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.

What I'd Like to be Doing

We've just had a long weekend (BC Day yesterday), but I feel like I need a holiday. I'd love to be sitting outdoors, nibbling a little chocolate (just a square or two), drinking tea and perusing this British magazine I recently purchased. 

Instead, I'm sitting at the computer editing a paper for my husband. (Yes, I know I'm really composing a blog post, but surely I'm allowed a little break.) And I have that mug of tea beside me as I write. The magazine is the carrot dangling at the end of the stick for when I finish the paper, hopefully today.

In my previous post I mentioned the taking down of a tree at our rental home (yes, it's rented as of the 15th of August - houses are not selling in the area, so we decided to take it off the market, rent it, and hopefully sell it in a year or two.) 

The before photo, above, shows how it overshadows the house. The front door is virtually hidden.  

 

And here's a glimpse of the last bit of tree being cut up. Perhaps in the fall we'll plant a shrub there. I'm thinking a Nandina would look well, and it's deer proof. The lawn is dried out, but will turn green again once the rains begin.

So, back to the editing. How do you reward yourself after completing a task? Or do you? Perhaps I'm alone in this. I hope not.

Little Things

Yesterday,  my husband walked in the house after work bearing two branches of beautiful, fragrant lilacs. He knows how much I love the flowers and gathered these blossoms from a bush on his work property.

I've never seen lilacs like these before - with each petal edged in white. Some sort of hybrid, maybe? Their delicious scent wafts through the house like a sweet cloud.

And ... two beautifully scented bookmarks arrived from Brenda at It's a Beautiful Life. I always have a number of books on the go, and I'm really trying to use bookmarks instead of ... ahem ... turning down the corners. I finished Thackeray's Vanity Fair yesterday, and am beginning Dickens' Bleak House. 

Little things - lilacs, bookmarks - but both immensely thoughtful gestures that serve to remind me that it's the little things that combine, in layers, to create love and community.

What are the little things that mean a lot in your life?

A Sweet Award

According to Arte Y Pico, the originator of the award, it is "dedicated to many who nourish and enrich the spirit and creativity. They see dedication, creativity, camaraderie, joy and above all, ART, much art. I wish that this prize is entertaining to all those bloggers and to bloggers who day by day share this space and enrich it a little more each day."

Christi gave me this lovely award. I'm honoured to have been chosen. Christi's charm and grace comes through in every word she writes and in her beautiful sketches. In return here are 5 blogs that I find inspiring - I could list so many more.

1. Karin at Creative Chaos has a blog chock full of inspiration - from beautiful projects and photos to humourous accounts of the mothering life.

2. Kari and Kijsa are two sisters with a double serving of creativity. Their blog is full of grace. Simple and elegant projects and photographs that help me treasure the beauty found everyday.

3. Natalea at Kandeland loves colour and shares her beautiful garden with us via exquisite photos. I met her through a flickr group and love her sense of style.

4. A French blog that I love is Esprit Champetre. Even if you can't read French, her images evoke the french joie de vivre. Flea market finds, beautiful architecture, flowers and more.

5. I don't know any of the Scandinavian languages but Min Lilla Veranda is a beautiful and peaceful place to visit for northern charm. I find the white on white tones used so lovely and fresh.

Please visit the above blogs and let me know what you think of them.

The rules for the award follow:


1) Pick 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award, creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community, no matter the language.

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3) Each award-winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself. (I would like to add that as some don't do these kinds of things, so if you choose not to do this I will not be offended!)

4) The award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte y pico"blog , so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5) To show these rules.

Forest Creations

In a quiet corner of the forest, something started to grow. What its purpose is, I don't know. But quietly, steadily, without fanfare, it did what it was supposed to do. And a few weeks ago, I passed by. I was struck by the almost grotesque shape and the colours blending so beautifully. There in the forest was a marvel of creation.

And it made me think about how often I do things that I don't really need to be doing. What was I created to do and be? These are the questions that I have pondered throughout life and especially in the quieter days of mid-winter, a time of dormancy, of being still, of preparing to grow something new.

I love making things. But I can't create anything like this - only God can.

Tulips

I know it's still the middle of January. I know that winter will linger on for a month or more. But aren't they pretty? They sit on my breakfast table, bright and smiling with the promise of spring.

I'm a believer in not rushing time, in enjoying the moment. It took me a long time to learn that. And I do find beauty and delight in all of the seasons, even the monotone shades of winter. I try to buy seasonal produce - root vegetables and squashes in the winter. Somehow, eating those crunchy strawberries cultivated to travel far seems ridiculous - and they certainly don't taste anything like the juicy sweet ones of summer.

Buying these tulips seems a bit like eating summer strawberries in winter. But I still think they are oh, so pretty.

Hope

I am having so much fun with the Winterbella crafts designed by Teresa McFayden. I don't have time to do all of them right now, but this is one I completed last night. It will sit on a side table in my living room for awhile and can easily be changed or taken apart.

Hope sings, sometimes ever so quietly, at other times with raucous joy. Without hope life is silent and colourless.

Be joyful in hope!

Winter's Night

Brew me a cup for a winter's night,
For the wind howls loud and the furies fight;
Spice it with love and stir it with care,
And I'll toast our bright eyes, my sweetheart fair.
(Minna Thomas Antrim)

Today was a day of quiet pleasures - church in the morning, then warming soup for lunch and a long walk in January gray. Helping my daughter with some sewing, puttering around the house and now, a quiet time with cinnamon hot chocolate with my love.

Theme for 2008

I made a small collage last night to hang in my office/studio. The words are my theme for 2008. The more I make collages (and I've only made a few), the more I enjoy them. Time zipped by as I cut, rearranged, pasted and embellished.

I signed up for Teresa McFayden's WinterBella magazine - a new craft project every Monday, Wednesday and Friday of January. This collage is based on the first project. It's so much fun!

Another year over, a new one just begun

Making resolutions for the New Year doesn't really work for me. I soon fail, leaving behind faint traces of disappointment in my own ability to stick with something. Rather, I tend to take time throughout the year to evaluate and make adjustments.
But someone on a chat group I belong to (Timeless Bliss - yahoo) suggested creating a theme for the year. I've been thinking about it for several weeks and this is what I've come up with.
I want to create in many forms. Words, fabric, paper, homemaking, gardening. I tend to second-guess my own abilities, wondering if I'm just wasting my time and should devote myself to something more productive - ie, more lucrative. But the urge to create just won't go away. I feed it and I'm rewarded in turn by more creativity.
This year, rather than dampen those creative urges, I'm going to give in to them, believing that they were put there by God and that results can be safely left up to him.
One of the first things I'm going to create is a collage to hang in my office/studio with these words on it - to remind me of my theme throughout this year.

In Belief...Create

Check back in a week or more - I'm taking a few days away with my dearest friend, my husband.

So Many Ideas

I found this book in our library. It has great ideas for adding personality to a home. I can only read a little bit at a time because I want to jump up and rearrange something.

Sweet Roses

Although I didn't sign up for Britt Arnhild's Caring Bloggers Rose Day, I was inspired to post a couple of pictures of roses from my garden. These were taken last summer since no roses are in bloom here yet.

Back to Bliss

Yes! Victoria is being re-launched! I have a collection of Victoria magazines that I refer to again and again. Someone asked me once why this particular magazine held such appeal for me. I liked to think of it as a "thinking woman's magazine." Home decor, cooking, fashion, beauty, travel, handiwork and much more were covered from a thoughtful perspective - one that didn't urge the reader to rush out and purchase more, more, more.

Victoria was a treasure to me in the years I lived in South America. During a quiet afternoon, the house more or less tidy, the rain dripping off the eaves, I would sit in my tree-shaded living room in the Amazon rainforest with a cup of tea and Victoria. It was beauty and relaxation. And after a time with Victoria I was inspired to create beauty - through a meal for my family, a flower arrangement, making a pretty gift, or just tweaking the objects on the piano.

I was also inspired to read - Catherine Calvert, Madeleine L'Engle, Francine Prose, Nancy Mitford and others were featured in the magazine. I traveled in my mind to England, France, Italy, Turkey and even to Vancouver Island, never imagining that I would one day live here.

It's both exciting and frightening to think about Victoria's re-launch. Exciting to contemplate the return of something familiar, yet frightening because I know that it can never be the same. We live in a different world. It can't be the same, but maybe, just maybe, it could be better.