Sugar Creek Farm

I posted this last winter… but I still love it & seem to revisit it this time every year.

“There’s a point where you can give up on winter–when temptation can enter your soul, prying its way in like cold air through the cracks in your cabin–around January sixteenth or so, and this can make you realize that February’s coming, and beyond February, March.

The colder it gets, the more you’ve got to love it.”

Rick Bass, “Winter – Notes from Montana”

You might recall from last year, my in-laws rock at gift giving. Well, they rock at a lot of things, and it’s one of life’s major suckages that they live on the opposite side of the country from us.

This year, they sent me this:

I love it. I actually like having to wait for things now… for the kids to get out of practice, or for my car to be serviced. I have my Kindle in my purse & I whip it out and enjoy the wait. But having it sloshing around in my purse was worrying me, so I decided to make a cozy little protective case for it.

I started with a wool sweater from Goodwill that I’d felted.

I measured my kindle’s width & height and added an inch and a half to each measurement. It was 4-3/4″ wide and 7-1/4″ tall, so I cut out 2 pieces from the sweater, each measuring 6-1/4″ by 8-3/4″.

Then I cut out 2 pieces of coordinating cotton fabric that same size for the lining, and 2 pieces of heavy fusible interfacing that were just 1/2″ taller & wider (i.e. 5-1/4″ by 7-3/4″). Iron the interfacing to the wrong side of the cotton fabric.

(Sorry some of these pictures aren’t so great… one of the dangers of crafting late at night.)

Take the 2 pieces of sweater, put the right sides together, and sew them together down one side, across the bottom, and up the other side with 1/2″ seam allowance. In other words, you’ll have a pocket with the top open when you’re done. Trim close to the seam allowance and turn it right side out.

Put the 2 pieces of lining fabric right sides together and sew them together down one side, and partway across the bottom. Stop and leave an unsewn gap along the bottom of the lining approxiately 2-1/2″ long. Resume sewing across the remainder of the bottom and up the other side. Leave the lining fabric “pocket” wrong side out when you’re done.

You’ll also need a button. Any button will do, I just dug one out of my button jar.

Take a piece of the lining fabric and cut it 4 times as wide as you want the final width of the button loop to be, and 4 times as long as the width of the button. Fold it in half and sew it together with 1/4″ seam allowance. The ends will be open. Turn it right side out through one of the ends, and press with the seam centered on one side. Fold it in half again and edge stitch. Then make a loop out of it. You’ll have to sort of figure out how big of a loop you need to go around your button. You want it to be secure, but don’t make it too tight.

Stick the sweater “pocket” down inside of the lining “pocket”. Line up the top edges and pin together. Take your button loop and stick it between the sweater layer & the lining layer, with the top of the loop pointing down towards the bottom of the pockets. Pin it in place. If you’ve done it right, all you’ll see is the tail end of the loop sticking up from between the layers. This is what it looks like before you sew:

Sew around the top of the pockets. Then pull the sweater pocket out through the gap you left in the bottom of the lining pocket:

After you get the sweater layer pulled through, sew the gap in the lining pocket shut and then push the lining down into the sweater pocket. Sew the button on, and you’re done!

Now I can carry it around in my purse without the screen getting scratched!

You can follow these same steps for any generally flat, rectangular device. The girls want me to make holders for their iPods now. However I think for anything smaller I wouldn’t use a sweater. It would get too bulky for small items. I think for theirs I’ll use cotton fabric for the outside and flannel for the lining.

1 year ago:

Iowa Food Coop, January

Winter

Making lemonade

The other night I heard Matt outside shouting at someone, or something. I knew none of the kids were out there doing chores with him, so I went to take a look at what was going on.

This is what I saw…

And of course the first thing I did was grab my camera.

Matt has to go thru the sow pen to get to the cow pen, and just leaves the gate open until he’s done. The sows don’t usually wander too far, but this day I guess they got a wild hair or something. They were down the driveway almost to the road. (One good one + Ollie the boar stayed put.)

The second thing I did was throw on my coveralls & go out to try & help. But Matt had them all rounded up by the time I got out there.

1 year ago:

Change

Well, even though ’tis the Season, I’m not talking about those kinds of gifts. On Sunday I attended the funeral of a dear soul, taken too soon from us at the age of 46 by a brain tumor. The service was attended by hundreds, and testimony to her bright and generous spirit abounded. She loved deeply, and was deeply loved.

I went to the service expecting to come away comforted, inspired, hopeful. Instead I came home feeling dejected, inadequate, and hopeless. I want so much to be more like her, to help others, to touch lives. But I wasn’t feeling up to the task, wasn’t feeling like I had it in me, wasn’t feeling like I was born with the right tools.

As I was writing in my journal about these feelings, this Bible passage came to mind:

God hands out various kinds of gifts, but they all originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere, but they all originate in God’s Spirit. Works done in the name of God are in action everywhere, but God is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is. Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits! All kinds of gifts are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people. He distributes them to each one, as He sees fit. The variety is wonderful: wisdom and wise counsel; knowledge and clear understanding; faith and simple trust; gifts of healing; miraculous powers; prophecy; distinguishing between spirits. To one, the ability to speak in tongues; to another, the ability to interpret tongues.

All of these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when. [This is particularly hopeful to me… We are not necessarily born with all of our gifts. He may give us more later, at the appropriate time!]

You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts – limbs, organs, cells – but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. So it is with Christ. We are all baptized by one Spirit, so that no matter what other labels we once used to identify ourselves – labels like Jew or Gentile, slave or free – we leave our old, partial and piecemeal lives behind and become integrated, a part of Jesus’ resurrected body.

This makes you more significant, not less! A body is not any one large part. It’s all the different-but-similar parts, arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” it would not for that reason stop being a part of the body. If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where He wanted it. ~ 1 Corinthians 12: 4-18 [My own mash-up of The Message and the NIV versions]

It was the reminder I needed, the reminder that I don’t have to be (and am not expected to be) just like anyone but myself. How many of us truly use the gifts that we have, right where we are, to help others? Jana did. And that’s how all of us can be more like her. Figure out what gifts we’ve been given, and how to use them to help others in some way.

So tell me… what are your gifts, and in what ways have you been inspired to use them?

1 year ago:

How to Cook : Pizza

Once again, catching up. A lot of times I read a prompt, let it roll around my brain for a day or so, then write a long drawn-out response. But today I’m going to read a prompt and just write right away, stream-of-consciousness style. Here goes…

Day 8 :: Beautifully Different
Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful. (Author, Karen Walrond)

I have to admit, this has been the hardest one for me so far. Why is it so hard to talk about the good parts of ourselves? I can rattle off my own character flaws with ease, but tell you something positive about myself? I’m stuck. I’d like to say “moving on…” and leave it right here. But in faithfulness to the prompts, I’ll answer.

I do know that the scrapbooks I make for my niece & nephew light them up, and that makes me happy.

I know (because my husband tells me so) that my brain doesn’t work like other people’s. (I think he actually said that about all computer programmers, and not just me in particular.) This can make communicating with other people tricky – I seem to always be on a different wavelength, and it tends to make me feel…lonely. But I also tend to see or intuit things that others don’t, and that feels like a gift.

Day 9 :: Party
What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans. (Author, Shauna Reid)

Whew, an easy one! My birthday party/trip to NYC last month, hands down. I got to usher in my 40’s with one of my best friends in the whole world. I met some really awesome people, and ate really awesome food with them. I got to dress up in my fabulous new black zipper dress and my black boots and hit the town. Of course the drink would be the infamous “make us a blue drink” and the truth that adding pineapple juice to it just makes it green, not better. And finally, shenanigans. Fell asleep on the train; missed our stop; got off 3 stops later; sat in the train station waiting for a cab, talking & laughing hysterically the whole time (probably to the annoyance of the other people sitting there with us at 2:00 a.m.)

