warm woollies of the week

Life happens. Plans are spoiled. Things break. We all have bad
hair days. We certainly don't have to go searching for the negative
in this world of ours. So, in the spirit of considering life's simple
pleasures, and ac-cent-tchu-ating the positive, here at the manor,
these are a few of my warm woolly delights from this past week.
Hope a woolly one is in store for you, as well, my friends.

1. My daughter's operatic laugh wafting through the phone.

2. The three peaceful doe who come in the late afternoon, to nibble
the pretzels I leave on top of the snow.

3. Homemade fries with a huge puddle of ketchup. (Do you crave
them in the winter like I do?)

4. The delightful southern accent of my dear friend FireLight.

5. Wet gloves drying on the radiator.

6. The warm clean scent of a stack of freshly folded white towels.

7. Being hypnotized by flames of the fire, until the warm red coals
lull me to sleep.
.
8. The softness of my favorite brown wool shawl around my
shoulders, like the hug of an old friend.

9. The luminous pools of Omar Sharif's eyes in Doctor Zhivago.

10. Sonnet number III from Sonnets from an Ungrafted Tree, by
my good friend, Edna St. Vee. (That's Edna St. Vincent Millay, by

the way.)


She filled her arms with wood, and set her chin
Forward, to hold the highest stick in place,
No less afraid than she had always been
Of spiders up her arms and on her face,
But too impatient for a careful search
Or a less heavy loading, from the heap
Selecting hastily small sticks of birch,
For their curled bark, that instantly will leap
Into a blaze, nor thinking to return
Some day, distracted, as of old, to find
Smooth, heavy, round, green logs with a wet, gray rind
Only, and knotty chunks that will not burn,
(That day when dust is on the wood-box floor,
And some old catalogue, and a brown, shriveled apple core).



photos: my feet in woolly socks, doe at the manor, fireplace at

Willow Manor, Omar Sharif on my TV