Category: food

Faithfully…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay1 Comment

It is absolutely acceptable for the Journey song to be running through your mind right now.

Seriously, I get it. It’s a catchy tune and totally applicable. (well, minus the rockstar/long distance relationship stuff.)

Hello, 2019! I can’t even believe it, while also, I 100% can. On one hand, what they say is so true- the older we get, time just goes by so quickly. I understand the science of it, and why that is true. On the other hand though, I feel like the start of 2018 was a lifetime ago. Life… It’s a funny thing.

If you’re around on instagram then you probably saw that my Word of the Year is Faith. The response to this was cautiously supportive. I got a  lot of direct messages that questioned if I have lost my way with Jesus, while others hesitantly asked if I was going to become all churchy in everything I shared… The answer to both us a resounding NO. Doing great with Jesus, thanks for asking, and I can’t imagine (honestly) that much would change regarding what I share anywhere online. (except for the continued goal of being more attentive to this website)

Here’s the thing…

Choosing a word is a very personal process. I’ve shared briefly about the very personal (and often excruciating) chapters, in my life journey, and how they pertain to my yearly words. With each and every word, my personal faith and walk with God has always been affected. (The process us all-encompassing, I don’t think there is an area of my life that has not been affected.) The same goes for this year… While my faith will undoubtedly have a large role in this particular chapter, my word is FAITH, not ‘my faith’.

Faith is the opposite of doubt, the opposite of fear. Faith is synonymous with trust.  Faith is so many, many, many things. Faith is the direction that my life is going, and the area which I need to work on. Faith pertains to my relationships, my health, my mental/emotional clarity, my writing, my finances, my goals, my passions/projects, my work and of course Jesus.

I have a novel of personal goals to work on throughout the year, as I do every year. A handful of these are:

  • finish writing my book.
  • submit a book proposal.
  • take in more sunrises.
  • take the intentional time to cook more and get back to paying attention to what goes into my body.
  • celebrate my 25th wedding anniversary.
  • see some really great concerts/shows.
  • reacquaint myself with learning.
  • embrace (more fervently) sacred activities such as practice, fitness, conversation, prayer, reading, tea drinking and skin care.
  • free creativity.
  • read more/watch less.

By now it is possible that the Journey song has faded and new thoughts have crowded your mind, which is perfect timing because a modestly busy day looms. I look forward to traveling this chapter of life along side of you, and hearing where your journey is taking you…

The gift of time…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

Because gifts is my primary love language, I have many tinsel and twinkle light hued memories from childhood. Every Christmas was wrapped with a mysterious magic that I wore like a cloak as soon as my grandmother’s tree was up. The warmth that filled my spirit when those familiar ornaments found their destined branches, was unlike anything else I had known. Every single, child-like remembrance I have from my reel of Christmas’ past is fuzzy and happy and near to perfection.

While I have no gift that I remember as being so incredibly sentimental or touching, it almost seems as though every single gift which had held residence beneath my grandmother’s Ocotillo street Christmas tree became that very exact sort of present to me. Because they were Christmas gifts they became immersed with a better-than-Hallmark-movies sort of something. The best gifts when I look back, from those very best Christmases, were the ones that belonged more in tradition. In a childhood that was more dark and unpredictable, the very assurance that Christmas eve would hold dressing up, corsages, holiday vinyl albums on the stereo and fresh tamales in the kitchen. There were platters of crackers and spreads, and fruits with cheeses and so much love and laughter. I remember no other place in time that held as much love and laughter as my grandmother’s amber lit home on Christmas Eve.

One Christmas in particular,  my grandmother brought me up to open my annual “early gift”. It would have been roughly five or six because my grandfather was still alive. I tried to imagine what this square, wrapped jewel of a gift could be, but nothing came to me. I was consumed with the eagerness of needing the magic to last forever, and desperately wanting to know what treasure lie beneath the candy printed paper. The unwrapping revealed a very underwhelming Minnie Mouse watch. I had never had much of an affection either way, where Disney characters were concerned. I had never placed a watch (a face watch, no less, when all of the other 80’s kids were certainly wearing digital) on my list to Santa. All in all, at the time, the build up had felt much bigger than the actual gift.

