Everything's better with...grass-fed butter?

It's been a lil' bit since I've written...I've been busy with school and preparing for a gig I had on Friday night for a business function.  My friend Kathy accompanied me on the piano as I sang. Now I wouldn't consider myself a gadget girl, BUT I have to admit that my new favorite thing was Kathy's amazing, studio-quality microphone that she let me borrow.  It not only made me look like a super swanky chic, but it also had great sound quality! Sigh...how I love sangin'  :-)

I've been changing the look of my blog...a lot lately.  I'm still under construction.  For now, I've gone with the broken old piano...because of the whole Band Wagon theme...and 'cause I like playin' piano (almost as much as I like sangin')...and also because the keys on the piano reminded me of the different seasons of my life journey thus far....some crooked keys, some nicely-aligned ones, and some that were just.....straight up broke. Actually...I changed it AGAIN, because I fell in love....with a blue piano :) I like to think of my story as a Jazz or Blues melody.  Some jazz chords, when played outside of the context of a song, can seem dissonant or jarring...but within a song, they have the ability to weave a lovely melodic design. So maybe I'll keep this canvas for my blog...(at least for a week or so)...as I write my notes along the way and God weaves my life's design into a sweet melody...

So....about BUTTER.





I have been reading about how great butter (from grass-fed cows) can be for our brain health. I came across this website about the benefits of the healthy fats in this type of butter and how yummy it is when blended with some toxin-free coffee...and I decided to try it out for myself. Julie...girl you crazy! I know it sounds strange but just think of how it seemed to the first person who discovered that pineapple on pizza was, ahem, at least in my opinion....amaaaazing

My Recipe? 

• 1 tbsp of UNSALTED, grass-fed butter (Kerry Gold is a good brand you can find at Trader Joe's) JULIE WHAT? GIRL you have GOT to be kiddin' me....a whole TABLESPOON of butter!? But that's so much FAT!! Well...I would actually attribute the "low-fat-fakey-chemically" diet as the true culprit that has been making Americans fatter over the years...so yea...lets take the ancient paths and PUT SOME BUTTAH IN IT!!! ;-)
• 1 tbsp of organic, unrefined coconut oil (because coconut oil is SO good for you too) WHEW GIRL...now you just gotta be playin'...all that SAT-U-RATED fat...uh-uh, NO way. Oh dear, well you see, certain types of saturated fats are actually very good for you...its them nasty ol' trans fats, and hydrogenated oils that mess with yo' body in a bad way.  So be free, and SAT-U-RATE yo'self in some good fat. 
• 1 - 2 cups of coffee (depending on how much you usually drink or how black you like it)
• I sweeten it with stevia
• blend in a blender that can handle hot stuff, or with a nifty hand-held blender like the one below....until frothy

Why grass-fed butter? Here's a motto: "Eat happy things that ate healthy things" Happy cows = ones that ate healthy grass... as they were created to do. Their poor little tummies weren't made to digest corn :-/

OK, well I'm anticipating the cuteness of my blog to rise about 100% soon, because my niece (Josie, 1) and nephew (Landon, 4) are coming to town this week!  So, if you're not down with butter...or coffee...or blending them together, I understand....BUT, if you are not down with pictures of the cutest lil' niece and nephew in the world..... well then no comprendo, my friendo.

Mucho Amor. 

Blogger's block prohibited

If there's anyone out there who is still reading...you can probably tell that I've had a bad case of blogger's block lately.

It's not that there has been a lack of things to write about, but every time I sat down to type...I just couldn't.

I'm not gonna lie...I've been a little down...but I'm learning that in times like these...underneath all of the rubble.... gratefulness is just below the surface.  Well, it may take a bulldozer to get to it, but I'm willing to dig to find it.  Sometimes you just gotta start with the "small stuff," which is actually...usually the pretty amazing stuff...that we tend to take for granted...
I am thankful that I have all of my limbs and a functioning brain (a mostly functioning brain ;-)  I'm thankful for air to breath and water to drink. I'm thankful I have God and people who love me.  I'm thankful that I live by a river....
The other day, while driving, I noticed a neat bridge over the Delaware so I pulled over to get out and walk across.




I hadn't been there 4 seconds before I was bombarded with signs prohibiting me to do...most things!
Ever notice how we only see signs of what NOT to do?
Like at a museum: Do not touch
A pool: Do not dive
A zoo: Do not feed the animals


....I know, I get it- safety first...but I'd still like to see a place where you are bombarded with signs that tell you all of the things you CAN do!  

So in respect, while walking over the bridge, I did NOT... fish, loiter, jump off, swim... ride my bike or moped....

Then when I got to the park across the bridge, I made sure NOT to.... consume alcohol, unleash anyone's dog, park my car...anywhere, do any metal detecting, litter, or start any fires...in non-picnic areas (I guess one could argue that setting fire to the picnic areas is fair game? ;-)

Because I saw no signs prohibiting the following- I DID.....

