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˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ | 田田 |門 ★
My sister and I shared a bedroom for most of our growing up years. We did not always get along. It was not always peaceable. We had the usual squabbles that siblings might have. Mostly over clothes etc.
In our older years, we each had our own bed. They were just single beds, with a mattress and a box spring. We also had our own dressers. They were tall and slim, made of white laminate pressed wood with gold trim. I remember they had little gold knobs and pull handles. Quite ornate. They were probably meant to hold unmentionables, lingerie and such, as an addition to a full-sized dresser. We had no full-sized dresser, just those, and if I am not mistaken, we each had a matching night table. My memory can be a bit dim about certain things.
I doubt that much money was paid for any of it. My mother was always very thrifty.
In thinking back on those lingerie dressers, and how old my mother would have been at the time (only in her late 30's) it has dawned on me this morning that they were probably really special to her. They were probably something that she would have loved to have had when she was a girl growing up. A flight of fancy. And, in buying them for us, she was fulfilling some sort of childhood longing. With those thoughts, I now hold a better appreciation for what they were and what they must have meant to her in her ability to provide them for us. Giving us her best.
I wish she was still here so that I could tell her so. How very much I appreciate her having given us her "best" in all things. But mostly for her loving us as much as she did. A love I have never really doubted.
There is a part of me that would love to carve a jack-o-lantern this year. There is another, smarter part of me that knows that is just a flight of fancy and that once I got it in here, on the table and started carving it I would regret the effort that it was taking. haha Yes, I CAN sometimes be and feel that lazy.
My children used to love carving jack-o-lanterns. Every year I would let them each pick out a pumpkin and a day or so before Halloween we would set them on the table in our dining room and carve them. It was a huge, glorious, messy affair. Of course, they were carefully monitored so that nobody got hurt, but I mostly let them do them for themselves. (Loads of supervision.)
Dan really loves carving pumpkins. That is one thing I really love about Dan. He really gets into the holidays. Any holiday. He gets a great deal of pleasure decorating for each of them. He puts the joy in holidays. I really appreciate his enthusiasm for them. Last year after Halloween I found a pumpkin carving set on sale and I picked it up for him. I can't wait to see what he creates with it this year.
One year after I moved back here, I carved a turnip. For Bonfire Night. That was a bit hard. And I mean that in every sense of the word. It was really HARD, as in dense. Turnip is not soft like a pumpkin. I used my melon baller to scoop out the turnip flesh. I did cook it. (I love cooked turnip.) Maybe I will do it again, but for Halloween. We shall see. It depends on how much energy I have! But it would be nice. I think so anyways.
With these colder nights, the air of an evening and in the morning has been filled with the smell of woodsmoke, mingled with the smell of falling leaves. It is a smell I love. I miss the smell of coal fires that you used to get in the U.K. Mostly up North when I lived there. I never caught that signature fragrance when we were living in the south. I always found it to be quite a pleasant smell, although I am sure some might not think it so. There was just something about it that I loved.
We have had some beautiful days this past week. Sunny and bright with blue, blue skies. I don't think the skies are ever any bluer than they appear to be in October. They are so lovely and bright, and of course the blue skies contrast so very well with the leaf color. The leaves are coming down fast now. They will soon be all down. Best enjoy them while we can.
This is a photograph that I just took with my phone. You can see the frost on the rooftops and grass this morning. The sky has not yet taken on the blue that it will. The leaves are not quite as dramatic across the way as they were a week or so ago. I will have to take my plant down and dump it. I noticed yesterday that it was very frost-bitten when I was on my way back from checking my post box. I did not have the time then to do it.
I know, that sounds funny. I did not have the time. I really have all the time in the world, but it is filled with priorities, I guess. I had other things that I needed to do first and then I didn't feel like it. That's the truth of it. But that is one of the luxuries of getting older like I am. Nothing is so pressing that it cannot wait a bit.
Speaking of Jo, I had a lovely facetime call with her yesterday. We had been planning this for a few weeks now and everything finally fell into place. I think we talked for two and a half hours, and it was simply wonderful to catch up with each other. I don't think either of us noticed the time passing until it had passed! That is always the mark of a good friend, when you haven't talked in ages and then you finally catch up and it seems as if no time has passed since the last time that you talked and you could just talk forever when you finally do, without even noticing. It was such a lovely catch up. I enjoyed every minute of it. I told her we really need to do it more often. But she and Colin live very busy lives, and amazingly I do as well. We have made a vow to try to catch up with each other at least before Christmas. Here's hoping!
I have plans to do a video today. I just need to go to the store and pick up a few bits. I will leave it as a surprise. My daughter Eileen has been wanting me to do this particular thing and keeps asking me to, so I think I will do it today. I have this newer phone now that has a pause button on the video function, so I am going to try it out! I hope that it all goes to plan! And if not, well I will have fun doing it anyways! It will be good for a laugh no matter how it turns out. Count it all joy.
Oh, and I have so been enjoying Nobody Wants This on Netflix. I am down to the last couple of episodes now and am not wanting it to end. (I have been savoring it and stretching it out for as long as I can. I think I heard that there is going to be a second series. I sure hope so!)
Do you think I can say that I have dodged the Covid bullet yet? I am afraid to think it so, but it has been 11 days since I was first exposed to it. I have been trying to book an appointment to have my next booster online, but for some reason the page won't come up for me. Glenna has been able to book hers for next week. Maybe they are all full up. I know that the library won't be getting any new test packages until November they said. There will probably be a run on them. I hope that I remember to go and get a pack for myself. The ones I do have are a bit out of date, but they do say that they are still effective if out of date. At least that is what I have read.
I can hear the blue jays and the crows out back shouting for their breakfast and with that I best leave you with a thought for the day . . .
