Prayers For Peace and Reconciliation

Each church has it's own "flavor" - special touches specific to that church, even if the church is a liturgical one. One of the first things I noticed about our new church - one of the things that made me fall in love with it - is the bit at the end. At this church, after the post communion prayer, after the thanksgiving for birthdays and anniversaries, we all say the Prayer For Peace:

O God, the Father of all, guide us into the ways of peace. Lead us from prejudice to truth; deliver us from hatred, cruelty, violence, and mean spiritedness; fill us with generosity, hospitality and love, and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

And then there's more (maybe the birthdays and anniversaries are here instead of before? I can never remember). We all say the first part of The Final Blessing:

Go forth into the world in peace; be of good courage; hold fast to that which is good; render to no one evil for evil; strengthen the fainthearted; support the weak; help the afflicted; honor all; love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.

It's a good place, filled with warmth and welcoming. And it feels like home.

My Commute :)

I actually really love driving. Even in rush hour. Even if there's traffic. Not so much if I'm running late, but even then, I don't usually get angry about it. But, there's just something about a commute that can't be captured with the windows up. Even if you sing your lungs out, it's just not as good with the windows up.

I walked to my car in the still, warm sunshine. My day was so done. I put it in reverse... And put it back in park.

I was digging through my purse. No dice... no luck... not finding- Ah! A pen. It'd do. I twisted it up, folded it over and wove the pen through. Opened the windows, two at a time. Turned the radio up, and off I went, homeward.

WIND WIND WIND... and fresh-cut grass... the PSS-PSSSSSS! of air from the brakes of that truck... a flowering bush?... The laugh of the woman on the radio... Mulch, and some other flower-smell... The smile of the guy passing me... The smell of something green and growing... and all the while, WIND WIND WIND.

A Search For Art

A friend had posted a picture on FaceBook. It was touching, and beautiful, and it moved me almost to tears. But it was definitely religious-themed, and so I just hit the "like" button. I don't delve into faith on FaceBook.

So, I went away and did something else.

I came back to FaceBook a while later and stared at this picture some more, studying the technique, guessing at the medium, examining why this picture tugged at me, thinking about the subjects in it, and praying about it. I couldn't not share it at this point.

I wanted it more permanently than on an un-searchable, dynamic, social-media feed. I wanted it on my wall.

I searched and searched the internet and found out that the art is crayon-and-pencil. Copyrighted by Sisters of the Mississippi Abbey. The artist is Sr. Grace Remington, OCSO (I'm not even sure what all those letters mean). I couldn't find it for sale anywhere, though I did find the Abbey, which is actually Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey.

Medium: Crayon and Pencil, By Sr. Grace Remington, OCSO.
(c) Sisters of the Mississippi 2005
Buy it at www.monasterycandy.com

I hit the "contact us" button and Sister Grace Remington herself e-mailed me back, informing me that matted prints and cards with this picture are both available at the Monastery Candy store, but if I really wanted a larger poster, she could help me out with that, though she wasn't sure how well the image would stand up to enlargement.

By the way, the sisters are apparently known for the amazing caramels and chocolates they make. They make about two tons of the stuff, annually!

Thankful Memory Shadow Box

I had seen a decorated shadow box for movie and event tickets on Pinterest, and loved it, but we don't see that many movies or go to that many ticketed events; it's just not what we do. Then a few of my friends posted pictures of decorated jars into which one puts memories noted on decorative paper. So, I thought, why not combine the ideas into a memory shadow box?

So I searched for the blogs with the shadow box ideas, but neither of them discussed how to put the slot or hole or whatever to put things in, despite the many queries from people commenting on the blogs. (Update: the owner of Learn to do it yourself (her shadow box is pictured above) did finally post a tutorial for making slots from ehow.) Fortunately, I have a great support network, all of whom supportively told me to "get a Dremel, dummy!"

One of them was also able to advise me in which one to buy (bottom-of-the-line Dremel brand at Home Depot), which attachments to get for it (the big box with a ton of options for $20) and how to use it (carefully).

By the way, we did discuss cutting a section out of the top of the shadow box, using a fine-toothed saw, and attaching a knob to that section, to make a liftable lid, like the top of a carved pumpkin, but decided this was more likely to break the glass and go poorly in general.

Using the grinding wheel to cut a guide groove

Start by putting painter's tape over the place where you are going to make the 2" slot. This keeps the edges of the hole from cracking and chipping. I don't know why, but I can tell you that the one we taped turned out great, while the one we didn't turned out merely "okay." This was my crafty friend's idea.

We cut a guide-groove first, using the grinding wheel attachment. We cut as far down as we could before switching to the conical grinder. If you do it this way, be careful not to go so far that the other parts of the dremel rub against the frame.

Really getting into making a slot

I started putting together my background. I'd only had one experience with scrap-booking and it didn't end well. This time, I used her e-6000 glue and my "Amazing Goop Craft Arte" to tack my background paper in place on the felt backing of the shadow box and put the rest of the background in place. I used a piece of card stock to spread out the glue on the pieces I was going to stick down, and it worked like a charm.

While I was re-learning how to scrap-book, my crafty friend was designing lettering and a film-strip decoration in black acrylic paint for the glass in her shadow-box. She chose a gold sparkly background, to make a glamorous Hollywood theme to hold her event tickets. Great success!!

She cleaned it up a bit more, using an Exxacto
knife, and it looks even better now

By the way, even though most picture frames don't have an "upside down." If you put it together wrong, you just take the picture out and turn it right-side-up. These definitely do have an upside-down. When you're pasting your background together, pay attention to the hardware on the back. You have to paste the background right side up, or else you have to go get hardware to Amazing Goop onto the back of your shadow box.

An integral part of this project (to me) is having the paper and a pen handy for recording the memories. So, when I got home, I used Sculpey to make a holder for the 2x3" card stock I had bought for this project. I used a cake pan to mold one, and used the plastic-wrapped card stock to mold the other. I had to carefully peel the Sculpey off the card stock, and it got a little misshapen, but I think it turned out better than the cake-pan one.

This is the cake-pan-formed one. See how it's all rounded? 

I whipped out my trusty Dremel, and attached the coarse cylindrical grinder, and trimmed the edges until the "pocket" fit onto the frame and the part where I would glue it to the frame was as close to straight as I could get it. I laid down a thick bead of Amazing Goop, let it set and attached the pocket.

I stuck a strip of adhesive Velcro to the top to hide the skin mark I made with the Dremel to attach the pen that had the other side of the Velcro stuck to it, and voila!

Ye Olde Family Crepe Recipe - Savory Spinach Onion Crepes

Every year at Thanksgiving (or Christmas, whatever), my family makes these crepes. The flat pancakes are stuffed with grated Swiss cheese and spinach and onions that have been cooked in cream and are baked just long enough to melt the cheese and crisp the edges of the crepes. They're served with sauteed mushrooms and a dollop of sour cream. I'm pretty sure they're illegal in 9 states.

The mushrooms look a little... purple.
See the note below about red wine.

They are a pain in the butt to make (they're not difficult, just time-consuming) and that's compounded by the fact that one never makes a single batch. Maybe, if it's just you and your cat, you'd make a single batch, but if you're feeding real people, you make a double batch. But they are so completely worth it - once a year, anyway. The pain in the butt usually starts with trying to find the book that mom had tucked the recipe into (I'm pretty sure the recipe was kept folded and tucked inside her Woman's Home Companion cookbook).

Eventually, I moved out and started my own family, and the recipe was "digitized" (read: turned into a .pdf and stored somewhere on someone's hard drive), and the pain in the butt started with a frantic call to my mom, asking if she could get me that recipe. Again. This year, I successfully located my own copy of the .pdf, but I was thinking, "Man. This really needs to be on my Pinterest board, so I can find it easily." So, here we are.

I'll post the original recipe, with notes and adjustments we've made in italics. By the way, this recipe really works best if you have some free slave labo- I mean, children around to help out. At our house, I make the crepes and filling while the Things grate cheese and help stir and such. Thing 1 grabs a crepe and puts the spinach goop in. Thing 2 adds some grated Swiss, rolls it up, and places it in the pan.

Basic Crepes
4 eggs
2 C milk
1 C cream
1 t. salt
1/2 C melted butter
2 C flour

Blend all in blender and let sit 1 hour. Brush skillet with butter and heat. Spoon in 2 T. batter and rotate pan until bottom is thinly coated. Brown on each side.
It can be 45 minutes, if you're pressed for time. I usually do the crepes a little under-done, knowing they'll get more done in the oven and that they're more malleable when they are a touch under-done.

