When I went to the cupboard for the canned tomatoes I thought I had, I found I had none, only tomato sauce. I substituted a chopped fresh tomato and added a splash of water.

“Can you help me out,” I asked Jerry.

He looked up from the work he was doing in the study, followed me into the kitchen where he measured out the 2 tablespoons of olive oil. (The reason for him doing it, of course, was so I could snap a picture. )

Chefs, especially those who specialize in French and/or Cajun cooking, refer often to a mixture of vegetables as the holy trinity. Equal amounts of chopped onion, bell pepper and celery claim the title, and when I tossed these vegetables into the hot olive oil in my iron skillet, cooked them until they were soft, then added the chili power, the mixture did indeed caramelize. The aroma carried a hint of heaven, a slight hint to be sure, but it was there.

At this point, I plopped everything except the shrimp into my small crock pot, and it began its three-hour simmer, rather quickly giving off a tantalizing aroma.

I set the table, steamed the rice, made a salad, cleaned the shrimp, poured our drinks, then added the shrimp to the simmering pot. Three minutes for the shrimp just did not seem long enough to me; I let them cook for about 10 minutes . . . perfect. I only had a pound of shrimp, and although the recipe called for a pound and a half, there was plenty of shrimp. Jerry had two helpings, I had one, and there is enough left for two small servings.

I will be printing out this recipe and placing it in my recipe notebook. It is delicious! Wouldn’t change a thing. Cheers to friends, especially to those on Facebook who came to my rescue this morning . . . and well, to Paula Deen.

Even though I know this, it startled me this past week to notice a significant error in a beautiful book I had purchased.

Yesterday at the library, I picked up a notice of a book sale, and saw right away a misspelled word. A misspelled word and the library somehow seem out of synch.

However, the small error did not hinder my successfully shopping there today. Here’s an image of my stack; a bargain for $4.00.

Okay, okay. I know this piece will be scrutinized to assure that I have produced a piece in which grammatical, spelling, and punctuation usage is of the highest caliber. Score me.

________________

New post on my devotional blog here.

1. Select two nice bell peppers. Try to get them on sale as I did these: 2 for $1.00 at Goodwin’s market in Crestline.

2. Measure out 1/2 cup of rice and put on to steam. I use short grain; lots of people like long grain. Doesn’t matter.

3. Back to the peppers which you should wash, then core out the stem and those white thingys inside.

4. Place peppers in shallow heat resistant dish. Cover with plastic wrap and microwave until just tender. Took mine 7 to 8 minutes today. Alternately, you may do this in a saucepan atop the stove. I’ve done it both ways–one is as good as the other.

5. In heavy skillet, cook good quality hamburger meat–about 1/2 pound. Season simply with salt, pepper and a sprinkle of garlic powder. When rice is finished, dump it into the skillet and mix the rice and meat thoroughly. Add approximately half a large can of plain tomato sauce. Think there are 15 or 16 ounces in one of those cans. Mix thoroughly.

6. The cooked bell peppers should be placed upside down in a colander so that the water drains out and they become nice and dry.

7. Return peppers to the cooking dish and stuff them with the mixture from the black skillet. Generously poke the meat mixture in until the peppers are bulging. Fill them high but if there’s too much meat it won’t hurt anything if the mixture falls into the bottom of the dish. Pour the remaining tomato sauce over the luscious peppers. Top with a generous grating of a good cheddar cheese.

8. I did all this while I was cleaning up the kitchen from breakfast, then I covered the peppers with plastic wrap and placed the dish in the fridge. Around 4:00, I pulled it out, placed it on the middle shelf of my oven set to 375, but which actually gets only to 350 and cooked until it was heated through, appearing bubbly and just beginning to crust on the top.

I served this with a salad of chopped romaine lettuce and chopped onions mixed  simply with mayonnaise. I had three homemade yeast rolls left from another meal which I heated slightly, and beside which on the table, I added a dish of butter. We drank iced tea.

There you are. Simple super supper . . . or dinner . . . or lunch. Probably not breakfast. I’ll post these directions in my recipe section. Take a look there if you’d like; love to have you add something.

Happy eating.

You may view the image larger by going to my Flickr account.

Steve Richardson, the writer of moving, elegant music, has escaped the tether of earth, winging to that other world. It is the mysterious way of death.

Beautifully sung here by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir is his best-known work, Daystar.

I did not realize until reading about him this morning that he also wrote the moving expression that follows here. These words are my heart. Often I have sung them . . . and wept, as I do

JUST TO WALK WITH HIM

Just to walk with Him means everything to me,
Just to know He’s near, His hands are leading me,
Though the world pass me by
Go their way and let me be
Just to walk with Him means everything to me.

