Christmas/Tea Time

Once Upon a December

Posted on by Joy / 14 Comments

Perhaps our planet is for learning to appreciate the extraordinary wonder of life that surrounds even our suffering, and to say Yes, if through the thickest of tears.

Alice Walker [Barracoon, Foreword]

~~~~~

Hello Friend

How nice to see you! Please come in and hang your wraps by the door.

It seems the perfect day for lemon ginger tea, doesn’t it? I’ve been feeling a tiny bit under the weather, but lots of people out there are really sick with long-lasting colds, fevers, and sore throats. Just thinking about that sends me for the lemon tea. Add a little honey and it’s the perfect soothing nectar.

My cousin and dear friend gave us a Christmas tin of her homemade Old Fashioned Almond Crunch the other day. Perfect complement to lemon ginger tea, don’t you think? Please help yourself. I know you won’t be able to take just one.

~~~~~

Image by Silvia from Pixabay

~~~~~

Old Fashioned Almond Crunch

1 cup butter (not margarine)
1-1/4 cups white sugar
2 Tablespoons corn syrup
2 Tablespoons water

Cook over medium heat to 300 degrees F (hard crack stage), stirring constantly. Remove from heat and immediately stir in 1 cup toasted almonds.

Pour into foil-lined cookie sheet, and sprinkle 1 cup chocolate chips. Let stand 5 minutes, then spread with the back of a spoon. Sprinkle with finely chopped almonds. Cool, break into pieces. 
Enjoy!

~~~~~

I’m taking my time with Christmas decorating this year. Other years I’ve pressed through it all with driven gusto, trying to meet the goals I’d set for myself; trying to make our home perfect for the season. This year, my nervous system can’t seem to handle the same busyness and stress. And, it’s also taking some thought to decide how I want the decor to go in this new home, using all of the old Christmas decorations.

I’ve always loved the preparations for Christmas, whether I go all out or just set out a few things. Quite by accident, The Cowboy brought in the ‘wrong’ tree to set up. It wasn’t the newer one, the one that is tall and pre-lit and goes together in three easy steps. No, it’s the thirty-year-old one we used when our girls were young. Every branch needs to be placed in the right spot and then fluffed out to resemble a real tree. At first I dreaded the time-consuming chore, but as I worked on it, the memories of past years decorating the tree as a family, came quickly. Putting up the tree branch by branch, and carefully hanging long-loved ornaments became a sweet task.

~~~~~

~~~~~

Yet, in some instances the memories were bittersweet. Today, on the day of this writing, it is the 26th anniversary of the death of The Cowboy’s best friend – his dad. It was unexpected and shocking. The girls were so young when they lost their beloved Grandpa: eleven, nine, and four at the time. In the middle of Christmas preparations and school programs, a funeral was planned, family gatherings were shuffled and reorganized. And we celebrated Christmas without Dad.

Now my cousins are going through the same thing, as I got news that my uncle passed away yesterday. He was diagnosed less than a month ago, and suddenly he’s gone. We can’t prepare for everything, can we?

The arrival of December and the Christmas season doesn’t mean that hurt and suffering suddenly take a break. And this year, it seems the whole world is suffering as we all try to get back to some sense of ‘normal.’

~~~~~

Most of the world’s citizens are in need of a little extra TLC at the moment. Most are donning invisible “Handle with care” posters around their necks and “Fragile” tattoos on their bodies … Instead of racing to the finish line of this year, tread gently. Go slowly.

Naomi Holdt – Psychologist and Speaker

~~~~~

Image by Frauke Riether from Pixabay

~~~~~

Have you ever noticed that some of the most beautiful music is written in a minor key? Several of my favourite Christmas songs are in minor keys. O Come O Come Emmanuel, What Child Is This?, Mary, Did You Know? to name just a few. It’s the minor key that makes them heart-tugging and poignant. The tune stays with one for a long time. They have a certain sweetness not present in songs written in a major key.

Could it be that the struggles we wade through make this fragile life more beautiful? Perhaps through the lens of our sorrow and pain we see with more depth and clarity, more wonder. Sunrises, with their soft peaches and pastel pinks, seem brighter. More brilliant. And it takes a breath to realize …

They always were.

