War Birds

 B-17G Flying Fortress

B-24J Liberator

P-51C Mustang

G

flourless chocolate cake - like truffle filling (delicious) and caramel sauce w/ sea salt

• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 18 oz. bittersweet chocolate
• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 6 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Grease one 10 inch round cake pan and set aside.
2. In a small saucepan over medium heat combine the water, salt and sugar. Stir until completely dissolved and set aside.
3. Either in the top half of a double boiler or in a microwave oven melt the bittersweet chocolate. Pour the chocolate into the bowl of an electric mixer.
4. Cut the butter into pieces and beat the butter into the chocolate, 1 piece at a time. Beat in the hot sugar-water. Slowly beat in the eggs, one at a time.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Have a pan larger than the cake pan ready, put the cake pan in the larger pan and fill the pan with boiling water halfway up the sides of the cake pan.
6. Bake cake in the water bath at 300 degrees F (150 degrees C) for 45 minutes. The center will still look wet. Chill cake overnight in the pan. To unmold, dip the bottom of the cake pan in hot water for 10 seconds and invert onto a serving plate
   .

Caramel sauce ... found here ... Simply recipes ... made me feel simply genius!  I added coarse sea salt later (because I like caramel with salt) 

Monday morning ... 07005 +10 85OVC 14/11 3026  ... the ground is wet and it's "rainey" feeling outside.
Perfect!
I have no students today (maybe a discovery flight early after lunch, tomorrow would be better for that).  Today is laundry day, and a day for moving around the house with my cleaning bucket.  I smile to think of a  refrigerator clean inside and out ... and possibly a tidied pantry.  It's time to start pulling everything out from under all the sinks in the house and tossing out the "stuff" that hides way back next to the wall under the plumbing, stuff not worth packing for the ride back to Texas.  I think that may be the catalyst for all this "general sense of well being".
The appearance of the wood on the chest of drawers I'm working on is pretty rough - beyond "lovin' up".  It was sitting outside with a for sale sign taped to it when I bought it.  Perfect candidate for some of that jazzy Annie Sloan chalk paint.

Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;

^2 
2 

    Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive    to my cry for mercy.

hear my voice.

~PSALM 130:1&2 NIV

That was the text for today's sermon ... well, the entire Psalm, but this is the part i wanted to think about today, and i endeavor to write a note tonight.

airplane being moved by a tug

Pastor talked a bit about people getting stuck in holes, actual holes, also, and probably even more commonly, allegoric holes ... places where we get stuck.

... was thinking about a place where I "got stuck" and how that progressed and eventually resolved.  

     Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;

           Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive

    to my cry for mercy.

³ 

If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,

    Lord, who could stand?

⁴ 

But with you there is forgiveness,

    so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

⁵ 

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,

    and in his word I put my hope.

⁶ 

I wait for the Lord

    more than watchmen wait for the morning,

    more than watchmen wait for the morning.

⁷ 

Israel, put your hope in the Lord,

    for with the Lord is unfailing love

    and with him is full redemption.

⁸ 

He himself will redeem Israel

    from all their sins.

...and continues to work itself out (I hope ... this sort of hope: ). 

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.~loves

(from 1 Corinthians 13)  

Where I was stuck I felt ... unprotected and unable to trust ... and the very notion of trust seemed, ummm, naive ... something for dreamers ...  perseverance I thought I understood, but unwrapped from these other morethanwords perseverance was mostly about surviving*, and there were days when that didn't seem very important at all.  I think it's really impossible to "understand/embrace" love when those other words that help support it are beyond the reach of one's soul ... where love is just another pretty word.  

*surviving is a word about the physical I think because it's something a body does ... souls are eternal ... so, if these are words for the edification of one's soul, and I think they must be, this perseverance isn't about just "hanging on".

And then ... the soul in a very deep hole cries out to the Lord for mercy ... that's what I did. 

