Clover Lane

I thought I’d share this awesome super easy no-cook appetizer that has always been a hit.  This is that ONE recipe that I always get asked for the most.  And it’s ridiculously, embarrassingly easy. 

Here’s what you need:
olive oil
1 block (1#) of feta cheese  (I don’t like the pre-crumbled kind because I think it is dry)
tomatoes (any kind)…I use about 3 Roma’s
1 bunch of green onions
1 baguette
Greek Seasoning (see pic below)
1 large platter
1. Wet the platter generously with olive oil. 2. Dice the green onions and tomatoes. 3. Throw them on the olive oil. 4. Crumble the feta cheese and throw that on the platter.  4. Sprinkle the Greek Seasoning on top.  (I use about 3 tsp.)  I have seen this brand everywhere…it shouldn’t be hard to find.  (If you can't find it, you can sub with oregano and a little pepper and some salt to taste.) 4. Mix it gently all together…  5.  Until it looks like this.  (Festive, huh?) 5.  Slice the baguette.  A special word about the bread…it MAKES the dip.  I have found that the best bread is FRESH, bakery kind….the kind that comes in the long skinny paper bag.   You want it bite-sized and you want to cut it thin… 6.  …because this is how people will “dip”. Or you can include a spoon if the people you hang around with are super polite and dainty.  I have never found that to be necessary.

Yesterday evening, I sat on the sofa surrounded by children and looked through my photo albums.  I started at #2 album.  That’s my childhood.  (#1 is Jeff’s childhood, because he is older than me, just in case you were wondering.)

I love photos.  I’m so glad I organized those darn albums, because even though they can make me feel sort of sad and weird everytime I think backwards through time, they also make me so grateful for my childhood.
I found this picture:



That’s my Dad reading to me.  Doesn’t he have a hip shirt on?  (And isn’t that green toile sofa awesome?)

My Dad worked so hard for us.  He would leave at 5 in the morning and come home around 6 every evening.  There is something to be said about those times when a man never expected, asked, or desired any help from his wife in terms of providing for his family.  Now don’t get all offended and weirded out by that comment, I know anyone can pick that sentence apart and crucify me, I just think he did what he had to do to provide and come hell or high water, he was going to accomplish that task, and he was proud of that, and there was no question in his mind that what my mom was doing was the most important thing on earth.

I remember sometimes laying in my bed, in those early morning hours, when the snow was a couple feet deep and the thermometer read below zero, and I’d pray for my Dad’s car to start.  Really, I would.

Because sometimes it wouldn’t, and I’d hear him come in, the door would bang, and then he’d go back out and try again.  I’d pray and pray and pray, because I know he must have been freezing and frustrated and he needed to get to work.  Sometimes he’d even have to plow the whole driveway and fix his car, and if he did plow, of course he’d do the whole street too, and the neighbors driveways, because that’s the way he does things.

In the summer, when I was really little, I’d run out and greet him with notes I wrote.  My Mom kept a stationary drawer in her bedroom, and I’d have lots of pretty stationary to pick from (yes, she’d let us pick from everything because that’s the way my mom does things) and we’d run as soon as we’d hear the car (back then a VW Bug) on the driveway and hand him lots of little notes.  He always looked really tired, but he would smile and say thank you. 

On Sunday, my Dad would brush out my tangly (Johnson’s No More Tangles was my best friend) hair while he watched 6o minutes.  6o minutes was (and still is?) torture to any child.  Boring beyond belief.  But I’d sit there because I loved when my Dad did this.  In my mind, I was getting all the attention, and probably making my sisters jealous, but in reality they were probably happy as heck they didn’t “have” to sit there and watch Utter Boringness.  I have that memory come back to me everytime I hear the tick-tick-tick-tick stopwatch in the beginning, when I watch it now.

Parenting is a long trek, isn't it?  There are no project deadlines, no annual awards, no bonus checks.  I think one of the things that is hardest for a new mother to accept, at least it was for me, is that my life is changed forever.  FOREVER is a mighty long time.   (Did I just quote Prince?  Because God knows I didn't mean to.)  Forever we will love these children with our hearts hanging on our sleeves.  Forever we will wonder, "Did I do right by them?"  Forever we will worry, we will care, we will love.

When it comes to small children, I think the care they receive from their parents makes or breaks them.  In those tender years, when the world as they will know it is being siphoned into their intricate beautiful little brains, what they see, what they feel, what they experience, forms their little spirits.

Today I wonder if we sometimes take this all for granted.

It seems we are easily led to believe that others can do just as good a job as we can caring for our little ones during those important years.
It seems that we trust experts more than we trust ourselves.
It seems like we are too eager to break that overwhelming bond that is felt that first time you see that baby that will call you "mom" forever.
It seems like we are too easily swayed by what we are "supposed" to call good parenting, when we really think about it, many of those things are just fluff, and not the good stuff...the hard stuff.

Babies don't need much.  Toddlers can play with dirt and stones.  Children can learn from a few books and nature.  But one thing they all need is us. 

And all those little moments, all those little chores we do every day, they add up.  And I strongly believe that all these little jobs, done with mother love in our hearts, come back to reward us one day.  In happy babies, sweet toddlers, smart children, healthy teenagers, and complete adults.   If we give the time NOW, I think, we will avoid many of the pitfalls of parenting.  Does that mean we will always have an easy time of it?  No.  But we will have a deep connection, a sense of what that infant, toddler, child, teenager is experiencing in our inner spirits.

I posted this last year and it was such a hit I thought I'd remind you all again...

We did this every year when we were young and it was so much fun. It’s a simple tradition but one kids love. First you need to gather leaves…go on a nature walk, find the most beautiful, colorful, perfect leaves. OR just zip your mouth, let the kids pick up the ones they want, no matter what they look like...there is no better way to ruin a creative endeavor with your kids than by being bossy and controlling!

