Little Things That Make Me Smile

   "As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful."

                                                            ~ Laura Ingalis Wilder

 

 

  

Wintering

I'm beginning to get cabin fever, and just as slightly warmer temperatures arrive, an entire new weather system is headed our way.

More snow, and sadly combined with frozen precipitation.
The school children have been afforded  extra days  off school,  and yet their presence outside has been scarce.
Back when my daughter was young she would spend an entire afternoon outside with her neighborhood friends, sledding and building snowmen, only returning to the warmth of  home for a change of gloves, and some hot chocolate. Nowadays, it seems like the children stay inside and play computer games or watch TV.
Times have changed.

Timeless Treasures

I have a fondness for English Staffordshire Ware.

One look at those pastoral village scenes, and I'm transported back to my grandmother's kitchen, where her cupboard displayed shelf upon shelf of these timeless treasures.

I can see the kitchen table covered in a freshly-starched embroidered tablecloth, the milk-jug sitting atop, awaiting the first of many pots of tea served throughout the day.

Treasured memories of gentler times........

 

 

 

One of my favorite collections are from the Alfred Meakin "Tintern" series.

I'm drawn to their bucolic scenes from years gone by.

 

 

"Come along inside ~ We'll see if tea and buns will make the world a better place."

~ Wind in the Willows

 

Silent And Soft

We awoke this morning to a winter wonderland.

Soft, wet snowflakes, blanketing the ground, cocooning us in a world of silence.
A gentle accumulation, it's as if Mother Nature took her powdered sugar shaker, and gave the landscape a sprinkling.
Magical.

 

 

 

Out of the cloud-folds of her garment shaken,

Over the woodlands, brown and bare

Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow

Descends the snow.

~~By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.~~