She made me a scarf at Christmas.

Crocheted by her little hands, the same hands my grandmother had and that I have.

Sky blue cozy yarn. To match my eyes and to keep me warm. All through the long cold Scottish winter.

I wore it double wrapped around my neck for all of January and February. And even March.

When she finished the scarf, she had enough yarn to make another small warmer. A thin neck wrap that would button just underneath my chin. Just a little something.

Right before she flew back to Arkansas she finished working the leftover yarn into this small accessory. It had two button holes but we didn’t have any buttons.

“You’ll have to get some buttons for it and finish it,” she told me as she packed her bags.

Off she went and into the closet went the little wrap. I had my big scarf to wear. No concern for finding buttons for the small one. I looked once or twice. But in general, as with a lot of things, I don’t know where to buy a big chunky button in Scotland.

Last week my sister arrived with a suitcase full of treasure for my family. Goldfish and peanut butter. Reese’s cups and new clothes. Cheerios and games and markers. From this pile of loot she pulled out a pair of buttons and handed them to me.

“Mother said you would need these,” she shrugged.

The scarf. The one in the closet that I had forgotten.

She knew I would not get around to finding buttons. She probably doubts whether or not I will even sew them on but she sent them anyway.

Sometimes, when you live in a far-away-from-home country you can feel like everyone you know has moved on with their lives that no longer intersect with yours. It can be easy to feel a little forgotten, even when you are not.

And then a couple of small buttons no bigger than the palm of your hand cause a tsunami wave of knowing love to wash over you.

I am carrying the buttons in my front jeans pocket at the moment to remind me that there is someone in the world who knows me well. Even better than I know myself sometimes.

When I picture her going and finding buttons to send to me, the ones I don’t remember that I need, I have a little ache inside me. I long to be the kind of mother she is.

I want to be able to touch my kids in some small point of intimate knowing that will remind them that they are so very loved. That I have them in my heart no matter how far away they are.

Happy Mother’s Day to my Mama!

The post A Story about My Mother appeared first on Alison Chino.

Welcome to the first story of Twelve Days of Stories.

Since it is Christmas Eve, I have a really happy, sweet story for you.

(I am trying to make up for tomorrow’s sad story by making you feel all warm and fuzzy inside today.)

A Story about A Cookie

I’ve known all of my life that I am a giver.

I’ve known it since before I could even read.

As a little girl in nursery school, one day during snack time, the teacher ran out of cookies just as she got to me and one other little boy. She put the final cookie from her package on my paper towel. Then she left the room, presumably to find some more cookies.

All of the other children had three cookies on their paper towels.

I looked down at my lone cookie. Then I picked it up, broke it in half and handed one piece to the little boy next to me.

When the teacher came back with more cookies, she thoroughly embarrassed me by fussing over what a precious, wonderful child I was to share my only cookie. She shamed all the other kids in the class for mindlessly stuffing their three cookies while Jimmy and I shared only one. She rewarded us with more cookies and then, when my mother came to pick me up, she went through the whole episode all over again.

This story was repeated throughout my childhood. I was famous for “sharing.”

Really. The way other parents might champion a game-winning goal or a shining report card my parents told the story of how I shared my cookie.

But there’s something kind of wonderful about telling a child a story you find to be beautiful about them. If you tell a little girl that she is a giver, and you tell the story so often that she does not know if she remembers the incident or if she just remembers the telling of it, then she actually begins to believe and even live out this story.

So I’m not certain if it is genes or upbringing that has wired me to give.

Or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I have a keen sense of fairness.

I’ve been pointing out what is not fair my entire life, even though my father’s standard remark to “That’s Not FAIR!” was “Life isn’t fair.”

Or if I said, “Why does Anna get more than me?”

He would say, “Because I like her better.”

Sarcasm is Daddy’s long suit.

A long time ago I heard Erwin McManus speak about having a similar sense of justice and he said that basically he was a Christian Communist. He just wanted everyone to be equally blessed.

“Amen.” I said.

Now that I am an adult, I know that I cannot make everything fair.

So instead I just make cookies.

Especially at Christmas, but I make them all year long.

I make hundreds of cookies and take them to schools and churches and potlucks and friends.

I think that somehow I am still trying to make sure there are enough cookies to go around.

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Pie is probably the most necessary part of Thanksgiving to me.

Mother used to make 3 apple pies, 2 blackberry pies and 1 pumpkin pie for the big crowd at our Castle Bluff Thanksgiving gathering.

We would leave straight from school and the van would be all packed with pies and food.  One year I remember they were picking us up from school to leave and one of us stepped in an apple pie as we were climbing in the car.  I can’t remember who it was, but I promise you that my sister can.

After my Mother stopped crying, Daddy picked up the pie plate and started eating it.  Then we passed it around the van.  By the time we arrived at Castle Bluff the dish was licked clean and we were all laughing about it.

Ina Garten’s version of deep dish apple pie with the apples piled mile high + Martha Stewart’s pie crust is my favorite recipe for apple pie.

It’s so, so yummy.  I cut the apples in big chunks so that they still have a little crunch to them.

Deep Dish Apple Pie

from The Barefoot Contessa

4 pounds Granny Smith apples, peeled, quartered, and cored

1 lemon, zested

1 orange, zested

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed orange juice

1/2 cup sugar, plus 1 teaspoon to sprinkle on top

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

Pate Brisee, recipe follows

1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Cut each apple quarter in thirds crosswise and combine in a bowl with the zests, juices, 1/2 cup sugar, flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.

Roll out half the pie dough and drape it over a 9- or 10-inch pie pan to extend about 1/2-inch over the rim. Don’t stretch the dough; if it’s too small, just put it back on the board and re-roll it.

Fill the pie with the apple mixture. Brush the edge of the bottom pie crust with the egg wash so the top crust will adhere. Top with the second crust and trim the edges to about 1-inch over the rim. Tuck the edge of the top crust under the edge of the bottom crust and crimp the 2 together with your fingers or a fork. Brush the entire top crust with the egg wash, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon sugar, and cut 4 or 5 slits.

Place the pie on a sheet pan and bake for 1 hour, or until the crust is browned and the juices begin to bubble out. Serve warm.

Pate Brisee

from Martha Stewart

Makes 1 double-crust or 2 single-crust 9- to 10-inch pies

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces

1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

In the bowl of a food processor, combine flour, salt, and sugar. Add butter, and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal, 8 to 10 seconds.

With machine running, add ice water in a slow, steady stream through feed tube. Pulse until dough holds together without being wet or sticky; be careful not to process more than 30 seconds. To test, squeeze a small amount together: If it is crumbly, add more ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time.

Divide dough into two equal balls. Flatten each ball into a disc and wrap in plastic. Transfer to the refrigerator and chill at least 1 hour. Dough may be stored, frozen, up to 1 month.

Roll each piece on a well-floured board into a circle, rolling from the center to the edge, turning and flouring the dough to make sure it doesn’t stick to the board. Fold the dough in half, place in a pie pan, and unfold to fit the pan. Repeat with the top crust.

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My parents started dating at North Little Rock High during their senior year.  Daddy asked Mama to prom that spring and the rest is history.

She went off to California to college the next fall, while he attended the University of Texas.  At Christmas, he talked her (and her parents) into moving to Baylor.  He would hitchhike from Austin to Waco to see her.  Before long, he had her packing her bags again to move to Austin.

I remember one time my grandmother was warning my dad about a deal he was working with someone.  She told him, I’ve heard that man is kind of a horse trader.  He kept quiet while Grandmother was giving him her opinion, but later when I asked him what a horse trader was and why wasn’t he worried about this other man’s potentially being one, he said, Honey, it takes one to know one.

horse-trad·ing (hôrs tr d ng). n. Negotiation characterized by hard bargaining and shrewd exchange

Daddy’s fast talking worried my grandfather.  He could see that Mama was hooked, and he was not so sure about this young buck.  He paid for my daddy to go to Young Life camp in Colorado, hoping to God and Jesus that he might become a man worthy of marrying my mother.

My grandfather was a praying man.  And the Lord heard his prayers.  Daddy had a Come to Jesus meeting in Colorado, literally.  From that moment, he never looked back.  He came home a changed man, and he married my mom just a few years later.

After college, Mother and Daddy moved to Chicago so Daddy could go to seminary.  I was born two years later.

When Daddy finished school, they moved to Fort Smith, Arkansas to do ministry with Young Life.  My sister and brother were both born there.

Eventually they came full circle back to North Little Rock, where they have both been planting seeds for more than 30 years.

They are in love with the Word of God and have strong hearts for seeing the local church become the hands and feet of Jesus.  They have traveled together multiple times to Kenya to be an extension of that church.

They are hanging on to Jesus. And to each other.  For always and for good.

Happy Anniversary, Y’all!

The post 45 Years Ago appeared first on Alison Chino.

This part 2 of my parents’ anniversary Boot Shoot with Whitney. Yesterday was Boots in the Rain, but we got rewarded for braving the rain with some amazing sunlight.  The kind that only comes after the rain.

My parents are looking at Mary Polly who had wandered up the riverbank a little bit to play.  While these pictures were being taken I was standing somewhere behind Whitney just soaking in the beauty of this moment.  LOVE!

More magic!  So lovely.  And a rainbow!

While they were sitting on the dock in the sun, the rain was still falling on them.  Little happy raindrops on their clothes.  This is sweet to me.

My mama does not have hardly a gray hair on her red head, but it’s not from a lack of worrying, I can tell you that for sure.  (She and her sister both have beautiful red hair.  It keeps them looking young for sure.) Mama is a Southern woman through and through, though she might not think of herself as such.  She could stop hollering at us mid-sentence to answer the phone in a voice as sweet as honey.  She could listen to someone for an hour on the phone with soft Mmm-hmms and Oh dears and then pick right back up where she left off with us when she hung up.  This used to infuriate me to no end.  Thankfully, these days I am usually on the receiving end of her sweeter side.

Daddy is as strong as an ox, with a will to match.  He is currently spending any spare moment he can find building an adult guest lodge at Castle Bluff, a camp that has primarily served students for the last 30 years.  We’ll be heading up there soon for our youth camps, where we’ll be able to hear the sound of Daddy’s hammer swinging in the background.  If you talk to him for more than 10 minutes, you can bet he’ll have you packing your power tools and coming up to help him sometime real soon.

Graceful, Steel Magnolia + Bull in a China shop.  Mama and Daddy are about as different as two people can be, but they’ve learned to laugh about it.  I’m glad they still have a lot of years ahead to appreciate each others differences.

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In August, my parents went to their 45th high school reunion and celebrated their 42nd anniversary.

To mark these special events in their lives, I asked Whitney to take pictures of them.  We used to take a family picture every year growing up, but once we all flew the coop, my parents stopped having their picture made.  This makes me kind of sad.

Whitney and I set a date way in advance, because it’s hard to get everyone’s calendars to align.

A few days before the shoot, we made sure Daddy had some clothes that weren’t ripped and Whitney put outfits together out of Mama’s closet so we would be ready.  Country Outfitter even let me have these great Ariat Ramblers for Daddy to wear for the pictures.  He has worn down his old riding boots and was thrilled to have new kicks.

Mary Polly and I both decided to go along to help, so we got dinner ready and then just as we were heading out the door, it started raining.

We deliberated about what to do for just a minute before Whitney decided to throw some umbrellas in her car and go for it.  My parents were leaving town the next day and we were not sure when we would get another chance.

I am SO GLAD we went for it!  This was one of those evenings where Whitney’s instinct as a photographer turned out magical results.

We all decided we LOVED the rainy light.  It made everything so bright and beautiful.

We changed locations because of the rain.  We went down by the Arkansas River in Burns Park.

The rain just made the whole evening fun.  Who doesn’t want to squeeze under an umbrella with someone you love?  So sweet!

Be still my heart!  This picture is my favorite.

I’ve talked a little about my Mama and her health over the last year, but this picture reminds me how much joy she feels right now.  I am so grateful for how delighted she is with life at this season.

I’m also so thankful for my parents’ marriage. They have proved both that marriage is not an easy road and also that staying married is worth the work it takes.

This is such a gift to me.

After the rain, the sky cleared up for us and we got some sunshine.

Boots in the Sun tomorrow!

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But I am celebrating more than just that she was born today.

I am giving thanks for the difference between last year and today.

Last year at this time Mama was in a hospital, she weighed less than 100 pounds and was struggling to retain consciousness.  After weeks of testing, she had little hope left that she would ever know what was really wrong with her.

Flash forward a year and she is full of hope and living life again.  She rode a zip line with her grandchildren last week.

Through taking several brave measures, one being the involvement of a therapist with a good heart, Mama began to manage her symptoms successfully, even as she continued seeing doctor after doctor in an attempt to isolate her physical problems to a certain culprit.

She learned to live with the ambiguity of her illness.  She learned to take life a day at a time.  She learned to rest.

She shined light into a lot of darkness, just in case there was an unturned stone that might lead to healing.

She found medicines that worked, but she hated taking them.  She stopped taking them and got worse.  She started taking them again reluctantly.  She made pacts with my dad and me that she would not stop taking them again without talking to us.  She kept those pacts even though it was hard.  She kept them even though there is a demon that tells us that we don’t really need the things in life that make us better, be it medicine, exercise, spinach or scriptures.  She faced that demon down and for the most part, she won.

As I write all that out, it seems like a lot to accomplish in a year, but I can assure you that it was a long year (especially fall) and that there were many setbacks along the way.  There were many days that it seemed to Mama like she would never really feel good again, and she had to accept the reality that her new normal might be very different from what she wanted it to be.

Also, even though I am isolating this journey to the last year, it is really so much longer.  It is a whole life of needing to be all things to all people. It is trying to keep up with a husband who was blessed with boundless energy and youth.  It is not admitting weakness. It is equating being busy with self worth.  And it is being ruled by shame and guilt rather than passion and joy.

And this journey will continue.  Like many before her, Mother will fight some of these battles her whole life.  But I believe that the progress she abandoned herself to this year has opened the door for God to give her what she really wanted all along.

A diagnosis.

The knowledge of what she is up against.

Just a few weeks ago, Mama tested positive for Lyme Disease.  We’re not even going to talk about how many books she has read about this disease since she got the results.  (We attack all things in our family by reading.  If you know enough about something, you have control over it, right? Wrong.)

I don’t know why she wasn’t tested for Lyme Disease a year ago, but it amazes me to consider what she might have missed if she had moved forward with a diagnosis instead going down a different path of discovery.

Learning to live with uncertainty about what was wrong with her was the battle my mama needed to fight this year.

That I got to fight that battle alongside her is a gift I am still unwrapping.

I don’t know how her health will progress.  Come to think of it, none of us know how we will feel tomorrow or what is coming next year. This is the Cloud of Unknowing that we live under every day, even if we are oblivious to it.

But the cloud makes me more acutely aware of daily blessings.

A few of them from the last year…

Feeling good enough to take a morning walk.  Rain falling.  Jumbline.  A man who asks good questions.  Post-therapy lunches.  Cancelled plans.  Pages full of encouraging words.  Making it through a long drive.  A day without fear.  An hour without self-condemnation.

Surrendering to not knowing and comfort in a God who knows.

Letting go.  Holding on.

Cheers to a new year and new journeys.  To feeling good enough to hike trails and ride zip lines with grandkids on good days.  To finding joy in resting well on the others.

The post Celebrating Mama appeared first on Alison Chino.

for my mama…

Every year on Mother’s Day I remember how grateful I am for my mama.  But this year I happen to be doing a lot of reading about marriage and I have to say that what I am most grateful for about my mom today is her undying commitment to my daddy.

Recently I reread this quote from an old book by Walter Wangerin Jr. (As For Me and My House) on marriage about the marriage promise:

Here is a marvelous work, performed by those who are made in the image of God–for we create, in this promise, a new thing, a changeless stability in an ever-changing world.  We do the thing that God does, establishing a covenant with another human being: we ask faith in our faithfulness to that covenant.  We transfigure the relationship thereafter, transfiguring ourselves, for we shape our behaviors by that covenant.  We have called forth a spiritual house in which each of us may dwell securely.  Whether we know it or not, is a divine thing we do, and it is holy.

My parents have called forth a spiritual house in which many have dwelt securely.

