Thankful Thursdays

This week I am thankful for:

• homemade strawberry-lime popsicles in the freezer
• watching old school movies like Jurassic Park!
• getting excited about the mission trip to Honduras this summer
• late night walks with Lucy
• dinner with new friends
• homemade pizza!

Thankful Thursdays

Well, last week I missed this. Due to the major flooding in Nashville, the church I work and worship at was completely wet on the entire first floor. We missed 4 days of work in the office, but luckily many of us were able to work from home, helping to communicate the damage to church members by email and the website. So when I wasn't up all night checking my email and being stressed out, I was trying to sleep. I was not feeling very thankful, and I certainly didn't have the time to dig in and force myself!

This week I am thankful for:

• being confirmed at my church on Sunday
• a wonderful relationship with my hubby
• friendships with the youth at my church (you guys need to visit me at work this summer!)
• lower levels of stress
• beautiful sunsets
• crossing things off my to-do list
• fun co-workers
• the swearing in of new US citizens tomorrow!
• my puppy's beautiful haircut (by yours truly)

The Celebrity of Memoirs

I have just breezed through 3 books and am now onto the 4th in two weeks. After opening this most recent one, I realized how they're all connected: the "me" ideology. I'm quite certain I'm not the first to notice this, but seriously, but the biggest book deals, box-office sellers, and blog followings are all linked by the idea that someone ("me") thinks some part of their life is compelling for other people in the world. (And yes, I realize that by having a blog, I am in that category of people.) Just to give a few examples, these are the titles that immediately come to mind:

• Julia & Julia: Girl meets cookbook. Girl thinks cooking every recipe in a cookbook and blogging about it will be exciting and helpful to others.
• The $64 Tomato: Man v. garden. Not a new story, but he writes about it anyway.
• Plenty: Couple embarks on an epicurean journey to eat foods grown within $100 miles, and other people are right to be fascinated by their struggles.
• The Unlikely Disciple: College liberal acts as a mole in one of the most fundamentalist and conservative universities in the nation and lives to tell the tale.
• Girl Meets God: A light examination of a young Jewish woman's story of conversion to the Christian faith.
• Under the Tuscan Sun: A woman buys property in a foreign country and writes about her cultural immersion.
• The Year of Living Biblically: One not-so-Jewish man decides to follow the Bible's rules and teachings as literally as possible, partially for the learning process and partially so he can write a book about it!

Clearly, I am fascinated by these "me-ideology" memoirs. By definition, memoirs are a class of autobiography that center on a small piece of a person's life or views, rather than a lifespan, like typical autobiographies. But still, it seems to me like the current trend is first decide to write a book and then decide what to write about. The cultural value lies in having written the memoir, not the context or subject matter of the writing, almost as if there is some celebrity that comes with being published. There may be less forethought than historically speaking, but I am still sucked into it anyway.

Now, back to my book...

Spring Reading

Spring is the time I decide to be re-obsessed with food, farming, CSAs, etc. It seems like the perfect time really! The last two weeks, I have sped through two books about food and local eating that were enjoying and easy to read.

Plenty is about a couple living in Vancouver (and in the middle of nowhere) who decide that it would be awesome to eat foods only within 100 miles of their home. And why, yes, they ARE crazy! It was extremely difficult and funny to read about - but it is also inspiring for those interested in the concept of local food.

The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden, by William Alexander, is a hilarious, speed-read about a man and the ridiculous struggles he has in the battle of man v. garden. He dreams of the perfect, existential kitchen garden that will make him feel that he's "getting back to nature," and "connecting with the earth," etc. It really is hysterical, and I read it in about 3 days.

The Tell-All Generation

The beauty of my smartphone is that I can now do something useful when I have 5 or 10 minutes to wait! Today, while waiting for a new Honduras trip (more on that later) buddy, I was browsing the New York Times Most Emailed articles - and yes, there's an app for that! I stumbled upon this article, The Tell-All Generation Learns to Keep Things Offline. I was quite interested by the stats of my generation, the 20-somethings, and younger generations, who seem to use social networking sites constantly, but who also seem to be wary of privacy restrictions and ever-changing website policies (ehem...Facebook).

Thought I would share!!

Thankful Thursdays

Today I am thankful for:

• time spent with my Mom, who didn't realize she would be travelling here in the worst rainstorm in Nashville's history.
• living on the second story, which was worry-free during the monsoon and flood
• the outpouring of volunteers that have shown up at my church, which suffered badly from the flood
• not being a homeowner in the middle of the flood! (are you catching the theme here)
• not losing power or water (yet?)
• our first CSA delivery, which came at the height of the flooding
• our CSA farmers, who were largely unharmed by the flood
• an unexpected week of sleeping late

CSA Ups and Downs

It seems timely to say something about the risks people take when they join a CSA. (Photo: young apples, www.avalon-acres.com)

A CSA, or Community Shared Agriculture, is a kind of local co-op that provides locally grown produce, meat, and eggs to people in the community. This is the third year we have joined our CSA, and I love it! We go to a nearby church once a week and pick up a box of whatever has been freshly harvested. It's always a surprise to open the box each week! Our CSA also provides fresh fruit, meat, eggs, canned goods, baked goods, and pasta that you can buy in addition to what you get in your box.

The perks of participating in this kind of program are innumerable:

• Knowing where your food comes from
• Helping the local economy
• Being exposed to foods you never would have tried before
• Consuming more veggies in a week than you thought possible. (If you have 3 heads of lettuce, you'll try hard to eat them before they go bad, but who would ever buy 3 heads of lettuce all at once from the store?)
• Supporting small business owners
• Developing a relationship with the people and growers who bring you food each week
• Lowering your carbon footprint by eating foods that come from close by, not 5,000 miles away
• Voting with your dollar for foods that are raised with natural methods, not industrial grade pesticides and genetically modified varieties.
• Etc. etc. etc.

Unfortunately, the downside of all of this home-grown, back to the earth kind of eating is just that: it's about the earth. So in Nashville, where we have just experienced the worst flood in over 100 years, it's impossible to say yet how the local crops will be affected. I've been keeping up with the blog on avalon-acres.com, my CSA, where they have posted pictures and video updates about the flood damage they're experiencing.

I'm sad at the damage they've sustained and the hard work they have ahead of them. I'm also sad (on a MUCH smaller scale) for me and for my possible loss of investment. But that's the way it goes. And hopefully, most of their spring crops have survived, and we'll be even more thankful for them in the end.

Dear God...

Dear God,

It's a bit rainy down here. Where's Noah and his little boat when you need him? I can't drive anywhere right now - all the roads are blocked off with water, and people's home are flooded all over the city. I hear that the church is a complete disaster: I hope you'll help us recover what we can and work through it with grateful hearts. Most of my area of town is completely under water - families are being rescued in boats.

Please send a nice sunny week to dry up the flooding. Help people be kind and welcoming to their neighbors who are experiencing pain and loss. And remind us how to be grateful for what good is in our lives, even in the midst of disaster.

Love, Becca