1)  strawberries (well, truth be told, I didn’t grow them but I did pick them!)

2) the strawberry jam collection

3) endless summer  hydrangeas

4)  the garden (2 weeks old)

5) succulents (by the mailbox)

6) an improved Meyer’s lemon tree (I ordered it from this website and love it!  I hope I can keep it alive )

7)   chickens (they’re in the awkward, homely teenage phase and the coop gets delivered tomorrow!)

 the ducks (who think they’re chickens and waddle back up from the lake every night to sleep with the chickens.  Heaven help us!)

9)  a single carolina wren hatchling (which is living in a patio planter and may not make it–may have hatched too soon)

10)  two scurvy dogs

11) four great kids (Taylor and Caiti will be around some this summer but both are taking summer classes and working)

who even agreed to go on a hike with their mother and didn’t complain when it came a downpour with an hour left to go!

We are still four days away from finishing our spring semester (at home) but I’m pretty sure summer has already begun here!

Hope you’re growing good things too.
Mwaahhhhhhhh!

I can’t remember the exact circumstances in which she said it but I’ve spent a lifetime trying to grow into it.
Thank you, Momma, for your tireless example of what it means to give yourself away to others.
And to all my strong and brave momma friends—-the sun (Son) always shines where you are too.
Thank you for living in the light. You are like warm sunshine in a dark, cold world.
Happy Mother’s Day.
You’re my heroes.

Calling my garden an urban garden is a little misleading. I do live in Bean Station, TN, for pete’s sake,  not exactly an urban metropolis. But I call it an urban or kitchen garden because of it’s unique small size and placement.  It’s a 10×12 ft garden that sits right beside our garage.  I finished planting this morning and wanted to tell you all about it.  It’s my favorite project in a long time and I can’t wait to tend it, weed it and harvest it!  It’s art and design, only better, because it’ll soon be edible!

We started by having a retaining wall built so that this area would be flat.  Prior to that, it was a sloping dirt pile just dreaming of becoming a garden.  It’s not the perfect ideal spot because it only gets about 6-8 hours of sun but we thought it would be worth a try to use every inch of space we have.  We then had it filled with decent dirt but left enough room (~10 inches) so that we could add compost, horse manure (which I shoveled in a sundress and flip flops), sand and mulch.  (I should add that I have a wonderful gardener who has helped us realize our vision for our landscape and he was kind enough to give guidance and help with this project too!   Thank you,Terry)

For our 10×12 space, we added 2 small truckloads of organic compost, 10 bags of play sand, some decomposed horse manure and then tilled that 3-4 times before planting.   I basically followed the directions on the plants and seeds  for planting with the exception of the tomatoes.  I wanted lots of tomatoes so I squeezed them in closer than recommended.  We’ll see how it turns out but a blog reader,  Andrea, recently commented that she does this on purpose because she likes smaller tomatoes.  I’m praying it works and we get lots of small-medium tomatoes.

Here’s what I planted:

1. Peppers- I did a few green pepper plants along with jalapeños.  I’ll be able to use these in my homemade salsa this summer!

2 and 3.  Herbs—basil, thyme, parsley, cilantro, sage, rosemary, mint, and oregano.

4. Tomatoes—-roma tomatoes, german queens, heirloom stripeys, cherry tomatoes, and several other varieties that I can’t even remember.  I LOVE tomatoes!

5. Lettuces and Greens—-swiss chard, kale, bibb lettuce, redina lettuce, mustard greens

6.  Arugula and spinach

7.  Cucumbers, summer squash and more peppers

I also have an Improved Meyer’s lemon tree in the corner and 2 David Austin Rosa Heritage climbing roses near the house.

I ‘dressed’ the garden with organic soil conditioner, which functions like a mulch to hold in moisture.  It’s 50% pine bark and 50% compost.

So, there you have it.

Let the magic begin!

