That's the Beauty of a Small Town

You can live your entire life in medium to large cities and never get your picture in the paper. Not when even when you graduate from doctoral studies and have your book published.

Keith on the far left. The suspenders should be a dead giveaway.

And you can live in a small town for three months and get your picture on the front page, just for voting in a city council election.

Recent Deliciousness

The business of living and gearing up for a jam-packed travel schedule in the next couple months has left little time for the musings I enjoy so much. Every morning as I brush my hair and put on makeup I'm also writing in my head. I have so many things I want to tell you about! But time just hasn't permitted.

Please accept in the interim a peek into what we've been doing in the kitchen lately. There's lots of warm, fall flavors here. Some things that are elegantly simple. Others that are deliciously decadent labors of love. All of them as tasty as you could possibly desire.

Butternut Squash Quinoa

Chicken Chilaquiles

Pumpkin and Black Bean Tamale Bake

Creamy Orzo Risotto with Butternut Squash

Sweet Potato Cakes with Black Bean Salsa

Honey-Crisp Apple Sangria

Beef Stroganoff

Chipotle Chicken & Rice

Quick Jambalaya

Buffalo Chicken Grilled Cheese

Links to all these recipes (and more!) can be found here and here.

Doing It Anyway

It's really too cold to have the windows open today. But they're open anyway.

We were really too tired and ragged to get up early this morning and start chili bubbling in the crock pot. But we did it anyway.

I'm way too busy this week to have people over to share our meal and conversation tonight. But I invited them anway.

I do these things. I do them anyway.

Because I love the cool wind on my face, the smell of autumn, the rustling leaves.

I love how cooking something in the kitchen just warms up the whole house. I love how normal, and real, and grounded it makes me feel to slice and stir and sip a tiny-teensy taste from time to time.

I love laughter bouncing off the walls in our living room. I love welcoming others into our home. I love sharing our food and stories and our lives with friends both old and new.

I do these things because I simply must. Because I need to. Because the things I am too cold, or too tired, or too busy, or too whatever to do...these are the things that make a life rich. These are the things that make my life whole.

I really shouldn't be blogging right now. But I'm doing it anyway.

Today is the Calm

Today is the calm. Not so much the calm before the storm. Nor even the eye at the middle of it. There is yet a ways to go before the middle is reached.

Today is just a moment- that tiny, fleeting moment between the crash of one wave behind and the swell of another before. It's that slim, small chance to push the head above the water and snatch one quick breath before being pressed down again, dragged in again, whisked forward once more.

Oh, to make that breath a deep one. A good one. To hold the head above as long as possible and drink in the illusion of stillness until it is made real. To fill the lungs all the way, up and up and up. Because we're never sure just quite when we'll have that chance again. And it may be awhile.