Front Porch Tales

I just finished making my 4^th “last trip” to the grocery store in preparation for the big meal on Thursday. Each “last trip” I thought I was really done.

Done.

But no. Somehow a new item mysteriously cropped up on the “still need” list. How can this be? I have cooked this same meal for almost 30 years and I still can’t get it down pat.

Determined to beat the shopping crowds….it’s only 2 days till Thanksgiving and they are calling for snow tomorrow (a recipe for disaster)-I set out in the predawn hours to make the 4th “last trip” to the grocery store.

I go to several different stores as I get ready for my favorite day of the year. Each store has items that are unique to them: honey brined turkey breasts, freshest produce, best pumpkin pies, etc.  (I can hear the condemnation now: “You don’t make your own pumpkin pies??” No, I do not. About 8 years ago #1 son released me by saying, “Mom, when these pies from ____ are so great, why would you ever want to make them?”)

I agreed and I embraced the freedom.

OK, I’m off on a tangent here. This is not about pies. Or turkey. Or anything that will happen two days from now.

It’s about what happened in the check out line on my 4^th “last trip” this morning.

I was at my local grocery store, the one closest to my house, my mainstay for the past 33 years of married life. If grocery stores were like that bar in Cheers (where everyone knows your name) this would be mine. The owner passed away on Saturday and he was a character! We were telling “Ralph” stories in the OR yesterday.  I know most of the longtime cashiers (vs. the college kiddos) and my favorite one is Lillian.

Lillian works the first shift, when the store opens at 6am. Since the store is next to the surgery center where I work, I make many, many early morning stops so I can head right home and not fight the afternoon crowds. Over the years of early morning interactions, Lillian and I have gotten to know each other across the counter.

She lives in the north county (like me), has adult kids (like me), loves Jesus (like me) and sings on her worship team (not like me). She always asks about my boys, the weddings and knows about my AZ boy’s ministry. She knows the hard road we walked for a while a couple of years ago. I know the hard choice she made to leave the huge church she loved to go serve their church plant in PA.

We do more than idle conversation. We share life, in snippets. When Jesus is your common denominator stuff gets fast tracked.

This morning as I explained to Lillian that this was my 4^th “last trip”, she told me she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was going later this morning to learn the tumor staging and plan for surgery, chemo and radiation.

Gut punch.

In the midst of my hurry scurry, came a reminder of what is truly important. Who cares if the pumpkin pies are not homemade? My friend is dealing with life and death. I walked around the counter to hug her, pray for her day and the choices she would be asked to make today. Underlining the unknown ahead of her, was a countenance of peace. The kind of peace that comes when you know the One who holds all your days.

Not just the 4^th Thursday in November.

Lillian said over and over, “I’m just so thankful”…for early detection, for a wonderful doctor, for church family holding her up to the One she loves above all. She has a great list for Thanksgiving.

Thanks-living.

This is the holiday for counting blessings, counting things we are thankful for…the basis for Thanks-living. It deserves so much more than just a once a year day of Thanksgiving. That’s what my friend was doing this morning.

Thanks-living.

I am thankful to have been there this morning to see the results of such living in Lillian. And for the reminder to practice it in my own life.

Daily thanks-living.

Starting today. Not Thursday.

Happy Thanks-living, friends!

80 days from today is the first Saturday of the college football season. Thanks to my dad, even though I am from an all girl family, my love for football runs deep. One of my earliest memories was of going to see a Georgia Tech football game with my dad. I was around 6 years old, and someone from work had given him 2 tickets to see the Yellow Jackets, his favorite team, play. Mom worked full time, and with three little girls, Saturday was her catch up day. I remember sitting small in my seat, looking up at my dad as he yelled his heart out at that game.

Thanks to our dad’s love of the game –all 3 of us girls love it too. But beyond just the love of the game, we love the family gatherings that college football games allow us. Football, food and family are one of the biggest joys in my sisters and I’s adult life, and we owe it all to our dad.

As I think about the upcoming football season, and with Father’s Day this weekend-I think about the other parts of my life, some of the very best parts, that are a direct result of the influence of my dad in my life.

Thanks to my dad:

-My sisters and I have the best memories of summer vacations at the beach. Money was always tight at our house, but my dad made one vacation week a year a priority. We packed up the un-air-conditioned car and drove to Florida to stay “on the beach” in a motel. We played in the pool and in the beautiful white sand. We ate breakfast and lunch out of coolers my mom packed from home. We thought then, and we know now, we were the luckiest little girls in the world.

