Bellyaching, Books, Bottling and Blocks...

Currently Reading: Tasha Tudor’s Heirloom Crafts by Tovah Martin and photography by RichardBrown.

Bellyaching:
I am not feeling too well these days. My upper left wisdom tooth is on it’s way out, and is wrecking havoc on my mouth in the process. Pain is radiating from the tooth area down to my tongue and to the bottom of my jaw also. It hurts to open my mouth up more than a crack-and eating. Well. Eating is a chore. On the bright side is the fact that I can unapologetically make myself fruit smoothies (fruit, milk, vanilla, ice cubes, etc.) and I even got a tiny thing of sherbert. ‘Cold’ and ‘Hot’ seem to make it feel better, at least while the cold or hot things are in my mouth.

I have also noticed that my body is giving out on me more this pregnancy. I have dealt with several pulled muscles, leg cramps and spasms and for the past few weeks lower back/right side hip pain has convinced me to shy away from stairs and other unnecessary walking. Thankfully, though the sharp hip pains are terribly painful and debilitating, they come and go pretty quickly. I can have it for a day and then not get it again for a few days. I am not sure what it is that ails me-but it is making me feel like an old woman-and walk like one too! And yet-this afternoon, because my hip was bothering me, I was able to sit on the couch and read the above book without feeling the slightest bit of guilt for being lazy.

BOOKS:
I am really enjoying the book and the photographs. Yet, while I read, I am absolutely astonished at the constant vigor and all-consuming projects she willingly takes on each and every day. Because she enjoys it. I mean-WOW. She has a stamina in her ‘aged and frail’ state that I have NEVER had or probably will have. The book covers so many topics of interest to me-cooking, gardening, canning, cider making, soap and candle making, herbs, dried flowers, flax, wool, dying, weaving, linen, basketry, woodworking, pottery, quilting, sewing., lace-making, toys, dollhouses and the list goes on! She makes linen from flax, sheers sheep for wool-then dyes it, spins it, and uses it to make beautiful things. Cuts trees to get the wood soaking for basketry. Interestingly, there is no topic on watercolors (as you may know, she is a children’s author and illustrator) which was her ‘profession’. The photography is beautiful, too. I am always delighted to find and read books that cover the vast spectrum of duties people once had, the thriftiness and great ability to make use of every piece of everything that they did, and the value in all their work.. (A great children’s story that is very much that way is The Ox-Cart Man, one of my very favorite books. It was introduced to me when Linda brought out the children’s books she had and there it was-signed ‘For Matt Love Grandma and Grandpa. 1981’)

Corynn has a book by Tasha Tudor called A TIME TO KEEP. In it, each month is given proper due as she reminisces the activities she would do as a child within each month. In January, she writes of “January sixth-that’s twelfth night-the children took out the four goat sleighs and had races. It was great fun. There was a prize for the winner. In the evening everyone dressed up and played charades.”
My personal favorite though, would probably have to be…June. “Midsummer’s Eve comes in June. That’s when we had a marionette show. There were many, many rehearsals-marionettes to make, scenery to paint, and programs to print and color. The play was at night in the carriage shed. Grandmothers got the very best balcony seats Refreshments were served at the intermission and everyone had a wonderful time.” Now-who ever heard of such a thing today? I remember going all out with things like that as a child, but forgive me for the pointed opinion-but it seems most children today don’t even know how to entertain themselves, let alone a large gathering of people! And the artistry of many of today’s kids lacks tremendously in patience and vision. Well worth mentioning, however, is T.T’s portrayal of August and the coming of her mother’s birthday. A magical time where they had a party in the woods and floated the birthday cake down the river. Can you imagine floating a birthday cake down a river? What a lovely idea! Of course, if I were to do that today-the only ‘river’ Candor holds is the ‘River Dumb’.

Bottling:
Last night, Dave came over and helped Matt bottle up the cider. While Dave was the ‘pourer’ and Matt was the ‘capper’, I was just the ‘bottle-handler over’ and of course-photo historian’. I was glad they let me do something though. I love to be around when Matt is working on his projects. To see pictures of the process, you can check his blog here. Within the next few days, I am sure he will posting the pictures. He was so excited last night, I am willing to bet it will be this afternoon when he returns from work.

Blocks:
Finally and best of all…. (worst for first, best for last was a chant I would always say to my friend Josh when he would always insist on being FIRST with everything) Yesterday in the mail, I received my very first quilt block and was SO pleased with it, I am going post it’s picture here on my blog. If any of you missed the post I made and therefore, don’t understand what is going on. Check here. It is a quilt block exchange. Since I got my first one. I need to start working on making one to send out. I hope to make a different one for each person sending me one-thus giving me lots of practice making different designs and maybe finding some I really like. And while I make one for the individual person, I will make the same one for myself, since I am not going to have nearly enough blocks to make the top just from ones people have sent (which I didn’t anticipate anyway.) Anyway. The block I received was from Mrs. Johnson and has little red buttons sewn on the tree for apples and a little green button on the handle of the door. I couldn’t be more pleased. Even Matt was excited for me (he originally thought my idea was dumb.) So anyway. In the coming months you will be seeing more photo’s of quilt blocks that I receive and that I make-hope you don’t get bored but just LOOKING at quilt blocks gets me all excited! :-)