Friday Favourites

 

Today I awoke to the soft beat of rain punctuated by a chorus of birds singing their morning songs. It's a soft rain, soaking into the welcoming earth. With the rain warmer temperatures are here and I've been putting my tomato plants outside each day. 

The lilacs are opening and look beautiful with raindrops hanging like crystals. I love the scent of lilacs, do you? They are such old-fashioned flowers, and the bushes live for a very long time, often outliving the houses they were planted near, a testament to someone who craved a bit of beauty. 

I am thinking about a question I read recently - "What do you look forward to each day?" I confess that I mostly go about my days not anticipating very much, but taking each moment as they come. I think there are many pleasant moments in my days, but I let them pass by without acknowledging them. I don't want merely to look back and see them, but to anticipate moments with a small, or large, measure of excitement. These things don't have to be amazing or momentous, but they should fill me with a bit of joy. For example, I have one square of dark 78% chocolate after lunch and another after dinner. Looking forward to that melting bit of richness will only add to the delight of it. 

I am thankful that my dad's 90th birthday party was a great success. We had an open house for friends, neighbours, and extended family, followed by a dinner with my siblings, and their children and grandchildren. Four generations, in all, about 36 of us. Not all could make it. Dad was very pleased, as was my mother. Katie, our daughter-in-law, made the beautiful cake. 

I am doing a bit more sewing these days, using up fabric. Hopefully I'll finish a few things soon and show you what I've made. It's always more fun starting projects, I find, than finishing them. 

I am reading The Secrets of Winter by Nicola Upson. There are several books in the series; this is not the first. If I like it I'll order the remainder in order from the library. It's a mystery set in the years between the First and Second World Wars, portraying the writer Josephine Tey in a fictional setting. 

In my kitchen today I roasted a chicken and am now simmering the carcass for stock. I do love making soup. The one pictured is a beef vegetable soup with ground beef, onion, carrot, green beans, rutabaga, tomatoes, and oregano. Soup-making is a creative venture. I made Vanilla Pudding to use up egg yolks I had in the fridge. Iris and Cora will enjoy it when they visit this afternoon. 

In the garden, besides the lilacs, pink rhododendrons, tulips, and bluebells provide colour. With all the rain everything looks fresh and vibrant. 

How are things in your corner? Is your garden coming awake?