fun with tangelos

Since I want to eat more locally, and since citrus fruit seems to, um, grow on trees around here...  

I raided a bucket full of very tangy tangelos (they just didn't get sweet this year) from a family tree this week, and have been playing with ways to use and preserve them.  I got a swell, stylish new juice squeezer, and have been freezing little bits of tangelo juice for cooking.  I tried making sorbet, too, mixing tangelo juice with a bunch of sugar and rolling it around in my ice cream ball.  It was yummy.

And, I decided to try making marmalade.  For kicks, I'll give you my instructions:

tangelo pineapple marmalade

ingredients:

14 tangelos, raided from a family tree

1 overripe pineapple that's been sitting on your counter all week

2 big limes, reclaimed from the curb after they rolled downhill from the neighbor's tree

about 4 cups of water

5 cups of sugar

On 7 of the tangelos, use a peeler to remove the outer layer of the peel. Chop it up into little bits and put it in a big pot.

Peel what's left of all 14 tangelos, and cut the fruity parts into little pieces. Attempt to remove all the seeds. Put the fruit and all the juice you can catch into the big pot with the peel bits.

Cut up the pineapple, salvaging all the bits that aren't too gross and brown; cut the useable parts up into bits. Add them to the pot, too.

Peel and chop up the limes, and add them as well.

Pour the 4 cups of water over the top--really, just add enough to barely cover all that fruit. Put it on the stove and bring it to a boil for about 10 minutes. Turn the heat off, leave it covered, and let it sit overnight.

Then, wake up sick the next day.  Get out of bed, contemplate what it would take to finish making marmalade, and decide to just put the whole thing in the fridge.  Some marmalade recipes call for letting the fruit sit for 24 hours or more; decide you want to be one of those.

On the third day, add the sugar to your pot, mix it in, and bring it to a boil.  Continue to heat, stirring regularly, until it does that magic turn-t0-jelly thing.
Put it in sterilized jars with and process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes, according to the instructions of someone who knows much more than I do about this stuff.

Then, set it on your counter and admire the warm, orangey color.
My recipe made enough for the six jars I had empty, plus a two-cup plastic container that went straight into the fridge.  

easter mosaic

Just cause you asked (okay, so just Deb asked), here's the mosaic we made in worship on Easter.  It was fun smashing the old plates, and fun to put them together, too.  

This is the before-grout pic:

And after-grout.
At first, I was kinda bummed that it's hard to make out the cross, but I've grown to think I really like the way the cross is broken apart, sent out, re-made with our pieces.

(We used a water-based liquid-nails-like-but-less-toxic adhesive from the hardware store to glue the pieces on individually, so we didn't have to figure out how to spread mortar during worship, or keep in wet.  I'm pretty happy with how it all worked--remarkably smooth for involving 140 people in creating it during a "regular" hour-long worship gathering...  The lumpiness added significant challenge for my grouting work later, but I don't think it ended up too bad.  It's a bit lumpy, though--so it wouldn't really work well for a table surface.)

4 little thoughts

This Sunday night, my mind catches these three (okay, four) things:

-How did I never notice that there's a $.93 store on my street?  Ninety-three cents!?!?  I gotta believe this odd amount means that, with tax, everything is exactly a dollar.  Which makes it feel like a dollar store in a way that most aren't.  But kudos to them for unabashedly marketing it for just what it is: a $.93 store.  I love my neighborhood.

-Church community can be really beautiful.  There was a really nice moment for me in worship today, in the midst of one of our periodic bluegrass banjo-driven Sundays.  While singing "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" the background images were a loop of stills from various pieces of church life that I put together a couple of years ago.  I noticed three beloved people who have died since making the loop; instead of feeling awkward, it felt really lovely, like we were in an unbroken circle, indeed.

