Transylvania House Blessing

Where there is faith, 

there is love.

Where there is love,

there is peace.

Where there is peace, 

there is blessing.

Where there is blessing, 

there is God.

Where there is God

there is no need.

This is the Transylvania House Blessing.  It can be found hanging over the door in most Unitarian homes in the Transylvanian region of Romania, on decorative plates like this one, burned into wooden plaques or embroidered with red thread onto white cotton cloth. I have always loved the wording since the first time I heard it and when our retired minister brought this one to our church's fundraiser auction last fall, I bought it.  As soon as I can get a system "sorted out", it will be hanging on our wall in our home. 

A lesson in faith - "Unitarian History in Transylvania  - Unitarianism traces its religious roots back nearly 450 years to 16th Century Transylvania. There, the theologian Francis David (who in true UU fashion was first a Catholic, then a Calvinist before becoming a Unitarian) converted the King and much of the population to a radical theology -- a theology that espoused the oneness of God and the humanity of Jesus, and that held up reason and tolerance as the pillars of its faith. Today, despite centuries of persecution, there are still some 50,000 Unitarians living in the Transylvania region of Romania."  (info from the UU Partner Church website, www.uupcc.org)

OUR FLOWER COMMUNION

    "The Flower Communion is an annual ritual in many Unitarian Universalist churches that celebrates beauty, human uniqueness, diversity, and community.
     Originally created in 1923 by Unitarian minister Norbert Capek of Prague, Czechoslovakia, the Flower Ceremony was introduced to the United States by Rev. Maya Capek, Norbert's widow.
     In this ceremony, everyone in the congregation brings a flower. Each person places a flower on the altar or in a shared vase. The congregation and minister bless the flowers, and they're redistributed. Each person brings home a different flower than the one they brought." (From the website www.uua.org)

Each flower unique.

Each person is unique.

By themselves, they may look rather plain -

Our Flower Communion at church was last weekend.  It also coincided with our "Good Bye" service for our minister, Rev. Marcia Stanard who is leaving us after three years to become the new minister for Atkinson Memorial Church in Oregon City.  We will miss her alot, but she has proved to us and to the world, that even a church as small as ours deserves and can sustain a great minister.

You take that one plain flower and add another and another, and soon you have a display of great beauty.

I think people are like that, too.  Don't you?


PS - and if you get to Oregon City on a Sunday morning (starting late August)  stop by Atkinson Memorial for a great church service.  Tell them "A friend of your minister" sent you!   








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SNOW DAY!!

Well, we finally got some snow today!

There were about 4 or 5 inches when we left for church at about 10:00 this a.m.  We needed to go a little bit early as we had a special guest from Oklahoma in the pulpit this a.m. and we wanted to make sure we were there . 

These first two pictures are of our church.  It almost looks black and white, then you notice the green band below the siding. 




I love how the snowflakes look like little balls of light falling out of the sky! 

Church went well - our visitor was a wonderful speaker.

We had to stop in Ferndale at the store because we forgot to get potatoes Friday night - How can you make stew without potatoes??

The freeway was fine, but the back roads to our house were a little bit sketchy - sloppy and slippery!  







And this is what greeted us when we got to our drive way... that's about 10 inches of snow in front of that gate. 












So, luckily The Shepherd had brought a shovel with us - he had to dig out the driveway so we could get in to the house! 











After getting more snow this afternoon & evening there is about a foot of snow on our dumpster now. 











Bella was very interested in something that was happening outside the window.  S/he got way up on the window sill, tail twitching -












This is all she could see - I don't know if there was maybe a "burdie" in the tree, of if it was just the falling snow flakes that were getting her attention.















Out the front door -















and "plink" down over the edge of the deck.  That's George who just went over  the edge (tip of his tail, center of the picture)  - We couldn't get Gracie off of the big bed for love nor money. 

The forecast from my little "weather machine"  - although Weather.com says it will be 48 degrees by Tuesday! 

The Shepherd took this picture out in the pasture when he did chores this evening - the little wires that the snow is perched on are only 1/4 inch in diameter - how's that work? 

We hope you are all in a nice cozy place this evening! 








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Three Beautiful things, courtesy of The Shepherd/Landscaper

  

Some pretty pictures of our church.

As part of his service to the church, The Shepherd, who is a professional landscaper, does our gardening.

A previous member made the trellis.

My girlfriend did the stained glass work.

Pretty, huh?  

The front & side of the building.  The roses are especially beautiful this year. 

And a quiet place for people to meditate.

The wooden pillar behind the bench is called a kopjafa. It is a memorial pole and was made for us by our partner church in Transylvania.  It is a treasure.







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Church breakfast

 Last weekend I helped with a fund-raiser breakfast that we had at church.  My part was to bring cinnamon rolls.

I used this recipe for "Sensational Overnight Cinnamon Rolls"

But I didn't make them "overnight", I just let them rise the second time and baked them on Saturday, and wrapped them in foil (once they had cooled) to keep them fresh and to keep marauding felines out of them.

And like the recipe suggests, I used my long, unused bread machine to mix and kneed them. It worked like a charm.(and I have promised my co-workers that I would make some for them someday soon)

And let me tell you, they WERE sensational!


And since it was St. Patrick's Day, I tinted the frosting green!

We had scrambled eggs, bacon or sausage, fruit (oranges, pineapple and banana chopped & mixed) and fruit juice.  It was delish. 

Then we went upstairs and had our choir concert.

It was called "Long and Winding Roads" because all of the songs that The Shepherd, who also moonlights as "The Choir Director"  had references to "roads" in them.  He also brought one of his favorite J Jody Bergsma paintings to decorate the front of the church.

And this big bouquet of daffodils from our yard.

I read a blog yesterday where the kitty called daffodils "Sunshine on Stems" - I thought that was very appropriate.

We had a very fun day and there were four cinnamon rolls left over for snacks later.  Yum. 

A Night For Bells to Ring

Free Church Unitarian, a drawing by Hal Logan

This past Sunday night was our church's Christmas program & concert.  The whole nine yards - the choir has been working for months on special music, our Religious Education director had been rehearsing with the children their Shadow Puppet show, and our new minister, Rev. Marcia Stanard had prepared some wonderful readings. 

It was truly "A Night For Bells to Ring". (one of the songs the choir had practiced for so long, made a wonderful title for the program, don't you think?)

Then the unimaginable tragedy in Newtown, CT happened on Friday morning.  How could anyone celebrate when so many were grieving? 

So we allowed as how bells ring for sadness too -and remembered the victims by lighting 26 candles,  and went on with our service.  It was a nice evening and our choir? We did a great job for 10 voices. 

And in the back of our minds, we all wondered, why? 

Pumpkin Mousse for How Many?

The phone rang a couple of weeks ago and it was a friend from church.  Specifically the lady who was in charge of the dinner for our annual Fund Raiser Auction (which happened to be last night).

"Hello" she said.  "Hi, Donna, what's up?" I replied.

"Well you know that this year's auction has a comic book theme.  For dinner, we're having "Garfield's Lasagna", "Popeye's Spinach Salad" and "Blondies Gourmet Garlic Bread" - We thought it would be great if we could have a pumpkin dessert - you know, like Linus's Great Pumpkin?"

Hmm - I could see where this was going.. "What did you have in mind?"  I asked, "Some kind of a pumpkin pudding," she said.

"Well let me look up some recipes and see what I can come up with."

(Originally she wanted something that could be combined with angel food cake, but after I found this Pumpkin Mousse recipe, I convinced her to ditch the angel food cake and just go with a bowl of mousse accompanied by a ginger snap cookie.)

I called her - "Hi Donna, I found a great recipe - it needs a little tweaking, but I think everyone will like it.  How many are we expecting?"

"Forty people" she said.  I started adding up ingredients in my head.  "OK," I said, and committed myself to making this dessert.

I had looked at a WHOLE lot of recipes before I finally found one that sounded like it would be good - Keep in mind that I was using fresh/frozen pumpkin puree from our own pumpkins.  The first try at this pudding yield a large (filled my Pampered Chef two quart batter bowl almost to the top) bowl of mousse.  I thought it was pretty good.  The Shepherd thought it was way too rich.  So I did what I always do when I'm trying out a new recipe.  I filled two freezer containers & took them in to the office, knowing that I would get some pretty honest comments.  I thought my co-worker Kay would like it - she didn't like it at all - 'tasted raw' she said.  Yes, I had noticed that - pumpkin has kind of an "edgy" quality to it - especially with the pumpkin pie spice - the cinnamon and cloves were pretty pronounced.  Another co-worker thought it was good, but again, the richness kind of put her off -

Well, it did have two cups of whipped cream in it - maybe if I used half vanilla yogurt - back to the proverbial drawing board.

