"It's a Beautiful Life"- Genevieve Galvan Frenes

Day 10 – After the morning coffee, we celebrate mass in our living room. It doesn’t feel the same, but it is interesting to see inside other Catholic churches via YouTube. Today, we’re in Washington, D.C. at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It’s the closest experience we’ll have to mass for some time.

In another effort to relax after chores, I decide to bake bread. It has been at least a year since I’ve attempted this feat since time is always a struggle. There are many steps to preparing bread before one bakes it.

Time is no longer a struggle.

I grew up in a home where my mom didn’t like to cook. She did cook and she made several good dishes, but she never enjoyed it. For some reason, I thought if you were a mom, you automatically liked to cook and bake. I could tell my mom didn’t enjoy it. It seemed like a chore.

In my experience as a teacher and mom, I know first hand that many moms today do not like to cook and rely on frozen food to feed their family. There is nothing wrong with this practice. However, when my children tell me, “No one cooks nowadays. None of my friends’ moms cook. You’re the only one.” I highly doubt this is true, but then again, I live within the walls of my own home.

When I married years ago, I vowed to myself that I would become a good cook. After my third daughter, I took a break from teaching and soon learned how to cook many dishes by watching the Food Network and various chefs. I experimented and learned the cooking language that many use in the programs and videos of preparing a recipe.

So close to nineteen years later (after my daughter was born), I’m still cooking and baking. It is my meditation and downtime even though it does require work. I can put on my favorite music, pour some wine, and follow along with the recipe. I pull out the ingredients and items which I’ll need to measure and prepare the dish.

When I bake, whether its bread or a dessert, I love the smell of my home as the sweet smells linger throughout the rooms in their own time. I rarely eat much of what I make, but the rest of my family will devour my food. It has taken a long time to figure out certain lessons of how to cook or bake, but in all of my efforts, I am left satisfied, and my family has enjoyed the fruits of my labor. It makes me pleased to provide a gift which I truly enjoy preparing just for them.

So today, I made bread sticks which take several hours to prepare in terms of the dough. Since I know this process will take some time, I prepare a frozen lasagna (which tastes just as good as anything I could make). I take my time on the bread sticks and use my new standing mixer.

Since my hands tend to hurt after kneading or using my fingers too much (fibromyagia struggles), I know just how much my hands can tolerate. The standing mixer is a blessing. It does all of the hard work for me and the hardest part left for me is waiting for the bread to rise.

Once baked in the oven and smothered in butter and garlic salt, the bread sticks smell heavenly. I sit on the couch, content and relaxed. As my children enter our home after a short excursion, I hear such expressions like, “It smells yummy in here,” or “It smells so good…is the food ready?”

It’s quiet as we eat. This is a good sign…always a good sign.

Sunday (or any day really) and baking/cooking is the calm I need to please my heart. It’s something so simple and yet a gift to bestow on others. I find it rewarding, because it’s a process I truly enjoy doing and wish to share in order to show how much I love them… my family, friends, or whoever enters our home.

I know baking and cooking is considered a lost art for some, but to me, it’s the one thing which makes my home “a home,” a place where someone cares to feed others and make meals a special time for loved ones.

Stay blessed everyone…fill your home with homemade treasures and treats if ever you have a chance. Your children, your husband, and anyone else who enters will know the difference in the food/desserts you create.