Quiet Beginnings

 

A bouquet of pale pink roses for you on a grey morning. I brought these roses home from the grocery store a couple of days ago. After Christmas decor is put away I always feel like the house needs something fresh and pretty. We left up the mini lights on the mantel, and the paper star garland across the mirror. On January's dark nights it's lovely to sit in the glow of soft light. 

I like to do puzzles and this one was a pleasure from start to finish. Although 1000 pieces, it took us just 3 days to complete. I just loved the colours and all those needlecraft items. 

In the kitchen/breakfast room mini lights still shine each night. 

I normally enjoy the quiet and slower pace of January after the festivities of December, but this year, sigh, it just all seems to be more of the same. Dark nights, grey days, lots of rain, and nowhere to go. 

Each year around November I wish I had a Christmas quilt. By then, however, I'm busy with sewing pajamas or other gifts and there's no time for quilts. Because of the quiet break this year, I decided it was time to make a red and white quilt. I pulled all the scraps of Christmas fabrics and started cutting, then stitching. I made a lot of progress last week and am pleased with the way it's turning out. 

School began again this week and time at the sewing machine has been severely curtailed, although I make time for a little bit of stitching. 

Outside my window it's quiet and still just now, but there is a wild storm blowing in from the Pacific later this morning. Ferries have been preemptively cancelled after the 9 am sailing. 

How is your year beginning? Have you begun any new projects? 

From the Back of My Mind

I gave up making New Year's resolutions years ago. If something needs to be changed in my life, and I realize it, I'll begin resolving the issue at the moment. Goals and resolutions grow out of real life, not a date on the calender. That said, it's hard to avoid thinking about change and growth when talk shows, newscasters, magazines and online reading focuses on the topic. It's not a bad thing. 

some of my stash

We've moved twice in the past 3 years. There's nothing like having to pack up all your fabric, scrapbooking supplies, knitting yarn, and paints to make you realize how much stuff you really have. That "you" I'm talking about is really "me." For the past year, I've been resolving to use up what I have. The progress is slow and sporadic, but sure. 

Lately, I've been thinking, not just of using stuff up, but making the most of what I have. Those photography books, for example. I've looked at them, I've tried out a few things on my camera, but I've not delved into really using it to its fullest capability. I want to. I will. Especially now that I've written it for the world (my readers) to see.  

 a section of my bookshelf



A few years ago, before beginning my B.A. in French, I did a little free-lance writing. I had some success, articles in newspapers, cooking magazines, Today's Christian Woman, Romantic Homes, and others, but it's a tough slog. And rather isolating. I love teaching and will continue to do so, but the writing urge is tickling again. Since my birthday in October, I've been writing a short (500 word) essay each night. There are book ideas brewing in my brain. Possibilities. I don't know where the writing will take me, but I'm going to enjoy the ride.


So there. I guess I do have some resolutions for this new year. 

Susan Branch wrote a post entitled "The Care and Feeding of Dreams." It's lovely. My French degree is something I dreamed about for a long time until finally just decided to do it.  Don't we all have dreams? For ourselves? For others? Dreams can be small, like beginning a small garden plot, or large, like writing a book or traveling the world. They are also highly flexible: perhaps a garden will begin with a few containers of herbs, or a grand tour of Europe with books and movies. Sometimes dreams have to be surrendered, but new ones will come to take their place. To dream, to envision the future, is a human trait. Don't suppress your dreams, adjust them, make them work.

Well. This post went on a ramble. But that's the way it is with writing.

Roses in December

"God gave us memory so that we may have

roses in December"

James Matthew Barrie

 

Just before Christmas, I arrived home one afternoon as the sun slanted low on the horizon, illuminating this indomitable rose. I rushed indoors, dropped my purse and bags, grabbed my camera and took this photo before the last light slipped away. 

Memory is a gift. It's an amazing bit of God's creative genius that everything we see, do, hear, smell, taste, feel and think is stored away inside our brain. Retrieval of all that information is perhaps not as reliable as we would like, but still, with little effort, we can remember both the good, the not-so-good, and the terrible, of the past. Some memories we would rather not have, but there they are, seared forever in the mind. Others we wish we could remember more clearly, wanting to hold tightly to each minute detail. Memory is a fickle thing, often untrustworthy because of its utter subjectivity. Each of us remembers an event differently. Just ask your siblings about certain events of childhood.

As 2012 draws to a close, many of us sift through our collection of memories, holding this one and that one up to the light, smiling a little, shedding a tear, nodding, and sighing, as a myriad of emotions sweeps over us. Marking time by memory, we remember past joys and past sorrows. Today, I'm casting my mind back over the past 365 days, but once that's done, there's a wonderful new year ahead, full of potential and unknown opportunity. 

 

Yesterday morning we left the house early to take our daughter and son-in-law to catch the 9 am ferry back to Vancouver. Once again, the light caught my attention. On the way back into town, we stopped in Sidney and took a very short walk along the waterfront, out onto the pier and back. I didn't have my Nikon with me, but snapped these photos with my I-Phone. 
 

 

A new day and a new year dawn. Behind the clouds shines the light. As I move into 2013, which will surely hold its full allotment of both joy and sorrow, my prayer is that I will remember that the One who is the Light of the World is always with me. I pray the same for each of you, my readers. I want to embrace 2013 with arms flung wide in welcome. A year of abundant life awaits.

On the First Day of September

Although summer's official end is not for 3 more weeks, to me, the first of September signals the beginning of autumn. The sun still shines, the sky remains blue, and flowers abound. Yet summer fades. Evenings are chilly and we pull a blanket up over the sheet at night. Heavy dew carpets the brown morning grass.

A new season makes me restless. I long for new projects, a fresh start at something, different dreams big or small. How shall I face this new season?

For now, the restlessness is unfocused, causing a lot of inertia. There are spurts of activity such as dealing with garden produce and cleaning a house dusty from roofers pounding above, but I catch myself staring off into space, watching the wind blow clouds across the sky, or wandering in my garden, looking at the plantings and desultorily pulling a weed or two. 

This, too, will pass. How are you feeling these days? Energetic? Lethargic? Restless? How do you move towards productivity?