the best berry crisp and a birthday giveaway

At this very moment last year I was scrambling to upload pictures on image hosting sites, embed links into codes, and live chatting with GoDaddy Help Center nearly every night. I kept saying words like widget and favicon like I knew what I was talking about. The techy components of creating 44 & Oxford were killing me; my pout face was in high gear, and I quit no less than a dozen times. All I really wanted was a pretty place to write; I didn't realize I was signing my life away to HTML codes and Java Script gadgets. (For the record, I still don't know what I'm talking about.)

All glory to God, each glitch was worked through, I found my pretty place to write, and 44 & Oxford is celebrating its 1st birthday this month! I said in my manifesto that it is my goal to encourage, amuse, and challenge readers. I hope I have succeeded. I am grateful for the dear people who have read, commented, and contacted me. How I wish I could have you all over for dinner and drinks to celebrate. Or brunch. I love brunch.

But instead we'll celebrate world-wide-web style with a good recipe and a birthday giveaway. But you know I can't get to the recipe without a story. Every good recipe has a story.

*****

For years people kept talking to me about this book, Bread & Wine. I had three different friends, from three different circles, contact me to say they kept thinking of me while reading this book. When it finally ended up in my hands, Christmas 2014, I understood why. I was reading my life, thoughts I had never put into words but connected with so deeply.

he author, Shauna Niequist, loves food and loves writing. Wait. I love food and writing. She believes the best moments of life happen around a table. Wait. I believe the best moments of life happen around a table. She feels God's presence when she opens her table, taking time to slow down and be with others. You can imagine how I feel about that.

This book affirmed passions I'd considered secondary. I'm not a chef, and I'm certainly not a Pinterest worthy party thrower; I haven't dedicated my life to the art of entertaining, and you will never see my tablescape on the front of a magazine. How ridiculous to be passionate about having friends over for dinner, yet I've always been keenly aware of how the junk of life filters out and the goodness of God fills my soul when good food, good wine, and good people gather at our table. I guess I didn't know other people felt the same.

Am I being overly dramatic when I say this book redirected my life, challenging me to grab onto my love for food and just run with it? To embrace my love of fancy dinners, casuals brunches, pizzas in the family room, too many cooks in the kitchen, crowded dining room tables, second bottles of wine, and guests that stay too long? 

Days after I finished Bread & Wine, I declared my intent to cook through all 29 recipes in 2015. I got started right away and made this berry crisp, the first recipe in the book, for our New Year's Day breakfast. Since then, I have made it for reunions, a slumber party, a retirement brunch, casual Tuesday morning pancake dates, beach vacations, and just last weekend I brought it to a new mama.

I could eat this every day.

Berry crisp is often considered dessert, and I would never say no to warm berries with vanilla ice cream oozing down and around every nook and cranny. But if you replace that ice cream with a scoop of plain Greek yogurt, you can feel virtuous about eating this for breakfast, every day.

Don't let the almond flour intimidate you; it adds such great flour that all-purpose flour lacks. The olive oil instead of butter is genius, and the maple syrup gives the perfect subtle sweetness.  Fresh or frozen berries work equally well, so swap in any berries (or apples) and eat this twelve months a year.

The Best Berry Crisp from Bread & Wine by Shauna Niequist

• 4 cups berries of your choice

 Crisp Topping:

• 1 cup old-fashioned oats

• 1/2 cup raw, unsalted pecans, halved of chopped

• 1/2 cup almond meal

• 1/4 cup maple syrup

• 1/4 cup olive oil

• 1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat over to 350° F.

Mix the ingredients for the crisp topping.

Pour the berries in an 8x8 pan (or something similar in volume), and layer the crisp topping over it.

Bake 35-40 minutes, maybe a bit longer if you're using frozen berries.

Serves 4-6 (Less if I'm eating it.)

And now...

What a lovely coincidence that Shauna's new book, Present Over Perfect was released just yesterday, perfect timing for 44 & Oxford's first giveaway! She probably timed it that way.

Starting next Monday, August 15-Thursday, August 18, you can enter to win the following prize package:

• Hardback copy of Present Over Perfect

• Present Over Perfect Devotional Journal Download

• eBook copies of Cold Tangerines, Bittersweet, Bread & Wine, Savor

More details about how to enter will be rolled out Monday!

don't look down

Just keep walking.  Just keep walking.  Baby steps.  Slowly.  Keep moving.  And whatever you do, don't look down

As is evident in a few recent posts, I am in a rather emotional and transitional season of life.

