Kitchen Home News

The snow has melted here, low in the valley.  You don't have to go far to find it again, but for now, we are content with ice and sometimes mud on warmer days.  The only downside about the snow being gone is that it kept the landscape bright, even on the cloudy days.  Now, as the temperature does its up and down dance, is when we have the low cloud settle in.  So low some days, you feel as though you can almost touch it.  The mornings never brighten, the afternoons seem like eternal twilight, and the nights arrive early and linger.  It seems as though we are revisiting the days before the solstice.  It is the way of the valley, especially my little town between the lakes, shaped like the smallest part of an hour-glass.  Further to the north and south, the valley opens up and the clouds lift, but here in the hollow, we'll be having a strange sort of whirl with mist and fog for several weeks. It can bring you low, this fog. I've been faring well, or at least satisfactorily, h

The new year has come in like a...well, like a Polar Vortex, really.  January is its own special kind of vortex for me - it always has been.  I get completely drawn in to the idea that we have an entirely fresh start, but then get looking at the list of things that did not get accomplished last year or how I'm not where I thought I might be, and I start to spin. Add to that, the perpetual, deep cloud cover here in the south end of the valley, the low fog, the long hours of low light, even with the growing sun, and things begin to slide sideways in my happy little existence. This is when I'm glad that I have more than just small bottles of booze in my toolbox. In the old days, before magic found me, I spent long hours hiding in my house, cursing the weather beyond my window.  I used to sniffle my way through really bad romantic comedies, all the while telling myself that if that girl could change her life (in two hours, with an amazing make-up crew, and the super-cute boy next

I wish for you, a good relationship with the spirits,  your  spirits - your ancestors, helpers, and guides. I wish for you, safety and care, and that your guardians keep watch over you, and protect you from harm. I wish for you a bountiful harvest of every healthy and joyful thing, and all the good fortune you desire. And when the thorns show up, as they sometimes do, I wish for you gems of wisdom and growth to soften the discomfort. Wishing you a bright and fortuitous 2014!  Thank you for every moment you stopped by my little world.  My life is definitely all the brighter for it.  Cheers! *That photo at the top?  Hazards of having family and friends who sometimes pop by for a drink - don't want to mix the people booze and the spirit booze!