Make a hair weave out of leaves: A leave weave...Lady Gaga hasn't even heard of these yet!

Cook sticks on the grill...because I had no steaks...

Find a scarecrow doing yard work in Pearls....

       I posed with her...she was sort of shy and opted out of the pose... (wow...this is scary - I need friends...;-)

Then I busted some moves on a park bench.....Yep, someone totally rode by me on their bike as I was taking a photo of myself doing this.  I shook it off and hid behind my aviators.  Lately I have been wanting to move somewhere else..."What Julie? You don't enjoy being 27 and living in a 55-and-over?" Nope....that is one of the reasons I've been bulldozing for gratefulness ;-) Truthfully, I am grateful that my parents took me in after a very difficult season in Georgia.  I was working as a House Mother in a shelter for women coming out of Human Trafficking and when I think about what they had to go through....my bulldozing for gratefulness  turns into digging with a toy shovel in a sandbox to find it.  I miss those ladies.  Some of the most brave women I have ever met.  Maybe I'll write about my experience there soon.  

I'm grateful to express myself in this blog....and for aviators to hide behind when expressing myself means making a fool of myself on a park bench :-)

Much Love.

My extraordinary inner-life

Isn't it amazing how you can put everyday, ordinary pictures to music and make life seem.... extraordinary.
My Dad has always done videography as a side-hobby, so I know first-hand about what this is like.... and some of the pictures make you think life is extraordianrily.....embarrassing!  I'm not ready to unveil those photos to the blogosphere...yet.

I've had moments, walking around, where it seemed like there was music in the air, or that I was actually watching my life, as on a movie-screen, from outside my body or something, because things just felt....special for some reason.  When I was a kid...the mundane of life - as it may have seemed from the outside- was actually an epic adventure on the inside...the swimming pool was an ocean (and I was a mermaid, of course), the garden my Dad helped me plant in the woods by the house was my, "secret garden," just like in the movie.  And....

I danced with my door....

Julie...seriously?....Yes. Its embarrassing, but I would pretend that the door was a boy....a prince...and I would hold the door handle like it was his hand and I'd sway the door back and forth as if we were dancing....me and the door of my heart.  I know....it sounds WAY cheesy, but if that was your little girl dancing with a door, you know you would video that and put it to music....making it extraordinary, and cute :-) Don't worry, I've given up dancing with doors and have danced with real boys since then....no princes though.

I'm the youngest of four.  Three older brothers and me...the little lady.

I was actually very much of a lady when I was a little bitty thing.  My Mom said I would only wear "spinny" dresses, tights, and "sam and libby" shoes.  The only thing that didn't qualify me as total lady were my haircuts.  Seriously...I didn't have ONE attractive haircut as a kid.

My Dad recently framed a picture of a little girl looking into her mirror and seeing Snow White in her reflection.  It hung in my room when I was a little girl and I had a Snow White dress, just like hers in the picture.  The only photo he could find of me wearing the dress was a family photo we had taken when I was probably about 5.  I told my Mom that I thought it was way cool of her to let me wear my snow white dress for our professional family photo.  I'm sure that I totally thought I was her...I was probably thinking...look at me, a princess with all of these commoners wanting to have their picture with me...that was on the inside; on the outside, I was just a little girl with a mullet haircut in a princess costume.     

My Dad blurred out the rest of the family so he could zoom in on me, my lovely dress,
my Mom, and great Granny....and, if you look closely.... my mullet

I also had an imaginary friend named, Jimmy Tootie.  I should devote an entire blog just to him...but just to give you a sneak peak about my invisible buddy, he wore green polka-dot tights (I guess I was watching a lot of Peter Pan when Jimmy came into my life ;-) He had long brown hair, and lived in a humungous bird's nest on the branch of a tree.  What? You think I  made him up!?  Well then how do you explain how I got the chocolates and Valentines from him in college?

...ok, so maybe my brother's sent them and signed it, "I'll always love you. Love, James Thomas" (My brother, Jeff, decided that the grown-up version of Jimmy Tootie should be James Thomas).... I have to admit, when I first opened the card...I might have wondered a little bit...ya know the same feeling you get when you are sort of questioning the whole Santa Claus thing, but then when you see the plate of half-eaten cookies and the empty glass of milk in the morning....part of you wonders ;-)  Its like that....except that I was in college, and perfectly capable of understanding these things...a psychology major no less - good thing I never shared any tidbits about my little friend with any of my Professor's...


Faith like a child...its such a beautiful thing....when you are a child.  After that, it tends to be defined as, insane.  But the biblical definition of Faith is like that....a little insane- believing in things unseen.  We all have faith in something, its just that our un-cool, grown-up brains are "too mature for such silliness."  So, instead, we watch movies about people who dare to believe in such things because we long to let ourselves believe like we did as kids.