Day 10 :: Wisdom
What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out? (Author, Susannah Conway)

That would be our decision to drop one farmers market and alternate our attendance at the other two, effectively going from 3 markets per week to 1. Our gross sales were lower, of course, but our per market sales were up. So our time felt better used, and our life was slightly less insane.

Day 11 :: 11 Things
What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life? (Author, Sam Davidson)

I like this prompt, because it’s forcing me to think in more detail about what I touched on in Day 1. But it’s difficult to answer, shooting straight from the hip. Let’s see… (Stress, self-doubt, “shoulds”, time wasters, self-consciousness, unrealistic expectations, fear, unhealthy habits, resentment, the need to control everything, things that don’t “fit” right anymore)

Hmm, at first I felt like that list is too generic and vague, a cop out. But then again, I think I may tack this list above my desk, print a copy for my purse, tape it to my mirror. Keeping this list at hand might just help me eliminate those things. When I’m faced with a situation or a decision, I can weigh it against the list. If it falls into one of those categories…it’s gone.

As for how getting rid of them will change my life? It would allow in more love, peace, hope and joy. It would allow me to focus better on what’s important, and what my purpose might be.

Wow, I’m glad I forced myself to do this prompt straight-off and not ruminate on it. I like the result 🙂

Day 12 :: Body Integration
This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present? (Author, Patrick Reynolds)

I had moments like this this year, all happened when I was physically exercising in some way. The most recent was at an early-morning exercise class. We were doing a strength/balance exercise, holding a certain pose for a longer time, and focusing on a spot on the floor to help. I got to a point where I just felt so very focused, strong, calm…Zen.

1 year ago:

You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille

So, I was rolling right along with Reverb10. And then my website, this website, got hacked. I don’t understand it at all. Frankly, I was insulted. And it threw me off. Thankfully my new web host had me back up & running in no time. Time to catch back up…

Day 4 :: Wonder
How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Author, Jeffrey Davis)

I think yesterday’s post addresses this somewhat. I cultivate wonder in my life when I get myself out into nature. These are the types of vacations we usually take.

Another way to cultivate wonder is to see things through the eyes of someone a little or a lot younger than you. Jump into their world for a while. Rafe Henry, at age 8, is great for this. The other day I went outside looking for him, wanting to take a picture of him out on his cross country skis for the first time this winter. I found him on his back in the snow, giggling away. Ah, the wonder of the first snowfall.

Day 5 :: Let Go
What (or whom) did you let go of this year? (Author, Alice Bradley)

And this one I addressed a bit on Day 1. I let go of some expectations of myself, some expectations of others, some of my hobbies. I let go of striving. Don’t know if that makes sense, but for so long my life has felt like a constant striving for… I’m not even sure at this point. Something different, something more. But this year I let that go, and just layed low.

Day 6 :: Make
What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it? (Author, Gretchen Rubin)

I’ve made a few things lately. My annual calendar for family & friends. That’s all done on the computer and printed at Lulu. Saturday night Rafe helped me decorate some canning jars with fake snow, pinecones and bits of greenery, topped off with candles. Then I finally did a craft I’ve had the materials for for years now & it’s just been sitting in the closet. I had an old pair of ice skates I picked up at a garage sale. I filled each one with greeney and various bits of bling, tied them together, sprayed silver glitter on everything, and hung them outside by the porch.

The thing I’m really wanting to make is Madeline’s scrapbook. I think I’m only thru about 2nd or 3rd grade with her. Yes, she’s a sophomore in high school now. So I’m starting to have little panic attacks about having this done before she graduates. But carving out some regular time for it seems to be problematic. I hope to work on that in 2011.

