Saturday, April 30, 2005

The Revealer: Big 'R' Redemption

YES!!!
In the Metro section of Tuesday's New York Times, David Gonzales writes artfully about "urban gleaner" Charles Kelly, who for 21 years has made his living redeeming cans and bottles for a five cent deposit. But, as Gonzales points out, Kelly isn’t just redeeming the detritus of our consumer society for money. According to his pastor, Rev. Earl Kooperkamp, he’s part of a "moral economy of redemption."
Implicit in the story is a powerful idea: that our work, however humble, can have moral dimensions.
The Revealer: Big 'R' Redemption

nouwen on writing - part iii

Making Our Lives Available to Others

One of the arguments we often use for not writing is this: "I have nothing original to say. Whatever I might say, someone else has already said it, and better than I will ever be able to." This, however, is not a good argument for not writing. Each human person is unique and original, and nobody has lived what we have lived. Furthermore, what we have lived, we have lived not just for ourselves but for others as well. Writing can be a very creative and invigorating way to make our lives available to ourselves and to others.

We have to trust that our stories deserve to be told. We may discover that the better we tell our stories the better we will want to live them.
these three quotes have crystalized exactly what i want my writing to be about, and to motivate me to really buckle down and get serious about it. does anyone know what nouwen book these are taken from? i'd really love to know!

Thursday, April 28, 2005

recipe for stephanie

i know this always goes the other way, stephanie is one of my best contacts for recipes and her cooking is truly a sensual delight. but i just read this post on the guilty pleasure of french fries and have a 1/2 way solution for you - made at home - no greasy ick, and they are truly the best we've ever had. liam just made them tonight for supper. here's his secret recipe:

  • preheat oven to 475
  • take the best potatos you can afford and slice into long 1/8's (do not peel)
  • drizzle a cooking sheet with olive oil and brush to cover
  • season oil with any seasonings you like, we use salt, pepper, garlic powder and cayenne
  • layer potato wedges on oil
  • cover with foil (important!)
  • put in oven as close to element as possible for 5 minutes
  • remove foil and return to oven for 10 minutes
  • remove from oven and flip potato wedges
  • bake for 10 more minutes
  • enjoy hot with wonderful dipping sauces
these are the best oven fries you will ever eat - crispy on the outside, tender inside - perfect with burgers on the grill or steak - yummy! or if you want with gravy! :) love you girlfriend!

Stop Drive-Through Mastectomies

please take 30 seconds of your time to help women!
Lifetimetv.com: Breast Cancer - Stop Drive-Through Mastectomies

oh give me a home...

BBC NEWS | Americas | Buffalo herd roams over US suburb

deep wells of hidden treasures

henri continues...

Writing, Opening a Deep Well

Writing is not just jotting down ideas. Often we say: "I don't know what to write. I have no thoughts worth writing down." But much good writing emerges from the process of writing itself. As we simply sit down in front of a sheet of paper and start to express in words what is on our minds or in our hearts, new ideas emerge, ideas that can surprise us and lead us to inner places we hardly knew were there.

One of the most satisfying aspects of writing is that it can open in us deep wells of hidden treasures that are beautiful for us as well as for others to see.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

redeeming the day

i LOVE this!

Writing to Save the Day

Writing can be a true spiritual discipline. Writing can help us to concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to reflect on our experiences, to give artistic expression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories. Writing can also be good for others who might read what we write.

Quite often a difficult, painful, or frustrating day can be "redeemed" by writing about it. By writing we can claim what we have lived and thus integrate it more fully into our journeys. Then writing can become lifesaving for us and sometimes for others too.

Henri Nouwen

get your own daily quotes daily here.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

out of the loop

well i now have access to my computer again, but no time. my bloglines are stuffed with what i'm sure are wonderful posts by you all, but i have no time to sit and ponder, enjoy and connect, let alone blog myself.

i've been sleeping much better and don't have the early morning solitude lately, and my days are a blur.

i don't even know what to type to catch you all up on my life this past month. all i know is that this pace is affecting me, i love the community part of it, but i really loathe the lack of contemplative time and serenity.

to that end i am headed to an OA meeting today, my first in years. my eating is out of whack again, and our recovery group at church isn't helping. i'm co-facilitating a group starting next week and i know if i don't get my act together i'm really going to fall apart.

