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I made Ina Garten’s cheddar dill scones this week, and I have grounded myself from making them again because I ate them all. They are so flaky, cheesy yummy that I just couldn’t resist. Even the next day after a minute or two in the toaster oven I was burning my greasy fingers on them. They are too too good. I have no pictures, which is probably best. If you can’t see them, you might not be tempted to make them.
But here’s the recipe…just in case.
Cheddar Dill Scones
from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook
4 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, divided
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
3/4 pound cold unsalted butter, diced (I reduced this to a 1/2 pound and it was plenty)
4 extra-large eggs, beaten lightly
1 cup cold heavy cream
1/2 pound extra-sharp yellow Cheddar, small-diced
1 cup minced fresh dill
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water or milk, for egg wash
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Combine 4 cups of flour, the baking powder, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the butter and mix on low speed until the butter is in pea-sized pieces. Mix the eggs and heavy cream and quickly add them to the flour-and-butter mixture. Combine until just blended. Toss together the Cheddar, dill, and 1 tablespoon of flour and add them to the dough. Mix until they are almost incorporated.
Dump the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead it for 1 minute, until the Cheddar and dill are well distributed. Roll the dough 3/4-inch thick. Cut into 4-inch squares and then in half diagonally to make triangles. Brush the tops with egg wash. Bake on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper for 20 to 25 minutes, until the outside is crusty and the inside is fully baked.
This week I’ve been getting ready for our boxed lunch book club that we do once a month at church. This month’s book is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. For several days I’ve been rereading my favorite parts of this book and am amazed anew at the way Maya Angelou is able to make words dance. To begin with, she is an absolute genius with titles. All of her books have titles that make me sigh and tantalize me with wonder about what could be behind such a perfectly crafted phrase. I can hardly choose a favorite among I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Gather Together in My Name, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘Fore I Diiie and All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes.
Maya Angelou started writing Caged Bird as a sort of grief therapy the year that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. He was killed on her birthday, and she sent flowers to Coretta Scott King in lieu of celebrating her birthday every year following his death. I am so thankful that for her, hope and courage must have prevailed in her heart after that sad day in Memphis. Otherwise she would not have been able to put down her story for all who are willing to be blessed by the telling of her first 16 years. Caged Bird was the first of six autobiographies Angelou eventually wrote, which I have recently discovered have been published together in one lovely volume. I think it is perhaps my duty as an Arkansan to own this book. I will rush right out and get it, just like I did my junior year in college to find her poems.
I will always remember encountering Angelou for the first time in a class taught by Dr. Martha Washington at the University of Central Arkansas. She was a friend of Maya Angelou’s and I remember her lamenting to us how rarely she was able to see her friend, because of how painful it was for her to return to the state that represented so much pain, hardship and racial hatred. Angelou’s poem My Arkansas reveals a side of my home state that I am so ashamed to see, one that many of us choose not to notice.
Dr. Washington read aloud to us several of Maya Angelou’s poems, but it was when she read Our Grandmothers that I decided I had to have a book of Maya Angelou’s poetry of my very own. Reading her poems again this week has made me laugh, cry, sigh and smile. Actually, I spent a lot of money on books that semester (and every semester since), as Dr. Washington opened a whole new realm of authors to me through her mesmerizing storytelling. I will always be grateful for the doors to my heart that she opened, both directly and indirectly as one book led to another, starting a trail of reading that continues to this day.
My syllabus from Dr. Washington’s class as I best remember it:
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Fiction by Terry McMillan
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Women and the Men by Nikki Giovanni
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Anyone is welcome to come to Boxed Lunch Book Club at Fellowship North. January 29, 2009 from 12-1. Bring a lunch and an open heart! Next month’s book is The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima.
So if you’re not really into what has now inadvertently become book week here at the Chino House, well, I’m terribly sorry. You can tune back in next week and see if I have anything more clever to say. Or you can read Bob’s blog from Sundance instead. For now, I am immersed. I thought about trying to be all organized in 2009 and have a recipe on Fridays, a book on Mondays, something trivial from my life on Wednesdays…but I just can’t do it. Too much pressure. Maybe one day.
