Exploring the Beauty of My Backyard: June Edition

When we bought our house in November, it was the interior that sold us. (You can see a sneak-peek at what the house looked like when we first bought it here.) We loved that the outside was filled with tree after tree, but all the leaves had fallen and hidden the rest of the yard beneath a blanket of fallen foliage and pine needles.

So now that we are well into summer, it’s been like a secret garden to see what pops up, what has been lying beneath the surface unbeknownst to us, its new owners and admirers.

Back in February, I spent an afternoon exploring all the natural beauty that was hidden throughout my yard. And then in March, I shared an update of the new things that had sprung up.

It's now late into June, summer officially here, and consequently, time to pay the ole homestead a revisit.

Here are some of the new sites we've been pleasantly surprised to find spring up around our yard most recently:



Cute little clumps of wildflowers have found their way into the yard, as well as some sweet-smelling honeysuckle, climbing over our back fence.





Imagine my surprise when hydrangeas popped out beneath one of our windows? Hydrangeas! I love them and they've been the highlight of this secret garden of mine!





What I'd earlier suspected to be a rose bush turned out to be correct, although it only gave out a couple of blossoms. It's in a pretty shady part of the yard, so my mom thinks perhaps it isn't getting enough sun to put out more blooms. I might try transplanting it...



The last of our azaleas. We had a lot come into bloom in early spring, but these are the last couple that haven't gone brown yet.



Money may not grow on trees, but money plants do grow in our yard! That's what these funny little plants are called, because when the seed pods are in the sun, the seeds look like little coins inside a change purse. How cute, huh? And, the flowers that came before the change-purse-like seed pods were the pretty purple numbers featured in this post.



We've also had some small clumps of what I believe are chrysanthemums pop up and one of our hostas put out a single flower. As an amateur gardener, I have no idea what that means, but it was neat!



And as I was looking around for more hidden beauties, I came across what I thought at first glance was a leaf, but upon closer inspection, realized it was a huge moth or butterfly! Talk about great camouflage! Here's a closer look at it from the other side:



And, lest you think that our yard is filled with beautiful widlflowers and garden-worthy greenery, let me tell you—better yet, show you—that you would be quite mistaken!



Our yard is mostly a blanket of fallen leaves and random weeds and sparse vines. That is why finding these spots of beauty in the brambly mess is so satisfying for me, why I have to go looking for these wonderful little surprises springing up.





Eventually, I'd like to get around to doing some shady landscaping, but for now, I'm fine just letting the yard go wild and see what springs up naturally!

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How to Fix “Plumber” Pants and Make the Most of Your Wardrobe

So I wasn’t sure how to delicately title this tutorial as the latest in the Make the Most of Your Wardrobe series.

Basically, this is a sewing trick for how to fix any pairs of pants you have that, when you bend over or kneel down or even just sit down, slip down too low and end up creating “the plumber” effect that shows off the top of your underwear or worse.

It really is the unfortunate consequence of all the “low-rise” pants out there that sit low when you’re standing up straight but dip even lower if you move too much this way or that. Of course it can be hard to find decent pants that aren’t low-rise, so sometimes you just have to make do with what you have.

Hence, this tutorial which can help keep those low-rise jeans from riding down.



You’ll need your low-rise pants, a piece of wide braided elastic (mine was 3/8 inches wide, you can find the same size online here), thread that matches the color of your pants, sewing pins, and a sewing machine.

Start off by cutting a length of elastic that, when unstretched, will measure about half the width of your pants. Center and pin it into place along the interior of the back of the pants about every inch or so, keeping the elastic stretched out as you pin. (Note that while you need to stretch the elastic as you pin, there’s no need to stretch the pants as you pin.) When the elastic is not stretched, it will bunch up like this:





Once it’s pinned, you will sew it in place. (By the way, here’s a newer version of the sewing machine I use.) For mine, I used a white thread for the top-stitch (to match the elastic) and a gray thread for the bobbin (to match the shade of the pants). Just make sure that the thread you use on the bobbin matches the pants.



Make sure to use a stretch stitch, like a zigzag (see photo below). As you sew the elastic into place, make sure that it remains stretched out (see photo above). You might need to guide the pants through the sewing machine with one and use your other to keep the elastic pulled taut.



Note: If your pants have belt loops that the piece of elastic overlaps, don’t sew over the loop. Instead, sew as close to the edge of the loop as you can get and then stop. Then skip over the loop and start stitching again on the other side of the loop. This way, you can still wear a belt if you like!

Once you’ve completed sewing the elastic into place, you can cut the thread and remove the pants. Here’s what the pants will look once they’re completed, from the inside and outside:







And that’s it! The elastic will act kind of like an invisible belt to help hold the pants closer against your back whenever you bend at the waist. Depending on how bad the “slippage” was before, the elastic may not completely eliminate the plumber effect, but will definitely make it a lot less extreme.

And, in case you've missed any, you can check out all the tutorials in the Make the Most of Your Wardrobe series here.


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The Things You Learn About Yourself When Doing Your Taxes

I mentioned a couple months ago that we hired a CPA to do our taxes this year. When we met with her, she looked at our previous year’s filing and noticed that we hadn’t taken a single deduction or write-off other than the standard deduction, so she urged us to re-submit our return and take advantage of the expenses we could deduct.

Since we discovered that going this route was pretty painless—for our peace-of-mind and our pocketbook—I’ve been going back through our old statements and receipts to go ahead and see if we can try to get a refund for that year. (Let me tell you, we paid a chunk-o-change that year.)

As I’ve been looking up numbers, going through our records and adding up numbers and tallying up expenses, I’ve found myself relishing the experience. There’s something about it that I actually enjoy.

The funny thing is that when I took all those standardized tests back in school, I always did a lot better in the Mathematics section than I did in the English section. Which for someone who has always pined for a literary vocation of some sort, that always came as a bit of an insult to me.

I always fought off the fact that I was actually good at math. I know it runs in my blood; my dad could remember calculus years after taking it, picking it back up and dusting it off like it was a favorite bicycle that he’d kept around all that time, just in case.

In high school, I even had a teacher who pulled me aside and asked me what I was going to major in at college. I told him magazine journalism. He asked—almost pleadingly—that I at least minor in math. I found it flattering, but never gave it a second thought. (I minored in political science, instead.)

But now, older and having spent my time typing and writing and reading, there’s something about the simplicity of numbers and algorithms and equations that I’ve discovered is dear to my heart.

That calculus I took in high school? Well, I never really understood the purpose behind it. But pulling these numbers together for these tax returns, lining them up, adding them up, crunching them together and getting an answer at the end? That’s a math I understand.

I sit here at my desk and page through the other return our CPA did for us. I look at the numbers and see how they add up, how it all came together. And that light bulb—rusty and laid aside for almost a decade now—flips on. It’s a light I realize, only now, that I’ve missed.

I don’t quite get the whole tax code thing, which is why we hired our CPA in the first place. But I start thinking now, maybe sometime in the future, if I ever do decide to enter the traditional workplace again, maybe—just maybe—I’ll go back to those mathematics roots that have been with me all along and give them a little space to grow. Maybe I’ll grow up to be a mathematician after all.

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Reading and Wrestling and Hope for Us All

In Tara Leigh Cobble’s memoir Here’s to Hindsight, she talks about Lauren F. Winner’s memoir Girl Meets God:

On my flight back from New York, I started reading a book called Girl Meets God by Lauren F. Winner, which might as well be called ‘Why I’m Better Than You.’ In other words, I’m jealous of her. … The author’s stories are the ones I wanted to live. It makes me wonder where I would be if I had not taken this route.(Here’s to Hindsight, p. 36-37)

I never quite felt that way reading Girl Meets God, but I did feel like I wanted to be friends with Lauren Winner, in the same way that I wanted to be friends with Tara Leigh Cobble after reading her memoir. (They’re both two of my favorites, and I’d heartily recommend them both for reading material.)

So when I heard that Winner had come out with another memoir-esque book (she asserts that it is not a memoir) entitled Still, I couldn't wait to read it, since it's been nearly a decade since Girl Meets God was released.

