What's making your heart beat?

What's making your heart beat?
Anticipation? Hope? Someone? Changing of seasons? Excitement of celebrations? Snow? Friends? Santa? Surprises? Cookies? Holiday toasts? A memory? A dog treat?
    .ryn 

Tracks in the Snow

This song gets me in the mood for some snow... and hopefully we'll have lots of it this Christmas in Minnesota!  Looking forward to walking Hal in the snow, family sitting around in PJ's, Dad's Swedish Pancakes, cookie-baking & relaxing!  Counting the minutes...
    .ryn

Recipe Roundup: Pasta!

 "Hunger is the best sauce in the world." -Cervantes

This month's ingredient: Pasta! The combinations of pasta shapes & flavors, fresh herbs, veggies, cheeses and sauces are infinite!  Create an oozing mac & cheese, or toss whole wheat spaghetti with lemon juice and basil for a lighter taste.  It's the perfect time of year to experiment.  So, crack open the vino, put on some old scratchy tunes, and get cookin'! 

    Bon apetit!  .ryn

The tried and true: Lemon Pasta, a la Giada

How to make pesto like an Italian grandmother from 101 cookbooks

Market pasta from Sunday Suppers

How did the abandoned bicycle win its freedom?

Still enchanted by these poetic questions from Pablo Neruda's "Book of Questions."  Enjoy.
    .ryn

XIV.

And what did the rubies say

standing before the juice of pomegranates?

Why doesn't Thursday talk itself  

into coming after Friday?

 

Who shouted with glee

when the color blue was born?

Why does the earth grieve

when the violets appear?

 

XV.

But is it true that the vests

are preparing to revolt?

Why does spring once again

offer its green clothes?

Why does agriculture laugh

at the pale tears of the sky?

How did the abandoned bicycle

win its freedom?

 

XXXI.

Whom can I ask what I came

to make happen in this world?

Why do I move without wanting to,

why am I not able to sit still?

Why do I go rolling without wheels,

flying without wings or feathers,

and why did I decide to migrate

if my bones live in Chile?

Little Bird tune

Thanksgiving treat

Watch My Life as a Turkey on PBS. See more from NATURE.

Gratitude

Gratitude is the memory of the heart.  ~Jean Baptiste Massieu


Thinking back on memories from last year's Thanksgiving... family, laughter, Bloody Mary's, a baby, a grandma, cousins, traditions.  Sending love and thankfulness to my special family this Thanksgiving, and couldn't be more grateful for your place in my life.  You make it rich in so many ways...
    .ryn

The slow curve of a back road

Say farewell to the confines of my own back yard.
Weeds growin' 'round the flowers.
Sometimes the only way to break the curse
is to leave it all behind.
Find the slow curve of a back road,
one hand on the wheel.
Drive till I remember how it feels.
So this is how it feels. 
-Over the Rhine

Photo Mood: Something's about to happen

Recipe Roundup: Ginger

This month's ingredient: Ginger!  Why?  Not only does ginger spice up any dish, it is one of nature's medicines. And, doctors now think that ginger has the potential to prevent some cancers.  Whether chopped in big bits in a cookie, blended into a rich sauce, infused into a drink, or dressing up an earthy soup, ginger is sure to surprise your taste buds this winter!  Give these a try and let me know what you're cooking!

Bon apetit!  .ryn

Wait for me

Should we lose each other in the shadow of the evening trees
I'll wait for you
Should I fall behind
Wait for me

Happy Halloween!

I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.  ~Henry David Thoreau

-at home in the forest. relaxin' on a mushroom.-

From the lost notebooks of Hank Willaims

I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love. -David Whyte

Solitude

I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other. -Rilke

   

"These trees are magnificent, but even more magnificent is the sublime and moving space between them, as though with their growth it too increased.” -Rilke

Waterford, Virginia in October... magical.
    .ryn

Connecting the stories of lives touched by cancer

If you don't know the trees you may be lost in the forest, but if you don't know the stories you may be lost in life.  -Siberian elder

I think that each of us knows someone who has been touched by cancer in their life.  Explore the Facing Cancer Together Digital Quilt... It's a unique way that people who are facing cancer in their life are coming together to share wisdom, celebrate strength, and offer hope.

These individual stories, patch pieces, are connecting to tell a pretty powerful narrative about the impact that cancer has on so many lives. ... and if you are someone who is facing it yourself... share perspective and wisdom.  Have a loved one who is going though it?  Show them that you care by creating a patch of support.  Have you lost someone to this disease?  You're not alone.

 http://www.facingcancertogether.witf.org/quilt

A Good Kind of Lost

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition.  What you'll discover will be wonderful.  What you'll discover is yourself.  ~Alan Alda

It's kind of hard to get lost these days, with GPS apps etc.  But, I got lost last night. And, I loved it!  I was driving through the battlefields of Gettysburg, heading to a man's house to pick up a Gettysburg Address Honeylocust sapling that is a gift for someone.  Driving by monuments, winding through fields, and then woods, I finally found the log cabin in the woods and picked up this darling little sapling.  Then, the fun part.

Recipe Roundup: Walnuts

NEW: Bringing you fresh tastes each month!  

This month's ingredient: Walnuts!  Why?  They are one of the many foods we can eat to improve our health... oh yeah, they also taste great!  Oh, and it's hard to believe it, but it's Fall and walnuts add a toasty, earthy taste to dishes.  et me know what you try and what you like/dislike!

Bon apetit!
    .ryn

Where were you?

Where were you?





That day in Spetember
That day that the world changed your heart Where were you?

Musical truth

This song is speaking to me.

All my favorite people are broken
Believe me, my heart should know
Awful believers, skeptical dreamers, you’re welcome
Yeah, you’re safe right here, you don’t have to go

When I think of Jenny I think of...

Holocene Dream

"Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us."
-Martin Luther

Here is a little treat for you... a stunning visual and audio escape to help you ease into your weekend thanks to Bon Iver.  Enjoy your weekend, friends.
    .ryn


BON IVER "Holocene" from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.

When I think of Annie, I think of...

Mid-week Melody

A Moment

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”

-Maya Angelou

 

10 Ridiculously Little Things That Make Me Smile

1. Watching an entire storm move through while out on the porch  
2. Drinking margaritas in the pool on a 100 degree day 
3. Finding the perfect antique picture frame for the perfect modern photo
4. Filling the house with jars of freshly-cut Queen Anne's Lace 
5. The pair of mini horses I pass on my way to work (borderline obsession here)
6. Hearing about my friend's absurd dates
7. The fat grounhogs (aka whistlepigs) who sneak into our yard and steal veggies
8. A super-clean kitchen with super organized spices 
9. A goofball guy who likes to get up and dance and sing early in the morning
10. Farm stands with warm peaches, alien heirloom tomatoes, bundles of dahlias, and yellow plums

How about you?

Ryn's Summer Mixtape

In summer, the song sings itself. 

-William Carlos Williams

Ryn's Summer Mixtape

Side A:

1. "You are a Tourist"- Death Cab for Cutie

2. "Rumble '69"- Link Wray

3. "Faded High"- GAYNGS

4. "Little Red Corvette"- Prince

5. "Summertime"- Dj Jazzy Jeff & Will Smith

Side B:

1. "Battle of Evermore"- Led Zeppelin

2. "Dangerous Weapon"- Storyhill

3. "My First Lover" - Gillian Welch

4. "Sunshower"-Chris Cornell

5. "If I Should Fall Behind"- E Street Band

What are your fave summer tunes?

Recently...

I am listening to this .  I am tasting this .  I am wearing this .  I am sweating to this .  I am amazed by this .  I am going to submit a photo to this .  I am growing these .  I am comforted by this .  I am in awe of this.  I am annoyed by this .  I am coveting this .  I am daydreaming of this .  I am feeling a little like this .  I am working on this .  I am hoping for this .  I am learning about this.  I am missing this.   
    .ryn
How about you? 

Leap

"We're alive all of a sudden, for sure now, yes, ready or not here we come. Stronger and weaker, bluer and blacker, happier and clearly more sad-we are being swept along toward the end of our lives and there is no point in looking back just yet. Ride. This is why: we are looking for something undeniable. (We really believe this stuff.) Somehow when we gather all of our stories together, (yours, hers, his, theirs, ours), it is a way of peering out of an upstairs room into the distance, the distance within, the distance without.
Leap.

God lets us make a mess in the kitchen, a friend once said. So make the first move. Our boat is leaky, but it's the right boat. (We're out on the lake now.) This gift is for us. You will be my diary. I will be your mason jar full of backyard flowers.""

-Linford Detweiler

"It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living. Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing. That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its innermost chamber and is no longer even there, - is already in our bloodstream. And we don't know what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing happened, and yet we have changed, as a house that a guest has entered changes. We can't say who has come, perhaps we will never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters us in this way in order to be transformed in us, long before it happens. And that is why it is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad: because the seemingly uneventful and motionless moment when our future steps into us is so much closer to life than that other loud and accidental point of time when it happens to us as if from outside. The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadnesses, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us, and the more we can make it our own, the more it becomes our fate." 
— Rainer Maria Rilke