Does anything make you giddy from your toes?
Or maybe a better question is - DO YOU get excited over things as an adult?
I’m not talking average level ho-hum “excitement”. I’m talking real, live, DELIGHT.
As a kid, it’s ok to jump, squeal and holler from the bottom of your toes to the top of your head. Not so as an adult.
That’s just ‘weird’ - if anyone is watching.
…But should it be?
I’ve often mourned the change in my feelings as an adult vs a kid.
Kids burst outside with the first sign of snow. -- I just think it's cold
Kids stay up giddy with giggles thinking about my cousins coming to town -- I'm tired.
I don’t squeal over pizza parties (ok… maybe I still do, but not in the same way;)
…But why not?
What if I could?
What if we made space for exuberating?
Could adult squealing ever be, ok?
Sadly, it’s often the opposite.
Cue the evening milking a few weeks ago with my friend Grace.
We were talking about homesteading and I was expressing my excitement over my new cream separator. (If you’ve been around the farm lately, you may know I was approved for a grant from Midwest Dairy to teach a 4H butter-making class in my silo farm store.)
As our talk escalated, I found myself getting more and more thrilled with dreams of homemade ice cream, fresh butter, cream soups, whipped cream and the like.
Grace couldn’t have agreed more. She was excited with me, but then I did just about the silliest thing that I could have done.
I SQUASHED our giddy fest by saying, “I’m such a nerd! Why would I get excited over something like a cream separator?!?”
Grace was nice enough to affirm that it was in fact ok to be excited, but in hindsight, I wondered why I had been so silly to squash such a great thing.
When kids are excited, they aren’t worried about looking like nerds.
They go running straight out of the house, head tipped back with tongue out to catch the snowflakes. They aren’t usually worried about what other people think. They just go for it.
I don’t run around the yard with my tongue out anymore...When did that become weird?
Instead, to my horror, I APOLOGIZED for getting *too* excited.
Why?!
If Grace and I would have been 20 years younger, our conversation could have whooped into a live-action “playing house” in which we could have set up our homesteads and “lived off the land” for… hours.
What if we created space to do that as adults?
What if we *allowed* ourselves to get excited about things?
What would it take to be excited from the bottom of our toes to the top of our heads?
Could we get there?
We won’t know if we don’t try.
As Jason Jaggard says in his “Spark” book (Which I highly recommend!) “You have to start somewhere, and starting always involves risk.”
Unfortunately, I’ve given risk a bad rap in my adult life. The older I get, the less risks I seem to take. Think about it - when you’re a kid - you bounce off the ground if you fall.
When I fall now, I spend the rest of the day crying and telling the “you’ll never believe how I got this bruise” story.
I think the same is true of appearances. What if we worried a little less about what others thought and allowed ourselves to get excited about things? Even if it was something “silly" like .....whipping cream.
“Blog lady…” Whipping cream is pretty basic. I don’t know that we should be looking foolish over whipping cream…
“Ok Debbie”…. you go have fun with your downer.
“Do you know, Debbie, what it’s like to wait 11 years for something?”
Since 2011, I've owned cows, they've gotten milked 2 times a day, 365 days a year, (That’s 8,030 milkings) WITHOUT a way to get cream. That should almost be illegal. (And that's just my history! The farm is a lot older than me!)
If I can’t get excited about something after waiting 11 years, I may not have a pulse.
“So, move over, Debbie”
Let’s make room for excitement.
Cue the whipping cream!
Maybe you haven't waited 11 years to be able to make farm fresh whipping cream, but I know some of you have been waiting a good, sweet, long time for me to get a separator. I've been having such fun learning how to use it and I can't wait to share it with you.
Here's the first of many recipes that I have the privilege of sharing with you... If you'd like to reserve some cream, we're going to have it available (beginning) once a month starting
SOON.
Until then, I'll keep experimenting so I can help you learn how to best use it!
Here's the first of many:
Hi!! I'm Liz Gerdes, and I'd like to be your encourager.
My husband and I are dairy farmers in SE MN and friends to anyone who is interested.
I help moms feel awesome about what they feed their families with farm fresh milk!
Visit gerdesfreshfarm.com or follow me on Facebook @gerdesfreshfarm or Instagram at @gerdesliz for more info.
To subscribe to this blog, click the button below and shoot me your email address to join the "family"!
Ready for some farm fresh milk (or cream!)? I can help you with that too :) Just click the button below to reserve your pick-up slot!