Spread the...dirt?

I LOVE vegetables.  I really do.  I love the crunch of a cucumber and celery and carrots and peppers.  There is nothing more delicious than a ripe tomato still warm from the vine.  The feeling of dirt under your nails and between your toes while sweat trickles down your head to the base of your skull always takes me back to being about eight years old, sitting on the porch with my grandmother stringing green beans.  

We always had a garden.  I felt like it was gigantic.  We would work in the garden for what seemed hours on end during the summer, carrying water in watering cans.  Then, as produce came in for the season, we would help my mom can beans, peppers, and tomatoes, and make jellies and jams.

When we moved into our house five years ago, I was thrilled to learn that our next door neighbor also loved to have a garden. So, after talking briefly about it, we/he tilled up a fairly largish spot in the back kind of in between our houses.  Looked pretty out of sorts in our subdivision cul-de-sac, but we didn't really care.  That first year, I felt like the garden was pretty big.  In reality it was probably about 15 feet by 15 feet.  I planted mostly tomatoes and peppers.  A salsa garden, really. 

In the years since, our garden has grown a little bit at a time, we've added blueberry bushes (I think we have 5 now), and we've tried some new things.  We usually just divide it down the middle but share produce as it is ready to pick. 

This spring, I wasn't so sure I'd even get a garden in the ground. The tiller we borrowed wasn't working, I couldn't load it up into our truck without possibly getting a hernia or cutting off a limb, and I just didn't see how I was going to have the time.  Between keeping up with and trying to market the bus, working my "real" job, being a wife and mom (read taxi and housekeeper), I was lucky to get in a workout, much less weed a garden.  So, I didn't start any plants inside from seed, and had pretty much relegated myself to the farmer's market.

Well, low and behold, we came home from church one day to find my neighbor rented a tiller and had a fine start on some ground plowed and ready to go.  After expanding the size of the garden about four feet on each side, he was worn out.  My hubby was kind enough to help out.  As an aside, working a tiller in the Tennessee mud is akin to running a jackhammer on three foot thick pavement.  I think hubby's arms were sore for 2 days but I had a garden!!!

Not having a plan, I did what any computer dependent person would do...I googled "garden plan."  I looked at about 5 websites, and quickly located one that looked like it would suit my needs.  I took our youngest veggie lover to the local hardware store and we bought some seeds and plants to get 'er started.  

Of course, I can't follow a recipe so why would I follow all the garden plot suggestions.  I always need to make it a little bit my own.  I omitted the cabbage and chard, planting a little more lettuce.  Not sure if it'll even grow with as hot as it has already been this year.  Also left out the broccoli.  I've just never had that much success with it.  Instead, we planted cucumbers.  My girls LOVE cucumbers.  

After a few quick hours of work, here's the finished...bare looking product! Hopefully I'll be able to update with a post of a really healthy lookin' garden in a month!  In the meantime, I'll be out weedin', diggin', waterin' and spreadi'g the dirt in all my spare time.  You might even catch me with tomato juice dripping down my chin at some point.  At least I hope so!

Popsicles, Fresh Vegetables, and Electric Bicycles

All in a day's drive for the Big Love Bus!  Last Saturday, Glenn wowed me with his personality AND driving skills as he took me on a trek through Cheatham County. 

First stop? The NEW Kingston Springs Farmers and Artisan Market.  The market is located on property across from the middle school and high school.  In 2010, there were three homes on the property.  The weekend of the great flood of 2010, all three homes were lost.   Apparently, the city eventually purchased the property and it is now the new home of what promises to be a really cool market.  It was still a little early in the growing season, but I was surprised to find about 15 vendors selling squash, herbs, and lots of plants for the garden as well as some really cool art, natural cleaning products, handmade furniture, and more.  Of course, Glenn literally knew EVERYONE at the market.  Seriously.  He. Knew. Everyone.  Quite a few people ventured onboard to see what the Big Love Bus was all about and sign up for our mailing list.  Haven't done that yet? Shoot us an email at nashville@biglovebus.com.

Second stop? Glenn's house.  Really! We drove the bus right up to the curb and picked up his wife, two sons, a friend who stayed the night, and a neighbor before we took off to L.L.Burns Park to catch the last soccer game of the season.  His kids looked thrilled to be catching a ride on the Big Love Bus.  

This park is a gem.  Don't know if I really want to tell you about it.  It's THAT pretty.  Kingston Springs should be proud.  Huge soccer field, playground, walking trail, lots of green space located right on the Harpeth River.  Canoes paddling by as we watched the kiddos run and play.  There were even stocked ponds for fishing! 

 I happened to take along about 150 popsicles and passed 'em out to the kids as they came off the soccer field with their season trophies. These parents are doing a great job.  I was impressed by how polite these kiddos were - most of them insisted on waiting to eat their popsicles until they got off the bus and nearly every child thanked me for bringing a cold treat.  One spunky little gal even exclaimed, "It's not a school bus, its a LOVE bus!" Again, Glenn knew nearly everyone that came by the bus.  

At that point, it was about noon.  I'm going to guess that about 350 people had been in and out of the bus.  Glenn and his sweet family dropped me off at my car to head out on the last adventure of the day.  The bus took off for The Farm School, part of The Farm, a unique commune in Summertown, Tennessee.  It was the day of their annual family celebration! Looked and sounded like fun...I even heard that there was an electric bicycle in attendance?  Maybe next year I'll go with them!
 
 

Surprise Party on the Big Love Bus!!!

Its not every day that you turn...38??? Every birthday should be celebrated. At our house, we tend toward birthday week and sometimes even birthday month. Why not do it up Big Love Bus style?  

I was contacted by the best friend of a Nashville gal to set up a surprise 38th birthday party. She had he inside track on the Big Love Bus because she happens to be the fantastically beautiful and smart Renee Sprouse, the driving force behind Big Love Bus Knoxville. Obviously I wanted to help her out and make this surprise party great. Anyway, her friend's husband wanted a hand in putting together something special for his gal, and I was glad to oblige. I was able to put together a list of suggestions for stops and after a few emails back and forth a plan was formulated. 

Renee and her super sweet familly.

The plan was fairly simple. Gather a bunch of friends at someone's house for birthday snacks and drinks under the guise of a fairly simple party, then BAM...hit em with the Big Love Bus pulling up to the curb- music blaring, lights flashing, beads swinging, and load everyone on board for a night of fun. Surprise party awesomeness!!!

The bus was set to arrive at the house at 8:00 p.m.  When it arrived we built in time for the obligatory photo session and loading of all the party goodies and drinks on to the bus.  I'm pretty sure there were shots involved as I found quite a few leftover tiny plastic cups when I cleaned the bus.  If that isn't the case, then this group of folks really had some fresh breath and spent most of their time on the bus swishing mouthwash.  

From the pickup location, the bus travelled up to Love Circle for cupcakes and a view of the city.Side note from Glenn, the bus will not travel to Love Circle again any time soon...at least at dark...seems that the road is a bit, well, tight, for the bus...ahem.). The view of our Nashville, however, is stunning.

After slowly and somewhat painfully manuevering down from Love Circle, the bus meandered through the city streets of Nashville, taking in some of the sights before making several pit stops (read bushes) and eventually hitting up Rumours East.  

The carefully crafted itinerary went out the window from there as the party goers made some changes.  All in the name of fun, of course. After cruising around some more, visiting Sambuca, The 404, making a few more bathroom stops, the party goers were having a blast. In fact, the bus actually loved Rumours so much, they went twice! Can't say I blame them, it is really a neat spot and is beautiful this time of year when the trees are getting their new pretty, green leaves.


At that point, I think everyone at the party had enjoyed a few special drinks from small plastic cups like the ones pictured.  There was also a pink boa involved.  A month later, we might still be findin' pink boa feathers on the bus. Luckily, with a safe driver in charge, everyone was delivered home safely, happy from a night of celebrating a good friend on a cool bus.  Great memories!  Happy birthday Ree!

Walk in THEIR Shoes 5k

Survivors

One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before the age of eighteen.  Every two minutes someone in the United States is raped. That means that we all know someone who has been or will be sexually assaulted.  Terrifying.  Even more terrifying to me, after learning these statistics, is that I can recall fewer than 5 conversations with friends about sexual abuse or assault.  Not conversations about the fact that it exists.  I'm talking about conversations with people that were assaulted or abused.  In other words, this means no one is talking about something that is definitely happening.  I don't want this post to turn into some kind of political statement but I found this statistic personally alarming...and terrifying.  


A few years back, my husband was asked to be on the board of a local nonprofit.  At that time, it was called the Rape and Sexual Abuse Center (RASAC for short). He agreed.  I don't think he had a real idea at the time that the organization was the only place in Middle Tennessee that specializes in the treatment for sexual assault survivors.  Since that time, they have changed their name to the Nashville Sexual Assault Center.  The organization has been in existence since 1978 and provides 8,000 therapy sessions per year in addition to educating over 40,000 elementary-aged students per year in Tennessee about personal boundaries and assertivenes skills in a program called Safe@Last.  Recently, they also launched a program called Stewards of Children, designed to educate adults throughout the community on how to keep children safe.  Amazing that they can accomplish all this as a nonprofit organization, relying mostly on donations, fundraisers, and corporate gifts.