And in the four decades of their being transfigured by this covenant, they have built a haven from which Anna, Peter and I started our own marriage journeys.  Our home was not perfect, but it was a stability in an ever-changing world.

This year more than ever, I believe that it is out of this place of sacred promise that my mother has set before me that I am (with Taido) calling forth my own secure house.

It is a divine thing we do.

Happy Mother’s Day!

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Today was a good day for cleaning out.

I have been putting away winter and pulling out spring.

I was happy to find a flowing spring skirt to put on since the spring sunshine is warming us up.

Unearthing an old tub of memories in the process, I found this picture.

It is of Peter, Anna and I in the summer of 1984.  We spent the entire summer in Connecticut.

A couple of years ago at a Snowcamp not unlike the one from which we just returned, I heard my Daddy tell the story of that summer.

We were in need of some time together as a family.  Mother had been sick (read: depressed) and Daddy had been working a lot.

God provided the time off for Daddy.  A sabbatical.

He gave us a free place to stay.  An empty apartment across from a hotel and restaurant that my mom’s uncle owned in Mystic, Connecticut.

We had enough money to get there.

After the money ran out, my mom’s uncle came looking for a new head cook for his restaurant.  Daddy took over in the kitchen and even brought us food home from the restaurant.  A few times we lucked out and got lobster.

He played with us all day and worked nights cooking and serving up seafood.

I have so many precious memories from that summer.

Playing on the beach.

Riding bicycles everywhere.  Across the drawbridge and into the little town of Mystic.

Visiting New York City and Washington DC.

Listening to our first Amy Grant cassette tape over and over again on an old broken tape player that we had to knock the tape out of with a screwdriver.

Studying and memorizing verses from John and Proverbs.

Going to our first big fireworks show.

Dragging all our clothes to a laundromat.

That summer is the closest thing I have to a precious family heirloom.  Though it is intangible, I have always held it dearly.

I have been a little sad this week that spring break is over.

We had such an amazing week together in Colorado and I wasn’t sure I wanted it to end, but I missed my parents and my brother and sister so much because we’ve made so many amazing memories together at Frontier Ranch (the camp where we stayed last week) and at Monarch (where we skied).  When I pulled out this picture today, I was reminded just like last week of the gift God gave me in my family growing up.  We were able to experience so much together (even though we did not always have a lot).

Which I think is why I had so much joy in being able to take my own kids to Colorado last week (and all over the country two summers ago).

I wish them the same kind of joy in their hearts that I feel in seeing an old vacation photograph.

And just like my Daddy, now that I am home and back in the groove, I’m ready to plan the next adventure.

The post family = home appeared first on Alison Chino.

I am so thankful for the house on Eagle Creek Road and for the couple that lives there.

This year Taido and I have had many discussions about buying a bigger house.  We have even tried raising our house payment on our current house to see if we can afford a bigger house.  We can’t.

My grandmother built a house a long time ago that has a big open kitchen that spills into a great room (it’s not a living room or a den…more a combination of the two) in which you could have just about any kind of party.  My parents bought her house when she downsized to an apartment, and since then we have been giving that great room a workout.  Meetings, showers, family gatherings and parties of all shapes and sizes have been pouring in and out of that house since 1980.  We gather there every Sunday afternoon, eating Mother’s cooking and piling on the couches (and the trampoline out back).  I was reminded once again last night that as long as Mother and Daddy have their door unlocked, I can rest easy in my 1600 square feet.

They let me invade with my crew for a great pie bake, which included but was not limited to, about 17 children.  Stretching the countertops to their fullest potential we peeled apples, worked two pastry blenders, debated between butter and crisco, and baked enough gorgeous thanksgiving pies to spread homemade crust love to many a household.  There was flour covering the door handle of the refrigerator, toys and legos in the crevices of the couch, a fire in the pit out back, and kids running around with coat hangers and marshmallows.

When one of my mother’s friends heard what I was doing over there, she said, Now, Julie, I think she’s a real darling gal, but she has just gone too far.

Maybe so, but they keep letting me come back.  One of the many ways my parents have always loved me is to love those who come along with me, opening their doors to whomever I say needs to be let in.

I’m so thankful for them this week.

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