I miss the way you used to wander in
slowly, almost unsure
(not rushing to a midnight-secret rendezvous)
with your sweet breath against my skin, fingers ruffling my curls
and music, always music;
soothing away the tensions of the day

these days
you rush in
like a degenerative disease
stealing away light and life in the middle of a breath
(we wrap our sweaters tighter,
wish for steaming mugs to hold between our hands,
finally give up and go inside)
you whisper dark promises of long nights

I miss the way you used to come to me on tiptoe.

——————

This is how I feel about the depressing midwinter season, when the daylight leaves us too early and waits too long to reappear. I wrote it about this time last year when I wanted to be sitting out on our little Peace Porch reading a book and listening to the creek and the frogs and crickets as the evening turns slowly, slowly into night. I’d like that right now.

Malin, realizing the seriousness of insulting another female’s appearance, quickly pipes up with, “I don’t know how you can tell the difference, Avery. She doesn’t look any older.”

Then a little while later, she smiled at me all sweet and grown-up and said, “I just love spoiling my mommy and daddy – with words.”

You don’t have to be familiar with the term “internet cafe” in order to create your own.

Excited to have a new “camp staff kid” around.

The night a shrinky-dink-making party spontaneously upgraded to a dress-up tea party.

1. Christmastime (Michael W. Smith) – I’ve put this album on repeat and let it play all evening without getting tired of it. A very happy collection of Christmas songs.

2. Christmas (Rebecca St. James) – I’m not typically a Rebecca St. James fan, (she sounds too pop-princess for me) but I do love this CD. It’s upbeat and fun to listen to really loud when I’m all alone. My favorite track is One Small Child  (I also really like her CD If I Had One Chance to Tell You Something, but that doesn’t belong on this list.)

3. Tradition: Holiday Songs Old and New (the Burns Sisters) –  With the exception of the very irritating Children Go Where I Send Thee, I’ve loved this CD for years. It’s folksy; if you liked country music before it morphed into pop, you’ll appreciate this.

4. Snow Angels (Over the Rhine) – My new favorite. It doesn’t feel so Christmas-y that you can only pull it out after Thanksgiving. It’s intelligent music, kind of jazzy; I’ve been listening to it for months.

5. City on a Hill: It’s Christmas Time – Good Christmas music from intelligent Christians who write quality songs.

6. A Slugs and Bugs Christmas (Randall Goodgame and Andrew Peterson) – If it says “Slugs and Bugs” on it, it’s gotta be good music. These are songs that make the kids smile and dance and sing along without getting on a parent’s nerves. My personal favorite is the Camel Song. My favorite favorite track is the Camel Conversation. Randall and Andrew’s dialogues make me laugh out loud.

7. A Neighborly Christmas (Drew Holcombe and the Neighbors) – A new one for me this year that I picked up for free on Noisetrade. (They would love for you to download it too. I know this. They told me in an email.) The first few songs make me feel like hanging stockings and sipping cocoa with Ernest Hemingway. I will say: I despise track #6 – it sounds like something Mariah Carey would sing – in a fluffy red bikini. Delete this one immediately – or… suffer through the inanity if you prefer.

8. Behold the Lamb of God (Andrew Peterson) – I love this album simply for the song “Matthew’s Begats.”  Anyone who can put the genealogy of Jesus into a catchy and humorous song that gets stuck in my head head gets my vote for genius of the month.

9.  A Very Veggie Christmas (VeggieTales) – Our family has listened to this Christmas-extravaganza-on-a-disc repeatedly and we (even the parents!) don’t get tired of it.

10. Christmas (Michael W. Smith) – I know. I just put MWS on this list twice. I never listen to his music any other time of the year, but he makes great Christmas music. I used to disregard this CD as a weird choral album. And then I started listening more closely.

alternate: Joy: A Holiday Collection (Jewel) – Listen to this for the beautiful Ave Maria and the quirky Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer. She also sings I Wonder as I Wander. That’s a song that doesn’t appear on very many Christmas albums.

* Bonus! *
Noel (Josh Groban) – I haven’t heard anything off this album yet, but the man has a beautiful voice, which I think would be just perfect for Christmas music. One of these days, I’ll buy it…

This is my first attempt at a quilt, and I’d like to keep it small. Are these colors too… weird for a baby quilt? I fell in love with the fabric (the picture may be too small for you to see all the sweet yellow birds) and just decided to make something. I still need to figure out a border… and the back… and a purpose for the blanket. I have ideas.