~~~~~

Image by Pascal Laurent from Pixabay

~~~~~

So glad you stopped in today amid your own busy preparations for Christmas. In case I don’t see you again before, I wish you a Merry Christmas Season with lots of hope and beauty, though it may at times be written in a minor key.

Stay safe out there, and see you next time.

~~~~~

I heard a bird sing in the dark of December.

A magical thing. And sweet to remember.

We are nearer to Spring than we were in September.

I heard a bird sing in the dark of December.

Oliver Herford

~~~~~

~~~~~

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Albert Camus

~~~~~

Featured Image by Marko from Pixabay

Living the Moment/The Simple Woman's Daybook

The Simple Woman’s Daybook – November

Posted on by Joy / 6 Comments

In November, the trees are standing all sticks and bones. Without their leaves, how lovely they are, spreading their arms like dancers. They know it is time to be still.

Cynthia Rylant

~~~~~

Hello Friend!

Oh my goodness! I can’t believe you came in this mini blizzard we’re having. Come in to the warmth. Come sit by my fire. Snuggle in under this blanket and I’ll hang your snowy coat on the hook by the door.

Will you have coffee? I still have some pumpkin spice creamer, so delicious in coffee. Let’s see, I baked snickerdoodles yesterday, one of my all-time favourite cookies. So, coffee and snickerdoodles it is!

I was just sitting down to write my Daybook entry for November. Please, snuggle in while I share it with you.

~~~~~

Image by Виолетта from Pixabay

~~~~~

For Today

Looking out my window …

The snow is coming down sideways. The wind’s not so strong that it is battling around the eaves, but it reveals itself in prolonged blowing and sudden turnings, making the snow run and dance, dipping and twirling, reluctant to land. Every so often it plays with the snow piled on the roof of the shop, pushing it off impishly in wisps and tufts, sending it flying with the other flakes wafting through the air.

I am thinking …

That I left some of my flower pots out. I thought I had more time to put them away, but now I guess they’ll be buried under the snow until spring.

One of my favourite things …

Is coming into my library early in the morning while it is still dark, and switching on the lamp on my desk. The soft glow highlights an ornament I keep there: two girls on a bench deep in discussion. It is entitled Heart and Soul and reminds me of conversations with my friend or one of my daughters.

I am creating …

Well, I’m about to create two small quilted blankets for twin grandsons, Bright and Sunny. I have fabric at the ready: a centre panel of brightly coloured monster trucks which will be surrounded with patterned designs according to each boy’s favourite colours. Bright likes red, orange, and yellow. Sunny likes blue and green. I’m chomping at the bit to get started.

~~~~~

I am wearing …

Black yoga pants, coral-coloured top with 3/4-length sleeves and pretty detail at the neckline, tennis bracelet, lipstick called Certainly Red, which is really more coral-y red than deep red.

I am reading …

Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan, These Precious Days by Ann Patchett, bird by bird by Anne Lamott, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot.

I recently finished reading The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo and Agatha Christie, A Very Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley. Which is why …

I am watching …

Hercule Poirot episodes on BritBox by BBC. Currently, The Blue Train.

I am listening to …

~~~~~

I am hoping …

That one of us will be able to get into town to a grocery store soon. Being only a recent coffee drinker, I can’t drink coffee without flavoured cream. And after this pumpkin spice you and I are having, we’re all out. Such a tiny problem in this big old world. I’m sure I’ll survive.

I am thankful …

For smart phones that automatically change the time. I completely forgot to move our clocks back last night. That hasn’t happened since we moved to Alberta from Saskatchewan fifteen years ago and we arrived at church an hour early.

In my kitchen …

I’m loving the large island. Although it can be a catch-all for anything and everything, I’ve been able to keep that to a minimum so the rest is clear for cooking and baking. It amazes me how, as messy as it can get with all the necessary or unnecessary things, I love cleaning it, making it shiny and ready for the next kitchen project.

I am learning …

To give myself a little grace these days. The Cowboy and I have done so much and worked so hard this last year, it’s okay now to slow down and take a breath once in a while.

