very twee, very me...

I've been thinking about some of the things that bring me joy this week, and surely towards the top of my list has to be Sunday night - Downton Abbey time!  My husband and I and our son and his girlfriend all gather in our family room to catch the latest exploits of the Grantham family.  We worry if Edith will ever find love again, we wonder if Thomas' efforts to gain respect in the family will ever be successful, we laugh out loud at Violet's pithy one liners.  Such fun!

I've always been a firm believer in wringing every last drop of fun possible out of any given situation, so I've enjoyed making our Sunday nights even more special by providing an elegant repast for our viewing pleasure.  It may not be a proper British tea, but I've really enjoyed trying new recipes from my English Tea & Cakes cookbook and creating something lovely for my family.  To welcome the final Downton season in January I baked my first tart ever - delicious Manchester tart with an unexpected jam and breadcrumb filling, topped with meringue.  Yummy!

The next week I experimented with blackberry tea bread and Florentine slices, which have coconut and dried fruit on a chocolate base.  Delicious!  The blue willow tea cups were a special gift from my husband when we were visiting Harrods in London.

The following week I baked a Chocolate Orange drizzle cake, with tea served in my lovely tea cups that I inherited from my beloved Great-Aunt Stella.  I used to take the bus from my college in Kansas to visit her and her sister Naomi in Missouri, and Aunt Stella always used this Johnson Brothers china set for my breakfast.  I felt so special!  Sipping tea in the pretty teacup always brings back special memories of two wonderful women.

We celebrated my birthday weekend and Downton Abbey tea time with a gorgeous lemon cake, with tea served in these pretty teacups I found in an antiques store.  They are from the 1920s, so I fondly call them my Downton Abbey tea set.  The beautiful hydrangea was a birthday gift from a work colleague, and the beautiful candle and heart napkins were gifts from my girlfriend.  I felt completely surrounded by love.

I had to "blur" this picture just a little, so you can't see that a cup was dropped on top of my Lancaster lemon tart before I could take a picture!  Real life, folks, real life...

And finally, last week I served a delicious raspberry layer cake, and showed off another birthday present, my "Carson" tea print!  The pretty napkins are from my mother's birthday celebration last April.  It's nice to gaze on pretty spring-y floral napkins in the middle of winter!  The tea pot was a gift many years ago from my dear friend Barbara, and I think of her lovingly every time I "pour a cuppa."  There are a few weeks left in the season, so I still need to tackle scones, Victoria sponge cake, and like the nanny in the song below, fairy cakes! 

Would you care to sit with me
For a cup of English tea?
Very twee, very me
Any sunny morning

What a pleasure it would be
Chatting so delightfully

Nanny bakes fairy cakes
Every Sunday morning

Miles of miles of English garden
Stretching past the willow tree
Lines of hollyhocks and roses
Listen most attentively

Do you know the game croquet?
Peradventure we might play
Very gay, hip hooray
Any sunny morning

Miles of miles of English garden
Stretching past the willow tree
Lines of hollyhocks and roses
Listen most attentively

As a rule the church bells chime
When it's almost supper time
Nanny bakes fairy cakes
On a Sunday morning

~~Sir Paul McCartney

Today is a good day for a good day!

 

when morning gilds the skies...

Sunrise this morning was spectacular.  I'll focus on the sky today, and it's glorious colors, and try not to think about the wind chill temperatures!  Oh spring, it's time you start thinking about coming back to us.  Until then, I'll remember Mary Oliver's beautiful morning exclamation--these sunrises are a prayer heard and answered lavishly every morning.  My hope is that I am never too busy or stressed to forget to look to the skies where every morning the world is created.

Morning Poem

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches —
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging —

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted —

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

 by Mary Oliver
from Dream Work (1986) 

Today is a good day for a good day!

these are a few...

of my favorite things...

I have a small hallway off my dining room that leads to my bedroom, the library, my office and the guest bath, plus the linen closet.  That's six doors in a very small space, and every single door has a different finish!  It's bizarre, to say the least, and one of my late winter projects (translation=can't garden yet) is to paint all the doors the same color.  When we put the new hardwood floor in our bedroom last year we extended it to the hallway as well, as it was also a victim of the ghastly blue shag carpeting.  I recently put a small bookcase on the one narrow wall in the hallway, and filled it with some of my very favorite things.  

You are my Sunshine, My only Sunshine..

The cheerful Hello sign was a Christmas gift this year from one of my sons.  His gift tag referenced all the mornings when I would serenade him awake, while he tried desperately to pretend he couldn't see his crazy mother at the end of the bed, or hear her warbling You are my Sunshine like Willie Nelson. Such great memories!!

This past summer my daughter and I were browsing through a sweet little gift shop when I spied this book/birdhouse.  I was smitten the moment I saw Trixie's smiling face.  I was never a Nancy Drew fan, having given my heart early on to Trixie Belden and Honey Wheeler.  My daughter remembered how my eyes lit up at this gorgeous book turned birdhouse and gave it to me for Christmas.  Oh the memories it brings back of lazy summer afternoons, curled up with the exploits and adventures of Trixie and Honey!

