tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44269045980951583662024-03-13T09:30:20.127-07:00In Fields Yet FallowThoughts about faith and life from a Whitworth alumna.Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-59661879274119445162014-04-13T18:47:00.000-07:002014-04-13T18:47:04.483-07:00Real Love?I get Christianity Today magazine and read an intriguing article towards the end of the April issue last week. Here's the first line: "The report is in, and the eulogy has been delivered. Romantic comedies are dead. I say that's good news." I was hooked. What could the writer possibly mean? <br />
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The writer described Hollywood's typical romantic comedy and argued that a new batch of movies and TV shows seem to be getting at a different message. Many of these recent offerings are either portraying the challenges of romantic relationships or are featuring relationships beyond the romantic as central to the plot. The writer described scenes from several recent movies and TV shows to support her point, including an example from <em>Frozen</em>, my new favorite animated movie. Instead of the act of true love being a true love's kiss in <em>Frozen</em> (a hinge point in so many romantic comedies), the act is a young woman sacrificing her life for her sister. <br />
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After citing examples, the writer gets down to the real reason the death of romantic comedies is a good thing. She writes: "Against all odds, Hollywood seems to be discovering that when we make romance the highest form of love, we're missing what love is all about...More important, we forget that love is not just for people in romantic relationships. Real love occupies our whole lives."<br />
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This article hits close to home and crystallized some thoughts I'd been turning over in my mind. As I get ready to turn 25 on Tuesday, my thoughts have inevitably turned to broader questions about my life and about life as a whole. Am I happy to be where I am in life? Am I okay with being single at a quarter century? <br />
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On Saturday, some dear friends of mine--a dad, two daughters, and one daughter's son--picked me up for an afternoon together. We had lunch at Rancho Chico and then went to visit their aunt, who lives near by. The big occasion for visiting was so the aunt could meet my friend's four-month-old son. The aunt lives alone, so we sat in her plain living room, drank peach tea with organic honey, and listened to her talk about various subjects--doctors, church, her son, organic food, and marriage all being among the topics. <br />
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One of the daughters is just 10 days older than me, so she had turned 25 the week before. The aunt asked her how old she was, and my friend answered. <br />
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"Twenty five!" The aunt said. "We have got to get you married. We have to find some nice man to snatch you up. We can't let you be an old maid."<br />
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<em>Why not? </em>I thought, rather peevishly. <em>What's so bad about being an old maid? It's not a death sentence.</em><br />
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I've heard people express sentiments like this before, and though I'm still young enough to revel in my independence without regret, I always wonder what they dread will happen if I'm not paired up with someone post haste. It's not that these people are mean-spirited. On the contrary, it's not likely romance is even what they're hoping for when they wish for a spouse for a single person. Rather, they know that romantic love can give way to a life time of companionship and deep joy. I can understand that desire. I even wish it for myself often.<br />
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But, in the meantime, here I am. Single. Unattached. An old maid (depending on your standards). What's a girl to do? As the article says: "Romance is not the only kind of love that makes life worth living." Even in my limited experience of life, about to swell with another year, I've found this to be true. I've got a blessed number of friends and family and a God whose definition of love is constantly shattering the molds we squeeze it into. I have a feeling this year is going to be a wild ride. Hang onto your hats!Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-54087708513043666432014-04-06T15:55:00.002-07:002014-04-06T15:55:58.425-07:00Menu-Planning MojoIn the coming two weeks, I'm gonna need all the cooking mojo I can muster. I usually just cook two to three meals a week and eat the leftovers for lunch and dinner. It's easy; I only cater to my own whims. But I often find cooking for myself boring, which is why I like to try new recipes and new techniques and to play with new ingredients. For instance, a friend gave me some culinary lavender on Friday, and I spent a good bit of time researching recipes that evening (while watching Frozen). I've already made lavender ice cream and 16 lavender scones. I baked three scones and ate them with lemon curd and froze the others unbaked, so I can pull them out and bake them anytime. <br />
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I hope my success with my lavender treats has got me on a good foot for all the meals I have to make in the coming weeks. The first is a pancake breakfast for my company--Olive Tree--to celebrate a big software update that our development team has been working on for more than a year. We also invited the folks at Partners to breakfast since we're using their space to cook and eat. I'm guessing we'll be cooking for 35-40 people. The seven managers are cooking, but I'm in charge of planning the menu, buying ingredients, and giving orders on Wednesday morning. Despite the sometimes-harried nature of these events, I always like adding another event like this to my cooking resume. You never know when it will come in handy. The menu is has a lot of moving pieces, though: pancakes, waffles, crepes, fruit, baked egg dishes, sausage, and drinks. Wish me luck!<br />
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On Monday night, I'm hosting around 10 people at my house for our monthly children's ministry committee meeting. We used to have almost more food limitations in this group than I could count: vegetarian, doctor-ordered low-carb diet, gluten-intolerant, and a slight dairy-intolerance. While the gluten intolerant people are no longer in the group, I still try to be creative when I cook for this group, so the menu is as follows: Spring Risotto with asparagus and peas, deviled eggs, and cut veggies with homemade ranch dressing. I was planning to make a pavlova for dessert with baked meringues, a triple-berry compote, and whipped cream, but I was informed at church today that the dessert would be brought by my friend Karen. I have to admit I was disappointed, but as the reason for this dessert switch-up is my birthday the next day, I'm inclined to give in. :)<br />
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I have a reprieve on my birthday and will be enjoying milkshakes with a group of friends at the Milk Bottle, a classic Spokane joint. On Wednesday, I'll prep a meal with my friend Gerry for my church's monthly family night. In light of Easter the following Sunday, we decided on a simple menu of ham, green salad, sliced bread with butter, colored hard-boiled eggs, and Oreo Rice Crispy treats. Piece of cake!<br />
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The next day, my parents come into town until the day after Easter. We'll celebrate my 25th birthday and my dad's 60th birthday, both big milestones! I love planning the menu when my parents visit because they are so easily pleased. :) Thursday night, we'll have one-pot Arroz con Pollo. Friday, we're having Lemon Brioche Baked French Toast for breakfast. Lunch will be at a restaurant in town. Dinner will be Alaskan salmon and a wild rice casserole. A friend of mine gave me three filets of salmon and one filet of halibut several weeks ago that her husband caught himself in Alaska. I was so amazed at her generosity! I feel like I have pure (food) gold in my freezer. <br />
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Breakfast and lunch on Saturday are yet to be determined, but we'll likely need picnic food that day. The evening will feature broiled New York strip steaks and popovers filled with creamed asparagus. Dessert will be lemon ice cream and homemade shortbread. Yum! Easter is still up in the air, though I'm guessing my pavlovas will be on the menu for dessert. I've also spent this weekend filling my freezer with granola, vanilla frozen yogurt, and lavender scones and ice cream, so whatever else we are, we won't be hungry.<br />
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I found all my menu planning ironic after the sermon at my church today on Jesus' statement "I am the bread of life." Hunger is not what I'm feeling right now, but there was still something in the sermon for my food-filled brain. "In one of the most crucial points of Jesus' life," my pastor said, "he proclaimed that 'Man does not live by bread alone, but by the Word of God.' We still live on the Word of God, the Word made flesh, the Bread of Life." I'll keep this in mind as I eat and prepare meals in the coming weeks. God's grace is abundance. It's filet mignon once a day with peanut butter chocolate cheesecake for dessert. It's good to feel hunger, like the self-imposed hunger of Lent, but it's right to celebrate, too. And what better to time to celebrate than Easter?Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-79788297453067507992014-03-18T06:33:00.001-07:002014-03-18T06:33:17.180-07:00The Happiest Place on Earth<i>I wrote this post for the Olive Tree Blog at work, and I'm sharing it here.</i> <br />
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I don’t travel to new places very often; I love being at home. A
couple weeks ago I broke the mold and traveled to southern California to
spend time with my sister, and we spent a Saturday at Disneyland. The
day was a happy whirl of rides, lines, ice cream, and warm sunshine, but
around 3:30 that afternoon, when the park was at its most busy and we
couldn’t walk without bumping into someone, I began to feel the effects
of the crowds. As a child, I might have pitched a fit. But as such
tantrums are not tolerated with adults (however much we might want to), I
agreed with my sister that a half hour break in the car would be good
for both of us. I recognized unmistakable symptoms of being overtired,
irritable, and, in this new environment with so many unknown faces, a
little fragile, too.<br />
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The next day, my sister and I visited my grandma who had recently
suffered a minor stroke. My sister and I helped her from her wheelchair
to the <nobr><a class="FAtxtL" href="http://blog.olivetree.com/2014/03/12/the-happiest-place-on-earth/#" id="FALINK_2_0_1">hospital bed</a></nobr>,
and she lay there helplessly, unable to use her arms to prop herself up
on the bed. My sister and the nurse hoisted her up, and we stood over
her, looking down. She grabbed our hands, hers still surprisingly firm
and strong, and said to us, “I’m sorry you have to see me at my worst.” I
smiled at her and squeezed her hand, but my insides wrinkled
uncomfortably as I recalled the day before, overwhelmed in the happiest
place on earth, ready to burst into tears like a petulant child. My
grandma’s worst didn’t seem that much different than my worst.<br />
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Two weeks later, I sat in the Ash Wednesday service at church and listened to the words of invitation to the observance of Lent:<br />
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<em>“Friends in Christ, every year at the time of the Christian
Passover, we celebrate our redemption through the death and resurrection
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lent is a time to prepare for this
celebration and to <nobr><a class="FAtxtL" href="http://blog.olivetree.com/2014/03/12/the-happiest-place-on-earth/#" id="FALINK_1_0_0">renew</a></nobr>
our life in the paschal mystery. We begin our journey to Easter with
the sign of ashes. This ancient sign speaks of the frailty and
uncertainty of human life and marks the penitence of this community.”</em><br />
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As the sign of the cross was marked on my forehead with ashes, I was
struck by the troubling paradox in the words of invitation, new life and
frailty in the same breath. It’s like Lent itself, a season marked by
penitence and fasting, which is puzzlingly placed at the time of year
when the created world is bursting into new life. The grass becomes
green again, the trees straighten towards the light, and flowers emerge
from the cold ground.<br />
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I realized as I felt the ash on my forehead that my grandma and I
both represented the paradox of Lent. My grandma, whose earthly body is
failing, is headed for the new life that <nobr><a class="FAtxtL" href="http://blog.olivetree.com/2014/03/12/the-happiest-place-on-earth/#" id="FALINK_3_0_2">awaits</a></nobr>
