Assortment

Spring Hope

 

 

When you sit in the sun and look at the river flowing by, you think about things.

You think about how snow has come and gone all winter, how the river’s ice is only hugging its banks now, and how it’s getting thinner with the warming. You think about spring and its promises of new.

 

Thoughts bubble to the surface and pop with the splash of rocks breaking the surface. Many rocks, picked and thrown from the bank by wandering boys.

He’s there, too, the man by your side, the one whose thoughts, most times, are yours and yours his.

Those thoughts, which, months and even years ago, when first breathed, seemed only to ever be dream, to hover with ethereal translucence, always just out of reach.

 

 

 

The sun soaks deep and layers are shed. Skin is warm and tingling. 

And you can’t quite believe how the plow of time has turned new ground.

When you look up at that dreamy mist now, suddenly, it has three dimensions. 

Hope springs new.

Winter Good

 

 

I knew the tease of spring was over as I ran around the pond in sideways-blowing-snow this morning. Only a bunny rabbit and I had been by so far to make tracks in the freshly fallen from the sugar shaker.

More winter.

A bit more is good, though, I think. For baking, if nothing else. Spice cake muffins just don't have the same appeal on a 80 degree August day as they do on a twenty-something degree day in February. You know what I mean. And you can't pad around the kitchen in wool slippers in August, either. Nor can you comfortably knit a wool throw blanket in your lap.  

So, more winter it is.

I lick the cream cheese frosting from my lips.

I'm good with that.

 

 

Have a lovely weekend, friends!

 

 

From the Horse's Mouth

 

 

Here’s a thing or two, straight from the source:

 

- It’s February 6th and the pussy willows are swelling down by the river

- It’s February 6th and I really think pussy willows should be swelling in a vase on my table (as opposed to what I had swelling in a vase on my table last year)

- It would help if I had a vase and a table (okay, I have a “table” but not a table)

- There’s a lot of mud outside

- There’s a lot of mud inside

- Should it be that way?

- No Yes

- It’s February 6th, which means there are eight days until Valentine’s Day, which means only one more week until I can safely take the ingredients out of hiding (since December) and make peppermint bark for my loves

- Yes, peppermint bark can work for either Christmas Day or Valentine’s Day

- I decided that on December 23rd

- It’s February 6th, which means I have a few short weeks until the reveal of something wonderful and different around here

- The reveal of this something wonderful and different hinges on my ability to retain and operate with the mental faculties that have been bestowed upon me (meager as they seem to be) during the here-to-fore mentioned few short weeks, and restrain myself from throwing my computer into the river

- Maybe the peppermint bark and pussy willows will help

 

 

A lovely Monday and new week to you, my friends!

What’s happening in your world on this February 6th?

This (Musical) Moment

 

 

Linking with Amanda today. Savoring the (many) musical moments that happen around here these days! Sweet Home Alabama, anyone?

 

Have a lovely weekend, friends!

My Way

 

I've never been much of a journalist, as in filling pages in a blank book every night before switching the bed lamp off, though I have given it a good shot several times earlier on. The most memorable one was when, at age twelve, I found a locking diary in my Christmas stocking. Beginning with the new year and crisp, white pages edged in gold, I wrote every day for a couple months. My favorite entry from that first diary? On January 3rd I wrote, "Boy, this year is going by fast!"

I grin now, at the memory.

Because years and life and blank books later, I know better who I am. I know that pouring the day out onto pages in a book every night isn't me. And, thank goodness it isn't, because I personally can't think of much else that sounds as flat as that (preparing taxes, maybe?).

But.

I have many books with lined pages on the shelf, some are filled, others are waiting in queue. What's in them you say?  

Ideas.

The creative ideas that constantly fly around in my head have to end up somewhere, so they're put down in pages. I have sketches and notes from baby showers that I hosted 10 years ago; there are sewing patterns, gift lists, recipes, holiday plans, gardening ideas, and the list goes on. I give myself no rules for keeping these books, save for a knowing that 'this book (or this section of the book) is for these ideas; that one is for those' (entertaining; interior design, decor & floorplans, sewing, homeschool, gardening, etc.). Inside, they are pretty close to a free-for-all of pencil scrawl.

