Thursday, March 30, 2017

Book Review ~ Life After Heaven

Good morning Folks ~ This post is about a recent book I chose to review from Blogging 4 Books.

The book has inspired me to continue to live my life trusting in Jesus for everything, to see heaven on earth now and to experience Jesus’ love throughout each and every day.

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This book is gripping from the very beginning. Steven tells of his life as a young man, then going into the Navy and the start of becoming part of the Navy Seals. His experience with death and his experience in heaven that he had will touch your heart.  His description of heaven and being with Jesus was so real and wonderful! I read this book twice, with time in between, and have been truly blessed by reading it, it will be a book to go back to for encouragement in living this life in the present. It makes me more excited and looking forward to being physically with Jesus forever.

From the book: “God’s love transforms. How deep, how attentive that love is. How encompassing. How careful. How complex. God knows. He has a purpose. He loves each of us intimately. Nothing in our lives is wasted. Our experiences, even the pain matters. He sees them. He will use them for good. He isn’t missing a thing.

The communion between God and us should develop, deepen.

Love is the language of heaven. True, good, honest love. Love that cares and moves to redeem and reclaim pain and loss. Christ is God the Father wrapping his arm around the broken. And on the earth, he does that through his people.

Heaven intersects all aspects of our lives here. We just need to recognize it.”

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We are all important to God. He has promised to never leave or forsake us. His love is a gift.

There is so much ‘food’ for the soul in this book. I’ve barely touched the surface with these few quotes.

You can read more about the book and order it here.

Jesus is my strength each and every day. Through every ordinary day things, through joys and sorrows, He fills me with love, joy and peace. I am thankful for His many blessings.

Sincerely ~ FlowerLady

 

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

The Winner is …

Good morning Folks ~ hope you all had a great weekend.

The winner for the book give–away

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is Jessica of ‘Oregon Transplant’. Congrats Jessica. If you all have not yet visited Jessica’s blog please do so. She shares great recipes with wonderful photos of ‘food’ in all stages of preparation.

That’s it for now. I’m working on getting caught up on things around here.

Have a great week ~ FlowerLady

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Spring happenings at Plum Cottage

Good Saturday morning Folks,

It feels so good to have use of my PC again. The tablet just doesn’t cut it.

The weather has been beautiful here, not to rub it in or anything like that. It will be all too warm before too long down here in s.e. FL. I am enjoying being outdoors, working on getting outdoor garden spaces more compacted and easier to care for.

A couple of weeks back, I won a give-away from Kris at JunkChicCottage. It is a sweet tote, which I have filled with yarn for projects that I am working on. Thank you Kris for such a happy give-away.  I’d like you all to pray for Kris and her husband. They are selling there lovely home, moving to be closer to husband’s new job, so are looking for a new home to make their own. Her Mom just became very ill, you can read the post here, so she is taking a break from blogging for a bit to take care of her Mom. Kris has a wonderful blog full of the beauty she creates in her home. Give her a visit, and send her some good wishes and prayers too.  Thank you.

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Monday, the first day of spring, was my 68th birthday. That morning I had thought about going to a nursery or two, but then decided against it. A little while later, while I was out back hand watering plants in containers, I heard talking up front in my driveway. I thought, now what? Well, it was tree trimmers sent out by the electric company to trim limbs from trees away from power lines. They had done a little bit a week or so back when the transformer on the pole at the back of my property and the neighbor’s exploded. It was windy and something touched the hot wire, causing loss of power next door and all connected to that transformer. My power was still on.

I opened my gates for them, and while talking with the main guy I told him I wish they would cut the whole row of stuff down, as the neighbor did not take care of it. I told him I’m a widow, husband used to take care of our side, and now I use a pole cutter and do what I can.  He said he would take care of it. When he was getting ready to get into the bucket  to raise him up to trim, I told him it was my birthday. He got a big smile on his face and wished me ‘a happy birthday all day’.

Up he went in the bucket and started to trim. As I stood there watching, I thought oh my goodness, this is an answer to prayer, and on my birthday. A birthday present from God. I stood there with a huge smile on my face, thanking Jesus over and over again, with tears falling. It just seemed magical and wonderful to me. He cares about us and he took care of this problem on a special day for me.