A moment from my day …

~~~~~

Shared Quote …

Wisdom resides in those who have wintered.

Katherine May

~~~~~

Closing Notes …

So glad you decided to stop in today. Now wrap up tightly in your coat and scarf. Stay safe out there, and see you next time.

~~~~~

The Simple Woman

~~~~~

Featured Image by David Mark from Pixabay.

Living the Moment/Tea Time

Collected Memories and Passings

Posted on by Joy / 1 Comment

~~~~~

Hello Friend,

Come in! Come in! It’s turned cool out there. October has granted us normal October weather after all, and it’s a great day for a cup of tea and a good chat.

The skies are grey with moving clouds this morning. I don’t think they hold snow. They’re just gliding over, almost low enough for the spiky tips of the evergreens to pierce their fluffy underbellies like warning swords. Stay away, clouds. Don’t come any nearer. I hear an airplane passing on the other side. Do its passengers see the sun, I wonder?

I’m offering Rooibos tea today. It is smooth and gentle with a slightly nutty flavour. I just read that rooibos tea is the only known source of the antioxidant aspalathin, which studies suggest may have anti-diabetic effects. Interesting. (see article here)

Anyway, please help yourself to cream and sugar, and a chocolate chip cookie there on the island. We’ll sit in these oversized chairs by the window.

~~~~~

Image by Marcel Gnauk from Pixabay

~~~~~

When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment?

Muriel Barbery

~~~~~

I’ve been harvesting my summer memories, and realizing that the most special ones are indeed those jewels of infinity in a single moment. Here are three of them …

ONE

Before my library was even close to being ready, I’d set apart a tiny corner especially for children. Low bookshelves, with only a couple of children’s books at that time, a colourful round carpet, and two kid-sized armchairs, lime green.

The day after we moved in, I glanced into the library from the kitchen where I was unpacking boxes. There on the little chairs sat five-year-old twins Bright and Sunny, each with a book; Sunny looking at a picture book and Bright ‘reading’ a novel, upside down. Little Man was standing at my desk studying an open atlas. I motioned for The Cowboy to look, and whispered, This is what I wanted.

~~~~~

~~~~~

TWO

We keep a golf cart on the property, for work and play. I haul watering cans around to water the flowers and garden beds. The Cowboy has sometimes hooked up a little trailer behind to carry rocks and bigger loads. And Sweet Thing loves to drive it. Since she’s only six, however, the rule is that an adult must go with her.

On this particular day, I was her passenger as she drove around and around the acreage. Upon approaching a large evergreen she said, “Grandma, there’s a branch. You have to be careful.” And then she proceeded to drive under the tree, pushing forward a large pine bough which ultimately snapped back, slapping me full in the face. Annoyed and in pain I cried, “Ouch!! That hurt!” Without taking her eyes off the ‘road,’ she indifferently replied, “Grandma, I told you.” Yes, my practical girl, you did indeed.

~~~~~

~~~~~

THREE

My new piano had been delivered shortly before Peaches and her children, Sweet Thing and Little Munch, arrived for their first visit to our new home. Everyone knew how excited I was about the piano, and Peaches asked me to play.

As I sat down and prepared to play, Munch went into the library, carried out one of the lime green armchairs and set it beside the piano. He sat in it and faced me expectantly, giving me all of his four-year-old attention. I don’t know if I can convey how this deliberate act of attention affected me, almost brought me to tears. I felt seen and valued. It was a precious moment in time that I will never forget.

~~~~~

~~~~~

Isn’t it interesting that these three memory jewels involve some of the most special people in my life?

Meanwhile, we receive notices from friends. In the last several weeks three friends have lost a parent. One, mother of The Cowboy’s childhood buddy. One, a long time family friend who was a true example of integrity. And one I met only through hearing my friend read the eulogy she’d just written for her dad.

As I think about these passings, I recognize that the memories invoked at the time of a loved one’s passing are also jewels, each memory a single gem on the strand of a life lived.

~~~~~

Image by Valentin from Pixabay

~~~~~

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on this earth.

Raymond Carver

~~~~~

So glad you stopped in today. Stay safe out there, and see you next time.

