Mom gave me a record when I was a girl…probably when I was about 8 or 9, that included the story “The Night the Animals Talked.”  As vinyl records gave way to cassette tapes, I recorded it from album to tape, and  continued to listen to it every single Christmas Eve without fail.  Then CDs arrived, but no CD version of it, so I kept up with my cassette.  Finally, the last boom box with a cassette player died, and I could only sit in my cold car in the garage and listen to it there.  Then I sold that car and (duh) my new car plays my iPod, not cassettes.  2010 was the first year I couldn’t listen to this version.  I googled it up again this year, and lo and behold, I found it!  I’ve now got it on my iPod, but thought I’d share with you here.  Grab a cuppa cocoa or cheer, close your eyes, settle back for a few minutes, and listen to the gentle voice of the cow as she narrates the story ….

May the Peace and Joy of the season be with you my friends!

You know how the internet goes…one link leads to another leads to another…not sure where I saw this, but thought it would be fun to share:

For about the past 18 months, I have wanted a new tea cozy as the old one was seriously exhausted, stained, beyond redemption.   Then a few months ago, after a trip through the wash, the ribbon which gathered it up on the top came out and I never put it back.  It was getting annoying.  So a week or two ago, I took a break from “ought to do” stuff and did a “want to do” thing:  I made a tea cozy that actually fits the current teapots…smaller than the old one so it will keep the pot warmer (in theory).

Finally, new tea cozies and a mat/pad

The first one I made was a little bit too small, so it got turned into a little hot pad.  See, I make Irish steel-cut oats most mornings and, rather than dirty a dish, I just take the small pan to the table and eat from that.  In the interest of not scorching the placemats or table, and with the idea of something a little less decrepit than our kitchen hotpads, I made the hot pad.

The two tea cozies are the same size, but have four different Rowan/Westminster fabrics, those lovely color-saturated florals!  You can see three of the four fabrics in the photo.  So now I am going to go pull the cozy off the pot and have another cuppa tea!

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Marcel Proust

Here's to a White Thanksgiving

Greetings from Snowy Maine!  Yes, we had a White Halloween, and now a White Thanksgiving.  Luckily, the snow came down on Wednesday, making turkey-day travel easy as the plowing has been done and the plow-guys can stay home and eat today!

For my readers not in the U.S., the fourth Thursday in November is perhaps the most “American” of all our holidays, at least for me, and that includes our National Day, The Fourth of July.  The holiday springs from a feast the new settlers had back in the Colonial era, when rough times and rougher weather made it uncertain that they would make it.  Help from the Native Americans and hard work got them through it, and the colonists had a celebratory after-the-harvest feast inviting the first peoples to share.  That tradition is now perhaps my favorite holiday of the year:  family and friends, without all the crass commercialism that has sprung up around Christmas.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Morna McEver Golletz of  IAPQ (association of Professional Quilters), in which she had the quote at the top of this post and this one:  “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent.  (Cicero)”

So today I give thanks with abiding gratitude:

First and foremost for my family:  we may be small, and have gotten smaller by one this year with my mom’s passing, but we are fiercely loyal and love each other, no matter what.  Here’s to Paul, Joshua, Eli and our critters (current and departed)!  And to my extended family, beginning with beloved sister-in-law Joyce.  Life is so much better because of you—you are my life.

Here’s to friends far (Marie! Lunnette!) and near (Kathy, Kate, Deborah–who’s a bit far now, and all the Coastal Quilters), you enrich my life and I am so honored to know you and be able to call you friend.  And to friends from long ago in the Foreign Service, and before that school… I’m glad to still be in touch.

Here’s to art and the internet:  without the internet, I would never have embarked on this incredible journey which has filled my soul.  I’ll start with the QuiltArt list which I joined in 2002 (and WHIZZZZ WHOOOOSH…that wind tunnel you hear is the years flying by) and which has been instrumental in my growth–and in connecting me with like-minded souls.  And to the internet and my blog–I have come to know many of you who read this page, and am so grateful you take time from your lives to visit with me.  I’ve loved meeting many of you and hope to meet even more!

So let us give thanks, for each other, for our families, for art, for sharing, for learning, for the internet, and for being able to share!

OK…on this fun, very small, closed internet group that I’m on, I’ve gotten more than a tad silly.  When wishing folks happy birthday, I used the Sandra Boynton birthday greeting (remember her fun greeting cards?  wonder if she still makes them?) I wished folks “Hippo Birdie, Two Ewes” (imagine the cartoon-like drawings to accompany that phrase.  Well, I morphed that into tunas in tutus dancing to celebrate birthdays.  So today I am a thundering and twirling 54, and it has been a wonderful day.

(there is a picture for this post, by the way, but you’ll have to read a bit…it needs to be chronological according to my feeble brain)

Actually, it began a couple days ago.  Hubby for years didn’t quite get that birthdays are important, but that it is the thought that goes into things that counts the most.  Well, this year he got it right in oh so many ways!  He thought about it ahead of time, went to a great of trouble to cross paths with our older son (who now lives on his own) and get h im and his girlfriend to sign my b-day card AND come over for dinner tonight!  Yesterday, when hubby got home from the grocery with younger son, I went to help, and he said “since I can’t sneak these into the house with you here, happy birthday!” and gave me flowers, my favorite yellow (mums since daffodils aren’t in season by a long shot).

And today was good… I started out with a bazillion greetings via FaceBook.I had resisted FB for eons, but I’ve come to enjoy it, and as of today LOVE it.  What fun to hear from so many internet friends!

Then, chores…one of the reasons I haven’t blogged is that I am at long last emptying the storage unit of mom’s stuff and liquidating the last of it.  Have two pieces of furniture on Craig’s list.  If they aren’t sold in 2 weeks, I’m donating them somewhere!  The past two days I’ve gone through 31 boxes of books, we’ve (with Paul’s help and some from Eli) gotten 8 large boxes  with China and crystal (I’ll deal with them later) to our house, and I’ve hauled 8 smaller boxes to the Salvation Army.  The unit WILL be emptied!

And today I took a bit of time between cleaning the storage locker and picking up younger son after Cross Country Practice to sketch.  A friend of his, a guy in his 30s who was a sensei of his in karate–Mark Johnson–who has multiple black belts in multiple martial arts, is also a fairly accomplished artist.  Mark has met and studied with the current Wyeth (Jamie I think, as in N.C. Wyeth and Andrew Wyeth, yes, direct line of succession).  Mark once told me that Wyeth has students do a tough exercise:  draw a white egg (or eggs) on a white piece of paper.   So I tried it! (click to see larger)

It was GREAT!  The eggs are actually gray mostly, with a dark band around the center, because light reflects up at the under side from the paper.  Who knew?  Not me!  And I loved how the lights cast those overlapping shadows, like a Venn diagram!  Anyway, a really wonderful exercise in seeing.  So good in fact that I want to try again.  Today I used four pencils:  HB, 5B, 6B and 8B.  I’d like to try again, but instead of smudging and shading with different leads, I’d like to try it in both watercolor and in a single hardness of pencil (maybe a 2B) or even pen (once I get the outlines/contours roughed in with pencil).

Over the past six weeks I’ve done an online workshop with Jane LaFazio, in part because I wanted something to force me to sketch regularly.   I want to blog about that but as usual am behind the curve–I promise I’ll share (soon I hope).  Still need to get that storage unit cleared out, plus we’re having work done at the house tomorrow, then Thursday is Eli’s next Cross Country meet, then then then….. and I’m taking another class with Jane that starts Thursday too (obviously the first one was so good I’ve gone back for more).  Stay tuned folks!

And thanks to one and all, starting with hubby!!!!, for a wonderful day.