Before:  Feb. 2nd.

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After:March 21st, what looks like overhang at the back by the fish, is not, but hanging into the back neighbor’s property, they are not there.

What a difference!  Thankfulness still fills my heart for this gift.

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Saturday morning, the 18th, my BIL and SIL took me to breakfast at a place called Eggcetera, I think that was the name of it. BIL and I had country fried steak, covered in gravy, cottage fries, I had rye toast, and two eggs. I also had a cranberry/champagne drink to celebrate. Smile SIL had a chicken filled crepe. We had a good time visiting. I received a set of lovely organic lotions that smell wonderful, and they are giving me a wonderful old wooden antique tool/bench of some sort. They are in the process of moving and won’t be taking this with them. I had mentioned I’d like it if they were going to get rid of it, and now it is mine. I will take a picture of it when it comes here to PC.

Monday night two girlfriends from church took me out to eat at a Greek Restaurant and then we saw ‘The Shack’ afterwards. A lot of controversy over this movie, but I had read the book and there are some great thoughts in helping to understand all of who God is. We took kleenex because we had heard the movie would make you cry, and it did. It was a beautiful movie and touched me deeply. I loved the part about the bottle for God bottling my/our tears, which He does for each of us. Our tears are precious to Him. Anyway, we were all moved and blessed as were others in the audience.

My one friend had recently remodeled her kitchen and had cleaned out dishware and some linens and was going to give them to Goodwill, but asked if I’d like to go through them first, then donate what I don’t want. She brought two boxes with her and I brought them home, then went through them before bed.

Here’s what I kept. The two blue/gold rimmed plates are Limoges. So pretty. Jessica is the ‘butterfly ‘lady’ who works at butterfly world and her new look doesn’t go with these  butterfly plates, so I took two of them. The two bits in the middle are glass bowls.

An embroidered small table cloth  was part of the goodies.

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I kept two other table cloths that have embroidery and crochet inserts. Really pretty. Below are pics of all three. the top and bottom ones are folded in half.

The first one is more of a creamy color with ecru crochet, and sweet embroidery. This is oval in shape.

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This one is white with white crochet inserts and sweet embroidery. This one is more square.

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These were taken indoors with lamps and overhead lighting. It is white like the picture above.

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This book has some delicious looking recipes that I look forward to trying.

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This platter I’m going to hang on a plum colored wall. I happened to have a plate hanger to fit. I’ll take a picture later of where I hang it.

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Ok, that’s it for now. I had a lovely 68th birthday. My birthday also marked 51 years from when my dear husband and I first met. Time is zipping right along.

Love is important. Let your spouse, family and friends know you love them.

Love & hugs ~ FlowerLady

P.S. There will be flower photos next post. This one was too long.

Have a lovely weekend.

OK, I’ll give you one flower photo.

This is coral honeysuckle, not quite opened up yet. I’ve had this two years I think and this year it has lots of blooms. Hummers are supposed to love to visit, so I’ll see if they do.

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Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Computer is working again, Garden book review & give away

Good morning Folks ~ My computer was fixed yesterday morning. YAY! I’ll write a personal post later. I have three book reviews to write and post, two will also be give-aways.

Being without a computer for 6 days was rough! Trying to do anything on a small tablet is rediculous in my opinion. I like my PC.

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Today’s book review is for the book “Garden Design – A Book of Ideas” by Heidi Howcroft & Marianne Majerus.

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This is a beautiful book, 311 pages filled with wonderful photos of gardens of all types to suit all personalities. Lots of great ideas to inspire you. A book you will want to look through at your leisure over and over again.

Some thoughts taken from the introduction:

“ Every garden, irrespective of whether it is a crate on top of a barge or parkland surrounding a country mansion, is a personal piece of paradise, tailor-made for the individual.

Some gardens are meticulously planned, while others just happen. There are no hard-and-fast rules for their design. It is all about personal taste, so who is to judge what is good or bad?

