Share Four Somethings – July

Each month I link up with my online friend, Heather Gerwing, and explore four things that I have loved, read, treasured and looking ahead to. I love how this little blog post has helped me slow down and think about the month as it flies by.

Something Loved: Recipe Archaeology Vision Board

This July Christine and I sat down and dreamed about what Recipe Archaeology can be. Not just scheduling out videos and picking recipes but really talking about creating a Recipe Archaeology empire (we’re looking at you Pioneer Woman with your cooking show, line in WalMart, and revitalization of an entire town.

We created a Vision Board and listed the first stages of what we would like to see in the future. Bonus; vision boards are just another excuse to shop the school supply aisle and buy more washi tape and pastel colored dry erase markers.

Part of our vision was to revamp our Patreon content. We hope to build up our support community on Patreon and now offer twice-monthly podcast and monthly Q&A sessions. Hop over to our Patreon page to see how you can be a part of the fun.

Something Read: The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan

The Kitchen Front is set in WWII England. It follows four women as they struggle with the reality of life and loss in the middle of the war as well as cook with the dismal government rations they are allotted each month. Their lives are intertwined in different ways but the event that brings them all to an intersection is a national radio contest to see who can use government rations most creatively. The winner of the contest will become a co-host of the popular national radio show The Kitchen Front. Each woman has her own reasons for wanting to desperately win the contest but their intentions shift as their relationships with each other develop.

This was such a sweet story and each chapter even has recipes from the era.

Something Treasured: Harry’s Baptism

In our church tradition (Disciple of Christ), 5th grade is the age when students start learning about what it means to be an active participant of the church, to be part of the body of Christ, to participate in the sacrament of communion. They learn what the symbol of the bread and cup mean for them and how all are welcome at Christ’s table. They also learn about the tradition of baptism and are given the opportunity to participate in being baptized and becoming a member of the church.

During the semester leading up to baptism, the kids spend several weeks learning from our minister. It is a time when they learn about the history of the church and are encouraged to ask questions about God, Christianity and faith. Some of the questions they challenged our minister covered such topics as: How do we know God is here? How did God start and how his God here? Did God have a plan for the world to be perfect? Who had the idea to make the church? If I go to heaven, do I still have duties to do for God? To name just a few.

I love that these young souls who are just starting their journey of faith are invited and encouraged to ask questions about God and the church. No question is too far fetched or unreasonable. Faith is a life long journey and will be full of questions. I hope that Harry and his peers learned that it is okay to ask questions, explore what faith means to them and continue to look for answers. I hope that they won’t be afraid to ask the tough questions and keep coming back to the unconditional love of God and Christ as a cornerstone to the answers they seek.

Something Ahead: Another School Year

Last year was such a wack-a-do year. Now that we know how terrible things can be I feel like I’m a bit more prepared to start another school year that could throw us some curve balls. The Delta Variant is determined to undermine all the hard work and sacrifice so many people have made to try and return our lives to normal. Despite all that I’m determined to find a new normal. Students have shown us how incredibly resilient they can be in the face of adversity. Let’s take a page from their play book and move forward into this new school year with optimism and positivity in spite of this crazy world we live in.