Breath of Fresh Air

Points to ponder:
If you find that you can only visit your blog once a year...what does that mean?
If you find that it seems to be November when you are drawn to post...what does that mean?
If you decide to start a blog named Refresh & Renew and find that you do nothing related to this title in two years...should you a) change your life situation  or  b) change your blog name?  :o)

Facts: ....

Essence of Christmas......

For everything there is a season....wise king Solomon tells us in Ecclesiates.  It has been almost a year since I last "blogged".  Simply too much going on in life to tackle anything new or creative.   Downtime.  It was thrust upon me.   I fought it for the better part of the year.  Wondering why I couldn't "do" all the things I normally feel drawn to...

Simple Food Pleasures

Sometimes in life we don't realize how the simplest gesture can make the most lasting impression.

who knew this canned item would be a luxury?

Comfort and Joy

The desert air....very refreshing...

I have not posted for a while only because moving has pretty much taken our lives and shaken them up like a hamster's cage turned upside down. 
There has simply been little time for the luxury of writing .....which I have longed for.
However, with the Christmas break upon us....there has been a sense of finally being able to come up for air....ahhh...and that air is fresh and crisp and the sky is the deepest shade of azure blue I have seen in a long time.  The last three months of "rest" have had an amazing energizing effect for all of us.  It is exciting to begin to feel like home is now where we are, and not what we left behind.

Broken Mercury Glass ornaments...a casualty of the move...

Part of the reason getting settled into our new home has been a challenge is because most of our furniture was damaged in our move, and most of our things are still in boxes as we look for a home to buy and don't want to unpack completely yet.  So, as we got out some of our Christmas items, serveyed the damage...(I lost some of my favorite mercury glass ornaments...), we could not locate the box with our favorite stockings to hang by the fire with care.....my littlest one, Haley, was very concerned as where would Santa put the stocking stuffers???

I really liked my old stockings which are a variety of cream colors, that go with my decor of whites and crackled creams around the house.  So I didn't want to just buy any ol' stocking and spend $15 each for them.  

Hand made stockings hung by the fire with care...

So for Christmas Eve day, the girls and I sewed two stockings out of some old linen fabric from a previous project, and some ribbons that were recycled off of older presents.  Not only were they easy to make...I think they turned out adorable!!
The girls love them too, and they are plenty big for all the fun stocking stuffers to come tomorrow morning!

Here is a photo of the finished product....
I simply took a piece of plain newspaper packing material and traced a large "pattern".  I then cut out the linen cloth...sewed together....and added a topper and some ribbons.  I also hotglued the black rick-rack around the top.  They aren't perfect, but they do the trick!

Merry Special Christmas Memories to you all!

The smell of new pencils

Nothing feels like "new" more than the first day of school.  New books, new shoes, a crisp new backpack, a spiral notebook that is shiny and unscathed.  A new school year brings with it new friends and new experiences. A huge blank slate just begging to be filled with colorful exhibits and sketches of so many unknowns.  It is all so scary and exciting at the same time...

A sense of space....

When you are in a car for hours at a time you become aware of space in a new way...

To travel across the country it took our family of four a moving truck,

 a car transport, and a car that pulled a u-haul.

The long open road....

happiness is....a good friend and a good cup of coffee

a good friend refreshes the soul....