joyouslybecoming

soul food

this year i went back to my roots and did some canning, satisfying a longing i've had but not had time for the past several seasons. i cooked up and canned lots of apple butter, the same recipe i grew up eating as a child, the same one my mom gave to me and helped me cook up using apples from the same tree...sometimes nostalgia tastes rich and sweet and is just the right medicine for the heart.

we were SO excited to have violet for a sleep-over this weekend, so i made sure all the work was done and my entire attention could be showered upon her. she was never short of ideas for fun projects or possible adventures.

including making a batch of chocolate chip cookies, half with 'brown' chocolate, and half with 'the white kind'. this three year old knows her way around a mixing bowl and she had fun stirring the batter with papa.

we ran and romped along the river's edge, our pockets filling with favorite rocks. every time she found one she liked she'd say "here meeema, it's for you" and i would give her mine. we saw an eagle soar above us two times.

then we went and fed the horses lots of apples. we stayed out until the sun went down, the temperature dropped, and our jackets felt thin and insignificant.

In the morning i tried out a recipe heather gave me for banana pancakes - so delicious, i must post the recipe - and we topped them with fresh apple butter...yumm!

then we painted small river rocks with glitter paint and painted cardboard houses

we hung button ornaments on a 'tree' made and given to me a few years back by a friend

  we sat in the sun and had a tea party on the porch with ovaltine "tea" and bits of cookies

we set up our houses and button tree under a now big pine tree, that walter and i planted years ago and christened "heather", after violet's mother (there is also a tree named marissa, walter, and katie, too). we played under those fragrant boughs with 2 dolls and a pony, waiting for the forest fairies to make their appearance and discover their new homes.

  i haven't played this much in a very long time, life feels sweet.

you can dream about it every now and then

I've been missing my mom so much lately, especially since I've been working on a special gift for my sister Victoria - a handmade book full of memories, pieces of fabric cut from mother's clothing, snippets of her handwriting, photos, cards...it all brings back a stream of memories and deep longing to return to the softness of her arms and the innocence of those sweet times. But like this song says, "you can dream about it every now and then, but you can't go home again..."

Here are a few of the pages in the book, starting with the front and back covers:

 

 

 

 

sharing words...

            poem from Rilke's Book of Hours; Love Poems to God

for more poetry from others sharing words today, go here

morning river wanderings

and... i'm looking forward to sharing words

A Day of Sharing Words

The idea: We have words that touch us, move into our hearts and resonate, creating a feeling, taking us some place- past, present, future- perhaps some place we have never been and may never go, but for whatever reasons, the words pulse in our blood. Meeting new words, new poets, new poems, new ways for my heart to beat, is an intruiging concept. Want to go on this adventure with me? It will be easy to travel along. Many of us already do this sharing; this idea is just to help us find each other and hear the words we have to share.

The Date: Wednesday, November 19.

The Plan: On your blog, post a poem that moves inside you, touches you, reaches you. (quotes and song lyrics welcome). Include the author (or composer or musician) and source (book, album)- perhaps also the amazon link if there is one. no explanation required, no other revelation necessary.

One last thing- Perhaps add an image. a photo. a video. a painting. a collage., if you would. Come here to this post on LK's blog. Add a comment with your link. LK will create a typepad page with the links, so others can hear the rhythm of the words, see the image and share in the experience.

The Request: If you are intrigued enough, post on your blog about this Day of Sharing Words- encourage your friends to post. Who couldn't use a few new poems in their treasury or new songs in their hearts?

just your typical family

carry me home

knowing...

Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks

I am the blossom pressed in a book,

found again after two hundred years. . .

I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper. . .

When the young girl who starves

sits down to a table

she will sit beside me. . .

I am food on the prisoner's plate. . .

I am water rushing to the wellhead,

filling the pitcher until it spills. . .

I am the patient gardener

of the dry and weedy garden. . .

I am the heart contracted by joy . . .

the longest hair, white

before the rest. . . .

I am there in the basket of fruit

presented to the window. . .

I am the musk rose opening

unattended, the fern on the boggy summit. . . .

I am the one whose love

overcomes you, already with you

when you think to call my name. . . .

 ----Jane Kenyon

The week after

I can hardly believe that it's been a week since I returned from Houston and the International Quilt Festival; the time has flown by and yet seems to have let me slowly savor every moment in my quiet and rainy world here on the Tahuya River.  October was a whirlwind of sorts for me, preparing and teaching in two large and wonderful venues and all the traveling that goes with it. When I plopped myself down in the love seat with walter and the dogs, it felt like it would take weeks to rest up and restore myself and replenish my resource of energy. Well, it only took a week! I feel rested and excited for all the newness and possibilities looming on the horizon again and my feet can't get me to the studio fast enough in the mornings. I still have several emails to answer and I'm slowly working my way through them, I appreciate your patience.

I have only a handful of photographs documenting my experience, showing you that yes, I really was there. It was all I could do to keep up with the fast paced schedule of an event I could only imagine the enormity of in months previous. The International Quilt Festival in Houston is nothing less than awesome, in every way you can think of. The incredible beauty and workmanship of the exhibits that range from the meticulously crafted traditional quilts to the most innovative surface design of the art quilts, row after row of vendors selling everything from beads, rusty doo-dads and vintage trims to hand-made apparel and cutting edge sewing machines. Awesome, awe-inspiring, amazing....and it all seemed to run like clockwork.

Highpoints: meet-ups with several art friends, old and new, spent over delicious dinners and glasses of wine, working on the floor of the convention center at Quilting Arts Open Studios at Make It University and getting to meet Pokey Bolton and Barbara Delaney in person, finally! Meeting and visiting with the talented and sweet Judy Coates Perez , meeting for the first time and getting to know talented fellow instructor, Dena Crain, my roomate for the week who traveled all the way from Kenya, Africa where she lives, and so much more, more, more.

I had kind and exceptionally talented women in all of my classes. Although some of the mixed media techniques I showed them were new to them, once they hit the sewing machines in the afternoon, they were once again in their element, and I grazed on inspiration as I walked around the room watching  hands move, picking up this, crafting it into that, amidst the constant hum of the sewing machines. The only class I where I managed to get any photos was the doll class, and I'll be adding an album with those photos in the coming days (along with the Art and Soul class photos from earlier in the month).

And there was amazing beauty to be had in the Hilton Hotel as well, connected to the Convention Center by sky bridges.

Escalators were a large part of my life for those several days which would have sent ripples of delight through me when i was a child.

And the gorgeous marble floors and pillars, a reminder of the hay day of the oil boom in Texas not so long ago.

I sit back and marvel that I did it, it feels like such a milestone in my life. I feel honored beyond words and extremely thankful to my mentor (and fairy godmother) Lesley Riley who invited me to come and teach in Houston, who believed in me and gave me this wonderful opportunity to believe more strongly in myself, more confident that one step at a time, I can successfully move through the tasks and challenges that come up, that I can find grace and composure and my center, even when the surroundings initially feel foreign and scary to this quiet country girl. I'm thankful to each of my students who played and experimented in my classes, who painted with their fingers (or not!) and who were willing to suspend judgment and the voice of the critic while their muses took control of the classroom.

In just over 2 weeks from now, I'll be leaving again, this time to Cancun, Mexico, with my family, to celebrate the marriage of our youngest daughter Marissa, to her beloved fiance, Mick. It will be just the two families, an intimate gathering for 5 days at an all-inclusive resort there on the beach where they will marry. For those of you that have been reading my blog for over two years, you might remember the 'close-call' Marissa had a couple years back with the non-wedding. You'll be happy to know that both of the families couldn't be happier about this event.