for when you run out of food coloring... {Easter eggs au naturel}

Last year we dyed our Easter eggs this way, having run out of food coloring... they came out so well, my son asked if we could do those "onion-eggs" again this year!  Click here and here for more recipes and ideas...

Easter Eggs Au Naturel

1. First, fill a mesh bag with onion skins. 

(These sprouting beauties had been living under our kitchen sink the whole 7 months we were away in New Zealand last year having our daughter!)

2. Put the bag in a stainless steel pot with 4-5 inches of water, and add several tablespoons of vinegar (a blog I read said vinegar helps the dye take to the eggs).  

3. Bring the water to a boil and simmer the whole concoction for about 20 minutes, until the water turns bright red.

4, While the skins are boiling, go outside with your kids and collect several different kinds of interesting leaves.  

5. Cut lengths from an old pair of stockings, and tie a knot at one end of each length.  

6. Let your kids choose a leaf, and lay it flat on an egg (white eggs work better than brown).  Here's the only tricky part: Holding the leaf in place with your fingers, stretch the stocking carefully over both egg and leaf, and tie a second knot at the other end.

7. Put all the eggs in the bottom of the pot with the red water and cook everything together for another 15-20 minutes. 

When we fished our eggs out, they looked like this:

And when we snipped the stockings and peeled off the soggy leaves, 

they looked like this:

I read that you can use things like beets and ground turmeric to make even more colors!  

P.S. My favorite part is that instead of cooking eggs first and then spending hours dipping them in bowls of food-coloring water with spoons, you just throw everything in a pot together and boil it up, and presto - pretty eggs!  

a spring story in photos: hope

Last fall we planted tulip bulbs, in celebration of receiving our one-year visa, and the gift of a little bit of continuity.  Six-year-old William was our photographer for planting, and this spring, after all the snow had melted, he went out to the front garden to check on the progress.  Here is his photo essay - all except the last shot, which Mommy took. :)

Hope.  

For me last fall, after an incredibly stressful year of traveling, waiting and visa dramas,

planting these tulips symbolized hope: 

my desire and commitment to contribute beauty to this place 

(in every way - outside, inside, and on a soul-level) 

no matter how long our sojourn here might be...

for days when you need a little hope... {guest post for Velvet Ashes}

Photo credit: William Broughton, age 6

Have you walked through a season - maybe right now - where you feel like your creativity is bottled up inside of you, waiting for a chance to come out?  Since I’m in the throes of early motherhood, that’s me, most of the time!  But every once in a while, despite my crazy, interruption-filled days and miles-long to-do list, something creative leaks out and finds room to breathe.  And that feels hopeful to me.

I write songs for all sorts of reasons: to tuck Scripture inside my heart.  To express myself to Jesus.  To capture a quote I love.  To revitalize an old hymn text.  

Mostly, I write music because it gives me hope.  

There’s definitely something creative in spreading peanut butter on apple slices for my kids (in between writing these sentences).  But then there’s the specific “art you were made to live”, which Emily Freeman describes in her hope-filled book A Million Little Ways.  Something deep inside me starts to wither if I don’t intentionally exercise my creativity beyond cooking meals, playing with my kids, and trying to keep my house relatively dirt-free and attractive.  

When I feel a song rising in me, it gives me hope that my creativity is still alive despite the fog of fatigue and swirl of mundane tasks.  So I pay attention, and try to write in the little cracks of time I can find.  It isn’t perfect, or as much as I’d like, but it keeps hope alive.  

For me, music is a bridge between the seasons of my life. 

Rewind ten years to my first stint overseas, fresh out of college....

I'm over at Velvet Ashes today, sharing my story of creativity and hope... come read more and be encouraged! 

living the art you were made to live

{On my nightstand: I've been enjoying emily p. freeman's new book 

A Million LIttle Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live}

My daughter is screaming in her bed.

I just sat down to write.  She just started screaming.  I’ve been waiting all day for the house to get quiet.  

An hour or so earlier, I put her down for her nap, read to my second son and settled him in his bed, sat on the couch for a reading lesson with my first son and then set him up with paper and markers, and I’ve just settled on my bed with my computer….

And my daughter wakes up.  

I ignore her as long as I can, try to write a few sentences, but it’s no use.  She’s teething, poor thing; this is the second time she’s woken up screaming this afternoon, and I’m pretty sure she’s not going back to sleep again.  

I sigh, slide from under my cosy blanket.  I slip into her room.  She’s sitting forlornly in the bottom of her portacot, heaving with sobs.  My heart breaks a little.  I gather her up, try to contain her writhing body while she screams for another five minutes in my arms, punishing me for making her wait so long.  She hiccups, snotty and streaming.  I cuddle her close, pushing down my longing to write, trying to quell my rising frustration.  

Didn’t I sign up for this parenting thing?  Isn’t this what I’ve always wanted?  But how do I weave it all together?  Maybe I should just give up writing for now… I think in despair.  

But writing is part of who I am.  If I was locked in solitary confinement for twenty years, I think I’d write with my fingernails on the jail cell wall.   

Ruby sits with me now at the kitchen table, still hiccuping.  We need a treat, both of us.  I look over at the bag of tiny Mandarin oranges my sweet husband brought home from the bazaar yesterday.  

“Would you like an orange, Ruby?”  

A blank stare.  We’ve bought them twice already this week and she adores them, but she doesn’t yet recognize the word orange.  So I cradle her pink-tighted legs in the crook of my arm and we walk over to the bag.  I show her two little oranges in the palm of my hand.  She grins, and starts her new skill: nodding.  Chin up, chin down, up, down. 

“This, Ruby,” I tell her, “is an orange.”  More nodding.  She reaches.  We sit down.  I peel one slowly, taking off the skin in bits and laying them on the table.  Her body is quiet on my lap.  Attentive.  She’s stopped hiccuping.  She reaches toward the  orange I’ve peeled and grabs it.  Then, instead of eating it, she sets it aside.  Reaches for the unpeeled one.  Presses hard on it with her fingers and thumb.  I try to help get her started - she pulls away with a grunt.  More pressing and poking.  She slides her little fingers around the orange, trying to find a hole.  Finally, I sneak in a fingernail and scratch a hole to get her started.  She works away for a while, excavating one tiny bit of peel at a time.  Some goes on the table, some tumble to the floor.

I think about independence.  The innate drive to do something yourself, with no help.  The need to test ourselves, to prove ourselves - to ourselves, first of all.  A 13-month-old isn’t out to impress anyone - she just wants the thrill of accomplishment.  

What am I aiming to do when I write?  Impress others?  Or can I write just for the joy of writing?  Is writing really necessary to me?

I know the answer to that last one: yes.  It’s necessary.  As necessary as breathing.  

Her sobs have subsided, now that she’s with me.  All the noise hushed for now.  My lap, and oranges.  That’s all she needs.  

What do I need in order to hush the noise?  

I know the answer to that one too: quiet.  And Jesus.  I need to be aware of being together with Jesus.  

I think about togetherness.  I cradle her in the crook of one elbow, still clutching her half-peeled orange, and we go to the bedroom to retrieve my computer.  Laptop balanced precariously in one hand, baby in the other, I go back to the table.  I think about balance.  While she’s occupied with oranges, I write this post.  And consider.

How do I balance motherhood and art?  What is the point of all this longing to write, planning to write, all these words, anyway?  Is it really worth it?

Emily P. Freeman would say, yes.  Yes, it is totally worth it.  Keep writing.  Keep making the art you were made to live.  And she would also say (from the chapter I just finished today) - sink into Jesus, before, during and after.  

Follow His leading, let His life live through you.  Be together with Him.  Let Him hush the noise.  

