Baby bird

I would like to interrupt this extended bout of radio silence to show off one of my latest craft projects.

I have been dealing with the morning sickness, worry, fatigue, and joy of pregnancy, and we are official 34 weeks today!

Not quite 34 weeks here, but pretty close.

I've had all sorts of grand plans for baby crafting, but working full time and ding anything other than the few custom orders I've gotten through my Etsy shop. You guys, working full time while knowing that I will have to continue working full time after she's born has been more difficult than I expected it to be.

However, I did have one idea that I was determined to accomplish before little Tillie is born.

Behold!

So cute, right?

I looked and looked and looked for pre-made lower case cardboard letters, and I couldn't find any that I liked.

I made my own by gluing the attached levees if cardboard together, tracing letters I printed out onto the cardboard, and cutting them out with an x-acto knife. 

This was fun because my husband got to panic while I played with a sharp object.

Then I glued each letter to a different piece of fabric, 

folding the fabric around each letter as I glued. That was probably the most frustrating part of the whole process, but I did it!

Once they were dry, I hung them up on the wall using command strips for extra renter friendliness. 

And that's it! I think they turned out really well.

I used them to decorate for an online baby shower friends and family threw for me using Google+ Hangouts. Once I have actual baby furniture for the baby room I'll be able to hang them up semi-permanently.

Yay!

They were delicious, so sweet and so cold

You guys, popsicles are tremendously tasty, especially on a really hot summer day. They are also tremendously full of creepy weird fake colors and flavors. Also, insane amounts of sugar/high fructose corn syrup and/or artificial sweetener. Basically, they're frozen poison on a wooden stick.

SOLUTION: make your own!

You can make your popsicles in paper cups with popsicle sticks or spoons, but it could be much more exciting to buy a popsicle mold!

You guys, I just spent ten minutes looking for a picture of the mold I own rather than get up and take a picture of it. This photo belongs to http://www.sammycakesfun.com.

I chose this mold for three reasons:

1. economy: I think it was only $2

2. nostalgia: we had a set like this when I was a kid

3. usefulness: it catches any drips in a reservoir so you can a) drink the liquid later through a handy attached straw and b) avoid sticky mess all over your hand.

Now, to flavors. Basically, the sky is the limit! Think something is tasty? Freeze it! 

A word of caution: many internet people will tell you that frozen jello is delicious. It is not. You start with frozen jello, and then you just thaw the jello in your mouth, and you're left with weird-textured jello on a stick. No.

These are the popsicles I tried. Other than the jello popsicle. Because, no.

Coffee and vanilla ice cream! Ok, not really healthy. But the ice cream was low sugar and it was SO GOOD. I sort of expected this to be like a fudgesicle, or a creamy ice cream bar. It wasn't. It had a creamy coffee flavor without the creamy texture. I plan to try it again with vanilla almond milk instead of ice cream. I also think unsweetened creamer and coffee would make a refreshing snack if you wanted to be really carb-free.

Some like coffee and some like tea! This is Earl Grey with milk and lemon and honey. I know, I know, it's not supposed to be milk and lemon. I think I would have preferred it more without the milk, but I was after the same deliciousness I found in the coffee popsicle. It would also be delicious to make chai popsicles, green tea popsicles (with ginger or berries!), and maybe herbal tea popsicles. If you like herbal tea...

Greek yogurt and pear! Words of advice include: go heavier on the fruit than you think you'll need to be, and remember that Greek yogurt is particularly stout, so you might want to add a bit of honey if you're not using a tremendously sweet fruit.

Watermelon and lime. Literally, this is all it is. Watermelon and two fresh-squeezed limes. It was tangy and awesome. Also, even though I blended everything together in the blender, the lime separated from the watermelon a little bit, so the very top was mostly lime, which sort of transitioned into lime-infused watermelon farther down. Happy accidents!




The great sadness of this post is that my most favorite popsicle is not pictured. I remember taking pictures of it. I just don't know why those pictures have disappeared. So, here is the recipe:
1. Many frozen berries. I used blackberries, strawberries, and blueberries. You can do what you want.
2. Unsweetened, plain almond milk. Kroger's Simple Truth almond milk because it is the best. Other almond milks do not make nice popsicles. I don't know why, but it is very true.
3. Vanilla. About a teaspoon should do it, but more is not unwelcome. Unless you are one of those crazy people who doesn't like vanilla. 
4. An orange. Peeled, of course. And try to avoid seeds because frozen seed are even more terrible.
Blend it all together until it is a beautiful purpley color, and freeze.



Make popsicles! Tell me what you did and whether or not they were tasty! Experiments: Are they ok?! (Yes-ish.)

The trick to selling hair bows...

...is to never look the buyer in the eye.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/YellowBillBirdie

Etsy Shop

So, I've officially started my Etsy Shop, which I feel super awkward about because of reasons.

So, I'm just going to leave this here and run away.

Yellow Bill Birdie Etsy Shop

Good idea of the day

Use ice cube trays to freeze fruit pieces individually! No clumping, more variety, and epic smoothie-making. Yay!

Reflections on some art

I saw a lot of art while on my Epic DC Trip with Carroll, but I'm actually not going to mention most of it. But while we were there I had a couple of thoughts that seemed vaguely share-able. So here they are. Read them or not.

When looking at early European art, you might notice that there are a whole lot of Jesus pictures. My uneducated and limited observations have led me to believe that these paintings of Jesus depict, by and large, His birth or His death. 

The angels are the best part.

Which, of course, makes me think of the Misty Edwards song: He's not a baby in a manger anymore. He's not a broken man on a cross. He didn't stay in the grave, and He's not staying in heaven forever. But that's not where I'm going with this. One of the biggest problems I had with these paintings at the time was that in every single one, Jesus was white. Of course He was. This isn't a new or revelatory statement. Hundreds of thousands of people have noticed this already; I am merely flogging the dead horse. So I stood there in the art gallery, part of me marveling at some really amazing pieces, and part of me complaining over this horrible inaccuracy. Jesus wasn't white. Jesus wasn't black. He was Jewish. And then the Holy Spirit came and whispered, But He was relatable. Jesus was relatable. I looked closer. In the Italian paintings Jesus looked Italian. In the German paintings Jesus looked German. In the Flemish paintings Jesus looked, well, He actually looked sort of German-Dutch. Which is kind of right, I guess. In any case, to the people that saw these paintings way back in the day, they didn't see a Jesus Who was painted inaccurately, they saw a Jesus Who was relatable. And sure, there was ethnocentricity, and hatred, and racism, and bigotry, and antisemitism. And an appalling lack of attention to historical details. But maybe, somewhere at the beginning, with just one of the artists, someone painted a Man he knew. Someone painted a Man he related to, a Man Who understood him, a Man Who was like him. 

As it says, Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might break the power of him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil--and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels He helps, but Abraham's descendants. For this reason He had to be made fully like them, fully human in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because He himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted. 

And also, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have One Who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet He did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

God isn't relatable. He's awesome and beautiful and majestic and terrifying and so worthy of our love and praise. But He isn't relatable. We can't get to His level. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. But Jesus is relatable. Yes, it's important to know that Jesus was a Jewish man who was born in Judea during the Roman occupation. He looked plain and ordinary and Jewish. (That is important because it is true, and I am in no way trying to justify the racism of the many who believe that goodness and white skin are innately and immutably tied together. That is a godless perspective.) But Jesus is also relatable. Jesus came as a human, lived as a human, died as a human, was resurrected as a human, so that you could see a human walking with God and say, "Oh! That's how." How are you feeling? What are you dealing with? He's been there, He gets it, He knows the way through. And He's still a human, even now. He's a human, sitting at the right hand of God, praying for you. Right now.

From Words Like Sapphires, Library of Congress

One of the displays we visited in the Library of Congress was called Words Like Sapphires. We weren't allowed to take pictures in there, so the above image is from the Library of Congress website. It was a fascinating and beautiful collection, and to top it all, there was a dude in there translating and explaining some of the texts to his young son. I almost died! This being the Library of Congress, much of the display focused on words and the presentation and importance of those words. One of the signs noted that those who practice Judaism refer to themselves as the People of the Book. I thought that was incredibly interesting because the followers of Christ called (and some still call) themselves the People, or Followers, of the Way. (In this example, Paul is talking about how he used to kill the People of the Way.) And the Holy Spirit gave me a glimpse into the symmetry of God's plan, the flow of His activity, the beautiful perfection of His genius. The People of the Book were meant to become the People of the Way. They were given the Word of God spoken and written down. They recorded it and tried to follow it and treasured it, and even when they no longer treasured it or tried to follow it, it remained. And then, The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. And He lived. He walked with God among us, and taught us to walk with God. The Book became the Person Who showed us the Way. And it is no longer enough for us to simply know what the Book said, or even what the Book did. We now must do what He did by the Holy Spirit. Whoever says, "I know Him," but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys His word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must live as Jesus did. 

So, there is that.

The Land

Maybe it's because I grew up looking at farms, or maybe it's because I've called so many different kinds of land home, or maybe it's because of something in me that I haven't understood yet, but the more I see this place, the more I love this place. Even though we haven't met many people, even though we haven't found a church, even though I don't have a job, even though I spend my days weighing productivity versus rest. Being among mountains makes my soul rise up and elevate into the higher places, but being here makes my soul wistful, wild, and wide because this place feels wistful, wild and wide. I feel melancholy, but not sad. I have solitude, but not loneliness. I ache, but it is an ache of joy. And the wind blows. And the flat of the land stretches away to meet the lip of the sky and never arrives. And the people are poor and unhappy. And the  economy is devastated. And there is racism. And there is fear. And there is a God Who is bigger, bigger, bigger. And my soul expands.