For now, there is just the glut of books. Not that we only read books this past week at my sister’s house. Oh no, we watched about 16 hours of inauguration coverage. And we watched Mamma Mia! I have two things to say about that movie. The first is that the cast of that film had entirely too much fun making it and I’m extremely jealous of their getting to flit about in the Greek Isles being silly for who knows how long…and get paid for it! And the second, is that upon reflection I have decided that I was totally ripped off with regards to both my mother’s dress and behavior on the eve of my wedding. I will be keeping my eye out for an outfit that will be fitting enough for the redo. And if I can’t get her to wear it and sing Super Trouper or Dancing Queen for me in the next couple of decades, well there’s always Mary Polly’s wedding to save it for. I am already thinking that I will have to enlist both the dramatic and Melany Shelton for the occasion.
And after those extremely intelligent comments, it’s back to book week.
So today’s book was sent to me by a friend out in Oregon. It’s called Going Public and it’s all about sending your children to public school. The wondrous detail in the story of my friend’s sending me this book is that her kids go to private school. And her husband teaches at the same private school. So how great that she would applaud and support me on my public school journey, and to continue to send my son off each morning to catch the Yellow Prison of Propulsion. (That’s what Ida B calls the school bus.) Even better, this book is not a guilt trip about how we should all be going to public school. It is instead about the journey of two parents who have sent their eight children to public school. Reading their stories has encouraged me. They’ve reminded me of why we chose public school in the first place and of what it can look like to be on your child’s team as they negotiate the bumps along the way. I loved reading about the different times they took more children in than just their own, sometimes for a day, sometimes to live. How they chose to go to a school that not everyone necessarily wanted to go to, and how they got to see God’s faithfulness in that place.
Fortuitously, when I got the call to come up to school and get Cole a couple of weeks ago, I was in the middle of a chapter about encounters with administration. The title, Being Nice. A simple but frequently forgotten concept when we find ourselves fighting for our kids.
The storytelling of this couple makes me want to be a better parent of public school kids instead of making me feel bad for the terrible job I’m doing. And let’s be clear. I’m willing to admit that I have failed in many ways. I just don’t need a book to help me beat myself over the head about it. I can do that just fine all on my own thank you very much.
The first thing I am attempting to implement from reading this book was the gentle reminder that if we’re sending our kids off into the world every day, then it might be a good idea to equip them with something greater than themselves. Of course you expected them to say that, but it’s not all holier than thou or anything. They are just…well, here’s what we did. Ironically, I was so much better about consistently teaching my kids from the Bible while they were homeschooling. But now that they aren’t at home, they need it more right? It seems obvious, and yet I am much more concerned with what goes in their bellies in the mornings than into their hearts.
I also appreciated a whole chapter on submitting to authority. They told a story about their daughter’s missing out on playing basketball for an entire season because she turned in a permission slip late. The decision seemed very extreme, and they pushed on it a little bit, but were met with resistance and so decided to submit to the administration. They carried their submission out through the entire year, choosing not to bash the school’s administration in front of their kids over the long drawn out season of their daughter’s being excluded from playing. As they detailed their gracious response to this situation, I was struck by what a gift it is to give our children the example of how to respond to authority with grace, even when we might not agree with everything the person in authority is doing. They pointed out that this is a lesson that will serve our children all through life as it is certainly probable that they will remain under the authority of people who are less than perfect (even their Mama) as they grow into adults.
My aunt gave my children this book for Christmas and it is my new favorite Bible for children. The illustrations by Jago are the best I’ve ever seen in a children’s Bible, but beyond that, the whole book is tied together by this idea on the front cover, that every story whispers his name. All through the telling of the Bible stories, author Sally Lloyd-Jones shows how God is pointing to, planning for and promising Jesus. At the end of the telling of the story of Jonah, she writes,
Many years later, God was going to send another Messenger with the same wonderful message. Like Jonah, he would spend three days in utter darkness.
But this Messenger would be God’s own Son. He would be called “The Word” because he himself would be God’s Message. God’s Message translated into our own language. Everything God wanted to say to the whole world-in a Person.
Though I grew up loving Jesus, I did not understand how much the Old Testament prepared the world for His arrival on the scene in Israel until I was much older. I love that this Bible storybook for children is painting the grander picture of redemptive history throughout the Bible for little hearts. I highly recommend this precious book for all ages. We will treasure ours always.
