more madness, please

"[Mark 10:42-45] is a kind of managerial madness that is the very foolishness of the kingdom of God, which Jesus demonstrated in his own life … the good news deconstruction bears to the church is to provide the hermeneutics of the kingdom of God. The deconstruction of Christianity is not an attack on the church but a critique of the idols to which it is vulnerable, any one of which is toxic to the kingdom of God ...
But what, then, is the kingdom of God? Where is it found? It is found every time an offense is forgiven, every time a stranger is made welcome, every time an enemy is embraced, every time the least among us is lifted up, every time the law is made to serve justice, every time a prophetic voice is raise against injustice, every time the law and the prophets are summed up by love. From time to time the figure of Jesus, or fragments of his figure, appear here or there in individual lives, showing up sometimes in people who burn with a prophetic passion, sometimes in people of inordinate compassion and forgiveness. When this happens, we are likely to mistake such people as made or weak, which in a sense they are – mad with the follow of the cross, weak with the weakness of God."
-- John Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct?, 138.

Here’s to more madness is my life – in our lives – in 2010.

hey, what's for dinner?

It's no secret that since Andy has taken over the kitchen, this girl has basically forgotten how to cook. Well, it's not completely true, but the meals for which I am responsible are involved and extravagant: meatballs, lasagna, pizza, calzones (apparently I am Italian?), all from scratch. So on the evenings that Andy's not home to feed us (4ish each week), I'm usually at a loss for what to do. I don't like to touch or look at raw chicken. You can really only eat spaghetti so many times each month before they start complaining. I don't like TV dinners. Or Hamburger Helper. Or canned, sodium rich soups. Andy can make a gourmet stir fry out of just about nothing. Not I.

Last year, I met this couple, Brad and Darlene, who owns a little store over in the Cape called Dinner by Design (site). The deal with this is that you place your order, go into the kitchen, and make a bunch of meals at once. Then you take them home and throw them in the freezer to have at any point in the month. At first, it sounded a little strange to me, but I tried it, and it's actually fantastic. First off: yes, you are making frozen dinners. However, instead of getting a frozen dinner at the grocery store that has unpronounceable and incomprehensible ingredients in it, your dinner has real chicken, veggies you recognize, and seasonings that you put in yourself. So you still actually know what you are feeding your family. When you go into the kitchen, there is a separate station for each meal option and everything is ready for you to put together. The best part is that Brad and Darlene follow right behind you and clean up. I want them to come to my house too!

I don't normally do shameless plugs on here, but if you are in the Fort Myers/Cape area and are meal challenged at all, Brad and Darlene are just awesome. My children love the dinners (I went last night and Elanor said "Mommy, I love the design dinners. I am so glad you are getting more design dinners!"). A full meal will do for us for two meals, especially if Andy's not home for one of them, but generally even if he is. They also do half meals if you're just cooking for two (or, like a lot of my friends, two actual eaters). If you don't have time to go in and make the meals, you can pay a little extra and they'll make them for you and you just pick them up. The last two times I've done it, I've gone in with friends and it's a lot of fun to do together.

If you're in my neighborhood, give it a try! If you're not, look anyway and see if there is a kitchen near you. You can't get any nicer than Brad and Darlene, but I imagine the food at the other ones is just as good.

three cups of tea

Andy and I just finished reading this book called Three Cups of Tea, which is about ex-climber Greg Mortenson, who, after a failed attempt to climb K2 in the 90s, was inspired to do what he could to build schools for children (especially girls) in rural Pakistan. All I can say is that this book was both inspiring and humbling; you should read it. If your library doesn't have it, then buy it; it's absolutely worth $9. Or more.

Although the author explains that Mortenson grew up the son of missionaries, he implies that Mortenson's faith is kind of nebulous--at least, I came away from the book not knowing for sure whether or not he is a Christian. However, the book is so packed full of "coincidences" that it is obvious that God is at work in this man's mission. The first step on Mortenson's path was when he got lost on the descent from K2, lost his porter, and ended up Korphe, a Pakistani village so small and remote that it wasn't on any maps, and, although he had traveled to the area several times for climbing, he had never heard of it either. After a night's sleep, he asked to see the village's school, only to discover that the children met in an open field above the village. They shared a teacher with another village; on the days the teacher was not there, they practiced their facts by scratching with sticks in the dirt. Mortenson was shattered. His attempt to summit K2 had been taken on in order to honor the memory of his sister. Having failed that, having seen these children, he vowed to honor her memory instead by building them a school.

So began a process full of optimism, false starts, danger, sweat, and tears. At the time of publication of Three Cups, Mortenson's nonprofit, The Central Asia Institute, had built 53 schools in rural Pakistan and was beginning to look towards Afghanistan.

I don't want this to get really long, but I'd like to say that I believe that we as Christians could learn a lot from Mortenson's work. What came across over and over again is that the CAI is fighting the "war on terror" simply by providing education. Mortenson watched radical Islam build schools as well: schools which taught extremism over mathematics. Mortenson's schools offer knowledge over ignorance, and through his persistence, he, an American, has gained love and respect in a region where that is hard won.

Anyway, read this book. It is thrilling, humbling, and heartening all at once.

calling my fellow Florida homeowners

Y'all, I just got the call from my insurance agent (who is officially on my "A" list just for this whole thing) to deliver some good news to me. I couldn't keep it to myself and decided to celebrate by telling y'all about it and putting up this, my 100th post on this blog. Hooray!

Last summer or fall, the state of Florida launched a program called My Safe Florida Home. I don't know much about it, except that it is supposed to help and reward homeowners who make their homes more hurricane proof and verify it by having a wind inspection done. At the time, our agent sent out letters to everyone recommending that we have it done and gave us the names of some inspection companies. We didn't do anything about it because the inspection cost $150 and "might" save us "some" money. I have better ways to spend $150 than on a "might", honestly.

A couple months ago, I realized that I needed to insure my camera and equipment, since I take it all over the place with me, run out into the ocean carrying it, and do other hazardous activities with it (it's pretty active). My agent asked if we had done the wind inspection. When I sheepishly said that we hadn't, he told me about a company called WB Sanders which will do the inspection for free (don't ask me how they get paid because I don't know). He also said that he thought we would save a bit of money because our roof is pretty new (same age as Elanor, in fact, as I recall having water pour into the house during a rainstorm while our roof was essentially naked and I had just come home from the hospital... certainly not in any emotional shape to yell at the roofers on that one). I filled out the form, set up an appointment with the company, and waited. I've told a few friends about the inspection because, hey, it's free, right?

Charlie (my agent, whom I adore right now) just called. Our premiums went down by just about 60%. Which, at our current rate, is a truly phenomenal amount of money. It's going to seriously affect our escrow payment. I am completely bowled over. Charlie is my hero.

It made me realize, you know, I think most companies insure homes more or less blind, right? So we are all probably paying more than we really need to, because they have to charge based on a house that might just fall over in a hurricane. Having the wind inspection just gives us a chance to show that our house is actually in pretty good shape. (Yes, our roof is new but our windows are original to the house--pretty bad, actually.)

What I'm saying is that if you live in Fort Myers, call this WB Sanders company (239.931.3880) and get your wind inspection done. Even if you only save a little bit, with your rates being as high as I'm sure they are, it's totally worth the 30 minutes it takes to have the inspection done.

If you've been wondering why I haven't posted in so long, it's because I've had two significant projects on my plate: 1) the church website, and 2) the MOPS spring fundraiser. The website is up and now all I need to do is fill in the content as I get it, and I am going to put the pictures up for the MOPS moms today!

next time you swing by fort myers...

Stop by and get a cup of coffee and a donut at Bennett's Fresh Roast. They are just off of West First Street, about a block north of the new Publix, and I will say that the donuts are out of this world. Just amazing. They make everything from scratch (even the beans are roasted on site) and it is really good! They serve a limited lunch, with a bit of a twist: only two items are offered each day. Yesterday, I went and had a turkey pita with mango chutney; the other option was a lettuce wedge salad with bleu cheese. The chutney was fantastic and it was real turkey and cheese, not deli sliced. Today, we rode our bikes up for donuts (a long ride for Caroline but she did it!) and they were working on the vegetable soup for today's lunch.

Andy stopped by earlier in the week for lunch and noticed that the soup of the day was a recipe from Cook's Illustrated. Now, if that isn't a testimony to how good the food is, I don't know what is. Anyone who can appreciate good recipes and is willing to use them (when they could buy cream of broccoli from Sysco, really) is good people in our book.

The decor is fresh and fun. The coffee is great, too, and the people are even better. I have a new favorite place to escape to when I can get away for a cup of coffee and free wifi without the kids. Oh wait, when does that happen? Well, Andy may be holding office hours there, anyway.

one week until the vote

I know, Florida's primary is actually tomorrow. Nope, I haven't decided yet who I will vote for (if I were a registered Democrat it would be easy but since I'm not that's beside the point). (update: Jenny sent me this link for a nifty "candidate calculator" so you can plug in your views and see who lines up best. Will it help me vote? Doubtful. But it's kind of cool!)

The vote which has a much more immediate effect on our family's life is next Sunday, February 3, as our congregation formally votes on whether we should leave the PC(USA) and join the EPC. It's trading one Presbyterian denomination for another one, but there are many differences between the two. This isn't really the place to go into the finer points and details, but I will tell you that our church has been struggling with being part of the PC(USA) for as long as we have been here, and for longer than that. Depending on the outcome of the vote, the next weeks and months in our life could be pretty interesting, to say the least, and any number of things could happen. A best case scenario, and our prayer, is that the numbers will be overwhelmingly in favor to leave--numbers too large for our local presbytery to discount or brush aside.

We simply ask that if you remember our family in prayer this week, pray for our church and our congregation--for wisdom, love, peace, and grace. We are voting "yes" (to go). Above all, please pray that God will be glorified in the actions we take and the words we speak.

ugly mug makes some goooood coffee

Mark & Mylissa sent us a Christmas present with two things in it. One was a book called The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible (link) and the other was a pound of coffee from a company called Ugly Mug.

First, the book. It's quite well written and hilarious at times. I read it more or less against my will, but I will say that I really enjoyed the ride. He got some things right... I would venture to say that he missed the boat on quite a lot about the Bible and our faith (both Jewish and Christian but more so on Christian). Fun book, though.

The other part of the gift.... mmmm..... wow. Andy and I are kind of picky about our coffee. Him more so than me. For me, as long as it's hot, strong, and black, I can live with Maxwell House. Not he. So you have to understand that sending Andy coffee (that's not Starbucks) as a gift is a gutsy proposition. We liked the first bag enough that we ordered a second, a different blend. And this one knocked our socks off. So, we're hooked.

To that end, I'm going to share the wealth with you (so to speak). Go visit Ugly Mug. And order some coffee. The best part is that when you use that link that I just gave you (no typing in the address please), 25% of the proceeds off the coffee go to benefit Habitat for Hope. I have to tell you, I've been sitting on the email with this code for a while, partly because I can send money to HFH without buying gross coffee. But now that I know it's not gross, I am spreading the good news that you can buy good coffee and support a wonderful cause!

I would also like to tell you that I met the CEO type for this company when I was in Memphis for Labor Day and I got to hear the philosophy behind Ugly Mug. Y'all, this is fair trade coffee--really--and it is roasted right there in Memphis! So it's really a threefer--buy good coffee, support Habitat for Hope, and drink responsibly. We are almost done with the second bag. Time to go buy more.

Now, where did I put that link? Go order yourself some coffee!

add this to your list

All right, I did it. I knew that you didn't have enough blogs to read, so I thought I would add one more for your edification. But since you all carefully followed my instructions from my last post and have started using Google Reader (or something similar, although I take no responsibility for any mishaps you have in setting up something that's not Google Reader), I figure adding one more piddly blog from myself will not take you any time at all.

You can find it here. It's part of my photography site and will mainly have pictures of people you may not know. I won't even promise to be super diligent about updating it, so sorry. Mainly, I just wanted to see if I could do it.

rock star

This just in, citizens: Jenny reports that not only did she donate a pint of whole blood in a near record time of 4 minutes, 57 seconds, but she also got a free Bengals t-shirt signed by actual Bengals. Even better, she is officially signed up for the National Bone Marrow registry! Sounds like a lot of action packed into one morning to me. But I guess you can get more done when you bleed quickly.

Great work, Jen!

And to the rest of you: have you donated blood lately? Have you asked about signing up to be a bone marrow donor? Get on it!

this horse apparently doesn't run

Guess what, y'all? It's that time again: time for your friendly reminder to donate blood, donate platelets, donate your marrow, donate your organs (please don't do that one today, but organ donors are needed, too!) Our church had the blood drive today and this time, I successfully shared a pint.

At the last blood drive, I discovered a small group of people who decided that blood donations were an opportunity for a little friendly competition. How do you compete on giving blood, you may ask? Since we are all giving the same amount, you know. Time, people, time. The weighing machine tracks how long your donation takes. I promised that I would post current standings on the blog here... if anyone around the country would like to participate, send me your stats and I will post them for all to see.

• Jerry is a strong contender who came in at 4 something on his last donation (I'll try to get the specifics from him so he has a time posted) but scratched today due to a head cold.
• Bruce came in today at 4:33.
• Beth is the current record holder; today's time was 3:34. Maybe her needle was bigger or something?

