Taking a short break from our exploits in Hungary, here are some glimpses of our weekend. We took full advantage of the sunny weekend, being fully aware it may be the last bits of Glasgow sun we see as residents here.
Cathkin Braes Country Park - the highest point in Glasgow.
The Braes' shrooms
An evening on the balcony
While Joel puts together posts about interesting bits of language and words in Hungary, I will continue to spend my energies on remembering the ICE CREAM. Oh, I couldn't forget anyway. It's part of me now. (Very literally, since we ate ice cream EVERY SINGLE DAY. Sometimes more than once. Oh the glory.)
Now let us join together in the common bond of love for ice cream. Let us realise the creamy goodness, the rich mountains of splendor...
First, the Hungarian national ice cream. This is one we ate sitting under the apple trees in the garden, watching the doggie go crazy. It is vanilla ice cream, hazelnut ice cream, and frozen marmalade, all swirled in together. Surprising, but tasty!
Then there was tiramisu ice cream... one of the great wonders of the world... oh except biscotti which may rise above.
We had green apple ice cream, Russian Cream ice cream, vanilla, coffee, blackberry...
I do maintain the blue ribbon goes to the Sour Cherry and Poppyseed ice cream. The poppyseeds took their responsibility seriously, and did not disappoint.
Oh, ice cream. Oh, a country where the weather allows for comfortable eating of ice cream...
Tonight my dreams will be cold and wonderful.
...and the rough translations of their names in English.* A result of our recent adventures in Eastern Europe, guided by our friend Richard and his mom, Elizabeth. This should be all you need to know to tell whether we had a good time. And to form a favorable opinion of the Hungarian language and mindset.
Today's discussion (and I interpret 'today' in the broadest sense possible, encompassing last week, when Rhonda actually discussed it) is on Green Cleaning.
'Green Cleaning' makes so much sense. Whatever you call it. You don't need a trendy name or 'eco-friendly' term to do what our grandparents just did as part of life. Really, it's just about cleaning. It is about simplifying the process, eliminating excess, reducing unnecessary chemicals, and learning how many uses a simple thing like baking soda has.
We've been better at this, but just last week Joel and I had a discussion/minor conflict over 'bathroom cleaner' versus the baking soda method. What it boils down to is that we haven't made it simple enough to do it the right way. Joel pointed out that it's a lot easier to grab the spray bottle of chemicals than to find the baking soda, find a rag, etc. So that is my task for this discussion. Joel has already started by assigning a container to keep the bathroom cleaning stuff in. We use old socks as rags, so there are a couple of those in there. Joel assigned a particular sock to use to clean the outside of the toilet, and I wrote 'toilet sock' on sharpie on it. I think this is probably kind of scary to anyone who happens across it in our flat. I like to wonder what our friends think of us sometimes.
My goals for green cleaning:
Today's discussion was on electricity and water. I don't think we have much to change in this area. We are in rented accommodation, which means we can't change any appliance issues. And I don't think we need to anyway. All the stuff the landlord picked out is energy efficient, water saving stuff. Nice. Although if we had our way, we'd have a slightly less efficient fridge that actually had a fan built in. There is a dishwasher. We don't use this, to save money and save energy and because it seemed like it might explode the last couple times we used it. There is a tumble dryer. We don't use this either, for the same reasons sans the exploding thing. We were used to hanging all our clothes to dry anyway from our last flat which didn't have a dryer, so we figure why use it? We let guests use it if they need to. :-) We like never use our heaters in the winter, hardly ever. We're cool with it. Double-glazed windows, you know.
Water. We're on city council water, and because of Joel's student status we don't even pay for our council tax or water. So they don't really tell us how much we use.
That's all I have to say about that.
I appreciate the comments on the last post regarding Living Deliberately and Money. So many of you comment on Facebook, I wonder if you realise I actually haven't been on facebook for over a year, and this is actually a post on our blog! But I do get and appreciate the comments, all the same.
I relate so much to D and T, who both related to how living a transplanted lifestyle makes simplifying life and belongings a lot more... easier? necessary? A little of both, I suppose. Moving to a different country is one of those things where you do begin to realise you are not defined by your possessions. We don't collect much unnecessary junk. We don't buy lots of things, because we realise we'll just have to get rid of most of it again when we leave here. Any spending decisions are truly intentional - is this worth shipping back to the states?
