Dreams and Stuff

 

When I first started blogging, I knew that My Field of Dreams would be the name. I have spent so many hours in my life staring at what it is in reality a pasture. I have always been rather cautious about dreams though. Dreams can be a good thing, but sometimes to call someone a "dreamer," can mean someone who thinks of things and never follows though. Or a person who doesn't figure in the cost of dreams. Dreams can sometimes turn into an illusion, and all of a sudden, a dream becomes like sand through an hourglass.

 

I think I would call myself a careful dreamer. I try not to dream too deeply. Sort of keep my feet on the ground kind of dreamer. Ron has been reading a book called Put Your Dream to the Test. by John C. Maxwell. I have been busy hooking my hands off, so he reads and he will read me parts that interest him. 

Last night he read me something I had to share with you today. As I thought it was something that distilled into what I would long to be. ( If I wasn't too lazy or too scatterbrained about half the time.) 

 " Let's face it: Dreams don't work unless you do...Achieving a dream will require hard work To succeed you'll need to do more---more than you want, more than your competition, more than you think you're capable of, you must live the words of William Arthur Ward:" 

" I will do more than belong---I will participate.

I will do more than care---I will help.

I will do more than believe---I will practice.

I will do more than be fair---I will be kind.

I will do more than forgive---I will forget.

I will do more than dream---I will work.

I will do more than teach---I will inspire.

I will do more than earn---I will enrich.

I will do more than give---I will serve.

I will do more than live---I will grow.

I will do more than suffer---I will triumph." 

 

I thought that it was such a profound statement to life. There has been so much going on the the world, I know that if I can't  even change me, how can I possibly change the world. There is such negativity all around, day in and day out, that I find myself wanting to not add to it but to rise above it. I want to be as that little song says, that I sang to my babies, " This little light of mine, I'm  going to let shine, let shine, let shine, let shine." Just a little light that shines in the darkness today. Because really, I do want to triumph!! 

Just some thoughts this morning, I hope you have a lovely fall day, filled with lots of laughter and love and warmth. 

~Kim~

"There are two things to aim at in life; first, to get what you want; and after that, to enjoy it, Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second."

---Logan Pearsall Smith---

A Wintery Morning

 

Happy Monday! We have a wonderful cold, and wintry morning here today. You can tell it is snowing in the mountains as the temps have dropped so much since the sun came up. We had such a nice rainy Sunday.  We burned a fire, first one in the stove this year. It has been a long time since we have had real November weather.

I finally finished Be Ye Thankful, well almost, it needs to be bound. It would make a nice rug for the floor, but I don't think I could put in on the floor. It is a very nice size.

Pattern Spruce Ridge adapted from original by Notforgotton Farms.

When I bought the pattern three years ago, I had just started hooking rugs. It was so overwhelming to me to ever think I could do something this big. Not that it is finished, I can say, " I did it!"

 

This is going to be a short post today. There are men out in my driveway, jack-hammering and making all kinds of noise. It makes me rather scatter-brained. I just wanted to check in and wish you a lovely week.

Bye for now,
~Kim~

Keep your eyes open to your mercies. The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Talking of Books

 

I have had this post going around in my head for days. I guess in part I blame L.M. Montgomery. When I read her I always want to write and use big old fashioned words. I am about halfway through Anne of Windy Poplars. As I was reading today, I was reminded of how much I wanted to be like Anne. She went out of her way to be a servant, she saw the good always in self centered people and she was always positive. It is good to go back and read books, that are the fabric of my life. Without the influence of these books who knows where or who I would be.

Here are my Anne books. I had to work hard to save the money for these books. I made 5 dollars a week, cleaning house and washing dishes. Then I had to plead to get someone to take me to the book store. It took me an entire year to buy these. They weren't in paper back at the bookstore in the mall.

 

They are getting worn now. Old friends. Since I was 12 years old.  I still wonder if I had six kids it because Anne did.(Anne of Ingleside)

 

I always wanted to be Jo. Still to this day, I want to ask Louisa May Alcott, (even though I loved Mr. Bhaer,) Why did she not marry Laurie? Even being as old as I am, I still think she would have been happier with Laurie. I never could like Amy. Even before the little hussy took her trip with Aunt March to Europe and came home married to Laurie. I think Marmee has the best daughter talk to Meg I have ever read. Always I have wanted to be as wise and giving as Marmee, kind and sweet as Beth. As beautiful as Meg and a good writer as Jo. I always wanted the kind of house that Jo has in Jo's Boys though. Filled to the brim with life.

Laddie and A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter came to me via my grandmother. She felt unloved in her girlhood. She often told me often not being loved by her mother as Eleanor was not loved by her mother, Mrs Comstock. She identified with that book. Reading it made me want to learn and to collect moths and take photographs. I wanted to roam the woods and find the beauty there. Laddie came later, but I still read it every year, because it is about Gene Stratton's family (loosely as I think how she wanted it to be). She was the last of twelve children, it is a lovely story. Who knows if I might have had 12 children had I read it sooner. ( Joking, sort of)

 

   I must say something about Christy. After my Dad remarried, he got the bright idea to load us all in the back of a borrowed station wagon, and drive across country via Route 66. In the hot summer with a bunch of kids who didn't really like each other and were not really interested in being the Brady Bunch. We stopped at every shop, tee-pee, snake pit and we saw every two headed calf, and meteor. If it had a sign we stopped.

 In one of those shops on the way home, I was roaming around and I came to a stand of paper back books. I saw one called Christy. I read the back and I was hooked. I don't remember much about the ride home, because I had been transported back in time to the Appalachians. To 1912 in  rural Tennessee.

 I was crushed by the heartbreaking story Christy heard from Alice Henderson. I still someday want to make the quilt that Fairlight Spencer saw outside her window in the night sky. That became part of me too, my life was never as hard as those women who lived in the Cove. When ever I dye wool, I wish I had a stand of indigo to make blue. I love the words of that book. The words continue to be music to my soul. I also loved Catherine Marshall very much.

 

I guess trying to whittle it down to books I love is trying to say which kid is your favorite. These are books that are deep inside and the words and thoughts that formed me. The wisdom from authors that God used to help that little girl who was struggling to make sense of a world, that didn't make sense. Anne, Jo, Elenor and Christy, overcame odds so great and hard. They rose above circumstances that they found themselves in and I know I loved them because they let their suffering be for good. It made them sweeter instead of bitter.

Books have played an important role in my life. They continue to do so. Thank you for coming along with my remembrances about my friends.  I always have stacks of books sitting around. I always imagine as I walk by the little voices shouting, "read me, read me!"

Thanks for coming along,
~Kim~

“And whether rich or poor, well or ill, happy or sad, books can be a refuge, they do not change with changing circumstance, they are the open highway to yesterday, today and tomorrow wherever you will to travel.”
― Gladys Taber, Stillmeadow Daybook

A Happy Morning

 

This has been the most perfect- Fall-November-in-years-and years! I was walking around with my camera this morning. Do you ever stand and see something that makes you so happy to be alive? I stood and looked at these mums with tiny rain drops still left on them. I just felt so thankful to be right here right now. Every where I looked diamonds were sparkling in the trees, and in the grass. The clouds were over the mountains, as cold as my hands were, I knew it was snowing up there.

This weekend Ron and Peter worked and worked trimming this pepper tree.

Can you see how pretty it looks now? It grew so much this summer it looked like a giant bush. I always think that when I decorate for Christmas, one year, I would really love to decorate the trees in front with white lights. As pretty as it looks now, maybe this is the year.

 

Halloween weekend, I planted around 200 bulbs. So in all of my flowerbeds, I have points coming up. As I was planting each bulb, I kept thinking of how each bulb is a tiny miracle I can hold in my hand. I can put it in the ground, cover it up and then on the darkest days there will be a surprise to brighten my world. Each one contains just a bit of magic. Not to mention they smell wonderful.

 

I don't remember in past years to have so many red leaves. All of these trees Ron planted from seed. Now this year, they are big enough to be planted out in the front. In my minds eye, I think how pretty they will look someday, against that white fence. We are going to put in a tree screen. With the traffic on the road, I feel like an animal in a zoo.

 

I loved the color on this Japanese Maple. I loved the red with the brown.  It is one of my favorite colors.

Like this mum that is getting ready to open.

I really like that color too. With that one stray petal.

This morning, I let my chickens out for a bit. I was going to let them hang out for awhile. Sasha had another plan. She has decided she doesn't like them out in the yard anymore. Every time I  turn my back on them the next thing she has rounded them all up and put them back in the pen. This morning I managed to have my camera.

I didn't get any more pictures, she put these up and then went around to the other side of the yard and got the scragglers up by the house. This is her job and she is very serious about it. The funny thing is the hens don't seem to mind.

It is just a very fine morning. I wanted to show you the last part of that rug.

This is all I have left. I was looking at it after I had hooked and hooked yesterday. It dawned on me, that I have as much left on this rug as much as a whole rug I do normally. It doesn't look like that from the picture but it is a bunch. I will finish it this week, the light is at the end of the tunnel.

Thank you for visiting today.

~Kim~

“Are ye the ghosts of fallen leaves, O flakes of snow, For which, through naked trees, the winds A-mourning go?”
― John B. Tabb