This mornings rainbows

Good morning everyone ~ While sitting here at my desk I would occasionally look out the window and could see the morning clouds. After awhile, I was nudged to go outside with camera and what a wonderful surprise awaited me.  I just couldn’t believe it and thanked God the Creator of the universe for such a delightful gift.  I couldn’t quit smiling.

***

I’m sure you’ve all heard the story of Noah and the flood.

Here is God’s promise to him and now to us.

And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
 
I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
 
And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
 
And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
 
And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

Gen 9:12-16 KJV Bible

Rain, 4 o’clocks,

Good Sunday afternoon ~ It started out sunshiny, hot and humid this morning, then the clouds started gathering and thunder was heard in the distance, and a while later, we got a nice soaking.  Yesterday afternoon when I was at work, we had a horrible thunderstorm with lots of close lightening strikes and booming thunder, heavy rains.  It did that for about 30 –40 minutes then a break came and I left, as there was more coming from the east.  My boss had already said to get out of there when I could.  I drove through some rain, saw the sun shining through the clouds over the area where we live as I headed home. When I got here there had hardly been any rain at all.  DH said he could hear the thunder to the east, which was where I had been and the storm just kept heading south, didn’t really go west. Florida is known as the lightning capitol because of all the strikes that happen.  People know to take cover and I hate being out in something like that.

After super last night, I saw that the sky had a nice light so I went out with camera in hand.  I got a couple of cloud pictures, and some of 4 o’clocks that had opened.  I miss these if I don’t get outside at that time of day.

Here are the cloud shots.

The 4 o’clocks.  I love their vibrant color and their sweet scent.

I loved seeing the sun shining through the front/west stained glass window in the gypsy shed. Two different stained glass windows will be put into the wood sections of the back/east wall.

This is sweet Maggie.

Phyllis Bide

Here are the tin roof panels that DH painted this morning. He will be giving them a second coat, then they will get put on the roof of the gypsy shed.  He’s going to paint the flashing the same too.

While he was doing that I was working in my main garden area.  I got quite a bit done and wanted to keep working but something told me to quit.  It was very hot and humid and again I was sweating out, most likely, more than I was taking in. So I quit.  I checked the weather after coming in and it was 81, but felt like it was 98 and the humidity was at 78%.  Tomorrow is errand day, so I won’t be working in the garden again until probably Tuesday. 

I will be working at my job Wed-Sat this week. I am thankful for that.  My boss is out in TX doing the Round Top antique show. 

I have started on smaller heart sachets and am enjoying working on them.

Thank you all for your comments. I want to say that the goat’s milk soap is so luxurious.  It was rather easy to do and makes my skin feel so good.  *Goat’s milk soap helps maintain the perfect pH (or acidity) of the human skin and hair. It provides the "acid mantle", which is a slightly acidic layer on the skin that acts as a neutralizer when the body is attacked by microbial like, bacteria and viruses and other contaminants.

Goat milk is a rich source of protein which is important for building the structure of the body. It contains a good supply of minerals like phosphorous, calcium and potassium, as well as vitamins like riboflavin (vitamin B 2) and the amino acid tryptophan. These nutrients nourish the body and provide many health benefits. * Info found here.

I do hope all of you have a great week.  I hope you feel the love, peace and strength of God surrounding you and flowing through you. May your faith be strengthened in Him as you live each day. He is with us 24/7, 365 days a year, through good and bad times, through sickness and health. He is our strength when we are weak.

This and that

Good Friday afternoon everyone ~ Hope you all have an enjoyable weekend.

I’ll be heading to work tomorrow, my one day this week.  I’m not sure what is happening next week yet.  Should know tomorrow.

We had rain this morning, then DH and I both were outside working on projects, wanting to get going before it got too miserable, but it ended up being miserable anyway.  We were soaking when we came in.  He worked on putting flashing on our outdoor project.  He had had some rolled up tin in his stash, and since we’re doing our best to keep this project ‘cheap’ he cut the sizes he needed for flashing, bent them to shape, and got a blister in the process the other day. After our nap this afternoon, he tarred the edge of the flashing.  He’s now ready to paint the three roof panels.  They are in his workshop where he has primed them after cleaning them. Remember we are trying to use up ‘curbside’ finds that have been stored around here and it sure feels good using them.  These panels will be painted with ‘curbside’ shopped terra cotta colored thick deck paint.

It will be neat when this project is completed, to put all the pictures together in order.  It feels great to be in the mood again to work outside.  This summer’s heat and humidity really blasted our interest and energy levels. We can tell that autumn is coming, eventually.

Monday I ordered 10 lbs. of melt and pour goat’s milk soap from Soapcrafters.com I was just going to buy 5 lbs. but when we found out that shipping was just $4.95 no matter how much you order up to $100, DH suggested buying 10bs. (Above $100 it’s free shipping.) Anyway I wanted to try this because goat’s milk soap is supposed to be very good. I did a google search about benefits of goat’s milk soap and found the following great info here. I already have a collection of essential oils (not fragrance oils, there is a huge difference). So this morning I made up three different batches of bars of soap.  Some with tea tree oil and lavender, some with sandalwood, vetiver and another oil, I forgot to write down, for DH, then I made some with ylang-ylang, petigrain, and rosewood, for me. I’ve already tried the tea tree/lavender soap on my face and it is so luxurious.  It makes your skin feel soft and clean. To buy goat’s milk soap already made up by someone else, would be from $3 and up.  Buying it this way it will be about $1 a bar. There are some things I wish I had learned in my youth, making soap from scratch is one of them and also canning. But I didn’t.  

Here is my box of soap, minus what I used up today.

I don’t have a double boiler so I just used a smaller pan inside of a larger one and it worked fine.  I grated the soap first then put it in the pan. It melted faster being grated.  It hardly took any time at all. This is the soap dried on the pan.

The white mold is a soap mold, the beige pan is a microwave pan for muffins, and the third pan is a Wilton cake mold.

Here is my stash of essential oils.

I do hope some of you might be inspired to try this yourself, to use yourself or give as gifts.

Now here are some bloomers from Plum Cottage today.

A spray of Kathleen

Miss Muffett caladiums and begonias

A cute tiny mushroom, about 1” high at the most.

Here we have a Zebra longwing butterfly sipping nectar from Hamela paten blooms.  Last week I saw my first hummer of the season zipping around sipping nectar too.  There are other butterflies that visit these blooms daily plus bees.

I’ll give you a break on ‘needlework’ projects today.  I am working on another heart sachet. I worked on my patio garden area today and made the soap so didn’t do much embroidering/beading. Maybe I’ll do some after dinner, which will be left overs tonight.

I checked the weather for our area for the next few weeks and into October, our ‘low’ temps for a couple of nights will be 80.  Good grief! 

Enjoy your autumn weather, all those glorious changing colors and share it all in your blogs so that I can enjoy it all through you.

Nightblooming Cereus mainly

Good afternoon Folks ~ I just got up from a nap about 10 minutes ago and am not quite awake yet. I wore myself out this morning, working for about 3 hours trimming, weeding, raking and clean up. There is still more to do, but progress was made so I’m satisfied with that. I’m working on making the patio area outside my craft space window better looking too, so hope to get more done on that early tomorrow.

When I first went out this morning I noticed that the nightblooming Cereus cactus had bloomed again. I think this is the third blooming this summer. They are about 30’ up into the pine tree, so I can’t get some wonderful close ups, or take in the wonderful scent I’ve heard so much about. The blooms are huge.

Besides the cactus growing up this tree, there are also morning glories and Virginia creeper.

I spied a bloom of ‘Golden Sun’ in my main garden and that made me very happy. This is a rooted cutting I got going last year and planted in the main garden this spring., I think. All the rain has done it and everything else good. These are small blooms with barely a scent. I’ve looked up Golden Sun in searches and never came across it. I bought it through a lady who grew and sold roses up in the middle of the state. She sold them someplace up there and advertised online. She was coming through here on her way south, so would deliver them to me, which was nice. I got a couple more roses from her, but now I don’t even remember what they were, and may not even have them anymore. I just looked in a notebook where I’ve printed out roses and info and found a couple others that I bought from her, Bon Silene and La Marne, both are great.

This is African Foxglove. It is a volunteer growing in the middle circular path of the main garden. I won’t pull it up until it is spent. So far it is doing great guns. I love how transparent the flowers are.

Lastly, my latest heart sachet. I will be posting these individually over in my blog ArtistikUs ElastikUs for sale at $20 a piece. These each take hours, but we all know you can’t get paid for your time. I haven’t figured out shipping yet, Continental US only, and no sales to FL unless you have a tax #.

They are approximately 4”x4”, made on quilt batting, with cotton embroidery floss, cotton perle, bugle, seed beads and other beads. Stuffed with a smaller heart shaped bit of fleece and several scoops of dried lavender. They are stored in a zip log bag to preserve the scent and keep clean. On the back I’ve put my initials, FL except for on the back of the one below, I forgot. When we lived in Spain, we bought some beaded necklaces made in Morocco. There is always a strange bead in the pieces as their belief is that only God is perfect so they make sure their pieces are imperfect. I am not perfect and there are bound to be a bead or two missed, as I did find one missing last night on one of the sachets.

These can be hung in a closet, placed in a drawer, hung in a cupboard, hung on the Christmas tree. Keep for yourself or give as a gift.

They are each created with joy and love. It is exciting to pick up needle and thread and begin work. I have no plan I just let the colors inspire me.

Thanks for visiting.

***

Take your needle, my child,

and work at your pattern;

it will come out a rose by and by.

Life is like that -

one stitch at a time

taken patiently

and the pattern will come out all right

like the embroidery.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

***

Gardening is about

enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil,

getting dirty without feeling guilty,

and generally taking the time

to soak up a little peace and serenity.

Lindley Karstens, noproblemgarden.com