What Were the Israelites Complaining About?

 Tonight we ate quail.

Greg has wanted to do this for some time now so he found a good farm and bought some.  I didn’t grow up eating a lot of “different” or non-traditional types of food, much to my dismay.  As a result, eating something like quail is a bit of an uncomfortable adventure for me, especially when you consider how cute they are!  So, we said a little prayer of thanksgiving for their sacrifice and we dug in.

They were delicious.  Greg put them in a simple honey-thyme marinade and grilled them over charcoal.  I moved out of my comfort zone and enjoyed every nugget of meat.  As for my husband?  Well, not much was heard from his end of the table through the entire meal except utterings of delight and joy.  Even the cats got to enjoy tiny morsels of goodness.  I do believe we will eat that again.

A few other notes unrelated to foul, I’ve made no progress toward my previously mentioned goals, however we did make some “settling in” progress since we moved.  We went to Florida for a week and beach-hopped on both coasts with a visit to Hogwarts and Hogsmead in between.  I hope to one day write a day by day little journal on that trip.  It was a good one.  Again, we’ll see if the thoughts in my head ever make it onto virtual paper.  I’ve been reading up a storm lately and have all knitting projects on hold.  I am sensing a shift in the other direction soon.

Goals

I’ve come up with the goals and now I’m putting them out there for you all to keep me accountable.  From July 18^th - August 19^th I will be working part-time hours.  I am setting a goal to have my Etsy shop up and running by the end of that 5-week period.  I am not yet revealing the name or style of the shop yet, but I do hope to have at least 25-30 items up for sale at that time.  I will also be meeting with a lawyer in that time to make sure I have all my legal bases covered.

Encouragement is welcome. J

Moving

Because we didn’t have enough going on in the last couple of months, (job stress with education budget cuts, brief scare when we thought my husband might have had a tumor on his brain, two fender benders in two different cars, (I was the one hit both times) and expensive, necessary, mouth work just to name a handful of all we’ve one through lately) we decided it was also time to move…next door.

We literally carried everything we own down the stairs of our lovely hundred year old renovated apartment, walked across the lot and moved into the hideous blue building next door.  The first words out of people’s mouths when they walk inside are usually along the lines of “Oh!  This is surprising.”  And it really is.  Delightfully surprising.

(Well, not in this picture, but just wait until we get all settled!)
Our landlord really did a great job of renovating both places, (for the most part.)  (And this is a great time to mention that if you own a building that you are planning on renovating and have never lived in a small space or apartment before, please call me for a consultation before you knock down/build new walls or create bathrooms with out linen closets or place the AC control unit right next to the kitchen which is the hottest part of the house or create giant rooms with two plug options or…well, you get the idea.  I will give you great, practical, experienced advice for a small fee and your future tenants will be most grateful to you for not putting carpet in the only space usable for a dining area in the house.

So, what was I talking about…oh yeah…we moved next door.  We gained an extra bedroom, bathroom and laundry room for only $75 more a month.  We won’t be ready to buy a house anytime soon, (thank you, expensive mouth of mine) so we wanted to move somewhere that we could sit comfortably a little bit longer.  And thus begins the tension in my head and heart about living simply.

We have a lot of stuff.

Not compared to the average American, young married couple, but it does look and feel like we have a lot.  Books for one.

This is what happens when a book lover marries a book lover.  Guess how many “two copies” we had to go through when we got married.  Now, guess how many we still have.

“But I can’t get rid of this one because all of my notes are in it.”

“Well I can’t get rid of my copy because ::fill in the blank:: signed it and gave it to me.”

Pathetic, huh?  Believe it or not, that is not all of them in the picture.  That is only 3 of 5 bookshelves worth.  We did shed a few (about three boxes worth) and we have found a great source to take some more off of our hands.  We are trying to purge more and more but it is VERY hard for both of us when it comes to books.  And it is hard for me when it comes to everything else.  I don’t think I quite classify as a packrat because I don’t save everything.  But I do save a lot, and when I breakdown and get rid of some things 3-4 times a year, I often end up regretting it.  Like the year I finally disposed of all of my t-shirts from high school.  Why didn’t I think of this?!?!  It was painful for me to get rid of all of those shirts and I would have LOVED to have a memory quilt.

