unweaving the nest

joy oh joy

I would like to introduce you to brothers Ralphie and Samwise the Brave. Yesterday they came to live with us here at what a friend called "Five Cat Farm." Well, our oldest feline friend is almost 20 years old, so there will be an inevitable day when it's just "Four Cat Farm."

It may seem crazy to share your home with so many beasts, but for my daughter and me it's pure joy. We also have Simba (20), Nimue (11) and Ricky (almost 4) and life just wouldn't be the same without them. The three other householders are adjusting in typical cat fashion...a quick hiss now and again and then back to the ever important nap. Oh it's been a treat so far. I only wish my son was home to enjoy these rough and tumble days of kittenhood.

Yes, we have our share of vacuuming and cat box cleaning. Certainly we have learned to live with tumbleweeds of cat hair dancing in the corners of every room. But the shenanigans of a menagerie of kitties in the house are like nothing else. For us anyways. 

The brothers are the babies of my daughter's boyfriend's family's cat, Keyo. She had a litter of five and at first we were going to just welcome little Ralphie into our home, but as we got to know them (my daughter was lucky enough to witness them all being born) we knew that Ralphie and Sam belonged together, brothers for life. They came home one day after Brenton (Anna's boyfriend) left for basic training in Fort Benning. That makes them extra special, too. :)

It is amazing how much their little personalities already shine. They are so different! Sam is over the top affectionate and loves to give kisses like a little bird pecking at your chin. He has this way of just sitting in front of you and staring right into your eyes. Ralphie is a little whirling dervish, but then will hop up to your face and nuzzle into your neck for a nap at a moment's whim. They roll all over one another, pell-mell tumbling and fighting like all good boy kittens do, and then they circle around themselves and plop down in the nest of one another's comfort and fur. 

They kept us up until way past 2 a.m. this morning, but then slept on my daughter's head until about 7 a.m. After a good romp around the playground of her room they are all (daughter included) napping together until she needs to get up and get ready for work.

Ah the sweetness of new life. SO curious and full of love.

Just had to share.

How to Subscribe to Unweaving the Nest Weekly...and Why :)

Not so long ago I received an email from a dear friend encouraging me to take some of the things I love and combine them into an online magazine. I looked at different options, different ways of publishing, researched the securest ways to offer subscriptions. I made long lists of things I would like to share, content that would be interesting, ways to make it interactive and even ways to have give-aways for my subscribers. After lots of planning and creating I have my magazine, Unweaving the Nest Weekly.

Here are just some of the things that we will be included in the image-rich issues:

• A feature story about something that I love that I think you might love, too.
• An inspirational essay, kind of like the things I've written about here on my blog since 2007.
• "The Last Straw" last-page essay from columnist Rick Ohler.
• Guest artists, poets, writers, photographers, chefs, and just plain old great people....
• Simple recipes that I have created. Fast, fresh and made with things you probably already have in your pantry and fridge.
• Candid interviews with interesting folks I'd like you to meet.
• Reviews of books I am reading that I believe are worth sharing.
• Poetry.
• Downloadable versions of my photographs that you can print or use as screensavers.
• Links to fabulous Web sites that I have discovered.
• Links to playlists I have created...music to discover and listen to, free, from your computer.
• and more!

It's kind of like a big love letter filled with things that inspire me, make me think, and that I want to share with YOU!

It takes time to put these things together, to create a beautiful presentation of them, to write and gather. Instead of putting ads on my blog, or filling the magazine with sponsor ads, I have decided to have a subscription rate and keep it to a minimal dollar amount. It's $4.00 per month, the cost of a fancy cup of coffee...and you get it once a week, for as long as you are a subscriber. It's easy to subscribe by clicking on this link and paying securely through Amazon.com. You will be billed automatically for $4.00 per month until you choose to unsubscribe. There is a link at the bottom of every magazine to easily unsubscribe.

If you would like to refer some subscribers to me, please send me an email at kateri.ewing at gmail.com. I have a special thank you gift for anyone who refers three friends that subscribe.

Unweaving the Nest Weekly celebrated its one-year anniversary, and is now onto the second volume of 52 issues. Here is a link to the one-year anniversary issue, where many readers sent in their comments about the first 52 weekly issues: CLICK HERE.

