Making the Gifts Last

When our temperatures threatened to drop significantly below freezing a few weeks ago, we stripped our pepper and fall tomato plants and brought the harvest inside to add some flavor to our winter soups and omelets.  The tomatoes obliged by ripening a few at a time.  Habanero, Jalapeno, and Gypsy peppers were beautiful in bowl or basket, and have been welcome heat!  Only a few remain, and I find myself counting them and thinking they are almost all gone.  I am keeping a gratitude journal this year.  So I will write that I am thankful for the gifts my garden has given me.  Long past the time the plants have withered and faded, the fruit they produced nourishes and delights us.  Our lives can be like that too.

Packing the Christmas Dress

When my mother was growing up, they never put up the Christmas tree until Christmas eve.  All the festivities and celebrating came after Christmas.  They  celebrated the 12 days of Christmas beginning with Christmas day.  Now that we decorate our and trees much earlier (ours is usually done on Thanksgiving weekend) we have longer to enjoy our house with its Christmas dress on, but I still don’t like to take anything down until Epiphany.  As I pack away ornaments and manger scenes, I remember that I am not putting away the Christ-light.  Nearly 30 years ago I wrote about “undecorating”. 

The mantle seems lonely without the little manger scene.

The house looks plain, bereft of red and green.

The tree is down, the front door bare.

No wreath or garland festooned there.

Our mailbox no longer yields its daily harvest of cards.

The lights and Santas are gone from all the yards.

We packed away the manger scene,

But not the shine of the star!

For His new birth within us, no time or season can mar.

Because He was born, we have Christmas.

Because He died we have life.

Because He lives we have new years

No matter what serves us with strife.

We thank Him for peace and for promise.

We thank Him for love and for sight.

We thank Him for meaning and purpose.

We live to show darkness the Light.

Definitely older, hopefully wiser...I sing along to Andrea Bocelli's Christmas album, allow a few tears to fill my eyes, and am aware that the gifts of Christmas continue.

A Fresh Pot of Tea

I

I believe in enjoying Christmas gifts right away!  This amazing tea flower opens as a fresh pot of tea is brewed: fragrant, lovely, delicious!  I would never have known how beautiful this could be if I had not opened the present, looked inside the box,  removed the strange little ball of leaves, placed it in the tea pot, and added the boiling water.  Without taking the illustration too far, allow me to say this may be a lesson for our new year.  Let's open our gift, learn all we can, believe beyond first sight,  use what we have received,   and be astonished at unexpected beauty.  Here's to tasting  2011~

Vintage Postcard Cookies

Most of my Christmas baking is chosen from long time family favorites: German Butterballs, Candy Cane Cookies, Pumpkin Bread, Thumbprint Cookies - although I bake  less each year.  Last week, with the help of my daughter in law, I tried something I never even heard of, much less had done before.  I made large, card sized molasses cookies, frosted and decorated with wonderful vintage images that might have graced postcards in my grandmother's time.  These are printed on wafer paper and applied in a very simple way, completely edible, and a beautiful addition to our Christmas dinner.  The photo gleams back at you due to a pearlized finish applied as the last step.  If you are a baker, try www.fancyflours.com for these and other ways to add fun and fanciful finishes.  OK, I confess, I already ordered some for Valentine cookies.

Joy to the World!

"Come on, ring those bells, light the Christmas tree!  Jesus is the King, born for you and me...come on,ring those bells, everybody say:  Jesus, we remember this your birthday!"

Remembering a Gift

I don't remember most of the gifts I was given at Christmas when I was growing up.  I recall sweater sets, a doll, books, and I still have a stuffed Rudolph that may be one of the first sold when the song came out. But one present I could count on to be the same every year was a box of chocolate covered cherries from Daddy. For many years after his death, I would buy a box for myself and remember.  This year, chocolate covered cherries have returned!  Skye came over last night to help make Christmas mice, my old favorite in new form.  Don't tell the cats.

Making Bread, Making Memories

Maddie baked Cranberry Bread with me on Thanksgiving morning.  This is the way we do this:
1.  Read the book.  When her Daddy was just her age, he and his brothers loved a book called Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin, the story of a little girl and her grandmother and a famous cranberry bread recipe. We still have the book!  It has the recipe on the back cover. 2.  Assemble the ingredients (more fun than an Easter Egg hunt!)  3.  Find our bowl and measuring "things".  4.  Let the mixer do most of the work except the important things like cracking the eggs, adding everything, and licking the spoon...all Maddie's jobs.

 

Handwriting on the Wall

On a wall in a small shop I recently saw these words.  The shop owner is an artist.  She has great talent for creating, but she knows who makes her day.

