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.