Spring, please hurry.

The pace of life over the past few days is leaving me a little breathless.

Jeremy’s grandpa passed away on Thursday. His death was not a surprise, but nonetheless, the family is mourning and we miss Grandpa Fred a lot. It’s just plain sad. Perhaps like many of you, I have a lot of thoughts related to death but I can’t quite figure out how to sort them out. I hate death. It sucks. Although it is clearly the natural progression of things, it is wrong and feels wrong. The death of a loved one seems to occur in something outside of real time. Driving back and forth to the hospital to visit Grandpa Fred, I thought it seemed strange that the rest of the world keeps on moving. People are still impatient in traffic, they are still going about their daily activities, nothing is put on hold for a family that is grieving. I remember feeling the same way when my Grandma Iola died. I would walk into the nursing home and feel instantly transported to a surreal existence where my beloved grandma was breathing her final breaths. Bah. This is hard stuff to write about!

But like I said, life moves on. Jeremy still has work and I have a freelance project to focus on. We still need to make our basement safe and comfy for Sarah & baby Quinlyn who are visiting soon. Dinners need to be prepared. Livia needs to play. The dog didn’t eat for two meals in a row so clearly someone needs to worry about that. Say nothing of the persistent colds we keep trading around the household—who ever has time for a cold?

Time for a funeral, to remember and rejoice in Grandpa Fred’s life, will be made. If you think of it, pray for the family, that God would love and support Grandpa’s wife, five children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren as they adjust to life without him. Thanks, friends.

The following song has been playing in my mind for over a week now. The lyrics are excellent.

In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied –
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave he rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine –
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

Yesterday Shiloh celebrated his first birthday. (And before I go any further, I need to say Happy Birthday, Dad! And Happy Birthday, Dad T, from last week! Yes, people are more important than dogs.) In order to mark this quite small celebration, I present Random Thoughts on My Dog.

• My dog is a miniature trash compactor. He licks and eats anything he can find, including the sleepy from his eye I dislodged and flicked to the floor this morning. Ew. Gross.
• In the same vein of “ew, grossness,” my dog is obsessed with licking himself. So much so that Jeremy and I googled it one night to make sure nothing was wrong. For the record, we do, in fact, believe nothing is wrong physically. Mentally, we’re not so sure.
• We think our dog is fairly stupid. Aside from the fact that he potties in the right location, he doesn’t seem to understand 1) that he’s not supposed to eat kleenex from the trash can and 2) that he’s supposed to roll over when we say roll over.
• The previous points are all made moot by the fact that I LOVE my dog completely. I am utterly charmed by the way he cuddles into his dog bed every evening and I can’t get enough of his incredibly soft white furry coat. He is a very sweet dog who clearly loves his pack (us) and is devoted to being by our sides.
• In a nutshell, all the grossness is worth it. We love Shiloh.

God put a deep and powerful love for this child in my heart. At the end of a long day, even at the end of the worst day ever, I think about this little face and my heart jumps a bit. Parental love is intense and beautiful—and I praise God for letting it overcome all the crap we’ve been through by the time bedtime rolls around.

I praise him for this love, and I praise him for his love. Someday he’ll redeem even our good things, like my love for my child, and make it perfect. That day will be something to behold.

Something weird happens when you prepare one recipe for ten families. You hit a rhythm. Your eyes sort of glaze over… cranberry sauce, onion soup, pour the dressing, mix it together… until you make a mistake and dump the cranberries into the wrong bowl. Then you halt, figure out what’s what, and get back to the business of making freezer meals.

Several years ago my friend Carrie read a book about cooking a whole bunch of meals in one day—30 to be precise—and them freezing them. It’s a lot of work up front, but incredibly helpful in reducing meal prep time for future dinners. Carrie invited a bunch of girlfriends to Cooking Day and we worked, side by side, on our feet for hours on end to fix those 30 meals. We divided the costs and went home that evening with achy calves but feeling like queens with freezers full of meals.

Fast forward a few years. Carrie is keeping tabs on her husband’s cholesterol, which means a whole lot of lean chicken meals and not many casseroles at her home. So I’ve started a new freezer meal coop where all the chefs prepare two meals at home… ten times over. In this post I’ve included a few shots of one of my meals, Cranberry Chicken, and one of my dog, who stays oh-so-faithfully at my side when I’m cooking. I like to pretend he enjoys my company but I know better. He’s the dog equivalent of a Hoover vacuum cleaner so all in all, he earns his keep and keeps the kitchen floor spotless.

The recipe for Cranberry Chicken can be found at my (our) recipe blog, Needs More Butter.

This morning Livia woke up and wanted to write a Valentine for Haiti. She told me it would say this, “I am sorry your whole family died. I hope you love me. Love, Livia.”

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[Written on another day…]
Liv has just returned from time-out for disobedience. She returns to her kitchen stool and urgently calls me. “Mama! Mom! Mom! You need to come look at this!!”

I put down the soapy dishes and walk to the stove.

Liv points to the rounded pound of ground beef I’m browning, “Is it a brain?” and then she declares, “It’s MASTY.”

I got a good chuckle out of the masty brains, that she then admitted smelled good.

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Livia’s Reminder Note to Self:

Photographers should not take pictures of people when they are naked. It is rude.

Recorded on a piece of newspaper after kid camera incident with mom in the bathroom that morning.

Bath time around here is an Event. (And when it can’t be an Event, it becomes a difficult task for everyone involved.) Sometimes there are bubbles and sometimes there is a new, special bath toy, but always there is one little girl, tons of mismatched and somewhat random toys to play with, soap and water.

And by the time the little girl gets out of the tub, she’s usually quite relaxed. She rolls up in a towel and takes a breather. All that fun in the hot water is hard work!

Challenge for the day: take your camera somewhere new. Let me know if you blog about it.

Livia’s cubby at school had a little note in it today. It read,

Livia got caught being good! Signed, [her teacher]… For helping another student!

I cheered on my daughter and she explained further that a friend’s pants were coming down and she helped her notice it. Liv has issues with falling pants, so it really was a kindness and help to her friend this afternoon.

When you are five years old and you have a hard time focusing and keeping yourself under control, it is a HUGE deal to be noticed for being good. And oh, how I love it that her teacher sees these good qualities and encourages them. I have been brought to tears more than once by the way Liv’s teachers “catch” her doing good and then praise her accordingly. There are just so many “No, don’t do thats” and “Quit touching thats” and “Move fasters” that a young child has to hear. It’s important that kids know what it is they are doing right in the midst of their days. I have to be reminded periodically to verbally rejoice and encourage my child.

In the same vein, I think it’s important that we tell our friends what it is that makes them special. Do you have a friend who listens to you drone on and on about your workday? Do you know someone who is particularly cheery when you’re not? Do you have a mom/sister/best friend who will come wash your dishes when you’re down? (Real life example with my mom last week–thank you, Mom!) Do you appreciate the way your friend sees beauty in the mundane? If so, figure out a way to send them a slip of encouragement.

There is snail mail, which I’ve particularly been craving lately. Anyone else crave a good newsy letter?

And then, there is Valentine’s Day. How cool would it be to send out notes of encouragement on a holiday that celebrates love?

I almost wrote that I’d get off my soapbox now, but ha! Who am I kidding? I’m a blogger. This is my soapbox! And I’m totally not getting off anytime soon.