Author Archives: mittonmusings

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About mittonmusings

A Canadian, lifestyle blog with an inspirational twist!

Building Blocks

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Greetings my friends! I’m still here! We’re packing, purging, and getting our current house ready to list. All the while I’m beginning to dream about the “farm”. I’ll be too late to plant the garden this year but will take on the pond this summer. And learning to appreciate sunsets from my wraparound porch. Still, my brain is currently occupied with boxes and shelving and storage and … stuff. I have way too many books. And crafting projects. And paper notebooks. However. The current bane of my existence is LEGO. Read about my first experiences here. I hate to say it but not much has changed since that post oh so long ago. In fact, it’s kinda funny that Lego was involved in blog changes then… and blog (okay whole life!) changes now.

Okay. So let’s recap the muse about Lego again. Denmark, 1916. Woodworker named Ole Kirk Christiansen is known as the “creator” of Lego. His original shop was building houses and furniture but the Great Depression caused the crew to focus on smaller projects like wooden toys. The term “Lego” is loosely translated to Danish for “play well” leg godt. In Latin “I put together”. The name stuck.

Photo by Rick Mason via unsplash

Fast forward through some tweaking and brick adjustment, and by 1958-60’s Ole’s son, Godfried had taken over the family business and began the big switch to plastic bricks over wooden ones. I was shocked to know that Lego Canada wasn’t fully established until the late 1980s. The bricks had made their way to North America sometime before, but Canada didn’t have its own branch until then. My childhood. I must be old. Now, of course, we have Lego amusement parks, online clubs, T.V.’s Lego Masters etc. etc. And no age limit to builders. AFOL is a thing: Adult Fans Of Lego. My grown son is one.

In fact, the whole house is filled with Lego maniacs. Someone inevitably receives a box at Christmas. During the pandemic, weeks were spent building Hogwarts giant castle complete with minifigures and moving staircases. And so the conundrum of moving it all. No one is willing to part with it (even though I hear you can fetch $60 a kilo for the loose bricks). I have a large, I’m talking knee-deep, bin full of loose bits and bobs and teeny tiny pieces I painstakingly sorted from various shelves and jars. I’m still finding random bricks here and there. I was chastised for not keeping the kits together… but what’s a mom to do when there are sooo many? Plus I have built kits collecting dust on shelves. Any hints? At this point, I am open to all and every suggestion. Message me. Please.

I suppose I cannot complain. We have been blessed with the resources to give such creative projects to our kids (those kits aren’t cheap… even second-hand!) And I am thankful that this hobby is one the whole family can participate in. Skills are required and bricks are boredom-busting… at least for a little bit of time! I love Christmas afternoon. The little baggies are all over the dining room table and heads are bowed in brick worship and concentration of builder booklets. Even our girls.

So my muse takes me to Ole Christiansen again. Could he have built my soon-to-be new-to-me-century farmhouse back in 1900? Would he know his toy would become a worldwide phenomenon? Will I ever find a solution for how to pack, sort, and store all those tiny bricks? I need perspective. Hebrews 3:4 says:

 For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.

I must remember that houses, Lego bricks, dishes, books and treasures I find are human things. Made by some factory and shipped from Amazon. Even the precious ones are created with human hands. God is the builder of our relationships. Our connections and our friendships. Our families. He orchestrates the timing in our lives of who arrives and who leaves our blips in time… and the whys of when they are there. I’m glad you all are out there. Connected to me in a weird way through my words on a page. I may not know you… and I may know you well. Your purpose in being here is real. I’m glad. And if you have an idea on how to organize Lego for moving: I’m very glad! Message me!

Blessings!

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Oh, beloveds! What a week it has been! What a few weeks it has been! Apologies if I haven’t been keeping up. There has just been no time to do regular things like keeping a Blog. I’m jumping ahead of myself. Rewind. We bought a house! Not just any house…. an old-century farmhouse on 4 acres of land! That dream of chickens you’ve heard me talk about 100 times… it’s coming true! I’m trying to convince the hubby we also may need a small goat. That may take some time. He’s a work in progress. Anywhoo… I am super excited. But terrified.

The emotions have run high. We raised our kids in this house. Our first house. Twenty-one years in this house. So. Many. Memories. And a whole lot of clutter. I’ve just begun to unearth and box up “stuff”. Some things hold dear memories. Some do not. Some hold memories for others and I’m not allowed to cut out those things because of their thoughts. It’s a learning experience for all of us! I ask myself, “Does this hold emotional attachment for me?” Marie Kondo would be so proud. So. Many. Memories.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

I’m asking myself “Why?” “How can things contain emotion?” Or how can other things contain absolutely no attachment? I don’t have the answer. I am sure there is some deep psychology behind emotional attachment to inanimate objects. I’m sure those who work with hoarding and OCD behaviours have all the answers. I’m sure there are psychologists and therapies for the stress of moving and how to communicate appropriately to your grown children that they need to get rid of Legos. Or why I can’t throw away a rubber band (because I may need to it wrap something — and safety pins cost money?) Choices need to be made.

