Between January 7th and February 18th, my family celebrates 14 birthdays. You read that right, 14 BIRTHDAYS. Within that window of time, two of my best friends revel in the anniversary of their births as well. This adds up to a lot of birthday cake and other first-world problems.
So while in a sugar coma, I pondered all the problems that come along with so much celebrating.
First, I had to clean my house because people might recognize that we live here between birthday parties.
Second, I was forced to shop for gifts to bestow upon the birthday boys and girls within days of another fairly large holiday (Darn Christmas!).
Third, the NOISE. Sleepovers, trampoline parks, an excited dog, and a basement full of party-goers produced a lot of noise.
Will someone please make their birthday wish for tranquility?
Despite my tragic first-world fiascos, I want to just say that I am grateful for a home to share with others and all the laundry, dishes, food, papers, books, toys, and electronic cords that pile up.
I am exceptionally thankful for the humans who drag all the laundry, dishes, food, papers, books, toys, and electronic cords through my home. They provide purpose and subjects to smother with love and attention.
My friend Emily sent a text announcing that her 2025 will officially begin on February 1st. (I received this message on January 21st.)
I replied, “We all have to start somewhere.”
If your 2025 has started a little rocky, you are not alone.
Since January 1st, we’ve lost four buildings, a couple thousand turkeys, and some cattle on our farm to Mother Nature and her nasty ice and snow fits.
The building Hubby and our crew retrofitted after one of the turkey barns collapsed completely froze up and enough portable heaters had to be procured to warm the poor, traumatized birds inside. It’s not easy to find heaters in the middle of an Arctic depression.
My family planned to celebrate my grandmother’s 97th birthday this past weekend at her nursing home. A COVID outbreak occurred 48 hours before the party and the celebration had to be canceled. (Please pray for the nursing home staff and residents.)
My daughter’s cell phone was lost in the one fun thing she didlast week (sledding) before Snowmagedon, and we have not relocated it.
AND I’ve been suffering from a nasty cold that has my brain, ears, and nose all clogged up. (Yuck!)
Some serious clean-up is needed to get past this dumpster fire of the first three weeks.
Do-overs aren’t really an option. We can’t turn back time, but we can create a reset for ourselves. Here are three things I’ve decided to focus on in an attempt to celebrate our newly established New Year:
#1. It’s important to acknowledge we are not alone. #2. Sometimes we have to take the trash out before we can see the clean start before us. #3. We all have to start somewhere.
Here’s the good news. The first three weeks are behind us and there are 49 glorious 7-day series ahead ready for us to find success. Finding the right place to start is imperative because we all have to start somewhere.
How do we decide what trash to take out? How do we reclaim that fresh start?
Let’s revisit our checklist: #1. It’s important to acknowledge we are not alone. #2. Sometimes we have to take the trash out before we can see the clean start before us. #3. We all have to start somewhere.
A huge portion of the time I feel like my family doesn’t think I’m smart enough to wipe my own butt. (If you have teenagers, you know.) Even more often I believe the people I encounter in daily life think I’m a cheeseburger short of a Happy Meal. Why is that?
Do you ever feel this way?
Even though we have immediate access to infinite information at our fingertips, we all seem to doubt our own ability or the ability of others to have a lick of sense. We have all developed complexes that make us feel either too smart for our own good or too dumb to function.
There’s nothing smart about either of those mindsets and it makes me want to borrow the words of Stewart Smalley from Saturday Night Live, “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And, doggone it, people like me.”
I want to get to the point where I can confidently say, “Shut up, insecurity. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I’m just as guilty as the next guy for using knowledge to puff up my self-esteem in certain situations and act like a know-it-all. (I always want to kick myself later for being snotty.) There’s something to be said for admitting we don’t have all the answers and even more to lifting others up for the knowledge and skills they possess.
It’s important to value the intelligence of individuals and recognize that it’s our unique knowledge and skills that make the world go round. If you aren’t feeling like the brightest crayon in the box, it’s okay. Broken crayons still color and can be molded to make a difference that lightens any situation.
Fear of the unknown has to be one of the scariest things I can think of, but sometimes my inquisitive nature gets the better of me and I JUST HAVE TO KNOW. One such adventure presented itself on a visit to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. In one of the garden’s centers, there was a hexagon-shaped glass case, illuminated with red lights, and labeled “Vivian’s Burrow.” (I named it the “Hexagon of Uncertainty.”)
