured surface, gently roll out pastry sheet to approximately a 10x12 rectangle. Don't over-roll or press too hard...it doesn't need to be exact.   Transfer it to the lined baking sheet.
4. Using a sharp paring knife, score (not cutting all the way through) a 1" border around the pastry.  Brush this border lightly with the beaten egg and sprinkle with the granulated sugar
5. Bake 18-22 minutes until golden brown.  Remove from oven, and gently re-score the border with a sharp paring knife, gently pressing down the center rectangle down to flatten it.  Cool.
6. Meanwhile, beat cream cheese (electric mixer) until smooth.  Add the cream, zest and 2 tbsp of the confectioners sugar.  Cream until smooth.  Spread this mixture on the inside rectangle of your cooled pastry.
7. Arrange blueberries in a single layer on top of the cream-cheese mixture, slightly pressing down.  Dust with confectioners sugar before serving.

Wednesday Morning Griddle Cakes

As a reward for sleeping in (a bit) on the morning after the sleepover, I rustled up some home-made griddle cakes for the punks and their cute friends.  The recipe is from my Great Grandmother's 1930's Grafton Ladies Lutheran Church Auxiliary cookbook which was passed down from her to my Grandmother to me.  The recipe book has tons of delightful, chicken-scratch notations throughout (by four generations of women in my family!), lots of bent, torn and grease-splattered pages....and I love it!  My girls refuse to eat packaged-mix pancakes or waffles because of this recipe, so be warned: if you try it, you may never be able to look at another box of Bisquick again!

 

• 2.5 c all purpose flour
• 5 tsp baking powder
• 6 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 6 tbsp melted butter (in the batter)
• 2 c milk (or a little more)
• 2 eggs
• (add fruit or chocolate chips, if you like!)
• Oh...and did I mention you MUST butter the griddle generously or, if you're really lucky, use the bacon drippings from the bacon you just cooked!!

I just *luuurve* it when the blueberries burst and oooze all over!

Oh, and did I mention that my punks also refuse imitation syrups?  Only pure, 100% maple for them.  Little food snobs!  Wonder where they get that?!

Wide Awake and So Alive!

Long time no post.
So busy...re-entry back into reality is always challenging.

Beached it for a month in California with my family and my precious girls.  It was perfect and cleansing and renewing and resetting.  I connected with old friends and made many new friends.  I read about nine books and added another nine to the ever-growing pile to be read on my nightstand.  I am more clear now that I have been in many, many years.

I generally avoid getting too personal here on this blog, but most of you are my dear friends and you have easily pieced together the story of the sharp and unexpected turn my life took just before the dawn of this new year.  I had hoped for a year of dramatic change and growth, but had no idea what a bargain I had struck!  ha! "When you pray for rain, be prepared to deal with some mud!"  I also know that sometimes when I post these raw, personal musings, it resonates with many of you.  I am grateful for the opportunity, then, to share my story a little more freely with you in the hope that it will, in fact, inspire someone else. 

Now at nearly the 8 month mark of my new life, I feel as though I have been moving at light speed through this process.  For many years, something had/has been preparing me on spiritual level for this and once I gave into that, stepping off the cliff of fear and into the safety net of faith, my journey has been amazing!  Never in my life have I felt so wide awake and alive.  Never in my life have I felt more clear on MY path and my purpose.  Never in my life have I felt so solid and grounded in who I am.  Never in my life have I felt so at peace in my skin.  Never in my life have I felt so receptive to love in all its forms.  I am drawing people and experiences and insights into my life that are beyond wonderful.  I am amazed. I am blessed.  I am grateful.

Sometimes I shock myself with the level of sincere gratitude I have right now! Here I am, in the midst of one of the most potentially challenging life-changes a person can go through...the dissolution of a marriage, and yet I am not afraid or at all hesitant. I am sad that things didn't turn out the way I had hoped or planned, but yet at peace that they are unfolding as they were perfectly intended.  If I had not been blessed by the acts of the person I thought I was closest to in all the world...the acts which unexpectedly CHANGED my path, I am not sure how long I would have remained on that path, unfulfilled, unappreciated, unloved.  I made compromises....many, many compromises, and I own them all.  I ALLOWED the situation to become what it was, even though I may not have been aware of the exact details.  

It is right.  I am good.  I am actually pretty freaking' awesome! My vibrations are higher and clearer than they have been in many, many years...if ever...and for the first time in a long time I am FEELING life with increasing clarity. I am racing headlong into life...drawing it all up into me as a woman who hasn't drunk of this richness in many, many years.  I want to do it all, experience it all, taste it all, LIVE it all. I want to cry with abandon, love with fierce intensity, sing at the top of my lungs, laugh until I can't breathe, and dance until my feet hurt!

