Friday Photo

Watching the tractor.

Lots of change is happening in our busy little corner of the world. We are taking our first trip without the chickadees since, well, since we had our first chickadee. Sweet Babe who will be one year old next week is happily adjusted to a bottle. Her brothers and sisters are contentedly settled at Grandma and Grandpa's farm for the duration and a more delighted group of kiddos couldn't be found. A pool, trampoline, sandbox, rope swings, tree house, horses, cows and a calf, rabbits, kittens, an old farm dog, not to mention a billion legos. What more could a kid want. Throw in two uncles, an aunt and it's almost enough to make a kid cry. Not quite like a mama cried this morning as she drove away from her babies, but who's comparing?

The whopper of a change is coming a week after we return when we move to our first home. Our little rented home has been home in the truest sense for eight years and the time has come to move. I catch myself looking for moments like you see in this photo to remember our life here. Little brother ran out to the fence to watch our neighbor's tractor just like his two big brothers have done all these years. All our kids have grown up here, right across the street from Nana and Papa. My heart catches to think of them growing up anywhere else, even if it's just across town. It won't be the same. I know it will be good but, just so very different. If only we could get Nana and Papa to come with us, now that would be perfect!

Spring?

We went for a hike this weekend, a blissful two mile hike around a lake near our house. It was the little ones first hike and I think it was duly enjoyed by them.

Along the way we found several different kinds of wildflowers.

Brave little things to venture out so soon in the year, it's only March.

But then, our March is proving to be quite warm. A balmy 73 degrees and I can't say that I'm complaining about it. Yeah for spring!

Friday Photo

We had some snow here this week folks, and I do mean snow. About two feet of it! My husband and I never have seen snow like this in our area and both of us grew up around here. This is our kiddos buried "yellow-top car". They luckily didn't park it in it's spot so it became our snow gauge. These cars were introduced after I was too big to play in one and I've always held a grudge against the manufacturer. Why oh why couldn't they have come up with it a few years earlier? It looks like such a fun toy. Apparently they are irresistible, my little sister got stuck in it when she was, well I won't say how old she was but it was past the recommended age of the little car.

Snow brings so much fun for little kids and they have been building and sledding and drinking hot cocoa. We had a snow-bound dinner with our neighbors and yesterday I baked some yummy oatmeal bread. I wish I had a knitting project to work on but I've been reading and drawing instead. Fun times indeed. It's kind of hard to believe that in three short months everything will be turning green and we will be planting our garden. Spring is under all that snow!

Lately...

Lately we have been having snow and snow and more snow. Quite a bit of snow for our little corner of the world. I am a snow spectator, it's my belief that snow is lovelier when viewed through glass. But on Saturday the kids and I bundled up and did some fort building. The boys needed lots of "ammunition" shelves for the "ambush" they were planning for their dad when he came back from work. They are into military stuff right now in case you were wondering.

Here we usually get ice before any snow starts falling and this time was no exception. A good half inch of ice coated everything under the four inches of snow. The beautiful thing about it for me was that I didn't need a single thing from the store! We had been shopping a few days before so we had some fresh things but even without that we were prepared. I had plenty of food, batteries, candles, water, even a huge bar of chocolate with hazelnuts that our sweet neighbors brought us from their trip to Europe! What more could you want?

So we have been snowed-in. Keeping up with school and housework and doing a bit of reading. Reading with six chickadees underfoot really tests your comprehension but I am one determined woman. My little old blog has been a bit neglected of late but that how things go. More and then less, finding the ever changing balance.

We are having soup for dinner with Red Lobster biscuits. I'm washing the perpetual laundry. The big brothers are confined to their room to save the living room furniture, not to mention my sanity, from their roughhousing and now sweet babe is ready to be nursed. Fullness and plenty that is what I have lately. What is at your house lately? I love hearing snippets of your lives, so tell me about it! And check out the blog list for links to some of my new favorite blogs, I think you'll like them.

The Practical Pantry: Containers

Ground flaxseed, whole-grain cream of wheat, Tapioca and white popcorn in Mason jars.

Close your eyes and imagine you are sitting in a high school algebra class in a small town in Oklahoma. Come on, you can do it! I know, it makes me break out in hives too. So you are sitting there with all your illustrious classmates and your slight, white-haired teacher says in his nasally voice, "BE resourceful!". You've all been waiting for Mr. K's mantra, you've heard it at least once a day since the semester began. Muffled giggles ripple throughout the room as you exchanged glances with your best friend sitting across the aisle.

