<30 Not Much Longer

The countdown to my thirtieth birthday began in July. I've felt like I've been in my thirties for a few years now, and have subsequently believed that it would be No Big Thang to actually turn thirty. Maybe so. But I do find myself thinking about it more than I thought I would, for a reason that is right in front of my nose every time I look in the mirror: my ever-deepening wrinkles.

Those summers on the waterfront in Michigan took their toll; I have crinkly eye wrinkles that do not go away when I stop smiling. But it's the pronounced wrinkles between my eyebrows that are getting me down even more. They are frown wrinkles, and they are there because I frown so much. I'm not an unhappy person, but I do tend to worry. My mother also pointed out a few years ago that I knit my brow while knitting. I knit my brow when I concentrate on anything - cooking, writing, reading, you name it. So the brow wrinkle is here to stay, and as I am unlikely to give up any of my favorite activities anytime soon, it will only get worse.

I am not remotely into the idea of Botox, or much of any unnecessary, elective appearance-changing surgery for that matter, but I suddenly understand why people do it: you don't age on your own terms. You look in the mirror, and you don't see the person you're expecting.

I realized that my profile picture should more accurately reflect the person I see in the mirror. Because I love that picture of me laughing (while holding baby Lily) so much, I've kept it up for nearly four years. I don't look like that anymore. Not just the new wrinkles, either. I am no longer blond, having given up my beloved bleach for good when I was pregnant with Juliette. It dawned on me a few weeks ago that now that I'm bleach-free, I can participate in Locks of Love. My hair grows so slowly that there is no way I'll be able to chop and donate it by my 30th birthday, but I'm still going to think of it as my thirtieth birthday gift to the recipient. It's better for me to go chemical-free, and my dishwater not-quite-blond hair can actually do some good for someone else.

And yes, I'm 100% aware that this is just about the most boring post ever. I just needed to get it out of my system, I guess. Thirty, here we come. I'm predicting a good decade.

After all, is the first thing you notice when you see this picture the faint double worry line? I didn't think so.

God of the Mountains, Sculptor of Creation

In September we observed the Season of Creation, a new liturgical season that surely should have been around as long as Lent and Ordinary Time. I wrote a hymn for Mountain Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Creation in Year B. It's rooted in two of the lections for the day - Isaiah 65:17-25 and Romans 8:28-39.

Feel free to use it - I licensed it via Creative Commons. The last stanza is a little tricky, as you have to prolong the syllables a bit to fit with the music. The congregation sang it without any major snafus on Sunday.

God of the Mountains, Sculptor of Creation
Tune: VICAR

God of the mountains, sculptor of Creation
Your love is higher than the hills and peaks,
Your love is richer than earth's vegetation
And in the deepest vales your Spirit speaks.

Nothing can separate us from such great love
not height nor depth, not even our own sin
Through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns above
We are forgiven, freed, and made God's kin.

So sons and daughters, gather now and praise God,
Whose holy mountain is a place of peace.
Exchange your fear, for though the world is roughshod
Christ hears creation's groan to be released.

Glory be to God and Christ and Spirit,
Community of love divine.
Receive our thanks for all that we inherit,
And strengthen us with Word and bread and wine.

God of the Mountains, Sculptor of Creation by Katherine Willis Pershey is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Perfect Evening

We ate an early dinner, put Juliette in her pajamas, and headed out to the beach. We live three miles from the Pacific Ocean, and have no excuse not to do this more often.[More photos at flickr.]

First Day

Juliette started attending the toddler program at the local Montessori school today. She'll go on Tuesday and Thursday mornings until just after lunch. She was beside herself with excitement to get back to school, having visited twice and already decided that she loves it. According to her teacher, Miss Dolores, she did very well, especially considering how seldom she's been away from Ben and me. And we did pretty well ourselves, especially considering how seldom we've been away from Juliette.

