Do what you love

Waste time and resources doing things you do not love and you will end up with nothing. Devote your time and resources to what is most vital and important.

Thought for the day

Heal through Learning....

Frederic Malle Iris Poudre 20150316

Iris and soft musk that goes on for ever.  This smells lovely, of flowers and spring time. to begin with and just gets better and better.  Adorable hubbie mostly doesn't notice my perfumes, but he remarks "You smell good" every time I wear this.

One of my perfumista friends says she thinks Iris Poudre has the best long drydown ever.

This is an expensive odor, as my ex-mother- in - law used to say, but worth it if the members of one's entourage enjoy it as much as one does!

My ex-mother -in -law was an adorable snob.  But so adorable, since she allows me to justify getting this lovely perfume...

Boiling maple syrup 20150315

Boiling first sap of the season! Too warm for much flow, so we only have about 12 gallons, but it is an excuse to fire up the sap stove! And sit around stoking the fire on this lovely day.  The foot you see in the foreground is that of my lovely sister-in-law.  The hat sits atop the head of adorable hubbie.

A fine time was had by all.

First taps of the season!

Here are the first taps of our maple sugar season. This is a big old tree. Isn't it great?  We have about 25 sugar maple trees, but we have never tapped them all at once. 

This year we don't have much wood, so we are only going to  tap 3 or 4 trees and just make a couple gallons for adorable hubbie's sister and ourselves.

The other big tree next to the sugar maple is an ash tree. So far it has resisted the emerald ash borer. I hope it survives.

Maple syrup season is starting 20150308

The weather is finally cooperating, so we pulled out our maple syrup tapping supplies. We have five gallon buckets, tubing to run from the taps to the buckets, and the handy taps we got from a great place that supplies the maple syrup industry, Leader Evaporator.

Unfortunately, the right size drill bit has run away, as those pesky drill bits have a habit of doing, so we need to go get another one that is the right size, and then we will get some trees tapped.  I'll post a picture of our setup when we have it going.

I love this time of year, when everything is starting to wake up from winter slumbers.

Guerlain Attrape-Coeur Perfume 20150306

This perfume is discontinued, but I read some glowing reviews and bought a small decant, so I am delighted I can experience this extraordinary perfume, and totally bummed that I can't buy enough of it for it to be my signature scent.

To me this is like the archetypal perfume, rich but not heavy, consistent but not linear, floral enough, green enough, musky enough, woody enough, but not too much of any one thing.  I don't really distinguish individual notes, but just a flow of good smells.

Mathilde Laurent made this for Guerlain, and then almost immediately moved to Cartier, where she has made several great perfumes, most recently Le Panthere, but I think Attrape-Coeur is her masterpiece up to this point in her career.  It certainly is my favorite perfume at the moment!  Wish I could have one of these classic Guerlain bottles of it on my dressing table.