Ebb and flow

“We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid that it will never return.

We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity…

Intermittency — an impossible lesson for human beings to learn…

Perhaps this is the most important thing: simply the memory that each cycle of the tide is valid; each cycle of the wave is valid…

One must accept the security of ebb and flow, of intermittency.”

These beautiful words by Anne Morrow Lindbergh teach us about transition. About change and, often, crisis. These remind us life fluxes and flexes – for better or worse.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ encourages us to have faith. Our ebbing and flowing in mortality is anchored in Christ, who Himself is the very permanency we crave.

1. O Love that wilt not let me go,
   I rest my weary soul in thee;
   I give thee back the life I owe,
   That in thine ocean depths its flow
   May richer, fuller be.

1. O light that foll’west all my way,
   I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
   My heart restores its borrowed ray,
   That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
   May brighter, fairer be.

1. O Joy that seekest me through pain,
   I cannot close my heart to thee;
   I trace the rainbow through the rain,
   And feel the promise is not vain,
   That morn shall tearless be.

1. O Cross that liftest up my head,
   I dare not ask to fly from thee;
   I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
   And from the ground there blossoms red
   Life that shall endless be.

George Mattheson, pub.1882

Moving On

Outside mom and dad's rooms,



one above the other here,



at their new place.

They'll move from our house tomorrow.
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'Flowers don't worry about how they're going to bloom. They just open up and turn toward the light and that makes them beautiful.' ~Jim Carrey

... if only for a fleeting moment

[E-mail to Sarah] Hi Sarah. Here's something I've read and re-read, kind of holding my breath, from the book I'm in... the third Jan Karon novel I've picked up in the last month. My heart and soul and brains can't get enough of her good wisdom through the main character, Father Tim.

Can I set it up for you – would you be interested?

Sammy Barlowe has been abused as a child and Father Tim (70) has custody of him now at age seventeen. Sammy plays pool with a passion, loves to be behind a cue stick; he swears and spits Red Man juice from his mouth (tobacco juice) in a stream when he's mad. Which is always... the Father has talked with his wife Cynthia to get wisdom about how to BE with Sammy, how to not react in anger (all there was from Sammy's biological father when he was young, abusive reaction and then neglect) and how to offer grace to this child. Father Tim is reckoning no mortal can offer true grace to another, only "mock" grace (like, his wife offered, mock turtle soup or mock apple pie).

There's been an incident – Sammy has wrecked the Father's Mustang, nearly killing himself. Father T refuses to be drawn into an angry reaction, even with his car totaled. Now he has Sammy in a work project clearing the overgrown garden at the Children's Hospital in town and it's REAL work. He takes Sammy into the hospital with him where they can wash up after and they happen on an Emergency Room situation: a 17 year-old boy brought in who's been crushed in a trash truck compacter. Sammy goes ballistic witnessing the boy's agony, yells and sobs out a diatribe about God and lies (That's some kind of God that'd do that to somebody, that's some kind of God you think so much of... Is it all jis' lies?) to the Father, then runs from the hospital toward the highway and Father T is thinking this (I've underlined parts I like and have re-read... the truth is, this part stopped me in my tracks when I read this book in December seven and a half months ago, and the REAL TRUTH is I think I called you THEN and quoted this underlined part to you. You might remember.):

"Grace may be a no-brainer for God, but for him it was clearly impossible to deliver. If mock grace was going to bring anything to the table, the heart must be kept free of malice.Yank out the bitter weed, and in a flash, back it comes, and more of it. He found there was even a type of repulsion to be rooted out of his feelings, this having to do with Sammy’s general hygiene and the way spitting was used as a nonverbal form of in-your-face loathing. And yet this was the package that had been set before him.

He didn’t know how to help Sammy make something of himself in the competitive world of pool. It was beyond his powers. All he and Sammy had was the card currently dealt: the restoration of a garden gone wild. Together, they were making a place for the human spirit to find ease, if only for a fleeting moment. He’d learned that even the fleeting moment counts for something, counts for much. In a fleeting moment, Paul was convicted on the road, Charles Wesley’s heart was strangely warmed, Lewis’s ‘land of longing’ was left behind at the moment Lewis said, ‘when God closed in.’

Who was he, anyway, to tamper with the damage of a young life? All he knew to do, for now, was keep his mouth shut, and in the silence let the Holy Spirit do the talking.

Outside Wesley’s town limits, he pulled off the highway a few yards ahead of Sammy; left the motor running, waited. Sammy climbed back in the truck.

There was nothing to say. He drove, kept his eyes on the road."

What'd'ya think? Something to think about. I especially – now, in life – consider Father Tim's wisdom about how the fleeting moment counts for something. Conviction, warming, turning, and "leaving behind" can – might – happen in a fleeting moment.

Conversion.

The "putting off" of the natural man and taking on of "becoming a saint." (Mosiah 3:19)

Connection – with a disaffected or normally un-affected loved one – even.

I believe it, and I also maintain the grace to have that happen is not offered to us by any mortal – no best friend, sibling, parent or child, other in authority (even ecclesiastic) no matter how much they want to or struggle to, or care... nor can we extend such to others. "Mock" soup and apple pie is what we have to offer. As Father Tim recognizes: There may be little to do but keep one's mouth shut and "in the silence let the Holy Spirit do the talking."

Just thoughts. I want to better cherish the "fleeting moment." I love you! Thinking of you. Praying for you today. God is good.

Going places

A week ago Kent and I hightailed it to Logan to visit his brother and sister, Roger and Connie, and their parents at their assisted living center. Virtually immediately (as it was lunch time) we drove miles north to Richmond to a dive one of Roger and Connie's grandchildren has said has great hamburgers. Oh boy does it! Crispy tender fries with fry sauce – the works! I dove into the fast food for once in a long time. When the burger and fries are as delish as mine were (and the others', I noticed!) you don't hesitate.

Leaving there, we spotted a fudge shop and I yelped fudge! and Roger did a U turn and parked us in front. We walked to the counter and chatted up the owner, a young woman far along in her fourth pregnancy running the place on her own, even making the several varieties of fudge herself, every one calling my name... Kent and I asked her to put six pieces in a box buy four, get two free: Root beer fudge, caramel praline, no-bake goodie fudge, snickers fudge, rocky road, and plain old chocolate. (On-an-adventure-NOW... sugar to chase down the fat and cholesterol and calories I've just imbibed at LD's.) (Soooo good!) (For about a minute, eh. I'm going to regret this.)

We held on to our fudge in the box and you'll never guess what we did next: To the Fat Boy manufacturing plant! Lucky Roger and Connie live near the very place Fat Boy ice cream sandwiches and Fat Boys on a stick are made. Often the seconds are sold cheap right out of the freezer in their ice cream shop and, in June, once before, we've come here and I posted how seven of us got Fat boys for a nickel apiece (linky) That whole adventure: 35 cents.





To this place we made great haste. (Notice we haven't run to the assisted living center to visit the parents first, no.) Well I got two dips in a cup – chocolate chip and mint chocolate chip, and the others had about the same. Poor Connie was stuffed as she'd had a bacon burger back at LD's – I had a little room left for mine since I had a regular hamburger with pickles and onions, etc., only. She and Roger couldn't even nibble their fudge in the car, she was so full!

... And then we parted company and Kent and I rolled in to the assisted living center to visit mom and dad, ancient of days. They really are! 91 and 99. I sat on mom's cushy love seat, her nestled into my left side (didn't have her hearing aids in; couldn't hear unless I talked right into her ear or she read my lips) and I almost fell sound asleep. The stillness, oooh, the heat, soft couch, late time of day, digestion – that'll work against you. Pa doesn't hear well anymore and stays himself nestled in his recliner, often with a blanket over him, just looking over at us. Or eyes closed as if asleep; maybe he is. I felt myself going there... and when Kent did, except that mom was telling us one thing right after another and we both were prodding ourselves to respond, we figured it was time to get up and move. Right on out of there. Home.

Dark

I dunno...  just liked this.

What gives us lift...

Music and the Spoken Word today said this about Wilbur and Orville Wright's attempts to fly:

Their story holds some valuable lessons for anyone

• who dreams,
• who faces challenges, or
• who labors at worthwhile work that seems difficult or even impossible.

