All posts in Bits Of My Personality

My Frequently Annual Ladies Tea!

This years tea party was the biggest yet!

So happy to have it at OUR HOME! The patio worked perfectly. We rounded up some patio tables and had it all looking pretty with table cloths and flowers from my yard and my mother in law’s (thanks Deb!).Potluck style was how we pulled together the above feast! It worked out beautifully! There where home made chocolates, home made cheese cakes and plenty of veggies and fruit as well! The night before I was a little nervous as to whether I would have enough tea cups in my collection but it JUST worked out (phew). A good reason to find a few more pretty cups though!One of the finest moments of the day was when my big girl and a good pal of hers picked some treats from my gardens and went around offering them to my guests. I had to laugh when I heard them asking the ladies, very politely, ‘Would you like a raspberry or an onion?’ They where trying to convince ladies to try some very fresh chives of mine as well as the newly ripened berries!

(This is most of the ladies from the poker night we have once a month!)(My eldest daughter has been to each tea and this year she looked particularly mature!)
(This is only the second my younger daughter has been to and since is a bit of an introvert she spent much time avoiding the crowd!)(Now we don’t invite dogs, but since my sister Karla’s doggy was there and the weather was hot we had to let her have a cup of tea too!)

This was the fifth tea I have hosted, and as with each year, it is the big group photo at the end of the day that is my big reward! I look back at them when I add a new one to the collection and I always feel so blessed to have had all these wonderful women take part in my life story!

TTFN

Comfort (think’n about it)

to soothe, console, or reassure; bring cheer to relief in affliction; consolation; solace a person or thing that gives consolation a cause or matter of relief or satisfaction!

I realised today that most of my morning routine is me seeking COMFORT. Weather it is the lack of sleep from another baby interrupted night or the shocks I find in the morning (baby’s freshly pooh-poohed bedding) or the attack of mommy pressure (get stuff done, so much to do today)… I don’t know for sure but I know I feel in need of comfort as soon as I leave my very comfortable bed.

I have a wrap that I quickly put on. It is soft and cut to a perfect fit so it doesn’t fall off as I do the mommy things each morning. I automatically walk to the stove and put the kettle on because my morning date is always a milky warm ‘earl grey’. My regular breakfast of organic honey and cinnamon toast is definitely comfort food and always makes me put my feet up and sigh as I eat it. It is comforting to have the same routine each morning and always eating the same breakfast is a comfort due to familiarity.

(I could curl up around my cup of tea and stay there all day just surrounded by my thoughts…)

Quiet time with my Lord is the best comfort (kinda goes without saying) and yet I am so typical… I have trouble getting there… getting to that quiet place to be still and know that he is Lord…

I don’t wanna talk about that, admit that, not because of shame… but because it is so common and often talked about without conclusion… I have read plenty of blog articles about this topic and I always skim through them looking for a hopeful, joyful, powerful solution for Moms… sadly I haven’t seen it or realized it and so I am now adding my blog about this topic to the collection…

Often I open my Bible lately and don’t find the comfort in it… I WANT TO LISTEN and yet I don’t settle enough for it… I am that conflicted person, like Paul I am crying ‘oh pitiful person… why will I not do what my heart wants and instead do what I don’t want to???!!!’

I could use more comfort in my daily life… can’t we all?

TTFN

Give Me Some Summer!

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie –
True Poems flee.
~Emily Dickinson

I am not one to complain about mild weather (because I have trouble handling the REAL HOT STUFF) but I have felt very sorry for my kids lately.

While I am happily digging in my garden beds, in spite of the rain, they are staring at me from the kitchen window with big sad eyes. All they want is a SUMMER! It has been pretty gloomy in our province this July. We haven’t had a nice enough day to hit the kiddy pools ONCE!The kids live less then a block from a kiddy pool and it is just killing them that they can’t use it. My four babies and I adore to swim, and since we live in a practical desert land, we have to accept the local wadding pools as our only option most of the time… so when they are out of the question my kiddos get pretty blue. We did what we could with visits and crafts but they got pretty tired of watching a happy mommy fussing with her gardens all day PRETTY QUICKLY!Specking of my gardens!!! I have gotten them all weeded and believe me that was no small task as they had weed TREES from being ignored for a year or so. I also planted almost 100 irises (thanks ‘E’)…. she must have been reading a previous post of mine when she thought that up as a house warming gift… I have all the over grown grass mowed nicely and even wrestled the giant horse radishes out of the ground… they had taken over the back garden. I found raspberry bushes, strawberries and even an apple tree (hidden behind my cedars!!)!! I now plan to plant more trees in the front yard (found some baby trees in my flower beds that need to be relocated), collecting rocks to make a path and a more rustic look to the front yard and keeping the weeds down so there is hope of a veggie garden next summer!

(Our Park!)

Today is SUNNY so we are off. Mommy’s garden gloves are put aside and her flip flops are ready for walking to the park, running after kids and filling up with park sand! I plan to spend the whole day outside for their sake.

(The Park Was Very Mucky Today.)

TTFN

Painfully Beautiful

Change is painfully beautiful.
When we moved here I was sad at that change in life. Then these irises bloomed in the front bed and gave me hope of the beauty I would eventually find in this transition period of life.
Now I look at them, once again, for the last spring. They will no longer be mine.
They will stay and bless the next renters while our family moves on.
Change is painfully beautiful.
I adore these super fat legs and feet in the grass even though they mean my last new born is gone forever and my little Baby Boy keeps getting further and further from me as he grows bigger and bigger.
I will always lovingly see this chub chub baby in my son, whether he likes it or not.
Change is painfully beautiful.
Oh daughter STOP sitting there so at peace, so full of growing wisdom, so beautifully surprising! I am going to have to run over and squeeze you, a desperate attempt to stop you from growing older… I will then cry and sigh and be SO proud of all that you have become and will become!Change is painfully beautiful.
It makes a mama’s heart well up with great joy and thankfulness to her maker and at the same time her eyes well up with tears at the babies long gone!
It makes her heart burn with in her chest; ablaze with love, hope and sorrow all at once!
A mama’s heart is one big paradox.

TTFN

If You Give A Two Year Old A Cookie!

If you give a two year old a cookie,
or half a donut,
or a liquorish,
you hope she will wake up and follow you to school with out screaming.
You rub the treat under her nose to wake her up to go BEFORE YOU ARE LATE AGAIN and you coo to her about putting her shoes on then getting the treat BEFORE YOU ARE LATE AGAIN and you hand it to her and take her hand, whisking her out the door BEFORE YOU ARE LATE AGAIN…

If you give a two year old a cookie,
or half a donut,
or a liquorish,
you just might make it on time but don’t sweat it if she screams all the way home about being thirsty and wanting another said cookie, donut or liquorish.

With my head down in shame
I confess this is where I am at
in order to make it through another school day…

TTFN

Heating Up!

Oh is it hot today!
We got out early this morning to draw on the drive way but got chased into the house in no time, thanks to a relentlessly hot sun.As much as I love to wear summer dresses and enjoy warmer weather I am always amazed at how cruel our provinces heat can be!
We have spent the day running a cloth under cold water and wearing them on our necks to keep cool in the house and it isn’t even noon!
I have a feeling we will be having salad for supper since by then it will be hot enough in the kitchen to cook eggs on the counter top!
I wish I handled heat better but I start feeling sick pretty quick… I have spent so many summer afternoons hiding in my basement till evening. So many summer nights blowing a fan out one window to suck in mildly cooler wind in the others…
Well I am going to drink a bunch more home-made ice tea and then chew on the ice… yes I am one of those ladies who eats ice… I just can’t help it!
TTFN