Here’s a quote from what may be the most touching introduction to God’s word ever written that explains that the Bible is most of all, a Story.
There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.
It takes the whole Bible to tell this Story. And at the center of the Story, there is a baby. Every Story in the Bible whispers his name. He is like the missing piece in a puzzle–the piece that makes all other pieces fit together, and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture.
I finished this book by Nancy Ortberg yesterday. Another Christmas gift from another sweet friend. I was trying to savor it, because each vignette was worthy of contemplation, but I ended up gulping down the remaining chapters yesterday morning. I have said before that I love to read stories of people finding faith, and this book is definitely one of those, but it is really more. It is a memoir of seeing God’s grace while serving in ministry, which is encouraging for me from where I sit several years (not in age, but more in experience) behind Nancy. It is about hope and joy. About finding God in the midst of every longing, every ache, every painful experience. And in the ordinary. It is about not being perfect, or not trying to look perfect. It is a faith journey I can embrace without the side order of guilt. I loved Lauren Winner’s endorsement on the rear cover of the book. She says, I know I will return to this book.
Here is one little bit I hope I will keep returning to until I get it.
Every longing is an echo, an ache for the perfection that we were created in the image of. If we pay attention to the pain, struggle with it and live in it, we grow. We know God more deeply. He is more real to us and intersects our lives. We understand how we can apply the love of God and the power of the Cross to our lives.
If we ignore our longings and cover them over with platitudes about blessing, we lose. We miss the chance to apply God to our lives. He becomes a cliche and we, a joke.
Two of the most powerful things that God offers us are His grace and His forgiveness. Yet when we insist on ignorning the difficult parts of life, we are effectively saying that we don’t need those two things. So the power of God is lost in our lives. And we wonder why following Him has become predictable and dull.
Mary Polly, Simon and I are in Chicago with my mama to keep my sister, Anna company while her husband, Bob is attending Sundance. We drove up on Thursday morning and quickly shut ourselves inside my sister’s house upon arriving because the high for the day was -1 F. Friday morning, when my sister left for work, the temperature was -23 F. It is not at all difficult for me to remember why Taido and I did not stay in the Chicago area after he finished seminary. The snow is really beautiful from my seat by the fire. I have a lovely view out the window into the winter wonderland. But when you live here, you have to GET OUT in this weather, which is just wrong. My nieces have like an entire armor of snow gear that they have to put on every morning just to go to school. I don’t plan to leave the house until it is time to go back to Arkansas, where it happens to be a balmy 50 F today. Really. I mean, I have a Trader Joe’s list that I intend to fill, but that’s it.
So I won’t really have anything interesting to say since I am currently shut in, unless you want to hear about books. I got several gems for Christmas that I have been devouring and would love to share with you.
A friend gave me this fascinating book for Christmas called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The man who wrote it was shut in a hospital bedroom, or “locked in” as it is officially called. His mind is completely in tact following a stroke that leaves him without the use of any of his body save one eye, which he blinks to dictate the entire book. The detail I have come back to since reading this book is how being made mute robbed this man of his ability to insert humor into life, because by the time he has blinked a witty remark to someone, it is no longer funny. He himself is the only one able to enjoy his perfect comedic timing, as he thinks his wry comments inside his own mind. This of course, would not be my greatest woe in losing the ability to speak, since I don’t possess the ability to think of the funny remark until hours later as I am replaying a conversation alone. Somehow it is not really comforting to me that my lack of comedic timing or quick response in some small way puts me on a level playing field with someone who has “locked in” syndrome.
A Canadian blogger that I regularly read reviewed both this book and the movie that followed last year. I’m anxious to see the film that was inspired by this reminder of what a gift our minds truly are.
More yummy books to come from my seat by the fire.
I am participating in this journaling project that I wanted to share with you. You answer one question a week for a year on a small tag, card or medium of your choice and you can make it as pretty as you like. A blogger that I really enjoy reading put it together. So far it has been an easy and even fun way of helping me drag a little positive energy out of my brain that is leaking mostly toxins right about now.
It’s amazing to me that I can eat so right and think so wrong.
But I am practicing restraint.