Grow, baby, grow

I’m downright shaken to the core by Wendell Berry’s writing.  When is the last time you read someone who simultaneously made you want to be a better mother and wife, grow a garden, raise some livestock and read more poetry and Homer?  He is a prophet of sorts, providing insightful and critical commentary on our modern way of life and the  sad separation between us and our land, our food and most importantly our families.  We have grown up in an era where we are cut off from so much of our humanity.   We have become  poor caretakers of all entrusted to us and the result is a society that is overfed but undernourished, information rich but wisdom poor, exhaustingly busy but often lonely and unsatisfied.

He offers some complicated analysis on how we got to where we are but his solutions seem to be fairly simple.   Slow down.  Grow some food.  Cook it yourself.   Raise a few animals.   Know what you’re eating.  Be faithful to the land, to your children, to your wife.  Relearn the simple pleasures of life that can’t be bought but must be nurtured.

His writing has been so timely for us too.  We had already committed to raising a few chickens and growing a small kitchen garden.  But the way he writes about it makes it seem so much more meaningful and profound.  He advocates change in the only way it’s possible—-“I bid you to a one-man revolution—The only revolution that is coming.”

So, I thought I’d show you the tiny little spot we carved out for a kitchen/herb/vegetable garden.  We’ll be ready to plant soon so I’ve been doing lots of reading and planning.  It’s about 10×12 feet and right beside our garage. It gets full sun until around 2p and is within our sprinkler system so watering will be easy!

I found some good information on this site, including some help in planning my layout.  I’ll keep you updated on the progress!

   ”Sowing” by Wendell Berry

In the stilled place that once was a road going down

from the town to the river, and where the lives of marriages grew

a house, a cistern and barn, flowers, the tilted stone of borders,

and the deed of their lives ran to neglect, and honeysuckle

and then the fire overgrew it all, I walk heavy

with seed, spreading on the cleared hill the beginnings

of green, clover and grass to be pasture.  Between

history’s death upon the place and the trees that would have come

I claim, and act, and am mingled in the fate of the world.

I highly recommend  The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry   and The Way of Ignorance: And Other Essays.

My new blog friend, Marie, has a great blog about all her farming/growing adventures!  And she recently had a chocolate chip cookie taste test that looked so much fun!

Now tell me all about your gardens, I’m dying to know!

Also, check out lifeingracegirls today where Meaghan  is doing the most adorable bow tie tutorial!

My dear friend and blogging mentor the Nester is hosting a great party today featuring plants in the home.  I LOVE my house plants and am so excited to participate.

I confess that I’m a little lazy with house plants.  I do great for awhile until I don’t.  I need house plants that are a little self-sufficient.  I need teenage house plants that want to be left alone.  Unlike my sister, who has my mother’s thirty-something year old fig tree, I can’t handle that kind of pressure and responsibility.   I’d get an ulcer trying to keep it alive.    I need easy and simple but I love the life and joy they add to my home.

My current favorite is the stag horn fern I bought in Nashville a couple months ago that sits right the middle of the living room.  I LOVE this fern and it totally jives with my  ‘Texas, cottage, Southern chic, eclectic’ vision for my home.  I just added some really cool live moss that I found at our farm on Saturday.  This fern is an attention getter and those brown parchment looking vestiges in the middle are part of the ferns’ charm provide some of the ‘food’ for it to grow and be healthy.  This type of fern doesn’t even need soil but can grow on just a little moss.   They can be hard to find but bring lots of enjoyment.  Plus, who doesn’t want a fern named ‘staghorn’?  I can’t think of anyone.

I’ve had a long time fascination with aloe vera for obvious reasons. We live on the lake and little red cheeks and shoulders can’t always be avoided so I love having the cure right on the kitchen counter.  I added some very cool looking lichen to the top, instead of my standard moss.  It gives such interesting dimension and texture.  My husband is crazy for  lichen and he’s made a fan outta me too.

The bird’s nest fern is kinda cool and very low maintenance.  It’s called bird’s nest because the inner portion, from where the fronds grow, looks like little eggs in a nest.