There is a garden out there to suit every one of us; it is merely waiting to be discovered.”

Below is the list of contents:

Basics
Question of Style
The Components
Greenery & Flowers
Furnishing the Garden
Difficult Plots & Tricks of the Trade

This book along with two others was sent to me by Firefly Books, for review, a give away and is/are mine to keep. Smile

For followers of my blog, leave a comment below to be entered into the give away, which will end Sunday, March 26th at midnight EST. I will do the drawing on Monday then post the winner.

The book will be sent via Firefly Books.

Next week I will post the other garden book.

Happy Spring to all ~ FlowerLady

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Puter problems

Computer on the fritz. Hopefully fixed next Tuesday.

Cold in Florida.

I'm using my tablet, miss my computer.

Happy Spring - FlowerLady

Saturday, March 11, 2017

This & that

Good afternoon Folks ~ Here it is Saturday morning. We’ve had beautiful weather this week, except for the ‘wind’ we had at the beginning, like three days of it. The weather channel even put out warnings for fire danger.

With this nicer weather, I have been working outside in the mornings. It has been great. I am getting plenty of exercise, am being refreshed and energized. I ripped out some old growth by the ‘wedding grotto’. (So called, because in a private ceremony of renewing our wedding vows, we did so, in this space. Notice our bare feet, and this was in Dec. A beautiful day and celebration. (2003))

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Any who, that was then, below is how the area looked in March 2012. Totally overgrown with hamelia paten, a rose and something else. It all just kept getting taller and more sprawly.

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Below is from January 2013. I couldn’t handle it the way it was, so cut it way back. I ‘grief vented’ with this cut back as it was just a month since losing my dear husband.

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April 2013

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May 2016

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Pictures below taken yesterday, the 10th. The pile of debris is about 2’ high and I’m not sorry to see it laying there in a heap. It was time for a change. I took out old flowerpots also that had nothing growing in them and were not even visable, and one of them was an old Watt’s pot, which I’ll have to fill with something nice.

This whole secret garden is another work in progress. Things had become in a saddened state and with suffering from plantar fasciitis last summer for 5 months, I basically just hand watered things. No gardening work got done.

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A week or so back, with gift $ I bought some plastic coated chicken wire in a 2’ x 25’ roll, cut it to size, wired it to iron awning support and the pvc piping on the other side as seen below. In the middle I used a heavy aluminum pipe, that I felt God gave me the idea to go look in area where it was stored. It was perfect, the right height and I pounded a galvanized pipe into the ground and slipped aluminum pipe over that. The alum. pipe had two holes at either end, so at the top end, I wired it to the pvc pipe than ran across the top. The chicken wire is also wired to the top pvc, and the aluminum pipe down the middle. I used 3 sections of the chicken wire to fill the space and for me it worked easily and I was thankful to God for the little project that made me feel happy and that I got it done.

I bought a Port St. Johns vine at HD. I had one over 20 years ago bought at Butterfly World, but it croaked sometime between then and maybe 10 years ago. This new one is in a huge pot in good potting soil and I’ve started wiring it to the chicken wire. The flowers smell like jelly beans to me. The vine is fast growing, so we’ll see how long it takes to fill in the space. This vine will be much easier to keep under control and be oh so pretty too. Here is a link to info about it. Pink Trumpet Vine.

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As I said, this whole area is a work in progress right now. There are a couple other areas that I’ll be working on also and will show pictures later.

This morning I went to the grocery store early to get ingredients to make endless coleslaw for a surprise bday party I am going to tomorrow afternoon. 

I stopped at an automotive center that had several businesses there for different needs. I don’t need a front end alignment right away, so that was good news. The other news, repairing two holes and rusted places on the roof of my van, was a rather large ‘chunk of change’, but at least I know now how much it is going to cost and hope to do that in the near future. For now, my metal tape trick has been working to cover the holes and prevent leaking!  Smile Both of these business owners seemed really nice and the place has been there for quite a few years now. I’m going to see if the body repair man can also fix my back door so that it will open. The plastic lock mechanism broke so that it won’t unlock from the outside. I have to crawl from the side to the back to open doors, so haven’t been doing that. It will all work out. My van is paid for and runs very good.

