yesterday was the PERFECT day...

... to sit with susan


...admire the jungle


... listen to the bees doing business


... contemplate what's ahead


...look thru some recipe books

...enjoy the new and the old

...and watch for the signs.

just another day in the kitchen

what a hoot

thanks for all the birfday wishes yesterday, everyone! i had a great day!

roasted tomatoes

so in the midst of a monday, i multi-tasked and decided to try roasting tomatoes. it was easy, over the lunch hour, i diced up some onion, green pepper, basil leaves, garlic cloves...then washed and cored the tomatoes. i cut them in big chunks, then added a generous dose of olive oil and some salt.

into the oven at 300 degrees for about 3 hours.

by then, i was sick of working :) so i fished about half of the big chunks out and ran them through a sieve. then, pulsed the rest in the blender. oh, i also strained the "juice" that was left in the pan to get the majority of the seeds out.

back onto the stove for a couple of hours. the result is a really chunky marinara-like sauce. seems like it will be perfect for wintertime, especially with a couple chicken breasts and some parmesan cheese thrown in for good measure.

sigh. i have a pretty big pantry going right now. next up, potatoes. not sure what to do with those.

the falling away

what a great weekend. i did finally finish this book "adelaide piper" which has been on my nightstand for about 3 months, and was just not drawing me in. finally, i committed, and as so often happens, it sucked me in. it's a coming-of-age southern girl book, my favorite. what i did not realize is that it's also a testimony about a girl and God, and how He draws HER in, when she really has better things to do. somehow, i could relate.

you see, i had what i would call a great scare this weekend. for a few weeks, i have been following an old church friend on facebook. i was noticing some alarming talk in her updates, very "spiritual" in nature, and not about Christ. they were kind of vague statements that sounded more like the latest oprah show than the Word. you know, those "prophets" who take a grain of Truth, usually Truth that makes us FEEL good, then smack it into a book with a pretty cover, and tell the world they thought of it. sadly, it works with a generation of hurting people.

anyway, my "friend" had been updating about how positive thinking produces positive results. certainly, God addresses this in the Bible. i do believe it to be Truth. but her ideas were spread a little farther, maintaining that one should only involve oneself in "positivity" and refuse to enter in to things that seem negative. no mention of entering into the messy stuff with Jesus, who keeps our thinking positive no matter what we are going thru.

long story short, i decided to ask about her, and another couple that had been VERY dedicated to Christ. we used to worship together on friday nights at our assoc. pastor's house, several years ago. the news was not good. all three had left our church (i knew that, but i thought to start a small "home" church with some others). they had all fallen away from the teachings of Jesus!! seriously! i wonder how that could have happened, and it scares me. in my worship group we sometimes talk of the enemy's tactics, how sly he is in convincing. how he can take things one would never IMAGINE and make you believe it's for the best.

i guess the takeaway here is to choose your actions wisely. a decision to "look for another church" or "take a couple of weeks off" could very well be the plan of the enemy. stay close to those you know can help comfort and guide you through rough times, and point you in the right direction (toward Him). look for a church that is grounded, that has an accountability to others larger than themselves. always call on the Lord by NAME. trust that no matter how you feel, He is there. read His Word if you are floundering, and keep the foundation of Him in your life. He has a plan for you, a good one. He is telling us our lives depend on Him, and that is Truth.

Only be careful,
and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the
things your eyes have seen or let them slip from
your heart as long as you live.

Deuteronomy 4:9

ps. long story short for me is that i "unfriended" the friend, as well as several others who i KNOW are dangerously far away from God's plan for me. Rather than play a harmless game on the computer with people, i choose to stick with only the One who is trustworthy, whose Truth lasts through the ages, not for just a momentary feeling.

the slow down

thank you, thank you, rani dear! somebunny dropped 6 dozen ears of yummy sweetcorn off at my doorstop yesterday!

i have gotten through about 2/3 of it by now, noon on saturday. i keep thinking about the pace of last week, the splitting headaches, the thought that my brain was running at max capacity for information retention, the dropping into bed exhausted before 10pm.

and i thought of karen's comment last week about the "work" i do on the weekends. and i realized that all of the crazy homemaker stuff i do is to help me. slow. down.