First of all, don’t be disheartened by those who say it cannot be done; most of life’s meaningful achievements come as a great surprise to the doubtful. And don’t be discouraged when defeats and failures start piling up; quite often it is the adverse wind that gives us just the right amount of lift we need. Or, to use the eloquent words of Wilbur Wright, “No bird soars in a calm.”

They knew how to work, they worked well together, and they were comfortable making slow and steady progress. Because of that, they changed the world.



The Choir sang The Impossible Dream after. We know the words... heck, they're passé, almost no longer fashionable. Though I was in the mood to hear them in the context of the Wright brothers' work and success, and admit I loved this:

To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to bear with unbearable sorrow, to run where the brave dare not go... To right the unrightable wrong, to love pure and chaste from afar, to try when your arms are too weary to reach the unreachable star.

This is my quest, to follow that star no matter how hopeless, no matter how far! To fight for the right without question or pause... to be willing to march into Hell for a heavenly cause. And I know if I'll only be true to this glorious quest that my heart will lie peaceful and calm when I'm laid to my rest.

And the world will be better for this, that one man, scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable star.

Yet and still, no bird soars in a calm. I guess I'm okay with adverse wind that gives us lift.

"The Nun and the Peach"

I'm still reading The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce. An elderly woman, Queenie is in a hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed with terminal cancer. She doesn't talk – she can't after four operations to remove part of her mouth. She's writing a long letter to the love of her life, Harold Fry... who happens to have received one short letter from her on a day months before wherein she indicated, "I know it is a long time since we last met, but recently I have been thinking about the past. Last year I had an operation on a tumor, but the cancer has spread and there is nothing left to be done" and who has now begun walking across England to be beside her. (I don't know why walking, that's detailed in Joyce's first book The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry which now I'll have to read.) Though she said in her first letter to him "I am at peace, and comfortable, but I would like to thank you for the friendship you showed me all those years ago," she is now determined to bear out her feelings for him all these years along with a confession for something gone terribly wrong.

Hence, the novel.

I'm still reading. Where I before posted the chapter "The Doing of Small Things," (link) I've got to post from another chapter besides, "The Nun and the Peach." Really. Sister Mary Inconnu has entered Queenie's room saying, "You have been overdoing it, dear heart." Sister Mary Inconnu has carried her typewriter in with her in its bag, but she also bears upon a plate "one soft, amber peach." Queenie shakes her head to remind the nun she can't eat. She's angry... her writing hand has a blister on it from writing days in a row (without the Sister present) and that has been bandaged. She's stopped in her tracks.

"Waiting," Sister Mary Inconnu says to Queenie "is about being still. You can't keep busy every minute, otherwise you're not waiting. You're throwing things around to distract yourself." (This is what I wanted most to post, and I'll come to it at the end...)

"It's time to concentrate your energy on other things. Like this lovely peach. [This peach] will make you less anxious. The peach is here. It's in the present. Whether you can wait for Harold Fry is not something you will influence by working hard or getting upset. We behave these days as if we can have everything the moment we think of it. But we can't. Sometimes we just have to sit and wait. So take the peach. Don't be so cross. Go on."

The chapter unfolds with Queenie getting a bit of peach in her mouth. Lots of description – an almost-impossibility, her enjoying the simple fruit. "I stroked the velvety red blush of its skin. This may sound strange, but I forgot briefly that you could eat a peach as well as touch it. Sister Mary Inconnu lifted the fruit to my nose, and the smell was so honey-sweet my nostrils began to zing." Queenie swallows a portion the nun offers... "I felt happier than if I'd grown wings and learned to fly! We were the peach and the peach was us and there was nothing more."

Doesn't the peach oh-so represent the present? I like the part about the peach is here. I like the part you can't keep busy every minute. I like the part about being still.
-----

When we are forced to be still — because we’re in line for something, or waiting at a doctor’s appointment, or on a bus or train — we often get antsy, and need to find something to do. Some of us will have our mobile devices, others will have a notebook or folder with things to do or read, others will fidget. Being still isn’t something we’re used to. Sit still for a little bit each day. Breathe when you feel yourself moving too fast. Slow down. Be present. Find happiness now, in this moment. ~Zen Habits: Leo Babauta

Pleasure

I took this picture this afternoon at Red Butte Garden sitting 'midst the wildflowers in the Fragrance Garden, right on their level. Watching. Listening. Photographing. Committing to memory the light, the stillness and busyness, the pleasure.