Then there’s the snake plant or mother-in-law’s tongue that’s hardy and easy to care for that for now sits in the kitchen.  I haven’t even repotted this one yet because I want to paint the planter.  It’s been doing fine for a few months just like that but I’ve got to do it soon so it’ll quit nagging at me.

And I treat my plants just like furniture and accessories;  they’re mine and don’t belong to a certain room.   I can move them where I want so I take full liberty here and move them around as I see fit, taking into consideration light and temperature and such.  Only 3 months after I had lived in this brand new house, I moved all the ottomans, chair and accessories from the living room to my bedroom.  I LOVE it and am still working on tweaking it all.  And luckily, they don’t care about light and moisture.

These chairs were in my bedroom and that little succulent between them has been in the kitchen, my bedroom and the workroom.  You might discover a whole new color palette or whole new way to think about life, just by moving things around.  It’s my favorite decorating trick and gives you a whole new look without much time, effort or money.  But I digress.

Back to plants.    The workroom is full of our green friends because there’s so much light that floods the room.

And last but not least, my favorite category—-the succulents. They are a lazy houseplanter’s best friend. They don’t care if you go on vacation or on strike or temporarily insane. They’re like the cats of house plants. Too much attention, then you’re in trouble. They love you best when you leave them alone.
I love their no nonsense attitude.

And I’m always scouting out unique ones to try.  These are ‘hen and chicks’ of the red and green variety.   LOVE them.

I even made a succulent centerpiece for Easter and am planning to plant the hen and chicks in my garden this week.

And hope you enjoyed  this house plant tour!

I totally operate with a philosophy of grace with my plants.  I don’t put myself under the law.  If they die, I’m happy for the time we had together.  They’re cheap and easy to replace.  If they’re too high maintenance, then we agree to disagree and perhaps they’d do better living with someone else.   They are good gifts from God but I’m not obligated to them like I’m obligated to my children.   Life has enough pressures.  House plants shouldn’t be one of them!

What’s your favorite house plant?  Tell me all about it and whether or not the likes of me can keep it alive!

Happy Monday dears

I went  to Johnson City today to spend the day with my two oldest joys on Friday.  Taylor had a medical school tour at my very own alma mater and then a spring concert (he’s in choir at ETSU.)  It doesn’t hardly seem right that he could be old enough to be applying to med school.  It only seems like yesterday that I was starting myself but I guess time only flies.  His journey down this path has always seemed inevitable to me.  He looked perfect in that seat when he was four years old, tagging along with momma.  Caiti’s been studying so hard and often brings her books home to study anatomy and physiology in the workroom.  She thinks that room has magical powers but I think the 106 she made on her last test was a lot of hard work and study time.  I’m so proud of them both and it was beautiful having them home for Easter and spending the day with them yesterday.

Spring has been glorious in these parts.  There’s been lots of sunshine and plenty of cool-ish nights which make for perfect lazy evenings by the fire reading and talking and watching the sunset.  We are still putting the finishing touches on our landscaping but I’m so happy with it.  I’m planning a post, once we’re done, to tell you all about it.   Right now, I’m preparing to plant a ‘kitchen’ garden of herbs, tomatoes, lettuce, etc. in an otherwise wasted spot by our garage.  I can’t wait to show you—it’s almost ready to plant!

In other news,  the chickens and ducks are HUGE and eating me out of house and home.  We are still trying to decide exactly what to do but I think we’ve got a plan.  We’re going with a smaller, less expensive coop for now, until we see how it goes.  They’ve been so much fun and I can’t wait until we start collecting eggs!  We take the ducks down the lake everyday to swim and they are hilarious, diving under the water and playing!

