Thanksgiving Nest

I love Thanksgiving.  I love gathering with family and friends.  I love that cooking a turkey is pretty darn easy.  I love taking stock of all my many blessings.

I am most grateful for my full fridge...because that means I have a houseful...including all FIVE of my children.  Don't you love it when all your chicks are back in the nest?  Friends, Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.  Enjoy every morsel.

Baking Tradition

 I spent this past Saturday morning making my grandmother's Poticia.  My four sisters and I grew up helping my mom make this Slavic sweet bread...and C and B grew up helping me make it.  I think traditions like this are important...especially around holiday time.

The first step is to make a sweet roll dough.  My mom uses the one in the Betty Crocker cookbook, but lately I have been using the Pioneer Woman's recipe because it is delicious and makes enough dough that I can make cinnamon rolls too.  While the dough is rising, I make the filling.

This is how the original recipe is written:

2 eggs

 1/2 to 1 cup honey (I use 1 cup)

1 1/2 to 2 pounds walnuts (I use 1 and 1/2 pounds)

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup evaporated milk

This is a classic recipe handed down from my mom's side of the family....a little vague on the measurements.... and some steps you should just know (or remember) because you have been helping your mom make this recipe since you could walk and talk. For example, what is missing from this recipe is the following:

1.  The walnuts need to be chopped finely in a food processor 

2.  Heat the mixture, stirring occasionally, until thickened.

Next, cover your surface with a clean sheet, flour it generously, and then roll out one quarter of the dough (if you are using the Pioneer Woman recipe).

Spread the filling over the dough and then roll it up "like a snake".  This is where the sheet comes in handy.

Place in buttered loaf pan.

Cover and let rise for 30 minutes.

Bake at 375F for 15 minutes and 350F for 20 minutes.

Friends, isn't it amazing how smells transport you back in time? 

 I made some of the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls too and popped them in the freezer for Thanksgiving breakfast.

Ordinary Grace

I have been putting my gardens to bed for the winter...

...and I have been cleaning like crazy now that the workman are finally finished with the inside part of our seemingly never-ending construction project.

So, of course, while I am working I have been listening to this book about a family in a small town in Minnesota in the 1950's.   I am really glad my book club picked this book for December!  The writing is so brilliant...I had trouble choosing quotes to share...there are just so many:

"God never promised us an easy life.  He never promised that we wouldn't suffer, that we wouldn't feel despair and loneliness and confusion and desperation.  What he did promise was that in our suffering we would never be alone.  And though we may sometimes make ourselves blind and deaf to his presence he is beside us and around us and within us always.  We are never separated from his love.  And he promised us something else, the most important promise of all.  That there would be surcease.  That there would be an end to our pain and our suffering and our loneliness, that we would be with him and know him, and this would be heaven."

Powerful Prayer

Big T has been lighting candles and praying "for my perfect health" all over Israel.  This is both a prayer of thanksgiving and supplication.

The Church of the Multiplication (of the Loaves and Fishes) located on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee

St Peter's Church in Jaffa, Israel (near Tel Aviv) 

Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem

*****

When I am feeling powerless, either because of a cancer diagnosis or a bombing in Paris, I turn to prayer.  And prayer has power.  Friends, please pray for peace. 

Energy Medicine

This weekend I went to  Mount St Scholastica for a workshop entitled "Ministering to Body Mind and Spirit".  The Benedictine Nun's advertised this experience as being "for everyone interested in learning how to use the brilliance and wisdom of the body's energies for wellness and wholeness."  Friends, as a stage three cancer survivor, I am committed to trying almost anything (with my doctor's approval, of course) to stay healthy....so, with this in mind, I headed up to the mother house.

Sister Linda taught us a Five Minute Energy Routine based on this book by Donna Eden.  The routine is very simple and frankly, fascinating.  I have been doing accupuncture, at my oncologist's suggestion, for almost three years, so I have experienced first hand the healing benefits of non traditional medicine.  Nevertheless, I was still skeptical.  Let me be clear; I am all about the idea of healing the body and the mind and the spirit together (sorry Descartes).  I just wasn't so sure about this Energy Medicine.  But it is easy to do and free, with no side effects, so I soldiered on. Then, as I often do, I read ahead to the last page of the handouts where I found this quote from Dr. Mehmet Oz, MD:

"Alternative medicines deal with the body's energy--something that traditional Western medicine generally does not.  We're beginning now to understand things that we know in our hearts are true but we could never measure.  As we get better at understanding how little we know about the body, we begin to realize that the next big frontier in medicine is Energy Medicine.  It's understanding for the first time how energy influences how we feel."

