Chocolate Chip Banana Pistachio Muffins

    In our house Fridays include "breakfast for dinner".  We'll usually have eggs of some sort, maybe bacon, and some kind of carby-goodness.  The past few weeks I've been making muffins, because the leftovers make for a good quick breakfast when we both have to go to work in the mornings (I got a new job!  More on that in another post, hopefully before too long).  I've been wanting to make banana bread for a few weeks, but kept forgetting to buy bananas!  I finally remembered to pick some up while grocery shopping, so this is what I came up with for our breakfast for dinner tonight: Chocolate Chip Banana Pistachio Muffins!   I love everything about banana bread - the smell, the taste, the texture.  These did not disappoint in any of these aspects!

    I always put my muffins in paper liners, if I have them, to simplify clean up.  I made a dozen muffins with this recipe, then poured the rest of the batter into a small (3x7 or something like that) Pyrex baking dish.

    I don't know where I found the original  banana bread recipe, but I made several changes to it, so here's my version:

Chocolate Chip Banana Pistachio Muffins

1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt 

2 eggs

1 cup mashed ripe bananas

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup honey

1/3 cup water

1/2 cup shelled pistachios, chopped 

1/3 cup chocolate chips

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, combine the eggs, bananas, butter, honey, and water. Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in pistachios and chocolate chips. Spoon  into greased muffin tins. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes or until top is firm when pressed with finger.  Makes approximately 1 1/2 dozen muffins

Let me know if you decide to make them and how they turn out, along with any tweaks you make!
-MNM

Lagniappe

    For my non-southern readers:
Lagniappe (pronounced lan-yap) is a word that we use that means "a little bit extra" or "everything thing else".  It's similar to both "a baker's dozen" and "miscellaneous", but kind of encompasses them both.  It's an extremely useful word, and I use it all the time!

That being said, I will be writing a few lagniappe posts - posts that don't have anything to do with infertility, but do have to do with my life! Hope you enjoy them :)

-MNM

Some Days...

"I can't do this anymore!"
"It hurts too much."
"Take it away!"

    Some days all you can do is shed a few tears.  Cry out to God in desperation.  Sob in your husband's arms.  Cry yourself to sleep.

    And you know what?  That's okay. 

    I don't know if crying is a sign of weakness, or a lack of faith or hope, or anything else.  I just know that it's a sign of how painful this whole journey really is.  And sometimes the best temporary pain relief (especially heart pain) is through a shower of tears.
    And you know what else? God doesn't mind if we cry. In fact, He cares about when we cry, as Psalm 56:8 tells us:

"You keep track of all my sorrows.

You have collected all my tears in your bottle.

You have recorded each one in your book."

    So to you, my friend who is on a similar journey, I give you permission to cry.

-MNM

In His Time

      I've heard several times recently about God's timing and how it's perfect.  In my dad's sermon last week he said "God's time is appropriate."  This morning during the testimony time at church two different guys shared about God's timing being perfect in their jobs.

    I know this is true, and honestly have seen it in my own life over and over again.  Sometimes I need a reminder, though.

    This past week has been a rough one emotionally for me.  There's not a specific reason - I think it has to do with the fact that my summer job ended so I have a lot more free time than I did, which lends itself to more time to simply think.  That being said,  anyone want to offer a bit of encouragement and share their story of how God's timing was perfect in their life?  Please leave a comment!

-MNM

Life Isn't Fair

    "That's so unfair!"  How often do we say/think/act like this? I know I certainly hear it all the time.  Kids say it a lot, but adults act like it just as often.  We tend to apply it to any and every situation.
   
  I find that it's a common phrase in the infertility community - it's used whenever we hear of:

•  a pregnant teenager 
• a child being an accident (that phrase makes me cringe)
• someone being pregnant with their multipleth (yay made up words!) child
• an unwanted pregnancy - especially if they're in no position to be a parent
• a child being given up for adoption
• and especially abortions (even writing that makes me choke up)

    The response is usually something along the lines of "that's so unfair! How come they can get pregnant on a one night stand, but we've been trying for x number of years with no results!"

    While this may be my first response,  dwelling on the things I think are unfair is a dangerous thing to do.  It puts me into pity party mode, and while sometimes I pretend like that's comforting, it's really just making things worse. Not to mention it makes me, and everyone around me miserable, and certainly isn't changing anything or doing any good!

    Because you know what? Life. Isn't. Fair. 

