Sunday Morning

Sitting at the piano this morning during our corporate gathering, completing the ring of worshipers in our sanctuary circle, the presence of several hundred eternal souls called me to attend. This is my response:

Nature is precious
Sacramental as it is fleet
I worship in the mutable cathedral
of a singular moment

The body of Christ is precious
now and forever, wave and particle
We gather and wonder--
How much eternity can one space hold?

Mystery Watercolor Memories

You may have noticed that I am a photograppreciator, not an actual photographer like some people I could name. Over the years, this has resulted in a rather careless attitude toward cameras and the many gaps in camera ownership (and my complete inability to get film developed) have caused a back-up of disposable cameras and old film in our junk drawer. This week, I finally gathered up six rolls of something-or-other and took them in. "All I want is the negatives and the CD," I told the lady at the counter; I wasn't paying for prints of mystery pictures. "We'll be back in an hour."

While we waited, we went to the Farmer's Market and walked over to the library. When we thought we had whiled away enough time, we hopped back in the car and headed back to pick up the pictures. I flipped on the radio and was more than a little surprised to hear words like "severe thunderstorms" and "tornado." I had noticed the wind picking up, but thought we could manage to get our pics before heading home. As we were standing in line, the lights flickered through dim to dark and the very efficient--and shoplifting-aware--store employees quickly herded all the customers (many waving lit cell phones like lonely concert-goers) to the front of the store where they peremptorily booted us out into the growing storm. My brave girls were beginning to crumble in the face of so many strange events and the crazy "car-wash" rain. We were all relieved to pull out of the traffic into Lafayette and home where we spent a candlelit evening counting lightning/thunder seconds, singing the obligatory "Raindrops on Roses," and cuddling (my personal favorite when it comes to power-outage activities).

The power came on sometime in the night and, before I completely lost all momentum and left the photos languishing at the store forever, I ran back to pick them up. Some of the pictures are so old and so...just plain BAD, that we can't even tell who is pictured. (Anyone have a baby with this head shape?)

Using carbon dating methods (and adjacent pictures), we determined the approximate decade of each roll--oh my, there's baby Hannah! Some of the pictures make us wonder what we were thinking,


but others are real gems, bringing back many good memories of adventures long (LONG) past.

This roll, including the picture from the top of the post, are from our first year of sailing. Bryan and I brought Nissa into Portland for the weekend for our 9th anniversary (this summer will be 13!). There are many pictures of bridges, since we had to sail under each one, and a few pictures of relationship landmarks--mostly restaurants we can no longer afford. I remember the exhilaration of figuring out how to call for a bridge lift (the Steel Bridge's pedestrian span is too low for our mast) and the wonder of seeing a familiar city from a new perspective. Flush with freshly-minted boat ownership, I wanted to wear my fluorescent life jacket everywhere. We walked to Saturday Market (a first-date memory) and all the way over to Powells, where we bought too many books to carry back comfortably and a Portland Bridge T-shirt because it may be the only time we can ever truthfully say that we have "been there, done that, and bought the T-shirt." On the way back to our marina in St. Helens, we stopped a Cathedral Park to savor the last hours of vacation and the amazing architecture of the St. Johns Bridge (seen above).

Not all the pictures were ancient and I'll likely be posting some more (of both vintages) soon, but thanks for indulging me this meander down proverbial memory lane.

While riffling through old blog post drafts, I found these pictures from last year's San Juan trip. They are mostly from our visit to the Westcott Bay Sculpture Park at Roche Harbor (19 acres of verdant meadow, forest, and wetland dotted with sculptures of all varieties), but a few are from the next day on our way to Stuart Island. On the way there, our camera broke...so that was that. I'm posting these primarily for my own memory's sake; please feel free to ignore them.


This little fellow served as welcoming committee and curator.

These are not sculptures, but I love to look at them anyway. I think their Artist is amazing.

I loved these flashing birds, twirling in the breeze...

...and this abstract whirligig.

The gong was a family fave.

And I savored the wonder as I strolled down this slope to view the front of this piece of art. What could possibly be more beautiful than the freshly baled hay in the field behind it? When I finally reached the piece, I smiled. On the easel, the artist had simply placed a mirror.

These are the last two pictures our poor camera took (we now have a waterproof, shockproof, drop-proof model). I used to think that boats with line snaking everywhere and gear lashed to every stanchion were, well, just a bit unkempt. Now I just remind myself of the best compliment our well-loved boat ever got--"There's a boat that looks like she goes places!" It's true what they say, that you see the same sights no matter how fancy or humble your boat. I wished so hard our camera had held on for just one more shot, because as we rounded this point, Mt. Baker leapt out at us, bold and dazzling against the blue sea, blue sky. We may not always have proof, but we have seen some spectacular sights from this messy vessel of ours.

First Sail of the Season

Sheepishly, she realized that she had written the story in the last post once already. She hopes you will accept this overdue story as a peace offering.

In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of...sailing? And apparently a young-ish woman's thoughts too. The nice weather the last few weeks hasn't hurt, but beyond that, our recent days have been littered with sailing-related gifts. A sale on anchors (at the same time we had the extra money to get one and the time to research which one we wanted. For those of you who care, we bought a Delta), a dodger on Craigslist, dinner with a delightful family who will be leaving this summer on their sailboat. We took a class at a local jeweler and made a pair of simple silver wedding rings so we don't lose a diamond (or a finger) while sailing. The girls and I started taking Spanish lessons from a friend (she's taking piano lessons from me--yay for bartering!) And we took our first sailing trip.

