Miriam, Ruth, Esther...

In this past week of Advent, we've read the stories of both Miriam and Ruth. ...and coming up this week, we have the story of Esther. I am surprised by the number of Jesse Tree outlines that do not include the stories of these women. Ruth and Esther have entire books of the Bible that bear their names, yet they tend to be neglected in the telling of the redemption story. (Though, since we celebrate the Biblical holidays, Esther gets an entire holiday, and we read the story of Miriam at Passover. Sooooo...)  Here are the books we like to read about these women for our Advent Jesse Tree.

Miriam's Cup by Fran Manushkin:

It's important to note that there's no sugar coating on this story. We read about the Pharoah having all the Hebrew boy babies killed. So, if your children are small or sensitive, it might be best to wait on this version of the story.

Ruth and Naomi by Jean Marzollo:

Quite to opposite of the Miriam book, this one is written for the very young. In fact, this year, we opted to also read the book of Ruth from the Bible (only 4 chapters) to fill out the story for us.

Queen Esther The Morning Star by Mordecai Gerstein:

Again, this one is not a sugar-coated story. Pre-reading may help you filter out whatever you want to skip for the very young children.

Noah's Ark

It's the 3rd day of Advent and time to remember the story of Noah. Our favorite picture book that tells this story is Noah's Ark by Jerry Pinkney. The illustrations in the book remain some of our very favorite. Mane was delighted to learn that the book was published the year she was born and that the author/illustrator lives in New York!

Advent/Jesse Tree 2014 - the short(er) version

A few years back, I wrote and wrote and wrote...and wrote...about our Advent/Jesse tree traditions and posted a week by week plan of possibilities for celebrating Advent. This year I want to gather it all up into something more concise. Sooooo...this post is going to contain the master lists and basic information.

 Advent always begins four Sundays before Christmas. If Christmas is on a Sunday, this would be the 5th Sunday. Advent means "coming," and during the season of Advent we remember the coming of Yeshua, the Messiah. Our family uses a Jesse Tree to remember and tell the story from Creation to the birth of Yeshua. For each day of Advent we remember one person or story from the Biblical genealogy, and we hang a symbol of that person or story on our Jesse Tree. We also use an Advent wreath with four candles in a circle and a 5th candle in the middle to mark time as we pass through the Advent season. Each Sunday we light a new candle. On Christmas we light the 5th candle. Here is the meaning for each candle:

First Week - Hope
Second Week - Peace
Third Week - Joy
Fourth Week - Love
Christmas Candle - Yeshua

It is traditional for the Hope, Peace, and Love candles to be purple, for the Joy candle to be pink, and for the Christmas Candle to be white. In our home, we don't always use the traditional colors, but we do distinguish the Joy candle from the rest. We have used the same white Christmas Candle for many, many years since it only burns for a short time on Christmas morning.

And here is our list of stories for our Jesse Tree and the symbol we use for each story. The longest possible length for Advent is 29 days. So, we have 29 possible stories/people/ideas to cover during Advent. Many years, Advent is shorter. On shorter years we combine stories. If you look through the list, you'll see that many of the final symbols are part of the relatively short story of the birth of Jesus (Mary, Joseph, Travel to Bethlehem, Angels, Shepherds, & Wise Men) and can easily be combined into one day or spread out over several.

1. What is a Jesse Tree? (Isaiah 11:1) -  Tree
2. Creation - World
3. The Fall - Apple
4. Noah - Ark
5. Abraham - Camel
6. Isaac - Ram
7. Jacob - Ladder
8. Joseph - Coat 
9. Miriam/Exodus story - Music Notes
10. Moses/Mount Sinai - Stone Tablets
11. Joshua - Trumpet
12. Ruth - Sheaves of Grain
13. Samuel - Lamp
14. David - Harp
15. Solomon - Crown
16. Elijah - Raven
17. Elisha - Dove
18. Isaiah - Scroll
19. Jeremiah - Teardrop 
20. Esther - Scepter
21. Nehemiah - Cup
22. Zachariah & Elizabeth - Pencil and/or Mother & Child
23. Mary - Lily
24. Joseph - Hammer
25. John the Baptist - Seashell
26. Travel to Bethlehem - Donkey
27. Birth a Jesus - Baby in a Manger
28. Angels & Shepherds - Angel & Staff
29. Wise Men - Star

Stories/People we have included from time to time, but aren't on our official list for this year:

• Gideon - Clay Water Pitcher
• Deborah - Palm Tree
• Jonah - Whale
• Daniel - Lion
• Micah - City of Bethlehem
• Hezekiah - Empty Tent
• Habakkuk - Stone Watch Tower
• Nehemiah - City Wall

When Mane was little, we covered most of the Jesse Tree stories by simply reading them out of a Children's Bible. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that. Over the years, we've collected some lovely picture books that tell some of the individual stories, and we read these instead. (Many of these can be found by clicking the appropriate label in the sidebar.)

Happy Advent!

Counting Gifts again...for Thanksgiving

Last year we started the tradition of writing gifts/gratitudes on decorated squares of paper throughout the month of November and dropping them in a jar. At the end of the season, we hole-punched the papers and put them on a ring. We hung it from a hook on our mantle all year. We've got the jar back out this month again, and we're counting our gifts again.

Pastor Healy preached a sermon recently about keeping our oil lamps full...about paying attention to what fills the lamp so that, at a moment's notice, we are ready. We are never left dry and empty. We don't leave the house without it. We don't put it off until later. I was reminded of all the time I spent counting One Thousand Gifts over the past years. And this, I think, is how we receive oil for our lamps: through gratitude, which, in turn, brings joy. It fills our hearts. Our cups overflow with "the oil of joy."

Restoring the Vitamix 3600 - Plug the spigot, replace the seal...

I bought a VITA-MIX 3600 from someone on Craig's list yesterday, and I am so very excited! We LOVE the stainless steel container and the old-fashioned-looking base.

Before we could use it, though, it needed a little maintenance. Since Vitamix no longer carries replacement parts for the 3600, it also required a little innovation.

We took apart the blade assembly in order to clean and oil the parts and make the blade spin smoothly...

(We also accidentally took apart the motor and put it back together...but we're not going to talk about that here...or anywhere...probably ever.)

The stainless steel canisters have a spigot in the side, like this:

But I am not a fan of the spigot. It seems like a really great place to trap food and grow bacteria. Yuck. So, we took off the spigot, and I went to my local hardware store this morning and asked how I might close the hole.  They sold me this solution:

That's two washers (1.25") and two neoprene gaskets held together with a a washer and a lock nut.

Finally, the rubber seal around the dome was aged, cracking, and...well...gross. I saw that I could buy replacements on ebay (since, again, Vitamix no longer supports this product), but I was in a bit of a hurry to get to use my new blender. So, I went to the grocery store, found a lock & seal type container, took out the seal, and found that it fit in my blender dome! Yay!

Old seal to the left, Hefty Clip Fresh container seal on the right.

Ta-Da! Dome with new, clean seal!

And we made our first smoothie! This blender is so quiet compared to our previous blender, and it did a great job!!

Later we made squash & sausage soup from the squash Vespera brought us. LOVE autumn soups!

Cultural Identity

What do you consider your cultural or ethnic identity? What traits or practices do you associate with that identity? Are there things you would like to do to enhance that part of who you are?

I chose this blog prompt because it's hard for me. And because it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. Do all parents begin to feel that their time is so limited with their children and there are still so many things they want their children to know and learn? Mane is in 7th grade. She's 12. And already I am beginning to feel that my time with her is stretching thin. I have only so many years left. There's so much I want to squeeze into our lives, into her learning. I remember that when we got married, Mango's mother warned me that she wasn't finished with him yet. She wasn't prepared for him to marry so young, and she was still parenting.

One of the things I want Mane to have is a sense of cultural identity, as sense of where she comes from and who she is. I think this is an essential human need - to know our place in the world. I find that many families I know struggle with a lack of cultural identity, in particular those families who have no recent immigrants. We look at the more recent immigrants around us and long for what they have - foods, traditions, clothing, holidays that define who they are as a people. Perhaps, though, our ideas of cultural and ethnic identity simply need some expanding.