-I love water. A Navy man, my dad had a love for water and swimming that was not a part of his rural north Georgia upbringing. He would tell us stories of him and his buddies jumping off their carrier into the Pacific Ocean to cool off. My dad never had a paid swimming lesson in his life, yet to this day, has one of the most beautiful, graceful freestyle forms I’ve ever seen. His love of water made us love it as kids, and now some of our own family’s happiest memories are made on and around water.

-I love music. Our first introduction to music came through my dad’s ability to sing and play the guitar. While other men came home and read the paper or watched TV- my dad picked up his guitar and sang his stress away. As I got older and would return home from staying after school, when I saw his car in the driveway, I knew I would open the door and hear the guitar coming from the back of the house. And I loved it.

I’ve heard it said that our relationship with our earthly father influences our relationship with our heavenly father. If our experience has been good, we can totally grasp the picture of God as a loving, good father. Likewise, if our experience has been lacking, the thought of God in as a loving father, can be hard to swallow.

I believe that. Thanks to my dad, it has been easy for me to relate to God as a loving heavenly father who is a comfort and anchor in my life because he modeled those qualities so well.

But the greatest gift my dad gave me was the ability to have a happy, healthy marriage. Because I already had a dad, I could choose a husband as a partner, not a replacement.

We don’t get to choose the first man in our lives. Some belong to men whose ability to be a good father is lacking. This can create a void that sends one the trek of a lifetime to fill. It can cause a girl/woman to search a lifetime for someone to make them feel loved, accepted and valued.

I have friends like that. Some of them have histories that include one relationship/marriage after another. My heart is heavy for them this weekend while Fatherhood is lifted high and revered. It is hard for them to relate to the picture of being protected and cared for.

I am so amazed by these friends, who didn’t let the failures of their earthly father, hold them back from embracing their Heavenly Father. They chose to accept His loving care, His faithfulness and His perfect presence. He is the Father who never leaves us. Always loves us and is always waiting for us to come home.

A perfect Father.

And that is worth celebrating everyday.

Happy Father’s Day to fathers everywhere!

Blessings,

Stephanie

One of my high school friends frequently travels to the UK for an annual pub crawl (or at least by the looks of her Facebook pics, it’s pretty often.) The closest that I can relate to this is my comparison of grits at restaurants along Florida’s 30A beach highway.

Now you need to know something-any southerner worth their raising has strong opinions about the preparation and presentation of grits. I will go ahead and right now exclude anyone (and that means you too, Aunt Paula) who thinks that grits should be eaten with sugar or anything that resembles sugar (honey, brown sugar, Karo syrup, etc.). My favorite aunt tried to convince me once that my mama liked her grits that way.

No ma’am. That just ain’t true.

My mama looked at her sister like she had 2 heads when I told her what she said about her liking grits sweet. Who do you think I got my grits raising from? I just recently finished reading The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd where the heroine of the story was made to kneel on the floor spread with dry grits as punishment.

What a waste of good great food.

Anyhoo-back to the here and now with my recommendations for the best grits on 30A in case you are ever down in this neck of the woods.

I am a foodie.   I love to grow, shop for, handle, clean, prepare, cook and eat food. Great food. Especially the food of my southern heritage, of which there is no equal. So that’s where I’m coming from—love and appreciation of distinctly southern staples. Every southern hostess worth her grits knows how to take instant grits out of a cardboard tube and with a little cheddar cheese, garlic powder and Tabasco make a culinary hit worthy of any bridal luncheon/special occasion.

First off, I like any texture of grits except super soupy. I like them from a slightly runny consistency to stiff enough to cut with a knife…so to me, taste is the determiner of greatness.

This is my list of the top places to get great grits down in Florida while you are on vacation, some are served only at breakfast, some only for dinner and some all day-so plan accordingly. I have them listed in the order in which I love them least (which is still great) to the best grits I have eaten in my 50+ years on this planet.

#4 Cowgirl Kitchen in Rosemary Beach. I like this place overall, mostly because I have an obsession with Rosemary Beach. They are listed on the menu as just “Cheese Grits”. These grits have Monterey Jack cheese and green chilies added to the goodness. They have a creamy style consistency and the cheese is not too overpowering. The chilies are a bonus, yet don’t add too much heat if that would bother you. I like them, but wouldn’t make a special trip just to get them. My sisters and I biked there one morning last fall and split grits and the pecan french toast. Then we biked an hour to work it off.