how do you all do it all? my house looks like a cyclone has passed through (one that drops a granola-like substance everywhere...) liam is taking off the first week in may, and we're just hanging around here - i'm hoping that will smooth things out a bit for me too.

i can't remember the last time i've felt so overwhelmed by life. i have my first appointment today with the psychiatrist at the learning center to hopefully get a handle on a diagnosis for my learning disorder and possible add, adhd... that will bring a lot of calm for me, knowing i'm not going/have been crazy about my brain.

well ya'll, anybody got some cliff notes to catch up on blog posts? i can't see any time in the foreseeable future that i'll get some leisurely days to catch up on the people that i love, let alone the ones who challenge me or inspire me. (not that those of you i love are left out of the group of challenging/inspiring writers!) i know most of it will slow down in a short bit (couple of weeks) and i'm not adding anything new to the mix, it's just very overwhelming for this time.

have a great day! god's peace on us all!

Saturday, April 23, 2005

back again

this time it was a hardward glitch... and it's just been fixed.

i've caught up on reading some emails and comments - thank you all for your prayers and kind words. it has been an amazing week, and i am exhausted - every day was chuck filled with life - and much of it very intense. i'll give more details tomorrow, but all of our prayers are being answered and life is going on.

i never imagined when i prayed for community that it would be so intense, so quickly - i've missed you all!

Monday, April 18, 2005

off again...

no, not me, the computer...

sigh.

this is a windows glitch of some sorts, but beyond liam and my ability to sort out, so again we are at the mercy of friend's timing and assistance...

what a weekend, whew! it was more than i ever hoped it could be community wise - we broke through some wonderful walls together and i felt like myself and loved and a part of things for the first time in a really long time.

my friend and i were in charge of our 'prayer and share time' (i know really churchy sounding, eh?) we did some experimental prayer and lectio and really stretching things with them, and they responded so well. it was amazing. i have wanted to get to know my friend more deeply for ages. she is an artist, and so creative and fresh - just someone i really longed to know. we roomed togther and really enjoyed each other's company. we even stretched it to lunch yesterday and she brought me home afterward.

the next 36 hours was a blur for her. she returned to find her husband cherry red and passed out in the garage. he came home from church yesterday, all their kids were away, and he decided to sit in the garage with the car on until the game started, and if he wasn't gone by the time the game started he would go into the house and watch the game... he lived, but barely. her pain is so great i can hardly bear it. but she is also bearing up under it all amazingly well.

of course my guilt was huge - i sat in our driveway with her for an hour, neither one of us wanting our weekend away to end... while her husband was trying to kill himself. he's a pillar in our community and church. no one knew, or suspected. when she called me this morning to talk she reassured me of her gratefulness that we did talk, that he did try, so that it wasn't hidden forever below the surface. i am amazed at her strength. not syrupy denial strength, but honest, living in the moment strength and beauty.

i know they would appreciate your prayers. this is only the beginning of a long road for them. she knows the anger will come, she knows that the public humiliation will be much to bear. i am also watching my church closely through this - how will they respond? how will they change so that this kind of thing doesn't have to become so desperate and the cries for help so very loud. so far i have been pleased. love and support is being shown, will there be a safe place for him to land? i pray it is so.

she told me that the community she felt this weekend was the only thing that could have prepared her for something like this. knowing how loved she was allowed her to accept help, admit need and be herself. it was music to my soul.

well, i'm giving the lead at our recovery group tonight. need to go over my notes. i miss you all, and will hopefully be back in the land of the connected again soon.

ttfn.

Friday, April 15, 2005

me and the deep blue sea


underwater

my friend lily used a term that describes me and where i've been just perfectly today. i feel like i'm underwater. not drowning per say, just submerged. like nothing is getting in, and nothing is getting out.

these past couple of months have been different for me, my health/hormones/brain activity has been off somehow and it's making me feel a bit distant. i know my writing is affected, and i haven't gone near anything really deep or meaningful. i think that is why i was tempted to restart the garden. i could ride off of your thoughts for a bit instead of having to get in touch with my own.

liam and i are spending the time i would have spent blogging together reading and processing, and so i haven't closed myself up from the world, i just know that if i can talk about other things nothing will come too close to get to the stuff i know i really need to be talking about. the stuff that makes me uncomfortable.

