I love puzzles. Well, actually, I’m not a huge fan of puzzle puzzles- you know- 500 pieces of cut up cardboard shoved in a box that I’m supposed to sit down and assemble into a photo of kittens lounging in the tall summer grass, or the Eiffel tower at sunset, or babies dressed as butterflies. Those puzzles don’t do much for me.

But just about any other puzzle-like activity can hold my undivided attention far longer than anything else.

For example-

Scrabble- Take a bunch of random letters and form words. I like words. I like puzzles. This game is perfection.

Sharks teeth- I love looking for sharks teeth. I think it’s because I like zeroing in on a specific shape in a sea of sand, pebbles, and shells. It all looks like chaos, but your mind filters through it to find order. (as a kid, I was a sucker for Where’s Waldo books. Same concept.)

Taking photos- What? This isn’t a puzzle? It is though, isn’t it? It’s finding the perfect composition. It is choosing what to keep and what to throw away. It is narrowing time and space into a single, brief moment and freezing that moment forever.

Research- give me a topic and I will research it into oblivion. I like information. I like piecing information together. For example, researching my family history- an amazing puzzle of details and shadows of details, cross-referencing names, dates, anecdotes- all to form a bigger picture and deeper understanding of where I’ve come from.

Reading- Is this a stretch? Depends on the type of book, I think. I like a good thriller because I enjoy piecing together the information as I read. Can I figure out the ending before it happens? Can I predict what the characters will do based on their previous actions? Can I outwit the author? Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t.

Editing- Here’s a bunch of footage, some interviews, and maybe a script (maybe not), now make something good with it. Editing is pretty much the ultimate puzzle, because there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong way (actually, there are plenty of wrong ways to edit, but I digress!) It is about taking a massive amount of material and whittling it down to what is the most important information to see and hear and putting it all together in a way that is both informative and engaging.

So there you have it. Puzzles are fun.

Did I miss any? Are there any other puzzle-like activities that I should investigate?

 

 

This week has been hard.

Between national tragedy, family heartbreak, and some shuffling in our personal lives, I sit here tonight feeling a bit sad and worn. But instead of focusing on that, I want to end my evening with a smile. Why? Because I serve a God that isn’t surprised by life’s disappointments. He doesn’t shudder at change or cringe in the face of pain. In fact, He enters in. He embraces it and even more, He redeems it. He takes the brokenness that we often can’t see past and uses it to shape and mold who we are. And it is only through that redemptive love that hope and joy can whisper through life’s pain and heartache.

Isaiah 41:10 fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

This past weekend I met the cat that I want. Let me reword that, I got to see the cat that I want.

When we were out visiting my parents, we went to the local animal shelter and we looked at quite a few cats. Out of all of them, one stuck out as being the most easy going with our small children. When we returned the next day, however, she had been adopted. After meeting several other cats, the shelter people said there was one cat in the back that they thought would be great with small children, and while she was not yet ready to be adopted, we could go back and look at her in her cage. We would not be allowed to touch her.

As we walked back, the lady informed us that the shelter was overrun with cats, and besides the cats we had already seen, there were three more rooms of cats that were waiting to be processed!

This was when we entered the room and met Jezebel.

If you have ever had a pet, you know there is that moment when you just know that it would be a good fit. There’s no hesitation, because you know that you have met your match. That was my moment with Jezebel.

First of all, she is HUGE! Seriously, this cat is big. And furry… oh. so. furry!! I’ve never had a long haired cat before, but I think they are so beautiful. The shelter worker opened up her cage and petted her, and Jezebel just ate it up. Unlike the other cats we had met, she had a calmness about her, sitting in her cage as if being in a room with twenty other cats wasn’t worth her concern. She was gorgeous. I was hooked.

I asked when she would be available and the woman said she wasn’t sure but I could leave my info and they would put it in Jezebel’s file. I acquiesced and then we went on our way. I gave it a few days (because I didn’t want to come off as a crazy cat lady lunatic) and today I called to check up on her status.

The woman who answered the phone informed me that she couldn’t really offer me any information because there really isn’t a time table as to when Jezebel will be ready. (She’s fixed, up to date on everything, and is seriously just sitting in a cage waiting.) When I mentioned that I left my name the other day and if they could call me she said they don’t really do that. If I want to know when Jezebel is ready, keep an eye on the website (which apparently updates every hour) and when I see her picture I can call and come in and see her.

So wait, let me get this straight… You are overrun with cats. So many that you have three full rooms of them. I call about a very specific six year old cat that you have in the back, saying I can take her as soon as she is ready and you won’t push her to the front of the line for adoption or even put my name on her file to give me a call when she is ready. This, my friends, is government bureaucracy, and you know who gets hurt in the end… the kitties.  Had this been a private enterprise they would have jumped at getting one of their kitties adopted, (especially an older one, who statistically has less of a chance of adoption than a kitten.)

So now I will have to stalk their website for the next several weeks and the moment I see her, I need to figure out how to get to the shelter on short notice (it’s over an hour away) and pray no one takes her before I get there.

So if we are in mid sentence, and I run out of the room yelling Jezebel, it’s because she’s jumped through all the hoops and ready to come home.

And of course she is worth it… after all, we had that moment!

PS- if I meet her and she turns out to be a complete jerk, I take back everything I said.

I once read that during the Revolutionary War, the British soldiers that were stationed in Washington D.C. wrote back to the crown demanding hazard pay on account of their working in tropical conditions. I can only imagine how they suffered through a mid atlantic summer in their heavy, wool uniforms. The summers around here can be stifling, the air so thick you can practically chew it. Usually this humidity starts earlier in the season, but this year, thankfully, it held off until July.

Today was one of those hot days, redeemed only by the hiding sun, but as the day wore on and the sun came out, I was reminded that at long last, summer is here.

The kids went swimming today, which I followed up with a trip to the beach in hopes that they will sleep soundly tonight. The cool water was a welcome respite from the sweltering heat. With temperatures set to soar even higher tomorrow, I imagine we will be staying in for the next few days.

I asked two of my sweet loves to help me with dinner tonight. Their job- to shuck the corn. 

On the way to the sitter this morning, C asked me if we could have corn on the cob sometime soon, so this evening on the way home I stopped by the store to get some. Nothing beats pulling it right out of your own garden or stopping at a roadside stand, but in lieu of those, Giant would have to do.

When I was a kid and we had that gigantic garden, my mother would grow corn. My sister and I had the job of shucking it. We would sit on the the edge of our well off the back porch and strip away the layers of leaves and fine threads to get to the ear of corn inside. We didn’t use pesticides or anything of the sort on our garden, so inevitably, there were ears of corn that had gotten overrun with worms. We would pull back the leaves and our hands would feel something squishy. Naturally we would scream and throw the corn across the patio. My mother would come out, finish shucking that ear of corn, remove the bug, and salvage what she could of the corn itself. The bugs never bothered her.

Our house was on the edge of a massive cornfield. The corn wasn’t grown for human consumption, so it wasn’t harvested when it was fresh. The corn plants would grow throughout the summer, and the hot August sun would begin drying out the stalks. We would disappear into those corn rows, inventing games, and spinning around trying to get ourselves lost. We would race through the rows, weaving in and out of the lanes, trying to beat each other to the edge of the field. At night, we would shine our flashlights across it and imagine what creatures lurked within.

It wasn’t until fall, after the field had turned brown and the plants were all dried up, that the harvester would show up, and over the course of a few days, would gather and separate all the ears of corn. When it was gone, the field looked like a waste land, smashed and broken corn plants covering the ground.

My sister and I would scavenge the field for any ears of corn the harvester might have missed. Most of the time we would find ears with a a few rows of kernels still attached, but every once in awhile we would find untouched ears, a veritable jackpot for us kids. When we had gathered our corn we would remove all the kernels. This was  a tough job, as the kernels had hardened (think uncooked popcorn) and we used our hands to remove them. I remember the palms of my hands turning red and my fingers getting sore from the exertion.

I’m not sure if this was a fruitless exercise, or if my mother actually used the corn for something. It seems to me that perhaps she used it as bird feed, but that is a complete guess. Maybe in the end it was just a chore to keep us quiet. Either way, I remember it quite vividly. During the rotating years, the farmer planted soybeans instead of corn to help the land heal and in those years the field was off limits to us.

I drove past that house not that long ago. The field is partly gone, taken over by houses and perfectly manicured lawns. It seems a poor return but time marches on. At least in my memory, that field still remains ever ready for our imaginations.

 

We took the savages to a 4th of July parade in the town near where my parents live. The kids were excited about it, even more so because we missed out on all the fireworks this year. They remembered the parade from last year and that many of the trucks and floats that passed threw candy to the waiting children.

When we got there the kids were eager to play with their friends, get their faces painted, and eat hot dogs.

