frosty beauties

Our world is frost-nipped this morning. Sugar-dusted leaves, anyone?

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roundup time

Leaf roundup

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A crowd of urban cowboys is needed to handle this devious herd!

orange

  

Don't be scared. Halloween's over. No one's going to hurt you!

(I spotted this little fellow on our walk one morning this week, hiding in a boulevard planter.)

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Thursday Challenge

Next Week: STATIONARY (Books, Journals, Pens, Calligraphy, Bookmarks, Rubber Stamps, Cards,...)

autumn

Playing in the leaves

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Thursday Challenge

Next week: DRESS UP (Costumes, Uniforms, Rain or Snow Clothing, Ceremonial clothing, Wedding Dress, Formal Clothing,...)

a break from travels to make some jam

My friend beside a giant plant (Gunnera) in her yard

On Thursday night, we stopped in at the house of my friend Satwant to pick up fruit she had offered us. We left with a box of golden-green apple pears and two small boxes of yellow damson plums.

Yesterday I began tackling the plums—soft, very sour and each with a pit that needed removing.

After washing, picking them over, and cutting out any dark soft spots, I decided to soften them in the slow cooker before pitting. A few hours on high brought them to the mash stage, but steaming hot. So I set them aside to cool till later in the evening when I began the onerous job of removing every pit.

top left: jam colander || top right: pits and pulp

bottom left: cooking || bottom right: the jam set nicely

Mom's old jam-making colander to the rescue! I can't remember the last time I used one of these, but I'm sure glad I never gave it away. I dumped the mashed plums into the hopper and after a few minutes of working the mash through the mesh, I was left with this stony, pulpy mess. I suppose I could have discarded it, but I wanted the plum skins in the finished jam. So one at a time I fished the pits out of the pulp, returning it, now pitless, to the strained mash.

I found a super-simple plum jam recipe on Mama Knows website and simplified it even more. "Yellow Plum Jam" called for lemon juice and water, both of which I omitted. But I added the amount of sugar it called for (4 1/2 cups to 6 cups of plums). I cooked the jam this morning, boiling the mixture for twenty minutes as it suggested, then I bottled and sealed it.

It was great to see that as it cooled it set up beautifully and without an added crystal or drop of artificial pectin! The finished jam is very tart but yummy! As well as a great spread for breakfast toast or waffles, I think it would work beautifully as a condiment for pork or Oriental food like egg rolls.

That was fun!

My recipe for:

Yellow Damson Plum Jam

6 cups of prepared fruit (pits removed)
4 1/2 cups of sugar.

Combine all ingredients and bring slowly to boiling, stirring occasionally till sugar dissolves. Boil briskly for 20 minutes, stirring often to prevent mixture from scorching. Pour boiling hot into sterilized jars and seal.

one step closer to a once-distant goal (#767-775 of 1000 gifts)

"What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals." ~ Zig Ziglar

My first research for Destiny's Hands (a biblical fiction about the life of the artisan Bezalel) is dated 2001. In the ten years between then and now, completing that project was on many of my New Year's Resolution and long-range plan lists. Thus you will understand my excitement when last week, I signed a contract with Word Alive Press to publish this story.

It followed the story's inclusion in the list of finalists of the 2011 Word Alive Publishing Contest. Till the contest judge read it, no one but I had laid eyes on it. I had no idea how it would do and was thrilled when it got a mention. Finishing the project to this point and actually signing a contract to get it published makes me hugely grateful and is #767 on this week's list of 1000 gifts.

768. On Wednesday I taught my last class of the fall Women By Design session. I so enjoyed the ladies and the book we studied (Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer).

769. After class Wednesday some of us went for lunch. The words of encouragement (plus someone buying my lunch) were icing on the teaching cake.

770. We're still enjoying the last bits of fall. Here leaves, blown by the wind, are caught in a hedge-top, standing up like brush bristles. 

771. A cozy house to keep us warm and dry through the rainy windy November storms.


772. Our first Christmas event of the season—a potluck with the poets. There was lots of yummy food and, for dessert, Christmas memories and poetry.

