My daughter and I put this nativity set together but I glued Joseph's face on upside down

When I look to God I see genuine committment, love beyond reason and grace I cannot comprehend. I thank God for providing for my daughter and I so that I can be a stay at home mom for even though I work to sustain us I am able to bring my daughter with me. Although we appear to be alone we are not for He is with us. "For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to bring you good not harm." Jeremiah 29:11 "He will sustain you." Psalm 55:22
"As your days so shall your strength be." Deut. 33:25 I love you Jesus. Thank you for your loving care. Happy birthday! And thank you reader for reading my blog. We are leaving the island and will be back in a few months.
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The finished hat

Now it is time for mending. Last night Babygirl woke up at 2:45am. We lay there together eating chips and she was drinking from her sippycup. Then in the near black night she put her face close to mine and said hi and then she burped. I laughed and then she laughed to.

The hat that is no more and the hat with a hole (same yarn)

I got this gorgeous mohair and silk blend that I'm knitting a winter hat for Babygirl. I found a cute pattern with "ears" in one of my vintage books. The pattern itself was of little use as it was only written for 6-12 month olds, the gauge was wrong for my yarn/needles that I wanted to use and it had a button closure. (I prefer ties. A button closure is more likely to stretch.) I threw all caution to the wind and cast on and got started. This is my idea of risk taking. By the fifth night I knew it was to small and I should have done a gauge and I was singing the baby blues. I pulled it out and started again with the correct amount of stitches. Mediocrity is never acceptable when you haven't done your best. The hat was coming along nicely until last night. A spark flew off my match when I was lighting a candle and landed in the centre of the hat. Before I could throw my cup of tea on it I smelled burnt wool. I pulled it back just past the hole. Misfortune is not an excuse to give up on perfection.

Sleep

Babygirl is night weaned. It went smoothly. No crying, little fussing, and no sleep. In fact last night was the first one in months that while I woke up several times briefly it wasn't long enough to make me get up. And it was this morning that I noticed that for the past several months I have been washing my hair twice with shampoo.....Still there is one feeding left - bedtime- but I'm taking a break and we will enjoy the last bit of breastfeeding a little longer.

Ripple Afghan

This afghan is a gift. Knitting it took forever but it went perfectly. I never broke or lost a needle. I never ran out of yarn. Never spilled my tea on it or missed a row in a pattern repeat. Nothing went wrong. And even the day I completed it and took it outside the cabin to photograph the lighting was perfect.

The night

The elderberry leaves fell today. The lime yellow leaves tinged with green covered the gravel path from the gate to the covered porch. Life like leaves last only a season. An island friend passed away.....As I write this Babygirl is sleeping and I am sitting at my desk with my battery led Lamp. A beeswax candle burns brightly nearby on a shelf. I don't mind not having electricity. It encourages me to rest and contemplate. On the coast winter nights are dark as the sky is obscured by clouds. Last night it cleared off and the moon shone through the curtainless windows. It woke me up and then I drifted back to sleep content to imagine the great beauty of the forest beyond the window.

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The silence

is beautiful. I sit at the kitchen table looking out at the bare armed maple tree. Rust coloured leaves adorn young evergreens and sword ferns. As I write this it's plus five and raining lightly. I don't feel inclined to be outside anymore. After insulating the loft and even with the stove burning interminately during the day it is enough to keep Babygirls hands warm. Still it's nice to go outside just a little. The other day I went out walking with an island friend I hadn't seen since spring. When we were first reunited in the whirlwind of joy Babygirl dropped her sippycup and by the time I noticed and retraced our steps it had been blasted into a million pieces under a tire. Probably by another friend who had gone to rescue my friend whose truck had run out of gas on her way home when the fuel gauge quit working. As for the sippycup when you are 42.00 dollars from town and half a days worth of time you try not to be careless and make errors like this. Babygirl is drinking from a cup albeit messily but life is messy. Why do we expect life to be perfect? Is this a reflection of the selfishness of the human heart? Is it sometimes necessary to change our expectations? Is the spiderweb so beautiful because we know how ugly the spider is?