"Family life is rarely perfect, but some things can be pretty darn good. Sharing conversation and food with those we care about can be one of life's continuing joys.”
- Miriam Weinstein, The Surprising Power of Family Meals: How Eating Together Makes Us Smarter, Stronger, Healthier and Happier
Obladee, oblada…
It's been a little surreal from this vantage point. I hope you will understand if I just step away from the Facebook feed scrolling wildly still and rest my eyes here for a minute remembering a quieter day last week. Maybe you'd like to join me for a minute too and think about something else for just a moment? Sit. I will tell you about it.
(all pics from the phone in the dark – my apologies)
(vintage Dickens set)
(this peasant girl caught my eye, reminding me of the German countryside we left behind)
(here with a friend on either side – what better place to find oneself : ))
Do you remember these? : ) My Gram had a set of salt and pepper shakers like these. Made me smile to see them here.
Looking at this reminds me of a conversation I had with Rebecca several years ago when she asked me if I was an essentially cool color person or warm. I insisted cool because all the pictures I had saved and all the rooms I admired were composed of gray or robin's egg blue walls and white slipcovers. Neither of which I had lol.
Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that – one stitch at a time taken patiently and the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Up through the doors, out through the back door…"
(back stitch, chain stitch, running stitch, blanket stitch)
I don't wear purple. I don't decorate with anything in the purple family. It is one of those incontrovertible 'fun facts' about me. At this moment I am fairly certain there is only one purple thing in my possession – my violets.
African violets are surprisingly hard to come by it seems, for something that was such a staple of my youth. My grandmother cultivated many varieties on every north facing window in her home. She painstakingly started little leaves in tiny juice glasses. I remember watching the progression of those hair-fine roots as they first emerged and then slowly grew long enough to risk transplant.
Many of her little plant babies eventually migrated to my bedroom's bay window in town. In time a white, Victorian styled wheeled plant cart was full to overflowing with those plump fuzzy leaves. It brought great joy to see those blooms. It brought a bit of her as well. Still does.
I have a notoriously brown thumb and feared more than once that I had killed these. It turns out they have a blooming and dormant cycle. When all hope seemed lost they came back again, though they are still a little peaked looking from overwatering. They don't tolerate being waterlogged, nor do they take to watering from above, rather only from the roots below. And they abhor getting their leaves wet. It has the same effect as leaving a damp glass on the coffee table. You can find all the specifics here. I hope to begin again this summer in the new house.
"We housewives often in the course of our work come up to bare unwitting prospects and we exclaim, “Oh, it’s perfect drudgery!” But stay, come round this way, view your work from another standpoint. Ah, what a change! Heavens light is upon it; sacred memories arise, glad songs are heard and we trace where high art has been at work. Best of all, our work need not be likened to a ruin, but a place filled with happy human souls. Don’t have one-sided views of your work, view it all round. Have a truly high idea of your work, and you will never commit the great mistake of thinking it drudgery."
By Charlotte Skinner, The Housewife, 1886.
Do visit Brocante Home for the entire essay!
Joining Ginny for Yarn Along again this week:
Alannah has taken up the needles again and has undertaken an ambitious first project – an infinity scarf, ambitious more for the size than the difficulty. We found several patterns online, but none exactly right for our yarn and skill level. We ended up modifying a pattern. She cast on some couple hundred stitches onto the largest circular cable we had. Then has been alternating knit and purl stitches every three rows to make gently rolling ribbing.
Of course it had to be white to contrast nicely with her red wool peacoat.
Noteworthy reads this week include the Little Housekeeping book I quoted yesterday. I thoroughly enjoyed this one although I feel the need to go scrub something with turpentine now. <g> I think my favorite part was the discussion amongst the tutors as to whether to cover laundering in the lessons, it finally being decided in favor, however unlikely it was to come up.
A few children’s books we loved this week:
The Beethoven book has architecture so very like what we see here. Snook was a story of a dog who belongs to a monk. He is left behind on an island for some time. In the course of the story a great deal of naturalist information is imparted. This seems to be a theme because the Audubon book describes the journals and specimen collections of the famed artist. Inspires me to get everyone back out and collecting. Well, maybe when the temperature inches above 20 degrees anyway. Brrr.
That weather has made Aidan’s celestial navigation course a challenge but that course is prompting a great deal of astronomy related reading for everyone.
In other news, I picked up Keep a Quiet Heart by Elisabeth Elliot. I have long loved Elisabeth’s sensibility. I have been pleasantly surprised and encouraged to see so many saints quoted as the basis of her essays in this volume.
One passage really spoke to where I am at this moment:
“There are times when the entire arrangement of our existence is disrupted and we long then for just one ordinary day – seeing our ordinary life as greatly desirable, even wonderful, in the light of the terrible disruption that has taken place. Difficulty opens our eyes to pleasures we had taken for granted.”
I don’t mean to sound pitiful when I say that plenty enough such disruptions have visited me that I have come to truly relish and delight in the ordinary. I spent two hours ironing my husbands work clothes this evening. What a wonderful blessing it was: the steam, the rhythm, the quiet after little people had settled into bed, the old Ozzie and Harriet episodes keeping me company. A very good night ending with a quiet heart.
I’ve many a cross to take up now,
And many left behind;
But present troubles move me not,
Nor shake my quiet mind.
and what may be tomorrow’s cross
I never seek to find;
My Father says “Leave that to me,
and keep a quiet mind.“
– Anonymous
I can’t say this has always been my MO, having been as perpetually preoccupied with tomorrow’s crosses as I have often been. I do feel convicted that this must be the course to set from here out however.
Slipping away from the screen on that note.
Starry Sky Journal 