-Our anemone moved this week.  I didn't know anemones could move.   Noticing it not in its usual location gave me a bit of a scare: I'm a little insecure about my ability to be faithful in aquarium custody during this deployment.  I worried something had happened.  Thieves, again, perhaps?  Rationally, breaking in to our house to steal an anemone seemed absurd; I'm not always given, immediately, to rationality.  But apparently, especially when their living conditions become adverse (as happens when I get a bit lazy in adding new water to the aquarium and the pumps and filters begin to create more splashing bubbles near the surface), anemones can pick up and relocate.  Somehow, that seems really hopeful to me.  I love resilience.  I also like the little alcove the anemone has claimed as home (and, consequently, the clown fish, too).  It feels cozy.

-Thieves, however, have found my dear husband's laptop.  How sad is it when someone's stealing computers and ipods out of the tents of Army Reservist training for deployment to Iraq?  That's just wrong.  And pretty sad that the personal belongings of folks in the military are not safe while they're in the U.S., on base.  The Army should give them a way to keep their things secure...it's not like they're getting paid so much they can just write off these things.

food security

I've been reading Deep Economy, which my brother sent us recently. Challenging us to think about economies in different ways--and clarifying that, since the 1950's, increased wealth has not meant increased happiness--it picks up discussions many of my favorite writers have contributed to. Folks like Wendell Berry, Barbara Kingsolver, Michael Pollen, and more. It's also given me more enthusiasm for my garden.

I've also been paging through Jesus for President, which calls us to similar attentiveness to a different way of living in the world. Here, Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw challenge us to claim allegiance in the kingdom of God rather than any nation or community. Doing so demands that we make choices about how we'll live that express a love for neighbor that demands we do things differently--less as consumers and more as community members and those who want their actions to have positive effects on all others and on creation. Again, here, gardening seems important.

So, I thought I'd share today's update of how the garden looks. I've had some problems with a mischievous garden visitor. I suspect my cute, adorable, adventurous little neighbor, D. There are two small footprints on the top of most of my hills of squash. And all my clever popsicle stick labels at the end of rows have disappeared. Alas, who can really be mad at a 3-year old with a special gift for finding tomatoes in late-summer vine jungles?

Gardening is very satisfying for me--it feels hopeful and constructive in all the right ways. A good kind of economic choice.

We installed a gate, thinking it would make us feel a bit safer in a neighborhood where there's a bit more drug and gang activity than any of us wants. Turns out it may also help my relationships with a little neighbor--I can enjoy gardening with him when we're together, and not be mad about his little footprints or his habit of pulling up tags and tomato seedlings while I'm away.
Our fence is now complete, all the way 'round. It's gotten good reviews from passers-by, which makes me hopeful that it's not TOO unfriendly of a sort of fence. The avocado tree Marian shared is busting out new leaves, and I'm hopeful about the asparagus I planted in a trench. Now, I need to arrange the water system, and plant that last big section. What fun...
When I was planting on Friday, a man stopped by to chat. "I'm your neighbor!" he said very enthusiastically. He then offered me some mint out of his garden, bringing it over in a plastic saucer. Now, it's happily nestled next to some heirloom petunias, watched over by the lovely flamingo my mother sent. I feel a little bad about putting Mom's flamingo near mint, as she hates it so much, but I figure grace is big, and it's all a pretty long ways from her nose. (The other flamingo is watching over a pineapple, which I know is more agreeable...)
And, these bachelor buttons (at the top) are blooming nicely. There a favorite of Mom's too, so that should make everything okay.
Our little redbud tree is looking great these days--the blossoms are beautiful, and I can see the leaves beginning to grow!

colorful, sweet easter treats

Three (seems like a holy number) colorful, sweet Easter treats to share:

1.  work by an artist, Tattfoo Tan, that I'm enjoying: a placemat (and, later, a mural) made of squares of color that were taken from fresh foods--fruits and vegetables--purchased at a market in Brooklyn.  What a beautiful, fresh palatte.  Check his work out.

2.  Success at dying Easter eggs with natural stuff.  I tried onion skins (see below) and red cabbage to get brownish-orange and blue (see further below.)  If I were doing it again, I would have used fewer onion skins (as I got kind of excited and put skins from most of the $1 bag of onions from my corner market in the water) and more cabbage (I used half of  a little head).  The one downside was that it made my kitchen smell like boiling onions and cabbage, but it was a warm day and the open windows cured that quickly enough.  The blue is not quite as subtle as it seems in this picture...

