Cath, etc.

Twenty-One

When I look into your eyes I see my own
And yet you see a world I've never known

When I listen to your heart I read its sound
It echoes heartfelt truths not long-since found

When I touch your hair the past is mine to hold
As youthful dreams inspire as they unfold

When I see you choosing paths that bring you truth
I'm bolstered by the strength that lives in you 

When I feel your happy energy nearby
You nudge me into giving my reply

Which lifts me to a place where joy resides
Where love and laughter merrily collide

For you are more than I could ever seek
A daughter, friend, a treasure so unique

And though today you're turning twenty-one
Your metamorphosis has just begun.

For now you know your wings were always there
You've put them on--stretch out, they will take air.

All my love to you this day,
Mom

Blue Time

  

Blue time, my favorite time, I bid thee farewell.

On winter mornings, you beckon me, urging me to breathe deeply at first light,

for it is in your beguiling beauty that I find the courage to face the frigid day.

In the evenings, you swallow me, wrapping me in your intensity.

And as always, you summon me to the window.

I follow, hypnotized, your magic glow bending me at the knees.

I shout, "Blue time!" to anyone who will listen

And we all look, no matter where we are in the house,

grateful for the pause that links us to our intrinsic realm,

appreciative of the gift you are to our lives.

And yet, as much as I love you, and my love for you is deep,

I am ready to leave you behind.

I am eager to exchange you

for the hope that lies in a springtime sky,

the promise that's held in a whisper of green,

the potential that lives in a shock of blossoms,

and the assurance that thrives in a  magpie's nest.

Until next winter, when you will be strong again--rest well, my friend.

 

And so will I.

 

I Am the Bringer of Pies

At Thanksgiving, I am the bringer of pies.

I baked my first pie when I was  a sophomore in high school. It was a peach pie with a homemade crust. My dad raved about it, said it was the best peach pie he had ever tasted. 'Course, everything he ate was the best thing he'd ever tasted. He was never frugal with the compliments when it came to good cooking.

I've been the pie maker in the family ever since.

The trick to good homemade pies? Two things: get a good crust recipe and purchase a pastry cutter. I swear by my recipe--have a relationship with it, even. There's just something wonderfully tactile and satisfying about making a good bit of pie dough.

Such a basic endeavor, and as old as the hills.

In fact, I've made so many pies I've got the recipe memorized: 3 cups of flour, 1 1/2 cups of shortening (I recommend Crisco shortening sticks because they cut down so much on the mess), and 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt. Using my pastry cutter, I cut in the shortening until the pie dough comes off it in ribbons. This takes a bit of effort, but I enjoy watching the mixture morph from separate, measured ingredients, to a texture that holds together enough that it can encase something as delicious as spiced apples or as fragile as pumpkin cream.  It is rhythmic, it gets my blood flowing, and in each cut I feel connected to the bakers and farm wives and grandmothers who have been making pie dough on counters in their kitchens for hundreds of years before me.

Mix together one egg, 5 tablespoons of water, and a tablespoon of vinegar. When you stir together the lemon-colored mixture, your nose is assailed with the acridity of the vinegar, but I have come to associate that smell with the goodness, the pure perfection of this pie crust in the many tastings I have enjoyed. And while you can't quite put your finger on it, I believe that it is the vinegar and the salt in this recipe that give this crust its beauty. For a good pie crust is truly a beautiful thing.

Add this to the flour mixture and stir gently until the dough bonds together.

Then comes the rolling out of the dough. It took me years until I understood how blended yet not overworked the flour and shortening had to be to achieve a crust that would not tear when I transferred it to the pie plate. It is, perhaps, the most satisfying aspect of pie making aside from eating it. For when the pie pan recieves the dough as though it had been waiting for it its entire life, there is a certain sense of triumph that passes. But it is momentary, as there is work yet to be done. I press the dough deftly into the edges of the glass, trimming the excess with a butter knife, folding it under, turning the pan as I create a uniform lip at the top from which to pinch the edges, turning it still as my thumb and forefinger on one hand and my forefinger on the other pinch and turn, alternating one after the other, pinch, turn, until gradually, the pie crust takes its scalloped shape, fit for a photo op in a cookbook by Betty Crocker, whoever she is.

It is the most difficult part, and the most tenuous, but it is my favorite part, probably because it is so tactile. It is creating a house for something equally, but yet differently, delicious.

The fillings are many and varied. Today it is French apple and pumpkin. The last was cherry. The next is a mystery. But it will have a good, flaky, satisfying crust that will further solidify my role as the bringer of pies.

What are you the bringer of? Pies or otherwise, we all bring something to the table. Whether it's made from scratch or an absolute essential, if we were to share a Thanksgiving feast (and wouldn't that be a blast?), what would you be happy to bring?

A Favorite Day

One of my favorite days of the year is the day it's time to pot plants for our porch. Today was that day.

An early trip to the nursery:

Staging area:

Before:

After:

In the corner:

 

But the best part of the day was eating a yummy meal on the back deck with Mark and Nicole, who spent the day taking a rock climbing class together:

I'll drink to that!

