Scraps of Joy

Birthday Sparks of Joy

Posted on August 1, 2021 by Joy / 2 Comments

The greatest gift of life is friendship, and I have received it.
Hubert H. Humphrey

Hello Friend,

Thank you for the birthday wishes. What a gift it is to have a friend.

I had the most wonderful day. It started with chocolate and ended with Jane Austen. What could be better?

The day began early, with a bite of chocolate that The Cowboy had left under my pillow. Then, I spent two heavenly hours reading and journaling, and an idea began to form – I would spend the day engaging all of my senses. Sight, sound, smell, taste, touch – each of them would get a gift for my birthday.

The sunflowers in my dining room had been there for almost two weeks, but when I came downstairs their sunny faces greeted me as though they knew it was my birthday. And I couldn’t resist stroking their velvety soft petals.

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Before breakfast I made a Cinnamon Swirl Banana Loaf. The dazzling cinnamon-y aroma wafted through the house and settled in to bring us joy all day. Mmmmm …

I had only one thing on my agenda after breakfast: to find earrings for Babe’s wedding (which is one week away!!).

So, I walked into a jewelry store I had never been to before and told them exactly what I was looking for. White gold, dangly, sparkly, and in a certain price range. Within ten minutes I was walking out with a charming package. It seemed almost too quick to fully enjoy the moment. But for me, the joy was in the accomplishment. The fact that I knew precisely what I wanted. And got it!

Best Day Ever!

And now I had even more time to peruse a favourite book store. Because, it’s not a perfect birthday without a trip to the bookstore.

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Back in the car, Il Divo was playing on the stereo, and I turned up the volume so the music would surround me, go through me, engulf me. So that there was nothing but the music and me.

These voices, though! I get shivers every time.

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In the afternoon, Babe took me for coffee to La Boule Patisserie and Bakery. La Boule specializes in French pastries, Viennoiserie (which I discovered means “things from Vienna”), breads, and confectionary. Not only are the pastries luscious, they are also strikingly beautiful.

I couldn’t choose only one, so Babe generously let me choose two! They are almost too beautiful to taste, but of course I tasted. I tasted! We both highly recommend the Vanilla Bean Sour Cherry Cheesecake. But get there soon, if you’re going. They’re closing this month!

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Babe and I did a little more wedding preparation back at home. We’re down to last minute details now, and it’s all coming together. It’s going to be such a lovely day.

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We ordered in a late supper, and ended the day with the latest Emma movie. Every one is just a little different from the last, but I always recognize the actual quotes from Jane Austen’s book.

You must be the best judge of your own happiness
Jane Austen, Emma

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I went to bed full of gratitude. Every one of my senses had been richly realized because I’d endeavoured to be mindful of them. I thought, how much we miss when we are not attentive to the everyday.

Thank you again dear friend. My life is rich because of you and I thank God for you.

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Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.
Herodotus

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Featured Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay.

Living the Moment/Tea Time

Rhubarb Cake and Friluftsliv

Posted on July 4, 2021 by Joy / 1 Comment

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
Albert Einstein

Hello Friend,

Come in, come in. I’ve just taken the rhubarb cake out of the oven and it smells DELICIOUS!

I have one rhubarb plant, and this year it has flourished in all the rain. It’s the first year I’ve had enough rhubarb to bake a whole cake. You have timed your visit perfectly. It’s not raining, and the crushing heat we’ve experienced recently won’t be a problem in this little corner of our digital world. So, let’s sit out on the patio.

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I learned a new word this week.

Friluftsliv.

I found it in a home design magazine, and its literal translation from Norwegian is “free air life.” Basically, it’s about being active outdoors, connecting with nature, de-stressing.

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“Friluftsliv isn’t about major treks to remote wilderness – it’s about finding moments in nature no matter where you live.”
Veronique Leblanc, Style at Home

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I like the idea of breathing room that friluftsliv implies. I suppose breathing room is different for everybody; for me it’s wide open spaces where I can see forever. And sky. Lots and lots of sky. That’s the prairie girl in me.

However, I have not been Little Girl on the Prairie for several years now, and I can’t often get out to wide open spaces. So, how do I find that breathing room? How do I practice friluftsliv as life gets busier?

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Here in my province, restrictions were fully lifted this week, and I’m sure everyone is anxious to have more breathing room. Not only the breathing room afforded by taking off our masks, but the breathing room that freedom gives. Freedom to go out and do and be, even if you don’t actually go out and do and be. Knowing you have the freedom to do so makes it easier to breathe.

