Sparrow & Oystercatcher

My darling husband's birthday is on Boxing Day, and that means of course that I'm in double trouble when Christmas is nearing, trying to find two sets of presents for him! :D

For his most recent birthday, I gave him a book and music. They were 'The Discarded Image' by C.S. Lewis, and two albums by singer songwriter Audrey Assad - 'Heart' and 'The House You're Building'. I discovered Audrey's music when a very dear friend of mine sent me a link to one of her videos, and I was immediately won over, not only by her lovely sounding voice and melodies, but also by her lyrics. It's clear they come from her heart, and from time spent meditating on God's Word.

A song by Audrey that I really love is based upon an old and wonderful hymn: 'His Eye is on the Sparrow'. Her version is simply called 'Sparrow', and you can listen to it here. Lyrics are here.

Listening to it the other day made me want to get reacquainted with the classical version of the hymn, and I came across a gorgeous rendition by Kathleen Battle!

Right away it was clear that this was going to be my next Song on the Fridge! :D Here is the printable I made, in case you'd like to have it too:

Click to download the pdf file

On Hymnpod, where I found the lyrics, you can also read the very touching story of how this song came to be written, and there is even a free mp3 of the piano accompaniment! :)

Our Lord, who is the Creator of all visible and invisible things, knows every single little critter that ever lived. They are countless, 'yet not one of them is forgotten by God' (Luke 12:6). He dearly loves His creation, and one day will liberate it and bring it 'into the freedom and glory of the children of God' (Romans 8:18-30). It brings tears to my eyes when I think of what the Lord Jesus says: 'You are worth more than many sparrows'!

I call my little girl 'my precious darling', and that's what we are to Him too.

These thoughts reminded me of a story from last spring, that I shared before with my family and friends, on my Romanian blog. It was something that happened while hubby and I and our daughter - codename Bee - were visiting Fyvie Castle and its gardens.

One of the gardens is home to a collection of Scottish fruit trees, and at one point hubby and Bee were exploring one part of it, while I was by myself at a distance.



Suddenly I started hearing a very loud and intermittent sound, and I wondered if an alarm had gone off somewhere. I couldn't tell where it was coming from, but when I rejoined the others, I soon discovered that the source of that shrill sound was a small black and white bird nearby, with a long red beak and red round eyes, who was pacing anxiously to and fro in front of us, all the while seemingly telling us off! :D




 

It was my first encounter with an oystercatcher. But what could have been the matter with her? Why was she so apprehensive of us, and why didn't she just fly away if she was afraid? A wee look around quickly made me understand. In one of the big ceramic pots the young apple trees grew in, she had made her nest, and her precious eggs were there, within our easy handreach! She was naturally worried, and was doing what she could to shoo off the potentially perilous visitors!






I did take a few seconds for the snapshots you see here, to remind me of this lovely and caring mama bird, but we retreated rapidly and let her have peace again :)

Even a little oystercatcher is made in His likeness in her small way, and He always wants to gather us under His wings, where we are safe and happy. Please help me always want to run to You: true safety and true freedom are found there.

I would like to leave you with some more verses, and a few more photos from the Fyvie Castle gardens.

Psalm 84, read by David Suchet

See you soon!

Embroidery and the East Coast

Another goal I've got for this year is to do more of what I already do and love: baking, taking photos of nature and places we visit, doing more crochet, weaving and embroidery.

As a teenager I used to do a lot of cross-stitch, which for a Romanian youngster in the 90's was a new and exotic craft. Traditional Romanian embroidery and needlecraft is wonderfully rich and varied, and I was also familiar with needlepoint tapestry, as I grew up admiring a couple of really beautiful ones created by my mother, but cross-stitch in the British and American contemporary style was something entirely new for us, and my sister and I spent hours working on projects big and small.

In the latter years, however, I find myself really drawn to a more 'freestyle' embroidery using traditional stitches, and also to Japanese sashiko.

Last year though I worked on precious little, and I think I've only got this small piece to show right now, it's an ATC I made for a swap organised by Ali Burdon of Very Berry:

Sakura

It's a little picture I made out of wool roving, wet- and needle-felted, and embellished with straight and lazy daisy stitches and French knots.

Instead of stitching, I've been buying a good number of lovely books about it! :) I'll maybe talk a bit more about them in a future post.

Another superb source of inspiration I encountered last year was The Great Tapestry of Scotland, which I had the good fortune to see in September, when it was exhibited at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. I even took the opportunity to put a few stitches into the People's Panel! :)

The Great Tapestry is an amazing work of art, and you can read more about it here if you'd like! I was browsing the pictures I took at the exhibition, looking for a favourite to share here, and this one caught my eye:

It is about the women who used to work as fish-gutters - a difficult and certainly very smelly job - but between the two world wars, in the fishing villages around Scotland, this seasonal employment was a welcome source of additional income, even if the hours were long and the wages low.

The two lines of verse come from The Fish-Gutter's Sang, a song in the Scots Language and a very 'colourful' work of art in its own right :)

I love the beautiful design of the panel, and exquisite colours and stitches! I also really like the little cameos of marine creatures and fishermen's jumpers! :D

When I first saw it, I remember feeling quite chuffed (to use a cute Scottish phrase :p ) that I recognized almost all the place names around the picture, but not only that - I had actually visited a good few of them! Pittenweem, Anstruther and Crail are in Fife, towards St Andrews - and my husband and I have many happy memories of that area! Last spring we went further up north for our holiday, to Gardenstown, and visited Fraserborough, Cullen and Portsoy.

