New Developments

We are all broken people, heading inevitably to our deaths, and yet there are moments of beauty, grace, and light, and for that we carry on in this journey.

It is time to be real, be present, and be good to each other. There is just no point in wasting your time doing things that are not authentic and full of love and true to the purpose God put you on this earth for.

Stop trying to please the people who don’t have your best interests at heart. Stop trying to live up to an unrealistic ideal that has nothing to do with who you are. Stop trying to find your happiness in money and possessions and fake happiness. Find people who believe in the beauty that is in you, hang onto them, and don’t stop holding each other until you emerge with more courage to do the things the world is longing for you to do. And then hold onto each other some more, until you have spread every last bit of love God has put in you to spread and your work on this earth is done.

And with that, I end this part of my journey but continue on with the ongoing journey of my life, loving the people around me, living in the beauty that God is making of me, and serving the world with the gifts that have been entrusted to me with whatever time is left for me on this earth.

~Heather Plett

The above comments by Plett resonated in my heart, in my mind and deep within my soul. Thus I am announcing that I am taking Maturity Leave! Read that again… it’s maturity leave. I posted this on Facebook and received a lot of comments about it, some having misread it! 

After almost nineteen years with the Department of Corrections, I am retiring. When I was hired, there was a “special clause” that has recently been legislatively removed that allowed a person to retire when their age and years of service totaled 80. I have surpassed that number!

After our downsizing we were able to basically eliminate our debt and with that, the necessity to HAVE to work for me. I am officially retiring with August 30th as my last day of actual work. I have taken on a part time position at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church as their Membership Secretary. It consists of 20-hours a week broken into 5-hours a day/4-days a week. 

All of this, every single bit of this has come from the S.I.M.P.L.I.C.I.T.Y. theme the Lord placed upon my heart just before the end of the year. Intentionally living a simpler, more frugal life is not nor has been an easy decision. Everything in our society conspires against it from the advertisements on television to those in magazines and newspapers. Not to mention visiting family and friends and seeing their newest, most recent purchase and feeling the longing swell up in my being for “more, more, more!”

Life in our apartment complex is… well complex! It is an international village and at times I am overwhelmed with the cacophony of noise that exists here. Husband has and is doing a wonderful job of meeting and greeting the neighbors while I’ve been working. 

We were invited to the ‘neighbor across the way’ son’s birthday party at the pool a few weeks back. Husband made homemade ice cream for the event and that was a great success. Later we found a ‘Thank You’ note tucked into our door from the neighbor and her son thanking us for coming and for the ice cream. How sweet that was, and the example this mom is setting for her son with the handwritten acknowledgment of gratitude! Handwritten notes and letters are fast becoming a lost art, I fear.

Next door to us is a dad with two little girls (second and fourth graders). They were visiting for the summer. Their mom learned she was to be deployed while they were visiting. Dad kept the girls and enrolled them in school. Since it is an apartment with thin walls, we can sometimes overhear the dad’s parenting frustrations. I once mentioned to him that if he ever had the need for someone to watch the girls, we were right next door. We had that opportunity this past week. The girls are precious and it was our privilege to be able to have them in our space for that bit of time. The African proverb is true - it does indeed ‘take a village’ and we are fast becoming a part of the village!

We had Grandson last weekend. He announced he wanted to move in and live with us. I asked if the swimming pool and the playground had anything to do with that. He grinned and admitted that was the reason! 

We visited the Reid Park Zoo with him early on Saturday morning. Since it was 8 am, not all the animals were out and about. But the monkeys were so vocal! I’m not sure, but I think they were Gibbons. Grandson laughed and laughed at their antics. He was enthralled with the anteaters and the aviaries. I was especially fond of the elephants and the giant tortoise exhibits. 

Husband and I discussed the tiger exhibit as he (the tiger) seemed distressed as evidenced by his pacing back and forth and back and forth. It appeared to me he needed to be returned to his natural habitat and not be caged in a faux environment. Mind you, the zoo is well kept and maintained but there was something unsettling about this tiger. Perhaps it reminded me too much of work and inmates who are not gainfully involved in programming or education or a work program.

The two pictures shown - we took the picture of Zachary (one week before he turned 6) and the younger picture of him his mom took when he visited at the age of approximately 2 1/2! My how he has grown!

It appears that my “Wordless Wednesday” and “Silent Sunday” contributions have fallen by the wayside since the move. I’m hoping that will all change with the modifications that are happening in the area of my vocation!

Silence may indeed be golden, but breaking a fast from blog writing is challenging. I hope to share more with you as our adventures in Tucson continue.

I have also been experiencing difficulties with Google Chrome and not being able to edit, log in, comment on your blogs and all the pop up ads! This has been extremely frustrating! It doesn't appear I am alone in these difficulties!

Simply yours,

Tamara

PS   Song of Solomon 7:11

       _{New International Version}

Come, my beloved, let us go to the countryside, let us spend the night in the villages.

Mother's Day

Rather than a "Silent Sunday" post this week, I am re-posting my blog from Last Mother's Day. I wish you all a blessed day.

My hope is that if I tell my story clearly enough, I will come to understand its twists and turns, and then perhaps even its meanings. At the very least, I hope to be able to recognize some of the places where the Almighty God has been present within it.

 ~Robert Benson   That We May Perfectly Love Thee

When reading the above quote from my morning devotional I knew beyond a doubt that it was meant for me, to explain in some small fashion why it is I blog.

I seldom have the “ah ha” moment during the course of an action. It comes later as an afterthought and it is then I clearly see the hand of God.

It was Mother’s Day, 1990, and as usual the Ohio weather was unpredictable. I remember it was grey, overcast and quite windy. This was our last May in Ohio as we were moving to Arizona.