The coming-to-terms-with the wrist accessory was accompanied by smiles on my grandfather’s beautiful face, and my grandmother telling me about responsibility, time management and big girl stuff.

While the intention may have been that I would have marched forth, from that annual tradition, feeling empowered and ready to grow into the next phase of my adolescence and what lay ahead, instead I left super disappointed and questioning the “magic” of Christmas at all.

I never did fall in love with that watch. I tossed into the mountains of junk in my room and it moved around with toys and other things I never took care of. When I would come upon it, I would feel pricked with the familiar, settling shame. I should have loved it. After my grandfather died, whenever the watch and I crossed paths, I would find my mind flooded with the shining memory of his loving, smiling face. This, naturally, did not help the guilt residing comfortably inside of me.

I don’t know what happened to that watch, eventually we stopped crossing paths at all. When I moved into foster care, at twelve, very few of my things went with me. I never did forget that watch, or the real gifts that were given that early December night- gifts which took me years to truly unwrap…

I love Mickey AND Minnie Mouse.

I love watches. In fact, I love clocks, period. I feel that watches and clocks are among the most intentional, beautiful and sentimental gifts imaginable. They are the closest we can get to giving someone the gift we all truly ache for: time. Time together, time to grow, time to simmer in our circumstances and allow our flavor to truly develop. That little watch, (which likely wasn’t nearly as expensive or fancy as my memory has carved it out to be) did give me all of that and so much more.

I LOVE organization and time management. I believe in being early and I really struggle with being late. I value timeliness in others.

Best of all, I have this beautiful memory of these two beloved faces, warm hands and full embraces. As an adult, I also have the perspective of why adults give gifts to children, and how that works. To a kid, it is almost always just stuff. To my grandparents, they intentionally pulled me aside and created a moment to give me something bigger than a timepiece. Maybe they knew my grandfather would die. Maybe they knew my life at home was blanketed in unspeakable evil and this was how they shared it as temporary. I will never know, because they are both gone now, but to me I learned so much (eventually) about holding tight to moments and time, to the smiling warmth of the ones I love.

My beautiful gift to you, today, is a video of this hauntingly beautiful song by Andrea and Matteo Bocelli (From the major motion picture the Nutcracker and the Four Realms.)

All Clara (Mackenzie Foy) wants is a key – a one-of-a-kind key that will unlock a box that holds a priceless gift. A golden thread, presented to her at godfather Drosselmeyer’s (Morgan Freeman) annual holiday party, leads her to the coveted key—which promptly disappears into a strange and mysterious parallel world. It’s there that Clara encounters a soldier named Phillip (Jayden Fowora-Knight), a gang of mice and the regents who preside over three Realms: Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers and Land of Sweets. Clara and Phillip must brave the ominous Fourth Realm, home to the tyrant Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren), to retrieve Clara’s key and hopefully return harmony to the unstable world. Starring Keira Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy, Disney’s new holiday feature film “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” is directed by Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston, and inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann’s classic tale.  “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” releases in theaters on November 2.

For more information, please go to:  https://movies.disney.com/the-nutcracker-and-the-four-realms

Quilts and Ice Cream Spoons…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay3 Comments

www.rainydayinmay.comI stir the ice cream, there in that bowl.

Over and over, spoon to side, and back again. The grinding sound is creating the milky masterpiece that I love so much.

Often the act begins with scoops of Cookies & Cream, the one which will remain a lifelong favorite. Most often though, they consist of French Vanilla, what I remember to be your favorite and a flavor I simply cannot stand.

The grinding, noise of metal spoon against glass, annoys you. This isn’t why I love to do it, but it doesn’t seem to deter me from my mission either.

As long as I can make that ice cream last, fading from firm scoop to sweet cream, the more of a victory I seem to feel I have won… I never questioned why, or why I stopped playing with the treat once I no longer lived under that roof. Have I ever done that as an adult? I’ll have to ask my husband. If I have, it was more from habit than intent.

