Real 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?

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 Frozen, my new favorite animated movie. Instead of the act of true love being a true love's kiss in Frozen (a hinge point in so many romantic comedies), the act is a young woman sacrificing her life for her sister.

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."

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?

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.

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.

"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."

Why not? I thought, rather peevishly. What's so bad about being an old maid? It's not a death sentence.

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.

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!

A Weekend With Ruth

Soon 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.

 

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.

 

 

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!

 

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!

 

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!

 

I hope you're getting to spend some lovely time with family and friends this summer!

Made-From-Scratch Wontons

Last 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.

Here are the wontons ready to go out to the fryer:

Bethany frying up the wontons and me looking weird: 



Our wonderful spread ready to be eaten and enjoyed! 

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!!

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!

What's something you like to make from scratch?

A Food Interlude

I have a post of a more thoughtful nature coming this week, but I wanted to post these pictures of the Butternut Squash Prosciutto pizza I made with my friend Kari a couple weeks ago. The sauce is pureed squash:

Then we layered on mozzarella cheese, cubed and roasted butternut squash, and pieces of ultra-thin Trader Joe's prosciutto. Here we are layering on squash cubes:

The original recipe called for arugula on top, but we added kale, which is what I had on hand. We decided to try it on just half the pizza because we weren't sure how it would turn out.

And here's the finished product! It was delicious, but very squashy. In the future, I would put a rosemary-infused olive oil sauce layer (or even Alfredo) and keep everything else. I'd love to try it with arugula, too, instead of kale. But, in the end, all who tasted the pizza were happy and contented and wonderfully full.

A Mennonite Cooking Blog?

You bet! It's AWESOME! If you're a nerd like me and peruse cooking blogs more than you probably should, you really need to check it out. Here it is.

Also, the Oregonian's Food Day section recently had an entire day's edition devoted to Julia Child and her influence in the cooking world. Below are a couple quotes they shared that I liked.

"This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook - try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!"

"Remember, no one's more important than people! In other words, friendship is the most important thing - not career or housework, or one's fatigue - and it needs to be tended and nurtured."

"The measure of achievement is not winning awards. It's doing something that you appreciate, something you believe is worthwhile. I think of my strawberry souffle. I did that at least 28 times before I finally conquered it."

Summer Fun in Photos

I've been doing research at work about how the Olive Tree blog could be more effective . The nice thing is that the research will benefit this blog, too. I hope you still have some faith in me as a blogger and are looking forward to the good things to come. :)

My friend Heidi had a blog post with pictures from her various summer adventures. They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, right? So here's my post of Fun Summer Photos.

Over Memorial Day weekend, my family and several friends of the family enjoyed time at my uncle's beach house in Lincoln City, Oregon. My dad, friend Rachel, and I went on a hike that unfortunately ended in a broken arm for my dad. I just realized that my dad's looking off to the side in the top picture. Hmm...not sure what he's looking at! :)

Two weeks later, I drove back home to see Julie graduate from high school. I'm so proud of her; she's a compassionate, smart, and fun young woman. At the end of August, my family will pile into our Mazda van and drive her down to Azusa Pacific University in the Los Angeles area. Fun! Pray that we can all fit in the car along with Julie's stuff.

My housemates Rachel and Taylor biked 38 miles from Spokane to Coeur d'Alene in June. Super intense, right? What did I do? Read Harry Potter at a coffee shop where my friend works, drank strawberry lemonade, ate this peanut butter brownie, and picked them up in downtown Coeur d'Alene. Super intense? Not really, but I sure had fun!

My parents came to Spokane from July 6-14. We had a wonderful week together. I planned to bless them when they were here, but instead I found myself super-abundantly blessed by them. We made this Cherry Clafouti for dessert one night. Delicious!

Some dear friends from Partners International and I biked a portion of the Centenniel Trail in Spokane Valley on Saturday, July 21. Afterward we enjoyed a picnic, cherry pit spitting contest, and the turtles around this waterfall. Ya gotta love summer!