Lord, create a Genesis week from my chaos.  Let me not get so busy with Christmas lists that I fail to fully attend to being aware and attentive and astonished at the gifts you give me every day.

My Room with a View

I confess, I tend to think of the kitchen as my room .  I do spend alot of time there, mostly by choice, doing what I love (cooking) and things I need to do (cleaning up).  But also because by standing at my kitchen sink I can look out this window.  Beyond the glass I look at the crepe myrtle in changing seasons with its backdrop of mossy weathered wood.  Looking down at the ground I can see  pepper bushes which have had a fruitful season.  But the most special part of the window is gathered there on the ledge, my small kitchen altar, full of reminders of faith and family, the here and now and the there and then.  The piece of stained glass joined the family when we were in Indonesia.  I love its rich glowing colors and the Trinitarian candles.  Now, at the beginning of Advent, I add a small nativity scene and a candle.

Smile!

The smiles on their faces are mirrored in mine as I thank God one more time for these two!  Maddie in my hat, Skye in her Papa Joe's, kept everyone smiling a few weeks ago when we went to Texian Days Market at George Ranch, just down the road from our house. George Ranch is a living history  museum, a working ranch. http://www.georgeranch.com/ .  In order of preference, the girls enjoyed climbing to the tree house, riding hay bales, joining a banjo band, eating cornbread and funnel cakes, spinning hoops,  watching spinning and weaving, going up in a cabin loft, and a civil war reenactment. 

My longtime friend calls her grandchildren "grandjoys".  Well said, Jane!

Home

Eudora Welty said that “One place understood helps us understand all places better.” and “There may come to be new places in our lives that are second spiritual homes closer to us in some ways, perhaps, than our original homes. But the home tie is the blood tie. And had it meant nothing to us, any other place thereafter would have meant less, and we would carry no compass inside ourselves to find home ever, anywhere at all. We would not even guess what we had missed.”


I am grateful for my growing up place, within a family helping me understand people will always be more important than place. Odd, because that family of origin mostly stayed in one place: rural and small town East Texas. Important, because after I left home at 17 for college, so many places would take their turns in becoming the place of home. One brief passage of time the leaving and the return intersected to be called home. I do believe we make our homes where we are, but there are times when we have a more intimate connection with the place of home. My favorite place happened to be at that intersection,one which my family occupied for only slightly more than a year. But I still have pictures of it hanging on my wall and a doll house replica that my grandchildren love. I think each of us would vote it our favorite house.


When my sons were 13, 10, and 8, we bought a 100 year old Victorian house on 3 acres of oaks and magnolias and pecan trees in East Texas. It was in the hometown where both my husband and I grew up, so both his mother and my parents still lived there at that time. There had been some renovation to the house in the 1940's, but not much since, so there was much that was necessary to live there safely and comfortably. We restored, repaired, renovated, and resuscitated in ways we never knew we had any skill for. We stripped the staircases to find tiger oak, pulled up carpet to find lovely wood floors, added wood burning heaters, updated plumbing and electricity and found ways that old houses need you that amazed us. It was a wonderful adventure.

During the time we were there, I did the research and writing necessary to acquire state historical landmark designation for the house, which was built for John Wesley Love in 1904, to house his wife and 13 children. He had 700 acres of peach orchards adjacent to the house, which was built near the railroad tracks. We discovered that my father and uncle had picked peaches in the orchards, and that Joe's Daddy had painted and wallpapered there in the 40's. It has been 26 years since we lived there, but I can still feel the sway of the porch swing and smell the fragrance of the wisteria dripping from the trees. It was work to live there, but it was magic.

The planned changes in my husband's job did not happen, and we knew our boys needed a father at home more than they needed a certain house, but oh, we loved it. Since we went back there for visits to relatives, we went by the house every time, and I cried every time for years!

Strangely, it took another turn of events in our family life for me to honestly say goodbye to it. Over 15 years after we left it, with the house having gone through several owners, it was very expensively refurbished and opened as a venue for receptions and weddings and other events. When my son and his fiancée planned their small wedding, we arranged to have it there. The bride’s dressing room was Sean's old bedroom! The gathering room for guests was our master bedroom. The ceremony was held in front of the fireplace in the parlor where we had celebrated my parents' 50th wedding anniversary in 1982. The wedding was wonderful; the house was grand in her new finery. She didn't need me anymore, and I felt a closure I had been unable to achieve before. Neither Joe nor I have any living relatives there anymore, but I still say hello to the house when go back to our hometown. I can almost see the 3rd story cupola window wink back at me.

I am glad that although a sign now marks it as commercial offices, that place speaks home to me. I am even more glad that after many years and many moves, I am rooted (not root bound) in my present place. I love being at home.