us in heaven, where the earthly wear and tear fades away forever. While
still young and healthy, I have my own frailty in wrestling with the
sin and brokenness that are inherent to human life. And yet, the promise
of new life still extends to me in the culmination of Lent, that
glorious triumph of the cross of Christ. I like Disneyland and all, but
surely living in the light of new life, even with the shadow of death,
is the happiest place on earth.Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-67815475349314234712014-03-09T16:59:00.001-07:002014-03-09T16:59:17.020-07:00The Beauty of WordsI've spent the last couple months tangled up in the beauty and excitement of language. This emergent theme in the last couple months prompted me to take a three-pronged approach to <em>adding</em> language to my life during this Lenten season instead of fasting<em> </em>like I've done in recent years. January and February were rich months of taking in words through reading, but I haven't been pouring words back out through writing. I've recently had an itch to write, so here are my Lenten goals:<br />
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<ol>
<li>Journal for 15 minutes each day. No less time, but perhaps more time if I feel lead.</li>
<li>Blog once a week. </li>
<li>Memorize Psalm 139 and a yet-to-be selected poem.</li>
</ol>
Writing has always been a helpful way for me to think through life, and I felt uncomfortable with my lack of discipline in writing the more I read. A couple things I read (or listened to) made me particularly sensitive to my lack of discipline. The first was that I started getting the Spokesman Review, albeit a recycled version. I mentioned to my mentor that I missed reading the paper every day. No sooner had I said it than we had worked out a plan. She would get the paper from her neighbors every morning, read it, and then put the papers in a plastic bag outside her door, so I could pick them up (usually several at a time) on my way home from work. It's great to read the paper as a whole, but I've particularly enjoyed the poems that are included in the paper each Sunday, chosen by a former U.S. poet laureate. There's something about poetry--some magic, perhaps--that conjures the love of words.<br />
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The second is a little embarrassing to admit, but fun, too. I listen to a lot of music at work while I type at a computer all day. Back in December, I saw the movie 'Frozen' and spent a couple weeks at work listening to the soundtrack. The sophistication of the lyrics caught my attention along with the heartfelt vocals. I started a Pandora station with songs from Disney movies and Broadway musicals, anything from 'Annie Get Your Gun' to 'Mary Poppins.' Lyrics catch my attention because so many of the songs tell a story and use the classic pairing of words and music to explore the meaning of life. Listening to these songs gave the week-in-week-out routine of work and home a new context. Life is full of adventure, humor, sorrow, and routine and words put to music give life poignancy. You can even sing to people instead of talking to them, like I did with my housemate when she bought a new car. She'd been thinking about it for a while, so when she finally drove the car into the driveway, I sang to her: "You did it! You did it! You said that you would do it, and indeed you did" (from My Fair Lady). She only thought me half-crazy.<br />
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The third concerns the two books I read for my Sunday School book discussion class. In January and part of February, we read 'Cry, The Beloved Country' by Alan Paton, a novel about South Africa in the 1940s. In March and April, we're reading a non-fiction book called 'Letters from the Land of Cancer' by Walter Wangerin, a series of letters the author writes as he's experiencing cancer. The written words on the page are beautiful, but the beauty of the words and stories also extends to the discussions we enjoy in class each week. Our conversations allow us to question what we don't understand, extend the stories to our lives, and share the phrases in the books that challenged, encouraged, and moved us. The language of the stories allows us breathing room to discuss subjects that are challenging--sorrow, justice, death, and love. These subjects need the flesh and blood of stories to come alive and move us. <br />
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All these experiences led me to miss the process of reflection that comes with thoughtful writing. Here's my attempt, if only for the Lenten season, to move the words from inside my head and heart to the page, paper or computer screen, and to put flesh and blood on my own story. Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-28717136023738475252013-12-08T19:28:00.001-08:002013-12-08T19:28:23.754-08:00Recent HighlightsHappy Advent! I have a couple highlights from the past week that I want to share with you with a couple pictures to illustrate. <br />
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For the second year in a row, my office had a Christmas decorating competition last week. We formed the office into three areas and the employees into three teams. My team decided on a "Christmas land" theme complete with a Christmas photo booth as you see in the photo below. And, we WON! It was exciting. :) My co-worker took a short video of the decorations that you can watch <a href="http://blog.olivetree.com/2013/12/05/the-office-decoration-contest/">here</a>. I think we won because the judges (from my old workplace, Partners!) loved posing at our photo booth so much.<br />
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I have to admit that I was partially dreading the competition (which is terrible because I'm the event planning head!), mostly because the task seemed daunting. Of course, I shouldn't have worried because my co-workers had great ideas and skill. It's been so fun to turn on all the Christmas lights in the mornings when I first get to work. <br />
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For the second year in a row, my church has had a women's retreat at Camp Spalding/Clearwater Lodge, which is the main Presbyterian camp and retreat center in the Spokane area. It's just about 40 minutes north of my house in the beautiful pine-wooded, lake-filled countryside. The photo below is looking across Davis Lake towards the distant mountains from the room where we had worship sessions. We experienced most of the outdoors through big windows because the temperatures have been in the teens for the last couple days. I took a walk on Saturday afternoon and it look my legs 30 minutes to thaw--no kidding! You can see in the picture below that the shore of the lake has iced over. </div>
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My friend Margy and I drove up to camp on Friday afternoon and joined about 45 other women. The whole weekend was lovely. There's something about being away from home in a retreat setting that gives women the freedom to share more freely and deeply. We had some great moments of laughter and of sharing our stories together. After dinner on Friday night, we split into six groups and had to create a Nativity scene with the materials we had available at our tables. The photo below is the Nativity scene my group created. Someone commented that the sheep looked like ghosts, which I have to agree with. The yellow rays from the star was just the plastic that held in a package of paintbrushes. How cool is that? We had some very creative women in my group. I appointed myself Chief Glue-Gun Operator since it requires very little creative energy. :)</div>
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I decided to drive up to Trader Joe's today to take advantage of the dry weather, since the only Trader Joe's in the area is about 30 minutes from my house and up a big hill. I went in with a list and left with only two items on that list. Oops! At one point, an employee asked me, "Are you finding everything on your list?" because I was staring at it perplexedly. I gave him a wry grin and said "Yes, thanks." On my mental list, that is. I found that the meal I had planned to make no longer sounded good, so I did some quick meal planning in my head and ended up with what you see below. The veggie broth, barley, pearl onions, and parsnips will become a Pearled Barley Broth from one of my favorite <a href="http://www.amazon.com/River-Cottage-Veg-Inspired-Vegetable-ebook/dp/B00A5MS11S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386559199&sr=8-1&keywords=River+Cottage+Veg">veggie-centered cookbooks</a>. The Merlot will be cooked in a five-hour meat sauce to go on the pasta. The dried apricots (which are incredibly delicious!), cranberry-covered goat cheese, carrots and cucumber will become my lunch for the week. Tomorrow's lunch will be dried apricots and cranberries, a hard-boiled duck egg (from my cousin), crackers and the goat cheese, and the veggies. Yum! <br />
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Time in general seems to fly by, but the Advent/Christmas season always zip by particularly quickly. I wonder why. I'm trying my best to savor Advent, the unique season in the Church Year of longing, anticipation, introspection, and joy. I'll leave you with a couple verses from one of my favorite Advent songs, <em>Holy Is Your Name</em>, a traditional Scottish hymn.</div>
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<em>My soul is filled with joy as I sing to God my savior:</em></div>
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<em>You have looked upon your servant, you have visited your people.</em></div>
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<em>Refrain: And Holy is your name, through all generations!</em></div>
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<em>Everlasting is your mercy to the people you have chosen, and Holy is your name.</em></div>
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<em>In your love you now fulfill what you promised to your people.</em></div>
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<em>I will praise you, Lord, my savior, everlasting is your mercy.</em></div>
Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-6722948403125062992013-11-25T19:23:00.001-08:002013-11-25T19:40:29.845-08:00Extending Grace: The Ministry of BearingI can't remember when this idea first crept into my mind. We've been going through an excellent sermon series at church this fall about the facets of the Kingdom of God, things like fellowship, witness, simplicity, covenant, and persecution. It could have been in one of these sermons. Or the idea could have poked up its head in one of my conversations with a mentor or friend. I've also been leading a book study at church on Dietrich Bonhoeffer's pithy volume <em>Life Together</em>. I'm sure the idea partly came about through this book. Simply put, the big idea that's been on my mind and in my heart is the call that we have to extend grace to our fellow human beings.<br />
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Bonhoeffer gave me the words to express what this ministry is called in Scripture: the ministry of bearing. Paul writes: "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindess, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another..." (Col. 3:12-13a). As I've thought more about it, my experiences in life recently have given body and shape to this idea of bearing with or extending grace to others. Or, more accurately, life has tested my limited ability to extend grace. <br />
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In church a couple weeks ago, my pastor introduced new members to the congregation. He said something like: "We have a divine call to welcome these new members into our congregation and to love them, to delight in their gifts, passions, idiosyncracies and oddities." The congregation laughed, but the truth is plain as day. We're all a bunch of idiosyncratic weirdos. Need any evidence? Spend 10 minutes with another person. Or, better yet, spend two minutes with yourself! <br />
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In my book study yesterday, we discussed the ministry of bearing with others as Bonhoeffer describes it. I was still trying to understand what this ministry was, so I asked three questions: 1) What is the ministry of bearing? 2) Have you ever thought of this as a ministry? 3) How do we practice the ministry of bearing? One person very thoughtfully said, "Well, it kinda sounds like putting up with others." We all laughed and agreed. I didn't expect to have my questions answered in one fell swoop, but there it was, clear as day. Bonhoeffer further describes the ministry of bearing: <br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The freedom of the other person includes all that we mean by a person's nature, individuality, endowment. It also includes his weaknesses and oddities, which are such a trial to our patience, everything that produces frictions, conflicts, and collisions among us. To bear the burden of the other person means involvement with the created reality of the other, to accept and affirm it, and, in bearing with it, to break through to the point where we take joy in it." </blockquote>
