many thanks and other thoughts before sleeping

well, we're here at christmas week, the wild ride of the zine leaving us happy, tired and with a bit of experience for our next adventures into independent publishing. for the sake of sanity we've decided to close up shop for the remainder of christmas week. all zine orders left in the inbox will be shipped asap (including the harp46 cd for our lucky winner). images and stories (if jen's feeling creative) will continue to be posted on the soulsisters blog as time and energy permits.

many, many thanks to all of you who bought the zine, sent us lovely letters, recipes and/or congratulations. your encouragement, personal stories and comraderie helped us understand what the zine is really about. we feel honored and happy to have been included in your christmas adventures. many of you bought bundles of this little treasure sight unseen, and we will be eternally grateful for all the ways you believed in us and all the little ways a tiny book attempts to bring hope and joy to the world.

so here on the homestretch to saturday, uncork the wine, make time for your sweet love, play with your kids and find time for a nap. god knows this soulsister needs to take her own advice on all counts! ;)

blessings all and much love.

the baby jesus will teach you how to be a good mother

i wrote this last year about this time in the christmas season madness. i hope it's meant for one of the soulsisters. peace, all, and hang on. only days left to go and the madness will end.

the sky is white as only a winter sky can be.
the trees rise into that whiteness like monuments to the memory of warmer days. inside we go about our day, carter and me, without too much talking.
i am glad for warm socks and the hot radiator, while he looks mournfully out the window trying to remember when playing outside was an everyday affair.
poor fellow.

amen.

last call for lourdes

if you're looking to make someone smile this christmas, there's still time to send a donation to my friend lourdes, a young woman recently rescued from forced labor here in washington dc. you can use the paypal button below to share your love:

in honor of jordon cooper

the next six people to purchase the zine will receive a gmail invitation to wrap under the tree for that favorite soulsister/auntie of yours who will thank you forever for rescuing her from the blackhole of aol.

the seventh person to purchase the zine will receive a free pre-release recording of harp46's new christmas cd. this is an extremely limited edition, and a real treasure worth listening to all year round. lots of love to all of you who have been with us all along. special christmas treats coming your way, stay tuned.

advent altar, christmas chaos and the descent into hell

well, after many hours of cutting and pasting, our little advent altar is looking mighty fine. i cut out so many pictures of the madonna and child from so many different cultures and time periods, that after awhile i started missing the grown-up baby jesus in that holy pair, even in the pictures, unlike this very sweet one, where the baby jesus looks at you dead on. "isn't that weird?" i asked pache, "that i can't see the grown-up jesus in these babies?" hmmmmm....she answers in that knowing way. pache gets babies and we both know that babies have so much to teach us, that in their quiet knowing ways, they show us so often a better path. if only we could listen.

this is crazy talk to most people, i know. i mean, honestly, does the baby jesus count as a sage? isn't that stretching things a bit? all i can think of is the many ways god came to me when madeleine was a baby. the ways i needed to slow down, listen, get into her rhythm, her groove. she showed me how to be a mother little by little, starting at the beginning. sometimes when she's melting down now as a six year old, i wonder if i would do better to remember the madeleine who was once so small and unruly. i guess in many ways we never change and always need the same things--a quiet companion, a loving touch and the space & peace to know someone is completely dedicated to our well-being. that we are not completely alone.

i'm at this stage of the christmas season where i hear this distant sound of crying and wish whoever belongs to that baby would just make it shut up. do you know what i'm talking about? every year about this time, usually on box five on the way to box ten that needs to be shipped out, i start to feel oppressed by christmas and wish the whole thing could be moved up to about january 15. or cancelled altogether. how this happens, i don't know. but i start to hate christmas. the pressure of presents, boxes to be shipped and marital strife starts to weigh down on me. i want to go pull the covers over my head.

but then i remember the question pache and i ask each other these days. what would the zine do, jen? ah, yes, the zine. that pesky little creature living in boxes in our bedrooms. the zine would....light the candles of the advent altar, set all the packages and presents aside and play with madeleine and carter all day tomorrow. no computer. no hurry-skurry. the zine would paint madeleine's toe nails and then order up one nice snow bath from the husband. the zine would pick up that crying baby jesus and realize that's me, too. that's what the zine would do.

god, i want to get to the place where i see that baby jesus as a real live person, as someone to show me how to be in the world. maybe tomorrow, in the swooshing of the bath, in the laughter of the play, in the quiet of snuggling, i will find that holy place. dear jesus, i hope so.

jolene's lovely lentils

our soulsister jolene sent jen this yummy recipe after jen confessed (page 73) that she really wants to be the sort of person who eats lentils.

after the lentils jen, you might just have to scrub the nursery school floor afterall.

