Abundance, or The Place Where Nothing is Wasted

Above the alley at the home we share, Waffle Guy and I embarked on a grand experiment: a rooftop patio garden. 

For him, the garden appealed to his practical side. "It'll pay for itself in one basil plant," he mused as I tallied up the cost of the seeds I'd purchased. 

For me, the garden represented catharsis. To keep a plant alive represented proof that the struggles of the last several years of my life had given way to the sort of gentle day-to-day rhythm that allowed a person to remember things like sunshine and water. 

And so one day I tenderly planted seeds in tiny peat pots and waited eagerly for my efforts to bear fruit. 

It took awhile. And I made lots of mistakes along the way. For example, I left my little seedlings out on the porch while I went on vacation, subjecting them to the fierceness of May in Minnesota. Despite a hard frost, nobody died.

I left my extremely promising lettuce sprouts on the lawn in my backyard, where a newly adopted dog was altogether thrilled to poop on them. Grossed out, I returned the lettuces to the earth. It all worked out, though, as my tomato plants took up much more room than I'd alloted them, and the loss of the lettuces allowed four massive tomato varietals to take residence on my patio.

And then there's the Hanging Pepper Planter Saga. Turns out, those thriving plants I planted in it were not, in fact, the peppers I thought I was planting. The good news is that green and yellow beans grow extremely well from hanging planters. Who knew?

I've over-watered. I've under-watered. I've over-fertilized and forgotten plant food entirely. And somehow, my garden decides again and again to forgive me. 

I spend altogether too much time thinking about the fact that my patio is alive, now. When the Deepwater Horizon story broke, my stomach tied itself in knots every time I saw a picture of an oil-covered animal. One day, while sitting near my little urban garden, I realized that growing my own herbs and vegetables means that no one has to truck them to the store for me. It was comforting, somehow, that those plants reduce my use of fossil fuels. Even if the change was a small one, it was real. 

And that's the thing about planting anything, isn't it? You scatter the seeds of all of your new ideas, and somehow, against all odds, some of them grow. And they change things. And they're real. 

Just like that. 

I can't take credit for the metaphor, but I feel like using it puts me in good company. Jesus and Emerson and Thoreau and perhaps thousands of other great minds have noticed how tending a garden reflects tending to our own lives. 

The other day, upon locking ourselves out of the house, the kids and I lounged in the hammock in my little rooftop Eden and snacked on the beans that had grown where we'd expected peppers. I recalled a period of my life when being stuck in such a situation would have been a highly stressful thing. Instead, I was actually having fun. 

Today I picked cilantro, and looked forward to grinding its seeds to make homemade curry powder, and I was overwhelmed at the perfect efficiency of my garden. A few pots, some soil and some seeds have reminded me that I belong here, on this Earth, in this place, and that nothing that's led me here has been wasted. 

On Fires and Forecasts

Sitting by a fire at the cabin on Big Butternut, Waffle Guy fell uncharacteristically silent as he gazed into the flames.

"Where'd you go?" I asked.

"Nowhere," he said. "Just thinking about fire."

"What about it?" I prodded, concerned that he was about to reveal a dormant pyromania within.

"It's fascinating. You can't predict it, really," he said. "I mean, you can predict that if you light something flammable, it will burn. And you can predict how wind direction might affect it. But you can never even begin to imagine what shapes the flames will make while the fire is burning."

He moved a bag of marshmallows to make room for me at his side.

"It's so complicated," he said. "It's like, we can sort of predict the weather. We can predict a storm, and know where it will hit, and we can tell whether it will be hot or cold. But no one can tell you what shapes you'll see in the clouds. Except with a fire, it's right there in that fire pit. It's so small, and it's so complicated."

Evening sun set the scarlet tops of distant cumulus clouds ablaze while sparks popped from burning oak logs, and I knew that we, too, were beautiful and random and complex and unscripted. I thought about predictions: We will never know what shapes we might take, but we know that there will be love.

