$11.

16 Sep

Here is what $11 bought me at our church auction:

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I bought this portable coffee container for $1.  I scrubbed and cleaned and disinfected and now it looks pretty good.  The colors really go well with my kitchen scheme so it sits on top of my refrigerator.  And now I can take coffee to share on a picnic!  [Hey.  Want to go on a picnic?]

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These lamps?  $1.  Can you believe no one else wanted these beauts?  You can?  Okay.  Sure.  But with a new lamp shade and a coat of spray paint, these will be awesome.  Mark my word.

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A pineapple spoon rest to sit on my stove and hold my cooking utensils!  This piece was free.  It came in a box of things Marilyn bought and she let me have it.  Score.  It goes with my pear and apple curtain.

Okay.  This dresser needs a little TLC but I’m always looking for a project.  And … it was free.  No one bid on it and so it was taken to my garage where I vowed to make it useful again.  And I will.  [And if I completely mess it up?  I’m not out anything.]   It will be perfect in my guest room when complete.

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Little plates/candle holders/something.  I thought they were cute.  According to the price tag on the bottom of some, they are old school Pier 1.

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This little puppy salt shaker came in the box with the little plates.  She might meet the dumpster.  Or a random package to my sister.

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They’re not Pyrex but they sure are cute.  Two divided dishes.  $1 for both [and another one that I think is rather ugly].

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A box of old books cost me a couple dollars but there are treasures in there.  Catechisms in Norwegian, a line-a-day journal from 1924 that its original owner filled out sparingly [February 1927: Ma papered her room.], and some other fun/unique treasures.

That isn’t the full list.  There were some other things that came boxed with the treasures above … a few things that might go away and a few things that I might find use for.  Marilyn gave me some old glass insulators that came with one of her purchases.  We’ll have to see what we can make with those.  An old perfume bottle.  Gravy boat.  Funky wooden bookends.  Etc.  Etc.

The fact that I only spent $11 on these treasures is good for me … but not good for the church.  Our auction crowd was small so many things were snatched up way too cheap.  But so it goes.  While it was a lot of work, it was a fun time to gather.  And buy some ugly lamps with potential.

Tags:

Three things –

15 Sep

I particularly enjoyed about today:

1. The cutest little three year old came to Sunday School for the first time today.  He joined the group eagerly and Grandma watched on for a few minutes before walking away to wait in the nursery for Sunday School to be over.  She didn’t want to go too far; she wanted him to know that she was close as he adjusted.  Well, that didn’t end up being a problem because later, Grandma came back to pick up her grandson and he didn’t want to leave.  He loved Sunday School!  I love that he loved Sunday School.

2.  Like days of old, Paige and I met up this afternoon for a movie.  We saw The Way, Way Back.  I laughed.  I cried.  I leaned over at the end and told Paige that it easily was a top ten movie for me.  I want to see it again and again.  If you can, go.  It’s delightful, funny, endearing, lovely and … I’ll just stop.  I can’t say enough good things.

3.  I grabbed a sandwich from Jimmy John’s for a quick dinner on the ride home.  The drive-up window man was quite a talker tonight.  It’s probably the longest conversation I’ve had with a drive-up employee.  Probably the flirtiest too.  I enjoyed it.  *cliche winky face*

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post.  I spent $11 at the church auction on Saturday and I’m going to  tell you what I have to show for it.  Tomorrow.

Friday Favorites.

13 Sep

The well of favorites is deep this week, folks.  Get your bucket.

27 Reasons the Great Lakes Actually ARE the Greatest.  I do love the Great Lakes.  One day, I want to take the circle tour around Lake Superior.

This is an article about a book – a book I wouldn’t mind reading.  What’s it about?  The history of punctuation.  Sounds like a page turner, right?  The actual book is here; it’s named Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks.  Shady characters, indeed.

Um excuse me?  Pad Thai sliders?  Are you for real?  [The sauce calls for some crazy ingredients; I’d be intrigued to try it with a more basic pad thai concoction.]

Also on a food note, how genius is it to make homemade burritos, throw them in the freezer, and then take them out when needed?  Perfect for a *cough* single *cough* gal.

Have you noticed some word art on gnomepreacher of late?  I make them on this website.  It’s easy to use and all around fun.

This someecard.  I can relate.  [So can Sara, my latest book reading buddy.]

Two words: chili tortellini.

And lastly, a fun quote discovered this week, attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald:

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.

Fall is my favorite.  Heavy quilts, puffy vests, hammocking, and scarves.  Grateful that it feels like it has arrived.

#tbt

12 Sep

Throw-back Thursday OR

Signs that Lindsay was always destined to be a blogger.