~~~~~

~~~~~

Feature Image by R.L from Pixabay

Living the Moment/Tea Time

October Leaves Falling

Posted on by Joy / 12 Comments

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.

F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby

~~~~~

Hello Friend,

Welcome, welcome! So good to have you drop in.

Our library is bright with October light, and the couch in there is quite inviting just at this moment of the day. So please, come in and have a seat.

We have Mom’s delicious zucchini loaf to sample today. Will you have a slice? I like it as is, but there’s butter if you prefer to add it . Let’s see, I have a couple of choices for tea today: English Breakfast Tea, and Lemon Ginger sans caffeine. Which is your choice? Cream, sugar, and honey are there by the window, if you like.

~~~~~

Image by pixabay

~~~~~

Here in our corner of the world, we are having prolonged good weather. Isn’t it wonderful? The leaves are turning colour, falling one by one and in bunches, crunching underfoot, but the days are not cold and icy like many past Octobers. They are astonishingly warm, and the morning light seems to make the remaining leaves glow from within.

Yesterday, as I passed the kitchen window, I watched leaves fall. Only, they didn’t just fall. Like hundreds of orange and yellow feathers, they drifted on the breeze from the little poplar wood into the open air behind our house. And I collected them up in my memory.

This is our first October in our new home in the country, and one thing I’m loving about this time of year is that I can clearly see the sunrise through the trees. October opens new horizons doesn’t it?

~~~~~

October is a fallen leaf, but it is also the wider horizon more clearly seen. It is the distant hill once more in sight, and the enduring constellations above that hill once again.”

Hal Borlan – This Hill, This Valley

~~~~~

Maybe my expectations of October are a carry-over from the days when I was raising three busy girls. Then, Septembers held the rush of new school supplies, classrooms and teachers, new after-school activities like swimming, dancing, and piano lessons. Those beginnings butted up against finishings, like harvesting the garden and putting away summer. And all of it kept us almost too busy to think, so that when we rolled into October, suddenly routines and rhythms would fall into place as if by magic.

I’ve been expecting the same of this October. But it’s not the same, and it’s been making me anxious and a little frustrated that I can’t seem to find a rhythm in this new home. People keep telling me it takes time for rhythms and routines to untangle after a move. A lot of time. And I need to give myself a little grace.

~~~~~

Image by Tim Hill of Pixabay

~~~~~

I took our swiss mountain pup for a walk in the little poplar wood where the path is a carpet of brown, orange, and yellow. Pup snuffled here and there, her nose pushing through little mounds of leaves, while my footsteps shuffled and crunched along the path. Through half-bare trees I could make out the neighbour’s shed, and another roof beyond.

Pup abruptly stopped snuffling and perked her ears. A car door slammed and I looked up through the trees to see that Mom & Dad had returned from shopping. The little dog would have bounded through the underbrush to greet them had she not been on a leash.

I called through the clear quiet air, “I’m just on a walk! Be there soon.” They peered in my direction and responded, “Ok” before heading into the house. The house. It looked different from this new, opened-up perspective.

Life is continually changing. Sometimes it changes in such small incremental ways that we hardly notice it, and at other times the change is big and shocking and it takes several breaths before we can catch up. I think that must be where I am now. Trying to catch up after the sheer work that this move involved.

So while I catch my breath, I’ll remind myself to enjoy this new October. The sunrises, the leaves, the new horizons. Maybe by next October I’ll have found my rhythm. I’ll keep you posted.

~~~~~

~~~~~

My beloved October has returned-with its brilliant colors, cool temperatures and sunny, cloudless, azure skies, and I must enjoy it before it escapes for another year.”

Peggy Toney Horton – Somewhere in Heaven My Mother is Smiling

~~~~~

Thanks so much for visiting today, I hope you enjoyed the zucchini loaf. Stay safe out there and see you next time.

~~~~~

Mom's Zucchini Loaf

1 c. oil
2 c. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs, beaten
Beat until light and fluffy

Add:
2 c. zucchini, shredded

Mix:
3 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1-1/8 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 tsp. nutmeg
Add to zucchini mixture and beat

Pour into loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 1 hour.

~~~~~

Featured Image by Valentin from Pixabay 

%d bloggers like this: