Endings

I really need to do this...

but I don't like to give up on things.

 Sometimes you just have to let go

of the things that you promised 

you would never let go of.

This blog is one.

I thought before that I would write on here 

and take photos and love to share

forever, 

but now it has become a part of my life 

that I can no longer keep up with-

I have a store

I have a job

I have too much to do

So I have to let this go...

The other part of my life that has just ended 

is too painful to write about here...

It was a promise I made until death

but I had to let go...

doors close

doors open

The One who said

"I am the door" is the only One

who remains ever true and faithful

and who never breaks His promises.

That is how I want to end my blogging

years, with my hand on the Door.

thank you to all of you have followed 

along on this journey

Be blessed in Christ alone.

Karen

December

"December is Christmas...

With each setting of the sun,

 and the rising and setting of the moon 

and stars in the dark sky, the wonder grows.

 It is not so much in color as in absence of color, 

less in sound than in absence of sound, 

not at all in fragrance but in absence of fragrance;

 that is of the earthly color, sound and fragrance. 

Each day there seems less of all that has been familiar

 in the earlier months of the year, 

and more that is new though not strange.

 Gradually the world becomes another place, 

suffused by gentle radiance, 

cupped in innocence and infinite wisdom, 

carried aloft by unseen winds which bear it

 closer and closer to the Source of all wonder."

Gladys Hasty Carroll

November

"November is a russet apple with a glint of gold in

it's rough brown skin,

 one dry leaf clinging to its blackened stem, 

 a brisk spicy flavor at its core. 

It is cider working in dark barrels,

 reddish brown sawdust blanketing the sills,

 amber-eyed cows chewing all day in the stanchions.

 It is stately fowl on yard parade in brown and gray feathers 

and red combs, and many brown eggs in the barn cellar nests at night. 

It is grey crocks filled with barberry sauce

 and great cubes of translucent pumpkin, 

scarlet cranberries drying in the open chamber

. A lamp or lantern held high in the dark dairy

 reveals a mosaic of jellies, preserves, shrubs, 

wines, bottled herbs and yellow cream rising in shallow pans."

Gladys Hasty Carroll

October

October is age regal and triumphant, 

the impartial judge on the bench,

 the dowager duchess, wise, strong, 

and in excellent health, 

bearing easily the weight of velvet robes 

which change with shifting light from deep blue

 to plum color and crimson,

 of heavy chains, heavy pins, 

heavy rings all of gold, 

all of the great keys which this month

 is the keeper of the coin of the realm

 secreted in the robe's capacious pockets."

Gladys Hasty Carroll

September

"September is a banner of soft purple 

and metallic gold proudly 

suspended across the sky...

The sand y roads are bordered deep 

in goldenrod and wild asters.

Sweet apples and Porters are yellow

 in the orchards and blue

pearmains are ripening.

 Maple trees are touched with yellow

 from the first frost.

Pumpkins are drawn by the cartload 

from the fields and stacked beside the barn."

Gladys Hasty Carroll

3rd Birthday

It was a monster truck bash,

and it had to be green!

That's what my 3 year old

grandson wanted!

He drove the truck up and down the frosting hill

and that made him very happy:) 

August (A Little Late)

"August is hot. Opulent, tired, thirsty, hot...

She asks no questions about the purpose of life,

is heavy with answers as a cow with milk

 coming up the pasture lane at days end.

 A child is to play and get into mischief

 and do his chores and eat and sleep and grow...

August is the meeting place of the currents of the year.

She feels the meeting within her,

the waters from many directions 

surging into a mighty eddy;

but she is not shaken by it, 

encompasses it calmly

 as she carried her children to full term 

despite their struggles to find a way out

 of the pocket in which she held them

 until it was time for them to go.

She is even faintly amused by the surging

 and eddying as she was by the struggles of her unborn."

Gladys Hasty Carroll