I sure hope you'll join us.

 

 

a thought for this day that celebrates love

how to brew a cup of blue sky tea

Silver Jasmine Pearl Tea courtesy of my sweet friend Nancy. Blue sky courtesy of Western New York.

 

 

on a wing and a prayer

I have this eclectic approach to spirituality. Raised Roman Catholic, I am comfortable in the ritualistic forms of prayer, like novenas, the divine hours or praying the rosary. I also call upon my understanding of the yogic form of prayer with mantra and mala, meditation. Sometimes I take to the fields and woods and find my special spot and simply pour out my heart and then request wisdom from the spirits of trees. And then there are times when I collapse into bed and just have a good old straight heart to heart with the creator. I don't subscribe to any structured faith, although I find wisdom in many. But one thing is certain...I believe in prayer.

I have been known to seek the company of monks at the abbey. To drive to a small chapel in a nearby town, say my Hail Mary's and light a candle or two. I am enthralled with my friend Michele's beautiful Greek orthodox faith with its icons and incense and mass spoken in an ancient tongue. I've received mantra initiation from a swami twice in my life---once when I was just a young girl and again just a few years ago. All are paths leading to communion with the mystery of faith in something much larger than myself or the world I can touch and see. It's all one divine creator. One way to find solace in the unknowns and ask for the grace I need to find my way through. 

Contemplative prayer sends my intentions, my worries and strife, my concerns for others and the world around me out into the universe beyond my control. It empties my cluttered mind and my sometimes heavy heart and helps me find the room to fill it up again with hope. It keeps me believing in miracles, big and small. And to be honest, sometimes it just takes the edge off, and certainly the pressure I feel now and then that it's all up to me. Because it isn't all up to me, is it? As much as I would love to plan it all out and have it happen just so, that's just not how life works. Life is an ever changing wind and I just never know which way it will blow, if the current will catch in my wings and lift me, or send me plummeting to the ground. It's indifferent, life. Dispassionate. Makes no promises.

Prayer gives me the space and distance to see past the immediacy of now and gives that glimpse of hope and possibility called tomorrow. And I think, for me, it helps to know that someone is listening. Someone hears my joy, and understands my sorrow.

begin again

My last post was so weird I decided to try on a more positive face and post again. 

I have been home all day and sleeping for most of it. I just woke to an empty house. My daughter is at work and my son is at rehearsal. And it's snowing...right now sideways. 

Made some silvertip tea in my favourite mug and decided to look out my window. There is a tiny nest in the crab apple tree. It looked so beautiful with the red apples all around it and the snow whirling about. Thought I would share it with you.

SO I woke up (nightmare free, I might add) thinking these two words: begin again. Those must be two of the most beautiful words in the English language. At least they are today.

Begin again.

Unfolding my yoga mat on the wooden floor where the snow light is bringing a satiny shine to them. Going to breathe and twist and turn for a while. I have seven hours until I need to be at work. I've slept enough today.

Begin again.

Think of the bird who must build her nest over and over throughout the seasons and years. I'm thinking she never questions it, and never complains.

Begin again.

 

 

Greetings From the Night Desk

I haven't had much in me for online journaling lately. Not that life is crazy, or out of sorts or anything less than normal, but I just didn't have much to say beyond what I've been saying all along. I went through the past year pretty well; I've got cancer behind me and I hardly ever think about it. I also left my job, which truthfully was eating at me more than anything else. It got to be where I just couldn't sit in one place for an entire day with a phone tethered to my head and listen to people say the same things over and over and then repeat the same solutions over and over. I was feeling trapped after about two hours into my shift. It was time for a change, and so I found one.

I really miss the people I worked with at my old job; they were fabulous and made it fun to be there regardless of my other feelings about it. But I've landed myself in a new place with people who are just as grand. And wow, what a place I get to come to everyday. Special doesn't even begin to describe it.

The new job is at an historic inn that is at the heart of our village. It's not just historic because it's old, or because a president slept here, or Mark Twain, or because it was a stop on the underground railroad...I'll let you read about it so you can discover what's so special about it on your own.

My new responsibilities include working in the fabulous restaurant for a couple of shifts a week, but mostly I am at the front desk during the night. It's a very peaceful time to be here and I feel lucky to be the one tucking the old gal in and then waking her up in the morning. It is a well-known rumour that spirits lurk here, although I've yet to encounter one. The only spirit I sense is one of joy and remarkable beauty. I've traveled to many places throughout the world in my life and not many places are as special as this one. I feel happy to arrive here every day or night, and fortunate. Very fortunate. 

The scariest part of changing jobs was accepting less income and adapting to a completely new schedule. I do believe that change is good and sometimes very necessary, and that my priorities have evolved a bit over the past few years enough to know that happiness is worth more than money. John C. Maxwell said something interesting: Everything you now do is something you have chosen to do. Some people don't want to believe that. But if you're over age twenty-one, your life is what you're making of it. To change your life, you need to change your priorities. Sure my schedule is a little wacky and not at all as predictable as before, and I've made some adjustments and sacrifices that will take a little getting used to. But what a difference it makes to look forward to going to work again. I really haven't felt that since I left my job at the garden center for something "more secure." I suppose it all comes back to having faith that things will all work out as long as I do my best and remember what the important things are.

And a view like this one, instead of a bland tan cubicle, sure doesn't hurt things either...

No Place Like Home

 

As published in the East Aurora Advertiser, June 2009

No matter how much I’m in love with East Aurora, every now and again I feel the urge to hit the road and wake up somewhere new. On Memorial Day weekend I drove myself to my other favorite place to be in the world: the Monadnock region of southern New Hampshire.

I admit I felt smug leaving behind our fair village in its current dust-bowl disarray. The place I visit in New Hampshire is as rural and green as anyplace else I’ve been. There’s a lack of commercial growth in those embracing, granite strewn hills that I find as quenching as fresh lemonade. Not a road-crew, nor even a billboard to be found along the serpentining roads. Each time I go there I make the 33 mile drive to a picturesque village where a friend lives, and it takes me about an hour to arrive; there’s just no express way to get anywhere. Everything about the place beckons me to slow down and savour. It’s just a very special place.

Long walks through fern-laced woods and granite boulders that make me want to stop and sit for a while, listen to the birds and the leaves rustling with the breeze, are one way I spend my solitude there. Once I encountered an elusive woodcock on a dirt road that leads to Thorndike Pond. With his tiny hunched body and his long nose pointing down to the ground, he looked like a little old man moseying along with his cane. It’s like that there for me; I experience things that are nothing short of magic. I take aimless drives through the countryside and find myself holding my breath when I turn a corner to espy a glinting blue lake, or catch a different view of the granite topped silhouette of Mount Monadnock.

I’ve made many local friends from my yearly visits there. People seem to keep their jobs: the young woman with jade-colored eyes and an ever-growing tattoo collection that works at the coffee shop in Marlborough, or the woman from New Jersey who came to run the historic inn because she loved it there so much she wanted to call it home. Every time I pack my car to leave, I get teary-eyed as I say goodbye to the grand mountain in my rearview mirror, the people I’ve come to know there, the landscape that feels like a warm embrace. It feels like leaving home.

As I drove into East Aurora on that Tuesday evening, I was saddened by the sights of our torn up Main Street. I felt like turning right around and heading back to Wyoming County to stay one more night in someplace quiet and green. Then something caught my eye; a friend I have not seen in weeks was walking her dog down Main amidst the rubble. And look! There was that couple I have seen taking their own evening walk down Main for years now. Many familiars were out and about enjoying the night despite the effort it takes to avoid the trenches and gravel dust. It struck me, what I love most about where I live; sure it’s as beautiful a spot as any on earth, but it’s the people, the ones I call my friends as well the faces I know from being here for over two decades, that make it home sweet home.

comfort in a bowl

There a few things that my daughter asks for now and again that I can never refuse. One is for me to make her favourite soup. When my kids were little it was sometimes a struggle to get them to eat their veggies, which is no doubt a familiar plight for all parents now and again. I tried lots of tactics, but one that seemed to work was re-naming plain old vegetable soup after one of our most loved storybooks: Peter Rabbit. 

