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A weekend of awesome.

9 Jul

I’m going to tell you about my weekend.

It was wonderful.

I cleaned.  I strangely love cleaning on a day off.  It helps me feel productive and less guilty for the rest of my time at home spent … not cleaning.

I read.  I finished Insurgent [the second novel in the trilogy by Veronica Roth] and picked up a few books that I’ve been nursing along for a couple months now.

I picked strawberries.  It’s just not quite summer if I don’t pick strawberries.  I drove to just south of Faribault and picked eight pounds of delicious, red strawberries with bright green leaves.  I’d forgotten what a far cry locally picked berries are from the store-bought ones.  What am I doing with eight pounds of strawberries?  Eating them.

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I quilted.  I finished the top of a banana baby quilt, sandwiched it, and then started in on the gumdrop quilt I told you about in my last post.  I just couldn’t wait and happened to have all of the supplies on hand.  I’ve been cutting and fusing and cutting and fusing lots in the last few days while watching Arrested Development.

I went shopping with Paige.  We met up at the outlet mall and shopped a bit.  I picked up a few needed items for my kayak trip.  [Headlamp?  Check.  Sleeping bag?  Check.  Wilderness wash?  Check.]

It was such a great weekend of all of my favorite things.  Up next is the second day of day camp tomorrow at Red Oak Grove – also one of my favorite things!  We’ll just erase the tense council meeting from last night from my mind and pretend only favorite things exist.

Day Camp: June Edition.

26 Jun

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Last year’s day camp at Red Oak Grove was a hit.  I loved it.  The kids loved it.  The elderly loved that the kids loved it.  This summer, we organized it so there was not one day of camp but THREE!  One in June, one in July, and one in August.

We kicked it off today with group games, fun snacks, awesome crafts, and great kids.  It was a blast and a half!  We had fourteen? fifteen? kids and we spent the day practicing joy, kindness, and generosity – three fruits of the spirit we focused on today.  They are already pretty good at all three of those.  They are so great.

Linda, a church member and grandma to many of the kids in attendance, came for the whole day of camp.  She also is super great at joy, kindness, and generosity, and I was so thankful she came for the day.  At one point, she said to me something a la I can tell you’re in your element.  It’s teaching and ministry together.

Yes.  Today I remember why I love this job.

Addison, day camper and to-be second grader, sent me this email on her mom's account an hour after camp ended.

Addison, day camper and to-be second grader, sent me this email on her mom’s account an hour after camp ended.

 

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An Alaskan recap.

23 Jun

I went to Alaska and now I am home.  I still slightly loathe the second part of that sentence.

It was a good trip of family fun.  Boating on Ben’s new boat, kayaking on a glacial lake, and record high & sunny weather.  [We’re talking upper 80s with huge piles of snow still melting in parking lots, and Alaskan houses that don’t have air conditioning.]  We explored what there is to explore in Valdez [read: not much] including a couple museums and shops catering to tourists.  I learned that I like coleslaw [that kind that isn’t swimming in white goo] and you can make your own magic shell for ice cream using coconut oil and chocolate.  [Thanks to Ben’s girlfriend for both of those culinary discoveries.]  I devoured Mindy Kahling’s book.  It was also quite an experience to wake up every morning and see the mountains after a night when it never really actually got dark.

Though the downside is we don’t see him often, it’s quite convenient to have a brother who lives in Alaska.  Especially one who owns four kayaks and a boat and a house.  We were able to have a great trip doing loads of fun things that would have cost the normal traveler a bundle and a half.  Thanks for letting us visit, Ben.  See you again in your neck of the woods in another two years?  I sense a tradition beginning …

MSP > SEA > ANC
A favorite Anchorage place. I took this photo to make my older brother, Matt, super jealous.
Thai Chicken @ Moose’s Tooth
Rebecca the Rental. She was a feisty Ford Fiesta.
If you’re going to grafitti, I like this approach.
Enjoying the drive from Anchorage to Valdez.
Bridal Veil Falls outside of Valdez.
Valdez Harbor.
Ben is the captain. Ursula is his boat.
Sea lions. Sea lions!
A stop at Anderson Bay.
11pm, people. 11pm.
Kayaking at the Valdez Glacier.
We couldn’t get up close and personal with the glacier because there was still ice on the water. [It was chilly water!]
Perfection.
Lunch at a Thai food truck on the route back to Anchorage. According to Ben – best food value in Alaska. You always go to Glenallen hungry.
To Anchorage we return.

Today in Alaska –

19 Jun

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I was on a boat, yo.

18 Jun

Today we went out on the boat. Ben’s boat. As the captain, he gave us the emergency speech as we rode out of the harbor. “If shit hits the fan, grab a life jacket. You’ve got about five minutes before your limbs start to stiffen. Make for the kayaks on the roof.”

We didn’t need any emergency strategies. The water was calm and the sky was clear. We stopped for a bit on Anderson Beach, saw sea lions duking it out on a buoy, and had a great couple hours on the water. Tomorrow: kayaking and more boating.

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We’re here!

17 Jun

Alaska, that is.

There is no wireless Internet at the brother’s and so I type an ever-so-brief update via mobile. His neighbor, however, has wireless that pops up on my list of available networks. His network name? “Awesomer.” Because someone else in the neighborhood had already taken “Awesome” for their network name. Awesome.

We made it. We meaning my mom, sister, and I. Made it meaning traveled from Austin to Minneapolis, Minneapolis to Seattle, Seattle to Anchorage, Anchorage to Valdez. We are ready to not be in an airplane or car seat.

