Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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Recipe Review: Easter Dinner for Two

   Handsome and I decided to do things a bit differently for Easter this year. Except for the hour or so we spent at a morning church service, we spread ourselves out here at the farm, enjoying the sunshine and animals, luxuriating in the abundant peace and love we have been building lately. We really needed the emotional cocoon, the deep drink of stillness that these long, slow days provide us. And thankfully the weather cooperated. Temperatures near eighty degrees, light breezes, and sunshine the color of melted butter… It was all pretty magical. A sparkling, happy Easter for sure!

   Instead of joining up for a big family feast with either of our clans, whom we love deeply, for this one quick little springtime holiday my guy and I sneakily opted for a singular romantic meal. It was wonderful and delicious. I built the menu from a collection of ideas found around the internet, and in case you’re interested I am gonna offer some recipe reviews. Ready? Okay.

Cinnamon-Buttermilk Scones
   First, before church, I made us a batch of thick, tender, sweet, crunchy-on-the-top scones. The recipe can be found right here on the Money Saving Mom site. It came together pretty quickly and was fun to make. The only thing I did to stray from the instructions was to skip the vanilla glaze post-bake, because Handsome and I just like it better that way. Served with hot, sweet, creamy coffee, scones with icing would have been too sweet for us. Anyway, this recipe will be a repeater for sure, on special weekends. Really simple and sensual, with so much mixing and touching of the silky, honey-scented dough, and using turbinado (raw brown sugar) and egg white as a crunchy topping felt super fancy. Loved it.

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   Now… After church I kicked off my high heels, shoved my hair up into a disorganized heap on the back of my head, and wrapped myself up in an apron. For the next couple of hours I had such fun preparing our meal… And Handsome frequently popped in to say hello, lead me out to see what the llamas were doing, and generally flirt with me.

   Oh, did you not hear that we are now a multi-llama family?

You know Romulus, the male in the back here.
His new pasture mate is Seraphine. 

   Yep. More on that later. For now, here is some review of our afternoon meal:

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Balsamic-Garlic Crusted Pork Loin

   The main course of pork loin was a recipe from Kitchen Confidante. You can find the full recipe right here. I made a half recipe, which served us both twice and also provided some leftovers. The flavors are sweet and savory and just a little bit sticky. I enjoyed using my cast iron skillet in a new way. Handsome and I agreed this is a repeat performer, so anytime I see those individually packaged pork loins on sale I will be stocking up. Because you always have the ingredients for this glaze in the pantry. Really simple and good.

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Katie’s Scalloped Yams

   The potato dish was borrowed from my friend Katie, who is a fellow Oklahoman blogging over at Dishin & Dishes (I have her listed over there on my sidebar…). She is so fun and talented, and I love her approach to family life and romance. She cooks passionately and just released her first book too, wahoo!!

   You can purchase Food Lovers’ Guide to Oklahoma locally or check out the tab on her blog. Very cool! Anyway, Katie recently offered up this gorgeous recipe for scalloped sweet potatoes. I love it!! I was obligated to make two tiny changes for our use, which were:

  1. to not peel the fresh yams (I like to keep skins on all of my fruits and veggies, because I am a vitamin junkie) 
  2. and to omit the chopped onions because Handsome has a serious food allergy to them. To compensate for the flavor loss, I punched up the fresh garlic a little and added a few scrapes of nutmeg. 

   Katie, thank you for this recipe!! It was so very good. I can’t wait to make it again, especially once our fresh herbs have grown lush. I had to use dried store-bought herbs this time. Also, Handsome asked if I would also make it with white potatoes. Yum.

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Sour Cream 7-Up Biscuits

   The biscuits we enjoyed can be found in recipe form right here on a Mississippi blog called Deep South Dish. These things are sweet, soft, and pillowy… Definitely the temptresses of biscuitry. Be warned, if you are on a carb-restricted diet, these will be your ruin. They almost made me cry a little bit, they were so gentle and flavorful to my mouth. After our meal I took two giant biscuits outside to crumble up for the yard birds, and I swear one of the hens passed out in pure bliss. She’s fine now. And she’s been asking for more Sour Cream 7-Up biscuits ever since.

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   The vegetables were simple. We just ate steamed fresh broccoli and a crisp green salad including two lettuces, spinach, and strawberries. And of course we drank fresh iced tea that was sweet enough for a hummingbird.
   I did not make a single solitary Easter dessert this year, though my eyes had found a thousand pretty options, because clearly we had enjoyed plenty of sweets and starches already. And Handsome was still working hard on a big Easter basket full of chocolates.

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   So that’s it! We are both still stuffed today, though that has not kept me from eating hard-boiled farm eggs and fruits and veggies all day long. And maybe one more soft, sweet biscuit. And maybe half of one scone. Or three.

   I hope you had a lovely Easter weekend and are enjoying this grand new week!

“Nothing would be more tiresome that eating and drinking
if God had not made them a pleasure
as well as a necessity.”
~Voltaire
xoxoxoxo

 

Happy Easter Friends

Easter Sunday this year is falling at a time of so much change. So much new life.
The month is changing, the season is changing, and I am changing.

Are you?
Are you in any kind of metamorphosis right now, any kind of renewal?
More than ever I think, things are really truly changing.
I hope you are sensing it, and I hope it is all beautiful and exciting.

When I reflect on the Christian importance of this weekend, 
what my mind most often drifts to is redemption. 
We have been redeemed from our sins by our Savior. 
We have been traded. Purchased. Protected from darkness and storms
and even from ourselves for a while, 
our debts relieved and our futures bright and open with loving possibility.

 From a million years ago, one of our homemade Easter rituals, commemorating the Passover night.

This is so in step with how I have been trying to manage my own life lately, 
just the word redemption.
For what different things in this world am I redeeming my precious time and energy? 



Spiritually speaking, the question becomes even more challenging.
What trades am I making? What contracts are written with my free will,
after such a costly redemption?
It’s plenty to think about, but it doesn’t make me sad anymore.
Life is so throbbing with energy right now that I am only motivated, revived, 
and hopeful for the possibility of everything good and amazing!



Break your dormancy, friends.
Erupt through the soil, nourished by invisible things and sparked back to life,
filled with all the life force you need
to grow into your fullest, most beautiful, most useful potential.
Face the sun.
Accept every kind of weather.
Stretch your roots deeply and enjoy the company of bugs and worms.

It’s going to be a season for the record books, and I wish you the best of it all. 
Happy Easter!

xoxoxoxo




Easter Past and Present

   One of the happiest Sundays of the year is just a couple of days away… Happy Easter you guys! How do you celebrate? Our traditions are kind of a mash up of my Catholic heritage and Handsome’s straight line Bible upbringing. From my childhood, I remember a version of Seder meals, palm fronds burned into ashes for crossing ourselves at Lent’s onset, purple satin, and the weekly, suspenseful countdown culminating in a jubilant Easter Sunday service. I remember lots of white flowers always and a huge, towering wooden cross.

   Handsome’s heritage is based on passionate preaching. Beautiful, strict adherence to the gospel and sincere wonderment at the prophecies that led up to Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection. They have used the same tall cross wrapped in white satin for years. They also fill the church with white flowers which are always sent home for in-laws, friends, and far flung loved ones.

   Did you notice the satin and flowers? Our lives before marriage are filled with uncanny connections like this. And for the handful of dogma differences between the faiths, both of our incredible families in their own ways lay out delicious feasts and shower the kids in candy, egg hunts, frills, and love.

   In our marriage, then, we have learned to do a lot of blending, and Easter-time is when these hybrid practices are most evident. I like to roll out the Jewish remembrances and Old Testament stuff, which he tolerates with a smile. And he really, really, really loves his chocolate Easter bunnies. Like, so much you guys.

