Dashed off a greeting card

 Thinking it's easier, cheaper, and much more personal to make a little card for a friend or relative than to go out and buy one.  So I quickly made this one for my granddaughter this morning.

What takes the most time is going through my stacks of papers to find just the right ones!

In difficult times, you move forward in small steps.

Do what you have to do, but little by little.

Don't think about the future, or what may happen tomorrow.

Wash the dishes.

Remove the dust.

Write a letter.

Make a soup.

You see?

You are advancing step by step.

Take a step and stop.

Rest a little.

Praise yourself.

Take another step.

Then another.

You won't notice, but your steps will grow more and more.

And the time will come when you can think about the future without crying.”

- Elena Mikhalkova

(Image of Tasha Tudor, American Illustrator 1915-2008)

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Paring Down!

 We have given up on lots of collectibles (hoarding) since moving to a smaller more efficient home. So now, with limited space, I'm only collecting mini pieces, such as these small books ~

The largest of these is only 3 1/4" x 4" and the tiniest is 1 7/8" x 2 1/4".

My favorite is "Quotable Women".

A woman's life can really be a succession of lives, each revolving around some emotionally compelling situation or challenge and each marked off by some intense experience.

~Wallis Simpson (1896-1986)

I have given away several of these little gems as gifts ~ usually added to a larger gift as an extra bit fitting to the person's interests.

Words to live by

Found on Pinterest this morning

September Already? (a repost from days gone by)

"The breezes taste

Of apple peel.

The air is full 

Of smells to feel- 

Ripe fruit, old footballs, 

Burning brush, 

New books, erasers, 

Chalk, and such. 

The bee, his hive, 

Well-honeyed hum, 

And Mother cuts 

Chrysanthemums. 

Like plates washed clean 

With suds, the days 

Are polished with 

A morning haze. " 

-  John Updike, September

Autumn always makes me a little nostalgic for years gone past where I spent my days on Agate Lake in Northern Minnesota . . .

You just can't beat the colors of the maples, oaks and hickory in that part of the world

the smell and warmth from the fire pit on a nippy Fall day

The lake always seemed to change in the waning days of summer . . . a bit choppier and grayer with the anticipation that before long it would be covered over with ice.

Four Pin Friday

It's been weeks since I packed up my craft room for the big move thinking surely I will be set up in our new home soon.  Well . . . things lately never seem to go as planned.  We are still in the moving mode, and I am missing my almost daily play time!

Pinterest has been giving me itchy fingers and lots of inspiration.  Needing to pick up the brush, or papers for ATCs or start up the sewing machine.  Going through withdrawals big time!!! 

Here is something I'm going to try when I'm able:

Repost from seven years ago

"To be able to walk under the branches of a tree that you have planted is really to feel you have arrived with your garden.  So far we are on the way: we can now stand beside ours."
-  Mirabel Osler

After three summers of growing, Shauna's Eastern Redbud is finally beginning to look like a full~fledged tree

 I see her in each heart~shaped leaf and feel her presence at the sight of this little memorial to her short life.

This sign has faded somewhat but the memory of Shauna never will.

After a While

After a while, you learn the subtle difference

between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
and you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
and company doesn't mean security,
and you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises,
and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes open,
with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,
and learn to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans,
and futures have a way of falling down in midflight.

 

And after a while, you learn
that even sunshine burns if you get too much.

So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul,
instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure . . . 

That you really are strong,
and you really do have worth
and you learn and learn . . .

With every goodbye you learn.

by Veronica A. Shofstall

Jamming

Hot afternoon weather has been keeping me inside.  Soooo . . . I'm spending it mostly in my craft room.

The ATC Yahoo group I belong to has a fun swap called "JAM".  It involves making 3 cards with the first person applying a background to the 2 1/2" x 3 1/2"  ATCs and sending them off to the second person who adds to it.  Luckily I got to finish the cards today and here is the result:

Tomorrow I will send the finished little pieces of artwork to Katie and Lynnda and keep one for myself.  As you can see, they will be going to Pennsylvania and New York.