Joy Underfoot

So life can be pretty mundane.  I know, right?  Like you get up every morning, you slog down a cuppa joe. You drag yourself to the workout (I do work out...usually...more usually lately anyway.) You eat a healthy breakfast including all the fiber, vitamins, and daily recommended allowances while your body finishes sweating. You take your aching muscles and your creaking knees up the stairs to the shower where you'll seriously forget whether or not you've washed your face so you do it again anyway, just for good measure.  And if you're lucky, you've stopped sweating in time to finish your routine, which for me, is exactly the same every single day: deodorant, hair product, lotion, make the bed, decide on clothes, put on clothes, slosh on make-up, dry hair, put  more goop in hair, spray hair, brush teeth, swallow vitamin, put on jewelry, swirl on Carmex, grab Lean Cuisine and a piece of fruit, grab phone, grab keys, grab purse, go!

You drive yourself to work and maybe by the time you get there you'll remember how it was, exactly, that you got there. You work hard all day, and even if you love your job, even if it is the most scintillating aspect of your existence, it's the same ol' drill. Meetings. Lunch. More meetings. It's work.

Somewhere between 5:30-6-ish you're free and you drive home in a similarly comatose state in which you arrived at work and the Great Debate begins.  What To Have for Dinner all while considering your energy level,  your hunger level, your time availability,  your current desire to be thin, and then times that by however many people there are in your family.

So, when I laid eyes on these babies, I considered the possibility of finding joy in a pair of sneakers.

Because not only are these pretty much the cutest, Cath-ish sneakers I've seen in a very long time, they are also eco-friendly.  The outsoles are made from used car tires, the laces are made from recycled plastic bottles, and they're made with water-based glues which are much friendlier on the environment.

Gotta love companies like Simple Shoes that are making a difference to the earth, and with all these cutie pie choices, I'm a serious fan.

http://www.simpleshoes.com/index.aspx

Understandably, I snatched them right up--because in this wonderful but sometimes mundane world of ours, there's a lot of joy to be had in a moxie fab pair of tennies like these, wouldn't you agree?

Now that's some serious joy underfoot!

I Am Blogger

Hi. My name is Cath. I wear a lot of hats, the newest one of which I’m putting on today. Not for the first time, actually, as I appear weekly on the blog for the magazine I work for, Paper Crafts. Paper Crafts is a sweet little magazine that publishes handmade card ideas with a circulation upwards of 200K.  I love working there, but that is another story.

Other hats I wear are that of mom, wife, sister, daughter, friend, aunt, and book lover. I play the clarinet and the piano, I speak French, and I love to cook.  My favorite food in the whole world is red wine and I like to say “I’ll drink to that” whenever I agree with something emphatically.

I’ve been married twice.  The second time I got it right.  Really right.

I have two beautiful daughters, Nicole (21) and Rebeccah (19.)  Those I got right the first time.

I’ve lived on the Wasatch Front my entire life.  I am 44 years old but it feels more like I’m 32. 

My dad was bipolar.  He committed suicide.  Those two facts of my life have had more impact on me than anything yet so far.

I used to be a teacher.  I taught English and creative writing to middle school students for ten years.  I was pretty good at it, it was the way I defined who I was, but I burned out, and now I miss it, but not enough to go back.  That is another story as well.

 

I owned my own handmade card business for five years.  It was called Cards by Cath and it felt like it was one of my children.  It was born from my own ideas; I gave it love, time, and attention; and I felt like it was a complete and utter extension of myself.  I learned a great many things from the experience, the most important of which was that for me, gainful employment attached to a salary is best.  And although my little baby has grown apart from me and left home, it did get me the job I currently have, and that, indeed is truly a gift.

I live in a little yellow house with a wrap-around porch where my husband, who is named Mark, and I like to host parties of all kinds, both small and large.  In that little yellow house with a wrap-around porch there is a book club that gathers once a month.  We read good stuff and have even better discussions.  We’re in our seventh year.  We are very close friends.

I have an aunt who is just a year-and-a-half older than me.  We grew up like sisters.  We aren’t as close anymore, but we will always have our childhoods.

I have two younger brothers.  Eric has been married to my best friend for twenty years now.  We lived within two miles of each other for ten out of twelve years. They moved to New Hampshire four-and-a-half years ago and I am still not over it. My other brother Larry lives nearby and is one of the funniest guys I know.

My mom is a retired elementary school teacher who is now a painter.  Her medium is watercolor and she travels the country going to workshops to hone her skill.

My great-grandfather was a band director.  My grandfather was a band director.  My dad was a band director. There are four more band directors and eight more teachers in my extended family.  It is The Family Vocation.

My favorite time of the day is Bluetime.  Seen most easily in the wintertime, it is that sliver of time in which the sun sinks just below the horizon, saturating all that can be seen in a quiet blue glow, rich and deep.  It happens also in the early morning just before the sun rises, but I am more likely to see it in the evening, and when I catch it (for it doesn’t last long), I experience a kind of happy that resonates deep within me.  For if there is one thing to describe me, Cath, it is that I am intimately connected to Mother Nature.  She holds me, she feeds me, she speaks to me, and she makes me strong.

These are the things that define who I am.  These are the fragments that when pulled together create a cohesive whole.  These are the pieces of me, Cath, that you need to know so that we may begin.