Bring It On, Dad!

My dad and I have a long-standing air hockey competition going on. It all began when I was bragging to him over the phone about how I had beaten an entire youth group full of air hockey playing kids. So he decided to knock me off my "high horse" and say he could beat me with one hand tied behind his back.

Challenged.

Here I am looking vicious. Here he is looking terrified. I'm going for a visit in August. I'm ready, Dad. Bring it on!

A Little Update...

Mr. Jim passed away yesterday afternoon, thus ending a long, hard and painful battle with cancer. Praise God that Mr. Jim is in a better place and reunited with his wife and son. Please pray for his family and our church and also for Steven and I as we try to help in whatever way is needed. He'll be having a military funeral on Saturday...

Aunt Sarah Project

I've written about Aunt Sarah (also known as "Caroline" a time or two before.

She traveled all over, teaching classes on linguistics, giving college devotions and learning languages, sometimes even creating a written language where none existed.

Recently, I came into possession of a box of letters that she wrote to her family along her journeys. Painstakingly saved by her mother and tied up with ribbon, the letters chronicle years of Aunt Sarah's life and travels all over the world. The idea behind this "project" is to put some order to this great jumble of words, to chronologically map out her voyages.

It's been a little more difficult than I had anticipated. I find myself mesmerized by her stories. What started out as little more than a genealogy side project has become something else altogether.

A kind of obsession. A kind of feeling like I know someone I've never met. Like maybe I'm with her as she talks to people in strange languages and with different customs than what I'm used to.

Sitting with her next to a fire, seeing her smoking a cigar and watching a sunset, pen in hand, waiting to describe it to her mother in a letter.

Riding with her over bumpy, potholed streets in places where yours is the only car. Everybody else walks. Later, the car will leave and she'll walk, too.

She laughs at the antics of the children who come to entertain her, showing off, doing cartwheels and trying to outdo each other, vying for her attention.

She wracks her brain for words when writing to her supporters, trying to sound dignified and yet still trying to raise awareness of the plights of some of the people she works with.

She's amazed by God's Creation.

She misses her family.

She's ravaged by cancer, but still determined to serve.

She speaks to at chapel services, too weak to stand but still beautifully eloquent in her love for God.

I don't know her but I love her all the same.

Take One.

My first attempt at fiction! Inspired by an accident I saw a few weeks ago. Let me know what you think...

No, really. Criticism is welcome.

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"Why don’t you tell me again how it happened. From the top.”

Opal glanced around worriedly. Her eyes swept past the police, the paramedics. Thoughts of Paul and his inevitable lectures about how a woman her age shouldn’t be driving filled her head. Ever since that little fender bender last year he’d been just unbearable. She hadn’t even been hurt! Just a few little bruises. Paul certainly had a temper.

The flashing blue lights of the police care snapped Opal back to the present. “He came out of nowhere!” She blinked back tears. It was true. Maybe she had been going a little too fast, and of course that curve was the site of many an accident, but the young man on the motorbike must have been invisible until the moment of impact.

Officer James sighed. Miss Opal was going to be in a world of trouble if that boy in the ditch didn’t pull through.

They both looked up as the paramedics loaded the man into the ambulance. One of them caught Officer James’ eye and shook his head slightly. It didn’t look good.

"Come along with me to the station, ma'am, and we'll talk more. And we'll call your son, too."

As he helped her into the patrol car, Quentin James thought back on his eight years in the Highway Patrol. Never had he seen an accident like this one. The motorcycle was actually embedded into the front of Opal's Cadillac. They hadn't been able to identify the boy on the bike yet but he hadn't been wearing a helmet. If he hadn't been thrown to the water-filled ditch, he would have surely died already.

Officer James looked up warily as a black BMW screeched to a stop in front of his patrol car. Must be the old lady's son.

"Mother!" The kid was out of the car and scuttling towards them, engine running and door open, barely stopping to put the car in park. He looked more angry than worried. "Mother! What were you thinking?"

Opal cringed, shrinking into the back of the car. "Paul, please..."

Officer James tried to keep the peace. "Son, your mother's had quite a scare. This isn't the time to be berating her."

"Officer, is my mother under arrest?"

Quentin didn't like the man's tone, but he was used to dealing with all sorts in his line of work. "No, sir, she's not under arrest. I do need to talk to her, though, and get this mess straightened out. How did you even know about the accident?"