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you'll know that often song lyrics hit me square between the eyes and express my feelings much better than I ever could.  This song (and the artist) are among my favorites right now.  The words are ME right now.  When the lyrics say I am dyin' inside, I consider this part of the renaissance process...the old me must die before the Phoenix can rise from the ashes.

Turn it up REALLY LOUD and enjoy... I know I am finally beginning to ENJOY and know that I will be and AM alright!! 

xoxo  Kim

Matt Nathanson - Car Crash

I'm wide awake and so alive
Ringing like a bell
Tell me this is paradise
And not someplace I fell
'Cause I keep on fallin' down

I wanna feel the car crash
I wanna feel the capsize
I wanna feel the bomb drop, the earth stop
'Til I'm satisfied
I wanna feel the car crash
'Cause I'm dyin' on the inside
I wanna let go and know
That I'll be alright, alright

Just push me 'til I have to fly
I've shed my skin, my scars
Take me deep out past the lights
Where nothing dims these stars
Nothing dims these stars

I wanna feel the car crash
I wanna feel the capsize
I wanna feel the bomb drop, the earth stop
'Til I'm satisfied
I wanna feel the car crash
'Cause I'm dyin' on the inside
I wanna let go and know
That I'll be alright, alright

So right
It's all wrong

I'm wide awake and so alive

I wanna feel the car crash
I wanna feel the capsize
I wanna feel the bomb drop, the earth stop
'Til I'm satisfied
I wanna feel the car crash
'Cause I'm dyin' on the inside
I wanna let go and know
That I'll be alright, alright

Signs of Life

I am a very neglectful blogger, yes, I know.  But when you have three pairs of big brown eyes (two sets human, one set Golden Retriever) staring at you longingly with sand buckets, bike helmets or Frisbees in hand (or mouth, as it were) it is damned hard to squeeze in the time to blog! ha!

So here is a quick one for you...

Have you ever noticed that when you start putting your attention on something, you draw more of it unto you?  For example, if you're looking to buy a new car and narrow it down to one or two choices, you tend to notice the fact that there are now instantaneously hundreds of those exact vehicles rolling down the streets of your hood.  Or, when you finally splurge and buy those great new shoes...you can spot them on another woman five miles away.  Or when you start reading about Swine Flu, you all of a sudden seem to manifest the exact same symptoms...?!

In my life right now, I am focusing on signs.  Beckoning them, welcoming them, paying attention to them, TRUSTING them.  And they are showing up in droves and with force!  Old and new friends are re-entering or just now entering my life with the most surprising and POWERFUL messages for me.  Quotes and book passages are being delivered to me at exactly the most powerful moments.  Even the weather is sending me signs to help me chart my days.

Today the signs were there in an unbelievable way.... check these out:

Lovely...don't you think this is what real love is all about??

and this one...wow!  SO appropriate for the path my new life is on...!

I love it when life sends me CLEAR signs, and even more when the signs ARE signs of LIFE.  Hello, Universe?!?!  I'm PAYING ATTENTION!!!

I Gots Me Some GOOD Friends!

The house is all decorated, the tree(s) are trimmed, the holiday cards are mailed, the cookies and treats are baked, the gifts are all bought and wrapped...I am finally feeling like I can breathe again!

Now that I am breathing again, I am reflective of how blessed I am to have such great people in my life!  Let's start with this girl:

When I was in Omaha last month, she and I did a "photo safari" with Cori and Charlotte and "swapped" mini-sessions to get ourselves new head-shots.  Of course, I LOVED shooting a woman as beautiful (inside & out!) as her, but when she just recently sent me the images she captured I was floored!  Not only did she get some great new head-shots for me...

which I actually LIKE (TIP:  It helps to hire a photographer who loves you...the magic just seems to happen!)

...she also grabbed some super fun ones of Cori and I together, which was a real treat for us since a) one or the other of us is ALWAYS behind the camera and b) we're scheming some BIG plans for Lulubellas after the fist of the new year...so these shots will be fun to use in promo materials!

 

With Christmas and my Birthday right around the corner, I've been lucky enough to spend a large part of this week with a bunch of my other dear, dear girlfriends.  It began last Sunday evening when Tena invited me to join her to see Spring Awakening (it rocked!), then was followed by lunch with 10 of my very best girlfriends on Wednesday, happy hour at The Mission with Jill and Becky last night, and a nice lunch at Olive & Ivy with Cori today. 

