Showing posts with label art of homemaking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art of homemaking. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 03, 2016

What I'm Into Lately (January 2016 edition)

We started the month in full twirl with wedding, family and holiday festivities.  We ended the month at a quiet retreat center.  Seems fitting.  And, I think, now I'm finally ready to get started with 2016!  

 Here are some other things I've been into lately...



[photo credits]  

 Although, it wasn't January yet, I should mention that we made a Christmas Day family trip to Alamo Drafthouse to see the new Star Wars flick (in 3D).  From what I could tell, it was very good. (The rest of my family are the true fans -- some more rabid than others.)  Also, it was late in the day, and I hadn't had my traditional Christmas Day nap. Please, please don't tell the world that I fell asleep.  This, in no way, reflects on the quality of the movie.

The biggest viewing event this month was our Making A Murderer binge (along with the rest of the country, apparently). I have no words that haven't already been shouted in all-caps across social media.  Had you been near our house during the hours we were watching you might have seen a neon blue streak shooting out of the walls.  (My daughter told our son "I've never heard Mom curse like that before.")  Well, some things are, indeed, curs-ed.  

We tried to settle down after the final episode by scrolling through the @makingamurderermemes IG page.  I was inspired to create my own (which my kids tell me is lacking in some key meme-ish qualities, but it made ME feel better.)
Other than that, I've half-heartedly followed the final season of Downton Abbey.  I really wish we'd been given more scenes of Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes' wedding, don't you? Also, if Mary and Edith can even one time treat each other like loving sisters, I will admit to liking the show. 

 I've decided that if a cooking show could reflect a personality, than Brian's would be Chopped and mine would be The Great British Baking Show .  We spent an afternoon watching and drooling over breads and cakes and dreamy British pastures. I can't bake a lick, mind you.  

 We spent another evening catching up on some great Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee episodes (especially enjoyed Jerry Seinfeld's conversation with new Daily Show host Trevor Noah). 

 I spent a bit of my wedding recuperation time watching old favorites: Babette's Feast, Once, and -- I'll admit it if you promise to tell NO ONE -- The Notebook. (The latter prompted a long conversation with Brian and Natalie about what to do with us when we die -- which, of course, will be in each other's arms.)
I may be the last person on earth to really get YouTube.  I mean I'm finally understanding that if you happen upon a video you really, really like YouTube will kindly give you lots and lots more suggestions of other videos you  might like. This is what happened when I watched James Cordon's Carpool Karaoke with Adele, and then watched every single one of his sweet karaoke sessions. (favorites after Adele: One Direction & Stevie Wonder, which includes the sweetest of moments when Stevie Wonder sings to James' wife over speaker phone).  

 Discovering the magical powers of YouTube kept me company during a 24-hour bout with food poisoning and I watched every possible clip of Ellen interviewing adorable kids.  Seriously cute kids.  


 This year, I'm part of two different reading groups made up of friends and sisters. You can find the lists here:  Take Our Ultimate Reading Challenge / A Year of Reading the World, & Liturgy of Life reading group. 
Go to my Book Pile page to see my reading lists from 2015 and previous years.

Here's my reading list for 2016 .  I've also finally figured out Goodreads, and am slightly addicted! I think I'll be adding my book blurbs there instead of in a monthly post here.  Not sure yet.  Here's my Goodreads page, though.  Let's be friends!


Audio streaming anything makes the daily mundane of my life better:  albums, playlists, podcasts, sermons, live concerts, your kids saying cute stuff on Facebook. On rare occasions (rarer than I'd like) the sound comes alive in a concert or house show or public reading. 

 Here's some of what I heard and enjoyed in the past few months.


  • Brian's carpool karaoke cover of Imagine Dragons covering Taylor Swift's Blank Space (& a bit of Stand By Me)
  • Reasonable Doubt: Update: In light of the Making A Murderer documentary, Radiolab re-aired and updated the 2013 episode when they reported out the story of Penny Beerntsen, the rape victim, and the wrongful judgement against Steve Avery.  The interview with the documentary directors is especially enlightening.
  • On Being with Martin Sheen & Spirituality of Imagination - fascinating and delightful (did you know that Martin Sheen has been arrested more than 60 times in vigils and protests or that he made some specific requests of Aaron Sorkin for the religious leanings of President Bartlett?)


ePantry | I learned about a this automatic delivery service for earth-friendly household products from my friend Tsh at Art of Simple.  I got in on a crazy-good introductory offer in January that gave me a whole bunch of free Mrs. Meyers' products (which we can't help but love). Not sure how I'll use the service moving forward, but sure did love getting that delivery to make my house sparkle and smell good in 2016!  
(Spiked) Cranberry Mulled Cider | We used this favorite recipe (via Tiger In A Jar) over and over again through the holidays.  With more adults than minors in the family now, we tried giving a little bourbon kick to the mix this year.  As you might imagine, it was a huge hit.  So much so, that we used the same recipe for the cocktail hour at the wedding.  This recipe will join the few family legacy recipes we've gathered in our 25 years.   
Slow Cooker Chicken Caesar Sliders | We first made this for Kendra's graduation party and it remains our go-to for feeding a crowd -- like our family reunion / NYE party.  I like eating the chicken on a bed of lettuce, but small slider buns (like these) are great for everyone. 


 FoodHeads Cafe on W. 34th St. | WIt wasn't our first time to enjoy this place, but it was our first time to hire them as caterers (as well as renting the venue). Now I can't stop raving about our son and daughter-in-law's rehearsal dinner.  Highly recommend!  
Ranch 616  on Nueces & W. 7th | A sweet mid-week ladies' lunch with my co-workers.  Fun ambiance + really yummy food + reasonable prices + a new to-to for work lunches (or anytime, really).  I ordered the Chili Lime Grilled Tiger Shrimp and Parmesan Truffle fries with dipping sauce.  My mouth is watering now just thinking about it! 





(top posts in January)


Epiphany, week 2: of bridegrooms, good wine & better things to come |  My Epiphany daybook for these 5 weeks of witness. Join me, won't you? (Read here for a brief description of the liturgical season of Epiphany. See previous Epiphany daybook 2015 posts here)
WALKING EPIPHANY in the Rio Grande valley: neighborhood notes from Erica Jarrett | I'd been counting down the days to re-start one of my favorite blog series of the year.  In the WALKING EPIPHANY guest post series I invite friends from near and far to respond to some thoughtful prompts about neighborhood and community with photos and captions of their own neighborhoods. My new friend Erica Jarrett kicked off the series sharing the light of Christ she lives and sees in her neighborhood at the border of Texas and Mexico. And it is a beautiful light indeed.


The gift I finally have permission to share with you | Like every musician I know, Kendra was hesitant for us to share her song publicly. I think we all understand that phone video is not the most conducive quality to translate beautiful music. I think it was worth the risk, and you find this beautiful anyway. 
What were you into in January?
Linking up with Leigh Kramer to share what I’ve been into lately. 
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Thursday, January 28, 2016

WALKING EPIPHANY in Community First! Village (east Austin): neighborhood notes from Bethany Hebbard


Welcome to the second annual WALKING EPIPHANY series of guest posts! I've asked a few friends who live around the world to take a walk through their neighborhoods, and share some of what they see through photos, videos and words. Each one has selected from a variety of thoughtful prompts to consider the ways the Light has moved into their neighborhoods. Will you join us?

Read here for a brief description of the liturgical season of Epiphany. See the 2015 WALKING EPIPHANY posts here. Also, don't miss the opportunity to engage with thought-provoking questions for your own neighborhood, listed at the end of this post.

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The Hebbard Family
from Bethany Joy Hebbard (Wisdom's Workshop)

Prompt : Houses become homes


Houses become homes when they embody the stories of the people who have made these spaces into places of significance, meaning, and memory. Home is fundamentally a place of connection, of relationships that are life-giving and foundational. And that connectivity includes the past, for homes are shaped by memories of important transitions, events, and experiences. Once these stories are forgotten, there is no home to return to because there is no place, or even potential place, that could be shaped by those stories.

Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian Walsh


The story of my neighborhood is difficult to narrate: officially, it is a “master-planned community for the chronically homeless,” but you’ll have a better picture if you read the verse that inspired the non-profit Mobile Loaves & Fishes to build it: “Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15 NASB). This means it is a neighborhood designed in every way to facilitate community with and among its inhabitants, most of whom have endured chronic homelessness for much of their lives. For example, making the most of a temperate climate, the innovative “tiny homes” on the east side of the property have porches equal to (or larger than) their indoor space. Fire pits and other “gathering spots” invite neighbors to come outside and learn more about one another. Gardens sit at the heart of the property, and we all eat from them. At least once a day it seems I stop to ask a different neighbor how he or she likes to prepare greens and Daikon radishes -- both abundant in our winter gardens. 

Unlike a homeless shelter, the Community First! Village is not meant to be transitional housing, but a lasting, storied, home. As a sign of this permanence, a columbarium already holds the remains of several men and women who longed to live at the Village, but did not live to see it open. Strangely--or perhaps perfectly--it is right next to this monument that we have built a space for the children to play.

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Prompt: Homegrown economy


Losing local businesses to national chains stores is by no means inevitable. Indeed, the growth of chain stores has been aided in no small part by public policy. Land use rules have all too often ignored the needs of communities and undermined the stability of existing business districts. Development incentives frequently favor national corporations over locally owned businesses. Increasing numbers of communities are rewriting the rules around a different set of priorities that encourage a homegrown economy of humanly scaled, diverse, neighborhood-serving businesses.... Active decision making at the local level and a creative approach to zoning can provide a powerful arsenal for defending community.

Stacy Mitchell


Though a farmer and a scholar by training, my husband and I have stepped into the adventure of running a bed and breakfast here at the Village. We hope that this “Community Inn” will become a true extension of the household (Greek oikos, from which our word “economy” comes) of this place. Thus, the Inn, like the rest of the Village, will aim to empower communities into a lifestyle of service for and alongside the poor. Our staff will consist of residents at the Village, providing them with meaningful work and useful income. Additionally, the Inn will house some of the Village’s micro-enterprise programs, such as soap making. We hope to become known throughout Austin for providing beautiful, useful household goods. Even more, we hope that by entering into our “homegrown economy,” our guests will be inspired to shape their own lives according to principles of localized, ethical, meaningful production and trade.

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Prompt: Local ground


The likeliest path to the ultimate ground leads through my local ground. I mean the land itself, with its creeks and rivers, its weather, seasons, stone outcroppings, and all the plants and animals that share it. I cannot have a spiritual center without having a geographical one; I cannot live a grounded life without being grounded in a place.

Scott Russell Sanders



Though a native Texan, my parents moved when I was a baby, and I have lived and put down roots in many other places: I grew up among the smallwood forests and cornfields of Indiana, fell in love early with Appalachian hills and lore, spent my twenties as a grad student in central Texas and then, for three years, took a job and lived on the Gulf Coast of Alabama, where I thought I would spend the rest of my life.

Now, marriage and calling have brought me back to Texas. It has been a beautiful, bewildering, glorious, painful transition; each uprooting hurts more, and I am weary for my roots to find some depth and peace. Thank God the Texas winters are mild and greening. I feel the beauty of this place most now, as Epiphany reveals marvels in midwinter: the precious fragrance of southernwood and Satsuma; chamomile outside my door, as well as calendula and lemon balm, good for salves and lotions. Living in a refurbished RV, I feel the temperatures swing from frigid nights to golden afternoons: we may open the screen door tomorrow, but today I was glad for an excuse to light the oven and win some extra heat from it. The winds tonight make the whole house sway, but we brew our tea (mine with nettle, which grows abundant here) and enjoy jam from the wild Mustang vines I found in August. We settle in, wishing we had a hearth made from that beautiful hill country limestone. We dream about what we can build on this ground--this native soil, this home.


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Prompt: Liked so much as this place


Ma hummed softly to herself while the iron smoothed all the wrinkles out of the little dresses. All around them, to the very edge of the world, there was nothing but grasses waving in the wind. Far overhead, a few white puffs of cloud sailed in the thin blue air. Laura was very happy. The wind sang a low, rustling song in the grass. Grasshoppers' rasping quivered up from all the immense prairie. A buzzing came faintly from all the trees in the creek bottoms. But all these sounds made a great, warm, happy silence. Laura had never seen a place she liked so much as this place.

Laura Ingalls Wilder


I’ve never seen a place I liked so much as this because this is a place where……

friends visit from afar,

beauty grows,

I learn new skills,

newlyweds grow into homemakers,

we live in community,

we celebrate holy days and seasons,

the heavens declare glory,

all creatures great and small find a home.


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Bethany Hebbard (neé Bear) is a minsters’ kid, PhD, newlywed, writer, maker, and teacher. Along with her husband, Steven Hebbard, Bethany lives missionally at the Community First! Village in Austin, Texas. She and Steven are the innkeepers for the Village’s Community Inn, which will open in the spring of 2016. Bethany blogs at wisdomsworkshop.com
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What about your neighborhood?

  • How does your neighborhood make spaces of significance, meaning and memory? 
  • How does your neighborhood preserve and embody it’s own story? 
  • Are there are any signs of a "homegrown economy of humanly scaled, diverse, neighborhood-serving businesses" in your neighborhood? 
  • If we walked around the block in your neighborhood, what would we see (hear, smell, etc.)? 
  • What are the "creeks and rivers, weather, seasons, stone outcroppings, plants and animals" that share your neighborhood? Put another way: If you were asked to coordinate a walking or biking tour of your neighborhood, what would you include in the tour? Also, how would the season of the year affect your itinerary?
  • In your own neighborhood, when do you have the sense that you’ve “never seen a place you liked as much as this place”? What does it sound and look like in those moments? Where are you walking when you feel this way?

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      **Each of guest posts in the WALKING EPIPHANY series selected a few prompts from an overflowing folder of quotations I've saved from the Daily Asterisk.  Thank you,  *culture is not optional for all of your good work. **


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