FALL

I love fall. The colors (both in nature and otherwise), the food (pumpkin desserts, warm drinks, hearty soups, etc. (although I guess those foods should be in reverse order. I guess I just automatically put them in order of importance :0)), the crunchy leaves as I walk down the sidewalk, the crisp air...it's all great. So imagine my chagrin every year since I live in a place where often the autumn lasts a week or two if we're lucky, and then moves right on to winter, or sometimes it seems like we skip fall altogether.

Then imagine my (and everyone else who lives here) absolute delight with the beautiful and long and mild fall we've had here. It's been hovering in the low 70's-mid-60's now for over a month and is amazingly beautiful and pleasant outside.

Here's my view out my kitchen window:


I heard my 8 and 6-year-old little boys looking out across the street at these trees yesterday evening. Here's the conversation:
Daniel: "Look at those trees over there!"
Seth: "Yeah"
Daniel: "Those colors are amazing! You can barely even see any green!"
Seth: "Yeah!"

My sentiments exactly.

Isn't fall awesome? How's fall where you live?

RECOMMITTMENT

Yes, I realize that it's been about four months since my last post. Pretty sad. I have no excuses.

My reason, however (much different from an excuse, in my mind), is that my family and I have been experiencing some challenges the past six months or so and I simply decided to cut non-essential things out and blogging was one of them.

Unfortunately, I also have become more lax in my habit of looking for things to be grateful for, which, I'm being reminded, definitely affects my state of mind and level of happiness.

So this past week, I made a new committment to try to be more grateful. It's funny: one night I said to my husband, "I've realized that I'm not focusing on being grateful as much as I used to and I think I'm suffering for it. I want to get back to looking for and being grateful for my blessings." Then the next day I listened to a message from a man who I have infinite love and respect for, who is a prophet of God and the president of my church, and his message to everyone was this: Be Grateful and everything will look better and be better.

What interesting (but I believe not coincidental) timing. Time to refocus.

So here is my first post back:

NATURE

I love and am so grateful for the beauties of nature. I know, that phrase sounds so trite, but how else do you say it? Nature is absolutely beautiful! This weekend we went on a short hike to Bloomington Lake, which is a tiny lake up in the mountains of southeastern Idaho, with a 20-30 minute car ride up to the trail, along the picturesque Bloomington creek (above), and where many of the quaking aspens were bright yellow against the dark pine trees--wow.


But then the trail is only 1.2 miles to the lake and back, so it was easy for our kids (the youngest being 2) to walk there and back. And what a view! I realized that some people go their whole lives without seeing sights like this. The air was so clean, the sun was shining and the views were amazing.

What boys do not love throwing rocks into a body of water? Mine sure do .

And look at all the huge awesome rocks for climbing on!


I couldn't believe the clarity and color of the water. It was really a wonderful and beautiful hike and we had some great family time. Also, as a sidenote: who would have guessed that we could go hiking in the middle of October in the Idaho mountains at over 8000 feet and not even need jackets? Amazing!

SPRING COLOR

Spring has been very long in coming where I live...in fact, even though it is June, we are still only in the upper 60's every day with lots of overcast, windy and chilly rainy days. Hmmm. Don't know what that's all about (it's JUNE! But maybe all the farmers are glad because they don't have to water their crops? I hope someone is benefiting from this weather!)

But I love and am so grateful for all the trees that are blooming every shade of pink, the dark purple lilac bushes, the red tulips, and every other bit of color outside. I love color, and color seems so much more pure in nature. Our two apple trees didn't look as vibrant as this tree, but the blossoms didn't freeze, either: hoorah!

SWALLOWING WITHOUT PAIN

Hi everyone--sorry so long to be away...it's been a crazy and stressful couple of weeks.

I am grateful today to be able to swallow without pain. Again, one of those things that you don't even think about, let alone be grateful for, until you go without it or see someone who does. (Sorry if you are reading this Lori or Anne :(

I have two friends who have gone through the joy of a tonsilectomy in recent weeks and they hurt. A lot.

