Mommy Imitation

So the Johnson household held a Mommy Imitation contest and here are the winners in reverse order.

Coming in fourth is Russell. Mommy has never sat on top of the fridge.

In third place, with a very nice effort, is Thomas. The fact that he has Mommy's baby blanket at his feet goes a long way.

In second place, the only girl I know as beautiful as Mommy: Lucia.

And in first place, with the best Mommy Imitation ever, Elliot. I mean, seriously, how many times have you seen Mommy make that face?

Just a note: This was not my (Beth) original idea for this post, but Jared's is much funnier. We do try and cook on Wednesdays. And yes, we like to wear aprons. Elliot chose the above commenting, "This is a pretty nice one, mom." And for your enjoyment is one of our favorite recipes to make. Easy. Fast. Delicious. Bon appetit!

Chewy Granola Bars

1 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup natural peanut butter, crunchy (I just add crushed peanuts or walnuts)

1/2 cup honey or molasses or 1/4 cup of each

1/3 cup butter, melted

1 1/2 tsps vanilla

1 1/4 cups oatmeal

1 1/4 cups Hodgson Mill oat bran

1 1/4 cups Hodgson Mill wheat bran

2 TBS sesame seeds

1/2 tsp salt

Mix first five ingredients together and add the rest of the ingredients

Press mixture into a greased 9 x 13" pan

Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees

Cool completely

My Birthday Present Arrived

 

My birthday present from my dear husband arrived in the mail today. The Catholic Worker still sells for a penny a copy as it did when it first came out on May 1, 1933.  A year's subscription can be obtained for 25 cents via a handwritten request.

"What we do is very little, but it is like the little boy with a few loaves and fishes. Christ took that little and increased it. He will do the rest. What we do is so little we may seem to be constantly failing. But so did He fail. He met with apparent failure on the Cross. But unless the seed fall into the earth and die, there is no harvest. And why must we see results? Our work is to sow. Another generation will be reaping the harvest." -Dorothy Day

 Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

From Book III: The Book of Poverty and Death

Rainer Maria Rilke

III,1

It feels as though I make my way

through massive rock

like a vein of ore,

alone, encased.

I am so deep inside it

I can't see the path or any distance:

everything is close

and everything closing in on me

has turned to stone.

Since I don't know enough about pain,

this terrible darkness makes me small.

It it's you, though-

press down hard on me, break in

that I may know the weight of your hand,

and you, the fullness of my cry.

III, 4/5

Lord, the great cities are lost and rotting.

Their time is running out.

The people there live harsh and heavy,

crowded together, weary of their own routines.

Beyond them waits and breathes your earth,

but where they are it cannot reach them.

Their children waste their days

on doorsteps, always in the same shadow.

They don't know that somewhere

wind is blowing through a field of flowers.

The young girls have only strangers to parade

before,

and no one sees them truly;

so, chilled,

they close.

And in back rooms they live out the nagging years

of disappointed motherhood. Their dying is long 

and hard to finish: hard to surrender

what you never received.

Their exit has no grace or mystery.

It's a little death, hanging dry and measly

like a fruit inside them that never ripened.

Poetry Wednesday

And if you are interested in learning more about the Catholic Worker Movement

http://www.catholicworker.org/communities/commlistall.cfm

And finally from Orthodox author (and a former member of the Catholic Worker House in New York and friend of Dorothy Day), Jim Forest: What I learned about justice from Dorothy Day.

Birds of prey

What does a father do when given the directive: "I don't care where you take them, just get them out of here!" (Beth was desperate to get the house clean before our house blessing, a task nearly impossible with four little ones under foot.) Russell suggested hiking, most likely because that's exactly what we had done once before under similar circumstances. I told him it was too cold to be out that long. Instead I suggested an idea that had been percolating in my brain all winter: Bald Eagle watching. Or more specifically, Bald Eagle photographing.

This idea was born of two different facts: first the Bald Eagles like to winter in the Quad Cities because the Mississippi River doesn't freeze over and they can find food. Bird watchers come from all over the region to see these giant birds of prey up close. We even have our annual Bald Eagle Days. Yet, for all of this hype, I don't remember ever heading out to see one of our own natural treasures.

The second fact is that Grandma Johnson gave Thomas her used digital camera when she got a new one and he loves taking pictures with it. He'll snap pictures of his siblings around the house and other things that catch his fancy. (Several of these are his.) One time we found a series of photos that retold a battle between several of his Lego ships, robots, and figures, like a stop motion movie.

So, the last time the five of us got out of the house for the day - the hiking trip Russell was talking about - it was to let Thomas try his hand at some wildlife photography. We were hoping to see a deer at Scott County Park. This is what we found instead:

Thomas' first wildlife photograph. Perhaps not the most auspicious of starts, but he was five. At least this time we found the animal for which we were on the hunt:

Thankfully, I had my camera along, too, so to follow are some pictures from our grand adventure.

Here's the team on the trail at Credit Island in Davenport. To follow is what we saw. All these photos are pretty heavily cropped, because I don't really own an appropriate telephoto lens. (Christmas gift hint: Make sure it fits a Nikon D50...)