I love that T brought up her intentional choice not to have a TV. We're the same. I think it's been so good and I highly recommend not having one, at least for a while, especially at the beginning of a marriage. That is such a magnificent, underrated way to simplify life, begin to establish what is important to you, and think about spending your time intentionally instead of letting it get sucked away by the wires.
Biggest Kitchen Table -- Food
Today's discussion is on food. I am intimidated to start this blog post, because I want to keep it short, and food is probably the one subject I think the most about. There is so much to say! So I think I will focus on my accomplishments in this area in the past year or so, and my goals for the next year or so.
Things I am glad I've changed in the last year:
The sky... this is one thing I will miss about living here. Not that this particular photo is award-winning, but the sky here tends to be quite outspoken. During the summer, the sunsets last for hours. The winters have very abrupt, very magnificent sunsets and sunrises. In the winter I find joy in watching the sunrise from the bus stop on my way to work. In the summer, the closest we see to a sunrise is the dusk after the official sunset. Clouds. The clouds stretch, reach out, exist, and when they aren't dominating the sky, they showcase lovely light and colour. I will miss Scotland's sky.
Tonight I went to a friend's birthday night out, came home pretty early, and sat on the hospital's ledge at the corner of our street, watching the sky change colours. Joel is at a gig, so I had the luxury of independence and loneliness. Who can feel lonely when watching such beauty? (no offiense to Joel's company!) While I was sitting quietly, an old Scottish woman walked by and started talking to me (as they so often do). She told me she was going to pick some grass for her cat, that it helped her stomach, and went on to tell me about how she so would love to let her cat outside, but the Cat Protection said there was too much traffic. So she settles for bringing her cat grass. The woman told me she often gets grass from Bearsden (just outside of Glasgow), that's how spoiled she is! I love these people who share their life stories for no apparent reason. I will miss that too.
This is Joel, with the rhubarb cake I made on his lap. I don't want to gloat over the fact that he's slowly beginning to like rhubarb, I really just want to show how sacrificial his love is, to be prepared to like rhubarb, for my sake. This is truly a wonderful man, folks. Seriously, have any of your partners been prepared to give up a lifelong adamant detestation of such an assertive food?
Okay, now let's address the matter at hand: The Biggest Kitchen Table discussion. Today is on Living Deliberately, and Money.
Living Deliberately: This is about living with intention, having your life goals in mind in your everyday actions. It is a departure from living for the moment. For me, I first began thinking about this and practicing it in high school. My close friend who acted as a spiritual and personal mentor to me, Lori, taught me about what it means to live intentionally, and caused me to really meditate on this. I believe we do fairly well at this. It is about a balance - not living fully in the future, but living the present while thinking about and preparing for the future. My goals are varied, alive, and I like to think simple. I want to grow my own vegetables - I've started that this year, with windowpots full of spinach and tomato plants. Just a small step, but a step nonetheless. It helps me learn some things slowly, and hopefully in the future I'll have access to some real dirt to grow things in.
Money: Joel and I do well managing our money, out of necessity, and a conviction that 'your money is where your heart is'. We have been given hard lessons to learn in our married life, centred about being dependent and accepting help from others. I hope this prepares us for a future in which we are able to help others in the same way.
We're very careful with our money, and apart from bills like rent and electricity, and my student loan payments, the only thing we really spend money on is food. Food is an area we would like to spend less money on, by making more things ourselves, and growing things ourselves. The spinach has been a success. The main hindrance to making more things homemade is the time factor. As we both essentially work full time, it is difficult to live up to our aspirations We often experiment with this; we were making our own bread for a time earlier in the spring; Joel has made yogurt on occassion; we were in the habit of a weekly from-scratch pizza night.. but when things get busy, these things fall away and we end up buying bread. In that case, we buy nice bread - we tend to buy Polish bread that doesn't have any preservatives - but of course buying things is more expensive, and often not as good quality, as homemade. Both of us look forward to a time when Joel is working, and hopefully I'll have a bit mroe time in the home to do things like this. Food is very important to me (you may have notices). So I look forward to tomorrow when Rhonda looks at the food issue.
