Category Archives: Think

Beginnings

07 Tuesday Aug 2012

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Things have been a little slow in my blogosphere the last month, but real life has been zooming along. This is our first week back to school, which carries a great deal of weight as a homeschool teacher. While the real reward is in spending my days educating and enjoying my kids during the school year, the tasks of the summer months are full of promise and potential: waiting for UPS to deliver boxes of new school books; planning our schedule and lessons; filling binders with blank pages; and sharpening a batch of pencils for the first time. (And nothing makes my geeky, organization-loving heart go pitter-patter like a shopping trip for new office supplies and calendars. :)

As with the rest of the homeschool year, the summer also provides plenty of opportunities for humility. Even after teaching for eleven years, I still have magnificent moments of naiveté and hubris, when I am utterly over-ambitious and under-prepared. In the kindergarten days, I planned so many activities back-to-back that the salt dough had barely dried on my five-year-old’s fingers before I was thrusting a paintbrush into his hand. By the end of the first week, the classroom looked like the victim of an F5 glitter glue tornado that rained down flashcards and worksheets like hail.

The good news is that these days my mistakes are less messy, and I’m a little quicker to admit them. It only took me a few weeks after receiving our two-year (non-refundable) Latin curriculum to realize it was so dry and undecipherable as to challenge the ancient Romans themselves. With a sigh, it went up for sale in the homeschool classifieds, and I went looking for Plan B. Vivo et disco. (“I live and I learn” in Latin, not “I live and I dance feverishly,” though that could also occasionally apply.)

Being sovereign ruler of the classroom means I own every victory completely, as I do every setback. Motherhood and teaching are certainly not professions for the weak-stomached or the glory-hound, and seeking the best for my children often means confronting my own worst habits and attributes. But there is such beauty to be found in the beginnings, in watching and helping them learn what the world is about, where they come from, and where they are going. For every angst-ridden math lesson, there is the joy of finally conquering long division. Spelling errors and lectures on sentence structure give way to a child who can communicate his thoughts and feelings. And of course there’s all the things they teach me, about huge subjects like courage and character, and even about plain old book-learning. (I was corrected about the origins of the northern-dwelling ancient Celts only this morning.)

Homeschooling and parenting are not for everyone, but beginnings are. Sometimes beginning is the hardest part, balancing patience and preparation with just doing it already. Whatever beginning you find yourself at right now — school, work, relationship, or change — I pray you find the courage and strength to start, and fulfillment and peace as you continue.

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Freedom

03 Tuesday Jul 2012

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As a 17-year-old starting college, freedom meant one thing to me: escape. New experiences, different faces, starting over in a world that didn’t know me and couldn’t make my choices for me. That thirst for independence is a natural part of growing up, and I certainly had quite a bit of growing up to do. But I think I was missing an integral notion of what it means to be free.

It took me a long while to realize that freedom is not synonymous with control. The freedom to live, speak, and worship as I desire are priceless to me, and I do not take them for granted. However, personal freedom also means being willing to take chances: in work, in play, and most of all in relationships and letting people in close. Without the courage to love and ask to be loved by others, freedom looks an awful lot like just being alone.

For me, real freedom also means crawling out from under the stifling hood of perfectionism and expectation. Freedom does not guarantee pleasure, but it does ensure that I move forward and learn. To be free is to open myself up to mistakes with the conviction that I am also opening myself up to growth, to finding new ways and new passions.

I could cook only the recipes I already know; paint only pictures for which I have practiced the brushstrokes; stick with the books already on the shelf and the names already in my address book. I would certainly have increased measures of comfort and security in doing so, and that sort of smug satisfaction that comes from doing it “right.” But freedom? No, I would not have that.

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The piece of art above is titled Be Free, and it’s a multimedia collage using vintage papers, vellum, and a hand-made felted landscape. I have felted before, but never to achieve a flat, representational design. I love how it turned out, in part because I took a step into my personal artistic unknown to create it.

