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.

Of Bungled Plans, And Some Birthdays.

Three days past now, Milkmoon turned four. And I missed it! Oh my..... 

I did remember last week, and there were plans for a make-over and a giveaway, which I hasten to add will still go ahead, they will. But then my technical advisor was whisked away to Tokyo, at rather short notice, and I quietly folded my plans away into a shoebox and placed it on a sunlit shelf in my studio, to wait.

In my mother's kitchen,
she pauses to light the candles.

But just before he left, we had a birthday. Eight years ago our bonny babe no.3 was born here in our sitting room, all 11lbs (5kilos) of him, and such a ray of sunshine he has turned out to be. An all-singing, all-dancing, most agreeable cabaret of a lad, if ever there was one!

And so our week has been, as usual, a hectic one. A blustery, wind-swept, whiplash sort of a week that careened between autumnal gloomy rain-drenching days, and hot sirocco-like days, that found us mostly over-dressed, peeling off layers as we went, kicking off our shoes and longing for cool water on our toes.

There is a strange thing that happens when one tenacious season will not let go, isn't there? An odd sort of waiting. We stand in the wings, costumes in hand, just waiting for our cue to don them, but each time we do, we must remove them in haste as we are overcome, yet again....*sigh*
Let autumn begin proper, please, I say, as I eye my favourite tweedy skirt, woolen scarves and ankle length coat, and hats! Oh yes, hats, please!

But for now we will bide our time, scuffing our toes in the last of the warmth before the sun begins to thin, and we have to scramble and savour any heat we can find.
Although I was better, I am hobbling again, and so trying to slow things down a little, (yes, I did say 'slow things down', though when I say those words, I do hear manic laughter echoing somewhere in the background...)  and I have plans to actually get into my studio this week and get stuck into an exciting project I have in mind.

Ah, yes, the studio. Did I mention it before? I think possibly not. I may do a little feature to show you around, and you can peek into some shoeboxes and tins and see what we can find. I am still unpacking hence the shoeboxes etc but do stop by later this week to see where we are, and pop in for a cup of tea when I am settled in.

But in the meantime.

I'll be right here, fixing myself up and finding new homes for everything, unpacking and unwrapping and setting things to rights.

And waiting for the technical advisor to make his way home again.....

Where We Stole Away To.

Does anyone else feel that sense of urgency?  That sensation of an unseen hand tenderly lifting the lid on the year, letting the sun in to warm us, to bring us to life? We feel our roots stretch out, digging into the dark earth, our limbs reaching up towards the light, eager for it's sustenance, and all around us Life begins to stir in the warmth.

We are back to school, yes, but the late Easter break means suddenly we are facing the end of the school year, and I watch as the children shake off and leave behind the last of their winter mantles and run full pelt towards the sun.

Easter was abundantly chocolatey, and full of egg hunts and lazy pajama days. 

The blossom is early on all the trees!

And the sun hardly faltered once. So much so that no sooner were they in to eat, than they were gone again, my kitchen echoing with their departing cries and dashing footsteps away into the sunlit garden.

We took a few days trips, but in the end, not as many as we had planned. Somehow, once the sun came it was hard to want to go anywhere.

We have had two full weeks of astounding sunsets. How is it possible to not tire of this?

If you'd like to see, do please take a peek over on my blog A Year At My Backdoor.

And we had a birthday. A rather important Fifteenth Birthday!! 

Yes, our Eldest is now fifteen. It seems rather unbelievable actually!!

And though today is back to the slightly cooler weather more normal for this time of year,

still, we are on the right side of Spring now, headed in the right direction, aren't we?

Here's to the days of summer that are rolling in on the tide.

A Week Of Pictures.

This last month has felt like a marathon of some kind. One of those crazybusy times when you feel as though your feet don't touch the ground, and you have no purchase on your thoughts. When the quiet moments are fleeting and gone before they are grasped.

But this weekend feels as though the work is done and we can now hopefully drift on the momentum we gathered, towards the summer, towards a time of ease. Not realistic, I know, but this evening as I sit in the quiet house, the clock ticking and the sea booming in the distance, after this most lovely day we have had, I look through my photos of this week to see which ones I want to share with you, (and for these few moments I allow myself this most unrealistic of thoughts!).

So here is a glimpse into our week. And a busy, fun-filled week it was. The best kind of week in fact, with family and friends and good times shared.

The funfair came to town...

....and there was a ball to be had!

And the sun came out. And stayed.

There were quiet moments too....

....and moments when little hands got busy.

There was a parade to attend on St. Patrick's Day....

....and presents to open, a heart's desire fulfilled.

For today we celebrated a Very Important Fourth Birthday!
The Smallest is now a whole lot bigger.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY B!

Although I feel tired, it's a very satisfied and fulfilled kind of tired, and even though it's Monday tomorrow and we are back to school after an extra long weekend, we are already counting down the days until the Easter holidays and sure before we know it it'll be summer, won't it!!

So, warmest blessings to you all on this magical, supermoon-filled Equinox. I have no doubt that this is why my heart is overflowing tonight.

And may your week to come be gilded by magic. 

Gratitude: The Quality Of Being Thank-Full.

What is it that happens to us when Spring arrives? What is it? Does our heart stretch out it's tender wings, flutter them tentatively in the warming air, do we pause and take a breath? Do we raise our heads in wonder, suddenly aware that Winter's teeth no longer snap at our heels?

