Assortment

This (Musical) Moment

 

 

Linking with Amanda today. Savoring the (many) musical moments that happen around here these days! Sweet Home Alabama, anyone?

 

Have a lovely weekend, friends!

Open Door

 

 

The weather man says fifty degrees today. In Wyoming's foothills. In January, for heaven's sake! 

The south-facing front door will be wide open... 

What Ranchers Do

 

The wool rancher's caps (with ear flaps down), the Carhart coats, a (big) thermos of coffee, and they're out the door.

That's what ranchers do.

Never know what they'll be up to out there. Might shovel snow, might scratch the tummies of the happy Heeler dogs who come running across the way, might check on the horses, might shred more BB holes into the target hanging from the fence. Might get in a fight.

That's what ranchers do. (Uh...do ranchers get in fights?)

 

And when they're cold and a bit boy-play-tired, they head into that "cabin" of theirs for some rest and a cuppa joe. Pull off the gloves, tip the rancher's cap back, scratch the sweaty head, then slurp an airy swig from the steaming hand-wrapped cup.

That's what ranchers do.

In the Middle Of

 

In the middle of the grammar lesson...

In the middle of laundry day...

In the middle of listening to Latin chants...

In the middle of watching boys with popscicle sticks, wire, and hot glue...

In the middle of a good podcast...

In the middle of poetry recitation...

In the middle of the night...

In the middle of the guitar lesson...

In the middle of life...

 

Make something!

 

*              *               *

 

A little thread-around-my-finger reminder to myself!

Have a lovely weekend, friends!

On Blue Velvet Evenings

 

There's the evening star. I saw it from the porch last night, and it reminded me of all the times I've seen it, clear back to when my dad first pointed it out to me when I was a girl. This time I thought it looked like crystal on blue velvet. It's one of my favorites. 

In other evening news -

:: When there is a crystal-on-blue-velvet evening in your world, please light a candle on the dinner table and serve something like this. You'll feel like a rich peasant.  

:: If there is no room on the table for anything but the lit candle because there is a boy who has taken it over and covered it with parts for making a hydraulic earth mover, don't worry. You can sit on the couch and eat your dinner while balancing your plate on your knees. You'll feel more peasant than rich at this point, but that, too, shall pass.

:: If the other two boys want only about half their normal portions, that's fine, because they just came in from their "cabin" (the van) where they had already eaten their "dinner" (a left-over sandwich from lunch). But, they might go for several slices of bread dragged one by one through olive oil.

:: They may or may not feel like rich peasants, they never really say. 

:: BUT, they sure don't mind eating among hydraulic earth mover parts.

:: FYI - there will be no toast for breakfast, or sandwiches for next day's lunch, or anything else served in the coming day that requires bread, because "several" slices of bread dragged through olive oil actually means every slice of bread in the house. (Except the heels. We don't count the heels. Heels can't possible be considered bread.)

:: That's why there's biscuit mix in the refrigerator, for such a time as this.

:: Speaking of biscuits and next day, here I am. Better get to them.

 

 

Winter Green

 

It looks as though I've not been able to move too far from all things green, and why not when I go searching for house plant inspiration and I find photos like these? No matter how much snow is on the ground, these lovelies keep happily doing their thing - green, in winter. 

 

Some images just make you catch your breath, and you find that a full two minutes have passed before you remember to exhale.  Source

 

Okay, lovely. The desk, the chair, the typewriter, the burlap 'pot' for the tree. (And the plant in that drawer? I must find it!)  Source

 

One day, a conservatory. Yes, please, with a lime tree.  Source

 

A potted garden of forced bulbs is something like a belt of green around winter's middle.  Source

 

Here you go: green, right at the kitchen sink. Source

 

And because one table full of this kind of goodness isn't quite enough, here are more mixed colors, forms, and textures together in the round.   Source

Goodness, Winter Green.

 

I've collected even more winter green over on Pinterest (among many other things). Follow me? Search carmellarayone.

 

 

 

On Growing

 

There it was alongside the trail, a mounding bramble sprawled, weighty with blackened berries. We stopped. And picked until fingertips were stained red and water bottles were poured out, then filled up with whole berry juice. We ate just as many, berries gushing as each 'pillow' popped liquid sweet, warmed by the California sun.

 

 

What do you do when heaped under covers with two boys on a dark and snowy January night?

You recall that surprise meeting with a wild blackberry bush on that last summer's day. It's easy to remember as the lamplight shines on the vegetables, herbs, fruit trees, and, yes, berry bushes in the pages of the gardening book that you pour over together. The talk is of soil and worms, good bugs vs. bad bugs, corn ears and potato eyes. You grin that the guys are just as interested in this growing as you are. "What's a greenhouse and which composter is your favorite?" they ask. "Are tomatoes a fruit or a vegetable?" "Oh, look at that garden floor plan!" You all agree that it would be wonderful to have a garden 'floor plan' just like that one day.

And on it goes until you just can't keep the eyelids open any longer.

 

Then, through the dim, the boy known as The Fruit Bat says, "Mama? Do you think we could grow some blackberry bushes?"

 

*                 *                  *

 

I've got some gardening titles squirrelled away on my wish list now, because growing blackberries in Wyoming? We may need some help with that one :

 

 

 

 

 

Do you have any well-loved gardening books that you'd like to share? Leave a comment and let us know!

 

 

 

My Way

 

I've never been much of a journalist, as in filling pages in a blank book every night before switching the bed lamp off, though I have given it a good shot several times earlier on. The most memorable one was when, at age twelve, I found a locking diary in my Christmas stocking. Beginning with the new year and crisp, white pages edged in gold, I wrote every day for a couple months. My favorite entry from that first diary? On January 3rd I wrote, "Boy, this year is going by fast!"

I grin now, at the memory.

Because years and life and blank books later, I know better who I am. I know that pouring the day out onto pages in a book every night isn't me. And, thank goodness it isn't, because I personally can't think of much else that sounds as flat as that (preparing taxes, maybe?).

But.

I have many books with lined pages on the shelf, some are filled, others are waiting in queue. What's in them you say?  

Ideas.

The creative ideas that constantly fly around in my head have to end up somewhere, so they're put down in pages. I have sketches and notes from baby showers that I hosted 10 years ago; there are sewing patterns, gift lists, recipes, holiday plans, gardening ideas, and the list goes on. I give myself no rules for keeping these books, save for a knowing that 'this book (or this section of the book) is for these ideas; that one is for those' (entertaining; interior design, decor & floorplans, sewing, homeschool, gardening, etc.). Inside, they are pretty close to a free-for-all of pencil scrawl.

I grin now, at the thought of all those journals. I grin at the knowing.

This is my way.

 

P.S. Now, go read what kind of journal Joan has kept for 25 years! Then, read Amanda's beautiful account of finding, and resting in, her way.

 

 

 

Like This

 

Oh my, have I been gathering images lately. For showing and for seeing and for saying, 'Along these lines...'

For mixing other imaginations with my own to see just what could become of them.

Wanna see what sort of kitchens have been catching my eye?

 Image via

 

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Image: Coastal Living, via

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Here's what you may have noticed:

 

~Small. So wonderfully small

~Few, if any upper cabinets - it's open shelves, baby!

~Painted board walls

~Imperfection!

~Wood countertops

~Art!

~Porcelain apron-front sinks

~Painted cabinets, simple hardware

~Quirky vintage lighting

~Small wall-hung spice cabinet, plate racks and hanging tea cups

~Essentials-only

~A feeling of history, story, and timelessness

Yes, like that!

 

From Eastern Sky

 

I hadn't really thought of it until yesterday morning when I stood on the porch in early morning frost and snapped these shots of morning light.

I'd been missing it for far too long, that eastern sky. 

 

That place where art is drawn vividly, extravagantly, voluptuously every single morning, that place where fire burns over the rim of earth, calling the day up with light, that place where beginnings start. 

I'd been missing that scene, that fire, that beginning. Because, for seven years, I hadn't been able to see it from my windows.

I stopped.

Seven years?

I wondered about this wonder I'd been missing. Had my soul slowly leaked dry, been starved clear out for lack of sunrise? Was it lying there, gaunt and pastey-white, limp, shrivelled, and paper-thin? Maybe so. Maybe painfully so.

But.

A slow knowing spread smiling through my thoughts just then: Soon, very soon there will be seven feet of wide open window facing the eastern sky. 

I'll be drinking it in!