My First Craft Fair of 2025

   I am excited to announce that I went to my first craft fair. It was a Christmas craft fair and here is the best part....I went with two of my sisters! That was so special for me. I had my two youngest children and my sister had her two children as well. Every craft fair is filled with people who have worked HARD and are presenting the fruits of their labor. The spirit of creativity is in the air and eagerness to bless you with what they have made is everywhere. 

  A gentleman dressed as Santa gave my baby a handmade wooden ornament for free and it blessed her little soul so much. She was so sweetly happy.

  My sister bought my six year old something she was wanting and I would not buy her and her cousin gave it to her. This also blessed her sensitive soul so much. 

  I bought two snowmen from the hospital auxiliary. They were adorable in their seaters and scarves and hats and they were sharing skiis. I have not bought many Christmas decorations. They are all given to me from my grandparents houses. I love them so much. My one grandmother had a few snowmen and it brought me joy to add some friends to the collection. 

  I bought a handmade wooden tree and a little handmade wooden rattle. I bought beautiful lace snowflake for the Christmas tree. I try to buy them every year. Once again, a craft fair brought me joy and I was so thankful for artists who give their time and creativity. 

 I have other craft fairs to attend this month and I am excited about them all. 

 I hope whoever reads this has some creativity and beauty to look forward to and partake in before the year ends. It it such a soul filling exercise. 

Life Feels Hard

   In some parts of the world it is the height of Spring and in some parts of the world it is Hurricane Season, some parts of the world are getting snow and here where I live, there is a lot of rain and grey hazy days. However the last two days have been sun filled. The leaves this year have been incredible in their hues of color and it feels like this celebratory upwelling to fill your soul before the grey of winter hits. I keep gazing at it, asking it to fill my soul full to help me through. 

  Since I live near an ocean and rain forest areas we don't often get a lot of snow ~ there are grey days over and over and over again for months. People here develop seasonal depression. If you live in a cramped house and it is loud and people have over taxed nervous systems....it gets a bit much. I am dreading it this year more than most. I have a toddler who is in the height of making her wishes known and she has a lot of them and they are made known loudly. I have an eleven year old who run on such high emotional alert and is so easily triggered it is very challenging. I have a child battling crippling depression and anxiety right now and I am trying so hard to keep up with everyone but I more often that not am letting people down.

  However, I am not cleaning up from a massive hurricane like my dear friend in Jamaica is. I am not going to be cleaning up after animals and feeding them during deep snow falls. I am simply going to be here in my home doing all I can to help all these little ones who need me to be their compass. This is a blessing. I keep telling myself I didn't sign up for an easy life. Any person who has children has not signed up for an easy life. Throw trauma and anxiety that is chronic on top of it, and all the other challenges our family has, and it makes things what they are.

  I wish I had better words to express how I feel. I blog for others but I also blog for myself. I look back and see what I have experienced, what I have learned, how we have moved forward or fallen back. Right at this moment in time, November 2025, life feels hard. Back in November 2023 life felt pretty overwhelming as well. The theme of my life is that a lot of things feel daunting because they actually are. 

  However today the sun shone and its light made it into my living room window and before that I attended church and the sun shone through the windows there as well. My two little girls had dressed up as dancers and were full of joy and celebration of that slice of their day. The sun was on them, their hair was illuminated and their eyes shone. It was pure beauty. For a short time everything lifted away and I could feel the light and the joy so fully. 

  If life wasn't hard a lot of the time ~ maybe that moment would not have been so important to me ~ but it was so precious and I felt the relief of joy so deeply. I think that is what living is truly about. You have permission from your body to feel it all. You walk through the tears, pain, grief, anger, but you also dance through the joy, beauty, freedom and bliss that life also offers. 

 

 

Rejoice

   Have you taken the time lately to indulge in memories that bring joy? If you have not ~ oh I encourage you to do so. The other day I took time to read letters to my children that I had written them when they were babies and toddlers. Those years are full of the cutest memories as they grow and learn to talk and express themselves. It was a reminder of their preciousness, and it left us all quoting their little sayings and reminiscing about when this one cut her curls off; or this one told me they hoped this wouldn't hurt my feelings, but they would like to be adopted! It was such an amazing way to spend a morning. 

