Gratitude and Glimmers #93

Welcome to my post for the month of all things I like and for which I am grateful.  You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color. Glimmers are the little things that give me a frisson if you will, of joy or happiness or excitement or all three.

1. This is the fifth time we’ve been to Cuba but the first time we went to Cayo Coco. What another beautiful place! Here are just a few photos, none are photoshopped for colour. It truly is this eye-popping, saturated turquoises and blues. 

Damage from last year’s hurricane brought in sandbars and rocks that were not here before. It’s very shallow for a long way out. You can walk forever along the shore, kilometres of beautiful beach. 

Caught a few gorgeous sunsets 

Took a 45-minute bus ride to Playa Pilar—stunning beach at the west end of the cayo. 

2. I liked (though I did feel a bit embarrassed but in a good way if that makes sense) being asked to be part of a little video shortly after we’d arrived at our resort! These two who worked at the resort explained it was to promote their business. I had to pretend to just be getting out of that gorgeous vintage car and handed a drink. Did I get to keep the drink? I did. Did I like it? Not really because it had rum in it and I cannot do hard liquor but MacGyver had some of it, and didn’t mind it though it was too sweet for him.

3. On one of our walks we came across a few of these lying in the sand. I think they’re pieces from a coral reef, which makes me so sad, but gosh were they gorgeous. I knew my readers would be mesmerized by the intense colour. Can you imagine what they’d look like alive and under water?!

This was huge, easily 24” in height. 

Notice that white fine quartz sand beneath and the intricate webbing, reminiscent of a human hand, no?

4. I used to love The Midnight Quilter, starring Angela Walters, on Craftsy way back when. When Craftsy folded, she did some on her own but hasn't made any for some time, as far as I know. I've been a subscriber to her newsletter forever, and on Tuesday I was really pleased to read that she has released a new episode, How to Make a Bear Paw Quilt. You know the Bear Paw block is near and dear to my heart (the first block that got me into quilting). Well, I watched it just before I worked on this post, and it is good, and boy, do I want to make that quilt now. Because I need more bear paw quilts in my life! Let's see, I have made four bear paw quilts, and I have two patterns that use the bear paw block! 

5. I knew about the saving of the Whooping Crane from extinction from a book I read years ago, but this article and episode of the wonderful Canadian programme, The Nature of Things, which, btw, was my dad's favourite, gives me such a glimmer of hope and faith in the goodness and knowledge of humans. I love when humans use that knowledge and thirst for finding out why and how things work for GOOD.

Canadian ornithologist George Archibald dances with a crane named Gee Whiz (International Crane Foundation)

6. I like the room where I do my yoga practice every morning. It’s full of my books, battery-operated candles, artwork, and quilts. It faces east, perfect for my Ashtanga practice, but also perfect for overwintering plants like the croton and mandevilla vine! I took two cuttings from the mama mandevilla and both are doing fine, one in each of these pots, eventually to go into their own pot and/or into the ground.

7. I love spring flowers, especially those in March which never fail to give me a full-body glimmer! I got a wonderful surprise this year when a second bunch of snowdrops appeared in the opposite side of the garden to where I’d first transplanted the little bunch I’d dug up from on the green pathway between streets in my cul de sac. 

The original clump, but see how they've split.😊

When I marvelled at how they’d got there, my husband said a clump must’ve spread into a nearby hydrangea he’d moved last year. So they hitched a ride and popped up this spring! I like that. 

8. I love this article I read on this month’s The Drive magazine which is all about the Windsor Essex area. They had a special quarter of the magazine about women in our area and several articles made my heart sing. This one, about a pair of local tattoo artists who are "socializing in realistic areola tattooing, (providing) an invaluable service for those seeking to restore their bodies and confidence after mastectomies." How thoughtful. How compassionate. It brought tears of gratitude and wonder to my eyes.

9. Of the five books I read this month (well into my sixth; it's been a productive literary month!) I have to mention two. The first is a feel-good, little bit of fluff and fantasy novel by British author Sangu Mandanna, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. I read it in two days in Cuba. The second one is a must read, and how I wish those people who are so down on immigrants, both legal and illegal, could not only read this, but live it, as I believe that would change the way they feel. This memoir is Solito by Javier Zamora. He leaves his country of El Salvador at the age of 9. Yes NINE, first in the company of his grandpa who takes him on the first leg with the coyote or first human smuggler, to Guatemala. Javier's parents are already in California: his dad left when Javier was one and his mum when he was 5. So they have paid BIG money, thousands of dollars, often owed to the coyote for years once they have jobs in the US. It's a harrowing, gripping story, showing the desperation that many people find themselves in, the risks they will take to have a better life, the cruelty and utter disregard for a human person, yet above all, the compassion and love that humans are capable of, even to strangers.

10. Finally, I am grateful for a sunny day yesterday, and for a willing husband who took a couple of photos in the soft late afternoon sun of my cousin Val's quilt, one with me, the maker! 

I haven't yet mailed it, because she's been 'down south' in their travel trailer and won't be heading back to Alberta until next month. Here is the back. I'll add these to the original post for future reference.

I almost always forget to answer LeeAnna's prompt which, for this date was "What was growing up in your hometown like?" I grew up in the city of Edmonton, close to a couple families of cousins, where I walked to my elementary and junior high schools and took the city bus to high school and university. We had young families with kids our own age all around us; it was a young neighbourhood with newly built homes, one of which my parents had bought in 1963 for just $16k. We played outside a lot: kick the can was a favourite in the summer months and building forts out of the mountains of snow in the winter. I had a great sheltered childhood, full of innocence and fun and love.

I am grateful that here I am, ready to begin my ninth annual quilt along next week! Here is the graphic I made for this year's quilt, which will be a small one, just 40". I'll be back next Thursday for the QAL kickoff which opens, as usual, on my birthday, April 3.

It's a rather momentous one this year (65) and so we are celebrating this weekend with a trip to Toronto packed with several activities, the main one on Saturday evening, for which I am full of anticipation: seeing Angela Hewitt, Canadian pianist extraordinaire whose career I've followed for the decades she's been performing, in concert with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at Roy Thomson Hall. Pinch me!