Our money goals are essentially: -to eliminate debt (all of the student loan nature) -to have a savings account
I hope this isn't too much information, I know we don't usually share so much on the blog. Anyone have any thoughts about any of this?
Rhonda from the Down to Earth Blog is setting this week aside to look at how well we are sticking to our goals of simplifying life, reducing excessive belongings, and taking care with the way we manage our households in this way. As this is something I've been focusing on more, I thought I'd join in with her and see if I notice any ways I can make our life a bit more simple and sustainable.
One thing I expect to focus on is reducing the number of disposable items in our lives - we try to do this but even the past couple of months I've been realising more things we could easily do.
I'll be recording my conclusions here. Rhonda is doing this every day of the next week, but I'll probably follow along at my own pace - I can't keep up with the daily blog roll.
Hope you are all well, feel free to pick up ideas along the way!
The Roof Gardens in Kensington are Richard Branson's private garden (and nightclub) on the roof of a six-story building in central London. There are three gardens on the roof (Tudor, Spanish, and English Woodlands), with trees, flowers, shrubs, ducks, and even four pink flamingos ('Bill', 'Ben', 'Splosh', and 'Pecks'). This was definitely a highlight of our trip. It's pretty surprising to walk out on a rooftop and find such a nice garden. Doesn't cost anything to see during the day — just call ahead to make sure there are no weddings or events going on. From there, we go to Kensington Gardens, which are tacked on to the west side of Hyde Park, where we eat a picnic breakfast and sit by the water. There's so much green space inside London! We did indulge in a couple of touristy activities today; we checked out the Portobello Road Markets area (the actual market is only on the weekends), and went to Westminster in the evening to sit by the Thames and look at the Houses of Parliament for a while. Most importantly, we stopped at the Algerian Coffee Stores, which we discovered last year, to buy tea and coffee. Why did I buy Colombian when they have so many other hard-to-find varieties of coffee? I don't know. I'm bad at last-minute decisions. Heather bought some Ti Kuan Yin, a really good choice.
Oxford. What can I say? It's impressive, ancient, and overrun by tourists (to whom most of the city's doors are barred and bolted tight). We got ice cream and watched tourists trying to propel their rented punts and stay dry at the same time, then went for dinner at the Eagle and Child. This, as you may know, is the seventeenth-century pub at which the Inklings (C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, et al.) met every Tuesday morning for 30 years to discuss whatever legendary authors, philologists, and theologians discuss. We were highly impressed with how low-key it all was. They did sell t-shirts and had pictures of the Inklings on the wall, but the pub did not have any hint of that tacky shrine feel that tourist attractions seem to aim for. 
It was still very much a functioning pub, with decent prices, good food, and warm ale. Oxford was a bit of a mixed bag for us: it's good to have finally seen the University and the Bodleian Library (or their exteriors); on the other hand, it's not a good place to visit on a budget, and tourism in a University town seems problematic. There's no way, as a tourist, to participate, which is surely the whole point of the University as an institution. Also, did not succeed in obtaining a boater hat for Heather. Apparently they are no longer in fashion.
Spent the whole day in Hampstead Heath, 790 acres of forest, bogs, ponds, and fields to the northwest of central London. Its status as a park dates back to the 900s A.D. It boasts one of the best views of the city, apparently protected by law, from Parliament Hill (a.k.a. Kite Hill). There are also ponds for swimming (a sign reads: 'Warning: the water is cold, opaque, and untreated. Deep silt.') and fishing (catch and release, no barbed hooks or live bait), although we hadn't come prepared for either. We had great weather, got a bit sunburned, wandered aimlessly in the woods, climbed a tree, ate tinned fish 
for lunch, and envied all the people with dogs. If we ever come back to London, we will definitely spend more time here. In the evening, Gregor cooked us a traditional Polish dinner with fried pork chops and boiled potatoes; everything covered in dill. Amazing.
This is a matching hat and bootie set that I knitted for Scarlet, the baby girl due to arrive any moment now to our pastor and his wife here in Glasgow.
The hat is this pattern. It's simple and fast (the joy of knitting for babies!), and I love how it turned out! The ribbon weaves in and out of the little eyelets around the hat.
