our life

partakers together of (hard) grace

/ abby hummel / 1 Comment

It’s Thursday and I’m still exhausted from my crazy weekend. My dear friend from college, Esther, came out to visit. She drove across 3 states to spend a few days with me and we definitely made the most of the time! As usual, she beat me on our runs despite my significant height advantage and longer leg strides, she overhauled my whole wardrobe with a fashion makeover and we stayed up past the middle of the night talking about the wildest things… just like when we were room-mates at Hillsdale. Except that back then we thought we knew everything. Ha! Thankfully, we have become much wiser and humbler since then.

It’s almost three years since our graduation, and in our grown up lives we have each partaken of so much painful and beautiful grace. I am very grateful for the mutual comfort and encouragement of a friend who is my true partner in accepting and rejoicing in this life of grace, no matter how hard it is or how ungracious I feel.

we both turn twenty-five this spring...whew. what a ride!

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
– Henri Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak.

Esther passed on the book “One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are” by Ann Voskamp, who blogs at http://www.aholyexperience.com.

One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

So much of our weekend was full of discussing what Ann says in this book, that our call as Christians is to live in thanksgiving; that all experiences, even the awful and sad ones, are opportunities to draw closer to God; that we miss communion and growth if we ignore our sorrow, but miss beauty and goodness if we think that is all there is; and that we can choose to live a life of full grace, full of gratefulness and in doing so we are blessed.

“I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace…” (Philippians 1:7, esv)

many-tasting foods

/ abby hummel / 3 Comments

While whipping up a “quick” venison pot-pie for dinner this evening, (side note: it was supposed to be fast, but actually wasn’t) I chatted with an old friend from college about some of our recent culinary adventures. The conversation was peppered with comments like “I read that food blog, too!” “A what-squash?” and “I think I have some of those in the freezer!” Aaron never really knows what to make out of my half of these sorts of conversations. It probably doesn’t sound much different from when I talk to myself in the kitchen. He likes eating, so I don’t let him complain about my domestic eccentricities. This friendly conversation made me realize we have tried LOTS of new foods in the past year or so, and I thought I’d share a list of our favorites.
Breakfast:
* Smitten Kitchen’s Jacked-Up Banana Bread and
*  SK’s Perfect Blueberry Muffins.
* Our current sunday brunch favorite: Eggs Benedict with ham. I also owe all my success with this dish to SK’s poached egg tutorial. Let’s just say that lady speaks my food-love language.

Lunch:
* Tuna salad – a can of tuna with cottage cheese and black beans. Mixed together between two slices of bread or over a plate of greens. I didn’t like tuna until I tried it this way!
* And my regular bagged-salad lunches at work become divine with Trader Joe’s Champagne Pear Gorgonzola Vinaigrette Dressing. For the first time in my life, I had to ask myself: Am I eating salad or dessert? It’s great with dried apricots and nuts over baby spring greens.

Dinner:
*Bon Appetit’s Salmon and Asparagus
* Something like these meatballs with BBQ sauce in the crockpot. They are almost shamefully home-style comfort food. I always bake them in little foil cupcake liners instead of browning them in oil on the stove. They still taste delicious and are awesome with steamed green beans and steak fries.
* Smitten Kitchen’s Roasted Mushrooms. I don’t use nearly that much butter and they are still delish! Sometimes I go very minimalist with a touch of butter and a little splash of lemon juice.

Totally unhealthy snacks and desserts:
* A new favorite snack is Sausage Dip in the crockpot. Sometimes something is really delicious without being nutritious or healthy in any way, and this dish is one of them.
* We’ve been very into Baked Brie lately and it seems to be on sale at a local grocery store quite a bit. Love it!
* We’ve made 3 or 4 of Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Guinness Cake in the past few weeks and I’m not gonna lie… I kind of want another one.  Yes, I said “we” made these, because Aaron baked the first one on his own. Mostly.
* These Pumpkin Muffins from my friends Hannah and Bethany are sinfully easy (2 ingredients! I’m not joking!) and we mayhaveeatenawholepanbyourselvesonmorethanoneoccasion.

