Thinking Ahead

These icicles are hanging just outside our kitchen door. (They remind me of ice dreadlocks.)
We're experiencing a record Winter - Not in terms of snowfall, but COLD and MORE COLD!
And in the midst of it all, I came across this lovely vegetable picking basket. Unique in that you can pick and wash your produce before even bringing it in the house! Neat-o!! Wonder if I could make one this Spring. It's difficult to imagine that under all the snow and ice, Spring is just waiting.

Who Is This Guy?!

The sweetest of men. That's our Home Teacher!

Two Scotsmen

 Lel solved my yearning for a Scotsman of my own, and carved me 2 for Christmas! 

Christmas Card

I've made our Christmas cards every year since 1983. Here is 2012, patterned after a folded 1940's card I found in a shop several years ago.

Skyping

It's almost as good as having them here. I say almost, because, well, let's face it, there is nothing quite like holding your lovies in your arms and kissing their cheeks is there?! I ask you?!!

Putting Christmas Away

My "Piping Santa" ornament from my sister Stacey

I am packing up Christmas, and sweeping up the needles. 

There was a sweetness this year I haven't remembered for a very long time, almost as wonderful as when I was little, and I just didn't want to put it away.
The difference this year was in me.

There is always so much to do, and so many things I want to do, it's hard to fit it all in. This year however, I worried less about gifts and the tangibles, and whether everyone was happy or not, and enjoyed the little things, every one that I could... from the beautiful music and sitting quietly beside the lighted tree, to the City's Christmas party, enjoying a wonderful dinner with my fellow "librarians". I even made time to attend a friend's dramatic reading of Dickens' Christmas Carol complete with caroling. I loved it all. But the sweetest?
After 9 years my sister's husband finally received the answers and witness he was seeking, and we watched him enter the waters of baptism Dec. 21. "There is no greater gift you could give yourself John," his bishop told him, "or to your wife and family, or to the Savior himself, than the gift of your self, your whole soul." It was wonderful, and it changed me!

Our beautiful little tree is now out at the curb for compost, and everything is waiting to be packed up and stored away, but I don't feel the sadness as in the past. Instead I am carrying that sweet feeling with me somehow. It's still here!
I know there are so many good things that await us through the coming year... the knowledge of that gives me such hope and pleasure, and then, Christmas will come again!

Choir and My Youngest Son

My son has a beautiful tenor voice. 

There was a time when that was the last thing on earth he cared about, believe me, but this year he joined the high school Concert Choir, and somehow discovered within himself an inner strength of courage, to not only sing out, but even to speak out boldly the feelings and ideas of his heart. It's almost as if he is fearless at times. 

Mostly, he's like every other 16 year-old boy, from dirty socks under his unmade bed to grumbling when asked to do something, and I wonder how I will be able to stand him for the next few years! But every once in a while, it is almost as if he has a sudden, deeper understanding of who he is, and who I am, and what is right and good to do and be, and he'll kiss my cheek and say he loves me, and take the rubbish out without complaining...
and I'll hear him singing as he does it.

2013

A new and wonderful year has begun today!
I am so grateful to be alive and well, and able to take part in each new adventure, come what may!









(photo of Dalarna, Sweden. Not taken by your's truly however,)