A friend of mine asked me some time ago if I would consider being a guest poster on her blog. I was so flattered! And excited...I love to write.  Things have settled down a bit since I quit working and I was thinking of something to write about for her blog. My son is so very helpful...he gave me great material to blog about last week...come check out my friend Heather's blog:

Procrastination is Dangerous…and Disobedient! Guest Post

I Am Hutterite, by Mary-Ann Kirkby
The Fascinating True Story of a Young Woman's Journey to reclaim Her Heritage

Imagine growing up within a community so close, it's more like a huge extended family...where the pressures and distractions of the outside world don't exist...beautiful gardens, sandy paths, simplicity. Then imagine being taken from the security of structured order and routine, family, friends, all that you'd ever known and being thrust into a world that is cold, judgmental, strange and confusing.  Where people laugh at your strange way of speaking, make fun of your social ignorance, and send you a Valentine's Day card (when you'd been home sick for weeks) that says "I hope you never come back." Imagine discovering yourself amongst the jumble of pieces found in two realities...this is Mary-Ann Kirkby's true tale.

I had never heard of the Hutterites before, but found the brief history provided in the book to be absolutely intriguing. Kirkby's talent for story-telling, which she must have inherited from her Uncle, kept me riveted to each page and hungry for more. It was almost as if she were right there, telling the tale herself. Perhaps growing up in an area heavily populated with Amish made this book more appealing to me, but I think anyone who has ever felt rejected, alone, and out of place will find this true tale of a young Hutterite girl (and the intrigues of Hutterite colony life and family...which at times were every bit as interesting as a television soap opera or sitcom) fascinating and encouraging.

Mary-Ann Kirkby learned many important lessons from her heritage and from her family's exodus from colony life. Her artful and humorous descriptions of life on the colony, full of hard work, simple living, and faith in God give us a glimpse into this reclusive sect. And chronicling the smoldering resentment and bitterness between her brother and her husband teaches an important lesson in forgiveness.

I highly recommend this book! In fact, I'm reading it again...this time around I am reading it aloud to my 9 year old daughter at bedtime and she is finding it just as fascinating as I did. My only disappointment is that the book is not longer! I wanted to know more about her life and her heritage...and so, we plan to research the Hutterites this summer. I'm also suggesting that our local library add this delightful tome to their shelves. Many thanks to Mary-Ann Kirkby for sharing this wonderful, and at times, heartbreaking, story of her life.


Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
 

This past weekend was the annual "Spring Into Art" shindig our local library puts on. We went a couple years ago, skipped last year for some reason, but made it this year and boy are we glad we did! Unfortunately, daddy was hard at work BBQ'ing so he could not join us.

The first thing we did Saturday was make some hand-hammered bookmarks. These were made by twisting sterling silver wire in whatever design you like then hammered flat. The artist who put on this workshop would then put on a beautiful drop bead of your choice. Linda Elmore was her name and she has beautiful stuff! Hannah also made some keychains for her daddy and I on Sunday.

 

Later we attended a workshop on charcoal drawing, taught by a local artist. She had us draw a scene that she had drawn in charcoal from a photograph of a rural area near her home. She, of course, did a much better job!  I was very impressed with Hannah's drawing, especially since we have done practically no formal art training yet in our schoolwork and she also has never drawn with charcoal 'pencils' (that are more like very thin, fragile pieces of charcoal than actual pencils).  I think she did a great job...of course, I am a bit  biased! We both enjoyed it so much I am going to purchase some charcoal and sketch paper and hopefully find an easel on Freecycle so we can pursue our new love of charcoal drawing. I found it to be very soothing!


Hannah's drawing


Mine!

We made beaded bracelets...Hannah made one for me (the one on the right) and I made one for her. The one she made for me is very heavy! But it's full of the love of a precious daughter so it's more valuable to me than rubies...



We also watched a demonstration on Saturday and Sunday of two marbling techniques and we were completely amazed and intrigued by them both! One is called Turkish Marbling, and is a rather involved process as far as preparation goes. The actual marbling isn't hard at all. But you have to prepare the paper or fabric (the artist, Caryl Hancock out of Indianapolis) with an alum solution first, and prepare a solution of methylcellulose sizing, water and ammonia and let it set for about half a day first. When you're finally ready to get to the marbling, you use thinned acrylic paints...dipping a brush into the paint then lightly touching the surface of the solution. The paints float on top of the solution and you can add all kinds of colors, use various tools to manipulate the patterns, such as combs, skewers, etc. Then you carefully lay down a piece of alum-treated paper to soak up the pattern, rinse it off, and let it dry. It is so cool!


This is Hannah's design. The wavy pattern is called 'Spanish marbling' or 'rock and roll' because the technique used causes what they call 'hesitation' marks. The big white spots were from taking a brush with Photo-Flo solution and sprinkling it all over.

The other technique is one I plan to include in our homeschooling program, as it is much easier, less expensive and just as interesting. It's called suminagashi, which means 'floating ink' or 'spilled ink' as I've seen on some websites. It is an 11th century Japanese technique that was accidentally discovered by some nobility.  Traditionally, suminagashi uses only three ink colors, red, blue and black. All you need is a special kind of ink, called Boku Undo, Photo-Flo wetting solution, calligraphy brushes, a large container for regular water, and containers for the ink. 

Next, you mix some ink and Photo-Flo, plus a 'non-color' with Photo-Flo and water. You then take your calligraphy brushes and dip one in one ink color, then touch the surface of the water...the ink spreads out in a big circle. Then take the 'non-color' solution and touch the ink circle you just made...and alternate back and forth between colors and the 'non-color'. This creates a bullseye pattern which can then be manipulated by either fanning across the surface of the water, which makes a jagged pattern, using a straw to blow across the surface, or you can use a very fine tool (she had an actual kitty whisker attached to a couple popsicle sticks!) to draw gently through the inks. They swirl and bend and go all over, but don't mix. When You're happy with the pattern, then you lay down an alum-treated piece of paper to pick up the design, as in the Turkish marbling. It's amazing! and Caryl has some absolutely beautiful designs...I wish I'd had a few hundred bucks on me to buy some of her originals...oh well, we'll just have to make our own!

We both tried our hands at the suminagashi:


Hannah's beautiful suminagashi print.


My suminagashi print...tried to make a 'heart' design amidst the swirly blues, but Caryl said the Turkish marbling is better for that sort of thing.

Of course, these pictures don't do them justice. There are fine, tiny detailed lines there you just can't see. But they are really neat! And they have the added bonus of being cross-curricular...art, history (these are both very old techniques), physics (surface tension, etc.), and math (fractals).  I can't wait to do this at home!

We had so much fun, and it really made me think about incorporating more art into our homeschooling. I used to be pretty artsy in high school, but that was so long ago I've forgotten the joy of creating somewhat.

Of course, you may be wondering about the 'fartsy' aspect of our artsy weekend...well, Hannah and I were artsy and Jadon was, well, as you might expect from a boy...fartsy...we love him so much, even if he is a little stinker!

I've been having fun with kefir...mostly water kefir, or Tibicos, but also a bit of dairy kefir as well. Aside from some killer breakfast smoothies, I made this bread...

Today I finished making 'kefir bread', courtesy of a recipe at NaturallyKnockedUp.  It was incredibly easy to put together...only the waiting is the hardest part!
 
I forgot to take pictures of before I put this to rise, but it appears to have risen slightly in the 24 hours it spent on top of the refrigerator...since I don't have a pilot light in my oven, this is the warmest spot in the kitchen.



It did rise noticeably the second time, perhaps a quarter inch or so...(look closely)





After baking for about 50 minutes at 350....



And a slice of this healthy bread...



Now, Donielle at NaturallyKnockedUp said this was a dense bread. She was seriously not kidding at all. My stoneware loaf pan is heavy so I didn't think too much about it when I hefted it out of the oven. But when I turned it out of the pan onto the cooling rack I realized that this thing weighs a ton! It's 3 pounds at least, by my best guestimation. It smells wonderful...now the taste test...

Well, seeing as how this is my first exposure to fermented bread, I'll say it's not too bad. It does have a noticeable sour taste, so if you like sourdough and you like whole wheat bread, you'll probably like this as well. I added 2 teaspoons each of raw sugar and olive oil, as suggested in the recipe. Next time I think I will increase the sugar a bit or add molasses or honey. Honestly, I don't think anyone else here will eat it but me and I'm going to have to get used to it. I wonder if it will freeze well...

The bread slices nicely and neatly with a lovely texture inside, the crust not too crusty. It's definitely 100% whole wheat bread!  Will I make this again? Possibly, but not as an every day staple for my bread drawer. Too much health food will probably put my family into a coma or something anyway. Fortunately for me, I have a few friends who are also into this real, whole, sprouted, lacto-fermented, kefired, organic, health food stuff so I will share it with them! I'm going to try toasting it in the morning with some cream cheese or butter and honey. That sounds pretty tasty!

In the mean time, I'm going to keep playing around with my little water kefir guys, hopefully I can get them to really start reproducing so I can be Dawny Kefir Seed and spread the love around...ha ha...do you like that? That just popped into my head...

Last night was my last night of work. I was thinking about a lot of things, one of which was a very interesting thing that had happened when I quit the job I had before this one...which happened again last night, only in a different way:

A few years ago, when I was pregnant with my son, I was working as a route driver for a local catering company. Yes, I drove a "Roach Coach".  It got to be too much for me physically as well as the fact that nearly everyone there smoked, which I did not want to be around. So, I made the decision to quit there and look for something else...and I ended up at Starbucks.

We had also made the decision to move to a new place, and I was not really sure we were making the right decision.

The interesting thing here is that on my last day of being a Roach Coach driver, I was at one of my stops with the girl I was training to replace me. I didn't have to do much but stand there and tell people goodbye and that I'd miss them and why I was quitting.  Toward the very end of our time at that stop, a man came out that hadn't been out for several weeks. I was pretty certain he was a believer...partly because of the t-shirts he wore sometimes and partly just that gut feeling.  He got something to eat and paid for it and before he went back in, he said to me "God says move." My jaw hit the ground and I turned into a giant goosebump. He had no idea I was quitting, no idea that we were moving and I was having second thoughts about the whole thing. I was floored...but it just kind of cemented everything for me that we were on the right track.

We moved, then two weeks later a huge tornado ripped through our town, damaging some of the apartments back where we were living. I have often wondered what would have happened if we hadn't moved...if we had stepped out from under the covering that obedience provides and had still been at that apartment...it makes me shudder to even consider what could have been.

As I reflected on some of the events that have occurred in the last few years, I remembered how God used that man to speak to me and put my fears to rest so I could move forward. I asked Him yesterday before going to work to send someone again to speak an encouraging word to me. I assured Him that I wasn't looking for confirmation - I already knew I was doing the right thing. It's just really neat to have someone say something that you know in your knower is from God.  And I went off to work for the last time.

Not too long into my shift, one of my 'regulars' came in and surprised me with a gift! 



There's a book called "Meditations for Mom", a prettily-scented candle, and a note with some very encouraging words that really touched my soul. I was not expecting this! I thought maybe one of my customers would say something in passing or something like that, but this was above and beyond the 'word' I was expecting! It brought to mind the following verse...

Ephesians 3:20-21 (The Message)

 ^20-21God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

   Glory to God in the church!
   Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
   Glory down all the generations!
   Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!

I was so very blessed by this kind gesture. This customer, I have observed, is very fluent in the love language of gifts! She often bought Frappuccinos for people, and many times would come to my kiosk with a bouquet of flowers, cards or other gift-type item. She loves to give and bless others.

As I pondered all of this, I was first humbled by God's lavish answer to my prayer. I was just looking for someone to say something about putting the hand to the plow, or the Red Sea, or something that would smack of it being a Holy Spirit inspired comment. And instead, I got a whole page of words encouraging me and letting me know that I had made an impact in this lady's life, a book full of inspiration to read, and a candle...all packaged not just in a gift bag, but tied up with ribbons and flowers...even the envelope the card was in was lovingly embellished!

And then I thought...is this foreshadowing of things to come? Is God telling me that He is going to lavish His love and grace and mercy and blessing and provision on me? I am going to believe that He is. He will most likely do it in a way I do not expect, but He will be true to His Word.

My customer wrote "I will miss seeing you, but I pray that you will know a deep peace and a joy in this decision that will bless your whole family. Treasure every moment; they are grown so quickly." I do have a deep peace and joy in this decision and I am looking forward to being the wife and mother God intended me to be. Thank you, Elohim, for lavishly answering my little prayer!

She also left this little nugget for me to think upon on the front of the envelope...

~ Henry Ward Beecher

And so, today I start my 'new' job...full of peace and joy and expectation of God's best for my family. Elohim, bless this dear lady...send a hug her way for me!