Aug 292010
Aug 262010
One of my most faithful blog readers doesn’t even have a computer. My maternal grandmother has a printed copy of every blog post I’ve written stored in a three-ring binder on the shelf in her living room. Each Friday, my sister faithfully prints out posts by she, me, and Grandma’s other grandchildren and sticks them in an envelope, affixes a stamp, and sends them on their way to Papa and Grandma. (I don’t have a printer, which is a good excuse for asking my little sister to do it!) On Monday or Tuesday, Grandma walks to the mailbox, and forsakes everything she was or should be doing, to read through the stack of blog posts from the previous week. Rather “old news” in the blogosphere by then, but fresh and new and much enjoyed by her.
The first dark blue notebook is another cousin’s updates about life now lived far away from the grandparents. The brown one (“nearly full” notes the photographer, my sister) has the blog posts from yours truly. The yellow notebook has e-mails from my cousin Abbie when she was traveling in Alaska and Africa. The green binder contains the details upon which my sister is “Harping Upon.” The pink one holds blogged letters to the baby girls of this Pink House. The maroon notebook contains more updates from Africa, via my cousin Jennifer (not Grandma’s own granddaughter, but one she prays for nonetheless!).
And the last on the shelf? The red binder holds Papa and Grandma’s Christmas Letters, written throughout their 56 years (and counting!) of marriage. (Not that we grandchildren come by our love for writing naturally or anything.)
Whenever I get confused regarding what I should be blogging about, I just remember that row of notebooks.
My paternal grandparents have a computer—and the internet! They might get the news a bit more quickly. But I don’t think it could be measured who enjoys the stories of their great-grandchildren more.
Whenever I get flustered over my audience, I think of my grandmas—one sitting in front of the computer in an office decorated with antique children’s toys that my daddy and I both played with, the other walking down the oak-bordered driveway to the mailbox beside the corral and barn on the ranch where my mom was raised.
Aug 252010
My recipe book falls open to page 402 every time, the page with our new favorite recipe: potato bread. Homemade bread made with homegrown potatoes—you can’t get much better than that! And we love to make at least one of the loaves each batch into a cinnamon swirl loaf my daughter calls “Cinn’ Bread.” The loaves rise beautifully—clear up to the top of my lil’ oven!
The dough can be sticky and a bit hard to work with until it’s risen once. But don’t let that scare you—it’s a fairly easy recipe, and one you’ll want to keep trying. It’s forgiving, too—if you don’t cook it long enough, the slices still slice up nicely. If you put too much flour in it, it’s tough but makes great French Toast. (Don’t ask me how I know these things…)
Enjoy! (And if you’d like a simpler bread recipe, check out our favorite wheat bread here.)
Aug 242010
Dear Ruth Ann,
You are getting quite creative with your words these days:
Daddy ate part of a cookie and left it on the table, joining you and Mary to play in your room. You went out to the kitchen, and came back into your room chewing.
Your observant and intelligent Daddy asked, “Did you eat part of my cookie?
“No, I’m just sharing,” was your equally brilliant reply
~
When you put your lil’ basketball in the egg basket, you told your daddy:
“I have a basketfullofball.”
~
When we’re out on the lawn by the clothesline:
“Mommy, will you please hang up some shade?”
~
At lunch time:
“Please cut down my sandwich.”
~
I saw you run around the corner of the house, a bit scared looking, so I went to check and you told me:
“It was Oofie [the cat] calling me. He got a new phone.”
A bit later:
“Mommy, Oofie and me are gonna take a walk. Oofie and me are gonna take a walk in the garden.”
Aug 222010
Aug 202010
Clarity. It’s something I’ve been craving lately. Clarity of thought, of ministry, of purpose, of schedule—of every detail big and small that can threaten to overwhelm.
I haven’t figured out all the questions I’ve been contemplating the past week or two. But I have found a few fellow writers who have put some of my thoughts into words.
Sarah Markley concluded that “writing has become a spiritual discipline”
Jessica Boling compared authenticity to peeling an onion.
Sarah Clarkson had an epiphany: “to write is my joy and my work.”
Jessica Telian decided to start something simple: to just write.
Sometimes, it is the simple act of putting it to words, to screen, to paper that brings some clarity.
Sometimes, it is a chat with a friend of the heart, like my sister-in-law of 8 months.
Sometimes, it is a cup of coffee, my Bible, some sunshine, and a talk with Jesus.
But the only way I can find true clarity is to be still, to rest.
My beloved friend Lanier summed it up so beautifully, so clearly:
Lit. Illumined; awake; aware. It’s what my heart desires, even faints for: this kindling touch of Light and Life that is outside of me entirely and yet, miraculously, inconceivably within me by the presence of Jesus Christ in my life. The age-old Incandescence that sets souls aflame with life and selfhood; the Light which is there whether I am or not, loving the world without stint, and without which I cannot live.
Aug 182010
(These sleeping arrangements are from back in the month of March, when Ru was 28 months old.)
Aug 172010
Hey, Hey, Good Lookin’, whatcha got cookin’
How’s about cookin’ somethin’ up with me
Hey, sweet baby, don’t you think maybe
We could find us a brand new reci-pe.
Hey Good Lookin’ Husband of Mine!
I wish I could remember which visit it was that I first saw this little oven and it became “ours”. It must have been that fall when we celebrated our twenty-second birthdays together. All I know is that I said the yellow diner table was cute and before I knew it, both the table and this adorable little oven were being referred to as “Merritt and Gretchen’s”, whereupon I always turned red.
I remember you calling me, once we were affianced and you were building our house, to tell me the tiny interior measurements of our little oven. We had a bit of trouble finding cookie sheets that would fit inside it. You found that out because you wanted to test it, to make sure it really worked—and most of your mom’s cookie sheets didn’t fit! You burnt that first pan of cookies, discovering that the oven preheats by starting out on broil. But every batch of cookies since then has baked beautifully in our little Monarch.
I adore our little $10 oven. That garage sale find we never paid your parents for. I love the memory of cleaning it out with you when we were newlyweds. How you scrubbed and unscrewed and got every nook and cranny clean, then leveled out the legs so that it was the same height as my beautiful countertops.
You even had Uncle Bill plan the cupboards so that if we had to replace the range, the last section could move over to make room for a larger one. And oh how we laughed when we realized how perfectly the oven clock fit under the switch plate—and we’d never even though to measure!