The North Shore

When Mom visited me several weeks ago, we met up with our Idaho friends, the Wards.  Rachel Ward was one of my best friends in Pre-K at Hope Lutheran back in Idaho Falls.  They moved to Minnesota when we were 6 years old, and I hadn't seen her since!

 

Rachel and I in kindergarten.

Rachel and I after college!

Upon moving to Minneapolis, I connected with her again on facebook and after visiting with her parents in September, they invited me to join them on a weekend up North!  So this past weekend, I took a road trip with Scott and Becky to visit Rachel in Duluth, Minnesota, where she is now a grad-student.  We rented a cabin on the North Shore of Lake Superior and spent some quality time catching up on the last 16 years of our lives!  It is amazing that we have so much in common after all these years: biology majors, studied abroad in Rwanda/Uganda, learned Norwegian, did marching band in high school...I love it!

 
Over the weekend, we drove along the shore and spent the day at several state parks, and walked around lots of waterfalls. It was beautiful!  We had bright sunshine and blue skies, but you can definitely tell that we are entering fall as it was really windy and cold.  I think we missed the peak day for fall colors by about a week, but the colors of the leaves were still beautiful on the ground, that is for sure!  It felt almost as if we were at the ocean.  Sandy beaches and water that touches the horizon--who would guess that we are in the middle of the US? 

 

Jon (Rachel's boyfriend), Rachel, me, Scott and Becky

  

Split Rock lighthouse

 

We also enjoyed time back at the cabin.  Highlights include: an hour session in the sauna next door (my first sauna experience!), playing games until 1 in the morning both nights--Yatzee and Rummikub, both played more intensely than I have played in a very long time...but we had such a blast!  And trying mead for the first time--why hasn't anyone introduced me to honey-wine before?!  

I am enjoying building my Minnesota connections, and re-connecting with people from my past.  This weekend was a perfect retreat to spend some time outside of the city, while seeing a new part of Minnesota and spending time with old friends!

Authenticity

Streams of Living Justice

Sunday at church, we sang this hymn, which really resonated with me.  Hymns at one time used to seem boring, but now I see them as such beautiful poetry. I love singing them and learning from the wise words found within. This hymn mirrors what I believe an LVC year is designed to contemplate... and really what our lives should be about.

Let Streams of Living Justice

Let streams of living justice flow down upon the earth;
Give freedom's light to captives, let all the poor have worth.
The hungry's hands are pleading, the workers claim their rights;
The mourner's long for laughter, the blinded seek for sight.
Make liberty a beacon, strike down the iron power;
Abolish ancient vengeance, proclaim your people's hour.

For healing of the nations, for peace that will not end;
For love that makes us lovers, God grant us grace to mend.
Weave our varied gifts together, knit our lives as they are spun
On your loom of time enroll us, til our thread of life is run.
O great weaver of our fabric, bind church and world in one;
Dye our texture with your radiance, light our colors with your sun.

Your city's build to music, we are the stones you seek;
Your harmony is language, we are the words you speak.
Our faith we find in service, our hope in others' dreams;
Our love in hand of neighbor; our homeland brightly gleams.
Inscribe our hearts with justice, your way--the path untried;
Your truth--the heart of stranger, your life-- the crucified.

Canning and Biking- new fun hobbies!

           A popped bike tire last week put me back on foot to commute for a few days--in the most beautiful of fall weather.  The forecast predicts it to be in the 80's all week--in October--in Minnesota! Walking is a beautiful gift that slows you down to appreciate and observe the small things in life.  I work about 10 blocks from my house and church is about 2 miles away, so walking to either of these places gives me plenty of quiet time.  Alexi Murdoch is becoming the soundtrack of these long walks through the tree-lined streets that are now becoming vibrant shades of yellow and orange.  I enjoy getting to see the neighbors that are out and about, watch the squirrels dart in and out of bikers and cars to scramble up trees, and just observe the changing scenery that comes with each new city block.  Walking also gives me lots of time to reflect on some of the great new things I have been able to try while being here.

       One of my favorites is the opportunity to BIKE all over the city! I have spent a few Saturday mornings biking for a few hours, sometimes solo, sometimes with my roommates.  Minneapolis has a great bike trail called the Midtown Greenway (pictured above) that runs East-West through the whole city.  My favorite Saturday bike ride was with my roommate Rebecca. We rode down the Greenway, around Lake Calhoun, Lake of the Isles, and Cedar Lake before returning home. Our trip was about 25 miles and ended at the Seward Co-op to pick up some groceries.  It was great to have a few hours to just talk and enjoy a beautiful Saturday morning!  We even found some sort of Lake Monster in Lake Calhoun:

 

    
      This past Saturday, I got to represent Open Arms at the annual Breast Cancer Convention for Minnesota.  It was a great event, full of really inspiring women who are cancer survivors.  Open Arms serves about 150 women who are undergoing breast cancer treatments, so I was able to talk with a lot of women who used Open Arms during their treatments, and to share with some women who may be in need of our service. Here's my display:

       On Sunday, our landlords Steven and Stephanie had us over to their house for an afternoon of canning and playing outside with their boys Soren and Linden. Stephanie did LVC almost 20 years ago, so she has been great to connect with.  They have such a great house...I think we all kept saying how they are living the dream life.  This may be one of my favorite days so far!
 The boys were very entertaining and performed a few plays on the staircase that usually ended in a mattress sliding down the stairs with them on it. My favorite play was titled "The boy's worst nightmare at his sleepover." It has been a while since I have gotten to play with kids (yes, I miss camp a bit!) so I enjoyed playing outside with them, scootering in the alley and playing wall-ball against the garage.

