A Charmed Life

A bird feeder is like a blog

Yes, little by little, the birds have been coming to the feeder, just like the readers have been coming to the blog. The readers have been leaving comments, the birds have been leaving....well, never mind. We do enjoy their sweet voices. In both cases, though, you have to watch out for the squirrels (present company excepted, of course).

I am pretty good at identifying most common birds, thanks to my mom's love of nature. So I can tell a cedar waxwing from a tufted titmouse and a sparrow from a wren. When my husband said, "Hey, I noticed a bird at the bird feeder--it looked like a little penguin," I immediately answered, "It must be a chickadee." And, sure enough, now that the birds (and one fat squirrel) have found the feeder, the chickadees have come flocking. (They are the state bird, after all.) But then one day I saw a slightly different bird that, indeed, had a striped black head that was slightly more pointed than a chickadee. And a rusty breast as well. What was it? I groped around the 'net for several minutes, finding a lot of black and white birds that were not "my" bird, until I found this website: whatbird.com. You can search several ways, but the best, if you don't know what you've got, is to search by values (location, size, colors, feeding habits, etc.) until you narrow it down and then, bada-bing! you've found your answer; in our case, the red-breasted nuthatch. Which, in fairness to my birding skills, is related to the chickadee.

My favorite Christmas movie is "White Christmas." (Oh, how I long to look like Rosemary Clooney in that slinky black velvet dress during "Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me.") One of the lines (spoken by Danny Kaye) is, "I don't know if the best things happen while you're dancing, or if they just happen in Vermont..." Well, I think maybe the answer is "Vermont" judging by the picture above, taken by my good friend Wendy of her husband, my good friend Chris, driving a two-horse open sleigh on the farm where they live in Vermont. Currier and Ives, eat your hearts out. We plan to visit in February and hope they save some snow, and a sleigh ride, for us.

I'll have a blue Christmas

This morning, the girls said, "Mom, come look, there's a weird bump in the wall." Bump in the wall? Ah, yes, that would be water build-up behind the paint (very good paint, I might add, and blue, too) from the ice dams on the roof. Fortunately, so far not too much damage inside, but the damage to our very thin wallets promises to be substantial. So, I am just turning up the Chrismas music even louder and wrapping and decorating and muttering "Merry Merry, ho-ho-ho" to myself and not looking at the big wet spot on the wall and ceiling and letting my husband take care of it. Denial is a beautiful thing (as is a handy husband).

Don't you love my vintage ornament above? It's one of my favorites. I love blue Christmas decorations (probably because they go with my home decor) and I've never seen another one like it. Except its twin, that is: the cat used it as a toy a couple of years ago, broke it, then got bored and walked away.

What do you think of my rag balls? There's something very satisfying about ripping fabric and I love to put lots of differnet fabrics together. I made some of these in more traditional colors for someone special (shhh, don't tell) and then thought, hey, I'd like some of these for myself. So I made some. The bluish green (there's blue again) fabric with polka dots is from the fabulously talented Wendy Richardson who overdyes vintage fabrics for use in fiber art (or any other way you choose) and makes some astonishly lovely collage quilts herself. I also used scraps of Mary Fisher Textiles, some Free Spirit fabrics, and some vintage fabrics from my stash.

There's nothing blue about this skate; I just wanted to show it to you. I got it and another one (below it; you can only see the chain) at a flea market one day. Wish I'd gotten more. OK, now I'm blue.

I made this plate and three others one blissful summer day in Springfield, Illinois, with my friend Ann. I was visiting and she said, "Let's decoupage plates"--something we'd never done before--and we hit the craft store for plates and Mod Podge, then came home and she pulled out a sack full of Christmas cards she'd saved over the years and we just cut, pasted, and chatted for hours on her front porch. We didn't worry about whose was better or if we were doing it the "right" way. We just did it. It was a blast. Truly, one of the best days of my life. Ah, that memory makes me feel better. No more blue. Except in the decorations.

Mother and Child

This is the last Christmas gift I bought for my mother, a Limoges nativity, in miniature. Yesterday I talked about how my mother, Mary, loved miniatures. She had a special subset of nativities, so I bought this one for her in anticipation of Christmas, 1993. Unfortunately, I was not able to give it to her; she died December 20th of that year. For years after, I kept this nativity in the box, unable to even look at it. It seemed a sacrilege, somehow, to actually put it on display. But after a while, as I got used to not having my mom, but having many of her precious and endearing collections around me, I decided it was time. Like a lot of things in life, it didn't hurt as much as I thought it would when I actually faced opening the box and putting the little figures on display.

Maybe it's because a lot of other people close to me have lost parents this year, but I am particularly missing my mom this holiday and also, ironically, feeling her very close to me. Having the things she owned and loved around me helps, but I really don't need them because it's true what they say, the ones you love never really leave you...they are always in your heart.

Sleep in heavenly peace, Mom.

Leap of Faith

So here I am, working with an unfamiliar camera (my daughter's), an unfamiliar program (Photoshop Elements), and a dark computer screen (the monitor is on its last legs), trying to upload some scintillating pictures. Please, bear with me.

Above is one of my vintage pink ornaments on the vintage-ish pink tree I bought last year on an antiquing jaunt with Lesley Riley when she was up here visiting her grandchildren who lived nearby at the time. Where a mushroom fits into Christmas, I don't know, though it does look to be an ornament from the Sixties. Hmmm.

My mother collected miniatures of all kinds. That little nativity in the foreground is about 1" x 3/4". More about my mom and nativities tomorrow, but these winter/Christmas-themed ones each have a special memory attached to them. I particularly love the frosted glass Santa. With the papier-mache houses I scooped off eBay for a song a few years ago, they make a nice vignette. (Note: I got really lucky with the papier-mache houses; normally my mode of commerce is buy high, sell low.)

And here are the mice with gifts I promised you, Cheryl. A Christmas gift to my mom who loved all creatures great and small, but especially small. This is only part of the nativity as the camera card was full after this shot and Olivia had already left for school. I hope you will come back tomorrow as I have a special post planned with more pix, assuming I can figure out the camera and software with Olivia out with her theater club seeing Blue Man Group and Meredith performing with the chorus and band tonight at her elementary school (she is the only female trombone player--go Mer!).

Christmas Past

This picture is from our first Christmas at our new home, two years ago. I'm posting it because the girls, the house, and the snow look pretty much the same, and I can't show you my most recent pictures because my camera is broken. I took some great shots of the pink tree, vintage ornaments, the dog, my mom's Christmas miniatures, etc., and when I went to upload them, nothing. You think it might have something to do with dropping the camera a couple of weeks ago? Yeah, I think you're right.

But I've been deja-vuing to older Christmases past a lot, in the camera of my mind. One of my favorite Christmas albums when I was an adolescent and teen was Living Strings & Living Voices White Christmas, with that ever-popular song, "Bossa Nova Noel". I would sway to the rhythm imagining myself in a twinkle-lit ballroom wearing a velvet holiday gown and dancing in the arms of a tall, dark and handsome boyfriend, as I sang along to the words: "...and, when he comes I'll be waiting...dancing the greatest of rhythms...you're gonna see Santa and and me doing Bossa Nova Noel."

That's right. I was a teenager in the '70s and my favorite Christmas album was easy listening. I liked Andy Williams, too. Is it any wonder I was dancing by myself alone in my room?

Still, I loved that record. It had "Buon Natale" and "A Merry Christmas Song" in addition to more traditonal fare, but somewhere along the line my parents had the nerve to move and apparently get rid of it. I still sing "Bossa Nova Noel" every Christmas season, but I had forgotten the name of the album. However, a post by Charlotte Lyons recalling her Midwestern Christmases and mentioning bossa nova made me search the Internet, with little more to go on than the name of that one song. Nothing popped up right away, but eventually I hit this website, which revealed the name of the album as well as a community of people who love vintage vinyl Christmas music.

I have more vintage memories to share, but I'll need to borrow my daughter's camera. I hope I'll have them up tomorrow, and maybe some edible goodies to share, too.

Radiate Positive Thoughts

I promise to upload new pictures and stories very soon, but right now I would like you to click over to Lesley Riley's blog, listen to the beautiful music she has provided for you, and send positive and comforting thoughts for her mother, who is very ill, and for Lesley and her family.

Thank you.

A Blog is Like a Bird Feeder

You put out the goodies and expect birds (or people) to come flocking to it. But no, it takes a while for them to find it. Still, I'm encouraged by the comments left by Cheryl, Kim, Kim (who's also blogging about bird things today--go look and come back), and Lesley, who all have fabulous blogs (and multiple other talents) of their own.

This is a sight I get to see getting in and out of my car each day. (I forget that I now have a garage and continue to park in our driveway. I grew up near the Motor City where everyone had a garage or carport, but in New England, people are thrilled to have a free parking space, let alone a garage. So after living here for 24 years without  garage, it slips my mind that we actually own an automobile enclosure.) But when I'm getting into my car in the morning I'm still a little bleary and holding a coffee mug, so I look at this impromptu sculpture of berries and ice and say to myself, "I should take a picture of that," but don't. When I get home, I'm either too tired, or it's dark. So today I remembered and here you go. Enjoy!

Above is a perfect example of why they call this age "tween." Meredith is 11. The almost-a-teen side of her is dressed up in her fashion-forward finery to go to a holiday party with a friend of hers at his mother's place of work (the mom is head of HR so she runs the party, and Meredith and her friend help run the kids' activities). But the still-kind-of-a-kid side of her wears Christmas Tree-antennae and brings along a Webkinz. It's a wonderful, challenging age. For all of us. (No, Senghe, you cannot have the Webkinz.)

Let There Be Lights

The town we live in held its tree-lighting ceremony on the common Sunday night, an event we wouldn't miss for all the snow in Siberia.

In the "town" of 65,000 we used to live in, the tree-lighting was held downtown on Friday night in the middle of a square surrounded by rush-hour traffic. About 200 Girl Scouts stood on the steps of the town hall and sang carols in their thin, shivering voices while Santa arrived by fire truck (not really that exciting; the truck went about five miles an hour due to the aforementioned traffic). The whole thing started late and ended later, and it was rather grueling, actually.

So, two years ago when we spent our first Christmas here, we duly noted the 5 p.m. start and left our house on foot at 4:57. We live about a block off the town common and figured, by the time they got started we'd be way ahead of the game, still able to get a good space up front. We arrived at 5:02 to find the tree alight and the "crowd" of about 50 people halfway through the first carol already.

That's when we learned that a) they start civic events on time in our new, tiny burgh and b) the experience--our tardiness notwithstanding--was completely charming.

So, there we were, right on time Sunday--me, hubby, Senghe, and the girls--counting down from 10 and applauding like crazy when the tree lit up. It's not a fancy tree and it's strung, not covered, with lights. But I get to pass it every evening all lit up when I come home at night, and it warms me to think we're part of the wonderful town.

And so, it begins

Two of the radio stations I frequently listen to have been playing Christmas music for a couple of weeks now; I saw cars sporting pine and spruce "hood ornaments" the day after Thanksgiving; many of my neighbors have their lights up already; and "A Charlie Brown Christmas," "White Christmas" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (the original, animated, Boris Karloff version, if you please)--all my favorites, have already been on TV. So, is it any wonder I feel like I'm already "late" with my Christmas decorations?

I can remember when my mother would complain about retailers declaring the day after Thanksgiving the "official" start of the Christmas season ("Can't they even wait until December?" She'd rant.), and "Christmas Creep" has just gotten worse ever since. Yes, I heard carols playing in one store in October. October!

I do have to admit I've done a lot of my shopping already. The convenience of e-tailing and the lure of Internet specials and free shipping are just too hard to resist. Plus, I have found that by chance or strategy (most likely the latter), waiting until it's really the season (on my terms) often means that my local stores are out of the things I want. And, I rationalize, buying early means I have more time to decorate and make gifts. Uh-huh.

But the seasons and the holidays are important to me. I like enjoying every last splash of summer until the leaves begin to fall, and then every last crisp and crunchy red leaf against the the azure sky until the first snowflake. October is for cider and pumpkins, November is for harvest and thanks, December is for Christmas and Solstice. (January is for diets, but that's another story.)

So, it's December 1st, this morning there was a dusting of snow on my lawn (though it melted like powdered sugar on a warm muffin as the sun grew strong), and I'm taking out the treasured holiday decorations, little by little, one day at a time.