When church was over, the Hubs asked where I wanted to go for lunch in honor of Mother’s Day. I spontaneously uttered the name of a restaurant and was met with his look of “Really?” It had never been one of my favorite places to eat, but I let it stand nonetheless.

A faux waiter was holding the door for patrons as the wind was wildly reminiscent of March, not May. Once inside the establishment everyone who appeared to have or would ever excrete estrogen was presented with a carnation in honor of the Day. The line was long, snaking outside as the churches were emptying and the hungry saints were gathering for a feast.

Slowly the line proceeded to the register for the American ceremony of the pay-before-you-eat-everything-you-can-buffet-of-gluttony. Two steps forward, holding pattern for a few, then another step or two…

As was/is my custom I was observing the people around me. There were family units that had just come from church standing in their respective groups of 3, 5, 7 or even more persons. We were a group of three. That’s when I noticed her standing behind us. Elderly, alone and seemingly calm amid the crowd of hungry go-to-church-meeting-feed-me-now Christians.

So it began, that anxious rational of, “Where is her family? Is she meeting someone here? Why is she alone on Mother’s Day?” I even questioned myself for thinking these things when I asked Husband if he noticed her alone. “No,” he said, until I had pointed her out. I looked at him with my basset hound eyes and he said, “What do you want to do?”

I turned and asked her, “Excuse me, are you here with family or are you meeting someone?” She smiled kindly and said, “No, I’m here alone.”  “Wonderful!” I said. “Would you consent to being our ‘surrogate mother’ for the day? His mother is in Florida and mine is in Arizona." She agreed and we presently were at the cash register.

After getting our plates, introductions and blessing the meal we got to know our guest a bit. She had just returned from Florida to bury her husband. They had no children. She was, in essence, alone.

Yes… that anxious rational… the nudging of the Holy Spirit that churns in the pit of my stomach. I’ve learned to pay attention. I always have something more to learn and more tenderness to bathe my heart and spirit in.

With Mother’s Day approaching I thought it might be appropriate to share this event. I am not sharing this as an “Oh look at me, aren't I just the most spiritual person you've ever beheld?” No, actually I know that by even posting this I’ve lost any reward that may have been ascribed, for anything we do should be done in secret and from a place in the heart that responds to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Even the thought of a “reward” was not the reason I responded to this event. It was compassion, it was empathy, it was the leading of the Holy Spirit.

May you have a blessed Mother’s Day and may you be open to the Holy Spirit’s discernment!

Simply yours,

Tamara

PS  James 1:27

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. 

Comfort Food

When I was a child, we had a garden. There were things that grew in that garden that I would not eat. Cabbage, Brussel Sprouts, spinach, broccoli. I did eat the corn, the tomatoes, green beans my Nanny fixed with a bit of bacon.

I sometimes would help my Dad in the garden. When he planted, he always did it in three's: "one for you, one for me and one for the bird" is what he said. I now refer that as Dad's Trinity Planting Procedure.

I remember being called out in the cold autumn evening when a frost alert was declared and I would help harvest the tomatoes and other produce by flash light. It was not uncommon to end up with tomatoe on my face as Dad was fond of pulling them off and into me! Horrors! 

Within the next day or two my Nanny would cook up a grand pot of homemade vegetable soup. As I recall, everything but the beef in that soup was from our small urban garden.

I've developed new tastes since then and where I once referred to Brussel Sprouts as aborted cabbage, if only to emphasize my distaste for them I now have a deep and abiding fondness for them.

So tonight, I become the Brussel Sprout Gourmet - if only for the sake of my Daughter! Shannon, this post is for you and it is on how to fix Mommie Dearest's Brussel Sprouts!

Clean your Brussel Sprouts by immersing them in water. Trim the ends off then cut them in half. Allow them to soak for a while. Clean, slice and dice an onion. You can do all this while cooking up three slices of bacon you have diced. When the bacon crips, remove it to a plate lined with paper towel and let it drain.

Add the onion to the drippings and in another pan, sauté 2 - 3 tablespoons of Piñons (raw pine nuts). [I keep mine frozen as they turn rancid fast. They are also good raw on a salad!] Drain the Brussel Sprouts and keep watching the onion - you don't want it to burn! When the Piñons have turned a golden color, remove and drain them on paper towel, too.

 

Once the onions are "just right" add the Brussel Sprouts to the pan and stir well, add about 1/2 cup of Chicken Stock and a splash or two of Basalmic Vinegar. When it comes to just a boil, reduce the heat and cover with a lid and cook it for about 8 minutes. 

Remove it from the heat, put it into a serving dish and top with the bacon bits and Piñons and serve it up!


These are probably not the healthiest of veggie dishes, but they are perfectly "YUM"!

Psalm 34:8

Common English Bible

⁸ Taste and see

how good the LORD is!

The one who takes refuge in him

is truly happy!

Happy eating Baby Girl!

Your Momma - Grammy Tammy!

Viva la Memories!

I grew up in an extended family. My mother’s mother (my Nanny) lived with us.  That was a common occurrence back then, but no longer is the norm in our society.   

I also remember older women as friends of the family.  Often they were widows.  One woman in particular that I remember was Viva (pronounced VI – va).  Viva LaRue Schott.  She was a woman of strength and dignity. 

Where Is My Friend

I find it amusing when I have memories from “back in the day” and then for the life of me I cannot recall what even made me think of the specific event.  I do however, recall the trigger for this memory: an old song by Helen Reddy – “Where Is My Friend”.

Christmas Blessings

Christmas blessings from our house to your house.  May Christ be the center of your day. 

Keep it simple and keep it sane.