Abundance

On the drive home from preschool, my 3 year old daughter handed my husband her latest art project: "Look, Dad, it's a cornucopia!" The brown construction paper horn was adorned with several kinds of fruits and vegetables she had carefully colored and glued onto it. Daddy had just started telling her how nice it was, but she could contain herself no more and excitedly burst forth: "Dad! A cornucopia is a horn-shaped basket that the Indians weaved and they used it to carry lots and lots of vegetables and fruits." She took a breath and continued in a more knowing tone. "The Indians didn't have those big old Wal Mart bags to carry their groceries in , Daddy." My poor husband nearly drove off the road. Tears of mirth ran down our faces and we both shook with silent laughter. After a few minutes we had recovered enough to reassure her that she was absolutely correct.

The next day she and I were hanging her cornucopia up on the kitchen door. "Mommy," she said wistfully, "I wish everybody had cornucopia baskets to carry their groceries. I don't like Wal Mart bags." I agreed wholeheartedly, and my thoughts drifted to sustainability. Many times a day, everything within me yearns to go back to a simpler time and way of life. I'm sure the Indians had a basket more practically-shaped than a cornucopia for carrying food from the fields to storage, but they first had to weave that basket. It would have been a masterful piece of functional art that endured for years. The convenience of that basket would have been appreciated all the more by its user for the labor and creativity that went into its making.

To me, living simply and frugally does not equal drab misery. It is an opportunity to express my creativity in all aspects of life--an exercise resulting in beautiful, unique objects that grant many years of aesthetic pleasure and personal satisfaction in the course of service. This thought makes me smile almost as widely as my daughter's innocent humor.

Not three days ago I was feeling overwhelmed and pressured by the demands of the world. After having a good cry and venting some frustration, I still didn't feel entirely better. After this conversation with my daughter, however, all seems to have fallen back into place for me. Just because my home and my life are assaulted by a barrage of demands doesn't necessarily mean that those demands are relevant, or that they have a place in my realm. I can simply and painlessly say "no" to so many of them, freeing myself to be mindfully, creatively, joyfully present in the here and now to meet those that are appropriate and relevant.

And a little child shall lead them...

Stress has been replaced with gratitude, and there is much for which I am thankful. With every silent "thank you" I breathe toward the heavens, life glows brighter and richer and more precious.

"Every time we say "thank you", we experience

nothing less than heaven on earth"

~Sarah ban Breathnach

Sweet Potato Pie

The closest most folks Up North and Out West get to a sweet potato is candied yams at Thanksgiving, and that's a shame. The yam is actually no relation. It is also harder, drier, and woodier-tasting, so it's always served up slathered in butter, brown sugar and marshmallows. Yuck.

The sweet potato is actually a dietary hero in disguise, among the most nutritious vegetables you could eat. It is low in sodium, and very low in saturated fat and cholesterol. It is also an awesome source of dietary fiber. One cup of sweet potato that was baked in its skin is full of Vitamin B6 and Potassium, has almost twice the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin A, 65 percent of the recommended amount of Vitamin C, and half the daily requirement of Manganese. It is a rich source of B Vitamins, which help the body to combat stress. In particular, it is a good source of Folic Acid, which is important not only for infant development in utero but for many critical processes in the body. It is a good source of Omega-3 and Omega-6 Fatty Acids, contains all nine of the essential amino acids, and is powerfully anti-inflammatory. Who knew?

The sweet potato has a low glycemic index. Although it contains natural sugars, they digest slowly, causing a gradual rise in blood sugar so you feel satisfied longer. When you feel full, you eat less and eat less often. What could be healthier than that? Sweet potatoes grown in the South taste many times sweeter than their Northern counterparts. It's no wonder they abound by the truckload around here.

Sweet potato pie is as quintessentially Deep South as grits, turnip greens, and sweet tea. Most recipes are loaded with butter, sugar and Karo syrup and result in a custard consistency. Tasty, but not healthy.

In my quest to eat locally grown and produced food year-round, I recently found myself with a large bag of sweet potatoes acquired for a bargain, so I set about creating a healthier version of sweet 'tater pie that lets its natural sweetness truly shine. This pie is more of a dinner veggie than a dessert--which is probably sacreligious in country cookin', bless my little heart. I also drink unsweet tea, so I guess I'll never be truly Southern, but at least I do my grits up proper and slow-cook 'em!

