As I was listening to our pastors powerful message of truth at our Tenebrae service on Good Friday (we participated at home online) he mentioned that this was probably the lentiest Lent that anyone in our generation or younger have ever experienced.  Lent, in the Christian church, is a period of penitential preparation for Easter. In Western churches it begins on Ash Wednesday, six and a half weeks before Easter, and provides for a 40-day fast (Sundays are excluded), in imitation of Jesus Christ ’s fasting in the wilderness before he began his public ministry.  So,  very often,  believers and Christ followers give up something during Lent so they can spend more time focusing on Christ and his sacrifice for us and what it all means and what He means to us.  This year, Ash Wednesday was on February 26th, exactly two weeks before the proverbial pandemic hit the fan. As an adjective,  penitent means feeling or expressing sorrow for sin or wrongdoing and disposed to atonement and amendment.  Repentant. Contrite.

What is it about the movie ‘Father of the Bride’ that rips my heart out every single time I watch it. Every. Single. Time. First of all….Steve Martin. Could they have picked a more perfect father? The movie is reminiscent of simpler times. More wholesome times. And that house! If it isn’t just the homiest home with the homiest yard I could ever be at home in.  And that basket ball hoop in the backyard, surrounded by trees and verandas and wicker benches with cushions and flowers and grass.  I have wanted a basketball hoop in my back yard since the first time I laid eyes on this movie. My kids were still young and could have benefitted from having one. I was pretty convinced that that basketball hoop was akin to therapy. One would never need it if they could only play basketball in the backyard with their dad, growing up.  All would be right with the world if you had a basketball hoop. We never ever got one because we never ever had a place for one and now we have arrived to this day with emotional baggage. A basketball hoop would have been cheaper than therapy. Do not dwell on the past….

I love Franc. Martin Short invents this character so well. The wedding planner. I am so jealous of him. That is the wedding I want to plan. I absolutely adore that backyard tent wedding. It’s absolutely stunning and I just know I could create that wedding in my backyard if someone would give me the opportunity. Given the fact that it snowed on the day of that wedding gives me hope for planning an outdoor wedding. Of course that was California and this is Calgary. That was a movie and this is reality. San Marino, California. I don’t know if there is such a place but if there is, I want to live there, with its tree lined streets and white picket fences.

The Way you Look Tonite is probably one of my favorite songs with secular lyrics. It doesn’t matter who sings that song. When I hear it I pause and listen and dream that someone might have felt that way about me somewhere …sometime. Sigh.

Anyway, I watched the movie tonite as a distraction from the insanity that is our world right now and it was the perfect choice. I was transported to a gentler, more stable era. A million miles away from here. To manageable problems and happier endings. I mean, they got in a fight and almost called of the wedding because of a blender. Easily rectified. Little misunderstanding. And the craziness in the grocery store was because they sell wieners in eights and hot dog buns by dozens and George Banks was not falling for that ripoff after spending $1200 on a wedding cake and flying all the Sweden relatives over from Denmark and paying $250 a head for every guest at the wedding. Not to mention the new navy polyester tuxedo he had to buy thinking it was Georgio Armani and thinking it was black. Those are the sorts of issues I want to deal with. I know what to do about things like this. Nothing was really out of control. Nothing earth shattering, if you know what I mean.

Tomorrow, Father of the Bride II. I’m so glad there’s another one.