So the tension remains.  Do I continue to hold on to things and eventually, maybe, someday, have a place and purpose for it?  Or do I continue to purge and live with less and less?  Surely there is a happy medium.  Surely…

The cats miss the old place, but they are diggin' all of the hiding places in the new.

Knitting Two By Two

Remember the Long  Shawl Collar Coat I mentioned a long time ago?  Well, all of the pieces are done and they are impatiently awaiting assembly.  I got this “knitting two at a time” idea from A Friend to Knit With who got the idea from her mother.  It’s one of those ideas that are so simple and ingenious that you ask yourself, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

There are some ups and downs to take note of when knitting two at a time.

v    First of all, it takes some getting used to but you eventually fall into the rhythm of ::knit right side, knit left side, purl left side, purl right side::.

v    The pieces (especially on this project) start to get long and cumbersome so straightening out your pieces and untwisting your skeins from each other continually interrupt the rhythm.

v    This method helped me in this project because the pattern is written in measurements rather than actual number of rows so I was able to keep the exact same number of rows on the front panels of the coat.  I knit pretty evenly so this will make stitching up the sides easier knowing that there are the exact same numbers of rows in all pieces instead of just being the same measured length with a possible difference of row numbers.

v    The best part of knitting two by two is obvious.  When you are done, you are twice as close to the end of your project than when you started!

And the verdict is...

…totaled.  I cried.  I didn’t expect myself to, but I did.  I think my tears were not because of an emotional attachment to my 14 year old car, Birdie that I have had for 12 years.  Rather, I think my few tears were because I have tried so hard for those twelve years to take good care of her so she will last until, well…it’s our style to run our cars into the ground until they won’t run anymore.  I was doing a great job of this until I was completely startled back to reality while waiting for a light to turn green.

The part that upsets me most is that the difference between the cost of the repairs and the value of the car is only $100.  A hundred dollars!  But the problem is that I can’t take his insurance’s money and buy a car that is in better shape than mine.  I know the entire history of this car and I know it is going to last a few more years without significant problems and to me that is worth more than a new $2,000 vehicle.

So we will chalk it up as blessing in disguise; keep the money and nix the repairs.  After all, it doesn’t look that bad and it still drives perfectly.

And on an unrelated note, my mom is coming to town today!  I foresee a trip to the Austin Farmer’s Market for Fredericksburg peaches and Poteet strawberries, followed by a lesson from my mom on her award winning Poteet Strawberry jam recipe.  If you're lucky I just might post the recipe.  For some eye candy, here are the strawberries I grew last year.  In the words of Rachel Ray, they were de-lish!

The Mermaid Chair

I just finished reading it this week.  Have you ever finished a book and been sad that it was over; like saying goodbye to a dear friend?  Well, that wasn’t the case with this book for me.  The first book I read by Sue Monk Kidd was The Secret Life of Bees.  It is and probably will remain one of my all-time favorite books.  For The Mermaid Chair, however, I was actually looking forward to the end and ready to put it down and say goodbye.

Perhaps my dislike of the book came from the fact that I could hardly relate to the main character who was a middle-aged woman who had been in a seemingly perfect marriage for twenty years.  She suddenly found herself dissatisfied and decided to have an affair with a widowed, Benedictine monk, of all people.  I read most of the book with a sickened feeling in my stomach and aches in my chest.  It was not a story that reached into my soul and held me close.

The character I appreciated most was the monk.  He wasn’t afraid to ask those hard questions of God that get stifled in many by some for fear of the “dangers” of doubt.  If “no doubting” were a pre-requisite for belief in God, I would have failed years ago. I resonate often in life with Brother Thomas who,, “felt God the same way the arthritic monks felt rain coming in their joints.  He only felt the hint of him.”

The story did end on a redeeming note for me.  (Slight spoiler ahead if you plan on reading the book.)  There is forgiveness in the end.  It is not an overwhelming, outpouring of love and words like any of us who have ever been on the receiving end of forgiveness might want it to be.  Instead, it was a quiet and steady shedding of grace and mercy.  It was the kind of forgiveness that has to take place again and again and again, day after day.

Sustenance in the Garden

Some Sunday mornings I go to church in my garden.  This is generally after a busy weekend when I didn’t get any “down-time”.  I will wake up with an unrelenting craving to get my hands dirty and enjoy a peaceful afternoon in the rich, life-sustaining soil in my backyard.  And so I caved to my craving yesterday morning.

I don’t want this to sound cheesy or trite but I am often amazed at how easy it is for me to “find God” in my garden when it is often so difficult to do so throughout my week or even on a Sunday morning in my own church.  Even just ten minutes on a sun-shiny, breezy day caring for my little green plants with an occasional visit from a cat or two in between bug catching, will speak to my soul and revive me for an extended amount of time.

The only thing missing from my Garden Church is a communal presence.  Sure I have the community of the leaves swaying in the trees, the bees and butterflies visiting my flowers and other bits of life teeming in the garden, but I do miss the communal presence of family and friends.  I need this bit of isolation from time to time, though.  I also enjoy listening to some of my favorite pastors and preachers such as Greg and Julie via podcast so I can be challenge and rejuvenated.

So tell me, where is your favorite place to meet God?

Springtime Parties

The first day of April marks for me, not a time of wild pranks and charades, (though if you ask my parents, I have given them a healthy dose of those in past years,) rather, my husband’s birthday.  Though I love my February birthday, it is often a little too cold to have any kind of outdoor celebration.  Not the case for his!  The weather was just right for me (probably even a little warm for others) to enjoy a lovely cookout with friends.

I started the day off right by licking clean the bowl of Double Chocolate Stout Cake batter from where else but my favorite online cookbook.  This is one of my favorite past-times complete with sitting on the kitchen counter.  It tasted great and then this happened:

I took a shower and Greg pulled his own cake out of the oven for me.  He thought it looked and smelled great but with one look I knew that I blew it.  It was half of the size it should have been in the bunt pan and I instantly knew that I left out the baking soda.  (I knew that of course, because that is not the first time I’ve made this baking mistake.)

It’s a good thing I made some vanilla-banana pudding the night before.  I melded the recipe from More With Less with another not-so-healthy cookbook to come up with a tasty recipe of fluffy vanilla smoothness that melts in your mouth (though with a splash too much vanilla.)

Next Sunday, we are hosting Beer Church in our back yard.  Don’t ask me what this is yet because I haven’t quite figured it out.  Greg has gone once and I’ve met the “pastor” of Beer Church…a very hospitable and nice guy.  So, I think it will be fitting to make the Double Chocolate Stout Cake again to share with the other parishioners of Beer Church, especially since I still have the chocolate chips ready to go in my make-shift double boiler, (a pan within a pan of boiling water) for the ganache.

By the way, I’m calling this a “Double” Chocolate Stout Cake because I always make it with Young’s Double Chocolate Stout beer.  Another variation of this cake are the to-die-for cupcakes.  They are quite labor intensive (I have to set aside several hours to do them well) but are worth every minute.  Mind you, these are adult only cupcakes since the Jamison whisky and Bailey’s Irish crème does not get cooked out of the ganache and icing like the beer does out of the cake batter.

And on a final note, we have not had internet for over a week.  I’ve not stopped writing though!  So as not to overwhelm my readers (are there any more of you out there?) with four posts at once, stay tuned for belated updates.

New Baby in the World!

Greg and I got to hang out with our sweet, two-year old friend and neighbor from about 1:00-8:00 today because her mom had a baby!  We had a lot of fun.  When we have kids, I hope they are at least a little like her.  She was so easy to be with and wasn’t the slightest bit anxious about being away from mom and dad…very adaptable.

She ate a great lunch, went to sleep easily in our guest bed with pillows all around and then we went and had a play date with another young friend.  Finally, we got to go back to the hospital and see “baby sister” one more time before bedtime.  It was a lovely day.  I love the joy that new babies bring in to the world.

A Comment on Commenting

Hey Friends!  Just wanted to let you know that when you make a comment you need to click “Post Comment” twice.  The first time, it will show you a preview of your comment and the second time it will actually post.  I made this mistake once and I’ve had a few friends tell me they commented but I haven’t found their comment so I assume this is what happened.