 The main purpose of our afternoon was to learn how to CAN!  We had tons of apples, so we ended up making cinnamon applesauce and a few tomato dishes too. It was such a blast (and a lot of work!). The chemistry of canning is a fascinating thing, so I enjoyed learning about that as well.  Here is my photo archive of the afternoon:

 

The peeler makes apple slinkys! 

 

It takes a lot of apples to make a lot of apple sauce.

 

For dinner, we picked veggies from the garden and made homemade pizza in this homemade brick oven pizza oven in the backyard!  

 It is great having free weekends to be with great people, learning and experiencing so many new things! 

Fun Fall Foods!

We have developed a new tradition in our house to invite friends over for Friday night potlucks! My roommate Emily has a friend named Pieter who came over one Friday night to make homemade pesto from a few huge bundles of basil that he picked. We had such a good time cooking the long way together (making almost everything by hand) and eating good food together, that we decided to make it a tradition!

Now Pieter, who I call Petey, and an assortment of other friends join us for Friday night potlucks! Another favorite recipe from last week was homemade curry.  We used potatoes, chick peas, tomato paste, coconut milk, onions, garlic, tomatoes, cardimum pods and curry powder. Emily made fresh naan to eat it with... it was fabulous!

 

Potlucks are now usually followed by a game night. Our favorites are Settlers of Catan, Telephone pictionary (seriously, this game never gets old for me!) and Apples to Apples.

Our garden is producing lots of very colorful and delicious vegetables that inspire some fun new recipe ideas!

 

Pizza night! We made homemade pizza dough, cooked down tomatoes from our garden to make sauce, and used lots of other veggies from our garden and the farmers market to top our pizza!

 

It was SO good.

 A fun part of my job at Open Arms is getting to make occasional Saturday visits to our organic farm: Open Farms (clever name, huh?!) My first visit, my coworker/fellow volunteer Ellen and I (pictured above) helped harvest 600 pounds of cucumbers to bring back, and in total brought in 1200 pounds of organic vegetables to use for our meals at Open Arms that week.  The second time I went, we picked spinach for 2 hours and only yielded about 15 pounds...not as impressive in regards to poundage!   Remember to appreciate your salad when you eat it--harvesting is hard work.

 

I enjoyed a surprise visit from camp friend, Ben Batz at the farm that Saturday!

A beautiful Friday afternoon turned our potluck into a picnic at Powderhorn Park, 4 blocks from my house.

 

Fridays are also the day that I am the lucky receiver of leftover food from Open Arms that will go bad over the weekend, and therefore can't be recycled for meal delivery.  My roommates love this aspect of my job, as it means lots of free delicious food! This Friday we got enough to furnish our entire picnic at the park.  The sunset was beautiful that afternoon.

 

Emily and Petey whipped out the slack line...

 

...so I gave it a try! Ignore the fact that Rebecca and Emily are darting out of the way- I did balance for a good 2 seconds.

I think a highlight of my year might be these Friday food and community nights!

Home makover: Wellstone Addition

The funny thing with LVC is that you move into a house that comes completely furnished and is decorated with the inside jokes of the LVC volunteers from previous years.  For the first couple of weeks, it has felt like I have been living in someone else’s house…so this week I proposed that my roommates and I spend our Monday Community Night having a cleaning and redecorating party! The other funny thing about being in LVC is that you have no budget for home decorating. So, using things we found around the house, here is how we decorated!  I was feeling very crafty all weekend, so I’m thankful my roommates put up with me.  Here’s a quick tour of our house!

 

Emily tackled the pantry. Notice all the good bulk foods and home canned treats!  

Labels for the pantry

Our landlords gave us some leftover jars, so we got our spices out of their little bags in the drawer, hung a rack and arranged our spices in the kitchen.

 

 For $5, we purchased a chalk board to use as a memo board. I also found some old magazines and made a "Wellstone" sign, since our house is named after the Wellstone's.

  

For those who remember my last room, I no longer have a 9 foot by 4 foot wall of photos... thank you tacky wall paper. So instead, a few of my favorite pictures now line my fancy dresser mirror!

 

Our garden gives us lots of colorful center pieces this time of year.

 

 Since I had all my scrapbooking stuff out, I ended up making lots of greeting cards! Here's a few favorites.

 

We needed a way to organize our mail, so here's our homemade filing mail system!

 

While flipping through old magazines, I decided to make a collage... so I found fun patterns to cut out the Minneapolis skyline and the greener side of the city.  Collage art is free!