i know that somethings have changed, a lot even for the better, but i really can't put my finger on what it really is that i've lost ahold of that has brought me to this place. i spend so much time thinking and in silence that i really convince myself that i'm spending time with THEM. i know that's really what it is though, that dwelling in the middle of my stuff with THEM just seems so raw, so intense, and far too intimidating. these things i know to be lies, i just can't seem to make myself care.

i have been using new things as crutches, things i never suspected could be used, and that has thrown me off course. those sly, slick little dependencies that don't look like compulsive behaviors, or crutches, but when the thought of kicking them out from under me comes to mind i realize just how much they've become idols in my life. yuck. i know spring cleaning is coming. i know i can't go on this way. i'm just in a short season of overwhelming busy-ness and know that i've got miles to go before i rest.

i am a home body, i used to be ashamed of that, but i'm not any more. i really like home and my family and my life. some of my book ideas are really taking wing and i am enjoying the peace that comes from knowing i'm doing what i love to do... most of the time. and then i get swept up into 'pastor's wife' or just plain life sometimes and i dread what the calendar holds. then i think "am i isolating? am i living in fear, or just really enjoying being home and writing? is all of the isolation the cause of my course change, or is it that i'm not doing the maintenance that i used to do?"

i really don't know. either way, i'm off to a retreat with my women's group this weekend and if nothing else the change of pace will be quite refreshing. i'm bringing my journal and my two new books (that i bought retail at a store! so not me!) along - The Mermaid Chair, and The Tale of Despereaux (kate dicamillo is my new favorite author!)

i justified my extravagance by saying despereaux was for pink - but we all know it's really for me, right? :)

so please pray for me, i'd really like to stop being underwater, stop being afraid of whatever it is that i'm afraid of and get back on course. much love ya'll! have a great weekend, i'll post if i get near a computer.

how normal are you?





You Are 45% Normal

(Somewhat Normal)





While some of your behavior is quite normal...
Other things you do are downright strange
You've got a little of your freak going on
But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself




via thin spaces

the real place of christian scholarship

as mike says kierkegaard 'is kicking ass and taking names today'! this literally made me gasp out loud. i really need to read more of this man's work!

The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.
Soren Kierkegaard

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Take Action: Tell Your Senators to Protect Refugees Fleeing Persecution

Take Action: Tell Your Senators to Protect Refugees Fleeing Persecution

The bill, known as the REAL ID Act, will harm refugees fleeing torture, forced abortions, honor killings, and other horrific violence. The bill will make it much harder for refugees to prove that they qualify for asylum and remove safeguards that protect refugees from being sent back into the arms of their persecutors.

susie joins our garden!

susie albert miller chooses a daylily for her flower here:

susie: bobbie's garden...


the wild and exotic day lily

Daylilies will not be overlooked and yet if you miss them for a day, the bloom is gone.. so there is both an offering that is stellar and a closing and resting at the end of each day… this speaks to me of both extravagant giving and a sense of dignity that embraces that need for Sabbath…There is an inherent offering, an invitation to behold, without any demand to be seen, there is grandeur and subtle rest simultaneously…Grace and Shekinah Sophia intertwined and being thus and longing to be increasingly moreso resonates deep within my soul…


welcome susie - it's a more beautiful place with you here!

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

finding your soul mate!

this A&E site is hysterical! find your dead soul mate!

here

mine was vincent van gogh!

it felt good to get that off my chest!

wow - thanks so much for your comments and encouragement and prayers about the situation with my father yesterday!

for those of you who don't know my father lives with us. so most of the time we get along just fine. he's not very interactive verbally, but he is a huge help around the house and is the most generous man i know - so those feelings i had surged out i suspected were there, but had never engaged before.

blogging it was like lancing out the poison. i felt so much better once i was able to type it all out, like a blogging purge. i'm sure your prayers were a big help in that too! i was able to just say 'hey dad, i'm so sorry i lost my temper yesterday.' i knew he wanted to just get past it, and then i said 'i really wouldn't have minded if you called her over by saying 'hey pink, want to see a crawly bug?' and giving her the option of saying 'no' - i just knew she is at a stage where bugs aren't her favorite right now.' he kind of denied he was going to do it, said he just wanted to show me, and i let it drop.