When they contacted me about bringing the bus to their annual 5k, Walk in THEIR Shoes, I was totally onboard.  What a great place for a happy, love bus to spend the day.  We loaded the bus up with water, juice boxes and candy for the kiddos, and a giant batch of love bus cookies.  The day turned out to be a bright, sun-filled, spring day in Tennessee, with near perfect conditions.  What a blessing to this celebration of survivors of sexual abuse and assault.

Along with the bus and the snacks, I took along some swag from EO Products new Love Everybody line.  Natural, plant based hand sanitizer with essential oils and scents like peppermint citrus and coconut lemon; love everybody buttons; dog tag necklaces; and hair bands.  What a fabulous place for their Love Everybody message.  A celebration of survivors.  I also used it as an opportunity to tell people all about the bus.

Throughtout the day we had several hundred people in and on and around the bus. Kids, adults, babies, and even dogs. The Big Love Bus was even used as the backdrop for the photobooth! See Exhibit A and B, below!

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

We got a lot of great feedback on the bus.  Everyone wanted to know what we were all about.  Premier transportation! A lot of folks had great ideas about the things that they would do and where they would go with the bus.

Graduation party came up more than once, bachelorette party, Christmas light tour, tailgating, and sightseeing were all mentioned.  We even had a sign up to win a free hour on the Big Love Bus opportunity.  Hopefully we will be able to tell you all about that party soon!

In the meantime, we were honored to #spreadthelove to a such a hardworking group of people who provide such a valuable service in our community.   

Jessica with Tim Tohill, NashvilleSAC President

If you or someone you know is the victim of sexual abuse or assault, call the Nashville Sexual Assault Center Crisis Hotline at 1-800-879-1999.

Cookie...bus?

Like a lot of folks, over the years, I’ve been given a few nicknames.  Different nicknames in different towns where I’ve lived. I’ve never been a Jessie.  Usually they were some derivation of: J, Jess, Miss Jackson if you’re nasty, or even Martha Macgyver.  That last one is a doozy.  It was given to me by a good friend - a gal that I spent a lot of really early mornings (read 5 am) with a few years back.  These therapy sessions typically involved running, spinning, or weight lifting.  On one of these runs, she came up with the nickname.  Not sure if we were suffering from delirium or on some type of runners high, but we thought it was hilarious.  Martha Macgyver.

If you are under the age of thirty, you probably have no idea who Macgyver is, who Martha refers to, or much less why you’d combine those too names as a term of endearment.  For those younger readers, Martha refers to the iconic Martha Stewart…pre-prison, natch.  The Martha Stewart of gardening; entertainment; home decorating; cooking; the you-name-it-she-can-do-it-or-has-done-it gal.  Macgyver(played by the 80s hunk Richard Dean Anderson) was a television show about a secret agent who could solve complex problems and get out of terrifying situations with a ball point pen, some duct tape, and a swiss army knife.  As a side note, I didn’t know until writing this post that Henry Winkler, aka the Fonz, was one of the executive producers of Macgyver.  

You are probably wondering where this is going.  I guess the nickname arose because this one particular friend thought I could make a grapevine wreath for any holiday out of some twigs, a ball point pen, some duct tape, and some leftover ribbon, then walk into the kitchen whip up something gourmet sounding out of the leftovers in the fridge.  I’m not quite sure if this so-called talent arrived out of resourcefulness, thriftiness, or as an attempt to proscrastinate from doing things like cleaning house or laundry. 

Ok, back to where is this going and how does it involve Big Love Bus or Martha Macgyver.  It does involve cookies and duct tape. I thought I would share the recipe for the Big Love Bus Cookies.  No, there is no duct tape IN the cookies. Sorry to disappoint. I was in the midst of planning the 10^th birthday party for our oldest daughter. Up to that point I had racked my brain for the easiest, most portable birthday treat for the birthday party onboard the bus.  I wanted something with minimal mess, portability, and something that still had the cuteness factor. Cake seemed to involve too many accessories.  We would have had to take a knife, a serving piece, plates, forks, napkins, and the obligatory ice cream.  Transporting all that on the bus seemed to be a pain. Cupcakes are, well, in my opinion, getting to be overdone. I wanted something different and frankly easier.  Despite my great love of baking and all things sweet, I’ve never been able to master the perfect sugar cookie.  Why would I try to do it for a party?  Like Macgyver, I love a good challenge.  I wondered if there was such a thing as a bus shaped cookie cutter.  Enter Amazon Prime.  Of course there is a bus shaped cookie cutter.  There were actually several to choose from, but I went with this one. 

Now, I needed a recipe. I happened to have a friend that had wowed me with her cookies in the past, whipping up adorable onsies decorated in white and blue for a baby shower, fancy cookies at Christmas, and celebratory cookies at July Fourth. I wasn’t sure she would share her recipe but she said it was no big deal. I was still skeptical. The recipe looked really simple. When I made the dough and let it chill for at least twenty-four hours like the recipe suggested I REALLY wasn’t sure about it. I took the dough out of the fridge and it was hard as a rock. Uh oh. Sugar cookie fail…again. I sent a quick text to my friend, who ASSURED me that they would be just fine. I let the dough warm a bit, rolled out a batch, and stuck the first cookies in the oven. She was right! They looked perfect (and I was just about to run to the store and buy the premade sugar cookie dough filled with chemicals and preservatives).Several hours later, I had a nice batch of about fifty, unbroken, perfectly baked bus shaped cookies!  On to the icing.

I had never iced a sugar cookie with royal icing.  To this point, my sugar cookies had been such a failure that I hadn’t even ever made it to the icing step! I don’t even own a piping kit. I mixed up the icing, simple enough, and proceeded to try to make just the right neon green color to match the Big Love Bus logo. I thought I’d paint the bus green, slap some black tires on it, and call it a day.  Mixing the green was pretty easy…a dab of this color, a dab of that color, stir and thin to the right consistency.The black on the other hand, was a different animal.  Let’s just say that mixing all the colors together kind of resulted in a grayish purple.  After a bit, I finally got a deep, dark purple that I thought would pass for black…in the dark…to an audience of ten-year-olds.   

I used my Martha Macgyver skills to load the icing into a Ziploc bag, snipped off the end, and got started with my homemade piping kit. Who needs Wilton decorating classes?  I’ll be honest, it was not as easy as it looked.  I ended up with icing all over my hands, the countertop, and the toaster (I know, right?). I did, however, manage to use a combination of the homemade piping bag, a toothpick, and a butter knife, to spread the icing out on the cookies.  It looked pretty good.I let the icing dry and then got the purplely blackish wheels on there. Again, a mess, but I got it done.  By that point, it was probably eleven at night. I was exhausted and, frankly, over it.  I let the cookies set overnight to dry.  At some point during the night I had the great idea that the love bus cookies needed some “love.” As a result, I mixed up some pink and plastered a big fat heart on each one the next morning.  At this point I was getting excited! Martha Macgyver might actually pull this one off in the nick of time. 

I still had no idea how I was going to get the cookies on the bus until I happened to be in Paper Source one day and noticed these great plastic bags with a sticky closure. They looked fancy (read expensive). Surprisingly, they were pretty cheap for a bag of 100.  I snatched them up, hoping that the bus cookies would fit inside.  When I got home, I gingerly placed the cookies in the bags and was really pleased with the results. I put the cookies on a large melamine tray and thought I’d use it to display the cookies on the counter in the bus but I was worried about the tray slipping and sliding because it wasn’t very heavy, even when loaded with fifty cookies. This is where the duct tape comes in!  And you didn’t think I’d tie it all together in a neat little package, did ya?  I waded up a bit of duct tape on each corner of the bottom of the tray and voila! Martha Macgyver. 

The cookies were a HIT.  All the kids loved them and I’m told they even tasted good (I don’t eat gluten any more so I didn’t even try them!). I will say, I now know and appreciate why bakeries charge upwards of $3.00/cookie for these jewels.  The recipe might not be difficult, but the process is certainly time consuming!  We won’t be including bus shaped cookies in any party packages (at least from my kitchen) but I do have at least one local baker could make them in a pinch should the desire arise. Just another way we are trying to #spreadthelove. 

No Fail Sugar Cookies

* This recipe makes up to 8 dozen 3" cookies so feel free to half the recipe.  The cookies freeze great, though, if you want to make lots.

6 cups flour

3 tsp. baking powder

2 cups sugar

2 cups butter (4 sticks)

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. salt

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs and flavoring.  Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl and add to butter mixture.  Mix well.  Chill for two hours or overnight.  Roll to desired thickness and cut with your favorite cookie cutters.  Bake on ungreased baking sheet at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until cookies just begin to turn tan around the edges.  Remove from oven and allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for several minutes before transferring to cooling rack.  Cookies can then be stored in an airtight container and frozen until you are ready to decorate.  

(These cookies hold their shape great while in the oven - better than other sugar cookie recipes I have tried.)