The Dining Table with the Turquoise Chairs

The year Joe and I lived in Santa Fe, NM was a very special time in our lives. We were away from family, we didn't have children, and so our weekends were filled with hikes, cross country skiing, road trips, and enjoying the Hispanic and the Native American cultures which are so prevalent in that part of the world.


During our time there we lived in a beautiful adobe house which was just a five-minute walk from the main plaza. Everything about that house was charming ... the small courtyard, the brick floor in the kitchen, the three kiva fireplaces, the Spanish tile on the walls and countertops, the skylights, and the small dining table with wooden chairs painted a bright turquoise color.


There are a lot of memories associated with that little home. The midnight walks during a snowfall and a full moon, watching the rain while sitting under the skylights, lighting the kiva fireplace for the first time and setting off all the fire alarms because of the smoke, listening to Italian tapes in the evening so Joe could learn the language, and once ordering a pizza with green chili, only I must have said jalapeno because that's what they delivered, and yowza! that pizza was hot.


And it was near the end of our stay, while sitting on the blue turquoise chairs at our little dining table, that I told Joe that he was going to be a father for the first time.


New Mexico is known as the Land of Enchantment ... and so it was for us.


*this was a re-post from June 15, 2014.






Our dining room table in Santa Fe



Our adobe home in Santa Fe, NM

Bia-the-City-Girl Goes Fishing

Earlier this week my dad called to ask if Timothy and I would like to go fishing with him this Thursday.


Now, as many of you know I am a self-professed city girl, but I do I like to fish ... as long as someone else baits the hook; I also like to catch fish ... as long as someone else takes it off the line; and I definitely like to eat fish ... as long as someone cleans and fillets it for me. I also really, really like to ride in the boat.


In other words, I do what's called city-girl-fishing. (I also do city-girl-camping.)


So I said yes to the fishing date.


"We're going to leave early," Nonno warns me. "Like around 5:30."


Now, I'm an early riser, but 5:30? Are the fish even awake then? But I did wonder: does he mean that as the initial wake-up call? Or does he mean for us to be at his house, bright eyed and bushy tailed, fishing pole in hand, ready to go at that exact time.


Yup, that's what he meant. 


So we got up at that ungodly hour and, well, let me tell you it's hard to put on mascara that early in the morning, and then I had to run back in to get my kindle so I would have something to read if we got stuck in the middle of the lake, or something. As a result, we ended up being 15 minutes late (Nonno says it was closer to 20 minutes). Whatever. I was sure the fish would be there waiting.


We arrived to the lake at sunrise.

We fished. And we fished some more. We moved the boat here. We moved the boat there. Just when I was beginning to think there wasn't a single fish in the entire lake ... Nonno caught a fish!


A fish! They DO exist! Timothy and I were PUMPED so we doubled down, determined to catch one, too.

Nonno caught one.
Now it was our turn.

[Now, I interrupt this adventure to let you in on a little secret: every time one of us goes fishing with Nonno it ends up costing him money. Let's see . . . there was the time one son backed Nonno's truck into the Savannah River and totaled it (true story). On another fishing trip our other son got his fishing line wrapped around Nonno's trolling motor which then later had to be disassembled and untangled. Today was no exception because at one point I was demonstrating to Timothy how far I could cast. I ended up making a truly spectacular cast . . . fishing pole and all. It made a truly spectacular splash and sank spectacularly fast.]

Nonno fixing me another fishing pole
after I "cast" mine away.

At least now I know what to get Nonno for Father's Day.


Anyway, back to the story. After Nonno's catch we continued to fish. And we fished some more. We moved the boat here. We moved the boat there. Just when I was beginning to think Nonno had caught the ONLY fish in the entire lake we pulled into a small cove where . . . I hooked a fish.


Not just any fish, but a whopper of a fish!


It was like Man City Girl vs. Nature, and when the fish tried to swim around the boat with me wrestling with the line, I had visions of Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea.


I finally reeled it in, laughing maniacally. Later I realized there was a cabin nearby with people out on the deck, and I just bet they were saying: Yup. That's a city girl for sure. Just caught her first fish. Whatever. Then Nonno tried to get me to hold it so we could take a photo, but I said uh-uh-no-way-was-I-holding-that-stinky-fish.


So that's why I have a photo of Nonno holding my fish.

Five hours later and I'm home sweaty, sunburned, but feeling triumphant. After all, tonight I get to put dinner on the table. Oh, I put dinner on the table every night, but this time I mean it LITERALLY.


We are having the fish I caught (which Nonno cleaned and filleted for me).


From lake to dinner table.


You go, City Girl.

Mungu is Good

Today is not Sister's birthday...it was early last month. But we celebrated anyway.

With my parents and some good family friends who had met Sister last year, we sang Happy Birthday and presented her with her very own birthday cake. She was so excited she blew out the candles before we were even done singing.

Then, because a birthday party should have games, we played Pictionary using a large dry erase board...the children vs. the adults. Even Sister played, searching through the cards until she found some easy things to draw (the equator, a snake, a computer).

The kids took turns playing the keyboard and guitar, and then sister sang a song for us: swaying and waving her arms, she sang about Mungu (God) being present in the east, the west, the south, and the north. Mungu is everywhere.

At one point she whispered to me that she had something to say, so I shushed everyone so she could speak. She rose, and in her soft-spoken voice addressed everyone by name as she thanked us for honoring her birthday. She spoke for several minutes about love and how, despite being so far away from Tanzania, she feels at home with us and will always think of us as family.

