April Reflections
Hi friends! Happy end of April! We all know this time of year is absolutely bonkers for families, so I hope this little newsletter post allows you to pause, take a deep breath, and prepare for going into a month that often rivals December for many of us in terms of it’s extra calendar commitments. As always, I’ll share the highlights of what we were up to as a family in April, and a few other things that have been on my mind this month, but I also am sharing a round up of Spring/Summer recipes I make in the crockpot that might hopefully help some of you as you head into a season where it might be nice to have dinner ready when you walk in the door from the dance recital or baseball game but you don’t want more winter soups and stews! I actually found that I had a lot of things to share this month so I broke this post into two—today’s and then on Friday I have another 5 on Friday post for you with the overflow of things I didn’t share today to make this not an unbearable length! So in today’s post you’ll find:
The usual family updates
Thoughts on finally making that phone call or appointment you’ve been dreading (and what I discovered when I actually made mine)
Monthly Book Corner—2 recommendations for anyone who needs a light and delightful read
Spring Crock Pot Round Up
Aidan’s Monthly Recipe Corner
On Friday I’ll share some reflections on sacred spaces and Holy Ground (and how Aidan and I found holy ground in an unexpected place in New York), my thoughts on my absolute later-in-her-career obsession with Taylor Swift’s music, the unique punishment (challenge?) we gave Aidan for something this past month that changed how we look at consequences (and how his counselor absolutely affirmed what we did and why!), my weekly planning routine as we head into summer planning, and my new favorite phrase. So stay tuned for ALL the thoughts! Happy reading my friends!
Family Updates
April was a lovely month, filled with beautiful weather and some fun family adventures. We went blueberry picking with dear friends, we attended the Broadway production of Frozen here in Jacksonville and were all blown away by the incredible staging and special effects they used, we introduced the kids to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off one Friday night which they loved, and we reached a new milestone as a family—we went out on a date at night and left the kids home alone, which was a magical and very surreal experience! We were about 10 minutes from home, and they just rented a movie and ate the pizza we had ordered for them and everyone did just fine! Talk about reaching a new phase of parenting! I don’t know that we’d leave them for long periods of time or if we were going to be further away at this point, but for the 2 hours we were gone they did great and we appreciated the opportunity to save all that cash we’d hand a sitter!
Our karate school held an in house tournament last weekend, something they’d never done before, and Asher decided to enter, demonstrating his punching combos, and while he didn’t place he did a great job and we were so proud of him for trying something new! Aidan was on a break from sports and activities this month, so he did youth group twice a week but otherwise he had a lot of free time on his hands. In June he will be busier but for April and May he doesn’t have any scheduled sports, which is lovely for our weekly calendar and also I can see that he really does thrive when he’s kept a bit more active. Youth group is wrapping up for the year in a few weeks, we are in the final month long count down to summer break, and I think we are ALL ready for a change of pace!
On Making the Appointment
I don’t know about anyone else, but I am really really good at procrastinating, avoiding and ignoring the things that feel scary in life. Some people and personality types take those things head on, but not me. I’m an avoider. I’ll worry and worry about something but refuse to actually make the phone call or appointment that allows me to do anything productive with that worry. I don’t imagine I’m alone in this!
I’ve alluded on here that something weird has been going on with my digestive system for the past year , a year ago something changed absolutely out of the blue and my body just hasn’t worked right since last March. None of the doctors I saw seemed too concerned, I didn’t have any alarming symptoms, but I just knew something felt wrong. It’s been a year of trying different things, some with greater success than others, but for a year now I’ve had the anxiety in the back of my mind wondering if something is seriously wrong. Of course google told me over and over again I must have colon cancer. Even though all the medical professionals in my life told me that didn’t seem to match with the symptoms I was having, I have spent months and months wondering and worrying. Finally in earlier April I had some realizations and put some pieces together in my memory of what was happening in my life a year ago when all this started, and I went back to my primary care doctor with that list in hand determined to get some tests ordered to get some better answers. She listened so well, and ordered a CT to start with, telling me that if that didn’t show anything we’d do a colonoscopy. Of course the CT showed nothing. I was so disappointed, even more convinced the colonoscopy was going to show something terrifying now that my other theories didn’t pan out.
Mayo called me on a Tuesday and asked when I wanted to do my colonoscopy and said they had an opening on that Friday and did I want to just get this over with? Looking at my calendar I realized it was going to be quite awhile before I had another great opening to do both the prep day and the procedure day, so I said “sure lets stop avoiding this, lets face whatever is wrong.” The prep was pretty miserable (I had also had food poisoning that week so I basically didn’t eat for 5 days….I don’t know that I recommend that route, but I survived—and the level of hunger I experienced after everything was over was bonkers! Chuck walked in on me shoveling handfuls of goldfish crackers into my mouth after I woke up from my procedure and tactfully said “hey lets get you some real food!”), but the actual procedure was a piece of cake. The Mayo staff was amazing and the GI specialist who did the procedure asked me ahead of time what I wanted him to specifically look for/look at. He listened to why I was there, what symptoms I’d been having and what pieces of this puzzle I was trying to put together, and he told me before they put me to sleep that he was pretty convinced he wasn’t going to find anything scary and that if he had to make a guess as to what was wrong with me it was my body reacting to the trauma of the abdominal surgery I had exactly a year ago. He said for some people any type of trauma to the intestinal area can cause things to just not work as effectively—so a car accident, a very severe GI bug, a surgical procedure etc. They put me to sleep and when I woke up he said they found absolutely nothing. They want me to follow up with GI later in May to chat more about his suspicion that this is a response to surgery and what I can do about that, but in the mean time go home and stop worrying about all the things I’ve been worried about all year.
The weirdest thing happened. It’s been 10 days since that day and I feel better than I have in a year. I haven’t had any of the symptoms I’ve struggled with for 12 months. None of the weird pain or discomfort. I haven’t needed any of the medications I’ve had to take daily for a year now. I am not saying this was all anxiety, I know it wasn’t, but making the phone calls, finally just doing the tests I’d been dreading and avoiding, and getting the results have taken away so many of my anxious thoughts that it’s like my stomach is now able to work properly. And I am so grateful. Making those calls can be terrifying. Asking for the tests or advocating for yourself can push all of us out of our comfort zones. And yes, sometimes those tests show us something scary, but we can’t get better, we can’t deal with whatever is wrong—whether that’s anxiety or a real diagnosis—if we continue to put off picking up that phone. I finally had to tell a friend I needed to make the scary calls and schedule the tests I was dreading and asked her to make sure I picked up the phone by the end of the day. If you need accountability or a hand to hold while you make your scary phone calls, please let me know. I get it. Health anxiety is real. And also, I know that most of the time (according to my amazing nurse practitioner) the results come back that we are just fine or it’s often something minor. So here’s to picking up the phone, making the appointment, and stopping with the avoidance, your mental and physical health is absolutely worth it!
Book Corner
I don’t ever re-read books, yet this year I’ve apparently decided to re-read a series I read a few years ago that I loved. i know I’ve mentioned them on here before, but the Three Pines series by Louise Penny is a phenomenal mystery series that follows the chief inspector of the Suerte de Quebec Armand Gamache. He’s one of the most incredible characters I’ve ever read, and these novels are truly a study in humanity, in what makes us behave the way we do. They are beautifully and brilliantly written. This month I re-read books 3 and 4 in her series and read two new novels that I also really enjoyed.
First was The Messy Lives of Book People which was just a delight. Liv Greene is a 40-something mom of 2 college aged boys who cleans houses and offices for a living. Her true passion is reading however, she adores books, especially one particular beloved series by her favorite author Essie Starling. She ends up getting a job cleaning Essie’s apartment and a tenuous friendship forms between the very eccentric author and Liv over the 3 years she cleans for her. When Essie suddenly dies Liv learns that Essie’s final wish is to have Liv, and only Liv, finish the final book in her series. Liv can’t tell anyone the author is dead for 6 months or she won’t get whatever this inheritance is that was left to her, so for 6 months Liv tries to step into the author’s shoes, tries to figure out how to bring this beloved series to a close, when she’s never really written anything before. This was an absolutely lovely novel that made me fall in love with books all over again.
