nearly the Last of the Garden

Just before Thanksgiving I took this picture of the harvest that was sitting then on my table.

The avocados came from a friend, grown in a backyard in Santa Clara.  Yummy and buttery, possibly the best I've ever eaten.  I shared one with a friend on Thanksgiving and the other with another friend on the Saturday after. The seed from the second one is in a small pot of dirt outside.  It will be interesting to see if it survives and sprouts leaves.

The tomatoes became

part of a plate of dinner for me and the salad on Thanksgiving.  There was so much going on on Thanksgiving, that I didn't have time for pictures. The meal was one of the best I have made for Thanksgiving.  A turkey meatloaf, subbed for the bird, since there were only two of us eating. Fresh herbs combined to make poultry seasoning.  Amazing what that did to the meatloaf.

I made pumpkin custard, which is pie filling without the crust and then totally wrecked the calorie saving virtues of it by making hard sauce. Decades ago at a very memorable Thanksgiving with friends in Chicago I ate hard sauce for the first and only time in my life up to this year.  After looking for a recipe on line I have to say it is basically butter cream with booze.  And it is good.  Rum in the pumpkin and rum in the sauce.

The ways in which the garden has provided stability and blessing and great culinary delight in my life is part of what I am so grateful for this year.  Rain and weather that is not so cold as it was in November are two more blessings that I give great thanks for.

Household Blessings

Today it was 62 in the house when I got up around 8:00 am. That is a bit crisp for this old lady, so I set the thermostat to 67 and let the house warm a bit. Both the easy to use thermostat and the furnace itself, which got major parts last year at this time are household blessings.

After several hours of work at the computer--mostly putting up things on Etsy and Zazzle, tasks made possible by the fact that the darling DSL actually deigned to work, I switched to working on making the products themselves. First lavender was stuffed into bags and its lovely fragrance filled my dining room. Then I filled Booklover's sachets and made another small batch of this lovely potpourri that I derived from Gerard's herbal. I actually have one or two small packets of it that I made twenty years ago that still smell good. The fragrance of this is almost overwhelming though, overpowering the lavender and filling the house. Even though it is all put away now, I can still smell it and it is making me think of Christmas.

Then the UPS man brought two boxes for my Mary Kay business and I happily delved into them and set up a box to ship out. The fact that this came during the afternoon allowed me to play in the sunshine that by now was streaming into the house and warming the dining room. I was, and am, grateful.

Finally, I made a quick dinner from sloppy joe mix that my sister made and froze for me when she visited a month ago. I do believe that food in the freezer is one of the greatest blessings of all--quick fixes on busy days. I watched the news, grateful that I do not have to commute so the problems with the Bay Bridge do not afflict me; grateful that I can work at home.

Now I just need to learn better marketing skills, or networking skills to find customers and I will be able to increase the things that I am grateful for!

No pictures tonight, but maybe tomorrow. Good health and blessings to you all.

Merry Christmas, 2008

A blessed and Merry Christmas to everyone. I need to clear the table for friends who are bringing me a share of their feast and their company later today. The Christmas tree and Creche are up in my living room, so I've been spending more time in there.

Nearly surfeited with eggnog and sentimental Christmas movies, too. I will be happy to hear Christmas music a little longer--although I think it will go away on my favorite radio station at midnight, so I will have to dig out tapes and CD's.

Gratitude is a big theme of this day. For the Christmas itself, I give thanks, for the kindness of friends, the sun shining now after rain and wind this morning and for the Pope's message, which I want to read in full and ponder. Thank you. I hope that 2009 will be a good year for all of us.

Cold Winter Blows my Way!

North winds are indeed blowing and we are even going to have snow in central California! I am so grateful for modern plumbing and heating. The furnace has just come on as I began to type this and I have cozy space heaters along with fleece throws wrapped all around me. The space heaters take the place of fireplaces, which our ancestors would have had in every room. The new electric blanket is a very good one and a cozy fleece blanket in itself. I have that to look forward to shortly.

I just finished watching an American Girl movie on Hallmark. I am always fascinated by period pieces, how everyone dressed, walked and talked in other times and the interior of houses. How they lived, warding off the elements in somewhat different ways, has intrigued me.

One thing that they don't show is the long underwear. I can remember my Mama's descriptions of that and think that we could save considerable energy if we would not save our "long John's" and "long Jane's" for outdoor recreational activity, but bring them in and wear them regularly. After all we don't have to break ice on the water barrel, boil water and squeeze the clothes through a wringer to have clean laundry. Those machines worked well today too and earned their keep in my house.

I am knitting hats for myself, so that I will have more than one and wearing a hat in the house saves a good bit of money for it allows me to turn the heat back substantially.

In my Chicago days I learned to wear two pairs of socks in winter. That may be some of the best knowledge that I took away from the experience. A warm head and warm feet help a great deal.