   Anyway, this Easter without the kiddos we are not dyeing eggs or filling baskets with fluffy pretty things. I think we’ll light a big bonfire here at the farm and cross our fingers that some of the chicken eggs hatch. Some of them are due, after all, and we do tend to get baby chicks ever year on Easter Sunday! One of our roosters named Peep was hatched two Easters ago. I am certain he has sired many chicks by now.

   Sunday we will be at church and then with both of our big beautiful families, taking pictures of nieces and nephews, filling up on ham and sugar and love. In the mean time I am so happy to dig through old photos and memories and share a few glimpses of Easter Past…

“Then ye shall say, it is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover,
who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt
when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses. 
And the people bowed the head and worshiped.”
~Exodus 12:27

One of our personal traditions has been to cover the front door frame in paper then paint it red,
to symbolize the sacrificial blood required for the Passover.
Of course this is to facilitate the message about Jesus being the ultimate sacrifice.
Here is one of many front door paintings over the years, this time in 2006.  xoxo
Look at those sparkling dark brown eyes!
And I just love “good morning” hair on my girls…
Makes me want to snuggle them and inhale their sunshine perfume!
Easter morning is when solemnity ends for us.
The waiting is over because the stone is rolled away!
We are all candy and color and fun, pomp and circumstance!
(Egad! Looks like I was hoping for a resurrection for that poinsettia!)

 
   If springtime is when the earth reawakens, then Easter is when my spirit does. No doubt about it, witnessing so much spontaneous life all around us grows more amazing every year. If seeds can sprout just by sitting on top of damp soil, untended and unwept, then surely Love can spark in even the dimmest relationships. Surely healing can be delivered to withering bodies. Love is what makes this happen, and it is the most powerful force of all. When something is promised to you, however unlikely it seems, trust it. When you have heard that whisper that everything is gonna be alright, then stop railing against the circumstances and just be ready for it.

“And behold, there was a great earthquake:
for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, 
and came and rolled back 
the STONE from the door, and sat upon it.”
~Matthew 28:2

Happy girl in white lace gloves at Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a big cousins egg hunt! 2006
She has downright infectious laughter and can squeeze the air out you with one of her famous hugs!

They wore their dresses and bonnets all day long!
Our first Easter at the farm, 2008.
Our house looked so different before the fire that happened a few months later!
This pretty girl is my baby offering a very solemn Bible reading
before our traditional sader meal of grape juice and unleavened bread.
We usually do this on Good Friday.
Another door painting for Passover. Look how much the girls grew!
Over the years they memorized our unique traditions.
If I almost forgot the foot washing, they let me know!
Admittedly that part is pretty nice.
In 2008 we were blessed with a set of adorable pygmy goat twins just in time for Easter.
We packed them up  in a basket full of baby blankets and took them to church!
(I resisted the intense urge to dress them in Easter frocks… sufficed with lacy blankets instead.)
There was much baa-ing and giggling during service, and all the kids wanted to hold them.
This is one of the hidden benefits of attending a small church. You can bring your goats if you feel like it.
My beautiful first born. The artist, the feeler, the animal tender.
She watched over those goats all of that very long, happy Sunday
and let Spice (this gray little girl) nap on her whenever she needed it.
I love you baby. xoxoxo You amaze me in so many ways.
Here is my gorgeous little sister Ang with her baby and my little buddy Kenz.
The baby goats were a handful, but they did not lack for attention that Easter!
   So maybe your Easter traditions are steeped in faith and ceremony. Or maybe they are lovely pastel shades of chocolate and Pagan (wink-wink, rib-rib, totally kidding). Better yet, maybe your customs are a perfectly American blend of the two. However you celebrate this weekend, the Lazy W wishes you and yours lots of love, lots of joy, and lots of deep refreshment. The best kind, the kind that lasts and lasts. 
“But whosoever drinketh of the water 
that I shall give him shall never thirst;
but the water that I shall give him 
shall be in him a WELL
of water springing up into everlasting life.”
~John 4:14