Fast forward more years than you care to count and you find yourself as a youngish mother in the midst of the daily chaos that is your life. As you pour popcorn from a five pound bag into a washed out applesauce jar and place it on your pantry shelf, that old admonishment echoes out of the recesses of your memory. "BE resourceful!" Snapping the lid down on a recycled ice cream bucket freshly filled with oatmeal, you hear it again, "BE resourceful!". You pause to reflect on how funny Mr. K would find it that the one thing that has stuck with you out of your high school math class was his pet phrase, "BE resourceful!" (It's important that the emphasis is on the BE part. Draw it out a little bit to get the right effect.)

And that, my friends is the top priority when you are looking for containers for your food-storage. Be resourceful. For small amounts of things, Mason jars, pasta sauce jars or other large jars like the applesauce jar in the top photograph work great. I keep lots of thing in this size of jar. Also, I keep my eyes peeled for any size of glass jar with air-tight lids when I am perusing at thrift shops, flea markets and garage sales. One summer I picked up three or four half-gallon size clamp top jars in one day at garage sales. I regularly find the smaller pint-size clamp top jar at thrift shops. When I see one, I scoop it up. They are great for storing specialty grains or beans that you might not need a ton of. Besides, they look pretty.

Gallon size jars are perfect for storing dry beans and pasta in. The main advantage is that you can easily see what is what and how much you have. Someone gave me a gallon size glass pickle jar. The problem with these is the pickle smell in the lid. Fix this by making a paste of baking soda and water and spreading it on good and thick, then leave it overnight. In the morning, rinse it off and the smell will be gone. Get the word out to friends and relations that you need gallon size jars and you might be surprised at how easily you can round some up.

Now a little word about this photograph. I buy lots of thing in bulk either from a co-op or from our local natural food store. The problem I ran into was that a lot of things like Tapioca have the recipe printed on the box and when there's no box, there's no recipe. After a failed internet search to find the sacred recipe, I realized that I could, "Be resourceful", and tape the recipe onto the jar or lid. This trick is great with any grain or homemade mix that has special instructions.

And this thing of beauty is a Gamma Seal Lid for five gallon buckets. Every time I spin it off of my gigantic bucket of wheat to grind some fresh flour, I have a little moment of remembrance for the olden days when I had to pry the lid off with my delicate fingers and resist the urge to say a potty word. If you are going to use five gallon buckets, get one of these lids! They cost anywhere from six to eight dollars but, Honey, you are worth it!

So, there you have it. My riveting thoughts on containers. Be patient and find some free containers or reuse some of your jars. Look on Freecycle. Ask your friends. Pester your family. Do what it takes to find free food-storage containers. But whatever you do, "BE resourceful!". It would make Mr. K so proud!

The Practical Pantry: Why?

Before you get started on a pantry it's a good idea to think about your motivation for building a food storage pantry. For me the top two reasons are healthier eating that fits our budget and security during a crisis. Over the past year we have transitioned to all whole grains and a primarily vegetarian diet. With a family of eight this translates to a lot of wheat, rice and beans. Lots of beans. The crisis aspect became crystal clear two years ago when I was one week away from delivering my fifth baby. Our area experienced a devastating ice storm. We were without electricity for a week, some were without power much longer. This really got me to thinking about how we would have fed ourselves during this crisis if we had not been able to get to a place with electricity. Pretty solemn thought.

There are some other benefits to having a pantry that I certainly have enjoyed, one being the savings of buying our staple foods by bulk. You can see significant savings when you compare the per pound price of oatmeal at the grocery store to buying a 25 pound bag from a co-op. Another benefit is fewer trips to the store. Believe me, those cupboards have to be really bare to get me to haul everyone to the store. Now I can just go to the pantry and decide what I want to make. It may not be what I was craving or what I had planned but it's always filling and delicious. And for me, knowing that I am feeding my family the best quality of food at a much better price makes that steaming bowl of stew and bread made from fresh ground wheat even yummier.

An important thing to understand is that building a pantry is not about fear and it is not hoarding. I'm sure many of you know someone who prepared for the worst for Y2K. In fact I just used up the last of my parents soft wheat they stored for Y2K. The good news is that 12 years after they purchased it, it was still good. Properly stored food can last a long time. Many people at that time were motivated by extreme fear. You should be motivated by a desire to best feed your family and meet your budget goals.

