RockTheDesert

I'm 1 Week Behind

So sorry for this belated post - I've been super busy with Thanksgiving, church, family, etc. I'm working on a new post, but for now, check out my latest post at Fellowship North's website - it's called "Come In."

Thanksgiving

Well, I decided on Wednesday at noon, while shopping for food for pre-Thanksgiving dinner with the family that night, that I wanted to roast a turkey, just so we could have turkey soup and leftovers. I guess I was craving a turkey sandwich on a yeast roll with mayo, salt & pepper, and cranberry sauce...So, I stopped by Sunflower Market and asked the boys at the meat counter if they had any 10 lb fresh turkeys. They brought out a free-range, super-cold "but not frozen" organic turkey. They gave me simple instructions: place it in the sink in cold water for two hours. It should be ready to cook by then. I gathered up all my purchases and headed home, first stopping by Alyssa's house to kidnap her for a cooking extravaganza in my tiny kitchen. We made Italian stuffing with spicy Italian sausage, cornbread, butter, pecans, dried cranberries, butter, onions, chicken broth, white wine, parmesan cheese and butter. It was extremely flavorful. And buttery. Then we made traditional stuffing with 5 different fresh herbs, celery and onion and chicken broth. And butter. Then we made The Pioneer Woman's mashed potatoes. They were fantastic - creamy and buttery. Meanwhile, I kept checking on the super-cold turkey in my sink. It was far more than super-cold...it was nearly frozen in the middle. I kept refilling the sink with cold water, trying to hurry up the defrosting process. At 6pm I finally pulled a couple of packages of chicken out of the refrigerator and started doctoring them up with the fresh herb/lemon lemon zest/butter concoction which I had planned to use on the turkey. I pan-fried them in olive oil and finally had dinner on the table by 7pm.

At 7:30pm I left the family gathering to go pick up Michael at Chick-fil-A (1 hr round trip). When I walked in the kitchen door, to my utter amazement, Alyssa had cleaned up the entire kitchen and was graciously serving pumpkin pie w/whipped cream to the family. We decided to watch some movies so we split up the family - boys in the living room with the big screen watching "Live Free Die Hard" - - girls in the lodge with the medium screen watching "What A Girl Wants".

Alyssa & Joshua left at 11:30pm. I checked on the turkey again - by this time I had moved it to the refrigerator to continue defrosting. It was still a little icy in the middle but at least I could pull out all the little bags of nameless innards and discard them. Then I decided to bake the turkey. So, I whipped up another batch of herb lemon butter. Got out the kosher salt and the pepper mill. Pulled together all the aromatics I could find for the interior of the bird - whole head of garlic, onion, lemons, whole thyme sprigs. Then at about midnight, I slid the whole masterpiece into the 350 degree oven for 2-1/2 hours. By 3am, I had fallen asleep with the TV on. Dan woke me up and asked me what the high-pitched beeping noise was. I emerged from my perfect dreamland and realized that the oven timer had been ringing for more than a few minutes. I dragged myself out of bed and rescued the turkey from the oven. It was perfect and beautiful. I covered it tight with foil and went back to bed. I DID remember to turn off the oven. In the morning, I carved a little piece of turkey - it was divine. Perfectly seasoned and juicy with a crispy, flavorful skin. Worth all the trouble.

At 10am, Dan, Michael and Steven headed over to the Bakalar's home for their annual Thanksgiving Day hike with Jeff. I stayed behind, boiling potatoes for more mashed potatoes, baking sweet potatoes for sweet potato casserole and making a gigantic mess in the kitchen. Pots, pans, dishes, serving spoons, mixer, butter - - the mess took on a life of its own, spreading, overflowing, spilling, until I finally finished cooking. I had to look away from the mess as I loaded up the car and headed over to join the rest of the Urban Tribe for our annual Thanksgiving Day feast. As usual, we had a wonderful time just hanging out, eating, talking, being the tribe. It was a beautiful day yesterday - not cold at all. It didn't feel like November. Nice breeze, lots of mild sunshine. At 4pm we squeezed in a few family photos by the pool.

Then we packed up and drove home. Dan and I changed into "youthful" attire - jeans & long-sleeved t-shirts, tennis shoes, sweatshirts draped over our shoulders. We were ready for the ASU vs USC game. We had awesome seats, courtesy of Jeff & Pam. 26 rows up from the field in the endzone area. The game started out great for both teams. Then gradually, with accelerating competence, USC pulled way ahead of ASU. We ended up standing for at least 50% of the game because all the spectators in front of us were standing. I had a tall, beefy man, a loyal USC fan, sitting directly in front of me. It was like being seated in front of a brick wall. I couldn't see anything unless I stood up. The game was really fun. Lots of team spirit on both sides. The ASU band played at half-time - special guest artist was Little Richard. Lots of fireworks. We didn't need our sweatshirts because it was probably only in the 70's. After walking to our car (seemed like miles), we decided we were still young and could go out and get something to eat real quick. Well, we didn't have much luck finding a place that was open that wasn't a full-on club or bar. So, we finally pointed the car toward home. Dan made some little turkey sandwiches on yeast rolls with mayo, salt and pepper, and little bit of cranberry sauce...yum, the things sweet dreams are made of!!!

