Lately the world has been too much with me and in a desperate desire to find tranquility of mind and spirit, I'm pulling back my involvement in social media to a comfortable level. As a small part of this I'm suspending comments at both my blogs and, for an as yet undetermined time, will be posting only as a personal journal of my thoughts and interests.
[Tuppy thinks to herself] Seventy-seven. What had happened to the years? Old age seemed to have taken her unaware and totally unprepared. Tuppy Armstrong was not old. Other people were old, like one's own grandmother, or characters in books. She thought of Lucilla Eliot, in The Herb of Grace. The epitome, one would have thought, of a perfect matriarch.
from Under Gemini by Rosamunde Pilcher
I am now the same age as Tuppy and am examining how I want to spend the energy and hours I may have left. We live in unsettled times, to put it mildly, and owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to weigh how we want to spend precious time that will not always be there.
One thing I don't want to spend my hours on anymore is elevated stress following the political story of the day on Facebook, or, God forbid, ever again participating in what Mrs. Minerva called, "tedious and unprofitable discussion...clear from the outset that neither side was going to budge an inch."
Good grief, how such discussions drain one!
Tuppy refers to Lucilla Eliot as truly old and maybe I am too because I agree with Lucilla in one of my favorite books, The Herb of Grace (American title: Pilgrim's Inn):
Lucilla knew always...that it was homemaking that mattered. Every home was a brick in the great wall of decent living that men erected over and over again as a bulwark against the perpetual flooding in of evil. But women made the bricks, and the durableness of each civilization depended upon their quality, and it was no good weakening oneself for the brick-making by thinking too much about the flood.
Elizabeth Goudge's The Herb of Grace/Pilgrim's Inn
I've come to realize that in this stage of my life I need to be careful to redeem the time (Ephesians 5:16). I will still try to see what's happening in my dear blog friends' lives during R & R time, how could I not? But I thought it only fair to warn you that I'm closing comments at both blogs in case you don't want to bother reading.
In order to have a few pictures here I'm including a recipe for one of my favorite seasonings, Quatre épices from James Beard's Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles. Note my own new truffle pig in the pictures!
Mix together 1 1/8 cups ground white pepper, 3 1/2 tablespoons ground nutmeg, 3 1/2 tablespoons ground ginger, and 1 1/2 tablespoons ground cloves.
Keep tightly sealed.
Use with roasted and braised meats, stews, soups, sweet potatoes, gingersnaps or whatever your heart desires, because James would.
Sending love and kisses to you! God bless and keep you!
Dewena
Do not be afraid, stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today...The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.
Exodus 14:13-14
