Glimpses from the Cottage Window

Dear Friends,

Time continues to creep along as we nourish ourselves in this wintry weather.  A peek from the cottage window fascinates us with the brilliance of Winter on one day . . .

Giving way to the beauty of Spring on another.

Fascinating!

Life carries on with the girls reading and studying and dreaming about our ever-expanding veggie garden. The chronicles of which will surely fill the pages of this blog as Spring settles in for good and the frostiness of Mr. Winter breathes its last breath. Till then they study and I busy myself with a whole new realm of kitchen craft: Milk and all of its glorious forms. Having mastered yogurt I have moved on to piima cream (absolutely delicious like clotted cream and creme fraiche together in one luscious spoonful), kefir (a zingy sip), and now prepare to delve into cheese making.  If you're lactose intolerant you may want to avoid me on the Dairy Days.  All of this lacto-experimentation has led Elizabeth to consider adding a Jersey cow to our delightful menagerie.  Stay tuned  . . .

Amidst all of our daily doings we have been battling a VERY flaky internet connection.  Gary says, "All fixed now with this new device" -- of which we actually needed to purchase in duplicate to span the land space between our guest house with DSL and our home without DSL available.  How complicated!  How bothersome!  I am exhausted with buying new devices . . . (but must admit that I like internet access for research, newsiness, and bloggy connections with all of you).  Now with internet access restored I had somehow mislaid the time once set aside for blogging.  My schedule mysteriously filled up to overflowing with little or no time for me to blog about it with you. HRMPH!

I read the following verse one morning:

Verily, verily, I say unto you,

Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die,

It abideth alone:

But if it die,

It bringeth forth much fruit.

John 12:24

And so wondered if I should let the blog die away in order to free up space for REAL life to spring up around me. I even went as far as to challenge myself to take my notion of "blogging time" and spend it in a local cafe or other public place with face-to-face contact, measuring the difference.  I wandered around and around (eating croissants in excess) with lots of ideas in search of answers. All at once I gathered up all my thoughts and sat, like Pooh Bear (that roly-poly one -- yikes!  No more pastry, please!), to think, think, think.  I thought of much but answered few of my questions.  The fun vanished and I just felt weary.  I wanted a return to sweetness without so much evaluation.  I eschewed counters and statistics and evaluations, deciding to embark on some plain ole fun.

All the while my blog lay fallow.

One dear friend (and silent blog reader) commented on my lack of blogging.  I replied that I had no inspiration.  Maybe when Spring returned and the flowers bloomed I'd come back.  She replied, "Life just isn't as sweet as you report on your blog.  Just write about your daily life."   I pondered that for quite some time and as I am wont to do, I ruminated and gathered, ruminated and gathered. I came to the conclusion that "Life" may not be all sweet, but sweetness can be found in every facet of life if I simply stop and look for it.

And so I am off on a new avenue in my bloggy journey to find something sweet to celebrate with you in each day. Now along the way I will surely find much that I have to step over, go around, or toss out of the way and I will dutifully share these REAL elements of life my dear friend wants to read about, but I resolve not to give up in my quest for sweetness in a day.  It's there . . . though it may be ever so small.

I would love to commit to a DAILY blogpost (wouldn't that be fun to see each other every day?) but I know myself . . . I would dash around making "work" out of the "play" that I am determined to keep alive on my blog. I found that the WORK element I saddled myself with in the past over this blog drained the fun . . . and now I'm off to refill the aquifers of FUN. Wanna come along?


Here's the first sweet site from Wisteria Cottage:

Never at a loss for whimsy around here, the following photo captures just the perfect dab of silliness that keeps us in smiles around here. 

I have to ask . . .

If a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,

what bounty does this portend?

 : D

Happy Tuesday!