A rainy day

It has been warm and sunny.  Balmy temperatures and clear blue skies all through the Thanksgivings Holiday.  It is almost hard to believe this, and to feel my body being enveloped in such warmhearted, welcoming sunshine and warmth this late in the season it is a most remarkable thing. 

This is the first time in the two years we've been here that things are finally starting to make sense as far as temperature in the south concerns...  it was unusual, indeed, all that bitter cold and snow of the last two years, and now, being able to go outside and enjoy each moment of my day without feeling discomfort, it is just amazing.  Yesterday at Costco I realized how lucky I am.  The minute I entered the freezer where the vegetables and such are kept I was suddenly reminded of the cold of the north and the frostiness biting my bones on days just like these.  I trembled just to think about it.  My warmth seeking bones are truly thankful for real southern temperatures.    

And then, in the afternoon, I went to the garden and spend quite some awesome time alone with God and Nature. Not the slightest discomfort whatsoever.  Today, it is a rainy day.  The tin-tin-tin music of rain and the fine clear sheets coming down from gray skies have soothed the garden in a thousand ways.  Delightfulness of sheer silence and stillness.  Even the birds seems scarce today.  What are they doing, I wonder.  Are they watching the rain from their own tiny adobes, just like I'm doing right now?  I can picture them snuggling up behind windows and walls of sticks and twigs high up on suitable branches.

The Queen Elizabeth rose I planted last year by the garage door is still putting up blooms.  

I cut a few young buds and embellished our Thanksgivings table with it... 

Then, they unfurled to magnificence and to the most beautiful color ever.  

I can hardly believe that my December table is wearing roses from my garden.  

What a blessing this is. 

Everything looks so beautiful with the rain outside.  

This morning I walked up the hill to our mailbox in my pjs.  

From the top of the road the little white house resembled a fairytale cottage.  

My fantasy come true!

If I go knock on the door, would Bashful or Dopey, or Sleepy open the door?   

 Or maybe is it a witch who lives there?  

One have to wonder...

This summer, coming home after one of our trips, we found a most unusual thing in our garden close to the woods... a mound of branches all neatly stacked and left between two trees...  I even took a photograph of it to prove my story true.

Do you supposed this was the work of some of the mysterious dwellers of the woods?  Was this some witch's firewood collected with the intentions of using it to warm her den and cook her potage?  Perhaps this witch had to leave her wood behind in a hurry, sensing that we were close by?  Whatever this meant, it surely was a strange thing indeed.  That's why I love living in the country, close to a forest.  Anything of the fantasy sorts can surely happen here at any given moment.

Rain, and rainy days make me want to light up little lamps and such around the house.  What a better day to bring out the Christmas tree and fairy lights.  So I did.  The little white cottage looks lovely all shimmered up.  Gloominess lifting up in swirls of twinkling little lights reminiscent of fairytales and itty bitty stars.  I am so thankful and blessed for being able to stay home with all these free time on my hands to just enjoy my little moments.   I'll be showing you my 2015 Christmas tree real soon, so stay around! ;) 

Life...

My heart is overflowing with thankfulness and humble gratitude.  Thankful for days of joyful togetherness with dear ones, the young and the old as well.  Thankful for days aglow with golden sunshine and warmth, for lively woods, white cats and a little house where birds abound. 

I've been entertaining and feeding some very dear people; been reminiscing, loving, helping, singing, laughing, immersing myself in simple moments.  But we're living stories too, with love to give and people to walk beside, hence, as our parents age, we have our own measure of teary eyes and hearts of blue to share too. Even so, I can still say that blessings abound.  For even in those shadowy drawers of our humanity where uncertainties and fear inhabit, there are blessings and beauty to be found too. 

Now everyone has left.  The little white cottage has regained normality.  But it feels too quiet, and too lonely for the heart that feels so much.  I want to forget things which cannot be forgotten.  I want to restore my mother's memories put on hold.  Delete this bend in the road.  Rewrite endings.  But I can only be.   I can only love generously, find my inner peace in prayer and leave everything else to God.

Tomorrow will be a better day.  I shall again share with you whatever little light my heart may possess.  But for now, this is all what it can muster.  I hope you can understand.

Thank you for being such a beautiful and important part of my life. 

Much peace and love throughout the season. 

Vacationing and Cottage Chatter...

Outside, the rain.  We’re feeling rich on everything right now, thankful for what we have, and wealthy with time.  Thankful for our precious dear ones.  To still have them with us, to cherish them... things may not be as perfect as we like them to be, but still heaven kindly leaves some bird of hope to sing.  For this, my heart is humbled and overflowing with thankfulness. 

We have been enjoying these last few weeks of vacation, but I am already looking forward to a return to our little white cottage and the things I want to do, like putting up our Christmas trees and embellishing our porch with twinkly lights.  I am also looking forward to finishing up the project I started working on before we left...  a new path in the garden...

I am pleased with how the concrete steeping stones we made awhile back turned out.  I would had preferred painting them in the green stain I had envisioned, but we ended up opting for the leftover stain we already had on hand from when we stained our fence.  I still think we should at least paint the veins on the concrete leaves green to make the details pop a little bit.   

I knew that this project of the stepping stones was going to bring more work into my already busy home life, but there was no way around it for me after they were done.  Thus, I created a new garden path.  Not an easy job removing all that sot by yourself, on a particularly rainy day like I did.  But the worse is now done.

It is now just a matter of deciding what I want to see there.  Perhaps some colorful annuals?  Or maybe some white stones?  Red mulch?  More gravel? This path it really is not meant to be traveled. The concrete stones are too thin and if you notice, one has already cracked.  Therefore, I placed the gardenia tree in the green pot there and I think it will look lovely once the flowers start to bloom.  Needless to say, however, that this project will have to wait until after the holidays.  But it is such an empowering thing to dream.

I am also dreaming with cozy little nests, reading mystery novels in comfy beds, flannel sheets, candles flickering, smelling cinnamon, oranges and cloves, pumpkin pies, fluffy feather bed on cold nights, watching movies snuggled in soft blankets, cozy socks, pretty boots and scarves, pie in the oven, wind blowing through leaves, glow of little lamps through windows, laughter filling the kitchen and dinning room, salsa dancing, family.

  

Blessings, everyone!

Hope you're enjoying some magical days wherever you are...

I'll be back soon.

The sea and I - Part II

Then today.... the menacing music of the storm whistling across the sea...  

  

"I scowl in sullen guise­

The sea grows dark and dun...

The swift clouds hide the sun

But not the bale-light in my eyes,

And the frightened wind as it flies

Ruffles the billows with stormy wing,

And the sea is a terrible, treacherous thing!" 

And the little waves laugh and the mermaids sing,

And the sea is a beautiful, sinuous thing! 

Lucy Maud Montgomery

The sea and I

The little town with the gorgeous emerald green waters and sugar white sand beaches where we're staying this week.... 

I've been enchanted.

I sit on the balcony facing the ocean, and my soul and spirit fly into the mystic.  "What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?".

The view from our room is mesmerizing.  

There's a magic about the sea that captivates the spirit...

 yet, at the same time it pulls it away from it.  Irrevocably.   

My heart doesn't love the sea, and I still find a reflection of my soul in it... 

...in the futility of waves, and their desire to return to the shore and spill themselves submissively into the nothingness...

Wild hair flying everywhere... building castles in the air... “She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.” (Janet Fitch).

 Collecting visions of things not seen...

Secrets in the depths of the deep?

Imagination may ride atop the nonsense... but, "what would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark?  It would be like sleep without dreams.”  (Werner Herzog).

The Fisherman and I went to the pier early this morning... it was cold and very windy.

But everyone was happy

As each of us soon engaged in doing that what we love doing the most...

The Fisherman and I walked on white powdery sand later on... under the last kiss of the sun upon the waters.  We watch the sun's slow descend into the abyss, as it tinted crimson the heavens and earth.  

And upon the waters; all silvery and shadowy, the wings of the brown pelicans.

“Waves are the voices of tides. They are the ocean's pulse, and our own heartbeat.”  (Tamora Pierce)

We had such marvelous time strolling the beach on the whitest and softest of sands.  Then, on our way back, we stumbled upon a real mermaid...  isn't she lovely.   She even let me photograph her and share her photo with you!

The great ocean spills itself in its bearings; emptied of all cares... I don't pretend to understand it.  We cannot stretch our thoughts to the depths of God's mind.  The sea is God in its inscrutable ways before man... it makes me feel small.  It humbles me.   Cielo.

See you soon!