Because, I realize, Jesus, not me, is the primary parent of these children.  Jesus, not me, is the primary source of these words I'm writing.  His life is tinted with my personality as He shines out through me, but it is His life.  “I have been crucified with Christ, therefore I no longer live, but Christ lives through me.”  

If I’ve been crucified with Christ, then even though I’ve been waiting all day for Jesus to give me a slot of time to write, I can release it even as it began, for the joy of comforting my daughter.  

If Christ lives through me, I can write about oranges, surrounded by the smell of oranges, with sticky baby fingers reaching for my keyboard.  As long as my children are happy, with me, learning, growing, being fed (or learning to feed themselves), it’s ok to sometimes have the computer on the table.  There were other moments today when I focused in on each of them, put my hands on their shoulders, met their eyes, told them how much I love them.  

Now they can happily munch, while I happily type.  This is not ignoring them, and I don’t need to feel guilty about it, I tell myself.  

This is just all part of figuring out how to live the art I was made to live. 

*****

What is the art you were made to live?  Are you managing to weave it into your day-to-day life?  Is the whole process more challenging for you some days than others?  

It's a good thing I enjoy bringing order out of chaos...

...because I sure do a lot of it!

Messy kitchen counters, sinks full of crusty dishes, laundry baskets full of topsy-turvy clothes waiting to be sorted, folded and put away…  Living room floor covered with Thomas-the-Tank-Engine and all his friends, veranda littered with bats and balls, hall corridor strewn with every board book we own… 

Evidence that three happy, busy preschoolers live here.

It’s a good thing I get a thrill from clean, wiped-off countertops, freshly folded laundry piles, baskets full of the right toys in the right places, boxes of tidy sports equipment… because I seem to spend large quantities of time Tidying (or Supervising Tidying).

Creating order out of chaos.  

This is my life.  I’m glad I like it.  

Come to think of it, God must like it too.  Just think of all He’s done:

Out of the chaos of nothing, He created an orderly, law-abiding, wonder-filled universe to run faithfully and predictably under His command...

Out of a lump of mud, He created the marvel we call “a human being”…

He took the horrible mess-up we call “sin” and redeemed it with the most wonderful, surprising, beautifully crafted Rescue Plan ever invented… 

And he daily takes my fallen, sinful, imperfect striving and turns it into works of grace… 

(lately I've been listening to Keith and Kristyn Getty’s song “Holy Spirit”...)

*****

What chaos is in your life right now?  Do you need to believe He can make something beautiful out of it?

on creativity and motherhood

In this hectic season of early motherhood, I’m drawn to books on nurturing creativity.  I struggle in my heart (probably along with most mothers of preschoolers!) to validate my daily efforts at homemaking, mothering, cooking and discipling as true creative endeavors, although in my head I do know that’s what they are.

I’m hungry for time to exercise my writing and composing, but all I can find are leftover scraps in the margins… and some days they are so tiny and I am so tired, it just doesn’t feel worth it.    

But I order yet another book on creativity, ask my Mom to forward it across the ocean.  It sits on my desk for months after it arrives, and I keep making promises to it every time it catches my eye.  They’re really promises to myself, my creative self.  I will engage.  I will pick you up and tend to you.  Just not yet.  

Last week, I thumb through it, make friends with it.  What kind of commitment will this one require?  

But it turns out to be the good kind of friend.  Steeped in the Holy Spirit and truth, it’s a gentle book I can pick up or put down at will.  This week I’m beginning chapter 3, exploring my creative history - which periods in my life was I most creative, and why?  What’s blocking my creativity now?

Sheer lack of time and energy, I think, with a hollow laugh.  In this season of my life, there just doesn’t seem to be enough to go around.  Is it even worth it to try and pursue these “other” gifts, amid all my other more urgent responsibilities?

But, as I just told my almost-six-year-old, who woke up too early and came in while I was writing this post:

“Mommy, what are you doing?

“Writing.”

“Writing what?”

“Just... writing.  I need to write for the health of my soul.”

I need to write for the health of my soul.  That’s the bottom line.  I’m finally figuring it out.    

