#20: Try 1 New Recipe a Week

Oh food, how I love thee, let me count the ways...

1. You are yummy.
2. You make my tummy happy.
3. There is so much of you to try.
4. You are yummy.
5. I love all the ways to combine you together and make something new... ART!
6. I'll never be able to eat all of you.
7. You are both fancy and down to earth.
8. You are yummy.
9. You make me smile.
10. Butter.
11. Cream.
12. You are yummy.

I cold go on but really? What's the point? I love food and I love trying new foods and I want to try a 1 new recipe every week. I'm a stay at home Mom. This one just shouldn't be that hard.

YUM! FOOD!

#19: Experiencing Mother Nature

Jason loves to hike. And it is something we simply do not do. You know, there is the kiddos and busy weekends and we fill our time with important things like watching TV and movies and eating... So... I have this desire to start hiking.

For obvious reasons it correlates with a healthier me but mostly I love the outdoors and nature and there isn't a better way to fully experience it other than walking for hours on end. Man I'm selling this hiking thing aren't I?

Seriously though, I love doing it and as the kiddos get older it is something we can do with them. DFW is surrounds by great areas and sites and is a perfect jumping point. So it's time to get outside!

#18: Re-do My Baby Albums

I know it seems kind of silly but my baby albums are falling apart and most of the pictures are Polaroids. I'm a fanatic when it comes to photos and I don't want them ruined or lost. Polaroids deteriorate over time and mine have already started fading. So it's time to put some effort into restoring them before they are gone.

Plus I'm vain.

#17: Meditate

I think I'll really benefit from meditation. I'm a high strung person. I take on too much. I am over whelmed. Hey, admitting you have a problem is the first step right? LOL

So I think some time spent alone, with my thoughts or better yet, learning to quiet my thoughts, would greatly benefit me. I've read so many studies and articles on the benefits of meditation. Greater patience, stress relief, clearer thinking, higher productivity. All of these sound amazing don't they? Now if I can just get myself up 30 minutes earlier so I can partake in this meditation-thingy.

Because that's really the issue isn't it... time? Never enough time. See I've been sidetracked by my thought process again. Meditation... it's supposed to help with that too.

Grateful and Thankful

Twenty miles outside of Ballinger the haze began to set in. Not clouds, smoke. Gray and covering the landscape, fog-like but holding absolutely no moisture. I stop to take a picture of the sun because it seems to be glowing. An almost neon peach color behind thick gray "clouds". Nothing rivals a Texas sunset. Even today.



And then I notice the smell. Burning Cedar is unmistakable. It reminds me of camp fires and cold afternoons roasting marshmallows at the Hunting Camp... but never before has this smell followed me for 200 miles. Never before has this smell, reminded me of destruction. It does now.



This wildfire has changed my filing cabinet of memories. It has re-labeled my thought processes. And forever, my view of fire will be altered. I am tied to the land. South-West Texas, Val Verde County, Sleepy Hollow Ranch. My family home. It's a heritage longer and deeper then I comprehend on most days and though I am linked to my history, tied to it by a lineage that has stayed true to a town for over a 100 years, I still manage to forget most days how deep these family ties are buried withing me. I don't live there anymore. I have chosen to make a home and raise a family away from my roots but the pull of what has been and what will be, keeps me there.



This country is not the definition of an ideal landscape. It is not easy land. No prairie grasses wave, no East Texas pines shield you from the wind, and no picturesque rivers gently carve a path through green hillsides. It is rugged. It requires strength and endurance and a belief that all of God's land was provided to us. Can provide for us. And that is what my ancestors did. They chose this land, knowing that they could earn from it, that they could use it and take care of it and the land would do the same for them.



Fire is a destructive force. It obliterates all in its path with no rhyme or reason. It jumps from point to point feeding and taking what it will and yet sometimes leaving a lone tree to survive. It travels by barely surviving grass, to parched bush to ancient tree, annihilating all in its path and never glancing back at its devastation. It breaths and eats like any living thing. And while it breaths everything else suffocates.



The smell is rancid. The first day after the fire burns through without apology, you are still reminded of camp fires but as the smell sits and lingers on the land, it changes. It is now raw and sharp and wreaks eerily of death and stillness. Even as the wind blows the smell around me, I feel as if the Earth has stopped to allow all living things to pay their respects to the land. To what the land has endured. This fire slaps me on every level of my senses. Once living things, now crumble in my hand. My eyes see the destruction, my ears hear the fire move on to better fuel, but mostly that pain we've all tried to explain has settled within me. The one that sits in your gut and closes your throat and reminds you of your first heartbreak. That pain that we've all been through and are positive will never die. That pain is engaged, that heart ache that transcends race, creed and nationality is fully engaged within me.

Our home is still standing. Built in 1923, it humbly stands amongst terrain that does not match it in beauty. It is not ostentatious or boastful but has provided a family tree with very wide spread branches, memories and safety for years and now for many years to come. It's dining room was home to Skip-Bo games and Thanksgiving dinners. It's screened porch to laughter and afternoon naps. This house is more than wood and glass, it is a home. A haven. I singular reminder that our family was and is. That our family, no matter how far we travel, no matter where we lay our head at night, no matter how long we stay away, are one with this land.

I am a Texan. And to anyone who feels that way, we are Texans first and foremost. So the images of this land that I love burning away is imprinted in my mind. Flames licking the country side clean and smoke filling the air with toxins, robbing it of it's simple purity. But although this fire has damaged us, has changed what our lives will be like for years to come. It has certainly served as reminder...

Every volunteer firefighter, every National Forest Service worker, every pilot, every Electric Company employee, every citizen, every rancher, still stands. Still fights. This battle, this war was not fought alone. In times of crisis we are reminded that we do not stand alone. We stand together. For every man or woman who did not sleep over the last month, who rode endless hour looking for hot spots, who waged battle against this fire with shovels and cattle sprayers and sheer desire to win, I say thank you. I am reminded that I am not alone, and I say thank you.

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