First Things First

During the past two weeks of spring break I've been able to schedule in more time with the Little Misses. We've baked cookies, returned seaweed to the ocean on a very blustery day, visited the Ocean Discovery Centre, played with blocks and Duplo, read a zillion books, and eaten snacks. What fun we've had.

Today, the sun is shining, but I have chores to attend to. There will be a little of the above,
 

 and some of this, 

followed by a cup of tea and a little reading. Doesn't that cover look inviting? So full of colour and freshness. Do you have a favourite magazine?

But, first things first! Back to the chores!

Spring Buds: Vee's Note Card Party

Each month Vee, of A Haven for Vee, hosts a Note Card Party. Attendees choose four photos previously published on their blog that they think would make good note cards. This month, I've looked back over my posts to find one photo from last March, immediately below, whereas the others are from April 2011.

No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.

Anon 

 

Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!"

Robin Williams 

Every spring is the only spring - a perpetual astonishment

Ellis Peters 

"Dear old world," she murmured, "you are very lovely, and I am glad to be

alive in you." 

Anne of Green Gables: L.M. Montgomery

It seems that in much of North America, and Europe, too, winter just does not want to let go. But it will, and spring will come in all her loveliness. 

For more photos that would make lovely note cards, click on over to Vee's Party - a convivial gathering if ever there was one.

Restless

When I began blogging, oh, about 6 years ago, my intent was to chronicle my creative journey and projects, and to connect with like-minded people. It was a tentative peek over the mountain to "see what I could see." The experiment resulted in connecting with people around the world, with meeting a few bloggers in person, and in finding an outlet for some of my thoughts.

For the past few months, however, I've been restless, wanting another purpose to blogging. I feel stagnant creatively, and the things I do create, I feel hesitant to show to you. There are so many creative, artistic people out there, filling posts with things I only wish I could dream up. I've thought about quitting blogging, but I enjoy it too much. I don't want to lose the cyber friends I've made. 

These stagnant feelings are not confined to blogging - they extend to my cooking, my needlework, my decorating, and even my reading. It's time for me to create new challenges for myself, to continue to grow.  I wish to be braver. To cease comparing myself to others. To be fully confident in being the woman God created me to be.

Tell me, do ever feel like this? What do you do to challenge yourself to move out of stagnation? 

Sunny Yellow

Golden forsythia is the first shrub to show colour in our garden. The cloud of yellow in the front yard is a welcome sight. Yellow against the blue sky makes is a stunning colour scheme, one of nature's best. 

 A couple of readers have wondered how to do a mosaic featuring photos superimposed on others. Here's a quick tutorial using the downloaded version of Picasa. For those who know how to do this, skip to the bottom for more sunny yellow.

Select the photos you want to use for your collage and edit them. Select and hold them together. Choose one for the background and one or two others to feature. In the create menu, choose Picture Collage.

Once in Collage, select Picture Pile from the choice of layouts. You will see your photos on a plain background. Click on your background photo, then move your cursor to the Background options on the left, choose Use Photo as Background. You should see the background change to your photo. Then you can remove the small photo (unless you want the same photo superimposed.) 

Now you can work with the photos on top. Adjust the size and angle by clicking on the center of the photo. A wheel will appear which shows the angle of the photo. Expand or contract the size by using your mouse. Using the menu on the left, add a border if you like. 

When you are pleased with the placement of your photos, click Create. Your collage will be created and you can then go back into your Library of photos to add a border to the entire collage, should you so choose. 

 

Lemon Bars are full of sunshiney flavours. Perfect for spring. This is my mother's recipe, a classic, found by clicking over to the link above which will take you to my recipe blog.

Linking to Sunlit Sunday, hosted by Karen of My Little Home and Garden, and to Mosaic Monday, hosted by Mary of the Little Red House.

Greens of Various Kinds

Mary's Inspiration Thursday prompt this week is green. These succulents and the little birdie in her nest are gathered together on a tray on my china buffet. I don't use many Easter-themed decorations - just things I like to have out for awhile that aren't necessarily specific to one holiday. These succulents were outside most of the winter, getting very water logged and they turned quite reddish as a result. I brought a few indoors and they thrive with the drier climate, even to the extent of beginning to shoot new growth. 