my mind is totally free when i work on projects like the corn. the husking, the washing and blanching, the cutting, the cleanup, all of it is simultaneously lowering my blood pressure, clearing my head, and filling me with thoughts of slower times, and a sense of achievement. not meaningless busy work, as we do so much of today, but REAL work that feeds your soul, as well as your body.

i made a batch of the old-fashioned "cream" corn with butter and half & half today, in memory of my grandma. i used HALF the butter that she used to, and it's still just decadent and delish. i'll probably make another batch this afternoon with the rest of the corn, just to give to friends (and my family, who is coming to visit tomorrow).

the slow down feels so good. thank you Lord for quiet saturdays :)

more house

yeah. i bought another house print from nate duval...i don't even know where i'll put it! i can't worry about such things, because it makes me too darn happy to look at. i'm going to start decorating closets pretty soon here...

make it work

so glad Project Runway is back. it was a nice surprise to me, because i didn't know it had switched channels. however, thanks to fashion-ey girl kristie, i had a great time watching last night. after the disappointment of design star, and the boring-ness of the food challenges lately, it's good to see tim and heidi and nina garcia! they are classic. it looks like it will be a good season...

make it work!!

redhead

i decided to use the f*** box of color under my sink today.
now, my hair will match the turning leaves.


doh! not exactly what i was going for. ah well....here's to experimentation....and being willing to accept the results!

one day at a time

“Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today."

Mathew 6:34

no, not that one day at a time...

remember that old song called "one day at a time"?

it's a country song, i think.

i need a copy of it right now in my life, because every dang day, i have been panicking about some future thing that MIGHT go poorly. it is causing me to not sleep well, to eat too much, to not enjoy the moment, to lose all sense of being a child of God!

i woke up thinking it cannot possibly be wednesday! this week has been torturous! i cannot take 5-day work weeks anymore! then, i prayed. i walked around the yard and asked God to be in my day. i asked Him to be more powerful than anything else. to be the Lord of today for me.

and guess what? today looks doable. it IS doable if i realize that He wants to help me with the "stuff" on my plate, and is far better at scheduling than me. i think being Omnipresent, Omniscient, all that stuff - helps :)

i love when scripture is the only thing you need. which is always, btw.

happy day!

the f word

usually, i just hate it. lou uses it all the time, year-round, and i get so annoyed!

then one day, i wake up and there is the coolest breeze coming in the windows, and i walk outside and the sky is THIS color....


and all of a sudden, i am using the f word too.

happy f*** day!

state on a stick

in my neverending quest for cool artwork for the homefront, i ran into this artist, who paints "states on a stick."

genius, i say.

mandatory breaktime

yay weekends!

gosh, aren't weekends great? i am so relaxed and better now!


yesterday, i painted the bedroom finally! celadon...same but different than before. perhaps i have more green than necessary in the house, but i am pretty sure you cannot have too much green. this will have tomato red compliments when i am done, much like my one-eyed monster, which i found under the bed :) he he! that is hilarious, now that i come to think of it.



i also thrifted a wonderful "happy painter" painting yesterday! $26! i have been looking FOR EVER for a cool vintage painting, but many seem to be made of cardboard, and just not interesting to look at. i saw this one and it drew me in right away...look at the tiny little house! and the trees and the cute path leading somewhere GOOD. i laid on the couch and looked at it for 3 hours straight last night.

oh. and it's a real painting, not a print. cannot read the signature, but thank you unknown happy painter! your mission is complete.


then today, i went to church and brunch with a friend, and came home to can 8 qts of tomato juice. kind of took the lazy route there, but it will serve me well to make my famous tomato basil soup this winter...schwew. right now, i am going to lay on the couch and get ready for DESIGN star!! and thank the Lord for giving us rest. i hope you all are resting and relaxing and rejuving too :)

i'm a madmen

okay. you have probably seen these little avatars popping up on facebook. or maybe it's just my friends. anyway, this is pretty fun.

madmen yourself.

i am thinking of buying this series as a present to myself for wintertime. i didn't watch last season at all, so don't tell me anything! it's a good show, though.

what you don't think about

i was thinking today about how much smarter God is than we are. what brought this about was a phone conversation with a young woman i started chatting with a few months ago. she was referred to me by an agency friend, as she was in need of advice about landing her first job after college as a designer, in an unfriendly economic climate.

