The Day I Stopped Worrying About Having Children

"When are you guys going to have a baby?!"

"You guys would have the cutest babies, you have to do it!"

"You really want to have kids while you're still young enough to play with them!"

"You're never going to be 'ready'. There is never a good time. You just have to jump in and do it!"

That last one is probably my favorite. This is just a sampling of well meaning friends, family and perfect strangers unsolicited advice on family planning that I receive roughly three times daily from one source or another. It. Never. Ends.

If you are family or a close friend that has asked, pestered or badgered me about when we are having babies (MOM), I would just say that I love and adore you to the ends of the earth. And I will continue to do so even if you continue to hound me. But I kind of wish you wouldn't. Here is why...

I want children. With every fiber of my being I know that I am meant to be a mama. I occasionally get to hold a newborn infant at the OB/GYN clinic I work at and it literally makes my insides ache. I want one. Oh, I want one. Most recently I got to hold a three day old baby at a program I volunteer with that cares for children who have just been removed from their homes and are awaiting foster care placement. THREE DAYS OLD. I held her and cried and prayed for her and the uncertainty of her future. I also considered making a mad dash to Mexico with her and just starting a new life because NO ONE COULD POSSIBLY LOVE HER MORE THAN I DO. So yeah. I want kids.

My sweet husband isn't there yet. He just isn't. He will tell you he looks to our future and he sees children, definitely. But not yet. Not today. Not this year. Maybe not next.

A few things you should know about my husband: HE IS THE BEST OF ALL OF THE HUSBANDS. Okay, that's just one thing, but it's really the only thing you need to know. He loves me. My God, he loves me so well. He provides, protects, nurtures, and adores me. He is ever faithful and I never doubt his devotion to me. And that is why I am done nagging him for children.

I will truthfully just tell you that the last two weeks have probably been the hardest our 3.5 year marriage has faced. If you've been around either of us in those last two weeks you probably are surprised to hear that. We practice what Marshall and Lily from our favorite sitcom How I Met Your Mother call "The Pause." We completely shelf a spat to attend events with our friends and family only to come back and finish it later. Except we don't half-ass shelf it, but meanwhile make everyone uncomfortable with our awkwardness and snarky comments to one another. We really shelf it. And enjoy each other and everyone else. And then come back to it. It's something I recommend, but I digress.

So like I said, the last two weeks have sucked. It started because we had planned on ending birth control a couple weeks ago. And a few months before that. And then a few months before that, too. Brett wasn't ready either time before and nothing had changed this time. And then I lost my shit and I lost it hard.

"WE ARE THIRTY! I AM NOT AN ASSHOLE FOR WANTING A CHILD AT THIRTY! I AM NORMAL! YOU ARE THE ASSHOLE!"
(For the record, he never called me an asshole. I just really wanted him to know that I AM NOT ONE.)

 "DO YOU EVEN CARE THAT I AM THE ONE THAT HAS TO CARRY THE BABY AND THE OLDER I GET THE HARDER THAT IS ON ME?!"
(Of course he cares.)

"I AM NOT HAVING KIDS AFTER 35! I WORK IN AN OB/GYN OFFICE, I SEE THESE WOMEN AND WHAT A LOT OF THEM GO THROUGH AND I AM NOT DOING IT!"
(Turns out, maybe I AM an asshole.)

That's just a smattering of the arguments/insanity I hurled relentlessly for the last two weeks. Brett's replies were mostly, "I know", "I'm sorry", and "I don't know how to fix this short of having a baby right now and that isn't what I want. At all."

My husband wants more time with just me. He wants to move into the house we just bought in the coming month and enjoy time there with just the two of us. He wants to continue our life of leisure and ease and freedom a while longer. He wants to travel with me. He wants to play more. HOW DARE HE! Seriously though, these things all sound pretty great, right?

