07 Saturday Jan 2023
Posted in Art, Mammals, New Year's Resolutions, Reflections, watercolor, Wild animals
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By the first dawn of the new year, all the stars shine in the squeegeed sky over the range and the morning is pale blue and golden, and pronghorn run in wet wilted grass. – Anna Badkhen
The pronghorn is the fastest land animal in North America – second fastest in the world next to the African cheetah. The pronghorn’s speed, grace, and agility are my inspiration for moving through the challenges of this coming year.
04 Wednesday Jan 2023
Posted in Art, Reflections, Teacup, watercolor
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There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.
Lin Yutang
Taking a few minutes to have a cup of tea in my favorite teacup. I need to reevaluate my list of resolutions for 2023 since I breached several of them from the get-go on the first day of the new year. Oops! I think my plans were too ambitious and I need to break them down into more manageable, attainable goals – items I can check off my list with relative ease, and engender a sense of accomplishment. So, here goes…
01 Sunday Jan 2023
Posted in Art, Reflections, Sculpture
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Never look back unless you are planning to go that way. – Henry David Thoreau
Wishing you a happy 2023! May your hopes and dreams come true.
Love, Joan xox
29 Thursday Dec 2022
Posted in Art, Five Beautiful Things, Iceland, Reflections, Sheep, watercolor
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I’m glad to be here. I’m glad to be anywhere. – Keith Richards
In the last few days I have been thinking about the many things in 2022 for which I am grateful. The year started off quietly but the latter half was filled with a certain sweetness and gentleness of family connection, some exciting adventures, followed by succumbing to Covid infections.
21 Wednesday Dec 2022
Posted in Photography, Reflections, Winter, WInter Solstice
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This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath. – Margaret Atwood
When I was a child our family sometimes had Sunday dinner at my Uncle’s house. We younger children would be banished to the basement, while the adults stayed upstairs, doing whatever adults did at dinner parties.
The unfinished basement was the room of doom for me. In it was the dreaded fruit cellar, consisting of an interminably long and completely black space that I would be dared to enter: the challenge was to touch the end wall deep inside it. While I groped my way along, I had a weird, terrible feeling of being drawn towards something sinister. Because of its malevolent power, and because I had an inner desire to defeat the challenge of evil, I kept to task. When I touched the rough cement wall at the end of the cellar space, I quickly turned back towards the light of the room again with a feeling of utter relief, but even more, the feeling that comes with victory over an unknown terror.
This fall has been fraught with challenges. Sometimes I have had that same feeling of my childhood, of moving into the dark, and yet I know with complete certainty that, in due time and with a certain stalwartness and grittiness, the light will be right there in front of me.
18 Sunday Dec 2022
Posted in Art, Birds, Christmas, Crafts, Reflections
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One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas Day.
Don’t clean it up too quickly.
Andy Rooney
When you are finally cleaning up the mess of ribbons and wrapping paper, be sure to save some of the gift tags. I treasure the ones I have collected since I was a child. My mother loved to use the front of beautiful note cards with images of winter such as those by Cornelius Kriegoff, A. J. Casson, and Roy McMurtry. She had beautiful penmanship and always wrote a sweet note to go along with the present. I especially love the gift tags given to me from my daughters – their early attempts at printing “Mommy” and their names are delightful!
Last year my gift tag theme was Christmas trees, but this year I decided to go with birds. I hope one of my children continues my tradition of not only saving the tags but of creating them as well.
11 Friday Mar 2022
Posted in Art, Reflections, Relationships
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The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room. – May Sarton
I needed a rest this afternoon – and thought about you at my side.
22 Tuesday Feb 2022
Posted in Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Relationships, Travel, Wool
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And you belong right here, where you’re home,
and where I hold you close,
Of all the wonders I’ve ever known,
you’re the one I love the most.
From You Belong Here by M.H. Clark, Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault
There is nothing better than snuggling with you under one of the beautiful blankets from our travels together.
10 Thursday Feb 2022
Posted in Daily Life, Photography, Reflections, Winter
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Like a sudden thaw in the middle of winter, grace happens at unexpected moments. It stops us short, catches the breath, disarms. If we manipulate it, try to control it, somehow earn it, that would not be grace. Yet not everyone has tasted of that amazing grace, and not everyone believes in it.
– Philip Yancey
On my walk today, I felt the warmth of the sun on my back like the reassuring hand of an old friend.
07 Monday Feb 2022
Posted in Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Relationships, Valentine's Day
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In winter
all the singing is in
the tops of the trees
where the wind-bird
with its white eyes
shoves and pushes
among the branches.
Like any of us
he wants to go to sleep,
but he’s restless —
he has an idea,
and slowly it unfolds
from under his beating wings
as long as he stays awake.
But his big, round music, after all,
is too breathy to last.
So, it’s over.
In the pine-crown
he makes his nest,
he’s done all he can.
excerpt from White-eyes by Mary Oliver
I liked where we lingered and kissed and made plans for Valentine’s Day.
Satin & Sand 