This morning when a lady I barely know told me how much her son loves Bible Study as we were both picking up our two year olds from the children’s program at BSF, I did not say to this first time mother, Enjoy these precious moments when you are bringing your two year old to Bible Study and picking them up all happy and warm and singing “Glory Hallelujah” together on the way home, because in nine years you will be sitting in an assistant principal’s office crying while he gets suspended.
You see why I might need a good journaling exercise. If you need one too, you can sign up at this darling gal’s website. You can see her amazing journal pictures and artwork, as well as all the other people who are participating. As added motivation to play along, I will tell you that so far all I have used to answer my first questions is a single index card and a black fine pointed sharpie. In other words, it’s kind of plain, but I am letting myself off the hook on the art part. When the flowers start blooming, my cards might get prettier.
Last night we finished this little gem, and though I’ve mentioned it several times, I thought it deserved its very own post. The power of a treasure like Ida B is that reading a couple chapters at the end of the day can make you smile even if the rest of the day has been hard. But even though she is quite funny, Ida B also kind makes you feel like crying, in a warm, heart bursting kind of way. Mary Polly pointed this out as she was reading ahead of us. She cannot bear to wait and just enjoy the anticipation of the next chapter, so even though she still sits in and listens, she usually sneaks our current read aloud and finishes it before we are half way through.
There is an incident near the beginning of the book regarding Ida B’s name that stood out to me this week. She goes to her first day of kindergarten and when she points out to the teacher that she is actually called Ida B, not Ida, her teacher says that Ida B is just a nickname and that in school she will be called by her given name. When we were reading this part of the story, I thought that it was kind of archaic to think a teacher wouldn’t call a child by a different name that what was written on their official paperwork, but last week when Cole and I abruptly left his school on Friday, he realized after we got home later that he had forgotten to turn in his name badge. It is a badge he has to wear every day but is not allowed to take home. When he discovered it, he held it up and said, I don’t know why they couldn’t put “Cole” on this. Now everyone calls me Colvin. Cole was officially named after Shawn Colvin, a singer-songwriter that Taido and I both love and especially loved when I was pregnant with Cole. When I was about 5 months pregnant with Cole, we went to a Shawn Colvin concert in one Chicago’s cozier theaters. We had great seats and she is so endearing in concert. The whole evening was a little fairy tale vacation from a year that was in many other ways very tumultuous for us, as Taido was finishing his last year of seminary and we were facing wondering what we were going to do with the rest of our lives, and bringing a baby into our world of unanswered questions. Anyway, even though we named him Colvin, we have almost always called our first born Cole, as have all of his teachers. In fact all of our school aged children go by names that are different from what’s written on their birth certificates, and it has never caused them any grief. When Mary Polly saw Cole’s name badge and heard him lamenting that it doesn’t say “Cole,” she disdainfully remarked, Oh great! I’m going to have to wear a name tag that says “Marion” when I’m in sixth grade. That’s it! I am NOT going to that school. The whole conversation reminded me of poor Ida B seeing the sea of years and years of schooling ahead of her in which she would be forced to be this entirely different person, this person called Ida instead of Ida B.
I realized that maybe having this new name that wasn’t mine wouldn’t just be for today or this year, but it might be my not-for-real-and-not-anything-like-me-but-I’m-stuck-with-it name for every school day for the rest of my life. That, I knew, was a whole lot of days of being Ida, and not being Ida B. So many days of being Ida that I might forget what being Ida B was like.
And with that thought a bad feeling came over me that started in my stomach and traveled out my legs and arms and ended up in my toes, my fingers, and even my tongue. Like everything was being tightened up and shrunk down and squeezed into a too, too tiny space.
I looked out the window and saw all of that sunshine and air and room to move, and I swear I could hear the brook calling to me, over that distance and through those closed up windows. “C’mon home and play, Ida B. I’m waitin’ for you. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.”
Later in her life, Ida B has a teacher named Ms. Washington that redeems Ida B’s kindergarten heartaches. She calls her Ms. W, and she loves the way Ms. W reads.
Ms. Washington would read to us every day after lunch, and her voice was like ten different musical instruments. She could make her voice go low and deep and strong like a tuba, or hop, hop, hop quick and light like a flute.