"It's a small town, Officer." Paul looked at Quentin disdainfully. "Good news sure travels fast."

"Son, you can either come along to the station with me and help get this taken care of or you'll have to go."

Paul shot his mother an evil glare.

What kind of relationship must they have? Officer James was baffled at the malevolence in Paul's face. He really seems to despise her.

"She just doesn't listen!" Paul spat the words out, giving each one it's own sentence.

"Now just calm down." Officer James tried to diffuse an increasingly explosive situation.

Paul took several deep breaths and appeared to gather himself up.

Officer James' radio squawked to life. After a hushed conversation with the disembodied voice on the other end, Quentin turned back the Opal and Paul. "He died en route. Ma'am, you have the right to remain silent."

"Oh, no you don't!" Paul darted to his car, ruffled around in the glove compartment and turned back, triumphant, with a gun in his hand. "Leave her alone," he said. "I'll deal with her later."

Instantly, Quentin's own gun was in his hand. "Boy, you don't want to do this. Just think about what you're doing."

"I am thinking. You're going to arrest my mother! I can't let you do that." A wild look had come into Paul's eyes. The look of a man on the brink of losing control.

A light rain started, darkening the street around them and whispering through the trees.

"Put the gun down." Quentin spoke firmly, yet calmly.

Paul sighed enormously and rushed him, closing the space between them in five giant bounds, gun in hand.

A deafening roar.

Opal looked at Officer James, his gun still smoking. Paul lay in a heap at her feet, a pool of blood slowly spreading beneath him as the rain began falling in earnest. Silently, she began to cry.

Happy Independence Day!

I don't know about you, but reading this makes me all tingly. Cue The Star-Spangled Banner...

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IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

Image by Montwerx via Flickr

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security...

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Praise God for men who were courageous enough to stand up for what they knew to be right. And for the men and women who fought (and still fight!) to keep us free.

Here's hoping you're all celebrating in your own way.

Happy Birthday, America!

With apologies to senior citizens everywhere...

In honor of my love for all things antiquated, I'm expanding my vocabulary to include old person swears. Words like consarned, dagnabbit, gee willikers (sorry, Mom), dang and blast...you get the idea.

Oh, and molasses cookies.

Something about the old fashioned soft and chewy lovliness of these cookies makes me all warm and gooey inside.

3/4 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup white sugar

Preheat oven to 375. In a medium bowl, mix together the butter, 1 cup sugar and egg until smooth. Stir in the molasses. Combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger; blend into the molasses mixture.

Roll dough into walnut sized balls and roll them in the remaining white sugar. Place cookies 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven until tops are cracked. Cool on wire racks.

Eat, and if you're feeling generous, share them with old people. It'll make their day.

And then the lights went out.

Last Friday night there was a huge storm here. Just as I got home from work, the rain began. I like rain and thunder and lightning, but this time the lightning was green. I wish I would have caught it on film but I didn't and so you'll just have to take my word for it. Rain like buckets of water pouring down on everything. Trees snapped in half like twigs. Wind whistling over it all. Green. Lightning. The power died.

I thought my life was over.

Then came calm. The tornado sirens faded to silence.

To the east, a rainbow. To the west, the most gorgeous, bright yellow sunset I've ever seen.

Powerless, we sat in the dark. Played Scrabble by candlelight. No tv (if I didn't actually see the Red Wings lose the Stanley Cup it didn't really happen, right? Right?), no air conditioning, no lights, no cooking.

We're fan sleepers, too, so try as we might, sleep evaded us. We played 20 questions in the dark and waited for sleep to take us. We crack each other up. Lovely to know we still like each other after almost nine years of marriage...

I wish the power would go out more often.

Why I Am a Baptist

With no intention of preaching but just wanting to give a little insight as to the reason I am the way I am.

I was raised in a Full Gospel church. My uncle was the pastor, and his wife led me to accept Christ at a very young age. My family was (and is) very faithful to attend church whenever the doors are open. For a very long time, I didn't even know there were "denominations." Everyone was either Christian or non-Christian. Methodist, Presbyterian, what are those?

When I married Steven, the Baptist faith came along with him. Kind of a package deal. Steven was called in to the ministry at age 16 and he'd gone to a Baptist church since he was a little boy. I was a little resentful of being "labeled" as a Baptist upon our marriage, but being a good wife, I dutifully went along to church, teaching Sunday School, helping out at church functions, etc.

