More cushions

Posted on May 29, 2012 by

A dear friend who lives in Paris gave me some fabric – black and white with the Eiffel tower on it.  I put it away for “something special”.  Last month it was my daughter Susannah’s birthday and another friend Jenny had a significant birthday.  Jenny is also a good friend with my Paris friend –   we all love fabric and making things – so I thought I would use this fabric to make a gift for Jenny and Susannah.  This picture shows the front side of the cushion and here is the flip side:

 

 

 

 

 

I had fun making them.  I found some red fabrics and black fabrics and laid them out and just went for it – quite randomly and continued to add strips until the squares were the size of the cushion insert.  If I was terribly clever, I would have inserted a zip or a velcro opening on the back so the cushion cover could be washed – but I didn’t.  I was having too much fun playing with the fabric.  It is a good way of using up strips of left over fabric.

I have a constant companion while here – my Mother’s cat Benji.  We are house minding and cat minding.  Benji loves to sit on my lap and be the centre of attention.  Often it is a fight for the chair.  I am learning to sew with a cat on my lap as it is the only way to get five minutes peace.


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On golden ponds

Posted on May 28, 2012 by


Doesn’t this look like a glorious view, to drink a cup of tea and watch the wintery sun slowly set?  This has been my view for the last week and I am still pinching my arm to make sure it is not a dream.

Our sea change year has started.  Keith is on study leave and we both have long service leave.  In fact, I won’t return to work until January 2013.  Keith is working on a number of different projects, but we are working on one together – developing our marriage “stuff” into a package that others can use.

I have other plans – I would love to devote time to writing and develop confidence that perhaps I can write – we will see.  I have many sewing projects too – different quilts that I have started.  We have brought our bikes, forgot our helmets and have many places to walk.  We have started some mornings with an early walk along the beach – cold but amazingly glorious.

We are heading off overseas in a month “Paris to Pakistan” is what I am calling our trip, but we will spend our first two and a half months in England working – mostly on our marriage material.

The only trouble is that I have brought me on this venture.  Why is this a problem?  Because I am not perfect – I still get grumpy, I still struggle to sleep, my wibbly wobbly bits still wriggle and my desire to be fit and healthy and trimmer – well, they are hard work!  However, I am counting my blessings and am filled with thankfulness for this opportunity to do some different things.

I am reflecting a great deal on 1 Corinthians 13 – the passage about love and thinking about love, what it is and how to be a person who loves.  Keith bought me a wonderful book by Phil Ryken called Loving the way Jesus Loves - it has just been published and consists of a number of reflections on this chapter.  It has challenged and stretched my thinking enormously.

I might even have the space to write more regularly on this blog!  Who knows!

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A wise Mum ‘gets’ unconditional love

Posted on April 29, 2012 by

Two of my favourite picture books that I read to my three children are Love you Forever by Robert Munsch and The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown.  I loved them for a truth they communicated about how much a mother loves her child.  In the Runaway Bunny, the little bunny wanted to run away, but his mother tells him she would run after him because “you are my little bunny”.   Continue reading →

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The Hare with Amber Eyes

Posted on April 27, 2012 by

My son Michael put this book beside my bed months ago and told me “I had to read it – Mum you will love this book”.  It sat there with many other books that “I had to read” until a good friend Jill gave me her copy of the same book and told me “I had to read it – Sarah you will love this book”.  So I did and I did love it.

The Hare with Amber Eyes is written by Edmund de Waal.  It is the story of his family going back four generations to the original Ephrussi family in the 1870s who are living in Paris.  De Waal inherited a box of 264 netsukes which are tiny Japanese wood and ivory carvings  from his great uncle Iggie, one of which is the hare with amber eyes.  None are bigger than a matchbox and they had always captured his interest and imagination.  As a child he loved holding them, touching them, putting them in his pocket and thinking about who had made such exquisite tiny objects.

De Waal has many questions about this collection – where did they come from?  who bought them?  How did they survive World War II?  so he decides to find out.

I love looking at family trees and there is one at the start of this book.  I began by gazing at it, looking at the names, dates and place names – Vienna, Odessa, Paris, Tokyo and London.  The original Ephrussi family, are Russian Jews who are wealthy and hardworking and have moved from Odessa, via Vienna to Paris.  De Waal’s  descriptions of his family and their home and city are glorious – I felt like I lived in Paris, then Vienna, Tokyo and finally England all the while learning about this amazing netsuke collection and how it moved from family member to family member and place to place.  How did a Japanese collection of carvings get bought by a Russian Jew living in Paris in the 1870s?

The family moved to Vienna in 1899 and remained there until the cusp of World War II when Hitler rounds them up – they are Jewish and they lose everything.  The story about how this collection survived when everything else of the family fortune was lost to the Nazi regime is an amazing story – it gives you goosebumps reading it.  This is a fascinating insight into the impact of the war on this particular family who had not done anything wrong really apart from being wealthy and Jewish.  One theme I found particularly interesting was how anti Jewish Paris and Vienna were – long before Hitler was around.  I have often wondered how Hitler could turn his whole country against Jews and then how so many of the French watched their Jewish neighbours vanish before their eyes and so many did so little to resist.  I often ask myself “what would I have done back then?”

Edmund De Waal is famous for his ceramics – his work is influenced by his years living in Japan.  However he is also a talented writer.  If you enjoy reading history without realising  you are reading history, this is a delightful read.  It is written beautifully, thoughtful and utterly enjoyable.  He is a tactile writer – he touches everything he writes about – and you feel like you can see what he is seeing.

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A wise Mum remembers grace

Posted on April 20, 2012 by


A number of years ago, Keith gave me a bunch of poppies.  It was not a beautiful bunch of flowers at first as it was a bunch of pods, but I put them in a vase in the middle of our kitchen table thinking to myself that I would never have chosen this particular bunch of flowers as it looked rather ugly.

Much to my surprise, this bunch of pods turned into the most spectacular bunch of flowers imaginable and it happened before our eyes.  My family would sit at the table and watch a pod “pop” and burst out of its shell and reveal a brand new flower.  I can still remember how I felt looking at this bunch of flowers, as I felt very much like the pod and desperately longed to become one of those flowers.

Being a mother of small children had exhausted me and I had few reserves remaining.  I was a Christian, and could tell you with my mouth that I was God’s precious child, but I certainly didn’t feel it inside.  I honestly didn’t think that I mattered to God at all.  Keith was working at a large church and was very busy and worked many nights and long days.  I felt like what he did was important and mattered to God.  I had invested most of my energy into being a wife and mother, but didn’t feel like I was doing a particularly good job at either and must be a profound disappointment to God.

Soon after this bunch of poppies arrived, I was asked to give a talk on grace.  God in His profound goodness, used this talk to speak to me of His grace toward me.  It was like becoming a Christian all over again and I felt like something burst inside me – I was no longer a pod but God’s beautiful flower.

A wise Mum remembers grace and knows its true every day

If you find yourself feeling like a no good, very bad Christian mother, it is good to remind yourself of the depth of God’s deep deep love for you.  A wise Mum knows that she is nothing without God’s grace.  His love for you today is the same as it was on the day you were saved.

Perhaps it is just me, but it is easy to forget that we are saved by grace.  It is not by having perfect marriages, perfect children or filling our day with good deeds – these are all good things, but our salvation is not dependent upon them.  It is easy to demand perfection of ourselves and think that this is what God demands.  But let me tell you, this will lead to a “podlike” existence and it is pretty bleak – perfection is unreachable.

If you look at Zephaniah it describes how God feels about His chosen people:  ”He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”  (3:17)  This verse tells us that God actually delights in each one of us!  Why?  Is it because we are such utterly adorable creatures?  Or is it because our children are so totally irresistible?  No –  He delights in us because He loves us just as we are.  That is one of the wonders of grace.

Fifteen years down the track from that first bunch of poppies and I still need to be reminded about grace.  Don’t you think I would have it nailed by now?  I haven’t got small children to entertain during a wet school holiday week. I am not in that same state of zombie like exhaustion.  However, I have mastered the art of forgetfulness.  It is easy to live each day as if grace is not a truth that has profound implications for how we treat others, how we see our self and the choices we make.

I have started reading Psalm 100 most mornings – in five verses the reader is reminded to be joyful, thankful and glad – why?  Because the Lord is God, He made us, we are His and He is good, his love endures for ever and his faithfulness continues through all generations.  When I remember these things about God, I remember that I am saved by this God – by grace and I am filled with much thankfulness.

 

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Cloth from the Clouds

Posted on April 17, 2012 by

“Enough is enough and not one stitch more.”  How do you teach children about contentment?  Being satisfied with what they have? Isn’t this something we all struggle with?  We see something beautiful and we want it.  I have a house filled with lovely things, cupboards filled with clothes, shelves filled with books and yet I still want more.

When I saw Cloth From the Clouds  a few weeks ago in a local bookstore I wanted it.  Seduced by the glorious cover, I wanted to buy it – so I did – pure and simple greed.  Well not quite – I have a nephew turning six, so I will give it to him as a gift, but the desire to want it was strong.

I struggled teaching this to our children – I am sure because I was not too good at modelling it.  Cloth From the Clouds by Michael Catchpool is a contemporary cautionary tale – or a story with a moral.  It is beautifully told and the illustrations by Alison Jay are scrumptious.  I just want to look at them.  They work well together.