The booties are Saartje's Bootees on Ravelry. These are pretty simple, I had a bit of trouble with the straps, but worked through it somehow. Whether or not it's how it was meant to be done is fairly irrelevant, as it turned out fine!
The wool is 50% wool, 50% alpaca and several mothers I asked thought it would be soft enough for a baby. The photos don't do the wool justice, it really is beautiful. A dusk purple, with the most subtle little pink here and there, if you are actually looking for it.
What do you think? I'm quite proud of them!
I made this! This afternoon! I used this pattern. The fabric is heavy duty cotton, really thick, I think some sort of upholstery fabric or 
something. It made it a nice, thick bag that has some substance.
The inside fabric is the same weight. The lighting is fairly atrocious, but I don't think the pink stripes are quite so garrish in real life. I dunno, I'm not into pink anyway.
As you see below, it's reversible! So if one liked garrish pink stripes, they could turn it inside out. I don't think I would.
The bag has a flat bottom - which is pretty cool, considering I'm not a master seamstress.
Our sewing machine was given to us by Christine, our Glasgow friend who moved to Boston last year. She's German. She gave us odds and ends of extra fabric too, which is what I used for the bag! So, this was free to make! Amazing. I love free. We pulled out the sewing machine last week finally, and repaired some clothing. This bag will be filled with some basic essential oils, some natural cleaning recipes, etc and given to our friend for a bridal shower I'm going to next week. She's been wanting to learn some more natural cleaning from me, so I thought I'd put this 'starter kit' together for her.
Now all I need is some more fabric, and I could make more! It'd be a great bag for keeping knitting odds and ends in, or even a beach bag, if it were bigger.. (and if there was a beach).
This evening I got the chance to do some things in the kitchen. I made a lasagne which is now in the fridge ready to be baked for tomorrow's dinner. I made rhubarb crumble (Nigella's recipe from Feast) with some early rhubarb from Yorkshire I got for cheap. The crumble is is cooling on the stove now. I also had time to put away the clean dishes and wash all of the newly dirty ones I created tonight.
Being able to do household tasks, particularly food-related ones, really gives me contentment. I feel confident that I am coping with life well when the flat is reasonably tidy and the food situation is not completely erratic. I do find it very difficult to keep up with domestic tasks when I work full time. Weekday evenings are notoriously bad for being able to cook a dinner as well as tidy and still feel like Joel and I get some time to talk to each other. So often, things are not as tidy or organised as I would like. However, those things are less important than building up our marriage and ensuring we are on the same page and don't feel neglected by each other. Often, we leave the housework (but probably not as often as Joel would like :-).
I was able to do so much this evening because -we had leftovers for dinner -Joel went over to Michael's this evening to get advice on fixing his bass -my evening event was cancelled.
So you can see this is not generally possible to get to accomplish so much on a weekday evening.
I consider this evening an energising break. Does that sound strange, when I spent it doing tidying, cleaning, and cooking? That is what I enjoy doing. Mostly the cooking part, although I do really enjoy washing dishes when I am not rushed and overwhelmed by lots to do.
I came across this article that I had read a couple of months ago, and thought it was worth sharing with you. It is about the value of homemaking/householding. Another excellent read is this article from Rhonda at Down to Earth (which incidentally would be my most recommended blog).
In the last couple years Joel and I have become more and more wanting to be responsibly domestically. This includes eating food we make ourselves, so we can avoid additives and get more natural flavour and nutrition; cleaning with natural ingredients like baking soda and lemon juice to we don't use unnecessary chemicals in the home; and making it recreational to cook. Incidentally, all of these things not only ensure we are healthier, but they also save money. There are loads of areas we have to improve in, mostly because we don't have time to do all the things we would like, like baking all our own bread (although that was working well for a monthish in the late winter).
The challenge we have at the moment is that both of us are 'working' in some form or another, and thus we do not have a homemaker. We hope that in the future I will be able to stay at home, and this will be a priority for us. I look forward to being able to focus more on making wise household decisions and building my skills in areas that are often forgotten these days.
I know many of you who read (women and men) are very skilled at various aspects of homemaking. Do you find contentment in it? Fulfillment? Joy?
Of course if you have any tips of easy ways to make our lives simpler and more homemade, do share!
