Author Archives: leannepenny

Life lessons from Potato Salad

Posted on by
2

Memorial day is nearly upon us and with it comes the official beginning of summer, complete with all it’s sun warmed activities and delicious produce heavy food.

We all have our classic summer recipes, some go back generations and some are a gift from the google gods.  However you came across them I bet you have “your recipes” just as I do.  You know the ones I’m talking about right?  The ones that you are specifically asked to bring to picnics, cookouts and pool parties?

photo copy

Well my classic summer dish is “that potato salad,” which I make from scratch.  I’ve already made three batches this year and I see no end in sight.  I still have the leftover chilling in the fridge, waiting to cozy up to a burger or be enjoyed as stolen afternoon snack.

People who don’t like potato salad LOVE my potato salad, because it’s perfectly firm, lightly dressed and sprinkled with bacon.  It always surprises people when they try my potato salad because (and I quote) “I never even thought of making potato salad from scratch.”

Ugh, we are so conditioned by goopy store bought tubs of potato salad that the idea of starting with real potatoes never even crosses our minds anymore.

This disturbs me on several levels, one because your average potato salad has an artery clogging amount of mayonnaise and two because I worry we have gone too goopy and easy across the board.  I’m talking food, relationships, hobbies, clothing… all of it.   Continue reading →

A prayer for the aftermath

Posted on by
2

Screen Shot 2013-05-21 at 3.13.12 PM

I don’t know about you, but today I find myself once more broken over the state of our world as I weather a day of heavy hearted tears for towns ripped apart by a wave of deadly Tornados.

Something about moments like these cause us to pray “Come Lord Jesus” and “Lord, don’t take us home yet” all in the same breath, wishing to return home and clinging hard to here.

Our heavy hearts find a deep sense of gratitude in the small things that only hours ago seemed so ordinary and everyday.

Dinner dishes in safe homes with hungry mouths still open wide and chattering loudly.

We go for seconds and thirds on bedtime hugs with our children, embraces that would last for hours if it wasn’t for the wills of clean and wriggly little ones.

We wonder why we still hold so much in our hands when others are going to bed wracked and empty.

With each tragedy it all makes less sense to me and I loosen my grip on the reigns realizing that we live in a gorgeous, broken place and serve a loving, gracious God who isn’t pulling the strings on these tragedies but reminding us that he will set it all right someday.

My tears are hot with grief and salty with hope.

I shake my fists at God a little less these days and spent much more time in prayer, 1 part grateful and 5 parts desperately asking for supplication.

We may sing “Where oh death is now your sting?” but in reality even the most faithful feel that sting like a persistent fog.

So I walk through the house, I flip the news on and then off again, I put my heart into basement play time realizing that as much as I think things will never change, they already have in an instant.

How dare I waste a day of this gift?  How do I remember this feeling in a few days when my life goes back to normal so unlike so many families in Moore.

I want to scribble this truth on my arms in sharpie: “You are blessed!  Grieve with those who grieve and delve deeply into your life!”

Because I have life, and I sustain life with the gift of momentary breath.

So Oklahoma, even though I’m newly removed from your soil, I will keep washing and wearing my crimson T-shirt to remind me who I am and what you gave me.

I will turn on News 9 and pray and cry for by the grace of God my Oklahoma children are still here, still making messes and asking for warm milk.

I pray yours are too.

Peace to you, the Peace of Christ to you

To Noelle on her fourth birthday

Posted on by
2

IMG_3307

 

 

Oh my sweetness, we woke up this morning and you were four. Technically it all happened yesterday but I was so busy party prep that reflection time was non existent until bedtime.  Poor planning on my party.

But as evening fell we laid in bed together, readying Busytown books and reflecting on the day that you were born.  And all the beauty and spirit of your life washed over me like sweet music, pure and perfect.

I can’t believe it’s been four years since you burst onto the scene and we started this mother, daughter journey together.

When I watch you navigate your days I’m brought to tears by your gorgeous soul.  There’s a lot of talk about creativity these days, but you don’t even know what that words means even though you embody it in it’s purest form.

When you play outside with your imaginary bunnies, Piner, Buzz and Heinz, I wonder if perhaps you shouldn’t teach a segment on creativity at a conference somewhere.  The way in which you engage our world is astounding and watching you discover and explore life is truly one of my life’s greatest gifts.

These days I’m committing myself to tuning into what God poured into you and doing my best not to get in the way of it.  No, my job is to teach you discipline, patience and perseverance among a thousand other things.

I think you were born with the gifts of kindness, selflessness and hospitality.  We learned this deeper still yesterday as you greeted your party guests with hugs and served them each a blue, plastic cup of lemonade whether they wanted it or not.  You manned your station long after everyone had been served, pouring a dozen spare cups “just in case.”

We decided that it was your party, you could pour if you wanted to.

And pour you did, until the counter was full of cups and the floor was sugary sticky.

We had to peel you away from the lemonade station, there was too much lemonade poured.

Too much baby.

This reminds me of something I want to tell you, now and for the rest of your life:  The world is going to do a damn good job of telling you that you’re too much.  It does this to all of us but I worry that you’ll encounter it more than most as a creative, busy, beautiful girl and someday woman.

They may tell you that you’re too loud
Too wiggly
Too busy
Too curious
That you talk to much
That you weigh too much
Or that you’re too tall
Too ambitious ( I hope )
Too emotional

Too much.

And the worst part is that I know for a fact I have joined in the chorus and will continue to do so.  And that I’ll be the first one for whom you try to change, to please.

But try not to concern yourself with pleasing us.  Please God.  He’s the only one that matters when it comes to the art of pleasing, I know it won’t seem like that but it’s true beyond words.

My prayer for you today, on the occasion of your fourth birthday, is that you are already forming a resolve of inner contentment.  That you fall in love with the person God created you to be.  That your creative, lovely, compassionate core is protected from all who tell you that you’re not enough.

I pray that our home continues to grow into a place where you are loved “as is” and that we, your parents and family, are most interested in doing God’s work in your life.  That we are listening to his plan for your days and disregarding our unimaginative notions of who you should be.

I pray that God blares his will for you into our ears until it drowns our our human preferences.  

That he protects your from those who aren’t interested in loving you “as is” and try to conform you into something for their own selfish sake.

Most of all I’m thankful for the gift of Noelle.  You have undone and rebuilt me baby girl, in four short years with more to come. You have been a balm to my own relationship with my lost mother.  You are more than I could have hoped for, asked for, prayed for.

You are everything I was afraid of and exactly what I needed.

And God?  He is all knowing, so good, so worthy to be praised.

Grace, Selah, Amen and a Thousand thank yous to our Father.

 

 

Dear Mom, I’m not judging your tantrum

Posted on by
1

I think it’s possible that the best writing topics are the ones that bear a sense of deja vu.

The ones you’re fairly certain you’ve written about before, perhaps several times.  Those are the ones we need to keep processing and pursuing because clearly there’s something there.

So along those lines… mothering is tough.  And I think so often we feel judged by well, everyone really.

We feel judged by the people at the table next to us in the restaurant.
We feel judged because of the noise coming from our cart at the grocery store.
We feel judged because we’re just so crabby sometimes in public and doing a poor job at portraying the ethereal mom-gasm we’re supposed to be embodying.

The other day Kel and I decided to screw the budget and take our two lovely little ones out for breakfast at Holland’s The Biscuit before we ran new-house related errands.

I regretted this decision within the first minute we were in the door.  Caedmon threw two tantrums before we were seated and two more before the waitress arrived.

When I picked him up for a time out and some stern words he slapped me in the face and I swear to you, everyone saw it.  I promise that I heard the restaurant gasp in some sort communal oh “Oh snap!” and “What now, Mom?”

I was sure they saw me as a terrible mother with out of control children. I was so embarrassed that I wanted to melt into a puddle on the floor.  Surely they were all wondering why we brought our tantrum-y son out for breakfast to ruin their dining experience.

tatrum These are the moments of parenting that suck the strength from your soul and send you wondering if 11:00 A.M. is too early for a glass of wine… and does wondering this mean you’re an alcoholic?

But, with every terrible grocery shopping trip and taxing dining experience I’m coming to realize that most people are giving me grace when my children and their tantrums hijack my sanity.  Either that or they just don’t care.

Most people around you have been there before, the other Moms regard you with sympathy and the older ones just remember it with nostalgic fondness … somehow.   Continue reading →

Our “Yes but not yet” Adoption Journey (a guest post at Adding a Burden)

Posted on by
Reply

Gods will is never completely clear to us while we’re still treading dirt. Yet, we cannot deny that we catch breathtaking glimpses of it now and then.  I may never be fully aware of the thousands of reasons behind our time in Oklahoma, but I have a pretty good idea that one of them centers around adoption.

