Migraine Puts on Her Happy Face

Today has just about been too much. My patience, my understanding, my tolerance, my sanity. At the breaking point. What is wrong with me? Tonight, I'm going to church, and I'm going to read stories to some precious little 3 and 4 yo souls, and we're going to sing about how much God loves us. The end.

One day, I'll be able to put both of my hands around all of this. I'll be able to lift it up as one piece, set it aside, and reveal the world that was always happening underneath.

These shall be mine, and I will call them manna.

Spoiler Alert: Cupcakes are now being served at people's weddings as the cool thing to do.

Last winter, two friends of mine got married in an event that was low on frills and rich in love. Being generally behind the rest of the world when it comes to the wedding scene, I found that cupcakes are "the thing" these days, but this was my first time to see it in action. And I was...hm. Well. Cupcakes present many benefits that a traditional cake doesn't, namely, you don't have to wrangle up someone to "honor" by asking them to "serve" it. You can save valuable time by not having to "train" someone on how to exactly put 8 layers of off-center hearts onto 450 plates with equality. And, and! They asked our minister's wife to make them. I had heard tell of Becky's raspberry mint cupcakes, but it just didn't sound right. Since February 2009, I've been dreaming of them. I finally decided 'twas time to locate a recipe.

I chose this one from The Cupcake Blog. I suggest you make them as well. Every time someone makes these, an angel gets its wings.

Win Some: Oh my word. My craving has been satisfied. The basic vanilla cupcake shall forevermore be the starter for all my cupcake efforts.
Learn Some: Why in the world does this involve gelatin in any form? Imagine jello mixed with whipped cream, and what do you have? That's right: elementary school cafeteria. Won't. Do. That. Again. Oh. And I'll chop the mint finer.

A few photos for your enjoymentwill be forthcoming. I call them food porn.

My new personal theme song

In homage to The Year of the Thyroid's passing and The Year of the B12 Deficiency's inauguration, I play for you now The Rolling Stones. Let the injections begin!



In sleepier news, I'm reading a lot. Finished all of the Stieg Larsson books. Reviews posted soon at Think Journal.

Cheers!

Sinks, while floating

Transcendence comes walking, galumphing, swimming. It whispers, screams, stands silent. It's red, purple, grey. It is sandy, silky, sickly, robust. It sinks while floating. Today we sang a song in church that had that feeling. The line was "Lest I forget thy love for me..." The altos ascend in pitch while every other part descends. Rare, that approach. But, oh, so right.

Lectio Divina

One of the most intimate scenes I've read in a novel happened in Grapes of Wrath. Ma Joad--the pillar of the Joad family in increasingly bleak circumstances--calls her daughter to help her with a task. She calls out the daughter's name "Rose of Sharon" and then repeats it over and over to herself under her breath, "enjoying the feel of it in her mouth." I've often felt a need to read quickly over that passage, as it isn't meant for the 3rd person omniscient narrator, let alone the unworthy reader.

I enjoyed Matt's Lectio Divina lesson at church last night. Lectio Divina is fancy Latin for purposeful meditation of scripture, involving prayer, silence, meditation, and memorization. I've been doing a lot of reciting to myself these days, and this was a way to focus that memorization and meditation on scripture, which I do less often than I do with other writings.

"I love you. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, would be my treasure still."--from Jane Eyre

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, protects all things."--I Corinthians 13:6

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." --Matthew 7:12

"For his withdrawal would have been a flight, his deliverance an accident, his reward dishonor, his future perhaps damnation. Then he would have borne witness, not to his faith or to God's mercy, but to how dreadful was the journey to the mountain in Moriah."--Kierkegaard's Fear & Trembling

Menagerie

I live in one. My dear, dear friend Andrea showed up in this hood yesterday afternoon, demanding food and shelter. Obligingly, I whipped up this sublime curry and fed it to her. My endearing, tiny apartment doesn't have a dishwasher, so I was hurriedly trying to keep up with the dirty cookware as it came off the stove. Looking out the over-the-sink windows, a squirrel appeared to be running across the backyard. Really, it was a tiny tabby-striped kitty frolicking in very tall grass. Precious! I've seen the mama cat before, thinking she was a sibling of my dearly departed Beezus. Beezus is an uncle!

I went out in the cool of the morning to water the tomatoes I didn't water yesterday. I went out through the kitchen door, seeing as how Andrea was sleeping on the couch. Something smelled funny, but Thursday is trash day, so I ignored it...until I saw the furry tail sticking up around the front porch steps. A smashed, maggotty squirrel lay dead on the steps. Mama and Baby Cat huddled sleeping in the porch corner, all of my flowerpots were turned over, and a beautiful tiny bird with tufted hair on his ears was perched in the tomato container, guarding the eggshells I sprinkled on the plant to keep slugs away.

I feel ridiculously flattered that they like my house, too.