A few years ago, I was wandering around an antiques mall (as I'm prone to do), and I came upon the most beautiful quilt I've ever seen. There wasn't any discernible pattern, but the colors--oh, those colors! And there was a description plaquard next to it that read something like, "Early American crazy quilt. Pulled together from leftover scraps. Very warm." I couldn't afford the quilt, but I remember asking God afterward, "Lord, please help me to stop being so hard on myself for not having my stuff all together. I'm constantly in the middle of projects, taking classes, with my hand in too many pots, and then I forget things. I have stacks on top of the organization bins I bought to contain the stacks! But Lord, maybe you created me this way. Maybe, like the crazy quilt, I can have a purpose, and even one of beauty, although it's not one that I ever would have planned. Help me to find the beauty in the way you've made me."
Well, I still haven't totally bought into the crazy quilt metaphor for my life, but I'm trying to accept it more. It's not like it's something I can change, unfortunately. This is where the compatibility part comes in, though. Do you know that never in our premarital counseling did the subject of preparing dinner come up? And it wasn't until after our wedding that Eric let me know that he expected some kind of nourishment on his plate at the end of each day. Well, after we figured out that we both had some pretty crazy expectations (ha!), we realized that our food likes really are an area of compatibility for us. It turns out that I love to cook! And both of us love spicy food. Indian and cajun are our favorites. After the traveling Mormon guys convinced me to give up meat, Eric embraced our dinner changes as "tasty," and "different/good!" (Not all husbands would have been all about giving up meat for dinner!!) He still eats meat, but he's also complimentary and supportive of anything I cook, whether or not it's of the "meat" variety. (I do still cook meat.)
It doesn't concern me too much, then, that I was planning on making vegetarian chili for supper tonight, but the bag of beans in the pantry isn't the 13-bean soup kind. Nah, it's just black-eyed peas. Which was a problem a few minutes ago, since my car is totally snowed under and I need to get the beans soaking under water.
No worries, though. I'm taking the crazy quilt approach to dinner tonight. We're having stew, but it's not going to be the kind you'll find in a cookbook. That's OK. It will be spicy, Eric will love it, and I will love him for reacting that way. I am so grateful to have married a man who enjoys life, food, and his wife on the colorful side, too.
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