Sister Linda maybe should have lead with this.  She now had my full attention.

Joyful and Grateful

Big T and his old friend Father Jeff have been traveling overseas for the last week.  They started in Greece and then went to Jordan.  

They will be in Israel for the next week.  (This is the Rock of St Peter, by the way.) 

*****

 Friends, I was not able to make this trip.  While I thankfully had a terrific response to my cancer treatment, I am still in the healing process, and my new body simply cannot do this type of travel....yet.....and maybe ever.

My grandmother lost her eyesight in her golden years.  I remember her telling me, "I like to focus on the things I can still do."  Thanks Gram!  There is still so much I can do....and I am having a great time doing it.  I hope my grandchildren will remember me, as I remember my gram:  joyful and grateful.

Fearless Flying

I spent the last few days in Minneapolis and St Paul with some very dear friends.

Love these women.

Laughed till we cried.

Twin Cities were gorgeous.

Weather was perfect.

Best therapy ever.

Mall of America still there.

Enough on that....

*****

Friends, I really want to focus on how I got to Minneapolis from KC.  This trip is only about a 6 hour drive....nevertheless, I FLEW.  This is very exciting for me, because I have been struggling with an irrational fear of flying for the last decade (due to a bad flight from Amsterdam to Detroit where, in my mind, I almost died).  I (reluctantly) fly all the time...but when I have the opportunity to drive my big Expedition somewhere instead of getting on a Southwest flight, I used to ALWAYS take the driving option.

But thanks to this incredible flight therapist (who then became my cancer therapist) I now would prefer to FLY (which we all know is a much safer option).  No more pre-flight anxiety---I now sleep like a baby the night(s) before a flight.   No more going to confession before getting on a plane (just in case it goes down) because it isn't going down.

In his book, "Nerve", Taylor Clark does a great job of explaining why it is important to face your fears and not let them beat you. While I must admit I still HATE turbulence, thanks to my work with my flight therapist, I now know that "turbulence is uncomfortable but not dangerous".  I have learned a lot of tricks to get me through those trips when the flight attendants are not allowed to get out of their seats due to weather.  If you are in the 25% of the population that hates to fly....I hope this has inspired you.  Life is too short to be afraid.

Care Package Cookies

This SOS  text arrived from B yesterday.  Care package is  B code for  oatmeal cookies.  

B's Favorite Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) butter (softened)

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 and 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

3 cups oatmeal

1 package white chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1/2 cup dried cherries

Bake at 350F for about 8 minutes

Sent them off to ND this morning with lots of love.  Study hard, B!

My Public Service Announcement

I had my annual colonoscopy last week.  Of course the prep is brutal (and it makes me crazy that Big T, who is twice my size, has the same dose as me???) but friends, you gotta do it.  It can save you life.  When you turn 50, Happy Birthday! and get a colonoscopy. Vigilance is good.  Enough said.

I am so thankful for Dr. Mavec and his team, for my prayer warriors and for a CLEAN colonoscopy.  Halleluja! I have no more scans until February! Let the holiday season begin!

Weekend Winners

Big T and I spent the weekend in Chicago.  Here is the view from our hotel room. Did you know that if you book your room at the Ritz the  same day you check in, you can get a great deal?  

We kicked off the weekend with a delicious family dinner. 

Now that the Cubs are out of the race, we could convert all our Chicago nieces and nephews to Royals fans!

The next day we watched B and the ND Women's Club Volleyball team remain undefeated.

Later, at the Fig and Olive (great venue) we met up with a dear college friend and his wife.  She is living with stage four lung cancer (and no, she has never smoked).  Her positive attitude, courage in the face of fear, acceptance of the terminal nature of this life and  decision to LIVE were both inspiring and comforting.

That night we watched Notre Dame beat Temple and the Royals win again.  But the greatest victor we had the honor of witnessing this weekend is our brave friend who has embraced her journey and, in so doing, is showing the rest of us how to really live.