So those are some of the new foods we’ve been enjoying lately. I’m excited to see what fun new discoveries are ahead of us, too. For instance, what will I do with the 200 venison brats in our freezer? Certainly we won’t be having that many cookouts this summer. And which of our soon-to-be-planned-out garden veggies will grow well and make their way into our meals on a regular basis? We will have to wait and see…

a dream (is a wish your heart makes?)

/ abby hummel / 4 Comments

I had the weirdest dream last night. I had fasted all day, which I do about once a week. I am a huge fan of fasting as a spiritual discipline. But more on that later. By nightfall, I was very hungry but also very aware of the Holy Spirit. I suppose this means it could have been the Lord speaking to me very powerfully… or my brain could have been expressing its own hunger … or maybe it was just my way of processing the week’s events, which included discussions with two sets of friends about their unnamed daughters in utero.

In this crazy dream, Aaron and I needed to adopt triplet babies. Like the babies were suddenly there with us and we needed to take care of them. There were two boys and one girl. They were all caucasian, which isn’t a big deal except that all the conversations we’ve had about adoption usually refer to children from Haiti or Ethiopia. My expectations of potential adoption for us always include little black boys, but who am I to say what kind of children God could send us?

Back to the dream: I was freaking out about what we would name them all, because I didn’t want to give away my favorite names in case the babies were taken away later.  I was in this hallway with a bunch of people rushing around who had backpacks all over the place (much like a middle school) holding the baby girl and trying to figure out what her name would be. She had a large red birthmark on her jaw and dark hair. I wouldn’t put her down because I couldn’t figure out her name. One of the boys was originally named Carter and he had big blue eyes. No offense to any Backstreet Boys fans,  but that is not the sort of name we picture ourselves giving to any of the little Hummels.  The two boys were in a double side-by-side baby carseat. They don’t even make carseats like that for babies anyway. I don’t think that would be safe. Anyway, we weren’t in a car so that was the least of my concerns – remember, baby girl still had no name. Then Aaron and I were in a dressing room in a big house. The house overlooked a lake or river. Yes, it is definitely a dream of mine to live in a home with big windows over a body of water. And while we are at it, of course, a dressing room would be fabulous. But it had paneling, so, ick. I would have to redecorate in real life. There were piles of clothes everywhere, kind of like my bedroom right now. And the three babies were in their carseats. I needed Aaron to help me, so he picked up one of the boys and held the whole carseat (the little guys had their own at this point) and asked me why the clothes weren’t put away yet. I was wearing baby girl with a wrap. It seems my fascination with attachment parenting practices does not suspend in dreams.

Then we went back to the middle school, where I was late getting in to some sort of presentation at the school auditorium with clunky seats. Also, I had the three babies with me.  Clearly this was a very awkward entrance. All my friends and my sisters were sitting in one aisle. I grabbed a seat next to them and started passing the babies down so everyone could see them. None of the babies cried at all during this dream.

Then I woke up. And now I am writing about it here.

Maybe it will sort of come true someday and we can all marvel at the work of God the creator (“who still guides us on to the end of our days”) in our lives. …Or maybe someone else will think it’s as funny as I do and get a good laugh out of it right now.  Ha!

as a door turns on its hinges

/ abby hummel / 1 Comment

… so a sluggard turns in his bed.  Proverbs 26:14.

