Appetite of Living

Nerds

2012-01-27T22:44:00.000-08:00

Upon re-reading the below post, I thought maybe it would be good to clarify that I don't really have anything against nerds because my dad is actually a nerd so if it wasn't for nerds I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be the woman I am today without the nerds in my life. And I was homeschooled, so pretty much I was/still am a nerd. I think you can kind of understand the effect I was going for, though...

Thankful things

2012-01-27T22:37:00.000-08:00

...for Sharalyn, our new roommate. I couldn't have asked for a more different replacement for Sarah, but at the same time, I don't think I could have asked for a better replacement! Love you already, Sharalyn!

...For how this just confirms to me again how it is when God works on His time, not mine. And when it's God's time, it just fits so beautifully.

...For last night. It was clear, cold. The thin sliver of moon shone out over the Christmas tree farm and the stars looked so clear and different than they do in the winter. Fierce, almost touchable. The cold haze glowed on the horizon.

...For the beginnings of an answer to prayer. Did you know that I've pretty much never had confidence in playing piano? Kinda ironic when you figure I majored in piano in college. I'm becoming more aware that this lack of confidence is the chasm that separates me from being the kind of player I could potentially be. I didn't realize how much negative self-talk I gave into when I'm playing. Pretty much my internal commentary during practice goes something like: "You're making a mistake. It's not good enough. You can't make that run. You aren't able to play those octaves or those chords. You aren't ever going to be able to play that right. You aren't ever going to be able to play it up to speed...." On and on. This made me make more mistakes and then contributed to the horrible tension problem I have in my playing. I didn't even realize this is what was going on in my head! So I prayed about it! Why did I wait like 10 years to pray about this? I prayed that God would give me confidence in my playing. I think maybe I was afraid to pray this because I thought that confidence=arrogance and this is simply not true. The confidence from God is a confidence in what I am able to do because God has gifted me. It's a confidence in the Lord. And it was really cool, yesterday I couldn't stay away from the piano! I haven't been this stoked about practicing since I was a junior in high school! And the music started to flow. The tension left. The songs started getting "into" my hands. And then, I'm starting to pray whenever those negative words creep into my head. I'm just saying, "Lord, help!" Can't begin to explain the difference it makes. It's not a cure, but a process and I feel like things are actually going forward instead of staying the same.

...For a longer-term direction in life. My dear friend Melissa came over last night and we were talking about where we felt God was taking us, and I shared with her how last year, I felt that God was calling me to be content where I was and to go deeper. So last year I really focused on investing in my friends and getting more involved in my church and doing things in the context I was in. But after the new year, I really feel the Lord pulling me in a different direction. I'm not as content in my church right now and even not super content to stay put here in my hometown. I'm not sure why, but I think it's the beginning of a process towards a change in my life. Then all of a sudden, the thought of going to grad school that I've flirted with for the past 3 years has started to become a real goal. My piano teacher is starting to work with me to help me get an audition for next spring together (a year from now). I'm excited about the pieces: a Chopin Ballade, a Bach French Suite, and possibly a Prokofiev Sonata. Big stuff (except maybe the Bach), super cool stuff. Right now I'm thinking about Portland State but we'll see where God leads. Or maybe this is just a place to be for now and I won't actually go. At least it's giving me a vision for the next 3 years or so and maybe this restlessness I'm feeling is getting me ready to uproot to Portland for awhile. Who knows.

...For running! I'm training for my first marathon (eeep!!!!), so far training is going great. Ran my first "real" long run last weekend at 11 miles and hope to make 12 this weekend. My friend Jen's younger brother has been running with me once as week, and that's been great because he's going to be in the Marines so that means that we run FAST, or actually he runs really slow and I pant to keep up. I feel like a puffing armadillo with him, but the challenge is super and it also sounds really cool to say, "I just went running with a Marine". Just so long as they don't post the video on facebook, my hardcore image is preserved.

...For a new haircut that has given me a new outlook on life! I just chopped basically all my hair off. It's never been this short before. I just went in and did it. At first, I was ready to cry because i thought it looked horrible and ugly. I felt like I no longer knew myself. Also, I guess I secretly thought my long hair has been the one pretty and schmexy thing about myself and then it was taken away, leaving me as some kind of matronly/adolescent/unisex creature that can only attract puny little nervous nerd guys with full-on beards and tucked-in button up shirts. I'm starting to live with it now - it's helping me discover a new aspect to my personality (how introspective can ya get??) and maybe I won't be stuck with the puny nerd guy after all. I think I can pull "cute" off better with short hair so that's a plus.

Thankful for a lot,

Karen

The Pleasures of Cooking for One - review

2012-01-19T22:36:00.000-08:00

While at a closeout sale for a bookstore (which made me sad - another indication of the shift from paper to electronic. But who am I to bemoan this from a blog post of all things?), I saw this book on sale and the title captured me instantly. A few flips through the page, and I was sold.

Judith Jones was the editor for Julia Child's cookbooks. This book explains how she, as a single woman cooks for herself, and does so in a way that recognizes the importance of the entire process of cooking, from shopping for quality ingredients, to preparing with love and consideration, to consuming in style. Basically, it is a single person's retort to the T.V. dinner.

Most valuable from this book has been the philosophy she presents, a philosophy of reusing a dish to make new ones, which she calls "reincarnations". This was a revolutionary idea for me, which motivated the whole chicken episode that I blogged about yesterday. Rather than making a single dish out of a single boneless, skinless chicken breast, why not roast a whole chicken, then make delicious, unique meals from the leftovers? After all, buying a whole chicken is often more cost-effective than a bag of frozen chicken breasts and tastes better, too. When cooking, Judith likes to use up what she already has and shop with potential reincarnated dishes in mind. This is a wonderful approach because just about any single person who cooks will tell you the most annoying thing in the world is a refrigerator full of molding leftovers or spoiling ingredients.

Second most valuable are her reductions of everyday recipes. I have used her crepe recipe to make a delicious breakfast for myself without leftovers, and I didn't have to do a bunch of math to reduce the recipe myself. Not only that, but her recipes are good. I consider myself able to put together a decent stir fry for myself without a recipe, but her pork stir-fry recipe was amazing. Interesting, too was that she writes from the perspective of someone who cooks and shops seasonally and locally from New England. This unique viewpoint has been refreshing - crepes are delicious when layered with yogurt and maple syrup, and a maple-syrup flavored panna cotta is a great way to use up some milk approaching its expiration date. Also, I tend to cook mostly with olive oil, but she cooks mostly with butter, more Julia Child-esque, I suppose. It's been good to realize you can cook with butter and still cook nutritiously.

For the single person who desires to step up their cooking a notch and do it in a way that works with their lifestyle, I highly recommend this book, not only for the great recipes, but also for the creative and inspirational advice, from ways to store cream sauce and herbs to ways to use up leftover milk. It's also fun to drool over the pictures and fantisize about a lifestyle that could include a weekly trip to an artisan cheese shop. Even two people living together could probably still benefit from this book as I think two people still deal with similar cooking challenges that one person faces.

Trying to stay dry and thankful for a warm and cozy little home,

Karen

1 chicken, 1 week

2012-01-18T23:42:00.000-08:00

So I'm trying to see how well I can make "real food" for myself while still being busy and single.

Actually, when it comes to food, it's so wonderful being single...if I feel like eating cold cereal for dinner all week long, I can and no one can stop me! And if I want to stay up until 9 PM making a fancy meal, no one's going to complain that dinner isn't ready yet. It's great.

I still try to make healthy choices, though, and make stuff from scratch as much as possible. It can get hard when I work until 7PM many weeknights and come home tired and hungry and not at all motivated to cook something from scratch.

I hope to spend a few posts explaining how I get around these unique cooking barriers. Here's the first thing I did this month and it has been great.

I went to Roth's the first weekend in January and picked up a whole chicken for about $5. I usually use the humble boneless skinless chicken breast for my chickenly needs, but I really, REALLY like bone-in chicken better and was craving a whole roasted chicken.

I took the chicken home and cut off the drumsticks and used those to make Tagine (the north african dish I ate a lot of over Christmas...I brought home the special pot you need to make Tagine). That lasted me two meals.

Then I roasted the remainder of the chicken whole. I got this great rub that I rubbed under the skin first from a great cookbook I'll talk more about in a later post called "The Pleasures of Cooking for One." I roasted the chicken with the typical Root Vegetables that Get Roasted With Chicken and Stuff. (you know, carrots, potatoes, onions....) I did it during the day since I had some time and then ate some of it for lunch. Third meal with said chicken.

Oh, but before I roasted the chicken I cut out the entire backbone so the chicken would cook faster and because I wanted chicken noodle soup. So the next day, I tossed the rest of the veggies, the chicken back, and some more appropriate veggies for chicken soup into the crock-pot and left it on for the day. Upon arriving home, I stuck some rice noodles in the broth, plus some of the cut-up white meat from the roasted chicken. I ate that for dinner and then the following lunch. Fourth and Fifth meal with the same chicken. Then I froze the two remaining portions of the soup in tupperware containers so that when I come home tired and hungry, i just have to nuke one of the giant chicken noodle soup cubes and have warm soup for dinner. Brilliant. I've already done this before with leftover bean soup and pumpkin soup. So potentially two more meals with the chicken, making 7 meals total so far.

Then I made chicken quesadillas with some cut-up wing meat for a quick lunch on the go one day.... 8.

And one night I added some cheese, taco sauce, and salsa to more cut up meat all in a whole wheat tortilla and had chicken tacos....9. Yeah, culinary prowess and brilliance right here....

And one morning I made an omelet with more of the cut-up chicken and a slice of bacon.... yum...9...

And I think I had a chicken sandwich with a pickle somewhere in there as well. I think that was the day of the first round of chicken noodle soup....11....

Then I made this AMAZING lentil salad that I'll have to share sometime. It's great. I cut up the rest of the chicken and mixed it in with the lentils, quinoa, and veggies tossed with vinegrette. That has lasted me three meals so far and I think I have enough for one more. 15.

How cool is that? Pretty much a whole week's worth of lunches and dinners, all from one chicken that I got on sale at Roth's! Of course, I am a little chickened out right now, but again, everything was different enough that it stayed pretty interesting and no one else was there to complain about there being chicken again. I think if I ever get married it will be an adjustment. Maybe I'll just tell my husband to shut up and be thankful he's getting food, even if it's quinoa and lentils for the 17th time in a row....pretty sure I'm going to be *that* kind of cook....

Happily stuck in a rut,

Karen

Another update...

2012-01-03T01:59:00.001-08:00

This is just a quick update on how Spain has been.

I really like Spain a lot. The first reason I think I like it so much is the food is awesome. We have had no bad food here. I'm sure it's because it all has pleanty of fat and salt and stuff!

We brought in the new year in the Plaza del Sol, the center of Madrid, with thousands of drunk Madridians and tourists. We ate 12 grapes with every stroke of the clock at midnight, the traditional way to ring in the new year.

So far, some of our favorite things have been wandering the Sol at night with it all lit up for Christmas, seeing the sunset at the site of an Egyptian temple that was transported here from Egypt as a thank you to Spain for helping restore the Pyramids, and seeing Toledo, a small city just south of Madrid that is still intact like it was back in Medieval times. It's been a wonderful time and I only wish there was more time to go further into the country and see Barcelona and other places. However, I'm starting to get sick of living out of a suitcase and will be happy to return home and jump back into daily life! Thanks everyone for your prayers and I'm looking forward to being back in a place where I'm no longer a minority! Haha!

Happy 2012,

Karen

Update like 5 I think....

2011-12-29T16:03:00.000-08:00

Some more snapshots....

Riding a horse and buggy to the tannery!

The tannery didn't smell too great, but we had a fun quick tour in english!

One of many mosques

Playing dress-up with a friend's caftan.

We did balloon twisting...I think we popped more than we actually successfully twisted, but that's OK!

Intense and gory balloon battles ensued....

Balloon flower princess...

We love the variety of emotion and personality represented in this photo!

Getting bored while playing Twister on the roof....

Last full day in this town. We went to a cafe with an upstairs balcony so we could spy on people and eat lovely food! This is Tajine. I am still not tired of it yet!

Last fresh squeezed orange juice. It's only $1 for two of us to have a glass each.

Had some friends over for banana pancakes and we had so much fun talking and laughing!

I can't believe I'm leaving tomorrow. How sad. Tomorrow begins our adventures in Spain.... so with that, adios, chicos y chicas! Hasta la vista! :)

Karen

Update 4 - Christmas edition!

2011-12-26T13:51:00.000-08:00

A few snapshots of a North African Christmas!

Making Christmas Bread without gluten.

Christmas Eve celebration where we got together with some local women and shared our Christmas traditions with them!

Playing Christmas songs for everyone

Merry Christmas Morning! We went to the Sunday Souk (basically Arab Farmer's Market) to get vegetables. We could also have bought live goats or cows or sheep if we had so desired.

Our happy little Christmas tree!

Greatly excited about all the Christmas presents sent from people at home - Country music cd was one of the favorites!

All the loot + gluten free christmas bread!

It amazes me that in this country, I have seen people living as primitively as they did when Jesus was born, yet a few hours away is a completely modern city, complete with Pizza Hut and Micky D's.

We went to the beach city for Christmas and were able to worship with other believers and the next day spent time being rich tourists at the tourist town!

This is like the most hoopla I've seen yet about Christmas/New Year's, but that's just because there are so many tourists here!

Also were able to visit Laura's old language teacher from last time she was here, which was a very fun time! Why do I get to meet such wonderful people; it's horrible because I meet them, love them, and then have to leave forever! :(

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends like we did, even though I still am not convinced that it is Christmas due to the dusty dry and sunny weather! :) Oh well, in a few days we'll get our Christmas weather in Madrid! :)

Karen

Update 3

2011-12-23T14:50:00.000-08:00

Our day....

Fresh squeezed orange juice. We were tourists today.

Beautiful garden just outside the city wall.

Spent part of an afternoon with this cheesy girl!

Exploring the wide world of shiny earrings.....

Travelogue Update #2

2011-12-22T14:25:00.000-08:00

Just a few pictures of the last day and a half or so...

Language lesson....or cramming while waiting for the language teacher to answer the door....

Enjoying the souk and the jalaba shop!

Santa baby....this is about the only representation of the holiday to be found..and it's chinese.

This is how I cook Tajine...haha, I'm just posing really but don't tell anyone.

Tajine with chicken and fries!

Me with the kids at a stop on our way to the mountains. We stopped because we were all getting carsick.

Laura with the kids in a little house in the mountains. Love the sombrero or whatever it is that is taking up about half of this picture!

This represents 89.7% of our day.

Beautiful place, so remote that many natives of this country don't know that there are still people who live here like this, so similar to how they lived during Jesus' time.

Guess that's all for now,

Karen

Travelogue Update 1

2011-12-21T01:36:00.000-08:00

Hello! I am now safely in northern Africa! In between the 3 AM car ride to the airport and the moment Laura and I were finally at her house was about 32 hrs of traveling, including a car ride, four plane flights, a city bus ride, two taxi rides, and a walk to my sister's house. I am now thoroughly sick of airplanes and am happy to see them as jetstreams in the sky, and no closer! :) I met a few interesting people on the "long" flight to Madrid from Philly, and I felt very attached to the people in my flight by the end - we were 2.5 hours longer with each other than anticipated since our plane had a problem with the wheel that needed fixed so we were that much longer waiting to take off. I was concerned this would complicate my Ryanair connection in Madrid, but there was a nice couple sharing the row with me, and the man was from Spain. He knew the airport well and explained to me how to get to the Ryanair luggage desk easily so that helped calm my fears. :)

It was so good to see Laura! We walked a ways to the city bus stop that would take us to the taxi cab place. Before catching the bus I really needed to use the bathroom, so we found a place I could use - of course it was a "squatty"! That was a fun experience! No, really, it was! :) It was fun to travel like the locals, even though we got mixed up on the bus and had to pay twice since we got on at the wrong point. Then we went to the grocery store near the taxi cab place (I was so hungry that it was the most divine grocery store I've ever seen!), and after buying popscicles, we found a taxi that would take us to Laura's town. They wanted to fill the taxi completely (meaning 6 passangers in the Mercedes), and there were only 5 of us going to the same place, so we had a bit of a wait. I dozed and Laura played with an alleycat. Finally we found someone who also wanted to go where we were going (yay), and two ladies stuffed themselves with Laura and I in the back seat of the car and two men sat in front with the driver. The journey would take 4 hrs. normally, but since taxi drivers are fast, it only takes 3 hrs. by taxi. Other than feeling slightly cramped at the end, it was not a bad way to travel. For one, you don't need a seatbelt since you're so crowded and for two, if you're sleepy, it's more comfortable to doze in the car while being smashed since you won't roll around very much. It's quite beautiful here. We went through some mountains and it looks a lot like Los Angeles. I kept expecting to see "Hollywood" on one of the mountains.

The sun was in my eyes. I was happy that I had packed my sunglasses, until i pulled them out, and found out they were broken...sniff...

They still work!

Once we made it to Laura's town, it was dark and we were still a half hour walk from her house, so we found a taxi that would take us to her house, but we only had enough money to make it most of the way there, so we finished the journey by foot. Even though it was dark, it still feels very safe around here. Actually, everywhere we were felt safe to me. People look out for each other a lot here. Laura said to walk around in the dark after 9 isn't a good idea, but other than that it is quite fine. Of course the traffic around is crazy (esp. in the main town I flew into), with people jaywalking everywhere and horns honking and bikes and motorbikes going as fast as they can. Makes crossing the street a little more complicated, but again, it's not as scary as you might think....people are actually expecting things to be crossing the street, so they honk at you and give you just the amount of space you need.. :)

Laura has a nice little apartment. Our popsicles didn't go very far, so we were starving when we got home! We had water and peanuts and popcorn and oranges grown locally! Yum! They were good!. Then we got out the nutella because nutella spread on popcorn is great (read: a great way to get nutella in your mouth..). I slept very well (hope that happens again tonight!), and now Laura is teaching the kids school as I write this. There was just some drums and singing goin on in the street. They were all dressed up. Very fun.

Well, I'll try to keep you all posted. It's going to be a grand time already, I can tell. The kids Laura teaches are so cute, and the parents are very nice. I already don't ever want to come home! :)

Karen

In 30 hours...

2011-12-17T20:58:00.000-08:00

I will be leaving!

To have a Christmas like no other!

With my sister in Africa!

We are SOO excited!

My bags are packed! One backpack is my Santa Claus bag, full of surprises and goodies for my sister and the families over there with her. The other bag is my stuff. I'm trying to travel light. I'm only taking about 15 pounds of stuff besides the santa claus bag (which will come back full of stuff for people on THIS end, I'm sure!), so we'll see how that goes! Last time I traveled internationally, I had like this huge 50 pound bag plus another mid sized bag and a purse and who knows what other kinds of crap, so at least my airport experience will be much more agile and swift. I'm all over that....I just might have to wear all of my sister's clothes once I get there, ha!

Had a recital this afternoon for my piano students. Went so well. I'm so proud of them. I'm so blessed. 28 students - never thought I could handle that many but God is good. I started teaching when I was 15 and have always had students since, so if my math is right, this is the 8th Christmas recital I've had. I still get nervous for them! :)

God is good! Praise Him for sending Jesus! This year, I was struck at the fact that Jesus was a BABY. I held a little baby boy this summer, so little, so fragile, so dependent, helpless, such a little blank slate. It's been fun to see that little baby boy grow over the fall and start to develop a little personality and be more aware of his surroundings and make connections and grow in strength and coordination....but to think that the God who created and upholds the universe, not considering this great kingship of God as something to keep holding onto, but became one of us, a little baby just like that, with a developing personality and a helpless little thing that needs every one of his needs met for him....and became a humble common man, and became humble enough to suffer the death of a criminal....all for us. Jesus became a criminal for us.

And we are healed.

Thank you Lord.

Karen

What's your look?

2011-12-06T22:47:00.001-08:00

So when visiting my sister, she commented about how I have a "look". And now that I think about it, that makes me smile all over, to think that I have a "look". The word "look" was used in a positive context....because of course I've been hugely famous for bad "looks" in the past.... :D

What's your "look"? Do you even think you have a "look"? See, I didn't really think about my look before, I think what my sister was referring to was that day I was wearing a beanie I'd knitted along with some skinny jeans and chacos and a scarf with a solid color top. Somehow, that is apparently my look. Perhaps I'll post a picture someday so you can all fully visualize what my look is.

What even makes your look? I suppose your look could be those clothing items you can't live without. OR maybe they are the clothing combinations that best exemplify your lifestyle. I think up until Theresa commented on my look, I thought it was mostly made-up: a combo of pictures from catalogs that contain clothes I can't afford. I think my actual look is goodwill special, therefore there is a major discrepancy between my look in my head and my look in reality.

Anyway, I like to think that my look is practical, comfortable, active, and most certainly NOT formal! Dressing up for work for me is a nice knit top with a pair of non-stained jeans! Dressing up to the point of discomfort involves high heels and a dress and eyeshadow. I'm learning to be proud of the fact that this is me.

To top off this very random fashion post (perhaps my first ever fashion post, and perhaps also my last), here are pictures that represent my four favorite clothing items:

Chacos! These aren't mine, but the double strap style is my fav. My chacos go with me literally everywhere. They have gone around the world and to the top of mountains and to the end of the ocean and even to church.

Cardigans! Want to wear something that's for weather that is warmer than what is outside? Slap on a cardigan! Feel like your top or dress is a little too skimpy for your taste? Slap on a cardigan! Want to tone down a bright top? Slap on a cardigan! D'ya think I over-use them? That's your problem, not mine!

I like scarves that look like this one. Again, do you need to dress up an outfit? Slap on a scarf! Feeling too monochromatic? Slap on a brightly colored scarf! Cold? Slap on a scarf! Feel like you're wearing the same thing day after day? Slap on a scarf and no one will tell that it's the same purple top you've worn for the past 8 months! (I literally am guilty of this one...ok so I don't wear the same purple top for 8 mo straight, but I wear this same purple top like every 4th day for the past three months...gasp. Don't tell anyone I told you this).

OK, minus the heels but yes...I bought a pair of skinny jeans and now I like them a lot, contrary to some VEHEMENT things that came out of my mouth even a few months ago about how they'd make my butt look big, how they're just bringing back the 80s and 90s, how I was scarred for life by wearing taper leg jeans as a kid (but of course ALL of us wore taper leg jeans back in the day...) yada, yada, yada....well, never say never! I think the truth is that jeans don't really make your butt look big...I think if you're butt's big, it's big and if you're wearing jeans (as opposed to a skirt or something), you're already showcasing this fact and you might as well accept it and move on. And they make me feel skinny when I wear them because even though I might have a big butt (promise that's the last reference to this piece of anatomy....) I have nice skinny calves that not all the populace has and skinny jeans make the most of this. At any rate...I own them, wear them, and love them now!

OK, hey, another blog post at 11:30 pm! However, several hours later I'm still on the computer for the first time today! ha! except for today, this whole "computer is on only one time a day" thing works pretty well for my procrastination!

Go forth and wear your "look",

Karen

Discoveries in Portland

2011-11-27T08:46:00.001-08:00

My friend and I spent the day in Portland. Our goal was to do something different and adventurous. Someone suggested Forest Park, so we packed up our bikes and headed over. We didn't know what to expect, and we were amazed and in awe of this massive park that is basically a natural rainforest right smack next door to downtown Portland. Our bikes still had road tires since when we heard the word "park" we thought a la Portland Park Blocks. Instead, we ended up spending over two hours trying to mountain bike on our road tires. Sometimes frustrating, but really fun and a great workout. Totally coming back to Forest Park for trail running, hiking, or mountain biking with my mountain bike tires on!

After our time in Forest Park, after having caught some breathtaking glimpses on the way over of Mt. Hood and the Columbia River, we decided to just wander Portland and see what we found. We went over the St. John's bridge that we had traversed almost five months ago on the STP. We went through the community of St. John's and then wandered our way past University of Portland. The neighborhood surrounding U of P is gorgous! Old unique houses kept up so well, and many with stunning waterfront views. If I was ever able to afford such a place, I'd move there fast!

We then wandered our way past the Rose Garden and found ourselves in the Pearl District. Upon parking and walking around, we found a great swimsuit shop on 11th street called Popina Swimwear boutique. Tons of cute suits, and such a great variety. Many of the suits are made by a local designer and sewn right in Portland. For all that, they weren't horribly priced. Most of the suits ran around 80 bucks, depending on what you got.

