a cuppa jo (or, tea)

Recently while at a training in Florida, I was laying on the king sized bed in my hotel room, eating poisonous microwave popcorn while having an amazing conversation with one of my BFF’s over the phone.

It was like a high school moment in my tank top and underwear, sprawled out, popcorn kernels everywhere, Leah on speaker phone.  All. By.  Myself.

It was a glorious and well deserved moment indeed and one we don’t find as mama’s often enough.

Consider it my version of a Calgon moment.

We were chatting about financial goals with our work, purpose goals with our gifts and conspiring a plan for when we would get to see each other again.  It’s not nearly enough, you see, and we soon began to reminisce about old times:

::cross-country road trips when we would pull over to sleep outside on the ground in a gravel pit ( I see that now as a mother it wasn’t one of my smartest moves)

::dumpster diving for perfectly fine food in dented cans outside the grocery store in this little mountain town of Mammoth Lakes we couldn’t afford to live in but did anyway (and you wonder where I get my need to shop consignment/flea markets and garage sales-I’m forever a treasure finder…at least I have a partner in crime)

::holding BYOF (bring-your-own-fork) dinner parties because we had enough plates to go around, everyone had their own Nalgene bottle, but we certainly couldn’t afford forks.

::biking miles and miles to our favorite climbing spot with ropes and gear (another 25 pounds easily) on our backs, in order to climb all day long under the beautiful Sierra sun and then eating peanut butter off a spoon for dinner.

::shopping at the local good will for my red velour circular (literally an entire circle that folded back to create a couch-like piece of furniture) sofa bed together

::paddling in to the Boundary Waters for two days only to paddle right back out due to shoulder issues

::learning sophisticated words for body parts from our immature male friends (such as woo-hoo for vagina and yee-haw for penis)

::sending each other long heartfelt handwritten letters on the back of Annie’s mac, Tampax, and Grape Nuts boxes

::supporting each other through health complications and new foodie adventures

The fun conversation quickly turned to a beautiful piece she was custom creating for me.  See, Leah is a ridiculously talented artist.  She can create miracles from a piece of wood, a word or a page from a picture book.

I commissioned her to create something for my kitchen. A piece that encompassed my love of feeding our family Real. Good. Food and the satisfaction I get from knowing their hearts, bodies and minds are growing so strong from it.

See if you can spot it in her portfolio at Little Green Things.

Then she shared with me this little recipe below.

It’s one for the record books, I must say.

It gives such satisfaction, it makes me feel like the Diane Keaton playing a snappy writer in a movie-like I can just pick up my pen and carry on.