Rosie's Sweet 'Tater Pie

(makes two 9" pies)

Ingredients

1 recipe of your favorite pie crust yielding two 9" crusts OR 2 ready made refrigerated pie crusts

4 medium OR 3 large sweet potatoes

1 15 oz can of Eagle fat-free condensed milk
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup organic turbinado sugar
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon



Method

-Wash and prick skins of sweet potatoes and bake at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 75 - 90 minutes. They should be thoroughly soft and the juices bubbling through the holes you pricked in the skins should be somewhat caramelized. Allow them to cool to room temperature, peel, and scrape the orange flesh into a bowl. Mash with a fork until they are the consistency of lumpy mashed potatoes.

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

- Place pie crusts into the bottom of two 9" deep dish pie pans, and crimp the edges however you like.

-Put on some music, preferably Alabama's "Song of the South". It doesn't help the pie turn out better, but it's fun to sing along.

- To the mashed sweet potatoes add the beaten eggs and one third of the condensed milk. Blend on low speed with a hand mixer. Add the sugar, and blend. Continue adding the condensed milk a little at a time, beating on low. Add spices and continue beating. Increase speed and whip the mixture until it is thoroughly blended and there are no lumps.

- Divide the sweet potato mixture evenly into both pie pans and bake uncovered for 30 minutes. When a sharp knife or skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, the pies are done.

- Allow pies to cool and continue setting for 30 minutes. Serve at room temperature.

- Keeps well in the refrigerator and may also be served cold.

Enjoy, y'all!

How do seasons change here? Let me count the ways...

Autumn has always been my favorite time of year. I love endless banks of gorgeous colored leaves; they seem to be celebrating the past year's achievements before letting go to make room for new growth. I love the crisp, cool mornings and evenings. I love the sound my feet make shuffling through carpets of dried leaves, and the musty smell that rises every time I take a step. I love the hint of smoke that rises on the air...a spicy middle note of the ambrosia to my senses that is autumn.

I do miss Northern autumns. In South Mississippi's warm, Gulf Coast climate the seasons are not so clearly delineated. Folks around here are wont to describe spring or fall as "raggedy". Autumn is not the glorious display of color that it is in other parts of the country. Although puncutated by an occasional flaming orange maple or brilliant red crepe myrtle, the piney woods stay green. How then, you might ask, do we mark the season without the changing of the colors?

You know it's fall when...

10. You actually don't run the A/C for a whole week.
9. An occasional punch of fall color pops out and startles you on a drive through the piney woods.
8. The love bugs are finally GONE!
7. Pine straw gets stuck in your flip flops when you walk.
6. There are only 2 vehicles in line at the ice machine.
5. Winter clothes appear in the store: t-shirts and shorts in darker colors.
4. The morning dew doesn't burn off the grass until at least 7 am.
3. Turnips and sweet 'taters replace watermelons in the back of pickup trucks on the side of the road.
2. You get pelted with acorns from a live oak while soaking up the sunshine.
1. It's so frigid outside in the morning that you really have to bundle up on your way into work, so you dig a sweatshirt out of winter storage.


*Stay tuned for "Signs of Winter in the Deep South: Are the Fire Ants Hibernating YET??"

County Fair

The late summer months are County Fair time in the rural South. Ours, the Stone County Fair, was a week-long affair in mid-September.

Stone county is sparsely populated (at last count, around 16,700) and very agricultural. Although our primary crop is telephone poles, we also have a lot of cattle ranches, goat farms, and a few sheep and hogs. The fair is such a big deal that public schools give the kids a day off on Friday of fair week, and everybody goes to the fair.

Unfortunately, mommies who are in college don't get Fair Day off, so my husband and I had to wait until Saturday to take our three year old daughter. She had never been to a fair, and it had been years since either my husband or I had gone.

Sofia loved the animal barns and wanted to pet every single goat, pig, sheep and cow, including the large bulls. We had to explain to her that not all of them were amenable to being petted! We all melted with tender smiles at a calf so young it still had a bit of dried-up umbilical cord on its belly.

En route to the midway we walked through the show ring and were only slightly surprised that our extrovert daughter seemed to know half of Stone County: "Hey, y'all! Oooh, look, there's Andie & Emily!! I love your boots, Emily! Oh, there's Bralee! Hey!"

She got her first carousel ride with Daddy, which was precious to watch...

And the rest was enjoyed with increasingly large grins, in spite of the love bugs!

