~ Happy Halloween! ~

Working on a special Halloween card today ~ not entirely finished, but thought I'd share it with you anyway... some old photos just beg to be used for projects like these, don't you think? Wait 'til you see the baby I have in mind for another card...spooooky!!

On an ill-fated attempt to go to the pumpkin patch last weekend (on word: downpour) we passed this fellow. Made the hubby back up and turn around so I could get a photo. How funny is that!?

Happy Halloween!

~ Wednesday ~

"Do not cringe and make yourself small if you are called the black sheep ... the lone wolf. Those with slow seeing say a nonconformist is a blight on society. But it has been proven over the centuries that being different means standing at the edge, means one is practically guaranteed to make an original contribution, a useful and stunning contribution, to her culture.

When seeking guidance, don't ever listen to the tiny-hearted. Be kind to them, heap them with blessing, cajole them, but do not follow their advice. If you have ever been called defiant, incorrigible, forward, cunning, insurgent, unruly, rebellious, you're on the right track...

If you have never been called these things, there is still time."

~Clarissa Pinkola Estes

~ Saturday ~

What Kind of Mistress He would Have
by Robert Herrick

Be the mistress of my choice,
Clean in manners, clear in voice;
Be she witty, more than wise,
Pure enough, though not precise;
Be she showing in her dress,
Like a civil wilderness,
That the curious may detect
Order in a sweet neglect;
Be she rolling in her eye,
Tempting all the passers by;
And each ringlet of her hair,
An enchantment, or a snare,
For to catch the lookers on;
But herself held fast by none.
Let her Lucrece all day be,
Thais in the night, to me.
Be she such, as neither will
Famish me, nor overfill.

Hope you have a good Saturday. Nothing too inspiring on the books today; we're heading into the season of what seems to be too much to do in too little time. Needing a little shot in the arm recently of more joy for my journey. I'm hoping to find it in some small way today. I hope you do, too.

~ Sunday ~

A day

in which I don't wish to find anything.

I should gather it up

And keep it safe.

~Petra von Morstein

~ Thursday ~

"Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness

we return to books:

to find words for what we already know."
~Alberto Manguel

~ Ed ~

Ed was in love with a cocktail waitress,

but Ed's family, and his friends, didn't approve. So he broke it off.

He married a respectable woman

who played the piano. She played well enough

to have been a professional.

Ed's wife left him...

Years later, at a family gathering

Ed got drunk and made a fool of himself.

He said, "I should have married Doreen."

"Well," they said, "why didn't you?"

~ Louis Simpson

~ Saturday ~

I have been neglecting my crafting, and my blog lately. Have you ever been so busy, but when you sit down to retell what you've been busy doing, it's a lot of .... nothing? Not nothing. Our kitchen is finally coming back together, school is picking up, we're busy with activities, but pretty much just run-of-the-mill things. And yet that's how time slips by un-noticed. Lately I was lecturing a friend about how she can't do her writing and crafting in 'left over' time; that she has to carve it out and stick to it. Yet, I do the same thing! You may also. It reminds me of why friends are so important. To keep us balanced and centered.

And so perhaps you will understand today and my somewhat funky feeling of not knowing which way is up or down.

The Wordsworth Effect

Is when you return to a place

and it's not nearly as amazing

as you once thought it was,

or when you remember how you felt

about something (or someone) but you know

you'll never feel that way again.

It's when you notice someone has turned

down the volume, and you realize

it was you; when you have the

suspicion that you've met the enemy

and you are it, or when you get

your best ideas from your sister's journal.

Is also-to be fair-the thing that enables

you to walk for miles and miles chanting to

yourself in iambic pentameter

and to travel through Europe with

only a clean shirt, a change of

underwear, a notebook and a pen.

And yes: is when you stretch out

on your couch and summon up ten thousand

daffodils, all dancing in the breeze.

-Joyce Sutphen