It's Like Preschool on TV

Despite the fact that I have renewed my affection for the television in the past few years (thanks to the Office 30 Rock, Project Runway, and So You Think You Can Dance), I did not envision TV playing a significant role in Juliette's life. In fact, she didn't watch an ounce of it until she was eight months old; if we were watching something and she started to look at the TV, we immediately turned it off. I intended to religiously follow the no-TV-before-two rule, and then maybe allow a judicious amount of Sesame Street for educational purposes.

And then... well, we realized that we could actually eat breakfast and read the newspaper if we hooked Juliette up with Big Bird & co. I can't tell you how revolutionary that was, to eat breakfast and read the newspaper. To have a break, when, with Juliette's difficulty sleeping or napping without constant parenting, breaks had been few and far between.

So, the advent of children's television came earlier than expected.

Let's just say that Juliette now watches a little more than I'd prefer. It's not like we're setting her down in front of the boob tube and checking on her three hours later; it's just that diaper changes go infinitely better when a few hundred pixels chip in to help distract her. And those pixels are again at the ready - at the push of a button! - when it's time to make dinner, and a certain family member under three feet tall is tired, hungry, and cranky.

Recently, there was a day in which Juliette played outside for hours, played with toys inside for a couple more, napped, ate, went to the zoo and the library, and still managed to watch enough television to incite my mama guilt. Every time I hear Noggin's tag line, "It's Like Preschool on TV," I simultaneously roll my eyes in disgust at the obvious ridiculousness of such a statement and thank whoever came up with it for at least attempting to make me feel better about it.

I can only hope that we can continue to set limits, and that Juliette learns something from her TV time. She sure does love it, overwhelmingly so.

There's no better way to illustrate this post than with my favorite version of one of my very favorite songs of all time, encapsulated in a perfect YouTube clip. (Because yes, we've also discovered YouTube for tots. When an email needs to be returned, it's awfully convenient to open another window for the kiddo on my lap.)

Ten Dollars

...well spent.

Update Update (1)

I like Reverendmother's new practice of preserving FB updates on her blog. Here's my month in 160 characters or less. Oldest to newest. (And yes, my back still hurts.)

Katherine...

• successfully talked herself out of lobbying Ben for a pet bunny.
• solved a garden mystery: yes, pumpkins and zucchini can cross-pollinate. Explains the unusually bulbous zucchini that is turning orange...
• is convinced her metabolism came to a grinding halt the day she turned 29.
• sermon rut.
• has a bad habit of putting tongue twisters in her sermons. Case in point: "serve unswervingly." Will regret come Sunday morning.
• is celebrating!
• is about to go praise God from whom all blessings flow.
• is baking cinnamon raisin scones for the church book club tonight. Thought they would be tastier than Potato Peel Pie, if not quite so thematic.
• is too hot to concentrate on writing her sermon, but the weather forecast calls for heat through Sunday. Hmm.
• is thoroughly impressed with Jesus. Has anyone noticed how vivid and delightful and challenging and lovely he is in the gospels? (Note: air condition is impressive, too. Sermon going much better in the cool basement of the local library.)
• is done with her sermon, thanks to the library air conditioning... and if that isn't the status update of a mollycoddled, first-world preacher, I don't know what is.
• made curtains, one of which is a good half inch shorter than the other. Oh well, they'll do what they need to do: block some of the searing hot sun that comes through the kitchen window behind the computer. And you can't beat curtains that cost $2.99 to make.
• salvaged the excessively garlicky tomato pesto by tossing it into the meatloaf in lieu of v8/ketchup. Yum yum.
• is once again availing herself of the library air conditioning to get some work done.
• is sermonating on a Friday night.
• is laid up with back pain again, for the first time in months. Sigh.

Ten on Tuesday

1. I have had this song in my head for about two weeks, but it's so cheerful and likable it hasn't even bothered me too much.


2.If you do not regularly read my sister Elizabeth's blog and missed the story about her new BFF, do yourself a favor and go read it. It is fantastic.

3. We went swimming yesterday. In a perfect world, I would go swimming at least three times a week.

4. I am up to my ears in John the Baptist lore. I'm working on an article for the November/December issue of Disciples World. When I signed on for the assignment I had absolutely no idea just how fascinating he is. I'm hooked, and can't wait until he resurfaces again in Advent.

5. Katie Herzig is super. And you can download some of her music for free (legally, that is) at Noisetrade. I shall be seeing KH this fall, as she's opening for Over the Rhine at the Largo.

6. Juliette doesn't have a whole lot of playmates yet, but she does have what every little girl needs: a best friend. These two have been playing together since Juliette was five months old. When Lila's coming over, Juliette stands by the door and watches for her, saying, "Lila? Lila? Lila!!!" Here they are, with their cell phones and first place medals. Oh, are they ever sweet.
6. Speaking of Juliette, neither Ben or I are particularly enthused with her recent decision to call both of us Mommy. I'm hoping she'll switch back to Mama and Pops (or Daddy, or Dada, or pretty much anything but Mommy). Especially since MOMMY is usually pronounced in the utmost of whiny tones.

7. September was supposed to be a buy-nothing month - nothing but food and household essentials. I broke the rule on September 2nd with a seventy-five cent copy of a Sandra Boyton book from the library sale. Really, what Mommy could pass that up?! I didn't even actually spend seventy-five cents on it; I wasn't carrying cash, and I could only scrounge up seventy-two cents between my coin purse and the copy machine change returner. I broke the rule again today. I spent ten dollars on a gently-used Little Tikes playset, the kind that usually cost about $125. We haven't picked it up from the neighbor's house yet, but Juliette already went wild for it. She definitely does not get the concept "It's yours, but not yet."

8. So, September is buy nothing month, starting tomorrow.

9. My love for Scrabble has been reawakened by Lexulous. Last night Ben and I managed to play in real life. I was beating him by so much I still refuse to believe that he bested me by three points in the end.

10. We are huge Skype fans around here. Grandma singing to Juliette via Skype:

Flashback Friday

When we were in Ohio this summer, I unearthed my childhood/adolescent diaries from the basement, and proceeded to spend a lot of time cringing and guffawing wildly as I read choice passages aloud. There are more than a few sad parts; I was a pretty intense kid, with strong emotions, thin skin, and a tendency to be made fun of by fellow classmates. As I was laughing about the journals on FB, my friend JWD reminded me to be gentle with the girl who wrote this stuff. It was good advice. I would have been mortified had I known that my adult self would go back and join the crowd of cruel teasers. And yet... there's also something sort of redemptive about being able to laugh about some of this stuff. I have such a soft spot in my heart for the kid I was: obsessed with Jesus, boys, finding myself, and becoming a better person (which I cleared failed to do when I called Marie a "snobby zombie" after a sibling spat).

Without further adieu, 43things, eat your heart out:

(circa 1993)

Personally, I'm impressed with my mathematical approach to self-improvement. (Too bad I can't do math well enough to double-check my numbers.) Apparently I struggled the most with "get out of Mar. & Eliz's shadows" and "Make least one person aware of Christianity." But according to my records, I did manage to stop caring about popularity and become a better friend to myself. And I found out why boys are jerks! (Wish I'd written that one down for future reference...)

Foodstuffs

I like the habit of taking a couple snapshots of kitchen projects. Every time the photo of the first pizza I ever made floats past on the screensaver, I get all nostalgic. Here are some recent foods worth photographing.

Cinnamon raisin scones I baked for book club (The Guernsey Literary & Potato Pie Pie Soceity), a la Orangette. Book: A+; Scones: solid B.

Figs and grapes. Mmmm. Ben arranged these, and they were beautiful and delicious.

And behold, the one pumpkin we harvested from our garden.

I seeded and steamed the pumpkin, and made a pie entirely from scratch. It wasn't nearly as good as I'd hoped it would be, but the homemade whipped cream managed to cover a handful of sins.
I didn't take a picture, but the muffins I made with the leftover filling ended up being tastier. I googled "leftover pumpkin pie filling," mixed in this and that, and succeeded in using every last bit of the pumpkin (the rind is in the compost bin).

It's probably not the best comment on my baking skills, but the oiled, salted, and roasted seeds were by far the most delicious of the pumpkin treats. Ah well. We'll get there.