For the last year I felt my anxiety building slowly, steadily and then rapidly surrounding having a child. I turned thirty this year. Something about that number made me panic about having children. Something about that number made me panic about a lot of things. I put myself on a timeline and I was so behind! We hadn't bought a house or saved enough money or traveled enough or had a baby! What the hell was I doing with my life?! It's now or never, we do this now, we have a baby, or we don't. But I can't live in limbo waiting for the next phase of life to start! NOW OR NEVER! I became insane and obsessed.

So it came to a head. And we both said hard truths about how we were feeling on the subject. And we thought. And prayed. And fought. And then repeated the cycle. And then it got better. It got better when I took a really hard look inside at what was motivating this urgent demand for a child. It wasn't exactly flattering, but it's real and I share it in hopes that I am not alone and someone will read this and say, "Yes! Me too!"

I am so afraid of the unknown and regret and loss that I lost all of my faith and peace on the subject. My anxiety surrounding being an older mom, potential fertility issues, etc. had taken over and made me lose sight of what I know to be true: that I am meant to be a mother and it will be so. It will. Not today, not tomorrow, but someday. Maybe not biologically even. But some how, through some avenue, I will. And it will be beautiful. And in the interim I will enjoy this season of my life sans children. Mostly importantly, I will stop putting timelines and ultimatums and demands on my husband. Because he has done nothing wrong.

I will not let one more person, article, or statistic rob me of my joy and contentment with my life. I will not let fear and anxiety make decisions for me, especially decisions on a topic as important as children. I will not worry about whether we will be able to have biological children stress and concern me any longer. If we can't, we weren't meant to. We do know we are called to love and care for foster children. We'll do that regardless. And that will be more than enough. And I will get back to this business to loving and cherishing my husband, when it's easy and when it's hard. Like I vowed and swore before God and our family and friends. And so I would end by asking my family and friends to think before speaking on the subject matter. Not just to me, but to anyone. Ask yourself if what you are saying on the subject of children encourages unity or discourse in that person's marriage. Ask yourself if you know the person well enough to be having that intimate of a conversation. Because it IS an intimate conversation. And one I welcome with my close friends and family, but not strangers I am meeting for the first time. A good rule of thumb is that if someone isn't close enough to have disclosed to you that they miscarried, they probably aren't close enough for you to be nosing around their reproductive life.

And now I'm going to stop writing and go pour a glass of wine. Maybe I'll tend to my terribly neglected laundry, maybe I'll just sit with Brett on the couch and watch the skate video he just turned on and finish that whole bottle of wine and sleep in before taking off for the beach to go drink more wine and relax for the weekend because I don't have kids and I can do WHATEVER I WANT. Yeah, I'll probably do that. Because that won't last forever. But the laundry will.

A Quitter's Manifesto

I started to call this "In Defense of Quitting." But now that feels wrong...that implies that quitting requires a good defense.

You better have a damn good reason, otherwise you stick it out. Quitters never win and winners never quit! This is America and if we do one thing well it's persevere.

Well, not me.

I will quit the shit out of things. I will quit so fast your head will spin. I literally can not count the number of jobs I have had in my eleven years of adulthood. I think it falls comfortably between fifteen and twenty, but who is counting? Not me. Not anymore.

And let's not even go into the higher learning institutions I have ran away screaming from. There have been four. Soon to be five, as the prompting of this writing is the fact that I am quitting Aveda Institute's esthiology program. Cue "Beauty School Drop Out" from Grease. I know. What kind of jerk can't suck it up and finish a trade school?! This one. That's who.

A little background...

Growing up, my parents were firmly in the camp that you do not let your kids quit anything. Ever. (Disclosure: I adore my parents, they're darling people. They would be the first to admit that perhaps this method did not serve them or us well all of the time, so don't think I'm throwing them under the bus here. Trust me, we have had countless laughs and tears shed on this very topic.)

