Photo a day...

Been attempting to slow down and notice daily life. With a photo a day (which usually ends up to a few photos a day). It's turned into a photo and what I will call "reflection" a day...because they are hardly poems.

11/5 and 11/6




























11/7

Recipe for Bread on a Lazy Afternoon

Awake from afternoon slumber
Next to the one
Who encompasses your love
Lay, breath, soak in the warmth
Move slowly, from the bed
Cookbook in tow

Yeast spooned into the
bottom of the big white bowl
Water warmed, poured, swirled in
To sit until bubbling
Bring in clothes from the line,
Fresh, aired, dry

Mix in the others
Flour, Oil, Water
Knead on flour surface
Muscles pushing, punching, rolling
Floured surface moving
Across your hands, arms, shirt.

Wait to rise
Pause, sit, glass of tea
Next to the vase of flowers
Brought by a friend.
Yann Tiersen on the Piano

Flour, yeast, sugar,
Meeting, breathing, growing,
In their own time

Autumn sun will set early,
Stilling time, breeze, place




11/8




Letter to the Former Owner of the Home at the Estate Sale

We drove to your house today
My husband and I
Though we’ve never known you
The dog stayed in her crate in the car
Nervously hoping we would return

We walked past your gardens and boxes
Dead and ready for the winter
I imagine you had years of great harvest
Vegetables, herbs, and flowers
Planted and weeded with care and art
It was beautiful laid out and planned,
With a wicker-arch entry way

We walked into your personal history
There were others there
Dividing your earthly goods among themselves
Carrying them out,
Pieces of your life adjoining to their own

The wallpaper, throughout your house
Was a relic to your decades in one space
Bright and cheery, put up by hand
Prints that cannot be bought today
I imagined you standing back and gazing
At your hard work, wiping your brow
To smile at a job well done
Or walking through your house
Room to room, admiring a place turned home
Like I have done in mine

I won’t ever know you
Or what ended your era here
When it became obvious that it was time
To let go of this place you loved so long
Planting your life and memories
Alongside your garden seeds

Evidence of your life moments were scattered:
Music you loved next to the record player
Out of their protective sleeves, for quicker use;
A room full of jars for preserving
Food and hope through the long winter nights
Paintings among paintings by others and yourself
Old metal roller skates, adjustable to grow
As your children had grown
High school yearbooks
Scraps of fabric for quilting and sewing
Dresses hand sewn, missing their sleeves

I just wanted to thank you
For letting me walk through
The place that held your life and days
Admiring the beauty and creativity
You cultivated in your daily happenings

I bought your garden book,
Some wax to make candles,
Art work of which we have similar taste
I almost bought jars for canning
But my arms were too full
My husband got your stapler gun
To help in his work shop
As we build this life of our own

Afterwards, we left and took the dog
Side-by-side to the lake which
You must have walked to
Side-by-side so many times
Next to bare trees and bright sun
Coming off the lake

Celebration Dance

I read this today and thought it was beautiful. I find myself not wanting to miss a day, a chance to celebrate life.

The Life of A Day

Tom Hennen

Like people or dogs, each day is unique and has its own
personality quirks which can easily be seen if you look
closely. But there are so few days as compared to people,
not to mention dogs, that it would be surprising if a day
were not a hundred times more interesting than most people.
But usually they just pass, mostly unnoticed, unless they
are wildly nice, like autumn ones full of red maple trees
and hazy sunlight, or if they are grimly awful ones in a
winter blizzard that kills the lost traveler and bunches
of cattle. For some reason we like to see days pass, even
though most of us claim we don’t want to reach our last one
for a long time. We examine each day before us with barely
a glance and say, no, this isn’t the one I’ve been looking
for, and wait in a bored sort of way for the next, when we
are convinced, our lives will start for real. Meanwhile,
this day is going by perfectly well-adjusted, as some days
are with the right amounts of sunlight and shade, and a
light breeze scented with a perfume made from the mixture
of fallen apples, corn stubble, dry oak leaves, and the
faint odor of last night’s meandering skunk.


Tonight, we were in the mood to celebrate, flip on some music and dance! Luckily, Penny loves to dance to.

Simplifying Daily Used Products

This is going to be long. But at least there will be pictures!

I've been meaning to write this blog post for a while, but it was going to be time consuming. So I think I will break it up into pieces and post them as I can. It's been a busy few months, and some great ones. Our roommates just moved back to Missouri so we are praying for whoever God has next to live with us. We would love for it to be a longer term, all of us committed to learning to live in community.

First, my sweet and amazing husband made two separate compost systems the other day on his day off! One is for our worms that are coming soon from some friends of ours. The other is a "Tumbler" Compost. We are pretty excited to begin.


And THIS is the future recipient of all that rich compost. We have a spot by our garage that is about the size of an RV parking spot. We are going to clean it up and turn it into a great sized garden where we can produce most of our vegetables and some fruits!



Onto the simpler products! I have really wanted to cut down on products that I use in daily life, and thankfully the internet is an INCREDIBLE resource.

There were a lot of factors going into this:
1. I love making things on my own. It's a relaxing process that forces you to slow down in life and gives a great appreciation for what we use.
2. I like knowing what goes into the products I use. Chemically when it's simpler, I know it's better for my body as well as for the environment. There is less production, less packaging (re-using an old container), less advertising (none!), etc.
3. A lot of times it is a lot cheaper and ultimately the goal with spending less is that it will allow us to GIVE more!