Notice he says that we "break through" to the point of joy. We don't usually get there right away. It takes struggle to bear this ministry faithfully. Perhaps this concept has been so striking to me recently because life has been so ordinary and this is a ministry of ordinariness. What could be more day-to-day than colliding with the created reality of our brothers and sisters? I could count out the examples from today alone in a few short minutes, but I do have two stories I want to share particularly. <br />
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The first story is from this summer when I took a day trip with my family to the Oregon Coast. For my family, family vacations are full of laughter and fun, but also memories of personalities colliding and expectations being thwarted. At the very beginning of the day, my dad insisted that he needed to deposit his check in the bank before we did <em>anything else</em>. Somehow, this started us off on a brilliant way of handling each other's "weaknesses and oddities." Whenever someone's oddities poked through and caused friction, we would gleefully shout: "Quirk! Quirk!" Instead of causing more tension, this simple statement released the tension, like the cap being opened on a soda. The tension fizzled away, and we would inevitably burst into laughter. But beyond just releasing the tension, acknowledging each other's quirks gave us insight into each other's needs and wants and gave us an avenue for communication. It opened up the possibility of extending grace to each other, and I learned a valuable lesson.<br />
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Bearing with each other isn't always so easy. It doesn't always have a good outcome. But this doesn't change our calling to bear with each other. In fact, I believe that God will, as he always does, extend grace to us as we extend grace to others.<br />
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Several weeks ago, my friend and I were cooking pancakes for breakfast. I had made a delightfully fluffy sour cream pancake batter, and my friend was in charge of flipping. As she poured on batter, flipped the pancakes, and slid the cooked hotcakes onto a platter, she told me about the tough time at work she'd had the day before. As she talked, I noticed that she was pressing all the air out of the pancakes with her spatula, thus ruining the airy fluffiness that had so excited me. The words were almost out of my mouth when a thought popped into my mind. She is upset, and she's taking her frustration out on these pancakes. It was a totally mindless act because she was focused on telling me her story. And what was I doing? Worrying about culinary perfection. Then came the three redemptive words: "Extend her grace." And I did. I shut my mouth and listened and ate flat pancakes with a new appreciation.<br />
<br />Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-53832115021463957462013-11-18T19:17:00.003-08:002013-11-22T17:19:48.774-08:00Month-Gone HighlightsHello! Thought you'd never hear from me again? No luck! Here I am again, eating a freshly-baked molasses cookie. I don't usually do trial runs of recipes before serving them to guests, but I made an exception for molasses cookies.<br />
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Here are several highlights from the last month of my life:<br />
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1. Somehow I ended up with two full gallons of apple cider back in October. I went up two Sundays in a row to Green Bluff only to find that the Hansens were completely sold out of apple cider. Finally, I made a special trip up there on a Friday afternoon and got my coveted cider. The next Friday, I got two free half gallons from a friend. I spent a lot of time on food blogs, searching for recipes and ended up making apple cider quick bread, apple cider baked beans (which I ate for a full, <em>long </em>week!), several batches of steel-cut oats, freezing several yogurt containers full, and drinking many warm mugs in the evenings. Ah, fall!<br />
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2. On the last Saturday in October, my friend Gerry invited me to a harvest party and hay ride out in the country. The man who hosts the party each year farms a ton of land (like 1,000 acres!) and has a beautiful spot in the country north of Spokane. Right after we arrived, a bunch of us (there were probably a good 50 people there with tons of little kids) hopped into two trailers packed with hay bales for the first hay ride of the evening. I sat next to a lovely older couple, and we bounced along for about half an hour. Tim, the farmer, pulled us with his big, ol' tractor. At one point in the ride, the back trailer that I was on came unhitched from the front trailer when we jounced over a rocky spot. It was tremendously exciting. :)<br />
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It was so lovely to crest the hill of wheat-stubbled fields on our hay ride as the sun was setting and the mist was drifting in. We saw a herd of deer and one of my companions pointed out the fiery yellow larches--conifers that lose their needles in the fall--that were striking against the dark green of the Ponderosa pines. We had a delicious potluck dinner with hamburgers and hot dogs and a full table of desserts. Gerry's daughter, daughter's son, and his family were also at the party, and we all went out on a second hay ride in the dark. At first, I thought it would be scary and cold, but then we got distracted by the night sky. The heavens opened and stars burned through, bright and clear. The six-year-old who was with us stared up and said, "Wow! That looks like outer space!" We four adults got a good chuckle out of that. We spent the next half hour looking for constellations and watching for the ghostly lights of the barn that shone through the mist. As you can tell, the party was fodder for an active imagination.<br />
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3. Since September, the aforementioned Gerry and I have been cooking meals for a monthly family night at church. The day before Halloween, the youth group hosted a carnival and chili cook-off for the kids and their families. I purchased all the sides for the chili and was there early to arrange them and help the youth director with all the preparations. It was a madhouse when all the kids were there! I sat by myself with my chili when I finally sat down because I was a little stupefied. I rallied, though, and ran the craft table for the quieter kids. Being removed from childhood, it was fun to see the boundless enthusiasm of the kids in their costumes as they decorating cookies, cake walked, and had their faces painted. <br />
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4. For the third year in a row, my friend Heidi and I spent the first Saturday evening in November listening to the Whitworth jazz band play with a famous jazz musician, this year the saxophonist Chris Potter. The Whitworth jazz band is fabulous! Heidi and I listened with rapt attention and great big grins. There was one song I loved particularly because it featured a saxophone trio with Potter and two students. They seamlessly slipped the solo between the three of them and it was marvelous. It filled me with delight, and I had to stand up and clap when it was done while also regretting that it didn't go on for many minutes more. <br />
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5. Work has been an adventure the last two months. My department--customer support--has a steady work load. In an average week, we get about 400 e-mails from customers about every topic imaginable relating to the Olive Tree Bible Study app, our website, sales, etc. Due to financial tightness, we had to let a person from my department go at the beginning on October. Several weeks later, another co-worker resigned, leaving my department with two people. The first full week in November, my one remaining co-worker was on vacation for a whole week, leaving just me in my department. It was a busy, crazy week, and I learned a lot. About 10 of my co-workers from other departments helped out in the e-mail queue that week, so I got to lead them, answer questions, refine my own techniques and understanding, and work my tail off. It was a good week, but boy was the next week even better with my co-worker back to share the load of people waiting for help! There are still just two of us in support (though still with plenty of help from other departments), so it continues to be draining. I can't wait for a change of pace at Thanksgiving.<br />
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Well, those are the highlights! I do have a closing thought for you though. I'm part of a book club during Sunday School at church, and the leader asked me to co-lead this year. We've been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's <em>Life Together</em>, and I'm finding it to be full of challenging and rich passages. I have my dad's version from 1979, and it has so many underlinings and notes and scribbles. It's delightful! I spent a lot of time alone this weekend. Really alone because I hardly saw any of my housemates after Saturday afternoon. It was thus ironic that the chapter we discussed in Sunday School yesterday was "The Day Alone." Being alone always makes me take stock of my life. So much of life is so very ordinary. As I looked back in my planner, so much of what I do day to day is the same: eat lunch and make lunch, walk, journal, look at recipes online, read, talk with my parents, e-mail, ignore chores, fill up the laundry basket, do laundry, fold laundry, and on it goes. And yet, the ordinariness is infused with changing, shifting life. New lessons to learn, challenges to overcome, gratitude to be expressed, and daily life to be shared. Life isn't always easy, but there is always plenty to be thankful for, and today I'm thankful for life, the ordinary and extraordinary both.Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-11872924285899960242013-10-19T18:22:00.000-07:002013-10-19T18:22:05.909-07:00My Root Cellar<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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Apparently fall is a woeful time for me and blogging. I'm sorry for the lack of substance here recently. Writing is a way of processing life and, admittedly, it sometimes takes me a while to process. Kind of like winter cooking, which is suited to braises, stews, and roasting, all of which take time.</div>
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This morning, I walked to my garden and spent an hour cleaning it up. I pulled up everything except green onions, chives, parsley, and snapdragons (which were amazingly still blooming!), chopped it all into smaller pieces, bagged it, raked the dirt smooth, and stared at it. It's hard to believe that my garden had come full circle again and is now laid to rest for the winter.</div>
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I got an organizing bug in me after seeing my garden look so neat and tidy, so I came home and whipped my root cellar and freezer into shape. Except for my grandparents, I can't remember anyone having a basement when I was growing up in Portland. Thus living in a house with a basement for the last two years has been a revelation. I have stored winter vegetables in the basement the past two years, but I've decided to be more organized this year, mostly to avoid wasting food. </div>
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I unpacked my whole freezer and re-wrote my whiteboard list below. I am thankful that my freezer is in pretty good shape. I've realized that my freezer is a better place for storing ingredients that can become a meal rather than pre-made meals. I love to cook so much that I just don't eat pre-made meals. If I'm in need of a quick meal, I usually make an easy meal like peanut butter and jelly toast or scrambled eggs. It's one of my weird food quirks. I'm pretty proud of this list:</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NIgwrkiBTI0/UmMjm-Y0qNI/AAAAAAAAA1k/1eX_H1VfX7A/s1600/100_0071.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NIgwrkiBTI0/UmMjm-Y0qNI/AAAAAAAAA1k/1eX_H1VfX7A/s320/100_0071.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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The last two years, I've bought squash at Green Bluff on a whim. Bad idea. I regret to say that much of it was wasted. This year, I bought just the squash you see below: delicata (delicious roasted with olive oil, salt, and pepper), sweet meat (which I'll bake, puree, and freeze in two-cup portions for baking), a Red Kuri (no idea how to cook it, so this is my splurge!), and four butternut squash (wonderfully versatile). I'm prone to impulse fruit/veggie purchases, so I can't guarantee that I won't end up with more squash. But if I don't, I'm content with what I have here:</div>
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My lovely canned goods! I've already shared a photo like this on my blog, but I'm really proud of them. Canning, freezing, and root cellar goods are three of the big ways I like to preserve the precious fruits and veggies of summer and autumn for the lean winter and early spring months. Drying is another big method, but I haven't done much with it yet. </div>