I have this vision of myself walking, one slow, shaky step at a time, along a narrow, windy, cliffside path - mountains towering on my left and a two thousand foot drop to my immediate right.  Holding my breath and forcing my eyes to look ahead, I carefully lower my body weight into each step before committing to the next forward movement.

No need to pity me. 

This is a cliff I've chosen, one I've expected and have even been looking forward to. No one has forced me here or dared me into an act of stupidity.  This isn't an example of uncontrollable life circumstances that have suddenly flipped my world upside down.  I am a willing participant. 

So far this journey has been alright.  I'm still pretty motivated and energized, but I can feel reality starting to creep in.  I have suddenly become very aware of the fact that this cliff could go on longer than expected and my composure is wearing thin.

This is life right now.

For months - maybe years - I've been eagerly awaiting the thrill of change, and oh boy, it has arrived. The well traveled, clearly marked trails have disappeared, the path has narrowed, and it is just me, the rocks, and a long way down.  

I have wanted to take a pause from a twelve-year career to stay home full time with my young children.  Check.

I have wanted to live in an actual house, not a landominium (and yes, that is a real word despite that red, squiggly line Microsoft Word insists upon) but an actual house with a yard, a garage, and enough rooms that my son's Pack-n-Play won't need to be set up in the bathroom. Check.

I have wanted Stephen home by five rather than commuting an hour plus each night. Check.

And it's happening. It's all happening - like right now, at the same time. And as thrilling as these changes are, this path is dangerously narrow, and I am very aware of the potential to plummet to an untimely insane asylum. In less poetic terms, I am very aware of the potential to freak out, scream the f-word, and start throwing everything we own into the trash. I could so easily be overwhelmed and scared, and rightly so. I've got a lot on my plate.

In my moments of greatest clarity (AKA - when the children are sleeping and the dishes are done),  I would also describe this terrifying, narrow edge as a sweet spot. There is a rush in knowing I cannot do this on my own. I know I will never make it past this cliff to the other side of this transition with even a shred of grace and dignity left if not for my Jesus. Oh, and I mean it. If left on my own, I would literally be a heap on the floor crying over every detail that turns into a unexpected bump.

Moving truck not in Oxford the day I scheduled it to be? Me. Floor. Tears.

Hot water heater not working? Me. Floor. Tears.

20-month-old not napping? Me. Floor. Tears.

Screen door on the new house breaks during move in day? Me. Floor. Tears.

You get the idea.

Oh, thank you Jesus for being a God of details. I believe you can move mountains, but so often I don't need mountains moved, I need details to fall into place. I need the moving truck in the right city. I need friends available on moving day. I need a babysitter on closing day. I need the screen door fixed so I can get some natural light into this new house. I need to find the damn peanut butter aisle in a new grocery store that was clearly designed by someone who has never shopped with children. I need energy to be productive in the evening. I need creativity to engage my children. I need a friend. I need a nap.

It's terrifying. It's exciting. It's exhausting. It's challenging. It's refining. It's revealing.

But I am determined to not look down, to not focus on the potential for failure. I'll keep moving along this sweet spot, even on the days it doesn't seem so sweet.

I want to love it. I want to be a woman who thrives on the adventure, the unknown, the possibilities that come with change. But today, I look forward to the other side, to a bit more breathing room to stop and take in the view.

Until I get there, I just can't look down. 

eat this for breakfast, soon

Stephen has one of those jobs where about three times a year he just has to go to some "work conference" in some boring location like Portland, Baltimore, or Scotland.  His direct flight is paid for, and he usually has to stay in a swanky hotel with giant bathrooms or beaches on the roof.  Lame.  And if that weren't enough, he eats at all these local hot spots all in the name of "networking." What a drag.

Teachers go to conferences, too.  The past two summers I attended the All Write Conference at Warsaw High School in Warsaw, Indiana.  My favorite session was the one in the band room.  I also went to the Indiana First Grade Teachers' Conference a few times.  That one is usually at the Holiday Inn Express.  Nice continental breakfast.  The best part is that we get a whole hour for lunch, AND we get to leave "campus" to enjoy a local hot spot like Cracker Barrel or Applebee's.  A whole hour!!!  No students to drop off, no parents to call, papers to copy, and no line at the teacher's bathroom.  Oh, and the school does pays gas mileage, but only for one car, so we all have to cram in.

I like my conferences, but they are a little different than Stephen's.

Every once in awhile, the stars align in my favor and life just works out that I get to tag along.  (I wonder why Stephen has never tagged along to any of my conferences.)  Two years ago, we called on the grandparents for babysitting duty and spent Memorial Day weekend in San Fransisco.  Stephen spent the better part of the day at his conference while I'll explored the city, and then we met up in the evening for amazing food.  Not too shabby.

Our last morning there, we walked through Little Italy and had breakfast outside at Caffe DeLucchi.  Stephen ordered a polenta, gorgonzola, and egg breakfast that was so simple but so delicious we've been talking about it for two years.  It was so easy to recreate, I wonder why it took us so long!

He's so cool.

Let me first talk about polenta. 

Polenta is ground cornmeal, and can be served creamy, like a porridge, or can solidify and be baked or fried.  It is a staple in Italian cooking, and as general rule of thumb in our house - if the Italians eat it, we're gonna eat it, too.  Similar to most grains, the cornmeal cooks low and slow until the texture is creamy and the grains are tender.  

Good news - this is a simple recipe.  Make polenta, an egg, and bacon.  Pile it in a bowl with blue cheese and honey.  Done.  (And that is why I'll never write a cook book.)

If that is too vague, here are a few more details.  

Serves 4

• 4 cups water

• teaspoon of salt

• 1 cup polenta

• 4 eggs

• 8 strips of really good bacon

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter

• 1/3 cup crumbled blue cheese (gorgonzola is perfect)

• a drizzle or two of honey

Fill a medium size pot with the 4 cups of water and bring to a boil.

While you wait for it to boil, start cooking your bacon in a frying pan.  Set bacon aside to drain on a paper towel-covered plate, but don't get rid of all the bacon grease yet!

Once the water boils, add salt.  Slowly pour in the polenta, whisking constantly until the mixture thickens and there are no lumps, 1-2 minutes.

Turn the heat to low and continue cooking the polenta about 20-30 minutes.  Stir often.  If the polenta becomes too thick to stir, add a small amount of water. 

While the polenta is cooking, empty most of the bacon grease from your pan but leave just enough to cook your eggs.  I like a runny, sunny-side up egg, so I usually cook it for 3-4 minutes and throw a lid on the pan for the last minute.  Poached eggs would be lovely as well (and in looking back at Caffe DeLucchi's menu, that's how they prepare their eggs).

Just about this time, the polenta should be creamy.  Take it off the heat and stir in butter until melted.   Season with salt and pepper, and be ready to serve the immediately.

Assemble your plate with a good size scoop of polenta, your egg and crumbled blue cheese.  Top it off with a good drizzle of honey, salt, pepper, and bacon.

Yum!  You will not be disappointed.

Have a great weekend! 

we had a great run

I had one thing on my list for my tenth birthday: an overhead projector.

I know many little girls play school, but I'm just going to say it - my school setup was legit. 

When both of your parents are teachers, they score all sorts of goods like unused lesson plan and grade books, real math textbooks, spelling workbooks, and those cool chalk holders that held five pieces and made straight lines across the board. (Yes? Anyone remember?) In addition, my weekly allowance was usually spent on shopping sprees to the teachers' store, and nothing thrilled me like new school supplies. I had dry erase boards (I was so ahead of my time), a calendar complete with decals for all the holidays, a weather chart, desk name tags, rubber stamps, pointers, and those EZ Grader cards teachers used to calculate a students' percentage score. 

I would fill the grade book with the names of my friends, and you could always tell when I was mad at one of my girlfriends by the string of Fs next to her name. I lectured students dolls when they were off task, and I handed out stickers for good behavior. There were many July days when school started in my basement at 8 am and continued on a regular school schedule all throughout the day, complete with bathroom breaks, lunch, and recess. I had this teaching thing down.

In what goes down in history as my greatest childhood present ever, my dad was able to snag an old overhead projector from his school. I was the envy of the neighborhood girls, and when I wasn't in the middle of a riveting long division lesson, the transparencies were used by all my friends to doodle the names of all the boys we loved. Hmmm. I wonder if those transparencies are still in my parents' basement.

It was clear pretty early on in my life I was destined for the classroom. As discussed in my first blog post, the writer in me dabbled with a career a journalism, and I actually entered college as a journalism major. When it came time to sign up for journalism-related classes, I wasn't feeling it. Days later I sobbed my way through an episode of Oprah honoring teachers who had changed the lives of their students.  I called my mom to tell her I was changing majors. 

"Yeah," she said.  "I knew this was coming.  You're meant to be a teacher."

*****

Surely you've seen those Facebook posts that break down a teacher's salary into an hourly wage only to find that a fifteen-year-old babysitter could make double my salary. No one teaches because of the money.  

We teach because of the kids.

The kids give this job value, and they ensure one day never looks like the next. They make us laugh, they make us think, and they stretch our minds to keep learning. They freak out with excitement when we make applesauce and gingerbread houses, and they scream in disgust when we dissect owl pellets and carve pumpkins. They ask questions I don't have answers to, they clap at the end of really good books, and they love me even when I'm crabby. They have millions of stories to tell (but never have anything to write about during writers' workshop...???) and usually just have to tell their stories right in the middle of a mini lesson. They're honest and funny and curious, but they are also exhausting and frustrating and kinda annoying every once in awhile. 

They ask so many questions and always need to go to the bathroom right after we finished a bathroom break. They forget simple routines like how to sign up for lunch, how to roll dice so they don't fly across the room, or how to put books back in the CORRECTLY LABELED TUBS!!! They get loud and silly and squirrely, and by golly, there are so many of them all in one room! And then, just when teachers thinks we might lose our minds, we remember we have a staff meeting after school, a parent conference during prep, and data charts that need updating by Friday. We have report cards going home next week, a newsletter that should have gone home today, and Halloween decorations hung up in the hallway even though it's December.

Oy.

On those days, we survive until 2:30, get those darlings out the door, and stumble into a coworker's room, but she’s not really coworker; she’s a friend.  We plop down into chairs that are too small for us and hope someone has a good story to tell. We count on each other to remind us why we do this job. 

Yesterday I said good-bye to the kids. That was hard.

Today I said good-bye to my friends. That was worse.

These are my girls - the ones who have made the rough days tolerable and the good days even better. 

When you work alongside people for eight years, the line between personal life and professional life is quickly blurred, and pretty soon you're just family.We laugh, cry, tease, celebrate, annoy, apologize, advise, and endure. Then we come back tomorrow to do it all over again.

There have been babies, parent illnesses, and deaths.

There have been new homes, engagements, ex boyfriends, first dates, second dates, and weddings.

There have been an insane amount of group texts (most of which I never join).

There have been overnight conferences, dinner celebrations, and life-changing desserts.

We've sent kids to college and to kindergarten and to sitters for the very first time.

We've raced down the hallway in trash cans and built human pyramids.

We've endured the wrath of angry students' parents and a hand slapping from the boss.

We've pulled off some good pranks. (Do stolen cars, flipped desks, tuna cans, and dirty diapers ring a bell, BECKY?!?)

We've lost kids on fields trips (What?!!? NO! That never happens....), and danced our hearts out for some of the greatest Talent Show teacher acts in the history of Connersville.

We've sent text messages to our boss that were intended for our husbands - oh wait, that was just me! (Ugh.)

And for nearly eight years, we've sat around a lunch a table - in a room the size of a closet - and lived life together. 

We had a great run, and I couldn't have done it without them.

my last sunday night

Every teacher dreads Sunday nights.

We love our jobs, we love our students, but we hate Sunday nights.

The weekend always goes by too fast, and we never get through all the work we bring home in our giant, teacher bags that will most certainly lead to massive chiropractic bills in the near future.  We pack up lesson plans, papers (both graded and ungraded - oops), quarterly awards, Cheerios for math lessons, juice and cookies for writers' celebrations, newsletters, data spreadsheets, teacher manuals, curriculum maps, books and more books and probably a few more books, and get to bed before any of the good shows come on because 7:45 AM is so sticking early to be standing at a door, happily greeting small children.  We usually feel better by 8 AM Monday morning and are back in the groove by 8:15, but oh, Sunday nights are the worst.

Tonight I have a different kind of dread; the kind of dread that comes with change and good-byes, the kind of dread that comes when you're terrified but confident all at once, the kind of dread that comes when facing a week filled with last times.

Tonight is the last time I'll sit up on a Sunday night thinking about my school week ahead.

After 12 years in education -- about 480 Sunday nights -- I have resigned from my job.

I hope that one day I will be back in the classroom, but for now, I am going to be staying home full time with my darlings, and I am thrilled. 

But, oh the feelings.

All. The. Feelings.

*****

In early August of 2008, my mom drove with me from Chicago to Connersville, Indiana, a small rural town in what I would describe as the middle of nowhere. I've heard people call it a "city," but they are really playing fast and loose with the word "city."

Stephen and I were weeks away from moving from Chicago to Ohio for Stephen to begin a doctoral program in clinical psychology, and I still had no teaching job. As the sole bread winner for the family and with elementary schools starting in ten days, I had past desperate and was pleading with the Lord for any job, any grade, anywhere.

A few days earlier, I had received a call from Fayette County Schools in Connersville inviting me to an interview.  They were unable to tell me what school or what grade they would have openings.  (What? Didn't school start in two weeks?!?!) I was told I would have to wait until after registration day. (Registration day?  In August?!?!) After teaching in a school district where we had class lists given to us in May, I was confused by terms like "anticipated enrollment," and "possible teaching opening."

But as I said, it was the ninth hour.

As my mom and I drove into Connersville, I fought back tears. The town was so different than anything I'd known, and let's face it - different is scary. There were couches on front lawns, abandoned buildings, more pick-up trucks than I'd ever seen (some adorned with Confederate flag bumper stickers), and a lot of country roads - like the kind with no lines down the middle. I knew there wouldn't be a Trader Joe's for miles.

Three days before school started I was offered a job as a first grade teacher at Eastview Elementary.  Whew. Stephen and I would get to buy food and have heat that year.

The night before school started I was (frantically) working in my classroom when a shirtless, shoeless, and nearly toothless man knocked on my window, inquiring about who his son's teacher would be this year. I proceeded to dialog with him as I crouched down to a small opening in my window, and if I can be vulnerable here, I'll admit that every part of me hoped I wasn't his child's teacher. Fear and pride can bring out the worst, and I was consumed with both.

About ten minutes later I saw this same man and his son in the building (need I again emphasize the shirtless, shoeless part?) and was relieved to know he'd found his teacher (and it wasn't me). I remember thinking in that moment, "Surely, this is not the place for me.  But just one year.  One year, Joy. You can do this for one year."

Fast forward seven months to spring break -  a week I had set aside for job applications.

I sat in our little apartment with my resume opened on my laptop. I began searching for job openings in local school districts, but after about ten minutes, I wasn't feeling it.

Close laptop. Try again tomorrow.

The next day I again started browsing through local school listings. I still wasn't feeling it.

Close laptop. Try again tomorrow.

By the end of spring break, I'd applied for zero jobs and hadn't so much as updated the address on my resume.

It wouldn't be so bad to stay in Connersville one more year. The forty minute commute was tolerable, I liked my partner teacher, and the idea of being the "new teacher" again was exhausting. Surely, I could manage another year.

Eight years later

I guess it would be fair to say I fell in love with this little town of Connersville. (I still can't call it a city.) I never ended up applying for any other jobs, and even once Stephen finished school and the opportunity to stay home full time was available, I didn't jump at it.

I love my job. God made me to be a teacher, and there is great pleasure in doing what you're made to do. Personally and professionally I have been stretched, changed, and knocked upside the head as I've become part of a community so different than any I'd known before.   

How foolish and arrogant I was to think Connersville wasn't the place for me? 

And now I am sitting here, on my last Sunday night, dreading tomorrow. I just want the week to start so it can hurry up and be over - so all the lasts, all the good-byes, all the blubbering as I throw out old committee binders and science units can just be over.

But then it's over, like really over.

You can only imagine the tears I am unashamedly weeping right now. But these tears should not be mistaken for doubt. I am confident about this decision, and the Lord has affirmed it over and over in so many ways.

I'm just also really sad because I love my job, I love my people, and I'll miss it so much.

And now I have to eat lunch with toddlers. God help me.

P.S. Prepare yourself because in about four days, an incredible sappy (but very true) post about how teachers change lives will be coming your way.