Salad with Navy Beans, Goat Cheese, Cherry Tomatoes, Croutons, and Warm Bacon Dressing

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Can you see the bits of shallots in the vinaigrette?

In the dog days of summer, isn't it wonderful to have a nice, cool salad for dinner sometimes?

I first had this salad 16 years ago, and have been making it several times each summer, ever since. I am not stuck in a rut. It is just THAT good. I crave this salad every year. The tanginess of the goat cheese, and the way it softens and yields under the heat of the warm bacon vinaigrette, and the acidity of that vinaigrette. The salt and smokiness of the bacon. The creamy savoriness of the navy beans. The juicy sweetness of a sun ripened cherry tomato. The crispness of the lettuce and the warm chewy/crunchiness of a homemade crouton that's been bathed in olive oil. (Are you getting the picture?) This salad is a symphony of flavors and textures, and it's perfect as a main course on a hot summer night.

If you want to use some shortcuts, you can substitute canned navy beans but the flavor will not be as good. Sorry! And don't even think about using poser store bought croutons. A great salad deserves a crouton made from great bread. It's the difference between night and day.

The original recipe came from Food & Wine magazine in July of 1996, but I've altered it through the years to suit my family's tastes.

Before I toss it with the vinaigrette.

Salad with Navy Beans, Goat Cheese, Cherry Tomatoes,  Croutons, and Warm Bacon Dressing

Ingredients:

1 c. dried navy beans, picked over, rinsed and soaked overnight
1 bay leaf
2 garlic cloves, smashed
3 T. salt
2 c. Tuscan or Italian or peasant bread, cut into 3/4" cubes
2 T. + 2 t. extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 lb. thick-sliced bacon
2 large shallots, finely chopped
3 T. Champagne vinegar
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 lb. salad greens (I use the spring mix blend)
1/2 c. any variety cherry tomatoes (any variety: I have used grape tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, heirloom mini-tomatoes, and mini-pearls), halved
1/4 lb. mild goat cheese, crumbled into 1" pieces


Preparation:

When I soak my beans, I soak them in a brine containing about 3 T. salt to 4 qts. of water. Here's why, in the paragraph labeled the secret to cooking beans. Drain the brine off the beans, rinse the beans, and in a medium saucepan, combine the beans with the bay leaf, garlic and 4 c. of water and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to moderately low, cover partially, and simmer the beans until tender but not mushy, about 1 hr and a half. Drain the beans and let cool to room temperature.Discard the bay leaf and the garlic.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350º. Toss the bread cubes with 2 t. of olie oil and arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet.Bake for about 10 minutes, or until golden but not dry.

In a non-reactive skillet (and this is important because you're going to make the vinaigrette in the same skillet) fry the bacon until crisp. (I use an oven worthy skillet that is not cast iron, and fry my bacon in my oven: 400º for 20 minutes will about do it.) Transfer the bacon to paper towels to drain. Add the remaining 2 T. of the olive oil to the fat in the skillet. Add the shallots and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, till shallots are softened, about 7 minutes. Stir in the vinegar, season with salt and pepper and keep warm.

In a large bowl, toss the salad greens with the beans, bacon, toasted croutons and tomatoes. Add the dressing and toss. Add the goat cheese and toss gently but thoroughly. Serve immediately.

Summer is flying by: you deserve this lusciousness! Go for it!

It's yummy. Oh, so lusciously yummy. 

What's your favorite light summer meal?

P.S. Don't forget to Pin this on Pinterest!

Extravagantly Excellent Eggplant Parmigiana

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Extravagantly Excellent Eggplant Parmigiana

I can hear you now: Eggplant Parmigiana?

Eggplant???  I HATE eggplant!

And honestly, at one point in my life, I would have said exactly the same thing.

I grew up hating eggplant. I was raised, in fact, on the hatred of eggplant.
Nasty, bitter, detestable stuff, eggplant.

I was disgusted by it, until I learned a secret or two, (that I will share with you, today) that turned my eggplant hating days into a thing of the past. Eggplant became, in fact, one of the most begged for dishes in my arsenal of culinary weapons. But how did THAT come to be? I'm so glad you asked, my friend!

The first recipe I ever tucked away into my "Sure Fire Hits" recipe box was for lasagna. It was my favorite dish, and I learned how to make amazing, incredible lasagna at an early age. I'd always been told, and so I knew it was true: if I was ever going to capture Prince Charming's heart, the way was through his stomach. My lasagna would be my heart lasso. And sure enough, it worked like a charm. I still remember the look on my now-hubby's face the first time he tasted my lasagna. The black pupils in the center of his big brown eyes became momentarily heart-shaped.

(Helpful hint to single individuals: be sure to look for someone whose mother was a bad cook. Your stock will rise by leaps and bounds in the eyes of your significant other when a future filled with food that actually tastes good opens up as a possibility.)

Turns out, however, that while to this day, he loves my lasagna, he loves even better my eggplant parmesan, (which I used to make very similarly to my lasagna). Go figure! No one was more surprised than me, the former eggplant hater. But it's true! I used to make a version that used a big jar of Prego, and if you want to do that, I can assure you that you can make beautifully delicious eggplant parmesan out of sauce from the store, and no one will think any the less of you.

However: it's summer! The produce is fresh! So why not revel in the bounties of the season? I saw this recipe prepared by Chef Alex Guarnaschelli on Food Network, where she said if she had one last remaining meal on this earth, this would be the recipe she would prepare for herself. Now when an excellent chef makes a statement like that, I pay attention!!! So I tried her recipe, homemade sauce, and all. Was it better than my recipe made with Prego? Well...it was different, and MORE SUMMERY. And yes, I'd even say that I preferred it over my old recipe. It tasted fresher. And so, despite the extra effort, I think it's worth doing, especially since it's August, and fresh tomatoes abound.

