26 March 2011

this makes me happy.

check out the amazing little boat place-cards too!

17 March 2011

advent.

it is the advent of spring.
the reasons for this are: warm temperatures, melting snow, visible grass, growing flowers, muddy puddles, longer days.
i am a fan of all of the above.
visible proof/pictorial evidence:

look! grass!! two days ago this was not available for viewing.

[even more exciting]: tuuuuulips!!


it is also [roughly] the advent of "i have pictures on my blog again."
the reasons for this are:
I Took Some,
I Deleted A Lot Of Files So My Computer Lets Me Upload Things Again,
and I Conquered The Great Pictureless Dilemma Even Though I Cannot Get My New Hard Drive To Cooperate.

this morning i arose early, early [almost] as the sun, to bake some ciabatta. remember last time's adventure? the speckles? sad day.

no worrisome specks this time, thankfully. although the recipe for small ciabatta suggested an overly aggressive temperature, in my opinion.
here they are! baby ciabattas, baby baguettes, and a couple of bubbly, well, toad-breads.

check out the bubble on that thing! it's enormous! it's as big as the bread itself. too bad it burnt.

doesn't this bread look like a toad?

baguettes looked pretty good. i'm going to eat these with brie.

the first-devoured ciabatta. it was smothered in nutella and happily munched posthaste.
munched is kind of a strange word.

the healthy-breads-in-five-minutes-a-day loaf #2, from a couple weeks ago, which i remembered to score. 
it wasn't bad for whole wheat.

and the best for last:
my new italian polyphonic keyboard. it sounds like an accordian.

happy thursday! i'm working all day, but i hope you get to enjoy the advent of spring.
xo.

ps. platelets are at 229k! ptl.

15 March 2011

treasures in the snow.

there were feathers and cockles.




and an empty nest.

and a dead raccoon in a tree!


we checked the sap in our maple trees- none yet.


there were buds peeping out of the snow!


there were bird tracks and silhouettes of little twigs.

there was lovely, wonderful bark of poplar and maple.


there were muddy roads and rubber boots.

and fields across which to trudge.

the beauty of anne.

this post is dedicated to dear friends who, like me, have long enjoyed the anne of green gables/avonlea movies, but have never gotten around to reading the books. my answer to you is:

yes! read anne! 

i'm stuck right now on anne of ingleside [it's just hard to think of anne as a mother], and i have a few other library books to finish by a certain date, but i'll get back in the groove someday soon. because that's just what you do. and i want to finish. anne is positively lovely.

some advice on reading anne

think of it as a different story from the movies. the sequence of events is almost entirely off. for a long time i avoided the anne books because i felt like i already knew everything that happened, and, frankly, i was bored whenever i picked up a book and began reading. this took a bit of perseverance [you might even say perspicacity, because it is a positively wonderful synonym], but at a certain point i no longer felt dutiful when reading anne. it became delightful.

don't expect a hugely exciting plot. lm montgomery writes beautifully, but not exactly "plotfully." her power of description is magnificent. it's worthy of a good slowed-down read and a cup of something really delicious. it is not a good idea for a speed read, for when speed reading, the overall beauty of the books is overlooked. revel in the vocabulary, in anne's wonder and delight found in the simple things of life, in the sweet but lovely lives of simple people in a simpler time. there is certainly an amount of humor and lightheartedness in the books, and as anne grows older and you move on to later points in her life, you find you're growing up with her as well.

there are more characters! the movies combined a wider variety of characters and events and even towns into a smaller group. i suppose this makes sense, and they did it well, for the movies are lovely. but read the books to get the real story. and to get to know people like Mrs Allan, Dora and Davy, Phil and Priscilla, Gog and Magog, Captain Jim, Leslie, etc, etc.

i find that reading "old" or "classic" literature such as anne is a wonderful supplement to my ever-writing mind. the ideas, the personalities, the beauty found in nature, the words, the sentence structure [albeit sometimes a little over the top!], all of it lends itself to creativity. read well to be able to think well and write well and, dare i say?, live well.

so don't delay! put anne on your spring or summer reading list. you'll love her.