Pastor talked about a homeless man out in California who fell into a hole out in the woods somewhere and he couldn't get out ... a hiker and his dog happened by and the dog pulled his person over to the hole where two eyes looked up ... Pastor said the guy thought it was a bear or some other wild thing until  he heard the word water.  I should google it.  I totally get it ... just walking along, basically minding one's own business and next thing you know, and it's surreal, you're in a deep hole from which you can not escape on your own ...  you realize later after you've made it an even deeper hole. 

He spoke also about holes one prefers to stay it ... places where people want to be stuck.  I guess it would be even more difficult to get out of a hole you wanted to stay in. 

Chesed ... unfailing love.  

Sisters

 happy day

321 Blue SKY

It's that time of the year...

a transitional time.  It's chillier in my house right now ... exactly how I like it, cool air, alpaca throw so soft, strong hot coffee ... and a wonderful new candle, white oak and iris ... smoky woods ... I close my eyes and  hear orange leaves crunching under foot as I walk ...

(I want to note for myself here something pretty neat ... that happy place where a full blue moon sails across a summer scented sky dancing with the cicada song ... it continues to be accessible, I thought it was seasonal, I thought it was a time of tangy sweet lemonade which I drank while I sat alone waiting ... for what I did not know.  And maybe that's what I'm trying to express today in this little note to self ... there is a place, is it inside me? it doesn't feel like something my brain does, it feels like something my soul knows, it feels like a place to walk barefoot on powdery sand, and ... over there is the rope swing where one might spin silly dizzy falling laughing into soft grass so fragrant green you can taste it ... and now ... the air becomes chilly but it "feels" like the same day and I smile to recall the sun and the moon companioning  in the same blue sky (and that blue wasn't just blue it was all the blues found between red and green, with effervescence flashing through the high flowing clouds) ... last week on that CJ trip.  It's time to plant hyacinths here in the garden at my home towards a hope of Spring ... also in the lower sunlight of the interior space.  Is that one of the gifts given by time?  This place ... This place my heart grew strong enough to carry ... this place where my soul cocoons.)

Yesterday I sat with two of my girls enjoying their all grown up companionship ... there is a certain joy in hearing them laugh together.  The meal was perfection.  And later in the day, home with Five enjoying her enjoying that purring pile of black cats ... who might have ever guessed the joy of that?  Three sent a text saying he'd be home for Sunday lunch ... I love him and I love to cook ... I've already begun to marinate in the joy of planning a meal, already savoring the promise of time shared ... he is my very best hugger (and he smells like my dad). V, sleeping in this morning, was looking through her cookbook, marking recipes to "try" ... bet we'll find something just right there.

Been crazy busy working with students this past several weeks.  I say crazy busy because I'm too on the go for quiet time and too on the go for exercise time ... I think Sammy has just about given up on me.  I could fly just for fun today and it surprises me a bit to know that I would just as soon hang out around the house.  There's a girl snoozing who will be delighted with my offer of breakfast out ... or lunch as time might have it.  I'm thinking about a chest of drawers in the garage, I think I've meandered to the big idea for it's restoration ... maybe ... where what is white in the photo will be natural wood and the yellow will be Annie Sloan's new mustardy yellow ... the entire project mellowed with an antiquing stain wax.  Yes I think that just might be it.  Maybe I can persuade little miss to stencil shop with me today.

So ... 321 blue sky  ... a picture of where one might "go" in a airplane ... I know what I mean by that.  

One guy came in on that jet, it's his ... two pilots, one silver haired with deep crinkles around his still laughing eyes, the other a kid who trained here 13 years ago ... welcome home, enjoy the BBQ, he's BOS based now flying a jet for a man who probably didn't have time for a local lunch.  There's a diamond in the middle sky of this shot, just off 36 ... I know there's a kid far away from the farm he grew up on in China flying that one while he learns English and Aviation.  And the other, just a speck really, is a Skyhawk overflying midfield, maneuvering, teardrop, into the 45 downwind.  

: )

engine oil level high
popped cowling off ... easy drain
getting it back together was a different story ...

My college freshman is on a road trip (in an RV caravan) with a group of friends ...

they drove all night to arrive at the Sam's parking lot near Houston Hobby 

(rendezvous point where another batch of kids will join the road trip).

My phone pinged all night with pics of their progress ... !