There were a couple of other differences from my own original recipe that I liked a lot. One was the addition of smokey provolone cheese, which added a lovely depth of flavor. And then there was the addition of the fresh basil, which added a welcome green note. Chef Guarnaschelli called for a full tablespoon of dried red pepper flakes, which would have melted my family's taste buds, so I reduced that ingredient to 1/2 teaspoon. My sauce still turned out with a nice little bite to it, that I liked a lot, especially with the addition of the small amount of sugar that the recipe calls for. It all combined together to make for an extravagantly excellent eggplant parmesan.

Secret Tip #1: How to Have Non-Bitter Eggplant
 I promised you a secret tip, and I actually have two. Here's the first: since eggplant really CAN be terribly bitter,  here's the remedy to that situation. After you have sliced your eggplant into 1/2" slices, salt them, on both sides, and leave them to drain on baking racks, placed on top of cookie sheets for about an hour. You'll see all these ugly looking brown drops of juice that have been drawn out of the eggplant beaded on top, and having dripped off onto the cookie sheet beneath. That is the desired result: you've drawn the bitter juice out. Now rinse the eggplant in cold running water to get off the excess juice and salt, and dry with paper towels. BOOYAH! You did it! No more bitter eggplant.

Secret Tip #2: How to Make Your Own Delicious Bread Crumbs

My second secret tip is that instead of buying those nasty pre-fab bread crumbs, you can totally make your own Italian style bread crumbs, and here's how you do it:

You'll need 4 oz of stale bread. You can use leftover bread of almost any type. (Well...not cinnamon raisin...but you get the idea.) I prefer a leftover artisan loaf, but plain white bread, or leftover hot dog buns will do nicely. (And don't you nearly ALWAYS have a couple of straggler hot dog buns?) You can, in fact, process bread crumbs at any point you have some leftover stale bread, and then store the crumbs in a ziplock in the freezer, for when you have to bread something for frying.

I do this in a food processor, but you could use a blender if you prefer. My blender tends to make crumbs that are too fine for my taste.

Homemade Italian Bread Crumbs

Ingredients:
4 oz. stale bread, torn into 1" pieces
1 T. Italian seasoning
1/2 t. garlic powder
1/2 t. salt

Preheat the oven to 300º.
In food processor, pulse all the ingredients, until coarse crumbs form. Spread the crumbs evenly on 2 cookie sheets, and bake until the crumbs just begin to brown: about 5 minutes, depending on your oven. Cool for 15 to 20 minutes. Crumbs can then be stored in an airtight container, or frozen in a ziplock bag.


Because this eggplant recipe has quite a few steps, I tend to make my crumbs (if I don't have any on hand), de-bitter-ize my eggplant and cook my sauce in the morning or early afternoon of the day I'm making it. Then, I fry the eggplant near dinnertime, just before I'm ready to assemble the dish and pop it in the oven.

Now, assuming you have your bread crumbs at the ready, and your eggplant slices all prepped and de-bittered, let's move on to the main part of the recipe that I adapted from Alex Guarnaschelli.

Melty, Cheesy Goodness

Eggplant Parmigiana


Ingredients

Sauce:

1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
3 medium yellow onions, peeled, halved, and cut into thin slices
8 garlic cloves, minced
salt
1/2 to 1 t. red pepper flakes, or to taste
1 T. sugar
3 (28 oz) cans of San Marzano peeled plum tomatoes

Eggplant:

2 medium eggplants, cut into 1/2" slices (approximately 2 1/2 lbs. of eggplant), salted, drained, rinsed and dried (see directions above)
1/2 c. flour
Freshly ground black pepper
5 large eggs, beaten
3 T. milk
4 c. Italian style breadcrumbs (see recipe above)
1 T. dried oregano
1 T. chopped fresh thyme leaves
Vegetable oil, as needed for frying; oil needs to be about a half inch deep
1 1/2 lb.mozzarella cheese, grated
1/2 c. grated Parmigiano Reggiano
1 lb. Provolone, sliced
2 handfuls fresh basil leaves, torn

Preparation

Tomato Sauce:

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and season with salt and red pepper flakes. Cook until the onions become translucent, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the sugar and the canned tomatoes. Use a wooden spoon to break up some of the whole tomatoes and cook 10 to 15 minutes over medium heat, stirring from time to time. Taste for seasoning. The tomatoes should be fairly broken down and the flavors should be starting to come together. Cook for another few minutes if the tomatoes still taste like they need a little more time to break down. Set aside to cool.

Frying the Eggplant:

Put the flour in a medium bowl and season with salt and pepper. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk, and season with salt and pepper. In a third bowl, combine the breadcrumbs with the oregano and fresh thyme leaves, and season with salt and pepper. Dip each eggplant slice in the flour and shake off any excess. Then dip in the egg mixture, and finally in the breadcrumbs. Make sure to coat both side of each slice of eggplant. Arrange them in single layers on baking sheets.

To work from left to right, set up your breading/frying/draining station like this:

flour + eggs + breadcrumbs + frying skillet + baking sheet with drain rack

(When breading, to minimize gunk coating the fingers of both hands, I use my left hand for coating with flour, and my right hand for coating in eggs and crumbs. It helps a little.)

In a large skillet, heat 1/2'' of oil, until it begins to smoke lightly . Use a pair of kitchen tongs to add a single layer of the eggplant to the pan. Cook them until they are golden brown, about 2 minutes on each side. Remove from the oil and transfer to a rack on a baking sheet so they can drain as the others cook. Season lightly with salt. Take care to reheat the oil back up to temperature before adding the next batch of eggplant. If you are checking the oil's heat by temperature, you want it between 380º and 400º.

Preheat the oven to 350º.

Assembling the Dish:

In a 9"x13" baking dish, spoon about 1/4 of the sauce on the bottom of the dish. Top with a layer of the fried eggplant. Top with about 1/3 of the mozzarella. Sprinkle with about 1/4 of the Parmigiano Reggiano and Provolone cheeses. Top with a layer of torn basil leaves. Spoon sauce and repeat the layering two more times, to make 3 layers. End with the remaining mozzarella and Parmesan. Carefully press the layers down firmly into the dish once assembled. Place the dish in the top part of the oven and cook until the cheese is melted and bubbly, 35 to 40 minutes.

Bon appétit!

Tell me truly: how do you feel about eggplant?
Give it to me straight. I can take it.

Preparing for The Talk, Through Finding the Talkable Moments

Pin It As much as my Mother adored me, (and she did), it was never easy for me to talk with her about things that were deeply personal to me. That's on me. For some reason, when it came to topics concerning my body, I held her at arm's length, so to speak.

Which is why, I'm not surprised to find that my daughter, by nature, is very much like I was. But which is also why I determined that from an early age, I was not going to take the easy way out and just avoid communication with her in regard to private matters, like her body. I decided that I had to find a way to make that conversation more comfortable for her than it had been for me.

But how does a Mom do that?

When I was first married, I learned that according to  Dr. Gary Chapman's book on The Five Love Languages, husbands and wives tend to communicate their love for each other in different ways, and that each tended to do the things for the other, that they would want done for them. The book said that there are five different basic types of love languages, or ways that people prefer to have love communicated to them.  And they are:

1) Words of affirmation - TELL me that you love me, with words that show your appreciation for me.
2) Quality Time - Show me that you love me by spending time with me, regularly, and focusing only on me.
3) Receiving Gifts - Show me your love through the effort and thought you put into choosing or making something special just for me.
4) Acts of Service - Show me that you love me by helping me accomplish all that I need to get done, or by doing something for me that will make my life easier.
5) Physical Touch - Show me that you love me by an embrace, a kiss, a cuddle, holding my hand or some type of physical touch.

An even more surprising concept to me was that love languages weren't just about couples. Love languages also apply to the children we are raising. Each child has at least a primary and a secondary love language: a way that they hear love better than in any other way.

And the tricky part is that we tend to try to communicate love out of our own primary and secondary love languages. But what if our child has very different love languages? That can make for a frustrated Mom, and a child who feels unloved, even though she is not.

So, the first part of me working toward having a better relationship with my daughter than I had with my own mother, was to try to identify her primary and secondary love languages. What most made her face light up? What did she seem to crave from me?

My girl seems to love receiving gifts. When she gets a little surprise from me or from a friend that someone has picked out for her, her face lights up. (The negative side of this, of course, is that it is PAINFUL for her to part with things, because these things have meaning to her. Hence, one room in our home has stuffed animals that are fairly bulging out of the cracks around the doorframe. But that's another post.)

Kotex sent me this adorable bag as gift to my daughter, so that she's ready for her period wherever she goes.
To the girl who has Receiving Gifts as a secondary love language? SCORE!!!

She also seems to really enjoy spending quality time with me. Our very best conversations happen on the way in the car, driving her to and from dance class. Or, when I take her shopping, which dovetails nicely with receiving gifts. So I invest time and energy into those two things: taking her places with just the two of us (Quality Time), and giving her little gifts that I've chosen just for her. Because I've seen BIG payoffs in our relationship from those types of activities.

But what if those aren't the things that would really speak to your daughter? I asked a group of my friends who are moms themselves, for suggestions on ways that they bond with their daughters, and here are just a few of the wonderful ideas they had:



Words of affirmation don't have to be just the spoken word, like saying, "I love you" or "I'm proud of you". One mom noticed that her daughter loves to leave her love notes, so now, in turn, she leaves love notes for her daughter, saying words that affirm her daughter. A couple of moms mentioned that even while they knew that hearing words of affirmation was a primary language for their daughters, they still from time to time had a hard time communicating with their girls verbally, so here are some creative ways they handled that problem. One mom has had great success with texting her daughter. While the mom really enjoys talking,  her daughter needed fewer words, so texting has been the perfect way for this mom and daughter to connect emotionally. Pretty cool, huh? One mom decided that she and her daughter needed more time to reflect before they responded to each other, so she has started a journal that they each can write in, where they can share the important things that they want to say to each other. Again, I think this is a stroke of genius.

Quality time can be as simple as taking one child at a time with you when you need to run an errand. Or, it can be that moment when you come in to give a goodnight kiss to the child. Kids very often love to delay bedtime by choosing that opportunity to bare their souls! It's the smart mom who seizes the moment, and lets the rest of the world fall away, when her child's heart is ripe and ready to talk. Asking what was the best part of her day, or what was the worst part of her day, or asking how you can pray for her are all ways that you might enter into your daughter's world, and catch a glimpse of the inner workings of her heart. (And she'll just think she's getting out of going to bed on time! Win/win!!!) Some other suggestions, other than talking at bedtime, for quality time with your girl: sing together, play music together, listen to each other's music. Read the same work of fiction, just for fun, and talk about your thoughts on the story. Watch a movie or a TV show together, and discuss the things you liked and disliked.

Receiving gifts: for those people to whom a gift means love, the expense of the gift really doesn't matter. The fact that they were thought of, and that someone made the effort to choose something especially for them: this is what truly counts. A pack of my daughter's favorite gum or a lip gloss flavored like her favorite soda pop can mean love to my girl. Once I went on a women's retreat where the women did a craft project, and I designed my craft to be a gift for my daughter. You would have thought I had given her the moon, instead of a painted tile. And because I know she is passionate about stuffed animals, the girl has a room that...wait...I've already talked about that.

Acts of service: kids who speak this language truly do appreciate a helping hand. The fact that you will stop what you are doing to make their life easier means the world to them. Some moms find that helping their kid organize their rooms, or set up their weekly schedule for attacking schoolwork means so much. Teaching them to knit, or to cook, or helping them learn a skill they need for whatever sport they're involved in could all be acts of service.

Physical Touch: these are the kids who are snuggle bugs, who just can't seem to get enough of being close to you. To them, love is a back scratch, or a sweet kiss, or a monster hug. You know what to do best for your cuddle bunny!

Communicating to your daughter on a regular basis through her love language will help pave the way for you to comfortably have the talks that you'll want to have with her in regard to her changing body and monthly cycle. Rome wasn't built in a day, and relationships don't just happen overnight. For our daughters, it takes patience, and faithful sowing before you reap the harvest that you're longing for: a relationship that will have earned you the right to speak into your daughter's life regarding things that are a little more private.

Nail file, hair elastics, lip gloss, adhesive bandage, mini-pad and maxi-pads: she's ready...just in case.

And when you're ready to have the talk,  Kotex has some marvelous resources on their website that you might want to take advantage of. Here's the link to help you prepare for the talk: check it out! There you'll find a calendar with facts about puberty, questions your daughter may ask (and answers!), ways in which you might start the conversation with your daughter, and more. If your teen or tween has questions she'd like to research on her own, Kotex has a website designed especially for teens! Invite her to give it a try.

If Love Languages are for real, have you figured out your daughter's love languages?

I wrote this review while participating in a Brand Ambassador Campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of U by Kotex Tween and received products to facilitate my post and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.

There's No Such Thing as "Free Shoes" in The Boonies

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Free shoes? You decide.

Have you ever heard the old saying that "There's no such thing as a free lunch"?

I have found this to be a true statement, in life, in general. In fact, I have found it to even be true in cyberspace.

To all my bright-eyed, fresh faced young blogging friends who sport your very own Virtual Cloak of Invincibility (which is a part of being less experienced in life in general): to you,  I'd say, that you'd be well-advised to heed my warning.

"Pish posh," you say. "You haven't been to a BIG blogging conference! Do you know how much free swag there is out there to be gathered? Free lunches abound!"

Well...to misquote former President Bill Clinton, it depends on what the meaning of the word, "free", is, doesn't it?

And herein lies my tale.

Heelys Hipsters: pretty cool, eh?

The tale of the "free shoes".

The shoes that, perhaps,  weren't so "free".

A powerful lure that "blogging" holds for all us eager little lemmings who swarm to make our fortune "while the kids nap", is the promise that we'll make money off our blogs, while we work from inside our own homes. A few super smart, super talented, super dedicated, and/or super lucky ones of us have.

But shmucks like me? Not so much.

Every once in a while, I'll agree to review a product, but only if it's something I can really get behind, and can feel good lending my talents to. So when the rare product like that shows up in my gmail box, I get pretty excited.

Financial times have been skinny around here lately, and my daughter came to me and told me she needed a new pair of shoes. I worried about it momentarily, but then lo and behold, the next day, an offer arrived.

The good folks at  Heelys were wondering if we'd like the opportunity to review their new line of shoes. My daughter was reluctant at first to be the guinea pig ("Aren't those for grade school boys who fly around getting in trouble for roller skating where they shouldn't be roller skating?") but the letter assured me that they had added a new line of shoes that were the lightest Heelys yet, and tailored specifically to girls. That sounded intriguing. I pointed out to my daughter that just the day before, she had told me that she needed new shoes, and perhaps, these might be the answer.

We looked at Heelys new product line on line, and my daughter decided that the "Hipster" model was kind of fun looking, unique, cute, and she'd like to give them a "whirl", (which was a happy choice of words for what you'd do with shoes that have detachable wheels built into their soles). So, we put in our request for that style of shoe in her size, and then waited for the UPS guy to show up.

About a week later, my daughter needed to be driven to an evening dance class, and I talked my sweet husband into driving her, since I was working on preparing dinner. I kissed them goodbye there in the kitchen, and they walked out the kitchen door, into the garage that adjoins our kitchen.

I heard the garage door open and the car engine start, and I continued chopping the vegetables I was preparing that evening for dinner. A few moments later, I heard what sounded like a huge sonic boom, and felt the entire house shake. I nearly jumped out of my skin. As I recall, I shrieked.

Then I ran to the garage door, and peered out cautiously to see what on EARTH could have caused my whole house to shake.

Remember that package that we were waiting for from UPS?

Here's the chain of events that happened.

The UPS driver left the box with the Heelys inside, in front of our garage door. As it happened, the box was left directly in line with the tires on the driver's side of our car. The garage door itself was closed, so the UPS driver didn't know PRECISELY where he'd placed them. My husband climbed in the car and then opened the garage door. The box itself was obscured from my husband's line of vision when he glanced in the rear view mirror before he backed out, because it was too close to the car. He backed out, smashing something fairly significant in size, with the rear wheel of the car. He knew he'd backed over something, although he didn't know what. So he threw the car into "Drive" so that he could see what he'd run over.

And jumped hurriedly out of the car to see what it was...

...accidentally leaving the car in "Drive", rather than putting it into "Park", as he jumped out of the vehicle.

The car, with my 14 year old daughter riding shotgun in the passenger seat, began to drift forward. It hit my bike, which was hanging from the bike rack on the wall that separates the garage from the kitchen, which bent my bike frame. This dented the car hood. And busted the fog light on the front of the car. And the bike itself then smashed a hole through the garage drywall, which shook the entire house, making The Mighty Boom. The Boom that caused me to jump out of skin and shriek.

