One Part Inspiration...

I started with the door wreath.  It was in the middle of November. I have been saving it since I got it at a such a good price at the end of last year.  All summer, I looked at the bag it came in, silently count the days til I could take it out and put it up in celebration.      My husband wondered why I put it on the inside of the door.  I told him it was so that I could see it. [It also means that I don't have to go outside to rescue it when the winter winds blow]    Can I just say, it gives me great pleasure to walk down the hallway and see the wreath hanging there as a harbinger of all that Christmas means.         Closer to the end of November, I told my him that the decorations would be like putting a frog in water and setting it to 'boil'.  He wouldn't notice too much at first, but eventually, he would clue in that we are now fast and furious into the Christmas season.  F...

Yesterday was my birthday.  I love my birthday. I really should date these statements.  I wrote that sentence  a year ago.  And it has sat in my 'drafts' post box ever since.  Every time I look in the 'drafts', I see it and wonder if I should finish it.    But then I get distracted and close it up for another day.  Well, today is another day.  I will finish it, because yesterday WAS my birthday.  And I do love my birthday! I don't remember all the birthdays that I have had.  However I do have a sampling of some memorable ones.  Here they are in no particular order: My fifth birthday, when my brother made me a play house out of a big cardboard box, complete with curtains - and surprised me with it when I woke up that day The year my sister made me a set of birthday scrolls - each wrapped with a little golden ring, with memories of our growing years and beyond inscribed and drawings of us on them. The year a girlf...

Fresh flowers from the garden at work for "Music and Company" Father's Day Celebration One of the ways I have been amusing myself in this season of my life, is with flowers.  I always welcome the opportunity to play.  I can put aside all the cares of life and lose myself in the process of cleaning the flowers, setting them out in groups, preparing the container and then arranging them - trying to keep in mind all that I learned in "Floral Design - Part One".  Sometimes the flowers have been for a special occasion.  Sometimes I have created an excuse to bring them in - "Happy 150th day of the year" ; "Sorry for your loss of a filling"; "You're Retiring already?" ; "My kids are bugging me arrangement"; etc. etc. These two arrangements were done for my boss who was retiring.  We put on a party for her and I signed up to do the arrangements for the head table.  I bought an every day arrangement at Costco, took i...

One day in November, at our weekly Pancake Breakfast, I said "I want a kitten for Christmas".  It just seemed the right time to get a kitten.  We no longer had the care of Cheer Bear, who was my daughter's cat. We are no longer responsible for little kids.  In fact, we actually enjoy the 'long winter's evenings', but it can be quite quiet.  And it's been a long time since we had any cats.  Our best cat was Burger, who was what I called a "man's cat".  He didn't like to cuddle but he would come and sit with you on his own terms.  He had a crooked tail, which he would swish at you when you got after him for getting into something he shouldn't be in.  He was incredibly smart, and fast and caught many a mouse for us.  My husband, upon hearing a mouse, would go get Burger and put him in the offending cupboard, and within several seconds, Burger would catch the mouse and dispose of it quite happily for us. Burger also liked to watch me ...

It's been seven years since I have seen this boat in person, and yet in my dreams, I often hop in take myself across the lake, to enjoy a virtual trip to the Island.  It is the stuff that dreams are made of.   I love the tranquility.  I love the pace.  You can spend a whole day, mucking about doing various projects - most of them non-essential - such as puzzles and word searches or games.    There are books which visitors have left behind for the next party to read. In between there is kindling to collect and the occasional window-washing venture. There are many trips to the fridge to see if  any munchies have appeared since your last visit. Much of the day is spent walking back and forth to change. Jammies to bathing suits; bathing suits to clothes; clothes to bathing suits; bathing suits to sweats; sweats to bathing suits; bathing suits back to jammies. Days are spent in and out of the water, at the table, and meal preparation or clean-up in...

I gave my husband the table you see on the right of the picture, for Father's Day.  I felt sure it was what he wanted since we didn't really have a place to put our cups when we were sitting and enjoying the view. He put the table together yesterday, when he finally had a few moments.    This morning when I woke up, the sun was shining - the perfect -'seize the moment'-  day to try the table out.  Apparently, we have had the wettest, coldest spring in 55 years.  Rain, rain, rain - about  25 per cent more overall than the our typical averages.  So any day that is sunny, the rules are that everyone must run out to soak in  as much Vitamin "D" as they can, because like as not, the next day will be bringing more wet weather.  I made myself a bowl of cereal, a cup of coffee, and grabbed a magazine to read, while enjoying the birdsong.  Soon, all my thoughts of having a little 'alone time' di...

Do you remember the garage sale we went to last week?  Do you remember I mentioned another story for another post?  Well, this is the post about that story. The garage sale was a good one.  There was something for everyone.  There were tools, and kitchen items, pool items, beauty items, and then there was THE CAMERA - a Purple Nikon Coolpix 10 megapixel camera which is small enough to tuck in my purse in case I wanted to capture the moment.   I looked through a lot of stuff and then took a second look at it.  The price on it was 4$.  Of course, I wanted to make sure that it worked.  4$ is 4$.  So I asked the garage sale mistress what the deal was.  She sighed and said that her daughter had dropped it in the water.  So they'd sent it off to the Nikon company to get it fixed but it made a funny sound when it focused in.  So they bought her a new one.  I took a deep breath (actually my husband prodded me a bit) and g...

Last year, about this time, I made a trip to the local building store, to get supplies for the Father's Day gift.  It has been a year since the work began on it.  Both the boys gave their Dad a hand, as he began putting together a place for us to enjoy a cup of tea, on a warm summer night. Many hours were poured into the first stage of this getaway. And then other things took precedence, and once there had been enough progress to be able to walk outside the front door, with a bit of support for us, the work halted. All winter, we dreamt about how it would look, once we got the decking on. We took lots of virtual trips to our lovely little bench, where we would sit, and look at the virtual landscape, and enjoy the virtual hanging baskets. Once the weather cleared In between spring weather systems, my husband forged ahead on putting our dreams into reality.  First, the patio stones were brought out and the measurements done.  Before the day wa...

What a fun evening last night. I got to visit Christmases Past and Present when I attended my sisters-in-law's Christmas program last night. It was all the fun with no commitment. I didn't have to prepare anything. I didn't have to make sure the costumes were ready, or the makeup wasn't smeared, and I didn't have to bake anything for the refreshment time after the program. I didn't have to sell raffle tickets, or hand out candy bags. All I had to do, was go and park myself in a chair, and watch. Of course, there's always lots of drama at a Christmas program that has nothing to do with the pageant. There's the little baby sisters who wander away from the parents and make it to the stage, before anyone notices. And there's the discussion between parents who are worried that their camera batteries are going to make it through the whole program. And there are grampas and the grammas who don't quite fit on the wobbly chairs, but they give it their bes...