After Credit Island we drove to Lock and Dam 14 in LeClaire, IA. There were a ton of eagles, but none that would look like anything more than specks through my camera. Some foolish fellow bird watchers loaned the twins their binoculars, though I'm not sure they were ever pointed in the right direction. Luckily the glasses were returned in one piece.

And then we finished up our day at Fejervary Park in Davenport, where we ate lunch and enjoyed the playground equipment. Yes, that is KFC in Elliot's mouth.

And here's one last photo from Thomas' camera, Daddy holding the rare and beautiful LuLu Bird:

To Whom My Hand Goes Out

Above Center: My Father and Grandfather George

On the left: My Father; On the right: His brother, Russell

To Whom My Hand Goes Out

Carl Sandburg

The unapplauded ones who bear

No badges on their breast,

Who pass us on the street, with calm,

Unfearing, patient eyes.

Like dumb cart-horses in the sleet!

The unperturbed who feel the oldness-

All the sadness of the world-

Yet somehow feel the sacredness

Of grime upon the hands,

And even know the rush of pity

For the ones who know not

That some Power builds a callus out of blisters.

The eyes! The eyes that pierce

The dust and smoke of unrewarded toil

And count it gain and joy

To have lived and sweat and wrought

And been a man!

Poetry Wednesday

The Real Thing

Happy Valentine's Day from our house to your's.

And not to ruin the warm fuzzies, but did you know that St. Valentine was a priest martyred near Rome in the fourth century? True love always involves sacrifice and some form of death. 

The Great Hunt

Picture from the St. Donatus Catholic Church cemetary
St. Donatus, Iowa


The Great Hunt

Carl Sandburg

I cannot tell you now;

     When the wind's drive and whirl

Blow me along no longer,

And the wind's a whisper at last-

Maybe I'll tell you then-

some other time.

When the rose's flash to the sunset

Reels to the rack and the twist,

And the rose is a red bygone,

When the face I love is going

And the gate to the end shall clang,

And it's no use to beckon or say, "So long"-

Maybe I'll tell you then-

some other time.

I never knew any more beautiful than you:

I have hunted you under my thoughts,

I have broken down under the wind
And into the roses looking for you.

I shall never find any

greater than you.

Poetry Wednesday

Snow Day

What thirteen inches of snow looks like. No he did not make it to work. While he was able to get out the door, the car was not able to make it down the alley.

Enjoying the promised hot cocoa with tiny marshmallows. I even added an extra candy bar. Delicious!

(Look Molly and Paige. You can see my birthday present in the background.)

 

Elliot taking pride in his Swedish heritage.

A Song For Simeon

I am generally skeptical about any news conveyed that predicts horrendous storms, especially ones that promise to dump a possible thirteen inches of snow into our viewing area. Call me a cynic, but with a yawn, I chalk up such stories as the media's attempt to sensationalize even the weather and stir the public into a quasi-panic of rushing to grocery stores and other places warranted as necessary, guaranteeing that the common man and woman will become consumed with tracking the storm and glue themselves to a particular tv station. And yet, I cannot deny it; this time those meteorologists got it right. Outside the wind is furious, whipping snow about in a near blinding frenzy. The streets are abandoned and the sane, I hope, are tucked away in warmer dwellings. I wonder if Wal-mart and the 24-hour McDonald's drive-thru is closed because everything else is.

Yes, I myself became a bit consumed and driven to check out what was going on in the world outside my house. Not that it really matters. Cancellations of any sort do not affect me. Even my husband, whose not-for-profit employer closes when the public schools call it quits for a day, has vowed to venture down Brady Street hill and catch up on the work plaguing his desk and his mind. If he can get out the door. What exactly does thirteen inches of snow look like? Still, though not reveling in the rest of a snow day, the boys and I will celebrate this break in the monotony of days so lethargic the sun is not even capable of rising and shedding some much needed light. With chilling temperatures in the forecast and my inability to invest in appropriate winter attire, I doubt we will venture outside. But, before snuggling into beds tonight, I promised the boys hot cocoa made from real chocolate bars left over from all my holiday fudge making; I even suspect there are still some tiny marshmallows left over too. Stay warm dear friends in the Midwest. And a blessed Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. 


A Song For Simeon
T. S. Eliot

Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls and

The winter sun creeps by the snow hills;

The stubborn season has made stand.

My life is light, waiting for the death wind,

Like a feather on the back of my hand.

Dust in sunlight and memory in corners

Wait for the wind that chills towards the dead land.

     Grant us thy peace.

I have walked many years in this city,

Kept faith and fast, provided for the poor,

Have given and taken honour and ease.

There went never any rejected from my door.

Who shall remember my house, where shall live my children's children

When the time of sorrow is come?

They will take to the goat's path, and the fox's home,

Fleeing from the foreign faces and the foreign swords.

     Before the time of cords and scourges and lamentation

Grant us thy peace.

Before the stations of the mountain of desolation,

Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow,

Now at this birth season of decease,

Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,

Grant Israel's consolation

To one who has eighty years and no-tomorrow.

     According to thy word.

They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation

With glory and derision,

Light upon light, mounting the saints' stair.

Not for me the martyrdom, the ecstasy of thought and prayer,

Not for the me the ultimate vision.

Grant me thy peace.

(And a sword shall pierce thy heart,

Thine also.)

I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me.

I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.

Let thy servant depart,

Having seen thy salvation.

Poetry Wednesday