We are here. Staying with my younger brother and his dog, Jetta. Possible agendas for the coming days include boating, kayaking, and hiking. Oh, and confusing our bodies with the ever-presence of the sun. (It’s weird.)

Friday Favorites: The Rhubarb Edition.

14 Jun

Rhubarb has ruled the internet this week.

I think the leafy, tart plant might be plotting some sort of vegetable take over.

[Vegetable, right?]

On Pinterest, on Reader, on everything – it’s rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb.

Instead of fighting it, I join the coalition willingly.

In full disclosure, I have made none of these recipes.  But I have a bag of frozen rhubarb for which these recipes are fighting.  I’m not sure who will win but I’m fairly certain the result will be delicious.

Rhubarb Vanilla Bean Jam.  I love that this jam seems to be lower in sugar than most [I think].  Plus, I’m on board with vanilla bean anything.

Rhubarb Cream Cheese Hand Pies.  Nothing more needs to be said.  [Unless I should add that it’s from the smitten kitchen, a place from which all things lovely come.]

Drink your rhubarb with ideas and links from the kitchn.

And one more late edition from my twitter feed – strawberry rhubarb macarons.  How refined.

Also, if rhubarb isn’t so much your thing –

That’s all for now, folks.  Happy weekending.

a-punch-to-my-introvert’s-stomach.

5 Jun

“Pastor Lindsay seemed quite shy and had difficulty engaging in conversation with others.”

There it is again.

This isn’t the first appearance of such observations.  When I was going through candidacy [the process through which the ELCA approves pastors for ordination], I was required to take a psych eval and meet with a psychologist to go over the results.

I remember driving to this strange office building in Madison and sitting in a sterile room with this doctor.  He drew a line on his white board.  On the left side of the line, he wrote Introvert.  On the right, he wrote Extrovert.  Then he put an X where I had come out on the exam I had taken.  It looked something like this –

  _x________________________________________________
Introvert                                                                        Extrovert

He told me engaging in the world as a pastor and such an extreme introvert would be difficult.  In a candidacy meeting that followed, the committee told me I should “work on my introvert nature,” which I took to mean as change.  Being an introvert wasn’t acceptable for a pastor.  I had to talk more and be more extroverted is what I heard them telling me.  Introvert became a dirty word.

The first line of this post comes from an evaluation I just received.  It came from people whom I only met once; that was their first impression of me.  Quite shy with difficulty engaging in conversation.  You know, maybe I was.  But that certainly wasn’t my goal.  I tried so hard not to be.

And the truth of it is, I met with this group of people one night for a couple hours and I was exhausted for the rest of the week afterwards.  Literally – the rest of the week.  I spent so much energy to be – what I thought was – talkative and out-going for those couple hours.  [Because that’s what an introvert does – becomes exhausted from being with people and doing their best to play an extrovert.]  And still, my version of talkative and out-going was their shy and disengaged.  *sigh*

I am an introvert and sure, I suppose that sometimes might come across as shy or disengaged.  That’s not intentional  Sitting in silence doesn’t bother me one tiny bit, neither does listening more than talking.  Sure, I will avoid small talk when I can [Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, calls small talk a horror for many introverts.  In certain situations, I could agree.]; if I see someone I know in the grocery store, I just might go down a different aisle  to avoid a hello and how are you.  [That’s sad but true.  But, of course, I’ve never avoided you.  Promise.]

Punch to the gut or not, I’m owning it.  This is who I am.  Hello, my name is Lindsay and I’m an introvert.  Let’s have an in-depth one-on-one conversation and then have quiet time by ourselves.

Friday Favorites.

31 May

The “keeping my chin up” edition.

It’s been a rough week here.

Burned out.

No motivation.

Tears.

Le sigh.

In the midst of it, these are happy things:

I certainly don’t need a garland of pool noodles, but, gosh, do I want to make one.  Or five.  [Sara, are you with me on this one?]

The Bachelorette began this past week and I got a tv antenna installed just in time to tune in every Monday.  The Bachelorette not your thing?  Fair enough.  It doesn’t need to be everyone’s guilty pleasure.  But maybe you want to watch The Baby Bachelor?  [Thanks to Emma for directing that one to me.]

I redbox’ed Promised Land last night.  Two of my favorites – Matt Damon & John Krasinski – together in one film.  Promised land indeed.

As my mom, sister, and I travel to Alaska in a couple weeks, we’ll be going on the fringe of rainy season.  Bring a rain jacket, my brother advised.  Well, I don’t own an appropriate rain jacket and so I ordered one.  I was going to order a calm blue one from LLBean but they were out of stock.  My next favorite color?  BRIGHT yellow.  I’m going to look like a rubber ducky but it will make any gloomy, rainy day brighter.

In the midst of a crazy not-so-good week, there were bright spots.  A phone conversation with a friend in Tennessee, running into a Dawson friend briefly while walking my dog between here and the cemetery, a skype date with friends in Montana, and a sermon writing afternoon with jD and [five minutes with] Paige.

And here’s to hoping the overall emotions of next week only go up.

Letterpress, part 2.

20 May

A week ago, I went back to St.Paul for the second session of my letterpress class.  It was time to set type and print postcards.  I was ready.

I decided on something a little more versatile than shut the front door.  I went with hello. how are you today?  In Kennerley Old Style.  Size 18.

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I set the type upside down and left to right.  I used furniture and quoins to set it in the frame.  The dear instructor, Mary, told me I had a great geometrical eye.  [And I don’t just say that to anyone, she said.]

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And then it was my turn to print a whole lot of postcards.  Maybe you’ll get one in the mail someday.  When you do, it might look like it was just made on a computer.  But run your fingers lightly over that print.  It’s letterpress, baby.

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