Pondering along

Dear Mom, thank you for knowing and loving me so well that you always give me the perfect gift.  This one is my favourite - case and all.  Hands down.  It will see much use in the coming years, I can promise you.  But then again, you already knew that.  I love you.

We have blueberry ice cream waiting to fully chill in the freezer.  We made up the recipe using a basic outline from the strawberry and vanilla ones we love.  (Fingers crossed!)  We are not quite as high tech as we don't have an ice cream maker.  Actually, I don't think we have room for one.  We've made do just fine without.  Just means that I have to be around to stir a pan or container of the sweet cream as it's freezing.  Not such a sacrifice.  We used 4 cups of summer blueberries - berries that we've had in the freezer for almost a month.  Actually, I think somewhere, there are still blueberries coming in.  Our farmer's market is still selling them!

One Hello Kitty hat done, and one very happy 3 year old.  Who is now waiting impatiently for the weather to get colder.  (Scratch that, she's not waiting at all - she sports the hat no matter the heat.)  And now I have the two owlie hats on my hook.  Also my knitting is getting better.  I feel it!  (So says every novice knitter...)  I am loving this stockinette stitch.  Just beautiful.  I wish I could knit up a bunch of sweaters!  I am in love with a swatch of yarn.  That and happy enough that another item gets crossed off my bucket list.  Ahem, I will say that said bucket list does tend to grow longer by the week despite my best efforts.  Of course, now you realize that my list is hardly glamourous or adventurous.  But it suits me just fine.  I've become more of a crafter and homebody in my old age.

I've written in the past about how much we want a house to raise our family in.  It is very expensive to buy in our area.  Ridiculously so.  We want so much to give our children a life where they can connect to God through nature - where we can be refreshed by a walk say in the forest (without needing to drive to one); where we dig in the garden with purpose; where we harvest their own food on a respectable scale; where we spend more time outside than in; where we see and study nature and the seasons first hand; where we quiet down, slow down and sit down together a little more.  That's what a house represents to us.  We are presently trying to figure out if we need to leave the city (hard because of D's work), or resign ourselves to the present situation and hope for the best in another few years.  A decision that will need some serious pondering, that's for sure.

As we ponder along, I hope you are having a beautiful day, because the sun is shining and the birds are singing here.  (Even alongside the cars zooming on the highway.)