Christmas Snippets

 

Grateful For a Quiet Christmas With Family

Mission San Juan Capistrano

Happy Thanksgiving

 

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes

  And roofs of villages, on woodland crests

  And their aerial neighborhoods of nests

  Deserted, on the curtained window-panes

Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes

  And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!

  Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,

  With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!

All things are symbols: the external shows

  Of Nature have their image in the mind,

  As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;

The song-birds leave us at the summer's close,

  Only the empty nests are left behind,

  And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Do More Of What Makes You Happy

 

Nine hundred Days Left On Earth

 

If I only have 900 days left on this ground 

Every evening to say I made a better web, 

shared love, 

 and create new. 

I let go a those people I used to be when Elle died. 

It's easier to say no with a plan. So here is my plan ~

Yes please to:

Share my skills before we die.

Plants seeds in other gardens.

Propagate specimen cuttings.

Build a house with my hands.

Teach how to read a painting.

Complete the children's book.

Exercise my strong body daily.

Open soul into nature' timing.

Tell moon, season, sky stories.

See fun animals in the clouds.

Stop fear of the night talons.

Welcome a hero into my life.

Be silly, express wonder, sing.

Cook always delicious meals.

Farmers market, know names.

Recite the rosary and meditate 

Join community as need arises.

Show up on time,  tools ready.

Do jobs for free and well done.

Call friends to remain listening.

Be forgiving extra zillion times.

Shut my desire to blurt answers

Don't bit advice to the broken.

Hug more than speak my mind.

Express open sex a one trusted.

Risk what they say ignore critics.

Paint from memory or plein air.

Give away treasures not touched.

Trust the worthy to see my heart.

Keep promises forever, deliver it.

 

 

 

Eulogy For Elle

Celebration of My Sister 

Elle Gerardo Borlin Smith

9/29/2023

 

At sunset Elle's ashes swim with the dolphins.

Bring peace to her struggle and let us sleep.

Fall's a favorite, forever monarch butterflies

return to spin a chrysalis to become again. 

Will pieces of Elle sink into the sea deep?

Summer fades into the earth, brown spiders

weave to survive, and milkweed goes furry.

Planted garlic in your garden, season to 

harvest the scapes and roast the crowns,

keep away squirrels who steal in a hurry.

I'm blessed to have loved you sister.

Left with the golden glow to share.

Love you created, your smile of joy,

be brave, strong enough to compare. 

9/23/2023

Challah Recipe

Catholic girl goes to Rabbi G's house to make challah 

Since my sister passed I'm on a mission.

I started with exercise and hiking but that

lead me to making changes in myself.

I've cared for someone dying for more than a year but

the climb to heaven has taught me so much about love.

Glioblastoma is a nasty diagnosis, I am creating new

what I learned a gift to you all.

Here's the recipe and videos about the evening shared with 

thirty orthodox and reformed Jewish women. I hope you

practice making this rather easy bread as a gift to those

you love. Once you get the texture down, it's simple.

·      1½ packages active dry yeast (about 3½ teaspoons)

·      1 tablespoon plus ½ cup sugar

·   1/2 cup vegetable oil, more for greasing bowl

·      5 large eggs

·      1 tablespoon salt

·    8           to 8½cups all-purpose flour

·      Sesame seeds for sprinkling

·      Parchment paper

·      Cooking spray

·      Your largest bowl

·      Clean hands no gloves

 

 

Dissolve yeast and 1 tablespoon sugar in 1¾ cups lukewarm water in the big bowl.

 

Whisk oil into yeast, slowly beat in 4 eggs, with remaining sugar and salt. Gradually add flour by then handful. Use both hands gently.  

When dough holds together, it is ready for kneading.

 

Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Clean out bowl and grease with spray, then return dough to bowl.  The amount of flour may vary with the relative humidity in your kitchen. Getting the feel right is practice.

 

Cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour, until almost doubled in size.

 

Punch down dough, cover and let rise again in a warm place for another half-hour.

 

 

Divide dough in half and then take a handful ball from each half. You will have about 38% in each large ball and 7% in the two smaller baseballs.

 

See video how to punch down one large ball into a disc shape and then cut the sides like a flower into 18 sections – watch her count. Then fold in every third to the center and repeat. The baseball goes in the center. The bread will be in the shape of the Star of David but when it bakes it will become round like a crown. Some cultures hide an egg under the ball, add hidden currents or surprises.

 

Remaining egg wash brushes over and sprinkle with sesame seeds

 

375 preheated oven

Bake on cookie tray for about 30- 42 minutes until golden brown

 

If you want all the loaf to be even brown color at 25 minutes you may add a little egg wash into the valleys and sprinkle more seeds but do it fast and on the rack in the oven (wear mitts)

 

Your kitchen will fill with warm bread perfume.

Poem For Elle

To Elle My Sister

A star guides the tree to grow.

The conifer protects the birds.

Flycatcher on iridescent wings 

catches mosquitos and spiders.

Then the nest where she sleeps

fills downy fuzz with love.

Our sister surrounded by

the songs of the star

the wind going free

the bird in the heavens

as Elle taught us

about

love

We are the protectors

of the nest forever

infinite.

My sister went to heaven last night 8/1/2023 with grace. Ellen Gerardo Borlin Smith will watch over us. Her husband, family, and giant posse of friends now have a speed dial to God when a prayer needs highlighting. #gliobasoma is a son of a gun. Elle fought hard and taught may people along the way. She wanted gifts to go to her reading foundation at Mariners Elementary School in Newport Beach.

Hafiz

And still, after all this time

the sun never says

to the earth, "You owe Me."

Look what happens with 

a love like that.

It lights the whole sky.

Hafez/ Hafiz of Shiraz

Bird house

 

  Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.

Friedrich Nietzsche 

Be tough

 

Perfer et obdura, dolor hic tibi proderit olim. (Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.)” ― Ovid.

Death