i spoke with my therapist months ago about beginning to process my 'dad stuff'. my mom stuff, at least the stuff i've been able to mine out is pretty much dealt with. but i know my 'dad stuff' is lying in wait. i'd like to get it out of the way on my end so that i can care for him properly as he ages. he's a type one diabetic and a sugar addict, so he could fade very fast. he still plays basketball and is an active hunter/fisherman - so he's not on his death bed. but i know that with the little care he takes of himself sometimes an infected toe nail could require amputation if not treated properly and in a timely fashion.

we have talked at length about filling in the gaps in my mind of what he did in his youth and mine. we talk about 'history', not emotions. it's okay. i love him dearly, i just want my emotions owned and dealt with so they don't sneak up on me when i have to be the 'caretaker'. i've seen too many times ugly resentments have poisoned those relationships, and owning my side of things and the emotions that were created because of the past felt and processed.

monday was the beginning of that process i think, and it really is an answer to prayer. i'd love it if he'd journey along and find healing, but i'm okay with him just being him and seeing the wonderful parts and living with the rest, with grace and love. thanks for your prayers!

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

US government suspects trafficking in Minnesota

Business Travellers Against Human Trafficking � US government suspects trafficking in Minnesota

i can't stomach this in other countries, but here in america? i'm not naive, but minnesota? ya, ya betcha... god help us.

power and authority

today's post from wes about the recent nouwen daily meditations and an email sent out by stephanie have been weaving together my thoughts on power and authority.

stephanie and i both come from a background (although her's was far more severe than mine) where male power and authority was unquestioned and god-like in it's influence in our lives. so unpacking and redeeming thoughts on these topics are very important to me. the authority and power we experienced is nothing like the thoughts i've been reading these past couple days.

stephanie's quote from the wounded healer

The (one) who can articulate the movements of (their) inner life, who can give names to (their) varied experiences, need no longer be a victim of (oneself), but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering. S/He is able to create space for Him whose heart is great than (their's), whose eyes see more than (their's), and whose hands can heal more than (their's).

This articulation, I believe, is the basis for a spiritual leadership of the future, because only (one) who is able to articulate (one's) own experience can offer (themself) to others as a source of clarficiation. The Christian leader is, therefore, first of all, (one) who is willing to put (their) own articulated faith at the disposal of those who ask (their) help. In this sense s/he is a servant of servants, because s/he is the first to enter the promised but dangerous land, the first to tell those who are afraid what s/he has seen, heard and touched.
i kept stumbling on the 'he' and 'man' so i unisexed it, as i'm sure henri, now that he is in heaven totally would do himself! :)

wes quotes the meditation from the 12th:

The Authority of Compassion

Mostly we think of people with great authority as higher up, far away, hard to reach. But spiritual authority comes from compassion and emerges from deep inner solidarity with those who are "subject" to authority. The one who is fully like us, who deeply understands our joys and pains or hopes and desires, and who is willing and able to walk with us, that is the one to whom we gladly give authority and whose "subjects" we are willing to be.

It is the compassionate authority that empowers, encourages, calls forth hidden gifts, and enables great things to happen. True spiritual authorities are located in the point of an upside-down triangle, supporting and holding into the light everyone they offer their leadership to.
in re-reading it on his blog i recalled a part of parker palmer's definition of authority from a hidden wholeness, pg. 76-77:

"The authority such a leader needs is not the same as power. Power comes to anyone who controls the tools of coercion, which range from grades to guns. But authority comes only to those who are granted it by others. And what leads us to grant someone authority? The word itself contains a clue: we grant authority to people we perceive as "authoring" their own words and actions, people who do not speak from a script or behave in preprogrammed ways.

In other words, we grant authority to people we perceive as living undivided lives."
oh, the undivided life. palmer speaks of life on the mobius strip, it is the image below - where the inner and outer ring are both visible and open to the self and the surrounding community. there is no divide between the two.




these are the people i grant true authority in my life. all others are suspect.

sexuality was immediate endowment of authority in the first 30 years of my life. if you were male you were given authority by god in my life. it didn't matter if you spoke truth, spoke love, had god's or my best interests at heart, you had authority. much confusion, and consequently much destruction and anger stemmed from that distortion of scripture in my life.

