Monday, September 29, 2014

busy day tomorrow so posting this tonight



"We stand in the midst of nourishment and we starve. We dwell in the land of plenty, yet we persist on going hungry. Not only do we dwell in the land of plenty; we have the capacity to be filled with the utter fullness of God (Eph 3:16-19). In the light of such possibility, what happens? Why do we drag our hearts? Lock up our souls? Why do we limp? Why do we straddle issues? Why do we live feebly, so dimply? Why aren't we saints?
Each of us could come up with individual answers to all these questions, but I want to suggest here a common cause. The reason we live so dimly and with such divided hearts is that we have never really learned how to be present with quality to God, to self, to others, to experiences and events, to all created things. We have never learned to gather up the crumbs of whatever appears in our path at every moment. We meet all these lovely gifts only half there. Presence is what we are all starving for. Real Presence! We are too busy to be present, too blind to see the nourishment and salvation in the crumbs of life, the experiences of each moment. Yet the secret of daily life is this: There are no leftovers.

There is nothing - no thing, no person, no experience, no thought, no joy or pain - that cannot be harvested and used for nourishment on our journey to God." (A Tree Full of Angels by Macrina Wiederkehr)


monday cooking


While waiting for my books for class to return from the coffee shop, I have been cooking. 
Emma has them : The Scarlett Letter and Caring for Words. Now she is home and the books are back. I need to get ready  for class tomorrow  but here is what I cooked this morning. Raining so the coffee shop was full. A local coffee shop not the one who has pumpkin lattes. Emma loves their Chai latte.

Quiona Apple cake : served to myself with homemade whipped cream and a cup of cream 
earl grey tea

Recipe from Home Made Winter by Yvette van Boven

It is a beautiful cookbook to read and taste.





From Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequiest
Breakfast Cookies ( I keep on hand all the time when I have need a cookie)


Breakfast Cookies
from Bread & Wine
Serves 12

3 large ripe bananas, well mashed (about 1 1/2 C)
1/4 C coconut oil warmed to a liquid (you can also substitute olive oil)
1 t vanilla
1 C rolled oats
2/3 C almond meal
1/2 t baking powder
2/3 C shredded coconut
1/2 C chopped walnuts
1/4 C chocolate chips

Instructions:

In a large bowl, mash the bananas with a fork, then add in coconut oil and vanilla.

Add the oats, almond meal, salt, and baking powder, and stir until combined.  Add the coconut, walnuts, and chocolate chips, and stir again.

Form the dough into 12 balls on a parchment-lined baking sheet and flatten them a little bit.  Bake at 350 degrees for 14 to 16 minutes.


THEN made homemade chicken broth and Pumpkin Black Bean Soup for lunch. .
Good eatings here today on a rainy Monday. 

More on Reading Well chapter in Caring for Words  soon. 

Friday, September 26, 2014

Pretty for Fall



Cabbages & Roses Rivoli Dress and Annabel Dress


Cabbages & Roses Priest Coat
don't you love the dog.....!

Cabbages & Roses Red Button Back Dress


ANTHROPOGIE 


Westwind Poncho
Shawled Wool Sweater Coat

50's or 60's shaped coat

Punch Dot Cocoon Coat

Octubre Pullover

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Updates on favorite authors



Wendell Berry in American Conservative: Where have the young  farmers  gone?

As Wendell Berry points out inRemembering and other books, the modern industrialized farm is isolating and stringently efficient, cutting the beauty, diversity, and community out of farming in favor of profit. 

Wendell Berry At Kentucky Book Fair, 15 November 2014

Wendell Berry will attend the 2014 Kentucky Book Fair and sign copies of his latest title, Distant Neighbors: The Selected Letters of Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder.

Meeting Wendell Berry recently : here ( and not me, I did in May) Good quotes: 

I first observed from Berry the necessity to treat writing as a discipline.  

Wendell Berry to speak in Atlanta on November 7th. 

SAMLA 86: Sustainability and the Humanities



Jan Karon is done being on the road with Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good


Excerpt from Mary Oliver's book coming out next month: Blue Horses







“The Hummingbirds”
In this book
there are many hummingbirds—
the blue-throated, the bumblebee, the calliope,
the cinnamon, the Lucifer, and of course
the ruby-throated.
Imagine!
Well, that’s all you can do.
For they’re swift as the wind
and they fly, not across the pages but,
like many shy and other-wordly things,
between them.
I know you’ll keep looking now that I’ve told you.
I’m hungry to see them too, but I can’t
hold them back even for a moment, they’re
busy, as all things are, with their own lives.
So all I can do is let you know
they’re here somewhere.
All I can do is tell you
by putting my own hunger on the page.


