Obstacles in Life

YESSSSSSSSSSSS.haha.

From Purple Clover on FB

Backyard Chicken Series: Part 2

They are still alive! Sometimes, I amaze myself. Like after my first girl was born, and we were able to keep her alive! It seriously is a miracle. Give them milk, and they live and grow. I feel slightly the same about these chicks. When we first brought them home I was way overly stressed about it. I felt like I had six more little people to keep alive. I was stressed that after writing my first part in this series, one of them would die! The thing is, I do have six more little chicks to keep alive, but not six children. Ha! Chicks are pretty easy to keep alive, too. Give them food, give them water, keep the place clean. BAM. They stay alive.

For now they are in a rubber bin in my oldest girls room with a heat lamp still over them. They are starting to get little feathers, and little feather butts (soooo cute), and starting to poop a TON. So, we are going to be switching them into a bigger living space sometime here soon. Not sure what yet, but I'll let you know when we do! They are already eating a lot more, and we have also started taking them outside during the day when it's warm and letting them run around and practice scratching and trying to fly. And they are stinkin' cute doing all of it! Here are photo updates. LOTS of photos.

our oldest with creamy

Honey on the left Ruby on the right

yin(the other black one is yang)

Creamy

Tranch

Tranch

Tired of Happiness

Being a parent is hard. And sometimes, I feel tired of happiness. I guess not actual happiness itself, but the image of happiness that I have to put on to be considered "happy". I don't know if I will ever actually get tired of happiness. I just feel like I do.

One of the hardest parts of being a parent, I think, is learning patience. You would think that with all of the opportunities that come up in a day to practice patience, we would be pros at it, and yet, there I stand day after day finding myself frustrated and losing my temper, or just too plain tired or bored to show any emotion. I lose my temper with the girlies or My man, and then I tell myself "calm down, reset, there is still a full day." I feel tired but can't lay down, "Reset. Clean to help you feel energized." So many dang resets.

Reset.Reset.Reset. How many times do I have to reset!? The main thing is this, most of the time, I am actually fine. I am just bored of the mundane so a smile and peppiness doesn't come naturally or easily to my face and my voice. But, then my girls feel sad or frustrated because of the vibe I give off. i.e.
"mom, why did Daniel Tiger say that?"
"I don't know mamas. I'm not watching it."
"Mom, just tell me why!"
"I would tell you why if I knew, but I don't."
Now in a frustrated tone, "Mom! Just tell me why Daniel Tiger said that!"
Me in a firmer tone "I have no idea why Daniel Tiger said that because I am not the one watching. You are watching it, so you try to figure out why he said what he said."
silence......
...
....
............
"But mom, just tell me why he said that!"
"No."
Then I hear sniffling.
"Mom, you made me kind of sad when you didn't want to tell me why Daniel Tiger said that."
Oh myyyyyyy. Yeah.During the time, THERE IS NO SMILE ON MY FACE. I assure you. But, as I write it out, there is. Because she is just so dang funny! I just can't react to it in the same hard moment as I can now. As hard as I try to appreciate it in the moment, and smile and just continue on the conversation or the task or whatever it is, I can't. I get tired of it, and then I tell myself I need to reset. And then, I do. I try again. I be happy again. I smile more, I play more. I clean more. I eat more (because we all know food brings happiness). And then the conversation happens again, but this time about cutting paper or something like that. Then I lose my face, my patience, my tone, the house is a mess for the third time that day, etc. Time to bring it back together again for the "nth" time that day. Time to attempt the chaotic dinner hour because My Man is coming home, and he is tired and it would be nice if I could be the energized nice happy one. Reset. Try. Fail. Reset. Try. Fail. You see the picture because I know you see it everyday too.My question is, do you get tired of putting on your "happiness" too? Can't it just be okay with everyone when you're chillin in neutral, at least? Why do you have to be smiling and have a peppy voice? I think everyone would be a lot happier in life if they were okay with other people just looking normal or neutral faced, and expected that. And yet, when My Man comes home and is happy and energized and nice, it is so nice and I eat it all up and drink it all in and am so grateful for that. I expect the same out of him and my girls that they do out of me. I say I want them to be okay with neutral and normal, but seriously? How can I say that when I can't be? I want to see my girlies smile and talk happily, I want to see My Man play with the girlies and me and have a good time and be helpful and kind like he most of the time is. I get tired of putting on the face of happiness. And honestly,I think I do because I wish I could be awesome at putting it on, but I'm just not. My family can attest to that.Maybe as it becomes easier, I will not be so tired by it.
Vent over.
Bed time.
Reset time.
New day tomorrow.

Fluffy Buckwheat Pancakes (GF)

Buckwheat. Funny thing is it is not even closely related to wheat. It is a pretty close cousin of rhubarb though! Weird, I know. We love buying bulk grains and then vacuum packing them for storage and later use. We are lucky enough to have a lady that we usually go through to order great organic grains and all sorts of other great power packed foods. Our last order had buckwheat, barley, brown rice, and rolled oats. My Man and I started to do this when we went on a short bout of a GF streak for our oldest girly just to see if it had been effecting her no-fun rashes, but that's a different story(currently none of us are gluten free).We also decided that it would be a great idea to order all sorts of grains, and learn how to actually use them and make good food with them in case an emergency ever did come, so that we didn't have just tons of nasty grains we didn't know how to use.So, we invested in a hand powered grain mill (in case we didn't have electricity), and we also inherited a motorized grain mill from My Man's loverly parents. Then we bought a whole bunch of great grains we were interested in. With that being said, I have tried multiple buckwheat recipes, and this is one of the best. Buckwheat pancakes are hard to be successful with just because they can make kind of dense, not fluffy foods :) ha ha! This is one of the best I have found, and you can find the original at goodnesstoglow.com !

Normally, I would just eat regular pancakes but with a recent health event (I will post on that later), I have been on a pretty strict and LAME diet! Hence, buckwheat and gluten free pancakes this morning :) They sure were delicious!!!Hopefully you will like them too.

Ingredients:
1 L egg
1/2 c buckwheat flour (if you are going to be grinding the grains like we do, I ground 1 cup of the grains and that gave me about 1 1/4 c ground flour)
1/3 c milk of your choice or water
1/2 tsp baking powder
oil of your choice for cooking ( I used coconut)

Whisk egg together with your liquid. Then add in the flour and baking powder and mix until all combined. Heat your pan at medium heat with the oil in it, and drip little bits of batter. Once the bits of batter start to sizzle as they hit the pan, pour the batter into approx. 6 inch circles (we do our pancakes kind of small).

Toppings: We used butter and plain regular yogurt, which we all love (my girls eat that stuff plain!), and then put honey and berries on top. If you don't like that you could always do just butter and syrup, or any flavor of yogurt and add some nuts on too! YUM.

*On the original recipe on goodnesstoglow.com it says that it made about 5-6 pancakes, so I thought I would double it hoping to have some for freezing for later. I doubled the batter and got ten pancakes. So, we did have two left over, but they got eaten throughout the day (by me, of course). So I would triple the recipe or even quadruple it if your are looking for a decent freezer storage of it!
**Buckwheat has a nice nutty flavor, which all of my family loves. So, we were totally fine with this recipe. If you don't like that flavor much but you are still going to be using the buckwheat, consider adding 1/2 tsp. vanilla or some mashed up bananas or apples with a dash of cinnamon and that will probably help out your taste buds!

You Know Life Is Good When...#1

Your husband tells you, "It's okay babe. Today is New Friday*. Tomorrow I am going to clean the house and cook good food for you....and fight the government."


*My Man works three days a week (holla). He is done by Wednesday, so we call Wednesday night New Friday.


When do you know life is good?

The Backyard Chicken Series

Spring is springing, and along with it little chicks! At least here in Southern Utah it is. Be jealous all you want you snow bunnies, for NOW. But I honestly don't believe anyone can be that jealous of over 100 degree weather daily, for months. So in reality, these next couple of months are our summer. They are really the only months the girlies can play outside all day, so we are living it up. One of the ways we are doing that is by buying chicks! If any of you haven't read my informational post on raising chickens from a long while back , read it here. I have been dreaming of this day for a long time.

When I was in elementary school, we hatched some eggs in the classroom and our teacher told us if we got permission from our parents, we could take as many chicks as we wanted. So, of course I asked my dad, and of course he said yes even though we weren't allowed to have them where we lived, because he is the best. Those were the first of quite a few chickens throughout my younger years, and I loved them so much. I spent a lot of great times outside playing with them and lost a lot of tears over the foxes that kept getting them. Eventually, I got bigger and too busy and stopped buying them. Plus, my mom hated the poop all over our back patio ;). I was always excited about being able to buy little chicks for my own kids, and crazy as it is, that time has finally come.