Process of Elimination

In our nursing curriculum this week, we've been focused on disorders of elimination and nursing care to restore proper functioning...in other words, what happens when you can't go, why that is bad, and how to fix it.

Most people shrink from discussing Number One and Number Two. Those things take place behind closed bathroom doors. They are smelly. They contain bacteria that are the byproducts of normal function, but which can be contaminating and cause illness.

Yet, they are natural functions. Our bodies miraculously take in delicious morsels of God's creation--a luscious bite of fruit dripping with juices; a crunchy mouthful of vegetables bursting with flavor; warm bread with its springy texture; fragrant roasted or baked meat. Through an amazing mechanical and chemical process that takes place over several hours, those ingested substances are transformed into molecular-level fuel for every one of the billions of minute cells that compose our physical form.

That fuel allows us to continue to exist. Without it, we would die. It also allows us to form new cells in order to heal, repair and regenerate our temporal form. It enables the firing of neurons to carry messages around our body that interpret the world through our five senses or enable us to move fingers and toes. That neural net also keeps atoms and molecules whirling and working together in an amazing symphony, resulting in a body that is capable of housing an immortal soul and interacting wondrously with it.

No matter how much of that fuel is used by our bodies to function, there are unusable portions at the end of the process. They have been much transformed, into something unrecognizable and base. In its initial form it was of great benefit to us; in its current form it is no longer of use. All the usefulness, all the benefit, all the good has been extracted. This end product is called waste, and it was never meant to be retained. It has to go. If we hold on to it, we will sicken, experience unspeakable pain, and die.

The body's processing of food for fuel results in tangible wastes; yet, there is another metabolic system at work: a spiritual one. We take in the experiences of our lives and are fed by them. Yes, some are bitter; not all are luscious. If we will allow it, all may nourish us, enable us to renew ourselves and to grow, and are transformed by how we process them through our lives.

As time goes on, we move through and past experiences and situations. Some no longer have any usefulness. Some have been so transformed that the end product in our lives is toxic. It is time to let go, to eliminate. If we attempt to retain the toxins, our spirits will sicken and we will experience unspeakable pain and disease.

Just as physical elimination systems can malfunction or fail and require intervention, so do spiritual elimination systems. Sometimes we are so poisoned by what we hold on to that we are unable to see the need to let go. We may recognize that need, but be unable to release that which no longer serves. We require intervention.

Intervention may take the form of training for our spiritual "muscles", or the form of an event or individual that prepares the way and unblocks our hearts and souls, enabling us to expel the waste instead of cling to it. Sometimes, God has to perform drastic "surgery" and resection our lives.

The more I learn about the body, the more amazed I am at this "people suit" which houses the soul, and the more grateful I am to be allowed the privilege of inhabiting it. How amazing the interdependence: without our immortal soul, the electrons would cease their complex orbits and the molecular bonds would disintegrate, and to dust we would return. I hope it makes you all as awed and as grateful for every breath as it does me.

Have a truly blessed day!

Vote for Bubba

I just love the rural Deep South. People run for political office using their childhood nicknames.

Where else will you see a television ad campaign soliciting your vote for Randy "Bubba" Pierce for Judge? "Vote for Bubba!" dozens of upbeat citizens exhorted. When Bubba came on screen to speak his piece, he was well-groomed, educated, articulate, and definitely had all his teeth. Not at all the stereotypical Bubba.

During the last local elections, among the candidates for sheriff were Ray "Two Bits" Dooley and Robert "Puppy" De Groot. Up north, you'd never see those nicknames on a ballot. You'd also never see them on large billboards and signs all over town. You'd definitely never hear people debating the candidates' merits saying things like, "Two Bits got more local experience, but Puppy was a marshal!"

There is something to be said, though, about running for office using a nickname. It implies a sense of continuity and familiarity with the community. It says that someone is known as a unique individual. There may be hundreds of Rays or Roberts in the vicinity, but Two Bits and Puppy could only be...well...Two Bits and Puppy.

It never fails to make me smile.

There's no tryin' to reason with the hurricane season

Jimmy Buffett (a native of Pascagoula, Mississippi) was right. Those of us who call the Gulf Coast home know the statistics and accept the risk that a hurricane could directly affect our lives. Most of us are prudent and maintain a reasonable level of preparedness year-round.