Turkish Spinach and Lentil Soup
from Jolene's Kitchen
adapted from a recipe in Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant, 1990

1 c. dried lentils
1 t. salt
1/4 c. olive oil
2 c. chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 t. cayenne
2 bay leaves
1/2 c. raw bulgur wheat
1/4 c. chopped fresh parsley
2 c. canned chopped tomatoes
1/4 c. tomatoe paste
pinch of rosemary
10 oz. frozen spinach
salt and pepper to taste

Rinse lentils and cook in 5 c. water (or stock) with the salt.
Simmer, covered, for 40 minutes.
Heat olive oil in a heavy soup pot. Saute onions until translucent.
Add garlic, cayenne, bay leaves and bulgur.
Stir mixture over medium heat, until onions and bulgur are lightly
browned. Mix in parsley, tomatoes and tomatoe paste.

Pour lentils and their liquid into soup with the onions and bulgur.
Simmer soup for 15 minutes. Add spinach, rosemary, salt and
pepper. Remove bay leaves before serving. Freezes well.

serves 6-8

Enjoy!

(look, mom! i'm on tv!) party on! excellent!

yes, i'm not kidding. tonight i went with my good buddy heather kirk-davidoff to the office park jungles of montgomery county to tape a segment for this show about peace and the advent season. the soulsisters guide to a very merry christmas was shamelessly promoted along with all our good ideas about how to make an advent altar and introduce your kids to creative (and more socially conscious) gift-giving.

it was both the silliest and most fun thing i have done in a long, long time. some of you will be happy to know i both showered and remembered to put on deodorant.

but i must confess without the freedom to use questionable language, i felt like quite the goody-goody espousing truth and justice for toysrus addicted children everywher. but still. we had a good time & i think some of the zine's best points were well represented.

more info to follow on when/where you can see the show for those of you who are in the dc metro area. having had my very own wayne's world cable show experience, i now go to sleep, happy and blessed.

thanks, bets!

soulsister betsy sent this fabulous link our way--an online advent calendar from the national cathedral. each day the calendar date leads you to a link containing an image from their creche exhibition along with a meditation, an idea for giving and a prayer. i just might make this my holiday homepage.

it's redbull time, soulsisters!

yes, you read that right. it's only the fifth of december and i need my red bull. sugar-free, of course, to save those weight watchers points for the holiday bark. somehow i'm already tired. could it be those eight packages begging to be sent out so the in-laws and distant family members will feel loved and remembered this holiday season? or could it be the obsessive advent altar creating and the subsequent handmade papers and color copies of the madonna and child strewn all over the living/dining room? or perhaps it's the unmade beds, the dishes piled in the sink or that lovely temper-tantrum madeleine threw this morning before church? anyway you add it up, i'm beat.

bring on the red bull, and one late night of cleaning and straightening and package-making while the wild things sleep. okay, there goes carter with temper tantrum number two of the day to make our holiday joy complete.

blessings all. what's your christmas pick-me up to get you through? after this red bull wears off, i'll need all the help i can get.

chimney sweeps and other dreamy christmas happenings...

well here we are on day 2, i feel the need to report on my christmas happenings.

right this very moment someone is cleaning my chimney so my christmas can be oh so more magical, complete with chesnuts roasting and all...
i imagined the chimney sweep guy to be a little more like dick van dyke (a la mary poppins) in nature. you know, dancing on my roof, singing a spectacular musical number. i mean, it's a jolly holiday with you bert.

but alas, no dick, but a very nice kid in his 20's who looks tired and it's only 8:30am. i wish i had something in my kitchen to offer him, but even my pantry is bare. we've been too busy enjoying christmas to get to the stores.

"excuse me, ma'am, i'm afraid there are some minor cracks in your chimney lining, you all are in danger of carbon monoxide poisoning. the fireplace side of the flue is much better than the furnace side. the repairs will cost around $5000."

