the brownies just weren't as Rich

Yesterday I made my brother's famous brownies for company. Those familiar with his famous brownies agreed they just weren't the same. I followed the recipe exactly. I wonder what his secret is.

Speaking of my bro, we posted a video for him here, but I think everyone should see it. Count it as your daily dose of cuteness. Who doesn't need more of that?*

*Three seconds in is my very most favorite part. I mean, if I absolutely had to choose.
{I've hit rewind about a hundred times today.}

test pots and paint brushes

I spent Friday with the architect of a house we're working on. We spend lots of Fridays together, which is really delightful, actually. (Mostly because she's delightful and I admire her work very much.) This past Friday we were determined to nail down paint colors for each room in the house so we can get going on fabric and furniture. The colors are so soft and lovely--like they were pulled them from the spot where the earth and sky mingle. I spent Saturday begging paint stores to match swatches from a British paint company.* I was fairly successful. I'll spend today painting little canvases colors like Skylight, Calamine, Skimming Stone, and Vert de Terre. Kinda makes me want to sing a little Pocahontas. I'm not gonna lie.

*They sell the pain in the U.S., just not in Utah.

God Likes Broken Things

At church someone said, God likes broken things, And, Have we ever thought about that?

Heavy clouds gather in a dark sky after days of drought. They break over the dusty soil and drop rain. Broken grain makes wheat to feed hungry bellies. A mother's water breaks so a child can enter the world.

I spent the afternoon thinking of broken hearts and contrite spirits. How we're most teachable when we're broken. How God wants to carry our heavy-laden heart. How we have to offer it up to him (no matter how heavy or broken) fleshy and raw in order for him to put it back together.

I thought about Japan and how the earth shook and then broke. How the water rose high and fell down into the cracks. I thought about floods and famine. About children without parents. Parents without children. I thought that at the exact moment there was a huge flood on earth, there was also a huge flood in heaven. About how life continues on after this if we believe with all our broken hearts.

Spring in Seattle

My brother sent this photo he took at Pike Place today. I love the daffodils blooming on the rooftop. It's definitely spring in Seattle.

that one time we watched jeopardy

One time when my sister came to visit me at college, I got a whole column of Double Jeopardy questions right. The subject was "The Heart." I was in the other room folding laundry. Superior vena cava! or foramen ovale! I'd shout. My sister was impressed. But not as impressed as she was Friday afternoon. While I bounced my niece on my knee, I blurted out the answer to a physics question waaayyy before the buzzer. She asked me where the heck that was in my brain. Dunno, I said. You should be able to test out of your class now, or something, she said. I don't know about that, but I sure think that it should count for something.

The Land of the Rising Sun

In a house in a city where the ground stands still, we gathered in the room off the kitchen to watch the news. It was well after the sun and the moon had switched places. We could see our reflections in the window.

Dad pulled out his map of Japan. Over Cheerios and an assortment of Japanese rice crackers we talked people and places and how he still hadn't heard from his friends. The round light over our heads was warm and cast a yellow beam down on the Land of the Rising Sun where everything is dark and unknown. There is no power. No heat. No round lights over heads. Every so often the earth beneath them starts to shake again.

In a house in a city where the ground stands still we said silent prayers; then one aloud, and then we hoped.

These will make you want to pack your bags

Although the Barcelona vid (seen here) is more relevant to future travel plans, I'm partial to the Paris one below. Regardless, these are all great. Loving London as well; so cheeky.

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.

{quote by Charles Dickens}

My dad's oldest sister has an autographed picture of Mr. Rogers. It's framed. Hanging in her bedroom. Where most people have wedding pictures, or photographs of their mothers or children or grandchildren is a picture of the man who prefers sweaters that zip--as opposed to button--a picture of the silver-haired man that asks everyone to be his neighbor. If you knew her, this would make perfect sense.

We found this out Sunday night when two of my cousins (from opposite sides of the family) showed up fortuitously on my parent's front porch. This morsel of information offered up at the dining table over dessert provided several minutes worth of chortling, from both sides of the family.

Also, at church on Sunday, we discussed houses. Well, Home, more like. As in, what makes one. How the things you bring into it, the things you surround yourself with, create that matchless, marvelous feeling of home. There's no better feeling, no feeling more important, really. It's something I think about all the time.

What would Grandma and Grandpa's house be without Grandpa's desk, or Grandma's loom off the kitchen. What would it be like without the sound of the big white freezer in the family room, humming the low basso tune while keeping Snelgrove's ice cream cold deep down in its belly.

My parents have an Amish quilt above the sofa in the family room. It's been in all three houses we've lived in. Color palettes for furnishings have been determined by it. Upstairs in Mom and Dad's closet is Dad's basket. The one with spare change for the bus, safety pins and those plastic things that keep your socks together in the laundry. It's all there for the taking (or so we've told ourselves over the years in a lemonade stand crisis, when the ice cream man's music plays faintly three streets over, or when a button goes missing at the last minute.) There's the picture of the red bucket in the hall and the big bulletin board of family photos. These things make home Home.