Guilty Pleasures

Though it doesn’t exactly fall under the category of “simple living,” we got a Wii. One of Greg’s co-workers was selling a new one with a nice discount and seeing as how this is the only game system I’ve decided to allow in our house, (because of the activity involved, of course) we caved. So we borrowed a friend’s balance board and I got pretty active on the Wii Fit Plus. I’m a fan. We also enjoyed a Saturday night movie through our instant streaming Netflix on our television with the Wii.

And then there was this:

For just $5 I got to reminisce back to 5 years old and wallow in all the mushrooms, turtles, and fire-spitting plants I could remember! I impressed myself by being able to recall many of the hidden power stars, money boxes, free men and secret tunnel pipes after decades of not playing. And if that wasn’t enough to take up all the free time I have, I spent another $5 on the Nintendo game I always wanted but we never bought: Super Mario Bros. 3!

I literally felt guilty for the entire half hour I played. I wasn’t avoiding any work that needed to be done though. I think this was just a deeply engrained guilt that has been planted in me somewhere along the way that playing video games is a waste of time and completely unproductive.

So, I also made this today:

With the sweet honey butter, it was the perfect afternoon dessert.

By the way, is anyone reading this? A couple people have told me they are but I would love it if people would start commenting. It would be great to know who my readers are, so please comment every once in a while.

Purple on the Plate

Yes, those are purple potatoes mixed in there.

My husband wooed me with these lovely spuds a few years ago while we were still dating. Who doesn’t love purple food?! For years they were incredibly difficult to find in our grocery store, until now.

They are sold in a lovely, little fingerlings bag of mixed potatoes in our meager but present organic section. We resisted the ultimate temptation to devour all of them and I set some aside to root. I know some gardeners don’t recommend this, but an experienced gardener friend gave me the “thumbs up” so I am trusting her and this man who seemed to have a good experience.

So, they have been decorating the corner of my kitchen for a few weeks now. Soon they will decorate the corner of my garden.

Buds & Leaves

My Spring Break will be over in a few hours. I’m trying hard to let it linger on but the evil that is Daylight Savings Time has taken a full hour away from me. I didn’t get to devote much time to crafting this break due to our medical trip to Dallas, but I have set aside a little time for my obsessions.

I am ushering in Spring with this sweet little piece I have decided to call “Buds & Leaves.”

And on that note, Bluebonnets will be here soon!

The Ash Wednesday Hotel

I grew up going to Southern Baptist Churches. Those churches, along with many other protestant churches across the world have, in my opinion, “thrown the baby out with the bath-water” when it comes to diverging from Catholic traditions. One such tradition is to celebrate the Christian calendar. This calendar has been a tool for Christians for centuries and I only discovered it seven years ago. It was this time seven years ago that I began going to my current church (which falls more in the moderate Baptist church category) and began to learn about Lent.

Lent is the time spent in preparation for the cross of Jesus Christ. I find Easter Sunday significantly more joyful when the forty days before are spent in reflection and though it is difficult, repentance. I try not to rush to the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus by walking slowly through Ash Wednesday, the forty days of Lent, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Often, Christians choose to “give up” something and/or take up a new practice during Lent to aid in being more reflective in this season of the Church.

Greg and I spent our Ash Wednesday morning driving to a town near Dallas. As a consequence, we missed all services in our town. After a full day in a dentist chair, (more on that later,) I got creative with some hotel matches, a soap dish and a little “blood of Christ.”

We were grateful for this website to aid us in our reflection as we marked each other’s foreheads in ash with a reminder of our plight without the grace of Jesus Christ.

Sick & Tired

I’ve started so many blogs in my head in the last couple of weeks. Some of them I finished in my head too. I’m sad that they have not made their way out of my head. I’ve been sick for the last two and a half weeks, though I think I’ve finally kicked this sinus and ear infection.

Being sick has led to being tired all of the time which has led to a cluttered and messy home. This cluttered and messy home is due to all of the craft and food projects I’ve been tackling while trying to nurse myself back to health followed by an unwillingness to clean up after myself. ::spoken in a whiney voice:: "I don't feeeeel goood."

I was also hit by a car yesterday morning while sitting at a stoplight. Fortunately, there was no one in front of me so the accident involved only me and the guy who was too emotionally distressed to realize there was a car in front of him. This was my first (well second, but I hardly count the first girl who hit my 10 years ago) wreck. I remember screaming from shock and not much else.