At our house we are entering those final harried weeks pre-wedding. Up until now, all of the uncertainties surrounding the pandemic made our plans flustered and changeable. But suddenly, rock solid plans are in full swing, coming from every-which-where. The usual pre-wedding busy-ness is not usual at all. It’s intensely magnified.

So, I’m repeating the word friluftsliv often, to remind myself that breathing room isn’t only about finding vistas of prairie fields, with far away horizons that separate living skies from lush waving grasses. It’s about “finding moments in nature no matter where you live.” Therefore, I can breathe in the moment of a perfect pink petal in the window boxes of our garden shed.

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Or take a moment to bask in the warm glow of a tiger lily in my garden bed …

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A lily or a rose never pretends, and its beauty is that it is what it is.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Or enjoy rhubarb cake on the patio with a friend, my face lifted to the sun.

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Not only do these chosen moments help one to breathe easier, they bring a vitality to life that is easily depleted when days get so busy.

Vitality: the capacity for the continuation of a meaningful or purposeful existence, the power to live.
Dictionary.com

Ah, power to live. A meaningful existence. Kind of important, wouldn’t you say?

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Thank you so much for your visit today. Here’s a song packed with vitality to listen to as you go. Close your eyes while you listen, feel the breath fill your lungs and the blood pulse through your veins, and be refreshed.

Dear friend, I wish you vitality and breathing room and many moments of friluftsliv in the coming weeks. See you next time, and stay safe out there.

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Land really is the best art.
Andy Warhol

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Featured Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay.

Life is so Daily/Tea Time

Savour

Posted on May 30, 2021 by Joy / 3 Comments

Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.
Rachel Carson

Hello Friend,

Please come in. It’s been awhile since we’ve had a visit, and I’m so glad you dropped by.

I made a lemon cake today – not from scratch, you know – and topped it with vanilla cream icing. Mmmm, the perfect complement to coffee or tea. I’m serving both! Which would you prefer?

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I’ve been sitting here listening to the happy voices and high-pitched squeals coming from the schoolyard not far away. Here in the western world, we humans seem so bent on multitasking, on producing, that to sit and do nothing other than listen to happy sounds wafting from a nearby schoolyard would be classified as wasting time.

But you see, those schoolyard sounds were silenced these last few weeks, with the new restrictions sending children home for school until after Victoria Day. It’s always been a favourite sound of mine and now that they’re back, I relish it even more.

I wonder if we have lost the art of savouring. To savour: delight in, enjoy.

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To savour is such a discipline of heart and mind, but it brings such rest to the spirit.
Sarah Clarkson

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Even in the midst of these isolating times, I’ve been focused on productivity. Have you? It’s like we can’t give ourselves permission to BE. I find myself going through a mental checklist at the end of the day: I got groceries, returned seven emails, finished the sewing project, practiced ukulele, made soup. It was a productive day.

But, if I get to the end of the day and find that I haven’t accomplished much in the way of productivity, of doing, it seems like a wasted day.

I wonder … what if my end-of-day checklist included the things I consciously delighted in that day?

What if my end-of-day checklist included things like I loved the way the light filtered through the window this morning.

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I love my tulips, as you know, and right now the tulips in my front garden give me joy every day. Meanwhile, the lilacs in the back yard are on the verge of blooming, and even before they’ve fully arrived, their fragrance is filling the yard. Yesterday evening, The Cowboy came in from the back yard to say, “You need to go out to the patio and breathe the air.”

So I did. And as I did, I thanked God for beautiful lilac fragrances and a husband who cares enough to notice something I would love.

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Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
Rachel Carson

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It amazes me how a few moments like that can strengthen me for the rest of the day.

So, I will notice the morning light filtering through my windows. I will take the time to linger near lilacs and listen to children at play.

Unapologetically.

I will savour the moments given to me, because it’s those mere seconds in time that make life sparkle. Wouldn’t you agree?

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Our visit is a little shorter today, I’m afraid. But one of these times remind me to fill you in on the continuing story of Jubal, the adventurous snowman who came to live with us over the winter. He’s gone back to the North Pole now, but it seems he has an anonymous fan, who’s been sending him letters and gifts. It’s all such a mystery. Stay tuned to find out what that’s all about.

Thanks so much for coming, and I hope you enjoyed the lemon cake. I’m sending you off with one of my favourite sounds in the whole world. Anyone from the Canadian prairies will recognize the trill of the Western Meadowlark.

Stay safe out there, and see you next time.