Wednesday, September 24, 2014

What does the " A " look like?


.... in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore, and which was of a splendour in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony.


I am just imagining what the A looked like and don't think any of these really do what Hawthorne wrote it to be. Maybe the middle A:





I have spent the afternoon  reading THE OUTERMOST HOUSE and two chapters
of The Scarlett Letter .The area around Boston is rich in literary history. 

 Assignment: write a character sketch of Hester or Pearl. 

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Edges of Autumn today


Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends

into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don't say
it's easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?

So let us go on, cheerfully enough,
this and every crisping day,

though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.
from her collection, A Thousand Mornings

Monday, September 22, 2014

murmur


Noun:
a soft, indistinct sound made by a person or group of people speaking quietly or at a distance.


Verb
say something in a low, soft, or indistinct voice.



This word also means to complain. Sometimes Mondays feel like murmur. 
Now I have music on.  Spotify. Coldplay's newest album. 
It seems all about Gwyneth.  This last song is beautiful. 
Their music always, always lifts me up.






Need to listen to U2's download with Iphone 6. 
Mercies were new this morning.
I count on them.  
I am counting on His promises. 
Have had good nourishing weekends full of good conversations and good food
and loveliness in the places. 

Halfway through The Sacred Year by Michael Yankoski. 
ON the day it was released he wrote on his blog: 

Looking back, I’m so very thankful for the chance to live and to write The Sacred Year. I have put into it everything I know about writing, everything I know about the power of story and metaphor and narrative, everything I know about the truth and beauty and goodness the Creator God has woven into the very fabric of the universe, everything I hope and believe about the Good News of the Kingdom of God that is coming into our world. -


Then today my daughter went to the coffee shop and came back with a bowl
of Chick Fil A chicken soup. We sat at the island eating and sharing the first 
page of the next chapter of The Scarlett Letter. She had one word 
that crossed books she is reading . ( Longitude by Dava Sobel and I think the word
was ignamious : public shame/disgrace)  She pictured Hester Prynne right there coming 
out of prison with her  A and how Hawthorne wrote the scene. Internalizing 
a world without redemption and grace......

no murmurs from Hester yet.....

Autumn is here!









Thursday, September 18, 2014

almost friday and the weekend


Enjoy some beauty this weekend!


owls-n-elderberries:

mist details by serni on Flickr.


Wednesday, September 17, 2014

books in the reading pile



For class:


For me to use for this reading:


Slow reading for my students and this is excellent:


In my list of geography books for my class:


I finished this book last week and really liked it. The cover glows in the dark!


Next book club read:


AND this lovely book came yesterday and I started it:


Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

to a wedding


Heading on a jet plane to a wedding this weekend. 
Be back on Monday.



Friday, September 5, 2014

Sights from the week



1. feathers - many through the week in my path, even in a drawer. Today ,  I found beautifully patterned ones  on a walk around a lake. Ducks and geese. There is a heron who was there last week.  I would love to find one of his feathers. He seems to be a guy as he stood by the edge with ducks around him. Not afraid and scoping out the territory. 


“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all ...
 ( Emily Dickinson)



2. leaves - they seem to be turning and falling. I collected them on a walk and stuffed
them in my pocket. 


THE LEAVES, like women, interchange
  Sagacious confidence;
Somewhat of nods, and somewhat of
  Portentous inference,
              ( Emily Dickinson)


3. books: a pile from the library sale shelves and the most thrilling are these three:

 Tree Book by Julia Ellen Rogers. ( look up her name and find her books online at Project Gutenberg) I found this edition and below is another edition






Wild Flowers by Neltje Blanchan
 I found this copy  and this is not my photo. Her books are beautifully illustrated and online also.  Below is another edition





Those were 3.00 each. I had found a Kate Seredy book in the children's room and almost screamed with joy : 20 cents.  
I have collected her books for two decades and think I have already have this book and no dust jacket:



Last night the book I am almost finished with GLOWED in the dark. Glowed a bookstore.!

Thursday, September 4, 2014

It is almost friday. Need some beauty


 a new month:

 



My old house had dormers. It was a Cape Cod. This is from tumblr
and there is so much sunshine streaming in. I love the two windows
and the window ledge. 



another beautiful window:





Monday, September 1, 2014

school starts tomorrow



Heading into American History.....


“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery




"The Boyhood of Sir Walter Raleigh" by Millais


Choir starts too for my daughter and of course, I get a call at 6:00 to monitor the lobby  tomorrow . All month. hump..... I would like to be 
in that painting.  I will be gone all day. Somewhere along the way, I do 
believe a Starbucks might be necessary.