and this year for my birthday....

~

US Immigration has granted me permanent residency!!

(how ever did they know that was JUST what i wanted...?)

~

UPDATE:

Another early birthday present! Registration for the Marine Corps Marathon opened today (and could very well sell out today)...

My husband signed me up. What insight! What thoughtfulness! What a gem of a man!

(it's possible that i might have told him that was just what i wanted...)


Such great gifts, and it's not even my birthday yet :-)

~

oh happy day..

neither of us were looking forward to Saturday... services for the departed are always difficult, particularly when for family members... it's a long drive to NJ at the best of times, made longer by the rainy night driving conditions, and the fact that we had forgotten a few key items and had to go back for them... which put us at our destination at 4 in the morning.

my father-in-law paced about the house nervously in the morning... getting together photographs, practicing the speech he had written to honour his deceased wife... my husband put the finishing touches on the slide show he had created with all the photos i had scanned earlier in the week, and called his sister several times to see if there was anything further we could bring.

his sister was frantically rushing about her house when we got there, trying to get the last details taken care of...

then the baby woke up and needed to be fed and changed, people arrived, the house was full of a chaos of old family friends laughing and hugging and crying... the computer was hooked up to the tv and the slide show began...

and suddenly it was a party.

my mother-in-law would have loved that.

no sad speeches, no damp hankies, no "if only we'd had more time..."
just a celebration of her life, her friendships, her children... a celebration of the time we all had with her.

it was a wonderful day. too bad we wasted so much energy dreading its coming.

get your FREE prizes here!!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner! (as my friend Char would say)

I won a "pay it forward" from my friend Foxxx a little while back and have been brainstorming my “pay it forward” giftie ideas. And training for a marathon. And entertaining houseguests. And spending time with my mother-in-law before she died. And supporting my husband and his family after she died... So forgive my tardy getting to it.

Here’s the deal on "pay it forward". My friend Foxxx won a prize from our friend Char, who won one from someone else... Now I too will conduct a draw for prizes. You comment here saying you’d like to be entered into the draw. One week from today, I take all names and draw at random. You win. Simple as that.

Here's the catch....if you win, you have to agree to “pay it forward” to three other people via your own blog. Prizes can be handmade items, gift certificates for stores or online sites, donations to charities, etc.

Now, as you may know, due to my relatively recent change of countries and subsequent wait on work authorization, followed by a collapsing US economy... I'm not currently employed. So, my prize options will be modest, but heartfelt.

Each winner may choose one of the following:

~ A lovely spring-weight royal blue scarf that I just finished knitting (photos supplied by request)

~ 4 hours of volunteer service at a national (US) charity of your choice (I’m in the DC area so I would need it to be one that is accessible here)

~ A handwritten card, note, postcard or letter each month for a year (which can be sent to you, or some lonely soul that you would like to cheer up... just supply me with addresses)

~ 4 hours of yard/garden work at your home, as long as you are also in the DC area or don’t mind if it takes a few months or years for me to make it to your home for a visit.

~ A home-made baked goods “care package” (disclaimer - I cannot guarantee the freshness of said baked goods if you live on the other side of the world from me... but they will be fresh when I post them)


To enter, leave me a comment on this blog. Given that I have a rather small readership on both of my blogs, I will be posting this on both and accepting entries from both. Entries will be accepted until midnight April 3, 2009. After that, a random drawing will be held of all entries. Best of luck.

courage

~
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” e.e. cummings

I was reading my friend Denize’s recent posting in which she wrote about Wayne Dyer and e.e. cummings and how they kept on being themselves even when people told them they were doing it wrong. She talks about trying to figure out what makes her her, and how to be honest about and true to those parts of herself.

She asked herself the following questions, and made a list of answers.

“So, who am I? what are all my layers? And what is my core?”


This is my list:

I love stillness
I get irritable when I don’t get time to myself
I crave physical contact, and am always holding hands, bumping into friends when we walk together, hugging, stroking hair, sitting in laps, massaging feet...
I wish people wanted to touch me as much as I want to touch them
I like to walk alone
I prefer to run with other people
I get a thrill from the rumble of thunder and flash of lightning
I love the sound of snow underfoot
I love the sound of rain on the roof
I am both soothed and energized by the sound of waves crashing along shorelines
I love the smell of lawn and leaves and earth
I love campfires
I love the northern lights
I love light reflecting on water
I love the way kids see the tiny details and don’t care about the big picture
I like to be busy
I love good food, pretty much any type, but I’m not a great cook
I love cheese
I am in loving awe of bees and elephants and whales
I am fascinated by insects, but don’t want (most of) them to touch me
I am stubborn
I don’t like being told what to do
I wish at times that people would tell me what to do
I sometimes get anxious if things aren’t done the way I would do them
I love to scream on rollercoasters
I love to sing loudly while I drive
I love to dance til the sweat pours down my body
I feel uplifted when I am in the mountains
I love to travel
I love to come home
I like my home to be tidy
I can be very messy
I am curious
I am lazy
I am loyal
I am exuberant
I am shy
I feel small when I’m surrounded by people I don’t know
I don’t like to be the centre of attention
I wish some people paid more attention to me
I feel like I have something important to say, but I don’t know what it is
I don’t like myself sometimes
I am frequently amazed by myself, when reminded of all that I have accomplished
I am flawed
I am changing
I am hopeful
I am trusting
I am me

(for now)

~

looking into a life

when we left my father-in-law's house two weeks ago, we took with us a couple boxes of loose photographs which my husband wanted to "digitize." there were two reasons for that, one is to preserve them as they've been floating about loose in the boxes and getting banged up, and the other is so that he can use them to create a slide show of images of his mother for her up-coming funeral service.

my mother-in-law was already very ill when i met her for the first time. i have never known her to be joyful or exuberant. there have been moments when i catch a glimpse of her wry sense of humour, but they are fleeting and far between. and so, there is an enormous part of her personality that i simply did not know.

i spent the better part of the day going through those boxes... picking out pictures that show her to be funny and playful, loving with her children, a child herself... a traveler, a gardener, a mother, a student, a wife, a girl, a beautiful woman, and finally the tired and depleted woman i knew.

as i went through the photos, i asked my husband about many of them... "i never knew my mother when she was fun," he said. "i've never seen her laugh like that, or play like that"... "i don't remember that..."

i wish i had known her when she laughed so hard she almost fell over with the force of it, grasping at her friend's arm to stay upright. i wish my husband remembered her climbing trees with him and playing on the beach with him when he was small.

it makes me wonder when it was that she became the woman we knew, and why? how did that happen? did she miss her younger self, or was she content to be herself as she aged?

26.2

ran a marathon on Sunday... my first ever.

pretty proud of myself.

today i'm happy about...

~ cherry blossoms
~ my new bed
~ oatmeal with honey and walnuts
~ the knowledge that this time tomorrow morning i will be drinking coffee with my mom
~ sunshiny daffodils
~ the hug that my friend Denize drew and sent to me
~ chats with long lost friends
~ large magnolia trees that are hanging on the very edge of blooming, full of promise
~ new friends
~ reaching my fundraising goals for the marathon i'm running on Sunday
~ the beautiful card Brandi made that just slipped through my door
~


... i'm sure there will be more before the day is through

waiting

the day has passed by at a snail's pace, even though we all slept in a little... with the hush of freshly fallen snow outside, it felt nice to stay in bed and just listen to the quiet.

my sweetheart and his father went out to shovel the walkways and scrape the snow off the vehicles... bringing back into the house with them the scent of cold fresh air and snow, if only for a moment.

**

the house smells of decay... that is not entirely unusual, as we often find fruit decaying on the counters when we come to visit, stale laundry and uncleaned bathrooms. i have passed the day much as i always do when we come here. cleaning a little here, doing a little laundry there... trying not to attract too much attention or risk being asked to stop.

**

we've watched some movies and played some cards... i have played the piano for my mother-in-law several times throughout the day, whenever i am alone in the house with her.

she cannot really communicate anymore, though she moans constantly when she is awake. when she does talk she often calls out to her deceased sister... or mumbles prayers in spanish. she does not seem aware of me when i talk to her, and i don't know what more to say.

so i play for her.

**

my sweetheart is watching some Chinese zombie movie in our bedroom... the zombie moans from the tv drift into the living room to accompany the moans coming from her bedroom.

somehow that feels quite alright at the moment.

**

my love and admiration for my husband swells each time i watch him tend to his mother. he washes her and dresses her, helps the nurses to change her soiled bedclothes, soaks a small sponge in water or juice and holds it to her lips so she can moisten her mouth without choking. he is so gentle with her.

he saves his anger and frustration for his father... who is also struggling to find his way through watching his best friend and love disappear before his eyes.

each time she asks for something to drink, hope lights his eyes as if this sip would miraculously put her back on the path to good health. each time she has a moment of lucidity and speaks to him as though she knows him, he makes fresh plans for their common future -- like buying a smaller house up north so it would be easier to care for her and their rental properties -- and then he deflates when she inevitably slips back into the moaning darkness.

**

the house is heavy with decay... no amount of cleaning products or air fresheners can overcome the scent of her body failing, no amount of comforting words or deliberate conversation can lift the atmosphere of sadness and anxious anticipation, no amount of curtains being drawn to let in the sparkling winter light can bring light to heavy hearts.

**

there are moments where i feel like an impostor here. not that i am unwelcome... but that i am not a part of it. in some ways that is true. this family has operated as a complete unit for decades... i have been a part of it for only a couple of years. it is not mine... and my feelings are somehow peripheral. yet her passing will impact my life profoundly. has already impacted my life profoundly...

her illness has created new space into which my relationship with my husband has grown and deepened. for that i am grateful. but it pains me to see the toll it takes on him. i know that i too will live with the manifestations of his grief when she passes. my children will never know their father's mother... and that makes me sad. i know the idea of that makes him sad too.

the fallout of her passing will impact his relationship with his father and sister... at this point, it could just as easily fall on the side of a negative impact as a positive one... for reasons i am only beginning to understand. however their relationships may change, that will define my future relationship with both my father-in-law and sister-in-law (and her family) as well.

coming from a very close family, i cannot help but hope that this brings them closer together... that it helps them to find new ways of understanding and relating to each other. because i long for that closeness... maybe that is just selfish, but there it is.

**

the last time i was here, i lay with her on her bed to watch the inauguration of Barak Obama. she was so excited by the potential for change that he brings. it amazed and humbled me when she held my hand and talked to me about how happy she was that Francisco had met me, how she hoped we would share a long and happy life together... about how happy she was to have lived so see both her children happily married, and to have met her grand daughter.. about how she had always hoped to die in her sleep, but now she was ready to go any time.

and then, without a moment's silence to let that sink in... she commented on how cute the Obama girls were and how she wondered what kind of puppy they would finally choose when they were settled into life in the White House.

**

i am so grateful to have known her.

without wishing her any harm, and because i love her... as i listen to her moan, and look into her bedroom to see her wasted body and gaunt face, i hope that her passing comes very soon.

upping the geek quotient

so... here's a couple blogs that i have found endlessly amusing of late.

Who's More Awesome

The Geeky Chef


they entertain the geek in me...

the geek in my husband, on the other hand, is currently being entertained by Chinese zombie/vampire kung fu movies. i just can't seem to share in that passion with him, for some reason.

not feeling it

i have been struggling with sticking to the spirit of this blog and not simply grizzling and whinging about the trials and tribulations of my little life when the mood strikes me to write. therefore, i haven't been writing.

the intent of the blog was to find those small moments of delight and wonder in daily life, to hold them up to the light to be shared and enjoyed and cherished...

and so, i am being strict with myself and reminding myself to stick to it. if i want to moan and complain about stuff, i should start another blog for that. a dedicated "poor me" blog...

***

the sun was shining this morning when i took the dog out for a walk in the park. he's been staying with us for ten days, and since this is not a poor me blog, i won't tell you all the ways in which having him stay has been difficult. instead, i shall tell you that he's been good company and now that he has gone home i will miss him.

having a puppy around means that i have been going for long walks every day. this is good for my mental health. and, it has resulted in me being far less stiff and sore after my weekly long runs than i have been in earlier weeks.

the sun was shining when we went out for our walk this morning. there are snowdrops and crocuses blooming in the gardens at the conservation area a few blocks from here. the daffodils are starting to come up, and the buds on the magnolia trees look like gigantic pussy willows.

having a cute little red dog around is kind of like having a baby... people stop to ooh and aah, they ask how old he is, what kind of dog he is... and occasionally they notice that he has just three legs and remark about the resilience of young creatures... then they wish me a good morning/afternoon/evening and carry on their way. i've talked to more people over the last ten days than i have over the last six months of living here.

it's kinda nice.

