I'm off to the mountains!

Matt and I had a little moment the other day when I insisted that we were on the ball with the stuff we wanted to take care of. "Babe we're good. We've only been here a month." And that's when he showed me the date. July 22! It's almost August...

Lovely Sarah has been with us this week. So many times this week I have realized how blessed I am to love my new family so much. I feel so much that his family truly is my family and I know so much that not everyone is so fortunate.

I'm off to the mountains of the Yoho Valley. My one year anniversary (on Tuesday!!) will be celebrated in the majesty of nature. In kick ass camping gear.

Here is a song to part with you with.

Fleet Foxes Tiger Mountain Peasant Song covered by the incredible harmonies of the First Aid Kit.

The Simple Woman's Daybook

So I heard about this Simple Woman's Daybook, which on one hand seems totally archaic and condescending, like the women of the world have hours upon hours to do nothing but think and sit around. But... in the context of the Bonhoeffer quote, I see so much of that worry and anxiety in me, worry and anxiety that crumbles to powder before God. So I'll give it a try.

For Christians, the beginning of the day should not be burdened and haunted by various kinds of concerns that they face during the day. The Lord stands above the new day, for God has made it. All restlessness, all impurity, all worry and anxiety flee before him. Therefore, in the early morning hours of the day, may our many thoughts and our many idle words be silent and may the first word and the first thought belong to the one to whom our whole life belongs "
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Outside my window... Muggy with flannel blue skies. There was a wind storm a couple of nights ago and the beach is all over the place.

I am thinking... what the Lord has done for me, and for us, not just now but always has been so rich and dynamic.

I am thankful for... Being able to sleep next to my favorite person in the whole world.

From the learning rooms... I'm all registered for the fall now :) Soooo excited for school!

From the kitchen... eating fresh (free!) cherries on the floor of the kitchen and eyeing the dijon quinoa for din.

I am wearing... purple tee and jean cut offs and REALLY bizarre hair.

I am creating... A marriage! (I'm sensing a theme in my answers...) And baby booties (for a friend!!!). And jam. (Just jam)

I am going... to get excited about produce ;)

I am reading... Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro

I am hoping... sun for our anniversary.

I am hearing... the hum of the refrigerator and Anthem by Emancipator quietly

Around the house... Hanging my bitchin' birthday present from Arie and trying to figure out how to refinish our porcelain sink in the bathroom.

One of my favorite things... my morning run along the beach, with the mountains and the white sails and the tide rippling in.

A few plans for the rest of the week: More beach, more sun! Scott and Jo get back on Friday! And Sarah gets here on Saturday! Yes!

Here is picture for thought I am sharing

This is the forest of the Chief. It feels so wonderful to feel a bit lost in it all.

Summertime, Summertime, Sum-sum-summertime

Muchachos!

The smell of sunscreen. Drippy condensation on

the rim of every cup. Sleeping without covers. Crisp, juicy watermelon. Dewy skin. Hair frizzy from the pool.

Summer is here.

After probably a month straight of overcast, muggy, um disappointing weather, we have had almost a we

ek straight of almost insufferably beautiful sun. At work, every time someone walks through the sliding doors and a sultry gust of humid hotness dances in, everyone in the produce department hovers around the thermometers and the sprouts, biting their nails, 'Oh God and what about the mushrooms!". And at the end of the day, they are just mushrooms and we STILL get a wicked summer.

Matt and I hiked the Chief on Wednesday which was soooo fun! Matt's still sore and walking like he pooped his pants. My legs aren't too sore but I still have sore, burned shoulders. We hit the peak on one of the hottest days we had had so far this summer and man did we feel it. Dipping down into the trees each time from the three peaks was a cool blanket on us.

We did the Squaw trail up the East (I thiiiink it's East), which is essentially a straight scramble up the side of the mountain. And we ran it. Of course we did, because we're first born, type-A, no-I-swear-I-can-do-it-heart attack people. But that was literally what it was like the entire way up.

We met some nice people, (and when I say 'met' I mean we borrowed a match from them or we offered them a bandage or a cigarette as they whimpered to catch their breath on the side of the trail)

and couldn't have had a better day for it.

This is Matt toying with the wildlife. It's like Hammy from Over the Hedge. Once you find high-fructose corn syrups, you can't go back.

We easily did it the hard way up AND down. The side with the peaks had all of these narrow channels, ladders

and chains (it was very BDSM, granola-style of course) and so taking that way down, when gravity's on your side and all was at times slightly... top heavy.

There is my wiiiiiidle husband way out there. The forests out here on the West Coast are powerful and dense like fur. And they are of a size that I have never seen before. The Golden Spruce, which is one of my favorite books ever, is written about the old growth forests on the West Coast, particularly the Pacific Northwest. John Vailant write about the trees in a way that takes my breath away, especially when you're in the midst of them.

This summer is a magical time and it's only just getting started. More sunburns and frizzy hair to go!

Produce with Benefits!

Let's make some magic!

So yesterday I reaped the first benefits of my position in produce. Apparently, occasions like this are rare because it's not 'fair' to every other employee in the store because they don't work in a department that babysits perishable fruits and vegetables everyday. Hmm. I am somewhat unsympathetic? But anyways, this beautiful bowl of figs was allowed to come home with me. So did some fingerling potatoes but they will have their own day. Staring at them on my kitchen counter, numerous occasions came to mind flipping through magazines o

r recipes that called for fresh figs and saying to myself, 'Dang, not in season' or 'I'm just not a person that keeps figs in the house all the time so I can't make...". Fixed! So these lovely Black Missions became a project. I'm not one of those nutty

gluttons that gorges themselves on fresh, raw figs in a sitting. I do that with many another thing but not figs. So I went on a hunt of what I could do with these lovelies without a) having to eat

figs in something different every night this week or b) each of them softening to a disquieting slurry in my fridge. Refrigeration only does so much.

So I enlisted Petihe (Pet-eh-heh, which is the Polish pronunciation for perogies. Seemed appropriate.), that's her below. I give you the phonetic pronunciation for the times you will undoubtedly address her or bring her up in conversation. It's always so embarrassing when you mispronounce someone's name. She is my set of nesting measuring cups, she has a true wealth of kitchen wisdom having three bodies and all. And I am so 'into' anthropomorphizing things.

So after a considerable amount of recipes for figs on pizza, which I'm not sure Matt would be mega stoked on, and most recipes requiring dried figs (which in truth I like considerably less) I decided jam wouldbe really nice. I found a recipe for a dried fruit slump or dried fruit grunt,a type of dessert that came out of the war-time England. Why in the world would you try and pitch a dessert by calling it a 'grunt'. Apparently, they call it a slump because when you serve it the biscuit atop the fruit slumps in the dish. And apparently 'grunt' comes from the sound the fruit make as they cook. I don't even really know what to do with that.

This recipe eventually caught my eye, and held it. (That is a somewhat weird turn of phrase no? Caught it like in a baseball glove. Even weirder.) But 'pure abundance' sounded really lovely and figs always make me thing of Jesus and the bible. It makes me think specifically of the Ten

Commandments movie which also makes me think of how friggin' epic Anne Baxter despite the fact that it's outrageously absurd to think that they would have had fitted bodices in the Egyptian dynasty. Doubtful, but I've watched the movie for that reason alone before.

I absolutely bloodied myself before I even got started. Washing the breakfast dishes, I sliced my finger on a misleading edge of some tongs we have. I swear I felt it scrape against the bone. And it bled as I raced around the house with my hand raised above my head. Lacey is screaming at her computer screen somewhere saying that this is so disgusting and why am I talking about this? It is so disgusting but I could not let it go undocumented money shot and all. Matt teases me about my band-aid thing. They other day he said, "You love band-aid. Before we got married I didn't have any. And now we have four boxes." And four boxes we do have. And it is really due to the fact that I am ten times as clumsy as Matt.Anyways, back to the food I guess. Gross. I'll probably edit that entire part out later because bodily fluids and food...I won't even go there. Sick.

I added a tad bit of Galliano at the end with the lemon juice. The option the recipe gives with the orange peel and the Cointreau made me think, "I like Galliano better and we still have almost a full bottle. It was a good choice but it almost made the figs taste like raspberries for some reason. But lemon and vanilla give it such a cool taste. Good choice Brianne.

That recipe didn't make even a quart jar of preserves but they are very good. And we have a jar about the same size with saskatoon preserves. That was my Tuesday. I'm off to the Beach with my notebook. God's creation has me inspired.

This is my favorite song right now. It ALWAYS makes me think of my bachelorette party which was bar none, the BEST party I have ever been to. Miss Shurmer you have a gift.

The 12 Project

One of my favorite blogs, Walk Slowly, Live Wildly, wrote about this idea that I absolutely love. The 12 Project is to photograph your family once a month. It's not even just a posterity thing. Sara at Happy Janssens will bind hers at the end of the year but... we have SO many books. We have an obscene amount of photos as well but I think I might find an awesome collage frame (like this one maybe? Or do something cool like this? Or something along the lines of this even though it's totally gay looking in the picture?) And now that things have leveled out here a little bit, the weather's just getting incredible and it's my one year anniversary this month (!) July is a perfect month. I recently found this site through Offbeat Mama called My Parents Were Awesome which is just such a cool site. People submit pictures of their parents before they were parents and seriously some of these parents are so cool. I love the pictures I have of my parents before they were married and before they hadkids. Smokin', Imean really. And Matt's parents before they were parents were adorable. I think they still are but Matt's dad's mustache and Pam's blunt cut bangs. Ah! I could flip through old pictures like that all day long.

At church two weekends ago, they had their apprentice speak who was GREAT. I think they call it a 'barn burner'? Westside has been moving through 1 Samuel for the past nine months. You could have grown a freakin' baby in that time and still be moving through 1 Samuel. But this James had the honor of closing 1 Samuel and he did a GOOD JOB. He bunnytrails like nobody's business which Matt hates but I totally love because I do too. But James at one part brought up the Glee finale. There was something in the finale that he brought up saying, 'I watch Glee with my wife. Love your wife like Christ loves the Church, you know?" Awesome.

I have a husband that loves me like that. A husband who sacrifices part of his dreams so I can be a part of them. A husband who watches Glee with me. Who holds me close at night when I'm feeling anxious, or sad, or frustrated, or completely content. Who says he's proud of me when I get mad at him. Who graciously answers all of the questions I will inevitably have about any given topic. Who is kept up at night thinking about what kind of man God wants him to become. Who pushes me to become the woman God wants me to become. A husband who tells me daily how beautiful I am and a husband who has transformed how beautiful I feel I am. Who gets baby fever when he sees a little girl with pigtails or a little boy with baby carhartts on. A husband who calls me on my shit and praises my strengths. A husband who tells me daily he needs me. A husband I desperately need. The profound and transformative changes that have happened in the past two years and a bit have blessed me so much. God is so good.

All love your way,

Bri