Now don’t get me wrong… I love a good purge and clean. Still… thinking about the whole house at once is overwhelming. Slowly, like eating an elephant, we take one bite, and then another, and another… until eventually all will be packed in a box and neatly loaded on a truck. It will be big big changes for all of us. And I count it as a blessing.

I have begun to see the blessing in memories. I have begun to see the blessing of time and how God has allowed this season of life to shape and mould each of our children to life beyond the nest. To see the hubby and I embrace, dare I say, retirement planning? To see the blessings in our finances to be able to carry mortgages and costs and know He holds our future. To see Hope where many do not. To wonder in excitement about a new, quieter lifestyle in the country. To learn new skills. To make mistakes and work through them.

The Bible tells us not to store up treasures on Earth and to not put our trust in Earthly measures. Yet Jesus witnessed life here among people and “stuff”. Maybe he didn’t have Lego to pack, but I am sure there were precious “things” that belonged to Him. Did Mary save a piece of “useless” straw from the manger because she was emotionally attached to it? Maybe not.

I’ve convinced myself that God gives us things. Tangeable, hold in your hand, physical things, because He knows we need them as practical reminders of all that He has given us. Peace, Hope, Comfort, Joy, and Pain. Emotions that are stuck on stuff. I have no other words. I know you know what I mean. So, beloveds, humour me in the next few months. mittonmusings.com may morph into my personal journal of sorts as we make these transitions to “country life”. Will you stick with me? Will you share a post or two? Besides, who’s gonna listen to me talk about my new chickens? I’ll keep you updated about the goat.

Christ’s Flower

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I was recently enjoying a conversation with my soon-to-be daughter-in-law about wedding flowers and the traditions of which. We admired various Pinterest pics of bouquets and simple arrangements, each with a pop of colour and delicacy. God’s pretty creative. In searching out something for this week’s post, I was perusing through Easter poems and came across this one. It isn’t really “Easter-themed”, but I thought it was beautiful nonetheless. Also, because I love all things vintage, the imagery of a young girl stitching by lamplight appealed to me. Christ’s flower. Carnation? Read it twice. It will have you musing as it did I. There were big copyright warnings attached here, so I will include them in hopes not to anger the writers/publishers or whatever.

Supernatural Love

BY GJERTRUD SCHNACKENBERG

My father at the dictionary-stand   

Touches the page to fully understand   

The lamplit answer, tilting in his hand

His slowly scanning magnifying lens,   

A blurry, glistening circle he suspends

Above the word “Carnation.” Then he bends

So near his eyes are magnified and blurred,   

One finger on the miniature word,   

As if he touched a single key and heard

A distant, plucked, infinitesimal string,   

“The obligation due to every thing   

That’s smaller than the universe.” I bring

My sewing needle close enough that I

Can watch my father through the needle’s eye,   

As through a lens ground for a butterfly

Who peers down flower-hallways toward a room   

Shadowed and fathomed as this study’s gloom   

Where, as a scholar bends above a tomb

To read what’s buried there, he bends to pore   

Over the Latin blossom. I am four,   

I spill my pins and needles on the floor

Trying to stitch “Beloved” X by X.

My dangerous, bright needle’s point connects   

Myself illiterate to this perfect text

I cannot read. My father puzzles why   

It is my habit to identify

Carnations as “Christ’s flowers,” knowing I

Can give no explanation but “Because.”   

Word-roots blossom in speechless messages   

The way the thread behind my sampler does

Where following each X I awkward move

My needle through the word whose root is love.   

He reads, “A pink variety of Clove,

Carnatio, the Latin, meaning flesh.”   

As if the bud’s essential oils brush

Christ’s fragrance through the room, the iron-fresh

Odor carnations have floats up to me,   

A drifted, secret, bitter ecstasy,

The stems squeak in my scissors, Child, it’s me,

He turns the page to “Clove” and reads aloud:   

“The clove, a spice, dried from a flower-bud.”

Then twice, as if he hasn’t understood,   

He reads, “From French, for clou, meaning a nail.”

He gazes, motionless. “Meaning a nail.”   

The incarnation blossoms, flesh and nail,   

I twist my threads like stems into a knot   

And smooth “Beloved,” but my needle caught

Within the threads, Thy blood so dearly bought,

The needle strikes my finger to the bone.   

I lift my hand, it is myself I’ve sewn,   

The flesh laid bare, the threads of blood my own,   

I lift my hand in startled agony   

And call upon his name, “Daddy daddy”—

My father’s hand touches the injury   

As lightly as he touched the page before,   

Where incarnation bloomed from roots that bore   

The flowers I called Christ’s when I was four.   

Gjertrud Schnackenberg, “Supernatural Love” from Supernatural Love: Poems 1976-1992. Copyright © 1982, 1985 by Gjertrud Schnackenberg.  Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC,  http://us.macmillan.com/fsg. All rights reserved. 

Caution: Users are warned that this work is protected under copyright laws and downloading is strictly prohibited.  The right to reproduce or transfer the work via any medium must be secured with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

Source: Supernatural Love: Poems 1976-1992 (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1993).

Gathered from Poetry Foundation

Good, eh? Do you see the reason it was listed under “Easter”? I hope you had a wonderful Easter week. I hope this poem also made you muse. Be blessed my beloveds.