Cultivate beauty and wisdom in and around you

What a beautiful morning! I know many of you will be stuck because of  ice or snow or cold, but it is pretty. The other day this is what my car window looked like: Even when the ice crystals melted, I could still see their outlines a couple of days later. Nature is a marvelous thing. This morning on my front porch I noticed that even though it is so cold, little shoots are coming up. The hummingbirds have been happy to find nectar and so many birds have been feasting in our backyard. I am so sorry that my picture of all the snowmen that we made yesterday didn't turn out. My fault. We had a good time making them, maybe if you would share pictures of your finished ones, I can include them next time. Each month we are making some primitive pin cushions. You may want to join in the fun.  This and the next picture are the extent of my Christmas decorating! We had a new couch and two chairs delivered yesterday! That is decorating enough. ...

Last Friday instead of going shopping at all the big stores, we decided to go out towards Silverton to visit a couple of wineries and to see where our granddaughter works. We stopped at Abiqua vineyards   http://www.abiquawind.com/ This is one that we particularly liked! If you are out that way you might enjoy stopping by. The day was cloudy and cool and the view wasn't quite as good as a sunny day would be. We stopped at another place for wine tasting, but since we didn't enjoy it very much, I won't mention the name! We then went into Silverton. Sylvia has her first real job and we wanted to see where she works. It is a lot bigger than I thought and she was pretty busy. It is a very eclectic shop and has things for little ones, books and clothes and then shiny things for tweens  and also cashmere scarves. I was very surprised to find this large, fun shop in Silverton. We found several things for Christmas gifts. We also got to see the a...