on peace, love, and life on an estuary

12.10.2009

words

The first words spoken over extended radio broadcast 103 years ago, was the voice of Reginald Fessenden reading from Luke:

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest,and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Those words are as astounding to me tonight as they must have been 103 years ago when people heard that voice over the radio, for the first time.

Posted by tp at 11:34 PM | 1 comments

12.09.2009

cookie party

Tonight was our second annual cookie party. Mostly I just love an excuse to have a bunch of friends over to my house. It was wonderful- we made bazillions of cookies and made way too much icing and had too many sprinkles. Perfect. Our tiny townhouse was packed with dear friends and christmas cheer.

It just really brightened my day that so many wonderful people came- including Clare.

If you weren't there, I wish you would have been-- but don't worry, we'll probably hold the 3rd annual cookie party next year.

The talent of some was astounding--

But, this is what I came up with.

I basically just kept dipping the cookies in icing and eating them. De-licious. I am thankful tonight, for Christmas and friends... and good reason to eat my weight in gingerbread men!

Posted by tp at 10:47 PM | 4 comments

12.07.2009

the party's on, the spirit's up

This past weekend was a great weekend. Why? The Winter Retreat. (or Fall Retreat, since it's not really winter yet) Anyway, about 50 children came to camp this weekend for a jam-packed weekend of summertime fun, just in weather about 60 degrees colder than what we experience in the summer. I love these retreats- I love to see the campers who return and I love to see staff who travel (some of them hundreds of miles) to volunteer for the weekend.

This weekend we played games, ate food, made s'mores (in the oven), watched a christmas movie, ate some more, went ice skating in the snow, heard the gospel, laughed a lot- you get the idea. As for the organized games this weekend, someone thought it would be a good idea to put Ben and I in charge. We are not funny and we are not hip. But we gave it our all. If you've ever been to camp you know that games, these days, include a theme and a set of "game-masters" whose job it is to run and hype up the games while wearing some ridiculous costume. Hence why not being funny is a challenge.

When Ben and I were given this task we knew one of the first things to do was to pick a theme and a set of characters. Being a middle school teacher, Ben polled his class to see what they are into/what they find to be entertaining right now. The popular vote was Twilight and Degrassi. I don't have to explain why Ben and I weren't dressing up as a set of star-crossed vampire lovers, and I don't even know what that second thing is. Then my talented and slightly-more-funny-than-me husband said Rock Band is pretty big right now... and do you know what version of Rock Band came out just months ago? The Beatles. I can do Beatles...

There was the tiny insignificant detail that Ben knew little to nothing about The Beatles other than that there were four and they were kind of a big deal. On Friday night Ben and I had a little crash course- I will always love and respect The Beatles, but when I was in middle school I was relatively obsessed. I blame that all on my annoying shadow-like personality when it came to my relationship with this girl. So I pulled out my 12 Beatles albums and together Ben and I got in the spirit (I'll admit, it rekindled my love for them...)

So, our theme for the weekend was The Beatles. We aptly named the 4 "teams" that the kids would be a part of: I Want to Hold Your Hand, Octopus' Garden (because I think Ringo is grossly overlooked as a Beatle), Ticket to Ride, and (of course!) Eleanor Rigby.

Ben dressed up as John, Paul & Ringo (sorry George, there were only 3 games) and I just picked one girl to pose as for the weekend. That's right, Yoko Ono. It wasn't too tough- I just wore black clothing and walked around saying ridiculous things like "We are all butterflies, we are just inhibited by hatred"... and "Give Peace a Chance". Paul and Ringo kept calling me Wacko, and Loco instead of Yoko, and a few Beatles-saavy campers yelled at me for breaking up the band. One kid asked if we were Sonny and Cher... but all in all, it was a lot of fun.

You have to excuse the zero-budget camp prop closet clothes-- but, here we are!

Posted by tp at 9:32 PM | 7 comments

12.03.2009

i've been waiting all year

for Christmas. I love Christmas. Lately these things have gotten me into the Christmas spirit-

"When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about. So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told." Luke 2:15-20

Posted by tp at 10:46 PM | 2 comments

11.29.2009

from steaming jungles of lustria, to a big blueberry, to a golden grove.

When Ben and I first moved in to this place we call home, just 3 weeks after we got married, we were super thankful for such a fantastic townhouse. We did, however, move into this extra wonderful home right after two sets of boy roommates had just called this very place their home. Needless to say, there was some cleaning that needed to be done... and some painting that needed to be done. Our dining room was the first place, in my opinion, that needed some immediate help. There was a map drawn on to the wall. A well done map, I must say, but a map nonetheless, which was totally fictitious and yet had a striking resemblance to the actual map of the world. For some, it was hard to watch as we painted over this masterpiece. It's not that I didn't respect this art-- but with "countries" named things like the Steaming Jungles of Lustria and Nippon, it just made it difficult to eat dinner in that room. Seriously, I did not make those names up (but someone did...).

We chose this great bold blue to cover the map as well as the other walls in the dining room. If you know anything about me, you probably know that I paint, and repaint, maybe more than most people. I love repainting rooms- it really changes the whole feel of the room, and sometimes I get tried of the original feel I created with one color and have the desire to change the feel completely. I love color so much too, and its hard to pick one perfect color from the wall of paint chips the stores put before you. So, I usually pick one and then get tired of it in a year or two (or in some cases a day).

