Gathering

Gathering wood at gathering of the Body.

I love it when gathering involves some actual, physical doing.

It beats the heck out of a gym membership any old day.That's me just standing around, loafing, if I went to a gym I would just watch everybody there too. Oh, did you think I liked to do the physical stuff.... Those buns there off to the right, now that fellow enjoys doing the physical stuff. He was a one man log splitter. Tried to knock his dad senseless when dad reach for a piece of wood.

Betti Spagetti works hard too. Loading up Jim and Kathy's trailer. Anna was helping Bet but then she went inside for something. She brought out cold drinks for everybody, kept Sheila company and took a couple of pics of us. When the babies arive then she really starts to work. Wrestling the babies from their mother's arms!

This is the gi normous pile that still needs to be cut and split.
Happy gathering.

What I Meant To Do

When I sat down here at the computer I meant to look up a chicken recipe that used fresh apricots. Then I got sidetracked when I was curious if Kathy has a new post.

But now I am back on track but disappointed, can not find what I wanted. So once again nutty Lanny is going out on a limb and inventing something. but I never record what I do. Today will be different. I am going to write it as I do it - weird doncha think?!

Proportions are going to coincide with what I got and what I wanna use. Changes, additions, deletions or editorial comments are in different type

Chicken - four large half frozen breast - but because it needs to stretch I am going to cut it up. Actually the package says it is ten servings - huh, more evidence that we just don't know portions.

Brown Jasmine rice already cooked with Kosher salt and toasted sesame oil - yum btw. I set it to cook before I went out weeding. Bet said it needed more water than a straight 1 rice 2 water ratio. She said it calls for 1 rice to 2.5 water. Well I think it is interesting that she and Dirt always have crunchy rice (not enough water) and when I follow their portions I come up with damp and very cooked rice. Hmmmm. I noted the rice here because I would have plated the dinner up with a ring of rice on the outside of the plate with the chicken in the center, had this been served at home.
More apricots than would actually be good so I'll use mmmmm, 4. Well that changed, I did use four but I pureed them and had Bet peel and halved the rest into the done sauce. Pureeing the apricots was very easy and if I had to do it all over again I think I would fore go peeling. Even dunking in boiling water the cots did not give up their peelings without a fight. Clearly I had modest cots. French onion soup - cause it's here and I am to lazy to make a broth from scratch. Okay no french onion soup because I am sharing this with lactose intolerant people. And bizarre of bizarre it contains milk, says so in big bold letters under the ingredient list. So now I gotta think creative.... After standing in the pantry for a minute this is the substitute I came up with.
Substitute, no that is an interesting concept cause you might say that this whole recipe is a substitute. If you can't make out the pic I grabbed the coconut milk which lead to the chili powder, coriander, cumin, and turmeric. The mushroom I grabbed for some depth, the onion and garlic are a given. Didn't use the entire garlic, but I should have.

Browned the chicken in my favorite pan after I sliced each breast lengthwise into about 5 strips each. Extra Virgin Olive Oil is the oil of choice only so as to not over do the sesame oil flavor which I already used in the rice. I was intending to put them in the rectangle pan shown in the pics but switched to the crock pot just in case using Sheila' s oven was not possible.

As the last pieces of chicken were browning I realized that I had a lot of fond, crusty brown bits (not burned), in the bottom of my pan and I wanted it in my sauce so I need to deglaze but I was thinking that the coconut milk wasn't going to do it. So back to the pantry.
I hadn't added ginger to my list of ingredients because I didn't have fresh ginger and for me ground ginger is used in my bathtub as needed and in my socks in the winter but not in my cooking. But I was looking around in the pantry sort of looking for wine that wasn't made by Dirt because somehow deglazing with a martini didn't appeal to me.

I came across an item that was bound to never be used, ginger soother, It was okay but because my family is a ginger (real ginger) ale drinkers to drink a ginger beverage that is not carbonated is too weird for words so there it was, waiting to be used as a deglazing liquid for a curry sauce that was about to not have any ginger in it. Yea!

Sorry that I don't have any more pics. I was under pressure to get done and if Dirt saw me taking pics he would have assumed, perhaps rightly, that I was unnecessarily holding up the show (getting out the door).

After I removed the chicken from the fry pan and put in the rectangle pan (crock pot, as I was not finishing the cooking at home) I tossed in my rough chopped onion and pressed garlic. Interesting that the onion sort of deglazed the pan.

But the ginger drink really took it up into a lovely sauce and cleaned that pan very nicely - who needs non stick when you can deglaze, make a lovely sauce and pre-clean the pan!

After the ginger drink, the spices - approx. 1 tsp each (should have been a little more) and approximately 1 TBS of my mushroom seasoning, steered clear of salt because some is in the mushroom seasoning and I wondered about it in the drink and or the chicken itself. Could have used a little after all.

Tossed in my four or five pureed cots. Cooked it down a little, wished I had had time to cook it down more to make sauce thicker.

Poured it over the chicken and then topped it with the cots halves.

It was good for a first time, off the cuff. With the changes noted it would be even better. Next time I won't have a ginger drink in my pantry instead I would have fresh ginger so I would deglaze with wine, even Dirt's if I had to. Its funny cooking shows are always making a big deal about not using a wine for cooking that you wouldn't drink. I drink wine (Dirt's) that I wouldn't cook with! Just kinda funny.

More seasoning, Its been a while since I've done a home made curry sauce, I think I left something or a couple of somethings out but nothing jumped out at me from the cupboard. I must be out of what ever it is.

Not only would I not have cooked it in the crock pot for as long as I did, I would added the halved cots at the last few minutes.


This was fun, lets do it again!

Rabbit Trails>>>>>>

Went to Kathy's blog and that lead to Dr. John's and that lead to Pub Philosopher's and that held a bit of information I am going to share. (could this be why I get little to nothing done?)

August 1 or actually the exact day between summer solstice and fall equinox is Lammas Day or Loaf Mass Day according to Wikipedia. Celebrated by bringing a loaf from the new harvest to church!

Why do I share this you ask?

Cumon, any day for celebrating and celebrating with bread is a great day! Pup Philosopher says that the actual day this year is August 6th. And since we missed the whole August first thing, I'm thinking, if the girls and I aren't neck deep in paint, we will bake up a little storm on August sixth.

I can smell it now.

The Carpet Has Left The Building

No more wall to wall carpet in my life.

Oh wait, there is still some upstairs in my sewing room because the large cracks in the flooring up there swallow up small children and sewing project.

Bet and Anna removed the carpet from the living room yesterday and today I hear Bet tapping away at the tack strips. Anna is off shearing and I well I am writing to you.

Here are some pics that the girls took of each other working at their project yesterday. Anna is very excited. It was her idea to get on it and who am I to refuse help.

She's working pretty hard at it. This is the final end of the room. They have moved furniture back and forth to get to this stage. However when I got home I did find that my dining room I couldn't find.


Like mother like daughters, not big on prep work. Butcha know the work gets done eventually. Some of us just have dive in with our inspiration.

Anna loves to feel accomplished. She's a hard worker when she knows she can tackle it. It also helps when it is her idea.

They just keep working and working...

Well for the most part.

It Is What It Is

So I read through the remaining chapters on beginners' vices and I'm not going to flap around and be upset with myself or question the validity of what St. John is saying or wonder if the translators got it right. I pulled out some key things which I don't have time to write down right now.

Got called away right after I wrote the above. Friday gathering was changed to a much earlier time so I had to just leave it.

I have decided however, to leave it up to you dear reader if you care to go to the book and see for yourself some of the things that John of the Cross marks as vices of the beginner. I have noted the ones that lept from the page at me and for myself I have kept them and I hope to attend to them as much as I can, and pray that God works them out in me.

The cure for these weaknesses or vices, John of the Cross says in the dark night. However I thought I understood it as something that God takes a person through and not something one can practice like meditation, prayer, fasting or serving. It is like Richard Foster points out, as well as others, that it is the spiritual disciplines that we take up that open ourselves up to the changes God performs in us.

Foster cites specifically that solitude is the discipline that most likely will bring about the dark night. Certainly my first unconfirmed thoughts are that, Jesus is in the garden alone, the tormented prophets spent much time alone, Paul seemed to spend time alone prior to his ministry. And what is my struggle this last week, solitude.

Not that I do not have lovely stretches to be alone in my thoughts, but I always know that soon I will have company, from one of my daughters, my husband returning home, gathering with others in Christ, the list could go on. But I've never really been successful in separating myself for an extended period of time, more importantly for an undetermined period of time. In none of the other things I put myself to, prayer, meditation, reading, celebration, serving, do I put a time limit on. I go in and dwell there till I am released. But solitude has been a different story. And a huge struggle.

But for now I leave it, St John's work on the dark night, and desire to meditate upon those things I pulled out about the beginner and her vices and seek in God removal from my soul of such unpleasant and retarding things.

Avarice, Spiritual Avarice

Ugh, no more God, can't there be something that is not wrong with me, some avenue that I travel correctly? Just one look at the title of Chapter Three in Book One http://www.carmelite.com/saints/john/works/dn_4.htm last night and I couldn't take it. I closed it instead of reading on and just decided to cry and pray instead.

I am well aware of the term avarice, it is greed, correct? And man I know I am greedy in the spiritual sense. My current walk is never good enough, I want more, I want to go deeper. So I guess I am curious how spiritual avarice can be a bad thing.

I try not to hunger for God's favors, as Teresa of Avila calls certain spiritual experiences, but they most certainly propel me. They assure me that God is there when I feel as if I am crazy for thinking that there is even a God. Being able to look back on the favors God has bestowed on both Dirt and I, I thought was helping me to rely on him.

I realize that Dirt and I are weak, well maybe I should just be speaking for myself here, and that we may need those things to comfort us on the direction we head into, but I had no idea that it was a bad thing. Just that God knows I am certainly not all that. I take Teresa's advice and see them as helps when I am weak, so I know it is a sign of weakness. Much like not having any great tribulations in my life to get over, my life is pretty stinking breezy, a clear sign that God knows I can't handle much.

I will get to this chapter later today, right now the girls have to go over to Terry's to sit with Grandpa Lou. Terry needs to go to K&S for some tack and I am going along to get a few things for our new companions

Behind

I am trying hard to not being discouraged because I know when I get discouraged I just get farther and farther and farther behind.

Sometimes I feel like throwing in the towel and getting back in the ring next year but then next year will have a worse mess on its hands.

So I am up and dressed and ready to rock and roll, not on the things I should have done or were a failure two months ago and can no longer attempt, but the things that I can to today to make a difference for today and tomorrow and six months from now.

And I am determined to embrace the things that, despite weather and a distracted gardener, have survived and are bringing joy. And I must also remember that most of the distractions were very very worth while.

Make a new list and don't let the old list kill ya.