We’ve been reading a chapter of Proverbs nearly every evening before bed, and I’ve been procrastinating for nearly a week on something Aaron and I discussed on the 26th of January: getting up when my alarm goes off.  If my feet hit the floor at 6:01, I can do quite a bit before sliding off to work. I can usually start off with a quick workout or some devotions. Or if I’m rusty, it’s both: “Dear God, please help me finish this 30-second plank before I die!” I can take care of a shower, delicious breakfast, and do some laundry or set up for dinner before leaving. But it’s cold outside, and I’ve been staying under the warm cozy covers for up to an hour extra. Now, it’s kind of awesome that I can get out of bed and make it to work on the other side of town both clean and professionally coiffed within 40 minutes. But it’s not funny how far this is from an ideal morning. So for February I have a goal of getting up within one snooze cycle M-F. And that snooze concession is just because it’s nice to cuddle and pray a little before hopping out of bed. This morning I was up at 6:23, which is not the goal, but it was much better than the last two weeks so I’m not too distraught about messing up from the get-go.

In January I gave up sugar, and with just a few little slip-ups and a purposeful splurge for Aaron’s birthday, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I did purposefully have a whole 32 oz of Coke while staving off a migraine but I don’t think that counts. And I’ve got to say that I feel awesome. I figured I’d probably give up sugar again for lent, but I’m just going to stay off it for now. I don’t know that this is something I’ll do “forever” or as a lifestyle, but it hasn’t been that difficult and I can tell it’s much better for me! Not sure if I’ll get to my $100 goal for January and February, but I have been crafting and making gifts for birthdays with what we have around the house… we’ve probably saved $40 so far, so I’m telling myself that counts, too.

good morning, sunshine

/ abby hummel

I finally took those pop cans back last night – yes, my total “extra” income for the month is now up $6.45, which brings me to $21.15. I’m having a hard time believing some of the really nice clothes I took to the consignment store aren’t selling!

I love throwing bread in the bread maker before I go to bed… then I wake up with the yeasty smell of freshly baked bread permeating the house. Of course I will get up, I think to myself as the alarm rings, I want some toast! However, there was no strong crust on this very unfriendly bread:

undiagnosed failure in breadmaking

Happy Tuesday! Here we go…

order

/ abby hummel

I have been procrastinating a little bit today, but I have to say I have a dream where my whole weekend does not revolve in catching up from the last week and preparing for the next. Like maybe next Saturday I won’t have to fold 7 loads of laundry. How do we even have this many clothes? And maybe some weekend I’ll be able to work on a project without feeling guilty about the house because it won’t actually be a disaster. Does this life ever happen for anyone? I am willing to invest in some serious self-discipline if it would make life more ordered.

While it is totally ironic that I’m procrastinating by doing this, I looked up the english word “order” in an English-Latin dictionary. I was actually just looking for the word ordo, ordinis but what I found kind of shocked me. There is a huge list of words! And so many different meanings! Here are a few that I’m thinking about today:
Castigo, Castigare means to reprove, chasten, or punish; to check or restrain. As a participle, castigus, -a, -um, means restrained, orderly and neat.  Because an ordered life means I must restrain and chastise myself for my own benefit.
Modestia, Modestiae not surprisingly gives us the idea of modesty. It means moderation, restraint, propriety, orderliness; respect. Moderation is so often a great sign of respect, isn’t it?
And Ordino, Ordinare means to set in order, arrange, appoint; to govern as a country.  Well all I have is a house and some other little projects. Certainly I can govern just that and succeed, right?

the merry year is born

/ abby hummel

The merry year is born
Like a bright berry from a naked thorn
– Hartley Coleridge

I’m very excited to see what 2011 brings for us. We have plenty of house and yard projects to keep us busy; I am working on some other personal and physical goals and I’m just ready for another year of adventures, achievements and blessing. Last night Aaron and I were saying that it seems like we have had many difficult and some awful experiences, but we are in such a better place as individuals and a couple than last year. We’re anticipating another year of wonderful growth … hopefully it will come from good things and not just challenges! TS Eliot says “to make an end is to make a beginning” and that is exactly how I feel about entering this year.

