All things nice . . .

 

 

(Source)

 

Hope is the thing with feathers . . .

That perches in the soul . . . 

And sings the tune without the words . . .

And never stops . . .  at all . . .

And sweetest . . . in the gale . . . is heard

And sore must be the storm . . . 

That could abash the little bird . . . 

That kept so many warm . . . 

I've heard it in the chillest land . . . 

And on the strangest sea . . . 

Yet  . . .  never  . . .  in extremity,

It asked a crumb  . . .  of me. 

~Emily Dickenson 

I've always loved this poem by Emily Dickenson.  Hope is such a beautiful word, whose meaning is so beautifully expressed here, as a bird within the soul, with the capacity to sing, rain or shine, gale or storm, in good times and in bad. We hope even in the most difficult of times.  

Hope truly does spring eternal.  We must do or who would ever have the courage to move forward. 

 

The humming birds have afforded me all sorts of pleasure this week.  There is one who seems to have taken over my feeder. You can see it in the above photograph sitting on top of the feeder. There is a little receptacle up there which you can fill with water to keep ants out or some such. In any case she has been sitting in there like it was the crows nest on a ship, keeping watch. As soon as another bird comes along she chases it away.

In this photo, however, you can see another bird clearly at the base of the feeder.  It was trying to pretend it wasn't there. It sat still for ages. Not moving a muscle, perched below, which the one up top looked one way and another.  Finally the one on top flew off and the one below began to feed.  So I think my assumption that it was hiding from the one up top was probably correct. 

 

She was seriously not allowing any other bird to come to her feeder.  Seriously. I have witnessed many aerial battles, but haven't been able to capture them on film.  They move so quickly. 

 

She sat there for quite some time.  And was not bothered by my photo taking in the least.  Yesterday despite the rain, the battles continued.  These little creatures are such fun to watch. 

 

 

My cousin posted a photo of one of the kittens on Facebook.  So cute!  I am supposed to go and see them all a week from Sunday.  That is also co-incidentally the day my brother  and his wife arrive from Ontario. I am not sure what time of the day they are getting here, so hopefully I will have time to go and see the kittens.  So adorable. I no longer care if it is a boy or a girl.  Just a little furry family member to love, and to love me back.  They are four weeks old now. 

 

 

I picked Eileen and Tim up mid-afternoon yesterday and brought them back here to my place.  We made homemade Chinese food for our supper.  Well, Eileen and I had the Chinese food, Tim had frozen chicken and chips.  He doesn't like much out of the ordinary.   His loss, our gain.  

We did Chicken and Broccoli with white sauce from Woks of Life.  Eileen and I both love broccoli.  It turned out really nice, except I got the broccoli a bit too cooked and I would have liked it to be more crispy. 

 

We also did Beef Onion Stir Fry, from the same blog.  This was our favorite of the two dishes.  Both recipes were really simple to make.  I didn't get any photos as it was late in the day and we just wanted to eat.

I find that when you make Chinese food, it is best to get everything ready to go/cook.  If you have everything ready then you can just start cooking.   I cooked some Jasmine rice to go along with it.  Both dishes were delicious and very easy to put together.  I think that blog is a great source of good Chinese dishes, and have bookmarked a few other recipes to try out at some point. 

Making Chinese food with your daughter has to be one of my favorite things to do.  It was fun, fun, fun. I sent the leftovers home with her, so she won't have to cook today anyways.  Well, she will have to make something for Tim, but otherwise she won't need to cook. 

 

 

After we had cleaned up from supper (Chinese cooking makes a huge mess!) we sat around and chatted and sent funny gifs to each other.  We had been going to play cards, but I was too tired.  I took them home about seven o-clock.  I fell into bed last night exhausted for some reason. I have had a few nights like that this week, where I am almost too tired even to say my prayers. I don't know what is up with that.  I did say them, but it was a struggle. 

 

(source) 

My friend Jacquie stopped by briefly on her way up to pick up the keys to her new place yesterday afternoon, or maybe it was yesterday morning. We talked out on the front veranda.  She is moving up just to the other side of the town next to where I am.  A Senior's slab similar to mine, but exactly like my father's. I can remember when she first got told she could have one of those, we thought the first of August seemed to be so far off and couldn't imagine how she was going to wait that long, but here we are.  Today is the last day of July!  It doesn't seem possible.  But time is flying by.

While she was here the chipmunk came for his nuts. He wasn't too bothered by us both being out there. I haven't seen him yet this morning.  

I printed out patterns for making felt Christmas ornaments.  I made quite a few a number of years back and still had the patterns online.  I had bought them on Etsy.  One good thing about Etsy is if you buy download PDF patterns on there you can usually re-download them.   I had also bought some of Alicia Paulson's patterns a few years ago and of course they got left in the UK, and my old computer is Kaput, so I had to actually buy them again. I didn't mind too much as it is a good thing to support other artists.  In particular I wanted the red coat, the skates, etc.    Something to keep my hands really busy. 

 

Keeping your hands and mind busy is a good thing I think.  I have never been one to just sit there doing nothing. Vegetating. There will be plenty of time for that when I get really old and long in the tooth.

I best get off here now and get on with my day.  I have already spoken on the phone to my dad and my sister and I promised myself I was going to bake some muffins this morning.  I also want to get lots of writing work done today, so I can be all caught up with deadlines and stuff before my brother gets here. It looks like we have a brilliantly sunny day in the offing and I want to take advantage of that also.

I will leave you with a thought for the day . . . 

° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★

 *.˛.I choose to be happy now

I don't need more stuff, better weather,

a bigger budget, or a smaller body,

or to be any different from who I already am.

Now is a perfect time to be happy.

~Unknown  •。★★ 。* 。•。★★ 。* 。 

 

I small batched my Spanish Cake recipe.  This version makes a six inch cake. The perfect size for the smaller family.   This is quite simply one of my favourite cakes.  So much so, I once baked it three times in one week. Its just a great cake! 

I hope you experience some niceness in your day today and every day.  Don't forget! 

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And I do too!