Sunday Stroll 12.30.12 - A Stroll Through the Year

I spent most of the afternoon cleaning out the attic.  The only actual strolling I did today was around the block with Regis, a neighbor boy who wanted to take our dogs on a walk.  The pit bull he was keeping showed some aggression toward Daisy, so I walked a good distance behind them instead.  I laughed so hard at his suggestion that I would have time to "change my pants" while he went to get his dog.  He was embarassed to be seen with me in sweats that had attic insulation and dust all over them, so I can only assume he was grateful we couldn't walk together!

Yesterday was full of visiting and catching up with some dear friends over breakfast and again over lunch.  2012 has been a difficult year in a few ways.  There were some terribly challenging days at work, with personnel issues, added work load, and a good but overwhelming amount of work on grants and reports that interrupted nearly a week of vacation and consumed my late summer and fall.  This summer I struggled with feeling insecure living in the neighborhood. I experienced the first break in I've had since the earliest days of renovation and at least two neighbors were affected by some "wannabe gang" violence, thankfully perpetrated by young, stupid, ineffective boys.  People close to me suffered heart-wrenching losses and challenges.  My relationship with a dear neighbor has been shattered by the ravages of a mental illness that has made me the focus of her delusions.

But the day of reflecting reminded me that even this difficult year has held joys and encouragement and goodness - and thus my Sunday stroll through just a few highlights from a year that I often thought I would be glad to leave behind:

You just can't beat these beautiful
nieces and nephews!

Spring was official "beach season" beginning with a grown up girls week in Seaside and culminating with a family trip to Fripp Island.  



Reading with my nieces

Playing with my sisters!

Yep, 17 folk piled in to one fantabulous beach house and loved nearly every minute of being with each other.  It's a wonder, these amazing people with their unique personalities, abilities, and interests who are so connected to my very heart.

Still a little sunburned and just about tired of each other, we convened in Tennessee to host the celebration of my parents' 50th wedding anniversary.  Every minute working and rushing was worth it to me on that beautiful afternoon as friends and family shared in the joy of the occasion. 

For 3 years now, I've had the privilege of meeting with a wonderful small group. Most of these women were new to Atlanta when the Bible study started.  As we've studied Scripture and prayed together, we've also shared joy, grief, change, and struggle. 



 

Don't get me wrong.  "Hard" doesn't equal "Bad" any more than "Fun" always equals "Good".  Some of the best things about 2012 have come from the faith that grew from the  most difficult of circumstances.  As I sat on the dusty attic floor this afternoon, I found this from a journal of what was undoubtedly the Worst Summer Ever more than 7 years ago:

 

"Even in Laughter the heart may ache,

and the end of joy may be grief" Proverbs 14:13

 

I can't go back, but I don't want to go forward. My feeble praise - that I am known by One in all the bitterness, joy, aches, and griefs of my heart - rises weakly from the depths of pain and fear. Will there be a day of seeing beyond now? Of a vision of Christ's glory that is big enough to include every grief so that it becomes joy?...The praise song in Revelation is sung by those whose deepest griefs, joys, and sins have been taken up, borne, known by the One they worship.  What a day!  When tomorrow seems impossible - help me hope for that day and the beginning of that day now.

 

"The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts." Prov. 17:3

 

 



Sunday Stroll 12.2.12

 

Sunday's stroll was in the neighborhood - by the community garden and down the street. . .

By abandoned and broken homes on the left. . .

And abandoned and broken homes on the right . . .

But finding signs of life in each place...

 

narcissus blooming for the holiday in an empty garden bed

 

 and a truck in a driveway unloading friends who are now neighbors, filling up the empty spaces of a street and community.

Backyard Garden Expansion Update

The backyard garden expansion beds are nearly completed -- not beautiful, but made of materials I already had on the property. Next summer they should hold early peas, tomatoes, and winter squash.

Buckwheat seedlings doing their best after a late planting.

The buckwheat I planted as a cover crop went in a little late, so I'm not sure how much more it will grow before a hard freeze kills it back. Once that happens, I'll add some manure and soil conditioner, top with more straw for the rest of the winter, then plant another cover crop of peas & oats or rye in February.





















I also transplanted some liriope that was growing in the bed area to line the paths between the beds. It can be mowed like grass and is green and hardy. I'll continue to transplant from the spots where it pops up and from behind the back fence.

Sunday Stroll, 11.25.12

The scenic route back home from Thanksgiving leads to a "Road Closed Ahead" detour.  The Sunday Stroll happens by a public trout stream at a pull-off on a county road on the TN-NC state line with an impromptu session of fetch.  (No trout were harmed in the production of this Sunday Stroll.)

Foraging Urban Style

It's just about impossible for me to pass up the opportunity to pick up pecans in the fall, if there are pecans to be found.  It was completely delightful to discover that my workplace was adjacent to a lot with two large pecan trees that conveniently drop nuts into our parking lot.

For the last 3 Novembers, most work days have ended with me slowly walking that edge of the parking lot, nudging pecans out of the thick, manicured grass and shoving a couple of handsful into my pocket or lunchbag. It usually adds up to enough to make a pie and put the toppings on a casserole or two. And shelling them makes me feel a bit less idle on a football Saturday.

