Looking Forward to a New Year

Love and Best Wishes to You All  ♥

Late February Haiku

thousandth dim snow day,

ever-empty cat perch.

pink petals, come soon!

Waiting

. . .for curtains?  'Am still looking for the right shade of green for the gingham ones I want here.

Saturday Afternoon

dear sweet Stuffed  ♥

Home Today

A cleansing and beautifying project seemed the way to go this weekend, and it's a rare weekend off, so I've been painting the orange wall a soft white as the start of redoing the wall in white, pink, and green.  A couple months ago, I ordered a wallpaper sample of this print--

--but since I'm not allowed to wallpaper here, I'm using the sample more as an idea for a hand-painted design.  

The red gingham curtains will be (moved into the bedroom possibly and) replaced with green gingham ones.  I have green gingham fabric I've ordered, green gingham fabric my grandmother's passed along, and a ready-made green gingham valance found at a thrift shop on one of my last visits home, so I'm thinking some combination of those pieces to make the new curtains.  I don't enjoy sewing, the curtain rods' brackets are rickety and like to fall out of the wall/window-frame whenever I so much as stare at them too long, and the wall and widow-frames themselves are as unyielding as bricks, so nothing about the curtain-making or curtain-hanging sounds like anything but a hassle except finishing it, so as soon as all the white-painting and rose-painting are done, I will need to buckle down and just do it. 

The white wall, green gingham, mostly gray pots/pans, probably-black frames for the samplers, and the pink roses all sound comforting and fresh and "me" to me and are the coziness I need right now, so I'm happy to see the change taking place finally, after having collected various pieces of the project for the past few months.  The safe haven of home is going to be that much sweeter and prettier, and the goal is to finish this part of it by Christmas.  Painting the swirls and stems of a few roses a day will be therapeutic this next month, and in the meantime, the soft white is soothing too.  

Thank you all for your kind words and prayers the past couple weeks.  ♥  I haven't had any nightmares the past two nights, which is huge.  And after working late the night before and racing around the morning of to finish making a sign to take with me, I did attend the peace rally in the park yesterday.  Security took away my sign before I could enter, telling me signs were not allowed, so I had arrived late for nothing after having made it.  Ah well, I made the effort, I attended, and now I will enjoy home and time off for another day.  Life is going on, and I remain determined to make it as sweet and good as I can, using cardboard signs, cans of paint, prayers, piles of books, hazelnut candles, wallpaper samples, and whatever else it takes. The back of my sign had simply read "Hang in there, Pittsburgh," and I will take my own advice. 

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥ 

Two Charming Things

My dear little Stuffed fell asleep with his paw in his leftovers, I noticed as I walked past the bathroom window-perch, and he was in a deep enough sleep that my coming back with a camera didn't disturb him.  ♥

In another happy window scene, tonight I am getting to see my faux-stained glass roses again:  Finally, a night that is cool enough to be comfortable with the window closed!  I'm not a summer person so am utterly thrilled with this change.  Autumn:  Bring it!  ♥

Brighter Days and French Breads

"The shortest day has passed, 

and whatever nastiness of weather 

we may look forward to in January and February, 

 at least we notice that the days are getting longer.  

Minute by minute they lengthen out.  

It takes some weeks before we become aware of the change.  

It is imperceptible even as the growth of a child, 

as you watch it day by day, 

 until the moment comes when with a start of delighted surprise 

we realize that we can stay out of doors 

in a twilight lasting for another quarter of a precious hour."
~  Vita Sackville-West, 

December 30th, 1956

♥

I love that passage.  Right now at five-o'clock, it is still light out.  I'm not minding January this year.  Some years, as they say, are better than others.  Last year, almost everything about the month got on my nerves, or so I remember it.  This January finds me feeling hopeful and cozy.  Three loaves of Glenda's French bread are in the middle of their second rise and will soon be placed in the oven to go with tonight's supper--it feels like a soup and bread night here--so the scents of yeast and flour are in the air.  Love.  The last time I made French bread, it was 2001 and I had just turned twenty-four.  I used my grandmother's recipe and ended up with ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! dozens?! of small and almost-inedible loaves.  Grandma had died just a few weeks before and I tried to honor her by making her bread for a family dinner.  Bad, brokenhearted timing, and after hours of kneading, punching-down, forming loaves, and baking:  Bad, brokenhearted bread too.  I trust that tonight's loaves will be better.   The smell of homemade bread, in all the bread's stages, always takes me back to my grandparents' kitchen outside of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.  Just before sliding her loaves into the oven, Grandma would slice a small X into the top of each one.  One Baking Day while I was staying with at my grandparents' house, I decided to add the finishing touch of a letter V to each of the loaves, and Grandma was first perplexed and then amused.  Few things taste as good as fresh bread with butter, and the smell of the loaves instantly transports me back to Grandma's apron-covered side.  It is always--likely forever and always--almost impossible to believe that if I went to my grandparents' house at any given moment, that I wouldn't find them there.  Surely, Grandma is nodding off a bit in her armchair right now as I write this and thinking every time she wakes that she really needs to get up and put together a little supper for her and Papa.  Surely, Papa keeps walking from the back porch to check the thermometer to the kitchen to look out the window at the snow.  If I called right now, I would wake Grandma from her catnap, but she would be tickled to hear from me, and we would want to hear that the other was staying warm and would ask what the other was making for supper.  She would tell me what she and Papa might watch on television that evening--usually a nature program--and would mention that Papa would be walking down to the post office in the morning to mail her next letter to me.  I would tell her that I'm taking down the Christmas tree tonight and that Stuffed has been stretched out like a piece of gum along the bedroom radiator all day.  We would say "I love you" before hanging up and soon we would both settle down to our simple meals of homemade soup and French bread.  

Tuesday Mish-Mash

I'm enjoying another cozy rainy day here, and from the looks of Stuffed ever-rearranging himself in his nest of old quilts, I'm guessing he's happy too.  I'm thinking pot pies for supper, to use up a mish-mash of ingredients in the freezer.  And I'm making an effort to whittle down some of the things I've saved in my email over the years.  A few items from my Miscellaneous folder of found quotes, ideas, tips, stories, and General Things I Love and Don't Want to Lose:

• In a CNN story online this summer about how eating apples helps you live longer, someone concurred in the comment section:  "I've been eating seven apples a day since 1811.  I'm over 200 years old and going strong."  :)  Mike and I laughed over that off and on the next few nights, it's so silly.  :)
• Whenever I get to visit Vermont, Jericho is on my must-explore list.  Have any of you visited?  It sounds fascinating and just beautiful.
• When I started this blog, I was working in a deli and bakery to save some money for my move here, and one of the store's resident curmudgeon customers huffed his way up to the counter and asked for however-much white Cooper cheese.  I told him that we were out of the white Cooper just then, but that we had yellow.  "Ohhhh," he growled at me.  "The whole world's gone to hell!"  That still makes me laugh.  "The whole world's gone to hell" became a catchphrase between me and my coworkers and me and my parents for the next couple weeks.  
• I love Sean Hayes' song "Powerful Stuff," and I emailed myself a link to this live performance of it in May 2012.  ♥  ♫  "Every day, do like a flower does.  Sun rises and she opens up.  Sun rises and she sings. . . ."  ♪  Mmmmmmmmmm.  Gorgeous song, gorgeous voice, gorgeous lyrics
• In the text of an interview with historian David McCullough I emailed myself in 2007, McCullough is asked by the interviewer what he hopes to accomplish in his then-new book 1776.  "Most important of all," he responds, "I hope I've conveyed that no one knew how things were going to turn out.  All the signs were that they didn't stand a chance, that the war was over and that we had lost.  It was the darkest time in the history of our country.  The prospects for the United States of America never looked so bleak.  But because a handful of very brave people refused to see it that way, we are the beneficiaries.  Without them, the Declaration of Independence would be only that, a declaration, words on paper."  He goes on to say that, "Ingratitude is a shabby human failing."  Beautifully put.  
• I'm a sucker for a good how-to-clean-your-home-with-[lemons/vinegar/in this case, Alka-Seltzer] and emailed myself this article years ago.  I use the sink-drain-cleaning tip often.
• In 2005, wise and witty Julie of the blog "A Little Pregnant" shared this gem of a conversation that took place in the New Orleans airport that summer.  The paragraph begins with "I miss Southern women," and ends with "That, my friends, is grace."  Indeed.  ♥
•  When I was a kid, thirteen or younger, I had a dream in which I was standing inside my grandparents' bedroom with my grandmother.  She was showing me a pearl necklace as the dream began, and as I looked at it with her as she held it in her hands, she said, "God has a necklace of pearls.  Every time one falls (from the chain), a human life is restored in its place."  That was the entire dream.  I woke up then and wrote it down, but I would have remembered what she said anyway.  
• This banana bread recipe makes the best I've ever had.  There is a container of sour cream in it, and the loaf pans are dusted with a cinnamon-sugar mixture.  Otherwise, it's a basic recipe.  But ohhhhh!  Truly!  Banana Bread Heaven!  ♥

