The Future "Us"

She is tall. With brown boots hugging her calves over brown leggings. A long grey sweater with a wide ruffled bottom and broad bell sleeves is buttoned with a single large button over her chest. Hundreds of tight twirls of hair, the color of twine, are wrestled into submission by a clip on the back of her head.

He wears jeans and a blue work shirt. His hair and beard are grey but between the two is a pair of bright eyes behind black-rimmed glasses.

We are standing outside Giovanni's, waiting for a table for two. "Only four of us waiting," he says to us as they approach from the parking lot, "I thought it'd be packed." They step inside, and immediately return to wait with us. "Ten minutes," he says. "That's not bad." We all smile at each other and in a few minutes, Husband and I are called in by the hostess. She leads us to a booth and we sit down across from each other. When the waitress comes, we order a Coke and a lemonade and Ranch Cheese Fries. When they are led in a few minutes later, to a booth across the room, they sit down together, on one bench of the booth, next to each other, and talk animatedly about something.

They are us. In maybe 35 years. A handsomely aging couple, still excited to eat out together. With plenty to talk about as they enjoy pasta and salad and garlic breadsticks. A couple proud of each other, a couple who are friends. Even after many, many years.

Merry Merry

It's Christmas Eve. The year is nearing its end, and I'm looking forward to preparing for 2012. For today, though, I reflect on a few delights of Christmas.

1. Tom, our new Christmas bear. Mom used to get Sister and me each a stuffed animal for Christmas and Husby has revived the tradition this year with a Christmas bear which sits on the bookshelf above my stocking. We have named him Tom and I'm pretty excited that he's joined our family.

2. These homemade caramels which our neighbor/landlord made. I can't stop eating them!

3. The greens I cut from the cemetery next door and placed around the house. I didn't realize they were supposed to be in water, so they're all turning a bit brown by now. But they still lend a cozy Christmas atmosphere.

4. The Nantucket Cranberry Pie that's in the oven. I'm taking this to my in-laws' house for our Christmas celebration this afternoon.

5. Merry Christmas ribbon I got at Michael's. Loved wrapping presents with it!

6. Our cute tree on the windowsill.

7. Vintage ornaments, like this one from Husby's mom.

8. Christmas cards, especially this one from my favorite client at work. She painted this.

Merry, Merry!

Hark! The herald angels sing, "Glory to the Newborn King! Peace on earth and mercy mild; God and sinners, reconciled." Joyful, all ye nations rise! Join the triumph of the skies! With angelic host proclaim, "Christ is born in Bethlehem!" Hark! The herald angels sing, "Glory to the Newborn King!"

Twenty-Five

I thought I’d have a lot to say about my twenty-fifth birthday. It seems like an important year: ¼ of the way to 100, a halfway point between decades, the beginning of my “late twenties.” But I feel the same today, on December 10^th, as I felt waking up two mornings ago, on my last day as a 24-year-old.

A day doesn’t do anything. This December 9^th did the same thing each of the last twenty-five December 9^th’s has done: merely marked another year since God brought me into the world. What will make my twenty-fifth birthday important, I think, is what happens in the next 52 weeks. How will I spend my twenty-sixth year? What does today kick off? What will I begin today that will define my life as a 25-year old?

While I have a few goals for my twenty-sixth year, the defining characteristic I most want to develop in the next year is peace. At the root of all discontent in my life, all arguments with those I care about, all restlessness is a lack of peace. I fail, most of the time, to put my future into God’s hands and to leave it there, taking with me the peace He promises. Don’t we all tend to snatch our plans back from His hands, confident that they’re safer under our control? I don’t pretend to be any different. But my goal this year will be to develop the silent, trusting peace of someone who doesn’t need all the answers. I aim to be a person who is content under any and all circumstances, not resorting to grumbling, not wallowing in worry, and not questioning the purposefulness of what I’m called to do each day.