I’ve been in a homeschooling slump of epic proportions.  Too much distraction, too little patience,  a bad case of spring fever, full plate,  no passion.  Oh, it’s been bad.  So, my first little sign that we could possibly be moving through the pain was this.  Ummmm, why is there  whipped cream randomly sitting on the table in the middle of Monday for no justifiable reason?  No one confessed but I’m pretty sure they were just squirting it right into their mouths.  Whatever it takes to get through Monday, I suppose.  And that’s about the time I found Andrew Kern’s website CIRCE and proceeded to listen to some wonderful podcasts  and this wonderful interview with him on classical education that were just the shot of whipped cream inspiration I needed to keep on trucking.  I’d love to go their annual meeting this summer if I can work it out.   Homeschooling is not easy and I’ve been working from a place of stress and compulsion rather than from  a place of rest and compassion.   He made a statement in one of his talks saying that,  ”The goal of education is virtue and repentance.”  Wow.  My kids needed me to hear that.

After reading, listening to, rereading, and seeing Hunger Games, we’re committed fans.  My girls have made bows and arrows out of sticks and string and finally made the smart move to ask their dad to get them  a real bow.  He had that thing ordered before you could say deer jerky.  So we headed to Sneedville to our farm to pick up the girls from Grannies’ today and Stevie taught the girls (and I) how to shoot.

I think I  could totally embrace a  ’live off the land’ lifestyle.  I’ve always had a secret fantasy of being Ma Ingalls.  I could raise my own chickens and goats, churn my own butter,  bow hunt and make homemade wine.  Except for the part about no internet and no artificial hair color and no indoor plumbing.  Otherwise, I think I’d be just fine:) What about you?  Aren’t you smitten with country life?

My girls did NOT want to leave the farm.   They had a ball and made their daddy tell them the entire story on the way home of how he bought the farm 10 years ago and spent countless hours of planning and labor to design the pond and house.   It was a wonderful day, unplugged.  I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have phone or internet for nearly an entire day.

And those are my random thoughts for the weekend. Hope yours is turning out to be perfect, full of the things and people you love with lots of whipped cream on top!

p.s  There are two new posts up at lifeingrace girls;  a movie review of ‘Beware of Christians’ (and Lelia is giving away a copy of the movie!) and a post about turning your ‘can’ts’ into ‘cans’!  Go check them out

This is life{in}grace rerun and is dedicated to my new bff , Paige,  and her daughter Caroline, who have officially made this soup more than me. But while smarter folks than I try to figure out all the things that have been going wrong with my blog for the past two months, give this  American classic with a spicy twist a try.   My blog and email seem to have been taken over by hostile powers.  Which reminds me, has anyone who signed up for the email subscription service through me been getting the posts by email lately?   Hopefully, there will be some resolution soon. Also the winner of the Lutheran prayer book is Becky from A Peaceful Dwelling. I so enjoyed all your book recommendations and have ordered several already!

Spicy Tomato Soup

{with a hint of blue cheese}

don’t let the blue cheese scare you. this is the best tomato soup recipe i’ve ever eaten. ever.  just ask stevie.

he won’t lie for me just to promote my tomato soup.

Now, if I’ve already offended you with the suggestion of blue cheese, don’t get your panties in a ruffle.

You just use a little—for a complex layer of flavors—- and I highly doubt you could tell it had blue cheese in it, if you didn’t already know.

Try it and you could always substitute the cheese if you have serious issues with blue cheese.

The other two stars of the show are sriracha and a large can of cento tomatoes.

Sriracha is a deliciously-hot-addictive sauce  that has seductive powers unlike any hot sauce

you’ve ever had.  Your mouth might burn but it will not stop you from adding more.   A little squirt into soup is makes all the difference!

You’ll need these ingredients:

a few splashes of olive oil

1 small onion

2-3 cloves of garlic

1 28 ounce can of tomatoes

1 14 ounce can of diced tomatoes

1 cup chicken broth

2 T. honey

1 small squirt of sriracha (more if you like really spicy–but start small)

handful of basil leaves

about an ounce of blue cheese (or your favorite easy melt cheese)

1/3 cup of cream

kosher salt and pepper to taste

You’ll also need a submersion blender!

The directions:

In a large dutch oven, add a few tablespoons of olive oil.  Don’t measure, just swirl a few times.    Then add the chopped onion and garlic and salt to taste and then saute for about 5 minutes.   Add the tomatoes in their juice.   Then add the rest of the ingredients except the cream and let it simmer for about 10 minutes.  Use your submersion blender to achieve the consistency you’d like and then add cream.   Taste it and reseason as necessary.  I almost always have to add more salt and more honey.   And if you accidentally go heavy on the sriracha, add a little more cream to balance the heat.   Serve with artisan bread or crackers and prepare to be lavished with ” mmmm’s”  and gratitude.

Garnish with basil and enjoy!

This post is lengthy with lots of links but don’t miss the giveaway at the end!

I’m passionate about reading and about promoting reading in my circle of influence.  I’m on a quest to read the classics that I never really enjoyed in high school or never read at all. I hope this series will give you inspiration to begin a reading program of your own or to start a book club or reading group.  And let’s face it, none of us feel like we have time so it’s a matter of making it a priority.  Get up a little earlier and try doing 15 minutes of reading before you do anything else.   And never, ever go anywhere without a book.  You never know when you might stumble upon 15 unspoken-for minutes.

I’m using Susan Wise Bauer’s book The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had
as a guide and I started  a classical  bookclub (that’s four years old) of wonderful, smart friends that  are crazy enough to read Plato with me.  If you’re not a reader and think books aren’t for you, I wish I could sit down with you for an afternoon in my little library and tell you the stories of how all my books have changed my life.  My workroom is filled with my favorite books and when I travel, I miss them as much as I miss my bed.  Which is a lot!   I don’t have access to a good library so Amazon is my friend and my general rule is that I buy books on Kindle that I’m not sure if I’ll want to reread and order real paper and ink books otherwise.  Here are my beloved books!  You’d miss ‘em too, wouldn’t you?!  Read books and live a richer and fuller inner life!

To start the series, I thought I’d share my 5 all time favorite books.  The ones I read over and over and over, year after year.

Most of the books I will list here I didn’t really ‘get’ until the second or third time through, so be patient with yourself if you’re embarking on a reading plan.

My 5 favorite, most often read books:  (You’ll notice my list is heavily skewed toward Lewis but I am a confessed Lewis super fan.)

1.  Orthodoxy by G.K Chesterton

I love this book.  It’s difficult to read your first time through but don’t give up on it.  I love Philip Weingart’s words on Orthodoxy:

“Since Chesterton was both a genius and the son of a saner era than our own, the ideas which coursed through his head may astonish modern readers. He seems to turn the world on its head; the book is a continuous feast of the delightfully unexpected. To Chesterton, faith is reason, orthodoxy is liberty, the order of our universe is as unexpected as the wildest fairy tale, and heeding tradition is as natural as allowing all citizens to vote. Modern readers at first will think him just a little bit crazy, but as they warm up to his approach, they will begin to feel that perhaps his point of view is healthier than theirs, and in the best of cases, they will begin to right themselves.”

2.  Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

This is likely the most read book in our house and happens to be the book that  led Stevie back to the faith.  ”A young [agnostic] can never be too careful what he reads,”  Lewis once said.  Chris Banescu writes:

“Mere Christianity is full of memorable and powerful revelations that elucidate the foundations of Christian theology, our relationship to God, and the meaning of life. Only C.S. Lewis could summarize such broad concepts so eloquently without coming across as overly-religious or preachy. His extraordinary ability to focus on the core tenets of Christianity and explain them with remarkable ease reinforces the wide appeal of his writings.”

3.  Evangelical is Not Enough by Thomas Howard

If you are searching for something more than you are finding in modern Christianity, this book will be a treasure to you.  If you are enjoying the gifts of God in the liturgy and sacraments, this book will deepen your gratitude.  This book is one of my favorites.   Peter Kreeft wrote,

“In this deeply moving narrative, Thomas Howard describes his pilgrimage from Evangelicalism (which he loves and reveres as the religion of his youth) to liturgical Christianity…. He describes Evangelicalism with great sympathy and then examines more formal, liturgical worship with the freshness of someone discovering for the first time what his soul had always hungered for.”

4.  The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

This book is a fantasy about heaven and hell and unlike anything you’ve ever imagined about either.  It’s a gem of a book and one that you’ll want to read at least twice.  Steve and I have both read it many times and we often will compare people we meet in our daily life to Lewis’ brilliant descriptions of people in the book.  It’s short and can be finished in a day or two.

 “I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned (even in plucking out his right eye) has not been lost: that the kernel of what he was really seeking even in his most depraved wishes will be there, beyond expectation, waiting for him in ‘the High Countries’.”

5. The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis

Maybe it’s because I’ve known some suffering in my life but this book is like no other.   Lewis speaks to the impossible question of why there is suffering in the world and what that suffering means.  I’ve read it so many times that it’s like an old friend.  I read twice last year and already once this year.  It’s hard to pick a favorite quote because there are so many good ones but from chapter 6:

“The human spirit will not even begin to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it. Now error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are, the less their victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil. Pain is unmasked , unmistakable evil, every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt…..And the pain is not only recognizable evil, but evil impossible to ignore. We rest contentedly in our sins and stupidities…..and can even ignore our pleasures, but pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

Runner up for most loved book:
Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold by C.S. Lewis

I read this book as a present to myself for my 40th birthday and wrote about how this book made real to me my own desperate condition.  I just reread it for book club and  have no less than 40 pages tabbed of perfect Lewis quotes.  It’s the retelling of the Cupid myth and its’ central theme is love.  Lewis claimed it was his best work and I may just have to agree.

And my most used book:    The Lutheran Book Of Prayer

This book is my constant companion.  I read prayers in it every day and copy appropriate ones to give to people who are struggling with this or that life issue.   It’s one of my favorite things to give as a gift and it’s the perfect size to fit into your purse, car, desk.   There are 4 sets (I think) of prayers for the specific days of the week and then prayers for every holiday, church festival, special day, etc.  There are also a host of prayers of petition, for every conceivable situation imaginabl

I also just happen to have an extra copy that I’d love to give away so if you’ll leave a comment listing your 5 (or 1 or 2, etc) all time favorite books, I’ll pick a giveaway winner soon.   Giveaway ends at midnight on Sunday!

On my reading list this weekend:
1.  Finish Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
2.  Continue The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis (Plus)
(thanks for the recommendation Dan)
3.  Continue reading The Diary of a Young Girl (Everyman’s Library (Cloth))
aloud to the girls.

Hope you enjoy a great book or two this weekend and now tell me your favorite book(s) for a chance to win!

Post Edit::  I’m also thinking of setting up a live chat to finish our Grace Upon Grace book study.  If you’d be interested, send me an email to let me know! And I should perhaps have put my Lutheran Study Bible as number 1 but it seems to need a category of its own but is indeed my very favorite book! I’m loving your suggestions so far!

I hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend.  I’m still basking in the joys and trying to recover!
I’m working on a marathon post in which I tell you all the minutiae of my life. I know you’ll be waiting on pins and needles.  It’s riveting stuff.
Now back to ‘woman silhouette art’.
I saw almost this exact thing in Franklin, TN when I was in Nashville for the Pearl Event.
It was nearly $300 and I knew it wouldn’t be that hard to duplicate.
Then as luck would have it, we were able to get silhouettes done at Disneyland when we there in March.
It was the perfect storm for my book page, woman silhouette, DIY project.
I bought a 24″x 36 in frame at Hobby Lobby with my 40% off coupon which made the frame $25.
I bought the foam board there too for less than $10 and then had the silhouette enlarged to an 11×14 size.

I found some cute girls willing to decoupage all the book pages onto the foam board and they even thought it was big fun.
We didn’t have any real specific rules for the book pages except they all had to overlap.

It took less than an hour, cost less than $40 and turned out so darn cute.
Now I want to decorate the whole room with book pages just like my friend Nester.

His suffering has brought us every perfect gift.
Much love and blessings as we celebrate His life, death and resurrection!
**************

I’ll see you sometime next week and hope you enjoy the beautiful (and free!) Easter printables and fail proof cake pop method, just in time for a beautiful Easter weekend.