And now you ask in your heart,
"How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?"
Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,
But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.

~ Extract from Kahlil Gibran’s "The Prophet"

Your good, and my name's glory, saith the Lord

I finished the simplest of tasks the other day and lifted up my chin at the end and breathed, "Father, a blessing! Every single thing, a blessing!" The hair on my arms raised and by this I felt I'd felt His "thank you" from above. I don't think that's an improbability.

I truly understand my actions on earth are intended to glorify my Father in Heaven. I understand. I recognize that when I give thanks in every thing, Father's Heavenly glory pulses stronger and burns brighter. If just from my little world to His! Imagine the burnings then our Father lives in as all of us remain grateful and breathe out most times much gratitude.

Here's D&C 98:1-2 Verily I say unto you my friends, fear not, let your hearts be comforted; yea, rejoice evermore, and in everything give thanks; Waiting patiently on the Lord, for your prayers have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and are recorded...

In everything give thanks. Another way to say it is: Every single thing a blessing, Lord!

Just now I ate with my fingers a cold cooked tilapia filet seasoned with Bayou Blast... and closed my eyes after the last chew and breathed out, "Heavenly Father, thank Thee for this food. May it bless me. And give me strength!"

I added "courage." "And courage against all the things I want in this world," I said, meaning that. It slipped out before I even had the thought. It's in me, this prayer, and came out a plea. I do mean it: I so need courage against wants. Geneen Roth writes in one of her books I've read, "There is no end to wanting." So courage for when the wanting remains worldly. Wrong foods, things, or attitudes.

Here's D&C again, 2-3: ...for your prayers have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and are recorded with this seal and testament — the Lord hath sworn and decreed that they shall be granted. Therefore, he giveth this promise unto you, with an immutable covenant that they shall be fulfilled; and all things wherewith you have been afflicted shall work together for your good, and to my name’s glory, saith the Lord.

"The Doing of Small Things"

I've started about three blog posts since "Crazy Chicken" and haven't pushed the Publish button on one. I'll stick with this today.

In this next novel I'm reading – and I've read a whole other novel between this one and the last, "Home to Holly Springs" – the main character is elderly, definitely ill, living in what she refers to as a hospice. A home for the dying, nuns volunteering and doing the nursing. I had to pause at the end of this chapter just now, The Doing of Small Things, to think and think. You have this feeling and you say, Yes!

One morning Sister Mary Inconnu goes to our patient's room as she has been doing mornings in a row to help her get a letter written, a longish one, explaining something important to someone important named Harold.

Queenie has wakened depressed. Another day to write with her one good hand in longhand the notes Sister Mary Inconnu has offered to type. "I will never get to the end of my letter," I thought. "There is a huge story ahead of me, and the truth is so complicated."

"'I don't want to be here,' I scribbled. 'I want to be in my sea garden.'"

"Sister Mary Inconnu read my comment and sat still. She cocked her head as though she were listening to something a little beyond my range. Then she said, 'I find it helps to start the day by practicing one small, regular thing. I knew a businessman once, a very wealthy person, and he went out to collect kindling sticks each morning. He said it helped him to avoid all sorts of conflict later in the day. I have another friend who walks his dog by the sea. Now, I realize sticks and dog walks are out of the question, but you might memorize a poem. Or do some spine exercises. It is good to practice these small daily rituals. What will be yours, Queenie?' Sister Mary Inconnu cast a glance over the room."

"I lifted my hands in a helpless gesture."

"'Oh, very good,' said Sister Mary Inconnu. I had no idea what she was talking about. 'We will do finger stretches.'"



"So that is what we did. I copied her as she rotated her hands like wheels and placed them gently palm against palm. I copied as she pointed first her thumb, then the index finger, and so on. From outside the hospice I heard the gulls in the sky, the wind in the tree. I heard the nuns talking with the medical team in the corridor. But they were gentle sounds that ebbed and flowed. I heard them and I let them go. I smiled.

"'That's better,' said Sister Mary Inconnu. 'Are you ready for your letter now? One word in front of the other.'"

Crazy chicken!

This is lychee. I'm not sure what lychee is exactly, though I ate it at the Mandarin the other night with crusted fried halibut in sweet and sour sauce. Sweet, and a little slimy. I liked the halibut bites better.



The lychee tree is in my sister Sarah's yard.



Here is a rooster. ↓ Or chicken, Sarah noted when she sent the e-mail with these pictures. Dunno. When she told me this story several days ago she said there's this rooster in her yard that camps out under the lychee tree...



... and jumps (ha! ↓ off the ground! Good pics, sis!)...



... high as it can, to peck low-hanging fruit.



She said there's chicks under the tree too so this might be a hen trying to bring breakfast down for her babies or something. It's comical, every day, Sarah says. I said send pictures and she scoped the bird out yesterday morning and caught it mid-air!
----

What do you call a crazy chicken? A cuckoo cluck !

Why couldn't the chicken find her eggs? She mislaid them.

Fruit comes from a fruit tree; What tree does chicken come from? A poultree.

Why didn't the chicken skeleton cross the road? It didn't have enough guts.

What happened to the chicken whose feathers were all pointing the wrong way? It was tickled to death!

What do you get if you cross a cocker spaniel, a poodle and a rooster? Cockerpoodledoo!

Loving, and love

“Loving can be hard. Sometimes we don't feel loving, but it isn't all about feeling. Very often it is about will. Practice that if you can.” ― Jan Karon, Home to Holly Springs

Judgment and love are opposites. From one come all the sorrows of the world. But from the other comes the peace of God Himself. ~"A Course in Miracles"

Loving these

Once again we've wandered the Gardens at Red Butte. Too beautiful are the Black-eyed Susans at the entrance – already I had to stop and take pictures! The rest just followed.

Priceless!

My daughter-in-law Dana and grandson Brady ran what's called the

Color Vibe Run ‏

today in their city. Dana's saying next year Garrett and Jillian (and Brad if he can walk, much less run, ugh...) can all walk/run with them. She said she saw mothers pushing strollers for heaven's sake! Sounds like a family deal.

Ankle surgery for the second time in a year for your husband to get him running again: $15,000 - $30,000 before insurance
Online registration for you and your son: $55 Special Offer $26 Team Runner, kids 1-12 FREE!
Color Run with your son: Priceless.

More about the Sabbath

Two mornings ago when Laura and I went walking we challenged each other to read a conference talk from the Ensign before the end of the day, then text we'd done it. Just before 4:00 I got Laura's text: "Just finished the conference talk by Elder Renlund. It was fabulous, thanks for the recommendation."

Holy Cow a good talk! Later I texted her "Finished Elder Nelson's talk on the Sabbath. Favorite line: 'No other work transcends that of righteous, intentional parenting!' Next favorite: 'Faith in God engenders a love for the Sabbath; faith in the Sabbath engenders a love of God.' (See you tomorrow at 5:20 a.m.?)"

I'm proud of us for keeping our word.

More than a month ago I promised myself (like when I start a diet again or pledge to exercise more regularly) to read Conference talks from now on – forever – one a day. Read with a highlighter, mark, then re-read til Conference comes again and we have a new report. Keep doing that, conference by conference. I started out, told a few people about it including Laura, and have been doing great! I got almost all the way through the May Conference report; I lacked this last one. Lately I've been casual about it (heavens, like I can be about my eating choices and my exercising), hence, the sister-to-sister challenge, to get me on track. I AM proud of us for keeping our word.

In Elder (now President) Nelson's talk "The Sabbath is a Delight" I marked several "R" words which occurred in paragraphs in a row. They jumped out at me, so I figure they're what I'm to gain from this first reading through. He states: "I believe He wanted us to understand that the Sabbath was his gift to us, granting real respite from the rigors of daily life and an opportunity for spiritual and physical renewal." These are the words I highlighted on the page, though in typing this whole sentence here, look... there's also real and rigors that give us excellent context. Additionally I marked rest from duty, relief, remember, constant reminder, remembrance, repeatedly, routine and recreational as I read through the talk.