i still struggle to this day to distinguish truth from falsehood if spoken by someone in authority. the tapes in my brain kick in and i am left with much confusion until the truth is distinguished from the lies. it is a process of untangling. i'm getting better at it, but it still brings me a lot of anxiety.

that is why what nouwen writes about compassionate authority almost brings me to tears. what would the church, better yet, the kingdom be like if those 'in power' lead with compassionate authority? my husband liam is one of those men. it's suprising that many are threatened by this. many of the students who are raised to respect 'powerful authority' don't respond to his teaching and shy away from his ministry.

people living out true authority and compassion call us to a higher plane - call us to live lives of authenticity and compassion ourselves. my friend wes is that kind of leader too. liam and i are reading his book reclaiming god's original intent for the church together each morning. it is so refreshing to hear of the hopeful call to restore what has been lost, to reclaim those things that have been stolen. to redeem those places that the locust have eaten in the church.

these are the kind of people i grant authority to. people who live those undivided lives. who practice what they preach. who own their own junk, and do it in a way that makes me want to own mine. i love these men. they restore those places deep in my soul that have been wounded, strip mined and abused. they restore my faith in humanity, and the divine. thank you!

the way he makes me feel

it came out of nowhere, this gut reaction, this deep anger and identification of shame. i only realized it because of the reflection i saw in how he tried to treat my daughter. i would have been blind to it, and have been for the near 40 years he's done it to me.

we were cleaning the garage out yesterday, and after the kids got home from school my father remembered the wiggly fish bait he had gathered for the upcoming trout season. i heard him ask 'have ya ever seen a helgermite?' these are some demon spawn crawly bug that he pulls out of dead leaves near the banks of the streams and rivers. i said 'yes dad, i've seen them.'

then i realized he wasn't talking to me, he was talking to my daughter. i spun around and he had a handful and was heading her way.

i said "NO", and repeated it about 4 times. finally "NO DAD". it finally got through when i stepped between them. i told him she is inordinately afraid of spiders, i know she wouldn't like the bug. it was like he was a 10 year old boy trying to scare her. not the scientist trying to inform her world. and it recalled to me the many times in my near 40 years where he invaded my space, didn't hear me and demanded that i like the things that he likes, instead of the other way around.

he had his usual subtle, inordinate anger response, muttering and shaming. it touched off a place in me that i had no idea existed. in no time i was reacting like i have never reacted before.

he muttered 'well she's gonna have problems' - 'what problem? because she wouldn't look at your bug she's gonna have problems?'

'well she's gonna have to take biology one day', me - 'yah dad, when she's a sophomore in high school, not when she's 9!' my ire is starting to rise as i remember each time he shamed me into fishing, cutting worms, taking fish off hooks, having to look at his dead trapped or hunted animals all the while dying inside.

i couldn't let it go, 'she doesn't need to do boy things to be accepted around here dad, she's a girl, and she doesn't like that kind of stuff. maybe it's you that needs to grow up....'

damn, that last line. i was speaking truth up to that point, now i have to make an amend, damn. the anger still makes my hands shake as i realize how much i hate and resent those activities i was forced into to gain any of his approval or attention. or to escape the shaming that was heaped upon me for wanting to honor life, not kill, not watch, not gloat in the dead.

i have a running chronology of pictures of me as a child. my sister and i standing next to dead animals my father has killed. me in my dorky 70's clothes, usually freezing because it's winter. outside next to 8 dead racoon, fox or other rodents. or a deer suspended by it's ankles with it's lovely tongue hanging out looking like it's begging for a drink of water.

i'm realizing now that something died in me each time. he never heard my 'no', he never stopped shoving those horrible specimins in my face just to have some sick, twisted glee at making me squirm. and i am angry, so very angry. how many meals have i had ruined because he insisted on speaking of things not fit for conversation, let alone the dinner table? as my stomach squirms and he just keeps right on going. if i say anything he makes me feel like a baby. shame again. oh this is deep, right down to the soles of my feet.

you see, my little sister seemed to enjoy every minute of it - so she was part of his strategy. if you don't want to join in, we'll just go and do it without you. nothing of the feminine was honored or tended to, or got any of his attention. and there she was happy as a clam to push the hook in to cut the night crawler and put it on the hook.

