So, I haven't talked to my mom in a week, and then I see this photo today on a friend's Facebook page...
Leave it to Facebook - not my actual mom's voice on the telephone - to let me know she's been galivanting around Disney World with Doruhhh the Exploruhhh.
{sung to the tune of Trisha Yearwood's "She's In Love With The Boy"...}
I'm in LOVE with a pan
I'm in LOVE with a pan
I'm in LOVE with a pan
And even if my husband has to pay
That pan is gonna be mine someday
Yes, it's true. I'm in love with a pan - the Aeternum ceramic non-stick, non-toxic pan from Bialetti Shop. When it was featured in Bon Appétit magazine recently, I immediately ordered one for Steven as a birthday gift.
Then, after using it just once to fry an egg, I promptly tried to steal it, put it under my pillow, and sleep with it at night. And whisper sweet nothings in its ear.
This isn't just any pan. This pan is UNBELIEVABLE. You only need the tiniest drop of oil, if any. That's gonna save us a lot of coconut oil. It fries and scrambles eggs perfectly. And most of all, I love the white ceramic cooking surface - it's just clean-looking. By the way, it wipes clean in a snap.
We still use our beloved cast-iron pans all the time, but for eggs, this does the trick. And with the amount of eggs we eat around here, it's totally worth it! You want to put a beautiful pasture-raised farm egg in a pan that will treat it gently.
I guess I should confess my love affair to my husband. Maybe just maybe he'll buy me one of my own, and I can shift my love back to my Vitamix. She's feeling a little neglected lately.
Here are 3 simple joys I've experienced lately...
This laugh.
Cracking Up from Team Bails on Vimeo.
I get to have this kind of joy in my life everyday!
~ ~ ~
This smile.
When she came out of the womb, one of the first things I noticed about her was her mouth...it stretched all the way across her face in a wide, beautiful line. I could see that smile a million times a day and then some.
~ ~ ~
Flowers, just because.
A friend and volunteer of ours at Urban Acres, Caroline, brought Steven and I this bouquet of lovely flowers last week. With it, she included a note that said, "I want to encourage you to stand firm in the knowledge of God's great love for and devotion to you, His beloved lilies."
How precious! And oh how we needed that encouragement right now as we trudge through the daily challenges of owning a small business.
~ ~ ~
What are 3 simple joys you've experienced lately? Please, do share!
I set her up at the craft table wearing my old smock from childhood - with "CHRISTINE PICCIONE" written in my mother's handwriting inside the neck. Just holding it in my hands reminds me of being in Montessori school, one of my earliest memories. Of course, art was always my favorite.
As I strapped her into her booster seat, she looked at me with wide-eyed expectation, unsure of what mama was about to put in front of her. I handed her a paint brush, squirted some paint colors onto a paper plate, and she immediately dove in...
Of course, once she started, she didn't want to stop. She pointed at the paints asking, "Mooore? Mooore?"
So I loaded on more colors, took out some card stock left over from a baby shower, and smeared her hand in the paints and slapped it on the card to make a handprint.
She giggled.
She looked up at me.
Then she started slapping her hand all over the different pieces of card stock, completely overjoyed.
Was mama really letting her get this messy?
Yes, mama was.
And something in me was released at that moment - perhaps all the stress from the week that had been bottled up inside, and I burst out laughing! As we kept smearing and slapping down more colorful handprints and splashing more paint on the table, I was a child again.
By the end, she was painting her hand, and I just sat there and let her...
Yes, the childlike artist is fervently alive in her - and in me. If leaving the artist behind means growing up, then I hope I never do.
The square lips tradition has been successfully passed on, and I could not be more proud.
Moms, do you have any to add to the list?
I'd like you to meet my Italian family: the most hilarious, silly, fun, generous, loving, rambunctious bunch of crazies you will ever meet. I love them with a passion.
Luci Belle and I with cousins Colleen and Paula
My first cousin Paula (whose mother was my Aunt Lucille, Luci Belle's namesake), her husband Steve, and her children Colleen, David, and Brian, all live just a few towns over from Madison. After a short 10-minute drive, you pull into their driveway that seems to be crammed with cars at all hours of the day and night. Open the screen door on the wide covered front porch and feel yourself exhale as you walk into their inviting home that's always welcoming friends, their kids' friends, relatives, and neighbors.
Together, we are mostly smiling, laughing, generally being boisterous, and, of course, EATING. Feeding people is one of the ways they love, and they do it well. A casual weeknight dinner? There's no such thing at their place - every meal is an occasion. And it makes you feel special to be cooked for, to be fussed over, and to be fed their very best - carefully prepared, delicious comfort food.
And did I mention there's a lot of silliness? Paula and I don't look alike or anything...
We were thankful to have several amazing dinners at their home while we were in Jersey - grilled meat and eggplant and peaches slathered in honey and sprinkled with almonds; a full Italian spread with an antipasto platter, bubbling homemade sauce and Aunt Lucille's meatball recipe, lasagna, eggplant parmagiana, Italian cookies and cannoli for dessert, espresso with a twist of lemon; and finally, a birthday dinner for Luci Belle with sausage and peppers, a chocolate birthday cake, and of course, coffee with Sambuca.
Every bite, every taste, was amazing. I think they actually inject love into their dishes.
Paula's husband Steve at his manly-man grill
Mother/daughter lasagna-making
A good Italian girl
So many people showed up for dinner that Steve had to extend the length of their already long dining room table and add a card table at the end. Sitting around their table eating, laughing, everyone talking over one another at high decibels - one of my very favorite things...
A very typical Steve pose
Cousins Brian and Colleen
My daddy
And here are some moments from Luci Belle's Italian birthday party. Even though the poor baby was cutting a molar and had a 102-degree fever, I think she still had fun...
Playing with cousins Michelle and David (my godson)
Cousins Michelle & Julia helping her blow out the candle
I know you want to be a part of my family now. And they would probably adopt you, set a place for you at the dinner table, and ask you to stay all weekend. Because that's just what they do.
What is better than moonlight at the pool? All day at the pool! It's where I spent practically every day of summer from the time I was born until I left for college, and I couldn't wait to share this experience with my daughter. She loved it, as I knew she would.
Just arriving, checking out the scene, enjoying her baby-sized beach chair
Post-swim SNACK TIME! Pumpkin seeds = yummy.
I'm Christine. believer. idealist. writer. artist. treehugger. wife. mama. daughter. sister. friend.
just trying to see the beauty and share with others along the way. {learn more}
"This is your life, this is your real life, and you are living it. Your life is not going to start later. This is it, it is now. It's funny how a person can be so busy that they forget that this is it. This is my life."
~ Lee Smith
