Giveaways...

Giveaways are coming. Three to be exact. One is for chefs, one for bakers, and one for seamstresses and foofy stuff lovers (you know, frilly stuff). I was just going to make them for Mary Jane's Farm people, but where's the fun in that? I shall post on appropriate boards posthaste when the photos are taken. You will be doing me a grand favor helping me jettison more of my MIL's way over ambitious stash (don't get me started) and some items I got when I bought "Betsy", my new (old) Kenmore sewing machine (vintage late seventies or early 80's model).

thanks, and keep your eyes peeled!

Haven't posted in ages, so here's a meme you can do too!

From my friend AKAPastorGuy

What time did you get up this morning? 5:45 like usual

Diamonds or pearls? I'm a woman, I want it all...

The last film you saw at the cinema? U23D.

What is your favorite TV show? Mad Men, although the jury's out on this season still to some degree.

What do you usually have for breakfast? Some kind of diet cola, preferably with Splenda, and an Odwalla bar or Luna bar.

What is your middle name? do we have to go there? Faye.

What food do you dislike? lutefisk

What is your favorite CD at the moment? I like lots of stuff, but listened to a fair amount of Switchfoot today. We blast it at the beginning of our church service each Sunday (since I'm sound girlie, I make sure of that). ;-)

What kind of car do you drive? An ancient Honda, or elderly Buick, or old Ford. So many choices.

Favorite sandwich? I dunno, but that Savory Secret non-dessert cheesecake on Heartland Bakery bread, after a trip in the toaster oven, was really fab today.

What characteristic do you despise? Let's just say this. The opposite of love is not hate. It's indifference.

Favorite item of clothing? Anything that is smaller than I used to be able to wear comfortably. That means a lot of stuff.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go right now?
I'd take just about any real vacation I could get. It's been a long time. I am not too picky at this point.

Favorite brand of clothing? I haven't bought real clothes for a long time, but I think LL Bean and Lands' End last pretty well. Usually I just buy Target closeouts. I need to upgrade in this area a bit.

Where would you retire to? Don't know, depends on what God's got up his sleeve.

What was your most recent memorable birthday? At this age, any birthday is either memorable, or forgotten because of my advanced age.

Farthest place you are sending this? Well, I am surprised to say that I've had about 5,000 hits on my blog, go figure...almost every state and twenty-five countries, so that is something I find quite bizarre/surprising.

Person you expect to send it back first? I don't know if anyone will do it or not. I did it because I hadn't posted in a long while.

When is your birthday? approximately that of the Minnesota Vikings.

Are you a morning person or a night person? I can handle either one, although the early mornings that have happened out of necessity have made me turn in early in the last number of years. I used to stay up quite late before the mandatory 5:45 wake up call.

What is your shoe size? Usually 8.5 or 9.

Number of Pets? Three felines own the house and hubs and I are their dutiful, if lacking, slaves.

Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us? Hopefully, by the grace of God, I will have some soon.

What did you want to be when you were little kid? Stewardess. Got cured of that fast.

How are you today? Interesting and challenging day, looking forward to midnight when it's officially over.

What is your favorite candy? Just one?! Peanut Butter Twix if we're slumming, good quality milk or dark chocolate otherwise.

What is your favorite flower? Whatever hubs brings home for me.

What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? Fall Break.

What is your full name? to you, I am nashbabe. :-)

What are you listening to right now? The Thursday Night Football season opener, and I think hubs will soon turn it to the McCain speech. Right now, I'm thinking Sarah Palin is an OTAY! chickie.

What was the last thing you ate? Mashed potatoes, which is quite out of the ordinary for me.

Do you wish on stars? Occasionally

If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Black or Purple

How is the weather right now? Twas a beautiful day in Nashvegas.

Last person you spoke to on the phone? hubs

Favorite soft drink? See "what did I have for breakfast"

Favorite restaurant? something local, tasty, non-chain, etc. How about some pizza at Angelos, maybe some tacos authenticos at La Terraza, some bun chai gio at Kien Ghang or Miss Saigon? Those all sound pretty good to me.