We had to cancel our trip to Mexico for a friend of the family’s destination wedding at the end of April.  My son was going to be on of the attendants but he is a nervous traveller so we all decided to go and make it a family vacation.  Whenever that can happen, its a bonus. We were sad to cancel the trip and take a loss in regards to a refund but these are the times we are living in and we really had no choice.  Coronavirus is not being kind to our finances or anybody elses.
However,  at this juncture we are all holed up together here in the south of Calgary in our comfy family home.  It just so happens that both of our adult children are living at home right now and I couldn’t be more grateful to have them underfoot.  They have gone and they have come back and we’ve been wondering why life turns out the way it does but I am starting to get some revelation.   I wouldn’t want them to be anywhere else right now, especially with the hit to the pocketbook.  They don’t have to ‘not be able to pay their rent and be evicted’.  They don’t have to ‘not be able to see us because they are off quarantining in another country or province’. They don’t have to ‘not be able to afford food’ because they can eat at home and I am positively happy to cook for them. I don’t have to be ‘wondering how they are doing and feeling helpless to help them’.   My daughter has been experimenting with running her own business which happens to rely on large events (groups of people gathering together).  Needless to say, she has no work. We’ve all been relegated to home to do our part in flattening the curve.   So here we are.  This is Us.
There was a time when I may have believed that this situation was dysfunctional and co-dependent and a lot of other negative things that people may have judged us as idiots for allowing.  But I finally came to the place where I believed that God knows what He is doing ‘for such a time as this’. I was OK with being considered dysfunctional or maybe actually being dysfunctional.  Once I was OK with this then it didn’t bother me what others would think any longer.   And now, I am thanking God on bended knee that this is our situation.
We get to spend this isolation time together.  We had a dinner party the other night and then played Mexican train.   We built a snowman in the backyard on another day.  Today we went for a walk in a non crowded area and nearly froze to death, together.  Then we stopped at the grocery store for provisions (since we were already out). Probably not a great idea but too late now.  (We are taking all of this seriously btw).  And all returned home happy with our little isolation treats.
Sometimes I don’t like having everyone at home because I like to be alone.  For some reason, I don’t feel like I can do whatever I want when others are here.  Which is baloney because no one ever stops me from doing what I want.  But I do like to walk around the house and pray outloud when no one is home.(That’s not what you thought I was going to day, is it?  LOL)  In fact, I love doing that.  I don’t feel so comfortable doing it when others are here.  So now I do it when everyone is asleep.  And that is nice too.
We are all at home and getting along.  Grateful for that.  Every home and family can’t always make that claim.   We are giving each other their space (except when I insist they get out of their pyjamas and go for a walk).  We have great conversations when the kids aren’t holed up in their rooms.  The are so intelligent and fun. At some point they have to eat.  We like each other even though none of us is perfect.  I have to let some things go.  I can’t have the house spotless all the time.  I have to listen to their shows and music very often.  We have to share the space and we also have to respect each others health by washing and sanitizing our hands and things we touch after we’ve been out.  But there is a mature and mutual respect for what is going on in the world and we are looking out for each other.
This whole situation is totally surreal.  I can’t even believe its happening but if it had to happen then these are the people I want to walk through it with.  These are the people I want to be stuck in an elevator with.

Winners is shut down.  Chapters is shut down.  You can only do drive through at Starbucks.  Church is cancelled as well as our home group.  The office is closed.  Pottery Barn is closed.  H & M is closed.  The Bay is closed.  Nordstrom’s is closed (not that that effects me in any way).  Zara is closed as well as IKEA.  Can’t go to the gym – closed. Can’t travel – not that I’d want to at this point.  Can’t go to the movie theatres.  SO I guess I may as well stay home.  There is no where to go.  This is the ultimate case of “all dressed up with nowhere to go”.  A few fast food places open – well if their food doesn’t kill you, the germs you pick up from the younguns who think they are invincible,  will.
So I am finally confined to my house.  I have often said that if I were stuck in my basement for a year,  I would never run out of things to do…and that is still the truth.  Why is it that once you are told to not go out,  all you can think about is going out?  Now you don’t want to stay home.  I am not sure why because, I, of all people have a wonderful home to be isolated to.  We have food and essentials.  Our home is clean and well decorated. Pleasant.  Comfortable. Warm. Safe. It is definitely a Home, Sweet, Home. We are surrounded by our favorite things.  One of them being our adult children that are living at home for such a time as this.  We get along and love each other.  They are so interesting.  I have so many unread books and a sewing machine and serger that hardly get used when I am busy gallivanting around town.   I have canvases and paint.  I could paint up a gallery.  I have a freshly tuned piano that wants to be played with.   I have journals to fill and a blog to update.  I have a cookbook to write and recipes to be tested.  We have Instagram, Facebook and email.  We have Netflix.  We could watch Christmas movies.  Whose going to stop us??  I mean we already turned our Christmas lights back on to join others across North America in a message of hope.  We have games.    We have been so blessed and now we get a chance to slow down and appreciate and enjoy those blessings that we have been tripping over all these months and years.  Always reaching for that new thing to distract us and to obsess about.
Now we get the opportunity to slow down.  To contemplate.  To exercise gratitude.  To learn.  To relax.  To get to know one another better.  To find peace.  To adopt some new habits.  Some better habits.  To realize what we do and do not need to survive.  To simplify.  To stop the acquiring of things and spending money on stuff.  Time to pray.  Time to meditate.  Time to be kind and generous. A time to re-assess our lives and our purpose and our focus.  I think a lot of us really needed this time.  I know the financial implications are scary but maybe even that is a concept we need to rethink.
There is always a silver lining.  Look for the good in every difficult situation.  It’s there.  And the nature of a mass pandemic as a contagion is that you have to be thinking about the other person.  Its not all about you.  Its not all about me.  Its about doing the right thing.  The compassionate thing.  The selfless thing.  The kind thing.  The inconvenient thing.  And who doesn’t need to hone up those character traits?
Well, I’ve got to go now and drop a bag of flour on my 88 year old mother’s doorstep and then we are having a Netflix party with some of our family that live miles away.  Why didn’t we think of this before now???  Necessity is the mother of invention.

What are those funny little cookies that look like mini hamburgers in an assortment of colours? I saw them on our visit to Paris, at every little sidewalk baker and cafe. Our favorite place to stop every morning before a full day of sightseeing was Paul’s. We were so obsessed with the croissants, we barely gave those odd hamburger cookies a moments notice. Frankly, I didn’t think they looked that appetizing. And, I thought they were a little ugly. (Like Uggs until they were all the rage. Or Birkenstocks). We probably passed the Laduree shop several times as we walked the Champs élysées oohing and awing. We visited the Elie Saab boutique and Louis Vuitton and Chloe but walked right past Laduree, the inventor of the macaron as we know it today. Two little almond meringue cookies with a flavoured filling sandwiched between. The macaron was actually born in Italy and somehow made its way to France. It was at La Masion Laduree that they began to sandwich a filling between the two cookies.

It wasn’t until we returned home that we started to see the emergence of this sweet, glorious, haute cuisine delight in our little village. Maybe it was there all the time, we just didn’t have any interest in it. Not unlike the time Mike bought us a brand new car. A Sable. I’d never seen one or heard of it before. Ours was a rich deep wine color and I thought I’d acquired at Jag. Until I started to drive it and realized there was a Sable on every corner… almost.

Once we were aware that this little French delicacy was taking over from the cupcake, we had to be on board. We’re nothing, if not on top of the food and fashion trends. When I say ‘we’, I’m talking about my daughter and I. We examined them when we had the pleasure of tasting them at various events. Well, we must make some, we decided. We will not be left behind. We were already making pies, cakes, cupcakes, sugar cookies and selling them to connoisseurs of fine baking in our circle of friends. I mean, how hard can it be???

Quite. As it turns out. They are very finicky little things. Mostly because of the egg whites or the meringue texture of them. It’s actually much easier to just make meringues. But no, let’s complicate this…it mustn’t be easy. We can’t have every Tom, Dick and Geri making them. You have to beat egg whites with sugar and egg albumen to the perfect consistency. Not too little and not too much. You have to sift, several times, the already fine icing sugar and almond flour. I mean..
Who tried this out for the first time? Apparently King Louis XIV ate macarons at his wedding in 1660. Who knew? They were individual cookies back then. No filling. No sandwiches. So someone just decided to put these ingredients together and noticed that very often the cookies ended up with this frilly little base that is now called a foot. And that foot is everything. I mean, EVERYTHING! What probably started out as a mistake is now the measuring stick for success. So actually I am possibly trying to replicate someone else’s mistake. Very often my macarons look like they have hobbit feet. They still taste delish but they are not haute cuisine at this point. They are just peasant dessert.

Next, you have to do something called macaronage. There are many different theories as to how many times you have to fold the batter into the centre of the bowl to create the perfect consistently. It should end up flowing like slow moving lava. What if I’ve never seen slow moving lava? What then? Some instructions suggest or should drop from the spatula like a continuous thin ribbon. I can relate to that. But do not over mix or death quell. The eggs should be room temperature. They should be older. You have to tap the cookie sheets on the counter to get rid of air bubbles and prevent the tops of the cookies from cracking. You must cook on low temperature so the cookies don’t discolour. But not under bake them. Rumour has it… Ok, I actually heard her say it… that the owner of the Duchess Bakery in Edmonton used to bake her macarons in a toaster oven because that’s all she had, which leads me to believe the finesse is in the preparation of the batter.

I have made these delightful little delicacies with a modicum of success over the past ten years. Tossed many batches of macarons out for fear someone would guess that I am unable to tame these little beasts. The ingredients are delicious so they never taste bad, you just can’t serve them up and call them macarons. Mastering these little dessert hamburgers is the bain of my culinary existence. My Waterloo. Did I mention that the level of humidity in the air also can seriously affect these little buggers? I mean, burgers.

I just can’t base my whole self esteem on whether my macarons turn out on any given day. I’ll just keep making them. Sometimes they are lovely and sometimes not. I’m going to invent a dessert using mutant macarons and I’ll be famous.

To Be Continued

I’ve been reading so much about purpose this 2020.  And I have spent an exorbitant amount of time trying to figure out what mine is,  I keep thinking…shouldn’t someone who is 62 already know what their purpose is?  Some people suggest that I have already been moving in my purpose and don’t even know it.  I certainly do not what to miss out on it.
I have had wishes for years.  I wish this would happen and I wish that would happen and I wish I could do this and I wish I was good at this and I wish that was my lot in life.  And why do I find myself, very often, not doing what I am truly good at or what nurtures my soul?    As I have mentioned before, this last layoff had me more seriously considering a dream. There’s got to be more to life than 9-5, repeat, same old, same old. Everybody that’s doing something they love and are good at had to start somewhere. So I began to rationalize.  Why can’t I have a dream?   An actual dream!  Not a ridiculous dream.  But rather something that is quite possible.  Well, highly improbable for me (us) given our fears, doubts and lack of where-with-all.  But still.  My mom showed me a quote from her recent bible study that said this, “Nothing happens until somebody starts dreaming.  God cannot help you reach your goals if you don’t have any goals.  He cannot fulfill your dreams if you don’t have any dreams.  He cannot exceed your expectations if you don’t have any expectations”.  This, of course, makes total sense.