  For some it may be remembering a certain loved individual in your life and remembering happy times with them. 

  I loved my grandma and I have these specific happy memories with her that I love to take time to savour. For many of us we have countless memories like this but how often do we take time to actually enjoy them and hold them before us? They are priceless gifts AND they are our story! They are precious pieces of ourselves that are not lost. 

And so, I encourage you to take some time ~ choose a person or a place or an animal ~ and remember ~ savour these gifts of memory and rejoice

Rejoice :)

xo

  

I Should

 I've lived in the land of should for so long now. I can't remember when it started but I think maybe it got strong when I had my first biological child and had a newly adopted toddler. My newborn babe had many health issues that had no names. He was suffering and I didn't know how to breastfeed well or any other new mother skills because it was my first time. I clearly remember trying to nurse and looking around thinking 'I should dust this and sweep this and clean that' and I felt undone. I felt frantic.

  Tonight I feel the exact same way. I am surrounded by laundry and I do laundry for six people every day. I am deeply blessed with both a washer AND a dryer so all I really have to do is fold and put away but it catches up to me if I don't do it every day and sometimes...well...it's silly....but it's just another thing to do.

Lately life has held a different kind of darkness. One I have not had to face for quite some time. It's not a darkness I don't recognize but it has a kind of evil that is the deepest chasm to look into and the fight to stay out of it holds a magnitude that not all would understand.

I hear my thoughts saying frantically ~ I should, I should, I should

As my raw milk goes bad in the fridge

As the cobwebs build up in the corners

As the yard looks more and more unkept

As dust dust dust is thick and relentless

As the fridge needs washing out

As the laundry mountain towers

As children are not being taught all they should

As children ask and ask for connection and I am letting them down

'I should I should I should'

 And how do you gently tell yourself that maybe today and tomorrow and the next day you can't do all of it but you can do some, and that it is okay. I've learned that a clean house fills me with peace but it is not all about me.

 And so tonight I choose to let the little girls have a bath while I write and I sit amongst the laundry pile. I'll get to it, tonight even, and quiet the 'I shoulds' for a bit. 

 

There are many dark dark DARK nights in this life of mine and there are dark days too. Oh but even amongst that, there is light, and how deeply you appreciate the light when you are in amidst the darkness. How eagerly your eyes seek the hills and their Autumn glory, how thankfully your soul absorbs the colours of the sunset. It is all magnified to me when suffering tries to shroud my soul.

October is almost past and November will be upon us. November is craft fair month remember? There is much to find delight in.

xo.                                   

October's Gifts

  October is an absolutely stunning month where I live. The leaves turn the most vivid hues of scarlett and tangerine and gold and the greens are dusky and deep. The skies can be the most vibrant blues and the sun warm but the wind cold, or the skies are scudding clouds and rain pours down. It's a volatile month of wonder and wondering if coats are needed and feeling house bound and listening to the wind. 

  We just celebrated a birthday here yesterday. My daughter turns fifteen this week and her party was yesterday. It was a wet day and we were inside. We had ten extra people upstairs in the house and it was such a happy time. We tie dyed shirts and ate together. Celebrating with others is such a beautiful opportunity and it is also potentially a lot of work and kindness and effort sewn together. For this birthday I made two cakes. They both were chocolate but one was gluten free and one was not. My oldest daughter helped me make a chocolate mousse for the filling and I made a chocolate icing for the top. It was simple and flavourful and delicious but it also felt like a lot of work which must be why I felt like I needed to mention it. The choice to tie dye was reminiscent of my daughter when she was younger. Her style was all her own and often she wore tie dye. Now she prefers loose t shirts, jeans, runners and keeps things a bit more blah as maybe the world and its opinions has taken its toll as it so often does. 