After jumping out of the car to see what he'd hit, my husband endured an achingly long split second of a slow-motion "N-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ooo!!!!", as he realized with horror that the car was still moving forward. As quickly as he could, he jumped back into the car and actually DID throw it into "Park".

But not before the big KA-BOOM!

Here's what the shoe box looked like.

Clearly, the brown cardboard box has seen better days.

And if you think THAT'S bad, you should see my husband's pride!

And here's another shot, for your viewing pleasure.

From the look of the shoebox, I was pretty concerned as to what kind of shape the shoes were going to be in.

Miraculously, the "free shoes" were undamaged.

And you've got to admit, she does look kinda cute in them. They're rather spiffy.

The girl with the cute, "free", hipster shoes.
Practicing a hipster expression.

Giving her "free shoes" a whirl. Well, for her, they were almost free.
They only cost her a few seconds of sheer terror watching the vehicle she was riding in head for the wall of the house.

The wheels are removable. For those moments when you really shouldn't be rolling around.
Should have had those installed on our car, come to think of it.

Dig it. It's a cool shot.

Heed my warning, my friends: even if you actually DO manage to get a "free lunch" out of someone?

If they ever offer you "free shoes"?

Think carefully!

You might just want to consider taking your feet, clad in their old shoes, and not walking, but RUNNING in the other direction.

Although I am SURE that Heelys NEVER DREAMED this would happen.

This only happens to people like me.

But whatever else you do?

Be sure to have a nice talk with your UPS guy about where you'd like him to leave your packages in the future.



Ok, obviously, I received product to compensate me for writing this post.
But I doubt the wonderful makers of Heelys expected THIS post. I certainly didn't.
All opinions are CLEARLY my own.

25th Wedding Anniversary, and What it Means to Cherish

Pin It A twenty-fifth wedding anniversary is no small thing.

And since it will only come around once in my life, and since a few of you asked to see the pictures we took on the evening of the event, I thought I'd share a few of those with you, as well as a few thoughts on being married to the same guy for 25 years.

Twenty-five years, and wow. I still adore this man. My Silver Fox.

These pictures don't represent the norm of my life, obviously. I do not dust my house in black polka dot chiffon. Oh, who am I kidding? I do not dust my house. I could have ended that sentence five words earlier.

Ok, if you're coming over for dinner, I DO dust my house. But otherwise, that's why God gave us minions. I mean, children. That's why God gave us the blessing of children. I dusted for my Mama. I put in my time. In the spirit of the Olympics, it was time to pass that dusty torch along to the next generation.

(In these next few pictures you'll see the outfit that I procured on my ill-fated shopping trip in Atlanta. My friend Kristi was with me when Sylvia the Sales Clerk Who Totally Knows What She's Doing, helped me pick them out.)

What you can't see are the zippers up the back of my red suede shoes.
You can do anything, but stay offa my red suede shoes.

A facebook friend asked if my hubby was cranking up the air-conditioning,
in hopes that a strong current of air might blast out of that vent.

I love this necklace.

I was talking with some girlfriends online the other day about the question, "Do you cherish your husband? Does he feel cherished?" Because, of course, it's crucial to nearly every woman that I know to feel cherished by her husband. "But what about us as wives?", one gal asked. "Do we cherish our men? Are we doing a good job at letting our men know that we cherish them, too?"

The discussion that followed included a lot of women being pretty hard on themselves, concerned that they were NOT cherishing their husbands as they ought. And I don't know: I'm not there, and I don't know their marriages, nor how they treat their husbands. Maybe it was a good wake-up call for them to have that discussion. I hope so!

Dinner at the Capitol Grill at the Hermitage Hotel in Nashville. SUPERB dinner. Truly.
Soft lighting, quiet, elegant ambiance, incredibly delicious food.
And print on the menus that was big enough to read in the soft lighting.
Which becomes important when you've reached a certain age.

 Even though I already was pretty sure I knew the answer he would give, I asked my husband, "Do you feel cherished?". And when he replied that he did, I joked, "Till the next time I'm mean to you?" and he answered, "Or the next time I'm mean to you. But that's all part of it."

It's not ALL wine and roses for us, like the little celebration we engaged in on this very special night was. (Just like I don't ALWAYS dress like this or look like this. Getting this gussied up takes a little work.) We are two hard headed people who struggle daily against our own selfish urges and desires. When we're doing it right, we're both being good team members, considering the welfare of the team, first. Treating the other the way we'd want to be treated. But we don't always get it right.

Although I would have said that each of us have always felt extremely blessed to be one half of a happy marriage, there's nothing like one partner facing a medical crisis to wake you up to the fact that you can take nothing for granted in this life. So is our marriage better off post-heart attack? Yes, I'd say so. He's taking better care of his body, because he knows if he wants to continue to live, he has no choice. As I drift off to sleep in the dark each night, I take a moment to reach over and touch that warm body next to me, and give thanks. I might have been alone, with a cold spot next to me in that bed, for over a year now.

So what does it mean to cherish your mate? How do I do that? To me, it starts with giving thanks. I give thanks privately, to God, from my heart. And as I pray, I remind myself of all the many, many wonderful ways that this man of mine is a blessing to me. And then, I give thanks out loud, to my man as well. I tell him the things I see in him that I respect and admire. I try to encourage him when things are tough. It's my goal let him know that as long as God gives me strength and life, that I am in his corner, and I have his back. I don't take what we have for granted. I try to take time to look into those beautiful eyes of his that first drew me to him, let go of anything unforgiven, and love him without reservation. To me, that's what it means to cherish.

Grilled peaches, pound cake, ice cream, a peach melba sauce, and lovely caramel decorations on the plate made a sweet ending to our special evening. Rose petals sprinkled on the table didn't hurt the effect one bit.

I realize a post celebrating a happy marriage might be a knife in the heart to people who are not in that place right now, but who long to be cherished themselves. Please know that my heart feels grateful for what I have at this moment, but not prideful. It's not a blessing I deserve, it's just a circumstance that I find myself in, at present. I am thankful to be loved, because I recognize my unworthiness.

 And what I wish for each one of us is the knowledge that even if right now, there is not a person on earth who has your back in that way, your Father in heaven loves you with a perfect love. He cherishes you, and loves you with a love that is everlasting, a love that will NOT let go.

 No. Matter. What.

"I have loved you with an everlasting love." Jeremiah 31:3

 

A Tale of Four Cities, Three Friends, Two Tires, and A Dog

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With apologies to Charles Dickens for downright thievery, and ultimately, the mutilation of his beautiful prose, I can sum up my adventure of a road trip in July, thusly:

It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
but it didn't stop just then.
Then, it was the best of times,
and the worst of times,
and the best of times, again.

or

Kristi And Sooze's Road Trip/Descent Into the Bowels of Hell

or

My, That's a Lot of Adventure to Pack Into One Mini Cooper.

Thelma and Louise
aka Kristi and Sooze
and the Mini Cooper

Here they are the happy, unsuspecting little innocents, starting out on their big road trip, all excited to be taking Kristi's husband's Mini Cooper on their pilgrimage. What fun, what fun, what fun!!! Look at them! They have NO IDEA what lies in wait ahead of them: isn't their optimism cute?

As we say here in the south about all feeble-minded idiots:
  "Well, bless their hearts!"

To begin at the beginning: Kristi and I met in California at a Mom's Weekend Out kind of event for homeschool moms who participated on an internet homeschooling curriculum forum. We liked each other immediately, and shortly after that meetup on the west coast, Kristi and her family decided to move from California to Tennessee. Our families became real life friends, and we have enjoyed each other's company ever since.

So, when Cheri, another Mom that we met on that California weekend many years ago, who lives on the West Coast, mentioned she and her family would be taking an East Coast vacation, and said that she'd be stopping in Atlanta for a few days, Kristi and I decided it would be great fun to take a little road trip to Atlanta to meet up with Cheri.

So, that's how our little adventure began: Kristi and Sooze, on their way to visit Cheri in Atlanta.

About one hour into the trip, things were going along swimmingly, and my phone rang. It was my husband. "I've got some bad news for you. Your wallet fell out of your purse, and you left it on the floor of my car when I dropped you off at Kristi's house."

Oh, crud.

Kristi felt like she could keep me fed till the trip was over, but, honestly, that kind of made a little chink in the joy of my journey. It's hard to feel independent and free when you have to bum money off a friend and her debit card. And harder still to check into a hotel room that you've reserved with Priceline which requires a photo ID, when you have none.

But that was OK. We would not be dismayed. My husband would fax the hotel a copy of my driver's license, and all would be well.

Onward to Atlanta, like Sherman. Sort of.

We arrived at the place where Cheri was staying, and got to meet Cheri's family. Awesome! We stole Cheri away from her family, and checked into our hotel, and went out for dinner. We talked and laughed and shared our hearts, and ate great food. Such a sweet time!  So lovely a time were we having, in fact, that I forgot to take any pictures till we were about to leave the restaurant. We had stopped off in the bathroom before we left, and there we asked a  woman to take our picture with my ipad. So, it's not the best quality of picture, but you'll get the idea. We were three friends, really, really happy to see each other, having had a lovely, lovely evening together.

It was the best of times.

Yes, this was taken in a bathroom.
Don't YOU take pictures in a bathroom???

We took Cheri back to be with her family, and we went to the hotel I had Pricelined. Nice hotel, good deal. I'd go back to the Hilton Garden Suites Perimeter again! Kristi and I stayed up into the wee hours, talking, and made plans to go shopping in the morning at the Perimeter Mall that was just minutes away from our hotel, before we headed back to Nashville the next day. Atlanta is a big city, and it has some great shopping. And since we were there, and I had a 25th wedding anniversary coming up, and a girlfriend in tow, it seemed like it would be a GREAT opportunity to do a little shopping! We turned out the lights, and I slept the sleep of the dead. I love black out curtains. Between black out curtains and a white noise machine and half a sleeping pill, I truly slept deeply and well, for almost the first time in a couple of months. Because, it had been a couple of months since Deacon D. Dawg had his medical crisis, and went on steroids, and began waking me in the middle of the night, every night, to be let out.

So when I called my husband in the morning, to tell him about the wonderful evening I'd had and the great night of sleep I had finally gotten, he told me that the night before, while I was enjoying my wonderful evening with my friends, Deakie had gone into his last medical crisis, and that he'd had to have Deakie put to sleep that morning, and that he was outside, on the overlook,  digging Deakie's grave.

I crumbled.

It was the worst of times.

I've already told you that story, so I won't go into it here, but suffice it to say that I was devastated that I'd left my sweet husband to face the crisis alone, and that I had actually forgotten to say goodbye to Deakie, in my mad rush to get out the door to Kristi's house. The "Miracle Dog" of our little berg had made it through so much. He was going downhill, yes, but he'd been going downhill for two and a half months. It hadn't crossed my mind that my one night away might be his last night alive. But, as it turned out, it was.

I cried a while, but on some levels, I confess that I was relieved. So I wavered between guilt, and relief, and I guess I still kind of do. But I wasn't hearing this news all alone, and I wasn't with my husband, and I didn't feel like I could give in fully to my grief. So...onward. We had to move forward.

Onward, in our original plan, was our trip to Perimeter Mall. To a store where they had the cutest dress ever, and a sales clerk in full possession of the "fluff and puff gene". This girl, Sylvia, was a hot little chiquita who knew how to accessorize: you could see it in the way she dressed herself. You could see it in the clothes she brought me to try on. Have you ever walked into a fine restaurant, and just put yourself and your taste buds into the hands of a waiter who knew how to feed you, who knew what to order for you? Or asked the right wine connoisseur, like Denny Jiosa, to pick out the right wine to go with your meal? Sylvia brought me a dress that was perfect for my body type, and then the shoes, the jewelry, and even the jacket to go with it. I felt like a strawberry blonde Marilyn Monroe in that get-up. Kristi gave me every ounce of enthusiastic affirmation I needed: this outfit was a winner!

It was the best of times.

But then, I had to take the wind out of Sylvia's sails. I had no credit card. I had no money. You should have SEEN how her countenance fell. It made ME feel awful. Because she and I BOTH knew she had more than done her job. She had dressed me to the nines. And now, the final ka-CHING was eluding her grasp. But Sylvia was ever resourceful. She wrote down the total cost on a business card, and told me to call her the next day, and shipping would be free, and she'd give me a discount as well.

So, Kristi and I hit the road, and waved a fond farewell to Hotlanta, which appeared to be melting into a puddle in the Mini-Cooper's rear view mirror. Dang it was hot! We drove a couple of hours, to a little town in nowhere, Georgia, that shall remain nameless. Kristi started noticing the road noise was getting louder. The Mini Cooper was equipped with tires called run-flats. I refer to Wikipedia, here,  because, "Law,  Miss Scawh-lett, I don't know nuffin' 'bout changin' no tie-ahs", : run-flats are designed to resist the effects of deflation when punctured, and to enable the vehicle to continue to be driven at reduced speeds and for limited distances. So we pulled off to see if perhaps any of her tires were low.

One was. A nice gentleman offered to help us put air in the tire that was low on air. But as it turned out, there was no air machine at that station. "If you'll drive underneath the interstate bridge to the other side of the highway, there's a service station there that should have an air machine", he said. He followed us there, put some air in the suspiciously low tire, and then, as we walked around the car to inspect the other tires, to see if they might need air, we heard a "BOOM!"coming from the tire he had just inflated. Down the road of the small town we limped, at 5 mph, the nice gentleman still following us, to what he told us would be a tire store about a mile down the road. And we saw a sign with pictures of tires on it...although the sign was in Spanish....

We pulled over. The owner of the store spoke only Spanish. We spoke no Spanish. Boo! Guy who followed us spoke fluent Spanish. Yay!!! He meant for us to drive further up the road to a store that looked less like a chop shop! Boo! But this guy who owned the store where we'd stopped, apparently had the right size tire! Yay! (Mini-Cooper sized tires are a rare commodity in Small Town, Georgia.) So, the tire guy goes immediately to work on our car, and in 20 minutes, we are on our way, rejoicing, that this could have gone SO. MUCH. WORSE!

Twenty minutes later, it does. Road noise gets loud, again. This time, the loud road noise is accompanied by the pungent, acrid smell of burning rubber...No. Please, dear Lord, no. We pull off at the first gas station at the end of the exit ramp in Ringgold, GA.

Ringgold, Georgia, is somewhat infamous in the state of Tennessee. It's very near the state line that divides Georgia from Tennessee. It's near Chattanooga. It's where underage girls from Tennessee can cross the state line and get married legally, without worrying about being underage. Don't ask me how I know this, but it is possible I may have an acquaintance who had occasion to take advantage of this little legal loophole. I digress.

Tire #2. In shreds.

Our tire is in shreds. Same tire: the brand NEW tire, the one acquired at the tire store that kinda looked like a chop shop. The guy we run into at THIS gas station is not so accommodating nor helpful as the previous guy. He mentions that there's a tire store 5 miles up the road. He doesn't offer to help in any way. He mentions that there is a gas station on the other side of the interstate that might be more likely to help us than this sorry excuse for a gas station where we pulled off. So we CRAWL our way underneath the interstate bridge and pull into the Kangaroo station in Ringgold, GA.

We began calling Mini Cooper Roadside Assistance in the meantime for help with this Mini Cooper tire situation. They offer to tow us either to Atlanta (three hours in the wrong direction: I don't think so.) or to Knoxville (three hours north in the wrong direction: again, I don't think so.) but since there's no Mini Cooper dealership in Chattanooga (10 minutes away) they won't tow us there, and somehow, Nashville, which is only an hour and a half away, which has a Mini Cooper dealership, and which is where we want to go, is out of their towing range. SERIOUSLY!

So we call Kristi's husband, who has to leave work, go home, change clothes, go pick up a wheel, and drive all the way to Ringgold GA, where he plans to spend the night sleeping in his Mini-Cooper (if you can imagine!!!)  at the Kangaroo Station, in order to get it fixed in the morning.

Meanwhile, we spend the next 4 hours stranded in air conditioned comfort at the truck stop, becoming the new BFF's of several truckers. We walked, with semis whizzing by us, and probably looking a lot like women of easy virtue looking for a ride, to four separate locations at that exit: the Chevron, the Waffle House, the Travel Center, and the Kangaroo, and it is with great disappointment, but with some authority, that I can report to you that not a single truckstop in Ringgold, Georgia has wi-fi. So much for me whiling away the time talking with my Facebook friends. Nor does the Kangaroo TV room have access to local TV stations, so NBC was unviewable, and thus, the Opening Ceremonies to the Olympics, that Kristi had SO longed to see, were not on the menu for our viewing pleasure.

