Porch Living

We have been enjoying our lunch on the porch lately. Asher actually requests to sit out there despite the hot days we have been experiencing. Thankfully, our front porch is on the north side so it stays shady and a breeze often whips around the corner of our house. So, if you are ever walking down our street around lunch time, come on up and we'll serve you some lemonade! :)

1st Birthday Party

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated my neice Skylar's first birthday. The theme was a simple first birthday theme based on this napkin below.

From this napkin, I used the design to create the large cake for the guests and the small cake for Skylar to eat.

I enjoyed adding the detail of the bugs on the side of the larger cake.

The birthday girl enjoying her cake!

Looking forward to making the next birthday cake on my list...but not for another month! :)

Mache Salad

We have been receiving our fresh veggies from our CSA for a few weeks now. This week I was surprised to find what I believe is mâche. Mâche is a tender, heirloom variety of lamb’s lettuce. I had this recipe below (though, I tweaked it a bit)tucked away (from Southern Living) and had been wanting to use it for sometime but had never had the oppurtunity..due to no mâche. What a delicious summer surprise! Even David went back for seconds if that tells you anything!

Ingredients
Chopped pecans
Watermelon, cubed
Mâche
Vinaigrette of choice (I used Trader Joes Balsamic Vinaigrette..mmmm!)
Feta cheese

Preparation
Combine mâche and watermelon in bowl. Add vinaigrette, tossing gently to coat. Spread mâche and watermelon mixture to a platter, sprinkle with peacans and fetta.

Nashville Flood 2010

I have been absent from the blogging world for awhile because of this...

The Nashville flood hit the city hard. This picture of above is two blocks from our home. It is the Farmer's Market that we had just walked to a day before the flood hit. It all seemed surreal and still does when I look back on these photos. It's hard to imagine that we were surrounded on almost all sides of our neighborhood by what seemed like a lake. It took just short of a week for these waters to finally receed. Below is where we exit our neighborhood.

I have been busy with flood relief since this all hit. It has been amazing to see the response of Nashvillians. I helped head up the relief at our church, helping organize volunteers and setting up a donation center. Daily, I would hear the most amazing stories of those being affected and those volunteering and giving of their resources to help rebuild lives. I just wish now that I would have had the time to blog and remember all the stories. My bed won over though! :)
We now have shut down our donation center and are turning our help in another direction. For the time being, I am back to a more normal schedule that I welcome. I am a routine person and found that doing this relief type of work was very "fly by the seat of your pants." I do look forward to finding more oppurtunities to serve flood victims this summer as we shift our focus. While I hurt for those who have lost everything in this flood, I am thankful for the community that was found and united in all of us Nashvillians!

Nashville Transit

I love traveling to cities with great public transportation. There is such excitement in riding on a subway with so many other people all going in the same direction but to so many different places. Well, Nashville does not have a great system BUT I am pleased to say that they are making ground. We (the boys and I) along with our neighborhood friends have taken the Nashville City Circuit or the "green city bus" (as Asher likes to call it) on two different occasions. Our first ride we just took the entire loop to see where all of the stops were. The second time we took it was on a day we went to the library for a puppet show. We just walk to the Farmer's Market where we can easily hop on board. The boys love it, but maybe not quite as much as their mama. I have yet to tell you the best part of it....it's FREE! Can you believe that? Our family will be making many more trips downtown. If you would like to join us or want more info, let me know!!

Summer Reading List

I have been spending most of my free time lately reading books...good books, in fact! I am always surprised when once I read one good book how quickly I want to find another and then another. Reading (for pleasure that is) has always been something that I have enjoyed since childhood. I remember looking forward to my summers when I could take out countless books from the library and just read all day long! So, what has been on my nightstand over the past month???
The Help by Katherine Stockett (as pictured above)
Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall, Denver Moore and Lynn Vincent (a true story)
The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks
Her Mother's Hope by Francine Rivers
and currently reading, The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearn

Would love to hear what you are reading, have read recently, or is on your summer list.

Sweet Friends

One of our dearest friends, Jackton, from Kenya was in town this past week for a fundraising dinner along with Irene, another staff member at Made in the Streets. Even though this was our first time to meet Irene (she started working for MITS after we moved back to the States), we fell in love with her immediately. We made an instant connection with her and loved the way she brought joy and light into a room. This was the first time for Asher and Jonas to meet any of our friends from MITS (well Asher had met Mbuvi but I am not sure how well he remembers him). The two boys fell in love with our Kenyan friends. Today was our last day with them and we all dreaded the good-byes. It's always a very sad day for me when we have friends from Kenya visit and we have to see them go. I am so thankful for their time with us and thankful to hear all the amazing things that continue to go on at MITS and how so many boys, girls and even mothers with babies are being drawn into this family and being shown love and gaining hope for their lives. As we drove away from church and left our friends with their last leg of hosts, tears fell from all of our eyes, including the boys. Asher even said, "I don't want to go home, I want to see Jackton." We look longingly into the future when our paths will meet again.

While today was a sad day with our friends leaving, I was filled with even more sadness. Above is a picture of Lucy, who was my student while we lived and worked with MITS. Lucy always struggled with authority and it was very difficult for her to change from her past life on the streets. She began acting out violently against some of the other girls. And after many "second chances," Lucy was eventually returned to the streets. I continued to ask about her from friends in Kenya about her whereabouts. Lucy grew up on the streets with her mom and seemed unable to find a way out of them. She became pregnant, which is almost inevitable when you are a girl on the streets, and had a baby boy. This was the last I had heard about her until today. David was asking Jackton about her and later told me that Lucy had committed suicide. Lucy's mother recently learned she was HIV-positive. I don't know if Lucy was. I don't know what drove Lucy to taking her life but I know that she was living a life so unimaginable to me. I can't imagine having to live on trash with my baby and having to find food for him daily or myself. I don't know what has become of her baby but hope to follow up with some of the staff members who work on the streets. I share this story so that Lucy's life will be remembered and not go unmourned. I loved her dearly and hope that from this tragedy I can find a way to help another girl struggling on the streets, and hopefully, this time she will find a way out...she will find hope...she will find a future.