My husband got his tonsils out when he was a teenager and he said that it really hurt, but he recovered fairly quickly.

I think the older you get, the more painful it is and the longer it takes to recover. My poor friends.

But I am so grateful for the reminder to appreciate this small, but very important part of life. Hoorah for swallowing!

BEANS

Yes, I said beans. You know, black, pinto, kidney, etc. And don't forget lentils--my boys seem to do better with the texture of lentils than with beans. In the words of my 7-year-old, "I don't like beans, Mom. When I bite into one, it explodes." Yeah, well...who's to argue with that? The texture of beans does take a bit of acclimation.

We had a cooking class at our church a couple of nights ago and Wow! Who knew beans could be so delicious? A friend who is a wonderful cook and who has been cooking with beans ever since she served a church mission in Brazil taught the class and made 11 bean dishes for us to try, three of them desserts (more on that later). It was fun, informative and delicious! And we got to come and help her cook before the class and learn how non-scary beans are to cook with.

I have lots of beans in my food storage, but have actually never cooked with dried beans because I've always thought that they took so long to prepare. They do, if you use the traditional method, but did you know that you can cook them in the crockpot? (3-4 hours with no presoaking) Also, you can cook them in your pressure cooker (45 minutes, also no presoaking). I'm excited to try it.

But just in time for the weekend, I am including for you here one of the recipes that we sampled: Polka Dot Bean Brownies. Now, everyone knows that if you add whole wheat flour to a dessert, it makes them healthy, right? The same is true for beans. And these brownies have a whole cup of cooked beans in them (never mind the 2 cups of sugar and two kinds of chocolate chips--the addition of beans totally outweighs this). Also, these bad boys do not even need frosting: they are so moist and delicious just by themselves, so eat one before you go to the trouble of making frosting.

I got this recipe from the Idaho Bean Commission website: http://www2.state.id.us/bean/index.cfm

Polka Dot Bean Brownies

Ingredients:
3/4 cups cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup melted butter
1/2 cup boiling water
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup pinto beans, cooked and mashed
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Chocolate Frosting

Preparation: Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine cocoa and soda; blend in 1/3 cup melted margarine. Add boiling water. Stir until mixture thickens. Stir in sugar, eggs, and remaining 1/2 cup butter.
Add beans, flour, vanilla and salt; stir until smooth. Add chips.
Turn mixture into a greased 9 x 13-inch pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until sides pull away from pan.
Cool completely and frost or dust with powdered sugar.

FLOWERS IN SPRING and A SWEET HUSBAND

Yes, many of you are experiencing spring right now: grass getting green, daffodils, crocuses and tulips blooming, warmer weather. I love spring flowers (purple crocuses are my favorite).

Well, today we woke up to three inches of snow. Sigh.

So not many colors going on yet where I live. (except white, brown and our grass is starting to consider thinking about maybe turning green :0)

How blessed I am, then, to have a husband who knows I love color and knows I love flowers and who brings them to me occasionally (usually not for any specific reason other than "I love you and think you are wonderful." I love that reason!).

Here is the bouquet I am enjoying currently. I love the yellows, pinks and purples--so springy!

A DELICIOUS DRINK OF WATER

I don't know if you have good-tasting water where you live, but if not, I'm sorry. I hope that if you don't, you at least have yummy bottled water or something. I'm so grateful that the town I live in happens to have absolutely delicious water, a luxury I totally take for granted until I go somewhere and taste gross water.

There's a great young adult book by Natalie Babbit called 'The Search for Delicious' about a king who is compiling a dictionary and gets stuck on the word 'delicious' so he sends his pageboy out to take a poll around his country about what food is the most delicious. Of course, no one can agree, and the boy gets all sorts of different answers from people. Then something happens to their water supply and the people can't access any water. They get so thirsty and by the time they get everything resolved and are able to get a drink of water, they finally all agree on the definition of delicious: a cool drink of water when you are very thirsty. There is nothing quite so satistying.

What a blessing to have easy access to clean drinking water!