I was recently going through a couple totes of things from my school years.  There were lots of goodies – Solo and Ensemble medals, a plaque signifying that all the work I’d put into graduating with a 4.0 paid off, crayon pictures, and penmanship practice from kindergarten.  And then there were my first published works – books written and illustrated by me, published by the Rascal Publishing House [aka laminated and spiral bound at the elementary school].

My first book was about my cats.  The second was about our family cabin.  What I want to share with you is the author biography at the back of both of these books:

Foregoing that attention to cats, it’s funny how even in first and second grade there is evidence of the person I would become over two decades later.  Reading, publishing books, and PENMANSHIP.  What second grader says that?

It’s safe to say that already by age 8 I was on this path to life with a heavy, loved emphasis on reading and writing and books.  That whole “Lindsay likes to draw when she’s at home” though?  That never really materialized.  And even as a first grader, I can’t say it was that great, as seen in this scene from My Cats –

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Cats?  Beavers?  I can hardly tell.  They are nice, but sometimes they aren’t.

 

one hell of a good time.

11 Sep

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Retreat success.

8 Sep

There are a few words I could use to describe how I’m currently feeling:

sleepy, exhausted, delirious, dog-tired, worn out, tuckered, and happily fulfilled.

It was a crazy weekend.  It was overnight-confirmation-retreat weekend.  Seven youth from ROG went along with me to Good Earth Village camp to meet up with six of jD’s youth from his two churches.  Together we were 13 which, wouldn’t you know, is the perfect number with which to reenact the famous Last Supper painting:

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The topic of the retreat revolved around the two Lutheran sacraments – baptism and communion – along with some intentional conversation about grace.  We communed together, baptized a gnome [ … for real.  Kind of.  His parents named him Norman James.], team-built, played life size Jenga, did skits [the creativity of the skits blew me away – the awesomeness of these kids continually exceeds my expectations], and had boatloads of fun.  jD’s kids had fun.  My kids had fun.  We all had fun.  Our churches will have to plan to do more things together throughout the year; it worked out so well.

We shared highs and lows with each other before we left camp.  Every single high from every single confirmation kid was along these lines: My high is making new friends and being here.  At the same time, every single low from every single confirmation kid was along these lines: My low is that we can’t stay another night and we have to go home.

I’ll call that retreat success.  In addition to having fun, we also hope they left with a definition of grace seared in their brains.  Something like … the unconditional love of God that is free, forever, and for all.  That would be good.

With what I’m about to say next, I want you to listen really super closely because I never say things like this.  Ready?  I love confirmation. [Okay.  That was a joke.  I actually say it all the flippin’ time.]   I love my confirmation youth.  I love middle schoolers.  Weekends like this – kids like this – that’s why I love this job.

Pastor Evan officiates a gnome baptism.
“I baptize you …”
Milk and cookies snack.
life size Jenga
marble track teambuilder

Friday Favorites.

6 Sep

Are you ready?  For the weekend?  For a post of awesome internet things?  Both?

Here we go –

What’s this?  Only a timeline of the Back to the Future movies which, you may or may not recall, are my favorites!

The minute it gets cool again, this is on my menu – vegan quinoa sweet potato chili.

Maybe some pesto guacamole too.  I could get behind that.

I learned about a new app today.  Voxer is essential a walkie talkie for your phone but the person you’re talking to doesn’t necessarily need to listen in real time.  The message is waiting whenever you’re ready.  I’ve been voxing [what a fun new verb] with my banana friend, Krissy, who is back in the hospital with a blood clot in a vein in her brain.  It’s hard for her to text or type an email since it hurts to even open her eyes … and so we vox Adam Sandler movie quotes and beauty tips back and forth.  [And it’s free.]

Talking about poor Krissy reminds me that these are in the fridge.  I will bake them and mail them to her family.  [When I’m too far from friends to actually lend a hand or give a hug, I mail cookies.  It’s my default.]

Okay.  Enough messing around.  It’s time to get serious.  Have you ever … [long dramatic pause]

drank egg coffee?  I first heard about egg coffee when I was on internship in Dawson and remember being appalled at the thought.  However, then I read this article about egg coffee on The Kitchn in regards to coffee drank at the Minnesota State Fair.   I think it’s about time I tried. Want to come over and drink coffee made with eggs?  I’ll save you a twix bar chocolate chip cookie.

That’s all for favorite links.  This weekend I’m off doing one of my favorite activities – taking confirmation kids to camp!  jD and I planned the retreat together again [second annual!] and it should be a great time for both his students and mine.

Today was not my favorite. But then –

3 Sep

Today was eh.  Office work and some work that I kinda feel shouldn’t be within the realm of pastoral duties.  Work like climbing into a parked semi trailer to take photos of auction items.  [Did I miss that on my job description?]  And this weird work – there’s lots of it.  With the school year beginning [wait.  summer is over?  how did that happen?], church work doubles as it is.  Rally Sunday, confirmation kick-off retreat, annual meeting [ours in in September.  it’s best not to even ask.], schedules, plans, pull-out-my-hair.

