Thursday, December 29, 2016

“He smelled the odor of the pine boughs under him, the piney smell of the crushed needles and the sharper odor of the resinous sap from the cut limbs. ... This is the smell I love. This and fresh-cut clover, the crushed sage as you ride after cattle, wood-smoke and the burning leaves of autumn. That must be the odor of nostalgia, the smell of the smoke from the piles of raked leaves burning in the streets in the fall in Missoula. Which would you rather smell? Sweet grass the Indians used in their baskets? Smoked leather? The odor of the ground in the spring after rain? The smell of the sea as you walk through the gorse on a headland in Galicia? Or the wind from the land as you come in toward Cuba in the dark? That was the odor of cactus flowers, mimosa and the sea-grape shrubs. Or would you rather smell frying bacon in the morning when you are hungry? Or coffee in the morning? Or a Jonathan apple as you bit into it? Or a cider mill in the grinding, or bread fresh from the oven?”

― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Christmas Home Tour

I have been enjoying the Nester's Christmas Tour of Homes each year since I began blogging back in 2007! (although I believe BooMama was hosting it back then)

I really enjoy "visiting" with others in blogland and the exchange of visits and comments that goes on as well as seeing everyone's different styles of decorating and also sharing/recording for myself to look back on how I decorate for Christmas around my house.

This year though, Myquillyn wrote the most thoughtful and wonderful post about the tensions between our lives here in America and celebrating Christmas and what is happening in Aleppo, Syria. I really encourage you to read it. You can find it here.

I enjoy sharing our home with you but even more than that if you haven't heard of the work Preemptive Love is doing, I would really like to encourage you to check them out on Instagram, the web, etc. I have been following and learning about this organization for over a year and I think very highly of them and the ways they love and serve well.

Here are six things they shared tonight on their instagram account:

preemptiveloveThe situation in and around Aleppo continues to develop rapidly. Here are six things we can share about the crisis and our ongoing response.
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1. Our emergency feeding program is continuing, thanks to you. Already, your support has allowed us to double our response as more displaced families pour into the Aleppo countryside.
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2. We’ve handed out thousands of sleeping bags, just as winter is setting in. It’s 34 degrees in Aleppo tonight, and snow is expected on Sunday. Each sleeping bag can accommodate a mother and two children. “No one has ever told us they were cold in one!” our response leader said today.
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3. We’re working with a coalition of partners inside Syria, to reach as many as possible with lifesaving aid. We are better when we serve across sectarian, religious, or national lines. Our response is more sustainable when we share capacity, knowledge, and resources locally. We’ve learned this through nearly a decade of serving in Iraq, and we are taking the same approach as we serve in Syria.
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4. We’re one of several organizations responding to the Aleppo crisis, but the needs are greater than all of us put together. More needs to be done. A lot more. But thanks to you, families are being fed. Lives are being saved.
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5. This is a volatile, rapidly changing situation. Reports from the ground are changing by the hour as evacuation deals and ceasefires are made and broken and made again.
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6. We serve everyone in need, period. If you want to know what side of the conflict we’re on, we’re on the side of families whose lives have unraveled in all the violence. We’re on the side of the bombed-out, driven-out, desperate children and mothers and fathers who lost everything. We’re on the side that says violence unmakes the world, and it’s our job to remake it. We will keep showing up with tangible acts of love for as long as it takes.

And finally, a little bit of our home . . .

David was on top of things bringing in the logs that he has been playing with all summer just as it began to get cold because he wants fires this winter to roast smores, etc.!

cut out piece of "door art" bought many years ago in Canton, TX and a fantastic book page wreath made by my talented mother-in-law

the hammock swing corner . . .

the hammock chair was a very special birthday gift from my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, stars bought ages ago at the Samplehouse Warehouse sale . . . those were such fun days when they had that . . .