Wild, Wonderful, Crazy Art

I have missed writing here, but I have been writing, and taking some online courses which I have loved.
Story Circle Network chose a piece I had written  for Story of the Month for October.  I am posting it here with an apology for being absent so long from the blog.


Definitions of "art" vary widely in focus and scope depending on the research source . I like the wrap-around description that art is "the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance." This approach to thinking of any field using the skills or techniques of art., or skill in conducting any human activity broadens our concept, especially of ourselves as artists.


When my 70th birthday arrives, this year, I am thinking I will look back on my 60's as the most creative and productive period in my life...in my poetry, in my family narratives, in the widening of my circle of interest in literature and gardening and art (I do consider gardening an art!). BUT my twenty somethings were my forte for forging a foundation of education, shaping my choices for how I would spend my life, and with whom. My late twenties and thirties were my most creative and productive in bringing wonderful, unique, and precious human beings into the world. Nothing I ever write or read or experience will ever rival those moments of birth and breastfeeding and mothering.

My forties found me moving all over the world and increasing the most in my world view and understanding of other cultures. I grew a great deal in tolerance and understanding and navigating the rough rocky waters of teenage rebellion and spousal crisis! Did I get tired and throw up my hands at times? You bet. And I still do. But in my marriage, in my mothering, and now my grandmothering and in my relationships with my son's wives, I am crafting the most crazy and wild and wonderful art in the world...and I revel in being a woman. Whether I am gathering herbs I have grown to create a delicious and "work of art" meal, or bringing roses in to grace the table and fill my home with fragrance, caring for a husband recovering from surgery, managing a business, gathering people around my dining table, or building a memoir, I am filling my life canvas with rich color and depth of imagery and story.


I know I have choices. I can say no to keeping a two year old and her 4 year old sister for a week (I said yes to that last week). But when I say yes, and it means putting a story on hold or not blogging for a week, I don't feel like I have made a bad choice or that I am somehow deprived of my "real" work as an artist. It is just all part of my life, and my relationships. If I didn't have that I am not sure I would have the "want to" to write, craft or create And when I sit with those little girls and read book after book, sing with them, chase butterflies with them and help them learn about growing and picking and cooking with herbs from the garden, I am not only having the time of my life, I am passing a torch. If I never finish the memoir, I have written it. Making the memories is even more important than recording them. Who knows, Skye may be the one who eventually publishes an audiobook and podcasts about the filtered images of a grandmother. This week, she is enjoying learning to chain stitch with a crochet needle that belonged to her great grandmother. Maddie could be the one who composes music that we started making together. When she sits in my rocking chair and sings to me, the chair that holds her once held my mother and grandmother as they rocked me and sang to me. Jordann may paint many more works than my odd canvas of color. She cradles her doll, not knowing at all how many nurturing women, her grandmothers long generations back, have done the same. Lauren went to her first prom this weekend and came by for me to see her in her finery. Already, a beautiful young woman who is headed into choices that perhaps hold a part of me in the story. She wanted to see pictures from my high school proms, and pronounced me beautiful in the dress my mother made for me.

Just a note, though, I may pass the torch, but I am not quitting the race. And I am excited about every tomorrow I will have. What have I said? Maybe, just that it is in relationship (with my Creator, my family, my friends) that I experience the deepest level of creativity and the wildest surge of motivation. In the weaving of this rich tapestry of relationship....wild, wonderful, crazy art.

More Blessings

More blessings, in the form of additions and corrections for my previous post, are due to being married for 46 years.  We really do finish each other's sentences and fill in each other's blanks.  Joe remembered Sean Burke well, and reminded me that Dr. Sean Burke was a professor at St. Mary's College in San Antonio. He had a Sunday morning radio program that we liked.  And we agreed that his sign off was always the Irish blessing as sung by The Priests in Armagh Cathedral,  with the ending:  "and may you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you're dead!"

An Irish Blessing

In 1967, as the birth of our first son approached, Joe and I were fond of a San Antonio radio announcer who signed off each day with this Irish blessing.  Although I can't remember his surname, I do remember his given name because that is the name we chose for our son, Sean, who is now a father himself and still loves all things Irish.  Signing off for now...

Texas Spring

In late March and early April (late this year, but with conditions perfect for an unusually lavish display), our Texas Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrush spread over fields and roadsides in a vivid blanket of color.  I love the mounds of Bluebonnets stretching as far as I can see.  I love the contrast of  fiery Indian Paintbrush.  Looking for the first spots of blossom has delighted me each Spring for as long as I can remember.  When we moved to California, and then to Indonesia in 1987, there were 5 years when Texas Spring was only something to read about or remember.  After my son Jeremy came back to the U.S., he sent me a letter with 2 small pressed flowers.  Underneath, he wrote "Texas Spring".  I framed the piece of folded paper with his words and the dried wildflowers.  The paintbrush and bonnets have gone to seed for another year, but I still have that 20 year old reminder.  Thank you, Jeremy!

