Here is how I have decided to see the cooking and food consumption for Thanksgiving Day:
Cook one day, eat 7. Yes, seven! You know – like those blogs and cooking shows teach? You can cook big one day and prepare lots of meals ahead? Well, break out the Tupperware, my friends. Let’s just admit that three major meat offerings (turkey, Texas brisket and a spiral ham) plus dumplings and mashed potatoes and gravy and 37 other sides, not to mntion a half dozen desserts and asssorted appetizers = this is what you’e going to be eating for a period of {safe, of course} time.
This was actually part of the dessert buffet at Dessa’s wedding two days after Thanksgiving 2011, ahh…good times
Prepare for it, Dave. It’s all leftovers until December 5…or so.
I started blogging on November 29, 2006 when I had things I needed to say, but couldn’t bring myself to utter aloud. I figured it was a way to tell the truth on myself without actually knowing if anyone would ever see it, but knowing I needed to be brave, anyway.
For the next few days I am re-visiting posts or parts of posts that I remember writing. I have written many, many words in almost 2000 posts. But I promise, the birthday will arrive and be gone soon. Meanwhile…
“I am at the start of a new year. Because I got another year older. But I am choosing to focus on the part about starting a fresh, new thing, instead of the wow-a-lot-has-happened-over-the-course-of-my-very-long-long-long-life.
I love new things, don’t you? I love fresh starts and second chances. I love beginnings and renewals and refreshment. They are always so full of hope, so anything-amazing-can-happen.
List-maker that I am, a new year or season or even month (not to mention any Monday morning) will get me looking ahead with excitement and hope and jotting notes about all the things I want to see and experience and accomplish and produce and become…
Today, this:
I want to unleash my creativity (it’s been much too locked away) and have all the crazy creative thoughts I can find that will lead to a life of abundant fruitfulness and productivity and wholehearted living. Because wholeheartedness is HUGE to me (why be anything else, ever?) and it includes being both WHOLE (this is me cooperating with the work of God in my life in all areas: spirit, soul and body) and HOLY (which can come about only by the completed work of Christ and the blood He shed). This is actually possible because of the aaaa-mazing GRACE of God, “the empowering work of the Holy Spirit to be everything God created us to be and to do everything He created us to do.”
Yep. On my list. Happy New Year!”
Come back tomorrow. We’ll dig through the archives again! :)
“She was an adulteress, a cheater, a sinner. She was a disappointment, a law-breaker. She had let so many people down.
Now she was being exposed to the Light of the World.
The scribes and Pharisees brought her to Jesus as He was teaching in the temple. They’d caught her in “the very act of adultery,” they told Him. They were testing Him, who claimed to be the light of life, the One who, “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” (Phil. 2.6)
“Moses, in the law, commanded us that such [a person] should be stoned to death. But what do You say?”
Would Jesus respect and follow the ancient law? Would He condone her sin?
Their purpose, those learned and religious men, was to trip Him up – to find a way to discount His teaching and refute His words.
Jesus says nothing, but stoops down, writing with His finger, ignoring their demand for a verdict.
The religious kept asking, pressing the matter like the playground tattle-talers they were.
His answer was short. “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” Then He leaned over and continued writing on the ground.
And none of them wanted to be the one to start the stoning. From the oldest to the last, one by one, they walked away until only Jesus and the woman were left. He looked at her and asked her, Where did your accusers go? Hasn’t anyone condemned you?
“No one, Lord,” she answered.
“Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more,” the Embodiment of the light-glory of God said to her. Your sin is not unto death. I will not serve you a death-sentence, either. Go. Be well. Be whole. Be at peace. Find true love. Live in honor. Sin no more.
Jesus didn’t condone her sin. God hates sin because it interrupts the beauty and wholeness of the life He planned for us. God didn’t forbid adultery to mess up our good times, but He forbade it because it will hurt us and some one else and probably more than one other person. It will wreck lives and break trust and hearts and disrupt the peace of homes and rip families apart. It is violence towards the “one flesh.”
People often wonder what Jesus wrote on the ground. Did He list the sins of the people standing there that were also punishable by death? I don’t know. Did they leave because they were ashamed or did the encounter with Truth fill them with mercy?
I just know that I have always related to the woman. I have always been keenly aware of my sin, my inability to measure up to religious standards imposed upon me. In church life, my imperfections have been publicly touted, I’ve felt shunned by fellow Christians. I’ve read this account of the woman and felt what she must have felt. I have ranted and raged against the people who told me what a disappointment I was. I have pointed out the futility of religion and condemned the spirit of religious superiority that hurts people as being no different than the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ time.
Then today, very quietly, Jesus wrote upon the ground of my heart. Suddenly I wasn’t the woman, left with her head hanging – thinking I was about to die at the hands of the holier-than-thou religious. I was one of them – I was in the crowd – looking at her: the Church, the Bride of Christ, the one for whom, because of great love, Jesus died.
In my hand I have held stones. The church has sinned. She has been unfaithful and faithless, a disappointment, a cheater. She has hurt people and broken hearts and sinned against God. And I have stood in the crowd, ready to take my stand, taunting God, “Well – can you see this? What are You going to do about this?” I have been one of them.
I opened my hands toward the ground, symbolically dropping the stones I have wanted to hurl with great pain-infused force at churches and pastors and leaders in the Church who have let me down.
I am turning my hands upward with this prayer, “Replace the stones I have wanted to throw – with mercy for Your Church. She has failed. She has let me down, but show me how I can be an agent of Your mercy towards Her, as You have been towards me.”
It is humbling to get a new perspective of yourself and see the enemy you have been flailing against is yourself. It is humbling…”
Come back tomorrow. We’ll dig through the archives again! :)
I started blogging in the dark ages with absolutely no technical no-how at all. Everything changes and people are so much better at it, but I am still rattling around here in the dark yelling “Hellllllllp, Tristan,” to my long-suffering son-in-law with some regularity. I mean, the whole blog crashed like 3 months ago and I am still puttering around some default template, unfixed, un-personalized. Tsk.
This was the header when I first started, 11-29-06. The leaves actually fell and swirled.
As I approach the date of the 7th (the 7th!!!) anniversary of my first dip into blogging waters, I am restless and embarrassed not to have gotten better at it. It doesn’t feel like me right now. It should be about something specific, right? It shouldn’t be all over the map of serious-to-ridiculous, of well-formed thought-to-explosive opinions and stupid jokes, should it? By now, I should have found my voice and my rhythm and a nice tidy package labeled “identity.”
my out.
Oh well. That is why I named it after my favorite elementary school art unit: collage. I named it Thought Collage because that meant I could cut colors and scraps and shapes and symbols and pictures from any and every area of the magazine of my very existence and paste it all together to say: Look. I think this – all of it, even if it sometimes conflicts with itself. All the pieces make up the whole.
Collage (From the French: coller, to glue, French pronunciation: ?[k?.la??]) is a technique of an art production, primarily used in the visual arts, where the artwork is made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. -Wikipedia.org
brace yourself.
Worse yet, I am going to quote myself from these very blog pages over the next 10 days or so to celebrate this monumental anniversaire. Yes, I am! You’ll be forced to reread something I already said that I still like when I read it.
“It’s a trail of bright colored Play-Dough bits and crayon drawings of “piles of snow” and stickers and paint and Light-Saber battles with vacuum hoses and cookies and orange pop and more cookies and dancing to the Fiesta Latin music channel (learning to do the twist and to shake our booties) and announcing, “Watch Nonna, I’m gonna fly now” as we jump from 3 steps up and Nonna’s heart is temporarily arrested until the landing is obviously successful.
It’s Guini loving the most dangerous thing a one-year-old could love: neon-colored plastic jacks, which she likes to pull one by one from an old Quaker Oatmeal cannister and place on the floor and then immediately one by one they go back in. She actually squeals with delight as she pulls them out, dazzled over and over by the colors and we just watch her and she dazzles us.
It’s Hunter begging to be frightened again and again. He makes me put on the Darth Maul mask and chase him, but screams in utter terror when I truly surprise him and then lifts the mask to make sure: “Nonna?” Ok. Relief. It is just Nonna. Back to being chased. Then, time to cuddle and repeated requests to sing “Jingle-bells-all-the-way.” With Hunter, nothing is ever done once. If once was good, many times are better.