I'll track my times, too, but I'll be honest, I can't compete with these guys. My time was a sedate 8:03. Love to hear yours if you've got 'em!

travel plans

I so rarely go anywhere at all by myself that when I do get to go, it's a big deal to me. I just bought plane tickets this morning to fly up to Memphis for Labor Day to see my friend Mylissa! It will be a fun trip, but also some work--I get to shoot Mylissa's family and also some of her Habitat families (if that doesn't ring a bell, please go visit her ministry's site and feel free to support a very worthy cause!). That will be a unique experience, without a doubt, and one I am really looking forward to.

Speaking of which, I'm reminded that I haven't harped on blood donations in a while. Next time you donate, ask about signing up to be a bone marrow donor. When I donated in January out in LA, the City of Hope group had a packet that made it super easy to sign up--no extra blood, just a cheek swab that I did myself! I am officially signed up to be a bone marrow donor; you are eligible up until you're 62, I think. Find out more information here. Apparently you can sign up online, but it costs $52; when I signed up as part of the blood donation, it was free. I guess a pint is worth at least that much?

In other news, I have my semifinal big box of homeschooling curriculum arriving today. I am excited to sort through it and really get down to brass tacks on setting up our year!

a public service announcement

This is just so I can once again prove to you that I am a geek, however well I may (or may not) hide it. Just read an article which mentioned one of my "favorite" pet peeves and so I thought I'd share the following quote:

Privacy 101: The Etiquette of Blind Carbon Copies

Sending e-mail to hundreds of contacts via Gmail is easy--just paste the list of addresses into the message's To: field and click Send, right? Sure, but put on your flame-retardant reading glasses. Though your e-mail recipients may have given you their addresses, that doesn't mean they want them shared with everyone. Good manners dictates putting one address in the To: field (your own will do fine) and the rest in the Bcc: field. (Some e-mail programs and services may require an additional step to activate this field.) E-mail servers strip the Bcc: addresses out before forwarding the message, protecting recipients' privacy.

And that's all I have to say about that.

a fun way to spend time

Note, I didn't say waste. Nothing involving books could ever be considered "wasting time". Thanks to Angie for telling me about Library Thing, this fun little site. It is like flickr, but for books. You sign up for an account (get this, they never even ask for your email address or name or anything, so you can't get spam from them!) and then you start entering in your personal library. I discovered that entering ISBN numbers is easiest because there are hundreds, I mean hundreds, of different editions of Pride and Prejudice out there. I own two. For each book, it tells you how many other users also own that book. There are also groups (not explored) and forums and if your book (or author) is mentioned in a forum (or topic or conversation or whatever), then it provides a link to that conversation!

I entered my worn out copy of The Complete Father Brown by GK Chesterton (I really need a hardcover copy of this one) and discovered that it had been mentioned in a conversation with a title something like "must read British/Irish detective fiction?". Wow. A quick glance through the conversation reaped me a nice little handful authors to explore. How exciting!

Unfortunately most of my library is in boxes back home, so an extensive listing will have to wait until this summer. I got a bit of a start, though. This is a fun little site and worth exploring--check it out. And when you do, let me know so we can connect over there and check out each other's libraries!

a courtesy reminder

Last July, on our old blog, I asked you if you had given blood recently. There's been a good bit of water under my personal bridge since then; I'm sure the same is true for you. I mentioned my aunt in that entry. She passed away in August, which I mentioned at the time, but thought I would make note again if you missed it then. I just had a wonderful visit with my cousin (her daughter) and we naturally spent quite a bit of time talking about our mothers. It's funny, her loss is so recent and mine is not (comparatively), but our feelings are still very much the same. Does anyone ever have enough time with her mother? I am thankful to have the gift of letting mine go without regrets, but boy, do I miss her. Very thankful to have a reunion to anticipate.

Yet I digress. I would like to take this moment to issue a public service announcement: Please Give Blood. Someone's mother needs it. Most of us can donate with little or no inconvenience. Those of you who pass out from donating or are anemic or have issues, I am not talking to you. This is not a guilt trip for those with real issues (like my poor husband), but for those without. I'm not asking for martyrdom. If you have not given blood because you have better things to do with your time or you have just forgotten about it and don't actually have a good reason for not donating, I am talking to you. It is not that much time and you always get a free snack out of the deal. You may also get a free shirt (see my father's wardrobe). I know your time is valuable, but your blood is more valuable to someone whose life may depend on it.

So drop off a pint today. You will make a difference in someone's life!