In A Bookish, Quilty Mood

For a storm, Christmas, publication, a quilt, the new year.... We received half an inch of rain last night/this morning, but thankfully the predicted winds weren't as wild as forecasters considered. The basement is full of firewood, some in the carport not because it's tremendously cold but if we lose power. Our temps are currently mild. I'm grateful for it. Preparing for Christmas includes some cooking (I made cranberry sauce today, will fix a candy cane ice cream pie tomorrow). Presents I'm responsible for are wrapped, lol. (Paper, tape, scissors, labels, and a few bows are out for my husband, hehehe.) When we lived in the UK we got a gammon (ham) from Marks & Spencers, and ham remains our tradition, alongside garlic/Gruyere cheese scalloped potatoes and peas (my husband LOVES peas). All those ingredients, save red potatoes, have been purchased. Christmas prep also includes LAUNDRY. For some weird reason, I like doing all the laundry before Christmas, so that task...

The view from my living room window this morning. Not sure what this will be about, but something good, I'm certain. Today's title came from our pastor, who spoke about the unpredictability of life in a recent communion service. He was relating it to Joseph, who initially was going to divorce Mary once he realized she was already pregnant until an angel told him the true story behind this young woman's condition. Who can imagine what Joseph might have thought, other than believing, as he remained her husband and became, as the pastor put it, Jesus's stepfather, a term I'd never considered previously. As the pastor spoke, I closed my eyes, tears welling, but not quite streaming down my face. It wasn't from sadness, more from the massive joy I possess within my faith, and how life's unpredictability isn't always the end of the frickin' world. Sometimes it feels pretty dang bad, but even that unpleasant sting fades, leaving me with additional patience, ...

  Peace is the theme for this coming week. Peace, peace.... Easy to wish for others, not always easy to claim for myself, mostly because I'm living with one foot in this realm, another beyond the veil, and corporeal human life these days is....difficult. Not on a health-level, not economic. Not in most face-value manners, so outwardly my life is happy. Fulfilling. Yet.... Yet my nation is fraught with BS politicians and billionaires and it makes me wanna puke. Hard to be peaceful when so much shite is stirred up, so much hypocrisy, so much.... I've already swore once, don't need to belabor the massive wrongs awaiting. Why it's hard to be at peace, that corporeal foot feeling stuck in concrete. But what about my other leg, another possibility? Can I take on faith that all will be well, no matter how futile the outlook seems? Can I seek a different render of the future, perhaps many years from now, maybe beyond my presence, or even tomorrow? How bleak must life have seeme...

Many notions rumble through my mind. Like how 17 degrees Fahrenheit (-8 C) is pretty damned cold! That was the temperature we felt as we entered the cloud bank, pictured above. Not that it had been warm right before we drove into what was freezing fog, but WOW! Nature and weather are pretty amazing elements, let me say. Thankfully freezing fog was the forecaster's term; there was no fog, only clouds as we headed from Nevada into California on Interstate 395. That icy spate lasted until we turned off Highway 36 for Highway 44, when bright sunshine lifted temps a few degrees, yet the sun's warmth was like stepping into a different realm, for the scenes we encountered on 395 were like an alternate reality. They made me think about a similar scene I wrote in The Hawk , when Lynne and Sam observe an icy vista right before Christmas. Yet I conjured that from my imagination. Driving through it, mile after mile, was wholly something else. December, and Advent, are similar, in how many ...

A new quilt top, especially one so vibrant and spacious, makes me giddy! Mostly made from Anna Maria Horner's Fluent collection, it's splashy and busy and makes me want to sew more quilts with large prints. I have heaps of four and a half inch wide strips tucked away, might cut some of them to seven and a half inches in length and see what comes of them. Christmas is almost here, another reason for joy! We'll be away, spending time with our eldest daughter and her family. I'll be pondering the purpose for the season, as well as reveling in familial thrills; my granddaughters and I will make white chocolate candy this weekend, a family fave since their mum was four years old and in preschool. Her teacher, Ms. Lilly, gave us the recipe, and here it is, easy to make and better to eat! ---------------------------------------------------- 1.5 cups Peanut Butter Crunch cereal 1.5 cups Rice Krispies cereal 1.5 cups mini marshmallows 1.5 cups (or ten ounces) salted mixed nuts ...

Fascinating from the back, as though a map to an unknown destination. It was an early start today, half a chapter written, then texting with my youngest daughter and enjoying photos of her sunrise a few hours east of us. I woke to clear, starry skies, but clouds have since moved in, rain forecast for the next few days. Maybe in a few days I'll have completed my novel; it's VERY CLOSE to being done, but I said that in a recent post, The End dangling like a carrot merely an arm's length away. Meanwhile I've been stitching together Cornflower blocks each evening. The photo above was snapped last night, what I see as I sew. MANY papers to remove, but I'll deal with that later, lol. I'm also working on another quilt, hehehe, more about that in a day or two. And the last ones for this year are washed and waiting to be given to my granddaughters on Christmas, which is just a little over a week away! I considered today's title right after reading through the sevente...

Christmas lights offering an ethereal glow. With it being the twelfth day of Christmas, these lights, and the placemats on the dining table, are the last vestiges of our holiday decorations. I did very little in the way of sprucing up the house last month, our beloved's fight against cancer taking some of the wind from my sails. My lengthy sojourn away from home was another part of it; by the time I returned, it felt far too late in the season to scatter mementos. I had Christmas coasters lying about, lights on the front fence, and a few cards adorning windowsills. That felt like enough holiday decorations for me. My malaise turned out as a blessing after the earthquake hit; not only was there less to clear up, but the notion that some of my breakables could have been damaged. I try to follow the spirit in all manners of my life, and am grateful to gone with that guidance, not berating myself for being lazy or not wishing to partake of the usual festive air that December brings. An...

Christmas hexie coaster that won't necessarily be put away anytime soon. A few phrases have survived in my lexicon from our years in Yorkshire and Happy Christmas is top of the list. While my hubby and I are celebrating solo, video chats with family lessen the distances, as well as calls made earlier this week with relatives and dear friends. Our beloved battling cancer in the Midwest is improving, talk about miracles. And of course the most marvelous occurrence is feted today, the birth of a saviour in the guise of a migrant child born in extreme poverty. Christianity is full of contradictions, which later Christ told his followers was to mystify those unable to understand his message. Which is yet another oddity, but not for me to analyze today. Today is about noting peace. Peace two thousand years ago, peace in our time, peace to last.... Forever, eternity, the ages. But I'll take peace right now; aftershocks continue here, the cold persists back east, other calamities worl...