she's 8 weeks pregnant and couldn't wait to stumble down the mountain with her husband to get to the lake now that the ice is off so they could spend their one day together that week fishing. she married someone just like my dad. maybe deep down she hated it as much as i did, but the attention was just too alluring? maybe she hates it still and can't admit that she knows she'll be home alone while he's out in that boat without her? all i know was as soon as i found other male attention i wasn't fishing any more. yuck.

protecting pink yesterday was very empowering, but not very satisfying. i know it was lost on him. i know most of the conversation i will have with him today will be lost on him too. thank god liam, even though he enjoys fishing, doesn't require pink (or me) to restructure our souls to please him, or to earn time and attention from him. but in writing this i have unlocked something else. he now uses my husband like he used my sister. i'll take him fishing, hunting, etc. and he'll get time with me, not you. and i resent it doubley now because he's not interested in spending time with me, and he's taking my time with my husband away from me too... yuck.

father, my father doesn't get it. he doesn't even have a smidgen of understanding of how destructive things like this were in my past. even explained i am skeptical that he will be able to own or acknowledge any of the emotion that will come from this conversation we need to have today. help me god, to speak the truth in love. to honor my soul in expressing the wounds and to set the boundaries necessary to explain how my daughter is to be honored in her own home. this is a faithless prayer father. i fear it will be frustrating for both of us, that it won't build the bridge i'm praying for, but just leave a pile of bricks from the wall i'm trying to kick down. help me to be okay if he takes those bricks and starts to rebuild the wall instead of meeting me on that bridge. give me word pictures that he will understand, help me to speak the truth slant father, so i am not shaming of him either. amen.

Monday, April 11, 2005

Take Action: Call for Debt Justice!

Take Action: Call for Debt Justice!

Please join Sojourners in urging that President Bush and Secretary Snow use the power of the United States to urge 100% debt cancellation for Africa's poorest countries.

seekers of the truth


an aquired taste

Today's Daily Dig: The Universal Struggle

Every individual who seeks the truth faces a struggle. Each of us has some sort of devil raging within, wanting to deaden and destroy something in us. We are all in danger of thinking we are doing God a service, when in fact we are just following our own will. That is why, over and again, we must tell ourselves: “Keep a tight rein on yourself! Stand by the truth when it dawns on you, even if it hurts, even when it denies everything the world has accepted as true until now!”

God’s kingdom comes through struggle and tribulation, the defiant challenging of the whole age. It is advancing, and people have no taste for it. But in the end Jesus Christ—the Truth, the Life, and the Way—will win. So let us be comforted; for the will of the Almighty shall prevail in our own time, as surely as in the time of the apostles. C. F. Blumhardt

but why does it feel like it's everything the church denies as true now too??? it just doesn't feel like it's universal - like anyone around me even cares about the truth (the real truth, not what they've been told is true) anymore? i love that the image with the dig today was onions. oh the many layers we live at.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

red, red poppy


wild poppy

my new friend susan at visual~voice has the most amazing blog. i found her when real live preacher highlighted her - she is so gifted and literally gives voice to my thoughts with her images and her words. you can't imagine how tickled i was when she wanted to join our garden! here is her amazing entry:

I have a streak of the magical in me, so I choose the Poppy as my flower metaphor. The Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz used magic poppies to send Dorothy into the deepest of slumbers. I was so taken with Frank Baum's books as a child, and I wish I could capture people's imaginations the way he did.

Powerful though they maybe, poppies are pretty high-maintenance when out of their element. It is extremely rare to see poppies in a floral arrangement because they just don't do well without their roots in the soil. Wound a poppy and it won't take long before they show their vulnerable nature.They do best in the wild... decorating fields with playful dots of brights red and orange. This is so me. Creative, sensitive, unique, and apart from the main stream.

I love the sound of the word, POPPY!
welcome vincent!

our garden is growing and blooming all around, we'd love you to join us! what's flower are you?

Saturday, April 09, 2005

off to the children's museum

we promised the kids that because they weren't having friend parties this year we'd take them to the children's museum today. so off we go to the big city!

have a wonderful day - hope the sun is shining where you are like it is here today!

Friday, April 08, 2005

flowers of thy heart

cheryl at octillo's desert gives us our most creative (and delicious) flower yet! she was inspired by a line in a song from godspell 'flowers of thy heart'.