The other day I went to lunch with my friend, Janet.  We were laughing because they gave her coffee in a Tazzmanian Devil mug and her personality couldn't be more opposite than that.  Then they brought mine in a princess mug...with all of the Disney Princesses on it!  I'd like to think God was trying to tell me something....well the boring grown-up part of me didn't, but that little girl in the snow-white dress did!  She's still alive and kickin' somewhere in there and I should probably let her out every once upon a time :-)

I've learned a lot from my Mom, but today I'm going to go with this lesson: If your baby girl wants to wear her princess costume in the family picture....by all means - encourage such behavior!

..didn't sleep, but I made breakfast!

In the words of Bobby Lewis.....

Honestly, not a wink.  I feel like a Mama who's stayed up with baby....accept I ain't got no baby....or like someone who works the night shift at the Waffle House....nope, I have neither the excuse that there is a little one depending on me to live, or that I feed people waffles and grits in the wee hours of the morning.....I just could not sleep.  So because I feel inspired by the spirit of them hard workin' Waffle House ladies.... I'm 'bout to make me some eggs.

I rarely ever eat breakfast....but I am a HUGE advocate for breakfast eating, and today, I am gonna walk my talk :-)  I got these eggs at the farm around the corner, and the first time I pulled into their driveway, I almost ran over a chicken! They ain't lyin' when they call 'em free range. I've apparently taken on ain't and other slang phrases as acceptable words for this blog today...

I just came up with a new joke:
"Why did the chicken cross the road?"
....'cause that chicken was FREE RANGE!
Oh man...I can tell I'm probably going to later regret the sheer corniness of this sleepless-night, early-morning blog :-/

My Mom and I used to lay upside down on the couch with our heads hanging off because we heard, somewhere, that if you do that for 5 minutes, it has the same effect on your body as a 30-minute power nap.....I'm skeptical, but not above trying it now, before I have to head to class ;-)

Much love and farm-fresh eggs,
Julie
p.s. Don't ya just love oldies music?  Its the best.  If you are having a rough day, and someone puts oldies on...how can you not at least smile, right? I've always wished that I lived back then...when times were simpler and all the chickens roamed free :-)

one day at a time.

That is what we say when we don't know what else to say, "Just take it one day at a time." When someone is sick with cancer, someone looses a spouse or a child...or is going through any difficult season...
Even though, many times, this is just our default answer, it is true, nonetheless.  More accurately it could be, "Just take it one millisecond at a time," because in reality, that is all we have- this millisecond.

It's always been challenging for me to live in the moment because I tend to be a "big picture" person.
but...
I would like to understand what it is to be sustained daily...I mean, I know that I am being sustained because God is giving me breath in my lungs, but I don't know that I remember that most of the time.  We may think, sometimes, that we are invincible, but in reality, we are so very fragile.  The intricate way in which our bodies even function or survive is miraculous in itself.

I have thought about this recently as I recover from my long battle with an eating disorder.  I have put such a strain on my body, especially my heart, and there is nothing different or miraculous that I have done to sustain myself, that would cause me to still be here... when so many others are not.  About six months ago, I came across the website, www.somedaymelissa.com - I'm not even sure how I found it.  Melissa died at age 19, from a heart attack - brought on by her bulimia. She had always dreamed of being a filmmaker, and in her memory, her Mother and Counselor made a documentary called, "Someday Melissa." After purchasing and watching the documentary on my birthday, I realized that, beyond sharing the same struggle, Melissa and I share the same birthday, we both have a brother named Andrew, and she actually only lived less than two hours away from where I do. I had the honor of meeting Melissa's mother at a showing of the film at a college about 15 minutes from here.  Though nothing could fill the void in her heart from loosing her daughter, she told me that it was healing for her to know that Melissa's story was making a difference in at least one life.

Here is a short trailer for the Someday Melissa documentary:

Whether you subscribe to it being God or not- something is sustaining us.  I believe that something is God.  I mean.... I believe its the oxygen that we breath in, the water that we drink, and the food that we ingest, but something is holding this whole thing together.  I mean... I believe its gravity, the earth's rotation, the sun, moon, and stars, but something is allowing this all to continue...right?

I'm not trying to evangelize anyone or get into a creation vs. evolution quarrel :-) I'm just thinking out loud....typing out loud.

I don't know that I, honestly, have enough ability to trust for the next....ten years, five years, week, or even the next day...but I think I can commit to trusting that God will sustain me for this millisecond, and that His grace is enough.

One of my brother's, Andrew, is going to sign us up for a 5k in Brooklyn and I know I couldn't commit to it if it was a marathon....or even a half-marathon....I'm not even sure I'm ready to think of the whole 3.1 measly miles that is the 5k...but I think I can commit to the first step...and then the next, when it comes - because that's all I know I have anyway. Right now.

Sending my love to you... in this millisecond,
Julie

Ordinary evenings

I'd like to say that every day is an adventure to blog about, but some days are just filled with the sweet, familiar ordinary. Last night I went on a spontaneous bike ride.  It was going to be great...I just got my bike fixed and I was going to ride along the trail...between the canal and the river (one of my favorite spots to bike ride)....

 The sun was setting, the weather was nice, and when I got down to the river, I was suddenly surrounded by friends....well, that would have been great, but really they were un-wanted friends....gnats....a bazillion of them - seriously one ba-zillion of them.  I had wondered why there were barely any runners or bike-riders on the trail on such a lovely evening...I decided to tough it out and deal with the gnats because look, it was so pretty out:

I literally rode the whole way with one hand steering the bike and the other covering my face and swatting at the little guys as they flew straight into my mouth and eyes....which sorta ruined my scenic route.  I rode pretty far down the trail, then decided to turn back because I thought maybe they wouldn't be so bad if I rode away from the water.  So I made my way back to town and came across this little carnival....and the SCARIEST RIDE IN THE WORLD.  I used to be able to ride all kinds of roller coasters and carnival rides....no problem...so brave, but NEVER the pirate ship ride.  I remember riding it once and laying in my bed that night feeling like I was still swaying back and forth....I don't know why, but I just can't take this ride...I'd rather bungie-jump, or even skydive, than ride the dreaded swinging pirate ship!

yikes...my stomach jumps just looking at it!

I sang at Ladies Night - with my dear friend, Kathy - at church tonight and when I came home, I was so hungry.  When I saw the pizza stone in the sink, I was hoping there would be some leftovers for me. I was delighted when I opened the fridge to find two pieces of pizza with these sticky notes on them:

"Mushroom and Onion"

"you don't want this"

My parents had been kind enough to warn me not to eat the piece that, I'm sure, my Dad piled with anchovies and God knows what other kinds of little hairy fish!!! It made me laugh a little that they labeled it, "you don't want this," instead of just "anchovies" :-)



I like to be old-fashioned and my Grandmother told me that, back then, they used to tie their hair in rags and sleep in them for a nice, wavy look in the morning!  I decided to try an updated version of this...with socks.  I saw it on youtube (which is not so old-fashioned :-) You just tie your wet hair up in socks, sleep on it, untie the socks, take them out...and vuwalah....perfect hairdo....right? not so much.
Sometimes it turns out more like Medusa snake hair :-/

I was trying to take a picture to show you my crazy Tina Turner, sock hair.... after I cropped out the rest of the frizzy nest, and then changed it to black and white...I felt artsy so I thought I'd share my wannabe artsy-ness with you....

I call it Cousin It: a self portrait :-)

Well, don't worry - I'm fully expecting the next few days to be an UNBELIEVABLE adventure of AMAZING, blog-worthy experiences....If not, then I guess I'll have to video myself sky-diving or something...oh gosh OR I could make a promise to document myself riding the dreaded pirate ship if nothing else incredible happens?
Oh Lord, please...please send something.

Much love and ordinary evenings,
Julie

love and duty

I'm going to try and make this a shorter blog because I really want you to take the time to watch the clip below (about 9 minutes).

I watched a movie today and there was a quote from it that stuck out to me.
A Nun was speaking to a woman who said that she was staying with her husband, who was a Doctor overseas in the middle of an epidemic outbreak of Cholera, because it was her duty.
This was the Nun's response:

"...I fell in love when I was 17....with God....a foolish girl with romantic notions about the life of a religious...but my love was passionate.  Over the years, my feelings have changed....He's disappointed me, ignored me.  We've settled in to a relationship of peaceful indifference...the old husband and wife who sit side by side on the sofa but rarely speak.  He knows I will never leave Him- this is my duty, but when love and duty are one, then grace is within you."  

I loved her honesty.
Maybe some of you are not as flawed as me and have never felt disappointed or ignored by God...but I have, and King David did....and lots of others too.  Loving God is not a matter of perfection, but a matter of sincerely flawed, human devotion and a God who keeps His vows.

Being a foolish, romantic girl myself, the thought of, "peaceful indifference," that the nun describes, makes me ill- but I get it.  Life can easily come to this.  Relationship with God can easily come to this...but I have to believe that, though my devotion can sometimes be fleeting, He is not indifferent about me.

Then, I opened my email and saw that a friend had sent me the link to this clip, (you may have seen it on facebook already, but for those of you who are not connected to the social network...like myself...here it is :-)

I cried from beginning to end at this display of the faithful love of God. This made me think even more about the Nun's quote because Larissa really seemed to embody the picture of both duty and love...and I imagine that the only way she would have the ability to love this way is through the grace within her...that comes from God.

"He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord"