happy new

 

New Year illustrations always portrayed an old man with a long beard for the passing year and a baby for the new. Happy new to you.

with a bow

 love, tied up with a bow

snippets

 A curved coin purse made with snippets of lovely leftovers.

whiskers

 A weensy felt otter collecting snacks for New Years eve.

Every gift

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadow. James 1:17

Every good thing in our life is a gift. It’s all from Him. “Count your blessings, name them one by one …”

Light is life. It illuminates and reveals. And He is called the Father of light.  I love that. 

Soup on a shelf

Whether you are Rapunzel or Mother Hen, home canning can keep you from  the fate of Old Mother Hubbard.

Of course preserving food is as old as mankind, and until refrigeration came along, food was salted and dried and pickled and fermented. It wasn’t til a couple hundred years ago though that canning in glass jars became a homely task.  Mason patented the canning jar in 1858 and by then glistening rows of summers wealth marched into the distance on cellar shelves.  

If there were such a thing as a canning graph, it would show a marked dip in the 1950’s. Refrigeration was the tipping point.  But the Do It Yourself decade of the 70’s caused a rebound and canners never looked back. Instead they seized jars and the contents reflected popular culture.  Salsa anyone? 

Food was canned once upon a time as a survival strategy. It has been in various decades a requirement, a luxury, or a trend.  

A quart of glowing golden peach halves. Ruby jam in stout pints. Slim beans and carrots crisp. 

Peter Piper and his pickled peppers come to mind. And Grammas succulent chicken; soup on a shelf.  

Very own

Before there was online shopping, there were catalogues.  Nice big thick ones.  The Sears catalogue and Eatons catalogues came as dependably as the seasons.  When I was a little girl, I took up scissors and snipped out the pictures of the babies.  Oh the babies, the babies! There were always a charming assortment. Perfectly wonderful paper dolls.  Not just paper dolls but my children. My very own family. 

 

Say cheese

When my daughters were very young, four and one, my mother-in-law spontaneously wished to have their picture taken at the mall with Santa  

I can’t think why she wanted a perfect stranger in a photo with her little granddaughters but I guess she was just overcome by the sheer joy of the season.

I don’t remember if we had to wait in a line, only that I felt vaguely foolish. 

My four year old was a friendly little sprite and sat on Santa’s knee without a backward glance. If I was near and  felt no fear, then neither did she.  Any friend of mine was a friend of hers. 

My one year old of course, felt completely the opposite about the situation, such are the vagaries of sibling personality. She wasn’t influenced at all by her nonchalant sister perched on Santa’s knee. Instead she screamed in terror. And kept on screaming as the picture was snapped. 

Baby looking traumatized. Big sister looking concerned.  Santa looking tired. 

Say cheese.  

Once upon

 Once upon a time.,…. don’t you love those words? 

I loved fairy tales when I was a girl.  They are all the genres woven together wondrously; mystery, fantasy, romance, horror, with a bit of historical fiction and even faith revealed. 

Northern night

I’ve only seen the Northern Lights once. Really seen them I mean. Not just a blush of green faintly tinting the dome of night. 

No, I saw them once, like a great wide river of writhing, pulsing light, green and blue and swirling across the wide night sky.  The air crackled and hissed with a strange, dazzling, beautiful splendour.  

Dancing mouse

Have you heard of chocolate cozies? No? I hadn’t either until I gazed in delight at the cover of Amigurumi Chocolate Cozies by Sara Scales. This book has patterns for twenty little crocheted projects. Crocheted cupcakes and crocheted cactus cover chocolate oranges. Rockets, octopi and penguins are destined to hold peanut butter cups and foil wrapped chocolates. My favourite of them all though is a tiny gray mouse in a teeny tiny pink tutu. 

I think the little pink tutu sealed the deal. I had to make it. The pattern was pretty easy to follow and round and round the rows went. Round and round and round. Oh oh! 

There is something that I think of as the rule of small. The rule of small is closely related to the law of cuteness and I had just broken that law by disregarding the rule.  

I’m sure the book suggested a weight of yarn to use and a size of crochet hook. I overlooked that bit. And therefore I didn’t end up with a darling dainty dancing mouse. Instead I found myself gazing in disbelief at a great grey rat. Will a tutu save the day?

Left

It seemed like all the cars in the lower mainland were in Langley today and all of them wanted to turn left. 

Knick knack paddy whack

Knife, knit, knot, knack.  Gnome, gnat, gnarl , gnash.  Write, wreath, wring, wrought.  Oh so many letters that used to have a sense of purpose to their day. They were once pronounced right along with the rest of their companions but time has erased them from our speech. Not from our spelling though. There they have been preserved like strangers in a photo album.

Same awe

Jubilant.  Isn’t that the perfect name for someone who sings as though his heart has wings? 

The first time I ever heard Mary Did You Know, it was sung by Jubilant Sykes. Lyrics, melody and voice together became something so powerfully moving and memorable that I just need to hear the first notes to feel the same awe and joy I felt then. 

Illustrating

Art surrounds us. It is on packaging and signs, magazines and books and children’s books are my favourite. 

When I was a preschooler I badgered my big sister to read and reread The Gingerbread Man.  It didn’t have a happy ending.  A fox gobbled up the little cookie man, but I loved how he jumped off the cookie sheet and hot footed it out of the kitchen.  It was that kitchen that has stayed in my memory. The wooden walls.  The wooden salt box so European. The cast iron stove. The braided rug.  Sure sounds like my grammas log house. I never saw the connection until this moment.  But I do know that recalling that book and its illustrations has always comforted me.  I feel a literal warmth, golden and cinnamon infused. 

How amazing

How amazing it is that there are adventurous souls who have stuffed their passport and camera into a rucksack and headed for parts unknown.  I’ve been told that if you travel you realize how small the world is but I find that impossible to believe.  I once flew from southern BC to northern Alberta and as I watched mountain range after endless mountain range spread out below I had the most uncomfortable realization that my daughter and I were to be separated by an unfathomable distance.  

Maybe it is the ability to come home again that fools  people into thinking the distance is nothing at all.  Just a little hop in a plane and presto, half a continent is traversed. 

I think it is only this century that has come to think of distance so casually. 

We can travel into yesterday or tomorrow now with a plane ticket.  And we can see life unfolding under the sun while we dance under the moon. 

GG

 Do you have any memories or stories about your great gramma? My older grandchildren will remember little snippets of my mom and my children have memories of my gramma. 

The math of family demands that you have four great grandmas but the math of aging makes it unlikely that you will know any of them. At least not in person.  There are stories of course but those can be surprisingly scarce!! How can someone so important and impactful be completely forgotten? 

I only have stories about one great gramma, my mother’s mother’s mother.  My Gramma Nelson’s mother Minerva, was a Haddock by birth and was transformed into a Ray by marriage. She was thrifty, optimistic, resourceful, faithful, creative, generous, hardworking, intelligent, courageous, a woman of faith and good humour.  And I have a little story to back up very claim; all eye witness accounts by her own grandchildren. 

We never met but I love you, great gramma. 

Forgotten

Quick! Name the seven dwarves. My husband and I tried and we both forgot Bashful. That figures. Poor guy. 

Eeeee

 Even elegant eagles enjoy eagerly eating  extra enormous eggplant and escargot enchiladas with eggnog every evening even though eyelashed emu eggs and elephant ears are equally excellent though elusive and expensive. 

Diamond dear

In 1977, beside a lake as blue as the sky, with leaves twirling down like confetti, my smiling boyfriend placed a diamond ring on my finger.  In the spring of 1978 a glittering wedding band was added and neither ring has ever left my hand. They have felt like constant friends. 

The other night as I sat reading in bed, my rings caught my eye and I duly admired them, turning my hand to catch the light.  Lovely.  It occurred to me that I should take them to a jeweller and have the claws checked. How sad it would be to lose a stone.  

The next evening as I sat in the same spot with the same book my subconscious self who is apparently scanning and noticing, jolted me out of my reading trance. I had a feeling of trepidation as I raised my left hand and slowly turned it over. 

Gone. 

Six tiny golden claws gripping absolutely nothing. 

My husband was as stricken as I. 

Isn’t losing something dear a jolt?

“It’ll be alright,” I said, “At least I still have you”

Cherish

 I thought I would talk about crochet in honour of the letter C but as I sat huddled and cold, watching my grandson play hockey this morning while birds slept, I realized the letter C was all around me.  Not just the cold either.  There are coaches. Some, the definition of cool, calm control and others, “sound and fury.”

There is the constant crunch and crash as players launch themselves into the path of danger.  And a whole lot of checking and cheering. 

But the biggest C by far is the clock.  The large fickle clock that goes far too slowly when your team is perilously in the lead and far too fast when you are clawing your way from behind. 

The clock that says there is ten minutes left but you know by doing a series of complicated mathematical formulas that there is actually19 minutes of play left. 

And when you straggle out into the light of day, older and wiser, you are thankful because you know those moments are a limited time offer and therefore, something to cherish. 

Bookish

 “B, b, what begins with b? Barber, baby, bubbles and a bumblebee”  This snippet of awesomeness is Dr. Seuss, quoted from his alphabet book. I can still chant the entire volume front to back from memory, having read it and reread it, first to my tiny daughters and then to my equally tiny grandchildren. Aren’t books wonderfully re-readable? I have favourite books that I read once a year or every few years. In 2021 I read Silas Marner three times! I found it such a comfort; how he is crushed, numb with despair but gradually emerges into the light of love, his faith destroyed and then reformed aright. 

And I’ve read LM Montgomery literally dozens of times over the years. I wish I had to write a term paper on her view of war and how it shifted right along with public sentiment from the First to Second World War. And her commentary on the role of women in society is worth discussing at length. 

Some books have aged right along with me, their message morphing. When I first read Elizabeth Von Arnim’s Enchanted April in my 20’s it grated on my romantic sensibilities. Where was the passion!! But when I reread it years later I laughed and laughed.  How clever the author was. How witty and charming and hopeful and redeeming her view of love! 

Books, some books especially, have been my companions for years and years and have helped me through some perilous times,. 

“Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” Psalm 119:105 

Falling for autumn

 I am still astonished that I can pick up my phone and with a few taps, begin to read something written moments ago by someone on the opposite side of the globe.  The nature of social media means that one can stand in a circle  with others who are happily chatting and just nod and smile without saying a word though. In fact, they will not even realize you are there as a tiny but happy fly on the wall. Now, there is nary a thing wrong with observing and absorbing  kindness and creativity found in others but in the absence of knowing looks and warm hand clasps I’m resolving to speak up now and then with a ‘thank you’ and a ‘well done.’ 

Some time ago I came upon a blog called Small Treasures, written by a gentle and warm hearted woman in England. There was a pause in her posting but she is back now and creating a daily post, working her way through the alphabet. What a marvellous idea!! 

I was instantly seized with a desire to do likewise! Thank you Pensive Pensioner for the inspiration! 

This blog post is brought to you by the letter A. 

The first thing I think of when presented with a letter A is autumn. I tend to think of these misty, musty days as autumn and not fall as many do. When I consulted the Wise Man of the Mountain (google) about the seasonal alias, autumn AKA fall, I was informed that autumn is British whereas fall is more commonly used in North America.  And if you go back through the mists of time, no pun intended, you find a connection to the French word autompne and the Latin word autumnus. There is apparently a connotation to the passing of the year.

Well that’s good to know I guess. Autumn or fall; bring on the sweaters. 

(Now there’s another word worth pondering. Sweat-er? Sweating for sure? Apparently the original sweaters were for competitive boaters and were meant to bring on sweating and weight loss. Google seems to have an explanation for everything.

Ten years

“How did we get so old?”my husband asked, “Ten years at a time,” I replied.

Doesn’t ten years go by in a blink? And isn’t each decade so eventful?

The first ten years is childhood. The second, we transform into teenagers. For my husband and I, our twenties were the decade of babies. And in our thirties, our daughter’s decade as teenagers whirled us in a circle and deposited us into our forties. That was the decade of all things new it seemed. Children sprang from the nest.  There were new jobs and a wedding. A new house. A new town. My parents moved to live with us. I went back to school. But time did what time does. I was amazed to wake up one morning and discover I was 50. And even more amazed to become a grandmother! Cue the music and fireworks. Cue the balloons. Cue the Lego and fisher price, and story books and pretend.  

How in the world did so much life and change happen in those ten years?  

I’m smack dab in the middle of my sixth decade now. I’ll let you know in five years what it was all about. 

A no

“Do you want to keep your plan?”she intoned. 

“Oh, yes, unless there is something cheaper,” I added hopefully.  I heard a muffled giggle. Then another. 

I took that for a no. 

Longed for

It rained!! That should be read with a mixture of joy and disbelief and at least two exclamation marks. 

I’ve missed the rain. Not just missed, but longed for. 

The weather network mentioned rain. They assured me that it was on the way, but I thought, “promises, promises.”

So much for the joy of anticipation!

Instead of glancing skyward with hope I headed off with reusable grocery bags clutched in my hands.

Fresco is a store without windows and I toiled up one aisle and down another with nary a thought of the weather. Out of sight, out of mind. 

And so when I pushed my cart through the crowded foyer and that wide double door rolled majestically aside, I was temporarily transfixed! 

Rain was pouring down.  Oh the sound! As I stepped in a trance into the downpour, a young couple rushed towards the entry. He sized up my expression in a moment and turning to me said, “What does this MEAN? Can summer be OVER?”

Amen and yes!

Sociable squirrel

 As my granddaughter dashed down the driveway with the recycle bin, a squirrel dashed beside her, branch to branch. When she stopped, the squirrel stopped. When she pressed on, thus did the squirrel. 

This morning as we hurried to the car, the squirrel was watching us.  Down the tree trunk it scrambled, black eyes locking with ours. 

Such a sociable squirrel.

Judgemental turtles

As we hunkered down with binoculars in a birders blind, a girl turned to her boyfriend and said, “I just think turtles look so judgemental.” I could hardly wait to find the turtle! There it was with nose stretched skyward. I suppose if you have your nose in the air, someone may think you haughty.  Body language can lose something in the translation. 

Taking hold

 Life is good at getting us to let go of one thing to take hold of another. 

Hello september

We’ve walked at Aldergrove Lake Park when the trails were the only haven, the meadow a swath of scorching light.  

But today the rain has turned down the volume. No glaring blaring all surrounding brightness. 

Instead, trails cool and fern fresh. 

Vine Maple glow and blackberry glisten.

The meadow inhales and exhales as it pulls us along. 

We surprise a tiny baby rabbit and an even tinier frog. 

We pause on the wooden bridge and spot crayfish waving their lobster like claws. 

Hello September. 

Wonder of wonders

Rain fell overnight. Oh wonder of wonders! Yesterday was heat pressed and steamed, but today, all is freshly laundered and air dried. 

Doesn’t the change from the heat of summer to the cooler days of fall fill your heart with hope? 

Feels like sadness

There’ve been too many fires to count this summer. We hold our breath as we watch the news.  Water bombers drone. The horizon blurs. Eyes smart. Throat tightens. It feels like sadness. 

Time

 Robert Louis Stevenson —

'Time which none can bind, While flowing fast away, leaves love behind.'