So while I do not cherish this cold spell, I am grateful for my blessings and trying to tell myself that it will be more like Christmas if it is cold.

Counting Blessings

The stock market is dismal, the weather has turned chilly and grey and it would be so easy to lament and collapse into depression. (A five minute microwave chocolate mug cake comes to mind here.)

On the other hand, the furnace is working and I thank God for it. The lights are on; the space I am working in is relatively cozy and warm so what are my blessings?

To be alive in a warm dry place. To have food of my own choosing and to know that I am going to attempt to make homemade buckwheat noodles this afternoon for the first time. To know that I have so many projects I can pick one from the list and not be bored for a day or a week or a month or probably even a year.

In the last week I have rediscovered the pleasure of writing, working on a story that had not been touched for so long that it seemed to have been abandoned. Why? I can work on figuring that out too!

Thanksgiving is near and Christmas soon to follow. I love these holidays and I have everthing to celebrate Christmas without spending a cent. The tree lives in its box in the front hall closet for most of the year and the ornaments too. In fact, I have several Christmas trees with varying stories and of varying sizes. I am hoping to put them all up this year. So looking forward, anticipating celebration is part of my blessing counting.

My friend who befriended my yard several years ago was over yesterday and we visited. After she finished in the yard, she went into the garage to look for something for me and found tons of cardboard which I had forgotten that I had saved. Off the premises it went. Thanks be to my friend.

Sometime this weekend I will finally harvest the tomatoes and make fried green tomatoes for the first time. They sound delicious.

All in all it is not a bad day and I am grateful and reminding myself of the blessings.

Blessings

The fog has rolled back in and it is such a blessing. My stress level goes down markedly when the weather is not so hot. The shortening days are also signaling to all the plants that it is time to bloom. Red flowers on the pineapple sage under my kitchen window attract hummingbirds,for whom the plant has been tended all summer. The basils are producing flower stalks faster than I can cut them to keep up with them for potpourri and the smell of drying basil fills my dining room even as I sit here and type.

There is a feeling of peacefulness because of the weather and the garden that I wish I could replicate and send world wide. Maybe a new fragrance or room air freshner! It could be sprayed in meeting rooms world wide whenever leaders gather to discuss rancorous issues.

Planning the garden's next stage is also a blessing. Now that I know that the side yard will produce food I need to have someone turn the soil and then order the seeds. Kale and chard, turnips, parsnips, beets and carrots would be good for our fall into winter climate.

It will be interesting and useful for future years to see if the late tomatoes actually do produce. I am thinking of tomatoes from my own plants as part of Thanksgiving dinner--and definitely will give thanks for them if there are some.

Today my friend, who is my housekeeper, will come and make order out of my chaos and cleanliness out of my mess. She is a blessing of major proportion in my life, as are the friends who water for me.

In two weeks my sister and her husband will be visiting. Truly a blessing and some real excitement for someone who feels like she is rapidly becoming an old lady.

Blessings abound if only I look for them and I am grateful for them all.

TGIF

The week went by so quickly that I almost feel guilty for being glad that it is Friday! Still I am. My young friend M is coming home for spring break tonight, so I am thinking of safety for travelers and offering a prayer to St. Raphael, the Archangel as I write this.

St. Raphael is one of my favorite saints of all time. Patron of travelers, patron of healing, patron of love and of friendship, he is pretty much a saint for all seasons. I particularly like to invoke him for healing, journeys and for friendship on and off the internet.

I love the Book of Tobit in which St. Raphael features as the hero and have wished I could figure out how I could adapt the story to modern times to make a screenplay out of it.

This has been a good week for writing. An old manuscript that needs much editing is in progress on my desktop computer. I will keep plugging, re-writing to give it a livelier, less pedantic voice and editing to bring it up to date.

While I work at the dining room table my dear friend K is weeding in my back yard. I can watch her diligently, patiently and almost obsessively pulling weeds. This woman has more patience than anyone else I have ever met except for my late father. She will be out of light soon and only that will force her to quit. I am truly blessed.

In so many ways, I am truly blessed and because it is Friday I am going to count my blessings, rejoice in gratitude and try to put my worry-warting on hold. One of the things I am grateful for this week is the new to me dishes that a neighbor was giving away over our neighborhood email list. I call this the email list lottery--Wednesday I won it. It might be more fun to win money in the state lottery, but not much more fun. The dishes are translucent green plastic that when washed look like glass. Twenty dinner plates and ten salad plates--my neighbor wished me many happy parties. I was touched. I don't give parties, but now my daily meals and lunches with friends will be as festive as parties. Small daily parties. Celebrate life. I like that.

Happy Friday. St. Raphael watch over M as she flies home and all travelers this night.