Wreaths and Bunting and Thanks

Hello friends.

I've been learning new skills.

Wreath making skills.

After looking around at MANY stores I couldn't find anything that was quite "me" or a very good price. I already had the pretty flowers on hand from my fall decor so I reused and recycled and came up with this bit of loveliness to greet all who enter... or come up on my steps to find a "no soliciting" sign. I love it and it cost a total of about 5 dollars. 

Score and score again.

My other project was this 4 yards of lumber jack bunting. It was SO easy to make - just hundreds of knot tying in the end. I put on a show and made myself a cup of tea and got to tying!

Just take a piece of twine (the length you would like your bunting to be), cut strips of burlp and strips of fabric...and start tying the strips on to the twine. I alternated between the burlap and the flannel. Easy Peasy.

I generally don't decorate for Christmas quite this early but what's the harm of a little extra cheer?

Along with the crafting I've still been doing our homeschooling mornings and also a huge home purge. As in...going through every drawer and nook and crevice of our home and either selling or giving away what we don't use. I've been laying aside keepsakes and sticking photos in albumns - trying to simply simplify as much as possible. 

I have been blessed to find a local online women's group that sell things from home. You can put a picture up of something you aren't using, a yard sale price...and whoever "wins" can come pick up at your house. What's really fun is the ability to just leave a bag of some nonsense never used on your front step, come home and find it gone and a few bucks under your door mat. 

I do love a homey home. I'm realizing though that clutter doesn't necessarily make a place homey. 

For me, beautiful earthy scents and fabrics and handmade goodness is what makes me feel most at peace. Also - clean surfaces. Don't every underestimate a clean surface. 

It's just my Christmas way. I think I do this every year at this time...

maybe it's seeing all of the new stuff at stores and the consumerism that overwhelms my brain.

Also, a confession :

The Christmas Carol Pandora radio station has been on full blast for 2 straight days.

I'm excited this year for Christmas. 

It's been a long time since I've felt this way.

I'm not sure if it's our new home, or the kids being older and them really enjoying our family traditions and giving, or if it's my ever growing love for the Christ child. 

Whatever it is... it feels really good. 

Why not start celebrating His birth in the season of thanks? 

Have a lovely day friends. 

Birches

Birches

Related Poem Content Details

BY ROBERT FROST

When I see birches bend to left and right 

Across the lines of straighter darker trees, 

I like to think some boy's been swinging them. 

But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay 

As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them 

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning 

After a rain. They click upon themselves 

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored 

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. 

Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells 

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust— 

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away 

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. 

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, 

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed 

So low for long, they never right themselves: 

You may see their trunks arching in the woods 

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground 

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair 

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. 

But I was going to say when Truth broke in 

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm 

I should prefer to have some boy bend them 

As he went out and in to fetch the cows— 

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, 

Whose only play was what he found himself, 

Summer or winter, and could play alone. 

One by one he subdued his father's trees 

By riding them down over and over again 

Until he took the stiffness out of them, 

And not one but hung limp, not one was left 

For him to conquer. He learned all there was 

To learn about not launching out too soon 

And so not carrying the tree away 

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise 

To the top branches, climbing carefully 

With the same pains you use to fill a cup 

Up to the brim, and even above the brim. 

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, 

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches. 

And so I dream of going back to be. 

It's when I'm weary of considerations, 

And life is too much like a pathless wood 

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs 

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping 

From a twig's having lashed across it open. 

I'd like to get away from earth awhile 

And then come back to it and begin over. 

May no fate willfully misunderstand me 

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away 

Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: 

I don't know where it's likely to go better. 

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, 

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk 

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, 

But dipped its top and set me down again. 

That would be good both going and coming back. 

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.