Australia, the Movie

Ken and I went to a movie last night. This is a major historical event in our household, because we see a movie about once every ten, maybe fifteen years, whether we need to or not. Sitting in a darkened room with a bunch of strangers isn't, for the most part, my idea of a comfortable situation.

But I made an exception yesterday, because Baz Luhrman's Australia is playing, and I HAD to see it. 

I had two major goals in going to Australia:

1. To see the Australian Outback, which I loved when we saw it with our own eyes in April.

2. To see Hugh Jackman shirtless

Neither was a disappointment. 
The movie has something for everyone, beyond the scenery and Hugh Jackman shirtless.

It has a great love story. It has awesome ("awesome" in the old, original meaning of the word, that which creates awe in the viewer; not awesome as in "That pizza was, like, awesome, man!") scenery. It provides an historical view of Australia during WWII. It tells of the Australian government's treatment of the aborigines until just recently. And it's even more than all of this combined.

Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman both do an outstanding job in their roles. But Ken and I were especially taken with the young boy who portrayed the half-caste child, Nullah. Brandon Walters is a natural for the part.

I'll be replaying in my mind scenes from this movie for days to come.

....More Beautiful if They Are Few

I mentioned a few posts back that I had been reading Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead. Soon after finishing that book, I decided to re-read her Gift from the Sea, which I first read many years ago. Apparently I was too young back then to appreciate the messages in Gift. This time, with this reading, many of Anne Lindbergh's observations really hit home with me.

Gift from the Sea is a journal, so to speak, of her time at a seaside cottage, mainly time spent alone to think and observe and take in the richness of being alone with oneself. 

When the two-week sojourn is finished, Anne Lindbergh looks at the seashells she has collected and decides to take home only two or three. This is what she says which has made such an impact on me: One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few. One moon shell is more impressive than three. There is only one moon in the sky. One double-sunrise is an event; six are a succession....

For it is only framed in space that beauty blooms. Only in space are events and objects and people unique and significant — and therefore beautiful. A tree has significance if one sees it against the empty face of sky. A note in music gains significance from the silences on either side. A candle flowers in space of night. 

She concludes by saying her life, and of course our lives, are full of "too many activities and people and things."

Wow. I had never thought of the danger of having too much of anything. I guess I have always subscribed to the "more is better" philosophy, but now I'm thinking Anne Lindbergh has got it right. How can we see the beauty in things when each thing is crowded in amongst so many similar things? How can we see the beauty in people when each person is merely one in a crowd? How can we appreciate each day of our lives if each day is hectically wedged in among other hectic days?

Done!

The woolen sweater I knit from the Briggs and Little bargain bin ($2 a skein, with something like 270 yds. per skein, but I digress), is D-O-N-E. I bought 8 skeins of this yarn but used only four skeins plus a smidgen of a 5th, so the sweater cost me, at most, $8.50. I have enough yarn left over for another sweater, for sure. I knew I was taking a risk when I bought this yarn, because I didn't know if the skeins were made up of a million pieces of yarn tied together in knots, or what. As it turned out, the skeins were continuous yarn, and the yarn itself is, I think, a nice wool. I love to come across the occasional tiny bit of hay or straw while I'm knitting. It puts me "at one," so to speak, with the sheep who generously donated her fleece for my personal use. I came across a few bits of hay/straw in this yarn, so that made me happy.

I used a Knitting Pure and Simple pattern. I love these patterns because they are knitted from the top down and there are no seams to sew once the project is knitted! Sewing up sleeve and side seams is not my idea of fun.

I did run into one glitch, however, which caused me to put the sweater aside for about a week as I wandered the house aimlessly, trying to figure out what to do to correct the problem: I had one sleeve almost done when I realized it was much too fitted, to the point of being uncomfortable. I tried to tell myself I could stretch the sleeve when blocking the finished sweater, but in my heart I knew I'd better not risk it. So, finally, I raveled the sleeve, made a few changes in the pattern, re-knitted that sleeve , tried it on, liked the result, and knitted the other sleeve the same.
Voila! I have a sweater, this time for myself, made of a great wool. It'll surely keep me warm this winter here in Maine. (It was 16° here early this morning.)

Pack a Shoe Box for a Needy Child

I first heard about Operation Christmas Child, the Samaritan's Purse project, from my niece and her daughter. It sounded like a great idea, so today I did my shopping for the shoe box and have it packed and ready to drop off at one of the designated locations in my area.

If you're interested in packing a shoe box with gifts for a desperately needy child somewhere in the world, just go to the site above and read the instructions. You'll find a list of gift suggestions as well.

