My battle with depression

I think depression among mothers is much more common than many of us will admit. Granted, we may not all have depression on a clinical level, but I'd venture to say a LOT of us have it on some level. Here's my struggle with it; maybe it can help you feel more comfortable with where you're at.

My entrance into motherhood was rough. Five things had me spiraling downward. 1) Recovering from an emergency C-section took much longer and had many more side effects than I had anticipated. 2) Breastfeeding was the most painful and discouraging thing I'd ever tried. 3) Hormones 4) My child wouldn't do anything the books said he should do or anything I wanted him to do. 5) I was feeling bad for not enjoying motherhood.

In short, nothing was going according to my plans or expectations. It still isn't, of course. But I'm learning to accept that and roll with it. My depression level isn't nearly what it was post pardum, but it's still a struggle I'm quite prone to. Let's call it Depressed Mood, since it's not like get-to-the-psychiatrist's-office-right-now depression.

A lot of my struggle is caused by these expectations that are somehow deeply ingrained in me:

• I'm used to being successful if I work hard at something
• I want to be able to follow a formula to accomplish a desired result
• I get quite upset when things are less than easy
• I'm driven by perfection
• I like to be in control

You may be laughing right now -- that's ok. I know it's ridiculous and difficult (yes, impossible?) to subconsiously operate this way as a mom and not get discouraged/upset/impatient every single day.

Motherhood carries extreme highs and lows each day for all moms, not just those with my personality. Letting the highs and lows determine my attitude, my outlook on life, and how I react to my children is where the crux of the battle is for me. My tendency is to let the lows totally throw me off and ruin my day. It spirals like crazy: one spilled milk or potty accident can lead to me thinking my parenting is totally wrong, my clothes are out of style, I'm ugly, my husband works too much, I don't get enough sleep, I have nothing to fix for dinner, my children are going to rebel when they're teenagers, and can't I just get a break?!

This kind of thing doesn't just happen once a month around the same time of the month; it can happen every day if I let it. This is why I call it depression (depressed mood) instead of just typical motherhood combined with hormones. In fact, the example I gave above is a mild one. (Don't worry, I don't have thoughts of harming myself or my kids.)

So here's what I'm doing about it. First, my husband thought maybe I needed more breaks from the kids or time to myself. That is great and definitely something I needed, but I found myself still getting down after even short amounts of time with them. That showed me that it wasn't my circumstances that needed to change -- it was ME.

Next I made a page of inspirational quotes and Bible verses that speak to me on this issue, which I keep handy to read whenever I start on my downward spiral. (Helen Keller, Elisabeth Elliott, and Mother Teresa have a way of putting things in perspective.) I also admitted that my perspective on life was more whacked up on the days that I didn't spend a little time -- even 10 minutes --  reading the Bible or doing a devotional. Those few minutes don't always feel like they're accomplishing anything at the time, but I know they are.

And finally, I recognized the bents in my own personality that draw me to depressed moods: comfort and control. I'm addicted to both of those things. Unfortunately, neither is present in motherhood. And even more importantly -- I'm  not entitled to them either. I have to remind myself of this multiple times a day.

So my journey continues. Ups and downs of course. But my vision is clearer. Spending time with other mothers who are honest and real helps a lot too. Support - Perspective - Honesty: those are my "pills" in this battle. If you need the real prescribed pills, you're not alone.

There is so much more that could be said. Talking about it at all is a good start though. And I bet if you share your experience you'll find many others who can relate.

Pumpkin Paradise

Pumpkins are so versatile and delicious. This November we ended up with 6 large pumpkins. I knew they were cookable, but I had no idea the undertaking of processing 6 pumpkins. For two days my kitchen was covered from top to bottom in pumpkin (if you've ever gutted a pumpkin before you know what I mean. It's slimy and it sticks to everything). But the results were soooooo worth it.

After de-seeding, baking, scooping out and pureeing these guys, I ended up with almost 40 cups of pureed pumpkin. Check out the recipes I've used so far.

Pumpkin Pancakes : These will be a staple in our house as long as we have pumpkin puree in the freezer. Delish. (That's pumpkin butter on top.)

Pumpkin Soup : Always a winner, especially with roasted pumpkin seeds stirred in when serving.

Pumpkin Souffle : This turned out too watery, probably because it's actually a sweet potato recipe. If I do it again, I'll tweak the recipe. Flavor was good.

Pumpkin Seeds : If you do nothing else with your Halloween pumpkin, at least save the seeds. They are amazing roasted and have a lot of health benefits. I use garlic salt instead of regular salt on mine. I've also made a spicy version with hot sauce.

Pumpkin Bread : This recipe uses less sugar and more pumpkin than most. My first loaf I forgot to put the sugar in! It actually wasn't even bad, but I made a second one anyway and added raisins to it (anyone know how to keep them from falling to the bottom?).

Pumpkin Butter : Very simple and it made great Christmas gifts for friends.

And I still have 14 cups of puree in my freezer. Aaagghh!

So next November, when you're tempted to throw out your pumpkins, try a few of these recipes, or send your pumpkins my way.

(And please excuse my photos. I'm definitely not a food photographer.)

Singing the Praises of a CSA

I just picked up the last basket of produce this season from our CSA. Each week when we've picked up our delicious locally, organically grown fruits and vegetables I've thought, "Why didn't we do this sooner? It's so incredible. I need to tell other people how great this is."

I eschewed the CSA thing for a long time because I thought it would be too expensive or that I'd end up throwing away any food that I didn't like. I was so wrong.

You may think CSA's sound very southern and country, but I bet there's a CSA near you! And I highly recommend trying it out. Here are the benefits I've found so far:

1. It's very inexpensive. The cost comes out to $15 a week. Pictured above is one week's pickup to give you an idea of how much we get. Several weeks in the height of summer we received even much larger shares. This is organic produce; it would cost signicantly more that $15 in the grocery store for all of that. I was shocked.
2. It's organic and locally grown. I won't go on about the benefits of eating food that's free from pesticides, not genetically modified, and picked only a day or two before you get it.

3. It's expanded our food horizons. Many of the foods we've received in our share I've never previously purchased or eaten. Some of the foods I didn't even know existed, like these long beans, purple peppers, and yellow watermelon. Thanks to being in the CSA we now enjoy a much larger variety of fruits and vegetables than we ever have. And have you ever seen how brussels sprouts grow? Wow.
4. It's forced me to find new recipes. I used to get stuck in food ruts, cooking the same things over and over. Not with a CSA. In addition to learning to cook and eat foods I've never had before, I've also had to find a variety of recipes to use up the large amounts of certain items. (See my posts on Zucchini Crazy and Pumpkin Paradise.) It's always good to add some new recipes to the lineup.
5. It's stocked my freezer for winter. Our $15/week of produce not only lasts the week, it feeds us for much more. I have two freezers with stockpiles of anything we couldn't eat or give away before our next share arrived. I've learned a lot about what can/can't be frozen and how to do it.
6. It gives me food to share with others. Whenever I know there's something I won't eat or won't freeze, I call up a friend and ask them if they want it. I don't like to see things go to waste, and it's fun for me to know someone else is enjoying it.

7. It provides fun times with my kids. They go with me to pick out the vegetables, so they get to learn what's what. Together we've shelled black-eyed peas, shucked corn, and sliced bowls and bowls of watermelon. And they absolutely LOVED farm day, where we went to the Amish farm where our food is grown, met the farmers, picked some vegetables straight out of the ground, rode horse-drawn carriages, and chased farm animals -- a dream day for my kids.

So give it a try! You may even like it so much that you'll start getting your meat and eggs from a CSA too...We absolutely love the farm we get our meat and eggs from. Maybe I'll blog on that later...

Happy Eating!