A few posts ago I showed you the kale and chard I'd harvested from my winter garden. With the kale I made Kale with Garlic and Blue Cheese. I like baking the kale until it's just a bit crispy. The Swiss Chard I added to tonight's chicken vegetable soup. Thank you for your recipe suggestions. I have lots more chard to harvest and I'm planning to use some of your ideas.

 

Here is a photo that's primarily shades of green - taken at Butchart Gardens. Soon, however, that bed will be awash with colour to delight the eye. 

In Farmer Boy, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, one of the characters says, "The rich man gets his ice in the summer, the poor man gets his in the winter." Adapting that to green grass, we could say that those who live in our climate get our green grass in the winter, while elsewhere in Canada the grass is green in the summer. This time of year, indeed, throughout the winter, is when our grass is the greenest. In summer, it turns brown and crunchy.

So there you have it, green indoors and out. What's green around your place? 

The Kitchen Table

I recently read an article discussing the return of certain 1980s decorating trends. Included in that list was the return of the kitchen table. Oh, really?  The kitchen table was certainly NOT a 1980s trend. They've been around for much longer than that. When did they disappear?

When I was a child (back in the dark ages), our chrome-legged table sat in a corner of our not-large kitchen. We pulled it away from the wall when it was time to eat. Kitchen tables evoke coziness, family suppers (not dinners), homework done under a parent's watchful eye, craft projects and messes, and cutting out Easter dresses. It's the place where, after dishes were done, my mother set up her portable sewing machine and stitched away the evening, often listening to the radio. It's where we had family prayers and Bible reading, where we laughed ourselves silly, egged on by my father. 

We have a kitchen table. It's where the two of us eat most of our meals. The dining room table is currently covered with sewing projects. I do have a sewing room upstairs, but sometimes, I feel like being in the midst of things and so I haul my machine down stairs and set up shop in the dining room. Kitchen tables are small; ours seats 5 comfortably, 6 without much effort. Around a table people sit and face each other as they eat and talk, unlike facing the stove while perched at stools at an island.

How about you - kitchen table or island?  

 

Here's a peek at what's on my dining room table just now. The dresses need a bit of a try-on, then I'll insert zippers and buttons and finish the hand sewing.

And the rain, rain, rain came down, down, down

 

 The rainy day song from Winnie-the-Pooh which you can hear by clicking on the link, has been going through my mind this morning. The grass is green, green, green these days and full of moss. 
 

On the ledge above the kitchen sink, a handful of tight daffodil buds is just beginning to open, adding a little brightness to the day. A good day to stay indoors and that's my plan. I'll be sewing a couple of little dresses for two little sweethearts to wear for Easter. 

Do your plans include indoor or outdoor activities? 

March Beauties: Mosaic Monday

My visit to Butchart Gardens resulted in a LOT of photos. Here are the last I'll share for now, until the next time I visit and see many more beauties. You can visit my two previous posts for more. Our city has the mildest weather in Canada and that's never more apparent than at this time of year.

 

On Saturday morning I awoke to the sound of birds twittering (in the old-fashioned way) outside my window. Tim and I spent much of the day in the yard, weeding, pruning roses, clipping bushes. My garden beds are almost ready for spring planting. But before doing that, I needed to harvest more of my winter garden. Rainbow chard, kale, and underneath is purple broccoli. More chard awaits cutting. This winter was so mild that some lettuce plants survived our few frosts.

This was my first time planting chard. I'd love to know if you cook it and if so, how. I've added it to soups, but that's about it. If you have ideas, please let me know!

Linking to Mosaic Monday, hosted by Mary of the Little Red House.

Late Winter at Butchart Gardens: Part Two

Visiting Butchart Gardens (see yesterday's post for more) in late winter means fewer people and more opportunity to wander about. I went alone and took every little pathway, finding nooks and crannies that I had not previously noticed. Normally, the paths lead people in one direction, keeping the flow of traffic going in one direction. In a moment of whimsy, I decided to trace the route backwards, beginning with the Japanese Garden, where the miniature irises glowed blue. 
 

Water features are a major part of the Japanese Garden. The sound of water trickling through bamboo, gurgling over small rocks, and flowing along pathways, is inescapable. On a hot summer's day, this is the coolest spot in the garden.
 

Stepping stones lead through a pool. Notice the red railings on the bridge in the distance. I'm imagining taking two little girls here in a few years - wouldn't they have fun on these stones? Wouldn't Nana be watching carefully? 
 

Rhododendrons just beginning to flower. I plan on returning in a couple of weeks when even more colour will be visible.

