Summertime Sensibility, Spreads and Strawberries

School's out!  In all honesty, I was feeling a little bit adrift last Friday, particularly when I turned in my school keys.  I will truly miss my team members and the rest of the middle school faculty.  The group of people I worked with were sensible and grounded.  There was none of the drama that is associated with many workplaces.  We worked well together and were a functional, well-oiled unit.  Our different personalities complemented each other fabulously, and it is a shame that the middle school is no longer in existence. 

With it being a somewhat emotional day, I came home and realized I had locked myself out of the house.  Note to self:  don't give the key to the house sitter a week before you actually leave town, you just never know when you need that hide-a-key.  So there I was, without a spare, at 5:30 in the evening, in a very short summer dress (I had just come from the retirement luncheon).  I did have a cell phone (surprisingly), and I called a couple people, hoping I had given at least someone a key in the past.  No luck.  But, a dear friend came over and helped me break in (not easy) without doing any permanent damage.   We then shared a couple beers watching the sun set over the hills.  So, be sensible, and make sure your neighbors have a copy of your house key!

In the garden, the garlic scapes are up.  I never really know what to do with scapes, but it would be very insensible to not use them in some way, shape or form.  It is possible to grill or saute them.  I also learned last year that you can make garlic pesto out of them as well.  I don't really follow recipes when making pesto-I just do a lot of tasting to figure out if the proportions are right.  So, basically, you would use garlic scapes (with the flower part cut off) instead of basil, and walnuts instead of pine nuts (walnuts are cheaper).  Throw some Parmesan cheese in there and of course olive oil and blend.  I freeze the pesto in ice cube trays then put in a plastic baggie in the freezer.  When you want a great snack spread, mix the pesto with the same amount of cream cheese.  Yum!

Another recipe which I made for my team party last week is as follows:

Spicy Chesapeake Chicken Spread
 2 packages (8 oz) softened cream cheese
1 TBS bottled steak sauce (I used BBQ sauce as that was what I had around)
1/4 tsp curry powder
red and black pepper to taste
1 1/2 cups minced cooked chicken (I also threw some turkey in there as I had it around)
1/3 cup minced celery
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup chopped toasted almonds
crackers

1. Beat together cream cheese, steak sauce, curry powder and pepper.
2. Blend in cooked chicken and celery and 2 TBS parsley.  Refrigerate remaining parsley (or just don't pick it until later).
3. Shape mixture into log.  Wrap in plastic and chill for 4 hours or overnight.
4. Toss together remaining parsley and almonds and coat log with this mixture.
5. Serve with crackers (duh).

You may want to half the recipe as my darling husband and I were eating chicken spread sandwiches for three days, and that was after the people at the party had it!

Finally, let's be sensible about strawberries.  We love fresh strawberries and we use them throughout the year in smoothies, on french toast and waffles, or in sauces, spreads and dressings. I also make lots of strawberry preserves when I can find the time.  However, the season for finding relatively cheap strawberries is relatively short and I don't have time to make jam.  But I do buy them in bulk at the farmers market (I can buy a flat of 8 quarts for $30), rinse them, remove the tops, spread on cookie sheets and freeze.  When frozen, put in plastic baggies or containers.  Out of sight, out of mind (for the moment).

Enjoy the first "real" week of summer!

Infertility in a fertile land

My darling husband and I celebrate our fifth anniversary today.  We have shared so much on our relatively short journey and I feel truly blessed that we are together.  We have each other, Bud, our families and friends, and our farm. 

It is also really the fifth year anniversary of us being unable to have children.  This part of our life together has run the gamut of emotions and it seems to have finally come full circle.  For the first year, we weren't too concerned about our inability to conceive, but the medical community defines infertility as a couple unable to conceive after a year.   I had great reservations about crossing into fertility procedures (for all those in similar situations, you know--the constant blood work and ultrasounds, the shots of hormones, the invasiveness of it all, the not knowing, all of the moral and ethical questions that arise).    I remember talking with some close friends about my hesitancy of pursuing treatment and my main argument was that the process really interferes with the normal processes of the body.  However, I also knew that the in-vitro is really quite successful, and so my husband I decided to pursue the option. 

In the beginning of 2009, we went through 6 months of less invasive treatments before we had to take a break due to feeling so overwhelmed with the process.  We then went back for another 4 months of more aggressive (in-vitro) options in 2010. We were not able to complete either in-vitro cycle and I was declared to be a "rare case" by the doctor.  I was left in a state of great physical pain for about a week, and emotional pain for considerably longer.  Several people suggested we get a second opinion, but after much thoughtful consideration we decided that my body was sending clear messages to me that this route was not the road to be taken at this time.
For me, going through the process of advanced fertility treatments made me feel a lot worse about myself as a person, and really did a number on my perception of my own womanhood.  Here I was, unable to bear children, the very core of being a woman, and every other day, when I walked into that center (which was an hour and a half away)  I was reminded of this flaw.  And every time when the fertility docs came up with a new plan that didn't work, I felt like it was somehow my fault.

I tried to rationalize everything, thinking that my inability to have kids was in the grand plan.  Perhaps that's one reason why I fell in love with a man who already had a son, a son who is with us more often than not and who proudly proclaimed, at the age of two, "I have a mom, a dad and a Distan" (me) as if everybody in the world has a Distan.  And I guess to some degree I continue using this paradigm.  Maybe this is why I have the interest in midwifery, or why I teach children.  I am able to play a large part in children's lives, without having one of my own. 

Many couples in our position, and particularly women, have a difficult time when their friends, colleagues and acquaintances become pregnant.  I remember standing at the photocopier and someone announced, "Watch out, the last three women who stood there ended up pregnant within two weeks."  Not helpful.  There is no correlation between making photocopies and pregnancy thank you.   Then my general practitioner said "Just wait.  It will happen when you least expect it."  Righto.  For some of us, it won't.  End of story.  Thank you.   She's not my general practitioner anymore (although I can't say it's because of that comment--she moved on to gerontology).  My darling husband also mentioned how difficult it was for him to preach a Christmas Eve sermon because it was so focused on birth.

I sought alternative practices and readings, namely acupuncture and energy healing.  While apparently I still can't conceive children, I was able to realign myself and am now in a much better place than I was a year ago. 

Interestingly, I somehow got on the mailing lists for all sorts of baby products and literature in the mail(probably thanks to the fertility/pharmaceutical corporate machine which thinks I ought to have a baby by now).  Fortunately, the local food bank is always in great need of baby formula.
 
It's really hard to talk to others about infertility and I'm sure many of you who are on this journey feel similarly.  My closest friends know, and some of my family, but I had to wait a while to feel more removed from the process to just say, "You know, I can't have kids."  It's also really hard to write about, but this is a cathartic exercise.  I remember when I was going through the process I dreaded looking at infertility websites on the Internet.  Everybody had a different opinion on the topic, a different experience.  By and large, I ignored the Internet, in an effort to stay somewhat sane throughout the process.  I found the hundreds of pieces of tidbits offered by folks confused me even more, made me feel more unsure about whether I was taking the "correct" course of action. My life was suddenly becoming emotionally very complicated and I was losing touch with who I was.  
I can empathize with all couples going through this process, but it is such a personal journey, and there is no one way to feel or act or react.  There is no "right way" to go about it.  Follow your own heart.  Do whatever it is that feels right for you and your partner.