Just a few moments of enforced quiet. It leads me to prayerfulness and contemplation. I find my moments are all lined up one after the other. Orderly, and yet not rushed or overly busy.
Puts me in a mind to start planning a spring garden. Not because I’m not enjoying this season, but because when spring rolls in it will be too late. Nothing more hopeful and giddy than planning a garden whilst wearing slippers and sipping hot cocoa.
What are your outdoor/spring garden plans? I would love to hear what you all’s plans are and what types of vegetables, berries, and flowers you adore come warmer weather.
…and I hope and pray your holiday turned out to be a time of worship, joy, family, peace, and love.
I am taking a bloggy vacation. Will see you in the New Year.
We have some sick ones here in this household, but that hasn’t stopped any of the last-minute covert operations. There is still whispering and giggling and running back and forth.
As for me, I was going to post an update to Shauna’s gluten free sugar cookie recipe, but I just don’t have it in me today. I’m pooped. There may be a cookie post in the next week or so, but I have a feeling I will be signing off until after the New Year. Gotta get my littles all better.
It’s freezing and wet outside and warm and cozy inside. I get to sit here and make hair bows and do all the little last-minute stuff whilst eating coconut mounds and dreaming of what is in the works for a brand-new year. Hmmm. I wonder.
Have a wonderful, blessed holiday.
The calm, the quiet, the hush of a small world covered with a blanket of fresh snow.
Sneak peeks and recipes will have to come later. I am going to go be still for a bit. And maybe go greet our wonderful neighbors and relish this time.
Yeah. It’s probably going to look like this every couple of days until Christmas because there is just sooooo much going on. Good stuff. Happy stuff. Frustrating stuff. All good, though. Even the frustrations. Because every time you have a frustration cross your path, you have the opportunity to make a choice. The choice of whether you are going to be perfect and make your family miserable, or whether you are willing to let a few things go in order to minister grace to those around you. Let’s try to choose the latter.
We are making, making, making fun things for each other and cousins and sisters and brothers, etc. Today it is going to be some “pretties” for a certain little cousin’s gorgeous mane *wink*, and those linen napkins I was planning on printing for Christmas dinner. And tomorrow it will be something else, maybe I will finally finish that little skirt for a tiny friend.
Yesterday was our first annual Schrock Cookie Extravaganza. We had two other families over and there were eight adults and seven kiddos making all manner of Christmas fabulousness. And purple, lime green, pink, and yellow frosting. I would have taken pictures, but I was having too much fun and forgot. Sorry.
Anyway, it was a blast…thanks friends.
And a very important note for my gluten free friends: I tried Gluten Free Girl’s Sugar Cookie recipe and it was absolutely great. Very easy to make, bake, and frost. Highly, highly recommend it. I might post some pictures of the kids pastry artistry later. You would have never known they were gluten free except for their slightly dense texture. Just remember to sift your gluten free flours before measuring. I found it was easy to have too much flour. I have read on Shauna’s blog that she is going to start writing her recipes more with weight than with cups, etc. because it seems to be more accurate. I will fiddle with the recipe today and will pass on a slightly revised version with the flours weights to see if I can achieve a more consistent dough product.
Needless to say…I_was_in_heaven. There is nothing like saying goodbye to something you think you will never see again, only to turn around and have it say “hello!”
Hope you are truly, not figuratively, having a wonderful season.
See you tomorrow.
I know. I’ve been playing hooky. Not intentionally. There were just some very unexpected events that occured this weekend and so I had to step away. I am back and resuming the countdown.
Oh, the thrill.
And if you are one of those grumps I have been listening to lately who gripes about all the gifts they have to buy, maybe you should be rethinking buying them at all. If the people you were getting for knew how grumpy you were about it, they might not want to be on the other end of the ‘humbug’.
Be happy. And joyful. And grateful. “Heavens to Betsy Mergatroid!”, as my grandmother would exclaim, “Get over it.”
I’m just grateful for a God with such a huge and mind blowing plan.
For me.
Caahhraaaaazy awesome.
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” (NIV)
Yup. Basically, my mother’s back will never be the same. The places I run have sidewalks that haven’t seen repair in years, a decade probably. It is one of the supreme challenges of running early in the morning. Not ending up on my face.
And, yes, those are mismatched socks. Have you ever tried to find socks in the dark? They felt right. Whatever. At least my right ankle glowed while the rest of me blended in with the dusk.
I ran with my camera this morning and stopped every once in a great while to catch the greatness that occurs while other people are sleeping, eating, running around in their cars, or texting. This actually was a bit of a late run for me. I usually get home just as the sky is turning deep blue, with only a faint promise of the sun. This morning was a treat. I got the privilege of seeing the sun rise and challenging more than one bus to a race-to-the-corner.
The buses always win.
Wishing for a snow like this. A photograph made last year.
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Out of the bosom of the Air.
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent and soft and slow
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
Getting ready for some textile printing. Found the box of linen napkins my sister gave me for our wedding 10 years ago. They had never been hemmed, so I washed them, will hem them, and then I do believe I shall print something on them so I can actually use them! For Christmas dinner! Yay!
I will post pics when they are finished.
And if you twitter, find me. I am hettiestuff.
And, yes, I know I am one day off. Sometimes you just gotta let some things go. So today there will be two posts and that will catch us up on the countdown.
There has been a bit of an unexpected addition to our nativity scene. I don’t know who put it there…
Suspect #1 : Bear
Suspect #2 : Bear
Suspect #3 : Bear
Yup, our list of ‘whodunit’ is pretty concise. Can we blame him? He is three, almost four years old, and a bonafide Hoosier.
Someday, I will explain to him that Mary wasn’t as into hoops as he thought. Hope he takes it okay.