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Praying you find the freedom today to imagine and hope, to take risks and build in new directions.

Perfectly ordinary

22 Friday Jun 2012

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May 11 was beautiful here in Tennessee. The weather was sunny and warm, and the day was fairly predictable, in a wonderful sort of way: cookies were baked and dishes were washed; a neighbor’s kids stopped by for a few hours, and we enjoyed dinner and a family game night. The last of the homeschool lessons were finished up, and summer break danced tantalizingly on the next week’s calendar page, along with dance rehearsals and slumber parties and orthodontist appointments.

All day long I hugged a little secret to myself, trying to make the most of May 11 without granting it any special attention. It was a day that cried out to be noticed, but a day I hoped would blend into the others around it, on its way to becoming ordinary. One year ago that day — on May 11, 2011 — a medical error almost took my life. On May 11, 2011, my heart stopped and started again, fast and furious and broken. And with it sped away my sense of security and trust in the safe places, and in rushed a year of hurting and healing, searching and finding, a year of so much pain and so much more beauty.

I didn’t mention May 11 to anyone until it was over. Didn’t point it out or raise a banner that said “I SURVIVED” precisely because I did survive, because all those days in between May 11, 2011, and now are the real story. I didn’t blog or reflect or reminisce with others. Instead I prayed and said thank you, as I do every day, and I went on with the business of making the most of this gift of another day with my loved ones.

I love to share ideas about cooking and crafting, about what I’m reading and thinking, and hopefully I make somebody smile along the way. But May 11 reminded me again of what this blog is really all about: creating today and making it matter — not because it’s pretty and perfect, but because it’s here and its ours. I celebrate May 11 because it was another perfectly ordinary day, and I’m so thankful for every single one of them.

Hope

22 Thursday Mar 2012

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I have had a creative, messy, rewarding week, although it wasn’t spent in the studio or kitchen. Instead of paint or cake batter, my preferred medium the last few days has been soil. It says something that I had to return my brand new pair of suede gardening gloves because I wore them to shreds in less than 24 hours. After all that hard work, our front yard is full of dozens of blooms and the rich, wet-forest smell of mulch. It looks neater and more loved than it has in years, and at this point, I’m sure our neighbors think we are about to put our house on the market. :)

But this flurry of activity is about something much more significant than curb appeal. It is a tangible, exciting picture of hope. The years of neglect our property suffered were born of a home so full of illness, complications, and coping that it would have been sheer folly to expend energy on something as trivial as pulling weeds. For many slow-motion months in a row, I survived from one moment of God’s grace to the next, through multiple hospitalizations and setbacks. I needed desperately to be assured that all that pain could legitimately be called growth, that it promised to bear fruit somehow. When catastrophic flooding in 2010 washed the last of our topsoil and mulch down the hill and into the Harpeth River, it was so metaphorically appropriate as to provoke disbelief. Upon encountering the same scenario in a novel, the reader would be warranted in grumbling, “Really? Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t we?”

That’s the hard, brilliant truth of this life: it comes on strong, in heaps and waves. Our trials don’t conveniently wait in line until the trouble before has been tidily resolved. There is much hope to be found in today, to be sure: my son’s exuberant teenage smile, full of braces and potential; the smell of Banana Chocolate Chip muffins baking; a homeschool math lesson finished without angst. But sometimes my soul needs a good power-washing, to have the doubts and fears blasted away by Something That Shouldn’t Be but is anyway.

All this playing in the dirt, raking and planting, planning and doing seemed impossible a few years ago. It certainly felt out of reach last summer, lying in an ICU bed without the strength to lift my own head. It never entered my small, unimaginative mind that my body would be restored to this extent. After four spinal fractures in two years and a suggested maximum lifting limit of ten pounds, here I am hauling around bags of garden soil and digging holes? Most people talk about back-breaking work, but back-broken work is an altogether different story. I am not pain-free, but I have mud under my fingernails and the promise of springtime. For me, that’s hope.