***

now that i am running at least 20 miles each week (or more), i am ravenous most of the time. this has led to a burst of creativity in the kitchen.

one can only eat oatmeal with brown sugar so many times... so now i have it with walnuts, raspberries and honey... or peanut butter and mango... or strawberries, sunflower seeds and yogurt.

breakfast eggs are now rarely just eggs, but omelets full of veggies and cheese... or loads of fresh ginger... or feta and fresh mint. i bake bread every week just so we'll have good bread to have with eggs.

a lunch time sandwich is now never just a sandwich... it's a dagwood sandwich, full of cheeses and olives and sweet peppers and crunchy lettuce and hot pickles and stuff falling out the sides.

lunch time salads are salad extravaganzas... full of nuts and cheeses and seeds and herbs and fruit... and they're never small any more.

one can only eat pasta with tomato sauce so many times... now we're having it with sauteed butternut squash, hot chilis, asparagus and toasted pine nuts... or with chunks of feta cheese, garlic, fresh herbs and good olive oil.

we used to have left-overs for lunches... but now if there are left-overs they rarely make it past late evening snack time.

my sweetheart keeps telling me i'm spoiling him. but the truth is i'm being good to me. i'm eating like a runner.

that Romeo stuff

when i was a kid and my dad would tease me about boyfriends i shut him up by telling him i was too young for that Romeo stuff...

now i like the Romeo stuff.

so... for the third year in a row, my sweetheart and i will not be spending Valentine's day together... and for the third year in a row, i'm kind of sad about that.

do we need a special day to celebrate our love? no...
do we need to spend pots of money on flowers or chocolates or lingerie or fancy dinners to prove we love each other? no...

but there's just something about being able to take part in the global annual celebration of love... after many years of not having a love to celebrate, there's that little part of me that longs to get in there and revel in the fact that i am finally part of the love club, that i have joined the world of the loved.

(not that i was unloved before... but you get what i mean)

my husband didn't realise until Wednesday that Valentine's day was this coming weekend. he posted a few items for sale on Craig's List... and when he told the guy that wants to come by on Saturday to buy the kayak that he wasn't going to be here, but that i would... the guy wrote back to say he'd get in touch with me, and ps.. did he know that Saturday was Valentine's day???

(fortunately for me, he can't forget my birthday 'cos it's the day after his...)

he told me last night that he was sorry we weren't going to be together on Valentine's day... so we agreed that we would have a lovely romantic dinner together one night next week. and when i walked him out to the truck as he was leaving this evening, he held me extra close and kissed me extra long and called me his Valentine.

and so, in spite of the fact that once again we won't be celebrating our love together on the 14th... i feel like in talking about it we've been celebrating it for the past three days. i've been basking in the glow of love.

and i like it.

this hungry heart will not subside

... soon as you start to make room for the parts that aren't you it gets harder to bloom ...

i wasn't a fan until last night. i mean, i liked the couple songs that i had heard played on the radio, but not enough that i would go out of my way to buy an album or plan to get tickets to see her show. but my friend Sarah asked us to go with her, and we'd been talking about how we needed to get out of the house and "do stuff" more often. so, we said would, and then completely forgot about it until Sarah called yesterday afternoon to set up a time to meet at the club last night.

the concert was in a funky little club called the birchmere, which you would never stumble across by accident unless you lived in the neighbourhood. the set up isn't ideal for actually seeing the performance, but it is a very intimate venue... and ideal for an acoustic concert.

so i didn't see much... but her voice ripped out powerful and beautiful. her humour was... shockingly rude... not what you'd expect from this sweet looking young woman. at least, i'm sure it was shocking for the mother of two little girls who were sitting a couple tables over from us. the band plays well together, laughs well together, makes music well together... and as i listened to her lyrics for the first time ever, i realised i really do like her stuff.

i like Sara Bareilles... there, i've said it.

we bought her album after the concert, and i'm listening to it as i type. it's good. but not as good as her live show. so, if you're sitting on the fence over whether or not to go out to see her perform... do it, because she's better in person.

random

I've been tagged, and tagged, and tagged again... I've been tagged so many times now that I feel a certain responsibility to pony-up with 25 random things about me that people may or may not know or find interesting.

plus, I'm procrastinating and this will distract me from what i really should be doing for some time.... so, thank you.

***

25 Random things about me...

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. Then you're supposed to tag 25 people to do the same. But I'm not going to do that.


***

1. I don't really consider myself to be terribly athletic, but i find myself drawn to endurance sports.
2. My greatest weakness is cheese.
3. I met my husband online (and still have a hard time saying those words out loud when asked how we met).
4. Even though I used to get annoyed by her tagging along when we were little, my sister is my best friend.
5. I'm getting "crafty" in my old age, but kind of old fashioned crafty. Learning to knit and bake bread, that sort of thing...
6. My most affectionate friend in the USA (aside from my husband) is a three legged dog named Bailey.
7. Even though most people who know me don't believe it, I have always been painfully shy... I've just gotten better and better at hiding it.
8. I have never owned a motorized vehicle (car/truck/scooter/motorbike).

