::art in place + a commitment to resourcefulness::

It's called a "sense of place" in literary studies, and it can be achieved through words, music, a tone of voice, precise movements, or images. In other words, the art forms.

Think:

cultural icons and idyllic notions,

the many shades of green,

quirky people

(the kind authors model their turning-point characters after),

very specific food,

Ugly old buildings pouring forth food, fun, and general liveliness,

And vulnerable vessels, ready to transport.

A 'Sense of Place' that can be shared rests here, in these elements.

I hope one day I will have the equipment and the talent to take pictures like these.... and capture the charm of living.

I've always loved photos, and the sounds of my old Rebel G, the shutter shuttering, the flash flashing, and the film winding on the very last picture.

But digital is better; it's more practical and easier to learn about settings. I have the lenses from my old camera; I just hope in the next few years I will have the digital body and can relearn all those old facts I used to know about the formulas for aperture and shutter speed. I've lost them in my years of pocket-sized digital.

Although, I must say, it's fun trying to manipulate my little Sony Cyber-Shot to do what I want it to do; although, we usually have to compromise. It has to give a little more; I have to expect a little less. It's a beautiful life skill.

I think there's another word that fits: reconciliation.

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All of these images are from Garden and Gun, where you can also read a brief article about one photographer's plight to photograph modern-day soldiers using the 19th century technique that captured images of Civil War soldiers. She didn't have the most modern equipment; so maybe I don't need it either. Maybe I need to learn more about light, resourcefulness, resilience, and, well, manipulation.

What would I do with thousands of digital photos of derelict boats, strangers' faces, and dripping 3-tier ice cream cones anyway?

how i feel:

I think I almost forgot how to blog.

Things have been busy. And I mean biiiiizzzzzy. So busy I'm typing this right now with my hair half-way up and my toothbrush in my mouth! (Seriously!)

I haven't blogged. I haven't read other blogs. Husband has been doing all the cooking. No one has been doing the cleaning... but life is great! I have still been taking photos here and there to share with you when I get a prolonged spare moment to upload and edit; I've obtained an amazing strawberry ice cream recipe from a new friend, which I will also share with you; we've joined a Bible Study/Supper Club; and I have a whopping 4.0 so far in graduate school.

So, I get home at 5 every day and immediately buckle down reading and writing about children's literature and education theory. I can't complain; I enjoy every minute of it. I get home at 5 because the last 4 weeks have been packed with reading intervention trainings. The first 2 weeks was the second round of my Orton-Gillingham certification training, which is about a 3-year process to become a certified reading intervention specialist for children with dyslexia. This week and last week I have been helping coach the new trainees for the Greenville Augustine Project, a non-profit that provides reading intervention tutors for children from low-income families. I'm learning so much.

Khan has been going to Doggy Day Camp at the Pet Hotel of a nice man we now call "Uncle Gary." Khan has successfully unlearned everything we've taught him, which has given me some insight into how parents must feel when they send their children to junior high school :)

But that's okay. He's well taken care of, 'Uncle Gary' adores him, and he gets to play all day with other dogs.

And in the midst of it all, Yiota sent me a wonderful little package of sheer delights all the way from Greece... so I will have to share that with you soon as well. Whew! It seems I have a lot of posting to do!

(Thank you, Yiota! It came on the perfect day, right when I needed some light cheer from the other side of the world!)

be careful what you wish for...

Do you ever beg and plead for something for a really long time,

then finally get it,

look at it sitting on the floor of your very own home,

and say,

"Darnit! Now I actually have to figure out how to do something with this!"

(I often wonder if men experience this when they finally get the fancy power tools they've been pining over. Not that they would ever admit it if they did, just like I will never admit to Husband that I have not the slightest notion where I should make the first cut or stitch on this lovely new cloth.)

So, now that I have 9 yards of this fabric, which I love, I have to figure out how to:

a.) sew a nicely fitting slipcover for this chair and ottoman or

b.) reupholster this chair and ottoman or

c.) perform a hybrid reupholster/tailored slipcover operation on this chair and ottoman

I'll be letting you know how this little project is going soon...

(Any suggestions, books, videos, tools, inspiration or seamstresses are welcome.)

web-less, pictureless days in SC...

Speaking of "fussing" (see previous post :)

we're still trying to get our blasted Internet hooked up! It's taking forever. We have all the sports and movie cable channels and landline dial tones I could ever ask for, but the Internet connection is still floundering around, being noncommital.

So, it looks like I will be posting randomly until that's settled, and I won't be sharing pictures of this place until I can find my camera's USB connector. Sheesh! I've unpacked almost everything.... where could that thing be???

In the meantime, picture in your mind's eye the TEN HUGE BOXES FULL of trash sitting on the curb, waiting on the trash truck

AND, my car trunk FULL of "stuff" to take to a local charity.

I love getting rid.

(P.S. We love it here!)

oswald chambers on "fretting"

Oswald Chambers says:

Fussing always ends in sin.

We imagine that a little anxiety and worry are an indication of how really wise we are; it is much more an indication of how really wicked we are. Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way. Our Lord never worried and He was never anxious, because He was not "out" to realize His own ideas; He was "out" to realize God's ideas. Fretting is wicked if you are a child of God.... All our fret and worry is caused by calculating without God.

-from My Utmost for His Highest

success, failure, and la boof

I locked us out of our house at 10:30 on Friday night.

We were coming back from a dinner date, and heading out again to feed an out-of-town neighbor's dog... and there was a little confusion about who exactly had the keys. Turned out, it was neither of us! So, after trying several different routes of getting back into our house, Husband decided to try kicking in the door. It didn't work, but it did break the doorknob. Luckily, a window had been left open from the last time I burned something in the kitchen, so we got in that way.

Lesson learned: Check all the windows before knocking in the front door.

It's a good thing Husband is a builder. He reinstalled it in no time the next morning!

And, he even LAUGHED about it. Whew!

(Yes, the front door is purple. This is a rental house, so I'm enjoying having a purple front door while I can!)

These-- believe it or not-- are macaroons.



Major failure.



Husband dubbed them "Flying Squirrels" and tried to help by saying he bets many pastry chefs have tried to achieve a similar affect as a unique edible art form.

I'm looking for a good macaroon recipe if anybody has one :)

AND NOW,

Rule #1 for cooking from Julia Child's cookbook:

dress as comfortably as you possibly can.

I made her Boeuf Bourguignon this weekend. It took me almost all day on Sunday, but was absolutely worth it. We began affectionately calling it "La Boof" sometime around hour 2 or 3.

My favorite part was browning and simmering the pearl onions.

They were so pretty.

And they glistened and rolled around the pan,

just like pearls.

And the finished product was

definitely akin to a fine jewel.

I couldn't decide which photo to use of the completed dish:

We'll be having the leftovers tonight, which Julia says is when it's best.

Since that took my whole Sunday afternoon, I will be choosing a less intense Julia recipe to cook next weekend and (hopefully) do the sewing I planned to do this weekend,

and save

my poor, dying

Rosemary plant.

Any suggestions?

I have no idea how I'm killing it.

gourmet smourmet

Husband often laughs because I hardly ever follow a recipe exactly, as if I've spent years in culinary school and actually know what to do in the kitchen.

I laugh because that sort of out-of-the-box activity sometimes generates splendid meals,

but more often it generates tragedies.

In this case, I would like you to know that it produced a tragedy for all taste buds involved.

But alas, how would I ever know that grapes, nutmeg, arugula, and grape juice absolutely DO NOT compliment one another until I actually try it?

Surely that's how Julia Child operated, right? By the way, did you know that you can watch The French Chef archives here?