Author: Cynthia Corbin

It’s that time…

One of my basic beliefs has been to trust to my own curiosity and instincts to find the path ahead.  Often it has looked like some weedy track that has been overlooked long enough.  But in one step I know it is the way for me.  My heart responds with ease, my mind and shoulders relax.   And so it is time to bring this blog to the end.

I breathe a contented sigh, and keep going—making, exploring, savouring, and expressing all that in some quietly mindful way.

Thank you to everyone who has come along for the ride, everyone who has watched paint dry with me, and listened to me think out loud.  It has done me good.  I hope it has been worthwhile for you too.

I wish you more adventures and the very best of…

Happy Trails,

Cynthia

 

 

That was last week…

The snow is pretty much gone for the time being.  It hung around for a week or so, pretty, and complicated for delivery trucks.   We had planned a trek with our trailer to a nearby campground, but the snow surprised us and we had to cancel.  So we had a pleasant time at home watching the snow build up and blanket everything.
Our neighborhood birds have been enjoying the suet feeding stations, and I am enjoying watching them.  It has been a good time for quiet making.  And quiet reflection.

Here we are in the season of Holidays!  I am celebrating this year with a couple yarn advent calendars—little bundles of yarny goodness that I hang on the little tree.  And I am being so grown up in refraining from opening them all at once.

I hope you will take time out for quiet making and reflecting, for childish enjoyment, and for those little things that bring you joy and comfort—Savoring every moment, whether relaxing or frenetic (such as the holidays can be).  Blessings.

From my neck of the woods—Happy Holidays to you!

Making (and learning)…

I followed a pizza making course on line this summer!  Specifically outdoor grilling pizza—grilling flat bread, pizza, and finally Calzones.  I did my homework which meant I made a pizza thing each week.
It turned out to be a team effort because I do not do fire, so Jim became the fire master.  We learned the hard way that this was especially important if you want the pizza thing to actually COOK.

Pizza dough is a thing of dreams!  The dough is soft and miraculous, rising, fragile, and resilient, a pleasure to work.  And you need a lot of semolina or it sticks to everything and doesn’t want to come off the peel.  I know this from experience.  You may start out with a shape you are familiar with, and you may end up with a shape that defies logic.

Flat bread is….flat.  And it should be crispy.  This is where we finally learned the importance of a hot fire.

The other thing about making pizza is that it doesn’t allow a lot of time to think about taking pictures!  There were moments when checking the pizza thing was the ONLY thing I could focus on.

But here it is when I finally managed to get a pizza that was round.  When grilling pizza, you put the dough on the grill and grill one side.  Then you remove it, flip it, add the toppings, and put it back on the grill to finish.

We were getting the hang of it!

Then came the week’s assignment for Calzones.  I had to work myself up for this one….  This recipe called for a spinach and cheese filling, dough wrapped around and sealed.  On the peel it actually looks like a Calzone.

But on the grill they took on a shape of their own.  They may look a little odd and wonky—another lesson in the dough sticking to the peel…and not wanting to come off.   But, oh my, these were good, especially the next day.

You will notice there are no pictures of us eating the various pizza things, but I can assure you we did eat them—every single bit.  We devoured them, melting cheese and all.

When it was too hot to cook in the house, the in door heat was perfect for rising pizza dough, and grilling was a good idea.  Though it was darn hot standing over the grill too.  The learning was fun!  The team work was fun! And the eating was good too.

Next summer we will dough it again!

Making Stuff….

I haven’t made any messes in the past month, not any spectacular ones anyway.  But I have had some adventures that turned out well in the end.

First off, a classic sour dough bread, full of the tang of sourdough and the chewy texture.  It is a two day process, easy really, just takes the time it takes to get the rise.

My son termed these loaves “the bread that looks like very big baked potatoes.”

And they do!  But the flavor and chew mark this as one of my best breads.  Thank you for King Arthur Flour’s recipes for sourdough!  Any and all—I am working my way through them.

So what is the power of Oops!
Experience.  And learning from it.

There have been more socks too.  I haven’t oops’d a sock in quite a while, but those that were oops’d helped me find a better way to do a toe and a heel, and to find (finally) a very good fit.

The only mess I can really claim (at the moment…) is the one I create while working on my knitting.  I have 5 projects going at once, all in various stages so that I can jump in here or there to points that are easy or tricky, relaxing or not, or go with watching old movies.  (I love film noir).

It is an organized mess, really.  That “mess” looks really good to me.

As the summer slows me down to move in sync with warm (ok, HOT days!), I am soaking up the cool in the morning—outside watching the birds take their morning splashes in Jim’s well maintained bird bath.  Not making bread this week, though my sourdough starter, aka Trevor, would love it.

Here’s to you and to your oops moments and the making of messes that give you pleasure.  Let’s chill out and hope for clouds.

 

Do you find it hard to admit that you have shifted gears?  I do.  My own expectations are often the thing that locks me in—my own thoughts of what I should be doing while fully admitting that I don’t want to do “that” (whatever it is…) any more.  Yep, I do that.

It just takes one look at what I AM doing to see the shift, but it takes me a whole lotta time and mulling to give myself permission to feel good about it.

From “Thinking out loud” to “I Make Stuff”

A lot has changed.

I no longer make quilts, but I make a lot of stuff.  Other stuff.  So this blog is going to be a chronicle of making stuff.  Stuff stuff stuff!

I knit.
I bake.
I photograph.
I reorganise.
I think.

Then I make more stuff.

Socks.
Bread.
Dinner.
Blankets.
Mittens.
Sweaters.
Messes.
Connections.
Connections of stuff.
Connections of thought.
Connections with folks.
Positive connections.

A lot has changed.  So what to do about that?
My choice is to make the ground I stand on a positive, generous, hopeful, and inclusive space.

One by one, one to one, one step at a time.
Slowly, slowly.

I’m going to go make some stuff!

And, as always, it may resemble watching paint dry.  But darn, I love watching paint dry and weather and chip and peel.

I will be delighted to have you stop by this blog from time to time and join me.
Cheers!
Cynthia

Some good views…

Wild and wooly, Fort Flagler, Washington.

And then… the necessaries.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig!

 

Keeping On Keeping On

 

Remembering and Preparing

The holiday season is a time for just that, remembering and preparing.  The past, present and future surround us.

I’m in my coffee drinking station listening to the classical music station play all sorts of Christmas music.  A collection of images comes to my mind, and sugar plums dance…

Jim and I wish you all the best of the season, rich and satisfying in all the quiet, peaceful ways we bring joy to ourselves and to our loved ones.  Blessings.

 

I just can’t help it.

Think, think, think.  Think.
What do you do with your quiet moments?  What do you do when you are cleaning up the house, or driving, or waiting for something to happen, or stumped?

I think about stuff.  It might be why a particular word is used for that particular thing.  Or why leaks occur in waves?  Or why that tree loses its leaves faster than that other tree?  Or why the French fries don’t seem to be the same in takeout after being driven home?

Why are female hawks bigger than the males?  Well, I guess we really do know the why to that one.

Why is it that 3am is the dreaded hour of—if you wake up now you are doomed to spend the next hour and a half trying really hard to go back to sleep.  And all your thoughts will be circular and unresolved, unless, of course, you solve all the problems with such incredible clarity and simplicity that you are amazed—at which point you fall gratefully asleep, only to wake up late having forgotten the solution, not to mention the problem.

Does anyone else do this?  Or is it just me?

I must think about that…when I knit some more stuff…where are those socks?