Spinach Onion Crepes
3 T. margarine I use butter. Pretty sure they mean for sauteing the onion and cooking the spinach, but it's not specified.
1 large onion, thinly sliced and chopped
2-3 pkg frozen spinach (thaw several hours ahead of time & drain) Usually, we use the larger packages, not the little square bricks  and get 6 for a double batch. You can run it under warm water and let it drain while you make the crepes if you're pressed for time. This year, for both holidays, the stores were out of frozen spinach (what on earth is everyone making that requires that much spinach? I mean, besides this), so we got four of the really big bags of fresh spinach and cooked it down, and added it to the sauteed onion.
2/3 C whipping cream
1/2 t. lemon juice
1/2 t. sale
2 C. (about 1/2 lb) shredded Swiss cheese
Sauteed mushrooms More is always better. Daddy sauteed them in sherry, butter and garlic and they were great. I did mine in butter and way too much red wine and they were all right. I would be hesitant to do them in red wine again.
Sour cream

On low heat saute onion until golden. Add spinach to onions, cover and cook until done. Gradually stir in cream, salt, and lemon juice. Over medium heat, cook and stir until most of the liquid is evaporated. May need to stir in a little flour and milk mixture to thicken.

Thing 1 scootches the crepes
down to make room in the
pan for... MORE CREPES!

Divide filling and cheese equally between crepes, spooning about 2 T. filling down center of each and topping with cheese. Roll and place seam side down in buttered baking dish. Cover and bake 375° for 20 minutes (35-40 if frozen). Remove cover and bake 5 minutes longer or until ends of crepes are crisp. We never cover them. We just bake them the 20 minutes. You're just heating them up, melting the cheese, and crisping the edges of the crepes. Before serving, spoon sauteed mushrooms over crepes and accompany with sour cream. Serves 6-8.

I have never ever ever seen the crepe-to-filling ratio work out correctly. I almost always end up with a bunch of extra crepes, but that's okay, in case some tear. And you can eat the filling-less crepes the next morning with Nutella for breakfast.

Letter Not Yet Sent

What do you say to someone who has just lost their child? Is the thing you say to that person different if the child were lost in a national tragedy? What do you tell an entire community? "I'm so sorry," or maybe, "my heart goes out to you," because those phrases haven't been used enough?

Do you tell them that you've written a letter about gun control to your congressman? Or that you vow to always use your gun to protect the innocent? Or that you made a donation in their honor to Mental Health America or to the Red Cross? Does any of that help?

Do you light a candle at church? Do you leave a teddy bear in the school-yard in remembrance of a child who will never get to play with it? Do you donate that teddy bear to a shelter for some child with absolutely no connection to the victims or their families?

Do you send a card telling [insert name] that you and the nation grieve with them? Or have your living child draw a pretty picture to take the place of the one their child didn't draw today? What are you supposed to tell the other children?

Is silence any better?

Update: The Snopes article on the Sandy Hook tragedy made a valid point about how receptive and prepared the school staff may (or may not) be to receiving piles of sympathy cards and letters. Rather than putting something in the mail, I believe I will be making a contribution to Mental Health America and/or the American Red Cross.

How I Failed NaNoWriMo and Why I'm Okay With That

I entered NaNoWriMo with the rough beginning of a story in my head, but no real sense of who my characters were or how my plot would play out. I also had huge vacation plans for 10 days in November. Oh, and I'm not really a writer. I mean, I journal sometimes, and there's occasional clumsy attempts at poetry, but I've never actually written fiction. Not even short stories.

I learned a lot. I'm not sure I'll do this again any time soon, but maybe... If there's another piece of a story in me. Maybe I'll do a sequel.

I had taken Friday off work so I could finish it... but Thursday night, I did the math and realized that I had to write about 25,000 words in order to "win" by Friday at midnight. When I'm writing well, I'm at about 1,000 words per hour. 1,200 if I'm going a mile-a-minute and times are good. When I did the math, I realized I'd have to keep that 1,200 words per hour pace through Thursday night, all through Friday, miss the parent-teacher conferences I had scheduled for Friday, and not stop to eat longer than half an hour, working until almost midnight on Friday. That was never going to happen. So I got to sleep in, probably avoiding the cold I'm still fighting off.

That flat place is the day before vacation through a few days after vacation. The slow rise after that is where I listened to the voices.

What Went Wrong

1. No plot, no problem, my butt. I know there's a movement out there full of people who believe in letting the story write itself (they're called "pantsers"), but that doesn't work for me. It rambles. And there are severe eddies, where it's pretty obvious there's no exit plan.
2. There was this vacation thing... Vacations are great, and especially this one; I wouldn't have traded it for all the novels in the world. But, well, I could have done some writing on vacation. I mean really. Even 500 words a day might have been enough to let me win this one, if not also for number 1 above.
3. No character development. Or characters. I tried "pantsing it," but, like with the plot, it's hard to develop characters you don't actually know. The character sketch templates included with Scrivener (see below, in What Went Right) really aren't very detailed, and I didn't really think much at all about my characters, even after having started writing them.
4. Listening to the voices. The voices are like a little mini-form of depression, and depression lies. I don't mean to make light of depression here, or of novel writers. The same little voice that says, "You're already so far behind. Why fight the fail?" and, "Besides, this is crap and you know it." and, "Who are you, that you think anyone wants to read this drivel you're penning?" is the same voice that whispers things like, "You're not good enough" and, "You'll never be pretty. You never were." and, "No matter what you do, you know it's just going to fall apart." and all the other horrible things we tell ourselves in the darkness. Don't listen to any of the voices. They all lie. (We'll revisit this later in the post).

What Went Right

1. I got this awesome software called Scrivener. If you write fiction, I highly, highly recommend it. I don't write plays (though, I guess one could argue that I don't write fiction, either), but I can't imagine writing a play without using Scrivener. If I were to write non-fiction, I can't imagine a tool more appropriate than Scrivener. It practically does the writing for you. It has a place for research, places for notes, a nifty cork-board thing, pre-made templates, a great tutorial (one of the best software tutorials I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot), and it's a quick download and not very expensive to begin with. It really helped me organize my thoughts, and write more coherently.
2. I had a great beginning. Look at the first half of those numbers! I was ahead of schedule, and being really good about writing... up to a point, anyway.
3. I had some concept. I knew just enough to get a framework down - where the story would take place and what the basic premises of the story were.
4. The challenge words. This year was the 200th anniversary of the battle of 1812, and Maryland NaNos were challenged to use the names of the ships (Meteor, Devastation, Aetna, Terror, Volcano, and Erebus), the numbers 1812 and 200, and some of us opted to work "Sandy" into our works, too. This was super-fun, and solved the problem of coming up with quite a few names.
5. Having a Pinterest board for NaNoWriMo. This was a source of motivation and a place to put tips and tricks I wanted to save for later. Wish I had started it sooner, though.

Different For Next Time

1. I'll find my old AD&D character sheets and use those as a basis for coming up with characters. Or I'll find something like them online (actually, that website I linked to has some downloadable PDFs. And Scrivener supports PDFs. Hmm).
2. I'll start coming up with characters and a plot in October. Or sooner. With an outline. Or at least a short list of basic plot elements.
3. I'll attend more write-ins. But not with the Things. Those were great for silent, focused time, when I didn't have to get up to let cats in and out constantly, or break up fights between the Things, or answer questions about who's been on the computer longest and when is dinner.
4. I'll shut those voices down by staying ahead of schedule (and not trying to do NaNoWriMo in years when there's a big vacation planned). I'll use the pep-talks and the things I posted to Pinterest to shut those voices up. I'll get better about recognizing those voices, so I know when I need to go get some motivation. 
5. I'll take a creative writing class? Maybe go through the high-school version of the work-book from the Young Writers Program.

Way Forward

So, what do I do with 25,367 words of unfinished novel? Well, first thing, I'll do some thinking about this plot I don't have and the characters involved. If I stick with this, even just a little bit (not necessarily 1,667 words per day), I can finish it within the next few months and then start trimming out all those eddies, and firming up my characters and revising, revising, revising. 

If it ever gets published, you'll be the second to know. And in the mean-time, I'll do some guilt-free knitting and some guilt-free spinning and some guilt-free reading.