nursing mother sculpture

My husband took this picture for me at the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens. We've been there many times - we started going there together with a group of friends before we fell in love, then we went while we were dating, then after we were married, and now we go with our kids. But I don't remember seeing this before. Or perhaps I did, and I just wasn't at a stage of life where I would have noticed. But isn't it lovely? It's done in bronze, and the plaque beside it said it used to hang on the door of a nursery armoire.

If you want to see more detail, I believe you can click on it to make it larger.

Last time we went, I also got to sit for awhile and stare at my favorite painting in the world. The link doesn't do it justice; the real thing is huge, and what's striking about it is how all the activity in the foreground only serves to draw your eye to the small, bright church spire in the background. In the background, but nonetheless, at the center of the whole world. It's an amazing painting. In real life that church spire is astonishingly bright and clear. I also love the woman walking on the bridge, and those huge trees bending down towards the water.

And now I need to make a plan to go back there again. Man, I love that place.

peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

monoamniotic twins - the board's back up!

This probably won't matter to most of my readers, but just in case someone's looking:

Monoamniotic.org is the best place for information on monoamniotic twins (identical twins sharing an amniotic sac, a rare and dangerous complication experienced by my two youngest children), and it was down for a few months because of a virus. Just wanted to note, with joy, that it's back up, so if you've found this site because you were looking for info on mo-mo's, let me send you their way. It's a site full of both good information and amazingly supportive people.

peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Advent Carnival!

Today is the first Sunday in Advent, and over at A Ten O' Clock Scholar, Kerry has the Advent Carnival up. There are lots of meditations on and ideas for the season. Head on over!

peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Christ the King Sunday

Yesterday was my favorite Sunday of the church year: Christ the King Sunday. And we heard a really good sermon, which I'm still thinking about.

The priest asked us to think about how many of us would raise our hands if he asked if we knew Christ as our Savior, then asked us to think about how many of us would raise our hands if he asked if we knew Christ as our king. 

There was a lot to the sermon - he talked about how the good king must be obeyed, and how he protects his people from their enemies, and how he heals (he drew a lot from Tolkien's Aragorn character, which I think is fair, given Tolkien's theology) - but what is sticking in my head this morning is his challenge, asking if we were willing to do the things our King asks us to do. Basically: do you respect Jesus Christ's authority in your life?

I want to keep thinking about that this week, checking to see if I am listening and obeying, using my moments and my days the way my Lord would have me use them, because He is my Lord, and He is my king. This is challenging, because I would like to think that I own my moments and my days.

Connected to this, on the theme of self-examination, I've been reading some John Donne, and last night came across a place in one of his sermons where he says (emphasis mine):

You hear of one man that was drowned in a vessel of wine, but how many thousands in ordinary water? And he was no more drowned in that precious liquor, than they in that common water. A gad of steel does no more choke a man, than a feather, than a hair; Men perish with whispering sins, nay with silent sins, sins that never tell the conscience they are sins, as often as with crying sins: And in hell there shall meet as many men, that never thought what was sin, as that spent all their thoughts in the compassing of sin; as man, who in a slack inconsideration, never thought  upon that place, as that by searing their conscience, overcame the sense and fear of that place. Great sins are great possessions, but levities and vanities possess us too. *

It seems to be a good meditation to go into Advent on.

peace of Christ to you, 

Jessica Snell

*From a sermon preached March 4, 1625

too much fiction

I've been having trouble picking up novels recently. I've been reading lots of non-fic, but, though I have several appealing novels waiting to be read, every time I reach out, I find myself pulling my hand back and saying, "I just can't."

It was puzzling me. At first I thought it was Harry Potter/Twilight hangover. Had reading about 8 very easy-to-read books in a row spoiled me for trying anything not quite so easy to digest? Plausible, but then why was I still devouring things like "Swords Around a Throne: Napoleon's Grand Armee"?

But today I figured it out. It was my own book that was taking up all my headspace. Bujold said that while you're in the middle of writing a novel, it feels like you're constantly using your active memory to carry around enough information to fill a phone book.

I don't want to dive into Liad or Shrewsbury or even (heaven forbid!) someone else's version of Regency London when my mind is every minute filled with the thoughts and emotions of my hero and heroine, puzzling at their dilemmas and feeling their fears and delights. Until I get the whole story down and out of active RAM, I'm not sure how easy it's going to be to give any of my imaginative headspace up for any other protagonists.

