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5 Friday Faves – Survivorship Plan, Words in a Marriage, Broadway Musicals, Gentleman Traditions, a Poet for the Present, Plus a Bonus

June 10, 2016 admindeb 7 Comments

Happy Friday! It’s another gorgeous day in the Commonwealth… before the wilting heat of summer presses in. Here are five of my favorite finds this week. Please share some of yours in Comments at the end. What a wonder to learn new information that empowers, or to discover a thought leader who resonates with our own sensibilities, or to be filled with the delight of joyful sights, sounds, and sweet or savory treats.

1) Survivorship Plan – In my third week post-surgery, and getting better each day. My friend, Kathy, asked me this week if I had considered a survivorship plan. That was new terminology to me. Kathy also shared with me about Kelly A. Turner’s Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds. Turner is a researcher and lecturer in integrative oncology and her focus is on cancer survivors who are out-living their prognoses. In her book, she talks about the nine key factors that she discovered in the study of hundreds of patients. Photo Credit: Radical Remission by Kelly A. Turner PhD

She continues to research in this field and her website includes story after story of survivors who live cancer-free, in remission despite the dismal statistics of their disease.

Thankfully my cancer was caught early, but recurrence is still an issue, so I am thinking through a survivorship plan for myself. If you know me well, I am not the healthiest eater and taking supplements isn’t something I’ve done well with in the past…but all that just might change. Just so you know, I’m not ever planning to be a drum-beating health crazy…just want to be wiser with this life God has restored to me.

2) Words in a Marriage – Words in any relationship are either life-giving or life-damaging. Allie Casazza writes about how our words can create a husband we can’t stand. We all have sick memories of things we’ve said to our husbands that we wish we could take back (husbands, you may have similar memories of how you’ve talked to your wives). It doesn’t have to be this way. My husband is a “words of affirmation” kind of guy. After so many years of marriage, I understand how words can either cause him to draw back from me or stay close. What a great wisdom, to learn this early in marriage.Photo Credit: To Love Honor and Vacuum

3) Broadway Musicals – This coming Sunday is the 2016 Tony Awards ceremony, saluting the great shows currently on Broadway. The musicals are my favorites. Many years ago, I had several opportunities to visit New York City. When there, Broadway plays were on the agenda. Three shows on my list in those days were A Raisin in the Sun, Your Arms Too Short to Box with God, and Chicago. My absolute favorite musical, which I didn’t see in New York but in another city, was Les Miserables. Maybe, I will make it to a Broadway or off-Broadway show again some day. The video here captures the joy of these musicals for me – belting out favorite lyrics with friends…with all the gusto of an ensemble performing on stage. Photo Credit: Zimbio

4) Gentleman Traditions
I tried to raise our boys to grow up with gentleman traditions – opening doors for others, greeting all in the room respectfully, good manners at table, giving up a seat for another. Having grown up myself as a daughter of the feminist movement (with the subsequent Equal Rights Amendment in play), I was not sure myself what traditions should be upheld and which were no longer relevant. Kris Wolfe writes a sweet piece on 21 Lost Gentleman Traditions That Still Apply Today. As I read these traditions, I thought some of them may actually feel very awkward in today’s culture. What do you think? When I was a young girl first observing these traditions in the dads and young men in my life, I remember how winsome they were. Which ones do you especially value? Which ones are you teaching your boys and young men?Photo Credit: Refe99

5) A Poet for the Present – This week’s news marked a media outcry regarding the sexual assault on a young woman and the very lenient judgment and sentence given the perpetrator. If you search for the phrase “20 minutes of action”, you will see article after article about the young man’s father’s defense of the actions of his son. Very poor choice of words for what this man did that night. I would like to point you to two blogs in particular, and a poem. John Pavlovitz’s blog To Brock Turner’s Father – From Another Father is one you should read. Also Ann Voskamp’s piece About Those “20 Minutes of Action”: 20 Things we Better Tell Our Sons Right Now About Being Real Men. The poem is by Tymm Hoffman who works with Compassion International, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He and I don’t know each other, but I found him on Facebook when a friend shared another poem he wrote. Tymm is my poet for the present day culture we live in.

20 MINUTES
In twenty minutes, I can probably shower and shave,
I can run a 5k or waste 1.4% of a day;

I can almost bake a cake, grill a medium sirloin steak,
And let’s be honest – If I smoked – I could take a smoke break;

I could watch a sitcom from the beginning to the end,
And write about 4 emails – spellcheck and then hit send;

I could listen to 5 songs, if they’re short, maybe six,
Or I could share some funny memes from this season of politics;

I could cut my front yard and probably most of the back,
While streaming about half of the “Purple Rain” soundtrack;

I could wash a load of clothes and get them started drying,
I could crack some funny jokes – we’d be laughing til we’re crying;

I could give the kids a bath, help them with their math,
Then chase them round the house like a crazy psychopath;

I could snag a little siesta, ya know, a quick lil’ power nap,
Or write a battle rap while strapped with a shower cap;

There’s a whole lot of things I could do with my twenty minutes,
A whole lot of positive things with lots of happiness in it;

Or I could drink until I’m gone sir, and turn into a monster,
Steal her dignity and honor as I force myself upon her;

Take 1/3 of an hour to strip her of all her power,
Cast a permanent dark shadow over a bright and shining flower;

Let my daddy stand up for me while I take no responsibility,
Claim absolutely no liability, and blame drunken fragility;

And watch the life of a stranger get broken as a reaction,
And realize who’s really paying the price for your “20 minutes of action.” – Tymm Hoffman, with permission.

Bonus: Fruit in Season & a Yummy Recipe – Yesterday I had one of those perfect summer lunches with a friend. Fruit in season is like nothing else. Blueberries can be blue and still tart. I don’t often trust them. These blueberries, every single one, were just right in their sweetness. The strawberries, the same. So luscious. My friend’s hot baked chicken salad was so satisfying. Even with my altered appetite post-surgery, I could have eaten the whole thing as the day passed…but didn’t, of course. The recipe follows below.Photo Credit: Food.com

Happy Weekend, Loves!

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5 Friday Faves Plus a Bonus – New Year, Fruit in Season, Shepherding People, Decluttering & Thrift Shops, Self-awareness, and a Playlist

January 1, 2016 admindeb 6 Comments

Happy New Year! Thanks for stopping by. It means a lot. Here are 5 plus 1 faves of this week. Hope you find them helpful and/or refreshing for your first day of 2016.

1) New Year Storms – Leslie Leyland Fields wrote a fascinating piece for us as we face the New Year. She reflects on the Apostle Peter’s experience of a stormy sea and applies that to our personal storms. The One who calms storms is the same today as then. We all hope for a fair weather year, but staying storm-ready is wisdom.Photo Credit: NaturePhotoBlog.com – Theo Bosboom

Our son Daniel in Scotland

2) Fruit in Season – When we first moved to Egypt, I was happily surprised at the long growing season of this desert nation. With irrigation from the Nile River, and the hot sunny days, we had yummy fruit for many months. Fruit that, in the US, we would have too briefly. Large luscious strawberries in December were a special treat in Egypt.Photo Credit: Fresh Plaza

Mandarin season in Morocco is also very special. Ripe from the tree. Sweet and perfectly juicy. It’s mandarin season now. Happy New Year!Photo Credit: Sarah Storm

3) Shepherding People – Think of those for whom you steward leadership. Shepherding does not just apply to pastors and churches, but to parents and children, and to those in our charge in the workplace. Abraham Kuyper writes of our example of the shepherds watching their sheep on the night of Jesus’ birthday. “If the shepherds in Ephrata’s fields had not been faithfully involved in keeping watch over their flock, they would have seen nothing of that night’s brilliance, witnessed nothing of the Lord’s glory shining around them, heard no angel song, and would never have paid homage to God’s Holy Child. Doesn’t the same apply to you? The heavens still sometimes open.” It is often in the ordinary faithfulnesses of the day that we see the most extraordinary…if we keep watch.Photo Credit: BPNews.net

4) Decluttering & Favorite Thrift Shops – If December doesn’t drive us to look at our household clutter, January sure will. I struggle with this. Holding on to beloved books and sentimental bits of this or that. Or those precious piles of “things I may need later”. The article 200 Things to Throw Away Today was very helpful for me this week. She gives a tremendous array of things I can work with, and there is no judging. Whew! You also don’t have to “throw away” all these items because there are various avenues through which you can recycle, repurpose, or reuse (including local agencies that help house the homeless, for instance). Two of my favorite small business thrift shops in our neighborhood are 2BInspired and Nomadic Attic.

Photo Credit: 2BInspired

Photo Credit: Nomadic Attic

Decluttering: 300+ Things to Throw Away Today – City Waste Services

5) Self-Awareness – Matt Monge of The Mojo Company published a great pre-New Year article on 13 Questions to Increase Your Self-Awareness. Our default with people is to scrutinize those around us as to how they are doing life, work, relationships. Self-awareness seemed a negative thing because anything with “self” in front of the word must not be good. Right? Wrong! The questions Matt presents are so insightful. Two of my favorites were: Did I demonstrate vulnerability today? If not, why not? What is the root cause of my reluctance to do so? and Was my leadership today reflective of someone who views his role as one of a steward rather than one who views the team and organization as something to be used for my benefit?

I want to go into 2016 having done my homework such that, at least, I have looked at my own heart, thinking, and motivations…first! Don’t miss this gem of a piece before heading back to work on Monday.Photo Credit: The Mojo Company

6) A Playlist – What a delight when someone else does the work of putting together a playlist. I still have some audiocassettes, from our days in Egypt, that local friends put together with our pop music favorites of that time. Mary Carver (co-author with Sarah Frankl of the new book Choose Joy) put together a playlist to take us into the New Year. Every one will make you smile, dance around, or just have a mind break to reset toward job. Enjoy!

Photo Credit: GivingUpOnPerfect.com

The video below is a bonus bonus. It’s been viewed a lot, but I only saw it yesterday. It reminded me of a book I read years ago by television producer Bob Briner. In Roaring Lambs, he challenged us to use whatever profession we are in to be “culture-altering” for good. These hair stylists are sure an example of that. Lovely.

Would love you to share one of your week’s favorites. Please use the comments section. Have an amazing start to your New Year! Step by step.

Food & Drink, Inspired, Travel, Vacations

The Fruits of Summer…and Year-Round Deliciousness…Not to Be Taken For Granted

July 8, 2014 admindeb 1 Comment

At our house, there are almost always apples and bananas. They are the go-to snack for my husband (when he’s trying to be healthy). Well, there is a brief period when he says, “Don’t buy any more apples. They’re out of season.” He’s talking about Honeycrisp and Pink Lady apples, his favorites. As the food shopper, I’m more aware of the seasons coming and going, not just here but other cultivated places (Chile, for instance). Fortunately, when these apple favorites are dwindling here in the Northern Hemisphere, the Southern Hemisphere orchards are bearing and apples will soon be shipped to us again.

Bananas are a different story altogether…seemingly always in season, thanks to being grown all around the world. For now, you can always find bananas, right? Inexpensive at $.49/lb, or a bit more for organic. Always there…dependable, affordable, delicious fruit. Our family did have a unique experience a few years ago, living in North Africa in 1990’s, when bananas weren’t a part of our household fruit supply. Not because there was a scarcity of them but because of the politics of the day. [See link below.] Bananas are the perfect imported fruit.

These fruits are not what we in the U.S. think of as summer fruits; they are more the old standards.

Summer fruit is a many-course feast of perfect deliciousness. Where we live, summer begins with strawberries. Then there’s the brief glorious seasons of cherries, blueberries, and blackberries. They make for handfuls of plump sweetness, and we all have our favorites.

The berry season is followed by the melons – watermelon and cantaloupe – the perfect finish of every summer cookout.

And last, for us, are the sun-bronzed peaches that drip sweet juice down your arm as you eat them over the kitchen sink or without a plate outdoors.

Summer fruit can stand alone as clear evidence of a kind and loving Creator God. So much goodness is fruit in season. The Bible is full of references to fruit as gifts from God and as the outcome of lives yielded to God (Psalm 1:1-6; Song of Solomon 2:3-5; Galatians 5:22-23; John 15:1-17; etc.)

I love all of these fruits, but my favorite is the cherry in its season. Cherries are completely perfect, right down to the seed pit which requires disposal, forcing us to slow down eating these lovelies, or we would eat them until they made us sick.

One of the leading national producers of cherries is Turkey, and we had the sweet opportunity of being there during cherry season one year. In the hotel where we stayed for a conference, the buffets offered huge bowls of cherries. We ate to our full every day that we were there, such that, just the memory of that culinary experience would be enough for us if it was all we would have of cherry season.

Still, at least once a summer in the US, I pay the big bucks to buy cherries trucked to us from Washington State or California. And I remember that there are places in the world, where “bad” or blemished cherries are transformed into indescribably lovely juice or cooked into pies for the pickers’ families who gathered them. Cherries are grown for those able to afford them…and at least once or twice in the season, we are among them.

Summer fruit is remarkable, really. Short growing seasons. Heat. Drought. Transport issues. We definitely should savor them (as we do) and not take them for granted.

The always-present fruit like bananas should cause us to be grateful as well. Bananas are not bound by a short season and they are enjoyed by most peoples of the world, not just the affluent. Still as I read about fruit, trying to raise this piece above just a love affair with food, I was struck by how the fruit that we just assume will always be in our supermarkets may actually not be. Not just related to drought, for instance, but also to disease. Bananas are no exception (see links below).

I am grateful for all these delicious fruits of someone’s summer – those we find locally, and those touched by hands across the globe to bring them to our market. I am thankful for the means to enjoy cherries and for those who did the work to bring these to our table.

Our Kids in Turkey – not in Cherry Season.