The glitter tree, another of Auntie’s cherished creations. This one will stay with me til I die. Who wants it then? The tree skirt arrived safely in Tennessee and has been installed under its tree with its new family.
I’m blessed with an abundance of visible beauty in my life. Art was important to all my women ancestors I know of and possibly some of the men. I grew up surrounded by beautiful things, many of them created by family members. We took vacations to the mountains because both my parents appreciated natural beauty: my mom painted and drew and put a sketchpad in my hands. My dad took photos and put a camera in my hands. I sometimes think I’ve made choices to surround myself with so much beauty because it’s the only thing that makes human life bearable. Without it I’d have lost my mind ages ago. I’m grateful for beauty.
I cannot imagine the mind it takes to imagine something like this...
… spray painting the pinecones, finding or making all the little baubles, flowers, bows, fans, butterflies, and glueing them all on in a seemingly random fashion yet it all working out so beautifully...
She even included little baby Jesus.
The Colonial Williamsburg nutcracker, which I gave my parents one Christmas while I was in college, temporarily bumped my own little baby Stellar out of his spot.
I’m grateful for beautiful food, and for thinking to add special touches even if I’m just serving myself. This creamy cauliflower dip is a great way to eat vegetables. So simple, so delicious. It’s like hummus but different.
And for an afternoon snack, I celebrated with the neighborhood as the Potica Fairy delivered all over the mesa! Thank you, dear neighbor, for this annual treat.
And, of course, I’m grateful for beauty in my playtime as well. This self-care Sunday I ate right, exercised, walked outside, brought in firewood, connected with loved ones, and started a new puzzle.
More than sixty years ago, Auntie created a gorgeous Christmas tree skirt for her own family, one for her sister’s family, and one for her brother’s family. I don’t know exactly what year, nor does anyone else who’s left, but I also don’t remember a Christmas without this beautiful artwork under the tree. She never imagined, she told me once, that they’d last this long, and that was more than a decade ago. I wrote about this skirt last Christmas when I draped it over the tv for awhile. At the time, I realized it was time to pass it on to a new home where it could resume a family life with its proper purpose.
A few weeks ago on Cousins’ Zoom, my eldest cousin Bruce asked his siblings if anyone knew where their ancestral Auntie tree skirt had ended up, and his sister said it was with her daughter. In that instant, I knew where my family’s heirloom needed to go. I texted with Bruce about it, and he said one of his daughter’s would love to have it. I finally got under the stairs today and into the Christmas trunk. I put out a few decorations, like Auntie’s ancestral glitter tree and the colonial nutcracker, and I gently unfolded the tree skirt from its tissue paper nest and photographed one scene at a time.
This was always my favorite, the color tree with the train, and when it was my turn (my brother and I traded every year until he didn’t care anymore, and then it was always my turn) I always put this tree as front and center as possible. I would sit night after night in the living room with only the Christmas lights around the big window, and look at the sparkle of this skirt, sensing the time and love and whimsy Auntie had put into it.
It was a joy to handle this for the last time, to say goodbye, to release a sentimental attachment with no future; to pad and pack it with tenderness and precision, and to wrap it as a gift for a young woman just starting out on her own family journey. I can happily imagine it will have another twenty or fifty years of life, and possibly be treasured by a new pair of children taking turns getting to place it under the tree with their favorite facing forward. Will one choose Santa, and one the gold tree?
I never adequately appreciated the reindeer flying up into the starry sky until this morning, photographing them. I can almost feel inside her mind as she laid out the big elements like the trees and the poinsettia, and then filled in space with some of the smaller features like the reindeer and the drum. I’m grateful for letting go with joy.
Then Wren and I drove down to the Pack Shack in Hotchkiss for professional packaging and FedEx shipping. I’m grateful for their care with this priceless package. “Cover it with stickers,” said the boss, “fill it up like a Christmas tree,” and the young woman packing put on enough stickers it should have no dings or dents when it arrives in Tennessee on Friday. I’m grateful for their work, and grateful that express shipping even exists.
And all this happened before lunchtime! I imagined all the way home what kind of cheese sandwich I might create when I got there.