3.  I'm *finally* putting the ice cream ball that Er and Joel gave me (long ago) to good use.  It's fun to make your own ice cream, especially when the work involved is, like, rolling a ball around.  You just put ice cream ingredients in the littler inner chamber, and ice and salt in the bigger, outer green part and then play.  Then, you get ice cream.  What could be better?

That's my cheer for the day.  I'm feeling tired after an intense weekend of church creativity.  I love our Easter Vigil prayer stations.  And Easter worship was a fun trip today, too.  We shattered old plates with a hammer and made them into a swell new mosaic.  You don't always get to swing hammers in church.  ;)  So, it's mostly a really good kind of tired I'm feeling.  I think I'll sleep well tonight--no more clever worship bits to plan.  At least for a few days.

in the ground

Holy Week is as good a time as any to stick seeds in the ground--it feels wonderfully hopeful.  Today I had some help from a pair of friends.  We put in some corn and beans, sunflowers and okra.  More will come.

You can see our exciting new fence.  I think we did a decent job of marking a boundary without putting up a hostile barrier.  No pointy things on top, and no solid walls.  

We also got a thank you note from our postal carrier today for finally replacing the horrible mailbox we've had.  She didn't even make mention of how long it took to do so...just said "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

I did a good job of bringing in the mail, sorting it, recycling what I could, and not throwing anything on the table.  That makes day 2 of my attempt at de-cluttering my living space.  Of course, I was also buoyed by some extra and gracious cleaning help from Matt's mom.  ;)

limitations and abundance

I thought dyeing Easter eggs with natural dyes sounded pretty cool.  And, I had this chard languishing in my kitchen; I picked it in a hurry last Saturday, when the garden was being dug up.  I used part of it then, but didn't really have a plan for the rest.  I have observed how the red stems turn my chard-artichoke dip pink, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Just in case you were wondering, chard is not effective as a dye.  Neither the deep green leafy parts nor the garishly bright pink stems had any noticeable affect on my eggs.

Guess I should stick with the plants the recommend.  But hey: now my kitchen smells like stewed chard...

In other news and adventures, I'm feeling pretty blessed these days.  I mean, sure, I'm still dealing with the depression of Matt's deployment departure, but other folks have sure been good to me lately.

First, my obsessive lurking around crafty blogs led me to a fun give-away on Betty Ninja's site--and I won her drawing.  I'm waiting anxiously for the happy hedgehog to appear in my mailbox...  Then, I happened upon Oodles and Oodles' clothespin apron giveaway, and won again.  Now I can hang clothes in style on my new backyard clothesline.  Such a run of blogging grace!

Then, at work yesterday, two women in the office showered me with a magical sunflower basket of goodness--with cookies and a fun t-shirt and music and chocolate and lots more.  Just 'cause they were thinking of me and wanted to cheer me up.

All that's not even counting the carrot-dill bread Marian and Wayne brought by--or their avocado tree which is now planted in the yard.  Or the window and door trim my in-laws installed yesterday and today.  Or the books my brother sent me in the mail.  Or the care package from my mom.

So: today, deployment sucks, but it sure is beautiful to know that I'm surrounded by lots of caring folks and beautiful, thoughtful things!

I'm trying to ride out this wave of happy vibes and see if it will sustain me through an attempt to de-clutter my house.  It'd take a miracle...

potential

I spend the first part of today studying and discussing proposals that will come to our church's General Conference next month--suggestions of how to change the church for the good.  (Not all suggestions seem to think that the same changes would be good...)

And, this evening, I've been studying and scheming about which seeds to plant in my garden.  I've narrowed it to:

2 kinds of corn, 4 kinds of beans, 2 melons (even though I know my soil is mostly clay and they'd be happier in sand), 3 pumpkins, 2 kinds of zucchini, okra, 2 eggplants, leeks, turnips, chard, spinach, lettuce and some herbs.   (Did you know that you can grow a watermelon with ORANGE flesh?!?)