There was not a dry eye in the room.

And I marveled how this nun, with her quiet voice and broken English, with her beautiful songs and humble manner, with her ready laughter and adventuresome spirit...how all these things about her have touched us in so many ways.

Yes, Mungu is everywhere...and Mungu is here, shining through this quiet Sister from a small village in eastern Africa.

Down on the Farm...sort of

I may have mentioned before that I am a city girl. Oh, I love nature and love doing outdoor things like hiking and white water rafting, but I don't know very much about farming or animals. Apparently, neither does our little one. Case in point: we took Sister to the Children's Museum in Columbia, South Carolina where my youngest one got to experience milking a cow. He squeezed the teat (just like the sign says) and in delight yelled, "Look, the cow is going potty!" And before I finished mentally cringing and Sister finished laughing, he grabbed TWO teats and yelled, "Look, now he's going a whole bunch of potty!!" I think I need to go purchase a Farmer's Almanac, or something.

48 Hours

This past weekend my husband and I flew to Little Rock, AR with our eldest son who will be moving there in a month to begin work. We had 48 hours to explore the city, find an apartment, and get a feel for the area. We had 48 hours to stake our claim in a city in which we had never visited and where we didn't know a single person. We had 48 hours to do as much as we could to lay the foundation for a new beginning for our son.


And within the span of that 48 hours we also planned to attend Mass Saturday night. There were many Catholic churches in Little Rock, so once Nicholas signed the lease for his apartment we Googled nearby churches and arbitrarily picked one to attend.


Here's what I envisioned (hoped!) would happen: We'd walk into a church with lots of young people -- people my son's age! -- and he would feel welcomed and excited about joining a new parish. Maybe even someone would even come up and speak to him and tell him about a Bible study or a young adult group.


Instead, here's what happened: We walked into the church, and of the 40 people in attendance Joe and I were the youngest which, as you can imagine, was not a good sign for Nicholas.


It was definitely not how I would have planned things. Not. At. All.


But as I knelt in the quiet of the church before Mass started, I wrapped myself in the comforting traditions of our faith and unburdened my soul to God.


I gave Him everything -- my hope, fears, doubts, and tears. I told Him how proud I was to have a son primed and ready to go forth into this world, but at the same time confessed how letting go is so contrary to a mother's heart. I gave Him my confidence in my son's intelligence and maturity, but also my fears of him being in a city of strangers.  I asked for patience with the arrogance of youth (of which we have all been guilty) who think they can go it alone and often forget that seeking advice, asking for help, or kneeling before God is not a sign of weakness, but of strength.


And then came the homily. The priest, who was originally from Vietnam, told the story of his last few months in seminary when he was consumed with worry on how he was going to buy a chalice for his ordination. He knew his family back in Vietnam could not afford it, and as a seminarian on scholarship with no funds of his own he didn't know what to do. He told no one of his dilemma. Then one day a priest teaching in the seminary informed him that an elderly priest from another parish had died and that his family wanted his chalice to go to a seminarian. Would he like to have the chalice?


Sitting in that nearly empty church in a strange city, listening to this story of a man who followed his vocation to live among strangers, I realized that there are times in our life when God has given us that chalice -- such as the moment He provides exactly what we need at the exact moment when we need it, or when He gives us something we didn't even realize we needed, or when we don't know how to ask for something and He gives it to us anyway.


I also realized that maybe, just maybe, God brought us to that church not for Nicholas (the way I wanted it to happen), but for me.

Somewhere in Italy

(photo taken by my cousin)

Text Recipes, continued

Kitchen time with our eldest son has resulted in Text Recipes -- the easiest way to remember, store, and access recipes from Mom.


And it's easy. A photo of the ingredients and a photo of the end result. No instructions. Just a visual reminder on how to get from photo A to photo B. He's a computer engineer, he'll figure it out.

 

Getting Ready: How to Furnish Your Apartment

Tomorrow Joe, Nicholas and I are flying to Little Rock, Arkansas to help Nicholas find and sign a lease for an apartment. Then, in one week he leaves for training in Denver, after which the moving van will be here to pack up all his stuff for his new life (and career!) in Little Rock.


You should see our rec room.


But we won't go there; instead, let me share with you how we've helped Nicholas stock his future apartment.

1. We started with what he had.

Which, truthfully, wasn't much. As far as furniture goes, he basically he had a television and a bed (top mattress and box spring, but no headboard). The mattress was brand new, but the box spring wasn't. So we decided to keep the mattress and then purchase a platform bed (with a headboard!) so we didn't have to deal with storing and/or transporting a bulky box spring.

2. We shopped yard sales, estate sales, and consignment stores.

(with the exception of the desk, nothing was over $100)

3. We re-purposed.

Up in our attic was a white bookcase that used to be in Timothy's nursery. We brought it down, painted it black, and re-purposed it into an entertainment center. Nicholas' flat screen television will sit on top, and the canvas storage bins (not shown) will be used for storage.

4. We re-upholstered.

Also stored in our attic was a kitchen table and four chairs that Joe and I had when we first married. It's quality furniture, but the chair cushions needed to be replaced.


It's amazing what a bolt of Waverly upholstery fabric, a staple gun, and a rainy afternoon can do.

And there you have it. All this preparation has been exciting, but also bittersweet. Keep us in your prayers this weekend as Nicholas makes some big decisions!