Unfortunately, I have a very sore neck and a headache since this happened. The other VERY unfortunate thing is that every time I eat or place my mouth in certain positions, I have a shooting pain up my right jaw. In all of my jaw problems the last twenty years, I’ve never felt anything specifically like that pain. I’m also just TWO WEEKS away from the biggest last step in the reconstruction process I’ve been in for five years. I’m so nervous that this will set me back. I’m praying otherwise.

I finished knitting another baby hat and sewing some cute napkins. (Pictures to come.) Otherwise I’ve been working on Suss Cousins’ Long Shawl Collar Coat in Hollywood Knits Style. It the first project just for me in a year and a half. Can’t wait to finish it and show you pics.

Until then, I love this pic I took the day we drove back from Florida.

Happy Birthday to Me

Thanks to some generous birthday gifts from family I was able to get this for my birthday.

Every review I’ve read about dehydrators said to not bother with cheaper models. This is the best so don’t waste your money elsewhere. I was happy to oblige except that this was such a price-y machine for our household budget. Normally, this is a $300 unit. E-bay didn’t ask anywhere near that amount though. The Excalibur Manufacturer posted these on E-bay as “Factory Blemished Models” with a significant discount. The factory blemish was…well, I don’t know what it was. I still haven’t found it. The website said it was only external scuffs but I have yet to notice where they are. I’m not worried about it though because it still has %100 10-year warranty.

First project: Greens I salvaged from the garden before the snow covered them.

Snow Day

Yet again, this

equals this

which equals productivity.

I know you northerners are laughing but the truth is that those of us in the south simply do not know how to drive on icy roads. They only get that way a few times a year…not enough to build experience. We also don’t have snowploughs…a key ingredient for safer driving.

The day off also equaled pipes still frozen followed by some creativity.

But more on that later, for now enjoy these:

I Favor A Communal Life

Yesterday was one of my dream days. If I were to describe a perfect day of ordinary life, it would be yesterday. Part of this journey toward a simpler life involves simplifying our life down to one income. We have significant school debt we are trying to knock out as quickly as we can in order to do this. There are dreams even beyond that big step that involve living on less, but those dreams are too big for me to put into words right now.

So yesterday was a sneak peak at what that kind of life might look like for us. Greg went to work for a couple hours and then came home since their office closed. He was able to get a lot of schoolwork done, which was a plus for him. I spent the morning cleaning up the kitchen and living room and then baking some pumpkin bread with some of my preserved pumpkin purée.

(The recipe from Simply in Seaason is very tasty. I substituted all of the oil and some of the pumpkin purée for applesauce. I also substituted a 1/4^th of a cup of white flour for ground flax seed.) I then spent time delivering the bread to some friends and had an impromptu visit while one friend ate lunch with her boys. What a delight to get to drop by a friend’s house in the middle of the day and get invited in for a visit.

I came home to a warm lunch my husband had prepared and then spent some much needed time sorting photos that date back to 1987.

I was almost done with my photos when a friend knocked on the door. She had her two kids with her at work all day since their school was canceled and she had another friend’s sick child with her. She needed some help getting them all down for naps. I hoped in her car and rode the two minutes to her house and shortly there after was rocking a baby to sleep in my arms while singing What A Wonderful World.

At home I finished sorting photos and finished knitting a baby hat

while my husband put dinner on the table. We finished a couple loads of laundry and then nestled down for the evening as the temperatures dropped even further. It’s a good thing we did all of those dishes and laundry because this morning we woke up to frozen pipes and rolling brown-outs. We nestled in a little longer.

Surprisingly, work was not canceled today but we did go in a little later. I took a shower at a friend’s house and another friend has offered her mother-in-law suite for us to stay in until we get flowing water.

I have yet to express any of my religious beliefs yet in this blog. I can say here though, that I believe that God calls us to a life lived in community. It is a rare gift to get to call upon and be called upon by a community of people in times of need. We live such independent lives in this culture and are afraid to rely on anyone else for fear of imposition. I plan on breaking that trend. This life cannot be lived in isolation. I for one am grateful for that chance to have an impromptu lunch with a friend, rock a baby to sleep and borrow a shower.