Pick some of this up at your grocery store in the canning section. It’s a couple dollars and one box should be enough.
Don’t forget to buy a disposal pan like this one…if you don’t you will have to use a good pan, and you will ruin it.
Melt the wax over low heat.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE be careful…hot wax is HOT. Place it on a back burner and guard it with your life if your children are little.  I don't want to feel awful if you tell me one of your little ones got burned because of me and my cute little autumn activity.

I know I have done this with kids as young as 2, but you have to be vigilant!
Have them hold the stem, dip the leave in melted wax and then set the leave on wax paper. Cover your counter with newspaper, then the wax paper, to make clean up easy, because it’s NO fun scraping wax drippings off counters.
Let each leaf cool completely…once they are totally cool they will lift off easily. If the wax starts to harden in the pan, just warm it up on the burner again.
You can put them in a big glass bowl, or tie them up with string to form a garland. They are beautiful and a perfectly simple (and almost free) autumn decoration.


Some tips:
Make sure the leaves are completely dry when you start. 
Lots of people asked me how long they last.  It really depends.  The way I hang these in the window in direct sunlight and over 2 heat ducts makes them last till I am ready to get up the Christmas decorations...around December 1. (They start to get curly and shrinky looking.)
If you keep them in a darker, cooler place I'd bet they'd last longer.

I hung my leaves from thread that I tied around each stem to create a garland.

If you drip wax on your floor or counters, a reader sent in this tip:
Just lay down a paper towel or newspaper on the wax spill and iron it (cotton setting). It even works on CARPET, yes really.  I have cleaned up some doozies with this method. I would not use this method on fine wood furniture, there are ice methods for that.

We had so much fun last week on what was probably the last nice warm sunny day of the year.

Jeff ran his marathon Sunday. 
I had NO idea marathons were so much fun!
For the people watching the marathon.
I’m not sure if they are fun for the people running.
You’ll have to ask them.

We left one child behind with grandparents (he had a very important football game) and took 4 kids for this little weekend getaway…which I reminded them quite often, the sole purpose of which was to support their father. 

We stayed in a hotel room, 3 to a bed.  That was NOT the fun part.  Why do kids get SO hyper in hotel rooms?
When one of the beds got too squishy someone decided sleeping on the floor on layers of pillows was a better alternative.  In the middle of the night, I was jealous, because I wish I would have claimed the space first.

Here’s Jeff at the 11 mile mark.
   The kids loved seeing him (and vice versa), and although the streets were packed, with the help of Abbey…she has a special talent with direction and maps that I don’t possess, we navigated the streets successfully.   I had a huge stroller and a very very good little 7 year old who had to keep up with us.   We were able to see Jeff at 3 different points, and during the 25th mile, Abbey and Isaac ran with him a little.
We did a lot of waiting…which meant certain someone’s did a lot of laying all over filthy city sidewalks.  Here’s Jeff at mile 25 pretending like he can’t finish.  (He really is pretending, I’m not joking.)  I really couldn’t believe how good he did, and how great he looked every time we saw him.  It’s not that I didn’t think he could it, it’s just that he wasn’t that confident in himself.

A couple days before the marathon he was getting all nervous and edgy.  I finally gave him a little pep talk in the car on the way down.  I told him there were 3 scenarios.
1. He could try running the marathon but quit if it got too hard.  And then he’d have to tell people he was running a marathon that he quit.
2. He could try running the marathon and end up having to walk.  And you know everyone wants to know, after they've heard you’ve run a marathon, if you walked.  I don’t think that is really a fair question (usually asked by people who can’t run a block) but nevertheless, you’d have to say yes.
3. You could run the marathon.  The whole thing. 
That’s it.  It’s not complicated.  So shut up about it.  (I didn’t say that part.  Well, maybe I did, under my breath.)
His time, since you want to know. 3.48.
At the end:
Trying to stand up after the race: Trying to walk back to the hotel after the race: I didn’t MAKE him push the stroller by the way, although it appears so in this photo.  He needed to hang onto it like an elderly man needs a walker.
He says he’ll never do one again, but asking that now, I think, is like asking a mother in a labor when she’s going to have her next.
Give it time.
P.S. Watching a marathon makes you feel like you want to run one.  It did for me.  I got a little envious.  All these women running…all different ages, all different shapes and sizes, all different speeds…it’s awesome.   But when it comes to actually lacing up my shoes and getting my butt outside in the chilly air, hmmmmm…I think of 1000 other things I should/could/want to be doing.  Darn!

It’s officially fall here…not because the calendar says it is, because the leaves say it is.
It is beautiful.

Our church:   Abbey calls this “her house”.  I want it to be her house. After she travels the world and lives in Chicago or NYC or Paris.
Isn’t it perfect?
You could live it in forever.
With one child or eight, it would be warm, and inviting, and comfortable and simple. Oops.  The squirrels around here get a little crazy at this time of year.  Many casualties.  Sometimes they dare each other I think, to see who can run between car tires, or jump from telephone wire to branch and back again.  It doesn't always work out so great. After our bike ride, Abbey and I took Patrick down the street to a little park.  I’ve done Abbey’s portraits this year, and Andrew’s, and it was Patrick’s turn.  I’m saving the two that declare that picture-taking is complete torture for last.
Here’s the park: I took a few good ones. Notice the big chunk cut out of his hair in the front?  I didn’t know he knew how to work scissors already.  Smart kid.
I also got many more out takes.  2 isn’t the easiest age for picture taking.   He’s so cute I could squeeze him.
And I do, all the time.