Thanksgiving Letter

I published and sent out our family Thanksgiving letter this morning. Check your email inbox for yours. It comes from LetterPop. Click here to go to our LetterPop page. You can also link there from the sidebar of this blog. They supply a great variety of templates for all sorts of newsletters. You're just responsible for the pictures/journaling. Try it some time - it's really easy and fun!!

My brother-in-law, Cory, is one of the co-owners of the LetterPop company. His sons, Levi and Luke, are my nephews and they are amazing, creative, energetic boys. My sister, Crissy, is the youngest in the family. My nickname for her used to be Baby. She couldn't say my name so she called me Mimi. They have a family blog you might want to check out sometime...lots of great photos.

Thankfest 2007

Yesterday was FNC's annual Thankfest! We ate great food catered by Boston Market. We also had a Dessert Challenge for men only. Check out these pics of the hopeful entries:

We also filled bags with canned and dry goods from home and brought them to church to donate to the Desert Foothills Food Bank. Later this week, Randy will deliver the trailer-load of food just in time for Thanksgiving.

Engage

Our Worship Team's mission statement is: Engage. That's it. Engage. This one little word is rich with meaning and just begs to have an on-going dialogue about all that it implies.

When I was trying to define Engage using my own words, I took several rabbit trails. First I landed on engage, as in engaged to be married. That led to thoughts of my daughter getting married.

I posted this article at the newly re-designed, interactive, informative Fellowship North website. Click here for the rest of the article...

Popcorn

I love really good popcorn. I have a cool popcorn popper for the stove - it has a hand-crank on the side for stirring all the kernels and oil together. It makes fantastic popcorn.


My favorite Kettle Corn is sold at Phoenix Christian High School football games. It's perfectly glazed and salted and always extremely fresh. I think it's a mom & pop shop called Happy Jacks. Couldn't find a website for them. I'm content waiting for next football season. The anticipation probably makes it taste better than it really is.

When I feel like blowing $8 on a bag of popcorn (rarely), I head over to AJ's and pick up a bag of Gary Poppins. They have a combination bag that contains the cheesiest popcorn - ever, the yummiest caramel corn - ever, and kettle corn to balance it out.


Today, Alyssa and I popped in to Poppa Maize which is a 1 yr old popcorn store right next door to Chino Bandido's at 19th Ave/Greenway. They have samples of all their flavors and I couldn't resist purchasing German Chocolate Cake, White Cheddar, Candy Caramel Corn along with a few others that I sent home with Alyssa.

The Picture Says It All

Michael was the cow at Chick-fil-a last night. He loves being the cow. He gets to hug the kids and when they ask him to dance he does the chicken dance. He usually makes a couple of appearances during the family night time. His last appearance includes wearing a nightshirt and nightcap which means he's going to bed right after he says hi to the kids. You can see the nightcap is still perched on his head.

Broken Bones

Yesterday was a busy day - Sundays usually are...I was at rehearsal for Carnegie Hall from 2-5pm. Dan was busy playing football with Michael, Steven, and a whole group of parents and students at CCL. I got home from rehearsal and was just getting ready to join the boys at CCL for The Stand (student-led church service) when Dan came in the side door, announcing that Steven broke his arm. Now, knowing Dan as well as I do, I was 100% certain that he was just joking. For one thing, Steven already broke his arm once this year - in April (I think). He was playing basketball and tripped over a kid and fell dead weight on his left arm, breaking the radius. 6 weeks later, the cast was off and he was as good as new. For another thing, we just changed health insurance companies. Our new monthly insurance payment is 50% less than our old payment...we barely sent in the 1st payment on Nov. 1 and received our insurance cards this week. And one last thing, they were playing touch football, not tackle. How could he possibly be hurt????? 

The following pictures were taken with my camera phone - they are pretty poor quality...I thought I had my camera with me in my purse, but Alyssa borrowed it at church this morning and forgot to give it back.

