Tag: food

Posted in Family, Faith and Fitness

What about the Goldfish?

Posted on by Lucretia Cahill

40 Reflections #27: 40 days of raw recollections during the Lenten Season

FLASHBACK STORY…A FAVORITE!

The multitude of miles on the road of motherhood can be bumpy, yet always fulfilling.

As parents, we navigate from diapers to diaries- pacifiers to car keys. Personally, I’ve been blessed to be home with our children throughout their childhood.

A Stay-At-Home-Mom. A title I relish.

Sure, once they are all in college, I’ll work until I’m 95, but right now, I’m home, and isn’t that worth the same as a large 401K?

(Please keep answers to yourselves).

Given the fact our Irish Triplets will be attending college (God-willing) back to back, I have decided to substitute teach (and work other part-time jobs) as much as possible to continue saving. So, I’ve been working nearly every day.

Today, I was offered a long-term substitute position in the Pre-K Special Needs Room. Having worked in this room for years, I knew accepting the position was the right thing to do. Primarily to serve the students but also to support the teachers who work insanely hard in a room where each child’s mind resides on the spectrum.

As I was mulling over the new work schedule with our 15-year-old daughter, she sweetly stated,

“Well, don’t forget about us!”

My heart stumbled on itself. Touched, I uttered, “Awe, you guys miss me when I’m working?”

“Sure.” My daughter assured me. “But we have no food.”

“What?” I questioned.

“REALLY, we have NO FOOD.” 

Visualizing the grocery inventory in my mind, I was certain we had plenty of food for them to make their breakfasts and lunches. So I probed further, “What do we need?”

“Well, you know, Goldfish and Cheez-Its!”

Ah-ha! That’s what they needed me for. I was the supplier of high-carb snack foods for their lunches! It all makes sense now. I asked her to add the items to the Costco list, and I would make my way there Monday.

What I learned:

Whether our children admit missing me or not, I will always supply them with lunch snacks (until I crack the code for those yummy crackers and make my own), drive them wherever they need to go (and take all of their friends), and listen to their stories even if it’s waaay past their bedtime.

Being a mom is indeed the ultimate job for me.

Here’s to Another Good Day!

Thanks for joining me,

Lucretia

Posted in Family, Faith and Fitness

What is your content diet?

Posted on by Lucretia Cahill

40 Reflections: 40 days of raw recollections during the Lenten Season

#19 (Throwback Thursday – updated)

I grew up with the newspaper on the table every morning, and another local paper would hit the steps in the afternoon. We ate fresh tomatoes from our garden and apricots from our trees and ensured we ate clean, healthy food. In our home, what we consumed was paramount to who we were. Healthy food and quality news mattered.

One of the most well-read people I know, Polina Pompliano, founder of The Profile, takes a deep dive into content diets and how we can improve what we consume. She believes, “What you eat is who you are, and what you read is who you become…While most of us are willing to invest in our health, we often neglect our ‘content diet,’ which refers to the type of information we choose to feed our brains on a daily basis.”

WHAT DO YOU CONSUME?

The key is to first take a good look at what content we consume. TikTok? Youtube? Podcasts? The Atlantic? National Geographic? CNN? Fox News? NPR? PBS? The options are endless and we are all at the mercy of whatever lands in our inbox each morning. Will it deplete our energy and precious time? Will it invigorate us? Agree with us? Anger us? Widen our scope of the world?

IS IT TIME FOR A CONTENT CLEANSE?

Perhaps it’s time for a cleanse or a change of channel or…is it time to turn off the noise, end the mindless scrolling, and focus on what will increase your knowledge and help you contribute to and elevate conversations. Be intentional about your input.

NPR’s Clay Johnson said, “The question is, can we make enough people go: ‘Hey, you know what? I’m done. I’m done with the sensationalism of media. I’m done being taken advantage of by media companies so that I can have ads sold to me.’ If we want to make media better, then we’ve got to start consuming better media.” Personally, I love NPR and PBS.

What I learned:

Only we can control our content intake and decide how much we will consume. We have the power to fill our bodies with essential nutrients and our minds with nourishing content. Let’s spend our time wisely.

Here’s to Another Good Day!