"umm, are you sure i can't use the fireplace just a little tiny bit? i mean we haven't died or anything yet right? i really need this fireplace for my christmas experience!"

he laughs and goes on to the particulars. i must say, i'm not sure what i'm more upset about, the $5000 or no fireplace this season...this sounds absurd i know, but it's how i feel. so i'm off to the store to buy like 8 carbon monoxide detectors and research the hell (i love you google) out of chimney liners because god knows we do not have 5 grand.

i wish i was mrs. banks, on the front lines of the suffrage movement, while bert and mary figured out my chimney problems with the children....supercalla my ass...

on a brighter note, in case you all are wondering....

andes creme de menthes are the new starlight mints, this might even replace my "m"azing peanut butter candy addiction.

musing with my lovah (page 11 of the zine) has made this christmas the best ever and we are only on day 2, lots of "projects" can sure make the season bright.

woodburning icons for your advent altar might take a little more skill than first anticipated. they ended up looking like a third grade project but josiah and i didn't seem to mind. art, it's all about the process.

josiah insisted that jorge take our baby jesus nativity book with him to work. i'm not really sure what that was about, one can only hope we aren't rearing a proselytizing fanatic. first it's christmas books, then it's tracts...i think maybe i've watched the movie saved one too many times this week.

so if anyone feels led, have a fire in your fireplace for me tonight...it would make me so happy to know you are having a oh so magical christmas.

making holiday bark & other adventures in trying to cheer up madeleine

madeleine is having a horrible day. even the start of the day was bad. maybe the worst part, in fact. she woke to her very chapped lips feeling sealed shut and when she opened them, the skin tore just a little bit, making them hurt all the more.

"then." she says, pausing for emphasis. "this other kid was laughing at me during gym class, trying to get me to mess up the game. and." she stops dramatically again, "in miss medina's class two boys were bossing me around." horror of horrors. can you imagine anything worse for the oh-so demure miss madeleiene?

to top everything off, her mother (me) has just told her she was being unhelpful by putting her fingers in carter's armpits to try to wake him up. "i was just try-ing (emphasis on -ing) to help." huff. puff. stomp, stomp, stomp.

there's a lot i could say right now. about the efficacy and kindness, for that matter, of armpit tickling as a wake-up call. but what would be the use of any of that when madeleine has her head buried in her pillow in a dramatic protest against the universe? i'm mildly annoyed at all the drama and a hundred mini-lectures are running through my head, but instead, by some miracle, this pops out---

"do you wanna make some bark with me?"

it's funny, because madeleine doesn't know what bark is, no earthly idea, but the idea of making something together, anything at all, perks her right up and she bounces off her bed of woes and skips into the kitchen. "sure," she says. "what's bark?"

bark is the candy of choice for the candymaker who doesn't want to fuss with candy thermometers, exact recipes or instructions of any sort. it only takes 15 or twenty minutes and even the most adorable, disaster-prone three year old, cannot mess it up. just ask carter.

we start out pouring two bags of dark chocolate chips into a heavy saucepan (as heavy as they make saucepans bought off the clearance section of tjmaxx domestics aisles) and stir gently as the chocolate melts on low heat. i tell madeleine, to carter's great pride, how he tricked our friend lourdes into giving him a bowl of chocolate chips for lunch. and then she tells us for the umpteenth time, the joke miss medina told in spanish about some kid having ants in their pants. we take turns while the chocolate melts demonstrating for the others what it looks like to have ants in your pants.

this, evidentally, is very, very funny. to see your mother shake her groove thang in the kitchen as if she has ants in her pants.

we pour out the chocolate on a heavily buttered sheet of wax paper lying on a cookie sheet, and rinse out our one heavy pan to do the white chips now. several calls were made to decide if wax paper was a good idea. i dial, madeleine talks, relaying messages from various family members. carter stirs. all familial cooking experts decide butter waxed paper cannot hurt.

then we pour the two bags of melted white chocolate onto the dark. we should have made two cookie sheets worth, instead of pouring it all thick into one pan, but we'll know better next time.

while i pour, madeleine takes the ziplocked bags of candy canes and smashes the hell out of them on the counter. i thought this would take several large whacks to make the pieces small enough. but to her delight and my surprise, evidentally it all takes twice. go madeleine. all that intensity & suffering today made for a jillion perfectly smashed pieces. sanctioned violence. and at christmas. who knew.

carter and i take turns pressing the pieces of peppermint candy into our "bark" while madeleine opts out, newly offended about some other cosmic injustice. we place the pan in the refrigerator to harden. later in the night when everyone is still asleep, dead to the world, carter and i will break it apart and put all the nice broken pieces in pretty little bags tied with red ric rac from our fabric store where vietnamese, korean, spanish and several african dialects are spoken.

we are the night owls, me and carter, doing santa's work while madeleine sleeps. she is busy righting the wrongs of the world in her dreams even as we work to give her something to smile about tomorrow, a new day for everything to go just right.

blessing boxes and the long forgotten holiday

i've always loved thanksgiving. my mother looks for any opportunity to tell about the thanksgiving when i was 7. i dressed up in my chicken costume and sang songs for the guests. my mom made this fantastic costume (complete with beak) for my kindergarten graduation play. i was the little red hen.
for some reason chicken, turkey, i guess it was all the same to me.

there is a deep happiness etched in my memory, it starts to stir on tuesday every year. my phone starts ringing early in the morning. long conversations about turkey and decadent desserts fill the day. there are 10 more calls with offerings to bring more, do more...

"are you sure that isn't too much? i can make the green bean supreme."
"i'm at the store, do we need whipping cream, more butter maybe?"

the cooking, it's all about the process, it's like art. my sisters fill the kitchen, working side by side, moving like a choreographed dance, asking my mom questions about how things should be done. she returns very vague answers leaving us to create on our own. the turkey is never done in time. there are quick assurances that all will be fine, just turn up the temperature a bit. who cares about the turkey anyway, it's all about the stuffing.

i always feel warm in my heart. this is my heritage- cooking, caring for one another, feeling blessed, hoping to bless others. probably some mild form of dysfunction i'm sure, ya know? but it's our dysfunction, i feel partial to this kind.

my parents always invited a crowd, old people, single people who were away from their families, wanderers, foreigners. i remember hiding in a back room during my teenage years wishing my parents weren't so nice while jen never looked more comfortable. entertaining strangers, maybe even angels...i can see now.

i wonder what will fill my house when i'm old. i'm a mom to boys and i sometimes miss the feminine divine that i feel when i'm with my family. but then i ask josiah if he wants to paint blessing boxes with me. the gender roles i constantly obsess over seem to melt away while we ponder over what blessings we want for our loved ones. we have deep discussions about our paint choices, to mix or not to mix. this is my favorite part, mixing the offerings of food, the art of a beautiful table, and the expression of the feelings of my heart.

maybe i love thanksgiving because it is the underdog, the forgotten holiday. the one that morphs into christmas. it has so much less consumerism, less hype and yet is still so pure in it's heart. (except for the fact that we raped the land and pillaged from the native americans, but you know what i mean.)

to bless, to serve, i so often forget, drowning in my self...i think i mostly love thanksgiving because it is a reminder of what i want to be in my everyday life. thankful and full, so full it spills out on everyone around me.

getting ready for advent

the advent season begins next sunday, a good long while before anyone in their right mind starts doing the math that the christmas holiday is in any way connected to jesus' birth. it's usually about december 15th at our house before we start thinking we should work that angle into all the chaos that we call christmas. how about you?

but maybe, just maybe, that can go differently this year.

for starters we could get (or give) an advent calendar with a nativity theme. how about this lovely traditional one by allesandra roberti? each day you open one little flap until the entire christmas story is told, right up to christmas day.

i also liked the looks of this book a child in winter: advent, christmas & epiphany by caryll houselander. each day of the season, the author shares musings on the practice of waiting and reflection during advent with children in mind. doing a little research on caryll houselander, the catholic mystic, also convinced me she had to be a soulsister. many said she was known to--gasp!--swear on regular occasion, and that to her death she could not seem to give up her cigarettes. not that we smoke, but we love this combination of the profane and sacred in one regular, wonderful person. don't you?

on second thought, perhaps this book should be fedexed. even as i type these noble suggestions, my own wild things are torturing me. first for more scotch tape ("so we can make tape beards to stick on our faces"), then for an intervention to determine who pinched whose nose first, and finally for my undivided attention for god knows a glass of milk that could wait five more minutes.

