Lemony Webbles

week in review

We've been doing a lot of cooking here which makes me happy because Billy and I have a really good time playing in the kitchen together. Also, Billy has made seven lemon or lime meringue pies in the last week or two. He had been wanting to do that for a while, and we all enjoy the outcome. Yum! He says he's got the recipe memorized now. Impressive. Maya (and sometimes Georgia) has also been asking at least once a day to bake muffins. Unfortunately, nobody actually likes the muffins enough to finish a whole batch before they go bad, so we're going to have to find a new happy baking project.

I've also become addicted to quilting this week. I finished a quilt for the new baby (finally) and Georgia asked me to make a quilt for her doll, Lisa (who was also my favorite doll as a child, and whose hair has seen better days). We sat down and made the whole thing in one evening. I couldn't stop! I had to kepp sewing until it was done! There's something about the fast needle making all those stiches and the sewing maching noises that's really exciting. And creating something new and interesting from scraps of beautifully patterened cloth is REALLY addictive. I think I could do this for a living if I could just figure out a way for my back and shoulders not to ache so much after hours at the sewing machine. Thanks so much to Amy for teaching me all of what little I know about quilting and to Husayn for lending me his mom's sewing machine so I could bring it all home and sew into the night.

We had another super-packed weekend starting with the Birth of Baha'u'llah celebration Thursday night where I got to be in a really touching performance of storytelling about Baha'u'llah's childhood told from the perspective of the house he grew up in (the storytellers were the various parts of the house). I got to be a tile. Hee hee. I love ceramic tiles anyways so that was fun. And I told a story about Baha'u'llah as a baby, also very appropriate to my present situation and very meaningful to me. I'll put my script in the extended entry part of this post in case you want to read it. Then Friday we had a big family day since everyone was home for the Holy Day and we even got a surprise visit from Nana and Khalil coming to visit U of I! The Heidi and David Bakers were here for the weekend and we got to all play, with the Allmarts too, at an open gym at the YMCA gymnastics center. Suzanne and Heidi reminisced about gymnastics days of old, all the kids enjoyed jumping around and we all watched the gymnasts practising impossible-looking feats. Then we had a fun game night sort of thing at out house that night. On the weekend we went to a very yummy pre-Thanksgiving party at Katie's house and raked up huge piles of leaves blown into our yard from the woods across the street. Georgia really enjoyed hiding in the piles, and pretending to swim in them. Maya plowed her way into them too, but wasn't so interested in being totally covered with leaves. That makes sense because Georgia could always just stand up to get out, but the piles were still over Maya's head when she was standing up.

Here's the text of my script:

I am one of the many beautiful tiles, placed over the doorways in Mirza Buzurg's mansion. I add refinement and beauty to this house and reflect his wonderful artistic sense. I have seen and heard many things over the years. All the sounds of the household bounce off of me and I amplify them and make them more intense. From thunder rumbling overhead to the sweet songs of birds that come to enjoy our beautiful gardens, and all the sounds of the people who live here, their talking, their laughter, the running feet of little children, and the baby's cries. I have many memories of beautiful sounds, but my favorite one was not a sound at all. It was a silence. The illustrious Khadijah, Mirza Buzurg's wife, was expecting a child. I remember that he was born in the fall because the leaves were rustling and turning colors. When this beautiful baby was born, he was named Husayn Ali and this blessed child never cried. I found his quietness deafening. His mother was amazed. I heard her exclaim one day, "This child never cries. He is so unlike other babies who cry and scream and are forever restless while in the nursing stage." How could such a small being have such powers of peace, contentment, and wisdom? How extraordinary! Can you imagine such a miracle? How could such a thing be possible? It seems to me only a child touched by God could show such inherent nobility.