in a manger

"And she brought forth her first born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes,  and laid him in a manger."    Luke 2:7

I brought this nativity set home from a visit I made to Israel about 35 years ago when I was a college student. It's made from the wood of an olive tree.

When I saw the olive wood nativity sets for sale there, I thought that would be the perfect souvenir and I looked carefully for just the right one that was in my price range. I hated having to bargain for a price, but endured it to get what I wanted. It looks kind of crude now. But at the time I was thrilled to find it.

I’ve put it out every Christmas since that time.

Having a nativity set that kids can handle is a good idea, but in spite of that, one wise man has lost his hand somehow.

Baby Jesus also had to get a new bed because his disappeared. His original manger was an oval shape with notched edges. My mother gave this one to me when she saw my poor Jesus with no bed. It’s from a nativity set she got in Mexico. Isn’t that just like a mom? I wonder where her poor baby sleeps.

Giving Thanks

Even if the Pilgrims hadn’t started things, harvest time is naturally a thanks giving time. Spade and I are in the autumn of our lives and that’s a harvest time too. We have a few different kinds of harvest going on right now.

One is the fruit on our citrus trees. It’s not a bounty you can put aside to keep yourself alive all winter, but we love our orange juice - or tangerine or tangelo or grapefruit - whatever happens to be ripe from now on for the next few months.

Spade’s like the Little Red Hen who made bread after she grew the wheat and ground it into flour. He planted the trees, keeps them alive and healthy with fertilizer, water, pruning and cold protection. Then he picks the fruit and brings it in the house, where he usually squeezes the juice out. (And even cleans the mess up too!!) That juice is so sweet, and how it comes to us makes it all the better. I’m grateful for it, and for Spade and his work.

I get a miniature thanksgiving feeling when I bring groceries home from the store. I have nothing to do with producing the food, but I’m so thankful while I unpack the bags and fill the refrigerator and pantry. If I happen to have stopped for gas in the car on my way home from the grocery store, then I have double the gratitude. We can eat. We can go somewhere. That’s security and freedom. And I love that feeling.

I’ve been straightening up the house today and I feel so thankful when I look around at it. I like our house, and I’m thankful for it, and I also have a sense of satisfaction when I see the order and cleanliness that my work has created. I like the results of my work. That’s a kind of harvest. It’s nice to step back and admire what I’ve accomplished.

Another harvest is the one from the work we've done in our family.  The hardest and most satisfying work we've ever done was raising our children. And the best part is that they aren’t messed up. :) Well, that's a bit of an understatement. And we’re thankful for that every single day.

We'll be counting our blessings on Thursday and enjoying a feast with family and friends. But we can find harvests and blessings in the normal events of every normal day. There are enough to bring a thankful feeling every day of the year. I hope we remember to do that.

Shine on

“There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of even one small candle.”          

Robert Alden

Fast Food

Tali uses just five ingredients to make a great breakfast sandwich that you can be feasting on within five minutes of walking into the kitchen.

You need a couple of eggs, a slice of ham, a slice of cheese, butter and an English muffin.

Break the eggs into a small microwave safe bowl, and stir them with a fork.

Then, put the English muffin in the toaster.

Now put the eggs in the microwave and cook for about a minute.

Slice the cheese.

When the English muffins are toasted, butter them.

When the eggs come out of the microwave, they are in a cute round shape, perfect for an English muffin sandwich. You can melt the cheese a little by putting it into the bowl with the warm eggs for a second or two.

Then, assemble your sandwich. Eggs, ham and cheese on the buttered English muffin.

Fast! Easy! Tasty!

Busy

He's grown about 10 inches and gained nearly 20 lbs.

He's learned to pick up tiny objects using his thumb and forefinger, and has invented a language of his very own.

All in just one year.

Happy Birthday Wally!

One In One Out

Do I love it? Does it fit? Have I used it lately?

I’m cleaning out my closet, and what doesn’t make me happy is going out. If I haven’t used it, if I don’t feel great in it, if I don’t love it, out it goes!

Parting with my clothes is painful! Especially things I’ve enjoyed but that aren’t useful anymore. But at the same time it’s a relief - I enjoy a neat closet and when I clean it, I usually find some long lost stuff.

My husband has a one in, one out policy in his closet. When he gets something new, he gets rid of something old. His side of the closet is balanced. I want mine orderly and color coordinated! I might be in the one in, three out state of closet organization, but I'm determined to find out if less is more.

