I have been making this pasta salad off and on for almost thirty years now, and I can’t remember one single time that someone has eaten it and not asked for the recipe. It’s unique, not your typical pasta with mayonnaise, or pasta-with-Italian-flavors-salad, and the various textures and tastes are just delicious.

It’s called Spicy Grape Pasta Salad, but with everything in it you could call it Angel Hair Chicken Salad with Broccoli and Grapes, Or Asian-flavored Vegetable Salad with Chicken and Cilantro, or a dozen other titles. Whatever you decide to call it, you should make it. I made a quadruple batch of it recently and it was gone in 24 hours. Granted, I served a group, but I heard mmmms and moans and maybe observed a few eye rolls as people were enjoying it.

Spicy Grape Pasta Salad

16 ounces angel hair pasta

2 cups cooked, cubed chicken breast

2 cups red seedless grapes, cut in halves

1-2 sweet red bell peppers, julienned

1 large bunch of broccoli (or asparagus cut into 2 inch pieces), cut in small florets (I steam these over boiling water for a couple minutes and then cool by plunging into cold water – makes them nicer to eat in a salad)

1 cup finely sliced celery

1/2 cup finely sliced green onion

4-6 T. chopped fresh basil or fresh cilantro

Spicy Oriental Dressing (see below)

Cook pasta according to package directions; drain.  Toss pasta with the Spicy Oriental Dressing. Add remaining ingredients; toss and serve.  Store in fridge.

Spicy Oriental Dressing:

Whisk together:

3/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar (must be the seasoned kind)

3 T. vegetable oil

3 T. sesame oil

6 T. soy sauce (I use Kikkoman lower-sodium)

4 heaping Tablespoons grated ginger root (I grate fresh ginger on a microplane, but you can use the ginger in the little jars and tubes found in the produce section too – the result is just as good)

1/2 teaspoon crushed red chilies (the kind found in a spice jar)

2 cloves fresh garlic, finely minced (don’t use garlic powder)

Let me know if you make it!

We have lived in our current house for almost thirteen years now, and time has definitely flown past. Michael died in this home, and that makes this place sacred to me. I didn’t want to move into this house because it wasn’t my style, but we needed to down-size to a one-level home due to Michael’s declining health, and there wasn’t much available in 2012 that would suit our needs, so we bought it.

Since then, I have come to see countless times that God knows what we need even when (or especially when) we don’t.

I. Love. My. Home.

It has been a haven, a gift, a sanctuary, and I thank the Lord for giving this dwelling to me. I ask Him often to help me be a good steward of it.

When we moved in, our goal was just to get settled, get our two foster gals settled in their rooms, and not do any decorating right away. It was a nicely decorated home when we bought it, it just had a spare, Swedish vibe to it. I appreciated it, but it wasn’t us.

Here is a photo of the dining room fireplace the week we moved in. We just put a few things on the mantel to make it look not so bare, and we lived with it like this for a few months.

My daughter Carolyn painted the fireplace for me, and I eventually worked out a pattern to hang my transferware plates above, for a configuration that was unique and fluid-looking. We also had a gas insert installed, and it’s a wonderful thing to press a button and have heat and flame and cheer in our dining room on winter mornings.

This room below was the previous owners’ nursery. Taupe colored walls (I do like taupe) and some dots and mirrors. It’s a smallish room and I knew it would be my office, but being a toile lover and also craving deeper jewel tones in my decorating, I planned to change things after about a year.

The red and cream toile wallpaper and the teal/aqua velvet drapes have never failed to please me all these years later. My office is a place I love to be.

I put a white folding table in here to give me space to do paperwork. And today there are piles of paper, photos on the wall, a little more clutter than I like, but that’s okay.

Each January I write down what it costs to live in this house. It’s paid off, but the taxes are pretty high in my area, so they’re almost like a mortgage payment. I’m sixty-seven now and hire a fine young man to do snow removal and lawn care. Living here is still less expensive than downsizing to a smaller home, because my utility costs are low and I don’t have a house payment. So when the thought comes that perhaps it might be time to move to a lovely senior cooperative building not far from here, or get a house with less square footage, I dismiss that thought pretty quickly. Even though this house is more than I really need, it’s still wise financially to stay here. Honestly, I would like to die in my home, if the Lord would see fit to answer that prayer.

I don’t know why I have a home and so many other people don’t. What little I do to help others is a pittance compared with what God has blessed me with.

And I thank Him in my gratitude journal, in my heart, in my conversations, in my prayers, and here on this little blog… for being so kind and generous with me.

