Grace Upon Grace

When family and friends gather in our home for a meal, we hold hands and say grace. My earliest memories include my Daddy’s quickly murmured prayer of thanks. My grandfather could hardly be understood the words ran together so fast. I cannot remember the exact words used, but I remember their bowed heads and their humility, and their gratitude for simple food. I do remember the words were the same every time, spoken with a cadence I did not hear in their voices at other times. Through all the years of my own marriage and family, in many different places and situations, that early example and teaching prompted gratitude and recognition of God’s presence at our table. I am grateful for those early influences. When I have cooked a meal for two or twenty, I love that moment when the work stops, hands reach out, blessing is asked on people and the food we share. It feels right to express our connections to God and each other in this way.
G.K.Chesterton reminds me that all the things on my list for today may be marked for significance in the same way.

"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink."
- G. K. Chesterton

So, thank you,God... for these plants and the earth in which I place them. Thank you for the book I read and the person who wrote it. Bless the person who will use these towels I am folding. Bless these words as I write them. For these and all your bounty, I give thanks. Be present at our table, Lord. Be here and everywhere adored.

Fragrance

“One should garden for the nose, for the eyes will take care of themselves.”
Robert Lewis Stevenson

So soon after pruning, some of our antique roses are loaded with buds and blooms. The first blooms surprised me, almost as if saying "Fooled you!" Commonly called Butterfly Roses, Mutabulis rose bushes leap high and wide and announce that they are back. These single petal roses change in hue as the bud opens, so that at any time there are usually pink, yellow, dusky rose, and apricot blooming at the same time like a swarm of butterflies covering the bush. Like all old roses (antique, or "found") they have a distinctive but unique fragrance that I can identify with my eyes closed. Breathe!

Maddie's Redbird

After we saw a cardinal in the tree in our back yard last week, Maddie drew a picture for me. Thanks to the technology of scanning, email, and blogging, here is her gift for you to enjoy, too.

"Grandparenting is a gift between two people at opposite ends of their journey."
~Judy Ford

Mother's Music

The title may suggest lullabies, but these photos tell a different story. This music is from a collection of sheet music my mother, Opal Terrell, used when she was sweet sixteen and a very sassy seventeen! The young men who vied for her attention brought her music instead of candy or flowers. On several pieces she has written their names. Eventually there was only one who brought her music: Howard Teal, my Daddy. He asked her father if he could marry her and was given permission only if they would wait until she was 18. Opal celebrated that birthday on October 20, 1931, so on December 28, 1931 they drove over to a neighbor's house. The preacher from their little Baptist church was having Sunday dinner there, but he came out to the car before they could get out and go in, so the ceremony took place in the front seat of a Model T!

When I turn the yellowed pages and play the lilting melodies, I remember Mother's hands at the piano, Daddy's grip at the wheel of his pickup truck, and the way they held hands for over 50 years of marriage.

The music plays on.

French Knots and Daisy Chains

My mother and grandmother taught me to embroider by the time I knew how to read and write. I have some of the iron on patterns, colorful skeins of thread, and needles that they used when they embellished clothing, table linens, and pillowcases, like this one that I still use for my favorite bed pillow. It has been washed so many times it no longer needs the ironing they once would have done before carefully folding it and its mate (pillowcases were always done in pairs). The thin cotton is so soft and worn it is in danger of becoming kept instead of used. I love running my fingers over the blue flowers with their bumpy french knot centers and remembering how swift and deft their fingers were as they threaded kneedles, loaded embroidery hoops and began piercing with the needle, pulling it up at just the right spot, drawing out the thread, knowing which special stitch would achieve the right effect. There were feather stitches, blanket stitches, and feather stitches for borders and trims, but those used to bring the pattern lines to bloom were the ones that fascinated me. Running stitches, chain stitches, daisy chains and french knots brought the designs alive. I have enjoyed similar needle work: crewel, cross-stitching, and have loved crocheting and knitting. All of which I owe to those two women who were patient enough to teach me.

Valentine Trees and Treats

You are right.  I did not pack away all my Christmas stuff.  This tree was a lovely woodland bird tree with strips of music from the Carol of the birds tucked into the branches, along with birds of every feather,  acorns, and tiny red glass berries.  I removed the music strips and tucked in red tissue paper hearts for this Valentine tree.  Appropriately, a photo of me and my Valentine (married for over 47 years now) is in the background.

  This transition from December to February has grown from simply keeping out a few red candles to multipurposing several holiday decorations.  Another tree with heart has stayed in my dining room.  This tiny tree,  a teacup tree with smaller hearts added to miniature teacups and my late mother-in-law's collection of tiny spoons, sits on- what else - a tea tray.
                                                                      Today, I am decorating Valentine cookies to add to the heart shaped basket.   Happy Valentine's Day!   

                                            

                                              

Learning Something New

While browsing blogs this week I came across a post which introduced me to a new art form. I never heard the word Zentangle before much less made one, but after checking some guidelines and looking up a few tangles, here is the result. In its simplest description, a Zentangle is a deliberate doodle in which you paint spaces with patterns. It is sometimes called yoga for the brain. Now that I have tried it with the materials I had on hand (a sketch pencil and fine tipped pen) I plan to shop for supplies and practice some more. Mine are obviously beginning attempts, but that is one of the plus points for these 3 1/2", one of a kind squares of line drawing and pencil smudges: no right or wrong! It is hard to do just one!

http://zentangle.blogspot.com

Let it Snow

February has ushered Winter right to our front door. We woke this morning to howling winds and plummeting temperatures. Predictions are for snow before the end of the week, and a hard freeze every night this week. I went outside to cover some plants, moved others inside, and came back in even more thankful for the warmth and shelter of home. I think Bella just opened one eye and agreed with me.

Putting It All Together

I love introducing good people to good food.  That is one reason I am cooking soup one Wednesday night a month for over 50 people.  Our weekly church suppers give me a chance for a favorite meet and greet.  This week we will have Mexican Chicken Stew, served with cheese quesadillas and greens tossed with apples, walnuts, and apple cider vinaigrette.  With help from loving family and good friends (many hands make light work), the large steaming pots of stew will warm a cold evening.  Even better, as we gather around tables to enjoy eating together, hearts are warmed, too.  As I  put on my favorite apron, and begin to chop and simmer, putting it all together - I stir with a spoon that belonged to my father who, with my mother, ran a small cafe in a bus station in East Texas. 

When the soup is ready, I will ladle it into bowls with a ladle that he also used in the cafe. He put delicious foods together, and had customers who came back time after time for his home style cooking.  My earliest memories include aprons and spoons and feeding people.  I enjoy new recipes, new kitchen tools, and new opportunities to cook for others, but I will always love using Daddy's old spoon and ladle.

Making the Gifts Last

When our temperatures threatened to drop significantly below freezing a few weeks ago, we stripped our pepper and fall tomato plants and brought the harvest inside to add some flavor to our winter soups and omelets.  The tomatoes obliged by ripening a few at a time.  Habanero, Jalapeno, and Gypsy peppers were beautiful in bowl or basket, and have been welcome heat!  Only a few remain, and I find myself counting them and thinking they are almost all gone.  I am keeping a gratitude journal this year.  So I will write that I am thankful for the gifts my garden has given me.  Long past the time the plants have withered and faded, the fruit they produced nourishes and delights us.  Our lives can be like that too.

Packing the Christmas Dress

When my mother was growing up, they never put up the Christmas tree until Christmas eve.  All the festivities and celebrating came after Christmas.  They  celebrated the 12 days of Christmas beginning with Christmas day.  Now that we decorate our and trees much earlier (ours is usually done on Thanksgiving weekend) we have longer to enjoy our house with its Christmas dress on, but I still don’t like to take anything down until Epiphany.  As I pack away ornaments and manger scenes, I remember that I am not putting away the Christ-light.  Nearly 30 years ago I wrote about “undecorating”. 

The mantle seems lonely without the little manger scene.

The house looks plain, bereft of red and green.

The tree is down, the front door bare.

No wreath or garland festooned there.

Our mailbox no longer yields its daily harvest of cards.

The lights and Santas are gone from all the yards.

We packed away the manger scene,

But not the shine of the star!

For His new birth within us, no time or season can mar.

Because He was born, we have Christmas.

Because He died we have life.

Because He lives we have new years

No matter what serves us with strife.

We thank Him for peace and for promise.

We thank Him for love and for sight.

We thank Him for meaning and purpose.

We live to show darkness the Light.

Definitely older, hopefully wiser...I sing along to Andrea Bocelli's Christmas album, allow a few tears to fill my eyes, and am aware that the gifts of Christmas continue.

A Fresh Pot of Tea

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I believe in enjoying Christmas gifts right away!  This amazing tea flower opens as a fresh pot of tea is brewed: fragrant, lovely, delicious!  I would never have known how beautiful this could be if I had not opened the present, looked inside the box,  removed the strange little ball of leaves, placed it in the tea pot, and added the boiling water.  Without taking the illustration too far, allow me to say this may be a lesson for our new year.  Let's open our gift, learn all we can, believe beyond first sight,  use what we have received,   and be astonished at unexpected beauty.  Here's to tasting  2011~