The thing is, though, that while Girl Meets God was written in the wake of Winner becoming a Christian, Still is written in the wake of her divorce. I don’t know her, but like I said, I always thought if I did meet her, maybe we’d be friends. So when I learned that news—that she had divorced her husband—it kind of took my breath away, especially as a happily-married, couldn't-imagine that wife but more importantly Christian.

If you’re curious to know what went wrong in her marriage or all the sordid details of the marital breakdown, you won’t find it in this book. She actually mentions very little and what she does mention, she portrays all of that with grace and restraint and lots of self-deprecation, placing the blame of the failed marriage on herself rather than on her ex-husband.

But what you will find in this book is how she talks about how her divorce affected her relationship with God, how she found herself feeling disconnected from God. Most importantly, though, what you will find in this book, which I appreciated, is how even in those times of feeling disconnected from God, she pushed toward him, she continued seeking him, even when they were in only in bits and scraps of moments and efforts and thoughts and prayers.

It is a brutally honest book to be sure, and one that I think few would come away from saying that the moniker ought to be retitled “Why I’m Better Than You.” I think few will come away from reading this part of her story and find themselves jealous of the inner and spiritual turmoil she writes of.

This is not the place to discuss the sanctity of marriage or the sin of her actions and how they consequently affected her relationship with God and whether she was "asking for" the turmoil that ensued. That is not the point of this post.

Rather, the thing that captured my heart as I read her story was something that I think is a challenge we all will face at one time another, because that feeling of feeling disconnected from God, like he's pulled away from us, is a common one, I think, no matter whether it's caused by sin of our own or just the journey of faith.

The thing is, which I think Winner showcases in the book, is that in those moments we have to push on in our faiths, that even when we don’t “feel” like it, when we don’t “feel” close to God, that we still have to push through and fight for our faith and press to reconnect to him.

Too often, I think when some people find themselves at that juncture—whether it’s because of broken dreams or unanswered prayers or just a life that isn’t what they’d expected—they give up. Instead of fighting and pushing and pressing on, they give up.

And that just grieves my heart.

Because it doesn’t have to be that way.

In the Old Testament, we see Jacob who wrestles and wrestles and doesn’t let go until he gets that which he seeks, until the morning when he’s granted a blessing. There’s a lesson in that story, an archetype for all who have followed in his footsteps, Jacob, now renamed Israel: Sometimes we must be willing to wrestle and not let go until God reveals his face to us, until he relents and gives us his blessing.

And that is what I saw in Winner’s raw and honest and heart-wrenching book, Still. I saw proof that if we do not let go—even when our heart and our circumstances and our feelings tell us otherwise—that, as James 4:8 says, “Come close to God, and God will come close to you.”

Let us not give up on God, on our faith, on his Love that overcomes even the darkest of days and sorrowest of sins. Let us come close and wrestle until we receive the blessing of his presence.

(Here are links for finding Here's to Hindsight by Tara Leigh Cobble, Girl Meets God by Lauren F. Winner, and Still by Lauren F. Winner on Amazon.)

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Pesto, Artichoke & Caramelized Onion Pizza on Homemade, 100% Whole Wheat Dough

As a part of my New Year’s resolution to try cooking with a new food each month, my challenge for the month of May was to use artichokes. In doing so, I discovered one of my new favorite recipes: Pesto, Artichoke & Caramelized Onion Pizza.

While on a trip to Washington, DC, my husband and I ordered a similar pizza, so when we came home, I knew I wanted to try to recreate it for my Adventures in Trying New Foods challenge. So, I went to task and came up with this veggie lover delight, which you can make with or without cheese. (Really it doesn’t need any additional cheese, but I’ll let you be the judge of that!)

I loved it so much that I whipped up two of these pizzas in one week and then have made another almost every week since. This recipe is a keeper.

So without further ado, the recipe for how to make Pesto, Artichoke & Caramelized Onion Pizza, from making a 100% whole-wheat crust to adding the toppings. Enjoy!

100% WHOLE WHEAT PIZZA DOUGH RECIPE

⅔ cup hard red wheat berries
1⅓ cup hard white wheat berries

Grind the wheat berries in your grain mill of choice (I use the electric WonderMill Grain Mill) to a fine flour, suitable for bread-making.



1 cup water
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar
Freshly milled flour (alternatively, you can use my recipe here for making pizza dough with store-bought flour)
2 tsp. bread machine yeast

Combine all ingredients in a bread machine (mine is similar to this one) in the order listed above (meaning, add the water first and add the yeast last). For the yeast, make a shallow well in the middle of the flour and add the yeast there.

Select "Dough" setting on bread machine, and press "Start." When the dough has risen long enough, the machine will beep. Turn off bread machine, remove bread pan, and turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface. (I like to use my trusty baking stone for this.)



Use rolling pin to flatten dough into a disk. (It should make one 12-inch pizza, or you can divide the dough in half to make two smaller pizzas.)

PESTO, ARTICHOKE & CARAMELIZED PIZZA TOPPINGS

1 cup onion, finely diced
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup pesto
1 cup tomatoes, finely diced
½ cup red pepper, finely diced
½ cup marinated artichoke hearts, finely diced

In a saucepan on the stove, combine the onion, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and sugar. Stir to combine and bring to a boil. Let simmer until onions are caramelized.

Meanwhile, spread pesto onto rolled-out pizza dough. Add all the other toppings, including the caramelized onions.

Bake in oven at 350 degrees for about 20 to 25 minutes, or until crust is starting to turn golden. Remove from oven, and let cool for about 5 minutes before serving.



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Adventures in Trying New Foods: Artichoke Update

Since January, I’ve been challenging myself to try cooking with a new food each month. So far, I’ve tried kale, Brussels sprouts, lentils and cabbage. But I think this past month’s challenge has been my hands-down favorite so far: artichokes.

Yep, you read that right. Artichokes. My favorite.

I’m just as surprised as you are.

It really comes down to one single recipe I tried that has made me fall in love with artichokes and that has spurred a collection of jars of artichoke hearts to grow in my pantry.

But before I get to that, I should also say that it took a couple of disappointing attempts before I found a recipe that really worked for me using artichokes.

At the beginning of the month, I picked up a couple of fresh artichokes to get me started. I first tried out a recipe I found online whereby I roasted them in the crockpot with some garlic and butter and pulled them out when they were pull-apart soft. I put them on our dinner plates, and my husband asked me, “How do we eat these?”

Frankly, I had no idea. I kind of thought you just chewed the leaves and was ready to just go with my gut. He wasn’t convinced, so we took a break from the table and went to find out online, by searching: “How do you eat an artichoke?” No shame in admitting it, right? Well, turns out you don’t eat the entire leaf, so my husband was pretty glad he’d insisted on looking up instructions first!

Even armed with the correct way to eat them, I wasn’t too impressed with the crockpot-roasted artichokes. Undaunted, I tried another recipe where I steamed them and sprinkled garlic salt atop them and dipped them in mayonnaise. Still, I didn’t enjoy the process. It’s pretty messy and a lot of work for the little bit of “meat” that you can get off of each artichoke. Not worth it for me.

Then I turned to jarred artichoke hearts—which was where I hit the jackpot.

When my husband and I traveled to Washington DC earlier this spring, we got an artichoke-and-pesto pizza that we devoured. Back home, I decided I wanted to recreate it, and let me tell you, it is divine. I created it using the memory of that restaurant pizza along with some magazine-clipping ideas for making caramelized onions. And you don’t even need to add any cheese, it’s that good all on its own!

Here's a link to the recipe: Pesto, Artichoke & Caramelized Onion Pizza. I'll warn you that I loved this recipe so much that I made it twice that week. And the week after. And the week after. It has become a rotating fixture in my menu planning ever since.

This is the reason I’m so glad I made this challenge to myself to try a new food each month! I’m not sure I’d have picked up a jar of artichoke hearts and discovered just how much I really love them had it not been for my Adventures in Trying New Foods challenge. (You can read up on all the posts in this challenge here.)

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