Thanks for joining me,

Lucretia

Posted in Family, Faith and Fitness

More about Mom

Posted on by Lucretia Cahill

40 Reflections – #13:  40 days of raw recollections during the Lenten Season

I began sewing when I was nine. Mom guided my sisters and me as we stitched everything from duffle bags and terry cloth shorts to Gunne Sax dresses. She was a champion of whatever we wanted to tackle. One year I had my heart set on making a very fashionable ribbon dress. As I pinned and matched every notch, I was sure everything would look just like the picture on the McCall’s pattern. I was wrong, and I quickly learned the importance of a “ripper” the handy tool used to take out stitches and start again, and again and again. My ruffled sleeves puckered in the wrong places, and I even sewed one on completely upside down. Another do-over. Then I sewed on the gazillion pastel ribbons unevenly, so Mom helped me try again. She reassured me and encouraged me through every misstep, letting me trip a little and then helping me up. She built my confidence one stitch at a time. 

I thought of this story the other day when Mom and I were making tortillas. The dough was a little sticky and Mom had the most gentle way of telling me the water I used to make them was too warm. She said, “Let’s see, did my recipe say warm water?” I reached into the cabinet for the weathered tortilla recipe she started using again to remind her about the 2 teaspoons of salt and baking powder. 

“Yes, Mom,  it says warm, not hot”, I replied. 

“Okay, well, maybe you discovered something new,” she said. 

“And look at all the different sizes of the tortillas! You know if you get the feel for how big each one will be, they’ll turn out the same size…but these are very colorful and creative.” 

It was like I was 12 years old again and mom was reassuring me that I could rip out the stitches and start again. Everything would be okay.

What I learned:

Moms are the best.

Here’s to Another Good Day.

Thanks for joining me,

Lucretia

Posted in Family, Faith and Fitness

Music and a gal from Galway, Ireland

Posted on by Lucretia Cahill

#7 Lenten Reflections

I love music. Everything about it. In college, I worked at a restaurant called Black Bart’s Steakhouse, Saloon, & Musical Review in Flagstaff, AZ. Most nights I carried five plates on my arm filled with T-bone steaks and slung colorful cocktails called things like the “Arizona Sunset” and the “Singapore Sling”. On the half-hour, the staff would stop and we’d all belt out a few Broadway tunes – then as the “Saints Went Marching In” or a favorite “Phantom” song ended with harmony bouncing off the knotty pine walls, it was business as usual. Throughout the night servers would jump on stage to sing assigned solos which were listed on the back of the swinging kitchen door. It was the best job. I sang alongside phenomenally talented people who have gone on to direct movies, sing in operas throughout the world, and work at NPR. Some of us teach and blog. Well, that might just be me, but I’ve got some priceless memories and really cool friends.

I am always hunting for fun music that I can connect with, so when I was reading the “Deamon Deacon” a fantastic, daily blog put out at my daughter’s university, I stumbled upon a recommendation for a soulful song by 20-year-old Aimee Carty that blew me away.

Aimee Carty is a young Irish singer/songwriter who is a master of storytelling. Each song is laden with wonderfully catchy lyrics that sound like a journal entry. “Two Days into College” is one of those songs I want to memorize, analyze, and share. Today I walked the dogs and listened to it five times. Possibly seven. I couldn’t stop listening. Carty’s voice is absolutely delightful and heartwarming and as she sits at the piano singing, you just want to be in the room with her and hang out.

One evening while we were washing dishes, I played “Two Days into College” in the kitchen and heard my son singing along. Turns out he had already heard it on TikTok. You see, sports and music are his main feed, so although he had seen Carty sing the song herself, he had recently seen Duke basketball player, Jared McCain singing the introduction to “Two Days into College” on TikTok. Turns out I’m not the only one who memorized the lovely and honest lyrics. It went viral. McCain boosted her name, it was so sweet.

@hezyhandlez_

2 days into college | #jaredmccain #dukebasketball #basketballedits #fyp

♬ 2 days into college – Aimee Carty


The lyrics read like prose…a story she jotted in her journal or just told her friend on the phone. She talks about her first two days of college, being behind (already), worrying about doing too much or not enough, messy rooms, and a boy she named Collin who doesn’t play guitar.

Carty makes it effortless to relate to her song…as those two days could be the first of anything: a new job, a first date, the first moments of grief or joy or wonder.

And isn’t it so, that every day we are on the cusp of sorrow or stress, bliss or the unknown, maybe we should take two days at a time and reflect like Aimee Carty.

I’ll leave you with her healing, wise words:

God, I know
The one thing that’s important above everything else
Is to learn not to put all this heavy pressure on myself
I try believe it when I say
“If it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen anyway
I’ll be fine”

I’ve got time
I’ve got time
That’s where I’m at, to be honest
Just two days
Two days into college

Thanks for joining me,

❤️Lucretia

You can follow Aimee Carty on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

Note: I have no idea why everything above is in italics. I pressed something after midnight and couldn’t “undo” it. Even after saying a few choice words. Some things are just meant to be I guess. Have a happy day.