Um. Yeah.

So you know me a little, right? Granted, we may not have met in person, but if you've been coming here for a while you do know a little about me. You know my faith. You know some of what's important to me. You know my heart. Right?

I signed an exclusive contract with AOL some weeks ago to write for them. The idea was a "mood food" type column filled with recipes, food pics, stories from my life, the like. I gleefully jumped into the challenge of being a paid food columnist. Are you kidding me? I was ecstatic. But I did have some reservations about submitting my work to editors with full creative control and license over my writing. That was a big deal for me. They can change things up and publish them however and wherever they wish, I told my parents. They'll own the rights to my writing. But maybe I'm just a control freak. I'm sure it will be okay.

If anyone's read the article(s) coming out with my name on them, please know: they have been edited. You know me. And I hope you'd know I didn't write some of the things, titles or comments that are out there. We live and learn.

To Do List

Put "eat chocolate" at the top of your To Do list.

That way, you'll get at least one thing done every day.

Eat chocolate chip pecan pie today? Check.

Now I just need the recipe....

Mingling Souls

Still writing letters, papering them in stamps, and sending them far and wide. For, as John Donne mused, "more than kisses, letters mingle souls".

My New, Old Thing

Letters are among the most significant memorial

a person can leave behind them.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

My Grandfather wrote letters to my Grandmother during WWII; letters I found bundled in her garage last year. The tightly-tied parcels were like paper presents, the writing unfamiliar to me... the stamps and markings both foreign and strange. The crinkled pages inside the envelopes told of feelings and promises that exist now only in my Grandmother's fading memories. And in the significant memorial my wonderful Grandfather left.

I decided after reading the lot that I would become a letter writer. A dying art form, to be sure. But an entirely lovely one. I mean, how often do you get a handwritten letter? A card, maybe, with a line or two penned at the bottom. But a letter? Rarely. I miss letters. I want to send and receive letters. And I wonder: in an era of email and text and Facebook, what are we leaving behind for our grandchildren to find fifty years from now?


So I write. I write people I love, people I've met, people (like a daughter?) I have yet to meet. I have a new, old thing: letters. Stamps. Stationery. Ink. I'm snatching up creamy, heavy pages... old, beautiful postage... and cork-capped bottles of liquid inks. And I'm writing.

With each bundle that leaves my hand bound for someone I love, I realize: my letters aren't just chaining souls; they're building my memorial.

If you're interested in letters, too, here's where I started:

The Art of the Handwritten Note: A Guide to Reclaiming Civilized Communication

Vintage Postage reclaimed by VerdeStudio

Stationery from Kate's Paperie

Liquid Inks and Pens

I always say, keep a diary and someday it'll keep you.

-Mae West

Perfect Pool and Pattern

Photo credit: Anna Maria Horner

This afternoon is gorgeous. Perfect, even. Sunshine and fluffy clouds and spring breeze perfect. Millie and I are sitting by the open door some 15 feet away from the rippling hotel pool. I adore watching the light-and-water dances in pools. Mesmerizing, like fire.

Have you seen Anna Maria's new dress pattern? As soon as I find a second I'm ordering this pattern... ordering this material... and not getting up from the sewing machine until I have this dress. I want to paint my toenails pink and call a friend and sip on a glass of lavender lemonade and sit by the pool in this dress.

This weekend. (Maybe this weekend.) It's on.

P.S. If you're an Agatha Raisin mystery fan, I have five of my M.C. Beaton books up for auction to help benefit To Write Love On Her Arms. Check them out here.)

To Write Love on Her Arms

I found it in a bin in a dusty store in Kansas. Useful Drugs. A book that made its way into this world in 1936 and was, that very year, chosen. Read. Marked. Studied. Consulted. As I thumbed through, papers fluttered to the floor: a 70-year old note, a card, and an old, old prescription from the Stanford School of Medicine.

An amazing find. I bought it, wishing I knew a Stanford grad, a doctor, pharmacist, drug rep, or medical or pharmaceutical student who would get a kick out of it. I mean, wouldn't this make the best gift or material for a scrapbook or artist-dreamed keepsake for someone in the medicine world?

It's time to pass it on, so there's an auction over here, part of the proceeds to benefit To Write Love On Her Arms, an organization that's on the front lines helping people who struggle with depression and substance abuse. And there will be other items added throughout the week, all to help the same folks.

I wonder: how many could put down the bottles... the pills... the Useful Drugs... if only someone would write love on her arms? -Brin

Outside it is raining. Inside, my feet are cold, a movie is playing, knitting is tossed aside, and The Pleasures of Cooking For One is open to a page that makes me happy.


I'm still on this away job... this project that demands so much, including requiring me to board myself and Millie in a motel. It segregates me from real life. Sometimes I welcome that; right now it's tiresome. I chide myself for complaining. So many would be so grateful for this work.

But I'm ready for roots again.

I sense myself skimming through this slow part, eager for scenes in the next chapter.

Time, as it's always faithful to do, will tell....

The Lacy List

I am blessed with amazing friends. Brilliant, captivating, compassionate, sparkling friends. Go-to friends. These folks are there... so patient with me and my little life... and I depend on them. A lot.

And they never stop giving. No worry or favor or crazy thing I'm into now has ever been too much for them. They don't throw up their hands and run away from my messy self, which astonishes me every day. They're my everything, and they deserve recognition:

Sara Elisabeth

Amber

Lisa

Erich

Emily

Jan

Brian

Kim

Shelley

and Lacy

You people make my world happy. I wanted to say Thank You.

Over the weekend, I had the chance to catch up with a few of them. Lacy and I even spent time knocking around Barnes & Noble, which is my idea of a super time. Several of my friends are English teachers/professors, and Lacy is one of the highest caliber. Her mom's a librarian, so Lacy was born with books in her blood. And when Lacy says you should read a book? You read it. You buy it right then and you read it.

Between us, this is Lacy's Latest List. These are the books I bought over the weekend based on her recommendations. Here's what I'll be flipping through this spring... and what I'm reading right now:

The Book Thief

People of the Book

The Handmaid's Tale

The Know It All

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Just in case you don't have a reading/book/genius friend like Lacy, I thought I'd share.

I'd even share the rest of my incredible friends, too, only we better not mention I sent you. Much more from me and they'll probably assume a different name and move to the mountains of Uzbekistan.

(Are there mountains in Uzbekistan? I'll bet Brian would know....)

How to Hold

I have held many things in my hands,

and I have lost them all;

but whatever I have placed in God's hands,

that I still possess.

-Martin Luther

It was one of those March days when

the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold:

when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

-Charles Dickens

It's painted into the sky and pushing up from the ground: Spring is coming.

Happy March. -Brin

Blooming

As long as we are persistent...

we will continue to grow.

We cannot choose the day or time

when we will fully bloom.

It happens in its own time.

-Denis Waitley

This winter, I made a flower of wool and felt and yarn and an old button. Some days - when I awoke feeling blue, when a day seemed impossible to face - I pinned it on. It would remind me, throughout the day, that as long as I was persistent... even in my sadness... I would continue to grow.

It happens in its own time, blooming does. You can't choose when you'll unfurl yourself from struggles or grief or loss or regret. One day you just do. One day you just find that all that time shut away, in the dark, has made you different... new... beautiful, even. And then there you are: bloomed.

My life has changed dramatically from a year ago. Today my bloomed self is facing astonishing life decisions. I have been handed an opportunity to move to Jerusalem to live and work. Jerusalem. In the Old City. If I choose Option One, I will be walking in Jesus' footsteps within 10 weeks. Option Two? Option Two is love. And of course, Option Three: stay where I am, in a job I enjoy, regroup from the last three years, and write.

I'd like to have it all. Options One through Three. Who says a (bloomed) girl can't have it all?

But for now I watch. I pray. And I pin on my bloom and wait for things to happen. All good things happen in their own time....

I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you,
and that you will work them, water them
with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom,
till you yourself burst into bloom.
-Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Valentine's Strawberry Shortbread

How cruelly sweet are the echoes that start,

When memory plays an old tune on the heart.

-Eliza Cook

Vanilla shortbread with a glossy glazing of strawberry jam. It was covered with another layer of shortbread, baked, cut into hearts and lightly dusted with snowy sugar.

But then my hesitant heart, full of memories and old tunes, got in the way. I wanted to send it to him but couldn't.

Don't worry. Co-workers devoured it in minutes. And now you can, too, if you're so inclined. Bake it for yourself... or someone else you love:

Vanilla Shortbread with Strawberry Jam

2 cups (2 sticks/16 T.) salted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
3 1/3 cups all purpose flour, fluffed up
1 heaping t. baking powder
1 T. kosher salt
2 large eggs
½ vanilla bean (or 1 ½ T. vanilla extract)
1 ½ cups strawberry jam
¼ cup powdered sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 325° F. In large, cold bowl, work butter and sugar together with wooden spoon. Measure flour and dump on top of butter/sugar mixture into a cloudy mountain. (Now we're baking.) Add baking powder and salt on top of flour. Toss dry ingredients together lightly with clean fingers, then use wooden spoon to begin incorporating flour into butter and sugar. When barely coming together, add eggs to the bowl. Break yolks with wooden spoon. If you’re using vanilla extract, pour it in with the eggs and mix together. If you’re using a vanilla bean, thoroughly incorporate eggs into dough, then scrape the seeds from half the vanilla bean and mix in now. Dough should be a bit shaggy. It’s okay.

Divide dough in two equal parts and scrape half the mixture from the bowl. Press onto a sheet pan. (I use my trusty Pampered Chef baking stone to bake this recipe and always have. If you don’t have a pizza stone or rimmed stone baking sheet, get you one soon. If you don’t have one, use a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper or silpat. But just know your ‘bread won’t be as tender.) Lightly press dough onto sheet to a 1/2 inch thickness, using a glass or rolling pin if necessary. Top dough with your favorite jam. (Strawberry and raspberry were popular at henrybella’s.)

Roll remaining half of dough out on a lightly floured counter or board to a ½ inch thickness. Transfer onto jam-glazed half. (You’ll probably ace this, but I always manage to tear the dough and have to patch my top with jagged dough pieces.) It’s okay if the top cracks, jam oozes through, or you need to piece the top to cover all the jam. This is very forgiving.

Bake for 15 minutes, or until sides just begin to turn golden and dough looks firm. (This may be 17 or 18 minutes for some.) Remove from oven and let cool. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters, transfer to parchment paper, and dust with a shower of powdered sugar.

Give to or enjoy with someone special. That’s what it’s all about.

Today I Wish I Was Italian

Today I wish I was Italian. Today I wish I could ride my bike down the Italian coast, drinking in the sun and the salty waves and the baked terra cotta.


I wish I could pedal home to a wide-windowed kitchen, pluck herbs from a patio pot, and watch the leafy heap disappear into bubbling pasta sauce. I wish I could open a bottle of wine and call my friends, invite them over, and sit as the ocean breeze tangles our hair and makes the table's candles flicker and smoke.

I wish we could sit... and laugh... until the stars came out and the waves grew quiet. And then, when the stone floor gave up its heat and the cappuccino cooled, we could hug goodbye and feel, if only for a moment, all caught up. Connected.

That's what I wish today. Today I wish I was Italian.

Even here.

Even amidst junk from my past,

decay from hopes that grew

and hopes that fell,

and hardened, bulbous knots of things -

God is springing up something new in my heart.

Something beautiful.

Something to give me hope and a future.

He can make all things new.

Who so loves believes the impossible.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Loving and believing today... and hoping, in similar fashion... the same for you.

Happy Valentine's Day. -Brin

Apple Dumpling Wishes

Hi. Hey there. It's me. Betcha thought I fell down a well or something, didn't you? Nah, I'm here. (Here being a hotel in Arkansas.) I'm here thinking about you. Gosh, I've missed you. It's been too long.

Yep, I'm just sitting here thinking and missing and wishing I was in a kitchen somewhere with a minute to catch up, a pot of tea, some comfy chairs and these (!) baking in the oven.

Maybe someday soon. Definitely someday soon...

Hope Is a Pretty Thing

Image from Apron Anatomy

I bought this apron last week. It was, I suppose, a sort of congratulations present to myself. Ridiculous, right? I know. Silly.

But I can't begin to tell you... ... ... May I just tell you? As awful as 2009 was, 2010 is, well, it's that much better. Doubly better. Exponentially better. I paused this afternoon and winked at heaven. I actually winked at heaven. You were right, I told Him. Everything You promised. Everything You said. You were right.

Image from Apron Anatomy

Promises kept are beautiful. Lessons learned are precious. Valleys, once forged, are dear. And then there's hope. Hope. Hope.

Hope is pretty thing.

Today's Gifts...

...flowers from the store.
...wooden scoops, ready for a farm.
...Melody Gardot, singing.
...dreams, still thick in my morning mind.
...coffee, strong and steaming.
...Millie, barking outside.
...Ladies in Lavender, ready to play.
...medicine, for a 4-day, lingering bug.
...laundry, folded, ready to pack.
...healthy bread in the oven.
...Sunday. A new week. A beautiful gift.

Whew!

I have to say: washing, photographing and posting the Green Glass Grab goodies to eBay took much longer than I anticipated. Seriously. Now I understand why there are people who will do that for you. For a great, big, giant fee, of course.

After looking over my collection, I decided not to post all the glasses and tumblers I've collected. I'll probably take them to a flea market or antique place and see if anyone wants them. If not, maybe I'll yard sale the lot. The thought of unwrapping all those individual glasses, hand washing them (no dishwasher here) and dealing with them was more than I wanted to tackle this weekend. Especially since I have two work reports and my AOL bio and two article drafts due tomorrow. And whoamygosh, is it almost 5 PM on Monday? I'm dead. I'm so dead.

(Big thanks to all who rushed over and browsed and bid. Big. Thanks. Made my day. Thank you, thank you.)

Got to get settled into this hotel and geared up for another week of brain-bending work. See you when I come up for air... -Brin