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The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe, the less taste we shall have for destruction.
Rachel Carson

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Feature Image by Pexels from Pixabay

The Simple Woman's Daybook

The Simple Woman’s Daybook – May

Posted on May 3, 2021 by Joy / 15 Comments

Hello Friend,

Here we are in May already! In this little corner of the world, Spring is at last raising her head from her winter’s slumber. We don’t have blossoms yet, but I have seen tiny green buds on the trees, and the crocus has made its appearance too. It’s time. Time for spring!

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The magic in new beginnings is truly the most powerful of them all.
Josiyah Martin

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Please have a seat here in the sun by the window, and help yourself to these whipped shortbread cookies, half-dipped in chocolate and sprinkles. A delectable find at the bakery today. Just looking at them makes me want to serve them with milk. You’re welcome to milk, if you like, but I do have English Breakfast Tea, “produced for the United Kingdom from pure Ceylon Teas packed in Sri Lanka.” There’s a photo of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the tin so it must be the real thing (tea-hee).

Now, won’t you sit back and relax as I share my daybook with you?

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For Today

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Looking out my window …

A breeze moves the smaller branches on the old tree in the middle of the lawn. This tree is usually one of the last ones in the yard to leaf out fully. But there is beauty in her bare branches too. Her bones stand straight and strong, her sturdy limbs clothed in a lacy cloak etched against the sky.

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I am thinking …

About new beginnings, and hoping our world will soon be welcoming new beginnings. New face-to-face meetings with dearest, long-loved friends, being captivated by the way their hands move when they talk, and surprised by the curve of their chin. Those things were always there, but now for some reason they’re important.

I am wearing …

A dress that I bought for my niece’s wedding two years ago. What with this thing called a pandemic and all of the isolation, my dresses were being neglected. So, I’ve decided that once a week I will wear a dress. Today’s is a silky flower print in soft pinks, peaches and sage, with an asymmetrical hemline and three flounces down one side.

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I am creating …

a quilted storybook for the next baby soon to arrive in our extended family.

I am reading …

Lark Rise to Candleford, by Flora Thompson. It paints a finely detailed portrait of rural English life at the turn of the nineteenth century. She describes the countryside and communities of her childhood.

In the eighteen-eighties the hamlet consisted of about thirty cottages, and an inn, not built in rows, but dotted down anywhere within a more or less circular group. A deeply rutted cart track surrounded the whole, and separate houses or groups of houses were connected by a network of pathways. Going from one part of the hamlet to another was called ‘going round the Rise’, and the plural of ‘house’ was not ‘houses’, but ‘housen’.
Flora Thompson
[Lark Rise to Candleford]

Not only is the story captivating, but the book itself is delightful. I don’t usually order hardcover books, but this time I did. What a surprise upon opening the box to discover the book to be only the length and width of my hand! Under the book jacket, the cover is soft blue with tiny flowers and leaves imprinted on it. The pages are almost as thin as those of a Bible, and edged in gold. I can’t tell you why, but I am so delighted with this little book. Every time I look at it I smile.

I am listening to …

Babe’s latest composition, Beginnings.

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I am hoping …

For a bit of a breeze on this laundry day when I get to do one of my favourite things – hang wash on a line.

I am learning …

That there is comfort in routine. My days and weeks during this year of restrictions have fallen into a kind of pattern, and I’ve found that when that pattern is greatly interrupted, or I’ve gone off routine and suddenly at a loss for what to do next, I get anxious. It is a side effect of our current world situation, I expect. And so, my daily and weekly routine is something affirming to come back to.

I am thankful …

That I found my dress for the wedding. Unlike Sweetie’s and Peaches’ weddings, I’m having a dress made to order this time.

The hardest decision about the dress was whether to order in cocoa or cafe, but I’m excited about it. I may even wear a fascinator in my hair. It’s the last daughter to get married, and I’m going out in style.

In my kitchen …

A new mini vacuum hangs on the wall, ready to sweep up any crumbs that dare touch the floor.

In my garden …

Two little tulips, striped yellow and red, are flowering in the backyard flowerbed. Every year I watch for the tiny shoots to first appear, and then it’s a daily check for the bright flowers. It’s always a joy to discover them.

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Shared Quote …

Spring will come and so will happiness. Hold on. Life will get warmer.
Anita Krizzan

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Closing Notes …

I’m so glad you stopped by today. I wish you joy and new beginnings in the weeks ahead. Stay safe out there, and see you next time.

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Feature Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay

Scraps of Joy

Birthday Sparks of Joy

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Rhubarb Cake and Friluftsliv

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Savour

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The Simple Woman’s Daybook – May

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