A lot of people talk about adopting someday because it’s a neat idea, yet a small percentage of them pursue those words into reality.  We were always a couple who talked about how cool “maybe someday” adoption would be. Then we spend our time in Ada in a close knit group of adopting and fostering families and went from maybe… to when?”

Alongside those friends my fuzzy visions of adoption took on faces and names which came with a hearty dose of the realities of the adoption journey with all it’s paperwork and fundraising, all it’s highs and lows.

So today I’m over at my dear friend Jill Burden’s site today writing about our “yes but not yet” adoption journey:

“I’ve read somewhere that if something makes you cry, it’s because your heart is
connected to it. It’s part of it and within whatever it is lies a resonance you shouldn’t
ignore.

This concept perfect fits my heart for adoption. I can’t talk about it without crying and I
can’t relay my friend’s stories of adoption joy without tearing up. I often envision our
future family portraits on the mantle and they have a couple more children in them, and
they’re not necessarily ones I gave birth to, and I love that.

I’m currently not in the process of adoption, but I wish I was. I am however an adopted
Aunt to an 8 year old Ethiopian boy named Fetinet and my daughter started calling him
her brother without any prompting from us. He comes over on days when his school is
closed and he’s so comfortable in our home that he bosses my kids around a bit, but
that wasn’t always the case.”

To finish up please head on over to Jill’s space and while you’re at it follow her on all the social medias.  

Crap, I’m a sexist.

Posted on by
8

Earlier this week my friend Anne wrote a thought provoking post about women in the workplace.  You should go read it, really.  

We were texting about it as I folded laundry and my thoughts turned away from women in the workplace and onto my own life as a working woman.  True, I’m not in the workplace at the moment, but I AM working nonetheless.

I get up before most every morning with my early risers and start changing diapers, reading books and refereeing toy disputes.  I prepare three meals a day unless we’re reheating leftovers, and cycling laundry.  I am diligent about using my creativity to create a personal and comfortable ambiance in our home.  In between all of this I work on my writing career as well.    (This isn’t a post about about why women should be “at home” with the kids, it just happens to coincide with my current employment status)

I’m a mother, A chef, A Decorator, A writer, An engineer of blocks, A seamstress, A housecleaner, A book reviewer, A lover AND a fighter

See?  I’m working.  I don’t think many people dispute this, in fact I think a lot of people respect the life I lead and the way I balance my time.  

crap I'm a sexist Yet, there is one person who doesn’t respect me at all.  In fact the language they use is sexist, disrespectful and it degrades me to my very core.

This person is Me….  Crap I’m a sexist.

This is most prevalent in my language and thought life.  Allow me to illustrate:

Let’s say Kel offers to take the kids to the park so I can get some writing done.  I will always inevitably respond with: “Thanks, I’m sorry, Thank you, I really appreciate it.” Continue reading →

home feels like…

Posted on by
5

Tulips

Greetings from my dining room table in Michigan!  As you’d expect there are still boxes everywhere and my brain is fried… and then some… then some more.

But guys?  I’m just so happy to be back in Michigan, I’m feeling all the feels but mainly the overjoyed kind.

The most random things bring out the happy tears from me these days like green grass and grocery shopping.  I always thought that I would be adventurous and live somewhere truly exotic but it turns out that there is something about West Michigan that will always feel like home.  And now it feels like right here!

I want to write a sonnet for you about what coming home feels like… but for now I can only manage a list-style post, forgive me?

So here are the things that are thrilling me these days, the stuff of dreams that ring of home, of the right here right now of our life.

1) Sprawling lawns, carpets of soft fescue grass
2) Springtime flower beds dotted with every sort of tulip
3) A short drive to hobby lobby for creative supplies with Noelle
4) Cool breezes through our slider door, which looks out onto tall trees.
5) My Aunt Mar stopping over for a walk in the evening
6) Neighbor kids riding bikes down the street outside my front window
7) Tall trees, with bright spring leaves
8) Oberon on tap
9) The lure of Lake Michigan only 20 minutes away.
10) Drive through coffees at Biggby
11) Neighbors who stop over with cake and welcome cards
12) Planning girls nights in downtown Grand Rapids
13) Old friends asking to stop over and bring dinner.
14) Playing soccer on the front lawn.
15) Sleeping with the windows wide open and waking up to the morning song of bird life.
16) The joys of having a basement!
17) Crab Rangoon from Great Lakes Chinese enjoyed with friends who unloaded the truck
18) The promise of the Tulip Time Parade on Saturday
19) Grocery Shopping at Meijer
20) The hand of God doing more than I dared hope or trust in… like always.