Laundry Detergent
First we made our own laundry detergent using three simple products: Ivory (or other "pure" soap), washing soda (not the same as baking soda, harder to find), and borax. It's a dry mix, and very simple to make (took about 10 minutes).

We have loved it! Where I originally found this recipe, the guy did a break down on homemade laundry detergent vs. store bought. Store bought costs around $0.21 per load, and this will cost $0.05 per load.

Using a cheese or other grater shave an entire bar of Ivory/other pure soap into a mixing bowl. This is the most time consuming part...about 5 minutes.

Second add 1/2 borax and 1/2 washing soda to the bowl. Mix well and store in a container. Use one or two tablespoons per load. This also works well with high-efficiency washers.



Facewash change

Now, I wanted to stop using normal facewash because of the cost and the chemicals involved. So after some trial and error and some research I came up with this:
Arm & Hammer Baking soda. Really, that's it. I do a tablespoon of two in the palm of my hand, wet it to make a paste and then use it as a scrub on my face. That's it. And my face has done really well with this. I can't promise it will work the same for everyone but it has helped clear my face from "monthly" breakouts.

Lastly, and my favorite:

Deodorant!

This recipe has worked GREAT. At first I put it into a mason jar container to just scoop with my finger and apply, but then I decided that it would just work better out of an old deodorant container. I have loved this deoderant. I used Lavendar and Eucalyptus as the essential oils, but I am going to just copy and paste the recipe from Bonzai Aphrodite's website (click here for more)

Sayward’s Homemade Deodorant Recipe

1/3 cup Corn Starch

1/3 cup Baking Soda

10 drops of Antibacterial Essential Oil (tea tree, lavender, or eucalyptus)

10 drops of Antifungal Essential Oil (tea tree, peppermint, sandalwood, or eucalyptus)

2 tablespoons Vitamin E Oil

3 tablespoons Coconut Oil

Mix everything up in a bowl until it forms a thick paste. Transfer to your storage container and then allow 24 hours to ’set up’.

Initially with buying two different essential oils, the Vitamin E oil and coconut oil, it will cost a little to produce. But you only use a little bit of each product so the first purchase will create many, many batches.

However, if you don't want the start cost another recipe that I found that the person swore by (but I have not tried yet) is a bit simpler. Click here.


Another sidenote:
This is a deodorant and NOT an antiperspirant. Ingredients used in anti-antiperspirants clog your bodies natural way of getting rid of toxins. Oh man, I know I sound like a freak after all this, but all-in-all some sweat is good for your body to get things out of your system.

Also if you are used to drinking caffiene ALL day long, try and cut some of it out. Maybe just drink it when you first wake up. I was used to drinking Diet Coke all day but have recently given it up and found that I produce a LOT less sweat now. Caffeine does make your body to produce more sweat.

True Majority Video

From Oswald this morning

Woke up early enough (4 am), to take Jason to the airport, clean the house, entertain the dog and spend plenty of time with God. A morning with all these things is a rarity!

As I was reading Oswald Chamber's reflection on discipleship this morning it really struck me:

"Discipleship is built entirely on the supernatural grace of God. Walking on water is easy to someone with impulsive boldness, but walking on dry land as a disciple of Jesus Christ is something altogether different. Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus, but he "followed Him at a distance" on dry land (Mark 14:54). We do not need the grace of God to withstand crisis-- human nature and pride are sufficient for us to face the stress and strain magnificently. But it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours of everyday as a saint, going through the drudgery, and living an ordinary, unnoticed, and ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus. It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God-- but we do not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people-- an d this is not learned in five minutes."

How hard it is to live exceptionally in the ordinary!

Away We Went...

Jason and I got away for the weekend. We headed up northeasternly and stay along the edge of lake Superior in Ashland, WI. It was a beautiful, relaxed weekend. We went with no agenda, except for an organic farm that I wanted to visit (bluevistafarm.com). We brought books, and I decided to focus on a chapter in Brennan Manning's Furioust Longing of God on loving others. So I read and re-read it. We spent time outside, breathing the fresh air, exploring small towns in the area. And inside our hotel room reading and praying together and separately, Jason playing the guitar and singing together, me working on a blanket I'm knitting. It was beautiful and simple.

On the way home we took a different route and drove a country highway. Wisconsin is so beautiful in the fall! We stopped at a random farm garage sale, ate at another hole in the wall restaurant, went to a cheese shop, and just took our time...

A few pics for now.

One Small Plot of Heaven

This is courtesy of our friend Theresa Parks. She had it posted and it was just too beautiful. So, in celebration of our fourth anniversary, I give it you!


"One Small Plot of Heaven"

Put off the garb of woe, let mourning cease;

Today we celebrate with solemn mirth the planting in the ravaged waste of earth
of one small plot of heaven, a home of peace.


Where love unfeigned shall rule,
And bring, increase, and pure external joy shall come to birth
And grow, and flower, that neither drought nor death shall wither,
Till the reaper brings release.


Guard the ground well, for it belongs to God;
Root out the hateful and the bitter weed,
and from the harvest of their Hearts good seed.


The hungry shall be fed, the naked clad,
And Love's infection, leaven-like shall spread.
Till all creation feel from heavenly bread.