When she’d read, her voice wrapped around my head and my heart, and it softened and lightened everything up. It put a pain in my heart that felt good. When she told stories it made me want to tell stories. I wanted to read like her, so I could have that feeling anytime.
This week Ben was reminded me, as he periodically does, that he wants to be homeschooled next year. Not right now, next year. Because right now he has Ms. Somers. And Ms. Somers, he said, well, she reads like Ms. W. You know, her voice goes up and down. I don’t want to miss any days of her reading. I laughed when I thought about his comparing his teachers to Ida B’s teachers, and I love that he is thinking that way.
Ida B’s strong personality has penetrated our thinking and our conversations, and we are the richer for it.
…because I don’t know how you’re doing it.
The Chino House dad was away last week, and let me tell you…it was rough. The Saturday he left I was all geared up. I had a stack of books to read and projects I was going to accomplish. I was mentally prepared to actually enjoy Taido’s being away. Less laundry. Simple meals every night. No meetings to prepare for. Just me and the kids, the first week back to school. It was going to be smooth sailing.
The kids were less delusional. PLEASE TAKE US WITH YOU! They begged him not to leave them alone with me. Add insult to injury. He was going to Colorado. To go skiing.
But still I persevered through their bad attitudes. I gave pep talks. We instituted Bible Time, which has been missing from our morning routine all fall since Cole leaves before anyone else is up. We had a family meeting. We rescheduled Bible Time, and we planned to have a good week together. With no dad.
Friends, I am telling you, I set myself up for success this week in every way I know how. I was well stocked with groceries and meal plans. I went to yoga in the rain on Monday and Tuesday. I went to BSF on Wednesday. I got up early and made apple pancakes and blueberry muffins. We started our evening routine early every night so that I wouldn’t feel behind. I made sure we had plenty of time to read Ida B. I stayed on top of the dishes so I wouldn’t get overwhelmed.
But I am here to tell you that despite my very best efforts to keep it all together, when our dad is not at home, all hell can and will break loose. It’s just a matter of when and how. Let’s revisit the last time that Taido left us for an entire week. Oh yes, I was camping in the Pacific Northwest with my mother and four children and we had everything stolen from us! It was like there was a sign on the van that said, No dad in sight. Pick us! Pick us!
In short, here is the list of minor (minor in that no one was starving, dying or in the middle of a war zone) disasters that occurred last week while Taido was skiing in Colorado, which strangely also qualifies for him as working.
Sunday: At elevate, the jr high youth ministry that Taido is not here to oversee, Cole breaks a window in the youth building.
Monday: The bus does not come and get Cole. He runs to a friends’ house in the pouring down rain and bums a ride, not daring to come home and ask me for one when there are three kids still asleep here. Later that day, I forget piano.
Tuesday: Cole forgets his homework. (We got off easy on Tuesday.)
Wednesday: Cole misses recess because he is not wearing a belt, is belittled by a substitute teacher and forgets his homework again. I pick up my van from a shop because I do not want to pay the $864 they want from me in order to fix it. They charge me $84 for the diagnosis. I decide we can live without heat in the van. The weather is getting warmer anyway. That evening I make French onion soup which none of the kids are going to eat, neither my kids nor Cole’s friend, Tony, but I make it anyway as a treat for me because I LOVE it. When I finish making the soup, I ladle the piping hot, cognac-scented brown liquid into a bowl, sit down in a chair to relax and enjoy my soup, only to be pounced on by Simon, who spills my untasted soup all over the insides of my thighs and his hands, burning us both and causing me to stand up shouting and immediately strip down to my underwear in front of not just my children, but also Cole’s friend.
Thursday: Simon covers his face with my lip gloss. (Okay, that could happen any day.) Cole gets a short form for forgetting his homework again.
Friday: I wake up with a splitting headache. At 10am, I get a call from Cole saying that I have to come to the school and talk to the assistant principal because he’s in trouble. I scramble to get Simon settled, and then I go and meet with Cole, the assistant principal and the school counselor. Cole ends up getting on-campus suspension for four days. He has not been in trouble at school all year until yesterday. I break down in the meeting crying and can barely pull myself together enough to collect Cole and leave the building, a building for which I already retain absolutely NO good feelings, per my own horrific year there. At 10pm, Taido sends me a text message that he is on the side of the road somewhere in Colorado with a broken down van. I go bed thinkng…we’re 0 for 2 on vans at the Chino House, and 0 for 1 on the Daddy homecoming that we so desperately need tomorrow.