Perhaps I'll never know the secret ingredients to create that feeling, but for my aunt that picture of Mr. Rogers, for whatever reason, makes her feel at home. Often it's not the things in our house that make it a home, but the people inside. Their voices. Laughter. The familiar scales played on the piano late at night when you're trying to watch television. The scuff of someone's feet on the wood floors early in the morning. And the knock at the door, the familiar finger rhythm of a neighbor.

A few years ago, I made a list of the homes I admire (which basically parallels the list of people I admire.) The assignment didn't stop there. I was to describe what under those roofs and between those four walls made me feel that ineffable feeling, that sense of place, that sense of self, that sense of being. It included such things as: rooms full of books, walls full of art, birthday traditions, house rules, religious practices. It was as varied as the households on it and included houses under which I felt that ineffable feeling of home.

A few weeks ago, in my Grandma's home near the mountains, I balanced my sister's baby on my forearm. We made our way down the hallway with the bookshelves full of trinkets from their world travels: cowbells from Switzerland, figurines from Germany, crystal from Italy. Excitedly, we opened the cupboards at the end of the hall, which are stubborn like age-d joints that haven't been used in a long while. Neatly in place were the alphabet puzzles, farm animals and the big red toy barn. We stood cows on their four legs, propped up trees perpendicular to the ground and fussed with the letters of the alphabet. Opening that cupboard was like opening the doors to a second childhood.

All of us are the products of the elements to which we are exposed.

I love this idea. Which things in my life I've been exposed to that have become a part of me? I am grateful to parents and extended family and friends for exposing me to all the beauty life has to offer. To my parents for creating home and to so many others whose houses are not just four walls, but homes away from home.

Tortellini Sausage Soup

My mom made this soup last weekend when we had friends over to watch the basketball game. Some of you have asked for the recipe.

We originally got the recipe from our neighbor (the source of all things delicious) whose niece started this blog, where you can find many other delicious things. Perhaps you've already heard of it. These girls are kind of famous...

Tortellini Sausage Soup

3 links Italian sausage
4 cloves pressed garlic
1 onion, diced
½ c. water
2 cans chicken broth
½ c. apple cider (don't leave this out! I did once and it wasn't the same...)
1 16-oz. can diced tomatoes
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
1 c. sliced carrots
1 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. dried oregano
2 medium zucchini, grated (great way to use your food processor if you have one)
8-10 oz. package cheese tortellini (check the freezer section of your grocery store; if you can find it there, it will almost always be way cheaper than fresh tortellini. Also, Barilla makes a great dry cheese tortellini)
2 Tbsp. dried parsley (yes, that's two tablespoons)

If you're using link sausage, remove the casings and crumble into a large soup pot. To remove the casings, you can use a sharp knife to cut a slit down one side of the sausage and then peel back the casing.

Begin cooking sausage over medium heat, stirring frequently. If your sausage is pretty fatty, you'll want to drain it when it's about halfway cooked. Meanwhile, chop onions and garlic
and add to the sausage. Continue cooking until onions are translucent and your sausage is cooked. Your house will smell heavenly.

Add tomatoes, tomato sauce, juice, water, chicken broth, carrots, oregano, and basil. Cover and simmer for 1/2 hour. Add parsley and zucchini and simmer for another 15 minutes or so. Add the tortellini and cook until tender, and then serve with bread and freshly-grated Parmesan.

leftrightleftrightleft

I saw this on another blog and loved it. Anyone who knows me knows I have a thing for luxury automobiles (because I know I'll never own one.) Anyone who knows me also knows I'm not so good at math and science. (It took me an hour to do one physics problem today...with my tutor, who happens to be genius.) I love this campaign.

Left brain: I am the left brain. I am a scientist. A mathematician. I love the familiar. I categorize. I am accurate. Linear. Analytical. Strategic. I am practical. Always in control. A master of words and language. Realistic. I calculate equations and play with numbers. I am order. I am logic. I know exactly who I am.

Right brain: I am the right brain. I am creativity. A free spirit. I am passion. Yearning. Sensuality. I am the sound of roaring laughter. I am taste. The feeling of sand beneath bare feat. I am movement. Vivid colors. I am the urge to paint on an empty canvas. I am boundless imagination. Art. Poetry. I sense. I feel. I am everything I wanted to be.

Advertising Agency: Shalmor Avnon Amichay/Y&R Interactive Tel Aviv, Israel
Executive Creative Director: Tzur Golan
Creative Director: Yariv Twig
Art Directors: Gil Aviyam, Dror Nachumi
Illustrators: Gil Aviyam, Lena Guberman
Copywriters: Sharon Refael, Oren Meir
Published: February 2011 ‏

total toast

I lied my way through my physics tutoring session today, nodding about notations, giving muffled mmm hmms when he asked, So you understand how we got that answer, right? It took an hour to do one problem--a cruel reality regarding the subject that I'll never get used to, even with a genius for a tutor. The thing about having a genius for a tutor: he can also tell when I'm lying, but he doesn't just come out and say it. He'll smile and say, OK. You tell me how we got that answer. Which usually means I'm toast. Like today, I was total toast.