Flowers of thy heart
O God are they
Let them not pass like weeds away
Their heritage, a sunless day
O God save the people
Shall crime bring crime forever
Strength aiding still as strong?
Is it thy will, O Father
That men shall toil
For wrong?

So the music started replaying in my mind after reading Bobbie's post. My first thought was "well, I'm quite sure I'm not a rose"...and then a mental picture came to me. Wild strawberry flowers deep in the grass.Wildstrawberry Realizing what this means to me, I thought "no, no, not that".

After reading a bit about it online, it turns out that the strawberry is actually a member of the rose family.The strawberry flower itself is a rather unimpressive plain flower. Quite delicate and need to be somewhat protected, but what it becomes in the right conditions! Yumma yumma. Of course the best strawberries are the wild, hard to find and unimpressive in size. Nourishment to wild grazing animals. I find it a little hard to say i am such a thing. But i believe what other people have discovered about themselves is accurate.



strawberry flower
read the rest of her amazing post here.

Thursday, April 07, 2005

gerbera daisy


gerbera daisy

welcome spiritual ingenue to our garden too!

They require full sun but I've found that if you keep them away from extremely hot situations, they perform much better.

You want to be careful not to over water. They actually
prefer to be a little on the dry side (like my sense of humor!) and if you're using them in containers you want to make sure that you select companions for them that require similar conditions.
read the rest of her post here.

i have a couple more to add, but i don't want to overwhelm you all, or cause anyone to get overlooked, so i will post more tomorrow!

micah girl joins the garden!


micahgirl

we've got a hollyhock, a red one!

A hollyhock is a constant, old-fashioned flower used to accent the beauty of the rest of the garden...understated, elegant, strong and hardy. It's ever present in cottage gardens which appear free and chaotic but have a rhyme and reason of their own and make me think of a long afternoon of working the soil finished with a proper pot of tea.
you can read her whole post here.

blogger's survey

calling all bloggers - marquette university grad student is asking for help with a project he is doing on blogging. it's a short survey and only takes like 10 minutes. if you're interested in helping go here.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

garden posts

i haven't forgotten you i promise! i have finally gotten our's and dad's taxes out of the way and cleared up the financial mess the crash created - yuck! in the next couple of days i promise to highlight your garden posts - i haven't even had time to read them yet - i'm so looking forward to doing so!

if you are wondering what i'm talking about read this post.

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

slip sliding away

as the snow fell on sunday morning it was almost like a foreshadowing of the next 48 hours. as i wiped the wet, heavy snow off the volvo is slid on the sidewalk and landed on my butt. not one of those embarrassing falls, my feet just slid sideways from under me and i kind of slowly laid my hip on the slush under my feet. just what i needed before church, but i was in black slacks, so it wasn't terribly noticible and i didn't want to be later than i already was.

i did get my computer back on sunday, upgraded, but my greatest fears were realized as i checked the files hopefully transferred from our hard-drive before our friend wiped it clean... nothing. liam regretfully did not back up the 'my documents' file before he upgraded our windows program, and the disk was faulty and froze and scrambled everything.

our last backup was november... all of his art, all of my writing, including some book proposals i had been working on, gone. all gone... sigh.

it was night the brightest days in our year thus far to say the least. especially after the two week wait for the computer to be reconstructed. gracious, busy friends helped, but when favors are given time lines and patience are necessary.

this all began because i have recieved my FREE IPOD! (yes it really works!) and it couldn't run on the windows 98 i was using... sigh. so today i am ripping cd's and dreaming of a soundtrack for my life.

anyone with good suggestions for some $.99 cent songs at iTunes?? i'm putting together a 'girl power' soundtrack for pink and i, and i have the standard stuff, but would love to add a couple new songs in. also making a 'redeeming my voice' soundtrack - any empowering lyrics/songs out there? i've been so out of touch to the music scene.

have a wonderful day ya'll, ripping on!

best tribute to the holy father

Visual VoiceVisual~Voice Archives

Sunday, April 03, 2005

I'M BAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!

whew, i can hardly believe what a saga it's been, but i am now back with a working (and updated!) computer! hurray! it's been quite the trip, and i promise i will catch you up, i missed you all immensely, but it was a good experience for me to learn some new (or forgotten) ways to process my life.

i can't wait to catch up on all of your lives - that's really what i missed the most. i promise to post more soon.

love you all!