Letterpress, part 1.

8 May

Dingbats, furniture, and ink, oh my.

I drove three hours for a 2.5 hour class on Monday night.  And it was worth it.

I signed up through St. Paul Community Ed to take Beginners Letterpress.  I’ve been oogling over letterpress classes for years; the one at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts is super expensive.  This two-session community ed class was $37.  Score.

The woman who teaches the class is delightfully eccentric.  Her studio is in her home and so I joined five other female students in what appeared to be her dining room.  [It was an interesting, old home.  I’m not sure where the refrigerator was and there appeared to be no television or sitting area in general.  But I give her credit for having a room full of paper.]  She gave us the brief introduction and told us to choose a dingbat.

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A dingbat is an image, as opposed to letters which are typefaces.  Out of the hundreds of options, I chose a pig.  Next, you take your dingbat [which looks like a stamp on a metal or wood piece] and using metal pieces called furniture, one sets it in a frame.   I know I’m making no sense.  I don’t have a photo either.  You’re just bound to be confused.

We took turns at the letterpress machine.  As you pull a lever, the press inks your dingbat and pulls whatever you’re printing on towards the inked dingbat and -viola- it’s printed with 600 pounds of pressure.  It’s pretty intense.  And this is just a baby press.  Next week, as I understand it, we use the big daddy.

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So this past Monday we used our dingbat to print six notecards.  Next Monday we will set four inches of type in 18-point and print 27 postcards.  The postcards and type we set can say anything so that’s my challenge this week.  To choose the most witty, fun, and awesome saying that will be no more than four inches.  Thus far in the running is shut the front door and – that’s actually it.  That’s all I got so far.  This is where you come in.  What should I print on my postcards?  If you help me, I promise to send you one hand-pressed postcard.  You have until next Monday.

Friday Favorites.

3 May

As this post is published, I am in northern Wisconsin on a retreat for first call pastors.  It’s likely that – despite the rain and snow and cold temperatures that are threatened – I will be enjoying the wilderness of Heartwood once again.  And the good company of first call pastors.  While I’m away, here’s a round-up of my favorites:

I want to crawl up inside of these and live.  How gorgeous and delicious do these spring vegetable potstickers look?  I’ve never made potstickers.  I think it’s time to try.

This great article about God’s plan for us and whether it’s as if we are following written directions or a GPS.  [Recalculating.  Recalculating.]

Pretzel.  Toffee.  Chocolate.  Brownies.  Peanut butter.  This has all of the sweetest trigger words.

If I had an ice cream maker …

I want to do this.  Buy three mismatched, well used wooden chairs and paint them.  It’s unfortunate that  the 100 mile garage sale is happening this weekend while I’m retreating.  And this weekend while it’s cold and snowy.  IN MAY.

More favorite things?  My confirmation students.  Again.  Wednesday night was a deep, awesome night of digging into deep questions and asking more of them.  I blew their mind when we talked about Jesus returning.  One kid literally had his hands on his head as he rocked back and forth.  I think to keep his blown brain inside his skull.

It snowed.

3 May

Like hella snowed in Austin on Thursday.  The sky opened up and dropped deep, heavy snow.  This is the kind of snow that kills people while shoveling, yelled the guy who came to plow me out from across the yard.  I couldn’t hear him really well so I think I responded to that with a laugh until I processed that what he said actually hadn’t been funny at all.  It was also the kind of snow that took down tree branches all over the place.  My poor arborvitae were bending like crazy.  Cancellations and delays were the reality of Thursday morning.  The morning I was to leave for a retreat in northern Wisconsin, mind you.  Luckily, by the time I got plowed out and ready to go, the roads were but wet.  Happy May 2nd, people.  [Along with that comes a happy birthday, Dad.  I wish you were still here so we could buy you new socks to celebrate.]

28 Apr

I napped in the hammock.

I wore my yellow keens.

I drank iced coffee.

I walked with Mabel.

I sewed the binding on a quilt.

What more does a sunny Sunday afternoon need?

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Happiness and stuff.

27 Apr

What makes you really happy?

Ready?  Go!

Make a list.

I’ll wait.

[Need some music while you make a list.  Listen to this.  My confirmation kiddos loved it while they compiled lists of questions.]

Okay.  You have your list.  Now how many of those lines on your list are things?

I’m guessing not a whole lot.

More than likely, the bullet points on your list are words like family, friends, traveling, a job that’s fulfilling, meaningful relationships, learning, new experiences.  Right?  Things don’t make us happy.  We hear that all the time from educated people and studies.  Just because you have the great house and all the toys doesn’t equal happiness.  Right?

Right.  But damned if we don’t try.

I’ve noticed that in myself lately.  I’ve always known it’s true but this past week, I’ve noticed pronouncedly what all the experts say.  I buy something [new minty green bag from Target – on clearance; a new coffee table; 300 awesome straws from IKEA] and get a little excited.  I’ll carry the bag or put my feet up on the coffee table or drink iced coffee out of a great straw and think, This is the life.  Until it’s next week and it’s just old hat.  The bag will get dirty, the coffee table will gather dust and dog hair, and I will have cycled through every color of my new straws.  It isn’t so exciting anymore.  We’re back to square one and I just want to buy more stuff to simulate the immediate buyer’s happiness.

Darn experts.  They’re right.  Colorful straws [and big tvs and ipads and everything we’ve ever wanted] don’t make us happy in the long term.

How do we get it through our thick skulls when my brain seems to be wired towards accumulating things?  I literally hear myself correcting my own thinking when there is a thing I think I need.  Your life won’t change because of a thing, I tell myself.  Sometimes I listen.

And other times I buy 300 straws from IKEA.  [I really like straws.]

Friday Favorites.

26 Apr

Yesterday was [finally!] a nice day outside.  Sunshine.  Little wind.  All I could think about was iced coffee and hammocks.  Regardless that the temperature hasn’t yet passed 60 degrees, my coarsely ground coffee beans were mixed with water in giant pitchers on my counter last night, and I have pretty solid plans to take a nap in my hammock on Sunday afternoon.  Iced coffee and hammocks.  Definitely two of my favorite things.  Also –

A vintage Nancy Drew party!  Now granted, it was planned for an elementary crowd.  If I planned a vintage Nancy Drew party for my 30th, would you come?

How fun do these look — Springtime Italian Rainbow Cookie with Lemon Curd.  I’m going on a retreat next weekend and I’m tempted to try these to take a share.  We’ll see if early next week holds the time needed to bake them.  They do look a little involved …

DIY Bird Feeders.  I might have to find some time to make these to hang from the trees for my bird friends.

I want to make at least five of these.  Terrariums are the coolest.  I would put a gnome in mine.

Martha does it again.  Travel keepsake boxes to hold airline tickets, photos, and all sorts of things from trips.

And, lastely, a motto for a new week.

Dear Lindsay of middle school,

24 Apr

As a pastor who loves working with confirmation-aged kids, I catch glimpses of my own past middle school experience as the confirmation kids share their own experiences.  I slightly remember* what it was like to be awkward and a seventh grader.  It wasn’t easy.

I was so incredibly lucky to have awesome friends.  More or less the same awesome friends I still have now.  [Dancing Banana shout-out!]  But there was still drama.  There was judging.  There is terrible shit that goes on in middle schools.  And I can’t imagine it if one doesn’t have awesome friends.

There are a couple gals in my confirmation class that often only have lows to share in the rounds of highs & lows.  A lot of time, those lows are there’s just lots of drama at school.

Ugh.  Drama.

What I want to say to them is much like what I would say to my own middle-school self –

Dear Lindsay of middle school,

Being popular doesn’t matter for shit.  Forget those queen bees.  They suck.  You should just be nice to everyone.  [And probably not say people suck.  That wasn’t nice, future Lindsay.]

Be friends with the people who make you happy and people with whom you can be yourself and silly.  Form a gang.  Call it Oatmeal.  Make cardboard necklaces for everyone in the gang with raw oats glued to them.  Your name as gang leader shall be Raisin. **

The boys are pretty cute, aren’t they?  But don’t worry about them.  Just because they’re eye candy doesn’t mean they’re worth crying over.

School work is important but trying to get straight A’s isn’t worth sick stomachs and sleepless nights.  And hey – good job on that newspaper writing competition.

Please, quit wearing the over-sized flannel shirts and carpenter jeans sooner than later.

That one day, after school, when marching band rehearsal gets out late and everyone sprints back to the band room – hold onto your flute a little tighter.  Trust me.

The drama will end.  It will be okay.

Signed,

Future Lindsay

I started to write this post before confirmation met tonight.  I finish it after confirmation.  After the one confirmand who-never-has-a-high-and-her-low-is-always-drama had a high that the drama has ended.  Hallelujah.  Confirmation was awesome tonight.  Not only did every seventh and eighth grader have a high – if not many – we threw out our lesson for the night because all they wanted to do was ask questions.  About God.  About the Bible.  About doubts.  We tackled a few tonight the best we could and they made a list for next week.  Here’s to the freedom to ask questions and doubt in church.  Important stuff.

* I quite literally remember NOTHING about my seventh grade year.  It’s a blur to me.  I remember some of sixth grade and some of eight but seventh?  Nada.

** True story.

A coffee cup.

22 Apr

I chose this one today.

 I miss my gnome friends.

[Both the ones who live in Gnome Park and the ones who worship and work at Grace.]

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What’s in my meal-prepped fridge this week?

21 Apr

I’m so glad you asked.

I just finished cutting veggies, washing fruit, and cooking rice for my week. I haven’t done the dishes yet; those can wait for tomorrow. Or Tuesday. We’ll see.

I started doing my weekly grocery shopping and meal prep a couple Sundays ago and I must say – it is pretty awesome. The Sunday night is crazy and the clean-up sucks. But the rest of the week is pretty low key, clean, and worth it.

I’m only one person. I can’t imagine doing this for a family! Being one, I basically make one main dish and will eat that for one lunch/supper a day. The second meal is typically a salad, and breakfast – dear breakfast – is so simple and yet so my favorite. I also try and cut up a bunch of veggies and fruit to have handy for snacks. Easy peasy, light and breezy.

This week’s main dish: Bok choy brown rice salad with orange sesame dressing. Minus the bok choy. I am making a conscious decision right now to admit failure to you; please be easy on me. When I got home tonight and did a little research AFTER my grocery store run, I figured out that what I thought was bok choy in the florescent light of Hyvee was indeed a leek. I’ve never bought either before. Humor me and agree that they look slightly similar? I know the difference now and will remember FOREVER. [Forever + five years if any of you mock me for it. Then it will be seared in my brain.]

Along with that, I cut lettuce and stored them in mason jars for easy salads. I made overnight oats [old fashioned oats soaked in almond milk, ate cold, is my most favorite food] with strawberries for the week, and baked egg whites in a muffin tin inside a crust of deli turkey meat. I may have bought $8 worth of strawberries which I washed, cut and stored. [I’m a sucker for strawberries. I can’t wait until they’re in season this summer … you know, in early August.] There are a couple new things on my counter too. Apple chips [the most wonderfully simple idea ever – my mandoline has been busy] and date/almond bites.

With that, I’m ready for the week. And maybe, if I travel to Austin tomorrow, I’ll pick up some bok choy to add to my bok choy brown rice salad with orange sesame dressing.

Friday Favorites.

19 Apr

Favorite/current netflix obsession: Classic episodes of The Office.  Lately, all my current shows on Hulu + are in reruns and not new; hence returning to the old classic.  [“You can’t fire me.  I don’t work in this van.”]

Favorite confirmation moment: We were talking about birthdays and one young lady said that for her birthday, they always eat a trifle … which automatically transports me to the thanksgiving episode of Friends when Rachel makes [and screws up] a trifle … and so I said, “You guys are too young for Friends, right?” … to which they all looked at me like I was off my rocker.  “We have friends …”

Favorite upcoming weekend activity: Sewing & wine sleepover at Sara’s!  Mabel and I are hitting the road this afternoon to stay at Sara’s in the cities.  I’m taking my sewing machine and binding quilts is the name of the game.  Along with drinking wine.  And probably watching Pride and Prejudice.  Speaking of which –

Favorite Pride and Prejudice line of the week: As I reread a chapter or two each night before bed, I was delighted to read this gem again.  Mr. Collins to Lizzy – And now nothing remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the violence of my affection.  Violence of affection. Oh, awkward Mr. Collins.

Favorite sign of spring:  The snow.  Definitely the snow.  [That be sarcasm, dudes.  And I can’t complain.  Southeast MN has had it the easiest of all the MN quadrants.]

May the snow melt quickly.  Happy Friday.

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