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a few photos.

27 Jul
More will follow!

laying on of hands.

the dawson sixteen-hours-in-a-car wonderful crew.

molly was my awesome acolyte.

giving of the stole.
a better glance at the stole, sewn by mom.

the ladies served a super classy reception.

with aunt kari and molly bea.

the grandparents.

love.

26 Jul
You think to yourself, “Could this girl blog any more than she has in the last few days?!”  
[Don’t challenge me!]
Here’s what I think: I’m still processing that day when that one thing called ordination happened.  As I process, I blog.  Not to mention, now that the ordination planning is behind me, what else am I supposed to do?
In the process of it all and in talking to the call committee chair at Red Oak Grove [hereafter to be called ROG], I will not move until Labor Day weekend.  I will begin work that week and lead my first worship service on September 11.  [Sounds like a great idea, right?  On the tenth anniversary of Sept. 11, I will preach to a church of people I have yet to know.]  That means one more month at home.  One more month to … shrug
So there’s that.  And then there’s the fact that I feel a little … sad that the day is over.  There was so much build-up [um, four years?] to that day and now, it’s over.  In the past.  Behind me.  I knew that on that day I would see friends and family and we would celebrate.  Celebration over.  As my favorite resident in my CPE nursing home would say in her raspy voice, “Now what?”  [“Push Margie?  Feed Margie?”  She would also tell me on occasion, “You talk too much.”  That may apply here as well.]

That being said, let’s talk a little bit about this word love.
This word has been a part of the last few days in many different ways.  I had written earlier that I felt so supported and loved on that day.  [True story.]  Whether the word was said verbally or not, I felt it.  Then I started to say it and hear it in all sorts of places.
From my college roommate, who has taught me a lot about saying “I love you” aloud, something I have always been timid to do; now it’s how we end our phone conversations.  I yelled it to Cassie as she left that night.  “Love yous!”  [She responded with a “I know.”]  In the card I received from my tweeds.  [Tweeds: pet name for Sara.  I call her that and she calls me Schmoopsie.]  At the end of an email from a Dawson friend and in the text message I sent to another Dawsonite [and meant to be shared with the whole sixteen hour crew.  she’s just the one I normally text.].  At the end of a message, combined with a “God loves you,” and at the conclusion of my video ordination greeting from friends.  A “love ya” that was signed with a “ME” in a facebook message, and a “We love you, Lindsay” from the Bananas.
As Hugh Grant says in the beginning voiceover of the movie Love Actually, “If you take the time to look, you’ll discover that love is, actually, all around.”
I’m looking.  I’m looking to name it already present and to grow into it.  It’s still a tricky thing to say, and it can be a tough bridge to cross.  It’s something I still hope to discover in one sense of the word, but also something I feel my life is filled with in another sense.  It’s found on tip-toes and shouted from roof tops, and it’s not an easy thing to always talk about …
And …
… I end this post, having confused myself, forgetting the point I initially wanted to make, and for fear of getting a little too sappy.

crying and smiling.