As a girl, it was deliberate- thought out. It took serious concentration and I was committed to the act as if humanity’s survival depended on it…

Whenever something prompts me to reflect on my childhood, and the sorts of things I loved, liked and found interesting, that silly little ice cream habit is always towards the top of my list. I would shrug it off internally, chalking up to one of those dumb things I did to be weird. Today, suddenly, in this adult moment I am simply not sure…

We only had ice cream when you were there. We only did a lot of things when you were there. Movie nights, game nights, real dinners, actual dialogue and verbal interaction that didn’t involve yelling or verbal abuse. Which, I guess, isn’t entirely true. There were manic moments which included late night dance parties between her and I, or crazy drives in the dark where she’d sing and dance in the car and I would try to force myself to absorb how incredibly fun my mom could be. It would be well into my own adulthood when I would realize my mom’s manic habits really weren’t fun, but to a child those were the best versions of her that I saw.

On the nights when you were there, after the evening meal, after the kitchen was clean and the ice cream was eaten- this is when I was encouraged to sit on the couch beside you. This is when the bad things which I had always known, would happen. She would turn slightly, towards the light and away from us, and there- with a movie on the television, my little soul would fragment again and again.

Of course we were quite a group, the three of us. There was me, the girl who really hadn’t a clue what was happening as I disappeared catatonic, to a dark place deep within. There she sat knitting, in the role of my mother, choosing not to see it because then she could convince herself of innocence. And lastly, you. I don’t know why you did it, I don’t know how you could hear the word Daddy, be the keeper of my more stable childhood moments, be the teacher or my board game and bicycle skills and still be the monster with his body parts between my little girl legs…

I will never know the full extent of what happened.

I will certainly never understand.

I do know that I don’t hate you. It’s a complicated place to arrive, but I have. It was. It happened. It’s over.

I’ve found myself in the repeating situation, as of late, of hearing another share their own abuse story. I have found myself in awe of the quilted fabric we survivors lay across this earth, together connected by stitches not visible to the human eye, yet very real and binding. We are each so different, yet it is often in the connection of together which makes it the most beautiful…

It is beautiful.

This scrap of fabric, the fragment which remains after the use and abuse of the rest of a once shiny and new linen- it becomes something heavy with warmth and stitched with love. Something which will cradle a newborn, nurture the sick, protect our children from the elements and splay so much hope and beauty on this fragmented world.

Four sat around a table today, talking about life and motherhood, about marriage and technology, about childhoods and dark things like this. Of the four, only one had not known such darkness. Only one… I saw it then- this quilt protects the babies so that the one can one day become three– and some glorious day- four. I long for a day when four women can come together and not one of them will know the unwanted sexual touch of another.

I am a part of an often faceless sisterhood, and while I cannot be glad for what took me there, I am grateful for the banding together of something bold and beautiful, sprouted from the ugly it was born.

I am not what you did to me, but I am forever changed because of it. It may have felt otherwise, and it might still I guess, but the reality is that the only victim in our exchange is you…

I think of you, of that favorite bowl and that flatware spoon every time I eat ice cream. Woven into my soul, you’re there. You are there in the small green Monopoly houses, in the 1980’s horror movies, in tall sweaty glasses of iced tea, even in the smell of grilled steak… You are everywhere, somehow in almost everything. It is both complicated and simple. Hating you, I finally see, would mean hating me. So, instead, I’ll roll the dice and keep my fingers crossed that I get to own the Orange and the Greens. I’ll savor bites of ice cream and I’ll occasionally enjoy a steak and iced tea- I can not let the memory of a man, both father figure and monster, ruin things I love- just like you didn’t ruin me.

It’s Friday, I’m in love…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

This was one of those weeks where the good things were really good, and the less than great things were pretty low. As I’m typing this I am on a post recording high, from an episode very near and dear to me. Every single time I sit down to do an episode, it feels like the world opens up a bit wider and it somehow makes a little more sense. It is almost as though there are these full circle moments coming into clear focus, and leaving me in awe. In and of itself, the show is a very technically flawed free app. Beneath that though, where the gooey, glorious heart of it lives, there is something so much bigger than anything I could orchestrate and I am so grateful to be a part of it. This show is a humble little blip in the deep and ravenous sea of podcasters, sponsors and expense sheets. We are an every growing community of women, filled with a fire to make something better simply by being real and supporting one another. It is so odd to think, but that really does make the world better for someone.

If I am never a part of anything else, I think this podcast will never stop being my favorite.

Beyond that, it was a week which included cupcakes, coffee & sharing with women, family dinners, sunshine, pulling the summer clothes out of storage, packing the winter ones away, so much criticism, breaking pointes/boundaries, changes, possibilities, acceptance, so much tension dissipating into true peace and some of the most raw and transparent conversations i’ve had in ages… This blissful Thursday night/Friday morning finds me filled with gratitude and trust.

Beyond that:

  • Boise Boys. If you haven’t watched this, you should. It likely won’t evoke longings for home, like it does for us, but it is honestly just so fascinating. We don’t know either one of them, but we have about a thousand personal/real-life connections to Luke Caldwell, so we practically know him. Right?!?!
  • Goat Milk lotion. Have you used it? I am a constant hand cream user, and the problem isn’t the cream but it’s my skin. Super thirsty, I guess. Anyway, we were out of town on Sunday and I found a sample bottle of this soft scented goat milk lotion on a shop counter. I put a small dab on my hands and probably didn’t use lotion again until Monday. It was amazing and now, now I must acquire some. (note: adding to list of reasons why I need goats in my life.)
  • On Saturday I made Blackberry Cobbler. I totally want to claim that I made it for my cousin, and I really want to claim it is because I am so thoughtful and remembered that it was her favorite and that my grandmother always used to make it for her. Truth is, I didn’t remember that… (At least not consciously) also, I have never made blackberry cobbler before. My grandmother’s peach cobbler has been a stable in our summers, forever, but blackberry has never crossed my mind. Then I made it, and it was heaven. This summer we will not have cobbler- this summer will become the Summer of Cobbler. You’ll see…
  • The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society Trailer. It appears that Netflix will have it in August and honestly, I cannot wait. I loved this book and am loving the trailer so much. (PLUS it’s like a Downton reunion!)
  • I have developed this odd little bad habit of setting beverages on the back of my couch. Where we are currently living happens to be the very first living room where my couch is flush against a wall. I eventually began to utilize the very convenient “shelf” that is the its back. It’s not a big deal really, no spills… But, my swell bottle and coffee cups sometimes scuff the paint on the wall. There have been times my husband has come home from a business trip to a few forgotten (empty) coke zero cans planted there. My husband found a few pieces of reclaimed wood and he put together a humble little “sofa table”. We didn’t need much, basically just a holder for Misty’s pluthera of beverages. (#drymouth) It was the sweetest thing and I LOVE it. As if the gesture wasn’t sweet enough, he also built an outlet, complete with USB plugs, right into it. Seriously, this guy is the coolest…

It’s Friday, I’m in love…

Published on by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

It’s just not possible…

I look outside my large Michigan window and curse life as I know it. The warmth that was Tennessee this time last week, while here, today, it is snow and bitter cold.  Again. So over it…

I am also battling a cold, and intensely sore from wild and crazy things like caving beneath the Smokey Mountains and a new workout routine, back here in the land of frigid. I am achy and congested, frozen-finger typing while I am bundled up in an oversized sweatshirt, scarf and yoga pants. Emma, my seven year old Aussie, is corralled in the bathroom due to some sort of doggy sickness that I honestly feel like I cannot muster the energy for and I am nursing my second Coke zero of the day (yes, I do realize it is only ten in the morning) because my throat is swollen and on fire and it just feels better to drink that over razor sharp water… My box of tissues sits to my left, stack of books to my right. Atop the stack, naturally, is my Let Go journal…

I feel miserable and terrible, and really pretty awful too.

Let it go, Misty…

And maybe it is possible. Possible to feel all of the sad, bad, sickly things and still be a ray of shining something inside. Let’s try that, anyway.

