Eighteen

Here they are,
my oldest daughter
and my youngest son.
She can't get over how great babies are.
As for me, I can't believe how wonderful it is to have an infant
when there are two big girls to help me.
Today they both happen to be gone,
so the baby is crying, I'm missing the Tracy Anderson workout,
the kitchen is messy, and I am a little bit lonely.
(Which is odd for me, since I am never lonely as long as I have a good book to read).

Julia just turned eighteen.
Eighteen!
Somehow that is a watershed number.

She'll have two little parties.
Here is the first party, with her high school friends.

Two of these girls are quiet, two are lively.
Can you guess which ones are quiet?
I love them all.
While they were here, I kept trying to give them advice, which probably bored them to pieces.
I don't usually do that, but since I was fresh off my own high-school reunion,
I had plenty of thoughts on the matter.

When Julia was little, she wanted to do all my crafts with me,
including complicated beading.
It got to the point where I tried to make jewelry when she wasn't around,
because she clamored to do everything I did.

Now she has found a craft she loves, leather work,
and the things she makes are far beyond my skill set (you can see her creations on Etsy).
She's going to college next year,
but she'd rather be home, pounding out beautiful leather pieces.
I'm going to miss her terribly.
I keep telling her that college is priceless, that she will love it,
but I sorrow at the thought of our house without Julia in it.

My girl and her friends are at the brink.
From the promise of eighteen,
the wonder of life is an open field in front of them.
I wish them joy.

"Before calling has anything to do with doing, it has everything to do with being, that essence of yourself that God knew before the foundations of the earth, that God called into being and that God alone truly knows. It is the call to be who we are and at the same time to become more than we can yet envision....it encompasses everything that makes us who we are: our genetics, innate orientations and capacities, our personality, heredity and life-shaping experiences, and the time and place into which we were born." (Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership).

(Julia also sells her pieces at Krista Artista Gallery in Anoka, Minnesota).

Cold Spring, Hot Soup

Five inches of snow today, and more expected tomorrow.
I'm not happy about it, but I'm not beside myself either.
As long as I can stay inside and eat yummy food,
with my daughters and my baby to keep me company,
it's not so bad.

When I was with my friend Lisa in Georgia,
she rattled off a tomato soup recipe from memory.
It sounded good then,
but it sounds even better now,
with snow falling thick on the budding trees outside my window.

Someday I'll blog about my kitchen essentials.
For now, here are two of the best:
a very sharp chef's knife,
and a flexible cutting board (this one is from Ikea).
(I made an open-face grilled cheese sandwich, with avocado and tomato, to go with the soup).


Spicy Tomato Soup

1 T. extra-virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, diced
2 cans fire-roasted tomatoes (14.5 oz. each)
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
2 T. basil or cilantro, chopped

Optional: 1 tsp. sugar, 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

Heat oil, stir in onion, cook over medium heat for about 7 minutes, or till soft.
(I then stirred in 1 tsp. balsamic vinegar, since that is good in so many soups)

Stir in garlic, cook for about 2 minutes, stirring so garlic doesn't burn

Add tomatoes and broth, and sugar and pepper flakes if you decide to use them.

Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes

Allow to cool for about 15 minutes

Using an immersion blender, blend the soup to desired consistency.

If you want the soup very hot, return soup to a simmer.

To serve, ladle into bowls and sprinkle with basil or cilantro.

(Thanks Lisa. This is a keeper).

Hide and Seek

 (Denim bear by Grandma, baby quilt by Amanda, my quilt by Liz.)

I woke up at four a.m.,
realized by five a.m. that I wasn't going to fall back to sleep,
left Malachi in Daddy's care, and made my coffee.
At one point I fed the baby and put him in his crib.
Which is a pack 'n play at the foot of my bed.
And which he hates.
He screamed for awhile.
Then, blissful silence.
I waited about half an hour,
then went to look for him.
He wasn't in his crib.
He wasn't with Daddy.

I got a little nervous.
Here is where I finally found him.
Anna Kate had rescued him after just a few minutes of heart-breaking cries.
This is just one of the many reasons why this little guy is not on a schedule.
Soft-hearted sisters are constantly rescuing him.

Morning stretching.

Off to his high chair for breakfast.
Now that the day has begun, he's all smiles.

The cutest thing in the kitchen.

Grass and Hope

It was a different sort of Easter.
For starters, we weren't allowed to say "Easter."
Apparently the entire season is drenched in paganism, including the word we've always used to describe it.
So we had "Resurrection bags,"
and we tried to say,
"Happy Resurrection Day,"
or, as always,
"He is risen!"
answered by,
"He is risen, indeed."

I started the wheat grass way too late.
This is how it looked this week.
Just like our terrible late spring,
everything feels slow, as though
we are lurching towards life,
not springing towards it.

This year we hosted our parents for the first time ever.
It was wonderful.
And although my father-in-law is suffering from Parkinson's
(which means everyone who loves him also suffers from it),
the time together seemed set apart.

As I rocked Malachi and held him through his naptime,
the others quietly helped with the clean-up.
And I thought about the life that comes, after the death.

I thought about what our family has survived,
these last seven years.
The things that God allowed so that we could be more broken
than we had ever offered to be.
We almost never choose the ways we participate in His sufferings.

Malachi with his two Grandmas

So we stumble into spring,
thankful and not entirely whole.
It looks like hope,
to be like that wheat grass seed.
Dead, dry, covered,
watered, sunned, and then,
when the time is right,
coming to life.

Thank you, Jesus,
for the power of the resurrection.