alphabetresolutionshttps://alphabetresolutions.wordpress.comNative Arizonan, theatre artist, Catholic. I'm a thankful mom & wife, a feminist, a recovering perfectionist, and an avid reader. Exploring new possibilities one year and one letter at a time.
Today is the birthday of one of my favorite teachers from high school- Judith Grimes Priebe- affectionately called GP or “Jeep” by some of her students. She passed away in 2010 during my second year of graduate school and the reaction was huge. over a thousand girls organized a Facebook event to share our memories and favorite pieces of wisdom from her. GP taught AP psychology to Xavier seniors. She was instrumental in me choosing Pepperdine over ASU and she had a number of life lessons that I and many many others still think about and hope to pass on to others. When I talk about wanting this to be a year of brilliance, I think of GP and not only of her genius, but of her great light that she let shine for all to see.
So without further delay, a few pearls of wisdom and why I love them:
So, we’re still in the season of Lent. It’s a season of reflection as I wrote about before, but it’s also about repentance- about calling to mind sins and patterns of selfishness, saying sorry, and amending what wrongs we can. I’ve been taking some time out to journal and reflect and pray during this season, and one of the many things I’ve realized is that I say sorry for a lot of things I shouldn’t need to and I don’t say sorry for a lot of things I ought to. That’s because I AM sorry for a lot of things I shouldn’t be, for ridiculous guilt I carry around while I am often complacent or remiss in noticing the things I should be sorry for..
Don Draper has plenty of things to be sorry for, and they don’t include having to use the restroom…
This is by no means a revolutionary idea. There have been several articles and a whole ad campaignon the specific phenomenon of women apologizing like crazy and how we are ingrained the idea that we should take the blame for things. I am definitely caught in this pattern.
Here is a list of things I have caught myself apologizing for just since Lent started: Continue reading →
So… have you ever had a time where you thought.. oh good, things are a little less busy and now I can catch up? If you are anything like me, those times suddenly become the busiest of all. Our family has found we are extra busy these days, mostly with a few great opportunities which I will be talking more about in the near future (I know, such a tease…) BUT… I did manage to squeeze in my baking project yesterday, even if I didn’t have time to write about it until today!
Applesauce monster… aka my handsome boy!
My son is obsessed with applesauce. It was one of the first foods he tried and still remains a favorite. We affectionately call him an applesauce monster because he tears through servings like a wild animal. This week’s baking project was chosen in honor of his applesauce obsession. It’s an applesauce loaf that I found HEREand tweaked just a bit based on what we had in the house.
I was a little skeptical because the mixture looked lumpier than most things I bake, but the recipe called for it to look like that so I put it in the oven and tried to put my little guy down for a nap so I could get some sewing projects done while it baked. My nap plan worked a little TOO well and instead of having to struggle to start nap time, he fell asleep right in my arms!
I didn’t get a chance to write this post Saturday to wrap up the month of “beauty” because I spent most of the day helping one of my closest high school friends get ready for her wedding and then helping her celebrate. .. And that’s kind of perfect because there are few things in life with more concentration of beauty than weddings. Weddings take a lot of crap, and sometimes with some good reasons since the “wedding industry” can certainly be absurd and there are some potentially problematic signals it sends to people whose vocation may not be marriage, but allow me for a second to gush about why I believe weddings are kind of amazing and all sorts of beautiful.
Photo by Millie Holloman
Photo by Leah Vis
I have been to many weddings in the past ten years. (I’ve been IN many weddings in the last ten years…) and I won’t lie, I sometimes wondered, especially when I was in school and taking on debt while not making any money, if the expense of travel and already short supplied time were worth it. Before I experienced my own wedding I wondered if the bride and groom in all the excitement of becoming husband and wife would really even remember who was there. But they do. And you remember if you were there too. I can hands down say that every road trip, terrible plane ride, and penny were worth it to help support the unions of people I love. And I still remember the weddings I didn’t make, and feel good knowing it was unavoidable and not for temporary reasons like money. I remember who was at my wedding.