Celebrating New Life is Good.
Believing in Impossible Miracles is Better.
Happy Easter You Guys!
xoxoxo

40 Days Till Easter

   Springtime is high season for me. This is when everything greens up and things start to bloom. This is when the house is cleanest and my mind freshest. My birthday rolls around. And Easter approaches. I love Easter even more than Christmas, for a million reasons. Do you?
   Easter is when promises are kept. Easter is the fulfillment of hope and the answer to hard wrought prayers. It is a wonderful time for healing and forgiveness. It is the time of every single year of life that we can celebrate the light that follows darkness. Without fail, and independent of anything we do, springtime warms us up and gets our hearts thumping again. And Easter is the culmination of all the waiting, all the spiritual dormancy, all the deadness.
   This year I want to be ready. In yet another bizarre way, God is whispering to my heart a hidden meaning behind our childlessness… that I should be redeeming my time more wisely, not just filling it up. Not just comforting myself or wishing the weeks away. The hours that might otherwise be spent on coloring eggs and shopping for frothy Easter dresses can be spent studying the Word and preparing my heart for miracles.
“God is eagerly waiting for the chance 
to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, 
just as He always has. 
But He can’t do it if you don’t pray, 
and He can’t do it if you don’t dream. 
In short, He can’t do it if you don’t believe.”
~ Jeffrey R. Holland 

   I am not sure I agree with Mr. Holland’s word choice here, saying that there’s anything God can’t do, but I certainly agree and believe that the Lord wants a relationship with each of us, privately and permanently and apart from worldly tethers, and so we need to seek Him. That’s our part. Praying, dreaming, hoping, trusting, believing in His goodness above all else, far beyond pain. And in doing so we are assured that He will be there with strong, capable, powerful, merciful, loving open arms.
   And by the way, YES. God has already answered so many big, incredible prayers for us! Why would I ever stop believing in Him? So many dreams are already fulfilled, I get chills to reflect on where we are in life, on how much love already surrounds us. These yet unanswered longings, these fears which remain, are only scabbed over by my own limitations. He has the power to heal all of it, to work miracles I cannot even imagine! Same goes for you and your heart, whatever it is that you’re hoping for or against, He already knows.
   As late winter stretches and yawns herself into the dawn of another springtime, the life giving tremors of Easter are very real to me. Regret over wasted time and spiritual deadness is finally evaporating under the warmth of hope. The busy-keeping activity of recent months, trying to work away pain and over and over again struggling to make sense of things in my own weak ways, is being replaced with a craving for spiritual activity, seeking what He wants me to seek and discovering His power again.
“Let the past sleep, but let it sleep 
on the bosom of Christ, and go out into 
the irresistible future with Him.”
~Oswald Chambers from My Utmost for His Highest
   Lest we get too awfully serious this morning, below is a photo of Tomato the rooster. You know, spring chickens and all. He was only a few weeks old when this photo was taken, and my nephew Zane (well, Zane is *sort of* my nephew, and I love him so much) named him not knowing this feathery creature’s gender. I think it’s a perfect name. You may notice that Tomato got a bright red talon polishing that day, too, which may or may not have affected his personality in the long run. That was two years ago.   
   Nowadays Tomato runs free and wild when the sun is out. His rooster comb is a little wonky, which helps me tell him apart from the others. This is good because his full grown talons have lost their red glamour and we have several white and black roosters. Tomato can be a trouble maker, but we think he’s cool.
   However you observe Ash Wednesday, whatever your rituals are for preparing for Easter, springtime, or just another fresh new day of being alive, I wish you the very best. I wish you a long, wide view of the world, a closeness to Love,  and renewed hope for the biggest miracles you crave! Paint your talons red if it thrills you, and be happy. You are loved, and big things are waiting.
“I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.”
~Psalm 34:4
xoxoxo