Which kind of sucks. Or it would, if I didn't find Thomas and Eve's story so compelling. I am writing exactly the sort of story that I love to read. (Action, adventure, true love!) It's the best sort of interactive narrative, where I at once get to watch what happens and make it up.

But when this is over, when it is all, all over (and I'm about 25,000 words into what I think will be a 75,000 word story), I am going to go seek out some old friends, and spend a week or two with Miles Vorkosigan, Peter and Harriet, Val Con and Miri, and maybe even Brother Cadfael. I miss them.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Music and what it does to our days

Recently, I've found a permanent place for my laptop, which previously floated here and there around the house, seeking an abode free from one-year-old fingers.

It now lives on the back of the sewing desk, next to a pair of speakers. This means that it's suddenly easy for me to plug it in and use iTunes. Thanks to the speakers, I can here the music from anywhere in the first floor of our condo, and can sing along to Rich Mullins or Sandra McCracken while I'm doing the dishes or chopping veggies.

Honestly, it's a childhood fantasy come true. I remember being a teenager, listening to the radio as I drove, and wishing that every time I heard a song I didn't like, I could hit a delete button and have it vanish from the station's playlist. I'd do this for a few weeks, and eventually every song that remained would be one I loved. It'd be my own private radio station, playing everything from country music to Bach to the Eagles to hymns to Irish jigs to Rich Mullins.

And modern mp3 technology? Makes my radio daydream a reality. I plug in my computer and turn on a playlist and suddenly the house is filled with my own personal soundtrack. Depending on the day, it might be a playlist called "sursum corda!" or "Saturday" or "commitment" or the always bouncy "danceable".

I go through long periods of time when I forget to play music, and then I rediscover (brilliance!) that we actually own cds and mp3s and suddenly the house is ringing with song from morning till night. I don't know why I forget, but I'm glad right now that I'm remembering. Music makes the good days brighter, the drudgery joy and the suffering meaningful.

What about you? Does music make a difference to how your days go?

Currently I'm enjoying John Tams' version of "Over the Hills and Far Away", Caedmon's Call's "Volcanoland", Fiction Family's "Look for Me Baby", Johnny Cleg's "Dela", Michael Card's "Walking on Water", Johnathan Coulton's "Mr. Fancy Pants", Andrew Peterson's "Matthew's Begats" and, as always, Sandra McCracken's "Springtime Indiana".

What are your favorite songs to listen to right now?

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

menu planning with our csa basket

I blogged about getting our first official CSA basket here, and now I've menu-planned, and we've starting using all those green goodies.

A lot of them are just going to be straight-up snacks. This includes the kiwi, pears, grapefruit, apples, oranges, celery, cucumber, beets (roasted and sliced) and persimmons.

On Friday, the green onions and the basil (yes, all of it!) went into this pasta dish. I tweaked it by adding some canned mushrooms and Chinese five spice powder (star anise, cinnamon, cloves, fennel and pepper). It was SO GOOD.

Tonight we're using the green beans in this yummy red Thai curry. If you serve it over brown rice, you'll get a hefty dose of protein, but if you want a little more, it's great with salted cashews sprinkled on top. (btw, cashews can be bought at a decent price at both Sam's Club and Trader Joe's - if you buy the "bits and pieces" versions.)

The curry recipes is something I've made before, and it's fast becoming a favorite. It also looks like it would be easy to tweak it to include whatever fresh veggies you have on hand. Since I used up all my fresh basil on Friday, I used frozen-in-a-tube basil for the curry. (This ends up being a remarkably good value. It's sold refrigerated, but you can freeze it after the first use and it stays good. Much better than the $10000/oz., four-leaves-to-a-box version it's sold next to in the grocery store.)

The zucchini became chocolate zucchini bread, and I must admit, it's the best (i.e., least zucchini-tasting) zucchini bread I've ever had. I let the kids try it this afternoon, and they started bargaining to have it for breakfast this week. (I said yes. I'd still rather they eat it than me.)

The chard and beet greens I cooked up together and froze to use later in the week in quiche and in bee-bim-bop. (Yes, that children's picture book contains the recipe that we use. And it's really good - both the recipe and the book. Also - and this isn't the biggest reason it's a good book, but it's something I like - the family in the book prays together before they dig into the yummy, yummy meal.) The carrots are destined to go in this dish too.

The might-have-been-kale that I'm now guessing was actually collard greens got much too crispy when I attempted to make crispy kale. But the marinade was good, so I'm going  to try it again sometime and watch it more closely.

Finally, the cabbage is going into this unstuffed cabbage casserole.

And the flowers are still looking pretty on my counter. :)

peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell