9:59 p.m. on 11/19/09 ~ 8.03 lbs ~ 21.5 inches long

Love and congratulations to Julianne, Jeremy and the whole family!

It's Friday and time to join in with Suzanne for our weekly list of favourite things.

#1 on my list this week is the safe arrival of our grand-niece "Norah"!! She is brand-new - just born in the wee hours of this morning. :) Lorna, my sister in law, college roommate, maid of honour and long time best of friends, is a grandmother!

It just seems like yesterday we were scared freshmen, hanging on to one another in the registration line at Bible College - and now we are welcoming the first little baby born in a new generation.

Lorna doesn't have a blog (yet!) - but she often comments here. So, if you'd like to, you can say congratulations to her and her husband, Brian, and to the brand-new parents, my nephew Jeremy and his sweet wife Julianne.

Hooray! Pink shopping coming up <3

2. We've had gorgeous bright sunny days this week - 10 degrees above normal. Such a treat for November.

Perfect weather for beach walking - or swimming if you are Sophie - but I can't crow like I did in another Friday Fave last November. Sophie was the only brave one this year :)

3. Cozy fires ~ as soon as the sun goes down, the evenings and nights cool off dramatically. We have our two stoves going - one in the kitchen and one in the family room downstairs.

And if that's not enough, Roger started up the fireplace in the study this week as well.

It's so pleasant to spend an evening together here. The fireplace doesn't heat like the airtight stoves but there is something irresistible about the bright, open flames.

4. Cozy meals ~  right in front of the fireplace! A simple supper dish and a glass of wine.

One of our favourites - scalloped potatoes with ham and cheddar cheese.

5. The bird feeders were filled this week and it didn't take long for the blue jays and chickadees to find us.

I couldn't take a picture of it as it happened- so I have no digital record.

But this little chickadee perched on my fingers and ate from my hand!

It happened once last year - and then again yesterday.

They are such trusting, friendly, little birds.

I love to watch them from the kitchen window and hear their cheery "chick a dee dee dee" calling from the spruce trees.

Well . . .

I've reached the magic number 5! And I've only touched on a few of my favourites from the week.

Thanks for coming by! I hope you enjoyed your visit.

Happy weekend!

with love,

PS ~ For more FFF, visit Suzanne at Living To Tell the Story.

I'm quite faithful to "take a walk"  but my walks are most often leisurely rambles and not geared to work up a sweat.

My exercise history  has been a series of enthusiastic activity bursts punctuated with long periods of slacking. But the diagnosis of a genetic heart condition has kyboshed my ability to do activity bursts anymore and the same diagnosis makes slacking an non-option.

So I called on my old friend Leslie. She's faithful - always ready for a walk - even in the worst of weather. I can do her  walk  - no hills which are the killer for me - and it does work up a sweat.

I hope Leslie doesn't take it personally that I don't listen to her conversation - she's always talks about the same things :) I can only listen to "C'mon!" "You can do it!" and "Isn't this fun!" so many times . . .

Instead, I turn her volume down and listen to an audio book from Librivox.

Right now The Railway Children is keeping Leslie and me company as we walk.

I wanted to add some strengthening and flexibility exercises to my walking routine. Something simple and quick but that would exercise the whole body as well as gradually increase in difficulty.

A friend of mine reminded me of the old RCAF XBX fitness program. I can remember my mother doing these exercises. They've been around for a long time. I found a free interactive XBX site online. So I registered yesterday and started on level 1.

12 minutes a day is all it takes. That's do-able.

I was amused by the note included on the instruction page of the XBX program:

Note: Do not expect startling results. Fitness takes time and persistence. Couple your XBX program with a good diet, and your progress will be steady.

Startling results? Like what?? My imagination is running away with that description.

Getting in shape would be a pleasant but not startling result - now, growing hair on my chest would definitely be startling :)

 I like the rest of the advice - "Fitness takes time and persistence. Couple your XBX program with a good diet, and your progress will be steady."

So, my new goal?

Slow and steady.

We all know the end of that proverb.

I'm not in a race, but  if I can get in the exercise habit, 

I'll feel like  a winner.

Happy Thursday everyone!

with love,

as promised!

• 3/4 cup shortening (or butter)
• 1 cup brown sugar (or half white and half brown)
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 egg
• 2 and 1/4 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp cloves (my own addition)
• 1 tsp soda

Cream shortening and sugar - add egg and molasses. Mix dry ingredients and add to shortening mixture.

Shape in balls, dip in white sugar, press down lightly with a fork and bake at 350 for 8-10 min.

A century old (or more) recipe from Roger's grandmother "Nannie" - written in her own handwriting and given to me almost 33 years ago for my wedding recipe box.

Enjoy!

with love,

 ". . . One day I realize I am skimming the surface of everything. There is but hollow pleasure in too crowded weeks. Real rewards come from engaging in fewer activities and experiencing each one more deeply. Loss of alertness and freshness of approach tell me to slow up. Life is best when it is a balance between activities and intervals of aloneness. In the intervals we are able to deepen the meaning of the activities.

The days I like least are those when I pass through my environment superficially almost as if it were a stage backdrop. I scarcely see anything except what needs doing at the moment. Meals become just something to get and nothing has depth. This is living "two-dimensionally."

In contrast, when I am not pressed by a push of events I move more slowly and savour each moment. Every activity becomes a feature in itself and the simplest routine has its own joy. I feel the texture of the blanket when making a bed, and it is good. I feel the soil when I am repotting a houseplant and it is good. I listen beyond words to what people mean. I look at the sales person in the store and really see her. I have time to write the author whose book I have liked, and I telephone my dinner hostess to tell her how much we enjoyed the evening. This is living "three-dimensionally" - going that extra mile, doing all the things you are not required to do, but which give added meaning.

Living this way you see not only your goal but the path that leads you there and all the little flowers and ferns that grow along its edges."

p. 198-9 The Shape of a Year  Jean Hershey

I have always wondered why I am irresistibly drawn to take pictures of the tiny details

 a tendril on a rose hip

the curl of bark on a white birch

the way the morning light falls on the cupboard door

I think this quote by Jean Hershey explains it, at least partially.

Noticing the tiny - the small exquisite details - is part of that "three-dimensional life".

There is so much more to it of course.

It's really a way of living in the present - a way of attending - to God, to others, to yourself, to nature,

finding beauty in the everyday,

and

giving thanks.

I love Ann V's encouragement in this area.

Join her and the gratitude community

and

we'll savour life together.

with love,

and

welcome to  Suzanne's

So what was happening on the Island this week?

At least here at A Sparrow's Home?

Well, we had:

1. Some gathering of nature's bounty, which included a trip to Point Prim

for winterberry holly.

 We need to get it before the snow flies.

Beautiful red berries

along with some fragrant  bayberry branches,

pinecones

and some evergreen branches for winter decorating.

2. Some baking

Cheddar Cheese Casserole bread from Menonnite Girls Can Cook - delicious!

Perfect with Roasted Pumpkin Soup

(if you made this for the aroma of roasting pumpkin sprinkled with nutmeg alone, it would be worth it!)

and  Spicy Ginger Crinkles ~ perfect with a hot cup of tea ~ recipe coming soon.

3. Some reading

Notice the theme of each book??

This is what happens when you go to the library hungry . . .  :)

4. Some walking in a November wood

5 and finally some more kitty love

Blue-eyed Ruby

on her favourite perch ~ such a good-natured mama.

 
Well these are just a few of my favourite things from this week.

I hope you enjoyed your visit.

Thanks so much for coming by.

Happy weekend!

with love,

remembering all the young men and women who fought in the wars,

especially my Dad.

Peter Sinclair ~ Flight Lieutenant ~ Royal Canadian Air Force ~ World War 2

Often our Remembrance Days are dark and cold with freezing rain or sleet - almost as if the weather tries to match the solemn mood of the day. But today we have a bit of blue sky and the sun is breaking through.

Our little group of veterans dwindles each year, some members in wheel-chairs or leaning on canes for support.  But they still march as smartly as they can to the sound of the pipes and drums. I have always felt such admiration for them, standing at attention in November's raw chill, while The Last Post plays for all their fallen friends. I wonder what feelings and memories stir when they hear the words that are spoken during each Remembrance Day service:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We shall remember them.

The weight of those words grow greater each passing year.

Today our community will gather and stand with them.

And we will remember.

1969, age 12 ~  coming home from school for lunch, eating my grilled cheese sandwich and drinking my cocoa, while laughing along with my favourite Sesame Street characters on our black and white, one station only TV.  I knew all the characters and all the songs - in fact this morning I was singing Rubber Ducky along with Ernie on the radio. I hadn't forgotten a word :)

This Sesame Street sketch was a favourite for our oldest boy around age 2.

(pause the music in the sidebar)

He had a little red cowboy hat, cowboy boots, and a gun and holster set ~ he'd swagger around the apartment saying, "I Cowboy X!".

Happy memories!

Also known as the BSoD?

not.fun.

but photos and documents were saved.

thankfully.

It was a close call.

4 years of photos and prayer journal that I wouldn't like to lose.

The lesson from the chastened, but now slightly wiser and very grateful mkmacphee?

Don't forget to back-up.

It's good to be back :)

It's a few miles from our home but we don't often drive that way.

I've never taken a picture of it before, but the sight of the massive sugar maples stopped my car like magic. The golden foliage almost completely obscured the house  - I'll have to go back in a week or so when the leaves fall and  take another picture just for posterity.

After I parked the car and snapped a few pictures of the tree, I noticed something that I had never noticed before - a long, low, sandstone wall in front of the house.

The stones are old - very old.

Most old Island homes had sandstone foundations. The stones were cut by hand. Many of those foundations have been replaced with cement basements now. Often people will use the old stones in landscaping and garden design.

This wall was most likely made with the original foundational stones of this house.

Foundational stones that were maybe, just maybe, shaped by my children's great-great-great grandfather's hands.

Now that's something to think about.