anne books:
Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Avonlea
Anne of the Island - my favorite!
Anne of Windy Poplars - second half is delightful.
Anne's House of Dreams - loved this one too.
Anne of Ingleside
Rainbow Valley
Rilla of Ingleside

14 March 2011

have/n't.

i haven't really been blogging much lately.
but i have:
been anxiously awaiting spring's arrival, due this week.
spent three days in the company of two very fun young men [nephews had a sleepover].
listened to records: haydn's london symphony and bert kaempfert's wonderland by night.
perused the daily design blogs and been inspired.
mixed up a new batch of wonderfully smooth ciabatta, which i shall bake in perhaps two or three days, if i can wait that long.
enjoyed brie cheese and store-bought ciabatta for two lunches in the past three days.
scored a polyphonic keyboard [analog fan-powered "organ"] at the aux.
finished a few books and returned half of my stack to the library.
been thinking about starting a succulent garden.
been wishing i could remember more french.
been reading about france [victor hugo's hunchback of notre dame, and a modern book on the french girl mindset].
put considerable daydreaming into a certain east coast destination with a particular friend.
been dying to get a haircut.
been sipping palais royale tea; i've got pellegrino for tomorrow.
been considering a new bottle of nail polish, in a general sort of way.
been reading through the oxford book of victorian verse. i'll post a nice poem soon.

i am really ready for winter to be over, to go on a bike ride, and to get out of town.
wouldn't weekends be fun if they were filled with all sorts of new adventures?
even weeks would suffice.

09 March 2011

it's a beautiful day.



today is beautiful because i feel happy and energetic.
today is beautiful because i feel much more like a normal person than i have in past weeks!
today is beautiful because it's beginning to thaw.
today is beautiful because i made cupcakes last night and i'm going to have one for a mid-afternoon snack.
today is beautiful because it's wednesday and i'm not at the doctor's office.
today is beautiful because i've books to read and a walk to take and some daffodils to paint.
today is beautiful because tomorrow can worry about itself.

05 March 2011

Ode.

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.


-Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy
first stanza of "Ode"

on miscreants and the perhapsburg empire.

that is, pretty much literally, all i can think of right now.

sick in manifold ways, on far more drugs than i'd like to be, not able to move on quite yet.
trying to grasp too many thoughts and not getting anything.
my hands smell like red onions, my face feels like sunshine.

therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God
commit their souls to Him in doing good,
as to a faithful Creator.
1 peter 4:19

03 March 2011

wagner.

so i'm reading this book on Gustav Mahler. it's really interesting. at first i thought, "this guy is obsessed with mahler." [well, he is.]
but he tells the story of mahler, and weaves in the stories of other composers of that time, and all kinds of other historical significance. the guy knows a lot. it is really interesting! i don't know too much about the pre-war european days of the habsburg empire, but i'm getting informed quickly. and it's nice seeing how all of these musicians, composers, philosophers, empires, politicians, etc, all fit together, and how they all in some way or another had an effect on each other's work.

anyway, one of the people mentioned quite a bit in the book is Richard Wagner. what a creep! ha. but he was extremely influential in the music world, and in mahler's music and life. the book described some of wagner's works a little bit, and i felt like i got to know his style [as i'm getting to know a lot about mahler's style, though i haven't listened to any of his works yet, besides what i may have heard in the past].

today on the way to work, i turned on classical radio. the song that was on was loud and vivacious and, well, sounded like a huge orchestra was playing. so i thought, "that might be richard wagner," because i'd read similar things about his music [big and loud, primarily]. i looked it up just now for that time slot.. and lo and behold, richard wagner it was.

so i guess the moral of the story could be: read books, get informed, and you never know when your newly found knowledge will slightly make your day.

01 March 2011

i think a lot.

i'm kind of formulating my thoughts on basically everything right now. life, ministry, travel, occupation, enjoyment, music, literature, writing, etc. it's kind of all-encompassed. i am reading the Bible a lot, reading other things a lot, writing my own thoughts out a lot, formulating, essentially, my philosophy on Life And All That Pertains To It. so in case it seems like all i ever do is quote other things right now, it is and it isn't. there is much creative process, and refining of thought, and renewing of mind occuring. i'll keep you posted, probably.

current listens: 
radiohead: king of limbs, aphex twin, four tet, mogwai, björk; repeat. every day for a week.
somehow smetana is always floating around my head too.
actually currently i'm listening to ravel's mother goose suite on the SPCO's new website. i wanted to listen to mahler, but they didn't have him on there. actually i'm really enjoying ravel. especially when they do those nice zips up the violin strings, you know?

current listen/reads: this means piano [although i guess it could mean audio books].
sight reading hard classical piano music is good for my mind and my fingers, especially in this past month of mental fogginess. this year i've been playing a lot of chopin, schubert, schumann, mendelssohn, bach, grieg, mozart, etc. i'm appreciating more than ever before the romantic period of music [all of the above, excepting bach and mozart], and pieces with unthinkably hard key signatures, and dissonance, and emotion. for a long time i pretty much stuck with bach and mozart because they were so straightforward, but technically challenging. [i still play bach a lot. the man was, after all, a genius.] but i like the freshness of more recent music. ok, i really like pretty much all of it.

current reads: 
zinnser: on writing well [it's hilarious],
shakespeare: a winter's tale [just started it],
one hundred famous haiku [awesome],
lebrecht: why mahler? how one man and 10 symphonies changed our world [interesting perspective],
gaskell: cranford [amusing in a sleepy sort of way],
hugo: the hunchback of notre dame [just started, and it feels like deja vu- have i read this before?? first chapter anyways..]
spurgeon: morning and evening. [i read both at night]
cowman: springs in the valley [2nd year through it- love it- quote from it often]
there are 6 other books on my bedside table which i've also begun but am more or less ignoring at this point in time.
i also have goethe's faust and a book of essays on goethe [disappointment, i thought it was by goethe] in my library stack.

i read a bit from several or most of these every day. i tend to start a million books and finish about 1 every month or two, it seems. well, this month i've had more time and determination, so i've been a bit more avid at book completion.

as a side-note, going to the library is one of the most thrilling experiences in life, for you can have as many books as you like, order online the books they don't have, get the books you want for 3 weeks [and call to renew them for 3 more!], and if you don't like them, you just drop them back off. freeeeeedommmmm. it's economical, too. i do need to exhibit a bit more self control though; there is no way i can read all of the thousands of pages i check out each time. ps. my mother and 4-year-old nephew [probably my brother and almost 2-year-old nephew as well] are on a first-name basis with the librarians. i guess it runs in the family.

you know what else i love? that the library is directly across the street from the post office. besides work and church, those are the two places i visit most frequently. [the auxiliary thrift store and the doc's office are the other two places i go. aren't i exciting?] it's terribly convenient, and parking is an absolute nightmare. we're getting a new library, supposedly, so we won't always have it this good. also, our post office has a drive-through mailbox.

Bible reads:
psalms [david's wisdom],
proverbs [solomon's wisdom],
ecclesiastes [different side of solomon's wisdom],
matthew [Jesus' wisdom],
1 peter [disciple's wisdom].
kind of good for a person who is seeking to know wisdom, huh? it might seem kind of elitist to say that i'm reading out of 5 books of the bible on a daily basis- but it's not tons everywhere. and it all fits. and i love washing my mind with the Word. and i hope you do too. the wonderful thing about reading in a bunch of places on a regular basis is [ok 2 main reasons]: 1- you always know where to read [if you finish one book you start the next one], and if you don't have a lot of time you can just pick one of the areas to read from; and 2- it's unbelievable how well everything corresponds to each other and also to what you are thinking about. that, my friends, is the Living and Active Word of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

you know, i've been thinking lately about the security of believing in absolute Truth [namely, the Bible]. there are many people in this world who hop from one "truth" or "religion" or "experience" to another, or combine them all to formulate what "feels right for them." maybe that makes them feel nice, but it would make me feel a little nervous, wondering if i actually found the real truth this time, or if it's going to just be a phase that i'll come through in a few months. they are continually seeking, "always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" [2 tim 3:7]. i'm sad for those people who can't rest in the fact that the truth can be known, and that there are boundaries set forth for their good; for in them is significant and substantial freedom. The Truth Shall Set You Free, you know.

but... before honor comes humility. you can't have wisdom it until you ask for it.
bisous.