When the parade finally started, they enjoyed chasing down the candy as it was being thrown from the vehicles. But after a few moments, it began to rain. And then it began to rain heavier. So we sat in the rain, getting very very wet, watching the trucks, horses, and people walking by (also very wet!) Yet even with the rain, the kids had a good time.

We are home now, and our long weekend is drawing to a close. I loved spending the weekend with my parents. My mom brought out a photo album of her childhood, her parents, and some of her relatives. It was really interesting to see pictures of people I had researched when doing our genealogy. It was fun to see them as real people, and not just fragments of information on old documents!

Tim and Baby E made it out here this afternoon! We sure did miss them!

 

Today was a pretty sedate day. We stuck pretty close to my parents’ house and just relaxed. My sister and I ran some errands, and we even went to a local animal shelter to check out some cats! (It might be wishful thinking, but I really do want to get a cat soon!)

Tonight is a Mommy Milestone. This is the very first night I have ever, ever spent away from my dear sweet Baby E.

Tim had a previous obligation, but I decided to bring the big kids out to visit my parents and leave Baby E with him, with the thought that they would join us later. I have to admit, though, I spent half of the day looking over my shoulder, wondering where he wandered off to. There were multiple times when my heart raced as I glanced around looking for him. And even this evening, I was tiptoeing past the room he sleeps in when we visit my parents. I’m missing him terribly, but I am also looking forward to some uninterrupted sleep!

I had it all planned out… I’ve been wanting to visit my parents for a few weeks now, and since it is a long weekend, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Looking ahead, I researched all the local fireworks and learned that our town would be holding them tonight and my parents’ town would be holding them on the 4th. With that in mind, we decided not to go out there tonight because the kids would miss the fireworks, and since we aren’t staying late on Monday, they would miss those ones too. So I had the kids all pumped about walking down and seeing them…

And then it rained. Monsooned, really, and guess what?! Yup. They got cancelled. Postponed until Sunday.

Cue the weeping and gnashing of teeth. My kids melted down… and then their meltdowns had meltdowns. So many tears, and whimpers, and full out wailing!

I’m feeling pretty bummed for the kids… I was looking forward to fireworks too! Hopefully a full night’s sleep will usher in some new attitudes!

When we were kids, my mother used to plant a huge garden. I remember in late spring when she would get her tiller out and start tilling the plot of land she had dedicated to her garden. It was huge. I would follow her as she pushed the tiller up and down the yard, and I would hop from one footprint to the next. If I was barefoot, which I usually was, I would venture out of the indentions her own feet had made and let my feet sink into the freshly unearthed, dark brown soil. It was warm on the surface, but as you dug your toes in further, it would get cooler, a welcome respite from the mid-atlantic humidity.

Inevitably, my mother would turn around and see me dancing and playing in the dirt behind her and she would chide me for flattening the soil she had work so hard to dig up.

When it was time to plant she would measure the distance between her rows. She would get small sticks and tie string to them and stretch them across her garden to guide the rows of seeds she would be planting. With a hoe, she would go along the soil beneath the sting to create a shallow crevice in which to place her seeds. When it was time, she would walk along, dropping seeds in the small ditch, while my sister and I would follow behind her, covering the seeds with the soil and gently patting down the ground.

My mother grew pretty much everything- corn, carrots, sunflowers, lettuce, green beans, yellow beans, squash, zucchini, pumpkins, tomatoes, watermelons, and more.

When it was time to harvest, my mother would gather all of the produce and start canning. It would take her days, but when she was done, we would have veggies to last us for quite some time.

One of the special things she used to do when it was time to harvest the zucchini was to make zucchini crisp. I’m not sure where she got the recipe or what every happened to it, but it was one of our favorite desserts growing up. I know it’s strange, a dessert made from zucchini, but stick with me- for the most part, it actually tasted like apple crisp.

A few years ago, when we lived in the farm house and had a garden, I decided to make it myself. It wasn’t the same recipe, but it turned out pretty good.

Well, the other day, my kind neighbor gave me a huge amount of zucchini and yellow squash.

My first thought was, let’s make some crisp!

I chose this one because it was huge and my recipe called for 8 cups of diced, peeled zucchini.

After chopping it up and adding all the good stuff- the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc- it was time to add it to the cake pan.

Next was to add the topping (which is sugar, oats, flour, and butter) and pop it in the oven for about 45 minutes!

And voila! There it is! It smells amazing, and I’m really, really hoping it tastes as good as I remember!