It was the worst of times.

However, the Kangaroo Mart IS the best of the lot, if you're going to HAVE to spend a good portion of your day at what we like to call the Truck Spa in Ringgold, GA. It comes complete with wine or beer that can be purchased (we didn't), all the chocolate, junk food, and fountain drinks your belly could hold, a glass display case of Krispy Kreme donuts, an in-store Subway Sandwich Shop, showers, a TV room with very deep, comfortable fake leather sofas, and poker machines if you're feeling lucky, which, for some reason...we weren't. Go figure.

Yup. You can get clean, get drunk, and wipe out your savings, if you've a mind to, at the Kangaroo.

But you can't get towed to Nashville if you're driving a Mini Cooper.

Four hours and several episodes of Seinfeld later (our trucker BFF's were nice enough to let us avoid the porn on the TV menu, and even gave us control of the TV remote, bless them), The Cavalry, in the form of Kristi's sweet husband, showed up to rescue us. We drove the Suburban back to Nashville-ish.

It was the best of times, again.

 Well...for us, anyway. I think spending a sweltering, mosquito-laden summer night trying to sleep in a Mini-Cooper at a truck stop beside the interstate constitutes the worst of times for her husband, The Cavalry.

That's a lot of adventure to pack into one little Mini Cooper, wouldn't you agree?

I hope to never have a day quite that full of drama again, for a long, long time.

Ever had one of those days?

World's Most Beautiful Wedding Song and Video

Pin It World's Most Beautiful Wedding Song???

Seriously, Sooze? Perhaps you exaggerate? Just a touch?

Well...since I was the bride, and my husband, the groom, was the man who WROTE the song for me?

Absolutely not.  I do NOT overstate my case.

This IS the World's Most Beautiful Wedding song.

And it was sung 25 years ago, at my wedding, by our friends,  The Adventures of Rodeo and Juliet.

Who, I might add, are going to get a LARGE CHARGE out of their hairdos once they see this!

It was the era of Don Johnson, and Miami Vice, and the scruffy look was IN!

It was the era of the mullet: business in the front, party in the back.

THANK GOD I had the sense to think that MAYBE my rock and roll mullet hairstyle might date the wedding photos just a bit, so I asked my bridesmaid to pin my "party in the back" up on my head.

I cannot believe that I'm going to do this, but, here we go: this is a clip from my wedding, 25 years ago, in honor of our 25th wedding anniversary:

 8-8-87

The song, "I Do" written by my sweet husband and his friend, just for the event.

I think the song itself stands the test of time, even if the hairstyles might not.

Enjoy!!!

I Do from Lindsey Williams on Vimeo.


P. S. Let me know if you liked it!

And They Called It Puppy Love

Pin It From the moment we eased our car down the driveway of the house that sat on the shore of Old Hickory Lake, and saw eleven white Labrador puppies lined up in a row, each standing on two legs with their paws resting on top of a short chicken wire fence, wagging their little tails at us for all they were worth, whining to be picked up, held, cuddled and loved, we knew we were sunk. The cuteness was overwhelming. We were putty in their puppy paws.

Which, if you think about it, is already a recipe for trouble.

Putty's bad enough. Never give it to a puppy.

Last week, I told you about Deacon D. Dawg's departure from this earth. This week, although I have no time machine with which to whisk you back to the moment of his arrival on our planet, I do have a few photographic offerings, from his first year in our home, that I hope will make you smile.

And I think you just might. After all, who can resist a puppy?

We certainly couldn't. And therein lay the problem.

His breeders told us Deaky's father was an award winning champion hunting dog, named Bogey. Bogey's vet adored Bogey to the point that he started thinking about preserving the genes of this wonderful dog. So he took it upon himself to ask the owner of his favorite female yellow lab in his practice, and arranged a little meetup between Bogey and the Mama, Bailey. He lit some candles, poured some Perrier in the water dish, played a few Barry White tunes, and 11 joy-filled, wiggling, whining puppies were the outcome of that blind date.

Rather than serving as a warning complete with flashing red lights, (father: outdoor loving, high activity champion sporting dog), we allowed our vanity to be fed. After all, this puppy would have award winning genes. He came from a love match made by an excellent, loving veterinarian.

It sounded good in theory, but what it produced was the world's mouthiest puppy, eager to chew anything he could wrap his little chompers around. Labs, during their first two years of life are crazy. Cuhraaaaaaayzeeeeeee. But, OMGeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, was he CUTE!!!

Don't be taken in by the cuteness. Cuteness in a Lab spells T.R.O.U.B.L.E.

Yes, Mama looks a little disheveled.  But happy!
Who has time to fix her face with a 5 year old boy, a two year girl, and this brand new bundle of joy?
Because, remember, in a Lab puppy, a bundle of joy spells. T.R.O.U.B.L.E.

The bundle of joy was deliriously happy to be added to our pack.

And...well...for the MOST part...the pack was happy to have added him, too.
Despite the looks of tragedy, uncertainty, and well...awkwardness you see written on each of the faces  here.
We all had to adjust to each other.

But that brand new puppy family member could retrieve till the cows came home.
Had we had any cows.

He'd retrieve until he was plum tuckered out.

After a busy morning of retrieving, and chewing anything he could wrap his jaws around, he'd collapse in the corner for a nap amongst my daughter's stuffed animals.
Can you find the REAL puppy in this picture?
Hint: Jar Jar Binks is not a puppy.

But oh, how quickly those little puppies do grow up.
Birthdays happen, and before you know it...

Your little bundle of joy starts looking like a real dog.

Tune in soon for just a few more memories celebrating the life and good times of the best bad dog we ever had, Deacon. D. Dawg.

Have you ever been a victim of puppy love?