Karey's Contemplations

"Hi" again ...

2012-01-24T21:17:00.001-07:00

I'm up and running - going to start blogging again. I love writing.

Do you like my blog's new look?

Blogs and Photos

2010-06-24T10:47:00.000-06:00

A website home page for kareyswan.com is under construction. For now, kareyswan.com takes you to this site, which is my old blog that was called Karey's Overflow.

It's confusing, I know ...

I now have three blogs. And I have two photo sites. So I'll put everything here as links to them all, for now, until I create the webpage with it's info and links to everything.

www.kareyscontemplations.blogspot.com is this blog. My old blog.
www.kareysoverflow.blogspot.com is my new blog.
www.kareyskitchen.blogspot.com will be a place to post recipes and organize them and talk food.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kareyswan/ is where I'm posting pics of my textile art.
http://www.photoblog.com/kareyswan/ is where family pics and all are posted.

Home. A picture Dawson took. But now the fencing is done and gardens pretty much done (is gardening ever done? ... kinda like - does a kitchen ever stay clean? Is women's work ever done? "Her candle never goes out" ... hmmm)

Passion

2010-04-04T15:18:00.004-06:00

I just finished a felted wool sculpture for a gallery display. I've titled it "Savior Creator". Before Jesus was attached to the backboard frame, Dawson's friend Connor was holding it, hugging Jesus and saying he was cuddly. I got the idea of the mobile extended from the book The Shack, in which Jesus says, "I don't want to be first among a list of values. I want to be at the center of everything. When I live in you, then together we can live through everything that happens to you. Rather than a pyramid, I want to be the center of a mobile where everything in your life--your friends, family, occupation, thoughts, activities--is connected to me but moves with the wind, in and out and back and forth, in an incredible dance of being."

Wire provides the internal structure with foam, wrapped with batting before adding the wool I needled into shape. I had several pictures to look at for the shaping. I looked at Rembrandt's face of Jesus, but people are telling me he resembles Monte. I have looked at Monte daily for thirty five years. In trying to think thru what I wanted hanging from the mobile, creation is where I ended the process. The background in the frame is felt, and various yarns embellished with my needlefelting machine. His outstretched arms are the same width as mine.

I decided to also post a picture I drew in college from my sketch book.

Felting Book Entries

2010-03-14T11:58:00.003-06:00

I Googled "needle felting machine" early January and found a felting blog forum. From there I found a call for entries for a book being published on Felting and the deadline was soon looming. So Dawson took photos of some of my favorite pieces (had to first bring them home from where they were on display).

This felted face is my niece Leah. I need to finish her. I don't want to do an entire felted body - thinking I do a metal frame. I'd cover it with a felted dress using my embellishing machine. And I'll hand needle hands to add - hands clapping are so Leah!

Since my blog/website is hosted away from Google's Blogger, I'm not able to keep posting pictures here and will soon have to be moving and reconfiguring everything. I will be writing again. I need an actual website page rather than just a blog, tho I don't want the site to be static. But I don't want to take the time right now to get it done. I'm "working" at my textile art rather than writing. So check in later ...

Since I'm unable to post many pictures here anymore you'll need to check out more of my art at my photoblog ... which I'll be changing to maybe Flicker in the near future.

Studio

2010-03-14T10:56:00.002-06:00

Monte built me shelves and a great large desk for my new studio. The room used to be our living room, which we called the "Parlor". It still holds the piano and musical instruments and music paraphernalia. But now I've been able to organize stuff accumulated around the house and garage into a 'home'.

But I've several spaces beyond this room. For now, my batik tools are stored in the laundry room - now named "sitting room". Heather's old bedroom holds a drafting table and lots of colored wool is all over the floor. It's been organized as the paper crafting and mat cutting for framing space. I'm currently working on a large dry-felt, needled wool sculpture. Dawson is going to weld me a stainless sink counter to replace the old sink and wood counter in the greenhouse. Along with a stainless steel table he found at a yard sale, it's my dying and wet-felting space (and still my seed starting and nurturing space).

More photos of my studio are posted on my photoblog.

Baby Emery

2010-02-02T11:46:00.003-07:00

I just posted about Monte's dad, Emery, having died. Now I'm posting about our second grandchild, Emery Revere Swan, having been born: January 9. He was 9 pounds 11 ounces - a big healthy baby and his pictures look more like a three month old! aren't these adorable?! Speaking of pictures, I'm going to post a bunch on my photoblog (click to see).

I've not posted this year! As to posting on my blog ... I don't know what this year will look like. I've mentioned future blog ideas, but for the immediate right now, I'm not going to be blogging much. First off, I just don't feel like writing. I've done two years of writing on our calendar days having meaningful stories (which is supposed to be my next book ... whenever ...). How to cook, and how-to's in general, I could post about. I've had people asking me "how to cook" questions.

This next year? I'm in an interesting season ... A year ago I was in Texas with Heather. Bill had been deployed to Iraq and we were awaiting the birth of her baby, my first grandchild. I was there more than a month since Will came late and I couldn't leave Heather alone until I knew she could handle life with a new baby and being basically alone.

Then it takes awhile to get back into the groove when gone from home a long time ... getting re-familiar with everything ... home organization, cleaning, and basic living ... garden planning and readying ... my art and Easter season ... Heather and Will living with us for months at a time ... Monte's dad ailing ... Holidays ... Then several Wisconsin trips, living out of suitcases (and one not making it to Wisconsin until last minute for having funeral clothes, etc).

There was a period of time this past month of emotional swings ... a trading of sitting and standing in hospital settings around a bed ... from a dying Emery to a newborn Emery ... As I wrote on Facebook: I'm "in the space between two Emerys!"

What's up now? Monte and me are making shelves for two walls - a room that used to be our "Parlor" (living room) but is now turning into my "Studio". The piano is in there and other musical instruments, but it also holds my several weaving looms and lots of yarn, etc. My drafting table, mat cutter, paper/photo craft, and sewing paraphernalia, have taken over Heather's old room. Dye paraphernalia is stored in the laundry room, now named "sitting room" - tho most dying takes place in the kitchen and greenhouse. All the rest of the textile paraphernalia is going to get organized in my new studio so I can get to work on my tapestry weaving and furthering forward my felting art.

I've planned this year's gardens and ordered seeds and will be starting them in the greenhouse soon. I'll be growing starts for Travis and Sarah's garden too. So I'm also cleaning the greenhouse - like shop-vacuuming the old grapevine leaves before new buds begin.

Heather's Bill came home from Iraq mid January too. I'm so glad he's home now and will have so much fun with Will who's at such a fun stage. Will turned 1 year old February 1. They celebrated it with Bill's dad in California and will soon be here, before returning to Texas, and on with life. (Lots of 'wills' in that paragraph.)

Sarah's family have been with her and Travis, enjoying their first grandchild/ nephew. They soon leave and Travis and Sarah will be on their own in this new parenting season of life. All I'll tell you two is that it does go fast! So enjoy all the moments and know that you're not going to be living from feeding, to diapering, and naps, and then eating cold food, for the rest of your life!

Since I've been sorting pictures and posting so many memories - I've sure been living thru many seasons all at one time it seems. Now to move forward ...
____________________
Remembering:
The past is history; the future's a mystery; and the present is a gift.

The present moment is the place we touch eternity.
_________________________

Did the groundhog see his shadow? I've not heard the news.
It's Candlemas Day - a thin place ...

Emery A Swan - Monte's Dad Died

2010-02-02T11:00:00.007-07:00

This is the obituary for Monte's dad. Monte's Mom started telling the mortuary man a list of a lot of these things until we said we'd write it. So Monte did the initial writing with many of us editing, including some grandkids and his mom. A wonderful man: son, brother, uncle, friend, husband, dad, grandpa, and great-grandpa! A rich heritage is carrying on ...

Emery Swan

Emery A. Swan, 89, of Ogema, went to be with his Lord on January 15, 2010 at his home in Town of Hill. He was born Easter Sunday, April 4, 1920, on the family farm, to Oscar and Selma Swan, the sixth of 12 children. He attended Ring School in Town of Hill, and later, night school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Em loved hunting, fishing, and playing baseball with his brothers. Eventually he played as a semi-professional for the Wisconsin Valley League. In the late 1930’s, he worked in Chicago for a commercial construction company that sent him to Utah and New York on various assignments.

In March 1947, Em eloped with the love of his life, Betty Hallstrand. They bought a home on Pearson Lake where they lived for two years while Em logged with his brother. Em and Betty then moved to Shawano where they owned and operated a deli. After selling it, they relocated to Franklin, Wisconsin where Em worked as a carpenter. Eventually he became foreman and layout man for Kilps & Sons and in the 1960’s he was instrumental in helping them become Wisconsin’s largest conventional builder. Em and Betty were members of Beloit Road Baptist Church where Em was a trustee, helped with the Boy’s Brigade Club, built a kitchen, and crafted a special cedar ceiling for the new church.

Most of Em’s spare time was spent with his boys: teaching and mentoring them in the fine points of hunting and fishing, and supporting and coaching them as they pursued baseball, golf, track, cross country and basketball (attending over 500 of his sons’ basketball games). As a Little League coach he made sure all team members played and they went undefeated in a league of 14 teams.

In 1985, Em retired and he and Betty moved home to Town of Hill. They built a home on Highway C where he raised ginseng and balsam Christmas trees—winning 1^st place at the Ogema Christmas Tree Festival. This tender, kind-hearted, good-natured man had a great sense of humor. He endeared all with the expressions “ding-dong-it”, “blame-it-anyway,” and “Oh, fright”. Em was a wonderful grandfather, playing, listening, and laughing with his grandchildren. He supplied his sons with maple syrup he made the old fashioned open-air way. With his close friend Dennis Vesely, he logged and worked in the woods until September 2009.

Em and Betty loved to travel, visiting Canada, Mexico, and all lower 48 states. In the early days they traveled with their sons, and during their retirement with Em’s older brother Clifford Swan and wife Melba. On a later trip to Wyoming with Ray and Julie Ploof, Em enjoyed the surprise of Betty’s birthday party.

Em’s philosophy on life was, “I’m in God’s hands so why worry.” This wonderful outlook persisted as he coped with cancer. Never complaining, he was blessed by having no pain, which mystified his doctors.

The name Emery means “family strength… industrious, hard worker”, and this certainly described Em. He had a gift for inspiring men to create with pride, looking beyond the labor, anticipating the completed product. But Em excelled at family strength and his greatest joy was spending time with his family. They now total 50, including 20 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren (all boys), the youngest born to Travis and Sarah Swan on January 9^th named Emery Revere Swan.

For many years Em’s boys watched their father sit at the dining room table a few minutes before they left for church, and write the family’s weekly check for the Lord’s work. This action showed them in no uncertain terms where his treasures were. Em’s tangible love for Betty and the irresistible force of his sacrificial love for and belief in the boys and in God, won the sons’ hearts. Through their lives they’ve sought to honor this amazing man.

Em is survived by Betty, his wife of 62 years, his sons and daughters-in-law: Monte (Karey) Swan, Evergreen Colorado; Mike (Linda) Swan, Green Bay Wisconsin; Mark (Cindy) Swan, Gillette Wyoming; and Scott (Chris) Swan, Fennimore Wisconsin. He was preceded in death by four brothers and three sisters.

A memorial service was held January 18 at Ogema Baptist Church. Pallbears were: Danny Swan, Dennis Vesely, Gary Swan, Jim Swan, Scott Wildberg, and Steve Swan. The funeral was conducted by Pastor Rodney Price of the Ogema Baptist church. The Heindl Funeral Home assisted the Family with arrangements.

Typical Grandpa

Pictures, etc

2009-12-30T22:19:00.004-07:00

I took the day, first getting Dawson's pics from Christmas, getting pictures organized and posted in various places. Monte left this morning with Heather and Will - to drive them home to Texas since Bill is soon to come home from Iraq. I needed to get all the pictures we've taken of them since their return in early November onto Heather's computer, which I finally did early this morning. I took more movie clips with my little camera of Will's doings this time. These little milestones need capturing: like first foods, first sounds and babbling, first spinning and rolling on the floor and sitting and bouncing wildly in bouncy seat ... and then, the night before Christmas eve, before going to bed, I took a picture of the floor in front of the Christmas tree - lots of bits of ripped paper.

We copied some pictures of Bill and Bill and Heather together for Will to look at, us pointing and saying, "Mamma ... Dadda". We'd occasionally let him hold them. He's unusual in not putting everything in his mouth - more wanting to look at and analyze. So the pictures lasted a long time. We'd occasionally hear him saying, "Dadda, dadda ..." Don't know if he really gets the connection, but still ... Will did start ripping things. I let him recently have some catalogs, you know, those thousands that come in the mail, and let him look at and eventually rip. I thought it might get him ready for his first Christmas.

We did get Will a couple presents to easily rip open. Travis tried to initially show him how. We went to Travis and Sarah's Christmas Eve after singing carols before two services at our church, and spent the night. After opening presents we had our traditional brunch of Aebleskivers (see last December for pictures and recipe).

After all the cooking and tie-dying and knitting and company and getting Heather ready to go back home, I'm vegging out for awhile and NOT cooking. I'm not quite home alone though. I've not titled this post yet. I could title it "Velveteen House" again as Dawson and friends are currently watching a movie in our renovated laundry room (instead of his bedroom like they've done in the past). A friend of his made enchiladas and brought them for their supper (I've also sworn off of eating for awhile too!). They've been here for two days+. Playing games, welding/forging, cooking and eating and cleaning up the kitchen ... and Dawson had Aaron and Phil cut and chop and stack firewood today to pay for New Years "Skate the Lake" tickets he bought them. Which means a bunch of them are going to Evergreen Lake tomorrow evening till after midnight to ice skate and watch fireworks and returning here to sleep in.

This post really is to tell you I posted a bunch of pictures over the past several months on my photoblog.

Unlikelies

2009-12-18T11:09:00.004-07:00

I'm doing another advertisement for my son Travis's new CD cuz it can now be downloaded from iTunes.

Been getting more and more feedback from people - really liking it and ordering more for gift giving.

December

2009-12-13T21:10:00.003-07:00

Instead of my knitting post I just mentioned ... when I looked at the last post I noticed the date today - December 13, and remembered it's St Lucia day. In the past we celebrated this day, remembering it's story. And we've passed St Nicholas Day, that's the day we left for Tucson, leaving Heather and Will here in Colorado to "keep the fire burning". And we're in the season of Advent.

I'd post about all this, but it takes time to create new posts. I work hard crafting my writing. But my life is in a different place right now for awhile. I could copy and paste stuff, but you could click on the months in the side bar and read what I'd write this year.

December 13th is a day I have set in my mind to start baking Christmas cookies. Why? because a Swedish author I read years ago did that, and I thought it a nice date to keep. Because recently home from Tucson, I did get my recipes out and have got my grocery list made.

If you look at last year's posts you'd see how I decorate my inside windows. Dawson brought in a tree and it's decorated. Christmas music has been playing, and little Will, playing on the floor is singing away, in his way. (I know, I've got to take and post pictures.)

The weather outside is frightful - blowing snow. But inside, with the stove burning it's delightful. I've been sitting with Mary and Joseph these days. Trying to imagine living in their sandals ...

Picture test

2009-12-13T20:55:00.003-07:00

This post is kinda a test. I wanted to post more pictures with the last post of Sarah's Shower, but my pictures wouldn't post. And I still have another post as a draft of knitting projects I've finished and working on, but the pictures won't post. So I'm going to see if doing another post from scratch with adding pics will work. Let's see ...

It worked! This is a photo Dawson took, trying out his new camera in below freezing weather. It was one of his last days of school last week, having really hard finals.

Monte and me were in Tucson AZ during those bitter cold days. Monte doing work at Stan's with visiting geologists from Canada and Norway. I stayed there some (and cooked some) as well as visiting my sister, and got to see one of my brothers.

I'll try another photo Dawson took of me and then copy and paste my knitting project draft into a new post and post the pictures.

Sarah's Baby Shower

2009-12-03T20:19:00.003-07:00

Because Sarah's family was here for the Thanksgiving Holiday, they had a baby shower for her and this is a picture of her opening one of her presents.

Family & Thanksgiving Day

2009-12-01T20:31:00.004-07:00

As I said before, we went to Travis and Sarah's place for Thanksgiving. Ft Collins, Colorado is 1 1/2 hour drive from us. Sarah's parents, John and Kerry, drove up from Texas. Her sister Annie and husband Aaron flew in from Oregon. Heather, Will, Monte and me drove up mid-day. Dawson drove up later with Splarah and her brother Phil, having had an earlier Thanksgiving meal with Splarah's family at her Grandmother's.

I've not seen Dawson's pictures yet except our family picture he posted on Facebook, so I grabbed the picture from there to post here. All the other pictures I took.

Travis first grilled/smoked the turkey and then finished baking it in the oven. Sarah's feeling quite pregnant, due in a little over a month - she's hugging the cook. Her mom and sister did most of the cooking. Because her family was here, they had a baby shower for her last weekend too, so we drove up again.

I'm posting a picture of some of us playing "Bananagrams" because of wanting to tell of the table we're on. Kerry brought the game and it was so fun that Dawson bought it and we played it here with company Saturday. It's a kind of Scrabble/Boggle game and few to lots of people can play. Aaron made Travis and Sarah their main table. We gave them this cabinet we'd gotten from my grandmother, thinking they'd really use it more than us. The front of the cabinet pulls out and leaves stored inside unfold to lay out on top creating a table as long as maybe 15 feet if needed. And the wonder of it all is it's the same width and height as the table Aaron built for them. So when there's lots of us, the couches are slid over to the dining area and the tables butted together.

Tie-Dye & Will

2009-12-01T19:39:00.004-07:00

I finally took pictures and downloaded them ... I said in an earlier post that I'd post pictures of recent tie-dye projects. Since I've not tie-dyed since my teen years (that wonderful hippie era!) I read the new info for review and see what's new. Then I practiced. The goal was curtains Sarah bought for their open stairwell tall window, and I didn't want to practice on them!

I bought a soft 100% cotton queen-sized sheet set - a great thing to practice on. Some parts I swirled and rubber-banded. Some parts I pleated and rubber-banded or wrapped with a waxed string. Some parts I just banded in a circle for the typical tie-dye bulls-eyes. What did I learn? You think you've soaked the material (it was already wetted in a soda ash solution) and no white is visible, and you worry that it's all just soaking together and going to be a solid dark mess.

I left the sheets: top, fitted, and pillow cases in separate plastic bags (and did a pair of socks too - ordered these really soft bamboo socks that I think I'm going to get more of) to sit in a warm spot while Monte and me flew down to drive Heather and Will here to Colorado, stopping and visiting some old friends along the way. Once home I rinsed them, unbanding them ... and oh ... so much white! So I retied them and squirted more colors on and let sit 24 hours, then rinsed and washed them. My original trials got covered so I couldn't really see my patterning, but that's okay. They are just sheets and going to be slept on. The picture is them on the guest bed at Travis and Sarah's (her family came to stay over the Thanksgiving holiday).

At Travis and Sarah's we squirted a lot of colors on paper towels and let dry. Travis narrowed the choice down to four colors. We folded the long curtains in thirds and pleated them and tied and rubber-banded them. It's easier to tie up the centers of long things with the waxed string than try and rubber band them. We're working on a large metal sheet I got years ago at an auto supply store - it's what people put in garages under leaky cars. I use it all the time on the kitchen table with my wet felting and anything else messy. Sarah worked on one curtain and me on the other and we had them laying side-by-side and doing the same color squirted between the bindings so the hanging curtains would have the same striping. Sarah left them in their plastic bags in a bucket for a couple days before rinsing and washing. So we all waited anxious - they just looked dark with no color variation when all wet, and no white showing - we really soaked them! Sarah emailed me so excited about how they'd turned out. I didn't see them till Thanksgiving day.

While I'm at it, I'll post a recent picture of Will. Will usually eats his supper just before us in his little green Bumbo chair (it's from South Africa and Dawson wishes he had one!). We leave him up on the table while we eat and have a gay ole time with him! He's our "center piece"!

"Vandalism"

2009-11-26T10:19:00.004-07:00

A friend sent this ...
__________

God is a tagger on the walls of nonexistence.

You and everything are the four dimensional graffiti of God.

God writes his name a thousand different ways, not as an egomaniac

but to claim the emptiness

on the walls of nonexistence.

There is another who hates the color – says the walls are his-

who works to strip all of it clean into nothingness

or to at least sandblast that name unrecognizable.

but He who showed up as the art and the artist,

scandalous scrawny four dimensional spray can manifestation of outrageous word-shapes

was Himself sandblasted and stripped on the wall of nonbeing.

He took his name and the art to the other side of the wall, claiming it forever

color reaching us from the inside, we hang with Him, the name which is written a thousand

different ways.

still somewhere obliterated on this side, we spray it back, knowing who we are.