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On an impulse, I did buy a 10-pound bag of local Yukon Gold potatoes at Green Bluff to add to my stash of red potatoes and fingerlings. It was only $5! I've separated the potatoes by variety into three newspaper-lined boxes. At Green Bluff, I recently purchased two 4-lb bags of red and yellow storage onions for only $1.50 each. A steal! I'm so excited! The last component I'll add to my root cellar is about 20 lbs of Stayman Winesap apples that I'll be picking at Green Bluff tomorrow. The farmer told me these apples are "good keepers." Excellent! That's what I'm looking for! </div>
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I've been thinking of buying a Dutch oven, so my co-worker was kind enough to lend me his, which is the exact Dutch oven I wanted to buy. I've been testing it out with various recipes, including Butternut Squash Risotto (picture below). The risotto was easier to make than I expected and delicious in an earthy way. With squash, onions, white wine, and homemade chicken stock as some of the ingredients, I happily ate the leftovers for lunch (all week). </div>
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Today, I simmered the bones of two roasted chickens for three hours, adding in chopped onion, carrots, two bay leaves, and fresh thyme after the second full hour. Happily, the chicken bones have enough meat on them to make <a href="http://www.thekitchn.com/all-afternoon-or-less-than-an-134059">Chicken Soup with Herb Dumplings</a>. I'm thinking this Dutch oven will be my next big kitchen purchase. <br />
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It's been a good and productive day. I love the possibilities for delicious, healthy meals that are just waiting to spring forth from my cans, freezer, and stored veggies. <br />
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How are you preparing for the winter months? Do you can, freezer, dry, or store summer and fall vegetables or fruit? Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-27222888449113974812013-10-06T17:18:00.001-07:002013-10-06T17:18:24.389-07:00A Final Garden Update: Potatoes, Oh My!I've had a blog idea brewing in my head for two weeks now, but I haven't quite got to a place where I'm able to put my thoughts into words. For now, I wanted to share with you the final update of the year from my garden. It was a wonderful year. Here's a tunnel view of part of my garden:<br />
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A lot of what you can see above were volunteer plants, like the parsley, nasturtium (yellow flower), and alyssum (white flower) in the foreground. Below, you can see the huge stalks of cosmos that grew WAY taller than I expected. You can also see my bean patch and the potato foliage in the center right of the photo. </div>
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I spent about 30 minutes digging potatoes yesterday and harvested a wonderful amount of Red Norlands and Rose Finn Apple and Russian Banana fingerlings. It was so much fun to dig around in the garden in the nippy, sunshiney fall air and pull up hidden treasures from the dirt: rose-tinted and golden yellow fingerlings and bold red potatoes. </div>
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Here are the potatoes spread out on newspaper in my basement to "cure" for a couple days. Curing potatoes helps them keep better in a cool dark place in the winter. I thought this picture was funny because it looks so much like a science experient! I can't wait to expand my science experiment into the kitchen...yum, chemistry!</div>
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I tried to take the picture below to show how tall my cosmos are. You can sorta tell. :)</div>
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I thought the texture of the petals on this calendula were beautiful. The fringed edges almost remind me of a lion's mane. </div>
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I was in my garden to harvest today for perhaps the last time this season. Each night, the temperature dips down a little farther. The heat in my house has finally ticked on, and my bed has three layers of blankets. The trees are starting to tint crimson and gold. I picked all my green tomatoes today to try ripening them inside. I cut all the blossoms left on my zinnias and snapdragons and added to them nasturtium, cosmos, and black-eyed Susan blooms in two Mason jar bouquets. The simple beauty of consistent flower bouquets in my house for the past three months has been a particular joy. I love that my garden can be a place of combined beauty, utility, and wonder. I pray I can take the wonder and beauty of creation into the hunkered-down winter months until the winds of change bring us the new life and green stubble of spring.</div>
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Thanks for enjoying my garden with me this year!</div>
Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-21099922441097508432013-09-14T20:56:00.000-07:002013-09-14T20:56:14.498-07:00Making Ricotta Cheese<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I got it into my head that I wanted to make ricotta cheese this weekend. I think it was partly because my <a href="http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-homemade-ricotta-cheese-23326">favorite cooking blog</a> posted a tutorial about it recently and partly because I would be up on the South Hill where I could get milk from a local Spokane dairy:</div>
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I met the woman who owns this farm with her husband last March when I took a <a href="http://infieldsyetfallow.blogspot.com/2013/03/culinary-discoveries.html">cheese-making class</a>. The milk is pasturized only to 145 degrees, not homogenized, and has the cream on the top like in the good old days. I used a recipe from a blog called <a href="http://www.annies-eats.com/2013/02/21/making-the-basics-ricotta-cheese/">Annie's Eats</a>. The ingredients are simple: white vinegar, milk, salt, and lemon juice. </div>
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After mixing salt and milk, I heated the milk to 185 degrees, took the milk off the heat, and stirred in the lemon juice and vinegar. After leaving the mixture to curdle for about 10 minutes, I poured it into a curtain-lined colander over a bowl to catch the whey. I used the curtain in place of cheesecloth and it worked perfectly.</div>
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Here is the colander over the bowl of whey:</div>
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Here's me squeezing more whey out of the cheese. I have to admit that it was ridiculously fun to squeeze out the warm whey. My housemate was laughing at me.</div>
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It's amazing how much whey is left over after making the cheese! Good thing my co-worker sent me a link to a blog with <a href="http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2011/06/16-ways-to-use-your-whey.html">16 uses for whey</a>. I'm thinking of freezing some of my whey in ice cube trays, using it to water my house plants, and cooking potatoes and oatmeal in it. I tasted it, and I can hardly describe the taste: fresh, slightly sour, rich. </div>
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And here's the finished product!</div>
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It's amazing that eight cups of milk makes only two cups of ricotta. It made me realize how precious cheese is and why it's expensive. I have several ideas for how to use my cheese. I'm thinking of spreading it on sliced ciabatta bread with salami (from Trader Joe's!) and garden tomatoes. I'll let you know how it turns out. :)<br />
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Have you made something from scratch before? How did it turn out? Was it worth the effort?Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-14740016752622944402013-09-06T20:37:00.001-07:002013-09-08T15:42:16.858-07:00Gratitude<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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In this season of late summer bounty, a post about gratitude seemed necessary. In fact, the words were chomping at the bit to get out on the "page" and the pictures practically leapt off my camera. Without further ado, here are the things I'm grateful for with hope that they will inspire your own gratitude.</div>
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1. Fresh summer flowers. I'm thankful to have planted zinnias and cosmos in my garden this year. I'm even more grateful that miniature black-eyed Susans, snapdragons, marigolds, and nasturtiums appeared in my garden as if by magic (also known as re-seeding to the practical among us). I've tried to keep a fresh bouquet on our dining room table at all times. </div>
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2. Simple and creative summer meals. The top photo is caprese, which is simply stacks of sliced fresh mozzerella and tomatoes sprinkled with basil. The bottom picture was my dinner tonight: zucchini nachos with garden tomatoes, zucchini, and green onions and lots of cheese.</div>
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3. Provisions for winter. My mom willingly threw herself into two huge canning projects with me over Labor Day weekend. We canned 23 quarts of peaches and 20 quarts of applesauce. It gives me joy to see the bounty of summer stored up for the cold and dark days of winter. </div>
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4. Garden bounty. Today, I picked all the veggies you see below in Dottie's and my garden. (I'm harvesting veggies in Dottie's garden while she's out of town.) Lots of green beans, four cucumbers, four zucchini/summer squash, and a bowlful of Sun Gold and Juliet tomatoes. That being said, does anyone have zucchini recipes they'd like to share with me? :)</div>
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5. A working kitchen sink! We were without a kitchen sink for exactly a week. As I made dinner on Wednesday night, I had several impulses to take my dishes to the bathroom to wash them. I was so happy when I looked over my shoulder and saw this shiny new faucet to dispel all thoughts of inconvenience. </div>
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6. Visiting with old friends. I've gotten to see my friend and former housemate Heidi four times in the past week for which I'm very grateful as she's now started a busy semester of school and work. On Tuesday, I spent time with my friend Sam and her husband Andrew. Sam and I went to Whitworth and studied abroad in England together. Tomorrow morning, I'm having breakfast with my freshman year roommate and her husband. (I'm also grateful we're meeting at the Petit Chat bakery!) Old friends are comforting because they remind me of the good ol' times, but also of the new ways in which friendships are preserved over time and distance.</div>
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7. My first-ever baby shower for a friend. It's a new season of life I'm entering with marriages of friends and now the babies of friends. Tomorrow, I get to attend two baby showers, one for my college friend Angela and another for her sister-in-law Karinda. I had my first experience with gift registries at Target today and, despite being confused about baby stuff in general, I managed to buy some pretty cute duds. For the record, the baby bib says "Revved up for Snacktime." I thought that was perfect coming from me. :) </div>
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8. My ice-cream maker. I have to say that my impulse kitchen purchase of the summer has turned out to be brilliant. In the past week, I made Thin Mint Peppermint Ice Cream and fresh peach pie ice cream with chunks of cinnamon sugar pie crust. My mom and I enjoyed both ice cream flavors over the weekend.</div>
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9. Inconveniences and struggles. On Sunday, my pastor talked about the story of the ten lepers in Luke 17:10-19 in a sermon titled "Eucharistic Repentence." He used "eucharistic" to reflect its root meaning of gratitude and "repentence" to mean an action needing a 180 degree turn. Gratitude, especially for the hard things, does take <em>effort</em>, a 180 degree turn to recognize that even inconvenience and suffering come from the hand of a good God. Sometimes, like in the case of the 10 lepers, "eucharistic repentence" means turning from a lesser good to a greater good. The nine lepers probably ran back to their families and were full of graitude for health and wholeness. That's good! But the tenth leper who returned to Jesus was the only one to direct his gratitude in the most proper place: to the only One through whom healing and wholeness was possible. The sermon gave me a lot to think about. In this season of late summer, I have many good gifts for which to be grateful. But there will be seasons of life that aren't as cheery and the call to be grateful will be no less.</div>
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10. The Giver of all good gifts. "Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change" (James 1:17, NRSV).</div>
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What are you thankful for in this season of your life?</div>