Who I danced with, moments when I caught their eye during our ceremony and saw their smiles, how it felt to see their hands extended in blessing and prayer. I remember who couldn’t be there and the love they sent and how much I know they wanted to share the day. Continue reading →
One of my favorite parables or well known sermon stories is the idea that our life is like a tapestry. When you work on needlework such as embroidery or making a tapestry or even cross stitch, the working side or the “wrong side” looks like a total mess. You may be able to see some echo of the colors or patterns, but it also has all of the tangles and knots and awkward criss crosses. The parable goes that during our life, we see the working side of the tapestry God’s creating, but He sees the gorgeous picture on the other side. I like it because I like the idea of using a metaphor of what is traditionally women’s work and undervalued to show God’s plan. I like it because it resonates with the nonlinear. I like it because when I think about when I do needlework, one of my favorite parts is looking at the wrong side and seeing the echoes of the right side.
In my first post about Lent, I wrote about how nervous I was to not go in with one set plan of what I was giving up. I’m finding some daily challenges and realizations from being open to this lenten journey. I’m getting a little better at looking at the patches of color instead of desiring a road map… well, I am sometimes. But for today, I wanted to write about those glimpses of the big picture or echoes of the final piece if you will. These aren’t all the moments I’ve had those glimpses, but there are a few big ones, and they are some that make me smile.
How many people are lucky enough to still be crazy for their group of friends from high school?!
*8th Grade- I am in a show with my local theatre troupe. I am having a hard time in middle school (seriously, that’s the one period of my life I don’t think you could pay me enough to relive.) and I am already a proud nerd. I love theatre and reading and anything to do with words. A fellow cast-mate has noted this and asks me if I will come take an admissions test with her for a school she really wants to go to in a few months “since you’re a nerd and all, you probably like tests, right?” We laugh at the idea, but I entertain it. A little voice in my head or maybe my heart keeps telling me to do it. I ask my mom about it. The admissions test is for Xavier- a private Catholic school. I apply; I take the test with my friend; I get in and she does not. After that potentially awkward realization, I end up going to Xavier. My life is changed forever and I make some of the best friends in the world.
Don’ know what I’d do without this beautiful tropical fish.
All this joy from a silly children’s theatre show.
*I am in 10th grade. I am in a theatre troupe (I promise not all my stories start this way!) and the director has asked me to try out for a ridiculous adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk. I tell him I’m not sure if I’m interested or can fit it into my schedule, what with the absurdly challenging school I’m attending. He asks again, and I give in but tell him I don’t think my parents will want to drive the commute down to the theatre every night. Something in my head or heart keeps telling me to audition anyway. I get cast. I meet another cast-mate who can drive and happens to live about five minutes from my dad’s house. I pester him with questions every night on the drive home and eventually he becomes one of my best friends. I go see him in one of his first college plays and fall in love with the campus and the theatre program. I end up at the same program and I make some of the best friends in the world.
These girls are seriously the best. All that time at the beach wasn’t bad either!
That’s a lot of Pepperdine love in one tiny picture!
*I am a college graduate. I am living in New York City even though everything inside me told me to stay home after I came back to Arizona for Christmas. I am probably the most miserable I have ever been. I am isolated even though I have friends in the city. I am exhausted. I am broke. I am angry and scared. I decide, forget this- I’m running away from the real world. I’m going to become a nun. That familiar little voice inside me is pestering me about how much I want children (and also about how nuns still live in the real world) and I tell it to hush up, I’ll join the BVMs and work with school children. I inquire into joining a convent. I don’t tell my mother as the one thing she made me promise when she agreed to send me to Xavier was that I wouldn’t become a nun and deny her grandchildren. The BVMs let me know that you can’t officially join the sisterhood if you have student loan debt. Since I went to Pepperdine, I anticipate being in debt forever. I’m even more angry. I decide to say FINE GOD, if you won’t let me into a church vocation because student debt then SCREW YOU! I will just go to grad school and take on SO MUCH DEBT IT WILL MAKE YOUR HEAD SPIN! (I’m pretty sure God laughed. Seriously, He can take our anger. It hurts us, not him.) I leave the city to go to a graduate school I would never have heard of if a random friend from high school hadn’t Facebook messaged me about the program. I go to the program in spite of many warnings about the foolishness of the cost (and I would probably give those same warnings to my friends and family). In spite of the tuition and working while being a full time student and rehearsing plays, I make some of the best friends in the world.
*It is two days before graduate school starts. I happen to go see a play with one of my soon to be classmates. We start talking and we can’t stop. We can’t stop on the way there, at intermission, on the way home, and most of that night. A little voice inside me says maybe we could keep talking forever. By the time we graduate we still haven’t stopped talking and we share a last name. We still haven’t stopped talking today, even when our son makes us feel so tired we aren’t sure we’re coherent. Through our marriage, I catch glimpses of that beautiful, beautiful tapestry. Some people call that experience a sacrament.
