Life Cycles

It is strange and wonderful how life runs in cycles. We are born helpless naked and needing help for every basic task, and then strangely, after a lifetime of self sufficiency, we often end up right back where we started from.

In autumn, we witness the end of the warm season and the death or hibernation of nature. Plants go dormant or die. Animals crawl into their burrows to wait for spring. And then, after winter has done its worst...everything wakes up again! It is an ordinary miracle - just like many others- that we take for granted.

We were made in the image of God, perfect and whole. Humans are His crowning creation. And then we fell. Adam and Eve rebelled, deciding they knew better than God. But they didn't, and we don't still.

Which is the reason why Jesus had to come, to show us the way back to God and to return us to what God had in mind all along: saints perfectly loving and serving a perfect, loving God.
So now, even though our outward shells are dying slowly day by day, inwardly we are being renewed by the grace of God.*

 And there is nothing more pleasing or satisfying than coming full circle, back to where you need to be.

*"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
" 2Cor. 4:15

It's Good to Be Back Again

Hello,
It's hard to believe it, but that last time I blogged was over two years ago....
Good golly. I never intended to stop blogging! It just kind of happened, obviously.

Writing out & recording my life in little snippets here are there on my blog definitely was something I enjoyed greatly. And lately, I've been trying to get back into doing those things that brought me so much joy. Namely:

• reading (real books, not my Kindle)
• art (drawing, painting, etc.)
• sewing & knitting 
• gardening (I'm limited because I live in town now, but thankfully I have a deck and some great windowsills)
• cooking (there is literally  nothing  as tasty as a gourmet home-cooked meal)
• blogging 

I'm slowly, but surely, reincorporating these hobbies back into my life, and boy. Does it feel good. I feels like riding a bike after a long time. (Which I had the chance to do on Saturday, for the first time in years? months? Nothing feels as wonderful as gliding down the road with the wind whipping you hair and sun kissing your skin!) 

This evening, I decided against going out and eating fast food again (even though I was starving & impatient) and opted instead to head over to our local grocery for supplies. I usually like to go into the grocery store with a list in hand (the idea is, if it's not on my list I won't be tempted to buy it, ha ha...) but today I just strolled through the aisles looking for healthy, more paleo, non-dairy & gluten free options. Thankfully Giant has so many of those! I ended up getting: fresh broccoli, plums, limes, carrots, cucumbers, baby bella mushrooms, soft & hard tofu, OJ, almond milk, organic sausage, lasagna, and non-dairy sour cream. Looking back I realize I should have gotten tomatoes, but I forgot.

So for dinner tonight (9:30pm, which is much later than I like to eat but whatever) I decided to recreate a dish I had a TGIFriday's a while back. It was some kind of pasta with mushrooms, spinach and capers in it. Extremely delicious and very fresh tasting, with a zing to it (lemon juice?) I ended up calling my local TGIFridays and asking what the dish was. Turns out, they did have that dish, it was called Chicken Piccatta Pasta but they no longer serve it. Bummer!  Oh well, I made my own version anyway, and it was darn near just as good. :) 

Hannah's Chicken Piccata Linguine with Creamed Spinach

Literally the most delicious dish I've eaten in a while!

Anyway, so if you want to recreate this for yourself, I took the time to jot down what I did.

Ingredients:

capers

lemon juice (or lemons, even better)

garlic (fresh, or minced from a jar)

mushrooms (I used baby portabellas)

fresh tomatoes (I used Italian diced tomatoes from a can)

non-dairy sour cream

butter

olive oil

whole grain linguine

chicken, cut into strips  (I used frozen chicken meatballs, which my mom makes - they're amazing!)

 Obviously, you want to start with boiling the pasta. I add a pinch of salt and a spoonful of olive oil to the water. Whole grain pasta takes a lot longer to boil, FYI.

As that's boiling, go ahead and add more olive oil to a pan, and sear/saute the piece ingredients in this order: chicken (to fully cooked temps) > garlic > mushrooms > capers 

While cooking that, I microwaved my SteamFresh creamed spinach steamer bag.

Once those are cooked, add the tomatoes and sour cream, with a few squirts of lemon juice. I had to simmer this for a good 5-7 mins to get it to the consistency I wanted as a sauce.

 Pasta drained and more olive oil added to keep it fresh, sauce done, spinach cooked -  now you can assemble the ingredients!  Pasta first, twisted into a circle. Sauce added on top (as much or as little liquid as you like!) Spinach last, spooned on the side.

Basically, my roommate and I devoured this inside of 15mins, it's delectable! And it really only took 30 mins to make! Proof that healthy delicious food is indeed possible on a budget and with normal adult time constraints.

Well, that's all I've got for now. :) It's good to be back.

Enjoy. ~

No Longer Running Away from Everything Good

I'm a runner, and I have been for as long as I've been aware of myself.
When I say "runner" I don't mean I love pounding the pavement drenched in sweat for long periods of time (in fact, I pretty much hate that kinda thing).

No, when I say "I'm a runner" I mean I give up easy.
I quit when it gets hard.
I run off when it looks like I'll never make it.
And I don't like to begin things that I know I may never finish.

I have drawers in my desk full of un-used supplies, shelves and shelves of un-read books, and boxes and boxes of unfinished things, sitting, undecided on.

As a kid, when all of us siblings would be playing games, if it looked like my side was going to lose, I'd throw down my toys, throw up my hands and say "I'm quitting!" much to the chagrin of my brothers and sisters. "That's not fair!" they'd say (and rightly so) "you have to keep playing! At least finish the game."

No, no, no...

I definitely like things simple, easy, "one-shot" and do-able.

Marathons? Five year plans? Long-term relationships?
Those haven't ever been for me.

Fight or flight response?
I'd rather fly, than stay & tough things out and see them through to the end.

Now, this is nothing to brag about, really. I know! Believe me, if I had a choice of anything I could change about myself it would be this. I'm not even sure were this deep-rooted dislike of all things long-termed and commitment-like came from (besides the fact that normal human nature often manifests in things like this.) And I don't even know why I started running away from everything. Even things that were good, and I should have stayed and waited for.

I can't even remember how many promised plans, friendships, relationships, and projects I've given up because I just couldn't stick with them. It's a scary thought. The idea of giving account for all the times I've "given up" is...well, frankly appalling. I've never much thought about it. And if I ever did wonder what it'd be like to be 90 years old, sitting back and looking for something, anything! that I had finished in my life --really done well--and not being able to remember anything....
Well. (Best to ignore that, right? Don't focus on the faults too much! etc)

But that's what it comes down to doesn't it? Legacy.
When I'm my grandma's age, and I've lived my life and I've had my shares of joy and sadness, good days and bad days, success and failure, I do want to be able to hear people say of me, "Hannah? oh she's a tough one, she is. So patient, so diligent! When the going got rough, she'd never give up. Not ever!"

I don't want to hear people say of me, "Well, I love her, but you know Hannah. She could never stick to anything, God bless her. Not for all the money in the world could you get that woman to stay with something longer than she felt like it. It's too bad; made it hard on the folks around her, not that she knew though."

See?
Thinking ahead like that sobers one.
So I'm thinking ahead, and I realized several things while doing my thinking:

1. It is indeed possible to change myself. It may be slow, and it may be painful, but it's definitely not an impossible process! 
2. If I want something done badly enough, I generally tend to make it happen, whether I realize that or not. Now, if I just turned all that energy towards things I need to see done (verus just wants), imagine what I could accomplish! It would astound.
3. Where human, selfish nature gets in the way, the Spirit is always ready to step in and pull us through things. Instead of throwing up my hands and walking away when things get too hard, I need to let God's grace take over. (Well, I should let His grace run my life anyway though, right? :)

Here's a verse that I found to apply right to my problem area. If it helps you too, good!

"And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for you: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather boast in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." (2 Cor. 12:9)

Copper Skipper - Ahoy!

Copper Skipper - Ahoy!, originally uploaded by wrenrow.

Via Flickr:
If all the world of flowerdom was a sea of color, these little skippers would be the flying fish of nature. :)

The Girl & the Waves

The Girl & the Waves, originally uploaded by wrenrow.

(This the only photo I took, and really liked, out of all my recent North Carolina captures. I think it's because Lizzie's in it, she looks so calm and content, and the light's ~just right.)

Depths of Strength

"In the depths of winter I finally learned 

there was in me an invincible summer."

(clipped to polyvore.com)

"Moss-Leaves"

Moss-leaves_10-27-2006, originally uploaded by Penet.

Crouching on the ground, seeing moss up close & 'personal' is something I've always done, since a kid.
Whyever why?
Well, it's incredible! Something so small, that gets ignored, stepped on, 'weeded-out', and yet it's amazing. Take a look at this photographer's fantastic shot. Did you know that moss is only as thick as one cell? One. cell. thick.
Can you see it?
Wow....

Via Flickr:
Unidentified moss, detail of leaves x10