The second new book I read this month was Emily Henry’s newest novel Funny Story that just released a week or two ago. I was shocked I snagged a copy on the library hold list as fast as I did! I really like Henry’s books—I think Book Lovers and Beach Read were my favorite but every year for the past several she’s released a new book each April and it just feels like the perfect spring tradition. This one is a home run for me. Funny Story is full of the most delightful banter (I laughed out loud several times in this one!), amazing chemistry, and a protagonist you just want to root for. When the story starts Daphne is engaged to Peter and Miles is living with his long time girlfriend Petra, who happens to be Peter’s childhood best friend. In the first few pages Peter realizes he’s in love with Petra leaving both Daphne and Miles heartbroken. With nowhere else to go (she had moved across the country to be with Peter) Daphne moves in with Miles, who appears to be her polar opposite. Peter and Petra have the gall to invite Daphne and Miles to their wedding at the end of the summer, and they reply that they’ll be there, as the new (fake) couple that they are. They then have to spend the summer making people believe they are in a real relationship even though they aren’t in order to make their ex’s jealous and well, sparks begin to fly! This book is Emily Henry at her best and is the absolutely perfect summer read.
Spring Crock Pot Round Up
The days are getting longer and warmer and if you live anywhere with a real winter you are probably thrilled to see the birds return. But with the spring often comes even busier days with spring sports and ALL the year end activities that I know fill people’s calendars. I wanted to put in a little public service reminder that when it comes to the spring and summer months we might be tempted to put away that slow-cooker believing crock pots are mostly good for simmering soups and stews on cold winter days. It’s true, there’s nothing more cozy than coming home to a crock pot of baked potato soup on a chilly day, but just because the weather is warming up that slow cooker can still be a game changer for dinner time. I have used mine more this year than ever before, with sports and activities filling our days this past year in a way they haven’t before, but I also know that as we head into the summer months I’ll continue to use it a ton because having dinner cooking away all day allows me to stay later at the pool or water park with my kids on the hot afternoons.
No one really wants to eat chili and potato soup in the middle of July (okay well my family doesn’t!) but there are still SO many fabulous warmer-weather recipes you can make. So here’s a round up of my favorite spring/summer slow cooker meals, no soups or stews included!
Courtney Holsworth on Instagram is a fabulous follow, and she has an entire highlight series saved called “Toasty Sandwiches” which basically means some kind of meat in the crock pot added to buns with different toppings and I will say we’ve tried several of hers and they are AMAZING. These are her BBQ Beef Toasty Sandwiches which might be my favorite but she has BBQ chicken, Buffalo Chicken, Pesto Chicken, Pizza Toasty Sliders and so many more—all utilize the crock pot for the bulk of the cooking leaving you only to assemble things at dinner time. Seriously just scroll through her highlight and I promise you will get some new ideas.
I have 3 main websites/cookbooks I utilize these days for recipes, and one of them is Skinny Taste. i now own all of her cookbooks, the whole dang collection and I love them all. She really hasn’t led me wrong, my kids love her recipes, they are healthy, many are gluten free, and every recipe she gives you has the nutrition broken down for you, so if you are tracking fiber or protein or sodium she has it all there for you. She uses her crock pot all the time (in fact one of my favorite cookbooks of hers is her Skinny Taste Fast and Slow where every recipe is either a quick one to throw together or a slow cooker meal). Her Banh Mi Rice Bowls use a crock pot for cooking pork tenderloin until it’s ready for shredding and then adds a ton of bright flavor with crisp fresh veggies for topping. I think that’s the piece that feels the most different between a wintery recipe and these spring and summer ones—the cooking method is the same but it’s the addition of the fresh flavors and textures with toppings that elevate a meal to feel like warmer weather is upon us.
Another thing Skinny Taste has shown me (her name is actually Gina…) is that Taco Tuesday is a perfect time to break out that slow cooker! We probably all have done a variation of chicken breasts with salsa, corn and black beans in the crock pot to shred for chicken tacos (I do this but then we put them on sheet pan nachos which are delicious—this is my go to recipe on Sundays during football season, crock pot chicken nachos). But Gina has opened my eyes to all the other ways you can use your crock pot for tacos. My favorite recipe I’ve tried is from her Fast and Slow book but is also on line and is her “Madisons Favorite Beef Tacos.” You do brown up the meat earlier in the day but then it simmers all day in your slow cooker with tomato sauce and extra seasoning and it is absolutely delicious at dinner time. Another version from one of her cookbooks is one we tried the other night—add raw ground turkey to the crock pot, top it with taco seasoning, a can of beans and a jar of salsa and let it cook all day. The meat cooks perfectly. When it’s serving time just mix it all together and pop it in tortillas.
A recipe on repeat around here is any version of a Greek chicken pita or rice bowl. I know I’ve shared this in the past (but we really do eat these monthly!) and sometimes I’ll grill the chicken or cook it on a sheet pan but the easiest way is to add some chicken breasts to the slow cooker with part of a bottle of Greek salad dressing. Let it cook for the afternoon, shred it, and then put it on pitas with hummus, tzatziki, cucumber, red onion, feta, tomato etc.
Another summer type recipe my family has really loved is BBQ Chicken drumsticks cooked in the slow cooker! They work so well! This is also a Skinny Taste recipe and she doesn’t have it on her site but all you do is rub the chicken with 1 tsp of paprika, 1 tsp garlic powder and 1 tsp of salt. Put them in the crock pot and pour 1/2 cup of BBQ sauce over the top. Let them cook for 5 hours or so and here’s the really fun part! The last 2 hours of cooking, add in ears of corn on the cob (she says to keep the husks on but the one time I tried I didn’t see that instruction and peeled them and it still worked). The corn will cook in the slow cooker for 2 hours. When the chicken is done brush them with a bit more sauce and serve (you can pop them on a sheet pan under the broiler for a couple minutes if you like to crisp up the skin)—corn, chicken and throw a side of coleslaw on the table and you have a BBQ meal without having to BBQ anything!
Did you also know you can cook baked potatoes in the crock pot? Wrap them in foil and let them cook and top with whatever you want when it’s dinner time, so easy and filling!
I’ll share more throughout the summer as we continue trying new slow cooker recipes—it really is a game changer for those afternoons the kids want to go swimming or to a friend’s house, you can stay right up until dinner time knowing food will be waiting for you when you walk in!
Aidan’s Recipe Corner
This month Aidan chose a recipe we’ve made twice in the past 4 weeks, and it’s a recipe Asher would have selected too if this was his recipe corner! It comes from my beloved Gina at Skinny Taste. This one is in her One and Done cookbook (recipes that utilize one method of cooking—a sheet pan, a skillet, a crock pot, and instant pot or a grill). This super simple sheet pan meal is absolutely delicious and a huge hit with all 4 of us. I couldn’t find it online so I’ve typed it out for you here, and if you try it, let Aidan know!
Lemon Parmesan Shrimp with Broccoli & Cauliflower (and then we make pasta to put it over!)
Ingredients:
1 pound peeled large shrimp
2 TBSP olive oil
2 garlic cloves
2 tbsp finely chopped shallot
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp salt
black pepper
6 cups bite sized cauliflower pieces (about 1 pound)
6 cups bite sized broccoli pieces
3 tbsp parmesan cheese freshly grated
Juice of 1 lemon plus 1/2 lemon cut into wedges for serving
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 and place a piece of parchment on your large cookie sheet.
Pat the shrimp dry with paper towels and place in a bowl with 2 teaspoons of olive oil, the garlic, shallot, Italian seasoning, 1/2 tsp salt and pepper. Toss to coat the shrimp and set in the fridge until it’s time to cook them.
Place the cauliflower & broccoli on the sheet pan and toss with the remaining 2 tbsp olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Spread the veggies out in an even layer and roast for 10 minutes. Toss them and roast for 10 minutes more. Remove the pan from the oven, nestle the shrimp in evenly amongst the veggies and roast the whole pan for another 8 minutes or so until the shrimp are opaque.
Top everything with the Parmesan and lemon juice.
We make a side of bowtie pasta while the pan is roasting and when we drain it we mix it with a little butter and parmesan and then place scoops of the shrimp vegetable mixture on top of the pasta. Serve with lemon wedges on the side.