Hair color? Brown, the free highlights are long gone, and a few grey hairs I pull obsessively.

What was your favorite toy as a child? Tonka camper truck. Kewl. And of course Barbies, which I dressed in space-age aluminum foil costumes.

Summer or winter? Winter if it really has snow.

Hugs or kisses? Yes.

Chocolate or Vanilla? Depends on which one's got better ingredients. Junk ice cream is disgusting.

Coffee or tea? How 'bout some "unsweet."

Do you want your friends to email you back? Friends who email me? Huh? Can't think of too many offhand. Texting, baby!!!

When was the last time you cried? This afternoon.

What is under your bed? Probably Emily the cat.

What did you do last night? nothing exciting

What are you afraid of? losing my passion

Salty or sweet? Yes please. Add cruncy, and you have nirvana.

How many keys on your key ring? Yikes. A lot.

How many years at your current job? Hmm, which one? The one that pays nominally, or the one that doesn't pay at all and has retirement benefits that are out of this world? I guess both are about nine years.

Favorite day of the week? They all run together.

How many towns have you lived in? Six.

Do you make friends easily? I think I'm a pretty giving and friendly person, but in the final analysis don't have many friends.

How many people will you send this to? Whomever shows up here at the blog.

How many will respond? I have no idea.

Hand dyeing of cotton yarn...

I've been wanting to do this with some items I have already finished in cream/ecru Sugar N Cream or Peaches N Creme-type cotton yarn. Lo and behold, I found this tutorial at yarngear that looks to have all the elements I'm looking for. If I can get these done this week, I'll have a bunch of new items to sell at market.

Why I do the market.

One of the various places I sell my wares is a farmer's market. It is a particularly good one, and now is well attended. It wasn't always that way; we slaved in obscurity for several years before folks caught on.

One of the people who has been most helpful in my climb out of despair suggested I write a list of good things that happen each day. A while ago, sometimes all it consisted of was "I didn't off myself today" or "I didn't off my hubby today". Sort of kidding on the last one, not totally kidding on the first one.

Things have been getting better, though. Kind of a Romans 8:28 kinda thing.

The truth of the matter, though, is that even when things have been at their worst, market has usually to almost always been a place to gain positive things that I need on many levels. Even last summer, in a time of great despair.

With that in mind, here are some reasons I do the market:

*Help pay kiddo's tuition. Yeah, we send someone else's kid to school. I know, that sounds crazy, especially if you don't know us. Trust us, that kid is WAY worth it.

*A consistent place to get cash flow to help our family.

*Beyond that, a place to show my talents to the world; well, actually, our little corner of the world. :-)

*It's in an area of town with disposable income and interest in my products.

*Some of the friendliest, most giving folks around are fellow vendors. It's a pleasure to work alongside them.

*Customers are so complimentary. It's always good to hear about how much people like your product. A few times, it's downright embarrassing (see below).

*Absolutely no buy/sell (flea market product). You either made it or grew it yourself. Period.

*Only one crabby person in five years of selling there. A guy rushed in at the end of market one May day and said gruffly, "where are the tomatoes?" I explained that the market is all-local and as such tomatoes would not be there for several more weeks. "Well, where am I supposed to get my tomatoes?" he grunted, and I wanted to say "well, there's a Publix down the street...."

*It is one of the two places where I can just about always forget about the trials of our life and just be there. The other one is when I walk; more about that soon.

*Lots of lovely organic and conventional produce; yummy breads, muffins, and pies; grass-fed meats (not like I can afford them, but I'm sure they're great); dairy; and great addon/gifty stuff like my own--I sell candles, soaps, air fresheners, lavender eye pillows, flax seed wraps, aprons, hairbands, bags, scarves, you name it, I make it.

*A hardworking market manager who understands what I am attempting to do by being at market and is very supportive of my mission.

