Winter Rugs

Not today, just after the pasture was plowed.

Yep, finally a winter. It is so foggy this morning I can't even see lights. Pea soup is what the the weatherman said.
I am so glad to have a winter. Rain is nice too. We had such a nice surprise rain storm on Saturday night-Sunday morning. That is why we are having pea soup fog now. It feels so nice to have what I consider normal weather. I like weather can you tell? I read weather pages like some people read the stock market pages.

Anyway, this post is about my latest rugs. It is so much easier to hook when it is cold.

 

This is my own design. It was a fun rug to do again. Meg has the original. I wanted to get a rug a month done this year so this is my first. I will do the binding today or tomorrow. I am in the process of cleaning out cupboards and closets. I cleaned three yesterday. I don't want to break the mojo that I have going on.
Today is is my small pantry and then start my way upstairs. I sat down on January first and wrote out a whole list of things I wanted to get done this month and it feels so nice to be checking them off.

 

I thought I would show you how we spend our evenings. Ron's things are by his chair with the things he works on and the book is on the table and then my chair with my hooking stand that Ron made and also my basket with my current stitchery projects I have going on. With the fire burning in the fireplace, it is my favorite place to be right now. I am really loving the January.

I hope you have a lovely Tuesday. Full of lots and lots of good things. Thank you so much for stopping by to read my ramblings. No brain cells were harmed while writing this post. :)

John S. Dwight said, (1813-1893)
" Rest is the fitting of self to it's sphere. If in my " sphere" I find things out of place through someone
Else's fault this is my opportunity to fit myself, to give a little. To do a small thing that should have been done by the others. Love is patient, very kind, never rude, never selfish. It is amazing what rest comes from the gentle fitting of self to its sphere."

Just a Random Post

 

I hope you had a great week. I started great, but this cold has really thrown me to the mat. I keep hoping it will be gone very, very soon.

 I am very glad I am married to such a good organizer. He is working on new file folders and getting the New Year things all situated. He likes getting organized. I do but our organizational levels are quiet different.

Our number two son loaned us a book that he thought was really good. Ron started reading it out-loud last night as I hooked my latest rug. It has lots of language, lots. Ron doesn't read the language but changes it so I am finding it really a wonderful story. ( I am always aware of people coming in and I wouldn't want them to over hear that language as we don't talk like that.)  The book began its life as a self published book but now has been published by a publisher and has a movie contract. The book is called The Martian by Andy Weir. It is so well written, I feel like I have been watching a movie. The movie should be out in November 2015
directed by Ridley Scott with Matt Damon. It is all about work so of course, we love it.

 

My oven finally broke big time this last weekend. I won't bore you with the details, but having no oven has been a test this week. I told the boys that they really need to learn how to do appliance repair as no one wants to fix anything any more. They just want us to go buy a new one. That is what my regular repairman told me. So this is hoping the new guy can repair my oven and I don't have to buy a new one.
First world problems.

I have wondered things this week. Do you ever wonder what happens to birds when they are flying in the rain? Do they get water in their eyes? Do they just keep flying and hope the drip just falls out? I thought about that watching birds in the rain. They seemed to have fun and didn't slow down any.

I was also wondering watching the birds hang out in the back yard. They all seem to be good friends right now. No one is fighting over territory. The meanest birds are the little one. Hummingbirds are real fighters. They take on anyone. Then the Phoebe is a real fighter too. The bigger birds don't seem to pay attention though I did see the mockingbirds hitting the doves. The meadowlarks seem to like everyone as they walk all over the front yard, in their funny stumping steps with their short little tails. 

Have a lovely weekend, I hope it warms up for you.
~Kim~

" Life is a cup to be filled, not drained."
---Anoymous

Silence

 

Silence, isn't it a nice word? After the rush and busyness of December, I find that January is nice to rest and have silence. When it is foggy here, the fog, like snow makes sound not travel and makes everything hush.
I have lost my voice so there is something else that brings silence. I have to really think of what I want to say before I speak. Not a bad thing. My words have to count. I think I need this in place all of the time. It also gives me time to think and listen deeper than normal. The one thing I do miss, is singing. I guess when I go about my daily routine, I sing to myself. Not being able to sing makes it seem very quiet.

 

 I think silence, helps my brain to simplify my thoughts.  It also helps me to think deeper about plans for the future. It also in a odd way makes me content to be at home doing all of those things that I really do love. Being a keeper at home. A helpmate. Have you ever thought about how in the beginning after God created the world and it was perfect. God made a garden and put Adam in it. What a beautiful garden it must have been. Then after naming all of the animals, there was not a helper suitable for Adam. I always think that God must have known how deep was Adam's longing for someone to talk to and be with. So God created Eve. In a perfect world, God made two perfect people for each other. To Adam he gave Eve. His counterpart, as a gift to fill all of his needs. Not the other way around. As a woman, I find my joy comes from that deep feeling of joy, when I am giving up myself for the well being of others. I really do love being that helpmate to my husband, anticipating his needs and putting his needs before my own. 

 

I don't do it all of the time, very well. I get selfish and self-centered and my will more often than not gets aggravated and short and I do want my own way. Keeping silent though, has helped me to think more about it. It has made me slow down and look at my goals as a woman. I have always wanted to have a gentle, and a quiet spirit. One of my favorite quotes by Elisabeth Elliot goes like this .

“The world looks for happiness through self-assertion. The Christian knows that joy is found in self-abandonment. 'If a man will let himself be lost for My sake,' Jesus said, 'he will find his true self.' A Christian woman's true freedom lies on the other side of a very small gate---humble obedience---but that gate leads out into a largeness of life undreamed of by the liberators of the world, to a place where the God-given differentiation between the sexes is not obfuscated but celebrated, where our inequalities are seen as essential to the image of God, for it is in male and female, in male as male and female as female, not as two identical and interchangeable halves, that the image is manifested.”

 Just some of the things I have been thinking about as I have gone about my days. Trying to get to the bottom of that question that will forever haunt me. Home-making verses Working outside the home. Even now, I find that all of the things I thought I wanted out of my life as a young girl, even today as a woman, still causes me to ponder"well what is it that you do all day? "
The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian makes me a different kind of woman.” Elisabeth Elliot

I guess it is time to make these fingers of mine to be silent as well. I cleaned out my pantry yesterday. I actually had spices from the 1980s. Isn't that amazing. I just kept them for the bottles. I have my own hoarder ways. We have went through three moves and I still kept them.

I hope your day is a wonderful one. It is going to be a pretty day here. Thank you for stopping bye today.

~Kim~

 

“Maturity starts with the willingness to give oneself.”
  "Elisabeth Elliot---Let me be a Woman"

Now Back To Normal

 

Are you feeling back to normal yet? I have decided that there is no such thing as normal. Which is good I think, because I might get stuck in normal and never want to come out. I think the nicest thing was getting up at the normal  time, watching the sun rise and getting chores started at a normal time. I really enjoyed sleeping late, having slow mornings and enjoying having Ron home for two weeks. We both needed some down time and it was pure bliss.

 

My list of things I would like to get accomplished for January continues to grow at an alarming rate. Cleaning closets and cleaning out my cookbooks, and moving bookcases. It is time to get more organization into my life. Every where I look I see places to clean. I think the hardest thing about any chore is just starting don't you?

The strawberry on the strawberry tree.

I do love the sounds of home. The sounds of the heater purring away, the dryer clinking and clanking. Jeans always make such a busy sound. The Flicker is trying his best to make my hens think he is a hawk. The flicker has got very brave. He has got comfortable enough to come down where I am but always flies away when I point the camera at him.

This is the kind that is around here right now. The bigger one wasn't this kind.

The other day, I saw some crows dive booming something. They were very agitated. I grabbed my binoculars and watched this drama. There was a red tail hawk on the ground with his prey. He had what ever it was clutched in his talons. The crows were not happy about it and kept diving at him. The red tail hawk intent on his meal wasn't paying much attention. I guess neither was I because the next thing that happened was a different, much bigger hawk dropped out of the sky and hit the red tailed hawk at full force. I yelled by the way as I was so surprised. So were the crows. The bigger hawk which I couldn't tell what kind he was started fighting the smaller one for his prey. The little one fought back and finally the big one decided it was too much trouble and flew on its way. For one thing, I have never seen this happen on the ground. Watching them fight was shocking as it was so violent. The crows flew off  chasing the bigger one, and the little one finished eating in peace.

 

I was watching this little fat hummingbird yesterday. He is so fat he looks like a circle with a long stick for a beak. He is dark green and always sits in a tree above my head making that sawing noise. Last year at the time I couldn't even see him only hear him. I can spot him every time now. I think he liked it better when I couldn't see him. When I look at him now he flies to a higher branch waiting for me to move on. I have been watching him this year so I can see which tree he lives in, but as of yet his house is safe as he is wise to my tricks.

Stock photo from my computer. We don't have spiders like this.

 

 

I hope you have a lovely day this first Monday in January. Today, I am filled with such thankfulness,
that it is a new year, full of new dreams and new memories to be made. God is good.

~Kim~

 

"The true way to render ourselves happy is to love our work and find in it our pleasure.
---Francoise de Motteville---