I tell y'all though, we in the Magnolia State are starting to get a little fed up with the Weather Channel. According to their geography, the Gulf Coast of the United States consists of Texas, Louisiana, New Orleans, New Orleans, New Orleans, New Orleans, Poor Battered New Orleans Still Recovering From Katrina, Alabama, and Florida. Now, I took 5th grade geography and I'm pretty sure that they missed a state. I tried to post a comment to this effect on the Weather Channel viewer discussion forum, but they had closed it down after a flood of posts from other Mississippians pointing out the same thing. They still won't mention us by name.

[If you wonder why Mississippians get so upset at the mention of poor New Orleans, it's not that they don't sympathize. They do. But in the midst of the contstant media attention on New Orleans for over three years now, there has been so little media attention on Mississippi--even immediately after Katrina--that most of y'all aren't even aware that the entire MS coastline--over 80 miles--was completely obliterated by storm surge that was over 30 feet in some areas. The total destruction extended several miles inland, damages totaled over $125 billion, and we were left with 45 million cubic yards of debris which took nearly 18 months to haul away.

Mississippians don't want pity or welfare; they want to move on. While everyone has remained focused on New Orleans, they've scrambled to adjust, to innovate, to make do. They've helped each other, and are continuing to rebound. So hey y'all, come on down and have some shrimp or something, and help out our economy too. But I digress--]

There are a lot of jokes about how dumb everyone is in Mississippi, but unlike inhabitants of the other 49 states we manage to extrapolate critical storm warnings from the Weather Channel without our state ever being mentioned out loud, so at least (a) we know where we are located on a map of the United States, and (b) we can all read the dire warnings running across the bottom of the television screen. That's more literate than some high school graduates in Vermont these days. We're also smart enough to know that if Jim Cantore shows up in our town, we should pack all our valuables and run screaming at 150 miles per hour to Montana, so quit yer nit pickin'.

Speaking of help that isn't particularly helpful, how about FEMA's emergency supply packing list? If you're ever bored, look it up. You could open your own trailer park with all that stuff! How the average family is supposed to evacuate with even half of that in tow is beyond me...maybe we should all keep a Hurricane Preparedness Trailer packed and ready to pull north behind the little economy cars that are all anyone can afford to drive these days? 160 years ago it was "Wagons Ho!" when a great migration beckoned. "Prius Ho!" just doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

My husband and I had recently been venting our frustration on these subjects to one another. The following day, I received the bulletin below from a fellow Mississippian via email. I found it to be refreshingly accurate and genuinely helpful, so I thought I'd provide a public service by sharing it here:

HURRICANE PREPARATION

Hurricane season is an exciting time to be in Mississippi . If you're new to the area, you're probably wondering what you need to do to prepare for the possibility that we'll get hit by another "big one." Based on our experiences, we recommend that you follow this simple three-step hurricane preparedness plan:

STEP 1: Buy enough food and bottled water to last your family for at least three days.
STEP 2: Put these supplies into your car.
STEP 3: Drive to Nebraska and remain there until Halloween.

Unfortunately, statistics show that most people will not follow this sensible plan. Most people will foolishly stay in Mississippi . Therefore, we offer the following tried-and-true hints from seasoned residents of the Magnolia State.

SHUTTERS

Your house should have hurricane shutters on all the windows and doors. There are several types of shutters, with advantages and disadvantages:

- Plywood shutters: The advantage is that, because you make them yourself, they're cheap. The disadvantage is that if they get hit by a flying lamp post, you're still going to need new windows.
- Roll-down shutters: The advantages are that they're very easy to use, and will definitely protect your house. The disadvantage is that you will have to sell your house to pay for them.

EVACUATION ROUTE

If you live in a low-lying area, you should have an evacuation route planned out ahead of time. To determine whether you live in a low-lying area, look at your driver's license. If it says "Mississippi", you live in a low-lying area. The purpose of having an evacuation route is to avoid being trapped in your home when a major storm hits. Instead, you will be trapped in a gigantic traffic jam several miles from your home, along with two hundred thousand other evacuees. As a bonus, you will not be lonely.

Of course these are just basic precautions. As the hurricane draws near, it is vitally important that you keep abreast of the situation by turning on your television (if you have a generator to keep the TV going) and watching TV reporters in rain slickers stand right next to the ocean and tell you over and over how vitally important it is for everybody to stay away from the ocean.

OK y'all...NOW come on down and have some crawfish or somethin'! We'll be lookin' for ya!