Who Is Happiest?

When our sons were growing up, one of our Spring things was purchasing little net bags of damp straw holding hundreds of ladybugs to set free in our garden. This project had double benefits:  the ladybugs would feast on some of our garden pests, and the boys loved dancing in the swarm of the lady bug launching, letting them land on their arms and hair. The tradition continues as their daughters experience the joy of releasing something created to fly away free.  I think Maddie's smile answers the question, "Who is happiest?"

What Is Your Name?

It is a cool cloudy day following our rains yesterday, so I planted the pepper plants Joe and I bought a few days ago. 19 of them!! Green and yellow Bells, Gypsies, Anchos, Habaneros, Cayennes, Mucho Nachos (giant jalapenos)  and Chili Pequins (tiny, but 8 times hotter than a jalapeno)...all levels of the Scoville scale.  We already have tomatoes setting fruit.  I like planting heirloom varieties.  This year we put in Paul Robesons, Tliacolula Pinks, Black Cherries, Money Makers, Cherokee Purples and Juliettes.  The only hybrid plant I put in is a Better Bush.  It may give me a more predictable harvest but I love the different shapes and colors of the heirlooms.  Truth be told,  I love the names, too.  Whether it is a rose or a vegetable, the name calls me first.

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

My Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow bush is not yet blooming like this, but it will be soon.  This picture is from last year (Yesterday).   Its current season of blooms (Today) will bless us all these different colors as the blooms appear and fade.  It will bloom again. (Tomorrow).  My dear friend Debbie brought me the bush the week before they moved from Texas four years ago, as a reminder of enduring friendship.  In this week after Easter, I am grateful for past and present and future Grace.  Everlasting.

See the land, her Easter keeping,

 Rises as her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
 Burst at last from winter snows.
 Earth with heaven above rejoices.”
        ~Charles Kingsley

Palm Sunday

Children waving palms, drums beating, handbells ringing, choir singing...all processing in for this morning's worship service to reenact and remind that Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem is the beginning for our holy week.  Sean had a drum.  Skye joined the children and sang "Could it be?... Isn't he?"  Kristen and I rang handbells.  I had my regular place in the choir between bell presentations.    My heart filled with gratitude for the significance of the day as the beginning of Holy Week, for my family's participation.  Our children and grandchildren who live in this area were all present and part of the experience.

Tea Time

Maddie celebrates her fourth birthday with a tea party for a few friends.  "Tea for two, and two for tea.  Me for you, and you for me....can't you see happy we will be?"  Be sure to wear something fancy!

                                                                       

Crazy Quilt Art

In our area of Texas, school children of all ages enter art projects in a Rodeo art competition in the weeks leading up to the rodeo in Houston.  Skye won a ribbon for her entry, titled Crazy Quilt.  I have always loved crazy quilts, and have a few pillow covers and one quilt made by my grandmother in this fashion.  I like the stories told by the various scraps of fancy fabrics.  I like remembering my grandmother's hands when I trace my fingers over the feather stitching and briar stitches outlining the quilt patches.  One day soon, I will show Skye the art fashioned by her great great grandmother.

Thank You Note

Our granddaughter, Skye, is a 7 year old Daisy Girl Scout so this year she had her first experience selling cookies!  At this age, marketing is limited to friends and family so no door to door sales.  Family, of course, did not let her down.  The cookies are good, and we have plenty to share.  But the best part of this venture is the thank you note she included when she delivered the cookies.  It reminds me that no gift is properly acknowledged without a handwritten note.  Our gift to her in purchasing her goods is excelled by her gift to us in appreciation.  I think I need to write a thank you note!

When the Birds Go North Again

I am sorting through some very old files of poetry and kept stuff.  It is slow work because I keep stopping to read this or think about that.  But today is the first day of Lent, an appropriate season for reflection.  I feel winter in my bones this morning. It has been a heart winter as well.  When I picked up the page with this piece of poetry, I felt as if the woman who wrote it (who died the year I was born) was speaking to me.  I know that God was.

"Oh, every year hath its winter,
And every year hath its rain--
But a day is always coming
When the birds go north again.

"When new leaves swell in the forest,
And grass springs green on the plain,
And alders' veins turn crimson--
And the birds go north again.

"Oh, every heart hath its sorrow,
And every heart hath its pain--
But a day is always coming
When the birds go north again.

