Happy Fall!

Early each Fall, as early as late August even, you can find me sitting on my knees,

crawling on my belly or lying flat with my nose almost touching the moist soil. The reason? Toadstools!
Ever since I was a child I have been mesmerised by Fungi.

Each year at school we studied them. When I was teaching, I made loads of mushroom lessons each Fall. And did excursions to look for them. Hunting for books about them to look at their pictures.

I'm not one to know each and every one by name, I only know a few.

It's not their name but their appearance enchants me. Their colours, habitat, their smell - everything!

I loved to draw them, paint them and take pictures of them.

I long to capture their beauty and share it with whomever shares my love for them.

Maybe even by looking at my photo someone also becomes a toadstool lover...

Even though I have lots of photo's already, each new fall I treasure my latest pictures.

Each year I get that creative ghust to work with them, create stationery, postcards, little tags -whatever comes to mind- as if they were my very first captures.

This fall I have decided to share my love for this particular type of toadstool in writing for a change.

Its official name is the 'Amanita muscaria'. It is quite common in our Dutch lowlands and loves to associate with birch trees, beeches, oaks, firs and chestnut trees. You should not eat it, as it is poisonous. Not lethal for people, but for small animals, like a dog for instance, it might be fatal.

Lethal though it may be, to me its beauty is ever lasting and nothing can distract me from it.
Or it should be the discovery of 'new' mushrooms to study...

o* o *o

Feline Spring Theatre

Spring is here and it shows. Not only through the welcoming vase of yellow Dutch tulips. But we finally have beautiful Spring weather. It revives all of us. And especially our furry friends. Our tom cat Joost is enjoying the view from the little window. Both our kitties love this little corner in our living room. We call it 'the Theatre'. And it's free for Mimi and Joost. Either one of them always makes sure to have a seat in the front row to watch the show. Each day. Every minute of the day. Come rain or shine. Whether it is hot or cold. Sometimes we just can't refuse them. Then we are summoned loudly to 'open the Theatre'. This means either one of has to get up and open the window. It has metalized gauze installed inside of it so they can't jump out. Otherwise they would get onto the stage and cause havoc there. Or disappear altogether.

At other times we just have to refuse to open it as it would get way too cold inside our living room.

Mimi and Joost don't mind the cold, but I noticed that Joost starts to sneeze if he sits in front of a damp or windy Theater too long.

Our Theatre has a Time Share system: Mimi loves it early in the morning and late at night. Joost visits it at all hours of the day.

After Joost joined our household just after Christmas It took Mimi a while before she had conjured up enough courage to reclaim her seat in front of the little corner window. But she's back now. With more enthusiasm than before :0)

She follows what's happening outside with great zest. She starts in front of the bedroom window and then continues the show here. Depending on the moves her feathered actors make she moves back and forth. It keeps her agile and lean.

Joost is different. He just sits and enjoys whoever is starring the show and only leaves when he feels like taking a nap or when it's Restaurant time. Which -for him- can be any time of the day.

At night when my husband or I take the dog out we see our cats' lovely faces framed and back-lighted. Beautiful and so endearing. Mimi meows to us. Joost only looks at us with his wise old eyes. There is an age difference of 10 years between them -Joost being the nestor of the two.

We hope they will share the Theater side by side one day -who knows?

= ^~^ = = ^~^ =

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Tear in a nursing home

I weep
for the tear in the nursing home
for the frail figure in the large bed
her mind confused
lost in space
floating in timelessness.

Her body crippled by a fall
all the way down to the floor
slipping out of her own worn out shoes
-oh how often did we not warn her?

a shattered bone
a broken hip
an ambulance
hospital
then surgery
X-rays
oxygen
meds
a bed.

Later

High up
on the top hospital floor
lost in a view
in a wheelchair
eyes staring into
nothingness
oh could she float away
like this
to her mother
husband
daughter...
oh could she
only...

sweet forgetfulness
sweet mind that does not remember
and medication
helps
not to feel the pain

then suddenly
a glimpse of light
her mind protests:
what is she doing here?
what happened?
why to her?
is this the truth?
Her truth?

Denial
Suffering
and
then
sinking away in
oblivion
sweet forgetfulness
sweet
dreams
of dementia...

and falling softly
again
into our loving care
this small frail tear
in the nursing home
close by

so like my mother
and so un-like her

my heart weeps for her
tear in a nursing home

.
.
.
.

(c)Karin*CatMar 3-3-2010 - present

Santa Express

We're slowly sliding into the Christmas atmosphere with beautiful Christmas weather! A lovely white blanket of snow and nice and sunny weather. With a nice frost during the day: -9 degrees Celcius. It was rather cold though last night: minus 15, even! We were staying at the caravan and even though we had a nice temperature indoors, the shower did not work 'cause one of the waterpipes was frozen. No problem, an old fashioned start of the day at the wash basin was fine too!

I'm looking forward to Christmas later this week. I'm almost ready, just a few bits and pieces to arrange...
I hope you are too and I'm wishing you a great Holiday Season!

Hugs,
Karin




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Advent musings...

Last year I wrote an Advent poem. I would like to share it with you all as my feelings are exactly the same now. My heart wells up with the love and light and peace and brightness of the Season. So have a look at:

http://www.wynkar.net/christmas/cm-christmasthoughts.htm

How time flies

I can't imagine so much time has passed since my last blog. And so much has happened! I've been busy from the very early morning until late at night. You can't imagine how we've had to work around our disabilities. But we did. We can still create our lives and I'm grateful for all the people and all the angels that have helped us finishing our great project. We hope the coming weeks, months and years will prove that we made the right decision. And that we have the strength and wisdom and blessings to create and bless the new life form we have chosen together.

The holidays are coming... I am in the Holiday Mood already. And thus have started creating, and will probably continue to create and create... Right up until Christmas, I'm sure...

Our tree is up, but not decorated yet. The real holiday spirit will start this Sunday - I will find the Advent circle and set it up to light the first candle of this year.

In the mean time I hope to create some Christmas Stationery and upload it for you all to enjoy.

Here's a little sample of a tag I made...

If you would like to view my Christmas stationeries click here

Will see you again, soon, I promise :0)

Hugs,
Karin

Summer's farewell..

Just another day or two and we say good-bye to Summer. I still try to hold on to the greens, flowers, weather and smells of this year's lovely Summer. To illustrate this I am going to show you some photos that express this feeling best - too bad I can't let you smell or feel it, though...

I just love the shapes and colours of maize plants - seeing them grow is mesmerizing...

Our August break

We have been spending a few days in a holiday home park in Belgium. We booked a wooden triangular cottage to spend it in. But when we got there they had a lovely suprise for us: we got an upgrade to a modern, luxurious canexel type of holiday home.

We had a fantastic little place, worthy enough to spend a whole year in -even though it might cost a fortune to heat it in Winter *s*...

It had a bath tub, a dish washer, a roomy master bed room on the ground floor. A flat screen tv, a good couch for me to lie flat on, a spacious kitchen - in one word: wonderful!

My brother Gustav, whose holiday it actually was, had his own floor with two bed rooms, a sink with hot and cold water and a toilet. He loved the porch to sit on and have his breakfast. He loved it. And so did we!

During our stay at the cottage we had lovely, balmy hot weather. It was just 150 miles away from where we live, but it felt like a different place alltogether. The air smelled different, the sounds and noises (lots of them!) were different -it was a real break for us. We booked the holiday in order to provide my brother with a birthday-vacation -but in hindsight it was refreshing for us, too.

The weather

We've had a Summer that provided all kinds of weather. It was nice in June, we had a cool and rainy month of July and lovely mixed weather in August.

Enough rain to keep it green - enough sunshine to lighten up our days - nice temperatures to warm our skin and bones. Warm, hot even in August, but with a mix of cooler days to calm the senses.

Pixie

Our Maltese doggy Pixie has had a bit of trouble with the fact that it was a relatively warm season. She really needed her cooling blanket almost every day in August. Especially the nights were warm for her. Also her neck-hernia bothered her after she glissed on the slippery floor of the holiday cottage. She walked with more difficulty and sometimes lost strength in her hind legs. We took her to the vet and she had to have a cortisone shot. Poor girl. She suffers from the heat more since her shot. But she seems to be a lot better, she walks better and we detect no more loss of strength! Chapeau for our vet -and for Pup, of course!

Burglars

Just before we left for our little trip there were burglars in our apartment building. They did not visit our flat, but we saw traces of them on the balcony railing. They burglared some of our neighbours flats, leaving almost no traces. The police were puzzled about this. Money and credit cards were stolen and all of us feel like our sense of privacy and security has been violated.
No one dared to open their windows or balcony doors the first couple of weeks. We also dared not open ours to let the cool night air in. We tried to compensate this with a ventilator, but that was not enough.

I am an early riser, so as soon as it was light I opened the bedroom balcony door to let the fresh, cool morning air stream in through the insect doors.

We now installed a special security lock-handle that allows the door to open at night a little bit from the inside. It cannot be opened from the outside. That will help us get through the coming cooler seasons :0)

My plant stand

I always like to do a little gardening in my plant stand next to our front door.

In the early part of the season I had the my flowers in all shades of pink, purple and white - my favourites. But now that the season's nearing its end they have stopped blooming and withered. So I planted some of the nasturtiums that I grew early in the Spring from last year's seeds. They that are now nice and strong and are both producing flowers and seed pods... I added some nicely coloured peppers and some chrysanthemums - and here's the result.

(Click to enlarge if you wish)

So I'm all set for the next season! Good bye lovely Summer of 2009!

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