Be watching next week for another garden book review and give-away for this book, “Garden Design – A Book of Ideas”. It is beautiful.

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Well, that’s it from the Plum Cottage home front.

God is good, spring is right around the corner and I’ve much to be thankful for.

Have a lovely weekend ~ FlowerLady

P.S. New post over at my blog for widows.

The Lord is my Strength

Monday, March 6, 2017

List of roses I grow :-)

 

Good morning Folks ~ Well, it’s morning here in s.e. FL USA. It’s windy, has been for several days, is partly cloudy, and cool this morning. I did some hand watering, washed and hung out a load of laundry. (It’s now around 3 p.m.)

I’ve counted up the roses in my tropical jungle, and have 43, some in containers, some in the ground, some are duplicates. I was amazed that I had this many.

Here’s the list of names below.

A Vigoro 5 petaled deep velvety red, with a wonderful scent. Had a name tag, but looking up the name, it didn't match with this rose. C means container, G means ground.

'Mozart' hybrid musk - 1936 - C
'Kathleen' hybrid musk - 1922 - C
'Winecup' floribunda - C
'Barnhouse' - C
'Mr. Lincoln or Chrysler Imperial' (not sure which - C
'Sacremento Cemetery Rose' - C - from Connie Hartwood Roses
'Mrs. Atwood' Bermuda found rose - C
'Bon Silene' Tea rose 1834 - C - and maybe 2-3 in ground just not sure if that's what they all are
'Ruth's Wavy' noisette - C
'Louis Philippe' China - 1834 - G
'Knock-out Reddish' - C
'Carnation' Bermuda found rose ' C
'Crepuscule' noisette 1904 - C
'Fragrant Cloud' Hybrid Tea - 1963 - C
'Granada' Hybrid Tea - 1963
'Love' Grandiflora - 1977 - C
'Bermuda's Kathleen' a Bermuda found rose bred before 1956 - C
Unknowns - 5 - G & C
'International Herald Tribune' floribunda 1984
'Paul McCartney Rose' hybrid tea - 1995 - C
'Basye's Purple' hybrid rugosa - 1968 - C
'Drift' roses low-growing landscape roses
'Pale Lavender' no name – wonderful scent
'Old Blush' China - 1793 - G
'Climbing Don Juan' hybrid tea - 1958 - C
'Rose de Rescht' Portland - bred before 1900 - C
'Borderer' Floribunda, Polyantha - 1918
'Homere'
'Mm. Laurette Messimy' China – bred late 1800’s
'Maman Cochet' Tea - 1892- G
'Prosperity' Hybrid Musk - 1919 - C & G

They are not all in bloom at the same times, but all of them are repeat bloomers. Quite a few are the old garden roses which I love. Some have stronger scents than others, I love them all.

Ok, now for some recent pics of roses that are blooming.  Enjoy.

This is the Vigoro rose for Home Depot, the tag on it said, ‘Veranda’ Brilliant, but it definitely is not that. It is velvety dark red color with a fantastic old rose scent.

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‘Sacremento Cemetery Rose’

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‘Crepuscule’

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The next photos I think are ‘Prosperity’. This is a cutting off my bush that is growing in the ground.

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‘Paul McCartney’ Rose with brunsfelsia. Those white tubular flowers smell wonderful. Strong from late afternoon til next morning. The ‘PM’ rose smells wonderful too.

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This had no name tag when I bought it and another for $5 each from a local nursery 2-3 years ago.

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This lovely lavender rose was bought at HD without a name tag. Color scrumptious and it has a wonderful scent too. I love the frilly edges of the petals.

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‘Mrs. Atwood’ is a little more peachy than is shown in this photo.

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The next photos are of ‘Byron Beauty’ passion vine flowers. I went out last evening and the sweet scent from these blooms was amazing. I bought this at Butterfyly World last year.

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Front patio, looking east.

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Ok, that’s it for now.

Have a great week.

FlowerLady