So when I consistently came home in tears from sixth grade nearly every day for months on end, BEGGING, pleading, and eventually threatening to physically throw myself on the ground and not attend the middle school my parents insisted I get a boundary exception and go to, of course they would not relent. My demands were simple: let me transfer to the school I should be attending based on our address, the one where all of my friends since Kindergarten go to. OR, let me go to the Vancouver Arts School so I can focus on playing piano. I'm good at that and I love it! But for the love of Jesus, do not make me go back to Alki Middle School.

This persisted until eighth grade when I realized they really weren't going to budge. During this time, I was also in sports. I was decent. I was tall which was a huge advantage for basketball. I had played softball from the time I was five, so I was good at that. I was never fast, but my height in basketball and decent shooting ability helped balance that. In softball I learned if you don't run fast you better learn to hit hard. Don't get me wrong, sports are great and I learned a lot. I'm grateful for most of my time spent playing and I know my parents never wanted anything but to provide my with all of the opportunities they could.

But I burnt out on sports years before I was actually allowed to quit. I remember one explosive fight with my dad who accused me of not wanting to play and having a bad attitude. "I KNOW, THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN TELLING YOU, I DON'T WANT TO PLAY!" I shouted. He informed me if that was the case, fine. Don't bother getting up for the tournament tomorrow, you can just quit. SWEET SWEET RELEASE! YES! I felt like a weight had been lifted, it was magical. I knew my parents adored me and we would work past this but the important thing was I had been heard! I could FINALLY quit...and then at 6am, pounding on my bedroom door and dad yelling at me to get up for the game. I should have known.

I don't know anyone with more tenacity and perseverance than my dad. That man...wow. His drive and motivation to run his own successful businesses and often work 18 hour days when I was young, it's remarkable. I admire it, I truly do. And I inherited a lot of my dad's personality. But not all the chutzpah, you know?

My mother would tell you I'm more like my father. Shes referring to our temperament and hot headedness. She's not wrong, I definitely take after my father in that regard (although I have seen her throw a hissy with the best of them!) But I am also a lot like her, especially as I get older. We all become our mothers to varying degrees, don't we? My mother is a caretaker extraordinaire. She keeps us all together and well. She is a fiercely loyal friend. She's someone I would absolutely choose as a friend as an adult, and I have. I believe my friends would tell you I have inherited these traits from my mom. In fact I know they would, they have told me.

I give you this background and tell you these things to shed some light on people who quit and quitting in general for those who don't understand. I quit things. I do not quit people. I make friends and keep them. They're stuck with me, much to some of their chagrin I'm sure. Another common misconception about people who frequently quit jobs or school, is laziness. I hesitate to write this, it feels weird. But I'm going to say it because I am so disgusted and sick of this stereotype. I do more volunteer/charity work than you. Okay, that was inflammatory. No, not all of you. But I will say without question or hesitation that I do more than the majority of my friends. And that is not a slight to you, dear reader. It is to say that if you think in my lapses between school or work that I have not filled it with purposeful, important work...well, you could not be more wrong. In the times that I have had a break and not held a paying job or been in school the last few years, those have been the times I have had more on my calendar and been busier day to day than any time when I have held a job. Because I'm not inherently lazy. I couldn't be with my genes. Auberts and Foxes, they don't sit still well. We fuss over people, often unnecessarily, but we do it none the less.

All of this to get to the point. So why do I quit? It's not laziness, I typically feel good when busy. Maybe it's rebellion against not being allowed to quit things as a child, but I kind of doubt that plays more than a smidgen of a part in it. I've been thinking a lot about this lately. I have an innate ability to recognize that something I'm doing is not serving me well and then WALK THE HELL AWAY. Which as it turns out, according to some friends as well as the internet, is actually a decent skill. (Now, this is not true of everything. Carbs don't serve me well, but they're so damn enjoyable I will never quit them until the day I die. Pasta, I wish I could quit you.) It's something I've always had, but was unable to exercise until adulthood. I recently had a friend tell me this was something she enjoyed about me. You see, I don't feel trapped by what is referred to as "sunk-cost." Sunk-cost is what it sounds like. Cost or time sunk into something. People often feel stuck doing something because of the time or money already spent, even when it does not serve them well to stay. I do not. Money comes and goes. I'm not bothered by not finishing something I paid for. Just because something remains unfinished does not make it a waste or not a valuable lesson or experience.