Here's a view of the top of the birdhouse--we see you peeking through the window!!

When I was a little girl, the Natale family moved to my hometown from Pietramelara, Italy.  The father, Pasquale, worked at a local supermarket and later he and his wife opened a home style restaurant, where they were well known for their world class cooking.  I went to school with one of their sons, and one of their daughters, Fernanda, became an excellent artist.  I've spoken of my father's hand carved canes before, and in gratitude of my father giving a cane to Pasquale and another cane to his brother from Italy, Fernanda gave my dad this painting, Iris No. 2. Because I shared my dad's love of irises, he later passed it on to me.  I absolutely love this painting with its soft muted shades of peach and blue.  It brings back wonderful memories of my dad eagerly browsing through his Schreiner's Iris Catalog when it arrived each year, marking which bulbs he absolutely had to order.  I have descendants of his irises growing in my garden, and I think of Dad every time one blooms.

How lucky I am to have so many happy memories!  Every time I pass through this hallway I take a few seconds to pause and reflect on how blessed I am with my family, and how very grateful I am for this life of mine.  It is my own small doorway into thanks.

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Today is a good day for a good day!

these are a few...

of my favorite things (you know you are now going to have that song running through your head the rest of the day, but perhaps that is not a bad thing for a Monday morning!)

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

 

We didn't have raindrops this morning, but instead a light dusting of snow appeared over night.  It's so pretty right now, even if the lovely weekend temperatures are supposed to take a dive!  My teakettle isn't copper, but it certainly whistled cheerfully last night while I prepared the tea for our Downton Abbey viewing!

 

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things.

No cream colored ponies (I don't think wild turkeys and a couple of coyotes in our neighborhood are even close) but I did have a wonderful piece of apple strudel yesterday at Barnes and Noble--I love spending a Sunday afternoon browsing through stacks of magazines and books, while sipping a cup of tea in the cafe tucked at the back of the store.  It's a lovely way to peruse all those beautiful home and garden magazines that are way too expensive to consider bringing home!

 

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things

 

I saw a picture recently on Pinterest that used part of the lyrics from My Favorite Things, and after assembling a few things from home plus a trip to my favorite antiques store, I was able to create my own display.  I am so pleased with how it turned out, and it's a nice way to still celebrate winter after the holidays with a few of my favorite things.  The fairy jar was a Christmas gift from my daughter, and I found the two mercury glass balls at my favorite antiques store.  The mercury glass jar was on clearance at JoAnn Fabrics, as were the charming little putz houses.

 

 

I had gathered the pine cones on our vacation last fall, and found this pretty vintage ornament to tuck in with them...

(dang, I see a few extraneous items have been tucked into my pewter plate along with the pinecones!)

Here is the full display, which also gives me the opportunity to still use my lovely vintage white pitcher and kerosene lamp.  My "inspiration picture" used a sign instead of a chalkboard, but I thought the chalkboard will prove more versatile, as I'm already thinking how I can change things up for Easter!

 

 When the dog bites, when the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad.

Hopefully there will be no dog bites or bee stings today, but it is Monday, so I'll hum this song on the way to work with a few of my favorite things tucked in my heart for good keeping!

Today is a good day for a good day!

this beautiful world...

Whoo-hoo....the weekend is fast approaching!  A few more hours and it will be "date night".  As we have matured (we have wisely decided to not ever use the phrase growing older) going out on Friday nights has lost a bit of its sparkle.  Crowded, noisy bars/restaurants full of incredibly young people has lost its allure. But hanging out at home with my best friend?

That never grows old!  Nor does a lovely bottle of wine, a wedge of my favorite British Wensleydale cheese studded with cranberries, and long, rambling trips down memory road with soft candlelight casting shadows in the room and one of our beloved LPs playing in the background.

All that's left is to decide which album to choose first....the Stylistics? Fifth Dimension? Neil Diamond? Chicago? Or a little Simon and Garfunkel to put a happy smile on my face?

I'm sure laundry and grocery shopping will appear somewhere on the radar this weekend, but for the most part I plan to CRAFT.  This time of year always gives me a bit of cabin fever, and home projects keep me busy and not missing my back deck and garden quite so much.  And right now the projects are piling up!  I have three special birthday gifts I hope to complete this weekend, plus I finally found the perfect fabric for new family room window valances.  But, my friends, you know how it goes!  If you Give a Mouse a Cookie....you'll also want to paint a couple of walls to match the valances!  I also need to finish a baby cap I'm knitting, order yarn for a new baby blanket, and finish a special quilt for Lily.  I have more than enough to keep busy until I can get outside again.  Of course, my brain is swirling with ideas for my garden and side deck as well...!!

But I'll be sure to slow down Sunday evening in time to watch the next episode of Downton Abbey.  I have had such fun the past few weeks trying new recipes and sipping tea in style while watching this wonderful Masterpiece Theater production.  I guess it's time to crack open the cookbooks and find the perfect recipe for this weekend!

And because I am so very lucky to have someone special to hold hands with tonight, I thought it was the perfect time for another incredible love poem by Mary Oliver, A Voice from I Don't Know Where.

It seems you love this world very much.
“Yes,” I said. “This beautiful world.” 

And you don’t mind the mind, that keeps you 

busy all the time with its dark and bright wonderings?
“No, I’m quite used to it. Busy, busy, 

all the time.” 

And you don’t mind living with those questions, 

I mean the hard ones, that no one can answer?
“Actually, they’re the most interesting.”

And you have a person in your life whose hand 

you like to hold?
“Yes, I do.” 

It must surely, then, be very happy down there 

in your heart. 

“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

Cold blows the wind from east to west...

I have to agree with Robert Burns this time of year---up early in the morning is not for me, when the hills are covered with snow!  And yet, here I am, again, up way before dawn, peering out into the blackness and wondering if there will be even a hint of sunshine to offer hope on another dark January day.

We had a few more inches of snow the last two days, resulting in pretty scenery outside my door:

and visits from a few intrepid souls that don't seem to mind the wind as much as I do...

We have had coyote sightings the last couple of weeks in our neighborhood, and every morning I peek outside to see if there are any unfamiliar paw prints in the snow.  So far I haven't glimpsed them, but since I've seen raccoons, ground hogs, wild turkeys, deer, and a gorgeous red fox in my yard over the past few years I bet I'll catch a glimpse of them at some point.  It still amazes me that I have so much wildlife in the heart of the city!

But a glance out of my kitchen window this morning as I quietly make the coffee shows only darkness and more snow, so I'll turn to the warm and steady glow of a candle  instead to light my way towards morning.  Cold winds outside, but warm hearts inside!

Up in the Morning Early

 

Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west,
   The drift is driving sairly;
Sae loud and shrill’s I hear the blast,
   I’m sure it’s winter fairly.

Up in the morning’s no for me,
   Up in the morning early;
When a’ the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
   I’m sure its winter fairly.

The birds sit chittering in the thorn,
   A’ day they fare but sparely;
And lang’s the night frae e’en to morn,
   I’m sure it’s winter fairly.

Up in the morning’s no for me,
   Up in the morning early;
When a’ the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
   I’m sure its winter fairly.

And no matter how hard the cold wind blows, or how loud and shrill its blast, let's still remember that 

Today is a Good Day for a Good Day!

Suddenly sixty...

Good morning!  Don't you love Mary Oliver's quote?  I've been doing a lot of reflecting over the past week on my own wild and precious life, and I simply can't believe how fast the trip has been.  One minute I was this little girl...

then in a blink of an eye I was heading off to college...

followed in rapid order by marriage, a beautiful family, several career changes, and then I woke up this morning to discover I am...

Oh my.  My last decade had its full share of ups and downs---I lost my beloved father and uncle, several aunts, and my sweet shih-tzu Belle.  I was diagnosed with a chronic disease, battled cancer, and watched two dear family members battle it as well.  We endured job downsizing, and I changed careers mid-life, not an easy task.  I can truthfully say I did not always have my act together...

“I had it together on Sunday.
By Monday at noon it had cracked.
On Tuesday debris
Was descending on me.
And by Wednesday no part was intact.
On Thursday I picked up some pieces.
On Friday I picked up the rest.
By Saturday, late,
It was almost set straight.
And on Sunday the world was impressed
With how well I had got it together.” 

~~Judith Viorst

But for all the stressful times, there were so many joy-filled days.  Three of my children graduated from college, two of them married the loves of their lives, and my other two sons fell deeply in love with wonderful women.  My marriage flourished and my friendships grew deeper as we all came to realize how fleeting life is and how much we need to embrace each day as a gift.  I've spent time with my beautiful mother, with my extended family, and we welcomed our beloved grand-daughter into the world.  I camped, I hiked, I gardened, I crafted.  We all gathered to create family memories that I will cherish forever.  And I started this blog, which has brought me so much satisfaction and new friendships as well.  And for all these reasons, I face this new decade with joy and profound gratitude.

We recently watched the movie The Bucket List, and I loved a conversation towards the end of the movie about the ancient Egyptians belief about death.  When their souls got to the entrance to heaven, the guards asked two questions. Their answers determined whether they were able to enter or not. ‘Have you found joy in your life?’ ‘Has your life brought joy to others?'

"Still, what I want in my life

is to be willing

to be dazzled ---

to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even 

to float a little

above this difficult world."

~~Mary Oliver

I hope as I continue on my wild and precious journey, that I can remember to enjoy the little things, to be both a receiver and a bringer of joy, and to never stop being dazzled.  And with those hopes firmly in place, I am ready to face this new decade.

Today is a good day for a good day!