To discover Vivian’s identity, guests have to climb into the stand and view the burrow from inside the glass. There is no way to escape quickly if what’s inside that burrow is too scary. Its inhabitant will be right there, in your face, until you can wiggle your way back out. You could be temporarily trapped at eye-to-eye with uncertainty and your greatest fear.
I JUST HAD to see who Vivian was.
(Rachel was not as “curious” and did NOT venture into the “Hexagon of Uncertainty.”)
Me inside the “Hexagon of Uncertainty” looking for Vivian’s Burrow
I am not particularly fond of any rodent, to be honest, so I was slightly afraid that I was going to find myself nose to nose with some sort of mousey creature.
The Winner of the “Which Jalapeño Recipe Should Melanie Make” Survey is…
BACON-WRAPPED JALAPENOS!
Thanks so much to everyone who read “More Than One Way to Slice a Jalapeño” and voted for the recipe they would like to see most! (Rachel, get your camera crew gear on, we are going to make a video!)
My family is very excited about the winner because it is one of their favorites, and they will benefit from all the jalapeño goodness that comes from cooking them.
The survey also asked what topics readers would like to have more of in 2025. Here are the results.
It looks like we are going to put our Intentergy into battling stress and anxiety as a priority and make some good, faith-filled food along the way. Thanks so much to everyone who gave their input!
Comments are always welcome, and some folks were kind enough to add a few to the survey.
As far as all of my writing being wonderful, I appreciate your bias, but I’m going to keep trying to get better. Friendship and its importance are definitely worthy topics for future posts. As for the jalapeño jelly recipe, we might be able to work something out while the bacon-wrapped alapeños are grilling.
Intentergy is energy with positive purpose. Writing for this blog has buoyed me through some not-so-positive times and having people who are willing to read and seek out the Intertergy in their own lives makes the world a better place. Thank you!
I’m excited to get the winning recipe out there for others to try and eager to publish more posts spreading Intentergy. Here’s to spicy, happy eating, and joyful, inspired reading!
By: Melanie A. Peters
P.S. Always feel free to comment… even if your Jalapeño recipe choice didn’t win.
Thanks to a recent winter storm, our family hunkered down each evening after everything on the farm was too frozen to anything else and had a movie marathon. Our 16-year-old volunteered her collection of The Hunger Games movies.
For three consecutive nights, we fired up the DVD player and watched as Katniss Everdeen took on The Capitol and tried to figure out where her loyalties should lie. In her search for happiness, Katniss took turns kissing Peeta and Gale. This infuriated Hubby and our boys. “That wasn’t just a friendly kiss!” was repeated over and over, while Maggie tried to explain that Katniss and Gale were “just friends.”
As all movies based on books do, these films diverged from the plot and our sweet girl took it upon herself each time to say, “In the book…..,” and then proceeded to retell the novel version. This added to the hysteria of comments from my husband and sons.
As the peanut gallery continued with their heckling of Katniss’ escapades in Mockingjay Part 2, my daughter exclaimed, “She was smarter in the books!”
In September, my friend Rachel and I planned a girls’ trip around a few doctor appointments. We booked a hotel room and made exciting plans to attend the last home game for the St. Louis Cardinals and visit the Missouri Botanical Gardens.
The Cardinals’ game was a win and the weather was perfect. That night we enjoyed watching football and relaxing in our hotel room, but when we woke the next morning Mother Nature had experienced a mood change and it was pouring rain.
Who wants to walk around a botanical garden in the rain?
Well, I guess we did.
The guy who sold us our entry tickets said we probably wouldn’t get to see much of the gardens without getting wet. We thanked him, took our visitor’s map, and headed out hoping to walk between the drops.
We quickly found refuge in one of the coolest greenhouses ever. Inside its walls were some of the most fascinating plants with the coolest names.
(This is the greenhouse I’m going to ask Hubby to build for me.)
We discovered plants that are on the brink of extinction, including one called the “Fine Lady.” Rachel and I decided that they may have named this plant after us because we are definitely a rare breed.
How does a “Fine Lady” end up on the list of Endangered Plants?
She’s “fine” after all. Maybe there IS something wrong with being just “fine.”
There were some seriously exotic plants, like the Buddha’s Hand. It was kind of creepy, and I really kind of want one.
As we enjoyed checking out the foliage and fruits of the first greenhouse, the rain let up. We made our way through the rose garden and around the waterlily ponds without having to share the space with a single other soul.
We had the beautiful, but wet, botanical gardens all to ourselves.
Before the rain returned, we decided to find the Climatron. It was advertised as the highlight of the gardens and a completely enclosed rainforest environment.
The Climatron was amazing! The rainy weather had woken all of the plants and they put on a most brilliant display. The thought and effort put into creating The Climatron forest were inspiring and we witnessed countless moments of organic beauty as we wondered its paths. I guess we really were the kind of people who wanted to walk around a botanical garden in the rain.
While the weather changed our plans and the plants made us feel small, the experience made a big impact on how we were able to spend our time. Our stroll through the gardens was comfortable, unrushed, and without distraction from anyone else. If we had given up on our plans because of the rain, we would have missed out on such a unique experience.
We took a chance, despite the weather, and it paid off.
We didn’t settle for “It’s fine; we don’t have to go,” and our visit was a vibrant experience that not a lot of people got to see that day.
I encourage you to do the same. Take a chance. Make a plan. Stick to your plan. Enjoy all you witness and know that your unique escapade has enriched your life.
Put some energy into planning something beautiful and I’m certain your purpose will be rewarded, maybe soggy, but rewarded in some very cool ways.
By: Melanie A. Peters
P.S. Does anyone have blueprints for that greenhouse? Hubby is going to need them.
Fine ladies (Not Endangered) under a waterfall in the Botanical Garden.
What do you do when your buddy Timmy gives you four 5-gallon buckets of jalapeños? You get creative with jalapeño.
Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Hubby took Timmy up on the offer to pick some peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, and squash from his massive garden late this past summer. I was excited about the fresh produce and eager to give at least one new recipe a try. Little did I know I would soon be up to my eyeballs in stems, seeds, and researching ways to preserve the plentiful peppers.
Each day I spent 2 hours slicing and seeding peppers by hand for the first two or three days. These carefully crafted slices went into pickled jalapeños. Of course, I wore gloves to protect my skin from the spicy juices but my hands and wrists started to get a little worn out by Day 3. I pulled out my little Pampered Chef food processor and started blending away at the buckets of peppers, but didn’t make much headway because of the blender’s small capacity. Plus, I had moved on to trying a second new recipe. This time I was attempting to make jalapeño relish, and we weren’t too sure if we would like it or use it much. (*We did like it. ** We used it a lot.)
Hubby asked why I didn’t have a bigger blender. I told him because Santa hadn’t brought it yet. Well, Santa came in August with a fancyshmancy, BIG blender. It was going to be perfect for peppers, zucchini, slaw, all the things…. but it was really BIG. The jalapenos were plentiful but petite. This is when we really had to shake things up with how we sliced our peppers.
Just like snowflakes, no two problems are the same. The good thing about snowflakes and problems is that they can both be temporary and lead us to witness beautiful things.
For the January Positivity Challenge, let’s think of our problems as snowflakes and let the chill of worrying about our misfortunes melt away. We can celebrate the fact that they are temporary and can be unexpectedly beneficial.
For Christmas, Hubby and I decided to take the kids on a vacation instead of giving them “stuff.” We were excited to share with them the gifts of time and experience. When we announced our plans two weeks before Christmas, their reactions were nowhere near what we expected. Our 11-year-old was full of questions about how much soda he could drink on the trip. The 13-year-old was like, “Yeah, I’ll go, but I’d rather go somewhere else.” The 16-year-old left the dinner table in tears because she could not believe we would force her to go somewhere with us without her friends.
Despite their less-than-eager reactions, the trip was booked and our sweet minions took their first-ever flight on Christmas morning. The kids complained about the early hour of our departure, but because of our timing, they got to witness a brilliant sunrise while on their first-ever flight. ❄️ #1
On Christmas morning there were not a lot of restaurants open, this was a problem because everyone was STARVING. When we finally found an IHOP open, we were seated in a corner booth and everyone had something fancy and delicious to eat. The holiday-themed decor, music, menu, and our festively dressed server made the meal feel like we were in a Hallmark Chrismas movie. ❄️#2
Intentergy 