My Man will be building a coop with a run, and here in a bit, we will be sending them outside to live in it! Oh yeah, and we live in a four-plex. Our land lord is awesome and is letting us do all of this, along with doing a garden again this summer! The perks of living in a small town. Oh the freedom! Stay tuned and learn along with me and my family the up's and down's of doing backyard chickens for the first time. Because it has already been an adventure. More posts soon to come!

My Man and one of his best friends did all of this in a morning!

The beginning of the coop.

                                           

Minimalism to the Core: Emotional Minimalism (Part 2)

So, after a couple of comments on my last minimalism post (read it here), I realized that I never made my definition of minimalism clear. I love material minimalism. Material minimalism is a route to finding happiness through simplicity in your surroundings and in what you own. Everything has a place, it is kept well and clean, and you use everything. You use all of your clothes, all of your food, all of your home space, all of your animals (if you eat them) etc. Material minimalism is one way of being a minimalist. That is the minimalism I mentioned in the beginning of my last post, when I said that visually a nice clean pile of stacked white towels represented minimalism to me. Pretty much the entire rest of the post was not about material minimalism. I was talking to my sister about what it was I was really trying to say in that post, and she coined the term emotional minimalism. Emotional minimalism- finding happiness through simplifying your emotional attachments...this can include emotional attachments to materials, but definitely is not bound to just that. Emotional minimalism is, to me, minimalism at its core.

In my post, I mentioned that I was having a hard time wanting to "home-make" by buying paintings that would have brought me a lot of joy, all because I didn't want to have to experience the loss of that joy if I ever had to be without those paintings (I'm weird, I know). I felt worried about feeling at home anywhere, and then having to leave that home and have emotional pain over it. The same with loving someone. I feel stressed when I feel so much love towards my girls and husband, because what if something happened to them. I don't know if I could make it through because I am so emotionally attached to them. I said that people around the world are forced into lives of minimalism---I meant emotional minimalism. People losing close ones to accidents and cancer. People living lives of poverty and starvation. People suffer immensely, and almost all of it goes unseen. These people suffer---there is no question. Everyone suffers in one way or another, emotionally.

So, in so much suffering, how can we find joy? How can someone like me, who worries about loving things and people too much, just because I don't want them to leave or get taken away, enjoy life? I can become an emotional minimalist. So many people around the world who have suffered find joy in this form of simplicity and minimalism. They look to God, and they let go. That is all that I want to be able to do. I want to love everything about life to the full capacity that I can, and not hold back at all. That is the romantic side of me speaking, because that is so hard for me to do. It is so much easier to say, they might not love me so I'm not going to love them. I don't want them to leave me so I will leave them first. I don't want to ever experience having this break, so I will never buy it. I never want...etc etc. But that is not life. That is torture. So I want to be an emotional minimalist. I want to simplify all of my emotional attachments so that I can not stress so much and enjoy life. I want to put my life in God's hands, and be able to just let go. I will love fully when I can, and if something leaves or gets lost or breaks, I will look to God, let go, and re-build from the bottom up. I think that is what God wants us to learn to do in this life. Love, let go, and rebuild.

Hopefully that cleared things up a little bit from my first Minimalism to the Core post!

Triumphing Obstacles of Motherhood/Wifehood

There it is, staring straight up at me with all of its bloodiness. My heart pounding as it screams at me to touch it.

ANXIETY.

All three girls either whining or crying. Why can't I find those stinkin' latex gloves Karey bought me when I need them!?! Urgency takes me over and I do it, just.because.I.have.to.

I smash my hands into it and let out cries of "oh my goshhhhhh,", "oh my gosh oh my goshhhh" and "oh my goshhhh". Now, my hands are crawling with all the germs that come with death. No stopping it now.

ONE HOUR LATER

Karey sits down with his beautiful little sliders that look YUMM-O. The girls are running around just eating their patties in their hands. I sit on the couch feeling like a BOSS, nodding to myself and fist bumping myself for my awesomeness. I touched the ground beef. It's moments like these that you know you are taking life by the horns.

Side note: I don't touch meat. Karey and I made a deal when we got married and for the most part have stuck to it. I change all the dirty diapers and he cooks all the meat. If I end up needing to cook some meat, I still don't touch. I CAN'T HANDLE THE INTENSITY OF THE SITUATION. The germs crawling on dead flesh get to me---what can I say? I once cooked an entire turkey for a ward Christmas party without touching it once. That's called skills yo. Almost five years later, and motherhood and wifehood (is that even a word? The red line says no, I say yes, and for once in my life I don't have to listen to the lecture of my professors. It's a word, now what you gonna do Nichols?!) have pushed me past another trial of mine. I touched ground beef, and maybe next time it will be chicken. And maybe the next time I'LL prep that creepy shoulder roast. Until then, baby steps.

Isn't it great seeing that in life out of yourself? How becoming a mother and a wife has intensely changed you over the years. Touching the ground beef, that's a small thing---a small change, but it leads to bigger ones. Not to mention the big ones that have already happened. Have you seen changes in yourself? Big? Small? If so, fist bump to you, my friend. 

See those patties? I made them!

beautiful sliders, yummy kefir water

Water Kefir: The Super Soda

Kefir kefir kefir. Oh Kefir. The past two weeks have been quite an adventure. KEFIR HAS BEEN QUITE AN ADVENTURE. But, one that my husband and girls and I have sure enjoyed! It is pretty fun figuring these little grains out. We drink a lot of milk kefir in my house. About two bottles a week. So, when I found out we could make it and that it was even healthier than the stuff in the stores (with over half of the bacteria strains than found in store bought kefir and multiple beneficial yeast strains, which are not found in store bought kefir), and save a bunch of bucks! I was all there. I called and talked to my awesome sister to tell her about my wanting to start making milk kefir, and she is the one who told me about water kefir. So, here we are now with 2 quarts of it culturing as we speak, 4 bottles sitting out with delicious juice in them fizzing away and 3 bottles in the fridge! Milk kefir, we are just figuring out, and it has definitely been an interesting journey. But water kefir has been a breeze! Water kefir (obviously) is not milk based so if you can't drink milk kefir because of milk allergies try this stuff out. It doesn't have as many strains of probiotics and yeasts, but it does have more than yogurt and buttermilk, and SODA!!! Water kefir naturally produces electrolytes so it is also a much better option than all those overly sweetened sports drink out there. You seriously gotta try it out. We bought our water kefir grains from http://www.culturesforhealth.com/ and they are working great. This website is amazing and has a PLETHORA of information on naturally cultured probiotic rich foods and drinks like milk kefir, water kefir, yogurt, kombucha, cheese and so much more. Check them out! It is like entering a new world.

So, a little more on the water kefir. You make it with water, sugar, and the water kefir grains. The water kefir grains actually consume the sugar, and produce the good bacterias. You can use regular table sugar, or organic sugar or rapidura, just not honey because honey is naturally antibacterial and therefor kills the good bacterias. That is something I wanted to say right up front, because we use honey for everything and would have easily tried to sub that in ha ha! We generally let the water kefir grains sit in the water for two days. You can do less, but if you do the extra day, the more sugar gets consumed by the grains and more beneficial bacteria is made, it just doesn't taste as sweet. After that, you strain out the water kefir grains (with a cheesecloth or plastic colander or stainless steal colander) and put the water back into the jar(and add your flavoring if you want it, using either fresh fruit or pure fruit juice) and let it sit out for another day or two. Doing this is what adds fizziness to the water and makes it like soda. Then, bottle it in a glass jar and seal it tightly in the fridge, and enjoy! Healthy, delicious, super soda! Like I said, visit Cultures for Health to read more about all of this.

Don't replace drinking water with this. Treat it like any other juice. Drink it sometimes, and drink plain water often! ;)

Homemade Probiotic Cream Cheese and Whey

My Cream Cheese

Little Miss Muffet

Sat on a tuffet,

Eating her curds and whey;

Along came a spider,

Who sat down beside her,

And frightened Miss Muffet away.

You might be asking, what is whey? I wondered that every single time I heard the nursery rhyme "Little Miss Muffet". First of all what the heck is whey, and why in the world would Little Ms. Muffet eat it? Reading Sally Fallon's Book Nourishing Traditions, as well as reading multiple other traditional food prep blogs, has provided me with the answer! Despite Little Miss Muffet's fear of spiders, which always made her seem a bit of a wussy, she is BOMB because she knows what is good for her. Whey is a protein that is "whole" because it contains all 9 amino acids. Anyone who has recently studied nutrition will know about amino acids and how vital they are to the body. And, normally a food will not contain all 9. Amino acids help build and repair muscles and tissues, so pretty much they make you like Wolverine. YEAH BABY! Curds and whey come about when you let milk ferment, which can be done in a gross nasty whey or very healthy whey (get it? I crack myself up). Either way, you end up with curds (cottage cheese) and then the whey. But, this post is on cream cheese and whey which is what you get when you do the following:

What You Need:

1 Quart Plain Regular Yogurt-a good brand preferably

1 Cheesecloth

Glass or Plastic bowl

Directions:
Take the cheese cloth and lay it over the top or inside of the bowl. Take your quart of yogurt and dump it into the center of the cheesecloth. Pull up the sides of the cheesecloth into a bunch and find a handle to hang it off of. Cabinet handles are good, or microwave handles if you won't be using the microwave often. If you don't have a good handle to use, you could always use a strainer and just lay the bag of yogurt inside, but it will take much longer for the whey to separate. Place the bowl underneath it, and let it strain overnight, or throughout the day. Once it has stopped dripping, take the whey from the bowl and store it in a glass container. Then, do the same with the fresh cream cheese and store them both in the fridge.

Note: When I did it, I let it hang overnight, but when my husband went to get the cream cheese out, he said that the bottom was hard like cream cheese but that the yogurt on top still had quite a bit of liquid. So, he emptied out the cream cheese textured yogurt and put the yogurt that still had some whey in it back in the cheese cloth. Then I let that sit for a while. Now, I have a little more than a half a pint of whey(which you can use for so much!) and about two cups of cream cheese :) Try it out! This cream cheese (yogurt cheese) beats out store brands because of the probiotics still in it from being yogurt, which aid in digestion, and it hasn't been processed at all. Yay for real food :) Let me know how it turns out!

The whey stores up to six months in the fridge, and the cream cheese one month.

And PEOPLE, this stuff literally almost tastes just like the stuff from the store. You can eat it on a bagel or bake with it just like regular cream cheese! Check out my photos below.

If you are interested in learning more on cooking traditionally, buy this book by Sally Fallon and check out all the recipes I use and more! It is seriously amazing.

my beautiful rugelach! Another recipe of Sally Fallon's.

bagel and cream cheese :)

My beautiful whey and cream cheese! Cheesecloth in background.

                

The Un-In-Love Couple

I was at the park when I saw them. I was in college, and I was there with some friends or something. I don't really remember. I just remember them, and the image of them in my mind. And thinking, "Wow, they look miserable together. I am never going to look like that when I get married." And here I am writing, only four and a half years after getting married, knowing my husband and I have looked just like them multiples of times. They sat there, staring at the playground, probably at their kid(s), sitting on opposite ends of the bench. In truth, it was a sad sight to see....it IS a sad sight to see, to most everyone except the couple themselves.

I'll admit right NOW, of course there is the couple at the park that is sitting on opposite ends of the bench for some relationship problems. I am not talking about everyone. But, I am here to say, that couple could have been 100 million billion tragillion percent happy. I know it, because my husband and I look like that sometimes, and we are beyond happy.

Some days, we are that tired from just regular life. The sleepless night before, the whining from the day, the feeling the cold coming on and knowing everyone is going to catch it, the stresses of money, the question of what should we shoot for next in life. But, ignoring the circles under our eyes, our messy dress and hair, or lack of energy to even scoot next to each other, if you were to look beneath all of that and on the inside. You would be blinded by the light of our joy. Isn't it funny that so much work could breed such a deep penetrating joy? A joy that isn't in the moment or there for a few years, but a joy that will be their an entire lifetime and past? And we made it, all on our own. Sometimes, I even call it a sacrifice. I want to gag on the word as I write it. A sacrifice? And yet, it is true. Because it is a sacrifice to live a portion of your life for someone else, and give literally everything you can give to them. Heart, body and soul. But, it is also such a blessing. How lucky am I to be blessed to be a mother. To have that title. And, same goes for my husband. What an honor. I try not to get angry when the unknowing scoff at it, because I used to be one of them. No one will ever fully understand it until they experience it themselves. Just like every experience in life. These little people we are raising will be a part of our lives forever. They will grow up to be our best friends, and take care of us in the ends of our lives. God created such a beautiful cycle for our bodies and for our souls. He created the perfect learning cycle for us. I am so thankful for that, and for the deep joy I get to have while working through that cycle back to Him.

So yeah, as much as that un-in-love couple looked so un-in-love, I like to think that they were both just sitting there. Chilling in the sunlight, feeling exhausted from the work of life and inwardly letting their hearts bask in the light of love, as they watched their little lumps of joy run and fall around the playground, and climb the ladders, and yell and shout at their parents "watch this! Look!" Because that is how I feel when I am sitting on opposite ends of the park bench with my husband. We might be sitting separately, but our joy is completely unified---as one.

Buñuelos(Easy Mexican Treat)

These are one of my all time favorites. I DON'T eat them often in real life, but I do in my dreams. And when I do eat them in real life, I always end up reminiscing about spending holidays at my abuelita's house in the good and great El Paso, Texas!!! Specifically, a New Year's Eve we spent there while I was still pretty little. My abuelita had made a TON of dough, and had us all rolling it out into HUGE circles. I kid you not, these things were wider than a full twelve inches. We would roll and stretch them out as thin as we could and hang them anywhere there was room. Over the chairs and across the table and her bed. She would fry the heck out of these babies and drench them in cinnamon and sugar. DONE. That's how easy they are. They taste amazing. Thin, crunchy, oily and buttery and cinnamon-y and sugar-y. I ate them for like every meal that trip. And anyone who knows me knows I'm seriously not kidding about that. But, when you only cook them once a year, who really cares? NOT ME. And, tonight I made them with my family. AWESOME. I love eating good stuff with them. Today was mexican monday for food (yes, I make up things like Waffle Wednesday, Fish Friday or Fancy Friday or Pasta Tuesday (because they both have T's.... to help me think of things to cook)) so I did chicken enchiladas with lettuce and tomato and sour cream(plain yogurt) and then buñuelos for dessert. And, the best thing about this recipe is that it's SO SO easy and almost tastes just as good as if you were to make the dough yourself. There's no way I could ever say anything I make mounts up to how my grandma does it, because she's just that good. But, I can say that out of 100(her's being 100) this comes to like a 98. FOR REAL. Check it out. And more importantly, MAKE THEM.

Ingredients:

Frying oil-vegetable or coconut ( I like the coconut because then it adds a coconut flavor...)

Uncooked Flour Tortillas

Cinnamon 

Sugar

Directions:

Combine the sugar with the amount of cinnamon that you would like. Set to the side in a bowl.

Put 2-3 Tbs(or you could put more if you really want to fry it a lot) of the oil into a pan set at medium heat. Let it heat up. Test it by putting in an edge of the tortilla. If it sizzles it is ready. Put in the tortilla and let it cook and brown on one side, then flip it and do the same on the other side. Take it off and set it on a plate. Put some butter on it while it is still hot and then dust however much cinnamon and sugar you want all over it. Then flip, and do the same with the butter and sugar on that side. Then, it's done! That's all. Super easy, super good.

Side note: You don't have to put the butter. Only if you like living on the edge---chances of experiencing a heart attack being on the edge. But, boy does the butter taste good :) I'd say, if you are going to eat one. DO THE BUTTER. If you are going to eat two, don't. Ha ha! Hope you like it.

Pure Heart by Tirsa Stewart

Pure Heart

6:30. Too early and he's awake.
Cooing and gooing in my bed,
smacking the covers and my head.
He leans his face on mine to entreat me.
I kiss his cheek with tender affection.
Dropping an inch his head meets the crest of the pillow.my lips still sweeping that perfect skin.
His pleasure must be greater than mine; his eyes close.
I follow up and kiss his closed eye,
his tiny brow,
his precious head.
Pleasure and peace have overcome him.
Deep breathing. He is asleep.
I arrange him.
He is asleep.
I arrange me.
He is asleep.
I hear him and feel him and...
I cannot sleep.
Wondering at the thought that some kisses brought him such joy
And he received it so fully.
A pure heart is simple, and thought breaks not it's intelligence.