Well, Dan was not exaggerating or joking. He started digging frantically through the mail pile, searching for the brand new insurance cards. I grabbed my purse and phone and headed to the car. We went to Scottsdale Osborn Hospital. It was a great experience. Steven was registered, triaged and in a room within 15 minutes. He had an IV, ice pack, pillows, and a staff of nurses attending to him less than 2 minutes after settling into the bed. His favorite part of the entire experience, other than the TV mounted on a telescoping arm, was when they cut his clothes off of him. They gave him a little bit of morphine, took numerous x-rays, and monitored his vital signs until the orthopedic surgeon (they actually had an orthopedic guy on call in trauma) finished surgery and came to check on Steven. The x-rays showed that he needed to "reduce" the fracture - this means they manipulated the bones into better alignment then put a humongous temporary cast on his arm to keep it all in place 'til his follow-up visit next week. I have a feeling this procedure was pretty painful - they gave Steven an amnesia drug so he would feel & remember absolutely nothing about it. The surgeon was amazing. He's a fracture specialist, trained at Yale and abroad, numerous awards, and very professional, personable bedside manner. The attending ER physician was also fantastic as was nurse Sarah. Greatly exceeded my ER expectations.

Steven's friend Matt came with his dad to visit. He brought Steven a cool glow stick which Steven kept in the pocket of his hospital gown. His chest glowed bright red and green for 3 hours. Steven sent out a little text message to everyone on his contact list and received about 12 text messages back within about 3 minutes. Lydon and his dad came to visit today. They brought Starburst and funny stories.

One last thing, while playing football, Steven decided that his shoes were entirely in the way of his success as a football player, so he took off his shoes and played barefoot. I tried (unsuccessfully) to capture the filthy, dirt-encrusted toes with my pitiful camera phone, but this is as good as it gets. I actually gave him a mini-spa pedicure today, complete with Mary Kay products and a little pink nail brush. Don't let him tell you otherwise - he LOVED it!

Another Addiction

Sudoku rocks. It is challenging and relaxing and fun and you only compete against yourself. You can play it in the middle of the night when you can't sleep or the middle of the day when you need a break. Dan says I'm addicted. I say I can stop any time I want to. I also say Dan is addicted to creating piles of stuff all over the desk.

Church Planting

The way I see it, all you need to plant a church is bricks - any size, any shape, possibly some mortar if it's available, and of course, some scaffolding for the hard to reach places!

Actually, we take very seriously the fact that the Church is a body of believers who gather together for worship and community. The church building itself is a bonus. In the rural villages in Africa, people gather for "church" in empty fields, under trees, in front yards or backyards or in the town square or at the top of a hill or in a banana grove...whatever location is within walking distance of "the church" is where they meet.

This is "the church" our team planted. It meets in this grassy green field, right next to the water spigots for the village.

Silly & Not So Silly Stuff

This is Ky. He is a seasoned campaigner. He has the most amazingly comprehensive packing list I've ever seen. Retired firefighter. From California originally. Now lives in Oregon. He was on our trip to Rwanda then continued on to Sudan with Dan and Patricia. While in Rwanda, we had to make our own lunches. We brought loads of peanut butter & jelly & honey. Bread was provided for us. The bread slicer was missing half of its blades. So each loaf of bread went something like - slice, slice, slice, BIG slice, BIG slice, HUMONGOUS slice, slice, slice, GIANT slice, etc. We only had a butter knife to work with and Ky volunteered to cut each thick slice in half. Don't even ask about the crumbs and mangled slices of bread. It wasn't pretty. But when you're hungry, bread is bread, and we appreciated every single misshapen slice.   

I finally finished our Sept/Oct Team Berryman Update newsletter. Click here to see the final product.

Dan is now preparing for his second training trip. This will be E3's first ever church planting campaign in Burundi, January 17-27. He needs to recruit at least 2 more campaigners. Email Dan if you're interested and available those dates. dan.berryman@e3partners.org.

Check out this great website http://www.hisgreatplan.com/. Mike & Mary Wagner are E3 Church Planters and they are very good at what they do. If you've never been on a trip before, you've got to go on at least 1 trip with the Wagners. You'll be hooked!

We are working on setting up dessert parties in the Scottsdale/Phoenix area to give us a chance to share with friends and friends of friends what it is that we've been called to do with E3 Partners Ministry. We'd love to have you join us. Please email Marina at berrymanaz@msn.com if you're interested in attending or hosting. Thanks.

Cold Tangerines

I just finished reading an amazing book by Shauna Niequist called "Cold Tangerines". It is a collection of essays that is real and raw and all about everyday life. I bought my copy at Barnes and Noble. You can also find it at Shauna's website www.shaunaniequist.com.

Are You Ready For Some Opera?

My sister, Donni, sent me the link to these amazing videos. Watch them sequentially. Must have kleenex nearby. Even if you don't like opera, stick with it!

VIDEO #1

Can you handle another one?

VIDEO #2

Are you hanging in there? I love his story. And his humility. Here's the final episode of the show (Britain's Got Talent).