sunday afternoon bookclub

I was in the kitchen fixing lunch and dinner ahead, Calvin was sleeping, Grace was upstairs with her friend Mamie, and the other 2 children were being very quiet.  I went to see what they were up to and found them on the couch....

I peeked under the blanket, where I was informed this was their bookclub.

Can I join?, I asked.  Yes, but I couldn't join unless I got a book.

So I did.

Seed love

Yesterday I stopped by this nursery to pick up a couple of packets of seeds in anticipation of spring (still a ways off, I know) and somehow ended up with 17 packets.  Yes, 17.  Oh my. 

Pros:

*purchased from a small independent business which is so incredibly important. 

*they are heirlooms, which fits my ethics and desire to grow unusual (nowadays) things, plus I am really annoyed angered by GMO's and Monsanto.

*they are so awesome--I mean, who can resist tomatoes called 'Black Krim'?

*my children will LOVE growing these together.

*we will LOVE eating these together (well, not the flowers)

Cons:

*where on earth (ha, ha) will I be planting 17 packets worth of seeds?  I see much garden work ahead, many more gardens to be made, somehow, some way.  Poor Rob.

And I had to post this today as my fb status update, since I read it last night and went 'WOW.' 

To live as closely as possible to the numinous wild a woman must do more head tossing, more brimming, have more sniffling intuition, more creative life, more 'get down dirty,' more solitude, more women's company, more natural life, more fire, more spirit, more cooking of words and ideas. She must do more recognition of sorority, more seeding, more root stock-keeping, more kindness to men, more neighborhood revolution, more poetry, more painting of fables and facts, longer reaches into the wild feminine.

~Clarissa Pinkola Estes, from Women Who Run with the Wolves

Sunday--family things

We went back to our hometown Sunday for a belated Christmas visit and were delighted to receive these snowmen ornaments above, made by my Grandma (who will be 90 this year). She also made the cute snowman below, the chenille is from my Great Grandma Daisy's bedspread. I adore these, it's so special to me to have family handiwork. Lily has claimed the snowman with the pink hat.

Mom also asked me to go through the bookcases for any books I might want and I gathered a stack.  I love this Little Farmer one by Margaret Wise Brown!

And, I was looking at Mom's coverlets and they are so amazing.  The ones she has date within a few decades of the 1850's.  Mom never paid more than $20 for any of them, she scoured auctions to find them (that's our family thrifting spirit!).  I love that.  I hope to find a quilt or coverlet that I can afford that way, too.  So anyway, I was saying how I would love to find some wool blankets and wondered if I would have better luck in New England, it would seem so.  So she pulled out these 2 family wool blankets and gave them to me!  Whee!  She'd forgotten she even had them, didn't know what to do with them, and was happy I wanted them.  She often comments how alike we are.  About certain things, yes.  I'm sure she will never understand my nose piercing though!

these are a few of my favorite quotes

"There was a star danced, and under that was I born."
                                                               --Shakespeare

I love and collect quotes.  I had pages of them typed out of ones I had collected over the years up through living in our previous house...but now I can't find them.  I wonder if they are on our old computer, I need to check.

Not a week goes by it seems that I don't read a quote that I add to my 'new' quote list.  Here are a few that I love:

"Whatever we possess becomes of double value when we have the opportunity of sharing it with others."
--Jean-Nicolas Bouilly

"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
--William Morris
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
--Mary Oliver, The Summer Day

Giving Birth and Being Born
Brings us into the Essence of Creation
Where the human spirit
is Courageous and Bold
And the Body,
A Miracle
of Wisdom.
--Harriet Hartigan

Life isn’t about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself.
--unknown

We came spinning out of nothingness,
Scattering stars…
The stars form a circle,
And in the center we dance.
--Rumi

We cannot depend on a market-informed cultural consciousness to enlighten us--we have to do it ourselves. --Raleigh Briggs


I have more quotes (many more!) but will stop!  I do believe I will also craft a post about a book I'm seriously loving, Women Who Run With the Wolves.  Can't say enough good about it--I'm going through it with a highlighter.  I would love to discuss it with other women who've read it and am hopeful that will happen in this new year.

Any other quote collectors?

Happy Winter Solstice!

Yesterday I sewed 4 pairs of jammie pants for solstice presents.  Tonight we are having a solstice party--we're going to bake cookies and have them with cocoa as we read The Shortest Day.   I tucked the jammie pants away for tonight, it will be fun to celebrate the return of the light with my loves.

This one looks wonderful, too!

Oh, and thank you all for the camera info!  Rob asked me if I was going to buy one.  He seemed very concerned...and I correctly guessed that I am getting one for Christmas.  Yeah!!!

What I like to see

The TV is off and doors are closed.  Christmas music is playing softly.

Children are enjoying a stack of their library books.

Can't wait to read these!  The Chicks Christmas is by Felicia Bond, author of Four Valentines in a Rainstorm, which I adore.  The Story of Holly and Ivy is by Rumer Godden, and the other little book is Christmas Is a Time of Giving (c. 1961) by Joan Walsh Anglund.  Sweet illustrations!

In other news--I am going to be starting a photography project in January that I have wanted to do for a long time.  I will need to have a good camera though (no offense to my current camera, you have served me well.  your pictures are not clear though.  I'm so sorry).  So, for photography people, what do you have?  I am looking at Nikons and Canons.  Nothing terribly fancy.  I don't even know what that kind of camera is called, the kind with lenses and stuff.  Pro cameras?  I pretty much say 'you know, the not-point-and-shoot-kind.'

thrifting finds!

I spent a lovely morning with the children going to a library book sale and to Goodwill (half price day). They each took some of their money and purchased these nearly new books at the library book sale to donate to a toy drive. I got lots of books that I had been wanting to read, or that I have read before but don't own, or that look intriguing.

At Goodwill I got these cute vintage (or vintage looking anyway) plastic mugs, 4 corelle bowls and 6 saucers, 2 small milk glass dishes, a floral sheet, and a sweater for me to wear and one to felt up and make something out of.  And an expressiva nursing top (black w/ floral) Also, more books! 

I spent a total of $36 on the dot for all of this.  I'm striving to live in accordance with my values, some of which I wrote about here, and this feels good.  It's recycling, it's being over the entitlement of 'it must be new to be good enough for me', it's being a good steward of my money, it's treading lightly on Mother Earth, it's being mindful and having a purpose in what we're bringing into our lives.  It's all of that, plus it's pretty fun!

buy this book!

I just got this book in my hands last Friday night and I adore it.  If you are local, do yourself a favor and contact Jane at The Wild to get yourself a copy.  It's $7--seriously--for a total wealth of information that is engaging and easy to understand.  Topics cover Health & First Aid (making tinctures! salves, how to treat headaches, depression, colds, etc etc) to Non Toxic Cleaning and Body Care, to Gardening. 

I was sold on this book before I even read the Intro and reading the Intro when I got it made me love it even more:

."..no part of the process was trivial or mundane.  Creating and using something homemade never is.  I came to realize that my skepticism abouth the importance of these acts was based on a cultural belief that the domestic sphere is somehow less important than the public sphere.  Which, of course,  is such a load of crap. (amen, sister!) If we DIY only the elective, recreational parts of our lives-or only what other people can see-then how much of our lives are we really reclaiming?

...DIY is for everybody!  Gardening, homemaking, healing:  these are all such basic aspects of human life on this planet, and they are important for just that reason.

...to me, DIY is not a show of prowess, or even a hobby, rather, it is a necessary step towards living our lives on our own terms.  ...we cannot depend on a market-informed cultural consciousness to enlighten us--we have to do it ourselves."  (ding ding ding!!)

--raleigh briggs