Taido rolled in around midnight on Saturday night after spending the night in Colorado and getting a fan belt fixed early on Saturday morning. To say that I was a wreck by the time he got home is a severe understatement. However, a good four or five hours alone at the library on Sunday afternoon was a step in the right direction of the restoration of my spiralling soul. And an afternoon at the park with their dad seemed to do the same for everyone else’s.
I am always a little melancholy on the morning that Christmas break is officially over. The kids were grouchy and sleepy as I scooted them out the door into the dark, rainy first day back. Cole stomped off without breakfast or jacket, stubbornly compounding his already miserable attitude with the extra insults of hunger and cold. He was slipping into it last night as I tried to recover our last little taste of holiday time. All the Christmas decorations are put away except one candle for Jesus from the advent wreath, which we leave up a little longer. Mary Polly lit the lonely candle and we took turns reading from Psalms. Then Ben blew out the candle and I read some chapters from a book we are all loving right now, Ida B. The book and the child by the same name are a little breath of lovely. Ida B is funny and sweet, and the short chapters roll along so easily, just like Ida B’s friend, the brook, bubbling and laughing. Even Ida B couldn’t cheer Cole last night though. To bed with a scowl he went, and his little imitators after him. I’ll never get enough sleep tonight, Mary Polly lamented. We’ll have to have cereal for breakfast now, Ben complained.
Life is so stinking hard here at the Chino House.
So hard that we are in danger of forgetting what a wonderful Christmas season we had. The first week was so busy that I didn’t write a single word about it. There was barely time to breathe between all the fun. But we got to see the fruits of our cupcake sale. My sister made all kinds of elaborate food, which we consumed like locusts. The dads went to obscure movies and listened to music no one has ever heard of. The kids played until the carpet was no longer visible in my parents’ house for all the forts, blankets, toys and snack bowls.
After our cousins all went home, we had to sleep nonstop for several days to recover, venturing out on only the smallest of outings. A short walk. An hour or two at the park with a frisbe, a football and friends.
Then for our final days of the break, we went winter camping. I was a little reluctant as the temperatures were dropping quickly to well below freezing as we were packing up, but I knew I would be glad we went, to use our pop up again and to have time together before we all went back to regular life. We went to Long Pool, which is beloved by our children. When we went for our first walk, Cole kept saying, Boy, this really brings back memories, like he’s 80 years old and he’s remembering much further back than just last year.
It was insanely cold though, and as we set up that first night in the dark, I was doubting the wisdom of our plan just a little weensy bit. Also, it happened to be our anniversary. Which isn’t really that unusual, for Taido and I not to be taking the time to celebrate our anniversary. We hit it about every five years. So next year we’re due for something a little more romantic than a cold night in the pop up with four children, one of which was sleeping in between us.
However, Taido did redeem his less than endearing packing-up-and-leaving-town-grouchy-on-our-anniversary self by having the brilliant plan of revolutionizing our winter camping experience with a couple of small but significant additions to the camping tubs. Space heaters. Not one, but two little magic boxes that transformed our pop up into a little cabin in the woods, a haven of warm and toasty after a jaunt on a hiking trail. I could go winter camping every weekend if it means being able to be that warm. We had the entire campground almost entirely to ourselves. The rates are half the price in the winter. And on New Year’s Day, we even managed to get company!
A van full of high school boys and one fellow youth pastor were a welcome sight to our kids on Friday afternoon. Even Bobby’s dog, Zeke, came along, which thrilled Mary Polly. She and Simon followed Zeke around the rest of the day. And when the fire died down and it was time for all those boys to go to sleep in their tents, we said good night and went to sleep in the pop up, cozy as can be. I only felt bad for a minute or two before I fell right asleep.
Those are the moments I will hold onto today, as I pick up my house, go to the store in the rain and later, listen to all my children whine about the first day back to school.
I hope your holidays were precious and that you are gathering up the sweetest moments of the season and pondering them in your heart. They will keep us warm through the long dark days of January.
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