773. Yesterday's exciting football game—and the home team won!

774. Watching that game with my two favourite football fans (hubby and son).


775. My old sandwich maker. Brought it out of retirement yesterday to make some fine cheese paninis.


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If you'd like to join me and many others collecting One Thousand Gifts, please do. Some members of this gratefulness community post their gifts on blogs, while others list them in private journals. Instructions on how to join are here.

courage (#749-755 of 1000 gifts)

"Pain nourishes courage. You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you." Mary Tyler Moore

Life often goes along in ordinary ways, until something happens to jar you out of your rut of ordinariness to an appreciation of what you have. Such an event took place this week. Wednesday night we got an email from our friends, parents of our son's best boyhood friend. Their son was playing basketball when, without warning, he collapsed. His heart had stopped beating! Fortunately he was at a gym with state-of-the-art first-aid equipment. They got his heart going again with shocks, and he was transported (unconscious) to a hospital in the city where he lives.

He was slowly brought out of his coma (which by that time was medication induced) on Friday.  He is able to move, talk, think and is beginning to make a recovery, though not without many questions and some fears: Why did this happen? Will it happen again? What will the impact be on his schooling and his young family (wife and toddler)? We are all immensely grateful that he lived, and praying that all this works out for good. (Courage, dear friends, courage!) This is my gratitude item 749. for this week.

750. I love the fall decorations—like these cute scarecrows. 

751. I've made a good start to my November writing project. My goal is to write one poem a day. It's my way of tipping my hat to NaNoWriMo  and all the novel writers slaving away at their novels this month.

752. The last harvest from my garden—prunings from the currant bush that we enjoyed for another few days as a table decoration.

753. Seeing a dear writing friend at her book signing on Saturday morning.

754. Ricky's Brekkie Bowls. Yumm!

755. The beautiful carpet of fall. 

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If you'd like to join me and many others collecting One Thousand Gifts, please do. Some members of this gratefulness community post their gifts on blogs, while others list them in private journals. Instructions on how to join are here.

autumn

Autumn on the Bedford Channel, Fort Langley, B.C.

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Thursday Challenge

Next Week: TIME (Hourglass, Clock, Sundial, Calendar, Wristwatch, Old, Young, Aging,...)

soup and bread (#132-140 of 1000 gifts)

132. Colors, colors everywhere! Even the most nondescript bushes have come alive.

133.  Ballroom dancing. We're still on the foxtrot — but hubby and I are getting it together. Tonight is our third lesson.

134.  iTunes with albums at the click of a mouse, and even a little credit from a gift card. This week I bought "Level Ground," Brian Doerksen's  September 2010 release, and the beautiful single below. They are totally blessing me!

(Fernando Ortega - "Give Me Jesus")

135.  I found a gold tablecloth among the stuff Mom left behind. I didn't think the colour would go with my red walls, but after Thanksgiving, I tried it and I kind of like it. The kitchen how has a warm, autumny feel to it (plus it puts Mom back in my life in a subtle way...).

136.  These came last week. They're a thank-you from Vogue Patterns Magazine for the use of one of my poems in an upcoming issue. I think I'll need to find a seamstress for the trendy outfits. But the Christmas crafts and aprons are giving me the itch to pull out the old Kenmore.

137. A Wednesday lunch with old friends and new.

138. The Texas Rangers got into the World Series. What do I care, really, except that this fall I decided to follow baseball and they grabbed my imagination (how can they not when, with a payroll of just $55 million, they beat out the Yankees, with their payroll of $206 million).

139. Went shopping on Friday for the Christmas shoeboxes. Totally enjoy doing that, even though I dropped some serious coin (memo for next year: shop ahead during the Back-to-School sales).

 140.  The aroma surrounding me as I type this (Saturday),  of baking focaccia bread topped with Parmesan cheese to go with tonight's  main dish of leftover roasted vegetable soup (pureed carrots, turnips, onions, squash - yum!).  I love making soup and bread!

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If you'd like to join me and many others collecting One Thousand Gifts, please do. Some members of this gratefulness community post their gifts on blogs, while others list them in private journals. Instructions on how to join are here. 

golden

 

 Michaud Park in fall

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Thursday Challenge

Next Week: MESSY (Children, Rooms, Garage, Yard, Disorganized, Hair,...)

autumn lingers (#123-131 of 1000 Gifts)

123. Though I've begun wearing my winter jacket on morning walks, the days have been warming up beautifully with the afternoon temperatures most days still in the double digits. Daylight time diminishes by minutes every day, so we all know it's just a matter of time till autumn surrenders to winter. But I'm so loving this lingering of fall.

