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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Soup and Seeds

Life is busy: up by 6:45, off to work by 7:50 (of course always aiming for 7:45), work until 4:30, get a workout in, get home by 6:45...DINNER? It's a lot to think about. Of course there's also chores (dishes, laundry, bills, trash), and then yard work, not to mention some quality time lounging on the couch with my husband. When's a girl to focus on GOOD FOOD? What to cut out? Job? Workout? Bills? Nah, I can't cut anything out right now, but what I can do is make quick and easy meals using what I have in my cabinets. Last night, I had beans, spinach, canned tomatoes, and some leftover stock. I googled these ingredients in that order and found this recipe on Epicurious! Delicious. In some ways I feel bad that I have foregone most of the beautiful and colorful cookbooks I own and simply resort to the world wide web, but gosh it's so easy! It accommodates to what I already have rather than me having to accommodate to the recipe.

White Bean and Tomato Soup
in the making!


And the delicious finished product paired with some crusty garlic bread! Flavor heaven.



Another thing that was on my to-do list last night (or for the past week) was to plant some of the seeds that will be our hardier plants this season. My husband is currently traveling in the Middle East for work (but really touring places like the Dead Sea and Petra). He has become very passionate about organic gardening and farming. In fact, that is his newfound life goal. This works quite nicely for our family, because it also excites me. I love to see things grow from nothing to something. I love to make things beautiful. I love to cook with fresh ingredients! and one day, we hope to sustain ourselves almost solely on what we produce. We're the perfect match - I take care of the beautifying (flowers, perennials, herbs, landscape) and he takes care of the edibles. But since he's been away for almost 3 weeks, he's missed one of the warmest springs Boone has seen in a long time! Hence, he has requested that his lovely wife take on the job of planting the seeds. No biggie. I can do that. I'm very capable. This could just be another chore to add to the list, right? Or is it? Part of me is suddenly feeling the weight of our family farm's future on my shoulders! He's spent the entire winter reading and researching gardening methods, ordering the perfect heirloom seeds, and everything in between, and the culmination of all of that time spent and our future is now falling into my little fingers? Every one of those teeny tiny seeds has to find its way to the perfect section of soil to become the perfect little seedlings like these. Amazing.


I realize I'm exaggerating, so I just planted the dang seeds, just like any other person who plants seeds every year, but I must say there was definitely some stress in my shoulders.

After I had a chance to get over my stress about planting the precious seeds, and after I found my center in yoga today, I realized that this was likely one of those moments that maybe felt intimidating yet ordinary at the time, but in reality was quite a historical moment for our family. Kind of like Neil Armstrong's step on the moon. "This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." I prayed that God would bless my efforts for our family farm and multiply them by 10,000...or a million.

3 comments:

  1. Haha, you're funny. I like your pictures by the way, and thanks for planting my seeds! And yes, the Dead Sea and Petra are pretty cool places to visit :)

    Marys Husband

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  2. from mom;
    your writing skills are wonderful...and so are your planting skills. I'm proud of johnny boy for allowing you to be the planter. he must think highly of you. Good eating!

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  3. Very nice post Mary! You're a blogger! I love epicurious too. It's almost the only site I use. I'm sure the seeds will grow wonderfully.
    Mary's sister:)

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