  Remembering back to my labor with her (she was my second biological child) is very happy for me. I was actually in labor all the day before she was born but told myself repeatedly that it was just Braxton hicks. She was almost two weeks early. It was a very long day as I had a three hour doctors appointment with my oldest son and had to run up and down the room with him. The doctor questioned me if I was maybe in labor and I said no! I woke up sometime in the night realizing the contractions were still happening and realized I must be in labor. I eventually ended up going to the hospital and she was born in the afternoon. My birth experience with her was so vastly different than my first birth experience. It was not without trauma but honestly the amount of support and kindness I had during the birth mitigated the trauma so much that I never think of that when I think about birthing her. I remember the woman gathered around me that comforted me and held me and stayed with me through emergency surgery and other moments of panic. I had maybe never felt so loved in that way before. It changed me.

 So as October 2025 fills your soul or excavates it. As the days march along and the weather here is moody and beauty and we start to cozy in, I hope that you have experiences like that that you can reflect on and in a sense, relive.

 There are precious precious gifts in memories that we may not take time to treasure. I can remember how my daughter cuddled up on my chest after she was born and how filled with wonder I was. I can remember the drive to the hospital with the midwife and how kind and amazed she was at my peace during the contractions. I remember the vibrance of the grass and leaves as I walked and walked around the little pond at the hospital to keep contractions going, and I remember the absolute shock at my bodies reaction when my water was broken and my little girls started to shoot out of my body without my needing to push at all! I may not always have this gift of remembering as I age. I pray that I do. I want to appreciate it in all its fullness. Oh the blessings I have received for the last fifteen Octobers in having this child in my life. 

Thankyou

Life And It's Loveliness

The view out my bedroom window

She was quiet and I panicked. We were looking for her in my bedroom but she was sitting calmly in the living room with her hand deep in a jar of peanut butter. It was all over the place and she was so happy.

My front entry way was rough concrete and dangerous for almost two years. It had been full of mold underneath the flooring that had been there and that was why it had been ripped up. My husband found free flooring and got it in this weekend. I am so thankful for a safe front entry way again.

                                               Autumn mornings are misty and beautiful.

                         Here are the children working with Drew on the front entry way.

A precious moment at the wedding we just attended where the sweet bride hugged my son who she tutored for three years and is the reason he graduated. She is a gem of a human.

 

                                                   My friend's ducks who are so adorable.

                                              My grand baby who is growing up so quickly.

                                        This sweet soul ~ the sweetest soul that ever was.

      This baby boy usually has hair sticking straight up. It was so funny to see him looking bald.

                                                               Sisters and their aprons :)

                                            Proof his hair is usually sticking straight up :)

                     Life is usually chaotic here and he is a kind gentle brother through it all.

                                                This is my legacy. I love them so so SO much.

                                                                              My heart 

Saying a difficult goodbye to a sweet soul that I homeschooled last year and who was at our house almost every day.

Life is so precious and holds so much beauty

xo
 

Autumn 2025

  The corn field across the road is glorious and they are cutting it as I write.

 A few days ago we took some kites to another field of freshly cut corn and flew them gloriously. It was my idea to do this which felt triumphant. It started with just my husband and I and a few children but because of where we were soon there were a few other dads out with their children and their kites and then other neighbours, and it these moments of pure beauty that you want to always remember and cherish. 

  That particular day I had felt like I could not breathe at all. My body was heavy to the point of bone weary exhaustion from the mental emotional weight of my life. People suffering and hurting and needing and me not being able to do one thing really but wanting to so much! I felt like I couldn't manage. However, sitting by the field with the wide open blue skies framed by mountains, the children happy and free ~ nature does what it is meant to do. I went home feeling cleansed and lighter ~ able to breathe. It is so important to remember this. Nature was meant to nurture us. God created us to live in a garden and when life feels like we can't go on we need to spend as much time in nature as possible. I am extremely bad at this. It is actually a huge struggle on my part. However when I do get out there and just take a moment I am so thankful. 

  This Summer was hot and beautiful and I did my best to make it happy and memorable for my children. I worked hard and tried to rest as well. I now welcome Autumn and its beauty and look forward to cherishing the leaves turning, the colder days, and the bright sunshine before winter grey takes over. 

Bless you and whatever season you are in. May it hold hope and beauty alongside the suffering and pain we all experience.

Love Tansy