What Makes the Best Present Ever

 

Colors! Read below to find out more....

Nope. The best present ever is not a thing, even though I uploaded a photo of this lovely spice rack.

The BEST PRESENT EVER is my husband's observation of the blossoming that's going on inside of me and his support of it.

His present made me cry when I opened it. Because his present said "I care. I see. I'm right here with you."

I work nights. I'm an artist. I write, I paint, I draw, I make beautiful beadwork, and I work nights because the sounds of the day are rather invasive and in order to listen, which is a huge component of all the work I do, I need quiet. With leaf blowers and traffic and people banging about, I can't hear, so I work nights.

Most times I'm in my studio. But sometimes I putter around the house quietly so as not to wake those sleeping. And one of my putterings lately involved rejuvenation. I noticed that on my kitchen counter I had something that connects me with my Celestial daughter's physical presence. When she moved into her new apartment in Oregon in 2012, I sent her a spice rack. Well, food is love, right? So I contributed to her kitchen, her cooking, and her love of others. When I bought it for her, I bought one for me too, just exactly like hers.

When she died in 2015, I did not bring hers home, but I guarded the one I had just like hers for a long, long time. It sat on my kitchen counter by the stove and I didn't use the spices, I saved them.

This year I am definitely feeling some sunshine and sparkle in my life and I want to push that out into all the corners and cubbies so I emptied all those spices never used, and I filled up a tall container with soapy bubbles and soaked them for several days. That container sat on the counter for a while. Then I rinsed them with vinegar and set them up to dry.

My intention was to buy new spices and fill these lovely containers up and use them! But I had been a single Mom for several years and knew the stretch of the budget and had been worrying in my mind about how I would be able to afford all these new spices even now - a luxury indeed. I figured I'd be able to sneak one or two in on the grocery bill every few weeks without taxing the budget overmuch.

Well Christmas came. And my husband handed me a box that was beautifully wrapped. I didn't know what was in it. It's been years since I've been surprised at Christmas because usually we talk about what we might like or need, and the other makes it happen, but we hadn't talked about this.

I opened the box. Inside there were almost 18 brand new little bottles filled with colorful fragrant spices. WOW.

I just sat there and cried. Because my husband had noticed. He had swooped in and fulfilled a need that I didn't even think to share with him. 

I said, "How did you know?"

He said, "Well I saw them on the counter and realized you were washing them and sort of stepping into bringing life to things and I wanted to support that."

Oh. Oh!

He went to three different stores to even be able to find all the different spices. And there was one he couldn't find. I'll tell you about it in a minute. ALL of these spices I use in our cooking all the time (from the jars that we keep in the cabinet over the stove), so this was a very cool thing he did. I spent an evening recently refilling these lovely containers and noticed that all of a sudden they were all very colorful! 10+ years of no use had made the old spices fade, no color, no flavor, just sitting there without appreciation, being guarded. Now they were absolutely vibrant! AND I'm using them, and every time I do, I feel the love of my daughter, the love between me and anyone I'm cooking for, and the love of my sweet husband.

Names are on the top of each container, so yummy!

So he was able to get all but one of the spices, and that was fennel. He went all over town, no fennel anywhere. He googled it but search terms are tricky so he was unable to come up with fennel as an herb or spice.

So I googled it and I can't even tell you how much fun that turned out to be so I'm going to share it with you.

I discovered a FABULOUS web site called nuts.com, where I was able to find fennel seed, which has to be ground with a mortar and pestle, no problem, we do that all the time.... 

Rob uses this to make his Greek seasoning,
which uses 13 spices, SO GOOD!!

But the site where we found the fennel seed is worth sharing because it's a business worth supporting for sure. Lots of organic stuff, and their marketing FAR surpasses anything else I've seen except for maybe the Geico lizard, who amuses me to no end. It is a delight. Here we go!

How is that for TOO CUTE ENTIRELY?! RIGHT?! I know!!!!

So we were able to fill up the last spice, and it was a true delight, as is using my lovely rejuvenated spices to make good food to share with all my Lovies.

Thank you Rob. Very special Christmas present indeed. He noticed, sigh...I am a lucky girl indeed.

Namaste, and do check out nuts.com because they have lots of other good stuff too!

~Jen