::Cold moons and measured teaspoons::

A pervasive sense of awe has clung to me these past few weeks. It stems from being immersed in a study of deep space with the kids. The scale is just so big. The science so inadequate. The God upholding it all so astonishing.

I live on a very small scale. Grams of pasta added to salt water. Kilometers of early-morning road traveled down. Minutes of whining to endure until snack time. Pages of book to enjoy before bed. A massive reality looms above, under and around me, but I've lived it out in teaspoons.

There are the things we see, like the fine sifting of powder as we measure it out. And then there is everything else. What do we make of it?

It seems to me that we do one of two things when confronted with the vast and the unknown. We make little of it. Or we make much of it. We hunch our shoulders and live out of small-scale comfort. Or we mythologize and theologize the vastness to suit us.

Two parts of Scripture came together this morning over this idea of the unseen vastness. The children and I are in 2 Kings: "And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha."

Empty hills. The servant saw empty hills when they really weren't empty at all. We see. We don't see. And we make too little of the space in between.

In the Near East, back in the time of Elisha, people feared the moon. They didn't trust the silver orb above them in the darkness. When the Psalmist wrote "no moon shall harm you in the hours of night," he wrote it to a people that believed it could! Lunacy comes from the idea that exposure to the moon could touch a mind. Twist it. 

A malevolent moon. Endowed with mythical power it never possessed. We see. We don't see. And we make too much of the space in between.

There are footprints on the moon today. Boot-shape indents that testify to us having made contact with the dead landscape. Of having seen the pits and craters of the reflective rock that circles overhead. We no longer fear it. {The seeds of lunacy are sprung from different soil, it would seem.} In fact, I would go so far as to say that in the collective consciousness, the moon has been conquered. It's Creator, cut out of the heavens. Which brings us full circle to, yet again, making far too little of what we can't or won't see.

In my own study of Psalm 121, I read; "I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." 

He saw. He didn't see. He stood rooted in the space between.

As I grow older, I am more and more comforted by what we are told is truth in the Bible. I anchor myself more and more to the unmovable. It is the book I see. It speaks of realities I don't see. But it keeps me grounded and hopeful when I'm caught between the known and unknown.  Cold moons and measured teaspoons. Empty hills and roads run down. I see. I don't see. I go to Him in the space between.

::Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches::

Just bought the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, because I flipped through it and wanted to eat every single thing! These cookies were fairly simple to make. Just don't get too frustrated with the crumbly dough. It looks like it won't work. But it does.

::Reincarnated::

When a crop of these tulips popped up this spring I did not recognize them. I do not plant white flowers. Or any pastels, for that matter. Only big bold colours make it into my garden, if I can help it. So, how did these get here? It turns out they are last year's pink and white-striped beauties, (see below), reincarnated. So sad! I guess I have to replant fresh bulbs every year to keep the dark colours. Have I mentioned that gardening exhausts me?

There is an analogy to be plucked from faded petals, I think. Fact: We get older. We get plainer. The 'youthful blush' so celebrated in victorian novels leaves our faces. Our hair is washed of it's colour. But the heart remains unaffected. If anything, with time, it glows brighter with the absorption of life-lived, and lessons-learned. (Says the girl who dyes her hair and frets over wrinkles.)

::Cradled::

When I got home from a run-- yes, run. It's been years-- my kids had a treasure to show me. Four blue eggs cradled by a masterpiece of dried grass and twigs in a tree by the farmer's field.

::Paper Magnolias::

As inept as I am with green things, I did remember that early spring is when one trims dogwood shrubs. So, I clipped away, and ended up with four beautiful, deep-crimson branches that were begging to be displayed.

They looked bare, so in a burst of craftiness, I whipped up a handful of newspaper magnolia buds to adorn the branches. My daughter would like me to paint them. I'm not convinced. I love the look of the newsprint. But I may test one out with watercolour and see.

DIY: Paper Flowers
1. Cut up newspaper into petals. Magnolias are a long, narrow petal, whereas roses would be wide and more rounded. I cut

three different sizes to create three concentric layers of petals.

2. Create the stamen by balling up a small piece of paper and wrapping it in another one, twisting the bottom to form a teardrop shape.

3. Take four or five small petals and place them around the stamen, crumpling the bottoms to hold them tight at the base. Wrap wire or tape around them tightly. I used wire, which can rip through the paper at times, but it seems to have worked well for me.

4. Repeat this process with the two other layers of paper until your flower looks balanced. 

 More paper flower inspiration:

::Taste of Spring::

These tasted like spring.

::Sunnyside-Up Cupcakes Recipe::

::A note about passion::

In beat-up yellow notebook, I wrote down something very true thirteen years ago, when Aidan and I were first getting to know each other:

Aidan taught me something about myself yesterday. Passion itself is a good thing, but can be manifested in such  way that it becomes a bad thing. He describes my passion as beautiful, strong and true, but says I throw it all into one thing, which blinds me to everything else. It does spill out of me. . . Problem: I suck people down with me when that whirlwind of excitement moves on to the next thing. I have no balance. I have no level-headed ability to organize and deal with my passions wisely and in good time. I fly into things-- but fly out of them as well. I was humbled when Aidan said; "I have passion as well. I just don't show it the same way." 

The man was right. At the bottom of the page I wrote;

Titus 3:3 . . . enslaved by . . . passion. I can't be enslaved.

::Duct Tape Love::

The kids + a bit of free time + duct tape =

::Comfortably Numb::

There was a boy who went into the woods with a frozen heart. He wanted to go. To stop feeling. He went to live with the ice queen whose kisses took away the memories that hurt. And he stayed with her in the chill. Not because she made him stay. Because he wanted to stay.

But he was loved by a girl. She knew the essence of him. She wouldn't have him lost. She went after him through the woods into the cold. She encountered many people in the Wood who had been warped and changed by chasing after lost things they never did find. Instead, they lost themselves.

She found the boy on a lonely patch of ice. He was cold. He felt nothing. When he looked at her he didn’t see home anymore.

She thawed his heart with memory. Not with magic, or force. Just the truth about the way things really were. He followed her back home through the woods. The queen let him go. She’d never needed him. Hearts of ice don’t need or want for anything, after all. They just spread the cold wherever it will be received. . .

The boy and girl walked to the tree line. They walked out of the woods. And “they lived somehow ever after.”

This was the premise of the book I just finished with my children, and it’s been swirling inside me ever since. It isn’t like any other book I’ve read, let alone any other children’s book. It’s painfully, achingly reflective of life. Real life.

Things get hard. We fight against it and it hurts a lot. The fight exhausts us. It steals the pleasant equilibrium we have worked to maintain. It starts to change us. So we make choices every day. Stay and fight. Stay and change. Stay. Go and surrender. Go and forget. Go.

Few stay. Few fight. Few allow change. Most go.

It’s easier to enter the cold forest and surrender to the numbing. And it doesn’t even require a long journey. Remarkably, this process can take place without moving at all. A mental fleeing. Entirely in the mind.

I have a friend who is sitting on an ice flow. Surrounded. But alone. He saw the forest from his hurting home, and he put his feet on the path and walked through the trees. He let the pull of the cold tug him along until he felt less. Less. Then nothing at all. Nothing true, anyways.

He built himself a palace of fragile nothing. It keeps him very busy. He plays with it’s untethered, movable parts, arranging and rearranging them to please him-- the razor-edged ice shard puzzle of his life. Funny thing is the pieces never really lock into place. Something never ever fits. But he has learned not to notice that he wears his life like a high-end jacket in a size too small.

Like the boy in the story, this boy is loved too. He is being followed. Pursued. He is being tracked through the trees by the echoes of who he was. He is being asked to come home. Wooed by memory. Reminded of what really is. He was warm once. Very, very alive. Fighting. Changing. Living.

But, he’s still there in the cold. That boy. In slippery, untouchable place, willfully handmade to hide in. He’s contentedly numb.

Someday the whispered prayers that have followed him down the icy path to the cold will reach him and thaw him bit by bit. Someday the love that tails him. Hounds him. Haunts him. It will melt him. And he’ll follow the warm current of it back home. Bring him home. Bring him home. Bring him home.

::Valentine's Tea 2013::

Our second, annual Valentine's tea party. 

 I stuck with a favourite tea snack: Strawberry Napoleons

I added a few new ones: Raspberry Creamcheese Brownies, Lemon Vanilla Madeleine's {But in mini-muffin tins} & Macaroon Truffles.

Valentine's done Elijah's way:

::Fifth time a bridesmaid::

These are some of my favourite photos from the wedding I was a part of in December. I posted the speech I gave awhile ago HERE.

::Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey::

If you are a Downton Abbey fan, this is a fun read. It's a biography of the real lady of the estate, which was actually called "Highclere Castle." The writers of the show drew a fair bit of inspiration from Lady Almina's life. The fact that I found the most intriguing is that it was her husband, Lord Carnarvon, who funded Howard Carter in the excavations of Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt. It's a thrill when things I've studied and enjoyed come together like that.

::That reflects it::

I need lists and calendars to put my life in order. I really don't know what I would do without these things. My life-organizer of choice is an over-sized fridge calendar from Costco that just happens to be covered in quotes meant to inspire. In the three years that I've daily glimpsed my life up on the fridge, I've never once stopped to read a quote. Until yesterday.

"There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." ~Edith Wharton

I do not know how Edith meant her words to be understood. Likely, she was meditating on the power to affect change through either action or emulation.

Standing there, squinting at her words, a greater message got through to a tired, sluggish woman whose been growing restless again: I'm no candle. He is. What have I been doing to reflect Him lately?

My reflective qualities have been dulled from various and sundry lesser choices that have been made over time. Lately, I haven't been quite as comfortable with my tarnished, dusty sheen. But, God knows, polishing up is lots of work. Lots of replacing and relinquishing. A worthwhile endeavour though. What good is a dust-darkened mirror in a world that is dark enough as it is. 

::Cheddar & Chorizo Soup::

ade a meal to embrace the cold weather. It's hot, spicy and full of fat.

 :Paula Deen's Cheddar Soup::

I substituted chorizo sausage for her pimentos. And I served it in homemade bread bowls. I baked the bread into round loaves the size of small soup bowls, than cut away the top and hollowed out the middle.

::Eleven Years::

n our eleventh anniversary, we did what we do best. We hung out with our kids on the snow. Sleds full of firewood, chocolate chip muffins and kids, we tromped and skied through the woods. Sipped hot chocolate around a warm fire, and watched snow flakes fall against the backdrop of sleeping oaks.

::Skiing on golf balls::

Home from our annual Tremblant ski trip. I really love my family. I really do not love dirty hot tubs, or skiing on golf balls. Still worth it though.

::2012 in Photos::

I took fewer photos this year. I'm one child richer-- and busier. And I'm teaching an extra boy at home. More time spent living than capturing it through a lens. That said, here are my favourites, month-by-month:

This photo belongs here, because it's our first family photo in which a sixth little person is included. (Hidden though she may be-- rules are rules.) She's so inextricably a part of 2012, and so irrevocable ingrained on our hearts.

Last year's photos

::2011 in Photos::

::Ornaments 2012::

Salt Dough Animals. I saw a Noah's Ark version in a Martha Stewart magazine years ago, and it stuck. I never did hunt down cookie cutters like hers, but found these instead:

HOW TO: Canadian Critters Salted Dough Ornaments

1. Prepare a batch of Salt Dough.
2. Cut out your animals using cookie cutters and insert small eye-hooks at the of each animal. I found mine at Home Depot, but you can always make hooks using wire.
3. Bake for 4 hours at 200 degrees. Yes, I know it takes forever, but it's worth it.
4. Once cooled, they will be good and hard. Trace your animals onto pretty paper. I used green scrapbook paper. Cut out their outlines, and Mod Podge them onto the backs of the cookies. I did this to hide the brown spots on the side of the cookie that was face-down on the tray. But it also means your ornament looks pretty on the tree even if it gets trued around.
5. Once dry, draw details onto the non-paper side of each animal.
6. It is important to spray varnish the first coat or the ink will bleed. It may still bleed a little. The next coat can be brush-on varnish.
7. Next, I snipped all but 1 cm off the ends of red-tipped sewing needles. Use whatever colour you like, I just found the red to be very festive. These pins can now be pushed into the dough as embellishments. If they don't go in easily, pre-punch a hole using a thumbtack and then apply a dot of crazy glue to the hole before putting in the pin.
8. Last, feed ribbon or twine through the loop and tie.

Six Canadian animals for the tree: