Sense-Full

I was thinking today of some beautiful things I am lately filling my senses with.

For one, I’m writing in a journal I bought from this company, Legacy.   The paper feels so nice to the hand, the cover is lovely to the eye, but I must admit the pen was replaced!  I miss writing in my journal.  I don’t mind blogging to y’all but my journal is between me and the Lord.  I write a few pages every morning; it clears my head. Plus I imagine my grand-daughters and great-grand-daughters might take pleasure in my journal books, reading my words.  Or not.  All I know is that I wish I had something such from the women gone on ahead of me.  I hope they will be an encouragement to them.

The little book I’ve been reading is this one:

I have so many books I’m picking at, every one of them nonfiction and meant for learning.  This little one however, with the cover I loved and bought because of it (yes, I can be that sort of book buyer), is such a gem.  A few pages goes well with a cup of tea; it can’t be rushed.  It’s a good mommy heart-to-heart sort of book.  And yes, it’s nonfiction, too.

The vintage little loom I brought home has been warped and I am ready to start weaving!  The warp was a bit of a learning curve, but I didn’t mind it.  It was methodical, threading each bit of warp through the reed and then through the heddle (also known as, “those do-hickies on a loom that hold the thread in tension and in place”).  It’s nice to just sit for a spell and make something that looks and feels nice.  I’m spinning up the rest of the white merino, alpaca, mohair as well.  I plan to dye it with natural plant materials, and then….who knows?!  Maybe I’ll weave a scarf!

The farmer’s markets are back in business and my taste buds are so excited!  It would be a dream to forgo the grocery store completely and just have real, simple food from real farmers eaten in their real seasons grown in my own region.  To that end, I’m planting a garden again.  I don’t know if I’ll ever get the garden of my dreams, but I do know that lettuce picked from my home garden has a monumental advantage in nutrition and taste over salad greens that have been picked who knows when, packed in plastic, and shipped for who knows how long over how many miles.  I dream of a root cellar, a cheese closet, multitude of preserves from my front and back yards.  Maybe someday. 

My ears have been listening to Victoria Botkin’s She Shall Be Called Woman.  I heard her speak recently and I just loved how light and down-to-earth she was.  I wasn’t sure if I would hear anything I didn’t already know (not that I’ve learned it, just that I’ve heard it…sometimes it’s “in one ear, whoops, out the other” y’know?), but she is definitely coming at issues from different directions and it is good thinking fodder.  I did read some real snarky comments regarding her words, and my thought was, “Hmmm…..guess those just prove her point!”  Feminism can be so ugly.  I hate the threads of it that still cling to me.

And smell?  Every morning I am outside wrapped in the smell of a newly mercied fresh morning and I milk the one kinder doe I have in milk and it is something I love.  It reminds me of my Greek grandma, milking her goats to give her grandchildren a little hot cocoa with their breakfast.  I love the sound of the milk hitting the pail, the sight of the thin frothy milk increasing in volume, and sometimes I just rest my forehead up against her side, breathing in all her warm goat-ness while she munches on her grain. 

My God has loved me sense-full, and I am thankful for it all.