“My peace I leave with you,” Christ said. And he meant it. With twenty-five years under my belt, I think I’m ready to accept that peace. And doing so will make this year extremely worthwhile.

The Eyes Have It

In the check-out aisle in Target, there is gum for sale with a picture of a famous snowboarder on it. It’s named after him, in fact. I guess it’s supposed to have a snowboard-y flavor. It’s the size of a credit card, and costs less than two dollars, yet the packaging has been designed to attract buyers who wouldn’t otherwise pick up a pack of gum at all. Of course for Stride, this is a great marketing idea and probably a successful way to rake in more sales.

But when I saw this product in the check-out aisle, it wasn’t the gum company I thought about. It was me, the consumer. Why, if I liked Shaun White, would I buy this pack of gum? Surely it can’t taste much different from spearmint or wintermint or peppermint. It doesn’t fit better in a pocket or purse. It’s not cheaper and it’s not likely to gain me any friends, make me any money, secure me any crowns in heaven, or otherwise offer fringe benefits. I conclude, therefore, that buying this gum has everything to do with the image on the front. If I like Shaun White, I want to have something with his face on it in my possession. Even if 12 sticks later, it will just be tossed into the trash like any other gum package.

This conclusion led me to reflect on other image-related choices we make every day. Things like home décor and clothing are obviously sight-based decisions. We buy these things primarily for what they look like. But other decisions, and not just shopping decisions, are less obviously but equally sight-based.

This weekend, I had a friend over for breakfast. This was a perfect opportunity to use the tea party dishes I inherited from my Grammy. They’re white with gold edges and different designs of fruit and leaves are painted on each one. Each plate has a round divot where the tea cup sits. I set the table with these, some glass tumblers for orange juice, and dark plaid cloth napkins. For breakfast, I planned to make buttermilk pancakes which in my head were perfect circles, golden brown on both smooth sides, thick and puffy like a good diner would make. This was wishful thinking. They were lopsided, flattish, crinkled from bad flipping technique, and of varying shades from something you could kindly call gold to something you could most certainly call brown. They were ugly. However, they tasted quite perfect with butter and syrup and a cup of hot coffee. If I closed my eyes they were even diner-perfect.

After breakfast, we worked on some craft projects which will be Christmas presents for our family members. This was most certainly an eye-driven activity and we aimed to make creations that will please our loved ones visually while also serving their function. (No more details or the surprises will be spoiled!) Our vision made these projects possible and our attention to sight-based detail made them beautiful.

Later in the day, I went for a walk and clipped some branches from a big evergreen tree dotted with tiny pinecones. I propped the branches up in vases and bottles and jars around my house and set a Christmas-y mood in just a few minutes.

I say “the eyes have it” because I think if we don’t keep them in check, they really do. More than our other senses, sight is immediate, constant, works from a distance, and is often out of our control. Sight, more than our other senses, is the reason we desire certain things. I wanted pine branches in my home to signify to anyone who comes in that this is a festive place, laced with seasonal spirit and made cozy with personal touches by its thoughtful caretaker. This is not wrong. I wanted my pancakes to look like creamy moons because it would signify my domesticity, my skill with a frying pan, and my ability to make a stellar, diner-quality breakfast. This was slightly more wrong. While buying WhiteMint gum would not have been wrong, buying it for the simple reason of having the name and picture of a celebrity in my purse would have bordered on obsessive.

I caution myself, with these reflections, to be alert for things that merely attract my eyes. I think Jesus meant it when he called the eyes “the lamp of your whole body.” Are my eyes full of light? Or easily drawn to darkness? I hope that I will have the wisdom to shine a clear and revealing light on that which is appealing to my eyes, rather than being a servant to them. May my eyes – and yours – be filled with pleasing things this Christmas season, but always slow to feast greedily on easy pleasure and quick to look more deeply at things deserving more than a cursory glance.