It all started when I was pretty young, my aunt let me paint my room a bright blue and then when I lived at home in college she let me move rooms and paint that one the color of a purple grape. Isn't she great? Anyway, she allowed me, from a young age to express my love of paint colors and now its just on a bigger scale- I have my entire house as a canvas! I have repainted our living room twice, our foyer once, our bedroom 3 times, our bathroom twice, the office just once, the kitchen once... And, as you probably guessed, I got tired of that blue. And now I have repainted the dining room twice. Ben is so gracious to have helped me with most of these projects. Sometimes, he just comes home and a wall is a totally different color. Together we spent a good part of our week trying to cover the blueberry of a room with about three coats of paint. Ben swears we are losing square footage in our house because of my "hobby".

I had a vision of golden pear happiness in my dining room and... so it is. Golden groves on two walls and white on the other two, to make the room feel a little bigger (and because we found a $5 gallon of "oops!" paint in white). Here it is- the finished product! for now...

Posted by tp at 2:49 PM | 7 comments

11.23.2009

bea's pumpkin pie

Everyone knows someone who makes the best something. Your mom might make the best lasagna, your sister might make the best pot roast, your aunt might have the best bread recipe... for me I mostly think Rachael Ray does it best but that is just because I didn't spend countless hours watching and learning as my aunt made the best anything in the kitchen. She can attest to this- I believe her words are "I don't cook". I was child number 4 in her life with more than a decade separating me from the rest of her children. In addition, my aunt and I were busy girls and my uncle often worked the night shift. All of these factors caused me to become well acclimated to Stouffers' and mac 'n' cheese a la Kraft. What my aunt lacked in the cooking department she more than made up for in her love for me- and I appreciated her honesty ("I don't cook").

With that being said, there is one thing my aunt made (and not very often) that was made very well. I didn't grow up saying it was the best-- mostly because it was all I knew. Every Christmas and Thanksgiving Carolyn would make pumpkin pie, and all I knew was that I loved it. I would help her made them and I would help her eat them. As I say, I didn't necessarily hold fast to the idea that this was the best pumpkin pie and now that I am married I have even made pumpkin pie on my own and with different recipes. Let me say, they were not as good. No match, really. Now, I am not trying to throw my self-proclaimed non-cooking aunt under the bus here, but you should know this recipe is not just her own (she just executes it very well). My Grandma, Bea, is the one responsible for passing down this pumpkin pie recipe. This Thanksgiving I will be using Bea's recipe and I might even say that my Grandma made (and my aunt makes) the best pumpkin pie. And who am I to keep a good thing from you?

Bea's pumkin pie:

¾ cup brown sugar

1 tbs. flour

½ tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. nutmeg

½ tsp. ginger

¼ tsp. ground cloves

1 ½ cups pumpkin (1 regular can)

1 slightly beaten egg

1 12 oz can evaporated milk

2 tbs. Dark molasses

Mix dry ingredients together well. Add remaining ingredients, and stir until smooth. Pour into unbaked 9” pie shell. Bake at 450* for 15 minutes, then reduce temp. to 325* and bake for 45 minutes until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

Posted by tp at 9:43 PM | 6 comments

11.19.2009

the crap i read

I have never been much of a reader. I enjoyed being read-to, but reading big ol' thick books has never really been for me. I don't have much of an imagination. No, really, it's true- I watch movies that take place in other "worlds" such as Lord of the Rings, Narnia, or Harry Potter and I just leave feeling confused. I watch movies that don't have predictable endings and often feel frustrated. As for books, I remember having to read novels in school and let me just say, I failed one too many "pop quizzes" on the reading assignments. I would join in class conversations after someone had offered their opinion by simply building off of their ideas (I found with all that fantasy stuff you can make up whatever opinion you want because it's not real anyway).

I know this is all very terrible, but it has just never really held my attention. I just, don't, get it. Period pieces often bore me, fantasy confuses me, and self-help books just make me feel self-loathing for all the thing I lack. I desire so much to read books by Christian authors who offer encouragement and conviction through their words. I can't tell you how many of these kinds of books I have started and never finished. The Sacred Romance- great... for the first 6 chapters. The Five Love Languages- I only got through 4. Velvet Elvis- I didn't get deep enough into that one to realize what that title even meant. I would truly love, to love reading. The idea seems so romantic- curling up with a blanket and a cup of tea and reading one of the classics. I was an English major in college for about a minute. I took a few of the appropriate classes and after reading nine of Shakespeare's plays in depth, I realized I wasn't so much cut out for that kind of thing.

There is one author whose books I read cover to cover usually within 3 or 4 days and I have, in fact, read almost everything he has written. Plane rides, beach lounging, late night insomnia-- I turn to the same stuff over and over. If you don't already know this about me let me confess- the crap I read is Nicholas Sparks. Now, calling it "crap" is no blow to Nicholas, I think he is talented (obviously) and probably the nicest most feeling man ever. But, his books have a common theme- always- there are two (sometimes more) people in love, they live in North Carolina and they meet some adversity that will threaten to end their love forever. Often a character dies and often I throw the book on the ground when it's over and think "that was stupid." Nevertheless, I can't stop reading him. Why? Because I like the way he writes, mostly they are believable and predictable stories, and I don't have to get accustomed to a far off land that appears in a wardrobe, or believe in a portal that takes you to a secret school, or even believe that though a couple is in love they can't be together because he wants to feast on her for dinner- But North Carolina, I can wrap my brain around that.

Don't get me wrong, I only read a couple a year, I am still no star reader. Though, I have been reading a lot lately (kind of). In the past week and a half I have really been pumping out the slightly melancholy yet feel-good musings of Nicholas Sparks. Something about reading allows my mind to think of something that is totally unreal and unrelated to me and I create this concern for people that don't even exist- like an escape maybe. Hmmm, come to think of it, maybe this is why you people read... fantasy novels even...

Posted by tp at 1:13 PM | 6 comments

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