When you drop off the box of goodies, you'll also donate $7 to cover the shipping cost for sending the box to the child.

This week, November 17-24, is the week for dropping off the shoe boxes, so don't delay!

De-Cluttering

(The English cupboard before and after)

Did you see Oprah last week when she had the de-cluttering guy, Peter Walsh, as a guest? He and his decluttering team are going across the country in their little VW convoy to help us Americans clean up our messes. I suspect they won't be stopping here, much as I could use their help, but he claims that just 10 minutes per day will bring amazing results on one's own.

So I've taken him up on that claim.

Now, I'm not an appallingly messy housekeeper. The floors aren't littered with clothes; there aren't opened cans of decaying pet food on the counters; the bathrooms get cleaned once a week (more or less), I vacuum and wash the floors regularly, I do the laundry two or three times a week, etc. But  I certainly have areas needing improvement. Behind closed doors, for instance, havoc reigns. 

So I've spent the past few days attacking one cluttered site after another. The living room end tables are now organized and free of stuff that had been stored in them for years. (I finally found the Princess Diana cancelled postage stamps that I was searching for a year ago, and I also found a treasured photo from my college years.) My roll-top desk is now extremely clean and uncluttered. The quilt cupboard, which is more of a craft cupboard than anything else, was yesterday's chore, and although it probably doesn't look much better to you who don't know it intimately, it's MUCH cleaner and clutter-free to me, its owner.

Today I tackled the English cupboard in the kitchen.( The before and after shots appear at the top of this post. I wish I could figure out how to upload photos in the order I want them to appear.) If you see little improvement in my quilt cupboard, you'll have to admit you see major improvement in the English cupboard. Gone are candles I'll never use, candle holders I'll never use, cookbooks I haven't used in years. 

This de-cluttering gives me a new sense of freedom. I love having my life less weighted down with stuff. I think it was Ernest Hemingway who owned few actual "things": a few clothes, a wristwatch, that was about it. He felt we become prisoners of our possessions. I think he's right. 

My Babies

My orchids are a source of joy and beauty for me. I first caught the orchid-growing bug about six or eight years ago, I'd guess, when my sister started growing them. Not to be outdone, I had to try growing them, too.

The first few years were not that successful. The orchids, in bloom when I bought them, would seldom bloom again. If they did bloom, the blossoms came from the original flower spikes and not from new spikes.

Then I began putting the plants outside for the summer.

Eureka!

Turns out, my orchids love the front porch. They get only a tad of sunshine in the very early morning. The rest of the day they're in the shade. On the porch they enjoy warm days and cool nights: just what the orchid doctor ordered, apparently.

When I bring the plants back into the house each fall, many are sporting new leaves and new flower spikes. I put these on a table in the front entrance, where the spikes grow and develop buds and, eventually, blossom. The blossoms last for several weeks, which is what I love the most about orchids.

The orchids that have no evidence of new spikes I put upstairs in my "orchid nursery," the guest room. There they sit in front of a window, protected from direct sun by a curtain. During the fall, winter, and spring I often find new spikes coming from these plants, so they get promoted to the downstairs entryway.

The photo here is one that I took yesterday. Three orchids are now in bloom, bless their hearts. 

Gluttony 101

So what would you do if 1) you love lobster, 2) you learn that fresh Maine lobsters are now down to $3.59 per pound, locally? 

I thought so. You'd do as I did: you'd buy six lobsters for two people (and wish you'd bought twice as many), bring them home, recruit your spouse to do the dirty deed of dropping them into the boiling water,...and have yourself a gluttonous feast.

But I like to think I did this in order to help support Maine's lobstermen. I mean, with the price of lobster being so low right now, isn't it the duty of every good Maine citizen to buy several lobsters to keep the industry afloat?

I thought so.

Yes!

Obama!

Oh, mama!

Things to Do Today

1. Vote. Check. I submitted ballots number 565 and 566 in my little town. (I didn't vote twice; I voted on national and local issues.)

2. Make sure he votes. Check. (See photo below.)

3. Get my hair cut.

4. Walk myself and my dog and do my yoga. (The dog likes to join me in the yoga routine, but it's not easy to exercise with a 75-lb. dog draped across my mid-section.)

5. If I'm then desperate for something more to do, clean house.

P.S.

Check out my friend Kay's blog post. She certainly struck a nerve with that one, judging from the responses she has received.

Season's Almost Over!

Proof that this political season has gone on WAY too long: My niece was driving somewhere the other day, her three-year-old happily chatting in the back seat. Suddenly my niece heard her daughter say, "My name is Violet, and I approve this message."

...and if you can't vote for Obama, at least vote for the other guy.