I grin now, at the thought of all those journals. I grin at the knowing.

This is my way.

 

P.S. Now, go read what kind of journal Joan has kept for 25 years! Then, read Amanda's beautiful account of finding, and resting in, her way.

 

 

 

From Eastern Sky

 

I hadn't really thought of it until yesterday morning when I stood on the porch in early morning frost and snapped these shots of morning light.

I'd been missing it for far too long, that eastern sky. 

 

That place where art is drawn vividly, extravagantly, voluptuously every single morning, that place where fire burns over the rim of earth, calling the day up with light, that place where beginnings start. 

I'd been missing that scene, that fire, that beginning. Because, for seven years, I hadn't been able to see it from my windows.

I stopped.

Seven years?

I wondered about this wonder I'd been missing. Had my soul slowly leaked dry, been starved clear out for lack of sunrise? Was it lying there, gaunt and pastey-white, limp, shrivelled, and paper-thin? Maybe so. Maybe painfully so.

But.

A slow knowing spread smiling through my thoughts just then: Soon, very soon there will be seven feet of wide open window facing the eastern sky. 

I'll be drinking it in!

The Gift

 

I remember that Christmas when I was a girl, when we lived in the Big House. My brother, sister, and I waited in nervous excitement just down the hall from the living room and the Christmas tree, the gifts and our parents, who were arranging something exciting and wonderful in there.

We were near bursting; a frantic jumble of wait-and-see.

At the call, we came rushing out to find, leaning against the living room wall, in order froom largest to smallest, five sets of cross-country skiis! They had ribbons hanging from them, they were new, and they were our very, very own!

Though there were no groomed trails anywhere near, we had woods and meadows, and we knew other people who had more woods and more meadows, just waiting to be carved and dotted by parallel lines and pole holes.

I loved skiing.

 

 

You can imagine, then, the thrilliest of thrills that befell me when, this Christmas, I opened my eyes to see a brand-new set of skiis leaning against the wall near the Christmas tree!

For me?

 

As soon as I could, I was gliding along a mountain trail, alone in the snowy woods, and I remembered why I loved it so much.

The Quiet.

The weighty, reverent Quiet that sinks down deep.

 

Save for the faint swishing of my skiis, the only sound I heard was the lonely caw of a raven's silhouette against the sky.

 

My gift!

One :: Christmas Journal

 

Good morning, lovelies!

It's Christmas week

You will find a photo journal here

Everyday

Celebrating the season

And its wonders

See?

 

~A barn party at Christmas~

May or May Not

 

 

I may or may not have made more than one freezer-paper-stencil shirt, lately

I may or may not have thrown at least one of them under the bed to dry, quick! hide it!

I may or may not make another one for a few days long, long time

I may or may not have eaten half a container of peanut brittle, solo, in one sitting

I may or may not have a toothache 

I may or may not have thrifted the oldest iron on the shelf simply because it had a cloth covered cord

I may or may not have craft supplies spread from home, to car, to storage, and back

I may or may not be okay with that 

I may or may not be typing right now on a computer that's as slow as a rattlesnake in January

I may or may not have considered throwing said rattlesnake-in-January computer into the river

I may or may not have reconsidered

I may or may not have stood in Home Depot yesterday for far too long, looking at lighting and flooring

I may or may not have then filled up seven eight washers at the laundry mat while thinking about lighting and flooring

I may or may not have caused the flood that took place soon thereafter

I may or may not have thrifted a red and gray plaid wool jacket for 25 cents

I may or may not have plans to cut up said jacket and use it for something else

I may or may not have discovered Pilsbury cinnamon rolls in the refrigerator case of the grocery store

I may or may not have another birthday boy in the house this morning who wants cinnamon rolls for breakfast

I may or may not be totally in love with Pilsbury right now

This post may or may not be my best written work

(grin)

The One

 

 

Because of a boy. And eight years. And music.

The music that came with him, that comes from him, that is him.

Now, on his very own real guitar.

The one he'd seen and played in an antique shop three months ago. The one with the amazing tone that reached out, grabbed his heart and wouldn't let go.

That one.

Because of friends, because of family, because of unexpected turns of events, it came to him.

That very one.

We hear them playing now, often, like soul mates who finally met.

That boy and his guitar.