Cookie Day

 [Today's post brought to you by 18-year-old me. The following is an Essay of Observation, written when I was a senior in high school. It is just as accurate today as it was seven years ago. Photos are from today, not 2004.]

Checkerboards, not featured in the post.

The countertops are glistening as I come into the kitchen.  Today is cookie-baking day and Mom has wiped every surface clean.  Christmas music drifts in from the family room.

Shanna rummages through muffin tins and plastic silverware in the bottom cupboard, her hands finally emerging with the shiny black cookie sheets and stainless steel cooling racks.  I reach to the top shelf of another cupboard, fumbling for the plastic canisters of flour and sugar.  Mom rustles through her old, red Betty Crocker cookbook to find the stained and tattered booklet that contains all of our precious recipes.  Our favorites are marked in yellow highlighter and the kinds to prepare first have been carefully numbered in pencil. 

Before long the air is hazy with flour and our fingers are sticky.  The mixer drones on as I snap the switch to low speed and pour in a teaspoon of vanilla.  Shanna uses a warm dishcloth to wipe a thin film of flour off the plastic-coated recipe card and reads off the next few ingredients.  Mom is recounting the sticks of butter softening on the counter.  Butter is a staple in all of our calorie-laden cookie recipes.

The oven timer barks anxiously and there is a mad rush to save the batch from any trace of singeing.  Presently the cookies are sampled.  They might be my favorite sugar-coated “pecan snowballs,” their delicate nuttiness melting on my tongue.  Or maybe buttery spritz cookies crumbling at the first bite.  

Tiers of Spritz

At last the final cup of flour has been measured and the final cookie has been decorated.  The oven has been switched off and the last batch of cookies has been counted and set out to cool.  We collect the Christmas cookie tins and rinse out last year’s crumbs.  Then, layering them between ragged sheets of waxed paper, we gently nestle the cookies in the tins.  With a final sheet of waxed paper on the top layer of each tin, we snap on the lids and pack them away for a brief hibernation in the basement freezer.

A Busy Weekend and New Things

This weekend I went out to my school for our annual Auction. I haven't been in years, but on Saturday I met up with my best friend, and we bought chicken corn soup and apple dumplings and watched the bidding on home goods, furniture, and the "class baskets." I ran into some old friends and soaked up some nostalgia. It was perfect. Later in the day, I went over to the school where Peter teaches where there was a similar homecoming event. We ate BBQ chicken and watched a soccer game, then Pete played in a staff vs. alumni volleyball tournament. It was a lot of fun, and we even won a rocking chair at the silent auction.

When we were ready to go home, I decided to drive out to a nearby furniture outlet first. They're going out of business and I thought I'd check for a cheap love seat. All the furniture in our apartment - and I mean all of it - was used. It was either mine previously, Peter's previously, or we bought it second hand, or it belonged to a family member who graciously gave it to us. We did not own a single new item. Our beautiful queen bed belonged to my cousin. I haggled for our retro kitchen table set at an antique store. The hutch by the door was in Pete's parents' basement and Dad repainted it for us. Many of these items we love partially for the stories that come with them. They are family pieces that we were proud to inherit. Our love seat, though, which belonged to Peter's grandmother, was one piece we did not plan to keep for long.

The love seat on move-in day... when the living room was clean.

The pattern was a seventies floral, brown and mustard and splashes of turquoise. But the whole thing was a few shades darker than its original color, made dirty by the years. It was a sturdy piece of furniture, and we appreciated having it when we moved in, but it was first on the list to be replaced.

Thus, I went to the furniture outlet. As I came in the door, I was greeted by a tall man in a white button down shirt with greying hair.

"I guess I'm your furniture salesman," he said. "I'm Rick. What are you looking for?"

I told him just a love seat, and he said most things were being sold in sets, but he knew of two love seats being sold singly. I liked one, texted a picture of it to Pete, called Dad to ask if it was a good deal, and within a half hour, I was driving to the warehouse to pick it. Peter's dad met me with the pick up truck, and then brought it over to our house.

The new love seat, in Olympic Chocolate.

Now, it's in the living room, our first truly "new" home item. I like it. Pete loves it. He napped on it this afternoon. I'm cozied up on it now. It's settling in and becoming part of the things that make up home.

In other weekend news, I hung out with my Bible Study girls Friday night to throw Jen a baby shower, Sunday afternoon we celebrated Peter's dad's birthday, and just this evening I made bread pudding. Most interesting of all, though, on Saturday I met a woman in the parking lot of Martin's who told me her whole life story as if I were an old friend. She saw me taking a picture in the parking lot (because I'll miss Martin's and I wanted a picture of it) and she pulled up beside me in her minivan and said, "Oh, I'm so glad you're taking a picture! I was just going to take a picture, because I'm out in the middle of nowhere, aren't I, and I wanted to show my son where I went to get fabric for his little girl, but I was worried I'd offend someone by taking a picture of this place!" It was quite sweet, actually. She told me how tough her job is and what it was like being a single mom who wasn't out to land a new husband, but was focused on her kids, and how people always think she's younger than she is which was always fine, but now she's a grandmother and she doesn't want people to think she's a "hoochie-mama," so now she wants to look her age for the first time... I'll be praying for this woman, a special ed teacher in Philadelphia who's helping her son raise a 9-year-old granddaughter whose mom died four years ago. Her name is Laura, and you can pray for her too.

New things: Jen's coming-in-two-weeks baby. Laura's story. A rocking chair. Our chocolate love seat. The bread pudding cooling on the counter. And the week that's about to begin.

Extravagance

I have started playing a game with myself when I go food shopping each weekend. The game is: buy as little as possible. The game is secretly: spend as little money as possible, but that is not as fun. I challenge myself to recall what I already have at home, and to work with those items, plus a carefully selected collection of economical new items, to create a week's worth of food for me and Pete.

Today I played the game in an even more challenging environment. After church today we went on a date to... Wegman's. Although we agree there is nothing inherently wrong with the veritable cornucopia of fruits, vegetables, breads, cheeses, meats, seafood delicacies, and baked goods, the abundance of food at Wegman's seems a bit extreme. And it does make it extremely easy to fall into greediness and to desire the luxurious life that is associated with cartfuls of expensive food. Walking by displays of bright orange peppers, just-misted bunches of fresh parsley, bundles of sunflowers, and $4 menu magazines is tempting. But I actually did well with my game at Wegman's today. The one luxury I planned to purchase - English crumpets - was out of stock. So I was spared that indulgence.

For a girl who's become accustomed to shopping at ALDI - where there are absolutely no frills - the extravagance of Wegman's is a bit of a shock. So are the women in heeled leather boots drinking lattes while they shop for organic fat free ice cream and Romanesco broccoli. There's a woman handing out tiny sample cups of just-squeezed orange juice. A small child is screaming at the gelato bar where her grandmother is about to buy her chocolate ice cream. There's a whole aisle of various international foods (although NOT crumpets). There's a miniature train set suspended from the ceiling that chug-a-chug-chug's in a loop above your head in the cheese section. The environment of the luxury grocery store is a bit embarrassing.

But at the heart of Wegman's and ALDI is the fulfillment of a basic human need - the need to eat. And if I can create meals that tantalize, satisfy, and nourish us, I don't think it matters where I've purchased the ingredients. Wegman's is a place to ponder the creativity of God in his design of a world full of edible things. At ALDI, food is just food; no fanfare. Either place, it's a loaves and fishes game to make something plentiful out of whatever I can afford. Sometimes, tossing in a little something extra is alright too. Today, a five-dollar container of gourmet olives from the Mediterranean Bar was not on the shopping list, but it made Pete's day. And for my splurge - if you know where I can get crumpets, let me know.