whole cranberry sauce

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

1 package fresh cranberries

combine water and sugar in medium saucepan. heat to boiling

stir in cranberries, return to boiling. reduce heat; cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.add the zest of an orange.

cool to room temperature; cover and refrigerate until serving time.

homemade cranberry sauce. 

a lot of people don't realize there's anything besides canned cranberry sauce. 

and i'm sure there's no difference in taste, but since i could help my mom cook, that was my first responsibility for thanksgiving. so i'm sticking with it.

happy eating. and be thankful for all that you're blessed with :)

i saw this on another's blog
its just too 'whoa' to describe without the visual

the eye of a needle.

home is so cozy.
tipton wagging his tail at the door, in a plea of 'hey you're home, let's eat'
was so typical
and so lovely.

i had the fun time of good conversation on the flight from kc to dallas.
i noticed the girl sitting next to me was carrying some drawings.
so i asked her
"are you an artist"
"ha, oh, well, yeah, i guess i kind of am" she modestly replied.
this is what a 30 minute conversation taught me:
-i really DO love art, the creators of it, the thinkers of it. the whole process behind the process.
she is a student at SCAD, an art and design school.
a sophomore studying (get this) sequential art
i.e. comic books and animation stills
and i say that in a voice of awe and amazement: i love that there is such a major
that allows someone to study and spend their time on EXACTLY what they love.
she does free lance comic strips for newspapers and publications.
she's written (err, drawn?) a book that she's had offered to be published
but she, unlike others, she said, can easily see her flaws and mistakes and room to grow and improve. so she doesn't want it out there yet.
she's from the dallas area, but originally from mexico. her family moved 5 years ago.
so she speaks spanish and english, has studied german and french, and is now on to japanese.
because the publisher she'd like to work for is centered in japan, where she plans to study abroad.
"why should i expect a company to hire me if i don't show at least an interest
and effort in learning its culture" she said.
i talked a little about myself, but mostly i listened. she had so many interesting thoughts and experiences to share.
and it reminded me...
this is why i write. this is what re-inspires me.
listening to people talk about their passions and the process of bringing those passions to life.

so i thought, thanks God. thanks for the reminder.

"airports see it all the time
where someone's last goodbye
blends in with someone's sigh
cause someone's coming home
in hand a single rose
and that's the way this wheel keeps working now"

airports are a peculiar place. there's so much life in them, yet a strange sense that lives are rushing around and too busy to notice anything around them.
i say this as i sit in the KCI airport waiting for my flight to dallas. followed by a flight
(with an uncomfortably shorter layover than i planned)
to shreveport.
going home for thanksgiving break.

flying at night is my second favorite time to fly (dusk being my first).
it's also my least favorite.
the dreariness and fatigue of flying seems amplified and overly gloomy.
but outside of the airport atmosphere, this is why i like it:
looking out below from the plane window i see the site of lights surrounding cities contrasted with the stark darkness that falls over the countryside.
it looks like a reflection of the sky. like the city lights are clusters of stars hanging out.
that's where the life is. by the stars.
i wish i could take a picture to illustrate.

"and if you never stop when you wave goodbye
you just might find if you give it time
you will wave hello again"

i've developed a habit, or tradition, or ritual, of listening to John Mayer's 'Wheel'
everytime i fly to or from home.

i was talking to a young lady today that is a barista at a local coffee shop.

she has a hobby of making jewelry, hats and bags and she's going to sell them locally pretty soon.

while talking with her about this, i asked what her dream with this would be.

she didn't want it to become her job, maybe just part-time.

she just knows she needs to do something with it.

"it's what gives me life," she said, "and i just want to be able to balance what gives me life with what detracts from it."

what gives you life?

art. that's what gives me life. it gives me eyes to see beauty in unusual things.

it's the medium i choose to hear God through.

God's ability to reach us is infinite and all-encompassing but small as we are, we can't handle that.

maybe we each have to find a part of that infinity.

a part that brings us life.

dear Winter.

you took Fall away too soon.
but it kind of snowed today.
and now i'm okay that you're here.
so welcome.


i'm on the search for Meet Me in St. Louis.

abby and i were just in p.s. gallery and matt wertz's "everything's right" came on.

and silly as it sounds, and simple as it is, it was a moment of perfection.

joel sager