Taking stock...

Nearly got caught out by February being such a short month...

But here it is, the monthly Taking Stock (thanks to Pip Lincolne for the list!)

Making plans for Lent - share more next week...

Cooking too many pancakes - practising for Shrove Tuesday!

Drinking my usual water with slice of lemon

Reading The Grateful Table: Blessings, Prayers and Graces for the Daily Meal - one a day

Wanting Spring to really start - keeps stopping and starting...

Looking forward to the warmer weather

Playing Laura Mvula's album Sing to the Moon

Wasting nothing

Sowing hopes and plans for my birthday and Silver Wedding anniversary in April

Wishing I had more energy

Enjoying art journalling - collage papers strewn everywhere!

Waiting for the New Ash Moon tomorrow

Liking too many pretty things on Etsy...

Wondering how cold it is outside, and whether I can brave a trip out on my disability scooter.

Loving the longer days already... 

Hoping our son will get his act together before he leaves school in June...

Marvelling at worldwide creativity you can see every day through the internet

Needing nothing.

Smelling nice - this is my current favourite perfume

Wearing jeans and chunky sweater

Following great terrestrial TV dramas like Line of Duty, Call the Midwife and Mr Selfridge

Noticing weak sun trying to break through...

Knowing the stirrings of Spring deep in my bones

Thinking less, connecting my heart, soul and spirit more

Bookmarking nothing in particular

Opening my soul to the joys of Spring

Giggling at Outnumbered - gotta love those hapless parents with whom I identify soooo much!

Feeling happy - especially when the sun breaks through after a hailstorm (of which we've had several!)

Random 5 Friday

Joining in the fun over at Nancy's A Rural Journal...

A funny week, highs and lows... here's 5 random facts/events...

1. Dental check up on Monday after school *sigh* Nobody's likes it, so we always treat ourselves to dinner here afterwards - best burgers and shakes outside the US, we reckon :-)

2. I've been playing with the macro setting before my non-Valentine's flowers die completely!

3. Finally opened my box of Hotel Chocolat choccies from Christmas - and took a close-up...

4. While we were at the dentist, Molly-cat seems to have injured herself - we finally took her to the vet on Wednesday, and she's on painkillers, poor baby :-(

She didn't want to be photographed so this is from last year.

5. I've been art journalling in this 8" x 8" journal all this week - such a happy bunny!

I could bore you with more journal photos, but I will spare you...

Thanks for stopping by my Random 5!

PS Forgot to mention this week's Giveaway - leave a comment here, where there's more photos and info, to enter the draw :)

WOYWW 247

If you don't know what WOYWW is, look here :-)

(A pre-sticking shot - trying to decide if I like the spread...)

Look, I'm actually crafting - well art journalling!! 

After a couple of weeks of showing parcels, I heeded Krisha's comment last week, 'Time to get back to creating GF!' - thank you for the gentle kick up the derriere, my dear *grin*

As you can see, I'm still at the dining table - I just like all the s-p-a-c-e! And while it is a pain to tidy away before we eat, it's so worth it! 

I'm working in this 8" x 8" journal, which I bought several years ago from Nancy Rafi, but her Etsy shop is bare at the moment :( 
I just love the sentiment!!

I plan to fill it with sassy women - like the female farrier in the spread I'm working on. I know the article was in Country Living, but I've no idea who she is, I'm afraid...

Time now to see what crafty goodness is on others' desks... 
We're all gathered at Julia's Stamping Ground.

PS This week's giveaway...

If you'd like to win it, leave a comment on this post where there's more info and photos :-)

Words to live by....

This arrived in my email box this morning from the lovely Joe Riley at Panhala.

Of course, it takes a poet to find the words to express how we should live...

(Photo copyright Panhala)

This is what you should do:
Love the earth and sun and animals,
despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
stand up for the stupid and crazy,
devote your income and labour to others, hate tyrants,
argue not concerning God,
have patience and indulgence toward the people...
re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book,
dismiss what insults your very soul,
and your flesh shall become a great poem.

~ Walt Whitman ~

(Excerpt from Preface to 1855 edition, Leaves of Grass)

Word for the Week

Ooooh, what a word for this week! 
Truly, the synchronicity of pulling what seems to be THE perfect word out of the bag of Mary Lunnen's Rediscovery Cards astonishes me sometimes...

I just love this word, and I can only have positive thoughts when I see it. To me, it's THE word to describe what it happening at this time of year...

As we move into the last week of February, the UK finally seems to be emerging from the grip - and floods! - of winter with signs of Spring emerging in the garden for all to see. Here's a wee selection from our own garden...

And the colour of the card...?

To me, it's the deep orangey red I associate with dawn... as the sun slowly emerges over our neighbours' roofs...

This word, to me, is overflowing with promise... of new life, new light, new thoughts, new ideas, new expressions...

And it has to be a perfect word to carry throughout a new week - who knows what beauty will emerge in the next seven days...

I'd love to know what thoughts/feelings arise when you see this word...

PS
Nearly forgot... do scroll down to enter this week's Giveaway - a very beautiful necklace...

Giveaway 5 (winner drawn 2 March at 11am GMT) and Giveaway 4 winner

Put your ear down to your soul and listen hard.

Anne Sexton

I love this quote!

And it's rather appropriate for this week's Giveaway - this beautiful soul-full necklace from Creek

Photo copyright Creek

It's made from oxidized silver, with the wee charm reading 'Soul' and a small turquoise bead capped with silver, and there's a handmade hook clasp with seedbeads

Photo copyright Creek

It is really very beautiful and delicate, but it is also short - measuring roughly 16-17 inches (almost choker length), which is just too close-fitting for me... 
The stroke left me often struggling to swallow, and I simply cannot wear things this close to my throat :-(

So I want to gift it to a person who will wear it, enjoy it, and listen hard to the things their soul whispers...

If you'd like to win this delicate treasure, leave a comment below, and I'll draw a winner next Sunday, 2 March at 11am GMT (March, already?? *gulp*)

GOOD LUCK!!

*****************

Giveaway 4 winner

Thank you to everyone who entered my fourth giveaway.

There were 24 entries, and once again using an online random number generator, the winner is comment no. 4 (and no, I didn't count her PS comment *grin*)

Congratulations, Hula La!!

If you can email me your snail mail address (using the Contact Form in the sidebar, as the email link on my Profile doesn't seem to work...), I'll get this cute notebook in the post to you this week :-)

Silent Sunday

Focus on Life Week 8: Capture colour

Throughout February, Sally's been trying to dispel cabin fever... so this week's prompt reads:

For the last week in February, we will be focusing on something that can snap me out of cabin fever and hopefully you too! Bring on the colour! Capture colour in all its vivid brilliance!

I was going to photograph some paints/crayons, but then this arrived in the post yesterday from the very lovely Lynn

I just adore her doodle birds, and look what's inside

A riot of colour with postcards, envelopes and even stamps! What a sweetheart :)

There is nothing better to chase away cabin fever than receiving unexpected gifties from blogfriends full of thoughtfulness and colourful creations!

And if you'd like to receive some happy mail, there's still time to enter this week's Giveaway for this colourful wee notebook

There are more photos and info on the Giveaway post here, where you can leave a comment for a chance to win. I'll draw the winner tomorrow (Sunday 23 February) at 11am GMT.

Looking forward to seeing how others have captured colour this week!

Random 5 Friday

Boy, the days go by so quickly, so here I am once again sharing 5 random facts with the world and Nancy over at A Rural Journal...

1. I try, and generally fail, to eat my 5-a-day - but I do love to see a full fruit bowl!

2. I know I love my kitty too much, but how can I not?? 

Here she is pretending to be a spooky(?) work of art with laser eyes :-)

3. Though physically I can't get close to hug a tree any more (can't balance safely enough on uneven ground), I do feel a deep connection to them. 

Here's Lady Birch - a favourite tree of mine!

4. I don't do it nearly enough, but whenever I write/journal/create, I feel so much better - more alive!

5. And this week's Giveaway is all about that :-)

Leave a comment here (where there are more pics and info), if you'd like to win this ultra-cute notebook!

And that's it for this week!

Blessings for the creatively random week ahead xx

WOYWW 246

Another Wednesday peek at folks' creative spaces. You can learn more about WOYWW here at Ms Julia's Stampin Ground.

Yes, I'm still on the dining room table, still wrapping stuff to post...

... but this week I thought I'd show you stuff before it goes in the envelopes!!

Never a dull moment in the Sauer household, I can tell you :-)

And if you're interested, here's this week's Giveaway - a really cute notebook. You can find out more, and enter the draw by posting a comment, here.

With love xxx

Things to blog about...

Croila invited us from the Blogging from the Heart FB group to pair up, and post about one of

from this list from Chantelle.

I was paired up with SmoochDog, and we both chose no. 11 - Your celebrity dinner party. Who would you invite?

Now, I hope it's OK to tweak with the topic a tad, as nowadays cooking/hostessing is a challenge, and to be honest the only 'celebrities' I would want to spend any time with are those fortunate enough to be guests of one of the 20th century's greatest hostesses, Lady Ottoline Morrell...

Her weekend parties at Garsington Manor were legendary, and I would give anything to be one of the guests... 
I have this book...

which is full of snapshots of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Vanessa and Clive Bell, Duncan Grant, Wyndam Lewis, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes, Thomas Hardy, Bertrand and Dora Russell, W.H. Auden, Mark Gertler, Siegfried Sassoon, Ian Fleming, the Sackville-Wests...

Some of the greatest minds of the time all milling around these gardens, enjoying each others' company and conversation...

Truly, I cannot imagine a better way to spend a weekend!!

Here are some of the photos from her album - enjoy!

Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf

Walter de la Mare, W.B. Yeats and Bertha Yeats and unknown woman

T.S. Eliot

Aldous Huxley

T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf

Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, Clive Bell (Vanessa Bell took the photo)

Word for the Week

Finding it a bit hard to get going today... I guess it's that Monday-morning feeling - and waking up to yet another grey, drizzly day *sigh*

Anyway, this week's word drawn from Mary Lunnen's Rediscovery Cards is

Now, this is a much 'easier' word to sit with this week... Easier in the sense that I know it it, I seek to practise it every day, I'm comfortable with it...

I think Eleanor Roosevelt said it best (as she often did on a great variety of subjects!):

Understanding is a two-way street.

To understand another, and be understood ourselves, is one of the essences of life...

I don't know if Mary deliberately chose the colour, but it is perfect for the word (the actual card is a lighter blue-green than the photo I took).

It's a turquoise colour...

... the colour most associated with the throat chakra, with verbal expression, wisdom and understanding. not to mention the sea and the sky, calm and clear...

It's also the background colour of the scarf I wear every day to shield my neck from drafts...

and the colour of the moon in this collage by Terri St Cloud from Bone Sigh Arts which I have in my sidebar - I receive her daily email quotes. It's a colour she uses often in her collages, as a quick scroll through her prints reveal...

So, understanding is such a very good word to keep in my heart and mind throughout this week. I'd love to know how you understand/feel/respond when you see

PS Don't forget to check out this week's Giveaway in the post below :D