The Miracle of a New Year.

So, here we sit, in the last few days of a year that's been fraught with plenty of good -- but enough bad that I can't imagine wanting to hit "replay". And yet, I'm feeling very peaceful.

It's remarkable to think about the hope, the potential, and the joyful mystery of the new year.  I'm certainly not delusional, but I've always somehow believed in the hope that springs new upon the eve of the new year.  And, as I sit here contemplating what's to come -- I feel that hope.

Tomorrow we will wake up early. If we get up early enough, there will be coffee. And a bit of kranzkuchen. Steph will arrive and we'll drive off to gather our wares for another New Year's feast.  This year, we're exploring Asian cuisine.  We'll make up a bit of sushi, maybe some Chinese dumplings, a few eggrolls, some tempura, and whatever else we feel inspired to create. We'll cook all day, and nibble as we go. We'll laugh. Play games. Drink wine. And enjoy one another's company.  At midnight, we'll crack open a bottle of champagne and toast the new year.

And when it's all over, we'll drift off to sleep with smiling faces and full bellies. And we'll wake up to a blank slate. A new calendar. And the hope that, somehow, an exciting stretch of days just waiting to be shaped into something new, lay before us.

Although it's virtually impossible to simply place all of our burdens down at 11:59 p.m. on the eve of the new year, and wake up to an utterly clean slate on the first of the year, it's certainly a contemplation worth having. 

Our hopes and goals for 2010

Stress less, and pray more.

Love freely and deeply. 
Judge less, and be generous with our grace cards. 

Open up, and reach out. 
Stretch our boundaries.
Do more creating, and less tearing down. 
Eat well, and share meals often. 
Explore the boundaries of new cooking worlds. 
Focus on the immense possibility of possibility.

As you reflect on 2009 and step over the threshold of the new year, may only good await. And may your 2010 hold nothing less than miracles.

-- Peef and Lo                       

Beware Present Face

Too Busy to Blog, But These Girls Rock

Halloween Weekend with Peef & Lo

October has been a complete blur.

Birthdays... weddings... Oktoberfest in Dallas, WI... a weekend in Minnesota with Paul's peeps... this was the first weekend we've spent at home in a looooong time.  So, of course we had to rustle up some good old fashioned autumn fun.

First, we played in the leaves...  and then we raked them all up into piles like good little homeowners should.

Then we brewed up a nice batch of creepy crawlie "shrunken head" autumn apple rum punch.

Mighty tasty -- and the shrunken heads (which were made of carved & dried Granny Smith apples -- thanks Martha!), were pretty kewl.  Here are a few of our favorites:

Sneering dude.

Askeered dude.

Vampire dude.

And scary skeleton dude.

Steph came over and enjoyed our punch with us. And we feasted on delicious sweet potato gnocchi with sage browned butter, and bacon-cider mustard greens (sorry, no pix!).

This afternoon, we whipped up a batch of Root Vegetable Stew with Beef... which we enjoyed while watching Nightmare Before Christmas (for the 47bazillionth time... I think it keeps getting better).

Sing along with us, won't you?

Windows 7 now available

And apparently you should throw a party?

For reals?

Wow.
What happened to that cute little girl that was on their commercials? I think she is a better spokesperson than this crazy bunch...

Ode to Mix Tapes -- ah! the memories

RebeccaL sent me something this morning over email that I just had to share.



Ode to Mix Tapes
Srsly. You've got to read this one.


Do you remember the process?

Collecting those emotions.
Listening to the lyrics.
Making sure the mood was perfect.
Saying things we weren't brave enough to say ourselves.
Pausing, rewinding, playing... making sure the transitions "work".
It was all part of the process. And it was fantastic.

Makes me wonder about all the generations that will never experience that sort of "blue collar labor"...

Photo credit: Erica Marshall of muddyboots.org (via flickr)

My Birthday Poem

Got this poem today from my friend, Caitie. Couldn't be more perfect.

Poem in October

by Dylan Thomas

It was my thirtieth year to heaven

Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood

And the mussel pooled and the heron

Priested shore

The morning beckon

With water praying and call of seagull and rook

And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall

Myself to set foot

That second

In the still sleeping town and set forth.

My birthday began with the water-

Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name

Above the farms and the white horses

And I rose

In rainy autumn

And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.

High tide and the heron dived when I took the road

Over the border

And the gates

Of the town closed as the town awoke.

A springful of larks in a rolling

Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling

Blackbirds and the sun of October

Summery

On the hill’s shoulder,

Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly

Come in the morning where I wandered and listened

To the rain wringing

Wind blow cold

In the wood faraway under me.

Pale rain over the dwindling harbour

And over the sea wet church the size of a snail

With its horns through mist and the castle

Brown as owls

But all the gardens

Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales

Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.

There could I marvel

My birthday

Away but the weather turned around.

It turned away from the blithe country

And down the other air and the blue altered sky

Streamed again a wonder of summer

With apples

Pears and red currants

And I saw in the turning so clearly a child’s

Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother

Through the parables

Of sun light

And the legends of the green chapels

And the twice told fields of infancy

That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.

These were the woods the river and sea

Where a boy

In the listening

Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy

To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.

And the mystery

Sang alive

Still in the water and singingbirds.

And there could I marvel my birthday

Away but the weather turned around. And the true

Joy of the long dead child sang burning

In the sun.

It was my thirtieth

Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon

Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.

O may my heart’s truth

Still be sung

On this high hill in a year’s turning.