Returning home...

A mockingbird told me the other day that the snows of the North decided to pay us a quick visit while I was away taking care of my parents... tumbling down came the magic... one, two, a thousand crystals made snowflakes. The little white cottage basked in a whiter white, and I heard it said that it felt cold and lonesome without me.  The handsome fisherman who leaves in the little white cottage called out my name every day, and asked for my return.  And thus, I just had to come back.  This is where I belong.    

...Now it is just cold when the sun sleeps, warm when it is out, but mostly cloudy, cloudy and gray for days and days, with a dancing fog in the evenings wrapping us up in dreams and tales upon last lights. 

The garden has nothing lovely to gift us and I only go out to it for a few minutes from time to time during my days.  But then again... listening to the woods murmuring, the sound of the wind among evergreens singing sad songs and enchanted tales.   Sometimes, I can't tell which moment, which cool gust of wind tousling my hair and my heart is real or just a dream.  And I'm reminded again and again that indeed there is beauty where one may had thought none.

I'm spending most of my hours in the house doing this and that. I light up all the little lights early every morning after waking up. The tea lights chasing shadows upon our mornings are my favorite kind of lights this time of the year. Every winter I'd search around the house for all the glassware I can find to use as candle holders.  I'd set them atop the large, square table and let them glow.  

I love the soft light of tea candles and glassware… I love how glass lets the light shine through ever so softly and romantic… I've been doing this since that first year we moved into our little white cottage. You can read more about it HERE if you wish. 

Ah yes, let flickering candlelight conjure up beautiful soft light and create the effect of imaginary angels standing in shadowy corners...

Clouds lingering over quieted woods, naked trees shivering under a cobalt blue sky, the music of Spanish guitars playing from my CD player, the scent of "Autumn Afternoon Stroll" –golden oak leaves and apples and acorns, imbuing each room, birds by the hundreds outside. Quiet. Calm.  My everyday magic...

I spent sometime raking leaves off the front yard the other day... 

Piles over piles of dead leaves that keep accumulating faster than fast under the slanted light of winter... 

But I won't complain. That's just what you get when you wish upon a little white cottage in the woods. And thus, my soul embraces it all... the amount of leaves, the work, the feeling of being part of Nature as you cohabits with it and become part of it.

There's so much to do in the garden, so much all-embracing, all-enduring love for Nature, and I want to be out there again, working the soil, prettying up the garden, saying pretty things to the fairies, the flowers and the birds as I remove debris and paint garden furniture.  But I must wait a little bit more. 

A new chapter in the life of this little garden awaits, and I am ready to ride off into all the magic awaiting me there!  Are you anxious for spring too?  What do you do to cope the blues of those long winter days of the North?  I am glad I don't have to suffer those cold, snowy days that seemed to never end any more.  Still, we do get our own taste of winter here too, but only for a short time... and I wait for spring filling up our little white cottage with potted plants that I don't know where else to place any more... hehe...  I just can't help it! 

Wishing you sunny days and blue birds!