Refractions and Reflections

---1--- Haven't posted in forever, but I've been up to all kinds of stuff! Planted a lot of things, in the front flower beds and in containers on the back deck. I did a fairy garden, too!   I planted a few succelents in it and left them a little room to grow. One or two of them are doing good, but the neighborhood stray cats have dug up one or two of the others....  (I think the fairies are not doing their job very well.)   ---2--- We planted tomatoes and cucumbers in the back. The cucumbers don't seem to be doing well at all. The tomatoes are doing a little better. We have harvested four and seem to have two or three more growing, as well as a lot of flowering. We'll see...! (The plants are quite a lot taller now; this was when we first planted.)     These were the first two tomatoes.   ---3---   One of the front flower beds:   Includes lavender, c...I can't remember this one, but i...

Minutes ago I finished reading Jennifer Fulwiler ’s new book, Something Other Than God . I began following her blog somewhere around 2007 or 2008 and still eagerly await each post, so of course I got the book (Kindle version) as soon after publication as I could. And rather than write a post here, I thought about writing a review on Amazon along the lines of the following: “If you have ever asked yourself questions like, ‘What kind of people might be recruited to help a wounded yeti safely through a metropolitan area?’ or ‘How might I be able to really sock it to that smug-looking stuffed animal over there?’ or ‘I wonder if there is a way to make my ear canals a little sexier?’…well…you may have written this book. But if any of these questions piques your interest, you just might want to at least check it out….” But I decided against it, because honestly, this book is just too weighty to sum up in a few humorous (...

I reread Mathew 27 today in honor of Good Friday. Afterward I had a song in my head I haven't heard in years, Avalon's "The Glory of the Blood." In it, there is a line that refers to, "the heart of the story: the glory of the blood." Lately I'm rethinking my stance on the Atonement and substitutionary sacrifice and all that, but haven't come to a firm conclusion yet. But I was trying to think of the theology of this lyric in harmony with a more liberal view of atonement. There is undeniably a bloody thread of salvation through Scripture. In the Old Testament animals paid the price to temporarily "buy" forgiveness for people's sins against God and each other. Then, of course, there was Jesus, about whom Scripture says He gave "His life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45; 1 Timothy 2:6, etc.) Interestingly, there is reference in Revelation, too, to the blood of saints/prophets/martyrs (chapters 16, 17, 18). The Early...

Let us reexamine that profoundly fascinating question of old, shall we? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Did the primordial goo spring up into a chicken, or did it spring up into separate specimens (for every species) of an egg and a sperm that somehow found each other, got all mingled up and incubated in the right way, and lived happily ever after as one little feathery clucker? And how is it that more chickens came after the first - was that first chicken already successfully equipped, without the evolutionary wait, with a functioning reproductive system? How else did successive, evolving numbers of chickens (as well as every other species) appear? These thoughts sprang to my mind the other day as I pondered the rare treasure of the double-yolked egg. That got me wondering if twins skip a generation in chickens, too, so one of the egg's grandchickens may have been a twin, too. :) As I've previously mentioned, I have a reading goal this year of st la...

I'm still reading Anna Karenina, but now I am closer to 700 pages in. I just finished reading one of the two more poignant scenes to me so far. This scene, like the earlier one that struck me, is a vivid illustration of a philosophical idea Tolstoy apparently believes in and expresses through his characters and their conversations. The earlier situation involved, through the evolution of more than one chapter/scene, the character Levin's development of his theory of how Russian agriculture might be improved. Through various interactions with people, witnessing of strangers' reactions to the work, and ideas clicking during conversation, Tolstoy outlines Levin's progression of thought on the subject. The more recent scene that moved me involves the inner workings of a natural-born artist (Mihailov) as compared with one who admires and studies and attempts through "technique" to, well, mimic, this unteachable instinct (Vronsky). Mihailov's creative proc...

I love symmetry and color and art. When I was a kid I was enthralled by kaleidoscopes. We even made them a couple of times, maybe in school or girl scouts or something... best project ever ! As a teenager I listened a lot to dcTalk, who sang about racial harmony with the lyrics, "My God's design / We are a skin kaleidoscope." To me that said all that needed said: diversity = beauty. One form of kaleidoscopic art that enthralls me as an adult is the mural mosaic. There are a few websites out there devoted to these, including muralmosaic.blogspot.com and muralmosaic.com . Here are a few of my favorites I found from a quick image search: I even found a brief tutorial from Lewis Lavoie on how to make them: I think it would be really cool to take all the photographs oneself of things relevant to the "big picture" and make one of these. I might just make it a long-term project!

---1--- Junk to Jewels! Okay, well, not junk exactly. But definitely a refurbishment! Today I took a couple of barstools we had and turned them into some sleek little end tables for the little house we will be moving into next month. Trying to save space, and I think these do the trick!   In the process of drying (the color is grey, and I made my own chalk paint by mixing 2 parts paint, 1 part powdered/dry plaster of paris, and 1/2 part water). Found some little "wood plugs" for 59 cents each at Sutherlands and painted them, too. Dry(ish) paint Had some molding adhesive lying around, and it is clear, so that's what I used to attach both the plugs and the glass tops (below). I had two glass tops lying around from a couple of old, cheap three-legged plywood stands that I don't even have anymore (just threw the last one out last week because the flimsy legs were skewed and it toppled over all the time). Side view: Ta-da! :)   ...