I’m grateful as always for the right tools for the job, in this case the cheese slicer, and the mayonnaise spreader with the long handle to get down to the bottom of the jar. Today’s deluxe sandwich included sharp white cheddar, pickled red onions leftover from last night’s veggie chili, and fresh-made coleslaw. I included celery for its anti-inflammatory properties. So simple, so delicious. A worthy reward for a morning’s rich work.
The precious clippers and the dozens of other adorable whimsy pieces made this, like all Liberty puzzles, a delight to assemble.
I’m grateful for this lovely puzzle that brightened the past three dark and snowy days, Indoor Summer Garden by Jenny Wheatley.
I’ve never been an oatmeal-for-breakfast person, but in my quest to eat more healthfully I decided a month ago that I’d try again, and I began to imagine a bowl of oatmeal with blueberries and maple syrup. Then I started looking for the oats that I was sure were in the cupboard or pantry somewhere. Not to be hasty, I opted to keep looking for my oats rather than surrender to purchasing another canister. So I double and triple checked the cupboards, and over a couple of weeks in several installments sorted and culled the pantry. Still couldn’t find the oats, so I bought a new bag of Bob’s Red Mill organic oats. Finally I could live the dream! And honestly, it’s been every bit as satisfying as I imagined it would be. I add a tablespoon of protein powder and a teaspoon of maple syrup, and feel ever so virtuous eating oats instead of croissants for breakfast. I’m grateful for oatmeal.
I am NOT violating Puzzle Rule #1: The coffee only appears to be above the puzzle, I would never hold a beverage over a Liberty puzzle.
A quiet, snowy Saturday, sleeping late and enjoying a latté and a puzzle: I couldn’t be more grateful for these delights, and I know that it is only through the grace of my birth and the conditions that led to this moment that it is what it is. I did nearly nothing of importance today, just relaxed and enjoyed the simple pleasures of food, water, shelter, and space: the essential ingredients of any animal life.
Deconstructed cheese sandwich: smoked gouda melting on sourdough toast, avocado mayo, and a tiny fresh tomato from the sunroom vine. Wasn’t sure the proportions would work out if I spread them all on the toast at once, so I added flavors bite by bite. Because I’m grateful to have the time and ease to be able to do so.
After lunch, Wren naps in my lap.
Come ON! How fantastic is this? Garden clippers that actually ‘clip’! So grateful for the genius of the Liberty Puzzle puzzle master.
Just before dark we went for a walk. Wren was sneezing when she came back from this romp, and I thought she might have gotten a grass seed up her nose. She seemed to have sneezed it out by the time she got back to me so I didn’t worry about it. Playing this back frame by frame I could note the moment she did get a seed up her nose, and see it still sticking out at the moment the video ends. Clearly she got it out because she quit sneezing and has been fine ever since. It was so long that I’d have noticed if she hadn’t relieved herself of it. Super grateful for that!
For supper, just a snack of miso-maple toasted walnuts. So simple, so delicious. Grateful to watch the finale of the 2023 Great British Baking Show, and inspired, though I’m trying to quit.
I’m grateful for the first real snow of the season, which started last night and has continued throughout the day. We woke to a couple of inches this morning, and at bedtime tonight it’s up to five or six. So it’s been slow and easy all day. The first snow of the year always reminds me of Conrad Aiken’s short story “Silent Snow, Secret Snow,” and brings that muffled sense of peace and isolation he captured so intimately. Wren knows nothing about that story, dwelling in the moment with a snowball on the deck. Seconds after we came inside a snow shelf slid off the roof that would have buried her.
Any money I saved (and there was plenty) by not buying things I don’t need with money I don’t have was instantly offset by the new starter for the Honda. Otherwise, No-Buy November was a smashing success. I’m grateful for the mindful practice of not being a consumer for most of last month, except of groceries and an essential car repair. It’s reset my spendometer to zero and I intend to creep along at a much slower pace going forward. In fact, I’m planning on a Junk-free January, where not only do I not buy anything I don’t need including junk food, but I’ll work hard on getting rid of things I don’t need or that don’t spark joy.
Obviously, because of the joy they spark and the mental exercise, I won’t be relinquishing any Liberty puzzles. I’m grateful to have a couple of new puzzles from our Maryland satellite library, and started a lovely one today after wrapping up the week’s work.
There’s a floral theme, and I started with the easy part, the garden stool. I love, as usual, how the pieces align with the image, as in the bird piece above landing on the bird image. Another trick in this puzzle which is rare in these masterpieces, is at least one piece that fits where it doesn’t belong. I’ve seen this a few times, and know it’s an intentional mind game from the puzzle master, which adds to the delight.
Wrong piece above, and right piece below.
I’m grateful for the luxury of having more than I need, and the wisdom to recognize it. I’m grateful for the lessons of No-Buy November and the motivation to pare down and simplify.
Wren likes a belly rub first thing in the morning…
I am grateful for feeling useful today. I got a lot of things done, taking care of myself in several important ways from completing important paperwork to cooking a delicious (adapted) wild rice soup, with several short walks outside in between; getting some work done to meet a deadline; helping others in some meaningful ways…
… and finishing a spontaneous knit hat I started a few days ago when I ran out of Sugar and Cream scrap yarn for dish cloths. I used up some other lovely yarn ends, including a sage chenille and two gorgeous handspun wools. I was able to keep going all day for two reasons I can think of, besides being useful: I enjoyed oatmeal with blueberries for breakfast, and I threw in some full caff beans with my decaf coffee. It’s hard to know (and it doesn’t matter) whether any one of these factors was more important than others: together, they contributed to a very fulfilling day. So simple, so satisfactory: Feeling useful, just being me.
I’m grateful that we got a little snow overnight. And so winter begins, and brings with it indoor pastimes.
For a few years I knitted a lot of dishcloths, simple squares of knit knit knit, that took little attention and resulted in lovely sustainable dishwashing utensils that I am still using. I knitted enough to increase my supply year by year, and to give as gifts to others who equally appreciated their unique satisfactoriness in the bewildering and often dissatisfying world of dishwashing products, largely throwaway plastics. I was grateful for that hobby which allowed my mind to rest while my hands were productive; until a series of wrist and thumb injuries stopped my knitting career.
I’m grateful that physical therapy and time and life healed my joints enough that I can knit again. I’d been thinking for a few weeks about getting back to the dishcloth habit, and was inspired to finally do so after a conversation with a dear friend led to her buying the dishcloth yarn and sharing her grandmother’s instructions. I didn’t read them because I had mine in my head, but I did sort my yarns and needles into order and started knitting tonight. I texted her the above picture to thank her for her inspiration, and we ended up on the phone trying to figure out where she’d gone wrong with grandmother’s pattern.
We got it squared away, literally, and she started over. I finished my basic square and decided to try the fancier pattern, which had sounded complicated but was actually simple once we understood it. So while she knitted away in Oregon, I knitted here, and later we exchanged photos of our success. I’m grateful for an old friend turning into a new knitting buddy!
I’m grateful for my other little buddy who fits right under the needles while I work. I’m grateful for my friend and her grandmother; and for the little old lady in the eye surgeon’s office years ago who showed me the simple dishcloth she was knitting and recommended Sugar and Cream yarn when I expressed an interest in emulating her. And my knitting buddy and I were both tickled pink when she first found her grandmother’s handwritten instruction page and it called for Sugar and Cream! I’m grateful to be part of a generations-long tradition of thousands of women using this sweet cotton yarn to knit dishcloths, and for all the multiple thousands of people through the years who have grown the cotton, processed the cotton into yarn, the yarn into skeins, and sent the yarn to the shelves. I’m grateful for knitting.
I love murals. It’s been a long time since I’d been in GJ before last week, then I was there again today. I hadn’t seen this one, which decorated the flat grey wall in front of the meter on 5th Street where I parked for five minutes to dash into The Hog and the Hen for a Fowl Play sandwich after a morning of appointments. I’m grateful for a grateful attitude as I began this long day. Grateful to Neighbor Cynthia for the portable compressor that enabled me to bring a low tire up to safe pressure, grateful to Neighbor Mary for coming to check on Wren in my absence, grateful for light traffic and few delays, grateful for patience more than once during the day, grateful for a quick in-and-out at the dermatology office to get stitches out, grateful for a jovial neurologist and a fascinating series of tests that revealed nothing wrong with my central nervous system; grateful for getting some errands done on the way home including voting and mailing some important cards.
The day was tiring, but without a grateful attitude it would have been grueling. The sandwich lacked cheese, but included Turkey, Brie, Apple Chips, Lettuce, Tomato, Cucumber, Pickled Red Onion, Cranberry Aioli, on Thin Ciabatta. I asked for no cucumber and extra aioli, and while it was delicious, it simply wasn’t big enough. The apple chips added a surprising crunch. There was a moment on the drive up there through the high desert, with the window down and the radio playing The Eagles, that I felt as carefree and light as I did the first time I drove across the country through a continually unspooling novel landscape. I used to love to drive the back roads. Now I’m grateful for a fleeting nostalgia now and then, and solid sense of belonging to home.
Wren and I went to town today for PT. I’m grateful to be learning about the nervous system, and how to help heal a long-ago yoga injury in my low back from the bottom up with some nerve ‘flossing’ exercises, and from the top down with some neck exercises. While we were in town, we stopped to bring a little love to a friend who gets out even less than I do. She hadn’t met Wren before, but I was not surprised at how quickly they took to one another. We sat together outside, and between Wren cuddles, I read her poetry to her from the four wonderful chapbooks we made over the years, years ago. I was moved all over again by the beauty of her words, which I hadn’t read or heard for a long time; and I was moved by her vivid response as she completed lines with me, laughed in recollection, and appreciated our connection. I’m grateful for this time with her, and the perspective it gave to both of our lives.
I slept til eight. I’m grateful for generally good sleep most nights, even though I’m a night owl, and grateful for a late wakeup some weekend mornings. And grateful to wake up to a bright late September morning, a cup of coffee, a chocolate croissant, and apricot jam, on a patio I built, with a spectacular view.
I got to take my time arranging art on the blue wall, interspersed with some housecleaning, some good listening to Radio Swiss Jazz, the Buddhist Wisdom for Life Summit hosted by Tricycle, and the Collective Trauma Summit. It’s downright amazing to have the world at my fingertips in my remote little mud hut. I’m grateful for the beautiful and meaningful artwork I got to hang on the wall.
I realized only after I hung all the art that this is essentially a memorial wall. On the far left, a piece of folk-art from Amy’s Uncle Neville, a renowned regional artist; above the lamp is my mother’s last painting titled ‘Fractured World’; above the Monument Valley photo I took (in its way also a memorial) hangs a watercolor by another renowned artist Dick Higgins who was a dear friend and teacher of Auntie. The framed puzzle, ‘Oiseaux: Varieties of Birds,’ is an illustration by 19th Century artist and naturalist Adolphe Millot, and also in part inspired the blue wall.
The only artist still living on this wall is the fox painter, Daniel Logé, whose painting I bought in a past life as a gallery owner. The rest of them have died: Richard Van Reyper painted the mountain meadow, my mother in her Oils Phase did the Lilies of the Valley and in her Pastel Phase the portrait, and my dear friend Darlene painted ‘Cats on the Furniture.’ I don’t remember who took the photo of me building my house, but my Fairy Godmother Thelma who is cheerleading me in the image, and who was instrumental in me finding this land, left this earthly plane just a few years after I finished the house. Until the day I myself die, I will be grateful to Thelma for helping me find this little place of peace.
I’m grateful for the blooming Maximillian sunflowers, which are the definitive herald of autumn, and for my Garden Buddy who gave them to me. And I’m grateful for a simple and delicious vegetarian dinner of Roasted Cauliflower with Sweet Chermoula and Yogurt. I didn’t know what chermoula was until I ran across this recipe, and it is a delicious sauce! I didn’t have sweet paprika so looked up (world at my fingertips) a good substitute, and ended up using half as much ground Aleppo pepper plus a squeeze of tomato paste to approximate the taste. I also didn’t have cilantro, and precious little parsley, so subbed dried parsley. With olive oil, honey, lemon juice, and some other spices, it was so yummy I could have eaten the whole recipe but disciplined myself to save some for tomorrow. I’m grateful for a delightful Saturday, and for the presence of mind to appreciate an easy, joyful day.