It’s Gavin “posing” me with a couple of stuffed animals as he cranks and adjusts Grandpa’s tripod, pretending there is a camera there. He tells me to wait “just one second” then instructs me, “Say cheese.” He squinches his eyes and I smile as he creates a clicking sound with his tongue and then he tilts his head and says, “Awwwwwe…” because I smiled so prettily. And as he thanks me for sitting still, I wish I were aiming a real camera back to capture this exact moment of pretend into which I was invited. And I force myself to see it deeply so I can never forget this February afternoon…
Being a mom was the most wonderful thing. Being a grandma, I am completely undone.”
It is proof beyond any possible reason: God is good and He rewards you even when you couldn’t possibly deserve it. I am so thankful to have had this little bit of cyber-real estate where I have captured the great record of His faithfulness and find reminders of the glorious color of love and life I have experienced so far…
Come back tomorrow. We’ll dig through the archives again! :)
Sometimes I get on Netflix and find nothing, nothing at all among the 8-million titles. This could be because too many choices causes me mucho brain fog. Am I alone in this? I don’t think so…But then some days I am pleasantly surprised at how many great options I see on Netflix. Even though we actually already own all of them. :)
Here is a list of 10 great viewing opportunities (streaming) on Netflix right now. How many have you seen? How many do you own?
In no particular order. Watch them all!
You’re welcomed.
1.
Love Actually (2003)
It’s a British Christmas-themed story with dozens of plot twists and at least 27 feel-good endings. The music is wonderful, the cast is top-notch. It’s energetic and colorful and even has some sniffly parts. Sure, I fast-forward through a couple of scenes, but I still hold my breath wondering if her answer will be “Yes would be my answer,” and I annually smile like crazy as the girl in the red coat and flies into the Prime Minister’s arms at the airport {cuteness overload}…more than once! I like this movie! “Love actually is ~ all around.”
2.
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
Classic family movie and all of my relatives are represented, including Clark Griswold, aka Dave Rhoades! Another great soundtrack, lots of wry humor and you have to watch it to see and shake your head over cousin Eddie if nothing else!
3.
Return to Me (2000)
Well, first you must know I think Bonnie Hunt, who co-wrote this movie, directed it and plays a great role in it, is pretty much very cool and sort of a genius or something. I love the Chicago backdrop and Carroll O’Connor’s performance in his final film (he died in 2001). It is a smallish romantic comedy, a clever storyline, hilarious neighborhood characters played by an extraordinary cast and just a really lovely love story. Plus? Such great music – Dean Martin, people!
4.
An Officer and a Gentlemen (1982)
Well, I mean it is one of the best endings ever. And I am not talking about all the Richard Gere be-hind shots, either. Hehe. Soundtrack!
5.
As Good as it Gets (1997)
Romantic comedy that is just thick with Jack Nicholson’s talent. He plays a writer with obsessive-compulsive disorder and the tagline, “Brace Yourself for Melvin” is sage advice. He is simply abrasive and horrible and yet somehow redeemable. The film is filled with quotables – almost always said by Jack Nicholson. Of course.
6.
Big Night (1996)
Set in the 1950s, Tony Shalhoub and Stanley Tucci play immigrant Italian brothers who own and operate a failing restaurant. It is beautiful to look at and the food, oh the food…get yourself a plate of spaghetti while you watch. And plan to join them for the magnificent timpano feast on a sparkly dress-up night. Stormie has made it for our family {see it here}.
7.
The Breakfast Club (1985)
One of the best of the 1980s coming-of-age movies. It’s one day in the life of 5 kids in high school detention finding out that they are more alike than different. “Don’t you forget about me, don’t don’t don’t don’t…”
8.
A Room with a View (1986)
Some days you just need a cup of hot tea and a Merchant-Ivory film. It’s an adaptation of an early 1900s novel. It is loveliness. “Feign to deny it.”
9.
Far and Away (1992)
The fabulous Ron Howard directed this awesome historical-drama-adventureous-romance starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. It’s a story of Irish immigrants seeking great fortunes in America culminating in the Oklahoma Land Run of 1893. I haven’t watched this in years, but I love stories of the immigration-era (when dreams and hopes were high) and the formerly-marrieds have great chemistry in it.
10.
Irving Berlin’s White Christmas (1954)
Seriously? You’ve seen this, right? Because it has everything, every-thing: music, romance, incredible sets, choreography, snow, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, counting your blessings, a black dress to die for, the hilarious Danny Kaye and Christmas by the truckloads. Watch it with the volume up and God bless America! “Snow, snow, snow, snow ~ Snowwwwww”
This is like – 20 hours of great movie time for free! Well, free if you already have Netflix, anyway. :)
P.S. As I look back over the list, I’d give most of these 4 out of 5 stars, but two of them would get the coveted 5 stars from moi…do you know which ones???
You are such a great daughter-in-law. I mean, that sounds so legal, when really, when Rocky stood in the piercing rays of the setting sun that September evening and took you as his wife, we really, truly received you as a new daughter. We are so pleased he made that choice 7+ years ago and as seasons and time pass, our gratefulness increases.
For you are the woman who sees our son and loves him, truly loves him. You are his home and his rest, his peace and his joy. You are gracious and you are mercy. You live up to your name so well.
And you are the woman who has given us the three darling granddaughters, oh what joy they bring, each unique, so sweet. And aren’t they beautiful like their mommy? Averi Jadyn, firstborn, so wise and all-knowing, Amelie Belle with her engaging orneriness; and this gentle, most-contented baby-of-the-year, Bailey Sophia?
And so, life is busy for your beautiful family. And this has been a year of growth (new baby, expanding ministry opportunities), and of heart-breaking loss and surprise (being flooded out of your home and all the equipment and the studio, gone). But wow- in everything, in EVERYTHING – watching you and Rocky deciding to give thanks and seeing the faithfulness of God just explode towards you in restoration and generosity. The hard times are like a purifying fire, they’ll reveal what you’re really made of. And it is delighting us to see, you and Rock are growing, shining, getting stronger and smarter and better and the graciousness and mercy is lighting the sky. I wouldn’t wish bad things on you, but I am very proud of how you are handling them.
The revelation~I am SO blessed!
Remember that day in church a few years back, Jovan? They were doing that sermon series on the Book of Ruth and while I had always enjoyed the story, that day a whole new piece of it just exploded into the atmosphere of my heart. I realized I was the Naomi and you were the Ruth and that I had indeed been a daughter-in-law who was better to me than seven sons (the seven brothers Rocky never got, haha) would have been…even though I always thought I wanted 8 sons for some strange reason. Haha.
The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a guardian-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.” The Bible, Ruth 4.14-15 niv
That sermon and that scripture passage just made me cry with gratitude! True for Naomi. True for me, too!
When Rocky was growing up and getting cuter by the minute, I was so surprised at all the girls who tried to catch his eye. I started thanking God that I only had one son, because I could totally see the potential for disaster if I’d have had to bring more girls into this highly strong-woman’ed family. But honestly, I wouldn’t mind having lots of daughter-in-laws if they were all just like you.
Then the elders and all the people at the gate said, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your home like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the family… Through the offspring the Lord gives you by this young woman, may your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.” The Bible, Ruth 4.11-12 niv
I wish all mother-and-daughter-in-laws had the chance to love and be loved like you and I have. Wouldn’t the world be a much happier and lovelier place? I know our family is blessed because of you, and you have brought so much to the familia…
So, to put words together to celebrate your birth on that Halloween night twenty-something years ago is to thank God for His faithfulness, for His mercies that are new every morning, for the graciousness He showed us in sending you to us.
A blessing for each year:
Totally wishing you an amazing year ~ Your adoring m-i-l**
I suppose it is because we’ll soon have grandbebe #9 arriving, I guess that could explain it? But I have been looking at photos of the current 8 great {mucho verklempt} and re-reading old blog posts where I oohed and ahhh-ed over them and wow, I have been adoring them for the past ten years, 5 months, and 10 days, give or take. Oh, yes, I have.
This quote was from {{this post}},way back when ~ when there were only three. Wow, how my treasure has increased!
“Being a mom was the most wonderful thing. Being a grandma, I am completely undone.”