" 'Tis the sweetest thing to remember,
If courage be on the wane,
when the cold, dark days are over--
Why, the birds go north again."

      ~Ella Higginson, a poet from the Northwest

A year ago when I began this blog, I wanted to learn, but actually knew nothing about the "how".  I am still learning, and now have two blogs!  At one time I thought I would merge the two into one.  Gradually I began to see they really were different kinds of containers, so I have maintained them both.  In these blog posts, I have collected family stories, my grandmothering pleasures, and other memoir and nesting style writing.  My other blog began in a more contemplative style, and features some of both my husband's and my photography, particularly in our garden.  But the words I post there today could go in either blog.  If you are curious, you can see this at http://www.stonesandfeathers.wordpress.com/

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.

Snow is seldom forecast for the Texas Gulf Coast. Yesterday, December 4, 2009, we had the earliest snowfall ever. For hours, we had huge wet snowflakes that began to blanket every rooftop and garden, transforming our everyday views into Christmas card works of art. I kept coming back to the window and the porch to watch it. I gathered squash, greens, tomatoes, peppers and herbs that I did not want to freeze since our temperatures for the night would drop to the low twenties.

SHATTERING

When remembering my grandparent’s old house on an East Texas Hill, my thoughts reenter the red dirt road up to the house. We never went in at the front, but always drove around to the back, parked under the oak trees and, flinging open car doors, we ran to open arms and an open screen door in the back. That door took us into the large room known simply as the sleeping porch. It had windows all across two sides , was furnished with a big feather bed, the curved front bureau that now lives in my own front bedroom, some rocking chairs, a heater, and the oak dining table and china cabinet we now call ours.

I can picture going into the small kitchen just off the sleeping porch. There was a wood stove, a bucket of water with a dipper, and there Grandma produced peas and cornbread, fried chicken, homemade blackberry jelly, and my favorite treat, tea cakes. From the kitchen a door led into one of 3 front rooms which were separated by a long hall that had speckled blue linoleum dotted with white stars. On one wall sat a long chintz covered quilt box. That box is here in my house, too. On its surface sit family pictures, generations beyond my grandparents, but none of whom would have been possible without them!

At the end of the hall, the door opened onto the front porch. Two things pulled me there. One was a porch swing where I could sit and swing and read. The other was a large rose bush, planted at the corner where the house and porch met, just outside a bedroom window. It was a yellow rose, with large fragrant petals. My grandmother often filled a jar with these roses to put on the kitchen table. She didn’t have a car or an indoor bathroom, but she had roses. We would bury our noses in their softness and fragrance and thank God for this gift to us. When these roses had blessed us with their beauty for a brief time, and began to drop their petals on the table cloth, Grandma called this “shattering”. “Those roses have shattered,” she would say. I know that we use the same term for broken crystal and failed dreams, but in today’s bouquets, the shattering of the roses always brings a tender smile and a remembering of Grandma’s yellow roses.
Lord, I want to bloom today. Keep me together. Help me not to shatter.

PUMPKIN PARTY

I feel very celebrated! Ben and Kristen gave me a birthday party on November 14 that has to be the most unusual in 69 birthdays. We may not have had 69 ways to enjoy pumpkins, but it was close. Pumpkin seeds, pumpkin spread, pumpkin scones, pumpkin popcorn, pumpkin bark, pumpkin candy, pumpkin soup, pumpkin lasagne, and the work of art pumpkin cake! Decorations were, of course, pumpkins - small, medium, and large. Charlie Brown may not have a corner on the Great Pumpkin anymore!

Lemon Harvest

Our Meyer lemon tree had a bumper crop this year. The tree is small and the branches were drooping all the way to the ground with the heavy fruit. The basket full of golden globes begs me to find ways to use them. We have already given bags of them to friends and family. An online article from the LA times advises me of 100ways to use Meyer Lemons! But the best use in my opinion is enjoying them in a variety of delicious recipes. These lemons are slightly different from regular lemons, presenting an edible peel and a sweeter flavor. The sweet tart citrus fruits are perfect for desserts, stuffing for chicken, or making simple sweet lemonade. Try this for a delicious autumn supper:

Meyer Lemon Risotto
Makes 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients:
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 shallots, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon sea salt
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups pearled barley
1 cup dry white wine
6 cups vegetable stock
Grated zest of 4 Meyer lemons plus juice of 2
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup creme fraiche
1 cup spinach, chopped
Handful of toasted pine nuts, for garnish

Directions:
1. In a large pot over medium high heat, saute onions, shallots, garlic and salt in olive oil until onion softens.

