Spices and Simple Stitches

I'm taking a much needed break from house hunting today, I didn't think looking for a house could be so exhausting, irritating and exciting all at the same time, it's an emotional roller coaster to say the least.

On the one hand the thought of moving into a new home with more space sounds great because I know the business has out grown the space I currently live in. But then there is the thought of packing everything into boxes and unpacking. Not to mention clean a bigger space and heating and cooling it as well.  Then there is learning all the new sounds like creaky floors or squeaky hinges, the sound the A/C unit makes, the list goes on.

I looked at 4 houses yesterday, one had the space I needed but oh my it needs all new floor covering because I am sure the carpets are the original from when the house was built in 1980, and the hookup for the washer and dryer was located on the lanai, I can't imagine having my laundry room outside with the humidity here it would be rusted in a year.

The much needed break allowed me time to bake some pumpkin muffins this morning, I love the aroma of cooking pumpkin and spices filling the air.

While the muffins were baking I had time to reread the pages of this weeks The Gentle Art of Domesticity book study One of the topics was simple stitches and Jane Brocket talked about recovering from surgery and working on cross stitch while in the hospital and once she was at home she stuffed in away in a drawer never to be finished.  I know we all have one of those projects somewhere tucked away safe.  I myself have a quilt I began in October of 1989 it is a log cabin all hand cut with templates and scissors, hand pieced with the hand quilting just started when I slipped and fell on the ice in my driveway and broke my left humerus bone in 3 places.  

So the quilt was put aside, once the cast was removed other things came to the forefront for a while. Over the years I pull out the quilt and put in some quilt stitches then tuck it back away, this past winter I finished one of the blocks.  This is not the finished block

The quilt is not entirely abandoned but it will be 30 years old this October so I may just have to finish it this year. After all its just simple stitches.  
The next topic was poems and while my taste is poetry is wild and wide I do like what Jane has to say about domestic poetry and having a place in your apron pocket for a favorite poem, "Domesticity, ordinary life and simple pleasures are perfectly at home in poetry and I think all domestic artists should have a little pocket in their aprons where they can keep their favourite poems."(page 98) 

At the end of Jenny's post she asks us if we are readers of poetry or do we have a favorite poem on domestic life.  I have been a lover of poetry since the age of 8 when I came across a book of the poems in my elementary school library.  My all time favorite poem is Trees by Joyce Kilmer which was one of those poems in that first book of poetry I read as a child.  At the age of 9 my passion for writing came about and writing poetry followed in my early teens and continues till this day.  Some of my favorite poets are Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, May Sarton, Mary Oliver and oh yes Rod McKuen who made those late 60's a little brighter.  May Sarton is perhaps one of my favorite writer/poets when it comes to poetry about gardening and flowers my idea of domestic poetry.  Her book Journal of a Solitude which moves me beyond words is one that I have read over and over again.  

Another question this week was is there something new perhaps a craft we tried but wasn't a good fit for us.  For me it's not so much as not a good fit as it's a big challenge to me, cross stitch I do well on the stamped kits but I struggle with starting a counted cross stitch piece.  I have several patterns and kits I would love to make but I hesitate and really I should just give it a try before these old eyes are too old to see those stitches.

I will be linking my post here http://www.elefantz.com/2019/04/gentle-domesticity-week-13-and-free.html   click on the link to enjoy the wonders of The Gentle Art of Domesticity.