christmas eve surprise

a while back i won a giveaway on my friend amy's blog. i'm pretty new to blogging, and VERY new to the crafty world, but apparently in the artsy blogging community sometimes people give stuff away that they have made. all you have to do is comment, and then the person draws a name from the people who have commented. i guess it's a way to get readers, plus it's a way to share what you are creating with your hands.

well i am a LONG way off from giving anything away on my blog--if ever. but amy can make a bazillion things she could give away, and i was honored to win her first ever of these such events.

so today in the mail, i got a surprise: a handmade apron from her (and i had just told rick the other day how much i wanted an apron!), along with a couple of smelly pencils (which took me right back to girlhood) and lip gloss. she also included a pencil case with some more smelly pencils and erasers for gillian's birthday. i tried on the apron immediately and had rick take my picture to post here.

what awesome treats amy! thanks so much for your kindness. i miss you friend.

"domestic goddess"

that's what my friend angie calls me. i certainly don't feel like the second word in that phrase, but i had a fantastic day fulfilling out the first word yesterday. i hadn't even so much as cracked open my december issue of cooking light, and when i did, i was overwhelmed with all the yummy recipes in there!


we were having angie, warren, and another couple over last night, so in honor of that i ended up making chili and two desserts--*homemade* chocolate pudding and orange cardamom cake (did you know cardamom was $8 a bottle? i sure didn't...).

i am especially proud of the pudding. actually too rich for me to enjoy much, but that never really bothers me after i cook or bake something. i think for me it really is about the act of cooking, and being able to produce an end product that other people will ooh and aah over and will really enjoy. and everyone else seemed to really enjoy the pudding (and the cake!).


i had to post a photo because i put the pudding in china teacups. rick's mom gave me her entire china collection a few years ago, and the story behind these is awesome. rick's dad bought this noritake china IN JAPAN in the 1950s while he was on a ship in the Navy. so i feel very special to be able to call these my own. aren't they beautiful? (and you can see the cake in the background)

sweet bounty

today our friend krystal invited us to meet her at sweetwater organic community farm, because she was picking up her share of food and wanted to give some to us.

we tracked down the farm the minute we moved to tampa, but for one reason or another we have never quite had the funds to fork over all at once to purchase a share of the food. so we were thrilled that krystal was so generous!

this time, gillian and aedan wanted to know where all the farm animals were. then later tonight they decided that broccoli comes from a cow, and when i had the (stupid) idea of asking where exactly it came from, she said "the cow's bottom." so we had a great time laughing about broccoli coming out of a cow's butt. thank goodness it really doesn't!

the visit to the farm also spurred a lively argument about whether celery and broccoli were the same thing or not. i bet my friend laci is glad they aren't since she's not really fond of the former.

now i have to figure out what exactly to DO with all the greens...feel free to post suggestions if you have any (but i can't help you out by identifying any of these besides the curly kale--they are all just mystery greens to me!).

friends

last night we reconvened our weekly "office" watching tv night with friends. it had been a WHOLE WEEK since we had seen each other. it seemed like much longer though!

even though due to the writers' strike the office was rerun, we still got together, ate dinner, and talked for a few hours afterward. for some reason we also passed the digital camera around taking pictures of each other. so i'll share a few here. our friend, krystal, didn't make it into the umpteen shots we took, so i'll have to post her face on here after next week's gathering.

i'm so grateful for friends... (and if you are local and have been invited before and haven't bothered coming yet...see what you are missing?! get yourself over here on thursday nights!)

water in the desert

i haven't blogged since early last week because i was busy finishing an editing project and then prepping the house for our house concert saturday night. our dear friends, ryan and holly sharp, and their son, paxton, who's 13 months, came to stay with us saturday afternoon and left on their next adventure early this morning.

rick blogged about this already, and i echo his sentiments. i just want to throw in my female version of the weekend with them. it's been rather dry here in tampa related to finding people we connect with on a very deep level. we have a few very dear friends here to struggle through life with. but, for the most part, though we look under many stones we have had trouble finding people who are like-minded, wanting to press on toward the same things, or even people who just understand what we are going through and where we've been. it has been painful at times, lonely a lot.

so when we were able to spend some time with holly and ryan this weekend, it was time we treasured. savored, like chimay. (and boy, did i savor the few drops of chimay my husband poured for me this weekend while i watched him walk away with quite a larger glassful!) the strange thing to me (and i don't know why i don't just stop being surprised by this, as many times as it's happened to me) is how people can connect with each other so deeply without even knowing each other very well. ryan and holly have spent time with rick on various emergent gatherings. but, in case you don't know this, i have yet to attend one of these sacred events. so when they came to stay with us two years ago to do the same type of house concert, i was meeting them for the first time. thus, this is only the second time i've spent any time with them.

as i told holly, though, it's just like i've known them forever. they are as honest as i am (and if you know me at all, you know i'm honest to a fault). within the first hour or so, holly and i were already discussing the most personal events that have taken place in my life in the last year, and i felt no shame in sharing them with her, and i also felt no judgment--just love.


which brings me to my point, because if i don't try to just make one point i would just ramble on for pages about how amazing it was to spend time with the sharps (and at some point you would get bored and stop reading...). i have been in a dry spell spiritually as well--for a long time now. maybe it's because i work so much i don't take time to just read or rest. maybe it's because i have 3 kids so i don't have time to read or rest. maybe it's because i don't understand why we would put ourselves out there to start a church in boston, only to have to leave 3 years later. maybe it's because in the last 3 1/2 years, rick has struggled to find his place in this world (ok please don't break into the Michael W. Smith rendition of that--you might scare someone!). maybe it's because during that time i've tried to find MY place here too. and in all of this, it seems like God has been absent so much of the time.

so right now, in my life, i find that God reaches me when he sends people like ryan & holly our way. i felt like God was touching me and loving me when holly & i went thrift store shopping on sunday afternoon. i felt like God was saying he loved me when the four of us talked and watched The Office and Scrubs last night. just sharing life with people who are willing to be completely vulnerable, who are willing to say they don't have it all together either, but who are amazingly inspiring--that is being in the presence of God. so thanks, holly & ryan, for being obedient and for sharing yourselves to the people you've stayed with along the way around the country on this tour. because i'm sure we aren't the only lives you are blessing in a special way.

here are some photos of the evening. you have already heard me rave about my tarps, and i have to brag that they made the deck look quite spectacular. so feel free to pat me on the back about how great they look. :) if you weren't here, wish you could have been!

in preparation

we are hosting friends ryan & holly sharp (and their son, paxton) on saturday night for a house concert. we live in a smaller house than we did the last time we had them play here, so this time we are going to listen to the music out in the backyard.

our back deck is huge, but it doesn't have a covering or roof. so i've been experimenting with sewing sheets together that i bought at various thrift stores around tampa last week. i honestly thought that it would look like crap, but to my complete surprise, when i hung them yesterday to see what they would look like, they look awesome! i just have to redo one set because they aren't the right sizes. check out what it looks like, and i'll post lots more pictures after the party.

beach therapy

so we were lucky enough to borrow a beach house from a very generous family at the church we are attending/rick is working right now. we didn't really know what to expect, so we packed our volvo to the roof in the back with everything from extra pillows to toys to food to beach gear. we had been told, "whatever is at the house, just use it as if it were your own." but you never know about beach houses and how equipped they are...

well we arrived tuesday evening to the most beautiful beach house i've ever laid eyes on. the living room was floor-to-ceiling windows all the way across the length of the room that faced the ocean, so we woke up to a beautiful sight and went to sleep to an amazing sunset every night. it was like something out of a movie.

some of our favorite friends, michael and amy, met us there for the bulk of the time. it's funny how i can feel so bonded with someone yet not be able to hang out with her much. amy is one of the coolest people i know! and very inspiring--if you have doubts, just check out her blog: buraellen.blogspot.com.

really some of my favorite moments from the time away (besides chatting with amy nonstop!) involved watching our children play together. at home, i am constantly picking up toys, or asking the kids to clean up. i love our small house, but it's not really conducive to running and strewing things hither and yon without someone falling over.

well this house was so long that we felt like we could get lost in it. and the kids (besides lucy and rhys, who were too young to join in the fun) all stayed in a room with bunk beds...gillian on the top for the first time, and oh how she loved it--an escape from the boys when she needed it! so the kids opened the closet in their room and lo and behold, it was completely filled with toys.

i felt like i could let our kids play, not have to worry about cleaning, and plus they kept themselves occupied literally for hours at a time (and mostly without even fighting!). so to me that was really one of the biggest blessings of this trip--feeling like i could let our kids play carefree, which gave both them AND me a break.

here are some pictures from the trip. enjoy!

rockin' out

so i'm kicking myself for not taking a picture last night of this milestone event in rhys's short life thus far...no it's not rolling over, or starting to eat solid food...it's his first concert ever!

our friends warren and angie had tickets to see maroon 5 and **more importantly** the hives last night. we probably wouldn't have been that excited to go since we were just getting back from vacation last night and were exhausted (how does that happen? i thought vacation was supposed to be rejuvenating?!). but angie had gotten special VIP tickets and so we had our very own suite, equipped with fridge, leather seats, and the whole 9 yards.

so the big kids stayed at home with a sitter, and we took rhys in the sling. it was completey ridiculous how many people stopped me to fawn over him. i think it was more the sling than him (even though he IS cute!). i just got a new sling that's black and white and very striking, so at first people noticed it and then would inevitably exclaim, "Oh! There's a BABY in there!" my friend angie and i joked, "No, I just like to wear extra clothing that serves no purpose especially when it's 100 degrees outside." but i refrained from sarcasm. :)

and our little bean slept through the entire concert. he didn't miss much with maroon 5, but he missed a great show with the hives! wow, they are amazing.

when i get my act together i'll post some photos of our vacation to anna maria island next.