*And where else can I hear some guy I have never met (who bought my product somewhere else) tell a prospective customer "you have to buy her Cranberry Orange candles; they will change your life." Wow. Actually I was thinking "dude, you need to get out more!" ;-)

So if you're local, get on out to our market...email me for details. And if you're not, check out the farmer's market in your neighborhood...not only are they good for veggies, but they may just give you some enjoyment and relaxation to boot.

Complete with photo illustrations.

The "bible" of diagnosis in the psychology/psychiatry world is the DSM-IV: the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Our joke around our house is that in this tome of shrinky-dinkdom (isn't a word, but oughta be) ;-) that our family (both sides) and kiddo's family (several generations) have their photos featured next to quite a number of the various disorders.

Which probably led to my major depression.

But I'm gettin' better. :-)

Hey, we have to laugh about this somehow...

A word of thanks.

When I started blogging a year-ish ago, I didn't realize where it would go; of course, does anyone? Yesterday I spoke with someone from a considerable distance away who let me know that they read my blog from time to time. I had no idea.

Thanks to any and all who stop by here now and then. I'll try to make it at least somewhat interesting or applicable. Speaking of useful/applicable, I have a plan to do that in a specific way. More about that soon.

Again, thanks.

Might just be Psalm 90.

Another blessing, a nice-sized one. This one took a whopping hour to happen ;-) after I stuck my neck out a wee bit. After all these things happening, I am thinking that the tail end of Psalm 90 just might apply...God's certainly drawing a lot of attention to Himself in a good way, and as our friend James says (not the book of the Bible, our friend!), we are "bragging on God."

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.

May your deeds be shown to your servants,
your splendor to their children.

May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.

All things bookish.

My friend Mel had this interesting tidbit on her blog. Looks like I have a little reading to do, especially after successfully convincing kiddo that the book is always better than the movie.

Is There A Movie Adapted From That?

The story is that apparently the National Endowment for the Arts estimates that the average adult has only read six of these books. Here are the markup guidelines:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.

2) Italicize those you intend to read.

3) Mark in red the books you LOVE.

4) Reprint this list in your blog


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkein

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 The complete works of Shakespeare -- I've read some, but by no means all

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

An overnight sensation.

People in this town, to swoop into huge generalization mode, are either natives (not that many) or people with a plan. They're here to be discovered. And a whole lot of them don't deserve to be, or won't work hard enough, or don't have the right look (yep, it does come down to that), or their skin isn't thick enough, they aren't unique enough, they're too unique and can't easily be categorized, etc.

Hey, I have to count myself among those who moved here with a plan. Actually, I visited Schmoozic City five years before I actually moved here. My goal was to become a record executive type. Yep, I did it. And now it's in my rear view mirror, off to a different calling.

The other day we met a musician in our neighborhood. An actual working musician. They call this city "Music City" on purpose, but a recent statistic stated that we have the most working musicians of any city in America--yep, more than New York or the city of angels. This, however, is deceptive...if I recall correctly, the survey said that this meant .6 of a percentage in this town actually made their living being a musician.

Which brings me to Keith Urban.

That guy played gigs in this town for eons, with some local following, but no major impact. He even signed with a good sized label, but no major impact there. He moved here sixteen years ago, and for most of that time labored in obscurity.

All of a sudden, it seemed, things exploded for him. And now Mr. Nicole Kidman is a superstar, and still hangs out in local venues because that's how we are in Music City--virtually paparazzi free, and not swarmed by residents. We treat famous people like that almost universally, so when Keith and Nicole want to go out to Bread and Company, or go see a movie, or go to Bed Bath and Beyond, we leave them the heck alone. I know when I saw Ronnie Dunn at kiddo's cross country meets, or sat next to Darrell Waltrip at one of kiddo's soccer games, I left them the heck alone...and so did everyone else.

But the bottom line was, Keith labored for a long, long time without anyone noticing to speak of. Yeah, he was cute back then too...so that's not it. Perhaps he made it partially because he was like us: TSTQ. That's our acronym around here: depending on the day we call it "Too Stubborn To Quit" or "Too Stupid to Quit."

That's certainly part of how hubs and I have stayed together twenty five years, at least some segment of it. Although I have to say--how could ANYONE stay together without God? That puzzles me, frankly...

So to the story at hand. Last Monday was a horrifically despairing day. We didn't see any way to get from the crises that had lingered like bad odors, some for many months, and no way out. Then in the span of thirty-six hours last Tuesday and Wednesday, we had five important positive things happened that gave us great hope, comfort, and provision. All after striving for a couple of years on some of it.

I had pleaded to God to show me what to do next, actually yelled at Him, knowing from the Psalms that He can take it. That was cathartic in a way, but still no word. Then all of a sudden...wow. Hubs and I could see the effort that we had been putting in for so long come together, in a great relief. I can see this being the time of blessing that equals the time of suffering that the writer in Psalm 90 talks about. So grateful, thankful, joyous...can't begin to put words to it that truly describe the place we reside right now.

Hey, we can't sing like Keith Urban, but we know what "overnight success" feels like. God has very interesting timing, and does quite an admirable job showing that it is indeed God's work. At the same time, waiting for resolution/blessing/provision to rain down on one's head without doing the work one can do and needs to do is a pretty much pointless activity (or lack thereof).

If you've been praying for us, we are truly grateful. Thanks.

By request: Anniversary Pasta Salad

Let's take a break from the madness. I need one, you do too? Okay, how about cooking something summery? Put those crises in a pillowcase, thrash them about a bit, and then tie the top. Yeah, they'll escape soon enough, but at least right now they're chewing on each other trying to get out.

Okay, off to the kitchen. I think both cooking and baking can be therapeutic for different reasons. Baking: reassuring and orderly. Cooking: a whack on the side of the head, a jolt that might get me thinking differently about the problem(s) and possibly come up with other ideas.

This is a salad I threw together for our 25th anniversary party. I consider cooking an art and baking a science. In other words, baking is almost uniformly a science experiment, i.e. combine the exact ingredients in the exact measure in the exact conditions (humidity, heat, etc.) and you should have a baked good emerge from your efforts. Baking is very gratifying because it doesn't fall along the realm of unpredictability, by and large. Do these exact things, and you should end up with the baked good of your dreams.

On the other hand, I consider cooking an art. Throw in a little of this and a little of that, and see what you come up with. Keep track of what you did, or you'll never be able to replicate it again. Or intentionally DON'T keep track, and enjoy a one time adventure.

Here's the ingredients. Need I say that they are open to experimentation, and you'll have to come up with the amounts yourself? It wouldn't be an art otherwise, would it?

Here are my suggestions:

Pretty pasta. I used Neptune's Dream pasta (photo and vendor shown), but of course that's all up to you. I like the multicolored aspect, but you could always go monochromatic.
Pesto dressing. I just used Kraft.
Roasted red peppers
Chopped green pepper
Black olives
Artichoke hearts
Basil (yeah, I added some more) and extra virgin olive oil
Chopped garlic cloves
Crumbled feta cheese
Chopped vidalia onions
Salt, pepper, whatever other seasonings suit you.

Okay, run with it, and make something exclusively your own. Not necessarily a substitute for therapy, but a heck of an adjunct. :-)

King's Island...

ain't got nothin' on us. Hangin' on. These past few days have been a wild ride.

The last twenty four hours...

...have been a great encouragement. A couple of things we have labored over for months, one for over a year, have started to show signs of life and positive motion. Perhaps remembering the psalm about continuing to sow seed despite many tears of despair has been the great comfort and encouragement we needed. God is at work, which I knew intellectually but not in the deep core of my being. My heart's getting some much needed encouragement today and I am so grateful.

Perhaps this is a good moment to share something I wrote the other day before this all happened.

The rain, whether from the sky or from my eyes, almost always happens on a dark and gloomy day. If my heart is like receptive soil, and not hardened, I can receive something helpful and nurturing from the rain, rather than having it roll off without benefit. I can actually grow and not just be eroded and swept away.