Back soon

It's Eagle Scout Court of Honor mania around here. My goal: let's not treat this like a wedding, okay? Okay.

It's Enjoy the College Girl mania around here, too. Time passes way too quickly when you have a mile-long list of things you want to do together.

So, I'll be back after the turn of the year with pictures to show, stories to tell, movies to recommend.

Christmas books

Every year we buy books for each other for Christmas, and I find new Christmas stories to add to our collection. Here are this year's choices:


Ramage and the Dido
Ramage at Trafalgar both by Dudley Pope


Heaven to Betsy/Betsy in Spite of Herself
Betsy was a Junior/Betsy and Joe both by Maud Hart Lovelace


Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer


Light Theology and Heavy Cream by Robert Farrar Capon


Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor by Brad Gooch

Story Craft: Reflections on Faith, Culture, and Writing by the Author of Hank the Cowdog


Cordelia Underwood by Van Reid


Rowan and the Keeper of the Crystal
Rowan and the Zebac both by Emily Rodda


Haynes Toyota Camry Automotive Repair Manual (Hey, some years are more literary than others in the life of a young man.)


The Birds Christmas Carol by Kate Douglas Wiggin


The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden

I am writing this the day before Christmas, and I can only anticipate the book reading quiet that will descend upon the house. Blankets will be snagged, and hot drinks will be made. Eggnog latte? Cocoa? Irish coffee? Only time will tell. I wonder which fortunate favorite the cat will choose? Let the reading fest begin.

Rediscovering the love of cooking

I have not enjoyed cooking for many years, but that is not to say I don't cook. I cook all the time. I bake bread. I buy and use real ingredients. I make a Thanksgiving stuffing worthy of eloquent praise.

I have five children, three of them boys who seem always to be hungry. The youngest one has been known to ask when the next meal will be, even as he is about to put the last bite of the current meal in his mouth. My husband, still recovering from my lack of meal concern during five rounds of morning sickness, worries about dinner. "Will it be there today?", he can't help wondering. In my defense, it is next-to-almost-always there; in his defense, those first trimester dinners were absent often enough to qualify for trauma.

My usual approach to life is this: If you have to do something all the time (think laundry, training children, weeding the garden, and, yes, cooking) you might as well enjoy it. I can talk about hanging wash on the line as if it were fine art, but I have not managed to do that with cooking. I have allowed the routine of it all to slide into drudgery. Oatmeal, burritos, chicken-a-la-whatever, and on and on it goes. One meal just marching on to the next.

In the last year, though, enthusiasm has been on the move. I have been searching online for uses for basil and limes. I have roasted parsnips. I have tried different recipes for pizza dough and perfected one I like best. I have cooked hunks of meat with success, and I have planned and executed multi-course meals. Even more amazing is the fact that I have loved it.

The answer to not enjoying cooking, it turns out, is to do more of it.

It also helps to have so many eloquent food writers around. (Here, here, and here are some of my favorites from this year.)

And so we come to Christmas, a day when I have always stayed out of the kitchen. If it is drudgery, why be there? But now I want to cook. In lieu of simplicity, we are well on our way to a feast, a meal worthy of the celebration of this most special day. There is a roast in the refrigerator covered with rosemary and garlic and salt and pepper; it smells divine. Yorkshire pudding will get made with the roast drippings. There is a bottle of Lava Cap Syrah poised to uncork. I have made rolls with rye flour, molasses, raisins and buttermilk. Greens and tomatoes and purple onion will find themselves in a glass bowl, topped with an orange/sesame dressing we love. Apple pie and chocolate cream pie are filling the house with delectable smells.

As I stirred and stirred (and stirred some more) the chocolate custard for the pie, I read these words from Robert Farrar Capon:

"Berate me not therefore for carrying on about slicing onions in a world under the sentence of nuclear overkill. The heaviest weight on the shoulders of the earth is still the age-old idolatry by which man has cheated himself of both Creator and creation. And this age is no exception. If you prefer to address yourself to graver matters, well and good: Idolatry needs all the enemies it can get. But if I choose to break images in the kitchen, I cannot be faulted. We are both good men, in a day when good men are hard to find. Let us join hands and get on with our iconoclasm."

Capon has been an effective cure for thoughts of drudgery.