The more I learn (and I'm still learning, even these almost ten years later, and God grant that I never think I know it all) the more I believe that this is where I'm supposed to be. Let me say that I know people in many different denominations and I wouldn't presume to say they are wrong and I certainly wouldn't say that I am right in everything. I am still growing.

In my experience, there are good people everywhere. (Also bad people, but that's a post for another day.) I mean good people in many different churches. I have felt welcomed by many denominations and churches. The thing that stands out about the Baptists is the attention paid to witnessing. Yes, even door to door.

Here is the important stuff. I'll tell you the way I tell my Sunday School kids:

A-Admit to God you are a sinner. (Guess what. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23)

B-Believe that Jesus is God's Son and He died to pay the penalty for our sins. (John 3:16. It's true, best beloved.)

C-Confess your faith in Jesus. (Matthew 28:19-20. Otherwise known as the Great Commission. If I know the truth, I am duty-bound to share it with everybody, right? If I believe I know the way to Heaven, how dare I not share it?)

And so I have.

If you're interested in what Southern Baptists specifically believe, here's a link to their website.

If you'd like to talk to me outside the comment section, email me at skennedy40977@yahoo.com.

The Curtis Side

I've never really talked about Steven's family here, have I. Shame on me!

They came for a visit a few weeks ago and here they are. Hanging out at the Memphis Zoo. From left to right, Steven's mom (Karen), Steven, Steven's dad (Steve, known around my family as "Big Steve"), and Steven's brother, Billy. Billy will probably murdalize me for using his picture here in my humble little blog, but he'll get over it. Or I'll be murdalized. Whatever.

Here they are looking at meercats. I just love photographing people who are unaware they're being watched. Um, but not in a creepy way.

Well here I told them to row, but apparently everybody but Karen thinks I'm weird. Yeah, weird. That's it.

Not pictured due to not being present: Steven's brother (Chris) and Chris' wife, Amanda and their daughter, London. Ooh, and Amanda's preggers with baby number two, so yay for another niece or nephew. That I'll never get to see. Ah well.

Good people, one and all. Well, except Billy. (Just kidding, Billy!)

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And here's a big kitty using a fallen log as a scratching post. Ain't she cute?

Slippers You Say?

These two wonderful, delicious loaves of heaven on earth brought to you by Recipe Zaar.

The purpose? Besides making an effort to make my own bread and becoming more of a food snob each and every day, these sandwiches.

Ingredients

For Sponge

1/8 teaspoon active dry yeast
2 tablespoons water (105-115 F)
1/3 cup room-temp water
1 cup bread flour

For Bread

1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
2 tablespoons warm milk (105-115 F)
2/3 cup room-temp water
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Directions

Make sponge: Stir together, warm water and yeast. Let stand 5 minutes, until creamy. Transfer yeast mixture to another bowl and add room-temp water and flour. Stir for 4 minutes. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let stand at cool room temp at least 12 hours and up to 1 day.

Make bread: Stir together yeast and milk in small bowl and let stand 5 minutes, until creamy. In bowl of standing electric mixer, with dough hook, blend together milk mixture, sponge, water, oil and flour at low speed until flour is moistened. Beat on medium for 3 minutes. Add salt and beat for 4 more minutes. Scrape dough into oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap, until doubled- about 1 1/2 hours.

Note: Dough will be VERY sticky and full of bubbles.

Cut two pieces of parchment paper, approx 12 inches by 6 inches. Place on baking sheet and flour well. Turn dough out onto a well-floured surface and cut in half. Transfer each half to paper and form irregular ovals approx 9 inches long. Dip fingers in flour and dimple loaves. Dust tops with flour. Cover with dampened kitchen towel and let rise 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until almost doubled.

At least 45 minutes before baking bread, pre-heat pizza stone on lowest oven rack position at 425°F. Transfer 1 loaf, along with parchment paper, onto stone and bake for 20 minutes or until pale golden. Remove to cooling racks and repeat with second loaf.

For Steve's favorite sandwich: Saute onions (Vidalias if you've got them) in butter. Slice ciabatta in half lengthwise, top with roast beef and onions. Pile cheddar cheese on the other half. Broil until bubbly and delicious, taking care to remove it from the oven before it bursts into flame. Add mustard if you're feeling frisky.