Proverbs 21:20 says, "In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but the foolish man devours all he has." So even Solomon agreed that there is wisdom in storing food for your family to use. For me it would be hoarding if I was buying up large amounts of food when there was a general shortage. In fact that is one definition of hoarding, amassing and hiding a supply of something in a time of scarcity. However, in a time of plenty, it is common sense to plan for your family and others you may be with if there was a crisis. Crisis can come in may guises. Personal crisis such as a job loss or illness could have you relying on your food storage or any other crisis personal or more widespread. Again, you can't operate in fear, but use wisdom. Joseph in Egypt is a great example of this.

Now that some of the whys are covered and you have thought about reasons to start your own pantry we can get to the planning of it. This is going to be fun!

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Every day from now until Christmas I want to show you a little Christmas something from my house. I am going to start off with this simple ornament. It belongs to my middle daughter, every year I give each of my children a themed ornament and her theme is stars. Quite fitting for her calm bright personality. This soft, cream colored, wool felt star was her ornament last year and I love the contrast between it and the green texture of the tree. Just lovely!

Veteran's Day

I love Veteran's Day. For many years now I have called my grandfathers and my grandfather-in-law to thank them for what they did for me and our country when they were young men. This year I will call my grandfather in Michigan to thank him. I'll think of my paternal grandfather and the stories he told about seeing Paris at it's height of destruction after WWII. I'll also think about my husband's grandfather and all the stories he never told a soul about his four years of service in Europe during WWII. Then I'll call my little brother to thank him for serving two long deployments as a Marine in Iraq. Great courage is what it took to do their jobs to protect our country and years of great courage to come home and pick up their lives and carry on. Thank you!

Thrifting Treasures

On a recent trip to see my family, my mom and I treated ourselves to a day of thrift shopping, antique browsing and non-stop talking in a town near their farm. Of course, since it was just us girls (Sweet Babe was with us) we ate yummy girl food for lunch at a charming lunch spot.

Two of my favorite finds of the day are featured in the photo above. I am delighted by the teacup from the Hotel Peabody in Memphis Tennessee which is still in operation. Of all the china patterns I have seen, this is one of my all time favorites. The weight of it is what makes it perfect. It's like those old restaurant mugs that are just the thing for a steaming mug of coffee on a cold morning. Extra cream please. In fact, I had my coffee in it this morning!

The New Encyclopedia of Modern Sewing is beautiful, full of photos and sketches from the fifties. I picked it up because it had a whole chapter about recovering furniture, something I plan to undertake quite soon. I do believe it will be right at home by my collection of Home Ec books from the fifties.

What is your favorite thrifted or antique treasure?

Read it and Weep

I have a friend here in town, she's one of the doctors at the pediatric clinic we use, and God is using her to transform ordinary lives. Without knowing what would come if it, she embarked on a short medical mission trip to Haiti last winter. Next month she will be going back for the fourth time. To say that God captured her heart through the people of Haiti would be a serious understatement. Her blog, Beyond this Mountain has been transforming my life.

We all read and hear of disasters though there hasn't been anything as devastating as the earthquake in Haiti in our time. I think it is easy to become numb to devastation and statements like "300,000 to 500,000 people died in the earthquake in Haiti". The fact that I could skim over statements like that and read the rest of the paper broke my heart. When you break it down into amounts you can visualize it's not so easy to pass over. There are about 68,000 people living in my town, if you go with the smallest number of deaths, that's about 4 1/2 times the people living here. For every person I see, there would be almost 4 other people who would be dead too. Kind of heard to swallow.

What my friend Stacy is writing about are the people who survived and are now living in what's left. This is what is changing my heart. There are very few jobs, their translators earn $10 dollars a day when they have work. One of them supports his parents and 8 siblings with his $10 a day when he can get work. Work that he has to walk up to 2 hours a day to have, 2 hours each way, in 100+ degree weather. Now whenever I spend money, I break it down into how many days it would take them to earn that. He would have to work 3 days to buy these diapers, 1 day to pay for my library fine, 1 and 1/2 days to pay for this book. Makes it all look different.

Please read Stacy's blog, really read it. Join me in thinking and praying about what you can do. Let the reality of what is happening to these people sink in.