    *         *         *         *         *         *         *

“Where the eyes are fixed, so the heart is. Where you look is where you love.” ~~Ann Voskamp

My middle daughter Carolyn and her husband Jeremy always host a lovely Christmas party at their home. There’s always a sumptuous spread of appetizers and Christmas treats, music, games, and general holiday cheer. I spent the evening visiting and reminiscing with some of my favorite people.

In this post I shared about how so much of my life would not have turned out the way it has without one woman and her family — Yvonne. She is my late husband Michael’s aunt, and the reason he and I (weirdly) met, married, and raised our family in Minnesota.

From left to right: Jenifer (Frank and Yvonne’s youngest daughter), Yvonne, me, Sara (my youngest), and Carolyn.

I’m giving thanks today for the providence of God, in making sure I met this family when I was eighteen years old, completely unaware of the trials that were ahead. They are part of His story of mercy and joy in my life.

I had my first cataract surgery this month and realize now I don’t have greenish gray paint on my bedroom walls. I have warm gray walls, but there is no green in it. There has been a sepia film over my vision from cataracts for years now, but I didn’t know it.

I’m enjoying seeing true colors from the one eye with a clear new toric lens, and look forward to the second surgery so the other eye loses its beige cast.

My distance vision is pretty sharp now, for the first time since I was a little girl, but my close vision requires readers, until I heal from my second surgery and get a new glasses prescription.

That’s all for now — just jumping in to say a quick hello. xoxo

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.

This is a well-known prayer called (in Latin) The Suscipe. It’s pronounced soo-SHEE-pay, and it means “receive.” Some sources say the emphasis is on the first syllable, but the Latin sources say it should be on the second.

This simple prayer of relinquishment was popularized by St. Ignatius of Loyola, and I became aware of it about two years ago. I wrote it in my journal and wept.

I cannot honestly say I dwell in this kind of surrender, but my heart’s desire is to move closer to this each day. Because on my deathbed, I know with certainty that my heart and soul will be crying out, “Give me only your love and your grace, Jesus! That is enough for me!”

Are you familiar with this prayer?

“There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.” ~~~ Jane Austen

I was sitting in my living room this morning listening to the quiet. I looked at this view below and said in my heart, “I love my home.” And I thanked God again for the thousandth time that He has given me a home. When people all over the world don’t have homes, I have one. Why that is so, I have no answers to. I only know that I will not be caught being ungrateful for a sound dwelling where I can sleep in peace, have warmth when it’s cold, prepare food for anyone at my table, read by electric light, and of course pray.

I got up to get water in the kitchen for my 20-ounce navy blue Yeti cup and as I heard the creak of the hardwood floors in the dining room, I thanked God. I realize that I am just a steward of my home, and that it’s God who owns this white house on a corner by Lake Superior in northeastern Minnesota. I paused at the dining room fireplace to take this picture:

It reminded me of a promise I believe He made to me decades ago about a very heavy burden on my heart. Cardinals have become meaningful to me, and my home is filled with them because people have given me cardinal gifts after hearing that story.

My 10 year-old granddaughter Miriam asked me not long ago, “Grandma, how many cardinals do you have in your house?” I encouraged her to count, and while the exact number escapes me this moment, we had a fun time going from room to room and she kept exclaiming, “Oh! Here’s another one! And another!”

Here’s a gift I treasure from my friend Su — it was supposed to be a welcome mat but I don’t want it outside to get dirty and wet — so I put it against the living room carpet in the entry way. I step on it every day and think of her, and love its beauty.

I sat in my bedroom chair an hour later and looked out on Lake Superior, on my quiet little neighborhood filled with older homes with young families in them, I looked at the crows on the power lines and the chickadees almost hidden in my hydrangea bush, and I felt gratitude welling up again. I can actually see these things. I can perceive God’s handiwork and His grace to me so that I can see how He works in this world. Slowly. Reliably. In ebbs and flows. With faithfulness.

When I don’t understand what God is doing, looking long and pondering deeply on all His ways in creation helps me. When I see trees that look dead in the winter, I’m reminded that in a few months, the life and fruitfulness that were hidden in the cold and dark were waiting until the proper time to show themselves.

I took my foster gal to a medical appointment this morning and since it was a blood draw for a future doctor’s visit, we weren’t gone long. Even though we had only driven a couple of miles, waited a few minutes inside the clinic, then driven those same miles home, she said, “It’s good to be home!” when I hit the garage door opener on my car’s visor and we pulled into the garage. She feels it too. She knows God has been so generous with us and we have a warm and cozy place to live out our lives.

