Caribou Confessions

Confession 1: Sometimes to cope with those customers that don't tip, yet feel so entitled, I pretend I'm a character on Downton Abbey and think, "What would Anna do?"

Sing like no one's watching...

Today I sang.
I know that doesn't sound like a big thing to some. I mean, I kind of sing all the time, at least subconsciously. However, today is the first time, in a long time, that I sat on a stage, microphone to my mouth, and belted my lungs towards an audience.
To some this isn't a big deal, but to those that have been following this musical renaissance in my life, they would know this is a big deal.
Growing up music became my life. It was an identity. Singing was something that shaped the very core of my being. An outlet...an art...a medium of worship. Then I got into high school and choir. Chamber choir, contests, all-state. It all wrapped up into this obsession with perfection. This obsession with being the best. Before long every fault I found in others' voices and my own pierced my ears. I could no longer sit in a concert hall and enjoy the melodies without critiquing the artist and performance. Upon hearing talent greater than my own, an overwhelming sense of jealousy came over me.
So I quit. I quit singing. I quit music all together. Refusing to sing in school, in a choir, even during worship at church. I had been so engulfed by this idea that if I couldn't be perfect, than I needed to just work harder or be better. The thought that my voice was enough...I was enough never crossed my mind. An obsession...in a sense, music became my god. And I knew this was wrong.
I had to get my priorities straight before I would allow myself to sing again, so I took a year off from everything. The next year I began singing in the shower....when I thought no one was around to hear...later I found out everyone could hear. The next year I started fiddling with a guitar... and now this summer I traveled to India, maybe with the soul purpose of singing with one little girl.
Then today I sang and played guitar at an open mic. I was nervous the whole day, and when 7 o'clock (the time of the mic) ticked, I was shaking in my boots. There were several people with guitars, ready to sing and share. Then my leader said, "Kayla, why don't you sign up first so that others will feel comfortable?"
Yikes! Was it not apparent that I was nervous as all get out?
Guess not. I shoot my head with intimidation, but signed up anyway. So I was first to go, ready to set the standard low.
Deep Breath. Finally the MC takes the stage.
I'm ready. Keep breathing.
He announces, and he announces a name other than mine.
The four year old girl in the back of the room trots up to the stage and takes the mic.
All acapella, she lets loose, "Twinkle, Twinkle, little star..."
Cuteness rushed over the room. Who knows if she was slightly off key or missed the rhythm. No one cared. No one noticed. It wasn't what or how she was singing that one the audience, it was the fact that she sang.
Then I heard a soft voice whisper to my heart, "That's how I feel about you."
Suddenly I realized, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter how it sounds, or if it's off. My guitar may be out of tune, but none of that matters. What matters is that I sang.
Sure, I'll try to hit the right notes and carry a tune in a bucket, but even if I don't the point is that I'm singing, and if I'm singing I will shine.
And all of us shined, as I got up and sang a song to my dear friend, as another girl sang a song she wrote (dang that takes guts, maybe some day), a friend read some poetry, and another guy rapped. As we did, Abba said, "I'm proud of you." The crowd agreed.
Sometimes we hide our gifts, our talents, because we're afraid of being judged or criticized. However, if we continue to hide them, what use are they. We may not always get it right, but the point is that we use them.

"Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and praise your Father in heaven." -Matthew 5:16

Maple-"Pumpkin" Spice Syrup and Glaze

Maple "Pumpkin" Spice Syrup

Flopped donuts with glaze

This morning I made dutch babies (puffy oven pancakes) for my house and made this tasty Syrup using the soup! It tasted like a pumpkin syrup! Then I had some left over so I added powdered sugar and made a glaze which I used when I attempted to make some donuts. The donuts were a flop, but the glaze was delicious. I'll try to doctor up the donuts and maybe we'll have a future blog post, but for now, the glaze. :) Yum!

Maple "Pumpkin" Spice Syrup

2 Tbs Boxed Sweet Potato Soup

Dash each cinnamon, all spice, nutmeg, and cloves

3/4 cup maple syrup

Mix all together, heat in microwave 30 seconds and enjoy over pancakes, dutch babies, french toast and more.

*For glaze, add 1 cup powdered sugar and mix well.