    God never promised us fairness, even for those who choose to follow Him.  As my dear momma would say "You know what we deserve [ie: what would be fair]?  Hell."  I, for one, am thankful God is merciful enough to give us the option to not get what we deserve.

    With that in perspective, maybe I need to take a moment to appreciate the things I am blessed to have, that I don't deserve, or even that many others don't have:

• A loving, caring, wonderful husband
• an amazing family
• awesome in-laws
• a great church
• a decent place to live
• a job I love 

    I could go on and on, but you get the picture.  There is so much more that I do have than that I don't have.
       How is your perspective lately?

-MNM

Loving My Life

     I sometimes fear that I may sound repetitive, but it's hard to not continually talk about the things you are passionate about.  And my passion is for children.
     For the past 6 days, I have spent the majority of each day working with all ages of children:

• Monday - Friday I worked 4 hours with a couple dozen 3rd graders, and then 3 hours with the same number of 4th-5th grade boys.  
• Friday evening I worked 3 hours with 12 children ages 4-12.
• Saturday I spent 6 hours working a booth at a kid's day event, interacting with an uncountable number of children.
• Sunday  morning I spent an hour supervising/playing with two 2 year olds.  One of those sweet girls, when she saw me in the parking lot as I called out her name,  called out my name as well, and ran to me. I picked her up and she hugged me as I carried her inside. It was the sweetest thing. Later this same morning I gladly held a 7 month old for just a few moments while her mom went to get the car out of the rain.

    I wish I could share pictures of all these precious children, but I will respect their privacy.
    I am so blessed to be surrounded by children.  I love my life.

-MNM

Grief

Warning: this post may be a trigger post.

    Grief is such a funny thing.  Except it's not funny at all.  What I mean is, it's complex.  It has so many layers, and there are so many kinds.

    There's the kind that comes from losing a loved one - say a grandparent. That kind of grief comes from missing the one you lost.  My grandmother has been gone for 9 years now.  Something reminded me of her just the other day, and it brought tears to my eyes.  I miss her, and being able to be with her.  I miss the little things about her.  I miss her voice.  Part of my grieving for her is also a sadness that she's not around to be a part of the big events that she would have loved.  And part of it is sadness for my younger siblings who never really knew her.  But while losing a grandparent is hard, it's somewhat expected.

    Losing a loved one "too young" is really hard, though. Today would have been my baby brother's 8th (8th!) birthday.  We never had the privilege of knowing Philip, as he died during birth.    Most of the time my grief for Phillip is just in the back of my mind. But sometimes it comes to the surface.  This week I had already been thinking about him, because of his birthday this week, and then a long time acquaintance of mine was asking me about my family, and mentioned something about remembering being at his funeral.  I didn't remember her being there, but it made me start thinking about the whole thing.  I came home, and was talking to my husband about it, and started to get choked up.  I realized then that sometimes I just need to tell my part of the story, even if I've told it before, because even though it is painful, I want to remember. So I spoke everything I could remember about Phillip's birth/death and funeral.  And I cried.  When I grieve for Philip, I grieve for what could have been.  I see other little 8 year old boys and try to imagine what he would have been like.  Would he have been like the more outgoing, loud members of our family, or like the quieter, more reserved ones? Would he have had the dark hair/eyes/skin that most of us do, or the slightly lighter tones that a couple of my siblings have?  

    I experience a unique grief when I think about my uncle, who died 5 days before I was born.  I so wish I could have known him.

    Then there's the grief that you experience when you find out a young relative has cancer.  It comes like a knife, stabbing through you.  You can't catch your breath, and you  feel physically ill.  All you can think is "This isn't supposed to happen."

    There's also a grief that comes when others are grieving.  There was an accident in my town recently where a guy ran off the road, and into a house, killing a little girl.  I don't know the family, but I drive past the house every day on my way to work, and every day as I look at it, with the big hole in the side of it, and the memorial picture out front, I get a knot in my stomach.  This grief is one that includes disgust and anger, and a sense of "this is so unfair."

    The kind of grief I experience going through infertility is it's own kind - one mixed with hope.  Most of the others have a sense of finality to them - I know that I will always grieve over them.  But I have hope that my infertility journey will one day come to an end, and then I will no longer have to grieve over not being a mother.

   And you know what? Grief is not a bad thing.  I don't need to dwell on it, and live in a state of sadness/depression all that time, but, sometimes it's ok to cry.

-MNM