the roast, a true story

I drizzled a roast with olive oil, surrounded it with baby red potatoes, carrots, and onions.  Sprinkled seasonings all over and covered the pan with foil.  I baked it at 325 for about 2 hours.  It smelled divine. 

The roast came out of the oven to rest while I cooked up some frozen mixed vegetables in a pan on the stovetop.  And I went and watched some Jeopardy. 

When I came back to the kitchen to check the vegetables I realized I had turned on the wrong burner, the front burner glowed red hot, with a corner of the glass pan that held the roast resting on the burner.  I turned off the burner and carefully slid the pan off the glowing red element. 

I began carving the roast on a cutting board just to the right of the stove.  It was juicy.  I could tell it would be flavorful but I didn't nibble.  I wanted to save that first bite till when everything was ready and I could savor it.

With a crack the glass pan exploded into bits, I screamed, my arm stung from the glass bits, a piece of the roast now sat on the floor amid shards of glass.  The stovetop was covered in hot pan drippings and broken glass. 

Amazingly, I didn't get cut or burned.  But the roast was ruined.  The vegetables were ruined.  I wanted to cry over my stupidity the waste of all that food.  So my husband did what only the greatest husband would do.  He went to Dairy Queen and got us Blizzards for dinner.

The end.

the day before the day before

It is the day before, the day before a brand new year starts.  The sun is shining and it is really a beautiful day.  The ground is frozen in places and the air is cold and crisp.  There was an earthquake here last night, measuring 4.3-4.8 depending on the source.  So, that's exciting.  I was very much asleep at the time and didn't wake up at all.

I broke open the pumpkins I had grown over the summer, the ones I displayed on the front step all through the fall and all of December.  I broke them open with a big rock and left them in the garden for the chickens.  They were not interested.

Blake and I had a date today after wrestling practice.  We had lunch at our favorite Mexican place, Esteban's.  He told me that the guys were trying to talk with him after practice and he kept telling them he had to go because he had a date.  They laughed when he told them the date was with his mom.  I thought it was pretty cool.

Austin is off with his girlfriend's family for the day.  They headed to the mountain to go sledding.  The other day he went with friends and tried snowboarding for the first time.  He was sore but he said it was really fun.

Aaron is crabbing today.  I don't think I've mentioned it before but he has been crabbing commercially as the commercial season permits.  The captain that he works with is the owner of the restaurant that I work at.  I don't know if it's "normal" to love a job such as crabbing, but Aaron does.  He loves being out on the boat.  He loves the wildlife that he gets to see.

Here we are on Christmas Day (even wearing our matching Wildcat Wrestling hoodies)....

 

 

 

In honor of the approaching new year I have begun my 2016 reading list.  I even stopped in at the library today and requested a few to begin with.  I plan on re-reading The Book Thief this year.  Last year Aaron got me my very own copy from a library in Ireland!!  This excites me to the core.  I also plan to read and actually finish George Orwell's 1984.  I'm fascinated by the concept but for various reasons haven't read it through yet.  Ah, a new year and new reading goals!

 

First up:  The Big Tiny: A Built-It-Myself Memoir

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome 2016!!  Please be kind.

 

Happy new year everyone!

 

 

 



of December

The year is winding down in a flurry of Christmas songs and gift exchanges.

I'll be glad to see it go.  I've not lived a harder year.

The final days can come and bring with them the joy of the season, celebrating the ONE who died for me (and you!).

Then, the new year will dawn and I will embrace it like a long lost friend.

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We don't have plans for Christmas.  We'll just lay low at home, exchange gifts and probably stay in our pajamas all day.  We'll eat homemade cinnamon rolls and drink coffee.  We'll have a ham dinner in the afternoon.