By this point it was 3 and we hadn't had lunch, so we were ravenous! We spied the Deschutes Brewery and decided to give it a try. Seems to be a touristy type of place, but we split the Yellow Belly burger on their menu which was touted to be the best burger anywhere, and actually I know it sounds trite to agree, but it was indeed a great burger with a normal patty plus pulled pork, goat cheese, and lots of other things.

AND! We got ourselves out of the Pearl District with no problems at all! No confused wanderings or missed exits! We just drove straight out of there! Score! This has been a life goal of mine! :)

Hoping you are thankful and festive,

Karen

Sisters make the best friends

2011-11-23T14:40:00.001-08:00

My big baby sister
Who was always my height
Share the same birthday month
Share the same pant size
Share the same profession
But why did I hurt you for so long?
Why did I make you give up?
Why did I never admit I was wrong?
I didn't want to, that's why.
We went from best friends to best enemies almost overnight
I can remember that summer
I think you were 7 or 8
And the tears come to my eyes as I remember
How I hurt you
With my words, with my actions
How I didn't want you to succeed and grow
And crushed you down,
down
down.
Year
After year
After year.
But thank God for His grace
Thank God that brand new days do come
And the morning finally creeps over our frostbitten souls
And someday I hope I can be the big sister to you that I never have been.
I will see you in 27 days
And they can't go by swiftly enough
Thank you for your forgiveness
Thank you for your love
Thank you for coming back
And I thank you we are now friends.
I love you, Laura.

The Velveteen Rabbit

2011-11-22T08:41:00.001-08:00

My sister yesterday posted this. I am often amazed at how God is working at the same thing in multiple family members at the same time. Right now, God's working on this same thing with me, my mom, and my sister.

P.S. I am thankful for a family that grows together in the Lord, not for a family that has everything all figured out and put together.

So that leads me to my own thoughts about love. How, like my sister, I'm realizing I've never really actually loved someone. I suppose the closest I get is my closest friends and my immediate family members, but I'm not sure if I actually even love them....after all, I stick with them because they make me feel good and make me look good (because friendless people don't look good). More than that, though, I realize the need to love the other people God puts in my path. To not be afraid of opening up because that's my biggest fear.

I wrote in my journal about a month ago and I still feel the same way:

"I am not completely convinced that the bits of yourself you give to others don't matter. But aren't we to be used up, if we never touch others or are touched by others - what kind of sterile life is that? I would rather regretfully remember being so close to someone and to know the power of love than to be still untouched, detached, and whole yet incomplete...Lord, I don't want to be whole. I'd rather be complete. I'd rather be velveteen, REAL, and even forsaken instead of glass, shallow and all. Use me, Lord. Touch me. Let me come to the end of my life, loved up, used up, worn out, and laid bare. Let me crack open so You can spill out. Yesterday I read, 'You will know they are Christians by their love - not their standards.' So what if other believers are legalistic or hedonistic or everywhere in between? Let me love my brothers. So what if the world is spinning crazily out of control? Let me love my world. Love - live love." - Oct. 30

Remember the velveteen rabbit?

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."- The Velveteen Rabbit

Essentials

2011-11-17T20:25:00.001-08:00

Lately, I've realized my life needed some prioritizing. Things can get out of hand for me really quickly, because my chaos threshold is pretty low. Also, I think I must get overwhelmed easily because if I feel like there's too much to do, I get into this tailspin and nothing gets done.

So! I needed to figure out how to revolutionize my life so that I would be in charge, not it! There are a few things that always need to happen in order for me to feel like I can accomplish things. These things are:

*Enough time in the morning
*Enough sleep at night
*A house that is at least picked up most of the time
*Time with the Lord

Really, I can have 101 things to do, and if I only get these four things accomplished, I never hit the panic button! This was amazing to realize! Here's some changes I had to make to help these four things happen:

*I get ready for the next day before bed. Sometimes i lay out my clothes, sometimes I make a lunch, sometimes all I do is make sure my alarm is set to allow enough time instead of maximum sleeping minutes. This cuts down on my to-do list before I have to hop in the car in the morning. Also, I try to stick with a set schedule in the morning and refuse to be sidetracked. My main distraction is either the computer or a magazine or book. I try to always take a shower first, then make breakfast, then do my bible time while eating breakfast. Then I finish getting ready for the day, and if I have time to spare, I'll read or look at the computer!

*When I realized that my attitude directly corresponded with the amount of sleep I got at night, I had renewed motivation for getting 8 hrs at night. Now I try to avoid the computer as my last activity before bed. I am trying to do more knitting right now, so I tell myself I'll knit a few rows in bed before turning out the light instead of doing the computer a few minutes before turning out the light. Even if I don't necessarily start sleeping a ton earlier than in my "computer days", I at least feel more productive about the half hour i just spent before bed. I've been pretty good about getting 7-8 hrs every night this whole week!

*This again has just been an answer to prayer. If i start telling myself, "I need to clean my refrigerator, wash the car, organize the closet, practice my piano, cook a meal, and pick up the house", I hit tailspin mode. Instead, I pick up the house first and then decide what needs to be done next. It's amazing how much more organized I feel when my house feels picked up and neat. It's also a great way to start getting excited about cleaning the rest of the house.

*My organized morning schedule helps me have consistant time with the Lord. I also don't worry about whether I feel like it or not. Some days I get more out of my time in the Bible than others, but I realize it's like brushing my teeth: if I only brush when I feel dirty, my dental hygeine isn't going to be that wondeful! If I just brush my teeth every day whether or not I feel like it, I give the flouride at least a chance to work!

So that's what's been going through my head! See, it's not even 11! So I'm going to get off the computer now and get some more stuff accomplished before knitting in bed! :)

Thankful for new clothes,

Karen

The Superhero Cake

2011-11-12T15:15:00.001-08:00

Did a cake this weekend! It was a lot of fun to make it! I would love to do another cake sort of like this again!

My cake decorating I feel is turning into more of a rhythm for me...I don't panic like I used to. However, I'm starting to realize how much more meticulous I need to start being, like trying to get a super perfect smooth fondant cover and no frosting blobs and exactly level cake layers.

Ta da! This would be a perfect birthday cake for a little boy, too...or a big boy for that matter...my brother in law really likes superheroes as well. I'm a little proud of my ingenuity for the "S" on the top....as usual, I didn't have an exact picture in my head of what I wanted the cake to look like, so when I decided on an "S", I realized I needed to cut the yellow gumpaste to make the S be red from the main cake color if that makes any sense. I also freehanded everything, no stencils were used, I just looked at some pictures off the internet for the S and the batman logo.

Yesterday was 11/11/11, so I invited some friends over for a party to celebrate this. I supplied hot dogs and everyone else was supposed to bring food that was long and skinny, like 11's. There was corn on the cob, biscotti, candy bars, and pretzels in attendance, among other long and skinny food items. Then we watched Ocean's 11. At 11:11, we too note that it was 11:11 on 11/11/11 and then the party was over. We think that next year we should have a 12/12/12 party and watch Ocean's 12. Unfortunately, there is no 13th month so we can't really have a 13/13/13 party and finish the series.....

OK I'm off to do more stuff with my day! May your weekend be super duper!

Karen

Snow backpacking

2011-11-09T22:09:00.000-08:00

Last week, at the prospect of going backpacking, I didn't really want to do it because I could only think of everything I SHOULD be doing.

But when you get like that, sometimes the best thing to do is just GO and leave it all behind.

It was fabulous.

I bought an ultralight backpacking book. It's called "Ultralight Backpackin' Tips" by Mike Clelland. It's full of illustrations and is organized in a tidbit fashion. Great for skimmer-readers like me. I tried to use some of the tips when packing. We did just go for an overnighter, but my pack weighed just 25 pounds, which I think is good considering I was carrying a 3 man tent that wasn't designed for backpacking, plus clothes to keep me warm in the snow. One of the handiest tips was to put all the contents of my pack in a plastic yard garbage bag and twist the top closed to seal. This way, there was no chance that my gear would get wet while hiking. The over-all thing I've applied from the book is the mentality that if I'm packing it "just in case", I probably can survive without it. Also, an overnighter doesn't have to be perfect. If I forget something, it's just overnight!

Here we are, ready to go. We had to decide between a snowy trip or a rainy trip, and we picked snowy!

The hike followed the PCT, so it was a pretty easy hike with minimal elevation gain, even though we were hiking through up to 6 inches of snow. Part of the trail was through burned-out forest, and part through green forest.The only one disappointing thing was that the mountain that we camped at the base of was almost invisible because of all the falling snow. The middle picture above is pretty much the most we saw of it from our camping spot. I really want to go again in the summer and go even further to make a loop with some of the lakes in the area. It would be really pretty in August when the wildflowers are in bloom!

The good part about snow is that you don't have to worry about camping near a lake for water and you don't have to filter water, either! We stayed as warm as we could - my new 0 degree bag was truly initiated as up until this point, I've mostly used it for deck sleeping in the heat of summer.... :) I didn't freeze to death. Success. A good fire is a great thing to have to thaw out fingers after setting up the tent and for drying out socks before bed....we were lucky to have an experienced wilderness EMT to build our fire for us... :P

Hannah was using her new JetBoil stove for the first time! I now want one very badly. SO compact, SO user friendly! And fast! I'm all over fast!

Hiking out the next day, we caught some sun. We didn't see any other people except one mile from the trailhead coming home was this random group of people in street clothes and an umbrella.

Being out in the wilderness helps you appreciate little things in life like a hot cup of coffee and a shower. We stopped on the way home at a wonderful coffee shop. In that same town I bought the famous chanterelle mushrooms of the previous blog post.

Coffee and hot chocolate, plus free water in a warm building is enough for us!

In this picture, I'm totally beating Miranda at checkers. However, we had a second game after this and after an intense battle, she beat me. So we still don't know who the checkers queen is.

May you find inspiration and joy in the remainder of the week!

Karen

Chanterelles

2011-11-08T22:18:00.000-08:00

Over five years ago, I was a young and impressionable nineteen year old working in Alaska. Up there, I worked with a cook in the kitchen. The cook was a young twenty one year old punk fresh from a two year degree at Culinary Institute of America. In my eyes, he was SOOO mature and SOOO grown up. He said things were "wicked awesome" (a strictly east-coast expression), listened to Explosions in the Sky, and could play "Blackbird" on his red guitar. He was the first cook I ever worked with, and I have two life-altering things to thank him for: he told me that if I ran a mile every day, that was all I needed to do to stay in decent shape, and he also told me that kitchen gadgets were a poor substitute for a simple chef's knife. He also taught me how to hold one correctly.

I hardly keep in touch with him anymore, but last time we chatted, he is no longer working in the culinary field but is living a lovely little east-coast life with his wife with a career in the military.

Without him, I wouldn't have climbed my first mountain and I would still think a coffee snob was someone who bought beans at Starbuck's. I also would probably still think that fancy food entailed a slab of grilled steak served along with mashed potatoes.

So today I am not a strict foodie, but I like good food. I can't really afford to eat a work of art at every meal, but I like to appreciate it when I can in the way I can.

This is what made me buy a pound of chanterelle mushrooms last weekend for $8.

I didn't know what chanterelles were, they just sounded fancy and I decided to learn a little.

There were white chanterelles and yellow chanterelles at the roadside stand, and the good 'ol boy running the stand gave me some minimal insight into what the difference was. I decided to get a mix of both. Upon getting them home, I discovered that yellow chanterelles have a stronger, deeper flavor, and white chanterelles taste just a little more watery and less flavorful. I prefer the yellow chanterelles, but to the non mushroom snob (like me) either would do just fine.

I stored them, unwashed, in a paper bag in the fridge. They're supposed to be good for about one week, but I've used them quickly enough so there's no danger of that happening. They can freeze (that's what the mushroom man told me!), or you can let them air-dry if you want to store them. Or just eat them as fast as you can. That's what I would do.

To clean them, I ran them under a steady trickle of cold water and used my fingers to rub off the dirt. I've also heard a better way to do this is to rub them with a damp paper towel. Basically, the less water you use on them, the better.

Here is the recipe I made tonight with them. This is one of the BEST things I've eaten in probably 18 years. OK, I just randomly picked the number 18, but it is SO worth a try. Very basic recipe, but very easy and will put a smile on your face for a week!

Chicken Breasts with Chanterelles (or you could use morels or shaggy manes...)
Serves 4.
Took me about 50 min to make, start to finish.

2 C dry white wine (note here to my conservative non-alcohol readers: please consider buying some white wine for cooking. Seriously. I've done my share of "substitutes" for wine when cooking in the past, and let me tell you: there is no comparison to the real thing.)
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 bay leaf
1 parsley sprig
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1.5 pounds chanterelles, chopped
4 T butter
1 medium onion, diced (or 3 shallots...I used an onion b/c I am not fancy enough to keep shallots around)
1/3 c pine nuts (I acutally used hazelnuts...again, b/c I don't usually keep pine nuts stocked...but I think pine nuts would be better than the hazlenuts. Or maybe cashews would be good)
chopped fresh parsley, plus salt and pepper to taste.

In a large saucepan, bring the wine to a simmer with the bay leaf, garlic, and parsley. Add the chicken and cook, covered, for about 15 min. Remove the chicken and chop it up. In a separate saute pan, saute the chanterelles in the butter until tender. Drain off the cooking liquid and add it to the wine mixture in the saucepan. Bring to a boil, cook and stir until slightly thickened. Then add back the mushrooms and chicken, and also the pine nuts and salt and pepper to taste.

You can garnish with the parsley I presume, but I was too hungry to deal with chopping up more parsley at this point, and just ate it parsley-less. Also, I suppose you should serve it with a carbohydrate of some sort, but again I didn't take the time. I think roasted potatoes with olive oil and garlic would be good! Since it's the proper thing to pair your dinner with a drink, I paired my dinner with tea. I'm trying to start a new trend here. I had lemon tea, if I do this again, I think peppermint tea would be perfect to counteract the rich butteryness of this little taste of heaven. Followed by a square of dark chocolate from Trader Joe's. I didn't have any of that at the moment, so I settled for a few squares of hershey's milk chocolate..... :D Yeah, super gourmet, I know....

So! Go forth and eat good food! It's fun!

Sitting with a contented and full little belly,

Karen

I'm still making random blog posts at 11 pm

2011-11-02T23:54:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile, so I thought it was high time to do another blog post of random useless bits of info gained from what my grey matter has to offer at 11. I'm sure you were all hoping those days were over.... ha, fooled ya! :)

*I know I'm often thinking of how I don't like facebook, but it really is annoying how tied to it I feel. In fact, this is why I'm blogging at 11 p.m., because I stayed up late looking at pictures of people I don't really know that well. I know this is super lame, but I find myself trying to make it fill the social void in my life. I want to feel connected to people and loved by people, so I spend an hour.... looking at pictures of people? The voyeuristic-ness of it all makes me feel pretty squikky.

*So I'm not necessarily trying to cut down on facebook, but evaluating how necessary it is in my personal communications. Can I actually survive with just email and texting? What do you all think? One thing I'd be sad to lose is my public album of my cake endeavors which have gotten me quite a few cake projects....but do I really want/need more cake projects??? I think too many people know already that I do cakes...

*In my mind, I'd like to think I always decompress from work by knitting a few inches of a sweater while sipping tea and listening to Iron and Wine on Pandora while granola bakes in the oven, but in reality that doesn't happen a whole lot. Maybe in a land without facebook that would happen more often and I think my entire over all wellness would increase....

*OK now that I've gotten you all concerned about facebook, another life-altering thing I've been pondering lately is thankfulness, which is something that basically never describes me. When I'm driving from one house to the next, I just sit and stew about ALL I have to do, and how LITTLE time I have to do it. (of course, spending an hour plus on facebook at night doesn't help this problem of too much to do in too little of time...) Tuesday night, I was asking God for a more thankful heart. Today, I found myself still jetting from place to place, stressed out. Then out of nowhere I remembered I was supposed to start being more thankful, so I started being thankful for the pretty gold hazy sunlight, the cute little boys playing in the leaves in their front yard, and the red trees lining the streets. It's a start.

*One of my blogger friends also commented on her blog about how it has been the most beautiful fall she could remember. I thought that I wouldn't have necessarily said that myself. Now I wonder if such appreciation of beauty is found to those who take time to notice. I've not taken the time to notice much if it's been a beautiful fall or not. I wonder how many more events in my life would be the best I've ever experienced if I simply were to take the time to notice how quietly amazing they are. I wonder how many more people I know would be extraordinary if I simply took time to realize how extraordinary they actually are. I wonder how many seasons would be absolutely delightful if I simply took time to delight in them.

*Then I decided to get ahead today and make cinnamon rolls for the weekend. Got into it and realized I was out of butter. I decided to just use oil instead, then realized I just had olive oil. And then I continued to get into it and realized I didn't have enough flour. Why did I keep going? I tried to make it work with wheat bran and oats and when I had this oaty-gluey mixture that had this strong olive oil odor creeping around the normal bready-yeasty smell, I decided it wasn't going to work. Cinnamon rolls will have to happen another time and in the meantime, I guess I kind of need to go grocery shopping BAD. I think one of my biggest strengths-turned-sickness is this constant way I always think of how I can make it work with what I have.....I'm seriously ALWAYS thinking about how I could get X that I want by just using Y that I already have. It doesn't always work.....

So basically I guess where I'm at right now is trying to somehow find joy, peace, delight in not just little corners of rest, but in even the hectic moments.

Trying to love life...

Karen

Changes

2011-10-23T23:36:00.000-07:00

As I write this from my 6.5 year old laptop, the space button is being very finicky. Makes typing not so fun so this may be a very short post but I realize I've been neglectful about posting updates, so here's a quick picture update of the last week.

My wonderful perfect amazing and cool roommate got married this week. I am missing her already. Tears were shed the day afterwards as I went about my lonely business... sob,sniff....I think I'm over the tears now but things are still lonely. However, it was a beautiful wedding and very fun and it was such a happy thing to see them get married finally! They are both great people and will be an awesome couple together!

We started the wedding day with a coffee run to a local coffee shop and celebrated the first day of sugar after our month long sugar fast with coffee and pumpkin bread in bed!

Here is the wedding cake. Yes I made it! Chris' favorite car is a Corvette of a certain year, and Sarah was able to get a model of his dream car for the topper.

Roommates! It was an honor to be a bridesmaid! I love you, Sarah!

I still have my other roommate and we are trying to find a replacement. It's been hard to come up with someone, but I trust God knows our needs and will provide somehow.

My sister and brother in law were able to come down for the wedding. My sister stayed the whole weekend, unfortunately her husband had to go home early for work, but Saturday she and I spent the whole day together which was fun! She helps me feel normal and helps me laugh at myself! Not to mention she can make pretty endearing babies! We shopped and got smoothies at the coffee shop and rented Devil Wears Prada and then ate falafal while watching it and then watched lame vlogs of moms displaying the contents of their diaper bags for the universe to see (the whole "mom culture" really doesn't appeal to me....this doesn't mean I don't like babies or I don't like moms in general but if I'm ever a mom, shoot me before I start creating narcissistic videos of how much hand sanitizer and wipes I can stuff in a bag....while my baby bounces around in an entertainer in the background and a musical toy plays incessantly....)

The we went to bed and talked in bed until 1:30 and the baby was very good and slept through most of the night. Fun girl time!!! Love ya, sis!

Oh yeah..

While out on the town, I did something to myself.

Remember this post? Going back to read it, I realize I swore to the entire world that I would get no more piercings. Haha. Never say never.....

It was a deal because the tattoo parlor was trying to get rid of some of their hoops. I really personally prefer a stud in my tragus, but considering the amazing price difference, I decided to live with a hoop for awhile and then change it out when things settle down. Tragus piercings are a great first cartilage piercing because they are less painful and heal faster than a typical outer cartilage piercing. So far I love it. It's subtle, which is more my style, but still adds a little unique flair. I won't promise that I won't get any more piercings because I'm starting to discover they can be addicting....but I DO promise I won't be one of those gals that cover both their ears in hardware.

Soon I hope to update my blog with a new post I'm EXCITED about! But again, no promises as I'm really busy right now but when it comes, be prepared to be amazed...haha! It involves food and ingenuity.

Better sleep! Sleep's a good thing!

Yawn,

Karen

Part of embracing life

2011-10-09T20:12:00.000-07:00

When I got up at 4:15 am....

When I stood in line for a port-a-potty by the light of a streetlight....

When humanity and I rushed forward, faster, faster...

When I suffered along with 12,000 individuals from all walks of life as others waved from their 4th story condo window....

When laughing, my friend and I hobbled out of the car and up her back steps.....

That was my Sunday today. I finished my second half marathon and finished strong. I think I blasted about 7 min or so off my previous half time.

My friend completed her first marathon. We learned that .1% of the population actually FINISHES a marathon.

In this picture, I"m holding her up because after riding home in the car, she was so stiff she had to crawl up the steps on her hands and knees...haha! 26.2 ain't for sissies!

Thinking I should bust out some knitting needles since that's about all I'm up for right now....

Karen

It is a misty October morning

2011-10-07T09:22:00.000-07:00

And my list of things to do includes:
*Buying flowers
*Buying chocolate
*Buying cheese

And yesterday, one of my piano students, the one with a huge fluffy pink flower on her tiny headband and blonde hair and a black eye and bird legs in tights dangling from the piano bench and missing at least 3 teeth, got in a discussion with me about why there is snow on top of the mountains even in the summer. Yes, we did talk about music, but she also was flabbergsted to learn that the higher up you go, the colder it gets and that's why there is snow in the mountains, but not down here in the valley. This same one was amazed that I could figure out that her birthday was November 1st when she had just told me that her birthday was the day after Halloween. Seven year olds are the greatest.

And somehow I'm going to run a half marathon in two days.

And crock-pot dinners are back! When I finally got home for good at 7:15 p.m., it was wonderful to know I had beef soup waiting for me, especially since I made a decision to wear a skirt that day and of course you have to wear non-warm shoes when you wear most skirts, so I was FREEZING all day! Yum. Beef soup, whole wheat biscuits that I put together really fast, and then a mug of (sugarless) hot chocolate. Yes, we're still off sugar, and Sar and I have concluded that hot chocolate and other things in that genre are DRINKS, not DESSERTS (we aren't allowing ourselves to have even sugar-free desserts). I sweetened my HC with stevia. I use stevia in drinks quite a bit, even when not off sugar. It's good in black tea, too. I know this sounds funny, but after I drink something with Stevia in it, I feel nicer inside. Everything just feels more orderly in my stomach and I just feel calmer. Guess it's my narcotic or something.....

And Paul, (the preacher Paul from the Bible) said he was the worst of sinners. OK, I do know he persecuted the early church, but do you know WHY he persecuted the early church? He was a Pharisee, a conservative young religious leader! He was a self-righteous guy who was zealous for the purity of Judaism! That's why he killed Christians! Then later he tells us Christ came to save sinners, of whom he was chief. Do you realize that the chief of sinners was a conservative zealot? He wasn't a druggie and he wasn't sleeping around and he wasn't stealing things! Yet he called himself the worst of sinners. Reminds me of how it's hard for the rich to come to Christ, like a camel can't walk through the eye of a needle. Reminds me that the hardest hearts are often those who think they are OK with God but haven't yet come to Him in humility. Reminds me of myself, so quick to judge, so self-righteous in my little religious bubble in which I've constructed the standards by which I think God operates. Then life happens and I realize God's ways are not my own. God doesn't accept people based on their lifestyle or whether or not they are all put together like me (haha!). God COMES to us! God FORGIVES us! God wants us to KNOW HIM and KNOW HIS SON! And that's the main thing, not whether or not we're measuring up or whether we go to the right churches or hang out with the right people or dress the right way or use the right Jesus words (or avoid the wrong Jesus words...).

And then He changes us. Not into a righteous image we have lifted up for ourselves, but into the image of His Son, which I think is a lot different than I can imagine. But better. Because I KNOW in the last few years, I'm closer to God than I ever was, and His Holy Spirit is changing me. It is an inescapable fact. And now I'm a very different person than I was a few years ago when I was running around, judging other Christians all the time, and judging heathens (of all people, why should we judge those who have not yet come to Christ? It's the most ridiculous thing ever!). In fact, I think now I'm the kind of person I would have judged way back then! I still judge, but thankfully God is still working on me.

I always feel I ramble when I get onto such topics. Sorry, readers. Feel free to skip over rambly passages. I don't do a lot of editing, I usually write as it comes and so that's how things get so curvy and long-winded.

OK off to buy the flowers and chocolate and cheese. Oh I also bought alcohol for the first time this week. That was a thrill....not.... ;) Yep, I'm going to start having wild parties in my apartment pretty soon, haha! Better come over when those start happening.

