Back to my blog

After over a year away, I'm starting up the blog again. So much has happened over the past year and a half, lots of change and transformation ... sudden loss of a dear friend, seeing Christy through a tough health year, helping to see my dear friend Becky through her first year of widowhood, supporting Luke's dad through difficult health developments, the recent loss of a friend who was a pillar in our community. Challenges presented and met to the best of my ability. Yet, amid all the hard challenges, there have been lots of blessings. (I suppose one could argue that even the challenges are blessings -- don't they bring us closer together and into a deeper relationship with each other?)

• Christy's health has improved greatly, and she is happy and back at work.
• All eight of our beautiful grandchildren continue growing and bringing so much joy.
• Luke and Susannah now live 8 minutes from us, instead of 4 hours away in Alexandria, Virginia! They were able to move here because Luke can now do his US Patent Office work remotely -- a wonderfully welcome development! This means that all of our children and grandchildren now live pretty close by -- Leila and Hannah and their families live in Apex, about 45 minutes away.
• Mike and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary in May!
• My husband has been an incredible source of support and strength through this challenging year.
• My close friends and singing sisters and I re-formed Pomegranate Rose and sang at the Unity Center of Peace service in early April. Oh, those healing songs!
• Mike's stepdad celebrated his 90th birthday last November.
• The abundant early spring rains have made for a spectacular garden this year.
• We made not one but two trips to our beloved Fort Morgan, Alabama, Gulf beaches -- in October 2010 and February 2011. Many thanks to Bobbie and Buddy for including us!
• I have had lots of fun making and sharing more photos than ever. Taking photos in Amelia's Bluets classes and Isaac's Sweetpeas classes at the North Carolina Botanical Garden was especially fun.

So it's good to be back blogging, a good place to put my thoughts and inspirations. Here is a good thought from Hazrat Inayat Kahn I came across earlier today:

The quality of forgiveness that burns up

all things except beauty is the quality of love.

 

 

Mint soup

In May, Amelia and her little brother Isaac went to visit Grammie. While they were playing in Grammie's garden, they found a pretty blue bowl on a stand. It was a birdbath with some nice clear water in it. When she saw the birdbath and the water, Amelia had an idea right away. "Mint soup!" she said. "I want to make some mint soup!" So Amelia and Isaac set about making mint soup, a lovely concoction containing aromatic mint, a sweet rose or two, pungent evergreen tips and some woodsy hardwood chips.

Sister-brother chefs

The sniff test

Needs a little more mint

A final stir

Ah, perfect!