The Yellow House
Read moreLife in the word.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. …. […]
Read moreMoving the house.
On the morning of November 9, 2016, I walked out of my front door into a world I wasn’t sure I’d recognize. It was the warmest November ever, but with just enough nip to the air to remind us it was still November after all. The sky was creamy blue, the air exhilarating, with a […]
Read moreFirst clothesline day of 2016!
Clotheslining is a big deal here in Cheapskate-Intellectual-land, so the first warm and windy day is a big deal too. As soon as I saw the sun and smelled the breeze, I knew it was time. So familiar and delightful to pull that cord across the yard and hook it up and tote the basket […]
Read moreCreamed pearl onions.
Since y’all seemed to like the talked-through bacon and brussels sprouts recipe, here’s one more: creamed pearl onions, a Thanksgiving and Christmas classic from holidays at home that has won new converts up here, where it’s going to a friend’s house this afternoon. (Sorghum sweet potatoes and a hummingbird cake, the Southern- and fruit-infused cousin […]
Read moreThe museum of the too-good-to-use.
“My mother had a collection of old lace, which was famous among her friends, and a few fragments of it still remain to me, piously pinned up in the indigo-blue paper supposed (I have never known why) to be necessary to the preservation of fine lace. But the yards are few, alas; for true to […]
Read moreThe twentysomething brain (and beyond.)
(from my manuscript-in-progress) Significantly, Buddhists call looking at an object or emotion steadily for some time and processing the emotions that arise “sustaining the gaze.” The ability to “sustain the gaze” without distraction from within or without is the ability to rest in the relative stability of a mature understanding of reality, to pay attention […]
Read moreThe Lenten closet.
Yesterday I went to Minneapolis to buy some sorely needed new clothes. Just a few good pieces that I was lucky enough to find on sale. This afternoon — energized by what Marilynne Robinson in Housekeeping called the “swift, watery wind” blowing all around my neighborhood, and feeling it disarranging me in a good way, […]
Read moreA vermicular update — and some home composting lessons.
A couple of posts ago, you read about my new experiment in home vermicomposting. But since then I’ve learned there’s definitely a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Basically, I now wish I’d started with one of these pictured here — a Worm Factory 360 — from the beginning rather than […]
Read moreGettin’ worms.
The kitchen of your mama’s house in Alabama is not the best place to announce to your family – all human and animal doctors whose lives are full of horses, cattle, and dogs — that you are about to embark on home vermiculture. Especially if you phrase it, casually, “Hey, y’all, when I get back […]
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