A Place Like This......

In Preparation of.......

~ To discover new oceans you need to lose sight of the shore.~ Teilhard de Chenin

ok....... but before I do that I have a million things on my list to accomplish before I go. Where am I going? It's time for my annual pilgrimage to Sweden. Every fall I have the great abundance in my life to go to Sweden for work and of course a liberal amount of play.

I could write a long list of all the things that need to get done, which would boggle my mind and yours. I've crossed somethings off such as "finish quilt", "knit socks",cook ahead for "two weeks". I've accomplished a lot on that list today so now I will give myself a little anticipatory travel dream time.

Here's a little bit about what I love in Sweden.

   

 

 

 

 

Won't it be grand?

Fetch and Build

From my desk I hear closet doors opening, heavy grunting, things being hurdled down the stairs. From outside I hear one young voice yell,"We need sticks!"

 

   

......I hear feet racing through the hallway, my office door jiggles, and the door explodes open. "Hi mom" he says as he opens the big armoire, grabbing quilts at random. "What are you doin buddy?"

"We're building a tent fort in the family room. Did you know it's a long weekend?"

Huh? Yep that one missed me. I don't know how I couldn't have seen Labor Day weekend coming? Maybe i we started our long weekend with a long week of incredible flu? I bet that's it.

So with everybody feeling much better a tent city was born, complete with kitchen, sleeping area, and a TV to watch movies. A boy's version of a "Stay-cation". Bon Voyage gentlemen and fare thee well.

  

   

An Apple and a Strudel and Away we go

It is so much cooler today. It's raining and as I was walking this morning I noticed that there are many apples on the trees. This reflection gave rise to a "flashback" moment, not unlike "grasshopper" in the TV series Kung Fu.

(Flashback)

Once there was a girl who loved music and played her piano all the way to Vienna Austria.

There ,she learned of a very nice woman who needed help in her coffee house. The payment, room and board, in exchange for working in the bakery. She would gladly work around my school and performance schedule.

So there I was, first day on the job. "Do you know how to make an apple pie?" Hilde asked. "Sure I do". "Well, she continued, we are going to make something like an apple pie but it's called apfel strudel. The only difference is the dough and the shape of the dough. Other than that the filling is almost the same as an apple pie".

The difference I would learn, is well, very different.

"Roll out this dough here so we can put the filling in it." Those were my instructions. So I rolled out the dough into a rectangle, about a quarter of an inch thick. It smelled luscious and I knew I had done such a good job at rolling out the dough of my very first strudel.

"Was iis dis?" Loudly, yelled Hilde. Nei,Nei Nei, .....This is too thick. You must be able to read a love letter through the dough then you have it thin enough. After that you have to tuck your filling in and wrap it up like a little baby."

I had never conjured the image of "love" when I made my apple pies but apfel strudel is made from, with, and full of "Amour".

So with that, I pulled out the old recipe and gave it a whirl.

Evening Song

Well I almost missed it. Last week had been a very difficult week with a very sick Mimi. Days seemed to be filled with a million things to do all calling me away from the task at hand. The weekend continued to have it's moments of frustrations and on top of everything the air conditioning broke. So now the option was to be hot, sticky, and sleepless.

But this is when it happened. An unexpected moment in the middle of mayhem. I opened the window and a fresh breeze was blowing in, so I opened a few more windows.

   

I could clearly hear the cicadas chirping. They chirped for a good portion of the night until they gave way to the crickets. Just before the bird song started there was complete silence. I never realized or maybe I have just now taken notice of these beautiful patterns of the night. The silence was stunning.

As the transition continues into a cooler season, I'm opening the windows to let more awareness into my sleeptime. It was so nurturing and so restful. Happy September First. Let's open our windows and celebrate.