Reasons to be thankful

My thoughts this week have been turned towards the awful situation in Japan.  Maybe it's because I have a school friend living there that makes it all the more real - but I can't help think about those poor people who have lost everything, survived the earthquake and tsunami but are now struggling to survive, with limited food, heat and power.  It makes me think how much we take for granted.  That we can turn on a tap and get water, boil a kettle and make a cup of tea - all of which will be difficult for some to do over there.

It makes me remember the importance of the little things that make up our lives, the kindness of others, little moments of happiness we find in each day and being thankful for what we have.  This week I've enjoyed

• Watching Little Roo working out how his sister's bicycle works
• Coming to bed late and hearing snoring from behind each bedroom door - my own bit of research that shows I am the only one who doesn't snore!
• Coming downstairs in the morning and discovering the glowing, still-burning embers of a big log I had put on the fire the night before.
• Leaving a comment on a lovely blog and winning (and receiving) a book from a perfect stranger - do pop over and have a look at her lovely blog here we were.  The book is called The Story Blanket and it is about a lady who has a colourful blanket that the children of the village sit on for stories.  But the blanket gets smaller everyday as new knitted items are found by villagers who are in need of, a sock, a scarf, some mittens, a shawl - until there is no blanket left to sit on.  Then the villagers all take a bit of wool from all of their blankets and give it to Babba Zarrah who knits a new story blanket.  A lovely story about sharing and giving and receiving.

What are you being thankful for this week?

PS If you feel moved to donate to those people suffering in Japan from the earthquake and tsunami then please pop over to ShelterBox and make a difference.  Thank you.

Squirreling away

There's been a lot of squirreling away recently.  Jams and Chutney's made and stored away, apples peeled, cored, cut and frozen for later use in pies and crumbles, logs stacked by the back door and this bounteous pile of nuts.  DH and I spent a lovely Sunday evening  de-husking these nuts, chatting with a glass of wine.

All this makes me think how lucky I am to live in the countryside.  I'm not sure I would be so productive living in a city but with all these goodies on the doorstep it's hard not to want to harvest and store.  I feel so connected to the seasons these days, I have my little rituals, - ah it's October, time for making chutney from the many windfalls we've been given! -  and I love the way that they are becoming part of family life.

First's and hundredth's

I am restless today . . . I don't feel settled . . . It seems like I can not get on with anything . . . although jobs have been done, the washing hung out, the dishwasher loaded and started, lunch made and eaten, Little Roo played with and then put down for his nap, some gentle weeding done but I am somewhere else . . . Flopsy Bunny is at school for her first day today and it seems like all my energy and attention is with her, although I don't know what she is doing or how she is feeling. Less than an hour to go before I pick her up - what treats lie in store for her - it feels like I will be welcoming her home after a long time away . . .

Blogger informs me that this is my 100th post - whoopee!! Seems somehow appropriate that it should coincide with today.

The Season is changing

There was a definite nip in the air today, despite it being quite bright and sunny. DH said, 'you've decided summer is over' as I washed down the paddling pool and packed it away. He may have a point, although he was the one splitting logs for kindling!! So it looks like we are set to hunker down for the autumn. We brambled on Saturday and just in time too as the last jar of last year's jam got finished today. Luckily I had made a whole new batch on Saturday, with a new Blackberry and Apple Jam recipe that I had found, which should keep us going for another year - can't wait to try it out on some hot buttered toast. DH went foraging for mushrooms today and came back with a basket full, although I am not sure whether we will be brave enough to eat them. He did spend hours pouring over his mushroom book on his return and we are pretty certain they are OK . . . ! So with two days left of the summer holidays before Flopsy Bunny starts school I'm trying to remember how we filled our 6 weeks. It seemed such a long time to fill at the beginning, but as with most of life, it whizzed past really quickly. I must say that I am looking forward to having some structure in our lives again, although a little worried about the 8.50am deadline for Thursday morning!! Must set my alarm clock . . .

Waking up to mists this morning had DH reciting this poem and I thought you might like it to:

Ode to Autumn by John Keats
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

The beginnings of a new project

I can't quite believe that it was almost a year ago that I posted about this pile of fabric that I had just bought; and there it has patiently sat - except for the top two red ones which I made into Nellie! - until now! The time is right, or rather I suddenly felt that time was slipping away and that if I didn't get started on this project, which is something for Flopsy Bunny, she would be too old for it and wouldn't be interested in what I had made!!

So I have made a start and I have learnt something about myself. That if I don't start something it can sit on a To Do list for a very long time but as soon as I make a start it suddenly becomes more present and more difficult to put to one side and generally I just get on with what I've been planning to make, however slowly it takes. Having said that I've just remembered a top that just needs it's zip putting in!!! So it was funny to read Simple Mom's post Perfection: the thief of "good enough" and think 'that's me!' as part of why I've put this particular project off is that I want to make a good job of it, but it is something that I'm designing myself so I'm worried that it won't turn out as well as the vision I have in my head! Anyway, I have thrown caution to the wind and started to think who is this really for, me or Flopsy Bunny? As she won't care that my design isn't quite perfect enough!

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama's Friday moment, here's mine.

Happy Weekend's to everyone

Looking Back and Thinking Forward

Another snowy photo of our house and garden before the snow falls again - we are due heavy snow from 3am this morning and all day tomorrow. It is funny how all this snow can change the rhythm of our lives - everything has slowed down, there are less expectations, our days are suddenly free from obligations - I'm actually quite enjoying it.

It has given me a chance to look back on 2009, I've changed my project lists on the blog and was quite surprised when I counted up the things I had completed in 2009 and realised I had almost completed one a month - which considering I had a newborn baby and a three year old has actually been quite an achievement. I'm hoping to be more productive this year but I've also come to realise that I am a terrible planner of time. I tend to drift, have ideas and things in mind that I want to do but never get round to the sitting down and working out when I might actually do them. Time takes on a strange quality when you have children, as a mother I have certainly found that time is never my own any more and I need to think more carefully about how I am making the most of the time I have. I would love to hear how other people manage their lives - I always have this fantasy that everyone is so much more organised than I am!

The Collective Unconscious and Fruit Flies!

I've been musing about Jung's concept of the Collective Unconscious lately and the idea of universal experience. It makes me think that there is a lot more to our existence than we are aware of, particularly when it comes to communication and that we could be communicating on many different levels, not just the verbal level.

So case in point, fruit flies! I've been plagued by fruit flies for the last month or so. I'm not sure where they came from, but I can't seem to be able to get rid of them, even hiding the fruit in the fridge doesn't seem to work. So imagine my surprise when last week I came across two things about fruit flies! The first, very usefully, was angry chicken's blog who had, under the title of random things, instructions on how to make a fruit fly trap! The second was an article in The Week, on some research about fruit flies which discovered that after mating the female fruit fly, rather than take her normal lunchtime nap would busy herself with chores - finding food or a good nesting site, while the male went to sleep. I now seem to know a lot about fruit flies!

I guess it could be coincidence (which I'm sure it is) but then there is a part of me which likes the idea that we are all connected in some way and that if we need something, it will come to us from somewhere!

Spring is on the way and I'm back!

I feel a bit like a spring plant/flower at the moment; tentatively pushing up and out into space and light after a winter hibernation. Not that I've been hibernating, but my life has been turned upside down - in the nicest possible way - by Little Roo. Three months on and I feel like some semblance of normality is returning. Unfortunately making things is still a bit tricky, especially as Little Roo doesn't do much sleeping in the evening - my prime making time. But that doesn't mean my creative side has taken a back seat. Instead I have been gathering ideas and inspiration for projects to do when I've got time.

The concept of time changes when you have a newborn. Things that you could normally do quite quickly take a lot longer and you are forever having to put something down before finishing it. I have been trying to make some little booties for Little Roo as he seemed to have very cold feet, they are also quite big so I think it takes longer for his blood to get all the way down there to warm them up. Anyway, what with the cold feet and all the snow we had a pair of knitted booties seemed a great idea. I found a lovely Debbie Bliss pattern and decided to use up some of my left over wool. Unfortunately what would normally have taken me 2 evenings or possibly 3 to make ended up taking months and then of course Little Roo kept growing. So as fast (or slow) as I made one, he had grown out of it before I could start the next one. I have three booties, all in differing sizes and have now given up - especially as the weather is much warmer now. I'm just hoping there's a baby to give them to next winter - when I've made the matching pairs that is!