 Moss abounds here, along with ferns. 

In the Rose Garden, there are no roses now, but tiny English daisies smile sweetly.

 I noticed the structure of these rose bushes - masses of blooms in summer, now bare.

I took this photo from a pathway above the quarry. This is the area where Jenny Butchart began her garden - filling in the empty quarry with soil, plants and trees. 
 

Bright pansies top a trash container, beautifying even the mundane. 
 

 Blooms in a rock wall. We've had a lot of rain recently, but my time in the garden was dry, and as I left, there was even a bit of sunshine.

It takes an army of people working hard to keep this garden pristine and beautiful. Here's proof. Our daughter-in-law worked at the gardens during high school and university. She worked in the entrance and directing traffic.
 

One of our son-in-laws grew up on the grounds of the garden. His family lived in a house overlooking this cove. He tells a story of going down to the water one day, getting in a boat and setting off on his own - aged 4 or 5. His mother rushed down to see him in the middle of the cove, unable to navigate on his own.

 

One last bunch of crocuses! Have a wonderful day!

Late Winter at Butchart Gardens

At the time of our Christmas Day visit to Butchart Gardens I upgraded my entrance ticket to a season's pass. I sort of forgot about it until a couple of weeks ago. Since then, I've been watching the skies and my calendar, looking for a dry, not-occupied day to walk through the gardens.

From January 15 to March 15 part of the original house is open to the public with historical documents and artifacts chronicling some of the history of the gardens and of the Butchart family. You can read more of the history online. Above is a small garden room. The pink rose wallpaper is covered with a gray-painted wooden trellis. Sitting there would feel like being in a garden, especially with the white wicker furniture.
 

Isn't this a pretty little causeuse, or conversation chair? It's designed so two people can sit facing each other to chat, or "causer" in French.

The billiards room is very large, with window seats on each end of the room, several sofas, a player piano and a grand piano, along with a couple of desks and display cases. I noticed that some of the old photos showed a swimming pool someplace, so I asked the assistant about it. He opened a door off the billiard room "behind the scenes" and showed me where the pool had been. It was an indoor salt-water pool, now cracked and covered to prevent any mishaps.
 

From the billiard room and the garden room, the windows open onto the Italian Garden. This area was once a tennis court, but it was little used and so converted into the garden seen above. The wing of the house visible on the right is long and narrow and was originally a bowling alley - so the grandchildren would be entertained. It now houses a gardening library.

Here's a view of the house from the Italian Garden. The Butcharts moved to Victoria from Owen Sound, Ontario, to start up a Portland Cement factory. When you read the history of the gardens, you'll discover that Jenny Butchart decided to beautify the huge empty hole that resulted from quarrying the limestone. She had tons of topsoil hauled in and began planting. What vision she had. Tod Inlet adjoins the gardens, and I wrote about a walk we took there last January.

I'll show more of the gardens themselves tomorrow. It's a great time of year to visit. Not many crowds, and although the blooms are few, the structure of the garden is clearly visible. 

Have you visited Butchart Gardens? I'm always surprised by the number of people who have, from all over the world. 

Storied Books

The summer after I finished Grade 3, my parents took a three-week trip to Ontario. We three children stayed with relatives, the last week with my grandparents. When my parents' car drove into the driveway, I raced down the stairs, out the door and into their arms. I cried with happiness at seeing them again. After the hugs and kisses, they opened the trunk of the car and pulled out gifts for us. For me, two books: The Wizard of Oz, above, and Little Women. Little Women was discarded just a few years ago, for I re-read it many times.  

The other book in the above photo, "Nurses Who Led the Way" bears the inscription, "To Lorrie from Valerie Collins, 1966." Valerie was a school chum and fellow book worm. These two books are worn and falling apart, but when I look at them on the shelf, handle them, and flip through their pages, these memories return. 
 

As my husband and I left for a year of Spanish language study before moving to Ecuador, my mother-in-law handed me a gift, with an admonition to keep it wrapped and tucked away until my birthday, three months away.  I would have kept the promise but for termites who found their way into our closet and munched away on the books. We taped them together and they've been read and re-read, both silently and aloud. I know that I could replace them with more intact versions, but why? These are so much more interesting.
 

Books have always been portals into strange and exciting worlds where the cares and concerns of everyday life fade like dust behind me as I plow into the life created on the page. It's unsettling to me to not have a book to read. I usually have several on the go. I read to learn, to escape, and to think.

I cannot remember learning how to read, only that I devoured the printed page from my earliest school days. Now, as I handle books from my past, I treasure not only the stories they tell on the pages, but the way the books themselves have become part of my personal story. 

What role does books play in your life? Do you enjoy reading? Did it come early or late? Can you remember learning how to read? 

Mary, from the Little Red House, will be putting up links to more book posts tomorrow. I'm looking forward to seeing what other bloggers have to say or how they photograph their books.

A Sort-of Recipe and What Happens When I Rush Around

Our in-town kids came for lunch-dinner on Sunday. We use the term to clarify exactly when the meal will be served. I grew up calling the evening meal supper. Dinner was on Sunday afternoons, after church. But some of our family have always called the evening meal dinner, and when invited for Sunday Dinner, didn't really know when to show up. Hence lunch-dinner.

Dessert inspiration came from the desire for a fruity taste, and the presence of whipping cream and Greek yogurt in the fridge. On Saturday night I made up two fruit sauces, one with blueberries, flavoured with vanilla, and the other with strawberries and raspberries, flavoured with a tiny bit of cinnamon. All the fruit came from the freezer, last summer's bounty.

On Sunday I whipped the cream with a little icing sugar and vanilla, then mixed it with an equal amount of plain Greek yogurt. I layered the cream and fruit into water goblets and sprinkled a little buttered nut crumble on top. I have to say, it was a pretty good dessert.

Last night, I put together my husband's lunch. He likes leftovers, so that's what I usually give him. Beef stew and some roasted butternut squash. Everything was in his lunch bag and he just added the ice pack in the morning.

When I arrived home from school this afternoon, I looked into the fridge. There was the container of beef stew and butternut squash. Hmmm. I wondered what he ate for lunch. 

You might have guessed. Leftover strawberry sauce. It was in the same type of container as his leftovers lunch. He said he had a good chuckle when he opened it. And he found something else to eat, although he had a goodly amount of strawberry sauce, too. 

* Just a note about the previous post - yes I sewed up those curtains myself. I really hate sewing curtains. All that measuring. Lining. Great wads of fabric on my sewing table. Boring straight seams. However, the results are worth it.

Bedroom Curtains

Because the light comes in from two sides, it was hard to get a good picture of the bedroom curtains. This early morning one seems to be the best, although it looks very cool. Be that as it may, I'm happy to have the project done, and happy with the results. Since we never turn on our bedroom heat I decided to make the curtains full length in spite of the baseboard heater. Artwork and some other arranging needs to be done before I show you the entire room. Recovering that chair is also on the list.
 

The walls are a pale blue and the curtains have various shades of blues, grays and creams in an ikat pattern. These are my favourite colours. Cool and soothing. Calm. I add warm colours and brights in small doses.
 

A couple of free grandbaby photos to finish the post. Little Miss A is happy to be outside in the yard, squelching as she runs on the soggy grass. She's talking up a storm and narrates her own play in a way that I love to hear. Yes, those are stickers on her hand, her nose and her forehead. She decided where to place them.
 

Little Miss S is growing up, sitting and playing for long stretches of time. Two little white teeth have appeared. She's showing no desire to crawl, but loves "walking" with assistance. I've read that with the emphasis on back sleeping, fewer babies crawl than they once did.

And now, on with my day. My first class today will be challenging. The class is viewing "The Question of God" - a video series highlighting the opposing viewpoints of Sigmund Freud and C. S. Lewis. I'm to lead a discussion on one episode, which I have not seen, but have read the transcript. Should be interesting. This will be followed by three English classes, two studying "The Chrysalids" and the other "All Quiet on the Western Front." Both novels I enjoy. 

I'll catch up with you all later. Hope your day is filled with wonderful moments.

Sunshine in the Garden

A wander through the garden (by way of very soggy grass) reveals the first buds of spring - sharply pointed iris leaves, tiny hydrangea sprouts, neon green curled parsley, tight lilac buds, and almost grotesquely crumpled rhubarb emerging from the dark earth. 
 

Primroses on this sunny Sunday hold just a few lingering drops of all the rain we've had this week. Sunshine and rain - that's what makes the garden grow! Hooray for the first Sunday in March!

Linking to Sunlit Sunday, hosted by Karen of My Little Home and Garden, and to
Mosaic Monday, hosted by Mary of the Little Red House.