25 Jul
There’s that Dr. Seuss quote that gets around – “Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened.”
That’s not working out so well for me in regards to [whispers] the ordination.
It’s not all tears – I am smiling.  I’ve been smiling since guests began arriving yesterday.  My friend, Sara, arrived to my house early afternoon yesterday, followed by Cassie.  Dawson folks arrived at church shortly after [including a wonderful surprise as Sharon walked into church!], and then congregation members, call committee people from Austin, family, and more friends.  I smiled when Keith, the custodian from Grace, greeted me with a smirk, a hug, [note: oxford comma] and a “Sunshine!”  I smiled when Miss Molly Bea [my 6th grade cousin and goddaughter] conquered her public speaking fear to read during the service.  I smiled when my mom put the stole around my shoulders, and felt great moments of support and comfort through the hands that were laid upon me.  I smiled when Kendall said, “I’ll be right back,” dipped down into the pulpit, and came back up with three gnomes to teach us lessons.  [More on that to follow.  I will share the gnomes and the lessons with you!]  I smiled during the special music and when I handed bread to my cousin, Sam, during communion as he giggled.  I smiled at how lovely the ladies of the church set up the reception that followed, complete with fancy coffee servers and a quilt/prayer shawl gift for me.  And many hugs.  So many hugs.  I love hugs.  It was a good day.  [More stories certainly to follow.]
But now this morning, I’m crying too.  I cried in the days leading up to the ordination, causing me fear that I wouldn’t be able to remain dry-eyed during the service.  Miraculously, I did.  [I recall this from my last Sunday in Dawson, too.  It’s not because I’m a rock and have no emotions – I think my body holds out on me and keeps me pretty level-headed when I’m in front of people.]  I’m crying because it’s over and because of all the people who traveled and supported me on this day.  I felt so incredibly loved yesterday!  I’m crying because for the last few weeks I’ve been able to say to many of my geographically-distant friends, “I’ll see you soon!”  Now I don’t know when I’ll see them next.  I cry at the wonderful notes that people wrote in the cards I received [“Lindsay, You have been on my daily prayer list for years and you will continue to be on that list.”], and cry at how wonderfully my friends from home and family [some of whom are not so favorable towards church] tell me they’re proud of me and support me.

It was a big day.  A good day.  An emotional service and wonderful celebration.  A ginormous thank you to all those who came, who hugged, who participated, and who were thinking about me yesterday!

I felt the love.  Thank you.

[want to hear a rap about the ordination?  of course you do and my rapping friends, Joel and Melissa, provided!  it’s awesome.  as usual.  “so/ the sun is setting as I write this rhyme/ can you believe it’s almost time/ four years at seminary/ a couple interviews/ hey/ did you hear the great news?/ Lindsay Stolen gettin’ ordained on Sunday afternoon/ near the end of July/ the month after June/ with joy we dance to a little tune/ your feet hit the floor/ the plans have been made/ cold oatmeal with almond milk/ is your breakfast of trade/ a robe called an alb/ a stole/ you’re a pastor/ how the time flies much faster/ how do you feel? … well we’ll just ask you/ you’re a firework/ a dance party rocker/ blogger extraordinaire/ a tight rope walker/ so what we’re trying to say/ through all these words and phrases/ may God bless you this day and always/ for new trails you blaze/ peace and love to you.”

AND if you weren’t able to attend, here’s a section of the service, lovingly prepared and taped by my soon-to-be southeastern MN colleagues.  they’ve already invited themselves over to my house for dinner on sept. 12 and much shenanigans will ensue.  thanks to Lauren, jD, and Paige for this creative greeting!  I am blessed with such awesome friends, all around.  seriously.]

[the sound?  the baptismal font.  love it.]

I wish –

18 Jul
I’ve been away.  There has been much blogging delay.  
I wish I could say that I’ve been busy hanging out with the hopeful new friend whom I emailed last week but nope.  I think he found me creepy and has yet to respond.  [I’m a wee bit bummed about this.]
I wish I could say that I’ve been busy replying to all of you who have written me emails.  But that’s not true either.  [Responses will come, I promise!]
I wish I could say that I was finishing up the final touches on the latest Cooking Pastor episode but that’s not the case.  I’m working on editing it but this one is taking me a bit longer.  It will be here sometime soon!
I wish I could say that I spent a couple hours at the theater watching the final installment of Harry Potter. I haven’t seen it yet but hope I will find time/friends to see it this week.
I wish I could say that I’ve been steadily focused on ordination and now all of those pieces are in place but that’s just silly.  If everything was ready, what would I have to do/stress about this week?  
Those are the things I have not been doing.  So where the hay have I been?
Playing a healthy and therapeutic dose of Apples to Apples and CatchPhrase with a picnic table full of cousins.  