Side story - I used to sell Pampered Chef products and one of the things that I really liked was that I earned LOTS of free stuff - kitchen gadgets, stoneware, cookware.  I LOVE my Pampered Chef stuff!  In fact, I still have the original Classic Kitchen Scraper , the first PC product that that I bought almost 18 years ago - it still looks new, and they are still just $12.  TWELVE DOLLARS for a kitchen scraper you say?  But when you take into account that it is one piece silicone so the head doesn't come off and get icky stuff inside it, and after 18 years, I still have it (plus three other regular ones, two skinny scrapers, two large mix-n-scrapers and one small mix-n-scraper - I use one or more of them almost every day), I'd say $12 was a real bargain.  But I digress...

One of the things I earned was a double boiler pan.  Mine is not exactly like the new ones, but the premise is the same - a nice stainless steel pan that fit right on top of my Revere ware pan.  And now, many years later, I was getting a chance to use it!  Because I knew that my fresh pumpkin had to be cooked again before I could use it for the mousse (canned pumpkin has been double cooked in the canning process) and I didn't want to have to stand over a pan watching it every minute so it didn't burn.  The double boiler just fit the bill.  And it worked like a champ.  I mixed my pumpkin, milk and spices with my immersion blender and cooked it in my double boiler pan for about 45 minutes (until it "tasted done" if you know what I mean) let it cool and made the mousse recipe again.  It was much better -

I was ready to go - had my ingredients all lined up - and got a message on the answering machine from Donna last Thursday.  She sounded a small bit hysterical. - "The Auction committee has just told me that they think we might have 60 people - so you need to make your mousse for 60 instead of 40"    Yikes...that's a LOT of pudding!  Re think my ingredient list, - all in all,  it took 9-10 cups of fresh pumpkin puree, 4 1/2 cups of milk, three pkgs of Philly lite cream cheese, three large pkgs. of instant vanilla pudding, a whole lot of pumpkin pie spice and cinnamon, some sugar and 9 cups of whipped chream - filled up my BIG Tupperware bowl plus another large stainless steel bowl -that much pudding is kind of daunting - 

Long story short - we ended up only having 38 people show up for dinner - so my original amount would have been just fine.  The left over bowl worked just fine for dessert for the left over lasagna at church today - one young fellow liked it so well he had three bowls full!

This version makes enough for 8-10 people

 PUMPKIN MOUSSE

Ingredients

• ½ package (4 ounces) Light cream cheese, softened (I used Philadelphia brand)
• 1/4 cup Granulated Sugar
• 1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin   ***or 2 cups of fresh pumpkin puree
• 1 package (3.4 ounces) instant vanilla pudding mix
• 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice  (Pampered Chef Cinnamon Plus, of course!)
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 1 cup cold 2% milk + ½ cup if you are using the fresh pumpkin
• 1 cup whipping cream (makes two cups whipped)
• ¼ cup powdered sugar
• 24 gingersnaps, divided

Directions

***if you are using home grown pumpkin puree, you need to cook your 2 cups of puree & a cup milk plus your spices in a double boiler on medium heat for about 30-45 minutes until it loses that “raw” taste.  Cool before combining with the cream cheese & pudding mix.  I added another ½ cup of milk when I added the pudding mix.    

• In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth; add pumpkin, pudding mix, spices and milk. 
• Whip your cream with the powdered sugar to a fairly stiff peak.  Fold whipped cream into the pumpkin/pudding mixture,  Chill until ready to serve.  
• Serving suggestion:  Spoon 1/4 cup mousse into each of eight serving dishes. Crumble 16 gingersnaps; sprinkle a spoonful over mousse. Top with remaining mousse. Serve with a Gingersnap cookie. 
• Refrigerate until serving. Yield: 8-10 servings. 
  
  It tastes like a creamy pumpkin cheesecake, but not so strong on the cream cheese flavor,  I know that I'll be making this recipe again - probably for my spinner guild's Christmas party. 
  
  I hope you enjoy it as much as we all did. 

a Whirlwind of activity

I had three days off last week & I used them to get ready for our church's Covenanting Ceremony on Sunday evening for our new minister.  (She is already installed part time at another church in the Portland area, so the District would not let us "Install" her as our minister).