A reason I love the east coast of Scotland so much is because it's got 'real sea'!  :D To this Romanian child, who spent numerous bright, hot, summer days on the beaches of the Black Sea, the sea is the sea if that's all you can see all the way to the far horizon. If there are lots of little islands dotted here and there and blocking the view, as it often happens on the west coast, lovely they may be, but for me the 'real sea' only starts beyond them! :) Now, there are islands on the east coast too, and yet, there are lots more uninterrupted swathes of waves to satisfy my soul :)

I'll leave you for now,  then, with a few photos I took of some of the lovely places we've been to so far on the east coast:

Boats at Pittenweem

The sea at Elie

The beach at St Andrews

Cullen

Gardenstown

Each day holds a surprise

Last Tuesday, I had a few hours all to myself - a very rare treat, as any toddler's mama would know! :D

It was 'now or never' for making a start on my Smashbook! A smashbook can be any book in which little tidbits, pictures and words, are 'smashed', or quickly put together, with the purpose of memory, practice and fun. 

I've seen some great tutorials for turning any kind of book or notebook into a smashbook, but I got a ready-made one in a sale some time last year. It's made by K&Company.

I chose a beautiful quote from the writings of Henri Nouwen as the focus of my page. There is a free email list I subscribe to, and excerpts from his books are sent as a 'daily meditation'. His words have often been a great help to me, especially in directing my attention towards the Lord, and making me see my circumstances anew, in the light of His love.

After turning the living room floor into a sea of scrapbooking papers, markers, stickers, punches and washi tape, this was the result: 

Here is the quote in full:

Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us. Let's not be afraid to receive each day's surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy. It will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity.
                                                                    - Henri J. M. Nouwen  

One surprise I had while working was to discover that my pretty Laura Ashley velvety rub-ons - bought hmm... three or four years ago? :D - had not aged well, and were sticking to their protective film! 

(Still, I was able to get some of them on the page, if only in part, and the further surprise was that I actually love their 'distressed' look!)

I was forcibly reminded of a wonderfully pertinent article by Brooke McAlary on The Art of Simple blog: Stop saving your stickers! I had kept nodding and nodding my head last week as I was reading, and then here I was, a living example of what those inspired words of wisdom were all about! :D Can't cease to marvel at God's sense of humour. Anyway, if you're afflicted with sticker-saving too, please go read that article right now! 

Well, it feels great to have made a start. And to have managed to tidy everything away before hubby returned from work (!!!). 

But gathering all my supplies roundabout me from their various nooks and crannies took me half the time on this project. A 'smashing' station in the living room is definitely required! IKEA Råskog trolley, I've got my mind set on you, you shall be mine, and remember I noticed you and loved you and had designs on you weeellll before you took over the world! :D

Intentional

'Intentional' is my chosen word for the year 2015. As in 'intentional living'.

It's a word I kept seeing in blog posts on parenting, and realized it was something I really needed for myself. It means 'something done with intention or on purpose', and it was a wake-up call to the fact that most days I'm just 'surfing on the surface' of things, or, with a different metaphor, hurling along in a carriage drawn by two horses: Need-to-Do and Impulse-of-the-Moment.

Living my life with intention and purpose ties in with the concept of 'simple living' as explained by Tsh Oxenreider in her book 'Organized Simplicity', which I read last year and wholeheartedly recommend. (Everyone who knows me, please stop chuckling! :D ) Have a look at Tsh's website to learn more about it if you're interested!

So my desire for this year is that things happen more because I'm making conscious choices and following through with my plans, rather than just going on with the flow and getting frustrated that I never seem to have time for the stuff I really want to do.

Taking small steps and keeping up the pace is now key.

As I mentioned in my last post, one of the important things on my list for this year is reading the Bible more, and with that worship and prayer are connected. And because the days of my youth, when I knew any number of songs off by heart, are long gone, what I need now is to have the words at hand, if my worship is to be more than 'la la laaa' and 'mmm mmm mmm'! :D

That's why I made a wee printable of a wonderful song we sang at church last Sunday. I've printed it out and put it up on my fridge, and I'm sharing it here as a pdf file, so you can do the same if you'd like! :)

It's called 'Before the Throne of God Above', or 'The Advocate', and it was written in 1863 by a lady named Charitie Lees Smith. My church sings it on a melody written in the 90's by Vikki Cook, you can hear it on YouTube. I've created the printable using free fonts from here and here.

Click to download the pdf file!

Washing pots and pans and chopping veggies are sure to be made more enjoyable, not to mention more spirit-nourishing and uplifting, by singing this Scripture-filled hymn! It's one little step towards making sure there's more worship and focus on God in my day.

How about you? Have you ever found yourselves 'surfing on the surface' before? What did you do to find focus and follow your goals again?

Happy New Year!

Hello, everyone! And Happy New Year!

What better time to start a blog than the 1st of January! So here I am, and I hope you will enjoy the journey together with me.

Here are a few of my goals for this year: 

»   Smashbook! A Smash Book is like a sort of slapdash scrapbook where you're not too worried about everything being too pretty-pretty.

»   Learn how to sew on the sewing machine.

»   Learn how to drive.

But my most important goal is to make sure I read the Bible more. For that, I'll be buying the new NIV audio Bible, read by David Suchet! And I'm going to listen while I cook or do housework.

What are some of your plans for 2015? Please feel free to write comments in English or Romanian! 

I'd like to share one of my favourite photos from 2014. I took this picture in a beautiful apple orchard that belongs to the grounds of Culzean Castle, when we visited there in August. It echoes a particular Romanian New Year tradition, and a lovely wish that it contains:

May you be like apple trees and pear trees at the height of summer! 

Looking forward to a Happy New Year and a Happy New Blog! :)