Surprise Day Off

What did I tell you? Central Texans can start working on their tan in January and then have a day off of school and work two days later due to inclimate weather. No complaints here! I love surprises. Hmmm…what shall we do today?

Flip-flops in February

I know it's not February yet, but go with the alliteration. I live in Central TX and when my friends in NY are getting dumped on by 20 inches of snow, while that is beautiful and I'm sure at times, enjoyable, I'm cold natured enough to appreciate my warmer climate. I love breaking out the flip-flops and sometimes, shorts in the middle of winter and enjoying some hours outside.

We had dinner with our friends outside on Friday evening and the weather could not have been more perfect.

Thin layers + fire-pit + Yankee Pot Roast = Perfect

This is just a teaser though. We'll have another winter blast in the middle of this week. Living in Central Texas means that anything goes for weather. Who could forget our snowy Easter of 2007? It isn't often that you get to see snow on bluebonnets!

Stay tuned in the next couple weeks for:

v My first batch of Kombucha.

v A cute little knitted baby-hat for a friend’s newborn on the east coast.

v A finger labyrinth burned into a piece of wood.

v A knitted head-band/neck warmer. (A great, quick project to keep my interest long term.)

v Some harvest from my garden.

v Four knitted baby-blankets for two friend's babies and two nieces all of which are between 6 months and 2 years late.

Happy Birthday, Grannie

My Great-Grandmother turned 88 today. She’s a young’un. That’s her front and center.

This picture tells a pretty cool story. Each person in this picture (me being the exception) was the first born on the maternal side. Five generations of first-born females. This even goes back one more generation. My mom has a picture like this one that has my sister as baby and my great-great grandmother in it. It is a rare and special gift that my nieces get to know their great-great-grannie.

It is a gift that I get to know my great-grandmother.

Happy Birthday, Grannie! I love you.

Massive Failure

I promised to let you know when my attempts at this simpler life wreak failure. It is now time to deliver. I’m particularly embarrassed about this one because the attempt was one that I’ve been told is something sooo easy anyone can do it!

So after months of overcoming my fears as well as timing everything correctly so I wouldn’t be up at 3:00 in the morning, I prepared to make some yogurt. I’ve made some before with a friend and hers turned out just fine. Of course she had been making it for years.

I decided to use a crock-pot method for ease my first time. How difficult could it be? There are two ingredients and about five steps including “turn on your crock-pot” and “wait”. There isn’t even any temperature checking. I used this recipe

http://www.nourishingdays.com/2009/02/make-yogurt-in-your-crock-pot/ and several people commented on how easy it was.

We get our milk raw in a co-op from http://www.norsrawmilk.com/. It’s the kind that’s never been touched by a machine except the milking machine, which I’ve witnessed firsthand. No pasteurization, no homogenization, no hormones, steroids etc. It is simply beautiful grass fed cows producing lovely milk with the cream that rises to the top for my coffee.

If you look closely you can see the separation.

So armed with my crock-pot, raw milk, and yogurt starter (also from Nors Raw milk,) I set to work.

v Turn on crock-pot and pour milk. ü

v Heat on low for 2 and a half hours. ü

v Turn off crock-pot and let milk cool for 3 hours. Oops.

(My husband says he’s going to buy me an apron one day embroidered with the word: “Oops” across the front. It’s a common word heard when I’m in the kitchen.) I accidentally skipped this step. I realized I skipped it but not until after I also put my spoon that had already been dipped in my starter into my heated milk thinking that I was about to mix them soon anyway. So I backtracked and simply turned off the crock-pot and hoped for the best.

v After 3 hours remove some milk and mix in starter. ü

v Mix in heated milk. ü

v Wrap in towel. ü

v Let is culture overnight, 8-12. ü

I woke the next morning hoping to find a pot of smooth, creamy, tasty yogurt. Instead I woke to a soppy, runny, smelly mess.

I have a couple of theories. The yogurt I used had once been frozen. Perhaps the bacteria died in the freeze? Also, the yogurt that I used was already kind of thin and runny. Perhaps it was not fully yogurt? (My milk farmer made it from his milk.) Fortunately, it was only a $5.50 mess-up. I am sad that I lost a half-gallon of milk, though.

I’ll let you know if the next time ends in a success or another massive failure.