Peter

So Spirit lead me where my faith is with out borders. Let me walk upon the water wherever you may call me--Oceans by Hillsong

When Jesus renamed Simon, Peter, he was calling him "Little Rock." This is ironic, because at the end of the parable about the wise man who built his house up on the rock and the foolish man who built his house upon the sand, Jesus refers to himself as Petra, "Big Rock."  This name change wasn't to say that Peter had arrived at the "goal," but a prophesy of who he would become. This was a summons, a call, a promise to Peter that he was forming him into his likeness.With each step onto the water, Jesus was forming Peter into rock on which he would build his church. With each step towards Jesus, Peter was leaving behind the identity he found in Simon, the fisherman. He was finding a new identity as Peter, the Rock.

This has caused me to reflect on the identities the Lord has called me to leave behind in a pursuit to follow after him. With each step upon the water, I have left behind identities found in performance, guilt and shame, control, anger, image, fear,lies, and even calling. With each step I walk fuller in the light of an identity formed in authenticity, confidence, freedom, joy, belonging, courage, truth, and being. I am a child. I am made in the likeness. However, each step takes a fighting for. I have to be willing to leave behind all that I have ever known. All that that seems logical to walk in a new knowledge that defies rational and reasoning. I have to be willing to lay down my own thoughts, to walk in the faith that is set before me.

It is the hardest thing in the world, but Abba, if it is what will shape me into your likeness, bring it on. Take me deeper. Let me walk upon the waters, and when my mind slips back to where I use to be, catch me, guide me that I may radiate your glory. Because where I am weak, you are strong. When I slip, oh how your redemption, grace, and mercy is illuminated for the world to see. May I be a beacon of hope. May my life shine into the darkness, drawing wandering ships to the lighthouse.

Save the Soup!: Day 2: Oatmeal Flax Sweet Potato Pecan Bread

Yum yum! This bread was fantastic! Probably one of the best breads I have ever made. Just replaced the milk in my oatmeal flax bread recipe and voila!

Best Ever Oatmeal Flax Sweet Potato Pecan Harvest Bread (AKA Mouthfull Bread)

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
1/3 cup ground flax seed
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 2/3 cup boxed sweet potato soup
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1 Tablespoon old-fashioned oats

1) Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 8x4 loaf pan with cooking spray
2) in large bowl mix flours, brown sugar, 1/2 cup oats, flaxseed, and baking soda. Stir in soup and pecans just until mixed. Pour batter into pan and sprinkle with 1 Tablespoon oats.
3) Bake 45-55 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on cooling rack 5 minutes. Remove from pan to colling rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours. 

Save the Soup!

So I live off a community food shelf. Welcome to the poverty of the post grad. Eating food from the reject section of the store. Actually, I'm making this sound worst than it is. Generally, our food is really good. All organic apples, gluten free flour, fresh blueberries in October. Last week we even go sweet potato soup,  boxes upon boxes of it. Sounds good in theory, but reality would beg to differ. probs some of the worst soup i've ever had. That also means i'm up for a challenge of trying to find as many ways as possible to redeem the orange mess. 

After a couple flopped attempts at mix-ins, i decided to veer away from soup all together and went for curry! voila! taste supremo! And here's the recipe for all my friends in conveinienced by the boxes. Stay tuned tomorrow. I also made bread, but I'm gonna wait to post that specialty. 

Sweet Potato Veg Curry

1 Cup Sweet Potato Soup
1 Can Vegetable Soup (Or 1 Cup minestrone soup left over from community meal
Dash thyme
1/2 tbs curry seasoning
Dash red pepper flakes
1 tsp flour or cornstarch
Brown rice (optional) (Also left overs from when we had the Duran Clan over for soup leftover from the community meal :)

In a Fry Pan combine sweet potato soup and drained vegetable soup. Add spices. Bring to a boil, add flour to thicken and simmer until thickened. Enjoy served over rice. Yum Yum :)
Makes about 2-4 servings.

Orchards and Pie

 Apple Orchards are such a treat!
Honey Crisp Apples I love to eat!

Today I had the joy of going to an apple orchard with some of my dearest friends. We romped down the rows and frolicked through the trees to "secret apple-picking spots" like we were 8 years-old again. Joys upon joys. And i was reminded friendship and apple orchards are two beautiful things, and somehow they both lead to family: a sense of belonging and togetherness. 

