Early Morning Still Life

Here's a photo I took sometime last week. I was up early that day, and some weak winter sunshine made it all the way through the living room and into the kitchen (there is no kitchen window), and it was so cheery that I felt compelled to record the moment. I love the yellowy colors here, and all the various fabulous shapes of the utensils.

Valentine Hearts

This year I continued my years-long (at least a decade) tradition of making lots and lots of woven paper hearts for Valentine's Day. I've done various things with the hearts over the years, but this year I ended up using them in garlands and to make "fortune cookies" with.

Here's a pile of the hearts I made.


Here's the garland I made in "Valentiny" colors. I don't think I'd ever made a garland of any sort before, and this one was for a swap on Swap-bot. I ended up making several more and giving them away to others, too. I can see myself making different sorts of garlands in the future, as they are fun and not too tedious to make, and fabulously decorative (lots of bang for the buck).


The citrus-toned garland


And the Indianapolis Colts garland


I also found some nice quotes and printed them onto little slips of paper to put inside some of the hearts, kind of like a fortune cookie.

Then, for a couple of days before Valentine's, I would leave one or more hearts in miscellaeous places wherever I would go -- stores, church, doctor's office, etc. It was great fun!

The quotes I used in these "fortune cookie hearts" are the following:

Love is like wildflowers: it is often found in the most unlikely places.

We cannot do great things; only small things with great love.
~ Mother Teresa of Calcutta

To love a person is to learn the song that is in their heart, and to sing it to them when they have forgotten.

The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
~William Wordsworth

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
~Rumi

Forever will little opportunities to love daily drop into our hands to abundantly satisfy the question, "Lord, what will you have me do?"

Zentangles

Awhile back I heard/read about zentangles, and I've been trying my hand at creating them during the last several days. I've found them to be quite engrossing. An ATC swap for "zentangle newbies" on Swap-bot was just the motivation I needed to start doing these.

Here are the two zentangle ATCs created for that swap and which I mailed out to my partners today. Each one is going to a different person, so this photo is probably the only place they will ever be seen side by side. Kind of like twin babies, these two were created at the same time and with very similar features, but were intended to be individuals. Will they perhaps feel a mystical connection to each other, regardless of where each travels in the world? lol

Below is a zentangle bookmark I created for another swap, and which I will have to mail out in a couple of days. I really, really like this and am loathe to give it up, but I know it is good for me to do so. I guess I'll have to make more!

One side of bookmark:



Other side of bookmark:

If you are unfamiliar with Zentangles, this site will tell you about them.

And I recommend this video regardless of whether or not you are interested in zentangles; it's just delightful to watch and listen to.

Four Magi

The other night the hubby and I watched The Fourth Wise Man. This 1985 made-for-tv movie starring Martin Sheen and Alan Arkin is based on the short story called The Other Wise Man by Henry van Dyke.


It tells the tale of a supposed 4th member of the magi, one who was never quite able to make it to the manger to adore the new king. He continues to search for Him for many years and ... well, I won't say any more so as not to spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet, but suffice it to say that it holds one's interest.

I don't remember the first time I saw this movie, but I do know that it was on Mexican television and dubbed into Spanish. Mush have been sometime in the 90s. I've seen it again a few times since then, stumbling across it on television around Christmastime or Epiphany, which is still celebrated in Latin America. I'd always yearned to watch the film commercial-free, and since the local library did not have it available, about a month ago I broke down and just bought my own copy off Amazon. Now it's one movie in our slowly-growing set of "keeper" dvds.

This story never fails to move me all the way to blubbery tears. Each time I see it, I notice more details, more references to other Bible characters and ideas. Yes, the sets and wardrobe -- and even the acting, sometimes, despite the stellar cast -- can be awfully cheesy. Oddly, though, even the unplanned comic relief provided by the cheesiness doesn't take away from the depth of the story. Here is a man with his eye always on his mission (actually, his vocation) who, nevertheless, is compassionate enough to take a detour from what he thinks is his path in order to help others who need him. While it seems quite obvious to those of us already steeped in New Testament thought, the protaganist does not realize that it is precisely by taking these detours that he is actually accomplishing his mission.

Martin Sheen's last line in this movie is one that I'd love to be able to say one day: at the end of his character's lift, he turns to his faithful friend and says,

"I have seen the Lord, and He has accepted all of my gifts."

.

One could ask for no more than that.

.