<br />Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-1265715079227631142013-08-29T20:57:00.001-07:002013-08-29T20:57:10.128-07:00Canning Peaches Without a Kitchen SinkIt <i>is</i> possible to can peaches without a kitchen sink! And I have pictures to prove it. :)<br />
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Here's my game face:<br />
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Here are the instructions I followed from my grandma's Ball Canning Book: </div>
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The peaches!<br />
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The work station: </div>
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Here's a view of the work station with the broken faucet in the foreground: </div>
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By the time the cans of peaches were simmering for the second time (I wasn't sure if they had sealed the first time), I was starving, so I ate the whole box of mac and cheese. :) </div>
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The outcome! The Tupperware on the left is peach sauce (like applesauce). I had a number of peaches left that were pretty bruised, so I cooked down the peaches, added sugar and cinnamon, and then mixed in cornstarch to thicken it. It tastes like the filling of a peach pie. Yum! </div>
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<br />So while a broken kitchen sink is an inconvenience, it can't stop the process of preserving fresh fruits and veggies for the summer! What fresh produce are you enjoying? </div>
Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-52718745559002802092013-08-28T20:21:00.000-07:002013-08-28T20:31:55.296-07:00You Never Know What a Day Will BringMy mom has a saying. "You never know what a day will bring." I came home today and unloaded all my stuff as usual...lunchbox, Costco purchases, purse, keys. I was buzzing around the kitchen mentally preparing to start canning a small batch of peaches when I decided to check my phone. I had two texts and one phone call, all from my housemate. One text read: "The kitchen faucet is broken. Like out of commission broken." I gasped and looked up. Sure enough, the top of the faucet had broken off. I desperately tried to latch it back on to see if I could get some water out of the tap, but no luck. <em>Well, there goes canning peaches,</em> was my first thought.<em> </em>Momentary panic ensued considering I'm supposed to can many quarts of peaches and applesauce this weekend. I hurriedly sent a text to the landlord and called my parents. Of course this would have to happen in the middle of preserving season!<br />
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Fortunately, we have a deep sink in the downstairs laundry room right next to the washing machine. After dinner, the top of the washing machine looked like this:<br />
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Not ideal, but actually it wasn't too bad an arrangement for the short term. I was also consoled by a delicious dinner I made. I've been so busy with cooking projects and other things that I haven't had much energy to cook meals for myself. Tonight, though, I used zucchini and garden tomatoes and green onions to make a fresh garden quesadilla with pepper jack cheese. As I sat down to dinner, I reflected on my housemate's second text which admitted several points of conflict between the two of us that we needed to talk through. When I thought of her text, my heart's pace picked up and my appetite drained away. Conflict is hard for me to deal with, especially receiving criticism. <br />
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After dinner, I set off on a walk feeling distressed. A paraphrased quote came to mind that seemed to apply to the situation: "If God took things away one by one that we had failed to be thankful for, what would be left? Would we have hands or ears? Eyes or lungs?" As I crunched along on the gravel path, I thanked God for basement sinks, hands, eyes, and ears, but I was still distressed. I started up the big hill that leads to Whitworth and each step seemed to pound out my frustrations. I was mostly angry at myself. Angry that my plans had changed because of the sink and that my own selfishness and short sightedness had caused conflict with my roommate that is yet unresolved. <br />
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When I got to the top of the hill, I was gasping for breath and tears stung hard in the corners of my eyes. I didn't feel at peace, per se, but I had come to grips with the situation, conflict and broken faucet both. I knew, despite my bumblings and the circumstances that cause me to cry out my mom's saying, that God was still present and at work, even when I'm too short sighted to realize my own mistakes. Thankfully, walking gave me the thinking space to recognize my guilt and made me eager to talk with my housemate. And thankfully, it's not too late to reconcile with her. <br />
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There's still one problem though. How <em>does</em> one can peaches without a kitchen sink? Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-45262953789318140612013-08-08T19:20:00.001-07:002013-08-08T19:23:11.903-07:00Early August Garden UpdateMy garden (for the most part) is growing well this year. This post will show how far things have grown since my last garden post. My dad had the idea to juxtapose pictures of the garden in June with pictures of the garden now. I've done that with the first four photos. Here's the contrast with how the straw bales have grown:<br />
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We put black plastic in the center to keep the weeds down and it's worked well. We had some trouble with aphids on the tomatoes, so Dottie asked a man at a nursery what to do, and he said the straw bales need to be fertilized once a week. Dottie has been graciously adding fish emulsion (or, as she says, fish poop) on all the bales once a week, and I have also added granular fertilizer twice and will again this weekend.</div>
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Here's the main part of the garden in June. Everything looks so tiny!</div>
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Explosion! In this picture you can see hollyhocks (far left), bush beans, three varities of potatoes, cosmos, snapdragons, and you can faintly see basil in the middle of the photo. I also have four tomatoes, a bush cucumber, and some lovely volunteer nasturtiums behind the hollyhocks.</div>
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Here's the same patch as above, but from a slightly different angle. My cosmos bolted up, but the zinnias didn't do as well this year. I also planted carrots twice with nothing to show and my peas didn't do well. Dottie and I are wondering if something in the soil is bad, since it seems to be a certain patch. Any gardeners out there want to give their thoughts?</div>
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Here I have two lovely lemon cucumber plants. My family grew these when I was growing up, so my sister and I have always loved them. I've already picked one small cucumber, and I'm hoping to have a couple to take to my family when I visit next week.</div>
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These are Juliet tomatoes in the plot behind the hollyhocks. The Juliet is a thin Roma variety that Dottie loves to grow, so I thought I'd try them out this year. So far, so good! I'm also so excited because my heirloom tomato "Ananas Noire" that has big multicolored slicing tomatoes is looking so healthy! It has dark green foilage and the little green tomatoes are starting to appear. I'm praying the August heat will be enough for them to grow big and flavorful.</div>
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An baby English cucumber in one of the straw bales! Looking good!<br />
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A beautiful, delicate Seashell Cosmos. The cosmos have grown well this year, and I've already used several of the blooms for a flower bouquet. I love having fresh flowers in the house!</div>
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That's the garden tour for August! I'll have another report in early September. Oh, I can hardly wait! How's your garden coming along? </div>
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Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-22849633510076569982013-07-31T20:58:00.003-07:002013-07-31T20:58:48.588-07:00A Weekend With RuthSoon you will tire of these posts where I post pictures of fun things I've done with friends and family and you'll want something serious. I don't blame you. Unfortunately (for the serious reader), my life is filled with such visits. Fortunately (for the forbearing reader), they will come to an end when the summer is over. Summer is a great time to celebrate bounty. (I'll share pictures of my garden bounty with you soon.) And I'm realizing there are different kinds of bounty. This summer has been flush with friends and family bounty. My dear friend Ruth--a friend for 10 years now!--came for a visit last weekend, and I have some pictures to prove it. I hope you enjoy the photos and are reminded to thank God for the friends and family in your own life.<br />
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Ruth and I spent the afternoon and evening at Manito Park closer to downtown Spokane on Sunday. We enjoyed the beautiful flowers, warm evening, and had a picnic dinner in the garden you see behind us. </div>
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After the picnic dinner, we went to Riverfront Park downtown for the Royal Fireworks show in which a Baroque band performed music on a floating stage in the Spokane River with a fireworks show at the end. We sat with my housemate Pam, her two friends, and my friend Katie and her husband Ben. We had about an hour before the concert started, so we were experimenting with funny pictures. It was a delightful concert and the fireworks show was amazing!</div>
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Ruth brought me these wonderfully colored pot holders from Guatemala where she spent a month earlier this summer. I've put the pot holders on the wall in my dining room because I can't bear to have them not displayed. They're so great!</div>
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We did some other fun things, too, like hang out with people from my church, watch Wives and Daughters, make pesto lasagna, go to Green Bluff, and more, but the pictures above are a good representation. I'm so thankful for Ruth's visit!</div>
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I hope you're getting to spend some lovely time with family and friends this summer!</div>
Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-25980476767841827592013-07-21T16:31:00.000-07:002013-07-21T16:41:27.021-07:00A Visit With Mom and DadMy parents drove into town Wednesday, July 10 and stayed until Monday, July 15. I was able to take half of Thursday and all of Friday off work, which was great! This is my first summer working full time, and I'm telling you, it can be rough at times. :) Whitworth's Annual Institute of Ministry was also happening the Wednesday and Thursday my parents were in town. The evening worship services are free and open to the public, so my parents and I enjoyed two wonderful worship services. The preacher, Carolyn Gordon, was fantastic! I can't wait until the podcasts are up on the Whitworth website, so I can listen to her sermons from Monday and Tuesday evenings, too. If you get a chance, listen to them. You'll be challenged, encouraged, and amused.<br />
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Wednesday and Thursday, my parents and I did some fun things, like hosted an ice cream social with some of my parents' friends from college, enjoyed ice cream at Doyle's Ice Cream Parlor where my mom and her friend used to take boys in college and make them drink a monster shake (which they still have!), and enjoyed an enchilada dinner with three of my housemates. My mom calls this the ice cream vacation because we had ice cream every day. Part of this is because I'm making good use of my new ice cream maker. The other part is that all three of us just really, really love ice cream!<br />
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On Friday, we embarked on our big day trip to Canada. We've all been to Canada a number of times, but not since I've been in Spokane. The drive up there is a mere three hours through some gorgeous countryside. We left at 7:30 AM on Friday morning, and our first stop was to eat muffins and look at the Pend Orielle river at an overlook. Our second stop was at Sweet Creek Falls, which turned out to be this beautiful, Columbia-River-Gorge-like waterfall:<br />
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Our crossing into Canada was easy and quick. About 10 minutes into Canada, I burst into laughter. Like tears-rolling-down-my-face laughter. It was all because of my dad's behavior with the Canadian border guard. He made us look so suspicious! My dad took my laughter graciously. Here's the grand Canadian flag:</div>