As I’ve been sorting through my clothes, I started to get the idea of sorting through my habits. How about tossing out the thoughts that don’t make me happy, or just aren’t what I want to be like. Too bad changing habits is a bit harder than changing a shirt!

OK, what habits should I toss? Complaining. No, criticizing. No, worry. Being mean. Being sarcastic. Well, I have a nice list of negative thinking to choose from.

Usually I don’t even notice that my mind is full of dark/sad/mean thoughts, and then I suddenly find myself in the middle of a sad day and I might even be making it a sad day for somebody else!

So how do you wake up and throw out those thoughts and non-thoughts? Waiting for them to show up and then using hand to hand combat to toss them out seems like a slow way to make changes. What if I don’t have a chance to get mad today? Or nobody makes a mistake for me to criticize?

The one in one out idea might be just the thing for my dark thoughts. What would happen if I get my mind so full of the positive that there’s no room for darkness to sneak in? In with the happy, out with the sad!

I’ll try Alex Haley’s motto, “find the good and praise it” and apply it everywhere, to people, to the weather, to whatever happens today.

I knew of a man who hummed a hymn to himself when he felt angry. He looked like a happy guy. And he was. He was a guy who was keeping the door locked and bolted against emotions and thoughts he didn’t want.

Instead of fighting negativity, I’m going to keep my mental closet so full of kind, cheerful and optimistic thoughts that there’s no room for whiney, mean, sad ones.

There really is so much good all around every day, it shouldn’t be hard to find it. That quest actually sounds kind of pleasant.

So it’s one in one out for me. With clothes, habits, thoughts, whatever I feel like changing.

another ratatouille moment

Spade recently came across another favorite treat from his childhood and this one is courtesy of Angie also. It seems some of his favorite foods had skipped a generation, from his mom, past me and showing up again with our daughter-in-law. (Not that I didn't try!)

Here are Angie's Ginger Cookies

Measure these dry ingredients into a large bowl:
4 ½ Cups flour
4 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
¼ t salt

In a mixing bowl, cream together:
1 ½ cup shortening
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
½ cup molasses

Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture.
Form the dough into balls about an inch in diameter.
Put about ¾ c sugar in a bowl and roll the cookies in the sugar before placing them on a cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 for 8-9 min. (Mine seem to take a couple minutes longer than that.)

This makes a big batch of cookies. After I cook one cookie sheet full, I form the rest of the dough into balls, roll them in sugar and place them on waxed paper on a baking sheet, then put that in the freezer for a couple of hours. When the cookie dough is frozen, I put all the frozen dough balls in a large zip lock bag and keep it in the freezer.


Then, when we're in the mood for cookies, I just put the frozen cookies on a cookie sheet, pop it in the oven and cook it for a minute or two longer than unfrozen dough would cook.

Having a bag of frozen cookie dough in the freezer is a great thing that lets you go from hungry for a cookie to eating a warm one in about 15 minutes time.

now you tell me

When I was growing up, macaroni and cheese was not on the menu. But since it is was a favorite in Spade's family, I've made it often for the last 32 years.








I've used the same recipe, with minor variations, these past many years and never felt a need to venture from it. Then last week I came across a recipe that Angie had copied for me from the New York Times a couple of years ago. It had been sitting in my notebook untried when I came across it and I suddenly felt like doing something new.

Everyone loved the results and later Spade told me that that was just like his mother used to make and he liked it more than my faithful recipe that I've been using for three decades. :)

It's not the creamy dish I usually make, but it's plenty cheesy with a nice crispy cheesy crust on top.

I don't have the link to the original recipe, I'll just copy it for you the way Angie did for me.

Crusty Macaroni and Cheese

Time: 1 hr 15 minutes
Yield 8 to 12 servings

3 tablespoons butter
12 ounces extra sharp cheddar cheese, coarsely grated
12 ounces American cheese or cheddar cheese, coarsely grated
1 pound elbow pasta, boiled in salt water until just tender, drained and rinsed under cold water
1/8 teaspoon cayenne (optional)
salt
2/3 cup whole milk

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Use one tablespoon butter to thickly grease a 9 x 13 baking dish. Combine grated cheese and set aside two heaping cups for topping.

2. In a large bowl, toss together the pasta, cheeses, cayenne (if using) and salt to taste. Place in prepared pan and evenly pour milk over surface. Sprinkle reserved cheese on top, dot with remaining butter and bake, uncovered, 45 minutes. Raise heat to 400 degrees and bake 15 to 20 minutes more until crusty on top and bottom.

The menu we eat is pretty simple and we do it almost the same time after time. We have the macaroni and cheese along with broccoli and canned stewed tomatoes. (or canned diced tomatoes or one of the variations of canned tomatoes). It sounds so boring when I write it out, but it's really a favorite meal and doing it just this way is a familiar ritual we always enjoy.

Except that now I don't have to make the white sauce and melt the cheese! After all these years! I'm loving the change!

happy birthday joelle

the world is a brighter place since you came along

friends

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
Marcel Proust

a quarter of a century!

For a quarter of a century we've enjoyed our front row seats watching the adventures of Tali.

We're looking forward to what the next quarter century will bring.

But for today, we wish her a very happy birthday.

when the wrong road is the right road

Greg Mortenson took the wrong path while hiking down from his failed attempt to climb the Himalayan mountain K2, and it changed his life.

He was weak and ill because he had spent three days and all his strength to help rescue a fellow climber. After that effort, he realized he could not recover his strength enough to safely attempt to climb the summit. He decided to head back down to the town where he had set out from three months before.

During seven days of walking, he became separated from his porter. He missed the turn to civilization and instead found himself in a tiny remote village, the first foreigner ever to enter there.

The villagers welcomed him warmly, generously shared their meager food and shelter, and Greg began to recover his strength.

As he became stronger, he gave what he could to the villagers. He distributed the possessions from his pack, the nalgene bottles and flashlights, the camping stove, his warm clothing. But what was of most help to the villagers was Greg's nursing skills. He used the medical supplies he'd brought and his training as a trauma nurse to help with all manner of health problems among the villagers. He became known and is still known as "Dr Greg."

It was when he visited the village "school" that Greg Mortenson found the way he really could show his gratitude to the villagers for their kindness to him, and it has become his life's mission. He saw the children of the village meeting in the open air, sitting on the ground, copying their multiplication tables in the dirt with sticks. He saw their eager desire to learn and felt his "heart was being torn out."

That day Greg, who had only enough money to pay for his trip back to California, promised to return to the village and build a school.

Three Cups of Tea is the story of how Greg accomplished that. And of how in the process, he has been kidnapped, has received death threats, and even fatwas issued by angry mullahs. In spite of all this Greg has gathered the resources and found the people to build not only the school in the village of Korphe, but 178 schools in villages in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and has also set up many schools in refugee camps.

This is the story of a determined man who has really given his heart to his project of helping people in remote areas whose own governments have neglected them. It's an exciting adventure as well as a heartwarming tale of sacrifice and work.

In the 16 years since he strayed off the trail, Greg's work has served 28,000 students and is still growing - this month he opened a new school in Afghanistan. Adm. Mike Mullen, the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was there, and so was Thomas Friedman. You can read about it here.

Greg's approach could be summed up by this bit of wisdom. "When your heart speaks, take good notes." As his heart has spoken, not only his life, but many others' as well, have been profoundly changed.

Three Cups of Tea is written by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin and published by Penguin Books.

she's golden

Happy golden birthday to our golden girl.

She's much more than a ray of sunshine in our lives.

dive buddies

From our trip to the Bahamas

happiness is a bowl of cherries

When I was a child I loved to climb any tree, but to climb a cherry tree was pretty much to climb to heaven.

My grandparents had cherry trees in their yard and I would take a bucket to put some cherries in, but instead of filling the container, I'd sit in the tree and feast on cherries until I couldn't eat any more.

I'm still inclined to eat too many cherries, and I while I do it, to think back to those happy times in a tree surrounded with that sweet, juicy fruit.

birthday donuts

I would guess that most parents are pretty sure, from the moment their daughter is born, that there will never be anyone good enough to be her boyfriend, and certainly not her husband. We sure felt that way. Until we met Paul.

Happy Birthday to our favorite son-in-law.

Too bad you're not here to help us eat the donuts.

Answers

Prayer
Eliza M Hickok

I know not by what methods rare
But this I know, God answers prayer.
I know that He has given His Word,
Which tells me prayer is always heard,
And will be answered, soon or late.
And so I pray and calmly wait.
I know not if the blessing sought
Will come in just the way I thought;
But leave my prayers with Him alone,
Whose will is wiser than my own,
Assured that He will grant my quest,
Or send some answer far more blest.

Eliza M. Hickok, “Prayer,” The Best Loved Religious Poems, ed. James Gilchrist Lawson, New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1933, p. 160

Ezra Taft Benson (1899-1994) memorized this poem as a boy growing up in Idaho and he used to quote it from time to time when he became a church leader. I always enjoyed hearing it.

Lost and Found

You wouldn't expect to discover a great recipe in an orthodontist's office, but that's where I found the recipe that foreshadowed this Asian Pasta. I was browsing through a magazine when a recipe caught my eye and I hurriedly scribbled it into a little notebook I had with me. I tried it out right away and we loved it. I thought my sister-in-law would love it, but I procrastinated sending it to her, and then, before we could even enjoy the recipe a second time, I lost it!

At the next orthodontist appointment I looked for the magazine and it wasn't there. Then I looked for the magazine in the library with no luck. I pined for it and really regretted that I hadn't shared the recipe when I first thought of it. (Always share your recipes, you'll know who to call when you can't find one!) I wished I'd typed it out and added it to my recipe book. And I started a quest to find that recipe somehow.

It was several years later when I discovered a similar recipe in the newspaper and we've been enjoying it ever since. Every time I make it I'm glad I was able to discover it a second time.

Asian Pasta
Ingredients:
1 (8 oz) pkg linguine

1 chicken breast or two thighs, cooked and cubed

1 bunch green onions (about 1/2 C)
about half a pint of grape tomatoes halved or 3 med tomatoes to make about 1 cup diced
2 med ribs celery (about 3/4 C)
1 med cucumber (about 3/4 C)
(or try some other vegetables, like carrots, and/or sweet pepper)

Sauce
1/4 C vegetable oil
3 tablespoons peanut butter
1/4 C soy sauce
1/4 C sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar or white vinegar
a half inch piece of ginger, minced and crushed or 1 t ground ginger
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper or to taste

Garnish
1/4 C unsalted peanuts, chopped

Directions:
Cook Linguine acccording to package directions.

Chop vegetables and place in 3 qt serving bowl along with the chicken.

Mix all sauce ingredients together until smooth. Set aside until pasta is done.

Chop the peanuts and set aside.

When pasta is tender, drain and add to bowl with veggies and chicken. Then pour the sauce over it and stir it all together. Sprinkle the chopped peanuts over the mixture and serve right away.

This makes a nice meal for four. For our family of six, I always doubled it.

We served this last week when our neighbors came over for dinner, and I left the sugar out of the sauce. It tasted fine. So you can cut the sugar down to nothing if you'd like, without ruining the flavor at all.

roommates with recipes

One of the good things about having kids go away to school (and I have to admit that I hate it that my kids have gone off to school, or gone off anywhere for that matter -- in my perfect world they'd stay right here with Mommy forever. :) ) But anyway, they do it and one of the good things about that is getting to meet their roommates and friends.

It's been so interesting to see the friends from time to time over the years and if we don't see them, then to hear about their lives and jobs and families and adventures, etc.

Some of these friends have found a place in my kitchen as well as my heart. Tali's been especially good at teaching me the cooking tricks and recipes she's learned from her roommates. She made some very tasty brownies for Mother's day and they're easy to do. It was basically a doctored up brownie mix, but you could use your favorite recipe and doctor it if you wanted to.

Presenting: Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Brownies

You can use your usual brownie recipe or get any brownie mix you like. Prepare it according to the package directions. When you have the batter ready, take a knife and dab pea sized globs of peanut butter in the bottom of the pan. Imagine where you'll be cutting the pieces and put one or two globs in each piece.

Then spread the brownie batter into the pan. Now sprinkle chocolate chips over the batter. I don't know how much she used, but I'd start with 1/4 cup and see how that looks. I also might try the bittersweet chips, just because I'm so addicted to dark chocolate. The tiny chips are especially good for sprinkling over things. Or regular chips could be chopped into little bits...

Bake according to the package directions.

That's it!

Delicious!!

Father is another name for love

Earlier this week, when Barack Obama was asked to compare his duties as a parent to those of the President of the United States, he responded, “There’s nothing more fun than being a father.”

And nothing more important.

Here's a beautiful tribute from a son about his father, made in about 544 BC.

"...my father... was a just man -- for he taught me in his language, and in the nurture and admonition of the Lord -- and blessed be the name of my God for it--
...and the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart."

Enos wrote this about his father Jacob, who had been a prophet and teacher. (Book of Mormon p136.) It's not surprising that Enos became a spiritual leader and teacher as well.

And blessed be the name of God for all the men who are caring for and influencing the children of today in ways that will lead them to live happy and productive lives. There's nothing the world needs more than that right now.

As William Wordsworth said, "Father! - to God himself we cannot give a holier name."