As I read through and marked the talk my appreciation for the Sabbath has increased. I don't want to miss posting this, President Nelson's point:

"In my much younger years, I studied the work of others who had compiled lists of things to do and things not to do on the Sabbath. It wasn't until later that I learned from the scriptures that my conduct and my attitude on the Sabbath constituted a sign between me and my Heavenly Father. With that understanding, I no longer needed lists of dos and don'ts. When I had to make a decision whether or not an activity was appropriate for the Sabbath, I simply asked myself, 'What sign do I want to give God?' That question made my choices about the Sabbath day crystal clear."

I want to say more about Laura's and my time the other morning. We finished walking and she asked me to get in her car and listen to "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. She had it queued up and we listened (I admit, sang!) to this anthem, this song of praise... and it raised goosebumps on us! And in the two days since, I can't get the music here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above out of my head. I can't. I hear it, I sing it, I hum it especially when I'm quiet or tired and, as it turns out, as I've been reading more about the Sabbath. It must pertain to all I consider, all I think, the Conference talks I read and every commitment I will make. President Nelson's talk asks us to consider... "because of what I have heard and felt, how will I change?" My answer has to be, here's my heart...

I'm done reading the talks in the Conference report for the first time. I've started re-reading now and am enjoying my many highlights. I'll re-read this one soon, though it's very last, because (as dad says when something is good) "that tastes like more!"
-----

1. Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of God's unchanging love.

2. Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I'm come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.

3. O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let that grace now like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

DO His will

In the scriptures you will find the way to realize God. But after getting all the information about the path, you must begin to work. Only then can you attain your goal. Sri Ramakrishna
John 7:17 If any man will DO his will he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.

Bringing us back

“There may be circumstances in this life that God uses to keep bringing us back to Him, looking for His grace.”

― Jan Karon, Home to Holly Springs

Winging it

Seriously guys, I love smoothies. I have a collection of smoothie recipes in the Beverages section of my recipe books (five three-ring binders, gah!) that would make your head swim. They do mine. Gee.

Speaking of "swim," Jenny and I went to the pool this afternoon and laid out. "Lay" out, maybe, I don't know. We got hot. We got wet, and laid lay out some more. A cloud came over the sun after about an hour and we came home. We're covered in freckles, you know that splotchy, pretty ugly look when you're not tan yet. Tan'll be tomorrow after we live through burn today.

Anyway I was so thirsty when I got home! Jen had been nursing a dirty diet from Fiiz (or Swig, I can't remember, she got it before we went to the pool) at the pool and in the car home. Can you believe we live where there's two trendy snack places, Fiiz and Swig? Drive-thrus... amazing, each. (I wouldn't know, right? [Sugar cookies!!!]) (Sodas that TRULY I never do get but friends and family do. I'm telling on them.) Anyway, I wanted two guzzles of Jen's soda on the counter but resisted and got out my blender. I'd just peeled an apple to take down to mom and dad. I usually stock the apple peel in the freezer in a Ziploc bag with the other apple peel from all the other days of peeling apples for mom and dad. Shana, my niece, can attest: I give these bags of apple peel to her as often as they fill up so she can do the very thing I decided to do next – make an apple peel smoothie.

Truly, among my gazillion smoothie recipes I have no apple peel. None. Nada. Niet. In this thing I decided spur of the moment I was, um, winging it.

I wung it.

Here's what I put together:

1 cup apple peel, frozen or not
1 kiwi, unpeeled, cut in two
2 big carrots, unpeeled, chopped
8-10 oz. natural apple juice, frozen if possible (I juiced apples a while ago and kept the juice in the freezer)
1/4 - 1/3 cup lite coconut milk (don't NOT add this, I actually think it's what makes this drink refreshing!)
protein powder as you like, I added 2 tsp soy protein
flax meal as you like, I added 1 TBSP

Blend away! You'll end up with about two 12-oz servings. I'm calling it... well, you can see below what I'm calling it.

It's. So. Good!!! (I might add grated ginger next time.)



So so good... or maybe I was just super thirsty. Really, I think this is way better than a soda at Swig/Fiiz. Just sayin'.

High summer

"I go among trees and sit still.

All my stirring becomes quiet around me like circles on water."

~Wendell Berry