Perhaps seed packet descriptions and petitions to change the church aren't so different: hopeful descriptions of possibility that may or may not actually take root in beautiful ways.

(This is making me ponder, a little too deeply, what might be the church equivalent of the nasty little horned bugs that like to eat my plants.)

There are these very brief little "rationale" statements after General Conference petitions that have about the same depth as seed descriptions.  (That is, they tell you about the lovely orange flowers but not about the plants nasty habit of spreading itself all through your garden.  Or its susceptibility to powdery mildew.  Or its demand for a whole lot of water.)

So, here's hoping we'll have the wisdom to wade through all these pages of legislation and find what will grow the Kin-dom of God!  I'm sure thankful to have companions on this journey.

groundwork

I'm pretty excited about the newly-enriched, freshly-dug-up soil in my yard today.  I think my tomato seedlings are dreaming of their days ahead out here, too.  

It's come a long ways from what it was when we moved in: pavement.

What vegetables (or fruits, perhaps?) do you think would be most wonderful, beautiful and tasty in this front yard garden?

like cream without its cookies...

My sister-in-law came to hang out the other day.  We joined some other friends in a rousing game of Cranium, and then a little RockBand action.  And ate ice cream.  Thing is, someone forgot to put the cookies in the Cookies and Cream container we bought.  For real.

All of which tempts me to muse about how, now that Matt's deployed, I feel like cream that's missing its cookies.   

I hope that sweet metaphor doesn't make you want to toss your cookies.

In other news, I'm grateful for the lenten group I've been meeting with at church.  It's an odd mix of people, but we've gotten to a place that's beautiful and tender.  It's a little bit like I hope church community will always be--a place to take this stuff seriously, and to really struggle with that means.  All the while knowing that somebody's got your back.  It's not like any other class I've led here before--a bit more like retreat community, but not even exactly like that.  Refreshing.

Almost as energizing as laughter over a birthdays cake (not a typo--it was for 2 people) in the office today, as momentum began to gather for an idea I shelved a while ago: worship using ikea-style pictograms as liturgy.  My dear coworkers thought it would be fun to illustrate the 10 commandments with pictograms.  (I thought it all sounded a little naughty.  I mean: the international sign for "do not commit adultery"!?!?)  Sacraments might be easier.

But, who are we kidding.  I have no time for pictograms.  I have 1500 pages of petitions to General Conference to be reading.  Like, I suppose, most things that are worth doing, I had no idea what I was getting into when I registered myself as someone willing to be elected to our delegation.  

My new hope: we'll be so buried in paperwork and worn out from days upon days of plenary gathering (with no day off in the middle--hey: isn't Sabbath one of those 10 commandments?) that we won't know how to block the Holy Spirit when she blows through the Fort Worth Convention Center.  Who knows what might be in store for the United Methodist Church?!

And, who knows where those cookies ended up...

strange things growing

I finally dug my carrots this past week.  It turns out that they were looking a bit mutant.  Perhaps this is what happens when you don't do a good job preparing the soil down deep before you plant?

I think they look like little, headless carrot creatures, with big, thick tails.

Strange.

But, then, it's been a strange week.  Some expected and some new--and several days of reporting for jury duty.  The prospect of being on the jury for a murder trial was sobering, but the long hours of waiting to get into the courtroom made for good reading time.  I escaped via the pages of "Friday Night Knitting Club," and enjoyed the diversion.

Now, my trick is going to need to be to stop thinking of new projects and focus on the ones I've already started. 

I spend made a quick trip to Sacramento this weekend to get a bit more time with Matt.  Unfortunately, my visit to him came with a sit through a "family briefing" courtesy the US Army.  I'm no fan of such things, nor can I stomach the way they refer to Matt as "my soldier."  I don't want a soldier, nor do I want to possess my husband.  The upside is that I got to meet some of the folks he'll be spending the next months with in Iraq; somehow, making it through seems more possible when there are real (even, sometimes, delightful) people involved.