The big thing to start this year is our plan to avoid spending any unnecessary money for the next 3 months to see how much we can save. The best way I can think of doing this is to eat ourselves out of house and home: eating the food from our freezer cupboards before buying anything else from the store. I’ve been stocking up during sales and Aaron has had great hunting successes, so this might take a while. We’re planning to remodel our kitchen starting at the end of January, so we need to keep saving pennies for that, and it will be easier to handle the heavy construction without random canned goods and cereals all around. Even if they were on a HUGE sale last year.  It seems so very elementary (save on your grocery bills by using what you already have at home) but I am excited about this challenge. Obviously we’ll need produce, dairy products and some lunchmeat, but I am excited to see how long it will take to get through it all – and how low the grocery bills will go.

So here we are! The morning started off with bacon (from our freezer) and eggs (fridge) and now we’re enjoying coffee by the fire. An idyllic New Years day… if only we could guarantee the rest of the year would be as relaxing and rejuvenating! I’ll write about how I’m doing on the more specific goals later. Also, just in case you were wondering, I feel that I am under no compulsion to remove my Christmas decor until Fat Tuesday. FYI. We are very much into the baby Jesus here at the Hummel house.

the weary world rejoices

/ abby hummel / 1 Comment

It’s been a year of weariness for me in many ways, and I have been very comforted by the lyrics of O Holy Night during Advent and Christmas.  Striking lines like “the weary world rejoices / for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn” are sung glibly because we hear them so often, but are still very meaningful. I love that the second verse talks about the King of Kings lying “thus in lowly manger / in all our trials born to be our friend” – Almighty God experiencing humility that he might be a friend and comforter in our trials! The last verse, beginning with “Truly He taught us to love one another,” is such a reminder of how the afflictions of this year have brought a new sense of reliance and companionship in my marriage, too. This has been one of the greatest blessings of the year.

For the 2010 holidays, we were very grateful to have a few short days with both sides of the family during Christmas. I have such a short amount of time off work each year and we have to calculate the vacation hours carefully to make the most of it. There’s always so much to decide between – beyond family visits, there is also the option for time with friends, projects on our house, and adventures with just the two of us! We had great weather for our eight-hour drive and enjoyed some long chats in the car on both ends of a very action-packed trip. Unfortunately we took almost no photos of our own, but my sister got a camera so we have lots of lovely pictures from that part of our trip. Here are a few highlights:

After this next one, my Grandma so politely said “Um, Beth… I think everyone else was trying to look good for this shot.”

Also, in that deer-in-the-woods sculpture (we all want it and tell Grandma to pass it on if she’s ever changing her decor), I just discovered a unicorn.  Who puts a unicorn in the same scene with deer?

My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice
 Ps 34:2

guacamole that launched a thousand ships

/ abby hummel / 1 Comment

Several years ago, I made this guacamole for some college friends who joined me at my parent’s home for Labor Day weekend at the beach… and I will not lie, I was totally trying to impress my crush. You know, I had to show him I was the kind of girl he could really eat dinner with every night for the rest of his life. Well, it worked. Aaron proudly tells our friends that he fell in love with me the night he ate my guacamole and decided then and there that he wanted to marry me. Little did we know there would be several years of dating, deployment, dating, breaking up, dating, proposal, engagement, etc., between here and there, but we are now married and enjoy inhaling guacamole as often as I can justify purchasing avacados. Which, you know, isn’t that difficult.

2 Hass avacados
juice from half a lime – or a 3 squirts from a jar. I won’t tell on you.
1 small clove of garlic, minced – or a teaspoon from a jar. No judgment.
1 scallion, sliced thinly
1 T olive oil

Mash all ingredients together and add 1 small tomato, diced. Enjoy plain with tortilla chips or offer it with salsa and sour cream for an appetizer spread.
I usually mix this up a bit – sometimes I leave out the tomato, use lemon instead of lime, or a dice a leek for the scallion, depending on what I have on hand. You can always use a teeny bit of onion in place of the scallion, just be sure to chop it up really small. Unless you like it spicy, in which case you should totally keep that onion chunky and make the recipe your own!