 

 

Have you seen the price of pecans this year? Outrageous! So, I decided that my foraging needed to extend to the other side of the fence, onto the vacant lot that is now under contract with my organization, where there are always pecans just out of reach.










I planned the expedition for a sunny afternoon, with a bucket in hand.  It started in this alleyway:



 

Then I walked by this pile of trash (which was passed by with lots of stomping and clapping to shoo away any rats).



Apparently I was gathering nuts nearby someone's "home".

I ended up with enough pecans for two pies.


One made an appearance at this year's Thanksgiving dinner with family.  The other will be made for our staff Christmas potluck:  a "tree-to-table" dish, city style!

Sunday Stroll, 11.18,12

A walk on the Eastside Trail of the Atlanta Beltline.

Walking past the old City Hall East
 

A passing dragon (?) was only one of the unique sights

Daisy admiring the city skyline

"On Hand" Chicken Salad

I'm a big fan of using what is on hand to create meals.  So this is what I rounded up for dinner:

leftover roasted deli chicken
apple
applewood smoked bacon
dried cranberries
lemon
salt
olive oil


I had picked up the chicken for dinner a couple of nights before.  I cleaned off the rest of the chicken left on the bone and shredded it in a mixing bowl, cooked 2 pieces of bacon and chopped up the apple.

 I stirred all these ingredients together with a generous handful of dried cranberries, added salt to taste, 2-3 Tbsp. of olive oil and the juice of one lemon.

It was a good quick dinner and great for lunch the next day with arugula from the garden (hooray for a good soaking rain).

The carcass was popped into the freezer until I can cook up some stock over the weekend.

Busted!

Who was playing fetch in the house???  Oh wait, that was me!

Why I moved

Seth Rogin, in his blog about marketing, describes very succinctly  why I moved.

The Eve of All Saints

I wonder if it could be a glimpse beyond Hallowe'en to the saints that will be for our community.

Gathering for a parade down the park before trick-or-treating

Daisy was a hit as the resident "lab-ra-pumpkin"

Sonnet for All Hallows

As we prepare for Halloween, All Hallows Eve, this sonnet

Garden Expansion - Back Yard Edition

The targeted area next to the asparagus (and rogue tomato) bed
 

I'm expanding my gardening bed space in the back yard, now that I know there is enough sun to add some veggies next to last spring's asparagus bed. 





Relocating the materials

 

I'm trying to use "found objects" to get these beds started, so the bricks from my old kitchen chimney and blocks used for some unknown and indecipherable purpose in the back yard are being re-purposed. This weekend, I'll dig up the weeds and plant a cover crop.  Hopefully by spring they will be ready to cultivate.

Simple Life in the City

If you were to peek into my Google Reader right now and scroll down to the "Lifestyle" category, you would find subscriptions to a host of homesteading and gardening blogs that tout a simple, self-sufficient and sustainable lifestyle.  I gravitate there, I dream there, I follow a couple of idealistic 'train wrecks' there. 

Or you could peruse my Pinterest boards about gardening and the home, where I lovingly post pictures of rustic and rural and simple style.


Copyright What's in A Home?

But that isn't where I really live.

Why is it that I am of "two minds" about my actual choice of lifestyle and the lifestyles that absorb my online attention? Am I foolishly living in the wrong place? Or do those minds meet somewhere hopeful and helpful?

I love the pictures of harvests, the stories of livestock and sustainable home improvements in the homesteading blogs.  Yet the world of the homestead in the blogger universe sometimes seems uniform and isolated; a community that is generally one color and one persepective.  I connect with the descriptions of hard work, homemade bread on the counter, laundry on the line,  and dirt under the fingernails. But not with the sense I get sometimes that the ultimate goal is to get away from all the trouble in the world and take care of yourself.

The view from my front porch is rich and diverse.  My relationships with my neighbors definitely offer many different perspectives.  It inspires me. And it exhausts me. 

In the very same place I'm trying to grow my own food in raised beds around the yard, I'm also trying to figure out how to keep out whoever keeps breaking into my house and stealing food from my freezer.

So I run away to the blogs about the "simple" life and long for a change.

What exactly do I think "simple" means? Easy? Undistracted and serene?

Well, not exactly.  Here are some definitions I found:
Not involved or complicated; easy to understand
Unadorned
Consisting of one part only, not combined or complex
Modest
Sincere
Frank

(Granted, it also means weak in intelligence or feeble-minded.)



Copyright What's in A Home?  Lyrics from GoodieMOB

Let me be frank.  The question that is eating away at me is whether there is a way to embrace the things that I so naturally enjoy and am interested in (including a garden and a creative outlet in my home) and all the while live an easy-to-understand, unadorned, unadulterated, and sincere life that is rich in relationships, invested in others and in community, and, most importantly, connected vibrantly to the very heart of Jesus.  Can I live this way in this city?  I don't know. 

It isn't easy.  It isn't serene and undistracted.  In short, it isn't MY definition of "simple".

"Love must be sincere.  Hate what is evil; cling to what is good."  Romans 12:9