In the Eye of the Storm

Welcome, Family, Friends, and Visitors!  While threatening hurricanes of news swirl around me in the world, and challenging squalls of circumstances rock the boat of this Saylor from day to day, one thing I try to meditate on is how to be in the eye of the storm.  I found this song on YouTube and while it does not reflect my specific experiences, it does speak to my aim to know peace in the midst of our world that is peace challenged. 

In my mind's eye, I see our home with gardens that offer the lovely controlled chaos in scent and sight of the quintessential English cottage garden abuzz with bees and highlighted with fluttering butterflies and hummingbirds. I do not have photos of bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds to show you, but I have seen them here.

 The Joseph Coat rose bushes climb to great heights, but we do not know how to train them to form a lush arbor over us.  They do however amazingly produce over a dozen roses at the tip of a few branches, and if your nose gets close enough you can enjoy their sweet gentle scent.

 The HollyHocks have come back again and are forming promising buds at the tip of each gangling stalk,

 and the Clematis is in lush purple bloom.

 We have several types of Hydrangeas and the white bush presently has the most profuse number of blooms.

 We have done some weeding of the berm out front and some of my adult children have spread Cedar chips to help keep moisture in the soil and hopefully discourage weeds from thriving.

 The wildflowers my youngest son planted down by the pond last year have dared to come back this year and he has been weeding around them since this photo was taken.

 Being born in New England, our family enjoyed having traditional Boston baked beans and brown bread that my mom made.  She had a brown pottery bean pot that my older sister now has.  I have been fascinated in reading in some English novels that the characters often ate beans and an egg on toast and so recently I prepared a version of that for myself and thought it was yummy.

 I just have four more rows to crochet on my Ruby shawl!!!!

At our worship art group last Saturday, I started on a mixed media project focused on the theme that God chooses to build believers together into a dwelling in which He lives by His Spirit. The example our facilitator made is very clever and different in color from what I have started. I enjoyed forming the base she designed and I hope to work more on decorating the houses.

How are you creatively coping with the storms of life in and around you?

May you know joy and peace.

Gracie xx

Leaves and Letters and Shawl and Snow

 Welcome!

 I spent most of the last two weeks in this cosy room getting over a cold and working on crocheting my Ruby shawl [it's in the basket on the table at the bottom of the picture]

 This is a fun view of the family room picture window which is reflecting the leaves on one of our maple trees and one of our family cars. On the inside of the window my granddaughters stuck some white paper leaves they made and some of the leaves from outside that I had ironed between sheets of waxed paper.

 One day, Hayley who will be eight in three weeks, drew a picture and decided to send it to Meredith, so she folded it into an envelop and addressed the envelop herself, put a stamp on it and led the trek to our mailbox.

 Molly who is six drew a picture for our "Mailman or Mailgirl" and took it to the mailbox.

 When they came back from the mailbox the girls did a good job raking leaves. Then later their dad came out and helped them add even more to their pile so that they could jump and hide in the leaves!

 I asked them to wave to you :) and wished I had gotten a photo of them the other day when all of them had their sun glasses on and were raking leaves.  Today the driveway is covered with leaves...again!

 Our maple trees are at their peak of color.

And it rained this past weekend so Mt. Hood collected some new snow which I got a photo of Monday after swimming with Teresa at the pool.  This is a zoomed in view from the east side of Highway 26 near the Boring exit, but our pond still has no visible water.  Even though we had some downpours this weekend the storm was not too fierce, however our power was off for over ten hours...mostly while we slept...but long enough to help us realize how grateful we are to have electric and gas power to help us have warmth and light!

Whatever your weather may be I hope you have a happy creative week!

What is new with you?

xx
Gracie :)

Once in a Blue Moon

Can you see the moon rising?

The sunsets were often amazing at Oregon's Tillamook State Beach.

It was fun to try to capture a good photo of the Blue Moon...[two nights in one month when the moon is full].

This beautiful hydrangea bush was at the entrance/exit of the campground where we stayed.

The Coleman pop up tent provided a comfy, cozy home away from home for me.

I enjoyed crocheting  more rows on my Ruby Shawl.

And I also got to knit more rows on the baby blanket I'm making.

Very few folks braved getting into the cold ocean waves, but I was glad to be comfortable wearing a sweater when the temps inland were in the 100 F degrees!

The campground had many of these pretty berry bushes between campsites.

One day we really enjoyed exploring the little Tillamook museum.

The Native American arrowhead displays were amazing!

Also I marveled at the gorgeous Native American bead and leather work!

Did you know one could carve a wooden chain?  I didn't. WOW!!!

The sunset/sunrise light and our campfire light and warmth was wonderful!

Just before I left home I received a surprise package!  Thank you again, Tammy, for sending me these wonderful gifts from around Kuwait, and the dream catcher you crocheted for me.  I used the Bethlehem bookmark to mark my place in the encouraging  book, "Dreaming with God" by Bill Johnson that  I was able to finish reading while camping.  I appreciate so much our blogging friendship :)

And I was welcomed home by a package and sweet note from my blogging friend, Jennifer, whose generous blog giveaway I was blessed to win.  Thanks again, Jennifer!

I used some of the napkins and straws from Jennifer's gift right away for a tea party with my oldest daughter and granddaughters.  My daughter made a vanilla cake with homemade blackberry jam from our blackberry crop. [Also note some of the sun gold cherry tomatoes on the turntable from our plant! Harvest time is here :)]

With very little turnaround time, I am repacking to leave early tomorrow morning to drive to Burbank, CA, with some of my family members to celebrate my sister and brother in law's 50th wedding anniversary :)  I hope you are having happy times, too, and I look forward to catching up with your news soon!   <3

Gracie XX

Bountiful

In the midst of days where others have dealt with drastic difficulties I have been grateful for mostly delightful time spent with family and friends, at home, at church, and out and about in the community around me this week.

My mini-van, which is more the Credit Union's than mine, had to be repaired and liberated from the shop for $$$$, but I'm thankful God provided the funds for me to pay the bill, and grateful that the vehicle is operating smoothly :-)

At our women's group at church we had a lovely visitor from Nigeria. We are still working our way through the book Captivating, and it was so encouraging to have her voice added to our discussion and realize as we wrestled with the topic of how to combat evil that our relationships with Christ draw us to  common ground no matter how far apart we may live.

My blogging friend Betsy was in the area visiting her daughter, so my local blogging friends, Teresa, and Taci and I were able to meet Betsy yesterday for a looooong lunch.  Teresa brought beautiful yummy eggs to share, Taci, brought beautiful flower and bead bookmarks to share, Betsy brought beautiful dishcloths and cute sheep coasters to share, and I brought cotton hot mats to share.  Taci showed us some of her pretty scarf knitting projects, Betsy showed us a pretty shawl she had knit and crocheted and Teresa showed us a pretty necklace she had made.

The shawl I am working on is getting bigger...honest!  And I am going to stop typing to you so that I can work on it some more tonight :-)

May your blessings be bountiful,

Gracie

Captivating [wip wed. 4.24.2013]

Have you a cup of tea at the ready?

I am longing for a visit with you.   

So here I am posting pictures of the beautiful Ruby shawl I am trying to crochet.  And isn't our cherry tree beautiful as it burst into bloom and is now releasing its blossoms in flurries?  And did you see one of our last red camelia blooms?  And then there is Mt. Hood in its beautiful snowy white cape.  And Clara Parkes who publishes the Knitter's Review, and has written some fibery focused books, is also in the interesting process of following The Great White Bale of wool through all the stages of its processing and writing about it. It is a beautiful story, to me, that I hope she will turn into a  beautiful book :-)

For a little over a week, I have been reading [with highlighter in hand]  the New York Times bestseller, Captivating, by John and Stasi Eldredge.  In it  I read, "...it is God who reveals beauty as essential to life.  You are the image bearer of this God.  That is why you long for those things too.  There is a radiance hidden in your heart that the world desperately needs."

What is beautiful in and around you?

xx,
Gracie