Snapping photos at the orchard also reminded me that I had pictures on my camera for some freezer apple pie filling i was meaning to blog about about a month ago, so treats for the readers: 2 for one blog post, read about all my sentiments on apple picking and get a freezer pie recipe all in one. 

P.s. the pie was made from my mom's all organic apples she picked off her own tree. impressed? enjoy !

Step 1. Slice, dice, peel, and core fresh apples. nummy!

Step 2:  Measure 6 cups apples into bowl

Step 3. Add 1/4 cup sugar

Step 4. Add 2 Tbsp each cinnamon and flour, 1 Tbsp each  nutmeg and cloves

Step 5. Place in freezer bags and label. Freeze until ready to use. Serving suggestion: use in pie, crisp, heat and serve on ice cream, make homemade apple sauce. 

Tending my garden.

I was flipping through some photos today and it dawned on me, wow my whole life I've really been blessed with friendship in every season. I also realized a sad truth, in that season I rarely have recognized it. So consumed by feelings of worthlessness and shame, rarely have I looked out to see the blessings that await me. People who truly care if I would let them in. So this is my season. This is the journey I'm on. Discovering Home. Discovering I belong, and I always have. I'm working on embracing it, the good. The bad. The messy. The uncomfortable. All of it is apart of me, and all of it belongs. I'm learning to be embraced. I think that's the hardest of all. If it's just me and my mess, I can figure out how to deal with that. stifle it, hate myself, close myself off from people. But to be embraced despite of it...? that's unthinkable. And maybe that's why I need to learn it.

I don't know when the lie started forming, but I know it's been there for a while. Seeded in the crevices of my mind and taking root, an unquenchable weed daring to choke the life out of the flower that dared to blossom. I don't know where it started, but it's been there since ever I could remember. "Your hateful." the rancid venom stings my soul.
"Unwanted"
"Unloveable"
"A reject."
And i digress, spiraling away into retreat. Holding people close, but only at arms length. Superficial living. Never truly believing that i could be...loved. I sheet of glass between me and the ones that maybe, possibly I could find love. But love is just a figment of the imagination which means possibility is really impossibility in the end. So I've been stuck in this rut. A mental mind trap, mulling over lies probability. However, the longer meditate, the more relativity shifts to reality and I have found that I've been living in this state where I not only hear
"Reject."
"Unloveable."
"Unwanted"
I believe it.
I am it.
I am hateful.
So undeserving of affection or a truly open, honest conversation that does not require the sacrifice of who I really am to appease to the likes of someone else's preference. Instead, a masking of the real me becomes the norm until I don't know how to do much more than fake it with the ones I call my friends.
However, my mantra's "fake it till you make it." So maybe if I just pretend to be pretty enough, good enough, smart enough, happy enough, maybe just maybe I will obtain the goal and I'll no longer have to pretend. Again, the impossibility of possibility becoming reality, but I can dream.
Still, I'm no fool and I know a dream is only reality until you wake up and that's when I find that I'm still me.
The way I always have been. Always will be. And I continue holding all the spectators at arms length, longing to embrace as long as they stand ten feet away to avoid catching a glimpse at all my imperfection. But I wonder what could be if I let the walls fall down around me. To break the glass I believed was a boundary, but really only turned out to be a cage. And I see, possibly, quite probably, honesty is the best policy, to let made known the truth of who I am, unashamed. To up root the weed inside my head that screams:
hateful,
unwanted,
unloved,
reject,
and replace it with the seeds that blossom life.
You're accepted,
you are wanted.
you are loveable.
you are home.
Tending the garden
of my heart, lies uprooted,
a flower bed blooms.

Home

So the Lord has me on a journey currently, but less of a journey and more of a resting. He has me in a season of not so much adventure, but more meditation, and apart of this is a discovery of what it means to dwell. A dwelling. A place of inhabitants. A home. But what does that word mean. Home. We some times think of a house or that common phrase "home is where the heart is" but my quest is to discover what does home mean.

In this process I'm starting on an art project. One in which  I need a little help. Some voluntary participation. I'm asking people. All people. Friends. Family. Strangers in the community.

"What does home mean to you?"

Then i'm going to compile all the answers into an artistic expression. 

So want to know how you can participate? 

Email your answer to homemeanstome@gmail.com and share with your friends. 

Can't wait to see your answers. Love Ya!