- from "a Denver Book of Prayer"

Pumpkin Stuff

2009-11-25T10:50:00.005-07:00

Tomorrow we head through the woods, on freeways and byways, over rivers and train-tracks and more roadways to Travis and Sarah's home for Thanksgiving. It's been a long time since I've not hostessed Thanksgiving, cooking the turkey stuffed with my grandma's and mom's sage dressing. I'm making the pies and rolls and a fresh cranberry side dish to bring.

I've got pie pumpkins in the oven roasting for pumpkin pies. I simmered dry the pumpkin seeds and they're spread on a cookie sheet drying in the oven now too. I posted last year about cooking up squash seeds - I do it for most winter squash, not just pumpkin seeds. I know too I must have gotten my idea from somewhere, so I just looked at books I knew I had when we were early married that might have it in, and found it. I looked mainly to find proportions to share with you since I wing it each time and sometimes they're too salty.

The Salted Roasted Pumpkin or Squash Seed recipe wasn't in one of my grandma's cookbooks but Carla Emery's Old Fashioned Recipe Book - The Encyclopedia of Country Living, and I see it's still in print. I've got her original book she wrote decades ago, printing sections from a mimeograph machine on varying colored pages and bound in a 3-ring binder, having heard her on TV. I've not read her newer version word-for-word as I did the first edition, but I do know things are missing ... like her Christian testimony and married to a Mormon man, were in the Chicken chapter.

After washing the squash seeds she boils them 15 minutes: 2-3 TB salt per quart of water, drains, and spreads to dry on a cookie sheet in a moderate oven till brown and crisp. I think that's too much salt and I add other stuff. I like to barely cover the seeds in a saucepan with water and put in a TB of butter or olive oil. For one pumpkin's seeds today I put in 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp garlic powder and 1/2 tsp onion powder. I like to simmer till the liquid evaporates cuz then the flavorings penetrate the seeds. Most recipes have you adding butter or oil to the cookie sheet and salting and stirring - how would the salt really stick? and 'twould be messy. Usually I just put them in an oven that had been on, but now turned off and leave them to dry - sometimes leaving them in till the next day (just don't turn the oven on for something else, forgetting the seeds are in there! And you should peek in the oven when you're turning it on anyway - I've left cast iron pans in to dry. Monte's cousin's kid likes to hide stuffed animals in the oven!)

My sister sent the pumpkin picture last week and I deliberated posting it. I told her it was SO funny yet gross too. She had several comments to her post and the one I thought funniest was "I think I'll reach for the apple pie this Thanksgiving ..."

Well, off to make the pie crusts and refrigerate - chilled dough makes flakier crusts, as well as not manhandling it too much. I'm making two pumpkin and two mystery pecan pies.

Happenings

2009-11-14T16:05:00.006-07:00

Oh I know ... I've not been posting regular. I'll just do a quick overview to catch you up to date. I was just downloading some more photos and looking thru the near-recents have helped me remember things happening lately ... lots.

The most recent pictures are of Will, but most are movie clips that I can't post yet. Monte and me just returned from Texas, flying into Killeen the day President Obama was at Ft Hood. Luckily we flew in toward evening and traffic, still heavy leaving the base, wasn't bad getting to Heather's home. We packed up Heather's car (packed meaning "packed!!!!") and drove home to Evergreen. So Will and Heather are here for the Holidays. Got home just before another snow storm. I'll be taking pictures.

I had posted a bit back about another snow storm keeping us from flying home to Colorado. We'd been visiting Monte's parents in Wisconsin. I'm posting a picture of Monte's Mom and sister-in-law Linda in the kitchen. Monte, Mike and Scott (Swan brothers) had gone fishing. If you look close, Scott is sticking his head in behind Mike and Monte. Monte caught a couple good sized pike we ate the next day - yummm! Then a couple days later Monte and me went fishing. I rowed the boat as Monte cast. He caught several northern pike, throwing the smaller ones back. I like the picture above I took of him (and then my camera fell out of my pocket into the boat bottom and got wet and I had to text Dawson as to how to fix it - took out the battery and kept it at the back of Monte's mom's stove while supper was heating and the camera dried out and then worked!)

Some of us gals had a Homemade for the Holidays tea and craft day at church a week ago. The center of the room was decorated with four tea tables - pretty with real china. Around the perimeter of the room were a variety of craft stations. I did a needlefelting station. There was mug decorating, jewelry making, scrapbooking, card making, Eukranian egg making, beaded angel ornaments, and quilting stations too. A full day with three tea times and mainly females coming and going (I'd say ladies, but some were young girls, and occasional boys and men). It was a great day that we're going to do again!

I've been practicing tie-dying. We're soon going to Travis and Sarah's and I don't want to practice on Sarah's curtains. She got some really long white curtains at a yard-sale that'll fit nice over their stairwell window. We're going to stripy dye them (as opposed to typical circle tie-dye). I got some queen-sized sheets for their guest bed and been practicing on them. I did initial dying Monday before Monte and me left for Texas. But when I undid the rubber bands when we'd gotten home, there was still too much white sheet showing, so I re-rubber-banded (tied) them and over-dyed them. I'll open them in a bit and see ... and take a picture. Today I decided to bind up a long strip and do all the dye colors I had made up thinking of their home colors (and my laundry room colors, which I'm going to dye curtains for too, later). That way, rather than little catalog color swatches, we can see what they REALLY look like. (I ran errands yesterday and one checkout gal remarked about my hands looking like I've been having fun - I didn't wear gloves yesterday, so my hands were stained a variety of colors!)

I'm posting a picture off of Facebook of Travis and Sarah I like. And Dawson's holding a baby blanket Sarah crocheted, and then there's a picture of pregnant Sarah. Sarah's about to have a baby shower cuz her family is going to be here for Thanksgiving.

Then there's a picture of Dawson and Splarah dressed for a Halloween party. Splarah is Little Red Riding Hood. Dawson forged/welded his head-piece and is wearing the chain-mail he made several years ago.

I noticed a picture Dawson took of our mailboxes at the base of our road (a mile away) from that last snow storm we missed and Dawson said was up to his waist. Most of it melted, except the north slopes will be snow-covered from here on.

Today is Monte's and my anniversary.

What's cooking? Butternut squash and turkey meatballs are in the oven. I roasted garlic in olive oil and drained it into a cast-iron skillet and just made croutons for the garlic egg-drop soup we're having too. Then a salad will round off the meal. The cookstove is hot, the great room is cozy, and it's snowing outside. Time to eat.

Circular Calendar Monologue

2009-11-03T06:41:00.006-07:00

Calendar Girl me is getting ready to speak at MOPS tomorrow. 'Tis a rich season we're approaching. But then I love the richness each season has to offer as we recycle rhythmically around the calendar.

"Around" the calendar wouldn't be a term you'd use, when our calendars are linear and we tend to live linearly as well. God established festivals to recycle each year for establishing traditions, retelling of stories, and re-remembering.

"Live linearly"? Hmmmm .... that's what I love about sitting down to write - to journal. When waking and desiring to post something, living linearly was not in my thoughts. As I write, it's like my fingers are their own being and take off with stuff on their own. And then the rest of me has to pause and reflect ... and I'm thinking, "How cool!" What am I thinking in connection to seeing live linearly on the page?

I'm actually visualizing a line of time. Like I have to speak tomorrow, and then there's a very busy art and tea day at church next weekend I'm involved in. So often when there's things demanding more of me, my default mode thinks "I can't wait for tomorrow to be done with" or "next saturday to be over". Like when Monte had us speaking all over the country, I always had those thoughts. Like I want to jump ahead on my calendar timeline. Hmmmm ... isn't there a movie like that, fast forwarding thru things of life?

When I saw that the main point of Jesus' time with Mary and Martha in the recorded scripture story was that they be present to him in the moment - whether able to sit at his feet, or working in the kitchen, I related that message to my times I'd like to fast-forward thru. No! Not if I'm living beyond just linear time ... Like I'm supposed to be living rhythmically ever present to Loving God and Loving My Neighbor in every moment, aware of his Larger Story he asks me to be a part of.

Sure I can live in my own small story and focused on the past or the future and not really present to the here and now of this moment ... missing God winks!

So what was I going to post today? ;^)
Oh yes, I'm readying to speak on the calendar season tomorrow. I reread my postings a year ago - by clicking on the sidebar months of November thru January, you'd see the calendar season posts I'm not wanting to take the time to link you to. We just passed Halloween, which the stories I connect to that time is Reformation and the following day of All Saints Day, which was a huge turning point in our Christian history. Before that in September thru October are the Jewish Fall Festivals. That's where the calendar book I'm writing begins: The Jewish New Year and God creating our world. The Jewish festival of Sukkot that God instituted to be celebrated every year became our Pilgrim's first Thanksgiving.

I'm taking tomorrow, a picture I drew of my circular calendar (which is posted in June of this year under John the Baptist Day, where I also talk about my living rhythmically). I'm also taking an old Thanksgiving Tree I kept one year. Because I reread last years post, I'm remembering a turning point in this established tradition, and I'm going to share that tomorrow.

Because each year, for years, I've drawn a bare tree on a large piece of paper and put it up before Thanksgiving, and cut out leaves from colored paper for people to write things they're thankful for, Thanksgiving day is rich with thoughts already in a full-of-thanks mode or posture. Last year the wall space was not there for the tree, since I'd put up more photos, so I didn't do the tree. I waited to see if it was missed. One guest did make a comment I loved! "Where's the tree? I've been thinking of things all week to write on leaves to glue on the tree!!" So I quickly drew a tree and the refrigerator was the decided place to put it and I brought down my can full of colored markers - a way more colorful creative tree of gratitude, from the tangible to intangible, took shape throughout the day!

I'm also taking a Christmas stocking full of things. I keep this stocking in the ready for times when I speak. It's filled with things related to the Saint Nicholas story. When protestantism threw out the church calendar, they threw out so much Christian history rich with Third Testament stories. People used to wake up remembering these stories - which help me remember that if God was there for them, he'll be here for me. People used to wake with lives aware and looking for miracles in their everyday living. Do we, in our linear days? Because we no longer remember St Nicholas and his story on December 6, he's gotten mixed up with Jesus and celebrated on Christmas! I now put up stockings on December 6 and we can tell people as we live the days of December that Santa Claus already came to our house - and then share the real story!

I'm bringing JRR Tolkiens Father Christmas book, as well as The Best Christmas Pageant Ever book (my favorite read-aloud every year! - such a healing story for me at one point of my life), and Madeline L'Engle's Dance in the Desert book. Dawson and friends dramatized that book one year using things from the "Dress Up Box" (Halloween is such a good time to find great things for a dress up box: wigs, funny glasses, long gloves, costumes of animals ... I've still got the stuff in a barrel, awaiting Grandkids!). In the days following Christmas (the 12 Days of Christmas) there's a day remembering all the children ordered murdered by Harod in Jesus' story, which too remembers an OT scripture mentioning the wailing Hebrew mothers for their slaughtered children. The Dance in the Desert book imagines the fleeing "Holy Family" (as depicted in so much art) crossing the desert to Egypt in a caravan, and one night all of creation comes to pay homage to the Christ child.

Since I'm posting on this season, I'll post a picture of the pumpkin Dawson carved this year. His friend Aaron helped him draw it out first. In case you can't tell, it's a Jesus face pumpkin. Since we were out of town last week, he did it at a friend's house and I've not seen the real thing. I wish I could see it, cuz it's unreal looking!

Where am I ending my seasonal talk tomorrow? My handout takes everyone thru the Advent season. The Christian Calendar begins with Advent, awaiting God Incarnate, enfleshed in the birth of a baby. Last year's December link defines this season for you with daily scripture readings, if you'd like. The 12 Days of Christmas culminate January 6 with Epiphany, remembering the adoration of the Magi. Then my handout has some Third Testament story days with St Nicholas and St Lucia, on the 13th (our Swedish roots, yet she's not Swedish!), and Hanukkah. Then there's Boxing Day, St Stephen's day, Peter Pan day (you've got to read my post on this!), Childermas, Circumsicion Day (yes, it's a part of the Jesus story and art depicts it!), ending with Ground Hog Day.

Why Ground Hog Day, and how does that connect with the Incarnation of God story? Originally, February 2 was, and is, Candlemas Day: the day Jesus, "a light to lighten the gentiles", was presented at the temple, and old Anna and Simeon were patiently awaiting him.
_________________
"One generation makes known your faithfulness to the next."
- Isaiah 38:19

"...for they shall hear from us about the wonders of the Lord, generations yet unknown will hear of the miracles he did for us."
- Psalms 22:30-31

"Enter God's gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation."
- Psalm 100

Travis's CD!

2009-10-29T16:02:00.008-06:00

Our son Travis with friend Katrina are coming out with a CD. Here's a link to one of the songs. It's due out November 13 - great timing for Christmas gifts! As I've sat listening to the mixes I keep thinking of more and more people I want to give it to!

Dawson went up to stay with Travis and Sarah a couple days (where were Monte and me? were we getting ready to leave town? I'm a bit befuddled having been in Wisconsin visiting Monte's aging parents-his dad having fallen-and planes have been canceled and delayed into Denver because of snow. How much snow is at home Dawson? 3 feet?). Dawson took lots of photos for the CD and here's one of the photos.

A link to the CD's fan club.

Visual Faith

2009-10-21T14:30:00.004-06:00

Art is a subject I’ve wanted to study – not art history, and not the how-to. I’ve collected many books and it may be what I write on next, having blogged about the calendar for two years and putting it in book form (I really have several books in meself to write!) (and, as I’ve written sometime this summer, I am going to change my blog format … someday … when I’ve more time … haha!). But my art quest began moreso with “Come to me as a child” and the desire to Recapture the Wonder (which is the title of a book by Ravi Zacharias, and then there’s Dangerous Wonder by Mike Yaconelli). I want to study of the power of beauty, the power of the visual – Visual Faith.

I got a new Bible for this year’s devotional/ meditational/ lectio divina/ contemplative reading. It’s called the Mosaic Holy Bible, using the word mosaic as referring to us believers. On our own we are little more than bits of stone and glass, but together we make up the body of Christ, reflecting His image. The front third of the book has guided Scripture readings appropriate to the church season, along with writings encompassing a great cloud of witnesses from old to new; prayers, hymns, and poems, as well as full-color artwork – all for engaging the soul. Then the last 2/3 is the New Living Translation. I’ve not read that translation and am finding it refreshing.

I recently read the section titled “Creativity”. Remember, calendar girl me has told you our Christian Year begins the end of November with the start of Advent, and we are now in the season called “Ordinary Time”, the 22^nd week after Pentecost. I really resonated with this creativity theme. Even if I weren’t artistic (which if you say that of yourself, I’d question your definition of “artistic” and maybe some quotations and comments here will help you think this through) … I’d still value the thoughts worth pondering.

“Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us” … So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them … Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!
- Genesis 1

“Deep within all of us is a longing to recapture a sense of wonder, to marvel at the mystery of God and His creation like we did as children. But through the years our capacity for wonder has been stifled by busyness and ambitions, and we have resigned ourselves to explaining away all that once made us gasp in awe … Our sense of wonder is a blessing from God.”
- Ravi Zacharias

“Every experience of beauty points to infinity.”
- Hans Urs von Balthasar

All creation proclaims God’s craftsmanship and glory day after day and night after night—they make Him known in their way.
- Psalm 19

“I am creating new heavens and a new earth … Be glad, rejoice forever in my creation! And look!”
- Isaiah 65:17,18

I have been looking. I do notice. I do appreciate, hopefully beyond a rational assertion … but in the realm of aha!!!!!

“Art has long been a spiritual practice. Its modern stigma has undeservingly dampened Christian creativity and squelched the innate novelty with which we were formed. Fortunately, churches are once again beginning to embrace the full range of the arts, exploring the nonverbal ways God is glorified.

Of course, we were given this very mandate and model for creativity in God’s creation—nature and humanity are brave testaments to an imaginative Creator. As we enter an awestruck posture, it is right and appropriate to respond using the creative nature with which we’ve been blessed.”
- Mosaic Holy Bible

Our imagination as Christians has been primarily nourished by the spoken and written word as well as music. The church and its experience with beauty appears to be estranged, and the role the church could offer has been supplanted by art galleries and theaters. In desiring to respond to the presence of God with the whole of our beings, is there a place for visual artists and their responses in church? In saying above that we’ve been moreso nourished by literature and music, could I also say that we’re mal-nourished in our visual imagination?

The importance of creativity “is that the Christian life involves the use of the imagination—after all, we are dealing with the invisible [like God], and the imagination is our training in dealing with the invisible—making connections…”
- Eugene Peterson

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
- Albert Einstein

The root word for imagination is “image”, meaning a visual representation, a visible impression, a mental representation or idea, a simile or metaphor. The visual has a way of sticking in our memory and making demands on our conscience long after the explanations have been rubbed thin by the frictions of daily life. We do need moral propositions and principles, but we need images too, because we think more readily in pictures than in propositions. And when a moral principle has the power to move us to action, it is often because it is backed up by a story or visual image.

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God … Through Christ God created everything … “For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself …”
- Colossians 1:15-20

“Creator God, your Spirit enables our own creative abilities as we allow you to work through our words, our hands and our imaginations.

We thank you for the beauty of created things, for pots and bowls moulded by the skilful manipulation of clay, for a portrait which captures the essence of a personality, for the written word which transports us to a faraway place, a poem that captures the raw emotion of a moment, a prayer that speaks to our heart and soul.

You are present wherever mankind opens its eyes to see, can be heard whenever mankind opens its ears to hear, can be felt as hands are outstretched in faith.”
- John Birch

“The desire to create is not taught. The world and everything in it is the workmanship of the Creator. As created beings, we carry the image of God, not least of which is an innate urge called creativity.

Creativity is a spiritual discipline that followers of Jesus have too often ignored. As far back as Genesis, God gave humanity an artistic assignment. He asked Adam to name the animals and thus invited him into the creative process with himself, the Creator.

Unfortunately, the beauty and order of creation were soon scarred; God, however, was not deterred. The story of Jesus is the mark of the creative master at work. Only divinity could take something as offensive as the cross and use it to restore beauty. He continues his redemptive plan by empowering us to join him in this creative work … And the Spirit came in power to an expectant group of Christ-followers, and the creative force embodied in one person, Jesus Christ, is now available to everyone.

Peter quoted the prophet Joel to describe what has happened: ‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people’ (Acts 2:17). And with these words, God’s creative spark ignites the hearts of men and women in a whole new way.

God the Creator now places his divine imprint on our spirits. Pentecost shatters the glass ceiling of possibility. The garden is now replaced with an upper room, and the new assignment goes beyond simply naming his creation to calling his creation into a regenerative process, making old things new.

Wherever there is a divide, God’s creativity in us leads us to build a bridge. Wherever there is doubt, God’s creativity in us stirs our imagination and produces faith. Wherever there is despair, God’s creativity in us pictures and pursues hope. Wherever there is injustice, God’s creativity in us finds a way to show his love.”
- Mark Miller

Travis had a poster that said “Expose yourself to art”. And I think it was Madeline L’Engle who said to not judge art, but let art judge you.

Beauty in death

2009-10-20T20:10:00.005-06:00

I took a bunch of pictures outside this morning in the warm sun before the next storm front moved in today, bringing more snow ... supposedly ... we'll see. I needed to capture for my photo library what some of the 'dead' plants look like, but started taking close-ups of the seed heads. I found some things still flowering. In this death cycle there is still beauty.

But in the picture process I decided to take pictures of all Monte's rock specimens he scattered around my garden walls this summer. I'm getting my pictures organized, getting more from Dawson's computer too, for Monte's parents to see, since we're visiting them and they so like pictures. I thought they'd get a kick out of seeing their son's playfulness. If I were to count all his rocks, there'd be a lot. I'm going to post some of the most pretty or unique. A green and black one is serpentinite, which he's mainly working with right now in his geologic endeavors.

Germs?

2009-10-18T14:58:00.003-06:00

"Unless you're in a kissing relationship,

skip the dip."

- as said by Lynne Rossetto Kasper

on NPRs Splendid Table radio show this weekend.

Anyone needing me to explain?

Worship Quote

2009-10-17T11:03:00.002-06:00

"There is no one in this world who is not, at this moment, at worship in one way or another, consciously or unconsciously, formally or informally, passively or passionately. . . . the question is not, When do we worship ...? Instead, it is, Whom do we worship and with what condition of heart?"

- Harold Best

Quoted in Marva J Dawn's newest book In The Beginning God: Creation, Culture, and the Spiritual Life. (I love her books!)

Wonder Time

2009-10-17T07:58:00.003-06:00

Woke early this morning thinking of the film clip I posted yesterday. Thinking of things it reminded me of ...

We've had guests for a couple days - an investor friend of Monte's and his son. As Don and Monte are talking, Micah's been wandering around wondering what to do. We've talked, but I don't entertain kids. I didn't entertain my kids. Sure we read together, made things together, and played games together, but I also often left them on their own to think up their own things to do, and TV and video games was never an option since we didn't have those. We didn't even have neighbor kids as an option to go play with. Micah's been having some fun, but I think it's been very different for him.

Dawson came home, first meeting us at a Thai restaurant for a supper together and then was here yesterday. Some of his friends came yesterday late afternoon to help him go get composted horse manure and shovel it into our back area for me to scatter over all my garden areas putting them to bed for winter (and I've got some bulbs to plant in my new areas for early Spring flowers). As everyone awaited the great supper I was making, Dawson and friends started playing with all the music instruments we've gathered over the years. Phil was trying to play the mandolin - very creatively successful. Dawson pulled out a flute we were given, for Splarah to try. Aaron started providing rhythm by overturning a trash bin. Monte even was trying to play the saw. I hated to tell them supper was ready! Micah saw cool guys totally uninhibited enjoying making music and hanging around the dining table with gay conversation.

The film clip reminds me of the movie "August Rush". I love that movie. An orphan boy with an austere childhood lives with hope that his parents didn't abandon him and will find him. When he escapes the orphanage I sat with pins-and-needles awaiting evil. Only Robin Williams is the character who abuses this boy's innocence and giftedness. I love his first experience of the hustling, bustling big city. He hears and feels rhythmic music in the traffic and horn honking and all. When exposed to a guitar and left alone with it, he explores it in ways no one usually does. I don't want to tell you anything more about the movie.

I don't know if my youngest brother Robby remembers - he's about ten years younger than me - we used to sit out in our front yard together. We'd sit looking at the gravel in our drive and I'd see pretty ones and I actually collected them, putting them in my jewelry box. I'd tell Robby to listen. "Tell me what you hear ...?" We'd sit that way for a long time.

Have you ever taken the time to sit and watch ants? They'll string out in a long line, some of them carrying stuff. Stuff often larger and probably heavier than themselves. How do they do that? On a crowded street there's such variety of people to watch, but do you notice plants growing in cement, rock, and asphalt cracks and stop to wonder? do you notice the variety of birds 'voices'? I've stopped to observe pigeons, wanting to know what their mannerisms and voices are like, since I'm unfamiliar with them.

The key here is taking time to notice. Maybe it would mean closing our eyes to shut out the normal and listen for the new, feel and sense stuff more, like in the film clip. Like 'be still and know that I am God' kind of time. When the disciples wanted to shove off the insignificant children, Jesus took them on his lap and told us to come to him as a child.

There's such an innocent trust in children, an abandonment in their work and play, so there in the moment, and such a sense of wonder - all pieces of worship.

A deaf girl learns to play violin - An Inspiring must view.

2009-10-16T15:20:00.001-06:00

Beautiful music. "Why do you have to be like others"? ... a chrysalis turned butterfly!

Felted Picture?

2009-10-13T12:41:00.002-06:00

This is the felted picture I'm currently working on. I've had varying visions and working titles for it during the process, but haven't settled on a name yet.

Chili Con Carne

2009-10-12T09:54:00.006-06:00

What did I cook on the cookstove Saturday when it slightly snowed but moreso heavily froze and frosted everything in a very picturesque way? Chili. I've got my 3x5 card sitting here with me. It has a paperclip on it, meaning I've accumulated several chili recipes. Paperclips in my recipe box are on Lasanga, and Tiramisu (not remembering what else). But Monte says this is the BEST Chili, so I need to make that note on the card (maybe throw away or put away the other cards).

As I've said before, I packed away most all my cookbooks (tho, as I posted a picture on my photoblog, Monte just made a shelf in the garage over the freezers that my books are now on and I'm utilizing them, having missed them!). A cookbook set I did leave out is all the Cooks Illustrated bound magazines. I never buy the magazines, waiting till the end of the year's bound edition, and have them all from their beginning. I consult them all the time. So this chili recipe is the best because of consulting them, yet not following their exact recipe. That's what I like about them - so much exploration and process of elimination with the whys, that I can choose my own way -

Chili con Carne
about 4# beef chuck roast, cut into 1" cubes (the last couple times I've used pork shoulder since it's what I had in the freezer. And the cubed meat is what's a key to the goodness of this recipe.)
7-8 slices bacon, cut into 1/4-1/2" pieces
Fry bacon and brown meat in batches (I used some wine after batches to remove browned bits stuck on pan's bottom - Monte thinks that's another key to the goodness - my addition to the recipe, having read many recipes that do that.)
Saute -
1 onion, chopped, 5-6 minutes, and add -
5 garlic cloves, minced &
3 anahiem chilies or 1 jalepeno, chopped
(I grilled these anahiems earlier, as we got them in our farm share. And they're a bit spicy hot. Once grilled, let cool- and then I plop them in the freezer in a ziplock bag with other chilies I've grilled. This would be another of my additions to the original recipe.)
2 tsp salt
3 Tb chili powder
(The recipe original messes with a variety of chilies, grinding and making a paste ... I skipped. I let the juices dry out, maybe not adding all the tomato in at once, so that the spices saute, toasting a bit too.)
2 TB cumin (whole, I didn't grind this time)
2 tsp oregano
1 cup (or small can stewed) tomatoes, chopped
2 TB lime juice
Add back in the meat and bacon and 7 cups of water and let this simmer at least 2 hours.
At the end, Add -
5 TB Masa Harina, mixed with
2/3 cups water
and occasionally stir letting it heat and thicken some.
(The original recipe doesn't add beans, but I always add a can of either black beans or black soy beans.)

We love to eat this with added grated cheese and avacado chunks. I'll eat with tortilla chips, while my boys will crush the chips into the chili. Add a side salad and you've got a great meal. (I froze what was left of it last night for one more meal.)

Dawson and Splarah went skiing today for this year's first time. Wow, early October. There was a year that Travis made the goal of skiing every month of the year - not sure where he'd have done that in August. But one of our ski hills is open the earliest and latest of all others - it's A-Basin, most of it above timberline. We have the typical evergreen pines, conifers, spruce, and then above them there's the Bristle Cone Pines that are as old as Jesus! A-Basin's summit is above 13,000ft.

That's chili!!!!!!!

Dust Quote

2009-10-12T09:41:00.002-06:00

Monte sent me another quote that I'll post here to capture (and delete the email) and then comment.

Stop dusting, and you can use your coffee table as a message board!

I'll have to ask him where it came from, but I think I know why he sent it. It's not that my coffee table or any table is so dusty. For some miraculous reason our house doesn't create much dust (but don't look too close). I think he sent it cuz I have a quote (Sarah wrote my quote on our graffiti chalkboard wall in the bathroom) -

"Dust is Country"
- Karey Swan

Our home is a country home with a country look and feel, and dust is a part of that. Is it that we hardly have any dust? Or does the decor just not glaringly show forth dust? Or do I decorate country so I don't have to dust? What tis the question?

Life a Craft

2009-10-10T15:58:00.000-06:00

As Geoffrey Chaucer lamented,
“The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.”

But for today’s weavers, lifelong learning is the joy as well as the challenge of the craft.

Just capturing a quote from an old friend of Monte's.

New look ... New season

2009-10-10T11:10:00.003-06:00

Just a reminder to go check out new postings to my photoblog.

I posted a series of the old vs new Dawson and a comparison with Travis, who people are now saying, with Dawson's new hair style - "they finally look like brothers!". I'm still not used to the new look!

When taking pictures of things in my greenhouse I found a surprise in the greenhouse sink! Cleaning up the yard for winter, Monte must have unearthed this old toy! I need to ask him where he found it. His putting it in the sink is probably telling me to clean it up for the new season of our life - grandkids!

Is this Fall or Winter? It is snowing again, Monte got the stove going, I'm still in my bathrobe, and watching a bluejay and magpie scarfing up the birdseed from the birdfeeder meant for little finches, chickadees and nuthatches. Time to get dressed and get something out of the freezer cooking on the stove, and finish my felted picture (I posted it's beginning on my photoblog).

Fall Wool Festival in Taos, NM

2009-10-10T08:02:00.001-06:00

A variety of scenes from the festival.

Taos Wool Festival, etc

2009-10-10T06:45:00.006-06:00

It's early morning. The sun might not make an appearance today. I'm currently looking out on thickly frosted plants and ground - wilted leaves and flowers. I love how only one side of the evergreen trees has the thicker white coating, leaving all the north sides of the trees their dark green. It would make a nice picture to capture and keep.

I'm not seeing bunny tracks - maybe it's still sleeping. The birds are awakening and looking for seeds. Are bugs out for the bug eating birds? Are the bears hibernating yet? I hope so. Do raccoons hibernate? Monte saw two in the trash trailer (probably after some fish wrappings) and we've decided they did the latest bird feeder destruction. Elk are still in their rut and bugling.

It's getting lighter outside and I think it's trying to snow. Now it's pretty seeing an occasional golden aspen in the midst of the dark evergreens with their white one-sided dusting. I should be starting the wood stove. Made my tea though, and curled up in wool socks and thick bathrobe. And I don't want to take too much time posting cuz I'm working on a felted piece. Colorful wool in baskets and curly colored locks too, and a shiny skein of wool, are covering the kitchen table and benches awaiting me to create.

Which reminds me ... my last post was just before Monte and me were leaving for the Taos Wool Festival. It was a great vacation - a true vacation, not related to Monte's work travel or us speaking.

Our close friends, Jim and Marty, had time share places lined up for us to stay in - the first night in Red River, New Mexico. Monte worked there just before we married, coming home for us to elope. Lots of memories, including his favorite restaurant, Texas Reds, where he ate a lot. Tho the original had burned down, it's a part of the Red River Lodge now and the owner remembered Monte! We all had a salad with their famous salad dressing that Monte's raved about for 34 years - and yes, it was very good! The waitress had fun with us and Monte's memories (like hiking the hills with backpack full of rocks), tho she'd not been born yet then. With the great music in the bar (Monte and Jim bought the guy's CD) it was a great atmosphere and wonderful meal.

The nice thing about this trip was that we weren't driving long distances, so could stop and enjoy the local scenery - which included galleries and the local's food hangouts. La Veda, Colorado was one stop, for lunch. A very old hippie (yes, old hippies, including us), artsy fartsy town. We could tell lots of music happens around there. Some famous people (famous to us textile people - like Marty is a quilter) live around there, and then Monte fell in love with one style of oil painting and we ended up talking with the painter himself - and Monte's got to go back next year (his first openings) for a week long class.

Scenery? It was perfect timing for colorful Colorado's fall colors! Since we don't have maple trees, our rusts and reds come from scrub oak and other bushes and vines. The golds of aspen are our main color. But too, there's the grasses (I used to have my kids notice all the varieties of grass when we'd walk - did you ever notice how many variances there are? - could fill a large book, just on grass - interested?)- lots of fall color changes with them too.

After Monte's 34 year old memory lane fix (It was Frontier Days in Red River and we walked around the next day - finding out many of the locals work several jobs in that small community. We figured they'd all be sitting around the bar the next night talking about these strange visitors that befriended them for a day.) we drove winding back roads to Taos. Monte and me were last there 33 years ago. So the joke of that time was asking around if "Joe's Place" was still there? Joke? Because with Monte's knack for stretching the truth in his story-telling, you wonder what's really real - so this was a weekend of dispelling myths or finding them true. A local at Michael's, where we had a fabulous breakfast, really had fun with Monte.

It was beautiful weather and we enjoyed walking everywhere. The beautiful place we stayed in Taos had fruit trees about the property, so as we walked anywhere we were eating apples (looking for worms) and great plums. The Wool Festival was in Kit Carson Park (Taos is his home place - his home a museum) close to our place and we walked around amongst the many colorful booths both Saturday and Sunday (as well as all the many artsy shops and galleries that make up Taos). I found a site that posted pictures from this year's festival in a slide show. By Sunday most of the beautiful felted hats, and woven pieces made into fabulous clothing were sold out (and expensive they were too!!!)

I googled the festival and can't believe there's not great pictures posted. Looking tho reminded me that the same weekend was the balloon festival in Alburquerque and little over an hour south. I've seen pictures of it and Marty and Jim went years ago. Hundreds of colorful balloons fill the sky! I did see from my own photo library that Monte took quite a few pictures from his iPhone (Dawson put them on my computer and I hadn't even looked at them yet). So I'm going to post some of them on my photoblog.

Monte and me went from this trip to Travis and Sarah's and spent the night and Monday with them. Travis has been working on a CD of original songs and creative arrangements him and friend Katrina have done. Monte was excited to hear it and help with any tweaking his producing ears heard, before it's done being mixed. We had a very relaxing day, ending it with purchased vanity and sinks for their main bathroom, and a good bar-b-q sandwich supper.

It's snowing now. I'm resigned to the fact that summer is over. Time to start the woodstove and cook a stew on it or soup.

Family

2009-09-30T22:33:00.004-06:00

I have pictures of my kids I want to post, but don't know what to say. Don't know what to say? That's not like me when it comes to writing ... But all I have to do is start writing and it'll flow. It is close to bedtime, but in cleaning up my computer's desktop for traveling (I take my Macbook most places with me), I've had these pictures ready to post for awhile.

Traveling? Monte and me are leaving in the morning. For years I've wanted to go to the Taos Wool Festival. We're going along with dear old friends (double meaning there: they are old friends and we are getting older!). Jim was one of Monte's roommates before we all got married, maybe his last one, before me. The last couple roommates readied that barbaric house for me, which has it's strange stories. (Some time I need to reminisce more with stories.) Marty was one of our witnesses when Monte and me eloped - good someone's around to prove we were married! Jim and Marty married soon after us. (I'd post pics of them too, but I packed away my Lacey hard-drive where all my photos are since they take up so much room on my computer). The Johnson's live an hour away. I'll report on the wool festival.

The first picture is of Heather and her Bill at a Military Ball soon after they were married. It's a nice picture of them I love, and the beginning of a new life for them. Just seeing her dressed up like this is so different from her typical country western wear. So this picture was probably taken almost 1 1/2 years ago. Her long blond hair is pulled back, and look at those glowing smiles!

The picture of Travis and Sarah I pulled from Trav's facebook album of recent pictures at Sarah's family reunion in Kansas. It's so cute of them, I love it. See her growing pregnant belly? what she's calling her little rutabaga. It's a big, active boy, due in January. They are naming him Emery Revere Swan (Emery after Monte's dad, and Revere is from Sarah's side).

I guess the picture of Dawson and Splarah is from Dawson's facebook photos. I love this picture too. It is 'Splarah' - her license plate says so. They've been good friends since they were little. In college now, they're still good friends and very close. If she joins our family some day, she's got to remain Splarah cuz it's too difficult when we're all together and there's already a Sarah (her friends of old gave her the nic-name).

Our grown kids are our best friends. Now Grandkids are coming. We're enjoying this season of life.
__________

Family faces are magic mirrors looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future.
-- Gail Lumet Buckley

... families are like potatoes. The best parts are underground.
-- Francis Bacon

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.
-- Desmond Tutu

Words and Nerds

2009-09-24T08:20:00.004-06:00

Am I a geek or a nerd? What's the difference? I think I'm a nerd.

I wasn't feeling so well (or good?) yesterday so I was laying prone or prostrate (hmm, both those word's definitions say "laying face downward" - forget that) on the couch most of the day tho (though) I did get up to put wood in the stove since it was cloudy and raining/slushing/snowing off-and-on all day (maybe three days of gray [or is it grey - what do you use?] are getting to me!). I guess I was under the weather!

So what did I do all day? I've had this list I've developed of apps people like for their iPhone. I researched them and downloaded what I thought I'd use.

Words again ... when do we use the word download vs upload?

I'm hooked! I spent the rest of the evening into night playing Boggle on my iPhone and this morning I inputted what I ate: for tracking food calories, fat ... nutrients, and exercise. I can file any notes, help with grocery or any other lists, look for recipe ideas including my own I've input into a recipe box for when I'm not at home, identify flowers, birds, and stars, read various Bible translations, and secure important data and passwords, listen to the radio or NPR ... how's about Scrabble?

Happenings including Zucchini

2009-09-21T18:53:00.002-06:00

Heather and Will are gone. Monte drove them home over the weekend. Now he's on to Houston for some meetings. I've got computer editing and art work to do, so missing them won't be so bad. I did hear a bit of music the other morning that reminded me of one of Will's toys and had to remind myself they're not here.

Dawson and friends started logging our woods this past weekend. There's lots of dead trees to cut down, especially the aspen, before they drop their leaves and then we don't know which are dead. I prefer burning aspen in the stove over pine, it burns hotter. We don't have hardwood in our woods. The aspen were just starting to show tinges of yellow for their Fall color. Don't know what this heavy snow will do - maybe break some branches and just turn the leaves brown.

I cleaned the front porch of summer wind debris and made room for the chopped wood, moving furniture around. Our front porch gets the brunt of the wind and on the north side of the house, so total shade. Monte had made me window boxes years ago, but I gave up on real plants. So Saturday I changed out the summer fake flowers to fall's (click here to see a picture). Dawson brought a load of wood into the house, which I'm burning today. "Why" you might ask? Because it's snowing! Arghhhhhh...!!!!!!

I have been afraid to look at the ten-day weather forecast knowing our first frost was coming any day now ... but several inches of heavy snow?! It was close to 80 degrees 24 hours before, so it's melting as fast as it's coming down, I'm sure. Since I've not had a Monet wildflower garden before I don't know how many of the flowers are tender and will die. I was SO enjoying them! Saturday I put the potted plants I wanted to save in the greenhouse where they'll stay now all winter. Sunday I picked all the squash and beans, should have pulled all the basil ... can I make pesto from frozen basil? (I have a friend I can get some basil from - mine were so small - cool summer - and still have pesto in freezer from last year.) I covered some of my tomato plants. We'll see.

AND we did have a bear again - got into the bird feeders twice last week. How, with the electric fence? At first we thought it walked over the long front porch to the back. But no, the second day, Monte noticed the back wires next to the house spread apart. We didn't finish the split-rail fence there cuz we're going to do a gate. And would a little prick of pain, maybe like a mosquito bite, hurt a thick-haired bear? Probably not. Monte put up more boards and wire and wrapped some wires with bacon. That ought to hurt - so, Yes to pain and no gain (I hope)!

I started a big batch of sourdough starter today for making zucchini bread tomorrow. The recipe from the book Nourishing Traditions calls for 2 cups buttermilk to 3 cups flour (I ground kamut) to sit for up to 24 hours before making the bread. It's a master recipe for banana, apricot almond, or ... Having made it once before, I'm going to add a bit more maple syrup since zucchini is not sweet like bananas.

I went to our local health food store on my way to pick up our weekly farm share this late afternoon (snowing cats and dogs - ugghh) to get more eggs and buttermilk and they had some unhomogenized milk, so I've got it warming by the stove to make my own cultured buttermilk. It's got to set out at room temp for about 18 hours. This is an experiment from the Milk book I wrote about not long ago - I've not done it before, tho I make yogurt all the time.

I've already froze a lot of Zucchini, Potato, Onion soup (click to see the recipe). We really do like it reheated over winter. I've grated zucchini and froze it before, but found I don't use it, so prefer the soup and bread. Monte likes to dry slices of the bread, I like slices heated with thin sliced cheese on it.

Supposed to be back close to 80 again by Friday. Should I report on what survived? Now it'll be Indian Summer and Heather and Will will return around Thanksgiving for the Holidays. Dawson's hating his homework this semester. It's the Jewish Rosh Hashanah's High Holy Days and our church is celebrating it this year - a first, and I'm loving, living it!

Will movie

2009-09-12T11:54:00.003-06:00

Dawson showed me how to make my movies smaller size. It emailed to Bill and now I'm going to try again posting it here - of Will learning to eat solid? food! I'm doing most of the talking and Will reaches for the camera.

Heather and Will

2009-09-11T19:21:00.003-06:00

Little Will has just started eating solid foods. I've been taking short movie's of him. So since I was able to post one of my movies this morning I'm going to try another tonight of Will eating. I've not been able to email them to his dad who's in Iraq, so maybe Bill can see them here. And I've got one more week to capture things before Monte drives them back to Texas for a couple months.

I want to capture him saying "Dadadada..." and giggling ... He's quite the thinker. He watches our mouths making sounds and we can see his mouth trying to copy the same motions. Will's 7 months old now.

I give up ... for now ... it's taking too long to upload. I think I've got to figure out how to post to uTube first, cuz their videos are longer and yet upload ok.

Fruit Flies

2009-09-11T07:44:00.004-06:00

Monte's been asking me questions - so I've been researching. He's been so tired of fruit flies and trying to attract them to get rid of them. I tell him every end of summer harvest brings fruit flies. This year's infestation came with peaches.

Question 1: "How can we trap them?"

Putting old fruit in a container and then trying to lid it and take them out, doesn't work. If you'll notice, they tend to walk around the rim of the container most of the time and once the lid comes close, they fly away. I had put a small bit of wine in a glass close by for him to see that some will go there and drown. But the BEST trap I found is to put plastic wrap tightly over a bowl with some fruit in it and poke fork holes. It's amazing how many get trapped in one day! and the sound when you get close is eerie! He empties it each day in the compost and starts over.

Question 2: "What's their life cycle? Are we just breeding them?"

Years ago when schooling the kids we did do a fruit fly experiment, but I forget the facts. I knew they have a short life span, but didn't think they grow overnight! I LOVE the internet! Diagrams, facts, tips, videos, virtual tours ... I took a movie with my little cannon elf. This is the first time trying to post my own movies! You'll notice the flies still walking the edge, so they never get back to the holes to fly out.

Some years I get soil gnats in my house plants which seem similar, but are another beast.

Domestic Books

2009-09-10T12:01:00.005-06:00

I have two books from the library (actually ... I always have more - got audio books, and some garden books, and some DVDs)(found out once that our library limit of books-per-person is 100! "One hundred!" you might exclaim. "Yes." When leaving on a road trip, little Dawson cleaned the shelves of wild animal kid books and the librarian said, "I can't check out any more since you've come to 100" [we had some at home all ready].) One of the books I had out last fall and bought one for a Christmas present, but wanted to read some things in it again. Monte and me, while driving around Wisconsin last fall heard the author interviewed, which is why I got the book. It's called: Milk - The Surprising Story of Milk through the Ages with 120 adventurous Recipes that Explore the riches of our First Food, by Anne Mendelson.

Since I've been making soured milk/ buttermilk sourdough breads I'm wondering about making cultured buttermilk like I regularly make yogurt. And yes, it can be done. If the buttermilk says it has "live cultures" and no added gums or stabilizers, it can culture milk just like you would make yogurt, tho sitting out at room temperature for 12-18 hours. Of course REAL buttermilk comes from the process of beating cream to make butter and draining off the liquid which is buttermilk.

The other book I have, as I'm sitting outside on my pergola, is The Gentle Art of Domesticity - Stitching, Baking, Nature, Art & the Comforts of Home, by Jane Brocket, who lives in England. As a back of the book quote says, it's "A deliciously charming book crammed with garden plants, cookery, chickens, childen and all life's good things ... presented with wit and articulation." It truly is lovely, full of beautifully colored pictures and great thoughts. Like "Domesticity, not domestication", "The gentleness of the gentle arts", "The art of the possible", and "Yarnstorm". She knits, quilts, creatively bakes (or "Bizarre baking"), reads inspiring books ("The domestic library"), tells stories (like "Peas peace and laughter"). Thank you Kaye for thinking I'd like this book - I DO!

And oh ... I forgot ... I do have another book from the library I've been reading at night (finished it last night). It was recommended by one of my blog friends - Debbie from California: Clementine in the Kitchen by Samuel Chamberlain (Phineas Beck). The Beck family were living in France and Clementine was their cook. When Phineas's company called them home because of WWII rumors, Clementine wanted to go with them (so she could go to the movie theaters a lot). It's a delightful read, with spatterings of French, as he tells of Clementine's recipes and her excursions into the Boston countryside markets for food for her recipes (she can't speak English). If I had a pear fruit tree I'd like to try growing a pear in a bottle and preserving it in brandy as a table decor, which is what Clementine's father did. It was fun to experience with her, her first taste of a barbecued hot dog and beer in a paper cup, and her dislike of American's ice water at meals.

I do love books! as you'd discover if you visited us and saw all the built in bookshelves in just about every room (let me think ... Yes, every room in our home has built in bookshelves, except one of the bathrooms and laundry room ... but books are still sitting in those rooms too).

Velveteen House Again

2009-09-07T08:50:00.005-06:00

It's Labor Day and I just looked at the past two September postings and see that I said nothing about Labor Day. I'm needing to start working on editing my next book to be published, which is Cycle of Celebrations - Remembering God-in-Our-Midst. I'll be beginning the book's calendar year in September because of the Jewish Fall Festivals' New Year beginning around September, and that's always been more of a New Year rhythm for me to. But I'm beginning the book with talking about Sabbath and connecting it with Labor Day weekend, analyzing labor in connection with Creation and God working six days and asking us to have a seventh day rest. The center of my circular calendar I drew has Sabbath in the center. I'll post more about it later ... got to give it more thought and time in crafting what I write.

BUT ... I saw that my first Velveteen House post (another link to a more recent post) was in September 2007 and I've carried that theme occasionally throughout my blog. I copied a post below from 2007, because I thought it good, and I don't know how many people actually click on my sidebar months to see what calendar stuff I posted previously. Some things I've edited more and carried on to the current year's months, but not all!

The past weeks have been a continual flow of people and our Velveteen House has more memories bouncing off the walls and more nicks, scratches and bruises, as well as well-worn, loved places. I won't even begin to name names of visitors in case I miss and offend one. But very old friends, and more recent old friends, as well as varying groups of geologists and young people have passed through the door, made use of the whole house as well as the out-of-doors since it's the beautiful summer weather season. And Travis and Sarah have come and gone with young married friends and their little kiddos. Heather with Will are still living here, but soon to go home.

I've got to go fold the last air mattress still in Monte's office and put it away. Leftovers in the fridge are almost used up. I think things are going to quiet down now. School has started, yet I no longer have kids to school. The hummingbirds will start leaving after this weekend, then the bluebirds and robins ... We could get our first frost anytime now, but then Indian Summer till the end of October or into November (but I read a wet, cold winter is forecast for us ... we'll see). The above picture is of my wildflower area that I've striven for for years, and this year it worked! Now it should be permanent as some are perennials and others reseed.

Other than looking at Dawson's computer to see if he downloaded this weekend's photos yet, I've been getting my photoblog caught up. I've got to put together pictures on a memory stick for Heather to take home with her and put on her computer for her to start scrapbooking. I'm meeting more and more people who are making digital scrapbooks ... are you?

Now for the older post on this season of life - but moreso during school breaks now. Otherwise, it's just Monte and me ... which we're loving.

Finding the Sacred in Home
My latest stage of life has been with teenagers. Everyone makes messes, kids make messes; relationships are messy. Messes of teens differ from those of younger kids--they make their messes late at night, when I don't want to be up or in the kitchen.

We've made an agreement--that they attempt to clean up after themselves. I like clean counter-tops, but they can leave their dishes in the sink. So in the morning I'm a sleuth, trying to guess what they ate the night before.

Over the years I've really tried hard to stop a moment and think before reacting. It's not been easy because my first instinct is to respond negatively! Everyday I'm faced with choices: am I going to react negatively to the demands made on me, or am I going to choose to respond in a way that could bring more fun and joy and meaning to me and those around me?

I could approach the morning mess with grumbling, but I've taken on the attitude that each second of life is a miracle. So the dishes themselves and the fact that I'm cleaning them are miracles. How?

I have a wonderful home that people seem to want to hang out at. These teens have had their licenses for a couple years now and could be driving elsewhere (which they do), but they always return to our house. They are coming and going into the night. I don't always know who's been here, or who might be asleep on the couch when I come down in the morning. They like our home.

This attitude choice reminds me of Mary, Martha and Jesus. In sitting with this scripture in Luke 10:38-42, two things touch me: "Martha welcomed him into her house." Jesus returns to Martha's home often 'to hang out'. There must be a homey feeling about the place--good hospitality (notice 'hospital' in the word? I think of health-care and nurturing).

We typically hear about Mary's choosing to sit at Jesus' feet, and that's a good choice. Yet Jesus didn't tell Martha to stop her home-keeping and sit at his feet, but he did reprimand her for her attitude, telling her that she was "anxious and troubled". She was too 'self-preoccupied,' maybe self-pity, and therefore not present to Jesus in her doings.

In the quotidian of my daily doings there is the opportunity to be fully God-conscious, bringing joy to the mundane rhythms of life. Each morning, is a new day, to choose to love God--who desires to be present to me in all I do. In the repetitive mindless activities, God invites me to play. It is in the routine and the everyday that I find the possibilities for the greatest transformation. Done in a different spirit, what I think I'm only 'getting through' has the power to change me.

---------------------------------

"The sure provisions of my God
Attend me all my days.
O may thy house be my abode
And all my work be praise."
- Isaac Watts (Ps 23:6)

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble"
- Helen Keller

"Oi-i-i-i! Mrs. Preston! You make the lowest nobody feel he's somebody."
"You're not a 'nobody,' Hannah Hayyeh. You're an artist--an artist laundress."
"What mean you an artist?"
"An artist is so filled with love for the beautiful that he has to express it in some way. You express it in your washing just as a painter paints it in a picture."
-Anzia Yezierska "Artist" (short story)

Instant Grass!

2009-08-25T17:37:00.002-06:00

Dawson and me drove down to Denver Saturday morning and picked up 46 rolls of sod. Him, Aaron and Monte had gotten the area ready for the sod. So once home, within a couple hours, we have instant grass. It's so nice I might want to replace my old grass some year. But for now I persist with "the cowboy way", as the radio garden guy says, of pulling out weeds.

Since Dawson had replaced the logs in our campfire pit amphitheater, some of the sod went behind the logs in the seating area. It all looks so nice.

Then there's my new gate. Dawson's friend Nick made it yesterday, cutting the French gothic style pickets. He'll be finishing up more picket fencing next week. The electric fencing paraphernalia isn't beautiful, but from a distance it's not noticable, and what it offers us is worth it.

Dawson was in Hawaii for almost two weeks and took over 2000 pictures. He's starting to post them on his photosite. My favorite so far is Splarah swimming with a turtle. Now that school has started (chemistry, trig, and physics) it may be awhile before he gets a lot of his pics posted.

Living Literally?

2009-08-22T06:49:00.002-06:00

I'm reading (listening to) the book The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, by AJ Jacobs. The book begins with him talking about his not so usual beard, maybe like Moses's, walking about Manhattan. It's a very fun book ... and thought provoking. I got it from the library and may want to own it.

A secular Jew, Jacobs read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation in several translations, bypassing the one the bookstore said he could read anywhere and not be embarrassed - which looked like a girly magazine - which he started wishing he had bought when getting strange looks on the subway - yet has a thoughtful remark as to why even buy such junk anyway (not the Bible but the girly stuff).

Jacobs consulted Rabbis, Christians, and visited Amish/Mennonites ... atheists, popular Christian radio/TV people, and Red Letter Christians ... and even takes a trip to Israel. His wife and young son had to somewhat journey with him in this 381 day trial.

Jacobs' earlier book The Know-It-All followed a period of reading through the entire encyclopedia. We used to do Library/Pizza Hut summer reading program "Book It". Travis was such a voracious reader and FAST that I gave him challenges, and one was the E of our encyclopedia set.

It does beg the question - how do we read the Bible?

Menopause?

2009-08-21T18:18:00.003-06:00

I jokingly call menopause "mental pause". But I'm there. How long does it last? It starts for some people early - believed to be the result of pesticides, hormones in our food, stress, etc. I'm at the age women in the old days started menopause.

Why am I talking about this? Yesterday I went for a physical. I've not had one in quite awhile, or I should say some things started several years ago never got completed. I thought I was over the hump, meaning that my body has entered the next woman's season of life ... but no.

Monte was reading about menopause on line. Do other men do this?!!! ;^) Well, Monte read that the possibility of having a baby in the house this summer has thrown my hormones for a loop.

But ya know what happened yesterday that is so typical of my body, but this was the worst! ... I was poked by 8 (or was it 9?) needles (and two nurses and the doctor) trying to draw my blood! I hate saying something to nurses, not wanting to start them off scared. And if you're going to ask me the typical question of if I drank enough water? ... YES!!!

Four tries were in the early morning since I had fasted. When they think they got enough for the one test needing my having fasted, they told me to go home, eat, and drink TONS of water and just drop in again. So I did just after lunch. Finally, the fourth one that time filled three more tubes.

I've heard in the past, "your veins are good but they collapse or roll". They did get veins this time but my blood is so thick (probably why I had blood clots in my last pregnancy). In the past I've tried laughing to make the blood flow more.

I told them they need to write in bold red letters on the front: Hard to draw blood! Put a warm pad on first. Use the smallest butterfly needle you've got. I think too they should draw my blood first when I get there and have been drinking a lot, and then do the rest of the appointment.

Now just the gap of time waiting, hoping all's well.

Future Blogging?

2009-08-17T11:07:00.005-06:00

People have been asking "Where are you Karey?" or like Travis yesterday, as Monte and him were laying tile in their master bathroom, "Mom, you've not posted in a long time." "I'm thinking I'll leave people wondering for awhile."

Yes, I'm busy with enjoying summer outside. I think I'm done purchasing plants and once I move some things around for thinning and spreading out the thick ground covers to places needing some, I'm done with gardening. Last night went down to 35 degrees which is unusual for this time of year - more like September, so it saddens me to think things can freeze soon!

Company has been pretty continual right now, so feeling like the front door is a revolving door, and sheets and towels cycling too. Also lots of juggling of schedules going on right now. So feeling too full elsewhere to write here.

My artist friend Sarah Sams and me (need any graphic arts, painting, sculpting, interior decorating done? she can do it!) made the Sculpey dough labels for my herbs.

I'm about ready to resurrect an art form I did years ago - batik. Got the wax and dyes. Cleaned the garage and found my tools (the garage is looking so nice! I did mention at one time way back in this blog that going to yard sales often frustrated me cuz I'd be too distracted by peoples super clean garages! - Monte made more shelves over the freezers and now all my cookbooks, 'potion & lotion', gardening, etc books are at my fingertips.)

What's here on my blog connected to the calendar - primarily church history and jewish calendar - is going to be put in book form. I've been working on that too. Since I've downloaded so many pictures from the internet, something's going to have to change - can't take the time dealing with all those copyright issues. Soooo... since I AM an artist and can draw ... I'm toying with doing my own illustrations. That'll be work, but fun and fulfilling.

AND that poses another issue, what now? I do love to write, but don't want to just post "dear diary" happenings. Where do I go from here? What might be a new look and focus? Any ideas?

The Warmest Room in the House

2009-07-30T09:17:00.003-06:00

Hmmm, what's the warmest room in the house today? If I fired up the cookstove the kitchen would be ... and it is tempting. Geologists are up in Monte's office again today and I've just learned I need to have another lunch for them today too. They were here yesterday, six (more drifting in later) for a gourmet lunch with my stuffed, grilled poblanos they love and white chili chicken soup. I've been experimenting with making sourdough bread, so buttered, garlic salted some slices under the broiler yesterday too, to go with the soup.

A cold front blew in with rain Monday night, so since Tuesday it's been 20 degrees cooler, and when the sun's not shining here, it's cool. I'm feeling a bit chilled right now. I'm going to reheat yesterday's soup with some from the freezer and look for a possible appetizer to go with it. Since it's not raining right now I just checked my high-low thermometer and the night's low was 38. Heard it's snowing further into the mountains right now. And it's currently 48 here. See why I might fire up the cookstove?

I'm reading a book from the library called The Warmest Room in the House by Steven Gdula. I think I need to own the book. A Trivial Pursuit game could be created from the book, focused on food history. It's got a lot of American history - through the kitchen door. Like did you know it was Napoleon Bonaparte's quest for a food that traveled and stored well that led to the invention of canning in 1809? And following the Oregon-California Trail Donnar party fiasco canned evaporated milk was invented? I knew of the Donnar cannibal story but didn't know the 'rest of the story': that a Gail Borden was trying to create a dried meat concoction sounding something like Pemmican, but eventually led to milk in a can.

It shows how much American history can be gotten from back issues of Good Housekeeping magazine going back to the beginnings of 1900! Like all the war efforts of saving food at home so more food for the troops - lots of green going on then - encouraging gardening. Because the Germans said they'd figured out how to pack food for a month of survival in an 8x6 box, America took up the challenge.

I have some of the early cookbooks mentioned: like The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book from 1897, which became the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. And my study of nutrition was called Household Chemistry back at the end of the 1800s at MIT. A goal was to understand the structure of food and understanding food safety and working towards the labeling of ingredients in foods. I thought of an old book we have on microscope experiments that started with learning what water molecules look like, and salt, and sugar. When you start from there and look at say butter, you might see the difference in cheap vs more expensive butter.

Another thing happening back at that turn of the century was with Industrialization, the kitchen was returning to the massing of homes and needing to be analyzed for efficiency now that slaves and servants were no longer doing the kitchen work. That reminded me of another fun book to read: Cheaper By The Dozen by Frank B Gilbreth Jr (NOT the recent movie! The movie is it's own story borrowing only the book title. The book is hilarious! and the dad was a hoot and involved in this movement of efficiency. And while you're at it, go on and read Belles on Their Toes, written by one of the 12 kids, and then there's a book the mom wrote too, I forget the name.)

Anyway, I need to get busy. And I am freezing now, tho I have on a long sleeve, pants and hand-knit socks. I think I am going to start a fire in the cookstove!

Thanksgiving in July!

2009-07-27T11:35:00.007-06:00

I wasn't going to post right now, but am going to try and see if linking to Dawson's and other photos taken at our house yesterday will work from Facebook postings. A cold front is moving in today for the next few days so there's some plant thinnings I want to try and move right now hoping they'll take hold with the coolness and moisture. (I just checked the above links and I don't think you can view the pictures unless you sign into Facebook so eventually I'll post them to my photoblog.)

I'm calling it Thanksgiving in July because all the same people here yesterday have been here for several Thanksgivings together and friendships have grown and conversations are so lively!!!! Sarah's parents, John and Kerry are in town right now, so they drove up along with Travis and Sarah. Dawson's girlfriend Splarah came (she has to remain her nicknamed "Splarah" with all the Sarahs around, but then there's Karey me and the other mother Kerry - gets confusing!). And then our good friends from way back - the Johnsons came too. I grilled what we call "Dancing Chickens" (recipe)(picture) and made scalloped potatoes. The Johnson's brought a wonderful almond, orange, with greens salad. And the Swan-VanDusen group brought veggie dip makings and other appetizers. We ate, yakked, hiked, yakked and yakked, and ate, and laughed and laughed ...

I picked up baby Will and after everyone left, we just sat in the rocking chair in the stillness for a long time while Heather filled the dishwasher. Will was laughing and talking to the lamp above us.

The Meadow's Alive!

2009-07-26T10:26:00.002-06:00

I love this time of summer, anticipating it each year and wondering what either lots of rain or not will look like. This year it's exploded more. The purple flowers are bee balm (monarda) and I didn't plant them. It's one reason I never wanted to own horses or anything that would ruin the meadows surrounding us.

A rarer wildflower, my favorite, is the sego lily or mariposa lily. It's the delicate white flower. I first learned about them in the Arizona desert when some areas explode around February with california poppies and some of these wild flowers and others scattered in the midst.

There's also some blue and red flax along with yellow salsify

Lone Ranger

2009-07-24T11:07:00.003-06:00

I just read a quote by Dan Rather and thought of this picture of young Dawson. I often played classical music for home background 'noise' to mellow harsh noises of telephone or whatever that might disturb a nap, and it is nourishing to my being.

I remember Dawson bouncing up a storm on this horse - even to this music ... did he think he was a Lone Ranger cowboy? Don't even know how much he'd seen of cowboy movies then. But it was one way to release his much excess energy!

"An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger."

Velveteen House Again

2009-07-21T09:05:00.007-06:00

Once again our Velveteen House ... As I write, young people are outside around the campfire cooking their breakfast.

Dawson went camping this weekend at the annual Bow Jamboree. We used to always go to this since 1982, camping with hundreds of other archery hunting families - lots of courses of targets to shoot at and fun activities. Monte hasn't been archery hunting for several years - until more testing is done on whether wasting disease in elk and deer, like mad cow disease, can transfer to humans. For probably more than twenty years our main meat we ate was elk, with some deer, and an occasional antelope, moose and bear (and I've eaten rattlesnake, mormon crickets, and I can't remember if I've shared lion, raccoon, and coyote with friends who've eaten them).

The kids here are from our church youth group who were camping all weekend. The graduating seniors finished the trip here last night and will leave today. Camping? I guess they all slept in the bunk house last night. It didn't rain here (it sounds like west Denver got zapped last night with horrid hail, wind and rain that broke tons of trees, windows, roofs, and windsheilds - and snowplows for some hail removal). Lots of cloud and lightening movement that Dawson captured with his camera on a tripod. And I'm posting their campfire pic at one point when they said they were creating a volcano.