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Our end destination was the city of Nelson, British Columbia. The picture below is just a tiny view of the mountains and beauty surrounding Nelson. We started off at the Visitor Center where we had the pleasure of talking with a delightful young woman who's a student in Geography at "U Vic" (University of Victoria). She gave us some great advice. With her help, we had lunch at a beautiful little park, walked along the waterfront, got milkshakes, and visited an eclectic coffeeshop. My dad decided to hike to Pulpit Rock across the bridge you see in the background in the photo. While he hiked, my mom and I sat in the park at the waterfront. She read, I wrote in my journal, and we both people watched. It was a great spot to observe families. The main center of town has some major hippie influence, so it was nice to see a different side of the city. Being in a different country made me think about nationality. There didn't seem to be any difference between the people we were observing and us except that they say "Eh" and prounouce "ou" differently. Does nationality even matter? I didn't come to any conclusions, but it's interesting to think about.</div>
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We left Nelson around 4:30 or 5 and decided to take a little detour to Crawford State Park back in Washington. We drove 12 miles to get there only to find that the park was closed. Fortunately, we serendipitously turned off onto a side road and found a lovely campground by a river that had big picnic tables. We had great food (old favorites like <a href="http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/rosemary-chicken-salad-sandwiches-10000001041889/">chicken salad</a> and <a href="http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-sinful-pasta-salad-with-smoked-gouda-roasted-red-peppers-and-artichoke-hearts-recipes-from-the-kitchn-189237">pasta salad</a>) and enjoyed sitting in the peaceful campground. Here's the pasta salad:<br />
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They might hate this picture, but I think it's hilarious. :) We were feeling pretty tired on the road back and went to sleep practically right after getting home around 9 PM.</div>
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On the road out to Crawford State Park, we saw three beaver dams in the water. It was awesome! We didn't see any beavers, but I guessed it was because they were inside their dams eating toast and kippers (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe anyone?).<br />
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On Saturday, we met my friend Margy at Petit Chat bakery. It was delightful to talk with Margy and enjoy pastries together. After that, we drove up to Green Bluff to (as you can see) pick cherries! We picked exactly enough pie cherries for a batch of sour cherry jam. The picture below is my mom showing my housemate Pam and me how to pit cherries with a paper clip. So easy! We also picked Rainier and Bing cherries, all from Cherry Hill Orchard, whose owners go to my church. After Cherry Hill, we walked around Eleven Acres Farm and chatted with the farmer and enjoyed the new microbrewery at another farm. It was lovely to be relaxed at Green Bluff. I'm usually on a mission and fail to enjoy the process of picking food that farmers have so carefully cultivated.<br />
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On Saturday afternoon, we had some down time and then enjoyed raspberry lemonade with Dottie, my college mentor and friend. Saturday evening we enjoyed a steak dinner with broccoli, watermelon, and this delicious orzo "risotto" from one of Mark Bittman's cookbooks. My coworker mentioned a couple weeks ago that she broiled steak and loved how it turned out. My dad loves steak, so I used the last $20 of my June grocery budget to buy two quality New York strip steaks from Egger's. We were not disappointed. The broiling method worked wonderfully and the meal was delicious. </div>
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On Sunday, we had a big waffle breakfast with cherry compote, went to church, hung out in the afternoon, and went up to church again for a concert and hot dog dinner. Oh yeah, and we also cleaned the ice that had been building up in my chest freezer. That was <em>quite</em> the process! In the end, it was pretty easy, but I was so glad my mom and dad helped me out. I would never have had the gumption to clean it on my own. Everything's all neat and tidy in the freezer now and is being filled as we speak with fresh raspberries. </div>
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On Sunday night, I brought out all the leftovers from all our meals and found that we each had enough left for meals for another week. It was such a pleasure to make meals for my parents. Foolishly, every meal I made for them except two were new recipes. It could be unfortunate that every new recipe I tried worked out splendidly. :) I discovered soba noodles and liked them so much, I'm going to make another soda noodle dish tonight with zucchini, cabbage, and green onions (from my garden!). </div>
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After breakfast together on Monday morning, my parents drove back to Portland, and I drove to work. It was a lovely weekend together. I'm so grateful for my parents' companionship. </div>
Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-13499016895629825362013-07-13T20:58:00.000-07:002013-07-13T21:31:14.748-07:00Made-From-Scratch WontonsLast Saturday night, my two friends from church and I gathered to make wontons from scratch! Margaret, at whose house we were meeting, had made wontons with friends once before, so we had a potluck style dinner and she showed us how to form the wontons. We made nearly 50 wontons! Below are some pictures from our time together.<br />
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Here are the wontons ready to go out to the fryer:<br />
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Bethany frying up the wontons and me looking weird: </div>
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Our wonderful spread ready to be eaten and enjoyed! </div>
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We had two different kinds of wontons. The wontons in the middle of the table are stuffed with pork, shrimp, mushrooms, green onions, and water chestnuts. The wontons at the end of the table are stuffed with cream cheese and green onions. We also have apricot and cherry dipping sauce, lemongrass, baby corn, and ginger rice from Trader Joe's, and fruit salad. Yum!!</div>
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We had a lovely evening and had leftovers for later, too, which I ate for Sunday and Monday lunches. For dessert, we enjoyed my second batch of ice cream: homemade strawberry ice cream with Green Bluff strawberries. Thanks for reading! </div>
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What's something you like to make from scratch?</div>
Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-42256958075751621032013-07-07T18:45:00.000-07:002013-07-13T21:29:23.202-07:00"Homeward Bound": A Book ReviewI just finished an excellent book called "Homeward Bound: Why Women Are Embracing the New Domesticity." The book has many facets, but the primary theme examines why many women have recently embraced traditional values, such as being stay-at-home mothers, crafting, canning, homesteading, keeping chickens, buying local, gardening, and much more. The book examines the root causes for the rise in New Domesticity and delves into the lives of those who practice some aspect of this societal trend. (I'm not missing the fact that I took freshly-baked sourdough bread out of the oven half an hour after finishing the book.) <br />
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The three biggest root causes seem to be 1) the feminism of the 60s and 70s that encouraged women to work and be free of domestic duties, 2) the uncertain economic times we live in that have caused widespread distrust in corporations and government, and 3) dissatisfaction with the 9-5 jobs that offer no personal fulfillment or flexibility. Author Emily Matchar thoroughly explains how New Domesticity provides answers to these causes.<br />
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When I first started reading the book, I found it ironic that interests that had arisen naturally for me through the influence of family and friends were also part of a greater societal movement. I didn't look at a single DIY blog on gardening or canning or cooking when I first started doing these things, but somehow the zeitgeist of the times moved me. I didn't have any great moral pulpits to mount as I started to can, garden, and bake bread, but rather genuine interest in these domestic arts and now a love for supporting my local community. With two years in the work force and three years of canning and gardening under my belt now, I agree with much of what Matchar believes is best about the New Domesticity movement:<br />
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"New Domesticity comes out a deep desire for change in the world. We don't want to trade our souls for our careers, and we don't want to live in a culture that encourages us to do so. We want to embrace the richness, creativity, and comfort that can be found in domestic life...We want to live in a more sustainable way, both economically and ecologically. We've realized that the consumption-crazy Standard American Lifestyle isn't good for the earth and it isn't good for us. We want to focus on what really matters..." (249).<br />
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However, as with every movement, there is a shadow side. As I was talking to my housemate about the book, it struck me that New Domesticity is simply a secular way of living out the Christ v. Culture paradigms in Richard Niebuhr's book "Christ and Culture." (Thank you Whitworth Core classes.) The paradigms Niebuhr describes are Christ Against Culture, Christ of Culture, Christ Above Culture, Christ and Culture in Paradox, and Christ Transforming Culture.<br />
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Matchar's biggest problem with the New Domesticity movement is that it encourages many educated, middle class families to make decisions that put the individual good (or individual family good) over the common good. These trends include homeschooling, not vaccinating one's children, denigrating work outside the home, and seeing DIY (Do-It-Yourself) projects (e.g. raising one's own chickens to combat the evils of factory farming) as a way to combat the world's ills. Basically, it's an "Individual Against Culture" paradigm that's becoming a legitimate subculture in the United States. Matchar calls it "troubling hyperindividualism," which is already a characteristic of Generation Y. The same criticism could be made of the Christ Against Culture paradigm. It's better to cut oneself off from the world than to try and change it. <br />
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There is a very basic, human tendency in the Christ Against Culture paradigm, which is why I think we see the same trends in the secular world, too. Ultimately, I think Matchar's advice is spot on for both New Domesticity and Christianity. She writes: "The key to making all this work...is to be expansive rather than exclusive" (249). And Christians can be expansive in a way that no other group of people can because we serve a God who is expansive. There are limitless possibilities for the ways we can engage the culture, broken and suffering though it is, so that we can "invite the world" (250) into God's expansive family instead of quarantining ourselves from the world.<br />
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I highly recommend Matchar's book. Even if you're not involved in the proponents of New Domesticity yourself, the book will undoubtedly give you an understanding of this significant cultural trend and will reinforce the importance of keeping Christ firmly in the center of your life, domestically-focused or otherwise. Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-63404569423240398472013-06-30T21:13:00.001-07:002013-06-30T21:13:57.775-07:00An Agenda ConflictHow often is it that a day doesn't turn out quite like we expect it to? I awoke yesterday morning at 5:30 AM and listened hard. Thunder and rain on a day that was supposed to be 90 degrees. Thunder and rain on a day that had me at Green Bluff at 7 AM picking strawberries to avoid the heat. Heck, it's a Saturday! If I don't have to get out of bed at 6:30 AM, I won't. I woke up again at 7 AM to make sure it was still raining. It was, so I stayed in bed reading blogs at <a href="http://her.meneutics/">Her.meneutics</a> on my Kindle for another hour. I was up at Knapp's Farm a little after 9 AM. From the bluff, I had a magnificent view of the surrounding hills as I picked strawberries. Sun occasionally beamed down on us hard-core strawberry pickers, braving the weather's caprice, but on the horizon lightning lit the sky and thunder roared. <br />
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Strawberries are hard to pick, so the $20 I had saved of my grocery budget--precious money--was still at $14.50 after I paid for my strawberries. I had a respectable number of strawberries, too, for picking them by myself and often being distracted by the lightning and funny little kids around me. I made a stop at another Green Bluff farm and while I was in the building, it started to rain steadily. I was so thankful I had caught the hour and a half of sun in the day and felt sorry for those who had just arrived at Green Bluff. My flat of strawberries became even more precious.<br />
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I drove back into town and took advantage of the cooler weather by fertilizing my garden. It rained lightly while I was out in my garden, and I loved it. The rain was my friend as I got down at eye level with my plants and got to see the emerging green globes of tomatoes, unfurling broad leaves of beans and feathery foliage of seashell cosmos. When I had finished working in my garden, Dottie, ever gracious, unwittingly fed me a lunch of tea, buttermilk muffins with strawberry jam, and shortbread. We sat inside with all the windows open and listened to the merry hum of rain. <br />
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How pleasant it is to sit together with no deadline and no agenda but to enjoy conversation and the funny turn of the weather. The conversation--hardly anything more than talking over the week behind us and looking forward to the weeks ahead--was as refreshing to me as the rain is to a thirsty ground. I realized, too, that I had no agenda for my strawberries. My only two goals for them were 1) to crush up two cups for jam, and 2) enjoy them.<br />
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Agendas and plans and schedules can only go so far, unlike the control-freak nature of my personality would like me to believe. The weekends are refreshing to me because my time isn't dictated by routine and schedules like it is during the week. I love routine, but the un-ending wake-up, go to work, work, come home from work, unpack lunch, pack lunch, do stuff after work, what-it's-bedtime-already? routine was wearing on me this week in particular. The antidote is a Saturday of flexibility and unconcern for the amount of time it takes me to do a task. I planned to finish picking strawberries by 11 AM. I filled my box by 10:30 AM. Great! I used the extra time to drive the long way through Green Bluff. It's not hot like I thought it would be? Great! I spent time in my garden. It's lunchtime, and I'm eating chocolate covered shortbread? Great! Who needs a well-planned and neatly Tupperwared lunch anyway? I have money left in my grocery budget? Great! I bought expensive New York steaks at Egger's for a meal with my parents in July. I like to take the weekend days as they come, to form the agenda moment by moment. <br />
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I think we learn in Scripture that the Kingdom of God is about a different agenda than we humans expect. And because of this, I need to learn something from the mistakes of the stubborn, agenda-pursuing Pharisees and their frequent misunderstanding of Jesus' heavenly agenda. Jesus isn't conquering the Romans. But he <em>is</em> freeing captives from bondage to sin. Jesus isn't exalting the Jewish people. But he <em>is</em> humbly pointing us to the only one who deserves to be exalted. Jesus isn't restoring the temple to its former grandeur. But he <em>is</em> restoring broken humanity to the quiet grandeur of intimacy with God.<br />
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So maybe it's not so much that I need to be free from having an agenda. Rather, whether it's a week-day agenda or a weekend lack thereof, I need to be aware of when God's agenda and mine conflict. And when that happens, Lord, give me the grace to abandon my agenda for yours.Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-4949374648342552512013-06-22T16:20:00.001-07:002013-06-22T16:20:58.337-07:00My Garden, Year TwoThis is the second year my college mentor has given me space in her vegetable garden for a garden of my own. This year, I was much more savvy in my planning, so I'm expecting (and praying!) to have a better harvest than last year. We're off to a good start! I thought I'd post some pictures of my garden here to get you oriented to what I've planted. It's always fun to have pictures from the beginning of a garden and I'll be sure to post more when the garden is in full production in August/September. Here are two views of my garden:<br />
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The picture above shows all the plants expect my tomatoes and one cucumber. In this main part of the garden, I planted potatoes (front left corner), beans, tomatoes, a cucumber, carrots (which I had to replant once), peas, basil, rosemary, chives and green onions. I also planted marigolds, hollyhocks, cosmos and zinnias because I love having fresh flowers. I have a couple volunteer plants from last year that sprung up, including dill, calendula (a flower), snapdragons, a nasturtium, and parsley. As I was weeding today, I pulled up tons of baby hollyhocks and snapdragons that had re-seeded themselves. :) Here's a couple close-ups from the garden:</div>
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Dottie, my college mentor, and I also decided to try experimenting with straw bale gardening this year. Straw bale gardening was invented as a way to garden successfully even with poor soil. The Mohrlangs have an empty lot next to their house that will be the future home of a Whitworth professor when he gets around to building a house on the lot. In the meantime, he let us use his property for our straw bales. I decided to plant tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and a pepper plant in my straw bales. Here's hoping they thrive! The first picture below is our whole straw bale garden. Dottie's bales have dirt on top of the whole bale while mine just have dirt directly around the plant:<br />
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A Romanian Rainbow pepper plant:</div>
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This is a view down the row of bales. You can see a Siletz tomato in the foreground, then a Black Krim tomato, a couple zucchini plants, and English cucumbers at the very end. I also planted two Sun Gold tomato plants given to me by a co-worker, and a lemon cucumber plant. </div>
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I love having a garden. I like thinking about God giving Adam the job of stewarding the earth in the Garden of Eden. Gardening is labor intensive (if my sore back after weeding is any indication), but it's also freeing to dig my hands into the dirt after a week of sitting at a desk in front of a computer. It's good to use my hands instead of my head and my whole body instead of just my fingers. Pray with me that my garden grows and that I can be generous with the fruit it bears!<br />
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Have you planted a garden this summer? What did you plant?Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-46263744677940190972013-06-15T19:54:00.001-07:002013-06-16T15:49:25.736-07:00The Week in ReviewLast week, I bought something really cool at Costco:<br />
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We had a June birthday celebration at work this week, so I made this (Peanut Butter Ice Cream with Peanut Butter Cups):<br />
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With these: </div>
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The verdict? Delicious! I can't wait to make more batches of ice cream throughout the summer. It will be my go-to dessert. It was fun to share my first-ever batch with my co-workers, as they all have a hearty appreciation of food. This was the first fun thing of the week that I'm going to share with you. <br />
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The second fun thing was "cooking" a meal for 25 people on Friday night. My co-worker Emily has been involved in the start of a new college ministry in town that's being spearheaded by several current Whitworth students. Every Friday night, Thrive (the name of the ministry) meets in a church building downtown for dinner, worship, a message, and small group discussion. Because Thrive is just getting off the ground, they don't have the funds to provide dinner every week, so they've been soliciting help from friends and members of local churches. I had extra tithe money from housesitting in May, so I volunteered to make dinner for this week's Thrive gathering. <br />
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The catch is that the church building, which used to be an art gallery, has no sink, stove, or oven, so the meals prepared for Thrive need to be creative. Fortunately, God has provided me with many opportunities to coordinate food for bigger groups, so it didn't take me long to come up with a menu: cold, sliced ham from Egger's Meats, bread from Costco (multigrain and rosemary olive oil), and carrots and sliced cucumbers with Sabra hummus. No dinner would be complete without dessert, so I made vegan/gluten free cookies (made with bananas, peanut butter, and oats for substance) and a chocolate sheet cake with peanut butter frosting. Every day this week, I've been preparing some part of the meal, so packing up and transporting the meal downtown on Friday was a breeze. Here it is all packed up and ready to go:<br />
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I was nervous about the evening and how it would all come together, so I asked my parents and several friends to pray about it. The biggest thing was that the two people I knew weren't going to be there. Providentially, Emily connected me with her friend Anneliese, who was going to be leading Thrive that evening. When I was driving downtown looking for parking, I passed the building the first time and when I came back around, a car was leaving the spot right in front of the building. Praise the Lord! The other miraculous thing was that I didn't get a parking ticket, as I only had enough change for an hour of my time. :)</div>
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It was a piece of cake (hehe) to set up the meal. Anneliese, her friend Amanda, and I had time to pray for the evening before it started. People trickled in steadily until 6:15, and I enjoyed talking with handful of people. The meal came off splendidly. There was enough for all and a manageable amount of leftovers. Actually, I had almost the <a href="http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/chocolate-sheet-cake-with-peanut-butter-frosting/">whole cake</a> left which was disappointing <em>until</em> I tried it when I was back home. I'm telling you, it is delicious!</div>
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You might be surprised to know that the <a href="http://www.twopeasandtheirpod.com/gluten-free-vegan-banana-peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-cookies/">vegan/gluten free cookies</a> were also good. The leftovers are in my freezer, ready to emerge at some fortuitous occasion. <br />
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Speaking of fortuitous occasions, the third thing I want to share with you about the week is that I finally saw a LIVE MOOSE!<br />
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My family has been to all the prime moose spots in the United States--Yellowstone, Vermont, Maine, Yosemite--and we never saw a live moose. My church hosted a bike ride on the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes today through the beautiful lakes of northern Idaho. As my housemate Pam and I were riding along, we saw the moose chowing down across the lake. It was awesome! The ride itself was also lovely. Here are some pictures from the trail that entirely fail to capture the beauty we witnessed:</div>
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And that's a wrap! Have a blessed Father's Day tomorrow!Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-89166861788950884452013-06-09T10:45:00.000-07:002013-06-09T10:54:27.103-07:00Life Around the TableFor a while, I was going through a dry spell with reading. I hardly read anything except cooking blogs and then only scanned through recipe after recipe. Then I house-sat and couldn't get the Wifi password to work. You might call this a saving grace. Besides hosting several groups of people, I also re-discovered my normal hankering for reading. My housemate asked me tonight: "How many books do you normally have checked out from the library?" Without hesitation, I answered, "About 30." Many are fated to only ever sit in stacks on my desk, bookshelf, and nightstand, but, if a book is lucky, I'll actually read it.<br />
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Such was the case with a new book called <em>Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table</em> by Shauna Niequist. I just finished the book today and loved every sentence of it. Shauna, if possible, loves food even more than I do. It was a comfort to read the book and know that I'm not the only one in the world whose love of food veers towards obsessive. (Just ask my friend who went with me to Trader Joe's yesterday.) Better than that, Shauna grounds food and meals solidly in the living out of a faithful Christian life. You don't have to be a foodie to do this. In fact, I have a friend who hates cooking. But when it was her turn to host the Children's Ministry Committee from church, she made us a wonderful waffle, bacon and egg meal. Whether or not she enjoyed putting it together, there's no doubt that the meal unified us and prepared us for the discussion and prayer portion of our meeting.<br />
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<em>Bread and Wine</em> is full of stories from Shauna's life. Most of the stories were things I could relate to whole-heartedly and have experienced numerous times in cooking: spontaneity, inconvenience, unexpected mistakes and successes both, meaningful conversation, working-with-what-you-have meals, and simple, memory-evoking pleasures. Shauna also made it clear that it's okay for meals prepared for other people to be flawed. Perfection isn't the goal; fellowship is. I was comforted by this. I've often had friends over for dinner and have been more concerned with how something I cooked turned out than with the people at my table. Besides, what's life <a href="http://infieldsyetfallow.blogspot.com/2012/12/an-imperfect-christmas.html">without a little imperfection</a> anyway? It's why we try again (and again and again). <br />
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I always have cooking experiences from which I can draw useful spiritual lessons. One in particular stands out from recent weeks: making baklava with my friend Janie. She was making two trays of baklava for two different events, and I'd always wanted to make it. I came over to her house one Wednesday evening, and we got to work. After melting something like seven sticks of butter, we unrolled bundles of filo dough, impossibly thin and delicate. Following the complex instructions carefully, we layered the filo dough and brushed it liberally with the melted butter. Every once in a while, we'd spread a pecan-sugar mixture in between the layers. In the middle of the directions, we realized that we were going to run out of filo dough. Fortunately, mishap though it was, no one will ever know that we used 20 sheets of filo instead of 30. <br />
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When all the layers were assembled, it took us a good 15 minutes to score the baklava into narrow diamonds, so the honey-sugar syrup could soak into every crevice. By this time, it was nearly 9 PM, and I had to work the next morning, so I didn't get to help Janie complete the baklava. However, at work the next day, I had a visitor stop by with a package:<br />
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Biting into the honey-soaked squares of baklava made the work of the night before worth it. Actually, I take that back. Walking around my office and sharing squares of the baklava with my co-workers made it worth it. It was seeing my co-workers' eyes light up and hearing the crackle of the baked filo dough as they took a bite that made the often inconvenient work of making the baklava worth the effort. It's a tactile way of connecting one person to another. It's a blessed sharing and receiving. </div>
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Shauna writes: "This is what I want you to do: I want you to tell someone you love them, and dinner's at six. I want you to throw open your front door and welcome the people you love into the inevitable mess with hugs and laughter. I want you to light a burner on the stove, to chop and stir and season with love and abandon...Gather the people you love around your table and feed them with love and honesty and creativity. Feed them with your hands and the flavors and smells that remind you of home and beauty and the best stories you've ever heard, the best stories you've ever lived."</div>
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All I can say to that is: "Amen!" Go and do likewise. </div>
Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-69932643873068161302013-05-28T17:52:00.000-07:002013-05-28T17:56:21.425-07:00Memorial Day WeekendMy mom, sister Julie, and I enjoyed a wonderful three-day weekend together over Memorial Day. We did lots of fun things and laughed a lot, but the highlight, by far, was simply time together. Julie just finished her first year at Azusa Pacific University in southern California and it was a privilege to hear more about the highs and lows of her first year. <br />
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This is going to be a picture-highlight blog, but two funny instances from the weekend stand out. First, Julie and I have always been different in big and little ways. On Saturday morning, we had a big breakfast at Petit Chat bakery, so I didn't plan lunch. I figured we'd just snack. Apparently, Julie doesn't snack. My mom and I were all over yogurt, peanut-butter filled pretzels, and toast, but Julie wasn't havin' it. So she got Taco Bell and all was well.<br />
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We had the privilege of staying in the house that I'm house-sitting in for a couple weeks. The house and gardens are beautiful--worthy of a Better Homes and Garden feature story--so we really felt like we were staying in a bed and breakfast. The owner of the house has a bunch of birdhouses in the back yard that are all different sizes and shapes. We walked around the garden and identified what all the different bird houses would be if it were a human-like community. We had high rise apartments, a condominium, a fixer-upper, a mansion Downton Abbey style (complete with a guard bird!), suburb houses, a chapel and parsonage, and studio apartments. If this doesn't give you a hint of how big the garden is, I don't know what will. :) We had fun letting our imaginations run wild. Who knows? Maybe Janie's garden will be the setting for the next great children's novel.<br />
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Here are some pictures for your viewing enjoyment with a little exposition:<br />
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We had a picnic lunch at Manito on Sunday. The weather was beautiful. Because I love food, I have to give you a quick explanation of what we had for lunch: blackberry streussel muffins, open-face sandwiches with mustard, mayo, chicken, cheese, and avocado, and veggies and homemade ranch. Delish!</div>
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We took time to walk around Manito, including the Lilac Gardens, Perennial Gardens, Duncan Gardens, Japanese Garden, and the Greenhouse, which has wonderful tropical plants and cacti. The above picture is from the Greenhouse.</div>
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Little bright out right by the Spokane river! Not the most flattering picture, but sure funny!</div>
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My mom and I rode on the carousel in Riverfront Park. It was my first time and it was so fun! </div>
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Here we are going 'round and 'round!</div>
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And that's it! We did a lot more over the weekend, but mostly I delighted in being with family. God has been so good to me. Thank you Mom and Julie for coming to visit!</div>
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I hope each of you had a blessed Memorial Day weekend!</div>
Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-8530310168375665182013-05-12T19:39:00.000-07:002013-05-12T19:39:14.567-07:00Spring in SpokaneI have so much to write about, but tonight is just to share some pictures with you to celebrate the beauty of spring in Spokane. All photos were taken in the garden at the house I'll be house-sitting at for three weeks starting this Tuesday or Manito Park on the South Hill.<br />
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Happy Spring and Happy Mother's Day to the mothers out there! I am praising God for the beauty of spring and the loving care of my own mother today. I hope you are, too!</div>
Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4426904598095158366.post-25404753583225250882013-05-06T20:36:00.001-07:002013-05-06T20:51:50.660-07:00Highlights of April/Early MayWow! I'm so sorry for not posting anything sooner. In light of my procrastination in writing a blog post, I'm going to write up a quick list of highlights from the past couple weeks. I must point out that as I sit down to write this post, I'm also occasionally dipping a Nutter Butter (or two) into a glass of cold milk. It's hot outside, and I have nothing in the house that resembles ice cream (and no desire to drive a mile or two to Froyo), so a glass of cold milk must suffice. I would also like to note that I'm sporting my first mosquito bite of the summer on my left hand. Is this something to brag about?<br />
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Here's my list of highlights:<br />
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1. My housemates and I all pitched in together to make a Chicken Bacon Spinach Alfredo pizza. I made the alfredo sauce and crust and the whole thing came together rather splendidly. For dessert we had a half-baked cookie with chocolate fudge ice cream, which was incredibly delicious.We also had a ton of fun talking and laughing.<br />
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2. My small dinner group from church had the pleasure of going to a Green Bluff farm (<a href="http://www.cherryhillwa.com/site/">Cherry Hill Orchard</a>) where one of the couples in the group lives and works. We had tacos, and I made a delicious pudding parfait dessert with vanilla and chocolate puddings, peanut butter whipped cream and chocolate and Nutter Butter cookie crumbs. The highlight was touring the big red barn out of which cherries are sold in the summer. We climbed up to the cupola at the very top of the barn and got a three-sixty view of the bluff countryside in the dusk. Stunning!<br />
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3. Near the end of April, a couple from church invited me to see their two daughters perform in The Music Man at a local high school. This is one of my favorite musicals, and I was in it in high school, so I said YES! We met at Pizza Hut before the performance and enjoyed a lovely time of fellowship with proud parents Samuel and Renee and six others. The performance was delightful and lines of Music Man songs have been playing refrains in my head ever since. <br />
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4. On the first Wednesday of each month, I volunteer with my friends Margy and Stella at the Mead Food Bank. Last month, Margy and I went out to dinner with the weekly volunteers and had a great time. Betty, a volunteer, said we could be on the dinner list, which means that if your name comes up on the list, you get to choose where to go to dinner. As soon as I walked in last Wednesday, Betty said, "Elizabeth! It's your choice for dinner!" I couldn't believe I actually got to choose! It wasn't a hard decision. I chose Zip's, a local Spokane fast food joint that I've only visited one time when I was fourteen as my youth group headed through Spokane on a mission trip to British Columbia. We had a wonderful dinner with the food bank volunteers, and I ate a corndog, crinkle fries, and a peanut butter milkshake. Bliss! I was raving about my corn dog so much that Margy said, "You know, you can buy frozen corn dogs at the grocery store." I agreed with her, but told her that I limit my corndog eating to once every six years or so, so I can really eat them with gusto. :)<br />
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5. On Friday evening, my friend Heidi and I went to Coeur d'Alene to see a Whitworth music professor debut his second concerto with the Coeur d'Alene symphony. The whole evening was wonderful. Heidi works with Japanese exchange students in town, and I had met her girls once before. I saw three of them while waiting for Heidi and chatted with them about their recent trip to the East Coast. Then Heidi and I drove the 40 minutes to Coeur d'Alene and enjoyed a picnic in a park by the lake. We ate wheat rolls with mustard, mayo, sliced chicken breast, cheese and avocado, cut veggies with <a href="http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2013/04/29/homemade-buttermilk-ranch-dressing-recipe/">homemade buttermilk ranch dressing</a>, orange soda, and a chocolate-peanut butter no-bake cookie from Petit Chat. The concert itself was incredible. Brent Edstrom, Heidi's professor, is a jazz musician, so the piece was mixed jazz and orchestra. It sounds odd, but the pieces worked beautifully together. My favorite movement has some Latin-inspired rhythms and melodies which made it hard to sit still. Probably the best part of the concert, though, was clapping for Brent with pure delight at the end of the concert. He came back on stage three times and played an encore piece because we clapped so hard!<br />
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There are other highlights and hard things about the past couple weeks, too, but the stories above are the most delightful and brought me much life and joy. <strong><em>What are your highlights from the past couple weeks?</em></strong><br />
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P.S. Also, I have to tell you that I watched the BBC Miniseries <em>Wives and Daughters</em> this weekend and loved it! I highly recommend it to all those who haven't seen it. It's a lovely story and can generate some good discussion (and maybe even a few good tears).Elizabeth Brinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01302121724683269844noreply@blogger.com0