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Gifts

15 Thursday Mar 2012

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Growing up is hard. (I know this because, at age thirty-mumble, I am still in the midst of the process myself.) My precious teenage son has been feeling those growing pains mightily the last few months. He is a head taller than he was a year ago, but his physical growth has easily been outpaced by the changes required of his spirit, heart, and character. There is much more involved in the transition from boy to young man than buying longer jeans and beginning to care about how your hair looks.

We are both new at this: he’s never been fifteen before, and I’ve never parented a fifteen-year-old. Sometimes I have the advantage of others’ wisdom, gained from friends who are decorated veterans of the teen years, and from books on every subject of teen parenting: loving them and being loved by them; exploring their gifts and learning the challenges that are part of those gifts; setting appropriate boundaries and knowing when to bend so we don’t break. But just as often, I am making it up as I go along. I am treading carefully and prayerfully, encouraged by the company and guidance of my sweet husband, but I am absolutely winging it.

Since my own imperfection has long been established, it is no surprise that there are days when I mess up; I over-correct and underestimate, I raise my voice and don’t spend enough time on my knees. But I am trying my best to be present, to be thoughtful, to be unconditionally loving, to make the most of the fact that I am alive and able to do this because I recognize that is no small victory. And it is important to me that in the midst of all this correction and guidance, my firstborn remembers how very gifted and treasured he is. He has a set of grace-given talents and qualities that give him incredible potential, and I wanted to create something concrete that would remind him of those. The pages in this little art journal are the size of playing cards, but they are meant to communicate a big message.

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The envelope in the front contains a personal note to my son, letting him know how special he is to me and how much I appreciate him. It seemed only logical to embrace the growth theme with this art journal, so I used a lot of earth tones and nature imagery. The pages themselves are untreated canvas that I dry-brushed with acrylic paint before layering on rectangles of paper printed with trees, branches, and leaves.

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If there is one thing this journey to adulthood is about, it is embracing and understanding your imperfection. I tried to honor that in my design choices for the journal. I stayed away from perfect corners, hand-cutting the small squares of paper I used as decoration. I also left the edges of the canvas raw so they could fray with handling. (This is not meant as a subtle reference to my nerves, I promise.) I finished the pages by aging them unevenly with tea-colored ink and a little bit of sanding with fine grit sandpaper.

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In the future, I hope this mini-journal reminds my adult son of how those teen years turned out pretty well in the end. For now, I hope it shows him that even on the hardest days, in the midst of all this compromise and growth, it is my great privilege to be his mom.

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Storms

25 Saturday Feb 2012

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Is anyone else having one of those days? Actually, I think I’m having one of those weeks, the “when it rains it pours” kind that make me want to yell in frustration or stomp my feet, quite possibly both at the same time. For my family and those dearest to us, there have been more challenges than usual lately — many of them the wail-prompting, tear-stirring variety. These are not training-wheels sorts of days, these are all about wobbling and swerving while we try to keep our balance.

I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about things like yummy cheesecake brownies and delicate origami flowers, caramels from scratch and handmade valentines, and I really love making all of it. Creating keeps me aware and joyful, and it nourishes my body and mind. But I just want to be sure I am clear that these things are not born of a frivolous, unhurried life. My bookshelf holds dozens of beautiful art books, but right now I’m reading Boundaries with Teens; my calendar holds the promise of lunch with friends this weekend, but it also has appointments with the dentist and pediatric cardiologist. For me, cooking and crafting are ways of celebrating both the plenty and the drought and the lessons I learn from both.

I made the watercolor sketch above because it says what my words cannot manage right now. The corner of it tore when I ripped it from my sketchbook, and I think that feels just right, too. No matter the frustration or obstacles today might bring, whether these hours feel overwhelmingly full or acutely empty, I am prayerfully hopeful for you and me. With that in mind, I have my next few posts planned about lovely things like almond granola parfaits and collages with cork and batik fabric. I am enjoying my time preparing them, and I am excited to share what I’m doing with you, even when times are not simple for either of us.