Sharing the love, with you-

  • The husband and I went to Tennessee to celebrate twenty-four years since we first said I Do. The trip was wonderful! It was so great to take adventures together, just focus on BE-ing, and make new memories while investing in Us. The only really unplanned inconvenience was the traffic down, where we crawled at a snail’s pace along with EVERY SINGLE PERSON heading to Florida for spring break. Never would’ve thought, but now we know for next time… Among the AMAZING things we did in Tennessee, my favorite things to list (without making this an entire Knoxville area edition of the standard Friday post) would all involve Market Square, in Knoxville. Not only is trendy and yet somehow timeless, but it has an adorable little dog park right in the middle, and we got to meet lots of great little dogs! (It is safe to say that this part is not going to make Chw’s BEST list.) My favorite shop in the Square was the Knoxville Chocolate Company, not for what seems like the obvious reasons, however. The chocolate parts were more  earning of my husband’s adoration. For me, it was the artwork and gifts. They were featuring works from local artist Milk Moon House, and I fell head over heals for several of the pieces displayed!  It was a sad reality that they were pretty far out of my budget, and so with deep sadness I walked away… (also, shout out to the Blue Coast Bar & Grill for miraculously making the best french toast I have ever put in my mouth!)
  • When we first decided on Knoxville being our destination, a friend recommended a visit to McKay’s books. (If you’ve never had the overwhelmingly sensory experience of visiting this entertainment haven, you might want to consider a trip to Knoxville.) Nothing I can say would ever do it justice, and the place itself isn’t my second item here anyway. It is something I discovered while digging through their Vinyl. This album/movie is so fundamental to my childhood. You would have thought I’d dug and found a trove filled with gold and diamonds, for all of the enthusiasm I still have over this record.

The dark side’s callin’ now, nothin’ is real
She’ll never know just how I feel
From out of the shadows she walks like a dream
Make me feel crazy, make me feel so mean…

Moving on…

  • Because we love them and it’s what we do- the husband and I caught a movie at the local cineplex our last night in town. Him, (quite eagerly), and me (significantly less so) nestled in with popcorn to see Ready Player One. We had spent a pretty big chunk of the day adventuring through underground caves and I was feeling pretty tired. On occasion my inner grandma has been known to come out and nap through movies, and I was pretty certain this would be one of those naps. It was not. By principal and taste I pride myself on not being much of a Sci-Fi lover, but this movie… So crazy good.
  • I love to read. I don’t always have the time, but I am trying to be more intentional about picking up books. One thing I cannot do is read in the car. I just can’t. And my husband loves to listen to audiobooks, but the one thing he cannot do is read physical books. Something about holding a book just inspires his inner grandpa to pop right out and drift to snoozeland. Neither one of us can justify the regular cost of purchasing Audio books because… well, they are ridiculous. (and yes, he listens through the library, but the wait list is often unbearable.) Enter Otto. Maybe you’ve seen it pop up in various social media ads, promising to be the Netflix of audio books. That’s how I first heard of it, and skeptically, I looked into it. You guys, it IS the Netflix of audiobooks! We listened to a couple of great books, on our trip. Our favorite was The Woman in Cabin 10. (sidenote: I am surprised the consumer reader reviews aren’t stronger because this book HAD IT ALL…) Feeling super crummy this week (as I mentioned), and not playing entirely by-the-book with my Dirty Keto life, I have been self caring by some more reading. (We all need some self nurturing…) Am absolutely loving listening to This Is Me and recommend it to every woman/girl/person.)
  • I don’t usually watch New, midseason TV shows. (They aren’t usually very good and they also stand a greater chance of getting cancelled, so why commit?) I am a major fan of Zach Braff though, and as an Office lover, also adore Jenna Fischer. Their new shows Alex Inc. and Splitting Up Together are actually really good. I don’t know that they will get renewed because these are pretty smart and not the normal trendy types that do well… Fingers crossed! (Plus Emily Kapnek is bringing us Splitting Up Together and she was the brilliance behind Selfie– a show I deeply loved, that was gruesomely cancelled even though the internet went to war to save it! So you could say I’m a little jaded.)

What have you been loving lately? PLEASE share- I need all the joy I can get right now!