Work is continuing here at the house--all the concrete (except for the driveway and front walk) is now taken out, and someone's coming on Friday to dig up the dirt and add in compost.  Perhaps so my carrots will be less mutant next season.  Here's hoping.  Then, soon, I can plant vegetables!

Oh, and my papaya seeds finally sprouted, which gives me great hope.  I'd thought they were too old and dried out.

on the homefront

As soon as got the unavoidable news of Matt's deployment, he stopped going to school (since he was going to have to leave before mid-term, anyhow) and launched into house projects that have been waiting.  And now things are really starting to look good.  I'm just sad that he's not here to enjoy them...

I'm quite excited about the kitchen, which now has totally-finished concrete counters by Matt, and a backsplash, too.  Once I get some light switch covers and trim pieces...well...it's gonna be crazy.  Matt's dad is milled the window trim as we speak.  (Aren't the cabinets he made of reclaimed wood beautiful?)

My happy at-home eco-creation this week, though, is a clothesline out back.  It occurred to me that, while a solar energy system on our roof would be very cool, using solar energy to dry clothes on line in the meantime would be a nice step.

I'm stoked about my simple design.  It sits in these brackets, so it can also come down if we want to use the space for something else.
And, finally, my happy report of the week: some plants that mysteriously appeared on the ledge on the side of the house.  I haven't figured out who put them there, and enjoying the mystery.

little things and big things

Matt's pick of how to spend our last whole day together before deployment was a hike.  It was beautiful.  There was a good amount of water in the river--enough to make some waterfalls--and little things were growing and budding and thriving.

in the valley, these buds were growing on beautiful orange and red branches in the wide part of the river.

Up higher, in the cracks of the rocks that run down to the river, mosses and things and something a lot like an onion were growing.

Here's our group, at our furthest-up point.  It's good to be together, in the beauty of these places.

This Live-Forever reminded me of the tenacious power of life to hold on.  If it's making it in just a little crack on the side of a vertical rock, we can all make it through this deployment (even if it's to a war that feels ill-conceived, at best...).

tagged

Erika tagged me.  I'll play along, even if I don't sound very scholarly.

Here are the rules:

1 - Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (Just grab one, no cheating!)
2 - Find Page 123.
3 - Find the first 5 sentences.
4 - Post the next 3 sentences.
5 - Tag 5 people, who will post theirs in the comment section.

From "Building a Shed" by Joseph Truini:
"Hand the first truss to your helper on top of the wall, then hustle inside the shed and grab the long rear rafter of the first truss.  Help your partner set the truss on top of both the front and rear walls, making sure it's directly over the first wall stud.  Working at the front wall, align the outside edge of the plywood gusset plate on the truss with the outside edge of the wall's top plate."

I like that it includes these words: hustle, partner, stud and align.

And, we decided to wait on rebuilding a shed 'til after deployment.  Besides that "deployment" begins in, like, 3 days, being shed-less might be a critical step towards figuring out how to live a less-is-more life.  I'm better at accumulating creative possibilities in big plastic tubs, though, so that'll be a challenge.

I'm also trying to focus on savoring these last days before separation, rather than just being sad, angry or anxious.  Wish me luck.

yesterday, my garden

There is lots of possibility in the garden, as of yesterday.

(pictured, from top left: bachelor's buttons, alstromeria, zinnia, hibiscus, marigold, geranium, stephanotis, clivia, lime tree, calla lily, gardenia, passion fruit, poinsettia, banana, sweet pea, african daisy, lavender, fig tree, mexican bird of paradise, gazania)

Hard to believe it snowed this week in other parts of the county.

We've been working on the house like crazy, trying to get lots of projects done before Matt's departure.  Pictures will follow soon...  In the meantime, I'm off to catch a plane to Vegas for a little gathering of leaders from the west, in preparation for our UMC General Conference in April.

creating comfortable things

The last two nights, I've been engaging my crafty side; it feels good to make projects I've been thinking about for a while.

While I was sewing at our kitchen table last night, we heard gunshots in the neighborhood.  I don't think Matt was the only one to call the police.  In minutes, our street was full of police cars and a helicopter overhead; a man was found, killed by gunshots, in the alley on our block.