Like most people who get to the end part of their lives, I think about dying. I wouldn’t say I’m afraid, but I’m sobered by wanting to be ready. I want all the words and love I have for my daughters and grandchildren and friends to be said, and I’m not doing as well as I’d like. I want everything to be in order… not just my “affairs”, but my heart and soul and relationships. I want to know the voice of Jesus and love Him truly. I have absolutely placed my trust in Christ and have no hope of anything good apart from Him. But I know there are things He still wants to do in my life. In this home.

I would like to die in this home He’s given me, and I have asked Him to grant me that. With my loved ones around me. With songs of His love and greatness in my ears. With nothing left undone.

Today, in the quiet, in the jewel-tones everywhere, in the warmth blowing out of the registers, in the company of cardinals, I thank Him.

From my home to yours,

Hello friends. I thought I would share a little something with you that I absolutely love. It’s called The Pause App, and is available for iPhones or Android phones. It’s put out by Wild at Heart Ministries, and John and Stasi Eldredge.

I love why they built this app — it’s for people who struggle to slow down to truly connect with God. The app has what they call one minute pauses, and it has three minute pauses and longer pauses too. There are different focuses you can check out. I am in the middle of the series on resilience and love it.

I have two notifications set on my iPhone, one in the mid-morning and one in the mid-afternoon, to remind me to take a one minute pause, or sometimes a three minute pause, to breathe deeply, turn my heart and mind to God, and ask Him to fill me and help me again.

I realize we don’t need an app on our phones to help us do this, but I have found this one so helpful. Soothing, hopeful, powerful, peaceful, recalibrating.

I am very fond of two apps on my phone (the other one being Hallow), and this is one. I recommend it to you. (There are other apps called Pause, so make sure you use the one that looks like the one at left.) Download it, set up a notification or two, and use it for at least a month. There have been many times I’ve ignored the notifications because I’m in the middle of something, and that’s okay. Just use it as often as you can, and see what you think.

I think it would be fantastic for young people too. It’s an antidote to anxiety, it helps us surrender ourselves to Jesus again and again, and prompts us to remember we are in His presence, loved and cared for by Him more than we can imagine, and we do not have to live at the pace the world wants us to.

Let me know if you try it.

Blessings,

She goes over the whole house in her mind again. The yellow stucco, the white trim, the half circle driveway out front. Her tiny self standing out there and looking south to the rolling gold hills in the distance, and listening for the call of the peacocks. Heelllp. Heelllp. 

She goes back to the small galley kitchen at the front of the house, with a Formica covered table at one end, and the red vinyl banquette behind the table, a novelty to her which she called a booth, the cookie jar on the tiled counter with Nabisco Ideal cookies piled inside, the colored aluminum drinking glasses that gave a metallic taste to the water from the slowly dripping faucet.

She can see the good sized but narrow feet in the sturdy flesh colored sandals, anklet socks neatly turned down, and the stout but long calves above that, and the hem of the flowered cotton house dress above that, standing in front of the gleaming gas range. There is stirring going on, and savory smells she can’t bring to mind now because at that age she hardly ate the things others ate. Eggs, vegetables, pizza, soup, gravy and potatoes, almonds, apricots. All were impossible for her. She ate white rice with butter, Cheerios with whole milk and a spoonful of sugar, Skippy peanut butter and Welch’s grape jelly sandwiches on white Wonder bread, plain hamburgers “meat and bun only,” and Abba Zabba candy bars she bought for ten cents at the liquor store in front of Denel’s house. She would have a small salad if the lettuce was iceberg and the dressing was Wishbone Italian.

On the other side of the kitchen wall was the living room, with colonial style furniture, all arranged so the couple who lowered their bottoms down into the deep chairs and the divan with a sigh could see the television. Ed Sullivan. The Wonderful World of Disney. Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom with Marlin Perkins.

There was a corner used-brick fireplace near the large cabinet television, where no fires were ever lit, and a many-spindled maple dining room set neatly pushed up against the far wall of the living room. A large painting of three little girls gathered together reading a book was hung over the divan. She liked being in this house, liked walking around and taking note of things, even though she was mostly invisible when she was there.

In the entry hall closet, which hid a vacuum and a few hanging coats, she always took out the inflatable Peter Rabbit, which was weighted at the bottom and stood taller than she, the single toy in the house that was a punching bag of sorts. It was dark blue, red and pale yellow, and she would give it a few whacks and smile when it righted itself and wobbled until it was still and waiting again.

