I saw my fox. Those 4 little words say more than I can. I saw my fox again last night. It was late, after 1 am and we were getting ready to go bed and something told me to go to the window and raise the blinds, looking into the dark alleyway across the street, I saw a glisten of fur as sparkles of light from the street lamp behind the trees danced around the pavement as the wind blew the leaves.
It was him, I knew he was there. We are connected you see, he and I. I called my adorable red-head over to have a look and patiently we waited. Our patience paid off, a few mintues later he came out of the alley and started to walk up the street. He knew, we were there, peeking out at him from the window screen and he just looked at us. His eyes intense and all-knowing. He started to continue on his stroll, but stopped, ears perked and then gracefully turned around and went the other way.
A person was coming down the main street, he heard it before we saw it. It was magical. Again, there are no pictures. But, that is how it is meant to be between us I suppose. It is just our time together when the rest of the world is tucked away in their beds.
(Image found on Flickr. I know that it is a Christmas Image, but 1) I love Christmas 2) At home there is always Christmas in July Sales & 3) I like to think that, in fact I know, that my fox would look very dapper with a bandanna around his neck)
The Fourth of July is on the horizon and I have my whole menu planned for the weekend festivities, except for the most important part: dessert! That, for me, is the hardest thing to plan, there are just too many choices. I could make my Strawberry Shortcake Cake, or good old fashioned ice cream sandwiches made from fresh chocolate chip, oatmeal or sugar cookies and filled with vanilla or strawberry ice-cream.
I spotted these goodies on the Martha Stewart site. I love the cookie spoons, although I would probably break them on purpose so I could munch away on my edible utensil and then get another one.
I also loved these jam stars. However, I would feel wasteful to not use all of my dough when I have smeared it so lovingly with jam, I would probably use my scraps up by cutting out some little circles or mini stars to go alongside the bigger ones.
It would also be tempting to make a mile high Pollyanna Cake, like the ones they baked for the Church bazaar. That is an old Disney favorite of mine. It is one of those movies that you better make sure you have something sweet in the house to eat when you watch it, although, unless you have one of Tillie’s (the Harrington’s cook in the movie) cakes you will be sadly disappointed with whatever exists behind the doors of your cupboards.
That does it! I think I will make my Nana’s marble cake with chocolate frosting! I just might have to make two, one for me and one for everyone else…
*Click on the Martha Stewart Images to be taken to the recipes for those mouth-watering cookies!
(Images: Sugar Cookie Spoons & Jam Stars: copyright Martha Stewart; Pollyanna: images found on Flickr; Pink Flags & Circle Labels: a Pugly Pixel Freebie)
To some she was only a Pioneer girl, to others she was simply a TV character, but for many she was a writer who held in her books the secrets of their own heart’s desires; to run barefoot in a field with sun-kissed cheeks, as bonnets, hung from their necks, bounced along their backs, as they made their way home to Ma & Pa.
This quote by Laura Ingalls Wilder, to me, says all I need to know about her. She was a woman who realized the secret of life: that it is important to draw pleasure from the simple things, the little things, the everyday blessings, that we just might be too busy to stop and see and we miss out.
It’s hot here! This is the hottest weekend of the year so far. As a girl raised in the South, I am used to heat. Heat, mixed with humidity that seems to dew on your skin the moment you step outside. Heat, mixed with humidity that takes your breath away when you open the door. Heat, mixed with humidity that feels as if you are breathing through a wet cloth.
Summer, in the South, symbolizes the beginning of so many things. It means fresh fried chicken with sliced tomatoes straight off the vine, cucumber salad and cantaloupe dripping its melon nectar to mingle with the vinegar of the salad on your plate. All purchased that afternoon from the Farmer’s Market. A large shed that held inside its walls the best of Summer: fresh vegetables, watermelons, boiled peanuts. Bushel baskets by the door to place your selected items in as you shopped. The smell of the sun and warmth, on the vegetables, that had not long come in from the fields.