Celebrating Tobacco Heritage Days in Edgerton.  It’s our summer festival and my way of celebrating included participating/helping at a family rummage sale on Friday, going out with friends on Saturday night, and watching the parade on Sunday.  Perhaps some of you know about my history of stripping [tobacco].  This year, the parade featured a series of floats [read: tractors] that explained the growing,  harvesting, and stripping processes of tobacco.  This is how I used to strip: [you can kinda see the dry-leafed plants hanging upside down.  remove leaves.  put in tobacco presses shown.  press.  bundle.  done.]
Catching up with old friends.  Twins Melanie and Megan joined Kim, Kay, and I for the parade in this lovely 90+ degree day.  Melanie and Megan were two years younger than us in high school but we became friends when they hosted an AFS student, Oksana, whom we all dearly loved.  Seeing Melanie and Megan, sitting at the parade with them, and catching up on each others’ lives seriously warmed my heart today.  
Following the parade, I celebrated with Marj, the mom of another high school friend, Jenni, at her birthday open house.  It was great to see Marj, other friends, and Jenni, who now lives in Indiana with her husband and foster children.  So wonderful.
Rolling, dipping, and decorating 250 cakepops.  Friend Krissy is getting married in three weeks and I said I would help her make cakepops for the reception.  We began at 4pm and I returned home after 11:30.  [My feet hurt.]
That’s where I’ve been.  I hope to be a more consistent virtual friend for you this week as the icky humid heat keeps me indoors.  I’m also fairly certain I’ll need the therapy of writing as my emotions grow out of whack in anticipation of [whispers] the ordination.

play day.

11 Jul

As I blogged late last night, I was certain today would be a good day.  Oh, it was.  Because I did nothing but play.

Well, wait.  I can say that I mailed out a pile of ordination announcements to family and close friends [but that’s fun for me – I love paper and snail mail].  I also chose texts for my ordination service and emailed those to my preacher [the preacher whom I am hands down thrilled he accepted and was willing to preach].  I asked my cousin to be the lay reader and the sixth grader shot me down.  And therein ended the ordination planning for the day because then I started playing.
I visited my grandma at the tv store [my uncle owns a tv/appliance store in Edgerton.  my grandma mans the phones when he and grandpa are out on service/installation calls.] and then just stopped by my aunt/uncle’s to see what the cousins were up to.  Nothing.  That’s the answer there.  Nothing.  So I did nothing with them.

[this photo is meant to be hideous.  this is not how molly typically looks.  promise.]
We drove to our house and baked home-made pizza.  We drove to our other cousin’s house and waited for them to get back from shopping.  We went prepared and waited in their pool.  nbd.  [no big deal.]  We swam, hid from Logan and Drew when they showed up, and then swam more.  Connor, Sam, and Molly came back to our house for cakepops and hammock time.  Laughter was aplenty and more is planned for tomorrow.
Perk #63 of being home: Impromptu cousin adventures.

project pond scum.

5 Jul
the pond – with Aunt Peggy & Uncle Brian’s in the background
Growing up, my summers were spent at the pond.  You know – the pond.  The same pond in which my dad and his siblings grew up swimming.  The pond that sits on my neighbor’s property [that neighbor being  my aunt and uncle].  The pond that was probably a 12 minute walk through corn field paths, along the creek, and past the hornet’s nest from our farm.  Or a five minute tractor ride.  Maybe three in the bed of the truck.
The pond was where my brothers, cousins, and I lived in the summers.  My aunt works at the high school so she, like us, had her summers off and spent those days as lifeguard, swimming instructor, and freezie pop provider.  The place where we cooled off and cleaned up after a day in the tobacco fields, and the place where we made each other filthy with muck and pond scum fights.  The pond was one of my happiest places as a child.
It was where I learned to swim and tread water for hours.  My personal feat as a little girl was performing summersaults and handstands just off the pier.  [I believe it was thirteen summersaults in a row – and in one breath – that was my final and best record.]  It was where I learned to hold my own with four boys named Matt, Ben, Mike, and Kyle.  
It’s been years since I’ve been swimming in the pond.  Being away for summers and simply with the brothers and cousins growing in age, the pond isn’t our natural gathering place anymore.  In the years away, the pond has changed.  The middle pier/diving board is now gone, along with the pier on the western edge that no one used but for fishing.  The remaining pier is a bit saggy in places and the fish population has grown.  As have the weeds.
When we swam in the pond nearly every day for many summers in a row, the weeds were never much of a problem.  We would clear them out in the beginning of the summer and feel them no more for the rest of the season.  It’s likely been many years since the weeds were cleared from this swimming hole.  That, my friends, was the project for today.
Cousin Connor encouraged us to take back our swimming pond.  [I think he’s just as bored as I am since he returned from his two weeks in Kenya and as he waits to begin his first year of college in the fall.]  Emma and I responded with a strong, “Huzzah!” and the weeds had met their match.  It’s just not so much fun to swim out to the middle of the pond and have the seaweeds graze your body as you paddle past.  It can be a little disturbing, and maybe a little eerie.  The weeds had to go.