9. I love the taste of coffee, but I can't drink it too often as it makes me go kind of squirrelly (agitated, scatter-brained, fidgety, etc).
10. My favourite article of clothing is the orange scarf that I bought with my friend Christoforos in a funky little coffee shop/boutique in Paris.
11. I"m a little bit afraid of drowning.
12. Without my contact lenses, I cannot focus on anything more than a couple inches past the end of my own nose.
13. I have five brothers and one sister.
14. I am an Aries. People who know about these things say that I most certainly am an Aries.. I don't really know what that means.
15. I've tried haggis (more than once!), and liked it.
16. I am fascinated by bees and bee-keeping. I think I'm going to give it a try some day when I own land.
17. I know how to make a comet, and a volcano... in my kitchen. And on purpose.
18. My prize possession is a tattered and slightly moldy copy of Dennis Lee's "Alligator Pie" given to me by my grandparents for my fifth birthday.
19. My favourite flavour of ice cream is Tiger (which is a delightful combination of black licorice and orange)
20. I feel most alive in the mountains. But it seems I am a bit of a mountain snob, as the mountains within driving range from me now don't seem to appease my mountain cravings.
21. In the past I have dyed my hair red, blue, and blonde. Now that I have a few grey hairs showing through, I am tempted to dye it again, but don't know what colour to choose.
22. My husband is a Sci-Fi movie geek... And he loves kung-fu movies too. I never would have imagined it possible, but I am learning to like them too.
23. No matter how many times I try it, I just don't like beer.
24. I love my nephews to distraction, and am looking forward to the day when I have kids of my own.
25. I'm glad this is done now.

i think i overwhelmed myself...

i've found it very hard to get myself motivated to complete the Mondo Beyondo... and so i've been avoiding my own blog.

so, i'm going to put that idea on a shelf, and come back to it when i'm ready.

***

i'm listening to some lovely music from the Beyman Bros new album "Memories of Summer as a Child." it's very peaceful.

***

i've been busy with fundraising for my upcoming marathon (aka trying to sell obscene amounts of donuts)... and training for it. it feels good to be active, and to be meeting people.

want to know the caloric breakdown of America's favourite donut? you'd be suprised to know that more people were willing to buy a box of Krispy Kreme glazed donuts when they heard that each one was just 200 calories each. or maybe you won't be surprised.

***

i went snowboarding in Pennsylvania yesterday, for the first time in a couple of years. i missed my girl friends tremendously... but, it was wonderful to be out in the spring-like conditions... sunny, blue skies, warm... and snowboarding :-)

***

Mondo Beyondo 2009 (my thanks to Andrea)

I've been doing a little internal housekeeping lately. Trying to work through some stuff, trying to throw out some insecurities, trying to draw in some motivation and inspiration and find some joy... and today, huzzah! Online inspiration strikes at the Superhero Journal, and it is called Mondo Beyondo. You can check it out here to get the full explanation.

In essence the creator of Mondo Beyondo says the surest way to start fresh and move forward is to be at peace with what came before. You might have had an incredible year, a dull year, or a truly difficult year. Whatever happened, the aim is to celebrate what there is to celebrate about it and grieve what there is to grieve... Then start the new year off by declaring what you want to draw into your life and let those items entice you into action.

Mondo Beyondo challenges you to answer the following questions and declare the year, in this case 2008, complete.

1. What do you want to acknowledge yourself for in regard to 2008?
(What did you create? What challenges did you face with courage and strength? What promises to yourself did you keep? What brave choices did you make? What are you proud of?)

2. What is there to grieve about 2008?
(What was disappointing? What was scary? What was hard? What can you forgive yourself for?)

3. What else do you need to say about the year to declare it complete?

The next step is to say out loud, "I declare 2008 complete!"
How do you feel? If you don't feel quite right, there might be one more thing to say...


The final step is to consider your primary focus for the year to come. What is your primary intention or theme for 2009? Is it the year of joy? the year of self-care? the year of partnership?

Stand up and say it proud, "2009 is my year of...."


It's basically a way to put the past year behind you and move on with the new one. I know it's already coming up on the end of January but better late than never. I'm going to think on my answers to those questions and my list of intentions for the year to come over the weekend (or maybe a little longer if I get nervous about posting them here..) but thought I'd leave you with the questions in case you might like to do it too.

a few observations of late...

it snowed in NJ on Saturday night. this made for a beautiful run on Sunday morning... the trees all lacy white and sparkling in the sun, the scrunch scrunch of the snow underfoot, the happy scarlet cardinals flitting from branch to branch.

not so lovely... the large and muddy trucks, perched high above their own wheels, roaring up and down the roads (such that their hand done camouflage paint jobs were rendered ineffective... there would be no sneaking up on anything in those babies!)

***

i watched the inauguration of Barak Obama stretched out on my mother-in-law's bed... she called me into her room at about 11am, interrupting my attempt to rescue her desiccated houseplants. so we watched together, commenting on this and that, remarking about the crowds and the good weather, and how sweet the Obama kids look....

she reached over and held my hand... and fell asleep before he finished his speech.

***

my husband has inherited his parents' tendency to accumulate "stuff." their house is full of clutter and bits and pieces and boxes and bursting closets... it annoys him when he goes there, all that stuff that they will never use.

each time we come home he looks around our place, sighs, and says something along the lines of "i'm just like them..." and he does his best to thin out his stuff.

i've come to realise that i too am a stuff hoarder. i had to get rid of a lot of stuff when i was packing up my life to move here. but i still have stuff.

i'm just better at putting it away (aka hiding it) than he is.

***

i'm thinking i've found a new project

my friend David took these pictures whilst on holidays in Rome...


i think they're hilarious.... who ever decided horses need ear warmers? and in Rome? it hardly gets cold there!

now here, here it gets cold (though not like it does back home in Canada.)


so, since i have mastered the art of making scarves (i made six as Christmas gifts), and am in need of a new project... i'm going to try to make these.





i don't know anyone who has horses who might need these, so if you do, please let me know. i will happily send them on to some horse who could use them.

am now off to search the net for estimates on horse ear circumferences and forehead sizes.













Post Script:
Looks like I missed the boat on this one... in looking for horse ear sizes, look what came up near the top of the list. A whole website dedicated to horse bonnets... sigh.




i'm still going to try to make one, just for kicks.

all day trying

~

i lost my baby a year ago today.

i've spent all day trying not to be sad.

i am sad.

so i'm going to bed.

~

collecting

my house smells like clean laundry again... but that's not what i'm here to tell you.

on the way to do other household necessity stuff (like banking and grocery shopping) this evening, we happened by a comic store. and my sweetheart decided we needed to go in to get some idea what his "collection" might be worth.

the store stank of stale cigarette smoke (that can't be good for the value of the priceless artifacts found within the store's reeking walls), boxes of action figures and baseball cards stacked precariously, sleeve upon shiny sleeve of plastic ensconced comic books hung from the walls... and my sweetheart grew a new persona.

at least, it was new to me... he was suddenly collector-guy, talking shop, cracking jokes about such-and-such comic #94, and moaning over the recent early demise of an artist whose work he admired.

when the shop owner realised that i was not taking part, he tried to draw me into the conversation by asking what i collected, saying something along the lines of everybody collects something... maybe dolls or something?

and so i have been trying to think if i ever truly collected anything. not just had a few items of something that accumulated over time because people noticed you had one and thought you might like another for your collection... but something i was passionate about, that i loved so much i had to have more.

maybe i did, at one time... i know i had some cow stuff for a while, but it seems to me that i kind of said once that i liked cows and then they were rained upon me. but i don't remember ever having my special collection of something precious.

all the things i can think of that i ever deliberately accumulated were things to be used. i don't remember ever buying something that i loved and then putting it away so that the sunlight wouldn't damage it, or dirty fingers decrease it's value.

maybe i'm just not a collector.

but then, i suppose i could find a few things that i have collected and put away somewhere safe, where nothing could touch them... old loves, old losses, old wounds, old memories.

i wonder if anyone would want them, if i were to take them out of their time-proof protective covers and put them on auction to the highest bidder.

follow your nose...

as you walk through our little apartment, you can smell the fruits of my housewifely labours of the day...

~ at the front door, the living room is lightly lemon Pledge scented following the first trip round the house with the duster this year.
~ approaching the kitchen the air is filled with the aroma of the hot apples, cinnamon, toasted oats and walnuts of a baking apple crisp.
~ stroll by the bathroom and you'll notice a hint of pine scented cleaning products.
~ the spare bedroom is fragrant with drying laundry, which smells curiously of geraniums (reminds me of my Nan's Boots bubble bath).

i hardly know which room to hang out in, inhaling...

could be that i need to get out more.