Hope Collection

30 Monday Jan 2012

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I am a collector by nature. Not of anything obvious or mainstream, like stamps or rare coins, but of the things that inspire me: vintage valentines, old books and photographs, tiny resin flowers, and Japanese glass beads. I have a pair of antique opera glasses that thrill me with their aged mother-of-pearl, enamel, and brass, and the single-word inscription Paris. I have tucked away fall leaves that look as if each one was hand-watercolored, bits of wool and velvet ribbon, a handful of board game pieces smoothed and worn by the fingers of children who could easily have been my grandparents. None of them bear much monetary worth, but measured in sentiment and beauty, they have great value to me.

When I set out to make a birthday gift earlier this month for one of my dearest friends, I thought a lot about the items I have collected and what they mean to me. She is also a lover of history who understands how a connection to the past can give you steadier feet in the present. We have both had our share of challenges recently and discovered that there is great faith and hope to be found in the midst of pain and loss. I set out to build her a collection of items that symbolize hope to me, then give them words — a sort of visual and spiritual scavenger hunt.

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The container itself is a printer’s tray, sometimes also called a specimen tray, depending on whether you lean more toward bibliophile or biologist. I filled it with the kinds of things I think someone might make and collect over a lifetime, a very personalized sort of natural history museum: rocks and feathers, shells and dried flowers, bits of embroidery and handmade paper snowflakes.

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Underneath each smaller box is a Bible verse that links directly to the item above, so that each little compartment hides a secret message of encouragement. My hope is that after reading the verses a few times, just seeing the pieces of the collection will be enough to call to mind the words behind them.

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The most challenging task in the whole project was covering each of the 21 inner boxes, ranging in size from 1-1/2″ squares to 3″x6″ rectangles, with a half dozen layers of tissue paper, cardstock, and sealant. The vintage text and rich green, purple, and mustard are much more visually appealing to me than its original gray craft paper covering. It was detailed, time-consuming work, but it gave me plenty of time to plan the contents and verses. As is often the way with this kind of artwork, I was definitely blessed and encouraged myself by the process of creating it.

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Creativity

15 Sunday Jan 2012

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You will never hear a child say, “I’m just not creative.” That declaration is reserved entirely for adults. Why? I don’t think we really mean we are incapable of imagining or making something new. But sometimes it is hard to separate being creative from how others will perceive our creations. The older we get, the more we feel the pressure of measuring up, and the weight of such expectation can stop us in our tracks.

I am certainly not immune — if anything, it might be the opposite. I have always been the artsy type, but I still have to make a deliberate decision to be creative. It gives me pause every time I am about to hit the “publish” button on this blog or show someone my most recent painting. I can do it only when I remember that, for me, the value of creativity is found in processing, sharing, and encouraging, of putting joy above judgement. (If I had named this blog “created for success,” it would probably be empty. :)

And I still have so much to learn… the little tree pictured above is proof of that. It is made out of humble materials — a toilet paper tube, copy paper, a bit of recycled gift wrap and some glitter glue — but it is such a mighty statement about the power of creativity. It was made by an inmate named Shannon at the Tennessee Prison for Women. It encourages me so much to know she found a way to be creative with limited resources, in the midst of circumstances that could easily foster only anger and despair.

Shannon believes passionately in the hope and possibility that come from creativity, and she pursues that passion and encourages others in it, despite where she is. What a beautiful reminder that being creative is not about showing off, it’s about showing up. Shannon’s art proves that imagination and inspiration exist outside of our imperfection, and I am so grateful for that.

Angela’s Sugar and Spice Pecans

01 Sunday Jan 2012

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It takes courage to cook for me. Severe food allergies can make the kitchen feel like a minefield — it requires a lot of attention to detail on the cook’s part (and a lot of trust on mine) to voluntarily enter this realm of label reading and ingredient monitoring. I love to cook and I love to feed other people, so I can understand that it must be frustrating to my friends and family for me to feel so off-limits when it comes to any kind of culinary care-giving.

This recipe is delicious, but it will always be among my favorites because it’s the first food gift anyone ever gave me after the onset of my food allergies in 2007. Angela certainly knew what she was getting into — she’s seen me through dozens of anaphylaxis episodes over the years and has even had the dubious honor of administering my epi-pen. It takes a real friend to stab you in the thigh with a syringe; it takes an even better one to make you food afterward, when she knows what’s at stake.

These only require a handful of ingredients, but the results are snacking perfection: salty-sweet, satisfyingly crunchy, warm with cinnamon and allspice. They have the added bonus of being gluten-free, sulfite-free, and stress-free. Everyone loves them, even the self-professed nut-haters. (You know who you are.)

For me, this recipe is just the right way to start off the new year because they are all about Possibility. The beautiful thing about hope is that it can bloom so unexpectedly: after a long, dark winter, in the midst of life’s compost. It can even come in the shape of a cellophane bag full of spiced pecans. When you make and share this recipe, I hope you can also share in a little piece of the comfort and faith they represent for me.

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Angela’s Sugar and Spice Pecans
makes 3 cups

1 large egg white
3/4 c. granulated sugar or vanilla sugar (see these Recipe Notes for vanilla sugar how-to)
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
3/4 tsp. salt (not coarse)
3 c. pecans

Oven 250F. In medium mixing bowl, beat egg white with whisk or electric mixer until it holds stiff peaks. In separate small mixing bowl, stir together sugar, salt, cinnamon, and allspice until thoroughly mixed. Fold pecans into egg white until they are coated. Don’t stir too energetically, you don’t want to lose all that air you just whipped into the egg white. Sprinkle in the sugar-spice mixture, stirring until all pecans are thoroughly coated with thick, gooey cinnamon yum. (That’s a very technical cooking term, I know. ;)

Spread out pecans in even layer on large parchment-lined baking sheet. (You can try it without parchment, but butter your baking sheet copiously and get someone else to do the dishes.) Bake for 45 minutes, stirring thoroughly every 15 minutes with silicon spatula to bring the gooey bits to the surface. Add an extra 15 minutes baking time if they are not crispy and dry at the end of the 45 minutes; if your oven doesn’t maintain low temperatures well, it may take longer. Allow to cool on baking sheet completely before eating or storing in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 weeks.

Quick tip: this recipe easily doubles, just use larger bowls to mix and bake for a full hour. If you make more than a double batch, bake on two cookie sheets to be sure your layer of nuts is not too thick.

Prayers and wishes for a healthy, happy, fulfilling 2012 for you and yours. :)

Leftovers Fairy

24 Saturday Dec 2011

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As I’ve mentioned before, I love a good bout of organizing and order, and in general I am not one to hoard things away just in case. (After all, my name is actually in the phrase “spring cleaning…”) However, all that goes out the window when it comes to art. My family knows I’ve got first dibs on all empty bottles, tins, and interesting cardboard containers, and my studio features lovingly sorted, labelled drawers full of what others might consider trash: out-of-date maps, vintage greeting cards, pages from encyclopedias older than me, and rusty hinges, just to name a few. I respect and value the daily ephemera of the past, and I hate to waste anything that might one day find new life in a piece of art.

Enter the Leftovers Fairy. He’s a charming, slightly odd little fellow made from a blob of polymer clay left over from the Truth Rocks project. His other features are made from bits and bobs lying around the studio after I made a few Clockwork Cthulhus. The Leftovers Fairy is the patron saint of waste not, want not. He loves listening to cover bands and taking long, moonlit walks at the flea market. His favorite foods are wilted chard, bits of chicken stuck to the bottom of the roasting pan, and slightly stale brownies. He believes in the importance of cleaning your plate and saving your recyclables, and some day he would love to settle down with a nice lady fairy made from popsicle sticks, dryer lint, and glitter.

I think I’m in love. :)