The ones closest to shore were raked.
The best method for weed removal?  Spaghetti-style.  As a fork winding spaghetti off a plate, so becomes your leg winding and pulling the weeds from the bottom of the pond.  Connor and I pulled all the weeds we could reach with our legs, twisting and twirling until the weeds came up on our foot.  We’d pull them off our feet and Emma would take the canoe paddle and bring them up to shore or onto the pier.  We had a system and it worked fairly well for us.  [Not so well for the weeds.]
Does this gross you out?  The weed-pulling spaghetti-style?  [I’m sure a few of you might just be grossed out at the thought of swimming in a pond.  You have my mom’s company.]  In a weed fight fought later in the afternoon, it was discovered that it certainly grosses my sister out.  She made gagging noises as Connor threw weeds on top of her head.  Sure, the weeds make you a little itchy, and pulling them from the bottom makes the water all sorts of murky and dirty.  Connor attempted to nail me with a paddle of weeds from the boat as I treaded water in the middle.  He missed, but I hit him square in the back upon retaliation.  Best line of the day?  As he jumped in the water to clean off and yelled, “I have weeds in my pants!”
A majority of our catch.
Connor and I with our spaghetti.

the haps.

23 Jun
[translation: happenings.]
I picked strawberries with my friend Kay and her son.  No clue what I’m going to do with the two baskets that now occupy the fridge.  Jam – the usual go to – seems unnecessary as I am still working my way through last year’s batches … 

I held this cutie cousin, Kennedy, for the littlest while the other afternoon.  Until she wanted to sit in the stroller and eat her cheerios.  

It’s wedding time for my college friend, Veronica!  I’ve been busy writing a wedding message and practicing my best presider’s stance as I have the honor of officiating.  [Veronica and Dave are technically already married.  This is an affirmation sort of ceremony with family and friends.]  While the thought of officiating makes me nervous and slightly terrified, it is also super exciting.  Not only is there a wonderful celebration for an awesome couple, it has become a mini-Luther reunion of sorts.  My college roomie and her husband are bunking with me in E-town currently [Amanda rolled in last night.], and friends Deb and Allison [along with spouses/child] will be in attendance.  I’m looking forward to catching up with them tomorrow night!

the things I thought yesterday –

17 Jun
I miss Brent.  [I got my hair cut by a new person and it just wasn’t the same.  She didn’t dry the inside of  my ears or brush off my back when I was done.  The haircut itself is sketchy; stay posted.]
My sister was a darn cute baby.  [We put up photos for the grad party yesterday.  Never mind the fact that we looked a lot alike as children.  This leads to picture confusion; we’re often told apart only by the color of the carpet in the background, the clothing being worn, or the hairstyle of the person holding us.]
I need a red stole!  A set of stoles!  And an alb … and a cleric … [so unprepared and so do not know what happens next or what I need to do]
I love my cousins.  [Sam and Molly came out to help with housework yesterday.  They spread mulch like little troopers.]  Also, hammocks can entertain children for hours and children falling out of hammocks [if not hurt] is quite funny.  [That would be Sam who tried to jump backwards into the already swinging hammock that contained his sister.  He overshot the skinny gathered part of string and went straight over it and landed on his back on the grass under the hammock.  I can still play it over in my head – too funny.]
This graduation party is not a wedding reception.  [Wait.  That’s what my mother told me.  I was getting carried away.  It’s true.]
I wonder what my future craft room will look like …
Is a four-cup coffee make enough?
It’s strawberry season!  Plans to pick next week.
I wish I had guts like Skeeter in The Help; I kinda feel like I have her hair. [I finished this novel last night and was sad that it was over.  It also has made me wonder how I would act as a white woman in the south in the 1960s if that was my life; would I be a Skeeter or a Hilly?  It’s a scary thought for me; I fear I’d be one of the crowd.]

favorite things.

5 Jun
Today I did a lot of my favorite things.  [incredibly narcissistic post follows this point.  you’re warned.]
I finished this cake by mixing the frosting and assembling the cake rounds I baked last night.  It was the post-cousin-and-sister-graduation cake.  Enjoyed by all.
I watched my baby sister and cousin graduate and receive their high school diplomas.  [Not that watching people graduate is a favorite thing.  It probably doesn’t happen enough to be a favorite thing but it certainly was a highlight once we moved past the cliches in the commencement addresses.]

I laid in the hammock and read.  Current read: The Help.  I’m intrigued and will continue reading at a reasonable speed.
I made cakepop bites with Molly.  She’s currently the vice-president of her fifth grade class and wanted to treat her classmates.
I began a new quilt.  Complete design and approach to be yet determined.  Circles – a new quilting adventure for me – formed with freezer paper are stacked on the ironing board.  
Good day and good night.  [Only to wake tomorrow to my mom’s list of putting down landscaping fabric, laying rock and mulch, scraping paint, and cleaning the kitchen.  Game on.]

I’m home!

3 Jun
I made it home Wednesday night, after breakfast at the Finnish Bistro with my college roommate, Amanda, and her husband, Joe.  I arrived home at eight and unpacked, unpacked, unpacked.  What I don’t need is being stored in my brother’s closet [he doesn’t need it since he’s in alaska placing second in ski/bike/kayak/run races with his girlfriend]; the things I do need have been put away and organized in my bedroom.  It’s starting to feel like I live here again.

Just to clue you, my blog friends, in, here is the place I will be blogging from for the next month, maybe two.  This is “home,” or at least has been since I was sixteen and we built/moved down the road from the farm.  You can picture me in the left upstairs window, blogging to you.  [Actually, don’t picture that.  Creepy.]

Since I’ve arrived home and settled in, you may wonder how I’ve been spending my time.  [Or maybe you don’t really care.  If that is the case, I advise you to stop reading now.]  Unpacking and organizing took its fair amount of yesterday.  I have also baked four cakes [in anticipation of graduation party cakepops], cleaned the house, mopped the porch, went grocery shopping, cooked evening meals, a couple loads of laundry, bought fabric for a summer quilt [oxymoron?] and discovered that the tv show How I Met Your Mother is on Lifetime at least three times a day.  I may begin to plan my days around it.
I also hung up my hammock this afternoon and may or may not have taken a brief power nap as the wind [we live on a hill.  it’s always windy here.] rocked me to sleep.  I plan on spending a bit of time in the hammock tomorrow, beginning a new book.  [The Help is next on my list and it’s already loaded on my kindle after a recommendation and seeing the preview for the movie to be released soon.]
While I do find myself missing my friends and the Cities life and while my last long list was about what I would miss in St.Paul, here is a beginning list of the current joys of being home:
1. Four country music radio presets in my car.  [compared to a measly one in the Cities]
2. My mom pays for the groceries.
3. Campfires.  [My sister and I successfully started one the other night.]
4. Hammock.
5. No noisy neighbors/noisy parking lot/noisy children. [quiet!]
6. A house = space and open window air flow.
7. Satellite television.
8. Family adventures. [already been shopping with Miss Molly … always an adventure with that fifth grade cousin!]
9. I spend less money.  [no Starbucks drive-thru nearby, no happy hour with friends, etc.]
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