May the passage of Brother Richardson from this world to the other mark for us who have yet to make the transition how fleeting and inconsequential are this world’s trinkets and treasures. Surely this morning, Brother Richardson sings as never before…Just to walk with Him means everything to me.

Rest in peace with Jesus.

Noon 1/7/12 Edit

Just found this video of Brother Richardson and others singing, Daystar. I wept again as I watched it. So beautiful. So moving. so important.

_____________________

From Wilma Stephens

Steve Richardson Memorial information:
Viewing: Tuesday, January 10 at 3:00 p.m.
Memorial Service: Tuesday, January 10 at 7:00 p.m.
New Life Fellowship
7849 Wabash Ave.
Terre Haute, IN 47803

Kicking against inertia and laziness; against ease of being;  against ease of doing; against mediocrity and the uninspired. Such kicking involves not only my less than skinny legs (or, come now, would it not be more than skinny?) anyway, this kicking business with which I’m lately involved takes place little in the knee and shin areas, rather, well above the shoulder vicinity. I’ve loaded a new piece of software onto my computer, and am up to my skull bone in the learning curve that comes with the box and the enclosed thin circular disc, although none of the sales pitch goes within speaking distance of telling the degree of learning curve.  Lightroom is the name of that to which I have directed my thinking prowess over the past couple of days, and whose intricacies of discovery and execution are quite guaranteed to process the images from my D7000 into splendid works of art.

It’s a good thing to kick. A couple of days ago I spoke with someone who has extensive physical challenges, remarking that when she felt better, we would do such and such.

“No, I don’t want to wait,” she responded.”I’ve got to push myself.”

Yep, kicking is good, sharpens us, gets us out of funks, helps us ignore our twinges and gnawings, and along with the thrust of the kick, we just might learn a thing or two, and that’s generally considered a fine thing.

While I consider myself quite patient with people, I know I am quite impatient with things, and if they’re not working right, it irritates me. I’m not good at replacing vacuum cleaner bags, thread tangles when I sew buttons on, and I’ve never hemmed a pair of trousers yet in which both legs came out even. So, imagine me with a computer. Now, I love computers, am amazed at them, and can’t imagine life without one. But I don’t want to dink around with them when they’re not working right. I just want to sit down in my place, open up my laptop, and have everything working perfectly.

. . . which leads me to installation and understanding of Lightroom 3. My version was 3.2 and in browsing in Lightroom forums, I read of several people who had upgraded to 3.6 and were screaming with frustration. “I’m tempted to unload this version and go back to version 3,” one of them yelped. “Has slowed my computer down so that I can hardly use it.”

Right there, I decided version 3.2 was fine for me and I would not be upgrading . . .yet when I installed mine, a message came up to say that 3.6 was now available. Not for me, I muttered to myself. . . until I loaded my first pictures on . . . and a little memo sweetly informed me that my camera’s raw images required the 3.6 version. I gulped, asked for the update, watched it load, and voila! it works perfectly. The program is much more complicated than the simple iphoto program I have been using, but also has greater capabilities for processing images. I’ve finished a few photographs on my new program, and have brought a couple over for you to see.

So yes! It’s good to kick, to expand, to stretch, to challenge ourselves. On the other hand, Jerry and I were talking this morning and agreed there do come times when we must admit something is beyond us. Whether because of advancing age, physical conditions, or even our mental capacity, there is a time to say, I just can’t do that. But, that’s another subject for another day.

This treatment is from Delicious Free Presets. Cool, huh.

Jerry and I were walking around the lake on Tuesday when we met a gentleman with this magnificent animal.

It has been unseasonably warm here so that yesterday and today Jerry worked extensively in the yard. Yesterday, from our side garden, he brought in this beautiful rose. The picture is posted on my Flickr account, and if you go over there and view it large, you may see the light sparkles in the tiny raindrops.

Keep kickin!

EDIT 1/10/12  Wouldn’t you know it! LightRoom just announced today its releasing of Beta LightRoom 4.0  https://twitter.com/

There will be no portrait photos in this post.  This letter wasn’t mailed – it was at my doorstep when I got home a couple months ago.  I read it, I cried, and read it again – probably a hundred times by now.  It wasn’t easy to read – and honestly, as much as it validates what I do for a living – I wasn’t sure I was going to share it either – Until today, when a past client said that my print prices were too expensive.  If you choose to read through the letter, you will know why I’ve finally chosen to share it.

July 2nd, 2011

Jeanine - 

Today I am writing for a couple of reasons.  I have some quiet time at the moment and need to get a couple of things off my mind.  I will leave this for my husband to deliver to you when he is ready.

You photographed my wedding, you photographed my first pregnancy and my first baby.  I contacted you awhile back to photograph my 2nd child and family.  After getting prices and realizing I would want all of the pictures as we love your work – I decided against spending $500+ – which is what I normally spend for portraits and prints with you..  Please know it is not because I don’t value your amazing eye, or how much we love the experience.

That week that I decided to NOT do a session with you, this is how I spent some money.

On Sunday I called and cancelled our session.  Monday I went out and got my hair cut ($39+tip), and colored ($65), Thursday I had my nails done ($24), my family went out to dinner at a somewhat expensive restaurant for no particular reason costing us $79 + tip.  This was just 4 days since canceling our session, already totaling over $200 for un necessary things.  My nails only lasted about 2 weeks, my hair is gone, and seven weeks passed when I got the phone call from our doctor.  It was not something I expected and the cancer has spread very quickly.  I will be leaving my husband, my 6 year old girl and my now 2 year old – not by choice.  It is very hard for me to talk about it which is why I need to write you.

I watch your Facebook page and your posts about the value of a photo and if I could give back all of those things that I purchased this few weeks after I cancelled my session with you, knowing what I know now, and have that session, well… I would do it in a heartbeat. 

Now my time is done and there are no more chances for me.  The next time someone cancels a session – my wish is that you forward this letter to them.  Time is fragile, it is gone before you know you had it.  If you charged $200 for one print it wouldn’t be enough for what it is actually worth.  I cringe to think that my priorities were a manicure over a memory to pass onto my babies and husband.

My love and thanks for what you have given us from past photos.  I am so sorry that I did not see it as more than paper until now.

Karen L.

……….I could live in a loft there, or in a high-rise apartment building that sat square in a business/shopping area…or by Central park.

………………………I could live in a hotel in a city, and if it were in San Francisco, I would walk to the cable car stop, hop aboard and browse around town for the day. And if my grand kids were visiting, I would take them too, and we would eat ice cream cones and chocolate from Ghirardilli Square, and at Fisherman’s Wharf, we would buy fish and chips from a street vendor. A loaf of sour dough bread would find itself tucked beneath my arm, and when I tore off a piece and offered it to said grandchildren, they would roll their eyes, cast about to see who was looking, say, “Oh, Granny,” and take a bite. Wish we had butter, I would say to them.

I could live in the country, not too far removed from a city or an airport, but the real country with dirt roads and corn fields and tractors.

I could live on a cruise ship for a year–perhaps forever.

I could live on a university campus or a Bible school campus, and I would pull on my coolest sunglasses and walk about with the students and they would pet me and take me on as a mascot.

I could live on a ranch. I could live in Alaska for one winter, or, if I had a good copy of Paddington, I might even take on deepest, darkest Peru.

Where could you live?

The past months have been ragged, startling in their happenings and outcomes, laying shadows of uncertainty over your bearing line so that your future is greyed, and the clarity that was before is now muted and ill-focused. Strange, for your intentions were good, and though imperfection is acknowledged, trial and ordeal of such degree were unexpected. They seem unfair.

So often and so glibly their telling rolls from our tongues that I fear we may forget the adventure and passion involved in Biblical accounts. Think of Noah. God was so angry with the very people He had created that He planned to drown them every one, along with every other creature that inhabited the earth. Noah, however, was so different from the wicked around him that he found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and God spoke a plan to save Noah and his family. Build an ark, God said, and following God’s explicit plan, Noah did just that. When he was 600 years old, the ark was finished, his loved ones were safely aboard, and the rain began.

It was a strange experience for Noah. Never before had rain fallen. Lightening and thunder were no doubt unknown. Now came savage, pouring water that never stopped for 40 days and for 40 nights. The heavens opened. The fountains of the deep were broken up. Wild waters rose, and that wooden ark was flung about, heaving up and down among the seething fury of God. Dead animal bodies and human bodies with streaming hair and sightless eyes floated and were cast about . . . and Noah endured the dark, the unknown, the treacherous. Having found grace with God, Noah suffered and endured.

Jump to chapter 8, verse 1 of Genesis.

And God remembered Noah…

. . . and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged.

God had not abandoned Noah. He was not forsaken. God remembered; knew to  infinite degree His plan for Noah. Verse 15 tells that after a time of the waters receding, God spoke to Noah and told him to leave the ark.

Gathering his family, Noah left the wretched vessel. In the doorway of the ark, he no doubt stood and surveyed the earth that had been wrenched apart by nature, by God. One thing was clear, though: Noah was still standing. Despite the rubble about him, despite the stench and disarray, Noah was still standing. The storm had been fearful, the screams of those dying around him would forever ring in his ears, the heaving and breaking of the earth beneath him were indescribable. Yet, he and his family had survived. They were alive to go forth, to deal with their world.

You, also, are still standing. You have endured. Your disappointments may be midnight black and of such degree that no one may ever know their depth. Yet, you stand. You survive. You live.

I suspect that you are of the nature of Noah, and that you will follow his example as he led his family to an earthen spot, where of the debris and the wreckage he found what he needed and there built an altar to God. Selecting clean animals, Noah burned sacrifices to his God.

God watched, and it was sweetness to Him.

____________________

I have been writing this blog for several years now, and it astounds me that this site has been viewed more than one million times. I’m humbled and grateful for your interest.

In recent months, though, there have been substantially less visits here, and very little interaction–few comments. I’m thinking a couple of reasons account for this: First, I have been posting less here and more frequently on Facebook, often with a link to a post here. I like Facebook, quickly hear what my friends are doing some days, and have made connection with people I hadn’t heard from in years. That’s all nice, but there is a lack of depth to Facebook, and not frequently do persons engage in thoughtful and a bit deeper conversations. Also, when comments are made on Facebook about a blog post here, they feel “lost” to me. They are not posted with the article in question, and take lots of scrolling around to find them.

So, because I enjoy writing, and because I especially enjoy your interaction, I’ve decided to no longer routinely link my articles to Facebook, and am hoping to increase traffic here. I may pop over to your place with a link every now and then as an invitation to come visit me here. Remember that you can subscribe to this blog so that you will be notified when I make a new post.

I want to hear from you. Please comment when you have interest about something I’ve written.

Blessings always…and a wonderful new year!

Henry David Thoreau’s exact words are:

If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away.

The different people are found in every echelon, guild, and in every level of society; in every socioeconomic strata. Every discipline has a share of such people; such people as stagger our understanding. Amazed, we learn that Beethoven wrote his Ninth Symphony when he was totally deaf, and that Louis Braille, because he had been blinded by accident when he was three years old, and because he wanted to read so badly, invented the Braille system. In slave quarters at Diamond Grove, Mo. near the end of the Civil War, George Washington Carver was born. When but an infant, he and his mother were kidnapped by Confederate night raiders. But because of his inner vision and rare drive, he fought upward and became a renown agricultural chemist.

I have a thought that even among us who as a group are rather centered on having found the right way of life–perhaps smug in the knowing at times–there are you who have an elusive sense of distinctness, and who, as you sit with us on benches or stand by lecterns on Sundays, in some ways know you are foreigners. Perhaps you struggle to understand the different slant of your framing as the undeniable glints in your eye and the otherworldly sets your jaw. Try telling your vision to another and a blank face may be turned or a pat on the head, a knowing (though unknowing) smile, an indulging of your quirkiness.

Life entangles you. Work and family, a game in the street, a bite of cheese, gaiety, a quart of milk, but never is it gone, and on an instant is the faraway gaze,  Explain? Impossible. You wander the street of your city, aloof, or the roads of the country. You clap your hands in worship, disconnected. You preach. You worship. You sing Happy Birthday, Jesus, and you say Happy New Year and blow whistles and squeeze shoulders, but you’re alone, not there, for it is but a motion, a time in transition, a passageway.

My plea to you on this first day of the year 2012 is that you be true to your vision, to your calling, to your gift. Though none may understand, though you may never understand yourself, I urge you to eye The Vision, to hear The Voice.

_______________________________

I have been writing this blog for several years now, and it astounds me that this site has been viewed more than one million times. I’m humbled and grateful for your interest.

In recent months, though, there have been substantially less visits here, and very little interaction–few comments. I’m thinking a couple of reasons account for this: First, I have been posting less here and more frequently on Facebook, often with a link to a post here. I like Facebook, quickly hear what my friends are doing some days, and have made connection with people I hadn’t heard from in years. That’s all nice, but there is a lack of depth to Facebook, and not frequently do persons engage in thoughtful and a bit deeper conversations. Also, when comments are made on Facebook about a blog post here, they feel “lost” to me. They are not posted with the article in question, and take lots of scrolling around to find them.

So, because I enjoy writing, and because I especially enjoy your interaction, I’ve decided to no longer routinely link my articles to Facebook, and am hoping to increase traffic here. I may pop over to your place with a link every now and then as an invitation to come visit me here. Remember that you can subscribe to this blog so that you will be notified when I make a new post.

I want to hear from you. Please comment when you have interest about something I’ve written.

Blessings always…and a wonderful new year!

_______________

New blog post on my devotional site.

A tradition in our home is that every Christmas day, from the second chapter of Luke, Jerry reads to us the beautiful story of Christmas. Usually he does it as we sit at the table before our meal; today about an hour before dinner, he called us together in the living room. He sat on a stool by the fireplace; the rest of us sat on couches and chairs circled about the room–two of our children, their families and I.

In less than three months, Jerry will be 80. He is our patriarch. We are blessed.