Thoughtful Wednesday

"Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement – to get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed."   Abraham Joshua Heschel

Cosy

Blankets!  Who doesn't love them?

New Neighbours

There are new neighbours across the road so I baked them a cake!  A carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and orange and kiwi on the top.

Food For Thought

I met with daughters 2 and 4 at the most fabulous vegetarian restaurant in London - Food For Thought - in Covent Garden.  We love the simple philosophy there and the food is second to none.  It's SO sad that they are closing in June due to rental increases and the hommogenisation of Covent Garden!!

Golden Days

Don't you just love the golden yellow of Spring?

Thoughtful Sunday

"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."

by Simone Weil

My Week by Maximus the Cat!

An occasional series!

It's been a topsy turvey week here with my staff.  One of them has gone away complete with huge suitcase.  I miss her as she always gave me lots of kisses and cuddles although I have to say I am not missing the dancing and upside down turnabouts!  All a bit much for me but I have great tolerance!!. Other things have been moving too so I just had to investigate - any cleared cupboard is a home to me

And it was very kind of the staff to put sheets and towels out on the table for me in the spare room 

But I wasn't at all impressed when they woke me up taking photos!  Can you believe it?

Yes, I was grumpy but who wouldn't be?  So I went downstairs and oh how lovely that sunshine was!

The staff member who put the sheets and towels out seems to be working at the dining room table a lot these days so I popped up to keep her company.

Evenings were spent on THE QUILT wherever I could find a space

or on the lap of the other staff member who is generally much calmer and quieter - zzzzzz, it's been a busy week.

Does my paw look big in this?

Max, Maximus, I'll answer to anything if there is meat and gravy about!

100 days project - a flower a day

I'm joining in the 100 days project this year and my subject is 100 days of flowers.  Here are three of my entries so far this week.  All are posted on Instagram at Sherah888#100 days project#100 days of flowers.  It's a fun little project and I haven't been too ambitious - just a flower a day!

On the hook and needles

So at the moment we have a ripple something on the go (a chance to practice this stitch using the best pattern from Lucy), and a sock on the knitting needles ( a return to sock knitting inspired by the cold and dark of winter!), a bright and jolly crochet blanket (been on the go a few years and I know it takes 30 mins to do one row!!!) and finally trying to machine stitch in the ditch my big double quilt which has also been on the go for a while now.  Of course my associate needs to be there supervising what's going on and testing out the softness of blanket and quilt!  He has been known to go to sleep on part of the quilt while the sewing machine whirrs away!

Mysteries

Mysteries, Yes

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvellous

to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the

mouths of lambs...

How two hands touch and the bonds will

never be broken.

How people come, from delight or the

scars of damage,

to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those

who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say

"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,

and bow their heads.

Mary Oliver

A new chapter

Since I last wrote here, daughter no.1 has moved out to her own flat about 30 minutes away.  It's been a long haul doing it up but she has done a fantastic job.  Tomorrow it's goodbye to daughter no.4 - the last one!  It's been a struggle to find the right job but tomorrow sees her set off to a rented flat in London just 10 mins from where she works.  I'm just beginning to feel it, having been in some kind of denial for the last few weeks.  One of those strange situations we all face, knowing that it is absolutely the right thing for her to do but I shall miss her nonetheless; her straight talking; her cleanliness - yes truly she is little miss clean whose favourite smell is bleach!!!; her challenges; her courage and her desire to keep me young.  Max will miss her too as they are great buddies.  Here's to a new chapter for us all.

September, I love you!

September is my favourite month of the year and a wonderful month.  We have been having the most amazing weather here in the south eastern part of the UK - sunny and warm.  I love the anticipation of autumn in September and the sense of beginning as well as surrender.  It also happens to be the birth month of some of my favourite people - my twin daughters, my late mum and my hubby.  What is there not to love?

Thoughtful Saturday

"To be human is to live by sunlight

and moonlight and

with anxiety and

admitting limits and

transcending them, falling down

and rising up.

To want a life with only half of these

things in it is to want half a life,

shutting the other half away where

it will not interfere with one’s bright

fantasies of the way things

ought to be”

Barbara Brown Taylor

from "Learning to walk in the dark"

Thoughtful Friday 180

"What in your life is calling you?
When all the noise is silenced,
the meetings adjourned,
the lists laid aside,
and the wild iris blooms by itself
in the dark forest,
what still pulls on your soul?"

The Terma Collective

Ink blots

Having seen a great tutorial by Quinn here I just had to get my inks out and have a go.  Not quite the practiced hand that Quinn is, mine don't really look like trees but it was great fun to play.  I loved the final one which ended up being the paper which scooped up all the excess ink!  

Learning to play and experiment more these days.  Some interesting discoveries which I will try to share on the blog soon.

Thoughtful Friday 179

"Finish each day and be done with it.

You have done what you could.

Some blunders and absurdities have crept in;

forget them as soon as you can.

Tomorrow is a new day.

You shall begin it serenely and with 

too high a spirit to be encumbered

with your old nonsences."

Emerson

Thoughtful Friday 178

 “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”

Thoreau

(artwork by me!)

Thoughtful Friday 177

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed

 by the things you didn't do than the ones you did do. 

So throw off the bowlines. 

Sail away from safe harbor. 

Catch the trade winds in your sails. 

Explore. Dream. Discover."

~Mark Twain

Making Books Again

 Another homemade fabric paper cover (using napkins and old paper)  and long stitch binding

 Having a go at Coptic stitch - a great Youtube tutorial can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue52htX3j0k

A little concertina book made with potato prints, handmade stamps using funkyfoam and polystyrene.  It looked really messy so I added the black outlines with my Pitt pen, some collaged latin flower names and some rubber stamped words and I really like the result.

Thoughtful Friday 176

"Art is the stored honey of the human soul"

Theodore Dreiser