links I love

Last week we took a hike down into the valley below our house and walked until we found the orange groves.  We bit into oranges, collapsed into grasses, and spent several hours chasing bugs and photographing bees.  Here's one photo from that day; I'll share more soon!

In the meantime, here are a few links I love:

Such a beautiful remix... with butter containers.

And then same song, different girls.  Equally beautiful.

The best cinnamon rolls you'll ever have.

Cutest pregnant belly series ever... and set to music.

Seven sustainable fish.

New blog crush (and not just because she lives in a tiny apartment like we did as newlyweds).

Read this book if you like crafts and kids.

Hilarious article about 17 things your flight attendant won't tell you.

"Vow to do less, not more" as you make your New Year's resolutions. 

Elliott can't wait to get one of these for Lena!

We ate here with some friends recently and it was amazing.  I want to go back and stay for a few days when it's warmer.

A list of books every child should read.

Have you made any great finds online recently?

a tasty sip :: Pom & sparkling water

While searching for foodie inspiration for the vet clinic Christmas party at our house a few weeks ago, I came across this delicious signature cocktail.  Inspired, I bought pomegranate juice and some Prosecco, and then I also bought sparkling water for the pregnant girl (ie. me).  

I gave the combination a try at the party and was totally hooked!  The sparkling water and tart juice are a refreshing combination.  It's like drinking a fruit soda but with all-natural sugar.  

Want to try?  It's pretty simple...

Gather sparkling water and either Pom or another juice.  I tried this Blueberry-Pomegranate juice because it was less expensive, but it's too sweet for me.  I like the tangy kick of pure pomegranate juice!  (The price of Ocean Spray, however, is sweeter than the price of Pom.) 

Thankfully, sparkling water is cheap in Italy; I bought this sparkling water for about 40 cents a bottle.

Pour yourself some sparkling water and then splash in juice to your taste.  I guesstimate that I add 2-3 tablespoons of juice.

And that's all there is to it.  Kick back and rehydrate with this refreshing mocktail!

top 5 books I read in 2012

I spent awhile looking back through the 54 books I read in 2012 and tried to pick the 5 that impacted me the most.  You know, those 5 books that, once I read one, I just wanted to grab everyone by the collar and say, "Read this book!  It will change your life!"  Here they are:

I read this short, poetic little volume soon after my sister died this summer.  Even though it's only 111 pages, it took me a long, long time to read.  Nicholas Wolsterstorff wrote this book after his son died in a climbing accident at the age of 26 and it is a memoir of gut-wrenching beauty and sorrow.  This is powerful quote that stays with me, for it rings true in the aftermath of my sister's death, too:

"I walked into a store. The ordinariness of what I saw repelled me: people putting onions into baskets, squeezing melons, hoisting gallons of milk, clerks ringing up sales. "How are you today?" "Have a good day now." How could everybody be going about their ordinary business when these were no longer ordinary times? I went to my office and along the way saw the secretaries all at their desks and the students all in their seats and the teachers all at the podiums. Do you not know that he slipped and fell and that we sealed him in a box and covered it with dirt and that he can't get out?"

A tiny little company published this book earlier this year and so no surprise if you hadn't heard of it yet.  It is the firsthand account of Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, who begins her story in the days when she was a professor at Syracuse University with a full personal life as a lesbian activist.  Everything changed when she published an editorial in her local paper and a pastor in her town responded.  His letter was so thoughtful and so open that she couldn't put it away, and eventually she called and accepted his invitation to have dinner in his home with his family.  What grew from that was a totally unlikely friendship that, eventually, also led to a friendship with Jesus Christ.  Dr. Butterfield's journey after that is nothing short of extraordinary.  Her entire life is transformed.  By the end of the book she is writing as a pastor's wife and a busy homeschooling mother of several adopted and foster children.  

It's a challenging story for anyone to read, for she is a woman of extremes no matter where you stand on many social and theological issues.  I highly recommend it.

 

My brother Eric recommended this book to me to help me understand the 2008 fiscal crisis on Wall Street.  Although it wasn't my favorite book I read all year, it was enormously helpful in explaining the crisis in layman's terms.  The author Michael Short has written fast-paced nonfiction accounts of real events in the past--notably Liar's Poker and Moneyball--and so he's just the right person to lead you through the drama of Wall Street with all the intrigue and personal stories to keep you engaged.  I felt like a much better-informed citizen after reading this book.

