December delights

A couple of years ago my spirit was broken in many little pieces by some very evil people.  Then one day my eyes were opened. I didn't have to continue proving my worth to unworthy people.  It was the moment to absolutely and utterly walk away.  And so I did. 

Things changed rather fast right after that.  In unexpected ways.  So much, that we ended up moving south after 28 years of living in the north.   

My days are absolutely wonderfully free of negative people now, free in the spirit to be free to perceive with my frail and feeble mind all the grandeur there is to see and understand around me all throughout my days. And I walk in magical days and wonderful chilly morning with warm afternoon.  Our little cottage feels cozy and peaceful and my heart is full of gratitude and awe at my Heavenly Father.

Days go by so fast now when they used to go by so very slow then...  

I can hardly believe that we're well into the season and can still go outside and do some gardening.  I spent some time today weeding and pruning.  Never in my wildest dreams I thought I would be doing this in December...

My Autumn Joy Sedums are done blooming.  They bloomed until late fall, but today I thought it was time to prune. The Sedum flowers are so attractive when dried.  They add winter interest to the garden, but also look lovely in a vase.... And they last as long as you want them to.

I wanted to bring some of the dried flowers inside, but foreseeing the mess they would make, I decided to make an outside bouquet instead...  My lamp turned flower vase here holds the dried flowers.  I didn't have a place for this vase in the house, so it's been out here all summer... in the spring, I'm planning on repainting it in another color, and maybe bring her inside again.    

Oh and have I mentioned I have a new friend?  He's a precious little thing, is he not... 

The first time I spied him wandering the gardens I thought I was seeing a vision... a flash of a white lightening going into the woods... I've been enchanted by him ever since... 

I have always loved bougainvilleas and have dream with a tall, lush bougainvillea tree like the one sheltering my mom's entrance to her little garden for as long as I can remember.  These precious plants do well in warm climates only, and our winters here are too cold for them, but for only $1 I decided I needed one.

I am learning that you can grow and care for bougainvillea plants in containers.  You just have to bring them in for the winter.  We'll just have to wait and see.

I love it with the fairy lights I put on it... among the leaves, they look like fireflights, when lightened in the evenings and early mornings.

How are your December days in your part of the world.... snowing where you are, warm, cold, lovely?  Hope you enjoy every moment gifted.

LINKING TO:

A TRAY OF BLISS

FEATHERED NEST

HOME SWEET HOME

The Christmas trees

The larger Christmas tree I had in our living room last year will have to remain in its box, as we don't have a space for it this year.  This is what it looked like last year...

 Not too big of a tree either... 



but definitely a much larger one than what I have this year, 
as you can see here.

This big chair here was sitting in our bedroom originally, but this summer I moved it to our living room to make space in our bedroom for my mirror gallery wall and a new side table that's sitting there now... 

Thus, that robed the only space available for the larger Christmas tree.  That's why this little one here is now the king of the jungle this year.  It sits on top of the table by the window where it doesn't take a lot of space.  

Adorned with new and bigger frosted lights.

I love these lights.  They look like winter moon orbs.

 I set a wooden dish filled with Christmas ornaments and twinkling lights by it...

It looks so pretty all lighten up in the evening.

Then yesterday I found this cutie at a thrift store and brought him home....

A fairy-elf with wings in the form of a holly leaf on his back 

and the cutest little cardinal in his hands!

I find him just adorable...

Chair with white slipcover

One of the two windows in our master bedroom

All lighted up again with the fairy lights I so love
May have to keep them up for a while after Christmas...  

'cause I like them so much! ;)

Outside our front porch sits the other smaller tree 

I thought I was just buying one tree, but instead found two of them 

when I opened the box last year. 

Outside looking in...

I made this Christmas wreath for the door.... in red, black and white to match with colors of my front porch.

And here is me taking pictures outside in my socks and new PJs... 

so cozy!   

And a little cuckoo in the head....

Burrrrrr.... oh baby it's cold outside!

Is it cold where you are?  I miss the snow, but I rather see it in photographs... ;)

LINKING TO:

THE SCOOP
METAMORPHOSIS MONDAY
TUESDAYS AT OUR HOME
INSPIRE ME TUESDAYS
INSPIRE ME MONDAY
ROSES OF INSPIRATION
TWEAK IT TUESDAY
TRASH TO TREASURE
A STROLL THRU LIFE
REMODEMANDO LA CASA
CHRISTMAS HOME TOUR
12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

Rainy days are for imagination...

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” Lewis Carroll

The imps and fairies who live in the woods behind our gardens must have something to tell me, I'm sure.  They've been behaving rather strange lately.  Leaving behind some bizarre objects and such. 

Have they been coming out of their hiding places with the sole purpose of tricking me?  Or perhaps there's something more in all the mysteries that's going on around here?    

Ah yes, it must be that... the invisible entities from some other dimensions must have been crossing off that barrier which separates us from their world.  If not, how is one to explain this I found the other day in the little creek that runs through our property?

Is that what I think it is?  Goodness gracious me... a man's shoe? I could not believe my eyes the minute I saw that the other day...  and where is the other shoe?  Perhaps the mysterious shoe came with a mysterious someone and now he's laying dead somewhere in my woods?  I want to believe that the shoe belongs to some neighbor up the hill and that it was stolen and brought down via the rain... but then again, you'd never know, would you?  

Many many moons ago, in a little village lost from the hand of God somewhere in the mountains of Aragon, in Spain, there lived a very old and wise woman who believed that the universe was ruled by supernatural forces and we ourselves are part of this vast dynamic cobweb of energy exchange.

The woman's name was María Luz de Luna Arrazán, and she was our great great grandmother. 

Every day at the kiss of sundown María Luz de Luna Arrazán used to sit down and enlightened us her great great granddaughters with strange stories and mysterious fairytales of a vast, unbroken forest full of shadows and mysterious events that even made the little creatures of the forest tremble with fear.  Stories that we always believed true, and always, always left her side wanting to hear more.  

María Luz de Luna Arrazán used to tell us that fairies materialize from sparkling dew drops and that wood imps and other entities of the forest such as witches and trolls would silently slip into dusky shadows whenever humans trod too near. Some were described as being as small and delicate as mosquitoes, while others were said to be as strong and coarse as bears.  A few supposedly even changed their appearance right before one's very eyes.  Which it always gets me to wonder if perhaps all these fur creatures I happen to see wandering through my garden from time to time and disappearing in front of my eyes (yes, disappearing!)  may be those invisible dwellers of a mysterious world in disguise our great great grandmother María Luz de Luna used to tells us about....

The idea that a supernatural force may be at work somewhere in the universe with the sole purpose of tricking humanity may sound odd at first, but considering the vast wealth of reports of seemingly supernatural creatures, it may deserve a second look, don't you think so?  In any case, nothing can be more rewarding than imagining... it certainly let you travel as far as you desire ;)

OK, coming back to reality now.  I have been decorating our little white cottage for the holidays.  As some of you may already know, I'm not one to go overboard with holiday decorating, but I do have my little Christmas tree up and all the baubles and stuff I can muster, which are all on this table by the window. 

I like to keep things at a minimum.  How do you like to decorate for the holidays?  I found the following on some national casting website the other day and thought it was interesting:

"Do you or someone you know go overboard at the holidays? Are you constantly tripping over the same plastic Christmas decorations from the 1970's? Does the inside of your house resemble Santa's workshop? Do your friends use the word "tacky" when talking about your house at the holidays (and you agree)!? If you or someone you know needs a Christmas decoration intervention, we want to hear from you today!".

See you soon!

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.