poem

Poetry has a way of coming in and out of my life. Last June, Josh and I hiked around the Great Blasket Island in Ireland. It was a ghost island, once inhabited by the strongest kind of human. A beautiful and severe place. You can see it just beyond Josh's head in the picture.


I stood out on the limb of a ghost island
There was a path before me to keep
me steady(though I am a unleveled soul)

All blue and thick was the way around me
All blue, as I face due North(this island undoes me)

I walked this soil with the one I love
My knees split and the wind cut
my heart

And I wondered if the past was speaking to me
O Ireland, so tough skinned.
you melt me

tonite's dinner

Baked Ziti

I cooked this tonite and it was really good. It feeds a lot of people, too!

what you need:

1 box of ziti pasta
2 jars of spaghetti sauce...whatever you like
1 lb ground beef or turkey (or substitute meat with veggies that you like)
1 onion
1 six ounce package of provolone cheese sliced
1 six ounce package of mozzarella cheese (cut into cubes)
1 1/2 cups of sour cream(I used light)

Directions

Cook noodles until they are a little tougher than al dente; drain

Brown onion and meat; drain fat

Mix both sauces with the meat and onion; simmer 15 mintues

slice your provolone if not already bought that way

cube your mozzarella

preheat oven to 350

lightly butter baking dish

Place half of the ziti on bottom of dish

lay slices of provolone across ziti

spread sour cream over cheese

Pour half of sauce mixture

pour remaining ziti

spread cubed mozzarella evenly

pour rest of sauce

Sprinkle Parmasean cheese on top (as much as you want)

Bake for 30 minutes until cheese is bubbly.

some house pics

some have asked to see some pictures of the house...here you go:)

kitchen cabinet and flowers from josh 

porch view 

big room 

living room 

when it hits the fan

i suppose we should have seen this coming. our first house, and the sewage pipes go bust. josh and I would agree that we are fortunate. we have good friends and family. we have nice things. we eat well and drink clean water. we even go to movies and have many winter coats. however, sometimes, enough "difficult" things happen in a short amount of time to make you question things. things like, are we crazy? were we supposed to move here? Our first weekend here, a tree fell down in our driveway, blocking our cars..of course, the night before my first day of work. drama. then our sewage goes bust. then, we for some reason are not getting our paychecks in the mail...and then when the sewage is "fixed"...water starts coming out of the toilet overflowing onto our beautful hardwood floors. so here I am, sitting on my recently soiled floors, waiting on a plumber to fix what he just supposedly fixed three hours ago. did I mention he ripped down our neighbors tree in the process...the big one that shades his nice front porch. Oh dear....this is our little life these days.

And I am not dealing well with this. I am irritated(your house smelling like poo can do this to you). We also just had to cancel our fancy dinner reservations with my dad that were for 6....that's one minute from now.

this will all be funny one day...but now, not so much.

talk to you soon....

"I've had better days" Brooksie:)

mad, hot ballroom

the strangest thing.....four summers ago, I went to NYC and worked at a summer day camp in Washington Heights. I helped tutor these kids, played in the fountains with them, and taught them a dance class...the cotton eyed joe was the dance du jour. I laughed my head off as these kids, who were from the Dominican Republic, danced a little jig with me. I had a favorite, her name was jatna....well, josh and I went to see a documentary yesterday (see poster)...and ALL those kids I was with in NYC were in this documentary...and jatna, she's the little girl on the poster. Can you believe that? I cried the entire film. so the documentary is about public schools in NYC who are doing this ball room dancing program. it is just hilarious and adorable, moving, etc.... they documented only three of the schools, one of which was Wahington Heights. It was so great to see these little kids have their moment of glory..so many of them come from such difficult circumstances. So many times we do things, like a short term mission trip, and wonder what good we did or we wonder what ever happens to these precious people. well, sometimes they become famous little ball room dancers!.....mad, hot ballroom, go see these wonderful kids!