So today in the office was not my favorite.  I told Marilyn and Bob-the-treasurer that I was going to cry.  But then –

For confirmation this year, instead of one big informational meeting that half the families can’t make anyways, I’m visiting with each family one-on-one.  Tonight I headed just down the road a mile and a half to visit with my ninja friend, Elly, and her family.  Coming to confirmation this year will also be her younger sister.  They’re just a super warm family and even though I promised them that my visit would only be 15 minutes, I was there for an hour.  We talked about confirmation and then the kids went away while their parents and I talked about all things vintage.  Pyrex, Nancy Drew classics, mason jars.  For a living, they go to auctions, snap up stuff, and then sell it on etsy and ebay.  They showed me their goods and talked about their business.  Super interesting!

They also told me a neighborhood secret.  About three-quarters of a mile from the church is a road.  A secret road.  Okay.  It’s not secret at all but I always just assumed it was private property and only used by farm equipment.  Turns out this access road is fair game.  It’s gravel and dirt but so much more relaxing than walking Mabel on the road.  We found our new walking route and explored it tonight.

On our way back from the [not] secret road, all of a sudden, one of the neighbor kids is sprinting towards me.  He was running just to, you know, chat.  And show me his new wallet.  The neighbor family had been gone for two weeks on a road trip and things were really kinda lonely without them around.  It was weird to walk past their house and not see them outside playing, or see lights on in their house.  So Alex ran to say hi and tell me that the favorite part of his trip was seeing the beach where The Goonies was filmed.  Then his older sister, Rachel, rode her bike down to join us.  Soon the younger brother was there, along with the mom and the dog, and we stood in their driveway for a good 45 minutes catching up on summer.

Now I’m home.  I ate farm-fresh eggs for dinner [thanks to administrative assistant and chicken farmer extraordinaire, Marilyn] and the day will end on a high note by watching Netflix and basting hexagons.  Today was not my favorite … but then it turned out to be quite okay.

I'll be adding to this pile - the weekend's productivity.

I’ll be adding to this pile – the weekend’s productivity.

gnomepreacher is 4!

31 Aug

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Four years ago, on this very day, I wrote my first post.  [Click on the archives tab at the top right if you want that blast from the past.]  It was about moving to Dawson for internship.  Can it really be four years ago already?

Obviously, as I’m nearly 1,000 posts in, gnomepreacher still gives me joy and an outlet, both creative and sometimes [okay, quite often] emotional.  It brings me joy that you read it too.  So many of you are so kind to send emails, post comments, and let me know that you enjoy reading.  Thank you for that.

How will I celebrate, you wonder.  Well, I’m about to eat some cantaloupe.   I’ll probably read … quilt a little.  But mostly I’m celebrating by writing this post.  Happy 4th birthday, gnomepreacher!  You’re my sanity blog and my fun place to tell stories.  I think I’ll keep you around for another four.

Happy Friday!

30 Aug

Here are some favorites:

One of my weekend projects is to organize my home office.  It’s currently a dumping ground for anything and everything.  As I organize, I’m thinking this is pretty cool – clipboards hung on the wall.  It’s a clipboard inspiration wall!

I do love pancakes an awful lot.  These sound delicious – overnight oatmeal cinnamon pancakes.  And apparently they’re famous.

I have a new impulse buy item that amazon helps none with – quilting books.  This is a candidate for my next impulsive buy – Quilting Happiness.

Speaking of quilting, I’m leaping into a major hexagon project.  *deep breath*  Over 500 hand basted and then hand-sewn hexagons.  I’m currently cutting paper templates and fabric squares so it can be my little on-the-go or while-watching-television quilting kit.  I’m excited about it but it will be a lo-o-ng project …  The finished quilt is the British flag – the union jack – but in funky, scrappy colors and patterns [which seems to be my favorite style of late] and ALL hexagons except the border.  Click this link and scroll down for a photo of what I’m attempting!  It’s major.

I made an awesome risotto this past week.  Not wanting to turn on my oven in the heat, I decided to stand over the stove and stir for 30 minutes.  In the end, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense.  But it was delicious.  Iowa Girl Eats blogged this great farmer’s market risotto and it was delicious.  I then tweeted the link to a friend, and Iowa Girl Eats [a fairly well known Midwest food blogger] tweeted me back!  I was a little starstruck for a moment.  But seriously – need another go-to blog for recipes?  Hers is it.

One last thing –

I don’t blame Disney for my high expectations of men … I blame Tolkien.

//

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