Thoughts on growing old

"Belief in our mortality, the sense that we are eventually

 going to crack up and be extinguished like the

 flame of a candle, I say, is a gloriously fine thing.  It 

makes us sober; it makes us a little sad; and many

 of us it makes poetic.  But above all, it makes it

 possible for us to make up our mind and arrange to 

live sensibly, truthfully and always with a sense of

 our own limitations.  It gives us peace also, because

true peace of mind comes from accepting the worst.

     Deprived of immortality, the proposition of living

 becomes a simple proposition.  It is this: that we are on

 this earth, rarely more than seventy years, and that 

therefore we have to arrange our lives so that we 

may live as happily as we can under a given set of

circumstances. ...  It made us therefore, cling to

 life─the life of the instinct and the life of senses─on

 the belief that, as we are all animals, we can be truly

 happy only when all our normal instincts are

satisfied normally.  This applies to the enjoyment of

 life in all its aspects.

     A sad poetic touch is added to this intense love of

 life by the realization that this life we have is

 essentially mortal.  For if this earthly existence is all

 we have, we must try the harder to enjoy it while it 

lasts.  A vague hope of immortality detracts from our

 wholehearted enjoyment of this earthly existence."

  Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living

Four Pin Friday

My all~time favorite movie in pictures from Pinterest . . .

I could (and have) watched it over and over

and I find something new each time

So many life messages to take away

Maybe that is why it has been offered so many times on tv.  If you haven't seen it, you really should.

Success in Life (a repost from 2012)

“That man is successful who has lived well, laughed often, and

 loved much, who has gained the respect of the intelligent men

 and the love of children; who has filled his niche and 

accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found

 it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued

 soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to

 express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he

 had.” 

Robert Louis Stevenson

I find that the internet can be a fount of inspiration and pure joy

  

in times like this.  Came across the wonderful quote above and 

 

this happy photo by surfing around in just the last half hour. 

 

 Hope it expresses my "appreciation of earth's beauty" and helps 

me get through this day.

Four Pin Friday

A few ideas to finally give you the courage to cut up that already damaged vintage quilt

Add an old piece of embroidered trim for the cuff

I love this last one.  Print out a few sayings, quotes or special messages to stitch on to salvaged patchwork scraps.  And leave them where your cherished recipient will find them!

Water Zen

Growing up in Lake Country, I have always been drawn to water. Sitting by a lake or stream calms  me and puts me at peace. Found this photo on "Moss Woman's Secret Garden" this morning. I would love this in my backyard.  Dream on!!

"Water, the Hub of Life. Water is its mater and matrix, mother and medium. Water is the most extraordinary substance! Practically all its properties are anomalous, which enabled life to use it as building material for its machinery. Life is water dancing to the tune of solids.

~Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893-1986)

Anything you can do

 Found on this week's Hospice Thriftique's* blog post:

"Anything you can do from the soulful self will help lighten the burdens of the world. Anything. You have no idea what the smallest word, the tiniest generosity, can cause to be set in motion. Mend the part of the world that is within your reach."

  ~Clarissa Pinkola Estes

* http://hospicethritique14.blogspot.com/

Behold the lowly turkey (a repost from a Thanksgiving past)

Benjamin Franklin disliked the choice of the bald eagle as the national bird, and it was in a letter to his daughter, in 1784, that he proposed putting the turkey in its place. The eagle, Franklin points out, is “a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly. . . . He watches the labor of the fishing hawk; and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him, and takes it from him.” Truly, a one-per-cent kind of bird*. The turkey, however, represented to Franklin the best of bourgeois Philadelphia values. The turkey is not only a native; “He is besides, though a little vain and silly, a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on.”

 He can be a very proud and noble bird with beautiful coloring

or

he can look like these birds . . . the kind we see in our neck o' the woods
and

did you know turkeys could fly?!

*perhaps the eagle was the first of the 1 percenters robbing the nests of the 99ers.