Leanne Shawler, Artist

So the first thing you need to know is that the passionfruit skin jam/jelly /sauce is all gone. Clearly, I will have to make some more... 910. morning out with friend 911. hummingbird 912. jam that didn't gel 913. an older lady with bad balance full of joy and exclaiming over every small gift 914. refreshing cool sea breeze 915. 3 pelicans, one white, skimming the waves 916. sharing failed jam with choir 917. passionfruit skin sauce and Greek yoghurt 918. cleaning out fridge 919. enough time 920. getting another Anglican rosary blessed 921. sticky cloud cover 922. [redacted] 923. cool breeze Am linking this up to  Ann Voskamp's  "multitudes on Mondays" (or will as soon as it goes up!)

You may have noticed that passionfruit has been on my mind a little bit . As we have a lot of it, with still more to come, I think. On Sunday, I made jam from the passionfruit.  This required unearthing all the jam-making equipment that my mother-in-law had given me and washing everything. The passionfruit was cut open and the skins were left to soak in water overnight, and then boiled for 30 minutes (I should've done it a little bit longer) ... And then the jam making began in earnest. The result being two and three quarter pint jars of pink-colored (from the skins that were boiled) passionfruit jam. And then to wait for 24 hours to see if the seals took. The recipe I used came from here . I had some passionfruit skins left and I really liked the color of the jam in this guy's recipe , so I tried that next. First boiling the skins for 1.5 hours boiled down the water (guess my pan lid wasn't close fitting enough?) so I felt if ...

A different font today because most of the gifts were copied off my Notes app. Let me know if you can see that semi-handwritten style or if it looks terrible or whatever. I can't believe I have less than 100 gifts to go before I reach 1,000! I think this is pretty cool. Of course, I don't think I will stop at 1,000. Changing my perspective is probably going to take at least another 1,000. #894 below is "dark smudge of a bird". I was watching the dawn light fall upon the mountains from the back patio of the retreat house this week, savoring my cup of tea and then my gaze drops. There's a dark brown bird sitting motionless on an old quern stone right in front of me.  My perspective changed so quickly. From looking at grand beauty so far away to simple beauty up close. Here's the list for this week. 877. angel card 878. cold water 879. frustrating enchilada making 880. Crescent moon peeking through clouds in an early morning sky 881. Pepper ...

--1.-- Confession, I hear, is good for the soul. I have done a couple of these Quick Takes posts in the past, but it wasn't zinging for me, although of course I still read Jennifer's blog. But for an Amazon gift card? I'm ready to not-zing! --2.-- This week has been quiet on my blog because I spent four days at a retreat house in Santa Barbara. It was formerly run by Episcopal nuns and is now run by Episcopal monks. It's called Mt. Calvary Community at St. Mary's Retreat House and it's located right next to the Old Mission and the food is to die for. (Like roasted green chile crepes with creamy mushroom gravy and spaghetti with red clam sauce, and home made bread and soups. Heaven.) Anyway, pictures from the retreat will appear on Monday. I haven't quite finished downloading them yet. --3.-- Which brings me to another thought. I used to not like mushrooms. I mean the flavor was okay, but putting one in my mouth was the slimy equivalent of a...

This week has been one of taking care of myself -- although, somehow I managed to get sunburnt Thursday. I don't know how that happened as I wasn't out in the sun that long... This past week's list: 856. relaxation 857. sketching bravely with a pen 858. setting boundaries 859. completing a task that I've been working on and off for a month 860. a fun lunch with a friend 861. movement meditation that turned out strangely fun and connective 862. moon in the morning sky 863. hibiscus flower 864. hot dogs 865. struggling through Lauds 866. orange balloon bouncing down the sidewalk 867. rolling boil 868. black tea 869. best cupcake ever (passionfruit and ginger -- no chocolate) 870. bittersweet and beautiful musical (and Lea Salonga!) 871. ginger flower perfume and chirping crickets 872. up early enough to see the dawn 873. reading about body acceptance in a ton of places 874. nap 875. husband's cooking 876. playing with art journal Am li...

photo by my husband As I expected, two posts have come along shortly after posting my last God's love stories. These and the additional ones are about loving each other and loving ourselves. I've been exploring this idea of self-care recently. It turns out I've been doing some of that already ... and the result of it is that I'm calmer, more grounded and (for me anyway) more patient. Of course there are days where I feel crappy and act snappy, but nobody's perfect. About loving each other: Jennifer from Getting Down with Jesus wrote about a sister in Christ in Haiti About loving ourselves: Liz Lamoreux posts a video about grieving for and forgiving our past selves: for her it was her 34 year old self. It's a beautiful video. Make sure you  have a peaceful, quiet space in which to listen and digest. You won't want to miss a word. "God's Got This" from Christie at Home Sweet School "Mastering Your Curves" from Sa...

OK, so let me start with the link-up first. The link up is called "I am proud of my size."  The context of the photo is explained a lot further below. I am a size 18 and here I am wearing a thrifted shirt, a skirt from Dress Barn and Chicago flip flops. More pictures below -- as well as the link to the link-up so you can see more folks who are proud of their size. As I go through "The Artist's Rule" by Christine Valters Paintner, she gives a set of exercises at the end of each chapter to go deeper into the content presented. Sometimes it goes beyond my comfort zone. When I first read about the movement exercise she wanted to do, I have to admit, I judged. My experience of liturgical dance is that it's amateurs moving and flailing their arms and ribbons about and failing to get their message across (aka the point of liturgical dance). But don't I bop and groove in the choir loft on Sundays when we sing the Gloria and other up-beat tunes? ...

Today is St. Francis' feast day. I thought it would be a good opportunity for a quickie post and link to the collection of blog posts that myself and a bunch of other good people wrote about the Prayer of St. Francis. Here. Enjoy.

It seems like I'm finally going to be pushed into making jam -- something I've wanted to do for a while  but have put off -- because our passionfruit vine is overflowing with lots of fruit. So, I thought I would share about passionfruit ... We decided to grow this because my husband and I both love passionfruit. For me, it's a reminder of home: of passionfruit folded into whipped cream which ended up on the top of pavlova. Yum. The vine is in danger of taking over the front yard (and shades our vege garden more than I would like). overgrown passionfruit vine. yes, the trellis it is on has developed a lean, but the raised garden bed is doing a good job of holding it up The flowers are pretty, but small. The name passionfruit comes from the stamen of these flowers that look like Jesus' Cross, aka the Passion. We've harvested two large containers of these. So far. We froze some of the fruit, which is basically slicing them in two and scooping out...

839. Scots yoga instructor 840. Cadbury "screme" eggs 841. crows flying home 842. a spider making its web 843. my choir buddy back at practice 844. treating myself to a spa @ home day: painted nails! 845. tough yoga stretches 846. feeling included 847. sweet scent of passionfruit 848. passionfruit cookies 849. getting the iCloud sorted out (and Notes synced) 850. shade of a tree 851. passionfruit 852. foraging bees 853. grooving in the choir loft 854. calming egg roll making 855. butterfly: so still and so close Am linking this up to  Ann Voskamp's  "multitudes on Mondays" (or will as soon as it goes up!)