The weeds have breached the fence....

and other random thoughts from my hilltop



* No kidding about the weeds; if you listen carefully, you can hear them grow.  The next week has "yard work" written all over it.

~ the weed breach ~

* Speaking of growing so fast you can hear the squeaks: Brennan has reached the eagerly anticipated 72 inches.  When will it stop?  Nobody knows, but a certain point guard is hoping that it won't stop anytime soon. 

* Food thoughts are swirling in different directions:

Planning for a rehearsal dinner meal in Idaho.  Especially considering all the details that will be necessary for taking my cooking skills on the road.  My current direction:  dreaming of cold food so we aren't in the kitchen cooking when we should be enjoying the celebration.

Food documentaries are becoming a regular thing around here.  It all began with Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead , and I've got a list of favorites now: Forks over Knives , Food Matters and Hungry for Change.  There are more, but those are my current favorites.  Lifestyle changes?  I am juicing and loving it (may actually have to change to decaf coffee, and I am waking up without an alarm.  These are modern day miracles, folks, believe me.)  I am planning our vegetable garden. 

I love Mark Bittman's approach to changing his diet:  Vegan Before Dinner.  If a food writer for the Times can do this, so can I.  Less meat, more vegies.  Keep it simple.  The Farmer's Market opens soon.  Can't wait. 

* Reading:

I figure if anyone can make me like science fiction, it is Clive.  So far, not really getting it, but I keep reading in hopes of a genre conversion.

This is the story of a young man who reached into Henri Nouwen's soul and taught him the glorious truth of the gospel.  His last book.

*  Praying

There are seasons in life that become layers and layers of hard times, some of it our own doing, some of it coming from out of the blue.  The last three years have had more sorrow and loss and worry than the rest of my life combined, and I am beginning to know a bit about what pain and darkness can do to a soul.  Now I am praying for others who are there, dear friends who are faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles.  I don't want my friends to have to go it alone. We need each other, especially when we are surrounded with sadness or resignation or powerlessness.   And so today I pray...as I weed, as I wash, as I cook, as I write. 

I am also praying for myself, that these years of heartache would make me a better friend, one more prone to love and listen than to judge and pester with unwanted advice.  Oh, to be a friend who doesn't know it all, or who thinks that answers to prayer don't always mean that life becomes neat and tidy again.  Sometimes life is messy, and I want to be a friend who can sit and wait and LOVE. 

* Around the blogosphere

My friend Laura started blogging last November.  This post echoes my thoughts on how much we need each other.

Molly from Close to Home on courage:

This hope I’ll fight for till I’m scarred and bloodied isn’t soft and warm like a blanket but rather stubborn, fierce, relentless. And this hope will demand more from me than I think I have, will purge from me pettiness, pride and yes, fear. This hope will rage on in the midst of loss and disappointment, heartache and regret, humiliation and monotony because Love is, and ever shall be. Because Love’s irrational, eternal, invincible. Because Love is the Risen Christ is Love is All.  

(read the whole post:  Courage, courage, O People!)

Tonia's blog has long encouraged me, but there is something in the beauty of this year's posts...they elegantly show the purpose and bigger picture behind the circumstances that shout too loudly in my face.  Thank you, my friend.