Perhaps I’ll try to do a photo post soon of our new life here in Michigan?  It’s all weird and in-between as Kel finalizes job stuff and we head into summer but we are settling in and oh so happy.

What rings of home for you?  What simple pleasures bring silly, satisfied tears to your eyes?

What Oklahoma Gave me: A Beginning

Posted on by
5

HouseCollage1

Hello from a laundry basket in the middle of our mostly empty living room floor.

I have a grapefruit sized lump in my throat that makes basic function tricky.

I can see the sun coming up through the oval leaded glass window on our front door and it rises on my last moments in this home.  (and it’s all soundtracked by Jamey Johnson’s “In Color“)  

(If it looks like we were scared to death like a couple of kids just trying to save each other… you should have seen it in color)

And suddenly I’m watching a music montage of my own life happening all around me Continue reading →

What Oklahoma Gave me: Beans and Cornbread (humility of place)

Posted on by
6

What Oklahoma Gave Me

Yesterday I said it a little. Today I am going to say it a lot: I was pretty snobby when I arrived in Ada.  Before we ever arrived in our rental house Kel’s board members loaded up our fridge with food so that we wouldn’t have to do a grocery run upon arrival.

I assured Kel that they wouldn’t get it right and that I’d end up throwing most of it away, after all they were southerners and I didn’t like chicken fried steak or fried pickles.  (I know… I know… pretentious with a capital P!)

I’m pretty sure that I scoffed and made jokes about what I found in the fridge, turning up my nose at most of it.  I have no idea what I was trying to prove to the state of Oklahoma, but… ugh…what a snob.

So, when I heard about the classic Oklahoma dish “beans and cornbread” I turned my nose up at it.  Who would just eat beans and bread for dinner?  What Nonsense…Crazy Okies!

Then I was given 2 ham bones and a bag of pinto beans all in the same week and the die was cast.  I don’t waste food and Beans and Cornbread fit the bill.

So I simmered up a big ol’ pot of beans on my stove and dove in that evening with a little pretentious sour cream and cilantro on top.  And I loved it, A lot… like A LOT A LOT.  

As The Pioneer Woman says: There’s something so pure and elemental about a pot of dried beans, don’t you think?

Yes Ree, Yes I do.

So now, when it’s chilly or rainy or I just plain feel like it… I grab my large, red dutch oven and start a pot of beans to boil on the stove.  And then I promptly feel like an unlikely Okie and a pioneer of sorts.

Because there isn’t a thing that’s pretentious about a pot of beans for dinner.  It’s simple cowboy food, something I make when the budget is tight but we need protein on the cheap.

And with every bite of beans and crumbled morsel of cornbread I swallow a bit of humble pie.

Because it turns out that Beans and Cornbread is great and that every state has delicious flavor to bring to the table.  And I’m not just talking about food here.

There is no superior state in the union, or place on earth that’s necessarily better than any other.  Oklahoma is the perfect fit for the souls who were cut out for it.  It’s a land and a life beloved my many people I love myself.

 beans and cornbread

And so it was that Beans and Cornbread gave me not only delicious food, but a hearty lesson in humility.  Also it helped me give up my Oklahoma bashing once and for all, and that caused me to surrender the practice of bashing altogether.

Every place is someone’s beloved home, whether they live there or not.  Even if Oklahoma’s not for me it’s certainly for some people, most of them my current friends and neighbors.

This lesson doesn’t just apply to humility of place but to a slew of other things as well.

There is almost always more then one way to do things whether it’s parenting, church, diet, house color, mailbox style, fashion sense… the list is endless.

The only instance I can think of where this doesn’t apply is in “what order should one dust and vacuum?”  And in this case it’s dust first vacuum second I don’t care what you say.

But really, truly we should stop our bashing on other people’s way of life.  It’s pretty pointless, even if we happen to be right we aren’t doing anything but gossip or complain.  

