MerRy ChRistMas

I hope this day finds you all well. Happy, healthy and looking forward to the new year and all it has to offer. We experienced a beautiful Christmas snowfall today. It was so peaceful and still afterward. 

While opening our presents our power and wifi went out. I could really "hear" the quiet. No humming fridge, no clanging radiators, no Christmas tunes, no tree lights.  It didn't matter much to us. We were happy together, opening gifts, chatting and telling each other "This is the best Christmas ever!". We say that every year, and every year we mean it. 

I found a new focus today that I will carry into 2018. I am going sink into the stillness of winter and listen. I will listen to God most importantly, to my husband, to my children, to my friends and to the birds.  I will listen without interrupting, without trying to fix it, without thinking of all the other things I "should" be doing instead of listening. 

I will be still.

Wishing you all 

A Merry Peaceful Christmas. 

Hitting 50 with a cold lake & warm knits

Sometimes it's nice to venture out when all other sane creatures seem to be hibernating. Today it was a grey 29 degrees. We braved the cold and headed out for a morning hike. Our most frequently walked trail has become new again now that it's frozen over. The swans, fish, frogs and turtles are gone. At least gone from our view. The place that was bustling with constant motion and sound is now still, quiet and mysterious. 

It gladdened my soul to see these plants sprouting up in the springtime. In summer and fall this weedy shelter was home to tadpoles and fish. This grass is still beautiful, but in a whole new way. Each stage has a magic of it's own. 

My birthday was last week, I hit fifty years.

The current "me" feels very connected to this season of the lake. Partly because I was born this time of year.  But more than that I see I have changed...yet I still remain completely myself. I think even more myself than ever.  I can only describe it as a "truer" me. There is a certain clarity, a peace, even a stillness inside that has come with the years.

I am still knitting away. I just finished this scarf, ribs with random bobbles here and there.
It's a match to this Bobble Hat.

I also made these little hats. Hats are instant gratification fun for me to make. They are the only thing you've got to show off when you are bundled up from chin to boots, which I am these days. Each day I can at least have a bit of fun by popping one of these on my bean.

My daughter came along with me to brave the frigid morning, it was actually her suggestion. She was also grabbing the opportunity to snap some photos in the great outdoors for her online taxidermy scene.

I hope you are all warm and well and taking on this new year with a spring in your step, discovering and creating beauty wherever you find yourself.

Back on the Blogging Road....

HeLLo Everyone and Happy Fourth of July! Sorry if any of you kindhearted folks worried about my absence from the blog world. I am just fine, I just lost touch with blogging. 

It all started back in March, when my two lovely friends, Holly and Alicia came to visit us. They are missionaries who run a home for "at risk" girls in Cambodia called House of Refuge. Please visit their site and support them if you can. I know firsthand that the work they are doing is legitimate and is saving girls lives.

I had the best time showing them NYC and  getting to know them more intimately. Alicia ended up staying with us for an extended couple of months. My family and I fell deep in love with her and she has become a daughter/friend/sister to us.

During that time I just didn't think about blogging. And after they left...

 I was out of the habit, I felt so disconnected from the blog world. 

I started thinking things like, "why blog?". Questioning my motives. 

Why blog?

I am blogging again because I like it! It's that simple. I love the connections I've made with other bloggers over the years. The inspiration I have borrowed from fellow bloggers is amazing. You never cease to bring new and wonderful ideas to my attention.

 I can honestly say that my entire blogging experience has been a positive, happy journey and I've missed it and all of you who keep me inspired and keep my creativity moving forward.

All this to say, I am heading back down the blogging road and I am very excited to be back. I'm looking forward to taking unknown paths and falling down some rabbit holes with you.

Christmas and a lady

Isn't this rainbow tree beautiful? Such a good idea, and it looks much more amazing in real life. That lady peeking around is pretty amazing too. That's my Aunt Millie. She came to spend a couple of weeks with me and my family. I always liked her, but after spending so much time with her we found that we are kindred spirits.We stayed up each night talking and she shared many stories about her life with me. 

Like how she came to NYC from Puerto Rico as a child and how she met her husband at a dance in Brooklyn. It was just like a scene from West Side Story, he is Italian and even though they were married her father in law never knew that she was Puerto Rican! He assumed she was also Italian and the family kept the truth from him because "it would kill him". That's just one of the crazy things that I never knew. 

I also found out that Aunt Millie can do anything. She wanted a koi pond. So she built one, with a fountain. She can fix your ceiling fan or your toilet. She is an accomplished seamstress, cook, gardener and has a knack for taking in and nursing small hurt animals. She's had every type of rodent, fish, bird and cat. She once turned her son's closet into a coop for a broken pigeon, she housed an abandoned young hedgehog, she saved a baby squirrel and raised it to maturity. She is sweet, humble and always eager to give.

My girls are as smitten as I am with Aunt Millie. We knew it was a good sign when we picked her up at the train station and she had her guinea pig (Piggy-Woo) with her. She is the first person ever to see my girl's taxidermy and ask for a lesson. So, my daughter taught Aunt Millie how to skin and mount a mouse. She got a real kick out of it.  She told us, "See, you're never too old to learn something new!".

Millie is my Mom's sister so I've "known" her all my life, but I really have never known her until now. It's a shame that it took us so long, but I am thankful that we've connected and now my girls have her wonderful influence in their lives. 

This Christmas I found out that there are riches hidden right under our noses. The people in our lives are the greatest gifts we will ever be given, starting with Jesus Christ himself. 

Thank God for the people in your life and ask him to to deepen your love for them. Be deliberate about seeking out that hidden treasure that may be right under your nose.

M e r r y   C h r i s t m a s   &  G o d  B l e s s  Y o u   &  Y o u r s

What is Holy?

I am reading Hallowed Be This  House by Thomas Howard. I am enjoying it so much, I want to share it with you... 

“And as is true of any holy place, this one has for its activity the marking and celebrating of what is true and the keeping alive of the vision of what is true; namely, that is holy. This is done by offering things up in acts of consecration and praise.

This is what lifts those things up from the heap of mere ordinariness and makes them extraordinary (holy). 

They are ordinary things, of course, like eating and drinking and working and playing and bread and wine; but it is the ordinary stuff lifted up which is the holy. Holy things for the Christian and the Jew in any case, aren’t some remote category of things- mumbo jumbos, arcane regalia, or basalt meteorites from the sky. Holy things are ordinary things perceived in their true light, that is, as bearers of the divine mysteries and glory to us.

Looked at this way, eating becomes eucharistic, and working becomes the opus dei, and loving becomes an image of the City of God. It is our task in this shrine to take these ordinary things and, by lifting them up in oblation to God where we are set free to live in the splendor where eating and drinking and working and playing are known for what they really are forms of perpetual worship and therefore bliss.”

Who Are You?

When I made the switch from commuting designer to homeschooling housewife I jumped right into ladies groups, kid groups, floral aprons and regular dusting. None of those things have ever appealed to me, so why did I do them? Why do we put ourselves into molds that don’t fit?

I am not a floral apron. I am a stained lab coat with burn marks and a few rodent hairs. But I can still make you a mean scone if you want it.

My point? If you’re feeling trapped maybe you need to figure out who you are.

My Measuring Spoons

This is what they look like. Bent up and jumbled, but I still use them. If you have a sink disposal maybe you have some that look like this too. When my Mother in Law visits she often says "You need new spoons". I tell her it will just keep happening so why bother? She gave me a set that she used when my husband was little. I refused them because I don't want to ruin them.There are so many things in a house that are a bit off, like a chipped teacup.  Somehow the imperfect things become more homey to me. 

The messed up can be more endearing, like our new gerbil with the broken tail. I gifted my boyfriend (now husband) a baby ball python for his birthday 23 years ago and we still have her. Over the years my husband has fed her over 200 gerbils/rats. This is the first critter that has been pardoned by love. My daughter fell hard for this little guy with his broken off tail. She said "He's so kind. He's my buddy, how can I do that to my buddy?" Of course we couldn't do that to her buddy either. Maxwell Spock is proving himself to be a very sweet pet.

You never know.

 I sat in the dermotolagist's office waiting and fretting. I was there for a procedure that the doctor assured me would take all of 15 minutes. Such a short visit I could surely bring my girls and leave them in the waiting room. 

Well, it actually took two hours. That's were the fretting came in. I wondered how my 9 year old was holding up with nothing to occupy her. She's the type who just can't sit still. Thoughts of her bouncing off the walls and her sister getting really annoyed with her made me anxious.

 I had left a Molly Makes magazine with them. I brought it along for me to look at while waiting. When I finally emerged I found them o.k. (but hungry!) and that aforementioned 9 year old immediately started telling me about all the animals she was going to make. 

The next morning, all by herself  she made this adorable lion and a wolf. Today she made a Kangaroo with a baby in it's pocket. She's not done yet. She has a pile of felt ready to go. We will soon have an ark full of creatures.

There I was thinking the worst, worrying for no reason. It made me think how often this must happen. How our imaginations run wild, making a neutral situation into a bad one. We never think that good might come from an unplanned (maybe even unpleasant) situation. Most times we  fall into the habit of expecting the worst. 

But really you just never know.