The Chocolate Custard that will be in Heaven

I am breaking from "the back story" to share the recipe for the Chocolate Custard Pie that Abby says will be in heaven. Thanks to Southern Living for the recipe - It is so yummy and easy...

Chocolate Custard Pie
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
4 egg yolks
3 cups milk
2 (4 oz.) bars bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
2 tsp vanilla

Bring first 6 ingredients to a boil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat (about 15 minutes), whisking constantly; boil, whisking constantly, 1 minute or until thickened. Remove from heat; stir in butter and vanilla. Pour custard into baked pie crust (according to package directions for an unbaked pie). Place plastic wrap directly on surface of custard; chill 2 hours. Top with sweetened whipped cream and, if desired, chocolate curls.

Or, you can just eat it as custard and forget the pie crust - YUM!
Enjoy.

The Back Story, installment 1

Greg and I just saw Inception last night, and I'm still recovering... Fabulous movie, kept me up a way too long time thinking about it. I'd be on the verge of unconscious and a new thought would jolt me awake to join my theories of what exactly was going on (and the later it got, the more my thoughts turned to... "if Greg does something weird in his sleep, I am absolutely going to jump out of my skin.)
Perhaps that's my disclaimer if I make little or no sense...

In writing a little at a time about my "foggy period," I'm trying to figure out where the beginning is...

Greg and I spent a week painting our new house and fixing extreme issues that came along with our beautiful but troubled foreclosure while our daughters stayed in San Antonio with grandparents. This was it... the beginning of our new beginning.

After living with Greg's gracious brother and sister-in-law and my niece and nephew for 4 months, we had our own home again (sort of, thanks to Greg's parents spotting us in an economy that wouldn't extend a home loan to us in any form). We were still trying to figure out what a steady source of income would look like, practically speaking. Greg had a part-time job at our wonderful new church and a business partnership beginning with his brother, but steady income at this point was $1000 a month (not what banks want to see).

I know a lot of people have this story element somewhere, especially in the past few years, but this shook us pretty hard; we had never dealt with such financial insecurity and future obscurity. We dipped into savings for carpet (HAD to be done), paint, and necessary appliance replacements. And with this home came my expectation for a renewed sense of identity and purpose for me as mother, wife, and woman in my own home.

Back a little further without nitty-gritty details (not because I don't wish to share, just because I don't want to infringe on someone else's "story" with my own projections)...
We had just left a difficult ministry fit in a small town in Kansas (we were there for 3 1/2 years) without a plan B or C in place. We knew it was time to go and then the timing was pressed upon us ("you have two more weeks"), so with no Plan beyond knowing we had loving family in Dallas and San Antonio and Iowa and a church in Iowa that still considered us part of their family, we packed up in a fog and tried to make sense of what was supposed to happen next.

A quick run-down of God's orchestration during that time - within two days of hearing we had two weeks left, the following happened:

Our church in Iowa (Greg was youth pastor there for about 7 years) let us know that the elder board voted to pay off our minivan and provide 3 months of health insurance premiums and to offer one of the homes the church owned as a place for us to live while we "found what was next." We opted to move to Dallas because of family and connections there, but we were overwhelmed with gratefulness at their financial support during our transition. Our amazing orthodontist in Kansas wiped our remaining balance for Abby's braces off the books. A pastor friend of ours from another church let us know they were bringing in a new staff member and his family who were looking for a house. This family offered to buy our house before we ever put a sign in the yard. Gracious friends from Kansas were incredibly generous as they sent us with financial gifts from their own pockets.

And we realized as we drove to Dallas with my dad and brother driving the moving van, that the non-Plan next part of our story had us going in completely debt-free without our initiating any bit of that. And although the free-fall in the fog felt weird, I knew the big poofy-bounce house thing was at the bottom...

Losers like us - A starting point

I've recently connected with a distant cousin (I think she's a little older than me) who was reading up on family blogs. She was drawn to the real stories, wanting to familiarize herself with extended family members...

And feeling kind of like a loser who hasn't done much.
I don't know a whole lot about her except that she's a mom and wife and she works. I was so impressed by her honesty in her very personal email; she felt a connection to me because of my posts about darker times and personal struggles in the last few years.

I felt an immediate tug toward this cousin and shared some quick encouragement based on the little I knew about her.

Again, her honesty impressed me...

"...it is just that I really don't think I need to read more about what I am worth. I know and truly appreciate the fact God made me to be exactly who I am. I know he loves me and I love him. I want something more practical like a 12 step or kick in the butt to get me going on things like this..."

I haven't been able to shake this quote out of my brain. It cuts to the core of my personal struggle, especially last year. I think it is time for me to write it out - the reality of it, although the sting is still so sharp, tears are quick to my eyes.

I've been running far away from the emotions of last year, distancing myself from the weirdness encompassed there - as I am finding myself in a place of some new found equilibrium, margin, bandwidth... I honestly feel as though I was rescued just in time, and I am so thankful, joyful, different...

that I haven't wanted to revisit. The truth is my story is there and some artist friends have recently challenged me to go there and write it, just a little at a time. We'll see how it goes...

my premise is that the 12-step and kick in the butt (and ALL the books I've read about that) leave me in a crumbled heap in my closet when my"opportunities" seem to be taken away and my worth was accidentally super-glued there...

Current conditions

Sitting in a small quiet room with florescent lights
And spinney, comfy chairs
Two 5th graders are testing, so it is...
Dreadfully quiet - for the first 40 minutes,
Until feet in low Converse shoes and legs
In skinny jeans start making the most of the spinney chairs...
Back and forth, more and more rapidly
While two rubber soles scrape the carpet
Less and less quietly.
We have had a bathroom break
And a snack break.
Nevertheless, the quiet IS dreadful...
The worst possible way to try to think
About math.
So the chair spins, and as I write I realize
Mine is spinning too -
With a more subtle ankle-bend technique
As I ponder...
What else to do given the current conditions.

Sometimes you need a homecoming queen

It was a good day, really... especially for a Monday that followed 4 days without my hubby (who was at an artists' retreat), until...

I came home from work with the girls and EVERYONE was a little GRUMPY (except Greg, he wasn't home yet). We were tired, Grace has a little cold, several of us are experiencing varying degrees of hormonal influences these days and...

arguments ensued with ATTITUDE. My middle daughter who shall not be named seriously perturbed the youngest, who shall not be named but who consequently grabbed a full glass of water and poured it all over the pile of violin books sitting in front of middle daughter. I just ordered these violin books as requested by middle daughter's private instructor... I spent a LONG time finding them on Amazon and paying for them last week and they just came in today.

I yelled... youngest daughter yelled back. Time outs and more heated discussion along with explanations, apologies, forgiveness, etc.

In the heat of the moment, not knowing what else to do with the intensity, I popped an atomic fireball into my mouth.

I've never had one before, and I don't know why I did it except that they gave them out at church to go along with our "GO BOLDLY" series. I guess I thought that somehow it would help.

It didn't. Greg came home to me sitting on the step of our front walk with tears- not due to the recent situation, but due to the pain in my mouth. I left it in, because I somehow needed to feel I was going boldly (don't ask, it was completely inapplicable - I was grasping).

Greg took the girls to music lessons while I took the dog for a walk as a bit of emotional therapy, and then the dog pooped and I grasped it in my plastic bag-covered hand - except my middle finger was too tall.

:{

Then I got a timely phone call back at home, and my co-worker let me know who won homecoming queen at our high school last weekend...

"You know her," she said.

The very special girl who won has Down Syndrome. I have had the privilege of communicating with her via an augmentative system on her itouch.
I was told she had on a beautiful dress and went to the dance as the date of the homecoming king.

Tears again... the better kind. Sometimes you just need a homecoming queen to bring the beauty back.

First Grade Society of Explorers

JUST have to share that a letter came in the mail today for Grace from her new elementary school with a wonderful old-world "seal" in the top left corner - a picture of a tent in the jungle with the words "First Grade Society of Explorers... Go Boldly" in a circle around the picture.

Inside was a personalized letter from her new teacher describing their daring adventure in the upcoming year (only for courageous boys and girls) to explore... perhaps encountering unknown creatures, discovering new lands, climbing tall mountains and sailing across endless seas... She explained how excited she is, how she can't wait, and at the end added a personal note to Grace saying she's already heard about what a great kid she is...

Can I go to first grade?

I've met her teacher; she's my age and has taught for many years. She LOVES what she does; this is not an overly enthusiastic first year teacher (nothing wrong with that, just sayin). She included a card for Grace to bring in a burning question she has - something SHE wants to learn about...

Anyway, I got all teary.

back to random

I love mangoes - love them! I just ate a whole jumbo mango all by myself and looked like a beastie while I ate it, but yum...

We have agonized over our impending BIG DECISION and have now decided to put all three girls into schools in the new district where I will be working. It is an amazing, small school district (I think the whole high school has around the same number of students Abby would have had just in her freshman class), and it is 1.5 miles from our home, so school friends will be close. Grace's first grade class will be about three doors away from my therapy room in her elementary school.

I am already loving my new job. The professional development classes have been inspiring and fun, lunch has been fabulous :), and I am thoroughly enjoying all of the people I'm getting to know. Greg told a friend he feels like he has his wife back; I feel back too - and it's a nice place to be.

AND, I am quite excited about a new cookbook I found at Half Price Books. My lifestyle is shifting once again, and now I need quick evening meals instead of crock pot anything. I found Bon Appetit Every-Night Cooking Fast and Fun: A Real-Life Guide to Getting Dinner on the Table - quite a mouthful, yes? I am pretty persnickety about cookbooks - they have to grab me visually: short, quality ingredient lists (not too much "cream of... soup"), short directions, nicely laid out on the page, good white space, and seriously user-friendly - with ingredients I've heard of, made without weird gadgets and gear. So far so good, I'll let you know how the end products turn out before completely endorsing.

Yep, random me is back.