2. Stir barley into pot and pour in wine. Let mixture come to a simmer for 3 to 4 minutes. Add 1 cup of stock at a time, while letting the barley absorb the liquid (this will take about 30 to 40 minutes). Stir often while adding liquid.

3. When barley is tender, take pot off heat and stir in lemon juice and zest, cheese and creme fraiche. Mix in spinach and top with pine nuts.

Which Witch?

When two of my grandchildren came to my house on Halloween dressed as witches, we made witch cookies with green faces, beady eyes, hooked noses and wild hair. Credits go to chocolate chips, cashew nuts and chow mein noodles for the bewitching features.

Soup's On!

Soup can warm your body, fill your hunger, boost your immune system….but it also can warm your heart, fill a need, and boost your spirits. I am of the opinion this can happen not only when it is eaten, but when you prepare it! There is something about the gathering of healthy ingredients, the chopping and dropping, the fragrance of herbs and the sounds and sights of a simmering, steaming pot that cheers the cook long before it is tasted.

Our family’s favorites have been made many many times, some of them for over forty years. The roots go back much further, because I learned to cook from both my parents and my grandmother. Chicken and Dumplings would have been a favorite at my grandmother’s table. I serve it at the same table, and cook it in one of the same pots.

There are many resources for soup and stew recipes today, but these are some of the ones enjoyed by the Parkers. You need little more than some hot bread and in some cases a few condiments to make a satisfying, healthy meal. I employ artistic license in my cooking…I feel quite free to add or substitute ingredients, and many favored variations of these same recipes exist. Why use dried herbs when I have fresh ones growing outside my kitchen door? If I have vegetables in the crisper that aren’t in the recipe, they will probably wind up in the pot. When those with dietary preferences are at my table, I will substitute turkey for meat, or omit a certain spice. Old recipes tend to ignore today’s low fat recommendations. Healthy improvisations are wonderful. The important thing is to have a starting place, and to enjoy cooking a great meal.

Great Soups to Try
German Lentil

Tomato Basil Soup

Vegetable Soup

Chicken Noodle

Gazpacho

Corn and Crab Chowder

Barley Burger

Chicken and Dumplings

Curry Soup with Chopped Apple

Cheese Soup

Chili

NOW AND THEN, ALWAYS FRIENDS

Skye missed her friend. Anna’s family was in Chicago for the summer. Skye longed for Anna’s return, only to learn that when they came back it would be to pack and move. Anna’s Dad was being transferred to Calgary, Canada! For three years Skye had answered “Anna” to questions about best friends. Anna answered “Skye” to the same questions. Now, in two days, Anna would go with her parents and her brother, Jack, to the airport where they would fly to their new home. This would be too far away to come back for play dates or even birthday parties. They would start first grade next week in two different countries! But today they would have fun doing all the things they had enjoyed doing together, their favorite things.

First, they chose scarves and hats from the dressup basket in Granmary’s front bedroom. Purple chiffon and leopard spotted satin floated from their shoulders. Tutus and capes and jewels hung here and there. Anna chose a comb with a tall feather to put in her hair, while Skye peeked out from a red straw hat. Angel and Bella, the cats, ran under the bed. The sight of the fashion parade to the tune of giggles made Granmary smile.

Skye took Anna outside to show her the fairy house she was making. It had a real door painted yellow and pink and green. Twigs and rocks and sparkling bits of broken jewelry surrounded it. They picked flowers and ran on the paths in the garden and fed the fish in Papa Joe’s pond.

Skye set the small round table and stools in the hall while Anna stacked the tea dishes. Granmary gave them a red checkered square for the table and brought tiny peanut butter sandwiches and tuna salad with apple juice to pour in the teacups. After their tea time, they went outside for a few minutes to dance in the rain! Then they watched a movie about a mouse who loved books and ate popcorn.

While Granmary watched Skye and Anna, she thought of her own best friend when she was just the same age. Mignon and Mary Ann dressed up and dressed alike. They played with their kittens and with their dolls. They had picnics and parties. They giggled. And when Mignon moved to what seemed like a whole country away, although it was only to Houston,they kept being friends. So Granmary smiled again and thought about her old friend. They were both grandmothers now. But they were still friends. She thought to herself “I will call Mignon and we will have lunch this week, so I can tell her about Skye and Anna.” Then she helped Skye and Anna string some tiny silver beads on a stretchy cord. The two bracelets were exactly
alike. The beads in the middle had their initials and said: SP FRIEND AL, but they wouldn’t really need the bracelets to remember.
~I wrote this story for Skye after
she and Anna had their goodbye for
now day at our house last month.

Place of Grace

"I am a home-oriented person, one who is striving to be a homemaker, a people-builder, a steward of things in whatever place come together as family and friends.

If I cannot be at the locality we normally call home, then I find I instinctively try to make a home wherever I am. I find tremendous satisfacton when I am able to create pockets of safety and encouragement for those who are close to me at any given time. A place of grace, if you please."
~Gail McDonald

July's finish, then the days of August have passed like bands marching by in a holiday parade. These days, going past in an accelerated rhythm, have not waited for me to get in even one August blog before the calendar turned to September. But September is a month for beginning again. So, as the children begin a new school year, and new vegetables go into the ground for my fall garden, I am back!

I have kept journals for years, and find this 2009 variation has many of the same considerations. One of my favorite authors, Luci Shaw, discusses some of the benefits of journal keeping. She mentions the collection jars we used to put lightning bugs in when we were kids and likens a journal to one of these collection jars! I like that. A journal, or a blog is a place to keep impressions or experiences so they are not forgotten.

"Such solace at a phrase just written down,
Relief that now it's firmly pinned in place-
An insect stilled that recently had flown
but snagged its wing in this dark brainy space
to be subdued, place marker for collections
of other airborne words, termites, or humming bees,
for me to sort and shift and make selections.
When the assortment's fixed the writing flies."

~Luci Shaw, in A Syllable of Water

If you would have a lovely garden,
You should have a lovely life.
—Shaker Saying

Summer Snow

When Maddie and Skye were playing on the back porch a couple of weeks ago, they walked along the sitting wall which made them eye level with the overhanging branches of the white crepe myrtle that are heavy with blossoms. I had so much fun watching them swatting at the bloom clusters and squealing when the petals showered over them and floated to the ground. Summer snow! When all the available blooms were harvested, they had the snowflakes in their hair and on their shoulders, and the porch was covered with petals. Time for a snow cone? Summer heat, summer treat!

Thank Heaven for Little Girls

From peanut butter and polka dots to puppy dogs and paper dolls!

Dance With Me!

This is Maddie and her new friend, Roxie. They hear the music!

Eastering

Dusty road, despairing pair,
Putting one foot in front of the other,
Grieving, bewildered, unaware.

Preoccupied with deep loss
Seeing once more that recent horror,
Their friend’s awful death on a cross.

Dulled by painful sorrow,
Immersed in tangled thoughts,
Anxious about tomorrow,

Barely noticing one coming aside
To question their troubles,
Matching their stride.

Their vision was clouded with doubt and tears
So, recognition delayed,
They told him the news and their fears.

No reproving or chiding in his talk
As with clear understanding
He walked their walk,

Then joined them in a simple meal.
It was bread that was broken.
By this they saw what was real.

Tears were gone, hearts on the mend.
It was as bread was broken,
That they knew their dear friend,

And learned by heart what eyes had concealed.
That He was with them.
That first Easter, in Emmaus.

I travel my own path far from Jerusalem.
Am I blinded by what comes next to do?
Will I know what comes next to be?
In the breaking of the bread, I remember Him.

I see with my heart, not my eyes.
With is a powerful thing.
Eastering, again.

Mary Ann Parker

Reflection for Lent

March has come in like a lion. After several balmy days causing the little nubs on the crepe myrtle outside my kitchen window to swell and turn bronze and green, suddenly the winds rose, temperatures fell and in Texas Blue Norther fashion, March 1 dawned near freezing. In my Bible readings in Luke, I feel the progression as Jesus begins to intensify his teaching to his disciples and turn steadily toward Jerusalem and His cross. I am reflecting on how He must have felt the changes in His followers' "weather" of understanding and relationship. One day they seem so eager and in tune and perceptive. Overnight, or the next minute there can be change to clouds of "me first" and questioning. Jesus must have felt them waxing warm and then cold, peaceful, then blustery. It is easy for me to raise an eyebrow at the disciples scuffling along on hot dusty roads among crowds of questionable people, many with urgent needs. I am so spoiled to comfort.

I think of the weather proverb we apply to March. "In like a lion. Out like a lamb."
Jesus entered Jerusalem like a lion. Lion of Judah. King. Hosanna.
He left, a lamb.

As He said...not "The End", but "It is finished".

It wasn't easy, but it was life-giving.

Room for Waiting

On time, out of time, spending time, waiting time.
Waiting need not be a waste of time.
How will I choose to use the wait?

Sitting, knitting?
Cell phone talking, restless walking?
Watching, listening to an also waiter?
Making plans for what comes later?

Flipping through magazines’ glossy ads of products I would not buy?
Reading a chosen book I brought with me to try?
Tuning out noise from the TV intended to entertain?
Can I make something happen instead of complain?

Could I, would I pray?
If the wait is too long, will I stay?

If the waiting is in a place in my life instead of a place of medical appointment, is my choice the same?

Letting Go

When my sons were in elementary school, they all went to Davis Elementary In Plano, Texas,several blocks from our house. Adjoining the school grounds was a small greenbelt area that had a creek running through it. When it was raining hard, that creek rose pretty fast. One day when it had been raining, as he walked home from school Sean spotted something caught in the underbrush by the creek and he stopped, pulled it out and brought it home. They were always rescuing something. This time it was a very large bird that Sean was sure was a Peregrine Falcon. All three boys loved medieval castle and knight stories complete with falconry, so it must be a falcon! It was obviously hand trained because it had a leather jess on its foot. It also had a BB hole in its wing. Wounded and unable to fly it fell near the creek which had risen enough to reach it as it lay caught in the scrubby growth. When Sean ran into the kitchen with it, explanations were rushed as he wrapped the soggy exhausted bird in a towel, then got my hair dryer and dried it! Sean had a large cage leftover from his parakeet breeding phase so they put it there but it didn't stay long. Ben and Jeremy were amazed at the new bird! It didn’t take long for this bird to revive somewhat. Before we realized just how mobile or strong he was, he had decided to have a snack on another resident of the garage: Jeremy's King snake that was living in a gallon jar with a screen on top. The screen was like paper for that sharp beak. Jeremy was of course very upset, but he was excited enough about the bird to forgive him.

This was before the days of Googling Hawks and Falcons! They read everything they could find about the bird. Jeremy even took him to school for a show and tell! The bird rode on Jeremy's towel wrapped arm with what they had devised for a jess strap and Jeremy told the kids about intelligence and wingspan and strength and speed. (This is the son who is now a jet pilot.) After Jeremy's talk, another boy in his class came up to Jeremy with tears in his eyes and remorsefully confessed he was the one who shot the bird with his BB gun! Mrs. Wharton, his 2nd grade teacher is our friend even now (over thirty years later) and she remembers the story.

I told the boys I didn't think we were supposed to keep a falcon, and we began calling agencies to find out what to do with him. Texas Parks and Wildlife would only say we were not allowed to keep the bird. Finally we contacted a wildlife rehabilitation organization in McKinney, TX that worked to rehabilitate wounded birds of prey. They said they would take care of his wound and when he was well enough, gradually teach him to hunt for his own food again , then release him. It was a tearful day when Ben and Jeremy and Sean and I drove up to the Heard Museum in McKinney, 30 minutes away, with the bird in the car. Again, he rode peacefully on the boy's arms. He could have decimated some flesh or at the least caused a major distraction for mom the driver. I was probably crazy for taking him loose like that in the car, but that is what we did. When we arrived, he was identified not as the falcon that they had hoped, but as a Texas Red Tailed Hawk. They were shown the cage he would be kept in and told about his feeding and rehabilitation.

About a month afterward, we received a call that "our" hawk was ready to leave. The boys were invited to come up and release him. As they carried him out into the field, we talked about how good he would feel to have air under his wings again, to fly! When he left us, he circled and then flew higher and higher until he was only a dot and then gone, leaving three boys growing into strength and wisdom and freedom of spirit, and a mom who herself was only beginning to understand about nurturing and letting go. When I see a hawk I remember him. Sometimes when I stand with an upraised wave of my arm as I see the plane my son is piloting fade into a dot in the sky I remember, too.

Patchwork Promises: On being kept and keeping.

I once was asked to speak to a women's group at our church about peace. I talked about my grandmother, who loved to quilt and did what she called piece work. I said she also was known for her peace work, making patchwork quilts. She was the grandmother whose table around which our family still gathers. I wrote about that table in one of my first blog entries. Grandma Terrell fed us teacakes and garden vegetables but she also fed us the nourishment of love and peace that came from her deep faith. She covered us in her feather bed with quilts she had pieced from scraps of worn out clothing or pieces left over from making a new dress, but she also covered us with grace. She taught me the joy of being kept. She taught me the value in keeping.

Now I am the grandmother. Last week I had the special blessing of keeping my two youngest granddaughters for a few days while their parents traveled. We pulled out a quilt to place on the family room floor. 2 year old Maddie and I added a card table and coverings to make a play house, and had our lunch there. 5 month old Jordann practiced her rolling overs and carefully examined the new colors and patterns in the old quilt pieces. As I watched her, I realized the little daisy and strawberry print she was fingering was cut from a scrap of cloth that made a sundress I had worn when I myself was a very little girl. I felt a leap to and from the past. Mine, my mother's, this special grandmother who had sewn the quilt. I felt tears that must have made my eyes shine almost as brightly as Jordann's, and I laughed with Maddie as we pretended.