I'm really going to use it for cooking so if you were getting excited, don't, and if you were about to get your panties in a wad, don't,

Karen

Bungalow dreams

2011-10-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

Wow.

I guess it's been awhile since something new has been on here.

My life is super non-inspired right now.

Like SUPER non-inspired.

I feel like I just wake up, work all day, come home, and go to bed. Literally! But even though it's draining and exhausting, I don't feel drained and exhausted....TOO much anyway. When you just go from one thing to the next, it's like you're carried along in an energy wave until you quit and that's when you feel tired.

So since I'm not living very inspired-ly, here's some inspiring things on my mind!

Yes, this is a bad time to be feeling restless, but I do feel restless right now. If I could move right now (which is impossible since I'm finally making decent money being self-employed and it's taken me several years to get to this point and I can't exactly up and move myself anywhere I want as a piano teacher), I would move to Portland and have a house that looked something like this:

I LOVE 1920s bungalows! In my bungalow dream, I have a schweet cottage garden out back...

With a beehive.

I also have a friendly Bernese Mountain Dog...

And every morning begins with pancakes, english breakfast tea, and a playlist comprised of Ingrid Michaelson, Nickel Creek, Iron and Wine, and Kate Rusby.

At least, every Saturday morning. That's assuming I live in a world where I don't have to arise at 5 AM on a Saturday morning....

And also assuming that I live in a world where all my weekends are free to go backpacking, snowboarding, hiking, climnbing, or trail running or visiting exotic places like the coast or the mountains or the Gorge. And assuming that my friends also have all their weekends free to join me....

And also assuming that after I've bought my house and fed my dog and kept up my bees and stuff, that I still have money and time leftover to go shopping at a local farmer's market on my bike...

This is me, by the way. I guess I forgot to tell you all that I got some plastic surgery and a hair color since I saw you last....not to mention a sweet cruiser with a basket in the front. Oh and I finally have figured out the secret to getting my exercise and not getting my cute clothes all stinky and stuff. I'm not sharing it with you. I'm going to continue to be mysteriously fresh and beautiful behind my whitened-teeth smile....

OK, I'm feeling inspired now! I'd better get to bed or by the time the morning rolls around the inspiration will be GONE!!! :)

Yay me. Way to waste a whole hour that I could be sleeping.

Oh well. What are some of your dreams?? Anyone want to move in with me and my bungalow dream??? I think I might have room for a roommate or two!

Here's to lazy mornings and being independently wealthy!

Karen

Sunday breakfast.

2011-09-25T08:57:00.000-07:00

Breakfast is officially my favorite meal of the day. Here is what I'm making for today, this fallish Sunday morning.

Orange Poppy Scones: http://www.jackienorrisphoto.com/2011/09/orange-poppy-scones.html

However, like most stuff I make, I don't have everything on hand....so they are really lemon poppy scones b/c I don't have an orange, I just have dried lemon peel and lemon extract. Poor substitute, but it gets the point across....I think....I added in some almond extract unsolicited because when in doubt, almond extract makes everything baked taste better....

Also, I'm using whole wheat flour instead of white and a whole egg instead of an egg yolk because I didn't want to separate an egg and I hoped the egg white would substitute the moisture that I diddn't have from omitting the orange juice. I don't think it did because the dough looked really dry.

And of course I used honey, not sugar since we're still on the sugar fast.

And I didn't have buttermilk, so I did the milk/vinegar trick....

This may not be a very tasty breakfast, now that I think about it. Why am I blogging about something I haven't eaten yet? Especially something where I didn't even own half the ingredients?

Well, hang on a minute while i wait 5 minutes for them to bake.

OK!

Results: rustic texture with a pleasant mild flavor. (read: dry-ish and you can't really taste any citrus but the almond extract is a nice taste....)

Ah, well! You now all have permission to think that this blog is an entire waste of time for all parties involved.... :)

Karen

YAY fall, YAY weekend, YAY God, YAY life!

2011-09-23T12:02:00.000-07:00

Send forth your light and your truth
Let them guide me.
Let them bring me to your holy mountain,
To the place where you dwell.
Then will I go to the altar of God,
To God, my joy and my delight
I will praise you with the harp,
O God, my God.
Why are you so downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
For I will yet praise him,
My Savior and my God.

Blessin's of this week!

*Getting to go to bed with Sarah three nights in a row meaning we usually talk and enjoy the benefits of roommateship! :) Savoring it all up before Chris whisks her away! :( But boy, is it going to be an amazing wedding. I'm looking forward to it!
*Feeling fit and on top of the game since we're on day 4 of a month without sugar! We're going hardcore! Sarah can't even eat her Orowheat bread because it has sugar in it! Honey is the only "allowed" sugar, and then no desserts, even with honey! We feel great and it's been a big eyeopener. We were sitting together on the couch on our computers late Tuesday night (the first day without sugar), and started REALLY craving things! So I poured myself a glass of water and Sarah made herself tea....it helped a little. We are both drinking more water because of this!
*Sunny days! Love this! Today is fall, my favorite season, and when it's lovely and warm like this, it's beyond my favorite!
*Getting tons done and feeling on top of things at the moment. Learning to be responsible and find joy in doing what needs to be done. Learning, that's the emphasis.
*First AWANA club and there's a possibility we may be able to re-open the club for 3 and 4 year olds after a maybe 8 year or more hiatus. There's a lot of interest among our Awana parents for this, and God may be providing finally enough leaders to be able to open it, which was what was preventing it from happening earlier.
*The verses I quoted above. From Psalm 43. They were my Psalm for this morning. I read it this morning and underlined the passage that I typed above, then went on with my day. Then I started feeling VERY downcast and disturbed, because of stuff that's outside of my control - uncertainty about stuff, feeling impatient about other things, wishing I had answers about certain issues, knowing that I can't reason my way around things anymore. Then I came back to Psalm 43. I have asked God for His light and truth, because I need it very much right now. And remembered that it's all about God, I need to put my hope in HIM, not in outside circumstances. When my hope is in God, nothing can shake me! That was a blessing to remember.

Also, I had a vivid dream about visiting an LDS church last night. I don't know if some of my readers happen to be LDS or not, but it's interesting how God has put SO many LDS people in my path. If you know me in person, you know what I'm talking about. God has laid it on my heart so heavily, and it's kind of getting humorous how many LDS connections I have in my life right now. If you ARE reading this and are LDS, I'd love to talk with you! God has really shown me how I've had a works-based salvation mindset in the past and I've seen how that has been horrible, and now knowing the freedom I'm experiencing with a true relationship with Christ, I want everyone who is living in a performance-based lifestyle to know that there's something better and more freeing out there. I was praying about this while doing my bible study this morning, and was impressed to write this on the margin of my notebook paper:

There is no
one else like
God.
Jesus is
God.
He has done
everything in
your place to
make you
right w/ God.
A relationship w/
the one true
God is the
point of life.

This is what I want everyone in the LDS church to come to know and believe. For my friends who are Christians, I want to you REALLY understand this in the fullest sense because having come from a conservative Christian background, I know how easy it is to deceive yourself and think you're all OK when you are really living in a mire of lies. I know. I've been there. I'm not trying to tear anyone down, absolutely not! I am just so enthralled with the joy found in accepting the cross of Christ DAILY and the absolute amazing-ness of the Lord, who can be known just like anyone else in this world (really and truly!) that I want everyone to understand this!!!! Pray about it! Ask for your heart to be opened! I can't do anything about it for you, YOU can even do anything about it for you, it needs to be a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit, but it's such a sweet and joyous thing.

Here is a random picture of me thrown in for variety. You're welcome.

Anyway, if I'm going to continue feeling on top of things today I'd better get on with it. Know that God is is our joy and delight. He can be known. Oh Lord, that all people would know and be transformed by the power of this truth!

I love you all,

Karen

Refiner's Fire and Happy things.

2011-09-19T22:38:00.000-07:00

I suppose I could start with the bad news.

But is there ever really bad news? I'm wondering about this.

Because Bad becomes good. Evil is redeemed. The ice melts and turns into nourishment. The rocky path brings you closer to your Rock.

The refining process is never easy to digest. To have to say, "Lord, it's true. I am like that, and probably worse." To have to say, "Lord, I am hurting others because I'm like this." To have to say, "Lord, give me a teachable spirit." When you DON'T want to have to admit you need to learn and change and grow and you DON'T have things figured out yet. To have to say you're sorry. Oh so hard, it is the ultimate burying of one's face in the mud.

We live such a facade. Or maybe just I live the facade. That I am a successful adult. That I'm "there", or at least good enough of the way there.

I realized that life is always going to be like this, going and stumbling and falling and being picked up again. You never hit cruise control in life. God just throws bigger things in our paths.

I tell God I can't handle all this right now. Things are just too overwhelming for me to handle. And he whispers to me, "But this is the best way. This is where you are closest to Me, facing the waves that seem to never end and only get bigger. You really wouldn't want it to be different, would you?"

And He changes me, which I don't get and it amazes me. I am nothing, just a messed up sinful splat on the globe. He is everything.

I should have titled this "Happy things and happy things" because I know that this will be a happy thing some day. It is a happy thing that God is not done with me yet. It is a happy thing that He's still shaping me to be more like Jesus. Even though it hurts.

This weekend, I had breakfast with my parents after early morning bible study. While sitting around and talking, my little sister called up and said she was bored and wondered if I could come visit (she lives 2.5 hours away). My mom and I spontaneously decided to pack up and come. Spontaneous. I was delighted to be spontaneous with my mom. We were only up there for a grand total of 24 hours, but it was the best time, sweet family time, baby time, friend time.

We weren't fast enough in this photo, but he's cracking up all the time and stuff! He even gets close to giggling! He's only 2 months old, but already weighs 15 pounds. When I was a year old, I only weighed 16 pounds!

Latest cake creation: Baby shower cake for a baby that will be joining our church family soon.

This was a milestone cake because I didn't have a crisis moment during the decorating of this cake. Usually I reach a point where everything seems to not be working and I'm sure I will never get it to look good. This cake just flowed. I think God knew that I had not a minute to spare the day I was making it. My next goal for cake decorating? Work on getting the corners of my square cakes nice and sharp.

So that's my life right now! Tomorrow is the one-month mark until my roommate gets married, so starting tomorrow we are going off all sugar except honey (and no desserts). My roommate is doing it because she's never done something like that before, and I'm doing it because my trigger food is sugar. It's also a great anticipation-builder for the wedding cake! :D

Better go, tomorrow's another day!

Broken and peaceful,

Karen

Walking in the waves.

2011-09-14T18:21:00.000-07:00

I finally realized how many of the bloggers I like to read are inspired by Ann Voskamp, so I wandered to her website today, and found this:

"In the pruning of the branches, the vinedresser is closest, breath warm upon the leaves"

Thank you for that, Lord.

And I remembered the classic story of Peter, dear impulsive Peter who lept out of the boat to walk on water to His Lord. And then he saw the waves and, looking at the waves, began to sink!

"Lord, save me!"

And the Lord came and lifted him up and helped him walk. He was sinking and the Lord helped him walk.

Today was like that. The Lord told me to stop looking at the waves and instead look at him.

And like when He calmed the waves with just the speaking of His word, so the storms within turn calm and I find I can walk again.

You, O Lord, are the answer. I find each day my little boat drifting further from religion and closer to You.

I feel like a curlicue (don't ask me to explain this one!),

Karen

Since I love to be self-promoting...

2011-09-13T20:37:00.000-07:00

School schedule has hit in full force, especially today! I have 27 piano students this fall...I'm officially full for the first time in my piano teaching career! Also, the university where I do accompanying work has more than normal for me since they have lots of strong vocalists coming in with the large freshman class and the accompanist who normally does a lot of work for them got a job elsewhere! I'm thankful for the extra money! I'm already planning to tuck it away for next summer and a few trips I really want to take soon! :) (Hawaii??? Africa???? Alaska???) But I'm crazy busy! Today is my busiest day, I'm gone working for almost 12 hours! I like being busy, though! I'm praying for energy to be diligent in my life this fall because last year I would get so exhausted after a long day out that I had no motivation to get anything done, like cooking a decent dinner, keeping things looking as clean as I'd like, and staying on top of emails and calling people back right away! :)

Although right now my house DOES look pretty messy and I DO feel a little overwhelmed with stuff I still need to get done tonight, I am pretty stoked about where I am right now! Never limit God on where you think He can take you! I never thought I'd be a full time musician. I didn't really want to when I was in high school, but here I am! It's a crazy lifestyle but even though I whine about it, I do like it a lot!

In fact, it's funny to think about what I thought post-graduate life would be like. I for some reason thought I'd be stuck living alone with my cats and my piano students and my knitting for the rest of my life and that seemed like a living hell! Actually, the thought of that still is! Lord, take me home before I become the knitting cat piano teacher lady!Yes, I literally did think I'd have cats and a rocking chair and knitting which I don't understand at all since I really am a dog person! I didn't realize that there was another option: I could be having a blast! :) I still might be the piano teacher knitting person but I won't have cats and it's already turning out to be more interesting than I thought it would be as a naive 21 year old facing graduation! :) In fact, I feel sorry for college students now because their life is so boring compared to what it will be like in a few years! When I was in college, I felt sorry for the graduates because their life seemed boring compared to mine! Funny how a few years can really change your perspective! :D

Anyway, yes, I'd better actually get some of that stuff done that I need to get done before bed, aka dishes and a few other things....

Busily,

Karen

What a decade will do to ya!

2011-09-11T14:36:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that ten years ago, we got up in the morning and mom told us that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

I was like, "so is the World Trade Center in New York or Chicago??"

I just remembered seeing them in some schoolbook that compared all the tallest skyscrapers in the U.S.

I was a very gangly 14-year-old who pretty much was trying to figure out which way was up. We spent most of the day, glued to the coverage on T.V. We watched people jump from the towers. We watched them crumble into an engulfing cloud of dust and watched as people in business suits ran away from it. Towards dinnertime, the news was telling us the government figured that Osama Bin Ladin was behind it, and I had no idea who the dude was, I pretty much had spent zero time considering the middle east up until then. About then, President Bush declared war on terror, and while I thought it was interesting and slightly sensational that we were "at war" just like my grandparents were "at war" during WWII, I was kind of dissatisfied because it seemed like we were fighting a very ambiguous enemy. A war on terror? To my black-and-white mind, it would have made a lot more sense if we were fighting Russia or Jamacia or a well-defined entity like that.

What made that day more complex was that we were three days away from a month-long super-vacation that Mom and Dad had been planning pretty much since we were born, a trip to visit all the sights on the East coast. So the hours that we weren't spending in front of the T.V. on September 11th, we were spending doing errands around town to get ready for a vacation that suddenly might be cancelled. Theresa, my youngest sister, had written a cute little count-down for the month before our vacation, and when the planes were all grounded because of 9/11, she wrote on the countdown: "The trade centers went down, but they DO NOT scare us!"

And after a lot of breath-holding, we were the first flight with our airline out of PDX after 9/11 happened. We landed in Washington, D.C. three days after the Pentagon had been attacked. There were so few tourists. There was one other small group of people at the Lincoln Memorial when we went there. We weren't able to tour the White House. When our tour guide was explaining all the murals in the Library of Congress, she skipped over describing part of a mural that paid homage to Islam for its contributions to American culture. We went to a Presbyterian church in Alexandria the first Sunday after 9/11 and heard the moving story of a woman who was an Air Force nurse and was in the Pentagon when the plane crashed into it. There was smoke still in the air two weeks later when we visited my cousin in NYC, and we saw "missing" posters plastered all over the walls at the subway station. When we visited my cousin there, she lived less than a mile from the twin towers and was able to watch the whole thing unfold from her apartment window. We saw huge flags flying from the bumpers of SUVs, and red, white, and blue seemed to be the dress code anywhere. Patriotism was running high, and was highest on the east coast - we noticed a difference when we returned home to the west coast - a place geographically removed from the events of 9/11 and thus the very raw emotions.

My sisters and I on a hike in North Carolina (I think - help me out, Mom!) on that trip

Everyone, it seemed, was asking us why we were there. "Weren't you afraid to fly??" "Thank you for coming!" "Why did you come?" Yes, we were a little nervous. Everyone on our flight to D.C. was a little uptight, but the plane cabin burst into applause when we touched down in Baltimore because so many people were there after being stranded for several days. Yes, my mom did freak out our first night in D.C. because she heard drunks in the hotel hall and in her half-asleep stupor thought that people were yelling and running away from a bomb or something. But we still went. We had fun as a family. We learned about American history first-hand, met wonderful people, and saw beautiful places. It was a great vacation. And just as we told all the incredulous people who were wondering why we'd be crazy enough to still go on vacation, we were only safe in the hands of God. My mom's standard line was: "I'll go when God decides it's time for me to go, and there's not much I can do about it - if I walked outside, a brick could fall on my head!" We believed God is sovereign, and because He is on our side, as Theresa wrote on the countdown: "they DO NOT scare us!"

Us looking dreadfully behind common fashion sense, but still having a great ol' time in Myrtle Beach, SC.

And that truth still holds today. I can worry about the safety of my sister as she travels abroad as I type. I can worry about the "big quake" here in Oregon that they say is due to happen soon. I can even freak out about hitting another deer on the side of the road one of these days! But the truth I can cling to is this: "If God is for us, who can be against us?" "What can separate us from the love of God? nothing!"

Karen

My morning

2011-09-09T17:30:00.000-07:00

Hello.

The sun blazed up this morning in fiery red.

I saw it from the seat of a bicycle.

Yes, I am biking after my gazillion mile bike ride. This is probably the third time total that I've sat on my bike since the beginning of July.

We were missing it.

So we went to our favorite breakfast spot in a nearby small town.

I got a lavender white chocolate mocha. It was good. Lavender buds taste like licorice and mint at the same time.

M got a marionberry lemonade that reportedly was quite good but too short.

Since I'm a fundie and fundies like to take pictures of their food (right?), here is my breakfast: Lemon ricotta pancakes with fresh berries. The waitress said the cook got mine a little too dark, but I like things toasty, so it was all good. They were a-mazing, that's all, lovely ricotta texture with the lemon flavor.

Here's M's fundie food picture....crepes with orange/berry coulis and some kind of cheesy middle; I think cream cheese.

And we got back in town at 10! I love mornings like this!

Loving that it's still summer even though my planner says it's CRAZY TIME,

Karen

Laboring through the weekend

2011-09-06T14:27:00.000-07:00

Actually, it wasn't a labor.

Just spent time with special people, and didn't take pictures....I figure the more fun I have, the fewer pictures I take.... :)

Here's one picture. Yes, I was at the beach, again! Third time in three weeks, I think. Held a special baby. Got a lot done. Saw an almost half moon blazing a vibrant trail of orange across a river. Saw three shooting stars. Picked blackberries. Had some new experiences. It was a beautiful weekend. Beautiful.

Beautiful and I feel so stretched right now. I know, I'm being vague but that's how things are, and Jesus is so sufficient. It's shaping up to be one of my busiest falls ever and I'm excited, really. Excited to be busy because I actually get more done when I'm busier.

Mountains look different when you're staring them in the face than when you're looking at them from the horizon. Every stone is visible, all the colors and contrasts are so much more stark. You can see how difficult it's going to be since you're looking straight UP, but you can also see how beautiful it is, too. That's how life is getting here for me. Stark contrast, terrible beauty, a wild adventure. I'm less sure of things in some ways. Life isn't that black and white for me like it used to be, but I'm MORE sure of what's important, that Jesus is my life, my Savior, and He is the one who can heal, forgive, satisfy, and sustain. That is the shattering beauty of the mountain of life. I see it clearer every day, as I also see clearer my own inadequacy, weakness, and cluelessness. Thank you Lord, for your mercy that is new each morning. Thank you for changing us and molding us as a potter molds clay. Thank you for the difficult things that make us abandon all except to cling to You.

Karen

Peter

2011-08-30T10:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry you guys are all getting quasi-devotional posts from me (does quasi-devotional even make SENSE? I'm too lazy to look up the word quasi and see if it makes sense. It just sounds right and sounds erudite, and I'm all over that....) lately. I hope that they aren't too boring. I know that a blog full of devotional stuff gets really old after awhile, I want to read fun stuff too! I hope to have fun posts one of these days.

Here's what I'm planning to do today! OK, it's not all quasi-devotional! :)

*Pick peaches! Yum yum! Peaches are my FAVORITE!!!!

*Pick up the house. Yeah, I'm pretty strong! Not only that, I live in a fourplex so it's even more amazing! Actually, our house is the most horrible wreck it's been in 10 months and I vow to NEVER let it get like this again! I dont' feel like I'm living in a house anymore! It's like living in hell! OK, maybe not THAT bad, but it's not very fun to live in a dirty house!

*Spend time with my friend Jennifer! (this is why I'm going to pick up the house, haha!)

*Pick blackberries if the weather holds!

Yeah, and just to prove that I CAN use as many exclamation points as I want, here's another one!! or two or four!!

So here you go, here's the quasi-devotional boring part! :D

Peter. Read today about Peter's denial of his denial.

"Lord, if all fall away, I will not!"

Oh how much we all identify with Peter. Peter is placed in the gospels as a window into our human nature. We all say this at some point, I think.

"Lord, if all get sucked into the world, I wont!"
"Lord, if everyone lives for themselves, I won't!"
"Lord, if all are boring Christians, I won't be!"
"Lord, if everyone else chickens out, I won't!"

We like to think we won't, anyway

But what did Jesus say?

"You will all fall away."

how true. We all fail the Lord, time after time. We become afraid, self absorbed, whatever it is that leads us away.

John's gospel says that Peter even told Jesus that he would lay his life down for Jesus. Peter loved Jesus very much, but can't you see the irony in this?

Jesus said, "Will YOU really lay down your life for ME, Peter?" (emphasis mine...)

We can get caught up in grand ideas of our Christian walk before God, that we will be the first in the charge, the last to retreat, the one that will remain faithful to the end.

Back when I was in college, there was a small movement that some students tried to start. They sent us all letters, written in inspiring language, about how they were starting a group of students who would sign their names that they would never give up in their Christian walk, they would be willing to die for Christ, they would be so radical in their lives that their witness would be nothing but amazing. I went to one of their little meetings, but was turned away by something that I couldn't understand. I tried to explain to the leader why I wasn't going to come anymore, but I couldn't define it. I think it was the Holy Spirit guiding me, but I didn't know that at the time.

Now I realize what was wrong. They were being just like Peter. As if we can be the strong one, the heroic one in our relationship with God.

What is the reality?

We will all fall away. We will fail Jesus.

But He has laid down His life for us.
He is the one who will go ahead of us.

He is the hero of the story, and that's where it all must start, not with us. Peter finally realized this, and went on to be a powerful preacher of the gospel. (SO excited to study Acts this fall!!). Even the leader of the little student movement at my college realized that, and by graduation, I heard him publicly testify about how God had worked in His life to show him that it was not about him, but about Jesus.

He turns our hearts, little by little. I tell you, how did we ever think we could live without the Lord? How can we still think this?

Off to conquer the day!

Karen

Living through the dim glass

2011-08-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

When we are in heaven, we will be living by sight....

....a wonderful thought as we struggle around in the life of faith down here in the dirt, in the earth, in this messy place.

I dream of a day when I will see Jesus in person
When the tears are wiped away
When there is no parting, when I will worship in the presence of the Lord
No more doubts.
No more unknowns.
No more confusion.

But just as the anticipation and preparation of a grand event somehow is wonderful, even though the whole time you sort of want that big event to just BE there already....

....so is this time, living in the shadow, living by faith. It's a time we won't have forever. It's a time we won't have in heaven. A time of struggles made beautiful by a sudden beam of grace, a time of rainbows, a time when a glimpse of the heavenlies is so sweet when viewed by the backdrop of brokenness.

Heaven is going to be perfect.

But there is a beauty to this time too. I think these former days we are living in will make the things to come even that more precious, just as the waiting and preparation makes the culmination that more sweet and amazing.

God knows what He's doing. Let's thank Him even for the showers, for these days of seeing through a glass dimly.

Hoping the heat will eventually subside so I can go running,

Karen

Thundershowers

2011-08-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

The last two nights, my roomie and I attempted to spend the night out on our deck. She has a doublewide mattress, so we dragged the mattress out to make a "giant crib" (term coined by Chris) and slept out where it was nice and cool compared to inside our upstairs apartment that has no AC.

Two nights ago, we awoke to gentle sprinkling of rain in the middle of the night, so we dragged the mattress back into the kitchen and spent the rest of the night in the kitchen.

Then last night, before going to bed, Sarah said, "do you think it will rain on us?" I looked outside. Yes, there were a few clouds in the sky, but they were wispy and I was bound and determined to sleep outside. So I said, "nah, it won't rain!"