We had reserved Mother's Day weekend for a sailing trip some time ago, just hoping for good weather. And, though it was still cold enough at night to sleep in 4 layers and a hat, the daytime weather was perfection itself. We began with the obligatory trip to the Farmer's Market across the parking lot from the marina and followed it up with the traditional later-than-hoped-for sailing time.

After motoring up Budd inlet, we put up the new mainsail (another of the unexpected acquisitions of the winter) and the drifter, and sailed...very...slowly...past Boston Harbor. After an hour or so of fighting current and headwind, we decided to let the wind plan the destination and turned toward Hope Island. Sailing up to the mooring buoy always feels like an accomplishment. Dropping the boat hook overboard when the handle fell off quickly reminded us not to feel too sure of ourselves. We pulled around again and Bryan leaned over the side to retrieve the hook (still hanging from the mooring buoy ring), and it broke in two. We finally got a stern line through the ring and pulled the boat around by hand to hook up properly, bow first.

That's when Bryan realized...we had no oars! We always leave our oars on the boat, but we'd brought them home after the last trip to fit them on the new dinghy and now we had no way to get to shore. After a brief family conference, we all agreed to motor on over to Jarrell Cove State Park, where we could stay at a dock.

We pulled in to the Cove about 8:30 and found a spot at the inner state park float. We were a little concerned that the -2 tide on Saturday would not leave us with quite enough water under the keel, but the bottom was muddy so even if we did touch for a few minutes at low tide (we didn't) it wouldn't hurt anything.

Saturday, we enjoyed getting to know the neighbors, who laughed with us at our forgetfulness and offered to loan us their paddles so the girls could dinghy around the lagoon. We tied the dinghy to the anchor rode so we could reel them back in if necessary and tied the borrowed paddles to the dinghy. But after a few minutes of awkwardness, and several near misses (we discovered that shifting one girl to the stern seat greatly reduced the chances of paddle handle meeting sister's face), we cut them loose. Each year, they shock me with their independence.

Watching them intuit how to work together to steer and row efficiently settled any concerns I may have had about the ability of kids to learn teamwork without organized sports.
Often, we spend a portion of each vacation day traveling from one place to another. So we weren't too disappointed to see, on our way to Jarrell Cove, that Joemma Beach didn't have their docks out yet. It was so relaxing to spend the whole day at Jarrell Cove, hiking, chatting with the camp hosts, cooking (and eating!), reading, playing games, watching the Purple Martins commandeer our mast, and fiddling with my Mother's Day gift...a new telescope.

Sunday, we moseyed back to Olympia, packed up, snagged some sushi at our favorite local sushi spot and were home by bedtime. Despite the laughable glitches, this weekend satisfied our need for some peaceful relaxation and deeply gratifying time with our family.

Our family motto (apparently) is "A place for everything and everything all over the place." We're having too much fun living life to stop to clean it. It doesn't help that we homeschool, so we're home a lot! I have finally begun to give myself grace for these tendencies, especially after figuring out that my messy housekeeping wasn't going to rub off on my girls any more than my Mom's good housekeeping rubbed off on me.
It all came together in my mind, though, the day I caught myself lecturing my girls about cleaning as they go. "Someday," I said, "you will learn to clean up as you go along and it will be so much easier for you. Someday..." and here we moved slightly to take in the full view of the terribly messy kitchen from which had come many delicious meals without a single clean-up spree--"...someday you may learn this. But if you do, it WON'T BE FROM ME!"

Delightful Falafel

No pictures of tonight's special--falafel. We ate it up too fast. But I am happy to have found another great boat meal. One that is healthy, reasonably well-balanced and made from ingredients that we can easily store long-term.

I can't link to the recipe either because I looked at 4 or 5 and then did my own thing. That's another plus for for boat meals, as we only have space for a couple of cookbooks.
But since we joined the CSA a few years ago, I've gotten more and more comfortable with making meals without a recipe; even baking like Grandma, with a pinch of this and a handful of that until everything looks right.

Now if I can only figure out how to make artisan bread in a propane oven!

Bryan is on his way home from a very good trip to the boat. He changed the spark plugs (and the engine fired right up--yay!), fitted the new sail (and it fits--yay!), and fixed the wobbly faucet. The leaks we sealed last time aren't dripping. And the girls and I enjoyed a low-key couple of days on our own. All in all, a low-cost, high-success weekend.

Tonight's Specials

Tonight, blessed with a little extra energy--from whence, I know not, since I have a cold and worked hard all day--and a lot of extra vegetables, I cooked. Boy howdy, did I cook. I made a roasted vegetable gratin with 4 different root veggies and a some greens and sausage with 3 different kinds of greens. Did you catch that? Seven kinds of vegetables in one meal. I think that's a Lee family record. Oh, and somewhere in the middle of all the pot juggling, I managed to whip up some biscuits with some fresh whole-wheat flour from the new (to-me) grain mill I was given yesterday. And (here anyone who knows me will begin to doubt my story) I even washed the dishes after dinner. (must have been all this melted gruyere. Mmmm, melty cheese)

Of course, I would be in bed currently if it wasn't for this little "Lost" addiction at my house. We may need an intervention.

Bryan's heading up to the boat tomorrow evening and planning to try working from the boat on Friday. If all goes well, the girls and I will join him in a few weeks for a family attempt at a normal day aboard with school and work and little girl energy all pressurized into 200 square feet. We may need more melty cheese.