juice

When those you love show you the things of their lives it is a lovely thing. Fruit bearing trees have followed me - I remember sneaking off to sit under a willow tree just across our lot line behind a tall, gray planked wooden fence in the backyard. I don't know if my parents watched me climb over the old rail fence and disappear into the neighbors backyard. The stories my teacher read of Johnny Appleseed somehow inspired me and I usually brought an apple with. Thinking about it now, does one memory have the power to be a fabricated reoccurrence? The beautiful sweet smell of walnuts laying like defeated soldiers in our own yard was a reoccurrence. If I knew back then, I would have brought back buckets from the neighbor's tree for banana bread and salads. Figs followed me from Australia to Washington - I wonder if continuing drought conditions in WA will be good for fig trees... How will that look in the future? How will I look in the future? My husband's daughter...

Ingredients: 1/4 c. red onion, finely chopped juice from 1 lime (~ 2 T) 1 cucumber, chopped small 1 can diced organic tomatoes 1 roma tomato, chopped small 12-15 medium shrimp, thawed and peeled 1 c. (razor) clam juice hot sauce (few dashes) 1/2-1 tsp. minced garlic salt & pepper Method: 1. Chop the onion and soak it in lime juice while chopping the other ingredients. Then mix it with the first five ingredients in a bowl adding some salt and pepper. 2. Put the mixture into a blender. Add cilantro, reserving 1/2 cup in a bowl. Blend the mixture until smooth then stir in reserved cup of cilantro. Stir in the hot sauce, remove the blender container and put it in the fridge (or pour into a bowl first). 3. Put the shrimp in a small (sauté) pan with the clam juice on medium/low. Allow the shrimp to cook, stirring occasionally. Add a bit of salt. 4. Once the shrimp is cooked, remove it from the stove and allow it to cool a bit. Then mix it with the other ingredients ...

I look back at my previous entries and see a voice I'm almost embarrassed to expose again! My life has changed and somehow I feel the outward has forced itself inward, drawing on different, yet familiar impromptu movements and bunny-hop thoughts. Can one really conceive the lifelong commitment to another individual? I do not doubt the strength of transparency, vulnerability and forgiveness. And here I am, again, but for the first time - The only one who will get to live this life: Wandering with Home in my heart - Finessing the resources within and throwing them to the wind... This kite has a long string that often tangles in trees. The beauty is still all around and I find taking it in to be a daily responsibility. I will always be a steward of the earth, blessed with the rising sun, spring songs, flowing waters, and green canopies - yearning to give back.

A flock of crows and stack of model airplane kits made me smile today.

There is a lot to say with two years gone by, but how am I doing?  How is my soul?  God gave me a perfect description through David's words last night: Hear my prayer, O Lord; give ear to my pleas for mercy! In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteouness! Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. For the enemy has pursued my soul; he has crushed y life to the ground; he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead. Therefore my spirit faints within me; my heart within e is appalled. I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands. I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Answer me quickly, O Lord! My spirit fails! Hide not your face from me, lest I be like those who go down to the pit. Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up m...

After five days of gray, Olympia welcomed the sun like an optimistic old friend offering freshly baked oatmeal cookies... I discovered one of my favorite parables while sitting in Trinity Lutheran Church this morning, listening to Pastor Mike's sermon. "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for is vineyard.  He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. "About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing.  He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went. "He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing.  About fie in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around.  He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?' "Because no one has hired us,' they answered. ...