Oh what a delight!  This short, sweet collection of letters can be read in an hour or two.  Helen Hanff addresses her first letter in 1949 to a bookshop in London to ask for two hard-to-fine volumes.  Twenty days later she receives a reply from someone at the bookshop known only as FPD, who lets her know her books are on their way.  Over the next 20 years Helene and FPD (who eventually becomes Frank Doel) develop a warm and robust correspondence that grows to include letters to many members of the bookshop on Charing Cross Road as well as Christmas packages with hams and fresh eggs.

The book moved me to tears.  At the end of the book Helene tells a friend visiting London, "If you happen to pass by 84, Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me. I owe it so much."  After reading this book, I should like to give it a kiss myself!  I felt my love of literature, letter writing, and lyrical prose refreshed after reading this book.

And now my favorite book I read all year: Jon Krakauer's gripping account of the 1996 Mt. Everest climbing disaster.  I share the world's healthy respect and awe of the mountain but, like most, I had no idea what requirements are in place to climb the mountain (the answer = money more than skill, believe it or not) or how the climb is paced and organized.  I also had no idea that May of each year is a very busy time on Mt. Everest or that the people climbing in May 1996 were especially fascinating, heart-warming, and sometimes profoundly aggravating characters.

As I finished the book I literally could not move from my chair.  I was sitting outside in the spring and shaking from the cold (or was it because of the book?); Elliott went and got me a blanket because I couldn't bear to stop reading for one moment.  I loved it so much that it was my November/December choice for my book club, Read the Change.  And now I've said enough... go read it!

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Disclaimer: This post includes affiliate links.

my goals for 2013

 completely unrelated photo from a hike we took recently as a family

I wrote my 2013 goals down one morning when I couldn't get back to sleep, and Elliott and I have been talking about them since then.  He helped me make some of them more realistic and then encouraged me to add others, so... we'll see what's realistic in the end!

• Love Elliott and Lena and our Baby Boy.  

When I asked Elliott what his goals were for 2013, the first thing he said was, "Love you and Lena."  This was humbling to me, as I was going to start with War and Peace.  Reality check.  Loving my best friend and my dear daughter (and my new son in just a few weeks!) is at the top of my list.

  

• Finish War and Peace!  

I got 1/3 of the way through it this year and then never went back to it.  This year I will finish it! 

 

• Read at least 10 of these books.

On another book-related note, I went through lists online of "the books to read before you die" and "the best 100 novels" and came up with this list of ones I haven't read but have always wanted to.  So my goal is to read at least 10 of these books:

1. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
3. A Passage to India by E.M. Forester
4. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
5. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
6. Beloved by Toni Morrison
7. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
8. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
9. Confessions by St. Augustine
10. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
11. Dracula by Bram Stoker
12. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
13. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
14. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
15. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
16. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
17. Middlemarch by George Eliot
18. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
19. Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
20. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
21. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
22. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
23. The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
24. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
25. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

 

• Sell 50 handmade items either through craft fairs or through my Etsy shop. 

 

• Study Italian

Complete this Italian workbook as well as the two volumes of Pimsleur Italian audio series that we have owned since... oh, since we got here 18 months ago...  Both Elliott and I thought that these goals were very manageable and would also seriously improve my Italian.

•  Learn more about and practice the manual settings on my camera.  

I have got to do this.  Where to even begin?  Where to set goals?  But at least this is a start.

 

• Launch my blog on a new website.  

I hinted at this development in my last post.  This time my blog will be self-hosted, which means I will own all my own content and have more control than Blogger allows.  Elliott has been encouraging me to do this for awhile and I just need to buckle down and get the website up and running!  I am eager to share this with you sometime in the next few weeks.  Wish me luck, as setting up and designing a blog is not my forte.

 

• Publish a piece of writing (fiction or non-fiction) in a non-blog setting.  

I have no idea what this will look like yet, so that's why it's a very vague goal!  But it's a step in the right direction to improve my writing.

And then I made a separate list of all the things I want/need to do around home before the baby comes!  You know, things like...

• Replace the burned-out lightbulbs in bathroom
• Clear out guest room (which is covered in bags of baby clothing and organizational bins)
• Replace the old shower curtain
• Repair my jeans
• Start a recipe binder
• Get the car cleaned
• Wash car seat cover and install the car seat in the car
• Get new vacuum cleaner and sell/trash old ones  done!
• Throw out unused/mismatched plastic containers in kitchen to make room for the new ones on their way from Amazon
• Restack linens in the linen closet
• And more... but I won't bore you!