It felt a little surreal to sit at the sewing machine, stealing glances outside to watch as news crews set up to film in our driveway.  But, I suppose, sewing is a decent response to violence in the world.  Creating, generating, making all feel like fine alternatives to destroying, ending, tearing apart.

Here's half of what I made yesterday--an apron from one of Matt's old jeans legs.  I made him one from the other leg, too (though with less fruit sewn on).  Since we're cooking more, it seemed like maybe we could use aprons.  The binding and ties are from an old sheet I got at the thrift store last week.

And here's what I made tonight: a pile of pincushions, inspired by Betz White's design of a cupcake pincushion.  Fuzzy sweaters and images of sweets--what could be more comforting?
We checked in with the neighbors today; no one knows who it was in our alley.  And we all want to live in communities where these things don't happen.

tomato cycles

Yesterday, I picked the last tomatoes off of last year's vines--scrawny, little, yellow tomatoes.

I also started seeds for this year's tomato crop.  I love tomatoes.

My little neighbor and garden club member, R, was walking home from school while I was out in the yard, so I got to share with her the first harvest of this year's strawberries.  (Strawberries are her favorite.)  She stayed to help me plant some new seeds--she got the job of writing on the little sticks.  She was amused that most of the tomato varieties we planted were named after other fruits.  (Tomatoes are after all, she noted, having studied such things in school this year, fruits themselves.)

So, we planted our pineapple tomatoes, grape tomatoes, strawberry tomatoes, brown berry tomatoes, garden peach tomatoes, and a few less fruity ones too.

Here's hoping they grow!

We've been working on our house like crazy lately, trying to get everything Matt wants to be involved with done before he leaves.  It also means that we get to help employ some neighbors who've been having a hard time, lately, getting work.  We talked to our painter today--he said it's been a month since he had a job.   He gave us a spectacular price on our paint job last year, and a great deal again, so he's not getting rich off of us, but it does feel good to be able to hire people who are wanting to work and having trouble finding it.  I also really like the neighbor who has been working on our roof--he used to live next door, and now his eldest son does.  He has a new daughter--7 days old--who came for a visit yesterday.  She's beautiful.

I'm starting to think it's gonna feel crazy lonely and quiet here when Matt goes...

dust

I love Ash Wednesday.  It seems so gloriously simple and honest--confession and grace.  Humility, and a reminder that we're all made of dust, and we'll go back to the dust.  

And this Lent, Matt and I have agreed to take on a practice we hope will help shape us in good ways: we're giving up eating in restaurants and taking up cooking for ourselves (and, hopefully, others!)  We even make our first several-day meal plan.  

I don't think I've ever gone more than about 4 days in San Diego without having at least one bean and cheese burrito from a drive-thru.  I also can't remember the last time we cooked more than 2 meals at home in a week.  This could be big.

If we also live into our hope of eating more locally, it'll also mean we can make use of all that deer meat in our fridge...and the chard in our yard.

Here's hoping...

the pics

I found the camera cord.  It was in the garage all along.

So, here are my illustrations to yesterday's post, and a few more for kicks.

I'm having fun quilting woven woolens.  Here are the first (and only, so far) 2 blocks.

This is the quilt I was given, my inspiration.
And, for fun, here's what it looks like to watch a football game at our house.  Of course, we San Diegans know the big game was 2 weeks ago.  Super Bowl, Schmuper Bowl.
And, we got to celebrate a birthday after watching the game.  To help lift our spirits after our loss.
Good times.

And, apparently the Army has some small amount of reason in some corner; Matt's coming back from NorCal tonight, as they got all the things they needed to do done.  :)

making it

We finally got news of my dear husbands upcoming deployment, like for real.  And, his departure will come at the end of this month.  For the last few days, we've both been moving much slower than usual.  Funny how depression makes you feel so, well, like someone's pressing down on you all the time.  But we're making it.  This weekend, he's off in NorCal, meeting with the group of folks he'll deploy with.  Filling out paperwork and getting shots and all that.  

So, to rally my spirits, I finally got myself to work on some of the crafty project that have been swirling around in my mind for the last many weeks.   Making things has been good for my spirit.  I took pictures, but can't find the cord to download them--I have this hunch that it's in the computer bag Matt took up north.

So, you get to use your imagination.  I make two squares that hope to be part of a quilt of some kind--a free-styling log cabin block, made out of repurposed wool.  Perhaps, if I like the quilt pattern, it might also make itself into a baby quilt for a baby-to-be that I'm ecstatic about.  Also, I had my first mostly-success in remaking a big t-shirt to a fun, fitted style.  It still needs something, but I'm not quite sure what tonight.  Maybe inspiration will come tomorrow.

Really, all the quilt-making inspiration was spurred on by a beautiful gift I received this week.

On Thursday morning, I felt my usual mix of tiredness and uncertainty (amplified by the above-mentioned depression) about whether I really wanted to get myself down to the Rescue Mission for my weekly Bible study with the women there.  And, as usual, when I finally got myself there, it was beautiful and full of grace.  This week, in addition to Bible study grace, there was a kind woman I've enjoyed for a long while now, who gifted me a lap quilt she made.  "For you and your house," she said.  "It's earth tones.  I know you have an old house--I thought it might match."  And, she's right: it's perfect in our house.  It's such a gift to have my hesitance met with overflowing grace, embodied in a homemade gift.

winter harvest

Thought I'd share dinner tonight.  I still marvel that one can grow things in January in this part of the world.  Like, things to eat.

Mostly, the garden's pretty bare, waiting for us to get around to heaping on more compost and things.  But, I couldn't resist starting a few broccoli plants.  And they were yummy.

My question for tonight is: would you wear a shirt silkscreened with an image of broccoli?  Just askin'...

Friday Five: books!

I've been pondering a way about sharing excitement over recent and upcoming reading.  Today's Friday Five from the RevGalPals seemed like the perfect excuse...

Yesterday, my friend Jen gave me a belated Christmas present.  She wanted to get me something cool, not just something.  

I'm pretty excited that she got me Banana. Now I can be smart about the bananas I'm growing in the back yard.  It's even autographed: "to Molly."

What book have you read in the last six months that has really stayed with you? Why?

I just finished Three Cups of Tea, which is our "One Book, One San Diego" book for 2008.  It was fun, thoughtful, inspirational and insightful.  It's not every book that both Matt and I find interesting enough for him to tolerate me reading aloud on a road trip, but this one got us all the way from Utah to home...

What is one of your favorite childhood books?
Hmm...  I've gotta say the Little House on the Prairie books.  They also created my most favorite "other time/place" in which to imagine life.

Do you have a favorite book of the Bible? Do tell!
Ecclesiastes, I suppose.  It's both cynical and hopeful--I say it's my favorite GenX book.

Of course, it's hard to compete with gospel stories, too.

What is one book you could read again and again?
I'm not a big re-reader, other than scripture and Dr. Seuss.  Or poetry.  

My Antonia, by Willa Cather, is probably the novel I've read most times.  But only, like, 3.  

Is there a book you would suggest for Lenten reading? What is it and why?
I've been hungry for poetry lately.  So I guess Wendell Berry's A Timbered Choir: the Sabbath poems would have to be it.  I like poetry as devotional reading--it seems like it leaves more space for mystery.  And I think you can't go wrong with Wendell Berry.

And because we all love bonus questions, if you were going to publish a book what would it be? Who would you want to write the jacket cover blurb expounding on your talent?
I always thought it'd be fun to write a preaching commentary for the "Sundays after," for newly ordained associate pastors.  We don't need (nor can we afford) the whole set.  We only preach the Sunday after Christmas, the Sunday after Easter, Forth of July, most of August...  Plus, it'd include thoughts about preaching when you're not the "regular" preacher, establishing your voice as an associate, and starting a "contemporary" worship service.  (That's what we always do, right?)  