Light from Within, and a Waffle Quote

Okay, so the quote is not even kind of about waffles. It's about love. Which I guess means it IS about waffles, because they are the food of love, but I digress.

Check it:

"Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth, 'You owe me.' Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky."

That one comes to us courtesy of our friend Hafiz of Shiraz, the 14th century Persian poet who made his European counterpart, Chaucer, seem like a staff writer for USWeekly. Google him, and you'll find a wellspring of poems and quotes and musings that will soothe your soul. Guaranteed remedy for a bad day.

I've been on the receiving end of a love like that, and I can tell you that it's a life-changing thing to experience. It's easy to think that our resources are finite; that we cannot love without first receiving love; that we all eventually run out of steam. And to a degree, that might be true.

But there are people out there like Waffle Guy, or like my children, or the Waffle Dogs, or some of my dearest friends. There's a sort of person who has an endless capacity to let their light shine, and when you're lucky enough to encounter one of them, it lights you up, too. I'm wondering if those people, like the sun, are fueled by some mysterious and powerful internal reaction that generates light enough to warm and nurture the world. What's the difference between those people and the rest of us?

For the next 24 hours, I'm just going to pretend that I'll never run out of energy. I'm going to try to love like I can light the sky, just for a day. And I'm not going to expect a thing in return. I'm not looking to turn into Mother Theresa overnight. But I am curious.

I'm wondering if there's a spark in me somewhere, just waiting to be fueled.

Waffling on Self-Worth, or the Recovering Perfectionist's Manifesto

They're treacherous beasts, those little voices in our heads. You know, the ones that say things like, "You'll never be good enough to be a professional surfer! And by the way, you'd make a crappy physics professor and an even worse maid! Oh, and while we're at it, you can just forget about being an astronaut, punk. We both know that cardboard spaceship you built when you were seven was the least inspired craft in your neighborhood!"

When those voices get chattering, I tend to forget that I don't necessarily want to be a professional surfer, and I've always hated physics, and that my cardboard spaceship actually kind of rocked in an avant-garde sort of way. Instead, I fixate on the fact that I'm Never. Good. Enough. And it gets in my way.

I'll pick up a new hobby, and quickly abandon it on the basis that it's not going so well. "You'll never be any good at gardening," those little voices will say. "It's been five whole days and your seeds have not yet germinated. Give up now, Plant Killer!!!!!"

And I will. I'll be so afraid that the seedlings won't ever grow that I'll stop watering them. And then they don't grow. And then, as I feared, I discover that the little voices were right. And I believe them more, the next time.

Sometimes the voices aren't little. Sometimes they're real. A rather pesky know-it-all who exists on the perimeter of my life decided last weekend that I'm an unfit dog owner, based on several entirely incorrect assumptions she'd made and never bothered to verify. And so, armed with her sense of self-righteousness, she went on a campaign to stop me from adopting the dog for whom I've been searching for several months. I live in a vibrant, lively home. My children, Guy and I are physically active, financially secure, conscientious people who make decisions carefully and live our lives well. We bring our dogs everywhere we go; we diligently monitor their eating and pooping habits; and we shower them with love, affection, and organic training treats at every opportunity. So why was it that when a voice said, "Kate's not good enough", I stayed up for three nights, wondering if I'd made a mistake? Even when there was indisputable evidence to the contrary, why did I try to make myself believe her?

I have a tendency to believe the worst about myself. I jump on every little bit of evidence that I'm a crappy writer, a bad photographer, an awkward conversationalist. While deep inside I often beam with pride at the compassion and kindness that I've managed to teach my daughters somehow, there's always a question, just below the surface, of whether I've also messed them up. Is it possible, I wonder sometimes, that I'm just too dumb to notice all the millions of things I'm doing wrong?

Sometimes I like the fact that I'm a pretty thoughtful, reflective person. I'm proud, sometimes, that I have a gift for being able to see and understand every side of an issue, and that I'm not bound by a rigidity of spirit. I'm good at learning, and good at changing, and most days, I like that about myself. But then there are the days when I find myself wondering if I'm not nearly as smart as I think. What if it's not that I'm reflective, after all? What if I'm just so slow that I have to dwell on the things that are easy for everyone else?

As I'm writing this, I'm beating myself up for being narcissistic and self-absorbed, because honestly: Do I really think anyone cares about all the stuff that goes on in my brain?

It's enough to drive a girl crazy.

Tonight, I cried really hard because I turned in some photos a day late. They were late because I was so afraid of turning them in, because I convinced myself that I'm an artistic joke. When I finally sat down to look at my edits, I got so anxious about my worthiness as a human being that I decided to skip dinner with a bunch of people who I really like. Ah, Anxiety. You're a marvelous liar.

I've decided that I've had enough. Because while it may be true that I am a procrastinator and an artistic amateur and that I tend to be a bit neurotic and kind of flighty, I'm also smart and funny and kind. With a good editor, I'm an amazing writer, and with virtually anyone's writing, I'm a pretty good editor. I'm loving and compassionate, and once you've earned my trust, I'm a very loyal friend. I listen without judgment, and for the most part, I choose my words carefully. I love my children, and I show them that at every chance I get. I'm silly and playful and I laugh all the time. I love traveling because I adore learning about people who are different from me. And I like that about myself.

I will no longer fear that I am inadequate. I will live for the things I love, and love the things I live for. I will notice that, despite my fear of the outcome, I had a great time editing those photos. I will transfer the seedlings that are miraculously still sprouting in their starter-packs on my deck, and I will pat myself on the back for trying, every year, to add life to the world in whatever way I can. I will write and think and talk and laugh, and simply stop worrying about the voice of my own anxiety, or the voices of anyone else, for that matter. I will only listen to the voices of those who truly love me, and only listen to my own voice when it comes from a place of love.

I will be proud of the fact that my children know they are loved.

And while we're at it, I'll take a minute to feel some gratitude that I am curled up in my bed, by the love of my life, while our new dog and the Waffle Hound snore contentedly at our feet.

It's a gift, this life I have, and I am done packaging that gift in my own fears. And, despite the nagging little voice that's telling me that people will only think that I'm self-absorbed and small if I write about that, I'm going to challenge myself to defy those fears publicly, just in case I find that I'm not the only one who struggles this way.

I'll write about it here because, well, it's been three months since I've written, only because I have feared that I have nothing real to say.

But you know what? Writing makes me feel alive, even when it's scary. And from here on out, that's what it's about.

Stick With What You Know: The Lesson of the Hagel Zucker

In recent weeks, we've been busy to the point that we've missed two Waffle Days. Between kids' sports and lessons, an impending move, a trip to the cabin and a tenth birthday, it's been nuts.

On Saturday morning, the middlest kid announced that she'd had enough. Come hell or high water, we'd be making waffles for her. Simple enough, right?

Nope.

See, the credit for our mad waffle skills must be given primarily to a magic ingredient: Hagel Zucker. After unsuccessfully scouring Belgian stores for the elusive Belgian pearl sugar, we decided to hunt for it in Germany, at a grocery store near a friend's house.

Heartbreakingly, we never did find our pearl sugar, but we decided to take a chance on Hagel Zucker. Literally translated, it means "hail sugar", and that's a pretty apt description. These little clumpy balls of sweet, crunchy sugary goodness were indeed shaped like hail stones, and they were our last hope.

They did not fail us.

On that trip, we brought home several boxes of Hagel Zucker, and we were delighted to discover that the crystals worked perfectly. They gooified the outside of our waffles and added tiny crun-chewity flavor explosions to the inside of our perfect little confections. Hagel Zucker was a life-altering discovery, and we've been breakfasting in heaven ever since.

In October, our German friends came to the United States to get married, and we requested that they bring us some new Hagel Zucker to supplement our stash. They arrived with a suitcase full, God bless 'em. But Hagel Zucker goes fast: each batch of waffles requires a whole box, and the time has come when our once massive stash of the crystal wonder-balls has dwindled to a meager fourteen boxes.

Saturday morning, we made a gut-wrenching decision. We decided to ration, which might have been sensible enough. But we didn't just ration. We took the easy way out, and made waffles from a box mix. What were we thinking?

We learned an extremely valuable lesson. First, the Spirit of True Belgeezian Waffles is a spirit with high standards, and it resented the fact that our boxed mix batter was in no way actually Belgian. It demonstrated this to us by causing our batter to stick cruelly to the inside of The World's Best Waffle Maker, tragically resulting in a massive plate of crumbs. We threw away half the batch.

The waffles, as expected, were solidly mediocre, and tasted best when drowned in massive quantities of heavily flavored syrup and powdered sugar. Sigh...

The overall theme of the Waffle Quest has been alive with a much greater truth, however: Whenever you truly seek to understand anything in life, you'll ultimately learn more than you bargained for.

Here's what the waffles taught us this time: When you have the capability to succeed on a grand scale, it's a darn shame to half-heartedly embark on a journey. Victory tastes sweeter when you give it your all, even when your reserves are low.

Dang it, Waffles. How do you know so much?

A Taste of the Cabin

I opened my email this morning to find proof that someone reads this stuff. 

(Ahem)

A reader requested a recipe. 

Woah.

Waffle Guy's Easy "Brownies"

2 c. Graham Cracker Crumbs

1 8-oz. can Sweetened Condensed Milk

Halfish bag Semisweet Chocolate Chips (Okay, so we used 2/3 of a bag. So?)

A daring spoonful of high-quality vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients until they make a cement-like dough, taking extra care to sample the sweetened condensed milk (you know, for quality control purposes...and stuff...). Mix until your arm is stiff--this shouldn't take long. Bake at 350 or so until the top is ever-so-lightly golden and the edges are a lovely golden brown. Allow to cool for a bit before cutting, or you'll make a mess.

Waffle Guy's Candied Nuts

2/3 c. granulated sugar

3 T. cinnamon

3 T. water

1 1/2 c. of your favorite nuts (the kind you eat, not the kind to whom you're related)

In a preheated pan, combine all ingredients, stirring rapidly and constantly until you truly believe your nuts are destined to be contained in a slimy layer until the end of time, at which point you actually have only 20 seconds left to stir. All of a sudden, the liquid will turn into a grainy, pretty candy layer. Remove pot from heat, adding 1 more tablespoon of water to separate your newly candied nut confections. Stir some more. Lay flat on a cookie sheet to cool, or go street vendor and serve them warm, from a paper cone. Eat until satisfied. Follow with nap on couch with a warm, soft puppy.

There. How's that for precise writing?

Dispatch from the Tundra: In Luck for Tasty European Snacks

In the tiny town of Luck, Wisconsin, on the shores of Big Butternut Lake, lies the cabin where Waffle Guy's family has been retreating for nearly three decades. The Waffle Kids and I have been fortunate to have experienced the cabin on several occasions in the summer, and have enjoyed its offerings tremendously.

With real life doing its best to interfere with travel planning (it's been nearly two months since Waffle Guy and I have left Flyover Country, and we have no current travel dates on the horizon), we've been getting a little stir crazy. Thinking a midwinter cabin adventure might relieve some, uh, cabin fever, we decided to spend New Year's in Luck. Trust us. It made sense at the time.

So we planned. We packed sleds and snowpants for all. We discussed our best sledding options. We dreamed about crafting snowmen and warming up with hot cocoa by the fireplace. It was all perfect, in our heads. But Mother Nature had some ideas of her own, and we wound up learning that sometimes the best weekend is one with no plans.

Day 1: Waffle Dog enjoys some of the freedoms that cabin life affords her. We play Single Digit Snow Fetch until our arms are too numb to throw the squeaky tennis ball. She romps in the crunchy snow, stopping only to sniff rabbit tracks or dart after a squirrel. Noting that it's gotten quite chilly outside, Waffle Guy suggests that we may want to remain quiet about sledding unless a Waffle Kid mentions it. I agree, although I am disappointed. This is, after all, why God made quality gloves. 

Waffle Guy distracts us all from outdoor fun by teaching the girls to bake his "Easy Brownies", which are not, in fact, brownies at all. Rather, they're what any good Minnesota church lady would call "bars". But they are delicious, and they are addictive, and they are easy, and I find myself concerned that I will be eating a lot on this trip.

Day 2: We awake to find that our bedroom is cold. Really cold. Like, the kind of cold where you can't get out of bed without wrapping yourself in a blankie, burrito style. I would have simply stayed in bed all day, except that Waffle Dog is whining. 

Stumbling out of bed, I open the sliding glass door to let her outside. That's when the magic happens. The outside air is so cold that you can literally see it coming in as it meets the comparatively warm air of our bedroom. A cloud of steam curls in through the doorway in an ominous manner, and Waffle Dog looks at me as if to say, "Hell, no." I cannot force even a dog to go outside.

We look up the local temperature to discover that the air was a whopping -18F. The Guy gazes at me with pleading eyes. Sledding is officially out of the picture. 

In lieu of sled time, we decide to cook. The morning starts with Jungle Animal Pancakes, molded to be shaped like monkeys, elephants and lions. They aren't waffles, but they are pretty darn good with bananas and chocolate chips. 

For lunch, we attack the arsenal of powdered mixes that the Guy has collected from Germany, and so it is that the Waffle Kids learn the lesson of the Frickin'Awesome. See, Waffle Guy and I once stopped at a rest area cafe in Germany because I was starving and whiny. His attempt to silence my grumbling was successful: this particular cafe gave birth to my first frikadelle, a perfect little wad of meat, mixed with bread crumbs, seasoned to onion-y perfection and pan fried in plenty of greasy deliciousness. I renamed the meatloaf/meatball/burger/miracle  the "Frickin'Awesome", and I've been craving it ever since.

We have to doctor the frikadellen a bit to make them kid-friendly, but a slice of cheese and a dallop of Heinz ketchup go a long way, and the Little Waffles were delighted. The Guy and I have ours with delicious brown mustard, and I find myself drifting away to a picnic table on the side of an autobahn, somewhere between Neuschwanstein and God-knows-where. Heaven.

For dinner, Waffle Guy transports me back to Germany yet again for a visit with my old friend currywurst. With delicious sausages he procured from a rural Wisconsin grocer, and a powdered sauce mix he obtained from a grocer in urban Deutschland, we have a proper German greasy-spoon dinner. I might have died from fullness right there, but we aren't done. 

You see, Waffle Guy has been hanging on to a nut-roasting pan, and it is time to candy some nuts. And candy nuts we do: almonds, cashews and pecans all fall victim to cinnamon-sugary snack-tacular joyness. 

I eat gluttonously, and then proceed to lay in bed and plead with the gods to forgive my indiscretions. Secretly, though, I intend to relive that day's menu as soon as possible.

Day 3: It's Sunday, so of course breakfast is waffles. In this case, it's pre-packaged imported Belgian waffles that my Guy found at a grocery store in Luck. They are dry, and they've got nothing on our waffles, but they'll do in a pinch.

We have to return home early to get Thing One to piano lessons. Plus, we have tickets to Disney's Beauty and the Beast at the phenomenal Ordway Center for the Performing Arts.

Before the show, we stop at Cosetta in St. Paul for our quarterly mostaccioli fix, and for poignant punctuation on the weekend's theme: Even in life's coldest moments, my world is full of warmth and flavor. 

My soul is fed. My heart is warmed. And my cheeks are flushed, for the thrill of it all.