bring on the snowstorms
Christmas gifts: heated blankets!
ready to plug in
we want to stay home
more than going anywhere
snuggling with our dogs
Heated Blankets
Hygge Pantoum – Stafford Challenge Day 14
Today’s Pantoum poem celebrates warmth and comfort in these cold, wintry days leading up to mid-winter. I have a little faith in our southern groundhog, so I’m holding out some hope for a thick blanketing of snow to keep us home for a few days, snuggled fireside with books and dogs, before warming up and staying warm so the peaches will survive. Georgia lost 90% of its crop last year to a late freeze, and what few I was able to find locally cost a fortune and ended up in Mason jars as preserves so we could enjoy them all winter.
For today, though, there is hot tea with honey ~ and so begins my poem. Stay warm, friends.
Hygge Pantoum
chamomile tea with honey
warm blankets, heated throw
sherpa slippers (ears of bunny)
beeswax candle's ambient glow
warm blankets, heated throw
heavy quilts of rag-stitched flannel
beeswax candle's ambient glow
flickering shadows on the mantel
heavy quilts of rag-stitched flannel
heirloom warmth of hand-stitched hugs
flickering shadows on the mantel
cotton-braided oval rugs
heirloom warmth of hand-stitched hugs
sherpa slippers (ears of bunny)
cotton-braided oval rugs
chamomile tea with honey
Special thanks to Twowritingteachers at Slice of Life for giving writers space and inspiration!
This Photo Wants to Be a Poem
My friend Margaret Simon of Louisiana hosts the weekly Poetry Friday Roundup by posting a photo and inviting writers to compose a poem inspired by the photo. Last week, she visited the North Georgia mountains with her family as a Christmas gift to her children and their families, and she posted her cherished moments of making memories with them. She invites us this week to write a poem about this photo of her mountain house.
Margaret has been using the elfchen form, also called an elevenie, in which the lines fall into the sequence of 1 word, 2 words, 3 words, 4 words, and concludes in summary fashion with 1 word that ties it together. She will announce her One Little Word tomorrow, and hints that it may be the last line in her own poem (Connection), so I’m giving an enthusiastic nod to her choice by using a form of connection as the last word in my own poem. You can read her post here, along with other poems that were written about the photo, and her picture that inspires her poem (and others) is below:
Presence
unhindered
time spent
unhurried memory making
letting presence be presents
connecting
Try an elfchen! These are fun to write, and what a fabulous way to preserve memories – using photos and short forms of poems. I like the way just a few words can encapsulate an entire experience and bring all the memories and good times rushing back.
A special thanks to Margaret Simon for inspiring my writing today. Some of my greatest blessings are my writing community friends, who encourage and inspire me to be better.
May 24 – Handwarmer Pottery Mugs
Many moons ago, I taught with a colleague who drank coffee from the most unique mug I’d ever seen. Aside from her coffee mug in the shape of a Zoom lens that proclaimed her love of photography and led to conversations about her sideline photography business, she had one even more intriguing, but she only drank from it during the winter time.
The mug had no handle. Instead, it had a nestled crook, much like a ceramic mitten. It was made of pottery, and she called it her handwarmer mug. My English classroom at the high school had erratic heating and cooling. I’d sweat and shiver in the same class period all year long, so I made a mental note to pick up a handwarmer mug the next time I saw one.
Trouble is, I never saw one.
I forgot to share it as a gift idea for all those Christmases that have come and gone.
Imagine my surprise when we stopped in to have a glass of wine in Ball Ground, Georgia at the Feather’s Edge Winery, where there is an art gallery connected to the tasting room. There on a display shelf was a sign proclaiming The Original Hand-Warmer Mug, and several variations of pottery mugs to choose from – and there were mugs for right hand mug holders and left-hand mug holders. You slip your hand into the crook of the mug on the side of your handedness and nestle your other hand around the mug on the opposite side. These are made by Clay in Motion Pottery Studio.
Instant warmth! Rustic beauty! Inviting aromas, inspiring the desire to put on a sweatshirt and sit by the fire in a pair of woolen socks, watching snowflakes pile up on the windowsill of a woodland cabin.
Oh, yes. Winter has just finally finished all its antics, but already there is the promise of the next one waiting in these spectacular mugs, where visions of campfires outside the Little Guy Max are also taking center stage in my daydreams.
Common Threads 