TJ Hirst

Discovery filled my twenties. The process of looking for and trying new recipes, new decor and design, new parenting advice, new clothing trends and new beauty tips filled me with new ideas and eagerness. Toward the end of that decade, the new needed to fade so I could concentrate on following through on all I had introduced.

Doing filled the first phase of my thirties. Not reading parenting books with baby number three left me time to parent. We actually built our “dream home” from my design file and threw away any goals for perfection in the process. I quit clipping recipes and started creating my own with what I had on hand. As the end of this decade draws closer, I wonder about the next.

Will I return to discovery? I love learning and applying it, but I am too old to just follow a trend for a trend’s sake. I inch toward this new season, eager to not just regress and redo, but to discover at a deeper level, adding carefully to what I’ve chosen. And I stand in my well-equipped kitchen considering how to combine experience and enthusiasm into the mixture that will follow.

Ham Salad Puff
Taste of Home Cookbook

1 cup water
½ cup butter
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1-1½ cups fully cooked ham
2 celery ribs, chopped
½ cup chopped green pepper
½ cup sliced green onions
½ cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon dill weed
lettuce leaves

1. In a large saucepan, bring water and butter to a boil. Add flour and salt all at once, stirring until a smooth ball forms. Remove from heat; let stand 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Continue beating until mixture is smooth and shiny.

2. Spread dough onto the bottom and up the sides of a greased 9-inch pie plate. Bake at 400° for 30-35 minutes or until puffed and golden brown. Prick the puff with a fork. Cool on a wire rack.

3. In a bowl, combine the ham, celery, green peppers, onions, mayonnaise, dill. Line puff with lettuce; fill with ham mixture. Yield: 4-6 servings.

In the middle of my perennial garden bed, I sat between the weeds and the flowers, not knowing the difference. Sometimes perennials or wildflowers that aren’t in bloom can look a lot like weeds. I was a young mom and a young gardener inheriting a garden from previous owners.

Meanwhile, my neighbor across the street cleared and prepared her beds for an herb and vegetable garden. I craved turning over my own soil to plant new seeds or plants. I ripped at the plants that looked like weeds to me. Yet, as I proceeded, I felt a quiet urge to wait patiently and watch the garden, to not even pull the weeds. My nurturing instinct was louder than my impulsiveness, and I backed off the garden bed.

In that everyday gardening experience I became not only a more patient gardener but a more patient mother, working slowly and carefully in both realms.

My everyday realms are ordinary, but they are a microcosm to larger realms. Considering and connecting, comparing and contrasting everyday experiences to each other and to the larger world reveals truth. The grass is always greener somewhere else until light illuminates our own.

This is the 100^th post at tjhirst.com. In celebration, I reveal a new look and a new tagline, Illuminate Everyday. My husband, Paul, created this original web design to reflect my writing goals.

To illuminate is to provide or brighten with light, to make understandable, clarify, to enlighten. I am still seeking and finding what inspires, but the process to seek and find creative, intellectual or spiritual inspiration is not an anxious perusal of all the available resources the world over.

Inspiration comes when I illuminate the everyday people, circumstances and situations in my own realm and consider the truths that exist right around me. My writing is a creative process that “elevates the everyday rather than denigrates it,” as my husband says. My goal on this website is to share that process and what I discover.

The Question: Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us today?

I am a thief. I stole two hangers from a hotel. Paul pointed it out to me when he unpacked. Sure enough, two outfits attached to two wooden hotel hangers.

My first thought—return them immediately or my guilt will overflow each time I see them. I could mail them back to the hotel, which was in Minnesota but not in a city I would travel to soon.

I separated them from our hangers. And for seven days they stayed. (I don’t go to the post office that often.)

On the eighth day I prepared the lesson for my Old Testament class on correction, chastisement, and repentance. “And if it be stolen from him, he shall make restitution unto the owner thereof.” Exodus 22:12

Before even teaching the class, I set the hangers on the floor of our closet where we would trip on them. I asked Paul if he could return them on his business trip.

He redeemed me. They gave him a cookie. I received a clear conscious.

For all the bad hype we give to nagging feelings of guilt, I still prefer that small corrective way to the more destructive scriptural accounts of chastisements when God’s people didn’t respond to quieter means.

Duluth, Minnesota, is one of our family’s favorite Midwestern cities. Just over the crest of a tall hill, as north as Interstate 35 goes, the blue water views of Lake Superior introduce the surprise of this port city in a state that otherwise appears land-locked and flat.

We discover Duluth aesthetics, nature-made and man-made, on every visit. We search the narrow, hilly city streets for the restaurants where the locals eat, watch for shipping traffic to come in and out of the harbor, wait while the Aerial Lift Bridge raises and lowers for them, and pass through “Tunnel Land” (as our children call it) to the scenic North Shore destinations of Gooseberry Falls and Split Rock Lighthouse.

We travel as a family to Duluth at least two weekends a year for church conferences and more frequently by ourselves for other meetings. Since I love to explore new places, I research the web and ask friends about the unknown places we have missed.

I found Skyline Parkway in a guidebook. While my husband was in a meeting with a potential client, my children and I drove this narrow roadway that overlooks the city and Lake Superior. And, we happened upon Enger Park and its lookout tower from behind the fire of fall’s changing leaves.

Memories of these simple adventures prompt us to plan our next ones—UNTIL THIS WEEKEND.

We reserved a suite at a hotel with a water slide. A friend invited us to drive up and see Gooseberry Falls. When that didn’t fit our schedule, she invited us to join them at the Lake Superior Zoo.

“What do you think about the zoo?” I said to my children.

They said, “We would be looking at a big empty place with a lot of colorful toys, waiting for a big animal to come out from hiding to play with them.”

“So what should we do in Duluth?”

From my oldest, a teenager, “We have been going there twice a year for the whole time we lived here—for like eight years. That’s at least 14 times. Nothing’s new anymore. What do we do now? Start over from the beginning and do the same things all over again?”

I can see how they might have outgrown stopping at every Lake Superior beach. Or maybe they have just lost interest in doing it in the unpredictable 40 degree rain and wind.

And I think I understand. This may be a signal that it is time for a change of routine.

But I hesitate. It may be a symptom of our tendency to cast off what is old to discover what’s new, again.

It is important to endure and preserve meaningful traditions. We can redevelop our interest and enjoy new pursuits in the same situation. But should we always?

When it has lost its appeal, it may have also lost its purpose. Perhaps, we might reconsider our purpose.

A scripture I am working on . . .

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.