Lots of activity around here these summer days. Always friends of Dawson's around working (whom I cook for and pay). Like yesterday, I was weed-eating the lower fruit and asparagus garden (because of excess rain this year the grass and weeds are as tall as me!) and I'd like to finish today, unless it rains soon - it looks like it and is cool. Gary has been coming and cutting down giant dead trees with Dawson and fixing the campfire amphitheater since the old log seating was rotting. Aaron and Connor cleaned out the old ferret house (putting the large fish tanks in the bunk house) and they all had fun figuring out how to get it down to the old chicken coop. It's now attached to the front of the coop and the coop cleaned out and painted and shelves are being built. Gary and Dawson moved the fish tanks and stuff down there yesterday, so the bunk house got cleaned out (Dawson saw and caught a rat - I didn't think we have rats in the mountains). Dawson's welded some frisbee catchers for his frisbee golf course. Connor helps Dawson finish the rock work with his artistic ability (he's the one who's always playing the piano, as he did again this morning). Nick is occasionally here, as he is now, working on more meticulous carpentry jobs. Girls have come and gone too, eating here and playing games and watching movies. The woods junk has been cleaned up with loads taken to the dump and the old dog kennel torn down. Once the playhouse/Dawson's museum of Natural History is cleaned out - Monte's rocks and Dawson's bone, nest ... collections - I'll go through organizing all the yard tools in there. Monte's been slowly going through all his geology stuff in the garage and throwing a ton of stuff away. Then it'll feel like most everything is done around here - ready for the next season of life with Monte and me as empty-nesters. But then grandchildren - and we'll need to rebuild a swing/play area again and get another dump-truck load of sand.

Bill is back in Iraq. We were laughing about them both blowing on their soup together, so I took a picture. The picture of Will was taken at the airport as they hung out together till Bill boarded the plane. Baby Will is getting so vocal and rolling over. As I cleaned the ashes from the cookstove and swept the great room floor this morning I was thinking of us probably needing to redo the wood floor for the grandkids. Like when Heather and Will return for the holidays, he's going to be crawling, and our floor is splintering! All the years of raising kids and Dawson having a sand-table in the greenhouse and tracking dirt all over has worn the floor out. People love it, but little hands and knees crawling about will not, and I rarely walk barefoot.

"What is REAL?" asks the Velveteen Rabbit of the Skin Horse.
"Real isn't how you are made" (they were looking at all the fancy toys surrounding them in the nursery). "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?"
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful, "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up, or bit by bit?"
"...You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

We sure do have tons of great memories bouncing off our very loved worn Real Velveteen House walls!

Cooking - a Spiritual Practice

2009-07-14T16:23:00.003-06:00

I read this, by a pastor John O'Hara, and wanted to capture it for me to ponder more and not lose it in cyberspace.
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It might just be the last honest place left. A sanctuary built into our living spaces that frees us to roll up our sleeves and creatively interact with the yield from God’s good creation, the kitchen calls us to a universal vocation and a spiritual exercise.

We cook for a variety of reasons, both noble and ignoble, sacred and common. It’s a practice that cuts across the boundaries of culture, class, religion, ethnicity and gender. It is a uniquely human pursuit and a universal experience that creates for us a bond which transcends all artificial lines of division. To cook is an exercise that teaches us to live with creation – and to live in sync with the rhythms of the Creator, if we are patient enough to wait for that goodness to flow our way. Often the temptation comes to circumvent this rhythm and flow; and it usually manifests in the towering backlit signs of fast-food drive through windows piercing the darkness of our hungry and hurried world, or in the form of fruits and vegetables shipped halfway across the earth to fulfill our dietary whims and industrial carbon quotas. How we eat what we eat and why we eat it are, beneath the surface and beyond the glittering reverberations of advertisers, spiritual questions that deserve the kind of wrestling and soul-searching normally reserved for prayer meetings and seminary classrooms. We have an existential relationship with other living things: we grow, we live, we die, we feed others from the stuff of our existence. Our relationship to food is a touchpoint for that world to which we mystically and metaphysically belong.

When I am in the kitchen, I am aware that I am preparing something real and visceral, something to be broken and consumed, enjoyed and shared. More than a mere illustration of something spiritual, it is spiritual in its’ very essence. When the Church of Jesus was in its’ infancy, the Acts narrative points to people making a daily discipline of worship and meals shared. Somehow I feel that we have lost our way in the fog of our industrialized efficiencies. Quick trips to the super warehouse mega store to pick up a slab of this and a pound of that – or more threateningly, something food-ish that has already been prepared, packaged and preheated and frozen in a factory before it reaches us – reduces us to a kind of two-dimensionality, to the vocation of a consumer; when instead we are so much more complex and beautiful creatures who were designed to participate in the food chain, not just feed off the top of it like some glorified trough. What we gain in convenience through supermarkets and fast food, we lose in the quality and tenor of that relationship to what we consume. In the preparation of food, in choosing foods that are local and in season, we are fractionally returning to a more vibrant stewardship over creation. One cannot help but imagine that doing so enhances our worship relationship with the Creator.
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Heather and Bill come home tonight. I think Bill flies back to Iraq Thursday.

Photos

2009-07-13T14:00:00.003-06:00

Since it's raining I decided to look at photos from the 4th of July. I downloaded lots of pictures on my photoblog for you to peruse. So click and see.

Travis took the silly picture of me. I have another similar one Dawson took of me too. We used to throw these pictures away, but now I think they're fun. With the digital era it's more fun to take pictures without people having to 'pose' and be perfect (or somber as days of old pics).

Bear Sagas

2009-07-13T07:46:00.004-06:00

I'm reminiscing about bears since my last post. Last night, going down to the kitchen for something, I did look out the window wondering whether I'd see a bear again. But I did remind myself, and Monte, that bears seem to cycle through every two or three days ... That is if it feels there's something to return for.

I'm a city born and raised girl. My favorite books were those about country living. Am I living in the country now? Am I truly living in the mountains? Living at 8000 feet may seem like mountains to many. I do remember drawing a picture for the kids when we were traveling around Washington with Monte as he'd do geology things.

The first third of our marriage we traveled with Monte (that's about twelve years). We'd be gone about a week and home for a couple then gone again. Homeschooling flowed into that lifestyle since we wanted to continue being with Monte. When Monte was looking for old prospects in brambly Washington and visiting geologic companies we were there for six weeks. My journal says I only saw the sun for 15 minutes here and there and luckily the sky was clear when we were in Seattle and could get a view of the mountains.

Most of the coast's mountains are 8000 feet tall - that's where I live! occasionally you'd see a 14er, like Mt Hood or Baker and St Helen's before it blew. What I drew for the kids was those mountains in comparison to sea level. Denver is a mile high, so we're hardly 2500 feet over that with 14ers behind us. So I live in the foothills. I can be to the edge of Denver in half-an-hour and most people who live around us commute to Denver for work and play daily. So am I in the country? Since we've had chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and bees, I think that's 'country'. Since we have deer, elk, coyotes, fox, mountain lions, and bear ... that's country. (Dawson took the photo of the elk in our neighbor's trailer with straw.)

When walking in the country around Vancouver and Washington I'd heard to make noise so you don't startle a bear. When one summer we were having many bear sitings, especially a mother with cubs, I remembered about making noise. My lower garden and chicken coop are on the edge of the woods. So what noise did I make one day? Don't ask me why, cuz there was no pre-meditated thought behind it ... but I just started singing - "Bears eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy/ A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you" (or is it 'mares'?).

Bears put a damper on the kids sleeping out in a tent all summer that year. I was hanging clothes out to dry that summer (tho it's the 'green' thing to do, did you know neighborhoods are fighting the issue do to covenants against clotheslines?). As i was carrying the laundry basket a bear was startled and stood up. Now THAT'S Big, and scary, and I was startled! So for the rest of this summer I'm going to probably be doing more looking over my shoulder and looking for bears everywhere.

In an August 2007 post, I told of finishing off the garage and the garage doors were open. All the bear got into that time was the dog food. We now always look each evening to make sure the garage doors are closed. I have marked on my calendar in August about a bear in the garage in 2001 (I like to remember things). Monte and me were awakened in the night by a plasticy sound against the driveway gravel. It was a bear licking clean an ice cream tub. That bear had eaten a VERY well-rounded meal! It had eaten a ham, peaches, bread, spinach, and then ice cream for dessert.

Bears are DIRTY! That bear had opened the chest freezer and left dirty, greasy smudges all along the edge of the freezer. We had an old carpet in the garage at the time with exercise equipment on it. Over time dirt started building up in areas, showing forth bear footprints. Bear footprints ... that reminds me - we do have some plaster casts still of bear footprints the kids and me made from prints left on the dirt road.

Monte wants Dawson to add fencing wire over the screen windows in the bunk house. We built a 'bunk house' in the mid 90's for kids to sleep in. Since I'm in the story-telling mood, I'll tell "the rest of the story" ... The bunk house was originally built right behind our house, close to it. We didn't want to keep it there. Well, what often happens around here is we sit around talking for long spells, and action often follows. It was winter. "How's about pulling the bunk house around the house over the snow like a sled?" ... "I'll wager it'll fall apart." ... "Naw it won't." As you can see, it's sitting quite nicely, intact, and it's even shingled. The number 4 you see on the door in the lower picture? is for Dawson's frisbee golf course.

One summer Monte and me slept in the bunkhouse until it got so rainy and felt musty damp all the time. Two sides are window screen (we don't even cover the open windows in the winter - snow doesn't get in). Company overflow sleep there. It has built in plywood sleeping areas, a couch with lamp table and a desk. Monte plastered copied photos all over one wall (reminds me of a place we rented that had Norman Rockwell pics all over the outhouse walls. I wish I'd saved them before the old place collapsed under snow!). Dawson is sleeping in the bunkhouse this summer, along with his friends when they are staying over (partly in consideration of Heather and baby Will). If they leave any food scraps of any kind a bear could easily get in!

BEAR

2009-07-12T07:29:00.005-06:00

I had to open up August 2007 to see what I posted. I began this blog almost two years ago and I remembered a lot of initial posts about a bear. That's when we FINALLY after years of frustration got an electric fence! Now we can sleep in peace and Monte doesn't have to sleep out in a tent with his gun. :-D

Yes, there is a story of Monte sleeping out there. An old friend used to make up songs about some of our sagas and a naked Monte sneaking about our neck of the woods was put to music. One of the naked Monte stories involved a skunk ... are you curious? I might tell you.

Monte heard a bear last night. I heard his footsteps upstairs running, not meandering. I was knitting. I finally took the time to undo part of a monkey I'm knitting and figuring it out so I can continue.

It was a good day yesterday. I had bought more perennial plants last week. I read in the 2007 August postings that I strive to fill in spots in my perennial beds for blooming throughout the seasons ... which reminds me of an old book by Gene Stratton-Porter called The Harvester in which the main character prepared his home setting for a woman in need of healing. He took care in planning the gardens thinking through the season's visual interests. And I'm still filling in spots, both with new purchases, starting my own plants, dividing my old plants and moving things around.

Ahhh ... Gene Stratton-Porter ... if you've not read her books ... We visited her historic place in Indiana on a road trip. At that time they were excited because something like a time-capsule was found in Alaska containing old movies. They were hoping some of Gene's old movies would be in there since some of them are long gone. For years we've collected and read all her books, written in the early 1900's.

Most people are familiar with Freckles and Girl of the Limberlost. Gene was a lady ahead of her times and yet so much a part of her times in a way that helped me see my grandmother Nellie Herder's world. Characters in her books were herbalists collecting plants and insects and such from the woods for that day's medicines. My grandmother was a homeopathic nurse and she understood these medicines and would grumble about the new medicines the medical world was moving into. Gene's characters were photographers, moth collectors (there are moth's more beautiful than butterflies - I know, cuz Dawson has some in his collection - and that's got its own stories I could tell) and bird watchers and keepers of the woods so lumber companies couldn't cut down heirloom trees. Gene herself made her bathroom into a darkroom for developing her own photos (I did that in high school - fun).

Anyway, I'm still gardening. I woke this morning with thoughts of moving some plants, like a grapevine, to Dawson's newest bed he just finished. This is the last bed to be made. I didn't want to make him do anymore rock work, which meant collecting truckloads of rock from excavating a neighbor did as well as truckloads of topsoil. BUT, when I said I'd be content to leave the area the already flat level it was, he said, "But I want to make a spiral bed!" Wasn't he joking? No! "Okay, go ahead and do what you want." Monte finished posts that extend our pergola out into the new deck to the hot tub. (Remember the old posts about the oozing hot tub plant bed that collapsed? It's just finished now too. And it's still oozing/draining from the gravel and pipe the boys put in.)(See the blue wheel-barrow in the above picture? All this labor over the years ruined it. Dawson forged and welded the metal anew and Monte sanded and refurbished the wood handles. I painted it. It's like new!)

Once all the rocks are moved, finishing off some areas left in limbo, we'll get the last bit of area ready to put down some sod. Beyond his spiral bed is an area Monte will finish. He's already dumped large lichen covered rocks and will arrange it along with the knight he brought up from the lower garden and he wants to move some natural plants from the surrounding meadows, like Colorado wild irises and kinnikinnik bushes (notice it spells backwards the same?)(and there's a kinnikinnik story I could tell of Travis). Monte still has to get some picket fencing - he wants French Gothic - to do some finishing garden visual touches and make gates for the split-rail fence.

Gates ... lack of ... that's where the bear came through last night. Originally it was in our trash trailer - that's when Monte heard it. We went up to his office for a better view. I couldn't get a picture of it. The motion-sensor light on the tree went on backlighting the bear standing in the trailer rummaging for anything edible. The only smelly thing in there would be diapers (Heather's switched to cloth diapers now when not on the road). But not diapers ... he found some of Dawson's vehicle trash and licked clean some Starbucks cups. With composting and recycling there's nothing worth raiding the trailer for anymore.

We thought he'd go get into the compost bins, which Monte thought "okay - he'd stir it up" :) - but he didn't. He/she/it just rambled toward the house. We had to run down from the office to head him off. That's when Monte saw him come under the electric fence at a spot Dawson's finishing rock stairs up from the driveway parking area to our backyard. He could have then ruined the birdfeeders, like the bear did over and over again two years ago. Monte yelled him away and proceeded, in his socks and underwear, to put a board in front of the future gate opening and put the rails back into the split-rail where the truck has been driving through. He said, "It's an adolescent bear"... "How can you tell?!" ... "It's not big". I thought it big enough ... big enough to do damage ... control of my domain has be shattered.

It was a nice day ... I finished planting, putting my watering wand on mist to keep me cool while planting and weeding, cleaned everything up before it rained, knit listening to "Prairie Home Companion" and went to church. Went to church last night cuz Monte left early to go fishing. Dawson and friends are up Mt Evans backpacking. They left Friday morning and will come home Monday night. Monte's meeting them on top at Lincoln Lake and will come home later today with fish. Yes he will ... he always comes home from that lake with fish. It's a snowmelt sink hole near the top of the 14,000 foot mountain top. He has to hike down about 1000 feet. Dawson hiked up.

Me? I didn't go. "Enjoy your day!" Monte said as he kissed me goodbye as I lay in bed. I've now taken time to write! Hi. Bye. Tata for now.

Happenings

2009-07-08T11:43:00.004-06:00

I just can't seem to write blogs these days. I am still gardening and enjoying the out-of-doors. Our summer is finally here - it sure was a cool soggy June. I've been sitting out at my table under the umbrella reading and enjoying the fruits of my efforts, still dreaming more (since some areas are still being finished - like the collapsed side of the hot tub, tho finished with drainage pipe and rock and beds finished, is not yet planted and still oozing out the drainage pipe), and I'm enjoying my bird sanctuary - keeping my eyes posted for a western tanager siting - rare.

Reading? Have had some library books on gardening, and the one's I'm actually reading are in connection with art and artists. Like many artists created gardens, like Monet for one. Understanding the color wheel and showing garden examples of it has been thought provoking for me. Another library book I'm reading is Why Faith Matters by David J Wolpe.

Here's a quote from it, quoting Einstein:

"Science without religion is lame,

religion without science is blind."

And another from Kierkegard:

"Life is lived forward

but can only be understood backward."

We did go spend 4th of July weekend at Travis and Sarah's and need to sort through all the pictures taken that day. Heather is still in California with Bill's family and his brother's funeral is this Friday. They're in a furnished house on a military base there rather than a hotel - cheaper and nicer. I haven't heard from her lately so will need to call.

Hope y'all are enjoying your summer.

Taken Away Ones

2009-06-28T17:04:00.003-06:00

We sang in church this morning: "Blessed Be Your Name" by Matt Redman ... which brought about thoughts on current happenings with their emotions ... and too, memories ...

Blessed be Your name Lord: in the land that is plentiful ... When I'm found in the desert place ... When the sun's shining down on me/ When the world's all as it should be ... On the road marked with suffering ... Every blessing you pour out/ I'll turn back to praise/ When the darkness closes in Lord/ Still I will say/ Blessed be Your name ...

The part that brings me to tears is "You give and take away/ You give and take away/ My heart will choose to say/ Lord, blessed be your name." The memory?

Years ago, I had a friend die of cancer. Her son Eric and my Dawson were friends and they'd done a lot together - Ruth taking them hiking, rollerblading, hunting insects, and creating together. Randy is a great father to Eric and Rachel and eventually started dating, but said he couldn't find a sweet woman. When Monte had ripped his hamstring and found out his massage therapist was a single mom and a sweet woman, he had them arrange a date ... and they're now happily married. At their wedding they had this song sung. I was near the front and saw young Rachel singing along and crying, and of course I cried, and I still cry, thinking of that moment's emotions.

Thoughts? This week Michael Jackson and Farrah Faucet died. I didn't didn't think I new much of Michael's music, but as the news is continually playing his songs I'm realizing the history I DO know. And I used to love Farrah Faucet's hair, wishing mine could be like hers.

Current happenings? At the same time as their deaths, Bill's brother died suddenly in the night. Heather was called, and Bill notified thru the Red Cross. So Bill flew into Denver yesterday morning and will be in the States several weeks. Heather, Will, and him are leaving tomorrow morning, driving to California to help Bill's dad settle all the details of death/funeral arrangements. And too, Bill will need to see how his dad, whom his brother was living with, is handling life. Then they drive back here and Bill back to Iraq till January. And Heather and Will resume their staying here the rest of the summer before returning to Texas.

Father's Day?

2009-06-25T08:53:00.003-06:00

Travis had asked what he might give Monte for Father's Day and I said he'd probably say "he doesn't need anything other than having you visit or write a poem/song". Since Travis couldn't come our way, we decided to visit them Monday, so Heather, Will, Monte and me drove up early morning, and Dawson with Splarah came a bit later. I brought sourdough starter and made us our second breakfast before starting to work.

Travis's goal for the day was to mud their bathroom. My goal for the day was to replant a lot of their garden that got ruined by hail. Monte's goal for the day was to build them shelves in their pumpkin colored loft room.

By the way ... Travis and Sarah are pregnant. Sarah miscarried several months ago, but this time she's over the initial hump ... before telling people. So there's definite goals of things to be done before the baby comes in January.

They had bought a foreclosure several years ago and it's almost done. It was gross! - chain smokers and animal smells, so everything was removed and we went thru gallons of Kills paint! Yucky cabinets and linoleum removed. Travis did hardwood flooring for most of it. He's slowly been redoing the stair railings - there's three levels. Their bathroom is the last big thing to be done, and it was gross too! First off, a terrible design. They've removed walls, moving the door, covering closed an unnecessary doorway into their bedroom, so it's now a big open room with lots of potential. They need to tile the floor, get a new toilet and cabinet with sinks (the old cabinet, sink, and toilet can go to making a bathroom in the basement).

This is the third summer we've helped them put in their veggie garden. Last year we made the board beds so their little dog knows her boundaries. I still had 'extras' in my greenhouse I've been doling out to friends, so Sarah and me replanted tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and okra. I brought seeds I still have and we replanted pole beans, lettuce and spinach, basil and dill, and chard. It'll be an experiment: let's see how a 6/22 planting works. The thyme in the walkways shows NO hail damage! and luckily their cherry tomatoes and grapevine next to the house got no damage.

Heather helped a bit with the weeding and planting too, tho mostly caring for Will and resting. Splarah helped Travis with the drywall mudding. Dawson and Monte working together were able to finish the shelves in one day.

A Father/Family fun day together, ending with Dairy Queen blizzards as it was starting to rain, and then we drove home.

Summer Solstice and John the Baptist Day

2009-06-24T16:55:00.004-06:00

It's six months till Christmas! This is the day the creators of the church calendar chose for John the Baptist's birthday so we'd remember him and his story and his message for our soul's benefit.

AND it is full blown summer with earth's bounty, nature is breathing out all its extravagance of warmth, plants and color. In comparison to Fall and Winter, my soul relaxes and has less concentration. Inwardly I'm in more of a day-dreamy state.