We help no one and accomplish nothing.

So now I’m a more humble person, I make cornbread and I praise the grand state of Oklahoma for all it’s given me and in honor of all those who love it and call it home.

Thank you oklahoma for Beans, Cornbread and all that humble pie.  (Here’s my favorite recipe for beans and cornbread... which I make with a ham bone or bacon)

What unlikely source gave you a hearty dose of humility?

What dish did you once hate and now can’t help but love?

What Oklahoma Gave Me: Church

Posted on by
3

What Oklahoma Gave Me

Our time in Oklahoma is drawing rapidly to a close.  It’s been five years since our moving truck arrived here in Ada, OK after exiting at the Wayne Payne exit and driving through an hour of nothingness. Some days it feels like it’s flown by and then others I can’t believe we’ve ever lived anywhere else.

As I drive around town and move my feet through our awful WalMart, Our favorite park and our beloved church I’m starting to feel like a ghost. I can feel myself fading away from these spaces and it’s ever so bittersweet.

I see our footprints all over town, cataloged in moments and photographs. This place has shaped me into the woman I am today, our other homes did as well, but it feels like Ada bore the brunt of it.

My heart swells with love for this town, these roads, these walls and these people have woven themselves into my story.  I am thankful, deeply, powerfully thankful to Oklahoma for all that it’s given me.

So I’m going to spend a week thanking Oklahoma for the gifts, joys and memories, pouring over my keyboard with teary words. This will be a heart-taxing week and I’m not sure I’m ready.

First Off: I want to say thank you to Oklahoma for our church, H2O Church.  This is the place that has sustained me in a somewhat foreign land.  Yesterday I walked out the doors for the last time (for now) and my heart could hardly bear it.

This place has given me a sense of what Church Truly Is that I deeply needed, it was part nourishing and part kick in the pants.  I went from being a church critic and consumer to being spiritual contributor, a lover of the bride of Christ.

One of our church’s core values is: The church does not exist for us. We are the church and we exist for the world. This focus will forever change the way our family does ministry and I love it endlessly.

We stepped foot into our church, on main street in the heart of town the day after our moving truck settled into our rental home with the 1970s kitchen. I was newly pregnant and completely overwhelmed, I had no idea which end was up in my own life, given the fact that nearly everything had recently changed.

We choose it because it was the only contemporary church that supported my husband’s ministry.  There were a lot of colored lights, a smoke machine and at the end of each service they did an “ask” where people were invited to ask Christ into their hearts.

Not only that, the sermons weren’t live, we watched a feed from a larger sister church in Oklahoma City, that was weird and trendy…. I wasn’t sure I was okay with it.

It was a challenge for me, I’d never been this evangelical before.  I was sort of a snob when I arrived in Ada, and when it came to church I had big, huge, snarky opinions which I  always flung upon Kel the second our car doors clicked shut.

But, at some point in the last five years I laid most of my snarky ways down in the flow of the love of God at the hands of his people. When you feel the spirit moving and the authentic, powerful love of God all around you… style just doesn’t matter that much anymore and snark smells awful in your own nostrils.  

You just let God work and do your part to be a member church as much as best you can.

You try to get your snarky, crazy, humanity to make way for the refreshing work of the Spirit. You worry less about what you’re getting and focus more on what you have to offer, how you can give more.

This church provided my bread and wine in every possible way.

When we arrived I wondered if anyone would come to the hospital when I had Noelle, but our church was there, they sent flowers and brought meals to our door.

When my mom died our church was at our door at 1 am with a basket of travel essentials for our arduous drive to Michigan.

They Christmas Caroled our house that year when my heart was too broken to feel the joy of that season.

They were there again when Caedmon was born, laughing with me as we prayed that my bladder would start working and I wouldn’t need another catheter… “Dear Lord, we pray to pee.”  Oh the camaraderie of women and childbirth… it’s a club I love to participate in.

This church has given me so much and taken a piece of my heart that belongs properly in those walls with these people. 

So… Dear Oklahoma, Dear Lord, thank you for this Church on main street, this place where your spirit dwells in the hearts of your people. Thank you for all you have given me here and all you’e taught me to give away.  Dear H2O family, I am eternally and forever grateful for you, you’ve changed our family and we don’t walk away easily.  Amen and whimper.