We have had a busy, muddy week of no Jay, no school and lots of friends. Wonderful, thoughtful friends, who took us up mountains and on adventures, took us into their homes and fed us, (even though it sometimes feels to me that we arrive like an small invading country!), aware of our lack of Jay again and eager to be of help, dear ones that they are.

And although the first few days of the midterm break were soggy downpour sorts of days, all we really noticed were the carpet of purple crocuses in a corner of the garden, the sudden green tips on the rosebushes outside the open window that seemed to nod in a giddy, skittish way at us, and most of all the air and the light! Oh most wondrous light!

We spent our days traipsing and tramping, splashing through mud and puddles, or gathered around tables and sharing food together. We laughed and talked and deepened our bonds. And I watched, my heart swelling with quiet joy, as our dearlings, both big and small, forged their own, without knowing and without pretense. Their openhearted offerings of friendship to one another a reassuring inspiration.

Lately I find myself thinking about gratitude, thinking about the act of thankfulness and how it is manifested each day in our lives, or not. Of how we need to remind ourselves to be grateful, to be Full of Thanks, and that really, to live a life that embodies this would be a life truly worth living. It is an attainment I hope for and aim for, and need daily reminders for.
I no longer sit and meditate. I haven't for years. The daily rush of family life took over and it slipped quietly away. But in recent years I found a new way, a way that fit into the little slivers of time I found. Living each day with a knowledge that I would be writing about it here, on Milkmoon, has created a little sitting buddha in my head, a mindfully aware little buddha who gently prods me, reminds me to pause and take note. To be thankful. Even when, like any practice, it is a struggle, as it has been of late.

But then you, dear readers, in your own way, you are reminding me too. We are all prompting and prodding one another each day when we blog, sharing our individual moments of gratitude, putting it out there. And just today I read dear Rima's latest post which is on this very subject, which left me wondering just what this blogging we are all doing is creating for the future? An exciting and blog-affirming thought!

And so, this sunny morning I sit at my table with a pot of coffee, the window open, the quiet house just beginning to stir, and I think back through my week and how this little family's thread danced and crisscrossed and wove with so many others, and how the threads here in the Forest of Blog also weave together into another, different layer in my life, and how both will continue to do so, on and on and on, into who knows where.
And I am filled with gratitude, and a renewed sense of purpose.

Thank You.

Something Is Lost...

Do you ever wonder why or how you blog? I mean, how you find the time to fit it in to your busy day? I look around at all you incredible bloggers out there, and the tiny snippets of your lives that we glimpse in between the lines of loveliness you post, the little 'fragments of your days', and I wonder, how do we do it! 
And to be honest I don't know.

The week in pictures,

A poorly boy. Again.

I have lately found myself struggling to capture the everyday magic that once came so easily to me. My camera more often than not lies forgotten as I run out the door, or dash about after small people with big bellies and hollow legs that need to be filled, and then, at night I find myself lying, eyes wide on the ceiling above as I try and recall some little fragment of magic that I know was there today. If only I could find it.
And even the pictures I do take seem to me to somehow highlight what I don't know about taking pictures.  And to lack more than anything. They certainly don't inspire and excite me they way they used to.

Before the cold set in.

Maybe it's the time of year, you say. But no, it's been a long time coming. I went from blogging every day (imagine!) to three or four times a week, to now barely once a week. This is not good.
It's not that I have nothing to say, but more the beauty spins by so fast I don't have time to even try and grasp or capture it. The dizzy carousel of life I am on is just that bit too fast, it has run away from me
and I lost some things along the way.

Busy little hands at work.

And so for the last week and a half, while we had nowhere to go and time on our hands, we sewed and made for Christmas, and baked cakes and built dens, and we did our best to keep warm in an old house with no central heating, and invariably one by one we succumbed to coughs and colds.

Our time away from the world was lengthened.

What I found one morning.

I listened to music that made the snow fall, I watched films that gently pulled the blankets higher and tighter around us, 

and the snow fell. The snow fell. And the snow fell. 

Like an endless slumber we went under, we slipped away from the world...

Hipstamatic shots.

I have thought and thought about it, and no, I am not ready to give up Milkmoon. I don't think so. But I do wonder if, or how I can make all these pieces of mine fit...

A Hiatus Of A Most Aggravating Kind.

For more than a week we have been cut off from the world. That most useful creature we call The Internet broke it's tether and wandered off over the mountain. All week we stood gazing at the mountains, hand shading our eyes, phone to our ear as we grew increasingly exasperated with shower of blackguards who are happy to take our money every month and then fall asleep on their watch. (Picture me standing on our rooftop, swinging my lasso, hoping I make purchase this time. Every day this week...*sigh*)
But now it has returned, though I believe it has had an unhappy time, for it is sluggish and sleepy and most infuriatingly uncooperative. Oh! how my blood has been set boiling this morning!

But moving swiftly on to more pleasant things. We had a most lovely week otherwise, and it is amazing just how much got done around the house this week! Here's some pics of what we've been up to, but first, the winner of the giveaway is Rebecca S! Rebecca, email me!

Autumn Bounty!

Little friends.
Off down the lane to the sea.

Chasing waves.

Blackberries!

Autumn is here!

The quiet reverie that a weekend morning brings.

In my kitchen.

An evening of stitches of one kind or another.

Sandymount Strand.

Evening's End.

And so, normal service has resumed. If you like, take a peek here, At My Back Door for a taste of what Autumnal splendor our view brought us this week.

Have a lovely weekend!