“How do you spell 'Jesus'?” he asks, after seeing the word “just” in the sentence above (he’s still standing at my elbow, looking over my shoulder).  With a chuckle, he imitates the fast clickety-clack of my fingers on the keyboard, and then observes, “It’s good that your computer has lights [my keyboard is backlit]… then you can see in the dark!”

My second son is up shortly order, and I send them both back to bed with iPods to listen to Bible verse songs or the Jesus Storybook Bible… I grasp at a few more quiet minutes.

I hear the third one, imperious in her crib - “Mmmmmah?  Mmmmmah?”  I go pick her up, and here she is now in her pink fleece sleeper - blinking on my lap like a downy owlet, grasping my bread and reaching for my tea as I type.  She takes little mousy bites of the bread clutched in her fist, makes little tasting noises, smacking her lips.  Sighs with satisfaction.  Mommy’s lap, and bread.  

The day has begun.  

Time to make breakfast.  And time to be thankful for a post and a half written between devotions and pancakes… enough to be going on with today.

six thousand cups of promise

{A amazing glimpse into one of my husband's current endeavors...}

Nestled in dark dirt, surrounded by a white plastic sheath, a cherry seed waits.

Lovingly planted by careful hands in the dead of winter, it slept long months in its cup of earth in cellar dark, biding its time. 

Yesterday, its cup was placed in a wooden crate with forty-nine other cups containing its brothers and sisters.  The crate was lifted and carried up and out, into the moist, spring air.  Other crates are carefully placed beside the first, until the ground is covered with six thousand cups of promise.

Now the seed stirs.  Stretches slightly in its earthen bed.  Thinks its first, faint, cherry thoughts.  The spring sun gently warms its bedclothes.  Warmth seeps down into the dirt in the cup.   The seed feels moisture all around, senses warmth above. 

Then, one day - pop!  The seed-case cracks.  A tiny, green, living tendril noses its way up between particles of earth.  Its green point blindly breaks the surface skyward.  

A cherry tree is born.

{Isn't this like our faith?  In the dark of a winter season, we can't feel ourselves growing.  We lose heart, despair of ever changing.  But then one day - pop!  The hard case of doubt cracks open, and suddenly we can feel again the warmth and love of God's presence.  We stretch up towards His light, and watch as His promises bear fruit in our lives, even through dark times - and sometimes because of them.}

Sparrow - finally here!

It's finally finished... 

...just in time for Christmas! 

I am so excited to share these songs with all of you!  They come from my heart, and I hope they minister to yours.  

From the booklet of Sparrow: 

These songs have blossomed out of thoughts and realizations from years of living a cross-cultural, transient life.  

I’ve recorded a few songs in the past, but this is my first original album on this scale, and even just agreeing with God to start the process was a huge step of faith.  I recorded the whole thing when I was nine months pregnant with our daughter, Ruby Grace.  

The title track especially captures my relief at being able to tuck my most precious treasures - my children - under God’s wings and trust Him to be our home.  

My prayer as you listen is that God Himself will draw near and speak to your heart, and that His presence and peace will become tangibly yours.   

Some photos from the making of...

May you know His presence and peace this Christmas, kind friends!   

for when God ups the ante

{Up (or raise) the ante: 

increase what is at stake or under discussion.}

Just when I think I’m graduating from faith school, God ups the ante.  

I’ve never recorded any of my songs in a real studio.  The closest I’ve gotten was my first year overseas, when a group of extremely talented and dedicated friends put together an amateur collection of my songs.  That collection has traveled around the world and back, and many more copies have been made than the 1000 we originally ordered, which I thought I would never be able to get rid of.  (That was the minimum number the bulk printing company who donated the copies would make… I thought surely I’d have stacks left over.  Instead, people called asking if it was ok to make more copies!)  

Now, more than 8 years later, I still get an email out of the blue every so often from someone with a copy of that album, who happened to be listening to a song of mine that morning and wanted to let me know they were blessed.  I cry every time I get one of those emails.  The miracles God did to bring that simple little recording into existence…

So, I’m still writing songs.  And this upcoming home leave, I have the chance to record in a real studio… 

And I’m gonna take it.  

Whew.  Just typing those words leaves me breathless.  

So what's at stake here?  Well, I'll be a bursting - I mean, blooming - 9 months pregnant by the time I get into the studio.  I'm not sure I'll have lung space to sing!  And even though my incredibly supportive husband (who also keeps track of our finances) assures me God's already provided what it will take to do this, it still took me a while to hear clearly from Jesus: I want you to invest in blessing.  Don't hold back.  Do this for me.  

Obviously, I’m not done with faith school yet.  {Are we ever really done til we get to heaven and see His face?}  Just when I think I’ve limboed under His lowest bar, and I’m celebrating because my back didn’t even ache this time, He drops it down one more notch.  Focuses on the next too-precious thing, the next deeper level.

Holley Gerth wrote a note this week that felt meant for me (you can read the whole thing here)… My favorite bit was this: 

On the edge of the Promised Land, [the Israelites] came to the Jordan river. When the priests stepped into the water then it parted. It always takes a step of faith to get to the Promised Land. Always. And if you wait until you’re unafraid, you’ll never cross.

Perhaps you’re in the middle of that kind of moment too, right where you are, taking your own step.  If so, we’re cheering for you. You may not be able to hear, you may not be able to see, but you are not doing this alone.

And what’s ahead of you is more than you can even imagine.

Go for your Promised Land, friend. Let nothing hold you back. Put your feet into that water and feel the dry ground of God’s goodness.

You can do this with Him–one step at a time.

“With God all things are possible.”

So let me encourage you… when God ups the ante?  He always comes through with the faith we need to take the next step.  And the next.  And the next.  

After all, if this faith thing came naturally, it wouldn’t need to be a gift, right?  

And when we need more?  We just have to ask. 

*****

What next faith step is God asking you to take?  What's holding you back?

the art of weaving {a balanced life}

“She who reconciles the ill-matched threads of her life,  

and weaves them gratefully into a single cloth -  

it’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hall 

and clears it for a different celebration  

where the one guest is You.” 

Rainer Maria Rilke

I sit with one of my favorite quotes in front of me, the one that sits framed on my kitchen desk.  We’re halfway through December, list-making month.  Only a few days remain in this year.  

I list my threads:

{Homemaking}  Atmosphere, cleanliness (cooking, cleaning, washing dishes, tidying up, laundry), routine, beauty, productivity, rest, peace...

{Creativity}  Music (worship leading, songwriting, performing, recording), visual art (photography, painting, collaging), crafts (crocheting, cross-stitch), personal appearance (dressing, hair/nails/face, etc)...

{Writing} Blog, poetry, fiction, autobiography, emails, encouragement...

{Wifehood}  Romance, care of needs, submission and following, prompting / suggesting family initiatives, sharpening / accountability, intentional encouragement...

{Motherhood}  Homeschooling, heart-shepherding, fostering creative play, building spiritual habits (memorizing Scripture, facilitating time with Jesus in the morning, daily verse on the kitchen table, ABC Bible Verses before naptime), hygiene/care...

{Jesus}  Reading His Words, committing them to heart, conversing throughout the day, meditating on truth, pausing at set times to commune, listing graces with gratitude...  

{Daily Life}  Inconveniences, interruptions, general maintenance...

{Ministry}  Giving and receiving hospitality, meeting needs, entering community, learning and teaching, attending events, hosting events, administration (newsletters, communication, fundraising, etc)...

{Friendship}  Local friendships, overseas friendships, workmate relationships...

{Foreign Culture(s): Three!}  Moving forward in language learning, ability to read and expound Scripture in a second and third language, constant culture learning and adaptation...

{Extra Initiatives/Events} birthdays, Christmas, Easter, local holidays…

I count eleven different colors, each with its own skein of individual threads in varying shades… I feel a bit dizzy.  

No wonder I’m feeling stretched rather thin at the end of this year.  How did Bilbo Baggins put it? “Like butter scraped over too much bread.”  

I’ve gulped great draughts of fresh 2011 air, welcoming this brief lull between pregnancies/nursing/infants/transitions, eagerly reviving one at a time these beautiful color-threads that have gotten smooshed and tangled under the fast-moving speedy boots our life has worn for the last six years.  This is my life, I chose it and I love living it, but sometimes it leaves me rather breathless.  Stability is an elusive luxury; and mostly, I like it that way.  It’s sure never boring!  But… this year I’ve been enjoying a break from all the speed...  

True to form, I threw myself into this Year of Here, just like I throw myself into the speed...  Breathlessly, I asked of these months: Oo - oo! How many new habits, traditions, good, healthy enjoyable threads can I weave into my life?  How many treasured goals and hoped-for projects can I revive in just a few short months?  

Who’s running this show, anyway?  I think I’ve slid into believing it’s me.  No wonder I’m getting a bit weary.  So much for a “break” - is it me that’s in the habit of going much too fast?  Cramming too much in?  

Like a friend of mine discovered, not wanting to waste a moment I desecrate the moments by accelerating through them and not staying in them.  

Once a week on Saturday mornings I walk for a whole hour while my hubby plays with the boys (usually outside doing boy-stuff).  I explore a direction that interests me; this week I headed out of town up towards the mountains across snowy fields.  

Feet tramping in happy rhythm, thoughts relaxed and fluid, I walked into a realization: I am not the pattern-maker.  -Pop-  Something pinged inside of me, and I found myself taking a deep breath.  And another.  And another.  Shoulders sagged.  Steps slowed.  Joy welled deep.  

I am not the pattern-maker.  All I have to do is listen to the Pattern-Maker.  

It’s difficult!  I protest to myself.  I have known this; I just haven’t been living it.  I love each of my threads too much to find it easy to let go.  To lay them down.  To release a thread I especially love and let it rest for a while.  I just want to hold onto all of them and keep them all moving at the same time; I dislike slack.  It makes me feel like I’m moving backwards.

What is it in me that needs to hold on so tightly?  What am I afraid of?  That if I let go, the threads will reel out of control and all the beautiful things I want in my life will disintegrate and fly to pieces around me?  Doesn’t He want beautiful things for my life too?  And wouldn’t His pattern be far more beautiful - stately - measured - balanced - perfect than mine, all bunchy and forced?  Anyway, it’s impossible for me to keep all these threads moving much longer.  I exhale, long and slow.  

Why can’t I just trust?

I need the Pattern-Maker.  I need to hear His pattern, need to let all my threads rest.  Pick them up gently, one at a time, weave a slow dance, a balanced dance.  Follow His pattern.  Wouldn’t His pattern have flowers and fields and scents and lovely, restful streams?  And wouldn’t His timing be perfect, Him knowing right moment for each thread to shimmer into place, Him speaking soft to my heart, my hands?

Isn’t that a better way to live?  To weave?  

My feet walk on, follow a path across a field, see, stop.  I take photographs of an abandoned mud house, open to the sky, shadows of cut-out spaces on its walls, patterns of light and dark, azure and pearl and dusky brown.  

Turning my face up to the sun, I close my eyes.  I stretch out my arm and snap a picture.  Sunlight warms my face, pressing heavy orange on closed lids.  I feel the weight of heat through the sharp winter cold.  My heart lifts.  Threads hang slack.

On the way home, a new song comes.  I take the song-thread into the house with me, sit at the piano to weave a while, the boys watching cartoons, James trimming trees, the house humming quiet.  Time for song-writing.  I take up the thread and obey - with joy.  Next it will be time for lunch-making, nap-taking and word-crafting.  And after that… ?  

My hands lie open.  Threads surround.  

I listen, and pick up the next one.