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February 9th, 2012
I realized last night that we’re in a phase of life right now that seems to be moving at a calm pace. It’s refreshing to be here after the storm of busy we carried on through at the end of last year.
Yesterday afternoon I worked up the dough for our pasta dinner, mixing the eggs into the flour and kneading away. We’ve been on a pasta-from-scratch kick lately and we’ve been making it once a week. There’s something therapeutic about making pasta. It’s a time-consuming process, but so simple and methodical. You can move slowly, and maybe that’s our draw to it these days.
While the dough rested on the counter, we took the girls for a jog in their new stroller. I’ve started running, which is a surprise to myself, but I’m really enjoying it. Running alongside Anthony makes me smile ear to ear. There’s something about it, going fast.
…It must look funny to see a girl running into the wind with a big grin on her face.
When I ride my bike, the same thing happens. Kind of like when a dog sticks his head out the window of a car, that’s what I feel like when I make my body move fast through the air.
We got home and I finished our pasta. Cranking it through the pasta machine a dozen times over, flattening it out into thinner and thinner sheets. Dusting with flour and watching it turn into delicate strands of angel hair.
I hung our pasta on the laundry rack to dry as I rolled out the rest of the dough and worked on the sauce. An act very little and maybe silly, but it made my heart so happy.
We fixed a pesto sauce, I dropped the thin noodles into the big pot, and minutes later we were dining on our dinner from complete scratch. Ella devoured it and repeated over and over how much she liked it – and isn’t that a refreshing thing to hear from a three year old?
Our dinner took more than an hour to make, start to finish and we ate it in maybe 15 minutes. The equation doesn’t seem worth it but that’s okay, because we can move slowly these days.
I know that soon enough we will be back in a busy phase. Ella will be off to school or maybe dance classes before then. We’ll be rushing to get things done and we’ll resort to meals fixed quickly. We have a serious relationship with food in this house. We kind of cherish our home cooked meals and while time allows, we’ll relish in them. I plan to drape many more strands of pasta over that rack and appreciate the fact that we have time to do so.
I’m going to thrive in these slow moments of our days, take in the fact that I get to be a mama at home with her two little girls, slowly playing, reading, cooking our days away. Someday they will be grown and I’ll find myself missing these days. I’m so glad we have them now, so grateful for this opportunity and time.