I think it would be fun to get my dear Senior Pastor to write the blurb.  He could say something like, "Molly's swell to work with, but, to be honest, I've never really heard her preach.  After all, she just fills in when I'm on vacation.  But, I'm sure you'll love her book.  And, after seven years of being an associate, I'm sure she's figured some things out."  

(For the record, the tone of that is genuine.  I love working with my Senior Pastor.  And have always felt tremendous support from him.  Which is why this idea strikes me as so funny.)

not afraid to die

I've been musing on this for a while.  I meant this to be more elegant, but decided inelegant and existent is better than elegant but only imagined...  

Tonight in Vespers, as we read of Simeon and his gracious blessing and willingness to die (having seen salvation in the form of an infant Jesus), it came to me again:

How come we're good at preaching that people should be unafraid to die when we're afraid of the death of our denomination?

After the scripture, it came back in the communion liturgy.  How Jesus "freed us from slavery to fear and death."

My wondering is about how the denomination--in my case the United Methodist Church--is like a person.  I have this sense that we are.  And, that our preoccupation with our own decline (we don't actually say "death") is preventing us from living faithfully, fearlessly, freely.  Which, it seems to me, is what we ought to be about.

Not, of course, that we shouldn't always be concerned with how to change ourselves up to be relevant--I'm just supposing that, if we were primarily concerned with vital ministry in the lives of individuals and communities, we couldn't help but do that.  If we were always doing those things Jesus said to do--caring for the poor, the widows, the orphans.  Doing justice and building peace.  

Sometimes, we get caught up in argument about semantics.  Like how we describe the ways we need to change.  I think we fall short when we're talking about ways we need to change "so that the denomination doesn't die."  When we keep caught on how to change so we're building the kin-dom of God, we should be much better off.

I'm just saying that if death (or "decline," as we prefer) has us caught in fear, we've got no chance.  I believe in resurrection.

Thoughts?

sabbath and (formerly) sagging rooftops

Vacation is a splendid thing.  And, increasingly, I am grateful for time and space to be sabbath-like--no working, no creating, just being.  A long drive and a glorious week in a lovely cabin in snowy Colorado were wonderful for me.  I needed such rest.  The beauty of the Rocky Mountains isn't bad, either...

We came home last Wednesday, and took a look at the work our neighbor had wrought on our garage that day.

Formerly, our roof had been getting worse and worse with this little problem in which its pitch went the wrong way.  So, instead of allowing rain to roll off the roof, it collected rainwater in lovely pools, which then slowly (though increasingly rapidly) came through the roof into the garage.  I blame this on many things, including weak original construction, and the 8 layers of asphalt shingles placed on top of each other, without removing under layers.

Friday, Matt and I began to rebuild the roof structure.  Here's the beginnings, from Friday afternoon.  Since then, it's gotten even better.  It feels so strong now.
All of which is to say that we jumped back into working and creating.  

On the drive home, I began dreaming of crafty projects.  One of which I've actually made.  This vase told me it wanted a new, woolen cover, to help it show off springy blooms from our garden.  The angle is a bit skewed in the pic, but my choices were either a) skew the angle, or b) let you see the mess that is my living room.  Sorry.
Now, I'm dreaming of silk screening.  I have a clever plan.  We'll see if it makes its way into material reality or not.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying the intoxicatingly sweet smell of those daffodilly blooms, and giving thanks for how rest makes me feel energized for new adventures.

(I can't say that it makes me feel energized to tackle the nasty pile of accumulated paperwork on the desk in my office at the church, but the more creative bits of work have been fun...)

I'm also very thankful for the Army's lack of certainty these days, as it is delaying Matt's departure for Iraq.  This past weekend, they even uttered the words "or maybe not at all" in reference to his deployment timing.  While that's far from certain, it's also far better than his leaving next week.

So, as always, keep working for peace, and praying for an end to this war.

beautiful world, small things edition

beautiful world, animal edition

A prize for the first person who can find the bighorn sheep in the picture below...

And, though not animals, these snowflakes are big!

beautiful world, pt 2

beautiful world, pt 1