Joanna Gaines suggest asking yourself these questions and writing out your answers.  What do you want to be able to say about your life a year from now?  Or at the end of this decade?  What’s most important to you in life?  What thrills you?  What do you talk passionately about?  If nothing stood in my way, what kind of life would I lead?  SUCH A GOOD QUESTION.
Then she says:  Now take that dream and define it.  Then translate that vision into a tangible form as a physical reminder – a mini manifestation of what you want to see happen in yourself and in your life. Keep the vision before your eyes.  Distill your vision into a single word….my word for the year is ‘courage’.  So appropriate, because to push myself towards my dream will definitely take courage.

As I fill up my new journal with all my thoughts, fears, dreams, failures, desires, victories and questions, I see a theme emerging over and over again. What the rest of this paragraph is about, is not it.   However, I am, if nothing else, a maker.   I am creative and excited about making beautiful things.  Whether these creations are paintings or sewn together or baked or cooked or require the use of my Cricut machine, I love to create something beautiful that did not exist before.  So I have dragged myself down the alley of being a seller.  Having an Etsy shop as a possibility.  Making and selling things from my home or on Instagram.  Recovering furniture.  Making quilts and bridesmaid and graduation dresses.  I even sold a painting once.  Selling my favorite kitchen products at home parties.  Believe it or not…I used to be a fitness instructor. Sold Tupperware. Worked in a mine.  In a pizza joint, in the middle of the bald prairies for a week.  In a hardware store.  In a quilt shop – now we are getting closer to ‘me’.  I’ve spend many years working as an Administrative Assistant in the corporate world, because everyone knows that’s where the big money is.  The paid vacation, the benefits, the security…or not (given I have been laid off  or let go of no less than five of these positions since 1985.)

I have even started and run my own business, teaching kids to sew and quilt, out of a basement studio my dad helped me build.  I did this for six years.  I started out with summer sewing camps and managed to get myself on the local breakfast TV show  four years in a row.  This is how I got my enrollment.  The first year, the show just mentioned my endeavor along with the rest of the city’s summer camps being offered.  The second year they asked me to bring some kids and some sewing machines to the studio to have us actually live on the show.  That was exciting.  The fourth year, they brought the cameras and the van to my studio and interviewed myself and the students and gave a tour of the studio I’d set up.  When I think of it now,  that was actually something I am proud of.  I did that.

But as I journal, ponder and pray…this new dream is truly more of what I have been preparing myself for, for a long time now.  I mentioned in a previous post,  that what I can really see myself doing is moving to an acreage with a farm house (with a wrap around veranda) and land to grow flowers on  (maybe construct a greenhouse for more variety) and a large white barn.  My first purpose for the barn would be as a wedding venue but truly, I would like it to be a life events venue.  I realize what I am really good at and what I love doing, is transforming something ordinary into something ‘other worldly’.  Something dreamy.  Something that will take your breath away.  Something that will make you pee your pants. (I’ll have facilities on the premises).

As I reminisce, I realize I have already been doing that for years as I host tables at fundraisers, throw bridal showers to bless young girls, baby showers to usher in a new life, make a memorial service a celebration of life where people end up feeling comforted, transforming a friends home into a cruise ship for a 60th birthday party.  Transforming my own living room into a Tuscan banquet venue.  Hosting a family Christmas for twenty seven people that claim it was magical.    My friends and colleagues think I am nuts most of the time, but I get lost in the creating an atmosphere.  Creating a mood.  Transporting people.  Friends, family, guests.  Not event planning, as I first thought was my calling…but transforming ordinary spaces into memorable places.  I could do this by redecorating your home.  But I really want to do it on a grander scale.  And regardless of what society says about marriage in this day and age…people keep getting married.  Women keep having babies.  Kids keep graduating.  Couples keep having anniversaries. Families keep gathering and loved ones keep passing on from this life to the next.  I would love to play a part in making all of these events sacred and sensational.  Fun and festive.  Meaningful and memorable. I get carried away in the process and love to make the guests and families at these events feel they have been transported.
Whether I get my acreage, my farmhouse, my greenhouse (I know nothing about growing) and/or my white barn remains to be seen, but I WILL continue to pursue this dream and continue to do all the things.