Earlier this month Aaron and I went downtown to the tree lighting.  It was bitterly cold but there's something about the festivity and the small town that makes braving the cold worth it.  We walked around a bit, into Popsies (the best old-fashioned candy store EVER!) and into the Holiday Market where they're selling handmade things from local artists and we snagged a cup of hot cider (and spotted a Christmas present for our younger son).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also this month we were honored to attend a Naval Change-of-Command ceremony, in which one of our friends was being promoted to Commanding Officer.  The ceremony was held in this old theatre which is still used as a movie theatre on the Navy base.  I played with the photo a bit to make it look like how I imagined (if only that modern red pickup weren't in the picture).  Austin and 5 other ROTC members were the Color Guard for the ceremony and represented the high school very well.  Aaron and I thoroughly enjoyed the ceremony and the traditions that are honored and upheld.

 

Our Christmas tree is so beautiful this year.  We bought it at the Lions' Club tree lot which was a first for us as we usually cut our own tree up in the mountains or from a tree farm.  As we decorated the tree, Blake commented that he really likes our decorations because they are so diverse and eclectic.  They really are!  There are decorations we hang every year that I've had since I was a kid.  Some of the decorations are the ones the boys made when they were little.  Some are the original decorations from our first tree of our married life.  Not much matches but it is colorful and sparkly and full of memories, just like I like it.

 

 

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Our boys are both very vested in their individual sports.  Blake is wrestling on the varsity team and doing really, really well.  As a freshman on varsity, most of his matches are against seniors but he holds his own.  I love watching his skill and his control and the lessons he learns through defeat.  This weekend he wrestled in a tournament with 16 schools.  He earned 3rd place for his weight class and his team earned 2nd place overall.

 

Austin recently shot in a ROTC competition.  We got to be there and watch him shoot his three positions.  It's difficult to see the actual shots in the targets without a scope but it's amazing to watch him shoot nonetheless.  He has amazing control and focus.  In the picture below you can see the targets, what you can't see is the tiny white circle in the center of each black circle that they are actually aiming at.  Also in the picture you can see Austin in most of his precision gear (minus the jacket).  And you can see his girlfriend, Elena.  We like her.

 

 

The offhand position.

The kneeling position.  This is Austin's best.

 

 

 

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My employers threw a generous Christmas party.  We were spoiled with great food.  I'm thankful (as I've said before) for Christian employers.  These people are genuinely kind and loving and I really can't even begin to tell you all the ways they've been a blessing to Aaron and I.  I'm thankful for my co-workers too.  We are a colorful bunch and, like a family, we might not always get along, but we always help each other out.

 

This is me and my Elyse, enjoying the hot chocolate bar!

 

 

 

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currently

reading... 84 by George Orwell

watching...  Bones season 10 on Netflix

trying...  to write a little something everyday: poetry, paragraphs, or just a line

cooking...  Hamburger stew in the crockpot, homemade bread

doing...  headed to the playoff football game at the high school here in just a bit (yay, for small town football games!)

going...  on a Costco run tomorrow before my shift at work

loving...  the way God works in lives, in amazing and miraculous ways, and when we least expect it

discovering...  the swiftness in which chickens can "work" a garden.  I cleaned it out and handed it over to the hens for the season.  They've already accomplished so much.

enjoying...  doing puzzles with my husband.  We just finished another, our 5th in two months.

thinking...  does doing puzzles instead of going out mean we're boring?

feeling...  I feel very boring.

listening...  the wind is cold and really blowing tonight.  It's going to be a cold football game!!

celebrating...  youngest son's football season is officially over, and the first quarter of school is ending next week, and good things are happening at church, and I really feel like God is going to do some pretty awesome stuff in the next little bit.

smelling...  fresh baked bread (Heaven!)

moments in a library

I sat in a chair, in a beam of sunlight, in a room full of tall windows.  The orange sunlight of early evening shone through the orange, yellow, and red leaves of the tree outside making it look like a stained glass window.  Or stained glass windows are made to look like sunshine through autumn leaves. 