Some of these things will take me 10 minutes or less but they must be done for my sanity.  Since Lena is napping, I have 10 minutes right now.  Gonna go work on that list!

What are your goals for 2013?  Inspire me!

my 2012 goals in review

 image from a guest post I did for The Book of Love

Thanks to publishing my 2012 goals on my blog last year, they were on my mind a lot this year.  And how did they go?  Let's review.  I wanted to:

• Sell 100 things in my Etsy store.

This actually kind of happened, thanks to the craft fair in December!  I didn't really think I'd get anywhere near 100 items, but I at least got closer to it than I expected.  I'll update with an exact tally soon (my paperwork is in the same room where Lena is napping!) because I want to know the final number myself.

Update: I sold 58 items total... most of them fingerless gloves.  I am excited to see that number but I still fell short of my goal.  I've revised the number from 100 items to 50 items for 2013 and would like to surpass it this time!

• Study Italian for 30 min each day.

Oh this was a total flop.  I think I actually sat down and cracked open books for about 30 minutes total this year.  Never fear, this goal will be revised and updated for 2013.

• Do Bible study each day with Elliott.

Bible study happened almost every day.  Elliott and I are days away from finishing the Read Through the Bible Program for Slackers and Shirkers for the second time in our marriage and are ready to move on to another Bible reading program for awhile.  We're thinking of using Tabletalk Magazine to guide our daily devotions together, but no decisions just yet.

• Read a book a week for a total of 52 books this year.

OK, I'll be honest: I was very worried about whether or not I could accomplish this goal.  For awhile there in July after Julia died I kind of stopped reading at all and so it seemed like there was no way I could finish it.  However, a couple of quiet months at the end of the year allowed me to catch up, and as of Dec 31st I read 54 books this year!  I am working on a post about my 5 favorites that I read in 2012.  I'm going to fine-tune this goal for 2013, as I am definitely a big fan of setting book-reading goals now.  Be my friend on GoodReads to keep up with your own reading and set a book goal for yourself!

• Eat and grocery shop locally.

Yep, definitely ate and shopped locally in 2012, although this is mostly for fresh food (vegetables, fruits, and fish); I still do most of my non-perishable shopping at the commissary on base.  I shop locally during my weekly market shopping trips and by visiting the old man's general store in our town's piazza.  As for eating out, though, we eat most of our meals at home and only eat at restaurants perhaps once every two weeks or so.  With another baby on the way, I think we won't be dining out very often this coming year either!  That's okay; it's a stage of life.

• Take some cooking classes and learn several Sicilian dishes.

I took a grand total of one cooking class last year and it was all about Thai food!  Oh well.  I have learned some more Sicilian dishes, though, mostly by word of mouth and observation.  My hands-down favorite so far is Sicilian Blood Orange Salad.

• Travel around Italy and Europe.

We did travel a lot around Italy and Europe!  We visited:

1. Rome and the Balkans in January
2. Agrigento, Sicily, in February
3. France for a ski trip in March
4. Malta in April
5. Northern Italy, San Marino, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Lietchenstein on an epic road trip in May
6. Virginia in June
7. Crete in July
8. Naples, the Amalfi Coast, and then later the Dolomite Mountains in August
9. Noto, Sicily, and back to Virginia in September
10. Mt Etna in October
11. Cinque Terre in November
12. ... and IKEA in December (because that place is a country all of its own)

• Be a more compassionate wife to Elliott.

Well, this deserves an individual post, but one big thing I have learned is to actually listen to my husband.  He often throws out suggestions like, "I wish you would try different styles in Lena's hair," or "I read this article about Greek islanders who live to be 100 and how they eat vegetarian food four times a week, fish twice a week, and meat once a week; could we do that?" A lot of times I'll hear these suggestions and say, "Hmm, that's a good idea.  Maybe I'll do that."  And then what happens?  I forget he ever said it.  One thing I tried to do this year was listen to what he said and then do it.  It's revolutionary.  And it makes for one very appreciative husband, too.

• Teach and love Lena.

Teach and love Lena... that happened automatically because she needed to be taught and because she is so loveable!  But I had a lot of fun this year watching her learn to walk, cooking with her every day, and now teaching her the alphabet.

• Get better at this blogging thing!

Talk about subjective, right?  But I have been encouraged by improvements in my blogging, both in my own knowledge of the online world and blog design as well as seeing a growing community of friends in the blogosphere.  Next year holds some exciting improvements for this blog, the biggest of which I hope to be revealing this month!

Did you make any goals for 2012?  Do you feel like you accomplished them?  Looks like my successes were about on par with my flops.

I'll be back tomorrow with my goals for 2013!

not ready to say goodbye yet

on a hike near our home in Sicily in early January 2012

I've attempted to write this post several times and it just isn't flowing out of me.  "Goodbye 2012, you were great!  Bring it on, 2013!"  That is anything but what I feel right now.  When you stare at your computer screen, attempting to write, and then end up sobbing in bed instead, you know there's no joy in your heart about sweeping out the old and welcoming the new.

How do you say goodbye to a year in which your baby sister died?  How do you make yourself look forward?  How do you celebrate what a new year could bring when this last year brought such sadness and loss?

The tears were mostly caused by looking back through old photos and videos.  I was trying to find a photo from a year ago that I could use in my post, but this search led me to albums of images from the trip my family and I took to the Balkans last year.  I found a video of Dec 31, 2011, when we were exploring Zagreb, Croatia.  It was just a simple clip on my iPhone, but it included a scene--such an ordinary scene!--with Elliott and Julia standing side-by-side and taking pictures of my parents with Zagreb behind them.  At the end of the video, Julia walked forward to show my parents the picture she'd just taken on my dad's phone.  Everything about that moment was so ordinary, so familiar: the way she walked, the shape of her hands, the expression on her face as she glanced at me to see if I was done filming before she started talking.  She was so real in those few seconds, so present, so alive.

I guess I haven't watched any videos of her since she died; maybe that's what shook me up so much.  Or maybe I am so busy a lot of the time that I just don't think about it.  Unexpected moments like this take me back to Square 1 of grief again.

And so... I don't know.  Sometimes I think I'm still in the denial stage of grief.  (Actually, what I really think is that you go through all the stages multiple times... probably for the rest of your life.)  And so, on this New Year's Day, I hold many different emotions in my heart.  Sadness as well as joy.  Sorrow as well as hope.  Disappointment as well as thankfulness.  Anguish as well as peace.

I often go back and read this letter from my dad, which reminds me of truths I confess, truths about Julia, truths about life even when the night is very dark. Truths that give me joy, hope, thankfulness, and peace, even in the midst of sorrow.

This will be, I do hope, a beautiful year for our family.  We will be welcoming a new baby in about 4 weeks!  We will be making important decisions about Elliott's career, our life after Sicily, and the future for our family.  I also have a lot of personal goals and hopes, which I'm eager to share with you soon.  Even this blog will see some exciting changes.  We have good reason to be hopeful, thankful, and faithful. 

And yet... there is this fear that instead of respite from turmoil and sadness, I may in fact experience more turmoil and sadness, or worse.  I wonder if I was just living in a happy bubble before Julia died and now I really know "the truth."  The truth that most of life is sorrow, that the peaceful times are the exception, and that sadness and suffering is the rule.  It's a rather bleak picture, but perhaps it's a more accurate way to view this life.  What do you think?

practicing what I preach :: toy library

Old-time readers of my blog will know that I love the book Simplicity Parenting; I wrote a book review about it for the blog almost a year ago.  In one section of the book the author suggests starting a toy library.  Try putting out only a few toys at at time for your child to play with and then switching up the available toys every few weeks or so.

Well, I've been trying to incorporate this idea into my parenting for awhile now, and anyone will tell you that I've been less than faithful.  However, on Christmas Eve night, as I crawled around the floor on my hands and knees tidying up Lena's toys (as I do every evening... and after every nap... and after we leave one room for another...), my husband shook his head and said, "What about that toy library, honey?"

I looked at the present Lena had just opened and the pile of presents to be opened tomorrow over the next several days and agreed with him.  I dumped out her toy basket and removed everything except a relatively new alphabet puzzle and the gift she had just opened.  Everything else went into her toy library bin.  Many of the smaller items had to be organized into Ziploc bags.

(Do you see that white garbage bag under all these toys?  That is full of infant toys, which I'll be breaking out at the end of January for our new baby!  And so the toy multiplication continues....)

The blue bin went back up on her closet, to be taken down again in a couple weeks, when Christmas toys will be put away and old favorites will be pulled out again.

By the time I was finished (not even 15 minutes later), all that remained in her toy basket was the puzzle, a few balls, and her new baby doll and accessories.  Oh, and the box the baby came in, which I think makes a nice little cradle.  Simplicity parenting, right?!

Have you ever done something like this for your kids?  Or would you like to when you have some? :-)