Organizing the kitchen (Part 1)

Another guest post--the organization of frequently used kitchen utensils--on The Urban Homestead Journal.

On Pinterest and turf removal

Check out a couple more guest blog posts in which I reveal my weakness for Pinterest and introduce the front yard project--grass for food!

Guest blogging!

I'm excited to have the opportunity to be a guest blogger over at Little Homestead in the City!

The online world has changed DRAMATICALLY since I started blogging 11 years ago. All sorts of strategies for branding (my selection of JBB was not the most brilliant branding move...) and building traffic and finding a niche audience and "monetizing" your blog and having a consistent presence across all social media sites, etc.

But, at the basic level, blogging is still about writing, and I am looking forward to the chance to write in this medium more often.

Here is the first post: Dirty Dishes Management.

If life gives you a box of grapefruit...

get out your juicer (like the one your mother used when you were growing up in Zambia and which you happily happened to find in a favorite thrift shop some years ago)

and squeeze seven and half quarts of fresh grapefruit juice!

The leftovers:

Real

We make ourselves real by telling the truth. –Thomas Merton

As quoted by Elizabeth Esther.

On reading (again)

All we need to know is how to recognize God's will for the present moment. Any reading we might choose without regard to the will of God is harmful to us. The will of God and obedience to His leading brings [sic] us grace, and this grace is what does the work in the depths of our hearts through reading or anything else we do. Without God, books are but vain appearances, deprived of God's life-giving power as far as we are concerned, and they only succeed in emptying the heart by the very satisfaction our reading brings to the mind [emphasis mine].

From The Joy of Full Surrender (Paraclete Essentials) by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, page 18

Another in the occasional series on reading and books.

Boundary stones

When I walked outside this morning, I saw that three large stones had been placed in the herb spiral in the front yard, rocks I had dug out from the back yard of my previous residence. I would have left them at my old place, except for the spot-on suggestion of Jordanne that they could be useful here.

They immediately recalled the boundary stones of the Ancient Near East and stones that were used as memorials in the Bible (e.g., after the Israelites crossed the Jordan River in Joshua 4).

And, Psalm 16:6 came to mind: "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance (NIV)." Or, as the Common English Bible translates the verse: "The property lines have fallen beautifully for me; yes, I have a lovely home."

Then, the significance of land was underscored in this column in The Jerusalem Post by Wayne Stiles:

When one reads the Bible, it becomes clear how geography is the stage on which the redemptive narrative takes place. The land God chose was not arbitrary, for He designed even the land itself to develop the spiritual lives of His people. One of God’s stated purposes in bringing the Hebrews from Egypt was to give them a land that fostered faith (Deuteronomy 11:10-15). The land was never intended to be just a place to live.

Land. Home. Boundary lines and stones. A place. A grateful heart. 

To whom much is given much will be required.