to be honest, i was waaaaaaaaaaayyyy too busy to talk to her. but i wanted to be nice, so we set up a meeting. which got postponed. then another. another postponement. and finally, i think we both just kind of gave up.

when she called a couple of weeks ago, i felt really sorry that she has not yet found a job! so, i reluctantly set up another meeting thinking a) what will i tell her? this economy sucks right now! and b) i really don't have anything to say. it's hard, finding a job.

long story short (well, not really) we met and ended up talking for TWO HOURS. not about work in the way i expected, though there was some of that too. nope. we talked about God. about how to make your way in the world as a designer, when you love God, and when so many in advertising clearly....don't. how to honor God, revere God, keep God in His rightful position as the leader of your life, and not get sucked into the vortex of advertising, where working late, getting your kicks off of "award-winning" work instead of going home to your family, and all around ginormous egos are the norm. it was quite a conversation.

anyway, she's a great gal. i hooked her up with a church that needs a logo this week, and we talked for awhile about hourly rates and contracts and billing practices. i noticed on the bottom of her email signature it says:

"I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water."

now isn't that a neat signature? once again, i'm thinking God had a hand in this person walking into my life. not unlike kirsten with her blueberry top and bangles and stories of the boyfriend she followed to SD, and carey with her floral miniskirt and jar of candy on her desk to woo friends, and cass with her wrist full of bracelets (again) and mug of hot coffee and really NICE aura around her.

yep, He is pretty smart :)

attack of august

every year i kind of get taken by surprise, i turn around and it's august, and my yard is a jungle. i'm the crazy plant lady, this month, more so than any other ;) this year things seems particularly TALL. take a look:

weird sunflowerey things. not sure they are all that cool, but about 9 ft. tall....

then there is the real thing. this year i planted a "mammoth" variety
- up to 12 ft. tall. yup.

"kiss me over the garden gate" - a self seeder, although i transplanted these and they got a late start...probably 7 or 8 ft. tall.

assorted vines and such. the one on the far right goes up over the roof of the sun porch.

the purple fountain grass on the left was a bit of a surprise. every year, i plant some in a pot and it gets around 18" tall. this year, i ran outta room and decided to put it in the ground. it's now 5 or 6 ft. in circumference, and i cannot get into the door of the sun porch. wow!

cosmos to hide the neighbor. not that tall, but alot prettier than him :)

me and julia

so lou and i went to see "julie and julia" last night. i admit, i liked the julia part alot more than the julie part, but that's probably just me. i love julia child.

growing up in rural south dakota in the early 70s, julia was a pbs regular at our house. i looked it up, and the show ran from 1962-1973. so that would have made me a viewer toward the end of the run, i think. she and jacques pepin, they were my peeps. truthfully, i probably liked jacques even more, because the stuff julia made always looked too hard. for good reason, french cooking IS hard.

watching the movie last night, i kind of forgot what the REAL julia looked like. i liked meryl streep so much, that i kept thinking she WAS really julia. if i were meryl streep, i would walk around the house going "ohhhhhhhh, buuuuuuuuuttttterrr" in the julia voice. i kind of want to talk like her all the time too!

anyway. it was the first movie i have been to since last winter. maybe that's why i liked it so much. why don't you go too, and offer up your thoughts?

:)

i fall in love easily

i know this about myself.

not too surprised that i am missing cookie today.


did you know that there is almost nothing more relaxing than holding a bunny? seriously. she is soooooooooooooo sweet. i kind of think i could be a bunny owner. we'll see how that plays out.



i also did spend quite a bit of time with the beardys at kirsten's house. puff is very very cute and geriatric, but kind of scares me a little. he opens his mouth and looks like he is going to take a big bite out of you. ramses, poor little guy, is still not eating. he seems to like the peas that kirsten feeds him from a tube, though.


the other mammals in the house are growing up so much! and very sweet kids, by the way.


a quick visit to the wrc where kirsten works - got to see those crazy raccoons. seriously, i cannot imagine the hearts of the people who work there. verrry large.


much time was spent on the deck, surrounded by lovely plants, and of course, bing!! isn't kirsten's new haircut cute?


look at the fun birthday present i got to shop for myself! more succies! and a really cool ceramic/clay tray to put them in!


i returned home late last night. siesta is happy and fine, and the farm is starting to enter the harvest season. sigh. i love weekends away....thanks kirst ;)

well. here you go, another reason to celebrate summer. we're having a bat festival in south dakota soon. i have never actually seen fangsey, the bat that lives under my front porch overhang, but that is good. i do know he lives there, though, because his droppings are quite regular.

i'm imagining he looks like this.


i suppose i should make some bat-friendly snacks and celebrate next week! kirsten, you can be our resident expert :)

frugal finds

hey rani, i'm becoming more and more like you! i was browsing my amazon.com page today, and a magazine popped up. since i LOVE country living, and somehow forgot to continue my subscription awhile back, i decided to order it. i was surprised when i went to the checkout and saw that it was 50% off! woo hoo.


so, i decided to add a new one just for fun. this old house. i can probably blame this tv show and bob vila for some of my obsessions i have about houses today. hope the mag is good! once again, 50% off at amazon.com.

so, i got two magazines for 1-year each, for $11 total!! that's a heck of alot better than the check-out stand at the grocery store. yay!

tomataaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhs

finally, the heirloom tomatoes are trickling in. so far, the only tomatoes i have had ripen are TINY. really really little and disappointing. in conjunction with the blight, it has not left me with a very good feeling about this year's crop.

however, some of these guys look promising. they are funky shaped, that is a trademark of heirlooms. some are more pink than orange/red. i am excited to taste them!! i pick them a bit early and let them ripen in the house, so the bunnies don't chew into them.

notice the one jumbo guy though. i think maybe he might be a "mortgage lifter" - not sure because the stakes that indicate the variety are long gone. doh!! i do know that brandywines are more pink/wine colored, so i hope i can pick those out.

nummy. bring over your salt shaker and a knife, and we'll have a party :)

love love love.

this is the reason i cannot give up cable tv quite yet! i love me my design star!!

love that my hero david bromstad is blogging about this season!

love dan! and nathan!! go design boyz!


love, love, love.
love.



:)

the wanderer

ok, so you guys know how obsessed i am about my pets. so much so, that most of time i don't really like leaving town or going on vacation. so much so, that i cannot imagine not having them (her) with me during the day. so much so that..

when i forget and they get outside or somehow out of my control, i FREAK out, sometimes. okay, twice in the last week.

this morning siesta and i went out for the morning "rounds" which ends in the screen porch. i went inside to refill my coffee cup, got absorbed with actual WORK, forgot to come back, and just went about my day. until this afternoon when i got back from a 2 hour meeting and then - remembered. remembered that she now knows how to get out of the screen porch on her own.

AND THEN freaked out.

til i went frantically to the back yard, and saw that she was laying on the sidewalk, looking at me like "where the h&^* have you BEEN? and then went inside, had a snack and a drink of water, and headed directly for her rainbow afghan, and her very routine NAP.

i think maybe she and i were meant to be together :)

flip x3

my turn, my turn!

i think i can concur with carey and karen, God wants us to flip our thinking. btw, he actually says it THIS way in his Word:

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will
is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:2

that was the sermon this sunday at my church. i needed my mind renewed, because lately i have decided i don't want to go to church. i have alot of preconceived notions, and most of them are not good ones. so on sundays, i STRUGGLE and wrestle, and just hear God say "come for ME, not for any other reason."


which i do, usually anyway. today was a really nice blessing. we got to hear this guy (left, above) speak who was on his way to the Sturgis motorcycle rally. he is a preacher in kansas city, and also runs the teen challenge program there. i knew i would like him almost instantly. quite often we'll have a biker dude stop on his/her way to sturgis. our church seems to have that blessing, and mike (cannot remember his last name) has a son who attends our church.

anyway, his sermon was very good. but the premise is one i have heard alot of lately. we need to flip our thinking to God's thinking. and that can only be done by listening, hearing, studying, absorbing, EATING his Word. and rejecting other voices. rejecting the syllogisms of the world (look it up, i had to) and basing our logical thinking on the logic of our Lord, not ourselves.

in other, simpler words, do the flip.

:) let's all flip together, shall we?!