So we called it a Covenanting Ceremony.  Well, six of one, half dozen of the other -

But the Saturday before that I had a Spinner Guild meeting to go to.  I had 12 skeins of yarn that needed to be wound into balls, so instead of taking my wheel, I took my umbrella swift  and my  Yarn Ball Winder and my big basket FULL of skeins of yarn.


 




It literally took me the whole three hours to get them all done.

Then when I got home, I had lots of snoopervision getting everything out of the trunk.

We have to really watch Bella - as you can see from the picture above, she disappears into the darkness.  

But she is VERY good at snoopervision - everything that comes out of the car has to have the official BSOA - The Bella Stamp Of Approval! 

Anyhow - getting back to last week and my three days off - I was in charge of putting together the program for Sunday night (from our Minister's Order of Service) and I was also making a new "pew card" Order of Service for regular Sunday services.  Then there was the matter of the "congregational gift" - traditionally a cleric's stole

- which I figured - How hard could it be? 

(Famous last words...)  I had a pattern from our choir stoles - - then we decided to make it in velveteen -

Oh, My - measure three times before you cut once - I was so nervous - (when I told the lady at Joanne's Fabrics that I had the project because I had a sewing machine - she said that she would think about getting rid of that sewing machine... ha ha ---) 

We arranged with a local embroidery company to make the chalice patch (bottom right hand corner of the picture) & I set out to put it together.  The patch had to be hand sewn onto the velveteen, which took longer than I though it would, and if I were to do it again, I realized that I should have put some interfacing on the back - because it lacked - ah, - substance, I guess - but as you can see, Rev. Marcia was very happy with it, and as I told her, if she got nervous, she could just stroke it, kind of like a little kid's 'softie'

Saturday, I also made a couple of things for the reception - Sorry I didn't take pictures of them  - but I made some home-made cheese crackers (yum - and easy, I will make these again) and a cream cheese torte  - (my recipe is easy - you basically whip together 1# of room temp. butter & 1# of light cream cheese.  Line a bowl with plastic wrap or cheese cloth (so you can plate it for serving) then I layer it up with what ever I have - this time I made an olive salad with feta cheese for top & bottom layer and smoked salmon for the middle, but I have used pesto, roasted red peppers and artichokes, any number of yummy things.    Let it chill for a couple of hours to set, but it's best served at room temperature) Serve it with crostini bread or crackers - Left overs are very good on pasta too...

All that said - our Sunday was busy (because we had church in the morning too) and ran late into the evening for the ceremony and reception.  Luckily I had planned for Monday off as well because I was one tired puppy and there was still last week's laundry to do!!. 

So, I'm back - I have some new yarn and some crocheted "finished objects" to show you - and a story about "Bella, the hood ornament" and all the new sleeping spots around the house. 

Later -

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Caturday Report

 Hello everybody and everykitty!  Bella here with LAST week's Caturday report (what can I say, the help around here is abominable!)

Here I am, inspecting the things that came home from church last Sunday.  These are the mats that The Shepherd took to put his bonsai on.

But first I have to tell you about the Sheep & Goat day at the local Farm Co-op store.

The week before, early on Saturday morning, The Shepherd and Mummy loaded one of the vishus sheep and her screaming brat into the white trailer and took them away - turns out it was only for a few hours - they were the stars of the Sheep and Goat day at Ferndale Cenex.  Mummy took her spinning wheel and sat inside and entertained the peoples who came there to buy food for their animals. The Shepherd was impressed at how well behaved Donna and little Makks were with all the people around them. 

Last week, like most Sundays, The Shepherd and Mummy went to church.  The Shepherd is choir director and because it was Mother's Day, he was in charge of the service, and the choir sang a bunch of songs for the people. 

This is a picture of the garden that The Shepherd made at the church.  I think it looks very snoop worthy, but Blaine, where they go to church is a too long car ride away for me and Mummy would be afraid that I might get lost!

These are the bonsai trees that The Shepherd took for decoration of the front of the church.  He was mad at Mummy because he says this picture is "of the back" of the plants - she thought it looked nice anyhow. 

The little town of Blaine where they go to church is right on the border between the US and Canada.  The white building in the center of the picture is called The Peace Arch and it sits in the middle of a very beautiful park that is right on the border. 