 

It's a rainy day here in Western New York and my girl has been a little out of sorts lately with the pressure of finishing up her senior year, getting her driver's license, thinking about a summer job and making decisions about her next steps in her education. And of course there is the senior prom and all that entails, too. I try to keep my weeknight evenings quiet and here at home with her, and sometimes my work schedule makes it hard to be together for any kind of proper dinner...so it's good to have something that she loves ready for us to share when I work late now and then. If you ask her what she wants for dinner it is very likely she will answer "Peter Rabbit Soup." And it's perfect for these darker, cooler wet days we seem to have in these parts every spring. 

 

I made it this morning and it looked so pretty in the bowl that I ladled it into for my lunch. I was inspired to take a photo and share the way to make it. It not only tastes yummy, but it's pretty good for you, too. It's different every time, depending on what veggies we have, but it's always comfort in a bowl.

 

Peter Rabbit Soup (or sometimes..."Look What Farmer McGregor Dug Up in the Garden" Soup)

 

Chop a couple of handfuls of any veggies you have into bite-sized pieces. In a heavy soup pot, heat a big tablespoon of butter and the same amount of lovely green olive oil. If you have veggies that like to be sauteed (onions or celery, zucchini, stuff like that) then give them a couple of minutes in the pot. Fill the pot with about 9 cups of spring water and then put the rest of the veggies in. I like the flavour and colour of Rapunzel brand veggie bouillon cubes (with sea salt and herbes) and I use 4 cubes per 9 cups of water. Let the soup simmer for about 20 minutes before adding a handful of finely chopped fresh herbes...whatever you like. Today I had parsley, so that's what it got...but any herbes you like are wonderful. Turn off the soup so the veggies don't overcook and then boil some tiny pasta, like ditalini or orzo, or even some grains like brown rice or barley, and then keep them aside to add in when you eat it. If you cook the grains or pasta in the soup and you don't eat it all right away they just get mushy. And of course sometimes you might not want anything but the veggies anyways.

 

So there you go... Peter Rabbit Soup, lifetime favourite of my favourite girl.

 

xo

why is happiness unforgivable?

 I recently enjoyed a memoir by the poet, Donald Hall, called Life Work. The main theme of the book is work, in all of its nuances. There are many vignettes of his grandparents' work on their farm in New Hampshire, his father's dairy business, his childhood spent between suburban and rural life, and of course of his own work as a man of letters, but there is one sentence that has stuck with me and that has me picking the book up again and again to reread the chapter that contains it. 

When talking about the great pleasure he finds in his work on the best days, he stops and asks "Why is happiness unforgivable?" My first reaction was, "Is it? Really?" He was talking about when a more melancholy reader might pick up his book, and say "Enough already! My life sucks! Yours should, too," at least that is how I understood it the first time through, but I didn't feel that way at all, and I can be as melancholy as the next gal. Hey, if someone is happy, I'm happy for them. If they are fulfilled by a day's or even a lifetime's work, that's just fine by me. Because I know, I KNOW, that even the most cheerful, most successful among us has plenty of their own moments of glumness.

Happiness, like the grey smoke of incense, is fleeting. It lingers just long enough to fill our souls with ample sweetness to know that it's a good idea to carry on. Life, by nature, is hard. If we come upon any kind of happiness it should be relished...either our own or that of others. The more I thought about Hall's question, the more I realized that very often it is the happiness of others that helps to nurture my own moments of contentment. Just think, at any given moment there might be hundreds of happy people within walking distance of your home. ;) Even the thought of it can cajole a smile, if I allow it.

I'm not sure why Donald Hall's sentence struck me so hard. Maybe it's because I didn't believe he really felt that way. His own life has been brim with struggles and sorrows, more than anyone should have to bear, and yet he has also written about knowing profound joy through his work, through his second marriage, through his children and grandchildren. He is one man who seems to know what it means when the philosophers preach "You can't know joy unless you know sorrow." I guess it made me think that he doesn't have a lot of faith in his readers if he didn't trust them enough to know that he has a right to claim his deep happiness in his work. He's earned it. It gives me great hope, as another human being forging her way through life, to see that people, no matter how grave things can get, have the spirit to carry on...and even be happy. Happiness is not unforgivable. What would be unforgivable is to not give it its due praise.