She can see herself walking down the hallway to the three bedroom and two bathroom part of the house, in white shorts with cuffs, a white knit short-sleeved top, and bare feet. Her strawberry hair is shoulder length and parted on the side, and has the remnant of a pageboy curl at the ends, something her mother created with pink sponge rollers after a night time bath.

One of the small bedrooms had a gold colored vinyl sleeper couch in it and a desk. It had held her crib when she was brought home from Inter-Community Hospital to this house on Delay Avenue. Before her grandparents had moved here from Kansas and bought the house from her parents.

She looks in the door of the second bedroom, which used to be her two older brothers’ room. It has a double bed, a tall maple dresser and matching vanity and nightstand, and she sees the hardwood floors and the spareness of the room as she passes.

Across the hall to the back of the house, she sees the room she was always drawn to the most. Two twin beds with rich mahogany head and foot boards, white chenille bedspreads perfectly made, and three other pieces. A tall, dark dresser, curved at the front, all the drawers stacked in elegant symmetrical unison, a shorter, wider dresser with a huge mirror affixed at the back and twelve graceful drawers, and a single prim nightstand that divided the two twin beds. Years later she met a furniture expert who looked at this mahogany set in her guest room upstairs and said, “Ooohhh, that’s probably a Drexel.” The expert pulled out one drawer, saw the confirming stamp on the side, and said, “Even in this condition you could get $10,000, easy.”

She closes her eyes and continues, tip-toeing around the bedroom, turning the key on the side of the nightstand lamp, on, off, on, off, so she can see the two china globes light so delicately, taking their turns. She was never much interested in what was in all the drawers. The tour around the house, quietly conducted for such a little girl (whose award years later from her Girl Scout troop leaders was a defining ribbon that read, “Perpetual Motion”) always led to the Japanese jewelry box on the long dresser. The outside was black lacquer, the inside had little portions lined with red satin. It had been a gift from her father to his mother-in-law, her grandmother, when he was serving in WW II as Lt. Commander of the USS Magoffin.

She stands in front of the dresser and reverently lifts the middle lid of the box, listening to the mournful tune that plays, and each tinkly note is still sharp and clear in her memory, over half a century later.

She sees herself close the jewelry box, then walk through the house to the kitchen back door, which led to an attached screened porch on the side of the house. A clean cement slab made the floor, the slanted roof was aluminum, which was so loud and comforting in the rain, and there were metal rocking chairs and a dark red stained cedar patio table along the perimeter of the porch. Mr. Clean, a yellow canary who sang and trilled and couldn’t stay out of his water dish, lived in a cage on the cedar table. She would sit close and say bird things to him, loving how he cocked his head at her and jumped from perch to perch.

Since this going back in her memory is a sunny day, she steps out of the porch onto the pink, porous cement block her grandfather has placed beneath the screen door, into the small back yard. There’s a tall, shady tree close to the house, a rose garden with pale pink and yellow wide blooms she pushes her nose into, and some common bladed grass, rather than the springy dichondra lawn her parents had opted for at their new house.

She can hear the clatter of dishes being set on the kitchen table. The conversation of her parents and grandparents inside. She doesn’t know why her brothers aren’t there.

She was never invited to spend the night there. There was no sitting on a squishy lap for the reading of a book. She doesn’t remember being asked even one question (How is school going? What books have you read lately? Would you like to help me bake cookies?) or looked upon with delight. She knows they cared, but whether or not they loved has never been firmly established. They came from a different generation of course.

A screech coming from the dining room breaks her reverie and she’s back in her own home, knows her periwinkle colored parakeet, Phoebe, wants a morning greeting and a new stem of millet. She looks around her at the antique mahogany Drexel bedroom set now in her own home these sixty years later, and hums the tune from the jewelry box, long gone.

She has been told lately that she is cold and dismissive, that she is unable to make good human connection or change for the better. She has gone back to rake through the bits to see why this might be, what molds she was poured into that have shaped and hardened into what she is today.

She gleans no shiny treasures that would make her cry, “Aha!”

Except perhaps, just one.

It was in this yellow stucco house on Delay Avenue that she was clothed in a frilly dress and black patent leather Mary Janes. Her own lacy anklets were cuffed perfectly. Her hair brushed while she whined. From this circle driveway, the 1957 Buick LeSabre station wagon carried her off to Sunday School when she was three years old. She was taken into the pretty church, introduced to the warm and loving middle-aged teachers, and then her father drove home, returning to pick her up two hours later.

And this verse comes to her mind.

Philippians 1:6 – And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

She takes the gem and moves it in the light.

“A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on himself. He himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other.”

~~C. S. Lewis