Some things won't be changing. I will still ask my youngest to wait at least an hour after one meal before he asks me about the next; even a food enthusiast benefits from other pursuits. We will still be able to sink a ship with the number of bean and cheese burritos we consume in a year. And oatmeal has been and ever shall be our breakfast staple. The change is in the attitude, and I am sure I am not the only one who welcomes it.

Merry Christmas and Bon Appetit, friends.

The joy of the season

Making truffles.

Going to see Grampa and friends in the valley.

Packages collecting under the tree from rooms declared to be "Off Limits" during wrapping.

Speed Scrabble taking on new and made-up variations. It's becoming just a bit competitive around here.

Someday finding my camera charger (again!) I just know I will. Maybe before Christmas? That would be nice.

Friends coming to visit. Sipping cocoa. Sharing college war stories. Playing tag in the rain. Practicing speeches for upcoming competition. Our friendship cup overfloweth.

Our family beginning to read Harry Potter aloud, however many years after it hit the bestseller list. I love seeing the bodies splayed out across the living room as the college girl reads aloud.

Crystal clear and cold....meaning beautiful days!

Reading:

Sue Grafton's latest.
The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection by Robert Farrar Capon
and Rallying the Really Human Things: Moral Imagination in Politics, Literature, and Everyday Life by Vigen Guroian

Grafton's Kinsey Millhone mystery was fine. Some nice plot twists, but it seemed to lack some of the zip of previous stories. But fine. Really.

Capon is incredible. Only three chapters in, but he has me in the palm of his hand. Right there with that onion he teaches you how to carve!

I am only on page one of Guroian, but he's quoting Chesterton, so I am happy.

The fourth Sunday in Advent

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."

~Luke 1~
Book of Common Prayer readings for the fourth Sunday in Advent

Many years ago, I worked with a woman who was pregnant. She was thrilled to be having a baby, but she was worried. Not once had she felt her baby move. I have since experienced what she was going through, and I can have compassion as I look back and remember her furrowed brow.

We were in a long and boring staff meeting one day, and Cathy was across the table from me. At some point in the meeting, I glanced across at her and she had tears rolling down her cheeks. Her hand was on her swollen abdomen, and her smile was something I have never forgotten. She had at last felt the baby's movements. Oh, joy!

I remember Cathy as I read the words of Elizabeth's unborn child leaping in her womb, and I smile. The Christmas story is one of miracles and wonders.

And the winner of the truffles is ...

Patricia from Pollywog Creek.

Her favorite books of the year are


Peace Like A River by Leif Enger (a favorite of mine)

and


Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment by James Gaines (adding this one to my list of future reads)

She came to A Circle of Quiet via Tonia. I'm so glad to know you a bit better, Patricia. Send me your address via email and I will send off the truffles after Christmas.

Thanks for all your emails, your kind comments and your favorite books. Eventually those books will find their way to a post.

New Christmas music

A bit of a tranquility amidst a busy week:

Gabriel's Message

The angel Gabriel from heaven came,
His wings as drifted snow, his eyes as flame;
'All hail', said he, "thou lowly maiden Mary,
Most highly favour'd lady,
Gloria!

'For known a blessed Mother thou shalt be,

All generations laud and honour thee,
Thy son shall be Emmanuel, by seers foretold,
Most highly favour'd lady,
Gloria!

Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her heard,

'To me be as it pleaseth God', she said,
'My soul shall laud and magnify His holy name,
Most highly favour'd lady,
Gloria!

Of her, Emmanuel the Christ, was born,

In Bethlehem, all on a Christmas morn,
And Christian folk throughout the world
will ever say:
Most highly favour'd lady
Gloria!

Sting's If On A Winter's Night

Approaching winter

“Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter.
Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom,
but we hope it, we know it.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

My very cool brother-in-law.....

takes AMAZING photos.

Minnehaha Falls

I shiver just looking at the frozen falls...beautiful!

You can see more here.

Andrew Kern

A Pace to Live By

At the human pace
You and I can act and rest,
labour and loaf,
strive and relax.

