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.
02 Wednesday Feb 2022
Posted in Home, Poetry, Reflections, Relationships, Winter
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All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.
We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro…
from Haunted Houses by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I grew up in a neighborhood where the homes were identified, not by street numbers, but by the surname of the first owners. It didn’t matter how long the first residents had lived in the house, their surname was retained despite subsequent owners who may have lived there for much longer.
Furthermore, it seemed that whatever that state of emotion the first owners possessed, either happy or sad, the house seemed to attract the same sort of owner. I don’t know why, but when I visit a home, I can sense immediately if it is a comfortable or uncomfortable space – one where the inhabitants thrive in harmony or one where is there is upset and discord. (This is independent of color, lighting, furniture, or any other physical aspect of the house.)
I hope that when anyone enters my home they feel that they are not only entering a welcoming, happy, and comfortable place but one that is nurturing, creative, and flourishing!
27 Thursday Jan 2022
Posted in Art, Daily Life, Reflections
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Oh what a beautiful morning,
Oh what a beautiful day,
I have a wonderful feeling,
Everything’s going my way.
from Oklahoma by Rodgers and Hammerstein
I am a morning person. I like to get up with the sun and make a definite start to the day.
But some mornings, especially when it is cold outside, I am completely seduced by the
warmth of my own bed and the feeling of the covers around me. So I decide not to get up
but to stay in bed and enjoy the moment.
Satin & Sand 