Now she and a couple of other's are walking around Sam's while their buddies get some shut eye

I can't help but notice that she has 10% power on her phone ...

Glad she is making the trip ... hard work at school has earned a few days off to play

but ... stuff like this is hard on the ol' mom ...

photo notes from a really good day

typical morning ... after shower, cooking breakfast,
coffee in hand

turkey bacon for me, "real" bacon for him

feels good to have my boots back on for the day

CJ2+

just off 18 ... BKN30

455kts (doesn't "feel" faster,but it did create an even bigger sillier smile

"thinking face" ... what's different what's the same?
I can feel velocity gently rinsing gravity off the wings ... it's subtle, smooth ...
I feel the length of the fuselage behind us and I twist in my seat to observe the wing ...
"The wing is a fair distance behind us" I say and he laughs.  "Sometimes we stop with the front end suspended over the end of the runway."  I look away ... back out my window gauging the distance I sit in front of the gear ... I think I would prefer to see a roll out like that from outside the plane.

Broke through and the second thing I noted was the pond at the end of the runway
"Hope not to see any alligators up close and personal," 
I'm  thinking about how short the  runway seems at this speed.
Lovelovelove the stopping program
it's fairly loud after the quiet of cruise
and unlike departure, there is nothing subtle about it.
I've watched 'em land thousands of times and it looks cool from out there,
 but I absolutely adored the entire landing process from where I sat.
Very cool.

departure ... each frequency change cleared us higher

north bound

clouds streaming overhead

last whisper of gold

the CJ has pretty lines I think
lite chop tickles my feet (and I smile)

It's just one beautiful vista after another
I'm excited ...
 thinking about trying to paint one of the images from this trip
as a place keeper for a "blessed" day

here I think "It" must be a water color
 bc these colors are a gift from water  content in our atmosphere 

fire and ice

Cessna lines ... 

Imho, it's  just a very privileged perspective ...
for me it's not even about the plane,
 it's what it requires of you and what it returns to you ...
(that 's a fair summary statement for how I've experienced my aviation journey).

home ... straight in 4000 OVC (visual approach)

It was a good day for flying airplanes ... here with one of my favorite flying buddies ... she's used to coming over the gate at 130 kts not the low 60s ... too much fun just ironing out landings!
(yes tomorrow is the big day! )

church glass ...

"His words,

 soaring above his circumstances,

 set his troubles in a context large enough to contain them."  ~Derek  Kidner

CHESED

• The most important word to understand in this context is: chesed
  • hard to translate: (KJV “lovingkindness” or “mercy” are poor translations)
    • faithful-love,
    • loyal-love
    • love that will never let you down and never give up on you but will hang on to the end
• It is possibly the most beautiful word in any human language
• It is a fundamental theme of the Psalms and the main thing God is praised for

*above from someone's notes for class on Psalms: The Book of Psalms / Psalms Class Notes Andrew Fountain, January 2007

Chesed: 

חֶסֶד

Via:  http://www.bible-researcher.com/chesed.html

Loving-Kindness. This is a biblical word, invented by Miles Coverdale, and carried over into the English versions generally. It is one of the words he used in the Psalms (23 times, plus Hosea 2:19) to translate the Hebrew chesed when it refers to God's love for his people Israel. Otherwise he used 'mercy,' 'goodness,' and 'great kindness' in the Psalms for God's attitude to man; and, outside the Psalms, such words as 'mercy,' 'goodness,' 'favour' for God's attitude to man, and 'kindness' for man's attitude to man. It is important to notice that Coverdale takes pains to avoid using the word 'kindness' of God's attitude to man, though he is not followed in this respect by the Authorized Version and the Revised Version. There is one case in the Psalms (141:5) where the word chesed is used of man's attitude to man, and even here Coverdale avoids 'kindness' (so AV and RV), but has 'friendly.' The nearest New Testament equivalent to the Hebrew chesed is charis (grace), as Luther realized when he used the German Gnade for both words.

And then something for later ...  the ten sefirot  ...http://www.inner.org/sefirot/sefirot.htm

sleepy kitty