We can learn
to read,
to work,
to produce,
to grow,
at the human pace

At the human pace
we overcome
anxiety

At the human pace
We hear ancestral voices
calling from afar

When we hear
At the human pace
we hear past reverberating echoes
in our caves

We are still
So the self-reflecting words
are still
And world-creating words
can speak

In the stillness

By Andrew Kern
Used by permission

Gratitude

How can I put a number on the gratitude I feel for my mother's current health and for the return of our college girl for Christmas break?

Madelaine arrived safe and sound, although she was exhausted from a night on the train with a pack of wild and newly-released college students. I took her straight away to a day of debate tournament excitement, and she held up like a champ. As we talked I noticed that she speaks of her classmates, her tutors, even her studies with such affection. It really seems like the perfect place for her!

And if that was not enough joy for one person, here is my mother in all her glory. She's feeling well, her strength is back, her hearing isn't perfect, but it is improved, and ... well ... she's ALIVE!! I never expected to have another Christmas with her, and I am overwhelmed with gratitude for her vibrant and inspiring life. I've taken her Christmas shopping, she's checked out a huge bag of books from the library, she is working through her ironing pile and she is back to church after too long an absence. She came over to do laundry this morning just as I was about to serve a late breakfast of popovers. She stayed, she chatted, she showed great interest in Madelaine's fall quarter at Gutenberg. And the whole time I was tempted to pinch myself...."Yes, Diane, this is real. This truly is a gloriously happy day!"

The third Sunday of Advent

Light of lights! All gloom dispelling,
Thou didst come to make thy dwelling
Here within our world of sight.
Lord, in pity and in power,
Thou didst in our darkest hour
Rend the clouds and show thy light.

Praise to thee in earth and heaven
now and evermore be given,
Christ, who art our sun and shield.
Lord, for us thy life thou gavest,
Those who trust in thee thou savest,
All thy mercy stands revealed.

St. Thomas Aquinas

Home again

A dear girl on a warmer day

A train will be pulling into the station tomorrow morning, carrying one whom I love so much. Home...she's coming HOME!

"there is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort."

~Jane Eyre

And what a perfect addition to our comfort! We've stocked the tea and we're ready to play Speed Scrabble, bake treats, and watch movies. And talk. And be quiet. And read books. And savor every moment we are together.

~ Jane Eyre quote courtesy of A Quotidian Life, a family of friends anticipating the holiday visit of their own college girl. Enjoy your reunion, friends!

~ Photo courtesy of Miss Addie

More Advent thoughts

"Consider how much the Advent season holds, how it it breaks into our lives with images of light and dark, first and last things, watchfulness and longing, origin and destiny."

Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk
HT: Tolle Scribe, a young woman close to my heart.

The second Sunday in Advent (on Wednesday)

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Refrain

Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

Refrain

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.

Refrain

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Refrain

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.

Refrain

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.

Refrain

O come, Thou Root of Jesse’s tree,
An ensign of Thy people be;
Before Thee rulers silent fall;
All peoples on Thy mercy call.

Refrain

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.

Refrain

Snow day(s)

Views of the driveway, the valley, and the duck house

We awoke yesterday morning with no power, and we had almost a foot of snow on the ground. The phone jangled at 5:30 a.m. to announce that my husband's school district was calling off school for the day. SNOW DAY!!!

Rex on High ~~ No laundry hanging today ~~ Dad with mug

As excited as we were, the reality of home ownership had to be considered. Snow-covered limbs can fall on power lines, a more serious concern since my mother is on oxygen. So our high climber man-son went to the top of the trees and knocked as much snow as he could from the branches. It was nice to be the dad on the back patio, calling instructions with a warm cup of coffee in hand.

We are very prepared with propane heat in our house, and with propane cooking options, but we made a major error: no coffee grounds. The above-mentioned coffee was our desperate measures option: Medaglio d'Oro instant espresso powder. Our review: Yuck. But if you wake in the morning to a dark house and your husband saying, "Oh, no. We don't have coffee grounds. What is the point of getting out of bed if you can't grind coffee beans?", then yuck is a godsend and we were grateful to have it.

Snow play on a snow day

Those who are young and carefree were able to sled and make the required snow man (pipe courtesy of Sculpey and a creative young woman I know and love.)

Dinner

Before the darkness set in, we played Boggle and enjoyed having my mum (and her big dictionary) with us. She knew words I had never heard of, and since we are the "guess like crazy" kind of Bogglers, she was a true asset ("Yes, moll is a word. It's a gangster's girlfriend." I didn't believe her, but Mr. Webster proved her right.) Having her with us, having her share word finding strategies with the kids...well, it was a slice of heaven.

Morning view and icicles

The temperatures dropped during the night, but we found no burst pipes in the morning. Instead, we were greeted by long icicles on the Christmas lights, pink clouds on the horizon, and most importantly: power.

We had heard the night before that schools would be closed again, so we were able to enjoy another day together here on the hill. We were, in fact, snowed/iced in until this afternoon. The guys were finally able to get the two cars needed tomorrow for work and the junior college final down to the bottom of the hill. Our hill + morning ice = No Can Do, so they are prepared to hike down to the cars tomorrow.

The pond and the blogger

The pond down the hill froze, and the geese were walking around searching for breaks in the ice. I watched one goose land on the ice and slide across the pond; what a funny sight!

We are so grateful for minimal damage to trees on our property (our neighbors suffered much more) and we are incredibly appreciative of all that electricity brings us.

The indoor tree

Snow is the norm for many of you, but for us this is a storm for the memory books. We'll be telling tales of the Storm of '09 for years to come. And I will always remember that my mother was here with us to share the adventure, even if she does help my kids beat me at Boggle.

Five Years

Five years of blogging, five years of remembering, five years of friends old and new. I am so glad I began this blog on December 6, 2004.

I decided that to celebrate my anniversary, I would give away a box of one dozen homemade truffles.

All you need to do is:

1) Email me at acircleofquiet AT yahoo DOT com (change out the at and the dot...you know the drill.)

2) Leave me your name, and tell me something about yourself and how you came to A Circle of Quiet (you won't be disqualified for admitting you're here for the truffles. I understand.)

3) Tell me your favorite book from this year.

I will post the winner on December 20th, chosen by some fair and random number generator process, and I will make and mail the truffles the week after Christmas (to avoid having them melt and moosh in the Christmas postal sludge.)

Unfortunately, I will need to keep the truffle give away to my North American readers. If, however, you are reading from the UK or Italy or Taiwan or somewhere else not in North America, please post your name and answers, and I will try to think of something light as a feather I could send to you in lieu of heavy perishables, okay?

I look forward to posting your favorite books. Feel free to post more than one. I love book lists.

Here's to another five years!

More than ever ...

... I am grateful for my husband.

Happy birthday, sweetheart.

News flash

A Circle of Quiet has comments.

You could call it a whim, or you could say "it's about time."

We'll see if it's a keeper.

Only time will tell.

Update:

I cannot see comments on my site. Can you? If so, please leave a comment. This is quite confusing to me. I need to awaken my inner HTML muse. Or hire one.

Updated again:

If you click on the title of a post, you will go to a page with a comment link. Can anyone out there tell me what I need to do to make it so there is a nice little link at the bottom of my posts?

The current reads around here

Recently finished by various family members:


A Right to Die A Nero Wolfe Mystery by Rex Stout
Racing Odysseus by Roger Martin
Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold by C.S. Lewis
Cordelia Underwood by Van Reid

Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
Mollie Peer by Van Reid
Oxygen: A Novel by Carol Cassella

Current Great Books:

Chronicles of the Crusades by Jean de Joinville, Geffroy de Villehardouin
Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan


In the midst of:


The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor
Something Fresh by P.G. Wodehouse
Redwall by Brian Jacques

Up next:


A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books by Alex Beam
Among the Mad: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear

What are you reading right now? Send me an email if you have something to recommend!

Tonight

It's a Civil War of a different kind. Huge rivalry, Pac-10 title game. Should be terrific.

And the cheers were loud when the invite came through to watch with friends. We're too low-tech to have whatever channel it requires. Tonight: It's all about the green and gold. Go Ducks!

Thinking about....

"The primary goal
in the education of
children is to teach,
and to give the example
of, a virtuous life."

~St John Chrysostom~

Beauty really is all around

In the golden glow across the valley,

in the helping hands of elves who make cookies and hang house lights,

and even in the mud-covered football players who fill my laundry basket and regale us with stories of athletic glory.