Not all Sundays, but on some occasions after church we would head to the local family restaurant in town. A place that served Southern food at its finest! No calorie counting here! Turkey & Dressing is always served on Sundays with a choice of vegetables and fresh yeast rolls. That was usually my choice over ham or fried chicken. That lunch mixed with the Summertime heat would often make you sleepy and an afternoon nap on the hammock would ensue.
When my grandmother was a child in the South the big meal of the day was eaten at lunch, or as people called it then, “Dinner” and “Supper” was a lighter evening meal of cold lunchtime leftovers, sandwiches or biscuits, grits and frizzled ham. They lived at the top of a big hill and when my great-grandfather Red would come home for lunch, each child would have a turn during the week riding up the hill with him.
He would place his arm out of the window and help the “rider” onto the foot board, holding onto them with his big worn hands as they gripped the open window frame, they would ride up the hill with their daddy, squealing and laughing all the way as the wind blew through their hair.
For that is the South. Sweat rolling down your back; ice clinking in glasses as it slowly diffuses into sweet tea. The laughter of gossip carrying over the yard as children swing higher on their swing hung on the boughs of an oak to feel the breeze cool their faces.
Harper Lee described Summertime in the South best, in one of my favorite books, “To Kill A Mockingbird”:
Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum…A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer.
I love that line: A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. The days did always seem so much longer when you were little, with one day slipping into the next an endless parade of Summer days. Now, time seems to fly, there are never enough hours in the day to accomplish everything. But, that I suppose is how it should be, there is a time to everything and so there should be a time to rest as the sun comes to its end and our pace slows to match the softness of the moon.
(Peach Truck Image: Re-vamped Allman Bros. Album Cover, Pink Tag & Tape on “To Kill A Mockingbird” Image, The Pugly Pixel, Background on same image: The Graphics Fairy, Farmer’s Market & Palm Tree Images, copyright J. Michie)
When life gives you lemons, MAKELEMONADE! My Mama has a cross stitch sampler of this saying hanging in the kitchen and my sister and I just love it. This has been a bit of a lemon week, but thankfully it is coming to an end and the weekend brings with it something very special.
I love lemonade, it was always a sign of summer. We would be playing outside, riding our bikes everywhere (I had my Mom’s old bike, sparkly turqouise with a white banana seat, I loved it!) and you were always about to drop from thirst when you came in from the heat. But, if you could just make it a few more steps into the kitchen there was always a pitcher of fresh lemonade on the counter, be it yellow, pink or green and nothing is more refreshing than a glass of lemonade. Unless, of course it is a glass of sweet tea, or even better 1/2 a glass of sweet tea + 1/2 a glass of lemonade=HEAVEN!
Since lemonade is not always the easiest thing to come by in England, or they way I like it to taste, I thought I would share a recipe with you courtesy of Martha Stewart. Enjoy! And, remember when life gives you lemons, MAKELEMONADE!, this is sound advice!
(Recipe and lemonade image copyright Martha Stewart, Envelope and Doily graphics copyright the puglypixel, embellished by J. Michie)
*The Pugly Pixel is wonderful and she has the most delicious freebies, be sure to go to her site and take a peek!
I love this painting by Andrew Wyeth. What a talented man he was! His work is at times almost a photographic snapshot of time. It makes me think of Indian Summer, when the days are still warm but the nights are cool. I imagine his muse sitting on her stool with a slight chill from the breeze, but still a warm back from the sun pouring forth. The first taste of fall flits over the windowsill in the form of a crispy leaf.
My Nana, first used the term Indian Summer to me to describe this time of year. When I was little I associated it directly with Native Americans and dreamed of the seasons changing because the Indians living in their cozy teepees willed it to be so, what an imagination I had! Indian Summer is upon us here in England, the sunlight is just beginning to change, you notice a difference in the quality of light almost at times a purer light. There is also a difference in the sounds outside.
I love this time of year as it means that fall is coming and bringing with it, crispy fragrant apples and warm orangey pumpkins, witches hats and turkeys. But, this time of year also makes me sad to see the Summer end and another school year begin. I enjoy my time with my family too much and when school begins the schedules change, the relaxed atmosphere gets a little more hectic and the pace of life never seems to slow down and then I find myself longing for Summer once more…
