An End - And A New Beginning

We've been quiet for a while.  It's not that there hasn't been plenty going on.  For a time, I decided to forego the blog to make time for another writing project I've been working on.  Well...as it just so happens, I don't think it's the blog that's taking up my time.  Also, there are so many times I've thought "I need to blog this or that".  This blog has a life of its own.  Even for me -- at the very least it's an archive of me and my family.  Recipes, moments, good times, food, food, food....  well.....

At any rate, a chapter closed this past week with the passing of Big Steve's dad.  He had been quite ill for some many months.  Even so, it's so hard to say goodbye.  Once again today (as has been his habit for the past several months), Steve ran the course of the NYS Thruway on his way home from his parents' house, and this time, he brought a remembrance.  So I took a picture:

Some cards and well wishes, along with some really fragrant flowers from a memorial service.  My own plants add a bit of symmetry.  This is a remembrance of someone whose art was much too far-reaching for me to even try to represent in this blog.  This is our dining room right now.

So on to the kitchen, and what greeted me this afternoon as I passed through.  I'm torn between being sorry that it bloomed so early, and will be gone by Christmas, and then the beauty of it flows through me, and God's beauty knows no human season.  I was so overcome by its glory, I hope this digital photograph shows something of the newness of life that I felt.

If I was a real photographer, I would have staged it with proper lighting, etc.  But then it wouldn't have projected exactly the simple, yet exquisite beauty that I enjoyed while entering my kitchen this afternoon.

At any rate, I guess I'm back to blogging.  Thank you so much to everyone who has inquired where we've been and fear not, Christmas baking and merry-making is in our immediate blogging future.

Thanks so much each and every one of you who has stuck by us this far.  It humbles us to realize what an effect this silly, simple little blog has on people.  Thanks again.