#3 The Summer Kitchen Café in Rosemary Beach– This little place serves traditional, southern grits done perfect. It’s the gold standard for the grits my mama and daddy were raised on. When a southerner thinks grits-this is them. End of story. If you are new to the world of grits, you should start here because there is nothing like tried and true and that’s just what these grits are. Oh baby. All that and Rosemary Beach too.

#2 Great Southern in Seaside- This place has uppity atmosphere and uppity grits. They are served as a side dish choice along with fried green tomatoes, Ma’s collard greens, fried okra and hush puppies. I’m sorry, you just can’t get more southern than those things.  And you can’t go wrong ordering them. The grits at this trendy spot in Seaside are made with coarse yellow grits (don’t you dare say the word polenta to me) and have the addition of smoked Gouda cheese. OMG. Just kill me. They have a stiff texture so you can just slowly pick apart small bites to savor. Alongside the blackened grouper-it screams “YOU ARE AT THE BEACH!!” These grits are a force to be reckoned with, but still not the best.

See how Southern this place is? They had me at gouda cheese grits. Where is gouda? Alabama or Georgia? I can’t remember.

 # 1 Market Café in Seagrove. Here it is folks. The.Best.Grits. (you can buy) On.30A. Take off your shoes – this is holy ground. These grits are the kind where you see people actually holding the plate up their face, licking off every blessed grit. When I had them a year ago for the first time, after the first bite my sisters and I put our forks down and were speechless. Perfection was in our midst. It was almost too much to handle. We had our waitress go back to the kitchen and beg on our behalf for the chef god to come to our table so we could heap praise upon him, so great was our love for these new-found grits. He told us that his secret was mozzarella cheese, but we know he was lying cause we have all tried to duplicate it and we can’t even get close. Just one minor detail-do you remember the Seinfeld episode with the soup Nazi, “No soup for you!” Well, the chef at Market Café is the grits Nazi. He only allows the grits to be served with the BBQ shrimp entrée. No amount of begging or threatening a revolt will change his mind. What a shame. What a marketing mistake.

This is just amazing.

What a waste of a good great thing. He’s probably just wanting to insure left overs for the fam. Whatever. I’m over it. Really. No bitterness here.

Don’t be put off by the fact that the beer and wine list is on the side of the table napkin holder-there is greatness here, folks. Just ask Sheryl Crowe who we saw here last year with her family. You are not too cool to eat here.

There you have it…the best of the best of 30A grits. It’s worthy of a crawl.

Blessings,

Stephanie

Like most women at my stage of life, I have a lot of titles: wife, sister, daughter, aunt-all great, but the title that has shaped who I am today above all is that of “mom”. The planet shifted for me on August 31, 1985 and there has been no going back.

 More talented folks than I have tried to describe accurately the how’s and why’s the  becoming a mother marks a woman. It changes the filter for how the world is seen. Every childhood accident, disease or world calamity is sifted through my mother eyes.  Navigating through 9/11 was no picnic.

 Can I get an amen?

 I have a bookcase of photo albums documenting most of the moments of motherhood in the past almost 30 years. Birthdays, vacations, holidays and school days in print, and now in digital format show our family’s life progression. But even with all the photos/videos we have, not all moments were captured. The big events were never my favorite days. It was the everyday mothering when I was caught up with the sheer joy of being with my boys-taking walks, being at the pool, playing a game on the kitchen table while I cooked supper…those mundane minutes that make up a life – those were the ones I loved best.

 The one’s when I didn’t think to whip out the camera.

 My favorite moments, the ones when I was so caught up in the “being present” and taking the surroundings, the looks on the faces of the boys and man I love were such powerful times of intense joy that grabbing a camera was not even on my radar. I just lived and breathed and took it all in, afraid if I moved- the moment would be lost and the spell broken.

 That happened a lot as we took the photos in the albums.  The camera, while documenting the event, broke the magic. And I couldn’t get it back.  The camera was the intruder and later became an object of resentment. At least that’s my rationale. That and the whining from the males in my life: “Put the camera away!”

 As the boys grew to into men and moved away for college and jobs -the minutes I longed for were few and far between: Saturday lunches on the back porch while they had spent the morning helping their dad on a project, too dirty to eat in the kitchen so we ate on the porch an extra long lunch.  Waking up on the couch when the key turned in the door after returning from a date and talking about the evening. The countless, precious, holy hours spent on car rides to school, ball games, grocery stores, church activities and every place a boys life leads a mama….these are the snapshots of life I never want to forget.

 I beg my mind to always remember the small moments, those without 4x 6 glossy finished paper to hold. Those I want to always carry with me and ponder in my heart.

 Just like Mary, Jesus’ mother did.

The Bible says that she watched all of his growing up days and she “pondered them in her heart.” I think that means she relived them in her mind over and over. So I call those times when I do it for my boys-“Mary Moments.”

 These past few years I have more and more “Mary Moments”.  The best camera I own is the one on my iPhone which is always nearby, yet I can’t bring myself to point and shoot…to risk losing the moment. As a result I have precious few pics these days of the rare times when all 3 of my boys are in the same place. I start the beginning of the visits with “Now, before we all leave, I want a picture of all of us.” And as the last one heads for home-to Arizona, to New York and down the street-I remember.

 I forgot the pictures.

 Heart sick, I vow that next time, it will be different, no matter what I’m getting some pictures.

But we never do. Happiness at all being in one place trumps pictures and I guess my brain can only take in so much. And so I comfort myself by saying “Mary Moments.”

 Till next time.

Happy Mother’s Day – take a picture, ok?

Blessings,

Stephanie

You’ve probably seen that popular holiday sign says that “Some of my best friends are Flakes”. Usually it refers to snowmen, but for my two sisters, the Flakes are a group of friends in the Atlanta area who have shared life together for almost 20 years. The have done the elementary/middle/high school/prom/graduation phase of parenting together and are now onto the college/wedding/baby-grandma stuff.

Through the desert years of mommying they had each other’s backs.

They got the name, The Flakes, from one of the husbands in the group who noticed that most of the Flakes had blonde hair and he referred to them as “The Frosted Flakes”. They shortened it to just “The Flakes” and the name stuck.

I am not a true Flake…I am one by relation of my sisters to this amazing group of gals. I refer to myself and another gal from Denver, whose sister is also a Flake –as Flake HO’s (hang ons). While the Flakes meet monthly in Atlanta for dinner, she and I rarely miss a trip to 30A beach area in Florida with the group.

 When the Flake’s kids were small, they started a once a year 4-day beach trip to Florida at the end of April to gather courage to tackle the last crazy month of school days. Over the years, as kids got older and more self-sufficient the trip grew to a whole week. 12 years ago, I got invited to the beach week to surprise one of my sisters on her 40^th birthday. Then I was hooked.

The first year I was there with them, one of the gals had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had gone through a couple of treatments. One afternoon, her long blonde hair started falling out, carried away by the ocean breezes as we sat in our signature circle on the beach.

 I got to see such love and tenderness being heaped on their dear friend at such a traumatic time. Every woman desires to have deep friendships like these. Friends that move into the realm of sisterhood and know what you are thinking before you say a word.

The Flakes have a catch phase for those times when they accurately predict how one of them will react or what she will say: “Good to be known.”

 Isn’t that every woman’s heart’s desire? To be known and understood for the lovely, complex creature she has been designed to be.

I think it was seeing the love these friends had for each other, the way they had of keeping each other accountable to pursuing goals and ministering to which ever of them that was in crisis at the moment that made me want to keep making the yearly trip with them. Aside from the obvious bonus of having time with my precious sisters, I feel like I have been given a front row seat to the evolution of the friendship of these strong willed, opinionated women.

Oh, the estrogen. Or these days, the lack thereof!

Over the years they have weathered marital issues, wayward children, loss of parents and employment, divorce and crisis’s of faith. These gals have walked through some of the most joyous/grueling/dark days of womanhood together. They have applauded each other for starting new careers, relearning skills like riding bikes so they will be ready for grandkids, still being able to do cartwheels on the beach in midlife, college acceptances and for just for knowing when to keep their mouth shut when dealing with adult children. They have celebrated milestone birthdays, shared recipes and favorite Bible Studies that they have done and prayed over each other in times of despair.

 In the morning, it’s not uncommon to find several women sitting alone with a cup of coffee doing their daily quiet time. This is the place where I first learned about the writings of Brennan Manning and Henri Nouwen-I spent one morning out on the wicker porch swing devouring The Furious Longing of God by Manning letting God’s grace wash anew over me. Sitting around our beach chair circle I heard about mission trips to every part of the world and in all things was reminded of God’s faithfulness in their lives.

This beach trip refreshes the body and soul. Today, as in years past, we will all return home a little stronger, new recipes to try out on the family, books to read and most of all feeling kinswomanship with these amazing women.

 It IS good to be known.

All that and a tan.

Blessings,

Stephanie