My husband being the Steady Freddy that he is enjoys routine and knowing that he is in a career he will stay in until he retires. And that's great. But when times at work have been rough for him, I have expressed that I don't expect him to stick anything out in misery for our financial benefit. I suggest off the wall ideas like us buying an espresso stand, one of those mobile ones, and we'll just travel around and do that! I think my crazy ideas are one of the things he loves about me, but Brett has a lot of my dad in him in that he has a need to provide stability for us. I'm grateful for that. He also understands, I hope, that I don't hold him to a higher standard than I do myself. We're resourceful, smart people. There are always going to be jobs for us.

I used to let it bother me when friends and family would comment on my flighty nature, my job hopping, my unpredictability. Those days are over. I owe no one (save my husband and Jesus) a defense or reason or explanation for quitting. It's just a part of who I am. And some of you will view it as a weakness and say things about me needing to stick with things, it's good for me, it builds character, etc. I would tell you I have a lot of character as is. I like my character. It took me the better part of thirty years to like who I am. I really like who I am. It's actually amazing, it's the only upside of edging closer to thirty every day I've found, I like myself better and better.

So what's next? Well, in true Jen fashion I already have a job lined up thankyouverymuch. So I'll do that. It sounds right up my alley and fun. And yay, we'll have more money for some upcoming trips! And yay, it's part time and affords me the flexibility to continue my volunteer commitments!  I have spent the last decade trying to figure out what I want to do, what I want to be...I think I finally figured it out!

I want to be the wife Brett deserves. I want to be a mother to the foster children of Clark County. I want to be a mother to our future biological children. I want to love my friends and neighbors in tangible ways that make them feel known and cared for. I want to pursue new relationships with all kinds of people. I want to spend time being a better sister and daughter. I want to pursue God daily.

Everything else will work itself out just fine. I will do and be a great many things in my life. Just wait and see.

The Day I Learned To Love My Body

I tend to hate most articles written on the topic of body image and loving your body. I find, for myself at least, that they miss the mark. The most recent one to earn my disdain was one that went viral, showing pictures of "real" women and their post-baby bodies. Some had cellulite and stretch marks, some you would never believe were pregnant three months earlier, they represented a wide range of women. And most people re-posted it touting it as being a victory for body image issues and shouts of "Yeah! Screw the media and their unrealistic ideas! Go us! Women!" could be heard across Facebook. So what is my damage, you may ask. Why do these kinds of articles hit a nerve and make me want to tell every woman re-posting this crap, "YOU ARE MISSING THE MARK! STOP!"

I'll tell you why.

First, these "body after baby" articles always imply that I somehow just don't get it, or am less of a woman or not part of the club because I have not given birth to a child. These articles purport to put women who have given birth and have the chutzpah to shed their clothes and pose for a camera up on a pedestal. Now, I'm not saying they are not brave or awesome women. I'm not saying that in the slightest, and if posing nude post-baby helps them get their sexy back, then that is just fine by me, though I wish they would do it truly for themselves and not make the appearance of their bodies the focal point of an Internet article. Here is why these articles rub me the wrong way: THEY ARE STILL FOCUSING ON THE OUTWARD APPEARANCE OF BODIES OF WOMEN.

They are not focusing on the strength or the amazing things the female body can do. They are simply focusing on the outward appearance. And I hate it. I hate it so hard.

Anyway, I want to share with you about the day I learned to love my body. Because no amount of reading "real women have curves" centric articles, no amount of my husband telling me how he loves my body, no amount of anyone telling me anything could have created the shift inside that happened last Sunday.

Last Sunday. January 19th, 2014. I did a half-marathon in Disneyland.

I am not in excellent shape. I did not train hardly at all. I WAS TERRIFIED. 

I signed up for this race with my best friend with the expectation that I would commit to about 9-10 weeks of training in preparation for this day. Didn't happen. I could not get motivated to save my life. There was not anything in me that wanted to train for this race. I can't explain it, I wanted to participate but I just couldn't drag myself to the gym. In retrospect I believe it was the feeling that I was so out of shape and so ill-prepared, I think I thought "why bother?" 

So, the night before the race I'm laying in bed and I'm cursing myself for not training and then for reasons unbeknown to me, my nana appeared in my head. Nana has been in a wheelchair for about 20 years. All of the sudden, I'm picturing very vividly my nana in the stands at one of my softball games as a kid, cheering me on. And then, tears. Tears in my eyes. And all I can think is, wow. I'm laying here complaining in my head about being signed up for a half-marathon I didn't train for and what would my nana give to be able to walk even just one mile? And then the wave of gratitude hit me and I began to thank God for giving me legs that work. Strong legs that I often curse as being too big. I claim to believe in a God who formed me in His image, and yet I curse the very body He has given me.

The gratitude did not stop that night. I awoke the next morning excited and with a feeling of peace. I am healthy, I have legs that work, and the rest is all mental. Period. I can absolutely do 13.1 miles. 

My bestie and I at the starting line at 5am.

The race began and we wound through Disneyland and California Adventure for about the first six miles. I was feeling great, couldn't stop smiling and loving it. Then the race went out onto the streets of Anaheim. And there weren't as many marching bands and costumed Disney characters cheering us on. Then the eighth mile hit and I was pretty much over the whole thing. 

I began to pray. Not for strength or the will to keep moving. I began to pray a prayer of thanks. Thank you, Lord, for legs that work and a heart that beats and lungs that rise and fall. Thank you, Jesus, for the financial means to go on a trip like this with my best friend. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And then tears filled my eyes again as they usually do when I feel heard by the Creator of all things good and right. 

As I kept on going through the last three miles, I never ceased thanking God for my body. I crossed the finish line and immediately burst into tears. I don't think I have ever been more proud of a physical accomplishment and it came over me in waves of emotion that I can not describe. It was beautiful. I WAS BEAUTIFUL. Dripping with sweat and bags under my eyes from the 3:30am wake up, I posed for a picture.

Normally I pick apart pictures of myself immediately after they are taken. I wish my arms were thinner, I wish my stomach was flatter, I wish my face were less round. Not this time. I looked at the picture and just saw strength and beauty. And that feeling has not left me. 

My body is strong and powerful in ways no picture can do justice. I can run races and climb mountains and bring human life into the world with my body. My body embraces those in times of sorrow and in joy with abounding hugs. This body has rocked babies to sleep and slid into home plate and jumped in lakes and rode down mountains. My body is so much more than a picture, or how it looks. I am strong beyond words and beautiful beyond description. 

Something incredible happens when you see yourself as TRULY beautiful and strong, from the inside out. All of the sudden, you want to take care of that body. I kept waiting to lose weight to feel good about myself, and now I realize I had it completely backwards. I needed to feel good about myself first. I needed to know my worth and strength and beauty never were in the numbers on the scale. They weren't in the numbers on the scale when I was 21 and 40 pounds lighter and they aren't in the scale now. My weight has NOTHING to do with my beauty. And the freedom that comes from believing that with every fiber of my being...indescribable. Here's to a healthy life full of adventure and activity, rest and running, broccoli and cake, water and wine. Here is to balance and loving ourselves, from the inside out. 

Make Ahead Breakfast For A Busy Day

So, if you told me ten years ago how much I would love being a housewife, I would have said you were definitely high. But I love it. I love cooking, I even enjoy cleaning (THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE LAUNDRY WHICH IS FROM SATAN HIMSELF) and I just love taking care of my husband. He works so hard at the railroad on such an unpredictable schedule, that's one of the reasons I've stayed home is so that we can have some time together. That said, I am getting ready to go back to work this winter in real estate and am very excited about it. This recipe will definitely be a keeper for busy mornings with no time to make a hot breakfast from scratch.

BREAKFAST ENCHILADAS

• Approximately 2 cups cooked breakfast meat (ham, sausage, bacon, whatever you like)
• 2 cups Tillamook Cheddar cheese (listen, you can use another brand...but that brand would be incorrect. Sooooo...your move.)
• Diced Veggies, about 1 cup, whatever you like (I used mushrooms and peppers)
• 2 cups half and half 
• 5 eggs
• 10 medium sized soft tortillas
• pepper

Take a 9"x13" baking dish and grease that mother with either Pam or butter or whatever. Grease it good, you don't want this masterpiece sticking.

Mix together whatever breakfast meats and veggies you chose in a bowl with 1 cup of the TILLAMOOK cheese. Seriously guys, it's just the best and I'm gonna have to insist here.

Portion your veggie/meat/cheese mixture evenly into the tortillas and place in the pan. Leave the ends open.

Whisk together your eggs and half and half. Add a little cracked black pepper if you're like me and put that noise in everything. Mix it. Mix mix it REAL good.

Pour the egg over the whole thing. Just dump it all over. Trust me on this.

Reserve the other cup of grated cheese until right before baking.

Pop it in the fridge, go to bed. You've got breakfast covered in the a.m.

Wake up. I know, it's rough. But you get a delicious hot breakfast today!

Preheat oven to 350.

Put that reserved cheese on top. Bake COVERED with tinfoil for approximately 35 minutes or until it is completely set. The egg mixture weirdly makes its way in to the enchiladas and makes like ten mini breakfast burritos. Craziness. Awesome. Anyway, after 35 min, pop the foil off and bake another 10 minutes uncovered. VOILA. Breakfast. 

Seriously, they were delicious and kept awesome in the fridge, we ate them two more days in a row and Brett even took one for lunch. They would freeze well too, I think. Also, you could totes cut this recipe in half. They are awesome topped with salsa as well!

ENJOY.

BUMBERSHOOT (We Are Not Festival Girls)

Labor Day Weekend. 2013.

Attended first music festival.

Sunday morning, I hopped in my best friend's car at 7:30 in the blasted morning and we made our way up to Bumbershoot in Seattle to see some of our favorite bands. I had high hopes, people. Too high. Unfairly high. In my head, we were going to see Tegan and Sara, fun., Mates of State, a forum with the writers of Parks and Rec, Death Cab for Cutie and possibly the tail end of Matt and Kim. SO MUCH MUSIC FOR A MERE $55! We would wander the grounds, eating delicious yum yums, people watching, relaxing in the grass as the music played, WE WOULD BE FESTIVAL GIRLS, DAMMIT! 

we forgot our flower headbands and wore too much clothing, as it turns out

Everything on the interwebz about music festivals is a lie. It's a lie, people. Okay, I'm being dramatic. Here's the conclusion I've drawn: festivals are not the way to see your favorite bands. If I wasn't so attached to seeing my favorite bands, who happened to be the headliners and playing the main stage, it would have been a different experience all together and probably closer to the one I had in my head. But that wasn't the case. There were three bands out of a bajillion thousand playing that day that I HAD to see. Tegan and Sara, fun., and Death Cab. All three headliners playing in an arena that had a capacity. This was the problem. Had they been on a stage outside like the other bands, we would have been able to do our thing on festival grounds wandering booths/food/other music until maybe 30 minutes before these headliners were going on. But because Bumbershoot has their heads up their collective asses changed things a while ago, headliners play in Key Arena. So you have to line up hours before to assure you get inside to see them and don't end up in the nosebleeds. 

As it turns out, we would spend many more hours standing in line than we would listening to music. We did, however, get to see the three bands we came to see, plus Ra Ra Riot who was playing just before Death Cab. We ate greasy chicken strips for lunch while waiting in line for Tegan and Sara at about noon and then were starving by the time we got back in the arena for Death Cab so I waited in line for 40 MINUTES OF MY LIFE for a mother loving burrito only to receive nachos and be too exhausted to even give a hoot. "I actually ordered a burrito...you know what? Nachos are great. Give me the nachos...DO NOT START MAKING ME A BURRITO, KID, HAND OVER THE CHIPS!"

Greasy food and shot expectations aside, the bands we came to see absolutely kicked ass and that's all that really mattered at the end of the day.

tegan and sara

fun. 

death cab for cutie playing Transatlanticism in it's entirety. life changing.

So after waking up at 6am, driving three hours, last show ending at 11:15pm, driving to Kristin's brother's to crash for the night, showering, and finally getting in bed at almost 2am, it made for a near 20 hour day for approximately to see less than 5 hours of music. In short, I'm getting too old for this shit. 

I got to spend the day with my bestie listening to music that speaks to my heart, though. And I mean really, am I seriously complaining that I got to go to a music festival? No. I'm very fortunate to be able to do these kinds of things in my life. This is a mere cautionary tale...if you're over 25, you're going to spend a good part of your day asking, "WHERE IS YOUR MOTHER?!" to the hooligan children roaming the grounds, cutting in lines, shoving you, wearing no clothes and being utterly gross. To be fair, while waiting in line for hours for Death Cab, we did meet three lovely young girls standing behind us who might have restored my faith in the next generation. All in all, glad I went, not sure I'll be back. Bumbershoot, it's been real.

me and one of my best girls, kristin

Rainy Soup Day

I love autumn. 

It's quite possibly my most favorite time of the year. I got my first pumpkin spice latte of the season today (yes, I am aware it is not quite ACTUALLY fall, but it was rainy and dreary and gloomy outside, just let me have this, okay?!) and it inspired me to just go all out autumn errrrythang today.

I bring you...

TACO SOUP

Here's the deal. You can't screw this up. If you actually manage to mess this up, I will give you an award of some kind. You can use any canned beans you have on hand, add diced potatoes or squash for some extra umph, etc. Get creative. Here is what I used today:

• 1 can Simple Truth Organic kidney beans
• 1 can Simple Truth Organic pinto beans
• 1 can Simple Truth Organic great northern beans
• 2 cans Simple Truth Organic diced tomatoes (the kind with no salt added)
• 1 can Simple Truth Organic yellow corn
• 1 small can La Victoria diced green chiles
• 2 cups water
• 1 lbs. Simple Truth Organic ground turkey
• 1 packet of ranch seasoning
• 1 packet of taco seasoning

Brown your meat. Open all cans. Add all cans (do not drain anything!) to crockpot. Add meat to crockpot. Add water and packets to crock. Stir that stuff up. Turn said crock on for 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low, it makes no difference. Go about your business and come back and enjoy for din din.

See what I mean? Try and mess this up. My husband will top this with tortilla chips and a dollop of sour cream. That makes it extra amazing. I won't, because minus that it's actually a pretty healthy dinner. And I'm watching my girlish figure (read: I would rather use those calories for a glass of wine dessert later). 

I'm gonna try and post some more recipes in the coming weeks/months. Let me know what you think!

present

I have a goal. I want to live more in the present moment. I want to ignore my iPhone, iPod, tablet, TV, and everything when engaging in conversation with those I love.

I am a real jackass about this currently. Bare with me. I'm going to fix this. This need to constantly respond to every text/email/Facebook comment has got to be reeled in. Join me in this effort? Call me out if I'm being a jerk with my electronics. Help me be a better human. Life is too short to miss because we were looking at a screen. I'm gonna do better. I said so on the interwebs, that's as legally binding as it gets.