124. Maybe it's hanging around too long and confusing the plants. Caught these in bloom last week. I know - rhododendrons blooming in mid-October?! Something has its wires crossed!

125. Our washer/dryer combo broke down. And that is a gift because it broke down in a very sane way (a slow drip of water into the machine tub, and a wrecked transmission that has only just begun spewing oil when the machine goes into spin mode). We have a new one bought and scheduled for installation early this week.

126. Plus, we came home from the trip to the appliance store with a new microwave (how does that happen?).

127. This book came last week (Inscribe's 30th anniversary anthology). I feel honoured to have a couple of pieces included with so much excellent prose and poetry by fellow Canadian writers.

128. Working on the Lavender Project with my friends from Women by Design at church. Thursday night we spent two hours in Cheryl's barn, stripping dried lavender blossoms from stems. We're planning to make sachets to sell in the Christmas craft fairs. It's to raise money for the hospital stay of Ugandan girls whose faces have been mutilated by guerilla captors. Plastic surgeons have volunteered their skills to repair the damage, but each girl's hospital stay costs several thousand dollars (Gulu Project - see photo no. 5).

Lavender - many buckets like this to harvest

It's a dusty and tedious, though fragrant, job.

129. My sonny boy sold his truck!

130. A laptop, making it easy to multitask during baseball playoffs.

131. A beautiful late morning walk in White Rock yesterday, followed by a delish Greek lunch at Cosmos, followed by a nap at home. I love lazy Sundays!

White Rock Beach from Marine Drive

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If you'd like to join me and many others collecting One Thousand Gifts, please do. Some post their gifts on blogs, while others list them in private journals. Instructions on how to join are here. 

accelerating (#88-93 of 1000 gifts)

I can't believe we're already into the 20s of September. It's a good thing the fall routine doesn't kick in all at once, or I'd be overwhelmed. So far, it's a good new season, made better by attentiveness to the gifts that weave through my life:

(88) Soft fall days... everything seems mellower in autumn.

(89) The colour orange.

(90) A digital bathroom scale (Not so much! But it is keeping me on the straight and narrow — sort of).

(91) Love the almond taste of apple seeds. (Does anyone else do that — eat the centres of apple seeds?)

(92) Last week at the women's weekly program at my church, I signed up for "Experiencing God," a course taught by DVD with accompanying workbook by Henry Blackaby. I think I'm in for a growth spurt!

(93) The testimony of mature saints. Maybe that sounds weird, but I'm not sure how else to say it. On Saturday our church had a leadership training meeting and they played a DVD of a conversation between some Christian leaders that have been around for a long time (Jack Hayford, Loren Cunningham, Winkie Pratney, Lloyd Ogilvie, John Perkins, Henry Blackaby, moderated by Dave Buehring).

It was beautiful, and sweet, and made me look forward to conversations we'll have in heaven. I even found a sampler for you. Watch the clip below and be blessed! (14 minutes)


Fathers of the Faith Sampler from Fathers of the Faith on Vimeo.

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If you'd like to join me and many others collecting One Thousand Gifts, please do. Some post their gifts on blogs, while others list them in private journals. Instructions on how to join are here. 

water water everywhere!

The deluge continues. In order to get our walk in once a day we've taken to going whenever there is a break in the rain. Lately that's meant leaving the house a little closer to 7:00 (a little farther from 8:00) every morning. We're feeling like the three little pigs who had to get up earlier each morning to outsmart the wolf. Yesterday we left shortly after 7:00 and saw the sunrise - even as it continued to drizzle.

This morning it's warm, there are blue spots of sky peeking through the clouds, and the only drips you'll get are when you brush against or walk under water-laden branches.  But after it rained most of yesterday and through the night, there's water everywhere. Here are a few photos taken on our walk this morning. They will be an interesting contrast to the Nikomekl in summer, when it again becomes a trickling creek.

Last week there was water on both sides of the path and road here. Today everything's awash.

High water under the bridge that leads to Michaud Park

The bridge, above, as seen from Michaud Park

 

Looking west from Michaud Park - the Rotary path is flooded in many spots.

 

Of course the ducks are having a ball!