This Moment

The limpness of her limbs. The heft of her head sinking ever deeper into my shoulder. The sweetness of her post-bottle breath. The lengthening, decreasing pace of her respirations. The warmth created between our chests. The feel of her chin as she nestles into my beard. The trickle of the joyous tear that falls down…

Adoption Update

The past week has been nothing short of a whirlwind of activity and rollercoaster of emotions. We got a call from our social worker (SW) two Fridays ago that a birth mother wanted to meet with us!  I had just gotten home from a very long week at work and I was not anticipating this…

Waiting

Ten months ago, I wrote about starting on the path to adoption.  Since then, so much has happened.  We completed paperwork, phone calls, hours of heart-to-heart discussions with each other, interviews, safety inspections and specialist visits necessary to finish our home study.  Everything got finalized in February and we officially went on the “waiting list.”…

Baby Steps

I’m dedicating this post to the biggest change in our lives, which is our journey toward growing our family.  I wrote about this last year when we had officially come to the conclusion of doing so.  Since then, we’ve attended classes, networked with those we know and quite a few folks we’ve come to know about…

Brussels Sprouts Pizza

Several blocks from our place, there’s a funky restaurant that serves Brussels sprouts pizza.  Yep, sprouts on a pizza.  Lots of you are probably thinking how much you hate Brussels sprouts.  If that’s you, keep reading. If not, maybe you’re one who just flat out enjoys their taste.  Or, maybe you’re one of the lucky…

Late Summer Harvest Soup

In Ohio, the fall is clearly here as evidenced by the slight yellowing/reddening of tree leaves, cooler temperatures, decreased humidity and dwindling supplies of fresh tomatoes.  Our home harvest has slowed significantly and my tomatillo just gave up its last few fruits.  I knew long ago I wanted to make some sort of green chili…

Back to Basics: Scrambled Eggs

Activity-filled weekends mixed with the desire to sleep in don’t often leave much time for cooking in the morning.  On those mornings, I keep things simple.  Breakfast might be a little peanut or almond butter on toast, or maybe a cup of Greek yogurt topped with oats/nuts and a tsp of honey or homemade jam….

Korean Beef Lettuce Wraps

In the heat of the summer, one of the last things I want to do is eat a heavy meal–especially in the evenings.  That usually leads to lots of meatless meals, which leave my meatasaurus husband typically unsatisfied.  So, in an attempt to bridge the gap between our preferences and an attempt to use up…

Cherry Pie-lette

I’ve made pies before and I’ve made galettes. While making tart cherry jar pies recently, I was left with more pie filling and crust than I had clean, sterilized jars.  I had the choice of either sterilizing more jars, letting them cool then making more jar pies or I could try to figure out another…

Life’s A Bowl of Cherries

…or more appropriately in this case, it’s two 10-lb buckets of them. I’ve been away from the blog for a while for a myriad of reasons, but mostly our new business venture and the wonderful distraction of travel.  More on travel in a future post (or several). We’ve officially purchased the dental practice where my…

Apple Butter Wedding Favor

Favors from our wedding: chunky apple butter made from apples we picked at Lynd’s Fruit Farm near Columbus, OH