Sorrow and Joy, And This Business Of Life.

You know those times when your feet don't touch the ground, when Life is too big and too fast for you to even draw breath, and everything whirls past in a flurry until whatever song it is dancing to finally runs out and you slow down to a gentle sway for a while, and so you can begin to absorb all that has just gone by.

We have been busy, with Splendid Adventures (which I will post about here soon), and crazy weather, and only a week left before we get the key to our new house, so Chaos Reigns.

And in the midst of it all, we lost a little friend. Our little furry friend, India, who was born here not even two years ago. 

Little hearts are broken.

We think it was poison, though we cannot be sure, but an awful end it was. One I am glad the children did not witness, but which I will never forget.  

This image at our bedroom window is a familiar one. I'm sure any pet owners among you know that look: 'Hey, can you let me in....so I can go back out?'
His favourite was to stand on his hind legs and pound the window, at four am, while yowling in a voice that can only be described as akin to Marge Simpson. Honestly, I actually kind of miss that!

He was the best cat. Just sweet and cuddly and friendly and chilled out, and so handsome and so fluffy you just couldn't help but love him.
And even though he drove her mad, and she loved when he went off a-wandering and she had us all to herself, his mama, Sparrow, is a little bit lost without him.

So, we are just coming out of the what if's and maybes phase, of wondering would he still be alive if we had done anything differently. But the truth of it is, sadly, I don't think so.

But let me finish this post with the Joy part of this title.

This week, Our Smallest turned six! And although I find myself looking back at pictures like the one below, of my baby, and my heart squeezes painfully with that Loss, I marvel, too, at how this little flower of ours has taken his time to reveal himself to us, and how enthralled I am by it.

For so very long it seemed as though some part of him stayed, or strayed, in some Other World, some dreamy place that he had come from. A Very New Person. A tender, sweet presence, and one we all cannot help but love, and love to be around. One who cries when trees are felled, and who asks why we are here, and the How of things, and wonders about God and volcanos and love, and dreams of dinosaurs and dragons.

And now, as the first of his baby teeth have fallen, and his feet are more on the ground than ever, I am savouring what is left to me of these days. Days of magic and wonder and yes, mischief. Days of small boys and the joy they bring. Days that, as I look at our eldest, now a young man of almost seventeen, seem to have a number, and I want to hold onto with all my heart.

The only things that you should keep in rowsAre your perfect teeth and the rest you knowIts own sweet way will always go

Add your footsteps to the wearFor a tiny dent in every stairWill let them know that you've been there

And I am put in mind of the above song by Vashti Bunyan, called 'Lately', a song about this very thing, and it is a comfort to know that most of you reading this have known, or will know, this exact feeling. 

The comfort is, that this Business Of Life is just that, and we are all in it together. 

The sorrow and the joy. The loving and the letting go. 

We can reach out a hand, and it will, at once, find another that understands.

What's Cooking In The Milkmoon Kitchen.

After years of struggling with food intolerances, I finally feel like I have something of a handle on it, albeit no closer to finding a 'solution', if such thing exists. But over the years, my interest in the topic of food, and how it behaves in our bodies, has led me down many a rabbit hole of intrigue on the subject, and I have come across many fascinating people, articles, books, and films, which I immediately want to share with the world. I have written here before about the many different hats I wear, and I have struggled to find a way to fit all these together here on Milkmoon, and I must admit, it's just not working for me. Milkmoon is more about photographs, musings, stitchery, and all those little things that take place in the regular workings of my life, and I've come to realise that the food element is just too big to incorporate into it. It would change Milkmoon too much, and I don't want that to happen, and so I haven't been blogging about it here, as I had intended. I like this dreamy place as it is, and once I get onto the topic of food, a whole devil of reality rears it's head, and sometimes it's not that pretty! But mostly, it's delicious and inspiring and wholesome, but in a very different realm to this.

Our week in pictures.
In between this....

So what to do?

I have gone from being a prolific blogger, with four or five blogs on the go at once, to struggling to keep one afloat, let lone two, and so, even though I have a burning desire to share all that I have found, I am now wary of undertaking another blog. So I have decided to try another tactic; a Facebook Page, which I reckon will tie in with the usual Facebooking that goes on, on a daily basis.

....and this,

For the first time in what seems like a lifetime, after almost seventeen years of coasting happily along through Mother-land, in this magic place that we were so blessed to find ourselves land in as new parents, my life is now veering off into a vast, unknown territory, and boy am I ready for it!
By this time next year, I doubt I will recognise my life. So many things are falling ever so neatly into lines of such Serendipitous-ness, that I can barely catch my breath.

we had this!
Bizarre weather, altogether.

For one, we have found a house. A Stepping Stone House, if you get my meaning, and as this is what happened the last time we moved house, it seems this is how we do things here. It ticks a lot of boxes, and it doesn't ticks some others, but the ones it does ticks are wonderful and exciting, and we just won't know ourselves! And so we will make the most of it, and when the time is right The Place We Are Seeking will present itself. I promise to have photos just as soon as we actually move.

My mantra of the season has been:
I Am Open To The Abundance of the Universe.
And once again it has provided.

So if Facebook is your thing, and you feel so inclined, do please come and peep in the door of the Milkmoon Kitchen, and stay for a chat. There will be recipes, and I have great hopes for threads of conversation that inspire and inform and bring together our wealth of experience and knowledge on the subject of health and vittles and sustenance.

And together we will change the world, one meal at a time.