all over

The Annual Fall Visit of my sisters always includes our annual fall forage at local thrift shops. This wooden bowl has my mothers name all over it.

A cedar bowl, spun into life on a lathe. And it has a lid!

It was the perfect place to put the leather crocus broach.

And not a bad place to display the vintage hankies.

link

I've been to a family reunion;

A gathering in of the Nelsons.
Cousins planned and plotted and cast the net far and wide.
Thirty of us found our way from far and near.

The time together was a blink;
A mere moment.
But we all came home with a very tangible gift.
A book of family memories;
Stories written by my Aunt, a woman I think of as The Keeper of the Family Story.
Black and white photos accompany the text.

My mother has read and reread the stories.
She has remarked repeatedly of the wonder of seeing pictures of people and places she knows in a book.

This may sound like a happy but expected outcome but it is really much more to me.
My mother has lost much of her memory.
It is not just her short term memory that is gone.
For her to have her sisters stories is such an amazing gift.
It is a link to the girl she was and the woman she became.

to the brim

I've never been good with goodbyes.

My sisters and their daughters have come and gone.
That sounds so sad that I am going to rephrase it.

I am still basking in the glow of recent visitors, my sisters and their darling daughters.
Ahhh, that makes me feel a smidge better.
The Annual Fall Visit is such an anticipated event.
They say anticipation is half the joy.
The other half is of course the visit itself.
You can't count the remembering because joyous recall is always tinged with the bittersweet that accompanies backward glancing.
At least that is what I have always felt, but I am going to make a change.
I am going to whisk out the memories and trot them before my wary eyes and find they hold up to the light.
Find that I can indeed extract the joy and laughter and love and kindness without paying the least bit of attention to regret however it tries to elbow in.
Doing the math, I find that 50% is anticipation and 50%, the visit. That makes 100% but there is the added bonus of recall. We cast our bread upon the water and it returns to us after many days.
I love bonuses.

Life is so filled to the brim that it overflows.

outstretched arms

I have a soft spot for nativities.
I also have a soft spot for things made long ago in foreign countries.
This tiny Christmas creche was made in Italy many a year ago. It has a kneeling maiden sweet faced and serene, a basket of buns on her arm.
The tiny baby with outstretched arms gazes ever upward.

it does

 Enamel Ware is a joyous thing.

 Especially when it is trimmed in blue and splashed with gypsy color.

 Especially when it is my favorite bowl shape.

 And very especially when it only costs ninety cents.

 The little bowl on the right is my newest acquisition.

  Isn't it a charmer?

 Looks even better turned upside down and paired with a larger bowl.

 Yowzaah!

 I balanced a basin to see if the magic extends....and it does.

Rush to your cupboards and give it a try.

My mother startled me by observing that chewing gum might be necessary to hold them together. Juicy Fruit anyone?

problems

"The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem."
Theodore Rubin

but...

Joe stood as still as a statue and listened. Ahhhhh, alone at last.

He slid to the edge of the cushion and happily closed his eyes. "A hop from the couch is nothing if you have been raised in a Baobab Tree," he thought.

But he got stuck part way down and took a bit of a tumble.

A little snack seemed just the thing, though it wasn't as cold as he thought it would be.

The sewing machine stood on a table near by. Things that whirred and buzzed gave Joe a thrill and he'd always hankered to give it a try...

but it was harder than it looked and he ran over his finger.

He climbed onto the back of the couch and watched the squirrels hiding nuts in the yard.

He held his breath and gasped in admiration as they flew from branch to branch.

He sat at the window until the low morning sun climbed in the sky and dazzled his eyes with its brilliance. 

There is a curious call to books, and turning from the window at last, Joe found a story that was just the sort of light reading he enjoyed, but he could hardly see the pages after gazing into the bright autumn light.

Then Joe played with the blocks for awhile; little cubes of jungle green, but he found them puzzling.

Barrel of Monkeys was so easy by comparison that he got lost in the game.

Playing Doctor seemed promising too, but only one patient showed up; a ballerina in very good health.

"I'll just watch a little television and enjoy a laugh or two," thought Joe

but the news made him cry.

He pulled up his quilt and leaned back in bed. "What a busy day," pondered Joe. Just the sort he liked to
  remember moment by moment,

but he was soon sound asleep.