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This is one of our favourite vegetarian (and easily vegan) dinners based on this recipe - and one Gwen gobbles up faster than I can! I love that these burritos (or nachos) are filled with vegetables and legumes … often the one meal out of many offers in which Gwen will consume the veggies. This recipe is a little on the spicy side, so you may want to take out some filling for burritos for the little kids before adding all the spices - the last time I made these, they were too hot for Gwen, but I don’t generally measure the spices …

Sweet Potato and Bean Burritos

Ingredients:

• 6 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
• one can (or one cup) of any beans, drained and pureed - we use pinto beans most often
• 3 tbsp milk
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp each cumin, turmeric, and chili powder
• 1 package tortillas
• salsa
• grated cheddar cheese
• sour cream or unsweetened yogurt

Directions:

1. Boil sweet potatoes until fork tender, drain
2. Add milk, garlic to sweet potatoes and mash
3. Combine pureed beans, spices, and sweet potatoes, stirring well
4. Add big globs of filling to wraps and place seam down on a cookie sheet
5. Smother burritos with salsa and grated cheese
6. Broil burritos until cheese is melted

Serve with big dollops of sour cream or yogurt. Can also be made as nachos - just place the filling, salsa, and cheese on tortilla chips and broil until melted.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, he slept until 7:30. Saturday and Sunday? 6:30.

Today is Monday. Today it’s 5:30.

WHY?!?

I had a slight revelation today.

Lately, I have been feeling out of sorts. Disjointed, unfulfilled, confused, misdirected … the list goes on. While driving home from the New Hope Bike Co-op, where Brad’s bike was fixed up over the last few weeks, I hit a small nail on the head.

We’ve been making a concerted effort over the last while to purge unnecessary stuff from the house, shop for stuff less often, eat local, and be content with less. While it’s taking a long time to purge (um, hi! 7 month old and a toddler?), we are definitely bringing less stuff into the house and trying to be intentional about purchases. I thought today about The Story of Stuff and the explanation that we are bred, by media, to consume. Our culture values those who consume over those who don’t.

And seriously, if I’m not a consumer, who am I anyways?

I don’t know.

I’m realizing, maybe for the very first time, that these waters are not well charted. It’s all well and good to give up on consumerism, but what then? How do you begin to define yourself? And who will understand your new definition? If I’m not buying stuff, what will make me happy? What will my life mean? How can I be content with less? How can I rely less on things to define myself? Can I still enjoy nice things or is that cheating?

Someone please hand me the chocolate.

Oh. My. Goodness. Check this out! I love that this mama is able to bring her baby to work with her - and what important work she does!

Now tell me. If this woman can bring her baby with her to her job, why can’t a librarian? Or a server? Or a pilot? Or a customer service representative?

A few days ago we were walking home from a friends’ house after a post-dinner play at the park. It was a full moon, so you could see the moon in the sky even though it wasn’t yet dark.

Gwen loves the moon. She thinks it’s awesome and she’s forever saying “hi!” to it every chance she gets.

So on this evening, she played peekaboo with the moon. Every time it went behind a building or tree,

“Where’s moon?”

“Behind that building. Keep watching!”

“Moon hiding! There he is! Peekoo, moon!”

It was so very sweet. I want to remember that walk forever.

“I believe we do all have the biological hard-wiring fir a parenting instinct, and this instinct comes though in flying colours when we feel well supported and nurtured by our families and communities. On the other hand, this instinct fails us, and is overcome by our instinct for self-preservation, when overwhelming life-stress combines with unhealed trauma from our childhood. Additionally, good parenting behaviour is highly dependent on role models. By itself, the parenting instinct does not guarantee good parenting behaviour.”

- Robin Grille, Parenting for a Peaceful World

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and not a lot of writing these days. It seems like mostly my brain is busy: not too busy to think, but too busy to get it out of my brain.

I’ve been dealing with a bit of depression, I think, which has been really hard for me. I’m normally a pretty up-beat, energetic, happy person and lately I’ve felt anything but those things. I haven’t been a good friend, I haven’t been a loving wife, and I’ve been a rotten mother. Somewhere in the last few months, I’ve lost my happy and it’s been replaced with sad, unhappy, frustrated, angry. I’ve been trying to eat better and keep on top of taking my supplements (vitamins and fish oils) and have noticed a bit of a difference. It also helps when I spend time with people.

Well. I wasn’t meaning to write that in this post, but there it is. I’ll now move on to what I was meaning to write about!

I was thinking today while I was putting together my lunch (leftover tacos, if you must know!). I’ve subscribed to The Daily Groove, a daily parenting email whose intent is to help you enjoy parenting. The author talks a lot about our ‘authentic selves’ and our ‘inner guidance’, or intuition. And he often writes about the ‘if it feels good, do it’ concept. I’ve struggled with the ‘if it feels good, do it’ concept for a long time. It seems hedonistic. It seems wrong when held up beside the Christian ideals of self-sacrifice and martyrdom.

But then I was thinking today:

Anger doesn’t feel good - love does. Hate doesn’t feel good - love does. Conflict doesn’t feel good - love does. Frustration doesn’t feel good - love does.

So when it comes down to it, love feels good. Jesus says ‘love’! Yes, we are asked to put ourselves last and others first, but if you’re not doing it for the right reason (LOVE), then it’s not going to feel good - it’s going to feel like martyrdom.

‘If it feels good, do it,’ in the context of hedonism, says, “I’ll do whatever I want! Screw everyone else! I don’t care if it hurts you - I want to do it and it feels good to me, and that’s all that matters!”.

‘If it feels good, do it,’ in the context of Christianity, says, “It doesn’t feel good to hurt others, so if I want to do something, I need to make sure that it’s not going to hurt someone else first. And I also need to make sure that I’m thinking this through to see if it’s still going to feel good after I’ve done it - guilt sure doesn’t feel good!”

I’m glad I’ve finally reconciled these two ideas in my head. ‘If it feels good, do it’ seems so biologically normal - eating, procreation, dancing, singing - that I was having a hard time with why Christians seem so against it. After all, don’t we all want to have more joy?

… to be watching as a nap pattern emerges in Gil. The past few days he has been waking between 6 and 6:30AM and going for a nap around 9:00. On the bed. Out of arms. For an hour (or more!).

My fingers aren’t crossed that it will last, but I sure hope it does! By the time he wakes, I’m guaranteed to be ready to get out of the house with Gwen, and at 10:00, there’s still plenty of park playtime if I pack a picnic lunch. An hour in the morning means I’m able to get laundry hung, clean up breakfast dishes, pack snacks/lunch, get Gwen & I both ready to go and sit and enjoy some one-on-one time with my girl.

Yay! I hope it lasts

*Gah! I thought I hit ‘post’ on this post last week, but apparently I hit ’save’. And I was wondering where all the comments were - duh!*

I know, I know, I’m a little bit late, but better late than never!

My little boy is six months old. SIX MONTHS! Half a year! Where on earth did the time go? Read the rest of this entry »