Hours later I was jolted awake by a gianormous thunderclap directly over my head. Sarah had just been awake (maybe the lightning woke her up or something), and as soon as the thunder shook our little deck, we were scrambling out of there, pushing each other desperately in an attempt to throw ourselves inside. We lay sprawled out on the kitchen floor, basically piled on top of each other. Then we realized we were still alive and quickly got our bedding in before the rain started coming down. Then we laughed at ourselves. It was like the thunderstorm scene from "Sound of Music" where the kids are all running into Maria's bedroom. Then Tiff came out to join us, and we laughed at how silly we were and enjoyed nature's awe inspiring show of multiple lightning flashes and thunder rolls.

This morning the sun is shining, there are no clouds in thy sky, but the deck is still moist and the air is fresh. It's going to be another hot day.

I love summer, even when it scares me. :)

Gonna be cranking out some cakes today,

Karen

Random thoughts today

2011-08-25T14:41:00.000-07:00

God knows what He's doing.

I am very hot today.

I feel scattered.

But also thankful.

Why am I thankful?

Because no matter what the day brings, it's another day with the Lord. Another day that He will use to make me more like His Son. There are no mistakes, only opportunities.

So I am thankful.

Cramming into the end of summer

2011-08-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

I feel like I'm trying to fit a summer's worth of adventures in two weeks! Actually, in a week and a half, my lovely summer of freedom will be gone! I've loved my "teacher summer" of working at the berry field, doing a little teaching one day a week, and doing fun stuff!

Last week, I spent most of the week being the main cook for a little youth camp. It was such fun. My kitchen helpers were such fun, and the high school dishwashers were amazing, and the campers were a blast! Can't wait to do it next year too, Lord willing!

This is me cutting up a coffeecake. We had a little mix-up in our expansion of the recipe and added in butter when we should have added baking powder....fortunately I noticed there was no leavening in it and added in the BP before we put it in the oven. So it was a very nice and moist and buttery coffeecake! :)

Sarah, my faithful helper for most of the week. We had too much fun together!

Ready to feed a bunch of hungry elementary school kids!

Sarah had to leave early to do other things, so my biker friend Miranda came after she left to help finish out the week.

Two twins that were helping wash dishes at camp both wore their chacos a lot, and when Miranda came, we realized that one of the twins had Miranda's color of chacos, and the other twin had my color of chacos! Of course we had to document this amazing coincidence!

As soon as camp was done, Miranda and I left to go to South Sister to meet up with a group of friends. We camped out that night and then spent the next day climbing the mountain. South Sister is Oregon's third highest peak. It is just a trail to the top, so there is no technical challenge. But it wasn't a walk in the park! I think I was the highest up I've ever been in my life with my feet still touching solid ground.

My dad came, too! He made it to the top! I was glad he was able to come along. It was such a fun time.

I spent Sunday at the mountain too with a few other friends who wanted to stay up there another night. It was just a great time meeting new friends and enjoying old and enjoying perfect weather in central oregon. I know I'm sounding super gushy, but besides the mosquitoes, it was a perfect weekend!

Then the next day, I got together with my friend Anna and our mutual friend Liz who I knew growing up, but got to know better when we met up again years later in Alaska. She now lives out in the same village I lived in when I was working in Alaska. She was down to catch some summer. We went to the beach and basically just meandered down the coast, stopping wherever we wanted to. It was great.

Then, on our way home, we were hitting some backroads and I hit a deer for the first time! I've never hit any animal before that I can remember, certainly not a full grown deer. I just remember seeing the deer, trying to swerve, seeing the deer walk further into my path, going "Oh shoot. I hope my car isn't totaled!" and then feeling the impact of the deer hitting and seeing it careening straight up into the air over my car! It was pretty dramatic! The car still runs, even though the hood bears battle scars!

So that was my exciting weekend! Today made up for it, I was just doing data entry all day in preparation for BSF starting up. Now my eyes are pretty much crossed and I want to go for a run tomorrow to make up for all the couch sitting I did at my computer today!

Hello!

2011-08-23T12:46:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since I've updated my blog, I had to go look at it to remember what I last posted about! Mostly, I've just been busy doing blog-post-worthy things that I haven't had time to update it! Soon a picture post will come, so you can see all the fun I've had cooking for multitudes of kids, summitting mountains, viewing ocean waves, and running into deer! It's been a wild few weeks!

I'm ready for fall to start in that I long for a more structured schedule and the accountability of BSF for my bible time.

Years ago (well, not THAT many years ago!) when I was a junior or senior in college, I wrote in my journal some words that would take on new meanings that I had no idea about at the time. I wrote, "It will be so exciting to be able to trust God about things that I can wrap my hands around!" At the time, I was living with my parents, and my future for the most part was set...graduate college. period. I didn't have to trust much since my needs were being met elsewhere. Since then, it's been a wild ride of trusting God about things that I can wrap my hands around, be it a place to live, income, ministry opportunities, relationships.....

I am needing the direction and wisdom of the Lord more than ever right now. Again, mostly about things I can wrap my hands around. And it IS exciting! It's a grand adventure! My life is so different right now than I imagined it 5 years ago, 3 years ago, and even just one year ago! It's better than anything I could have imagined.

Stay strong in the Lord, my dear readers! Trust Him for everything. He is our joy. He is our strength. He is our everything and the bottom line. When all else is stripped away, we go on in the power of the Lord.

Karen

He loved them to the end

2011-08-09T22:11:00.000-07:00

I'm going to confess: probably the one truth about Jesus/God that I have the hardest time swallowing on a daily basis is the truth that God loves me.

Who knows why, there's probably a lot of reasons I could come up with.

I think the main one is that I know me. I know how horrible I am, how unworthy of love I am. I know that I don't meet the standard, day after day. I know that even if what I'm doing on the outside seems love-worthy, my attitude about it isn't.

Two years ago, I was doing a study of John. One of the most life-altering truths I learned from that study was John 13:1: Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

He loved them to the end.

That end meant he washed their feet.
That end meant he was tortured for their sins.
That end meant he died for their sins.

It means he loves ultimately, completely, without reserve, with no strings attached, with no chance of turning back.

So what to do with this, when I feel God doesn't love me? I can sit and say, "God loves me! God loves me! God loves me!" but that doesn't seem to do much good. I just come up with more reasons why He shouldn't.

I pray. I prayed, "Lord, today, help me to see the truth that You love me."

And he answers our prayers, you know. He answers our prayers. This is a prayer we know He will answer with a yes because it's always in His will. He always wants us to know He loves us, because He does.

There are no if's or and's or but's about God's love. We have done nothing, He has done everything. Period. And he continues each day to love us, to give His life for us.

We serve a great God. We serve a living God. We serve a God who came down and lived among us. We serve a God who loves us, not a God who is angry at us.

Praising God for this,

Karen

How to choose a church

2011-08-07T15:46:00.000-07:00

"Be the change you want to see in the world" - Gandhi

A little over a year ago, I was doing a lot of soul-searching and my life was in the midst of transition. One of the ways this manifested itself was that I was in the process of looking for a new church. I had attended the same church since I was 1. It was and is a great church, but was small, had no people in my age group (OK, except my two sisters and two single moms...I think that was it), and in my opinion, the whole thing was pretty....blah.

So I would spend Sunday after Sunday, looking at churches that seemed interesting. I didn't like the really big churches and some of the small churches were a little weird, but I finally found one church I really, really liked. The teaching was very solid and highly applicable and there was a lot going on besides just the services. It also wasn't a really big church, which I liked, but had enough people to make it interesting. I dragged my sisters there, and my parents even came a few Sundays. All of us liked it, but of course my parents were too involved with the Old Church to make the move, and my one sister was about to get married and move to another town, so my other sister and I started to figure we would start the transplantation process soon.

Then I went on my study tour in Israel at the beginning of last summer, and while there, told some of the girls in my study tour about my search for a new church and how I thought I'd found a church I really liked. I was surprised and taken aback by their response. "I'm a big fan of staying where you are", the one girl said. "Yeah", said the other one. "We decided to stick it out at our boring little churches and now things are really happening over there." That wasn't the response I was expecting because most people had been very supportive of my search for a new church.

I decided to wait to jump ship and pray about it. Oh, pray about it! What a thought. I had been praying about it, but I didn't think that praying about staying was an option, too. I realized that to move to another church would be a move for "me". The question was whether now was the time to make a decision for "me."

That quote from Gandhi actually pretty accurately sums up where I was by the end of the summer. What was I most disgruntled with at my church? The boring music, the lack of people my age. Why could I not do something about it instead of sit and complain and then leave?

So I made the decision to stay, but get more involved, both in the music ministry and in my relationships with the younger kids that were at the church. It has not been easy. Administration is not my thing (I'd rather be told what to do than tell other people what to do), so having more music responsibilities has been a huge learning curve. Initiating relationships is also not my thing (I like to be friends with people who tell me they want to be friends with me), so sometimes I've felt like an inexperienced tightrope walker out there, trying to foster conversation and get activities organized for "my" girls at church. If anything, I've just seen more and more how UNWORTHY I am, how UNABLE I am! I'm sure I've also given my patient pastor lots of reasons to practice his patience! :)

But finally I have realized that church isn't so much about being fed, it's about feeding! The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and give His life a ransom for many. As we follow in the footsteps of Christ, our relationships with other Christians should be ones of service and ministry, not a relationship of being fed fancier food. God feeds us by His word through the Holy Spirit, and then we're sent out to be Jesus Christ to our fellow believers, and then to the world!

And you know, it's a great blessing to serve! It's so much more of a hassle and way more work and you put yourself in a place to be criticized more. You're more vulnerable when you're more involved. But the blessings are huge! It's a blessing to put yourself in a place where God can finally use you!!!

So if you're disgruntled with your current church and are thinking of jumping ship, may I encourage you to stick it out, too? I'm now a big fan of staying where you are, as well! Be the change you want to see in your Church!

Off now to clean the apartment,

Karen

Remembering

2011-08-04T08:23:00.000-07:00

I find that when I am not at peace, I'm not trusting God. When I'm not trusting God, I am not remembering Who He is. This morning, this is the song that is from my heart. I usually think posts with song lyrics are cheesy, and if you don't know the song, it doesn't mean as much to you, but here I go, cheesiness and all. I really like Jennifer Knapp's music. I know there is controversy surrounding her right now, but I don't want to get all caught up in it. God has spoken powerfully through her lyrics and nothing else matters because we are all broken people and God speaks perhaps the strongest through the most broken.

He is my light and my Salvation
Whom have I to fear?
In His secret place I hide
I pray, that I might hear
A single word

Oh, how I would have despaired if
You had not come found me there
I can lean against Your throne and find
My peace, find my peace.

When my enemies draw near, I
Pray that they may find
I'm protected and secure, All
Tempests He will bind
With a mighty word

Oh, how I would have despaired if
You had not come found me there
I can lean against Your throne and find
My peace, find my peace

He is my light and my Salvation,
Whom have I to fear?

Another sunny day!

Karen

Sustainable Living Update #9

2011-08-01T15:39:00.000-07:00

By the way, I'm loving summer as always. I was born for summer. Well, I was born in summer, so maybe that has something to do with it. Last night, my dear friend Jennifer and I spent the night outside under the stars (first time to really hang out with her since she got back from two years in Africa!) and I woke up early in the morning and watched the sky as it was just barely light on the horizon, then as the stars gradually faded from the sky. I heard the first little bird call, almost as if it was asking if it was time to wake up or not. Then the last star hung in the sky as it got light and the mysterious fir trees became not so mysterious anymore

Anyway, that was quite the rabbit trail.

Here's the latest Sustainable Living Update.

Items #5 and 7:

Make my own Yogurt

and

Purchase sustainably farmed raw milk and make milk products.

Well, I feel like I've retreated a little on #7 because back in January, I was all over making cheese and stuff but I've decided that's a little ambitious for right now. I did try it a little bit and it turned out kind of OK, but I'm happy with just making yogurt, drinking some of the milk, and making the occasional butter/whipped cream. Maybe later when I grow up some more and have a more amazing personal schedule I will make cheese, but I'm not at that point yet.

So here is how the milk goes down!

Here are my skimmed half gallons of raw milk. I made butter with this particular batch of cream by whipping the cream in my kitchenaide mixer (covered with a towel to prevent splattering) until it became butter:

I rinsed in really cold water many times, squeezing out the whey until the water ran clear and salted it. I gallon of jersey cream made about 1 1/4 cups of butter.

Then I made yogurt.

I took two quarts of the milk and heated it over medium heat, stirring occasionally to keep it from sticking to the bottom.

As soon as it reached 180 degrees Farenheit....

Place it in your sink that has a couple inches of cold water in it. Let it cool down to 110. Stirring helps this process speed up, and if you know me, you know this is a good thing.

Then add 1/2 C live-culture yogurt. THe first time I made yogurt, I used the leftovers from my Nancy's yogurt, the second time, I used the leftovers from my last jar of homemade yogurt. After the milk cools to 110, you whisk in the yogurt really well.

Next, you need to "hold" the yogurt at or around 110 degrees. There's many ways to do this. My cousin puts the yogurt in an oven that has the light on and covers the yogurt with towels. Some people find a "warm" place like a wood stove or a running appliance like a refrigerator. I use a heating pad and towels.

Here is my two quarts of yogurt placed in clean jars. Let the yogurt sit about 7-10 hours (overnight). Then put the lids on the jars, screw on the lids, and place in the refrigerator to enjoy! Remember to save a little of your yogurt for next time!

Love being 24,

Karen

From the coast.

2011-07-25T22:36:00.000-07:00

Finishing up a long weekend here at the coast to visit my sis and brother in law and their little baby.

This weekend the power and beauty of God has been so close. He is all we need, he is all we need to seek after.

I feel still like I'm trapped in a shell though. A shell of safety and concern for my welfare that must be shattered if I am to reach out and touch the world with the resounding reality of the powerful and beautiful God. I want to be brave. I want to be living out loud. I want to be obedient. Lord, shatter me until I can be obedient. Continue to cut out that part that is not You! I like to think that you are the majority in my life, but if I am only honest, I know that I still yet hold the seed of faith, the germ of You in me, and there is so much more of You to grow in my life.

I am amazed at the little baby that grows visibly each day, looks different each morning. I am humbled by the constant care he needs and the truth to what my mom always said, that you never know how selfish you are until you become a parent. In my youth I naiively said I would LOVE a LARGE family, and now, I am not sure I could even handle one. I have heard it said that being married and having a family is the best way to break you and make you more like Christ. I am sure it is true because it is so easy to feel spiritual as I do my quiet hour of devotions in the morning (and when I skip, it's probably because I'm indulging myself in something!), how much harder to feel spiritual when spending your whole day changing diapers and feeding a little life that cannot do anything for you? Yet that is the true act of selfless love that mirrors the love of Christ on the cross, dying to His own life and plans and dreams and career so that others might live.

Oh Lord, that all might know how good you are, how sufficient you are; how we are nothing apart from you.

And Oh Lord, that I might know that too each day, every day, more and more.

In awe,

Karen

Sustainable Living Update #8

2011-07-20T20:52:00.000-07:00

Hi!

This is a fun one for me to write. It's been fun over the last few months to start implementing Item number 9 from my Sustainable Living Update 2011 list .

Item 9: Make my own cleaners and detergents.

And here are the recipes!!!

First off, stock up on Baking Soda and Borax. These two things are AMAZING! Why did we ever think we needed to improve on baking S. and Borax???

This is not Green Works, but a reclaimed container that contains 2 C water, a few drops of dish soap and a few drops of peppermint essential oil. You seriously could use any kind of essential oil, I just like the smell of peppermint! I use this for spraying and cleaning anything, but mostly my bathroom sink and outside of my toilet. Sometimes i use it to do a better cleaner job of scrubbing the floor or whatever else you'd use simple green or another all-purpose cleaner for.

This is one of my favorite cleaners! It gets my tub SO sparkling! I'll never look back! Just make a paste with baking soda and dish soap, and add some essential oils! I keep it in this old peanut butter jar and when the time comes, I take a dab and either throw it in the toilet bowl and swish around with the toilet brush, or else take a dab and smear it around in a ring around the tub and scrub the tub with it. A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY! I'm always spending like 10 minutes trying to rinse out suds from the tub because I always go overboard with it.

This works really well, too! Gets our dishes nice ad clean! 2 C baking soda mixed with 1 1/2 c borax. Fill your rinse cap with white vinegar!

Laundry soap!
Grate 1 bar of Fels-Naptha soap (or grate other soaps to make 2 c -my cousin says be careful because some soaps leave grease stains on your clothes. I suspect a moisturizing bar would do this),
then add 1 C baking soda and
1 C borax.
Use 1-2 T of the soap per load, depending on the size and filthiness of the load. I LOVE the smell of Fels-Naptha! So far, it's worked really well!

And there you have it!

God is so good to us,

Karen

Lest you think I'm a complete health nut...

2011-07-17T21:42:00.000-07:00

One really enjoyable roommate-bonding thing that Sarah and I do is have breakfasts together occasionally. Sometimes Chris joins us, and that is fun because he always brings juice or something. It's so handy to have a built-in juiceman. Juice is something I never think about.

Breakfast is a really great meal. It's even better when you are eating it with someone else. On a regular basis, it's pointless to me to put forth the effort to have a detailed breakfast when it's just me eating, so breakfast usually consists of toast, cereal, or oatmeal - fast and functional. But when we have breakfast dates, it's usually something way cooler like french toast, oatmeal pancakes, regular pancakes, or waffles. But this time, we made these:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we started our Sunday out right with homemade doughnuts! Not only did we make doughnuts, but we made some of them CHOCOLATE! Being the child of the healthy food queen, eating chocolate for breakfast pretty much equals complete rebellion in my book. I still feel a little naughty when it happens. They were cake doughnuts, and I'll share with you the recipe, but I apologize because it's from my baking textbook and it's in weights. You should buy a scale, though. It's the better way to bake. SO much easier than scooping and leveling.

Chocolate Cake Doughnuts (I halved this recipe and then halved this again to make plain doughnuts, making a full batch. The way we ate them this morning, it was just enough for three people for breakfast. :P I am sure the rest of you will not eat that many if you make them, right? OK, maybe not....)
Cream together:
1.5 oz shortening
4 oz sugar
3/8 t salt
1/4 oz vanilla extract
Add:
1 egg
combine, then add to wet ingredients:
1 lb AP flour
1.25 oz cocoa powder
1/4 oz baking powder
2/3 t baking soda
8.5 oz water
Combine until just blended; don't overmix.
Pat the dough into a nice smooth rectangle shape and let it rest for 15 min. Then roll it out thin to 3/4 in. thick. Cut out the doughnuts. Fry them in oil heated to 380 F, turning to fry both sides. They only need a few seconds until they puff and get slightly browner. After they're done frying, place on paper towels to cool; this will absorb any excess cooking oil. Couldn't be easier.

This was my first time making doughnuts, and I couldn't believe how easy they are. In fact, it was probably a bad thing to discover how easy doughnuts are......

We dusted some with powdered sugar, and made a glaze for some of them.

If you want non-chocolate doughnuts, follow the same recipe as for chocolate, only omitting the cocoa and using only 8 oz water.

Yum, yum! I froze some of the extra dough, so we'll see if that works out and we can have doughnuts again sometime when our grease low level light is on!

Or maybe we should start our own branch of Voodoo Doughnuts. You know how they put froot loops and rice krispies on theirs? I could put granola on mine! Ha!

The birds are still in our chimney, and they are louder today than they were yesterday.

It was also rainy today. Totally reminded me of Alaskan summers. In fact, when I woke up this morning, I felt like I should be making the trek up to the kitchen to cook in the lodge. It even smelled like Alaska. Pretty weird, and only made me want to go up to visit all the more. Don't ever go to Alaska, folks. It will never wash out of your hair.

OK, that's all for today! Have a great week!

Karen

Noisy Neighbors...

2011-07-16T22:54:00.000-07:00

We have a chimney.

This is what it looked like in December. It looks only slightly different now.

There is a family of birds in our chimney.

"How do you know?" You might ask.

Well, they get fed by their mama about every 5 min, and each day, every 5 min, there has been increasingly more enthusiastic chirping coming from the chimney.

I just wonder how they're going to get out of there and learn how to fly. They sound like they're right on top of the flue.

I feel tempted to open the flue and play a nasty prank on them. Now you know about my sadistic side.

That's all. You're welcome for that little detail about our lives.

Hearing chirping in the background as I type,

Karen

And this is love....

2011-07-15T11:58:00.000-07:00

It is difficult to fully see the love of a man and a woman

Until you have seen them with their little baby

The little baby that is half him, half her.

This is the consummation of love - new life.

Just as the consummation of God's love is US,

His workmanship,

born again,

made new in the likeness of His Son.

Praise be to the Lord of Hosts who has loved us to the uttermost and is coming to complete His good work in us and make everything new. Great is the love of the Lord.

Soon to be an aunt!

2011-07-13T12:46:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm like wanting to shout this from the rooftops: I'm going to be an aunt really soon! We're all headed up to be with my sister! First grandchild and all that. I feel sort of sorry for this little baby wtih all the press/publicity he's going to get (or she)!

Laura and I were going to IHOP this morning to see if we could get free pancakes for her birthday (today is her birthday...talk about a great bday gift!). We didn't get free pancakes, but split a cheap crepe instead, and on our way to Dutch Bros to get a free coffee, we got the call from mom that Theresa's headed to the hospital! So we ran to my house for me to throw stuff into my little weekend bag, then we went to Trader Joe's to stock up on all the essentials (oreos, chips, crackers, chocolate, dried fruit...) and now we're on our way out! Praying for a smooth delivery (sounds like it will be fast...I hope it is true) and we are all very anxious to hold this little baby in just a few hours.

Yesterday at work a young couple came into the store with a baby that was not even one week old. The little guy was so cute, he yawned and then got the hiccups! It made me even more excited about aunthood!

Wired,

Karen

Yay Us!

2011-07-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

On our STP ride, we saw a lot of "Team This" or "Team That" jerseys. Whenever my friend and I felt like we'd accomplished something fairly significant on the ride (like making it another 25 miles), we'd usually say, "Yay us!" So we decided next time we do this, we'll have to make jerseys that say "Team Us"! :)

So here is what happened on our first attempt at the STP!

I had called Amtrak multiple times before we left to make sure we could transport our bikes on the train in reclaimed bike boxes from the bike store. All the people I talked to said it was OK. So we show up early on Friday at the train station and the lady was very grumpy and said that we could not take our bikes on in their bike boxes, we could only do it with the Amtrak-approved boxes they sold. Finally, after telling us that this could cost her her job, blah blah, she let us take them on the train.

After we got into Seattle, we noticed other boxes besides ours being taken off the train that were just reclaimed bike store boxes. Perhaps other train personnel risked their jobs in other towns to let them take their bike boxes on, too. At any rate, I'm still very hazy as to whether what we did was OK or not.

Besides that, we had a very good trip to Seattle, and then after getting there reassembled our bikes. My bike handle was supposed to have an expansion nut in it to make it stay put, and before leaving, my Dad asked if I had found that nut when I took off the handlebars to put them in the box. I didn't, and I started worrying that it had fallen out of my bike and I didn't notice it. When we were reassembling our bikes in Seattle, the handlebars weren't screwing on right, and I was afraid that Dad's concerns were right - the nut was somewhere in my garage back home. But then after freaking out, I noticed something down in the handlebars that looked like it might be the expansion nut! Sure enough! It was wedged in the handlebars, so I was able to pry it out and assemble the handlebars! One more episode in Karen Mending Things! :)

We had fun walking around Seattle, looking at cool stores and having pizza outdoors. Then we were to meet my friend Ben from school as he came over the ferry. We walked (with our bikes) to figure out where we were to meet him in an hour and a half, and then Miranda had never been on a ferry before, so we made hte last minute decision to get on the ferry and meet Ben there. Once on the ferry and texting Ben to let him know of our plans, we thought maybe we'd hopped on the wrong ferry and would be whisked to never-never land, but we actually had gotten on the correct ferry and had a great ride over and then walked around the "snobby hippy town" of Bainbridge before crossing back to Seattle again to meet up with another friend of ours, Kristen.

We had chinese food in a chinese restaurant in chinatown. It was a great time spent with friends. Then we had to part ways as Miranda and I were trying to get to bed early!

When hanging out with Ben and Kristen, we had a "bus rehearsal" to make sure we knew what bus to take to UW and when. We thought it was 5 that the first bus left, and we made it down there at 5:10, and waited for another bus. We waited and waited and there was no other soul at the bus depot, and no bikers or anything around. Then we realized that the buses left at 5 on the weekdays, not the weekends! So we had to bike half an hour to make it to UW, about an hour later than we'd hoped, but we still made it.

Final preparations before leaving!

There were 12,000 riders in the event. Yes, 12,000! A continual stream of bikers along the roadside all two days! Some people decorated their helmets, like this one!

Part of day 1 was along a bike trail through the woods. Quite fun and delightful! Then we stopped by the side of the road and got into stinging nettle which wasn't fun, but now we know what stinging nettle is like! Kind of like a sun rash, which we developed about the same time as the stinging nettle!

We made it to our halfway point, Chehalis. Centralia is the main halfway point, and is a way bigger party with a massage tent, emcee, and lots of people. We thought it would be good to go an extra 5 mi or so to make it to Centralia so we would have a shorter day the second day. I liked that option because the atmosphere in Chehalis was much more quiet and laid back, plus it was really nice to have that shorter day on day 2.

We went to the Chehalis Safeway to get chocolate milk, and this newsstand with all magazines about the royal wedding cracked me up! I thought we were over the royal wedding...apparently not!

Also, to safely cross "major" intersections in Chehalis, you need to use these crosswalk flags! There were instructions on how to use them and everything! We tried to be safe!

Passing through Winlock on day two. All these little towns between Centralia and Castle rock were really stoked about us coming through. I thought it was too bad we missed the egg days at Winlock. It was probably a real cluckin' good time.

I took this picture because this guy was riding in the STP with just a button-up shirt and khaki shorts! You see all kinds of people in the STP! Real dedicated bikers, big groups, really fat people, young kids, old guys, families, couples, friends.....After doing this, I'm convinced that just about anyone could do the STP if they wanted! You should do the STP one of these days!

We had to wait in big groups to cross the bridge at Longview. Unlike the little mountain towns, larger towns like Longview are not too enthused with 12,000 bikers taking over their town. The traffic would be stopped as we crossed the bridge in huge waves.

We were blessed with great weather both days. It was warmer on Saturday and cooler on Sunday. We still had to use sunscreen, but the heat wasn't unbearable.

Yay Oregon!

This was at our last free food stop in St. Helens. We were DEAD! After eating and then resting on the lawn for about 45 min, we felt great and ended the ride with strength!

At the finish line! Yay us! It was frustrating getting through Portland because there were stop lights every block about and we had to stop! We were like 3 miles away and it took us like a half hour because of all the stop lights! We even had to wait at a stop light right at the entrance to the finish line! Kind of anticlimactic after biking 200 miles, but we made it and that's the important thing! :)

So the big question, was our training effective? I think if you are training for your first STP, the most important thing is to get in one ride that is 100 miles so mentally you know you can do it. We had wanted to do a back-to-back 150, but that didn't happen, but we didn't need to do that. After sleeping, your legs rest up. Obviously the second day we were a little more creaky than the first day, but mentally we knew we could bike 100 miles, so it wasn't really a big deal. We were also glad we had done as much hill training as we had done. Biking around my place and Miranda's usually involve pretty significant hills. The first day was not hilly at all, just the "Big Hill" which was a 7% grade for 1 mi (translated: pretty steep hill for a fair distance). We creamed that hill, no problem, and since the rest of day one was basically flat, it was an easy ride. Day 2 was actually more challenging hill-wise, but the hills were very similar to the ones we had done on our training rides, so we creamed those hills, too. In fact, we passed LOTS of people going up the hills, but since we had mountain bikes, those same people would pass us on the downhill and the flats. Now I kind of want to buy a road bike....

Over all, it was a great experience. We had a ton of fun and found out we can actually bike 200 miles (well, 210 if you count biking to UW at the beginning) in two days! I might actually be convinced to do it again! They take great care of you. You really don't have to pack a lot of your own food if you don't want to, at least the way we were doing it. If we were biking harder and faster it might be a different story, but we only ate a few of our own granola bars and energy cookies and peanut MnM's because every 25-30 miles is a free food stop and they have good food, as well as about every 10 miles or so is a place to refill your water bottles.
For 100 bucks, I think it's a great deal since they feed you, provide bathrooms, and transport your camping gear.

Recovering and ready for the next adventure,

Karen

Know that I love you all....

2011-07-06T23:27:00.000-07:00

This weekend is the big big ride! If I do not make it, know that I love you all! :) I'm generally feeling excited, punctuated by intermittent panic attacks!

biking aside.

I love the way you can run wild in the summer, just run in and out and here and there and not think too much about whether what you're wearing is weather appropriate and not have to worry too much about things getting rained out and early summer morning when it's cool but you know it will be hot so you just soak it all up in the cool goodness of the sun while the dew makes your sandaled feet wet. Mmm. July is a good month.

Off to drink a glass of water (pre-hydrating) and then to bed,

Karen

Dealing with Doubts

2011-07-03T21:46:00.000-07:00

About my faith.

I probably have questions of some kind constantly moving through my head. Maybe something will happen, someone will say something, I'll read something, and then step back, and go, "Is it really wise to believe what I believe?"

I hope that most people come to that point in their lives where what they've always believed about life is questioned and they have to rediscover what they really think is real and true. If you don't question your belief system, I wonder if you really believe it or if you really care about it.

What gets me is that none of us can know for sure what is true. Every single belief system, ultimately, has its foundation in fatih. If you're an atheist, you're living by faith that nature, not God, is the explaination for reality. If you're a deist, you're living by faith that God, not nature, is the explanation for reality. Ultimately, we cannot know for sure what spun us all into being because none of us were there. A lot of us have good guesses, but it is all theory, none of it proven fact.

So why believe in God when it takes the same measure of faith for anything? One religion is not necessarily more superior than the other in that regard. To believe in an invisible, eternal God is just as outside of this world as a bunch of aliens, or the process of evolution, or the mother and father of a bunch of spirit-babies. It's all something we can't concieve here in time and space, and it all takes faith. So how can we know what is true?

It really bothers me. I like to have FACT and be CERTAIN and have PROOF. I also like to be right (haha), and no matter what I study or read or think about, there are not facts, certainty, or proofs about anything. Just a lot of good guesses.

And I keep coming back to Jesus. It's like something I can't escape. Even if I become an atheist (which I've considered, along with many other things), I don't think I could ever escape Jesus. It's not like being chased by a bogey man, it's not like trying to shake off old guilt, it's not like being haunted by childhood brainwashing. It's simply something I can't ignore, and it's something I could never talk myself out of. No matter what, no matter how big in my mind, Jesus is always THERE, inescapable, as basic and real as ever. The Bible says that nothing can separate us from God's love, and I think those who have truly encountered personally the love of God are never the same and can never be separated from it. That's the only explaination that I can come up with.

It can't be proven by scientific process. It can't be reasoned about logically. But even though I've only lived a short while, I know that not everything in life is logical or scientific. There's more than just one dimension to life, and part of that untangible, spiritual dimension is the reality that I can't get away from the love of God.

Of tubs scrubbed and not-scrubbed.

2011-06-30T23:29:00.000-07:00

I feel like I should update my blog.

I suppose merely feeling like one "should" do something isn't the most heartfelt reason to do anything.

Should we only do things we feel like doing?

I suppose according to that line of thought, my tub would never get scrubbed.

Then one must ask, is it that important to have a scrubbed tub?

I suppose when one either contracts a toe fungus or else slips on the alge in the bottom of the tub, it is safe to say that it is indeed important to have a scrubbed tub.

But one rarely dies from toe fungus or a fall in the bathtub (I suppose it's possible to die from a fall in the bathtub, but it certainly doesn't happen every day).

Well, in order to solve this very pressing quandry, I have two quotes, the first being from my aunt:

"People are more important than things"

and another one from another source that I'm not sure about but I'm feeling too lazy right now to go and look up:

"Moderation in all things"

So I take that to mean that given the choice, spending time with someone else is more important than a scrubbed tub, and scrubbing your tub in moderation is a healthy and balanced thing to do.

Moderation is difficult. Extremism is much easier.

It's easier to be a militiant tub-scrubber than it is to remember to let it go once in awhile.

It's also easier to never scrub your tub than it is to remember to scrub it once in awhile.

I know legalistic extremists and hedonistic extremists. To one extreme, the key to everything is to have a standard or rule for every behavior. To the other extreme, the key is to choose personal enjoyment at all times.

The tub-scrubbers and the non-tub-scrubbers of the world.

What if there's a third option? To neither be a tub-scrubber or a non-tub scrubber but instead one who has a realistic view of the function of her home?

Or one who neither lives by the law or out of the law, but has a realistic view of one's self before God?

Our God...who is great in unfailing love, does wonderful deeds toward mankind, and fills the hungry with good things.

And I suppose scrubbing my tub is on the order of things to do sometime this weekend....

Excited to pick strawberries tomorrow,

Karen

Another way to eat quinoa.

2011-06-24T19:51:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the lovely little side salads at the Blue Scorcher, I decided to do one of my own. It was fabulous.

1/2 C uncooked quinoa
1 C water
1 small splash Argan oil *My next younger sister recently bought some of this and shared it with the whole family. It is a roasted nutty oil that reminds me of both sesame and peanut oil. I highly doubt most of you have argan oil in your pantry, so I think either of these oils would be a great substitute. The nutty taste pairs well with the quinoa.
Three leaves of Romaine, chopped
1/3 cucumber, chopped
handful of carrots, chopped
several mint leaves, chopped
several cilantro sprigs, chopped
2 T sunflower seeds

Cook the quinoa in the water with the oil until the water is completely absorbed and the quinoa is soft. Meanwhile, combine the salad ingredients. When the quinoa is ready, toss with the salad and serve!

This would be a good point to feature the famous container garden of 2011. Cilantro, mint, basil, parsley, rosemary, and oregano. Plus a mini rose plant we tried to kill (during the winter, you could find it either drying up by the front door or lying sideways on the deck....either way, it never got watered) but finally found some compassion in our eyes and is now thriving on the porch. I don't think it will bloom for us this year, though. The herb plants are great. The fresh taste can't be beat, nor can the convenience of having them out your back door.

I'm working on some new things for my Sustainable Living list! Just wait a few days, and you'll see! It might be a double feature, even! I love summer, it's so much easier to live healthfully. The fruit season has officially started with strawberries and I'm gorging myself as I do each year, plus making some jam and hopefully freezing some, too. If I'm to freeze all the stuff I have ambitions of freezing, though, I need to find a freezer as our fridge freezer is already almost falling open.

And in two weeks from now I'll be en route for the start of the STP! I'm definitely NOT feeling ready for this, but I'm fairly confident we can at least hobble over the finish line.

OK, what about that? An updated blog! OK, I'm off to attempt avoiding my computer and its eternal wealth of knowledge....

Reveling in summer,

Karen

Freedom is actually free.

2011-06-16T22:38:00.000-07:00

Freedom of the soul is found in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Nothing else.

How does your life reflect that you really believe this?

"I cried to the Lord and he answered by setting me free"

You ARE free.

Are you living like a caged bird or soaring to the heavens?

Weddings on the mind

2011-06-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

So yeah, my roommate is now engaged! I can't believe how that one event has suddenly transformed our place into Wedding Central! For those of you guys reading this who might someday ask your girlfriend to marry you, plan the timing of this carefully because from that moment on, your relationship with her will be suddenly transformed from being fun to being all business, especially if you plan a short engagement. Seriously. From now on out, it's a matter of surviving until the honeymoon when it will be all fun again! :P

Anyway, with weddings being on my mind and with us going out for the first round of wedding dress shopping and the whole thing seeming way more real, I've been thinking today about that ultimate "marriage celebration".

"I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.' He who was seated on the throne said, 'I am making everything new!'"

That whole process of longing, desiring, preparing for the wedding is a beautiful picture of our yearning on earth for the day we will be in the presence of God - spotless, renewed, revived, redeemed. I understand how the whole creation groans with longing for Christ to come! Oh Lord Jesus, come quickly! Come quickly!

Made to come alive.

2011-06-14T22:50:00.000-07:00

"Then the Lord God formed man out from the dust of the ground and breathed in his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."

Just realized what a great analogy the story of the creation of man is to life....how even today, right now, God raises us from the dust to be what we are meant to be. He breathes life into us.

We were dust, we are becoming men.

We were dead in our trespasses, and now we are being made alive! Alive!

What a marvelous thing this is.

The Book Cakes

2011-06-13T14:09:00.000-07:00

Made some book cakes for a surprise birthday party for a friend! These are three of his favorite books. The insides are again chocolate, and Eragon and Harry Potter had a ganache filling, and Lord of the Rings had a strawberry filling.

Once fully assembled at the location, they looked great! I was pleased with how they turned out. I haven't done very many shaped cakes; they are a challenge for me. They were happy with them and I was happy, too. I think the Lord of the Rings "book" was my favorite.

Summer business starts Thursday. I'm ready for it. More structure will be welcome, even though I've had a wonderful restful time up until now! My roommate just got engaged! :) :) :) So we'll be deep in the thick of wedding planning, too. We bought the first "wedding item" today: two rolls of ribbon in "the color" - the purple color that a lot of the dresses, etc. will be based on. It's exciting times around here!

Set free.

2011-06-12T09:11:00.000-07:00

"I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free."

This one-liner from Psalm 119 (which I'm still plowing through) captivated me.

This was mostly because "running" and "set free" are not usually words I'd associate with "commands."

I tend to be queasy around the word "command." When restating a passage that has "command" or another similar word, I like to substitute it with "God's ways" or something like that because to me, "command" carries a negative connotation.

It makes me think of requirements I can't keep. It makes me think of legalism, a hopeless life of bondage that traps people into thinking they need to find the correct formula that will please God.

David was a man after God's own heart. He realized that a relationship with God was the highest good in the word. Rather than getting caught up with obeying the requirements of the law with a heart that was far from God, David communed with the Lord first.

Notice that our hearts are set free BEFORE we run in the commands of God, not the other way around. We can't follow God's commands on our own. Trying to make God happy in our own strength is idolatry - because we rely on our own strength instead of looking to the strength of the Holy Spirit. When God sets our hearts free through Jesus Christ, we have a deep and close relationship with God. We are given the Holy Spirit. And God lets us RUN in the path of His commands! He is the one changing us and making us more like His Son! It's not a laborious process uphill towards holiness!

As a runner, it makes me think of those days when you feel strong and not out of breath, and are able to take in the beauty of the scenery around you and simply enjoy being alive as you run through the country on a sunny day. I think that is an experience every runner wishes to have every day. Just like that pleasurable run through the countryside, God is the power of our efforts - He sets us free to run. I do not have to be discouraged by rules and regulations, because that's not the main issue anyway. The main issue is an intimate relationship with the Lord.

If only we would wait for the salvation of the Lord, rather than trying to work it in our own way, our own rules, our own time.

"I RUN in the path of your commands because You have set my heart FREE!"

See spot ride....

2011-06-11T15:38:00.000-07:00

Trepidation. I am not a machine person. Be amazed that I drive a car on a regular basis.

Hey, this is fun!

I think I'm up for riding this thing for the STP instead! I just need a more hardcore helmet, though!

The Henna Cake

2011-06-09T16:09:00.000-07:00

It was one of those cakes that just started happening....I was inspired by some pictures of henna cakes. I love henna art. I've yet to get one myself (my sister is coming home tomorrow from North Africa and will be sporting an authentic henna!), but I was captivated by the idea of henna on a cake!

The piping is in melted milk chocolate, the shading is....chocolate paint! Haha! That's my own invention! It was milk chocolate mixed with an equal amount of cream heated to almost boiling and applied with a paintbrush! I'm in love with it now! I had made the milk chocolate ganache, thinking I'd use it for the main piping but it wasn't stiff enough. So I did the piping with the plain melted chocolate, then thought, "hey, let's see what happens if I start painting the runny stuff on!" And voila.

Inside is my (really, my mom's) famous best chocolate cake recipe that I only give out to special people. The filling is the runny ganache stuff which makes an OK filling. Since this is a birthday cake for a special friend, the buttercream is made with butter, not shortening, and the whole thing is covered with homemade fondant.

Taking it to a birthday/ultimate frisbee party tonight!

Enjoying the sun sun sun,

Karen

Stricken, but not cast down

2011-06-09T13:27:00.000-07:00

This has been an interesting week.

For the last....well, almost a month, I've been working my way, bit by bit through Psalm 119, underlining things that stood out to me. This was cool because I always saw Psalm 119 as a mildly boring Psalm that hashed and rehashed how wonderful the Bible was and how the Psalmist was so good to obey it. When I was a kid and mom read the Psalm to me, my response was, "David was pretty prideful, wasn't he??" That was because of passages like, "because I consider all your precepts right, I hate every wrong path...." even at 9, I knew people couldn't hate EVERY wrong path ALL the time, so I concluded that David had a larger-than-life view of himself.

Anyway, I never realized gems like these:

"Rulers persecute me without a cause, but my hearts trembles at your word!"

"Those who devise wicked schemes are near, but they are far from your law. Yet you are near, O Lord, and all your commands are true."

"Thought I am lowly and despised, I do not forget your precepts"

"Trouble and distress have come upon me but your commands are my delight."

""The wicked are waiting to destroy me, but I will ponder your statues."

"It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decress"

"The arrogant mock me without restraing, but I do not turn from your law."

I was amazed at the theme of fearing the word of God, even in the face of great personal persecution.

Of course, as I was underlining all these verses, I was like, "Well, these are interesting to me for sure! But I bet they would mostly be used by imprisoned believers in a foreign country. I don't even get weird looks from people in the grocery store, let alone be persecuted without a cause!"

How God prepares us in mysterious ways we do not know.

In this tolerant country, we are blessed, BLESSED to live out our religion in the open. People can whine about "prayer being taken out of schools", but I don't think that equals persecution. I can still read my Bible when I go to the park and I can openly go to a church on Sunday and I can write about God as much as I want on my blog. We are not persecuted.

However, there are times that we are questioned about our beliefs. There are times we get wierd looks. And in those times, we have two choices:

1. Retaliate (either saying, or else simply thinking about what you "would have said" or what you "would have done" or what you can do to "take care of the situation" or what "that person needs to learn")

or

2. Delight in the Lord

And this week we had an opportunity to put this in practice.

It's really hurtful when you discover people have been talking about you.
It's more hurtful when you discover they were talking about your sister.
It's frustrating when you know they're judging you from the outside, and aren't taking the time to actually get to know you.
It's even more frustrating when you realize that they are judging you for being rigid, when they too are being rigid in their judgment!

So I started stewing about it. "Stupid people! Why don't they get a life!"

I thought about how I would defend myself to them.

I almost went out and actually did it.

I thought about how narrow-minded their judgments were, even thought they thought they were being "open minded".

I told people about how violated I felt.

And then this morning, God gently reminded me,

"You were happy you had those verses in Psalm 119 to cling to! Why aren't you doing it??"

I'm sorry, Lord.

What they said makes no difference.

How I feel about it makes no difference, either.

What matters is that Your love is unfailing, your mercies are new every morning, and your have promised to preserve me and You are making us more whole, day by day.

And you have brought blessings in this, too! Our family is more close because of it!

Who are the wicked? What are their accusations?

None of it matters when I consider the beauty of the Lord and the freedom of His ways.

Deep in cakeland (pictures to come soon!!),

Karen

Update on Biking, or, why we need our heads examined.

2011-06-08T12:22:00.000-07:00

M and I have decided that we should write a book

A book on how to train for the STP.

Only, it would be what NOT to do....

So the things we learned this week in our training:

*If you are going to do 100 mi, plan more than 1 hr in advance
*Don't try to increase 30 miles on your long ride after one week of not biking

But we DID make it.

Crawling on hands and knees, but we did make it.

Note to Gervais: Get some classier welcome signs.

We're getting a lot less scientific about the artistic placements of our bikes when taking these pictures.

I can't believe we made it.

Our destination. We felt like hollering to all the car drivers: "We just biked 50 miles, yo! Give us some space!"

And then we had to bike back. Seriously, we were dragging so bad at REI that we couldn't even enjoy the store except sit at the book shelves and read books about hiking the PCT and running barefoot.

We did learn that tumeric and cinnamon are good things to eat to help with muscle inflammation. With that in mind, I made a dish the next day and added extra tumeric!

Total Mileage: 98.2

OK, OK, so it's not 100 miles. Whatever. We didn't feel like biking an extra 1.8 miles around the block. Give us a break.

Besides, we weren't even planning to bike 98.2. We were planning to bike 90 but got lost with the directions several times, and so we added 8.2 to our route.

We're just that professional and awesome.

The good news? I biked 8 miles to my grandma's and 8 miles back the next day, and it wasn't painful! Maybe two days of 100 each isn't so bad!

Having a productive pajama day!

Karen

Road trip wedding!

2011-06-07T13:49:00.000-07:00

One day and like 500 miles.

Four girls armed with an ipod full of Adele hit 1-5, bound for Seattle

By the end of the day, all of the car inhabitants could say that they had pumped gas at least once in their lives.

Thought of ditching the wedding and going to mt. Ranier, but decided to continue on....

....it would have been a great day at Ranier, though....

Got caught in a tank parade while searching for Subway...but we got out of there eventually and made it to the church right on time.

The wedding was for two college friends and fellow music nerds! I was taken with the music the groom composed for the event! It was played by an oboe and string quartet, and was absolutely gorgeous!

*Music nerd aside* Caleb composed a lot of music throughout his college career, but a lot of it was very ear-bending. I performed one of his compositions at a recital once entitled, "sweetly singing birdies", and the entire song was based on the tri-tone, which is the most dissonant interval in all of music. Often he'd ask me to listen to something he'd written, and I'd get my head ready for something unusual and surprising. However, I remember the first time I listened to something he had composed with Elisa in mind, and it was the most gorgeous thing I'd ever heard of his. Same with the music composed for the wedding. Thank you Elisa for marrying Caleb so that the world can enjoy Caleb's pretty music!

Caleb's dad is a pastor, and he did most of the ceremony.

I don't usually cry at weddings, but I cried twice during the ceremony! OK, I teared up, but that's crying for me. I cried when Mr. Baggenstos gave Elisa away (probably because I have lingering emotions surrounding this from when Theresa got married) and I cried during the slideshow when they played "I'm waiting on you, Lord" because this wedding was so happy - they dated over 4 years before getting married and waited until finishing college! They are my heroes! I don't know many people that would have waited so patiently for something like that!

Emily is like my oldest friend that is still my friend! There are friends I've had that we don't do much together anymore, and I have lots of good friends that I've had for several years, but Emily and I have known each other for almost 10 years and we're still friends! The only bad thing is it bores people considerably when we get together because we have so many crazy and embarrassing memories together of our mutually awkward adolescence that we can talk and talk about!

All the Corban-related people attending the wedding! Pretty good turnout for an out of state wedding, I think!

And they're off! A joyful day! Six hours of car rides was worth it!

Who do you say he is?

2011-06-02T09:50:00.000-07:00

This summer, I'm studying Mark, as well as continuing backwards through the Psalms. I began reading backward through the Psalms a few years ago, and for some reason, I really prefer this to reading forwards.

Anyway, maybe this is kind of a trite and over-used thought, but studying the life of Jesus once more has made me think, how would He have appeared had He come to our world today? Would we have been one of the crowds that followed, the critical religious people, or one of His disciples? Remember, He didn't have the glow of the Transfiguration around Him 24/7.

In my "sanctified imagination" (that my pastor uses occasionally when trying to make the Bible come alive), I imagine a young, active, but non-gregarious man about 30 years old. I know some guys like this. He came from a dirty part of the valley (I picture Albany or Falls City or some place out in hickville, like Sweet Home). No one knew about him. He was from a poor, blue collar family and some said he was the result of an illegitimate relationship. He suddenly appears on the scene, but doesn't seem to earn a living and travels up and down the valley (actually, Israel is about the same size as the Willamette Valley) like a hippie, staying with sympathetic supporters. He attracts large crowds of people who are also largely uneducated and generally rowdy. He appears to work many miracles that wow the crowds and is also a dynamic speaker.

He doesn't seem to follow organized religion, though...he will appear in traditional churches, but offends many good church-goers and does more of his speaking out of doors or in other public places, like parks and shopping malls. Most leading theologians, both liberal and conservative, don't appreciate or approve of Him, but He speaks with an authority that leaves them and their well-thought-out arguments speechless. In their mind, though, He is, without a doubt, spreading lies that create confusion in the hearts of easily convinced rabble and needs to disappear or else the whole world will be deluded with His religious falsehood.

Their line of attack is to cast doubt on His character, and with the help of a treacherous follower, they sway public opinion so that the people begin to demand His execution. These religious leaders, in their mind, didn't kill him...it was the opinion of the people - His former followers. The current government is highly secular and strives to be unbiased, and honestly, is quite indifferent to the whole situation, and to placate the people to avoid further disturbance of the peace, quickly adds this man to the schedule of a routine execution.

He dies quickly on a strange day, and just a few days later, word starts to circulate that He didn't stay dead, but now is back alive. There are many reported eye-witnesses, but because of his fanatic-like following, it's easy to surmise that His closest followers are just deluded because of grief. Soon, though, they also appear suddenly, like their leader, speaking publicly in a bold way, giving explanations for why this man died, how he came back to life, and saying that He has completed the current religious system, starting a new, fulfilled branch of religion. One would expect all this din to die down as these exuberant followers begin to meet violent opposition, mostly from the government, but in the midst of increasing abuse, the following grows, reaching all of society, even the highest branches of the very government that opposes religion.

So this tradesman, from less-than-honorable origins, makes a hugely controversial splash at the end of his short life. What would you have done? What would you have said He is? Who DO you say He is?

I'm working on a cake today. I'm so excited about it. It's been a long time since I've "properly" decorated a cake with fondant and all. If only I remember to take pictures of it, you'll get to see what it looks like, too.

Musing about worship,

Karen

Sustainable Living Update #7

2011-05-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

With all my biking posts, I guess this update is somewhat anticlimactic, but today I felt I really, truly began to realize this item off the Sustainable Living 2011 list:

Item #11: Bike places.

The reason I haven't posted about this earlier is that the weather hasn't been very good for me to just randomly do errands on my bike. Also, the way my piano teaching schedule was, I couldn't very well bike to my students. Also, up until now, I haven't been buff enough (or thought I wasn't buff enough) to bike 30 miles in a day to make the rounds around town. But now I'm transitioning into a different summer schedule, so I have more time and the weather is slowly becoming more favorable for biking around.

Today, I biked to my parent's house to hang out with them for awhile. Then I biked across town to my Grandma's house to have dinner with her. Then I biked home. The grand total miles was somewhere in the 23 mile range. I didn't use my car at all today.

From biking around more, I've been happily surprised at the various bike-friendly features of Salem. All of downtown has marked bike routes that direct you to the best places to go if you're trying to get downtown, to West Salem, or elsewhere. The Union Street pedestrian bridge that goes over the river is also a wonderful thing to use. When biking across town to get to my grandma's place in West Salem, I thought I'd probably be in busy downtown traffic, but as I neared the downtown, biking signs directed me to a special bike route that took me through an beautiful historic neighborhood that I'd never seen before and was very pleasant to ride on. Made me feel like I was Minnie Driver when she starred in "Return to Me". Only my bike is a dirty mountain bike, not a cute cruiser like hers.

I wear a flourescent yellow biking vest most places I go. I don't really like wearing it for the simple reason I don't feel cute when wearing a huge bright yellow jacket, but I'd rather be dorky than dead, so I have begrudgingly been wearing it. Today as I was biking down a busy street to get home, a guy about to turn left across traffic toward me leaned out the window and yelled, "sure am glad you are wearing bright!!!" That made me smile and remember why it's a good reason to wear bright colors because if I hadn't, he might have pulled right across into me! I'm not ready to become a pancake yet!

To fully realize my goal of biking places, I need to get a rack for the back of my bike so I can start doing little shopping trips with my bike. Once I have that, I'll be good to go!

Cleaned the kitchen this evening. Clean rooms make me feel a lot more peaceful.

Happy Memorial Day,

Karen

Biking.....biking....biking.......

2011-05-28T14:03:00.000-07:00

It's what I feel I'm doing with most of my free time now!

First, I hope by updating you all on my biking adventures I'm not making you intimidated to ever want to go biking with me! Just because I'm biking to the ends of the world doesn't mean I actually wouldn't rather just go for a nice easy 10 mi bike ride!

Monday: 13 mi in Salem/turner area

Tuesday: 20ish mi in the Jefferson/Turner area

Friday: 69 mi to Corvallis and back
Saturday: 36 mi to Mt. Angel and back

Total mileage: 138 miles, give or take.

Going to Corvallis was not a walk in the park. If it had been sunny, it would have been a different story, but as you see, it was POURING and we had a headwind. On the way home, it was somewhat less rainy and we had a tailwind, so not quite as bad. Today going to Mt Angel was rainy too. We were thankful that this was our first weekend of training with significant rain! We really have been spoiled up until now.

We're trying to get pictures of at least our bikes at every town we enter. We've been to Scio, Falls City, Turner, Monmouth....

Jefferson...

Silverton.....

Mt. Angel....

and Bethany. I have lived only about 12 mi from this tiny community, and never knew about it! In fact, today on our trip to Mt. Angel, I saw a lot of things that I'd never seen before!

Like this covered bridge. I didn't know there was a covered bridge so close to my parent's area. The "Gallon House Bridge". I'm used to seeing covered bridges down in the Scio area, but not up near Silverton! It was fun to see! I'm glad we made the detour to go investigate it.

Things we learned this weekend:

*Grease on your chains makes a WORLD of difference!
*Adjusting your bike seat to the correct height also make a WORLD of difference!
*If you're biking in the rain and plan on staying at the halfway point for a length of time, pack a towel and dry socks!

Right now I'm thankful to be inside a dry house while the rain showers down! We felt good about biking basically half of an STP this weekend - over 100 mi in two days. We also both felt we could have biked farther than 36 today, but that's OK! Two big goals we have in the next month before the STP is to bike at least one 100 mile ride and then bike two back-to-back 75 mile rides. I'm starting to be hopeful that these are both attainable!

Off to take a shower!

Karen

Things to be thankful for

2011-05-24T16:28:00.000-07:00

1. Sunny bike ride over gravel farm roads with a great view of Mt. Jefferson.

2. Gas prices are going down! They used to be 3.89 at Safeway and now they are 3.83! I say, we bellyache about them going up, we should party about them going down!!!

3. Skype date with my sister that did not get cut short by unreliable African internet

4. Getting tan because of all the bike riding!

5. "Your mercies are new every morning" EVERY morning! Like Anne of Green Gables says, "Each day is new, with no mistakes in it!"

6. That the day is not even over and I already have 6 things to be thankful for, plus more!

Off to knock things off the list (oh wait, I need to make the list first....),

Karen

Weekend in Astoria

2011-05-22T23:04:00.000-07:00

I wish I had a picture of my car on Thursday.

Baby bassinet, child-training books, maternity clothes in a huge box, home-canned pickles, quinoa, couscous, a bike, sleeping bag, pillow, weekend bag, music bag....I was set for a big day. I rode 50 miles on my bike then after an afternoon of teaching set out for my sister's house and landed there a little after 10 p.m., feeling a little like Santa Claus with all the stuff I had crammed into my car for them.

I like driving and road trips. The anticipation of the trip is really fun for me. The packing and the feeling of being ready to set out, then watching the miles peel away on the speedometer. I actually really like driving by myself. This trip my mainstay was Bethany Dillon's first CD. Now it's my mental soundtrack! I LOVE her music. I love her sunny tunes. I love her worshipful lyrics. I love how her priorities in life are more about being real instead of famous.

I want to be beautiful
Make you stand in awe
Look inside my heart,
and be amazed
I want to hear you say
Who I am is quite enough
Just want to be worthy of love
And beautiful.

You make me beautiful
You make me stand in awe
You step inside my heart, and I am amazed
I love to hear You say
Who I am is quite enough
You make me worthy of love and beautiful

The first day was spent lazing around with my sister who is now 7 months with child. Sitting and visiting, taking a lazy walk with the puppy, giving massages...The reality of motherhood is hitting as the growing baby inside is already demanding her strength and taking up her life without asking her opinion first. But it's "so precious" to see the little kicks and feel the little arm pressing up against her belly. Each baby is a miracle, folks, you can't deny this for one instant.

Then we sat out in the sun and I weeded part of their front garden area and we talked about everything we usually talk about when we're together....what we've been up to, what our friends have been up to, our latest rants, our latest discoveries, etc, etc! I love how she and I both moved out of the house around the same time and are going through a lot of the same things right now.

Then Trent's brother came over....I never know a clean way to describe my relationship to Michael. He's not really my brother in law, he's Theresa's brother in law, but our families are both pretty close so I almost feel like he's my brother in law, so I don't know what to call him. Anyway, I needed to go on another long bike ride and since Theresa's not in the olympic athletic category anymore and Trent had to work, Michael agreed to go with me on a long-ish bike ride. It was great weather and we had a blast biking the scenic country roads of the greater Astoria countryside and taking a short side trip to investigate Fort Clatsop.

The main reason I came up was to go to Theresa's North Coast Symphony Concert. She's one of the better violinists in the orchestra and it was fun to go to the concert! The group isn't super professional but it's a real community effort and they all have a lot of fun!

The next day after another lazy morning ( I could easily get into this living like a pregnant lady thing....eating all the time and sleeping...), we went to downtown Astoria because Astoria is celebrating its bicentennial. The cannery Trent works at had a booth that he had to man in the morning, so we went down and looked at the booths and then Trent joined us for lunch after he got off duty and we took in the festival together.

Trent being professional, Theresa "helping" by giving him jellybeans.

Seriously, if you haven't tried the Skipanon Brand fish products, you MUST and I'm not saying so just because I'm related to their favorite manager! The tuna is actual hunks of tuna that look like fish pieces, not shredded paper. And their salmon jerky.....*heaven*.....
http://www.skipanonbrand.com

Our other "inside" stop was Oregon Tuff, a T-shirt company owned by a friend of Trent and Theresa's. Mic and his cousin do it all themselves and they have some sweet designs that are seriously northwesty. I now have my own Oregon Tuff bumper sticker that is now decorating my "vintage" pink snowboard.

http://www.oregontuff.com

This ship was used on the Pirates of the Carribean movie. We didn't go on a tour since the lines were so long, but we did get a great view of Gov. Kitzhaber as he exited the ship! That was Theresa's thrill for the day, being in the presence of a person so famous! :P

Thankfully she still likes Trent a whole lot better!

Ever since watching "The Guardian", I have been enamored with the Coast Guard...well not really THAT enamored, but I always look at the coast guard helicopters when they fly over to see if I can get a glimpse of Ashton Kutcher. Theresa kept trying to get me to talk to the basically 7,000,000 Coast Guard guys walking around that day because I was bound to marry one of them...so I think I 'm destined to a life of singleness since I didn't take her advice. But it was very cool to see the search and rescue demonstration that the Coast Guard did. It was like witnessing "The Guardian" in person! You could tell the coast guard guys were really relishing the opportunity to demonstrate their prowess to a large and appreciative audiance! :P

Here is a stinkingly huge ship leaving the Columbia, bound for some foreign land, laden with semi-truck boxes. It's just a HUGE ship! Note also that the "Pirates of the Carribean" ship is really cheating as the sails are down so it's obviously powered by a motor! What a disappointment!

After all that social interaction, we were all WIPED. We are so pitiful and unsocialized that just a few hours of being in crowds will do us in! We were so comatose that we couldn't even pick out a movie at "Video Horizons" so we just went home, had a gourmet dinner of salmon (one of the perks of working at a cannery - free fish!) and us girls got creamed by Trent at "Settlers of Catan" which we played on T&T's bed because we were to exhausted to sit up to a table to play.

Can I just say, I LOVE family??? I love my friends and the awesome things I do with them, but one thing that never changes for me is my family. I feel blessed that we are all so close! It's great to be able to talk to my mom or sisters on the phone or skype or visit them and go for a walk or hang out with my dad. I love it that we all know where we're all coming from and understand so much about each other that we can talk about anything and be on the same page in one instant! Well, we all have our own individual opinions and viewpoints, but you never have to give your sister the "back story" because she knows it already! Right now, we are all scattered across the planet so its different from the days when we all tortured the cat together or went to dance class together, but I kind of like the "new us". It makes conversation more meaningful, time spent more precious because you are simply relishing and enjoying any time you get with them. Trent is fast becoming one of those "back story" family members, and that's cool to see, too!

Feeling happy and thankful and boy I really need to stop typing so I can satiate my growing thirst with a drink of water,

Karen

My newly discovered mechanical mind!

2011-05-16T22:59:00.000-07:00

I was so excited about this I had to update my facebook status to tell the world my story! Here it is in more detail!

First off, I'm not really what you would call mechanically minded. To begin with, I've never been a fan of machines in general. I'd cry when I was a kid and mom made me vacuum the floor. Not because she was making me work, but because the vacuum motor scared me. I was scared of driving because I thought that if I happened to accidentally hit the wrong button or pedal or lever the entire thing would spontaneously combust into flames. Still today, if I had all the time in the world, I'd rather knead bread by hand, dry clothes on the line, and heat food on the stove instead of the microwave.

So anyway, to the meat of my story.

I'm sorry if you have no interest whatsoever in biking because that is slowly becoming my life, kind of like how it was about 6 mo ago when running was my life and I was training for a half marathon.

So I went on a bike ride today. After over an hour of riding, I was about 3 mi from home, sitting in the turn lane to make the final stretch down the busy street that led to my neighborhood. I'd noticed that pedaling had been unusually difficult the last few minutes, so as I waited for the light to turn green, I checked my bike tires.

The back one was basically as flat as as pancake.

So I made the turn when the light turned green and then detoured to the nearby gas station. I discovered a staple had wormed its way into my bike tire, creating a slow leak.

EVERY SINGLE TIME Miranda and I have encountered a flat tire, it's been on the days we don't have a patch kit.

Today was no exception.

I pumped the tire back up, hoping the leak was slow enough that it would get me home. I still had to stop one more time and pump it up again, and then ended up walking the bike the remaining mile back home. Pretty non-heroic, but it was a Monday, so what can you expect?

Then I had to change the tire. I've changed a tire once with the supervision of my very mechanically-minded father, but it was a front tire and the thought of dealing with gears freaked me out just a tiny bit.

I got the gears disentangled from the wheel, got the wheel off, and made it upstairs to my apartment. So far, so good.

The hole was hard to find, so with the aid of a bathtub full of water, I found the leak. On went the patch, and the tire apparatus popped back into the spoke apparatus with no problem whatsover. Phew.

Now may I interject that I know basically nothing about the function of bike gears other than I know "high" gear means it's harder to pedal and I get more revolutions per minute, while "low" gear does just the opposite. In addition to the 7 gears I use most often, I have another set of three gears. On my gear shift display, one shows by means of a graphic that it is to be used for going uphill. The other illlustrates use for going downhill. The final one has a "D" on the display, meaning you use it for normal level ground. I can understand the pictures, and that's as far as I go. Sorry if I'm not calling these the right names, but I'm pretty sure the right name for these things are gears.

Anyway, "uphill" graphic has been malfunctioning since my famous bike spill months ago when I was only .3 miles from my house. I have been intending to see if I can get it fixed. I can still climb hills just fine without the use of the gear, it's just annoying to think that my bike isn't doing what it's supposed to do.

SO I get the patched tire back outside to the bike, try to reinstall it, remember that I have to thread on the gears first. Oh great. At this point, I lose grasp of the bike and the back end crashes to the ground, right on the gear thingy. Great, I'm not sure if I damaged anything, but I do know bike shop people are paranoid about the treatment of gears. I am not sure how to string the stupid chain on. Finally, I bend it to a certain shape that looks like it would logically fit on the wheel, and sure enough, it not only fits but doesn't rub anywhere. OK, good so far.

The wheel gets latched back on and I take it for a spin around the cul-de-sac, and I discover that not only is the bike working, but the problematic "uphill" gear thing is working just fine!

Now I know the secret to fix gears - drop them on the ground!

I was so excited about this. It literally made my week. I felt so empowered to think I FIXED something mechanical. OK, never mind that I didn't exactly mean to, but just the fact that I was able to correctly string the chain back on is a very big deal.

Flying high,

Karen

Week two of "real" bike training

2011-05-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

Just finished two days of back-to-back 40 mile riding. My legs.are.dead.

Yesterday we had a LOVELY ride from east Salem to Monmouth. 40 mi round trip. I was delighted to discover how awesome the bike path that runs from downtown Salem to Monmouth is! You can ride on bike paths the entire way, except for one stretch that is wide, flat country road with a generous bike lane. Most of the paths run parallel to the highway, but it's still very scenic and so nice to not have the added stress of watching out for traffic while riding. I'd absolutely love to do the ride again just for fun!

Today we rode from my house to a friend's house in Scio, again 40 mi round trip. Lots of scenic farmland framed by distant mountain ranges, sunny weather....yum. But the beginning of the ride goes parallel to 1-5 which is all steep downhill on the way out, so at the very end of our homeward ride, we had a stretch about one mile long that was steep uphill!

Things I learned this week in training:
*When it's cold outside, pack layers and strip as you go. Our ride to Monmouth was foggy and chilly the way out and while I had longs sleeves on, I just had shorts and no gloves. I was freezing! Even a pair of gloves really makes a difference! Today was less cold, but I began the ride with long sleeves, gloves, and long pants with my warmer weather clothes underneath. That made a huge difference.

*The importance of water and even small breaks. During our long 1-mi uphill, Miranda chose to stop to rehydrate and rest a few minutes in the middle of the hill. I was in attack mode and kept climbing to the top. Once at the top, I stopped and rehydrated and rested until Miranda caught up. We both discovered that after resting just a minute or so and drinking water, our legs that had previously felt like hamburger were suddenly more full of energy and power as we continued on up hills. It is recommended that you drain a water bottle for every hour of biking, so we should have drained four water bottles on our trip. We didn't, and I think next ride we'll be more conscientious of it and see how that impacts our energy/endurance levels.

*Back to back training. The STP is a two-day event; 100 mi each day. We felt very energetic after yesterday's training ride, but very beat after today's training ride. This was our first time to do two long rides in a row. Since we're training for a two-day event, I think it is important that we do many of these back-to-back training rides.

*Impact of speed. If we were to maintain the average of 11 mph that we were riding, we'd finish one day of the STP in 10 hrs (including breaks). If we were to only average 10 mph, we'd finish in 11 hrs! I hope that our training helps us to maintain an 11 mph or more because I am ALL for cutting a whole hour off my day of riding!

Total mileage for week two: 113 mi!

Waiting for my sister to call,

Karen

Of time and time wasted

2011-05-10T22:07:00.000-07:00

What is wasting time?

When I was so busy I could pull my hair out just a few weeks ago, all I could think of was, "Lord, get me through until May!" Well, I thought of other things, but mostly I was so excited about not having to be on task every day and have extra time.

As it happens all the time, I now have extra time on my hands and am about to drive myself nuts.

Today I taught a lesson early in the morning, then skyped with my sister for 2 hrs, then went on a bike ride for 2 hrs. I had lunch, folded some laundry, and then spent about an hour and a half completing an application online for a yet to be disclosed opportunity God is putting in my life. I took a shower, did a little piano practicing, taught some other lessons, cooked a yummy dinner, read a few chapters in a book, did some more of the application, then emailed, and am now blogging.

All day, I felt so insanely guilty. Here I was, WASTING my day. My conversation with myself went something like this:

"Self, why are you not like normal people and working a 9 to 5 job?"
"My job may not be 9 to 5 but I have more than enough money to cover my expenses."
"Self, only losers have time to fold laundry and skype their sisters in the middle of the day."
"Is skyping with my sister losing? Is folded laundry losing?"
"Self, your roommates have respectable jobs and look busy all day long."
"Is it about LOOKING busy???"
"Self, you had a list for today and didn't do everything on it because you wasted time filling out that application that wasn't on the list."
"I have a feeling that the doors that may open as a result of this application will not be a waste of time."
"Self, you need to be more busy"
"Since when was BUSY the most important thing in life??"

Some of you may have no idea where I'm coming from with all of this, but it's a struggle to not feel guilty when I don't have something structured to be doing. I'm concerned about how it looks to other people. I seriously have a big guilt trip.

Really, it was a successful day. Maybe not to the world, but spending 2 quality hours skyping with my sister is HUGE. Those of you who know me well may understand just how huge it was. Add to that the fact that we didn't want to hang up. I think down the road, that will be more important than one day of doing busy stuff with no eternal value.

God calls us to redeem the time, but He doesn't call us to be busy. He says we need to honestly earn the money that pays for our needs. He says we need to be diligent in what tasks are given us. He says what we do needs to count for eternity. That all added together may not equal busy. For some it may, but I think in many cases time redeemed well is not time redeemed to the max.

O Lord, make me thankful for a "wasted" day. Help me to see time through Your eyes.

I need to work on a worship service order before bed tonight,

Karen

I need help

2011-05-08T20:31:00.000-07:00

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

Just was convicted about the truths contained in this verse today.

I have been feeling very under attack the last half week or so. I don't want to get all spacey and weird, but there are very certainly times in my life when I feel at peace spiritually, and other times when I don't. I know it's not all about how you feel, but at least for me, you've got to give me at least 60% for feelings, because if I don't feel right, that affects just about everything else on down the chain.

Posting all about my complete inner self is not appropriate for a public forum, or so I've decided right now. However, suffice it to say that I deal constantly with sin, and most of it is sin inside my self. Sometimes I am just bombarded with sin inside my head and I feel like I need to just run screaming out of my skull to get away from it all.

And I'm realizing how important this verse from Philippians is for this issue. Stopping to dwell on that sin that spontaneously generates from my soul. Latching onto beefs I might have about others. Looking at, watching, or reading something that isn't uplifting, or even breeds sin in me. It's SOO easy to say, "well, I'm one of the strong christians. I'm not one of the 'weaker brothers'. I've been a christian since I was 7! I'm invincible!" when down deep inside of you, you KNOW that if you let yourself watch that scene from that movie it's going to live with you the rest of the week (read: rest of your life) and play and replay and play and replay.....

So to begin with, I think I need to begin a journey of seeing which of those things I need to start letting go of. Things that maybe others don't see as wrong, because in reality, I AM one of those "weaker brothers."

But even if I was to never intake anything sinful for the rest of my life, I have plenty of bad stuff accumulated from 23 years of life to keep me going for about 217 more years at least.

This is important. Why? Because,
God doesn't want us to think about false things.
God doesn't want us to think about stuff from the gutter.
God doesn't want us to think about things that are wrong.
God doesn't want us to think about things that are dirty.
God doesn't want us to think about things that are ugly.
God doesn't want us to think about things that are dishonorable.
God doesn't want us to think about things that are curses.

It's kind of a fine balance, because if we just waltz around going, "I'm thinking about TREES and FLOWERS and HAPPY BUTTERFLIES" it just doesn't work. It's too much work, for one. And trees and flowers and happy butterflies can only arrest attention just so long while the world of sin is about 95% of the time more interesting and absorbing than the world of flowers and trees and happy butterflies.

So today, in an epic all-out struggle about all day of keeping my mind on track, I found the only thing I could do was cry out to the Lord, "LORD! save me! Cleanse my mind, cleanse my heart!" The answer was not "unfocusing" on sin, but rather focusing on God. Sometimes, it's all I can do to just cry out the name of Jesus. Other times, I can sing and pray and praise God for His attributes. The main thing is just the basic act of turning to God, like how the Israelites were saved from the poisonous vipers when they simply looked at the bronze serpent. The most basic act of faith, but the most pivotal.

I wish sometimes for a Christianity that was a "one big fix for the rest of your life" kind of thing, but more and more, it's becoming clear that it's a moment by moment fix. I can't honestly pray, "Lord, I'm giving up this sin, I'm giving up unclean thoughts in this area for the rest of my life!" But I can honestly pray, "Lord, help me to defeat sin in this area TODAY, THIS MORNING, THIS HOUR." He is sufficient. He does deliver. Hallelujah.

Have a good week,

Karen

Cooking with Anna!

2011-05-08T19:57:00.000-07:00

It's been one year since Anna and I went on our tour of the eastern hemisphere. To celebrate, we made a complete israeli meal, and then ate it all ourselves! We were like rolling penguins afterwards but I can't think of better food to turn into a rolling penguin with....

The spread! Falafal, pita, hummus, tatziki, israeli salad, moroccan carrot salad, and all the toppings for the pita including pickles, onions, lettuce.

Here is the recipe for the moroccan carrot salad. It was very very good, tangy, spicy, garlicy..... I even was semi-israeli and had the leftovers for breakfast this morning. Israel was my first introduction to the concept of vegetables for breakfast! I am still hungry for the unusual but delicious breakfast foods we had there. Cucumbers for breakfast with yogurt and fruit is a great way to start the day!

Moroccan Carrot Salad
8 young carrots, peeled and sliced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/2 t brown sugar
1/4 t curry powder
1/2 t cumin
5 T chopped parsley
3/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper

Take the carrots, put them in a pot, and simmer, covered, in a pan of water for 10 min. Strain, reserving about 3 T of the cooking water. Combine the remaining ingredients and toss with the carrots in a bowl. Chill a few hours before serving.

My carrot salad, israeli salad, and falafal pita!

Me getting ready to eat it! Notice short hair that I am beginning to own up to! I've chopped my hair off drastically about two or three other times in the past, but this was the first time I felt kind of sentimental about my lost long hair. It kind of surprised me. I didn't think I was the kind to get all nostalgic about ten lost inches of hair, but I guess that happens when you get old and teary....

Anyway, it was a fabulous night of eating!! Yay for friends that eat with friends!

Tomorrow is Monday??

Karen

Chopped off and biked out!

2011-05-06T13:08:00.000-07:00

So I did it yesterday....

I chopped off my hair!

Well, the lovely salon lady did it. But I asked her to.

At first, it was hard to start digging hair this short. I mean, I felt like I was back in junior high in the late 90's! If you want to disagree, here's a picture to show you what I mean!

For the record, this is NOT me, but gracious, I think I had a sister back then that I didn't know about! :D

But I LOVE the cute little braids! it's beginning to grow on me!

AND, I just got back from a lovely morning of biking with my biker friend! Remember last week's failed attempt to reach Silverton? We not only reached Silverton, but we had a lovely breakfast at The Gathering Spot. A place to remember! We split some Belgian waffles with berries and whipped cream, and Miranda had a strawberry orange juice and I had a chai tea. The waitresses we wearing the cutest handmade-looking aprons with bright and cool prints, and they also had some awesome looking pastries, but we didn't succumb to temptation! Definitely a place to keep in mind next time you're in Silverton for breakfast or lunch!

Total mileage: 30 miles.

Now if we could only do that 3.3 times, we'd have biked one day of the STP! Next week, we're planning a back-to-back 40 miler, I'll let you know how that goes!

Sustainable Living update #6

2011-05-03T12:31:00.000-07:00

I realized these are not on my list, but it should have been. So add another item to the Sustainable Living 2011 list.

#12: Make my own cosmetics.

Wow, we feel sorry for the people that have to endure Arbonne and Mary Kay consultants or traverse the overwhelming cosmetic aisles at WalMart!

We bought a make up kit at Glory Bee Foods for $110. We made all the make up we can handle for both of us, plus several colors for family members, and we hardly made a dent in the ingredients. Seriously, it's probably about one dollar per eyeshadow color!

You just mix together the base minerals, then add the colors to make foundation, blush, and eyeshadow, blending them well with a mortar and pestle! If you mess up, you can add more color to make it darker or more of the white mineral to lighten it and make it the exact shade you want!

Here is my home made foundation!

This is Sarah's prettiest eye color. The pictures don't do them justice, but it's a pretty plum color with sparkles!

Here is another eyeshadow color.

Totally more fun than shopping!

Trying to get motivated to bike and smelling the delicious smell of banana bread,

Karen

Update on the Bike thing

2011-04-29T21:33:00.000-07:00

So my biking friend and I got together today to do a ride together! We didn't get as far as we wanted to, but we learned a lot!! :)

First, when we started out, we didn't know where we were going. I didn't take water or anything because I didn't think it would be a very long ride. Fortunately, at the urging of Miranda's concerned mother, she took some water and some money and a cell phone. Once we got out, we decided to bike to Silverton. It was a pretty decent day for a ride by then and we had fun biking past scenic farmland and up and down a lot of hills! Finally we were close to Silverton! Just 2 miles! I had been leading the way most of the ride, and as I passed the sign that said "2 miles to Silverton", I coasted down the hill in victory, brandishing two fingers high to signal my excitement that we were so close and yelling, "Two milesssss!!!" Then I remembered that Miranda looked like she was falling back last time I looked back and sure enough, she had stopped back at the "2 miles to Silverton" sign.

Upon walking back to her, I discovered that she had a very flat tire! Fortunately, I had my bike pump with me and immediately started trying to pump the tire back up but nothing worked! Come to find out, she had a big nail sticking out of her tire! Oh no. If only I had thought to grab the bike patch kit near my dresser as I walked out the door. Fortunately we were near a little rural school so we had a great place to wait for my dad to come with the patch kit and big truck. When he got to us, we realized the tire was punctured beyond patching and we decided to load up and go home! Bummer! We were so close!

Things we learned:

*Plan your route first.
*Always take water and money and a cell phone with you, even if you think you're just going to bike around the block.
*Always take a patch kit if you also are carrying a bike pump.
*Know how to remove your back tire. We learned how to do that today!

We still got a good 12 miles or so in....and when we got home, we booked our hostel in Seattle, bought our train tickets up to Seattle, and decided that we're going to camp for free at the halfway point and buy our meals. Phew. Now I feel committed to do this thing....no backing out. So we decided to take our #1 lesson to heart and we planned out the next month of long training rides together. I am a little scared (we get a variety of responses when we tell people we're biking from Seattle to Portland...usually they are theme and variations on either "You are going to die" or else "Cool! That's a fun ride!") but we are determined to do this. I'm thankful for an easier daily schedule starting next week which will allow me to get out there and ride a lot more.

More updates to come! Hopefully they will include more impressive mileage and fewer bumbling mishaps! Between my bike crash a month ago and the flat tire of today, we are not off to a rocking start! :D Oh well at least we now have cool bike jerseys to wear and I have bike shorts so we look like we know what we're doing....

Off to prepare for an early morning tomorrow,

Karen

Thirsty for I AM

2011-04-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

Right now, my heart is so broken in a good way with the beauty of the Lord. I know I keep coming back to the quote of St. Augustine's,

"Yet, O my God, my life, my holy Joy, what is this that I have said? What can any man say when he speaks of thee? But woe to them that keep silence -- since even those who say most are dumb."

but it so expresses what it's like. Books have been written about God, lives have been sacrificed in pursuit of God, songs have been sung in praise of God, and yet no books, no lives, no songs can every finish saying everything there is to tell about God. When I try to write about it, I find I can write forever and still not capture the great I AM. No single word can capture who God is except that "I AM WHO I AM." O Lord, we are so tiny. Who are we to question you and your motives and your ways, as if we have life and logic and love all figured out? Who are we to criticize our own steps and legislate the steps of others when we are all struggling upwards to catch a glimpse of you?

Suddenly overwhelmed,

Karen

I cry to the Lord.

2011-04-28T23:07:00.000-07:00

Today is my Friday.

Thank you Jesus for answering my prayer and at least making me feel like I'm a competent teacher.

Seriously, this whole teaching thing is such a stretch.

And I'm just lately learning that maybe the point isn't for me to feel good about myself in my career, but to learn to lean on the Lord for strength in everything! I used to whine because I just really don't feel like teaching is my natural gift. I have to work at it. I've often questioned why I'm doing this, why not switch careers to something more rewarding, something I feel more gifted and skilled at. But God has not allowed it; any change I've tried to make has not worked out.

But so often I find myself getting out of the car for the 23,573rd time at a house where I always feel I'm running against a brick wall between the student and myself, and I just cry out to the Lord.

I did that several times today.

It might have sounded pretty simple to someone who would overhear.

"Lord, please make it so these girls have actually practiced this week."

"Lord, give me interest for him."

"Lord, help me to know how to help him."

"Lord, give me the energy to keep going."

I don't cry out to the Lord every day.

But when I do, I usually really feel like there is nothing left in me. I know that if it wasn't for the Lord intervening, I would be trying to cut down a forest with a butter knife, and to be honest a lot of days that's what it feels like.

But when you prayed that the girls would have practiced and find out they actually did and then you're able to get them all excited about making their learned song sound cool with dynamics, that is a pretty awesome teaching moment.
And then you prayed that you would know how to help a student who seems as mysterious as the loch ness monster, and then have him actually converse with you and share his own observations about the music for the very first time in the lesson, that's a pretty awesome teaching moment.

Out of the depths I cry to you, LORD; Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy....
...I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.
I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning....
Psalm 130

Lord, somehow I have got to thank you for calling me to a career I feel so inadequate at, because only in that place do I have the opportunity to cry out to You for strength. You are teaching these kids for me. As much as I'd like to think it's my training, my wisdom, my cleverness, that is such a sham. It's not me at all. It is only You, it is me doing Your will because I know no other way. As much as I'd love to be a super smart and charismaticly influential teacher, Lord, in my weakness I need to let You have your way in the lives of the students you have brought to me. Maybe I'll be a weak and failing teacher for Your name's sake and somehow that will bring glory to You. So be it. Have your way in me.

Sustainable Living Update #5

2011-04-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

Today is just one of those "happy-sad" days. My friend Emily knows what I'm talking about. The best I can describe it is "angst". She and I both get this feeling, and it's pretty unexplainable. Some people might think that it's a bad feeling, but it's actually very nice, just very....angst-y...sorry, at least Em understands what I mean, and I understand what she means. I'm listening to Kate Rusby again, maybe that has something to do with it....

Anyway, item #8 from my Sustainable Living 2011 List:

Knit my own socks.

Who really knows if this is sustainable, really. I'm not sure I"m saving money, either, but you also need to take into consideration the fact that they are custom-made, handmade socks from more quality materials than you would get from a 12-pack of KB socks from Costco.

For those of you knitters out there who are like me and HATE the parts of knitting patterns where you just go around and around (or back and forth) without doing anything interesting, you'll understand why I took a basic sock pattern and turned them into petti-socks. The calf is the worst part of the sock for me because it's just so horribly boring. The other bad part for me is the foot between the heel and the toe, but there's no way around that one.

And for those beginning knitters out there, if you can pick up stitches and decrease, I encourage you to try socks! Don't be intimidated by the double-pointed needles; The upside of them is since you knit them in the round, you don't have to purl! I also find purling very inconvenient, and love knitting in the round! Well, I don't want to make it sound like an effortless walk in the park; my mom has had a bad time getting started with it; maybe my brain is just wired for circular knitting....anyway, at least give it a try because you will likely find it's not as tough as it seems! And socks are extremely practical projects!

Even if I'm not saving money or resources by making my own socks, at least they were helping me redeem time as I knit them while watching movies and waiting for the vocal students I accompany in their lesson to warm up!

Feeling pretty on top of things this evening in addition to feeling happy-sad,

Karen

Easter weekend and another thrifty find!

2011-04-25T22:22:00.000-07:00

Spent Easter weekend at my sis's place with my parents in Astoria. Here are the pictures I took:

And that is it. My reason for not taking pictures is I was too busy enjoying things to take pictures, and mental pictures kick the digital pictures wayyy out of the water, right?? This photo was taken at Three Cups, a cool little coffee shop in Downtown Astoria. I'd def. recommend it to any tourists thinking of coffee while in Astoria! They roast their own beans in the coffeeshop and sell their own signature roasts! I got an Almond Roca Mocha (love how that rhymes off your tongue!) blended and it was fabulous. My sister got a macchiato of some sort and my mom got something else...anyway, we all loved our coffees and they have a canvas swing inside the shop that was too much fun, and the bathroom has a cool mural painted by a local artist that makes you feel like you're underwater!

Highlights of the weekend included:
the riverwalk in downtown Astoria with mom and Theresa and subsequently exploring the little shops along the way, (free trade clothing shop, the kitchen store, the coast guard ships docked near the maritime museum, racing the riverfront trolley on foot...) with lunch at Blue Scorcher (we'll need to branch out eventually but that place is just so fabulous!)

sunset walk on the beach with the whole family and Janie the adorable and rascally puppy...the sun looked like a giant flaming glass float sinking into the ocean with a glowing red backdrop

Glorious sunshine for most of the weekend

Walk along the John Day river with Theresa's in-laws

Watching Batman Begins with mom and Theresa (nice girls movie, right??) and getting distracted by Theresa's baby moving around so that her tummy was rippling and bouncing with the movement

Learning to shoot a bow and arrow, taught ever so skillfully by Trent's little brother, Abraham; then his little 11 year old sister and I had an archery competition...I beat Myranda...and I'm pretty proud of it, too! :D I felt like queen Susan from Chronicles of Narnia.... pretty soon I'll be shooting apples off of trees...

And that pretty much sums up the weekend! He is Risen!!!

While exploring downtown, we stopped at JoAnn's, the craft store. Just a week ago, while in the Eugene REI store, I started fiercely coveting these cute little headwraps, but they were 12 dollars each and mom talked me out of it, telling me I could just make some myself. Well, I found two 1-yard remnants and some elastic while at JoAnns and bought it all for under 7 bucks. Once we got back to Theresa's house, I pulled out her sewing machine, and looked at a similar headwrap that she owned, and made one for myself, then made one out of the other remnant for Theresa!

I estimated that I could make about ten headwraps from each yard of material, and if I sold them for the REI price of $12, I could make 240 dollars off of a 7-dollar investment! Wow! REI is a rip-off, people! I'll make some for you and sell them to you for just $10! Haha! I like mine a lot, though!

And so ends Easter Weekend! At first, I really didn't want to get back in the car and drive back to reality, but now I'm over my resistance to responsibility....besides, this is my last week of craziness because after this week, I won't be at Corban because everyone is done for the summer (woah, did I just say "done for the summer??") next week and I have a few students taking a break for spring sports and Awana is also done for the summer after this week, as well as BSF in about two weeks. Now if only this rainy weather would help me get convinced that things are shutting down for the summer, I might get excited about it!

I am praying for summer direction....my ideal would be that enough of my students would want summer lessons so I could do that for the summer...historically, not many of them stick with it through the summer, and up until now, i haven't blamed them because I detested summer piano lessons as a kid...now that I'm having to earn my bread and butter, I'm a little more happy about the idea of summer lessons.... :) I keep thinking of "Mr Holland's Opus" and how he taught Driver's Ed during the summer when he wasn't a music teacher...having just ridden with my younger sisters in the car a few times while they had their permits, I know I would probably be the most annoyingly ballistic driver's ed teacher...I don't think my driving students would learn much and I'd probably be at the State Mental Hospital by the end of the summer....

Well, with that, I'd better go as tomorrow is another day! Let me know if you want a headwrap! :)

Going crazy as always,

Karen

Tough stuff.

2011-04-20T21:29:00.000-07:00

This is a topic that has been on my mind for the last two days.

I'm not sure if everyone is going to agree with me.

It's sometimes scary for me to stick my head out there, because I like to be liked.

Being liked can be an idol, you know.

And by having a blog at all, I risk having people read my stuff and not like it; I've gotten weird comments on my God-related stuff, my sustainable living stuff, even people criticizing how much I like lemon curd.

So I figure, might as well write about whatever I want, and let people say what they want.

And the topic is:

Homosexuality.

Sorry.

I read a link that a facebook friend posted. It was about how homosexuals in Christian colleges are feeling a lot of discrimination, antagonism and suppression of free speech, and that is not too surprising. It wasn't much of an issue at my Christian college, but Corban is still pretty conservative...the "edgy" topics included being a Christian and voting Democrat....or drinking alcohol...or the lifting of the Facebook ban in 2006....whoah....

Sarcasm aside (and lest you think I vote Democrat, I actually think I missed the last election...I'm getting pretty fed up with both the Republicans and the Dems right now....).

The link led to another link, which was a very raw "confessional" by gay Christian students at Harding University that ended up being censored by the college. You can probably track it down on the web if you MUST read it, I'll let you know that there is quite a bit in it that a lot of people probably don't want to read, mostly semi-graphic stuff, so be forewarned.

But it changed the way I think about gays, especially gay Christians.

These kids really do feel oppressed, repressed, rejected. So many of them have gone through counseling because they have been told they can't be a Christian and be gay, and all of them said that once they decided they COULD be gay and be a Christian, they found a lot more freedom than they ever felt trying to repress their feelings.

I guess I started putting myself in their shoes.

What if I found in myself certain desires that people were telling me were wicked, but they seemed the most natural in the world and the "right" desires seemed unnatural?

What if I asked God to take them away and He didn't?

How would I feel being told that I'm going to hell just by simply being myself?

That would be pretty difficult. If I professed Christianity, I think I'd probably flee to the other side, the side that accepts and loves me the way I am.

Some people say that the biblical passages that condemn homosexuality aren't really as strong as they seem on the surface.

Who knows. I don't like to argue things from that point of view, because it never seems to resolve things; it's just one man's interpretation vs. another man's interpretation.

Whether the passages are strongly against homosexuality or not, homosexual behavior is never presented as an equal option to heterosexuality, and if it is mentioned, it is always in a negative context. The one exception in my mind, to be perfectly honest, is the story of Jonathan and David. Even just a surface reading sometimes makes me feel a little squeamish, but since the text is not at all clear on the nature of their relationship, we shouldn't use that one story as a basis for a whole line of thought.

What I do know for sure is that it's wrong to be obsessed with lust and passions, whether they are homosexual or not. The Bible is pretty clear about that.

All of these kids talked about their struggle with homosexuality, but what they were describing was an obsession with lust. They lusted after others of the same sex, and the thoughts and activities they described would be wrong even if it was in a heterosexual context.

Their counselors kept telling them they needed to suppress these thoughts, feelings, and tell themselves they were heterosexual.

Why attack the symptom? The problem isn't homosexuality. The problem really isn't even lust. The problem is your relationship with God. One kid said, "Take this away from me, God, and I will be your slave forever."

I can relate to that horrible, yearning desire for sin to be erradicated from your life. I've pretty much prayed that prayer before. God, however, tells us that we need to be His slave first, and then He will change our desires. Seek first the kingdom of God.

Also, it was interesting for me to realize that the passages that seem to condemn homosexuality are always grouped in a list with other sins, and a lot of those lists include things like greed, idolatry, and slander. (1 Cor. 5 and 6) Maybe you aren't a homosexual, or even a fornicator, but have you been greedy? God sees all sin the same.

So I don't think it's right to discriminate, judge, or belittle homosexuals. There is no reason to talk about how God hates gays, because you know, He desires ALL men to come to repentance. If we're going to carry signs that say "God hates Gays", we might as well start carrying signs that say "God Hates Greedy People".

For Christian colleges, is it right to suppress free speech of gay students? I suppose colleges can keep their current policies, and gay students can go elsewhere, but don't you think that open dialogue is actually healthier? And dealing first with the students' heart issues and relationship with God, not their actions? Looking back, I kind of wish I had gone to a college that was a little more objective in their presentation, and a little less "cookie cutter". Thinking is a good thing. Truth is a good thing. Brainwashing is not. If the truth is really the truth, it will stand the test, no matter what falsehood is present. But that's just me, my little opinion, etc. There is also something to be said about creating a bubble, and I know a lot of students who like that. It's probably good to keep the "bubble option" open for those who like bubbles.

Is homosexuality worse than having sex before you're married? It's all sexual immorality, it's all perverting the design of God, and I do know fornication was an issue at Corban. Why are we targeting gays? It's just a little more "out there" than fornication, probably. More visible. A little more weird to some people.

People will say being gay feels natural. I'm sure that a couple who commits adultery would tell you that it felt natural, too.

But the issue is not the behavior, here, please remember that, folks. The issue is your relationship with God. God calls us to follow Him. God calls us to know Him. God calls us to make our pursuit of Him greater than anything else in this world. As we do that, He changes us. He cleanses us. He makes us who He wants us to be. If you are struggling with homosexuality (or fornication, or adultury, or slandering, or greed...), the starting point isn't the sin. The starting point is God. He is faithful to complete the good work He starts in us. It might be tough, and it might not happen overnight, but God does redeem and refine His people.

Hoping to get my new dress pinned out tonight,

Karen

One of my favorite hymns

2011-04-19T21:44:00.000-07:00

Discovered this hymn several years back while going to college, and I loved it so much I even came up with a simple, more modern melody to go with it, complete with guitar chords. Then a few weeks later, at chapel at school, they were singing this song to another updated melody. I still think mine was better.

Jesus, I my cross have taken
All to leave and follow Thee
Destitute, despised, forsaken,
Thou from hence my all shalt be
Perish Every fond ambition,
All I've sought, and hoped and known;
Yet how rich is my condition,
God and heaven are still my own!

Let the world despise and leave me,
They have left my Savior too;
Human hearts and looks deceive me;
Thou art not, like man, untrue
And, while Thou shalt smile upon me
God of wisdom, love, and might,
Foes may hate and friends may shun me;
Show Thy face and all is bright.

Man may trouble and distress me,
Twill but drive me to Thy breast;
Life with trials hard may press me,
Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.
O 'tis not in grief to harm me,
While Thy love is left to me;
O twere not in joy to charm me,
Were that joy unmixed with Thee

Hasten on from grace to glory,
Armed by faith and winged by prayer;
Heaven's eternal days before me,
God's own hand shall guide me there.
Soon shall close my earthly mission,
Swift shall pass my pilgrim days,
Hope shall change to glad fruition,
Faith to sight, and prayer to praise.

My head has been mulling about several thoughts, but they aren't fit to print yet. Challenging thoughts, but I don't feel I have stuff totally organized out to write it out in a way that will communicate clearly what I 've been thinking.

Excited for easter,

Karen

Things to be thankful for today

2011-04-18T16:15:00.000-07:00

*Sunny run this morning.
*Realizing that I can either choose to be dissatisfied with my current level of fitness (or fatness, rather), or else just be thankful that I can be out there running at all.
*Making lemon curd again.
*Clothes drying in the sun in the morning, music playing and Sarah eating breakfast out on the little deck while the lemon curd cooks.
*A less-than-streamlined schedule today, due to circumstances outside my control. This is really an indicator that God, not me, is in control of my schedule.
*Realizing I have more time tomorrow to get things done than I thought. Whoopee!

Off to enjoy an unexpected pocket of time at home,

Karen

Tea Parties and wet hikes

2011-04-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, six girls descended on the apartment...

And we had tea. There were roll-ups, scones, cheesecake, fruit, lemon curd, whipped cream...and we ate it all except one piece of cheesecake and one scone. We learned the proper way to hold one's teacup, but then everything just kind of disintegrated from there....for one, I'm not really the proper manners type to be setting that kind of example...and then when one unnamed member of the party started flying around paper airplanes made from her teabag pouch, we decided to segue to the next part of the party....

...which was making lip balm. We decorated the tubes with stickers, while some others helped melt down the ingredients to make the lip balm. It was messy, and it was the first time I'd made it, and then I felt bad that not everyone was able to be actively involved in the process, but right when I started feeling that the choice of craft was a total flop, they all started saying, "wow, this is so much fun!!!" :D

Trying out the vintage phone in our kitchen.

Picking out her favorite decorated tube.

She LOVED Sarah's praire-esque apron!!! She was also a great help, and was very patient and focused while being in charge of the initial melting of the lip balm ingredients.

None of them wanted to leave....while finishing up the lip balm, they did each other's hair with my hairbrush. I was thankful for the two older girls who came, they helped with crowd control, finishing the lip balm project, and then stayed to help clean up, including folding the towels in my dryer! You did well raising them, Cathy!

It was fun, although by the time I got to bedtime that day, I was zonked! It was quite the day! I'm thankful that when we become moms, it's usually one at a time, not six all at once! It was so fun, though! I think we'll have to have another party one of these days!

Then today, it was SUNNY! (yeah!) One of my college friends, Melissa, and I went to Silver Falls. I'm realizing that most of the friendships I made in college were fun and important at the time, but they don't usually last past college, but Melissa and I have persevered! We did the whole loop at Silver Falls in less than 2.5 hours. We've been to Silver Falls twenty bazillion times, so we didn't really take pictures (except for the ones following), instead we hashed and re-hashed things....and it was a super encouraging time to see how God is moving through His Holy Spirit in our lives!!! Yay, friend! I'm thankful for you, and God has an awesome plan for your life!!!

Haha, it looks like I'm trying to take a shower in South Falls!!

It's supposed to be sunny all this week! Yeah! I'm ready for it!

Looking forward to making pretzels with Chris, Sarah, and Jamie tonight,

Karen

Random

2011-04-13T21:51:00.000-07:00

This is what you get when my life is looking less-than-glamorous. Sometimes I ask myself why I even post when I have nothing to say. All I can think of is that writing is my way of going to the psychiatrist, and if I type it all out and post it for the world to see, I feel a lot better. So feel free to pass over this one if you want.

I've been having a vivid dream about every night this week. Kind of funny. Maybe I've been getting hot in the night or something. Anyway, two nights ago I had a very detailed, vivid dream about Theresa's baby being born and it was a boy and it looked just like his daddy's baby pictures. Last night I had a dream that we were on the Oregon coast and a real tsunami hit it. My mom and I were helping rescue old people and get them safe away from the waves. The funny thing was, even though I was urgently trying to help people, I wasn't that afraid, and it was kind of fun to see the murky waters roll in and destroy the town we were in. Go ahead and analyze THAT.

This evening the Awana council time was about Palm Sunday. First, I was instantly transported back to Jerusalem one year ago, when we were walking up to the Jaffa gate and it seemed there were tons of people walking in with us. The feel of the sun beating down, the dusty streets and air the vendors at the gate, the rainbow of ethnicities...if only we were waving palm branches and shouting "hosanna" to a man riding on a donkey, that's probably a little like what it felt like.

The gospels especially have come to life to me after that trip.

The council time was focusing on the different people at Palm Sunday, and their approach. How like us today are those different people! The Pharisees were upset at the people's praise of Jesus because He wasn't what they expected, what they had decreed, and he didn't follow their rules or even do things in the way THEY thought He needed to. They even thought Jesus wasn't honoring God because he broke THEIR rules! How like the Pharisees we can be...making rules for God and then being upset when other people don't follow them...and even when God doesn't follow our rules!

Then there were the people shouting "Hosanna!" They were caught up in the wave of emotion, convinced that Jesus was the Messiah come to release them from Roman bondage. They would be free! They could do what they wanted to again! He would even heal them, feed them, and raise them from the dead just like He had been doing! But they were all about the excitement of the moment and what they thought Jesus was going to do for their wants. We can also be like the crowd, coming to Jesus to patch up things on our terms and worshiping Him only when we are excited or emotional about it.

Then we have the owner of the little donkey colt. He was not part of the crowd, and judging simply from the biblical narrative, he wasn't given many details when the disciples came to ask him for his donkey colt. However, instead of protesting about the injustice of losing a promising work animal (think of it as giving up a new tractor or car...that was the value of animals in their day) when told that the Lord had use of it, he willingly, happily, obediently gave it to the Lord. We don't know if the animal was returned to him, but we do know that it was used to serve Christ. This is a valuable reminder to me in my daily life. Am I getting caught up in what obeying Christ looks like to ME? Am I getting caught up in what Jesus is doing for ME? Or am I just obeying, no questions asked, not doubts raised, just trusting that God has a good reason for what He's asking? This is true worship...giving of yourself in obedience for the service of God.

Off to go to bed in preparation for jury duty tomorrow,

Karen

What I'm thankful for today

2011-04-12T20:36:00.000-07:00

*A very vivid dream last night about my arriving-in-July niece or nephew. They are waiting to find out, but the mom and I are pulling for a boy....and I dreamed that it was a very cute, very healthy BOY!
*Sun shining and having my lunch outside with Psalm 139.
*God knows when you stand up. He knows when you sit down. He knows when you walk out of your house in the morning and He knows when you lay down to go to bed every night. He knows your words before you say them and he probably thinks about you more times than there will be seconds in your lifetime.
*Ever feel dorky 99% of the time like me? God is well acquainted with ALL of your ways, even your dorky ways. And then get this, he says he loves us!
*Getting through everything, but getting through it well. 6 of my students are playing in a festival competition this week and I think it does more harm to my balanced sense of well-being than theirs! Three did it today, and they finished, some needing a little more polish than others, but they pulled it together! Also, good lessons with all my kids and a successful recital at Corban.
*One of my newest student's moms telling me that all her little girls now want to do their hair like "Miss Wright".
*Buying supplies for a new dress....with free material and getting 50% off of ALL my notions, so far, production cost is under $7.88.

I just realized that for every "praise" in this post, I could probably think of at least 2 negative things that happened today. Most of the time, being thankful takes more deliberate thought and careful considering, while negative things (even funny negative things) seem to just flow out naturally.

Kind of like it's harder to sit up straight than slouch. (even though good posture is more comfortable)
And it takes more effort to smile than frown (even though smiling uses fewer muscles)

Lord, keep me remembering the praises.

Off to accomplish a few more things with a thankful attitude,

Karen

Sustainable Living Update #4 plus a few other things

2011-04-10T15:17:00.000-07:00

item # 4 from my Sustainable Living 2011 list:

Make my own soaps from rendered fat, including my own shampoo soap

So I realized that I don't cook with meat enough to get my own rendered fat YET. At least, I don't see it happening this year. Maybe when I get a man in my life who loves to eat meat I will be able to collect enough meat to make soap, but as it is, I eat vegetarian a lot (I'm NOT a vegetarian) or else boneless/skinless chicken breasts which don't give you much fat when you're cooking with them.

But I did make my own shampoo. Homemade shampoo is made with coconut oil, castor oil, olive oil, lye and water. That's it! Soap is a really simple process, the only drawback is it takes more time than going to the store and you have to be careful with the lye because it's very caustic. The process itself is so simple that a child could follow it and make soap successfully (but I'm not advising that small children make soap because lye really is a substance that needs to be handled carefully!)

The shampoo is originally in bar form. My shampoo soap stuck to the molds, so I had to cut it out of the molds. There was a lot of extra soap sticking to the sides of the mold, which I scraped out of the molds and grated with a cheese grater to make 5 cups of grated soap. To this I added 3 3/4 cups water, and boiled it until the soap dissolved with the water, making liquid shampoo soap. So the picture below shows all the bars of soap the recipe yielded. I also am showing you one of the containers of liquid soap (I used an old shampoo bottle for them), but the total amount of liquid soap I got was almost three of those bottles.

The grand total cost for all ingredients? $21.96.

The liquid soap lathers up beautifully and I think i don't need as much for my head as store-bought shampoo. I am not sure how much liquid soap is represented by all those bars, but I think I won't have to buy shampoo for AT LEAST one more year, plus have extras to give as presents.

When you melt down the bars to make liquid soap, you can add essential oils for scent. I didn't this first time around, but next time Sarah and I want to add some tea tree oil. Adding essential oils would increase production cost significantly, but it would be a wonderful way to make money as you can charge several dollars for one bar of soap that would only take less than a dollar per bar to make.

OK, now for two other things.

Last night, in a burst of culinary creativity, I made almond paste and lemon curd. Both of these have been big challenges for me, because they involve blanching almonds and cooking eggs without letting them curdle. But last night was a success! My almonds successfully blanched, and my eggs did NOT curdle!

If you've never had lemon curd, you've never lived. Yes, I feel that strongly about it. Chocolate is probably my favorite food, but I almost think that lemon curd trumps most chocolate because it is absolutely delicious and doesn't make you feel sick after eating a bunch of it. The challenge of making it is you have to thicken it with eggs, and I ALWAYS end up with scrambled eggs in my lemon curd and have to strain it, yada, yada. But last night I found the perfect recipe and there were no scrambled eggs! (chorus of angels)

And I'm nice enough, I'm going to share it with you! It's just too exciting of a discovery to keep to one's self!

No-Fail Lemon Curd (my title)
zest and juice of 4 lemons
1 C sugar
1/2 C butter, chopped
3 egg
1 egg yolk (which was perfect last night because the almond paste calls for one egg white!)

Beat the eggs and yolk together. Heat the lemon juice, zest, sugar, and butter in a heat-proof container over a pan of simmering water. Make sure the water doesn't touch the bottom of the bowl. Once the butter is melted, remove from heat and add the beaten eggs all at once. Whisk until mostly combined, then return to the heat and continue to gently whisk for about 10 min. It will seem all liquidy and non-curd-esque, but all of a sudden, things will start to congeal and you will have lemon curd! Remove from heat and cool (I cooled over ice to make it cool faster), stirring every few minutes. Store in the fridge! ENJOY!

Here is the almond paste, which I'm using in a new almond cake for a fundraiser dessert auction. I'll let you know how it turns out. The almonds blanched wonderfully. I don't know if I never used the right process before, but I always remember it being one of the banes of my mother's kitchen experience. I brought a pan of water to a rolling boil, added the nuts, removed from the heat, let stand for 1 min, then drained and rinsed with cool water so I could touch them. Then I slid the skins off the almonds. Most of them popped right off! Painless! Kind of like snapping beans! Here's the recipe for almond paste, too!

Almond paste
1/2 lb blanched almonds
1/2 lb powdered sugar
1 egg white
almond extract

Blend the almonds in a blender or food processor until fine. Add the sugar and continue to process until very fine. Mix with the egg white until well-combined. Add a few drops of almond extract, and you're good to go! Store in the fridge! Yum!

Off to start that almond cake,

Karen

The lost comments!

2011-04-09T22:26:00.000-07:00

I think my computer has a problem. I have become unable to comment on certain blogs, usually those blogs that require you to select a username. As a result, there have been a lot of really nice posts that I've REALLY wanted to comment on, but can't. So I figure just about all of them also follow my blog, so here are the comments you WOULD have gotten on your blog if I wasn't such a retarded internet user!

To Sarah G at Rural Legacy: I recently saw Tangled, too, and I really liked it! I've never been really into Disney princesses, so I was pleasantly surprised with how much i enjoyed it! It was just so wonderfully traditional and yet fresh and modern! Maximus made me laugh a lot! Also, we were laughing about how Tangled is kind of a
parody on homeschooling....haha!

To Ruth at Read.Hear.See.Feel: I have SO been thankful that you're posting the talks you gave at retreat (plus a little more!) Mostly motivated by your words, I've started reading one psalm with my daily devotions, meditating on it, then praying it back to God! Wow! It's really helped focus my times with God and help me slow down to hear His voice back! Thank you!

To Mrs. Fordyce at Digestives with Tea: Yay for starting your first sweater! I like to make sweaters, too, but especially like children's clothes because then you're done with them a whole lot faster! What kind of yarn are you using? It looks like nice yarn.
And regarding your kitchen notes post, inspired by your basil plant, I bought one at win-co and it's now gracing my kitchen windowsill!

That's all I can remember for now!

Feeling better about the day's accomplishments,

Karen

What am I doing?

2011-04-08T23:46:00.000-07:00

I have to get up early tomorrow. Why am I online, writing a blog post? I can't bring myself to go to bed, I guess. And I realized I would like to go back to posting more daily-ish...life gets in the way sometimes.

OK, it's bullet points tonight and then I really am heading to bed. Ahhh bed will feel so good. That is a better way to look at it than "I don't want to stand up!" (thank you for that perspective, Sarah!)

*Learned how to fix a flat bike tire! Yay! Thanks, Dad for teaching me!
*Sun sun sun!!! I love it, I don't care how cold it is in the mornings! Just give me SUN!!!
*I am currrently working on three books. Don't ask me why, don't ask me how. I just hope I stick with it and finish all three....this is a bad habit I started in childhood....
*They are The Heavenly Man, Till We Have Faces, and How People Change in case you were wondering.
*How People Change is a first-time read for me, I got the book for free at the women's retreat two weeks ago. I wasn't expecting much from a free book, but every page makes me go AMEN! It's a good book.
*Are problems best fixed without or within? If I have a problem with something, is it the situation or person that needs to change or is it me??? Deep thought, one that can't be fully attacked in a bullet-point blog post. But really think about it. We say, "fix the problem, get out of the situation". Perhaps we need to change....not sure how that applies to a victim-type situation (abuse, etc) but interesting to mull about.
*Ate too much food today. I just couldn't stop shoveling it in. Mooo! Call the butcher service, I'm fattening to slaughter! Part of the food I ate included a salad....does that cancel everything else out??
*Soon and very soon.....I will show you my latest project! I'm so excited about it and yes it's part of my Sustainable Living list that you've probably all forgotten about since I haven't been very sustainable in the past few months! I really and truly am determined to do EVERYTHING on the list, but reality tells me that I need to be OK with getting to Dec. 31st and not have everything checked off on the list.
*This is my love/hate with lists, and this is how I make lists work for me. I make them because without lists, I can't function at all, but I hold my lists with an open hand because very rarely do I do EVERYTHING on the lists. This is OK, what matters is that I accomplished anything, as opposed to nothing if I didn't make the list in the first place.
*More about lists: did you know that I have been a list maker since about age 7? Yes, I would make a to-do list for the day. Only back then, "to-do" went something like this: Eat breakfast. brush hair and teeth. make bed. do school. take a break for Barney and Mr. Rogers. do more school. eat a snack. do more school. eat lunch. play with my sisters. daddy comes home! eat dinner. read . go to bed. Now my list looks something like this: wake up. study the bible. clean this. pick up that. make this. organize that. make more lists. cross things off the list. catch up on 42 emails. get distracted by facebook. get offline and then realize you didn't catch up on the 42 emails. make dinner. go to bed before 11:30....

haha, so with that, I bid you good night. Sorry for posts written at 11:30, you as a reader don't get much for your time when that happens.....

Your beached whale blogger,

Karen

April has finally come!

2011-04-07T21:33:00.000-07:00

Never have I been so overjoyed to greet the month of April. It's like the weather changed April 1st! We still have rain, but I've lived in the valley all of my 23 years, and I can tell you that there is a SIGNIFICANT difference between rain you see from Jan-March and rain you see in Apr-beyond. Less downpour, more drizzle. Less darkness, more sunshiney spots. Less sopping wet brown color, more bright green and flowers.

Brought in April celebrating the wedding of a longtime childhood friend, Jeff on April 2. I've known his family since I was 6! My first memory of Jeff is wrestling with him in our living room! Now his little sister that was 1 year old when our families met is 18!

Leah and Jeff have developed a lot of patience through their relationship and God has taken them on twists and turns and ups and downs, and today was most decidedly a celebration of the end of waiting! Jeff said that even though they had to wait 4 years to get married, every second of waiting was worth it!

During part of the ceremony, the parents came up and laid hands on Jeff and Leah and prayed for them.

Oops. I just realized that you now know that I wasn't praying, I was taking pictures. Busted!

My illustrious cousin from Las Vegas, Mark (It is fun to see people's reactions when they hear about my "cousin in Las Vegas") is also a good friend of Jeff's and played and sang for the ceremony.

Cake is why we go to weddings in the first place, right? As a wedding cake connoisseur of sorts, this was a fabulous wedding cake as it tasted homemade (correct me if I'm wrong...but the frosting was yummy like it was made with butter!).

As with most things we do together, there is a story behind Sarah's and my wedding gift. It involved not having a box smaller than the one pictured, and the dinky roll of wrapping paper not containing enough to cover the entire box. Kudos to Chris and Sarah and their teamwork to get the box covered and not waste one scrap of the lovely wrapping paper.

Theresa and Trent made it down for the wedding! Yay! We were all so glad to see them so soon! The day of the wedding was their 6-month anniversary! Really? Has it been a whole half of a year??

The Oregon State Capitol mall is covered with cherry trees, and there are a few days every year in which the blossoms are at their peak. I think it should be a state holiday. Anyway, after the wedding, Sarah, T&T and I went to the mall to take pictures and soak up the beauty of a sunny April afternoon.

Also, random public poll: There is a sleeping bag for sale at REI for $135. The bag is rated at 10 degrees and weighs....drumroll please....2lbs, 6oz. Should I get it or wait for a cheaper one to pop up?? I can't imagine how delightful it would be to own a sleeping bag that only weighs 2.5 lbs!

Thankful for a perpetual three-day weekend,

Karen

Gods of the pagans

2011-04-06T16:14:00.000-07:00

Baal. Zeus. Dagon. Artemis. The gods of long-ago were gods of a certain aspect of life: crop success, fertility, good health, victory in war, etc. People did whatever the god desired - sacrifice, fasting, etc.- and then the god would give them what they wanted. You want rain for your grain? Kill off a few fatted calves, and if the god is in a good mood, you will get the rain you want.

Our God is so different. Even from the times of Moses (and even in times prior), God was not waiting on our sacrifices in order to act! Animal sacrifice was man's way TO God, not man's way to his desire. The animal sacrifice of yesterday is now fulfilled for us in Jesus Christ. We don't have to sacrifice anymore - but unlike pagan worship, it's not our ticket to an eternal free lunch. It's our ticket to the presence of God! Perhaps God will materially bless His people. Perhaps He won't. But we have something far greater than sucessful crops, money, good health, and victory in war - we have intimacy with the One who calls the shots of history.

Off to work on BSF stuff,

Karen

Fifty Cent Soup

2011-04-05T22:45:00.000-07:00

That's what I had tonight for dinner.

Picked up two turkey necks at Roth's for like 54 cents.

Then I added carrots, celery, potatoes, garlic, and onions and it was 54 cent soup.

Well, not really because the carrots, celery, potatoes, garlic, and onions DID cost money, too.

And a bay leaf and salt and pepper. That was the expensive part....

So maybe it was more like $1.50 soup, but Fifty Cent Soup sounds a lot better.

It wasn't amazing or anything worth writing home about except the fact that it will feed me several days and it only cost....Fifty-ish cents.

Score!

Loving how a house automatically smells like a home when you make granola,

Karen

Sick days, lost keys, and our GREAT GOD

2011-03-29T21:11:00.000-07:00

The day after spring break (i.e. yesterday), I was as sick as a dog. I used to get sick as a dog routinely as a child, but I haven't probably been that sick in 5 years. If anything, it helped me be more compassionate towards how my sis was feeling during her first trimester....

And then today, feeling a little better, I went to leave the house and couldn't find my keys ANYWHERE! I prayed, looked, prayed some more, and then turned the house upside down, then called my 12:00 appointment to tell them I wouldn't be there, then prayed some more, then kept looking for ONE HOUR. I was about to panic, (oh, wait...I already had...) but couldn't figure out where they would be. I finally found them in my outside dumpster...I must have accidentally thrown them away when I was throwing away some trash from my car. I was SO glad that I didn't take out the trash for garbage pick-up day on Monday or those keys would be long gone! God was looking out for me!

Then my cousin Ruth (as mentioned before, has a great blog and makes me feel loved on a daily basis when she comments on my blog....) said I should share my testimony someday. Since I figure mine has about as much potential as hers (she was saved at 4, I was saved at 7), and she shared HERS, I might as well.

I supppose I was saved at 7. I remember laying on my top bunk backwards at night as I often did, the nightlight glowing up the wall and my stuffed bears and bunnies looking back at me, and I was scared to go to hell. So I prayed, "God, save me. I don't want to go to hell." And I prayed that for several nights in a row. A few months later, while going through baptismal class with my pastor, he asked when I had accepted Jesus as Savior. I said, "Well, I don't exactly remember the LAST time I did it, but..." He quickly explained to me that once was enough. So I figured I was good to go.

Yeah, right. We're NEVER "good to go" with God. I think that's the theme of my testimony.

So was I saved that evening I was scared to go to hell? I really don't remember being sorry for my sins. I don't remember being thankful for Jesus' sacrifice. I do know I'm saved now, I think that's what matters.

Around age 12, I was scared to die (see a theme? I was a pretty fearful thing....still am!). I again would lie awake at night, afraid that I might stop breathing in the night. I would pray, but would be afraid I wasn't praying in the "right way", that maybe I wasn't using the right wording and God would get mad at me. I think I was afraid that I would lose my salvation, or that I already had. My parents didn't teach me that I could lose my salvation, but it shows that the concept of losing one's salvation is a false thinking that originates with Satan, not our parents. I was always a good little sunday school girl and always memorized the most verses in AWANA, but I didn't have a relationship with God.

Then I went to camp. I was probably 16 when I went to camp for the first time. This was a very special AMF camp that mostly attracted kids who were strong Christians already, so it was a kind of discipleship camp. For one of the first times in my life, I was surrounded by other kids who were passionate about their relationship with God. They loved God. They thought God was cool. They wanted to serve God. Sadly, I didn't have much of that growing up. I realized that God was exciting and God was real. A few months after going to camp, I was on my bed again, and prayed, "God, maybe when I was 7 it wasn't the real thing. I confess my sins and I accept Jesus as my Savior. Thank you."

Was that the real thing? Did you notice I didn't specifically name any of my sins? I think that a true "conversion" happens in the heart. I don't know if I was still in "fire insurance" mentality then or not, based on where my life when from there. The problem about being raised in a Christian home is that it's really easy to get inoculated with Jesus and never catch the real disease (as C.S. Lewis has so eloquently stated before). So whether it was just another "jumping through the hoops" exercise or not, I do know from that point on, God was speaking in my life.

So I graduated from high school, started college (attending the nearby christian college). I loved my time at the Christian college, but of course i love to find the negative in just about EVERYTHING, and the negative in this was that I started to believe the highest form of Christianity was theology, and the highest practice of Christianity was conformity. Everyone at a Christian college looks the same (unless you're one of those shirttail christian college students who may or may not be saved), and they all LOVE Christian Theology I and II. I was no exception...well, I loved Christian theology, I didn't really look like everyone else, but at least I was trying. I have great memories at college, too. Fun times with friends, great times of making music and learning a lot about my instrument....I know it was God's will for me, and so I don't consider those years wasted at ALL! But i was also depressed-ish during many of those years, mostly because I didn't feel I "matched up" to the standard and didn't think I would ever be loved as a result.

Spiritually, God was working on me. My journals are full of prayers, me searching for the truth, me trying to figure things out. I'm afraid most of my prayers were ME trying to figure things out, not asking God what HE thought, but at least I was looking in the right places, and was experiencing a certain degree of satisfaction my Christian walk...maybe it was self-satisfaction.

Then I graduated college....one of the best days of my life! I love learning, I hate school! :D Went up to Alaska for the whole summer right after that, again, it was a life-changing and awesome experience, but it was also a shattering experience, too. I had been cracked over and over during college, and while in Alaska, I broke. My faith wasn't strong enough to withstand pressure on my own. Away from the bubble of friends and family who all thought the same as me, I couldn't stand on my own. I let bitterness toward many of my co-workers incubate in my heart until I couldn't stand it anymore. I left my happy little family back in Salem when I came to Alaska, and I thought my happy little family would be waiting for me when I got back. When I got back, my happy little family included one more person - the serious boyfriend of my littlest sister. That wasn't on my radar. As summer started turning to fall, I was thinking that life wasn't worth living. I figured most people wouldn't even notice if I wasn't living anymore. I didn't see the point of living. I was failing my life miserably by being bitter and I couldn't change. I was living in a majestic part of the country that spoke clearly of who God was, but I was failing to see God. I was reading my bible, I was praying, but wasn't getting much out of it.

The key is the heart. That's what I've been learning. You can read the bible all you want, pray all you want, and talk all the right stuff, but God isn't about giving the right answers. God is about a relationship, and I really didn't have a relationship with God. Well, I did, on MY terms. When God was convenient for me, we had a relationship. When God wasn't, we didn't. This doesn't work for regular friendships, and it certainly doesn't work for our divine relationship. I came home from Alaska, and God still had a lot of molding to do on me. He still does!

I have always been a really judgmental person in addition to being a fearful person. I was judgemental toward my co-workers in Alaska, which led to bitterness toward them. I was judgmental toward Trent, which kept me from enjoying his and Theresa's relationship. I was judgmental toward people who didn't align with my "theology". I was judgmental towards Christians I dubbed as "dumb Christians". I thought God was about boxes, and my nicely boxed world was falling apart around my ears.

It was difficult that whole year, Theresa got engaged, and I was still trying to get adjusted to Trent being in our lives. I wasn't a huge fan of Trent to begin with (funny, because now I really like him! I had pretty narrow views at that time...) Things were pretty much on the fast track with them, and I figured I'd somehow missed the boat myself relationship-wise. I've already written about a lot of this, so I won't go over it again. I don't like thinking about it much, either.

Where did the change come? I don't have a specific memory of it, like I have of my fire insurance moment at age 7, or my patch job at age 16. But little by little, God took a hold of me. I realized that God wasn't about boxes, or theology, or conformity. God is about a relationship. Outwardly, every person's christian walk looks different, but what we all share is that we accept the fact that we are hopeless, horrible sinners who need God, and God has mercifully given us the righteousness of His Son through Jesus' death on the cross, and we are free to get to know God personally! God is the key to overcoming fear and legalistic judgmentalism. It's not about us following a formula or jumping through the "65 spiritual laws". It's not about post-millenialism or pre-millenialism or pentacostal-baptist-methodist-free-whateverness. It's not about external junk. It's about God, and nothing else. Everything else follows under a growing, vibrant relationship with God.

I still judge people. I am still fearful. I still get blue every once and awhile, but you know what? A relationship with God isn't about getting an A on the test every day! That's another thing I've had to overcome -I've been an A student my whole life, and it's been one of my biggest weaknesses disguised as a strength! God isn't about getting an A on the test! God is about learning, and I tell my students who are struggling with their piano playing, "don't get discouraged when you make mistakes! If you didn't make mistakes, you wouldn't be learning!" Guess I should have started taking my own advice years ago!

So you know, whether you've trusted God at age 7 or 27 or 77, one thing stays the same: we all need God. He makes all things new, even things that have been lulled asleep by the truth. Wake up! Get to know your God!

Off to fold my clothes and thankful for a mending body,

Karen