we have much to learn about waiting, at least with the kind of grace we read about in the christmas story. waiting, while screaming, bickering or roughhousing, no problem.

on thursday, we'll celebrate the forgotten holiday, thanksgiving, and after that, if not in the days before, christmas will be in full swing. here's hoping a little advent magic can arrive in the mail to get us off to a good start.

how do you usually remember advent at your house? or how would you like to remember it? if you're anything like these soulsisters, you're still figuring that out. here's hoping you'll go on the advent journey with us this in the days and weeks to come.

soul sisters unite, young and old...

so here we are, proud and loud after our triumphant race. mind you, it was no 26.2 but mada and i felt very accomplished. i wore my soulsistersunite.com t-shirt and she wore her dave lemen rocks t-shirt.
i was so excited, the air was cold and mada was holding my hand so tight. mada said i kept repeating the same things over and over, i just couldn't help it.
part of her strategy (although i was not aware of this at the time) was to let me hold her hand and drag her through the one mile race.

so i pretty much did drag her along during the first three blocks and then out of no where she broke free from my hand and started to run as fast as she could. i yelled, "go mada, go!" and then followed her zig zags. three more blocks and we were back to holding hands. the next two consisted of me singing songs to her and moments of skipping. with the finish line in sight, we broke hands and sprinted to the end. i thought about when she was a little baby, you could see the fire and wonder in her eyes. like she was trapped in her developing body, she couldn't wait to run.

i pray i can be her soulsister. to hold her hand and drag her through her teenage years, to encourage her when it's time to break free, to sing her songs to get her through, to celebrate the finish lines along the way, to share in the journey of her life.

sleep well soulsisters everywhere! thank you for your warm welcome to the blogsophere...

s'mores, s'mores! when it's just too cold to camp

today we drove home from richmond, virginia (home to patience & company) after a wonderful whirlwind weekend of marathon fun. my husband dave ran his first big 26.2 mile race and we had a great time celebrating his big accomplishment.

our big accomplishment is that lots of friends and family everywhere from the blogosphere to real life have been buying up these zines. we couldn't be more happy or more grateful. we hope it doesn't stop! we celebrated by cutting and rubber cementing 100 more little cards together for the covers. woohoo! only 400 more to go! and it only took five hours. are we crazy or what?

in the middle of our cutting and pasting extravaganza we took a break to make s'mores over the open fire. well, maybe that's overstating things a bit. okay, okay, so it wasn't exactly the open fire. but why start forest fires in the backyard when you can just burn a red hot burner on the stove instead? i was very happy when pache suggested we make the stove top campfire central.

here's the impromptu soulsisters s'mores recipe for the fire-phobic, fireplace-less, or hopelessly housebound camper. works like a charm, is much more exciting (and space saving) than these oh-so trendy things & your kids will think you rock for being so dangerous.

ingredients: the regular (we buy the cheapy storebrand marshmallows though we do fantasize about the handcut marshmallows here, graham crackers of any variety and nothing but hershey's)

directions: turn the burner on high and wait for it to heat up nice and hot. put your marshmallow on a fork (or stick if you want to feel especially authentic) and roast slowly to gooey perfection. while you're toasting, place brick of chocolate on graham cracker and sit next to the burner, rotating occasionally. the heat from the burner will slightly melt the chocolate, making for the best s'more ever. place your toasted marshmallow on the chocolate and top with another graham cracker. yummy!

it was the perfect pick-me-up for two tired soulsisters in desperate need of naps.

woohoo, we made it!

well, it's been a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to this moment, but it's finally happening. the zines are printed, the website's up and dave & blair haven't left the country over a hundred last minute do-you-mind-fixing-one-more-thing requests from pache and yours truly.

we hope the categories to the left answer any questions you might have, but if not, feel free to email us at soulsisters@gmail.com.

i could wax eloquent right now about all the lovely and simple reasons why we wanted to create a zine, but there'll be plenty of time for that in the weeks to come. we'll be using this space to document both the madness and the glory of the holiday season & hopefully there will be plenty of the outrageous, fun and inspiring to keep things interesting. lots of our favorite ideas didn't make the zine--after seventy-five pages, you've gotta stop somewhere--so we can't wait to share those things here.

much love to all you bloggers and friends out there who have sent us well-wishes and cheered us on along the way. your encouragement means the world.