By the Book

"It is a good rule...to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books."   ~ C.S. Lewis

If you asked me how I spent my summers when I was growing up, I would not tell you "at the beach" or any typical vacation. The only times I remember our family going out of town for a week were a few summers when we went to stay near a clinic that offered hot mineral baths which my father took to ease his arthritis pain.  Those days we spent in a tiny motel with a kitchenette where we prepared our meals, certainly not remarkable by today's standards of getaways.

My main source of adventure and recreation for those hot Texas summer months was a small, plain stone building in a park near the center of our small town.  This was the Jacksonville Public Library.  I was allowed to go often to check out books.  I remember dark wood floors and the stacks of books lined up waiting for me to slide them from their shelves to pick my maximum allowed volumes to take home.  Today, my home is full of books, but I still go to the library, often taking my granddaughter along.  When I open a brand new book, I love the smell and the feel of the fresh pages.  But there is story in holding and reading a book others have held and read.  The Lewis quote reminds me beyond that, the new and the old are more than  age of the paper and binding.  I try to balance my reading by including long loved classics as well as the newly written must reads.

Off to a New Start

The first three weeks of the year have kept us guessing about what season it really is. First, we had the most severe and prolonged freeze in over 20 years. It apparently killed a ficus tree we inherited after our son's home was burned in 1994 that flourished on our back porch. I called it Phoenix. In spite of coverings and lights, the extended cold zapped it as well as ferns, fig leaf plants and other container plants too heavy for me to move inside. Then came a week of warmer weather but heavy rains. The last few days have seen short sleeves...Spring?

An English proverb says "A fair day in winter is the mother of a storm." I'll keep my coat and scarf handy. Meanwhile, in the vegetable garden, the broccoli and cauliflower thrive. I don't think I have ever seen baby cauliflowers. I like these little survivors.

eve of 2010

"The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung." ~Walt Whitman

I Still Do

Forty-six years ago the organ chimes rang seven times and I walked down the aisle of the church where we both grew up to meet the love of my life and make vows in that beginning which was called a wedding. In all the changes and challenges in my life, the promises we made to each other and to God have held fast. In joy, in sadness, in sickness and health, in poverty and wealth (both of pocket and spirit), in the face of what at times seemed insurmountable difficulty, we have moved through the years to this day of celebration. Grace is still at work in our lives. Among many reminders of memories made in our home is a small framed copy of this prayer which we asked to be read at our wedding. It is my daily prayer.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred..let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt...faith,
Where there is despair...hope,
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness...joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may
not so much seek
To be consoled....as to console,
To be understood...as to understand,
To be loved...as to love,
for
It is in giving...that we receive,
It is in pardoning, that we are pardoned, It is in dying...that we are born to eternal life.
~St. Francis of Assisi

There's No Business like Snow Business

Our granddaughters who live in North Texas had a White Christmas! Maddie made snow angels and snow balls. Santa had to leave the wooden playhouse in pieces because he had trouble putting them together in the heavy snowfall. No snow for us in South Texas, but I did watch White Christmas! Our family here gathered for the day, enjoying cooking and eating and gifting and singing around the piano, with a number of telephone conversations with the snow angels and their angel parents.

Recipe for Remembering

I have been doing Christmas baking and candy making the last few days. As I got out my recipe box and files to choose which meals and treats I would make this year, I realized one more time how many of these are traditions in our family, but also the numbers of friends and family who passed these recipes on to me. Most of the recipes are handwritten, and include the name of the person who gave them to me originally. As I read through them, and particularly as I cook that special food, I think of those names, and am grateful for all the ways they were and are part of our family story. A few reflect a family experience that resulted in the collection of the recipe. This year I made a list of 18 recipes and contributors and smiled as I realized most of them I have been using for 40 years or more! Some of them were:

Dr. Pepper Bread: this came from a booklet handed out at the Texas State Fair in 1978! A family trip to the fair resulted in a recipe we have used ever since.

German Butter Balls, courtesy of my friend Nancy Johnson in San Antonio in 1970.

My sister in law, Iris' recipe for Toffee.

Candy Cane Cookies, clipped from a Ladies' Home Journal in the late 1960's This is an alltime family favorite, and the one my grandchildren like best to make as well as to eat!

Ice Box Cookies, my mother's recipe and a cookie I remember eating for well over 60 years!

Thumb Print Cookies, from Pat Tarver Taylor, our good friend for over 40 years.

Mexican Stack Up: given to us by C.W. and Mary Bess, a dear pastor and his wife, in a book of Christmas recipes in 1982.

All Bran Yeast Rolls, from Billie Housman in 1963.

Orange Spiced Wine, from Georgie Ingram, 1972

Poppy Seed Dressing for fruit salad, from Opal Carl. She was my Public Health Professor in Nursing School in 1962.

Chicken Tetrazinni, from Jean McGuire, our neighbor in San Antonio in 1966.

I am grateful for friends past and present. I love remembering with recipes.

It looks like Christmas!

Skye and her doll Molly have matching Christmas dresses. Our house has its Christmas dress on too. The outward preparations for Christmas start Thanksgiving weekend although I always give myself the gift of beginning to listen to my favorite Christmas music on my birthday two weeks prior to that. Once I get the bins of decorations into the house from my garage, I am always eager to get everything "out and up". I find it takes me longer these days, so here it is only a few days until the 25th and I am still tweaking the tree...trees, actually. Skye is here in the afternoons after school and she has helped with getting ready. We have a small kitchen tree with handwritten recipes from my mother and cookie cutters I have used since I was a child. The tiny tree in the dining room has small china teacups and saucers for decorations plus a few tea bags and the pieces of Joe's mother's spoon collection that came to us. The decorating is only a sign of what goes on inwardly for me. Advent is a time for making my heart ready.