as cozy as spring

A note before bed.

Too tired for sentences.  Candy consumed - not one bite.  Spoonfuls of caramel sauce (who needs the apple?)- plenty.  Butterbeer & pumpkin pasties - yummy.  Coffee - yummier.  Pumpkins carved - 8.  My precious trick-or-treaters - sadly, rather ill and sleeping right now after one last reading of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown".  Farewell October 2008, you were beautiful.

Happy Halloween!

Too much to do this morning for a proper post - butterbeer to make, cauldrons full of hot chili and tortilla soup, spider cupcakes...  So here's one of my very favorite parts of Halloween - except that I very much do like candy corn.  There's a large jar beside the computer that is tempting me right now.  Happy Halloween everyone! 

ETA: OK friendly readers, there are many butterbeer recipes online, but I don't think any of it is official, so we are taste testing combinations of the following ingredients apple cider, cream soda or something else fizzy, and butterscotch syrup or other flavoring.  Why these?  Because they fit what I imagined and sound like something yummy we would actually drink.

32

I tried on a skirt yesterday.  I wore it on our honeymoon ten years ago.  It's my favorite skirt in the world.  And it zipped!  So I celebrated for a moment until my daughter, seeing how short it was, pointedly asked, "Is that skirt for me?"  Apparently I am now too old for my favorite skirt.

It's my birthday today!  My sisters both seemed keen on you knowing about it.  I was going to just sneak past today.  But why bother?  My daughter has brought me a bouquet of rosemary and lobelia.  My husband has promised me I can watch all the Halloween episodes of Roseanne (no I'm not proud, but I love Roseanne) as I sit and sew the binding on my sister's quilt.  My son will be off this morning to secure for me, "A Christmas Tree and a pie" - still his two go-to gifts.  

And my daughter just brought me coffee.  I want for nothing.

Litany of the Saints (Latin)

A few years ago I asked Jenn if she could link me an audio version of the Litany of the Saints prayed in Latin.  She mentioned something about an "MP3 download", but (shhh!) I was too embarrassed to respond that I didn't know what that was.  

Anyway, I stumbled upon a written and audio download a few days ago, just in time for Saturday.  It's beautiful.  And there's a bit of grammar in the introduction for my fellow Latin students. 

Gathering

For the holidays...The email rate between the girls in the family is increasing rapidly for we will all be together in a few weeks.  And, even more fun, we will soon welcome another girl as our sister.  

For Prayer.... We are joining our fellow Catholics in praying the novena for that thing coming up (we'll call it the-event-that-shall-not-be-named-at-as-cozy-as-spring).  So I have a question to my fellow Catholics who are also praying this fairly long novena as a family.  Does it void the prayer if you have to stop in the middle to snap at your children, "Will you stop hitting one another?  We are supposed to be praying!"  And also?  If anyone wants to console me that I'm not the only one who has to interrupt prayer time to discipline the children, I'd appreciate it.

Around the fire.... The first fire this season.  And a rotten fire it was.  I can manage to fake a roaring fire to greet my husband by hurriedly throwing some brush into the fireplace.  Alas, it burns out in just a few minutes.  But we gathered around it all the same.

And I'll pass on to you something that occurred to me tonight....

What good is a lovely warm fire if I don't sit down and relax in front of it?  So I did and it was heavenly.

And also...

The log cabin quilt really wants to be made.  And yes I know I ran out of the light blue fabric.  And I know the plaids are all kinds of wonky, but I love this square so much I had to take it along when I ran errands today.  It sat beside me in the passenger's seat and I would wink at it at stop lights.  I am all about the scrappy quilts.  Give me yards and yards of beautiful fabric and I see nothing, but one tiny leftover remnant and I am inspired - nay, obsessed.  Because there's a story in that square and a quilt should always have a story to accompany it.  I just made that up, but I like it.

...ing

Craving...

• a log cabin quilt in cozy plaids (I don't actually have time for this.  I'm in denial)
• Apple cider 
• Little House books (we are rereading them just because we can) 
• Scrabble 

 Planning.....

• A whimsical Halloween menu. 
•  Next year's book order (we finish our "year" on December 1st and I find myself without books)
• the Christmas cookie list 

Thanking...

• ..God for last year's rotted pumpkins from which sprang forth a healthy plant and this gorgeous female flower.  Temperatures may dip into the 30s tonight.  It's a bit late for all this gardening foolishness, but we can't help but hope. 

  
  

Like a few other bloggers, I toyed with turning off comments, but I really like comments - on my blog, on your blog.  I love comments all around.  I don't want people to feel pressured to comment because, let's be frank, we all have stuff to do.  But I consider you all my friends so comments are open if you want to say "Hi!'.  Oh and while I'm talking about it, I really am going to try to respond to comments here.  I normally do it through emails, but it occurred to me while reading through archives that it appears as if I never responded and maybe other people wanted an answer to that particular question too.  Also I love comment conversations on other people's sites.  

Oh and one.more.thing.  Does anyone know a good mail order bulb source?  For obvious reasons I shop locally for gardening supplies, but I am unable to find snowdrops this year and people, I need snowdrops in my life.

Fall Festival

Learning about antique tractors from my best friend (I call him 'Dad')

A warm funnel cake and cold iced tea.

Rickety carousels and happy children.

A post I do not want to write.

I promised myself I would not write about politics here.  Today I began to wonder, however, if it was my moral obligation to do so.  So, frankly speaking, I vote pro-life and I always have.  And by golly, I think you should too.  But I think it is important to remember that the Republican party is not the Catholic party.  I refuse to give the Republicans a free pass when I disagree with their policies.  And so I am very critical of what I consider to be, more or less, my party.  I have many reservations about this particular election.  But in the end, I suppose I am one of those single issue voters because without life, nothing else matters. 

That being said, this is (I hope) the last post I will write about this topic.  I am more and more troubled when I start up my computer everyday and thought about staying away entirely until the election was over.  But I think instead for the next few days I will just post simply, writing about the things that bring me a feeling of peace and comfort.  

Embroidery Box

I get a lot of hits for my craft kits post from last year and I felt like putting a similar post together this year but we're not doing as many crafts as we are working on skills.  I feel like the word "craft" connotes a brevity that doesn't apply as well to our current creative endeavors.  But the idea behind the craft kits worked so well last year and is still something that guides our current approach.  That idea being, very simply, gather all the materials for one project in one place.  Obvious, yes, but something that takes careful planning.

Right now my daughter is mainly working on embroidery projects.  We have a pretty little suitcase that serves as her embroidery center of sorts.  When it is closed, it sits neatly and unobtrusively on our side table, pleasantly located near a bright window*.  When open, it is a nightmare of tangles and patterns and needles.  But it works.  She has everything she needs in one box:

• needles
• small, sharp scissors 
• lots of different colors of cotton embroidery thread 
• hoops 
• patterns 
• small pieces of linen - for children, I think, linen is absolutely the way to go.  It is far easier to sew through than cotton quilting fabric.

It's also very easy to pick up and take outside on nice days or in the car if we are expecting a wait.

Recently this post popped up on Google Reader.  Brilliant.  I found the pencil with the notions at JoAnn's.  It took some resizing of a favorite stamp of mine, but I finally got the image transferred (It's the one in the hoop above).  Lucy and I are now dreaming of all we could make into patterns; images from prayer cards, her own drawings, book illustrations.  The list is endless.

I think we could all be accused of over thinking how we work projects with our children.  In my case, embroidery wasn't done nearly as often until it was all gathered in our little box.  Now it is picked up several times a day.  This little box was the one missing piece that made everything click.

I've done the same thing with my knitting.  My pattern books, needles, and yarn are stashed in a suitcase I have from my childhood.  It's this hideous funky retro print and it holds everything perfectly, so when I'm in the mood, I just grab it and head outside or plant myself in front of the football game.

As for the craft kits, I am about to gather all of our materials for our regular fall crafts, the pomanders, the beeswax candles, the pine cone turkeys.  If the time presents itself, I'll write it up here.  If the time doesn't present itself, it is largely the same list as last year.

And also, that photo was hastily taken in bad lighting with no staging at all.  Sorry if it's 'rubbish' (hi Chris!).  

*(that's three adverbs in ONE sentence sent out to the wonderfully, awesomely, brilliantly, writerly  Karen Edmisten)

Nothing in particular.

Google Reader has sort of killed my link life.  Instead of posting here what I love around the intranet (hi Dad!), I just hit "Share" and am done with it.  But as I don't so much feel like talking about myself right now, I'll point you to...

Angela's amazing October photo.  This photo makes me want to drag out the waterpaints  (is that not one word?  I'm awfully tired.)

and

Margaret's monkey bread recipe - made it today.  It's already gone.

And my husband and I figured out that by drying all of our clothes on the line and making my own laundry detergent I am saving over $1000 per year.  Yay me!  I secretly feel guilty for not contributing financially, so saving money any way I can makes me very happy.

Well that's all.  I'm reading, with great interest, all the political posts people are writing.  I think I proved yesterday that I'm a total wimp when it comes to writing about controversial topics (you know, like books). And y'all are saying it far better than I could.  I'm in total agreement with the Catholic Church on all issues which leaves me... where exactly?  Ah, therein lies the problem.  

OK then.  I'm off to bed.