There!  Back to sorting here, then on to pot pie-baking.  'Hope you all are having a good day.  Thank you again for your sweet comments on my autumn walk post too.  ♥

First Walk This September

Home Today

♥

Bird Window

Parallel to our apartment's entrance door is a set of double windows I've been cheering-up with my little bird collection.  Some of the birds are gifts, one I made, and a few are ornaments from Target's dollar bins.  One of these days, I want to paint or make a Baltimore Oriole for the window at right (not shown).  I've only ever seen two, the first high in a tree my grandfather pointed out in his backyard, and another in the thicket across the road from my parents' house as I was returning home from one of my long walks in the summer of 2007.  Good memories, both.  And there should be a Cardinal for my younger brother, the St. Louis Cardinals fanatic.  I'll likely paint or make another  Black-capped Chickadee too. 

One of the best things about our old apartment was that it offered a good view of its its side-yard from our bathroom window and it was woodsy enough that we got to see (and feed) birds every day.  Birds would land on our fire escape there too, much to Stuffed's delight.  (He would perch on the window sill as he watched the birds, one of his front paws occasionally up against the windowpane, tail steadily wagging left, right, left, right. . . .)  This apartment's windows, with two exceptions, don't look out onto nature at all, so we all see fewer birds these days.  My bird window and potted plants and vases of grocery store-bought flowers are hardly substitutes for the real things, but in a "Bloom where you're planted" sense, they cheer up the space and are even that much of a balm to the soul. 

Today's Charming Thing

Burrow and trudge are words that will do to define this January, and if I ever write a children's book about winter, I'm here and now claiming Burrow and Trudge as its title, thank you.  (I'm serious.  It's perfect.)  :)  It has been a trying month.  I found myself playing "Grandma's Alphabet Game" late last night with the subject of Things I Am Looking Forward to Tomorrow.  (A:  a day off, B:  bagels for breakfast, C:  chili Mike was planning to make for tonight's supper, D:  dishes washed and put away. . . .)  Tonight it is cheering enough to look around my home determined to see the little things that are beautiful but easily looked past.  These strings of red plastic heart beads hang along the window frames in both the kitchen and bathroom, and their reflection against the white wood always charms me. 

Tuesday Was

A much-needed "Thank you so much" before I left work.  A blissfully short walk home in below-zero temperatures.  Slipping but not falling when I was about a block from our front door.  Frost and ice on the kitchen window (and on the scarf I'd wrapped around my nose and mouth) when I finally arrived.  Hot chocolate and a good nap, only waking when my alarm went off.  A long letter from Mom and a beautiful birth announcement-photo card from my younger brother and his wife. 

 

Turkey meatloaf (this wonderful recipe) for supper with salad and potatoes on the side.  Apple crumb pie for Mike.  Finishing Wally Lamb's We Are Water (the first book of his I didn't love) cuddled up under a pile of blankets in bed.  Reading that the Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling) detective story I finished the other night and loved has a sequel coming out sometime this year. 

Treating myself to an online order of a pink wool coat I saw in a store last month and thought I'd missed-out on.  Seeing this sweet dollhouse online and squealing.  (A steeper roof and that's one of my dream houses.)  Remembering for the whatever-day-in-a-row to take my vitamin.  'Finding various recipes for "Pea Salad," which I'd neither heard of nor thought of before but am now happily making for my supper for tonight.  Going to bed early.  So far, this January very much feels like January. 

In Mom and Dad's Yard

Having returned from a brief trip home to Mom and Dad yesterday, I've already enjoyed a big part of my Christmas.  This week's "Merry Early Christmas!" visit, as it's come to be known in our family, at least according to my older niece and nephew's now-traditional greetings, was one of the sweetest ever.  I had so much fun--I think we all did--everyone seemed to be happy with the gifts they gave and received, my newest niece was even tinier than she'd looked in pictures and just as cuddly as I'd imagined and spent a good deal of our meeting asleep snuggled into my shoulder, I did some cupcake-decorating for Mom, enjoyed a lasagna dinner with my parents, brothers, and their wives and children Tuesday evening, and exchanged gifts with my parents while watching the Waltons' Homecoming movie--one of my all-time favorites--until midnight Tuesday night.  Mom and I went to bed at two in the morning then got up three hours later to head to the bus station with Dad.  I said "I love you" to him at the same moment he said "A short Christmas is better than none," and I cried while I watched his and Mom's car pull out of the bus station parking lot a minute later.  All the snow--more than a foot--in their yard added to the magic of this Christmas.  Temperatures are warming up--it's supposed to be in the lower sixties here on Saturday--but while I was home, it was a winter wonderland, and after I'd finished wrapping the gifts I'd had shipped to my parents' address and before my brothers and their families arrived for dinner, I borrowed a pair of Dad's boots and clomped around the yard taking pictures. 

Mom always decorates the back steps.  The only shame of heading outside to take snow pictures Tuesday afternoon was that doing so temporarily scared away all the birds that come to my parents' trees and feeders.  Dad and I both love Chicadees best of all, and we spend a good amount of any wintertime visit standing still at the sliding glass door or one of the kitchen windows watching them flit around.  Chubby loves, they're such dear little birds. 

These are the steps I kept checking and worrying over before baby Bianca was carried up them for this first visit to my parents' house Tuesday.  Dad had kept an eye on them too, and I think they and the yard were more thick-with-snow than slippery. 

The Rhododendrons had had the sweetest cone-shaped piles of snow on top of each leaf cluster Tuesday morning, but by the time I ventured outside, the snow had melted some.  Off and on all Tuesday morning and afternoon, Mom, Dad, and I would call out bird updates to each other as we watched this feeder and a few others that can be seen from the kitchen.  "The female Cardinal's back!"  ♥  ". . .Look to your right"--"I'm still not seeing her"--"She's not the red one, the males are red"--"I know that, Dad, but I still don't--Oh, I see her now, yeah."  ♥  "Look how CHUBBY this one is!  Oh, I love Chicadees!  They look like little wind-up toys!"  ♥  "Mom, move slowly, but look at this Dove.  It's HUGE.  I thought a CAT had jumped into the tree."  ♥  "And there's that nasty Blue Jay, scaring them all away." --"It's so pretty, though, Dad."  ♥  On and on, all day Tuesday until it grew dark out. 

At our last apartment, Mike and I saw birds in our yard and on our fire escape all the time, but not so in this one--a couple Gold Finches spent some time in a tree out back months ago, and that was the last memorable bird-sighting--so it is always a joy to watch the trees and feeders while at my parents' house. 

Magical.  ♥

Such a gorgeous snow. 

One of my parents' neighbors kindly plowed their long driveway while I was trudging around taking these pictures. 

I stepped off to the side to get out of his way and ended up in snow almost to my knees, but oh!  It was all so beautiful. 

The Sumac trees out back are lovely all year long, but their drupes show so vividly against the winter sky. 

I think gardens are every bit as beautiful in winter.  It's easier to admire the tree branches' shapes and the flowers' forms when they're bare but for the snow.

I love winter skies.  Christmas decorations and cards always seem to feature greenery, but it's the bare trees that really say winter to me.  This hill is across the road from my parents' front yard and their view from the living room and my former bedroom. 

'Amazing that this all will have melted in a few day's time. 

From inside the living room--

--and looking toward my former bedroom's windows.

And back inside and looking out the kitchen window before beginning cupcake-decorating and table-setting. 

The one snow picture I didn't get was one I shared with my parents after I came inside:  While the three of us watched the birds for a few moments from inside the sliding glass door, the sun began to set over the sparkling field behind their house, and its last hurrah was to make it and the trees around it glow in the day's first--and last--truly golden light.  For a minute before my brief visit home's Tuesday afternoon became Tuesday evening, the entire backyard was a shining soft yellow, and those moments, while Mom, Dad, and I watched, standing together on the sheets of newspaper beside my dripping borrowed boots, was one of my favorites from this sweet visit.  Photographers call this the "golden hour" or "magic hour."  And it was.  It really was.  Merry Early Christmas, indeed.  ♥