Ethnically, I am primarily German and Swedish (with a little Irish, Dutch, Swiss, and Prussian for good measure). Very little of those ethnic cultures have come to me through my family, other than a stubborn German/Irish temperament, and, perhaps, a Swedish love of the dark nights of winter, wool sweaters and candles. I love the Swedish Christmas goats and Dala horses, chocolate from Switzerland, and the music of the Irish.

As a cross-cultural family, we're also part Mexican. Ha! And from this adoption of Mexican heritage, we've developed traditions of authentic Mexican food - Tres Leche cakes for birthdays, mole, caldo, enchiladas... Strangely, we've done very little with the holidays...except read about them. Food was such a daily comfort and such a foundational piece a bringing Vespera into our family that we integrated that first and best.

In terms of holiday celebrations, we actually look a whole lot more Jewish than anything else. Or, perhaps, we've adopted church tradition and Jewish tradition as a way to feed the need for cultural identity. Religious practice can be a huge part of cultural identity for people. At our house, Advent has become the anchoring season...because we light candles nearly every night, read stories, and pray. We have a Jesse tree, an Advent wreath, a stack of picture books, and...often...somewhere in the middle of it all...a chanukiah. We trace the seasons of the year from Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Chanukah, through Passover/Easter, Shavuot/Pentacost, and, of course, a weekly Shabbat.

On a different level, our "family culture" also includes homeschool, whole and organic foods, and natural living choices. It's not the culture of my childhood, but a culture that has developed over the last 16 years, as Mango and I have developed our own "culture," as our separate cultures have blended into each other.

I would love to nurture more of an ethnic and cultural identity for us, and I think I know how to do it. It's about picking up the little traditions and just doing them. Three Kings Days and Cinco De Mayo...Santa Lucia and Saint Mary's Day. It's about reading the stories and visiting the food markets and cooking the food. I have learned that it isn't really about big things but about simple moments.

I want to visit the Swedish Institute more and Mercado Central. I want to find a Dala Horse that I love for mantle. I want to learn a little German, take Mane to German restaurants, and read about German immigrants. I want to attend the Cinco De Mayo parade and make a Three Kings cake. This is who we are. Our stories shape us, whether we know it or not.

A Few Things My Mother Taught Me

I've been thinking about this post for a long while. The things my mother taught me are both so simple and so formative. Most important things in life are. It isn't the big, huge once-in-a-lifetime things that make up the stuff of life, but the small every day things.

It's so cliche to say that she taught me to work hard. But she really, really did...from weeding the garden to shoveling snow, my mama did it all. She wasn't afraid to dive into a room that needed to be cleaned at school or a pile of paperwork in the office, either. She taught me to do what needs to be done, no complaining. I'm afraid I've moved away from that lesson as I've gotten older...being now somewhat more inclined to procrastination and whining.

My mother also taught me storage solutions for small houses and how to minimize clutter without throwing all the fun stuff away. She new how to keep games and craft projects and her favorite coffee mug without all the little stuff cluttering up the house. Maybe this is more about knowing what really matters and getting rid of the stuff that doesn't. But, you know, you can keep the favorite mug that you really don't need, if you keep it in the cake pan in the oven (where else would you store your cake pans? and your mugs?). 

My mother taught me to keep my mouth shut when the conflict isn't really going to be beneficial. I don't think this is about avoiding conflict or sweeping things under the rug. She could confront when something needed to be said. But, it was more about extending some grace or having some patience to see how some things might pan out. It was about holding back the biting comment when someone was all sarcastic and crabby...to give them the opportunity to settle down themselves. Because, you know, most of us know when we're acting bad anyway. We seldom need someone to point it out to us.

My mama taught me to hunt for bargains, to substitute ingredients in recipes, to make do with what I have...to turn old things into new solutions. She taught me how to play rummy and make salsa and cook beans from scratch.

Sometimes I'm surprised by all the ways that I am like her because I've often thought myself so different from her in personality. When I surprise myself with a piece of her appearing in my own living, I am so proud.