When Summer Solstice or Midsummer Night's Eve rolls around I always think, "Oh yeah, John the Baptist Day is here" and I remember his messages. Amid the abundance of summer's growth and fruiting, John was simply clad, and lived in the wilderness. Amid summer's heat and brilliance, John speaks of repentance and urges us to be introspective. He reminds me to look inward and be awake to the universe's mysteries.

While the external landscape calls me into all sorts of activity, I need to not forget or neglect the deep, rich and resourceful landscape of my inner soul.

I drew up a circular calendar visually showing the rhythmical, seasonal living, for my remembering. I added the seasonal progression with colors of the rainbow around the circle. As nature has its seasons and moods, I too have internal seasons reflecting the path of my soul. I call it soul breathing.

Summer Solstice is a breathing out time as nature is the exhale of the earth with the leafing out and bright colors. Summer has lot of growth and external activity. But internally it seems I kind of fall asleep, which is partially why I'm not posting often ... I'm in this dreamy summer state.

Fall absorbs the summer activity back into the earth. With fall we 'come down to earth'. We wake from our dreamy state. Autumn's 'trial by fire' with its fall colors brings an inner fire, bringing a warmth for the darkness of winter ahead. The clarity of my mind restores in the fall and along with it a new internal vigor and freshness.

Spring and Fall equinoxes are a balance of light and dark and seem to bring more busyness. From Winter's rest Spring brings new life, warmth and color. Winter is a breathing in, both externally and internally. As the natural world withdraws into the earth, we draw into the warmth of the house. Inwardly I'm very active with thinking, reading, pondering and creativity. It feels like a time of rest.

John began the announcement of the coming of the Kingdom and the Lamb of God, and said, "Prepare the way of the Lord","repent" (change my thinking). A reminder in the midst of summer's madness not to stray from the path, keeping my feet on solid ground; and keep my soul in balance in life's busyness.

"He (Jesus) must increase; I must decrease."

The days are now growing shorter leading to winter and a birth.

Rhubarb

2009-06-20T17:52:00.003-06:00

Today has been a cloudy day and now rainy all afternoon. For years Heather has been the main harvester of rhubarb, so since she's here, she harvested a bunch this morning and this afternoon we got it cut, bagged, and in the freezer - freezing 31 heaping quarts and 28 heaping pints.

When we picked out this site for our home to be built on, rhubarb and chokecherries were already here. They could be 100 years old. An old homestead foundation was here along with an outhouse and a smokehouse. I think the hitching rail is still standing.

The rhubarb had seeded way out into the meadow. We kept the ones to the back close to the chokecherries and aspen grove and woods, fencing in a space for a garden. A guy was here bulldozing a road into our site and the area for putting our house. He pulled back the sod from the garden area for us. That was 25 years ago - the longest home I've lived in.

Monte saw that we were going to be at the rhubarb for a long time so jumped in and helped us a lot! Will sat by watching when awake.

Look under "Recipes" to see my Rhubarb Custard Pie and Rhubarb Crunch recipes. I also use frozen rhubarb for making Rhubarb Aid which all guests have liked.

Story from Monte

2009-06-19T08:27:00.003-06:00

Three men were hiking through the forest when they came upon a large, raging, violent river. Needing to get on the other side, the first man prayed, “God, please give me the strength to cross the river.”
Poof! God gave him big arms and strong legs and he was able to swim across in about 2 hours, having almost drowned twice.

After witnessing that, the second man prayed, “God, please give me strength and the tools to cross the river.” Poof! God gave him a rowboat and strong arms and strong legs and he was able to row across in about an hour after almost capsizing once.

Seeing what happened to the first two men, the third man prayed, “God, please give me the strength, the tools, and the intelligence to cross this river.” Poof! He was turned into a woman. She checked the map, hiked one hundred yards up stream and walked across the bridge.

CS Lewis Quote

2009-06-18T08:31:00.002-06:00

"I believe in Christianity
as I believe that the Sun has risen,
not only because I see it,
but because by it I see everything else."

Sourdough Pancakes

2009-06-15T20:34:00.003-06:00

I just ground more rye flour for the sourdough starter I began almost two weeks ago. I've not had sourdough around for several years and we've been missing it - primarily for sourdough pancakes - our favorite!

I have a cookbook called Alaskan Sourdough I got years ago, though it's currently packed in boxes with most of my cookbooks in the garage because we dismantled a wall that the bookshelf was on almost two years ago, opening up the kitchen and great room more - and I'm seeing what I can't live without. I google recipes now and look on FoodNetwork.com, SplendidTable.org and find most anything I want. Like I googled sourdough pancakes and the first entry was from that Alaskan cookbook of mine.

The Alaskan sourdough is made from potato water and sugar and flour (maybe yeast initially?). I've never made sourdough using milk like some recipes use. The current recipe I'm using is from the book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. She claims the best results for sourdough starter are obtained from rye rather than wheat flour. And that's fine with me since we consume so much more wheat than any other grain. Her reasoning is because rye contains a lower phytate content (don't ask me what that means cuz I haven't researched it so I don't know).

Start with mixing 2 cups rye flour and 2 cups water and cover the bowl with cheescloth and let sit out on the counter (I've got my bowl covered with a dish towel and rubberband). Each day for a week add another cup each of rye flour and water, then it's ready for bread, which I've not made yet, and may not get to make, as the demand for the pancakes rules! and I don't have enough starter left for bread.

So, from the Alaskan cookbook-

Sourdough Pancakes

Start griddle heating.

Mix together:

2 C starter (I've been using 4 in a 2 quart pyrex bowl - it'll bubble up so bigger is better)

2 Tb sugar (double)

1 egg (I've used both 2 or 3 and either works)

4 Tb oil (double, using 1/2 cup, and I'm using olive oil)

1/2 tsp salt (double)

Mix together:

1 (2) tsp soda

1 (2) Tb warm water

and fold into batter and let set a bit to rise.

Using a ladle, pour the pancakes to cook on an oiled griddle.

They are best with maple syrup. I often cook up berries or old fruit, adding in any old jams needing to be used up. The fruit syrup is good with yogurt (I always have homemade on hand, look for my recipe). Leftovers are good. I haven't done it lately, but I used to spread leftovers with almond butter and raspberry jam, roll them up, and put in a sandwich baggie for a quicky meal when running errands.

The Alaskan cookbook tells historic stories and its said a special place was always made in their cabin/home for their starter and that they'd rather live a year without their rifle than without a sourdough starter. I also found it interesting that a ball of starter could be stored in the midst of flour in a flour sack, like if you were crossing the prairie in a wagon. Think about it ... no stores, no yeast (except for wild yeast, and that's another story that I have from my own experience) you'd sure love biscuits and bread rather than just crackers or tortilla like flatbread all the time.

Hail! etc

2009-06-14T14:52:00.004-06:00

OK ... we just had the hail - like I've never seen! I was sitting in my wing-back chair pulled close to the east window so to better see the beauty, drinking my tea, when the rain began, and then the hail. Watching the hail balls bounce out of the green grass was unreal - like a cartoon. And the hail got harder and harder to where it looked like a fast-speed movie of falling snow - unreal again. 'Twill be interesting to see what survived and resurrects ... like I'm seeing sparse flower petals drooped and hanging on for dear life, but most of them gone. Lots of bowed over stuff.

I'm also posting a picture Monte had taken of Will on his iPhone and I emailed it to myself as we were driving home from church.

I'm smelling wet pine and cedar ... there is wet wood in the greenhouse and it was leaking a bit ago. The gutters have finally cleared themselves of the abundant hail and are draining properly and not overflowing everywhere, probably ruining flower beds.

I'm thinking of farmers, feeling just a tad of what they must feel after such storms ... and their livelihood depends on what's growing and might be destroyed in one fell swoop!

Consuming Happenings

2009-06-14T08:05:00.006-06:00

Some people have asked where I am? Well, I am currently sitting outside right now as I write/type looking out at my beautiful environment: what I've created and what's naturally surrounding us, i.e., lush (for now) meadows, evergreen woods and aspen grove. Lush because we've been getting lots of moisture. it's been cool, not quite summer yet. Cool? While most of you are experiencing close to 100 degree days, our highs have been close to 70 and nights around 40. Birds are a big piece of the scene for me. I'd be hearing them anyway, but I've created a wonderful habitat for them that they seem to love and frequent.

My landscape architecture schooling is finally getting to show it's results in my home setting and especially now having an electric fenced yard. Finally getting to see what plantings look like when not destroyed by critters - primarily elk! It's satisfying and relaxing now to see the elk outside my domain. See them relaxing too, bedded down in the lush meadow? Their antlers are in velvet right now and not fully grown. Antlers are the fastest growing ... (I forget - help Monte).

This is the busiest time of the year for me, that's why I've not been writing. I'm still planting. Mother nature has done weird twists with the extra moisture. And then us messing with mother nature ... Like the hot tub we put in this past winter. We bulldozed into the hill so it would be nestled into the hillside. Good thing Monte walled it in with a drainage tube and gravel, but the flower bed and rock work Dawson got ready for me around the tub area collapsed and is still oozing with a slow running stream. I guess better now than later with lots of stuff planted. It's so easy (and cheaper) to dream and order lots of bare-root plants in February and have them come in the mail. But what if mother nature butts in showing me I'm not in total control?! Some things survived sitting in their wrappings in the cold garage and finally got planted when the snow was finally gone and are now leafing out - so I know they are alive. And some things I had to pot and let sit in my greenhouse and are now sitting, still in pots, outside awaiting some areas to get finished for planting.

Other happenings? Company: after the nephews of one of the last posts we've had a Norwegian guest and then Monte's geology partner Stan, and of course, lots of Dawson's friends, and then Heather with Will are here. So more cleaning (more organizing - going thru stuff I've not looked at for years!) and cooking. Heather's in the guest room, so we moved a dresser in there and I cleaned out the closet (think about what that would mean sister dear!). I set up the laundry room as another guest room with our nice air-bed for other guests that'll be occasionally coming.

The garage is clean now with Dawson having made a workshop under Monte's office deck, so the treadmill could have a final resting place, out of the laundry room and into the garage. Dawson and friend Nick finished the house siding out back. Dawson and friends took down rotting dog kennel and cleared out the whole area to that side of the house (wood piles, etc), moving his old ferret house (housing his old large fish tanks, gerbil stuff, and my garden stuff) down to attach to the old chicken coop. The coop will never house chickens again and is being cleaned up for storage of a differing 'beast' - occasionally used junk. Dawson and friends have been hauling rocks and dirt to finish back landscaping. They've had to put down boards at times since the wheelbarrows would sink in mud made from the oozing hot tub hillside.

Heather's enjoying being here. She's using my laptop, since it's accesible, and maybe that keeps me from writing a post too - but no, not really, I'm just outside mostly, tho I am outside now, but writing a post. Having come from hot Texas it's a bit cool for her, but she's liking it better than the humid heat. Summer will come here too soon. We'll typically jump from Winter/Spring weather to Summer heat - which for us averages in the 80's-90's.

Dawson just came out having awakened and is opening out his tents to air and dry, telling me climbing Pikes Peak yesterday was the hardest climb him and his climbing friends have ever done. Why? Because of the snow still on the ground in places. Well duh, what did they expect this time of year?!! The mountains are still getting snow (we've come close still)!

So current life is getting used to the new patterns of summer activity and having a Grandbaby around. It's good he's not crawling around yet - that'll be a new house reorganization come the holidays when Heather plans to return again for a spell. (Oh a bird just scared me, landing on my laptop and scared himself!) So the new season of life? being Grandparents.

Historical Discovery

2009-06-03T15:29:00.001-06:00

This is from Monte's brother:

After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year,
New York scientists found traces of copper wire
dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion
that their ancestors already had a telephone
network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the New Yorkers, in the weeks
that followed, a California archaeologist dug to a
depth of 20 feet, and shortly after, a story in
the LA Times read: "California archaeologists,
finding traces of 200 year old copper wire, have
concluded that their ancestors already had an
advanced high-tech communications network a
hundred years earlier than the New Yorkers."

One week later, The Town of Hill Journal, a local
newspaper in Wisconsin, reported the following:
After digging as deep as 30 feet in his pasture
near Town of Hill, Wis., Ole Olson, a self-taught
archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely
nothing. Ole has therefore concluded that 300
years ago, Wisconsin had already gone wireless.

Happenings

2009-06-02T15:07:00.005-06:00

It's raining today, so vegging out from my heavy gardening endeavors. My older body needs time-outs these days to recoup. My last post mentioned company: two nephews with the one's newly married bride, along with Travis and Sarah. Travis took pictures and I like this one of my boyfriend - I love my husband!

Monte is flying out soon to Austin and driving with Heather and little 4 month old Will to Evergreen. Heather will be staying here at home for most of the summer - getting out of that TX heat! Being here, I will definitely get pictures!

Our neighbor has let us use their water for our lower garden and we share the garden with them, tho they've not used it for several years. I've been planting more fruiting bushes and trees. Asparagus and rhubarb are there. It's got a 6 foot fence to keep out the elk. I'm doing more veggies up by the house now. WELL ... this neighbor now has kids. Heather nannied for them before she married. Now that they want to garden this year, Monte and me spent the other morning putting stakes by all the bush/trees and decorative fencing around the lower plants like strawberries, so the little running bodies don't trample things. As I was weeding, planting, and trimming things the other day, I could hear little kid voices wafting up from that garden, a pleasant sound. They are very pregnant with their third - all miracle kids having spent thousands to get pregnant (and some of us praying).

Heather will have a nice summer!

Dawson has definitely begun summer vacation with a constant flow of young people here. Sunday evening I walked into the kitchen to find two young ladies I don't know pulling out groceries for supper, for them and others coming - I did not know about this happening! I think the plan was to cook over a campfire and hang out there, but when it gets cloudy here, it cools off dramatically at 8000 feet! - and it had started raining. So Monte and me vacated to our bedroom to watch a movie and they played games into the night. I was so glad the following morning to see that they had cleaned everything up - that's nice!

Later ...

Life

2009-05-31T09:15:00.002-06:00

I have so much to post about, but I can't take the time. Company's been here. Feeling the return of the Velveteen Home with school done and all the young people hanging out and working around here besides having campfires and reminding me of all the food/drink stuffs I need to have around again.

And today is Pentecost ... Monte and me went to church last night. I need to get outside now, so will post later. But thoughts on Pentecost as counting Omer was coming to an end have been circling about in my thoughts ... too bad posts couldn't come direct from the brain ... someday ... scary!

Memorial Day Taps

2009-05-25T11:17:00.006-06:00

This morning Monte and me went to a Memorial Day service at Evergreen Memorial Park. Our friends Ron and Carol Lewis live next door. They own the land and have had buffalo for years, now also elk and European deer, and people started asking to be buried there - thus the cemetery, for people and pets. Ron marries people and buries people - a man of many hats. He wore a long black coat and a tall top hat for the service. Geese from the lake were 'honking'. It was overcast and chilly, but the sun was peeking through the clouds by the end of the service.

Taps were played by one of the soldiers with a bugle. "Taps" became "lights out" music with the added words-

"Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky,
All is well, safety rest, God is nigh."

I remembered hearing Taps at night at Ft Hood when I was staying with Heather. It's a beautiful, haunting melody that touches tenderly deep in my soul. If you click on the above line of music you can hear "Taps".

Taps history has its tales, but it did originate during the civil war. The story told this morning was of a son from the North at school in the South, so recruited by the South. The father, in the Union Army, came upon his son's body on the battlefield. Ron told the story, saying the boy was not yet dead, but died in his Father's arms. The single bugle Taps notes were sounded at his funeral.

The Poem "In Flanders Field" was read, with the lines-

We cherish too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies,
That blood of heroes never dies.

We sang the "Star spangled Banner" with it's little known other verse-
"On the shore dimly seen throughout the mists of the deep/ Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes/ What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep/ As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?/ Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam/ In full glory reflected now shines on the stream/ 'Tis the Star-Spangled Banner, Oh long may it wave/ O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

I like seeing large flags wave in the breeze, as did this morning's flag, catching the gleam of the peeking sun beams. I'm thankful for this Republic for which it stands. I'm grateful to all who have given their lives for freedoms we enjoy. I'm glad for calendar days like this that help us remember and not take these things for granted.

I was thinking of our son-in-law Bill in Baghdad. Hoping all is well. Knowing God is nigh and that safety rests in Him.

Calendar and Happenings

2009-05-23T09:04:00.004-06:00

You shall count for yourselves -- from the day after the Shabbat, from the day when you bring the Omer of the waving -- seven Shabbats, they shall be complete. Until the day after the seventh sabbath you shall count, fifty days... You shall convoke on this very day -- there shall be a holy convocation for yourselves -- you shall do no laborious work; it is an eternal decree in your dwelling places for your generations. -Leviticus 21:15-16, 21

Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, is what we're in the midst of right now, counting Omer - actually we're almost to the end of the 50 days after Easter, beginning the last week. We just passed the 40th day, Ascension Day, this past Thursday. I like to imagine me as one of Jesus' original disciples, having lived with him for three years. I've probably dreamed of ousting the Roman rule and Jesus setting up a Jewish Kingdom, that I can help lead. BUT WAIT! Jesus is rising into the sky! He's leaving us! This isn't the way I imagined it! Now what do we do?! Before leaving, Jesus told them to go back to Jerusalem and wait till the next Jewish First Fruit Festival - Shavuot. I imagine them in that upper room for ten days reliving every moment with Jesus, everything he did and said, and asking, "Now, what the heck did he REALLY mean?"!

Jesus rising into the sky ... This past Thursday the sky was very foggy and drizzly all day. Monte's been working on a geology powerpoint, telling the story of their new science, with several other geologists in this new team they are forming. Thursday he wanted to head down the hill to work a bit there at another office. So since the weather was adverse here and I needed some more potting soil and thinking of flowers to pot up, I dropped him off and ran errands.

I always picture the Ascension with blue sky and some fluffy white clouds, watching Jesus floating up and disappearing. I think it would be nice to have a picnic on that day and read scripture - laying on a blanket and watching the clouds. Maybe a helium balloon would be a nice addition to the 'remembering', watching it float up into the sky.

Maybe the 'remembering' should have us analyze things that Jesus did and said too. Do we really understand what he, as God, was showing us in his everyday living? Some people refer to themselves as Red Letter Christians and as they share stories, what you begin to see, is that things Jesus said often look different in differing settings - like we can't make one set of rules that applies to everything and everyone! When Jesus said "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand", what did he mean? When the religious leaders say not to associate with certain people, let alone eat with them ... Jesus shows us inclusiveness as he reaches out to untouchables and the outsiders.

Always lots to contemplate as I continue gardening. The siding on our 24 year old home is finally getting done, with gutter drainage improvements too. Compost bins were emptied, sifting it - re-linseed oiled - and the layering of weeds, grass, kitchen scraps and manure starting over again for new 'black gold'. Our neighbor dropped off old kitchen cabinets we're using to finish the laundry room - I'm going to need to paint them to match the room. And today I'm tightening the screws on old adirondack chairs, sanding, and painting them a sage green.

The Calendar gives me things to contemplate - a tool for living my days present to God.

KONOS and Jessica

2009-05-20T19:03:00.004-06:00

Since Monday, I've been reliving many memories.

I homeschooled my children. They never went to a school until college. I primarily used the KONOS character trait, unit study curriculum. I was a KONOS rep for 10 years, but actually started selling it earlier, do to my excitement, after I first bought it in 1985 from Carol Thaxton, one of the authors. I so believed in it and loved it (I still do - and will never get rid of it - it's such a great resource/reference)! I could go on-and-on about the curriculum ... konos is Greek for "cone", the curriculum is Christian based, seeing God at the top of an inverted cone, symbolizing the interconnectedness of all of life (including the integration of typical school subjects). We utilized library books (living books) rather than textbooks (dead?books)(and I could go on-and-on about that too - primarily along the lines of first-hand knowledge and living vs second or third-hand info/knowledge). As a rep, it meant I traveled all over talking to hundreds of people - at conventions, and doing workshops ... which led to Monte and me speaking as keynotes, and at churches and camps.

The other author of KONOS is Jessica Hulcy. Monday morning a volunteer firetruck broadsided her, and she is in the hospital. An MRI is giving us hope. There's a site for checking on Jessica and all:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/jessicahulcy/journal/1

KONOS was another family to me. We as reps from all over the country met together regularly, both at the Hulcy's home and our home. We hosted a KONOS reps family camp for four years (I'd often have nightmares worrying that I didn't have enough food or beverages for everyone), and "The Dads" KONOS video was recorded here at our home. We had so much fun together and intense conversations! I don't think we could live close together without burn-out.

Dawson was so young at the time and always dirty. I used to tease that he was like pig-pen in Charlie Brown with a dirt cloud around him, cuz he always left little piles of dirt behind, even when I knew he was clean (like even in airports on our way to Florida). Jessica was forever carrying around a wash cloth wiping the kids clean, especially Dawson. There was a video crew here that year. The kids will still joke about dumping the chicken bucket (now the compost bucket) and the camera person not getting it right and wanting it dumped again for a re-take. We'd sing around a campfire, play volleyball, the kids would do music, and do a talent show. Jessica had everyone organized with a chore chart. Monte always planned a treasure hunt out-of-doors utilizing orienteering skills.

Monte always went to these meetings too - so only the Hulcy boys, Wade Hulcy, and Monte - amongst all these women. These were the women involved in the beginnings of the homeschool movement - the trailblazers - the ones involved with the beginnings of state laws being formed favorable to homeschooling. Monte went with me everywhere (he's the extrovert - and more talkative), he wrote songs, and would inspire everyone with his infectious passions. But the primary passionate one is Jessica!!!! In doing a fun personality test, Jessica comes out as an extreme Lion (as too Monte)! She's a dynamic visionary, a loquacious genius, a very fun person ... and I could go on-and-on about her (Monte could write this particular post better than me - with more and better memories! - but then he can be wordy - he's actually quite the story-teller).

Jessica and the Hulcy men need prayers. I'm remembering and praying.

Calendar Stories

2009-05-17T08:57:00.003-06:00

Calendar girl me is neglecting some Church Calendar stories that I like to remember each year as the calendar recycles. Stories that are a part of our early church history. Stories that the Catholic Church decided needed to be remembered.

I like the calendar as a tool for remembering stories. I drew up my own calendar as a circle, since we rhythmically revisit the yearly seasons. I’m not Catholic and didn’t grow up knowing anything of church history, and I never read the Bible for myself until I was 19, and that’s when I really fell in love with Jesus, when I seriously wanted to live in relationship with God.

At a desert place in my life, I wanted to strengthen my knowledge of the past. I began with Jewish history, realizing their history is retold rhythmically each calendar year. As my reading took me into early Christian history I started reading stories of people who we remember and they should all have a day on our calendar. I see these stories as a carrying on of the first and second Testaments into a Third Testament.

Why not carry on these stories, “retelling the stories”, “teaching the children”, as scripture so often says. It’s a great way God desires of us, so that we know ourselves, know that our identity is in this larger drama than just me, myself, and I.

So once, when other people were filling out a questionnaire asking who your hero/heroine is with people like Dr Phil or Oprah, I filled the blank in with Catherine of Siena (her calendar day is April 29).

When you read hagiography there’s so much we, looking back on, this is ridiculous and weird. It takes a lot of wading through before you find the real person. But those weird to me things still cause me to stop and ponder, like putting myself in their shoes and try and understand their era.

In Catherine’s era (she died in 1380 at the age of 33) we’d have lived with Europe’s great famine and the plague. An era when most people did not read and write; an era when people desired visions and the stigmata and some lived with self-imposed harsh asceticism; and some women betrothed themselves to Christ.

I wrote more about Catherine last year. The piece of her story that speaks to me is that after three years of secluding herself away, Jesus said, “Enough. The only way you can serve me is in the service of your neighbor!” - and that she did, nursing people, writing books, and writing to kings and popes about reform. Yes, I wrote plural popes, it’s not a typo. Catherine lived during a time called The Great Schism in church history – religion and politics have made history very interesting.

I can’t believe I didn’t post about St George this year (April 23). I usually put my dragon I made on the kitchen table as a visual reminder. It’s a dragon I keep with my Christmas crèche figures (read Revelation 12). Prior to the early 300’s when Constantine made Christianity the empire’s religion, there was a lot of persecution and martyrdoms.

George was a Palestinian soldier who suffered martyrdom in 303 in the persecutions of Diocletian. It’s believed stories of George were brought home to England by the crusaders. It’s a basic tale of good and evil, with many variations – a young knight who rescues a maiden from a flying reptile with bad breath. One tale has him leashing the dragon with the princess’s garter, leading it through town and converting pagans to Christianity; or maybe he just cut off its head. In England, cutting off a dragon’s head, is what’s celebrated. A dragon is often made of bread dough and the children cut off its head.

What intrigues me most about St George is there’s a shrine for him in the Middle East. Jews think it’s the site of Elias. Christians are remembering a soldier championing against the power of evil. Moslems celebrate George as a demigod who endured a series of tortures and call him “Khidir”, the green man. It’s said his shrine has almost more activity than Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulchre – and too, there’s Christians and Moslems praying side-by-side.

And then there’s April 30, another piece of church history. St Pius V, a pope, in 1570 excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I of England. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Council of Trent (not that you know about it)? It straddled several popes lasting 18 years, finalized in 1563. Pius V had the job of instituting it. Its main purpose? Or question actually – what to do with Protestantism? Which really meant NO Protestantism! I’ve written before that Protestantism and Catholicism took over a hundred years of horrible battles, terrible persecutions and imprisonments, before they could live side-by-side, co-existing. It became a Counter-Reformation in the Catholic Church – another interesting era. But you should read about all this.

My brief synopsis? King Henry VIII wanted separation from the Church of Rome. A truly religious desire? No, just political, but the Church ruled then. So Henry and Elizabeth were on the Protestant side, with Bloody Catholic Mary between them. John Knox is another name to know associated with Scotland in this same battle. France and other countries had their battles too. It’s hard for us to imagine living with only one religious option, yet we’d rather other religious viewpoints not exist, right?!

Another person I skipped is Athanasius of Alexander (May 2). He’s noted as a Doctor of the Church (as is two women: Catherine of Sienna and Teresa of Avila), and he’s called the “Father of Orthodoxy”, and died in 373. So Athanasius lived when Christianity was becoming the religion of the Empire, and was a part of the Council of Nicaea, which condemned Arianism in 325 but had to be expanded and affirmed further in 381 at the Council of Constantinople.

Athanasius spent several years with the Desert Father Anthony and wrote his life story, which is still in print today. The majority of his life was spent fighting Arianism and was exiled five times for his defense of Christ’s divinity.

Did you know there’s a James the Less? His story is remembered on May 3. With these calendar days there’s a bit of confusion, just as there is with all the Marys, as to which James this is – whether James the apostle or James the brother of Jesus. Jesus’ brother did not believe in him as the Messiah till after Jesus’ resurrection and Jesus appeared to him. James became the first bishop of Jerusalem.

May 15, recognizes a laborer: St Isadore the Farmer. There’s lots of art work done depicting a piece of his story. He worked for a large landowner from Madrid all his life. Fellow workers complained about his lateness to work some mornings, because he lingered too long praying. He talked with God as he plowed. It’s told that all he did was successful, reminding me of Jacob with Laban. Many art pieces have an angel plowing while he’s off praying.

And then there’s, May 16 – The Feast Day of St Brendan. Brendan lived from 484-577. A stamp was issued in 1994 picturing Brendan in a curragh – a round, hide-covered boat. Stained glass windows have been made of him calling him the Navigator and Voyager. Frederick Buechner tells his story in a book called Brendan. He traveled afar. Ogham, Irish transcriptions written prior to the 800’s, have been found in North America.

Just a religious allegory? We don’t know, but it reminds me of a word I learned: peregrinatio. It's a hard word to define. Our definition of 'pilgrimage' does not really fit this word because since the Middle Ages pilgrimages have plans and destinations and when the goal is accomplished, people return home.

It's been told that three men were in such a skin boat without oars, and when found they said they were "on a pilgrimage, we care not where". It's a celtic word for a journey undertaken for the love of God - surprising and risky and not really having some end or goal in view. But it's not a restless wandering because there seems to be some sense of grounding, and 'at-homeness'.

Brendan's story reminds me that I too have an at-homeness in God, but am I willing to go wherever the Spirit desires me, into the unsafe and unfamiliar - both external and internal journeying?!

Dream Quote Ponderings

2009-05-16T09:01:00.003-06:00

"Those who've abandoned their dreams will discourage yours.
Your job is to not listen."
- Bill Baren

I just read that quote and wanted to post it, to capture it, so to ponder.

Pondering about people who tend not to dream or dream too small. Pondering dreaming as giving one life and hope.

Or pondering those who do the discouraging of others. Do they dare to dream? Or why do they abandon their dreams? Do they need to step on others to feel better? feel better than you? feel better about themselves? Or maybe step on you in hopes of getting taller so maybe they can see further? yet in attempting to shatter dreams ... what is really going on?

Pondering not listening ... Some speak lies - these we're to not believe ... Listening is a piece of communication, which I'm all for ... yet there's a place for not dialoguing, like in the Garden of Eden story ... How do we know, how can we tell, when not to listen? It makes me think of John 10 and knowing My Shepherd's voice amongst all the other voices.

Oh that I know my shepherd and his voice, and in knowing and loving my shepherd, I have life and hopes and large dreams!!

Tulips and Mud

2009-05-13T07:40:00.004-06:00

Not much happening calendar-wise for Calendar Girl me. That is, nothing important to me with a story that touches me. But the race is on with the calendar and the gardening season - that's where my heart is right now.

We got to name the road we live on, which is Singing Springs Lane. We sing, and there's lots of springs around our property. Some of the springs only show up with excavation and spring snow melts ... like now.

Dawson had finished the rock work around the hot tub, and I've got plants to plant there in the greenhouse. But the ground is still oozing and it's soup. So for the future, Monte wants to put in gravel and a drainage pipe. It'll be in limbo for awhile.

Tarda tulips are blooming. I'd plant tons of tulips because I love them, but hybrid tulips don't last long. Tarda tulips are the original wild tulips that all the others have been developed from.

I have so much weeding to do. There are thousands! of these baby weeds - not sure what they are. Could have come from last year's gypsophilia is all I can think of.

Planted some nursery potted raspberries yesterday. We've got lots of wild raspberries around, but I'm wanting to see what other raspberries will do. While there in the garden, I picked green onion stalks and asparagus to eat together while working.

Did I say I'm trying sweet potatoes this year? I do already have regular potatoes in pots and the first batch is almost to the top of the pot already, with the addition of soil as they grow. Well, I got some sweet potato slips and decided to try them in pots. I couldn't find any info about doing them that way. But they vine and flower like morning glories, so I thought I'd put bamboo poles in them. And from reading, I'm guessing the tubers just grow down like most root plants and not up, like potatoes. We'll see. When all set up, I'll post pictures.

Happy Mothers Day

2009-05-10T09:03:00.004-06:00

WANTED:
Hardy woman to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the next 40-50 years. Successful application will demonstrate excellence in cooking, cleaning, shopping, washing, ironing, mending, folding, sorting, dusting, polishing, scrubbing, budgeting, and decorating. Ability to bear children and get up several times a night to walk a crying baby, a definite plus. Knowledge of basic first-aid, how to fix a boo-boo, kiss an owie, make a tourniquet, and beat a fast path to the nearest emergency room. Must know how to celan an oven, get a grape juice stain out of a beige carpet, and what to do about bubble gum in the baby's hair. Must be willing to taxi offspring to and from school activities, music lessons, friend's houses, band practice, sporting events, part-time jobs, the mall and so forth. Salary nonnegotiable - actually nonexistent. Fringe benefits include hugs and kisses.

I answered this add. I chose this lifestyle. I'm in year 34 of the years mentioned. This add is how I start my HomeMaking Beyond Maintenance workshop.

Thinking of MOMS today.

Monte and me are going to Travis and Sarah's to celebrate. And then we're helping them put in their garden.

Hats is what I think of ... All the hats we wear. I'm a Domestic Engineer!

"God did not call me to be successful. God called me to be faithful."

- Mother Teresa

"Talking God's Ears Off"

2009-05-08T06:27:00.006-06:00

I did start my MOPS devotional as mentioned earlier with "If you had but one year left to live, how would you live it"? When Monte and me analyzed that question years ago it seems everything came back to relationship. Relationship with family and friends seems most important, and everything that nurtures those relationships - like time, conversation, making memories.

Having a 'white glove' approved house, and organizing my computer files seem unimportant. Wasting time bickering seems unimportant ... watching TV? ... (you add to the list) ... Do we make comments like, "I can't wait till the kids are grown and then I'll really live!"? We tend to live as if we've got all the time in the world.

That nurturing of relationship with family and friends applies as well to my relationship with God. God sought me and romanced me, wooing me to him. We relate in many ways, but sitting with scripture is one way I really strive to do regularly. So in sitting, simply being with him, he often gives me insights.

I read the Mary and Martha story from Luke 10. In that scene we tend to focus on Jesus telling Martha that Mary has chosen the good/better thing in sitting and listening to him and learning. Listening is a good thing. It nurtures relationship.

Do we really listen to our friends and family? our kids? I used to often say, "My kids are talking my ears off" in a half joking way, yet it's also saying, "they're driving me crazy!!!!", "they're bugging me", interrupting my time.

I got to thinking ... I bet God would LOVE me to "talk his ears off"!

In this scripture scene, as I sit with another reading, I see that "Martha welcomed Jesus into her home". In reading the gospels we see that Martha, Mary and their brother Lazarus and Jesus are friends. He often goes to their home. Martha has made her home a hospitable place to be. Jesus feels at home there.

I used to have a book that might have been titled "Less of Martha and More of Mary" which is denigrating Martha. The book's message was actually more of Martha so there can be more of Mary.

I've taken on, chosen the 'job' of homemaker. What if construction workers, architects, surgeons ... haphazardly did their jobs without learning skills and researching the best tools for their jobs. That's how most of us homemakers approach our job - haphazardly. If we learned how to best establish our homes for better utilization, we should have more time to be Mary, sitting at Jesus' feet, playing games with our kids ...

Does Jesus tell Martha to stop doing what she's doing and sit at his feet too? No. He just reminds her that she's worried/anxious and distracted/troubled in what she's doing. This I think is the main point of this whole scene!

The reality of life is that I DO have to work in the kitchen, have laundry to do, cleaning ... Jesus is asking Martha, to not go about it worried and distracted, but to BE PRESENT TO HIM, to God, in what she's doing.

Time spent in these quotidian activities have the potential of worship! So in wanting to live my days better, as I go about my ordinary dailies, I have the potential with an attitude change, a God-consciousness, to turn the ordinary into EXTRAordinary. I can be fully present, fully alive in each moment, and use the time to "talk God's ears off"!

Cinco de Mayo

2009-05-05T16:48:00.004-06:00

I just returned from the grocery store cuz I'm making a Cinco de Mayo meal for guests ... but not on thee day today, but tomorrow night. We've got house guests coming. If kids were coming I might have considered a pinata. In Arizona we often celebrated with pinatas, and I've made them.

Traditional pinatas are seven pointed stars, representing the devil and seven deadly sins. Inside are blessings, the devil is withholding. The blindfolding represents faith, and striking 'the devil' releases the blessings.

I posted this last year and just had to do it today! -

Most people don't know that back in 1912,
Hellmann's mayonnaise was manufactured in England.
In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment
scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico,
which was to be the next port-of-call for the great ship
after its stop in New York.

This would have been the largest single shipment of
mayonnaise ever delivered to Mexico. But as we know,
the great ship did not make it to New York.
The ship hit an iceberg and sank, and the cargo was forever lost.

The people of Mexico, who were crazy about mayonnaise,
and were eagerly awaiting its delivery, were disconsolate at the loss.
Their anguish was so great, that they declared
a National Day of Mourning,
which they still observe to this day.

The National Day of Mourning occurs each year
on May 5th and is known, of course, as Sinko de Mayo.
_________________

I grew up next to Mexico. I do know the real Cinco de Mayo story.
Though a small victory against the French,
it was a turning point for Mexico.
Lots of gaiety, color, and good food.
How is Mexico celebrating today I wonder?

What If ...

2009-05-05T06:29:00.005-06:00

What if you knew you had but one year left to live, what would you be doing today ... and tomorrow ... and the next day ...? My emotions of the past few days have brought me back to this thought, asked of me years ago by a very dear older lady.

As I sat next to my friend Sunday morning, very recently diagnosed with breast cancer, she was praising and trusting God. As I tried to sing the worship songs, I wasn't very worshipful. I was trying to absorb her positive attitude ... I was feeling her husband's pain ... but the songs words had me going thru the wringer of emotions, including sadness and madness ... but maybe that's exactly where God wanted me, maybe that is worship.

I know lots of people who have, and are, living many years beyond that diagnosis. But maybe we all need to live each day from the outlook of what that diagnosis would bring. It wouldn't mean, shouldn't bring, ditching our jobs and sailing around the world - but living each individual extraordinary day intentionally. Not running away from our life, but fully embody the life we're leading.

I've been thinking thru what to do for a devotional at tomorrow's last MOPS meeting. I had an idea ... but now I've been pondering this returned thought. We tend to live as if we have all the time in the world.

I ordered a bunch of books from the library a while back under the theme of "Creative Journalling" and a book that must be popular just came and I started reading it last night. Where did it begin? What if you only had 37 days left to live ... OKaaaaayy God ... I think this is where you want me to begin tomorrow's devotional. The book is Life Is A Verb. I think I ordered it because the title intrigued me. I had posted earlier the thought to ponder: "God is a Verb".

So ponder.

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life."
- Steve Jobs

"Time only seems to matter when it's running out."
- Peter Strup

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it."
- James M Barrie (author of Peter Pan)

"What you do, [when you find out you have a year to live] if you have little kids, is lead as normal a life as possible, only with more pancakes."
- Marjorie Williams

Nursery?

2009-05-04T07:29:00.000-06:00

Monte sent me this:

On my first day of school, my parents dropped me off at the wrong nursery.
There I was….surrounded by trees and bushes...

May Day

2009-05-02T11:09:00.004-06:00

Two days of thick pea soup fog. But I have been outside and got my bareroot things planted - which means all our snow melted. Will we get some more overnight? We could, but it's May! and it warms quickly when the sun's shining.

The first picture shows some of my little Spring friends. Years ago when I was healing from a hospital surgery, I made cute seasonal reminders - could call them icons (simile, likeness ... I think of icons as windows, or glimpses into a reality or truth). I have some Waldorf books from Europe that have great ideas for children (including me) for celebrating the seasons and rhythms of life.

Do you see from the next picture what they might represent? I pull them out each Spring from my bins of calendar visuals. The little brown thing is a seed pod with a cute face. I so look forward from seemingly dead winter - awaiting the buried seeds to spring to life.

A friend who used to live close by would leave me flowers by my door early in the morning or in my mail box May 1st for May Day. I think of doing it myself, but haven't yet.

I've got some potatoes 'chitting' and others planted. I'm planting all potatoes this year in pots. I talked about doing it earlier and here's the site with info I liked best. I put newspaper in the pot bottom only to keep the dry potting soil from falling through the holes. The site mentions only putting 5 seed potatoes in the pot, I had 12 of one potato variety, so that's why my picture shows 6 in the pot bottom. There's only 4" of soil in there for now, covering the potatoes. Once they grow up about 6-8" I'll cover them with more soil, and continue this process till they've grown to the top of the pot.

My greenhouse is fuller than ever with seedlings. This year I put all my dahlias in pots, rather than digging them up next fall to store over winter - since one pot wintered over in my greenhouse now has a dahlia a foot tall. I put bamboo poles in them and have added gladiola bulbs and some vining sweet pea plants.

In my garden I've planted more asparagus - purple this time, more strawberries, a couple more rhubarb, native plums, elderberry, saskatoon blueberry, patriot blueberry (almost filling the planting hole with peat for an acid soil), carmen cherry and bush cherry, and crab apple, and I'm trying a honeycrisp apple.

The last picture is of a swan gourd I bought at an Amish road-side booth in Wisconsin and dried. I actually brought home 5 and only one dried nice.

In Memoriam

2009-05-02T07:20:00.003-06:00

I've mentioned every year about the Holocaust Remembrance Day (my post) and how commemorating still has no ritual. This morning in the news I looked at the slideshow of the Jewish Museum in Berlin. I'd like to walk through it and experience it. There are things the world should never forget. Scriptures so often tell us to remember, to retell the stories.

I grew up next door to a Jewish family. The parents had these 'tattoos' on their arms, a forever reminder of a time when persons were unnamed, and instead numbered. There are plenty of surviving pictures telling the story of this horrific time when one's identity as a Jew was attempted to be wiped out.

I used to have a timeline on a wall. As I learned events in history I'd add them to the timeline. Unfortunately these catastrophes, ethnic cleansings, the destruction of domination - one group over another ... crucifixions ... have gone on throughout time.

As my friend Ellen has said, "I believe it is an act of faith to remember and tell the stories and to recount how beauty and life have been called forth from chaos once again. And, to dare to reflect on the mystery that the gospel is far, far bigger and better than we can dare to dream."

Awesome Dawson!

2009-04-28T11:08:00.003-06:00

Today is Dawson's birthday. He's left the world of the teens, yet according to current culture he's not yet an adult. So he's a Betweeny!

I posted more pictures to my photoblog commemorating, celebrating Dawson! And I added some photos on Travis' birthdate, April 11, celebrating him. Since photoblog won't let us post more than 5 pictures a day now, I've stretched them out.

Dawson is finishing up his excellerated classes tomorrow, then done with this very hard semester May 11. He can't wait. We're proud of him. He's working so hard to be an honors student which pays his tuition. He's becoming good friends with his teachers and they love going for coffee with him and spending time with him and talking with him. He likes the teachers better than his fellow students, excepting the honors students. They're finishing up a pretty cool project due this Friday - lots of historic places - pasts and present - and eating in cool places.

But he's really up in the air as to his future. One teacher opened up to him many possibilities beyond a business major, taking his personality and giftings into consideration. So all of a sudden he's feeling in limbo ... and talking with tons of people about it.

Like I've said many times - it's going to be very interesting to see where Dawson ends up, for his life's work, or what's going to support his many interests, besides a family!

Dedication Pic

2009-04-28T08:33:00.002-06:00

Bill sent pictures of their dedication of Will Sunday, so I'm posting one.

Bill, Heather, and Will Lavender.

Weather Report

2009-04-27T06:25:00.004-06:00

Just woke up. Heating water for tea. Listening to the radio to see (hear) what's up. From the ten day forecast last week I saw four days of cloud cover with possible rain/snow showers. Was so glad to wake to sunshine yesterday's Sunday morning for a cheery reading, journalling time and then church, after a very foggy drizzly saturday. But the clouds and slush moved in yesterday afternoon. I'd say we have 8" so far. At least Denver is getting snow too. I often wrestle with why we live at this higher elevation, but mile-high Denver gets its share of weather too. When I'm wishing we lived down there, I remind myself of our beautiful environment where people want to vacation, and beautiful summers, that I never want to leave for visiting elsewhere, and my gardening, experiences almost no bugs (except the larger mammal 'bugs')(and the extra work with messing with Mother Nature).

Snow and swine flu ...

I just needed to whine ... Thanks.
I pick up Monte tonight at the airport. Then I think Spring and sunshine and 70 degree days return!

Baby Dedication

2009-04-26T07:50:00.002-06:00

Bill has been home from Iraq almost a week and enjoying being home with Heather and Will. They will be flying this next week to spend a few days with Bill's Father and brother.

This morning, they're dedicating William Lavender III at their church.

Home Happenings

2009-04-24T07:59:00.005-06:00

For goodness' sake, what have I wrought?! What the Dickens have I gone and done? I've done the typical for me, unpremeditated thing. Though this be madness, yet there is method in it (at least I think so). Am I a madwoman? Chaos is come again to my house and home. But what's done is done. Now I must face the consequence of my actions. Are you waiting with bated breath as to what I've done? Am I a fool?

Just for your information, the above italic words and phrases above are what we've adopted into our vocabulary from Shakespeare. Yesterday was his birthday. It's easy to find these expressions from the Bard in my Brush Up Your Shakespeare! book.

But seriously, this home has got too much going on at once, and it's all my fault. My mother often told me I jump in and do things without thinking. But the point is, I do DO things ... and I've got a lot to do and wrap up. Should I paint a picture with words?

The greenhouse is full of flats and pots of seedlings, tubers, and bulbs. The dining room table is full of varying colored bolts of cotton weaving thread, cuz the kitchen table has a small tapestry weaving loom on it, in process. One couch has scattered colors of weaving loops for potholders. AND on top of that, I started painting walls! I guess, in one fell swoop, I'm going to have the downstairs clean, as I see the need to dust/wash everything before returning it to it's resting place or wall.

BUT, I added more to that creative chaos. I've been so sick of the entryway color - the high up two story color. So I rented scaffolding. I'm not long-legged, and I get woozy at heights, and Monte's been too busy to ask, and I haven't wanted to add it to his 'honey-do' list, and he's out of town. And I want to surprise him. As the guy loaded the scaffolding into the truck yesterday, he asked if anyone was at home to help me set the pieces up. I texted Dawson and he thought it hilarious, and typical of him and me - jumping in and doing. Luckily he is home doing homework these next few days!

So, to work I need to go!

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow what will be? Hopefully no more snow! tho our altitude's forecast says "rain/snow showers" for the next few days - we'll see. I'm busy inside anyway, but anxiously awaiting to get my feet in dirt! Those little bulbs I planted in the grass when I aerated last fall with our hand drill, are blooming.

Later.

Breakfast is Ready

2009-04-22T08:13:00.003-06:00

The risen Jesus said, "Follow me".

At the end of the Gospels, morning came, and the risen Jesus said, "Breakfast is ready".

What does this look like?

Weaving Potholders

2009-04-21T12:12:00.004-06:00

While I await the snow's melting ...

I no longer have kids around to weave me potholders (almost 20 year old Dawson would if I asked him). My favorite over the years are these ones. I could go out and just buy some, but ... So after getting sick of the last dirty orange ones (Dawson one year wove a ton, using up my stash of loops, cuz he wanted to make a rug of them ... so I found it in the shed and have been using the usable ones ... but now they're all gone). I'm weaving my own. It's been fun.

Harrisville Designs has potholder kits and the best cotton loops. Don't buy the kits with nylon loops - useless for hot things, good grief! Harrisville also has the best colored wool for the felting I do.

I've been asked, so I'll post it here: My main source for felting wool and kits is from Halcyon Yarn. Halcyon sells some of the Harrisville wool and kits, like the potholders, too.

Yom HaShoah & Columbine

2009-04-21T09:09:00.004-06:00

Today is Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day, beginning yesterday eve. Yesterday, the 20th, was the ten year remembrance of the Columbine High School Massacre, killing thirteen people, wounding more.

Since Columbine is in Denver, our local news was full of remembrances. My main remembrance is the fact that the carpenter who put up crosses at Clement Park next to the high school put up 15 crosses, which included the two for the killers who killed themselves. When I drive by, tho no crosses now ... I will never forget.

There was a lot of anger over those two crosses, which were soon taken away. There was a lot of talk and arguing over it all - like talk about Christ dying for all, including those who kill.

How to commemorate is still discussed for these horrific happenings. As yesterday progressed I wondered why we/I write things on our calendars for past rememberings. I thought of so many times in scripture God asks us to remember, to retell the stories. Is there redemption in all stories, in these stories?

Snow Wake

2009-04-19T10:35:00.003-06:00

I posted more on my photoblog with more views from our home of the snow, plus some critters dealing with the snow.

Bill emailed and is glad to be home with Heather and Will.

The Lord's Baseball Game

2009-04-19T10:10:00.002-06:00

Freddy and the Lord stood by to observe a baseball game. The Lord's team was playing Satan's team.

The Lord's team was at bat, the score was tied zero to zero, and it was the bottom of the 9th inning with two outs. They continued to watch as a batter stepped up to the plate named 'Love.'

Love swung at the first pitch and hit a single, because "Love never fails."

The next batter was named Faith, who also got a single because Faith works with Love.

The next batter up was named Godly Wisdom. Satan wound up and threw the first pitch. Godly Wisdom looked it over and let it pass: Ball one. Three more pitches and Godly Wisdom walked because he never swings at what Satan throws.

The bases were now loaded. The Lord then turned to Freddy and told him He was now going to bring in His star player. Up to the plate stepped Grace. Freddy said, "He sure doesn't look like much!"

Satan's whole team relaxed when they saw Grace. Thinking he had won the game, Satan wound up and fired his first pitch. To the shock of everyone, Grace hit the ball harder than anyone had ever seen! But Satan was not worried; his center fielder let very few get by.

He went up for the ball, but it went right through his glove, hit him on the head and sent him crashin on the ground; the roaring crowds went wild as the ball continued over the fence . . . for a home run!

The Lord's team won!

The Lord then asked Freddy if he knew why Love, Faith and Godly Wisdom could get on base but couldn't win the game. Freddy answered that he didn't know why.

The Lord explained, "If your love, faith and wisdom had won the game, you would think you had done it by yourself. Love, Faith and Wisdom will get you on base but only My Grace can get you Home: 'For by Grace you are saved, it is a gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast."

Psalm 84:11, "For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly."

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
Phil 4:13

3 FEET of SNOW!!!!!

2009-04-18T22:05:00.004-06:00

I just posted a bunch of pictures on my photoblog. There's several days worth going back to early April. Photoblog now only allows five postings per day. The earliest in April is some more of Bill and Heather's baby (Bill supposedly came home this evening), then my art, and then THE SNOW!

Three days of snow = three feet of snow! Can you believe it? But that's spring time in the Rockies. March is our snowiest month, then November, and third is April. November can make us think, "ah, this'll be a snowy winter", NOT! Cold yes, but with lots of sunshine and 60 degree days between, and then comes March! This March had 70 degree days, and then came Winter!

My photoblog says it all! Like: Monte needing to chop more wood, losing electricity for 20 hours, melting snow and cooking on the cookstove, I was keeping the stove going and tapestry weaving, and keeping bird feeder full for the desperate birds!

I'm going to take pictures tomorrow morning before the melting begins. I'm sure we'll wake to sunshine and it'll be in the 70's by Tuesday. With the ground warm it's been melting as it's snowing.

Our neighbor got us plowed out this evening and it was too dark for pictures - there are mountains and boulders of snow! Spring brings those very wet cement snows. We'll be checking for broken branches. One tree out my kitchen window looks like it's ready to topple over even tho Monte shook off snow at times.

Weather and Heather

2009-04-17T09:26:00.003-06:00

Our Internet is going in and out and I've got pots filled with water in case our electricity goes out. So far we've gotten more than 1 1/2 feet of snow!!!! Hard to tell with the warm ground - it could be melting almost as fast as it's coming down. I've got Monte's internet wireless stick while he's out shoveling and knocking wet cement snow from some bushes and trees and shoveling. We've still got another 28 hours of winter storm watch to go and it's supposed to snow harder this afternoon. Winter?!!!! I sprang forward with Spring, but so too did Winter!

So glad Monte rescheduled flying out Monday instead of tomorrow morning. So glad we've got a wood cookstove: to curl up by for warmth and atmosphere, to cook on if need be, melt snow if need be ... So glad Dawson and Monte sawed and chopped more wood a few weeks ago.

Dawson stayed in Denver last night, just in case ... but school canceled. I think the lilacs and crabapples, even tho no leaves yet but starting to bud out, might be permanently bent! I'm going to have to fill the bird feeders soon with the abundance of birds. Sure would be cool to capture a picture of tons of birds nestled in the midst of trees - isn't that where they go in weather like this? Robins can't get their worms ... But it's supposed to be 70 come Tuesday so this will melt fast!

Heather's Bill is coming home for two weeks. He may be there now. As of last night, she didn't know when. They are not to say anything until they're out of Iraq and on their way home. So she's excited and been getting ready. They will probably fly to California to visit Bill's dad and brother and let them meet little Will. But then, Bill himself is meeting his son, little Will, too for the first time!

Susan Boyle - Singer

2009-04-16T20:43:00.004-06:00

Monte showed me this (click) , since the above won't work. Amazing! Beautiful! Great message!

It's now Friday, almost noon, snowing hard (2ft?) and when I saw the above youTube link was disabled I did the above click link that does work. So now I've probably watched this 5 times and I tear up with joy. I had heard about it on the radio and so glad Monte found it so we could actually see and hear.

I'm remembering my friend Ellen saying, "We don't dream big enough!" It'll be fun hearing about where this ladies dreams will now fly!

Living as Easter People

2009-04-16T08:54:00.005-06:00

“Love is not a duty it is our destiny. It is the language that Jesus spoke and we are called to speak it so that we can converse with him. It is the food that they eat in God’s new world, and we must acquire a taste for it here and now. It is the music God has written for all his creatures to sing and we are called to learn it and practice it now.”
- NT Wright, Surprised by Hope (and great book!)

So how can we learn to live as wide-awake people, as Easter people? ... In particular if Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up ... If Calvary means putting to death things in your life that need killing off if you are to flourish as a Christian and as a truly human being, then Easter should mean planting, watering, and training up things in your life (personal and corporate) that ought to be blossoming, filling the garden with color and perfume and in due course bearing fruit”
Ibid

“Jesus is risen, therefore God’s new world has begun. Jesus is risen, therefore Israel and the world have been redeemed. Jesus is risen, therefore his followers have a new job to do. And what is that new job? To bring the life of heaven to birth in actual, physical earthly reality.”
Ibid

I really like NT Wright's books. If you want to hear him, click here. What do you think?

What Art Can Really Do!

2009-04-16T07:55:00.002-06:00

I'm smiling having watched this. What would be your response in this setting?

I'm remembering my mom and me watching "The Sound of Music" together when it first came out. Since as a young bride she joined her husband in Austria with war clean up, I was born there. During the movie, she'd say, "You were there. You were there." I'd like to go there - maybe this summer ... and see 1st-hand for myself!

Thanks for sending me this Beth. What art are you working on these days? Wish we could get together sometime, but now you're farther away (and busy with Grandbabies!).

More Than Just a Day

2009-04-14T09:21:00.005-06:00

"Easter is far more than a day it is an entire season that stretches for 50 days until the celebration of Pentecost - this year on May 31" says Christine Sine.

I have an RSS feed reader on my computer and there's news and blogs I subscribe to (it's all free). Daily news and writings come thru. It's an easy way to cruise thru news, often just reading the titles or summaries is all that's needed when you've been following the news. And when someone writes, it shows up. I can click on things I want to read in it's entirety. BUT, there are some blogs I don't read in this format because the 'atmosphere' of the blog or it's artisticness ... doesn't come thru the reader (unless I need a new reader).

Christine Sine's site is one I regularly open to read in its entirety. Another blog I've followed for several years is the Jesus Creed.

As Christine goes on to ask about Eastertide, "So what is going to flourish in your life this season? How do you expect to encounter the risen Christ?" And she lists some possibilities to consider. As I just posted the other day in Counting Omer, our linear calendar days can have EXTRAordinary meaning when we're connected to God's larger story, living in anticipation of seeing God's winks and heart, that so often grace our days ... but do we notice?!

recipe quest

2009-04-13T11:57:00.002-06:00

This is "the week of egg salad". Any favorite egg salad recipe you'd like to share?

This picture was taken a year after these eggs had been boiled in onion skins. What I learned? 1) Surprised, having saved yellow onion skins for a long time turned these eggs a reddish brown color. 2) That hard boiled eggs sitting out longer than a year never smell or explode (as some of our raw Ukrainian died eggs have) and do seem to dry up inside. Conclusion? Maybe hard boiled eggs would be fine to use for Ukrainian dying. They just can't be eaten, so no egg salad from them (see post.)

Counting Omer

2009-04-13T10:29:00.006-06:00

Last night we drove home from spending Easter in Ft Collins with Travis and Sarah. It had snowed in Evergreen - very typical for Easter! As Music Minister, we enjoyed the church service Travis had helped design, the theme being "Light", and carried out from the initial talk from pastor Rich, to skits and music. Travis introduced a "He is Risen" song him and friend Katrina wrote.

Like with Christmas, we did a non-traditional meal, an Italian meal we'd not made before. I brought up my pasta roller I'd not used yet, and told everyone this would be a meal needing everyone's participation. So Sarah had bruchetta ready for us to start eating as we all made home-made ravioli. I had made three fillings: one spinach, another shrimp, and then a beef one. Friends of Trav & Sar's, Janna and Paul, contributed too. Janna brought a salad and Paul jumped in rolling the best thin dough for the ravioli!

We stand on resurrection ground. We are in the Season of Easter between now and Pentecost. We need more prayer, more knocking on God's door to see what he wants us to be doing, and more celebration of God's new creation!

This morning's reading brought me to the two guys walking the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. This is another story in Scripture I love. I would so love to hear Jesus tell stories. They were trying to make sense of what just happened in Jerusalem. Jesus walked up asking, "What are you so intently discussing?" and walked and talked with them.

Everyone was so sad. All their hopes that Jesus was the one to redeem Israel were shattered. Jesus couldn't have been the one, because they killed him. The two on the road to Emmaus didn't recognize Jesus. While walking, he told them stories from Scripture. They invited him home with them to eat. The moment Jesus broke the bread, they recognized him, and then Jesus disappeared. He reappeared later to the gathered disciples and there again shared stories. Like the two said, I too would love to feel (and maybe I do), "Didn't our hearts burn within us as he talked, opening up Scriptures to us on the road?"!

Jews had three harvest festivals that they went to Jerusalem for (found in Leviticus 23, Deuteronomy 16, and more). The first two are known as First Fruit Festivals. Barley is the first cereal grain to be harvested and brought to the temple for blessing. The Sunday following Passover begins this First Fruit Festival period of counting seven-sevens between the barley and then the wheat harvest festival. This period of 49 days is called 'Counting the Omer', an 'in-between-time'.

I took a picture of a past year's Counting Omer chart I made. Most every Spring this rectangle of rectangles sits on our kitchen counter. Since I strive for more meaning to my ordinary linear calendar days, I like visuals or anything that reminds my heart and brings anticipation of God's presence. Gluing pieces of grain, or marking off the days, helps bring meaning - a God-consciousness activity - to these days. I try and create space in my days for God to show up - anticipating surprises from God - God 'winks'.

The Jewish Festival of First Fruits became our Easter. Jesus rose from the dead on the Jewish festival day that many Jews had come to Jerusalem for, to celebrate Passover and then their first harvest fruit of barley. I Corinthians 15:20 says, "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruit of those who are asleep."

How exciting is that?! Do you think that was part of a plan? a cool detail in the large drama of life?! I started counting the 49 days today.

See the little red box in my picture? That's the 40th day in the counting - that's Ascension Day. You can talk about this event, but it's more fun to take a picnic lunch and blanket and eat somewhere outside and look up into the sky and talk about the story at the end of Luke and Acts 1 when Jesus left this earth. Imagine being a disciple - you've lived with Jesus for 3 years dreaming of setting up an earthly kingdom and then watch Jesus leave, "Hey, but wait a minute, where are you going? This is not what I had in mind!" The physical presence of Jesus left them. What now?

At the Ascension, Jesus told them to return to Jerusalem and wait the ten days until the next Jewish Harvest Festival. I'm sure the disciples were reliving all the memories and words of those three years with Jesus, wondering what the heck he really meant! while waiting for the next Shavuot Festival. Remembering and praying and waiting.

Every year at this time the Jews read the 10 Commandments, remembering Moses and the commandments inscribed by God on stone on Mt Sinai in the desert. But the Jews of Jesus' day missed the bigger picture, not recognizing Jesus as the prophesied Messiah, and what His Kingdom might look like. To Jeremiah (31:33) God said, "I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it" who's message carried further in II Corinthians 3:3 says, "You are a letter of Christ written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts."

Jesus died and then resurrected on Easter becoming the first fruit at the early first fruit festival. In our Christian year, 50 days later, Shavuot, the other first fruit festival, became Pentecost, and as Christians we have the Holy Spirit living within us - we are first fruits too. So from the letter of the law, to the Spirit; from stone to human hearts.

I hang seven descending doves over our kitchen table for Pentecost as another visual reminder for my heart. Pentecost is the birthday of the Church. Does your church celebrate Pentecost? I've never been in a church that celebrated it, till last year - and they asked me to help "preach" from my knowledge and passion. We remember God the Father and Son in the Incarnation and Death and Resurrection, but do we celebrate the Holy Spirit and what it all means to our Christianity? A remembrance of letters in stone to the Spirit in our hearts; remembering that the letter of the law brings death, but the Spirit brings life. Remembering the gifts and fruits of the Spirit.

It's now called "Eastertide", I see it as a Season of Redemption. On Passover, the Jews eat history, remembering freedom from slavery. But freedom for what? What is physical freedom without an identity of who you are? Mt Sinai with God and the 10 Commandments gave them a spiritual freedom, a knowing they were part of a larger story. But the 'story of redemption' is even larger for us who believe in the Incarnation, Resurrection, and Pentecost. There is a great drama that God asks us to be a part of.

God still takes on human flesh today, expanding the Incarnation to us followers of Jesus. The God above became the God alongside, and then the God within. Is this not Wild?!!!!!!!!!!!

Indifference Quote

2009-04-13T09:31:00.004-06:00

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."

- quoted by Elie Wiesel, survivor of WWII concentration camp and set free April 11 in 1945 as a teenager and went on to write many books and won the Nobel Peace Prize.

May we now move forward with resurrection power, living life full of beauty, faith and love.

Sunday's Comin

2009-04-10T17:33:00.001-06:00

I tried creating my own video, and couldn't, but I found this one and like it's message as well as visual for today!

full moon

2009-04-09T15:59:00.004-06:00

Dawson has an awesome lens on his camera that took pictures of the moon last night that look like what's seen thru a telescope!