Last Sunday, my small group from church enjoyed a day on the Pend Oreille River about an hour north of Spokane. It was beautiful. We even saw two eagles flying when we were on the boat...amazing!

Unfortunately, my two lovely housemates, Taylor and Rachel, are moving out in the coming week. We had a wonderful day yesterday at Green Bluff, eating lunch together, visiting the Petit Chat bakery and spending an hour in Jim and Janie Edwards' garden. Here's a couple photos from our day together:

Holy Saturday Reflections on Fasting

I decided sometime back in Lent that I wanted to try fasting again. Real fasting. Like not eating for an extended period of time. (ACK!) At first I had decided to fast from after the Good Friday service at my church to Easter morning. But then, my friend Heidi called and wanted me to go to a Jon Foreman concert with her at the Service Station, a local coffee shop and concert venue. I definitely wanted to go, as Jon Foreman is a phenomenal solo artist (after leading the band Switchfoot for many years), but fasting didn't seem very compatible with a concert. Least of all, my stomach rumblings might seriously distract the other concert-goers. So, instead, I've been fasting from about 10 a.m. on Friday until now-ish, 3 p.m. on Saturday. Whenever I finish writing this post, I'll eat my fast-breaking meal of spinach salad with sliced radishes, golden raisins, and a balsamic vinaigrette dressing. Yum!

Fasting has made me realize a number of things. I hope you don't mind another list. :o)

1. I use cooking/baking as a means to avoid doing the things that I should do and want to do, but also don't take as much time to do as I should, such as reading, journaling, praying, cleaning, blogging, e-mailing, etc. When I came home from the grocery store at 10:30 this morning, I sat myself in my favorite living room chair and almost haven't moved since then because I've been reading, blogging and e-mailing. It's been great! When I'm cooking and baking, there's always something else to do...more dishes to wash, more baking time on that casserole, more sorting through my chest freezer to find the ingredient I want. But I've lately felt a driving need to just be...to plow through the growing stack of books in my room, to journal and self-reflect, to take the time to pray for others. To attend to, I guess you could say, the things of life that are like oil and gas to a car. The things that keep us running.

2. Food is as food does. Several times in the past two weeks, I've been so hungry before a meal that I get snappish and mean. I've also gotten into a habit of eating too much and thinking about food/cooking too much. It's definitely my main-stay hobby. There's no doubt in my mind that food is gift from God. But it has its place in the hierarchy of importance. If my eating and cooking causes me to neglect time with God or with others, then it's become a disordered love (as St. Augustine might put it).

3. Ironically, fasting has made me realize how much joy cooking, baking, and eating bring me. I really do use food as a means of loving, encouraging, communicating with, and caring for others. Serving people home-cooked meals, both impromptu and planned, delivering baked goods to work, eating my own creations, trying to be a good steward of my resources (both money and food), etc. are life giving to me. On Sunday, I made a whole wheat pizza with pesto that I had frozen from last summer, the last of my Monterey Jack cheese, asparagus (which is now in season and which I am trying to eat a TON of), broccoli, and wilted spinach. It was delicious! It gave me great joy to cook and eat the pizza that evening and enjoy it through the rest of the week.

4. Fasting makes me realize my frailty, how dependent I am on others and on God. As I was walking down the stairs in my house today, my legs were quivery. My hands are not quite steady. After missing the first meal, my thoughts weren't entirely clear. It's an infinitely good thing that God has made us so dependent on things and people outside ourselves or else we might be tempted to pride and independence more than we already are. Tomorrow, I'll enjoy a lavish Easter dinner with my mentor and her husband and seven others. I will provide the potato casserole. Dottie will provide the ham, asparagus, yams, and rolls. Stacey will provide the dessert. This meal in which we sit down to celebrate the amazing LIFE that we receive in the Resurrection will also be a testimony to our interdependence.

5. Fasting has made me thankful. In light of the super-abundance of Easter in which Christ lavishes forgiveness, new life, and freedom on us, I realize that my life is a continuous witness to the grace of God.

A blessed Holy Saturday to you as we live in the tenuous in-between of Christ crucified and Christ risen. Easter is on its way!