Mummy was in charge of "snacks" after church last week.  She made these things called "wraps" - meats and veggies wrapped up in flour tortillas -

First she put a layer of a mix of cream cheese and caesar salad dressing on the tortilla.  Then she put down a handful of spinach leaves.  Then she put about a half a cup of what she called Greek Salsa-a yummy mix of chopped artichoke hearts, sliced black olives, sliced green olives (pimento stuffed), diced celery, diced English cucumber, shredded carrot finely chopped green onions, red bell pepper, Feta Cheese,  garlic, Cavender’s  Greek seasoning, some Pampered Chef Greek Seasoning Rub, a couple of shakes of Pamp. Chef Italian seasoning and some pepper, some Best Foods Mayonnaise (you probably could use plain yogurt. But she didn’t have any) AND a couple of tablespoons of white wine vinegar.  Rolled it all up and wrapped it up in some waxed paper (that's why the wraps in the picture look kind of "shiny" - she forgot to take the waxed paper off before she took the picture - Meow out loud, Mummy)  One of the ladies at church told her it was the best thing she'd ever tasted.  Mummy was pleased because she thought they were very tasty too.  She also had Ham Salad wraps and Chicken Caesar salad wraps, egg salad, homemade Roasted Red pepper hummus, bagels, some chips and a bowl of sliced apples and oranges.  Whew, that was a lot of food!  Plus they had a chocolate cake to celebrate the college graduation of their choir accompanist!  She was so tired she wanted to come home and take a nap, but she had to go to town to do the family laundry.  It was a very busy day! 

So that's last week's Caturday report.  Maybe there will be time to do another one tomorrow -  Hope you all have a good Sunday!  XOX  Bella

What we've been up to...

I know that I have talked about our church before. It is a small, and, as The Shepherd puts it. blue collar, Unitarian-Universalist church in Blaine, WA - - Established by Icelandic fishermen in the late 1920's - in fact for many years, the service was even given in Icelandic!

Well this spring, our minister (Rev. Nan) , who has been there for 20 years (!) announced her retirement. Although only paid half time, her ministry has been much more -

Here she is with The Shepherd, who is also known as "The Minister of Music" -


They have worked very closely over the years.

For several months he has been planning a service to celebrate her ministry with our church. A couple of weeks ago, he decided to make a small "garden" on the table that holds our chalice.

Isn't it pretty? (If you click on the pictures, they will biggify - and you can see the details - so cute)






He put plants that he will re-purpose into Nan's garden at home and interspersed them with some button mums and freesia for color spots.











He used moss and little pieces (maybe 2 x 3 inch) of slate for a little path.

It made a lovely centerpiece for the front of the church.









He spoke and did some readings - we had several church members volunteer to write about how her ministry had affected them.













Nan's daughter came up from Seattle. She spoke about how her mom had influenced her life and she sang two songs, one "Wild Mountain Thyme" needed my guitar accompaniment













And our choir sang several songs










And it was not all serious business though - Remember I spoke of the church's Icelandic roots? - one member proclaimed Nan and her husband Queen & King of the Vikings - including the fancy "hats" -








One of the gifts we gave Nan was a lap quilt (that I made) - (don't ask - it was the first of quilts, it was the last of quilts)

I can really see, though, how quilters are seduced into the craft - it was kind of fun (except for the midnight work by flashlight) , and the materials - oh my, it just made me drool to walk through the aisles of fabric in that quilt store -





I used four panels of photos printed on material - just used my old ink jet printer - worked like a charm and they were very good reproductions. I was impressed.

As people came in the door of the church, we had them sign the back of the quilt as the "Guest Book" so she could see the names of everyone who was there







Here is our Board President Vikki presenting Rev. Nan with a picture of another gift - a wonderful slate garden bench - (to be delivered at a later date to her home)








Some of you also know that I also do the newsletter for our little church - Here were my thoughts from my last column as our church looks for a new minister -

"Holy cow! Loosing Rev. Nan AND Oprah at the same time? What ever will we do?

Over the past 20-25 years, both of these fine ladies have nurtured and taught us new ways to deal with the events and issues in our lives.

It will be a brave new world out there for millions worldwide (on a grand scale) and oh, 40 or 50 of us here in Whatcom County (on a much smaller scale) - but soon, it will be summer and we will be distracted by (hopefully) warm sunny days - until reality hits - the re-runs are over - wait a minute - what do you mean, there are no new episodes?

Both Nan and Oprah have encouraged us to be the best that we can be. They have encouraged us to take responsibility for our own actions and to share, lovingly, and sometimes outrageously, with others who are not as blessed as we might be."

So, we'll use those lessons to do our best - we'll be OK - and sooner or later, they'll be back.