jessi's happy birthday/writing mix

• the album leaf--twenty-two fourteen
  
• beirut--rhineland (heartland)
  
• cliff edwards--when you wish upon a star
  
• elliott smith--between the bars
  
• elmer berstein--boo who?
  
• iron&wine--love vigilantes
  
• joanna newsom--the book of right-on
  
• dances with wolves--score
  
• kate havnevik--nowhere warm
  
• bill withers--use me
  
• my morning jacket--hopefully (acoustic version)
  
• patty griffin--long road
  
• pete yorn--EZ
  
• rogue wave--salesman at the day of the parade
  
• rosie thomas--sell all my things
  
• sia--day too soon
  
• sigur ros--heysatan
  
• sun kil moon--exit does not exist
  
• pride and prejudice--darcy's letter
  
• sara groves--loving a person
  

just a crazy/hazy/mixed up mix that's fun and will hopefully help give you even more inspiration as your write!  love you very much.  can't wait to bake a cake with you today:)

blocked

i just watched an interview with steven curtis chapman's family on good morning america (via youtube).  it is truly heartbreaking.  they have been on my mind since the accident, but seeing this just leveled me.  

we have another girl moving in.  it feels so much different than with our first three girls.  mostly because i got here after those three were already settled in, and there was a rhythm in the house. 

my sweet friends barry and stewart have been here this week, and that was so fun.  they are on a fun adventure riding across the country, and so we got to have them at the house with us for a few days.  we rode up to port angeles yesterday so they could hop a ferry to canada.   

after a tumultuous few weeks around here, it will be nice for things to settle in and get a new rhythm going. 

we'll see how that goes.

i feel like i have been spinning my wheels emotionally.  and spiritually too, for that matter.  as i sat outside this afternoon, and tried to write, i ended up pitching a fit in the general direction of the Lord.  it seemed so valid in the moment.  

time for the olympics.  

song for sunday

mirah--the garden

ehhhh..keepin it real

in the last few days our house has been preoccupied with the photo booth feature of SB (my computer's name). video blogs have been made, hilarious versions of 'so you think you can dance' routines have been absolutely enjoyed and watched repeatedly.

we celebrated jess' birthday last night with a good ol' fashioned slumber party. it was so great. but i will tell you my favorite part of the whole thing. me, nick, jess, marilee, thadd, and rotating babies yelling out trivial pursuit questions and answers. it really brought me pure joy, and i do think that we should all live at a commune. (apparently in carnation).

now, let's talk olympics.

more specifically, let's talk this guy:

bob costas. i love him. i love anything he narrates, and i love when he does the background stories for olympic athletes. i have great memories of watching the '92 olympics in barcelona with my brothers--it seemed like it was on all summer.

maybe i'll ask him how he feels about communes in carnation?

just thinking

i don't know if you have ever seen 'about a boy' with hugh grant, but in that movie, hugh's character has a lot of free time on his hands, and discovers that he has to divide his day up into units.  each unit comprising of 30 minutes.  

well, here you go:

"I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes. Full hours can be a little bit intimidating and most activities take about half an hour. Taking a bath: one unit, watching countdown: one unit, web-based research: two units, exercising: three units, having my hair carefully disheveled: four units. It's amazing how the day fills up, and I often wonder, to be absolutely honest, if I'd ever have time for a job; how do people cram them in? "

during my odyssey of solitude, that was the month of july, i lived life a little like this (or a lot).  

last week, when the timeline for working at new beginnings home became more clear, i automatically began translating my time here into units.  a checklist of days.  

this is not the manner in which i want to live this life.  

seconds that add up to a minute, waiting on that minute to become five.  wait on today to become tomorrow so that maybe i'll get what i'm hoping for.  what i want.

what is it that makes me want to rush through periods of time?  and to be honest, i still don't feel like i am wanting to rush through the rest of my time here at new beginnings, i truly love this sweet little life we've got going.  

i think more of my struggle right now is, i am in the waiting room of life.  

knocking on the door, and waiting for someone to answer.  who will it be?  

it is not my intention to bring this around to the old "treasure every day" sort of life lesson.  

i'm not sure what my intention is, to be honest.  okay, here's what i think i might be trying to say:

i have no idea what i am working towards in the grand scheme of my life.  

right now most everything seems like a series of blurs.

nothing is seriously long term.

i am not married to someone forever.

i don't have children that will be around forever.

life seems temporary.

so--how do you live life in an effective and meaningful way when you don't know what your life is really going to look like?

i would rather

well, i had been working on this other, more serious, and probably slightly confusing entry, but instead, i will inform you of the minutia filling my day thus far.  

roll over, hear dog whimpering to be let out.

thought process:  just give me five more minutes, maybe fifteen.

it's amazing how magnified minutes become at 6am.  

6:30am, wake up to an excited puppy, who promptly pees on my foot and licks my face off.  

outside for potty and play.

i sit in the backyard, in my pajamas and bathrobe, and check my emails.

randy (jess' dad) comes out on the deck for a smoke, we exchange good mornings, beulah seeing randy, pees on herself.

i stay outside until my desire for coffee is inescapable.  come in, make coffee.  at this point, randy realizes his flight is today, not tomorrow.  packing ensues.  

turn back and forth between the today show and the waltons.  say good morning to jess and babes.  beulah pees on herself.  

i shower.

randy heads to airport.  

beulah sleeps.

babies pretend to sleep.

jess and i play relaxation game, and pretend to schedule (or i just pretend, jess really does).

beulah wakes.

i walk around.

laundry.

preparing new girl's room.

lunch.

both babies up.

nick comes in, beulah sees him.  

pees.

a few phone calls, and now i'm back outside.

checking my emails.

good morning, salsa

well, it's still midmorning here, but i wanted to get a head start on tonight's dinner, so i went ahead and made the salsa for our mexican feast this evening.  

up until a couple of months ago, i had never made guacamole or salsa, but had a passion for both.  so, i thought maybe for those of you that like these 2 delicacies as much as i do, you might want a couple of really good, fresh recipes.  here goes:

salsa

3 tomatoes, diced

1 large white onion, diced

3-5 tomatillos, depending on size

1-2 peppers of choice, depending on how hot you want it, you could leave them out all together.

1 whole bunch of cilantro, roughly chopped

2 limes, squeezed dry

4-5 garlic cloves, again, depending on taste, i like me some garlic

2 cans original rotel

salt sparingly

a good bit of fresh pepper

chop everything, open a couple of cans, throw it in a bowl, grab some chips, and you're good.  you can really add or subtract most of these things according to your own taste.  

also, with the peppers because the crazy salmonella scare, nick just grabbed some canned jalapenos and i chopped those up instead.  i think it turned out fine.

guacamole

4 good sized avocados, scraped from skin and blended 

1 large red onion, diced

1 large bunch of cilantro, rough chopped

1 large tomato, chopped

2 tomatillos, you really don't need them, but i like 'em

4-5 cloves of garlic, using garlic press

2 juiced limes

salt and pepper

okay, the only thing i know for sure about this is that the avocados have to be all kinds of ripe.  otherwise you will have little cubes of them, instead of it being mushy and mixing with everything else.  eh.  i use a little melon baller type of thing to get all the avocado out, and then use a hand mixer to mush it up.  then i chop everything else and mix it in with a spoon.  

now, i really hate to add a lot of salt to anything, but let me tell you, this will be gross if you don't add enough salt, so try not to be shy, just keep tasting it, cause you don't want it sickly salty either.  lots of pepper, too.  

i hope you enjoy these, cause we will be tonight!