 Broccoli Cauliflower Salad

8-10 strips bacon
1 head cauliflower
1 bunch broccoli
1 c. mayonnaise
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. milk
1/4 c. diced onion

Break cauliflower and broccoli into small pieces. Crumble bacon; stir in. Combine mayo, sugar, milk and onion. Stir into broccoli and cauliflower; mix well. Refrigerate until chilled.

Zucchini Casserole

2 medium zucchini
1 large onion
2 medium tomatoes
5-6 slices butter
1/2 – 1 c. shredded mozzarella cheese

Dice vegetables. Mix well in a baking dish and season to taste with salt and pepper. Place butter on top of casserole; bake at 375 for 1 hour. Add mozzarella cheese during last 20 minutes of baking.

Someone asked me this summer what I think is the hardest thing about living here at Bethel Camp. I came up with an answer, but later I realized that it wasn’t quite true. One of the hardest things for Roger and me is missing out on fresh garden produce all summer long. We love to cook in the summer. We love to eat in the summer. And it’s the simple things we love the most. Fresh corn on the cob, tomato sandwiches, zucchini casserole, salads with lettuce from our garden, sauteed kale, fried yellow squash, fried green tomatoes. (I haven’t had a fried green tomato yet this year!)  If we weren’t completely consumed by summer camp, we’d have a big garden and spend evenings and mornings working in it together. We’d snap green beans and freeze them, and can tomato juice.

But it’s a small sacrifice really. I wouldn’t trade all the garden produce in the world for the fact that my husband has a job that he can pour his whole heart and soul into. My children eat canned vegetables all during the best weeks of the summer gardening season, but they’re surrounded daily by the godly influence of the incredible people on our summer staff.

And… we still have a little bit of summer left. Tomorrow maybe I’ll go check our neglected garden and see if I can find some tomatoes. We have friends who share their garden produce with us. And there’s always the produce stand in Jackson…

There’s my confession: I like boys with long hair.

I’m also the mom who snaps at my kids when they decide to tuck their shirts in: “Get your shirt out of your pants. That looks tacky!”

I was laying here asleep when I realized that I had been hearing a sporadic sound – a clunk or a click – like someone tapping a couple of sheets of paper on a tabletop. My first rational thought was, maybe the air conditioner froze up. I’ve seen it happen. Old air conditioners work too hard and they get chunks of ice in them that crack and fall out. So I got up and went out to the living room. The air conditioner (which isn’t very old) seemed to be working just fine; but I turned it off anyway.

And then I heard the tapping sound behind me; like a big, hard-shelled bug hitting a window pane or a tv screen. But it was coming from the direction of the fish tank. So I turned on the light and looked in the fish tank and… discovered the source of  my nighttime frustration.The boys had brought in a scary-looking crawdad to keep our goldfish and minnows company. He’s bright orange and about 4 inches long. The crazy thing had a hold of a big pebble and was knocking it against the glass of the fish tank, which just happens to be on the other side of the wall from the head of our bed.

Who gets woken up in the night by a crawdad anyway? Just when you start taking it for granted that your kids are going to let you sleep through the night…

(I apologize for the photo. I have no idea how to take a clear, well-lit photo through fish tank water.)

“…in my experience miracles never bother a realist. It is not miracles that incline a realist towards faith. The true realist, if he is not a believer, will invariably find within himself the strength and the ability not to believe in miracles either, and if a miracle stands before him as an incontrovertible fact, he will sooner disbelieve his senses than admit that fact. And even if he does admit it, it will be as a fact of nature, but one that until now has been obscure to him. In the realist it is not faith that is born of miracles, but miracles of faith. Once the realist believes, his realism inexorably compels him to admit miracles too. The Apostle Thomas declared that he would not believe until he saw, and when he saw, said: ‘My Lord and my God.’ Was it the miracle that had made him believe? The likeliest explanation is that it was not, and that he came to believe for the sole reason that he wanted to believe and, perhaps, in the inmost corners of his being already fully believed, even when he said: ‘Except I shall see … I will not believe.”   -Fyodor Dostoyevsky from The Brothers Karamozov