New is the year...

New is the year!

And we have celebrated the season-

With the company of beautiful family, who are our very best friends!

We wore silly masks and sat outside Green House Cottage under a blue moon.

Danced, and sang, ate, chatted and played-

Last year, I wrote a poem to my love, we sat quietly and pondered what the new year might bring. It delivered much joy, and growth between us... I think we love more each passing year.

Jamie's parents celebrate their own wedding anniversary on the eve of each new year, and we all talked about our own weddings, over scrumptious homemade delights - what we loved and remembered...

Happiness is all these things. The balance of serious thoughts, spiritual strength, undying love - in everything - and even when you don't feel like it - happiness with loved ones is on the other side of all this - when you can be silly, and dance, and sing, and play, in a freedom, which I have learned is born only through obedience in Him.

New is the year, high are my hopes, deep is my love, and love never fails.

Love to you, and yours at the dawn of such a season!

Shell xx

a quiet New Year

Surrounded by family, laughter, and the hope of another prosperous, creative year.

Shell xx

New Years love poem

A year is quite the strangest thing;

To mark our lives with the changing of seasons,

By a calender of months, which pass us by;

Keeping count of days, and naming them names...

Rising with mornings,

sipping tea at noon;

and playing music, on into the night...

I love our years, and I treasure our days,

Ever aware we do not belong,

Just renting a little piece of the Earth for a while,

Until we can go home, to our Father.

In the meantime I am here with you,

Contently,

Marking my life with the changing of seasons,

With calenders and days which pass so swiftly by;

Rising with you, and with mornings,

(hoping I'm) sipping tea with you at noon...

And still my escape, from every day's challenge,

Is coming home to you.

Is laughing at our lives, and loving all we can,

and playing music, on into the night.

- Happy new year!

to all who read this here,

In my heart held dear.

Shell xx