Day 7 :: Community
Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? (Author, Cali Harris)

The community that was new to me this year was small, but in a good way. I did a Lenten book study with my pastor and a handful of other church members, and I’m currently doing an Advent book study with some of the same group. I’ve enjoyed getting to know these people “out of the pew”, so to speak. Which makes me wonder about joining (or starting, if there aren’t any to join) a book club in my area.

I do crave community. Even though I love working from home, one of the downsides is that I don’t get out much. I miss the social interaction. The kids’ events are my main “adult time” these days, and I enjoy that. I do have my monthly Bunco group (which I think is going on our 17th year, wow!) A book club could be a way of getting to know new people (or to know people I’m acquainted with better), and give me an excuse to read.

How about you? Even if you’re not doing #reverb10, feel free to share your answers to any of the prompts right here in the comments! I’d love to hear your take on them! And if you are doing #reverb10, feel free to leave a link to your posts in the comments.

Day 3 prompt:
Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors.) (Author, Ali Edwards)

If I am honest, the moment I felt most alive this year – or most aware of my “aliveness”, anyway – was when I was sitting with my grandma in the nursing home before she died.

But I’m not ready to write about that yet.

Instead I’ll write about the moment I stood at The Notch in Badlands National Park.

Many of the moments when I feel most alive happen in moments of awe and wonder at the God-given beauty of this orbiting chunk of rock we all live on. I’m such a fan of the National Park System. The 5 of us set off on The Notch trail in a windy, 104-degree heat. The hiking guide warns that this trail is not recommended for persons with a fear of heights.

I’m not actually a fan of heights.

But I really, really wanted to do this one. Off we went, and before long came to the ladder:

Going up wasn’t so bad. (But isn’t that always the way with ladders?)

Once up top, the trail wound through Badlands formations, getting really narrow at times. It was covered with small rocks that made it slippery. And it was so hot I can’t even describe. We didn’t bring enough water. I began to question my parenting skills, bringing the kids up here.

Matt helps Rafe through a tricky spot.

It was hot. It was dry. It was dusty. And everything was a monochromatic shade of tan. But once we reached The Notch, the view was totally worth it.

looking out over the White River Valley and Pine Ridge Reservation

An expanse of green still punctuated with those seemingly random rock formations… awe and wonder, as I said. We sat, and rested, and just took it all in. I think that’s why you feel most alive in moments like these, because you are in the moment.

Of course, we still had to go back. And the climb down the ladder was, in a word, scary.

But we made it. It’s funny how it seems so obvious to me at the time, how good just being in nature is for me. And we have plenty of beautiful little parks here, and even my parents’ farm fits the bill. But somehow I forget, once we’re back home and wrapped up in the day-to-day again.

Maybe a big sticky note to self will help?

Day 2 prompt:
Writing.What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing – and can you eliminate it? (Author, Leo Babauta)

So interesting, that after writing yesterday about wanting writing back in my life… this prompt appears, asking what I can eliminate. Wow. I’m a little weirded out by that.

My first thought was that nothing in my day contibutes to my writing. I simply haven’t been writing, or journaling, or blogging about much of anything.

My second thought was that the very fact that I have a life contibutes to my writing, even if it isn’t making it to paper at this point in time. And it is life itself that, while not not contributing to my writing, is still keeping me from it.

Yeah, I know. That one’s a tongue twister for the brain.

So what can I possibly eliminate? I don’t watch a lot of TV anymore, don’t read a lot of blogs anymore. Sleep comes to mind, but doesn’t seem prudent. But as I said yesterday, I maybe need to “become” a morning person. Getting up before the rest of the family for a little quiet alone time would probably be effective. Easier said than done for a bonafide night owl in a family of morning people.

I have no answers yet. But just the act of ruminating on it, rolling ideas around, thinking creatively is satisfying. For now.

Today I stumbled across a website called #reverb10. It’s 31 days of journaling prompts to help you “reflect on this year and manifest what’s next“. I love this idea. You may have noticed the blogging around these parts has been rather light as of late. So I’m going to jump in & see if I can make it the entire 31 days. (I’ll probably post them a day behind, i.e. today December 2nd I’m posting the journaling for December 1st’s prompt.)

Here we go…

Day 1’s prompt was :
One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today. What would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

A word for 2010 is difficult. As I think back over the year, it’s more feelings that come to mind… of letting go, of just surviving the craziness of our life right now, of saying no more, of laying low, a blur, a lessening of expectations. I’m not sure what one word would encapsulate all of that.

None of those things are bad, per se. They were necessary, they were deliberately chosen. I needed to just back away from things, get some perspective.

And so the word I’ve found that most closely hits the target is surrender: to relinquish or forego.

My life isn’t any less crazy yet, and won’t be for some time. Which is quite okay…I love the things that make our life crazy right now. Mainly it’s the kids’ activities that make it so, and there is nothing I love more right now than sitting on the sidelines, or in the bleachers, or out in the audience cheering them on. I embrace the crazy and love every minute of it, because it won’t last forever and I know I’ll miss it when it’s done.

But I’m ready to add some things back into my life again, some things for myself, some of the things I’ve relinquished and foregone. Madeline is a sophomore, and the picture of her leaving the nest is slowly coming into focus. The other 2 won’t be far behind. I feel myself already letting go of the reins a bit, letting her start to figure out her own path, slowly disentangling my own identity from hers. Wow, is that hard. But I’m thinking that in order to not end up curled up in the fetal position under my bed on her first day of college… I need to start preparing now. Slowly. Baby steps.

However, in order to add things back in I’m going to need to do some careful editing. Some things are going to have to go, or at least be simplified. I haven’t really started to figure out what those things are yet. It’s easy to say these are things I’d like to have back in my life – writing, photography, craft, gardening, music. It’s oh-so-hard to say these are the things I’m going to have to give up in order to have those other things. It might mean giving up Facebook. Oh, the shock! Me and my technology are so closely wedded. It might mean becoming an early morning person. That one’s hard to imagine, too. It might mean a major purge of our “stuff”. Less stuff to take care of would mean less time spent taking care of it. It might mean giving up the farm. That one is the hardest, for sure, and even harder when that decision isn’t one that can be made by myself.

So at first I was thinking my 2011 word should be joy. Figuring out the things that bring me joy, and making space for them in my life. But I think the word somehow needs to include the flip side, the editing out in order to make room for the things that bring me joy.

Again, not easy to find a single word to encompass all of that. But I finally settled on intent: –noun. Something that is intended; aim; purpose; design. (For some reason, it appeals to me that this word is a noun instead of a verb like surrender.)

It will be interesting to revisit this a year from now & see what’s become of it…

1 year ago:

Piglets, Iowa Food Coop, & winter deliveries

Yes, I know that the health experts will tell you that a steak half the size of your dinner plate is all kinds of wrong. But sometimes, you just don’t want to be right.

The nice thing about having a bunch of beef in the freezer? T-bones twice in one week.

Nevermind that this particular T-bone seems to be more New York Strip. Seems I need to ask the locker about that. (I’m wondering where my loins went…)

Matt grilled some T-bones while I was away last week, and complained that the loin side was tender but the New York Strip side was tough. He couldn’t figure it out. They were certainly well marbled. It was driving him nuts, wondering if it’s breeding, or feeding, or what.

I hate to discourage him from cooking, but I gently suggested it could have been the chef. And, thankfully, the lightbulb seemed to come on over his head. He agreed, he may have not defrosted them completely and/or cooked them too quickly.

You see with lean meat, low and slow is key. The best thing is to cook them until just before they’re done, then take them off the heat to a plate. Cover the plate with foil and let them set 5 or 10 minutes to finish cooking that way.

So he cooked some again tonight to test the blame-the-chef theory. They turned out wonderful.

And yes, I ate the whole thing.

1 year ago:

Fishing