Life

Oh my, it's been too long since I took the time to write. I do love my little bit of the blog world but I've been swept away with life and busyness lately. We've been working on school, making worm jars, eating, cleaning up from eating, cooking, doing laundry, kissing the baby and the other ones who used to be babies. I've been adjusting to our new homeschool schedule and figuring out how to teach more than one student at a time. Of course, there is the perpetual refereeing of fights and administering of justice. There's even been a bit of sewing going on. Not anything ambitious but still, it's refreshing to get out my machine and remind myself that I do love to sew.

These photos are of my kitchen and dining room/school room. I love this space, it's small but homey. We use every inch of it and lately it has been showing it. My usual means of self-motivation aren't working to get a cleaning system in place but I'm trying to get rolling. I've used several cleaning systems in the past, including FlyLady (which I love) but something in the back of my mine says the "just get up and do something" system would work just fine. Thanks for listening to my ramblings about life and cleaning. I hope your fall is off to a glorious start!

A Family Tradition

Once upon a time, a family ventured out into the forest and found a little cabin. No one was home so they decided to stay there for a while. After the mother and father helped all of their happy children get settled into the cozy cabin they sat down to rest. Later that evening when it was time for all the happy children to go to sleep the parent saw that since Baby Brother was sleeping in the baby bed they brought, there was no place for Baby Sister to sleep. So the mother pulled a drawer out of the dresser she found in the cabin and tucked her sweet new baby into the drawer. As she looked down at her tiny daughter snuggled in the drawer she realized that at some time during her years of being a mother she had tucked all six of her children into a drawer to sleep. Several had their turn sleeping in their uncle's drawer when they were visiting their grandmother. One had slept in a drawer at a hotel in Mississippi. The mother even remembered her little sister sleeping in a drawer from her college dormitory dresser when her mother brought her to visit for the weekend.

The mother realized that this sleeping in dresser drawers was almost a family tradition but most of all she thought there was nothing more darling than a little pink baby tucked in to sleep in a drawer.

Waiting

Lately we have found ourselves in the familiar territory of waiting. Everything is carried by the undercurrent of waiting for the newest addition to our family. Of course, I am most affected by this state of being considering my ribs are the ones being pushed and prodded by this busy little person. I am blessed with very healthy pregnancies, healthy but increasingly problematic. This baby has presented me with the challenge of needing to sit down most of the day. You may be able to imagine the difficulty of running a household of five busy kids while needing to sit constantly. God's grace has helped me get through the past few months with a relatively contented spirit but I tell you, fervent prayers for an early delivery have been offered up on a daily basis lately. Only two weeks to go now so I think I just might make it.

To entertain myself as I sit, I have been reading. All my life I have loved to read but the busyness of being a mom tends to push reading down on the priority list. It has been a treat in the past few months to just read as I sit. When I have the energy (and Joe is here to watch the chickadees), I head to the library and load up. Any cookbook or biography that looks remotely interesting gets stuffed in my bag. I've been going through a book every couple of days and it has been wonderful.

When I can't stand sitting on the couch anymore I have been sitting at my sewing machine. A set of blue swaddling blankets await the latest addition. When I can waddle over to the fabric store I plan to make up a set of pink blankets. The fun of not finding out what kind of baby is kicking around in there, two of everything! A few repurposing projects have been completed and that has been fun. Hopefully I can show you those soon, they turned out great.

So I have been waiting over here. Not posting too much but focusing on enjoying my kids and trying to breathe. Before too long I'll be sitting around nuzzling a little newborn neck and protecting him or her from the adoring herd of siblings. I can't wait!

On Being Primarily Herbivore

Several people have asked me in the past few months about our family's transition to eating vegetarian and I finally have a quiet moment to talk about it. The quiet moment is thanks to my husband and brother taking four of the kids to the park while the baby naps. Sweet bliss!

Early this spring our pediatrician recommended that I read a book called The China Study. It is an amazing book about a scientist's career long study of nutrition, particularly animal protein and it's link to various diseases and overall health. If you are a food and nutrition nerd like I am, you will find this book fascinating. The author details how his study led his family to eat a vegetarian and eventually vegan diet. Like him, I never imagined my family would go in that direction, it seemed pretty extreme. However, after reading this book I can't continue to eat and feed my family the same.

Some disclaimers, we have eaten several vegetarian meals a week for budget reasons for years so the idea of building a meal around something besides a piece of meat wasn't a huge stretch for me. Also, I have the most willing husband in the world when it comes to trying new foods and new ways of eating. I think it comes from being single and starving for a decade before we met and were married. If you have subsisted on ketchup and pickles for years, lentils look pretty tasty. Actually, I couldn't have found a better man for trying new things on, he's game for anything as long as it tastes good. Our kids are young and we have worked hard training them to eat what they are served so there isn't any problem there. I cook one meal and everyone eats it. If there is a particular thing that I know they don't love then I will serve them a smaller portion and eventually they get used to it or find that it's not yucky. We have always eaten lots of vegetables and salads and they have enjoyed them since they started eating regular food. When the younger ones see their siblings and parents enjoying broccoli and squash they want to get in on the action.

Another thing is that we are eating meat about once a week, usually when we eat at a restaurant or with someone else. Joe loves grilling burgers so we have done that a few times. I'm not planning any meat into my menus but if we have company he will stop by and pick up some meat. When we do, I try to have lots of vegetables and salad to go with it so I can mainly eat that. On occasions where we are eating at someone else's home I will eat more vegetables and keep the meat dish as the smallest part of my meal. The kids are free to eat as they like from what is offered to them but I have noticed they focus on the vegetables too.

Dairy has proved to be the most difficult thing to eliminate. I have only been at this for a few months but the dairy substitutes are quite a transition for me. So I am still buying and using cheese and butter but the amount I use is probably a quarter of what it was before. Exploring vegan eating is going to be an ongoing process for me and one that I am excited about. In my cooking I try to avoid any animal products but don't get too strict with it.

As far as the benefits of vegetarian eating, I am amazed. I have not gained as much weight this pregnancy and don't have as much trouble with heart burn issues. Dairy is the big one for me in that respect. Ice cream doesn't taste quite so good when you know you won't be able to sleep later. The biggest change though has been in the total stop of low blood sugar spells. For years I have had hypoglycemia and since I stopped eating animal products it has gone away completely. I never realized that my diet was creating an imbalance that resulted in my body making excess insulin, I just thought I needed to eat more. Now that I have a healthier diet that isn't a problem at all. Joe has lost weight and we all have more energy. Overall it's been a great change and new way of living for us. I can't see us going back to our old diet anytime soon but for now we are taking it slowly and trying not to be too rigid.

Coming soon will be some of our weekly menus with recipes if you are interested in trying some good family friendly vegetarian meals with your family. Hopefully you will enjoy them as much as we have.

Splish Splashing

My little one has finally overcome his aversion to his feet being muddy or wet. Thanks to his siblings, he has been introduced to the joys of puddle splashing. Our weather has obliged with plenty of rain so there has been no lack of delightful puddles to splash in. At the end of our street is this particular driveway that has big shallow puddles that all my chickadees have discovered at the age Little Brother is now. Lots of memories down in that driveway!

Stop the Insanity!!!

This photograph pretty much sums up my day if you can imagine this as a 31 year old mama instead of a pitiful cute baby with a scrape of his forehead. There was rampant crying, weeping and gnashing of teeth. All seven of us took turns at the crying, weeping and gnashing of teeth. So that's the way some days go, sometimes lots of days in a row go that way. By God's sweet grace and the promise of bedtime to come, we get through them. I've been thinking about Ecclesiastes 3:1 and that there is a time for all things, for every purpose under heaven. Two parts grabbed my attention; a time to gain, and a time to lose, a time to keep, and a time to throw away. Over the next few days I'm going to be thinking of what God wants me to gain and what He wants me to loose. What I need to keep and what to throw away. I know there will always be a good deal of insanity around here, what else could there be with 5 (soon to be 6) kids under the age of 7 but I keep praying and trusting that I'll be able to keep up with it all and come out on the other side in relatively one piece. I hope so anyway!

Bluebird of Happiness

I love this little bird. A few miles from my home there is a glass and pottery studio that makes these blue glass birds. You would be riveted to watch the artist blow the glowing red glass, then shape it with iron tongs. If the area set up for watching wasn't also used to showcase hundreds of blown glass figurines, we would go there more often. "Bull in a china shop" doesn't really describe what it would be like to have my brood milling around the showroom. But once when my second was still in a stroller, we did go see the artists making the birds. It takes them maybe 3 minutes to make each bird. The whole time I was sure a blob of molten glass was going to fall on their arm or foot. Of course, they are experts who are very good at not melting off appendages with molten glass. Such a relief!

The first time I saw one of these birds was in the one room log cabin we stayed in on our honeymoon. It was a very old cabin that the inn-keepers had purchased and moved onto the property. Perched in a small window, high in the wall next to the fireplace were two bright blue glass bird that glowed when the rising sun shone through the window. Eight years later for our anniversary, I found one of the birds at an antique mall and bought it for my husband. Now it sits on my kitchen window to remind me of eight sweet years and a thousand moments that have flown past. It reminds me of how many things are in my life right now to bring me happiness. Things like my sixth child growing in my belly, a wonderful midwife who will help us have our baby at home, a very wonderful chiropractor who made my hip stop hurting (big happiness there), a home filled with laughter and squabbling from siblings who are learning to live together, a husband who loves me, even likes me, days where I can't seem to do anything productive but it's still alright, a bag of really good chocolate chips that the kids don't know about, another bag of pecans cracked and shelled by my dad who is one of my special friends, a beautiful pink journal from the Valentine's package my sweet mom sent me, a brother who turns 16 tomorrow(!!!), really I could go on and on. What a blessing to have blessings that bring happiness! What is bringing you happiness today?

Baby's Book

I must confess, my inspiration for craft projects for the kids leaves something to be desired. Our art usually consists of coloring books for the little ones and sketch books for the older two. They have plenty of creative license (translation: their mom can't think of any good ideas) to draw whatever strikes their fancy. Creative bursts may result in a little painting or the occasional modeling clay frenzy, but day to day we don't get too crafty. Lately we have been making some simple sewing projects for gifts and that is what you see happening here. Please note the "happy mushroom" on the left hand side of his page.

My middle son made a cloth book for Baby's first birthday a few weeks ago. He loves to draw and so we set out with some fabric squares, markers and prayers for patience. That would be me praying for patience. He illustrated each page with drawings of the two of them doing various boy things, fishing, camping, hunting, driving race cars and monster trucks. My part was to write the story on each page and sew it all together.

I must say, it was a hit. Baby carried it around with him and looked at all the pages over and over. The best part was seeing Big Brother's delight in giving the gift. When it comes to gifts and giving, I want each of my kids to know that feeling of giving something you made with your own hands. There's nothing like it!

Tea and Tea Cups

Curling up under a quilt with a steaming cup of hot tea and a book has been my antidote to the endless gray skies and cold weather that have inhabited the world outside my windows. In this picture you can see one of my favorite tea cups and also one of the first I had in my collection. When I open my cupboard there are multiple kinds of cups and mugs to choose from, depending on my mood. There are thick old diner mugs, one that is tiny, perfect for enjoying a "half a cup" of coffee. Several are hand thrown pottery mugs including one made by a wonderful friend in her pottery studio. I have a pair of tea cups with matching lids I use for herbal teas. The most special part of my collection though is the set of mismatched tea cups I inherited from my grandmother. She ran the china and bridal registry part of their jewelry shop and at her house she used the extra pieces from the store for her everyday dishes. When I was preparing to set up my own house, she and I went through her "extra", extra pieces and I chose twelve settings of china for my future home. Now that she is gone I love to look at all the beautiful patterns and remember my Mamaw who used fine china to serve every meal because that's what she had. Whoever thought making do could be so elegant? So when I am feeling elegant or missing my grandma I get down the stacks of miss-matched tea cups and saucers and search through them for the perfect one for that day and brew myself a cup of tea. Comfort in a cup!

February Cheer

Not really too much cheer happens for me in February. Gray cloudy skies for days on end, kids trapped inside for days on end, all the Christmas chocolate is long since gone. I have found that any cheer has to be intentionally searched out and celebrated. One thing that I love to do is iron my growing collection of hand embroidered linens. They are pieces that I have picked up at garage sales or flea markets, a few have been gifts from my mom. So I get them out, spray on some heavy starch and iron away. After they are folded in a neat stack, I display them in their chosen place.

I love this one on my bedroom dresser. It covers the whole top and looks lovely against the light colored wood. Entirely hand embroidered, I am amazed by the delicate work of this cloth. That some homemaker took what she had, fabric, thread and a needle, and made this beautiful work of art that has probably outlasted herself is thrilling to me.

My sideboard is where this scarf resides. The creamy linen is a perfect contrast to the warm colors of the cedar. I picked it up the same day I found the sideboard at a little shop down the road from my house and it is a rare find in that is in pristine condition. Seeing these lovely things, nicely ironed, as I move through the general chaos of my day makes such a difference in my outlook. If you are feeling a bit blue lately, try finding something you can do or change in your home and see if that helps you a bit. Or do what my mom always recommends and make yourself a big plate of pasta. Or do both, I think I just might!