For a small public library in a small island town there were many people milling around.  I wondered where it was they were not going.  Why were they here instead? 

The man there, reading the newspaper, was he just biding time till something else?  The woman in the boho dress and Ugg style boots that I caught inspecting the pattern on her own sleeve, she didn't seem to be fully engrossed in this moment, was her mind elsewhere?  The older woman who pulled out some purple knitting from her tote bag and set to work, why did she choose to knit here, in the little library, in the little island town?  Another woman walked to her, beginning a conversation from a few strides away, without hesitation or apology or invitation pulling the nearest chair over, creating a ninety degree angle between them both.

If someone were to set eyes on me in that moment they would have seen a tired woman, laptop open in front of her, listening to something through earbuds connected to the cell phone at her side.  Her hair disheveled, eyes framed in worry as she occasionally sighed and looked up from her glowing screen, gazing out the window, lost in thought.

My mind in those moments was wandering the streets of delusions, paranoia, organized crime, family responsibility, and the fine line between what a mind can believe is truth and actual truth.  And again, my sensitive heart feels everything on a deeper level so I'm stricken with worry.  There is a struggle in the mind that can be easily dismissed by lack of compassion or understanding.  But I understand.  I understand the darkness that blurs reality.  I know that it can become massive and overpowering, and perhaps I only understand a fraction of it through personal experience but I know enough to not be able to dismiss it.

Little libraries in little towns close mighty early.  I packed up my things, took one last look around, and headed for the door.  Outside the air was crisp, the sun fading.  Autumn is in full glory in the Pacific Northwest. 

fading garden

 

 

The garden is making her descent.  I've all but left it to itself now, weeds growing abundantly, tomato plants growing haphazardly, zucchini plants yellowed and wilted but still taking up space.  It's just a matter of time and I will be in there pulling out dead sunflower plants, ripping out the pumpkin vines.  But still, when I take the time to see, to really see, there is beauty in the fading.

 

The sweet pea vines are green, leaves open to catching raindrops and putting them on display.

 

 

Pods hang, ready to be picked.  They are sweet and crunchy at this stage.

 

 

Some of the flower seeds I had planted are showing forth in vibrant color.

The contrast of this delicate pink flower with the wilted sunflower leaves captures perfectly what I wanted to convey.  The garden is almost spent but still there is life.

 

Adding to the swift dismissal of the gardening season is the fact that I can't keep one smart chicken out of the garden.  Nuggets is the only hen that knows how to jump the little garden fence and she wanders around in there munching on the collard green leaves, leaving behind evidences of her visit, such as a soft feather that dances in the slightest breeze.

 

 

The last sunflowers are not near as bright and lively as the first.

But they are still beautiful in their fading.

 

in early September

It was a Friday in early September.  Leaves just turning.  Air just beginning to feel thinner, cooler.  The boys were both in school for the first time in the history of us.  He wanted to get in some salmon fishing.  I tagged along.  The beach is beautiful.  And there is hiking.  And the sun was shining.

 

I hiked along a trail in the woods just off the beach and found spider webs abounding.  Each delicate web was filled with tiny drops of water.  They looked like little bits of lace decorating the bushes.

 

 

 

As I trod along the worn trail, I breathe deeply.  There is a scent in the woods that is hard to describe.  It is the decay on the forest floor, the leaves and tree needles mingling together as they are broken down by insects, rain, and heat, by the cycle of nighttime to day.  I love that smell.  I love how it all fits together, the symbiosis in creation. 

Back at the beach... I found this bit of moss.  It's complexity demanded to be captured.  I like it's texture contrasted by the grayed driftwood. 

 

 

I laid in the sun on the warm rocks and listened to the waves sweeping in and out.  The tide crept closer to where I lay and I eventually had to scoot away a few more feet.  I hooked Charlie to my foot and laughed out loud when I caught sight of him.

 

That's an interesting way to wear your leash, Charlie!