New in the Kitchen today, Pumpkin Gingerbread Loaf. I know the photos are not the greatest, but this is a really delicious loaf. I hope you won't let the darkness of the photo put you off. It was really lovely. Moist and dense, sweet and spicy. I enjoyed some of it with lashings of butter yesterday and a cup of hot apple tea!
I hope that you have a beautiful weekend full of nice things that bring you joy. I will see you back here on Monday. Stay safe, be blessed, be happy. Whatever you get up to, don't forget!
Hello my online neighbors.
I love that word, neighbors. It has nothing to do with proximity, it's a state of mind. I always feel like I have neighbors all over the world. Kindred spirits. People who I have never met in person, but through the touching of our hearts, we have become the best of neighbors. People I love to share the details of my life with because I know they will honor them. Invisible friends as it were.
It is a very cold morning this morning. After a clear, clear night where the moon shone down in brilliance, the day is dawning clear and very cold. It was 1*C when I got up at 5:30 and has only risen one degree since them. For those of you who are in America, 1*C is the equivalent of 33.8 in Fahrenheit. So very chilly indeed. I am glad that I took my outdoor geranium over to Cindy's yesterday so that it could winter in safety along with theirs. I have no windowsill here in my house that is wide enough to hold it now, not without the cats knocking it over. I really only have two windows, My large front window and my bedroom window. I don't think the doors are actually classify as windows, do you? Well perhaps, but there are no ledges to hold things.
Also, the fact is that you cannot have a cat (s) and also have things on the window ledges safely, not unless you don't mind things getting broken. It is in their nature to want to sit at the window and watch the outside world, and I do not, I will not, begrudge them that small pleasure.
The glory of October in Nova Scotia is something most beautiful to behold. The small town where I live is nestled in the heart of a valley snuggled in between two mountains, which are bordered on their outer edges with water. To the North, the Bay of Fundy. To the South, the wild Atlantic.
Mom always called this God's country and, although you may beg to differ (we all hold particular allegiances to where we are from), I have to agree. This is God's country. Never more than at most an hour away from the ocean, or twenty minutes from the bay, at this time of year the mountains are coated in changing colors, interspersed between the green of the abundant fir trees that never change, not really.
It is always beautiful here in October. Marked by the blazing splendor of the Maple trees, the pure garnet of oaks, and tawny swathes of harvested fields. On a good day, bordered by brilliant blue skies with nary a cloud and on a bad day, skies of deepening shades of gray cloud.
Beauty surrounds us.
Our little valley is full of orchards from one end to the other. Apples, pears, peaches. Fields of pumpkins and corn, onions and potatoes. In early summer, beautiful berries. Now the orchards ring with the sounds of the apple pickers as they work. Most come from Jamaica. You see them in town from time to time, balancing their shopping on top of their heads. It seemed to be most peculiar to me at first, but I am quite used to seeing it now.
The maple tree in my back yard is finally turning now. It does not get really scarlet as some of them do. But it does turn a burnished yellow. First to get its leaves in the spring, and last to lose them in the autumn. It lost a large branch over this past year that broke during a fierce windstorm. It always amazes me that trees can bend and break as they do, and yet still continue.
I suppose that is a bit like us. We also bend and sometimes break, and yet still . . . we somehow carry on. What does not break us, somehow builds us.
There has been someone camped down in the town park by the river for the last month or so. There is a series of small tents and tarps. My heart goes out to the homeless, especially at this time of year when the temperatures are dropping, and you know the Winter is just around the bend. They are very much at the mercy of the elements. We live in one of the richest countries in the world and yet we still cannot fully take care of our own. It saddens me to see.
I think if I had the money and means I would buy these people a better tent to protect them from the elements and perhaps a good camp stove to keep them warm. I saw a couple, a man and a woman, walking down the gravel path towards the encampment as I drove past yesterday, and I had to wonder if these were the poor souls who have found themselves having to exist in such a way.
It did sadden my heart. I am always very cognizant of my own blessings. I know that there, but for the grace of God, go I. Those of us who rent are always flying precariously close to homelessness, finding ourselves at the mercy of Landlords who hold our purse-strings tightly. I am grateful that this place I live in only raises the rent when someone vacates a property. So, my rent will stay relatively stable for as long as I am here. That is an extra special blessing that I do not take for granted.
I try not to think of how precarious my situation is most of the time. I just keep plugging away. I will do so for as long as I am able, and after that . . . who knows. What will be will be. I am not ever going to let the uncertainty of an unknown future deny me the joy that is mine to hold today. I count my blessings where I find them and very much trust in Him to take care of me and mine. He has yet to let me down.
These are some of the things in life that I enjoy, and which make me happy, inspire me, or put a smile on my face. Maybe some of them are yours too. Let's share!
Gingham, blue, lace, pillow cases, ruffles, bows . . . what's not to love!
First of all I love pie, but ducks on a pie? How cute!
Pretty tea towels and they co-ordinate.
What's not to love about that ottoman. I would love to have a nice cushy one like that to prop my feet up on when I am watching television. It looks so comfortable.
Cherries . . .
Vintage Appliances . . .
Vintage Barbie . . .
Old Victorian houses. There are a few of these in my town. They are so pretty, but I can well imagine how expensive they are to heat.
Vintage fashion plates . . .
Pumpkin Pie. Whipped cream please.
Dolls. Of any kind. Especially homemade ones.
Pretty windows . . .
Pottery bowls . . .
Flower sprigged dresses . . .
Beatrix Potter . . .
Rocking horses . . .
Pansies with their little faces . . .
Warm cardigans . . .
Candle light . . .
A nice hug from someone you care about . . .
A safe place to hide . . .