Something else I’ve been doing is longing for community. Because meeting those amazing friends and sharing my journey with them doesn’t make discernment harder. Those other people make it easier. Most of my closest friends don’t live so close geographically. I cherish the community of friends I already have, but I’m hoping to keep building a local community too. The people I share my stories with are one of the most beautiful aspects of my life… and that brings me to one of my favorite worship songs. I don’t have a lot to say about it because I think it speaks for itself, but I hope you’ll take a few moments to listen to it. It was the song we chose to have as a reflection song at our wedding and it’s one of my favorite memories of that day.
Any favorite tapestry glimpses in your life? or favorite parables for God’s plan in your life? I’m loving cultivating this time to reflect and redirect.
So I decided to start wading further out of my comfort zone today and try my hand at pretzels. This was almost certainly a mistake as it’s a Monday after a crazy busy weekend, it was a cloudy almost but not quite rainy day which means my son was having a terrible reaction to the high pressure system, and I could go on. But you know what? I’m trying not to be such a perfectionist.So a little failure is good, right?
Making this was my first time using the dough hook on my Kitchen Aid- that alone made this project worth it.
I used Alton Brown‘s recipe because I’m trying to pull from a wide variety of sources for these projects (also because I found quite a few blogs that word for word copied his recipe and directions without giving him credit- come on blogging world). I mixed the dough and added a little extra flour because it was still pretty sticky after the 4.5 recommended cups and then left it to rise for an hour. After the hour was up it had risen quite a bit but some of the puff went away once I started working with the dough again. I separated the dough into 8 pieces, so far all was going according to plan…
And then my son was no longer amused with his lunch so I was back and forth between trying to keep him happy (He actually loved playing with a bit of dough, until he’d drop it off the high chair every 30 seconds… fine motor skills are hard to come by!!)and trying to make the pretzels. I did not have the patience to keep the dough into long enough ropes to truly form a good pretzel shape without breaking. So my first few pretzels looked a lot like this:
OK, that’s a lie, they looked a little better than this, this is how they looked once they came out of the boiling water- like zombie pretzels
I saw that this was not going well and I didn’t have time to even make halfway decent pretzels with how grumpykins my son was getting so… in the spirit of being ok with a change of plans and making lemons into lemonade I decided I’d make the rest into pretzel buns. and since buns took less dough than the pretzels themselves I also had some dough left over to make pretzel bites too. And then I baked all the pretzel variations together.
The zombie pretzels still came out pretty zombie-ish. but the pretzel buns were AMAZING!!
And even though I hated how the pretzels looked? They tasted SO WONDERFUL I don’t even care. My husband agreed they were some of the best pretzels he’s ever eaten. And he was born in Germany so he would know.
Now I just need to hunt down a good cheddar/fondue dipping sauce to enjoy with our pretzel bites tomorrow!
***Originally Posted on 2/19/15 This is the last of my old posts crossing over. new content from here on out!***
I went to a great session of my church’s MOMS group last week. The topic was Lent and it left me with a lot to think about. Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Lent is, perhaps surprisingly, my favorite part of the liturgical year. It has been a time to reflect and pray and make major changes in my daily and spiritual life. I usually go into Lent having a pretty clear idea of what I need to work on the most to draw closer to God, but I was extra appreciative of my church group last week because this year I am at a loss.
My favorite Ash Wednesday meme…
Since becoming a parent, so much has seemed to change and get thrown up in the air. I can feel on top of the world one day and at a total loss the next. The shenanigans questions of “balance” and “having it all” are constantly nagging at my head. I’m a multi-tasker by nature and suddenly I feel like I need to get all that multitasking I used to do done AND take care of my child AND contribute to start saving up for the next big life event. Everything is very full speed ahead and it has left me with very little time or mental space to really sit and contemplate what I need most in my spiritual life.
Luckily, one of our MOMS group facilitators suggested checking out this website and I ended up getting the Lenten journal that website came up with. The journal is called Only One Thing and it seems to be the perfect thing for me right now. The title comes from a passage in Luke about Mary and Martha. Those of you who are not familiar with this story, Martha is a lot like most of us- she is trying to do ALL THE THINGS, especially because Jesus is visiting her and she wants it all to be perfect for him. Her sister, Mary, is sitting at Jesus’ feet, being with him, listening to him, not necessarily doing anything the world would judge as “productive” which of course makes Martha angry. She asks Jesus to tell Mary to help her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things: there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
So I’m going to prayerfully work my way through this journal which gives you one word a day to focus on with the day’s readings. The focus of my Lent this year is scary for me because it seems the things I’m supposed to abstain from are over-commitment and guilt. It would be much easier to keep track of giving up chocolate or hot sauce. It’s scary because the world won’t necessarily see or understand these sacrifices as they would with a good natured teasing session when people aren’t eating hamburgers on Fridays. It is scary because odds are good I will fail multiple times over these 40 days, and I REALLY like to succeed. I like being the straight A student. I like being able to check something off my to-do list and those things need to be easily measured. I like having visible, outward indications of my achievements. I am such a Martha.
Trying to break this way of thinking…
I am excited and nervous for what this season will bring. Lent is a beautiful time of reflection and sacrifice and change. I wrote in some comments earlier that perhaps the surprise “B” in my year of Bs is Bravery. It takes a lot of bravery to let go of the plans you have, to be uncertain about what is next, and to trust that God will take care of it and will love you as much through your failures as your successes.
***Originally posted 2/17/15. Only one more repeat post after this one if you are signed up for updates and were signed up before as well, just bare with me for one last post after this 🙂 ***
HAPPY FAT TUESDAY!
You may or may not know that one of the items on my bucket list is to celebrate Mardis Gras in New Orleans. It’s funny because most events with crowds that big don’t appeal to me, but the music, the atmosphere, the colors, I think I would love it!
Although I also think the smells of gumbo and other spicy, delicious NOLA meals would make me wish I wasn’t pescetarian. However, one of the non-meat filled traditional meals would be a King Cake- which would be way too big for my family to try and eat on our own so I had to scale that idea down.
Luckily, I also grew up with the tradition of Shrove Tuesday- it’s basically another way to celebrate Fat Tuesday centering around pancakes. Pancakes are the perfect pre-lent meal because they are made with sugar, butter, syrup- all sorts of sweet and fattening things you are supposed to abstain from during Lent. Pancakes were a great way to get those ingredients out of the house to avoid temptation. Shrove Tuesday also holds a special place in my heart because as an early modern scholar I get extra joy out of ringing the pancake bell.
So this post has been delayed.. a few times. First because i thought I was going to write it on making homemade pizza with my family on Friday, but my mom was super prepared and pre-made the dough so I felt like that was cheating. We make this often enough so i will post about it when I can really do it from scratch. Consider these pictures a sneak peek:
Then it was delayed again due to Valentines day and while I finally wrote it yesterday, I didn’t get around to importing pictures and publishing until today because we had such a busy Sunday, so just pretend like you are reading this then, because I don’t want to go back and change all the tenses. Here you go:
Definitely an AZ girl!
Yesterday was Valentine’s day, but it was also something even closer to my heart than candy and cards- it was Arizona’s birthday. My state… is crazy town sometimes, but I love it. I love the mountains and the sunsets and I especially love that you can’t shovel sunshine and that we can use the BBQ on Christmas Day. Continue reading →
***Originally Posted 2/11/15. Sorry if this gets emailed to you as a duplicate. Only 3 more repeat posts after this and I’m all caught up for new blogging!***
There are plenty of times as a new mama when I do not feel my most beautiful. Naively, I once thought that the amount of TV shows or films that portray parents being spit up on or other bodily fluids getting on them from their baby was grossly exaggerating and that if I was very careful then I could avoid that fate in real life. Turns out, the only thing that’s exaggerated is the parental reaction… because if you have a baby with any sort of reflux or digestive problems, then after a while, you just accept the giant amount of spit up in your hair or down your shirt.
For those HIMYM fans out there… that “confetti” moment is no joke…
I also swore up and down when I was pregnant that I would never be that mom who forgot to take a shower. And that brilliant plan worked great the first four months when my husband was working the night shift and was home mornings to watch the baby while I did my normal morning routine, but now that he leaves the house at 5:30AM and little guy is still getting up around 5:15AM… (which does not mix well with directing until 10 or 11pm…) there are definitely days where I just resign myself to try again tomorrow. Continue reading →
Alphabet Resolutions 