Okay I suppose I better get started on the rhubarb crumble, seeing as Joel doesn't like rhubarb!
Update: Mm that rhubarb crumble is delicious, with custard (storebought, not homemade!) over it. I think Joel may even like this one (though he will never admit it!).
PS Grandma B, I would have used your rhubarb crisp recipe but somehow have lost it. :-)
But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, "I WILL SURELY BLESS YOU AND I WILL SURELY MULTIPLY YOU." And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise. For men swear by one greater {than themselves,} and with them an oath {given} as confirmation is an end of every dispute. In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.
This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a {hope} both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
I'm very sad to say that my friend Ethan passed away on Tuesday night after a sudden battle with sarcoma. If you think of it, his wife Stacey and daughter Chloe could use prayer. It's a sad thing knowing that I won't be able to visit and catch up with him when we get back from Scotland, but a good thing to realize that it's a postponement, not a cancellation. I'm so glad to have known Ethan and Stacey from living at UCU in Seattle, and glad to have heard Ethan's testimony about how God used Stacey to bring Ethan to Him.
If it's useful or of interest to anyone, here's a link to the recordings we made in college of Ethan and Micah's songs.
Wow, look here.
Knitters go overboard.
That's pretty cool, but I can't really imagine ever coming to a point where I've knitted so much for friends and family that I can now knit for lampposts. Although, come to think of it, maybe I should be knitting primarily for inanimate objects until I actually start to turn out some decent work...
Hi, it's actually me this time. I've recently started a tumblelog. Don't worry, it will never replace this blog (which isn't a real blog anyway). I'm using it to keep track of things that are either interesting or boring but useful to me somehow. A lot of the things I post will be to do with my dissertation, probably - scraps of text, links to sites, etc., so don't expect much. If anyone's interested, it's here.
Here we are, continuing to plod along through the winter.
It's currently snowing. Lovely, yes. But it's still not really snow. It's more that teasing kind of snow, that whispers in your ear, "you can look at me, but I won't stay. I'll disappear almost as soon as I hit the ground. And you'll be left merely with a wet face/coat/sock/trouser leg."
I think I still prefer it to come down and visit Glasgow.
Life, work, studies continue, in the unmagnificent way it tends to happen during winter. We have been having lovely saturdays. It tends to be a day to get caught up in the kitchen, in ways. I bake a loaf of bread for us to eat through the week. I bake other things. Last week it was flapjack. So magnificent, I must share that with you at some point. Energy bars. More mayonnaise. Ketchup. Muffins. Etc.
I'm looking forward to soup this week.
Enough with the food, I suppose.
Did I tell you, in January I decided the start of a new year was a wonderful opportunity to start a new skill. I've started knitting. I tried my hand at it a few years ago, but this time I am really going to learn it. I've got the basics down, and must show you the hat I knitted Joel. It's 50% wool, 50% alpaca, and it's soft and brown and warm. Before that project, I accidentally knitted a hat for a deformed baby head, so if anyone knows a baby that has a weird lump on the sideish-top of his head, let me know.
When we came to Glasgow, I thought, "Wow, I'll spend the winters learning how to play my banjo, and developing my Spanish!" Neither of those things have come through, but I have learned to cook some, and now am knitting. I also got into aromatherapy a bit, which enhances our life and cleaning in ways. Knitting is my current absorption, but please don't expect anything grand for quite some time. I knit in my spare time. So not as much as I would like. I knitted last night while watching a french film, which is quite admirable considering I can't understand french and had to read subtitles while knitting a new (and weird) pattern. It went pretty well. I have the start of a knitting project, and new knowledge of french knife-throwing circus acts who have suicidal tendencies.
In other news, I cannot seem to get my mind off of this:
I made it last summer. It's a rhubarb crisp with honey and vanilla, and it is divine. Joel doesn't like rhubarb, so I get to eat the entire thing myself. Waiting for rhubarb to come into season...
How is your winter going?
Heather seems to have dropped the proverbial ball lately in updating all of you wonderful fans with new recipes and adventures in food, so I thought I'd pull my equally proverbial weight. This easy, affordable meal is the Windex of the food world: it's perfect for a main dish, a side, or a dessert, and it goes well with any style! Here's the recipe:
