A Good (normal) Life

It's been a great week.

Well hello eggs. I am so happy to see you too!

Really when you get your dinner smiling back at you on hump day, you know it's all good. It's been a week of breaking, growing, harvesting, and exploring. An (extra)ordinary week of the cream rising to the top.  
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Speaking of eggs and cream, Alex and I spent some time in the kitchen making cupcakes.

She's got the baking gene from scores of women in my family.  It's amazing to see that passion unfold to a 4th generation.

Alex takes licking the bowl to the edge of drunk.

I wonder at what age my independent princess is going to take charge of baking projects all by herself.  I was 5, trying to make brownies.  I had the double-boiler set up and I lifted the bowl of the boiler, and placed the chocolate and butter into the water.

Yes, Mom had to come to the rescue, but I remember the pride of wanting to do it all by myself.
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We harvested our first potatoes.  

There's nothing like having a princess/Glinda/beauty join you in the garden. I never look this good while mastering dirt and roots.

I am very satisfied with the grow bag that I used for the spuds. The best feature: harvesting equates to dumping the contents onto a tarp, digging for gold, and then replacing the soil back into the bag.

We took our harvest back inside to make my Grandma Lyle's potatoes.  Bacon, onions, potatoes.  Mmmm…memories.

Some days I struggle with sharing my small kitchen.  I think it's more the concern of Alex hurting herself with one of the knives, the stove, or a hot pot than it is for the inconvenience.  The bite has made me  exceptionally wary of potential situations.  

I am not the overly cautious type, so I fight fears that cramp my mama vibe and give her the necessary space to mimic.  And as our arms entwine around a pile of sliced potatoes, we both learn to compromise.  I put my fears back on a shelf and give her the space to imitate with a play knife from her kitchen. 
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Last week, a quirky little carnival was in town at the Knights of Columbus.  It's just big enough to thrill everyone with sounds and smells and tastes of childhood. 

Add carnivals and cotton candy to all things that make me savor summer.

On the other hand, Ben and Chera relish funnel cake. They were like 2 little kids on Christmas Eve, watching the cake being poured & frying to a golden brown.  The powdered sugar was flowing and then flicking into the air, smattering Bram and my camera with white flakes.

"Jen is this enough sugar?  How about now? Ok, maybe just a bit more."

Bram and Alex are getting so big.  Bram, I cannot believe that you're almost 2. You are so precious.
And this carnival was their first time experiencing swirling, whirling rides. Bram tested out the ferris wheel and Alex repeatedly begged to go on the Sizzler (reminds me of the egg beater).  The strange, but funny moment for the adults happened when Alex and I were going on the Sizzler.  Ben always jokes about the culture of carnies, but the gentleman attending to the Sizzler was stoned straight out of his mind. I think that I gave birth in less time than it took him to get the ride prepared. Oh boy.

Before leaving the carnival at a rock-the-house-hour of 8pm, Alex and Bram won fish.

And so both went home with their new pets, both aptly named Dorothy.

So even though work was profuse in volume and agitating at that, I end the week with my head teeming with moments of dirt & giggling and of friends & fish. It is life, the space with family and friends that forces the cream to rise to the top every time.

“I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing out loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes and read books so good they make me jump up and down, and I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift." - “Cold Tangerines" by Shauna Niequist.