And lets not forget my many far-away friends...you KNOW who you are!  My sweet, crazy art pals who "get me," my long time high school and college friends who I don't see often, but can pick right back up with like we never missed a beat.  This year I've also been blessed to reconnect with many other long lost friends through the wacky worlds of FaceBook and LinkedIn...who woulda thunk?!  So surreal, but so comforting to reconnect with you as well!

All of this reminds me that I don't need presents of any kind any more...these sweet, wonderful souls I call my friends are the best gifts I could ever ask for!  They laugh with me, they scoop me up when I'm feeling low, they party like rock stars with me and are really so much of what keeps me going every day of my life!  I'm a lucky girl!

So....onto more mundane things....

This weekend we are equally busy....tonight Alexis and the 5th grade choir is going to be caroling at a gorgeous new outdoor mall here in Scottsdale called City North, and the family will no doubt follow that up with a bite out afterward.  Tomorrow our wonderful tennis coach is hosting a charitable event for our kids to meet and play a few sets with some of his inner city program kids and then to share lunch and a little gift wrapping.  Later Saturday the girls are getting their hair cut and Alexis will set off for a sleepover with her friends.  Little Olivia and I will be snuggling in for a fireside movie, popcorn and hot cocoa while the Hubs catches a Suns game with one of his pals.

Sunday, as I celebrate my birthday, I hope to just lay low with the family and wrap the day up with a nice dinner out and a movie with the Hubs. 

Perfectly perfect, I say!  I hope you are able to step back form the hustle and bustle of YOUR holiday season and take stock of the special people in YOUR lives!

Spooky!

corpse bride 3, originally uploaded by bebe beaux.

Ok...Yes.  It freaks me out not just a little bit how much these two got "into" their Halloween roles.

The little one (not yet seven years old, mind you!) and the 'tween (almost eleven, going on 21) chose to be a "corpse bride" (hey Teague...recognize that dress?!)  and a "midnight faerie" respectively.  Loved the ideas...and loved the fact that they indulged dear old mom in helping them MAKE their costumes.  They were both VERY pelased with the end results...and I think the make-up was their favorite part, without a doubt!  More photos to follow, later! 

The Day Is Done

Another incredible reminder to breathe, savor and be grateful as seen from my back yard this evening.

Life IS good!

Charity Served In a Cup With Ice

One of our dear friends recently lost their father/grandfather to lymphoma after a long, hard-fought battle and tomorrow night I am taking my girls to his memorial. He was a great guy, and I think it is important (and they are old enough) to learn about what it means to support friends in tough times and what it means to honor departed loved ones.

Last night, while reading our bed-time chapters, our youngest asked me if she could have a lemonade stand. While not crazy about the idea of standing in the hot sun for several hours for personal gain, once Daddy suggested that the girls donate the proceeds to a charity, I warmed up to it and the logical choice was to donate the money to aid lymphoma research and present it to the family at tomorrow's services.


charitable lemonade stand-1, originally uploaded by bebe beaux.

The plan was met with overwhelming enthusiasm:  signs were made and decorated, big words were spelled and re-spelled, we talked a little about what lymphoma was, and what "charity" meant.  We talked about sales tactics and etiquette and we decided that $.25 was a really good and fair price, and that we'd also offer some bottled water ($.50) and yummy cookies ($.25).

So, today at about 10:30 I took the little ones, armed with sunscreen, hats, a card table, several home-made signs and about 2 gallons of lemonade down to one of the bigger intersections in our sleepy little community.  We were joined by the little girl whose Grandpa just passed and another sweet neighborhood girl and together, over 2 hours, they drummed up about $22 and change.

Not a lot of money, but considering they only sold about 10 cups of lemonade and a few bottles of iced water, not a bad collection, I'd say.  More importantly, they earned an experience in how good being charitable feels.

They worked hard for their earnings, and we had a lot of discussion about how it's a good life/karmic policy to try to ALWAYS buy a cup of lemonade or a box of Girl Scout cookies when a kid smiles and politely asks you to.  They thought it was SO cool how people would give them $5 for a cup of lemonade.  We even offered a few sips of cold water to a few hot pups who strolled by!

I have to say, I have a to-do list about a mile long that I probably SHOULD have been working on instead of mixing lemonade and sitting for two hours on the corner, but I now think the  opportunity to get these kids thinking about how GOOD it feels to GIVE was one I'll cherish! 

(the instigator...love this kid!)

Moon Over McDowells

MMR Mountains, originally uploaded by bebe beaux.

As I was driving home from the last of four weekend sessions last night, this view grabbed me by the lens, pulled me over to the side of the road and held my rapt attention.  WOW!  Golly, don't you just love the "golden hour" right before the sun finally sets?!?!  I'm not usually a "landscape" photo taker, but just HAD to snap this!

Life is good.