It is a story about a boy who could weave cloth from the clouds who lived at the top of the hill.  He had been taught wisely by his mother – the thread was gold in the morning with the rising  sun, white in the afternoon and crimson in the evening.  He made enough thread to weave himself two scarves – one for his head when the sun was hot, the other a scarf to keep him warm as roasted chestnuts.

The King sees the boy’s scarf and wants one.  He demands that the boy make him a long scarf.  The boy is bold enough to respond “It would not be wise to have a long scarf made from this cloth. Your majesty does not need it.”

The ensuing story is about how the King gets his scarf and more with dire consequences for everyone else as the clouds are all used up with his demands.  ”Enough is enough and not one stitch more.”  A little boy knew this truth but the King didn’t.  The King had everything he needed and more and was driven by greed.  The trouble with greed is that it is insatiable.  I would like to think that I am satisfied with what I have but… this book certainly challenged me.  The boy in this story is wise and the little princess makes a brave decision.  A beautiful book.

 

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A wise Mum trusts in God

Posted on April 14, 2012 by

I love this photo from the State Library of NSW – I have no idea whether Florence Austral was a mother as well as being a famous singer, but this photo depicts a thoroughly domestic scene – she is making marmalade and behind her is her teapot and cups and saucers.  I have not made marmalade that often, but when I do, I look flustered and dishevelled and my entire kitchen would look like a bomb had hit it.

I wrote this post a couple of years ago on my old blog, which I am planning on closing.  I thought I would reproduce this series again, as I know that some of you who read this blog are newish Mums.

I like thinking about things slowly and mull them around in my head – so I will share a new bit every week, to give you a chance to reflect on it.   Before I became a Mum, I imagined that I would be a calm and serene mother.  I thought that I would be a perfect mother in every way – have wonderful relationships with my children, that I would have perfect children, that I would have a perfect marriage.  I didn’t think I would be working in paid employment.  I imagined that each day I would cook choc chip cookies or blueberry muffins and my children would come home from school to the aroma of these freshly baked goodies and we would sit around the table and chat peacefully about our day.
This picture couldn’t be further from the reality of my life if I tried.  I discovered that I am a far from perfect mother, I have far from perfect children and my marriage is certainly not perfect.  Most days, I could tell myself that I am a complete failure.

On reaching this dismal realisation, I started to ask the question – what does God expect of me as a Mum, as a Christian Mum?  Each of you could ask the same question.  What does God expect or demand of you as mothers – as Christian mothers?
After much thought, I came up with a few ideas of what could characterise or lives as Christian mothers.

A wise Mum trusts in God

It is so easy to be anxious about our children.  We can fill our minds with much fret – will they succeed academically?  with they be liked by others and make friends?  Will they hold onto the Christian faith?  Will they develop qualities of gentleness, kindness and goodness?  Will they go to sleep tonight and stay asleep and not awaken with a bad dream?  Will they ever stop driving me crazy?  Can we trust God with all these anxious thoughts?

A wise Mum is able to silence these silence these anxious thoughts. and have a deep firm trust in her God.  She reminds herself constantly that God is sovereign and totally trustworthy.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.”  Proverbs 3:5-6

The wise woman trusts God.  We have a wonderful picture of a wise woman in the book of Proverbs in chapter 31.  This woman is a wife and a mother.  She is the epitome of a wise woman.  The quality she is most praised for is that she is a woman who “fears the Lord”.  Why does she fear Him?  Because she knows that He is the sovereign God and completely in control of all that happens in life.  She lives her life as if this is a reality.

 A prayer:

“Loving heavenly Father, thank you for the privilege of being a mother.  Thank you for my children.  I want to thank you that you are my sovereign God and that you are totally trustworthy – I can entrust my children to your tender and loving care.  There are so many things that I want to fix and control, but I can’t.  I commit my heart to you and ask that you will help me be a Mum who simply trusts you. Thank you that you are always with me, and that you are always with my children.  Even when I feel like I have nothing to give my children, I know that you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever – I cast myself into your hands, knowing that you are holding me by my right hand and that you guide me with your counsel and that afterwards you will take me into glory.  Amen.”  (from Psalm 73:23-26.)

Photo: Florence Austral at home, Newcastle, NSW, 10 March 1953 / Sam Hood, originally uploaded by State Library of New South Wales collection.

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A little bit of quilting

Posted on April 13, 2012 by

The last couple of months have been a little crazy, leaving me little time to be creative.  My machine has sadly sat and I have looked longingly at the projects I started over summer and wondered when I would find time to return to them.  A couple of years ago I bought a jelly roll of fabrics that I loved and have been wondering what to make with it.  I have had a number of ideas.  It then dawned on me that I could make cushion covers with the multiple strips of fabric that are in the jelly roll.  I had about forty four 2 1/2 inch strips of reds, blacks, blues and creams to play with.  I laid them out on the floor and started with one red square.

Based on the traditional log cabin design, I used the reds and blacks  for one side and  soft blues and creams for the other side.  It was easy to create something beautiful.  I was able to listen to a radio interview with Margaret Throsby, while the sun streamed through the window.  It was a fun way to make a gift for a friend turning 21.
Inspired by this cushion – in fact my family were rather impressed with seeing this and we all thought it looked like it belonged in our family room, I launched on making a second cushion as a wedding gift for a friend who got married at Easter.
Susannah was a bridesmaid and told me that Jess’ favourite colour was purple.  This was a challenge, as I had very little fabric of this colour in my cupboard.  While rummaging, I found an unfinished quilt cover that Susannah started about ten years ago in mauves and white.  It was pretty, but sitting there abandoned and waiting….
I simply cut two squares the right size out of the pieced fabric and turned what should have been a quilt into a cushion cover.  
It is easy to get inspired to keep going when faced the with results of a completed project.  Johnny and I agreed that another of our friends would enjoy a cushion as a gift for her 18th birthday.  I was given the colour of pink.  This is the result:
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Dragonskin Slippers

Posted on March 28, 2012 by

My young neighbour recently turned nine.  She is a bookworm, so I visited our local bookstore to find a book for her.  As I stood in front of the shelves filled with books, and a little uncertain about what to choose, a very helpful woman asked if I needed help.  I told her I was looking for a book for a sophisticated reader, a girl, about to turn nine.  Without batting an eye, she handed me this book Dragonskin Slippers by Jessica Day George and told me she would love it.

About a week after  I had given Bella this book, there was a knock at the door.  Bella had just finished reading Dragonskin Slippers and wanted to share it with me.  She told me she had not been able to put it down, and had enjoyed the story of a young girl named Creel and her encounter with a dragon who has a passion for shoes.  As Creel has no shoes, in fact she is an abandoned orphan, cast out of home by her aunt to find her own way in life, she asks if the dragon could spare a pair.  Reluctantly, he allows her to and choose some beautiful blue slippers made from soft leather that fit perfectly.  These shoes are very special, not that Creel knows this at the time.  As Creel makes her way to the city where she hopes to find work as an embroiderer and dressmaker, she is attacked by a group of youths and rescued by another gallant dragon named Shardas.  This dragon has a passion for collecting beautiful glass.

Bella’s Mum told me later that it had been hard to get Bella to stop reading at night and then in the morning she would be reading over breakfast and not moving or getting ready for school or responding to any of her requests.  Bella finally told her mother that there was no way she could possibly hear her mother when she was sitting in a cave with a dragon!

I have just finished reading this book myself and I have to confess that I nearly missed my bus stop coming home from work I was so engrossed.  Bella and I are both excited that this is part of a series!  Indeed, I have just downloaded the second Dragonflight onto my ipad and started reading it last night.  The third is called Dragonspear.  This is the first time I have taken my ipad to bed to read a book – it feels a little weird, but I was hooked and was keen to keep reading about Creel and her friendship with Shardas, the prince Luka and Marta.

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A little light reading

Posted on March 26, 2012 by

I doubt whether many of you would choose to read this book.  You would think “this is a guide book about birds”.  Sometimes the most enjoyable reads are buried under titles  and remain undiscovered and unread.

A friend from my church who happens to be an avid bird watcher lent this to me.  I had just loaned a pile of books to her as she recovered from a nasty bout of pneumonia.  On returning some of my books, she included this one and assured me I would love it.  ”Don’t be put off by its title” she said.

Thank goodness I heeded her advice.  Nicholas Drayton is a naturalist and a storyteller and this is a delightful story that had me giggling each night.  A few times I had to hold my laughter inside while Keith lay sleeping beside me.  A Guide to the Birds of East Africa is about birds and a group of ornithologists living in Nairobi in Kenya.  And yes it is about a race between two men Mr Malik and Harry Kahn to spot the most birds over a week so they can invite the woman of their dreams  Rose Mbikwa to the annual hunt ball.  However, it is more than this – we get to know Mr Malik – he is reserved, elderly, round and  balding but what a man – he is honourable, kind and there is a hidden side that the reader discovers.  Harry Khan in comparison is a complete sleaze bag.  If you are looking for a humorous and gentle read, this is a delightful companion.

A couple of my blogging friends have written  posts detailing books they have read recently and enjoyed and I have added them to my list to read.  Bloom has written beautifully about the legacy of her father – one of which is a passion for books and reading.  She has recently read “The language of flowers” by Vanessa Diffenbaugh.  The Picket Fence has written about a children’s book she is reading to her oldest son.  The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright sounds delightful.  We belong to the same public library, so I will have to borrow it when she has finished reading it.  There are times in life when a light enjoyable book is a wonderful companion.

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