Laundry Line Divine

These Are A Few of My Favorite Things:
a month of cherishing

What did your Mom give you that you love?

My Mom led me to many green pastures of delight that have long become stanchions of my pleasure. She led me to many other things, for which I am grateful.

Today, I am thinking of favorite things.

Berries.

When I was a kid we spent many days of summer in Northern Wisconsin at the lake house built by my Great Grandfather Crooks on Gilas Lake. There, above the ‘Cabin’ as my sisters and I called it, grew a berry bramble that seemed to hold an endless supply of blackberries. Remember the “plunk”ing from BLUEBERRIES FOR SAL by Robert McCloskey? My sister Becky is that Sal, dark blonde hair, eating as many berries as we picked. Mom used to let us fill the lid of this blue enamel milk can we used for picking and eat those in an effort to fill the bucket along with our tummies.

I have become a berry fanatic, as close readers of the Line know already. I grow red raspberries, canes that Mom and Bob sent us years ago when we started that garden. I failed miserably at blueberries here, but we live close to blueberries in the Berkshire hills. I have a passionate relationship with Janet’s blackberry patch in Sheffield. I grow red currants and black currants only just recently. We planted 3 elderberry bushes in honor of Mom. And, there is a plenty source of local gooseberries. On the Cape, Betty and I pick beach plums, which fall in to the zone of berrywonderland for me.

Some day I want to pick cloud berries. Norway, right? Finland?

Here are berries I saw in the market in Munich.

During this month leading to the Solstice on December 21, I will be writing about a few of my favorite things that Mom instilled in me. I would love to hear about yours, things your Mom introduced you to, that you enjoy to this day. Come on, comment- I would love to hear from you.

Expect a recipe or two, as December is full of things Mom did that I love.
Like Gingerbread.

But, we shall begin slowly.

One thing at a time.

Plunk.

Love, S

Tuesday:

1. Waking up with a quiet house to write and sketch.

Rumi and the River in my sketchbook.

6. White peaches from Loveapple are in now.
7. Picking red currants with CBB.
8. Rain.
9. Dinner with KAS and our families.
10. This new addition to the Toast Archive:

Bonus Daily Happiness for Kathy Drue from your Playmate:

I just read this as I was waiting for my scanner to work. It is from a yoga magazine from which I tore this quote to use in a collage that is here on my desk:

Reflections of Inner Joy
If you make a habit of this practice, you’ll probably notice how it begins to refine your perceptions, so that over time you find yourself experiencing the life around you with much greater pleasure.

How perfect is that?
Daily Happinesses day two.
How about you?

With affection and red currants, S